THE HILL COUNTRY
[p. 437] THE HILL COUNTRY
Luke 1:39,40; Philippians 3:20
I wanted to bring out the thought of the “hill country”. Scripture speaks of it, as you will observe in the verse in Luke 1 and it speaks of it elsewhere, as I hope to show. The example set by Mary, the mother of the Lord, in this respect is to be followed. Her movements before the Lord’s birth, one might say, are more spiritual than those after His birth, and the example she sets us here is to be noted and to be followed. “She went with haste”, we are told, “into the hill country”.
The Lord also paid attention to the hill country, and in the epistles we have that which corresponds to the hill country in the gospels; especially the passage I have read from Philippians. It denotes the spiritual hill country and I want to show that the tendency of the spiritual is to repair to that country. Our citizenship is there. The apostle had been there himself, so he is a competent witness. We have heard of climbers; people who climbed Mt. McKinley, the Himalayas. They can give some account of the character of the atmosphere in these high altitudes. Now the apostle had been in this altitude of which he speaks here. You will all remember how in his second letter to the Corinthians he tells us that in Damascus he was let down over the wall in a basket. It is remarkable that he should tell us it was in a basket. There is more in it than the mere historical fact of his being let down in such a manner. He was not caught up to heaven in a basket. In the next chapter, 2 Corinthians 12, he is said to have been caught up into Paradise. Certainly the law of gravitation had nothing to do with that! He says; “whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body I know not; God knows”. He knew of the basket. It was [p. 438] necessary for him to know. It was a humiliating thing to be reminded of the basket, but the humiliating things go before the elevating things. You never could ascend without descending first. The descending is the humbling thing, and all the humiliating circumstances connected with the descent are impressed on the mind. It is of God that they should remain in the mind.
The question is raised more than once in the Old Testament as to who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? (Psalm 24). I wonder if that question has ever been raised in your soul? It is most noteworthy how much is taken for granted by young people. In the Old Testament the questions young people were to raise are provided for. The Israelites were forearmed in regard to the questions of the young people, in Deuteronomy 6:20. I wonder, young people, if you are accustomed to ask questions. Your parents, as Christians, are supposed to be able to answer. It is a very serious matter to have children. Parents must not only feed and clothe them, they must answer their questions; and if the Spirit of God is working with your child he will put questions to you. You must answer them. The book of Deuteronomy prepares the ground for the questions of the children. The difficulty in this country very largely is that there are no children in the true sense. I do not mean by that that there are not babies, and girls and boys, but the idea of a child, subject to and deriving a character from the parent is greatly lost sight of in this country. Indeed, in every country now, but especially here.
But I was speaking of descending. If you are born into a house in which there is no unleavened bread you never think of it; you will not think of going down. You think of going up in this world. You think of acquiring means, and a position in the social world. Happily a child sometimes makes it for [p. 439] himself, but this is exceptional. The right and safe thing for parents is to have the unleavened bread in the house, and the unleavened bread is sure to raise a question in the minds of the children. Why this? Why do you not have something that inflates the bread like other people? Is not that what a child would say? Well, there is a reason for it, and it is the parents’ privilege to explain the reason. Look at Lot’s children. Do you think they had any relish for that break he baked for the angels? Would they go out of Sodom? To his sons-in-law this was mockery. They had been too well accustomed to the leavened bread to have any taste for unleavened bread. Beware, young man, of the food of Sodom! Have respect for that unleavened bread even if your father has only begun to bake it! Have respect to it, and if he explains it aright he will tell you that your baptism does not mean you are to be a man of this world. It means that you are to be a “little one” as in this world; but the other side is, that you are to be exalted in God’s world. That is what it means. Well, now, in order to ascend into the hill of the Lord you have to learn to descend, as I said. You have to give up all those high thoughts of which the natural mind is fruitful. The thoughts of the human heart ascend up to heaven itself. Capernaum was “exalted to heaven”. That was inflation of thought indeed.
Now the first thing, as I said, is to go down; you have to go down in the eyes of your fellow-workmen, your neighbours and your acquaintances, but God will lift you up. Paul says: “I know a man in Christ”. It is not merely a historical thing he is referring to. He does refer to the historical incident, but he refers also to what he knows. “I know a man in Christ”. Do you know a man like that? That is a very serious question. If I do not know in myself that I am a man in Christ, it is unlikely that I shall [p. 440] discern another. Paul knew one. I think if he had known any in Corinth he would have said so. I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago he was caught up to the third heaven. He knew that man. Whether caught up in the body, or out of it, he did not know but he knew what was there. Think of that! Caught up into Paradise! He was truly in the hill country! He heard wonderful things; things that were not lawful for a man to utter. Paul is thus a competent witness as to the character of the “hill country”.
Now I wish just to give descriptions of certain eminences in the hill country. I call attention to the cities of refuge in Canaan, not in Bashan, but in Canaan. There were three cities of refuge on either side of the Jordan. The three that were in Canaan were in the hill country; one in the hill country of Naphtali; one in the hill country of Ephraim; and one in the hill country of Judah. They were all in the hill country. Now that is very significant, and I want to come back to it in a moment, because the cities of refuge have reference to those who are under the influence of heaven; who reflect what is in heaven; that is, the assembly. I will dwell on that just in a moment, but I wanted to come to the eminences in the hill country which may be scripturally designated.
The first one in the gospels is what may be regarded as the legislative hill. It is found in Matthew 5. The Lord Jesus is pleased to go up into the mountain, it is said. The Lord was owned by the Father; attention was called to Him; and He attracts disciples. We are told in Matthew 5 that He went up into a mountain and called His disciples and opened His mouth to teach, and we are told what He taught; what He laid down in His teaching had reference to the principles by which the people of God and the kingdom of God were to be governed and regulated.
[p. 441] Now remember, it is not enough to be a disciple. You have to learn to govern. You do not learn it in the plain. The Lord might have spoken on the plain, but He did not. He took the disciples to the mountain to speak. Now, you say, I am not in a position to rule, but you are, and you have to begin with yourself.
One of the most important lessons to be learned by a believer is how to rule himself. You do not get the ideas from Congress, nor even from Moses. Time after time the Lord insists; “I say unto you”. Are you listening to what He says? If you do not listen to what He says you will never rule yourself, and if you do not rule yourself you will never rightly rule another. And yet the Christian, in the mind of God, is intended to rule the universe. He is intended, according to Paul, to judge even angels. How serious! Have you learned to rule yourself, to govern your own spirit? You must go to the mount of legislation for that, and you must go up with the Lord. How important to be withdrawn from the influence of the plain! Those friends of yours whose acquaintance you have made in business; the children of your father’s neighbours. These are found in the plain. If you stay there you will never learn to rule yourself. You must isolate yourself and ascend with the Lord Jesus, and listen to those wonderful pronouncements of His. “I say unto you”. How worthy of attention is such legislation as that!
Now the next mountain is that in which servants are taught how to serve. Mark gives us that mountain. Matthew, as you all know, is the great administrative gospel; Mark gives us the mountain in which servants, or Levites, are taught how to minister. It says, He “calls whom he himself would” (chapter 3:13). Now mark that. It is not now the disciples simply. Every disciple must learn how to rule. Every one, young [p. 442] and old, must learn to how rule himself. You have no place in the assembly if you have not learned how to rule yourself, no place in the kingdom. But when you come to levitical work the Lord reduces the number. Not now simply a disciple. He “calls whom he himself would”. I am referring to Mark 3. You cannot go up if you please in this instance. We cannot all be preachers or teachers, but we are all disciples. If you are not a disciple you are outside of the pale of Christianity. But when you come to levitical work it is “whom he himself would”. So He selects twelve and He takes them up, we are told, to the mountain, in order “that they might be with him”. That is a different idea; “that he might send them forth to preach; and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out devils”. How different from the modern ideas of service acquired by a course in a divinity school! Titles are conferred in religious colleges, but the Lord titles His servants. I would not accept a title from any one but Christ. He has titles to give, but He gives them to those whom He knows. He selects them deliberately.
In one gospel we read He prayed all night before He selected them, but in Mark it is the sovereignty of His choice; “whom he himself would”. He takes them up to the mountain in order that they might be with Him. Do not miss that. He took them with Him up there on the mountain in order that they might be with Him; not now to hear His laws; not even to hear His teaching, but to have His company; that they might learn from Him by seeing how He did things. It is in the hill country of Scripture. It is away from the plain and from the valley. The valleys lie in the mist, you know; lie covered with mist and fog. We all know how the summit of a mountain may be in the clear sunshine, whereas the valley below is in a fog; a description of this world on man’s level. The Corinthians walked [p. 443] as men. They walked there on the plain. They did not ascend into the clear atmosphere of the hill country.
These disciples whom the Lord chose were with Him on the mountain and we are told that He gave titles. He called Simon, Peter. He gave him the name of Peter, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee, He called Boanerges, “Sons of thunder”. These are simply illustrations. It does not mean that others may not have had names. The point is that the Lord confers the titles; He confers the name that indicates what should be set out in each person who receives it. So that you come down from the mountain with these impressions and you carry out the service down here where the evil is. You carry it out in the dignity of one who has been in the hill country with Christ.
Now the third hill is, as I said a moment ago, the high one. It is the most exalted altitude and that is the mount of transfiguration. It is called high. That, I would take the liberty of regarding, as the mount of privilege. It is the mount of contemplation, really. He took three only up there. You see there is reduction as you go on. First there are disciples; then there are certain ones especially selected; taken up, and then a reduced number; three taken up, and they are taken high. Finally it is reduced to one. Paul went higher than all of them, to the third heaven. That is the greatest altitude in the hill country.
Now the “mount of transfiguration” is, from the disciples’ point of view, the mount of contemplation. There is little said as to the hearing after all was over. It is true the disciples heard the Father’s voice, and they were to hear the Son, but it is not hearing on the mount of contemplation so much as seeing. He was transfigured before them. They were to see this.
John says, “we beheld his glory” (John 1:14). That is contemplation. Peter says, “but were eye-witnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). John says, “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. What a sight to behold! To ascend the mountain involved exercise. That is what we lack. The apostle says, “I keep under my body” (1 Corinthians 9:27). He knew how to keep his body under. His body did not hinder him. It was subordinate to his judgment; it never ruled him.
The Lord took the disciples “up into a high mountain apart”; a high one. That required exercise. Young people, in coming into fellowship, often think it is all nice easy sailing. You do not get anything in your soul without exercise. If you want to get hold of things you must be exercised about them. Certainly Peter, James and John could never have reached that altitude without exercise. But they reached it, and they saw wonderful things. Peter says, “but were eye-witnesses of his majesty ... when we were with him in the holy mount”. Now these are the three mounts that one has taken the liberty of designating. You can easily trace them. They stand out prominently in the range as we may say. They are the peaks of the range and the highest one is the mount of contemplation.
I just refer one moment in closing to the cities of refuge. You see it is those who have visited these mountains that I have spoken of who with others, ultimately formed the cities of refuge. This is worth noting. If a man is to flee for his life, we would let him run down hill if possible. He could run easier; run faster, but not so in Scripture. The anxious question, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37) shows there was exercise. The avenger of blood was abroad. The blood of Christ had been shed. The Jews had become the murderers of the Lord Jesus, and the avenger was abroad. “Men and brethren,
what shall we do?” That was the question, they were exercised. The cities of refuge were in the hill country of Naphtali, the hill country of Ephraim and the hill country of Judah. If they were to escape for their lives, so to speak, they had to climb that ascent to get to the city of refuge. Those who say, “What shall we do” were exercised. The climbing had no terror for them. Exercises are most exhilarating experiences spiritually. The greater the climb, the more the strength, the better the air; where this exercise is the Lord helps. The Lord helped them. “The Lord added to the assembly daily those that were to be saved” (Acts 2:47). That is an allusion to the city of refuge. Was it on a level with the temple in Jerusalem? No. Morally, it was elevated. To the true Jerusalem the tribes go up. You go up to the house. Solomon is the great leader in that; there was “his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 10:5).
The Lord, in adding the repentant ones in Israel to the assembly, those who were exercised, had placed them in the hill country. Peter and John are in the dignity of it. Mount Zion represents this dignity. “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). That marks the hill country. It is in Zion. There is one high peak, mount Hermon, towering up into the clouds where it catches the dew and throws it off on to Zion. How dignified the expression, “As the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion” (verse 3). Brethren were dwelling together in unity in that hill country and the Lord commanded the blessing just there, “even life for evermore”. So that Peter and John, it says, went up to the temple together at the hour of prayer. They were in the dignity of the hill country. There was unity there, and Peter and John were in it. They were together. They represented in their relation to each other the spirit of the hill [p. 446] country. Hence Peter says to the impotent man, “Look on us” (Acts 3:4). There was something to look at.
Now mark that, He does not say, Look on the Lord. He says, “Look on us”. But on whom? Those that were truly together. They were together in the spirit of affection one for another, and in testimony to Christ. They had nothing of that which marks the man in the plain at all. “Silver and gold” he says, “have I none, but such as I have give I thee” (verse 6). Where did he get that? In the hill country. He got it in the sphere of unity. He had been on the mountain with the Lord Jesus. “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth”, he says, “rise up and walk” and the man rose, and he walked and leaped and praised God. All this is really connected with the hill country. I have ventured to say all that in regard to the cities of refuge, because Peter and John represent the spirit of the cities of refuge; they lived, so to speak, in the hill country. As to the man that was healed, do you think he would have any difficulty in going up to mount Ephraim, or to the hill country of Naphtali or Judah? Look at the ability he had now. He was crippled before; but now he can walk and leap and praise God.
I have not touched on the two passages read. I only read them to suggest the subject. You see how Mary, the mother of the Lord, had received a wonderful communication from the angel and directly he leaves her, she went in haste to the hill country, and visited Elisabeth. Elisabeth lived there. She was a spiritual woman. She hid herself five months there. The epistle to the Colossians is the great hiding epistle! It is a good thing to be hidden. You do not want to be under the eyes of men; you do not wish to be a public man or a public woman. It is contrary to spirituality. Those whose minds are set on things above, not on things of the earth, are said to be dead, and their life hid with Christ in [p. 447] God. Now that was Elisabeth. She was a good companion to seek.
Where do you seek your companions? If the Spirit of God speaks to you, you seek a spiritual person, and you seek him where he lives, and that is in the hill country. He lives away from the influences of this world, his associations are outside of it. Hence Mary went in haste. She knew where to go. The Lord had touched her heart. A wonderful communication had been made by the angel, and she went in haste, we are told, to the hill country of Judah, where one of the cities of refuge had been, and she found a companion there in Elisabeth, one who honoured her, who recognised the great honour that had been conferred on her by the Lord. And so it will be in your case if you repair to the hill country, my young brother and sister, you will find some one there who will recognise your true dignity. You have dignity although you may not know it. If you are a believer in Christ, you have dignity, but you do not get any credit for it in the plain. If you go to the hill country, they will recognise you there. They know you, they know how to estimate your dignity, and they honour you.
If you read the verses that follow those which I read you will find how Elisabeth honoured her cousin Mary. What holy and happy communion there was between those two women in the hill country of Judah! And so today, to make it very practical, there are such places. The apostle indicates all this to the Philippians. He says, “Our citizenship is in heaven”, not on the earth. He had just been speaking about people who “mind earthly things”, and he says, “they are the enemies of the cross of Christ”. He had been speaking about those people, and it says he spoke about them, weeping. People that mind earthly things caused tears to flow from the apostle, to the man who had been in the third heaven; well [p. 448] they might; he had been up to the highest altitude of all, into Paradise, he says. He uses the word Paradise to show the blessedness of the place and he used the term “third heaven” to show you the altitude of the place.
Do you wonder he sheds tears over those who grovelled in the plain, in the valley? He says, I speak of them, weeping. “They are the enemies of the cross of Christ”. He does not say they were enemies of Christ. There was not outward opposition to Christ, personally; but man as in the flesh was recognised, and earthly things were fostered. The apostle goes on to say, “Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ”. That is the great hill country for Christians. We realise it in some measure as we come together, as we recognise the Holy Spirit. There is a moral elevation where we realise through the Spirit the influence of heaven, and it has a great effect upon us afterwards.
May the Lord grant, that however feebly the subject has been presented, each one may follow it in the Scriptures, and not balk at the exercise. Exercise is needed in order to realise what I have presented. It is easy enough to live in the plain, but there is exercise required to live in the hill country.