Jesus does not call us to look for ways to suffer but to know that we will suffer for him. Disciples have an endurance mindset because of the value of knowing and being known of Jesus. John’s esteem for those who have been slaughtered and those who have been martyred reminds us that our faith is valuable.

Some of the roles John sets forth in Revelation lack appeal for modern readers, just as they would have for John’s live audience. As creatures, humans tend to avoid pain, not embrace roles that might lead to suffering. Let alone death. John exhibits pastoral concern in Revelation, compelling him to esteem those taking up the role of being slaughtered for Christ. The general hue of Revelation places believers in the cross-hairs of spiritual war, and in Rev 6:9, 18:24, and 20:4 John lauds those who have embraced the role of suffering for their faith even to the point of death. 
The Slaughtered Ones Heard in Heaven
Revelation can be seen as a protracted answer to the saints’s question John hears when the sixth seal is broken, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” (Rev 6:10, CSB). John notes that the ones crying out to God for justice are those who had been slaughtered because of God’s word and their testimony of Christ (Rev 6:9). The role of being slaughtered or martyred in Rev 6:9 and in Rev 18:24 expresses the highest degree of faithfulness to Christ. Beale states it clearly: “Since the symbol of identity for all Christians is the slain Lamb, they all also can be referred to by the same metaphor.” 
Two ideas in Rev 6:9 underscore the saints’ devotion to God as they cry out for justice. First, John’s grammatical choice of “those who had been slaughtered” portrays the violent means of the martyrs’ deaths as yet vivid and in full color. Even if their deaths were decades before, the effects and violent frame of those deaths cast a shadow extending to the very moment when they cry out for God to avenge their blood. The slaughter they endured was thus an antecedent action that placed the saints in the resulting state implied by the slaughtering event. To be slaughtered is to die violently with scars and visible effects that forever mark a person as having been slaughtered.
Further, the nearness and proximity of the violent death of the martyrs anticipates John’s description of why the saints were slaughtered. At the conclusion of Rev 6:9, John notes that the saints had been martyred because of their continuous, consistent testimony of Christ.
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Children did not consent to being sacrificed to Molech. Their death was forced upon them, and had they been knowledgeable of their fate, they would almost certainly have refused to die. By contrast, Jesus was not a helpless victim thrown into the fiery hands of Molech against his will. He willingly went to the cross because he had full knowledge of his identity, his mission, and the importance of his work. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11), and again, “I lay down My life so that I may take it again” (John 10:17). 

In an age of political correctness, Christianity is a prime offender. It’s not only Scripture’s sexual ethics that get canceled. Even bedrock creeds like Christ’s crucifixion are on the chopping block. Many professing Christians are uncomfortable with God killing his Son as the penalty for our crimes. They see this as child sacrifice. From their perspective, it’s impossible for such a doctrine to be consistent with God’s character when it’s so clear that God abhors the killing of innocent children.
Part of the temptation to shy away from historic Christian teaching stems from a disturbing new trend of “deconstructing” faith. What practitioners claim they’re doing is jettisoning Christian doctrines that have been tainted by time and tradition and therefore shouldn’t be believed today. In other words, they believe they are merely reforming their faith, a process, they would say, Martin Luther practiced with the Reformation or Jesus practiced with the Pharisees.
In reality, “deconstruction” is a broad term that is difficult to nail down. You’ll get different definitions depending on who you talk to. In my observation, it is the process of pulling apart aspects of the Christian faith that are undesirable and aligning one’s doctrines with culture or one’s own personal beliefs. By contrast, the biblical (and healthier) approach is to correct mistaken theology by conforming it to what Scripture teaches. The key difference between the two approaches is the standard used to determine theology: it’s either Scripture or it’s something else (e.g., society and self).
Given that the historic understanding of the atonement has fallen out of favor with some deconstructionists, let’s consider three reasons why characterizing it as child sacrifice is inappropriate.
First, Christ was not a child. In ancient Israel, children were sacrificed to cult deities like Molech. Those sacrificed, however, were babies or infants. Although Jesus is given the title of Son of God, he was not a small child. Scripture tells us he was an adult, crucified while in his early 30s.
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Parenthood is widely seen as a consumerist activity. Children are viewed in the same way as pets or plants. They are objects to be acquired rather than persons whose intrinsic dignity must be respected. For many parents, children exist to serve their happiness, whether to be a parent’s “bestie” or to fulfill their parent’s hopes and dreams. 

Critics of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have long warned that the technology could be used to customize children, allowing parents and doctors to effectively play God. According to a recent Slate article, which sounded like a review of the movie Gattaca, those fears were well-founded. According to the article,  
You can have a baby when it suits your career, thanks to egg freezing (or at least you can try). You can sequence your embryos’ genomes for $2,500 a pop and attempt to maximize your future child’s health (or intelligence, attractiveness, or height) … you can even select eye color. There is a vast disparity between who gets to use IVF… and who is using it to create designer families.  
Another example is sex selection. Numbers vary from clinic to clinic, but one Los-Angeles-based IVF clinic estimates that about 85% of its patients engage in sex selection. However, which sex is being selected is surprising.  
Historically, when parents choose between sons and daughters—think of China under its one-child policy or Romans who practiced infanticide by exposure—boys won out. Today, Americans using IVF are abandoning the sons in favor of daughters.  
“Abandoning” is the correct term when it comes to IVF. Standard procedure involves the creation of anywhere between five and 10 embryos that are then implanted either one at a time or in multiples. 
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