In Psalm 106 the psalmist praises God for his provision, confesses Israel’s unfaithfulness, and prays for mercy. The bulk of the psalm relates God’s work on behalf of Israel and the nation’s subsequent “forgetting” of God. Note verses 37-38—

They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood.

Here the psalmist depicts the terrible acts of depravity Israel learned from their pagan neighbors and disobediently adopted: they sacrificed their children to idols.

While we would probably be correct in thinking that Americans today would not countenance such action, our nation shouldn’t rush to be so self-righteous. There are only slight differences between the Israelites’ sacrifice of their children by human sacrifice and the sacrifice of American’s children by abortion:

• Time: Israel’s children had just been born, whereas America’s children aren’t born yet
• Idol: Israel sacrificed to Molech or Baal, whereas America sacrifices to money, ease, “rights,” etc.
• Number: Israel sacrificed perhaps thousands of children, whereas America sacrifices on average 3,200 a day (45 million since 1973; note that these figures are taken from an institute in favor of abortion)
• Circumstance: Israel sacrificed on an altar, whereas America sacrifices in a clinic

The end result is the same: “the land was polluted with blood” (v. 38).

God occasionally in mercy sends messengers to urge repentance, but when they are ignored or rebuffed the end is the same: “they sank down in their iniquity” (v. 43)—in other words, morals got worse, not better.

O God, show mercy and grace so we would “give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise” (v. 47).