The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1958
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1958 |
1 "Very truly I tell you
Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but
climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who
enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper
opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls
his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out
all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him
because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger;
in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a
stranger's voice." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the
Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. 7 Therefore
Jesus said again, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the
sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the
sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters
through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find
pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I
have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 "I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the
sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and
runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The
man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the
sheep. 14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep
know me -- 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father --
and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are
not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen
to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The
reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life -- only to take
it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own
accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up
again. This command I received from my Father." 19 The Jews who
heard these words were again divided. 20 Many of them said, "He
is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?" 21 But
others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a
demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"
John 10:1-21
Father! We know that although You chose the Israelites 2,000 years ago and tried to let them experience Your heart throughout their minds and bodies, that will was not fulfilled. We have no choice but to intuit that the Israelites could not distinguish right from wrong. Please guide us to lead our lives determining right from wrong with certainty, centering on the words You have granted us. Please allow us to go forward after connecting to Your heart.
Although we are trying to connect to the Father's heart and follow the words in our hearts, now please allow us to perceive that we have failed to live according to the will of God. We know that when the Father chose us, it was not just for our own sake; it was for the sake of the people and the world. Please guide us according to Your will.
Father, we thank You for having endured as You watched over the fallen and faithless social environment and circumstances. Thank You for being concerned for the world and having chosen us so that we can stand before Heaven, even as the world becomes more evil. We cannot help thinking about the situation of Jesus Christ, who had to suffer in sorrow because of the faithlessness of the chosen people. We know that he spoke on behalf of the sorrow of Heaven. We also know that his actions were based on faith and centered on the Father.
In the last days today, please guide us to restore the sins of humanity through indemnity. By connecting with the heart of the Father, let us attend Him in our hearts and minds. Although there are countless people of faith on this earth, Christianity must represent the new Israel today. Yet Christianity does not understand the will of the Father. Just as there was no one among the Israelites who sincerely followed the Father, Christianity is unable to take charge of the entire will of the providence. Father, please allow us to fulfill that will. Guide us so that we can respond to the royal summons of the Father and be remembered for eternity. If we can possess the one life the Father expects, even by being beaten, torn and persecuted, Father of love, we earnestly wish You to guide us to persevere until the end and bring victory to You.
We know that many fell faithless, and there has been no one who possessed a heavenly life that could link with the providential will. Though Jesus tried to manifest the life of Heaven when he came to the earth, he had to depart alone because no one followed him. Beloved Father, we sincerely wish You to guide us, to become the lantern light for all humanity today, to inherit the mission and will of Jesus.
Please allow us, Your sons and daughters who have gathered here today, to reflect upon whether we have sincerely come forward for the sake of the will of Heaven, fathoming Your situation and cherishing Your will. Beloved Father, we earnestly hope that You will guide us to accomplish the historical will by offering our minds and bodies for the sake of righteousness. Let us become the masters of life by taking the situation of the Lord to heart.
Father, please let this hour be a precious moment when we can pledge to connect our hearts with the heart of Heaven and fulfill the will of the Father. Please allow us to take responsibility for the will of the Father with love. Allow us to experience the heart of God and follow only the way of the will. We sincerely wish You will allow us to live, centered only on the will of the Father. Let us cling to the Father whether we are dead or alive, and let our hearts and bodies search for the path of Your life, according to Your will. Please allow Your sons and daughters, who have gathered here to uphold the words and will of the Father, so that we can resurrect the whole of humanity and offer hearts of loyalty and filial piety before the Father. By guiding our hearts, we wish that You will let us follow the will of the Father without regret.
Now is the time to convey the words of truth, so please do not let Satan invade us. Please do this by removing any gap between the heart of the speaker and the hearts of the listeners. Please let the true life that seeks to restore the original garden of the Father come to life. Sincerely requesting that You dwell in us to grant grace and love and that You allow us to live centering on the will, we offer these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
I will speak to you briefly today on the topic, "The True Shepherd and His Flock; the False Shepherd and His Flock."
When you, who are sitting here today, look at so many people wondering how to lead their lives, you must feel that it is difficult to help them unite their minds and bodies and guide them in the one direction. Even when you look at yourselves, you are probably aware of the fact that unyielding determination and effort must be made to unite your bodies with the direction your minds are pursuing.
You must clearly realize that it is a historically great, and extremely important, task to push our bodies to rely on and follow our minds, and vice versa. No one is deliberately trying to carry out actions that run counter to our minds in pursuit of our desires. In the course of history, achieving unity between the mind and body in action has been the ardent hope of humanity and what Heaven and earth have been pressing for. Although this is fortunate for humankind, the fact that the situation has become like this is something over which we must grieve. Even if someone commands authority and glory in society, if he cannot unite his body with his mind, he must realize he is an unfortunate person.
We cannot deny that our minds are connected with Heaven, and our bodies are closely linked to the visible earth. You are probably able to feel that although we ourselves are extremely small, the minds and bodies we possess are connected to an extremely large and vast world. Similarly, although our minds and bodies are infinitesimal, because they are linked to infinitely large things, our surrounding environment is urging our minds to build a relationship with the world of the heavenly principles and is pushing your bodies to build a relationship with the historical ideal world to come in the last days.
As you become aware of this situation, you must think, "What kind of person am I before Heaven and earth?" You need to think about this. Even if there is peace and joy in your heart, to make these qualities eternal, each of you must create an eternally joyful and happy environment in heaven and on earth. Yet you have failed to accomplish this.
Now you must make a breakthrough in these difficulties, and allow your minds and bodies to become one. Relying on the ideology of goodness that your minds desire, you must search for the joy that can connect with the ideology your bodies desire. If you can do that, you are entitled to eternal blessing after you go to the spirit world.
The problem is how to build a relationship with the center of the heavenly principles, so that the center of our minds can relate with the heavenly principles. You must solve this problem. God is always worrying about this.
Now where must your minds head? First, your minds and bodies must become one to represent Heaven and earth. Even if you have that skill, it is not enough for you to celebrate your own joy. You must also celebrate the joy of the whole. If you have failed to do this, you must repent over your past and criticize it. Moreover, you must also analyze yourself in regard to the future.
Centering on ourselves, we must reach the one standard where our minds and bodies can become one and fulfill the providential will. If you understand this kind of path and are living according to the providential will, you will feel joy. Only when our bodies follow and reflect our minds can we claim to represent the heavenly principles. If you can be recognized as this kind of person, you can become happy and form a relationship of love with God. Your minds and bodies can relate with Heaven and earth, centering on the heavenly principles.
Therefore, by uniting your minds and bodies centering on your minds, you must possess the power that can overcome any conflicting element you may encounter. In this way, no matter what kind of situation you are in, you can stay in a safe place. You must understand that it is God's will to bring these kinds of people together to form a family, a church, a nation and the one united world. They are then to form a relationship with God Himself.
Therefore, this is not the time for you to mourn because you do not have money, prestige or authority. These external conditions can never bring you eternal happiness. If you look back on the course of history, you will find that although there have been many people who have shed tears and put their lives on the line to attain these external conditions, there are not that many people who have shed tears and put their lives on the line for the sake of internal conditions.
What kind of person was Jesus? He was the person who blocked and balked at these external conditions. To establish the internal conditions, he shed tears and fought with his life on the line.
When you believe in religion, what you sense first is that a conflict arises in your minds. In this conflict, your bodies are your enemies. One can become one with the heavenly principles by winning the victory in this conflict, centered on the individual. If you have come to possess a body united with the mind which is centered on the heavenly principles, you will be a person of universal accomplishment.
The heavenly laws of God are unchanging, so if your minds can be in harmony with these laws of the heavenly principles, and your bodies have become united with your minds on that foundation, then there is no being on the earth who can cause changes in you. You are an incarnation of unchanging heavenly law.
If we who are living on the earth today have been carrying on an unspeakably fierce struggle to set the external conditions, there must also be a struggle for the sake of setting the internal conditions. They are the centers of the external conditions. If this is so, you must realize that in the providential history of restoration, without a fierce conflict that far surpasses the external conditions today, there is no way to initiate an internal revolution to modify all these external realities. What we must be concerned about is not the external world, but the internal world.
However, until now we have searched for a leader, have sought external friends, and have tried to establish our ideology in the external environment, all in an attempt to find external conditions. Yet none of these can be eternal.
You have to understand that, although each of you is an individual, you are in a position of contradiction between the two worlds: the world which pursues external conditions, and the world which pursues internal conditions. You must understand that because Heaven is already aware of this, God has been pioneering the course of history in which you must stand in a sorrowful situation and avert the path that others like. You must walk the path that others despise for the sake of all people. Although each of you is an individual, you are not just an individual. You have to understand that this is the reality found within you.
Have you experienced the day when you have achieved unity between your mind and body and can make a request of Heaven? This is what Heaven will ask you.
Since you are trying to set internal conditions in a world where external conditions are set, you cannot avoid passing through the historical course of being chased out of the world. Accordingly, now in the last days, you will be swept away by the era of fear in the end of time.
The reason these phenomena are taking place is to strike the external center and make it become harmonized with the internal center. To do this, the social conditions, the habitual conditions, the mental and conceptual conditions, will be threatened by the internal conditions. You must forsake them mercilessly. Therefore, you will be overwhelmed by a fear you do not even understand.
At such a time, what does Jesus demand of the faithful people of the last days? He is stressing that they impede the external conditions and establish the internal conditions. If you have some friends or teachers in the world, you have to examine whether they are centered on the external ideology or the internal ideology. Moreover, in the church, the nation and the whole world, you must pay close attention as to whether their direction is heading toward external relationships or internal relationships.
Having arrived at these last days, you must not seek your original mind before you seek a religious leader. Christian people have been pursuing the heart of God by cutting themselves off from all external things through prayer. In Buddhism, they have been seeking the original human mind for thousands of years through meditation. You have to understand that the very fact human beings must do this is a historical tragedy.
You who have come here! Are there any among you who are making assertions centering on the body? Such people are traitors before the heavenly principles. The reason is that there has never been a time when people could join their minds and bodies together and boast before the whole universe. In other words, there has never been a moment when minds and bodies have become one and people have become one with the Creator. As people who have failed to unite their minds and bodies and failed to become one with the Creator, how can we dare to be proud before Heaven? Heaven can never tolerate that. Those who boast about things the heavenly principles do not boast about will be judged. This is because according to the principle, we must first cultivate the true minds and bodies in which Heaven can take pride. We can then become people of which all things of the creation can be proud.
You say that you have come forward today in search of Heaven and the path of truth. However, even if there is some truth which represents Heaven and earth, for you to build a relationship with that truth, you must first unite your minds and bodies. When your minds mourn, your bodies must also mourn. When your bodies are sad, your minds should shed tears. If you cannot experience this in your life of faith, you will never be able to stand before the heavenly principles. Now that the time approaches when we must fulfill the will of the heavenly principles, people feel, without conscious awareness, some sense of urgency and craving in their minds because they are connected to the will of the heavenly principles. Therefore, no matter how wealthy are the economic and social lives of the people of such nations as America, the number of those who commit suicide, because they feel unrest and urgency in their hearts, is increasing astronomically.
Centering on your minds, what must you seek? If you feel some sorrow in your minds without a clear reason, you have to realize that this is your teacher. You are feeling sad without a reason because your minds can sense the judgment of the last days as it draws near. Accordingly, if you feel lonely and urgent in your hearts, then you have to make the effort to develop a body that can become a friend of that mind. This is true, not only in regard to individuals, but applies to whole races also.
If there is a people on the earth who can represent the will of the heavenly principles, then that people will experience the phenomena of being driven into an environment more miserable than any other. This kind of person must emerge on the individual level. You have to understand that you are in that situation. When you view the situation centering on yourself, as these kinds of phenomena unfold on the worldwide level you will find that there will come a time when you must strike your body three times, centering on your minds. However, fallen people are ignorant of this because their five spiritual senses have become dull. However, Heaven has the mission to reveal the time of the heavenly principles to humankind. Heaven has the responsibility to reveal it at least three times through the hearts of people or through revelations.
However, the human body stands opposing the human mind. The mind is internal, and the body is external. There is no one who will say that the mind is false and the body is true. Therefore, only those people who have struck their bodies and overcome them, centering on their minds, can experience the world of the new ideology. This is not unfolding just in yourselves. It is also taking place in your churches.
Although there are many churches in the world, there is none which can conform completely to the will of God. If there is a heaven, then the truth will be made the center. Based on that, relationships will be built with the internal and external dimensions. Moreover, as phenomena of the end of time, there will be conflicts among the religious groups. For any religion or group, this will begin on the individual level and expand to the family, church, national and world levels, in that order. A nation also has the two dimensions of the internal and the external. The world is divided into the left and right sides. These must become one.
You who yearn for the original world and wish for the ideology of Heaven, must never ruin history. You cannot overcome the difficulties you face, no matter what kind of environment you are in or how other people persecute you. You must become united, centering on the heart, to first lay the internal foundation and then seek the external foundation. By doing so, you must transcend your individual self, centered on God, and seek the family, the society, the nation and the world. Furthermore, you must go in pursuit of Heaven and earth. What is the most crucial issue for human beings, who are searching for the one world and one ideology? It is not the ideology of the nation and the world, which will disappear after a transitory existence. No matter how much authority you have and no matter how high your position is, these are not important. The important thing is the ideology and the hero who can bring the two worlds into one.
When we look at human beings, we find that there is the internal world centered on the mind and the external world centered on the body. In the same way that this world is divided into two worlds, the spirit world is also divided into the good realm that Heaven dominates and the evil realm Satan dominates.
Do you know that the point of the culmination of the 6,000-year providence of God is inside your body? Those who have not fulfilled the one principle that can unite mind and body cannot lead or govern humanity. This is a serious problem. The problem is not that there is no God or that Jesus is not here. The foremost problem is that you yourselves have not become one.
There are two paths lying before any person. One heads toward the world; the other forsakes the world and heads toward the heavenly principles. Reflecting on this situation, there is the materialistic view of history that advocates an external ideology, and there is the spiritual view of history that advocates an internal ideology.
When will these two perspectives on history merge into one? Where are we going to make the adjustment to bring these together? This is a great feat.
When God was creating this world, He was dealing with the two worlds. God was dealing with the world of the mind and the world of the body. Similarly, we have to understand that God is yearning for the appearance of the one person who can bring the providence of God, the two separate directions, together into oneness.
God also has something that He demands through the internal and external dimensions. Yet you have to understand that the purpose of God's providence is to usher in the one day when the world of internal aspects can absorb the world of external aspects to unite these two worlds into one.
Therefore, the more revolutionary is the religion that is upholding the providential will today, the more it has been developing. The more it is hit, the more it collides with the accepted society, the more it has been prospering. This is God's history of restoration through indemnity. First, it is heavenly principle that the one who strikes first will lose. In World War I, the side that struck first lost. The same thing happened in World War II. Accordingly, in World War III, the side that strikes first will also lose.
People in the world often like to hit others first. However, Heaven does not tolerate those who strike first. Even in our religious world today, people like to curse and criticize others. Heaven will never tolerate those who strike first.
Today there are many who are concerned about the world, but only a small number of people are worried about the fact that an individual cannot unite his body centering on his mind. Members of the Unification Church who have gathered here! You are, of course, to worry about the nation and the world now, but first you must be concerned about the fact that your minds and bodies have not become one, centering on your mind. The real desire of God is to form a nation and a world based on a gathering of people whose bodies have united with their minds. If this is the hope of God, then even with respect to being concerned about the world and nation, God wants this kind of person to gather and worry about them. This is the true attitude of people who believe. Jesus came to fulfill this task, but since he left without completing it, he must come again.
What must the Lord come again and fulfill? Is he going to judge the world with fire when he comes? No, that is not true. The judgment by fire can be carried out by God alone, without the coming of Jesus. Why then is he coming?
Jesus comes as the center who can conduct the internal and external providence of God in His place, to prepare the one point of unification and to forge the horizontal relationship. This is why he is coming again.
Today we have arrived at the last age of the end of time. If you have come forward taking responsibility for this will of God, then just as human minds have been trampled upon by human bodies and people who pioneered the internal realm were trampled upon by external things in the past, you too will be struck. If the doctrines you advocate move forward for the sake of the world, you will be struck by the world. If they move forward for the sake of the nation and the people, you will be struck by the nation and the people. If they move forward for the sake of a religious group, you will be struck by that religious group.
It is the nature of the fallen world to easily drive out those who shed tears for the sake of the world. When people shed tears for the sake of the nation and the people, the nation and the people do not hesitate to drive them out. It is also easy for religious groups to chase out those who are shedding tears for their sake.
The person who unites this internal world and external world and brings with him the form of the original world is called the Lord of the Second Coming in Christianity. He is called Maitreya in Buddhism and a true man in Confucianism. In each religion there is a different term for this person. However, in truth, all these religions are talking about the same Lord of the Second Coming who is to come.
What kind of person was Jesus? From the perspective of the individual, he was the representative of Adam. From the perspective of the clan, he was the representative of Jacob. On the level of the people, he was the representative of Moses. From the perspective of the world, he came with the responsibility to represent all humanity. Furthermore, he came not only for the sake of the world; he came possessing the sorrow of Heaven in his mind. Who then is the person who will spend his or her lifetime shedding tears on the individual level while clinging to the miserable Jesus who passed away? Jesus will look for this kind of person. God also will look for this kind of person.
It might seem that when fallen humans are born, they are born in joy. Yet when they die, they go in tears. However, those who shed tears while clinging to the pitiful people will receive the blessing of the people. Those who shed tears while clinging to the pitiful church will receive the blessing of the church. Those who cling to the world and mourn will receive the blessing of the world.
From the division at the time of the liberation of the Republic of Korea until now, these miserable people have longed for unification, but it has not yet been achieved. On the contrary, a relationship of distrust has developed. These pitiful people are not aware of the time of judgment when they will fall like the autumn leaves. What must we do at such a moment? We must look for the root that does not change, even during the autumn. Its colors and its every aspect will differ from those we have seen in the world until now.
What must you become? You must become God's flock of sheep. For the last 6,000 years, God has been calling for and looking for a flock of true sheep over whom Heaven and earth can rejoice. Moreover, He is seeking that flock of sheep today. He will seek them tomorrow too.
Where is the flock of sheep God and Jesus can rejoice over? If you want to become a true flock of sheep, you must be able to discern the voice of the true shepherd. In the same way that there are two worlds representing the internal and external ideology of God, there is an appeal for the truth which represents the internal world and an appeal for the truth which represents the external world.
How do we know if we have become the sheep to which the true shepherd can relate? It depends upon whether you have heard the voice of the shepherd that comes through your minds. The question is whether you have heard the voice of the flock of sheep in your minds.
The religious group, people and world who meet the true leader without tears will be doomed. It is a basic principle that they will be doomed. Although Jesus clung to the sect and mourned, he was chased out of it. Although he embraced the people and cried, he was betrayed by them. Although he shouldered the world and cried in blood and sweat, the world did not recognize him. The true shepherd is this kind of person. A true friend and a true teacher are also this kind of person. If you have found the true shepherd, you must listen to his words with all your heart and be able to pour out all your mind and body.
God sometimes has to create the unified form of the internal and external ideology and promote it on behalf of humankind. Accordingly, when such a time comes, you must manifest the internal voice into an external form. Moreover, you must forget your minds and bodies. Tying the whole into one, you must be prepared in your heart to offer them all. You must offer yourself without any condition and meet the one shepherd on the earth upon whom you can depend, upon whom you can rely without ever being separated in your heart. You must find assurance in him, even after entrusting everything to him. Those who have failed to do so will never understand the heart of Heaven. Putting this in terms of a direct relationship, it is the relationship between parent and child.
Human beings have parents internally and teachers externally, but due to the fall, they have not been able to possess true parents or true teachers. Therefore, you must find the true shepherd to whom you can entrust your minds and bodies in place of your parents and teachers, and whom you can attend with all your heart. When Jesus was passing away, he wished blessing upon his enemies. Only when you can meet the shepherd on the earth who has the same heart as Jesus can you attend God on the earth. You have to understand this.
Because the people have not emerged on the earth who can bring together the internal and external standards of the heart of God and manifest them, you do not have any place to entrust your heart. There is no way your body can rely upon something. Therefore, in the end of time, there must appear one person who can connect to the heart of God and represent the internal and external standards of God's heart. You have to understand clearly that such a time is the day of the Lord of the Second Coming. The one who is to come is the true shepherd and the returning Lord.