MONDAY 23RD APRIL, 2018 MORNING PRAYER DEVOTION
SCRIPTURE READING:– JUDGES 3:1-8
TOPIC:- STOP WORSHIPING BAAL
TEXT:– NUMBERS 22:41
Baal in Hebrew means lord; master; possessor. Baal was the name of the supreme god worshiped in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia. The practice of baal worship infiltrated Jewish religious life during the time of the judges in Judges 3:7.
The worship of Baal became widespread in Israel during the reign of Ahab in 1 Kings 16:31-33, and also affected Judah in 2 Chronicles 28:1-2.
In general, baal was a fertility god who was believed to enable the earth to produce crops and people to produce children.
Different regions worshiped baal in different ways, and baal proved to be a highly adaptable god. Various locales emphasized one or another of his attributes and developed special “denominations” of baalism.
The Canaanites worshiped baal as the sun god and as the storm god. He is usually depicted holding a lightning bolt who defeated enemies and produced crops. They also worshiped him as a fertility god who provided children.
Baal worship was rooted in sensuality and involved ritualistic prostitution in the temples. At times, appeasing baal required human sacrifice, usually the firstborn of the one making the sacrifice in Jeremiah 19:5. The priests of baal appealed to their god in rites of wild abandon which included loud, ecstatic cries and self-inflicted injury. See 1 Kings 18:28.
Before the Hebrews entered the Promised Land, the Lord God warned against worshiping Canaan’s gods in Deuteronomy 6:14-15, but Israel turned to idolatry anyway.
During the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, at the height of Baal worship in Israel, God directly confronted the paganism through His Prophet Elijah. First, God showed that He, not baal, controlled the rain by sending a drought lasting three-and-one-half years, 1 Kings 17:1.
Then Elijah called for a showdown on Mt. Carmel to prove once and for all who the true god was. All day long, 450 prophets of Baal called on their god to send fire from heaven surely an easy task for a god associated with lightning bolts. But “there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention,” 1 Kings 18:29.
After baal’s prophets gave up, Elijah prayed a simple prayer, and God answered immediately with fire from heaven. The evidence was overwhelming, and the people “fell prostrate and cried, ‘the Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!’
In Matthew 12:27, Jesus calls Satan “beelzebub,” linking the devil to baal-zebub, a Philistine deity, 2 Kings 1:2. The baalim of the Old Testament were nothing more than demons masquerading as gods, and all idolatry is ultimately devil’s worship, 1 Corinthians 10:20.
One can serve baal (idol) in two ways:
1. By worshipping idol with physical symbol like stone, wood, tree, water, mountain etc.
2. Anything one place above God in his/her heart has become an idol to the person.
Therefore, let God be the first in your scale of preference, and Baal worship must stop, and be eradicated totally.
Prayer Points:-
1. I silence and disgrace the power of baal in my life by fire, in the name of Jesus Christ.
2. I command every evil altar, shrine, militating against my life, catch fire in the name of Jesus Christ.
3. I silence every Prophet of baal in my life with the help of fire from above, and i release myself from their entanglement, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Have A Glorious Monday!
