By Not Known
“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” Gen 1:31
Human being is the apex of God’s creation of the world. He is created in the image of God. God highly values them. That is why God counted it very good after man and woman were created. Furthermore, God demonstrated His love to mankind by sending His one and only Son to die for their sins (John 3:16).
My recent trip to Cambodia has deepened my love and appreciation of God’s grace. Without His grace, people have no hope. Sins in the hearts of mankind have prevailed and continued to destroy countless people in the world. In just 3 years, Pol Pot the dictator, had decimated 3 millions out of 8 millions people through tortures and cruel killings. He arrested and killed three groups of people – the Cambodian soldiers, the well-educated and those who opposed him. He did the exact opposite of God’s value for mankind.
God commanded, “Thou shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13) but people were murdered in hordes, there were 20,000 grave sites all over the country. Truckloads of innocents were reported to have been transported to the killing fields to be slaughtered at night. The well known Cheung Ek Genocide Centre recorded the atrocity – babies were smashed onto the trees, women were raped and shot dead and men were shot, bashed or pierced with bayonets through their heads. The huge number of human skulls remains evidenced the different ways people suffered.
God declared that the creation of mankind is very good (Gen 1:31). Yet In 1972, Tuel Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot’s security forces and turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21. The visit to Toul Sleng Museum showed evidence that men and women were not regarded but degraded to the lowest form by fellow men. The ploy on innocent Cambodians included the suspicion or accusation as spies by the Khmer Rouge to strip them of their names, they were reduced to numbers allotted to them although God had given them each a name. They were stripped of their dignity- their clothings removed, thrown into dirty cells clad in just a pair of shorts, chained and shackled all day throughout their imprisonment. They were treated inhumanly – made to lick up spewed urine, suffered dunking in water treatment, poisonous insects or hanged upside down to be lowered into a container filled with human feces until they were willing to make false declarations of their crimes. The genocide of the people of Cambodia brought so much grief to God and the country.
By the grace of God, the country is gradually healing and moving on, it has a deep scar to show the world, a sad history of killing fields, martyrdom of believers and wars. God has sent missionaries to this country long before the Khmer Rouge regime, pray that the work of the gospel will continue to grow and multiply in the land to reach the poor and the seeking so that they will find the love and the hope in our Lord Jesus.
John Chew