High Places: A History Part 3

Why is it important to understand the ancient origins of the "high places?"  Because they have specific spiritual applications TODAY in our lives.  And, once you see the connections, it makes a HUGE difference in the way you think and behave in your life daily.  


I believe that most of us are spiritually aware enough to be able to make the connections once we have the knowledge.  So, here goes!  Let's look at some of the specific idols and false gods worshipped by our spiritual ancestors and why Yahweh warned against giving our hearts over to them.  


This is by no means a comprehensive list, and only superficial descriptions are recorded here.  But I believe there is enough information to get us started!

• Molech (MO-leck;  aka Moloch, Milcom, Tophet):  A derivation of the Canaanite word for "King."  Some say the term only refers to the pagan kings, but since most pagan kings considered themselves to be the incarnation of their gods in the flesh, this is still consistent.  
• A demon god worshipped to bring Power, victory, and knowledge.  To worship Molech/Moloch is to worship POWER.  
• Sometimes symbolized by an Owl but primarily symbolized by a man with a bull's head and horns.  His worship required living sacrifices, usually of first born babies, children, and virgins because of their purity.  Parents were forbidden to weep over their sacrificed children.  
• Is referenced in Leviticus 18 & 20, 2 Kings 23 and Jeremiah 32:35.

• Ashtoreth (aka:  Ishtar, Astarte,"the Evening Star", Aphrodite, Venus, Juno, Tanet, Tophet):  known as the "Queen of Heaven"  she embodies "Mother Nature:"  
• Some controversy arises with a small gnostic sect who consider Mary, the Mother of Jesus, to be a deity and refer to her as the Queen of Heaven, and "Sophia" (the female "wisdom" trait of God) who is also equated with the goddess Athena, goddess of wisdom.  Mary, Mary Magdalene and Sophia are considered to be the female goddess trinity equal to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  
• King Solomon worshipped "Sophia" at the "high place" of Ashtoreth 
• To worship Ashtoreth is to worship reproduction, womanhood, nature, and wisdom.
• A female warrior goddess closely associated with the worship of the Ba'al's who was worshipped to bring victory as well as fertility to people, livestock, and crops.  Her symbols were the lion, the dove, the horse, the sphinx and the star.  
• Her temples were usually filled with "temple prostitutes" both men and women, and worshippers were required to have sex with them in order to be blessed.  Orgies were not uncommon during festival seasons and to have intercourse with a temple prostitute was required and considered the same as achieving union with the goddess herself.  
• She also was often symbolized by an Owl but most of the time by a big breasted, very curvaceous female statue which people kept in their homes.  
• On her "high places" were phallic poles inscribed with incantations and praises to the goddess.  She is still worshipped today in occultic circles.  
• Referenced in 1 Sam 5:2 among others.

• Baal (aka: Merodach, Bel, Bael Zebub, Hadad ):  means "the Lord, Owner, or Master" in ancient semitic tongues;  
• considered to be a "King of Hell"; a demon god who was worshipped by pagans as the god of Rain &  Thunder, agriculture, and is sometimes also equated with Satan or "Lord of the Flies."  
• His cult symbol was the Bull or the Goat or a Fly.  
• He was son of Dagon, the god of grain in ancient Semitic cultures.  Dagon is referenced in 1 Sam 5:2.  
• The "Ba'al's" are referenced in Judges 2 & 10, 1 Samuel, 1 Kings, and Hosea among other places in the holy scriptures.  
• Often depicted by either a bull, a cat, a frog, or a crowned being with the legs of a spider.  (all these "familiars" are also associated with witchcraft today.)  
• Ba'al worship was supposed to bring prosperity and provision

Next time:  present day equivalents

Tess

High Places: A History

So, what is the origin of the term "high places?"

In ancient times, the pagan cultures who inhabited Canaan and the regions surrounding the "promised land" were consumed with worshipping idols and gods they had created to represent the forces of nature they did not understand and had no control over.

The prophet Isaiah, describing their process of worship and creating their idols put it this way:

" He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak; he secures it for himself amount the trees of the forest. he plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it....

Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it and warm himself; yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; 

indeed he makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image, and falls down to it.....

and no one considers in his heart, nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, 'I have burned half of it in the fire...and shall I make the rest of it an abomination?  Shall I fall down before a block of wood?' 

He feeds on ashes;

A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?' "     Isaiah 4414, 15, 19, 20

The "high places" were the elevated locations (hills, mountains) where the people would set up their carved idols and place an altar and sacrifice to their gods.  The sacrifices required were quite often the babies and children of the worshippers.  In some cases it was the strongest male or the virginal female who would be sacrificed.  Sometimes, "mini-idols" and places of prayer were set up under large trees in a flat area where people could easily step off the road to pray or place a gift or sacrifice.  We still see this practice today all over Asia, especially in India where they have hundreds of gods they still worship.  We also still see it all over Africa where Idols and their altars are placed on the tops of houses and they are called the "family gods."  Some of these represent ancestors to which the people still pray.

As time went by, they built grand temples and pyramids with altars on the top...man-made "high places" with a great fire at the bottom and a slide upon which they would put their children and roll them down into the fire to be consumed.  Yahweh declared these practices and the entire culture to be an abomination on the earth and strictly forbade the Israelites, the chosen ones, to interact, inter-marry, or to have anything to do with them.

His command was to come out and be separate from them, to keep stay pure and holy in God's sight.  He commanded them to utterly destroy every last vestige of these cultures when they were victorious in battle, so none of His chosen ones would be tempted to worship these false gods of wood and stone.

Next time:  specific gods/goddesses

Tess

Blessings & Curses: Going up to the High Places

“And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all  your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled. 

Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, lest the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.”

“For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do---to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him---then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves.  Every place on which the sole of your froot treads shall be yours, from the wilderness….even to the western sea…..No man shall be able to stand against you….

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.”  (Deuteronomy 11: 13-17, 22-25a, 26a” NKJV)

I love Deuteronomy. 

Though very ancient, its words are immediate, commanding, and precise.  As you read through Deuteronomy, notice the number of times you see the word “Today.”  As our loving Heavenly Father laid down these basic building blocks of relationship with Him, he was not interested in just the “process of sanctification” but the TODAY of decisions! 

This is such a powerful passage.  I have it highlighted and underlined several times over in my Bible.  I return to it again and again for it’s “bottom line” message…and one that my wandering heart needs to hear over and over.  

Some people, reading these passages with all the “commands” and “commandments” only hear God yelling at them. Think about that.  What are some of the reasons someone might feel God was yelling at them in this passage?  

We all have a filter, a lens that interprets what we read into emotion in our hearts. 

Stop right now and think about the shape of your heart lens…your emotional filters.  Identify things in your life, your thought processes, your personality, or your experiences that might somehow color or distort your interpretation of the scriptures.  These are so important to know, since they will strongly influence the Holy Spirit’s ability to give you revelation about His Truth, and your ability to have a “teachable spirit” and receive it as a fresh "word" from Him.

When I read this passage, I hear God’s strength and his great Love.  I see his strong arm coming down to draw a line in the sand as if to say:  “I’m trying to save your life here, beyond this line there is danger!  If you cross this line, you will be in trouble because there are consequences to these actions...

YOU DON’T KNOW ME…so I’m telling you who I AM and about my nature and character.  I LOVE YOU and I want you to love me from your heart, with all that is within you…and I’m trying to tell you how to show your love for me and keep a good relationship with me. 

But most of all, these things I’m telling you are for YOU!  These precepts will protect you, and prosper you, and give you a hope and a future in the land we will adventure to together.”

So as you read this passage, and as we journey to the high places together, remember that what you are learning and what God reveals to you in this process will have an immediacy.  TODAY is the day when you do something about it.  Today is the day of salvation.

Let's put this into a more relational context.  I once heard a teaching by a Messianic Jewish Rabbi regarding an ancient betrothal ceremony.  As I recall, he explained that when a man wanted to ask a young woman to be his wife that he or he and his Father, would go to the girl’s house with wine to ask for her hand in marriage.  They would sit at the table and he would pour two glasses of wine, one for himself, and one for the young lady.  He would place the chalice in front of her and wait. 

If the young lady picked up the chalice and drank from it, then he would also drink and he would complete the “troth” or covenant of betrothal.  From that time forward, he would begin the preparations to create a home for her and she would continue to live with her parents until the appointed day that the house was ready.  This process could take months, even years.    If she refused to drink from the cup, then the man would walk away and no covenant was made.  He offered, she was free to refuse.  But the relationship suffered or was broken.

But, if betrothal was made, when the house was ready and the wedding feast prepared, he and his friends would dress up in their finest and come to get her and bring her into his house where they would consummate the marriage pledge started oh, so long ago.  There would be much feasting and much wine and partying!

Read the scriptures above again.  With these words, God is setting the chalice before you and you must CHOOSE….will you accept his offer of betrothal?  Or will you walk away from the banquet He is preparing for you?   It’s as simple as that….and as challenging as that.  It is a covenant---sacred, immutable, and eternal.  It’s serious business.

The “commands” of our Father are there to help us come into a marriage relationship as the Bride of Christ.  They will help us stay pure and to have hearts that can receive Him when He comes to us…if we drink from the cup.

While it is impossible for us as human beings to be perfect, and we all struggle with sins both great and small on almost a daily basis, our loving Father is helping us in these passages to be better, to be MORE than we are on our own.

He is showing us important precepts to help us guard our hearts and to have hope and strength and relationship with Him….not based on WORKS, but for the LOVE OF HIM that we have in our hearts. 

This is Love He has given us from inside Himself when we choose to come into relationship with Jesus.  He puts this love in our hearts and then he cultivates it like a seed destined to grow into a flourishing plant yielding the fruit of His “agape” Love in our spirits and in our lives…TODAY! 

This journey upon which embark together today will take a few weeks to walk through, but in the end, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will reveal something fresh and new to you about your relationship with Him and your Life in Him. 

Some Jesus with your Latte...

This note is a little out of order.  I promised a note about "High Places."  But this came up in the interim and I wanted to process with you.  What have you experienced in your life with regard to allowing God to excavate your soul?  Read on....

I was reading an recent article in Christianity Today talking about Hipster Faith. I found it interesting in several ways, and began to process about how we see Jesus in these days.  

In the "Emerging Church" movement, it seems that many people are being drawn to Church and the Fellowship of the Saints, but it "feels" more like a "come have some Jesus with your Latte" instead of a "come take up your Cross and die daily" call to Faith.  This was the kind of faith I was raised on...down and dirty; no frills!

Now I realize that every generation must redefine how they worship for themselves.  But I wonder about a correlation with the Parable Jesus taught about the seed sewn along the path.  Some seed fell on hardened ground, some on stony, some on weed-choked terrain, and some on good soil.  The seeds on hard, stony, and weed infested soil did not grow deep roots or thrive, and some actually just died.  None of them really produced fruit that would last.

Are we refusing to allow the Holy Spirit to dig deep in our spirit?  To painfully till up our ground, gather up the hard rocks, kill the weeds, and break up our fallow ground?  Have we grown too busy, too distracted, too unconcerned, too eaten up with torpor to care?

When I was growing up, our family had a little garden in the back yard.  Oh how I lamented spending perfectly good Summer days pulling weeds, hoeing the beans, tomatoes, squash and such, when others were playing!  Then there was the getting all wet and sticky from watering the plants at sunset because our garden hose had a leak, and being bitten by every mosquito between the garden and the house when it was time to wander in for dinner.  Raising a garden was PAINFUL for a 10 year old!  (smiles!)  

But then, when it was dinner time, and we were all washed up, we would sit down at the table and throw down to the most delicious, lightly-salted, mouth-watering tomatoes, "just-strung" green beans (with a little bacon fat to flavor), freshly dug potatoes slathered in butter, and some chicken.  Ah...the fruits of our labor!  Most times, I didn't have dessert, but instead chose a second helping of veggies.    

Our garden was especially lush and we were still digging potatoes even after the frost had come in the Fall.  The apple tree whose roots went deep under the garden, also benefited from all the care we gave to our vegetables and produced many, many good apples.  We froze a lot of food and canned a lot ourselves...and that garden fed us all winter long.  It bore "much fruit."  

While I respect the "emerging church" movement for trying to breathe some life into stale American (and sometimes un-Biblical) Christianity, I think in a lot of ways it lacks depth.  It is a young movement....but where is the discipleship from spiritual mothers and fathers in the faith?  Where is our intensity and hunger for Jesus and for His Kingdom on this earth?  Where are our hearts?

Take a look at your own relationship with Father God.  Are you spending time alone with Jesus, face to face, searching His Word, seeking His beautiful Face, worshipping Him one on one?  Are you throwing down your heart at His throne and crying out to Him for your family, your church, your community, the world...and your own soul?  

Is the soil of your heart broken and open, or busy and stony and hard and weed-infested?  What kind of seed is being planted in your spirit?  FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC?  Just sayin'.....

Beloved of the Father, have you prostrated yourself before the Beautiful One to worship and adore Him, be nourished by Him, Loved by Him, and then to just "be" in His Presence and listen to what He would speak to your spirit?

These are not easy things to do.  They require effort and focus at first.  They require a sacrifice of pleasure and time and energy and "self."  And don't be surprised that as you do, there are things He will call you to lay down at the foot of His Cross in order to take up your own to truly follow Him...and that can be a very painful and incredibly wonderful process.

I challenge you:  Don't just fit Jesus in to your lifestyle.  Lay down yours to take up His.  Allow Him to dig up your "fallow" ground, throw out the rocks, kill the weeds, and go deep to turn up soil that hasn't seen the light of day (His Light) in a long time.  

Then, and only then will your soil be "broken" enough to allow roots from the seed He has planted there to grow deep and strong to nourish your shallow soul into richness, and to become more fruitful than you have ever been.  Being broken is painful, but fruitful.  

In one of my favorite songs, U2 sings:  "A mole digging in a hole, digging up my soul now, going down, excavation!  Higher now, in the sky, you make me feel like I could fly so high!  Elevation!"  I believe this describes the work of the Holy Spirit.  To go higher, you have to let God dig deeper.  

Are you willing to start that process?  To have more than a "little Jesus with your Latte?"

Next time:  High Places

Tess Cox