Truth Like a Diamond!

 Truth Like a Diamond! Copyright ⓒ 2016 by Seung-woo Byun Published by HolyPearl Publications 27-22, Wiryeseong-daero 22-gil Songpa-gu Seoul, Republic of Korea All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright ⓒ 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org) All rights reserved. Translated by Daniel Huh Cover design by Jin-hee Kim ISBN: 979-11-85914-24-4 03230 CIP: 2016009123 First Printing, April 2016 Printed in Korea  | Seung-woo Byun |   “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)   The Shocking and Beautiful Testimony of My Sunday School Teacher! This is the testimony of a missionary who used to be my Sunday School teacher when I was in 5th-6th grade. A senior pastor belonging to the Tonghap Presbyterian denomination had recommended to her my books, Christians Going to Hell and The Word That Proceeds from the Mouth of God, and she had received the latter as a gift. After thoughtlessly reading it while she was away on missions, she ended up being very blessed by it. She started asking her acquaintances who were travelling to Korea to procure a copy of Christians Going to Hell, but no one was bringing it back for her. Then the unexplainable happened. A Korean-Chinese resident was moving away and could not take all of his luggage with him. Amidst the things that he ended up leaving was a copy of Christians Going to Hell, which she had been so longing to read! After finally reading it, she confessed that she realized then that despite being a missionary, she had been bound for hell. The missionary made her resolution and decided to return to Korea. For two months, she attended every meeting at the church I am pastoring, Beloved Church, spending every day in tears and repentance and prayer. Amidst such prayers, she had the experience of seeing Jesus for the first time, and the testimony of this encounter was so precious 7  that I wrote her words down here to share with you. After 30 years of marriage, past the age of 50, I began to feel the limits of working in missions, and I was burned out. I lost all confidence. I tried the best on my part, but I could feel that neither I nor the people I was serving were changing. And so I visited Beloved Church. When I came to the place of worship, no one recognized me, and I liked it. At that time, the world looked gray to me. There was no hope, and I no longer had any energy to do anything about it. In the past, I would return to Korea for a week and visit the Mount of Olives or the Osan-ri prayer centers whenever I was going through difficult times. I had done this countless times, but in 2007, I did not have the energy to go anywhere. I just came to Beloved Church and wept. I could not even pray. I simply wept. Like a desperate mother who was being forced to watch her baby starve for lack of food, all I could do was weep. Meeting Jesus for the first time As I was crying like so, I met Jesus for the first time at Beloved Church. I saw the face of Jesus who was crying. He was standing by a river that was furiously rushing by, and He was crying, but not in a normal way. It seemed like He was screaming, “Please, do something!” But when I looked closely, I saw that it was not a river of water. It was the souls of people flowing by like a river. I remembered an event that happened in Ulsan, Korea a little while before I saw this. One of my older brothers was living near the upstream parts of the Taehwa River. We were driving by the banks of Taehwa River to church one day when I saw a fire truck. I got out of the car and saw on the other side of the river the tragedy of a child who had drifted away after playing with her mother. By the time we were there, fire trucks and emergency divers were already there. The mother was screaming. She was not crying; she was screaming. 8 Truth Like a Diamond!  The child that had been playing right in front of her was gone. I think about 30 minutes had passed by the time we arrived at the scene, but the mother was still screaming then. But when I saw the weeping face of Jesus, it was the same face as that of the mother at the banks of the Taehwa River. It was more than a feeling of pity or regret. He was desperately screaming, asking for someone to do something about the countless souls that were being rushed down like a river to hell. The second encounter with Jesus When I was praying another time, I saw Jesus in front of the pulpit at my church in my mission field. He was wearing white, but I could not see His face. There was a candle light, but it was about to go out. I saw Jesus trying His best to keep this flickering light from going out. I then realized something. I had thought that I alone was suffering and stressed because of my church. But Jesus was standing not in the pulpit but in front of it, the very place where I always sit and pray. He was desperately trying to protect the light of our church from going out. The third encounter with Jesus Another time, my body was at Beloved Church, but I found myself sitting beneath the pulpit at my church in the mission field, praying. I saw a small and ragged boy outside the entrance. I saw it very clearly as I thought to myself, ‘Why is he not coming in? Do I have to open the door for him?’ He looked like he was hungry. He was ragged and small in height. But then I saw that it was Jesus. Jesus was standing there, but He couldn’t come in (Rev. 3:20). The visions I had seen before were of great comfort to me, but this one made me repent. I had thought that I was acting diligently on my part, but I had not let Jesus truly in, and I repented over this. I experienced something incredible after this. After encountering 9