RBV: II Kings 10:26

And they brought the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them.

—II Kings 10:26

The burning of the sacred pillars of Baal occurred during the coup and subsequent reforms of Jehu, who overthrew the House of Ahab and destroyed Baal worship in Israel. It was a violent, bloody era in both the northern and southern kingdoms' histories. After Jehu personally slew Joram, Ahab's son and heir (II Kings 9:24), he sent pursuers to kill the King of Judah, Ahaziah, who had married a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (verse 27), and later, ordered Jezebel to be thrown from an upper-story window and trampled her body under his chariot (verses 30-33). He incited the inhabitants of Samaria to kill the seventy sons of Ahab living in the city (II Kings 10:1-7). "So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his close acquaintances and his priests, until he left him none remaining" (verse 11). For good measure, he killed all the sons of King Ahaziah (verses 12-14), "and when he came to Samaria, he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed them, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke to Elijah" (verse 17).

Once he was firmly established as king, Jehu went after the worshippers of Baal, using deception to lure them into the temple of Baal, where he had them all killed (verses 18-25). Evidently, the entire temple had been packed with Baalists ("the temple of Baal was full from one end to the other"; verse 21), and eighty of his most loyal guards and captains slaughtered them without mercy. Thus, Jehu brutally purged Baal-worship in Israel.

It was at this point that his men brought out the sacred pillars from the temple and burned them. The previous verse indicates that these pillars were in the inner sanctum, the "most holy place" of the temple. The Hebrew word for "pillars" is mashshebot, which can describe both wooden and stone pillars that can be either functional (like doorposts) or monumental and religious. These pillars stood for the presence of Baal in his temple, much as the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat stood for the true God's presence in the Tabernacle/Temple. If the pillars were of wood, they were burned to ash, and if they were of stone, they were fragmented by heating them in a bonfire and then pouring water on them. Sometimes, depending on the level of abhorrence, they were pulverized.

Not to leave anything undone, Jehu "tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump" (verse 27). Modern commentators believe that he actually redeveloped the area and made the site a public latrine. So he showed his contempt for Baal and his adherents.

Sadly, Jehu did not take the next step and renounce all paganism. Instead, he upheld the national religion represented by the golden calves that Jeroboam I had installed at Bethel and Dan during the tenth century (verse 29). For this, God limited his reward to rule over Israel for four generations (verse 30). While he did what God had asked of him in ridding the nation of Ahab and Jezebel's influence, he did not completely embrace God's way (verse 31). 

There lies the lesson. If God tells us to overthrow what is evil in our lives, those things that cause us to sin—and He does command us to do so—then we had better do what we can to rid ourselves of those things completely. We cannot afford to leave any vestiges of evil lying around because they will return to haunt us.

Thankfully, we can do this through the sacrifice of Christ and the power of God's Spirit. God wants us to "go on to perfection" (Hebrews 6:1), or as James writes in terms of overcoming trials, ". . . that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing" (James 1:4). Our Father does not want a bunch of half-finished, partially loyal Jehus as children; He wants completely perfected sons and daughters who are wholly committed to His way of life.

RBV: Zephaniah 1:8

And it shall be,

In the day of the Lord’s sacrifice,

That I will punish the princes and the king’s children,

And all such as are clothed with foreign apparel.

—Zephaniah 1:8

Zephaniah makes no bones about the fact that his prophecy deals with the Day of the Lord and His anger at humanity for its hostility to Him: "'I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land,' says the Lord" (Zephaniah 1:2). It is clear that He is most disappointed with His chosen people, who should have known better because He had worked with them for many generations (Amos 3:1-2). Yet, even they had become idolaters, worshipping Baal and Milcom and "the whole host of heaven," turning away from God and no longer seeking Him (Zephaniah 1:4-6).

In verse 7, God calls for silence; He wants no more protests or excuses. He has decided to prepare a sacrifice and invited guests to partake of it. The modern Westerner has little notion of what this entails. Under the Levitical system, not all sacrifices were completely consumed in the altar's fire. Some burnt sacrifices, as they were called, were annihilated, but others were strictly divided: Certain parts went on the fire, another part was given to the priest to eat, and the remainder—the majority of the animal—returned to the offerer. Usually, with such a large amount of meat to consume in a short time, the offerer would call a feast for his family and close friends.

From this comes a major principle of the sacrificial system. The altar symbolized a table and the giving of an offering represented the sharing of a meal among God, the priest, and the offerer. The three were united in fellowship, solidifying and strengthening a relationship. For Christians, this three-way relationship exists among the Father, the Son (who is our High Priest), and the Christian. As the apostle Paul enjoins us in Romans 12:1, rather than giving our lives in death to Him, we are to be "living sacrifices," holy and acceptable to God, continuing the relationship in service to Him.

However, Zephaniah reveals that God has something different in mind for the Day of the Lord. For His sacrifice—or sacrificial meal—He has invited guests from afar, and the sacrifice of which they will partake is His people, Judah! In verse 8, He is particularly incensed against Judah's rulers, the corrupt descendants of David, who have led the nation further into sin. He expected the royal house to follow the examples of David and Josiah, but they had instead pursued carnal habits and political expediencies, bringing Judah to the brink of war, captivity, exile, and destruction.

As the verse closes, He highlights the particular failing of listening to foreign influence, seen in the wearing of "foreign apparel." It likely refers to a trend among the aristocrats of the time of wearing the clothing style of the foreign nation he supported in the power-struggle over the strategic land-bridge that was the Kingdom of Judah. (The conflict over that bit of territory is still ongoing today.) At the time, it was probably the distinctive styles of Egypt and Babylon, both of which were quite different from that of the Israelites. The verse suggests that the nation's leaders had stopped wearing Israelite-style clothing altogether—symbolizing their departure from God and what He had commanded (for instance, Numbers 15:38-40)—and by donning the clothing of these powerful, competing empires, they were pledging their loyalties to the nations rather than to God. It could also mean that these aristocrats were worshipping the idols of these nations.

Behind the NKJV's translation of "punish," the Hebrew literally reads that God will "visit" the royal sons of Judah, which, in its negative sense, is a common metaphor for coming in judgment. It should come as no surprise that, when Judah finally fell to the Babylonians, Zedekiah's sons were killed before the eyes of their father, just before he was blinded and taken off to Babylon (II Kings 25:2-7). In addition, many of the aristocrats were killed and their children were dragged off to Babylon as slaves, as was the case with Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego (Daniel 1:1-4).

Judah's destruction in the early-sixth century BC is just a type of the Day of the Lord that will be visited upon the world just before the return of Jesus Christ. God will be just as jealous for the loyalty of His people, true Christians, at that time as He was 2,600 years ago. We need to be asking ourselves if we have allowed ourselves to be "clothed with foreign apparel."

RBV: Jeremiah 19:12

"Thus I will do to this place," says the LORD, "and to its inhabitants, and make this city like Tophet."

--Jeremiah 19:12

This verse appears as part of what the prophet Jeremiah was to tell the Jews after he performed the sign of the broken flask, which is the subject of the chapter. Jeremiah was to take a clay flask to the Potsherd Gate, or the east gate, which opened out into the Valley of Hinnom, the very place that Jesus later used as an illustration of the judgment of the Lake of Fire, Gehenna. He was also to gather some of the elders and priests of Judah and proclaim God's message of judgment upon them and the city of Jerusalem.

Then, he was to break the flask before them, saying, "Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, which cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet till there is no place to bury'" (Jeremiah 19:11). Clearly, this is a sign of utter destruction of a sinful people and nation, and the details of what God promises to bring upon them are gruesome and horrifying to an extreme.

What was Tophet? According to the McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia, the word itself means "spittle," of all things, or "filth," signifying something abominable, but it could also mean "place of burning," hinting at the abomination that occurred there. Tophet itself was a small hill within the Valley of Hinnom that had once been part of a grove that Solomon had had planted, where his singers had given concerts to the people of Jerusalem.

Perhaps Solomon had chosen that spot, not just for its fertility and closeness to Siloam, but also to help Israel forget that the Canaanites before them had made their children pass through the fire to Molech--in other words, it was a place of vile child sacrifice (see Psalm 106:38; Jeremiah 7:31). However, it was not long before the Israelites and Jews again "filled this place with the blood of the innocents" (Jeremiah 19:4). During his reign not long before Jeremiah's prophecy, King Josiah had defiled Tophet as part of his purge of idolatry (II Kings 23:10). He did so by overthrowing the altars and then using the place as the city dump, and the filthier the trash the better. But just as soon as Josiah died, the Jews returned to Tophet.

In Jesus' day, it was once again the city's garbage dump, where a fire was always burning to consume anything thrown on the pile (Mark 9:43-48). And of course, the worm did not die there, meaning that there were always new maggots going through their life-cycles, feeding on the trash. It was also a place where, down through the centuries, many have been buried. Thus, the Valley of Hinnom is a fitting picture of the resurrection of condemnation (John 5:29).

So what did God do to Judah because of their heinous sin?

I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives; their corpses I will give as meat for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth. . . . And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair. (Jeremiah 19:7, 9)

Sounds like justice.

RBV: I Kings 11:42

"And the period that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years."

--I Kings 11:42

The reign of King Solomon is a rather bittersweet one. Here he was, the wisest man who had ever lived, ruling over a powerful, wealthy nation at peace, yet the evidence that we glean from Scripture is that his forty-year reign was the prelude to disaster. As Solomon breathes his last breath, the kingdom is poised on the brink of rebellion because of heavy taxation and forced labor (see I Kings 9:20-22; 12:1-5); his heir, Rehoboam, is proud and listens only to his foolish friends (see I Kings 12:6-11); and God has been shunted aside to share glory with a menagerie of other deities (see what happened in Israel immediately after his reign; I Kings 12:25-33).

The Bible provides us both sides of the coin of Solomon's time on the throne of Israel. He presided over Israel's Golden Age and the building of the Temple and a grand palace for the royal family (see I Kings 4:20-8:66). The Queen of Sheba and countless others visited Jerusalem to gaze on the wonders collected there by the king and to hear his wisdom firsthand (see I Kings 4:29-34; 10:1-13). Scripture informs us that gold and silver were as common in Israel's capital as baser metals were elsewhere (I Kings 10:14-23; II Chronicles 9:27). Solomon was so strong and the nations around were so weak that no one dared disturb the peace of the time (except at the very end of his reign; I Kings 11:14-40).

But the underside of the coin is far darker. Though Solomon had been humble as a young man, asking God for understanding so that he could properly rule and judge his people, his pride soon led him to disobedience. He began to flout the instructions given by God through Moses to Israel's kings (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). He made alliances with foreign nations, particularly Egypt, marrying hundreds of domestic and foreign princesses to cement these ties (I Kings 11:1-3). Of course, these women brought their own gods and goddesses to worship, and it was not long before Solomon was honoring their wishes to have various shrines and "high places" built to house their idols (see I Kings 11:4-8).

As usually happens, when the people saw that Solomon had compromised with idolatry, they followed suit, visiting the ancient groves and hilltop altars that had lain unused but not unforgotten. With few exceptions, subsequent kings either neglected God's command to destroy these high places or made half-hearted efforts. Solomon's reign set an unfortunate standard for most of the kings of Judah who followed him, and the people sank deeper into lifestyles contrary to the law of God.

The number forty is frequently a biblical indication of testing. Solomon received forty years from God to see if he would follow His ways or not. The book of Ecclesiastes indicates that, perhaps at the end of his life, Solomon made an effort to repent--or at least he realized that, in the end, it is a person's chief duty to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13). We really do not know if he passed or failed his test, but we can learn a great lesson from the forty years of his wonderful, terrible reign.

"Potential Persons" and "After-birth Abortions"

The latest abomination to come down the medical-ethics pike is the February 23, 2012, publication of “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” in the Journal of Medical Ethics. This article is written by two ethicists, Alberto Guibilini and Francesca Minerva, both of whom are now working in Melbourne, Australia—he, at Monash University, and she, at the University of Melbourne. Both have ties to Oxford University in Great Britain.

The abstract of their article runs as follows:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Yes, they actually wrote that in a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. These two ethicists—who do not deserve the title—advocate infanticide on the same level that abortion is “largely accepted.” They generally conclude that the same arguments that can be marshaled in support of killing a fetus in the womb can be applied just as well to killing a child who has recently left the womb. Without apology, they argue that since, in their way of thinking, fetuses and newborns are only “potential people” and not actual ones, “the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being” override any rights the fetuses and newborns allegedly have.

They go on to say that adoption is not a valid alternative to infanticide because “the interests of the actual people involved matter.” Thus, for example, since the birthmother may suffer “serious psychological problems due to the inability to elaborate [her] loss and to cope with [her] grief” in giving her baby up, her interest trumps the newborn’s right to life. Does that make any sense at all? To them, it does because they do not believe that the newborn is a person capable of having interests. In their minds, the newborn is sub-human, to borrow a term from eugenics, for in calling them “potential persons,” they are assigning them not-quite-human status.

We might think that their logic is horribly convoluted, but it is actually quite “sound” in the sense that they are not guilty of employing any readily apparent logical tricks. They are simply following accepted definitions and practices to their “logical” conclusions. What is wrong—indeed, terribly evil—are the foundation and suppositions of their philosophy. Since the original beliefs and assumptions are false, all of their subsequent conclusions take them further from the truth, though they may be ably reasoned using the accepted rules of argument.

As Jesus Christ admonishes us in Matthew 7:24-27—His parable of building on the rock—our beliefs must be solidly built on a true and immovable foundation. The thinking of Guibilini and Minerva is akin to the “foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:26-27). In this case, the house is liberal Western society, and under beliefs like “after-birth abortion,” it will come crashing down in utter ruin.

A reading of the article brings out that the authors ignore the foundational question of the sanctity of life. They make no argument regarding the salient question, “When does life begin?” It is apparent that they have already resolved and accepted the position that embryos, fetuses, and newborns do not have a right to continued life unless “actual persons” grant it to them. “God is in none of [their] thoughts” (Psalm 10:4). Having rejected God’s very existence, and thus His revealed instructions for abundant living, they have set themselves—human beings—up as the highest authority, arbiters of life and death. With such power, they can decide by their own values and reasoning processes how and when any biological entity becomes a person deserving of a future existence.

What a brave new world men and women have created for themselves in their desire to live without God!

The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13), covers this transgression quite adequately once we accept that the newborn child is certainly a living human being—and has been for many months. While the Bible contains no direct statement that life begins at conception, many passages show that God is involved in people’s lives before they are born (see Psalm 139:13-16; 51:5; Isaiah 49:5; Jeremiah 1:4-5) and that the fetus is aware and responsive to God (Luke 1:41, 44). God even commands life for life if a fetus is miscarried after a fight (Exodus 21:22-24). The weight of biblical evidence falls on the side of life and full humanity for fetuses and newborns.

Actually, this brave new world of abortion and infanticide on demand is simply the modern equivalent of ancient pagan practices like the abhorrent idolatry of the Canaanites in Old Testament times. Pagans would sacrifice their children to their gods to “ensure” that the living would have better lives. They would make a child “pass through the fire to Molech” (an act obviously forbidden by God; Leviticus 18:21) to supplicate the god to give them fertile fields, victory in battle, or some other blessing. Ironically, these ancient people held the life of a child as more dear than today’s uber-selfish individuals do, as the latter most often abort babies merely for their own convenience.

Concerning this horrible sin, God says of the people of Judah in Jeremiah 32:35, “And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” As punishment, Jerusalem was “delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence” (Jeremiah 32:36). When such practices become commonplace, the society is ripe for destruction, as God intimates in Genesis 15:16 and Leviticus 18:24-29; 20:22-23.

There is nothing ethical about “potential persons” and “after-birth abortion.” They are the products of the twisted thinking of human beings tuned in to the broadcasts of a hateful Satan the Devil (Ephesians 2:2-3). He wants to destroy human life. Hundreds of millions of abortions are not enough to sate his appetite, so he has deceived people into taking the next step toward annihilation, infanticide. Could there be any better reason to increase our prayers to God to send His Son soon?

Politics and Idolatry

According to both American political parties, we have just endured "the most important" campaign and election in our nation's history, certainly in our lifetimes. This was the election that would "define American politics for the next generation." Campaign 2004 was the big one for all the marbles. To hear it from the media, it was as important as the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, the crumbling of the Soviet Union, and the discovery of a cure for cancer combined.

All of it was hyperbole, pure and simple.

There are several reasons why this political season was billed in such an exaggerated way. With a preponderance of the media rooting for John Kerry, it was a way to galvanize a certain segment of the population—Democrats and the anti-Bush crowd—to take action and flood the polls with supporters. The media, always in contention for better ratings, also played a game of one-upmanship amongst themselves, elevating the rhetoric as much as the candidates themselves did and maybe more. In addition, many partisans on both sides truly believed that 2004 was a make-or-break election for America, warning that the slide into oblivion would commence if the other side's candidate were victorious.

The biggest reason, however, springs from the attitudes and approach of these true believers: They are not just "into" politics—it is their religion. They worship at the altar of government, sacrificing their time, money, and effort to honor the god of politics, the party, and the state. Each side has its particular pantheon of demigods (Founding Fathers), saints (past presidents), and luminaries (party bigwigs) to point to for past glories and party principles. Each uses its own set of scriptures from which it pulls decisive quotations and zinging bon mots, as well as derisive condemnations of their enemies and their irrational ideas. Each party clothes itself with its own peculiar kind of zeal (patriotism), righteousness (laws, regulations), and good deeds (pork, entitlements), which they are not ashamed to flaunt before the masses as proof of their devotion. They even take tithes from the people to fund their righteous work!

Napoleon mockingly called Britain "a nation of shopkeepers." He likely thought of America as a nation of rubes and castoffs. If he were alive today, he would have to call it a nation of political partisans. We are either Reds or Blues, living in Red or Blue states. Americans watch political news avidly every day, as it fills most of the network news programs. This year a record number of voters turned out to cast their ballots, about 116 million people. Many of these stuck signs in their yards, stickers on their automobiles, or buttons in their lapels announcing their choices for president, governor, senator, representative, councilperson, or dogcatcher.

A good number of these same people made out checks to individual candidate's election committees or to local, state, and national party committees to get their candidates into the public eye via media advertisements, direct mail, and public appearances. Some of them volunteered their valuable time to stuff envelopes, distribute signs and stickers, and organize rallies. Many of the high rollers among them paid thousands of dollars for a plate of institutional food (rubbery chicken or too-well-done steak) and a few minutes of face-time with their political idol.

Hyperbole again, right? Don't be too sure.

What is religion anyway? The dictionary defines it in its general sense as "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith." One's religion is what one believes and devotes oneself to following. It is what a person spends his time, efforts, and resources pursuing. It is his way of life. Understanding a person's way of life will point directly to that person's god. For a good many Americans who spent the past year or nine months devoted to the election or defeat of a particular political candidate, their god is politics.

The last time I checked, this broke the first commandment (Exodus 20:2-3). For those who think that the Ten Commandments are passé and Old Covenant, check out Jesus' own words in Matthew 22:37-38: "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment." And we call ourselves a Christian nation. . . .