Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

April 4– Evening

by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“Come! Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.” 

—Isaiah 2:3

It is exceedingly beneficial to our souls to mount above this present evil world to something nobler and better. The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches are prone to choke everything good within us, and we can become filled with worry, depression, and fleshly pride. It is good for us to cut down these thorns and briers, for heavenly seed sown among them is not likely to yield a harvest. And where will we find a better sickle with which to cut them down than communion with God and consideration of God’s Kingdom?

There was a time in the valleys of Switzerland when many of the inhabitants had physical defects and a sickly appearance. The atmosphere was filled with stagnant mists that carried disease. But up on the mountains, the people were healthy and rugged. They breathed the clear fresh air as it was blown from the virgin snows of the Alpine summits. It would be good if the dwellers in the valley could frequently leave their homes among the marshes and inhale the invigorating elements found in the hills.

It is to such a task of climbing that I invite you this evening. May the Spirit of God help us to leave the mists of fear, the fevers of anxiety, and all the ills which gather in this valley of earth and to ascend the mountains of anticipated joy and blessedness. May God the Holy Spirit cut the cords that keep us here below and then lead us up into the mountain! We sit too often like chained eagles fastened to the rock, only that, unlike the eagle, we begin to love our chains and seem disinclined to have them broken.

If we cannot escape from these chains through our fleshly efforts, then may God by his grace break them for us by his spirit. Let us ascend the mountain and breath the air of the Most High. [M&E]