Let's be Heavenly Soldiers

Sun Myung Moon
April 14, 1957
1970 translation

1: You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2: and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 3: Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4: No soldier on service gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to satisfy the one who enlisted him. 5: An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 6: It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. 7: Think over what I say, for the Lord will grant you understanding in everything. 8: Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel, 9: the gospel for which I am suffering and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered. 10: Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory. 11: The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; 12: if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13: if we are faithless, he remains faithful -- for he cannot deny himself.
2 Timothy: 2:1-13

God's internal and external struggle for mankind has been beyond imagination. Internally He has struggled against Satan in the invisible world, whereas externally struggle against wicked persons in the visible world.

Unless you are agents for His struggles, there may not come a day when His struggle will end. So to act for Him, you can and should be armed with the unchangeable idea that God has been fighting for the restoration of the fallen men.

During the long period of history, God has been making sacrifices of saints for the restoration of man to be higher than creation.

God is the spiritual subject of all creation, and it' is God's wish for a substantial man, resembling His character to fulfill His will over creation in his place. If someone makes limitless sacrifice, efforts and anxiety for setting his friend or neighbor higher than himself, he will live in the objects heart eternally. God has been making such sacrifices, efforts and anxieties for us.

Since the dawn of history, there has been no one who has realized and experienced God's struggling internal heart.

We were able to sacrifice for our own sake, but who has ever made sacrifice, suffering and efforts for creation, mankind and men in the spirit world?

For 33 years Jesus appeared as a heavenly soldier among such ignorant people and in a reflection of God, he had made sacrifices and efforts not for himself, but for bringing the fallen man to a higher position than he.

Unless you thoroughly follow Jesus ideal, you cannot reflect Jesus and God, and there will be no fulfillment of God's will through you.

If this is our course and destiny to do we will be followed necessarily by the same adverse factors as have Jesus and God. In such a case you can and should have an internally unified idea enabling you to stand above all those factors and achieve this ideal in practical life.

As Jesus could be closely connected with God through 30 years of perseverance for God's will, so will it be possible for you to be closely connected with Jesus and God by your unchangeable perseverance.

Had Jesus failed to persevere and overcome his various adverse factors from birth to the crucifixion, there might never have been the way to redemption through the cross.

There is another reason in the base of redemption on the cross. Since Jesus had realized that he was to stand for God's perseverance during the 4,000 years of human history, he could persevere through various adverse factors around him. So you also must stand alone through all individual, family, national, world and universal adverse factors as agents for Jesus and God.

We should know that Jesus couldn't rejoice over glory given from God. God, mankind, and all creation couldn't be on his side for he had come not for his own sake but for God, mankind and creation.

As it was Jesus' earnest desire for God and mankind to rejoice through him, he has been doing his best for redemption of all mankind during the past 2.000 years.

You should realize one other thing. Neither God nor Satan makes up one's mind by the Divine Principles. Satan only slanders man in case of his violation against divine rules. So you should struggle against Satan and wicked persons, fully armed with the Divine Principles, Even though Jesus and the Holy Spirit have been struggling for this earth, based on the Divine Principles, there is no substantial man who is struggling, centered upon those Divine Principles.

As Jesus fought God's spiritual struggle in his substantial body, so you should be a substantial being for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.