About 78 million children worldwide (including abortions) died before their fifth birthday last year.
It’s a truth often forgotten: we get to decide real life choices, but not the consequences of those choices. This is the fallacy of the Pro-Choice movement. The choice happens long before the pregnancy! Once that choice is made, the baby’s life is the consequence of a decision already made. Now David self-righteously overreacted when he heard Nathan’s story: “The man who has done this shall surely die!” (2 Sam 12:5). Sheep-stealing wasn’t a capital offense, but adultery and murder were. God in grace spared the king’s life. “However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child…shall surely die” (v 14). Soon the little one became ill, and David began a prayer and fasting vigil. Uriah-like, he abandoned his own bed (v 16). In spite of this, “on the seventh day…the child died” (v 18). The elders were afraid to tell David for fear he might harm himself. Instead, when he received the news, “David arose…washed…changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then…they set food before him, and he ate” (v 20). When the servants asked why he fasted while the child lived, but ate once he died, David explained, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me’” (vv 22-23). Out of such tragedy, what words of comfort to grieving parents of little ones! But soon Bathsheba conceived again. They named the child Solomon, but God said, I’ll call him Jedidiah, meaning “beloved of the Lord.” Yes, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom 5:20).