Baal Worship and God's Holiness

In Galatians 5, we find a good watchword for our lives as Christians that can encourage us in our
struggle against sin:
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

The Bible tells us in 2nd Corinthians that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  Jesus said in the book of John that we will know the truth and the truth will make us free.  God wants us to be free - but from what?  Well, we have been set from from the power of sin.  We have a transformed nature, and have been given the tools we need to overcome sin's power daily.   When we do sin, we have an advocate, the Lord Jesus, to whom we can confess our sins and receive forgiveness.

+++++

In Romans chapter 6, we read about the power of sin, but also of a greater power that enables us to overcome sin:
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

There is a rather odd and disturbing icon that is headed for Times Square in New York City and Trafalgar Square in London later in the spring.  CBN News reports that a reproduction of the entrance Temple of Baal will be coming to those locations as a tribute to the original structure, which was 2,000 years old and destroyed by ISIS last year in Palmyra, Syria.  The story says that the reproductions will be made using a 3-D printer, producing a life-size model of the temple's entrance.

Roger Michel, executive director for the Institute for Digital Archaeology, says that "We hope it is viewed as a constructive response to what has happened there." The Institute hopes to build around 1,000 versions of the arch around the world.

The article points out that Christian sites were among those destroyed by Islamic State.

The CBN story quotes a WND piece by Matt Barber, who gave a graphic description of Baal worship.
It said:

"Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies," Barber wrote.

He continued: "The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of 'mother earth.'" Bringing it into a modern context, he points out that, "...the worship of 'fertility' has been replaced with worship of 'reproductive freedom' or 'choice.' Child sacrifice via burnt offering has been updated, ever so slightly, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion."

We recognize throughout the Scriptures that in the days of the Old Testament, worship to Baal was taking place, at times even led by the kings.  When you read summaries of the reigns of so many of these kings, you find that the definition of their reign was determined by whether or not they worshiped the one true God or not.  You find kings who were generally regarded as good and even godly, but their tenures were stained by their neglect to remove the so-called "high places," where people were invited to worship these false gods.

In a piece for Decision Magazine a few years back, Scott Morton of The Navigators writes:

In your Old Testament reading, have you come across the term high places? Mentioned 117 times, high places were centers for Canaanite idol worship that the Jews were commanded to tear down. But instead, these places became idols that subtly seduced God’s people year after year—they couldn’t stay away!

What about today? Are followers of Christ still tempted by high places? Let’s ask it a different way: Do believers sometimes succumb to today’s “ism-idols”—rampant materialism, impure sexism or me-ism?

Morton points out that Baal was one of 26 major Canaanite gods.  He writes, "Today we don’t construct idolatrous clay figurines of Baal or attend worship services for Asherah, but our temptations are just as seductive and perhaps even more subtle."

The thought of a life-sized replica - 50 feet tall - of the entrance to the Temple of Baal is quite concerning, and it's an indicator of either ignorance of what this structure represented, a refusal to stigmatize what it represented, or even a celebration of a so-called "deity" who was raised up, invented as a selfish alternative to the one true God.

But, just as Ecclesiastes tells us there is nothing new under the sun, we recognize that humanity has been looking for alternatives to serving God since, well, the beginning.   Think about the Garden, when Satan tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God.  How about the Tower of Babel?  The Bible Hub website, quoting from the ATS Bible Dictionary, says: "The worship of Baal was established in Babylon in the famous tower of Babel, the uppermost room of which served at the same time as an observatory, and as the repository of a collection of astronomical observations."

There has been a search for answers outside of the realm of God's truth for centuries, really, since the creation of humanity.  So, a re-awareness of the Temple of Baal is not so far-fetched, and it can remind us to take into account a few elements of our own spiritual lives.

For one thing, sin is a powerful force that is not to be accommodated, but eradicated.  Romans tells us that sin "shall not have dominion over you."  That is a very high standard, but I believe that embracing this high standard can help us live a more victorious Christian life.   Because of what Jesus did for us on the cross and out of the grave, we can identify with what He did and experience a greater degree of triumph over sin.

How do we walk in a manner of experiencing freedom from sin?  Well, we have to first of all agree with God that we are no longer under the curse of sin.  We can change our mindset from being sinners who are trying to become saints to being saints who sin.   The Bible teaches us to embrace holiness and we can only become holy as we release of nature of God in our hearts and release His power by learning and applying His principles.   Saved saints will struggle with sin, but our salvation insures that we can be overcomers, more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.

And, as we live a Christian life effectively, displaying the presence of Jesus, then that can send a message to those who would rather "worship Baal," or love the world, that God loves them and that only He provides a way to experience true abundant and eternal life.