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Scale The Mountain

By Bobbie Jean Merck

August 1^st I began to seek the Lord in earnest prayer concerning a major decision for A Great Love.  The decision had to be made according to His perfect will.  At this time I was aware of a major shifting for everyone.  Had God not said, “Everything changes in 2007?”

           My faith was strong in God and His Word.  I followed the wisdom Proverbs 11:14 speaks, and received some God-directed counselors in prayer and counsel.  Knowing they were committed to prayer for this decision gave me confidence in receiving God’s will.

           On August 4^th God clearly spoke to me, “Scale the Mountain.”  A dream I had in 1984 flashed before me and I knew exactly what those words meant.

           In the dream I was climbing a mountain that was in the form of Mt. Masada in Israel: straight upward to the top, rocky, no abundant growth, but only a stick of a very small tree occasionally from bottom to top.  The top was flat.

           Of course, I started to climb and it was very treacherous and hard.  I would become tired and was ready to give up many times.  The only way I could keep on climbing was to hold on to the stick-tree and pull myself up.  I made it to the top slowly.  When I reached the top I bent over from the waist up onto the top, and realized the Holy Spirit was supporting me.  Then the Lord said, “The Holy Spirit has been supporting you all the time.  You have made the climb by holding onto faith (the stick-tree).”

            As I was in this position on the top of the mountain, multitudes were running from the horizon towards me.  Happy people, with arms raised to the Lord in praise, and I was throwing the gifts of the Holy Spirit to them.  What joy! 

 When the Lord said, “Scale the Mountain,” I knew that I was to come up higher in my faith, and run the race.

          Our God is faithful!  Early Sunday morning on August 5^th, Psalm 125:1 leaped off the page to me.  God was speaking, “Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever” (NIV).

          Trust the Lord!  What a word!  What a psalm!  The journey is ever-onward in our trust in the Lord, and it should be ever increasing.

          Now, I have learned more about Psalm 125, and consequently, more about trust.  Psalm 125 is a Song of Degrees.  Let me quote from The Treasury of David by C.H. Spurgeon.  “Another step is taken in the ascent; another station in the pilgrimage is reached: certainly a rise in the sense is here perceptible, since full assurance concerning years to come is a higher form of faith than the ascription of former escapes to the Lord.  Faith has praised Jehovah for past deliverances, and here she rises to a confident joy in the present and future safety of believers.  She asserts that they shall forever be secure who trusts themselves with the Lord.”

           Our trust must be in God, and not in people or anything else.  Misplaced trust causes and brings great disappointment and disillusion.  When they become our focus in the desire for provision or protection, we are on a collision course.   

          God is our confidence!  As Jesus said in Matthew 11:19, “…Yet wisdom is justified and vindicated by what she does (her deeds) and by her children.”  How exciting The Bible from 26 Translations reads on this verse.  “…Ah well, wisdom stands or falls by her own actions” – Philips; “And yet God’s ways were proved to have been wise by their results” --  Rieu', “And yet what a wise person does proves he’s right”

 – Beck.

          Spurgeon says, “…trust in the living God is sanctified common sense which needs no excuse, its result shall be its best vindication.”

          Jeremiah 17 discloses the difference between trusting God and trusting people.  It carries a powerful warning as well as powerful covenant promise and security.

 “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.   For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.   Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit”  (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

 Our decisions and choices today

determine our future tomorrow.  Let us choose wisely.

          If our relationship begins to loose its fervor with the Lord, we will face hard times.  If one’s heart and soul begins to turn to other people (including self) rather that God, our trust in Him becomes less and less.  When this happens, we begin to discontinue from the heritage that He has promised and wants to give us.  We begin to believe that God does NOT want to bless and prosper us.  Jeremiah 17:4 says, “And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.”

          God spoke to me, “Trust in Me, and you shall be as Mount Zion.”  I knew Mount Zion cannot be moved!  Mount Zion cannot be shaken.  Mount Zion endures forever.  If I would only trust Him, these truths would prevail in my life and A Great Love from henceforth.  We would be fixed, stable, steadfast, and secure.  “The Hebrew,” Spurgeon says, states, “Mount Zion ‘Sits to eternity’ neither bowing down nor moving to and fro.  Thus doth the trusting worshipper of Jehovah enjoy a restfulness which is the mirror of tranquility….  We trust in an eternal God, and our safety shall be eternal.”

          Martin Luther in A Commentary on the Psalms of Degrees writes about they that trust in the Lord.  Note how he commandeth no work here to be done, but only speaketh of trust.  In popery in the time of trouble men were taught to enter into some kind of religion, to fast, to go on pilgrimage, and to do such other foolish works of devotion, which they devised as an high service unto God, and thereby thought to make condign satisfaction for sin and to merit eternal life.  But here the Psalmist leadeth us the plain way unto God, pronouncing this to be the chiefest anchor of our salvation,--only to hope and trust in the Lord; and declaring that the greatest service that we can do unto God is to trust him.  For this is the nature of God—to create all things of nothing.  Therefore he createth and bringeth forth in death, life: in darkness, light.  Now to believe this is the essential nature and most special property of faith.  When God then seeth such a one as agreeth with his own nature, that is, which believeth to find in danger help, in poverty riches, in sin righteousness, and that for God’s own mercy’s sake in Christ alone, him can God neither hate or forsake.”  

          His Word of Truth prevails in every way that we need.  What faith, trust, and confidence is ours when the Holy Spirit quickens wisdom, revelation, knowledge, and understanding to us from His Word.  There is no other way, but to trust and obey.

          Yes, August 2^nd two paths were clearly seen.  But which path to take, I pondered.  My counselors and prayers confirmed the way.  Both paths have been taken and set in motion.  Peace, peace, wonderful peace that can come only from God has now become a nail in a sure place.

Scale the mountain!  Trust in the Lord!