This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.(1 John 3:16,NIV)
For those who have been born again through the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is fitting to love one another, even to the point of laying down one’s life for the sake of a brother. Yet the devil, the father of lies, drives people toward death, stealing, killing, and destroying.
The English term “genocide” did not exist prior to 1944. During World War II, Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word to describe the Nazis’ systematic policy of exterminating the Jewish people. He combined the Greek geno- (race) and -cide (killing) to create a term that meant the extermination of a people or nation. While often rendered simply as “mass killing” or “massacre,” genocide encompasses more than large-scale slaughter. It also includes ethnic cleansing, cultural and social destruction, and systematic oppression aimed at erasing entire groups of people.
In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which came into force in 1951. The treaty defined genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group—such as killing its members, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing destructive living conditions, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children to another group.
Despite the lessons of Nazi atrocities, genocides have continued. The first case formally recognized by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was the Rwandan genocide. From April 9 to 11, 1994, members of the Hutu majority massacred more than 20,000 Tutsis in just three days. Over the next four months, an estimated 800,000 people were killed.
Other genocides include the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which killed 2 million people between 1975 and 1979; the massacres during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, including the Bosnian War and Kosovo ethnic cleansing; and the deaths of 120,000 East Timorese between 1975 and 1979 under Indonesian occupation.
Some cases remain under judicial review, such as the Rohingya crisis brought before the ICJ by Gambia. In 2017, Myanmar’s military killed thousands of Rohingya and drove more than 700,000 into Bangladesh. More recently, governments including those of the United States, Canada, and Germany, as well as the parliaments of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, have described China’s treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang as genocide.
》Prayer Point
1. Let us pray that the evil of justifying genocide, the mass killing of tribes and nations created in the image of God, would cease. Let us pray against Satan, who drives people into pride and superiority, leading them into war, massacre, ethnic cleansing, and division.
》Scripture Prayer
Colossians 3:1–11 (NIV)
1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.
8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
》Pray that the Word may become the Conclusion.
1. Let us confess and repent, acknowledging that the genocides committed throughout human history are not sins distant from us but part of the fallen condition of humanity. Let us pray that nations driven by lust, impurity, evil desires, and greed to pursue ethnic extermination would recognize the coming wrath of the Lord upon them and turn back in repentance by His grace.
2. We who have died with Christ and been raised with Him have been made new, renewed in knowledge in His likeness. Let us pray that the hearts of those who have suffered the horrors of genocide may be renewed and fully healed in Christ. May they be able to forgive their oppressors, show them mercy, and be reconciled, restored through the love of the cross.
3. Let us pray that the Church, trusting in the impartial love of God and the power of the gospel, would rise up in prayer to stand against the schemes of those who pursue genocide. Let us pray that the Church would proclaim that Christ is Lord over all, and go forth to all nations with the gospel.
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