96 Year-Old Persecuted North Korean Christian Says that Enduring Persecution is God’s Work

Posted on May 27, 2025 by tdillmuth

“Who’s in charge?” the Communist soldiers shouted as they brandished a sickle before a small group of North Korean believers. The believers were gathered outside of a small church in a mountainous village in South Pyongan Province, North Korea while other village members watched cautiously.

A young preacher stepped forward and the soliders instructed him to put his neck under the sickle. As the preacher bent down to put his head under the sharp blade, an elder of the church, with a white beard stepped forward. “This young man should not die. I will die in his place,” the elder said. The preacher objected, but the elder once again said that he should be the one to die.

The soliders were shocked. One of them said, “Everyone asks for their life. But both of you are willing to die. You are the only ones who are willing to die for what you belive.” Confused, the soldiers walked away.

One of the village members who witnessed this event, was a frightened 12 year old girl. Now 96 years old, Mrs. Lee will never forget what happened in the village that she lived before the Korean war. Although the Kim regime had not yet been established, Communist soldiers were already actively persecuting Christians across North Korea. The details are forever etched in her memory. 

Although not a Christian at the time of that persecution, the Lord continued to work in her heart in other ways. Her uncle, an NK Christian, gave her a Bible and a hymn book and told her that she must believe in Jesus. Her grandmother, also a Christian, preached the gospel over the mountain passes as she traveled through North Korea. The Lord used her family members to plant the seed of the gospel in her heart, which would eventually sprout to full maturity shortly after she came to South Korea.

Enduring Persecution in South Korea

Since Mrs. Lee wasn’t a Christian inside of North Korea, she was never persecuted for her faith in the ways that many North Korean Christians are.  But after becoming a Christian, she was persecuted in an unlikely place—South Korea—from an unlikely source . . . her husband.

Caption: When Mrs. Lee received her first Bible from her uncle many years ago, she couldn’t read well and became very frustrated. She’s thankful that the Lord opened both her physical eyes and spiritual eyes to be able to read and understand God’s Word. 

During the Korean war, like so many North Koreans, Mrs. Lee, her husband and her two children fled to South Korea. She was only 22 years old when she left North Korea, but she had already been married for 7 years. After coming to South Korea, she and her husband had five additional children.

But Mrs. Lee’s husband did not approve of her new faith in Christ. Not only did he not approve, he was willing to do almost anything to stop her from going to church.

Mrs. Lee recounts that her husband would cut off her hair, hide her clothes and severly beat her in order to discourage her from going to church. She remembers one particular time when she was sitting on the floor feeding their baby that he hit her so hard that she was knocked over violently. He did this so that he could grab her bag, where she was hiding her Bible. He threw the whole bag into the stove and burned it.

Her husband used to beat her so severely that her face was often extremely bruised and swollen. During those difficult times, Mrs. Lee reminded herself that if she suffered persecution, she would have a crown. In fact, every time she was beaten she would imagine another crown appearing on the spot where her husband had beaten her.

One night, when Mrs. Lee was participating in a late-night prayer meeting at her church, her husband came in, looking for her. But in his confusion, he mistook a different woman for Mrs. Lee and dragged this other woman out of the church and beat her in the church yard. The woman just happened to be the wife of the head of the village. When Mrs. Lee’s husband found out that he had just beaten the wife of the village leader, he was afraid of what would happen to him. But the woman he beat did not tell her husband, instead enduring the beating for the sake of Mrs. Lee.

This was the event that changed his life dramatically. Mrs. Lee’s husband immediately stopped beating her and even started going to church. He allowed Mrs. Lee and the children to go to church whenever they wanted. And after many years, he finally surrended his life to Christ shortly before he died.

Still in Ministry at 96 Years-Old

Mrs. Lee survived war, plague, and persecution. But she also experienced various personal tragedies incling the the death of 4 of her 7 children. She remembers that after the death of one of her children, someone asked her if she would still believe in Jesus.  Mrs. Lee replied, “My children were given to me by God, and God is the one who has taken them away. I will not leave Jesus no matter what!”

Even though Mrs. Lee is now 96 years old, she continues sharing about Jesus with whomever she meets. When we first met her, we expected our North Korean Underground University (UU) students to minister to her. Our students are training to be missionaries to their own people, so when they met Mrs. Lee their immediate thought was to evangelize and disciple her. But our students, even though they are in their 60s and 70s, became like children as they listened to Mrs. Lee share about her life.  And Mrs. Lee not only shared about her life, she also encouraged the UU students never to take their faith lightly.

Caption: Mrs. Lee leads the UU students in a hymn.

She charged them to tell their family members and neighbors about Jesus. And at one point, Mrs. Lee lurched forward, and pointed her finger at one of our UU students and said, “You have to evangelize your children!”  At Mrs. Lee’s admonition, the UU student’s heart was almost visibly pierced as she sat back and shouted in agreement, “Ahh! Okay!”. The UU student immediately thought of her son who is an animist and opposes Christianity.

Mrs. Lee reminded the students that when persecution comes, the only way we can endure hardship and persecution is by holding on to God. She said that we should pray, “God, do it!”.

Our UU students were both challenged and thankful to meet a 96-year-old North Korean great-grandmother, a living witness who has saw “tribulations, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and the sword.” She was able to testify witness that nothing is “able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35, 39).

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Christians are not saved from suffering. We are saved in the midst of suffering.

Posted on May 21, 2025 by Pastor Foley

The Christian life is a life of great tribulation.

You may be wondering, “Why would the whole Christian life be called that? Doesn’t persecution come and go, depending on what country you’re in and who’s running the government and whether there are protections for religious freedom and whether the culture upholds Christian values?”

No.

When the world rejected Christ–through the religious and political leaders and all the people putting Jesus to death on the cross—it was not because the world was confused or made a mistake or because there was a misunderstanding. The world is always hostile to the gospel. Christ was the first preacher of the gospel. The gospel is the message of who Christ is and what he does. Christ handed on the gospel message to his apostles, and then to us. Wherever that message is faithfully preached in this present age, the world will make sure that the one who preaches it will pay the price.  

“But wait!” you may be thinking. “Revelation 7 says that we are ‘sealed’! So that means we Christians are kept safe from trouble! The modern evangelist told me that God wants me to have a joyful and peaceful life!”

And indeed, beginning in the mid-19th century, a man named John Darby began to teach that the Great Tribulation would happen at the end of history and last for 3 and a half years, and that Christians would get taken up to heaven before it happened. This is the idea of the “rapture”.  Darby’s ideas have become popular with some groups of Christians, because of course people want to believe that God will spare them from big suffering if they believe in Jesus!

But God doesn’t seal Christians in order to protect us from suffering. God seals Christians in order to protect us in the midst of suffering.

So what are we being protected from?

From denying our testimony of who Christ is and what he does. Because that’s what the world hates. Despite what you may have been taught, the world doesn’t hate Christians. The world doesn’t even hate “Christian values”. What the world hates—and has always hated, and will always hate is the gospel—the faithful testimony of who Christ is and what he does. And the world will do anything to silence that message.   

We can understand what faithful Christians always have to endure in every generation when we read Revelation 7:16-17. Here, as John is seeing the Christians after they have made it through the Great Tribulation, one of the elders says to him:

Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Notice it says “never again”, meaning “In this present age, Christians will face hunger; and will experience thirst; and will be scorched by the heat; and will thirst; and will certainly cry many tears.”

If you want to see a really good example of what it means for Christians to be “sealed”, look at the story of the two witnesses in Revelation 11:  

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth”…If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.

We are “sealed” in order to be able to accomplish our purpose of testifying faithfully to the hostile world. Nothing can stop us from making the testimony Christ has appointed us to make! But after our work is complete, we can expect to pay the price.

So you may be thinking, “Well, where is the good news in that?”

And if you have been following Jesus because you were told he could bring you a joyful and peaceful life in this world—a life of prosperity and freedom from suffering—then this is bad news indeed.

But if that’s why you have been following Jesus, then what you were taught wasn’t the gospel.  

The true Christian life is a life of great tribulation in this present age. From the moment we are sealed in baptism we are called to stand and testify to who Christ is and what he does. As we do this, Christ shakes the whole creation around us, as he opens seal after seal in order to bring the present age to an end.

And we get shaken along with the whole creation. Christ warns us that when we are sealed with his seal, we will face hunger, thirst, rejection, the division of our own families, and even our death. 

But that seal, which you received at your baptism, is his promise that although everything else will be shaken and ultimately destroyed (which it will—he promised that, too), we are bound to him. And because of that, we will be able to stand through the Great Tribulation.

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The Biblical alternative to modern evangelism

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Pastor Foley

In the Gospel confession, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”, the importance of the first words–“Christ died for our sins”–is obvious. But it is rarely noted that the rest of that confession–“according to the Scriptures”–are as important as the first words.

Pastor Foley baptizes a Chinese believer at a recent training for underground Chinese Christians.

Many of the things preached and taught these days about Christ’s death for our sins don’t come from the Scriptures at all but instead come from efforts by some Christian evangelists to create a simple, easy way to explain Christ’s death. They formulate this the same way advertisers sell cars and cosmetics: By using a “problem-solution-benefits” model.

It usually goes something like this:

  • God wants us to have a peaceful and joyful life.
  • We ourselves are the source of a problem—sin—that keeps us from having that life.
  • God sent Jesus to remove that problem.
  • If we believe in Jesus, we can have that peace and joyful life both now and even after we die.

This modern evangelistic method provides everything that’s needed for someone to say yes to Jesus. Often a video presentation is provided that you can show to others if you are unsure about your own ability to present it well yourself. Or if you want to do the presentation, there are tracts available, as well as drawings that you can draw out for other people as your doing the presentation.  There is even a standard prayer form that a person can pray to receive Jesus.

How different this is from the gospel that is preached in the Scriptures! Paul says that the gospel is the things of first importance about who Christ is and what he does. Who decides what is of first importance about Christ? Christ does! He is the first preacher of the gospel, and he passes the gospel on to his Apostles, and this proclamation is recorded in Scripture.

Modern evangelistic methods also share “what is of first importance”, but here “what is of first importance” means “what is of first importance to the listener”, namely, our own happiness and well-being and how it is advanced by the gospel.

But the gospel proclamation says that Christ died for our sins “as according to the
Scriptures”, not “as according to our human understanding”. We are not free to give our own explanations of how Christ died, or why. These things are all given to us in the Scriptures.

If we ask, “Which Scriptures?”, Jesus gives the answer in the Scripture we have been studying this week. It’s the story of Jesus on Easter, walking on the road to Emmaus with two disciples who don’t recognize him. And the things that have happened regarding Jesus don’t make sense according to their human understanding. Jesus says to them in Luke 24 beginning in v. 25:

“How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Jesus says it is foolish to use our human understanding to understand how and why he died. He says we have to turn to the Old Testament—all of it, he says—in order to understand. And even then, Christ has to open our minds through his Holy Spirit to understand the things that are written there.

In fact, that’s exactly what we see a few verses later, beginning in v. 44, when Jesus comes to the Apostles for the first time since his resurrection. Jesus says to them also, just like he told the two disciples on the road earlier that day, that it will be necessary for them to go back to the Old Testament to understand what it means that he died for their sins:

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.

When we go back to those Old Testament scriptures, it challenges many of the things we hear preached these days about why and how Christ died.

Even when Christ teaches us and the Holy Spirit opens the Scripture to us, that doesn’t mean that it is a magic process where everything instantly makes sense to us. It’s not like the Buddhist idea of enlightenment. It feels like a lot of hard work.

And that’s what we see with the disciples in the Scriptures too. All the way through the book of Acts, Peter and Paul and James and all the Apostles and early Christians are still figuring things out. It’s a kind of “two steps forward, one step backward” process.

Jesus told us it would be like that. In John 16:13, when Jesus is preparing the disciples for his death, he says:

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t suddenly and instantly make everything clear to us. He guides us into all truth. That’s a long-time process. That was true for John himself. Even in the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22 beginning in v. 8, he says:

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”

So for our whole lives, Christ will be teaching us through his Holy Spirit, and it will always go against our human understanding. Two steps forward, one step back.

So you may be thinking, “Why does it have to be like that? To lead people to Christ, do we really have to take them through the whole Old Testament like Christ does with the disciples on the road to Emmaus? Why couldn’t Christ have given us something simple to share with other people–as simple as the 4-step problem-solution-benefit models of modern evangelism?”

And the answer is:

He did!

What I want you to notice in today’s scripture is that it does not say:

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Something very important happens in between those verses. It says:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.

Christ is our only teacher. And yet, it was not through his teaching that their eyes were open and they recognized him. It was through him breaking the bread.

You see, Jesus has given us the simplest, easiest way to understand and receive his two great promises. He has given us Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Through baptism, we enter into the Lord’s death; we receive the forgiveness of our sins; we receive the Holy Spirit; and we are marked to be resurrected bodily and raised up to live eternally with Christ on the New Earth on the Last Day. Christ binds these promises to the waters of baptism, so that the way we receive these promises is to believe and be baptized. Those are the Lord Jesus’ own words in Mark 16:16.

At the Lord’s Table, we eat the meal that seals the New Covenant. Our role is to receive the promises that the Lord makes in the New Covenant. We receive these promises by partaking of the bread and the cup to which he bound the New Covenant. The Lord’s Supper is the meal we eat with the Lord as part of the New Israel.

These two sacraments are how the Lord commands us to understand and receive his two great promises to us: Salvation and incorporation into the New Israel under the New Covenant. They are simple, but profoundly deep.

And they are according to the Scriptures.

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