Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Scourge of Innocent Blood
“And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets. Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, to remove [them] out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the LORD would not pardon.” (2 Kings 24:2-4 AV)
“ Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye [are]: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.” (Numbers 35:31-33 AV)
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The sin of murder is a horror in the eyes of the Lord. Murder is the taking of innocent life, whether it is the slaying of a neighbor who has committed no crime, an enemy who does not deserve to die, or the murder of a baby in the womb, or the slaughter of the old and dying. Life is a precious gift from God and it is to be esteemed as one of God's finest gifts to us. In despising men's lives we are transgressing on the glory of God. It is no wonder that life becomes cheap when it is thought to be the result of impersonal processes in the slime and that man comes from the lower animals. A civilization can choose to believe that slimy story if he wants to, but he has no choice about the consequences that come from his acceptance of the story: laziness, fornication, adultery, sodomy, and worst of all, the murder of innocents.
Only the blood of the transgressors can cleanse the land of the blood of the innocents. If a nation does not punish murderers and limit the assault on human life, then God will Himself bring cleansing in the blood of the citizens of that land. Abraham Lincoln understood this. In his second Inaugural Address, Lincoln understood that the hand of God was in the shedding of the blood of the American people: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Will God require of us Americans again the price of blood? Will armies again march across our beloved country, through the fields of New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas, Oregon and California until we have been cleansed of the blood of innocents? In the hardness of our hearts we have slaughtered innocents by the hands of our doctors and medical profession for many years now, millions and millions of babies have been thrown into the garbage cans, their bodies dismembered, because they were inconvenient and unwanted. We have sacrificed them to our lusts, just as David sacrificed Uriah for his lust for Bathsheba, and as Saul destroyed the Gibeonites.
In the Civil War, it was Americans shedding the blood of Americans; who will God raise up to cleanse our land the next time? Will he deliver us into the hands of Islamic fascists who are implacable, cruel, and love slaughter more than we can imagine?
Let us pray for our bleeding, suffering land. Let us pray that God will cleanse us from our iniquities and transgressions, that He will remember mercy and turn us again into the ways of righteousness. That ministers will once more preach the whole word of God and not the imaginations of their own hearts.
It is the mercy of God that we so desperately need: the grace that transforms the heart and changes the mind. This is the work that Jesus came to do, as the prophet Isaiah wrote:
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; 3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3 AV)
Jesus claimed its fulfillment in Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave [it] again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:18-21 AV)
“Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 18:31 AV)
"O Lord God, do not to us sinful Americans according to our sins and iniquities, but pour out thy Holy Spirit upon our land, to turn us from murder and strife and iniquity and uncleanness and restore unto us they favor and grace. Raise up faithful and true ministers and churches and families and men and women who will love you and keep your commandments. Set the Lord Jesus before our eyes, crucified for our sins, and grant us grace to believe and cast our sins behind us, O Lord our God. Take away our idols and false religions from among us and give us faith to cast all idols behind us and pray to you only, for you are the Father of our Lord Jesus, and there is no other living and true God. Amen and Amen."
“ Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye [are]: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.” (Numbers 35:31-33 AV)
----------------------
The sin of murder is a horror in the eyes of the Lord. Murder is the taking of innocent life, whether it is the slaying of a neighbor who has committed no crime, an enemy who does not deserve to die, or the murder of a baby in the womb, or the slaughter of the old and dying. Life is a precious gift from God and it is to be esteemed as one of God's finest gifts to us. In despising men's lives we are transgressing on the glory of God. It is no wonder that life becomes cheap when it is thought to be the result of impersonal processes in the slime and that man comes from the lower animals. A civilization can choose to believe that slimy story if he wants to, but he has no choice about the consequences that come from his acceptance of the story: laziness, fornication, adultery, sodomy, and worst of all, the murder of innocents.
Only the blood of the transgressors can cleanse the land of the blood of the innocents. If a nation does not punish murderers and limit the assault on human life, then God will Himself bring cleansing in the blood of the citizens of that land. Abraham Lincoln understood this. In his second Inaugural Address, Lincoln understood that the hand of God was in the shedding of the blood of the American people: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Will God require of us Americans again the price of blood? Will armies again march across our beloved country, through the fields of New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas, Oregon and California until we have been cleansed of the blood of innocents? In the hardness of our hearts we have slaughtered innocents by the hands of our doctors and medical profession for many years now, millions and millions of babies have been thrown into the garbage cans, their bodies dismembered, because they were inconvenient and unwanted. We have sacrificed them to our lusts, just as David sacrificed Uriah for his lust for Bathsheba, and as Saul destroyed the Gibeonites.
In the Civil War, it was Americans shedding the blood of Americans; who will God raise up to cleanse our land the next time? Will he deliver us into the hands of Islamic fascists who are implacable, cruel, and love slaughter more than we can imagine?
Let us pray for our bleeding, suffering land. Let us pray that God will cleanse us from our iniquities and transgressions, that He will remember mercy and turn us again into the ways of righteousness. That ministers will once more preach the whole word of God and not the imaginations of their own hearts.
It is the mercy of God that we so desperately need: the grace that transforms the heart and changes the mind. This is the work that Jesus came to do, as the prophet Isaiah wrote:
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; 3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3 AV)
Jesus claimed its fulfillment in Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave [it] again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:18-21 AV)
“Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 18:31 AV)
"O Lord God, do not to us sinful Americans according to our sins and iniquities, but pour out thy Holy Spirit upon our land, to turn us from murder and strife and iniquity and uncleanness and restore unto us they favor and grace. Raise up faithful and true ministers and churches and families and men and women who will love you and keep your commandments. Set the Lord Jesus before our eyes, crucified for our sins, and grant us grace to believe and cast our sins behind us, O Lord our God. Take away our idols and false religions from among us and give us faith to cast all idols behind us and pray to you only, for you are the Father of our Lord Jesus, and there is no other living and true God. Amen and Amen."
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