Go Tell It on the Mountain

Isaiah 40:9                                                Go Tell It on the Mountain

“Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voices with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!” (RSV)

 

“Go Tell It on the Mountain” was one of the songs used to save a university.  In 1871, Fisk University was deep in debt and desperate for supporters and funds.  A ten-member singing group, called the Fisk Jubilee Singers, left on a fund-raising campaign.  When they left, they took with them the entire university treasury to cover their travel expenses.  Their very successful tour helped Fisk University survive, and “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” became one of their mainstay songs.  For that reason alone, it is a very important song.  But this spiritual arouses many through its words and its demand that we “Go tell it on the mountain” and everywhere, that “Jesus Christ Is Born.”

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Isaiah 40:1 tells us to lift up our voices with strength and announce, “Behold your God.”  This spiritual does just that.  It seems that the chorus gets louder and more robust each time it is sung, as it should.  Each time we announce the arrival of our Lord as the Baby Jesus we should be shouting, and with each shout the joy of His coming increases in our hearts.  If we shout it loud enough and long enough, all the world will come to hear our proclamation.  And then each man and woman will have to make the most important decision of his or her life—whether to accept Jesus as Savior or not.  It is a fateful decision that will determine where each one of us will spend eternity.  Please accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  If you do, I will get to greet you one day in eternity.