Filial Attendance: The Way of Filial Piety of Holy Sons and Daughters of God - Elio Roman
|
|
Filial Attendance: The Way of Filial Piety of Holy Sons and Daughters of God - Elio Roman |
A life of restoration and of perfection is a life of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience, with patience, perseverance, endurance and forbearance. A life of attendance by filial sons and daughters of God requires patience, perseverance, endurance and forbearance. Filial sons and daughters of God have learned that this is the way to victory. Life is often not easy. In a life of faith, one encounters many difficulties. Accusations, complaints, dissatisfactions, persecution and problems may consume us. We must undergo many indemnity conditions. We cannot escape from these realms of suffering. We must go through the realm of hell until we can enter through the gates of heaven. Filial sons and daughters have learned that patience and perseverance is the way to go through the difficult realms of restoration. The greater the patience and perseverance we endure, the greater the blessings that will come to us.
Faith is an important ally which gives us hope and power as we patiently endure and persevere. Absolute faith and absolute obedience were necessary components for Adam and Eve to maintain as they went through the growing period. Restoration through indemnity is a slow process and may take years and even centuries. In the process of restoration we must also go through a period of time during which healing and restoration occurs. This is the restorational time period necessary for re-creation and growth. We need to go through this period with patience, perseverance, endurance and forbearance. Absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience in God are necessary. Through absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience we can steer the future into the direction that God desires, and even that we desire, by enabling God's immanence and expanding the realm where Satan cannot dwell. God knows our suffering and our course in life. He is praying for us. He is hoping we can be victorious. We must bring the victory. God shows us the way and gives us blessings of grace based on the victories of the central figures and True Parents in His providence. We can inherit those victories by fulfilling our portions of responsibility in attending them.
The Bible contains many accounts of great men and women of patience and perseverance. Each providential figure, family and tribe had to go through a certain course in life in order to restore a filial son and daughter in the true lineage of God. In the Bible are recorded all the indemnity conditions necessary to restore an individual in the true lineage of God. The history of our lineages can be likened to the Bible. The Bible shows us the indemnity conditions in the history of God's providence that had to be established to restore a sinless man, Jesus Christ. Every one of our lineal ancestors had to go through a particular course in order to fulfill the necessary indemnity conditions for the restoration of a sinless individual to be born in our lineage. That individual is the original ancestor of their lineage, family and tribe. We ourselves are a chapter in our lineal bible. All of our ancestors had a particular life course. In their life course they needed to have patience and perseverance in order to go through the time period of their particular indemnity condition. The history of our lineages is the history of our ancestors whose merits provide for us the rights to receive the blessing and stand as true men and women of a sinless lineage and establish the positions of true parents and establish a true tribe.
We who have established a blessed central family are starting a new chapter in a book similar to the Bible which records those individuals in our lineages who established the necessary conditions for the restoration of our lineages. That book will have a section similar to the Completed Testament which records those who attended True Parents and participated in the actual building of the Kingdom of God. Patience and perseverance and utmost effort are absolutely necessary in order to obtain the victory. We can contribute a chapter of victory in the history of our lineal Bible which will last for eternity. This is very important for us who have been engrafted into the lineage of God and True Parents' Family. We are the original ancestors of our lineage.
During the course of one's life there are times and circumstances that can be extremely maddening. Such is the course of life in the process of restoration and in the course of liberating and releasing God, mankind, our selves, our families and our tribes. Therefore we must endure our course of absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience with patience and perseverance. God created with an ideal. He has purposed His ideal and He will accomplish it. God has persevered patiently for many thousands of years as He has continued to exert utmost effort. He is the God of patience and perseverance. True Parents are the king and queen of patience and perseverance. We must become filial children and families of patience and perseverance. We can then come to understand the heart of God and of True Parents. We can come to understand the heart of the providential figures, the saints, and men and women of good faith. We are all brothers and sisters in the long-suffering course of kingdom building. It is with patience and perseverance that filial sons and daughters of God go the way of attendance with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. Filial sons and daughters pray to God, report to God, and attend God and True Parents' Family with patience, perseverance, endurance and forbearance. This is the course of our lives.
Therefore, in order to progress in the way of becoming filial children, you must endure persecution, and many trying moments. You have to become confident people who can overcome all difficulties. Rather than reverting to the path of sorrowful bitterness with thoughts of retreat, you must become people who determinedly overcome the hardships and difficulties of the ages. You must distinguish between the paths that lead to life or death, and press on to make a new start overflowing with the hope of tomorrow. You have to know that this is what God and history require of you. (CSG -- 2196)
What is the reason that we must endure today? If we cannot forbear, then we cannot pay back the debt we owe and cannot resolve the grievances inside the bosom of Heaven.
Because the fortune of heaven and earth moves along with the dispensation of God, the satanic world will be judged if you play when God plays and are on God's side as you share the bitterness and grievance of God. This is the reason Heaven teaches us to restrain our anger and persevere in our life of faith. Satan will invade if we become out of step with that and create a gap in the dispensation of God. (Sermons Vol. 1 -- 83, 1956.6.10)
Endurance is of foremost importance in attending God. For whom do you have to endure? You have to endure to the end for the purpose of the whole, equipped with the leading ideology. There is no complaint there. Thus, the foundation of the Kingdom of Heaven will be expanded. (44-18)
Since you cannot complain, you must sacrifice and persevere. The only way is to sacrifice and persevere. Isn't that true? If you can be patient and sacrificial, then would the ten people say that you are bad? [They will say that we are good.] At least you know that. Would the whole look after my well being or bring me down? They will look after you. If you cannot persevere and overcome, then even if they were once taking good care of you, they may stop doing that. On the contrary, if you continue to persevere and overcome, then they will continue to care for you. Therefore, you must persevere and be patient till the end. You must be patient and overcome. You have to persevere and be patient. (44-17)
You must understand that the person God sent to the earth as the central person for the sake of such ignorant human beings is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ stepped forward representing the internal situation of God. The center of his hope and his life was rooted only in God. To put it another way, Jesus hoped that he could follow the example of the patient heart of God who exerted Himself enormously and persevered for the sake of human beings. He hoped he could follow the example of the public life of God, who never works for the sake of His own glory. (Sermons Vol. 2 -- 134, 1957.4.14)
God cannot forsake humankind. Within His grand ideal of creation human beings were created to be His children and absolute counterparts in true love. Therefore, God has endured the long years of history with a heart full of bitter pain, grief and anguish. God is the eternal True Parent of humanity, yet He has had to persevere through virtual imprisonment in the shadows of history. No one has known this reality. (Messages of Peace 11 -- 167, 2006.12.8)
Who on earth can understand the life of Reverend Moon? His has been a life of misery, which he has endured by biting his tongue, for the sake of comforting God, and for the salvation of the fallen people of the world who are suffering in the realm of death. Even now, if one person were to look into my heart and speak a word of sympathy, I would burst into tears and they would flow like a great waterfall. (Messages of Peace 3 -- 55, 2006.4.10)
Consequently, your families should not be secular families immersed in old habits. What is the best way to live for the future? It is to thoroughly educate your descendants. It is also essential to live an exemplary life for the sake of your descendants. Despite difficulties during the wilderness course, the people of Israel overcame the seven tribes of Canaan. In the same way, you must also gain victory in your own battle, no matter what hardships you have to endure. Parents must plant the way of Heaven, even if they die doing so. If you live for the sake of Heaven and the True Parents, your children will be blessed with heavenly fortune and naturally come to inherit the heavenly tradition. (Messages of Peace 14 224, 2007.6.13)
For tens of thousands of years, God had endured an existence full of lamentation and grief, even as He conducted His providence with a parental heart. (Messages of Peace 5 2006.6.13)
Religious believers have walked a path of lamentation, in which they had no choice but to fall down when pushed, and no one to appeal to after death. You must realize that True Father has walked the most difficult path of all. Weeping bitterly cannot bring it to an end. He must endure it, even if it is mortifying and deplorable. (283-222, 1997.4.12)
God forewarned us that the last days are coming. He warned us that humankind would not be able to avoid the Day of Judgment. When we analyze God's providential history, why did we have to go through such a historical, providential course? It is because God goes forth enduring with patience in a position that is contrary to Satan's. When the satanic world changes to Heaven's side, a new history will be created by going through the process of enduring with patience in an absolute way. For that reason, the offspring of a loyal subject will not perish and the children of a faithful woman will not perish. A filial son and a dutiful daughter will not be destroyed. (Sermons Vol. 4 -- 180, 1958.5.11)
In order to create a unified heaven and earth, the spirit world must first be unified. The ancestors in the spirit world said, "Rev. Moon, you heretic, you traitor!" Later on, even God said, "Yes, throw him away!" That is how the laws of indemnity are. Since Adam and Eve abandoned God, God also had to abandon them, conditionally. Enduring such abandonment, I had to win acceptance, restore God's support for me, recover my heaven, and receive God's seal of approval. During that period, God had to stand against me when someone accused me, but then later on everything…
My character is such that once I start something I carry on till the end. I do not retreat until I die. Since I know clearly what this principle is about, I am sure of myself. That is why I openly resisted these spiritual attacks. How could Jesus, Confucius or other leaders know such principles? Eventually they only asked negative questions because what I said was not in the doctrine they taught. They insisted on their own views.
I battled against the entire spirit world for forty-three days. On the fortieth day even God said, "Rev. Moon, you good-for-nothing! Why have you come here and brought chaos to this peaceful heavenly world? You son-of-a-thief!" Everyone agreed with God. Still, I did not retreat. (282-168, 1997.3.11)
Throughout history, there have been numerous paths of suffering and hardship, but you must realize that the path of hardship of the eight stages that I have passed through never existed in past history. You must understand that it was the way of indemnity where, because of the difficulties, I still wasn't allowed to shed tears, crying out, "God, I am not able to endure this position!" Those who are going to build the kingdom must not shed tears for themselves while walking this way. It is the heavenly principle that unless we pass through the place of tears with joy, the foothold of the heavenly kingdom will not remain in this earthly world. (161-194, 1987.2.3)
You know that the satanic world came about due to human beings' failure to fulfill their portion of responsibility and that this world has been left under the dominion of Satan. We must feel deep in our bones that God had to persevere along the way of suffering until this present time because of the uncompleted portion of responsibility. (63-320, 1972.10.22)
Right up until the present time God has not changed His outlook. He has persevered through the interminable process of restoration through indemnity. Fulfilling the ideal of love is the final summit. He has endured and is proclaiming this clearly before all humankind to the sound of the bells of liberation. God maintained the heart to endure until the returning Lord was able to come to the earth to tearfully fulfill the mission of restoration, fulfill God's will, inherit the right of ownership of the entire satanic world and return it all to God, and establish a world of peace and unity here on the earth. This is not coercion. The right of ownership must be taken back from Satan and returned to God. (197-96, 1990.1.7)
I persevered with it to the end, knowing all these things. Indemnity could not have otherwise been paid. I could not just close my eyes and do a haphazard job. (211-332, 1991.1.1)
In this historic time of the Last Days, we are not people who wear fancy clothes and eat to our fill. We must become people who can persevere and serve humanity on behalf of history. We must go the opposite way. Only then will it be fair. We must oppose any ideology that has used its sovereignty to take people's lives. Such a time must come. History must inevitably pass through this process. Otherwise its path will be blocked.
Then what kind of path do God, His children and His people walk? It should be a path of perseverance, service and sacrifice. You should not persevere in blind faith. You should persevere for the sake of the Savior, God and His will. That moment will come and thus you should persevere for it. Hence, all faiths have a teaching about the Second Coming.
It is said that such a time will come but what kind of time is that? It is the time when God, the Subject partner in the realm of the heart, fulfills the purpose He has in his heart. People are faced with a historic destiny in which they must model themselves after the will of God, the subject partner of heart, in their battles and to go forth in search of that time. They cannot avoid the course of struggle as they model themselves after God and move towards His goal. History has been a record of the accounts of this course.
What kind of battle was that? It was one in which those who persevered were struck first, where those who sacrificed were dominated, and where those who came forth with a new ideology and hope were killed. That was the historical course of such battles. Hence, all those who came forth crying for goodness on the earth, without exception, had to endure a course of suffering. They had to be sacrificed on behalf of the people and had to go forth into a position of death so that they did not compromise their beliefs. (10-230, 1960.10.16)
Since the True Parents are going through hardships to live together with you, you should resolve to work harder than anyone, to gladly endure hardships thousands of times more severe and to give everything you have to set up a reciprocal standard within that living environment, in order to enthrone the True Parents on the liberated seat of greatest joy. Only when you have become people who can persevere through suffering in the most extreme conditions, and yet be grateful and can praise and return the glory of service before God, to be handed down as a source of pride to your descendants forevermore, can you become the owners of Cheon Il Guk. (400-155, 2002.11.5)
Even if your husband or wife cannot make it, that does not give you the right to give up. Think, "You may abandon me, but I will not abandon you or this path." There is no such thing as abandonment in God's world. Our way of life requires us to be patient and persevere. If you are abandoned, that is not your responsibility. Think, "Because God exists, I have hope. I will return to Him one way or another." (True Love -- 120, 1982.9.5)
Because Jesus was trying to understand everything about the heart of God, even when he was lonely, he did not complain to anyone and persevered. You have toe follow the example of such a lifestyle.
Nonetheless, God persevered for the sake of Jesus, and Jesus did not persevere through it for himself but for the Father. In other words, Jesus felt that God had walked the path of torment to find him, so he persevered not for himself, but for the sake of God.
Similarly, because Jesus forsook himself for thirty years of his life and persisted for the sake of God, he exceeded Satan in perseverance. Satan had been struggling desperately to destroy the path that God had persisted on for 4,000 years. However, Jesus knew that God's perseverance surpassed that of Satan, so he believed in the Father and persisted with patience just like Him. Thus, he could become the incarnation of patience and persistence. Similarly Jesus himself stood on the foundation of the heart of God who had persevered for 4,000 years, and using that as the launching pad for victory, he stood above it and fought with Satan. Yet even if he won with his patience, if he could not lay a substantial foundation of victory, the heart of God who had persevered for 4,000 years, would be destroyed.
During the thirty years of his life, because Jesus displayed patience centering on God's will even when he was in an unbearable environment, because he could abide by the will of God and persist even when Satan could endure no longer, Jesus was lifted up as the symbol of patience and became the hero who could fight with Satan. (Sermons Vol. 1 -- 59, 1956.5.27)
Then from where does True Love begin? This is True Love: After you sacrifice your own life and are resurrected, you try to invest again, more than three times. Since we have inherited fallen lineage, even at the cost of our own lives we have persevere and overcome. (World Peace -- 73, 1997.7.18)
Recently I have heard Koreans say Reverend Moon is a patriot. I received tremendous persecution in the past, but I persevered. Do you know why? To go the path of a servant. If you become the best servant, you can become an adopted son…
Those who suffer most for their nation become patriots. One patriot may be killed by a single bullet and another may be tortured, with his eyes gouged out and ears and nose cut off. Which of the two is at the head of the line of patriots?
Become a servant of servants first. That will qualify you to be an adopted son. If you become the best adopted son, when there is no other son, you will be chosen as the son. Through this process you will be restored to God's side and receive God as your parent. Unless you go this path you cannot restore the position of God's ideal son or daughter. This has been my course ever since I was born. This is the path every human being must go. I have pioneered this path and established the tradition for all humanity to follow. (God's Will -- 564, 1981.5.1)
After persevering on to eliminate all the sorrowful results of the fall and become victorious children who can guide all nations with love, you should worship God and True Parents in your bedroom; then the registration process will automatically come to an end. From that moment on, the Kingdom of Heaven will continue on forever. (Tribal Messiah -- 186, 1988.5.22)
From now on, you will find that it is better to bring my picture with you wherever you go. My picture will protect you so that you can persevere through the most difficult hardships. In the Old Testament when Moses was performing miracles in order to liberate the people of Israel from the pharaoh and lead them into the land of Canaan, all firstborn sons died of a deadly disease, except for those who lived in houses which had the blood of lambs painted on their front door. In the spirit world, the spirits not only watch over our actions but also provide protection. (Tribal Messiah -- 154, 1984.1.15)
"Our cherished hopes are for unity. Even our dreams are for unity. We give our lives for unity. Come along unity. Unity saving the people, Unity saving this nation, Come here quickly, unity, Come along, unity."
In order to promote this task, you should sing this song as often as possible. Even when Father is not here in Korea, even if you undergo difficulties in your life, I ask you to persevere, thinking of this song…Loyalty and filial piety are fulfilled in a difficult situation. Unity is not achieved at a high place but at the very bottom place. It comes at the crossing point of life and death. (22-152)
No matter what high position a person has or how much he owns, this is the law. Even if a person is a criminal, you must love him more than you love nature. This is the ethic of Heaven. Why cannot God strike an evil person? Even that person can dominate the universe and all things. God would have to strike the universe before striking a person, not strike the person first. Since God knows this natural law, He has to endure and persevere. (Tribal Messiah -- 126, 1988.4.6)
If you can surpass everyone in loving people, then you can come to possess the power of life which will allow you to persevere through the most difficult crisis that are like autumn and winter. I hope that you can come to understand that that kind of power of life will assert itself strongly and head toward the spring, eventually becoming the mother-body of the new world and new life. (25-291)
When all others do not want to give, you have to persevere with devotion, shedding blood, sweat and tears, to take material back to God. That is restoration. Since you are trying to take what many people have and don't want to give, it is restoration.
When your offering is received, you must know that the people and the nation receive the benefit of the offering. That is why the money we make should be soaked with tears, soaked with sweat, and invested with heart. That money is different from the money of the world. In the satanic world, when they see money they want to make it theirs, but we want to give it all to God. It should be that way. Do you understand? (Blessing Pt. 2 -- 30)
When Noah was being persecuted by everyone around him, he could overcome because he invested himself completely in what he was doing. He thought that he was just fulfilling his duty of loyalty and filial piety as a child of God just following God's command.
The closer Noah came to God, the more he felt the heartless environment, and the more he was made to suffer, the more he went before God with tears of repentance. It was because of this that no one could stop him.
Just think about Noah who endured for 120 years. The satanic world mobilized all its methods to destroy this one man, Noah. The people opposed him in every way possible, but Noah didn't change in the slightest the standard of loyalty that he showed to God. That standard established the absolute center of the cosmos. It established the righteousness of humans in the cosmos, and it established the true victor. Based on the standard set up by Noah, God wanted to clear up all the elements of the enemy that opposed this standard. (18-159)
Father! These faithful children have come forth up to this hour, persevering through the difficult environment and the path of the cross, so even just for this one hour, please show the Father's will of love which has remained hidden for 6,000 years, and let this hour that we bow before You become a great joy that cannot be traded even for an enormous sum of money. Please lead us to pioneer our lives with the blessing and inspiration we receive today, so that by revealing the great way of the universe, we can become grateful offerings in God's dispensation. (Sermons Vol. 1 -- 18, 1956.5.16)
God stood in a position where He must endure the pain and hardship added to this sadness. God had to go through unspeakable pain and difficulty. Similarly, you must know that God, who must unfold the providence of salvation for humankind even in His sorrow, is placed in a situation where He must feel a heart of double pain, unimaginable to us. …The heart of God as He led the dispensation of this providential history was fretful beyond description. Nevertheless, controlling His feelings, God has endured with great patience.
Yet how many people on this earth today feel the fretful heart of the enduring God and seize God and shed tears? If there was a man on this earth who knew God's heart like this and shed tears, he would be able to understand that while God rejoiced at the time of the creation of all things in Heaven and earth, God's grief due to man's fall encompassed all of the creation in heaven and earth.
If a man were to appear on this earth who represented God's heart, who endured with patience, a man who could cry with God in sorrow, God would shed copious tears, forgetting all about His dignity as the Creator. He would forget all His glory and power. You must know the heart of God, who was pierced with such a situation as this. …
Accordingly, you now must possess a resolution and determination to endure with patience, bearing such external worries and the cosmic responsibility in mind. Unless you can have such a resolution and determination, you will not be able to participate in walking the course of Heaven.
For that reason, you today must first comfort the bruised and sorrowful heart of Heaven before wishing to receive Heaven's blessing and Heaven's glory. Although God's patience can more than embrace the whole universe, we today live in sinfulness in a sinful and evil environment. In a situation like this, we cannot be filial to God, who came forth enduring with patience for the sake of the universe. That is, we cannot show devotion to God, who has performed the providence of the 6,000-year history.
Therefore, you must now understand the heart and the will of God, who came forth ruling history until today. You must be able to be filial to God. You must possess the heart with which God endured with patience, during the unfolding of the dispensation for 6,000 years. That is, you who are faced with the last days are entrusted with the mission to welcome God in your mind and bear witness to Him before all humankind.
Who will be the true sons and daughters who can attend God and offer comfort to Him by resembling His patient heart of 6,000 years? God is waiting for these very sons and daughters to come forth. God exists, He who came forth enduring for 6,000 years to save humankind. He did not abandon those who betrayed Heaven and fell into the temptation of the archangel Satan. You today must understand the heart of that God. (Sermons Vol. 4 -- 175, 177-178, 1958.5.11)
A true filial son is a person who can think first of the heart of his parents, even when he endures the pain of a bleeding finger. God does not want someone, who in a good place, sings of his comfort and sleeps a deep sleep. Parents are drawn to a person who, even while he bleeds and is in pain, says, "Please forgive my lack," and does not hesitate to shed his blood and work hard with agony. (Tribal Messiah -- 105, 1965.10.10)
How long can you continue to sacrifice with a heart of love? This is what determines whether you have victory or defeat. However, if God is our true Parent, does He rejoice or feel sorrow when His children have to suffer? Even in the parent-child relationship of this fallen world, no parents want to cause suffering for their children. (God's Will -- 119, 1972.9.11)
When the standard of mind is different from the standard of the Will, man suffers pain and internal conflict in his life. Therefore, the way of sacrifice and endurance has been pioneered by religion. No one has accomplished the purpose of goodness without endurance. (The Way -- 135)
If you wonder why you have endured so much hardship, it's because you lost your confidence. As long as people remain standing on their feet, your endurance is epitomized in your people.
But if endurance is not for God or your people, but for yourself, then your doubting mind will get no help. You can look around for help, but you won't find any source of extra strength.
Our life must be offered at the attar of God. Unity for God and your nation and your people, not for individuals, must be your goal. (Unification Pt. 1 -- 224)
You must know how important it is to endure. How valuable is endurance? Endurance is the motivation of a new start and it also can be the motivation of a new creation.
God is also enduring. God is enduring. God endured when Adam and Eve were about to die and He also endured when Jesus was taken and nailed to the cross. God pretended not to know when He knew. Even when He knew, He pretended He didn't. It was very difficult for God. You also do the same. If a person knows all about you but pretends not to know, how embarrassing will that be? When you see that person, you will want to escape and hide under his feet, but you surrender because you have no place to go. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the more we endure; it will become the motivation to possess more. Do you understand what it means?
The same thing can be said in a family. No matter what your brothers and sisters say, if you endure and endure, your parents or anyone else will bless you, saying, "Watch him or her in the future." Therefore, let's make one rule here now. It is good to endure for yourself and it is good to open your mouth for others. If a person is in a difficult position, I will open my mouth and console him, and when that person is slandered, pretend you do not know, even if you know, and then open your mouth and support him. If you look for the key to victory or one necessary foundation or motivation to become victorious, you will find how valuable perseverance is.
There is a proverb in the Orient which says, "Those who persevere are the ones who win." Do you understand? Do you understand what I mean? (76-220)
I cannot count the days I spent in tears and lamentation after I came to know this world of God's inner heart. Who could even dare to imagine the grief-stricken God? He has carried out His providence for thousands, even tens of thousands of years after the first human ancestors, whom He created as His children and tried to place in the eternal position of His object partners in true love, fell into the path of the human fall? God was sorrowful and mortified. Anger exploded within Him, and His heart overflowed with grief as He walked this course. He came as the Father and King of glory, but the enemy Satan stole His throne and His position as Parent. Though He was clearly alive and carrying out His providence, people said "He's dead," and they mocked and mistreated Him. Still, He persevered on the path with patient endurance waiting for the day when human beings would themselves understand the truth. Please understand that it is because God conducts His providence on a foundation of true love, which lives for the sake of others, and on the basis of eternity, that He did not just annihilate the universe and begin again after witnessing His children descend into the bottomless pit of the human fall. (Public Venue, 2004.5.1)
In the place of serving God, you have to be patient and wait your turn. There is a proper order. For whom or what do you have to wait? You must wait for the whole purpose. You must be patient and endure until you reach the point of central thought. With that kind of thought you must not complain, or you won't be able to live together. From there you can live in the very wide and expansive kingdom of heaven. (44-18)
We began with suffering, and so we want to head for the final destination through suffering. I am determined that Rev. Moon will be recognized as one who experienced misery. I do not need money or honor. The hope to find the new homeland lies only in liberating God, liberating humankind, and liberating even Satan, thereby building an eternal base of peace and love. With such an understanding, you should struggle hard to follow this path, forgetting breakfast, lunch and dinner, ignoring day and night, and persevering no matter how steep and rugged the mountains are that stand in the way. The heavenly principle is that the longer you lead such a life, the more God's ideal love will be with you, your family, your clan, and your nation. I would like to ask you to understand this and live accordingly. (174-53, 1988.2.23)
Until we meet again, you must think of me day and night; think of me when you get hungry. Even if you do not eat, do the things I do for God's will. When you get drowsy, persevere for God's will, thinking about me as I go on without sleep. You have to think about your teacher who endures without vindicating himself in the face of slander. Being even more upright in your heart, you should be thirsty for tomorrow's victory and go forth with the intention of gaining results and seeing your enemies surrender to you naturally. Only through these efforts can you and this people find the path of life. (82-48, 1975.12.30)
Then, where should we go? Where is the place that we have to go, even if it requires that we put our life on the line? The day must come when we seek God, attend Him, and rejoice in our hearts -- a day when our hearts say there is no greater hope. For this we endure pain, mistreatment and resentment, and persevere through this worldly life. If we cannot go successfully through this world, we will perish with it. (8-202, 1959.12.20)
In the other world, when you lack the discipline to persevere in conforming to the ideal practice of love, a reaction comes against you. Nobody tells you to go to hell. (121-173, 1982.10.24)
I did not fight back. I endured and endured till the end, and kept a humble attitude as I walked. By persevering through this, I saw that this path enabled me to reach the highest position -- the position where I could receive the rights of inheritance from God without fighting back. In this way, I did not perish. Instead, I grasped the victorious position of a leader in the world that was intent on my destruction. I created an environment where I could be welcomed beyond the nation and the world. I accomplished all the tasks of bringing equalization to the earthly world and spirit world. Amen! (302-207, 1999.6.13)
Because I knew that God was such a lonely and isolated being, I have gone forth knowing that my mission until the day I die was to fulfill even a portion of God's will and desire; to expand a foundation in at least one field and gather together those who can live for the sake of God. It is because I was born as God's son and because I felt myself responsible for establishing His will that I have persevered until now with love. Even though I was persecuted, and even though I was beaten, I endured all this without taking revenge. Even as I fought my way forward, staggering or crawling on my belly, I always thought about how to set up this tradition and bequeath it to the world. (82-47, 1975.12.30)
When you were alone, everything came to pass when you prayed. However, if there is a person opposing you in the family, you should bear the cross and persevere until you reach the original standard. Alone, you are like one car of a train and the family is like a locomotive. It is simple to restore an individual's mistake. But if there is a mistake in the family, it brings ruin. (27-86, 1969.11.26)
To God, the devil is the adulterer of love. So far, God has been dealing with all the accusations the devil, the adulterer of love, has been making. God had to persevere in His heart until today in order to redeem the condition that would enable Him to say in front of all humankind that He loved the devil. Why is that so? Had the archangel not fallen, he would have remained an archangel, but could not have entered heaven without being loved by God. God and His sons and daughters enter heaven only after they are able to love the archangel. That is why Satan accuses them. He says, "I did become the devil, but Your principle of creation, the original principled standard remains intact. So isn't it the rule that You and Your children cannot go to heaven unless you and they love me?" When Satan says this, God has to say "yes." Until now, Satan has been grasping God by His neck and accusing Him. (185-56, 1989.1.1)
The Korean race is very persevering. (253-299, 1994.1.30)
Even with all my brains and talent, I had to endure forty years of troubles in order to pioneer the way, and this will remain in history as a path that must be taken by farsighted leaders. I persevered and endured because it is important to establish a tradition in that way. If I have established the vertical tradition, you must understand that you have the responsibility to establish a horizontal tradition. You should think about how to bring about rapid growth. (135-106, 1985.9.30)
In my background there were many incidents that evoked indignation at unjust treatment. Although many were very terrible to endure, I clenched my teeth and focused on occupying Cain's world. I had to digest the Cain world rather than merely Cain as an individual and his family. How bitter this has been! It was as if I had to melt something as frigid and huge as an iceberg. Digesting this bitterness, I have had to silently bring Satan to submission. He has been our arch enemy since time immemorial. He brought God and humankind to ruin. (163-163, 1987.5.1)
Was it due to God's kindly nature that He endured a path of suffering through the millennia of the providence of restoration? How did God continue His providence of salvation for tens of thousands of years without becoming exhausted? It is not because He is all-knowing and almighty. It is because He has been walking the path of love for the sake of His beloved sons and daughters. Therefore, it is the power of love that has enabled God to triumph over a path of tribulation, feeling as if a thousand years were just one day. Is that correct? It is. (109-281, 1980.11.2)
Why is the all-knowing and almighty God unable to wipe out Satan at one stroke? If He did so, that act would end up extinguishing Adam, Eve and the creation and destroying the ideal sphere of love as well. That is why He is prevented from doing so. The absolute Lord has the responsibility to absolutely fulfill what He said He would do. Despite Satan's fickleness, attacks and tenacious persecution, the Lord God has endured throughout history in order to recover His established principles. (208-256, 1990.11.20)
This True Family was found as a result of experiencing the deepest sorrow of all sorrows, enduring the greatest hardship among all hardships, and paying the highest price in blood of all such payments throughout the course of history. To resolve historical sorrow, such miserable indemnity conditions had to be made in history. The price paid through people's deaths throughout the course of history is redeemed when the True Family is found. Accordingly, the True Family's appearance on earth is a cause for unparalleled joy and value. (43-142, 1971.4.29)
A great mother embraces her children while teaching them the principle of becoming a person of goodness who can move the world: being able to endure whatever difficulties are encountered. This type of mother has penetrated the heavenly principle. That goodness does not perish. (13-238, 1964.3.24)
We will all someday have to discard our physical bodies and move on to the spirit world. So we, as human beings born into this world, must be ready for death. Endure hardships to form your good self into your second self in the eternal world. (14-17, 1964.4.19)
The one who is the most sorrowful is God. The tears God has shed and the suffering He has endured until now were not for Him. God is still shedding tears for this universe that He created, and for fallen humankind. Why is that? Because He is a God of heart. (97-171, 1978.3.15)
Don't worry about not having money or children. If you continue on this path for ten or twenty years, you'll be able to scale the very high and steep mountains. You may feel that you are going through hardships in vain and gradually descending, but actually you are gradually ascending. The Unification Church expands by being struck. In a family of ten, the one who is opposed by the others, and endures, living for the sake of the public purpose, can become the head of that family. Such a person can become a lord in the heavenly nation. (142-289, 1986.3.13)
When the entire world opposes you, what will you do? Should you run away? No. You should endure and die in circumstances that lead everyone in heaven and on earth to raise a flag and welcome you. (34-185, 1970.9.6)
There is no need for a verbally established parent-child relationship or a parent-child relationship that was created through written agreements. When you exert your mind, express your devotion, and live for the sake of the Father's will, you can even endure pain that melts the flesh and bone. When you do this in order to win victory, you can restore the parent-child relationship with God. (2-234, 1957.6.2)
"I have endured, so you can too." (11-102, 1961.2.12)
I endured all this without taking revenge. Even as I fought my way forward, staggering or crawling on my belly, I always thought about how to set up this tradition and bequeath it to the world. (82-47, 1975.12.30)
What began with Jacob, the pioneer of the victorious realm of Israel, and continued through the history of Christian culture, created a foundation that took 4,000 years to build; yet it ended in failure. As I had to restore this all within my lifetime, and since I could not spend 400 years on it I had to reverse and restore everything through indemnity within 40 years, no matter how much humiliation I had to endure. That was the forty-year wilderness course. (149-59, 1986.11.2)
Through the principle of indemnity, we must liberate God from all of the sorrowful circumstances, pain, and suffering that He endured throughout history. This is how we understand what un-filial children we have been and how much suffering we have caused God by our misdeeds. This is how we become true filial children who can attend their Parent with the filial piety that outdoes our past lack of filial piety. Thus, in serving God, we must understand the toils of our Parent who sacrificed everything and made such effort through history. Step by step, gradually, we have come into the age where we can clear away past mistakes. So we must attend God, and at least from today, take upon ourselves the hardships of God, so that He can be completely liberated. (144-274, 1986.4.25)
You cannot go this way unless you ride on the back of Parents. No matter how filthy a fly may be, if it clings to the belly of a swift horse and endures without falling away, the fly can travel a thousand miles. You are in the same position. You must cling onto True Parents and move together with them, even if you are upside down; you must not fall off. (138-120, 1986.1.19)
The religious people in the Third World have led lives of faith at great personal risk. They did not spend their lives patting full stomachs and belching contentedly; instead, they starved, many met their deaths, and many were forced to part from their children, never to meet again. Still, they had complete faith in God, and this faith was the foundation upon which they could continue to endure such lives. I have been able to see this for myself. (273-236, 1995.10.29)
The life we are leading on earth is not for our own sake. We are living for the sake of God's love. For that purpose, we are in a continuous state of action and existence. How splendid that is! Those who lead such a life can never be brought to ruin. Hardships, tears and misery would not make us miserable, bitter, or sad because we would be enduring them all for the love of God. You should understand this principle. (67-159, 1973.6.1)
Just as the Israelites had to follow Moses in the course to restore Canaan, now is the time for us to enter it and restore God's kingship. We must endure suffering greater than even that of the 430-year course in Egypt and the miserable 4,000-year history of God from Adam to Jesus, overcome everything and comfort Him. You do not go to heaven by apologizing or just because you've repented.. (288-114, 1997.11.25)
When I tell you to go find your hometown, it means planting a new seed. Since you have become the seed of Adam and Eve, I am trying to put down a new root by planting new seeds through you. So when planting new seeds, you will need buckets of fertilizer. So you should go and receive insults. You should receive curses for the cause of goodness and endure much suffering. Try it for about three years. You won't need three years; I see it being done in six months. When you were first sent out for witnessing, I sent you out to find 120 households and to build churches in towns other than your hometowns, right? And you haven't been able to do it, have you? Then, I gave the direction to start Home Church, but you couldn't fulfill that either, could you? This is it. (219-158, 1991.8.29)
You have to endure with the heart of yearning, and you must struggle with all your might in every situation you are in to indemnify and liberate all the elements of God's grief. You should bear in mind that a person with this kind of heart will never stumble or fail. Even if you do stumble, and you think that there is no way to go before the Lord, remember that God is alive. He has been enduring until now, and so, when you stumble in the cause of loyalty and devotion while yet alive, He will raise you up and open the way for you to at least pray, and He will show you the direction how to live from then on. Then He will send you people who can help you. (153-255, 1964.1.7)
Jesus said that no matter what kind of difficult circumstances we encounter we have to have endurance in order to overcome. He said that we have to have more loyalty and filial piety for God's will than sinners show towards evil. This is the basis of the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit which is taught in Christianity. If you live a life of love, then happiness and peace will arise; and through endurance, mercy and goodness will arise; and through a life of loyalty, gentleness and humility will arise.
Jesus emphasized that in order to get rid of all their evil elements, people who are in the realm of the Fall should adopt heavenly love, heavenly endurance, and heavenly loyalty. This is a practical philosophy that can realize the ideology of the Kingdom of Heaven, but do you have this love of Christ in your hearts today?
Also, do you have endurance and the heart of loyalty? Jesus represented God's heart and was the incarnation of His love. Even when he was on the road to Golgotha he was the master of endurance who was worried about the suffering of all humankind and he was the representative person of loyalty who was more loyal to God than any other person in human history.
So where did the love, endurance and loyalty of Jesus come from? These things did not arise from within Jesus of himself. He was the mediator who connected God's love to humankind. He was the incarnation of love and the substantial being with God's value, and he came to save humankind from their ignorance.
In order to accomplish the true will likewise, God searched to find a person like Himself, someone who could represent the value of the whole. For that purpose, God first showed loyalty to humankind before anyone showed loyalty to Him, and He endured limitlessly. Therefore, you have to empathize with God who has been working according to heavenly principles and who had the situation whereby He displayed endless loyalty towards humankind in order to realize His will. You have to empathize with the heart of God who sacrificed resolutely and unflinchingly to establish His will. In addition, you have to empathize with the heart of God who rose above Himself time and again to set up the ideology of the future, the heart that wants to give endlessly to you. (2-344, 1957.8.4)
Since this world is longing for Parents, we are preparing for the day when those Parents will come. The one master, the one parent and the one world are the fruits and goals for which God has endured and toiled for over six thousand years up to the present day. Here, an heir of the heart, who can stand representing his parents, has to appear.
An heir of the heart is not an heir who just talks, or someone who merely appears to be an heir, or one who is having a good time; but rather the one who takes ownership of his parents' sadness and suffering, agonizes and grieves in place of his father, and struggles to establish the way to manifest the duty of loyalty and filial piety before Heaven. Only such people can stand before Heaven. (9-30, 1960.4.3)
All those who came forth crying for goodness on the earth, without exception, had to endure a course of suffering. They had to be sacrificed on behalf of the people and had to go forth into a position of death so that they did not compromise their beliefs. (10-230, 1960.10.16)
You must endure, sacrifice for and serve your fiancée even if you do not like her. "If I hadn't met her I wouldn't have learnt anything. Now I see that I was given this person so that I could go through more hardships in order to attain a spirit of service and sacrifice and thus go to heaven." Those who think like this can become great people and enter heaven.
God wants to have even sinners become His sons and daughters. Just because your fiancée might not have such a pretty face or is Japanese or is a little short, can you think, "Oh, I don't like her"? You men should be convinced that you would go to the highest place in heaven if you took the ugliest woman and sacrificed yourself for and served her more than anyone else. You should understand that you would then become the greatest husband and a saint of a husband. Unification Church members should be capable of having that level of thought. (116-95, 1981.12.20)
I Knowing that God is such a lonely and isolated being, I pledged my life to expand His foundation. The reason that I have endured with love, rather than wanting to take revenge after receiving insults and beatings, is because I was born as God's son and have the responsibility to establish His will. Staggering along, or with back bent, or crawling on my stomach, I have fought on with the determination that I will leave at least this tradition behind. (82-47, 1975.12.30)
What you have is surely gold dust, but it is gold dust in the sand, contained in ore or in the earth; hence, it needs to be placed in a furnace and melted down. It must be smelted. This is the standard procedure. As the granules of gold melt and become liquid, would they say, "This is good!" or make a big fuss, saying, "Oh no, I am dying, I am dying?" Although they may say they will die, granules of gold do not actually die. If you want to be pure, you have to deny up to 98 percent of yourself. That which is truly you is only 2 percent. So then, what do you think you need to do? How miserable this is! Think whether the life of a Unificationist is miserable or happy. Then would Rev. Moon, the center of the Unificationists, be happy or miserable? I have a hope that although I was miserable at the beginning, I will be happy later. When there is persecution, you should think, "I am going into the furnace. This is coming because I am still not perfect." If persecution comes, let it come. If people want to persecute us, let them persecute us! You should want to be inside the furnace until you become pure gold. This is how you can become pure gold quickly. As for those who are walking the path of abandoning their 98 percent and becoming 100 percent pure gold, how much endurance do you think they have to have? How much pain do you think they will endure? But you should still have the conviction to go forward.
Even if the people of the world evaluate you as 100 percent pure gold, the question is whether you will be a 100 percent when God picks you up with a tweezers and evaluates you. This is my worry. God has His view of 100 percent pure gold and I have my suggestion for 100 percent pure gold. Between the two, I want my 100 percent to be greater. How about that? I want my claim to be greater. Then, there should be no impurity, no insisting upon your own way. Does not God insist on His own way? Yes, God insists on His own way. God also has a nature to insist on His own way. In order to be purer, we should not insist on having our own way. Then, we will be 100 percent pure gold and be at a standard higher than the pure gold evaluated by God. We can think this way. If we are totally and eternally free from a mind of self-insistence, which thinks of the self as the center, we can be something that is more than 100 percent pure.
What is pure gold? It refers to its original form, without any impurity whatsoever. To meet the standard of pure gold, a nation must be a place where the people live enraptured in love, without any self-centeredness for hundreds and thousands of years. Those who possess such love are like a great queen or king. I am telling you to be such a wife or husband. When you become pure gold this way, do you need God? God is already contained within you. You will not need Him. So you should be such people. (128-206, 1983.6.26)
Those who cry out for eternal life, eternal happiness, and the eternal Kingdom of Heaven must overcome the current situation with eternity as their goal, and they must surmount with endurance the present point in time, sacrificing themselves. Only from such a standpoint can the eternal stronghold emerge. (47-247, 1971.8.29)
I have endured and prevailed. (161-86, 1987.1.2)