It has been
written that the land of Canaan from the crossing of the Jordan by the
Israelites and afterward was devoted to the worship of Baal (most likely
before that as well). The Semitic word Baal means “lord” or “master”
and the Canaanites believed that Baal was in absolute control over
nature and over people. They believed that the only god who was superior
to Baal was his father El, but Baal was the principal deity of the
land. It was he who was in charge of the rain and the weather, and the
people’s survival was dependent upon Baal’s provision.
“One
may question that those ancient enemies of Israel were as evil as the
Bible claims they were, but even a superficial glance at Canaanite
religion alone ably demonstrates their iniquity. Immoral sex worship
was prevalent, and religious prostitution within Baal temples was said
to be commanded. Human sacrifice was common particularly that of
infants and it was said to be a frequent practice.
The
God of Heaven and the God of Israel, continually condemned the worship
of Baal. The Lord sent His prophets to warn the people of this idolatry
and of the blatant corruption of the Baal fertility rites. During the
period of the kings of Israel Baal worship was prevalent, and even
commanded. Queen Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of King Ahab, had 450
prophets of Baal as her court counselors. Elijah challenged them on
Mount Carmel and Yahweh proved to be the true God.
1
Kings 18:38-39 NET Then fire from the LORD fell from the sky. It
consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, and the dirt, and licked up
the water in the trench. (39) When all the people saw this, they threw
themselves down with their faces to the ground and said, “The LORD is
the true God! The LORD is the true God!”
Before
much time elapsed, the Kings of Judah and the people of the Southern
Kingdom reciprocated with the worship of Baal complete with the
associated sex temples, infant sacrifice, and prostitution.
Various Names of Baal in Scripture
Baal-gad ( “lord of good fortune,” Josh 11:17)
Baal-hamon ( “lord of wealth,” Song of Solomon 8:11)
Baal-hazor ( “Baal’s village,” 2 Samuel 13:23)
Baal-meon ( “lord of the dwelling,” Numbers 32:38)
Baal-peor ( “lord of the opening,” Deuteronomy 4:3)
Baal-tamar ( “lord of the palm tree,” Judges 20:33), and others.
Ba’al-ze’bub
was the form of the name of Baal that was worshiped at the Philistine
city of Ekron. Baal, under this aspect of worship, was viewed as the
so-called producer of flies and therefore able to control this pest so
common in the East. Baalzebub can be translated as “lord of the flies”
or “the lord who flies”, which has nothing to do with actual flies as
insects.
DEMONIC ROOTS OF ABORTION
Jezebel, the non-Israelite wife of King Ahab is said to have led the
Northern Israelites in Baal worship as well as the sacrifice of
children. Ahaz is reported to have burned “his son as an offering” to
Baal/Moloch, as did Manasseh.
2
Kings 16:2-3 NET Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and
he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what pleased
the LORD his God, in contrast to his ancestor David. (3) He followed in
the footsteps of the kings of Israel. He passed his son through the
fire, a horrible sin practiced by the nations whom the LORD drove out
from before the Israelites.
2
Kings 21:6 NET He (Manasseh) passed his son through the fire and
practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure
up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a
great amount of evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
It
was believed that human sacrifice to Baal held the key to prosperity.
In a similar manner, abortion costs much less than raising a child, plus
a no child policy frees up one’s social and recreational life. People
desiring to live in selfish prosperity and ease brought their firstborn
child to the high priest, where the child would be offered as a burnt
offering to the Baal deity.
The altar of the Baal
representative was in the image of a bull with the head and shoulders of
a man and was called Moloch. Its arms extended outward and fire belched
out from a hole in the chest. The priest of Moloch placed the babies on
the outstretched arms, where the child would be rolled into the fire.
As the child died, the priest and priestess engaged in sexual
intercourse, while an orgy occurred among the onlookers.
A
Moloch cemetery unearthed recently contained the remains of more than
twenty thousand children. The Greek author Kleitarchos described this
practice of sacrificing infants to Baal three hundred years before
Christ:
“Out
of reverence for Kronos [Baal], the Phoenicians, and especially the
Carthaginians, whenever they seek to obtain some great favor, vow one of
their children, burning it as a sacrifice to the deity, if they are
especially eager to gain success. There stands in their midst a bronze
statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames
of which engulf the child. When the flames fall on the body, the limbs
contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing, until the
contracted body slips quietly into the brazier.”
The
Ancients sacrificed their children by fire for personal convenience and
gain, while engaging in promiscuity. Modern Baal/ Moloch worshipers
(i.e. abortionists) have slaughtered millions for basically the same
reasons. Abortionists care very little for the welfare of the mother.
Do they warn of the increased risk of cancer? No, in fact, they
attempt to cover it up.
One
ritual they practiced was the “sacred orgy”. The people would
congregate at some location, proceed to get drunk, while engaging in
promiscuous sex. The stated reason for this ceremony was to celebrate
fertility, i.e. by engaging in acts of reproduction (i.e. sexual
intercourse), they thanked their gods, Baal and Asherah, for their
success at bearing children (perhaps another man’s child), breeding
animals, growing crops, and prayed for more of the same.
Another
ritual was child sacrifice. A fire was lit inside a metal idol, heated
until the idol was extremely hot, and then a baby would be placed in the
arms of the idol or slid inside the idol and burned to death.
Were
the orgies inspired by religious devotion, a materialistic desire for
more crops and animals, or rather by simple lust? Perhaps the Baal/
Moloch worship was a thin excuse for doing what they wanted to do
anyway? Of course, people are complex. It is quite possible that people
saw a mystical, religious significance to sex, and also the fact that
the ritual was pleasurable didn’t exactly hinder its appeal.
There
was no type of birth control until fairly recent time. With a group of
people having uncontrolled orgies, it is inevitably a certain number of
pregnancies will result. Perhaps having a child of a father other than
your husband was no issue for them. But what if the pregnant woman is
young, single and/or destitute? In that circumstance and during those
time it would be impossible to care and maintain for a child. The
practice of child sacrifice would provide an easy, convenient answer.
Just kill the child by burning the body at a Moloch statue.
The
perfect combination: Easily accessible sex with an occasional unwanted
child, but a religious practice that provided a convenient method to
dispose of them.
The
practice of tolerance teaches that morality does not exist outside of
human thoughts: don’t try to impose one’s morals on another; no one has
the right to judge another’s religion or morality. Even if there is any
sort of “God”, then his (or her) ideas about right and wrong have no
greater significance than one’s own ideas. The opinion of some type of
God is merely another opinion.
Prior
to the 60’s most people believed that sex outside of marriage was
morally wrong, thus many people did not participate, although some did.
But during the so-called “free love” period of the sixties that seemed
to change.
However,
promiscuous sex invariably results in unwanted children. Even married
couples have the identical problem with unwanted children. If both
partners of a married couple are participating in the same lifestyle
they may or may not care concerning the father of the child. Unmarried
women with a career is the most probable person to not want a child if
pregnancy occurs. Today, no one waits for the child to be born and then
give it away and child sacrifice is not currently practiced. The
simple and convenient answer is abortion .
During
the early part of the 20th century, most people believed that killing
innocent babies was wrong. However, many people today simply declare
abortion not to be wrong and anyone who says differently is intolerant
and imposing his religion on others. So, we simply kill the baby and
dispose of the body. We may even donate the body parts for medical
research out of guilt, if any still remains.
Matt Barber as posted on WorldNetDaily writes:
Modern-day
liberals – or “progressives” as they more discreetly prefer – labor
under an awkward misconception; namely, that there is anything remotely
“progressive” about the fundamental canons of their blind,
secular-humanist faith. In fact, today’s liberalism is largely a
sanitized retread of an antiquated mythology – one that significantly
predates the only truly progressive movement: biblical Christianity.
While visiting the Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian Church in
Lynchburg, Va., a few weeks back, I heard a troubling, albeit
thought-provoking, sermon. Pastor John Mabray addressed the ancient
Canaanite practice of Baal worship and, though he didn’t reveal it by
name, connected the dots to its present-day progeny: liberalism. Baal,
the half-bull, half-man god of fertility, was the focal point of pagan
idolatry in Semitic Israel until God revealed His monotheistic nature to
Judaism’s forebears.
In his sermon, Pastor Mabray illustrated that,
although they’ve now assumed a more contemporary flair, the
fundamentals of Baal worship remain alive and well today. The principal
pillars of Baalism were child sacrifice, sexual immorality (both
heterosexual and homosexual) and pantheism (reverence of creation over
the Creator).
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. The ritual of convenience
was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring
rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”
Modern
liberalism deviates little from its ancient predecessor. While its
gruesome rituals have been sanitized with flowery and euphemistic terms,
its core tenets and practices remain uncannily similar. The worship of
“fertility” has been replaced with worship of “reproductive freedom” or
“choice.” Child sacrifice through a burnt offering has been slightly
updated, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion. The ritualistic
promotion, practice and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual
immorality and promiscuity have been carefully whitewashed, although
wholeheartedly embraced by the cults of radical feminism, militant “gay
rights” and “comprehensive sex education.”
But
it’s not just self-styled “progressives” or secular humanists who have
adopted the fundamental pillars of Baalism. The modern times have seen
the emergence of a religion sometimes referred to as “emergent
Christianity” or “quasi-Christianity,” since it is far from being
Biblical Christianity. This religion is merely liberalism gratuitously
stamped “Christian.”
Calling
it “social justice,” its adherents often support, or at least
rationalize, the same pro-homosexual, pro-abortion and radical
environmental policies pushed by the modern-day Baal worshiper.
Though
the “Christian left” represent what is arguably a negligible minority
within larger Christianity, the liberal media have, nonetheless,
embraced their cause and seized upon their popularity among elites as
evidence that the so-called “Christian right” (read: biblical
Christianity) is losing influence – that Christianity is, somehow,
“catching up with the times.”
Today’s liberalism is really just a very old book with a shiny new cover. It is a philosophy rooted in ancient pagan traditions.
As Solomon wrote “there is nothing new under the sun”.
