I recently read a book about William Carey. His life as a missionary to India in the late 1700s and early 1800s was full of unimaginable challenge and loss. He had griefs in his family. Two children died as infants in England. His five-year-old son died of dysentery in India. Carey’s first wife Dolly died of fever. His second wife, Charlotte, also died in India. Carey had griefs in the mission. Several missionaries died of disease. One missionary died of a mosquito born illness just twenty-two days after arriving in India. Many years of translation work and vast amounts of printing equipment were destroyed by a fire. For some years he feared that the East Indian Company would deport him. His greatest grief though was the state of Indian souls given over to the many idols of Hinduism.
On one occasion, Carey met the Hindu practice of Sati. A widow burned herself alive on her husbands funeral pyre while observers celebrated. He pleaded with her not to do it, but she went ahead with it anyway. Another time he observed many people gathered by a river. To his horror they threw eight newborn babies into the river as human sacrifices to their gods. Crocodiles ate some before they drowned. The Kali temple in Calcutta offered a human sacrifice every day. Kali was said to have an insatiable appetite for blood.[1] All Hindu idols at the time required blood sacrifice of some type.
Over time India evolved and outlawed the murder practices. The stories of pagan rituals 200 years ago are distant history. How thankful we are never to have such atrocities committed in the United States. What an enviable system of law we have that protects our citizens and exports peace around the world!
Not here!
Some years ago, I heard of a celebrity openly discussing her abortion. She talked about how grief stricken she had been, but it was clearly the right thing for her to do. Her flippancy about the act led me to investigate how widespread abortion was in the United States. I imagined it would be difficult to find reliable data. The right would elevate the number. The left would suppress it. To my surprise pro-life organizations were not highlighting abortion’s breadth, but the research arm of Planned Parenthood was. Guttmacher still advertises their 2017 article highlighting 23.7% of American women will have had an abortion by age 45. If four 50 year old women are in a room, statistically one would likely have had an abortion.
My first visit outside an abortion mill was more than four years ago. There are days I leave thinking that Guttmacher’s percentage was too low. With few exceptions, abortion mills are situated in major metro areas calling out to men and women for their children. The abortion idol is never satisfied. Her appetite for blood is like that of Kali’s – insatiable. Joining one in four American women who offer their children as sacrifices are countless men, boyfriends, husbands, and “baby daddies.” Mothers bring their daughters to offer their children. Fathers do the same. Grandparents bring their grandchildren to make the sacrifice of a great-grandchild. Friends come to support. Pregnant women line up, one after the other, carrying their offering in their womb. Some cry out one thing, “pro choice.” Others cry out something else, “freedom,” “legal,” “fetus deletus.” Unless they relent at the last moment, the end is the same. The children are poisoned, ripped apart, and otherwise murdered. They are killed and discarded by the mother, father, and the hired killer. This is not 1802 India. This is 2025 America.
Hopeless?
William Carey was one foreigner in one town in the vast country of India. At the time there were no phones, railways, cars, or planes. If Carey’s letters reached England, a response would take more than six months. He wept at the state of the souls in India. But he did not only weep. He went to the English governor to outlaw the practice of child sacrifice and burning widows alive. But he did not only go to the governor. He offered to care for the widows and bring up the children alive. But he did not only make offers to the people. William Carey went from village to village and from house to house, preaching the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ His Son. Carey knew that the hope for India was not in England nor in laws, as good as they might be. The hope for India was in Jesus Christ alone who was freely offered to the Indian people for their salvation. So Carey preached the gospel, and the gospel changed hearts in India.
John Leighton Wilson was an American missionary born fifty years after Carey. He brought the gospel to Africa during the slave trade and did all he could to stop that trade. Wilson said, “Nothing, not the suppression of the slave trade, as devoutly as this object is to be desired, nor the development of commercial resources, would change the moral condition of Africa except the preaching of the gospel.”[2] So Wilson preached the gospel, and the gospel changed hearts in Africa.
Bill Muehlenberg’s recent article pointed me to the modern-day priestesses of Kali blessing the parents that kill their children. Over the past 52 years parents have given more than 75,000,000 children as sacrifices to their idols. Since the greatest legal “victory” for unborn children in all those years, murder is increasing rather than decreasing. Today faux pastors bless murder in the name of the Lord. Equal protection bills have been difficult to advance in committee. They have been even more difficult to bring to a vote. These circumstances tempt the Christian to lost heart. Do not lose heart. God is with us. Let three promises from His word strengthen you for gospel labor in 2025.
1. “Though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 11:21). Religious leaders, politicians, philosophers, the medical industry, wealthy influencers, and the media have joined together to ensure child murder continues unabated. Though all the world join hand in hand for this horrific pursuit, the day of the Lord is at hand. The wicked will not go unpunished. They must repent or perish.
2. “But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, to repay it by Your hand. The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless” (Psalm 10:14). We cannot imagine the horror of the death of so many millions of children. But God has not just imagined it; He has seen it. He cares for His children and their cause is committed to Him. The Lord will stop the wickedness of abortion in this generation or a generation to come.
3. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrines, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers… But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Peter 4:3,5).
Legislatures are considering new laws to stop abortion. Let us pursue righteous laws.[3] Pregnancy resource centers are offering help to those in need. Let us help those in need.[4] Ultimately, the love for child murder will not stop by laws or physical help. Each person is in need of regeneration. Their mind must be conformed to a new way of thinking according to the will of God. The only hope for such a change is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He alone has the power to take dead sinners and make them alive. In your various callings and vocations, be watchful and endure affliction. Make known the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord! Hand out a tract. Invite to church. Pray with and for the lost. By the preaching of the word and God’s converting the lost, we will see Christ change our land and end abortion.
[1] The 1939 movie Gunga Din made Kali known worldwide. Kali is still worshiped today and museums proudly display idols of her. Every few years news reports come out about a human sacrifice made to Kali.
[2] Calhoun, B., Swift and Beautiful: The Amazing Stories of Faithful Missionaries, (Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA, 2020), 46.
[3] The equal protection bill pursued in Georgia is an example of a righteous law to be pursued. You can find it at Georgia Right to Life.
[4] See the work of Atlanta Care Center and Choices Chattanooga as examples of the work at pregnancy resource centers.
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Copyright © 2025 by Ben Stahl
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