Book Review: The Rod of Iron Kingdom by Hyung Jin Sean Moon
Exodus 12
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
Psalm 59
You are my strength, I watch for you;
you, God, are my fortress,
10 my God on whom I can rely.
God will go before me
and will let me gloat over those who slander me.
11 But do not kill them, Lord our shield,[d]
or my people will forget.
In your might uproot them
and bring them down.
12 For the sins of their mouths,
for the words of their lips,
let them be caught in their pride.
For the curses and lies they utter,
13 consume them in your wrath,
consume them till they are no more.
Then it will be known to the ends of the earth
that God rules over Jacob.
The Sorrowful Heart of Jesus as He Went to the Mountain
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
January 25, 1959
Jesus appeared as the only son of Heaven, the one to resolve the 4,000 years, and the hallmark of victory God could boast about before the age and the descendants of countless generations. We must remember the sad heart of Jesus as he went into the wilderness alone, without a friend, leaving behind the people, the church, the chosen John the Baptist, and Joseph’s family.
Jesus had come forward with the determination and sense of mission to establish the historical conditions of indemnity. What did he think about during the forty days of fasting? He felt an acute sense of responsibility to restore through indemnity, by himself, the rueful course of the ancestors. We must realize this.
In the process of the three temptations, what must Jesus have thought about as he was led to the mountain top by Satan? He went up the mountain with a serious heart, worried about the entire historical course of 4,000 years, struggling whether he could subjugate Satan by holding up the final shield of victory. As he was walking through the wilderness, Jesus must have thought about how, after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and their loss, their descendants had to roam around in search of the garden. As he thought about the historical ancestors who had lived in a garden of grief after the expulsion of Adam and Eve, he had to think seriously about the mountain.
Jesus must have remembered the loyalty of Noah, who appeared 1,600 years after Adam and Eve and built the ark on Mount Ararat, enduring all hardships for 120 years to restore the expulsion of Adam and Eve. Jesus thought about how it was for the sake of the Messiah, Jesus himself, that Noah had lived such a life. Jesus must have thought about how hard Noah worked on the mountain, yearning for Jesus himself.