THE FALLING AWAY; OR "THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM."
By Lee S. Wheeler
SUN worship was the greatest abomination of Old Testament times. "Ra was the Egyptian sun god and was worshiped at Heliopolis [city of the sun]."—Rawlinson. The Canaanitish nations, the Syrians and the Phoenicians, worshiped it under the name of Baal; and "the ancient rites of Baal-Peor, but little changed in the course of ages, intruded themselves into the sanctuary of the Capitoline Jove."—Milman. And Mosheim says that "all the Eastern nations performed divine worship with their faces turned toward that part of the heavens where the sun displays its rising beams." See also Eze. 8: 16. Sunday (sun's day) was so called because from the earliest antiquity it was dedicated to such worship. Moser says: "It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of this day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial of their veneration dedicated this day to him."—Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 22. Jennings says that when the Israelites left Egypt their custom of commencing the day (at sunset) was in opposition to "the idolatrous nations, who, in honor to their chief god, the sun, began their day at his rising."—Jewish Antiquities, book 3, chap. 1, p. 297. To keep his people from falling into the idolatry of those nations, they were commanded not to "observe times" which were holy to that worship (Lev. 19: 26; Deut. 18: 10, 24; 2 Kings 21: 6); but to remember the Lord's Sabbath (Lev. 20), compare verses 26 and 30. The Lord said also: "It shall be a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you [separate you or set you apart]." Ex. 31: 13. So long as they kept the Sabbath holy, it would distinguish them from others as worshipers of the true God, who created the sun and "all the hosts of heaven." Compare Ex. 20: 10, 11 with 2 Chron. 33: 3. It marked them as Jehovah's, and, so long as "remembered," it was impossible to fall into idolatry and the observance of "times," sacred to the heathen. "Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs." Lev. 18: 30. That his people might have nothing in common with the customs of these nations, they were commanded to erect the tabernacle, and the worshipers were to enter and worship toward the west, instead of the east, as did the sun worshipers, whose altars and high places looked toward the sun-rising. By these things the Lord intended to leave no way open for an amalgamation of the true worship with Baal [sun] worship. Notwithstanding all this, they soon fell into an apostasy, which afterward was repeated in the Christian dispensation, and foretold by Paul as the "falling away." At Shittim, in the land of Moab, the children of Israel were seduced into this kind of idolatry by the people of Balak. "They called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-Peor [sun worship, verse 4]." Num. 25: 1-4. "These caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of [Baal] Peor" (Num. 31: 16), until twenty-four thousand perished by the plague. This was the work of Balaam, who left the counsel of the Lord, and followed Balak, to seduce Israel into the rites of Baal (sun) worship, for which he knew the anger of the Lord would be kindled against them, and their nation would fall. The gospel dispensation opened when this sun worship was having a revival among the Gentile nations. They even hoped that "the Jewish, the Samaritan, even the Christian, were to be fused, and recast into one great system, of which the SUN was to be the central object of adoration."—Milman. Paul foresaw the dangers and referred to the Balaam apostasy as a warning:— "Now these things were our examples [or figures, margin], to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." 1 Cor. 10: 6-8, compared with Num. 25: 1, 9. "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather, reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret [the mysteries]." Eph. 5: 11, 12. Among the Greeks and Romans, the people of the East, nothing was held more sacred than what were called the mysteries.—Mosheim. "The mysteries were simply forms of the widespread and multiform sun worship."—Two Republics. And, therefore, "there was always in it, as an essential of it, the elements of abomination that characterized sun worship everywhere."—Id. This worship was especially carried on upon the day of the sun god, "the venerable day of the sun," "Dies Solis," our present Sunday (sun's day). With such things Christians were to have no fellowship, but were admonished to "flee from idolatry" (2 Cor. 10: 14), "for the mystery of iniquity doth already work." 2 Thess. 2: 7. Said the great apostle, "I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears." Acts 20: 31. And yet Rev. 2: 14 tells us that the Balaam seduction was spreading among the people, i. e., they were joining themselves to sun worship. Dr. Killen, in the preface to his "Ancient Church," says, "Rites and ceremonies of which neither Paul nor Peter ever heard, crept silently into use, and then claimed the ranks of divine institutions." "Constantine933dared to mingle together the attributes of the SUN, of CHRIST, and of himself."—Milman. The policy of "half pagan, half Christian," was a mould in which the two systems were run together; "then the universal deity of the East, the SUN, to the philosophic, was the emblem, or representative; to the vulgar, the Deity."—Milman. At this stage of apostasy, when the elements were plastic, "owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment, . . . THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the venerable day of the SUN. . . . It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one COMMON INSTITUTION."—Stanley. Christians acquiesced, interpreting "Sun's day" to refer to the "Sun of Righteousness." While they rejected the gross error of supposing that God dwelt in the sun, "they retained the ancient and universal custom of worshiping toward the east, which sprang from it."—Mosheim. A practice condemned by the Lord. Eze. 8: 16. Thus Baal's day, with its rites, was venerated, and only time and superstition were required to hallow as divine this abominable practice. All this was according to "the doctrine of Balaam." Rev. 2: 14. But where did God ever give his people a "common institution" with Gentile heathen, in their abominations? "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor. 6: 15), or the Sabbath of the Lord with that of Belial (the devil)? For says Paul, "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." 1 Cor. 10: 20. Sunday was dedicated to these sacrifices, and therefore to the devil. When Christians observed the day of devil worshipers, with what were they in "fellowship" and in "concord," but these and the "works of darkness"? If meats sacrificed to idols were unfit for their service (Rev. 2: 14), so was the day; and the will of the Lord was plain in reference to whatever had any connection with these abominations: "Come out from among them, and be ye SEPARATE, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." 2 Cor. 6: 17. "Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you [separate you]." Ex. 31: 13. But just as the people left the Sabbath of the Lord in the Old Testament and went after Baal, so they did now, and just as then, when some reformer arose in Israel, as Joash, it is said: "And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. . . . Howbeit the high places were not taken away; as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places." 2 Kings 14: 3, 4. So now Sunday keeping remains unto this day," as says Stanley, "The tenacious adherence to the ancient god of light has left its trace even to our own time."—History of the Eastern Church. It remains for those who claim that the Sabbath was changed by divine authority, but can show no proof for it, to consider why God should abolish the Sabbath, descended from Eden (Gen. 2: 3), sacredly preserved through forty centuries, hallowed by patriarchs, prophets, and priests, by Jesus, the Holy One, and his apostles, whose memories of holy rest were primeval, and substitute a day prostituted to devil worship, whose associations still tinge with pollution the reminiscences of sacred life that linger about the Holy Land, whose time-overgrown memorials of licentious practice still remain by the Nile, the Jordan, and the Tiber,—Sunday, name that summons to the revel of the gods the shades of Bacchus and of Baal, the signal of apostasy, "the mark of the beast."