Cambodia-
I recall standing in front of a monument in the south part of the Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the entry way of the Killing Fields. The monument commemorates 2 – 3 million people that were slaughtered during the Pol Pot regime in the mid 70’s. They killed people for no other reason than wearing glasses, which meant you could read or had an education. If you were a professor, or doctor, anyone who was able to train or teach others were eliminated immediately and they continued to kill people for no reason whatsoever other than for being a potential threat to the regime.
As I walked through the killing fields, I couldn’t help but be captivated by the horror that took place there. If you were with me you would see large holes, mass graves, where people were brought in large numbers and were killed in mass and buried in one spot. Along the path we would see bone fragments and we can see pieces of clothing that are still here 35+ years later.
Continuing as you walk you come up to signs along the path that describe the deep hole that you are looking into. One sign says, 400 bodies buried here, another sign says 500 bodies buried here and this goes on burial hole after burial hole, and then when you think you have seen everything, you come up to a tree with a sign posted next to it and you about collapse as you read in unbelief of what took place there; “Killing tree against which executioners beat children.”
When I read this I was stunned and could hardly move because at the foot of the tree were bone fragments and remnants of clothing from the children.
The depth of Satan’s hatred for God and His creation sank deep within my soul. Not only were adults and teenagers slaughtered here in the killing fields but, the unthinkable brutalizing and killing of babies occurred right where I was standing. A tour happened by as I was standing in frozen unbelief and the guide described the scene: “against this tree, executioners just beat the babies swinging them against the tree, crushing their skulls and killing them as the moms were forced to watch in horror before there own horrific eventuality. They then threw the babies into a mass grave behind the killing tree.” They dehumanized the baby. They dehumanized other human beings by commencing with other unmentionable atrocities. They created a description of Hell that we knew very little of before this took place. This happened on our watch and yet we were silent. I was in High School and I paid little attention. Our national news media paid very little attention. The world as a whole was silent as the Killing Fields filled up.
What this represents is a world that is totally absent of the dignity of human life; totally absent of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The Jesus who brought life; not death.
I asked the question while standing there, “ how is this any different than how we view the preborn in our day ?”
We have legalized abortion all over the world. We have made every effort to dehumanize the preborn child. We have done this by calling the preborn child a blob; a bunch of tissue; not human. This helps us to dehumanize the preborn child which somehow allows us to treat them the way that we do. How we treat them through abortion is just as horrific as the killing tree. Beating children against a tree and tearing them out of the womb is uncannily similar. Both are unthinkable, both are causing pain glorified in horror movies and both are destroying the Image of God!
This reality is hard for us to face. God is calling us to take a stand against the dehumanization of preborn babies all over the world and take a stand for life. If we do not respond to the preborn’s call for rescue, we will allow other life to go unrescued as well. The slippery slope is fully greased today. The devaluing of life begins with the preborn, then it engulfs orphans, street kids, under nourished children, teens in prostitution and caught in sex trafficking, women caught in the dowry system, the elderly who no longer benefit society and the list keeps growing year after year after year.
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