Ezekiel 47
13-14 The Lord God said to the people of Israel:
When the land is divided among the twelve tribes of Israel, the Joseph tribe[a] will receive two shares. Divide the land equally, because I promised your ancestors that this land would someday belong to their descendants. These are the borders of the land:
Psalm 48
Our God, here in your temple
we think about your love.
10 You are famous and praised
everywhere on earth,
as you win victories
with your powerful arm.
11 Mount Zion will celebrate,
and all Judah will be glad,
because you bring justice.
Let Us Love Heaven and Become Patriots
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 1, 1959
The patriots fought against all conditions of oppression because they loved their nation and land. They had hope for the one victorious day and had an unshakable belief that such a day would surely come. This is how they were able to not submit to the oppression, and carry on their struggle. We should understand this.
These principles hold true in winning a nation. To establish a heavenly ideology, we must have a stronger sense of unchanging camaraderie. Hoping for the holy land, we must act on behalf of Heaven. Although there have been many religious people who upheld God’s providence in step with the flow of history, among them all, Christians were offered as miserable sacrifices in fierce battles with Satan. We should understand this.
Even when we look at the 4,000 years of Old Testament history and the 2,000 years of Christian history since Jesus, we find that numerous people have followed the teachings of Heaven, while other people have not even dreamed of such an ideology. As they pursued Heaven’s ideals, many people were sacrificed.
In history, many people were sacrificed to establish Heaven’s ideology. Where will these two groups of people come together, those who have been sacrificed for the sake of God’s will and those who have been sacrificing themselves in the fight for their nations? This is the very question of this age which raises our curiosity. People say that a world government will emerge in the future. History is flowing toward one government and the world of one ideology. These two are approaching each other today. What must we do when these two do not seem to be coming together in a harmonious way?
We must never forget those who fell due to brutal bloodshed for the sake of Heaven and who clung to Heaven’s ideals and battled on. God has been guiding them toward the one opportune time. Hence, the time when people seize land and use ideology to win people over will pass behind us.
Religions have already secured their basic form and are moving toward the direction Heaven pursues, but human desires fail to go that far and stop in the middle. Therefore, although there have been many patriots in history, what can they be proud of in the age when history is glorified and the world is actively moving? What can our famous national patriots be proud of on the world level? They can only be proud of themselves on the national level.
If we compare ourselves with Jesus, who came 2,000 years ago, what kind of person was he? Jesus had the ideology and qualification to govern a nation, the world and humanity. He served God as the Father and insisted that he was the only begotten son of God. Is there anything more to be done besides this? He was indeed qualified to be the Messiah.
Today, we wish at most to become the son or daughter of an emperor or the child of a master of this world. Yet Jesus asserted that he was the only son of the Creator Himself. Truly, he was qualified to be the Messiah.
Jesus, who came with such a mind-set, did not lament, no matter what kind of difficulty he confronted. This was the greatest contribution he made to humanity. Because Jesus had this firm resolution and preserved his devotion and integrity, despite the storm of countless tribulation, he can be praised as the Messiah of all people today.
Jesus had this moral standard and offered his life to accomplish the one ideal. When they blocked his path, Jesus said to his parents, “Go your way.” He said the same to his people, tribe and religion. He abandoned everything and only held onto the world and humanity. He died clinging to the world and humanity. Even if his parents, family, religion and people were to go their separate ways, he believed that the world and humanity could not part from him. This was the essence of Jesus’ thought.
For this reason, the world needs Jesus. Humanity needs Jesus. Before he passed away, Jesus clung to Heaven and lived his life for Heaven’s sake. Hence, God also needs Jesus. Since he is needed in Heaven and earth, Jesus is certainly the Messiah. We should understand this.