Burn Your Idols or Burn Your Children

The word 'burn' is rarely used in the Chronicles. However, its uses are instructive. Twice we find men burning idols. In I Chronicles 14:12 David defeats the Philistines and burns their idols. In II Chronicles 15:16 Asa burns his mother's idols. In a similar act of cleansing, Josiah takes the bones of the priests of Baal and burns them on the altar as he purges Israel of all her idols (II Chronicles 34:1-7).  The Lord command Israel to burn idols when she entered the promise land (Deuteronomy 7:5, 12:3), David, Asa, and Josiah were following the explicit commands of God in burning idols.

There are two other examples of burning in Chronicles, but this time it is not stone or wood that gets burned. It is flesh and bone. In II Chronicles 28:3 Ahaz burns his children in the fire "according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord has cast out before the children of Israel." In II Chronicles 33:6 Manasseh causes his sons to pass through the fire as act of worship.  The Lord warned Israel of this in Deuteronomy 12:29-32:

When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.' You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. 

Recently Israel approved state funded abortions for women ages 20-33 for any reason at all. Israel, the nation beloved by GOPers around the world, now has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world. In 2013 there were over 980,000 children killed in the womb in America. There are 40-45 million abortions worldwide each year,  roughly 125,000 abortions per day. What is the reason we kill our children? What is at the root of this holocaust? As terrible as abortion is, it is just fruit, not the root of the problem. The root that gives us abortion is idol worship. We love pleasure. We love freedom. We love money. We love our houses peaceful and clean. We love our vacations and our toys.  We love convenience. We worship the great trinity of pleasure, freedom and money. Therefore we kill our children.

Until we burn our idols like David and Asa we will continue to kill our children. Until pastors encourage their parishioners to stop loving the world and start loving God then we will continue to kill our children. Until we teach our sons and daughters that God made them to be fruitful we will continue to sacrifice our children, Until we want children more than we want money or time or pleasure or cleanliness we will continue to burn them. Often those who do not abort their children worship the same gods.  We may not burn our children, but we still love pleasure and money. We still whine and complain about our children. Or refuse to have any or carefully limit how many we have. Or send them off to the state to educate them because it is too hard to do at home or costs too much to send them to a private Christian school. Many people who oppose abortion with their mouths support it with their lives. Even though we may not abort our children, the idols of pleasure, money, freedom, and convenience are often set up in our homes and our churches.The church must burn these idols and cleanse her sanctuaries of these abominations before she can speak with authority in the public square and abortion ends in this land.