Choosing the Sacrifice

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The Old Testament is so rich and full with the beauty of the gospel. The New Testament was never meant to replace the Old, it was never meant to stand alone, but the Old Testament in its entirety provides the foundation for the fulfilling of the gospel. The continuity is breathtaking! As I’ve continued my read through the Old Testament prophets, there have been a significant number of things which have rung just as true today as they did back then.

The prophet Joel, in the book bearing his name, describes the sins of the nations holding the Israelites captive. This captivity in and of itself was a judgment from God, because as we’ve seen many times before, the Israelites were far from the perfect obedient servants! But in this passage, God is naming some of the gastly sins of the oppressors:

“And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.” – Joel 3:3

It doesn’t specify, but it does sound like this is referring to the captors’ treatment of the captive children. There is obviously a lack of any regard for the sanctity of human life on their part, and they use what worth they give them to trade for such vile and despicable vices as those mentioned. It’s interesting, though, that there were points when the Israelites were no better… in fact, they were much worse…

“Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.” – Psalms 106:37-38

There are some far-removed spots in the jungle somewhere where things like this might still happen, but surely in our sophistication we as a society would not fall to these depths again, would we? On the contrary! We see human sacrifice going on all around us every day. It not only happens, it permeates our society! It is not human sacrifice as you might think of it, the physical killing of a human being to “appease a god”, but rather a figurative sacrificing. All too often, a parent sacrifices their child to one of their gods, usually self-gratification or the idolization of the child.

In the first instance, self-gratification, the parent thinks and acts not to see the glory of God in their lives and the lives of their children, but to bring themselves every comfort and amenity, at the expense of their children’s souls. Such an action does not have to be overt in the least. I believe it can be seen in something as simple as the government public school system. The vast majority of parents who send their children to those institutions do so because they are more concerned about their own personal time and agendas than they are with the academic and spiritual wellbeing of their children. They might as well be saying, “I have better things to do than to raise my kids right.” Thus, they sacrifice their children to the god Selfishness.

The second scenario, the idolization of the child, is one we might not think about. This idea hearkens back to the proverbs regarding child discipline. “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.” (Proverbs 23:13). Correction is the idea here. Most of us are probably well familiar with Proverbs 22:6 as well – “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Too many parents fail to instruct their children in Godly discipline, and they do so by what we might call “pampering”. We know that we are to be generous with our children, it’s true, but they fail to properly chasten and train their children, which might include doing without some of the niceties and amenities, for fear of putting their children through any discomfort. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:24) And thus it is that a parent sacrifices their child’s soul to another god: the child’s temporal pleasure. The ironic thing is, that by doing what seems painful or uncomfortable for the child in the short term, it is actually to their benefit in the long run.

Indeed, countering both of these problems requires a great self-sacrifice, and that’s where we must make the choice. Will we do what’s hard to please our Lord? These are some things that jumped out at me as I was reading that passage in Joel. It might not be the same kind of sacrifice, but there are children being sacrificed to false gods all around us today, by one way or another. May we as fathers and parents bring glory to the Living God by raising a Godly heritage in the ways which He has laid out before us.

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