United States or San Marino ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The charred logs never stirred; there was no sound in the sky; Joash was not struck dead; Baal was proved to be nothing. That was a sight to see that morning: the ashes smouldering in the sunlight, the raging crowd, Gideon and his fellows behind Joash, and Joash calling on Baal to avenge himself if he was a god as his worshippers pretended. Ah, if that had been Jehovah's altar!
There is a permanent value to the world in Israel's determined, protestant attitude. The handful of protestants who, in Elijah's day, refused to bow to Baal and to kiss him, were the real saviours of their generation.
They both belonged to the temple of Baal of Kariotis, a small structure of solid stone, which faced the sea, and which the Emperor had yesterday visited. "Do you think he has lost his way?" said one to the other, in the Phoenician tongue. "Hardly," was the answer. "Master said that he could always find a road again by which he had once gone, even in the dark."
That the bird on deliberation conceived the scheme for over-reaching the coveted food I have not the slightest doubt. Baal Burra bestowed frank friendship on a fat, good-humoured, yellow cat, fond of luxury and ease during the day, a "rake-helly" prowler at night. Into Sultan's fur Baal Burra would burrow, not without occasional result, if the upbraiding tongue was to be believed.
So Balaam, therefore, said to the messengers, "Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the Lord shall speak unto me." Now this reference to the Lord is very surprising. The Moabites worshipped Baal, and no doubt they had the utmost contempt for Jehovah.
Each of these had done its own special work for the advancement of man as for that matter all things must, whether by help or helplessness. Not less than Elijah did the wretched priests of Baal serve those slow, sure, eternal Purposes, which include an Ahab and all the futile fury of his little life as the sun includes its "spots."
Elijah stepped down from the exaltation of the God-accepted prophet on Carmel to be the murderer of the prophets of Baal, and was left to cowardice, to melancholy, and to wandering in the desert until taught by the fire, the wind, and the earthquake that he was not to bring human passion into God's work. The Crusaders seem to have learned no permanent lesson of pity.
The existence of an independent goddess, unmarried and possessing all the attributes of the god, was contrary to the fundamental conceptions of the Semitic mind. Nevertheless we find in Canaan an Ashtoreth, whom the Greeks called Astarte, as well as a Baal. The cuneiform inscriptions have given us an explanation of the fact. Ashtoreth came from Babylonia.
Witness the evils which came upon Israel when they made the golden calf, to help their devotions. Witness those which fell on the family and kingdom of Jeroboam, when he forsook the appointed worship of God, and the ministry of the Levites whom God had appointed to wait at the altar. Jeroboam did not introduce the worship of Baal, or the other heathen gods.
These, my children, were not the Midianites nor the Amalekites, but our own nation. At the very time when the heathen were upon us we turned from the Lord to Baal, and sought to destroy the man who could have rescued us. Thus we have ever done, and we are surely a race accursed. But Joash secretly contemned Baal, although until now he had not ventured to say anything against him.
Word Of The Day