The Cost of the Chase

“They … have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

Do you ever wonder why so many unsaved people get increasingly bitter as they age? I believe it’s because you become like the things you chase.

Idolatry is the quintessential Old Testament sin, but it also serves as an analogy for other types of extreme self-interest. The word Baal simply means lord or owner, and the New Testament teaches us that ownership of the human heart comes in many guises.

What Comes After the ‘Going After’

The Baals of today can be your ideal bank account balance, your fantasy lifestyle or a self-image derived from taking sexual pleasure at the expense of others, but one thing that always happens when you go after Baal in any form is that you change. It can’t be helped. Whatever a man serves, that thing transforms him in ways he may never detect.

This holds true whether or not you catch the Baals you are chasing. In fact, most people don’t. An avaricious man is more likely to end up a petty criminal than a Wall Street success story. He is still owned by mammon. The gold-digger ages alone after turning down multiple offers from slightly lower-status men than her unrealistic targets. She is still owned by her materialist fantasies. Large numbers of sexually obsessed young men make do with porn because the objects of their desire are not remotely obtainable. They are still owned by their lust. The quest transforms them even when they are entirely unsuccessful in achieving their goals. It’s not the particular Baal you serve that remakes you, it’s chasing them that does it, and chasing the Baals transforms the flotsam of society as easily as it does the cream.

The Ruin of Ordinary Men

When Jeremiah weeps for his people in chapter 9, it’s not the rich and successful he’s thinking about. Chasing the Baals had ruined the people next door:

“Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah lived in a nation that learned the Baals from their fathers and refused to let them go. And so they became the thing they valued. Idols deceive. So do their worshipers. Idols take things from you that you cannot afford. Surprise, so do their worshipers. Idols cheat their worshipers and their worshipers cheat each other.

Glory to Glory … or Not

In Christ, the believer beholds the Lord of glory and is thereby transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, glory into greater glory, becoming like their Lord. Those who chase today’s Baals, like the people of Judah, proceed “from evil to evil”, heap “oppression on oppression” and “deceit upon deceit”. As Jeremiah put it, “They went after worthlessness, and became worthless.”

They may not engrave it on your tombstone, but that’s how it works. And it’s a sad way to end your life.