It was shouted over the waves as the ship passed out farther and farther from the world these Moravian missionaries had known. They had just sold themselves into a life of slavery for the sole purpose of bringing the Gospel to an island of slaves where the Gospel was forbidden. Motivated not by glory or money or power but only by the Worthiness of Him Who died on the accursed tree, these men made eternal history on that day as their haunting cry reaches deep into the caverns of our own selfish hearts still.

Why do we love North Korea and the victimized people there? Why should we daily pray for them, send money on their behalf, go to visit them via Bibles or tracts or our own person? Is it because they are worthy? Is it because we need "something to do for Jesus" ? Is it because they are in pain and we have seen their needs? Because we want to make them happy in this life? Why, any pagan with any kind of a heart at all can feel sorry for a North Korean. How is the Christian motivation different?

The answer that comes resoundingly back from Heaven was voiced so exquisitely many years back by Paris Reidhead, missionary, preacher, and much more. Brother Reidhead tells in the classic sermon Ten Shekels and a Shirt of his own experience of human compassion on the "poor Africans" and his desire to "improve on the justice of God" by giving the heathen a chance to go to Heaven. Well, these are not motives to be spurned. We all understand the call of missions, and videos of lepers and dying children that grip our hearts. But it is not enough.

The preacher was spoken to in the depths of his soul one night, as he was complaining about the fact that these "monsters of iniquity" had no interest in the things of which he spoke, and asking how could God have sent him there in compassion when they cared not one whit for the light of the Gospel?

God simply said, "I didn't send you here for their sakes. I sent you here for My sake."

Try that on in relationship to the subject at hand, Christians working for the North Koreans. God sends us to these precious souls, as lost as the Africans, many of whom have no desire for any more light than that which Kim allows, I say, He sends us not for their sakes, but for His own. He died for them. He deserves a hearing. He deserves their obedience, their devotion, their forever love.

It was God who hung on the cross. Never can man understand or repay this wonder. Never can man suffer more than did the God of Heaven murdered by His own creation. Our sympathy must be turned to the Creator and what He did, and not focused on the hurts of the created. And that includes our own hurts.

I can feel this message as deeply as I have ever felt anything in my life. I cannot say that it has permeated my being and changed all my personal desires. But oh! how I want it to. Let the plaintive call go forth in our hearts every day...