A 1997 Barnes & Noble general educational book on Greek and Roman myth, entitled Titans and Olympians, reports, “For the ancient Greeks, mountains were powerful, magical places. They were full of mysterious caves, fissures, sudden springs and river sources, and their summits were often concealed by clouds, mists and snow. In myth, they were the homes of gods, heroes and monsters. Some myths explained the origins of specific peaks, including Atlas, Olympus and Parnassus.”

In another passage, it says the Greeks, in both their legends and their worship, “behaved as though the gods actually lived on Mount Olympus.”

The book says of the original Olympic Games, “The gathering at Olympia was, in its origins and in much of its ceremonial, a religious festival designed to bring worshippers together to pay homage to the gods. In all, half of the Games’ five days were given over to ceremonial and ritual. The religious roots went deep. The site at which the Games were staged was centered on a grove once sacred to the venerable Earth goddess Gaia that at some unknown period had become a cult center for Zeus, chief of the Olympian deities.”

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From Scripture, we know demonic activity has an affinity for high places, just as it does for fire and water.

This goes back to when Satan (then Lucifer) first decided he wanted to claim for himself the throne of God, determining in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” (Isa. 14:13-14)

The “mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north” is a reference to the place in the northern recesses of the universe where the angels carrying on the business of the heavens came to meet with God and literally give account of themselves and their stewardship of their responsibilities.

Jordan says, “In Job 1 and 2, when the sons of God, the angels, came to present themselves before the Lord, they had to go to a place to do that and Satan came with them.”

In Ezekiel 28, the Lord says about Satan, “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”

Jordan explains, “When He refers to the ‘holy mountain of God,’ that's talking about Mount Zion. In I Kings 7, we see Solomon built a judgment hall up north in Lebanon and made it with beautiful stones just like the judgment hall up there.

“What Satan determined was, ‘I'm going to be the counterfeit God. I'm going to take over the place of judgment, and that judgment hall is going to be mine, and I'm going to walk up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.’

“Now, the trick was on him because when he rebelled, look what happened to him: God assures him in Eze. 28:15, ‘I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.’

“God’s saying, ‘I'm going to throw you out of the judgment hall, and I'm going to destroy you and fix it where nobody is going to be able to follow you.’

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When Satan talks about his intent to “ascend above the heights of the clouds,” he’s talking about the clouds that surround the throne of God in the third heaven.

Isaiah 6 speaks of “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. . . And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.”

Jordan explains, “There's this smoke that fills up, as it were, out in front of the throne room here. There’s God's throne and out there in front of it are these clouds of smoke. Satan’s talking about going up above where the creation is out there and coming up above that to where God's throne is and literally sitting on the throne, ‘being like the most high God.’ ”

Next to a picture of the sculpture of Athena (carved in 520 BC) in Titans and Olympians, it says the sculpture “adorned one of the temples on the Acropolis, the main religious complex of Athens, set on a hill overlooking the city. It was there that the citizens of Athens constructed the Parthenon, the magnificent temple dedicated to Athena, in the 5^th century BC.”

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II Kings 15:4 talks about how “the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places.”

Jordan says, “You remember in Mark 5 where it says that when they found the demoniac from Gadera, it says he would dwell in the mountains—up in the high places?

“God repeatedly told Israel not to build a grove: ‘Don't go out and build some little religious shrine with an idol in the middle as an aid to worship.’ Why? Because that's what the pagans did. And the pagans put those things on high places.

“In II Kings they had these little high spots out there where they had set up these little church buildings with this grove-like situation. They have these little shrines they worship in and offer sacrifices in, and they’re always put upon the high places. That’s, in fact, where the church steeple came from.”

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Here are two more examples in Scripture of God warning of this same practice:

Ezekiel 6:13 says, “Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.”

Hosea 4: 12-13 says, “My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.
[13] They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.”