Pastor imprisoned in North Korea says his captors were transformed by his sermons

A pastor who received a life sentence of hard labor in North Korea said he witnessed the hearts of his captors soften after they heard his sermons, a miracle that gave him hope that the country will one day embrace the Lord.

South Korea-born Canadian Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim spoke last Friday during Liberty University's convocation in Lynchburg, Virginia, as he was in town for the Unify Korea Summit.

The two-day summit was hosted by Liberty's John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, the Global Studies Department and the Unify Korea student club.

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"I couldn't move even a single step freely," Lim said about his captivity in North Korea, consistently ranked the world's worst government persecutor of Christians. "I was a complete slave. They repaid good with evil until the end, all because of one dictator."

In 2015, Lim was sentenced to a life of hard labor after North Korea accused him of attempting to overthrow the regime. He was released in 2017 on humanitarian grounds. He continues to share the Gospel.

Before his imprisonment, Lim's Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Ontario had visited North Korea 100 times since 1997 and helped set up an orphanage and nursing home.

"Then, one day in 2013, during a sermon in the United States, I preached that the reason North Korea is cursed is because they erected many statues of Kim Il-sung, and I declared that North Korea would only be saved if those statues were torn down," the pastor said. "I also preached that North Korea continuously engages in violent politics."

During his imprisonment, Lim was allowed little food and subjected to verbal abuse, which caused him so much stress that he suffered from diarrhea. He said his meals mainly consisted of salted cabbage and rice with stones. 

Lim's fingers and toes also suffered damage because he had to break apart frozen coal as part of his hard labor sentence in the wintertime. 

While the guards prohibited him from watching television, listening to the radio or reading books, they allowed Lim to have one Bible, something the pastor likened to "the joy of finding living water in the desert." Lim passed the days by praying and reading Scripture while his captors attempted to find information about him; however, all they could find were the contents of the pastor's sermons.

After the prison guards heard the sermons, Lim said he witnessed a notable change in their behavior toward him, including starting to bring him more food. The change continued for three more years into the pastor's imprisonment, and some of the guards even began seeking the pastor out for family counseling.

From the highest to lowest-ranking officers, he said he noticed the change in almost "everyone."

"Seeing this change, I realized more clearly that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ," Lim said.

"Seeing such a transformation in the core leaders of the Communist Party, I became certain that one day when North Korea opens up and the Gospel is spread," he continued. "North Korea will soon be transformed into the army of the Lord. When the people who will spread the Gospel in North Korea are ready, God will open the doors of North Korea. If Korea is the end of the earth for world evangelization, we must go to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel."

God blessed the spiritual leader with what he described as "amazing visions." Three months before his release, while he was working in captivity, Lim had a vision of North Korea's evangelization. 

One of the visions included Lim raising up a movement of 1 million missionaries to enter the country. Another vision showed the establishment of 10,000 schools that would enable families and churches to teach children the Bible. The Canadian pastor called on anyone inspired to help the North Korean church join him in his efforts.

"Anyone who is prepared to love and serve others is welcome," he said. "The evangelization of North Korea is the shortcut to world evangelization. North Korea is the most fertile ground for spreading the Gospel. We need the strength of America. Who will go? When He asks, may you and I be able to respond, 'Here I am.'"