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| Among other things, there are no diamonds in the mine. |
This is about everyone who kills babies, but it is especially about the people of God.
Not all of these songs are about abortion. What they are all about is fertility and sterility. This is what happens to individuals and society and God's people when baby murder is rampant. Sad and bad things happen, y'all, things to write terrible songs about. These things will break you, and us, unless we come on our knees to Jesus. Then he will forgive us our sins, and wipe away our tears, and lift us up.
Anything else is a lie. We cannot escape our guilt.
We have been worshiping the gods of unholy sex and unholy fruit, just as Israel did. That's what the book of Hosea is about. God has words for us, a controversy for the inhabitants of our land.
They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
and burn offerings on the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the whore,
and your brides commit adultery.
I will not punish your daughters
when they play the whore,
nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
and sacrifice with cult prostitutes,
and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.
Hosea 4:13, 14
Song 1: Nude As The News, Cat Power (Chan Marshall)
What happens with abortion? What evils are attendant? First, shame and nakedness happen. We kill our babies, and even when nobody knows, our shame makes us naked. We know we are killing babies; you know you have killed a baby. We are naked to ourselves, we must make a choice. Some repent; most tell a lie. The "she" in this text is God's people, her lovers are false gods.
Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them but shall not find them.
Then she shall say,
‘I will go and return to my first husband,
for it was better for me then than now.’
And she did not know that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
which they used for Baal.
Therefore I will take back my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
Hosea 2:6-10
The woman in the video below is not a Christian, but says that although she still feels guilty, she has forgiven herself (link, search "abortion"). She recognizes that there is something to forgive, although she has spoken neither to the child nor to God.
Song 2: Lime Tree, Bright Eyes
Murder divorces us from life. It curses us, makes us wanderers, like Cain. It looses and loses us in this world. We find ourselves unable to root down where life is. In short, and in modern speech, murder makes us sociopaths, and then we die. As a people, we have accepted the presence of abortion; God will curse us with homelessness, we shall be wanderers among the nations. Our individual lives will become meaningless.
It is said of them,
Those who offer human sacrifices kiss calves!
Therefore they shall be like the morning mist
or like the dew that goes early away,
like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor
or like smoke from a window.
Hosea 13:2, 3
Song 3: This Night Has Opened My Eyes, The Smiths
The children we slay haunt us. They haunt our nation (below), and they haunt each of us. We try to tell ourselves we did a good thing, a necessary thing, but we can't seem to escape the haunting. And if we are blessed in the darkness, God will not ever allow rest; "in a river the color of lead, immerse the baby's head", this song begins with a baptism. If you are blessed after murder God will not leave you alone. A shoeless child on a swing reminds you of your own again.
Perhaps eventually our hearts become seared. We're not happy and we're not sad. Indifference becomes a prize.
Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
'
Song 4: Diamonds In The Mine, Leonard Cohen
When a nation is full of baby killers, it will be cursed. All our fruit will be taken from us. Not only will there be no babies, but there will be no grapes on the vine, no chocolates in the boxes, no diamonds in the mine.
Here we remember that abortion is witchcraft. And the demon gods of abortion devour both the sacrifice (the baby) and the worshippers (men and women).
When we kill our babies, God takes away all that might have been. He takes away our other children. He dries up our balls and gives miscarrying wombs. He himself aborts our children, taking them to himself. And when he does not, we must deal with the curse of unfaithfulness we've brought on ourselves: unfaithful children.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its season,
I saw your fathers.
But they came to Baal-Peor and consecrated themselves to things of shame,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird--
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them till none is left.
Woe to them when I depart from them!
Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;
but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.
Give them, O Lord--
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
Hosea 9:10-14
There were baby killers in the Bible. We are not alone. Again, the whole book of Hosea is basically about the people of God being baby killers (because they chased after foreign gods).
Our Lord forgives even this most terrible of idolatries.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah cast out before the children of Israel. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he reared up altars for the Baalim, and made Asheroth, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, whereof Jehovah said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jehovah. He also made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he practised augury, and used enchantments, and practised sorcery, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. And he set the graven image of the idol, which he had made, in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever: neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from off the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will observe to do all that I have commanded them, even all the law and the statutes and the ordinances given by Moses. And Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did evil more than did the nations whom Jehovah destroyed before the children of Israel.
And Jehovah spake to Manasseh, and to his people; but they gave no heed. Wherefore Jehovah brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he besought Jehovah his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And he prayed unto him; and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Jehovah he was God." (2 Chronicles 33:1-13)There is a way out of this great curse we've brought on ourselves, this curse that you have brought on yourself, which haunts your nights. It's simple repentance. We must turn away from our sin, and God will restore us. He will speak tenderly to us and we will answer him as in the days of our youth. We will no longer call him "My Master", but will call him "My Husband."
But we must speak to repent. When God calls on Israel to repent at the end of Hosea, he tells them to "bring words". As long as we pretend to be guiltless, whether we've been into the clinic or not, we will not be restored. As a people we are complicit. Let us open our mouths and ask the Lord to remove the names of the Baals from them.
As a sort of postscript, where did all the babies the Israelites and Canaanites were sacrificing come from? Well, they often killed the children of their marriages, but, given that these fertility cults had fertility rites, many children were had from these rites, often with cult prostitutes. If God's people were supposed to repent of child sacrifice, what were they supposed to do with all the children from these rites? The answer is in the words of comfort God speaks to his people his bride at the end of Hosea. Recall that the book of Hosea is full of images of wombs and breasts and milk and birth and babies, and especially of children. At the end of the book children appear again, but the word is another:
Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
Take with you words
and return to the Lord;
say to him, "Take away all iniquity;
accept what is good,
and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride on horses;
and we will say no more, 'Our God'
to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.
...
I will be like the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom like the lily;
he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon.
Hosea 14:1-5
If our God is the God who adopts, let the children live. Fight that the children may live. In him the orphan finds mercy.
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