17 February 2019
Dear Phyllis,
Last Sunday we had a guest speaker from Korea at the Thai church where I attend. I don't know one word he said, but I was so blessed I asked to give a brief testimony at the end of the service.
I spoke about the Korean miracle.
Korea is almost unique in the history of Christian missions. Two hundred years ago Korea was one of the most isolated kingdoms on earth. There is no place on earth today as sealed as Korea
was in the early 19th century. It was known as the Hermit Kingdom. From seventeen hundred on, hundreds of missionaries had poured into China, but as the labored there, they looked east across the Yellow Sea at a peninsula that jutted south that
was totally ignored. A few had ventured over there, and what they saw was appalling. One lady missionary went over for a survey and reported it was the most destitute land she had ever seen. One guide, that was with her, was kicked by a mule breaking his arm.
She said it was so poor they couldn't find a stick to splint his broken arm.
The first Protestant missionary who attempted to go over there was Robert Thomas in 1865. He was able to acquire enough language to communicate and two years later he went back as an interpreter
for an American ship that wanted to establish trade relations. The ship was burned and Thomas was killed, but the man who killed him was converted through a Bible that Thomas gave him as he was being martyred.
Foreign missions have divided up the various mission fields of the world, that has made denominational differences in each country. Judson was the first missionary to Burma and today Burma
is basically Baptist. The Christian and Missionary Alliance were the first missionaries to French Indo China (Vietnam) and today basically Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are C&MA. The Presbyterians were the first missionaries to go to Korea and basically Korea
is Presbyterian today. Horas Allen was a missionary doctor and the first missionary to try to establish a bridgehead for Jesus in the Hermit Kingdom when went to Pyongyang in 1887. That is not long ago. From Allen a number of other missionaries followed and
had good success in establishing the Gospel, basically in the north. In 1907 there was a historic outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Pyongyang Revival where thousands were saved and the Gospel filled the land.
In their aggressive hegemony at the beginning of the 20th century Japan annexed Korea and dominated the land for 40 years. Japan colonized it making it a somewhat modern country
building a highway, railway, postal system. Much to the intense resentment of the Korean people, Japan made the Japanese language the official language of Korea. Christian missions continued during the Japanese colonization, but from 1930 on intense pressure
from Japan to worship Shintoism and the emperor of Japan, persecution of the church drove missionaries out of Korea, and hundreds of pastors were imprisoned or killed. The Koreans are different people. Even in Japan there is a fundamental difference between
Japanese and Koreans. Unlike Japanese, the Koreans are defiant and uncompromising. There was a famous incident in Suwan in 1935 when the Japanese soldiers went into a Korean church in the middle of the Sunday morning worship service with idols demanding that
they worship these Shinto idols. The Koreans simply threw the soldiers out. The soldiers went outside and set fire to the building. As the believers fled to escape the fire, the soldiers set up machine guns to kill them. When the Christians saw what they were
up against they stopped fleeing, and the congregation was singing hymns when the roof collapsed. They all perished. (I'm sorry, I made a mistake. They went directly to glory.)
During the 2nd WW, after the Americans exploded the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Russia declared war on Japan. For two weeks they got in their trucks and raced across Manchuria grabbing
as much land as possible. As a reward for their help with the war, President Harry Truman gave Russia half of Korea dividing the land at the 38th parallel. Russia set up Kim Il Sung as the dictator of North Korea, and in June 1950 North Korea invaded
the south.. The massacre was horrendous, Three weeks later General MacArthur sent 5,000 American soldiers from Japan to Korea to stop the communist invasion, They got slaughtered. Nothing could stop the North Korean army. The red tide went all the way down
to a southeast corner of the thumb nail at Pusan. The Americans drew a line there and said, “This is where we stand and will retreat no further”. For two months the North poured everything they had into trying to throw the Americans into the Yellow Sea, but
the US fought them to a stand still. Then in September 15, 1950 General MacArthur, against all the fears of every timid general of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pull off the greatest military move in history with the Inchon invasion, and totally eliminated North
Korea from the South in three weeks. Then they drove all the way north to the Chosen reservoir in the north west corner of North Korea, freeing the entire country. But red China intervened driving the Americans and South Korean army back to the 38th
parallel. In 1953 a truce was finally declared where the war started at what they call the DMZ (Demilitarized zone).
When I first went to Korea as a US Air Force pilot, South Korea was the poorest country I had ever seen. There were ox carts on the streets of Seoul. The main road from Seoul to Gimpo, to
the international airport, was dirt. The country was so poor, Korea was a land of thieves. They stole every thing. They stole the drag chutes we used to stop our planes. One missionary lost so many things he bought a police dog to protect his house. Thieves
stole and ate the dog. They would steal the gold out of your teeth while you talked to them.
For 74 years North Korea has been the most hostile nation to the Gospel on earth. But at the same time there has been a historic miracle in South Korea. The economic recovery in South Korea
is almost unprecedented. Today Seoul is as modern as any city on earth. It certainly is vastly more advanced than LA. But the Church in South Korea is the main object. Today South Korea is 30% Christian. For the 20th century, America had been the
bastion of the Gospel, easily ranking #1 as worlds leading missionary country. Today Korea has overtaken America and is the #1 world leader in sending out missionaries. We see them everywhere. The Korean churches in Japan are miles ahead of Japanese churches.
And in Chiang Mai there are many Korean churches that are double in size to ordinary Thai churches. Korea is world famous for it's 5 AM prayer meeting. In Korea it is questionable whether or not a person is saved if he doesn't go to the 5 AM prayer meeting.
In 1959 I led a Korean soldier to Christ. Shortly after accepting Christ he went home for a visit. Sometime later I saw him again and he asked me, “Why don't American soldiers have a 5 AM prayer meeting?” Korea has many prayer mountains where Christians go
up in a mountain to fast and pray for days, weeks, and sometimes a month at a time. All you can say about Korea is that
they are just amazing.
The world has seen many great revivals, but Korea is a showpiece of what the Holy Spirit did with an isolated kingdom, and turned it into one of the jewels of heaven in less than 150 years.
As I sat there in church last Sunday listening to a Spirit filled missionary lifting up Jesus, I thought, “What an amazing miracle that we are benefiting from the sacrifice of Robert Thomas, who was the first missionary and martyred, and the many thousands
who have shed their blood on Korean soil for Jesus. What an enormous harvest! What a reward!
But then I thought on;
“What the Lord has done in Korea He could do anywhere”.
Oh, Lord, hallowed be Thy Name. Lord, let Your Kingdom come and Your will be done right here, like You have done it in Korea. Holy Father, please do it for Jesus sake. Amen
bill
No comments:
Post a Comment