The history of God’s chosen people Israel as recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible is filled with tragedy. Nowhere are the disastrous consequences of offending a holy God and incurring His wrath seen more clearly than when His people embraced the worship of idols with all of their attending symbols and rituals. Yahweh warned His people in the clearest language of the consequences of embracing the worship of the gods of the people whose lands they were going in to conquer.

Yahweh said to Moses, “... this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will come upon them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have come upon us?’ But I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods.”

With many such warnings, on many different occasions, the people were warned of the consequences of embracing the worship of other gods. There is clearly the practice of much idolatry in the church today, and the results have been the same. Even as Yahweh testified that He would hide His face from His people who entered into idolatry, so too has Yahweh hidden His face from many in this hour. Few are the saints who hear the voice of the Spirit of Christ, for the Holy Spirit will not inhabit a temple that is filled with idols.

As prophesied here, days of the greatest evil are soon to fall upon the nations, and many will find that in a time when they need to hear from God the most that He will hide His face from them as a judgment against their idolatrous lives.

Then Joshua said to the people, "You will not be able to serve Yahweh, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. If you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you."

Tragically, the history of Israel revealed in Scripture shows that the people did the very thing that Yahweh warned them against. Time after time the people embraced the images and rituals of the pagan deities worshiped by the people around them and God always brought judgment upon them. Then the people would repent and put away their idolatrous images and return for a time to a single devotion to Yahweh. Yet the history of Israel reveals that the times of idolatrous mixture were much more frequent than the brief period of pure devotion to Yahweh.

After the nation of Israel split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, we never read of a single king of Israel whose heart was purely devoted to God. Jeroboam was the first king of the ten northern tribes and he immediately led the people into idolatry as he set up altars at Dan and Bethel. Because of their gross idolatry having provoked Yahweh to jealousy, Israel suffered many things. Her land was invaded. Her people were enslaved and made to pay severe taxes to foreigners. Her crops were stolen by marauding bands. Famines plagued the land. And ultimately the entire nation was given into the hands of the Assyrians and carried off into exile.

The Southern Kingdom knew some godly kings, and many of them served Yahweh and sought to honor him. Even among these godly kings, however, there was rarely any time when all idolatry was removed from the land. In fact, there were only three kings who ever ruled over God’s people whose hearts were zealous for Yahweh and who acted with jealousy on His behalf so that His jealousy would not burn toward the people. These three kings were David, Hezekiah and Josiah.

David was a man after God’s heart. He loved Yahweh with a purity that was never exceeded by any other king, and God has given him a name of renown unto this day. As the writers of the Old Testament wrote of the histories of the kings of Israel and Judah they used phrases repeatedly that made comparison of the kings with King David. What was compared was the reigning king’s devotion to Yahweh. In the following verses we see this comparison made.

Abijam became king over Judah... He walked in all the sins of his father which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to Yahweh his God, like the heart of his father David.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of Yahweh his God, as his father David had done.

Because David served God with a whole heart God made many wonderful promises to him. In the same way God has given many promises to the saints today who follow Him with a whole heart. These same promises are not for the mass of professing Christians. They are reserved for the overcomers in Christ. These magnificent promises are for those who are devoted to Christ in purity and who are not chasing after the idols of the world.

Most Christians today have made some compromise with the world. Oftentimes they are not even aware of the compromise for they have not invited the Holy Spirit of Christ to examine them and reveal if there be any wicked way in them. David made such an invitation to God, as revealed in the following verse.

Oftentimes our relationship to God is revealed more in the things we have omitted than in the things we do. Much of what Christians do today is the result of tradition and the influence of other professing believers around us. Yet if we only go as far as those whom we observe in our devotion to Christ, and we do not press on any further, then it is certain that we will fall short of Yahweh’s desire for us. We must all press in ourselves. We must demonstrate our love for God by manifesting initiative in our pursuit of Him. We must ask Him to reveal everything that is not pleasing to Him and to lead us in the path of righteousness. This is how Yahshua taught His disciples to pray.

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Holy is Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'”

As familiar as this Scripture passage is, it is my experience that there are few Christians who have ever considered what it is Yahshua was teaching His disciples here. Some key parts of this prayer are:

Yahshua is teaching His disciples that we can only properly relate to God as we understand that He is holy. He is pure righteousness. He is all light with no darkness. In Him is no variation or shadow of evil, sin or wickedness.

If we understand this then we will readily acknowledge that in heaven there is nothing profane or unholy. There are no idolatrous images in the presence of the holy God. In the same way there should be no idolatrous images in our lives, for the Scriptures declare to the saints that it is the will of God that we be holy even as He is holy.

It is an awesome invitation for any saint to ask God that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Certainly our Lord had it in mind when teaching His disciples how to pray that man was created of the dust of the earth, and this invitation for God’s will to be done on earth is directly focused upon establishing the kingdom of God in the earth. Yahshua also told His disciples the following:

"The kingdom [literally - reign] of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."

When Yahshua taught His disciples to pray He was in effect instructing them to invite God to establish His perfect reign in their lives even as He reigns perfectly in heaven. We are given a pattern and a parable of the attempts of God’s chosen people to establish the reign of God in the earth as we look to the history of Israel and Judah under her kings. Most of those who were chosen to serve as spiritual parables to the saints today were outright idolaters. Although they would oftentimes mention Yahweh and pay Him lip-service, their hearts were far from Him. They loved the world and the things in it.

There were only a few, three to be exact, who received the commendation of having followed Yahweh with a whole heart. A much larger number fell into a middle ground where they had some devotion to God, but they did not fully commit themselves to following Him with passion and jealousy. As we read of some of these kings who are revered to this day, we find that God did not find them perfect and He assigned a statement to follow the record of their devotion, and this statement holds much meaning for the saints today.

[Amaziah] did right in the sight of Yahweh, yet not like David his father... the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

[Azariah] did right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

[Jotham] did what was right in the sight of Yahweh; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

Over and over we read that there were kings who sought to serve God, and who followed Him to a great degree, but who fell short of that standard of holiness that Yahweh desired. After all was said and done, and the Holy Spirit inspired men to write about their works, a caveat was added at the end of their testimony that revealed a deficiency in their obedience. They did not remove the high places.

No Christian should think that these things were recorded without purpose. These things were written for the instruction of the church. These things were written as examples of us (I Corinthians 10). As we read about the lives of these kings of Israel and Judah we are to discern things about the condition of the lives of the saints of God who are called to be a nation of kings and priests unto their God.

In the same way that there were many who were called from among God’s chosen people to be kings unto Him, yet whose lives were marked with idolatry, so too are there many among the saints who live lies of great idolatry. Though they be known as the called of God, and though they associate themselves with the name of Christ, they follow after all the gods of the people in whose midst they find themselves.

There is a lesser number who seek to separate themselves from the idolatry of the world. These ones remove from their midst all the idols of the world that appear detestable in their sight. They are devoted to Yahweh to a greater degree than some, but they still fall short of the desire of God. Perhaps no king of the Old Testament came closer to Yahweh’s perfect will, while still falling short, than King Asa. We read of him the following:

Now when Asa heard these words and the prophecy which Azariah the son of Oded the prophet spoke, he took courage and removed the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He then restored the altar of Yahweh which was in front of the porch of Yahweh... He also removed Maacah, the mother of King Asa, from the position of queen mother, because she had made a horrid image as an Asherah, and Asa cut down her horrid image, crushed it and burned it at the brook Kidron. But the high places were not removed from Israel...

Asa came so close to doing the perfect will of God, yet he too fell short in removing the high places of idolatrous worship. What does this signify for the Christian today? We can gain understanding as we examine the words of this Scripture. We are told that Asa removed “the abominable idols” from the land. We also read that he cut down the “horrid image” that his mother had set up, and consequently removed her from all position of honor due to her sin. These were tremendous steps of obedience that surely cost him personally, and were a trial to accomplish. To his credit he obeyed Yahweh to this extent and his deeds were forever recorded.

Why then did the high places remain untouched? These too were places of idolatry, and an offense to a holy God. Yahweh desired that they be removed as much as all the other symbols of idolatrous worship. The reason was that to Asa and the people these high places did not have the appearance of being “abominable” and “horrid.” The people were not offended by the blatant nature of the high places. The high places had stood for a long time, and they were constructed by one of the most revered kings of Israel, King Solomon. Even when other kings had instituted reforms and a return to devotion to Yahweh, the high places had been left untouched, and it therefore seemed acceptable to purge all that was idolatrous from the land while leaving these high places intact.

Does the church in any way commit a similar error today? Are there symbols of idolatry that are an offense to a holy God that the people of God are not offended by? Are there high places among Christianity that have withstood numerous revivals and reformations while being left intact? Surely there are, and uncloaking their identity will reveal the reason that Christians have so much trouble separating themselves from them.