Intoxicants and Gambling are an Abomination of Satan’s Handiwork

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2220

    You will enter God’s original kingdom if you absolutely go the way of loyalty and filial piety, but you will double-back one hundred eighty degrees and then drop straight into hell if you oppose it.
    Everyone must realize that free sex is Satan’s domain of love filled with ensnaring evil spirits to bring about the downfall of humankind and expand hell on earth. From the viewpoint of the God of absolute love, the grandmother and grandfather are one; they cannot be separated. They must absolutely become one centering on God, and centering on love. What is love? It is fitting convex and concave together absolutely; mother and father, husband and wife, son and daughter – all must unite in this way absolutely. This is what God wants. (280-135, 1996.11.24)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1972

The earth that we live on is divided into land and sea. Geographically speaking, peninsulas are situated between these two, in a midway position connecting the continents with the sea. Since early times, peninsulas have always been significant in the formation of civilizations. Greece and Rome, where ancient civilizations flourished, were also located on peninsulas. The civilizations of Spain and Portugal developed on the Iberian Peninsula. However, today these civilizations must expand to the world and bring forth a new civilization in the east and west. The Korean peninsula in Asia is the place for this civilization to emerge. (115-171, 1981.11.10)

Sobriety and Temperance

Liquor, drugs and gambling may seem like pleasant diversions, yet they are the cause of countless people’s downfall. They render a man’s spirit blind to the light of truth and deaf to the promptings of conscience. They lead to addictions that destroy the body, anti-social behavior that breaks up families and damages careers, and even criminal acts. It is well known that many people use alcohol and drugs for their effect of reducing inhibitions as a prelude to casual sex. Even cigarettes can have this effect, as well as influence young people to try harder drugs. Despite some contemporary medical models of addiction that regard it as a disease, the world’s religions affirm that people are responsible to live soberly and steer clear of alcohol, drugs and gambling.
Father Moon recognizes that people often turn to cigarettes, drugs and alcohol because they are dissatisfied with life and cannot find the love they crave. Yet they are poor substitutes. The solution to drinking and drugs is true love. Temporary drug-induced intoxication pales in comparison to the deep emotional satisfaction of true, godly love.

You who believe! Intoxicants and gambling… are an abomination—of Satan’s handiwork: eschew such that you may prosper. Satan’s plan is to stir up enmity and hatred among you by means of liquor and gambling, and to hinder you from the remembrance of God and from prayer. Will you not then abstain?
      Qur’an 5.90-91
 
Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.     
    Ephesians 5.18
 
To the addict, nothing is like his dope;
to the fish, nothing is like water:
But those immersed in the love of God feel love for all things.
    Adi Granth, Wadhans, M.1, p. 557 (Sikhism)
 
Let the time that is past suffice for doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you do not now join them in the same wild profligacy, and they abuse you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
    1 Peter 4.3-5
 
Men who are grave and wise,
Though they drink, are mild and masters of themselves;
But those who are benighted and ignorant
Are devoted to drink, and more so daily.
Be careful, each of you, of your deportment—
What heaven confers, when once lost, is not regained.
    Book of Songs, Ode 196 (Confucianism)
 
Woe to those who rise early in the morning,
that they may run after strong drink,
who tarry late into the evening
till wine inflames them!
They have lyre and harp,
timbrel and flute and wine at their feasts,
but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord ,
or see the work of his hands.
    Isaiah 5.11-12
 
What are the six channels for dissipating wealth? Taking intoxicants; loitering in the streets at unseemly hours; constantly visiting shows and fairs; addiction to gambling; association with evil companions; the habit of idleness…

Gambling and women, drink and dance and song,
Sleeping by day and prowling around by night,
Friendship with wicked men, hardness of heart,
These six causes bring ruin to a man.
Gambling and drinking, chasing after those Women as dear as life to other men,
Following the fools, not the enlightened ones,
He wanes as the darker half of the moon.
The drunkard always poor and destitute;
Even while drinking, thirsty; haunting bars;
Sinks into debt as into water stone,
Soon robs his family of their good name.
One who habitually sleeps by day
And looks upon the night as time to rise
Licentious and a drunkard all the time,
He does not merit the rank of householder.
    Digha Nikaya 3.182-85, Sigalovada Sutta (Buddhism)
 
Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?
Those who tarry long after wine,
those who go to try mixed wine.
Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.
At the last it bites like a serpent,
and stings like an adder.
Your eyes will see strange things,
and your mind utter perverse things.
You will be one who lies down in the midst of the [rolling] sea,
like one who totters to and fro like the top of a mast.
“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I will seek another drink.”
    Proverbs 23.29-35
 
Rabbi Isaac said, quoting Proverbs 23.31, “Wine makes the faces of the wicked red in this world, but pale in the world to come.” Rabbi Me’ir said, “The tree of which Adam ate was a vine, for it is wine that brings lamentation to man.”
    Talmud, Sanhedrin 70ab (Judaism)
 
The Gambler:
These nuts that once tossed on tall trees in the wind
but now smartly roll over the board, how I love them!
As alluring as a draught of Soma on the mountain,
the lively dice have captured my heart.
My faithful wife never quarreled with me or got angry; to me and my companions
she was always kind, yet I’ve driven her away for the sake of the ill-fated throw of a die.

Chorus:
His wife’s mother loathes him, his wife rejects him;
he implores people’s aid but nowhere finds pity.
A luckless gambler is no more good than an aged hack to be sold on the market.
Other men make free with the wife of a man whose money and goods the eager dice have stolen.
His father and mother and brothers all say,
“He is nothing to us. Bind him, put him in jail!”

The Gambler:
I make a resolve that I will not go gaming.
So my friends depart and leave me behind.
But as soon as the brown nuts are rattled and thrown,
to meet them I run, like an amorous girl.

Chorus:
To the meeting place the gambler hastens.
“Shall I win?” he asks himself, hoping and
trembling.
But the throws of the dice ruin his hopes,
giving the highest scores to his opponent.

Dice, believe me, are barbed: they prick and they trip,
they hurt and torment and cause grievous harm.
To the gambler they are like children’s gifts, sweet as honey,
but they turn on the winner in rage and destroy him…

Abandoned, the wife of the gambler grieves.
Grieved too, is his mother as he wanders to nowhere.
Afraid and in debt, ever greedy for money,
he steals in the night to the home of another.

He is seized by remorse when he sees his wife’s lot,
beside that of another with well-ordered home.
In the morning, however, he yokes the brown steeds
and at the evening falls stupid before the cold embers.
    Rig Veda 10.34 (Hinduism)
 
 
 
 
 
 

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