Testimony 1/2: To Conversion
OT Lesson: Psalm 71:15-19 (KJV)
My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness
and thy salvation all the day;
for I know not the numbers thereof.
I will go in the strength of the Lord God:
I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.
O God, thou hast taught me from my youth:
and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.
Now also when I am old and greyheaded,
O God, forsake me not;
until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation,
and thy power to every one that is to come.
Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high,
Who hast done great things:
O God, who is like unto thee!
NT Lesson: Luke 8:38-39 (CEB)
The man from whom the demons had gone begged to come along with Jesus as one of his disciples. Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell the story of what God has done for you.” So he went throughout the city proclaiming what Jesus had done for him.
Sermon
Introduction
Good morning. The international news showed us how hot the Europe is now. It is said that Europe is having the hottest winter since 1916. Well, I guess we don’t live in Europe, having the regular winter weather. I hope you all stay safe and warm until the spring comes. I’ve been waiting for seven and half months now. And I think it is a good time to tell my story because it is the in-between time of Christmas and Lent which will begin on Wednesday, February 22nd. Today’s OT lesson is a beautiful poem whose topic is telling the righteousness and the salvation of God. In today’s NT lesson, Jesus performed an exorcism. The guy wanted to journey with Jesus. Jesus did not allow him to do so, but ordered him to tell the story of what God has done for him. So I will do that today and next Sunday. So please join me in my faith journey. It may sound very much Pentecostal style. I am telling you this in advance because some Presbyterians don’t like it. But please bear with me for just two Sundays.
Family
My family began 117 B.C. and it is 2,140 years this year. According to the family legend, the founder descended from heaven, and the very first thing he did was taking a bath. Except the first two centuries we were Buddhists. My grandparents were quite rich, I heard. They used to be one of the top 5 richest families in the province. My grandmother built a Buddhist temple with her own money and prayed there day and night for hundred days for another son, when she already had two sons. And then after that 100 days’ prayer, miraculously she got pregnant with my father. Things changed through the WW2 and Korean war, my family collapsed and when I was born, we were dirt poor. We were living hand to mouth. Even so, my father was very proud, so was I, about the scholarly tradition and the noble blood in the family. I was very not particularly fond of the Christianity in Korea because we have our own religions and traditions. There is no need for another foreign religion. I also thought that Christianity was hurting and damaging the national identity, destroying the traditions.2140 Years Old Bathtub
Army
Time flew by and I went to college. By the way, Hannah and I were having some wine, and Samuel thought that was juice and asked for it. I told him, ‘you can drink it when you go to college.’ Since then, every time we have wine, Samuel always says ‘When I am eighteen, I go to college, and drink Mommy’s juice.’ Isn’t that the drinking age, eighteen? It is in South Korea and Canada, at least in the province of Manitoba. Anyway, I went to college and my father passed away in my first year at college. The college tuition was not cheap in Korea. Well, it is much cheaper than in America, but still it was not cheap. I got merit based scholarships, but sometimes I also had to take a year off from the school to make money because the scholarship did not cover the entire tuition and living cost. And then I enrolled and began my military service in the army, which is the duty for all male citizens in Korea, North and South. The difference is it was two and half years’ mandated service in South Korea, and in North Korea, thirteen years. To be honest, I could have been exempted from the duty being the only son in the family, but my father wanted me to fulfil the duty and become a proud citizen.
Daily Question
Hundred soldiers were sleeping in one big—I mean, really big—room, fifty on one side, others on the other side. Usually in Korean army, we have a lot of college students like fifty or more per cent, but at my camp, strangely enough there were only five college students including myself. And other soldiers did not like the college students for some reason I don’t know. The trouble began from the first day. After dinner, a few senior soldiers came over and asked me a simple question. I answered. And they began to beat me up that I was arrogant and looking down on them. The next day, they asked me another question. Remembering what happened the night before, I said that I don’t know. And they began to beat me up again because I was too stupid to be a college student. Basically that happened every single day for one year. They just wanted to harass a college student, and I became the target being a newbie. I was not accustomed to that kind of violence and hatred. I have five older sisters. They are good and gentle sisters, but not all. My father whom I admire and respect very much, was very strict, and disciplining. He was not that affectionate or loving, but he had never exercised violence to me. I had lived poor and hungry life but never suffered any unreasonable violence. Not everybody loved me, but I had never been hated that much ever in my life. The whole situation was too much for me to bear. Every single day, I had to wake up and suffer those things for whole twelve months. What made it more terrible was that there was nothing I can do about it but getting beaten everyday. My heart became literally a living hell.
Sunday Peace
One Sunday morning, the officer in charge, a lieutenant, came to the big room and said, “We don’t have enough people going to church. We must have at least ten. Any volunteer? No? You, you, you. And… you! I see you have a cross on your dog tag. Go out and get in line now!” So I began to go to church from that Sunday. But those senior soldiers didn’t like me to go to church because there was some kind of unspoken atmosphere, unwritten rule that the sergeants and corporals can go to the religious functions but not the privates. And I was a Private second class.
Whenever I came back from the church, I was taken to a dark storage room and was beaten again for not following the unwritten rules. But I kept going to church. As a consequence, I got beaten up twice on Sunday. There is a 2002 TV show “Taken” by Steven Spielberg, starring Dakota Fanning. In one episode, a mother tells her son “I love you everyday and twice on Sunday.” Well, to me, it was like “I beat you up everyday and twice on Sunday.” And yet I went to church knowing that they will beat me up again. Here comes the first Pentecostal style experience. As I said before, my heart was like a hell. But when I stepped inside the church building, suddenly my heart was submerged into a perfect peace, I recall. When I came out of the building, then my heart went back to hell. It was a very strange experience to me. So at first I tested myself, stepping in and out of the building. That sixty minutes’ peace each week was so sweet to me and it was the only breathing hole I had. It was not a drug high. I have never had any kind of drugs ever in my life. After the church, I was just waiting for the sixty minutes throughout the whole week.
Cross on the Dog Tag
As I said, I had a small cross on my dog tag. And a sergeant didn’t like it, again for some reason I don’t really know. He ordered me to take it off. I didn’t listened to him. He ordered several more times and I was beaten up each time. I couldn’t take the cross off because somehow I felt strongly that my whole life was hanging on it. Letting go of the cross was like letting go of my life. That was how I felt.
One morning I woke up to find out that the cross was gone. I searched everywhere in vain. That sergeant had a big smile, I saw. I was so desperate in despair. I felt like the sky was falling. Before the breakfast, I went to the men’s room—well, there was only men’s room. While I was using the urinal, I looked down and there was my cross in the bottom. Without hesitation, I immediately picked it up. I got very emotional and cried like a baby. I washed it up, and I put it back on my dog tag. Thankfully since then he stopped bothering me about the cross.Group Urinal
Dispatch
As time went by, I was distorted mentally by all those horrible violence and hopeless experience. I finally became extremely pessimistic. After going through all those things, I concluded that humans are evil, and they don’t deserve to live. Because they are evil, less human means better world. And after deep consideration, I decided to end my agony once and for all. And I also decided to make the world slightly a better place by taking hundred soldiers with me. I made a quite careful and thorough plan.
Everything was ready and prepared. A few days before the D-Day, a night-watch woke me up at 3 in the morning. He said that I’ve got a dispatch order and I had to leave within two hours. That was really strange because a dispatch order must come seven days prior to the departure date. Two hours did not make sense, not to mention it was not enough time even just for packing my stuff which I couldn’t actually. I did not even know where I was going. An army captain drove and escorted me to the army intelligence office in army HQ.
Conversion
There were many good things working at HQ. No one was bullying me. And the church was inside the campus. So everyday I skipped my lunch and went to the church. That is actually unbelievable thing if you know me well enough. My wife, courageously staying with me for eleven years now,, still gets surprised how much I love food and eating. Me skipping lunch not only once but everyday was really something. One Wednesday evening, I was praying at church alone by myself after Wednesday worship service. I sensed that my body was getting hotter and hotter, eventually to the level of being painful. It was like my body was burning on fire. I thought I was dying. And I began to see a some kind of slide show. As I remember, it was not PowerPoint style but an old style slide show which you change the film manually. That slide show was about me, doing not good things in the past.Old Style Projector
I prayed to God to forgive me for each slide. It went on and on and on about three hours, if I remember correct. I realised how bad person I was, and yet how proud I was about myself, always justifying myself biasedly. Then I stopped praying for the forgiveness. I changed my words: “I am not worthy to live. I am a real bad person. God, I think you’d better kill me now than later.” At some point, the slide show finally ended, and Jesus came into my heart. And I was changed once and for all. The peace, indescribable and perfect peace, is in my heart, not only inside of a church building but wherever I go. My heart was full of anger and hatred. But those were all gone and melted away instantly. This was my conversion moment. Before this moment in the HQ campus, I always wanted to go back to my original camp, so that I can kill them. But after this moment of repentance and accepting Jesus Christ into my heart, I still wanted to go back there, to talk about Jesus to them. Nothing changed in the world, but my heart was changed all because of Jesus.
Conclusion
Friends, when we think we are stuck at dead end, maybe that’s because we are at a turning point. When we turn to Jesus, there shall be no turning back. I believe you all already encountered Jesus, and received Him in your heart. But if not, it is the time to come to Jesus. Time to surrender all to God, and time to welcome Jesus Christ into our hearts. And like the poet in Psalm today, with our mouths, let us tell of God’s salvation and His righteousness. Like the guy from whom Jesus drove out the demons, let us also testify and tell the story of what God has done for us. Let us talk about Jesus and of this church to our friends and neighbours for the glory of our Father in heaven. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment