God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 14:2-6 Smashing pagans

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, November 27, 2024

2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places. He smashed the sacred memorial stones and chopped down the Asherah poles. 4 He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his law and commandment. 5 He removed the high places and incense altars from every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. 6 He built up the fortified cities of Judah while the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the LORD gave him rest.

This passage is a catalogue of false worship equipment. Asa’s goal was to remove these things and to lead the people back to the right worship of God. Solomon himself had set up many of these ridiculous and shameful things around Jerusalem to appease his too many wives, and they had led him astray into using them in a bizarre reverse-image of the request that Naaman the Syrian made of Elisha. Solomon thought he could accompany his wives when they worshiped false gods and not be carried away with their worship, but his heart was turned by it for many years (we think that the book of Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s confession of guilt and repentance). Asa, Solomon’s great-grandson, took everything down, and like a good version of the Grinch he set out to ruin every pagan holiday, leaving not even a crumb in the house for a wicked pagan mouse.

Foreign altars. Such altars were set up in many places all throughout Canaan. Many of them were used to worship Baal, the fertility god. These were altars made of stone with horns on the corners (Solomon’s bronze altar also had horns on the corners)—blood was poured out on these horns (see Exodus 29:12 and Leviticus 16:18). God had commanded that Israel worship only at one place, at one altar. Therefore anything else was a violation of this command (2 Chronicles 32:12).

High Places. The high places were really just hilltops where people would gather for the worship of the Canaanite or other gods. There were usually sacred stones and an altar, perhaps Asherah poles or trees. But the high places themselves may sometimes have been enclosed with a low wall (just a stone or two stones tall, easily stepped over) to ring the area. Sacrifices were eaten within this area (1 Samuel 9:13). Some of these high places were exceptionally large, big enough to hold a large company of people, priests, and musicians (1 Samuel 10:5). Solomon had a direct hand in building some of these places (1 Kings 11:7).

Sacred memorial stones. A sacred stone was a stone set up as a pillar or obelisk, usually quite rough, and with writing scratched or carved onto it; a prayer or a curse involving the name of a false god. The Hittites (among others) used such stones in many places (Exodus 23:23-24).

Asherah poles. Asherah was a Canaanite goddess of fortune (good luck) and happiness. Her name might mean “gracious lady.” Her symbol was traditionally a grove of trees, but when there were no trees, people just stuck poles in the ground. The purpose of such things is of no importance. It is a lovely thing to walk through a grove of short fruit trees; there was one near the place where I grew up, and I loved to ride my bike there as a boy and spend hours walking here and there in that small, quiet space. But my heart was uncontaminated by any idolatry. The Canaanites found ways of perverting even the most beautiful and serene locations into something abominable and unspeakable. “Cut them down,” God commanded Moses (Exodus 34:13).

Incense altars (or “sun pillars”). Here I quote from Dr. Brug’s “Digging for Insights” (NPH 2010): “A large number of clay pottery vessels, which were apparently used in worship, have been recovered from various shrines and temples. One of the most common forms is a stand with a bowl on top, which looks somewhat like a birdbath. Some of these were incense burners. Others may have held liquids or plants” (p. 65).

Asa took the time to smash, chop down, and destroy these things. Much of this was surely done because he ordered it to be done, but perhaps Asa himself chose to get involved in order to set the right tone for the act and the right example for the people.

This is a passage that is easily applied, because it illustrates with a physical act what we strive to do spiritually every day. Here is the obedience of the First Commandment. When we obey this commandment and embrace it in our hearts, holding it close and dear at all times like a child clutching a doll or a Teddy Bear, while both asleep and awake, we will have the true God in mind at all times, and the cross of Jesus Christ will smash down all of the idolatry in our hearts. For the first step is to acknowledge that we do, indeed, have idols. They may not be tiny incense-burning birdbaths or towering tree trunk Asherah poles, but they are most often pride, ambition, arrogance, foolish certainty, and the supreme folly of Opinion, the great heathen goddess of our time. Let us throw down these things and listen to Moses and the Prophets, to the Apostles and Evangelists, and breathlessly hear with our full attention the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. His love, his mercy, are forever. Whatever we hold up above him is for never. It is “empty notions and the hot east wind” (Job 15:2). Christ alone brings words of peace and comfort, joy and delight. As the Father said to us all from the cloud: “Listen to him” (Luke 9:35).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive