Mount Gerizim Temple Worship - Part 1

Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

November 26, 2017

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 27:11-13:

11) “And Moses charged the people the same day, saying,

12) These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin:

13) And these shall stand upon mount Ebal to curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulon, Dan and Naphtali.”

Galilee to the North, Judah on the South and in the middle, was Samaria; three different areas of the former kingdom of Israel. And they were populated by very different individuals after Israel was deported because they broke God’s laws. The punishment, which they must have forgotten, was captivity by a foreign power; as the six tribes on Mt. Ebal read exactly what would happen to the Israel people if they disobeyed their God. The six tribes who read the curses consisted of the oldest and youngest sons of Leah: Reuben and Zebulon, and the two sons of Rachel’s handmaid and the two sons of the Leah’s handmaid. All the children of Rachel and four of the sons of Leah were assigned to read the blessings on Mt. Gerizim.

What a day that must have been. The Israelites were instructed to gather stones and put plaster over them. The Israelites were to write the laws of God on these stones that were located on either Mt. Gerizim or Mt. Ebal (there is confusion on which mountain, depending on what source you read). In addition, they were to build an altar unto the LORD their God, on which they were to offer burnt and peace offerings.

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There were the two mountains that were on both sides of the city of Shechem. The city, which was in the middle, was the perfect Amphitheater.

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The location of Jacob’s well, Joseph’s tomb as well at Mt. Gerizim.

Judea to the South was inhabited by mongrel Edomites (Seed of Cain/Jews) and pure-blooded Israelites from the tribes of Judah, Levi and just a few of the Benjaminites. The Edomites had taken control of the political, educational, spiritual and economic policies of this southern portion. The Edomites, in about one hundred years, had taken over the royalty and priestly offices and had put their Talmudic laws in place in Judah. They made up the largest part of the Pharisees and Sadducees. There also were a few Samaritans who lived there.

Galilee was inhabited by Israelites from the tribes of Benjamin with a few from the tribes of Levi and Judah. Eleven of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ were from this area. All the disciples plus the 70 men who went out by twos, who were chosen from this area, were from the tribe of Benjamin. This is the area where Jesus both grew up and where He performed most of His ministry. There were a few Edomites and Samaritans living there too.

Samaria was inhabited by mostly non-Israel individuals. They originally came from five different tribes from Babylon while most of the ten tribes were departed into captivity. When the captivity was over, there was a small part of each of the tribes of Judah, Levi and Benjamin who returned to Judea to rebuild the temple and wall. But many of the Israelite leaders had practiced interracial marriage.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah had gone into a deep state of repentance and commanded the adulterers to become separate from the people of the land—in other words, to become separate from their foreign wives and mongrel children. There were some who did and some who didn’t. Those who didn’t were told to leave Judea and were expelled from the posts that they once had held. One of the priests in the temple in Jerusalem who had committed adultery with Sanballat’s daughter, remained married to her and went to be the priest in the rival new Temple that was built in Mt. Gerizim. Other priests who had interracially married followed in the same manner.

So, the makeup of the different individuals in the former tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, were five Babylonish tribes, mixed with mongrels from Israelites race-mixing with strange wives, and a very, very few pure-blooded Israelites.

Smith Dictionary says in their article on Samaritans:

“At the final captivity of Israel by Shalmaneser, we may conclude that the cities of Samaria were not merely partially but wholly depopulated of their inhabitants in B.C. 721, and that they remained in this desolated state until, in the words of (2 Kings 17:24) ‘the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah, and from Av. (Ivah,) (2 Kings 18:34) and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.’ Thus, the new Samaritans were Assyrians by birth or subjugation.”

Later, the article said:

“About B.C. 409, a certain Manasseh, a man of priestly lineage, on being expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah for an unlawful marriage [miscegenation], obtained permission from the Persian king of his day, Darius Nothus, to build a temple on Mount Gerizim for the Samaritans, with whom he had found refuge. The animosity of the Samaritans became more intense than ever. They are said to have done everything in their power to annoy the Jews [Judahites]. Their own temple on Gerizim they considered to be much superior to that at Jerusalem.”

The true, pure-blooded Israelites who were living in the Promised Land in the days of Jesus the Christ, were about as few as it is today in the Israelite nations. And there were two main rival temple worship systems that competed for being the one and only true worship system for the God of Heaven.

1. Mt. Gerizim worship system. The Samaritans claimed to be Israelites from Ephraim and Manasseh, two of the ten tribes of Israel. They claimed that God chose “Mt. Gerizim” to be the place where His people were to worship Him—not in Jerusalem. They believed in the first five books of the Bible and celebrated Passover on an annual basis. The Samaritans worshipped, starting around 400 B.C., at the Temple in Mt. Gerizim. They were mainly mongrels and non-Israelite individuals.
2. The Edomites distorted the teaching of ancient Hebrewism into a free will choice of individuals. God no longer was sovereign, but the individual was sovereign. They kept the outward flow of the religion—circumcision, feast days, sacrifices—but they could not keep the inward truths of the scriptures. They had turned the “House of Prayer” into a “Den of Thieves.”

Both rival, competing temples were made up of foreigners and mongrels. They captured into their congregations some misled pure-blooded Israelites. When Jesus started His ministry, where could He go and preach the “gospel of the kingdom.” What kingdom was He preaching anyway? It wasn’t the “gospel of the [Samaritan] kingdom” or the “gospel of the [Edomite] kingdom”, it was the “gospel or good news of the [Israelite] kingdom.”

At the time of this preaching, the Israelite kingdom was in a very bad condition. The pure-blooded Israelites were scattered throughout the lands of Europe, northern Africa and the middle east. But more importantly, and what most Christians today don’t know, is that the clear majority were in a state of divorcement. And being in a state of divorcement, they were cut off from the commonwealth of Israel. Only a very, very small portion of all Israelites were still the people of God who were in the covenant.

The ones who were divorced by God were described in Hosea 1 as being:

1. Scattered
2. Unpitied
3. No longer the people of God

But all of this would be reversed, as the God of His people would once again marry His people. But how could He do this according to God’s holy law if His first wife had married others. It was against God’s law for a man to marry, then divorce, and then remarry his first wife if either one had married another. God was restrained from remarrying Israel. But there was only one way…

Our God was faithful to the covenant, even though His people had consistently broken it. He died, which freed Him from the first marriage, and then He was resurrected from the dead, which gave Him the right to remarry His first wife. The pure-blooded Israelites of the kingdom (north and south) would be remarried to the “risen Christ.” No wonder the mongrel Samaritans and the mongrel Edomites hated what He preached!

WHERE DID JESUS LIVE?

Where did Jesus live? Was it in Judea, Samaria or Galilee? Where did He grow up? Where did He do most of His ministry? In what part was the Sea of Galilee? In which part was He persecuted the most while He was living or visiting that section?

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and then as a very young boy (under the age of two) traveled to Egypt with his parents to escape his attempted murder by Herod the king. He came back after the death of the king, but after his parents were warned in a dream about what would happen if they lived in Judea, he went with his parents to Galilee to live. He later emphasized His reasons for why He lived there and not in Judea or Samaria.

John 7:1  “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews [wicked-seed Judeans] sought to kill him.”

Matthew 10:5, 6:

5) “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles [heathens], and into any city of the Samaritans enter not;

6) But go, rather, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Our Savior, the King of Kings, lived most of His life in Galilee. As a teenager, He did travel to the Isle of Britain, but He mainly spent most of His time with the tribe of Benjamin. This was one of the reasons that the tribe of Benjamin was given to the tribe of Judah after the kingdom split into two separate nations.

1 Kings 11:35-37:

35) “But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s [Rehoboam’s] hand, and will give it unto thee [Jeroboam], even ten tribes.

36) And unto his son [Solomon’s son: Rehoboam] will I give one tribe [Benjamin], that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen to put my name there.

37) And I will take thee [Jeroboam], and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.”

The northern kingdom, Israel, was apostate from its very beginning:

• They had the wrong king from the wrong tribe. None of their kings were from the royal tribe of Judah.
• They had the wrong priests from the wrong tribe. None of their priests were from the priestly tribe of Levi.
• They had the wrong feast days on the wrong days of the wrong month. For example, they celebrated Tabernacles “…on the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah…” (1 Kings 12:32).

Their nation only lasted for 210 years, which was 31 years fewer than the United States has been in existence, as of today. Each year was worse than the year before. Many of its faithful citizens of the God of the Bible fled their ten-tribe nation and went to live in the nation in the South—Judah--as the northern kingdom soon worshipped another god--Baal. This apostate nation ended when it was abandoned by God to destruction as a nation long before the southern kingdom became apostate enough to send it also into captivity. Judea lasted 135 more years until it too was sent into the Babylonian captivity.

It all began when Ahab…

1 Kings 16:31b-33:

31b). “…Took to wife, Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.

32) And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

33) And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.”

In what city in the northern part of the kingdom does the Bible say that king Ahab built an altar for Baal in the house of Baal? It was in Samaria which was just a few miles to the north west of Shechem and Mt. Gerizim. This was many years before the temple was built on Mt. Gerizim by the Samaritans. But the tradition of a false, competing worship system was begun at this site.

Athaliah was a princess of the house of Israel. She was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. She was part of the serpent’s seed, the seed-line of Cain. Jehoshaphat, for political reasons, married his son to Ahab’s daughter. What a disgraceful wedding that was. The pure-blooded king of Judah, Jehoram, married into the seed of Cain. Their first mongrel child was Ahaziah who ruled Judah when his father, Jehoram, died.

2 Kings 8:18b, 19:

18b) Jehoram“…walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab for the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the sight of the LORD.

19) Yet the LORD would not destroy Judah for David his servant’s sake, as he promised him to give him always a light, and to his children.” (2 Kings 8:16b, 17).

The mongrel king of Judah, Ahaziah, son of king Jehoram and queen Athaliah, followed his father in his evilness. King Ahaziah of Judah fought with the mongrel king of Israel against the Syrians. King Jehoram was wounded in the battle and king Ahaziah went to Jezreel to see him as he recovered from his wounds. Jehu was anointed king of Israel by the prophet Elisha and afterwards murdered both the kings of Israel and Judah in one day!

Think about this for a minute. Both kings of both houses, north and south, were assassinated in one day? Why did this happen? Because both were of the wicked-seed line. God had to stop the intrusion into the royalty of His nation before it completely ruined it. This gives us hope.

After king Jehoram’s violent death at the hands of Jehu, his mother, Athaliah, attempted to wrest the power from king Jehoram’s ancestral line of Judah by assassinating all his offspring. One grandson, Joash, survived the queen’s plan and later regained the throne from her. Joash was hid from her murderous hands until he was seven-years-old and then he was anointed king of Judah and Athaliah was slain.

The kings of Israel and Judah now were free from the line of Cain. Their rulers were now the right race, but only one house had the right race with the right tribe. Only Judah had the opportunity to have a ruler to do “what was right in the eyes of God.”

What has happened in America? Has America ignored what our God instructed us:

Deuteronomy 17:15: “…Thou mayest not set a stranger [foreigner] over thee, who is not thy brother.”

It sure has. Barack Obama was the offspring of a Jew and a Black. That made him in the line of Cain. There are at least four other presidents [including our current president] who were possibly of the line of Cain.

King Ahab of Israel died and was succeeded first by Jezebel’s son king Ahaziah (seed of Cain) who ruled for two years, and then by another of her sons (also a seed of Cain), king Jehoram who ruled for the next 12 years before Ahab’s dynasty ended. During the reigns of these two sons, Jezebel now in the role of queen mother, continued to influence the kingdom of Israel with her fornications and sorceries.

King Ahaziah died after he fell through the window and sought a pagan deity for his recovery. Elijah predicted that the king would not recover because he sought out “Baalzebub, the god of Ekron” for insight to his recovery. Elijah also predicted that Ahaziah would not leave his bed until he died. And it happened just like he predicted.

We, as a local church, are petitioning the LORD God of Israel on behalf of our people who are in illnesses and who are experiencing difficulties in this life. We have learned this lesson. Blessed be the LORD God of Israel.

It was just after mongrel king Jehoram of Israel became king, that Elijah went up in a whirlwind and Elisha received the double portion of Elijah’s spirit. Elisha “…took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of the Jordan [River]. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted to the one side and to the other; and Elisha went over. (2 Kings 2:13-14).”

Mongrel king Jehoram of Israel and pure-blooded king Jehoshaphat of Judah and the king of Edom were joined together to fight against the kind of Moab. They found that there was not enough water for their troops and for the cattle that followed them. King Jehoram groaned about their situation while king Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not here a prophet of the LORD, that we may inquire of the LORD by him?” (2 Kings 3:11b). One of Jehoshaphat’s servants answered that Elisha was nearby.

So, the three kings went to visit Elisha and ask about their situation. Notice what the prophet of God says,

2 Kings 3:14b: “…As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, WERE IT NOT THAT I REGARD THE PRESENCE OF JEHOSHAPHAT, THE KING OF JUDAH, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee”

Why did Elisha say that? God would not look toward the king of Israel or the king of Edom, but He would give this revealing information only because Jehoshaphat was there. Tomorrow there would be enough water for every troop and every animal to drink and you will be victorious over the kingdom of Moab.

The LORD God of Israel would have mercy on the pure-blood king of Judah, even though he was fighting with the wrong people. God didn’t see the king of Israel, because he was of the wrong seed. God didn’t see the king of Edom, because he was of the wrong seed. God gave the three kings victory of the kingdom of Moab.

Jehoshaphat had made the same mistake a few years before this one. He had fought alongside the father of his son’s wife—Ahab, king of Israel.

2 Chronicles 18:1-3:

1) “Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and made a marriage alliance with Ahab.

2) And after certain years he went down to Ahab in Samaria. And Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, and for the people whom he had with him, and persuaded him to go up with him to Ramoth-gilead.

3) And Ahab, king of Israel, said unto Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Ramoth-gilead? And he answered him, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war.”

But before Jehoshaphat would fight with king Ahab, he wanted to hear what the prophet of God would say about this battle. So, the king of Israel called for 400 of his prophets and they all agreed that God will give them victory. But pure-blooded king Jehoshaphat said,

2 Chronicles 18:6-7:

6) “Is there not here a prophet of the LORD, besides, that we might enquire of him?

7) “And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil: the same is Micaiah, the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.”

Macaiah prophesied defeat for the troops of Israel and Judah; one against 400! Who was right? The majority is usually wrong. King Ahab became so angry with the prophet of the LORD that he instructed his men to put him in prison and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction until he returned in peace. And off to battle they went.

Who was right? The 400 prophets of Israel or the one prophet of the LORD? It doesn’t matter what the polls say, for the majority is hardly ever right. What does the LORD God of Israel say is right? That is the correct question. That is why abortion is wrong. Our God says that it is murder.

King Ahab disguised himself and had the pure-blooded king Jehoshaphat disguise himself as Ahab, the king of Israel. He had Jehoshaphat wear his robes, so he would look like king Ahab. Serves Jehoshaphat right, since he didn’t listen to the prophet of God and went to battle anyway.

2 Chronicles 18:31“And it came to pass, when the captains saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, It is the king of Israel. Therefore, they compassed about him to fight. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and the LORD helped him; and God moved them to depart from him.”

King Jehoshaphat’s life was spared. The LORD helped him. It doesn’t say how He helped him, but the LORD God of Israel helped Jehoshaphat show to the Syrian soldiers that he was not Ahab.

2 Chronicles 18:33a But “a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the armor” The king of Israel was mortally wounded. But before he died, “the king of Israel held himself up in his chariot against the Syrians until evening; and, at about the time of the going down of the sun, he died” (2 Chronicles 18:34b).

King Jehoshaphat, after the battle, returned to his house in peace in Jerusalem. Jehu went to meet him and said something very strange to him.

2 Chronicles 19:2b “Shouldest thou help the wicked, and love them who hate the LORD? Therefore, there is wrath upon thee from before the LORD.”

Ahab had married a woman who was of the wicked seed line. His offspring would all have this perverted, evil seed line. Why would anyone want to help these wicked people who HATE their LORD, their God?

So, it is a few years later. The son of Ahab, mongrel king Jeroram, went out to fight the king of Moab who had rebelled against the king of Israel after the death of king Ahab. Jehoram asked king Jehoshaphat if he would join him in the battle. Jehoshaphat gave the same answer that he had given to his father several years before. Jehoshaphat didn’t learn the lesson given him by Jehu. God once again shows Jehoshaphat that he should not be helping the wicked.

There are fantastic stories of the miracles that Elisha performed during these days of the evil-seed kingdoms of both Israel and Judah. Elisha revealed the war plans of Syria to the king of Israel. Wherever Syria would set up their camp, Elisha would send a message to the king of Israel telling him to beware of that place. It got so bad that the king of Syria thought that someone in his camp was revealing where he was having his army camp. But one of his servants revealed to the king of Syria that it was Elisha, the prophet of who is in Israel, that was telling the king of Israel the words that the king of Syria was speaking in his bedchamber.

So, the king of Syria sent part of his army to where Elisha was staying and compassed the city. Elisha’s servant asked him what they should do. Elisha gave him a very strange answer:

2 Kings 6:16 “Fear not; for they who are with us are more than they who are with them.”

Then Elisha prayed that the eyes of his servant would be opened, and he would see what Elisha saw. The mountains were full of horses and chariots of fire around about Elisha. So, when the Syrians came to arrest him, Elisha prayed that the LORD God of Israel would blind the Syrians. He did. And Elisha led them to Samaria to the king of Israel.

The king of Israel was astonished. He asked Elisha what he should do with them. Perhaps kill them all. Elisha told him no, he should both feed them and get them water to drink. So, the men ate and drank and returned to their master. The result: Syria went home and did not fight against Israel until they had their next king.

That was king Ben-hadad. He came and besieged Samaria. There was a great famine in the city as the Syrian army surrounded the city. People were boiling their own children and eating them. The king was panicked. He told his servants to go and get Elisha.

Elisha told the messengers that the famine would end tomorrow.

2 Kings 7:1b “A measure of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.”

Four leprous men decided that the only hope that they had to survive was to go to the Syrian army. If they gave them food, they would live. If they went to Samaria, there was no food, they would die. When they went to their camp of the enemy troops, they found that the Syrian army had fled. They had heard that night the “…noise of chariots, and the noise of horses, even the noise of a great host; and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us” (2 Kings 7:6). Elisha’s promise was fulfilled.

After discovering that the Syrians had left in a hurry, leaving a lot of food in their tents, the leprous men went to Samaria and told the people. A near riot ensued as the people rushed to go to the campground and gather the supplies that they left. Starvation was over in Samaria.

Then a few years later, after the death of king Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahab, mongrel king Jehoram of Israel and his brother-in-law, the mongrel king of Judah, fought together against the Syrians where he suffered a wound from an enemy’s arrow. He went to Jezreel to recover from his injury and was joined by the king of Judah who had come there to see how he was doing. While they were both in Jezreel, Jehu came and killed both kings in one day! And we think that America is in bad shape!

Jezebel’s influence was even felt in Judah, where her wicked daughter Athaliah (seed of Cain), married Judah’s king. Her daughter perpetuated the Jezebel spirit in that southern kingdom for another six years after her mother’s death.

Athaliah, Queen of Judah, daughter of King Ahab of Israel and his wife Jezebel, was the sister of Israel’s King Jehoram, and sister or half-sister of the other 70 sons of Ahab, all of whom Jehu ordered killed. Athaliah was given in a marriage of political expediency to Jehoram, the eldest son of Jehoshaphat of Judah. She was the mother of Ahaziah (seed of Cain), who in time became king of Judah. Her son, king Ahaziah of Judah and her brother, king Jehoram of Israel were both killed on the same day by king Jehu.

Like her mother Jezebel, Athaliah egged on her husband, Jehoram, to do what was evil in God’s eyes during his eight-year reign. And like her mother, Athaliah wantonly shed the blood of the innocent. When her wicked son Ahaziah died after a one-year reign, she killed off all the others of the royal line, except the infant Jehoash, who had been hidden by the high priest and his wife, who was Jehoash’s aunt. As a result, Athaliah installed herself as queen for six years, as she thought that she had killed off all her rivals for the throne. Her sons robbed the LORD’s temple of the holy things and offered them up to Baal.

But when Jehoash reached seven years of age, God-fearing High Priest Jehoiada brought the young boy out of secrecy and crowned him rightful heir to the throne. Hearing the tumult, Athaliah rushed to the temple and seeing what was happening, cried ‘Conspiracy! Conspiracy!’ High Priest Jehoiada ordered her taken outside the temple grounds to be executed at the horse gate of the palace; she was the last of Ahab’s abominable house. They all were dead.

If Athaliah had succeeded in killing Joash, that would have been no one left alive who was of the House of David. No one would have remained. But she failed…one was left. And one was all that was needed for God to keep his covenant with David!

Jehoiada, the priest of Judah, “…made a covenant between the LORD and the king and the people, that thy should be the LORD’s people; between the king also and the people” (2 Kings 11:17).

2 Kings 11:18-21:

18) “And the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and broke it down; his altars and his images broke they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan, the priest of Baal, before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.

19) And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from the house of the LORD, and came by the way of the gate of the guard to the king’s house. And he sat on the throne of the kings.

20) And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet. And they slew Athaliah with the sword beside the king’s house.

21) Seven years old was Jehoash when he began to reign.”

Athaliah was a Canaanite/Israelite mongrel Jew. Cain was the first genetic “Jew.” Anyone who is an actual descendant of Cain is also a Canaanite/Jew. Cain, in the beginning, mixed his blood with the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perrizzites, Rephaims, Jebusites, Amorites, Canaanites, and Girgashites. And they have continued to mix their blood, even with pure-blooded Israelites. Both Esau and Judah, were guilty of mixing their blood with the Canaanites, as was Ahab and Jehoram. And it is still happening today.

We shall continue our story next time.

Blessed be the LORD God of Israel.