This Mountain
Mark 11:23
For truly I say to you, That whoever shall say to this mountain, Be you removed, and be you cast into the sea…


"This mountain," which Christ promised His disciples power to remove, and which in after years they did most effectually remove, was the holy mount on which the Hebrew temple once stood, but which is now crowned with churches and a mosque. He saw that even the Jewish religion was waxing old and ready to vanish away. And yet how impossible it seemed that they, a few simple and unlettered men, with no force but their faith in Him, should achieve this mighty task. The whole world, heathen and Hebrew, was against them: the unbroken power of Rome, the unsurpassed wisdom of the Greeks, the ancient philosophies and hereditary customs of the unchanging East, the fierce barbarism of the North, the jealous and tenacious bigotry of the Jews; the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, the pride and splendour of life; all to which men leaned with all the weight of habit, tradition, and inclination. And yet, in a few years, all these mighty forces went down before the power of faith; and, where they still survive, their doom is written on them in characters which it takes no prophet to read. All this the disciples had to believe before, as yet, any jot of it had come to pass. Their faith in God, and in the redeeming purpose of His love, was to be their sole warrant and evidence that the temple, with all which it symbolized, was to pass away; that "this mountain," with all its pile of sacred fabrics, all its weight of sacred memories, was to be cast into the sea; and that the world, banded in an apparently impregnable unity against them, was nevertheless to be overcome. And in this faith they both destroyed the temple and conquered the world.

(S. Cox, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

WEB: For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and doesn't doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says.




Mountain Removed
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