No one who has learned to confide in Bible truths would want to be misled and worship unknowingly a false god, a false Christ and a false Holy Spirit. To guard against such false worship we must know the past and learn from past experiences how to recognize false worship. The Bible passages and study statements are intended to help in this matter.

The Witness of Jeremiah

"How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; . . .
Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned." Jer. 2:23,35.

"And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt show this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?
Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;" Jer. 16:10,11.

"For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal. . . .
And the LORD hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then thou showedst me their doings." Jer. 11:13,18.

This apostate worship was combined with the true worship of the Lord in His temple at Jerusalem:

"Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? . . .
For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it." Jer. 7:9,10,30.

The religious leaders at the headquarters of the nation aided and propagated this apostasy:

Jeremiah:
23:11 "For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.
23:12 Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.
23:13 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. . . .
23:14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
23:15 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land. . . .
23:26 How long shall [this] be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;
23:27 Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal." Jer. 23:11,13, 15, 26, 27.

The Witness of Malachi

Thank God He has promised to send Elijah before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Malachi:
"Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." Mal. 4:4-6.

Defining Baal, a false Christ

. . . He would pretend to be the Christ! "The appearance of a false Christ will arouse delusive hopes in the minds of those who will allow themselves to be deceived."

He will endeavor to secure our allegiance and service through a misconception of the third angel's message in verity. Since that verity is the message of Christ's righteousness, it follows that Satan's final effort to deceive and allure us would be an attempt to infatuate us with Babylon's understanding of the "doctrine" or "tenet" of "justification and righteousness by faith". If he can first lead Babylon into the worship of a false Christ; and then can lead us to mistake their doctrine of "faith in Christ" for the third angel's message in verity, he will have us, to all intents and purposes, confused with a false Christ, in spite of our verbal protestations.

The infatuation with a false Christ can become possible only as the knowledge of the true Christ is lost. In a previous chapter of another essay, it was found that involved in the rejection of light at Minneapolis was the spurning of the offer of a closer, more intimate relation to Christ Himself than had ever been offered any other people. Jesus Christ was "insulted." The following statements require a closer investigation than a merely platitudinous concept would justify:

"A false Christ may be presented for belief in two ways, either by impersonation or by misrepresentation." [Garnier I, p. 6.]

"There are ancient parchments called "Palimpsests", the writing on which, having become faint through the ages, has been written over, thus effectually obliterating the ancient characters. So it is with the true Christ."

"It has been shown . . . that a false Christ, who completely hides from view all the distinctive features of the true Christ, has been substituted for Him." [Ibid., p. 3.]

"It is not by the names given to them but only by their moral characteristics, that an unseen God or an unseen Christ can be known, and if the moral characteristics assigned to them are evil, the being worshipped and acknowledged are a false God and a false Christ. Thus Christ said to the Jews . . . "Of whom ye say that He is your God, yet ye know Him not," (Jh. 8:54,55) and that he whom they called their Father was not God, but the Devil (Jh. 8:44). So it was with the gods of the Pagans." [Ibid., p. 39.]

The Jews, who had for so many centuries received divine warnings against being deceived by a false god and a false Christ, finally put the true Christ to death in the name of God! So terribly confused can highly religious people become, when blinded by love of self.

It has already been noted that a false Christ can appear through misrepresentation, as well as through impersonation. In fact, the former would naturally precede the latter. Has he manifested himself in the teachings of modern Protestantism?

But it is very evident that there is nothing in Christianity, as it is presented to us in these days, that can produce such a result; nothing that can cause its followers to despise their very lives in this world; nothing which can produce "joy unspeakable and full of glory." But if there is not, and if Christianity is indeed of God, the conclusion is forced upon us that . . . it must in some way have become misrepresented; and the Christ who is its central figure, but who fails to attract, or to give rest to the earnest and sincere, cannot possibly be the true Christ . . .

At the Reformation, when some of the nations, awaking out of their long sleep, compared the doctrines of the received religion with those taught by Christ, it was found that they were directly opposed to each other, and that the old Paganism, under the cover of Christian names and incidents, had virtually taken its place.

What has occurred once may have occurred again, and the distinctive truths brought to light at the Reformation may perchance, during the last three hundred and fifty years have been similarly replaced by doctrines which, although possessing a verbal similarity to the truth, are in reality opposed to it." [Garnier I, pp. 4,5.]

It is Satan's effort through every conceivable means to confuse, mystify, becloud, and efface this view, with the result that a false Christ invariably takes the place of the true, This was John's meaning when he said, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of anti-Christ."

"Thus, "the spirit of antichrist", by which a false Christ, without human weakness, temptation, and infirmities, is substituted for the true Christ, is the manifestation of the offence of the Cross, and it shows that this human weakness is still the same stumblingblock to belief in Him as of old, and that, like the Jews, the world still rejects the true Christ for a false Christ." [Garnier, I, p. 166.]

We may not argue that Christians today can safely assume they are saved, without the very real danger of a false Christ filling their self-satisfied spiritual vision. The fruit borne by such spiritual pride is not consistent with present truth.

It is characteristic of those who mistake the truth of Christ's human nature, confusing Him with some mysterious extra-human God who did not know our sinful flesh, to indulge in rapturous homilies on the fantasy of "oneness" with His person. "Christianity is Christ" they affirm, and if one has the Person, he has all there is to have, for the Person becomes personality to the "believer." There is a very subtle danger in such a doctrine that can lead to infatuation with a false Christ.

The real basis of "holiness by faith" as taught by a false evangelicalism is self-righteousness, cleverly disguised. Any unintelligent faith which "gets rid of all the distinctive doctrines of the Cross" is as helpless. It can lead only to the kind of spiritual confusion which admits a false Christ.

The Modern Prophets of Baal

Since the natural effect of false doctrines concerning "righteousness by faith" is to lead souls to forget the true Christ and look to a false Christ, which itself causes confusion to the human mind, it follows that the ministers who teach these false doctrines must themselves be subjected to a terrible strain of conscience and reason, proportionate to their sincerity and honesty of heart.

The human organism of mind, nerves, and body was not designed by its Creator to believe a lie, and must in the process, therefore, if persisted in, result in its being "seared, as with a hot iron." Hence, the most pitiable victims of the worship of a false Christ are his ministers. As their desperation increases in their ministry, they can only mutilate themselves, as did the ancient prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. It was for this reason that Jesus warned His disciples against the hypocrisy, or "leaven of the Pharisees"; the slightest amount retained in the experience of Christian ministers today can have only tragic consequences. The whole lump will eventually be leavened with the horrible hypocrisy of spiritual self-deception.

(3) The reader is reminded that Baal worship is something definitely not original with Israel, but is always imported from our neighbors. The very term "Babylon" signifying confusion, the reader will recognize that if present-day confusion is evident in our contemporary presentations of "righteousness by faith", it must, necessarily, indicate a Babylonian influence infiltrating our thinking and experience. Such confusion is the haze and mysticism which permits the entrance of a false Christ into the picture. "The enemy . . . has cast his shadow between us and our Saviour, that we may not discern what Christ is to us, or what He may be." [R&H, March 11, 1890.]

This alarming omission is not a mere matter of emphasis or lack of emphasis. The verbal mention of the Cross of Christ is as impotent, verily, as the wearing of a crucifix, unless Jesus Christ is set forth among our hearers, crucified among them, and by them, and their consciences aroused and their hearts broken. Let no SdA say that such preaching is fanaticism - there is no other preaching worthy of the name. Such a presentation alone can bring forth the "hearing of faith" which is genuine repentance, falling upon the Rock, and being broken. The omission of such preaching of a false Christ, because any Cross-less Christ is a false Christ, a modern Baal. The preaching of such a Christ is circumcision - ultimately it is dependence upon the works of the flesh, in which preaching there is no offence, only the "beatings" and "dressing-downs" which the modern religious self has been disciplined to rather enjoy.

A natural consequence of talking about Christ without the word is to lead to the glorification of His person. Yet the "flesh profiteth nothing", and representations of it profit nothing, as well. Historical scenes from Bible history which involve pictorial representations of Christ cannot be condemned, for the pictures re-create the event for the imagination. (Good preaching is much more effective, however.) But portraits of Christ can plead no such justification whatever, sentimental tales of sin-hardened sailors and others finding "Him" thereby notwithstanding. One of Baal's chief attractions is his beauty of person, and many artists have painted him. Others have painted a modern Tammuz, in an attempt to induce people to weep for him. "The Twelve Stations of the Cross" in Roman Catholic churches are an example of the use to which pictures can be put, whereby a false Christ motivates the histrionic emotions of the human heart, but leaves it in quite an unbroken spiritual condition, so far as genuine love for the true Christ is concerned.

The erroneous teachings which have taken the place of a clear understanding of the message of Christ's righteousness are traceable directly to the practical omission of the Cross from our present concept of justification and righteousness by faith. The idea of expiation is partly and secondarily responsible. Spiritual love of self, however, is primarily responsible. The spurning of the unwelcome thought of true and ultimate self-crucifixion opened the way for a misunderstanding of the purpose of the crucifixion of Christ. Nearly every species of erroneous teaching concerning Christian experience which has beset us since the Minneapolis era has its root in this omission of the true understanding of the atonement (See here) and of the principle of the Cross. It should be recognized that this practical omission of the Cross, both for Christ and the believer, is evidence that a false Christ has infiltrated the thinking and faith of modern Israel, in proportion as "we" failed to discern or recognize the true Christ.

Another characteristic of modern prophets of Baal is their lack of courage to stand forth boldly for what they are convicted in their souls is truth. The omission of the principle of the Cross from their Christian experience is the cause of this cowardice, which is falsely represented to be "patience" or broad-mindedness. There are still today many who secretly believe on Him, but because of the Pharisees do not confess, lest they should be put out of the fraternity. For they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. Thus a love of majority-opinions, and a fear of singularity, are inevitable effects of Baal-worship.

Anything which tends to the idea that people can be a god themselves in order to center their lives around pleasure (appetite), thus echoing the words of the snake when leading man into sin.

Ideas which say, true knowledge places man above all law; that whatever is good is right; that God does not condemn and that all sins which are committed are innocent.

The idea that we are accountable only to ourselves.

Teachings which say that it is ok to obey the promptings of our own heart.

Multitudes of sermons on the love of God while denying the justice of God.

The neglect of the pulpit to promulgate the divine law thus underrating the evil of sin.

Satan has substituted the sinful, erring nature of man himself as the only object of adoration, the only rule of judgment, or standard of character.

The `live as you please' ideas lead to universalism - the idea that all churches are equally right and good; all have truth and we will all go to heaven.

The idea that sin is inevitable in your life; it is not.

While it is easy to talk about Baal worship in ancient times, today's Baal worship is much worse and takes place just about in every family house on earth, in apartments, offices, churches, even in your very hands as you do your daily appointments. Baal worship shuts out the possibility that God can reach you through the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Modern technology is designed to drown out the voice of God and cut off your connection with God.

How does it occur?

Satan has worked long and hard to give the type of wisdom to man that leads to perdition. Man uses a thousand ways as excuse why he or she must partake of this service to Baal.

They may think, `Oh, my work requires it.' `I must be informed to what is happening.' `I use it to stay in touch.' `I love it because it is educational.' ... and more excuses could be added.

Yes, the culprit are all those electronic media flooding the markets like a flood. For each person there may be some worse than others. Television is Satan's appointed medium to lead the world captive. The presentation of sound and pictures in living color beguiles people and they can hardly pull themselves away once they start imbibing. Men and women, boys and girls, have become Baal worshipers of the worst kind.

Why should TV be so bad? Because you do not control what is shown. The world controls the media. Because it is very difficult to pray a prayer to Almighty God after you heard or saw something sinful which comes at you several times a day unexpectedly. Video programming is full of sinful twists and of the highest danger to a supposed follower of Christ and many will not be in heaven because they have not conquered it.

No. It is not only television. Computers and cell phones are also very addictive and rob people of natural discourse with people right next to them. Bringing a cell phone into a worship service is probably a very carnal sin. It is like pre-meditating that if it alerts me I will go out of the worship service and answer it for any reason. That is sin. On God's appointed day we are not to do what?

We are not to do what is in our own heart, but regard and serve only God, Isa. 58:13; Jer. 18:12.

I know, it took me a great while to eliminate these idols myself. I finally did and a calm and quiet comes into the house I used to have as a child. My parents never had a TV or telephone when we were growing up. While we were unable to communicate often and quickly, our mind was less cluttered by visual and sound bits which follow you for long periods of time after you turned away. Certain images can follow you for years. That is why we must have put these things away yesterday.

What ought to be our response? Probably that of Mary, where it says, "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart," and then act upon them so God can say of us as He did about Jesus, who "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Luke 2:19,52.

There are some very successful ministries operating today, which fit Proverbs 28:9. So how can one convict such of the need to come in line with the Word of God?

Here is what assures them that they are part of God's gospel family - and they may be, according to what they know. However, some of these ministries insolate themselves from all influences except the message they bring to the world. - They just won't read anything else.

They may say things like,

1. Oh, we have such a high public profile - God must be with us, or
   
2. Oh, we are constantly attacked by secular, atheistic people - God must be with us.

While they do a great work in their field, they also have some untruths about the Word of God included in their message. Can Christ dwell together with unrighteousness?

No! Never!

They say for instance, yes, God created all things (Rev. 4:11), but they circle around and avoid studiously to quote from the Law of God. Why? Because some push the view which states, "Christians must be aware of any changes to the gospel of God's saving grace in Christ. Satan promotes legalism, as well as license (Gal. 5:1-4, 13-14). So Christians must guard their lives by following God's truth and depending upon the Holy Spirit, lest their sinful desires overrule God's will."

The message certainly sounds good and true. But somehow, when I read `Satan promotes legalism,' without defining it, this suspicion comes to mind that in that concept there is a very subtle denial of the law of God included. Well, of course Protestant churches from 140 years ago and after, made this message their war cry against the seventh day Sabbath keepers. That spirit still lingers when we read about `legalists' or `legalism.'

There is a false concept of what these words mean included. It is their hidden and yet determining factor why they disrespect God's holy seventh day Sabbath. They fail to see that their Sunday is an illegal day to keep as a day for worship.

Why?

Because the Bible knows only the seventh day Sabbath as a day for worshipping our Creator God.

All heaven worships God on His holy day, not man's.

Each week Sunday idolizers are one day to late.

They rob God of the praise and worship He deserves each week.

They may do this unconsciously, nevertheless, they all have Bibles and ought to be able to figure it out for themselves.

Not only that, they also have Lexica, Encyclopedias and such which would tell them where Sunday comes from.

Can't they read?

So what must happen?

Professed believers in things pertaining to the Word of God, must not be so narrowly just do their thing. The Word of God calls His followers to continually and always, proof from the Word of God, like the Bereans did, all things pertaining to faith, salvation and consumation.

Today's Christian churches seem to assume that they are in line with the Word of God. Just think, millions think they are ok - while in most of history God says about the inhabitants of the world, why have you fallen so far away from me? Come to your senses! Come back to the Word.

To come back to the Word of God we must study more than David and Goliath, more than Genesis 1 through 11, more than the teachings of the evangelists, more than Paul or John and all those great topics, we must study all of the books in the Bible and check if we truly are in line with all of the truths about God and His kingdom. Well, sometimes, may be even frequently, that means that we must check the Word of God not only as we read it in our English Bibles, we must also consult the Hebrew and Greek, as we demonstrate below.

Start: Genesis 2:2-3

Middle: Isaiah 66:12 - 18 - 23 - 24

Jesus: Mark 2:28.

Paul most likely: Hebrews 4:9: "There remaineth therefore the keeping of the Sabbath for the people of God." [200]

Heaven: Just notice how frequently the number seven is highlighted by John the Revelator in his whole book, that ought to cause Christians to think of the ways of God!! - Revelation 12:17; 14: 7, 12 - 21:1-10b, 11 - 22 - 27 - 23: 1 - 19 - 21.

[200] The 4th commandment of God's unchangable law requires the observance of the 7th day Sabbath. This day is at the same time a memorial of creation and a sign of sanctification, a sign of the believer's rest from his own works of sin, and his entrance into the rest of soul which Jesus promises to those who come to Him. (Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20:8-11; 31:12,17; Hebr. 4:1-10).
In order to make this important scripture (Hebr. 4:9) quite clear for everyone to see, we post the portion of `Langenscheidt's Greek-English Dictionary' 6th edition, 1961, p. 341, where it is documented. The literal reading of the passage would be, `There is left `apo-leip', or `there remains') the keeping of the Sabbath for (the) people of God,' since the primary meaning of `apoleipomai' is `to leave.' The dictionary has `to leave' as the first meaning followed by `lose,' which of course is not the meaning of the passage. In fact, we today may not have recognized all these particular shades of meaning as they were used in the time of Paul. For us it is important to know that a play on words is taking place, namely on the word translated as `rest'. The author used two different words for "rest", he uses first various forms of the word `katapausis' in verse 1,3,5,10,11 and `katapausomai' in verse 4, and katapauomai in verse 8. The second word is used only once in all the Bible, it is the word `sabbatismos,' meaning `keeping of the Sabbath.'
One more comment: While Langenscheidt's Dictionary shows only one meaning for `sabbatismos', Young's and Strong's Concordance does not. They merely try to adopt `sabbatismos' to the shades of meaning of `katapausis'. It seems quite obvious that the author uses a specific word to give a specific message which is not the same as `katapausis' relates, namely the kind of Sabbath keeping rest God instituted in creation week and which is to be kept ever since until God's people are in heaven and beyond - since God's law is eternal - so is the Sabbath.
The strange thing in Christendom may be this, they want a revolution among them for members to be true members to their creeds, but they don't really want a revolution in Christian living going so deep in their soul searching that they discover their doctrinal errors and start truly keeping God's seventh day Sabbath, know that the dead are really dead, that we must stop sinning to be saved ... to name some heart stopping truths which should be upheld everywhere. This is true for all churches, even Sabbath keeping churches has many lax in their beliefs. This is what enmity against God is all about.