More Instruction and Guidance (March 17)

Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods...

...burn their Asherah poles in the fire...

You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit...

Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please...

you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.  The Lord you God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul...

...and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town...

...so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands...

                           From Deuteronomy 12, 13 & 14 NIV

God is jealous.  He wants us to be singleminded to him.  As a result, destruction of high places and burning of Asherah poles are commanded.

Asherah, from a Bible dictionary is a fertility goddess to the Phoenicians and Canaanites, the mother of Baal.  The wooden object, the pole, stood upright and was used in the worship of a goddess of the same name.  These poles were principally located in Samaria, Bethel and Jerusalem.

We have read, to get rid of idols.  Burning the poles and destroying the high places is an act of idol destruction.

We are not to do "as we see fit" with worship and sacarifice, but rather to honor God with worship as He has instructed us.

The word that comes to mind is a word heard in Jill's class about 2 years ago, it is a form of the word scandal, it is an early Greek form, the word is skandelon.  Webster's explains that it is the snare or the cause of moral stumbling.  Can you appreciate how God is protecting Israel by commanding that each skandelon, each Asherah pole is to be burned and each high place destroyed?  God is commanding to get rid of snares.

How are you thankful for instructions on worship, for a singlemindedness in worship?

Do you need to get rid of a skandelon, a snare, a stumbling block?

Pray for pastoral guidance as sermons are written that the Spirit speaks clearly and that hearts and minds are prepared for the word and that lives are changed by the transformational nature of God's word.

In Christ,


David P