Where is the Moral Outcry?
The Story Behind the Song
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An eyewitness account from the Jewish Holocaust:
I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it because what could we do to stop it? A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance, and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars. Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews in route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us. We knew the time the train was coming, and when we heard the whistle blow, we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more…Although years have passed, I still hear the train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me, forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing to intervene.*
In the United States, we are doing the same thing. Since 1973, well over 58,000,000 little ones have been murdered by abortion. As abortion doctors murder babies on Sunday mornings (one of the number one days for abortions in hospitals particularly) we sing our songs oblivious to the murder that is taking place in our hospitals. Will the church lift up her voice before heaven and change history? Or will we do the same thing the German church did and just sing our worship songs louder as their silent cries ascend before the perfect ears of their Heavenly Father?
In Amos’ day Israel was guilty of a similar sin. God lamented, “I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them…take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” I believe that the Lord is lamenting this over the United States. “Take away from Me the noise of your songs.” He wants justice. He longs for the bloodshed to end in our nation. Will we arise and unite our cries with the cries of the little ones’ filling Heaven with intercession for their deliverance? Will we allow the Lord to anoint our voices on their behalf to change public policy and the hearts of men and women? I pray that God does not have to evaluate our generation the same way he must have Nazi Germany’s.
How did I write this song?
I wrote this song in 2005 after meditating on Amos during 22 days of silent prayer in front of an abortion clinicin Kansas City. Kirk Bennett, preached a series of messages at IHOPKC regarding abortion. He told the story that I mentioned at the beginning and a deep soberness came upon me. I gave myself to prayer for hours a day for the ending of abortion. At that time, I was singing on a worship team in the Nightwatch at IHOPKC. I started a chorus, “Where is the moral outcry? Rise up church, rise up church.” After that, the rest of the song came to me in stages as I continued to meditate on Amos’ message to Israel.
*From Dr. Erwin Lutzer’s book When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany. Quote taken from James Robinson’s article “Will the Church Just Sing Louder?”
