We’ve been following the occultization of the culture. Satanic rituals are played out at major entertainment and sporting events – broadcast for all the world to see. Sexual encounters with demonic entities, has in some circles, come into vogue. Darkness has invaded and a confused society is embracing its tenets, believing that it shows we are more tolerant, more lovng…..even more godly. Paraphrasing the Apostle Paul in Romans 1: Professing to be wise, we’ve become fools. In PART IV we’ll continue to expose that unfolding story.
DARKNESS MANIFEST
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight!”
(Isaiah 5:20-21)
The Burning Man Festival, held every year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, is the face of American Paganism. It began in 1986 on a San Francisco Beach, where its founders burned a 9ft straw effigy of a man on the summer solstice. Tens of thousands flock to site to participate in what has developed into a full fledged celebration of paganism packaged as art. The highlight of the event is the torching of the ‘Burnng Man’. But there is much more to the festival than just this weirdness.[i]
The Huffington Post called it a “Dystopian Hellscape.”[ii] Michael Snyder tells us that we can find “nudists (lots of them), palm readers, neopagans, ‘ecosexuals,’ witches, sorcerers, shamans, New Age gurus, ‘goddesses,’ Satanists, ‘polyamorists’ and just about every type of fetishist that you can possibly imagine. The reason why the festival is called ‘Burning Man’ is because of the gigantic effigy that is burned toward the end of the eight day celebration. Nobody is physically harmed during the burning of this enormous ‘wicker man,’ but it does seem to parallel the human sacrifices that the Druids would do in ancient times.”[iii]
So it’s interesting to note that even this month, a replica of the gateway arch that led to the Temple of Bel (Baal) is going up in New York City. It is a reconstruction of the Arch of Triumph from the ancient city of Palmyra. (The original was destroyed by ISIS in October of 2015.) [Now admittedly this is not the Temple Arch that was originally planned to be erected in New York in the Spring of 2016 – but it is an arch through which all who would enter the Temple of Bel must pass.) The original had served as the entrance to the Temple of Baal, then as a church and was finally converted into a mosque.[iv] That Temple was a place of child sacrifice and sexual worship. Whatever its stated intent, it honors a pagan culture that embraced those values. It served as an entrance way to the occult realities of the worship of its day. The spiritually astute will recognize that this replica will serve as a portal for demonic entrance into our world.
So what’s the significance? It lies in the deterioration of a culture that practices – in some form – many of the same rituals as did the Baal worshipers. Writing a few years back for World Net Daily, Matt Barber painted a picture of that ancient religion. “The principal pillars of Baalism were child sacrifice, sexual immorality (both heterosexual and homosexual) and pantheism (reverence of creation over the Creator). Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of ‘mother earth.’”[v]
Now we have, as a culture, mirrored, many of these same practices. In place of thousands of infants placed on Baal’s altar, we have slaughtered 58 million since Roe-v-Wade in 1973. No, we don’t use fire to burn them – but we’ll use chemicals, or cutting into the head and sucking out their brains. [Yes, this IS relevant to the subject. A society that embraces death and sanctions murder, no matter how it’s painted, has at its root an occult / Luciferian cancer that has allowed it deceive itself into believing evil is good.
But the similarities do not stop there. The worship of ‘Mother Earth’ is mimiced in Radical Environmentalism, which puts nature above man. And the militant LGBT movement – with all of its permutations – is fast redefining sexuality and the family relationship. Pagan societies were pagan – because they ordered their society on their religion. Their worship defined who they were. So too with us. Our moral uncertainty; our failure to defend our Judeo-Christian foundations has bought for us a state of political chaos and moral confusion. If we seem lost and abandoned it is not without reason.
New York Times best-selling author and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn gave this take on the matter to George Noory. “Western Civilization was once totally pagan and then in a sense it got cleaned up. But what [one of these mysteries is] saying is, if it turns back away from God and turns to evil and immorality, it’s going to be seven times worse than it does before. And how that translates is: Before you had the Gospel you had Nero, you had Caligula. But when you have a post-Christian civilization, it’s much more dangerous than a pre-Christian one. But that’s when you produce Hitlers, you produce Stalins, you produce ultimately the Antichrist. That’s end-time prophecy. We are witnessing that as well.”[vi]
In a Facebook post, Cahn drew the direct connection between Israel’s Baal worship and the current state of affairs in America. “Baal was the anti-God.” It “represented their fall. America has followed that pattern. The harbingers have appeared.” He asks, “Could the sign of Baal, the sign of a nation that has turned away from God; a nation that has embarked upon defiance of God, – and judgement: Could that sign appear in this land?” He was speaking at the unveiling of this Baalian Temple Arch – and so answered that question for us. “We are here today to witness the unveilng of that sign!….What you will see on American soil is the sign of Baal…..This is the sign of a nation leading to judgment.”
God’s judgment against the Baal worshippers was declared by the prophet Jeremiah. “Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal…. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.” (Jeremiah 19:4-6) (KJV) Paul explains the principle in his letter to the Church at Rome. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 1:18-22, 24-25)
The sad but ineluctable fact is that we become what we worship. For worhipers of Christ, children of God, we are promised “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him.” (1John 3:2) But the people that venerates convenience and lust, dysfunction and pleasure and perversion; shall become like the Image that they worship…..a twisted caricature of the beings we were meant to be. Paganism and the occult is exploding into our world; expanding its bailiwick; demanding first our silent assent…..and then our total allegiance. Our only effective response is repentance. And it must[vii] begin with us!
[i] Image of Burning Man: By Aaron Logan, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13543
[ii] Burning Man Live-Stream Lets You Look Upon A Dystopian Hellscape, Huffington Post, September 2, 2016
[iii] Michael Snyder, Burning Man: America’s Largest Occult Festival Is A Celebration Of Weirdness And Hedonism, Important News, August 31, 2016
[iv] Replica of Syrian arch destroyed by Isis unveiled in New York City, The Guardian (UK), September 20, 2016
[v] Matt Barber, TODAY’S BAAL WORSHIPERS, World Net Daily, December 19, 2008
[vi] ‘Harbinger Man’ warns post-Christian West will get very bad, World Net Daily, September 18, 2016
[vii] Image: Burning Man 2016, International Business Times, August 26, 2016
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