The Shofar is the ancient trumpet which called the people of God to prayer, repentance, sacrifice and war.





HANDS THAT SHED INNOCENT BLOOD

Daniel 3:8-18
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By Stephen Green
First Published in Christian Voice May 2010

Pro. 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

So an abortionist, the Marie Stopes organisation, has been allowed to advertise its services on British TV, on Channel 4, to be exact. Marie Stopes claims to carry out 30% of Britain ’s social abortions. Most are carried out because ‘two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of ... injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman ...greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.’ (Abortion Act 1967, Section 1)

It will be easy to find two medical practitioners to agree on that in a Marie Stopes abortion clinic, or they might have some forms already counter-signed. Note that the abortionist becomes a psychiatrist under Britain ’s Abortion Act. He is called upon to make a judgment that the woman’s mental health will be impaired by continuing with the pregnancy. And of course, it always will be, when money is at stake. A first-trimester abortion costs between £500 and £600 in Britain .

So the vast majority of abortions in Britain are carried out, in effect, for social reasons. The baby is inconvenient for the young woman’s studies, or career, or because she doesn’t want children yet. Abortions actually to save the mother’s life are a tiny proportion of the total.

INJUSTICE
This topic is on my heart for a number of reasons. Firstly, because of the sheer injustice of putting an innocent person to death. Our legislators pulled a macabre trick in the 1960s, with the abolition of capital punishment in 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967. With those two pieces of legislation, they removed the death penalty from the guilty, by the State, where it belongs, and imposed it upon the innocent, in the Family, where it does not.

When Cain killed Abel (Gen 4:9-10), God did not sentence him to death, but banished him. Why? Because the mechanism of the State for maintaining law and order, with the death penalty for murder, was not there at that time. There was only God’s institution of the family in existence. After the flood, in Genesis 10, God divided the population into nations, and in the chapter before, Genesis 9, He set up a principle of justice which endured for thousands of years, until modern man reckoned he knew better in the 1960s:

Gen. 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

As it happens, I don’t like the death penalty any more than the next liberal product of a 1970’s education. But I read that God established this covenant with Noah and with his sons ‘and with your seed after you’, ‘for perpetual generations.’ As they were the only survivors after the flood, that means all of us. And if anyone should insist on treating Genesis 9 as myth, the truth of it still survives. God says through this passage that a state system of justice built around the ultimate penalty for murder will stand as long as there is sun, clouds and rain. So when I see a rainbow in the sky, I always remember God’s perpetual covenant with all mankind. God says in Genesis 15 that when He sees the bow, He will remember this covenant. But equally, when we see it, we must remember it too.

GIVE CREDIT TO ‘YOU AND YOURS’
The second reason why this subject of abortion is dear to my heart is because it was through consideration of human life that I came into Christian activism, for want of a better expression. The radio presenter Patti Caldwell and a medical guest were discussing in-vitro fertilisation on Radio 4’s ‘You and Yours’ in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Presenter and guest were gushing over wonderful it was.

I thought, ‘If these two are saying this is so good, there must be something wrong with it.’ I found my suspicions were on target and I joined the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, (SPUC).

In those days, we went around showing slides of ‘life before birth’ and ‘death before birth’. The main ‘life before birth’ photo was of an ectopic pregnancy. The doctors had removed the complete baby from the unfortunate mother’s Fallopian tube intact. There was the doomed baby, in its amniotic sac, hanging from the surgeon’s finger and thumb by its umbilical cord. And there was its tiny head and body. Even its heart was visible, just five weeks from conception. The operation had been carried out to save the life of the mother, in a procedure accepted by every pro-life activist. If the pregnancy continued, the tube and sac would burst and both mother and baby would die. The doctors save the only one they could.

The ‘death before birth’ photos were mainly of late-term abortions, to which abortionists and ‘pro-choice’ (the baby doesn’t get much of a choice) people object. Most social abortions, they reason, are done between eight and thirteen weeks, so it is unfair to show the results of saline or prostaglandin abortions of five, six and seven months, where the baby is big and undeniably human. But these abortions are actually performed, and they didn’t like the picture of the results of a vacuum abortion at 13 weeks either, and that is how most abortions are done.

By the way, the reason why the baby in the picture has been reassembled is because it falls to someone after an abortion to make sure nothing is left inside.

IT’S A HUMAN BEING!

The effects of vacuum abortion on African-American babies of 7, 9, 10 and 11 weeks

It was important, and still is, to establish the humanity of the child in the womb. Abortionists of course, try to do the opposite. They pretend that what is actually a living baby is ‘just a blob of cells.’ They lie, in other words. The word ‘baby’ is banned. They use the word ‘foetus’ (which is Latin for offspring) instead of baby, or they talk about ‘removing a pregnancy’. Their own literature, even the telephone script used by the Marie Stopes call-centre women, will tell them never to refer to what the woman is pregnant with as ‘a baby’.

I remember Dr Evan Harris, ‘Dr Death’, who has just been evicted as MP for Oxford East and Abingdon, being cornered by a pro-life doctor who had taken pictures of children in the womb on Radio 4’s Today programme the last time Parliament discussed this topic. The doctor was telling listeners how a baby of twelve weeks can make a fist, how it moves away from a hypodermic needle, and so on. Poor Dr Harris himself then called it a ‘baby’ and had quickly to correct himself to ‘foetus.’ The moment was priceless.

These days, with the stunning array of in vitro photographs available, it is less easy to deny that abortion kills a human being. Anyone with access to the internet can see the pictures for themselves, and be amazed at just how quickly a baby develops. And thanks to IVF, we also now know that from the very moment which sperm enters egg, a new human life has started. The baby becomes a living soul, in its mother’s womb. This view has scriptural support, from Psalm 139, Galatians 1:15, and the Prophet Jeremiah:

Jer. 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

ABORTION SHEDS HUMAN BLOOD
Gen. 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

The Bible teaches us in this passage that innocent human blood cries to heaven and that God hears it. Because man is made in the image of God, human life is sacred. The institution of the death penalty for murder is amplified throughout the first five books of the Bible, and it is made clear that convictions must be soundly based on real collaborated eye-witness evidence. In Numbers, the fourth book, we read:

Num. 35:30 Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.

31 Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death.

The word ‘satisfaction’ means a ransom. The paying of ‘blood money’ is popular in Islam. It means the rich can get away with murder. But the Bible outlaws such a practice, for murder and manslaughter alone. There is no Biblical record of, for example, an adulterer being put to death. God separates out murder precisely because human life is sacred. It was extremely important that a murder be solved and for the guilt of innocent blood to be taken away from the community.

BLOOD-GUILT HAS TO BE ATONED FOR

If that were not possible, and an unsolved murder had taken place, the Bible, in Deuteronomy 21, prescribes an elaborate ceremony in which the nearest city to the murder scene is identified and the elders call the priests to sacrifice a young heifer to take away the blood-guilt:

Deut. 21:6 And all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley:

7 And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

8 Be merciful, O LORD, unto thy people Israel , whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel ’s charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them.

9 So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.

The nation of Israel was therefore to be careful not to shed innocent blood, and if a murder had been committed, to put the murderer to death, not as revenge, but as restitution, to restore the wrong in the eyes of God.

Deut 19:10: That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the Lord giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee.

The Lord was giving Israel the land of Canaan because those inhabitants had exalted sex, including prostitution and sodomy through their worship of the various pagan deities like Baal, Molech and Asherah (Or Ashteroth). We read in Leviticus 18:25 that the land itself ‘vomiteth out her inhabitants’. Archaeologists tell us this always happens to nations which turn their backs on monogamy, elevate sex, exalt depravity and perform human sacrifice. A stronger nation with a monogamous culture always takes their place. And it was in human sacrifice - or child sacrifice - that the Canaanite nations had shed blood and defiled their land.

SACRIFICED THEIR SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO DEVILS

Later, as we read in the books of Judges and Kings, the people of Israel started worshiping the Canaanite demonic gods and adopting their practices. The Psalmist writes:

Ps. 106:37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,

38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan : and the land was polluted with blood.

Murder is murder in the eyes of God, whether it is a man killing his neighbour over a dispute, Israel sacrificing their children by fire to Molech, or an abortionist killing a child in the Marie Stopes clinic. Indeed, there are some chilling parallels between pagan child sacrifice and abortion. Firstly, in both of them, it is the first-born, or the one who would have been the first-born, who generally falls victim. Secondly, both child sacrifice and abortion are only possible in a society which has stopped looking to God for its legal system and puts something else - fertility, sex, human reason - there instead. Thirdly, both bring judgment on the nation which does them.

If the Psalmist is right, and he is, that Israel sacrificed their sons and daughters to devils, then the young women who go for an abortion in our own land and in our own time must be doing something similar. Pagan deities, arising from the pit of hell, love the shedding of innocent blood and they can never have enough. It appears that Satan derives power from human sacrifice. I have said before that the innocent blood shed in abortion could be the engine-room of evil in our land.

SHALL I GIVE MY FIRSTBORN?

The prophet Micah seems to be have been living in a time rather like own, for his words ring down the centuries, speaking of those giving up their first-born and alluding to the corporate responsibility of the nation and the coming judgment of God:

Micah 6:7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

9 The LORD’s voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.

Certainly, the prophets who lived during the time when the people of the kingdom of Judah were sacrificing to devils were clear that the judgment of God would fall, why it would fall, and that it would fit the crime:

Jer. 2:34 Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these.

Jer. 32:35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

36 And now therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city, whereof ye say, It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence;

Eze. 16:38 And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.

THE JUDGMENT FALLS

We see the judgment falling on our nation even now. As Ezekiel says, the bloodshed results in bloodshed. Human life is devalued in a society which kills its children. The price of a life is £500 in the abortion clinic. Our young people have an even lower view. A boy can be killed for a mobile phone, or even for a ‘disrespectful’ look. Life is cheap in Britain today. Injustice follows injustice. As Hosea says, ‘blood toucheth blood’ (Hosea 4:2).

The judgment also falls on those who have had abortions:

Jer. 31:15 Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

Women who have had abortions refuse to be comforted because they know they killed their own child. Post-abortion syndrome is untouched by anything except the blood of Jesus, and we shall come to that.

Finally, eventually, the land vomits out the nation, or the society, which has defiled the land. It has happened to every civilisation in the history of the world. Once sex becomes exalted, perversion takes hold, and the killing starts, no nation in history has survived longer than three generations. Every single one has been taken over by a stronger one, one whose culture was still vibrant and had not been debased.

So which people of which religion would take over from a Western decadent nation like Britain ? The obvious candidate is the people of Islam. They will reach a tipping point of 30% of the population in around 30 years time. It will take less time in some other European nations, longer in others. But our pagan, secularist leaders have already shown they do have the spiritual muscle to resist either the gay lobby, who are leading the charge of decadence into oblivion, or Islam. Only Christianity can save our nation, and only then if there is massive realisation in the Church, pastors stop teaching us to be ‘nice’ and ‘gracious’ (a walkover, in other words) and the men of Jesus Christ rise up.

GOD SHALL WIPE AWAY RACHEL’S TEARS

Christianity is not just to do with the personal; it is a world-view based on the realisation that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, and that He commands nations to repent and turn to Him for their law-making.

But at a personal level, if the reader has been involved in abortion, or knows someone who has, be assured it is not the unforgiveable sin. That, in the view of this author, was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit through whom Jesus did His miracles in His lifetime. Any one who calls on the name of the Lord in Godly sorrow and repentance will be saved, and forgiven:

Matt. 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

Mark’s Gospel records Jesus saying to the crowd:

Mark 3:28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme.

‘All sins shall be forgiven’. Appropriately, the guilt of the blood of the murdered unborn child is taken away by the innocent blood of Jesus who died on the Cross of Calvary. All who believe and trust in Him will be forgiven. The Apostle and Evangelist John, who walked with Jesus on earth, had this glorious Revelation of heaven and of those who had put their whole trust in Jesus:

Rev. 7:13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence came they?

14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.