(Part Four in a Series on the Fifth Commandment)
by Pastor Paul Wolff
In this article:
What is happening?
How could such things happen?
What does the Bible say about murdering children?
Biblical Examples
What does this mean for the future?
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| Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." Mark 10:14 |
What is happening?
There is something happening now in our society which has rarely happened in the history of the world. It is certainly not unknown, or unprecedented, but in the history of civilization it is extraordinarily rare. It may be more well known among uncivilized (or under civilized) societies, but that it is happening in what was once a civilized, Christian nation, like the United States of America (and others), is heartbreaking. What is happening is that there seems to be a trend recently of mothers murdering their children in cold blood.
Recently there was a trial of a woman in the U.S. who confessed to strangling her three young children, but which ended in a mistrial. It should have been an easy conviction, as evidence showed that she planned the murder, and conspired to get her husband out of the house while she killed their children. After the trial it was revealed that eleven of the jurors wanted to acquit her of murder (likely by reason of insanity), but only one juror would not be persuaded nor bullied into joining that decision, but held fast that it was not beyond reasonable doubt that the mother was guilty of first degree murder. During the trial, groups of women organized public protests advocating that the mother should be excused for murdering her children. Since the mistrial was declared several more women have also killed their children in the following few weeks.
How could such things happen?
What is more sad than all of this, is that this is not at all surprising to anyone who has been paying attention! Over 20 years ago I observed that the leading cause of death in the United States was abortion – the murder of children. In 2002 (the latest year that information was available when I wrote the 2005 article) there were 1,300,000 abortions. Since 1973, when the Supreme Court illegally made abortion “legal” in all 50 states, there have been over one million abortions each year on average. This has continued, even after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. The problem with the Dobbs vs. Jackson was that the Supreme Court did not ensure that all unborn children of U.S. citizens were protected from murder.
What this means is that every year, for over 53 years, a million mothers have murdered their children. This does not mean that each of these million mothers are different people – many of them are repeat offenders. Also, not all of these murdering mothers are willing participants. It is well documented that a fair number of abortions are coerced by the fathers of the unfortunate children (boyfriends or husbands to the child’s mother). The Abortion Industry (as it is called) has repeatedly shown that it does not care about whether the women who seek their services are raped, abused, enslaved, or are otherwise molested, as long as they get paid. Nevertheless, what this shows is that there are tens of millions of women in the United States alone who have murdered their children.
I must also recognize that not all of these women advocate for allowing abortion and infanticide. Many women have repented of this wickedness and found forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and others have also recognized that what they did was wrong, and should not be done. Yet, that probably still leaves tens of millions of women (and others) who refuse to repent and think that they have every right to murder their children, either before their birth or after. This happens because murder is such a horrible sin that, when someone commits murder they will go to great lengths to justify it to themselves. Since these people convince themselves that they had good reason for murder, they cannot admit to themselves or others that it was wrong – because to do so would be to admit that they are as wicked as other murderers, but murderous desires lead to murder, unless reversed by repentance and trust in God through Jesus Christ.
What does the Bible say about murdering children?
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| Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." Mark 10:14 |
God also demonstrated that He values the lives of even the most humble people, though the world may think they are expendable. In Exodus 22:22-24 God says, “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.” The consequences of taking advantage of the lowest in society (whom some might consider “burdens”) was that God would raise up enemies against them who would kill the men so their wives would be widows, and their children orphans.
We should be aware that all that is going on does not escape the notice of God. In Deuteronomy 10:17-18 God tells His people, “The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.” This was both a blessing and a curse (as these are frequently joined together in Holy Scripture). It was a blessing because God would protect His people if they fell on hard times or experienced disaster. It was a curse if the people disobeyed God and took advantage of the weak in society – then God would punish the wrongdoers.
Biblical Examples
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| God tested Abraham, but did not let him kill his son. Yet, God did not spare His Son, but let Him be sacrificed to save us from sin and death. |
There are some examples in the Bible of the murder of children which can give us instruction. The first one is in Genesis 22 where God uncharacteristically tells Abraham to kill his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God. Abraham does not openly question God, but prepares to do as God commanded him to do. The New Testament book of Hebrews explains to us that, because God had already promised that Isaac would be the ancestor of a great nation and many kings, Abraham trusted that if he did as God commanded, God would raise his son from the dead so that Isaac could fulfill what God promised. Here we should note that God did not allow Abraham to kill Isaac, but called to him to stop when the knife was in his hand ready to do what God told him to do.
This story is in contrast to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. God would not allow Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, but God offered His son, Jesus, as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and did not stop it from reaching its fulfillment. Isaac was likely an unwilling sacrifice (though he apparently did not fight Abraham, nor seem to hold any hard feelings against his father later in his life), but Jesus was the perfectly willing sacrifice. God did not force Jesus to sacrifice His life against His will, but made it clear in the Holy Scriptures that He wanted Jesus to freely offer His life in payment for the sins of the world, so that we may be forgiven and rescued from sin and death. Because Jesus loved God perfectly, He was willing to do what God wanted, and let sinful men put Him to death. In doing this, Jesus offered His innocent life to pay for the sins of the whole world, and God accepted His sacrifice, so that all who believe in Jesus have full forgiveness of all their sins, and full salvation through Him.
Pharaoh’s Command to Kill Baby Boys Before the Exodus
In Exodus 1, we are told that a Pharaoh in Egypt came to power who forgot about Joseph and why all the Israelites were living in Egypt, and saw them as a potential threat. He feared this, even though the descendants of Israel had been living in Egypt for 400 years, they had done nothing against their Egyptian hosts. The King first commanded the Egyptian midwives to kill the male Israelite babies they delivered, so that they would not grow up to be a military threat to Egypt. The midwives did not obey this command because they were in the business of delivering babies, not killing them. Only in the past 50 years or so have doctors and nurses become active agents of murder instead of healing.
The oppression and murderous commands of the Pharaoh led the Israelites to cry out to God to send them a deliverer. God heard their prayers, and sent them Moses. When the Egyptian midwives failed to do as the Pharaoh decreed, he commanded all Israelite baby boys to be thrown into the Nile River to be drowned. Moses’ mother complied with the letter of the law by putting her baby in the river, but she placed him in and “ark” made of woven reeds, and waterproofed with tar or asphalt so it would float, and he would not be drowned. Pharaoh’s daughter found the “ark” and took pity on the child, and adopted him as her son, though she knew that he was from an Israelite family. Moses was the deliverer whom God sent to lead the Israelites out of Egypt toward the Promised land of Canaan, though he would not accomplish this until he was 80 years old.
The Tenth Plague in Egypt
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| God called Moses to lead the children of Israel out of slavery to the land He promised to give to Abraham |
The tenth plague and Passover showed how God would save all people by the coming of the Messiah, or Christ. Jesus would be the substitute who would die for the sins of the whole world, so that everyone who believes in Him would be rescued from sin and death, just as the Israelites in Moses’ day believed in God and did as He directed. Here we see God’s justice. As Egypt’s Pharaoh tried to subdue God’s people by killing their children, God came to rescue His people. The Pharaoh of 80 years later, suffered defeat and the loss of his firstborn son in the plague, along with every household in Egypt. God showed that He has mercy on His people, and, although He is patient (wanting all sinners to come to repentance and be saved), He is not unwilling to bring vengeance on those who persist in evil. When God does act in this way He is always just and right in His actions. When it seems He is slow to act, it is not because He is uncaring, or unable to do anything, but it is because He is patient and merciful.
Prayer for Vengeance in Psalm 137
The Psalmist’s lament in Psalm 137 is a difficult one for many people, because in this Psalm, the writer is praying that God would bring retribution on the Babylonians for their conquest of Judah, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the many thousands of people killed in that war. Though God had enabled the Babylonians to do this, they did not acknowledge God, nor do it for God’s glory, but did it for their own glory. The Psalm ends with the writer praying that God would bless those who take the Babylonian children and “dashes them against a rock.” (Psalm 137:9) It sounds cruel, but those taken into captivity likely had witnessed the Babylonians doing just that to their children, and the Psalmist is only asking for similar justice to be done – no worse than what was done to them. God answered their prayer later when the Persians conquered Babylon, and God moved the Persian king to let the people of Judah return and rebuild Jerusalem. God did this so that His promises to Abraham, Jacob (Israel), and David would be fulfilled, and the Messiah would come from their descendants in the land that God had set aside for it to happen there.
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| Jesus loves the little children |
We see another tragic mass murder of infants in Matthew 2 when King Herod heard about a sign proclaiming the birth of a future king in Judah. Though the child was less than two years old, Herod was so paranoid that he ordered soldiers to kill all the children in the Bethlehem area under two years old. This story parallels closely the story of Moses and the Exodus from 1,500 years earlier. Also, as the person of Jesus is a greater savior than Moses, so also is the salvation won by Jesus greater than the freedom to which Moses led the people of Israel. Christ’s salvation is for all people who trust in the true God for salvation, not just one small nation on earth.
What does this mean for the future?
In Biblical history, when there is a mass casualty event involving children, it is often associated with God’s judgment against idolatry, wickedness, and violence. Such things only happen in times of great apostasy and rebellion against God, because a godly society would treasure and protect their children, and such things would not happen. Such tragedies as: abortion, infanticide, mutilation and abuse of children for the sake of sexual fantasies, and more, all show us that we live in an era of great apostasy and wickedness. This calls for likewise great repentance and a swift punishment of all who carry out and support such evil.
If Christians are unable to address and correct the evil, then God will find someone else to do it. However, as Judah was apostate in the times of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, and God empowered the pagan Babylonians to carry out His justice, we see that the cure may be worse than the disease – though God does work everything out for good for those who love and trust in Him above all things. If Western Christian nations cannot turn back to Christ, and bring to justice those who murder and mutilate children, then God could very well empower Islamic Jihadists to conquer and enslave Western nations and bring a temporal order. The “cure worse than the disease” in this is that Islamic Jihadists in the past two centuries have adopted a Marxist Gnosticism which is much more radical than many eras of past Islamic conquests.
There have been times in history when Christians have lived with a fair bit of autonomy under Islamic rule. However, much of radicalized Islam these days is much more extreme. Although a conquering Islam would bring a semblance of order in what is now a chaotic world, and would forbid societal evils such as sexual perversion, general infanticide, abortion, and several other plagues endemic to Western Marxist Liberal Progressivism, such a government would harshly persecute Christianity and all other religions. It would also enslave all women and girls under strict Sharia submissive rules, and mandate universal general conversion to the false religion of Islam, with severe penalties for all who refuse to submit.
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| The Holy Family is an image of God’s relationship with His people. |
The world seems hell-bent on destruction, and Christians should not get caught up in the chaos – neither in going along with the world’s apostasy, nor in reaction against it. Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and He has already won the victory. We dare not panic, lest we lose sight of Jesus Christ and His salvation. All that is left is for history to play out as it must. As for Christian believers, we should continue steadfast in the True Faith, no matter what else is going on in the world, as we await our salvation in confident, patient trust that Jesus will rescue us from all harm and evil, and that all things will work out to the glory of God – our savior and redeemer.
Articles in this series:
Why Does God Condemn Unbelievers to Hell?
A Biblical Argument for Self Defense
Anger
Why Christians Condemn Abortion but Support the Death Penalty
The Good Samaritan
Is it Easier to Heal, or to Forgive?
Christ Has Done All Things Well
The Promise of Christ in Water And Light
Modern Molechianism
“Let His Blood be on Us and on Our Children”
The Passion of Christ
The Slaughter of the Innocents
Friends and Murderers
The Promise of the Rainbow
The True Story of a Terrorist Turned Christian
The Morality of War
Rejecting the Survival Instinct
The Leading Cause of Death in America
