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SERMON: From the Fires of Molech to the Cross of Christ

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today, we explore a sobering yet hopeful message from the Scriptures. We will delve into the prohibitions against sacrificing children to Molech, as found in the book of Leviticus, and journey towards the hope we have in Jesus Christ, who sacrificed Himself for our sins. This journey from the ancient practices of idolatry to the profound love demonstrated on the cross will remind us of God’s enduring love and the redemption He offers.

Here is the base Scripture for today:

Leviticus 18:21  And thou shalt not let any of thy seed (children) pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.

To truly understand the prohibition against Molech, we must consider the historical and cultural context in which these commands were given. The Canaanites, who inhabited the land before the Israelites, practiced child sacrifice as a form of worship to their gods. This was a “transaction” between the god and the people. It was seen as a way to secure favor and blessings, but it was fundamentally rooted in fear of, and manipulation by, the gods.

For the Israelites, engaging in these practices would not only violate God’s sacredness but also represent a betrayal of the covenant they shared with Him. God’s prohibition of sacrifices to Molech reveals His nature as one who treasures life and prioritizes justice and mercy over rituals intended to placate.

 

Leviticus 19:18  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

 

Leviticus 19 is part of what is commonly referred to as the “Holiness Code” (Leviticus 17-26), which outlines how the Israelites are to live as a distinct and holy people devoted to God. This chapter focuses on moral behavior, social justice, and maintaining ritual purity. At the heart of these instructions is Leviticus 19:18, which encapsulates the principle of loving one’s neighbor.

The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” highlights the importance of empathy, compassion, and fairness. It urges individuals to care for others’ needs just as they would their own, fostering a society rooted in mutual respect and concern for one another.

This command captures the essence of the ethical requirements in the law and emphasizes the importance of loving relationships in the pursuit of holiness. It implies that true holiness is reflected in how people treat one another, mirroring God’s compassionate nature.

In the New Testament, Jesus affirms and elevates this command as central to the greatest commandments. In Matthew 22:37-40, He identifies loving God and loving one’s neighbor as the two primary commandments, upon which all other teachings and prophecies are based.

 

Leviticus 20:1-5  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,  2) Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.  3) And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.  4) And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not:  5) Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.

 

Idolatry, in any shape, skews our perception of God’s character and our connection with Him. The harsh penalties for those who offered sacrifices to Molech highlight the devastating effects of idolatry. It serves as a powerful reminder that worshiping false gods erodes both moral and spiritual values, affecting not only individuals but also the wider community.

 

Amos 1:13-15  Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:  14) But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind:  15) And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the LORD.

 

Here, the prophet Amos pronounces judgment against the Ammonites for their brutal acts of violence. The heinous act of ripping open pregnant women underscores the extreme moral corruption and disregard for life that characterized nations involved in idolatrous practices. This serves as a vivid illustration of the depths of depravity to which idolatry can lead, highlighting the stark contrast between such actions and the life-giving worship God desires. The Ammonites were cutting women open and taking their children to be able to reduce their population. The same thing happened with modern abortion.

A book by Jonathan Cahn, The Return of the Gods, speaks of this issue. I paraphrase some portions:

 

The watchman stood on the ancient city’s walls, tasked with keeping watch. When he spotted potential threats, like an enemy army or impending disaster, his responsibility was to alert the people and warn them. If he remained silent, the people would be at risk, and he would be held accountable for their fate.

 

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 

 

The parallels with America are significant. Just as Israel was dedicated to God from its beginning, so was America. The nation was founded with a vision similar to that of ancient Israel. During its early years, Puritan leader John Winthrop gave the new society a directive inspired by Moses’ instruction to the Israelites. He proclaimed that if America adhered to God’s ways, it would become a blessed, prosperous, and powerful civilization. However, he also issued a prophetic warning:

“But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey but shall be seduced, and worship, and serve other gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them … we shall surely perish.”

 

Pastors, prophets, and others specifically called by God are Watchmen. We are to sound the alarm of what is coming. But we are also commissioned to tell the Good News of the Gospel: That Jesus Saves!

Some speculate that Molech may have been another version of Baal, as both are described as receiving child sacrifices. However, even if these theories hold some truth, the act of sacrificing children is so distinctly tied to a demonic realm that Molech remains unique in its association.

Molech is often regarded as the entity behind child sacrifice, embodying a spirit of bloodlust, coldness, and horrific destruction.

 

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

 

I repeat this verse because it needs to be emphasized. These gods are in the Spiritual world, and Satan controls the air around us.

 

In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton writes,

“First Moloch, horrid King besmeared with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud

Their children’s cries unheard, that pass’d through fire

To his grim idol.”

 

Diodorus Siculus, the ancient Greek historian, wrote this about the Carthaginians:

 

“There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children, when placed there, rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.”

 

The Carthaginians may have associated Cronus with deities like Molech or Baal, or perhaps Diodorus interpreted their rituals in that light. In the pagan cultures surrounding ancient Israel, child sacrifice was a prominent aspect of religious ceremonies. When the Israelites turned away from worshiping God, they sometimes adopted these customs, including sacrificing their children, which represented a deep spiritual decline in their relationship with YHWH. But what if such rituals were more common than we assume today? Perhaps the real exception wasn’t the existence of these practices, but the fact that they were prohibited. What if the widespread norm was, in fact, the prevalence of these rituals, and it was their absence that was truly unusual?

 

The Biblical view of life:

Psalm 139:13, 15-16 For thou hast possessed my reins (meaning: You formed my inward parts): thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.  15) My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  16) Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 

Jesus comforted the weak, welcomed the outcasts, and healed the sick. When it came to children, He raised their worth to a level never before seen in human history.

Matthew 19:14  But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

 

What if Molech returned?

The Christian faith and the biblical emphasis on the sanctity of human life brought protection to both young and unborn children, putting an end to widespread practices of their killing.

 

When the gods were expelled from Western civilization, a spirit of death was left with them. The Gospel dismantled their altars, cleansing them of the blood that had once soaked them. As the gods were cast out, lives were spared—prisoners, slaves, and children no longer faced the horrors of human sacrifice.

 

The gods of death, including Molech, were sent into exile. But if these gods departed when civilizations turned toward God, what would happen if those same societies turned away from Him? The gods of death would return, and with them, Molech.

 

And if Molech returned, would he not once again demand blood and human sacrifice? According to the parable, wouldn’t his final acts be even more devastating than his first? If Molech, the ancient Destroyer, returned, what would become of the children?

 

How did the most menacing deity of the dark trinity come back? After all, the end of child and human sacrifice was mirrored across every land where Christianity took root.

It is no coincidence that, after rejecting Christianity, the emerging Soviet Union became the first nation to legalize the termination of unborn children. In 1920, shortly after taking control, the Soviet regime legalized abortion.

 

It’s telling that the godless and anti-Christian Soviet state was the first in modern times to resurrect this ancient practice.

 

The situation in Nazi Germany was more complicated. The Third Reich was primarily focused on expanding the “master race” and increasing its population. As a result, they opposed abortion when it impacted German or Aryan birth rates. However, the Nazis, driven by a destructive ideology, became agents of widespread bloodshed. Their cruelty was evident in their relentless killing of others.

 

Molech, particularly, seemed to target Jewish children. In ancient times, thousands of them were sacrificed to him. Now, under the influence of that same destructive force, one and a half million Jewish children would tragically lose their lives.

 

Diodorus Siculus describes a hidden practice related to child sacrifices in his time:

They had traditionally offered the finest of their sons to the god, but more recently, they had begun secretly purchasing and raising other children to sacrifice in place of their own.

 

In essence, the wealthy bought children from the less fortunate to sacrifice instead of their own offspring. Plutarch also mentions similar occurrences.

 

This grim reality has echoes in modern forms of child sacrifice. Abortion disproportionately affected the children of the poor and minority communities. A child from a poor family, particularly a Black family, was far more likely to be lost to abortion than one from a wealthier or non-Black family. In some American cities, more Black children were aborted than were born. This was just one example of the many evils associated with Molech, who showed a particular hatred for the poor and marginalized and carried with him a racist legacy.

 

Little more can be added to the significance or horror of these facts.

 

This leads us to Margaret Sanger. While she did not establish Planned Parenthood, the organization’s foundation was built on her actions and ideas.

Sanger made published comments about “human weeds,” including: 

“How are we to breed a race of human thoroughbreds unless we follow the same plan? We must make this country into a garden of children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds.” (1924) 

“I was merely thinking of the poor mothers of congested districts of the East Side who had so poignantly begged me for relief, in order that the children they had already brought into the world might have a chance to grow into strong and stalwart Americans . . . Birth Control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination, and eventual extirpation of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.” (1923)

Abortion today is being passed off as “Health Care.” It’s not Health Care for the baby!

In the United States during the 1920s, the eugenics movement became closely linked with the birth control movement, and Margaret Sanger is known to have spoken at eugenics conferences. She discussed using birth control as a means of “weeding out the unfit” and preventing the birth of those she deemed “defectives.”

 

From her writings, it’s evident that Sanger had embraced eugenic ideology. She once remarked that the “consequences of breeding from stock lacking human vitality will always give us social problems and perpetuate institutions of charity and crime.”

 

She promoted her ideas to the American public under the guise of offering “choice”—the ability for individuals to decide when and if to have children based on convenience and personal desire. Planned Parenthood still uses that ploy today. The baby has no choice!

 

Was there excessive use of birth control and sterilization in poor communities in certain states? Without a doubt. It’s a complex issue.

 

Abortion has been devastating for the Black community. The roots of the abortion industry are intertwined with hatred and racism. Margaret Sanger, the founder of the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist who targeted so-called “inferior races.” The first birth control clinic was opened in 1916 near Brownsville, a predominantly African American community in Brooklyn. Sanger was arrested under New York’s “Little Comstock Law,” which prohibited the distribution of contraceptives. This event marked the beginning of a dark chapter.

 

Abortion remains a profitable industry in America today. Since 1973, over 20 million Black children have lost their lives to this industry.

 

In ancient Israel, there was a specific location where the cult of Molech reached its peak, leading to the nation’s eventual judgment. Could there be a modern parallel to this? And does this hold a warning for a different civilization in a different time?

 

Jeremiah 19:4-9 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;  5) They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:  6) Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.  7) And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.  8) And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.  9) And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. 

 

It unfolded in a similar way to what occurred in ancient Israel. Through a gradual process of deception, the spirit of Molech has convinced America that turning away from God would lead to greater freedom. This spirit has promised America a life free of hindrances, but only if it allows its children to be taken. As Western civilization and America have drifted further from their Christian foundations, they are now embracing the most tragic of pagan practices—the sacrifice of their own children. Their blood cries out to heaven.

The prophet Jeremiah warned Israel about the fate of a nation that once knew God but then offered its children to false gods. The result is destruction. Few actions invite God’s judgment more swiftly than the killing of innocent children.

Is there hope for America? As many interpreters of prophecy, including myself, have noted, the answer is no. But is there hope for you, even if you’ve experienced the pain of abortion? Yes. The hymn echoes this truth: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; No merit of my own I claim, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.”

As we reflect on these words, we must ask ourselves: What are we sacrificing at the altar of Molech? Are we putting God first and teaching our children about Him? Are we fulfilling the call of Proverbs 22:6 to train up a child in the way they should go?

 

Matthew 18:5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.

 

No matter how much you’ve sinned, I’m right there with Paul when he said in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, but every single one of my sins—and yours—was placed on Jesus when He hung on the cross. He bore our sins, paying a debt He didn’t owe because we owe a debt we cannot pay. It overwhelms me when I reflect on what He has done for each of us. We’ve been washed clean by His blood, and our sins have been removed from us as far as the East is from the West.

 

John 3:16-19  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  19) And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

 

Most people forget everything after the 16th verse, but the other verses are just as important. They show God’s love and concern for us and what happens when we do not believe in Him.

The sacrifice of Jesus stands in sharp contrast to the demands of idols like Molech. While Molech required the life of a child for the supposed benefit of others, God offered His Son for the salvation of all humanity. Jesus’ sacrifice was not an exchange but a profound expression of love and grace.

On the cross, Jesus took our place, bearing the punishment that we rightfully deserved. His death was an act of redemption and reconciliation, freeing us from the power of sin and death and restoring our relationship with God.

The cross is the ultimate display of God’s love, showing that His heart is not bent on punishment but on saving us and drawing us into a relationship with Him.

Having received such an extraordinary gift of grace, we are called to live in the light of Christ’s sacrifice. This means actively rejecting the idols of our time and placing God at the center of our lives.

As God’s people, we are called to live lives that reflect His holiness, love, and mercy, demonstrating His justice and compassion through our words and actions. With the hope we have in Christ, we are urged to share the good news with others, leading them to the life-changing truth of Jesus’ sacrifice.

In closing, let us remember the hope we have in Jesus Christ. The journey from the ancient fires of Molech to the cross of Christ reveals God’s relentless love for us. May we turn from the idols of this world and embrace the abundant, eternal life that is found in Jesus.

 

Let us pray:

Father, we humbly ask for Your strength and wisdom to walk faithfully in Your truth. Help us turn away from the false gods and distractions of this world and boldly proclaim the hope and salvation we have through Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Guide our hearts to reflect Your love and empower us to live in a way that honors You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Amen.