The Words of the Stephens Family
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The Words of the Stephens Family |
Prayer
at the Rock of Tears.
For the 10th ICC we had about 120 ministers, which is a significant number. Even before the conference began, I had heard that some spiritualists in Korea received that this was going to be the pentecostal conference. Spiritually, the 10th ICC was a breakthrough conference. Maybe it was because of the number 10 or because of the three- year time period after Heung Jin Nim's death or because of the many spiritual conditions that have been accumulated since Father's sacrifice in Danbury.
Many of our church members who were on the staff of this conference had incredible experiences with Heung Jin Nim and Jesus, particularly the four main staff members who have been attending all of these conferences: myself, Levi Dougherty, Kevin McCarthy, and David Hose. We were treated through a medium to some personal experiences with Heung Jin Nim and Jesus. Personal guidance, as well as providential guidance about the significance of the ICC, was given. Heung Jin Nim said that the point at which Father was ready to be welcomed by established Christianity 40 years ago has come full circle. All indemnity has been paid, and the time has come now when all Christianity can receive Father, because Heung Jin Nim and Jesus are totally united in the spirit world.
In his speech on the Day of Victory of Love, Father spoke about how Heung Jin Nim has created a bridge for those in the higher realms of the spirit world to come down and stay on the earth. Before this time, our members could occasionally have deep experiences or inspiration from the higher realms, but they couldn't stay connected. But because of the connection between Heung Jin Nim and Father, Heung Jin Nim can now command the forces of the higher realms to come down and stay on the earth and begin to do battle against the evil spirits.
From the very beginning, when this group of ministers got together the spirit was very cohesive. People were more expectant than at other conferences; they felt like something extremely important and historical was going to take place. The ministers even seemed to receive the lectures more deeply than other groups had before.
They were already overwhelmed in Japan, especially when we prayed together at the Japanese church headquarters. The spirit was so high in that chapel that one of the Mormon ministers said he felt it was a very holy place. He couldn't believe it was just a regular worshiping place for us. The spirit seemed higher to him there than he had experienced in his own holy temple in Salt Lake City.
Everyone had very deep experiences in prayer there. I myself could see in my mind's eye Jesus hovering over the whole group, emanating love and light down upon them. An elder member offered such a powerful prayer and cried so many tears that the ministers were completely moved even before we started to pray in unison.
Later in Korea, at Sunday service at the church headquarters, many more profound things happened. I had been literally guided by Heung Jin Nim to wait until I was shown who should give the Sunday message. Finally it became Saturday night, and I still didn't know who was supposed to give the message the next day. Then I heard about a man who had had an experience during the testimony by Mrs. In Ju Kim; he had seen the spirit of our True Father appear behind him and put his arm around him and his wife, and he felt incredible love from Father. So when I prayed again to ask who should give the Sunday message, his name immediately came into my mind.
I asked him, and he was already preparing a sermon. His name is Walter Battle from Minneapolis. He gave an amazing speech. He started out by saying that we are all called into God's army and that we have to march back and save America. Later on he listened to his speech on tape, and he couldn't believe that he had given that speech. He didn't remember saying any of those words!
After that his wife, who is a professional singer, sang a powerful song that moved the whole church. Unison prayer followed. One man, who generally speaks in tongues a lot, started speaking in tongues and then came up to the microphone and interpreted his own speech. He said over and over again, "My sheep, my children:' One medium told me that Jesus' spirit was definitely speaking through this man.
People who truly love Jesus and are connected to him in heart can always recognize him. Some people have no such awareness; they are like fruit that is not yet ripe. This was true in our group -- some ministers had very profound experiences that changed their lives, whereas others weren't able to grasp it at all.
The
ministers of the 10th ICC sing at Sunday service at the church
headquarters in Seoul.
I was concerned that since pentecost was coming, maybe some people would be really damned or severely judged for something they had done, but it was not like that at all. It was a very loving pentecost, but it was also obvious that Satan was trying to interfere as much as he could. We had a couple of people who were very disruptive. This was actually a witness to the fact that Jesus was really there.
The next spiritual thing that happened was at the Rock of Tears. At the end of the main prayer, when we asked everybody to walk back down the hill, some people just stayed and would not leave, even though we asked them three times to come down. All the Unification church members stayed behind as well as a group of maybe a dozen ministers. At that moment Jesus Christ himself came to them through a medium. He explained to them about the importance of the Rock, and he testified to the new Lord, although he didn't mention his name directly. He said, "You know who I'm talking about:' The ministers who knew it was Jesus realized who he was talking about without a doubt.
Jesus told everyone there who experienced him that they were not to speak about this revelation for 40 days, and that they should only pray about it and keep it in their hearts so that they could understand the meaning of it all.
It's hard to put into words, but the spirit, the depth, and the emotion at the conference just grew and grew. There were two ministers there who wore glasses but who do not wear glasses anymore. Their eyes were healed. It was as if their eyes were opened.
The next day was the time for the Second Coming lecture. It turned out that it was actually Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Easter Sunday. I think we walked into that day expecting another great pentecost to take place. We expected that all these ministers were going to recognize who the True Parents were on that occasion, and that it was just going to be "Halleluiah!" But instead, both Rev. Hose and Kevin McCarthy had the most difficult time giving the lectures. Rev. Hose gave The Last 400 Years, and Kevin gave The Second Coming. What was happening was that the hearts of the people had been so moved and so swept up towards the conclusion (everybody who comes has been told that Unificationists believe Rev. Moon is the Messiah) that they knew what was coming in their minds, but they couldn't let themselves accept it. It was too fast for them. Intellectually they were greatly resisting the lectures, because they just could not deal with the conclusion that their hearts had already come to.
I'd like to share something about Heung Jin Nim, how much he can personally interact with every single one of us now. He is available to us! It's a phenomenon that may be hard to believe, for people who have had difficulty in connecting with the spirit of God, Heung Jin Nim, or True Parents. But now all of that has changed. The key point is our belief that it's possible and taking little steps of faith to establish a relationship with Heung Jin Nim so that he can come to you. You can get a picture of Heung Jin Nim, you can speak to him in your prayers, you can ask him for guidance, you can ask him for signs.
He stressed that the miracle is not that he can speak through mediums or that he can speak to us. The miracle is when you have faith that this is real. That's your foundation of faith. And once you establish that foundation of faith, you can begin to receive guidance directly from Heung Jin Nim. He said that many brothers and sisters in America could receive the gift of automatic writing -- he could dictate letters to us -- but he said we have to first fulfill the foundation of substance, which means we have to love each other. Satan has been attacking our movement heavily recently, knowing that this pentecost was coming. He has been trying to discourage as many brothers and sisters as he can before this time so that we will not have any power, and he has been trying to isolate us from each other.
By having faith in Heung Jin Nim and developing good loving relationships with each other, we can draw the highest realms of spirit world. They can surround us all the time so we don't have to worry so much about evil spirits anymore. There have been tremendous changes in our spiritual environment, and incredible things are going to happen.
When we receive love from Heung Jin Nim we have to share it, but he doesn't want us to just talk and blab about our revelations. He wants us to act, to substantially take care of each other, love each other, and serve each other. This will be the foundation of substance that will provide for the continuation of our relationships, our experiences. And this will very quickly bring the spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven into our centers. Once you have a group of even two or three people who are having these experiences, you can quickly ignite a whole center. Then you can make the condition for the spirit world to guide prepared people to walk up to your door and ring the doorbell and say things like, "I feel I have to join the Unification Church:' Heung Jin Nim said you'll meet ministers out of the blue that are already prepared to go to Korea. So you just have to be ready to receive them.
One last thing to mention is that we always have to remember the incredible foundation of prayer that has been laid in Korea. We have no idea of the depths of suffering of our elder brothers and sisters. Without them, we could never have been able to experience these things. They are really the kings and queens of heaven!