[26] See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse-- [27] the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; [28] the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known. (Deuteronomy 11 NIV)

Moses was a great prophet. Mightier than Moses were the words he spoke to Israel. Mightier still is the Word who first formed all worlds, and from all worlds made this planet. Within the history of this planet the Word formed all nations, and from all nations called one people as a light to the world. Through the Word creation was born, and by the Word creation is nursed. The Word is Light. Light is the woman's Seed striking against the serpent's dark head. Light is the warrior's sword penetrating into the chaotic hearts of a fallen humanity.

God gave man this world as a gift, and through the gift man found the means to revolt against his Creator and Benefactor. Paradise fell. The rebel was cast out and became a resident within the cave. Man no longer sought to look up and out, but instead moved ever deeper into the dark caverns--caverns made possible at the midnight hour of perverse imagination. The rebel plots against the Kingdom of Light, seeing only the shadows of what is real.

Adapted to live in darkness, the rebel became offended by the bright light of heaven. He declared war from the lesser to the greater--he seeks to free his will totally from the Light. The rebel makes his plans in the shadows; in vain hope he looks to the day when midnight will overtake the morning, and the King of Glory shall no longer reign on earth.

Yet how cold the cave! How dark its far recesses! How dependent it remains upon the benevolence of its declared enemy! The King of Glory could quickly put an end to the revolt by withdrawing the light which surrounds the cavern with warmth and sends shafts of radiance into the deep darkness. Even the rebel, though he may protest it, requires light and warmth to live!

But the King does not seek death for the rebel. He desires to quicken his cold heart of stone and make of it a spiritual muscle of living flesh. Only then can the creature leave the cave and dwell again in the Kingdom of Light.

The Kingdom of God--how faint your light within the cave! O host of heaven--you who walk freely beyond space and time--how faint our shadowy souls must appear to you. You beheld the day of our making, and in the Maker's hand you saw our solid frame cast. Then, in horror, you watched as we flung ourselves from His grasp. Down, and down further, we fell. And here is a great mystery, for another hand of God broke our fall. O great God of mystery! O Deus Absconditus! footnote

The interfusion of light into darkness creates a twilight-land in time. Our fall brought us into a world of deprivation in which willful sin casts the long shadows which form the deep, dark caverns of human existence. Human history is a mystery which lies in the hour of twilight. Each mortal travels a no-man's land where neither Light nor Dark has prevailed. God's design within history remains veiled, for man dwells in the hour before daybreak. In the cave we see by twilight.

In the dead black of night the first rays of morning create an hour of mystery and occult magic. Here we see, but never clearly. And here the Magician works his black arts and the rebel plans his deceit. Yet here too, the first promise of daylight lies just over the horizon--death to the rebel and Magician, and life to the returning prodigal.

Creation awaits with eager longing the day of the Son! Until the final victory and the eternal hour of Son-light, man must dwell in twilight. The light of God's will in creation is active, but also obscure. It allows us to see beauty, but also the terrors of torture, murder, injustice, and all manners of rebellious living. At times, the light of heaven seems to vanish, favoring the work of the Magician and the rebel.

Apart from understanding the nature of Light Himself, the work of Light within history remains perplexing. It is easy to be perplexed because God's "left hand" may appear to bring the sickle upon the wheat of His own planting--mutilating the grain along with the chaff. The loss of a young baby, or the death of a martyr, or the Holocaust of the Nazis, or the devastation of a city struck by a natural disaster--these all illustrate a mystery concerning the sovereign will of God as it is expressed within creation.

The will of God as He works with His "left hand" remains a mystery; but the revelation of His "right hand" is made known in Jesus Christ. He is the offense of radiant love which no prideful intellect can hurdle. He is the absurd revelation of a Creator who loves humanity to the cross. No cold hearted equation can ever lead one to believe that He who holds the stars in their course, could--would!--come in human flesh and cherish a speck of people living within the vast sea of stars.

Yet it is on one, little, round orb floating within the oceans of the universe that human history has its setting. Here man seeks to find relevancy, but in the greatness of creation, that search often leads to a devaluation of human worth. Mankind does seem tiny when we measure our lives by the rulers of time and space. Our intellect is dwarfed as it attempts to plumb the expanse of space and the continuum of time. Each new answer which physics gives to us concerning the equation of material reality, only creates new questions to be answered.

In the realm of physics, we appear to stand at one point upon an infinite continuum looking both ways for the final answer. Yet closure is impossible within a universe whose process expands its frontiers. Physics can give no answer to the question of human relevance. Seeking relevance from the material universe is like a person moving his head back and forth between a telescope and microscope. One sees, but never fully. Each new observation only brings one closer to other worlds which remain beyond the current capacity of the discoverer's lens.

This process of looking back and forth, and developing greater lenses, continues ad infinitum. Man, however, does not have infinite time to determine relevancy. Therefore, the materialist is led by his process to conclude that human life, and human history, is absurd.

And so it is, for the materialist. But life is bulging with meaning for those who use an existential standard. Then again, not any existential measure will do. Life is only understood when measured within God's loving will. When humanity is valued existentially within the standard of God, it becomes relevant! History becomes transparent revealing a beautiful tapestry created out of the colors of love! Human life, expressed as an unending and inexhaustible creative capacity to love, explodes and devastates the absurd and meaningless.

The Christian lives at twilight as a paradox. He exercises a force of will which includes realities greater than time and space, but which are expressed within a material world. The Lord Jesus Christ promised before His crucifixion and resurrection that, in the Father's house, there are many rooms. He went to prepare a room for returning prodigals. Man's meaning lies in this room with Christ. The reality of this existential domain is already breaking into the world through the children of Light. This light powerfully entered when the Light became flesh and lived among us: Jesus Christ, a stumbling block to the world.

As Christ walked within time and space, so we continue within the caverns of a fallen world. Here the rebellion is being fought! Here the insurrection of man's apostasy has been contained so that it cannot contaminate other heavenly realms. The cherubim remain on guard that we should not enter a new Eden until we are transformed into the perfect image of the New Adam. It is in the folds between time/space, and the Kingdom of Heaven, that our history takes place. The hour is twilight, and the Magician is at work and the rebel is planning. God governs over all.

History is woven from two strands. The one strand was formed in the Fall and is retold in the progeny of every generation since Adam and Eve were born of the breath of God. The other is the golden thread of Salvation History; a life-line to the faithful throughout generations. Each strand has its own architect, the one Satan, and the other Yahweh--THE LORD GOD.

The Omega Prophecy speaks of these two threads of history, but of dark powers and principalities it must discern second hand. The lens of the prophecy shows history as it unfolds within human and divine activity. It does not speak of Satan apart from his work within the human heart. It cannot tell you of the grand plans of hell or heaven! It's conveyer is flesh and blood. I am merely a poet, and I proclaim from the mouth of the cave.

And what can I tell You? I look to the light beyond the cave, but I am blinded by the light of glory. So I look back into the cave. There I see darkness, and shadows, and the marvelous dance of light as it pours over my shoulders and rests here and there within the cave. So what can I tell the reader? The light on my back fills my limbs with warmth and my heart with life--but that is my history.

The history which I shall reveal tells of the cave, and the Salvation History of God's work within the cave. Yet even this would be too general. There is so much beauty, but I must save for other occasions my doxologies and joys concerning the glory of God within His creation. My task in this work is clear. The table set before the reader is not for celebration--not yet. The first course is bitter gall and wormwood--the second course awaits. And through it all meanders the thread of Salvation History--God working within history and human hearts to reveal His love.

The love of God for the world is traced through the bloodline of a wandering Aramean whose offspring would bring the Messiah into the world. Of course, there are earlier accounts. Accounts of that ancient day when Love's light first shone upon human consciousness, and how dark deception, covetousness, and finally murder overcast the splendor of our noble genesis. I leave these to your reading. They are important. In these accounts we glimpse the manner by which the cave was entered. We hear of the Seed who shall come from the woman, enter the cave, and crush the serpent's head. The fulfillment of this promised Messiah, centuries later, is continued through a solitary man, called by God.

Abram, a wondering Aramean, was called by God to be the father of a people set apart from all nations, that in him and his progeny, all nations might be blessed. He was called from a pagan people whose religion was the worship of mythological gods. These gods were believed to control the forces of nature. An, Ki, Enlil, and Enki controlled the cosmos within the region of Abram's birth as lesser gods played with human destiny. A pantheon of gods represented guesses into the dark obscurity of the cave and its spiritual realities. Primitive religion was an attempt to approximate and control the powerful natural forces.

Man has always felt at the mercy of the forces of nature. Until the age of materialism, man has also intuited the presence of spiritual powers lying behind natural forces. Through occult practice and divination, the early physicist sought to control natural forces by appealing to spiritual resources. The Shaman's chemistry was not prepared in a test tube, nor boiled in caldrons, but enacted through occult rites and rituals which connected the Shaman's tribe with dark spiritual realities. It would be presumptuous of this generation to conclude that occult practices, no longer understood by materialists today, were not instrumental in effecting the environment. Physical reality, then as now, is bigger than the definitions allowed by materialism. The forces of nature represent the beast which man seeks to domesticate, one way or another, in order to serve civilization.

And what is civilization? Is it the hammer and anvil which together make the tools to till the soil? Or is it the brush and canvas that captures by its oils the farmer in the field? The dichotomy is unnecessary except for clarification. The answer is dialectical. The problem with technology and art expressed within civilization lies in our falling to one extreme or the other.

On the one hand, man tends to be more concerned for his stomach than with his spirit. Such a person fashions a plow and feeds his stomach, but his soul starves and withers like a corpse lying with the finest coffin of wood and brass. On the other hand, those who have a fanatical concern for a concept of spirit, forget that the spirit is the breath of God breathed into the dusts of earth. One hand or the other--and both of these ditches produce weeds not fit for haying! The error of one is materialism, and of the other is gnosticism.

There is however, a deeper precipice than these two ditches which endangers the body and soul of civilization. This lurking power, however, does not lie passive like a cliff waiting for a misguided turn, but it is active and prowling. If Materialism and Gnosticism were left to themselves... then this deceptive power would not trouble history... then the great Antichrist would never have been born. Materialism and Gnosticism are ill-suited lovers who have formed an unholy wedlock at the occult hour of twilight. In the copulation of Materialism and Gnosticism is given to birth the bastard child called Naturalism. Naturalism is a witchly hag that adorns her dark features with false gems reflecting bent lights into creation. Its gender a mere convention, Naturalism is also the devilish prince who masquerades as the lord of heaven and earth.

Naturalism, for all its boasting, is not the Creator. It is too weak to hold the reigns upon human history. Its vision is too limited to see the great vista of civilization. Only the eyes of Christendom, and then when not clouded by the spell of Ba'al, sees the rendezvous where the spiritual and physical meet as true and well-suited lovers. The offspring of the physical and the spiritual, unlike the illegitimate child of Materialism and Gnosticism, romp in the playground of history.

The faithful Church has long valued the physical and the spiritual as expressions of God's creative enterprise. Historically the Church has been a bulwark against any attempt to disjoin God from creation as it expresses both the natural and the supernatural. On the other hand, the Church has refused to allow that this imperfect world offers a complete definition of mankind. The Christian is always in a place of paradox; valuing at once the imperfect expression of the physical and spiritual within this world, and longing for the greater reality which presently lies hidden in the work of Christ.

Naturalism holds no such paradox. The Dark Prince calls himself a "reconciler," for his purpose is to be himself the answer to the paradox. The Christian is always pushed to the either/or: Either to serve this creation or to serve God. The Christian who serves God subsequently discovers that he is the best of all caretakers of creation. The Christian--indeed, the truly civilized person--begins with God and ends as a blessing to creation. The Dark Prince says something quite different from Christian truth: "Serve creation, serve the creature, and you will discover that you are serving me." The difference seems so slight, and yet it continues along the same dark path which detoured Adam and Eve within the ancient garden.

Our century is walking into the next along this same dark path. Our Shamans do not use incantations and divination, but teach from the podiums of our universities. Naturalism, like most philosophical systems, is a dragon with many heads. There is one body of thought called "naturalism," but many philosophers who express it in different ways.

At its most elementary level, naturalism holds that the universe is one, large, closed system. It is like a clock in that all of its workings are contained within itself. It is unlike a clock in that it has no outside creator who made it and continues to wind its mechanism. It also has no shelf upon which it must sit. Naturalism excludes all talk of transcendence.

Naturalism is much like its progenitor, Materialism, but they are not the same. The materialist reduces all existence to matter and motion with a flat denial of any divine interaction within the process. In contrast, some naturalists allow for, or advocate for, a divine agency. However, the naturalist insists that divine agency must be operative within the sum total of the ongoing process of the closed system: The Maker is forced to live in the clock by the naturalist. Naturalism is Materialism confounded by its courting with Gnosticism.

Naturalism is the illegitimate child spawned in the copulation of Materialism and Gnosticism. It resembles only faintly the clear features of its parents. It is a hybrid planned within hell and cultivated within human hearts to misdirect the course of history. It has taken its most diabolical form in many religious expressions of the past few centuries.

Naturalism is antithetical to Christianity, and yet many who profess a Christian persuasion follow in the path of this Dark Prince. The naturalists of this century--the ones who claim to be Christians, are filling the shoes once worn by the unfaithful priests who lived at the time of Ezekiel. They repeat in their hearts and hands the ancient creed of Eden fallen and Ba'alism recaptured: "Serve creation, serve the creature, and you will discover that you are serving God."

The true God, the Lord of Light, once said that man cannot serve two masters; we cannot serve both God and mammon. The Dark Prince says differently. He claims to be the reconciler between mammon and God. He confuses the contemporary man within this fruitless synthesis. And as confused as many are today by the teachings of Naturalism, it was even easier for the Magician to use the Dark Prince to confuse the ancients.

In earlier history, a sharp distinction was not made between "the gods" and the natural order. The culture from which Abraham emerged was pervaded by the influence of animism--a pattern of belief in which the gods and nature were bound together. Many gods roamed the world of Abraham's day. Nature gods were to be found controlling even the smallest activity within nature. If one wished to know the will of the gods, he looked to the signs of nature.

The course of the winds, or the entrails of an animal, these and more were examined as signs from the gods. But to Abraham came a totally different kind of word from One who declared Himself the only God. What an astonishing revelation to a person living in this period of history! Surely Abraham must have pondered whether there could be only one all consuming God. All of his culture suggested many deities. What assurance had Abraham that the word which he now heard was true?

The assuring answer did not come as a sign, but as a promise. Abraham is not to look to the things of creation, but only to the word of God. The great vista of civilization was opening to Abraham as his focus became the will and promise of God. As Abraham believed God, he received the blessing of God. Yet how often Abraham strayed because he became unsettled by the appearance of his circumstances: O Israel, your father puzzled, and your mother laughed, that a child was to be born in their old age!

Abraham would doubt God from time to time. Circumstances within his life sometimes caused him to lose trust. His children also became unfaithful to Yahweh as they faced difficult situations. Israel moved in and out of faith; she vacillated within her circumstances. It is with the rhythm of Israel's prodigal journeys that this chapter now turns. The God who remains faithful, and the children who turn rebels, we now consider in the events that follow the exodus from Egypt.

Israel had been delivered from the pharaoh's hand. The God who spoke to Abraham had fulfilled His promise in mighty deeds. Through plague, pestilence and death God etched His will upon the history of Egypt until it released the people of His promise. But why had Israel, out of all nations, been selected into a special history by the Only true God? In anticipation of this question, Moses gives two reasons in Deuteronomy 7:8.

God graciously chose Israel within the unsearchable depths of His love. Whatever it is that God is doing within the world, we are assured that it comes from a loving God. God is love! A loving God reached to Israel as she wept under the taskmaster's whip. And it is this same God who first spoke to Israel's father, Abraham.

The second reason given for God's specific care of Israel is to be found in the ancient covenant which God had made with Abraham. This memory of a special covenant relationship with THE LORD GOD was maintained within Israel even in her dark years of slavery. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the people continued to recall that their forefathers were numbered back to a "wandering Aramean" with whom God had bestowed a special promise.

Israel, therefore, was saved not because of who she was or what she did. Rather, Israel was chosen and protected because of who God is and what He does. God led His people out of Egypt like a faithful shepherd protecting his sheep from predators. Yet, Israel shall learn that there are other consequences to a holy election. They are to be holy. God seeks to lead His people in holiness, but He does not pull them by the necks as a butcher would do.

Early within Israel's history she began to learn the full meaning of her covenantal relationship with God: Israel's righteousness did not cause God's election, yet the elected were to be transformed by God's love and righteousness into a holy people. No longer water, Israel was to be the wine poured out for the thirsting nations. Israel was to be holy as God is holy, and this theme is implicit to Deuteronomy 27:9-10 and 28:13.

God's gracious election and Israel's loving response go together like the marriage of a man and a woman. On the wedding night, the bride does not ask her husband if her embrace is required because he loves her. God's people are the bride of Christ. Yet long before the birth of the Messiah, Israel's love grew cold toward God. She was unfaithful. In the heat of the promiscuous moment with other nations, time and again her infidelity testified that she had divorced her righteous response from God's gracious election and promise.

Yet it is fidelity above all else that Yahweh requires of His people. This is the First Commandment. THE LORD alone is God. He alone is Light, Truth, and Life. He is the holy One, and Israel is to be His holy people. As Israel remained faithful to Yahweh, He would enable His people to do good--for apart from Him Israel would do nothing good. Attached to Him, God blessed Israel's faithfulness. Attached to the Vine, Israel drew in the nectar of Life and became a sweet wine to a parched world. When severed from God and joined to the lifeless gods of other nations, Israel became bitter gall and wormwood. The branch only lives when attached to the living vine. Unattached, the vine becomes good only for kindling and the hearth.

The whole corpus of the Ten Commandments is built upon the first ordinance: "I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, WHO BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME." (Deuteronomy 5:6-7). And it is because Israel, time and time again, refused to heed the first ordinance of God's law, that she fell into every sin and rebellious action. Israel forgot that the law was given, not by a taskmaster, but by a kind Shepherd who sought to keep His sheep from harm. As Israel was given from the hand of Moses into the land of Canaan, she lustfully sought after other gods.

Through the strong arm of Yahweh exercised in His servant Joshua, the conquest of Canaan unfolds. As the host of Israel stands before the promised land, their decision for Yahweh or other gods looms before them as never before. Even within Egypt their bondage constrained their hearts as they cried to Yahweh for deliverance. In the wilderness journey Israel did not stay in any one place long enough to absorb the local deities. The hardships of the wilderness insulated Israel like a child yet to be born. It is from the womb of their wilderness journey that Israel is delivered into her destiny among the nations and global history.

As Israel emerges into Canaan, Joshua puts the question of Israel's allegiance to the people. As for Joshua, there is only one answer, and he says to the people, "As for me and my house, we will serve THE LORD." And what did the people reply? "Far be it from us," they said, "that we should forsake THE LORD, to serve other gods." footnote And so our account should end like a children's story, happily, with Israel dwelling securely within a land flowing with milk and honey.

But instead her future in Canaan becomes a demon infested nightmare. In bold relief, Judges 2:11-14 stands blackly against the words of the people to Joshua. Israel sought out other gods within the new land: "And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of THE LORD and served the Ba'als; and they forsook THE LORD, the God of their Fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt."

In total disregard for the First Commandment, they were seduced into serving "the Ba'als." Lustful hearts were enticed into all out rebellion against their King as Israel served the images of nature. Centuries earlier, their father Abraham had turned his back upon the gods of his place to follow after one God, but now in reverse fashion, the children left Yahweh returning to the Ba'als. This apostasy could only bring the curse of Moses upon the heads of the people.

The ba'als of the land took many forms and represented different social stations. "Ba'al" was itself a common noun within Israel's culture, referring to the owner or ruler of a particular place. It is best translated as "lord," and could designate a person who owned an oasis or high place. Centuries after the birth of Christ, a valiant knight in the king's service was often given land, a high rank, and the title "Lord." It was like this in Canaan. Individuals of distinction and wealth had the special honor of being referred to as lords. Ba'al--"lord"--became a component to the title given to the gods of the Canaanite cults. It was to these "lords" that Israel turned.

The "gods" and the forces of nature were tightly connected within primitive religions. When Israel entered Canaan, she became immediately confronted with lifestyles and methods of commerce that were intrinsically a part of this peoples religious world view. The Canaanites saw the gods at work in each and every aspect of business, agriculture, and sociality. "If you want your seed to grow and prosper," the Israelite farmer was told, "then you must participate in the fertility festivals." The modern reader does not understand the problems facing Israel within its settlement of the Promised Land unless her previous nomadic lifestyle is part of the picture.

Israel had become a nomadic tribe through her wilderness years. As Israel settled into Canaan, she was in the process of adjusting to a lifestyle appropriate to a sedentary people. In many cases, the Israelites were switching their shepherd's crooks for a farmer's blow. The models which Israel must learn in order to live within the land, were those of the Canaanite people. The very difficult problem facing Israel was the need to find the hand of Yahweh in a culture seeped with Ba'alist world view. She must both remain faithful to Yahweh and adapt new enterprises to insure her survival.

The early process of assimilating the culture of Canaan occurred quite understandably. Israel was not seeking to be unfaithful to Yahweh--not at first. Indeed, she was eager to remember her words of faithfulness as they were sworn before Joshua. Fidelity to Yahweh did not strictly preclude all new ideas, and so Israel freely borrowed from the Canaanites. Israel entered Cana truly believing that her God was the creator of all things. If there were practices of farming or commerce that were useful in their new home, then it could be argued that this was part of Israel's inheritance within the Promised Land.

Ever new practices were adopted as she took root in the new land. Israel watched the lifestyles of the natives, and soon absorbed myths and religious cultic practices because in them she recognized the power of Yahweh. But in time, there grew an awareness by some that Israel had gone too far. No longer was she acting responsibly to her covenant with the One who spoke with Abraham and Moses.

Step by step Israel walked into the arms of Ba'alism. She refused to listen to the judges and prophets sent by God to correct her errors. God will forgive the mistakes of a finite people, but God will not allow that they should become stone-faced and cold-hearted against Him. It's like taking a puppy into one's home. At first the accidents and playful nips are forgiven. When the dog is mature and has become a long-time member of the household, then its bite can only signal that the animal has become mean and ungrateful.

Israel's response soon spoke against her. The sin of Israel, however, was not her brazen actions. These only represent a deeper problem. The real problem was a condition within her heart. Israel would not embrace God, and disregarded His attempts to lead her into holiness; willfully her people sought out the Ba'als. Before His presence, "in the sight of THE LORD," Israel chose to defy God and thwart His love.

So in the early period of her development in Canaan, God sent Israel judge after judge to deliver her from folly and the work of her sin. Each time that Israel experienced the curse of Moses as a consequence to her apostasy, the people would cry to Yahweh like a lost dog in the night. God would then hear the people, and as a loving shepherd, He would go to her with His judges. And the people would be delivered, only to fall once again under the curse of Moses.

The temptations of the Ba'al cults proved too strong for the majority of Israel. But in saying this, I do not capture the volitional element that was the root of Israel's sin. It is the overtone of the Fall which played a siren's welcome to Israel at every turn. God had assured Israel that she was His covenant people and the she could--indeed must!--seek to remain faithful to Him. But in the depravity of the human will, Israel, already warned against the siren's song, opened her ears to dance and play her lutes in tribute to Ba'al.

The song of Ba'al was sweet and seductive, and played throughout the land. We can only imagine how easily the newcomers to Canaan found their life influenced by Ba'alism. The worship of the Ba'als was instituted into the very fabric of the agrarian society. Agriculture and commerce were inseparable from the cultic cosmology. As Israel attempted to settle within Canaan and master the native technology of a sedentary people, it was unavoidable that Yahwehism would suffer attacks upon its beliefs.

The problems facing Israel are endemic to the world view of the Canaanite people. Unlike the assumptions cast from the twentieth century upon the past, life was no more mysterious for the ancient Canaanites than for us today. These people believed that they more or less understood how nature worked. Their scientist was the priest, and their science was Ba'alism.

The Ugarite Texts from the excavation of Ras Shamra have given us a relatively detailed account of this primitive "science." Surprisingly complete texts were discovered intact within the library of a Canaanite chief priest. The excavators of the "tell" unearthed clay cuneiform tablets and thereby uncovered a wealth of information concerning the religion of Ba'alism. To understand how it operated in one of its forms, let us take a facet from its religious practice. The fertility rite exemplifies the world view of the Canaanites.

The farmer today has many methods which he uses to insure a good yield. These methods cooperate with the general world view which the farmer has learned through his inculturation within Western thought. He knows, if only through practice, the bio-chemical "rites" which he must perform upon his fields if he wishes a favorable harvest. So the ancient Canaanite farmer knew what must be done to secure the yield from his crops. The priests of Ba'al had taught him the occult rites to perform.

The Ba'al cult of the region held a cosmology which interwove the process of nature with the activities of their gods. In the fertility rite, Hadad was the chief Ba'al. It was he who must be enticed into sending his sperm, in the form of rain, to vitalize the soil. In the fertility rite, the Canaanite priest and priestess would engage in sexual intercourse. The sacred prostitutes would then copulate with those who had come to share in the cultic festival.

The ritual enacted the sexual union of Hadad with his consort. Through the fertility rite, not only did the participants seek to share in the divine power of fertility, but they further sought to entice by their own orgasmic extravagance, the sexual frenzy of Hadad. Accordingly, Hadad would seek out his mate and through union with her, he would make the earth fertile and capable of producing the harvest.

Israel wished to be successful in her agrarian endeavors. What she was told and observed in Canaan tempted her to think that the fertility rite was essential to a good crop. If this promise of success was not enough to lure Israel into Ba'alism, then the opportunities for gross sexual liberties added to the incentive. Few men or women will deny the reality of their own sexual proclivity. The people of Israel were tempted by the lavish and licentious pagan rites of Ba'alism.

As an attempt to fortify against the pagan influence among the people of Israel, sanctuaries were built by her priests, often next door to Ba'al shrines and worship centers. Unfortunately, as time passed it became apparent that the opposite effect was taking place. Rather than serving as watch towers and boundary keepers for Yahweh, these Israelite sanctuaries became themselves polluted. By the time of the Deuteronomic reform, a distinct class of prophets and priests were trying to centralize worship at the temple in order to maintain the purity of Yahwehism.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah exemplified the prophets who wished to maintain a faithful Israel through temple worship. Sadly, both also recognized that even the temple worship had become contaminated. We must conclude that prior to the fall of Jerusalem, the whole fabric of Israel's life had become filled with the leprosy of Ba'alism. The flesh and blood vitality of Israel's original covenant with Yahweh was deteriorating through the influence of the indigenous religions of Canaan.

The process was gradual. Like sand slipping through the hour glass is slowly expended from the higher to the lower, so Israel slowly fell to Ba'alism. When Israel finally bottomed out, she discovered that the curse of Moses had struck deeply into the soul of Israel's society. Frantically, and often under the most severe conditions, Israel would cry to Yahweh for help.

Israel vacillated between apostasy and faithfulness. The blessing and curse spoken by Moses formed the lever-end of a pendulum, as Israel moved along from one extreme to another. When Israel was faithful to God, she experienced security and prosperity. This blessing soon became a vice as Israel used the gift to pursue the delights and diversions of a lustful culture. Like children placed together with unruly neighbors within the walls of a sweet garden, they neglected their chores and ate and ate until the garden grew wild and Israel's belly became sick.

Eventually, the garden became unbearable for life and made her hapless denizens sick. Israel's unfaithfulness became a disease which turned upon its host and made her consumptive. The bride of God lost her radiance and innocent charm for which many a woman would gladly give a score of years to possess. Instead, Israel painted her face and exposed her breasts to allure the favor of people who were bewitched and spellbound by unholy passions. To the shock of Israel, she found that her lovers were unfaithful and sadistic. To her shame, she gave birth to hideous practices like infanticide and her harlotry became exposed in the light of God's law. The curse of Moses spread like syphilis within her members, and then Israel opened her arms, yearning for the embrace of Yahweh.

The arms of Yahweh's love would then enfold the leprous body of His unfaithful bride. Israel's need to be saved by God would draw Him close to her history. Indeed, God Himself brought Israel to recognize the work of her sin, and to affirm her need for a righteous and forgiving God. Salvation History would be imprinted upon Israel. God would come with His sword unsheathed, and double-edged. The Word of God through Jeremiah and Ezekiel would be proven within the court of history: The temple city of Jerusalem would be sentenced and fall.

For a time, the bright rays of God's blessings upon His temple would be eclipsed under the massive left hand of God as He delivered the sword of judgment. Yet in this divine judgment, the faithful received another and more important Word from Yahweh. They saw in God's "NO!" to unholy and evil conduct, the divine "YES!" to every sacred promise and assurance. Although false priests and prophets sought to confuse them concerning the will of God, God Himself had asserted the truth of His holy nature.

If in God there were any darkness--any what-so-ever, then He could not be the object of Israel's eternal hope. As the faithful of God saw their society engrossed into wicked and terrible harlotry, surely the true servant of Yahweh must have clung all the harder to his faith that this conduct was not of God. As children were aborted upon the altars of Ba'al, as the incense burned to Ba'al filled the bed chambers and public streets, and as the poor were crushed by the wealthy, finally the faithful could only wish that God would demonstrate His displeasure against apostasy and the rebel's disregard for truth, justice and innocence.

God's answer came as Jerusalem fell and people were carried off in exile. Yahweh had shown His displeasure with Israel's harlotry with Ba'al. The rebel had been sentenced and no doubt found blame with Yahweh for not being faithful to His covenant. "Did we not teach and preach and worship in the temple of God!" they would cry in their quandary. The faithful servants, however, saw something quite different in God's act of judgment. Even though they often suffered with the rebel under the external weight of God's wrath, God's response to paganized Yahwehism pointed them back to His true identity. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! He was the God fulfilling His covenants to Abraham and Moses. The holy God had called Israel to be His holy people, and He Himself would see to it!

The story of Israel's promiscuity is the Church's story today. Christianity has invited what is hostile to God and His truth into the teaching ministry of His church. We serve the Ba'als of our time. Misled Christians fashion many lords by borrowing this, and taking that, to mold a new technologically smooth and politically correct deity. Like ancient Ba'alism, the spell is chanted through facts skewed to squeeze out the meaning of transcendent truth. Brute observation rules! Misguided by the Magician, many trust human experience to determine truth, and distrust those who would interpret life in terms of biblical revelation. Christianity ever more serves the bastard child as it expresses life through the lens of the closed cosmology of naturalism.

The outcome of Christianity's harlotry with this Dark Prince has produced offspring in our time which bring sorrow again to the Saints and faithful servants of Jesus Christ: "Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are not gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit." (Jeremiah 2:11). God's left hand has again drawn His double-edged sword; judgment and consolation are unsheathed and shall fall as mighty declarations within the global collapse of civilization. The rebel and the saint shall see God's hand within history, but only one will see the consolation of God. Only one will understand.


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[All contents copyright © 1980, 1998 David Anderson]