The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1956
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1956 |
The topic of today's sermon is "Let Us Fulfill the Will of God's Love That Seeks to Bring Unification." I will speak briefly on this topic. The content of this speech is something you know very well. You even have it memorized. You consider it to be the most important words of truth in your life of faith and the center of the good life you are seeking.
Because the will of God was not fulfilled due to the fall of Adam, the dispensation of restoration has continued through the course of history until today. God's original will behind creation was that God and men would live in harmony centering on one purpose and with one love. With heaven and earth rejoicing in the love of God, love would be established as the actual center of life around which everyone could live as one. However, due to the fall of Adam and Eve, the love of God remained only as the love of God. In other words, the love of God, which should have been connected to men, could not make the bond alone. It had to abandon men and all of creation.
Consequently, God has spent the last 6,000 years hoping for the day when, centering on the love He wanted to implant, He can bring together all of the creation and live in joy with them. However, until the present, all created beings remain unable to unite centering on the love of God, and the ideology and hope of God's love remain unfulfilled. Thus, God has been propelling the dispensation forward to accomplish His will at any cost. Likewise, although God has worked for a long time since the fall of man to fulfill His hope and to find the heart to trust and love men, until now, He has been unable to accomplish and find it.
When we look back at the history of God's dispensation, we find that by raising Abraham, God was trying to establish the immutable standard of hope, ideals and love toward men. Only when the will of God is fulfilled as such, only when such a center of love is established, can the relationship between God and men be built. Based on that relationship, God can feel the joy of a new ideal. This is the reason He chose Abraham and lifted him up. Nevertheless, because Abraham could not establish the center of love, from then until the time of Jesus, God was laying the foundation to fulfill the will of Heaven's love.
Hence, the 4,000-year history until Jesus was the period in which God had to find one person who realized the hope, faith and love of God. If such a person were not found, then God's hope, faith and love would have become divided and unification would not be possible in any period of history. God first laid the foundation of hope. After that foundation, He laid the foundation of faith. On that foundation, He tried to lay the foundation of love. Eventually, He was trying to usher in the day when He could present before heaven and earth the incarnation of all these, the demonstrative embodiment of the hope of the whole, the faith of the whole and the love of the whole. However, if He could not bring about such a day, then the ideal of unification centering on the love of God could not be accomplished on the earth.
To bring about such a day, God worked hard to lay the foundation, dividing the 4,000 years of history since Abraham through Moses and John the Baptist into these three stages of hope, faith and love. Jesus Christ was the very person who came as the substantial incarnation on that foundation of hope. Because Jesus Christ appeared as the incarnation God had longed for, he was the ultimate culmination of the dispensation of God, which God had led with hope for 4,000 years.
Jesus came as the culmination on the earth and he disseminated the New Testament gospel brought about by the divine will. In other words, he promulgated the gospel of faith. Since then, 2,000 years of history have passed centering on that gospel of faith.
The person, who is to come on the foundation of the accomplishments of the gospel of faith, representing heaven and earth and emerging as the incarnation of the love of the whole, is none other than the Lord of the Second Advent. What is God trying to do at the time of the Second Advent? You must understand that the purpose of the 6,000-year history of God's dispensation was to sow the seed of life on the grounds of faith built until now that they may bear fruit centering on the Lord of the Second Advent.
Today we look up to God as the center of our hope and faith. Moreover, we look to Him as the center of love. God, who exists as the center of hope, faith and love, led men through the Old Testament period. That represented hope, and the New Testament period represented faith. From now on, we must pass through the Completed Testament period, which represents love.
What can remain as the eternal, unchanging, central element of the Completed Testament, which is the time of the Second Coming? It is the love of God. While it is the central element of the whole, it is also the element of the ideal of the whole.
For this reason, men have passed through the dispensational course of hope and faith for the sake of this love until now. However, you must understand that if you do not walk the dispensational course of love, then the foundation of unification that God must build on the earth centering on love will be shattered.
Jesus Christ, who came as the center of faith on the foundation of hope, spoke his words in an attempt to implant faith on the earth. If the people of his time had received Jesus Christ as the culmination of hope, the center and embodiment of unlimited faith and as the one who could testify to the eternal love of God and bring unity, they then could have possessed and experienced the limitless hope and faith and the original limitless love of God.
However, because their disbelief caused the death of Jesus, in our life of faith today, we can perfect the incarnation of hope, of faith and of love only spiritually. What is the standard of victory of God's love? Every being in the universe moves centering on the love of God, but because Jesus, who came as the incarnation of God's love passed away, the whole dispensation collapsed.
Jesus hoped that he could come as the hope of God's 4,000 years of labor, the center of all things, and become one with God. The human ancestors' hope to become one with God was shattered because of the fall of Adam and Eve. So, centering on Jesus they were to unite with the ideal of God and arise as the embodiment of faith, but it was fulfilled only on the spiritual level.
Accordingly, we today must now inherit the unaccomplished work of Jesus and accomplish it. Just as Jesus became the spiritual and physical embodiment of hope, we must become the same and represent him. Just as Jesus was the embodiment of faith, we must do the same and represent him. What is more, just as he was the embodiment of love, we must become that kind of person. Having done so, we should stand before God and represent the hope, faith and love of Jesus. Furthermore, as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit's hope, faith and love, we must fulfill her mission on her behalf.
This is the mission that we on the earth today, after the ascension of Jesus, must accomplish for the sake of the Father. Accordingly, when we complete that mission, we can bring about the conclusion of the hope of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, we can bring about the conclusion of the faith and love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Only after you bring everything to this conclusion can the Lord of the Second Advent come to this earth.
God's hope was not His own; it was for the sake of men. God's faith also did not belong to Him, but was for the sake of men. Moreover, God's love was not for His sake but for the sake of men. Therefore, men must act on behalf of that hope, faith and love of God. When that is done, God can take such men before all things and brag about them as the ones who represent the hope, faith and love of the whole.
To put it another way, He can brag that they are the center of hope for which all things wish. Moreover, He can brag that they are the heroes in whom all creations, any being in heaven or earth, can believe. Not only that, He can brag that they are the center of admiration whom all beings can love.
Just as Jesus Christ appeared as the mediating incarnation representing the love of God, we today must receive the hope, faith and love of Jesus and present ourselves before even the most evil people as living proof of the one hope, faith and love. Unless we become such people, no matter where we go, we cannot set the condition to indemnify the standard of the hope, faith and love of Jesus Christ. Therefore, today we must make recompense to Jesus Christ who came to the satanic world as the embodiment of the hope, faith and love of God.
You are to return the debt to Jesus, not for partial hope, partial faith and partial love, but you must pay back the totality. Men have tried until now to set the one standard on the earth to recompense, but they could not return the whole. Nonetheless, you must understand that Jesus tried to reveal the process through the three main disciples. Who is the person who emerged as the fruit of faith? It was Peter. Who emerged as the culmination of hope? It was James. Who emerged as the fruit of love? It was John.
As these three people took responsibility for one section of the gospel of Jesus and joined as one, we today can obtain the fruit of hope, faith and love. What is more, the history of the dispensation moved along hoping for that to take place. Therefore, the final path is for the three people to become united and to form one perfected body. This is the last teaching Jesus left on the earth.
Therefore, in order for you to emerge as the last perfected person, you must become the representative of Jesus. If you do not stand as one being of substance whose root is in the three disciples of Jesus, you cannot go before Jesus the bridegroom, who raised up the three disciples before he ascended. As you think about this, you must fulfill the hope and faith with which Jesus raised Peter. You must bear the fruit of the hope invested in James. You must reap the fruit of the love endowed in John.
If you can do that, in other words, if you can become brides who can stand before Jesus in the last days, then you will feel within yourself the joy of the fulfillment of the will that God has yearned for in the 6,000 years, and you will offer gratitude to the Father. Furthermore, you must unveil the happy news that the hope of the faith that God has longed for in history has been realized through Jesus and on behalf of all things. Thus, you must become ones who feel joy while the Father feels joyful, and return gratitude toward Him. You must understand that such a task remains with you as the historical responsibility.
The time has come when you must bear the fruit of hope, the fruit of faith and the fruit of love by calling out, "Oh Father!" What is that which is asked of you? You must understand the heartbreaking sorrow of God as He held onto hope for 6,000 years. Moreover, you must come to feel the toil of God in His attempt to establish faith for 6,000 years and understand that He has repeated the course of sacrifice for 6,000 years in order to perfect love.
For Jesus, the dispensation of faith is the practical course that represented the fruit of God's hope of the 4,000 years. The work of the Holy Spirit was the practical course that represented the faith. Moreover, the work of unification was the next practical course that represented love. Likewise, Jesus built the path of the dispensation with hope. Then with the Holy Spirit, he sowed seeds and multiplied them and tried to unite all that were multiplied.
Accordingly, you must actualize the love of God, the love of Jesus and the love of the Holy Spirit. What is more, you must realize that the time when the hope of Jesus is transformed into the hope of God is the time of the Second Advent. The time when the faith of Jesus is transforming into the faith of God is the time of the Second Advent. The time when the love of Jesus is being disseminated as the love of God is the time of the Second Advent.
If the fruits of Jesus' hope, Jesus' faith and Jesus' love are not materialized in you, then you must find another center of the hope, the faith and the love of God. This is the task bequeathed to you.
To find them, what must you do? You must realize the hope of Jesus, inherit the hope of the Holy Spirit, and inherit the faith and love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Having done so, you could say, "Father, I now understand the toils of the Holy Spirit. I understand the hope of the Holy Spirit. I understand the work of the Holy Spirit carried on with faith. I realize the hope of Jesus. I realize the faith of Jesus. I understand the love of Jesus." You must understand that on the earth today, there must emerge someone who will go before the Father and say these words.
What kind of being is that person? The hope of that person is the hope of Jesus, his faith is the faith of Jesus, and his love is the love of Jesus. When that one person brings them into union with the hope, faith and love of God, God can finally conclude the purpose left behind as the unfulfilled wish of Jesus and fulfill the will. Accordingly, that person must surpass the prayers that Jesus has been offering until now for our sake on the right hand of God, and step forward before Heaven as the perfected being both spiritually and physically. What is more, when such a person appears and experiences the joy of Heaven through Jesus, God and men can finally become one. You must understand that we must proceed forward until this point is reached.
Consequently, we must feel deeply the heart of Jesus whom God labored for 4,000 years to give rise to, and the heart of the Lord of the Second Advent, for whom Jesus toiled 2,000 years to find. Moreover, since Jesus Christ could not materialize the hope of going beyond spiritual perfection and physically complete the substantial manifestations of hope, faith and love, it is our responsibility to bring them to completion.
We must find the Lord of the Second Advent, who is to come centering on the love of Jesus and build the relationship with God through which we can communicate with Him. What should we do to accomplish this today? We must emerge as the demonstrative, substantial manifestations of hope, faith and love. If the Lord of Second Advent comes on such a foundation laid by you, the hope that God held toward Jesus will be realized through you. Therefore, the Lord of the Second Advent will come forward as the hope of the whole, the faith of the whole, and the love of the whole.
Nonetheless, when the Lord of the Second Advent emerges as the love, hope and faith, you are not to rejoice by yourself. You are to thank him because he is the cause of happiness and hope. You must thank him for the fact that you can grow as the substantial embodiment of faith. When you do that, the whole of heaven and earth will respond to you and relate to you as the embodiment of love. In such a way, you must feel the movement of all of heaven and earth.
In such feelings, you are a pioneer to fulfill the hope that God held in Jesus through the practical course that can substantiate hope. Moreover, you must pioneer the works of the Holy Spirit, which represent faith. Furthermore, you are to put into practice the life of service that represents love, and through unification become people whom humanity can serve in glory.
For this reason, to realize the final love of God, you must possess the practical hope, the faith and the love of the Holy Spirit. At such a moment, you can live eternally, attending the Lord and attending God.
What is more, we today must overflow with joy before the creation and humankind on the earth. You are to build an era when the whole world can feel equal joy and live eternally.
Wherever you go, you must become the practical grounds where the hope of God is realized, where the faith is put into practice, and where love is incarnated. The will of God must be fulfilled on the earth, and the hope that He wanted to realize through Jesus must be realized through us and be linked to the creation on the earth. Moreover, when the joy of God is connected to the creation through men, the unification that God hopes for is completed.
Consequently, to be elevated as the source of the hope of God, you must first ask yourself whether you have felt joy as the fulfillment of the hope representing the whole creation in heaven and on earth. Moreover, you must ask yourself whether you have become someone who can rejoice on behalf of the faith that sustained countless people's belief in God up to now. Going one step further, you must ask yourself whether or not you can feel the love coming from and offered to God.
However, the one person who comes as the fulfillment of everything is the Lord of the Second Advent. In other words, the Lord of the Second Advent is someone who comes as the representative of everyone's hope, faith and love. When he appears, you can possess his hope, the faith of the Holy Spirit and love only if you have already made preparations to serve him. Moreover, at such times you must go forward to fulfill the will of God and put it into action. Accordingly, you must appear as the incarnation of the hope and the embodiment of faith and love who has transcended the emotions of the people who live in the fallen realm of the world today. If such persons exist on the earth, the Lord of the Second Advent will come for them.
For what purpose does he seek after those people? He comes to physically conclude the mission that Jesus Christ left behind unfinished. He comes to fulfill the will centering on the spiritual and the physical, which God has hoped for during the 6,000 years.
Accordingly, when a person who can be an example in respect to that will appears on the earth, no matter what kind of unknown person he is, you must serve him as the being of hope, faith and love. The one world where the ideal of unification has been realized centering on love also possesses hope and faith. Therefore, you carry the momentous responsibility of ushering in the day when heaven and earth can respond to your life centered on love.
Even if the Lord of the Second Advent comes on the earth, there must first be the practical foundation laid by men. Even if he is the representative of the eternal love of God, he must have the foundation of men like you. Such an important responsibility lies upon your shoulders. Accordingly, you must understand that you represent the 2.4 billion people of humanity and countless ancestors who have gone to the spirit world. Furthermore, you are the hope of all things in heaven and on earth. All of heaven and earth wish that you would become the substantial body of faith and the demonstration of love.
Thus, from now on, you must feel this in your heart. No matter what you do, whether you are eating, starving, living or dying, you must testify to and protect the center of the whole in your daily life. By doing so, you must return joy to God through all things in nature. You bear such a momentous responsibility today.
When you reflect on your past life of faith, have you become the living proof of having fulfilled the hope? The problem is whether you have become the living proof of having fulfilled the faith and love.
When you become such people, you will feel that the hope, faith and love of Jesus are really the hope, faith and love of God. Accordingly, you must now feel the hope, faith and love of God given to us through Jesus.
If there is someone who feels this, such a person is directly living in the grace of God. Moreover, such a person will naturally manifest the hope, faith and love of God even when he is not trying to. If you become such people, then wherever you go, you can share with others the hope of God, the faith of God and the love of God.
You must keep in mind that in place of God you can serve the Lord of the Second Advent, who can only come upon such a foundation.
Beloved Father, we thought that the reason the will of the world hidden deep in the universe had not been fulfilled lay in You, but we now realize that the responsibility lies also with us in the fall of man. We realize that as long as God's eternal hope remains, eternal hope also remains in us. As long as the eternal will of the faith of God remains, the eternal will of the faith also remains in us. As long as the eternal practice of the love of God is not completed, the responsibility lies in us to form the manifestation of eternal love.
To inherit the history of indemnity today, we must inherit the hope of the 4,000 years and manifest it as the hope of the 6,000 years. We must inherit the faith of the 4,000 years and manifest it as the faith of the 6,000 years. We must inherit the love of the 4,000 years and manifest it as the love of the 6,000 years. Since the responsibility remains with us to stand before God and secure the hope of the 6,000 years as eternal hope, the faith as eternal faith, and the love as eternal love, please forgive our inadequacy and insufficiency. Please forgive us our lack of loyalty and filial piety. Please forgive us for having elevated ourselves.
The time has come now when the hope of humanity is to be realized. The faith is to be fulfilled. The love of humanity as one essence is to be manifested. Yet where is the fulfillment of that one essence? Although we are unworthy, please awaken us to realize that we must prepare ourselves anew as the brides.
At such a moment, the toil and suffering of Jesus, who brought perfection on the internal level, can bear fruit through us. They can appear in the ideals of the Second Advent, and can unfold the external history.
We believe that the ones who must play the central roles in heaven and earth today are the devout believers who stand before the word of the Second Advent in the last days. Although You, Father, want to entrust in us Your eternal hope, we are concerned whether or not we can be entrusted with that hope. Although You want to entrust in us the love of God, we worry if we can be entrusted with the love.
Taking responsibility for everything on behalf of the Lord, we will go before the Father as unchanging people who belong to the Father's love and as the eternal tribe of hope. We will become the tribe of eternal faith and eternal love. Please lead us to understand that such a responsibility has been assigned to us.
The purpose of Jesus, who is the victorious center of the chosen Israel, must be realized through us. In other words, we must realize the essence of hope, faith and love, which represents the whole. Now, after the work of the Second Advent, we must stand up as the fulfillment of the hope of Jesus, as the heirs of the faith, and as the heirs of the love who must take on the mission that Jesus had carried out on the earth. Please let us understand this clearly.
We who stand at the pass of the fall now are in the process of restoration, so we must be able to say, "Father, we will take on the burden of realizing the Father's hope, faith and love," and we should be able to return the hope, faith and love to the Father. Furthermore, we must stand before humanity as the center of love. We know that only when we become the victors who can receive the Father's love by doing these things can we obtain the qualifications to represent the ultimate glory in the last days. So, please guide these children who have gathered here to become people to whom Father can proclaim, "You are my hope; ones that I can believe in and love."
Therefore, the Father's joy must be turned into the joy of this earth, and the love of the Father must become the love of this earth. The hope and the faith of the Father must be turned into the hope and faith of this earth. Please allow us to bring horizontal joy to the Father while we uphold the ideals of the Second Advent, and please allow the Father's will to be realized through us and allow its glory to be exhibited before the whole created world.
We must be able to sing the glory of Moses through our life and daily living. Please allow all of us to become one through the love of Moses. We know that all of the 2.4 billion people of humanity and the countless saints in the spirit world have one thing to be proud of, and that is the fulfillment of God's will. So we earnestly request that we can take the fulfilled hope, faith and love as the eternal pride and make them the center of heaven and earth. We offer these words of prayer in the name of the Lord. Amen.