In one word: abstraction.
A simple example: the well known Hello World console print out.
In Java:
class HelloWorld{}
public static void main(String[] args){}
system.out.println("Hello World");
In Assembler:
.data
out: .asciiz "Hallo Welt"
.text
main: li $v0, 4
la $a0, out
syscall
li $v0, 10
syscall
High level programming languages are more intuitive to use.
Also regarding to secutity high level languages are safer.