The Silent Outcry

The Silent Outcry
John R. Petrilli

The annals of human history are filled with crying episodes. These episodes are personal as well as national in scope. They’re born out of intense and prolonged injustice, cruel enslavement, the ravages of poverty, the devastations of world wars, economic collapse, religious persecution, natural disasters, and a whole host of other social ills.

In Genesis 4:10 we discover the first instance of outcry as Abel’s blood summons the personal justice of God upon man’s initial act of homicide. Centuries later the Hebrew plea to God for national deliverance from Egyptian oppression appears (Exodus 3:7-9). The book of Judges cites repeated occurrences where the people of Israel fell under foreign domination and cried out for divine deliverance (Judges 2:18). Millennia later they found themselves again seeking deliverance, this time from under the crushing boot heel of Imperial Rome.

Human outcry will be mankind’s sad song until history as we know it comes to a close, and God answers the cry for divine vengeance articulated by a heavenly throng of martyred saints (Rev. 6:9-10). Modern instances of outcry were heard during the Jewish holocaust of WW II, the genocidal atrocities in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and most recently in the Sudan. Then there’s the endless chorus of countless voices crying out for relief from the epidemic of grinding global poverty. Sometimes these outcries become public knowledge, while at other times they remain hidden for posterity to discover. These outcries take two different forms, the audible and the inaudible or silent form. The inaudible cries lie silently buried in the hearts of the suffering. The subject of this article belongs to this latter category.

Tens of millions of human voices have been crying out for justice here in America, as well as all around the world. One might expect that they wear the face of racial discrimination or social injustice, but these voices belong to neither of those important categories. Surprisingly, these voices have had little press coverage, and, for the most part, their cries have gone unheard, unnoticed, and woefully unaddressed. Most shockingly, these voices come from the children of our society.

I speak of the outcry of the nearly 50 million unborn lives that have been snuffed out by abortion in our land over the past four decades. Just as in the case of Abel, their innocent bloodshed cries out for justice. As their lives are offered upon the altar of convenience, they silently scream out from the very womb designed to protect them. Whether it’s death by curettage dismemberment, saline chemical burns, or partial-birth abortion, each of these precious lives has gone to a premature grave vocalizing it’s excruciating pain, with the rest of society not hearing so much as a peep. All this has been hidden from our ears as well as our eyes. The works of darkness thrive on obscurity and anonymity (John 3:19-20).

But what if we were granted an audience within the womb of the unborn? If we could hear their outcry, what might they be trying to communicate to us?

First, they’re crying out for Mercy. They never asked to be conceived, but have found themselves the victims of one of history’s most heinous holocausts. They desperately seek relief from their excruciating pain. Will we hear their plea for mercy?

Second, they’re crying out for the Chance to see the Light of Day. They’ve been sheltered for days and months in the quiet darkness of their mother’s womb, and wish to bath in the warm and joyful light of birthday morn. Will we honor their simple request for the right to be born?

Third, they’re crying out for Deliverance. Individually they’re unaware of the social evil being wreaked upon them, but their corporate voices rise in thunderous protest against the laws that have made their executions “safe and legal”. Won’t someone listen to their appeal for judicial protection?

Fourth, they’re crying out for Justice. God has never turned a deaf ear to murder, and never will. These 50 million victims have had crimes perpetrated against them that call for a swift and appropriate response. Failure at this point has led to a culture that’s become hardened to the murderous nature of the act, growing increasingly callous to and willfully ignorant of its grisly realities (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Won’t somebody do something to end this horrendous holocaust? Who will answer their call for justice?

In the event we fail to wake up and hear their cries, be assured, Somebody IS listening them. When the Hebrews cried out for deliverance from Egyptian tyranny, their outcry passed up through earth’s atmosphere far into the heavenlies where the Founder of all human rights resides. God was totally aware of what was going. His tender ear picked up on every one of their groans, and what He heard brought deep concern to His heart (Exodus 3:7b,9). The Lord listened to their silent and audible heart cries and sent personal relief in the form of Moses, national deliverance in the form of the exodus, and perfect justice in the form of a towering deluge that sent the entire Egyptian army to a watery grave. He continues to answer the timeless global heart cry for redemption by offering salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.

The death toll rises with each tick of the clock … fifty-million and counting. The silent outcry continues unabated and unheard as Americans are deceived by a lethal game of pro-death semantics, distracted by far more trivial pursuits, deafened by a vocal immoral minority, and drugged to sleep by the blind pursuit of personal peace and affluence.

What will it take for us to hear their cries and save them? It took over two decades for William Wilberforce to end the British slave trade, and considerably more decades to end the trafficking of African slaves in America. How long will it be until we rise up and declare, “Enough is enough!” ?

There’s an infant choir now in heaven numbering in the multiplied trillions, waiting to see if we will act decisively to stop this modern-day massacre of the innocents.