The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1956
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1956 |
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or
of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a
clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I
possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may
boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love
is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It
does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in
evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But
where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues,
they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness
comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked
like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I
became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we
see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully
known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the
greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13:1-13
Father of love, we have come to understand that Your lamentation is having no one who can bring the history of conflict, which remains as the source of grief and suffering for Heaven, to a conclusion. Humankind should dig out the root of the fall that they have implanted. Yet although the long history has passed by, they have not been able to pull out that fundamental root of sin. Father, please allow them to dig it out.
I earnestly wish that You allow everyone in the audience gathered here today to be moved by Your heart and to become united with it. Allow us to inherit Your anxious heart, and become newly possessed of the wish that You hold onto. Please lead us to become the brave soldiers who can take on the responsibility for the remaining history of grief and fight with the countless enemy satans, stepping forward representing heaven and earth.
Until we can create the garden of bliss on the battleground and share with each other the eternal love of the Father there, please allow each of us to bear the responsibility for the will of the Father and march forward. Loving Father, I fervently desire that You allow each of us to become the courageous sons and daughters of the Father who can represent the whole will of the Father and fight with Satan.
Please allow us to understand in this hour which direction of Heaven our mind is facing and which direction of the universe our body is facing. Please allow us to become the children of joy who can resolve the grievances and sufferings of the Father.
Our minds and bodies could not be embraced inside Your bosom until now. Father, please advise us, and command Your powers to correct the position of our minds. Fix the direction of our mind correctly, so that we can walk toward the path of hope that You desire.
Please allow us to experience with our mind and body the Father's grace of happiness. Please give rise to the miracle of re-creation centering on ourselves. By doing so, on the foundation of fighting the clinging root of sin and prevailing over it, let us experience the love of the Father and return glory to the Father. Loving Father, we sincerely offer our wish.
Father, do not let the children who have gathered in this hour fall into the temptations of countless satans. Please allow them to be offered as the sacrifice of glory on the Father's altar.
Lead us, who prostrate ourselves before the Father as we face the majestic and holy presence, to realize our own lacks and to make a confession. I deeply wish that we, as the meek sacrifice, become children who yield before the grace of atonement of the Father and appear in the form that the Father has been seeking.
Please do not let these who have come shed tears of lamentation. Do not let them walk the steps for which Satan will mock them. Be present with them so that their minds and bodies can be captivated by the Father. Allow this hour to be an opportunity when they can be intoxicated by the grace of eternal life, the grace of resurrection, the grace of love and be offered as the ideal sacrifice that can bring happiness. Father, we make this our sincere wish.
Father, this holy night is the day of promise when the blessing can be given to the whole of humanity. Let the grace of joy fall upon every holy congregation that has gathered on behalf of the 2.4 billion people of humanity. We have greeted the last days. Please pour down the fire of the Holy Spirit as one pours down water, so that Your chosen children can be united as one to prevail over this world of darkness. May they eradicate all evil on behalf of the heart of the grief of 6,000 years.
First, please bless the 3,000 altars that represent the thirty million people. Father, I earnestly wish that You will allow Your children, who are offering all of their energy, heart and fidelity on behalf of the 3,000 altars, to become Your eternal offering.
Please do not let them become indebted to the Father on the remaining battleground. Please allow them to digest the grace of eternal victory. Until we can construct the ideal garden that can manifest the heart behind the Father's blessing on the earth, please allow us to possess the mind-set of invincible soldiers and establish the Father's will.
On this evening, there are many children who failed to participate in this occasion, so wherever they might be, please be with them in the same way. Please guide them to proclaim Your will everywhere, that which You want to accomplish in the last days. Let them build the altar of joy on which heaven and earth can come together in harmony.
Deeply wishing that You will allow us to become children who pour out all of their heart and energy to accomplish Your will with a single mind, we prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title of the sermon to be given now is "Let Us Claim Back the Eternal Ideal of God." I will speak briefly on this topic.
When God personally began the work of the creation of this dark world, He set the one goal of establishing the ideal hyung-sang found within His own heart as an eternal substantial body. You know very well that He began the work of creation so that after having established this one substantial body, He could set not two but one ideal of reciprocity and live within eternal joy and fulfillment.
Among all the creations that He created with strenuous effort, God chose man as the center of all the ideals. Yet because that one man stood opposing the original wish of God, although a long history has passed since that time until now, humankind has lost any kind of relationship with the ideals for which God hoped.
The course of history in which God tried to claim man back for the sake of realizing the one ideal is the course of the dispensation, the course of salvation and the course of pioneering. The one ideal God wished from His internal heart affects the whole of the created universe. Yet, due to one man's mistake, that ideal cannot be found anywhere in the created universe.
Therefore, the one central will, through which God is trying to claim back the will of the dispensation through the history of pioneering and salvation, is raising a man and having him materialize the ideal that God has envisioned in His internal heart. By doing so, God cannot only rejoice; He also hopes to establish that ideal of happiness as the eternal ideal of man and have man return it to Him as the condition of glory.
Therefore, we must understand that God in Heaven is calling each of you. God in Heaven has been exerting Himself until now, hoping that each of you will become the center who realizes your ideals. However, the ideal that God hopes for cannot be realized as long as we remain in the realm of imperfection and cannot distinguish between the will of God, the will of man and the will of Satan.
Wherever we look, left, right, up or down, we must accomplish the ideal of God. You know through the Principle that those on the left and the right, those who are on the earth as well as the saints in heaven, all unconsciously long for that one ideal.
Numerous sages and wise men have pioneered this path, which they do not clearly understand, with the thought, "When is the day that God's new ideals of light will emerge in this dark world? When would that hour be? What moment will it be?"
Consequently, after becoming connected to the heart of God's ideal of light, you must possess the element of the eternal and unchanging ideal, based on which you can say, "This is the very hope that You have dreamed of in Your heart. This is the very ideal that You have been seeking." Having done so, through your minds, bodies and environment, you must lay the grounds on which to realize the one happiness. If you cannot establish such grounds of happiness, the ideal of God cannot be found and erected in the world of creation.
Where is the most important question found? It is not found inside the creation nor in the spirit world, nor is it found with the angels in the spirit world. It lies in you who are the center of the whole, the one standard, the one nucleus and the master of creation. Accordingly, you must understand that you are the center and standard that determines the fate of the ideal of God.
The joy felt on the day of the appearance of the one focal point and center of heaven and earth, which has been repressed by death, is the hope of those of us who are passing through the course of history today. It is also the will of the dispensation of God, who has been fighting with countless evil spirits.
For this reason, if you are to possess the heart yearning for the ideal of God now, then you must first cultivate yourself to be in perfect harmony and unison with the internal heart of God. Having achieved this, just as nature behaves according to law, we must act with our minds centered on the Heavenly heart. What is more, you must understand that unless we establish the center of the heart that can connect this to the universal culminating point of Heaven, the eternal ideal of God cannot come into eternal relationship with the world of creation.
When we fathom our mind and body now, is there a wall that blocks us from Heaven? Is there a wall between our minds and bodies? Is there a wall that blocks our bodies from all things? Since such walls exist, the eternal ideal of God cannot have any relationship with you.
Now we must open the door to our hearts. After purging all evil and sin, we must set the one standard of harmony. After that, we must receive the natural grace that will make us strongly feel the heavenly character and act according to it. We must then face God and begin to work toward the realization of His ideal.
Nonetheless, because fallen humankind is at a place far away from that one standard, there has to be some toilsome work that will bring humankind up to that standard. That is none other than the history of the dispensation of restoration. We must keep in our minds that God has been leading the history of the dispensation that sought to accomplish the will by sending prophets and sages until now.
Now you must just march forward. To do that, you must first earn the value of the body created as the symbol of the creation and the value of the mind created as the center of the body and represented the heavenly nature. In this way, the internal character of God, who exists as the center of all created beings, this internal heart that emanates from the central heart of the whole, must pass through our minds and bodies. Then, passing through the sphere of our daily life, it will finally be manifested as one movement that includes all things and images. We must accomplish all this through our own selves.
God has been working to restore humankind, who fell from the realm of God's dominion, back to the original state. Yet what was that history like? With the principle of creation, God created all things as symbolic, substantial objects and created humankind as substantial objects in image. Therefore, as long as one substantial being remains as the ideal standard of our minds, we will come to possess the one unbreakable bond.
The one who is obstructing that bond and cutting off the path of communication is none other than your enemy, Satan. It is Satan you must fight. You must win the eternal relationship of victory and bring him to natural subjugation. Nonetheless, since the ideal garden of God is not materialized today or tomorrow, and as long as the wish of God is not manifested in the whole universe through our minds and bodies, then Satan cannot be eliminated.
God has ideals of our minds, our bodies, and all things. Yet Satan stands opposed to it and is fighting against it. Therefore, there must come the day of hope when we can take responsibility for this and subjugate Satan on the worldwide level.
Because the condition caused by Satan remains, God's ideal cannot have any relationship with us. Consequently, for the sake of fulfilling His ideals, God has found one hero who can stand up against Satan and overcome him. That person is Jesus Christ.
Nonetheless, today the doors that connect the creation to our bodies, our bodies to our minds, and our minds to Heaven are all shut tight. It is Jesus and the Holy Spirit who come to open the doors of the mind, body and the desired objects so that there can be smooth communication.
What was the immutable purpose for which Jesus came to the earth? It was to realize the ideals of God at any cost and by any means. First, it was restoring the mind of man, the body of man and then the world of creation. Although Jesus came with this ideology and ideals of the whole, because the chosen Israelites did not believe him, he was only able to establish the ideals of the heart that represented the nature of the heart of God before he passed away. Consequently, we today must understand the life and history of Jesus until he can fulfill the ideals of the heart, in other words, the spiritual ideals.
Jesus has shown to us the path of heartistic victory, which leads us to the fulfillment of the ideal that God desires. In other words, he has shown us the path to winning victory over Satan. Therefore, when we rely on Jesus and go in pursuit of the ideals, we are not seeking some ideals constrained within the sphere of time; we are seeking the eternal ideals of God. It is the mission designed to fulfill all of the character of Jesus, the hope of Jesus, the beliefs and ideologies of Jesus, the life of Jesus and the love of Jesus. It is not a temporary mission, but a mission that represents eternity. You must understand that Jesus was the one who was fighting to complete this kind of mission.
What do we need to possess as we are trying to go seeking after and materializing the ideals of God? We must possess the element of God's eternity. The reason is that even if time and era change, God's eternal self does not change.
Accordingly, you must understand that the ideals that God possesses are eternal ideals. Therefore, the ultimate ideal that we as humankind must seek after is the eternal ideal that God seeks. You must fight today, tomorrow and for the rest of your life until the day that you can make that eternal ideal part of your flesh and blood.
When Jesus came to the earth and sought the eternal ideals of God, he fought to implant eternal faith on behalf of the faithless people of Israel. There were many people in the course of history who believed in God, but the limit of the hope and faith they held was confined within themselves. Jesus alone did not establish his faith and wish for his own sake. Since that stood as the eternal ideal of God, he offered his life to cultivate the faith that can match up to the elements of the ideal, in other words, eternal faith.
What was the one center that Jesus longed for during the thirty years of his life? In the 4,000-year course of history leading up to that time, countless prophets and sages had erected the standard, but their faith could not step beyond the limit of the people and the world. Thus, the center of Jesus' life revolved around his attempt to go beyond that standard and accomplish the eternal ideals of God and establish eternal faith.
Therefore, the faith of Jesus did not seek his own salvation. His purpose was not his own salvation, and it was also not just to save the earth. Understanding the heart of God, who has been working through the dispensation from the beginning of history through the historical course until the culminating point, Jesus was trying to restore everything.
What is more, to erect the eternal ideal of God, Jesus fought with Satan to establish the eternal standard that history had never witnessed before, the one standard that will not change for eternity. You must understand that because this is the kind of man Jesus was, he was able to set the condition of eternal faith before God, who had been seeking the eternal ideal.
Therefore, we must learn from the example of Jesus' faith. Next, we must understand that Jesus spent thirty years of his life trying to erect the standard of hope of the eternal God, the eternal, immutable and firm foundation of faith. He did this by going beyond the boundaries of himself, the society, the nation, the world and the universe. When we believe in Jesus, we must take after him, the one who has established an eternal standard of faith that had never been witnessed before.
Moreover, we must next inherit the hope of Jesus. The hope of Jesus was not just limited to his own self. It was the hope that inclusively absorbed all the hopes for which the countless ancestors in history have longed for a long time. What is more, he possessed the hope that represented the eternal hope of God, which was deep-seated in heaven and earth.
That is not all. By erecting faith toward Heaven, Jesus engendered hope and the relationship of life and love. Accordingly, he walked through the course of conflict for thirty years of his life to establish his hope as the eternal hope and to establish his life as the eternal life.
The greatest value that Jesus felt about his life was when, representing the whole of the created world, he received the elements of eternal life from God, who exists for eternity as the center of life. Because he was the possessor of this kind of eternal life, no power of Satan could have an effect on him. Moreover, the love that Jesus demonstrated was not the type of selfish and limited love that humankind possesses today. It was an unchanging love that enabled him to die for the sake of realizing the eternal ideal of God. Therefore, the heart of God, who loved Jesus from Heaven, could represent the whole of humanity. You must understand that finally in heaven and on earth, Jesus came to possess the heart of unchanging love that can represent the eternal ideal of the heart of God and represent the whole universe and all of humanity.
We have inherited today the will of the dispensation that Jesus established in this way with the faith, wish, life and love. We must comprehend the will of salvation that he has erected through such a course of suffering. Moreover, we must follow the example of the course that Jesus established by using the cross as his shield and extinguishing himself to set the standard of atonement.
Furthermore, we who remain inside the realm of limitation must long for the unlimited faith of God, the unlimited hope of God, the unlimited life of God, the unlimited love of God, and reflect on the life of Jesus, who spent thirty years in bitter anguish. You must understand that Jesus, who was the master of the whole universe, the savior of humanity and the master of the earth, fought with his life on the line for the sake of setting the condition to realize the eternal ideal of God regarding hope, faith, life and love.
What is more, you must look at the creation with the same heart as Jesus, and feel the same feelings as Jesus. Moreover, you must understand that he fought while longing for that kind of aspiration, hope and ideal. You must not think that he was some historical personage whose life did not have great significance. You must feel Jesus as someone who dwells within your mind and accompanies you. You must reawaken to the life element that can fulfill the eternal ideal of God. Your faith must thus become comparable to the faith of Jesus. Your hopes must become comparable to the great hope of Jesus. Your life and love must also be comparable to those of Jesus.
You must follow the example of the center of Jesus, which represented the whole ideal element of God. You must inherit the faith, hope, life and love of Jesus, as well as his central heart that fought to establish them all, and you must accomplish them. If there is no one who can accomplish this for him, then the will of Jesus on the earth, which he could not fulfill due to his death on the cross, will never be accomplished. Because the course that Jesus could not complete still remains, the will of the dispensation is reserved for us.
Therefore, we must try to feel the sung-sang of Jesus through our body and through all things. In this way, the sung-sang of Jesus must become one with our sung-sang and join with the ideal of the eternal God who represents the whole universe. Now you must understand what the fate of Jesus on the cross prophesied. That pass of the cross fulfilled eternal faith. It is the cross that enabled Jesus to experience the eternal hope of God. It is the cross that advised us to also possess the eternal life and love of God. You must also understand that by virtue of the cross, the way of salvation that came as the result of the history of atonement is the condition that can transfer to us the eternal faith, the eternal hope, the eternal life and the eternal love of Jesus.
Nonetheless, because the faith of Jesus, who came representing all humankind in the universe, could not be manifested to the whole, Jesus made an appeal of bitterness on the cross. In other words, because the hope that Jesus wished to fulfill on behalf of humanity could not be realized on the world level, the cross was an appeal of bitter resentment. If at that time, the faith, hope, life and love that Jesus wished for had appeared, there would not have been the resentful appeal of the cross.
Accordingly, what do we need to accomplish through the crucifixion? We must obtain possession over the eternal faith and the eternal hope that Jesus had, the eternal life that Jesus lived, and the eternal love for which Jesus yearned. Today it is not enough for us to offer the eternal faith, hope, life and love established before the cross as those that belong to Jesus.
We must bear his cross and possess his eternal faith as our own faith, his eternal hope as our own hope, and his eternal life and love as our own life and hope. Furthermore, we must also possess the elements of God's ideals, which Jesus handed over as he was bearing the cross for the sake of humanity. Next, just as he had the main disciples to whom he could hand over the eternal faith, eternal hope, eternal life and eternal love, we must also raise this kind of person. If you set the condition of having failed to fulfill the faith, hope, life and love that you have received from Jesus, then they will emerge in the last days as the conditions of judgment toward you.
In the last days, God will come to you and ask whether or not you have recompensed for the debt of eternal faith that Jesus left behind. He will ask whether you have paid back the debt of hope, the debt of life and the debt of love. When you face such a situation, you should be able to say the same thing Jesus said on the cross, "Everything has been accomplished." We today must be able to say that we have fully accomplished the endeavor of the eternal God that He had set before Jesus. However, you must understand that unless the one man appears on the earth, the culminating will of God's dispensation cannot be achieved.
Jesus established the central element that God had willed during the 4,000-year course of history. To expand the condition of spiritual and internal salvation to the world level, Jesus and the Holy Spirit have been at work until today. Accordingly, unless we can manifest the elements of the internal ideal of the eternal God as eternal faith, hope, life and love on the external level, then the 2,000-year will of the dispensation of Jesus will be totally undermined. You must understand this.
Now you have entered the course of faith in which you are trying to follow the example of Jesus and even feel the heart of God. Yet you must first reflect to what extent you believe. Do you carry on your faith inside the realm of your own assertions, which have been erected with your own concepts? When compared with the faith of Jesus, who represented the whole universe, if there is a difference, you will be judged exactly to that same extent in the last days.
What is the hope you hold today? The hope you hold inside you as a concept is a selfish one. You must testify to the hope of Jesus as if it were your own. By doing so, you must step beyond yourself and come to possess the hope of Jesus, who represented the eternal ideal of God. Yet if there is a gap between the hope of Jesus and your own hope, you must understand that the gap will be the condition of judgment in the last days.
The same is true for life. If we believed in Jesus and attained life, then that life is not for our own sake. That life is meant to restore this people and harmonize the countless saints. It is life that must represent the heart of Jesus, who embodied the eternity of God in the face of the cross and attacks from Satan. Even when he faced death on the cross, Jesus did not hesitate to face the attack of the enemies.
Jesus is not the person you thought you knew. He was someone who tried to fathom the heart of God, who had fought with the enemy Satan for 4,000 years for the sake of humankind. Jesus was someone who tried to feel eternal love. When you come to respect this unlimited heart of Jesus, you will feel that this has become the core of your faith.
Therefore, the degree to which Jesus felt the love of Heaven was strong enough to replace the eternal ideal of God, which could help him overcome any kind of difficulty and tribulations on the earth. You must understand that because Jesus was in such a situation, he forgot about the fact that he was walking the path of death due to the mistakes of his enemies, and he prayed for the sake of humanity.
By believing in Jesus today, you have received unlimited love and the unlimited life of God. Yet you should reflect in which realm that life is dwelling.
Jesus understood the eternal and ideal love of God who, after the creation of the whole universe, was in great agony while trying to embrace it. Therefore, while he was on the earth, Jesus loved God more than he loved himself, his family or his people and the world.
Possessing the love of God, who was the center of all love, and on behalf of the countless prophets and sages who came and passed away during the course of history, no matter how much difficulty he was undergoing, Jesus forgot all about it to fulfill the will of the dispensation that they could not complete. While feeling the heart that reached out to love God, he left something behind, and that is none other than the love behind the crucifixion. You must deeply contemplate this.
If there is a judgment in the last days, then when the love that flows down from God and is manifested through Jesus reaches down to you, you must have already prepared the foundation in your heart to receive the love and keep it for eternity. If you lack such a foundation, then you cannot confidently go before God at the time of judgment in the last days.
Consequently, now you must understand that before us lies the great and lofty hope and ideal of Jesus. That great and lofty ideal was manifested on the earth through Jesus Christ. Therefore, we today are trying to believe in Jesus and follow his example.
Even after going to the spirit world, Jesus is still fighting with Satan on behalf of the internal world. To accomplish the eternal ideals of God, with the Holy Spirit and the numerous heavenly soldiers and angels in Heaven, he has been fighting with Satan for us.
We must not possess as our own the faith given to us, the hope bestowed on us, the life demanded of us and the love desired of us. You must keep in mind that if we possess them only as our own, then the eternal ideal of God will have no relationship with us.