What Are Your High Places?
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 3 viewsNotes
Transcript
Read Scripture and you’ll find that God really doesn’t like “high places”.
I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you.
So what is the big deal with “High Places”?
You remember that commandment about idols?
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
High places were where people setup their idols.
In other words, places to worship.
Rather, God had established His tabernacle as the place where people were to worship.
Even Solomon, who built the original temple, had an issue with high places.
Meanwhile the people sacrificed at the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.
While there was no temple at the time of this verse,
The problem with high places is not their height, but the fact that the people go there to worship.
Solomon builds this beautiful temple.
But after his death, Solomon’s son acts like a spoiled child, the Israel and Judah split.
The temple is in Judah, so Jeroboam, the king of Israel, decides he needs places for his people to worship.
Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!”
He made shrines on the high places, and made priests from every class of people, who were not of the sons of Levi.
After making a couple of golden calves,
(Where have we heard that before…)
Jeroboam makes shrines on the high places.
Places for the people to worship the idols Jeroboam had created.
Jeroboam wasn’t unique,
Every time Israel had a bad king, they would build high places,
And most of the times Judah had a good king, the one thing they wouldn’t do is take down the high places.
You may be wondering what’s the big deal,
We don’t have high places today....
Except we do.
Pamela and I were watching a program about British royalty,
And how they keep burying them in Westminster Abbey.
Then there was all the news about the fire at the Notre Dame cathedral.
And don’t forget how many people regard the Vatican as holy ground.
All of these are high places.
Places where people go to worship.
Even this building, much humbler than those I’ve already mentioned, can be for some a high place.
A place specifically for worship,
Where we act differently than we do other places.
For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images.
Do we provoke God to anger with our high places?
Do we treat this building, or any other, as our high place,
Like the Rabshakeh, who thinks power and rightness come from our high places?
“But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?” ’
This morning, like just about every other morning,
I got up, took a shower, made coffee, then sat on my front porch swing to drink my coffee and read the Bible.
Does that make it a high place?
It could be,
If that was where I worshiped God.
Or if I made an idol out of my Bible reading.
While it is my habit, even a ritual, I do not idolize by Bible reading.
I enjoy it, I even look forward to it, but I try very had to make sure I do not idolize it.
As if I gain points with God for doing so.
So what are the high places in your life?
Not just the places you call holy, but the sacred acts and traditions you follow?
Look at the lesson God taught Elijah
Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Just as the Israelites kept looking for some tangible thing to represent God, which led them to make the golden calves,
We try to understand God, often leading us to build temples to match His grandeur, which of course we can’t.
We search for grand accomplishments, or grand revelations.
Which is why some worship great preachers or evangelists.
But they are just men.
We look for the strong wind, the earthquake, and the fire,
But God is not there.
He is in the still small voice, waiting for us to listen to Him.
How often are we distracted from the truth by the grand?
Does that mean that grand cathedrals and crusades are evil?
Does it mean that dedicated “church” buildings and traditions are evil?
No, because it is not the fact that the place is high that makes it evil, but what makes it a high place.
He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places.
Why would God place the psalmist on his high places?
Because, like so many things in this world, it is not the object that is evil, but the heart behind it.
Who is the master and who is the subject?
Building a structure as a place to gather and worship is not evil, as long as God is the master of it.
But when we worship the structure, or the attendance, or the offering, then it becomes a high place.
Because the master is not God, but the building or event.
When our traditions become the focus of our worship, rather than the one those traditions were meant to honor, then this becomes our high place.
Because the focus is on our traditions rather than God.
It makes me wonder, just how many faithful church goers will enter heaven.
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
How many in the church lust for power or position?
How many live for the flesh rather than God?
Just how many have exchanged the truth of God for the worlds wisdom?
The lusts of acceptance, feminism, political correctness, and being seeker friendly?
How many “good church goers” will stand face to face with our Lord and have this conversation?
then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’
How many have joined us, taught us, even broken biscuits with us, but Jesus would say they never knew him?
The thing about “high places” is their substitution for God often leads one to think they are following Jesus when what they are truly following is an idol they have made of Him.
Their own version of a golden calf.
In my experience, the most common high place people make is not a cathedral or ceremony,
But their own expectations.
How often have you heard people say, “God wouldn’t do that”, or “Why did God let that happen?”
How often have people rejected the plain reading of Scripture because it didn’t match what they had been taught, or their own preconceived notions of God and how He works?
Conclusion
Conclusion
High places seem to sneak up on people. They learn something, then elevate it to a high place.
It could be just about anything.
Nothing bad can happen to a christian.
God helps those who help themselves.
God keeps attendance, or he keeps track of your giving.
It’s not necessarily that what they have learned is wrong,
But when we worship our understanding of God, we’ve created a high place in our own hearts.
Of all the high places we create, the ones in our heart are the hardest for us to recognize.
So be on the look out for high places in your life,
But don’t let that search become it’s own high place.
Simply ask yourself, what is more important,
My church,
My tradition,
My habit,
My understanding,
Or the God who created all of these things.
Or as Paul put it,
Do you worship the creature or the creator.
For as great as Solomon was, we do not want to emulate him in this fashion.
And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.