The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009 |
Our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother, we want to thank You so much that we can be here today. We thank You for Your love, for Your grace, for guiding and protecting us throughout this week, allowing us to be here. We want to truly open our hearts and our minds to You, allowing You to flow in. We want to welcome You, asking You to be here with us. We know that when two or more are gathered in Your name, You are there. We also believe that You do not go where You are uninvited, so we truly want to invite You to be here today.
We want to give You our hearts, our joy, our victories. We also want to offer You our challenges and difficulties, even our complaints because we know You want to dwell with us. You want to know everything about us. You are there to support and to love us. You want us to offer all that we have to You. We know that You believe in us, that You are there for us. You will receive us in your hands. We thank You for believing in us, for being our biggest fan, our most incredible parents. Again, we welcome You. We ask that You speak through our speakers today, that You really, share Your love and Your heart through them. Help us to receive their word that we might be more empowered to go forward and truly become your great sons and daughters. We offer all of this to You as sons and daughters, as blessed brothers and sisters from around the world. Aju.
Welcome brothers and sisters. Good afternoon. Welcome to our Headquarters Unification Church. Today, we have a glorious day to worship our Heavenly Father. So, let’s praise our Heavenly Father and let us give our victory, our grace and our true love to our Heavenly Father and True Parents. Welcome brothers and welcome sisters.
Aju! Welcome brothers and sisters. Let’s start by manifesting the Principle. Let’s do it together, ready? Give and receive action, four-position foundation, all coming into one, centered on God’s True Love. Aju! Thank you.
We are going to start with Cheon Seong Gyeong page 934 today. Father speaks. He says
"The moment of fulfillment of the ideal of God’s love is established when God, as the internal parent, achieves complete oneness with Adam and Eve as the external parents. God, the incorporeal parent, becomes the eternal parent in the corporeal world by taking on the form of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve can then become the True Parents and the true ancestors of all humankind."
Brothers and sisters, we see here again the model and the ideal of creation. We see the symbol that God intended for the world. We see the model there, the give and receive action, the parents centered on God, husband and wife in a true love relationship, children attending their parents with true love. When that model is established, then God is dwelling in this place and then God is dwelling on this earth. See, this was the model in the very beginning, and this was the model that God has been trying to restore throughout human history, and this is the very model that our True Parents have established victoriously. Let’s give them a holy shout of praise!
Wow, I hear you over there. You guys look fantastic today. It is Saturday and you look even better than if it was Sunday. You look good, you feel good. We are here to worship God and True Parents. We are here to honor them. We are here to do our best, do our part. So we give them great strength today. We know that the next week will be tremendous. We are not going to come out with a heavy heart, “My next week, woe is me, woe is me. I’ve got a lot of things to do!” We are coming here to say, “You know what, I am going to be awesome this week. God bless me, protect me, and give me grace." If you believe it let’s give it up for God. [Applause]
Brothers and sisters, we want to welcome you at this service. Today is a great day to be alive. Aju? Let’s all offer it to God. We are going to have a great service. Let’s all rise and do the Family Pledge together.
Brothers and sisters, let’s unite our mind and body. Let’s start with our body. Let’s stretch the hands towards the earth today. I want you to listen to the sounds of the songs. Listen to the words and hear the prayers that are coming out of those songs. I want you to allow it to move your heart and as we pray, let’s pray for those who are in the spirit world. If you came with a guest, let’s take time to pray for that guest. Let’s make partners and pray for each other. Let’s take time for prayer. Listen to the song and pray together as one. Let us pray.
Father, we thank You so much for all those incredible Abel spirits that are protecting us, that are our guardian angels and, Father, we want to pray for each and every one of our brothers and sisters here today. We want to pray for our guardian angels, those Abel good spirits, so that they can continue to do great works working with the physical world. We want to thank You so much. We want to pray and give thanks and glory to You. In our own names as blessed central families, we pray with gratitude. Aju.
Thank you brothers and sisters. It’s always so good to pray for one another, it’s always so good to extend our hearts. Remember that, yes we are a community, and yes we are on this path together. We are not alone. Sometimes we may feel that we are alone but it is so important to remember whenever we walk, we walk in a company of good people. We walk in the company of brothers and sisters. Tell your neighbor you are my brother and sister. Let’s tell your neighbor that. Come on. Let’s stand up and greet the person sitting next to you.
Brothers and sisters, you know we always like to start with something a little interesting, little interesting, and I heard a little story. The Mom was at church, she came with her little daughter and all of a sudden the little girl started feeling a little sick. She said to her Mom, “Mommy, I need to go; can we go?” Mommy said, “Honey, we can’t go right now, it’s in the middle of service! We can’t go!” “Well Mommy, I think I’m going to throw up, I feel really sick,” the girl said. “Alright honey, this is what you do. You go outside of the church and go around to the back and there’s a bunch of bushes there. In the bushes, go do your thing, okay, and then come back.” After just about 45 seconds, a very short amount of time, the little girl returned to her seat. The Mom said, “Honey, did you do your thing? Did you do your business?” The girl said, “Yes, I did it! I did it! I feel fantastic right now!” And Mom said, “Honey, how did you make it back so quick? How did you make it back in 45 seconds?” The little girl said, “Well, Mommy, I didn’t have to go outside; right next to the front door there was a box that said FOR THE SICK. I did it there.” [Laughter]
Brothers and Sisters, today I’d like to talk to you about the fact that it’s all in God’s hands. You know, in order to live the blessed life we have to know that we are in God’s hands. And it’s a folly to think that we have got ourselves to where we are. Of course, we have the 5% responsibility, we have 100% effort, we had to study, we had to get the good grades, to get to the good college, get the job, etc. Sure. That’s all there. But it is so important to remember that without God's protection we could have been very quickly steered into another direction, we could have even lost our life in a split second, in a car accident, in a helicopter accident, in a plane accident, etc., in a number of ways. Remembering that we are in God’s hands and coming into presence with Him with praise and thanksgiving, this is one of the keys to living the blessed life.
Let’s take a look at some of our World Scriptures today. As Unificationists we like to look at all the religious traditions. Let’s look at them today. Let’s look at Judaism and Christianity, this is Deuteronomy 32:39, we’ll read that together:
“There is no God beside me, I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
We see that God is there, He is present and He is in control of our lives. Many times we may not understand what happens in our life, the situations, the circumstances that may come against us, obstacles in our path. But we have to remember, just like Deuteronomy says, that it is in God’s hands, it is in the palm of His hands.
Let’s take a look at Confucianism today: this is the Book of Songs 254. Let’s read this together:
“Revere the changing moods of Heaven and presume not to drive about at your pleasure; Great Heaven is intelligent.”
Great Heaven sees what we are doing. We are in the palm of Heaven’s hands, so to speak; we have to revere and pay attention to the great moods of Heaven, so it says in the Confucian tradition.
Let’s take a look at Islam today: this is the Qur’an, second Sura, 117th verse; we’ll read this together:
“The Creator of the heavens and the earth, when He decrees a thing, He but says to it ‘Be,’ and it is.”
You see, God is in control. We know here that God is not just some Creator far away but God is in our lives. When He says "It happens", when He says "Now is the time", that is the time when it shall occur.
Let’s look at True Parents’ words today. Let’s read this together:
“What is the main idea of the Unification Church? It’s simply to live for others. Even if the whole world opposes, the Unification Church has survived because we know that we will be saved in the hands of God. If we exist for God and if we exist for something, we can overcome any opposition."
You see, Father is telling us here that although we may have to put in our big effort and we have to accomplish our 5% responsibility, in the end, because of the grace of God, because of God’s presence, because He moves with True Parents, because He moves with the movement, then we will be able to overcome obstacles and overcome situations that are coming up against us. This is very important. Brothers and sisters, if you climb Chung Pyung mountain in the morning you will see a beautiful cloud sea; you will see a beautiful fog that just envelops the entire region. So beautiful! You’ve probably all seen this kind of fog dwelling over cities, dwelling over mountainous regions, etc., and we all know that fog can cover cities; we know that fog also can force airports to shut down, cancel flights. Many times our flights have been delayed because of fog, because of not clear visibility.
It can even create accidents, like in the case of True Parents’ helicopter accident at Chung Pyung. We know that the big fog came all of a sudden, and it blinded the pilot. You see, fog is very deceptive. It is very disorienting. Did you know that research shows that in fog people tend to drive faster than when it’s clear? Isn’t that very strange? When you look at people who drive in the fog they actually drive faster because your mind perceives that you’re moving slower than you actually are. When you move through the fog, it seems like you’re moving slower than you actually are. Thus people drive faster, research shows, when driving through the fog. You see, fog makes us blind, it disorients us, and it warps our sense of reality. We think we’re moving slow. We think we’re not getting through but in reality we’re moving actually quite fast.
I read that a cloud of fog that can cover four big city blocks can fit into a small glass of water just like that. One glass of water; big fog that can cover four big blocks long can fit into a normal glass of water. In other words, the fog seems very big, very humongous in our eyes; it’s vast; it covers mountains; covers cities but in reality the substance of the fog is nothing more than a glass of water. It’s so small. It’s so weak. It’s in the same way, just like this, how fog disorients our mind. How fog tricks us into feeling scared about our future. This is exactly what the enemy does. He comes in and fogs our vision, clouds our vision. He disorients us, makes us warp our sense of reality. We’re thinking this is a huge obstacle, huge thing. In reality it’s the size of a water glass but it seems humongous.
When you see it in your mind, we start saying things like, “Oh!” We hear the enemy saying in our mind: “Oh you’re not going to make it; you’re not going to be able to achieve that! That good break will never happen to you! You’re moving too slow! You can’t make it at this pace! There are people so much more talented, so much better than you, they’re moving at such a rapid rate, this is a rat race, don’t you know?” And so we can hear these things in our mind; sometimes these illusions can get so big in our mind that we’re paralyzed. Almost completely dreading the future, we don’t want to move, can’t get up, and can’t get any energy in our life.
I was talking to a woman who was completely dreading the future, very scared of the future. She was very fearful of the fact that her children may grow up and fall away from God and so she couldn’t get up in the morning, she lost her hope, she lost her strength, lost her enthusiasm for life, even getting up was a chore, so difficult just to get up and go through the day. She started getting very depressed, very hopeless, falling into despair, feeling that there’s no hope for her kids, her family, etc. And so I told her what I’m telling you today. I said: “Whenever you start worrying about the future, whenever you start dreading the big fog that’s in front of us, whenever you start fearing what may happen, your children may fall away from God, they may do terrible things, they may fail in school, they may do all those kinds of things, we can worry on and on about these things. But in the end that is just a big fog that is trying to cloud our vision. This is what the enemy is trying to do so that we don’t succeed, we don’t keep a positive mentality, we don’t keep hopeful for our children, and we don’t keep hopeful for our families.
And so I told her, “Whenever you start dreading the future, you feel like you have no energy, I want you to get up, I want you to go to the kitchen, and I want you to fill up a glass of water. Fill that glass of water; look at that glass of water, remember four city blocks of fog in that glass of water. And drink it down, hydrate yourself, drink it down and say, “Bye-bye fog” -- let’s tell your neighbor, “Bye-bye fog,” come on, “Bye-bye, bye-bye fog.” So I said, “Whenever you start getting scared, go to the kitchen; do that. hydrate yourself. Drink the water. Remember: you’re digesting that fear. Digest it. And move on into a new hope.”
You know, this is exactly what happened to Joshua and Caleb. When Moses sent the twelve spies out to scout and spy on Canaan ten came with a negative report. Ten of them said, “Hey, Moses, you sent us there, we took a look around and there was, it’s terrible, the situation is absolutely horrible; Moses, we cannot get near that thing. If we go near there we’re absolutely doomed.” He said, “You know, Moses, we’re like grasshoppers in their sight; they’re like great giants in front of us. There’s no way we can penetrate into that city.” You see, their fear, their dread, exaggerated their reality. It started to warp their vision. You see, when they looked at Canaan, they saw themselves and they looked at themselves with a distorted mind, a defeated mind. The fear exaggerated the greatness of the Canaanites. And so they looked at themselves and said, “We’re grasshoppers!” But seem, that wasn’t the reality.
Even though if it was thousands of years ago, no matter how small a person is, they’re not usually the size of a grasshopper! See, that was the reality; the reality was that they’re not the size of grasshoppers! In their mind the fear exaggerated their feeling of feeling as small as an insect. But in reality they were not: in reality the Canaan people were not that huge, they weren’t double, triple, quadruple their size, they were human beings just like them; but see, the fear, just like a fog, distorted their mind and warped their sense of reality, and it made them more scared, and it absolutely convinced them that this would be impossible. It would be impossible and they would never make it out. “We are doomed to death,” is what they said.
But you see, two of them came back with a positive report; two of them came back, saying, “You know what, Moses? We went there; we saw the same houses; they’re big. We saw the same people; they’re big. But we’re not that small, and we can do it. We can go in there and the walls can come down. I believe it.” That’s what Joshua and Caleb said. They came back with a positive report. They came back with the more clear report, the more realistic report: we can make it in there, "We can see ourselves as God’s children - we can make it in there and be victorious and actualize the promise that God has given us."
And so in essence Joshua and Caleb did exactly what that lady did. They went to the kitchen, they put that big fog in a glass of water, drank it down and said, “Bye-bye big fog,” that’s what they said. Let’s tell your neighbor, “Bye-bye big fog,” let’s do that again, “Bye-bye big fog,” we’ve got to do that more. See, they knew that God was in control of their destiny and that they would be victorious.
You see, True Father has taught us that God is eternal. He taught us that God is unchanging. He told us God is unique. He taught us also that the essence of God and His divinity can be known: it is true love. God’s divinity is true love. And thus God’s true love is absolute and unique, unchanging, it’s eternal. You see, when we hear these things we may hear the vocabulary of these things but we may not really grasp it. You see, in the world of eternity, so to speak, in the land of eternity, in the land of everlasting, so to speak, there are no time constraints; there are no present, future, past, it’s all the same to God; you see, God’s love is not influenced by time.
God’s promise is also not influenced by time. He transcends time; He’s beyond time, He can control time. His promise, His love is not predicated on time. And so when God promises a victory -- did you know this? -- when God promises a victory, it’s already done. Why is that? Because if God promised it yesterday, that’s the same as today and tomorrow for Him. See it’s already done. The victory is already completed. So when He says that we will have victory, when He says that, we will be able to truly, through True Father’s words, through True Parents’ words, be able to inspire the world. This promise, it’s already done. The 95% of portion of responsibility is 100% done. And now what we have to understand is that that 5% is our responsibility. That’s the little portion that has continued and delayed the providential picture. See, all God needs us to do is that last 5%.
And how do you do that? How do you begin working on that last 5%? It seems like a big thing. God did 95%. 5%, that’s still pretty small but maybe it’s quite large. We won’t know how to start. It begins by taking the fog, the fear, out of the mind. It begins by changing our mindset, not having just a temporal mindset, but having the eyes of eternity, looking at God’s promise as already actualized, walking in the promise, so to speak, walking with confidence, walking with faith; that is how we begin that process. See, that begins by having that glass of water. Hey, drink it down, you have the glass of water. Big fog in that one glass of water -- I’m drinking it down. Bye-bye lies. Bye-bye fear. Bye-bye curses that have fallen over me. Bye-bye doubt. Bye-bye all the things that have come up against me, obstacles, etc. and we say thank you to God when we do that. Let’s say thank you to God, everybody, let’s give a big round, let’s give Him a big praise! [Applause]
So we have to remember all the people who told us that we would never amount to anything, “You know you guys are not going to amount to anything. You’re never going to do anything great. You guys aren’t really going to do the things that you talk about.” Remember all those people who cursed our lives: “You’re never going to make it! You’re not smart enough! Don’t waste your time there! What are you thinking about, you’re wasting your time, wasting your efforts!” All those kind of curses have come over our life. All those kind of things and negativities have come over us, all the failures that we may have seen in our mind.
People who said that Unification Church would be a failed religion, “Oh, Unification Church is not going to last. After Rev. Moon is not here anymore the church will collapse. There will be no future for Unification Church.” All those things, that is the fear and the fog that clouds our vision. See, to those days we have to say, “Bye-bye.” Let’s say bye-bye, come on, bye-bye, say bye-bye, we’ve got to say bye-bye to that. We have to keep clearing ourselves out of that, out of that mentality. You see, we’ve got to quit worrying about those lies coming true, “My God, will they come true? My God, maybe those prophecies and those curses that come over me and say that I’ll fail, maybe they’ll come true! Oh my goodness, maybe my children will fall away from God, and they’ll be terrible disasters, they’ll be drug addicts and be terrible students and just terrible people.”
We can believe all these things but that’s where faith comes in -- that’s where we say, “No, I take the stand of hope. I take the stand of faith. I stand to believe that I walk in the promise of God and God’s promise was good yesterday, and it’s good today, and it’s even better tomorrow." Let’s believe and let’s give it up for God! [Applause] You see we have to believe that God is in control. And we have to know that with certainty that. There are certain uncertain things in our life. But if we know that we’re in the power of God’s hand, we have that greater certainty; we know that we can walk forward in faith.
The prophet Jeremiah was a man who was always warning Jerusalem, he was wandering about Jerusalem, telling the people, “You should turn from your wicked ways! For God will condemn you, God will punish you! Turn from your wicked ways, from your selfish ways!” He was ridiculed at the time; in Jerusalem people thought he was absolutely insane. When the Babylonians attacked Jerusalem, Jeremiah was even in prison because he was speaking towards Jerusalem, criticizing them, saying, “You have to stand up, you have to become better!”
So let’s take a look at Jeremiah 18:1-7. Let’s read this together: we’re going to read this together? Yep, there it is, let’s read together:
“This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred by his hand; so that the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?’ declares the LORD. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.’”
See, we forget that we are in the palm of God’s hands. Even if our destiny is marred, is marred, is ruined, is misshaped, disfigured by our human error, God can make a way that we did not see, He can make a way that no man can make. See, God is shaping us and our destiny. He’s molding us to reach that which He desires. Not necessarily what we desire but which He sees fit for us. So many people thought it was over for Unification Church; many prophesied we had absolutely no future; and five years ago there was not so much hope. A lot of people would say that. We were marred; we were beaten down as a religious tradition. We went through the indemnity period; we were persecuted. Our members were kidnapped illegally around the world for believing and having faith in True Parents’ teaching. And so we were really beaten down; we were marred. Our pot was being disfigured. We were really out of shape, so to speak, beaten out of shape. You see, but we have to know that God is molding us into a new pot.
See in this quote in Jeremiah we see that even though the pot was marred, the potter didn’t just give up on it, throw it off the potter wheel and say, “Oh; end of that story. I’m going to try a new one.” See, God said through that potter, He said, “That may be marred, but you know what, I’ll shape it into another pot, which seems best in my eyes." And so we have to understand, brothers and sisters, that God here in this story saved this pot from disaster. He saved it from flying off the potter’s wheel; He shaped it as it seemed best to Him. And when we overcome challenges in our life we may think it’s because we did it, it’s because we overcame that challenge. But you see, just like God did, when we have that little mar in that potter’s wheel and He’s rolling us on that wheel and we have that little scar, God is going to reshape us so that we move into the proper destiny that He wants us to have, as long as we do our 5%. See, God does the rest. He saved us from disaster and shaped us into what He wants us to become, He’s shaping us into what He thinks is best.
You see as we move towards the growth stage temple, gaining pride in ourselves as Unification Church, we’re seeing an amazing transformation in Unificationists around the world, especially in Korea. People are starting to be excited about being Unificationists once again, having confidence; “Yeah, I am a Unificationist, and I believe in my faith, and I’m proud of my faith.” This is such a beautiful thing to see. One year ago when we started ministry it was so down; we could feel people really losing faith, losing hope, losing confidence in their faith, in their ability to believe in a faith. But in a short span of a year we saw so much incredible things happen and God really was guiding us in the palm of His hand.
The media changed, the success of our business group with Kook Jin Hyung there, all these incredible things have happened, best seller Father’s autobiography, best seller, let’s give it up for True Parents, come on [Applause]. I’ve studied religions; I’ve never heard of a religious founder who wrote an autobiography and had it be the national best seller! Usually religious leaders are totally persecuted: Jesus was crucified; Joseph Smith was killed in prison; the Buddha was ostracized and kicked out of his area that he was teaching in; but True Parents have done an incredible thing and we, in a short span of a year, we’re finally seeing the church grow up again. Our church has finally begun to grow again. And this is beautiful because we see that we are getting confident in our faith again. See, we are claiming the last portion of the victory that God has already completed.
When we realize that we’re in God’s hands, we have the freedom; we have the freedom because we know we don’t have to fear the future any more. We don’t have to fear the enemies any more. We don’t have to fear even death; we don’t have to fear the things that come against us, the obstacles that are trying to pull us down, the negative thoughts, etc. We can start having confidence and believe that we will succeed, believe and have hope in our destiny. We can know that God is with us, moving with us, moving and guiding us with His hands. See, when we realize that we are in God’s hands we know that the victory is going to come; it’s just a matter of time. Because for God, think about it: it’s only been a short 50 years for Unification movement; but we’re the most successful religion while the founder is alive! There is no other religion that has made a worldwide foundation while the founder is alive! It’s an incredible, incredible testament to the incredible truth of Unificationism! Let’s give it up for Unificationism, Brothers and Sisters! [Applause]
See, for God, 50 years, that’s nothing. God has been waiting a long time. But He lives in the land of eternity. See, for God, when He promises it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. It happens when we start believing again. It happens when we start having confidence again. It happens when we start having pride in our faith -- because nobody’s going to do that for us -- when we start believing in the promises that God has given to us, when we start believing that we can be victorious. We can move society, we can be mainstream. When we start believing it again, when we start having hope and enthusiasm in our life, moving towards that destiny, that’s when God says, “You’re ready for it,” that’s when He says, “Come into the victory, the realm of victory,”
You see, what can we learn today, Brothers and sisters? It is in God’s hands; He is an eternal God, and in the land of eternity there’s no time constraints. God promised that we would be recognized and we will inspire the world with the words of True Parents; it’s time for us to do our part, to believe, to take heart, to be encouraged, to encourage each other, to have faith, and to move forward with that kind of hope and enthusiasm. When we do that, we are going to clear through the fog that clouds our visions, we will clear through the doubts that try to weigh us down and warp our sense of reality, saying "You’re never going to make it." And we start moving towards the shining bright new horizon that God is preparing for us. See, when we do that, when we understand that it’s in God’s hands we’re going to move forward with more strength, more victory, we’re going to inherit the true love of God and live up to our destiny that God has prepared for us. If you believe it, let’s give it up for God and True Parents! [Applause]
Heavenly Father, today You have given us another blessing with this inspiring message by our beloved Hyung Jin Nim. We pray for Your love and guidance as we bring the essence of this message into our daily lives. Father, please bless this modest offering that we have for You today. David said, “I will not offer to God sacrifices that have cost me nothing.” In our hearts we want to offer only the best. We know that You created each of us for a specific purpose and we pray that we may be able to fulfill our purposes according to Your will in order to bring You joy and glory. Father, we thank You for all the true love and true blessing that You have continuously given us. We pray that we can truly inherit Your true love and be able to share it with all our brothers and sisters all throughout the world so that we can come together as one family under God and True Parents. All this I pray in my name and with all brothers and sisters all over the world, as a blessed central family. Aju!