Morning, June 25

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"Get thee up into the high mountain."

  Isaiah 40:9

   Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh
   mountains. When you are at the base you see but little: the mountain
   itself appears to be but one-half as high as it really is. Confined in
   a little valley, you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks
   as they descend into the stream at the foot of the mountain. Climb the
   first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your
   feet. Go higher, and you see the country for four or five miles round,
   and you are delighted with the widening prospect. Mount still, and the
   scene enlarges; till at last, when you are on the summit, and look
   east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before
   you. Yonder is a forest in some distant county, perhaps two hundred
   miles away, and here the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking
   chimneys of a manufacturing town, or the masts of the ships in a busy
   port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, "I could
   not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation." Now,
   the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in
   Christ we see but little of him. The higher we climb the more we
   discover of his beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Who has
   known all the heights and depths of the love of Christ which passes
   knowledge? Paul, when grown old, sitting grey-haired, shivering in a
   dungeon in Rome, could say with greater emphasis than we can, "I know
   whom I have believed," for each experience had been like the climbing
   of a hill, each trial had been like ascending another summit, and his
   death seemed like gaining the top of the mountain, from which he could
   see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of him to whom he had
   committed his soul. Get thee up, dear friend, into the high mountain.