The Words of the Jenkins Family |
Sermon To Dedicate The National Won Jeon In Washington, DC
Michael Jenkins
October 9, 2003
Rev. Michael Jenkins
President
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification
National Won Jeon Dedication
Fort Lincoln Cemetary
Washington D.C. (Maryland)
Thank you, my beloved brothers and sisters. We are gathered here on this holy day. First I want to give thanks to our True Parents and True Family, to Daemonim, to Heung Jin Nim, who have opened the gateway of heaven and earth, that we might be able to not only understand the more profound meaning of our gathering here, but also we can rejoice in the assurance that all is in order and the Kingdom of Heaven is being manifested through our loved ones who have now taken this step into the spiritual world before us.
I sincerely thank our leadership, Dr. Yang, who has cooperated with Mr. Antonio Betancourt and Mr. Bill Selig, to make this possible. And to the regional directors, Rev. Lee and Rev. Hong, Rev. Schanker and Rev. Daugherty and also the elders in our movement, Mr. Joo and Rev. Kwak, who are working as one with Dr. Yang for the establishment of God's kingdom through the elder son nation.
I really want to thank all the families that are here representing your loved ones, and want to comfort you in your time of suffering and time of transition. Even though it's never easy and no one can truly understand what you're experiencing in your own heart, I think you can be assured that True Parents understand. We were reminded the other day, as Father shared with us about the recent passing of our young people, who are historical figures now, Kwan Jung and also Alexei. Father commented that we don't know about our life. We must really take from this occurrence a deeper understanding that we must always prepare our mind to be faithful in God, to love Jesus, to love the saints, and to really live according to God's will. Our minds must be absolute, especially now that we are entering the time of the great tribulation. Father warned us to understand that we don't know what sacrifices might come to the blessed central families during this period of transition because now we are standing squarely, face to face, with the evil world and we are proclaiming before heaven and earth that we are going to end evil on the earth and change the blood lineage of all families and usher in God's Kingdom.
Father reminded us that even though he was caught up to the throne of God where experienced Jesus and total oneness with God as well as the glory of God. Father shared with us that though he had his own internal and personal victories, one after the other, still the price was not enough. Therefore, even his own children had to be taken into the spiritual world. Hye Jin Nim, Hee Jin Nim, Heung Jin Nim, and Young Jin Nim, four children of our True Parents had to each be called, as Dr. Yang said, for a special place, a special path.
I believe that the relatives we honor today are also those who are called by God. I remember when I look at you and think about the Seung Hwa's we had and tears we shared together that each one of your loved ones had a tremendous impact on all of the national American movement and the world movement. I believe that if you look more deeply into the spiritual world, you'll find that each one of your loved ones actually passed at a very specific time that was related with something to support or to protect God's providence and our True Parents.
Therefore, no one can understand your personal course of sorrow, especially young people who lost your mothers, fathers and your support in life. What we can understand is that there is light on the other side of the dark tunnel. Sometimes you feel like you're just at a complete loss for what to do, how to overcome, and why, why would this great suffering come to my family, who was so dedicated. And yet beyond that darkness and that time of where you don't even know how you can hold on, or what to hold on to, you actually are being forged in the fires of God's dispensation. As each one of you have emerged faithful, and as you continue to emerge stronger and more filial to God's heart, your character, your family and your testimony becomes a rock solid foundation upon which God's kingdom can be built.
I have been blessed with the opportunity to be with True Parents I cannot believe the suffering around Father and Mother's family, around their lives. They have no idea of their schedule, no idea of what God's dispensation will bring. Therefore, at some point they just have to put their children in God's hands.
Many times I saw Mother reach out for the children, trying to stretch beyond the possibilities of the providence, trying to get a moment to even hold the hand of one son or daughter, only to see forces of history just pull her away. She had to let go of the hand of her beloved one. Father and Mother offered their family to God. Not with a cold heart on the "mission" but rather a heart of sorrow and sad resignation that they is no other way but to follow the will of God. With tears they pray that their children will turn to God during the period of loneliness and sorrow. I saw this with my own eyes. Therefore, that kind of suffering, that providential wave has caught your families, and for whatever reason you had to let go of your loved one and you had to let God take His course.
So with that understanding, we have to go deeper into God's providence. I believe it is not by coincide that we stand here on October 9, 2003, to dedicate the national won jeon for the elder son nation. On October 8, the eighth day, a new beginning, suddenly Father during the middle of the reading at hoon dok hae, as if by a proclamation from a prophet, he closed his eyes, leaned back, and word by word in Korean a proclamation that will be a pivotal point in all history was given. That proclamation said that yesterday ended the central authority and power of the internal and external realm of cain - and the internal and external authority and power of God, God's sovereignty, God's nation of the fourth Israel, God's internal heavenly realm of the spiritual world and the physical world of Cheon Il Guk, manifesting through the blessed central families - the Abel realm is now the center of authority and power and that all who believe will have absolute authority and power over all matters from October 8th on. Therefore, the first act that we have been commissioned to do is to come to Washington, D.C. to consecrate this holy place of resting when National level patriots and heavenly sacrificial Blessed Central husbands, wives and second generation are laid to rest. This is the very first day of this heavenly dispensation of God's authority residing in God's people, when God's authority now is absolute. Therefore we begin this dispensation together with those in the spirit world and the physical world. Those who made a truly great sacrifice for God.
The external foundation of the evil world will collapse the more strongly we stand up, the more clearly we walk forward in faith and true love. Every word of truth a blessed central family speaks at this time will eliminate vast volumes of billions of words of the false world. Every step a blessed central family takes from this time will be equal to millions of steps of the forces of darkness. Therefore, the forces of darkness have no place to go but to recede and dissolve.
Reading from Father's words at the Rally for the Unity and Completed Settlement of the Parents of Heaven and Earth at Cham Shil Gymnasium, Seoul, Korea, June 21, 2002. "Our fate is predestined to reinforce the foundation for goodness through our lives. We must measure our lives against the standard and realize that all people have within an evil self that lives only for selfish interests. You can separate from and strongly stand against this evil being that is expanding its influence with each passing day. Please recognize that you are the ones called to stand on this pressing path of destiny, and you must increase your foundation of goodness yet a little more before you pass away. You must therefore constantly busy yourself without rest.
"In my lifetime I have been in prison six times, vilified in all the countries of the world for being a cult leader. I have faced intense opposition. If the path of devotion to God I am walking is the central one on which people of different skin colors can be found, I will go anywhere. I have always lived my life in such a fashion. Keep in mind that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the saints can rejoice only when we become the elite troops of heaven and gain success. Then a time of peace can arise. Conflict within the individual turned into conflict within the families; conflict within the families into conflict within the clans; conflict within the clans into conflict within the society; conflict within the society into conflict within the nation; and conflict within the nation into global conflict. There will also be conflict between the spirit world and the earthly world.
"Only when the battle between God and the countless evil spirits of the satanic world is over will an era of peace come to our universe. You must understand that God is working through such a process according to the heavenly principles. An age of cosmic peace will arise only when, after clashing with Satan, God dissolves all the problems. Until the moment the core of God's sorrowful heart is healed, humankind will never find peace and the ideology of heaven will never come to fruition in the world.
"If a true individual" - and I believe that's you, the blessed families that are represented here - "comes who can liberate the sorrow of Heavenly Father and this world and bring an ideology capable of establishing a peaceful nation in heaven and on earth, that individual will have to pass through every conceivable difficulty. People experience desperation from the sorrow over personal tribulation, all the way to the sorrow of the tribulations of all of humankind. You will have to delve into the sorrowful and desperate heart of heaven in order to find a way to resolve it. Otherwise, humankind will not be able to push aside its sorrowful and miserable history and establish a world of peace and happiness, a garden of freedom inviolable from sorrow.
"You were chosen for such a time as this. If you become a representative of this true ideology of the universal Kingdom of Heaven, expanding the movement of God's true love, true blood lineage and truth, then a peaceful world will arise. In such a world your own parents are not the only parents. Your own siblings are not the only siblings, and your own children are not the only children. If you can regard all people as your parents, siblings, and children then when you look upon the many who are suffering in this world, you will be unable to relate to them without tears. When you look at your siblings or younger people, you will feel a strong sense of responsibility to save them, and with tears you will make every effort to do so. If you truly become such a person like God, then the Kingdom of Heaven will be built around you and it will be established on the earth.
"God's strategy is to take the first blow from Satan, do everything for his sake, love him, and later receive everything from him. God does not use force to take from the satanic world, but freely gives his love and sacrifices himself, accepting blows, and is even willing to lose his life for the sake of Satan and the satanic realm. You must understand that God cannot sow the seeds of world peace if he does not apply this strategy.
"You must now lead your family and live for the nation and world, spanning the ages of the individual, family, clan, tribe, society and nation. You have to fulfill the role of showing the world's peoples and nations the right direction based upon real experience. Having fulfilled this, you must be able to serve God from an inseparable position. Only then will the spiritual world and physical world become unified in eternal peace in your heart. You have to be the guide to direct others from the position of the eternal leaders, of the age when the heavenly kingdom is established, and be awarded the official commendation of the heavenly realm."
Beloved blessed families, you have been chosen for such a time as this, and therefore, I believe that upon Dr. Yang's prayer as he was commissioned by True Parents directly to sanctify this hallowed ground as the national won jeon, your beloved families are receiving that heavenly commendation at this time. Some of you may not have overcome your sorrow as of yet, and that's all right. You will if you hold on to God's unchanging heart.
Also, we are at Ft. Lincoln cemetery. We must be cognizant of the fact that we are here on hallowed ground where Lincoln gathered his generals and planned the path of victory that would liberate the conflict of the North and the South. Therefore, I believe that we are also on that battleground. This is a battleground, and this is a battleground where now the proclamation has gone forth that every step we take forward for the Kingdom, starting with today will bear the fruit of victory for God's providence. We're coming to this spiritual place to make this proclamation for the elder son nation, where the families who sacrificed on the front line are laid to rest, to make our resolve that on this day we will now end the forces of evil and turn them into forces of goodness. We will end the world of struggle, strife and war. Amen.
Yesterday Father commissioned 12 Ambassadors for Peace from 7 holy nations to go together with the 2nd Israel, 120 Christian leaders, and with representatives from the 1st Israel, 120 Jewish leaders, and the representatives of the world religious leaders, in particular 120 Muslim leaders. He asked us to gather in Israel, and we will end the strife in the Middle East. On that foundation of the reconciliation of Palestine and Israel, the ancient brothers of Ishmael and Isaac, we will then have the foundation to go to the final place of the fatherland of Korea and we will take down the barrier at the 38th parallel by next March if we set the proper conditions. This will be accomplished. The reconciliation of the cosmic Cain and Abel can occur. Then God's sovereignty can come upon the earth.
I just went to Gettysburg recently, and I want to encourage you also to go there and pray. I was so moved upon going there because it's not only soldiers from the North but also the sons of the South that gave their lives. They both shed their blood that this nation could indemnify the blood that was spilled by the lash of slavery. Both the North and South paid that price. When we go to Gettysburg, you feel that you are on hallowed ground.
In the same manner, we are on a holy ground here. This will become a national place that one day will have greater centrality than Gettysburg. I think it's fitting that we read the Gettysburg Address in conclusion. It was delivered in November, 1863, just four months after the great battle. Also, Gettysburg was most significant because it was the "high water" mark of the Confederacy's power. If the South had won that battle then the destiny of the elder son nation could have been very different. But God worked through the Abel side to bring the proper outcome. From that point on the challenge to the Union declined.
I believe, brothers and sisters, that we are certainly at the high water mark of evil in our culture, in our movies and television, in our world. Let this be a spiritual Gettysburg where the sons and daughters of God truly stand on the cosmic front line with the Second Coming of Christ. Let this be the high water mark of evil, starting from yesterday, and let our resolve be such that from now on evil just rapidly declines, until purity is exhibited in all relationships between men and women, until the blood lineage is changed between all families, until finally we have a heavenly dwelling place where we all become the true temples of God.
I believe the Gettysburg address applies to the families that are here. I will amend it slightly for this occasion. I believe that Abraham Lincoln will support me in this.
In 1971, our True Parents brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting places for those blessed central families who here gave their lives that this elder son nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men and women, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here in the elder son nation. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored, blessed central families, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of their devotion, that we here highly resolve that these blessed central families shall not have died in vain, that this elder son nation and this world under one God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the Cheon Il Guk and the 4th Israel, of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. In the name of our True Parents, amen.
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