This Sunday morning, my team went to a
house church in Kampong Cham. There are maybe 20 members of this
church, which is one of about 25 churches in this city of roughly 26,000
people. However, the number of Buddhist temples is probably at least
twice this number. The pastor spoke about the many idols
people worship. His text was I Corinthians 10:14-22 that talks about
sacrifices given to idols.
The sacrifices of pagans are offered to
demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with
demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons
too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of
demons. (20-22)
Through translation, I got that the
pastor was speaking about the many gods and idols Cambodians worship.
When told about God, they simply add Him to their list of gods.
However, the pastor said they need to understand that there is only
one God, and only He is worthy of worship. He cannot be worshiped
along with other idols.
After the service, we sat around and
visited with some of the church members. Peter was a young man who
could speak good English. He explained more about Christianity in
Cambodia. He said it is difficult to bring people to Christ since
their family grows up with Buddhism. It’s the national religion here.
Although many people are not practicing Buddhists, they still would
claim to be Buddhist. We explained it’s basically the same in
America. We are a Christian nation and most people would claim to be
Christian, but many are not true believers and followers of Christ.
They may go to church and say a prayer now and then, but they don’t
truly have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Something common to see in front ofhouses and buildings here is called a Spirit House. Cambodians don’t
want to have bad spirits over their house, so they give offerings to
the spirits on these pedestals. We see these everywhere in Cambodia,
just as we would have a mailbox in front of our house in America.
Americans aren’t usually as concerned about the spiritual realm, but
we still have our idols of materialism. We want more money, things
and success. Idols come in many forms.
Although, our cultures are very
different, we are really all the same. We all want something to
believe in and we need something greater than ourselves to worship. I
just pray that Americans and Cambodians will worship the one true
God.
He alone is worthy of all our praise!
