God’s abhorrence at the killing of children.

“The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes”, declares the Lord. “They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire – something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” (Jeremiah 7:30-31)

Jeremiah does not identify the pagan gods or goddesses that had been set up in the Temple, but his description of what was happening in the Valley of Ben Hinnom fits the description of Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites, who had been introduced to the land of Judah by King Solomon when he set up shrines to each of the gods of his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:7).

Molech was a particularly evil god to whom children were sacrificed in the fire. This form of religious sacrifice was so abhorrent to God that Moses was told to make it a capital offence: “The Lord said to Moses, say to the Israelites: any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him” (Lev 20:1-2).

The Fires of Gehenna

Hezekiah had cleansed the land of many foreign shrines on the high places but Manasseh, his son, re-introduced a wide range of idolatry including the worship of Molech: “In both courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practising sorcery and divination” (2 Kings 21:5- 6).

All this was reversed when the young Josiah came of age and instituted reforms, removing “from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts” (2 Kings 23:4). Josiah also “desecrated Topheth which was in the valley of Ben Hinnom, so no-one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire of Molech” (2 Kings 23:10).

Sacrificing children in pagan fire was so abhorrent to God that Moses was told to make it a capital offence.

But all this was reversed once again by Josiah’s son Jehoiakim, which is what caused Jeremiah to explode in righteous anger. The reason why Jehoiakim re-established the burning of babies in the valley of Ben Hinnom is probably to be found in a passing reference in 2 Kings 24:2, which says: “The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him.” It was a common practice to buy off raiders by installing a shrine to their god, acknowledging defeat and reducing the amount of treasure that had to be given to them. The fact that Ammonite raiders are mentioned here would be a reason for re-installing a shrine to Molech.

Jeremiah was outraged: he refers to the shrine as ‘Topheth’ which in Hebrew is a pun, rhyming with the word bosheth (‘shame’) and pronounced like the verb ‘to spit’ used in Job 17:6. The Valley of Ben Hinnom certainly became a ‘valley of shame’ as Jerusalem’s refuse tip which was burning constantly. The name was later shortened to ‘Ge Hinnom’, which when translated into Aramaic and Greek becomes the Gehenna that we meet in the New Testament, as the word for hell whose fires are never extinguished.

Speechlessness

Jeremiah’s level of outrage at the burning of little children in this valley of shame had no measure. He was virtually rendered speechless; as can be seen from the words he puts into the mouth of God: “[this is] something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” This strange anthropomorphism is unlike any other pronouncement from Jeremiah.

It gives us another little glimpse into the life and ministry of Jeremiah and his amazing relationship with God. The words must have just tumbled out of Jeremiah’s mouth without him stopping to remember that he was speaking on behalf of the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, who was not only omnipotent but also omniscient. It is hard to think that God would actually have said that he had been taken by surprise – that the sins of the people of Judah had actually not ever entered his mind!!

The Valley of Ben Hinnom is the Gehenna we meet in the New Testament as the word for hell whose fires are never extinguished.

Jeremiah’s use of this phrase reveals the nature of genuine, God-inspired prophecy that is expressed through our own human mind and in our human language. It is a reflection of Jeremiah’s own shock and horror, and the abhorrence of the Holy Spirit, that Jehoiakim could have sunk to such a depth of spiritual degradation and offence against the word of God. He was actually committing a crime of which God had said a perpetrator should be stoned to death. Here was the King himself bringing into the land of Judah this terrible practice of burning babies alive.

Glory Departed

It was probably at this moment that Jeremiah realised why God had told him to cease praying for the welfare of the nation - because its fate was already sealed. The holiness of the God of Israel, who had created human beings in his own image for fellowship with him, could not keep company with such detestable behaviour.

God could do no other than remove his presence from the Temple, from Jerusalem and from among the people of Judah. They would now be left to their fate which Jeremiah knew meant that the Babylonians would come and conquer the land, tearing down the walls of Jerusalem, setting fire to the King’s palace and first desecrating and then destroying the Temple. Jeremiah could already foresee what Ezekiel was later to speak about – the word ICHABOD, ‘Glory Departed’, over the Temple.

So, what is God saying to us today? He sees hundreds of live babies torn from their mother’s wombs every day, thrown into a black plastic bag and taken out of the back door of our hospitals and thrown into the incinerator – the modern equivalent of the shrine of Molech. Can we really expect God to bless a nation whose land is filled with the blood of the innocent?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments. You may also be interested in our News Page this week, which features several pro-life events coming up in September.

Journalist under fire for asking awkward questions about a baby

As the great shaking of British society continues to turn our values upside-down, the Daily Mail has managed to seriously ruffle feathers with some elephant-in-the-room questions few have the guts to ask.

Richard Littlejohn, in last week’s Friday column,¹ has done us all a favour by tackling the ludicrous news that Olympic diver Tom Daley and his ‘husband’ are having a baby, focusing particularly on the fact that no mention is made of a mother (presumably the possessor of the womb featured in the much-publicised ultrasound scan) or who the actual father is.

The New Normal?

His great offence was no doubt in challenging fellow scribes to stop pretending this kind of relationship is the ‘new normal’. At any rate, he has succeeded in raising hackles to such an extent that major companies, including Honda, Morrison’s supermarket and the chemist chain Boots, withdrew their advertising.

Littlejohn also stated his belief “that children benefit most from being brought up by a man and a woman”.

I only hope the Mail stands by their writer, though I suspect editors may have their eyes blurred by pound signs, and thus be tempted to rein in one of the finest journalists among the fast-disappearing old school representing a press that was truly free to express its views.

The Truth Provokes Uproar

Most, if not all, of our treasured freedoms in this land are the product of our great Judeo-Christian heritage. So why are we (the Church) leaving it to secular journalists like Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips to do our ‘dirty’ work – i.e. taking the flak for challenging the accepted new norms of society.

Where is the Christian voice today? Where is the courage once displayed by Christian martyrs who willingly died for their faith?

Christians have historically been known for straight talking in addressing controversial social and other issues which was hardly surprising because they were following One who dared to accuse religious leaders of hypocrisy – in fact he compared them to “whitewashed tombs”, looking pristine on the surface but full of dead men’s bones (Matt 23:27).

The Gospel truth has always provoked uproar – often because it affects people’s pockets – as several instances in the Acts of the Apostles (the Bible’s account of the early Church) testify. Many businesses of the time were built on the backs of idolatry (i.e. worship of rival gods).

And in more recent times, William Wilberforce had to overcome decades of fierce opposition to his anti-slavery campaign because so much big money had depended on it.

People-Pleasing Church

Where is the Christian voice today? Where is the courage once displayed by Christian martyrs who willingly died for their faith? After all, these issues strike at the very heart of what the Gospel stands for – marriage, family, relationships (with God and one another).

But, for the most part, we remain silent and walk by on the other side of the road letting the ‘Good Samaritan’ tend to the wounds of society. Jesus, in his famous parable, deliberately chose a Samaritan (of mixed race and despised by Jews of the time) as the one who rescued the man beaten up by robbers.

With too few exceptions, many of us in the Church have become men-pleasers, not God-pleasers. If Jesus had been more concerned with appealing to men than in carrying out his Father’s will, he would not have died on the Cross and we would have been left with neither hope nor salvation.

For the most part, the Church remains silent and walks by on the other side of the road, letting ‘Good Samaritan’ journalists tend to the wounds of society.

Christian leaders who refuse to address these issues are clearly not crucified with Christ, dead to the world and refusing to conform to its standards (see Gal 2:20; Rom 12:2).

Dissent Not Tolerated

The furore sparked by Littlejohn’s piece was entirely predictable; and yet the very same (Daily Mail) issue carried a major feature exposing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s murky political past in meeting up with a Communist spy from behind the Iron Curtain. Was the metropolitan liberal elite much concerned about that? Evidently not.

Just as the frenzied backlash stirred by the Tom Daley article was kicking off (I was initially unaware of it as I was involved in a south London conference dedicated to evangelism), a Nigerian-born pastor was heaping praise on Britain’s great heritage,² mentioning in particular the Christian motivation of past businessmen like those who founded Cadbury’s, Guinness and, yes, Boots the chemist – the very firm that has now protested against critics of a non-Christian lifestyle!

Even some of our great football clubs, founded as part of the Church’s outreach to young people, are now in the hands of Middle Eastern nationals from countries which ban both Bibles and Christians, he lamented.

I notice that legendary Wimbledon champion Margaret Court is also in the dock for her stand on sexual ethics. Lesbian former champions Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova are campaigning to have a Melbourne arena re-named in protest. How pathetic!

It seems that with 50 years having now passed since both abortion and homosexuality were declared legal in the UK, they have now been officially ‘normalised’ and no dissent will be tolerated. Is this the fruit of a free society? Does no-one still cherish free speech?

50 years since both abortion and homosexuality were declared legal in the UK, they have now been officially ‘normalised’ and no dissent will be tolerated.

The Cross is Our Anchor

Well, all is not lost, if Sunday’s touching episode of Call the Midwife is anything to go by. One of the storylines followed a Nigerian sailor thrown off his ship because the crew believed he had smallpox, which was highly contagious.

Lonely and distraught, he prayed desperately as he hid in a drain, calling on Jesus for help, which duly came in the shape of the kind nuns who supply the dock area with midwives. It turned out that he actually had leprosy, which was treatable. And as he exulted in the answer to his prayers, one of the nuns handed him a Bible, saying: “In the cross is our anchor.”

Go and Sin No More

Although the letter of the law would have allowed Jesus to stone the woman caught in adultery, as her accusers pointed out, he refused to condemn her, but added: “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11).

Christians who truly follow their Lord do not hate those who commit adultery (which includes all sex outside marriage), but neither can they affirm the practice. They would be betraying their faith if they did. Get used to it. Enough is enough.

References

1 Read the article here.

2 World Harvest Christian Centre, convened by Rev Wale Babatunde.

An extraordinary testimony of God’s kindness.

We live in a strange and worrying era, when the value of life is in deep recession.

On the one hand there is the so-called morning-after pill, an insurance against unwanted conception, and - worse - the escalating use of abortion to destroy unwanted, unborn children. On the other hand, at the other extreme we hear of new scientific ‘advances’ in the way eggs can be cultivated outside the womb for women who find difficulty in conception.

Add to this ever-increasing rates of family breakdown, the general acceptance that one’s gender (even that of a child) can be manipulated and re-configured, and the mounting pressure to legalise assisted suicide, and we begin to realise how far our society’s value of life is being eroded.

Sometimes I have wondered how the wastage of life might be made clearer to those blind to what they are doing. Perhaps someone could write a story that imagined the potential of lives lost in the womb, following the imagined life story of those who might have been born, grown up and contributed to our society, but who never made it past the start-line.

Could one illustrate this in a powerful enough way to touch a generation like, say, Uncle Tom’s Cabin challenged a whole nation to reconsider slavery and eventually reverse that tide of evil?

I don’t have the skill to write such a book, but recently I discovered something in the testimony of my own life that, at least for me, illustrated these things in a deep way.

A Blessed Childhood

My life has been wonderfully blessed. I grew up in the era immediately following the Second World War, conceived in 1945 and born in 1946. My earliest memories are of the hard winter of 1947, with its deep snow up to my waist, at a time when we had been temporarily housed with other families in a village in South Wales.

Sometimes I have wondered how the wastage of life might be made clearer to those blind to what they are doing.

My father returned from Belgium in 1946, was demobbed and resumed work as a plumber, enjoying plenty to do in those days of rebuilding a nation and building houses. My mother kept house and was always the anchor of our security as children (my older sister and I).

What followed was a blessed and stable childhood through the 1950s - the era of rationing and austerity but hope, strong families and supportive community, when Sundays were kept special, when there were few phones and few cars. That era lives with me to this day.

A Fruitful Life

I did well at school and was optimistic about my future career. When my father asked me if I would join him in his plumbing business, that he might write SF Denton and Son on the van, I rather bluntly turned him down, having plans to join the RAF.

I did indeed become an RAF pilot, followed by studying for a maths degree at Kings College Cambridge, followed by teaching Maths and Computer Science at Banbury School, and then Educational Research at the University of Oxford where I also picked up my DPhil in the study of the educational of able children. Since the mid-1980s I left all that to go into full-time Christian work, which has, since then, taken me all over the world. It has been a wonderful and fruitful life.

One thing that typified my life from as early as I can recall, was my commitment to serve God, which I brought to prayer every single night in my years of growing up. Much later, I recall a day when the Lord spoke to me on my way back home from a ministry meeting. I was recalling how blessed and encouraged my early life had been, when the question came into my mind: ‘You thought that was your parents encouraging you, didn’t you?’ “Yes,” said I. ‘Well, that was Me’, said God.

It was like a Bar Mitzvah experience at a time when perhaps the Lord wanted me to turn more fully to him as Father and recognise the quiet but significant role he had played in my life all through those blessed years of growing up. Amazing.

Searching for My True Father

Yet the story has become even more amazing recently, ever since a friend put together a genealogical tree for both sides of my family. I was quite pleased to discover a fairly normal set of ancestors from the working class – labourers, agricultural workers, domestic servants and so on - going back through the 19^th Century.

I recall a day when the Lord spoke to me, urging me to recognise the quiet but significant role he had played in my life through those blessed years of growing up.

At this time a thought came back to my mind that had, despite having wonderful loving parents, often posed a question during my early years: was my father really my father? It is remarkable what a DNA test can show, so I took up the offer of one towards the end of last year. The results confirmed my hunches and so began an incredible period of investigation to see if I could find my true father.

Amazingly, my DNA results strongly linked me paternally not to the Midlands where my supposed father came from, but to the USA.

Piecing together clues I picked up from other known relatives, I went looking on US genealogy trees for the person most likely to be my real father. I was looking for someone who would have been serving in the US forces, stationed in the UK near where my mother lived in 1945 with my baby sister, at a time when my presumed father was away serving in the RAF.

Surely that should have been like a needle in a haystack to find; but miraculously, with the help of an historical society, I was able to locate a man who ticked all those boxes. More than that - I have obtained a photograph of him and have discovered that he is still alive in the USA - a frail 96-year-old, but alive. I may yet have personal contact with him, though he will probably be quite surprised at my existence!

What Really Happened

The true story is that I descend from a Native American tribe in Mexico (perhaps the Pima tribe). In the days of immigration and of pioneering (including the California Gold Rush no doubt), beginning around 1800, an Italian went to Mexico and married a young Indian squaw (I imagine her living in a tepee) - and so the line from which my true father came was launched.

In 1942, when America entered the war, a young Italian with Native American roots enlisted and became one of those GIs who came to the UK with bars of chocolate for the children and nylons for the women. Amazingly, it was on the exact day that my deceased mother would have been 100 years old that I discovered this man’s name.

Despite finding him after all these years, I find myself not so much drawn to know my real father as being drawn closer to my heavenly Father.

History of the closing days of the war describe the way GIs linked up with local young women. During those uncertain days, my mother formed a temporary relationship and I was the unplanned result. Soon the GIs went home and eventually my (adopted) father came back from Belgium. It was all covered up and we got on with that life that turned out to be blessed.

I think about this, having complete forgiveness for my mother, and being aware that but for the events which took place, neither I, nor my own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, nor the consequences of my life (good or bad), would have happened.

In fact, despite finding him after all these years, I find myself not so much drawn to know my real father as being drawn closer to my heavenly Father.

A Father to the Fatherless

The point of describing all this is that, in raw terms, my origins were from the unwanted of the developing USA, descending from a ‘half-breed’ (as they would be called in the cowboy films), a nobody, then later born in sin, the unplanned and unwanted result of a temporary fling. An accident with a questionable background.

Yet, God did not leave me in my vulnerability. He put his mark on me even as I was a young child. As Psalm 68 says, he is a father to the fatherless and puts the isolated in families.

If I had been conceived today, I would very likely have been eradicated by the morning-after pill or through abortion.

I only boast about this to highlight what God has done with my life, for there has been some fruit, for example in the education of gifted children, the establishing of Bible colleges, participating in the eradication of polio from Morocco, to name a few highlights. For his glory it is important to see the potential in my life that God planned to use, and which he is still bringing to fulfilment.

My origins, in raw terms, are an accident with a questionable background. Yet, God did not leave me in my vulnerability.

God Values Life

This is a story with two-fold application. One is to highlight the utter waste of potential in our generation, when life is allocated such little value as to wipe it out before birth. My life is unique and colourful in its origins, but there are many such from our generation. There are many lives from the current generation who never had the chance to find God’s love or to fulfil their potential. They simply weren’t born.

The other is the way Almighty God cares for us when we ask him to help us. In an unseen, sometimes hardly perceptible way, God has been alongside me wonderfully all these years. He will do and is doing the same for others who reach out to him in hope and in growing faith.

God values life so much that he gave his life so that we might live and, as he said, that we might have life in all its fullness. How many of those children destroyed before birth might have grown to have their own testimony, we can only imagine. But here is one who could have been at the bottom of the pile, who might have been lost, but was spared for this life, shared in the work of God, and saved for eternal life.

That is my testimony – still developing and hopefully worth sharing. How about yours? It is the sum of our personal testimonies about what God has made of our lives that could be that ‘book’ I was imagining.