The Never Ending Battle

This is a retelling of the story of the battle for the souls of Koreans as I heard it from Andree Seu, at that time senior writer for WORLD magazine.

Korea went through centuries of purposeful, intentional isolation. All foreigners were kept away so that their culture could be kept pure, untouched by eil outside influences. Anti-foreigner decrees and anti-Christian decrees had been issued all the way back in the late 1500's but European traders and Christians kept searching for ways into the kingdom. A Dutch Reformed sailor was shipwrecked there in 1628 and a German believer made it there in 1832, but each were sent on their way quickly. Before the German left, however, he told some about Jesus and left behind some tracts and one copy of a Chinese translation of the Bible.

In 1866 the General Sherman, an American trading schooner, barged into the Taedong River intent on forcing the issue of trade. A passenger named Robert J. Thomas threw gospel tracts off the back of the ship. The Korean government reacted immediately and aggressively against the ship. They sent burning ships up against it so that it, too, would catch fire and kill all on board. The sailors and passengers jumped overboard in a vain attempt to save themselves. Thomas reached the shore and shouted "Jesus! Jesus!" The angry mob that awaited any survivors were armed with machetes and set about attacking any they could find. Thomas handed a peasant a Bible but the peasant, after taking the Bible, swung his blade and decapitated the American on the spot. The peasant took the Bible home and use the pages from it to paper a guest room in his humble home. Over the years, he couldn't help but read bits and pieces of it...

And he became a believer. Years later his nephew would graduate from Union Christian College in Pyongyang and serve on a committee to revise the Korean Bible. That is how it was, that one of the men in that mob became the first in a long line of believers.

But there was another man in that mob. He, too, wielded a machete. His name was Kim Ung U. He later had a son named Kim Bo Hyon, who had a son named Kim Hyong Jik, who had a son... named Kim Il Sung.

North Korea is ruled by the great grandson of one of the attackers on the Taedong dock. Faith was planted in Korea by another one of those attackers; a man who came to faith in Jesus as he read his wallpaper.

The age old war between the serpent and his seed and the woman and her seed continues (Revelation 6:9-11 anyone?). Even to this day, Christ and Satan battle over Korea. The July 23, 2003 edition of US News and World Report tells the story of a North Korean supporter of Kim Il Sung who was imprisoned over a minor, trivial infraction. In prison she marveled at the faith of the Christians as they faced torture and death. It struck her so powerfully that she became a believer as well.

The story isn't over. Keep praying. And come, Lord Jesus.