The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1957
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1957 |
1 "Do not judge, or you too will
be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be
judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye
and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say
to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all
the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first
take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to
remove the speck from your brother's eye. 6 "Do not give dogs
what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may
trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. 7
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock
and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives;
the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be
opened. 9 "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give
him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good
gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what
you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the
Prophets. The Narrow and Wide Gates 13 "Enter through the narrow
gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to
destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and
narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 15 "Watch
out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but
inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will
recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from
thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad
tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad
tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good
fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit
you will recognize them. 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord,
Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does
the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on
that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your
name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' 23
Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you
evildoers!' 24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine
and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on
the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew
and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its
foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built
his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the
winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great
crash."
Matthew 7:1-27
Your children are gathered here. They have been striving during the past week to seek Your hope in accordance with Your will. Father of compassion, Father of love, Father of mercy, have dominion over them.
Our hearts are indescribably weak and restless. If Heaven's grace of peace, harmony and comfort were not with us in our hearts, no people could have been as pitiful as we are. Please understand our situations and bestow Your grace of compassion on us. We understand that You are a friend to the weak, so please strengthen their hearts, and comfort the hearts of the lonely.
Beloved Father, through this hour, I sincerely desire and wish that You would allow us an opportunity engrave deeply in our hearts the heavenly principles, bow down to You in gratitude for Your grace, manifest Your glory, and offer You songs of joy. Father, even if we are fatigued with difficulties, as we stand up on behalf of a people asleep, we understand that it should be a glorious joy to You. If only our grief, despair, and lamentation can serve for the sake of the creation and the cosmos, not centered on us, we understand that there will be nothing more glorious than that. Through this opportunity, I earnestly wish and desire for You to allow us to have a heart filled only with concern for heaven and earth, to feel an irresistible sense of mission endowed from heaven and a burning desire to fulfill it.
Please allow us to clearly realize on our own that we are the ones who are standing before the will of heaven, and that each of our actions are for the sake of Heaven. Please guide us to fight Satan on behalf of the people and fulfill the mission entrusted by You. Thus, on their behalf, let us become the sons and daughters who can carry out the blessing bestowed upon the people. Beloved Father, we earnestly desire and wish for this to be done. By doing so, please lead us to become the sons and daughters who can awaken the sleeping people, and who can appeal to You to save all of humankind who are being swallowed in darkness.
Please help us not to take responsibility only for our own individual life, but help us to be responsible for the people and all of humankind. Let us offer our lives before You and thus become the kind of person You want us to be. Father, I sincerely wish and desire for this to be done.
Now let us offer all of our loyalty through our minds and bodies, and let this loyalty be embedded in our bones, so that You can comfort and desire and bless us. Father, I sincerely wish and desire for this hour to be such an opportunity.
Even today there are sons and daughters scattered here and there who are burning a torchlight of battles against Satan and evil before You. Please be with them, have dominion over them, and protect them. Please clearly show them that they are sons and daughters of the living Father, and let them be proud of themselves in the midst of hardships. This I sincerely pray. At this hour, I know that there are sons and daughters who are faced with lonely situations. Please have dominion over all of their environment and circumstances, comfort them and make an appearance before them with the same grace. I sincerely wish and desire for this to be done.
As we entrust everything to You at this hour, please allow Your will and glory alone to be demonstrated in our minds and bodies, and work through us. I pray all of this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
At this hour, I would like to speak to you on the topic of "Jesus' Heart for God."
Today countless people are living without clearly knowing their purpose of life. That is, they are living without knowing answers to the fundamental questions of life, such as why they were born, how they should live and where they will go after death.
However, this is simple. Men and women are to live for the sake of others. That is, they were born for others, to live for others and die for others. That is the original path of human beings.
The first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, should have done this. That is, they should have lived for others, but they failed to do so. This is the origin of the fall. That is why, until now, humans have been toiling to indemnify the origin of the fall through indemnity. However, because they could not be liberated from the fallen lineage, even if they tried to live for others, they eventually lived for themselves. In other words, they led a life in which they were born for themselves, lived for themselves, and died for themselves.
However, throughout the course of God's dispensation, though it went unrecognized by human beings, God has been working to create a value to the universal life, a value to the universal being for the fulfillment of the ideal of creation. You should reflect upon this again.
By living according to heavenly principles, by keeping your integrity, you can find and create a value that can represent the relationship in heaven, the relationship of true ethics and the relationship of the universe. Further, by restoring your immutable positions for eternity toward the will of God, you can praise the one being who eternally lives for others. Through your substantial relationships with the whole, you should be able to fully express the beauty of God's creation.
Thus, the ultimate purpose of God's dispensation is to help humans find the value of their life. Accordingly, by being faithful to God as a universal original human, you can find a day when you can be proud of yourself before Him, before all of humankind, and before all things. You are destined to go the universal path to be restored even after death, if not during your physical lifetime. You should keep this in mind.
Until the present, there has been no one who established such a standard of loyalty to God and could manifest the value and glory to God, humankind, or all things. There has been no one who was a true man of character with unchanging, irreversible loyalty that will not disobey, no matter what. Throughout history, there have been many saints and sages sent and testified to by God, but there has been no one with such a character. That is why humans have been looking for such a figure throughout history.
Today humans should meet the one person who has pledged and is determined to stand before the heavenly will and human ethics as an unchanging figure, inheriting all the missions and faiths of all of the saints and sages who have come and passed away until now. If not, we cannot carry out the responsibility that God wishes for, nor can human history come closer to the one destination for which the heavenly will wishes.
Thus, unless there is a person who can represent Heaven, who can be a man of character with the standard of eternal loyalty representing all things, the heavenly will cannot be fulfilled. This person must be one who can be a substantial being of character, whom all people should resemble, and he must be a person who is taking responsibility for leading human history. Otherwise, this evil world cannot be restored. You should know that this is a principle of heaven.
Accordingly, the one central figure must appear on this earth no matter what. Otherwise, the person who was to appear in the last days of human history cannot come to the earth, and thus the ideal world centered on God cannot be realized. The central figure who is to come should be a being who can manifest the value of heaven within his realm of life, with the value and glory of all things and who can bring a core energy that can harmonize the whole.
God, who has been leading a dispensation to save all humankind sent a central figure to earth for every dispensational time of history. If human history had not succeeded through these central persons, we would not be able to inherit God's providential will today. The final purpose and goal of human history are to find a unified ideology through one world view. People who live on earth today recognize this fact.
Then what is the unifying point of the dispensation of restoration? It is to establish a standard where each person can stand before the heavenly principle for eternity as a being of character that can replace the value of the heavenly principle, human ethics, and the universe. Thus, he can dwell with God for eternity. Similarly, since the purpose of human history is to be directed to the one returning point, we can understand that human history is moving centered on a certain ideology or a certain constructive activity.
The one standard is a historic, original being for whom all humans have been longing and yearning with hope throughout all of history until now. Humans have been longing to see the central person who reached this one standard to appear. That is, they did not want the being to come in the past or in the future, but wanted him to come in their lifetime and thus be personally connected to him. Through this, by fulfilling the standard of heavenly principles and becoming glorious beings who can enjoy the position of the eternal, unchanging ancestor of their lineage, they desired to be proud of themselves before the creation. In fact, when the very one appears before you, you should be able to attend him and take after his loyalty. Then the question will be whether you are actually prepared to do it.
Throughout many thousands of years of history, God has been sending men of character, with loyalty and devotion to the will, as central figures. By inheriting the heavenly will they were to be responsible for their time. Yet during each period people did not realize this.
On the other hand, throughout human history many doctrines are unifying into one and are moving toward one returning point. What is the reason for this or this process to the destination from the beginning of time? What is the reason the providence of the heavenly will is being united into one? It is because if the providential goal changes from time to time, the purpose of the unifying point of the providence cannot be achieved. Thus, you should understand that God's providence is marching forward consistently, centered on the eternal axis, toward one goal.
This is not an ideology of certain ideas, nor is it humanistic law or moral ethics. This is the providential course of God, who has been fighting alone, centered on Heaven's principles, which go beyond those of human ethics.
Therefore, we should become a person of heavenly character with an unchanging loyalty and devotion to the will of God on behalf of the heavenly will. By doing so, through an unchanging journey from the beginning point to the destination of God's providence, we should find the value of one unifying point that can replace the value for the whole. Furthermore, the value of the unifying point should be established as a condition for the restoration of the whole. If not, the will of God, who attempts to lead the providence by sending a person of character representing the ideology of the heavenly will, will not be completed.
When viewed from the progress of history, we can understand that various religions were formed appropriately for different people and areas. Among them, there has to be one religion with a long historical background that seeks an unchanging figure and tries to connect heavenly love to the being of heavenly value. That religion should maintain an absolute standard for the fulfillment of this task until the last days, beyond time and the conditions of its environment. Furthermore, that religion should present the purpose of human birth and human life, and should also carry a historical background that can be connected to any area of history and culture, etc.
To find such a religion, we should examine whether that religion has been endlessly struggling on earth to actualize the religious ideology with a consistent, historical background even in the midst of hardships and tribulations. Even if time and doctrines change, it should not be affected by this. We should examine whether this religion has been contributing to the resolution of the problems to demonstrate consistently the ideas and love of God. The fundamental purpose of such a religion will be to represent heavenly principles, human ethics, and all the ideologies on earth. Also, the religion will be able to connect to the one who can actualize its ideas with unchanging loyalty. That religion is Christianity. In order for Christianity to make progress until now, it was centered on Jesus, whose life was an earnest hope to realize the ideas.
Therefore, the ideas that Christianity seeks openly today should accord with the ideas with which Jesus started. The lifestyles of Christians should accord with the lifestyle of Jesus. The hope of Christians also should be identical with Jesus' hope.
Accordingly, all Christians should be able to represent Jesus' unchanging fidelity and inherit the work of heaven. Unless they become such believers, they will not be able to manifest the ideology of Jesus which they desire to realize on earth. Then the ideology of Jesus through which they desire to bring all humankind into one cannot be manifested according to heavenly principles.
When examining Jesus' thirty years of life, we come to understand that Jesus was not a person who was limited as an individual. His character was not only his own, it also a heavenly character that represented 4,000 years of history. You should understand this.
Jesus' ideas were not only ones of hope that the many saints and sages wished for, but also those of the Creator, who wanted to fulfill the purpose of His providence. To fulfill his mission, Jesus walked a course of bloody tears. Thus, you should copy his character and his unchanging will that he showed through his ideas and life course with an unchanging heart.
Since Jesus did not mind fighting to establish an unchanging will on behalf of 4,000 years of history, you should inherit the mission of Jesus and appear before Heaven as a person of character with unchanging integrity on behalf of the 6,000 years of history that include the last 2,000 years of history since Jesus' death. If not, you would not be able to have an eternal relationship with the ideology of heavenly ethics that Jesus wished for and we are seeking today. You should keep this in mind.
Then how did Jesus live? Jesus led a life that considered God's will the purpose of his life. Ever since he had pledged before God that he would take responsibility for all humankind until the completion of God's will, he led a life of unchanging piety toward God, one unconcerned with his own comfort.
Then how could God establish Jesus as the savior of all humankind? Throughout the 4,000 years of history, ever since the creation, Jesus was the only one who offered his entire life for the sake of God's will. He alone led a life of loyalty and unchanging fidelity. That is why he could be established as the eternal Messiah, and the providential work of God inherited from Moses could enter a new phase through Jesus' life.
Faced with the final judgment to climb over the Golgotha of limitless fear in the last days, what do you need? The ideas that already exist on earth will not make it. That is the reason we need a central figure who can open the path blocked to us. When viewed historically, because even God knew that the preexisting ideologies would not suffice, throughout the many religions that pursued God's providence, He promised to send a central figure of the providence. This is the ideal of the Second Coming.
Now we should not stand in a relative position toward God and the creation. We should be people with the character, unchanging ideas, and the ideas of heavenly life of the absolute God. In this position, where we can maintain an eternal relationship with God from the beginning to the end, we should be able to manifest our value before the creation.
You should find the truth that guides humans to become such persons. If you are seeking such truth, you will be the successor to the hope, ideas, and life standard of Jesus, and new ideas will be added. You should also look for a stage of activities on your own. Thus, you should find an absolute being who can control all aspects with the standards of ideas and acts, and become a kind of person whom God looks for. This will be a person of character, a true person who can represent the heavenly purpose of the whole. We should become a person with heart, who can repent on his or her own.
Today each of us is an individual, but we should not remain only on the individual level. Christianity also should not be only for of a people or a nation, but should be for the world and all of humankind. Also, it should represent all human history and be responsible for the historical hope of humanity. At the same time, it should represent the ideology of heavenly principles and human ethics.
You should clearly feel that such a history, the historical hope, and the ideology of heavenly principles and human ethics are connected to your living environment. You should be able to say, "My Lord, is this not what You wish for? I will fulfill it for You," before Jesus who came 2,000 years ago as an unchanging man of character and a substantial being of hope. We should be able to reflect upon the words of Jesus who prayed, "Heavenly Father, please accept this," after having fulfilled his responsibility for the will of Heaven with an unchanging will on behalf of the principles of heaven.
Then with what kind of attitude of mind did Jesus pioneer and overcome his difficult environment? Jesus overcame his difficult environment with an unrivalled determined heart to have humans restore human ethics and have them connected to heavenly principles. He felt responsible for fulfilling the historical hope of all of humanity.
Then what were the difficulties Jesus was faced with? He had to fight not only against himself, but also against legions of the invisible Satans that were invading humans then. Alone, he had to pioneer the path blocked by the people then and by all the habits developed throughout history and the trends of the era.
In such a hard position, who has fought Satan on Jesus' behalf? Who has courageously pioneered the difficult path on his behalf! Today, on behalf of Jesus in such a position, at some point you should become a person who can fight to save the world and fulfill your responsibility as a human on earth. Unless such a person appears, the ideal that Jesus wished for cannot be fulfilled on this earth.
The people of the era did not recognize Jesus who had come as a being with a historic character to save them from their fallen state. Thus, he walked a solitary and extremely lonely path. However, he did not have his own hope.
His hope was only to save fallen people. Yet until now, people have not understood such a lonely situation of Jesus. Nor can they know Jesus, whose total hope was to save all humankind without thinking of himself, even in the midst of such loneliness. Further, even his followers did not know the situation of Jesus. Thus, you should understand that Jesus is the king of kings of loneliness.
Also, Jesus did not pray for himself alone. All of his words and acts, what he saw, heard, and felt were not to benefit himself. Those words and acts were on behalf of history, humanity, and heavenly principles. Thus, he attempted to manifest the real existence of the eternal and unchanging God.
Although Jesus led such a sad life of shedding tears while others did not notice, you should understand that he was a man with a great will. You should repent that you did not figure out that he was in a frustrating position where he had to fight Satan, forgetting his difficult environment without losing the ideology and conviction of God, the Creator. You should lament over yourselves. Jesus did not establish an ideology for himself, but for heaven. His ideas were unchanging ones that expressed God's internal heart and the fundamental idea presented through many ideologies and thought throughout history. Then how did Jesus live with such ideas? How did he overcome his environment and relate to God? Jesus was a substantial being with limitless value, a human being of original nature who could sing God's glory. He should have experienced the joy that Adam and Eve had experienced before the fall. Yet he was born into the fallen world, and on behalf of God, he had to take control over the difficult environment.
Due to the fall, humans had no choice but to lead a life of grief. Also, due to the fall, they had to experience pain and dwell in the world of death. Similarly, Jesus came to an earth filled with grievances, sadness, pain and death. He was a star who had to stand on that sadness and fight for heaven's principles with that heart.
Jesus had to walk a path of sadness to feel God's sadness. The heartbreaking pain he felt was not for himself, but because he had to fulfill a mission to indemnify the sorrow of history through himself. Therefore, he was frustrated with pain on behalf of history, the providence and people.
Jesus has never changed his center, no matter what kind of sadness and suffering he went through, or even the fear with which he was faced. Jesus was to inherit the heavenly ideology and take full responsibility to fulfill a mission of pioneering an unchanging path. If he had changed his center under the circumstances, the victorious history of heaven could not have begun.
Jesus pioneered a victorious path of heavenly principle, overcoming all hardships in spite of his difficult environment, hopeless situation, and in the position of being accused by Satan. To pioneer the way, Jesus emphasized a love that has never existed throughout history. No matter what kind of circumstances he was faced with, he asserted that we should have patience to overcome. As sinners are loyal to evil, we should be even more loyal to the will of God. This is the basis of the Holy Spirit's nine fruits. Through a life of love, joy and peace will come. Through patience, compassion and goodness will come. Through a life of loyalty, gentleness and humility will come.
To remove all of the evil elements under the sovereignty of the fall, Jesus emphasized heavenly love, heavenly patience, and heavenly loyalty. This is the ideology to realize the building the Kingdom of Heaven. Do you have the love of Christ within you? Do you have patience and loyalty? Jesus was a being of substantialized love on behalf of God's heart. Even on the sorrowful way to Golgotha, he was the hero of patience, with concern for the sufferings of all of humankind. He was a representative of loyalty toward heaven. More than anyone, he had given devoted service to heaven.
Then what is the source of Jesus' love, patience and loyalty? They are not from Jesus himself. Jesus was only playing the role of a mediator who could connect the love of God to humans. Jesus, who came to save ignorant humans, was the incarnation of God's love and a substantial being with God-like value.
Then how could Jesus manifest God's love, which had not existed before in history? He could overcome any difficulties for God and His will, and could even give up his own life. That is why God's love could dwell with him, and for the first time in human history, he could personally incarnate the love of God. When Jesus came to this earth and sought God's love, he did not place a priority on logic. He did not talk about the definition of love or its logic. He represented human history in the light of actualizing love. He did not mention anything that he personally did not feel or actualize. It was because he knew that one could have an eternal relationship with God only through real acts.
Then where did Jesus' actualized love come from? It was not from Jesus himself. Because he could fathom God's inner heart, he could also create such an inner standard of heart. People did not know this.
Then what is God's love like? Today people on earth betray God and others and change their hearts many thousands of times, but God cannot do it. God's love is eternal and unchanging. Because man did not know such a heart of God, people did not believe and betrayed each other.
Then where is God's patience coming from? The reason God has been leading a dispensation of struggle was to fulfill love. Also, the reason He has been endlessly patient with evil has been to establish the ideology of a good life. That is, to establish the standard of the unchanging heavenly laws to create a true human, He has been patient for 6,000 years. To fulfill the true will of God in this way, by finding a person who resembles God and can represent the value of all humankind, God has first been loyal to humans and infinitely patient with them before He expected them to be the same to Him.
Therefore, to achieve the will of God, who operates centered on heavenly principles, you should experience the same situations felt by God. He has been unceasingly loyal to humankind. The heart of God, who has been continuously sacrificing Himself to establish His will and who has been endlessly transcending even Himself to establish the ideas for the future, has the limitless desire to give. You should understand that you cannot stand before God with any kind of your own views or concepts.
Who could receive the love of God, who had been patient for 4,000 years to give His infinite love? There was no one but Jesus. Jesus knew this, and he could be grateful for the love of God even when he felt lonely.
Then where was there a person of character who understood that God had been sad for 4,000 years and that He had been patiently fighting Satan during that time? Who know that God could be proud of himself, by manifesting the result of the value of that patience? Again, it was Jesus alone. Thus, Jesus, who had to walk the path of Heaven's principles on behalf of God's patience carrying the hope of God, who wished that he could lead humans the right way, was sunk into grief.
Therefore, you should also feel God's loyal heart as Jesus did. Thus, you should realize that you should not only remain in the position of the prodigal son, but could represent the full value of God's principles as the ideas of the creation. You should also realize that the heavenly value and historical value can be compared with one's own value.
We should take after Jesus, who felt the love, patience, and loyalty of God. He understood that he who was found through God's 4,000 years of toil and patience and that he was the hope of God. We should inherit his love, loyalty and patience. You should understand the heart of Jesus, who desired to find one such person.
Because Jesus represented the love of heaven and came to the earth as the historical being who could represent heavenly loyalty (that is, because he came as a person of principles to this earth) all the struggles in Heaven were transferred to earth. We should understand this.
We can inherit his unfulfilled mission. If such a person does not appear, not only it is impossible for Jesus to come back to earth; he also cannot have a relationship with people on earth. No one could understand the sorrow of God, who was in the position of watching Jesus. This was indescribable. Also, Jesus himself felt unbearable sorrow, thinking of God who had been toiling for 4,000 years only to find Jesus alone in the position of climbing over the path of death. Jesus, who understood the lingering sorrow of God, prayed, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).
Then how could Jesus who had died on the cross be resurrected? Because Jesus could laugh at Satan and his enemies who were ridiculing his death, without losing his dignity as God's son. He pioneered a path as a master of the universe transcending his death, which Satan could not do. Also, by inheriting patience, love and loyalty, which do not exist in the satanic world, Jesus did something unimaginable in the world of Satan. That is, he could bless the enemies who killed him. Therefore, he could be resurrected and Christians could be reborn through their faith in the resurrection of the Lord.
As you understand the principles of heaven established by God, today you should take after the example of Jesus, who marched forward with the determination that he would never change even if he perished thousands and thousands of times. Also, by resembling the loyalty and patience established for us by Jesus, we should become a successor to and a child of the resurrection who can inherit his unaccomplished work and actualize it on the earth.
You should form a Shim Jung relationship with God in which you do not change, whether in happiness or sorrow. Multiply God's love together and become the people who can fight the battle against Satan on behalf of Jesus. Such a person is a brother or sister of Jesus, and a person whom God had been anxious to find during the past 2,000 years.
You who are living in the last days, by taking after the love, patience, and loyalty of Jesus, as his representative, you should accomplish the ideas of Jesus not only on the two-dimensional level, but on the three-dimensional level as well. Further, you should be victorious in every battle with Satan and have him surrender to you. Please keep in mind that this is the mission of the saints in the last days.