Though the prophet Jeremiah is specifically addressing societal conditions of ancient Israel who had turned away from fully following The Lord, the main issues still apply to any society, ancient or modern, that forsakes biblical spiritual values for secular and materialistic ones.
Down through the ages humans are still driven by the same fleshly passions. Although the theater, costumes and actors may have changed, it is still the same play. Human nature has never changed! When a society fails to learn the lessons of history, it will repeat the same mistakes of the past again and again.
What has happened before will happen again, because human nature remains the same. We can learn many valuable lessons from mistakes of those who have preceded us. If we don’t, we will make the same mistakes and suffer the same consequences/judgments as our forefathers.
The Lord is ever-loving and gracious and He constantly warned His people in biblical times to repent of their sins and turn back to Him. He is doing the same thing in our day if we will admit our stubborn pride, humble ourselves, and turn back to obeying his ways that bring healing, peace and eternal life.
In the past, the ancients worshiped concrete images that represented the depraved and dark side of man where physical idols represented the ideas behind Baal worship. Today’s Baal worshipers are more sophisticated. They don’t need the physical idols. They have simply bypassed the idols representing the ideas, and worship the ideas themselves. Just because the concrete images, (or literal idols), may have gone by the wayside doesn’t mean the concepts don’t still exist.
What is the appeal of Baal worship? Simply this, it takes a lot of energy to move upward, against the force of gravity. Conversely, it takes no effort to slide downward, since gravity naturally pulls us downward. Baal is like a spiritual gravity that pulls us downward effortlessly. Baal is like descending into the dark and dingy basement of a high-rise apartment building, while the penthouse in the same building is like following the path of God, which leads men upwards. It takes more effort to ascend upward than to descend. In fact, descending requires no effort. One doesn’t have to do anything to descend into the darker abysses of man’s baser nature. It takes a lot of energy, however, to move upward to a place of light and hope. In the Bible, The Lord is leading men upward against his base nature. The worship of Baal is everything that leads men downward against his better nature to fulfill his bodily appetites.
I don’t know a single person who hears about the horrors of Moloch and doesn’t cringe at the gruesomeness. Brutally murdering babies in the name of Moloch for future benefits is evil in the truest sense of the word.
Yet, at the same time, a large number of people today believe this ancient practice would be fine, so long as the baby was still in the womb. Recently, New York legislators passed a law that allows for abortions up until birth. After the vote, a video circulated the internet showing hundreds of people cheering loudly in favor of this decision. What kind of sick and twisted mind does one have to have to applaud the killing of unborn babies? These are babies after all.
This new law allows women to abort their babies right before they go into labor, a woman can literally kill her baby one day and have people cheer for her, but if she kills her baby less than twenty-four hours later when it’s made it outside her womb, she’ll go to prison.
God had strict warnings against accidentally killing unborn babies. He must despise the fact that we kill them intentionally and then celebrate it to boot. So, when the mayor of New York lit up the World Trade Center in pink to celebrate more murder, we can imagine that God doesn’t take it kindly. If that’s not a symbolic middle finger to God, I don’t know what is.
Hubert Humphrey once said; “The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life.” Currently we are failing that test.
Truth is, we aren’t any better than the ancient Canaanites. Instead of sacrificing our children to the god Moloch in exchange for future prosperity, we sacrifice our children in exchange for better career paths, financial security, and convenience.
While abortion apologists try to sanitize abortion by using terms like “tissue” instead of “baby” or “end the pregnancy” instead of “killing,” there’s no denying what’s going on when we inject poison into babies’ heads. We’re brutally murdering them. And we’ve done it millions of times. Lord, have mercy on us.