Holy Innocents – King Herod Still Alive!

Today the holy Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast of The Holy Innocents. It is a feast of, and the Catholic Church remembers the lives of the little boys, little toddlers who were slaughtered by King Herod when he discovered that he had been tricked by the wise men who did not return to tell him where the Christ Child lay. Earlier in Matthew’s account on the birth of Jesus, we read that when King Herod heard of the birth of the Christ Child he was disturbed, and so was the whole of Jerusalem. He called together all of the chief priests and the scribes of the people and inquired of them where the Christ child was to be born. He did this not because he was interested in taking any gifts to Jesus, and he certainly was not interested in paying Him homage. There is a saying that says jealousy kills. That is precisely what King Herod had a case of: he had a bad case of jealousy. His intention was to destroy the Christ Child.

It is interesting to note though that the gospel passage that was read today said that Joseph stayed in Egypt until the death of Herod. I would like to put it to you that Herod who slaughtered so many children at the very first Holy Innocents is not dead. He is alive and well and is still very much in the business of destroying the lives of innocent ones. Every day in the United States, King Herod slaughters some 3,500 unborn babies — that is approximately 146 lives every hour, or approximately 1.3 million lives are destroyed every year in the United States alone. Herod is not dead! He is very much alive and continues to destroy the lives of innocent young ones. Putting the destruction of this tyrant onto the global stage, King Herod destroys an average – or rather let’s use the correct term — King Herod kills on an average 43 million unborn babies every year worldwide. Herod has created an international organization that seeks to have abortion legalized throughout the globe, and will stop at nothing to make this happen. They have managed to convince many world leaders that the killing of unborn babies is okay in the name of choice.

As we ponder on the martyrdom of Holy Innocents, it should become quite clear that the destruction by this tyrant is not limited to abortion only. This is his main form of attack, but he has many other means of seeking to destroy, or seeking to kill those that he was unable to destroy at the abortion stage. I mentioned earlier that King Herod, when he heard of the birth of the Christ Child, called together all of the authorities in Jerusalem to find out where the Christ Child was born, not so that he could go and pay him homage, but rather to destroy Him. It appears as if Herod has a serious jealousy issue since to this date, he is still against the worship of the One True and Living God. So he has gathered together a movement that has successfully taken God out of public schools; a movement that started in the United States and spread like wild fire to the rest of the world. So we have a situation where the majority of our children are being taught a lot of un-Christian doctrines all in the name of “education”, and are not taught the real reason for their existence is to worship the One True and Living God. To the naked eye, that may not seem to be much, but rather in reality, the true dignity of the human person can only be found in an understanding of what they are in God. Outside of God nothing else exists. The Catholic catechism teaches us that “The dignity of the human person is rooted in his or her creation in the image and likeness of God. Endowed with a spiritual and immortal soul, intelligence and free will, the human person is ordered to God and called in soul and in body to eternal beatitude.” The word of God in Proverbs chapter 22, verse 6 tells us, “train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he gets old he will not depart from it.” When the reality of God is removed from the life of a child it is a perfect recipe for disaster, and we are seeing the effects of this globally, in the behaviour of our children.

Herod’s destructive power can be seen very clearly in the music and the movies that our children are being exposed to. Our children are being exposed to the ugly that is being sold to them as being normal and acceptable – Harry Potter is a classic example of this. Our children are being exposed to the evil and the wicked under the guise of them being perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable. The end result being that our children grow with distorted and severely impaired character. They grow up thinking that there is no longer right or wrong, and that all is okay, and there is nothing further from the truth than this! I remember as a child seeing movies with a particular age rating because of a particular content in them. Today, many of the movies advertised for general viewing audience and is sold to our children are movies that would’ve had an 18 years and over limit back then. Many argue that this is part of growing up, some say progress. I challenge you, is it really? When the lives of our innocent children are being destroyed, be it directly or in directly, is this progress? Is this part of growing up?

It is no secret that there is a big drug trade happening in many of our schools, and many of our children have fallen prey to it in one form or fashion. Many parents turn a blind eye to this, another one of Herod’s schemes, until it is too late.

As useful and as valuable as the Internet is — after all, this is the means by which you are reading this article — it is no playing field for children as once again Herod is alive and well on the Internet seeking to lure your children away from the safety of the homes you have created for them into the evil of child pornography which is far more rampant than many care to admit.

One of Herod’s latest ploys in directly destroying the lives of our children falls under the umbrella of same-sex relationships seeking not only to make it legal for them to be “married” in Christian churches, but also paving the way for them to legally adopt children. We were all created by God for a particular purpose. Each car that is manufactured is done so with very specific manufacturers’ specifications. For example some were designed to use diesel fuel, others designed for gasoline, and recently some are being manufactured powered by electricity. A couple weeks ago one of my colleagues, who has a diesel engine vehicle, had some mechanical problems and had to have his vehicle towed away to the garage. Further investigations found that the source of his problem was that the diesel fuel which he purchased the night before had water in it. The point I am making here is like this car, if we seek to use our bodies in a way that they were not meant to be used by the One who created us, the effects will be disastrous. Similarly, if we seek to raise our children in environments that they were not meant to be raised in, we will have major problems on our hands. Our world is already seeing the effects of promiscuity, sexual immorality and other types of perverse behaviour that are being promoted as normal in the form of HIV AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases that to this date are incurable.

In today’s Holy Innocents gospel reading we read, “When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt.” Just as God spoke to Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, so he still speaks to parents and guardians and all of those who have been charged with the responsibility of caring for these innocent little ones, telling them what they should do in order to flee from the evil of King Herod and protect their children – both born and unborn. Like Joseph who acted with a sense of urgency, we all need to be obedient to what God is telling us to do and adopt the same sense of urgency as it will always be for the betterment of the innocent children whom he has placed in our care. Even now as you are reading this article, the Spirit of the Living God is speaking in your heart and telling you what you need to do to safeguard the little ones that He has placed in your care. Do not hesitate to do what ever he is telling you.

Recently, with the passing of Steve Job, I read where his mother was ill when she was pregnant with him and was advised after being treated for whatever was wrong, that she should abort the child as it could be born deformed.  She chose not to.  The rest as they say, is history.  There have been several prominent figures throughout history whose mothers faced very difficult situations during pregnancy, where Herod the abortionist reared his ugly head, and they, the mothers, chose to flee from him and give birth to their children. Could is be that the person or persons to lead the world out of its current recession has been aborted? Something to think about.