Sermons of Rev. Moon, Volume 1 |
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by Rev. Sun Myung Moon |
Let Us Bring Out the Value of Restoration
July 3, 1956
Former Church Headquarters
Acts 1:6-11
Prayer 1
Father of love! After three days of being protected in the bosom of Your love, many children have gathered here again this evening to humble their minds and bodies and offer a bow. Please let Your glory fall upon their heads. Please let the loving hands of the Father, who has been patient in His dispensation, be present with them and guide them so that they can provoke in humankind a compelling urge to follow them. Let Your hands inspire them to meekly lie prostrate and bow before the Father.
Father, we have received Your permission to live inside Your bosom for three days, but we know that our minds and bodies often stepped out of the permitted boundaries. Because we are full of faults, we have set the condition for accusations from Satan. With Your power of love, loving Father, please impede those conditions and remove them with Your powerful hands.
Father, I hope and desire that You will lead us to have desperate minds and bodies, and that in this moment, You will allow us to be intoxicated in the love that has been locked up in Heaven. Guide us to be offered as the sacrifice in which Heaven can delight.
Please make the minds and bodies of all the children who have gathered here become the sacrifice on the altar that the Father can be happy about, to become children You can accept. By doing so, please allow this to be an opportunity when we can digest all of Your words of advice and command.
Please govern over us so that there will not be even one person among us who is reluctant to receive the Father's advice and grace of love. Make this a precious time when the whole congregation can represent the heart of the Father and become one based on one heart and one joy.
Father, these who have come before Your solemn presence must have some personal ordeals. Please penetrate into them with Your fiery eyes so that they can overcome them. By inspiring peaceful and grateful hearts in them, please lead them to understand the substantial presence of the Father. In this way, please allow the manifestation of impressive works that can expose their lacks as they are and bring them to repentance.
Father, please let that inspiration move our minds and bodies and move the whole. We earnestly hope that we can be offered to the Father as the sacrifice of gratitude and the sacrifice of glory in this hour.
Please grant the Father's words to each of us. If there are sinful elements in us, then please rule over us so that we can bring them out before the Father and purge them in this hour. At least for this moment, please allow us to be embraced in Your bosom and resemble Your meek original nature.
Please lead us to resemble Your peaceful original nature and to sing the Father's glory with inspired hearts and watery eyes. Father, we fervently desire that we can offer proper greetings before Your majestic presence.
Father, we know that on this day, many congregations are offering the bow as we are doing now on behalf of the people, so please allow compassionate love wherever they gather. Please allow the ignorant people to open the door to their hearts and fathom the one life that Heaven demands and the anxious heart of God, who is trying to raise them. Let many of these children appear everywhere in large numbers and spark the fire of love. Let such a fire of life be revealed in all the lands.
Father! Please endow these people with the power of salvation, so that the people of the Abel-type who represent the whole can set the conditions of victory and build the altar that can restore the whole, the altar that Heaven desires.
Moreover, Father please be with the small number of those who stand on lonely paths and are pouring out their hearts and exerting their bodies for Heaven. We know that as they offer the bow, they already realize the magnitude of the mission entrusted to them in the last days. Father, please do not let even one of them fall into temptation. The crowds that are gathering are chosen for the Father's dispensation of love. Loving Father, please do not forsake any one of them. Protect them so that they will not fall into the temptations of Satan and cause grief to You.
Even today, there are many children who are building the altar of redemption for the sake of humanity, without being noticed by others. They are concerned about Heaven with an anxious heart. What is more, we know that in caves or mountains or in the wilderness, there are many concerned children who cry out on behalf of the heart of the Father. Father, please also manifest the promised will of the last days before them.
Please grant the promised grace so that in the near future this people can be given the honor to put their knees before Yours and build the altar of glory. Father, we earnestly hope that You will construct one altar representing these people so that they can sing joy and victory and march forward, holding up the torch of the eternal truth of heaven and earth.
Father, we know that for the sake of preparing for this task, we must maintain many hidden altars. Please let many people gather quickly. Please allow this people to serve you in the near future. We sincerely hope that You will lead them so that happiness will be multiplied and Your glory is brought out into the full light.
Please rule over this evening from the beginning to the end so that there will not be even one who will be dragged off as a sacrifice of Satan. Wishing these things, I prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Prayer 2
When we realize that the course to accomplish the one will is a lonely course of which humanity is ignorant, when we think about how the twenty years of Jacob's life lies before us as our own path of faith, we can come to understand that every footstep of suffering is drenched throughout with tears and sighs.
Father, these who have gathered here are the ones who have come forth to walk the path of the dispensation, following the footsteps of the course of Jacob, who was heading toward the house of Laban in the Haran wilderness. Sympathize with them and be their friend. Please protect the path they are walking on.
We know that many Satans are blocking the way on the path we are on. We know that the forces of darkness are obstructing the way, beloved Father! So, please safeguard the center in their hearts to be as immutable as rock, as they try to walk the model course of Jacob. Please raise them so that they can pour out all of their heart and soul for the sake of the will of Heaven. Forgetting all situations of the physical body, let them dash forward at full speed.
Since we have before us the unfinished path that we must fight and persist on until the day we sing the final song of victory to the Father, please grant us the power and ability, Father. Bestow on us the blessing to inherit the lonely heart of Jacob and to watch the glorious scene of angels climbing up and down the ladder connected from the earth to Heaven.
Please allow us to understand that there is God, who is helping us until the last minute. Let us understand the heart of perseverance of the Father. Make us become the victorious soldiers of patience who can carry on the battle until the day that the Father's eternal will is realized and brought to victory.
We have entrusted everything to You. Please understand our anxious heart to communicate with You and please receive everything as our expression of loyalty. We hope that all of our minds and bodies can be offered as one harmonized sacrifice. Father, we fervently hope that You will grant us the blessing to offer everything as a sacrifice.
Father! Please allow this to become the hour when we can express gratitude toward all the blessings that You have granted us. Repress all our personal assertions. Please lead us not to become the throng of Satan who possesses the conditions of Satan's accusations. Please allow us to uphold the honor of victory and exert all of our minds and bodies to make the meek sacrifice the triumphant offering of Heaven.
We have given all of our minds and bodies to You. Please govern the whole with the honor of victory. Hoping sincerely that You will allow us to take part in the blessing of joy, we prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Prayer 3
Father! Allow each of us to understand that when one person's mind has not squarely centered itself on Heaven, this has considerable impact on the whole audience. Please lead us to understand that if one of us falls prey to Satan because of our inadequacy, then the whole prepared altar cannot be offered to the Father.
If Heaven's work is manifested and the separation is made, then those who have not found the center will walk the path of Cain. Those who have secured the center will stand before the path of Abel. Please let there be many Abel-type people in this gathering. Please do not let them lapse into the position of Cain.
Father! In this hour the separation must be made, so please let each member of the audience enlighten his or her own heart. By establishing a center in our minds, please allow us to stand on the right side of Heaven.
Lead us not to take up the attitude of the one who stands on the left and peeks at the right side. Help us to become meek people who can submit before You in silence, facing the direction in which God can be happy. Father, I sincerely wish that You will guide us to exert our utmost for the sake of achieving harmony with the center of Heaven.
Please let these beloved children of Yours receive and digest the words of life this evening. Please convey new words of fire in our minds and bodies so that we can realize where each of us stands. By doing so, please help us to find the mind in which God can take delight. Help us train bodies that are acceptable to You so that we can stand before the altar of the Father as a being of happiness.
This evening, I have gathered young children before me and am trying to speak the words as You allow me to. Father, please reveal the appropriate truth and let Your hope be realized in this hour.
Please expunge all the wicked hearts in us and on the grounds of the good heart, please allow us to receive the sacred spirit of honor that brings joy. Let the heart of the speaker and the hearts of listeners form one image by resembling the hyung-sang of the Father. Let them give and receive in this hour. In this way, please allow this to be a precious moment when Heaven can achieve harmony through us. Father, we earnestly hope and desire this.
Requesting from the bottom of our hearts that You will govern the whole with the fire of the Holy Spirit, I prayed in the name of the Lord, who is overflowing with love. Amen.
This time, I will speak based on Acts 1:6. My speech is entitled "Let Us Bring Out the Value of Restoration."
Jesus Came With the Mission to Restore the World
The purpose of God wanting to save humankind is, as you all know very well, that He is trying to restore them to the original state. The countless prophets and sages who have come to the realization of the will of God first have taken responsibility for the restoration. While passing through each era, they have been striving toward one purpose: to realize the will. In other words, the 4,000 years of history before the coming of Jesus was this kind of history. The course of conflict in the thirty years of his life was also trying to realize this purpose. The history of conflict that he carried on with the Holy Spirit by his side for 2,000 years was also an attempt to achieve this purpose.
The purpose for which Jesus came to the earth was to restore history. He came with the mission to restore his own self and the world. Therefore, the words of the gospel that he spoke on the earth were for the sake of restoring the history of Israel and to restore himself in his life of thirty years. Going one step further, it was for the sake of restoring the humanity of the world. Therefore, based on the words that Jesus left behind him, humankind has been passing through the course of history until today, taking responsibility for portions of the dispensation of restoration.
Not only that, today you must cultivate the mind-set of a loyal subject who, centering on the words of the New Testament that Jesus spoke 2,000 years ago, can indemnify the 6,000 years of the past and represent the eternal life of the future. At the same time, you should find the value of victory that can restore you and history. If you cannot do this, then the words of the gospel, the words of life to restore humanity, which represented the 4,000-year history and the thirty years of Jesus' life, cannot bear any kind of fruit.
You today must become children who remove the grief and suffering of Jesus, who represented the 4,000-year history. You must become children who complete Jesus' mission of restoration. For the thirty years of his life, Jesus tried to establish the new ideology of restoration before humanity and lay the victorious foundation of Heaven. You must also complete the mission that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have labored to accomplish.
By doing so, as the representative of history, you should return the triumphant glory of restoration to the Father. You should return to the Father honor that has a value that surpasses the value of Jesus' victorious life.
If one were to ask whether Jesus reveals everything to humankind in his dispensation to accomplish the history of God's restoration, the answer is negative. We know through the Divine Principle that until now, Jesus could not unveil specific details of the dispensation of restoration in his works.
He hid himself, and with symbolic words of testimony has been leading the dispensation of restoration to accomplish the will of Heaven on the earth. He has been propelling the dispensation of restoration forward without fully divulging the glory of Heaven before humankind. Consequently, we must come to understand the internal heart of Jesus, who has been driving the dispensation of restoration forward without clearly revealing the specific details.
The Reasons Jesus Could Not Divulge the Inner Feelings of His Heart
What must you understand to restore the glory of restoration today? You must come to understand the concealed value of restoration that Jesus could not expose, first through your daily life, and next through your minds. You must then understand the unknown inside story of the restoration of Jesus, who could not disclose the value of eternal life.
After that, when God is trying to fully establish the glory of restoration on behalf of Heaven, what must we understand? You must understand the content that Jesus had to hide deep inside his heart and could not divulge freely to humanity during the thirty years of his life. If you do not understand such matters, then you will not be able to manifest, from earth to heaven, the full value of the restoration that represents the universe.
If you closely scrutinize the words of the gospel that Jesus revealed, you will find that specific details of his daily life are not described. The way that Jesus suggested aspects of his undisclosed lifestyle is through the example of sacrificial service. In other words, although he was a glorious son who could rise high, he lowered his glorious self. By going below the feet of sinners and living a life of sacrifice and service, he revealed the concealed aspects of himself. Moreover, through his life of reticence, he revealed the hidden aspects of his life that he could not reveal to anyone. He could not divulge his inner thoughts even to the twelve disciples.
The reason that Jesus could not expose the secret is that he knew that although he himself understood the secret of Heaven, if he made it known when there was no one who could comprehend it, he would have been mocked by Satan. In other words, he had the burning desire to convey to humankind the things that the Father had shared with him, but because there was no one who fathomed his thoughts and came to listen to him, he could not proclaim the secret of Heaven to humankind. He could not reveal the hidden aspects of his heart before humankind.
As a result, he was pushed to walk to the cross and stand before the authorities and Pilate. He was convicted of the crime of "claiming himself to be the king of the Jews." At that time, Jesus kept his silence and only after Pilate asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" did he finally reveal his identity.
The good and righteous people on the side of God should have considered it their life-long glory to serve and worship Jesus as their king. Instead, Jesus faced a trial before Pilate and was convicted as a criminal. When he faced the trial of Satan that could not be avoided, he broke his silence. Speaking on behalf of the agony of God, he spoke the truth as it was.
From this we can learn that even in the works of Heaven, when Satan exposes the truth and inquires about it to God's side, God's side has no choice but to reveal the hidden heart. Conversely, when the saints on the side of God point out the hidden secrets inside the heart of Satan, he also has no choice but to tell the truth.
Jesus kept within himself the knowledge of restoration that he could not reveal to anyone. In his daily life, he not only propelled forward the dispensation of Heaven through silent deeds of service, in the practical aspect of his life, he moved ahead of everyone to reveal the concealed truth about the restoration. Therefore, you should penetrate into the heart of Jesus that can reflect the ideology of restoration and ask, "Is your heart not like this?"
You Must Understand the Undisclosed Secret of the Dispensation Through the Cooperation of the Holy Spirit
You must understand that unless such people emerge, no matter how much time in history passes by, the secret hidden deep inside the heart of Jesus cannot be revealed on the earth. Moreover, you must comprehend the secret of restoration that was unveiled through the life of Jesus and the knowledge of restoration inside his heart.
Only after you do that can you confidently stand before God and stand proudly before Satan. In other words, only after you do that can you become one who has completed the restoration of a victorious life.
Jesus indemnified the 4,000-year history through the thirty years of his life. He perfected the center of the restoration on behalf of everything in the universe. However, until today, there has not been even one person who could inherit the full value of Jesus, the value of the secret kept deep inside his heart and his undisclosed life. The person who appeared with his internal secret and the secret surrounding his life in his time and place is the Holy Spirit.
Although you believe in the words of Jesus' gospel, those words alone are not enough for restoration. What you need is the Holy Spirit cooperating in your life and living with you.
Therefore, just as Jesus walked the course of sacrifice and service, you must walk the same kind of course and go before the cross before the concealed secret of Jesus' life can be divulged by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the internal secret of his heart will also be manifested in the same way.
Consequently, we must know today that unless our mind and daily life become one on the basis of our unity with the Holy Spirit, achieved with her cooperation, and unless we can establish a relationship of oneness between Jesus and the Holy Spirit centered on ourselves, there can be no true life. Similarly, with the help of the Holy Spirit, today we are undergoing an important process of realizing the truth of restoration locked inside the secret of Jesus' life and heart. Accordingly, we who are in the middle of that process must become one with the Holy Spirit in the same way that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have become one and form a trinity centered on Jesus. This is the only way that we can securely lay down on the earth a plane or base on which the foundation of God's victory can be established.
Moreover, when you seek the concealed knowledge of true life, even if you are receiving the help of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that kind of life only comprises a part of the restoration process for a whole life. The reason is that the secret of the restoration of a whole life still remains as the secret of Heaven. Consequently, even if you have achieved something that has a value equivalent to life, with that alone, you will not be able to consummate it. There still are hidden aspects of life that God has not yet revealed through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
The Things We Need
We must fully manifest the value of the restoration of the whole and show to many people the value of the secret of the life of Jesus. At the same time, we must represent the value of the internal secret that Jesus kept. We must be able to obtain God's recognition for the value of the universal life that combines Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
What kind of state are you in? Although you have the desire to love Jesus, you have not been successful in loving him properly. For this reason, you must learn about the continued service and devotional life of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in which they persisted for the sake of causing humankind to love God. You must also learn about how God could not love Jesus as much as Jesus has exerted himself on behalf of all things.
Now if you do not understand such contents of love and fulfill them, then there is no way you can resolve the deeply-rooted grief of Heaven and bring to pass the remaining history of God's restoration on this earth. What then do we need as we go forward toward the purpose of the restoration of life and the dispensation of restoration of life in the growth stage? The growth stage came after the three-year course of public life, the course of crucifixion and the course of cooperation, in which Jesus and the Holy Spirit have been toiling for 2,000 years since the ascension. What we need to do is imitate the heart of goodness with which God has loved Jesus and the Holy Spirit and has embraced the whole universe in love for 6,000 years. We must then establish the center of love in which our heart can work in unity with the hearts of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. If you cannot accomplish these, then you cannot complete restoration in respect to our lifestyle, heart and life. You cannot make a relationship with the love of God, which has the power to fully manifest the value of the whole life and glory.
To Make a Relationship of Love with God
What then do we need to do to make a relationship with the love of God? We must pass through the central course that Jesus walked in his life and pass through his heart, which has exerted itself for the sake of humanity for 2,000 years. In other words, we must go through the internal heart of Jesus, who has felt distressed about the situation of humanity during the historical course. We must go through the internal heart of the Holy Spirit, who has been at work since the ascension of Jesus until now. We should sympathize with and deeply feel the anxious heart of God, who has led the dispensation for the 6,000 years since the creation and is now exerting Himself to build the ideal world that is to come. If you cannot do this, then you will not be able to fulfill the full value of the restoration centering on the love of God, which represents the eternal glory of life. You must not forget this.
Therefore, just as Jesus has walked the path, you must walk the same path that the Holy Spirit has walked. Moreover, you must follow the course and example of the apostles, in which they forgot about everything, including even the awareness of their own existence, and lived only for the sake of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
When you walk that kind of course, you can finally be able to dominate your mind and your lifestyle, and life will overflow within you. You will be able to be linked up with the love of God. Moreover, the love of Jesus will be manifested through you, and the love of the Holy Spirit will dwell within different aspects of Your life. You must clearly understand this.
Prayer
Beloved Father! Where tears flow over tears, let there be a passageway of the emotion of Heaven that cannot be severed. We know that where the heavenly emotion passes through, the connection with life will be made, so that the karma of love hidden in Heaven will be revealed. We know that this must become linked through the earth.
Father, we know that the garden in which everything is restored is the garden of love, the garden of victory and the garden of glory that You desire. For the sake of realizing this kind of garden, we know that we must claim back the life, love and glory which You can be happy about through our own life of service. At the same time, we must cultivate ourselves.
We must understand the heart of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who cannot fully reveal the will of Heaven before humankind, though they keep it close to their hearts. They cannot proclaim it to humankind though they have the burning desire to convey it. They hope that humankind can liberate them from this distressed, anxious heart and situation. We must also know the heart and situation of the Father, who must reserve the words that should be spoken through Jesus. Not only that, we were not aware of the fact that before us lies the unfulfilled history in which we must comprehend this and achieve the liberation. On that foundation, we must disclose before Heaven, "Is this not the very will of the Father hidden inside the secret?"
Thus, when we think about the fact that with us remains the responsibility to bring to pass even the tasks that Jesus left unfulfilled on the earth with the help of the Trinity, we know that we must divulge the wish of the internal heart, which is concealed within God. It is not known to Jesus, the Holy Spirit nor all the countless living things, nor to all who have sacrificed themselves for the sake of the will of the dispensation up to now. After having completed this, if we can point out, Is this not the fervent yearning of the Father that the Father could not speak about? then we can receive the ultimate love that the Father has safeguarded deep inside His heart. By virtue of this, we can manifest before humanity the center of the love that flows down from the Father. This is what we must accomplish.
Father, we are now receiving Your love, so please allow us to be responsible for and accomplish this feat. My Father, I earnestly offer my wish and desire. Only after this task is fulfilled can the wish inside the heart of Jesus be realized, as well as the wish of Father who has been exerting Himself to lead the dispensation for 6,000 years.
Accordingly, Father, please accomplish through us the standard for the ideal of the restoration that You have kept in Your heart since the creation. Please allow us to build the thousand-year kingdom with that standard as the foundation. Allow us to reach the realm of Your ideals, so that humankind on the earth can totally inherit the internal heart of the Father extending beyond trillions and billions of years, for eternity, without limit.
Please guide us to remove all the conditions that might provoke Satan's accusation, and as the representative of heaven and earth, accomplish total restoration. Allow us to become children who can claim back the glory of the full value of the Father and offer it to You. Loving Father, I fervently make this wish.
Until now, we have been struggling in a lowly and trivial state. When we interact with a person, we have struggled to raise ourselves higher and in a meeting, we have sought to make ourselves known. Yet Jesus knew that God could not assert His dignity before all things, so out of concern for God's dignity, he dared not to step into the limelight, but bowed his head in humility. What is more, we know that he has concentrated all his thought for the sake of pioneering an exemplary path before the enemies. Please allow us also to walk that path with joy.
Jesus was more concerned about comforting God than about his own comfort because he knew that humankind could not resolve the grievances rooted deep inside the heart of God. In the same way, we must now become filial sons and daughters who can comprehend that heart of Jesus and console him. Beloved Father, please lead us. We earnestly yearn for it.
Please divulge to us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit the anguished heart that the Father has kept hidden for 6,000 years. By doing so, we sincerely hope that You can guide us to comfort that heart of the Father and become the champions of restoration who can represent the glory of victory.
Please let us comprehend that if we cannot become the victorious heroes in regards to the lifestyle, heart, power of life and the course of life unknown to humankind, this grand feat cannot be accomplished. Similarly, it cannot be accomplished if we cannot become the king of reticence. Allow us to understand that unless the fight with Satan comes to an end, this feat will not be completed.
Now please lead us so that we can start from one and pass through the whole course of conflict, then stand before God and receive Your words of blessing to inherit Your heart. Please allow us to forge the relationship of victory and act on behalf of the Father's will.
I fervently pray that You will protect us. Let the Trinity help us until we gain the right to inherit the glorious work of the Father. Offering everything to the Father and taking in all the bad things and winning over Satan, we will obtain the qualifications to be the victorious heroes.
I prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.
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