Deuteronomy 25
Moses said to Israel:
25 1-2 Suppose you and someone else each accuse the other of doing something wrong, and you go to court, where the judges decide you are guilty. If your punishment is to be beaten with a whip,[a] one of the judges will order you to lie down, and you will receive the number of lashes you deserve. 3 Forty lashes is the most that you can be given, because more than that might make other Israelites think you are worthless.
2 Chronicles 35
22 But Josiah ignored Neco’s warning, even though it came from God! Instead, he disguised himself and marched into battle against Neco in the valley near Megiddo.
23 During the battle an Egyptian soldier shot Josiah with an arrow. Josiah told his servants, “Get me out of here! I’ve been hit.” 24 They carried Josiah out of his chariot, then put him in the other chariot he had there and took him back to Jerusalem, where he soon died. He was buried beside his ancestors, and everyone in Judah and Jerusalem mourned his death.
Members Who Will Live In God’s Family
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959
The God of history and of the present age is a sorrowful God. The God of the past and the present is a sad God. Those who do not recognize this will be judged. Those who truly love God will not be able to pray for the alleviation of their own suffering and agony. We should be grateful for the fact that God has been shouldering all the sorrows and pains of the past. Those who are ignorant of this and stress their own sorrow and pain will all be judged. If someone cries alone because he cannot pray about his own pain to God, knowing God’s sorrow of the past and the present, God will recognize him. You should pray, “How much greater is God’s suffering than my own pain? Even if I am to die, please let me shoulder it.” Those who pray for blessing today will become greater and greater sinners before God. The more you enter the realm of God’s grace and love, the more you know you are a sinner who cannot raise your head before God. You will find that to be true in the spirit world. Believe me if you will, or don’t believe me. I am not speaking foolish words. Those who want to think that, let them go ahead. That is not how the next world is. The spirit world is not like that. It is a world in which people will humbly decline the offer to be raised to a higher place several times. They will say, “I am not worthy.”
Those believers who pose as masters and fight with each other over power and influence will be damned, and such churches will perish. Now the time has come for us to turn around. We should try to run away when someone tries to elevate us and decline when someone wants to do things for us. That is how God will come to us.
Members of the Unification Church, although you are receiving persecution and mistreatment from the outside world, please do not be sad. This has been the path that the Lord and the Father have walked, so we unworthy sinners should walk it gladly. You should say, “If the agony of the people can be eliminated by my suffering, and the sorrows of the world and God can be alleviated through the sorrows this body experiences, I am grateful.” Those who do so will never be snatched away by Satan. God will never betray them. We have come together to become such people, to become God’s people and members of the heavenly family.
The world is fast asleep. God is longing for people who can forget about themselves while dreaming of the Kingdom of Heaven; in other words, the family of God who can cry for the heavenly parents and brothers and sisters. You have to understand that this is why you have gathered here.
If there are such people on the earth, then no matter how severe the persecution, no matter how miserable the events they encounter, they will remain till the end. For this reason we should hold onto Heaven and earth and appeal with our blood and tears. We should mourn over the sins of the past. We should mourn for the sake of the thirty million people of this nation. God longs for such young people, members of the heavenly family and kinsmen of Heaven. If such a movement does not emerge among the people, the Korean people will perish.