Witchcraft and the Church

Part 3 – Ba’al and Ashteroth

The High Priestess and her god

               Ba’al and Ashteroth (pronounced Ah-SHE-rah) are two of the most common spirits of witchcraft that the Body of Christ struggles with. Outside of one battle with Elijah and a few passages relating to the worship of Ba’al, we really don’t have a great deal of information about them given in the Bible. That being the case, we need to look into some historical facts to see what we can learn.

               Historically, Ashteroth was a harlot whom became a queen. She was married to a Babylonian king, probably before the Flood. She was not his first wife, however, so her children would not have a claim on the throne. Worse yet, in the times she lived in, her and her children would most likely be slain when the eldest son took the throne on his father’s demise. It was clear to her that she needed a plan.

               After much thought, she came up with a plan that would ensure that her and her son would not only survive, but would rule Babylon after the king’s death.

               She began to let it circulate that her husband, the king had never asked her into his bedchamber. Then she allowed the rumor mill to know that she was pregnant by a god. After this god impregnated her, she laid an egg. After several months, the egg hatched and Ba’al was born.

               Being the son of a god, Ba’al and his mother could expect a certain level of treatment, at least as long as the king was alive. She capitalized on this immediately. Once her godling was born, she had a temple built in his honor, over which she presided as High Priestess.

               The people of Babylon were ecstatic to have the son of a real live god dwelling in their midst, and with some back alley dealings from his mother, a new religion was born. This continued for the rest of the king’s life span. By the time he died, Ba’al and Ashteroth were so powerful with the people of the kingdom that the new king did not dare to have them killed. They were so powerful, in fact, that he became a puppet. The kingdom’s new rulers were actually Ba’al and Ashteroth, and they ruled from their temple.

               This is a very typical manifestation of witchcraft in the Church. The door for Ba’al is always opened by a devoted female worshipper. In his natural life, his devoted and devious mother opened the door for him. In the worship of Ba’al which continues even to this day, it is generally Jezebel which opens the door for him (1 Kings 16:31,32). He has much in common with her, and the two work together like hand in glove.

               Ba’al is aggressive, abusive (especially sexually abusive), and has an unquenchable drive to attain power. He will usually be an alpha male or alpha female, a real go getter that succeeds in nearly everything. He wants, and will attain the best in life, and is always driven to succeed.

               Ba’al is a family man in the sense that he requires others in his household, and he demands that they be completely subservient to him. He will likely have several broken relationships, and he almost always has a foul temper when things don’t go his way. This comes from his close association with Molech, the Canaanite demon-god of fire.

               Ashteroth will willingly be subservient to Ba’al, and will take his abuse just so that she can ride his coat tails of success. She has no problem allowing him to abuse her children (after all, it’s for their own good), and will deal treacherously to ensure his success.

               The worship of Ba’al was a mixture of filth from every part of life. Worship of Ba’al included temple prostitutes (see the stunning account in Proverbs chap. 7), homosexual prostitutes and sexual brutality as part of the annual holy feast. Ba’al worship also included blood-letting (1 Kings 16:28) and other forms of self abuse, and still does to this day.

Evidence of Ba’al at work in a person’s life may include numerous sin covenants, broken relationships, self destructive behavior (especially cutting or addictions) and of course, the lust for power. He will be have a foul temper, be physically and/or verbally abusive, and will treat the fairer sex like property or meat to be consumed.

Ba’al, when worshipped on a national level, always brings famine, even though he is foolishly regarded as a source of virility and fertility.  We see this in many third world countries today.

In the country of Mexico, the Virgin Mary once appeared in a corn field. As a result, worshippers come from miles away, crawling down the streets on their hands and knees to worship an image of her made of corn stalks.  By the time they reach their destination, their hands and knees are bruised and bloody, and many actually suffer from dehydration from this brutal practice. It is not my intention to offend anyone’s beliefs, but this is Ba’al worship in its’ purest form. The worshippers abuse their bodies to worship at a graven image during the harvest season. Sound familiar?

Ba’al is represented by either a calf or a bull or a man with the head of a bull or a goat. He has been present in many different religions by many different names since before the flood.

Take a close look at the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur, for example. Young men and women, virgins, were sacrificed to a man with the head of a bull. His mother is said to have had him after a sexual encounter with a mystical bull. Human sacrifice was abhorrent to the Greeks, and the Athenians finally put a stop to this practice, only to continue the worship of Ba’al under the name of Pan, god of the forest.

When we look into the Word, we can also find many examples if we understand what we are looking for.  Genesis 10:8-11 tells us about Nimrod, a mighty hunter (of men) who ruled a kingdom in the land that would someday be called Canaan. Let’s check out the text. Verse 8 tells us that he began to be a mighty one in the earth. Translation: this was the first of the giants born after the flood. In Chapter 11 of Genesis, Nimrod has gathered people together and is building a tower to reach the heavens. Why? To make a name for themselves, of course! It was their intention to raise up the name of man above the name of God. This is witchcraft at work, telling man that he too can be god.

I saw a special report on one of the Educational networks a couple of years ago that said that archaeologists have found a 300-foot high structure in the Iraqi desert which has been there so long that no-one knows why it was built. It is a five-tiered temple complex and the bottom floor is dedicated to Ba’al worship. They believe that they have found the tower of Babel. Noah hadn’t even died, yet and this demon worship had already been reborn.

When God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, the first thing they did was to build themselves a god in the shape of a calf and commit licentious acts in the name of worship. Ba’al had struck again.

Ba’al is also a false prophet. His priests and priestesses were prophets that spoke demonic prophecies to his worshippers (see the account in 1 Kings chap. 18).

Ashteroth is the female manifestation of Ba’al. She will be unswervingly loyal to him (until the covenant break-up at least), and will strive to please him whenever possible. She will accept and may even solicit sexual, verbal and emotional abuse from him, and is more than likely to have addictions of her own. Promiscuity is another sign that she is hanging around.

Ashteroth will always seek to couple herself with Ba’al, and she will be extremely unhappy and sullen without him. This may even go to the extreme of her returning to the same abusive relationship time after time until she is actually killed. Ba’al is not likely to keep covenant with her, and one sign of these two at work in the life of an individual is several broken relationships. Ba’al will keep her around to abuse her until he can trade her in for a newer, younger model. Of course, Ashteroth will likely also be present in the life of the new partner, so he never really trades her in. She just gets younger and prettier every few years.

Ba’al and Ashteroth will do incredible amounts of emotional and spiritual damage before they are usually found out. Intense deliverance counseling is required to be completely free of them. Deliverance should only be attempted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit by an experienced minister.

Without pre- and post-deliverance counseling, the oppressed victim is more than likely to return to the same condition as before, only worse. Ba’al and Ashteroth affect so many areas of an individual’s life, that counseling is necessary as a preventative measure.

It is possible to completely root out Ba’al and Ashteroth, regardless of how deeply they are buried in an individual’s life. It is quite common that they will be very deeply enmeshed in the victim’s mind because they are generational and are usually acquired at an early age. Contracted in this way, they have the ability to actually help to form an individual’s thought patterns and habits and destroy their emotional well-being from the time of their youth.

I encourage everyone to do some self examination. Ba’al is a scourge on the Church, and is easiest to be rid of when stopped in the early stages of demonization. There are many ways that doors can be opened to him. Aggressiveness, drug abuse and other self destructive behaviors, sin covenants (whether hetero or homosexual), abuse of loved ones, and especially from generational curses.

If the Spirit of the Lord reveals the presence of Ba’al in your life, don’t put it off! Seek an experienced, Spirit-led deliverance counselor right away. If a deliverance minister does not do deliverance counseling, seek out someone else. Ask the Lord to bind the works of Ba’al in your life until counseling can be found. Above all, please do not try to use self-deliverance techniques with this spirit. You may find yourself overwhelmed by a flood of emotions that you are not prepared to deal with. Always seek out help!