The Crisis in America

George Grant, in his book, entitled Third Time Around, highlighted the fact that wicked men love to kill and they have an innate lust for the blood of children. He said, “Since the dawning of time, men have contrived ingenious diversions to satisfy their fallen passions. And child-killing has always been chief among them.”

One historical example is the attempted slaughter of the firstborn male Hebrew children at the hands of the Egyptians. This story is found in the book of Exodus, Chapter 1. There are several key people and events from this scripture that must be highlighted before diving deeper into this story.

Then the king of Egypt (Ex. 1:15aa). The king of Egypt, also known as the Pharaoh, was the ruler of the Israelites and the one who called for the murder of these innocent children. The word “king” in Hebrew in this text of Scripture is moloch. The word is derived from the god of Moloch referring to a king who sets himself up as a god, opposed to the one true living God. This word is not referencing any king in general, but rather a king who has positioned himself as a rival to the almighty God. The gods after the order of Moloch are totalitarian regimes that demand total obedience and total sacrifice from his subjects. The king of Egypt was this type of ruler. He demanded total obedience from everyone under his rule and part of that was the sacrifice of the firstborn male children. The children were to be killed upon birth to honor him as god.

When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live. (Ex. 1:15ab) This was a decree from the Pharaoh, who claimed divinity. In Egypt, the Pharaoh was viewed as an incarnation of one of their gods and, in essence, the messiah of the Egyptian people. The instructions that he gave to the midwives were not just suggestions, but the law of the land. The Hebrews were having children rapidly and this posed a threat to the king of Egypt and his people as they would soon be outnumbered and, potentially, overpowered by the Hebrews if it this was not stopped. The only solution, in his mind, was to command the firstborn male Hebrew children to be sacrificed. This would ensure salvation for him and his people. 

The midwives feared God and disobeyed the king. (Ex. 1:17) This story reveals to us where the midwives’ true allegiance was. The midwives rejected the king’s rule over them in favor of the rule of the King of kings. They did not do as the king commanded, and they spared the lives of the children under their care. This obedience brought them out of favor with the king of Egypt but into favor with the one true God. In fact, the text clearly says that God blessed them for it. “So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”  So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.” (v. 18-21).

These women were pro-life. They were heroines that put their own lives at risk in order to save innocent children, and God blessed them for it. Today we are facing a similar dilemma. Babies, in their mothers’ wombs, are being sacrificed daily. Modern day midwives who fear God are needed to stand in the gap for these innocent children. This killing of babies is at a crisis level in America and what has our response been so far? Has it been anything like the response of a church in Germany during the Holocaust? The tales told by Holocaust survivors are similar in many ways. 

“I lived in Germany during the Nazi holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. I attended church since I was a small boy. We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews, but like most people today in this country, 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 noticed cries coming from the train as it passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews. They were like cattle in those cars!
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 miserable 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. By the time that train came rumbling past the church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we'd just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more. Years have passed and no one talks about it much anymore, 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.
Their screams tormented us…If some of their screams reached our ears we'd just sing a little louder.
Now, so many years later, I see it happening all over again in America. God forgive you as Americans for you have blocked out the screams of millions of your own children. The holocaust is here. The response is the same as it was in my country—SILENCE!"

The old man's story is in the past, it cannot be undone, and it is easy to think we would have acted differently if we attended that church. But the old man's last words are haunting, “It's happening all over again in America with abortion. The Holocaust is here.” As American Christians, we have become too comfortable in our lovely buildings and padded pews. We raise our voices as loudly as we can, all in the name of God, and yet remain apathetic to the holocaust around us. 

The Crisis in America

While the church has been singing louder, the crisis continues. The crisis that we have today is an official edict that has made it morally permissible for all babies in their mothers’ wombs to be offered up as a sacrifice at the altar of convenience. Since 1973, over 60 million children have been legally murdered. This begs the question. How did we get here? There are several reasons why, but let me give the two most fundamental reasons why.

Margaret Higgins Sanger (maiden name Margaret Louise Higgins) lived from September 14, 1879 until September 6, 1966. She was a birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She is most well known for being the person who popularized the term “birth control,” opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into what we know today as Planned Parenthood. She has been extremely influential in establishing the doctrine and theology of abortion today in America. Her influence has been far-reaching and her legacy lives on to this day.

Roe v. Wade, a legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, ruled (7–2) that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”). The case began in 1970 when “Jane Roe”—a fictional name used to protect the identity of the plaintiff, Norma McCorvey—instituted federal action against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where Roe resided. 

The Supreme Court disagreed with Roe’s assertion of an absolute right to terminate pregnancy in any way and at any time, and attempted to balance a woman’s right of privacy with a state’s interest in regulating abortion. In his opinion, Blackmun noted that only a “compelling state interest” justifies regulations limiting “fundamental rights” such as privacy, and that legislators must therefore draw statutes narrowly “to express only the legitimate state interests at stake.” The court then attempted to balance the state’s distinct compelling interests in the health of pregnant women with the potential life of fetuses. It placed the point after which a state’s compelling interest in the pregnant woman’s health would allow it to regulate abortion “at approximately the end of the first trimester” of pregnancy. With regard to the fetus, the court located that point at “capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb,” or viability.
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In a nutshell, with the ruling of Roe vs. Wade, America laid hands on Margaret Sanger’s vision making murder of preborn children legal. The result has been the genocide of 60 million babies and counting. You and I are currently living in the American Holocaust. Imagine if you were living in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. What would you have done? My friends, we are living in something far worse than that. There is a silent genocide going on right around us. 

The Solution

The solution is very clear. The solution is for God fearing Christians to stand in the gap and even risk their own lives in order to save our preborn neighbors from being murdered. Those humble God fearing midwives were willing to risk their lives to save children. We must do the same. It begins by understanding that this is a battle over the ownership rights of our preborn neighbors. Who is the Lord over their lives- God or the State?