Why Christians at least should care about the North Korean people ⚖️ (note: disturbing image within post)

Last week American college student Otto Wambier passed away, and his death brought international attention and outrage.

He was brought back to the U.S. from North Korea in a coma, possibly already brain-dead.

He had been imprisoned by the brutal communist government for trying to steal a propaganda poster, and it's believed that some sort of terrible abuse by the North Koreans caused his fatal injury. People all over the world were outraged.

Source: 1,000 Gather at Prayer Vigil for Canadian Pastor Sentenced to Life in North Korean Prison/Reuters"

Yet how it must grieve and even anger the Lord, we have to think, that while many people rightfully mourn the death of Otto Wambier and are troubled by the unjust and cruel treatment he received, millions of North Koreans have experienced similar fates for decades now, and the rest of the world has taken little notice and done even less about it.

Are North Koreans not every bit as human as Otto Wambier? And, Christians must also ask, are they any less valuable in the eyes of God?

The answers are obvious.

(NOTE: DISTURBING IMAGE OF TORTURE BELOW)

And as Christians, we know we must bear witness to truth and do what we're able to in this world to see justice done.

This is especially true for American Christians, because one of our blessings comes with a special responsibility that God has given us - we are one of the few countries in the world in which citizens truly have some say and some power in what happens both in our nation and beyond.

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)

"The Saddest Story Ever Told"

Judging by Google search results, there are many candidates for "the saddest story ever told." And given all the pain and sorrow in the world, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

The story of life in a North Korean prison is one of the more worthy candidates for that title, and there's a video about it with that name (below).

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are imprisoned in huge prison complexes and camps, some the size of American cities. The conditions they live under are unimaginable to us.

The prisoners are told not to consider themselves human anymore in order to survive. Guards are rewarded for killing them, and executions for even small offenses are common. And most of them haven't even committed a legitimate crime.

"The Saddest Story Ever Told" is almost entirely made up of drawings depicting the horrors taking place in North Korean prisons, as reported by former prisoners.

It should be said in advance that most of the drawings are GRAPHIC and DISTURBING.

Yet just because these images are so disturbing, we must look at them and be witnesses to what some people in this world right now are going through. They are as much made in God's image as we are, and He gave His only begotten Son for them as much as He did for us.

"The Saddest Story Ever Told,"
From Cornerstone Ministries International,
a ministry to North Korea

(Note: My link to the video isn't working at the moment. Here's a link that works. The difficulty I have is that I didn't want to post a link that has a preview image since it's graphic, so I tried to find out how people embed videos without one. If anyone knows how to fix it, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.)

"Never Again"?

The North Korean government has been systematically killing thousands of its citizens every year for a long time. In 2012, the United Nations finally said that North Korean leaders were committing crimes against humanity:

• "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."

• The government had committed "unspeakable atrocities" which amounted to "crimes against humanity."

• Mr Kirby (the UN leader in charge of investigating North Korea's atrocities) said the situation reminded him of the Holocaust. "I never thought that in my professional life, my life as a judge or as an officer of the United Nations, I would sit there and hear descriptions that were so similar to the descriptions of what went on in those places. I thought we had said as a world community, 'never again'."

Christians in North Korea

While almost the entire population of North Korea suffers under the brutal government, Christians often have it the worst. North Korean communism is the religion of the people, and the supreme leader is worshipped as a god. There was a large Christian population before the Communists came to power, and it has been terribly persecuted ever since. School children have been asked to report if their parents own a black book which they hide, and if they do, the family is arrested.

Source: The Daily Mail/Christian Petersen-Clausen.

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked. (Psalm 82:3-4)

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6)

What we can do

Here are some suggestions:

• Pray for the North Korean people, and its Christians in particular. Pray even for its leaders. Pray also for the world to come against the North Korean government because of the atrocities it's been committing.

• Support ministries that serve persecuted Christians and groups that help suffering North Koreans.

• Raise awareness.

Thank you for reading this, and God bless you.

Please upvote and resteem, and you can follow me at @doule.

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