Where Is the Weeping?
August 2022 (Reprinted from May 2019) |
As this issue of The Evangelist goes to press, the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether will be overturned. If the 1973 decision is reversed, abortion will not be banned nationwide; allowance or restrictions on the procedure will be set by each state, which is why we need to continue in prayer—and in repentance—for what I feel is America’s greatest sin. I felt strongly to share again this article from 2019. Please read it prayerfully and share it with others. Thank you.
“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.” —MATTHEW 2:16
MATTHEW IS THE only one in the Gospels who mentions this heinous crime committed by Herod—the merciless slaughter of baby boys in Bethlehem and beyond. As the single biblical source of this account, many scholars discount or question whether these children were indeed killed. Even the famed historian Josephus was silent about these murders.
Sort of sounds like the abortion argument of today, doesn’t it? Conservatives report the facts—millions of babies are murdered each year under the legislative power of immoral leaders (and the people who vote them into position), but the church, by and large, remains silent. So the biblical source on when life begins and whether it should be allowed to continue is discounted and questioned.
Herod didn’t want to just kill Christ, he wanted to destroy Him, and had he found Him, He would have done just that.
The evil in Herod’s heart is the same evil advocating for abortion. Abortion doesn’t just kill babies, it destroys them.
Herod’s evil plan surpassed his desire to destroy the physical body of the Christ Child. Bible scholars indicate that he wanted to dismember the Jewish nation and religion. I believe the abortion agenda has the same goal for America and Christianity.
When Herod saw that he was mocked, the Bible says he “slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Matt. 2:16).
The number of babies Herod killed is unknown. The Greek Liturgy says fourteen thousand baby boys while modern scholars, basing the event on the population of Bethlehem at that time, cut the number down to twenty. Such a small number of deaths, they rationalize, is one of possibly three reasons why Josephus didn’t write about it. The other two seem to be that Herod’s order was given in secret, so he didn’t know the massacre had happened; and that Josephus wouldn’t record anything that would confirm the truth of Christianity. These same reasons sound similar to the broadcasting approach of today’s mainstream media.
Notice how the Holy Spirit puts the blame squarely on Herod—Herod sent forth and slew. Although there is no description of this horrible massacre, we can imagine that the soldiers took out Herod’s excessive wrath on these baby boys, grabbing them from their mothers’ arms, and breaking bones and butchering bodies until the threat to his throne was dead.
In a sermon about the deaths of these innocents, fifth-century Bishop Saint Quodvultdeus addressed Herod: “You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong your own life, though you are seeking to kill Life himself … The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs.”
Only the Lord knows how many baby boys Herod killed, and that’s the point: He knows. God knows why and how each baby died, most likely clinging to and crying for its mother. Are we so callous to think that He ignores the silent screams of the unborn who try so desperately to cling to their mothers before they are pulled apart? God most certainly hears them, and unless America repents, He will judge us for this national sin. Some say judgment has started already.
“In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” (Matt. 2:18)
Mourning of this magnitude indicates a great loss of life—far more than twenty baby boys; most likely it was several hundred. The guttural wails and weeping from brokenhearted parents could be heard for miles, from “a high place”—the Hebrew meaning for Rama. What mother, what father would ever be the same after losing a precious son to this type of slaughter?
Rama was also the gravesite of Rachel, considered the mother of the tribes of Israel. She laments, weeps, and mourns—three stages of ongoing grief—for children lost due to Israel’s refusal to repent. Had Israel listened to the pleadings of the Holy Spirit through the prophet Jeremiah and repented, they would not have had an animal like Herod on the throne.
What will it take for America to repent and stop the sin of aborting its children and future citizens? Where is the weeping for these precious unborn souls—lamenting and mourning so loud that it should be heard in the highest places of our government?
“But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life” (Matt. 2:19-20).
Herod died a painful, wretched death. Joseph records, “a fire glowed in him slowly, which ... augmented his pains inwardly.”
Our nation, I believe, is showing similar symptoms. There’s a fire glowing slowly in certain states—infanticide—and if we think that America will escape God’s judgment for murdering unborn (and already born) children, then we are just as deranged and foolish as Herod was. America has repeated Herod’s sin of killing babies; I pray that we turn, repent, and weep lest we suffer his same end: “for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.”
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