T
his is a great question, and the answer is only found in the Bible, God’s holy Word. It is the heartfelt question that the lady of this story asked, and we hope that she has found the answer. The answer is without a shadow of a doubt, a definite and certain YES! “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Kim Hyon-hui grew up in North Korea. Because of her language skills, at 18 she was recruited into North Korea’s army of secret agents. She was rigorously trained in the martial arts, shooting, radio communication and how to survive in the wild. She also spent two years learning Japanese from a woman that had been abducted by the North Koreans. Then she was sent to China to perfect her Mandarin. It was while she was there that she was suddenly summoned back to Pyongyang. It was November 1987. North Korea’s spy agency had decided that she was ready for a deadly mission —that of blowing up a Korean Air passenger jet!
“The mission was to block the upcoming 1988 Seoul Olympic games,” Kim said. She and a male partner travelled to Vienna, the capital city of Austria, where they were given the bomb. “The bomb was a small Panasonic radio. Behind that there were ... batteries. North Korea built it so half of it acted as an explosive with chemicals; the other half could be used as a regular radio,” she told CNN.
Then they travelled to Baghdad, Iraq, where they boarded Korean Air Lines Flight 858 to Seoul, South Korea, with a layover in Abu Dhabi. While going through security, officials confiscated the batteries to the radio — without which the bomb would not have worked. Though Kim was nervous, she picked up the batteries and put them back in the radio, and then turned it on. When the sound came out, she complained to the officials, saying that they were making too much of a fuss. They then allowed her to board the plane with the radio intact.
Kim put the bomb in a shopping bag in the overhead compartment above her seat. Then she and her partner got off the plane at Abu Dhabi, leaving the bomb behind. Several hours later, the plane blew up in midair over the Andaman Sea, off the coast of Myanmar, killing all 115 innocent people on board. In an instant, without warning or chance of survival, they were swept into eternity.
Serious Consequences
Kim later said, “For a moment, the thought of ‘these people will die’ crossed my mind. I was surprised when I thought that. I felt I was being weak. I was doing this for unification.” How clever Satan is! He loves to deceive us into becoming comfortable with our sins and our sinful nature. But there are always consequences to our sins and our disobedience to God if we do not repent before Him. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). God is clearly telling us that if we do not repent of our sins and come to Him, our end is in hell, eternally separated from God, without hope, without any chance of salvation.
In an attempt to escape back to North Korea, Kim and her partner tried to flee through Amman, Jordan. But there were problems with their travel visas, so they went to Bahrain instead. There, officials realized that their passports were forged. Realizing that they were about to be taken into custody, they bit into cyanide pills in an attempt to commit suicide. Kim’s male companion died, but she went into a coma and eventually recovered.
After being extradited to South Korea and put on trial, she received the death sentence. But then-President Roh Tae-woo eventually pardoned her, believing that she had been brainwashed and was a tool of the North Korean government. After her pardon, Kim made the statement: “I am guilty of a heinous crime. How do I dare to think of marriage? Being a culprit, I do have a sense of agony with which I must fight. In that sense, I must still be a prisoner or a captive — of a sense of guilt.”
Realizing our guilty sinful state is the first step towards God. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But being sorry for our sins is not enough! We must come to God His way. The Bible teaches that there is full, free and eternal salvation available for anyone who will accept it, even for the mass murderer. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). The Lord Jesus suffered, bled and died on Calvary’s cross for you and me. The gift of God is “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). God’s way of salvation is to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). The power in the blood that Jesus shed on Calvary’s cross is so mighty that when we put our trust solely in Him, we have eternal life! “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand” ({vi 26509-26510}John 10:27-28).
Over 30 years later she asks this question: “Can my sins be pardoned?” Kim then added, “They probably won’t be.” This is why we can say to Kim and to others like her that yes, there is forgiveness and freedom from a burden of guilt and sorrow. There is no need to be held captive by our sins. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).