The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1956
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1956 |
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked,
"Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who
sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I
tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 "Therefore,
the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts
with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him
ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not
able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children
and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 "At this the
servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he
begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27 The servant's master
took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 "But when
that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed
him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him.
'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. 29 "His fellow servant
fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay
it back.' 30 "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the
man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other
servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told
their master everything that had happened. 32 "Then the master
called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all
that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have
had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger
his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he
should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is how my heavenly Father
will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from
your heart."
Matthew 18:21-35
God of creation! Your beauty is manifested in all the created beings, and everywhere Your hands have touched teems with mysterious and radiant beauty. Please allow us to fathom the distressed heart of the Father who, even today, is ceaselessly trying to find the beauty in us which is the purpose of the creation of men. Allow us to return beauty to You for Your love.
Please allow us to come forward with the original heart at the time of the creation. Please allow our body to emanate beauty in its sinless form right after its creation. Allow our mind and body to attain the original perfection which represents the heart and love of God, so that when You move, we move and when You stop, we stop.
We have come to realize that this is the model that You have been working on throughout the history of the dispensation of restoration. What we have to find is our mind and what we have to complete is our body, so please allow us to find and complete them. Raise us up as people who can offer bows in front of the original beauty of the Father. Please allow us to offer songs of gratitude and glory before the Father. Please allow us to understand to our bones that this is the purpose for which You have worked so hard.
Because we have inherited the fallen lineage, we have abandoned Heaven and have led lives centering on ourselves. Abandoning the Heavenly way, we became selfish people, so please allow us to turn back and be guided by the original heart connected to Heaven. Allow our original mind to inspire our body and find our original self that Heaven can claim.
That being done, please allow us to remove the grievances that all things hold against men and eradicate all the lamentations of heaven and earth. Please raise us up as children who can humbly bow before You and receive Your love.
Please be in charge of all the children who have gathered here. I know that they have acquired many wounds during their fight with the world during the week. Although their minds and hearts want to believe the will of Father completely, if there are any who have succumbed to Satan's temptations, please forgive them.
Please heal the wounds they have received and embrace them with Your compassionate love. Father, I pray and wish sincerely that You may pour down the oil of love to make us complete.
Even though we might not have prepared the gifts that we should offer to You, please allow this hour to be an occasion when we can at least put before you our meek and humble hearts and repent, unveiling all the sins that have permeated through our minds and hearts. Allow this to be a time when we can lay bare our hearts before You. Please, Father, in this hour let them become absorbed naturally by the operating power of Your love. Let us feel unity and harmony with You in our minds and bodies.
Father, You who have worked so strenuously to bring up those who have gathered here, You have walked side by side with us on the thorny path. You have been a friend to us when we were lonely. You have been our shield when we were fighting. Yet we know that this was not because we were worthy, but because the great light of Your hidden love and comfort has been with us, so please take charge of our lives today.
Father, please manifest the will You desire as love in this hour, and allow us the blessing to represent the will You are advocating and to bow and sing praises to You. My father, our members everywhere have bowed down facing this one place. Building the altar of obeisance, they are praying before Heaven. Please appear before them with the same grace and love. Because of this, please allow them to remain in the last days and complete their missions in the places to which they are assigned, and guide everyone to adore the center of harmony.
Please lead us to reveal before the thirty million people a new will and give them a stimulating new impetus so that when others walk toward evil, we lead to the path of goodness. My Father, I sincerely wish that You reveal the loving hands and the miracles of the love of the Father.
Please do not forsake even one of the members that You have called. Embrace them in Your bosom of love so that they can feel the grace of the leading works of the whole. We entrust to You the remaining hour, so please govern over us. I prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The topic I want to speak about is "Let Us Become People Who Can Pay Back Our Debt." I will speak briefly on this topic.
Originally, when God created the universe, He did not lay down the principle of owing debt. The purpose of God's creation is to build a relationship of oneness with men though they (God and men) have the form of two entities. They are to give and receive, and whatever belongs to one belongs to the other.
Because Adam and Eve, who were created for this purpose, did not fulfill it, from that time to this, countless created beings have come to owe infinite debt to Heaven. Jesus Christ was the one God sent to open the way for men to pay back the debt incurred by the fall. As we passed through the course of history based on Jesus, we have been paying back the debt. Moreover, through this kind of lifestyle, we have been seeking eternal life.
Although you might think that you have qualifications you can present before the universe, you must understand that while you do not realize it, you have the debt of sins that you have inherited in your lineage through the thousands of years of history. Moreover, besides that, we possess the debt of God's suffering and toil accumulated during His dispensation for men. Besides that, we have the debt of toil collected through the restoration work of the countless prophets and sages or Heavenly soldiers and angels.
When we reflect on this, we realize that we have no way to pay back the debt we owe to the universe today and have no way to be dignified. Nonetheless, the one that came to represent us and restore our dignity before the universe is Jesus Christ.
Since the time of our birth, we should have possessed eternal love centering on God. When we were born through our parents, we should have already represented the love of God. Moreover, centering on us as a couple, we should have represented the love of parents. We should have also built a relationship of love with all things.
Because we could not become such people, men owe a debt of eternal life to God, and we owe the debt of life to our parents. We owe the debt of love to couples, and we owe the debt of karma to the creation.
After God created the universe and all things, the reason He elevated Adam and Eve to be the center of all things was to give eternal responsibility to men. Consequently, we bear the responsibility to give eternal love. In other words, because Adam and Eve did not follow the will of God and were dragged into the bosom of Satan, the debt for the life centering on the eternal love of God remains unpaid in each of us today.
Moreover, after we have been born through our parents, we owe a debt to them because they have loved and taken care of us in their lives. We also owe a debt for the love of God, which must be paid back by living the life of a couple. To all things, we owe a debt for the love that nature has given to us. When you reflect on this, you must understand that we today owe a debt to God for eternal love, to our parents for life, to our couples for the love centering on life, and to all things we owe the debt of the relationship of love which we have incurred in our daily life.
As the center of the creation, you must be able to display dignity. You must realize that men owe eternal debt to God, the debt of their lives to their parents, the debt of love to couples, and the debt of life to the creation. The creation demands that men pay back all of this debt.
However, based solely on the ability of men, that debt cannot be paid back or canceled. Thus, Jesus was the central figure who would make it possible for such people to go before Heaven. In other words, he would allow them to represent the eternal parents and stand before Heaven, represent the eternal couples and stand before Heaven, and represent the eternal love of the creation and stand before Heaven.
Because Jesus Christ came, the eternal love of God was manifested. The accomplishments of love that God wanted from men were revealed. Jesus was the one who came as the embodiment of love representing the eternal parents. Moreover, Jesus also came as the fruit of love representing the eternal couples. It was also Jesus who built an eternal relationship of love with all things. Accordingly, in the one person of Jesus, the 4,000 years of long history is connected. Even the eternal future is connected to him.
Although Jesus came to pay back the debt that the fall of man had incurred to the eternal God, the eternal True Parents, and the creation of goodness that was not infiltrated by evil, he had to leave the earth before he could pay everything back. Therefore, we must pay back the remaining portion.
Centering on Jesus, we must build a relationship with the creation, the couples, the parents and with the eternal God. We must realize that unless we do that, the purpose of the coming of Jesus, who came for our sake, will again stagnate in the state of incompletion.
When we closely observe the course of history, the period until the coming of Jesus was the period of worshipping nature. It was the time when men believed in all things in place of God and stayed close to nature in place of God. Next, people focused on their children more than on anything else.
After passing through the time of worshipping all things and the period of worshipping the children, we entered the period of worshipping the bride and bridegroom. Now even that period of worshipping the bride and bridegroom is also passing by.
The period of worshipping the parents is the period that lies ahead of us. The time will certainly come when we can elevate the parents more completely. Therefore, our bodies must create a relationship with God. We ourselves must join in union with God and, while observing all the mysterious natural phenomena, we must live a life of direct intuition in which we stay within the bounds of the relationship of life with God.
The gleaming sunlight and the blowing wind, we must build a relationship with all these creations, which represent the pulse of the eternal life of God. Although we have not been able to feel anything until now, when we center ourselves on Jesus, we can feel new things and build a new relationship of heart with all things. Moreover, we can build a relationship centering on God's principles of possession.
After that, you can rejoice with the creation and simultaneously be dragged into the realm of God's love. You will lead a life in which you can attract that kind of love to you at will. When you enter the realm of such profound grace and stand before Heaven, you can whisper with any part of the creation.
There will not be any existing created being, such as the sound of the wind, that does not have a relationship with men. Therefore, we can conclude that all things of the creation, created for the sake of men, exist to manifest their true value through the relationship with and by being recognized before men.
Nonetheless, because we dwell in the fallen realm today, we do not know how to recognize the value of all things. Therefore, you must realize that when you feel new love coming from God, all things can also feel new life. You should lead a life in which you can brag and set the highest standard of love. Even if you are alone, you must be able to sing of the boundless love of God. If you become this kind of person, your heart will never feel confined.
When this happens, then all things can be in harmony because of us, so we can feel at peace no matter where we are. This cannot be blocked by any force. God set this one standard as the purpose of creation and chose men as His representatives who would fulfill the purpose. He sanctioned men to have dominion over all things, but humankind today cannot command dignity before all things. Rather, today we stand in a position of unspeakable grief before all things.
Therefore, just like the words written in the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, what all things wish for is the appearance of the sons of God. The reason is that all things should have become connected to God through the mediator, men, who represent the love of God, but due to the corruption and the fall of men, the essence of their ideal has been demolished. Consequently, even today, 2,000 years after the coming of Jesus, the creation longs for the fulfillment of that one purpose through us.
When we think about this, we can understand that while we are not aware of it, we have incurred a debt to the creation. We owe a debt for the hope it holds in us.
We ourselves must obliterate the debt. While we must become qualified to attain oneness with the creation, we must also become the children of God whom all things can love and to whom all things can give. Furthermore, we must become the children of God and receive the love of God.
Jesus and the Holy Spirit are giving new birth to you. Having obtained the elements of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and after passing through the position of the children, men are heading toward the position of bride and bridegroom as the goal. Today we are inspired and moved by the Holy Spirit by believing in Jesus. Relying on that power, we are moving forward.
What is it we must accomplish by ourselves? Even if the grace of the inspiration of Jesus is not given and the Holy Spirit does not make a deep impression, we ourselves must perfect ourselves as the bride as if we have received a deep inspiration and impression.
This is not being manifested in the Christianity of today. Today we also feel the love in the position of the bride only when the Holy Spirit is at work. Since we have grown up with the aid of the works of the Holy Spirit, even if we do not receive the grace from the Holy Spirit, we should learn to long for Jesus as the bridegroom. If you can only accomplish it with the continued aid of the Holy Spirit, then there is no way that you can pay back the debt for the love of husband and wife on the earth.
Therefore, even if we do not receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit, we must become the bride who can serve Jesus as the bridegroom. This is the only way that we can become the couple who is established in the original position before the universe and someone who is qualified to pay back the debt of love.
What would fallen men do after they are restored to the position of bride and bridegroom, after they pass through the positions of all things and the children through the dispensation of restoration? Because we could not be linked with the love of the True Parents, who took responsibility for our life and loved us, we must indemnify the debt for the love of the True Parents, who were elevated based on God's will of creation. You must recompense spiritually and physically for the debt of universal love which the True Parents have displayed in their concern for our lives.
In other words, after we are restored as the bride and bridegroom, after passing through the positions of all things and children through Jesus Christ, we must find the True Parents. Nonetheless, the people of today's world do not realize this. They must find the True Parents who have not fallen for the sake of the fallen parents, but they do not know when these True Parents will appear. The True Parents appear at the time of the Second Advent.
In the Christian churches, they talk about the Marriage of the Lamb, centering on the ideology of the bride and bridegroom. What kind of people are the bride and bridegroom, centering upon whom the Marriage of the Lamb is conducted? They are the people who have become connected with the True Parents through love.
Jesus Christ came to the earth on behalf of the universe and humanity. To pay indemnity for the debt that humanity bears, he has been at work until now. For this reason, you must pass through the position of all things, the positions of the children and the bride and bridegroom, and, centering on Jesus, usher in the day when you can serve the True Parents. Only after the mission to serve the True Parents is completed in this way can the love of the True Parents, representing the eternal God, emerge on the earth. At such time, the mission of Jesus comes to its conclusion.
Jesus wished that the purpose of the dispensation of restoration in the spirit world could be materialized in substance amid all things on the earth. Therefore, if the followers today who believe in the resurrected Jesus cannot pay back the debt of the bride and bridegroom and realize the purpose of the True Parents and usher in the day when they can offer the prayer of restoration on behalf of humanity, then there is no way that the debt of eternal love to God can be paid off.
Therefore, Jesus also stands in the position of someone who has owed a debt for 2,000 years. Because he could not complete the will of True Parents, he still has the responsibility to pay back that debt on behalf of all humanity. However, that responsibility does not end as a spiritual responsibility. When the position of Adam and Eve before the fall is restored, and, centering on the eternal life of God, we form the family that can represent the True Parents amid all things and sing and bow before the love of the eternal God, only then can the purpose of the 2,000-year course of the history of Jesus be concluded.
Longing for the fulfillment of this one purpose, Jesus has been praying earnestly before God for 2,000 years. By doing so, he tried to establish the highest standard with which to claim back the original world of God, who created the universe and all things.
If the fall had not taken place, the love of True Parents would have become the pivotal point around which the husband and wife, children and all things could build a relationship. However, because men fell, God is carrying on the dispensation in which He must pull it up backwards. After all things, children, and husband and wife become connected, the eternal world can come. The so called eternal world that the Christians refer to is this world in which all of the creation can respond to the words of the True Parents and appear before God centering on Jesus, who came as the True Parents, centering on the standard of the bride and bridegroom.
We who dwell in the period of the Second Advent must now be determined to take charge of and assume the burden of all of the work of Jesus done in the last 2,000 years. Only with such determination can you finally stand tall as the children who have paid back the debt of love owed to the True Parents. Moreover, you can become the central figure who can govern over the creation in God's place. If that happens, the will that God intended after creating Adam and Eve and giving the blessing to them will be fulfilled completely on account of you.
What is more, when you pay back the debt that you owe to True Parents, the true couple and the true creation centering on the love of God and then go before God, your mind and body will naturally go close to God. You must feel the impulse to naturally offer a bow of gratitude to God. You act before you think and realize the purpose before you make a demand.
What do we need to do to attain that purpose? The fortune of heaven and earth moves from heaven to parents, from parents to couples, and from couples to all things. Accordingly, you must become connected to all these stages before stepping forward. Only when you become that kind of person can you stand before God and call out, "Father!" The world of direct dominion stands in such a position. We must move forward until we can appear in such a position and relate with God.
To do this, we must inherit the conflict that Jesus has conducted in the spirit world and the fight that the Holy Spirit has carried out on the earth to pay back the debt that we owe until the present. This is the way that we can have a relationship with the creation from the position of substituting for the True Parents. We can fight and win over Satan on the earth.
When you can do this, you can liberate the grievous heart of God, who has shown a deep concern for fallen humanity while He was guiding the dispensation of restoration. At the same time, you can win the recognition of Satan: "This person deserves to receive the love of God." You must understand that God's love will be present through the appearance of such a created being.
Thus, we have this type of grave mission. You must pay back the debt through your life of faith, in all the surrounding environments that are reachable to you. You have to pay it back. Accordingly, you must reflect whether you are living a life in which you are paying back the debt.
When you live a life of faith today, you are joined in a relationship with the debt to eternal God, parents, couples and all things. Because you are aligned with the time when all of this debt must be indemnified, you have to think about what kind of heart you should possess.
Right after we fell, we were people who could not stand before God and could not relate with God. If God wanted to hold grudges against us, His grudges would be limitless. If He wanted to lament and despise humankind, there would be no end. As you can see, although we have a debt from the fall, we also bear the debt of resentment and enmity incurred during history.
What is the reason that we must endure today? If we cannot forbear, then we cannot pay back the debt we owe and cannot resolve the grievances inside the bosom of Heaven.
Because the fortune of heaven and earth moves along with the dispensation of God, the satanic world will be judged if you play when God plays and are on God's side as you share the bitterness and grievance of God. This is the reason Heaven teaches us to restrain our anger and persevere in our life of faith.
Satan will invade if we become out of step with that and create a gap in the dispensation of God. Therefore, we who have the faith must unconditionally sacrifice and obey, following only the internal aspects of love.
We have led a shameful life as the ones who have shattered the universal laws of God and the ones who owe a debt to the creation. We have caused much concern and trouble for Heaven. Therefore, the husband and wife who are leading a life of faith must be able to act on behalf of the Lord. Furthermore, we must build the relationship to serve (the Lord) as the parents on behalf of God, Jesus and the earth.
You must forge this relationship horizontally and three-dimensionally, in which Heaven reciprocates with the True Parents, the true couple and the true creation. Having accomplished this, you can say to God, "I have finally won the victory. Father! I have offered my life to eradicate all the relationships with Satan in which men had worshipped Satan in place of God and fell into the temptations of Satan. What is more, I am a perfected child who has paid back all the debt to the universe and brought Satan to his knees." You must understand that only when this is done, can we be dignified before heaven and the creation as ones who have paid back the debt to the universe.
Father! We have failed to realize even when we were living in the fallen world that we have become indebted to the creation and to each other as a couple. We did not realize when we were serving our parents that we are in debt, and that we owe an enormous debt even to the eternal God.
When we look at our situation in the fallen world, we have been debtors who deserve to die, and we have owed a debt to the creation and to Jesus Christ, who has founded the ideology of the bride and bridegroom. Although we should have paid back the debt on behalf of the eternal God, we were not even concerned about paying back the debt. Instead, we have despised the earth, the creation and Heaven. There is nothing in us that is forgivable.
To save humankind who is like this, Jesus fought on, not even being afraid to face death, and he passed away on the cross. As a result, the fight to pay back the debt owed to the universe remains incomplete, and the mission of judgment lies ahead of us.
Father, please help us cross the pass of judgment and wipe out all the debt that we owe. Please lead us to understand that we can go before You only after canceling all of our debts.
Please allow us to prevent the accusations of Satan by paying back our debt to the True Parents, to true couples, to true creation, and lead us to pay back the debt of life as You want us to. Father, we wish and desire this sincerely.
Please allow us to understand that Jesus is also working hard for this path. Jesus and the Holy Spirit offer unlimited prayer for the sake of humanity. Let us not forget that this is because we have not paid back the debt owed to the universe. What is more, this is because we are too unprepared and inadequate.
We realized in this hour, Father, that to stand in the position of glory where Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father can be happy, we must fulfill the responsibility of Jesus in his place. Allow the miracle of Heaven to be manifested on the earth and please let the fight with Satan in heaven be led to victory on the earth through us. In this way, please allow us to become the eternal children of Yours who can feel the love of the eternal Father as joy and glory.
Loving Father, I sincerely pray and hope that You will lead us to become Your beloved children who are worthy to stand before the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and before the countless saints and sages, humanity on the earth and the creation. Please raise us up as your children who can firmly govern over the creation.
Hoping that You will govern over and guide them to pay back the debt they owe, Father, we prayed all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.