(Photo of Mt Eybal, taken from Mt Gerizim. Taken by HRM)
Re’eh – Worship and the destruction of the Kena’ani
- Worship is about exalting and honoring the Glorious Father
Don HRM
The Sh’ma Declaration
Deuteronomy 6:4 – 9
Sh’ma Yisra’el! Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad [Hear. Isra’el! ADONAI our God, ADONAI is one]; and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, all your being, all your resources. These words, which I am ordering you today, are to be in your heart; and you are to teach them carefully to your children. You are to talk about them when you sit at home, when you are travelling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them on your hand as a sign, put them at the front of a headband around your forehead, and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates.
TWO TYPES OF WORSHIP
Bridegroom’s worship. A betrothal bride should only cleave to her Beloved – this is axiomatic (an axiom or postulate is a statement accepted without controversy or question). – We are to reject the entire format and concept of worship the people of the world follow. CHOOSE LIFE.
Do we worship the Holy One in the manner He instructed us?
The Torah does not:
Call us to build a church or synagogue
Call us to build a local worship centre
Call us to hire a rabbi or pastor.
Worship is not meant to make us feel good about ourselves, our doctrines, our programs, our musicians, our song leaders, or our clergymen.
It is about exalting and honouring the Glorious Father
It is about His beauty and publishing His awesome wonders
Our worship is supposed to be ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.
DO NOT CONDEMN OTHERS – Let us just return to Biblical Worship Patterns!
DESTRUCTION OF Kena’ani
Last week in ‘Ekev’ I talked about removing idols from our house. The destruction of the Kena’ani was to remove all idols from the land.
Deuteronomy 12:1 - 3 says
Here are the rulings and laws you are to observe in the land ADONAI the Elohim of your ancestors, has given you to possess as long as you live on Earth.
You must destroy all the places where the places where the nations you are dispossessing served their gods, whether on high mountains, on hills, or under some leafy tree.
Break down their alters, smash their standing stones to pieces, burn up their sacred poles completely and cut down the carved images of their gods. Exterminate their name from that place.
The double form of the verb is translated as “you must utterly destroy” insists that the idols must be eradicated from the land. It was not merely sufficient to remove altars and standing stones, for as with ‘ashserah’ they must be completely uprooted from the ground.
According to Rabbi Akiva on ‘verse 2’ whenever one saw a high mountain or a green tree, it should be assumed that an idol or and altar had been placed there!
The 21st Century Western fantasies of live-and-let-live, tolerance, and political correctness would certainly condemn YHVH as a cruel and despicable God for the destruction of Kena’ani. DON’T BELIEVE THESE POLITICALLY CORRECT PHILOSOPHIES (FANTASIES)!
Why did it need to be done?
For centuries, they had been horribly defiling the land. Their practices were so abominable that they were unspeakable in polite company. The Kena’ani were far, far from innocents. After all, there territory included S’dom and G’morrah. Their whole approach to life is rape, pillage, torture, and the cruel enslavement of other people at the point of the sword. They offered human sacrifices to bloodthirsty gods. They burnt their own babies in the fires of the altar of Molech.
And it was not as if our Heavenly Father had not tried over multiple generations for them to embrace the more excellent way of the Avrahamic Covenant [as did Elazar the Syrian}, and they have refused!
The Messengers they refused to Heed.
The Holy One sent them Melchi-Tzedek – the ‘Righteous King, and ‘Priest of the Most High God’ Melchi-Tzedek dwelt in their midst and his lifestyle testified of the Holy One’s Righteousness.
YHVH sent them Avraham, Avraham’s Syrian-born servant Elazar, Yitschak, Ya’akov, and the young dreamer Yosef. They clave to their perversions.
YHVH sent the invasion of the 4 kings of the north [Genesis 14].
YHVH gave them the supernatural destruction of S’dom and G’morrah [Genesis 19].
In the days of Yitschak and Ya’akov YHVH sent more warnings – famines [Genesis 26 and 41] and blood-vengeance genocide [Genesis 34].
Despite all these warnings they responded with a hardness of the heart.
WARNING TO US
Today we are told by the world we must tolerate all peoples and live with them in peace (live-and-let-live) this is political correctness. What about Pinchas [Numbers 25:1 – 9]? What did he do? This political correctness is GARBAGE!
Moshe is intentionally offending our minds to re-evaluate our commitment to YHVH and His plan for the ultimate redemption of mankind!
I hope this gives you further insight
Shalom
Don HRM
