The Korea Report
Category: Prophetic Reports, Asia
The prophetic has a very important place in the history of the Korean church. During the Japanese occupation some Korean pastors bowed down to the idols brought from Japan while others chose imprisonment and torture. The ones who bowed down claimed that it was meaningless, as they weren't really worshipping the idols. Some also said that they did it to be able to feed the pastors who were already in prison. This led to deep schisms in the churches that caused rifts to this day; although there was repentance between some groups of Presbyterians last year.
This leads us to what I mentioned about the place of the prophetic in Korean history. The story goes that a young woman named Esther Ahn Kim was a school teacher who refused to bow to idols during this time frame. For this, she had to flee to escape arrest and imprisonment. During her time of hiding, she met an old pastor whom God had told to go to the Japanese Diet (their congress) and warn them that if they did not stop persecuting the Korean Christians, that fire would fall from heaven upon them.
The old man, Elder Park, and Esther Ahn went to Japan and through a miraculous sequence of events, slipped into the Japanese Diet and threw down a large sign painted with Chinese letters with the word of the Lord.
They were eventually captured. You can read the story of Esther's life in the book about her life entitled, If I Perish, I Perish.
Pyongyang, the capitol of North Korea, was once the center of Christianity. The biggest Bible schools were located there. When the Japanese invaded the country many pastors were tortured and martyred for their faith. The Koreans were forced to speak Japanese, their children schooling was in Japanese, and they were required to take Japanese names.
In addition to the physical invasion, there was also a spiritual one. Among other things the Japanese "staked" the nation to extend the territory of their religion. No one knows how many of these were actually put into the soil of Korea. I inquired to see whether or not we could get a map of the sites and it is going to be looked into.
In addition to this, I asked if the rivers had been prayed over as the Buddhists do rituals over the rivers and waterways every year. Intercessors are going to do some prayer though the nation regarding the water spirits that are loosed into the rivers through the Buddhists. The River Han that I mentioned earlier is the most critical as it is forms the border between the north and the south.
The atmosphere over South Korea is much better than when we were here in 2001. One can feel a marked difference upon landing. Many churches have early morning prayers. This is a hallmark of the 1907 revival. Korean believers are used to going to church at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. Others pray all night. It is not just ordinary, quiet prayer either. It is loud and forceful! Everyone prays all together at the top of their voice and when they are going to change and pray for another request, they ring a prayer bell.
