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Editors' note: We at Scragged have seen that more and more Americans are coming to believe that abortion is barbarous. Late in 2008, we noted that our ruling elites have essentially no understanding of people who base their actions on transcendental faith. They have trouble dealing with faith-based initiatives, even ones as transparently dedicated to unimpeachable good works as the Little Sisters of the Poor, whom the Obama administration tried to force to pay for what they perceive to be the mortal sin of abortion.
Democrats routinely compare pro-life activists and gun owners to terrorists, and Hillary called social conservatives "deplorable." As she shortly discovered, this isn't a very good way to get such people to vote for you, which is also a reason Democrats have lost roughly 1,000 elective offices since Mr. Obama took office.
We also noted that our faith-challenged pundits couldn't imagine evangelicals voting for the much-married Mr. Trump. This helped them convince themselves that Hillary would win the election. It does our national unity no good to have our religious and non-religious poeple talking past each other, so we took a stab at explaining why evangelicals might have Biblical reasons to prefer Mr. Trump over Hillary.
Given that traditionally religious voters demonstrably do care strongly about abortion, other people should know just why it is such a powerful motivation for them. One of our evangelically-minded readers tried to demystify the evangelical view of abortion for our less religiously connected readers, from the perspective of one who believes that the Bible is the literal Word of God. We appreciate Calvin John's efforts to bridge the gap!
American government officials from the President on down typically take their Oath of Office with left hand on the Bible. Would they continue to do that if they paid attention to what the Bible actually says?
For example, the Bible vehemently condemns child sacrifice. In Bible times, a father would lay his newborn child on the outstretched hands of the idol Molech, the child would roll into a fire in the idol’s pit, and a din of musical instruments and drums would drown out the baby’s final screams.
One might say “We civilized Americans don’t do that!” But what if Scripture “by good and necessary consequence” (Westminster Confession 1:6) unmistakably links Molech worship to abortion?
Consider Ezekiel 16, where God likens Himself as a lover who woos Israel His bride, only for her to desert into prostitution. Molech worship is one of that whore’s crimes just prior to Judah’s horrible destruction and Babylonian captivity:
And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? (Ezekiel 16:20-21)
God claims the children born even to this whore as “borne to Me”, as “My children”. Who then dares deny God’s claim on Christian unborn children as “[carried] unto Me”, “My [preborn] children”, regardless of the faithfulness or whoredom of the mother’s Christian community? Furthermore, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1). God claims an unbeliever’s child, born or unborn, as His as well.
Like Molech worship, abortion is a sacrifice. Any woman who aborts her child sacrifices it to whatever she considers more important: a college degree, her career, family approval, not wanting to care for a child, looking good in a bikini that summer - whatever.
The Law of Moses mandated death by stoning upon the father who sacrificed his child to Molech, and warned that God Himself would kill the father if the community failed to do so (Leviticus 20:1-5). This law refers to the father 16 times; to the mother, never. If the father is chiefly responsible for Molech sacrifice, what shall we say of a society that robs the father of all involvement, legal responsibility, or even authority for abortion, though it can never remove his moral responsibility before God?
Moses also legislated the death penalty for accidentally killing an unborn child (Exodus 21:22-24)! What shall we say to those who willingly pay to abort their children, and to the killers themselves?
Thankfully, Christ forgave David’s murder of Uriah and Paul’s murder of many members of his Church. Surely Christ will forgive abortion to those who repent and trust in Him as the sin-bearing sacrifice on the Cross. And shouldn’t His words “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John. 8:7), while they acknowledge the heinousness of the adulteress’ sin, ring in the ears of anyone who would exclude anyone from God’s family who leaves a life of adultery, or the abortion industry, in repentance and faith?
But what about professing Christians who, “knowing the decree of God that those who do these things deserve to die, not only do them but approve those who practice them” (Romans 1:32)? Christ’s letters to Pergamum and Thyatira in Revelation give fair warning:
But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality…Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. (Revelation 2:14,16)
Christ expects the Pergamum church to try the false teachers before Christ’s tribunal on earth. If they don’t, He will soon descend and hold court Himself, making war with His sword. If that doesn’t scare you when the “only” crime was fornication, what about child sacrifice, the murder of God’s image-bearer?
As for the church in Thyatira, He said:
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the church will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve. (Revelation 2:20-23)
First, Christ “has this against” churchmen who “tolerate” Jezebel’s seductive teachings to fornicate. Unlike Pergamum, the time for Thyatira’s church to discipline Jezebel had passed. How can He not be “against [us]” for our lukewarmness toward professing Christians who teach and seduce their own to abort, whether we have standing against them in church court?
Second, note that just as Moses threatened that God will kill Molech worshipers if the people failed to, Christ promised to kill Jezebel’s children in Thyatira when the church failed to discipline her. Are we to pray that Christ soon hold court on earth with today’s false teachers, so that all the church will once again know that it is He who searches mind and heart?
We know that not everyone accepts the Bible as the Word of
God. For those that do, though, the crime of abortion is as
serious, as profound, and as abhorrent as can be imagined, and it
carries
the direst possible eternal consequences. What are we to do
but
oppose it with all the force in our being?