The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1958
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1958 |
1: Jesus left the temple and was going
away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of
the temple. 2: But he answered them, "You see all these, do you
not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon
another, that will not be thrown down." 3: As he sat on the
Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell
us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and
of the close of the age?" 4: And Jesus answered them, "Take
heed that no one leads you astray. 5: For many will come in my name,
saying, `I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. 6: And you
will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed;
for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7: For nation will
rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be
famines and earthquakes in various places: 8: all this is but the
beginning of the birth-pangs. 9: "Then they will deliver you up
to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all
nations for my name's sake. 10: And then many will fall away, and
betray one another, and hate one another. 11: And many false prophets
will arise and lead many astray. 12: And because wickedness is
multiplied, most men's love will grow cold. 13: But he who endures to
the end will be saved. 14: And this gospel of the kingdom will be
preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations;
and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:1-14
The time now is similar to when the Israelites were in confusion 2,000 years ago. It is the time when the Messiah must come. We know that in such a time as this it is difficult to distinguish between the true and the false. There have been many teachers who toiled in the course of history in the past. Men have attended many leaders. However, today we are losing the center of mind which we can rely on.
Since we know that the Father knows humankind is in a state of confusion today, Father, please allow us to get our lives under control. Let us get our minds straight and make our ideology clear. Let us live relying upon our innate disposition. Thus, we shall attain happiness. Although many people are seeking that day, there has been no one yet who could say, "I have found it."
Although many people attest to that day, the people who truly make the Father happy are extremely rare. Please allow those of us who live in this confused world to be able to attest to the ideology that our minds and bodies should establish and express our gratitude. By doing so, I pray from the bottom of my heart that You allow us to receive praise and blessing as the sons and daughters the Father desires, the sons and daughters who have completed the mission of restoration.
Father, please supervise our minds. Our minds know better than anyone the path we have to take. Our minds wish to walk the true path of the original nature. Father, by granting us the truth and the religion that can materialize the hope of our minds, please guide us to attain the will of the providence of salvation.
Beloved Father, please look at this pitiful nation with compassion. Please look with compassion at Your sons and daughters who have lost their way and are wandering about. Please look with compassion at those of us who are marching forward toward that victorious day. Please be with us that we may accomplish the Father's will.
Now the time has come for us to accomplish the Father's will, even if we encounter difficulties. Please allow us to equip ourselves with a mind and body that behold the Father's glory, going beyond those difficulties. Please guide us so that many of Your sons and daughters can come forth who are concerned about the Father's heart, who have built a hidden altar about which others do not know, having overcome the difficulties alone. Let us offer everything to resemble the Father's mind, to experience the Father's heart. Father, I pray all this from the bottom of my heart.
For this great purpose, our religious order, our denomination does not matter. Father, I sincerely wish and desire that You will allow us to realize that the secret of the truth and the whole of the truth is to go forth having the internal heart that the Father can sympathize with, the ardent Shim Jung which can experience the Father's mind. Since the whole religious world is in chaos, having divided into many denominations, Father, please look upon us with compassion. Are there sons and daughters of the Father who are being pursued by enemies? I trust that You will give encouragement to them. Please allow us to attest to the Father's will by experiencing their heart. I ardently wish and desire that You allow the day of happiness to come to this earth as quickly as possible, the day when the lonely group of people can stand together as the Father's true sons and daughters.
Father, please look with compassion at Your beloved sons and daughters who are gathered now. Since You let them gather here, Father, please be responsible for them. Please take in our unchanging minds. Allow each of us to feel in this hour the impulse of devotion, in our minds and bodies, which is being felt through the Father's heart of the original nature. Beloved Father, I pray from the depth of my heart that You allow the Father's direct works to be unfolded, so that we can find the way of our own accord.
Please allow us to be the sons and daughters who can feel the appearance and manner of Jesus who came 2,000 years ago and sympathize from the bottom of our hearts with his sorrow. Father, I sincerely wish and desire that You will allow us to become the Father's true sons and daughters by having a childlike Shim Jung. Let us feel the sorrow that is in the Father's mind from the bottom of our hearts. Let us feel happiness, too, since happiness is with the Father.
We earnestly hope and desire that You will allow this to be an hour when we reveal before the Father all the doctrines, opinions and conventional conditions that we hold. With a childlike Shim Jung, we ask for the Father's love.
Please allow the mind of the deliverer and the minds of the receivers not to become two. Since we know that Satan always watches the gap in minds between the deliverer and the receiver, please allow us to be equipped with the appearance and manner of a little lamb, and according to the will for which You wish, let us receive the grace of being re-created according to the word of the Father's command. From the beginning of the hour to the end, we pray with a most sincere heart that You alone will rule. We pray all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title of the sermon today is "Let Us Be Persons of Forbearance."
There are premonitions of the last days in the Bible. The fact that it is difficult to lead a life centered on faith in the last days is thus recorded. Therefore, to become a champion in overcoming this difficult period of confusion, each of you must become a person who forbears to the end. I pray that this may be the hour when, knowing this fact yourselves and feeling it from the depth of your hearts, you may receive the blessing.
We may easily think of God as the master of glory. We may also easily think that since God is almighty, He should be in control of all the activities of humankind. However, even after having gone through 6,000 long years of history, God has not yet realized one day of glory. He has not had even one day when He could practice His authority in governing humanity. When we think of this, we must remember that God has deep apprehensions, deep sufferings and deep pains that no one can ever comprehend.
All of the creation throughout heaven and earth was created for the sake of God's glory and for the exercise of His authority. However, human beings, who were to manifest God's glory and to stand in the object position in reference to the exercise of His authority, could not stay in that position. Therefore, God could not gain glory nor could He exercise His authority. Meanwhile, you know very well that He has been unfolding the dispensation to accomplish such a day of hope until now.
God was pleased with having created Adam. However, when He came to look at the fallen Adam, more sadness than you can possibly imagine came upon God's heart. The greater the vision God had in establishing the ideology of creation centering on Adam, the greater the disappointment in His heart due to Adam's failure. Besides, there was no one who knew how God's internal heart was deeply pierced with solitary grief because He could not communicate with anyone. He could not be in a responsive relationship with anyone.
God stood in a position where He must endure the pain and hardship added to this sadness. God had to go through unspeakable pain and difficulty. Similarly, you must know that God, who must unfold the providence of salvation for humankind even in His sorrow, is placed in a situation where He must feel a heart of double pain, unimaginable to us.
Although God kicked fallen Adam out of the Garden of Eden, we today must remember that the reason God extended the hands of love again and did not desert humankind was because He has a heart of love. What do you think God's heart was like when He came forth embracing the second hope again centering on the family of Adam and Eve, the ones who had destroyed the ideology of creation and the heavenly principles? You must comprehend this heart of God. If someone has abandoned a wrongful child yet cannot sever himself from his lingering attachment to it, he could understand God's fretful heart. He could really understand God's situation.
God had no choice but to hold onto Adam and Eve and start the providence of restoration. For that reason, God chose Cain and Abel and Noah. By electing and establishing many other families, God has unfolded the work of the providence of restoration. The heart of God as He led the dispensation of this providential history was fretful beyond description. Nevertheless, controlling His feelings, God has endured with great patience.
Yet how many people on this earth today feel the fretful heart of the enduring God and seize God and shed tears? If there was a man on this earth who knew God's heart like this and shed tears, he would be able to understand that while God rejoiced at the time of the creation of all things in Heaven and earth, God's grief due to man's fall encompassed all of the creation in heaven and earth.
If a man were to appear on this earth who represented God's heart, who endured with patience, a man who could cry with God in sorrow, God would shed copious tears, forgetting all about His dignity as the Creator. He would forget all His glory and power. You must know the heart of God, who was pierced with such a situation as this.
God could not help but unfold the providence after raising the betraying Adam. He raised Noah and Abraham with such a distressed heart. You must understand the heart of God who was unable to desert the enslaved Israelites as they moaned in tribulation and adversities. He led them into the blessed land of Canaan by having raised Moses.
God has developed the history of the providence by electing many prophets and sages and letting them go through a sorrowful course. When 4,000 years of history had elapsed, having developed a new history, God sent Jesus Christ to this earth to work off the grief and the resentful grudge of the 4,000 years. Yet even then Jesus was captured and killed on the cross by the chosen people. Where was the person who knew of God's sorrow when He had to work out a providence, unable to leave the chosen people? Where were such a church and a race? God wishes for such an individual, such a church and such a race to come forth.
One may seek and step onto the path to Heaven, expecting it to be good. Yet the more he penetrates the heart of God, the more he will find a hill of tears. You may have thought that God's mind is deep in glory and that God is a being of influence and authority. Rather, God is a being with elements of sadness. You must know that God is in a situation like this.
We today must become Heaven's sons and daughters who grieve in God's place. Even if you have some difficulty, are pursued by the surroundings, and receive the rejection of those around you, you must be able to comfort God's sorrowful heart. Forgetting our feelings of impatience and taking after the will of God, who has come forth enduring with patience until this time, we must now march forward bearing God's sorrow and pain.
God has endured for our sake, for the benefit of the church and for the good of the betraying nation and the betraying world. The faithful believers in the last days today must emulate God's heart with tears in their eyes and comfort the mind of God. You must become true sons and daughters in this fashion.
The reason Heaven endured with patience for 4,000 years was that God wished the chosen people to believe in Jesus Christ when he was sent. When the chosen people crucified Jesus on the cross, God's hope went up in smoke. The people could fulfill the will for which God wished. They were in a position where they could pledge to uphold the heavenly principles. Yet they captured and killed God's most beloved, only begotten son.
You must now understand that the God whom we call "Father" is the one who has come forth enduring a sad and grievous course with patience for 6,000 years. Moreover, the Father who endured with patience for 6,000 years is not a Father in name only.
Although God has endured with patience for 6,000 years, the land He can rule has not yet been restored. Therefore, you must now restore the whole land through indemnity. You must create a new history and go forth seeking a new ideology. Accordingly, you who are placed in a situation like this must endure with more patience than anyone else.
You must then step forth looking for a truthful religion. You must step forth looking for the truthful sons and daughters of Heaven. You must find a man of faith who endures with patience and be in his service. You must wander and seek the denomination that knows how to endure with patience. You must know that the people with faith who march on toward Heaven today are entrusted with the mission to seek the race and nation which know how to endure with patience.
All religions until today have been established by people who endured with patience. Even in the future, the religion that endures with patience will guide the world. If you review human history, the person who endured with patience achieved victory. It happened not only in Heaven, but also on the earth. For that reason, you must understand that this land still laments, waiting to welcome someone who can care about God and establish integrity.
Christianity today has become a worldwide religion, because Christianity endured more with patience. When Jesus came to feel God's heart, who had endured for 4,000 years, and when he came to think about all humankind enduring with patience in history, Jesus could not help but have patience even as his body was being crucified at Golgotha. That was why even when his hands and feet were being nailed to the cross, Jesus could pray for the sake of the people, "Oh, Heaven, please look at them with compassion."
God showed the Shim Jung with which He had endured with patience before the presence of all humankind and Satan. Therefore, Satan, who could not be patient and could not endure, could not help but succumb. This was the standard path of enduring with patience that Jesus Christ showed us. Moreover, not only people on this earth but also every creation has demonstrated patience for 6,000 years.
In addition, because man fell, the effect was felt in the spirit world and in the angelic world. Therefore, you are left with the mission to be responsible for the lamentation that has pierced as deeply as the spirit world and that of all of creation and God, who demonstrated patience for 6,000 years.
Accordingly, you now must possess a resolution and determination to endure with patience, bearing such external worries and the cosmic responsibility in mind. Unless you can have such a resolution and determination, you will not be able to participate in walking the course of Heaven.
For that reason, you today must first comfort the bruised and sorrowful heart of Heaven before wishing to receive Heaven's blessing and Heaven's glory. Although God's patience can more than embrace the whole universe, we today live in sinfulness in a sinful and evil environment. In a situation like this, we cannot be filial to God, who came forth enduring with patience for the sake of the universe. That is, we cannot show devotion to God, who has performed the providence of the 6,000-year history.
Therefore, you must now understand the heart and the will of God, who came forth ruling history until today. You must be able to be filial to God. You must possess the heart with which God endured with patience, during the unfolding of the dispensation for 6,000 years. That is, you who are faced with the last days are entrusted with the mission to welcome God in your mind and bear witness to Him before all humankind.
Who will be the true sons and daughters who can attend God and offer comfort to Him by resembling His patient heart of 6,000 years? God is waiting for these very sons and daughters to come forth. God exists, He who came forth enduring for 6,000 years to save humankind. He did not abandon those who betrayed Heaven and fell into the temptation of the archangel Satan. You today must understand the heart of that God.
You who are going forward today! Do you have the will to save this nation? Those of you who are gathered here today, do you truly have the mind that yearns for the bosom of Heaven? You must become figures who can shoulder the pain of the nation. That is to say, you must be resolved and determined to endure with patience under any tribulation and suffering. You must realize that unless you become a person who endures with patience, you will not be able to bear the responsibility for the nation.
As long as you have the will to save the world, you must first have the resolution and determination with which you can endure with patience, bearing on your body the sadness of the world and the world's difficulties. If you do not have such resolution and determination, you will not be able to leave Heaven's ideology in any part of the world.
God can embrace the satanic world and even hell. He has the mind to forbear with patience even there. Therefore, the satans in hell will bow their heads before His presence. Therefore, if you desire to become champions at the last, the Father's sons and daughters at the last, then you must feel God's patience as your patience and God's endurance as your endurance in your minds and bodies. Because Christianity taught the way of patience and endurance, it became a worldwide religion.
The descendants of the chosen people live on the earth today. Since the chosen people betrayed the will of God, why cannot God forget them? Of course, these people went the side path, but it is because they had an unchanging mind as the chosen people God had elected. Although they are in a situation that is contrary to Heaven, once the time comes when they go in search of God, they are the people who can take upon themselves, more than any other people, the task of God's patience and endurance.
If there were a people that stepped forth holding onto providential history for the sake of Heaven even under any hardships, that people would govern the world. As long as their resolution and determination were for the good of Heaven, even if they once went against the will of God and ran errands for Satan, if they marched on with integrity and forbearance, Satan would eventually succumb.
Satan never has patience and can never endure. If Satan could be patient and enduring, he would not have offended the 6,000-year history by rejecting God. If the people of a nation centered on God assert themselves as Heaven's chosen people, those people will not disappear from the world even under any adversity. You must understand that there is some element of truth in that Jewish people today retain substantial economic power in the world and can exercise control in many other fields.
The same principle applies to the course of history. In any period of the past, when faced with chaos and confusion under adversity, the people who connected their patience to an eternal ideology developed a new history. We know this very well. The same thing happens in a nation, in history, and in a religion.
What then is going to happen in the last days? You must know that in the last days there will come forth a central nation from among nations, a central religion from among religions, and a central history.
God said,
"I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
(Revelation
22:13)
In the last days, the religion that endured more with patience will stand forth among the religions. The denomination that endures more with patience within Christianity will reap the victory. The race that endures more with patience will be victorious among races. Heaven has guided forth the new age seeking the people who endure more with patience. You must know that such a principle exists.
God sent Jesus to this earth to fulfill the will of providence for which He had chosen the Israelites, full of fire and devotion, and guided them for 4,000 years. Yet Jesus could not stand in the position where he was admired and respected in the same way Christians have trusted and attended to him throughout history. He died being called a heretic and a traitor to the nation.
Why did God have to put Jesus in such an environment where he had to endure with patience as he tried to establish a new providential ideology? That was because human history began with the fall. Jesus had no choice but to conclude fallen history. There is a remarkable difference between Jesus in the Bible, the written history, and Jesus at that time. If the religious people then had believed in Jesus as much as the Christians today believe in him, Jesus would not have died on the cross.
The people who felt remorse after having killed Jesus and sought him were fallen people. Those who rejected Jesus have gone to hell. Although their followers have stepped forth, boasting that they were the chosen ones who represented the truth, history has revealed that Jesus, who did not look like a truthful man, represented the truth and that those who rejected him were in a non-truthful position. The actions of Heaven have flowed down in the course of history in a seemingly contradictory fashion. Although the chosen people knew the ideological truth centered on Jesus, they were distanced from the substantial truth.
If some adverse fate comes to a nation today, if the people of that nation do not feel sorry about it but rather endure with patience, united, understanding the providence of the heavenly principles, that people will not perish. The Old Testament foundation, which God established through the Israelites for 4,000 years, should have become the sacrificial offering for the sake of carrying out the internal mission of Heaven. Instead, that foundation had become corrupted and had degenerated into formalism. Although there were many people who lamented deeply and felt sorry over this at the time, still there was no one who followed Jesus.
God forewarned us that the last days are coming. He warned us that humankind would not be able to avoid the day of judgment. When we analyze God's providential history, why did we have to go through such a historical, providential course? It is because God goes forth enduring with patience in a position that is contrary to Satan's. When the satanic world changes to Heaven's side, a new history will be created by going through the process of enduring with patience in an absolute way. For that reason, the offspring of a loyal subject will not perish and the children of a faithful woman will not perish. A filial son and a dutiful daughter will not be destroyed.
Therefore, this people, the Koreans, must survive historically. Though this people has a long history of 4,000 years, this nation does not have unique national characteristics. When you think of the providence regarding this nation, what do you think this nation will have to do? What would it mean when it is said that this nation has an opportunity? Since this nation stands in a situation where it receives suffering from the same race and before the world, this may become the foundation of happiness for these people. This is the situation with which our people are faced.
Therefore, you must now become large-hearted. Many people from different countries came and sacrificed for the sake of Korea. What is more, this country is still receiving foreign assistance. Therefore, you must have a heart that can pray for blessing upon them, extending your hands over their heads. You must not be disappointed, complaining that all God's internal conditions for the sake of this nation are not getting connected to the people. Rather, you should have the heart that prays for blessing upon them from any direction, regardless of whether it is front or back.
If you become such people, centering on a new ideology, a new providential history will be developed through this nation. The same principle applies not only to this people but also to Christian society. For that reason, we must become the people who are able to be harassed before the world or before the universe. In reality, these people will be harassed in the future before the presence of the 2.4 billion people of humanity.
When Jesus was being crucified, the thief on the right was sympathetic toward Heaven. The thief on the left took the position of distrusting Heaven. Similarly, the world today is divided into two big worlds. One is the right-wing world, which resembles the thief on the right. The other is the left-wing world, which resembles the thief on the left. That is why the left-wing world has become ignorant of God.
What must you attest to in such a world? True love. For that reason, just as we have witnessed relying on Jesus' name until now, a country with a religious foundation that marches on seeking Heaven will have to appear in the future and attest to true love. Although Jesus' own ideology has not come out yet, it should come out now. For that reason, something new will definitely have to come out in the last days.
What is it that all of humanity wants? It is not the truth Jesus emphasized. Rather, it was something that transcends truth. Therefore, in the last days that truth must come out without fail. That will be the age of worldwide ideology. Such a time will surely have to come. The men who stick fast to the Bible and defend it to the last, the people who insist only upon their own unique thought, will be struck.
For that reason, today you must become the people who pray, "Father, please allow us to be the group of people who are being harassed before the whole world. While we would like to be the group of people who die holding onto the Father, please allow us not to give up on the Father."
Now let's not speak ill of others, saying that we family members have become the target that is being harassed. The people who have slandered others by mentioning their demerits and attempted to obtain their own profits thereby have perished. For that reason, today you should not lament over not having truth in your mind and body. You should not sigh for grief, saying that you do not know anything or have anything. You should not heave a sigh, saying that you do not have authority and influence. You should be able to pray, "Father, even if we are dispossessed of everything, please allow us to become Heaven's elite pioneers who can defend the path of Jesus to the end. Please allow us to be the instruments of victory at the last."
Jesus lost even his parents. He lost his relatives. He lost his own denomination and all the people whom he was to govern. Though he lost everything, he did not sigh for grief. Embracing the bigger heart of Heaven, emulating God's patience, he endured even in the face of death. Although the souls of the martyrs have gone to the spirit world, the martyrs who died only wanting to be saved themselves did not reach a good place. However, the person who said a sinner like himself deserved to die a million times over ended up being in a high place in Heaven.
For that reason, when the world comes to be blessed, the person who persevered only for the sake of the world, will fall off upon reaching the world of the cosmos, beyond the world. Accordingly, today we have the responsibility to shake the world centered on this small land of Korea, after developing a new start with a new mind. This is neither a futile argument nor a foolish imagining.
Jesus could have harbored vexation against Satan and vexation against the distrusting people. However, because he knew they were the people God loved, he did not. When you face such a situation, when a resentful feeling rises in you, stepping beyond that, you must become the people who pray for the others. By doing so, you must become the family members who again set up the religious order that our ancestors who fell down tried to set up. You must move these people. Furthermore, you must reform worldwide Christianity. This is our exact mission.
Young people today, what will be your place when you die, after setting up conditions before Heaven? For whom have you lived until now? Ideologically, in your consciences and in your life, whom have you relied on? If you have lived until now only for the good of yourself, you should reflect on your past and bestir yourselves.
People who are centered on an eternal ideology will not perish as long as that ideology does not disappear. Jacob endured contemptuous treatment and neglect from Laban for 21 years, holding onto the one will of God. Embracing the one will of God, not forgetting the will of the Father's blessing, Jacob lived the 21 years as if it were one day. Abraham did the same. Moses endured with patience, worrying about the chosen people for forty years in Pharaoh's palace and another forty years in the Midian wilderness. So did Jesus, you must know this.
What then is going to happen if, faced with the last days, we unfold a crusade today to save pitiful humankind, which has been embraced in the satanic world and is the condition of God's sorrow? If there is a person who gets sacrificed to save humankind in this endeavor, God will build his tomb and reveal his footprints after his death. You who are confronted with a dead end road must remember the Bible verse, "Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Luke 17:33) The people who betrayed Jesus after setting up satanic conditions all perished. The same happened to our nation under Japanese reign. The people who sold out their religion by worshipping at a Shinto shrine to avoid being in a disadvantageous position have all perished. The religious order, the nation and the world that are without tears will all perish. For that reason, you must know that this nation is endowed with God's hidden will of the providence to be moved more quickly by God's providence than any other nation.
Therefore, if you understand Jesus' situation now and represent God's position, when the age of God's ideology arrives, you will be able to become the sons and daughters with Heaven-granted life who inherit the second Christian gospel. You must remember this.
You have the responsibility for the nation and for the many religious orders. When you eat meals, wear clothes and go to bed, have you ever worried limitlessly for the sake of this nation or for Heaven and earth? If there are sons and daughters who worry for the sake of this world and for the sake of Heaven and earth, such people will become the central figures of the new age. You must understand this for certain.
When we consider the course of providential history carefully, we cannot stop the flow of tears. However, you must not stop there. Learning from that, not becoming losers in today's environment, enduring with patience, you must become people who can be raised as Heaven's sons and daughters in whom Heaven can take delight.