Author: Richard Urban

Throughout History People Have Anguished Over the Fundamental Questions of Life and the Universe

Read the latest Urban Life Training Newsletter: https://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/newsletters/337-newsletter-01-21-20 .

Acts 17

16 While Paul was waiting in Athens, he was upset to see all the idols in the city. 17 He went to the Jewish meeting place to speak to the Jews and to anyone who worshiped with them. Day after day he also spoke to everyone he met in the market. 18 Some of them were Epicureans and some were Stoics, and they started arguing with him.

Jeremiah

50 The Lord told me to say:

Announce what will happen
and don’t leave anything out.
2     Raise the signal flags;
shout so all nations can hear—
    Babylon will be captured!

Marduk, Babylon’s god,
will be ashamed and terrified,
    and his idols broken.
3 The attack on the Babylonians
    will come from the north;
they and their animals will run,
    leaving the land empty.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
3 Color Edition-The Red part

The Principle of Creation

Throughout history, people have anguished over the fundamental
questions of human life and the universe without arriving at satisfying
answers. This is because no one has understood the root principle by
which humanity and the universe were originally created. To approach
this topic properly, it is not enough to examine resultant reality. The fundamental question is that of the causal reality. Problems concerning
human life and the universe cannot be solved without first understanding
the nature of God.

THE DUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD
AND THE CREATED UNIVERSE

1.1 THE DUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD

How can we know the divine nature of the invisible God? One way
to fathom His deity is by observing the universe which He created.
As such, each stands in a relationship to God. Just as we can come to know the character of an artist through his works, so we can understand the
nature of God by observing the diverse things of creation.
Let us begin by pointing out the common elements which are found
universally throughout the natural world. Every entity possesses dual
characteristics of yang (masculinity) and yin (femininity) and comes into
existence only when these characteristics have formed reciprocal relationships, both within the entity and between it and other entities.
However, there is another pair of dual characteristics in reciprocal
relationship which are even more fundamental to existence than the dual
characteristics of yang and yin. Every entity possesses both an outer form
and an inner quality. The visible outer form resembles the invisible
inner quality. The inner quality, though invisible, possesses a certain
structure which is manifested visibly in the particular outer form. The
inner quality is called internal nature, and the outer form or shape is
called external form. Since internal nature and external form refer to
corresponding inner and outer aspects of the same entity, the external
form may also be understood as a second internal nature. Therefore, the
internal nature and external form together constitute dual characteristics.
Probing deeper still, we search for the Ultimate Cause which
brought this energy, with its elements of internal nature and external form, into existence. This being would be the First Cause of all
the myriad things in the universe. As the First Cause, it must also possess the dual characteristics of internal nature and external form,
which stand in the position of subject partner to the internal natures
and external forms of all beings. We call this First Cause of the universe God, and we call God’s internal nature and external form the
original internal nature and original external form.
It is only natural to surmise that God, the First Cause of all things, also exists based on the reciprocal relationship between the dual characteristics of yang and yin.
God is the Subject in whom the dual characteristics of
original internal nature and original external form are in harmony. At
the same time, God is the harmonious union of masculinity and femininity, which manifest the qualities of original internal nature and original external form, respectively. In relation to the universe, God is the
subject partner having the qualities of internal nature and masculinity.

View slides 1-25 below to see the above content with illustrations:

2007p1-CHAPT-1-Creation_revised-4-28-2014-red-part

Every Human Being is Struggling to Attain Life-long Happiness

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2194

Parents must provide the education
for their children to progress through the
stages of filial children, patriots, saints
and divine sons and daughters. They
have to teach them to perfect the dutiful
way of children of filial piety, patriots,
saints and divine sons and daughters, all
the way up to God. If there is a parent
who teaches in this way, then would not
God think, “My goodness! That parent
is doing what a parent should do. He is
doing what a real teacher should do. He
is doing what a real leader should do”?
When God says, “You are qualified
to be a real parent. You are qualified to
be a teacher,” then you become a father
who has the qualification to be a lead-
er, and, beyond that, a king. Today, the
concept of filial piety hardly exists in
western culture. The concept of becom-
ing a patriot does not exist. The concept
of becoming a saint does not exist. The
concept of becoming divine sons and
daughters does not exist. This is why
cultures will perish.
God wants you all to become divine
sons and daughters. Then, who wants
you to become a saint? The world does.
The country wants you to be a patriot.
The family wants you to become a filial
child. This is the way of absolute truth.
(285-218, 1997.5.19

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1090

On the first day of each month, the
husband and wife in each family should
offer a full bow together at five o’clock
in the morning, facing church head-
quarters. This should be done in a joyful
atmosphere. You should also do this at
five o’clock in the morning on Sundays.
You should report about everything in
your daily life during the week. Sunday
should be a joyful day that you long to
have come quickly. (13-104, 1963.11.1)

Richard: This refers to the Family Pledge, one of the Eight Sacred Textbooks of Holy Scripture: http://visionroot.org/resources/the-eight-books-of-holy-scripture/ .

Exposition of the Divine Principle
3 Color Edition-The Red part
Note: The red part contains the most important content of the Divine Principle.

Introduction

Every human being is struggling to attain life-long happiness and
overcome misfortune.
How, then, does happiness arise? People feel joy when their desires are fulfilled.
We find a great contradiction in every person. Within the self-same
individual are two opposing inclinations: the original mind that desires
goodness and the evil mind that desires wickedness. They are engaged
in a fierce battle, striving to accomplish two conflicting purposes. Any
being possessing such a contradiction within itself is doomed to perish. Human beings, having acquired this contradiction, live on the brink
of destruction.
Christianity sees this state of destruction as the result of the human Fall.
Considered from the viewpoint of the intellect, the human Fall represents humanity’s descent into ignorance. People are composed of
two aspects: internal and external, or mind and body; likewise, the
intellect consists of two aspects: internal and external. In the same way,
there are two types of ignorance: internal ignorance and external ignorance.
Humanity through religion has followed the path of searching for internal truth, and through science has followed the path of seeking external truth.
Religion and science, setting out with the missions of dispelling the
two aspects of human ignorance, have seemed in the course of their
development to take positions that were contradictory and irreconcilable.
However, for humankind to completely overcome the two aspects of
ignorance and fully realize the goodness which the original mind desires,
at some point in history there must emerge a new truth which can reconcile religion and science and resolve their problems in an integrated undertaking.
What missions must the new truth fulfill? Therefore, in order for God’s providence of salvation to be completely fulfilled, this new truth should first elevate the idealism of the democratic world to a new level, then use it to assimilate materialism, and finally bring humanity into a new world. This truth must be able to embrace all historical religions, ideologies and philosophies and bring complete unity among them. The new truth should guide fallen human beings to return to their original state. To do this, it must reveal the purpose for which God created humankind and the universe, and teach about the process of their restoration and its ultimate goal.
God has sent one person to this earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon.

Click the arrow button at the bottom of the image below to view an illustrated slide presentation of the content above.

2007p1-0-INTRO_revised-4-28-2014

Return to Basics

2 Samuel 12

12 1 and he sent Nathan the prophet to tell this story to David:

A rich man and a poor man lived in the same town. 2 The rich man owned a lot of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had only one little lamb that he had bought and raised. The lamb became a pet for him and his children. He even let it eat from his plate and drink from his cup and sleep on his lap. The lamb was like one of his own children.

4 One day someone came to visit the rich man, but the rich man didn’t want to kill any of his own sheep or cattle and serve it to the visitor. So he stole the poor man’s little lamb and served it instead.

5 David was furious with the rich man and said to Nathan, “I swear by the living Lord that the man who did this deserves to die! 6 And because he didn’t have any pity on the poor man, he will have to pay four times what the lamb was worth.”

7 Then Nathan told David:

You are that rich man! Now listen to what the Lord God of Israel says to you: “I chose you to be the king of Israel. I kept you safe from Saul 8 and even gave you his house and his wives. I let you rule Israel and Judah, and if that had not been enough, I would have given you much more. 9 Why did you disobey me and do such a horrible thing? You murdered Uriah the Hittite by having the Ammonites kill him, so you could take his wife.

10 “Because you wouldn’t obey me and took Uriah’s wife for yourself, your family will never live in peace. 11 Someone from your own family will cause you a lot of trouble, and I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes. He will go to bed with them while everyone looks on. 12 What you did was in secret, but I will do this in the open for everyone in Israel to see.”

13-14 David said, “I have disobeyed the Lord.”

“Yes, you have!” Nathan answered. “You showed you didn’t care what the Lord wanted.[a] He has forgiven you, and you won’t die. But your newborn son will.” 15 Then Nathan went back home.

Richard: Are we poor in spirit? Are we ready to hear what God is saying? David repented; can each of us do the same?

Proverbs 31

31 These are the sayings
that King Lemuel of Massa
    was taught by his mother.
2 My son Lemuel, you were born
in answer to my prayers,
    so listen carefully.
3 Don’t waste your life
chasing after women!
    This has ruined many kings.

4 Kings and leaders
should not get drunk
    or even want to drink.
5 Drinking makes you forget
your responsibilities,
    and you mistreat the poor.
6 Beer and wine are only
for the dying
    or for those
    who have lost all hope.
7 Let them drink
    and forget
how poor and miserable
    they feel.
8 But you must defend
those who are helpless
    and have no hope.
9 Be fair and give justice
    to the poor and homeless.

Richard: God is calling us to return to basics. Stay abstinent before marriage. Be Blessed in marriage and rear godly children. Follow the great commission; do Home Church, which means witnessing and serving in an area of 360 or more homes, as we have been reading in the past weeks.

Selected Passages from the Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon about Home Church

Today’s Word magazine, September 1981 p. 16

The unified soldier has a mission to return to
his home town and build a holy temple in the
Kingdom of Heaven. Thus, your 360 houses are
your Cain-type home church and your home town
will be your Abel-type home church.
In the future, our organization will become
completely home church. National leaders, center
leaders-everyone-will do home church work.
Thus, Satan will lose all his ground and have to
leave the earth completely. Thus, the era of mobile
activity will draw to a close, and everyone will settle
down.
You left your home and your relatives have
persecuted you. But in a few years you can go
back to them and serve them better than any son
or daughter has ever done in the past. Soon you
can write a letter home saying, Forgive me. Daddy
and Mommy. for my absence. Now I can come
home and become more obedient to you than the
most dutiful son or daughter that ever lived in
this country. In a few years, you can pack your
bags and go home. Then in one night, you can
explain the Principle to your parents. and they will
cry tears of repentance when they understand
what you have done. When you die, your relatives
will erect a tomb in honor of you who died for
the sake of your parents. (9/23/78)

When you get all your home church people
united. don’t you think they would all want to help
you do home church work with your family? They
will do the witnessing for you. When your relatives
come and see your members serving them and you
so sincerely, they will be deeply moved. This is the
normal pattern: Cain and Abel are meant to love
each other and live together harmoniously. The
Bible says your worst enemy is your family (even
without looking it up in the Bible, you know that
from experience!). But if you succeed in your
Cain-type home church, then you won’t even have
to fight your worst enemy.
After the completion of home church in the
Cain world, you can build one more home church:
your Abel-type home church in your home town.
Then you can invite your father and mother and
your whole family to join you, and together with
them you can enter the Kingdom of God. The
Kingdom of God accepts only families, not just
individuals-and families of three generations,
at that. By physically creating our tribal messiah-
ship, we can open the door for national and
worldwide messiahship. (1/1/79)

Only Through Home Church Can You Return Home

Cheong Seong Gyeong 259

We use the words True Parents. We
say that we should go forward togeth-
er with True Parents and together with
God. Next, we say that we should be
true brothers and sisters. Centering on
what? Centering on Jesus. Jesus’ parents
were unable to serve him, but we should
reverse that failure through indemnity
and stand in the position of parents who
can serve him and who are better than
his earthly parents were.
Which do you think is easier to
accept: my referring to God as the Par-
ent, or your referring to me as the Parent?
You do not know how much I have suf-
fered. You do not know how many walls
there have been and how complicated it
has been. Until now, myriads of people
have struggled on that path and all have
fallen into the pit. When you joined the
Unification Church and began to under-
stand me from the perspective of theory,
it must have been easy for you to say, “Ah,
he is the True Parent.” Then, which do
you think is greater, the joy I felt when I
realized that God is the True Parent or the
joy you felt when you realized it? I could
utter the word “Father” only after having
gone through life-threatening suffering,
but you were taught everything without
suffering. This is why you can say, “Okay,
I have come to know the True Parents; so
what?” Who would rejoice more? Which
do you think should be greater, the joy I
felt when I met God in the parent-child
relationship or the joy you feel when you
meet me? Although my encounter came
only after suffering, your encounter took
place without suffering, so you should be
more joyful. If I had paid hundreds of
billions of dollars, wouldn’t you be you
happy that you paid nothing? What have
you paid? When you come and listen to
the Principle you can understand every-
thing. So, when you hear “True Parents,”
you merely say “So that’s how it is!” and
understand everything. (116-121, 1981.12.27)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1551

Where would the realization of God’s
ideal kingdom, that is, the restoration of
the homeland, first take place? It will
begin with an individual who believes
in loving his enemies. Hence, as long as
God remains in existence, Christianity,
the religion that came forth first with
the movement to eliminate national
boundaries, transcend all the walls of
environment and culture, and embrace
its enemies, by virtue of the power of
love, cannot help but become the most
widespread religion in the world. When
you sow beans, you reap beans; when
you sow red beans, you reap red beans;
and when you sow seeds of red flow-
ers, red flowers will bloom. Similarly,
if Satan, who takes vengeance upon his
enemies, sows seeds of the devil, from
that place will grow trees of evil that
take vengeance on their enemies. If, on
the other hand, one who loves his ene-
mies sows the seeds of goodness, from
there will grow trees of goodness that
will love their enemies. Such is the law
of nature. (107-18, 1980.2.21)

Selected Passages from the Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon about Home Church

Today’s Word magazine, September 1981 p. 16

Cain and Abel Home Church
Before you can go back to your home town, you
must digest 360 houses, fulfilling your responsi-
bility in Cain’s plane. When you do it, everyone will
welcome you, just as I have received a welcome in
Korea after fulfilling my mission. When I say
you have to work in Cain’s sphere, I am referring
to the Cain-type archangel, the fallen archangel.
The archangel tempted Adam and Eve, so to
surpass the level of the fall and build the
Kingdom of Heaven, we must get the support of
the archangelic world, through home church. The
Christian realm is that of Cain, so you have to go
to that realm and organize a certain group
there-win 360 homes. At the time of the second
advent, if the Abel-type people cannot subjugate
the Cain-type sphere, there is no way for individu-
als, families, clans, tribes, nations or the whole
world to return to God. So we must build up a
substantial world like the sphere of the unfallen
archangel, in order to put an end to the fallen
world and win the support and obedience of the
Cain-type sphere. This you must accomplish
through your Cain-type home church.
If you can make 360 homes unite with you,
then you can go back to your home town, back to
Eden, and do your Abel-type home church. As the
second son, you had made yourself a sacrifice in
order to serve Cain. When you go back home after
gaining the victory in the Cain-type home church,
your position changes from that of second son to
that of first son. Then, as a consequence, the
angelic world, as Cain, must become the sacrifice
and support you as Abel. Thus, the spiritual world
should come and support you when you gain the
victory in home church. The early Christians were
persecuted and killed, but nobody persecutes
someone who invests himself desperately to serve
360 homes.
Only through home church can you return
home. As adopted sons, you are still children of
the archangel; therefore, you must subjugate the
Cain-type archangel in your 360-home home
church; then you can return to your home town, to
the sphere of the original archangel. When uu
win over the home town archangel, then you can
restore your parents, your brothers and sisters and
your relatives. Only when the Cain-type archangel
(your 360 homes) and the original archangel (your
home town) unite, can parents be restored.
(1/1/79)

Home Church is the Basis for Loving Everything

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Day!

Daniel 11

20 The next king of the north will try to collect taxes for the glory of his kingdom. However, he will come to a sudden end in some mysterious way, instead of in battle or because of someone’s anger.

Jeremiah 25

4 The Lord has sent prophets to you time after time, but you refused to listen. 5 They told you that the Lord had said:

Change your ways! If you stop doing evil, I will let you stay forever in this land that I gave your ancestors. 6 I don’t want to harm you. So don’t make me angry by worshiping idols and other gods.

Selected Passages from the Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon about Home Church

Today’s Word magazine, September 1981 pp. 15 – 16

Prepare for your husband or wife
I want you to feel that home church is a
training ground for your future married life and
that all who oppose you are merely doing so to
train you to live with your future spouse and
in-laws. (5/27/79)

Home church is the basis for loving everything,
even your wife and husband. Think that in going
to your home church, you are going to your wife’s
or husband’s house. You must go to that place and
love them, and find your husband or wife and
your parents there. ( 1/7/79)

There should actually be no Blessing before
home church is completed. From this time on, no
one is automatically eligible for the Blessing
simply because he has been a member for a
certain number of years. Only those who succeed
in home church and restore spiritual children are
qualified for the Blessing. Jesus first restored
his three major disciples, and then the group of 12.
Those 12 plus his 72 followers established the
number 84. Thus, 84 spiritual children is an
important number for us to fulfill, and it must
be done within seven years, bringing one person
per month. After Jesus had 84 people completely
united with him, he could have had the holy
wedding. ( 1/1/79)

Prepare for your children

Only upon the victorious foundation of home
church can you bear sinless children, just as
perfected Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
would have borne sinless children. No one shall be
able to stand against that pure child. You must
fulfill all the conditions of home church before
God’s Blessing comes to you to be husband and
wife.
When you are united as husband and wife upon
this home church foundation and give birth to
your children, then you will rise to the parental
level. Your children will be born upon the founda-
tion of your success in home church, and all your
labor there will be reaped by them. In that case,
you will truly have a foundation upon which to
receive God’s abundant blessing. Then, because
the Cain and Abel separation has already been
resolved in your home church, no stain will remain
to affect your children, so God will gladly
embrace you and your children. Unless you stand
victorious in home church, however, you will pass
on that duty and responsibility to your children,
who will then have to undergo that tribulation
themselves. (5/27/79)

Home church people will give the true blessing
and honor to your children. We know your father
and mother very well, they will say, and they are
true saints. We saw God through your parents.
Then they will embrace and love and cherish your
children. Just as you cherish my children, your
home church people will pray for blessing for
your children as well. (6/1/79)

If you fail in home church, your children will
ask you why. Your children will ask how many
times you shed tears for home church. They will
say, Even if you had to neglect me and couldn’t
feed me, even if you abandoned me, you should
have followed God’s instruction, God’s way of
life and TI-ue Father’s instructions. Why didn’t
you? When your children accuse you in that way.
what will you say? There will be no answer.
(4/16/80)