It was the last night of Carthage. Destiny and the Pearl of the Mediterranean stood face to face. The Roman legions thundered at the gates. The fair daughters of the rich had long since given their hair to be woven into bowstrings for the beleaguered archers on the crumbling walls. In his book, Suffer, Little Children, Max Rafferty describes how after darkness fell that fateful night in 146 B.C., the people of Carthage gathered in the center of the city. Torches were lit, and soon the huge brazen form of the god Moloch was heated to incandescence.
An inclined runway led to the door of the idol, which gaped open just below his navel. Up this ramp, driven by whips in the hands of foaming priests, crept the children of Carthage. Babes carried by older brothers and sisters, toddlers, and little girls and sturdy boys went to the embrace of Moloch. Below their tearless parents shrieked and implored their god that the sacrifice be accepted and the destruction of the city averted. One by one, sobbing and crying to their unhearing parents, the little ones were shoved to the edge of the runway, where they gazed down into the furious flames before they toppled pitifully into the molten bowels of the grinning god. The next day the Romans sacked the city and destroyed its remaining inhabitants. Moloch was thrown down, shattered, and spat upon.
Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff excavated in ancient Carthage near the present city of Tunis, North Africa, and identified nine stratified layers in a cemetery where an estimated 20,000 urns containing the burned bones of children were deposited. How could the Phoenician colonizers of Carthage ever have sacrificed their own children to a grotesque brazen god?
We wish the story ended there, but it doesn't. The almost incredible facts are that these criminal practices of child sacrifice actually infiltrated Israel and flourished in the ninth century B.C. You see, Phoenicia with its royal cities of Tyre and Sidon (in modern Lebanon) was the closest northern neighbor of ancient Israel. Ahab was the king, and he chose as his wife and queen, Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, the king of Sidon.
The nation prospered financially, and people enjoyed the good life.
King Ahab established a free trade treaty with his northern neighbor. Merchandise poured in from various parts of the civilized world via their powerful navy and merchant marine, which brought manufactured goods and textiles. Demand for local agricultural goods was seldom better. Export products included wheat, livestock, olive oil, wine, and dried fruit. They got top dollar in the trade and option markets of the time. The nation's strong armies protected her borders from any enemy incursions.
But while everything seemed to be prospering, to the discerning eye all was not well. The rich took advantage of the poor, reducing them to near economic slavery. Respect for human life was on the skids. Even as the children were brutalized, divorce thrived. Juvenile delinquency was on the upswing, and a crime wave began to sweep the country. The king himself made a land-grab after his beloved Jezebel murdered the owner of the vineyard next to the palace. Prostitution thrived and was even enshrined as an essential part of the national religion! Queen Jezebel had 850 priests and priestesses of sexual orgy cults seated at her table.
Was there any hope? Had morality and principle gone down the drain forever?
Enter the scene the Prophet Elijah—native of a backwater part of the country. He confronts the robber king and the priests and priestesses. They have a showdown on Mt. Carmel. At the risk of his life, Elijah prays a simple prayer before the assembled: "Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again" (1 Kings 18:37 NKJV). That's what those people needed—hearts turned back again toward God and home!
The final words of the Old Testament carry a similar thought. "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers" (Malachi 4:5, 6 NKJV).
Notice God's promise of a message to strengthen the family is for our generation. Seeing down through the ages to our day, Jesus said in Matthew 24:12, "And because lawlessness (sin) will abound, the love of many will grow cold" (NKJV). And He was right. Today we have a massive breakdown in the ethic of love and compassion around the world. There is a virtual bankruptcy of human compassion, love, forgiveness, and healing. But into the coldness of society, God proposes to send one final message of love—a message that will turn the hearts of the fathers (and mothers, the older generation, including grandparents, uncles and aunts) to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.
Now that's good news!
That message is embodied in the life of Jesus, who brought comfort and hope to the grieving widow of Nain, who embraced the children, blessed them and restored their true value, who reached out and helped a desperate father with his special needs son, who restored dignity and purity to Mary of Magdala, who while dying on the cross made provisions for His mother's care in her old age. It's a message of loving service and restoring dignity. As we follow Christ's example, as we live the principles that He lived as revealed in scripture, we are proclaiming the message that will turn hearts back home.
Gary Burns is communication director for the Lake Union Conference. This article was adapted from Heart Turning—Family Evangelism, developed by John and Millie Youngberg (myoungberg@comcast.net). Used with permission.
