[Gary Petty] We ask that question all the time. I mean, why would Adam and Eve disobey God? Of course, they were deceived. It's like when we look at ancient Israel. We say, “Why would those people worship other gods when they had an entire history of God with them?” From the point they left Egypt to the point He destroyed Israel, then Judah they worshiped other gods while they worshiped God at the same time. Why would they do that? What would cause them? What would motivate them? What would be the benefit?

What's interesting when you look through the history of Israel…there was one god in particular that they really paid attention to. And it was the god of the Canaanites called Baal. In Hebrew it's like Ba-al is how you pronounce it – it’s a guttural sound to it – but in English we call it Baal. They worshiped this god Baal over and over and over again. Why? What was the benefit of Baal? If you've ever seen…they've actually discovered Canaanite statues of Baal – it's not a very impressive god. It's a skinny old guy that holds a lightening bolt in his arm. That's it? This is the god you worship? What's so powerful about this god? Yet Baal was worshiped by the Canaanites and accepted by Israel through many generations. What was it that attracted them to Baal? You say, “Well, that's sort of interesting….” No, we need to realize what attracted them to Baal were the same things that attract us to the world we live in.

There was something very specific in Baal worship that caused them to want to be involved in it. And even though people don't worship Baal today, it's the same god that created Baal…Satan is still here as he was then. And he creates the same attraction, just in a different way. He's not going to get us to worship a little statue holding a lightening bolt, but he's going to attract us to the same things that were involved in Baal worship.

Now, Baal simply means lord, or master. And in the Old Testament, sometimes we'll look at words like husband, or words like, someone is a master and has slaves, and actually in Hebrew it's baal. I mean, baal was a very generic word. Baal, sort of big letter Baal, as we would put in English is just someone's name or a title. And then there's just baal. It means master. It means lord. So a husband was the master of his household. In Hebrew, in some places, it's lord, I mean it's baal. He was the baal of his household.

So it means to be lord. And it's interesting in Hosea 2, let's go there first. Hosea 2. Here Hosea is quoting God as saying, “There will come a time when all those people of Israel would worship Him.”

Hosea 2:16. “And it shall be, in that day,” says the  Lord, “that you will call Me ‘My Husband’” – in other words, there was this relationship – “and no longer call Me ‘My Master.’”

That's very interesting. Husband there, and master, are two different words. Master is baali, which is just a type of the word baal. He says, “You won't call me baal anymore.” In other words, even the word baal had been used now for God – for the real God. And so He says, “That name won't apply to Me anymore. No one will use Baal in reference to Me anymore.” So here we have baal used as – well, they were using it – as a reference to the God that they worshiped – the true God. So that shows you how convoluted it became – that the word baal, which is a specific Canaanite god, was also used as a title for the real God. What it reminds me of is in the fifth century, Pope Leo 1 was holding a mass out in front of the Vatican – well, what was the Vatican then – it was reconstructed – but St. Peter's church. He was out doing a massive mass. There was thousands. They estimated up to 10,000 people were there. And it was a sunrise mass. And as the sun rose, the entire crowd turned and called the sun Christ, and bowed down in front of it. They couldn't tell the difference between what he was saying was Christ – which was still a false Christ to begin with – but what he was teaching as Christ and the sun. They could not tell the difference. They called the sun Christ. Well, here we have a people who called God Baal. So they could go to the temple and worship at Solomon's temple. And they weren't worshiping the Canaanite god Baal. They were calling him lord, but he really wasn't their lord. He said, “I'm going to change this relationship and that name won't be applied to Me anymore.” So that's part of the future of this.

Now Baal could…sometimes he became the god of a local area. You know, there was this Baal – this god – but there were manifestations of him. I mean, Baal Peor, which we will see in the scripture, Baal Peor meant Baal is the god of this city. So people would take that and say, “So he's the specific god of our city.” You have Beelzebub, which literally means lord of the flies. And I've never been able to figure out how that applied to him. He was the god of thunder, so therefore he was the god of everything that grew. He was the god of sexual reproduction in animals. He was the god of creation. He didn't necessarily create everything, but he was the one who sustained everything – this Baal in the Canaanite religion. And many times he was symbolized as a bull – you know, that was his symbol. He was a bull.

There are similarities between the Hebrew and the Canaanite religion. And in the Canaanite religion there was a great god that nobody can know. It's very interesting, because this is what the Greek philosophers thought too. There is a great god that nobody could know. This god was named El – El – which just means, if you translate it into English, it means god. If you translate baal into English, it would be lord. If you translate El into English, it would mean god. Now you see in Hebrew, El is applied to God. El Shaddai – God Almighty. But they said you can't know god. You can't know the great God, but there is another god named Baal, who is our lord. You can know him. And he's the god of all creation, and he's the one who sustains everything. Now Baal had a sister named Anat, who was the goddess of sexuality and war. Now I don't know how she put those two things together, but she did. Of course, I've seen some marriages where that is mixed together, but that's another story, okay?

So you have this unknown god, El, but you could relate to him through Baal and his sister Anat. So this is sort of the father, and then you have this Baal, and you have Anat.And then you have another goddess who is nameed Asherah. Asherah is sometimes translated Astarte. And Astarte is the goddess that is always associated with Baal. In fact, in some of the Canaanite legends, this was his wife. So you have Baal, and Asherah, and then you have Anat. And they sort of…everything is under their control.

Baal worship became very common very early in Israelite history. In the Israelite history. When we went through the book of Judges, we read this – in the series of Bible studies we did – and it was amazing how quickly…. These people had just gone through the wandering in the desert for forty years. And within a very short period of time – when they were in the Promised Land – they began to be attracted to the worship of Baal.

Let's go to Judges 2 – Judges, chapter 2, and let’s to go verse 11 – Judges 2, verse 11. And as soon as we heard these things – let's see, is this where I want to be? No, this isn't where I want to be. No wonder, I'm in Joshua. How in the world did that make sense? The traveling yesterday just took something out of me. Judges 2. We got home last night. We thought, “Oh good. We'll be home before the Sabbath starts.” We landed in Nashville, and we got on the shuttle to take us over to pick up our car, they said, “A cattle truck has just wrecked out there, and I guess there is cows all over the place, and you're not going to get home for hours.” And we didn't. Judges 2, verse 11.

Judges 2:11-14 – Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals. Now you say, “Why is it plural?” Well, because Baal was just the lord over lots of gods. So there are lots of lords, okay? Most pagan religions had one unknown god and then lots of gods. And you could interact with all these gods. So Baals refers to a pantheon of gods and goddesses. …and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the  Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served Baal – now it's singular here, because he was sort of the leader of all the gods – and the Ashtoreths – these female goddesses. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So not very long after they were in the Promised Land – within a very short period of time – they began to be attracted to Baal and Baal worship and the female goddesses that were attached to him. Why?

Well, I'm just going to show four things that were involved in Baal worship that were attractive to the Israelites. And as we go through this, it won't take much to figure out, that if you know anything about our society today, these are things that people are attracted to. They don't need a little god – a fake little idol – to lead them. Satan's got them going there – just in a different way. He's taking them there in just a different way.

The first thing: Baal worship was sexually permissive. Remember when Israel left Egypt and God was bringing them out, and Balak the king of Moab went to a false prophet named Balaam, and said, “Bring a curse on these people?” He said, “Well, I can't. I want to, but their God won't let me. I know their God and He won't let me. So what are we going to do?” And it's a fascinating story how Balaam kept trying to give a curse – because, you know, he wanted the money – but he knew he couldn't. God wouldn't let him. Let’s go to Numbers 22, and verse 36. It says:

Numbers 22:36-41 – Now when Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the city of Moab, which is on the border at the Arnon, the boundary of the territory. Then Balak said to Balaam, “Did I not earnestly send to you, calling for you? Why did you not come to me? Am I not able to honor you?” And Balaam said to Balak – verse 38 – “Look, I have come to you! Now, have I any power at all to say anything? The word that God puts in my mouth, that I must speak.” So Balaam went with Balak – they move on – and they came to Kirjath Huzoth. Then Balak offered oxen and sheep, and he sent some to Balaam and to the princes who were with him. So it was, the next day, that Balak took Balaam and brought him up to the high places of Baal, that from there he might observe the extent of the people. So just to look out over Israel they went to a mountain – and they worshiped the gods on mountains – a mountain of Baal. The Moabites worshiped Baal. So here they are saying: how do we stop these people from coming across our land? Everyone who seems to fight against them ends up being defeated by their God. So how do we get Baal to fight against their God? And what happens, of course, is that Balaam keeps saying, “You can't. Baal has no power against their God.” So they come up with a plan. Numbers 25 -they decided that what they would do is turn the people against God. Verse 1:

Numbers 25:1-3 – Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. Well the Moabites didn't live with the Israelites. What happened here? What happened was they decided, “Okay, we can't fight their God, but we'll get them to party.” This must have been the greatest party in the world – in the history of the world. Moabite tribes came down among the Israelites, because the Israelites didn't go up among them. Remember, they are all camped together around what? The Tabernacle. They are all camped around the pillar of fire. And the Moabites come out of the desert with lots of wine and lots of music and men and women are saying, “Hey, let's party.” And they have a giant party. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods. So now they are pulling the Israelites away from Israel. “Hey, that's a really nice tabernacle you have. Let's go up here on the mountain of Baal, and we'll teach you about our god, too.” Remember, the Israelites always worshiped Baal and God. “We'll teach you about our god. He's a great god.” And they start to realize, “Wow, your god doesn't have all the restrictions we have. He's like a party god.” They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel. What's interesting is you can read through this, and Balaam actually came up to the party. He was one of the ones who helped hatch this plan. So when God told them to go fight Moab, He said, “Kill him,” and they did. The Israelites killed Balaam. Because he knew he couldn't fight against God, but he could seduce the people. And the people of Moab had no problem giving of themselves to the people of Israel – this sexual freedom they had. So it was a very sexually permissive concept in Baal, and Astarte and Anat. There was a very sexual freedom, I mean there was a goddess of sexuality that you could worship, that you could pray to. So it's a very sexually permissive religion.

A second reason people would have been attracted to them is in Jeremiah. Now we're skipping ahead hundreds of years, okay? We're going from the time of Moses to the time when God is sending prophets to Judah, and said, “Look, I destroyed Israel. And if you don't repent, I'm going to destroy you.” So we're jumping way ahead here. And we're going to find Baal worship is still a problem. Jeremiah 7. And in doing so, we find something else that Baal worship produced. Verse 1:

Jeremiah 7:1-11 – The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house” – now this would have been Solomon's temple, because it still existed at this time – and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord!’” Now remember, they are coming to Jerusalem, and the temple specifically, to worship Yahweh, the Lord. “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words, saying, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.’” In other words, “Don't trust in these chants and rituals you have. This is Yahweh's temple. We are Yahweh's people. We are special.” What would have happened when they went to the temple? They would have been taught how God, through Moses, saved them from Egypt hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. They would have been taught how Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were their fathers. And God had produced, through Sarah, this miracle. They knew all this. They went to the temple. They did sacrifices. They went there and they kept the Sabbath. Now they didn't always keep the holy days. We see, if we read through the times of the Kings, there were times they didn't keep the holy days. But you don't find any time they didn't seem to have some type of Sabbath worship or keeping. “We have a temple. This is God's temple. This was built by Solomon.” They knew who built the temple, even though he'd been dead for many years. And he says: “For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.” Well, they knew who their fathers were. They were taught it all the time. “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal…. Wait a minute, wait a minute, burn incense to Baal? They were there worshiping Yahweh. It synchrotized religions. You take a little piece of this, little piece of that, put them all together, and still worship God. This is becoming the most common belief in the United States today – that all religions are equal, and all people are just on different paths to God, and it doesn't matter if you do a little of this, a little of that – just mix it all together. You can worship God. You can believe in Jesus and add a little Hinduism. It's called the New Age movement. Worshiping Baal did the same thing. You see, you can worship Baal and worship Yahweh, and they consider that just fine. They consider that just fine. There were people who worshiped Baal. There were probably Canaanites who worshiped Yahweh – just like God-people who are now worshiping Baal. And what did it produce? It produced stealing, murder, adultery, false swearing, burning incense to Baal and walking after other gods who you do not know. And then you come… – he said, “You live these lawless lifestyles, which Baal allows you to do, and you worship him – and then you come to Me – He says – and then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’? It's interesting in the Jewish translation of this – in the Tanakh – it basically says – here's how it translates that – “that they were safe to do all these abhorred things” – that is, where they come to the temple of Yahweh and they worship Him, they think they are safe to worship Baal. They don't see a problem. They don't see a problem. Mixing paganism in with the worship of God, to them, “What's the problem? We're still worshiping God. We're just acknowledging Baal exists.” But you can find all kinds of ways they could twist that around, and say, “Well he's just an angel. We can acknowledge the angels. It’s just sort of a lesser god, and maybe God created Baal. And so you have verse 11. God says: Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the Lord. The rest of the chapter is basically, “If you don't stop this, I will destroy you.”

So Baal was a synchronized religion that allowed lawlessness – as long as you worshiped the gods, what you did really doesn't matter. Because the gods give you all this forgiveness, and what you do doesn't matter. And it produced a society of lawlessness.

2 Kings 21. We're going to go back in time a little bit now – between the time that we read in Numbers and the time we read in Jeremiah. 2 Kings 21 – because there are two points made here in this passage that created this attractiveness. 2 Kings 21, and we’ll pick it up in verse 1.

2 Kings 21:1-4-7 – Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. So Manasseh became the ruler as a very young child. And he reigned for a very long time, though. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed. He raised up altars for Baal, and made a wooden image, as Ahab king of Israel had done. And he worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served them. So when you worshiped Baal, you also worshiped other gods – the host of heaven. It's very interesting that in most pagan religions, it's not unusual for people to believe that stars were gods. Even Origin, who was one of the founders of Catholicism back in the second century, he claimed that the stars were just souls of people who had died. So he believed you should look at the stars, and maybe some of them are saints, and you should acknowledge that these stars are all living beings. So the idea of worshiping the hosts of heaven that's always been part of certain aspects of paganism. They said he built altars – now listen to this – verse 4: He also built altars in the house of the Lord. In Solomon's temple he built altars to Baal! You would go there to worship both. So there are all these…it's a very ritualistic religion. And he simply mixed the Levitical priesthood, and he mixed the rituals of Baal, and he created one religion out of it. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. Also he made his son pass through the fire – most translators and scholars believe that this means that he actually sacrificed his son – either to death or passed through the fire where he would have been burned. Either way, this is horrible. We're talking about killing children. Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritualists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.” Inside the very temple of God, he set up statues and altars to Baal and Asherah.

The third and fourth reason that people were attracted to Baal was because of the ritualistic beliefs and that you had freedom of religion. Baal worship – you had lots of freedom you could worship whomever you wanted, however you wanted, and there were lots of rituals that made you feel very religious. It felt pretty nice to be a Baal worshiper – and worship your ancestors. See, Baal worship could be mixed with any other religion and it worked. You could worship Yahweh, your ancestors, snakes – it didn't matter. It's all part of understanding Baal. Who was the representative of El? Nobody really knows. Nobody can know that god. So we see Baal as his representative – and his sister, who is the goddess of sexuality, and his wife, Astarte, and there were all kinds of strange things that were associated with her.

So we see this ritualistic religion that allows religious freedom. But then, we see a fourth thing is that there is a fascination with witches, soothsayers, mediums, interacting with the supernatural, okay? We have to interact with the supernatural. And there are people who can help us interact with the supernatural. So we have four reasons here that people in Israel, over all those years, were attracted to Baal worship. It helped define their society.

And then, we think about us today. Satan didn't have to use a strange-looking wimp of a god – even if there is secular humanism. In secular humanism, we have a society that is sexually permissive and yet claims to be Christian. We live in a society that has religiously synchrontized, where all religions are not only considered equal, but it's good to mix them together. Mardi Gras has to be one of the most purely pagan things and yet, it's somehow Christian or connected to Christianity. Baal worshipers would have understood Mardi Gras. Baal worshipers would have said, “Whoa, these people are really religious!” It would make sense. We live in a society where people feel religious through rituals, right? I mean, I'm not putting down people who are Catholic, but if you've ever sat in a Catholic church and watched them come in and worship Mary, and light candles, and put money in the box – this ritual. And they're trying so hard to reach God through a ritual. It's very sad.

And we live in a society that promotes witchcraft and palm reading. When we drove into…like I said. last night we wanted to get home before the Sabbath, but because of that wreck and everything, we were driving into Murfreesboro – we had to take a back road in and it had just turned dark – and I said, “Hey, we're in Murfreesboro. Look, there's a palm reader.” And we drove by. Said, “I never noticed the palm reader before” – because the lights were all lit up – you know, “Palm Reader.” It didn’t look like they did much business. I can remember one time we were at a flea market, and my son and I were walking by and he got a little stunned, because there was this palm reader, and she looked strange. And she was sitting there, and she had a big sign that she could tell the future and everything. And he stopped, and I stopped, and she was looking at us, and I said, “That's a palm reader. She can tell the future. We're not going in there, but since she can tell the future, she already knows.” And we walked by. (Laughter) I wanted to say more, but I thought I'd better not, so we just walked by. And there's a palm reader – right? – with a neon sign.

But even our movies – all our movies – think about how much about we can connect to God – I mean, not to God, but the supernatural. How many movies have demons in them? It's amazing how many movies have demons. There's a show – of course, I haven't watched it – but the name of it is Lucifer, on television. And it's about Satan. I don't know. I was watching something and an ad came on and he looked like he was a nice guy. You know, he's all dressed nice, talking to people. What? He's been throw out of heaven and he's walking the earth as a businessman. Of course, I can see that. But anyways.

Let's go to 1 Kings – 1 Kings 18, verse 19. This is about when Elijah was sent out to confront all the priests of Baal. Baal worship had become so popular that Elijah actually thought, “I'm the only one left.” He thought he was the only person in all of Israel that didn't worship Baal. And God says, “Oh, I have 7,000.” That's it! Out of all of Israel, there were only 7,000 that did not worship Baal.

1 Kings 18:19-23 – Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel – this is what God tells him – the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table” – eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and his wife. So the women would have gone and prayed to the female goddess and the men to the male god. And so you have all these rituals and this is where they were. And it says: So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”  And you know, this is what breaks down into our society today. Baal may not be around in the form that they worshiped him, but how long do we falter between God and the world we live in? How long do we try to hold two opinions? And you know, I think we're really aware of that when we come back from the Feast of Tabernacles, but as time goes on between now and Passover, that will become less and less intense in our minds. It just always does. That's why we're supposed to keep the holy days. We forget we are between two worlds here. We are between two worlds. And we try to sort of hold on to both at the same time. He says: But the people answered him not a word. Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. So you know the story. He says: Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. Then we are going to ask our God to accept our offering by burning it up. The 450 prophets of Baal said, “Oh man, you'll lose this one.” He said, “Good, you pick the bull you want.” And they picked the bull – probably the one that looked the best or whatever – and they killed it, they prepared it, they piled up the wood, and they put the bull on. Then they cried out for Baal, the god of thunder and lightning, to strike and burn it up. And nothing happens. Nothing happened. So Elijah says, “Okay, maybe he can't hear you. Dance a little bit.” Of course, they're very ritualistic. They're doing their dances. They begin cutting themselves – cutting of the body was part of Baal worship. You hurt yourself and therefore you are accepted by Baal – sort of like the flagellation of the Middle Ages, where you beat yourself and then God would forgive you of your sins. So monks would carry around little whips and literally beat themselves and tear the skin off their own bodies as appeasing God. Well, they're cutting themselves to appease God. They're screaming. They're hollering. And this went on and on and on. And then Elijah says, “Okay, you've had your chance. It's mine.” He builds an altar, he puts the wood, he puts the bull on it, he builds a little trench around it, which seems strange. He says, “Now you douse this with so much water it fills up the trench.” They soak the bull, they soak the wood, they soak the stones, and now there's a trench full of water around it. He prays to God. Fire comes down and consumes the bull, the fire, the stone, the water, the trench – just everything. And then he looks at the 450 prophets of Baal, and he says to everyone, “See, they lied to you. Grab them!” And he dragged them down to the brook that was there and he killed every one of them. You say, “What a cruel man!” Baal worshipers would say, “We wouldn't kill the worshipers of Yahweh. Why are you killing us? Can't we all just get along and worship each others’ gods?” And the real God said, “No, we can't.”

It shows you how Baal worship had infiltrated so much into their society that they worshiped both and couldn't tell the difference. They did not understand that God has standards we live by. God has laws we live by. God will be worshiped the way He determines He will be worshiped – because He is God! He is Creator of all things. He's the One who gives us everything. And so He determines how the relationship works. We don't get to determine how the relationship works. And God has standards.

Standard is a very interesting word. In English, the word standard literally means a flag or a banner. And the reason why is, that back in medieval times, the English king, wherever he went, there would be riders in front of him with his flags – with his banners. “Oh, that's the royal…that's the king going by.” He has his banners. He has his flags. And they would go and set up the royal banner, outside of town or inside of town, and that's where people would come, because there would be a standardized measurement. In other words, how did you know if you have a scale, and someone brings in, and says, “I want to buy butter.” Okay, a pound of butter is worth six eggs that weigh so much. How would you know? See, they had scales for everything. How would you know if this is really gold or not gold? How much gold is this? How much copper is this? They had to have scales for everything. And what would happen is, the royal banner would be set up that would be a representative from the king. You would go there and they would make sure all the scales were balanced. That's how justice worked. So wherever you saw the royal banner, it was either the king or the king's representative. And one of the things they did is, they set the standards. They set all the laws. The king set all the laws of England at the time. So, all laws were dictated by the king. And all standards, or all measurements, were dictated by the king. So what happened is, the word standard became now the flag, because that's what you would see. If you go into a court house today where judgment is going to be made, what's outside? The flag. The standard is always there. This is where you go for justice. That's the concept. This is the flag. So the flag was the standard. This is where justice is. So when we think of standards, we don't just think of the flag, we think of justice. We think of what is right and what is wrong. And God sets standards.

You know it's interesting how the word standard became flag. In the American Civil War, the standard bearer….  And they still have today, in high school, the color guard, right? And the standard bearer. What's the standard bearer? They carry out the flag. What's the color guard? Those are the guys, the people march behind them with the little pretend guns. Well, in the American Civil War the standard bearer carried the flag. And he was surrounded by the color guard that protected the colors, or the standards, and they had real guns. And everybody wanted to be the standard bearer because you were the most important person out there. Because once the fighting got started, you couldn't hear your officer screaming above all the roar of the muskets and the canons. You couldn't even hear the bugles. Because every regiment had their own bugle calls, and they would be so mixed up, you wouldn't know what to do because all these bugles were playing. But you know one thing, above all the smoke you could find the standard. And if the regiment started to collapse you all gravitated towards the standard because you could re-form your lines. So guess who's the first person you shot in every Civil War battle? The standard bearer. Everybody shot at the standard bearer on both sides. The life expectancy, on either side of the American Civil War, of the standard bearer was seconds. And somebody else picked it up, and they'd get killed, and somebody else. And they recorded battles of dozens of men picking it up and getting shot, picking it up and getting shot. They're just piling up the bodies. Because if no ones knows above all this din, and this death, and this horror, and the smoke and the noise, if there's no standard, everybody eventually runs away. It happened on both sides all the time. Once the standards were gone, everybody ran away. You couldn't even fight anymore, because you had no way to be organized. You were just a mob of men.

God has given us standards. And those standards keep us from becoming a mob. Those standards are God's ways and you and I are the color guards and the standard bearers. That's who we are. You and I are the ones who carry the flag. That's why you get shot at all the time. Satan's going to continue to shoot at you all the time because you're carrying the flag. You're the standard bearer.

Now when Christ comes back, He sets up His standard. Look at Isaiah 49, and verse 22 – talking about the time when the Messiah comes.

Isaiah 49:22 – Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations.” In other words, God says, “I'm promising all peoples what I'm about to say.” “And set up My standard for the peoples – My flag, My standard – where justice is all the scales are equal. Everybody can gather. Everybody can come together under this flag – under this standard. And I will set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in your arms, and your daughters shall be carried on your shoulders.” Isn't that interesting? As people come to this standard, there is a war going on. They're leading their sons by their hands and their daughters are sitting on their shoulders. They are coming to the standard.

You and I are standard bearers. It's one of the hardest things for, especially, young people to understand. Because you live in a Baal-like society. And this Baal-like society, it seems really good. If we all just love each other – get along – we could worship whatever gods we want. We can worship God however we want. The sexual permissiveness seems attractive. The fact…the lawlessness…. “We're not really bound by all these rules – just the rules of loving each other.” What does that mean? Because everybody will define that differently. “I don't love you, so I can divorce you.” God says, “No, you have to learn how to love.” “No, I don't. I can divorce. I'm allowed to.” “No, you have to learn to love.” “No, I don't.” “Okay, then, if you don't have to learn to love, then how do you…?” “No, I'm not happy, so I can do whatever I want.” It's become a very ritualistic, religionistic society with no meaning to it.

And eventually, we become more and more fascinated with witchcraft, right? Sorcery. Think about how many movies are about witchcraft and sorcery. Think about how the most popular books today are about witchcraft and sorcery. Because everybody is attracted to it, because they are looking for a way to connect to have power. Right? I can have power. And all the people in the books and the movies have power, because they're connected somehow to the supernatural.

So realize. we are the standard bearers. We are God's standard bearers in Baal's society. Israel could never measure up – except people like Elijah. There were those who did, but the majority never did. We think they're so primitive. Their so primitive – these stupid Israelites who worshiped the little stone god. And yet the very things that attracted them to Baal worship attracts us to our society. He just found out secular humanism works better. Human beings got smart enough to figure out Baal wasn't real. So we have a different way – technically, the same place.

Challenge ourselves, as we now…. I want all of you to challenge yourself. I challenge myself. We need to be challenged that between now and the beginning of the next series of holy days…. Because it’s this six-month period, if we're not careful, we just go into a spiritual lethargy, because we're not motivated by the holy days anymore. Now we have the Sabbath, but the holy days are such…there is such power in them. We can get used to Sabbath, unfortunately. We need to reject the wrong part of society that we live in. We need to maintain where God is taking us. And we need to keep our focus on the job that He's given us right now – not just the future. In this society, you and I are the standard bearers of God.