“And he (Jehoshaphat) walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the LORD: nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places.” (1 Kg. 22:43)
God’s people are very susceptible to creating our own personal high places that we don’t see as a problem in our lives, while it actually stands in direct opposition to God’s word. These high places can take many forms in our lives and hearts, and your secret high place might look different than mine. Regardless of what form it takes, God’s word upholds that any high places that detract from singular devotion and worship of God, anything that detracts from obedience to the greatest commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, is something that needs to be purged from our hearts and purged from our lives. We see examples in the Old Testament of incomplete obedience, a willingness to purge out some high places but to allow others to remain. We need to allow the Lord to search our hearts and give us clarity of any high places in our lives that are restricting us from singular devotion to Jesus Christ.
The high places in the Old Testament were for pagan worship and idolatry, open air shrines to pagan gods, primarily on the tops of mountains or hills. The high places were originally practiced by the Canaanites, the previous inhabitants of the promised land. The high places at their core were a place for personal idolatry. They might not exercise idolatry or pagan worship openly in the streets for everyone to see, but they would go alone up to the hills to exercise idolatry in a more secretive manner by themselves. I doubt any of us are carrying around a graven image in our pocket or have a graven idol as a centerpiece in our homes. However, we are susceptible to go up to our own personal high place and exercise our idolatry in secret. There are no doubt areas in all our lives that we have self-justified and hidden away as a high place for personal idolatry. It should also not be overlooked that Satan is characterized as working spiritual wickedness in “high places” (Eph. 6:12). These high places are institutions of the world and Satan, not of the Lord. Instead, we are called to press into the “high place of Zion”, unto the mountain in the tops of the mountains (Isaiah 2:2).
There is no one that is above falling in our faithfulness, as we are taught by Solomon’s falling away into pagan idolatry (1 Kings 11). It’s a sobering thought that the high places were originally created by Solomon because of his arrogance to disobey God’s commandment to not marry foreign wives. He followed the exact slippery slope that the Lord warned against in making this commandment against intermarriage with pagans. Solomon compromised the command of God which led him ultimately towards personal idolatry in appeasing his 1,000 pagan wives to create a high place for each of their false, pagan gods. Despite Solomon’s past amazing wisdom and devotion to God, he was the original offender in the creation of these high places to appease his wives. Let us be vigilant because we could also fall from steadfast devotion to create our own personal high places that can even corrupt many generations to come.
This sin of the high places escalated under the next king, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Under his reign there were high places and images and groves “on every hill, and under every tree” (1 Kg. 14:23). This is unfortunately a common pattern as well, that the sins of the father often escalate in the son’s generation, and we see that with the escalation of high places under Rehoboam to every hill and even under every tree in Judah. What the father establishes as acceptable is escalated even more egregiously by the children, as the sinful action becomes socially and morally acceptable. Let us never forget how our mistakes today can escalate and hinder the next generation so much more than we probably realize or grasp.
In the reign of Asa, maybe 40 years after Solomon set up the high places, now a whole generation had become used to these high places as just a way of life or part of their tradition or culture. Asa was a good king who did some good things. He took out the idols of his fathers (1 Kg. 15:12), took down altars to strange gods and some high places, and broke down images and cut down groves (2 Chr. 14:3). It says that he “took away the high places” (2 Chr. 14:3), but it also says the “high places were not removed from Israel” (2 Chr. 15:17, 1 Kg. 15:14). In spite of the high places not being fully removed, the Lord still reaffirms that Asa’s heart was perfect with the Lord all his days (1 Kg. 15:14).
Either Asa did not see the problems with the high places, or they had become so ingrained in tradition or culturally or socially acceptable, that he did not wish to spend the political capital to do the right thing to tear the high places down fully. In like manner, it might be easy for us to be willing to put away what we perceive as the egregious sins, but yet self-justify in our own minds that our personal high places are acceptable, even though they are contrary to God’s word.
Then, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, who was Asa’s son, we see yet another good king with incomplete obedience regarding the high places. Jehoshaphat is said to have taken away the high places and groves (2 Chr. 17:6, 19:3). However, we also find that the “high places were not removed and the people still burned incense in the high places” (1 Kg. 22:43, 2 Chr. 20:23). There are many lessons here regarding parenting, leadership, and acceptance. For whatever reason, Asa was not willing to fully remove all the high places. But then, his son, Jehoshaphat, developed a mindset from his father that these high places were acceptable, and followed in his father’s footsteps in incomplete obedience to God, rather than fully purging the high places from Judah.
It can be easy to view “someone else’s” high place in their life as grossly sinful, but to have a blind spot towards “our own personal” high places that we have justified in our own minds, from either tradition, cultural acceptance, or just an unwillingness to repent. No high places are acceptable in our lives. No place of idolatry or exaltation of something other than God is acceptable in our lives. It might be easy to purge out some of the more socially egregious things – just like these kings did in removing sodomy, defilement of the temple, and other very public sins. However, at the same time, they self-justified their own personal high places were acceptable and left what they preferred. Therein lies the hypocrisy, and we do not want to be disobedient hypocrites like these kings who self-justified their own partial obedience. We need to sincerely ask ourselves and pray for God to show us what our personal high places are that we have self-justified or purposefully ignored, and purge them out in obedience to God
During the reign of Jehoram, he was influenced by the wicked ways of the kings of Israel, such as Ahab, because he married Ahab’s daughter (2 Kg. 8:18, 2 Chr. 21:6,13). Jehoshaphat was a good king, but he made a foolish league with Ahab, Israel’s wicked king who was married to Jezebel. Because the father was too friendly with a wicked man such as Ahab, Jehoshaphat’s son (Jehoram) was married to Ahab’s daughter (Athaliah) to secure the league between the two nations. Jehoram ultimately was influenced to set up worship for pagan gods because of his wicked wife (Athaliah) and in-laws (Ahab and Jezebel). This is yet another example of the peril of why God’s commanded to not intermarry with pagans (unbelievers). Because of the father’s mistake in having too close of fellowship with an ungodly family, and not stopping but even offering up the marriage of his son to secure a political alliance, a good man ultimately contributed to the spiritual decline of his son and all of Judah because of his disobedience of God’s word. (Keep in mind that Jeroboam set up golden calves and high places for idolatry in the northern kingdom of Israel that were never removed, and they only had wicked kings.) Therefore, because of these ungodly influences around him, Jehoram made high places in the mountains of Judah (2 Chr. 21:11).
During the reign of Joash, he was quite faithful during the lifetime of Jehoiada, his uncle. Joash, led by Jehoiada the priest, had all the people of Israel tear down the house of Baal and all the altars and images of Baal (2 Kg. 11:18-19, 2 Chr. 23:17). He commands the priests to repair the house of God to its former state and to restore the holy vessels (2 Kg. 12:4-16, 2 Chr. 24:4-14). Jehoiada orders the service of the priests, porters, etc. for the house of God (2 Chr. 23:18-20). Despite all these good societal reforms, the high places were not removed and the people still burned incense at the high places (2 Kg. 12:3). Yet another good king and good man (for most of his rule until Jehoiada died), who did good things and purged out a lot, but was blinded or complacent to remove the high places.
Then, we have another string of mostly good kings who also chose to ignore the high places. Amaziah did the same as his father, Joash, and worshipped the gods of the children of Seir (Edomites) and worshipped them as his gods and burnt incense to them (2 Chr. 25:14,20). The high places were not taken away as yet the people did sacrifice and burn incense in the high places (2 Kg. 14:4). Uzziah (Azariah) did good in the sight of God (2 Kg. 15:3), but the high places were not removed, and the people sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places (2 Kg. 15:4). Jotham did good in the sight of God like his father Uzziah (2 Kg. 15:34), but the high places were not removed and the people sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places (2 Kg. 15:35)
Under the reign of Ahaz, the pagan worship and sin escalated again. They worshipped in the false manner of the kings of Israel (2 Kg. 16:3), made molten images of Baalim (2 Chr. 28:2), sacrificed his children to Molech (2 Chr. 28:3), and did all the abominations of the Canaanites which God drove out of the land (2 Kg. 16:3). The people sacrificed and burnt incense in the high place, in the hills, and under every green tree (2 Kg. 16:4, 2 Chr. 28:4) and in every single city of Judah (2 Chr. 28:25).
King Hezekiah led a great revival in repairing the house of the Lord, reinstituting the Passover, and commanding the Levites to begin to teach the law of God again (2 Chr. 30). Hezekiah finally fully tore down the high places and images and groves out of all the land (2 Kg. 18:4, 2 Chr. 31:1). By this time, the high places had been commonplace in Judah for over 200 years after being originally set up by Solomon. Think about that. In over 200 years something that was grossly sinful and rebellious to the commands of a holy God had become so culturally accepted that essentially no king – even very godly and devoted kings – saw it as bad enough to fully purge from the land. Oh how we can become blinded to our own pet peeves and high places that we can self-justify in our minds!
Then, when the son of Hezekiah took control, Manasseh reversed course yet again and built back the high places which Hezekiah had destroyed (2 Kg. 21:3). Manasseh repented later in his life as evidenced by his penitential prayer (2 Chr. 33:13-19) and did many great religious reforms. However, the people still sacrificed in the high places, but they sacrificed unto God only (2 Chr. 33:17). Yet another godly man (later in his life), who removed many of the wicked things out of the land but allowed the high places to remain. It does note that they did sacrifice only unto God in those high places. However, due to cultural stigma of the high places, it would have been better to fully remove the high places than to use them to worship Jehovah God.
Then, in the reign of Josiah, he purged out all the high places, groves, and molten images (2 Chr. 34:3-8). He burned all the vessels of Baal and the groves and the graven images that were in the temple (2 Kg. 23:4,6,14) and killed all the false priests in Judah (2 Kg. 23:5), and also in Israel. He tore down all the high places in Judah (2 Kg. 23:8,13), and he even tore down the altar and high places and grove that were set up by Jeroboam (2 Kg. 23:15,19) in the northern kingdom – even though Israel was already in Assyrian captivity by this time (there must have still been some priests conducting the false worship, 2 Kg. 23:20). It had been over 60 years since the high places were re-instituted by Manasseh, when they were removed by Josiah.
It’s great that Josiah finally fully purged the land of the high places, but he was the last godly king before the beginning of the first Babylonian exile in 605BC. God told Josiah he would tarry judgment for the remainder of his life and his son’s brief reign, but only 5 years after Josiah died, the Jews had their first Babylonian exile. Therefore, the high places were commonplace all throughout the history of Judah for over 300 years, except for 2 brief purgings in the reign of Hezekiah and Josiah.
There are quite a few needful lessons I believe we can glean from this history of high places among God’s people. First of all, if we ever compromise the word of God – like Solomon did in marrying foreign, pagan wives in disobedience to God’s law – we can have catastrophic generational impacts for the following generations to view sin as acceptable through tradition that we established and allowed. For over 300 years, God’s people viewed sin as acceptable with only 2 men seeing a real problem with it. Even many good kings and godly men who are commended as doing right in the sight of God still refused to fully purge out the high places. Instead, a few removed some high places, but not all of them. They left their own personal preferences high places, while purging out some of the more socially egregious sins and some of the high places. We are all so prone to see the problem with “someone else’s high places”, but then self-justify that our own “personal high places” are acceptable. Any place in our lives or heart that removes worship from God and places worship on something else, is a high place that needs to be purged out in our lives.
This might seem like an Old Testament lesson and problem that is not relevant to us today. However, in the concluding verse of 1st John, the very last thought and concluding concern of the Apostle John for his readers, was for them to be vigilant to keep themselves from idols. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21) The high places at their core were a place for personal idolatry. Like our predecessors, I’m sure none of us would exercise idolatry openly in the streets for everyone to see. I doubt any of us are carrying around a graven image in our pocket or have a graven idol as a centerpiece in our homes. However, we are susceptible to go up to our own personal, private high place and exercise our idolatry in secret. Let us let the word of God have its perfect work in us, and purge our hearts of any high places, both seen and unseen.