The Israelite religion was centred on a relationship with God. They trusted in His provision for their lives. The Israelites religion was based on worship, love, service and obedience to God, not to obtain things, but because He deserved it - He was God Most High, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth (Deut 10:16-18). They demonstrated this relationship with sacrifice, praise, offerings and festivals.

    The aim of the Israelite religion was to have a relationship centered on the grace shown by God.

    The Canaanite religion was basically a fertility rite. They believed Baal represented the renewed growth of spring. The people depended on farming to survive, so they tried to control the heavenly powers through religion and ensure the fertility of their crops.

    The aim of the Canaanite religion was to use rituals to control the gods.

    When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they failed to obey the command of God (Deut 18:9-13) to completely drive out the Caananites that lived there. God asked them to do this because of the effect their religious ideas would have on Israel. When the Israelites lived alongside the Canaanites, they gradually adopted some of the ideas and practices of the other religion (Judges 2:3). They not only offered worship to the Canaanite gods, but also tried to control their one true God through rituals.

    The focus moved from:

    Yahweh looks at our hearts, not our outward actions. From the beginning it was always the attitude of the heart that was important to Him. Obeying Gods laws and doing the right things is simply a fruit of the relationship (Deut 10:12-13). Because of Israel’s hardhearted attitude, they were conquered (Judges....), they fought amongst themselves (2 Samuel 2:17, 1 Kings 14:6....) and were eventually exiled from the Promised Land (Amos 5:21-27). This happened because they replaced the relationship with ritual.

    Some examples:

    Josiah’s reform and Jeremiah:

    The story is in 2 Kings 22, 23. However good King Josiah’s intentions were (2 Kings 22:19), the reform did not change the hearts of the people.

    During the reform, the Israelites thought that God would bless them, because they were obeying the law. But then Josiah died unexpectedly, and what happened next? They went back to their old ways (2 Chr 35:33b, 2 Kings 23:33).

    The Israelites had a mercenary approach - They served God because they wanted to get ‘paid’, not because they loved Him. Jeremiah 3:10 gives his assessment of the effectiveness - it was an outward pretense, not a reform of the heart.

    Jehoiakim and Jeremiah

    Jeremiah gave the most important speech in his life in Jer 7:1-29. The people mistakenly believed they could do whatever they wanted, and that God would have to protect them, because the temple of the LORD was in Jerusalem (Jer 7:9-11).

    They thought they had God’s support because of the temple, and did not worry about their relationship with God. Their hardhearted attitude was the root of the problems, and it eventually led to the destruction of the temple (Jer 7:14, 2 Chr 36:15-19). They were so far from God, they were more wicked than the nations around them (Ezekiel 5:5-7)

    Maybe they were slack, but surely we are much better today! But are we? We often have the same ‘Canaanite’ attitude:

    ‘If I pray in a certain way, God will have to give me what I ask for’

    ‘If we go to church on Sunday, God will have to bless us during the week’

    ‘If I have a quiet time in the morning, God will have to make my day go well’

    ‘If I give God 10% of my income, he will have to make me rich’

    He does things because He loves us and He chooses to bless us - it is His decision.

    In the New Testament times, Jesus clashed with the Pharisees more than any other people did. He did so because they had replaced the relationship with ritual. They added so many extra regulations to the Law that they were actually causing people to get further from God, not closer to Him (Matt 23:4, 13-14). They were the respected leaders of the nation, and they acted as righteous men, but on the inside they were far from God (Matt 23:25-28).

    Jesus demolished the regulations they had built around the true religion. His message focussed on the believer’s relationship with God and their relationships with others (Matt 22:37-40).