Mixture in the Worship of God

While it is nice to have friends in high places, God’s people have adversaries in “high places”!

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).

The Greek word for “high” in “high places” here is the Greek epouranios, elsewhere translated “heavenly,” “celestial,” and “in heaven.” Only here is it translated “high places,” It is a phrase that is elsewhere always found in the Old Testament, where it was associated with the worship of the false god Baal (Num. 22:41; Jer. 19:5; 32:35) and idolatry (II Chron. 14:3).

It angered God when Israel allowed these high places to exist in their midst (Psa. 78:58), and why He was pleased when they were removed (II Kings 18:1-4) and displeased when they were not (II Kings 12:3;14:4; 15:4,35).

But here’s the kicker. As strange as it may sound, Israel’s Jehovah God was often worshipped simultaneously in these high places in the worship of idols (II Chron. 33:17)!

“So they feared the LORD, and (yet they) made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.” (2 Kings 17:32)

“Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the LORD their God only. (2 Chronicles 33:17)

What? Mixing the worship of God with Idols? Doesn’t this sound familiar?

The fusing or mixing of the worship of the One true God with idolatry has been a device Satan used for centuries during the Dark Ages and also as it is found even unto this day in the church of Rome. Everyone knows of its grandiose buildings (which they call churches), ornate vestments, and so-called “sacred” relics, statues, rituals (e.g., the “mass”), rites, mediatorial ‘saints’ and Nicolaitan hierarchy that humble Jesus says He “hates” (cf. Rev. 2:6, 14-15) with all its pomp, and ceremonial spectacle.

Sadly, the adherents to Rome’s system don’t even know what they are actually practicing… is the worship of Satanic Idols as an affront to the Almighty God.

This pollution of worship was still going strong when our King James Bible was being translated, and it might be why the translators rendered epouranios as “high places” in our text... linking Rome to Israel’s sometime worship of Baal. The translators may have perceived that while the “spiritual wickedness” they wrestled with was the host of fallen angels in heavenly places, the sphere of operation of these wicked spirits on earth was in the Roman church whose towering cathedrals reminded them of the “high places” where God was worshipped … along with demonic idols in Israel.

In Daniel’s day, a wicked spirit wrestled with an angel sent from God to try to keep a message from God from getting through to a man of God (read Dan. 10:10-14). Similarly, during the Protestant Reformation, the Reformers wrestled with wicked spirits who tried to keep the message of God’s Word from the people of God by using the brute strength of the Roman church that restricted His Word to the Latin language so that few could read. The Reformers wrestled and overcame them by translating the Bible into the languages of the people.

Today those same wicked spirits work to keep the message of God’s Word to us from God’s people, which comes to us the message of Paul’s distinctive apostleship and gospel of the grace of God. They pollute the word of God with so-called modern Bible Translations that corrupt the truth of God. They likewise pollute what is taught in Bible Schools and seminaries.

This is the battle which you and I too must be engaged in if you want to “fight the good fight of faith.” It is the “good fight” that Paul fought to his dying breath.

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.” (1 Timothy 6:12)

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:” (2 Timothy 4:7)