Baal Worshippers
California Farmer 241:8 (Nov. 16, 1974), p. 32.
In the week of August 26 through 31, 1974, as the California State Senate rushed to conclude its work, 496 bills were quickly passed with no discussion on the floor. These were approved, without debate, in blocks of twenty to sixty bills. These measures were appropriations and regulatory measures. Every Californian is a little poorer and more regulated because of them.
What happened was not unusual either for California or for other states. About one-fourth of all bills are passed without debate in California, and in some states the ratio is higher. There is discussion and debate, of course, in committee hearings.
Why do such things happen? The primary fault is not in the senators but in the people. All those bills had great numbers of people demanding their passage and believing that the new law would lead the state a big step closer to paradise.
If you have never heard these people testify before a committee, you have missed something. It is a good example of old-time revival fervor. Various groups regard the passage of a bill governing others, or spending money for some cause, as the salvation of man. They are like the prophets of Baal who cried, “O Baal, hear us” (1 Kings 18:26). They come to wake up their Baal, the state, and thereby to save the country.
Next year, there may be 596 bills pushed through the same way, because the legislation demanded is too much for any legislative body to deliberate on. As a result, each year we will be a little less free, and a little more taxed, and so it will continue as long as we continue to be Baal-worshippers.
Not until men look to Jesus Christ for salvation rather than to the state will the trend change. Not until men are governed by God will they seek to be less governed by the state. Only as men develop more strength through faith and obedience will they cease to try to create it by statist law.
There were 450 prophets of Baal as against the lone Elijah, but it was Elijah who triumphed, because the God of Elijah was and is the living God, but the Baal of the prophets was a product of their imagination. Men who deny the living God will make the state or man their Baal or master. Who is your Lord and Savior?
Topics: Statism, Biblical Law, Christian Reconstruction, Conspiracy, Culture , Government, Old Testament History, Reformed Thought