Stop Killing God’s Children

I can’t watch the Planned Parenthood videos. I’ve been reading articles by people who have seen them, though, and that’s enough to break my heart. How could we as a society and a nation have reached the point where chopping up living infants is not a crime?

It boggles my mind that any sort of decent person can condone this, but what’s even more disturbing is that some professing Christians still support abortion. We sometimes look at the Old Testament and wonder how a loving, merciful God could be so harsh and cruel, yet we overlook passages where God talks about looking at His own people with horror. As a God of both mercy and justice, there are some things He simply cannot stand for.

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 to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’ (Jer. 32:35)

God found the idea of a nation murdering its children completely repulsive. It never even crossed His mind that Israel should do such a thing, and He certainly didn’t command it. But just in case it ever popped into their heads, He made sure to expressly forbid human sacrifice.

You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. (Deut. 12:31)

Child sacrifice was the epitome of the sins these nations committed. It’s one of the chief reasons God decided they deserved the sort of punishment — often complete annihilation — that makes us so squeamish today. And yet here we are in the United States, doing pretty much the same thing. We’re not killing babies as part of a worship practice, but it has the same result. We’re voluntarily slaughtering infants because we’ve put other concerns before God’s laws.

In Proverbs 6, God talks about seven things that He hates. “Hands that shed innocent blood” is the one that most clearly applies to abortion. What blood could be more innocent than that of an unborn child? But other abominable things play a role as well. “A lying tongue” tells women who feel trapped that abortion is their best or only option. “A heart that devises wicked plans” came up with the modern abortion movement in the first place, killing babies for convenience, profit, and to eliminate populations seen as “undesirable”.

When a nation starts killing its own children, you know God’s judgement is just around the corner. When Israel was taken into captivity in 2 Kings 17, for example, God said one reason was that they’d instituted child sacrifice (2 Kings 17:17). He lays this sin to His people’s charge again in the prophets.

Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire? (Ezk. 16:20-12)

God sees child murder as a personal affront against Him. Children belong to God, and He is invested in their well-being as a faithful and compassionate Creator. That’s why He’s so harsh on people who kill babies.

King Ahaz of Judah was another evil man who was sacrificing his own children around the time Israel was carried into captivity for the same sin (2 Kings 16:2). Yet Judah was not punished for one very important reason. The next king — a son who’d been allowed to live — “did what was right in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 18:3). Hezekiah removed idolatry, including child sacrifice, from Judah, and the country prospered (2 Kings 18:4-8).

These examples give us reason for both hope and fear — hope that we can change our culture and fear of what will happen if we don’t. Through these Planned Parenthood videos, our country has been given a wake-up call. We can either choose to remove evil from our land, as Hezekiah removed the institutionalized evils of previous generations in Judah, or we can face judgement as the unrepentant land of ancient Israel did.

Keep Reading: When Should We Value Human Life?