The High PlacesTHE HIGH PLACES The Bible has a lot to say about "The High Places" where the inhabitants of the Land of Canaan lived, and worshipped their false gods. See (Deut 12:2) to see the instructions God gave to His people Israel before they entered the "Promised Land of Canaan". The tribes who lived there at the time Abraham first visited were very wicked followers of many false gods that they chose to worship them "upon the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree". When God's people moved into this Promised Land, they did not obey God's command to destroy completely these tribes, and they started to follow them in worshipping their Idols in the same way. When we study the history of the reign of the kings of Israel and Judah for example in (2 Kings 12:1-3) we see that Joash was one of their better Kings, yet he "did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there". Of course this made Jehovah the true God an

THE HIGH PLACES

 

The Bible has a lot to say about “The High Places” where the inhabitants of the Land of Canaan lived, and worshipped their false gods. See (Deut 12:2) to see the instructions God gave to His people Israel before they entered the “Promised Land of Canaan”. The tribes who lived there at the time Abraham first visited were very wicked followers of many false gods that they chose to worship them “upon the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree”. When God’s people moved into this Promised Land, they did not obey God’s command to destroy completely these tribes, and they started to follow them in worshipping their Idols in the same way. When we study the history of the reign of the kings of Israel and Judah for example in (2 Kings 12:1-3) we see that Joash was one of their better Kings, yet he “did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there”. Of course this made Jehovah the true God angry with them, and eventually led to the dispersion of them by their enemies to Assyria and Babylon.

 

Derek Prince declares that even today the “church” still have their “high places”. According to him the only proper place to worship God is described in the NT in (Matt 18:20), in the NLT version it reads “For where two or three gather as my followers, I am there among them”. But Derek says the proper understanding of the Greek would sound like “Where two or three are led together by the Holy Spirit, I am there among them”. He claims it is the Holy Spirit who leads us based on Paul’s statement in (Rom 8:14) “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God”. In other words the proper place to truly worship God is where two or three born again children of God are led together by the Holy Spirit of God.

 

Derek believes there are 3 wrong bases for worshipping God; they are 1/ the basis of nationality, 2/ the basis of a particular doctrine, and 3/ the basis of loyalty to a specific human leader. Some churches were considered as being part of a certain nation and were called state churches, such as “The Church of England”, or “The Church of Scotland” etc. And of course many churches are known by their particular denominational name, such as Baptist or Catholic etc. And then other churches are known as followers of a certain preacher or leader. In Derek’s mind these would all be examples of “High Places” where we worship today, that he considers as similar to the high places that we considered from the OT examples. Whether you agree with Derek or not, I think he makes a good point and this we should give some consideration to. We do know that when we worship Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Father is pleased, and we enjoy His presence!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                                    31/01/14