By Kevin Probst
Elijah was a man of great courage. He challenged the prophets of Baal to prove the existence of their God and declared boldly, “My God is bigger than your god.” While the prophets of Baal sweat bullets trying to pray down fire from heaven, Elijah first soaked the offering with water and then called down fire which consumed the entire sacrifice and licked up any water remaining.
Why was Elijah so eager to stick it to the prophets of Baal? Why was God willing to reveal himself in a way he rarely does? It certainly had something to do with avenging the deaths of innocent infants. Infant sacrifice was a significant part of the religion of Baal. Infants were often sacrificed to purchase the promise of protection and prosperity from their false god. When Heil rebuilt the city of Jericho he sacrificed two of his children to ensure future success for the city. Archaeologists have found the remains of burnt bones in places where Baal was worshipped.
God was angered by the practice. He informed his people through his prophet Jeremiah that he would cast them off into captivity because of their pagan practices and willingness to commit infanticide. Americans are appalled to learn of the ancient practices of infant sacrifice. They often compare such atrocities with the murder of six million Jews by Hitler’s henchmen.
Is it not interesting how we see the splinter in the eye of another without seeing the beam in our own eye? I was reminded of such hypocrisy when I read the story of Kermit Gosnell recently. Gosnell ran an abortion clinic in west Philadelphia for several decades. He was arrested last week for the brutal murder of seven infants and an adult female patient. What Gosnell would refer to as ‘snipping’, others would refer to as cold-blooded murder. Gosnell had no qualms about performing partial birth abortions. That process involves partially extracting the infant and then brutally murdering it. Gosnell went a step further, he induced labor and forced the birth of healthy infants and then “snipped” the spinal cord with a pair of scissors and disposed of the remains. At least the ancient pagans buried the children they murdered.
Why would a man do such a thing? Money, no other reason, just money. Gosnell charged anywhere between $350 to $3,000 for early or late-term abortions. He made millions running his killing factory, as much as $1.8 million in a year’s time. We’ve been told that the love of money is the root of all evil, Gosnell demonstrates that for us.
We deceive ourselves when we imagine that we are civilized. We look back on the pagans in King Ahab’s day with disdain and disgust. Yet, we fail to have the same anger toward the very common pagan practice of infant killing in our modern society. Since the fatal Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade, nearly 50 million babies have been sacrificed to our gods of convenience and family economics. Very little has changed in 3,000 years. We lift up our material gods, we offer to them our infants in hopes of experiencing prosperity and comfort and then we go about our way with a sick sense of satisfaction and a false belief that we have become our own gods. We now decide who will live or die. We now decide that the primary purpose of sex will not be for procreation but for our own convenient pleasure. If the conception of an infant interferes with our desire for comfort and increased wealth, we simply kill it.
Here’s a news flash for modern day pagans. The blood of 50 million innocent babies cries out daily to a God of justice. If God “hurled” his own people into the hands of the Babylonians and Assyrians because they were participating in the pagan practice of infanticide, he must do the same to the pagans in our modern society or he can no longer claim to be a just God.
Kevin Probst - Is a teacher of Apologetics and History at Calvary Christian School and Associate Pastor of Crosspointe Nazarene Church church in Columbus, Georgia.
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