Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.   If you say, "See, we did not know this," Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work? Proverbs 24:11-12

Here is a couple of verses that seem a little dramatic to us at first glance.  How often in our society do we see people being taken away to their death and staggering to a slaughter?  We need to remember though that the proverbs not only speak of physical realities but spiritual ones as well.  So how can we learn from this particular proverb?

There is the obvious slaughter to those who know Christ that is coming on the horizon.  That event is the judgment seat of Christ - and the day when all men shall give an account of themselves to God.  Too many think that on that day God's mercy will prevail and God will allow all men into heaven - or - they just deny God altogether.  The problem is that the time of mercy - where God is showing amazing mercy to mankind is NOW - not then.  Every day God has indignation with the wicked (Psalm 7:11) - and as a righteous Judge - He is showing unimaginable mercy by not consuming the wicked each and every day that He withholds the just consequences of mankind's sin.  So contrary to popular thinking, God is showing mercy NOW - but in the day of judgment that general mercy shall no longer remain.  All there will be on that day is grace for those who have run to Christ - and infinite, eternal judgment to those who chose to remain in their rebellion, thinking their own works will bear up in the judgment. 

There have been other slaughters in history.  To the Germans who watched the Jews being carted off to the slaughter houses of the Third Reich, they were responsible to do something.  To those who watched the awful specter of ethnic cleansing in country after country in our world, they were responsible to speak out against it and do what they could to stop it.  In our own nation there has been a silent slaughter that has been going on since 1973.  Abortion has dwarfed the slaughters foisted upon society by the likes of Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Mau, and Pol Pot.  Sadly, this slaughter continues at a rate of 4000 a day - all legally - and now even paid for by our government.  We've exported our murder of the innocents through the auspices of the United Nations and their wicked population control efforts.  So for us to say that such a slaughter is not happening in our enlightened century - is to simply close our eyes to the truth that the wickedness of man has only multiplied to where they have come up with far more efficient ways to slaughter the innocent. 

God's call to us in the midst of the slaughter of the innocent is to hold them back.  You can hear the cry of heaven saying, "Stop this! Hold them back from such a slaughter."  Just like the heros of the past who spoke against slavery - and the racism that desires to cleanse the world of others unlike themselves - we need to speak out and act to stop the slaughter.  To do otherwise is to be complicit with the murderers themselves.  We may not be the actual executioners - but our inactivity and unwillingness to take the cause of the innocent empowers them to continue the slaughter.  I find it the most perverse of activities that people camp outside prisons protesting the death sentence on the most vile of criminals - but justify abortion even up to the day of a child's birth.  There has never been a more disgusting form of execution than that perpetrated upon the victim of a partial birth abortion.  Yet for the most part - our society remains unmoved by this most horrific of injustices.

God's Word to those who sit silently by and watch the evils of a slaughter of innocents is terrifying.  The Lord speaks first to those who claim ignorance.  They say that they did not know this - they knew nothing of a slaughter of this kind.  They say this not because of actual ignorance - but as a ruse to cover their culpability. 

God's answer to them is simple.  He who weighs hearts will consider this.  God is saying to the multitudes who want to ignore such things that He knows their hearts.  He weighs all hearts - and knows exactly what we know and what we do not know.  The term weigh here is used of God's process of moral evaluation.  The Lord says that a man's ways are all good in his own eyes - but God will weigh his motives and the "end" of his actions.  God weighs our hearts by what happens as a result of our actions.  Even when we choose to deceive ourselves - God is aware of the truth we refuse to embrace.  If this is so in the little perjuries of our souls - is it not even more accurate in the major sins which we wink an approving eye toward by our inaction?  God knows it because He keeps our souls - a term that speaks of how God watches over all that we do.  There never has nor will there ever be something we've thought or done that He does not know intimately.  This is a terrifying thought to those who think God will forget our sin.  To help us grasp this even more clearly the writer of proverbs tells us He is the one who will render to every man according to his work.  This term render is one that is sobering because it means to turn back or to return to another.  In other words, what we have done and what we have allowed - will be done and allowed upon us for all eternity. 

This is true with the physical injustices that we see in the world - but it also will be true for those who do nothing for those staggering toward judgment without Christ.  The ultimate injustice spiritually is when we refuse or cowardly back away from sharing Christ with the multitudes staggering toward the judgment seat without anything to pay for their sins.  What an injustice we perpetrate when we enjoy salvation ourselves, but do nothing to stem the fearful judgment that will come upon others.  We need to speak - speak for the wicked injustices that are happening in our generation - and speak to those who do not know Christ. 

I read a statement somehwere that said, "Daddy, what were you doing when they were killing babies?"  Each generation that passes is often asked by history what they did to stem the tide of evil in their generation.  We look back on Hitler's Germany and wonder why they did not speak out?  We look at the horrific murders of the communist regimes of Stalin and Pol Pot and wonder why no one spoke out.  And at the judgment seat of Christ the loudest thing we will hear will be the sound of our own silence in sharing the gospel as billions face the ultimate judgment of eternity.  In light of such ultimate moments we need to ask ourselves, "Why do we not lift our voices to speak for the ones being led to the slaughter?"