The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1957
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1957 |
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met
together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to
conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They
did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29
Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak
your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and
perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant
Jesus." 31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting
was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke
the word of God boldly. 32 All the believers were one in heart and
mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but
they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles
continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's
grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no
needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land
or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it
at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas
(which means "son of encouragement"), 37 sold a field he
owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. 5:1 Now
a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a
piece of property. 2 With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part
of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the
apostles' feet. 3 Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that
Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit
and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the
land? 4 Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was
sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing
such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God."
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear
seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came
forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7
About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had
happened. 8 Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and
Ananias got for the land?" "Yes," she said, "that
is the price." 9 Peter said to her, "How could you conspire
to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who
buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out
also." 10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died.
Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and
buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church
and all who heard about these events.
Acts 4:27-5:11
Father of love, in the present state, the last fight has come before us. The Will of the Father, which was prophesied to the Israelites, must be accomplished on the earth. Therefore, we know that the sacred spirit must appear again.
This is a new era when we must set up the unprecedented historical offering before the whole of Heaven and earth. We feel that the Father's hand of infinite exertion must be with us. Father, please trust in us, raise us up, call upon us and direct us. We earnestly pray for You to work to give us the power and ability of Heaven and allow us to materialize Your desired will on the earth.
The shouts of the 120 followers who became one in the upper room after losing the Lord produced new works of recreation in Heaven and on earth. In the same way, please let us also become one in our minds and bodies today to manifest the same phenomena on behalf of the will of the Father.
In doing so, Father, we hope that You will allow Heaven to shake and the earth to tremble so that the glory of victorious Heaven can be manifested on the earth. Just as the numerous prophets and saints have offered all they had for the sake of the one will of the Father, please, Father of love, let us also be offered before the will of the Father as the live offering who complies with a pure heart.
We have entrusted all of ourselves to the Father. Father, we sincerely wish for You to appear as the will of joy; that You will not prolong the promised time and chance, but will quickly raise us up to liberate the heart of grief bound for 6,000 years. Sincerely beseeching for You to allow each of us gathered here to have a new determination in our hearts and gradually to obtain the qualifications of children of the Father, we pray all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Today I will speak on the topic "God's Power is Revealed Where One Heart and One Will Have Been Realized."
After the resurrection, Jesus stayed on the earth for forty days. Before he ascended, he made the promise that he would send the Holy Spirit, the protector and giver of blessing. The disciples who followed Jesus looked at the glorious appearance of the resurrected Jesus and rejoiced, thinking that the promised will of God was being accomplished, but Jesus ascended without telling them clearly when he would return.
How must the disciples have felt at that time? They must have been overwhelmed by a strong sense of enmity toward the faithless Israelites and the sect of Judaism who had nailed their beloved Jesus to the cross. They must have made the determination that for the sake of the resurrected Lord and the will of God, even if their bodies were to become powder and their bones were to melt, they would follow the resurrected Lord for the sake of the ultimate victory.
With this kind of determination and resolution to make a breakthrough on the path even if they were to die or go to the cross, with earnest hearts that had yearned for Heaven since the time the Lord had passed away, they probably encouraged each other whenever they met. Because of this, Jesus promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to his disciples.
After that, with God working in the background, the 120 followers who had gathered in the upper room had an experience that exceeded their imaginations. They then could totally embrace the will of the dispensation. They could enter the state in which they could feel the internal heart Jesus had felt during the thirty years of personal life and three years of public life.
Accordingly, they were overcome with guilt for having betrayed Jesus. They came to realize that the Jesus who came to the earth was the only begotten son of Heaven, whom they should not have treated the way they did. Furthermore, the more clearly they realized that Jesus came to this earth as the Savior of all people, the more they made a firm resolution and determination in their hearts. They were then able to move toward the one purpose with one heart, centering on one will: brothers, apostles and believers all giving inspiration to one another. By exchanging their hearts and becoming one for the sake of the one will they were pursuing, although the 120 followers were all different individuals, they all headed in one direction based on the will of God. All their actions and movements were manifested in the same manner.
This kind of phenomenon took place among the apostles. Their hearts were burning with fire. Toward what direction did they shout? They began to shout at the Israelites, who had opposed Jesus. Not only that, they shouted to the countless numbers of humanity who did not believe in Jesus. They demonstrated that no one could change their hearts, united as they were with the new determination, resolution and pledge.
Similarly, you have to understand that they emerged as people who made a resolute pledge and determination before Heaven. Not only that, when they came with an unshakable center in spite of the severity of the persecution in their environment, Heaven elevated each of them as a representative of Jesus and passed the mission to them.
More than one person had this kind of mind-set. The more sorrow they felt for having lost the Lord, the more they were overwhelmed. The stronger the will of God moved, the more they felt enmity toward the people who had betrayed Heaven. When they came before Heaven with the determination to prevail over those betrayers and actualize the will of Heaven at once, what was manifested was not human power; it was the power of God. We have to understand that here the direct works of God's powers, which are beyond human imagination, revealed themselves before the ignorant, faithless and rebellious people.
If the 120 followers had not met in the upper room and had not prayed as one heart with faith in the promise that Jesus would send the Holy Spirit, Christianity would not have become a world religion today. At that time, the 120 followers who prostrated themselves and prayed did not have any fear. They forgot all about their own dignity, honor and families. When the 120 followers prayed with one heart, believing only in the promise of the Lord that he would appear at a certain time and place, they could clear away the realm of death that had blocked Heaven from earth for 4,000 years. The Spirit then descended upon the earth.
This event was not a coincidence. By virtue of this, a new path to humankind once again was pioneered. Who caused this to take place? This took place because of the yearning hearts of the 120 followers, who focused all of their attention solely on the one will of the Father with a uniform heart, a uniformly sincere will, and a uniform spirit of offering. You have to understand that due to this, the dispensational works of the Holy Spirit, which had not been able to be carried out, finally made a new historic start.
The 120 followers were gripped by a sincere and desperate heart toward Heaven when they experienced the work of the Holy Spirit, which shook Heaven and earth and divided into fire-like tongues. They came to possess the mind-set that they would be ready to die no matter what kind of enemies they faced. As the power of Heaven was added to this, this power could not be undermined by anyone. You must understand that because they became the foundations of this power, the words they spoke had the power to make Heaven and earth tremble.
What must be done to accomplish the will of God today? First, we must possess the heart that can become one with God. After possessing the heart that can become one with God, we must then possess the heart that can become one with our brothers. You must never forget that in the Last Days this will become the best foundation for the fulfillment of the will of God.
If there are 1,000 or 10,000 people on the earth, every one of them has a different will. However, because the will of God is one, we must trample upon our own will and eliminate all the conditions that we present to ourselves. We must follow the will of the Father and His conditions, instead. Although our wills and minds are different and although our positions and environments are different, unless we become one with the will of the Father, the will of God will never be realized.
To what extent then did the apostles of that time unite? They united to the point where they supplied each other's needs. They did not distinguish what belonged to whom. Centering on the will of God, with the mind-set that what belonged to one belonged to the other, two of them became one, and ten of them became one. Therefore, when someone encountered some difficulty, they did not let that become the ordeal of that one individual. They considered it their own ordeal.
When they felt the difficulties of their brothers as their own so that it penetrated deeply into their own bones and flesh, even Heaven was touched. In other words, you must keep in mind that you also must forget yourselves like this and possess the heart which can offer all you have for the sake of the will of the Father, no matter how much sacrifice it will entail. You must possess the heart that can feel the difficulties of your brothers as your own.
For you who are living on the earth today, material things are your enemies. If you are imprisoned by the self-centered concept that the money in your pocket is your own and that only you can use that money for the sake of your own will, then you have not yet become one centered on the will of Father.
The anguish and distress of Heaven in coping with this exceed the degree of anguish and sorrow you can fathom. You must experience and comprehend the fact that it is distress and a desperate situation such that you cannot even imagine it.
Now you must learn from the movement of the early church, in which all the believers followed centering on the apostles. Otherwise, there is no way to put you in charge of the blessing of Heaven that is granted on the world level to you, the believers of the Last Days. You must take responsibility for the barriers blocking the heavenly principles and perform the judgment of God on His behalf. You must keep in mind that the time has come when you must make a self-reflection about whether you have abused the will of Heaven.
It is the work of Satan that appears to prevent this kind of movement of the apostles, their unity with the one heart that includes the whole body without discriminating against anyone. It is the work of Satan that tries to divide the environment in which they can become one, believing in everything and based on inseparable relationships.
Before these united apostles, Ananias and Sapphira appeared. They were envious of the apostles and believers. However, it was an envious heart centering on the world. We must keep this in mind today.
The amazing grace of Heaven appears as glorious grace. Everyone wants it to appear before him. Ananias and Sapphira enviously watched the execution of the unimaginable and amazing works of Peter, who brought thousands to repentance when he spoke in tongues or healed the sick. When they took on the appearance of an apostle, based on a humanistic desire to enjoy the same kind of position, God could not forgive them. You have to take special note of this point. You have to understand that concealing a part of what he sold and offering only a part of it, pretending that he had offered everything, is the cunning trickery of Satan, who is trying to destroy the will of God.
If one is a faithful believer who can reveal one's honest heart and be absorbed by the will of Heaven, then it is no problem to make an offering. Ananias and Sapphira came forth based on their own concern and selfish desires and came before the apostles who had forgotten everything and had offered everything with earnest hearts. The apostles had prayed, "We offer all of our hearts, so dead or alive, please use us according to Your joyful will." This condition of Ananias and Sapphira became the strongest condition to block the path of Heaven right after the ascension of Jesus, a moment when the early church should have been laying a new foundation.
You must in this moment realize that when the heart of Ananias was exposed by the Holy Spirit, Peter said, "Satan, Heaven cannot forgive what dwells inside your heart. I cannot forgive you for letting, Satan invade you," and judged him in place of the words of the Holy Spirit.
What kind of mind-set then should we have? Those who are trying to relate with the will of Heaven by setting some self-centered condition will be in the same position as Ananias and Sapphira. What does this foretell? You have to understand that this foretells the fact that, at the time of judgment, those who cannot become one with a group that has become united will not be able to avoid death.
The 120 followers who had gathered in the upper room abandoned everything: Forgot their own dignity, honor and social environment -- Only for the sake of the ascended Lord. They then became united as one. In other words, they mingled into one body while they admired the words of promise to bring one world everywhere. This is the point where the signal light of God's new dispensation was raised aloft.
Similar phenomena to that which took place before the 120 followers who gathered in the upper room must unfold before us, those people responsible for the mission of the Last Days. Furthermore, now is the time when the works of the Holy Spirit, the Son and the Father are taking place inside you.
Who are the ones who will stand before the Father in the Last Days? It is written that those on whose foreheads the names of the Lord and the Father are inscribed can be part of the 144,000 who can stand before the Father.
Through the works of the Holy Spirit, we must earn the recognition of Christ today. After gaining the recognition of Christ and the Holy Spirit, we must earn the recognition of the Father. Since the Holy Spirit is the mother and Jesus is the father deity, if we have received the Holy Spirit, from now on it is time to receive the father deity.
What must we do to receive the God the Father? We must attain the qualifications to become one with the Father for eternity. How earnest must we be? We must earnestly make the appeal, "Father God, please descend upon us!" with a more earnest and desperate heart than those of the 120 followers who prayed with a united and sincere heart after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. The time has come when we have to do this.
What must you do then at this time? You must understand the fact that there is nothing that belongs to you. Your body, mind and even the things that belong to you are not yours. Those who claim them as their own are still on the side of Satan. You must think that all that belongs to you is the sense of mission that you feel in your hearts. We have to have this kind of attitude.
If we are not ours, then whose must we be? We must become the possessions of the Father. To become the possession of the Father, we must become one heart centering on the will of the Father. Without achieving one heart and one will, the will of God cannot be realized.
In the same way that the 120 followers became one the upper room, in the Last Days, can more than 120 people become united in one heart? This is a problem. For those of us who are trying to walk this kind of path, who is the enemy? If there is a group of people who are trying to prevent us from becoming united into one heart and trying to present conditions of destruction, they are your enemies.
What we must fight with today is not Satan in the world. It is the people who have the same form and movement as the apostles and are centered on the apostles in Heaven, the people who have the same form of movement as the faithful believers but who possess some different motive in their heart. If there are those among you with these kinds of motives, you must expose yourselves honestly before the faithful believers. If you do not expose your motives but try to conceal them and go before Heaven while you are setting more grave conditions, then your fate in the Last Days will definitely fall under judgment.
Consequently, today you must open your heart. If you do not do that and are enslaved to the same kind of heart as that of Ananias and Sapphira, then you will not be able to escape from the judgment of Heaven in the Last Days. It will be the same if you guard your minds and bodies, fill up on your own things, and do not think about the whole value of Heaven. If you do not become one with God in heart and forsake the heart that wants to bring accomplishment for your own sake rather than for the one will, then you will not be able to escape from the judgment of Heaven in the Last Days.
What then must you know now? You must understand that you are a being of contradiction who has two different minds. You have to understand that there are brothers who have thoughts that are different from yours. Even if so, you must not oppose the brothers with different thoughts; you must try to become one with them. This is the Father's will.
If you, as a being of life who has the true life, become one with the people who have experienced Heaven's miracle of fire, then you will obtain the material things of ten people. If you become one with a hundred people, you will obtain the material things of a hundred people.
What is the fall? It is our failure to unite our hearts with God. What is Satan? Satan is the one who is separating our hearts from Heaven. Today, seeking the will of the Father centering on this church, you are learning the words of the Divine Principle. Because living centered on the words of this Divine Principle is the will of God, you will not be able to avoid being in the same position a Ananias or Sapphira, if you cannot live centering on that will. Now is an extremely fearful time. If you become even the slightest bit accountable for a condition now, there is no way out of it. You must realize that the time is coming when no one can speak in your defense. In the present as it was in the past, ignorant people learn only after they have collided against the direction of Heaven. However, by that time it is already too late.
Do you worry about the will of the Father? Please then become one with your brothers. Do you have the desire to exert yourself for the sake of the Father's will? Please then become the spring of life that can bring unity. The sons and daughters of the Father are the people who eliminate all conditions preventing unity and manifest the power to bring unity in the place of their dwelling.
If you feel a sense of responsibility to be present at the last battleground for the sake of the Father's will and to accomplish the will of the Father, then you must forget yourselves and become one. You must have one heart and one will to achieve unity. Even if there is a traitor here, you must not hold grudges against him. As Peter lamented over it, you must first rekindle this kind of heart among yourselves and fulfill your responsibilities to remove all conditions of Satan. Otherwise, even if you accepted the will of God with zeal initially, the moment you are unaware, you will fall into the realm of Satan's play. You must take serious note of this.
If you cannot become one in heart and will now, it is worse than if you had never come to know the Divine Principle and the will of God. If Ananias and Sapphira had not known of the gathering of the apostles, they would not have been judged. You are living in this kind of amazing historical moment.
At this point, you must forget everything. Setting one mind and one will as the goal, you must reach for it, exert all your effort and loyalty, and cling to the hands of the Father.
You then will become victorious sons and daughters. After passing through the hands of the Holy Spirit, the hands of the son of man, and then holding onto the hands of the Father, there is no way Satan can seize it away from you. You who are living in this kind of moment today must cling to the hands of the Father and obey His words with the same degree of ardor as the apostles, who ardently cherished the promise of Jesus, "I will come." They longed for his coming. You must become a qualified person who can distinguish between good and evil, otherwise, you cannot climb over the great hill of judgment, not of the Holy Spirit or the son, but of the Father. The time of the Father's judgment has not yet come. At the time of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, sins can be forgiven, but at the time of the Father's judgment, there is no forgiveness.
We have come to learn this will. We have learned the words of the Divine Principle that if we do not become people whose minds and will can become one, then even the Father cannot manage us. You have to understand that the will of God manifests itself to the same degree that you have achieved oneness.
This moment now is the time when you must receive the sacred spirit of the Father and live with the same heart as the Father. When you do that, the Father will personally reveal things to you often. The Father will personally appear and intervene, pointing out the way that you must walk, teaching you the ways to fight Satan.
Therefore, you must hurry to receive the divine nature of the Father, to take after the mind of the Father, and to uphold the will of the Father. You can then feel that the Father is your substitute and you are His substitute. You become one. The more this kind of form expands, the more the will of the Father is realized. Greater than praying ten million times, you must make more effort than anyone else to achieve unity. If you have the desire to understand the value more deeply and fight for the sake of the will more than anyone else, then you will not have to stand on the stage of judgment.
Therefore, at this time, unless each of you exerts all of your minds and bodies to inherit the divine nature of the Father and live a life that unites you with the Father, you will not understand the will of the Father. As long as you do not understand the Father's will, you will not understand the heart of the Father. As long as you do not understand the heart of the Father, you cannot become one centering on the will of the Father.
Since you have been attending church until now, what you must realize is that before the will of the Father, everyone must become one in heart and will. The will of the Father must be conveyed as our own will. The mind of the Father must be conveyed to each of us as our own will. When this is achieved, God can begin to perform in His full authority.
For Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the victorious miracle of resurrection took place only when they became one, centering on the heart of the Father. The ardent heart and will of the Father must become one with yours so that the silent powers on both sides, that are trying to bring this to pass, are moving in the same direction. At that moment, God can act in His full authority, in a way which exceeds all your concepts.
Therefore, God moves amid the prayer that two people are offering with a united heart. Consequently, I have formed the trinities. The problem is to what extent you have become one in heart and soul, centering on your trinities. You must keep in mind that those who did not achieve the one will centering on one heart, in spite of that being their mission, are standing in the same position as Ananias and Sapphira. To carry on the last battle today and forget everything else, we must achieve it with the whole united power, as well as one united mind and will.
If we are to set a motto, it is, "Let Us Become One in Heart and Will." To reach the state of one heart and one will, you must learn to forget material things, social prestige, social position, power and authority, and every such thing.
Since this has been blocked off, only when you learn to bravely overcome this will you be able to perform miracles like those the apostles performed with the help of the Holy Spirit, who appeared inside the upper room to destroy the ignorant enemies. You must also pray with the same heart, "Please let us become one in heart, one in will, and manifest it through united actions." This is the motto we must shout out at this time. If there is someone who blocks this and prevents its fulfillment, then he is the very enemy of Heaven.
Do you long for the realization of the great will today? If you do, then you must become united in heart. Do you want the appearance of the great glory? Every one of you must become united. Where there is unity in heart, everything can pass through. Infinite persistence is also possible.
Accordingly, today you must quickly become one in heart. Do you have some element in your heart that prevents it from becoming united? You must take this as your enemy and see it as the great Satan. This will drag you to hell. Satan will snatch you away. This will become the condition by which you will be made to stand on the stage of judgment.
With the determination to eliminate these kinds of conditions from your life and bring order to your environment, your minds and will must become one. We must become united until the moment when we can subjugate Satan as the representatives of the mind and will of the Father.
This must end not just in this hour today. If for ten years that which belongs to Satan remains, then until the fulfillment of the Father's will, you must be able to unite with one person for ten years. For ten years, you must be able to unite with a thousand people. We must offer our entire life to fight with Satan. By eventually vanquishing Satan, we must manifest the glory of the Father while we are alive. You must keep this in mind.
Had the heart and will of the Father and Adam become one, there would never have been this history of sorrow today, in which two worlds are in conflict with each other. The Father's grieving and sad heart dwells in our hearts today. Our original minds recognize this, but our fallen natures, centered on ourselves, deny it. We know that the original mind and the selfish mind are always in conflict within us, so please allow us to cope with our hearts and make them become one with the heart of the Father.
The time of battle is nearing when we must cope with our own will and make it one with the will of God. Father, if among the sons and daughters here there are those who cannot become one in heart with the Father, then please forgive them. Please allow us to forget ourselves and exert ourselves for the sake of becoming one with the heart and will of the Father.
We know that the heart which has become one with the heart of the Father cannot be exchanged for any amount of money. Beloved Father, we ardently wish for You to guide us to fight on in the search of that one thing, even by sacrificing everything.
The Father now is in an enormously difficult time. Satan is blocking our hearts, which long to become united. Please allow us to set a new condition of sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others, to accomplish the Father's will.
We earnestly wish for You to allow us to fight while longing for the will of the Father and manage the history of the dispensation that can broaden the glory of the Father's will.
Our gathering here today wishes to be of one heart and will unite before the altar of the Father. We ardently wish for You to allow us to be established as the conditional offering that has the same relationship with the Father. Let it become the condition to subjugate Satan. We offer all the words in the name of the Lord. Amen.