In the Mount With God

“Come up to Me in the mount,” God bids us. To Moses, before he could be God’s instrument in delivering Israel, was appointed forty years of communion with Him in the mountain solitudes. Before he delivered God’s message to Pharaoh, he spoke with the angel in the burning bush. Before receiving God’s law as the representative of His people, he was called into the mount and beheld His glory. Before executing justice on the idolaters, he was hidden in the cleft of the rock, and the Lord said, “‘I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you,’ ‘merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, ... by no means clearing the guilty.’” Exodus 33:19; 34:6, 7. Before Moses laid down, with his life, his burden for Israel, God called him to the top of Pisgah and spread out before him the glory of the Promised Land.MHH 299.4

Before the disciples went forth on their mission, they were called up into the mount with Jesus. Before the power and glory of Pentecost, came the night of communion with the Savior, the meeting on the mountain in Galilee, the parting scene on Olivet, with the angels’ promise, and the days of prayer and communion in the upper chamber.MHH 299.5

When preparing for some great trial or some especially important work, Jesus would resort to the solitude of the mountains and spend the night in prayer to His Father. A night of prayer preceded the ordination of the apostles and the Sermon on the Mount, the transfiguration, the agony of the judgment hall and the cross, and the resurrection glory.MHH 299.6