From the beginning of time, man has learned that he is not right with God. In order to fix the problem most nations around the world taught the necessity of propitiating their gods with a blood sacrifice. However, long before the nations were formed, the Creator introduced a sacrificial system that would magnify His Justice, Mercy and Grace.

In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had sinned, the Lord taught them how to atone for their sins. This He did when He made them, “coats of skins” (Genesis 3:21) to cover their nakedness. The “coats of skins” implied the death of a substitute, and was the only means whereby they could be forgiven and reconciled back to Him. This was to teach their generations that, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

From that time forward Adam and Eve taught their children, “his way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:12). We see how their son Abel was approved of God when he brought an offering unto the Lord, “the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof” (Genesis 4:4).

When Noah got off the ark he built, “an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar” (Genesis 8:20). Job, who “was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1), “offered burnt offerings … continually” (Job 1:5) for his children. When Abraham was tried by God, he “built an altar … and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son” (Genesis 22:9, 13).

All of these sacrifices were types and shadows pointing us to Christ, the true Lamb of God who would some day come with salvation and give, “himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).

After the Flood, however, it did not take long for man to corrupt, “His way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:12). The Lord had set before them the, “way of life … that he may depart from hell beneath” (Proverbs 15:24), but to turn from His commandment was the road to destruction. This road would lead all who take it into the depths of depravity.

But how low could they sink? Their minds had become so dark that they began sacrificing their own children, thinking they were doing a service to God. However, the apostle Paul knew whom they were serving. “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God” (1 Corinthians 10:20).

The Canaanites were such a nation. They were a nation formed after the confusion of tongues at Babel, and their religion included human sacrifice. God had sternly warned the children of Israel against the way of the Canaanites saying, “ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you” (Leviticus 20:23). They were not to make any covenants with them, they were not to marry them (Deuteronomy 7:1-5), and as for their religious practices, the Lord said, “thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech” (Leviticus 18:21).

The religion of the Canaanites included building “high places” where they worshipped the host of heaven and offered sacrifice to their gods. They had become so irreparably wicked that God told the Israelites to, “utterly destroy them” (Deuteronomy 7:2). Refusing to follow His instructions, however, turned them from the “way” of their Maker and they began to follow the abominations of the Canaanites.

“And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not” (Jeremiah 32:35).“Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood” (Psalm 106:37-38).

The Lord said, “they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them” (Ezekiel 23:37).

All the prophets of God raised up their voice in like manner. “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. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart” (Jeremiah 7:30-31).

Manasseh, “did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the LORD, whereof the LORD had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever” (2 Chronicles 33:1-7).

Given the above, we can see that the Canaanite religion consisted of building “high places” that were used to worship various astral deities. They made idols of their gods and built altars where they offered human sacrifice to appease them.

Now, if it were possible to be transported back in time to the ancient land of Anahuac (Mexico), and observe the customs of the people, it would not be unreasonable to think we were in the ancient land of Canaan, for the Mayan and Aztec cultures were astoundingly similar.

It would be mere folly to say that the Mayan and the Aztec nations learned their religions all on their own for it would not be possible to mimic, so perfectly, the religion of the Canaanites without having any prior acquaintance with it.

The testimony of historians is united concerning the religion that prevailed in the Americas from the earliest period of discovery. “Human sacrifice was certainly practiced by the Maya in all periods of their history, but never on the same scale as by the Aztec, who wallowed in the blood of their sacrifices.” (The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, J. Eric S. Thompson, p. 279, 1966)

Prescott gives us a visual account of the ritualistic sacrifice that was practiced by the Aztec. It was most gruesome, but almost always, the willing victims, who thought it a great honor and the gateway to paradise, often met their death without resistance.

After being led up the pyramid, “on the summit he was received by six priests … [who] led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its upper surface somewhat convex. On this the prisoner stretched. Five priests secured his head and his limbs; while the sixth clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor of itztle,--a volcanic substance, hard as flint,--and, inserting his hand into the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The minister of death, first holding this up towards the sun, an object of worship throughout Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in humble adoration.” (Prescott's Mexico, Volume I, p. 74, 1898)

He introduced the worship of Baal and when Elijah rebuked his wickedness, there was a challenge to see who was the true God. Elijah and the prophets of Baal each prepared a sacrifice and it was agreed that the true God would answer them with fire from heaven to consume their sacrifice. When the prophets of Baal received no response they, “cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1Kings 18:21-29).

This was the “manner” in which the Canaanites tried to get a response from their gods. The Mayan and Aztec customs were the same. “The sacrifice of one's own blood was very common. Usually a cord set with thorns was passed through the tongue, a method represented in Maya sculpture and on the murals of Bonampak. The blood was allowed to drip on strips of bark-paper, which were then offered to the gods… blood was drawn twice a day from arms, nose, tongue, ears, and all members of the body, sixty, eighty, or one hundred days before a big festival.” (The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, J. Eric S. Thompson, p. 284, 1966)

What took place at Babel affected the world in such a way that John described her in the Revelation as the “MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (Revelation 17:5). This ancient city became a symbol of a great whore riding on the backs of the nations down through history. (For more on this subject see Appendix II)

She had a “cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Revelation 17:4), and she “made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Revelation 14:8).

The prophet Jeremiah said Babylon “made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7). All the Gentile kingdoms of the world fell prey to her seduction and by her “sorceries were all nations deceived” (Revelation 18:23).