As our study of Elijah approaches the confrontation between two kingdoms on Mount Carmel the worshippers of Baal versus the worshippers of Yahweh, it is worth first asking the question: How did God's covenant people descend into the evil of Baal worship in 80 years, just two generations? How did the nation of godly King David, who established Jerusalem as the capital city and brought Yahweh’s Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem to reside there, descend to such depths? How did the people who joined in Solomon’s whole-hearted dedication of the temple welcoming Solomon’s challenge, “Yahweh is God; there is no other. Let your heart, therefore, be wholly true to Yahweh our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day,” turn to the evil false God’s Baal and Ashtoreth? This episode examines the answer, which gives us a sobering lens through which to see a parallel descent of America
In 1 Kings 18 as Elijah confronts the nation of Israel, he says, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” How could the spiritual eyes of God’s covenant people become so blinded that they could not choose between the true God of Israel and a pagan false deity? Three forces appear to have led to this descent into wickedness: evil political influence, Israel assimilating with pagan culture, and syncretism, i.e. compromising biblical teaching to blend with surrounding religions.
EVIL POLITICAL INFLUENCE
A. In Israel. The downward corruption towards worshipping false Gods in Israel began with King Solomon. Scripture reports:
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.”… For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods (1 Kings 11:1-8).
Solomon, departing from his father David’s faithfulness to Yahweh, brought extensive idol worship into his kingdom. The downward spiral of Israel into evil then continues to be linked directly to the evil of Israel’s kings. After Solomon’s reign, Jeroboam led a revolt of the ten northern tribes (which became known as Israel) against Solomon’s son and successor, Rehaboam. Only David’s tribe, Judah, was willing to follow Rehaboam. For political reasons, Jeroboam did not want his people in the northern ten tribes to travel south to worship at the temple on the mountain top of Jerusalem, for fear that such an experience would rekindle devotion to the kings of Judah as David’s successors. So, Jeroboam created two golden calves which he set up for worship in his territory. Imagine this Israelite king fashioning two golden calves as Aaron had done in the wilderness!
And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites.
Again, we see the enormous influence of political leaders dragging their nations into sin. As 1 Kings continues, the descent into evil continues, king after king. Baasha ruled over Isreal for 24 years. Then Scripture says, He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel to sin (1 Kings 15:34). Scripture says that Baash’s sin “made Israel sin.” The same description is then given of King Omri, Ahab’s father who bought the hill of Samaria, fortified it, and made it Israel’s capital city. Finally, we come to Ahab.
Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. (1 Kings 16:29-33).
Just as two generations earlier, Solomon had built an altar and temple for Yahweh where the prescribed worship of the true God took place, evil King Ahab builds an altar and temple where evil worship is given to the false God Baal. Israel’s apostasy, led by her political leaders was complete.
B. Political Influence in America. Let’s consider one component of American culture where we see a clear parallel with Israel in its descent into evil—its view of homosexuality. Homosexual sex was viewed by our founding fathers as a sinful, perversion of God’s creation design for sex to happen only within marriage between one man and one woman. Their views reflected a combination of Scripture and English Common Law. It is true that some mistakenly saw America as a theocracy thus prescribing the death penalty for sodomy, which I believe was an illegitimate use of the sword, which needed to be corrected. But there was recognition that homosexuality was a sinful, perversion of Gods sexual design.
However, on June 26, 2015, in the case Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court legitimized this sexual perversion, disregarding the biblical and long understood creation design of marriage, declaring it to be a constitutional right. This tragic action of the most powerful political entity in the United States reflects an enormous descent into evil. Marriage never has been a right or a matter of private sexual choice. At present in America, any two consenting adults already have the freedom to have private sex. Marriage, to the contrary, is, by definition, the opposite of a private matter; it is intentionally public, a civil institution. It is public recognition and support of a specific, contractual, sexual relationship between husband and wife. Societies have recognized that the covenant made between one man and one woman, the vows of which are stated before God, their friends, and the state, build the structure of the human family—the institution upon which society is founded, an institution given by God before the church or state existed.
There are three obvious true facts about the world that make the institution of marriage by civil society necessary. “Sex makes babies. Society needs babies. Babies need mothers and fathers.” Historically, society has encouraged sex to take place in the context of the loving long-term promise of life-long commitment of one man and one woman to each other giving benefits to married couples, but not to unmarried couples who might be living together. The reason is the benefit to society and society’s kids of marriage—a long term binding sexual relationship through which husband and wife’s love making, children are born into society, who then have a home created by a mom and dad who love each other.
Marriage marks two people, publicly, as sexual partners and responsible to society for their sexual behavior. This is important, because sex, though experienced in private has very public consequences. McDowell and Stonestreet, in their book, Same-Sex Marriage observe that despite the popular mantra, what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom, history proves otherwise. Forced sex brings fear to an entire community. Procreative sex creates a new life that must be cared for and integrated into the community. Promiscuous sex risks the physical and mental health of many in the community. Underaged sex harms children who need protection from the community. In contrast marital sex secures the future of the community. Every caring society must be concerned about the nature of the sexual relationships within it. Marriage between one man and one woman has been protected, historically, not because heterosexuals have more rights that homosexuals, but because married sex is best for children, providing both a mom and dad for them.
Though we lost the battle to biblically define marriage, Americans are still blessed with political system with a government of the people, by the people and for the people. With midterm elections this week, that means voting for the candidate of the party whose values most align with Biblical ones and voting against initiatives such as Amendment # 1 to Virginia’s constitution because it will bring about more destruction of life in the womb and Amendment # 2 because it discards the truth about marriage and gender.
ASSIMILATING WITH PAGAN CULTURE
Israel. Returning to Israel’s descent into the worship of pagan gods, the second force pushing them that direction was their assimilation into pagan culture, the very danger Moses had warned God’s covenant people about, before entering the land of Canaan. When the Israelites transitioned from being nomadic wanderers in the wilderness to settled farmers in Canaan, they entered a land deeply integrated with Canaanite religion. The Canaanites believed that Baal controlled the rain, dew, and crop fertility. Desperate for material security and successful harvests, many Israelites adopted local Canaanite agricultural rituals. They viewed Baal worship as a practical shortcut to ensure economic survival, looking to the local god for local needs as well as to Yahweh.
Also, compared to the abstract, invisible nature of Yahweh—who strictly forbade physical idols to be made to represent him—Canaanite religion was highly visible, and concrete, even sensual. Baal worship featured festive dancing with heightened spirituality ecstasy linked to sexual rituals. Human sexual intercourse was said to stimulate the rain God BAAL to unite with Ashtoreth, the goddess of fertility causing rain to come and their crops to grow. Male and female temple prostitutes were available at the high places of worship.
America. In the late 1980s a group of about 175 leaders met in Warrenton, VA to strategically launch several initiatives through various channels of cultural influence to support what they hoped would bring about substantial cultural acceptance of homosexuality. Gabe Lyons. In his book article “Influencing Culture” points out:
These friends formed the beginnings of the homosexual movement and were responsible for helping it find its stride in the mid-90s as every channel of culture was systematically inundated with the message of equal rights tolerance and civility for homosexuals. As Paul Randall points out, in Selling Homosexuality to America “their strategy was employed in five important markets of social influence… which touch every citizen in America; government, education, organized religion, the media, and the workplace.” In the business channel, vigorous attempts were finally successful for same sex couples to be recognized with benefits equal to married couples. In the education channel, books like Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate about same-sex parenting found their way into schools and public libraries. In television, Ellen and Will and Grace became the wedge that broke open wide acceptance of gays as fun, engaging, and talented human beings. Later the Fab Five from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy made television ratings soar by showing that gay men are intelligent, have a sense of humor, and should be the authorities on fashion sense, design and trend setting. Within the cultural channel of the church, major denominations like the Episcopal Church, and the United Church of Christ opened leadership roles for gay and lesbians. In thirty years, the idea of being gay had moved from being commonly viewed as abnormal and aberrant to being an acceptable and normal alternative lifestyle (Hugh Whelchel, How Then Should We Work).
The culture has changed and many Christians with it.
COMPROMISING BIBLICAL TEACHING TO BLEND WITH SURROUNDING RELIGIONS
Israel. The biblical prohibition against worshipping a false God, was crystal clear. It was given in the first Commandment, “You shall have no other God’s before me.” Notice that the prohibition was not that Yahweh must be first in the group of God’s worshipped; no other God was to be worshipped. But this part of what God intended to shape Israelite culture became increasingly lost. Archaeologists have discovered many small statues of women with massive breasts representing the goddess Ashtoreth in Samaria dated at this time, mixed with evidence that the same households worshipped Yahweh. The word that describes this blending of religions is syncretism. It refers to a tendency of God’s people to compromise the parts of Biblical teaching that are not acceptable to the culture surrounding them.
American Church. In a world in which those whose fallen sinful nature manifests itself in same-sex attraction are horribly abused, it should not surprise us that fair-minded people support gay marriage. Christians must do a better job of explaining why a culture’s definition of marriage needs to match God’s design for marriage and the family. But winning the battle for truth in today’s culture at this point is not what concerns me; it is winning the battle in the church.
In 2014, Matthew Vines published the book, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-sex Relationships. Vines attempts to argue that the Bible actually embraces same-sex marriage and we therefore don’t have to jettison a high view of Scripture to embrace homosexuality. His book is a perfect example of syncretism—the attempt to make Scripture more palatable to God’s people (and others) by stripping it of its offensive teaching. Christians are fooled into thinking they are submitting to Scripture, when in fact they are embracing something that God calls an abomination. The rest of this episode is devoted to refuting this heretical teaching:
REFUTING ARGUMENTS THAT SCRIPTURE AFFIRMS SAME-SEX SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS
Claim #1 Christians should just focus on the gospel of God’s love. Same-sex attraction is a peripheral issue on which Christians can disagree, like baptism. Response: From the first book of the Bible to the last, marriage between one man and one woman is given as physical picture of two great truths about God, his nature and his plan of salvation. His Nature: God is triune. He exists as three distinct persons who love each other so completely that the Apostle John could say, “God is love.” The design of Adam and Eve differently to complete one another whose love brings them together in sexual union, is chosen as the human image God chose to represent himself, three distinct beings yet united in love. The issue of same-sex relationships is not peripheral. Same-sex sex is a perversion of this glorious design, which God has chosen to communicate who he is.
God’s Plan of Salvation. When you look at what the Bible says about marriage in the OT you see a persistent metaphor of God as a loving, faithful husband, and Israel God’s people as often an unfaithful wife, cheating on God with other so-called gods. In the NT Jesus emphasized the same metaphor. When asked why When asked why his disciples didn’t fast, Jesus replies, “Can the wedding guest fast while the bridegroom is with them?” This is just one place where Jesus claims to be the husband of God’s covenant people who are described as his bride. Looking further into the NT, Paul quotes the Genesis 2 passage defining marriage as becoming one flesh but then ends by saying he is talking about Christ and the church. Paul’s words affirm the same truth—that that marriage between a woman and a man is a metaphor for Christ’s union with his church, refuting this attempt to push to the side the issue of same-sex attraction and marriage and just “focus on the gospel.” As Rebecca McLaughlin observes: “Christian marriage is designed to help us to wrap our minds around Jesus’ exclusive, sacrificial, never ending, flesh uniting, life creating, love for us. Marriage rightly understood is not a distraction from the gospel. It is a declaration of it.
Claim # 2. Jesus was silent on same-sex relationships. It’s not in red letters so I don’t have to pay attention to it like I should other issues like greed, hypocrisy and things Jesus confronted directly. On the surface this seems logical. If Jesus didn’t feel the need to comment on this what is the big issue?
Response:
- Jesus’ ministry focused on Jews. The OT explicitly forbade male-male sex; so, there were no Jews debating it. The same is true of idol worship, which Jesus never directly addressed. But when Paul addressed Roman culture where homosexuality and idol worship were prevalent, he addressed both.
- In Matthew 19, Jesus clearly defined what marriage is. He was asked a question about divorce and he says, “Have you not heard from the beginning, God created humans male and female.” Then he quoted from Genesis 2 “Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” Marriage is not composed of same-sex partners.
- Jesus, on multiple occasions, condemned PORNEIA. For example, in Matthew 15:19-20 Jesus addresses sins that arise in the heart, including PORNEIA, which referred to any kind of sex outside of male-female marriage. Same-sex attraction is itself wrong.
Claim # 3. Paul and the Bible only condemned exploitative same-sex relationships not consensual ones. Response: It is unquestionably true that much of what Paul was addressing in the Roman world was unequal exploitive, non-consensual sex. If Paul was only meaning to forbid such exploitive sexual relationships, he would have used the Greek words for those relationships. However, that is not the case. In Romans 1, as Paul argues that all of us are sinners in need of saving, he says,
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error (vs 26-27).
To understand this text, we need to observe a fact that would have surprised the average citizen of Rome. As historian Kyle Harper points out, “the fact that Paul parallels male-male and female-female sex is strikingly novel and truly momentous in the Greco-Roman empire.” The primary dividing line in sexual acts was not the gender of the two parties but their roles in sex—active or passive. It was generally assumed that men would have sexual outlets other than their wives and it was not considered shameful for them to have sex with other males so long as they took the active role. But Paul says nothing about active or passive roles. Rather by grouping male-male and female-female sexual relationships together he is focusing on the same-sex nature of the relationships. (See Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships by Rebecca McLaughlin).
Also, the Greek words Paul uses to refer to “men” and “women” in this passage are not the most common Greek words for men and women but words which could equally be translated “males” and “females.” In the Greek translation of the OT called the Septuagint this is the word that is used to translate God making males and females in Genesis 1. What's more the same word for “male” also appears in the Septuagint. (That's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) on which male-male sex is prohibited, texts like Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” The fact that Paul uses these same words in Romans underlines the connection with both Genesis (God’s creation design) and Leviticus (God’s commands about sexual relations). Furthermore, nothing Paul says targets inequality, age, status, or sex role. Rather he is pointing back to the OT blanket prohibition on all male-male sex expanding it to explicitly include all female-female sex.
Israel’s descent into sin seems to be a pattern followed by Israel that America is also following. The practice of homosexuality is a perversion of the image God intended to reflect his identity. We need to oppose the lie that same-sex attraction is right and normal for some people, especially as this heresy makes its way into today’s church.
For Further Prayerful Thought.
- What struck you about the role that Israel’s kings played in leading them down the destructive path of idolatry? Since “the people” are the rulers of a democracy, what is the implication for us as citizens?
- What have you learned about being close enough to the lost to have influence yet not “assimilating” into our lost fallen culture?
- What pro-same-sex arguments have you heard coming from church going people who claim to believe the Bible? Which arguments in this episode stood out to you. What have you learned about how to refute them?
