SATAN'S NATION III

Historians can be a biased lot. We see this when liberal historians rank their best presidents, Franklin Roosevelt is always very, very, very close to the top.

Historians can also show their bias by what they omit from the historical record. George Orwell, in his book, "1984," writes that the totalitarian society featured in the story has something called a "Memory Hole." The Memory Hole was a small chute in the wall that was used to carry documents down a warm current of air into an incinerator. In the story, Memory Holes were found in the Ministry of Truth, where Outer Party members destroyed evidence of a different past, a different historical event, an event they don't want the people to know about. For example, a newspaper article that proved that the Party broke a promise was always destroyed using a Memory Hole.

By omitting history, biased historians jettison events down the Memory Hole. What events? Read on.

THE GENERAL

Immediately after WWII and the surrender of Japan, General Douglas MacArthur was given the supreme power to rule over the Japanese. One author wrote that no one in the history of the world ever had so much power as was accorded to the general. Such power would have been the joy of most fallen men, one they could use to rule with an iron fist. But not MacArthur; he, a fallen man, like everybody else, read from his American Standard Version of the Bible everyday.

He knew that there existed in defeated Japan a "spiritual vacuum," as he called it. He understood that their religious underpinnings had been reduced to spiritual rubble by real, literal bombs, including THE bomb. The people realized that they'd been fed spiritual garbage by their leaders--they now knew that their leader was not a god, was not invincible, and that all they'd been taught about him and the destiny of their nation was wrong.

MacArthur also knew that, just as nature abhors a vacuum, so it abhors a spiritual vacuum into which would rush communism and all other kinds of -isms. So what did he do? He did what, to us today is unthinkable for any general or high-ranking elected or unelected official to do: He made an appeal for 10,000 American missionaries to come to Japan and an appeal for "Bibles, Bibles, and more Bibles."

At his request, America sent 45,000,000 Bibles to Japan. Can you imagine anybody's making that appeal today, anybody of high rank, status, or position? The press, our sophisticated celebrities, our intellectuals, our politicos, and social media mobs would grab their pitchforks within seconds, and destroy him. His address would be published so the mobs could gather outside his door and terrorize his wife and children. They would publish his phone number at work so that his employer would have dismiss him. 

Did you know that MacArthur made that appeal? Probably not. It's down the Memory Hole. Why? Biased historians don't write about it, they don't like it and don't like to think about it. Bless their hearts, their foolish minds are darkened (Romans 1). And if they did write about it, it would be to blast the very idea that someone would even think to do such a thing and blast it to kingdom come and to tarnish MacArthur's name. How dare he think Christianity superior to the Japanese religions, or any other "religion" for that matter!

NOW, SATAN'S NATION

So this brings us to Satan's nation: North Korea. That's what Satan's nation needs: Bibles, Bibles and more Bibles. (We can't help but like the direct simplicity of MacArthur's words, can we?) Do we hear anyone in any military sector, the political arena, or the legislative, judicial, or executive branches of the government making the appeal MacArthur did? Just one?

And that's exactly what some of the little people, not the leaders or celebrities, are trying to do for N. Korea, but in Satan's nation it's both difficult and dangerous to get Bibles into the world's most closed and isolated society.

KINDERGARTEN COPS

In North Korea, the practice of Christianity is illegal. Owning a Bible is a crime, and any person caught with one is sent – along with three generations (!) of his or her family – to prison.

Kindergarten children are taught that if they see their parents hiding a book at home, they are to bring that book to class to "win" their game of hide-and-seek and receive prizes. A child who brings a Bible is feted in front of the other kids, and then ends up in a prison camp with his or her parents, or becomes an orphan taken to a couple more loyal to the regime.

EVERYBODY IS A COP

But it's not only kindergarten kids. Everyone is required to spy on everyone else. A neighbor overheard listening to a foreign radio broadcast, let alone the S. Korean Bible reading broadcast (on the air for 30 minutes a day, beamed from S. Korea into N. Korea) is to be reported.

GIVE THE WINDS A MIGHTY VOICE

How are they getting Bibles, Bibles, and more Bibles into N. Korea? They do so when the winds cooperate:

"On a rainy afternoon last Spring, American pastor Eric Foley and his wife stand in a muddy field near the North Korea border and pray – their hands clasp a 40-foot homemade balloon that will carry Bibles to the communist dictatorship's underground Christians in N. Korea.

"I get choked up, every time, as I let go and watch it take off," he says.

"The balloons, made from a large sheet of farm plastic are filled with hydrogen before the Bibles and tracts – testimonials written by other North Korean Christians – are attached at the bottom inside a sack or box. Timers are then used to release the materials in stages, dispersing them at high altitudes across North Korea. Foley and members of his Christian mission group, use GPS technology to help direct where the Bibles land. Around 50,000 of them have dropped from the skies in the last year." (Fox News)

THE OHIO MAN

Jeffrey Fowle is a 56 year-old man from Ohio. He went with a tour group to N. Korea, intending to "forget" and leave a Korean-English study Bible behind. "The Wall Street Journal" tells the story:

"Traveling on a group train tour of the country that included stops on the country’s east and west coasts, Mr. Fowle chose to leave the Bible behind on one of the tour’s last stops, at the Seamen’s Club in Chongjin, North Korea. There, he thought, it wouldn't be noticed by strict North Korean authorities, as the club was located away from the hotel he was staying in and away from security.

“I thought it would be under less scrutiny there,” he said.

With time running out at the club, Mr. Fowle went into the bathroom to leave the Bible behind.
“I was kind of panicking,” he said, describing how he placed it under a trash bin and covered it with a piece of paper." (Oct. 31, 2014)

His assumption of there being less scrutiny at the Seamen's Club was false; he was arrested, charged with "hostile acts against the country," and spent six months in prison in N. Korea.

Leaving one Bible in a country of 24.9 million people is a "hostile act?" Yes it is, in Satan's nation. 

How much does the great leader of North Korea fear the Bible? N. Korea shoots down the balloons and arrest those who pick them up, despite the fact that the N Korean government has falsely warned the people that the balloons are laced with poison. The great leader has one little man arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to prison for leaving one Bible behind.

Such is the power of the Book; a government and its great leader tremble at its very existence.  (Hebrews 4:12)

SATAN'S NATION II

Satan's nation is the size of Mississippi. It has a population of 23 million. (Mississippi's population is 2.9 million.) North Korea, Satan's nation, immerses its citizen in propaganda all day, every day. They hear, see, and read nothing else: there are no cell phones; there is no Internet. Many don't know a man has walked on the moon.

They hear propaganda everywhere. They hear it at home. They hear it at work. They hear it as they walk on the streets. They see propaganda everywhere in graphic pictures, murals, portraits and monuments. In every apartment, every home, there hang pictures (more than one per dwelling) of the dear leader. Their dear leader is their god, his graven image is everywhere. He comes complete with attributes belonging only to God. 

One N. Korean, now enjoying life outside of hell, says she believed that the dear leader was omniscient; she thought he could read minds. The all-day-and-part-of-the-night-propaganda  (5 AM-11 PM blaring from sound trucks roaming the streets) had so done its work, that even after she escaped to China, she believed that the dear leader could read her mind in that country.

Her mother was the same, even after she and her daughter escaped. When news came that the dear leader had died, she was incredulous and asked, "The great leader is a god; how can a god die?" Her daughter explained to her mother that the dear leader was not a god.

When a news documentarian was filming a program for "National Geographic" about a doctor's trip into N. Korea, she asked one of the six government minders and a family she was filming, "Can the dear leader do wrong?"

Silence. The minders didn't understand the question, nor did the family. There was no answer; everybody just sat there on the floor of the apartment, silent. Did fear birth the silence? The documentarian doesn't think so. She thinks the reason is that the minders and the family have no vocabulary to answer such a question. If that's true, the dear leader is god in their minds--absolutely righteous.

it would be like asking the modern day church-goer, "How would your church decide important if there was no such thing as voting?" Silence. The church-goer has no vocabulary to discuss the question, much less answer it.

The doctor from Asia has come to perform 1,000 surgeries in 10 days to bring sight to the blind. He accomplishes his goal and a large number of the ones upon whom he's operated sit in a large room, eyes and faces swathed in bandages. The doctor and his assistants begin to unwind the bandages as the camera rolls.

The people can see! They see their fathers and mothers, their grandchildren, either for the first time or for the first time in a long time. After a bit, everyone of them, one by one, goes up to the front of the room and stands in front of a picture of the dear leader and, with upraised hands shout, literally shout, their praises to him. Some make vows to him. One now-sighted woman vows, "I will work harder in the salt mines to get salt for you, dear leader!" One man, an older man, vows before the picture, "With these hands, I will kill every American for you, dear leader!"

There must be public praises for this god in Satan's nation. 

In every home and apartment, they bow. Grandparents, parents, and children, all bow, as they hold hands, before the pictures of the dear leader. There must be reverence for this god.

A photojournalist, on a tour of the capital city comes up to one of the massive statues of the dear leader. It so huge that he lies down on the pavement to get a full shot of it.

After he gets up, his minder comes up to him and tells him, "That is forbidden." Not the picture-taking, but the lying down. No one lies down in the presence of the dear leader, all must stand and reverently so. The minder says to the photographer: "You will have to leave our country tomorrow."

A journalist disguised as a tourist gets out of the approved, government-ordained route specified for his tour group led by their minders. He, having told the minders that he needed to use the restroom while on a tour of a N. Korean high school, makes a mad dash upstairs and finds a place where tourists aren't allowed.

He looks at the walls of the halls on the second floor and there he sees a mural of students in violent poses killing an American soldier with a fountain pen, stabbing him through the heart. He takes a picture and smuggles it out of N. Korea for the world to see.

While on tour of the high school, it's not easy to see down the halls. That's because the halls are dark; electricity in Satan's nation is in short supply. This is a picture of the spiritual darkness enveloping the nation, any nation, in which a man is their god.

On his tour, the journalist asks questions of the minders: "Why is it this and not that?" "Why do you do this and not that?" Why? Why? Why?" The minders have no answer because he can't conceive of anyone asking a "why" question. People aren't allowed to ask"why" in a nation where man is god.

The mind-control is so strong that those raised in it are like a fish breathing water. The fish never asks, "Why am I breathing water?" He just does. The propagandized never think, "Why?" It never occurs to them. That's really not so strange. The average church member never thinks to ask, "Why do we sit in pews?" To him, the pews just are. The football fan, until recently, would never have asked, "Why is the Washington team named, 'the Redskins?'" An Atlanta fan would never have asked, "Why is our team, 'the Braves?' " It just is, and that's all there is to it, thank you very much. The church attender never asks, "Why do we have to walk an aisle to be saved?" He just does, even though the New Testament never tells anyone to do so.

Now for the scary. The journalist, in the tour group herded by the minders, says that about 50% of those in his group bought it. What they were allowed to see, that's the way the people live, they left thinking, in a Utopia on earth.

Another scary: according to political correctness, we're not to make judgments, we can't condmen any person or culture. According to its handmaiden, multiculturalism, no one culture is better than another. There's no right, no wrong, to each his own and you'd better not offend another's "own." Political correctness and multiculturalism take the categories away from us, so we can't say that one culture is inferior to another.

To multiculturalism, "Everything is beautiful, in its own way." If a godless society shoots its citizens who are trying to get away from it because three million have starved to death in it and because of it, who are we to shout, "That's wrong!"? You can't judge, you can't condemn. Yet God condemned the culture of the Canaanites and the men of Sodom. Paul condemned false teachers and their teaching; he condemned the Cretans as liars.

This multiculturalism hit home with the movie,"The Interview," which, at least for a while, never opened in any American theater because, basically, it offended the dear leader of the North Koreans. It was one of the few times, maybe the first time, a foreign dictator dictated what Americans could see. (Disclaimer: I never saw the movie. I rarely see a movie in a theater. I have Roku. I haven't seen it on Roku either.)

There's quite a contrast, isn't there? Look at what a culture based on Christianity produces and look at what a man-is-god-culture produces.

All we have to do, in spite of political correctness and multiculturalism, is to ask, "If you were to remove the soldiers, the guns, the electrified fence, and the 1,000 land mines from the 150 mile border between N. Korea and S. Korea, which way would the people go?"

SATAN'S NATION

There is a nation that we might call, "Satan's Nation," one that stands as the epitome of all that Satan desires for the human race. John tells us that the whole world-system lies cradled in the power of the evil one (I John 5:19). We can summarize Satan's goal for the world in one short command: Leave God out.

Satan's goal is to leave God out of education, to leave God out of the arts, to leave God out of families, business, government, the culture, any private discussion, and any national discussion. If one country is the example of that goal, it's North Korea, a nation in which its citizens are soldiers and slaves.

WHAT DOES SATAN'S NATION LOOK LIKE?

A little boy, Joseph Kim, less than 12 years of age, arises at 5 AM along with his sister. They will spend the day, the entire day, doing one thing and only one thing, searching for wood and food until midnight. Desperate for food, eventually this little boy watched as his father lay on the floor, starving, starving to death. If he could have only found some bread in the many trash heaps through which he had dug that day.

Joseph's mother disappears suddenly. No hugs. No good-byes. She's gone, gone to try to escape to China to make some money to feed the family. If the N. Koreans catch her, they'll kill her and her body will float in the river which serves as the border. If the Chinese catch her, they'll send her back to be jailed, tortured, and maybe executed.

The boy goes to work in a coal mine, deep, deep below ground in freezing weather. Neither he nor any other workers, men or boys, have any protection from the elements.

THE TEACHER

 A young teacher, Suki Kim, wanting to learn what it's like to live in N. Korea, leaves S. Korea to teach in a school for the children (all male) of the elites of the N. Korean society. She wants to immerse herself in the N. Korean culture, right there in the belly of the beast, right there in its capital. It is there that she sees Satan's Nation at work, living first hand in its nuts and bolts, a nation whose government has brainwashed it's citizens to leave God out.

Miss Kim finds that, for the N. Koreans, there is no outside world; the  government blocks all knowledge of it. Her students never heard of Steve Jobs. They never heard of the Internet. (Therefore, there's really no such thing as the "Worldwide" Web.) They know only two things about the outside world: S. Korea is their enemy. America is their enemy. That's it.

The teacher finds propaganda, the lies on which the government has built the society, everywhere. Sound trucks roam the streets and roads broadcasting propaganda from 5 AM to 11 PM, every day, all the time, world without end. Every book, every TV program, every newspaper article, every song is about The Great Leader. Flowers are named for him; they carve the mountains with his sayings. The propaganda tells the people that they are citizens of the most powerful and wealthiest nation on the face of the earth. Yet their citizens, during the Great Famine of the 1990's ate grass, bugs, and tree bark; over a million of them died.

The school where she teaches? It's a guarded prison. The students cannot write their parents. Officials record every class; there is no such thing as a private conversation. The school covers every blank space with a portrait of The Great Leader. Free time? That's spent honoring The Great Leader. School trips? The only place a teacher can take the class is to a monument honoring The Great Leader, accompanied by an approved monitor, of course.

Speaking of traveling, no N. Korean can go to a foreign country. They need a passport to travel even in their own country. (Some say we need a passport to go to Alabama, but that's a different discussion.)


She finds that her students have no idea how to write an essay: thesis statement, arguments for the thesis, conclusion. They don't know how because the government tells them what to think and they can't think any differently. There are no "arguments." They are taught to obey the government, The Great Leader, not to think about, "Why?"

Christianity? There is no evangelism. If you try, you die.

THE AUNT AND HER FAMILY

Hysonseo Lee sees her first public execution when she's seven; she thinks, "This is the way it must be all over the world." Her family receives a letter from her aunt, her mother's sister. Her aunt writes, "By the time you get this, we'll all be in the next world. We're lying on the floor, starving. We are ready to die." They were too weak to do what others were doing--going outside to eat grass, bugs, and tree bark. It was over and they knew it. The next world was waiting.

THE TEACHER CONCLUDES

Miss Kim concludes by telling what she would write, if she could write a letter to her students in that N. Korean school, knowing, of course, they'd never get the letter.

She reads us the letter, which says in part, "Gentlemen, you must now be 22 or 23, since it's been three years since I've seen you. You have often asked me if your capital city is the most beautiful on the earth. I know that you want me to say that it is, but I can't. Your city is a monster, feeding off the rest of the country."

She would write more: "I know you are fed up; fed up with the sameness of everything. But don't lead a revolution; let somebody else do it. Someone is always watching you. Live long, safe lives."

So there we have it. Satan's Nation. Satan's millennium.

WHAT HITLER KNEW

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Kim Jong-il in Germany, Russia, China, or North Korea--they all knew they had to do one thing to establish their totalitarian rule: their government must come between and isolate every individual in society.

Therefore, they established national health care systems to come between the patient and his doctor. They nationalized education by giving the schools the official, government approved curricula. They came between the customer and merchant by creating agencies to regulate business. (Stella Moribito)

In education, the nationalized curricula centered on racial indoctrination.  This included teaching young children how to spot a Jew by describing the physical traits which Nazis believed were associated with inferior peoples. In some classrooms, where Jews were still present, a Jewish child would be brought to the front of the class. The teacher would then use a pointer, highlighting certain facial characteristics.

The motto of the Nazi's national education policy was: "The supreme task of the schools is the education of youth for the service of the state in the National Socialist spirit." Teachers taught Nazi propaganda as fact which was then recited by their students as unshakable points of view with no room for disagreement or discussion. The teachers themselves were inferior teachers, since the only ones qualified by the government were those who were members of the party. 

ONE OTHER "MUST BE" 

But, no matter what, all totalitarian regimes must accomplish one thing--if the state is to command the total loyalty of the citizenry, it must crush God's institution of the family and the citizen's loyalty to it. Therefore, the government must come between and isolate each each member of the family from the other.

To this end, the Nazi's instituted the Hitler Youth, the totalitarian answer to family loyalty and  America's Boy Scouts. Ten-year-old boys entered the Hitler Youth by swearing an oath: "In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God." The child's loyalty to the government, not the family is paramount.

To further crush the family, Nazi Germany planted informers everywhere, even the home. In each household there was the ever-present dread that someone may be listening. Children told authorities about disloyal remarks they heard over dinner. Every family came to fear the knock on the door in the early morning hours. It meant their child, a relative, or a neighbor had turned them in; they had heard some remark, real or imagined. This usually meant the arrest of a family member. The secret police arrested and executed millions of so-called traitors.

WALTER HESS, A NAME WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY

One case involved a teenager named Walter Hess who turned in his father for calling Hitler a crazed maniac. The authorities hauled him off to Dachau. For setting such an example, Hess was promoted to a higher rank within the Hitler Youth.

This represents an ultimate betrayal, the betrayal of the parents by the child; the betrayal of the child by the parents. Sitting at the dinner table or in the den, the question is always: "Whom can I trust?"

DINNERS OF TENSION

The problem is, you don't know; you can't know. Will your wife report you if you make a disloyal remark after reading some news article in the evening paper? Who knows? Will your child overhear some criticism you make at the dinner table and report it at tomorrow's Hitler Youth meeting? Will you hear the knock? This is DIVISION and ISOLATION in all caps. The constant question on everyone's mind is: "Is this conversation safe?" 

Children spy on their parents and shatter the family, sons-in-law spy on their fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law,grandchildren on grandparents. Nephews turn uncles, aunts, and their cousins over to the authorities for misstatements. 

The state reigns. Long live the state!

But the Bible exalts the family and gives it sacred responsibilities. The book of Proverbs places the education of children in the cozy and loving confines of the home under the instruction of fathers and mothers. Ephesians tells fathers to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The allegiance of the child is to his parents whom he is to obey. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

DID WE NOTICE?

Did we notice when President Kennedy said at his inauguration in January 1961: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." Say what?

Did we notice that that's a statement to which all dictators would give a hearty, "Amen."  At the time, both Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand heard that inaugural statement and stood aghast, seeing it as one which encouraged citizens to be subservient to the state. Friedman said both halves of the sentence were wrong: “Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society.”

An infuriated Ayn Rand put Hitler's words and Kennedy's words side by side and dared people to see any difference. She saw the words as a demand that man live for the state.

No, we didn't notice. Our press and our elites told us it was grand rhetoric for the ages.

DO WE NOTICE?

Do we notice those who teach our children. Just who is teaching your child? Who's the Sunday school teacher? Who's the children's church leader who guides? Do those teachers present the accurate gospel given in I Corinthians 15:1-4? "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures . . ." Do those teachers realize that John 3:16 calls for faith alone in Christ alone and nothing more or do they corrupt the good news of grace with the bad news of works, vows, and performances? 

Those who teach your children don't stand above you, elevated six feet above contradiction. Have you questioned them? Why not?

Do we notice when churches separate and segregate family members from one another--separate classes for husbands and wives, children and adults, the older from the younger, children's churches, children's activities centers, children's this and children's that. Subtle and accepted without critique. 

Do we notice movements abroad in the land, movements to divide, isolate, and destroy the family? One leader of the same-sex marriage rebellion said, "We lied. We've been lying all along. Our goal has not been 'marriage equality.'  Our goal has been the destruction of marriage." (paraphrase)

In view of this trend to isolate, separate, and destroy familial relationships, the Christian family seeks to bring family members together--grandparents together with grandchildren, cousins with cousins, uncles, aunts, and parents together--in as many ways (dinners, trips, education, vacations, activities both serious and recreational, discussions and the ceremonies of life) as they can imagine. 

Those movements which seek to divide, separate, and isolate always come cloaked with good and moral intentions, well-phrased, but Vergil's ancient warning applies: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!" "I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts!"