Ezekiel 2
5And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious people—they will know that a prophet has been among them.
Jeremiah 13
For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’
Richard: It is each person’s responsibility to heed the message and warnings God gives; through His Words, through Jesus, through the Second Coming.
Why Does the Lord Have to Come Back?
Sun Myung Moon
May 26, 1957
This era right now is the last days, which everyone is talking about and many prophets have predicted, and the time of the second coming, which Jesus referred to as the time when he will come back after he was rejected by the people and the religion and passed away. Then, living in this kind of time, what should you do? You should be able to comfort Jesus who is to come, and be more sincerely concerned about the will of heaven than Judaism and the Jewish people at the time of Jesus.
To comfort Jesus who is to come, in his place you must be responsible for the grief of the 4,000-year history of which Jesus took responsibility. Adding the 2,000 years after the death of Jesus, when even the Holy Spirit came and suffered in anguish, you must also be responsible for the historical grief of 6,000 years, so that you can inherit the great remaining feat of the heavenly principles which had been cut off because of Jesus’ death.
We who are accountable to heaven cannot abandon the historical connection and lead a personal life. We must become the people of heart, which can feel responsible for the universe and the future, and, on behalf of the grief of heaven, heavenly soldiers and angels, and all people of this earth, can feel deep concern and sorrow for the fact that human beings are looking toward the judgment day of God and are dwelling in the realm of the fall.
Moreover, we must be able to say to Jesus, “We understand your grief and the reason you had to die.” We must experience the same desperate heart and situation of Jesus who came to this earth and suffered great anxiety to complete his mission of redeeming many people.
Unless you can become this kind of person, no matter how much you desire, you cannot serve Jesus who is the master of history, master of the universe, and master of the ideals of the future. You cannot relieve such grief of Jesus.
What you must understand today is the fact that Jesus has been locked up inside the sorrow of 4,000 years, and has walked the path of death on behalf of all people and descendants for some thirty-odd years of his life. Therefore, you must cry out to heaven, based on this historical situation. To climb over this and reach the realm of ideals of creation, you must set a new standard of faith and lead a testimonial life, in which you can even offer your life. Otherwise, you cannot become a person who possesses eternal value.
Then, as people of faith, what kind of mind-set must we have? In the same way that among the Israelite people there was the sect of Judaism that had the central mission, there must also be some central religious group for the fulfillment of the mission of world level Israelites centering on Christ.
In other words, because history unfolds itself with time-identity, God must conclude the dispensational history by establishing one religion that takes charge of the mission of the last days. We who have arrived at these last days must find that representative religion. When we try to find that religion, as a historical lesson we must reflect upon the mistakes of Judaism committed at the time of Jesus.
What we who are living in the concluding era of the world must understand is that, because the Lord who is to come again will follow the same path as Jesus, he will cross over the sorrowful pass on the world level to come to this earth again. Just as Jesus walked the path of hardships and was eventually chased to the hills of Calvary through the Garden of Gethsemane because of the opposition of the Israelite people and Jewish sects, the returning Lord will also suffer through the opposition of Israel and Judaism of the world level and climb over the road of Golgotha on the world level.
You today must experience the grief of God from many angles. You must experience the sorrow that God felt when looking at the Israelite people and the sects of Judaism, experience the sorrow that God felt when looking at history and concerned about future. When you become this kind of person, Jesus who is filled with grief can come seeking you. Furthermore, you must be able to eliminate all sorrows of the 6,000-year history, which includes the 2,000 years of history since Jesus. Otherwise, you cannot climb over the path of the world Golgotha with the Lord who is to come.
Until today the believers who follow Jesus do not realize that the three disciples falling asleep and not heeding the voice of Jesus when he was appealing to Heaven in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the disciples mocking and persecuting Mary Magdalene who, understanding the heavenly value of Jesus poured aromatic oil on his feet and wiped them with her hair to affirm the glory of the Lord who was to resurrect, all remained a source of Jesus’ bitter grief. While walking that lonely path that no one recognized, Jesus felt the sorrowful heart. However, because only Mary Magdalene comforted Jesus, was concerned about him and could feel the heavenly, internal heart of Jesus that represented past, present and future, Jesus blessed her and, with the grace of joy, he could elevate her before the will of God.