Our Modern Molech

Introduction

You know, I often start with a question, an interactive part of our worship service, and today’s going to be the same, and so I have a question for you, hopefully an easy question, and with hopefully a unanimous answer, and that is do you like preaching? Oh, come on, Rachel. I didn’t say do you like my preaching? Just do you like preaching? Sure you do, sure we all do, or you wouldn’t be here worshiping God. Sometimes it’s interesting to pull back the curtain and to tell you about things that you may or may not know about particular jobs or professions, including preaching. And so I want to tell you you like preaching, I’ll tell you three things you may probably don’t know about preaching. Fact number one that you may not know about preaching is that you don’t need a preacher.

That is, you don’t need someone who does all of the preaching. The men of the congregation could do that themselves. We could just start over here and just take turns. And everybody, every man could engage in that.

And fact number three is that sometimes I don’t want to preach. Some Sundays I can’t wait. I wish we would just sing one verse of every song and just get let me get up there because I’m so eager, and the desire is burning within my heart, as the prophet said, and I can’t wait. But there’s other Sundays that I just don’t want to preach. That may be for various reasons. It may be that week I’m feeling somewhat like a hypocrite. It may be that I just don’t feel well. I have a splitting headache or not feeling good and don’t want to expend the energy that it takes to preach. But sometimes, like this morning, I don’t want to preach because of the subject matter at hand.

Some subject preachers just love and can’t wait to discuss. And we have our favorites, our pet peeves, our hobby horses that we like to preach about. And we get excited about those topics. But if I’m honest with you about preaching, there’s some subjects I just don’t like preaching about. But they still need talked about. This morning I want to talk to you. I don’t want to.

But I feel like that I must, in the culture that we live in, talk to you about the subject of abortion. In a lesson that we’ve simply entitled Our Modern Molech. I want to remind you, Bible students, who Molech is. He’s an Old Testament character. He’s not really an Old Testament character because he really didn’t exist. He’s one of the false gods, one of the idols that the Canaanite people probably originated with the Phoenicians and then the Ammonites, and then kind of spread to many, if not all, of the Canaanite nations. One of the idols or false gods that we read about in the Old Testament. In my mind, two gods stand out, two of the false idols stand out in prominence in the Old Testament.

One would be Baal. And I think Baal probably stands out because he’s mentioned so frequently. In fact, some tend to think that maybe Baal just became a generic name for idols. But Molech stands out for another reason. Molech stands out and is prominent because of the way, the horrendous way that he was worshipped. The worship to Molech involved among many other things, but at its lowest point of depravity, it involved sacrificing your children to the God Molech. Modern-day scholars have even debated whether or not there wasn’t a God named Molech. It was just that was the form of worship of some different kinds of gods. But it does seem that there was a God by the name of Molech. The children of Israel, we go back as early as the book of Deuteronomy, Moses, God through Moses warned them against Molech.

In fact, he said, drive this out of your land. Drive this and the people, even to the point of destroying the people who do this so that it will not have an influence upon you. As a good Bible student, you know Israel failed in that regard. As late as Josiah, who’s one of the last kings of the divided kingdom of Judah, the worship to Molech was still being practiced. In fact, Josiah, who was a reformer who drove this out, Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh had even called some of his own children to pass through the fire, as it was called. So this idea of child sacrifice, of giving up a child to some God, is something that was prevalent in the Old Testament and unfortunately is prevalent today.

1. A Wicked World Will Always Have Its Idols

Because I want to argue to you this morning that abortion is our modern Molech. That our society is sacrificing children on the altar of a God, who, as then is not really a God. Let’s start with this. A wicked world will always have its idols. Maybe, maybe God put something within us, a desire to worship. Paul, when he preached that sermon in Acts chapter 17 to those idolatrous people in the New Testament, he says that God ordered us in such a way that we might reach and grope in hopes that we might find him. And so it’s possible that there’s something almost innate within us that makes us want to reach up to something higher to worship something. If that is the case, then surely it was God, as Paul had pointed out.

God’s plan that we would find him, but sadly man has found other things. Other ways, depraved things and depraved ways to worship. And you can’t be a Bible student without recognizing that idolatry was prominent, both old and New Testament times. You could travel this globe today and find places, countries, and cultures who still have idols, graven images that they bow down to and worship. But you don’t even have to own a passport to see and experience idolatry, because idolatry really is just having something or someone that we worship above God. You remember the Ten Commandments, thou shalt have no other God before me. So it doesn’t have to be just some graven image, what we might call classical idolatry. Anytime we put something above God, that’s idolatry.

It could be money, it could be our jobs, it could be our status, it could be sex, it could be self. It could be just the right to choose. That is our God. Paul warned the Colossian brethren, you remember, and we’ll look at this passage a little bit later, that they were to put away covetousness, which is idolatry, he said. So there’s other types of idol worship, other ways in which we can put something against or before God. And so a wicked world will always have its idols, and God’s people have always been given the instruction to put to death the sinful ways. Now let’s look at this. Look with me in the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy chapter 7. And please, I beg of you to pay close attention to what I’m saying on this point because I don’t want to be misunderstood.

2. Put to Death Sinful Ways

Deuteronomy chapter 7. Notice the instructions given to the children of Israel just before they’re to enter into the land of Canaan, their promised land. I’m looking at Deuteronomy 7, beginning in verse 1. When the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 7 1, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you the Hittites and the Gergasites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son.

For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, so that the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars and break down their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a treasure above all the peoples of the face of the earth. A bold requirement was made, and if we’re honest, a bold requirement that even troubles us as Christians today, that God said to the children of Israel, What those people are doing is so wicked, I want you to destroy them.

So that you’ll have nothing to do with those wicked practices. God’s people have always been called on to put to death sinful ways.

But the way that that is done in the new covenant is different. Equally as bold of a requirement has been made of us. But God has not called upon us to wipe out a nation, to destroy people or to drive them from the land. But God is still asked that we put to death sinful ways. We live in a new covenant, a covenant that puts the emphasis upon the heart and upon the individual. And so let’s look at that passage in Colossians chapter 3, where the apostle Paul likens covetousness to idolatry. And notice what he told them and us to do with that form of idolatry.

And notice the language, therefore put to death.

Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. Do you see the similarity in language between the command God gave the children of Israel and the command he gives us today? Put to death, kill it. Now, God is not calling upon us to go out and find people who are committing fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, and kill them. But he says, you put to death that attitude in you. A destruction is still to take place. A death still takes place. But it’s a death within the heart of the believer who says, No. I see the danger of those pervasive wicked practices, and so I’m going to destroy it in my own life. One other passage, there’s several in the New Testament that use this language.

Look in the book of Galatians, chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6. Here’s the bold requirement of God’s nation today. A nation that deals with individuals, a nation that deals with the heart, the individual heart of the child of God. Galatians 6, verse 14, you remember this verse. But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. Do you see an equally bold requirement is made of God’s people today? A destruction is to take place. A death is to take place.

3. Abortion Is Today’s Modern Molech

Not the physical putting to death of wicked doers, but a death in regard to my attention and my life toward that sinful way. I’m the one who is to die to that. And so a wicked world will always have its idols. God’s people have always been told to put to death sinful ways in one way or another. And abortion, I believe, is today’s modern Molech. When you study history, when you study Old Testament history, one question has to come to mind, doesn’t it? How could they? How could people kill their children in the worship to some graven image? And how could the children of Israel do that? What would make somebody do that? Well, if we study the history of Molech, and it’s limited because it’s such a far-flung history time wise, but the worshippers of Molech were convinced that if they killed their own children, that would please the God Molech, and he would look favorably upon you and usher you into some great paradise.

And so it just became you have to die so that my life will be better. You have to be sacrificed for me. And so let’s take a look at abortion.

4. The Unborn Child as a Living Human Being

The scriptures speak of the unborn child as a living human being. For time’s sake, I don’t normally put the passages up on the screen, but for time’s sake I did it this morning. Look in Job chapter 31 and verse 15. Job asks, Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one fashion us in the womb? Two things in that passage of Job is number one, that unborn life is spoken of as a living human being, and maybe more importantly than that, a life that was put there in the womb by God. In Psalm 139, I know that’s a small writing there, but Psalm 139 it says this, beginning in verse 13, for you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother’s womb.

I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works. Let’s pause there. Not the works of my father and my mother, but wonderful are your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes, speaking to God, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book they’re all written, the days fashioned for me when as yet they were none of them. Before a day was spent out of our mother’s womb, God saw us, formed us, and planned a life for us. In Jeremiah 1 in verse 5, similar to the statement that Job made, God says of Jeremiah, Before I fall formed you in the womb, I knew you.

Before you were born, I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet for the nations. Yet unborn, God says, I saw you, I formed you, and I had a plan for you. Lastly, in Luke chapter 1 and in verse 36, it says, Now indeed, Elizabeth, this is the angel speaking to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. Speaking of Elizabeth, and a similar statement is made of the child that is inside Mary’s womb, miraculously, is that there’s a life there. There’s a child, a son there.

And as being life, a living human being that exists. And so when we think about abortion, we see that the life in the womb is always spoken of as being life, put there by God. We also notice, and this gets a little deep in the weeds, but we could trace some passages in the New Testament. The Greek word that speaks of a child is the Greek word brefos. And it’s used of an unborn child. That’s the word that was used there in the passage that we saw that spoke of John the Baptist. That same word that is used of a child in the womb is a word that is used of a newborn baby. Same word.

5. Arguments Made at the Altar of Molech

Not newborn, but still an infant. And it’s the same word that Paul used of Timothy that from your childhood you’ve learned the scriptures. And so the same word, the same treatment is used in God’s word of an unborn as well as a born child. Well, let’s quickly think about some arguments that are made at the altar of Molech. Maybe the most prominent argument that is made is it’s my body.

From a scriptural standpoint, and that’s really all we care about, isn’t it? From God’s standpoint, from a scriptural standpoint, I think there’s two good answers to that. Number one is it’s not your body, it’s a child’s body. It may be inside your body. It may be at this time dependent upon your body, but it’s a separate living human being. But even beyond that, it’s my body. I get to do with it what I want. Look in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. And in verse 19, another familiar passage to you. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 19. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

For you’re bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Now it seems that the pervading thought is that it’s not a human being until it is born. Well, I don’t want to get into the scientific arguments, which I believe are on the side of God. But I would offer this to you. That we as a society, not as a church, but we as a society value other unborn life, don’t we? Have you gone to the beach lately? You see the little warning signs and even maybe the tape around certain places in the sand. Do you realize in the state of Florida, if you tamper with turtles’ eggs, that that’s illegal. Up to $500 fine and up to five years in prison for tampering with a turtle’s egg. Which I would point out to you that even when it’s hatched, isn’t a human being.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not for stomping turtle eggs. But we value life, even unborn life. Should we not at least equally value human life in every form? Another argument that’s often made is: well, you know you can’t legislate morality. And again, I have two answers to that. Yes, we do. We do it every day. We have laws on the book that legislate morality. Stealing, rape, murder, all of those things are legislating morality. To which the abortionist would say, Well, now, wait a minute. Those crimes affect someone else. To which we would simply say, Yes, they do. But also to the argument you cannot legislate morality. Well, God can. And God has.

6. What We as Christians Must Do

I think we as Christians, as sojourners and pilgrims in this land, must do. First of all, teach your children. Teach your children to value life in every form. Teach your children to value the life of an unborn child. Teach your children to value the life of every student in their school. Teach your children to value the life of the aged and infirm. Secondly, Christian parents, teach your children wholesome sexuality. Teach them God’s plan for sexuality. Secondly, as a Christian, shouldn’t we show compassion? Show compassion for the mother of an unplanned pregnancy. Show love and understanding and forgiveness. And offer alternatives in a meek and loving way. But I’ll take it a step further. Show compassion for the woman who has in her past had an abortion and may be wrestling with the guilt of that past sin.

And we show compassion and love and a pathway to forgiveness. Thirdly, pray for your leaders. Paul told Timothy and 2 Timothy to do that, to pray for those in positions of power that we might live a peaceable and quiet life. Include this in your daily prayers.

Is lead people to Christ. Help them to see the need for God in their lives.

Help them to see that the pathway to happiness and fulfillment is not by sacrificing our own children, but by worshiping the sacrificed child. God had asked Abraham to offer up his son. But he stopped. And what most scholars believe the very location where God would give up his own son. That’s the God who is worthy of our worship. This is a battle that’s going to be fought in the hearts and the minds of individuals. So teach people, show people compassion and teach people a better way. And that way is Jesus.

Conclusion

And one that I wish we would assign to a guest speaker, if I’m honest. But I believe in our culture it’s one that needs to be talked about. And one that we upon which we as Christians need to take a stand. Unashamedly, but compassionately take a stand. And I appreciate you for listening so patiently as you always do this morning. Whatever sin you have committed in your life, it can be forgiven. It can be washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? It doesn’t matter what you have done. The Apostle Paul forever stands as an example of that. That God, through Christ Jesus, can forgive you of your sins. Are you seeking that path, that better way of life? Then why not come and worship the true and living God?

Why not give your life to that compassionate, loving, forgiving God this very morning? The only thing He asks is that you sacrifice your own selfish, idolatrous ways and not die for him, not kill for him, but live for him. Can we help you in that this morning? Then why not come as together we stand?