Are you a Loyal Follower of God?

February 18, 2007

Good Morning:

In today’s readings we saw several ways in which evil can enter in to our hearts.  But what we really need to know as believers is what it means to have evil enter into our hearts.  We know from modern science that our heart is an organ that pumps blood through our bodies.  So how can evil enter our hearts?  The heart has long been a metaphor for our eternal souls.  Every true son of Adam has a soul, a spark of eternal life given us by the eternal creator himself.  It is literally this soul, our true spiritual entity, which is housed in the physical body that can become corrupted with evil.  Thus our soul can sin, or in other words transgress God’s (Yahweh’s) will and desires, thus allowing for the body to commit evil acts.

In our lesson from judges 2 we see that after Joshua left this world to return to heaven the people began to turn to the worship of other Gods.  These were the Baals and the Astartes mentioned are the servants of the Baals.  First we must understand what a Baal is.  Baal is a word for that simply means lord and can be used in many different contexts.  For example Baal is the Hebrew word that is used to signify a woman’s husband as in Exodus 21:22.  So when we talk about Baals we need to have a deeper understanding of what it is we are speaking about.  Many of the Baals people worshiped and paid homage to in those days were merely wooden or stone idols.  Local gods created by the otherwise ignorant people of the land who were heathens in that they didn’t worship Yahweh.  But even worse was the worship of the Baals who were actual deities that exist in the spiritual realm of the universe.  In the context of today’s lesson we are talking about these Baals or Lords of the spiritual (heaven/hell) world.  A good example of these evil spiritual entities would be Ba‘al Zebûb, who was a deity who was worshiped in Philistine city of Ekron about 25 miles west of Jerusalem.  These deities such as Satan and his created servants are real spiritual beings who exist and are able to affect our vary existence on this earth.  So why would the descendants of Jacob such as Joseph’s children, who are Yahweh’s chosen people, turn away from Yahweh and pray to Satan or some other deity.

The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 11:14  “And no wonder. Satan, their master, can disguise himself as an angel of light”.  So just as Eve was seduced and did lie with Satan thinking it was okay, so can anyone who is not being aware be fooled by Satan or one of his many servants into believing that they are being Godly by following one of these false Baals or lords.  Another reason was that they were lead astray by the children of Satan, such as were the Pharisees, because they lusted after the life these people lead.  In this case these people made a conscious decision to worship another lord so they could gain material possessions and power here on earth.  The lesson says these people went “whoring” after other gods or eternals.  A whore in Biblical times was not a just a streetwalker she was someone who was in the service of a deity/god who used sex to entice men to join her religion and worship her god.  The word means someone who chases after men to commit sexual rites.  So thus Yahweh accuses these people of whoring after other gods, he is accusing them not only of worshiping these gods and committing sexual rites in homage to them but also they were chasing after others to join their ranks.  Think of this, the children of Jacob, from all the twelve tribes who are suppose to be the shining example of what Yahweh expects of all men, not only worshiping other spiritual entities but enticing peoples of other nations, with sex and all other forms of bribes to join them and turn from Yahweh.  What an ultimate form of treason, after all that Yahweh did for the descendents of Jacob.

When we take an honest look around us at the world today, don’t we see this same treason-taking place?  How many professing believers are turning away from Yahweh and going after other gods?  Are you one of them?  Have you put your job, your hobbies, and your own lust before the work of God (Yahweh)?  It is easy to be seduced away from following God’s (Yahweh’s) true path in a materialistic world being controlled by the prince of darkness.  Yet as Yeshua the messiah showed us it is the very darkness of this world that offers us the best opportunity for salvation.  Because in this world of darkness, the light of God (Yahweh) shines forth so brightly as a giant beacon stretching out to guide us to his eternal grace and mercy.  And, like glimmering drops of liquid silver, the little patches of his light that shine from his true followers speckle the veil of darkness like millions of little stars in the night sky.  These specks of light are those who truly live the life of a believer.  The stay steadfast loyal to their creator and Lord, never tempted by the whores of Satan to be seduced away to following false gods.