Baal-worship and The
Long Delay
 Baal-worship Not
Yet Dead
It is now about
twenty-eight centuries since the Lord called Elijah to stand for truth
and denounce Baal-worship in high places. It would seem logical that
ancient history of that sort could be filed away in the archives and
forgotten. From the human view point it could. But the Lord works on
eternal principles. The chain of history stands unbroken. The contest
continues between truth and error.
In our history it
is now about one century since the Lord sent a message to us that has a
strange resemblance to the one of many centuries ago. Two years after
the 1888 Minneapolis meeting, Ellen White saw one of the most penetrating and
serious of all her visions. She was in communion with God, the room was
filled with light, and she saw herself "bearing a message to an
assembly that seemed to be the General Conference. I was moved by the
Spirit of God to make a most earnest appeal; for I was impressed that
great danger was before us at the heart of the work."7
The danger she
saw had its roots in the 1888 failure and the consequences were tied to
the unbelief and apostasy of ancient Israel. She warns:
The prejudices
and opinions that prevailed at Minneapolis are not dead by any means;
the seeds sown there in some hearts are ready to spring into life and
bear a like harvest. The tops have been cut down, but the roots have
never been eradicated, and they still bear their unholy fruit to poison
the judgment, pervert the perceptions, and blind the understanding of
those with whom you connect, in regard to the message and the
messengers. ... Infidelity has been making inroads into our ranks; for
it is the fashion to depart from Christ, and give place to skepticism.
With many the cry of their heart has been, "We will not have this
man to reign over us." Baal, Baal, is the choice. The religion of
many among us will be the religion of apostate Israel, because they love
their own way, and forsake the way of the Lord. The true religion, the
only religion of the Bible, that teaches forgiveness only through the
merits of a crucified and risen Saviour, that advocates righteousness by
the faith of the Son of God, has been slighted, spoken against,
ridiculed, and rejected. ... What kind of future is before us if we
shall fail to come into the unity of the [1888] faith?8
After nearly a
century we can answer very clearly that the future she saw is the
condition in which we now find ourselves. It would be so much more
comfortable if the things portrayed in the post-1888 experience of the
church could be applied to the world or completely overlooked. But the
word of the Lord will not go away. Satan persists in his endeavors to
destroy the uniqueness of this people’s mission. His deceptive methods
are laid bare in these words:
Everything may
move forward amid apparent prosperity; but Satan is wide awake, and is
studying and counseling with his evil angels another mode of attack
where he can be successful. … The great controversy will wax stronger,
and stronger and will become more and more determined. Mind will be
arrayed against mind, plans against plans, principles of heavenly origin
against principles of Satan. Truth in its varied phases will be in
conflict with error in its ever-varying, increasing forms, and which, if
possible, will deceive the very elect. …
Unsanctified
ministers are arraying themselves against God. They are praising Christ
and the god of this world in the same breath. While professedly they
receive Christ, they embrace Barabbas, and by their actions say,
"Not this man, but Barabbas."... Let the son of deceit and
false witness be entertained by a church that has had great light, great
evidence, and that church will discard the message the Lord has sent,
and receive the most unreasonable assertions and false suppositions and
false theories. …
Many will stand
in our pulpits with the torch of false prophecy in their hands, kindled
from the hellish torch of Satan. … The conflict is to wax fiercer and
fiercer. Satan will take the field and personate Christ. He will
misrepresent, misapply, and pervert everything he possibly can, to
deceive, if possible, the very elect.9
This solemn
evaluation and prediction of Baal-worship concerns our church, our
members, our ministry. Baal-worship did not die at Mt. Carmel. Indeed we
may not really understand what the children of Israel were saying when
they cried, "O Baal, hear us." In the Hebrew this meant,
"O Lord, hear us," for Baal simply means, "lord," or
"master," and the name with slight variations is found in
numerous ancient languages, from Babylonian to Greek. In particular,
Baal was the god of the Canaanites, the apostate children of Ham. The
false and rebellious idea of Cain that the fruit of the ground would
suffice for a living sacrifice was handed down to the Canaanites and
Baal was accepted as their chief god who ruled nature; hence they had a
religion of pantheism.10
The pantheism of
the Canaanites was no different than the pantheism which crept into our
church almost unnoticed at the turn of the century. Pretentious
sophistries, brilliant, sparkling ideas were produced by the great
deceiver and passed from mind to mind so that without knowing it the
pillars of our faith were being destroyed. We were saved by the
insistent warnings of the Lord’s messenger at that time. The startling
thing is, Ellen White tells us that this was only the "alpha of
deadly heresies" and that the "omega" would follow and
"be received by those who are not willing to heed the warning God
has given." She "trembled for our people." 11
It took about a
century for Israel to reach their unconscious apostate condition of
Baal-worship. It will soon be a century since we were deceived by the
"alpha of deadly heresies." Clearly then we have the warning
that God’s people can change leaders and not know it. The peril is
magnified when it is understood that the apostasy of the Israelites did
not reside only in Ahab and Jezebel, but there were four-hundred and
fifty priests of Baal plus another four-hundred prophets of the grove
who formed the steering committee for the nation. Elijah recognized that
Baal had usurped the place of Yahweh. When he threw down the challenge,
"If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow
him," (1 Kings 18:19) we have in their answer a vivid video tape of
the last church. The Record says, "The people answered him not a
word." This means they were not for, they were not against, they
were not hot, they were not cold, they were "lukewarm." They
did not know their condition. Unconsciously they had changed leaders.
Does
Baal-worship Exist Today? |
