Don’t Hide Your Eyes
The One-Year Bible’s Leviticus reading today included more laws and ethical guidelines to ensure the people of Israel lived differently, as compassionate and just and right-minded people. The “big idea” is always that they are to behave and live in a way that is holy in God’s sight and radically different from everyone around them. The passage that stood out to me is pretty grim, but unavoidably true. This passage, from Leviticus 20, is a continuation of God’s required response to the worship of Molech and the sacrifice of children it entails:
“And if the people of the land should in any way hide their eyes from the man, when he gives some of his descendants to Molech, and they do not kill him, then I will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry to Molech.” (Leviticus 20:4–5)
First of all, as Christians, we obviously do not have permission or expectation be executioners or to personally use the death penalty as vigilantes. That specific element had to do with Israel’s time and place, as God often worked His judgement through them. The death penalty in response to murdering children for personal gain is a significant topic, but isn’t what I noticed when highlighting the verse.
The same judgement exists for that kind of culture and person, that ties gain directly to the destruction of infants — whether or not any human does anything about it. God says that if the people “hide their eyes” from the crime, it will not just go away. Even if nobody in government or in social circles treated it as a big deal or even refused to acknowledge its grotesqueness, it would not be simply “forgotten”. There would be no “getting over it”. Justice would come, with human partnership or without it.
The warning of judgement God gives is frightening to think about. God promises to “set His face” against that person — that is God looking away in anger and disgust, removing His protection and blessings and His life giving nature from rebellious evil. That is Him acting on His holiness. I imagined the images from some apocalyptic stories where the light of the sun goes dim and blackens everything. That is the atmosphere any person who willfully gorges themselves on the murder of the unborn and profits from it will face. No life, no growth, just the sorrow that remains, when the smoke clears and the full weight of evil sets in.
I don’t believe it’s God’s will for ANYONE to be removed from His holiness, to be exiled from His Presence. I’m not saying that “nobody” is doing anything to stem the tide of this bloodshed or to stand against it’s wrongness. But today, AGAIN, the same group of people relentlessly blocked a bill that simply protects babies who survive abortion. I can feel myself getting deeply, sickeningly furious just thinking about that. But they are already under God’s judgement — they are not protected or preserved from darkness. That is on them, as heartbreaking as it is.
But as much as I hate that choice, as much as I want to scream at those representatives in a megaphone, I don’t want them to continue wallowing in the empty illusions of wealth, freedom, and power they believe this God-forsaken industry gives them. I know that the Lord doesn’t want that either.
Imagine the kind of explosive life that would return to America, more than is already here, if they took their hands off their eyes! If they repented, recanted, and walked back into the countenance of God’s providence. I can’t fully grasp just how profoundly wonderful that would be.
They are still in the dark. As for me, I won’t stop until the day the lights are on — for good.
