• Pyongyang's grain production reached record highs. Seoul was dependent on U.S. food aid. "South Korea's export and light industry-oriented economy was depressed by mounting competition from Taiwan, Hong Kong..." (This and other facts & quotes from Quinones' Idiot's Guide to Understanding North Korea.)
• North Korea's army was getting better and better, fully supported by Soviet-designed tanks, armored vehicles , and ballistic missiles. South Korea was not progressing militarily.
• Pyong was a "picture perfect city of two million well-fed and clothed people. Seoul was a chaotic city of narrow streets." Students demonstrated there against the government. Labor disputes were suppressed. Journalists were jailed. Politicians were corrupt.

Today everything is reversed.

• Seoul made persistent progress toward democracy. And the Church was allowed to grow. Pyongyang went the other way.
• Seoul was asked to host the Olympics. Pyongyang was enraged and hosted its own rather than admit inferiority.
• Seoul became a power in the world market. Pyongyang shriveled and nearly died economically and in most every other way.
• Seoul has diplomatic or commercial ties with nearly every nation on earth. Obviously North Korea's range is a bit more narrow.
• In Seoul there are parks (not just the opposite of Kims, but green places where people relax), a middle class that is growing still,cultural diversity. In Pyongyang there is little of beauty, little of the non-Korean, and only two major classes: The haves and the near-destitute.
• Today's ROK army is modernized, focused on national defense.
• Aid from Russia and Beijing has nearly stopped for North Korea. The South has emerged as independent and survives on trade.
• Agricultural and industrial production have gone "south", literally, in North Korea. The South continues to grow.
• North Korea cannot compete with the high quality goods coming out of the South, and has lost its markets in Eastern Europe and central Asia. It has had to resort to selling weapons to the enemies of mankind, and just plain begging, to stay alive.

Am I naive and politically daft in suggesting that South Korea is being "blessed" because so many of its citizens love and serve Jesus Christ? And that North Korea is being cursed because it has been turned away from Christ and turned in on itself? Can any nation prosper where Christ's kingdom is not allowed to prosper? Egypt came down. Rome came down. Moscow came down. Eastern Europe came down. Enemies of Christ, every one.

North Korea then... Will Christ work a powerful work of grace from the inside, or finally say to those in charge: That's as far as you go! Now I will rule North Korea!