Who is Baal?

It’s important that we understand, as men, what we are facing in the culture and world of today. The Bible is apt and on-point when it says:

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

Men, like never before, are being called to task.  We are being called to stand. We are being called to defend. The time is now. The moment has come. This is real. In order to properly respond to the war that is being waged on our lives, the lives of our loved ones, and the lives of each human that draws air on this planet, we must understand those beings we war against.

Sam, you sound like a conspiracy theorist.  No. This goes much deeper than some man-made conspiracy.  This goes much deeper than something dreamed up in a horror movie or a thriller book.  This isn’t the stuff getting talked about on CNN or Fox News. This comes from the only reliable source of information, God’s Holy Word.

The Bible doesn’t lie, and it is clear, beyond A SHADOW OF DOUBT, that the demons of our day have been allowed full reign and full control. Not demonic-type ideas or demonic-type events.  I’m talking about demons. Full-fledged spirits that are every bit as real as you and me.  The content we’re about to get into is backed by historical evidence and Biblical truth.  There is no way to disprove it. Many have tried, for to accept it means that we are in a battle which we cannot win apart from God Himself. Read and understand.

First, we must understand how demons operate.  Then, we’ll trace through history to see their operations unfold.  The climatic days in which we now live allow plenty of material to discuss. Once again, this isn’t speculation or hearsay.  You cannot disprove any of the following when the evidence is laid out.  

There are many instances of demons interacting with man in the Bible.  We see a man living among tombs, possessed by a legion of demons in Mark 5:1-20.  We see a demon inhabit a child in Mark 9:14-29.  We see how the demons laid with the daughters of man and created the Nephilim race in Genesis 6  To get an inner look at how demons interact with the world though, we need to look at Matthew 12:43-45. 

43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

Matthew 12:43-45

We see here that demons have the ability to inhibit humans the way humans inhabit houses.  Demons have the ability to LITERALLY live within people, as we see in verse 44. When a spirit is gone out of a man, it wanders.  It wants to inhabit man, for outside of man it can find no rest. It would seem that the only way for demon spirits to find “rest” in the time before God casts them into eternal torment is within the bodies of men.  This is a scary, sobering thought.

Notice that verses 44 and 45 speak of the danger of an unoccupied house. When the blood of Jesus is not on a person, they become at risk of demon possession.  When the Holy Spirit isn’t indwelling an individual, they are increasing their chances of falling prey to demon possession.

Some of you may say, Sam, I’m not saved but I don’t feel like I’m demon-possessed.  Friend, cling to Jesus before it is too late.  You are like a clean, empty, swept, and garnished house.  You are ripe for the taking if a malignant spirit were to set its sights on you.  Many have already succumbed.  We see them every day.  Note that I’m not explicitly talking about foaming at the mouth and speaking gibberish type of possessions. I do believe those exist, but I’m talking about the demon possession that is much more active and open in our culture.  

The demon possession has encouraged American mothers to kill millions of babies.  This year alone, between January and June, we murdered almost half a million. I’m talking about the demon possession that causes grown men to put dog masks on themselves to be whipped and paraded around in cages in front of children in pride parades. I’m speaking of the demonic forces that are pushing for illustrated step-by-step how-tos for sodomy and other sex acts to be kept in elementary school libraries. I’m talking about demonic activity perpetuating a level of confusion so vast that people actually just accept articles such as this and this being espoused in America’s newspapers.  The kind where people just stand by as a homeless pedophile sets up a drug dispensary in front of a school.

X / @bett_yu

This is pure evil on a level we’ve never seen in America before. This is the base level of moral depravity.  The demons have taken hold of American society, because, beginning in the 1960s, as a nation, we removed God from the house.  The Judeo-Christian values that we were founded upon have been all but dismantled. We took the prayer out of our schools and fathers out of our homes.   We began allowing filth to perpetuate our media on a level unheard of. The free love movement, the rapid increase in drug usage, and the rise of radical feminism began taking root. We removed God and the American “house” became bare and empty. Just as the Bible says,  the same demons that took the form of the gods of ancient civilizations hundreds and thousands of years ago have once again come. Only now, they’ve returned in a much greater show of force than history has seen before. 

How are we to combat them?  What must we do to stand against them?  First, we must understand their MO. Someone’s modus operandi is their mode of operation.  It’s how they can be identified, and, if you’ve ever watched a cop show, it’s how they eventually solve the whodunnit. Demons have MOs as well. There are tells that bring certain ones to the forefront of

the discussion.  The Bible names angels like Michael and Gabriel, so it only makes sense that the demons have names too.  They have identifying characteristics.  And no, I don’t think they make a habit of showing themselves with red skin, pointy teeth, and horns. It’s naive to think of demons as some form of cartoon character.  They are powerful, evil spirits. We’re going to examine 1 spirit in particular today.  This being is as real as you and me.  Although we don’t know its true name, we know of its existence because of its MO. It’s been the same for thousands of years.  As I said before, demons have returned to the house.

This demon, in the ancient cultures of Canaan and Phoenicia, manifested itself in a being that would come to be known as Baal. Many historians believe that Amorite settlers brought their god, Hadad, with them when they migrated to the Canaan region early in the second millennium B.C. As they settled in the land, the name Hadad was changed to Baal.  Baal was the son of the El, the chief god, and Asherah, the goddess of the sea.  He was the most powerful of all the gods, eclipsing the strength of his father. The Canaanites worshiped him as both the god of storms and the god of fertility.

Notice the war club in his right hand, which alluded to his power and might.  The spear he held on his left. It was either a depiction of the lightning bolts he would supposedly hurl or the crops he would allow to grow. Baal was often also depicted as a bull, so we see he has a pair of horns on his helmet. The highest of Mesopotamian gods would often be depicted with a 3-tiered crown of bull horns, so scholars suggest that the singular pair of horns implies that Baal was a young bull, whereas his father, El, was identified as the original old bull.

We see that Baal stands on both the sea and the mountains, implying he is god over all. His priest stands in the background upon a horned altar.  This was the demon’s first-cataloged form.  It quickly moved into other cultures as well, taking slight modifications, but always with the same MO, an overarching theme of dominion and mastery.

In Babylonian culture, the demon took the form of Bel-Marduk.  The MO stayed the same. 

• Marduk was the king of the gods, just as Baal was. 
• His name meant “bull-calf of Utu”, for it is there that we see the young bull reference again.

• His symbol was the spade. It was said that he dug rivers and canals with this farming instrument. This pointed back to him being a god of agriculture and, by extension, fertility. Without the water Marduk had provided, the Babylonians wouldn’t have been able to farm in order to live and reproduce.

• His star was Jupiter.
• He was tied to thunderstorms. Much of this came from the Babylonian myth of  Enuma Elish, where Maruk wielded storms as weapons.

In Greek culture, the demon became known as Zeus. The MO stayed the same.

• Zeus was king of the gods, just as Bel-Marduk was, just as Baal was.
• Zeus eclipsed his weaker father, Cronus, just as Baal eclipsed his father El.
• Zeus was a storm god and was often depicted holding a thunderbolt.
• Zeus’s symbol was a bull.

In Roman Culture, the demon integrated itself as the god, Jupiter. The MO stayed the same.

• Jupiter was king of the gods, just as Zeus was, just as Bel-Marduk was, just as Baal was.
• Jupiter eclipsed his weaker father, Saturn. Eerily similar to how  Zeus had eclipsed Cronus and Baal had eclipsed El.
• Jupiter was a storm god and was often depicted holding a thunderbolt.
• Jupiter received bulls as his primary sacrifice

Sam, duh all those gods sound the same.  All those cultures were right around the same area and time. Alright fine, let’s go 6000 miles away and 1400 years forward in time.

In Aztec culture, I believe the demon established itself as the high god, Tlaloc. He was the lord of the rain and the thunderbolts.

Tlaloc was the god of rain, thunder, and lightning, and he was worshipped by the farmers and the people who depended on the land for their livelihood. They believed that he had the power to send rain and to protect them from drought and famine.

Codex Chimalpopoca

Notice the similar look.  We have elaborate an elaborate headdress speaking of chiefdom and mastery. We have the lightning bolt spear. We have the shield that shows power and might. It’s all eerily still there.

This demon thrives on supreme mastery, power, and control. It wants to be alpha. It wants to be all-encompassing.  And so it has become in America today.  When we removed God from our system of government, we created a void.  In the spiritual realm, voids are always temporary. As the Bible says, when spirits find the house swept and empty, they occupy it.  And they’ve occupied the house of America. Don’t brush it off as nonsensical. Think critically. America was founded on Judeo-Christian values.  These spirits had no place in our society largely because of the boundaries and laws our Founding Fathers put in place. For almost 200 years, flagrant sexuality wasn’t on display in our streets. The financial greed of the elite in other countries hadn’t pervaded our borders.  In fact, foreign peasants would uproot their lives and the lives of their families to board a ship to America, as we were seen as the land of economic freedom and opportunity. Our children engaged in healthy recreational pastimes such as baseball and basketball. They were taught work ethic at home and in the classroom. Polygamy wasn’t present in America, meaning the nuclear family remained intact. Divorce was frowned upon. Nationalism was at an all-time high.  America was perceived as a gift from God, not the work of a man’s hand.

We were not without fault, but we didn’t experience many of the cultural, socioeconomic, and physical troubles and toils that our neighboring nations did.  There were no ground assaults on American soil during the World Wars. There was no Black Plague. We were a blessed nation.

As the blessings poured forth and the generations passed, the good times created weak men.  These were young men and women who’d always known relative ease and comfort.  Satan’s playbook doesn’t change. Just as he approached Adam and Eve from their lives of rest and comfort in the garden, he approached America.  Alongside his legions of demons, he waited for a chink to form in the armor.  He waited for resistance to develop in the culture. He waited for untempered, unchecked curiosity to prick the minds of youth in America, then Satan began a new assault with renewed vigor.  Just as in the Garden of Eden, once we, at his prodding but of our own volition, broke from our covenant with God, the house was swept clean, and the demons of old returned. Only this time, it’s worse than before. 

So where did the demon originally known as Baal integrate itself? I imagine it was faced with a brief dilemma. America wasn’t like the pagan nations of old where it had dominated and inhabited.  We wouldn’t bow to a stone statue. We knew enough about science to understand how thunderclouds formed. How would it permeate our society?  This demon wanted power and control. It wanted to rule and be seen above all else. It was the possessor. One nation under God meant one truth. If we, as a nation, looked to the one true God, then that meant we’d look to the one Truth. Many gods meant many truths. So this demon sought to create those gods in our culture once more. There’s one avenue that it could take to create the many “truths”.  There was one motivator above all else that would cause people to forsake their morality and create their own version of truth.  Greed. More specifically, the greed stems from a desire for power. What’s the predominant path that power often comes through? Money.

If a mother could convince herself that she would be more financially sound without that child, she’d be more likely to kill them. If a doctor could convince a person that they needed expensive gender-affirming surgery because they were born with the wrong genitals, there would be a payday.  If a pharmaceutical company could convince a nation that their drugs were necessary, there would be a payday.  If a government could manufacture and perpetuate a war, there would be a payday. If rioters could uphold a lie as their truth, and loot because of it, there would be a payday. If an educational system could convince its students that socialism and communism were idealistically and morally sound, there would be a payday.  If a political party could convince a race of people that they were being disproportionately oppressed and targeted, there would be a payday. If a congressional body could pass another tax bill to squeeze the middle class and consolidate wealth at the top, then there would be a payday.

The list goes on and on. If all these different groups and bodies of people could convince themselves of their rightness, and reap the financial benefit personally, then they would focus on trying to convert others to embrace their truth, regardless of how twisted and perverse it was.

Remember how I said earlier that Baal was often connected to a bull? That was one of the demon’s defining characteristics. Images and statues of bronze bulls. Check out Exodus 32 for a good example.  Hmmm. I wonder if we have any of those here in America today… Oh yeah. We do.

This statue is located at Bowling Green near Wall Street in Manhattan.  It is known worldwide as “Charging Bull”.  It’s made of bronze. It represents the financial sector of America and is widely seen as the symbol of the New York Stock Exchange.

The desire and love of money have caused most, if not all of the issues that plague our land today.  It is all-encompassing and overarching. Many of the other sins that we see propagated were set in motion by certain people with the intent to make or amass wealth and power.  This bull stands as a testament to that. 

I don’t believe things happen by happenstance. I do believe many people walk through life blind to the reality of the spiritual war that is taking place every day.  There are signs of it, and this is one. America has erected a bull just as the children of Israel did.  The demon once known as Baal has come to the house of America.