Living Amongst Pagans

One thing the recent revelations about Planned Parenthood selling aborted baby parts has done is to give me a heightened sense that we live amongst people who have little value for human life. We would expect unbelievers to be cavalier about human life but it is shocking to see this attitude exposed publicly like it was. However, we really shouldn't be surprised, truth always eventually comes to light and Pagans will do what Pagans have always done.

Paganism is a term that typically applies to religious beliefs other than Christianity or Judaism. The classic Pagans encountered by Israel when they were taking possession of the Promised Land were those who worshiped Molech, the god of the Ammonites, Canaanites and Phoenicians. The worship of Molech was characterized by parents sacrificing their infant children. You can imagine what God thinks of the practice; "the LORD hates… hands that shed innocent blood" (Proverbs 6:16-17, NKJV).

We know that Israel had a propensity to deviate from the instructions of God and did not completely destroy the Pagan influences of the former residents of the Promised Land. The consequences of this was that they eventually compromised with the culture that God had commanded them to destroy. This unfaithfulness is one of the reasons God raised up the Babylonians to conquer Judah and take them into captivity. "They built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin" (Jeremiah 32:35).

We don't usually think of the proponents of abortion as being religious but their political activists pursue and defend the practice with religious zeal. They do this so much so that conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh refers to abortion as a sacrament of the Left. How a person stands on abortion certainly is an indicator of where they stand on a whole host of anti-God issues. Among those is what they think of God Himself. It was very revealing when the leadership at the 2012 Democratic National Convention sought to make a token reference to God in their platform that they were robustly booed by the delegates. Politically active Secular Humanists hate the God of the Bible and anything He values.

God made all people to have a relationship with Him. People who reject their Creator always embrace some sort of religion of their own creation in an attempt fill the void in their lives that can only be satisfied in a relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ. Secular Humanists are among the most religious of all even though they generally do not go to church services. Their faith is in themselves and they trust in other people to tell them the truth about the most important questions such as where we came from. We should not be surprised by people who do not value human life when they believe we are the product of blind, random natural processes. Indeed, the engine of evolution is survival of the fittest which requires the strong to kill off the weakest amongst us.

We generally don't associate Secular Humanists with Pagans but the fruit of their beliefs are the same. While Pagan Molech-worshipers had to wait for their babies to be born before they killed them, Secular Humanists prefer to do the same thing before birth. Planned Parenthood couldn't generate nearly enough revenue from killing babies if the parents were allowed to actually lay eyes on their child first.

You'd think that the recent revelations about Planned Parenthood selling baby parts for profit would result in them being shut down and some of their leaders going to prison. But if we are close to the return of Christ as all the evidence points to, then the practice of abortion is unlikely to be curtailed. Jesus said the time preceding His return would be, "as the days of Noah were" (Matthew 24:37). And we know that one of the characteristics of the days before the flood was violence per Genesis 6:11. We have lost 64 times more Americans through abortions than in all of our wars combined. Given the advanced stage of history we are in and the importance of the abortion sacrament to state-sponsored Secular Humanists, I will make the following prediction:

PREDICTION: The revelations about Planned Parenthood selling baby parts will not stop the practice of abortion in this country; the baby killing will continue.

So how do we deal with living in a Pagan culture? It helps to remember that we are not citizens of this fallen world. "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body" (Philippians 3:120-21). We are but sojourners in this fallen world who look forward to the day when we will be called to our home in heaven. As Jesus said in John 17:6-11, we who are His children are in the world but not of the world.

Jesus has not yet called us home because he still has a mission for us in the world. We are here to represent Him and there will be some who will be attracted to Our Lord by our lives. All indications are that we do not have long to persevere. Come soon, Lord Jesus!