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)