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.