Baal worship in the modern world

  Baal, the god of fertility, was worshipped in a ritual of music and dance with male and female temple prostitutes, and in some sects, the sacrifice of the first born child. The cult was hedonistic. Maybe the idea that the activities were part of worship helped to break down the barriers for reluctant participants. And maybe, sacrificing children, while we don’t have clear records to tell, may have been done by young, unmarried women.
   Thankfully, cultures no longer worship this way. At least not in the name of Baal. Yet many do sacrifice their firstborn children (and sometimes the second and third or more) in almost all cultures in the modern world. Oh, they don’t do it in the name of religion, and they may not even do it as a result of drunken revelry, but they do it in the interest of self. They do it in the name of legal abortion.
   Unmarried and married women alike reason that they don’t have time for pregnancy; don’t have time for the result of pregnancy – a child; don’t want to face public embarrassment if they are unmarried; or, married or unmarried, they can’t afford a child right now. And adoption isn’t an option for these women. After all, they reason, about 50% of adopted children struggle with the idea that their biological parents abandoned them, so rather than choose a life for their child with a couple who will love and cherish it, they sacrifice the child’s life on the alter of their own selfish desires.
   Abortion is not new to the modern world; it is just safer according to abortion advocates. No longer do women need to resort to barbaric attempts that either did not work or killed them too. But modern abortion kills the mother in other ways. It produces a hole in her heart that eats into her soul until it too dies – if she can not reach out to a loving Savior who will forgive her.
   Children were not only aborted in ancient times, they were killed after birth as well. Pharaoh killed all the male children in an effort to control the Hebrew population (Exodus 1). Queen Athaliah killed all but one of the heirs to King David’s throne. The survivor was Joash, her grandson. She wanted to kill him, but the boy’s aunt hid him until he was crowned king (II Kings 11:1). Then Herod killed all the children in Bethlehem under age two (Matthew 2:16). In each of these three events, not only were innocent lives destroyed, but the rulers attempted to destroy the line of the Savior.
   Since the beginning of time, the Messiah was promised to Eve (Gen. 3:15). Abraham may have thought his son was the Messiah, but God shows Abraham that He will provide the sacrifice. Asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac was not jut a test of Abraham’s obedience, it was also a clear picture to all of those who followed Yahweh that the one and only God did not expect child sacrifice like the gods Baal and Molech (Genesis 22:1-14).
   Later, Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would come though the line of Judah (Isaiah 9:1-7). Even though there have been attempts to destroy that line, it has been preserved by those who were pro-life. And in that preservation, many talented lives have been saved to the benefit of man-kind.

Art: Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century BC, found at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), Louvre