Rembrandt: Belshazzar's Feast
This week, an undercover video surfaced. It recorded in audio and video a conversation held during dinner in a restaurant between two people from the Center for Medical Progress and a Planned Parenthood Doctor/Administrator. CNN summarizes,
Planned Parenthood exec, fetal body parts subject of controversial video
An anti-abortion group has released an online video that it says documents how Planned Parenthood is selling fetal organs for a profit, a felony, while violating medical ethics by altering normal abortion procedures so as to preserve the organs.The Doctor eats heartily and drinks swellingly as she casually describes how she shreds the baby in the womb so as to preserve the lucrative organs for later financial gain.
I don't know which is worse, the fact of their shocking murderous activities, their duplicity in allegedly illegally selling human organs and tissue, the chilling language that coldly describing their calculating killing, or the party atmosphere in which this is all set.
You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 18:21)
The Leviticus verse makes it clear that sacrificing your child to a false god is profaning the LORD.
Her swilling wine and partying at the table while describing an abomination against the Lord reminded me of another party atmosphere where the participants profaned the LORD and thought nothing of it...until His Hand appeared.
Molech was an ancient false God of the Ammonites, and the Israelites imported him into the land. Parents would place the baby in the statue of Molech's belly and a fire would be kindled. The child would be burned alive as a sacrifice.
In Daniel 5 we read of the riotous party that King Belshazzar had, using God's holy temple implements for an orgy. Unaware or uncaring of his blasphemy, he carried on. King Belshazzar was son of Nebchadnezzar, King of Babylon.
King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. 2Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. 3Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. (Daniel 5:1-4)
It was the last straw for a profane King. The Jewish Encyclopedia describes it:
It is stated in Dan. v. that Belshazzar gave a banquet to the lords and ladies of his court, at which the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple, which had been brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar at the time of the Judean captivity in 586 B.C., were profaned by the ribald company. In consequence of this, during the turmoil of the festivities, a hand was seen writing on the wall of the chamber a mysterious sentence which defied all attempts at interpretation until the Hebrew sage Daniel was called in. He read and translated the unknown words, which proved to be a divine menace against the dissolute Belshazzar, whose kingdom was to be divided between the Medes and Persians. In the last verse we are told that Belshazzar was slain in that same night, and that his power passed to Darius the Mede.Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. 6Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. (Daniel 5:5-6)
Belshazzar knew that something drastic was happening, as the Jewish Encyclopedia says, a message of divine menace. He could not read the message so he called for Daniel. Daniel said-
And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this [about the humiliation of proud King Nebchadnezzar], 23but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.
24“Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. 25And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. 26This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; 28Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:22-28)
God hates to be profaned. He hates sin. He is patient, but His patience comes to an end at His appointed time. That night, Babylon fell to the Medes and Belshazzar was killed.
Dr Albert Mohler's piece on the Planned Parenthood video was excellent. I linked to it above and below. He brought out a good point. He said
We must pray that this video will mark an important turning point in our nation’s conscience. Images and words can become seared in our minds. The horrifying knowledge of harvested baby hearts must lead to our own broken hearts. A nation that will allow this, will allow anything.God knows this, he is ever before us and ahead of us. The child killers are sinners but those who 'close their eyes' to it are also sinning against the LORD. He said in Leviticus,
If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death, I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek. (Leviticus 20:4-5 NIV)
One doctor in one organization at one dinner is not the same as a King who sets a profaning example before an entire nation. Or is it? The doctor was speaking FOR Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood receives a sizable Federal subsidy. Here are a few facts
- Planned Parenthood’s net revenue increased 5% to total of $1.21 billion in its organizational fiscal year ending on June 30, 2013,
- 45% of that revenue--$540.6 million--was provided by taxpayer-funded government health services grants,
- In the year that ended on Sept. 30, 2012 it did 327,166 abortions.
I can't proclaim what the LORD will do in this instance, I can only explain what the LORD has said. His character is such that if He hated child murder in the past He hates it now. If He punished those who profane His name in the past, He will punish them now. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; (Hebrews 13:8) He changeth not. (James 1:17, Malachi 3:6a).
Whether the secret video is something that as Al Mohler said will either prompt our national conscience to action or sear it further, only time will tell. But ... the Handwriting is on the Wall.
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Further reading
Abortion and the Campaign for Immorality
“A Lot of People Want Intact Hearts These Days” — Planned Parenthood, Abortion, and the Conscience of a Nation
