The Winds of Hinnom & America’s Descent into Darkness | Jonathan Cahn Sermon

The Cry of the Innocent: A Prophetic Warning for America’s Soul

When did America truly begin taking the lives of its children? Most people point to 1973, but the dark door opened earlier—in 1970. And in Scripture, every beginning has a consequence. The ancient principle of Jubilee marks 50 years. From 1970, the cycle leads directly to 2020—the year a plague fell across our land.

The ancient pagans sacrificed children. Israel was commanded never to imitate such evil because a child’s life is sacred to God. Yet when Israel turned away, they repeated the sins of the nations around them. And in our own modern world, history has quietly replayed itself. The first nation to legalize abortion in modern times was the Soviet Union—the world’s first atheist, anti-God regime. Wherever a society turns away from God, it inevitably turns away from life.

In the West, especially after the moral revolution of the 1960s, America began drifting from the biblical foundations that once restrained evil. And as faith weakened, abortion returned—this time clothed as a “right,” but still the taking of innocent life.

Before going deeper, there is hope for anyone who chose abortion before knowing Christ. It is sin—yet God’s mercy is greater than any sin. Those who have been forgiven are free. He says, “Go, and sin no more.”

But what happens when an entire civilization harms its children? Scripture is clear: judgment falls on the nation that spills innocent blood. Israel was destroyed over this one sin. And America has taken more than 60 million lives. If a nation sows death, it will reap it.

One of the biblical judgments for shedding innocent blood was plague. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of a “great plague,” a “great death,” that would answer the blood of the children. Could the global plague that struck in 2020 carry a deeper spiritual mystery?

Consider this:
The generation alive in 2020 is responsible for more unborn deaths than any generation in human history—over one billion worldwide. And the plague arose from China, the nation with the highest number of abortions ever performed. Yet very quickly, the center of the outbreak shifted to America—the nation that helped normalize abortion across the world.

The pattern is startling. In biblical Jubilee, what you take is taken back. What you steal returns to you. America began taking life in 1970. Fifty years later, in 2020, life was taken. Death was unleashed.

Something even more precise emerges.

Abortion in America began when New York introduced the first broad abortion bill on January 20, 1970—the first fruit. Exactly 50 years later, on January 20, 2020, “patient zero” was identified—the first confirmed case of the plague on American soil. Fifty years to the exact day.

Even more striking: the Scripture read that same week in synagogues across America and especially in New York—where abortion first entered—was the law of the womb:
“Every child who opens the womb is holy to Me.”

At the very moment America prepared to experience the consequences of violating that command.

But there is more. Abortion did not actually begin on the mainland—it began in Hawaii. The law took effect in March 1970. Fifty years later, in March 2020, the plague surged. In early March, only a few hundred were infected. By month’s end—175,000. March was the Jubilee.

The most dramatic moment came on March 11, 2020.
Multiple news outlets called it “the day everything changed.”
The day the nation shut down.
The day the economy fell.
The day America entered quarantine.
The day the plague overtook national life.

Fifty years earlier, on March 11, 1970, abortion on demand officially began on American soil. Again—the exact day.

What we lived through was not random. It altered our lives, our economy, our churches, and our nation. Many churches have still not recovered. What we witnessed was a shaking—a warning—and a call to return.

God is not mocked. What a nation sows, it will reap. His desire is mercy, not judgment, yet He will not ignore the cries of the innocent forever. Judgment is real. Sin is real. But God’s mercy is greater still.

Every one of us will stand before God. We are given this time—this breath—to repent, to turn from sin, to walk in righteousness. Many churches have stopped preaching repentance, but without repentance, there is no mercy. Without the cross, there is no salvation.

If you seek His mercy, He will pour it out. But we must also take seriously what God takes seriously: life, innocence, the weak, the voiceless, and the oppressed.

America needs revival—not simply religion, but repentance, return, and restoration. Without revival, judgment continues. With revival, mercy reigns.

Now is the time to pray for our nation with urgency and humility—because the future of America hangs in the balance.