Deuteronomy 12: 1 – 9 “These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to follow all the days you live in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess. Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree. Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn up their Asherah poles, cut down the idols of their gods, and wipe out their names from every place. You shall not worship the LORD your God in this way.
Instead, you must seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go. To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks. There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the LORD your God has blessed you.
You are not to do as we are doing here today, where everyone does what seems right in his own eyes. For you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.”
Idols! The Promised Land is chock full of them! Over the years, the idols and altars have proliferated to the point that there is practically no high mountain or even a high hill that does not have some kind of altar or sacred pillar or Asherah pole. In a land where green trees are not always common, any large tree is also likely to shelter some kind of worship center in its shade.
Why is God demanding that the Israelites destroy all these worship places, and not only destroy the altars, the pillars, and the Asherah poles, but wipe things out so completely that even the very names of the local gods will be forgotten?
Evil attaches itself in any way that it can. These worship places have been used to serve demons and merely destroying the physical objects of worship will not rout the demons. God wants the Israelites to destroy and deface these places of demonic worship so completely that in the future, nobody will even remember that horrible sacrifices or fertility rites took place there.
APPLICATION: “Why does that baobab tree have white material tied around it?” we asked our friends. It was 1993 and we had just moved into our small northern Ghanaian village. On the way in, we had noticed a number of baobab trees with white material tied around them. Our friends explained that these were fetish trees and that the white material was an offering to the fetish represented by that particular tree. As time went on, we learned that there were small fetish shrines in several parts of our village. We also learned that just because a tree was cut down, did not mean that the demons that had attached themselves to that location were gone. One veteran missionary couple told of a field director for their mission who was fine until he moved into a mission house next to a fetish shrine. Suddenly this man became a petty tyrant, making some irrational decisions and even driving some missionaries off the field by his erratic behavior. In another case, a particular location in a northern Ghanaian town was the site of several terrible accidents. When we inquired, we learned that formerly there was a fetish tree on that corner. While the tree had been destroyed, nobody had prayed to cleanse the area spiritually to rout the demons.
The Sentinel Group (https://www.sentinelgroup.org/) has some of the best material in both videos and books on the spiritual transformations that have taken place when communities have come together to pray. This group also has excellent material on spiritual mapping and prayer walking.
Dean Sherman, who teaches on Spiritual Warfare for Youth With A Mission, states that “there is more power in one drop of the blood of Jesus than in all the forces of hell.” While that statement is quite correct, we should also not be stupid or lazy and assume the area in which we live is a spiritual demilitarized zone.
Ephesians 6:12 – 18 tells us, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
God wanted the Israelites to destroy every evidence of the demonic pagan religions and then wait for Him to select a safe location at which they could worship. But above all else, God did NOT want His people doing “whatever was right in their own eyes.” When we choose to go off on our own, rather than waiting for God to guide us, we will get into deep trouble spiritually.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Please help everyone who reads these words to take them to heart. Help them to realize that You want to protect us from evil but that we must follow You and not our own instincts. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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