The Scarlet Thread – Innocent Blood Continues to Cry Out
Scarlet Thread – Innocent Blood Continues to Cry Out.
“Glory be to Jesus, Who in bitter pains, poured for me the life-blood, from His sacred veins.
Grace and life eternal, in that blood I find, blest be His compassion, infinitely kind.
Blest through endless ages, be the precious steam, which from endless torments, did the world redeem.
Lift ye then your voices, swell the mighty flood; louder still and louder, praise the precious blood.” (Friedrich Filitz).
Glory Be to Jesus – Christian Song with Lyrics (youtube.com)
The scarlet thread that is sewn into Holy Scripture from beginning to end is unmistakable. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bible is blood-centric, that there is an overriding theme of blood wherever we look. We don’t need to be super-detectives to discover blood patterns in the Word. The Scripture seems practically preoccupied with blood, and one could be excused for observing that God seems to be out for blood. We find out why this is the case in Leviticus 17:11 and 13… “The life of all flesh is in its blood. The life is in the blood.” The Word of God seems preoccupied with blood only because God is preoccupied with life. God is out for blood only in the sense that He is out for Life. The Bible is blood-centric only because God is life-centric. In fact, the term “scarlet thread” is not strong enough. Instead, the Bible has a powerful crimson tsunami flowing through its pages from Genesis through Revelation, from before creation to the New Creation.
In this Bible study we will take a good look at the blood-stories in Scripture, from the divine sacrifice before the foundation of the world, to the animal sacrifice in the Garden of Eden; from the bloodshed in the first family, to the blood-themed covenant between God and Noah; from the Nile River, to the Passover in Egypt; from the bloody mess in the Tabernacle, to the Scarlet Worm that hinted at Jesus; from the scourge of human sacrifice to the blood of abortion. Yes, there seem to be blood-splatters all over the floors and walls of Scripture. Through it all, the precious blood of Jesus is the centerpiece.
“Do not pollute the land in which you live; it is murder that pollutes the land.” (Numbers 35:33).
What did the Lord God say soon after the murder of Abel… “The sound of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground!” (Genesis 4:10). When innocent blood is shed, the land is defiled. Wherever the sanctity of human life is violated, human society becomes contaminated. A culture that tolerates the taking of innocent life is morally polluted and will not be able to sustain healthy life. This seems to be a principle built into God’s creation. Murder is like pouring toxic chemicals onto a nation’s spiritual ground, rendering the land barren, fruitless, unable to sustain life. When human life is not valued or protected, holy ground becomes unholy. The life-giving potential of a land is in jeapardy when a nation is stained with innocent blood.
In his commentary on this passage from the book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible, noted scholar and rabbi Jonathon Sacks has this to say… “Since the human person is the image of God, murder is not merely a crime; it is a sacrilege. It defiles the land. It desecrates something holy, namely human life.” He goes on in his commentary to quote a famous rabbinic teaching on the profound importance of a single human life. “Anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world, and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.”
It is painfully clear that our land in contemporary life is polluted to a profound degree. Our land is stained with the blood of over 70 million preborn babies. Our land is defiled because of abortion. We may be blind to the consequences of this defilement, but the signs are there… hearts that are strangely calloused regarding the value of human life; consciences that have significant scar tissue; the mistreatment of children throughout society; the degrading of the great gift of a woman’s womb; the slippery slope from frozen embryos to abortion to infanticide to assisted suicide to euthanasia. Our land continues to dishonor human life to an astonishing degree.
The Humanity of Unborn Life. A preborn baby in the womb is actually a human life? Let’s follow the science: At the moment of conception, the parents’ DNA is passed on to this new creation; the genetic framework that makes someone human is established; the new person’s inherited characteristics are determined, everything from sex to facial features to body type to hair color to his/her personality. At conception, everything is now mapped out, programmed, and it’s full steam ahead as the unborn person receives the nutrition and protection needed by the pregnant mom. The baby’s heart begins to beat on day 18, response to touch at 40 days. By the tenth week of pregnancy, the preborn baby has brain activity, a digestive system, and all the main bodily organs ate formed. Some in the medical community claim that the fetus starts to feel pain at the 24th week, while others claim it is actually much sooner than that. The humanity of the unborn from the point of conception has been well established in the scientific community. Abortion is the taking of an innocent human life at its most vulnerable.
“You must not worship Yahweh your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods.” (Deut. 12:31); ‘You shall not let any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molech, for you must not bring shame on the name of our God. I am Yahweh. So obey my instructions, and do not defile yourselves by committing this abomination… I am Yahweh your God.” (Lev. 18:21, 30); “They even sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. Therefore the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people, so that He abhorred His own inheritance.” (Psalm 106:37-40).
CHILD SACRIFICE. Yes, what today seems unthinkable was rather common back in the days of the ancient pagan religions. And believe it or not, God’s chosen people even surrendered to this horrific practice. The Valley of Gehenna, which is known as the Valley of Hinnom in the Hebrew Bible, was a little valley just outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem. Gehenna/Hinnom had a horrific history, the lowest of the low points of the nation of Israel. There were two very evil kings in Israel, Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:3) and Manasseh, who practiced and advocated pagan worshjp at its worst. In the Valley of Gehenna, Ahaz built a throne and placed an idol figure of the detestable pagan god Molech. The metal idol had the head of an ox and the body of a man with outstretched arms. The idol was totally hollow, so when they heated it up with fires, the idol would become unbearably hot to the touch. Once the pagan priests thought the metal was sufficiently hot, they practiced the unthinkable… child sacrifice. Ahaz and Manasseh led the way by sacrificing their own children to the fires of Molech by laying the child on the idol’s blazing hot extended arms. The child would then be roasted alive by the idol. The particular section of the valley where the sacrifices were held was called Tophet, which means “fire-stove.” The putrid air hanging above Gehenna day and night was surely a rotten stench in the nostrils of Lord Yahweh. In Michael Card’s excellent book on Hesed, he says it is traditionally accepted that during the times of sacrifice in Gehenna, there would be pagan officials who would beat a constant drumbeat to drown out the screams of the dying infants. This type of cruelty could only have come from the mind of Satan, the truly evil one. Believe it or not, Solomon built an altar for Molech to appease his pagan wives. That was the last straw for God, and Solomon had his kingdom taken away for committing such an atrocity (1 Kings 11). Is this qualitatively different from the modern practice of abortion, in which the unborn, healthy child still forming in the womb of its mother, is cut into pieces and then suctioned into a trash bag?
Abortion is united in spirit with child sacrifice, and is the ultimate child abuse. There has been a growing callousness in our general society toward the worth and dignity of children ever since abortion has become such an accepted part of our culture. Abortion is a barbaric violation of the sacred intimacy between mother and child and an abomination in the eyes of God. It is unthinkable that in a civilized society it would be acceptable to pick up a sharp scalpel, reach into the womb of a pregnant mother, slice up the fetus into small enough parts to suction out with a miniature vacuum cleaner, and dispose of the remains into a garbage bag to be taken out with the afternoon trash. It is equally unthinkable that half of the abortions now are accomplished at home, with no medical personnel at hand, and requires the taking of a few pills that have resulted in death of the mother as well as the unborn child. With the abortion pill, the fetus’ blood and nutrient supply is cut off and is forcefully expelled in an early delivery. In the U. S. society, the innocent blood of these children is crying out to God from the ground. The voices of these victims seem to be getting louder and louder. Remember, for each life taken in the womb, it is as if a universe has been taken.
Healing the Land that has been Polluted. Ironically, only the healing blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse our land of its stains of innocent blood. Any violence on our part in response to this violence is not the answer. Only the “weapons of righteousness” will do, as we pray for God to heal this land… “If My people who bear My Name will humble themselves, pray, crave my Presence while seeking My face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven, mercifully forgive their sins, and heal their land. I will personally save their land from disaster and restore their land to health.” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Heal Our Land (feat. The Slays – Kaden Slay & Melanie Tierce) – YouTube