Tear Down the High Places!

While reading the books of Kings, one thing becomes appparent – there were more kings that inherited the evil of their Fathers, then were that inherited the good. At first glance, it would appear that evil is a much stronger force in a blood line than good!

However, we should never just take one glance at a thing – we need to look closely before we make judgement calls. One thing that becomes apparent to me when reading of the Kings that did good was many of them went against Baal, but they would not tear down the high places and the people still were able to offer burnt offerings to idol gods. Just pronouncing that a thing is evil, and still allowing symbols of that evil to continue will not eradicate that evil!

In 2 Kings 23: 15 we read how Josiah went further than all his predecessors in eradicating evil:

15 Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also

So many of our leaders, secular and relgious will say as for me, I don’t believe in… or I would never do… and yet won’t go to those high places and tear them down, even when it is in their ability to do so. Even as parents, we see “evil” coming into our homes in the form of secular things, things that go against not only the Word of God, but the Spirit of God that we know, and we look the other way as they boldly come into our homes, and we wonder why evil rules.

19 Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed and defiled all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria that had provoked the LORD to anger. 20 Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 Not since the days of the judges who led Israel, nor throughout the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, had any such Passover been observed. 23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem.

24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the LORD. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

23: 19-25 (NIV)

Remember, it’s not over, until it’s all over!
Maria