Chapter 18
God’s Holy Mountain
As we have been on the beautiful mountains of the Bible, here is one of the beautiful sayings of the gospel prophet, Isaiah. He seemed to see things that nobody else saw in his day, and he said things that nobody else said. Just listen to him here in chapter 11:9: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” There is no way to make a man’s language more beautiful than the above. This one verse proves this man to be inspired, a Spirit-filled man, and a God-called man, and a God-sent man.
The text is the life of sanctification in the hearts of the people at some period of the world. While it is broad enough to take in the whole world it is so narrow that one man can get the blessing and live the life and enjoy the experience and teach the doctrine if nobody else in the country wants it. But he speaks of this holy mountain, and in this holy mountain he says that nothing shall hurt or destroy, and then he adds that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This reaches out and beyond the community and marks a day that this old world will be brought into perfect harmony with the principles of the Gospel of the blessed Son of God.
While this is so, the earth will be covered with men and women who have been born of the Spirit and then baptized with the Spirit, and filled with the fullness of God. There will be no sinners on the earth at that time, and that is what we all want to see. The only reason that heaven is heaven is because there’s no sin there. If sin were in heaven, it would be no better than Chicago or New York, but thank the Lord, there is one city that the devil can’t control, and never will, for it is the home of God, and therefore it is the home of the children of God. That being the case, there is no sin or devil in that beautiful city. If the reason that heaven is so beautiful is because there is no sin there, wouldn’t this country be just as lovely as heaven if the devil and sin were put out of it? Well, that is the very thing the old prophet saw in his wonderful vision, a world redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, and delivered from the clutches of a mighty devil.
There is in the minds of the holy people all over the country a time in the future referred to as the thousand years, or millennium, or the reign of Christ on the earth, and if this is right, this is the time that the old prophet had in mind when he saw a world free from danger and delivered from the devil and full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. There must be a glorious time in the near future for the children of God, for their lives have been sorely tried.
How many mothers have raised sons for no purpose only the saloon and the gambling house, and have raised beautiful daughters for no purpose except for the bawdy house, and when and how can that precious mother ever get revenge out of sin and the devil for her great and awful loss? I know that some people say she will be delivered from the devil when she gets to heaven, but the text says that, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all his holy mountain,” and that the earth is to be “full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” and this earth is not heaven, and heaven is not this earth, and if this earth is to be the heaven there is but one way to do it and that is to put the devil off of this planet, and remove all sin, and remove all sinners, and then we would have just what the old prophet saw, a world free from the devil and all of his subjects.
We all know and rejoice in the fact that God has provided a plan of redemption, that man may be saved from all sin and kept by the power of God, but while he is kept he will be tempted a thousand times in a single week to do the very thing he knows that if he does do it will ruin him in two worlds. He has the tempter to fight and reject day and night, and if he slows up he goes back to the bottom again, must do all of his first works over again or be forever lost. But the prophet saw a day coming when all will be different. I know that there is a better day for this old world for it is described in the blessed old Book, and I am hungry today to see things changed, and I am anxious to get into a world where the devil won’t be boss and general manager, and thank God, I am expecting to get into just such a world some day as is described in the above text, a world of glory, a world of love, a world of kindness and filled with the redeemed of the Lord. In that day there will be no danger, for the lion will be as tame as the calf, and the tiger will be as gentle as the lamb, the serpent will be as harmless as the beautiful butterfly. I know that such things are very hard to believe by the most of the human family, but a man who has ever been touched by the Holy Ghost, is ready to believe all that God says, and here is a statement that is so beautiful that you want to sell out and move over there at once and if we can’t sell we are just about ready to give away all that we have.
Just listen once more to the voice of the prophet: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Now reader, that day has never been fulfilled yet. It has to this extent, some few people have received the blessed experience of scriptural holiness, and as far as they are concerned the world is full of love at least. But it is very seldom that we can find a family in which every member is fully saved, and the few who are fully saved are so tempted and tried by the devil that they have little time to enjoy their experience; it takes all of their time to fight sin and the devil. There is no telling just what the experience would be to them if they had time from the awful onslaught of the devil to enjoy this experience. But in the present world if we sit down to enjoy our experience for a few days, we will wake up to the fact that we are backslidden.
We must fight here or die hereafter. The devil is after us, and if we stop the fight, he is the winner and we the loser. We sing here
Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize And sailed through bloody seas.
The poet recognized the fact that we must turn or burn, fight or die, one or the other. But how different it will be in the world without a devil in it, and how different it will be in a world without sin in it, or a sinner in it. When you think of the sorrow of heaven and the horror of hell and the ruination of earth, as Brother Will Huff used to say, just think of the devil and you have the key to the whole situation. But bless God, the old prophet saw a day coming when there will be a world with no devil in it, and we are looking forward to that great day. Amen.