Truth Matters    
The Bradley Church of Christ
1505 E. Broadway;  Bradley, IL 60915   (815) 932-9014   
                                         

"You Have Slaughtered My Children"
By Jon W. Quinn
 

    

  "You have slaughtered My children, and offered them up unto  idols by causing them to pass through the fire." (EZEK 16:21).


 What an incriminating charge to make! Israel had borrowed the  abhorrent practice of offering up their children in sacrifice to  the idols of the heathen nations around them. But notice how God  refers to their children as "My children"! As the innocents were  slaughtered in ritual, and the pagan celebrations continued with  feasts and immorality, who thought that God would take it all so  personally? It was just a party. I suppose that even the most  vile of acts can become acceptable when "everybody" starts doing
 it. Get some movie stars, journalists, clergymen and politicians  on the bandwagon and any wickedness can be "proven" right and any  righteousness can be "proven" wrong.


      These people of Ezekiel's day must have really been  dreadfully depraved to have partaken in such horrible practices!  Didn't they love their children anymore? How did they feel toward  human life? How did they feel toward family and friends? Were
 they so far gone that even the most natural of human affections  seemed foreign to them? Tragically, for the most part, that  society had plunged over a waterfall from which there was no  return without a complete overhaul.


     I am fearful that we are today rapidly approaching the same  waterfall. Already, the current may be too swift to stop without  a major breakdown of our society. Don't we love our children  anymore? How do we feel toward human life? Toward family and
 friends? Are the most natural of human affections becoming  foreign to us? Before you answer, please know that over twenty  million innocent, living unborn human babies have been  slaughtered in our nation since 1973.
 
 THERE IS NO "EMBRYO" OR "FETUS" IN THE BIBLE
      "And it came about that when Elizabeth heard Mary's  greeting, the baby leaped in her womb..." (LUKE 1:41). Isn't it  interesting that a "baby" leaped in Elizabeth's womb rather than  an embryo or a fetus? I'm not against using these terms, but  sometimes they are used to dehumanize the child yet to be born.  It is important to know that God never makes this kind of  distinction between the born and the unborn. He uses the same
 word, "brephos" for the infant whether several months before  birth (LUKE 1:44) or after the birth (LUKE 2:12). As far as the  God is concerned, a baby is a baby from conception, so to abort  one calls for the same charge God made long ago: "You have
 slaughtered My children".


 HUMAN FROM CONCEPTION
      "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. and before you  were born I consecrated you..." (JEREMIAH 1:5). There has been  speculation as to when human life begins. Some say that a fetus  is human only when it is able to survive outside the womb. Others  say only after taking its first breath of air. Some set arbitrary  times such as at three months or six months. The Bible places  personhood at conception.


      Isn't it amazing that our system allows the following to  occur every day in our country? Two rooms at a hospital side by  side. Two women admitted to the hospital in the same condition;  they are each pregnant. One woman is due in four months but has
 gone into labor. Emergency measures are taken, the baby is born  and thanks to modern technology the baby survives and even  flourishes. No one questions the fact but that a human life has  been saved! But in the other room the baby is due to be born in
 three months. However, the woman has decided to have an abortion.  Her baby is more developed than the baby in the other room, but  she is assured that her baby is not yet a human being! How can  such make any sense at all to any rational mind? As God has said,  "You have slaughtered My children".
 
 SOME REASONS FOR ABORTION
      "For My people are foolish, They know Me not; They are  stupid children, and they have no understanding. They are shrewd  to do evil, But to do good they do not know" (JER 4:22). The  people of Jeremiah's day were "shrewd to do evil". The Lord has
 warned, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who  substitute darkness for light and light for darkness...who are  wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight!" (ISAIAH  5:20,21). There is a reason abortion advocates use terms like
 "family planning" to describe their business. The whole slant  they use is deceiving. Truly they are "shrewd" about it,  referring to anyone who believes in the sanctity of human life  from conception as "evil". If a man opposes abortion it is  charged that it is only because "men don't have babies". The task  is to get people thinking in any direction but the fact that when  an abortion takes place, a human life has been taken.


      Most abortions are performed as a birth control measure.  Most of these are because having a baby at that time would be  inconvenient. The mother may be ill equipped to raise another  child. Or her lifestyle may be cramped. Or the father may be  unsupporting. She may fear that the child will be handicapped in  some way. The parents may simply want the child to be another  gender. Less than one per cent of abortions performed are a
 result of rape, incest or possible birth defect! The abortion  advocate always fails to mention that! Remember the words of the  Lord, "You have slaughtered My children".
 
 

Reprinted From the Bradley Banner    
Bradley Church of Christ
Bradley, Illinois
March 4, 1990         
 
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