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School Baals
Old Idol, New Form
© 2008 by Dan L. White
All rights reserved
How the ancient idolatry
of the human spirit reappeared in modern times.
Foreword
This book is written to Christianos.
1Pe 4:16,
WEB
(16) But if one of you suffers for being a
Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this matter.
The Greek
word which is translated Christian is Christianos. Christianos then
had a far different meaning than Christian does today. We all know how the dollar has suffered from
inflation, in that it buys much less than it did
previously. When I
attended high school in the early 1960’s, for lunch I bought two hot dogs, a
pie and a Royal Crown Cola for fifty cents.
Today that fifty cents will not buy a hot dog,
a pie or a Royal Crown Cola.
The dollar
does not have the same meaning today as it did then.
Neither
does the word Christian. The word
Christian has suffered from word inflation.
It has been misappropriated, misapplied, and messed with. Today people call themselves Christian who
may not believe that God or Satan exists, who do not believe that Christ is the
one way to life and who do not follow Him at all.
People
today often call themselves homosexual Christians. That’s like saying
dry water or light black. It cannot be.
By
contrast, the original word Christianos had great
meaning. As Peter pointed out in the
above verse, one who became a Christianos was
immediately subject to persecution and possible death.
A Christianos was to follow the example of Christ himself.
1Pe
2:21-22
(21) For to this you were called,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should
follow his steps,
(22) who did not sin,
"neither was deceit found in his mouth."
Therefore a Christianos
committed himself to aim for perfection.
Mat 5:48
(48) Therefore you shall
be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
This book is written to Christianos, those
who seek to follow Christ’s example, who want to aim for perfection.
School Baals
Chapter 1
Abundance of Idols
Baal is
the best known idol mentioned in the Bible. Elijah had a contest with the prophets of
Baal to see who’s offering would be burned up. Baal lost, even if he is famous.
Baal certainly
wasn’t the only idol talked about in the Bible. There were a whole bunch
of them.
There are
18 words in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament,
which refer to idols. That’s
not just 18 different idols. That’s 18 different words to describe types of idols.
Some of
them are:
Teraphim – images
or family idols.
Gen 31:19
– (All Bible quotes are World English Bible, unless noted otherwise.)
(19) Now Laban had gone to shear his
sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her
father's.
When Rachel
and Jacob were leaving her ancestral home, she thought it was necessary to take
with them her father’s teraphim, or little goddies. She didn’t take the family jewels – she took the family gods.
Bosheth –
shameful thing.
Jer 11:13
(13)
For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah; and
according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to
the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal.
Aven –
nothingness or vanity.
Deu 32:21
(21)
They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger
with their vanities.
There are
18 different such words to describe idolatry.
As you can tell, these words are not flattering to the idols.
Many idols
are named individually. Besides Baal, the idolatry of Astarte, Chemosh and Moloch was absorbed by
Israel from their neighbors.
The
worship of Tammuz was brought right into the temple of
Yahweh.
Eze 8:14
(14)
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of
Yahweh's house which was toward the north; and see, there sat the women weeping
for Tammuz.
As was the worship of the sun.
Eze 8:16
(16)
He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh's
house; and see, at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the
altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward the temple of
Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshipping the sun
toward the east.
Idols were worshiped by:
- Pouring out libations;
- Giving first fruits and tithes;
- Presenting them with tables of food;
- Kissing;
- Kneeling or prostrating themselves
before the idols;
- Sexual rites;
- And burning children
in sacrifice.
Both the
first and second commandments are against idolatry.
Exo 20:3-6
(3)
You shall have no other gods before me.
(4) "You shall not make for yourselves an
idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
(5)
you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh
your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
(6)
and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
God hates
idolatry.
Exo 22:20
(20)
"He who sacrifices to any god, except to Yahweh only, shall be
utterly destroyed.
Deu 13:6-10
(6)
If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter,
or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, who is as your own soul, entice you
secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known,
you, nor your fathers;
(7)
of the gods of the peoples who are around you,
near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even to the
other end of the earth;
(8)
you shall not consent to him, nor listen to
him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall
you conceal him:
(9)
but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall
be first on him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
(10)
You shall stone him to death with stones, because he has sought to draw
you away from Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of bondage.
Israel was
to totally exterminate the Canaanites from the Holy
Land, because of their idolatry.
Exo 34:11-17
(11)
Observe that which I command you this day. Behold,
I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the
Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite,
and the Jebusite.
(12)
Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land
where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you:
(13)
but you shall break down their altars, and dash
in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim;
(14)
for you shall worship no other god: for Yahweh,
whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
(15)
Don't make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play
the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you
and you eat of his sacrifice;
(16)
and you take of their daughters to your sons,
and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons
play the prostitute after their gods.
(17)
You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.
And Israel herself was cast out of the Holy Land when she
became idolatrous.
Jer 2:11-23
(11)
Has a nation changed its gods, which yet are no gods?
but my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
(12)
Be astonished, you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be you very
desolate, says Yahweh.
(13)
For my people have committed two evils: they
have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut them out cisterns,
broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
(14)
Is Israel a servant? is he a native-born slave? why is he become a prey?
(15)
The young lions have roared on him, and yelled; and they have made his
land waste: his cities are burned up, without
inhabitant.
(16)
The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have broken the crown of your head.
(17)
Haven't you procured this to yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahweh
your God, when he led you by the way?
(18)
Now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? or what have you to do in
the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
(19)
Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backsliding shall
reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter, that
you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is
not in you, says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.
(20)
For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bonds; and you
said, I will not serve; for on every high hill and under every green tree you
did bow yourself, playing the prostitute.
(21)
Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a
right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign
vine to me?
(22)
For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your
iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord Yahweh.
(23)
How can you say, I am not defiled, I have not
gone after the Baals? See your way in the valley,
know what you have done: you are a swift dromedary
traversing her ways;
In the New
Testament, idolatry was said to be not just the
adoration of an image, but also love of self.
Col 3:5
(5)
Put to death therefore your members which are
on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire,
and covetousness, which is idolatry.
From this
brief survey, we can conclude two things about idolatry.
1. God hates it.
2. Humans love it.
Chapter 2
What is Idolatry?
The
apostle Paul writes about idolatry in Romans 1.
Rom 1:18-25 MKJV, Modern King James.
(18)
For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
(19)
because the thing which may be known of God is
clearly revealed within them, for God revealed it to them.
(20)
For the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being realized by the things that are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead, for them to be without excuse.
(21)
Because, knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were
thankful. But they became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened.
(22)
Professing to be wise, they became fools
(23)
and changed the glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals,
and creeping things.
(24) Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between
themselves.
(25)
For they changed the truth of God into a lie, and they worshiped and
served the created thing more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Verse 25 says
they served the created thing more than the Creator.
The same Greek
word, ktisis, which is rendered
as “created thing” in verse 25 is translated in verse 20 as “creation:” “For the unseen things of Him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen…”
The
International Standard Version gives verse 25 as:
Rom 1:25 ISV
(25) They exchanged God's truth for a lie and
worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator...
The word which is translated in the ISV as “rather than” and in the KJV
as “more than” can also be “as opposed to.”
Idolatry, then, is serving the creation as opposed to
serving the Creator.
Humans are
the natural enemy of God.
Rom 8:7 MKJV
(7)
because the carnal mind is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be.
Rom 8:7 GNB, Good News
Bible.
(7)
And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their
human nature; for they do not obey God's law, and in fact
they cannot obey it.
Humans -- God’s natural enemies -- as a whole always revert to idolatry.
This is how they refuse to subject themselves to God and
His law.
They create an idol, and so get rid
of God and His law.
What is
idolatry again? Serving
the creation as opposed to serving the Creator.
After the
great flood, all nations quickly forgot that punishment and reverted to
idolatry. Sun worship, the most common
form of idolatry, emerged around the world – in the Middle East, Africa,
Europe, China, India and the Americas.
Only a few
hundred years after the flood, Abram was called by Yahweh
to come out of Ur, the city of the moon goddess, to start a Godly nation,
Israel. Apparently
even Abram’s family was involved with idolatry.
Jos 24:14-15, MKJ:
(14)
Now, then, fear Jehovah, and serve Him in sincerity and truth. And put away the gods which your fathers served on the
other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve Jehovah.
(15)
And if it seems evil to you to serve Jehovah, choose this day whom you
will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served Beyond the River, or the
gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But as
for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah.
Israel was given the knowledge of the true God, yet constantly reverted to
some form of idolatry.
The
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says:
“The
neighboring gods of Phoenicia, Canaan, Moab--Baal, Melkart,
Astarte, Chemosh, Moloch, etc.--were particularly
attractive to Jerusalem, while the old Semitic calf-worship seriously affected
the state religion of the Northern Kingdom. As early as the
Assyrian and Babylonian periods (8th and 7th centuries BC), various deities
from the Tigris and Euphrates had intruded themselves--the worship of Tammuz
becoming a little later the most popular and seductive of all (Ezekiel
8:14)--while the worship of the sun, moon, stars and signs of the Zodiac became
so intensely fascinating that these were introduced even into the temple itself
(2 Kings 17:16; 21:3-7; 23:4,12; Jeremiah 19:13; Ezekiel 8:16; Amos 5:26).”
All nations which did not have the
written word of God became idolatrous.
The one nation which did have the
written word of God also became idolatrous.
Humans as a whole always become idolaters, somehow serving
the creation as opposed to serving the Creator.
Chapter 3
The Source of Idolatry
The Tower
of Babel shows two aspects of idolatry.
Gen 11:1-8
(1)
The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
(2)
It happened, as they traveled east, that they found a plain in the land
of Shinar, and they lived there.
(3)
They said one to another, "Come, let's make bricks, and burn them
thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they
used tar for mortar.
(4)
They said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose
top reaches to the sky, and let's make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered
abroad on the surface of the whole earth."
(5)
Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of
men built.
(6)
Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one
language, and this is what they begin to do. Now
nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend
to do.
(7) Come, let's go down, and there confuse
their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
(8)
So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the
earth. They stopped building the city.
It would
seem that the Tower at Babel was involved with physical idolatry. Remains of towers have been
found in Mesopotamia, and this is what they were like.
“The
buildings were pyramidal in form and rose in several, usually seven, step-like sections. The storied tower of Birs Nimrud
counts seven of these quadrangular platforms painted in seven colors, black,
white, yellow, blue, scarlet, silver, and gold, and in
the same order sacred to the stellar gods, Adar (Saturn), Ishtar
(Venus), Merodach (Jupiter), Nebo (Mercury), Nergal (Mars), Sin (the Moon), Shamash (the Sun).” –Catholic Encyclopedia, article Babel.
Apparently these towers were built to serve the
7 brightest heavenly bodies, the sun being chief. We will then presume that the tower at Babel,
in the same area as the other remains of these towers, was
also built to worship the heavenly bodies. That is, it may have been
built to idolize the sun, moon and five brightest planets.
However,
the tower at Babel also shows another aspect of idolatry.
Reading
again from the account in Genesis 11:
(4)
They said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose
top reaches to the sky, and let's make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered
abroad on the surface of the whole earth."
(5)
Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of
men built.
(6)
Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one
language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld
from them, which they intend to do.
The
manifestation of idolatry in Mesopotamia was the towers which
were used to worship the heavenly bodies, but
the actual idolatry came from the people.
The towers
were just dead, baked mud bricks.
Neither were the sun, moon and five planets alive. The real idolatry was in the heart of the
people, to make a name for themselves -- to lift themselves up, as opposed to
lifting God up.
In the
account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Eve was idolatrous without an
idol.
Gen 3:4-6 KJV
(4)
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall
not surely die:
(5)
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
(6)
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her; and he did eat.
There was
no physical idol, but this was idolatry.
The idolatry was in the human heart.
“…you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil;” and it was “a tree
desired to make one wise.” Eve was her own idol.
The golden
calf is a prime example of having a physical idol and spiritual idolatry.
Exo 32:1-6
(1)
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain,
the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, "Come,
make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who
brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of
him."
(2)
Aaron said to them, "Take off the golden rings, which are in the
ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to
me."
(3)
All the people took off the golden rings which
were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
(4)
He received what they handed him, and fashioned it with an engraving
tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said, "These are your gods,
Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt."
(5)
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a
proclamation, and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh."
(6)
They rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and
brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose
up to play.
When Aaron
and the Israelites made the golden calf because they thought that Yahweh had
taken Moses, where was their idolatry coming from? Who was the real idol? Who actually came before Yahweh God? What part of creation was
being served?
The real
idol was not the golden calf. The golden
calf came from the disobedient, disbelieving spirit of the people. The real idol was the self-serving human
spirit.
The Geneva Bible, which preceded the King James, says:
Exo 32:1
- And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the
people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, (a) make us gods, which shall go before us;
for [as for] this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we wot not what is become of him.
Note from Geneva Bible on that verse:
The root of Idolatry
is when men think that God is not present, unless they see him physically.
People become idolaters when they think God is not there just because
they can’t see Him.
The people assumed
that because they didn’t see Moses, he didn’t exist
anymore. Further, they assumed that
since Mt. Sinai was not all ablaze, Yahweh was not there anymore, either.
To think that God does
not exist just because you can’t see Him is an arrogant, egocentric view. It is presumptive, presuming that a human can
see everything, and that humans are all knowing.
Arrogant humans say
that if I can’t
see God, then he can’t be there. But if He is God, then God won’t be subject to the limits of
our physical senses, else He would be human and not divine.
Isaiah talks about the
folly of physical idols.
Isa 44:9-20, CEV, Contemporary English
Version.
(9)
Those people who make idols are nothing themselves, and the idols they
treasure are just as worthless. Worshipers of idols
are blind, stupid, and foolish.
(10)
Why make an idol or an image that can't do a
thing?
(11)
Everyone who makes idols and all who worship them are mere humans, who
will end up sadly disappointed. Let them face me in court and be terrified.
(12)
A metalworker shapes an idol by using a hammer and heat from the fire. In his powerful hand he holds a hammer, as he pounds the
metal into the proper shape. But he gets hungry and
thirsty and loses his strength.
(13)
Some woodcarver measures a piece of wood, then draws an outline. The idol is carefully carved with each detail exact. At last it looks like a person
and is placed in a temple.
(14)
Either cedar, cypress, oak, or any tree from the forest may be chosen. Or even a pine tree planted by the woodcarver and watered
by the rain.
(15)
Some of the wood is used to make a fire for heating or for cooking. One piece is made into an idol, then
the woodcarver bows down and worships it.
(16)
He enjoys the warm fire and the meat that was roasted
over the burning coals.
(17)
Afterwards, he bows down to worship the wooden idol. "Protect
me!" he says. "You are my god."
(18)
Those who worship idols are stupid and blind!
(19)
They don't have enough sense to say to themselves, "I made a fire
with half of the wood and cooked my bread and meat on it. Then
I made something worthless with the other half. Why
worship a block of wood?"
(20)
How can anyone be stupid enough to trust something that can be burned to
ashes? No one can save themselves like that. Don't they realize that the idols they hold in their hands
are not really gods?
All these
idols are certainly nothing. Yet notice
where the idol comes from.
(10) Why make
an idol or an image that can't do a thing?
(11) Everyone who makes idols and all who worship them are mere humans…
(12) A metalworker
shapes an idol by using a hammer and heat from the fire…
(13) Some woodcarver
measures a piece of wood, then draws an
outline…
…At last it looks like a
person and is placed in a temple.
All idols are
just a physical extension of the rebellious human spirit
which makes all idols.
1Co 8:4
(4)
So then, about eating the food offered to idols: we know that an idol
stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only the
one God.
Idolatry is serving the creation as opposed to the
Creator.
All idolatry comes from the human heart,
as the human
spirit refuses to subject itself to God and His law.
Ultimately that part
of creation which humans seek to serve is itself.
Chapter 4
What Did Idolatry Do?
What
specifically did iconic idolatry do?
First – Idolatry taught that Yahweh, the Creator God, is
not God.
I Kings 18:21, WEB
Elijah came near to all the people, and said,
"How long will you waver between two sides? If
Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."
The question there was
–
Who is really God? Who has the power?
Elijah said that
Yahweh was God. Jezebel’s people said
that Baal was god.
Idolatry taught that
Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is not God.
Second – Idolatry taught that since Yahweh is not God, His
law does not exist.
1Ki 18:17-18
(17)
It happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
(18)
He answered, I have not troubled Israel; but
you, and your father's house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of
Yahweh, and you have followed the Baals.
Idolatry
said that Yahweh the God of the Bible is not God, and His law is not law.
In Athens,
the apostle Paul ran into the idol capitol of the world.
Act 17:16
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit
was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.
In Athens, the capitol
of all idolatry, Paul was confronting what was considered
the greatest human wisdom in the world.
Robinson’s Word Pictures
says about Acts 17:16:
“Paul is probably here
about a.d. 50. Politically
Athens is no longer of
importance when Paul
comes though it is still the university seat of the world with all its rich
environment and traditions. Rackham grows eloquent over
Paul the Jew of Tarsus being in the city of Pericles and Demosthenes, Socrates
and Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Euripides. In
its Agora Socrates had taught, here was the Academy of Plato, the Lyceum of
Aristotle, the Porch of Zeno, the Garden of Epicurus. Here
men still talked about philosophy, poetry, politics, religion, anything and
everything. It was the art centre of the world. The Parthenon, the most beautiful of temples, crowned the
Acropolis.
…Xenophon (de Republ. Ath.) calls the city hole
“bomos, hole” thuma theois kai anathe”ma
(all altar, all sacrifice and offering to the gods). These
statues were beautiful, but Paul was not deceived by the mere art for art’s
sake. The idolatry and sensualism
of it all glared at him.
…Pliny states that in
the time of Nero Athens had over 30,000 public statues besides countless
private ones in the homes. Petronius sneers that it
was easier to find a god than a man in Athens. Every
gateway or porch had its protecting god. They lined
the street from the Piraeus and caught the eye at every place of prominence on
wall or in the agora.”
The People’s New
Testament says about this verse:
“Paul stood in the
midst of Mars' hill. In the Areopagus. Let the reader keep in mind that this address was spoken in the
literary capital of the ancient world, the most cultured city of the earth to
which every Roman who sought a finished education resorted to complete his
studies, the home of the philosophers, orators, sculptors, painters and poets,
and the great university where many thousands of strangers were gathered for
study.”
This was the center of
human learning and the center of human idolatry.
The most important thing
to remember about the idol is not the idol itself but the idiot who makes the
idol.
I have a Larousse’s
Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology.
This is a thick book filled with nothing but made up gods of the Greeks,
which were absorbed and amplified by the Romans. It is a whole encyclopedia of nothing but
made up human gods.
Think about this. If you have a whole
encyclopedic collection of gods filling hundreds of pages, just how much is
each god worth?
Shouldn’t the idol worshipers
catch a hint from that?
In Athens, Paul gave
the idolatrous Greeks more than a hint.
Act 17:16-31
(16) Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was
provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.
(17)
So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met
him.
(18)
Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with
him. Some said, "What does this babbler want to
say?" Others said, "He seems to be
advocating foreign deities," because he preached Jesus (Yeshua) and the resurrection.
(19)
They took hold of him, and brought him to the Areopagus,
saying, "May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by you?
(20)
For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We
want to know therefore what these things mean."
(21)
Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in
nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
(22)
Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and
said, "You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all
things.
(23)
For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found
also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What
therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to
you.
(24)
The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of
heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with
hands,
(25)
neither is he served by men's hands, as though
he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all
things.
(26)
He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface
of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their
dwellings,
(27)
that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they
might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
(28)
'For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As
some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring.'
(29)
Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine
Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.
(30)
The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But
now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
(31) because he has appointed a day in
which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained;
of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the
dead."
What
specifically did idolatry do, as with these Greeks?
The Greeks
did not know that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is God. These Athenians had no remote idea who the
real God was. Paul introduced Him to
them as the unknown god.
The idolatrous
Greeks were lawless and sinful, even though they did not know exactly what sin
was, which is –
1Jn 3:4 KJV, King
James Version.
(4)
Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
In one of
Paul’s letters to the Greek Christians, I Corinthians, he had to tell them to
stop allowing the most blatant kind of commandment breaking –incestuous
adultery -- in their assembly. The
Greeks were so lawless that a verb for vulgarity came from them. To Corinthianize
means to practice promiscuity.
The
Athenians were prime examples of what idolatry does. They didn’t know who
God was and didn’t know His commandments.
In spite of that, they thought they were the smartest and most educated
people on earth.
What does
idolatry do?
Idolatry
-- serving the creation as opposed to serving the Creator -- teaches that God isn’t and His law ain’t.
Chapter 5
From Greece to the Galapagos
Not all Greeks were iconic idolaters, honoring naked statues. Some saw the folly of that, and came up with other
human philosophies of life.
Crystallinks.com, in its article on Greek philosophy, says that Greek
philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry.
That is, Greek philosophy made humans the center of
everything. Even though Greek
philosophers rejected the revering of idols, they still had the same basis as
the idolaters. Their philosophies were
still inventions of the human mind.
The
article on Greek philosophy continued:
“In many ways it paved the way both to modern science and to
modern philosophy. In many ways it paved the way both
to modern science and to modern philosophy. Clear
unbroken lines of influence lead from early Greek philosophers, through early
Muslim philosophy to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the secular
sciences of the modern day.”
The Bible
commentator John Gill says on Acts 17:18, where Paul
went into Athens:
GILL -- Act 17:18 – “Then certain philosophers
of the Epicureans,.... These were so called
from Epicurus, the son of Neocles, who was born 342
years before Christ, and taught philosophy at Athens, in his garden; the
principal tenets of which were, that the world was not made by any deity, or
with any design, but came into its being and form, through a fortuitous concourse of atoms, of various sizes
and magnitude, which met, and jumbled, and cemented together, and so formed the
world; and that the world is not governed by the providence of God; for though
he did not deny the being of God, yet he thought it below his notice, and
beneath his majesty to concern himself with its affairs; and also, that the
chief happiness of men lies in pleasure. His followers were called
"Epicureans".”
This Greek school of
philosophy believed:
- that the world came into being
through a fortuitous concourse of atoms which met and jumbled and cemented
together;
- that the world is not governed by
the providence of God;
- and
that the chief happiness of men lies in pleasure.
These Greeks, who
spurned physical idols as nonsense, became their own idols.
Like all idolaters,
they denied God. They said the world
came together through a lucky alignment of atoms.
They said that the world is not governed by God. In other words, there is no penalty for
breaking God’s law.
They said that the
chief happiness of men lies in pleasure.
That is, they sought to serve themselves.
They, who mocked
idolatry, became their own idols. That
part of creation which they sought to serve was
themselves.
History
repeats itself with individual variations and overall uniformity.
For
example, history is a study of human wars.
These different wars all involve different leaders and nations down
through history. Students spend
countless hours learning these individual variations of history, memorizing
people and dates, such as Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Julius Caeser,
Napoleon, and Hitler.
Yet the
overall pattern is the same – war, war, war.
The people change, the dates are different, the wars are here and there,
but the pattern of never ending war never changes.
This
recurring pattern is the result of human nature. As long as human nature doesn’t
change, that pattern will not change.
The same
thing happened with idolatry. The
specific forms of idolatry changed, but the overall pattern of idolatry
remained. Human nature did not change.
The 1700’s
was the Age of Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason.
The Encarta
Encyclopedia says: “The Age of Enlightenment… emerging
from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason,
science, and a respect for humanity. The
period also often is referred to as the Age of Reason.
…Of the
basic assumptions and beliefs common to philosophers and intellectuals of this
period, perhaps the most important was an abiding faith in the power of human
reason.
…During the Enlightenment, people came to assume that through a
judicious use of reason, an unending progress would be possible—progress in
knowledge, in technical achievement, and even in moral values.
Following the philosophy of Locke, the 18th-century writers believed
that knowledge is not innate, but comes only from experience and observation
guided by reason. Through
proper education, humanity itself could be altered, its nature changed for the
better.”
The Age of
Reason, then, in the 18th century, elevated human reason over God’s
revelation.
The
teaching of the Bible is that people have a destructive nature, which only the
spirit of God can change.
Rom 7:14-25
(14)
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am
fleshly, sold under sin.
(15)
For I don't know what I am doing. For I don't practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I
do.
(16)
But if what I don't desire, that I do, I
consent to the law that it is good.
(17)
So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which
dwells in me.
(18)
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don't
find it doing that which is good.
(19)
For the good which I desire, I don't do; but
the evil which I don't desire, that I practice.
(20)
But if what I don't desire, that I do, it is no
more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.
(21)
I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present.
(22)
For I delight in God's law after the inward man,
(23)
but I see a different law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the
law of sin which is in my members.
(24)
What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?
(25)
I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So
then with the mind, I myself serve God's law, but with
the flesh, the sin's law.
Rom 8:1-2
(1)
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,
who don't walk according to the flesh, but according
to the Spirit.
(2)
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.
The belief
of the Age of Enlightenment is that human nature can be
changed through education. This
is a direct contradiction of the Bible.
Human
reason, though, has not changed human nature.
The reign of human reason has not ended war. Have wars been fewer since the 1700’s? Have wars been nicer since then?
Of course not.
Since the
human pattern of war has not changed, the human pattern of idolatry would not
change, either.
Charles
Darwin, in the 19th century, just after the Age of Reason had begun,
traveled to the Galapagos Islands. There
animals had developed separately because of the separation of the islands.
Charlie
saw the same kinds of birds on different islands which
had developed different color feathers.
Because birds on different islands came up with different feathers, he
concluded there was no limit to which an animal could change. He thought that birds could not only change
feathers, but that they had changed from animals which weren’t even birds, and –
astoundingly -- originally had come from nothing living at all.
He never
saw any birds which came from nothing, but he made
that big jump in logic. He said that not
only had they changed feather color, but they had changed
in everything, even from dead to living.
He brought
some turtle shells to a man who lived in the area. The man could tell him which island the
turtles came from, by the design on those shells. Charlie concluded that since turtles could
develop different shells, they all originally came from nothing.
Charlie
thought that since life is so complex in its myriad forms and possibilities, that meant it had to come from nothing that
was alive at all.
How does a
man logically conclude that since birds came up with different color feathers,
that all birds came from nothing? Where’s the connection there?
My son is bigger than I am.
I am five–eleven. He is six-four. He is bigger than anyone we know of – ever – on
either side of the family. Can we
conclude that since my son is bigger than I am, all
our family ancestors were smaller and smaller, until at some point they were so
small that they came from nothing?
Where’s the logic in saying that since life is
incredibly complex, all life came from non-life? How does that fit?
That seems
like a big contradiction. One might well
expect that something that is complex comes from
something that is more complex instead of coming from nothing.
No one has
ever known of any living thing which came from something
that was not living. Not
one creature.
Essentially
Charlie concluded --
- that the world came into being
through a fortuitous concourse of atoms which met and jumbled and cemented
together;
- that the world is not governed by
the providence of God;
- and
that the chief happiness of men lies in pleasure.
When Charles
Darwin concluded that life was so complex that it had to come from nothing, there
was something else going on with Charlie besides human reason. And that was Charlie’s
human nature.
What is
human nature?
Human
nature is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed of itself can be.
Charlie’s
theory of evolution was just his way of refusing to be subject to God and His
law.
In olden days,
people saw the sun. They did not see
God. They knew the sun was there because
they saw it. They didn’t
think God was there because they didn’t see Him.
They saw
the creation but they did not see the Creator.
Therefore they served the creation as opposed
to the Creator. They worshiped the sun.
Charles
Darwin saw birds and feathers, turtles and shells. He did not see God. Therefore he thought
that God could not be, because he didn’t see Him. So Charlie said the birds and the turtles
were all there were. Since that was all
there was, they had to come from nothing.
They couldn’t have come from God, because he
didn’t see God.
Evolution is the serving of the creation as opposed to
serving the Creator. It does the same as
worshiping an idol. It lifts up the
creation and puts down the Creator.
Charlie,
using his human reason, was ultimately the same as the ancient sun worshipers.
Rom 8:7 ISV,
International Standard Version.
(7)
That is why the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God. For it refuses to submit to the authority of God's law because it
is powerless to do so.
The human
spirit, of itself, is powerless to submit to the authority of God. Humans will always revert to idolatry, in
some form.
The Age of
Reason brought a different variation on human history. Much of human history had
been occupied with religion and iconic idolatry. Even the Roman Catholic Church had absorbed
this idolatry, calling them statues instead of idols, and adopting days which came from idol worship.
These
idols had never been anything of themselves, but always just a manifestation of
the human spirit, which is where the idolatry really resided. The idols were just a façade. The real idol was the human spirit itself.
At the Age
of Reason, when humans decided to rely on human reason instead of the
revelation of God, the facade of idols was eliminated,
and the human spirit openly made itself god.
Humans thought they had gotten rid of God and all religion. Religion was defined
as worshiping a god, who ultimately controlled the lives of humans. Humans viewed themselves as controlling their
own destinies. That put them in the
place of God. They called their human
reasoning apart from God science.
Looking to
God for guidance is called religion.
Looking to
human reason for guidance is called science.
Religion is put down. Science is lifted up.
Idolatry is mocked. It is assumed that idolatry is a relic of the ancient past. But their science has
done the same thing that idolatry did.
In human
history, there is one prevailing pattern.
Rom 1:25 ISV
(25) They exchanged God's truth for a lie and
worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator….
In idol
worship, that was easy to see. They made
a sun or a fish, and said that was a god.
They were serving the creation rather than the Creator.
Humans are
physical, with the ability to understand spiritual things. Humans can see physical things, touch
physical things, hear noises from physical things, taste physical things, and
smell physical things.
God is
spiritual. For humans to perceive God,
they must go beyond the physical. They can’t see Him, touch Him, hear Him, taste Him or smell Him,
except under the most extraordinary circumstances, which don’t usually
happen. Therefore
humans usually conclude that God isn’t and they worship something that is. That always leads them to serving the
creation.
The most
common form of this was sun worship. Sun
worship was on every continent.
People of
the Age of Reason could see that sun worship was silly. They realized that the sun is not alive and
is not a god at all. It’s
just a burning star, in a heaven full of burning stars. They rejected object idolatry for another
kind.
From The
Great Myth of the Sun Gods, by Alvin Kuhn:
“[T]here is at hand for our supreme enlightenment one
grand pronouncement from Greek Platonic philosophy which we conceive to be that
lost ultimate link between science and religion. It is
the truth before whose altar both science and religion can kneel at last and
find themselves paying tribute to the same god,--the god of solar radiance… The light of the sun is the deific flash of intellect!... There is the "seminal soul of light" or the seed
of fiery divinity… in each of us. It makes us a god…
With this force of fire we must uplift the lower man and
transmute his nature into the spiritual glow of love and intelligence. With it we must turn the water of
the lower nature into the wine of spiritual force…
Who is this King of Glory?--says the Psalmist... The King of Glory is the Sun-soul within us, raised in
his final perfection in the fulness of Christly
stature to the state of magnificent effulgence. The
King of Glory is the immortal Sun-god, the deity in
our hearts…
And when that light shineth
clearer and brighter unto the perfect day, then, indeed, we know of a surety
that we ourselves are nucleated of that same glorious essence of combined
intellect and spirit. Then we know that we ourselves
are the Sun-gods, and that the ancient allegory is not a "myth," but
the very essence of our own Selfhood.”
That very
blatantly states the case. Humans
skipped the creating of physical idols, which they made themselves, anyway, and
went straight to the source of their idolatry.
They served themselves.
They said,
“I am the highest being in all of creation.
If I can’t see it, then it can’t be seen. If I can’t measure
it with a scientific measure, then it can’t be measured. If I don’t know it,
then it cannot be known. My reason reigns supreme.
Therefore I reign supreme.”
Darwin saw
all the wonders of creation, which he could see, touch, hear and smell, and he
concluded there was no creator, whom he could not see, touch, hear or
smell. He saw how animals could change
in size, color or habits and made the enormous jump in reasoning – human
reasoning – that these animals basically created themselves, by coming to life from
nothing living.
He did the
same thing that the sun worshipers had done.
They saw the magnificent sun in the creation, felt its heat and saw its
light and ate food which grew because of it, and concluded the creation was all
there was. They served it.
Darwin saw
the birds and the turtles and concluded that was all there was. He and all those who follow his reasoning
became servers of the creation as opposed to serving the Creator.
Evolution
is having a creation without a Creator.
It is as idolatrous as the altars of Baal in the time of Elijah.
Under the name of science, humans do what they always did
before. They serve the creation as
opposed to serving the Creator, and they break God’s law, which they say does
not exist, because they say He does not exist.
Chapter 6
The results of idolatry
Let’s look at the fruits of idolatry.
Ancient
idolatry led to:
1 - Sexual anarchy;
1Ki 14:21-24
(21) Rehoboam the son of
Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam
was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years
in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh had chosen out of
all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there: and his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.
(22)
Judah did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and they provoked
him to jealousy with their sins which they committed,
above all that their fathers had done.
(23)
For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree;
(24)
and there were also sodomites in the land: they
did according to all the abominations of the nations which Yahweh drove out
before the children of Israel.
Westminster
Dictionary of the Bible, article Baal:
The
worship of Baal was accompanied with lascivious rites (1 Kings 14:24), the
sacrifice of children in the fire by parents (Jer.19:5), and kissing the image
(1 Kings 19:18; Hos 13:2). Baal
was often associated with the goddess Astoreth
(Judg.2:13), and in the vicinity of his altar there was often an Asherah. (Judg.6:30; 1 Kings
16:32-33,R.V.)"
Article Astoreth;
"... She was the goddess of sexual love,
maternity and fertility. Prostitution as a religious
rite in the service of this goddess under various names is widely attested. The identification of 'Ashtart
with Aphrodite is evidence of her sexual character."
"Ashtaroth (plural of Astoreth). In connection with the plural of Baal, a general
designation for the female divinities of the Canaanites ..."
"Asherah refers to a wooden pole or mast which stood at
Canaanite places of worship (Exo.34:13); originally it was, perhaps, the trunk
of a tree with branches chopped off, and was regarded as the wooden symbol of
the goddess Asherah, who like Ashtoreth, was a type
of fertility ... It was erected beside the altar of Baal. (Judg 6:25, 28)"
Modern idolatry,
which is following the theory of evolution, leads to sexual anarchy. Since godless evolution posits that there are
no absolute laws covering sex and marriage, behavior will become more and more
lawless.
First
divorce was accepted by society. Then open fornication and adultery. Now homosexuality, or sodomy, is being thrust into the society.
When the
governor of New York was forced to resign because of being involved with
prostitutes, The New York Times justified adultery by evolution based reasoning: “It’s been done by many other creatures, tens
of thousands of other species, by male and female representatives of every
taxonomic twig on the great tree of life. Sexual
promiscuity is rampant throughout nature, and true faithfulness a fond
fantasy.” (New York Times, March 18, In
Most Species, Faithfulness is a Fantasy).
God
promised Israel that if they obeyed Him, they would not have the diseases of
the Egyptians. America has stopped
following God, even to the degree that they did, and they are
filled with the sexual diseases of the Egyptians, whose idolatry they
have copied, only in a new variation. The
US Center for Disease Control did a large study which
showed that 25% of young girls between the ages of 14 and 19 have a sexually
transmitted disease. Some of these
diseases will affect their lives enormously, either by being incurable or by
cutting their lives short.
In Maine,
schools are giving birth control to middle schoolers
without parents’ knowledge. In an Ozarks
medium sized middle school, in one recent year 18 girls got pregnant. Those are 7th
and 8th graders. California
passed a law requiring that all students in all public schools be taught sodomy as an acceptable way of life.
Sexual
anarchy has come so far that even those who call themselves Christian are
living together without marriage, in open defiance of God and the seventh
commandment. They deceive themselves by saying
that since they plan on getting married, they are as
good as married in God’s sight, anyway.
They indulge themselves and say that God approves of their idolatry.
Now the
nation and its churches are embracing sodomy.
Ancient
and modern idolatry has led to sexual anarchy.
Ancient
idolatry also led to –
2. Idolizing animals.
The
Egyptians idolized cats. Israel made the
golden calf or bull, which they seemed to have picked up from Egypt. Even today in India cows are
considered sacred. There are many
other examples of idolizing animals, lifting up the creation as opposed to
lifting up the Creator.
Today’s
idolatry has led to idolizing animals.
Not exactly in the same way as the ancients, of course. They’re not looked
at as gods. But
they are looked at as the equal of humans, who are made in the image of God.
If there
is no Creator God, and all beings came together from the same slice of slime,
then humans are not above animals and are not to have dominion over them. That is the thinking of progressive society.
One news
story said:
The
[Humane Society] was to present the Circle of Compassion award on Saturday to
Thomas and Maria Monahan, whose nine-year-old son Tommy was
overcome by smoke last December after trying to save his pet dog, lizard
and fish.
The award
recognizes and honors individuals who have performed an act of significant
courage or compassion to assist an animal in need.
Tommy and
his family initially escaped from the fire in their New York home. "But when Tommy realized that his beloved pets were
still inside, he broke away from his mother and ran back into the flames,"
the society said.
A young
boy should not die trying to save a lizard.
The young boy is made in the image of God. The lizard is made
in the image of a lizard.
The Humane
Society itself is a symptom of this idolatry.
It is not an elected body, has no official governing status, yet it is
commonly given a quasi-government status.
They are not accountable like elected officials. They are like holy priests or shamans,
somewhere above the lay people.
A few
years ago locally an Amish man was driving his buggy through the bank drive
through. His horse died – the horse died
in the drive through.
Now if you’re driving your car through the bank drive through and
your car dies, that’s no big deal, right?
You turn the ignition and take off.
But if you’re Amish and you’re driving your
horse through the drive through and your horse dies, you have a problem.
I wonder
what that poor guy did then? Did he turn the key and try to restart
it? Hook some jumper
cables to its nostrils?
That horse
didn’t just have a dead battery. It was dead all over. And they couldn’t just
push it out of the way. It wouldn’t roll.
So what
happened? They called in the Humane
Society to investigate this Amish farmer.
The Amish
depend on their animals for their livelihood and their transportation. No horses means no
crops and no transportation. Do you
think they are going to take care of their horses?
Conversely,
I have seen in the news how animal shelters can be
filthy places, which suffer from disease brought in by street dogs and lack of
care by the shelters. Yet the Humane
Society was called in to investigate this poor Amish
farmer whose horse happened to drop dead at the worst possible moment.
I would rather see the Amish check up on the Humane
Society, thank you.
Bob Barker
gave a million dollars to his alma mater to start an animal rights legal
department in that university. Since we
are all equal parts of the creation, animals are brothers to people, with all
the rights therein, evolutionists reason. This is now beginning to be
fought in the courts.
As modern
families disintegrate, people pretend that their pets are their children. They “adopt” dogs into their families. They blaspheme the Creator God by making His
highest creation, made in the image of God Himself, a child, equal to a dog,
which licked up Jezebel’s blood.
In
Springfield, Missouri is Camp Bow Wow.
It has –
Spacious
overnight cabins;
Large
indoor play areas;
Doggy
lounge;
Doggy web
cams;
Certified
camp counselors;
Campfire
treats at bedtime;
And CPR certified pet first aid.
This modern
exaltation of animals is the same general mentality as the ancient Egyptians
who mummified their cats. It is a type
of idolizing of animals, based on evolution, which teaches that humans came
from animals and are brothers to them.
This
belief has led to the widespread adoption of vegetarianism. You don’t want to
eat a steak. He’s
your brother.
This
animal idolatry teaches that it is wrong to breed dogs or cats, to milk cows, to
wear leather, wool, silk or fur, or to eat meat, or ultimately even to have an
animal for a farm or pet.
Much of
the nation has already accepted that religion, even those who call themselves Christian. You may often hear people say in a self exalting, sanctimonious tone, “Oh, I’m an animal
lover.” As if everybody
else is not.
That’s their way of genuflecting.
Ancient
and modern idolatry led to idolizing animals.
Ancient
idolatry also led to --
3. lack of respect for human
life, loss of natural love for children.
Children
were the victims of sacrifice to idols.
2Ki 23:7-14
(7)
He broke down the houses of the sodomites, that
were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.
(8) He brought all the priests out of the cities
of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense,
from Geba to Beersheba; and he broke down the high
places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the
governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
(9)
Nevertheless the priests of the high places didn't
come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread
among their brothers.
(10)
He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of
the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his
son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
(11)
He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at
the entrance of the house of Yahweh, by the chamber of Nathan Melech the officer, who was in the court; and he burned the
chariots of the sun with fire.
(12)
The altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars
which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Yahweh, did the king
break down, and beat them down from there, and cast the dust of them into the
brook Kidron.
(13)
The high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand
of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for
Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
(14) He broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down
the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones
of men.
Eze 23:37
For they have committed adultery, and blood is in
their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass
through the fire to them to be
devoured.
International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, in the article Molech says, “The image of Moloch was a human figure with a
bull's head and outstretched arms, ready to receive the children destined for
sacrifice. The image of metal was heated red hot by a
fire kindled within, and the children laid on its arms rolled off into the
fiery pit below. In order to drown the cries of the
victims, flutes were played, and drums were beaten; and mothers stood by
without tears or sobs, to give the impression of the voluntary character of the
offering.”
In ancient
idolatry, human sacrifice was practiced all around the
world.
From The
National Geographic News:
“The
skeletons of two dozen children killed in an ancient mass sacrifice have been
found in a tomb at a construction site in Mexico.
The
chamber contained 24 skeletons of children believed to have
been sacrificed between A.D. 950 and 1150.
All but
one of the children were between 5 to 15 years of age,
and they were likely killed as an offering to the Toltec rain god Tlaloc.
…the
ritualistic placement of the skeletons, cut marks on bones, and the presence of
a figurine of Tlaloc led [the researcher] to conclude
the children had been sacrificed to bring rain.
To try and
explain why there are 24 bodies grouped in the same place, well, the only way
is to think that there was a human sacrifice," he said. "You can see evidence of incisions,
which make us think they possibly used sharp-edged instruments to decapitate
them."”
Modern
idolatry produces the same results.
The same mind which idolizes animals is cruel to children and old
folks. The animal rights type people for
the most part are the same people who believe in aborting babies, which is
cutting them up. You may see a bumper
sticker like, “Save the baby whales,” from the left. On the other hand, the Christians have a
bumper sticker, “Save the baby humans.”
Partial
birth abortion is not that different from ancient child sacrifice. The phrase “partial birth” is a lie. It is a human baby, fully alive, warm,
cuddly, moving – and the abortionist stabs it in the
back of the neck.
The
Mexicans did such acts to supposedly bring rain. Modern idolaters do it to bring convenience. They seek to serve the creation as opposed to
the creator, and that part of the creation they seek to serve is the self.
Anciently
children were sacrificed to idols, to appease a sun
God or some such idea. Today children are sacrificed to the idol of selfishness. Abortion is just a form of birth control, for
people who don’t want to love and care for the child
they conceived. God’s statements in the
Bible about life are ignored and human reason says
when life begins.
When does
life begin? Whenever
the selfish human wants it to.
The human is god.
The
idolatry of evolution led to Adolf Hitler’s holocaust. He was following the dictum of survival of
the fittest. He was sure he was the
fittest and set about to exterminate those he saw as less fit. His holocaust program began with
euthanasia. The commandment of the
killing camp Treblinka, Franz Stangl, learned how to
kill in a hospital, where they killed the handicapped and
retarded and infirm. For their own good, of course.
Today
modern idolatry is leading to the same policy of euthanasia, killing people for
their own good, so they don’t have to be put up with. This is cruelty in the guise of compassion.
Ancient idolatry and modern idolatry both led to:
Sexual anarchy, idolizing animals,
and extreme cruelty to people.
Chapter 7
School Bells and Baal’s Temples
Rom 1:26-31
(26)
For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions.
For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature.
(27) Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function
of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is
inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their
error.
(28)
Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to
a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
fitting;
(29)
being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual
immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers,
(30)
backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty,
boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
(31)
without understanding, covenant breakers,
without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;
Ancient
idolatry led to Sodomite societies, as Paul pointed out.
The modern
idolatry of human reason has the same base as the old idolatry of Baal. It says that Yahweh God of the Bible is not
God. And it
says that His law is not law.
The modern
idolatry of human reason produces the same fruits as the old idolatry of Baal
--
Sexual anarchy, idolizing animals, cruelty to other humans,
especially children.
Now this
modern idolatry is leading to the exact same thing which
Paul described in ancient idolatry – the Sodom society. This is happening right now. America is becoming a modern Sodom.
Listen to
Paul again.
(28)
Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to
a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
fitting;
(29)
being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual
immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers,
(30)
backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty,
boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
(31)
without understanding, covenant breakers,
without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;
That is
describing America today, what it is and what it is becoming.
Some mainline
Protestant churches now not only accept the practice of homosexuality in their
midst, but ordain homosexuals as their ministers. America’s favorite daytime TV show host is a
lesbian. California passed a law
requiring all public schools to teach the acceptance of homosexuality. Public schools nationwide observe a national
day of homosexual promotion, called the Day of Silence. The Boy Scouts of America are under fierce
attack because they will not allow homosexuals among their troops of young
boys.
Modern
idolatry is at its base the
same as ancient idolatry. It says that
God is not God. It says that His law is
not law. And it
bears the same fruits as Baal worship.
“By their
fruits you shall know them,” said the Master.
So -- Where
are the temples of Baal today?
Have you
seen any temples of Baal in your town?
A modern
Christian would not think of sending his children to a temple of Baal, where
they would be taught that the God of the Bible is not
God and that His law is not law. If the
temple had a sign above the door saying Baal is Lord, then Christians would
avoid that like the plague that it is.
However,
if the building does not have a sign over the door saying temple of Baal, but instead is called an educational institution;
And that educational institution teaches the basics of
idolatry –
- That the God of the Bible is not
God;
- That His law is not law;
And that educational institution produces the same fruits in
society as ancient idolatry –
- Sexual anarchy;
- Lifting animals to the same status as
people, evolution;
- Loss of respect for life, and loss
of natural love for children –
Then
almost all Christians will send their children to that temple for religious
indoctrination.
It’s not called religion.
It’s called science.
The temple
is not called a temple. It’s called a
school.
However,
when you teach about God, whatever you teach, you are teaching religion. If I believe in the
God of the Bible, that is my religious belief.
If you do not believe in the God of the Bible, that is
your religious belief.
When
schools teach that God is not God, they are teaching religion.
That
religion will allow no heresy. This cult
of science and human reason will allow no variation in basic doctrine. Just as the Roman Catholic
Church would not allow Galileo to vary from the official church teachings about
the position of the earth, so modern science will not allow at all any
dissenting opinions about evolution.
If a
scientist says that the chance of life coming from non-life is less than the
number of all the electrons in the universe multiplied by itself,
then the science cult says that such a person is not a scientist. They cast him out of the synagogue.
If
scientists say that there is such irreducible complexity in creation that it
had to have been planned by a greater power, then the science cult says that
these people are not to be believed because they’re
not scientists at all. A true scientist
is one who believes in evolution. Any
one who does not believe in evolution cannot be a true scientist. The heretics are
excommunicated and put out of the true church.
God has
been disfellowshipped from these temples of
science. Prayer has been
put out. The Gideons
cannot hand out Bibles in the public schools.
God, prayer and the Bible can not be a part of
the true religion of the schools. They
are anathema.
Almost all
Christians send their children to these institutions of evolution, Charles
Darwin’s temples of Baal. There these
Christian children are indoctrinated into the religion of evolution and become
Charlie’s angels.
This
religious indoctrination is more effective than any other church program. About four out of five children of Christian
parents who attend the government school system do not become Christians
themselves. Almost none of the children
from non-Christian families do. That’s an enormously successful evangelization effort.
The second
most effective religious evangelization program in the country is the US public
schools.
Human
nature is naturally rebellious against God’s law. If the human spirit, which itself tends to be Godless,
is put into a Godless environment – what usually happens? It falls farther into sin. That is what happens in the anti-Christian
schools.
That is why God did
not want Israel to leave the pagan Canaanites in the Holy Land, to “be a
witness to them.” He commanded Israel
not to mix with the pagans. Israel
disobeyed that command, and they became pagan.
The
liberals’ long range conversion plan is changing
America from an outwardly Christian nation to an openly anti-Christian
society. Of the oldest
third of Americans, about 2/3 claim to follow Christ. Of the next third, about
1/3 claim to follow Christ. Of
the youngest third, only about 1/7 accept the Master. This trend is projected into the near future
with only 1 in every 24 persons accepting Christ in
any form.
Imagine an
American town of a thousand people. In
that town, typical of many American towns, only about 40 people will be
Christian in any form at all. All the rest will not believe in the basic values taught in
the Ten Commandments, not lying, not stealing, not committing sex sins or not
killing – not honoring God.
Those 40 people
in that town will not be able to meet openly in a church and
preach and teach the Bible. Once
they are in control, the Godless left wing will not allow that any more than
they allow it in the schools. God is being kicked out of all America, and the public schools
are the prime tool for doing that.
Furthermore,
now even the Christians are acting like heathens, living together without
marriage, divorcing more than non-Christians and ordaining homosexuals as their
spiritual teachers.
In 1Ki 19:10, Elijah said, -
(10)
He said, I have been very jealous for Yahweh,
the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant,
thrown down your altars, and slain your prophets with the sword: and I, even I
only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
We are
coming to the times of Elijah, when only a remnant of God fearers will be left. The
greatest factor in causing this catastrophic change in America is the schools
of evolution, the modern temples of idolatry which
teach that God isn’t and that His law ain’t.
Note this
–
If it is wrong for a Christian parent to send his child to a
temple of Baal, or Buddha, or Hindu, to allow him to be taught that Yahweh God
of the Bible is not God and His law is not law, then it is wrong for a Christian
parent to send his child anywhere to be taught that, regardless of what that
temple is called.
If an
institution is called a school and it teaches that God isn’t
and His law ain’t, that is still a temple of
idolatry. It is just as wrong for a Christian
family to send their child to that school as it is to send him to a Buddhist
temple.
If it is
wrong for a parent to teach his child that the God of the Bible is not God, and
that His law should be broken –
Then it is
wrong for a parent to allow anyone else to teach his child that.
2Co 10:3-5
(3)
For though walking about in flesh, we do not war according to flesh.
(4)
For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty through God
to the pulling down of strongholds,
(5)
pulling down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought into the
obedience of Christ;
Notice
Paul’s words --
pulling down imaginations, from the Greek logismos,
or human reasonings.
Young’s Literal Translation of the phrase is “reasonings
bringing down.”
Paul says
to pull down human reasonings, such as the Epicurean
belief of Paul’s time that everything came together through a fortuitous
concourse of atoms, or today’s modern science of evolution,
which teaches the same thing.
The Bible
says, “pulling down… every high thing that exalts
itself against the knowledge of God.”
When children are in schools which are based on evolution, which exalt
human reason, which forbid the teaching of God, which forbid the Bible and which
forbid praying to God -- does that exalt itself against the
knowledge of God?
Should that then be pulled down?
Notice
what Paul said: “bringing into captivity
every thought into the obedience of Christ.”
When children are taught evolution, is that
bringing every thought into captivity to Christ? Should they then ever be
taught that? Should 85% of
Christians send their children for 17,000 hours of training to serve idolatrous
human reason as opposed to serving the Creator?
Modern
educational institutions engage in religious training. If you teach someone for 12 to 14 years that
the God of the Bible is not God, that He is not to be prayed to, and that the
Bible is a book of myths – that is religious indoctrination. Would a temple of Baal do any worse?
Christians
have been deceived by renaming. They have been enticed by euphemisms.
People who
advocate abortions are not called pro-abortion; they
are called pro-choice. Don’t let that deceive you.
They still support the stabbing and dismemberment of babies. It’s not
pro-choice. It’s
pro-chunk.
People who
advocate adultery call it co-habitation.
They don’t call it adultery. But it is.
People who
advocate perversion call it homosexuality, equal to heterosexuality. It is still restroom sodomy, with each
pervert engaging an average of twenty different disease
spreading victims a year. But they hate to have it called that, for obvious reasons.
If you
believe in God, that is called religion.
If you don’t believe in God, that is called
science. Don’t
be deceived. Those who don’t believe in God, He calls fools.
“The fool says in his
heart, There is no God,” Psalm 14:1.
If a
school teaches that God is not God, then they have crossed the line and have
become a fool factory. They have left
the teaching of fact and have embraced the teaching of religion, and that
religion is the same basic belief as the ancient Baal worshipers -- that God isn’t and His law ain’t.
Charlie
was wrong. Birds do not come from
nothing. The Father made those feathers,
in all their irreducible complexity.
Charlie was a feather-headed fool.
Those institutions which teach and practice Charlie’s
theories are fool schools.
A follower
of the Messiah must have nothing to do with these institutions of evolution,
these seminaries of human reason, these modern temples
of Baal.
1Ki 18:17-21
(17)
It happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
(18)
He answered, I have not troubled Israel; but
you, and your father's house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of
Yahweh, and you have followed the Baals.
(19) Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel to Mount
Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred fifty, and the prophets of the Asherah four hundred, who eat at Jezebel's table.
(20) So Ahab sent to all the children of Israel, and gathered the
prophets together to Mount Carmel.
(21)
Elijah came near to all the people, and said, "How long will you
waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow
him; but if Baal, then follow him." The people
answered him not a word.
A true
follower of Christ must not waver. He
must not try to follow the God of the Bible and Baal, too. A parent who teaches his child that God is
and then sends that child to a school which teaches that God isn’t –
is wavering, halting between two opinions, sacrificing at
both altars.
The
brother of the Messiah said, Jas 1:8, KJV:
(8)
A double minded man is unstable in all his
ways.
Adam Clarke Bible
Commentary says: “This was a usual term among the
Jews, to express the man who attempted to worship God, and yet retained the
love of the creature.”
Sending a
child from a home which says that God is to a school
which says that God isn’t is as double minded as it is possible to be.
Jas 4:8
(8)
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse
your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Mat 6:19-22
(19)
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break and steal:
(20)
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break
through nor steal:
(21)
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
(22)
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine
eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.
An eye
which is single does not see double. A heart which truly loves God never agrees that He isn’t. To send a child from a home
which teaches that God is to a school where the whole administration, approach
and lifestyle is based on the premise that God isn’t is not single eyed,
but cross-eyed.
2Ki 17:26-28
(26)
Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, The
nations which you have carried away, and placed in the cities of Samaria, don't
know the law of the god of the land: therefore he has sent lions among them,
and behold, they kill them, because they don't know the law of the god of the
land.
(27)
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry there one of the
priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let
him teach them the law of the god of the land.
(28)
So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and
lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Yahweh.
2Ki 17:41
(41)
So these nations feared Yahweh, and served their engraved images; their children likewise, and their children's children, as
did their fathers, so do they to this day.
The
imports of Samaria feared God and served images. Not singleness of mind, but
pluralism. They were not God’s
people. God does not share being God
with anybody.
Luk 4:8 MKJ
And Jesus answered and said to him, Get
behind me, Satan! For it is written, "You shall
worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve."
I Sam 7:3
Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel,
saying, If you do return to Yahweh with all your
heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth
from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only;
and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
First,
evolution began to be taught in America’s government
schools in the 1920’s. The people did
not decide that. A judge did not decide
that. The educational elite decided that
America’s children should be taught that God isn’t and
His laws ain’t.
But the people accepted that.
About a
generation later, in the 1960’s, judges decided that God
could not be publicly prayed to and the Bible could not be taught in the
government schools. The people did not
decide that. But
the people accepted that.
In the
1980’s a judge decided that evolution had to be taught in the government
schools – that it was illegal not to teach
evolution. The people did not decide
that. But the
people accepted that.
In the
1940’s a survey was made, asking public school
teachers what their biggest problems were in teaching. Their answers were things like chewing gum,
not throwing paper in the wastebasket, running in the halls, and children not
raising their hands to ask permission to go to the bathroom.
How did
those teachers cope?
A similar
survey was taken about 50 years later, and the
teachers answered that their biggest problems in teaching were things like
drugs, violence, and sex.
Why the change?
Because
the schools went from teaching that God is to teaching
that God isn’t. They went from teaching
the principles of God in McGuffey’s Readers to teaching the principles of
modern Baalism in science and social textbooks.
The people
did not decide to do that, but they did decide to accept it. Because they accepted it, America has
changed.
America
has been suffering under a monopolistic school system for well over a
century. This school system has changed
the faith of the US, from believing the Bible to banning the Bible. Just as the Bible has been
banned in the schools, so the move now is to have it banned in the whole
country.
However,
at this moment Americans still have the freedom to pull their children out of
the temples of human reason and idolatry and to teach them the only way to life
– which is Christ Himself.
It is
relatively easy for a parent to homeschool.
It is relatively easy for a church to set up a Christian school, which
can also act as a homeschool support center.
Enough bold people have blazed a path in Christian education in America
so that it is far easier for others to follow this trail.
I mentioned that the public school education is the second
most effective evangelization program in the country. The most effective evangelization program is
the Christian home school movement, with about 90% of these graduates accepting
Christ as the Son of God and Savior of mankind.
Which
evangelization education should a Christian parent choose,
that of Baal or of the Bible?
85% of all Christians send their children to the public
schools, which through the classes and the culture, teach those children to
despise the Christian beliefs of their parents.
But those parents need to realize that they are
sending their children to the institutes of modern idolatry.
Just as
Paul faced in Athens, these institutions claim to have the highest learning and
philosophy. The word of God is the
foundation of all knowledge. It does not
include all knowledge, but all knowledge that does not rest on that base is
baseless. Yet these institutions reject
that base.
Paul
pointed the Greeks in Athens to the Unknown God. Idolatry, whether ancient or modern, does not
know the true God. Christians in America
today are making the God of the Bible the Unknown God to their children. 4 out of 5 of those
children from Christian homes but educated in the public schools, with its
modern version of idolatry, do not know God as adults. For almost all their lives they are taught that He does not exist, and when they are grown,
like the people of Athens, they do not know Him.
Paul
groaned inwardly at the idols in Athens.
Do you groan at the idolatry in America?
Chapter 8
Paroxysm
Notice this
from the Good News Bible, from Acts 17:
“Paul and Silas traveled on through Amphipolis and Apollonia and came
to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue. According to his usual habit Paul went to the
synagogue. There during three Sabbaths he held
discussions with the people, quoting and explaining the Scriptures, and proving
from them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from death.
"This Jesus whom I announce to
you," Paul said, "is the Messiah."
Some of them were convinced and joined
Paul and Silas; so did many of the leading women and a large group of Greeks
who worshiped God. But some Jews were jealous and
gathered worthless loafers from the streets and formed a mob.
They set the whole city in an uproar and attacked the home of a man
named Jason, in an attempt to find Paul and Silas and bring them out to the
people.”
Paul spent
his life traveling, teaching the Good News about the Messiah and His coming
Kingdom. Over and over
Paul suffered for that. At Thessalonica the mob was trying to catch Paul, to do to him
what mobs do to people.
Can you
imagine how upsetting it would be to have a mob chasing you? Not just a mob being violent, but a mob whose sole purpose is to be violent on top of you.
“But when they did not find them, they
dragged Jason and some other believers before the city authorities and shouted,
"These men have caused trouble everywhere! Now
they have come to our city, and Jason has kept them in his house. They are all breaking the laws of the Emperor, saying that
there is another king, whose name is Jesus."
With these words they threw the crowd
and the city authorities in an uproar. The authorities
made Jason and the others pay the required amount of money to be released, and then let them go.
As soon as night came, the believers
sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived, they
went to the synagogue.”
Paul and
Silas managed to escape from the Jews and their mob at Thessalonica and
traveled on to Berea. It was better
there. For a while.
“The people there were more open-minded
than the people in Thessalonica. They listened to the
message with great eagerness, and every day they studied the Scriptures to see
if what Paul said was really true. Many of them
believed; and many Greek women of high social standing and many Greek men also believed.
But when the Jews in Thessalonica heard
that Paul had preached the word of God in Berea also, they came there and
started exciting and stirring up the mobs.”
Here we go
again.
Nearly
every place Paul went, he was run off. He came into town as an unknown stranger. A short time later he would be famous -- the
most despised man in town; or as he said, “We are made as the filth of the world,
the offscouring of all things until now,” I Cor 4:13, Modern King James.
He taught
love, yet he may have been the most hated man in the Roman Empire. Town after town, teaching
and fleeing. What great emotional
turmoil Paul endured!
“At once the believers sent Paul away to
the coast; but both Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea.
The men who were taking Paul went with
him as far as Athens and then returned to Berea with instructions from Paul
that Silas and Timothy should join him as soon as possible.”
The
believers from Berea left Paul alone in Athens.
After escaping two towns with his life, all alone in Athens, Paul could have been emotionally drained, recuperating, resting
just a little. Running for your life is
hard work. No wonder he wanted Silas and
Timothy to join him as soon as they possibly could.
Can you see Paul, all
by himself, after escaping with his life, walking into Athens?
Athens was a big city
of at least a quarter million people. When
Rome conquered Greece, Athens was placed under the Roman
governor of Macedonia. However, because Rome
esteemed Athens so highly for her great history in the arts and sciences, she was allowed to have local independence.
Athens was special,
even in special Greece. The ancient
Jewish writer Philo said that Athens was to Greece as the pupil is to the eye
or reason to the soul. The people of
Athens, he said, were the keenest in intellect of the Greeks.
In education and learning,
Athens was the elite of the elite. She
was the capitol of Greek arts and sciences. The theater of Dionysius was under the
southeast cliff of the Acropolis, where plays of the great Greek poets such as
Euripides or Menander were performed. Athens was a favorite residence of foreign
writers of history, geography and literature such as Horace, Brutus and
Cassius. Even under Roman rule, Athens
was the university city, radiating her light of
learning to the rest of the empire.
Paul came up the road
from the sea. He would have passed
altars for the goddesses of Mercy, Shame, Fame and Lust. Also along the road were altars to unknown
gods.
In Athens Paul would
have stared up at the temple of Zeus.
Zeus was the chief of the Greek gods, and for such a big god, they
wanted a big temple. It was begun in the 6th century BC, intended to be
the greatest temple in the world. It wasn’t finally finished until a century after Paul was
there, but as Paul looked at it, it was the largest temple in Greece. Huge, beautiful columns soared upward,
dedicated to the chief god of the myriad.
By
human standards, very impressive.
Paul
could have seen the temple to Athena Nike, or victorious Athena. It was constructed
all in marvelous marble. Unlike the temple
of Zeus, it was small, but was positioned high up on a
rocky outcrop of the Acropolis, so people could easily look up and adore the
goddess from all over town.
Paul
could have gazed on the temple of Hephaestus in the agora, or marketplace. Hephaestus was the god of metalworking and
Athena Ergane was the goddess of pottery.
Inside this temple were idols of both.
As
Paul walked, not only was the city filled with pagan temples, but every gateway
or porch had its own god to protect it.
They lined the street from the port to the agora/marketplace. Every door had an idol. Wherever Paul cast his eye, it fell on an
abomination.
Paul
saw the Parthenon. How could he have
missed it? Visible from all parts of
Athens, the Parthenon resided royally on the hill of the Acropolis. The Parthenon is the most celebrated building
architecturally in all of human history.
Even today it is said to be the sublime
expression of Greek architectural genius, combining simplicity and power. Nashville, Tennessee even recreated the
building in a park there, and made an American copy of this idol temple.
The
Parthenon was a temple to Athena. Inside
was a giant ivory and gold statue of the mythical goddess by the renowned Greek
sculptor Pheidias, which could be
seen for miles.
By
Paul’s time, the gold had been stripped off. This goddess was not even powerful enough to
keep a tyrant from robbing her gold to pay his soldiers, but the Athenians
overlooked that.
The
Parthenon had been built about 500 years before Paul’s visit
by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates, under the
supervision of Pheidias. It is about 101 feet wide and 228 feet long
and was made of brilliant white marble, with 46 huge columns, and roofed with
tiles. Architecturally it is the
culmination of the development of the Doric order, the simplest of the
classical Greek architectural styles.
The
name Parthenon refers to Athena Parthenos, the Virgin
Athena. Little wonder she was a
virgin. She never existed. Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, and
was said to have come fully grown from the head of her
father Zeus, although actually she came from the heads of ordinary people. She was supposed to represent the highest
spiritual development in intellect and understanding. This lifeless statue of Athena was thought to typify the human quest for wisdom.
That
is what Paul saw. In the city of human
learning, with the most celebrated building in human history, with a 40 foot
statue of Athena, the epitome of human wisdom –
Paul
was not impressed.
He was not impressed by the amazing art of the statues,
all 30,000 of them. He was not intimidated by the
temples to Zeus or Hephaestus or Athena.
He was not awed by the altars to Shame and Lust.
Instead Paul was in agony because of the
idolatry.
Act 17:16 WEB
Now while Paul waited
for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full
of idols.
Act 17:16 MKJ
But awaiting them in
Athens, Paul's spirit was pained within him, seeing the city full of idols.
Act 17:16 ISV
While Paul was waiting
for them in Athens, his spirit was stirred to its
depths to see the city full of idols.
The
Greek word for Paul’s stirring is paroxuno. Strong’s Bible concordance defines paroxuno as ‘to exasperate.’
From
the Greek root we get the English word paroxysm, which
is:
- a sudden outburst
of emotion or action;
- a sudden attack
or intensification of a disease;
- a spasm or fit or
convulsion.
When
Paul saw the idols and their temples, he had a paroxysm.
He
had a sudden outburst of emotion and action.
He had a spasm of the holy spirit, and went
into a convulsion to preach Christ to these penultimate pagans.
He
did not see beautiful statues and marvelous temples – He saw teraphim, bosheth, and aven – idols, shame and nothingness.
The Bible commentator John Gill says – “his
spirit was stirred in him; not only his soul was troubled and his heart was
grieved, but he was exasperated and provoked to the last degree: he was in a
paroxysm; his heart was hot within him; he had a burning fire in his bones, and
was weary with forbearing, and could not stay; his zeal wanted vent, and he
gave it.”
These
were the sublimest creations
of art which man had created. This was the apex of intellect, the greatest heights to which human
wisdom had climbed. And all Paul saw was the idiocy of idolatry.
He
could not wait for Timothy and Silas to join him before he started
preaching. The love of God welled up in
him and spewed forth: “God commands that
all people everywhere should repent!”
Moses
did the same thing. He was up on Mount
Sinai with God, and Yahweh told him that Israel had made an idol.
Ex 32:9-20
Yahweh said to Moses, "I have seen
these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people. Now
therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I
may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation."
Moses begged Yahweh his God, and said,
"Yahweh, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have
brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'He brought them
forth for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the
surface of the earth?' Turn from your fierce wrath,
and repent of this evil against your people…' "
Yahweh repented of the evil which he said he would do to his people.
Moses turned, and went down from the
mountain, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand; tablets that were
written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the
writing of God, engraved on the tables.
When Joshua heard the noise of the
people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is the noise of war in
the camp." He said, "It isn't the voice of
those who shout for victory, neither is it the voice of those who cry for being
overcome; but the noise of those who sing that I hear."
It happened, as soon as he came near to
the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing: and Moses' anger grew hot, and
he threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain. He took the calf which they had
made, and burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the
water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
Even
though Moses had been told what Israel had done, when
he actually saw the golden calf, he had a paroxysm! He threw down God’s Ten Commandment tables,
ground the golden calf up into dust and made Israel drink it!
Jeremiah
also couldn’t hold back.
Jer 20:7-9
I am become a laughing-stock all the
day, every one mocks me. For as often as I speak, I
cry out; I cry, Violence and destruction! because the
word of Yahweh is made a reproach to me, and a derision, all the day. If I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any
more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up
in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I can't
contain.
Every time
Jeremiah opened his mouth to warn Israel to repent, he got into trouble. Judah had brought idols right into the temple
of Yahweh, and the presence of God was polluted by
shameful, detestable idols. So Jeremiah decided he was going to stay out of trouble and
keep his mouth shut.
But he could not keep quiet.
He had a burning fire shut up in his bones, and he couldn’t
hold it in. The love of God leaped out
of his mouth. Repent of your idolatry!
Their deep
love of God would not let these men mingle with idolatry. Paul could have sat back, enjoyed the sights,
watched a pagan play, and waited for Timothy and Silas to join him before he
went back to work. But
his love for Christ would not allow that.
When he
saw the idolatry, he had a paroxysm.
Now look
at this.
The Scopes
trial was held in the 1920’s. Arkansas and Tennessee had passed laws
against – against! –
the teaching of evolution in the government
schools. The ACLU found a part time
biology teacher in Tennessee who was willing to be prosecuted
for teaching evolution. He was found guilty of teaching evolution and paid a hundred dollar
fine, but the trial mocked God and the Bible in America.
After
that, no more states passed laws against teaching evolution. Instead evolution
was promulgated in the schools by the educational authorities, those who were
considered the intellectual elite in America.
Evolution was not forced into the schools by
law, but it was allowed in. The superior
minds of America smushed it into the textbooks and
the classrooms.
America
was an overwhelmingly Christian nation, and almost no one – except for the
educational authorities – believed in evolution. The people did not choose to have evolution
taught in their schools.
But –
The people
did accept it.
In 1962 the courts decided that God could not be publicly
prayed to in the government schools. The
people did not decide that. The ACLU
did.
But –
The people
did accept it.
In 1963 the courts decided that the Bible could not be taught
in the government schools. The Bible had been taught in the government schools for as long as
there had been government schools. The
first common schools were begun in Massachusetts
specifically to teach students to read so they could read the Bible.
The people
did not decide to ban the Bible from the government schools. Left wing lawyers decided that.
But –
The people
did accept it.
Finally,
in 1987, in an Arkansas case, the courts decided that evolution had to be taught in the public schools and the Creator could not
be.
So the trail went from passing laws against teaching
evolution, to allowing the idolatry of evolution, to making it illegal not to
teach evolution.
Again, the
people did not decide that. But each time the Christian people accepted it.
Today 85%
of Christian families send their children to the public schools. Everything about America’s public schools
today is based on the idolatry of evolution. Not just the classes, but
the whole Godless, degenerate culture is based on the premise that God isn’t
and His law ain’t.
The schools are filled with obscenities, drugs,
sex, violence and shootings. All these
terrible things are the direct result of the idolatry of evolution. The schools have become temples of idolatry,
teaching the idiocy of evolution, and having the whole school culture become a Godless den of iniquity.
Now, for you 85% of Christians who go along with this
idolatry –
Where is your paroxysm?
If you
have a deep love of Christ, why don’t you have a
spiritual spasm and get out of that idolatry?
How can
you keep standing in the Parthenon, gazing at the huge, sculpted idol of
Athena, with the deceived hordes of Athens?
How can you stand to keep supporting the greatest idolatry in the
history of the human race – the direct idolatry of human self
exaltation, which does away with physical idols and declares humans to
be the highest beings in creation?
Four out
of five children from Christian families who attend the public schools turn
against Christ as adults, because they have been raised
in idolatry. How can you Christian
parents bear to send your beloved children off to the sacrifice of Molech, as he waits with his molten arms to receive your
little ones, to turn them from Christ believers into Christ deniers?
Where is
your paroxysm?
Christian parents, you
face the paradox of paroxysm -- If you love Christ as Paul did, you will have a
paroxysm over idolatry as he did. If you
don’t have one, then do you love Him?
Can you imagine the
apostle Paul sending disciples of Christ into the
Parthenon to be taught by the Athenians?
Yet that is what you are doing with your children.
Today’s school bells are a
calling to the ancient practices of Baalism, not in
form but in substance. They don’t build an altar to Baal but they wind up with the same
base teaching and the same fruits. Over
the past century, most Christians have been lulled into going along with this
idolatry of humanism, placing human reason in place of God.
First America turned into
a society filled with divorce. Then
America accepted open adultery without any pretense of marriage. Now America is being turned
into an unashamed Sodom, with homosexuality being openly practiced and approved
in this once Christian nation.
The greatest agent of this
massive change has been the public schools – the school Baals,
teaching that God isn’t and His law ain’t. And it is the 85% of Christians who actively support these
schools who have made this possible.
If America is to survive
as any semblance of the nation she has been, she must tear down the altars of
Baal. She must get away from this
government institutionalized religious system.
Each set of Christian parents cannot by themselves
move the whole nation, but each set of parents can move their own
children out of that pagan system of education into Christian education. Then, if enough parents do that, the nation
can move away from Baal and back to the Son of God.
Christian parents -- Where is
your paroxysm?