He died in prison at the age of 72. The world knew him as Pol Pot, the Cambodian revolutionary who seized the reigns of political power in 1979, and who turned his gentle land into the Killing Fields. With the ethics of an Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot turned Cambodia into a forced labor camp, sending some two million fellow citizens to their deaths. Some died by execution, some through starvation, some by working to death.
The former political leader lived out his last days in a jungle hut with his wife and daughter, the result of a kind of "slap-your-hands" trial by his successors in government. Recently, this man whose brutalities ranked with the world’s worst broke an 18-year silence and gave an interview. And how did he view the brutalities that were perpetrated at his orders? Was there remorse and sorrow? When pressed by the reporter who interviewed him, he said, "My conscience is clear. Even now you can look at me, am I a savage person?"
Indeed, the human conscience is a strange thing. Some such as Pol Pot say their conscience is clear when the record shows they have committed horrible acts against their fellows. Others are driven by horrible guilt over a tiny offense such as taking a postage stamp from an employer. What’s the difference? How do you explain all of this? Is conscience merely a psychological phenomenon which should be ignored?
Long ago Jeremiah wrote, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure." Then he asked, "Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). The answer to his last question is, "Only One." Only He who came from heaven, who became sin for us, understood the treacheries of the unregenerated heart. Jesus candidly talked about the heart as the seat of our conduct. He said, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander" (Matthew 15:19).
Though most of us would condemn Pol Pot, we sometimes refuse to accept personal responsibility for our own human failure. "I can’t help it when I’m with that woman," a philandering husband recently told me, as though he was an animal in heat with no personal accountability.
"She took of the fruit," Adam told God, "and I did eat of it." In other words, "I’m not responsible." When I stand before God, I won’t have to give account for Pol Pot, but as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I am accountable for myself. "You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother?" asked Paul, writing to the church in Rome, explaining, "For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written," he added, "‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God’" (Romans 14:10, 11). And that brings personal accountability to my level.
Resource Reading: Romans 14