Boldness Against Brutality Series

Boldness against Brutality

The A-Z of Boldness

Deuteronomy 18:9-13

"9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. 13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God."

This morning we are continuing with our A-Z of Boldness. The topic we will be discussing is not an easy one , I ask that you will pray that I might be bold in bringing the message this morning. We are on the second letter of our A-Z, that of course being B. B is for Brutaliity. We as christians need to be bold against brutality. Here's where it gets tough. Boldness against the brutality of Abortion. This morning we are going to take a look at how the world thinks about the subject as well as how God thinks about it, and what a christian should think about it. We will be looking at several scriptures this morning, but one will be our basis for God's word today. That scripture is Deuteronomy 18 v9-13. Moses is adressing Israel concerning the pagan practices that they will encounter entering into the land before them. He warns them not to follow after or take part in these practices. We are going to be concentrating on the beginning ov verse 10 this morning as it deals with sacrificing of children.

So, let’s look at this issue in three ways: 1) How the World thinks about abortion. 2) How God thinks about abortion.. and... 3) How the Christian SHOULD think about abortion.

I. HOW THE WORLD THINKS: CONVENIENTLY

First let’s look at what the world thinks. The sanctity of life was an issue as far back as Moses’ time. Israel came out of Egypt to the land of Canaan and found her new neighbors to be of different races and to hold very different religious practices. Deuteronomy 18 introduces us to one of those neighbors, the Ammonites. Now the Ammonites worshiped a God called Molech. Now, according to history, Molech was a large grotesque beast with the body of a man and the head of a bull and the abdomen was hollowed out. This idol worship, as almost all idol worship, involved sexual immorality. But the worship of Molech not only contained sexual immorality but also the sacrifice of children! Under the bull a fire burned until that hollow abdomen glowed with heat. The ancient idolaters would dance and perform sexual activities with several partners in front of this false god. The revelry would intensify until an infant child of one of the participants was thrown alive into the hot abdominal cavity. The child was seared to death, its shrieks of pain drowned out by the feverish beating of drums and the sound of voices involved in sexual ecstasy. The next day when the orgy was over and the mass hysteria had long been quieted and the idol had cooled down the burned remains were taken out of the other side of the idol. That is why the King James translators said in verse 10, "10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, -"Don’t you dare sacrifice your son or daughter in the fire."

Moses warned the Israelites that they were not to participate in that activity because it was detestable to God. The consciences of the pagan Ammonites were so hardened that they sacrificed their own children to intensify their selfish desires. Now, that sounds horrible. But is our world doing much different today? Millions are engaging in every kind of sensual pleasure. Unrestrained sexual activity has resulted in an enormous number of unwanted pregnancies. The answer for those unwanted pregnancies in so many cases is to sacrifice them in the womb and so they are tossed onto the ashes of the abortuary as the gods of convenience, sex and success are worshiped. Listen, over 98% of all the abortions performed today are performed for convenience! Not because the life of the mother is threatened, not because the woman was raped or treated incestuously, but because the pregnancy was inconvenient to their plans.

This is an old survey from 1998 but I'm sure the numbers have not decreased, if anything they are escalating.