When the Devil Smiles

"Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies." — Jonah 2:8 Make no mistake about it. The U.S. is dealing with a grandfather/father/son unholy "trinity," who are considered to be gods in North Korea, requiring absolute obedience, divine worship and unquestioned allegiance from all of its people. Reliable estimates reveal that there are 30,000 Christians in prison in North Korea who have not "bowed their knees to Baal (1 Kings 19:18) and because of their faith they are paying a heavy price to follow Jesus. Rev. Eric Foley, Director of Voice of the Martyrs Korea, shares this testimony from his book, These Are The Generations, about "Mr. Bae" (not his real name), who now lives in South Korea and was a North Korean underground believer imprisoned for his faith. This is his testimony: "I was treated like an insect in prison. Every day of those thirteen months was the same. Up at 5:00 a.m. Mop the floor. Clean up. Go to the restroom. Throw out the contents of the bucket. Then I had to sit cross-legged with my hands on my knees in the same position for the next seventeen hours. I was not permitted to turn my neck or slouch with my back. Every two hours, we were allowed to urinate. The only other time we were allowed to move was during meals, which were exactly one minute long. At 10:00 p.m., we were allowed to go to bed, but our heads had to be turned away from the prison bars. "Bed" meant laying down on the wooden floor. When you're sitting, you cannot move, even if you get bit by a mosquito. If you even flinch, you receive punishment, torturous humiliations dreamed up by the guards. In one punishment, you'd have to stand with your knees bent, holding a full bowl of water over your head for thirty minutes. If you spilled even a drop, you'd be beaten senseless with a rod. For another punishment, you had to extend your hands through the prison bars so the guard on the other side could mash your palms into bloody ribbons of flesh with a sharp iron spike. You might be ordered to hang from a bar for half an hour or crawl like an insect across the wooden floor. Mostly, though, I just sat, unmoving, for seventeen hours a day, for more than a year of my life."* Would you like to help believers in Korea? Go to Voice of the Martyrs and find out how. These are our brothers and sisters (Hebrews 13:3). And please pray for Kim Jong-un, as well, that he might come to know the "one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent" (John 17:3). Maranatha! *These Are the Generations, p. 54.