My Rheama from yesterday was missing. Read it here.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 375
The base where genuine love can settle down is the family; therefore, the original family that secures the love of the universe will experience an aspect of the universe’s protection and expand the domain of love in the universe. We must go beyond the family and walk the patriotic path of loving the nation. Furthermore, we must go beyond race and nation toward the path of loving the world. We call those who love their family children of filial piety and virtuous wives, and those who love their nation patriots. What do we call those who love the world? We call them saints. (Blessed Family – 924)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1226
The valuable thing is to move closer to Heaven step by step, regarding as precious the results brought about by your loyalty. Even if you are offering loud prayers expressing great ambition that does not mean that God’s will is going to be fulfilled. On the path of restoration through indemnity all the people who claim they are the best will fall away. Don’t I also say that I am the best? Well, among everything I have taught you so far there was nothing I had not put into practice before teaching it to you. I practiced it, I completed it, and then I taught it to you; isn’t that true? (142-89, 1986.3.1)
Richard: Prayer and action must go together.
The Rise and Fall of Nations
GOD IS ACTIVE IN HISTORY AND GUIDES THE COURSE OF NATIONS: this was a first principle of God’s revelation to Israel. The prophets of Israel recognized that God dispensed blessings and punishments to the nation according to whether they were faithful to God’s will. Confucianism speaks of the Mandate of Heaven as a higher power that supports righteous rulers and causes the downfall of corrupt dynasties. The Qur’an likewise discerns the judgments of a righteous God in the history of the rise and fall of mighty nations, which left evidence of their former greatness in the ruins dotting the Arabian and Egyptian deserts. The downfall of the once mighty Roman Empire is further evidence that godlessness and moral decay lead to ruin. Father Moon continues this scriptural tradition in his warnings to America and the Western nations that they are liable to suffer the same fate. Nevertheless, he holds out hope that their impending downfall can be reversed, if only their people will turn to God.
I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O people of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from this evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good, which I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.’”
Jeremiah 18.3-11
Dishonesty about spoil has not appeared among a people without God casting terror into their hearts; fornication does not become widespread among a people without death being prevalent among them; people do not give short measure and weight without having their provision cut off; people do not judge unjustly without bloodshed becoming widespread among them; and people are not treacherous about a covenant without the enemy being given authority over them.
Hadith of Malik (Islam)
The Three Dynasties won the empire through benevolence and lost it through cruelty. This is true of the rise and fall, survival and collapse, of states as well. An emperor cannot keep the empire within the Four Seas unless he is benevolent; a feudal lord cannot preserve the altars to the gods of earth and grain unless he is benevolent; a minister or a counselor cannot preserve his ancestral temple unless he is benevolent; a gentleman or a commoner cannot preserve his four limbs unless he is benevolent.
Mencius IV.A.3 (Confucianism)
The Thirty-three great gods grow angry in their palaces
When the king disregards the evil done in his kingdom.
Then the land is afflicted with fierce and terrible crime,
And it perishes and falls into the power of the enemy.
Then property, families, and hoarded wealth all vanish,
And with varied deeds of deceit men ruin one another.
Whatever his reasons, if a king does not do his duty
He ruins his kingdom, as a great elephant a bed of lotuses.
Harsh winds blow, and rain falls out of season,
Planets and stars are unpropitious, as are the moon and sun,
Corn, flowers, and fruit and seed do not ripen properly,
And there is famine, when the king is negligent…
Then all the kings of the gods say to one another,
“This king is unrighteous; he has taken the side of unrighteousness!”
Such a king will not for long anger the gods;
From the wrath of the gods his kingdom will perish.
Golden Light Sutra 12 (Buddhism)
Have they not traveled in the land to see the nature of the consequence for those who disbelieved before them? They were mightier than those in power [today] and in the traces which they left behind them in the earth. Yet God seized them for their sins, and they had no protector from God.
That was because their messengers kept bringing them clear proofs of God’s sovereignty but they disbelieved; so God seized them. Lo! He is Strong, Severe in punishment.
Qur’an 40.21-22
Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the people of Ad,
With the city of Iram, with lofty pillars,
The like of which were not produced in all the land?
And with the people of Thamud, who cut out huge rocks in the valley?
And with Pharaoh, Lord of Stakes?
All these transgressed beyond bounds in the lands
And heaped therein mischief on mischief.
Therefore did your Lord pour on them a
scourge of diverse chastisements:
For your Lord is as a guardian on a watchtower.
Qur’an 89.6-14
The Duke of Chou said, “I make an announcement to all Yin and managers of affairs. Oh, august Heaven, the Lord-on-High, has changed his principal son [the ruler] and this great state Yin’s mandate. Now that the king has received the mandate, unbounded is the grace, but also unbounded is the solicitude. Oh, how can he be but careful! “Heaven has removed and made an end to the great state Yin’s mandate. There were many former wise kings of Yin in Heaven, and the later kings and people here managed their mandate. But in the end [under the last king] wise and good men lived in misery so that, leading their wives and carrying their children, wailing and calling to Heaven, they went to where no one could come and seize them. Oh, Heaven had pity on the people of the four quarters, and looking with affection and giving its mandate, it employed the zealous ones [the leaders of the Chou]. May the [new] king now urgently pay careful attention to his virtue.”
Book of History 5.12.2, Announcement of the Duke of Chou (Confucianism)