Before the Israelites were preparing to enter into the land of Canaan, the Lord strongly warned them not to get ensnared in the idolatrous practices of the indigenous Canaanites.
This article is part of an ongoing series of articles dedicated to the subject of Abortion and Child Sacrifice. More on this subject can be found in the Winter 2012 issue of Bible and Spade.
In particular, the Lord addressed the issue of sacrificing children to Canaanite idols, particularly Molech. One of the first references is found in Leviticus:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.'-Leviticus 20:1-5, ESV
The Israelites nevertheless ignored the commands of God, participating in the demonic murder of their own children. Even Kings Ahaz and Manasseh, leaders of the nation, burned their own children in the fires of Molech (2 Chronicles 28:2-3; 33:6). After centuries of idolatry, covenant unfaithfulness, and the sacrificing of their own children, God brought wrathful judgment upon all of Israel.
In a recent article on Salon.com, Mary Elizabeth Williams unmasks herself and the arrogant secularism of the present age by admitting what the pro-life movement has known and argued all along: abortion is the taking of a human life. With breathtaking arrogance, ignoring the US Constitution, and echoing Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws, Williams tells the reader:
Here's the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That's a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She's the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
This is the same attitude, the same arrogant autonomy, and the same evil and hate-filled spirit which destroyed thousands upon thousands of little children in the death camps of Auschwitz, the streets of Rome, and the fires of Molech in Canaan and Carthage. It is this virulent and haughty secularist, God-hating spirit which threatens the moral fabric of western civilization and the church, inviting and provoking the wrath of a just and holy God. This unmasked and unadulterated neo-pagan worldview desires to usurp the living God from His throne and put arrogant man in His place.
In an unmasked candor rarely seen from the provacateurs of all things anti-Christian, Williams echoes the sentiments of the Canaanite high priests of Molech: The child inside his/her mother's womb is 'a life worth sacrificing.' For Williams, nothing less than being God is appropriate for modern day feminism and leftist ideology.
The Psalmist tells us in no uncertain terms to whom these horrific sacrifices are really made:
They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; 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. (Psalm 106:36-38, ESV)
This echoes the Apostle Paul, as he warns the church in Corinth: '...what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.' (1 Corinthians 10:20 ESV).
Yes, every child killed in the womb is a precious life, a precious life murdered on the altar of secular, anti-Christian, human autonomy. A precious life offered up to neo-pagan demons. A precious life destroyed by the perpetrators of an anti-Christian worldview.
A worldview that is indeed, the modern day cult of Molech.
May the Lord our God, and His precious Son, have mercy on us all...
