July 14 Saving the Children

Ezekiel 36:12-15 "I will let people walk on you, even my people Israel. And they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance, and you shall no longer bereave them of children. 13 Thus says the Lord God: Because they say to you, 'You devour people, and you bereave your nation of children,' 14 therefore you shall no longer devour people and no longer bereave your nation of children, declares the Lord God. 15 And I will not let you hear anymore the reproach of the nations, and you shall no longer bear the disgrace of the peoples and no longer cause your nation to stumble, declares the Lord God."


IN this text, God is speaking through Ezekiel to the mountains of Israel - to the land in which his people live. This is a literary technique designed to demonstrate the Lord's sovereign authority over his entire creation. Psalms 50:1 The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth  from the rising of the sun to its setting.

    Graciously into Israel's exile, God speaks to offer hope for his people and the future generations of Israel as he declares, "therefore you shall no longer devour people and no longer bereave your nation of children."

    As we have mentioned and the Bible repeatedly declares, God's people Israel had worshiped man-made, demon formed gods such as Baal and Molech. An element of this evil was the sacrifice of children into a fiery altar. Imagine throwing your 4-year-old son into a fire to appease a lifeless god! This evil was bereaving the nation of its children and causing other nations to point an accusing finger at Israel. God's people were defaming the holy name and nature of God.

    God says in his grace here that this will end. And, indeed, it does. After God restored Israel from their Exile to Babylon, all such heinous child-killing worship ended. Public idol worship stayed in Israel's history. In grief, God's people would look back to ask in horror, "What have we done?"

    Your task is to pray to God he will speak such words to our nation and the world today. Pray that he will end the abomination of abortion, that we will no longer bereave the nation of our children. Our nation is bereaved of over 53,073,000 children since the Supreme Court legalized  murder in Roe vs. Wade. Pray our courts and leaders will arise today and ask, "What have we done?"

Prayer: Lord, stir our hearts to anger against the murder or your children. Stir our hearts to pray salvation for our nations. In Jesus' name, amen.