MOUNTAINS
[p. 102] MOUNTAINS
Genesis 8:4 - 12; Genesis 8:20, 21; Genesis 12: 8; Deuteronomy 33: 15; 2 Peter 1: 16 - 18
The thought that I had in mind to enlarge on is mountains. The first of the ancient mountains as mentioned in the verse in Deuteronomy refers to Joseph’s land. Those of us who are conversant with that wonderful chapter will know the setting of the remarkable statement, “Blessed of Jehovah be his land!”. Joseph, in that chapter, comes in for the most extensive, exalted and precious features of divine blessing. He represents Christ. To Him the inheritance belongs; the birthright was Joseph’s. So that he sets out the thought of Christ as the heir. And Moses calls for the greatest blessing in the most priestly way, on that land. That land, dear brethren, is not to be inherited alone by Christ. We are joint heirs with Him, heirs together, it says, with Christ. This brings in suffering, that as we suffer with Him, we will be glorified with Him. For the blessing is for Joseph who is separated from his brethren, separated not by his own wish, but by their hatred, but he would not be alone. Indeed, the Lord Himself says, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”. The “much fruit” is ourselves, the myriads of the redeemed who shall share that land with Him. So this should be of the deepest interest to every one of us. How richly that land is to be blessed! “Blessed of Jehovah be his land!”.
But I wish to confine my remarks to the mountains — the ancient mountains and the everlasting hills. Now in referring to mountains, dear brethren, I may remark that they have a great place in Scripture. They are first mentioned, as far as I remember, where I read [p. 103] in Genesis, and they are mentioned by name. Their tops pierced the flood as it receded by the power of God, and we are told that the tops of the mountains were visible. All these mountains were taken into account. Scripture abounds with allusions to them. Ancient and everlasting ones are all in mind. The tops of them have just come into view, emerging from the deluge. As the earth emerged from the earlier deluge according to divine ordering in the first chapter, nothing is said about the tops of the high mountains. No doubt they had appeared first but there is nothing said about the mountains in Genesis 1; but in Genesis 8 the tops of the mountains appeared, as if the Holy Spirit fixes the mind upon them, and they are never to be lost to view henceforth. Scripture never loses sight of them. Indeed the gospel that is marked mostly by them is Matthew. The first one mentioned is used by the devil; it is a solemn thing to see what God intended to be in the mind of faith emerging from the deluge, giving way to the power of the devil, so that he uses it to take the Lord Jesus up to it and show to Him the panorama of this world and its glory, and he assumes that all that was his. Christians have to realise that the enemy has power to use the mountains, to give you a mistaken view, a panorama of the world to decoy you, to bring you under his power. He does not go to the extent of offering it all to us, but he will offer bits of it. Many have fallen under his power in that way, so that young men are enjoined to “love not the world, nor the things in the world”. All the other mountains in Matthew are engaged with what the Lord Jesus would use. The mountains to which the enemy takes us afford us no precious things. There is no blessing from that quarter.
Well now, in making these remarks I wanted to stress that another feature in the mountain is that it is moral elevation. You see how much the judgment [p. 104] rested on the level as compared with the mountain in Genesis 8, so that the higher the elevation, the more what is morally degrading is withdrawn from. Hence in Matthew the first mountain the Lord went to, He sat there. It is a permanent thought and the disciples came to Him there; that is a key really to the subject in Matthew, the Lord sitting on the mount and the disciples coming to Him, and as they arrive He opened His mouth and said “blessed” nine times over. You can see how great the elevation is, and then there is the sense of instruction, a sense of blessing, a sense of quality there, for those nine cases of blessing are nine cases of quality, the fruit of the works of God, and as the Lord proceeds, you remember, three chapters 5, 6 and 7, are employed by the Spirit of God to give us an epitome of what He said on the mount, and the more you look into them, the more clarified your vision becomes as to everything. The most important thing in regard to the assembly is to have clear vision; that is what is needed, especially in relation to the assembly. It is a great thought in Matthew.
Now to go back to Deuteronomy, it speaks of the chief things, or the best things, or the head things, of the ancient mountains; that is, there are better and best in this. Now the word ‘ancient’, of course, is to direct your mind backwards. The next statement is the precious things of the everlasting hills; that is a forward thought, “the everlasting hills”. Now I hope to be able to show a comparison, not minimising the best things of the ancient mountains, but you can see that that word ‘precious’ is a stronger thought than the word ‘best’, and so I proceed to consider the first mountain, which I take the liberty of regarding as the ancient mountain. The chapter affords us the things that the Holy Spirit has in mind, the best things, the best things of these mountains, not of all mountains. I want you to follow, dear brethren, what these best things are and share in them, and to share in them [p. 105] now. Nothing we are to have in the future is to be unknown now. The principle is, that I have everything now, not in its fulness or in its blessedness, but I have it in principle, and if I have it in principle or, as it were, by sample, then I know that when I have it in its fulness it will not be unknown or strange. I shall be a stranger to nothing there, and that can only be by the earnest. God has given us the earnest into our hearts and that means that in principle I have everything that I will have in the future, so that I will be stranger to nothing, so that if I am to understand these things in the ancient mountains, I shall be obliged to look into them and see what they are, and so the Spirit of God tells us that after the long dreary days of the deluge (and one often tries to place oneself alongside of Noah in the ark-what an experience it must have been until the ship grounded. It was no such grounding as the apostle Paul experienced. There was no such pressure at Ararat), the judgment was resting where the ark grounded. It was resting, a very precious touch. We should learn rest, dear brethren, after judgment, after it is spent. That is to say, one can understand the joy, the thrill of salvation as we are grounded firmly on the mountains of Ararat. The great ship found a resting place, with its precious freight of living beings; foodstuffs and the like were not mentioned in that connection at all. We have to learn things spiritually. Food is not the point; the point is life, the matter of the people being alive.
What a thrill in every intelligent person there. What a thrill as the ark grounded firmly on the mountains. Why mountains? It is a spiritual thing, the sure foundation, you see. Well, that is one thought, and it is one of the chief thoughts of the ancient mountains. I ask you to picture it in your own mind what it was to Noah and his sons and their wives, to look out and see the glorious panorama of the tops of the mountains, never again to be out of view, always to be in [p. 106] the view of faith henceforth. And then, dear brethren, another thing comes to light on Ararat besides this precious rest of soul after the judgment is spent, and the precious view, this grand vista of glory; we have to picture and consider ourselves for nearly a year in the deluge-what the vista was!-what was to be seen! And then going further there is the test of love, who was who. It was a question of species of life. Noah sends out the raven, meaning that species of creature. He is to be tested, for if the best things are to be brought into view, we have to be tested for our value.
It is a question of species, the raven. It would be carried through in all these trials as of value; now he is going to be tested. Every one of us has to be tested and these best things come out of the tests. That is where quality comes to light in a test, and God will test us. He does it constantly. The raven goes out and never comes back. There is not much in him.
Where is his love? He went to and fro; well, that is not much. There are some christians going to and fro; going hither and thither with no resting place at all, no place of life. Look at that ark resting on Ararat, a place of life. You cannot get the life else where. It is a question of the assembly. Thousands of christians can go in there. He sends out the dove, another species, that kind of creature is going to be tested, for there is treasure in this test. Now we come to one of the best things; would you not like to be like that, bringing in something like that, some indication of life, such as the olive leaf? He sent out the dove, it was a link with him. This is one of the best things of the ancient mountains. We should be like the dove; she found no resting place for the sole of her foot. It is a moral thought. There is nothing fit for me. When I scan christendom, I see nothing fit for me. The dove could find no place at all, so she came back. There is no time given, but she came back, so Noah put his hand out and took her in to him.
[p. 107] Then he waited and sent her out again. This is another test. What will she do now? The waters are abating. Well, you have the time spent out mentioned this time, a day’s work. Every spiritual person thinks of a day’s work. We like to be like God, and work by the day. The dove could do nothing the first day outside. The second visit she did something. She came back, and it is very beautiful; the spiritual person coming back to where his love is after his day’s work. Barnabas and Paul went out and the brethren laid their hands on them, and they came back with something in their mouths, some evidence of the work of God. Sometimes the brethren come back and say, ‘I do not see much change in him’: that is a poor thing; when the dove came back she said, ‘There is the result of my day’s work’. It was a sufficient one! Where did it grow? The ground was covered with death. It must have grown quickly. That was the move of spiritual energy. The corn dies, or it does not bring forth any fruit, so however you look at it, it is a wonderful thing. Here is life spoken of, as if spiritually she recognises life. There was growth in spite of the deluge, and the true workman would go back to his post having accomplished something; otherwise we are just roaming about like the raven.
God is a God of order. Well, she comes out a third time and she does not go back. That is perfect, it means that the judgment of God rests. These are some of the best things of the ancient mountains which we have to bring into Joseph’s land so that there may be blessings there. How great is that thought, dear brethren.
The third thought is the altar. You can have nothing without that. In all these mountains I have read about there is an altar in each of them, and here Noah places an altar. We are told that he offered up of all clean fowl and of every clean beast on that altar. That means that Noah was an unselfish worker at [p. 108] Ararat. And that is one of the best things that I can learn, that is to be unselfish. I hold nothing back from God. The last book in the Old Testament tells how unpleasurable the worshippers were to God, how they dishonoured Him by the kind of offerings they brought. Selfishness marked their offerings. So one of the best things of the ancient mountains is unselfishness at the altar, and God is pleased, for He smelt a sweet savour and He established a firm order of things. That is another good thing to see, the fervency of the divine order of things.
Well, now I go on to the second mountain. It has no name but it is on the east side of Bethel. That is the position in proximity to the house of God, and in gathering that is the place where brethren should pitch their altar. In that vicinity it is blessed. That is one of the best things of the ancient mountains, and that is that I pitch my altar at the mountain in proximity to the house of God. This mountain was not yet named, but the Spirit of God moves Abraham to this mountain. It is faith moving in relation to the house of God by instinct. In fact, I believe we know things by name as we know them in our souls. Abraham had thought extensively, so he pitched his altar at the mountain, on the east side and then in Genesis 22 we have, I suppose, the climax to this subject. We have a mountain later where you get a heap of stones, a witness between two brothers that they should not pass to each other. Think of putting up a heap of stones that I should not pass to you, or that you should not pass to me. Of course they should pass, but that is not the idea. That is not one of the best things, but this mountain in chapter 22 is a chief mountain. God has a great deal of interest in this mountain. “One of the mountains which I will tell thee of” is in “the land of Moriah”, which means a place where things are shown. Some say that this is the mountain on which the temple was built. Well,
[p. 109] that is questionable. The idea was that it was shown. This is in the land of Moriah, “one of the mountains which I will tell thee of”. I would that we should get that into our souls. We have the great principle set up, the mountain of Jehovah on which will be provided. It is a mountain of Jehovah. You say you would like to get to that mountain. Well, so would I.
The Spirit of God would show it to you tonight. So Abraham and Isaac set out and he sees the place afar off. What I want to bring out is the unfaltering faith of Abraham, and his faith brought him to the point of correspondence with God. Now I want you to follow this. It is the mountain of God in a spiritual way, which is reached by faith. Thus God is reached in this chapter. But it is wonderful as you dwell on this chapter. Isaac is bearing the wood, a type of the Lord Jesus who bore His own cross. Abraham takes with him all the necessaries for the sacrifice. What a test to his faith! God would test Abraham. Is he equal? We come to one of the finest and best things of the ancient mountains with which the land of Joseph is blessed: faith that will go all the way, even to become correspondent with the blessed God Himself, who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us. That is Abraham. That thought is one of the best things of the ancient mountains. I think it is as God brings us to that, that we find the rich lands. That means that our meetings, our assemblies, should be rich. Abraham walked in love. He never stopped on that way, as he went to Moriah. He walked in love. He would give up his best to God. He who loves God is to keep His commandments. There is no other way to show our love, than by keeping His commandments. If I do not keep His commandments, it is useless to talk about love. Abraham carried out the divine thought perfectly. He was an imitator of God, and walked in love, even as Christ offered Himself up.
That is the mountain. Think of him piling up the [p. 110] wood! It means that there was plenty of it there. His son was to be offered and the wood was piled up, the son was bound to the altar, the knife was in the hand, and the hand was lifted up to slay his son. That is the best thing.
Dear brethren, let us enrich the land of Joseph with these precious things; these best things of the ancient mountains. Well, the time is gone, but let us look at the everlasting hills. I must just say a word and I do not think I can select a better scripture than the one read in Peter. None is more competent to speak about it than Peter, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty”, 2 Peter 1: 16. That is a precious thing of the everlasting hills. That is Peter’s word too, it is a choice word with Peter. “We ... were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. He does not say anything about his own failure. That is not anything for Joseph’s land. You do not bring self into Joseph’s land. Peter slept with the others on the mountain, but he does not mention that here. He speaks about the precious things of the everlasting hills, and he says, “We ... were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. What a thought of the majesty of God! Those who know Him love to consider it. There shall be no end to His majesty or His glory; He is Lord of glory. And then he goes on to say, “Such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory”.
That is a precious thing. How one would love to hear that voice, as a voice from the “excellent glory”, one of the precious things. Think of the man who used to be a fisherman, having the vocabulary of heaven from the “excellent glory”. He says, “Such a voice being uttered ... . This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. That is a precious thought of the everlasting hills-it is an eternal thought. It never ends. It is the delight of the Father in the Son.
He does not say here, “Hear him”; he leaves that out. That was the point of the mount, to hear Jesus, but Peter leaves that out here. He is talking about precious things, and the precious thought is that the Father loves the Son, and that the Father says, “This is my beloved Son”. That is an eternal thought. “Hear him” is not the point in this chapter, but we should hear Him now. The point here is the delight of the Father in the Son, and that belongs to Joseph’s land. How often we stress it in the assembly as we are gathered together-”This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. That would be eternal. That precious thing of the everlasting hills is shared by us. Let us bring it into the assembly now, into Joseph’s land, the blessings of the everlasting hills. The assembly comes in for a share of all these things, and we are to understand the majesty of Christ and the delight of the Father in Him.
Well, that is all that I had in mind, and may God help us in these matters to be drawn into moral elevation and eternal relations.