All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the\u00a0<\/span>Lord<\/span>\u00a0their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods\u00a0<\/span>8<\/b><\/a><\/span>and followed the practices of the nations the\u00a0<\/span>Lord<\/span>\u00a0had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.<\/span>9<\/b><\/a><\/span>The Israelites secretly did things against the\u00a0<\/span>Lord<\/span>\u00a0their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns.\u00a0<\/span>10<\/b><\/a><\/span>They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.\u00a0<\/span>11<\/b><\/a><\/span>At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the\u00a0<\/span>Lord<\/span>\u00a0had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that aroused the\u00a0<\/span>Lord<\/span>\u2019s anger.\u00a0<\/span>12<\/b><\/a><\/span>They worshiped idols, though the\u00a0<\/span>Lord<\/span>\u00a0had said, \u201cYou shall not do this.\u201d<\/span>b<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(ancient high place used for worship)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Why a high place?<\/h4>\n
They built on the highest parts of mountains to tap into unseen power.
\nThey erected “antenna” to communicate with the gods of their own making.
\nThey knew that the high ground was a prime location in their pursuit of more of everything they desired.
\nThey sacrificed their time, energy, blood, sweat, effort, animals and sometimes their children \u00a0to get the upper hand the mountain high places could provide.<\/p>\nSo do we. Yes?<\/p>\n
(A child sacrificed and handed over\u00a0to the god of our times?)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n On our high places we build towers to better our lives that would look like religious shrines to anyone one who stumbled on them millennia later.<\/p>\n
And aren’t they, really?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(21st Century high place)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/h2>\n
Tech is certainly our Baal.<\/h2>\n
Instant access and fast communication are two of\u00a0gods we love.<\/p>\n
We love access to the internet, high speed wifi, speedy download times, cable or digital tv, reliable mobile phone service.<\/p>\n
And we need our high places for all that.<\/p>\n
It seems we don’t have moral superiority on this.
\n<\/strong>
\nThe ancients aren’t more foolish or more gullible than us…not as we may\u00a0suppose they are.<\/p>\nCouldn’t the ancients accuse us of the same sorts of categorical trappings and devotions?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It\u00a0is humbling.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Verse for reflection:<\/p>\n
John 4:23<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.\u00a0<\/span>24<\/a><\/span>“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” -Jesus<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…we don’t have moral superiority on idolatry and gods compared to the Ancients. Here’s why:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5626,76],"tags":[5362,205,223,3807,4378,5325,6441,4941,6439,633,765,3821,1001,4377,1090,5928,1242,1246,4510,1472,6440,1750,1763,1819,4459,4652,2077,2241,4504,2272,2314,2367,2459,2521,3982,4798,6040,3851,4433,6442,3178,3256,5333,3421,4075,4475,3711,91],"class_list":["post-14798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spark-my-muse","category-spirituality","tag-access","tag-ancient","tag-animals","tag-baal","tag-be","tag-best","tag-cell-towers","tag-child","tag-child-sacrifice","tag-children","tag-communication","tag-digital","tag-divine","tag-do","tag-egypt","tag-everything","tag-fast","tag-father","tag-foolish","tag-god","tag-high-places","tag-idolatry","tag-in","tag-israel","tag-israelites","tag-king","tag-love","tag-mobile-phone","tag-moral","tag-mountains","tag-nations","tag-not","tag-pagan","tag-people","tag-pharaoh","tag-power","tag-practices","tag-religious","tag-sacred","tag-shrines","tag-spirit","tag-stones","tag-tech","tag-things","tag-true","tag-unseen","tag-will","tag-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14798"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14833,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions\/14833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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