ARE YOUR KIDS WORSHIPPING BAAL?

by, Becky Fischer

I had just been reading my Bible in my regular devotional time this summer when my attention was consistently drawn to the Old Testament stories about Baal worship. There were stories like Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal during the reign of King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel (a woman who was actually named after Baal (her name means “ the Lord [or Baal] exists”). She’s often accused of pulling her Jewish husband’s allegiance away from the Most High God of heaven and earth to devotion to Baal. That’s what I had always thought anyway, until the Holy Spirit began pointing out little details I had somehow missed before. For instance, it was in this story that Elijah began to shout at those Baal worshipping Jews, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If Baal is god then worship him, but if God be God then worship him.”
It wasn’t they that they had chosen Baal over God---they were worshipping both Gods side by side. That’s why in Deuteronomy 16:21 it says, “You must never set up an Asherah pole (the female version of Baal) beside the altar of the Lord your God.” I had already noticed in the story of Balaam earlier that he built his three separate altars of stone and killed seven bulls and seven rams all three times in order to practice his divination of calling on demonic spirits to help him put curses on Israel. I kept thinking, “Where is it that we see the sacrificing of bulls and rams on stone altars?” That’s what God commanded His people to do from the days of Abraham! It became clear to me that even Balaam, the Canaanite magician, knew something about worshipping Yahweh and he was mixing his religious practices with his magic! Today we have a word for that—SYNCRENISM. It’s the blending of two opposing religious views together. It’s very alive and well in places like Africa where Christians will go to church on Sunday to get prayer for healing, then go straight to the local witchdoctor to do his magic potions over the same illness.
So I did a study on Baal worship. It now had my attention. I discovered there were four distinct qualities of Baal worship in the Old Testament. The first has long been common knowledge—the sacrificing by
fire of the first child to the Baals. The second is also common knowledge—extreme sexual immorality as Baal worship is a fertility cult. It was basically a religious system that worshipped sex right down to performing male and female prostitution in the temples. But the next two areas I had never really noticed before. Baal worship was a worship of the earth, sun, moon, and stars. They held religious holidays around the seasons again based on their crops growing and harvest.
The Canaanites around them believed Baal was the god that controlled the rain and sun, that is why Elijah’s challenge had to do with rain. By declaring that there would be no rain until he said so, he was proving to them that it was the Most High God that was the God of the rain and not Baal.
Finally Baal worship, as demonstrated by Balaam, fully had to do with magic, interaction with evil spirits, incantations, and casting spells.
It all started making sense now. Over the years as I have studied this current religious climate with the younger generation, I had read repeatedly how this is a generation of kids, teens, and young adults think nothing of mixing religious beliefs—a little bit of New Age, with a tad of Wicca, and a dab of eastern religions, thrown in the pot with some basic Christian beliefs. It seems that this generation bases it’s belief systems, not on a book like the Bible, but on what they experience. If they have significant experiences with their religious experimentation, the experience trumps what is written in a book, including the Bible. And unfortunately few of them have ever had significant “experiences” in their Christian faith. That’s why if a child has a significant experience with Harry Potter, but has never had a significant experience with Jesus, he is so easily enamored with the young warlock.
As I reflected on the Baal worship of the Old Testament I was starkly aware that it was alive and well in the earth today. We have child sacrifice (abortion), we definitely are a culture that worships sex, and never in my lifetime have we ever seen such interest and a flooding of the entertainment industry with magic and the supernatural. The New York Times recently reported twenty years ago when asked less than 12% of the population claimed ever having a paranormal experience. Today at least 65% of the population claim to have had at least one.
But that last part—the worship of the earth—was a new thought. And it is something that I even hesitate to bring up because it causes such division and strong opinions. Today we have the new “green movement.” The “radical environmentalists” who by definition have been called by some as the “new religious movement” view the destruction of things like the rain forest or trees as an attack on a SACRED, natural world. Slogans like “save the planet” or “save the rain forest” have become our children’s mantras. They are taught from kindergarten to “go green,” “save the baby whales,” or to “stop global warming.”
But radical environmentalism is all about “reconnecting with nature,” or making nature sacred again. It’s being politically active in defense of “mother earth.” Radical environmentalists include groups such as Earth Liberationists, Green anarchists, neo-pagans, and Wiccans. And of course don’t forget the animal rights activists who frequently put the welfare of animals over the importance of people.
There are some reports that claim that Wicca is the fastest growing religion of choice among our teenagers. I knew almost nothing about Wicca until recently. But get this—Wicca is all about the worship of the earth and nature! Listen to some of the statements from their leaders:
“If you take a copy of the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. OUR BIBLE IS THE WIND AND THE RAIN.”
“When one defines oneself as pagan, it means he follows an earth or a nature religion and he sees the divine manifest in creation.” (That is not to be confused with looking at nature and seeing the beauty of God’s creation—they are saying creation IS God!)
“The cycles of nature are our holy days, the earth is our temple, and its plants and creatures are our partners and teachers.”
“We worship a god that is both male and female, a mother goddess (thus the “mother earth” connotation) and a father god who together created all that was or will be.” (I’ve always wondered where we got the term “Mother Nature!” It surely does not come from the Bible!)
And, oh, by the way, Wiccans called themselves witches and use magic in their religious practices, though they will be quick to tell you it’s not used to bring harm but only good to others.
Bottom line—Baal worship is alive and well in our cultures again today, and anyone who dares disagree with it is ridiculed and called names, and our kids are in the thick of it. Just know this if you are a born again Christian who claims the Word of God as your standard, there is nothing about you that is politically correct! Political correctness was designed to shut you up!
What does the Bible say about all of this? Do we even know? When Jesus went up on the mountains to be alone and pray, He was not going up there to “commune with nature!” There is such a fine line, and because this article is short, I am surely leaving something out that will draw the ire of some. But the tragedy is most of our children and teens have no clue how to filter what is being said and done in the world around them with what the Bible says. That is they do not, as many adults Christians do not, have a Biblical worldview. Check this out:
While our kids and teens are spending much of their time trying to save the planet, God says, “Heaven and earth will pass away with a loud noise and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth will be burned up.” (2 Peter 3:10)
He says, in 2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1 that He’s going to give us a new heaven and a new earth! So while people are running around trying to save the planet, God says “You’re wasting your time because it’s going to be destroyed!” Any effort to save the earth forever is opposite to God’s revealed plan!
Don’t get me wrong! I am not saying you shouldn’t recycle. I am not saying we should be wasteful, or that we shouldn’t be good stewards of our precious resources. But when we begin to put nature, the earth, and animal rights and needs above people and God’s plan, we have crossed a very fine line into Baal worship!
Jesus didn’t die for the planet and the animals. He wasn’t nailed to the cross for lions and tigers and bears. It bothers me to no end when I hear of eight and nine year old kids who have decided to be “vegans” because they feel sorry for the animals having to be killed. Sorry! But that’s a perverted mercy gift! When man begins to worship the creation more than the creator (and man was made in the image
of that Creator!) then we’ve crossed a line. We can either let the world teach our kids to save baby whales, or we can teach them to save souls!
It was graphically brought home to me earlier this year when I went to see a movie with two of my children’s pastor friends. We had some time on our hands at the end of a weeklong conference, and decided to see a movie. We all agreed to see Avatar, not because we knew anything about it, but solely based on the fact that so many of the Christian parents in our churches were sending their kids to it. So we thought it must be pretty good.
It was all I could do to sit there and not walk out—but I decided I wanted to see it through to the end. From start to finish, front to back, I have never seen such a strong New Age message—right down to the worship of that grand old tree( which by the way is called ‘the tree of souls’)! Where is our discernment? How can we not see what is going on around us? Without a strong knowledge of God’s word neither we nor our children will be able to stand against the Baal worship of our day. Without realizing it we will set up Asherah poles next to the altar of God in our hearts until the prophet Elijah rises up once again to say, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If Baal is God then worship him. But if God is God then worship Him!”

Suggested Resource: Shaping Future Generations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Becky Fischer is the founder and director of Kids In Ministry International. It is most cutting edge apostolic, prophetic ministry for children and those who minister to them. Our mission is to redefine children's ministry in the 21st century by raising up this generation as active members in the body of Christ.

www.kidsinministry.org