by Pastor Matt Black
Today at 10am, June 24, 2022, I was ten minutes from the Supreme Court building when the overturn of Roe v. Wade occurred. After 63 million innocent babies were murdered by their parents and fifty years of injustice for the pre-born children of America, some justice is finally being experienced. I say say some, because the battle will not end until the murder of pre-born children is a crime in all fifty states of our great union. We cannot be satisfied with this ruling. It puts the abortion question back to the states where likely at least 24 states or more will have legalized child murder of babies in their mother’s wombs.
My twin sister and I were born two and a half months premature at 26 weeks old. In 1974, such tiny babies could barely survive, but with the help of the NICU, a lot of love, and God’s grace, we lived. A year earlier, Roe vs. Wade had been decided upon. The abortion rate skyrocketed at the same time that the NICUs (neonatal intensive care units) were coming to a wider functionality. While hundreds of thousands of dollars were being spent to save my life and my sister’s life, hundreds of thousands of other children were just being thrown away. At the age of an hour old, we were flown in a helicopter from Blue Island Illinois to Maywood at Loyola University Medical Center where our lives were spared. I’m so glad God spared my life. So many babies are not as blessed as I have been. Our culture is so confused. For some babies, we are willing to pay millions of dollars to save them. Others, we are willing to throw away like trash. No human being should have the right to take the life of another human being.
How strange that in our country before a baby is born, a mother can take the life of her child, yet moments later, if the baby is outside the womb, the mother would be charged with murder.y twin sister and I were born two and a half months premature at 26 weeks old. In 1974, such tiny babies could barely survive, but with the help of the NICU, a lot of love, and God’s grace, we lived. A year earlier, Roe vs. Wade had been decided upon. The abortion rate skyrocketed at the same time that the NICUs (neonatal intensive care units) were coming to a wider functionality. While hundreds of thousands of dollars were being spent to save my life and my sister’s life, hundreds of thousands of other children were just being thrown away. At the age of an hour old, we were flown in a helicopter from Blue Island Illinois to Maywood at Loyola University Medical Center where our lives were spared. I’m so glad God spared my life. So many babies are not as blessed as I have been. Our culture is so confused. For some babies, we are willing to pay millions of dollars to save them. Others, we are willing to throw away like trash. No human being should have the right to take the life of another human being.
Are children just things we throw away? God says that every child is precious. Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made.
In Psalm 106, we have a summary of the history of God’s people in the Old Testament. They said they worshipped the one true God, but they also worshipped the gods of prosperity and personal comfort, and as a result sacrificed their children to the prosperity gods.
Psalm 106:38 │ They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
Today in America, we have done the same. God judged the nation of Israel. But Israel cried out for mercy, and the Lord showed mercy. The churches in America are being taken over by false teaching, and so many that once stood strong are no longer standing for the gospel or the sanctity of life.
It is obvious to all that the Lord has already begun his judgment upon our nation. We have forsaken him. But we are going to find out in Psalm 106, that God is merciful to the most undeserving. He will hear our cry. But he requires repentance. He required that Israel repent of child sacrifice to Molech.
This morning, we are at a pivotal point in our nation’s history. The Supreme Court has already signaled that when they meet again in June 2022, we could very well see the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and abortion will be decided on a state-by-state basis. The same may happen with same-sex mirage (it’s not marriage but immorality in God’s eyes).
I want us to keep our eyes on God’s heart in all of this. We as Christians need to realize that this will only be a partial victory. We need to be calling for the complete abolition of abortion.
When heroes in the past called for the abolition of slavery, and you had the underground railroad, and people risked their lives, it would have been no great victory that some states allowed slavery and others didn’t. Something that is immoral should be completely and utterly abolished, and we as believers need to have the heart of God on this.
Here is our key thought: We need to love the children like God does. We need to call for the complete abolition of child murder.
In Psalm 106, we have the history of God’s people Israel. They were supposed to conquer the land of Canaan, but instead they married their daughters and adopted their idols. It led to terrible consequences for their families and for their nation. We can learn a lot about our own families and our own nation by reading it.
Psalm 106:34-48 │ They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them, 35 but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. 36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. 39 Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds. 40 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; 41 he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power. 43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity. 44 Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. 45 For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 46 He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive. 47 Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. 48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord!
The Atrocities of Child Murder (106:34-39)
As we begin, I want you to see the atrocities of abortion as compared with ancient child sacrifice. There are many parallels. Ancient rituals of infanticide and the modern practice of abortion have many things in common. Not much has changed except the culture has sanitized the barbarous practices with pleasant sounding words like “pro-choice” and “family planning.”
Both are premeditated murder.
Both care nothing for the welfare of the child, only the welfare of the parents.
Both worship the god of sexual gratification.
Both were countenanced by the government that was supposed to protect the most weak and helpless.
The Same Advanced Society
Child murder through abortion is often covered up because of society’s advancement. Everyone seems to have a better standard of living, and so child murder in the womb seems justified, or at least sanitized. Look at Israel of old. Instead of conquering Canaan and living lives of holiness, they adapted to heathen society and became just like them.
Psalm 106:34-37 │ They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them, 35 but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. 36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons;
I want to bring you back to the time of this Psalm. Israel had been scattered among the nations. One of those nations was the prosperous city of Carthage. It is a city on the tip of northern Africa, just east of modern-day Algeria. It was the capital of the Carthaginian Empire, one of the longest-living and largest empires in the ancient Mediterranean. Elissa, Queen of Tyre founded the empire, and with her, brought the practice of child sacrifice. At the height of that empire, Carthage was the most sophisticated, well-educated, militarily superior, and technologically advanced nation on in the ancient world. And yet in all their sophistication, knowledge, and advancement, they were also destroying millions of babies in child sacrifice each year. A modern historian asks of the ancient people of Carthage:
How could a culture so well developed morally, intellectually, and materially tolerate so ‘abominable’ a custom? How could a sophisticated people sanction what seems to be such a barbaric practice for so long a time? How at the most vulnerable and critical level could human parents bring about the destruction of their own child? —P. G. Mosca, Harvard University[1]
We could ask the same question about 21st century America. “How can a culture so well developed morally, intellectually and materially tolerate so abominable a custom as abortion?” How can we with such an intellectual and moral heritage tolerate over 62 million abortions in this country since 1973 (as of 2022)? Their names would fill the Vietnam Veterans’ War Memorial wall 862 times. Some today will tell us that the abortion rate is going down. That’s only partially true. Surgical abortions are declining at the same time that abortions
In ancient times, child sacrifice was a prominent part of the pagan society. People would sacrifice a son or a daughter in order to atone for sin, become prosperous, win a victory in war, or gain the favor of a false god. They wanted their life to go well, and they were willing to murder their baby for a better life. It is horrendous to think about, but it was quite common in ancient times.
In today’s world, we believe we’ve achieved a higher state of humanity. Most believe the human race is much kinder and gentler. The truth of the matter is that as long as the practice of abortion is allowed to remain legal, we remain just as barbaric and pagan today as in the past. We may be intellectually and materially sophisticated, but we are just as brutish and cold as ancient Carthage.
One of the leaders of the early church there in Carthage is Quintus Septimius Tertullian. He strongly condemned the sanitizing of child murder. Listen to what he said.
There is no difference as to baby killing whether you do it as a sacred rite or just because you choose to do it. For us murder is once for all forbidden; so even the child in the womb, while yet the mother’s blood is still being drawn on to form the human being, it is not lawful to destroy. To forbid birth is only quicker murder. It makes no difference whether one take away the life once born or destroy it as it comes to birth. He is a man, who is to be a man, the fruit is always present in the seed. —Quintus Septimius Tertullian[2]
Tertullian was right. Therefore, there is no difference between ancient paganism and modern abortion.
The Same Propaganda
Second, consider that both ancient infanticide and modern abortion there is an unwillingness to admit that these practices are premeditated murder. There is a propaganda. They call murder mills, “Planned Parenthood.” They should call it “Murder Mill USA.” The Psalmist doesn’t hold back. He calls this what it is: the murder of the innocents.
Psalm 106:37-38 │ They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
The Bible makes it clear here that this was premeditated murder of their sons and daughters. They joined with the pagans in this. America’s land too is polluted with blood. The atrocities here are nothing more than they were in ancient times: nothing more than premeditated murder.
The Same Child Neglect
Third, Consider that in pagan child sacrifice, no regard was given to the child’s suffering. Mothers think they can make everything better by taking away the life of the child. The Prophet Micah asks a vital question.
Micah 6:7 │ Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
The answer is no! We can’t get rid of the child to make our life better or to avoid the consequences of sin. A child is a blessing from the Lord no matter how he or she was conceived. In ancient times, the practice was obviously barbaric. But the people superstitiously believed that if they sacrificed their children to the prosperity gods, they would prosper. Listen to a first century A.D. description of the barbaric practice.
There would be a bronze image[3] of the false deity… extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.[4]
You would think the mothers in ancient would be beside themselves in grief. This was not the case. In fact, when offering a sacrifice, the mothers were not allowed to shed a single tear, or it was believed it would “ruin” the effect of the sacrifice.[5] The screams and pain of the child were drowned out. The parents and the crowd ignored the pain and helplessness of the child. They did not want to admit to their consciences that they were indeed committing murder. Plutarch, a first century Greek historian, says that:
The whole area before the statue would be filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.[6]
Our nation’s laws protect the lives of animals far more stringently than children. The penalty for killing a bald eagle is a maximum of five years of imprisonment, a $250,000 fine for felony convictions, and a maximum of a $10,000 fine for civil violations. While taking the lives of preborn babies is not only legal but encouraged.
Today, the mother is taught to ignore the personhood and the pain of the child she aborts. She is told that the baby is just a “mere, unfeeling mass of tissue.”[7]
Actually, by eight weeks, the baby has his very own fingerprints and can “feel pain.”[8] The mother ought to consider that this child is a gift from God, that this baby is “fearfully and wonderfully made” by a loving Creator.
Psalm 139:13-14 │ For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
God forbade his people in the Old Testament from practicing child murder and infanticide.
Leviticus 18:21, NKJV │ You shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech.
God wanted his people to know that infanticide is premeditated murder. This was the so with ancient paganism, and it is true with modern abortion.
The procedure today is much more sanitized today than it was in ancient times, but it is none the less just as barbaric to the child. With each child abortion murder, the child is literally ripped apart, limb by limb in the womb. After the murder is complete, the death doctor is mandated by law to put the baby back together, part by part in order to ensure that no part of the baby is left behind in the mother’s womb. As I have said, the safest place in the universe should be the mother’s womb.
The Same Selfishness
Fourth, the emphasis of the modern abortion movement cares nothing for the welfare of the child, but only the welfare of the mother. So it was with the pagan religions.
Psalm 106:37-39 │ They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. 39 Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds.
They went a whoring after their own desires and had no regard for their children. The pagans would sacrifice their child in order to gain success. Today men and women will sacrifice their child for the success of finishing her education or of entering into a career.
For single mothers, life is hard with no father in the home. While women today do not destroy their children out of superstition as the pagans did, she does it for selfish reasons: she wants immediate relief from the crisis.
The main reason for sacrificing a child was to avert potential dangers in a crisis…Today many times when a woman faces an unwanted pregnancy abortion seems to be the only way to resolve the crisis she finds herself in. The potential dangers to reputation, education, career, etc., become overwhelming.[9]
The mother wants to have a life beyond taking care of a child. She wants to start a family on her own timetable. She looks at the child as an interruption to her life. What selfish thinking! Yet it is prevalent in our country. Sadly, even the most high officials in our government said, “if [one of my daughters] makes a mistake, I don’t want her punished with a baby.”[10] Mothers should think about the responsibilities of a baby before they give themselves to a man. They should reserve their purity for marriage.
“Another woman may experience much less of the anxiety and fear that accompany a crisis. She may simply see the pregnancy as an intrusion into her self-serving lifestyle and an obstacle in the way of the road to her success. Sadly, this woman’s offspring must be sacrificed so that she can continue uninterrupted with her plans for the future.”[11]
Another motivation for abortion is avoiding a stigma—perhaps the child was conceived from a relationship of fornication or adultery.
Other mothers perhaps do not think they can handle the financial responsibilities, much less the emotional toll of motherhood.
Sadly, 3500 times every day in America, a mother believes that for her own comfort and welfare she should end the life of the child. I have to stop and ask a question: what about the comfort and welfare of the child? Do you see the deadly and monstrous selfishness of our culture that would take the life of a helpless child in exchange for comfort?
Paganism was just as self-centered. They would sacrifice their children for their own comfort—when they wanted to have great favor in life and great success, or even when they wanted to avoid a crisis, they would sacrifice their infant.[12]
The Same Satanic Control
Furthermore, both pagan child sacrifice and modern abortion are from the devil.
Psalm 106:39 │ They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons.
Infanticide in any form is satanic. It is murderous. It is Satan’s plan to destroy you any way he can. Jesus exposes Satan’s murderous intent.
John 8:44 │ You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning.
Let us recognize that the wicked one would not have us to be merciful and support adoption.
John 10:10 │ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Satan only wants to kill and destroy. But God wants you to experience his grace and life. He would have us do the hard work of parenting with his power and his grace. He would not want us to sacrifice an education or a career to raise a child. Let us cast off the works of darkness and live as children of light!
The Same Immorality
John 3:19 │ People love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil.
People in the ancient world loved immorality so much they were willing to commit murder. So it is today. A clear parallel between ancient paganism and modern abortion is the worship of the god of sexual gratification. In ancient times, God warned his people not to have illicit relationships in the groves of Asherah. Prostitution was a major part of the fertility cults of Baal and Asherah. Abortion through child sacrifice was acutely linked to this immorality. We think we have become civilized, but we commit the same immorality according to scholar and archeologist Andrew White.
Child sacrifice may have been a convenient way to dispose of the consequences of the illicit sexual practice of Molech and Asherah worship. It is no secret therefore that in American society extramarital sexual intercourse (fornication and adultery) is the cause of most pregnancies that end in abortion.[13]
The pagans wanted sexual gratification with no commitment. It is the same in American culture today. Pregnancy is a risk that many men are willing to take knowing they can do away with their responsibilities with $900 and a trip to the abortion clinic.
The Same Cowardly Leadership
Another parallel between modern abortion and ancient paganism is leadership. Those leaders in Israel who were in a position to protect the welfare of the helpless were the very people who were carrying out their destruction. So it is in our country today.
Cowardly in Government
God commands us to protect the helpless. In Israel, those who were appointed by God to protect the weak and needy, were taking advantage of them.
Psalm 82:2-4 │ How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah 3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. 4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Instead of protecting children and supporting two parent homes, our government across these United States are endangering children in the womb for money. It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. We have laws for those who are handicapped outside the womb, but if you are helpless and inside the womb, you are not protected in most states. This is how it was among the ancient pagans.
So it is today. Our senators and congressman were elected to protect and defend our rights and liberties, especially for the weakest among us. Even our Declaration of Independence states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.—The Declaration of Independence
It seems some men, if they be weak or in the womb, have lost their right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in America! Church, we need to stand up for the rights of the unborn.
Cowardly in Hospitals
It is a shock that we will do all we can today to give the best life to someone outside of the womb if they become handicapped or debilitated in some way. We have all kinds of technology to help in the best quality of life. Yet inside the womb today, we are no better than the ancient pagans.
Two inscriptions at Carthage even show that occasionally the parents would sacrifice a handicapped child hoping to later receive a healthy one as a substitute.
In one inscription a man named Tuscus says that he gave Ba’al “his mute son Bod’astart, a handicapped child, in exchange for a healthy one.”[14]
It is the same today. Pregnant women facing the possibility of having a handicapped child are given the option of ending the child’s life. We have always flatly refused any kind of test that would determine whether or not a child is handicapped. It should be the highest insult to the Christian since all children are equally loved by God no matter how weak or strong they are. Our worth does not come from our physical strength but from the heart of God and his image in us.
Our doctors and nurses who are in a place of great esteem are giving advice to young impressionable single mothers. Their advice should be responsible. Instead, in many cases, they give advice that will destroy not just the child’s life, but the mother’s life. The health consequences of child murder on a mother’s body are atrocious.
The mother is also as she is left to defy her God-given conscience and deal with the profound guilt of murder. The doctor who is supposed to protect her welfare urges her to break the universal laws of nature, the laws of God in her own conscience.
Cowardly in Churches
Today, we find that very few churches are willing to address child murder head on. Very few Christians want their lives to be interrupted to protect pre-born babies.
It was no different in ancient Israel. Look over at 2 Chronicles 28. Here we have King Ahaz in the time of Isaiah taking the throne and being the first not only to allow child sacrifice, but to actually participate in it.
2 Chronicles 28:1-4 │ Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and … he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done, 2 but … he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
Ahaz as well as many of the leaders in Israel either allowed it or participated in it. Those whom God gave to protect Israel were preying on their most helpless citizens!
Now God does not sit back and just observe the atrocity of child murder. His anger is against child murder.
God’s Anger Against Child Murder (106:40-43)
God hates murder, especially the murder of a child. Children are the most vulnerable, and the mother’s womb should be the safest place in the world.
Psalm 106:40-43 │ Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; 41 he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power. 43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.
In Israel, God gave his people into the hands of the nations who ruled over them and eventually took them away from their land into captivity. God delivered them on many occasions, but they continued in their rebellion. It was their own choice to be brought lower and lower because of this heinous sin of abortion. God hates abortion for several reasons.
The Image of God in the Womb
Children are fully human at the moment of conception. They are made in his image.
Psalm 139:13-16 │ For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Every single person on the planet has dignity and worth. Dignity does not come from strength or intelligence or even worthiness. Dignity comes from the Creator who made us because we are made in his image.
Genesis 1:27 │ God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
God is angry with anyone who would harm someone made in his image, especially a helpless, innocent baby. Every child has the worth and dignity of God’s image and deserves our love and care and greatest tenderness and kindness.
The Son of God in the Womb
Remember when Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit, she went to visit her cousin Elisabeth. There was a worship service that went on between the two babies in their womb.
Luke 1:41-44 │ When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist, just 24 weeks (six months) in utero, was filled with the Spirit so much that he leaped in the womb. And Jesus, just conceived is the second person of the Trinity, one with the Spirit of God. What a worship service between babies that our society would threaten with murder if they lived today.
God the Son was once in the womb. He was 100% human the moment he was conceived. And no baby in the womb today is any less human than the Son of God.
The Call of God from the Womb
Jesus loves little children. He calls us from before we are in the womb. Remember what the Lord said to Jeremiah?
Jeremiah 1:5 │ Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
He says to the littlest of children “of such is the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:14). If you have God’s heart for children, you will not stand idle, but you will have the same hatred of sin that God has for it because you have a love for the tiniest children made in his image.
God’s Amazing Grace for Sinners (106:44-48)
The amazing grace of God to sinners. With all the atrocities, not only of abortion, but of all sin, God is a merciful and pitiful God. The Scriptures says that we are “without strength” to save ourselves.
Behold His Love
Consider the context of Psalm 106. The enemies of God’s people had the upper hand. They were influencing the culture and practices of Israel. Israel had turned from the Lord and had become like their pagan neighbors.
Psalm 106:44-47 │ Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. 45 For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 46 He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive. 47 Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.
As horrible as the sin of abortion is, it is forgivable by the grace of God! Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. There is no unpardonable sin, except the very rejection of grace! God’s grace and mercy can pardon any sin!
Psalm 103:12 │ As far as the east is from the west, so far will he removed our transgressions from us.
Bless the Lord
What a gracious God we serve! He will forgive the greatest sins. He will pardon the chief of sinners. Let us bless him with the Psalmist.
Psalm 106:48 │ Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord!
Conclusion
Our country has adopted the ways and the attitudes of the heathen. What can you do to make a difference?
There is a story that brings this truth home about an elderly German man who lived through the Holocaust that answers that question. He says:
I always considered myself a Christian. I attended a church since I was a small boy. We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews; but like most people in America today, we tried to distance ourselves from the reality of what was really taking place. What could anyone do to stop it?
A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we would hear the whistle from a distance and then the clacking of the wheels moving over the track. We became disturbed when one Sunday we heard cries coming from the train as it passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews.
Week after week that train whistle would blow. We would dread to hear the sound of those old wheels because we knew that the Jews would begin to cry out to us as they passed our church. It was so terribly disturbing! We could do nothing to help these poor people, yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly at what time that whistle would blow, and we decided the only way to keep from being so disturbed by the cries was to start singing our hymns. If some of the screams reached our ears, we’d sing a little louder until we could hear them no more.
Years have passed, and no one talks about it much any more; but I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. God forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians, yet did nothing to intervene.[15]
Does this sound like the United States in 2022 — are we tempted to just “sing a little louder”? That story, which speaks so pointedly to the weakness of the church in Germany, speaks also to us: Do we hear the train here in America—the cries of the pre-born children in our abortion clinics, the abused child across the street, or the minorities who are daily discriminated against in the normal course of their existence? Or does our busy service for Christ drown out these muffled cries?
What can we do to make a difference? If you call yourself a Christian, protect the lives of the unborn.
- Experience God’s forgiveness yourself. You may have been part of ending the life of a child. God’s love and mercy extends beyond the heavens! His mercy is greater than all our sin. Where sin abounds, grace superabounds!
- Pray. Pray for our nation and our nation’s leaders. Pray for mothers and fathers to protect the life of the unborn.
- Visit the pregnant mothers at the abortion mills. Be committed to going. You don’t need to say anything. Your presence there is a powerful, powerful testimony to all who enter those doors.
- Be willing to adopt. There are always mothers who God gets ahold of and they realize they are not able to raise the child, so they need the church of Jesus to step in. Be ready, if called upon, to adopt.
- Don’t “sing a little louder” but instead evangelize. Be ready always to give an answer. Give hope to the hopeless.
The only way to stop a mindset of paganism in America is to bring the light of the gospel. God’s grace can cleanse us from every sin!
[1] P.G. Mosca, Child Sacrifice in Caananite and Israelite Religion, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1975, op. cit., pp. 273, 274.
[2] Tertullian, Apologeticus IX.- 6,8.
[3] In other cultures, the parents would simply abandon the child to a wilderness where there were wild animals.
[4] “Perpetua,” translated by Herbert Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford University Press, 1972), 127.
[5] Nick Frost. Child Welfare (Routledge: London, 2005), 48.
[6] “Perpetua,” by Musurillo, 127.
[7] Gladys Mwiti, Ph.D. Young Lives at Risk (Evangel Publishing House: Nairobi, Kenya, 1997), 6.
[8] Proposed Constitutional Amendments on Abortion: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, Second Session, (Published by U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), 401.
[9] Andrew White, M.D. Abortion and the Ancient Practice of Child Sacrifice (Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine, Volume 1, Number 2) 27.
[10] Barack Obama. The Dallas Morning News article, “Obama’s “punished with a baby” remark (Topic of the Day)”, Monday, April 07, 2008.
[11] White, Abortion and the Ancient Practice of Child Sacrifice, 36.
[12] P.G. Mosca, Child Sacrifice in Caananite and Israelite Religion, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1975, p. 22.
[13] White, Abortion and the Ancient Practice of Child Sacrifice, 36.
[14] Kennedy, C., “Queries/Comments,” Biblical Archeologie Review, May/June 1984, p. 20, citing J. Feuvier’s article “Une Sacrifice d’Enfant chez les Numides,” Annuaire de l’Institut de Philogic et d’Histoire Orientales et Slave, 1953.
[15] As recounted in Erwin W. Lutzer, Hitler’s Cross (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2016), 124.