Richard Urban | Daily Inspiration

He Who Does Not Love Abides In Death

Urban Life Training Newsletter-March 18, 2021

Cheon Seong Gyeong 615

What should you do to reach this state? You need to cultivate your mind. Some religions have expanded in step with God’s providence and others in step with Satan. Since these religions are all mixed up, it is extremely difficult to differentiate the good and bad. The same is true within the realm of our mind. There are good minds and at the same time evil minds. Your mind may think, “Yes, I am good,” but that thought itself is not good. Our minds were formed as a result of the Fall. Consequently, there are some whose minds are influenced by evil and the evil realm of Satan, and others by goodness. There are all types of minds. Then what is of utmost importance? The way you set the gate to your mind is the most important matter in your life of faith. Therefore, in your life of faith, always be alert to those times when the gate of your mind opens and how to tune it to the gate of God’s mind. Always be prepared for this. You always need to have a mindset in your daily life of seeking and adjusting your mind to God at any given time.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1643

Within the elements of the mineral world may be found pairs of positive and negative ions. The 107 chemical elements identified in the Periodic Table will not react with just anything, however hard you may try to fuse them in the laboratory. Yet with the appropriate object, there is nothing you could do – not even God – to prevent them from fusing together. You already know about this, don’t you? Everything is incorporated within the pair system, whether mineral, plant or animal. All things exist in pairs, in accordance with the principle of positive and negative. (203-295, 1990.6.27)

Richard: There is no confusion in God’s creation about male and female. There are two genders, and that is what always has and always will ‘make the world go round’.

Eternal Life

2. Love: The Basis of Eternal Life

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.1 John 3.14-16

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Eternity does not exist apart from true love. (August 18, 1988)

When you are united with your beloved, you do not care if the world is perishing. Even if your parents demanded that you separate, threatening you with a knife, you would not be afraid of that knife. You would be determined to stay together, even if you died and went to the next world. You are not concerned about your earthly life, because you believe that you will be together in the spirit world. You actually prefer life in eternity to finite earthly life. (380:88, June 5, 2002)

May we discover by ourselves and prove by ourselves,
not only by faith or conviction but also from experience,
that Thou and I have a relationship extending front and back, right and left.
Thou and I were living, are living and shall ever live
in a relationship eternal and unchanging. (40:350, February 11, 1971)

God Created Human Beings to Live Forever

Urban Life Training Newsletter-March 18, 2021

Mark 2

²²No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins.^[f] Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins.

Psalm 78

⁵⁶But the people tested
    God Most High,
    and they refused
    to obey his laws.
⁵⁷They were as unfaithful
    as their ancestors,
    and they were as crooked
    as a twisted arrow.
⁵⁸God demanded all their love,
    but they made him angry
    by worshiping idols.

⁵⁹So God became furious
    and completely rejected
    the people of Israel.
⁶⁰Then he deserted his home
at Shiloh,
    where he lived
    here on earth.
⁶¹He let enemies capture
the sacred chest^[f]
    and let them dishonor him.

⁶²God took out his anger
    on his chosen ones
    and let them be killed
    by enemy swords.
⁶³Fire destroyed the young men,
    and the young women were left
    with no one to marry.
⁶⁴Priests died violent deaths,
    but their widows
    were not allowed to mourn.

⁶⁵Finally the Lord woke up,
    and he shouted
    like a drunken soldier.
⁶⁶God scattered his enemies
    and made them ashamed
    forever.

⁶⁷Then the Lord decided
    not to make his home
    with Joseph’s descendants
    in Ephraim.^[g]
⁶⁸Instead he chose the tribe
    of Judah,
    and he chose Mount Zion,
    the place he loves.
⁶⁹There he built his temple
    as lofty as the mountains
and as solid as the earth
    that he had made
    to last forever.

⁷⁰The Lord God chose David
to be his servant
and took him
    from tending sheep
⁷¹    and from caring for lambs.
Then God made him the leader
    of Israel, his own nation.
⁷²David treated the people fairly
    and guided them with wisdom.

Eternal Life

1. Eternal Life in God

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

When a follower asked Jesus if he could go home to bury his deceased father, Jesus said, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” (Luke 9.60) From these words of Jesus, it is clear that the Bible contains two different concepts of life and death. The first concept of life and death concerns physical life. Here, “death” means the end of physical life, as was the case of the disciple’s deceased father who was to be buried. “Life” in that sense means the state in which the physical self maintains its physiological functions.

The second concept of life and death concerns those living people who had gathered to bury the deceased man, those whom Jesus called “the dead.” Why did Jesus refer to people whose bodies were alive and active as the dead? He meant that since they had not accepted Jesus, they were far removed from the love of God and were dwelling in the realm of Satan’s dominion. This second concept of death does not refer to the expiration of physical life. It means leaving the bosom of God’s love and falling under the dominion of Satan. The corresponding concept of life refers to the state of living in accordance with God’s Will, within the dominion of God’s infinite love. Therefore, even if a person’s physical self is alive, if he dwells apart from God’s dominion and is in servitude to Satan, he is dead as judged by the original standard of value. A similar conclusion can be drawn from the Lord’s words of judgment upon the faithless people of the church in Sardis: “You have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” (Rev. 3.1)

On the other hand, even though a person’s physical life may have expired, he remains alive in the true sense if his spirit abides in the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven, a realm in the spirit world where God governs through love. When Jesus said, “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11.25), he meant that those who believe in him and live within the realm of God’s dominion have life. Even after their physical bodies have returned to the soil, their spirits enjoy life in God’s dominion. Jesus also said, “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11.26) In saying that believers will never die, he meant that those who believe in Jesus during their earthly life will obtain eternal life not in this world, but in spirit, within the bosom of God’s love. They will be alive, both in this life and the next. Jesus’ words assure us that death, in the sense of the end of physical life, has no effect on our eternal life. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Resurrection 1.1)

Eternal life does not mean that we merely exist forever in the spirit world. It means we eternally “live.” How do we cultivate such a life?

As human beings, each of us was created to be an object of God’s love—God’s beloved partner. God cherishes true love more than Himself. Hence, although God is the center of absolute and eternal life, His ideal of true love is even more absolute and eternal. It is the very core of God. We are the object partners of that true love.

How do we come to be in such a precious, eternal position? Love is the attribute that brings subject and object into oneness. Love unites a family. It unites the nation. In the unity of love, we can participate in anything our beloved does, follow him wherever he goes, and inherit everything he or she possesses. In the same way, we can inherit God’s eternal life. We can inherit God’s heart—his heart of love by which He longs to dwell within each of us and also in the creation. How precious it is to find such great value within ourselves!…

What joy! What amazing grace! What an unparalleled blessing! Now we can dwell in the same position as God. Now we can participate in God’s eternal love. (216:115, March 9, 1991)

[Originally,] human beings are born from true love, grow in true love, live in true love and die in true love. We are not meant to just disappear into a void. Since God, the Subject of all created beings, is eternal, unchanging and unique, we who are His partners of love should live eternally. This is the starting-point of the logic of eternal life. Life does not begin from life. Life originates from true love, not the other way around.

If God creates something He regards as most precious, would He discard it ten years or one hundred years later, or would He want to keep it for eternity? Obviously, He would create it to last forever. Thus it is with human beings. Would God create human beings to be born and die, and their death is the end? No, He created human beings to live forever. Why? They are the object partners of the absolute God, with whom He can share joy in absolute true love…

Suppose you were fleeing to a refugee camp; if you had a precious possession, would you take it with you or leave it behind? You would want to take it with you. Once in the camp, you would treasure it. You would not enjoy it for a few days and then throw it away. You would keep it until you die, and then bequeath it to your descendants for eternity. That is human desire.

It is the same with God, the Absolute Being. God is eternal, and He desires that His object partners, whom He loves, should live eternally. That is why human beings want to live forever. For this reason also, the absolute God never ceases to seek for His children. Each human being has the value of eternity. (290:143-44, February 18, 1998)

If God only liked humans for one or two days, or even for one hundred years, and then discarded them, it would not be true love. The more you love, the more you want to be with your beloved one. For this reason you sometimes find a man whose wife died young who never remarries, preferring to live alone until his death while treasuring some article of his wife’s clothing…

That is why God created human beings, His precious children, to live forever. However, for love to last forever, people should stand on the foundation of actions that can generate greater output force. In other words, as time goes by love’s power gets stronger, generating more give and take action instead of consuming energy. Hence, the lovers’ joy never ends, but only grows and develops more and more, to infinity. Such is the ideal world, the Kingdom of Heaven in which God dwells. (39:42)

Leave the Dead to Bury Their Own Dead

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2121

If this is true with parents in the fallen world, how can we ever grow tired of giving and receiving God’s love in the essential world? When we establish the realm of God’s true objective partner in our own lives and understand the unchanging glory of true love for the first time, we will then be able to validate the logic of eternal life. In 1984, I was lying in bed alone unjustly incarcerated in prison in the United States, when God came and told me that I was the only person He could trust and that He wanted me to resolve the situation in Nicaragua. Am I really the only person God can come to with such a command? The United States is said to be a great country standing at the forefront of all developed countries. It has a population of 240 million and innumerable religious leaders. How wretched God must have been that He could not go to any of those people but had to come to me. Yet as God knows how to find people who have a great love for humanity, He came to me, who had been worrying about the world day and night. Had I not already established the Washington Times, and extended help at that time, South America would have fallen into ideological chaos

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1086

As buds, you have not yet bloomed. Do not become wicked like those who write love letters and have illicit love relationships. You should blossom naturally. When God sees you, He should be able to exclaim, “Oh! You have blossomed purely and naturally. Since I can smell the fragrance, I can tell that you are a virgin.” In this case, God feels so much hope. Does God want something pure or something damaged? What about you, then? Do you want something pure or something damaged? Even fallen men want to have something pure. Would God not value that even more?

Eternal Life

For many the goal of religion is immortality or eternal life. People have always chafed under the limitations of mortality, and have found in religion the means to transcend the death which seems to proscribe the possibilities of human existence. As with resurrection, eternal life is not simply about the survival of the soul at death and its journey into the afterlife. Eternal life is not about eternal existence per se, but rather about the quality of that existence.
We find that the scriptures of many religions give two meanings to the terms “life” and “death.” there is physical life—existence on this earthly plane, and there is spiritual life—the state of blessedness which endures from life to life and transcends death. There is physical death—the dropping of the body which is an event in the voyage of every soul, and spiritual death—the condition of distance from God, ignorance, and a hellish existence in the hereafter.
“Eternal life” and “immortality” are thus ciphers to describe the condition of blessedness. this condition is present already in the physical life of the person who realizes truth or lives in God’s grace, and it will continue, unabated, in the hereafter. The person who gains eternal life has accomplished the goal of life, and hence death is not to be feared as a limitation, as it is for a worldly person who has tied all hopes to his possessions and pleasures in the world. We note, however, that Buddhist scriptures generally avoid speaking of this state of blessedness as eternal life, for Buddhism views the desire for life as a kind of grasping, and hence a fetter to liberation. instead, they speak of Nirvana.
Father Moon’s teaches that eternal life is rooted in our relationship with the eternal God, based upon God’s love for us and our love for God. “eternity does not exist apart from true love,” he states. Then he expands upon this concept to describe the relationship between human lovers as aspiring for the eternal. this is so because we human beings are designed for eternal life, eternal love with God, and eternal community with the ones we love under God.

1. Eternal Life in God

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

John 3.16

He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

John 11.25-26

Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, they are the best of creatures. Their reward is with God: Gardens of Eternity, beneath which rivers flow; they will dwell therein for ever; God well pleased with them, and they with Him; all this for such as fear their Lord and Cherisher.

Qur’an 98.7-8

The Supreme Being does not die; I will there-fore not die.

Akan Proverb (African Traditional Religions)

Being in accord with Tao, he is everlasting.

Tao Te Ching 16 (Taoism)

Where one sees nothing but the One, hears nothing but the One, knows nothing but the One—there is the Infinite. Where one sees another, hears another, knows another—there is the finite. The Infinite is immortal; the finite is mortal.

It is written, He who has realized eternal Truth does not see death, nor illness, nor pain; he sees everything as the Self, and obtains all.

Chandogya Upanishad 7.23, 27 (Hindusm)

Those who are free from desire are free because all their desires have found fulfillment in the Self. They do not die like the others; but realizing Brahman, they merge in Brahman. So it is said: When all the desires that surge in the heart
Are renounced, the mortal becomes immortal.
When all the knots that strangle the heart
Are loosened, the mortal becomes immortal,
Here in this very life.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.6-7 (Hinduism)

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6.23

From the unreal lead me to the Real!
From darkness lead me to light!
From death lead me to immortality!
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28 (Hinduism)

Higher than this is Brahman, the Supreme, the
Great.
Hidden in all things, body by body,
The One embracer of the universe—
By knowing Him as Lord men become
immortal.
I know this mighty Person
Of the color of the sun, beyond darkness.
Only by knowing Him does one pass over
death.
There is no other path for going there.
Than whom there is nothing else higher,
Than whom there is nothing smaller, nothing
greater,
The One stands like a tree established in
heaven.
By Him, the Person, this whole world is filled.

That which is beyond this world
Is without form and without ill.
They who know That, become immortal;
But others go only to sorrow.
Svetasvatara Upanishad 3.7-10 (Hindusm)

The supreme stage of the Soul is free from birth, old age and death; he is supreme, pure, and devoid of eight karmas; he possesses infnite knowledge, intuition, bliss, and potency; he is indivisible, indestructible, and inexhaustible. Besides, he is supersensuous and unparalleled, is free from obstructions, merit, demerit, and rebirth, and is eternal, steady, and independent.

Kundakunda, Niyamasara 176-77 (Jainism)

“For the living know that they shall die” (Ecc. 9.5): these are the righteous who in their death are called living… “but the dead know nothing”: these are the wicked who in their lifetime are called dead.

Talmud, Berakot 18ab (Judaism)

Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Luke 9.60

Who Is In the First Resurrection?

Mark 12

³⁶The Holy Spirit led David to say,

‘The Lord said to my Lord:
Sit at my right side
until I make your enemies
into a footstool for you.’

Ezekiel 27

⁷I told them to get rid of their disgusting idols and not to sin by worshiping the gods of Egypt. I reminded them that I was the Lord their God, ⁸but they still rebelled against me. They refused to listen and kept on worshiping their idols and foreign gods.

Richard: Return to God. Forswear the pursuit of money, power and illicit sex.

Resurrection

2. The Resurrection of the Saints—The First Resurrection

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4.16-17

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and every power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15.22-26

Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpers playing on their harps, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are chaste; it is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes; these have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are spotless…

Revelation 14.1-5

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection!

Revelation 20.1-6

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

The “first resurrection” spoken of in the Bible describes the fulfillment of restoration for the first time in providential history. This will be accomplished through Christ at the Second Advent. He will cleanse people of the original sin and restore them to their true, original selves, enabling each to fulfill the purpose of creation.

The hope of all Christians is to participate in the first resurrection. But who in fact shall participate? It will be those who are the first to believe in, serve and follow Christ at the Second Advent. They will assist him in fulfilling all the indemnity conditions worldwide and in accomplishing the providence of restoration. In the process, they will be the first to have their original sin removed, become divine spirits, and fulfill the purpose of creation…

In order for Christ at the Second Advent to complete the providence of restoration, he must find a certain number of people who can restore through indemnity the missions of all the past saints who, despite their best efforts to do God’s Will, fell prey to Satan when they failed in their responsibilities. He must find these people during his lifetime and lay the foundation of victory over Satan’s world. The total number of saints whom Christ at the Second Advent must find to accomplish this task is 144,000. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Resurrection 2.2.7)

What is the secret that will enable us to chase out Satan from everywhere? It is to live for the sake of others, die for the sake of others, and practice altruistic love. When we do that, Satan will certainly flee, breaking down all the barriers and national borders that he had erected.

What will happen next? Once Satan is gone, souls who had been headed for hell will be given the opportunity to resurrect and enter heaven. Eternal life will finally become a reality.

As people who know God and the Kingdom of Heaven, we will call on God, the Source of love, as our Father. We will earnestly desire to practice God’s tradition of living for others, and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years. This is the tradition of eternal life, established in people of the eternal lineage. It is for us to share. (August 18, 2000)

Those Who Are Willing to Die Shall Live

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1566

These eight months of January through August have all been part of a new era in 1989. It is now the end of August isn’t it? The course of global indemnity has been completed in these eight months. In connection with this we were able to hold many events last year, including the cross-cultural “exchange” Holy Blessing and the declaration of the Foundation Day for the Nation of the Unified World. Thus, all conditions of indemnity were fulfilled. In this way, everything was brought to completion in August. This includes the marine and water related activities. I have accomplished so much up to this point. (193-100, 1989.8.31)The Way in the Completed Testament Age

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1662

The position of a married couple is truly a great one. There, the fulfillment of hope that humankind has yearned for throughout history blossoms in the form of children, siblings and spouses. In this way, just as God began His work of creation with love, the couple that represents Adam and Eve will begin to create on their own through the act of giving birth to their children. They take the position of substantial creators, and in the position of horizontal creators in relation to their children, they bear them. This is the making of the third creators, namely the children.

Resurrection

1. The Dead Return to Life

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Many have hitherto believed that the death caused by the Fall was physical death. Consequently, they have interpreted the biblical concept of resurrection as revival from physical death, and believed that resurrection of the dead involves the biological regeneration of their decomposed bodies. However, the Fall of the first human ancestors did not cause this kind of death. According to the Principle of Creation, the human body was created to return to dust after it grows old. A decomposed body cannot be restored to its original state. Furthermore, it is not necessary for a spirit to take on another physical body when he is meant to enjoy eternal life in the vast spirit world.

Resurrection may be defined as the process of being restored from the death caused by the Fall to life, from the realm of Satan’s dominion to the realm of God’s direct dominion, through the providence of restoration. Accordingly, whenever we repent of our sins and rise to a higher state of goodness, we are resurrected to that degree.

The Bible illustrates the process of resurrection: “He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5.24) Based on this verse, we can affirm that resurrection means to leave the bosom of Satan and return to the bosom of God. It is also written, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15.22) This verse means that because we inherited Satan’s lineage as a result of Adam’s fall, we are dead; when we return to the lineage of God through Christ, we shall be resurrected to life…

The changes a person experiences when he is resurrected and enters the governance of God take place in his heart and spirit. These internal changes also purify his body, transforming it from a haunt of Satan into a temple of God. In this sense, we may say that our physical body is also resurrected. We may compare it to a building that was previously used for evil purposes and is now used as a place of worship. Although there may be no change in its outward appearance, it is now sanctified as a sacred building. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Resurrection 1.3-4)

What happens to us after we die? Up to the moment we die, we belong to ourselves. But after we die, we belong to God. Because we were born of a fallen lineage, until death we cannot sever our ties with Satan. After death, however, we can establish ties with God. Therefore, unless we die we cannot be resurrected…

Therefore, when the Bible teaches, “Those who are willing to die shall live, while those who want to live shall die,” it means by death not the end of our God-given eternal life, but rather the end of our fallen life into which we were born from a fallen lineage in a fallen world. (December 19, 1998)

The Bible teaches that those who are willing to die shall live, and those who want to live shall die. This means that in order to escape from the fallen realm we must be willing to give up our lives. There is no true life in the fallen realm. Hence, when we deny this fallen life, we can be resurrected. Jesus was resurrected because he denied his own life. Jesus could not resurrect himself; it was God who raised him. (307:167, November 8, 1998)