What good did it do me
to keep my thoughts pure
    and refuse to do wrong?
¹⁴ I am sick all day,
and I am punished
    each morning.
¹⁵ If I had said evil things,
    I would not have been loyal
    to your people.

¹⁶ It was hard for me
    to understand all this!
¹⁷ Then I went to your temple,
    and there I understood
    what will happen
    to my enemies.

God’s Possession and Our Possession

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
November 9, 1958

Matthew 6: 16-34

The beginning of the fall was when human beings acted at their discretion during the time when God could not completely manage things. If they had acted after welcoming the time when God could completely manage things, they would not have fallen. Ever since the creation of the world, God could not exercise His managerial authority. Incidentally, although numerous people throughout history tried to move a race, tried to move a state, or tried to move the world, no one was able to stand as one totally responsible for his particular age.

The time must come when God manages not only individuals but also the clan, the tribe and the state. Beyond that, He must manage even heaven and earth. Therefore, if Heaven, the earth and the spirit world exist, the ideology of the whole cannot be actualized unless the inevitable movement of God coming to manage them appears in the closing age of history.

That is why Heaven is asking us to give up all the material things we possess, to lay down our lives, to abandon our ideologies and forsake even the feelings of affection we may enjoy on this earth. This is the standard of moral doctrine (truth) upon which God insists.

Why did God set up such a demanding condition as this? Since the time is surely coming when the authority of His possession will be made manifest, God wanted to make us qualified to stand in full measure before Him when that time comes. That is why it has been the indispensable condition by which the people who follow God and seek the Will of goodness must abide.

Looking back on the history of Christianity, we see that God made human beings suffer before giving them happiness. He made them suffer persecution before allowing them to boast. He commanded them to pray ceaselessly, keeping away from environments of enjoyment. The reason God raised this sort of moral standard or truth before human beings was to make them belong fully to Him.

A major directive of the Bible is, You must give up everything and seek His kingdom and His righteousness. Where then will be the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness? Where will be the person who can claim himself as a person of God? What kind of nation will be God’s nation? It will be a nation of goodness. It will be a nation that transcends religion, a nation uninterested in nationalistic viewpoints, a nation that stands aloof from discriminating human beings and which rises above sovereign power, beyond any culture or thought.

For that reason, the Kingdom of Heaven is the kingdom that good people, without distinction of East and West, contend is their ideal kingdom. It is the place where they would like to live. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Heaven is the place where one can freely lay claim to his possessions, where one can set forth the notion of truly owning. This is the Kingdom of Heaven for which we yearn.

If there are people within Christianity or in some religious denomination who are immersed in a self- centered or denominationally limited notion of owning, the time will come when those people will surely be struck. The time will definitely come when any doctrine that tries to draw and rally the whole, centered on a single nation, will be struck. It is an ironclad rule.

God forgives even Satan. Why does God forgive Satan, unable to strike him? In the name of what goodness does God listen to Satan’s pleas and accept the conditions of Satan’s false charges? It is because, although Satan stands against the Will of God and does not follow Him, Satan does not dislike God. Although he does not follow the Will of God, in his mind, he respects and likes God. Satan is earnestly requesting, “Oh, God, I will offer You this world that is in my possession. Please put aside Adam and raise me in his place. If only You will do that, I will then serve and minister to You more than any human being.” That means that Satan will attend God in a better fashion than human beings, if God puts him in such a position. Thus, God is put in an awkward position.