By Robert Wurtz II
TEN KEYS TO TOTAL VICTORY
(Key #1)
The Key to Laying Aside Your Weights...
Hebrews 12:1 teaches us that there are weights that serve as an encumbrance in our spiritual lives, and sins also that easily beset us. The word beset could have been translated as compete. The Scripture would then read...the sin that does easily compete against us. The sense of the meaning is that there is a sin that easily competes against us and prevails. Key in on the word EASILY. There are sins that come against us and easily prevail against us. This ought not so to be! God has given us the keys to making that sin that easily beset us, into a sin that very RARELY if ever besets us. That is the context of Hebrews 12. This passage teaches us that there is a great cloud of witnesses that overcame the sins that would have easily beset them, and the weights that would have hastened their defeat. Have you laid aside your weights? Are you running the race to WIN! The victors of past races would be seated near the track in the ancient Greek games. The writer to Hebrews illudes to this. There are many that have gone before us as a testimony that God can keep us the same as He saved us.
The Destruction in the High Places
From the beginning of time mankind has sought to do or have that which is forbidden. For Israel it was the groves and the high places. The Old Testament is literally filled with the people of God repenting and backsliding over and over again. Ultimately the issue was the heart of the people, but many things contributed to God's people backsliding. Much of their backsliding could have no doubt been prevented if the leadership had removed and kept removing the groves and the high places. The high places were elevated or hilltop sites dedicated to the worship of pagan gods. Ancient peoples often built their shrines on hilltops. In Mesopotamia, where the land is flat, they built artificial mountains in the shape of step pyramids called Ziggurats. The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) was probably such a Ziggurat. Most of the Old Testament references to high places indicate a form of pagan worship forbidden to the Israelites. But sometimes the Lord's people, with His approval, worshipped Him at elevated altars. This happened between the time Shiloh was destroyed and before the ARK OF THE COVENANT was installed in Solomon's Temple. For example, Samuel blessed the offerings made at the high place which perhaps was Ramah, a word which itself means "high place" (1 Samuel 9:12-14). At nearby Gibeon there was a high place. During the reign of David the Tabernacle was there (1 Chronicles 16:39; 21:29; 2 Chronicles. 1:3-4). At this "high place" Solomon made many sacrifices, had his dream, and asked God for wisdom (1 Kings 3:4 -15). At these times God's people would seek Him at the high place, but later they would serve other gods there. Solomon would eliminate the need for ANY high place after the building of the Temple. So in our lives after becoming the true Temple of the Holy Ghost, we must forsake the high places, lest we return to them to our own destruction and perdition.
Beside of these periods in Israel's history, all high places mentioned in the Bible were off limits to God's people. In Leviticus 26:30 God promised to destroy the high places, which He knew His people would later build. When Solomon began to backslide he established high places for his pagan wives (I Kings 11:7-8). After Solomon's death, the rebellious Northern Kingdom had its high places. The two major ones, containing golden calves, were at Dan and Bethel (I Kings 12:28-33). Then as ungodly kings came to the throne in Judah they inaugurated high places, and afterwards righteous kings abolished them. During Rehoboam's reign high places appeared (1 Kings 14:23), but Hezekiah broke them down (II Kings 18:4). Manasseh in his wickedness built them again (II Kings 3), but righteous Josiah utterly destroyed them and burned the groves as well (II Kings 23:8). He ground the images into powder and sprinkled the ashes of them over the graves of those who worshipped them and built them. Probably nothing provoked God to anger any more than His people turning from Him- to the groves and the high places.
Casting Down the High Places
In modern times a 'high place' could be a place where you go to encounter that which you used to know as a sinner; a place where God does not reign in our lives.... , the place where God ceases to be God in our life. Going to a high place is like telling God 'time out' I'm going to take a break from my calling, Christian testimony, and worst of all from your presence.
In our Christian lives we will grow no farther than our high places. Our spirituality ends where our high places begin. God will not tolerate other things in our lives competing for the love and devotion that belongs to Him. We cannot be as Israel and serve God on one hand and this world on the other.
Tossing Aside the Encumbrances
There is a pathway of stepping stones that lead to the high places in our lives. These stepping-stones form a bridge back to the world. A bridge that was once burned, but has been rebuilt. Each of those stones makes a formidable pathway that must be removed piece by piece. The sins that easily beset us are like the high places in Israel that keep us backsliding and repenting over and over, and the anger of the Lord thoroughly kindled. We must remove the things in our lives that make us vulnerable to the sins that so easily beset us. Why should we fool ourselves into believing that we can handle a multitude of encumbrances that make us easy prey for Satan? Why should we hand Satan the advantage against us in our lives? Among all of Satan's devices, none are more successful than the stepping stones that we put in our lives as we listen to his lies. If you know it is a hindrance and is making you vulnerable-forsake it! Before it leads to you having forsaken God.
What do you keep telling yourself that you can handle? What are you 'running with' that is alloeing sin to catch and trip you up? Why do you allow yourself to be knocked down by certain weights weighing you down? Always keep in mind that nothing is worth sacrificing the presence of God for, our victory for, and all the more...our soul for. What would a man profit if he gained all the world and lost his own soul? What would a man give in exchange for his soul? Words that are so often...just words. They have become of none effect in so many lives. Now more than ever when direct access to the world has invaded many of our own homes, we must use discernment.
The FIRST KEY to unlocking the victory in YOUR LIFE is turned when you go through your house, car, work area, and heart and begin to dispose of those things that are causing you to struggle to keep the victory. Turning the key begins when we realize that we cannot take fire into our bosom and not be burned. Sadly, many people know WHAT they need to get rid of but will not, because they have listened to the lie of Satan and he has stolen their desire to have victory. God forbid that we would opt for defeat when God has made provision for victory, because we loved our toys and vices more than we desired to live righteously before God.
