I have reserved to myself 144,000 who will not bow to the image

The story of Elijah and his confrontation on Mt. Carmel with the prophets of Baal is a very familiar one. Elijah, after three years of drought, called evil King Ahab and all the people to Mt. Carmel for a test. He whose God answered by fire would be the true God in Israel. As we know, fire came down from heaven and consumed Elijah’s sacrifice, and a revival began in Israel.

What has perplexed many is how Israel could have fallen into such deep apostasy. Elijah said, “how long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.” (1 Kings 18:21) Why were the people silent? Were they not the children of Israel? What went wrong? Part of the answer concerns the “two opinions.” Did they half worship God and half worship Baal? Jesus declared that our worship may not be divided! “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

The fact of the matter is, that Israel was worshipping Baal but thought they were worshipping God. By turning to our Bibles, we can follow Israel’s history and find a simple line of truth. 1 Kings 16:30 says “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.” What kind of evil was it? The answer is found in verse 31: “And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.” So Ahab walked in the sins of Jeroboam.

We find the story of Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12:25-33. Because of Solomon’s sins, God allowed the kingdom to be divided. The northern ten tribes were called Israel; the southern two tribes Judah. The commands to worship before the Lord in Jerusalem were not altered and the people were to come on the feast days to appear before the Lord. Fearing the hearts of the people would be turned back to David’s kingdom, Jeroboam established his own feast days and worship system.

First, 1 Kings 12:28 tells us he “took counsel”—evil counsel. Next, he set up two calves of gold. He told the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” This verse reminds us of the apostasy at Sinai. The Lord does not leave us without insight. Who did Aaron say they were worshipping when they made their “golden calf?”. “And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD (Jehovah).” (Exodus 32:5) Yes, the LORD, Jehovah—the true God. They thought they could worship God through their calf!

Next, Jeroboam made high places and priests. These priests were the priests of Baal. Were they Philistines or Canaanites? No, they were “priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.” (1 Kings 12:31) “The king tried to persuade the Levites, some of whom were living within his realm, to serve as priests in the newly erected shrines at Bethel and Dan; but in this effort he met with failure. He was therefore compelled to elevate to the priesthood men from ‘the lowest of the people.’” (Prophets and Kings, p. 101) Then, according to 1 Kings 12:32, he set up his own feast days. This was Baal worship.

The word “Bel” or “Baal” simply meant lord, master, the infinite one, mighty creator, most high. He was represented as a bull. Baal was Ninus or Nimrod, the sun god. (The Two Babylons, p. 26) In modern Hindu worship we still see the same thing—Brahm is Baal and is a bull from which we get the Brahma bull term.

Baal worship was the worship of Nimrod (Baal); Semiramis (Ashtoreth), his wife (Judges 2:13); and Tammuz, her son. (Ezekiel 8:14) Baal was considered mean and was never worshipped openly. Human and animal sacrifices were made to appease his wrath. Baal, the bull, was always worshipped through a mediator or intercessor. They prayed to this intercessor, and this intercessor made their prayers acceptable to Baal. This may shock you, but Baal was called the father; Tammuz, the son; and the intercessor was Ashtoreth: the dove, the holy spirit, the tabernacle of god in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily. (See The Two Babylons, p. 305-310.)

When the children of Israel entered the promised land, they followed God for only one generation—while Joshua was alive. After this one generation they worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth. “And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.” (Judges 2:13) It was through worship of this queen of heaven that the Northern Kingdom fell. Even the Kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians because of such false worship. Jeremiah records the influence that this false worship obtained in Judah. See Jeremiah 7:18, 44:17-19, 25.

This Madonna worship was and is the key to all pagan sun worship. She has gone by many names: Venus, Athena, Juno (the dove), Diana (Acts 19:24), Ashtoreth, and now, of course, the Virgin Mary. She is found all over the Old Testament. To find her, look up “Queen of Heaven,” “Ashtoreth,” and “Grove.” Why “Grove,” you might ask? Because the Hebrew word translated “grove” is hdva (asherah, Strong’s #842), the Phoenician goddess and or image to her. The comparative is tdtse, (Ashtoreth, Strong’s #6253). These groves were high places where idols of Ashtoreth were set up. “Images of Baalim and Ashtoreth were everywhere to be seen.” (Prophets and Kings, p. 115) According to 1 Kings 14:15, these groves provoked the Lord to anger.

Let’s draw some conclusions:

1. The people in Elijah’s time thought they were worshipping the true God: “...Jeroboam thought to appeal to the imagination of the Israelites by setting before them some visible representation to symbolize the presence of the invisible God.” (Prophets and Kings, p. 100) “From the time of Jeroboam’s death to Elijah’s appearance before Ahab the people of Israel suffered a steady spiritual decline.” (Prophets and Kings, p. 109)

2. The 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the groves (Ashtoreth) were Israelites. “Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.” (1 Kings 18:19)

3. Elijah was asking the people to choose between Baal worship (father/son/holy spirit) and the worship of the only true God that Jesus taught. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3) “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

4. Worship of Baal is the same today. A false trinity established at the Council of Nice by Egyptian Christians demanded that God was a trinity—father, son, and holy spirit. They said the third god was Mary—the dove, the holy spirit. (See The Two Babylons, p. 82) “The apostasy of Israel had developed gradually. From generation to generation, Satan had made repeated attempts to cause the chosen nation to forget ‘the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments’ that they had promised to keep forever. Deuteronomy 6:1. He knew that if he could only lead Israel to forget God, and to ‘walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them,’ they would ‘surely perish.’ Deuteronomy 8:19.” (Prophets and Kings, p. 296) Satan desires to be god (Isaiah 14:14) and the third position of the godhead suits him just fine.

5. The Bible says to pray to God through Christ. Nowhere does it say to pray to the Holy Spirit. Today, we hear “pray to God through the Spirit.” “Catch the Spirit” is the phrase. In modern Adventism, it is “We need the latter rain, so pray to the Spirit”. What spirit is it? Whose spirit is it?

There was no confusion among us as a people in the early days of this movement. Our pioneers could call people out of Babylon because they were not in it, worshipping Baal. They knew there was one God, the father; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, “the son of the living God.” The Holy Spirit was known too. They didn’t try to define its nature, only who it was. (2 Corinthians 3:17: “the Lord is that Spirit.”) Ellen White wrote it best when she called the Spirit, “the Omnipresence of the Spirit of Christ.” (Manuscript Releases, vol. 14, p.179)

Yes, Jesus is the Comforter. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18) This verse amplifies and clarifies Romans 8:26: “the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us.” Christ is that Spirit. An intercessor is a mediator: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5) Paul also wrote: “But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge.” (1 Corinthians 8:6, 7)

There is one God, the Father; one Lord, the Son; and one Spirit which Paul declares is the Lord. “How long halt ye between two opinions?”

Ken Corklin