Moloch

The example of Moloch shows that God looks not only on the outward form of worship, i.e. whether we worship the true God outwardly, but He looks on who we worship in our heart. Who or what we worship in our heart is seen by our attitude, actions behaviour and life style. This was the prophet’s message:

Have you offered to Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. (Amos 5:25-27).

The Lord said through Amos that though the children of Israel sacrificed to God in the wilderness their sacrifices were not actually to God, but to the gods of their heart. They observed the ritual of worshipping God in the wilderness with the tabernacle, but in their heart their mindset had not changed. God saw this and said that though they carried His tabernacle they were not actually worshipping Him.

They did not literally build an altar to Moloch or Chiun in the wilderness, but it was in their hearts, as was proved later. Solomon set up an altar to Moloch in Jerusalem. What was in the heart eventually came out. The prophet Amos lived later when Israel had built the altar to Moloch, but he said that this was in Israel from the beginning. They always worshipped God as the nations around them worshipped their gods.