My Friends, WE NEED TO TALK! I want to highlight this headline in our little chat. I want to discuss with you: “HILL RELIGION.”
The Text I have tagged and targeted for teaching is Psalms 121:1-2. It reads in the New King James Version:
“I will lift up my eyes to the hills-
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the LORD
Who made heaven and earth.”
Between the Hanging Gardens in Babylon and the Palm-Scented Valley of Jezreel, there lay a Dusty Desert. And in the distance, we hear the cadence of marching feet. For recently liberated Captives of Babylonian oppression, with the steady thump-thump of weary yet happy feet, are on their way home to Israel after seventy years of slavery.
Prior to our text, they had already traveled a day’s journey into the barren desert. And, at the close of the day, these sojourners pitched their tents having settled in for a night’s rest. And at nightfall, these children of Jacob could be heard from their tents reciting the First Verse of Psalm 120 saying, “In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and HE heard me.”
As we approach our text, another day’s journey has been completed, and their tribes have settled in order around the standards of Israel for another night’s rest. As our text indicates, they bivouac near the foot of an un-named mountain. Sentinels or guards have been placed in strategic locations in the mountain to watch for distant and incoming danger, and to protect the weary travelers below.
Now before retiring to sleep, a sojourner seeking assurance lifts up his eyes to the hills to locate the guards on duty. He spots the guards in the mountain as their silhouettes move back and forth. And yet, their presence does not ease his anxiety! He still feels vulnerable and insecure. So he asks himself the question – “From whence comes my help? Does my defense come from soldiers on guard in the hills? Surely,” he reasons, “they have to get sleepy and tired during their watch and doze off to sleep.”
Therefore, he Revises His Religion, he Updates His Creed. For he concludes that his help does not come from the Hills of his Religiosity. He says in our text – “My Help Comes From The Lord.” Then he rises from his bed and proclaims in a loud voice to all of Israel what had just been revealed to him as he Looked Beyond the Hills. Said he:
“The LORD will not suffer your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your Keeper, The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and forevermore.”
Now, to catch the significance of that statement, you must bear in mind THE IMPORTANCE OF MOUNTAINS IN THE LIFE OF ISRAEL. The Hills or Mountains, to these Hebrews, were Holy, being the Abode of God.
You do recall, don’t you, what happened when Israel pitched in the Desert of Sinai in the Third Month of their Exodus? Well, just in case you have forgotten, let me refresh your memory. As you recall, they were told by Moses to sanctify themselves for three days, and on that third day the Lord would come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. The base of the Mountain was roped off lest anyone should touch it and die. So when the trumpet sounded on the morning of the third day, a thick cloud descended upon the mountain accompanied by thunder, lightning and the voice of a very loud trumpet. So loud was it that all the people trembled. Then the Lord descended upon Mt. Sinai in fire, the smoke ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain shook greatly.
Now, at that manifestation of the Presence of God, Mt. Sinai became a Holy Place in the psyche of Israel to be admired from a distance and became the Object of Worship. Likewise, Mounts Horeb and Zion became Sacred Places. Mount Horeb because of the Burning Bush experience, in which shoes were to be removed for the ground was holy. Thus, through the years, these Mountains were made the Objects of worship whether God was in them or not; the Superstition of the Hills became the Religion of the Hebrews.
Therefore, it become highly significant and worthy of our attention when our brother in the text LOOKS BEYOND THE HILLS TO THE LORD! If these ancient Hebrews saw the Necessity of Looking Beyond the Hills of their Heritage and History to the LORD of Creation, then certainly THERE MUST BE SOME HILLS IN OUR PRESENT PREDICAMENT THAT NEED LOOKING BEYOND TO THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH!
And so, I’m persuaded that our target text, in a very real way, will challenge us to ask: WHAT DOES FAITH OR TRUST IN THE LORD REALLY MEAN TO US? Perhaps, we shall be made to ponder the question: IN WHAT DIRECTION OR TO WHAT SOURCE DO WE LIFT OUR EYES FOR OUR HELP?
I do hope this message will spur us to have a serious discussion on What Faith in God really Means, and then cause us to Re-examine the Content and Context of our Faith to see whether or not ALL areas of our lives are Directed to God ALONE for the Source of our Help.
So to that end, let me exhort us TO LOOK BEYOND These THREE HILLS that keep on cropping up in our view to hinder us from Looking Only to Jesus.
I. THE HILL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE IS AN OBSTRUCTION TO THE EYES OF FAITH.
This Man-Made Hill keeps on cropping up in our view, offering itself as our only source of healing and help in times of physical sickness and disease, saying to us thru advertisements and enacted laws, “Lift Your Eyes To the Hill of Medical Science.”
In these days of waning faith in the God of miracles and waxing confidence in the Pseudo-Curative Powers of so-called Medical Marvels, those of us who confess “the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” must come to grips with the glaring contradiction that does exist in What We Say juxtaposed to What We Do. For all of us, at one time or another, have reared back and rocked as we sang “I’ve Got Jesus and That’s Enough.” Yet when sickness came, Jesus didn’t appear to be enough, for we ran to the Hill of Medical Science for Help! When it comes to Healing and the Health of our physical bodies, we have adopted this ‘Jesus-And Theology.’
Jesus-And my medicine;
Jesus-And my doctor;
Jesus-And my pills;
Jesus-And my Blue-Cross/Blue-Shield;
Jesus-And my operation!
How are you going to deal with the Contradiction of the Lord being your Shepherd and you wanting Medical Science? How are you going to deal with the contradiction of the Lord being your Healer and you are trusting your body to the hands and scalpel of a doctor whom you don’t even know and can’t in good conscience trust? Did not the Lord say in Exodus 15:28 that He is Jehovah-Rophe – the Lord who heals you?
There must come a period in our pilgrimage here below that we must deal with this Contradiction of Saying one thing and Doing another. The time must come when we deal with Salvation, not only in terms of our Souls, but also in terms of our Physical Bodies. For certainly, if the Lord our Savior is able to Create a New Creature in this old body of ours, then surely He can deal with our Body’s Sickness and Disease! I know He Can Cure Cancer, AIDS and Lupus. I know He can regulate our blood pressure. He can heal the sick and even the raise the dead by the Word of His Power! And so, the Lord doesn’t need Help in healing any sickness. He doesn’t need the assistance of one doctor in curing any disease. But yet, many of us are Always Lifting Our Eyes to the Hill of Medical Science For Help in terms of the Health and Healing of our Physical Bodies!
Certainly many of us have yet to experience Divine Healing in our bodies of clay because we too readily Yield to the bogus claims of that Hill Medical Science. It’s as if we have persuaded ourselves into believing that to conform to the world of Medical Technology is the One exception to the Rule of Faith. For we reason that God works through doctors and medical science to effect healing for His Body, which is the Church. Now I do concede the fact that God does employ Means to affect Ends. Yes, He does use human beings as instruments to bring about or to accomplish His purposes. But the relevant question is: WHAT MEANS, or THOUGH WHAT INSTRUMENTS?
Well, the clear and constant testimony of Scripture and history is that to bring about Healing and Health in the Community of Faith (which is the Church, the Body of Christ on earth), the Lord uses those Saved Individuals in whom He has bestowed the Gifts of Healing and Faith; for it is those who believe and only the saved believers who have been given the ability and authority to lay hands on the sick in the Name of the Lord Jesus and they shall recover. It is those who are authorized to say “in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, be healed! Who are Instruments or the Means of Physical Healing!
It is the use of the Power of Attorney given to special ones in the Body of Christ that brings about Healing and Restoration from Sickness. Since all men do not have Faith, according to 2 Thessalonians 3:2, then All or Everyone cannot be the Means of Curing or Healing Sickness or Disease. It is the Spirit of the Lord, working thru the Saved and Gifted, who brings about Health!
Furthermore, it is the Prayer of Faith, making use of the Oil of Anointing in the Name of Jesus that Saves the Sick. But it is the Lord Himself who raises them up!!!
Therefore, I submit to us that The Lord has Ordained that the Church need not go outside of the Body for anything! Anything the Church needs is provided for in the Body of the Church. No Member of the Church need go to the world for nothing! Not even for Treatment or Healing! That’s why James wrote: “Is any among you sick” Let him call for the Elders of the Church,” not 911, not for the Paramedics or the Doctor!
So Harris, what are you saying about Doctors and the Medical Profession? Are you saying that the medical profession serves no purpose in the economy of God? Are you implying that no saint should serve in the medical profession?
No, No, No! I say the medical profession does serve a purpose in the scheme of God and it is this. Since the world of the unsaved does not believe in the Power nor the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, does not believe in the Only True God, then they must seek help from some other source, some other ‘god’ other than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, to the Hill of Medical Science THEY MUST LIFT UP THEIR EYES! To Aesculapius (the Greco-Roman god of medicine) and Hippocrates, to the Hill of Medical Science, THEY MUST LIFT UP THEIR EYES. Scientific Research has become a ‘god’ to them. They bow before the altar of Scientific Experimentation and Documentation. For them, scientific research is the ‘god’ that shall find cures for AIDS, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and leukemia, whether it be by so-called ‘miracle drugs’ or thru exploratory or experimental surgery, or thru the new-found promise of ‘human cloning’ and stem-cell research.
But we, who are saved, have been delivered from the Kingdom of Darkness; delivered from the Bondage of the Systems of this world’s order; have discovered the Cure for our Sin-Problem and the Healer and Maintainer of our physical bodies. For In Jesus, we have found the Cure! Now Christ is all in all to us. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and we are complete in Him. For Christ is made unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption. He is now our Savior, Lord and God. He is now our Friend, Lover and Adviser; our Lawyer, Helper. Yes, even our Physician!!!
So then, the Principal Reason why so many us of, who name the Name of Christ, have not yet experienced the Tender Touch and Healing Hands of the Lord Jesus in our sickness and often infirmities is because we have sought the Divine or the Miraculous through the Wrong Means. Meaning, we have not yet exercised TOTAL FAITH in the Lord’s Ability and Availability to Heal our infirmities, or to Anoint our foreheads with His Healing Oil. We have yet to Wait Upon the Lord for Healing. We have bought in on the fallacy of healing thru Unsaved hands and Worldly Institutions. We have yet to say and mean it: “Lord Jesus, Heal me by Your Power, If Its Your Will!!! You have to Look Past that Hill of Hospitals, Doctors and Clinics to the Lord of Healing!
My friends, I submit ‘tis time to ask the question: “From whence comes my help?” Does it come from scientists and physicians who must slumber and sleep and who must make mistakes (sometimes fatal mistakes on the operating table), who slumber and slip up in misdiagnosis and prescribing wrong medicines? And who sleep with ease because they are exempt from prosecution even when they have murdered and maimed many thru their incompetence and ignorance? No! ‘Tis time to answer: “My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” It is He who made you; He who is your Keeper, Healer and Maintainer of your physical bodies! Look beyond, then. Look away from. Look past this Hill of Medical Technology to the BALM IN GILEAD, THE PHYSICIAN IN ZION, THE HEALER OF YOUR HURTS AND THE CURE OF YOUR DISEASES. LOOK UNTO JESUS THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF YOUR FAITH!!!
Let me suggest that once you look past one hill, another one crops up! Hills just keep coming in our lives, trying to get us to worship them.
II. SO A SECOND HILL WHICH IS AN OBSTRUCTION TO THE EYES OF FAITH IS THE HILL OF CONSTITUTIONALIZED DEMOCRACY.
Now it seems very reasonable and logical to me that after 200+ years of disenfranchisement, marginalization, oppression and even attempted genocide of our race by an America who prides itself on its Constitutional Creed of Democracy that any Americanized African or other minority would be foolish to lift up his/her eyes to this Hill of Hypocrisy. 200+ years of deferred hopes and empty promises should have taught us to seek a Higher Government, even a purer Stream of Righteousness and a Freer River of Justice. So I submit to us that we very much need to LOOK BEYOND this HILL OF HYPE to a HIGHER REALITY OF JUSTICE, EQUALITY and FREEDOM.
For over 200 years have we Lifted Up Our Eyes to this Hill of Democracy for the Reality of Equality. From the hull of slave ships to the halls of Congress, have we Lifted Up Our Eyes! Like Martin, we believed we would be judged by the “content of our character” rather than “the color of our skin.” But skin-color not character-content is still the perverted and prejudiced standard this nation uses. We are treated both morally and spiritually as if our nature is not equal to the nature of other races. For an animalistic, brutish, low-down and immoral stigma is the stereotypical tag penned to every Black person.
Somehow we are portrayed and thought of as a people without natural affection for our spouses or even for our own children. We are portrayed as people incapable of honest, hard work and inclined hopelessly toward crime and violence. We are thought of as emotional people without intellectual activity. Even our cultural language or communal talk (the way we communicate with each other in the ‘Hood’) has been assailed and attacked. “Ebonics” has become a means of saying that Blacks are not equal to Whites. And even our kids are branded inept because they practice speaking the culture of their ethnicity. Oh, but if the truth be told no White man, woman, boy or girl in America speaks proper English for none of them speak fluently the King’s English. English properly spoken is neither taught nor spoken in this country; so none of us are literate and fluent in the King’s English!
For too long have we Lifted Up Our Eyes to this Hill of Constitutional Democracy for Justice. Daily, throughout this country from sea to shining sea, Injustice and Evil are upheld as right while the Just and Right is ruled against. Justice must be predicated upon something more substantial and lasting than Capitalism and the Free Market Theory. It must be grounded upon something higher than Corporate Profits and Majority Rule. It must be settled upon a firmer foundation that Guess-timates, False Facts and I believe So’s. Oh, Justice must be predicated upon Holiness of Character and an Unswerving Commitment to the Truth. For if there is no Justice, there never can be Any Peace!
Thus Justice flows from Wrong made Right and Punishment for wrongs committed. And in the Jesus of Scripture, JUSTICE AND MERCY HAVE MET. For with His blood, He satisfied the just demands of a Holy God by paying our sin-debt so that God could have Mercy upon us in forgiving our sins. There is No Forgiveness or Mercy in Capitalism!!
So its time for the saved to Look Beyond This Hill of Constitutional Democracy; Look Past This Babylon the Great which sits upon many waters and on seven mountains. For justice cannot come from an Unjust and Corrupt System neither can Equality. Look Past the Wine of her fornication, the Scarlet she wears and the Gold, Precious Stone and Pearls that she has in her hands; FOR THIS HILL SHALL PASS AWAY! I know the Hills of Democracy, with its promise of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Keep On Cropping Up In Our View, but we need to ask ourselves the question: “From whence comes my help?”
Now I realize I have opened myself up to attacks but it really doesn’t bother me. Go ‘head and call me unpatriotic and a Communist. Go ‘head and tag me a Radical, Un-American, Unchristian, even an Angry Black Man! It doesn’t matter! For somewhere I read that God exalted Christ Jesus far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world but also in the world to come and has put all things under His feet, when He set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.
My hearers, there is a Kingdom that sits Higher than the Great Whore on Seven Mountains. There is a Nation Higher than This Hill that is indeed indivisibly “one nation under God.” There is a Government that is infinitely more Just and Equal than any Constitutionalized Democracy, that sits on any Hill of this Earth! I say to you, LOOK BEYOND THIS HILL OF DEMOCRACY TO THE HIGHEST HILL OF THEOCRACY FOR YOUR HELP; for “the government shall be upon His shoulder … the increase of His government and peace shall have no end … for His name shall be called WONDERFUL, COUNSELLOR, THE MIGHTY GOD, THE EVERLASTING FATHER, THE PRINCE OF PEACE.” The LORD is your Keeper and will not allow the sun of seduction to smite you by day, nor the moon of hypocrisy by night. Look unto the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth.
Oh, but Hills Keep On Cropping Up In Our View, Higher and Larger than previous ones. The Hills of Medical Science and Constitutional Democracy are Huge and Formidable; yet there is One still Larger and More Formidable than these that must be Overlooked.
III. SO THIRD AND LASTLY, LET ME URGE US TO LOOK BEYOND THE HILL OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RELIGION.
Institutionalized Religion is an Obstruction to the Eyes of Faith! For any religion that can be confined to a Hill or Mountain or contained within an Earth-bound Structure or Packaged within a Denominational Box or limited to this world of Sense and Space, or restricted to One Race, Ethnicity or Culture MUST BE OVERLOOKED AS IRRELEVANT AND INCONSEQUENTIAL!!
Look beyond This Hill because it was Institutionalized Religion that Instigated the Persecution and Prosecution of the Early Church in which our Brothers and Sisters were fed to the lions, tarred and feathered, burned at the stake, had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings; who were stoned, sawed asunder, slain with the sword, who wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; who, being destitute, afflicted and tormented, wandered in deserts, mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.
Look Beyond This Hill, my hearers, because it was Institutionalized Religion that did instigate the Passion of The Christ. They labeled Him a liar, blasphemer, deceiver, seditionist and imposter. They had Him staked to a cross and strung up as a common criminal. And yonder on the Cross of Calvary he hung as a Lamb led dumb. It was Institutionalized Religion that in large part put Him there!
Look, then, TO THE LORD, who will NOT suffer your foot to be moved!
LOOK TO THE LORD who shall neither slumber nor sleep.
To the Lord who bats His eye and the lightning zigzags across the ethereal sky; who clears His throat and the thunder rumbles thru the earth; and who shifts His heavy feet and the earth moves in convulsions and quakes!
To the Lord who pilled up the Hills and Mountains in their place, caused the clouds to float about their heads and made the rivers and streams to flow at their feet.
To the Lord who clothed the earth with verdure, gave luster to every blade of grass, motion to every winged fowl, splendor to every precious jewel and life to every living thing.
To the Lord whose arm is not shortened that He cannot save nor is His ear heavy that He cannot hear; who parted the Red Sea, smote Egypt and all its men of war and covered Pharaoh’s chariot and horse in the Red Sea.
To the Lord who smote Og King of Bashan, and Sihon King of the Amorites because they withstood the progress of His people; and who caused the stars in their courses to fight against Sisera and the River of Kishon to sweep him away.
To the Lord who sent a blast upon the hosts of Sennacherib so that in the morning they were all dead.
I tell you, HE that keeps you will not slumber. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.
