Sermons of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Volume 4 |
The Whole Universe is Searching for the One Day of Love
I Corinthians 13:1-13
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
February 16, 1958
Prayer
Father! We are ignorant of the original heart with which You created humanity. We know we have failed to feel Your love, which can drive away our sorrows. We must find the love of the Father and restore the original relationship with You, even if it means we have to sacrifice everything we have.
Father! Please allow Your sons and daughters who have gathered here to open the gates to their hearts and seek Your heart and love. Please let them open their ears to hear Your voice. Please allow them to open their eyes so that they can see the Father who is searching for the sons and daughters who can receive the grace bestowed by Heaven.
Based on that, please allow us to see, hear and understand the hands of the Father who has been exerting Himself for us. Allow us to experience that heart of perseverance. We know a little bit about the heart of the Father who toiled and persevered for us, so please govern our minds and bodies in this hour today as completely as Your own.
If there are sons and daughters who have become enslaved inside the realm of death because of their ignorance, Father, we sincerely hope and wish You will allow this to be an opportunity when You can extend Your hands of grace and provoke the whole works of creation. We hope it can be an opportunity for us to relate with the original heart of appeal and become harmonized before the Father's heart.
We have come to realize the will of the Father for which You have poured out all of Your heart. We have come to realize the course of history in which You walked the path of heavenly love. We know that this was fulfilled only through people who searched for the system of values that could connect and relate with Heaven.
If the mission lies with us to uproot the origin of all historical sins, and the sins of the age and all sins of the future, then please let the Father's direct work of love emerge which can provoke in us the desire to offer gratitude for the Father's love. Let us not be dragged about by sin and a deep sense of guilt.
We know that our minds today are not moving centering on us, and our bodies also are in action without us. If our minds have left us and our bodies also, then we can feel the heart of the Father, who must use us to carry out His dispensation. We have come to understand that the time has come when we must work through the truth and character of the heavenly principles and the love of the Father.
Father, we earnestly wish You to allow the words emerge that can introduce the Father's love to all of humanity. Please let the person of character who can testify to Your love appear before many citizens of the last days today. Please allow us to prepare our hearts and lay the foundation to follow that truth. Father, we ardently wish that the day everything becomes clear before the will of the Father will soon emerge in history.
Father, please allow us to become people who can experience the aching heart of the Father, as Paul said. Allow us to experience the Father's heart of love that He could not feel. As Jesus died on the cross, please help us become the children who can become the sacrifice before the people and build the altar of the whole. Please allow us to be one with the Father's heart of love.
Father, the path that leads to the heavenly principles is one path; the path that can liberate Jesus from all toils is also one path. The path to remove the grief of the deaths of the prophets and patriots is also one path. Therefore, Father, we earnestly pray that You will let this be a time when we can hold onto this one heart and offer the sacrifice of redemption before the Father on behalf of heaven and earth.
Now we have entrusted everything to You, so please govern us. Please let me convey the words You want to convey. Please do not let the heart of the speaker and the heart of the listener become disunited. Let this hour be a time when our minds and bodies can move when Heaven moves. Hoping that You will eliminate Satan and govern everything, we offered all the words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
You probably know that in the Divine Principle there is the term cosmos (chun-joo). You probably also know that this term refers to the combination of the invisible world and the visible world. Both the Creator, who created the world, and all things created by Him have been searching for the one day of love.
The Necessities in Human Life
If there is something that is most urgently needed and important, it is possessing God. The next most important thing is becoming a true person who has a true mind and body; next is possessing true material things. What could be after these things? It is the love we must have as human beings. These are the important things that are absolutely needed for the fallen people of today to live on.
When we look at ourselves, one cannot deny that we need God to be a true person and to have material things of true goodness that are centered on us. Furthermore, we need the one relation of love that can bring all things together centering on us.
Do you know where resides the God you need? Do you know where you can find the true person and the true materials you need? There is no one who can confidently give a clear and well-informed answer to this question.
Therefore, if you who have gathered here have something of which you can be proud, you must step forward with a new heart and a new concept. The time has come when you must do this. In the life you have lived until now, you probably felt that because we have not obtained all the elements we need today, we cannot lead a peaceful and comfortable life and cannot feel the love of God, which can connect with the eternal ideology of creation. We cannot sing a song of our lives.
You cannot deny that the time has come when we must mourn over the fact that we do not have anything we can boast about before all things of the cosmos. This is the reason St. Paul vividly confessed that this is the sorrow of Heaven, the sorrow of human beings, and the sorrow of all things. You must never forget that the responsibility to resolve all of this sorrow is given to you. It is your life course, you who are living inside the realm of the fate of restoration, to shoulder this kind of responsibility.
Therefore, now if you feel any sense of sorrow over yourself, you must worry about the history connected to you. You must worry about the era connected to your practical life. You must worry about the future.
However, if there are those who are struggling without any thought for the things they should be worried about, they are the most miserable people. When people, who have the mission to get rid of the conditions of lamentation left behind in heaven and on earth by the fall, do not realize their position and emerge in a shameful way before all things, then how would God feel as He looks upon them? You must realize that you are shameful ones who have added to the torment of God.
The Ultimate Hope of Humanity
Where is the loyal person who can go beyond this contradictory environment and step forward confidently to take responsibility for the sorrow of the whole universe! If there is hope for humanity, it is in becoming this kind of loyal subject.
What must we do to become this loyal subject? We must represent God, a true person, and all true things that we need today and unite them into one. We must be able to discuss love with God.
You must understand that although until now we have been offering various kinds of prayers and have been serving the will while we were passing through the course of providential history, there is no one who went so far as to be able to liberate the grieving heart that lies deep inside God and discuss love with Him. Although Jesus came to the earth, because human beings could not form a substantial relationship of love with God through him, he has to come again.
Although Jesus came with the mission to bring the 4,000-year history of restoration to perfection, if we were to ask, "Have human beings formed a relationship with the love of God?" no one is in the position to say yes. Because we are in this situation, we are most pitiful, and there is nothing more sorrowful than this.
What do you have today that you can brag about? Do you have knowledge? When compared to the principles and rules of all things in heaven and earth, the knowledge that you have is extremely insignificant. No matter how much twentieth century civilization has developed, it remains in the realm where it cannot establish the one absolute principle and rule. Therefore, even if we do have something to brag about, you have to sense that the time is coming when we must reexamine that.
Heaven found you while looking at the historical fortune and the fortune of the age, while worrying about the fortune of the future. If you want to establish yourself before this Heaven and boast of yourself, then you must first become the people who possess Heaven. You must become true people. Moreover, you must become people who can relate with all true things. This is an important issue.
You must clearly understand that the highest purpose of God, who has been guiding the dispensation until now, and the highest standard of Jesus, who has been toiling until now after establishing the will of the dispensation, is that you earn the qualifications of the ruler, which were expected of Adam and Eve. They were told to rule all things of the universe after God created them. You must be able to say, "We know that this is what You have longed for, with what You have blessed us. Please allow us to form a bond with Your heavenly love."
Has humankind arrived at such a situation at present? It is because of the human fall. Because people today are the descendants of the fall, there is no one who is living without a fallen shape and form. When fallen lifestyles on the individual level are joined to form fallen nature on the world scale, there must emerge one principle that can shatter this on the world scale to indemnify and eradicate it. You have to remember that before the principles appear that can guide people to the opposite direction of the fall, no matter what ideas of goodness or doctrines are promoted, they will not be able to connect us to the hope of human beings or with fundamental joy.
What must we do, we who are fallen descendants who cannot escape from the wheel of fallen history? We must become the true person who has the character that can represent the ideology of the whole universe and the value that can govern all things. Moreover, if we long for the love of God, there is something we must not forget. We must not forget that we have inherited the fallen lineage.
If you sense that the original fallen natures are occupying your heart, then you will come to realize that something new is emerging that you could not think of or fathom until now. Now you must go before God as people of character who represent all things, the whole creation, and appeal, "I am a person of the fallen lineage." If you have never offered this kind of prayer, you cannot escape from the realm of sorrow that remains before the cosmos.
The Things That Were Lost Due to the Fall and Faithlessness
What does the fall of Adam and Eve signify? It signifies that they abandoned God, lost the original, ideal human nature, and lost the environment of good dominion. In other words, they lost God, true personhood, and true material things. Next, they lost the words of God and the love of God. This was the fall. Human beings cannot overcome these results.
Now we must fight to settle and pioneer all these from the opposite direction. If you do not become this kind of fighter, you have to realize there is no way for you to escape from the historical realm of sin and the realm of Satan, who has been opposing the dispensation of Heaven.
People have left the bosom of God due to the fall. They have lost the original true human nature and left the realm of the true universe. The history to restore all this is the history of God's re-creation and the dispensation of God, who has been exerting Himself until now.
Grief was caused when the first Adam fell. What then did the second Adam, in other words, Jesus, who came as the restored Adam, have to do? First, he had to let God come into his heart. He had to possess the will of a true person in his body and become the true lord of dominion. Jesus came to this earth as the one subject, the embodiment and testifier to heavenly love. He was to testify to human love and to the love of all things and was to unite them all into one.
Therefore, Jesus promoted the Kingdom of Heaven within the mind. He asserted his oneness with God, saying that God lived in his heart. Moreover, he said he was to govern the whole universe. Holding up the motto of love toward all of humanity, he said, "I am God's son, and you are my friends and brothers." You must understand that the value of Jesus as the Messiah is contained in those words.
Jesus had the mission to move the family, the society, the people, the nation, the world and even the cosmos, centering on himself. The Israelites betrayed him, the church betrayed him, the chosen John the Baptist betrayed him, and his family betrayed him.
You probably know well, from the Principle, that because of this, Jesus established his own apostles. Using them as the foundation upon which to stand, he tried to form the second Israel and realize the ideal of the restoration of Canaan on the world level. Because the Israelites, who were organized into twelve tribes, opposed him, the form of the twelve tribes was broken. The result of that was that the foundation Moses had laid was lost. The foundation that Jacob had built, centering on the twelve sons, was lost. Therefore, Jesus had to take twelve disciples.
Although Jesus should have stood at the forefront as the founder of the second Israel, since the twelve apostles who were like the twelve sons of Jacob were losing their faith, he had to create the form of Noah's family. He took the three disciples that corresponded to the three sons of Noah and wandered in the garden of Gethsemane. However, when even these three disciples could not become one with him, Jesus was forced to fall down to the position of Adam at the time of the fall. Christians today do not understand this. Moreover, they are not aware of the prayer Jesus offered for the ignorant people nor are they aware of his tormented heart.
As the hero who governs the world, Jesus should have been able to introduce the heart of God to the humanity of the world. He should have ruled over all things, but he was ostracized by John the Baptist and his own family.
Consequently, Jesus became a pitiful person and lost the foundation of the world and the people. Jesus was put in the same position as Adam, who had lost his bride because of the fall of Eve.
Jesus came as the True Parents to humanity, who had lost the true, unfallen parents. Yet he lost his family and the three disciples he had set up as his children. Therefore, he was put in the position of Adam who had lost Eve. Therefore, Jesus left behind the concept of the bride and bridegroom on this earth. You have to understand that Jesus was in this heartbreaking situation.
Jesus could not finish revealing the words that could unite the world, the words that could unite Christians, the second Israel on the world level, and the representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel. He could not finish revealing the words concerning individual laws, social ethics, and the institution of the family that could bring people to the heavenly principles. This was the greatest grief of Jesus.
However, people today do not realize this historical fact. Moreover, even Christians who claim to believe in God do not understand this. How much would God mourn as He looks down upon these people? Because God's plan to bless the Israelites, as the second Israel, at the time of Jesus and build the second Canaan was shattered, God's sorrow was greatly increased.
The Things Which the Returning Lord Needs
If Jesus comes again to this earth, who will he come as and where will he come? Jesus cannot immediately come to the fallen human world. Because he has to go through the course of restoration, he has to pass through the stages of Noah's family and Adam's family. In the environment of the people of faith today is the course of the historical fate to take charge of the situation of Jesus and move forward to the world level. However, the people of faith today are ignorant of this. If they are not aware of this, then no matter how much they believe in Jesus, there is no way for them to receive him.
The returning Lord comes as the master of the world. However, the returning Lord needs first a family, a tribe, a people and a nation centered on Heaven. Only then can he become the master of the world. This is the basic principle.
If Christianity today wants to represent the ideology of the Lord who is trying to restore the world, it must first think whether there is a family of God centered on Jesus that can become a foundation on the world level. If the heavenly tribe and heavenly religion are not prepared centering on Jesus and the transcendent foundation on the world level is not firmly laid, then who can say that he will not become the Jesus of sorrow when he comes again to this earth? You must never forget that historical fact is testifying to this.
The fortune of Heaven and earth is passing through you, whether you are aware of it, whether the people are aware of it, and whether the nation declines or prospers. All kinds of vicissitudes are passing through you.
What was the will of God, who has been working throughout the course of the 2,000-year history since Jesus? The will of God was to set up the one center through Jesus that could represent the whole heavenly ideology and materialize true love on earth. However, because that will was not fulfilled when Jesus died on the cross, the mission to fulfill that will remains with people on earth.
What must you do now? We must appeal to Heaven that since we have lost Jesus, Heaven must send the true person that belongs to the side of Heaven, the true leader who can possess all true things.
Because Jesus who came as the second Adam was killed, human beings again need the Lord who comes with the words that are hidden inside God's heart, the Lord who comes to construct the kingdom of Heaven with the character of the kingdom of Heaven, the Lord who comes with the qualifications to rule over all things. This is the hope of humanity.
Now we must learn to be dignified before God, who is working His dispensation through the people He raises; otherwise, even if Jesus comes to this earth again, we cannot meet him. Next, you must remember that when Jesus came to the earth, those who were supposed to attend him caused his death and lapsed into the position of having fallen for the second time. They abandoned God, the Kingdom of Heaven, being true people, and they abandoned the whole universe. Therefore, you must always believe in the Lord and attend him.
The Things Which the Leading Actors of the New Age Must Do
What must faithful believers do today? The most important thing is to build the Kingdom of Heaven through the love of Jesus. Where does the Kingdom of Heaven begin? It begins from understanding the love and character of Jesus and understanding the realm of dominion over all things in which Jesus can govern. Those who are ignorant of the love and character of Jesus and the realm of dominion over all things will not be able to find God.
When we look back at the 2,000-year history since Jesus, we can see that many Christian believers have carried on the movement to find God again. Therefore, the Roman Empire, which had severely persecuted Christianity, finally recognized it publicly. By eventually building the Vatican in Rome, their politics revolved around the Vatican, and in the end they formed feudal society.
However, during the Middle Ages, the Vatican became corrupt, and humanist thought infiltrated Christianity. After the Middle Ages, Christians lost God. In other words, many people were lost to humanist thought. Through the Enlightenment, historical materialism was born.
This is based on the philosophical thought of rationalism and empiricism, which emphasize human reason. Therefore, because of the trend of capitalist thought and historical materialism, the world has deteriorated into a place where materialism, which stresses the value of materials, is flourishing.
Jesus shouldered the mission to unite the whole dispensation on behalf of the will of Heaven. He came to this earth as the second Adam. Because our ancestors ostracized Jesus, we cannot escape the course of the history of sin. Therefore, we could not find God, true humanity and true material things. Accordingly, no matter how hard we struggle to find the true person, we cannot.
Who caused the destruction of the feudal social structure of the Middle Ages? Heaven destroyed it. God wanted to fulfill the Will centering on the Roman Vatican, but because the Vatican was becoming corrupt, He dismantled it. Because the people who believed in God were closer to the position of betraying the will of the heavenly principles, God elevated humanistic thought and struck them.
In the midst of all this, God carried out the Religious Reformation through Luther, the one person who was concerned for Heaven, to safeguard the base of the dispensation. God carried on a dispensation that on the one side shattered things and on the other side built things up. After having Christianity go through the form of the second Israel, and after bringing confusion upon a generation through the Renaissance, God conducted the dispensation in a way that confronted the Enlightenment, which was centered on humanist, rationalist philosophy.
Leaders of the Enlightenment like Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and others thought Christianity would be destroyed. However, upright people came out of Germany and inspired mysticism, insisting upon actual, internal experience with God. This passed through England, and the Wesley brothers began a revival movement. The sect of the Quakers also came into being, and they had mystical, internal experiences.
On the other hand, people forgot God loved them. Forgetting even human reason, which they loved, they went so far as to espouse the trend of materialistic thought. Because even fallen human beings must certainly return to the original position, there will come a time when the trend of thought based on material things will be struck.
The Middle Ages, centered on the deity, have passed. The period when the world was dominated by rationalist philosophy has also passed. Materialism and the trends of thought and the systems it instituted in the eighteenth century are also losing their light. In the world of the future, human beings will not obtain satisfaction even if they love material things. They will not be able to make a breakthrough in their practical problems even if they follow the teachings of the historical personalities of the past. Therefore, there is no way that one can govern the world with communist ideology, which promotes the prosperity of society through the power to produce material things.
Therefore, pivoting around the 21st century, we will usher in the age of atomic power and break up the materialistic civilization's dominion over the world. There will come a time when we can pursue and enjoy love. To walk confidently before all things of the universe in the era of love that is to come, you should wisely cope with your mission as the central people who bring together all historical values.
Because you have to walk through the course of fallen Adam and Eve, you must understand that, although each of you has to inherit the mission of the period of the second Adam, you are not qualified to do that. Furthermore, you must understand that history today is the history of searching for God, true people and the true materials lost because of the human fall.
The Cause of the Fall and the Ultimate Purpose of the Progress of History
How did the fall of Adam come about? It took place when Adam and Eve were tempted by the illegitimate love that God did not permit, which entered from the sides. They destroyed the heavenly principles. In our life, many archangelic forms appear that unfolded in the Garden of Eden. Now we are passing through the era when what is not right is pretending to be right, so there is no way to avoid the era of the confusion of love.
The dispensation of God walks the opposite path and is working through the opposite way. When we look back at the 6,000-year history, we can understand that the Old Testament era was the era of finding material things. In other words, it was the era when people could go before God by using materials as the sacrifice. The New Testament era was the era of offering Jesus, the true Adam, as the sacrifice.
In the Completed Testament era of the future, all human beings will become substantial sacrifices before God. It will be a time when, by going past the standard that can unite all things, they can govern love.
However, Christians today do not know that the dispensation of God appears in the form of striking and destroying the external aspects of the world and of establishing the internal aspects. In other words, they do not know the nature of God's internal dispensation that strikes the external aspects of history and embraces the internal aspects.
What was God trying to find throughout the 6,000 years of God's dispensation? He was trying to find the words of eternal promise that stand before God and humans. Those words seek to form the true relationship between parent and child and unite them.
Through the Principle, you know that the cause of the human fall was an illegal and illicit sexual relationship. Therefore, you who are living in the last days must be careful. Any man, if not careful, will easily associate with two women, and women will easily be pulled into this.
The time of material civilization based on unlimited power is coming. The very first era for humans was that of eating raw food. It was followed by the era of eating cooked food. Next will come the era of "water food," in other words, the time when we take nutrition from water. The time will come in the future when scientific food can serve well to maintain our health. The era when human effort is needed will pass.
At such a time, what are we going to do? What will remain then will be the culture of art. We will seek the path of beauty and love. This is a good thing.
However, if humanity deviates from the laws of the heavenly way and is struggling to find it, where will they eventually end? What will happen to them? This should be cause for concern among the people who believe in religion today.
The present civilization came to the point where it no longer needs religions that do not comprehend the true situation of the world and are at a loss. Therefore, religions today shoulder the mission to point out to humanity the path humans must take. When we look back over the 2,000-year history, there were many revolutions. You have to understand that while going through the course of revolutions, humanity has been aiming for the one world of unity.
The World of Emotion, Centered on the Love of God
When we consider that humans have intellect, emotion and will, we know that the Creator, who exists as the main master of all things of the universe, is the subject of the intellect, emotion and will that can connect with the higher laws of the Principle. When we examine history, we can see that it is expanding out from the level of the individual to the level of the family, from the family to the tribe, from the tribe to the people, the nation and the world. Moreover, passing through this kind of external form, we are entering the era when internal thought and concepts are upheld as most important.
An individual man heads toward the internal, spiritual dimension through the external dimension. Since the spirit assumes leadership, we can establish the one value system only when spirit and thought are united. When this is done, we can walk on the right track toward the unified purpose.
The same holds true for the world. Because there is a world concept, there will emerge a world structure that can tie the world together for the sake of the unification of the spirit, which is the one unifying point. This is the situation with the confrontation between democracy and communism today. You must understand that at this time God, who created the spirit world and the cosmos, is trying to actualize the ideology of the unification of the cosmos. Therefore, the ideology of the spirit world and the ideology of the physical world are in contradiction and will collide.
Through the historical course of conflict between superior people and inferior people, the world is moving toward one world centering on the one world perspective. In the future, there will come a time when all the spirits of the spirit world will return to the earth. When this takes place, great confusion will unfold on earth and all kinds of confrontations and conflicts will take place. When this happens, you must take the leading role to guide all of them to conclusion in the direction Heaven wants. To do that, you must first become qualified to represent the heart of God and the ideology of the heavenly principles. This is the hope that God has in the end of history. He cannot fulfill this hope solely with the Christianity of today.
Although there were countless revolutions in the course of history, there was never a revolution on the issue of human emotion. Throughout the ages, when revolutionary elements were budding, all the systems of the society and nation could not drive them out, but were revolutionized and destroyed by them.
Concerning this emotional problem, have you become true parents who can stand before Heaven? Have you become true couples? Do you have true children? If not, then you are violating the heavenly principles.
Jesus came to this earth with the love of God. Introducing that love, he said that he was the son of God. The relationship of love that formed between God and Jesus could not be severed by anyone, from that day to this. No matter how strong the forces of Satan were on this earth, they could not sever it. Moreover, they could not undermine the proclamation of Jesus, "You are my bride and my brothers."
Because of this kind of foundation, Christianity could progress throughout the course of history. Thus, Christianity could become the backbone of the Kingdom of Heaven. It has been progressing through the course of history to realize the form of a family that can represent the heavenly love that comes through the one personality.
No matter how much power one possesses or what high, prestigious academic degree one has, one who has not formed a relationship of love with Heaven is miserable. Thus, those who understand this basic principle must be grateful to Jesus. If Jesus had not insisted on this, what would have happened to the human world? It would have turned into a world of darkness. It would have turned into a world of faithlessness and conflict, antagonism and discord.
Therefore, only when the emotional aspects of humankind become one, centering on the love of God, and the new world of substantial love is built on this earth will the time of peace and harmony finally come. Accordingly, you who are living in the last days of the universe must not be self-centered on issues of sexuality. Beyond that, you must love the people, the nation and the world more than you love your own family. You must love the universe more than the world. All the human principles and the heavenly principles which were pursued, until now, in the course of history must be combined 100 percent in this end of time.
Therefore, the time has come when you must abandon all the emotional problems you have had until now and hope for the good news, based upon which you can have a new beginning. The words Jesus spoke, that people must love him more than they love anyone else, must again appear in the last days. We have passed through the era when human reason was worshipped. We have passed through the era of materials. Now the era of love will come.
Therefore, we now need the words of Heaven that can solve the problems of human emotion and love. Such a time has come.
To Give and Receive Love with God
Until now humans have only pursued a plus ideology throughout the course of history. This is not acceptable. God is like the plus and human beings are like the minus. Therefore, religions teach that people should not be arrogant. They also teach that men should not love themselves. They teach us to deny everything, even to strike our bodies. The reason for this is that since God is plus, humans can engage in giving and receiving with Him only if they become minus.
Plus and plus oppose each other. They repel and push each other away. Satan is that which does not want to stand in the position of a minus, but wants to be a plus though God is in the position of plus. As I mentioned before, the life of the Way promotes the suppression of desire. The purpose for this is to strike the side of Satan, in other words, the plus aspect that belongs to evil, and transform it into the position of minus.
The purpose of striking the body is to strike that which should be in the position of minus but is trying to stand in the position of plus. It is to turn it into the position of minus so that it can engage completely in giving and receiving with Heaven. Accordingly, if you do not get rid of all conditions centered on your bodies, there is no way that you can stand as a perfect minus before Heaven, which is the perfect plus. You must not forget that the whole universe is longing for the one day of love when this kind of person can appear on the earth to give and receive love with God for eternity.
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