Joshua 24
17 The Lord is our God. We were slaves in Egypt as our ancestors had been, but we saw the Lord work miracles to set our people free and to bring us out of Egypt. Even though other nations were all around us, the Lord protected us wherever we went. 18 And when we fought the Amorites and the other nations that lived in this land, the Lord made them run away. Yes, we will worship and obey the Lord, because the Lord is our God.
Ecclesiastes 11
9 Be cheerful and enjoy life while you are young! Do what you want and find pleasure in what you see. But don’t forget that God will judge you for everything you do.
10 Rid yourself of all worry and pain, because the wonderful moments of youth quickly disappear.
The Path of Faith Which Should be Examined Carefully
Sun Myung Moon
April 12, 1959
You should look and be careful in your speaking, hearing, seeing and feeling now. How hard have you tried to fulfill the historical responsibility? Have you ever surrendered everything and come forward, disregarding difficulties, anger, being chased away, hunger and death? How careful a heart have you had?
How often have you been overwhelmed by the Shim Jung that burns with a sense of responsibility, and desired to regain it? How often have you examined whether the heavenly hand was guiding you within your circumstances, reaching out to you, thereby coming to deny your previous position and embarking upon a new reflection? If you have not had such an experience, you should feel that you cannot show your faces.
In the Garden of Eden, the archangel was created first. The archangel had been ruling over the environment. When Adam and Eve appeared, he became an attacker. This was the beginning of history. Human beings, who insisted on habit and tradition in history, always opposed God’s way. They never cooperated. As the ancestors are, so are the descendants. Those who were being driven away have been leading history, fighting all the while.
It was thus with Noah as he served Heaven. To those who insisted on the social tradition, he appeared to be a madman. He looked demented, ridiculous and stupid. It was the same with Abraham. He tried to kill Isaac, whom God had blessed him with at the age of one hundred years. It was the same with Moses. Who instigated the people to accuse, betray and drive out the people of mission? They were the ones who clung to the historical traditions. If there is a Heaven, they should receive its judgment. The ideology of restoration is to sever attachment to the historical details, to take off the old clothes of the past, to meet the new morning in the new garden, and to appear in white clothes with new hope.
Since fallen people have come through such a historical course, they have struck out against new theories. Any new opinions or doctrines were attacked. Being struck on the family level is for the mission of the family; being struck on the national level is for the mission of the nation; being struck on the level of the state is for the mission of the state. Being struck by the state and the people of the age is for the ideological mission of that age, state and people.
With the progress of history, democracy and communism are now confronting each other. In the future, a severe battle will occur. Unless this becomes the final point of all history and all problems are solved through this, something new should appear.
What will happen to this new thing? If it comes through religion, it will be smote by religious people; if it comes with responsibility, it will be rejected by the social circumstances. If it comes with a certain ideology, it will be rejected by the ideologies of the world. Later on, it will be expelled by democracy and communism.
Since the present world is fallen, only when something appears that does not bend even under rejection and persecution can this world turn into a new one. We know that something will necessarily appear. We are speaking to introduce such an ideology. We are here to accomplish this purpose and go forward today and again tomorrow, disregarding persecution.
What kind of determination must you make? We must not make a determination for history or the age, nor a momentary determination. We must make a determination for the universe. Heaven, who rules over the universe, will gather those with such a determination. If people gather with a burning ambition, burning with the heavenly ideology, and if they persist without being brought down by the age, they will be able to move the history of a later age.