When a child screams

In my apartment building about an hour ago a small child's hand got stuck to an elevator door and it got closed into the elevator door frame. There was screaming on the part of the child, the parents, and there arose in all an instant sense of urgency to rescue this child from harm's way.

It's snowy and possibly icy outside, and yet these parents sounded like they're on the way to the hospital to ensure their small girl's hands are not damaged in any permanent way or can get needed medical attention as soon as possible.

As scary as this situation was, there are thousands of children in this country each week who are voluntarily subjected to far worse. Not only do their hands bleed, but those hands and the arms to which they are attached are torn off the child. The head is severed from the body and crushed to a size convenient for removal from his or her mother's womb. It's called a second trimester abortion.

Many Americans don't think this could even happen, yet “doctors” charge a premium for wielding their knives and other instruments to end a child's life at this later stage in this way.

Somehow we've come to the point of tolerating, funding, and some even celebrating this tortuous destruction of human life in this country. I read part of Senator Kamala Harris' book last night, and in the same sentence in which she refers to “rip babies from their mothers’ arms in grotesque violation of their human rights,” a few phrases later she finds no place for such language with respect to abortion and instead euphemistically refers to abortion as “a woman’s right to control her own body.”

As much as our laws should change in this country to prohibit this evil, there is a bigger, longer-lasting concern to raise.

I like to talk and write about people getting saved and about storing up treasure in heaven. It's very hopeful and positive. There's a flip side to this. One of the reasons we talk about getting “saved” is because there is something from which to be saved: the wrath of God.

The flip side of getting saved is not being saved at all and being cast into the lake of fire.

The flip side of storing up treasure in heaven is treasuring up “wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5).

Jesus reserved some of his harshest and most vivid pictures of judgment for those who would harm children.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).

“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Luke 17:2).

In referring to the those leading children into sin, this could include those pressuring a young girl to have someone end the life of an unborn child inside of her.

More important that any law or election are the souls of those promoting this evil. These wicked ways can bring them to eternal destruction. Winning or losing an election, a policy fight, or a lawsuit is nothing compared to the value of each of their individual souls.

It's possible to be on top of the world, have the praise of all men, and still be eternally destitute. Jesus asked, “What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36).

Paul begged people to be saved. “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21).

A millstone can also drag down a nation.

“Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore. The sound of harpists, musicians, flutists, and trumpeters shall not be heard in you anymore. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you anymore. The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth’” (Revelation 18:21-24).

Do we want that to be a description of our nation? There is nothing so exceptional about America that God could not or would not bring the same fate upon our nation complicit in so much evil.