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[ Silence ] [ Music ] [MUSIC] ♪ I am home ♪

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♪ Follow every highway ♪ ♪ Every path you know ♪ ♪ Climb every mountain ♪ ♪ O'er every stream ♪

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♪ O'er every rainbow ♪ ♪ Till you find your dream ♪ ♪ For me, for me ♪ ♪ All the love you can give ♪

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[ Music ] ♪ Come what you may ♪ ♪ Climb every mountain ♪ ♪ Ford every stream ♪

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♪ Follow every rainbow ♪ ♪ 'Til you find your dream ♪ ♪ 'Til you find your dream ♪ ♪ 'Til you find your dream ♪

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♪ I'm a dream ♪ - Amen. We come to consider Psalm number 72 as we continue our sermon series based on the book of Psalms.

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And our focal scripture passage is the third verse. Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness. The subject of the message, when mountains are a blessing. Mountains speak of lofty heights.

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speak of that which is difficult to reach. Mountain climbers respond to the challenge to achieve the difficult. There is a sense in which people seek to avoid mountains. Charles Lamb said, "I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life." This utterance describes the human desire to avoid the difficult and impossible circumstances.

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But here in our text is a word from a sweet singer in Israel, "Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness." This psalm considers the mountains as being related to prosperity, to blessings. The psalmist thinks of the mountains as an expression of God's goodness and bounty. First of all, this

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This word from the psalmist is part of a petition. It's one of the royal psalms. It was a song that was among the many songs related to the celebrations involving the king of Israel.

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Now many of these royal songs revolve around the new year. They revolve around the inauguration of the king, just as at the beginning of the year, the month of January, we may have the services

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which the governor is installed. We have our presidential inauguration. This was a sort of occasion for which these songs were written and sung.

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They, in a sense, mark a new beginning, a new era, a new epoch. Some of the language that we find used in this particular psalm has been used

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in songs honoring the king of England and other leaders, national leaders. But one may well ask, what does this song have to do with me? I'm not of royal blood, but it has everything

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to do with you and me. We belong to the royal family as children of God. We are sons and daughters of the King. In ancient Israel, the King was conceived of

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as a channel through whom God carried out his will and way. The King was a channel of God's grace. He was that avenue, if you please, that conduit through which God's grace flowed.

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So here we are concerned with a high moment in which the people of God ask the heavenly father for justice to prevail. They say in this hymn,

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"Give the king thy justice, O God, and thy righteousness to the royal son. May he judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with justice.

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You know, it's always good for a leader to have the right beginning, a good start. This is always good. The significant thing about Solomon's reign

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was that at the outset, Solomon recognized that he could not be the kind of leader that he needed to be without the help of the eternal. And so he makes a petition to God.

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Solomon is remembered for his prayer because he says, "Lord, give me wisdom. I might know how to go in and out before this people." Give me sense enough to be a good ruler for you here in Israel.

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So Solomon is praised for his prayer, for that petition that he makes to God. Now here the words, "Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people." Mountains bear prosperity. we think of mountains as difficulties, as stumbling blocks sometimes in our path, as

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adverse circumstances, mountains to climb. We are quick to think of the value of fertile valleys. You know the ground at the foot of the mountain is usually very fertile because the water, rains come down upon the mountains and the water flows on down to the valley

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and settled there and then the valleys have that moisture that is necessary for vegetation and so we think of the valleys as being green, fertile. But the mountains are often barren and without vegetation. They are exposed to the glaring heat of the sun and some mountains are continually covered with

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snow. Others are so high that it matters not what's on the mountains because they are so difficult to get to. But here the psalmist says let the mountains be a a blessing so to speak. We want mountains to be moved. There are obstacles. But this petition says that let the mountains bear prosperity. Let the mountains be a

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blessing. Now mountains may have to do with our aim. Mountains may have to do with our objectives in life, our purpose in life. When we have high and noble purposes, purposes that are meaningful but are often difficult

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to attain or achieve. We have just had a great deal of concern with the lady longhorns. They set out to win the national championship in basketball.

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And that's a pretty difficult thing, to win the national championship. There are many, many, many, many, many difficulties along the way,

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but somehow in the midst of all of it, we saw them win one victory after the other until they came to the very last victory. and all of these efforts are crowned with success.

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Well, that's the way it is when we consider our responsibility also, our social responsibility. Our social responsibility is a mighty mountain

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that we must climb. It's a steep hill for us to bear our social responsibility. In fact, there are those today who talk about the social gospel in connection with our social responsibility and they sort of sneer at the social gospel.

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They speak of the social gospel as if it were a sin. It's a mighty mountain. Well, what if the poor in our world would receive justice? That's a mighty, mighty mountain.

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Caring for the poor, seeing to it that the poor have their needs met. To be born and to live in poverty all of the days of your life,

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and yet that's what so many people in our world do. Poor, the poor. What if the poor received justice? What a different world this would be.

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For our world is a world in which the poor are exploited. Welfare programs that support the rich are usually accepted. We don't have a great deal of questioning going on with welfare programs that support the rich,

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and there are certainly many of them, but when we talk about welfare programs that support the poor, these are the first ones we want to get rid of

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when we find that we have a budget crunch. What if the poor receive justice in our world? What if fair treatment would be given to the less fortunate? And that's a mountain that we consider in the world.

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Relief for the needy. That remains a mountain in our world. But here is a word, my brothers and sisters, let the mountain bear prosperity.

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Let this mountain bear fruit. Well, that's a pretty good word for a king who's beginning his administration. So now the king has some mountains that he faces

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in his administration. If he's going to administer justice, there's a mountain there. If he's going to perform his social responsibility,

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there is a mountain that he faces. But the psalmist says, let the mountains bear prosperity. Another mountain he mentions in this psalm

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is that of the oppressed. Millions are under the yoke of oppression, political oppression, economic oppression, religious oppression, and we find ourselves oppressed

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in so many ways, mighty, mighty mountains. We find ourselves facing mountains in our personal relations. You think about your relations with other people, as some people you just find it difficult to get over to.

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That they serve in a sense as a mighty mountain that's in the pathway of good, wholesome human relations. A mountain. And we sometimes try to avoid those mountains.

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see them coming this way we go that way. They serve as a mountain. Then we have other kinds of mountains. We have mountains in our personal lives, maybe sickness, sickness, some physical situation, some physical weakness. So while I could do this, but this mountain, and you You hear that a great deal in the church.

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Reverend, I could do that, but I have this problem. I, you see, I have this weakness. I have this, I'm not as strong. I'm not what I used to be.

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This is a mountain. Mountain, mountain. Sickness. Sometimes it's a mountain of disappointment.

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Some someone has had a crushing disappointment to occur in his or her life and it sort of ruined life for them. Mountain. But the psalmist here says

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that there's prosperity on the mountain. Now how can you have prosperity on the mountain? Oh, I noticed from time to time, sometimes almost a certain period of the year,

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that out in California and other sections when they have the rains, that the water comes down the mountain and they have the mudslides of the mountain

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and those who live down, put it out there, homes are destroyed, all of that. But he talks about the mountains being prosperous. And many of those mountains that were there

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during ancient times that were barren, and sometimes the water would come down and that would be the trenches that would be made by the waters.

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What people learned to do would be to make a terrace on the mountain, to terrace it so that there could be crops grown on that mountain, that the water could be preserved and vegetation could flourish right there

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on that mountain and instead of the mountain being some adverse circumstance, the mountain was a blessing. God's harvest was there on the mountain. Bounty and goodness and the greatness of God

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was seen because that mountain was covered with a great and glorious harvest. And that's the way it can be in our lives. That the mountains we face,

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that God can, with our help, if we will work with God in cultivating the mountains. If you're gonna have a good harvest, you've gotta plant some good seeds.

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If some people say, you know, I'm so lonely, nobody really cares about me, but if you really wanna have friends, you've got to sow some seeds of friendship.

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You've got to make an investment. You don't go out expecting to get a great harvest when you haven't done any planting. But somehow if we work with God in cultivating the mountain,

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that God will enable us to have a great harvest and the mountain will be a blessing. Mountains become a blessing when we plant the right seed, when somehow we work with God.

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People can see that that which is considered a curse can be a blessing. Let the mountains bear prosperity. Face the mountain with its challenges

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and consider it a blessing. Face the mountain with its burden and consider it a blessing. Face the mountain with all of its hindrances

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and consider that a blessing. Let the mountain be a blessing because you have somehow taken advantage of the opportunity to cultivate, cultivate, and reap a wonderful harvest on that mountain.

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You know, you have somebody that just doesn't like you, does everything against you, and all of us have some people like that in our lives. How do you cultivate that mountain? Well, one of the ways you do it is through prayer.

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Is that you remember somehow in your prayer to remember to pray for that person that doesn't like you. And to somehow in your prayer to remember to pray for that person who despitefully uses you and speaks all manner of evil against you falsely to remember that person in your

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prayer. are somehow cultivating the harvest on that mountain cultivating the harvest on the mountain and that mountain becomes a blessing you see you see when you if you've ever seen any mountain climbers they're not they're not weak more

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mountains they climb the stronger they become develops their muscles yes Somehow the more mountains we climb, develop the character, they develop our spiritual strength. And somehow the mountain is a blessing. And so the psalmist says, "Let the mountain bear prosperity."

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Mountain bear prosperity. Prosperity. One translation we have of that, particularly the translation that's in the King James Version, is let the mountains bear peace, peace, peace. In other words, many people get all disturbed,

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go all to pieces when they find themselves facing a mountain. But he said let the mountains bear peace. In other words, to have peace of mind, think about the mountains in your life, the mountains mountains that we encounter and to be able to fold your arms and be at peace. Yes Lord. Yes Lord. To be at peace. Well that comes in having right relationship with the king of the mountain.

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Yes Lord. Now who is it who's king of the mountain? Who is it? Of all of the mountains that we have in the world, who is it that somehow in the beginning boils the mountains up and hollowed the valleys out? Who is it that's king of the mountains?

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And if there are mountains in our world, and if we are to deal with those mountains and those mountains are to be a blessing in our lives, then somehow, someway we must be rightly related to the king of the mountain and the king of the mountain wraps himself in human flesh and comes down to be with us king of the mountain he's the king

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we're told that when he got ready to call his disciples he went up into a mountain when when when he gave his great teaching concerning the Magna of his kingdom, rudes for the good life. We call them the Beatitudes. He went up into a mountain and sat down and taught them saying, "Blessed are the meek,

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blessed are the pure in heart." He's king of the mountain, king of the mountain. These are the rudes for his kingdom and he went up on a mountain with some of his disciples and he was transfigured before them. He's king.

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He's king of the mountain, I tell you. And when the last hour came, they took him and put him on a cross up on a mountain and he died on a mountain. He's king, he's king of every mountain that we may face

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and he's somehow able to make every mountain to prosper. So don't get disturbed when you find that there's some mountains in your life. Don't get disturbed. Don't get disturbed.

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Be not dismayed. And somebody, have you any mountains that seem too hard for you to climb, seem impossible? Well there's a word that comes to us wrapped in one of the songs that we sing. Lord, don't move the mountains.

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Lord, don't move the mountains. Lord, don't move the mountain, just give me strength to climb it. Lord, don't move that mountain because I know you have a blessing in that mountain for me. Thank God for the mountain.

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Thank God for the mountain. I know I've had difficulties along the way, and there are always difficulties that we have before us, but thank God for the mountain because that mountain is a blessing. It's a blessing for God. So as we come now, we come now

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to the privilege of the church we invite you to accept Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. Accept the one who's the king of the mountain and who can make every mountain a blessing.

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We invite you to come now and accept him. Unite with this church. I trust in God. Wherever I may be, upon the land,

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♪ On the rolling sea ♪ ♪ Ah, come what may ♪ ♪ From day to day ♪ ♪ By heavenly Father ♪

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♪ My Father watches over me ♪ ♪ I trust in God ♪ ♪ I know He cares for me ♪ ♪ On the mountain bleak ♪

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♪ On the stormy sea ♪ ♪ Oh, billows roll ♪ ♪ He keeps my soul ♪ ♪ My heavenly Father ♪

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♪ Watches over me ♪ ♪ The valley may be dark ♪ ♪ He docked the shadows deep ♪ ♪ But oh the shepherd ♪

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♪ Guards his lonely sheep ♪ ♪ And through the gloom ♪ He leads me home. My heavenly Father watches over me.

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♪ I trust in God ♪ ♪ I know He cares for me ♪ ♪ On Mountain Bleak ♪ ♪ On the stormy sea ♪

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♪ Oh, Bill O'Brien ♪ ♪ He keeps my soul ♪ ♪ My heavenly Father ♪ ♪ Watches over me ♪

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♪ Oh, mountain deep ♪ ♪ I trust in God ♪ ♪ I know He has for me ♪ ♪ Oh, mountain deep ♪

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♪ Almost so busy ♪ ♪ Oh, hello, Paul ♪ ♪ Thinkin' my soul ♪ ♪ I am a little bit ♪

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♪TTy puppies ♪