Author: Richard Urban

Some Force is Prodding You

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 2088

By combining the victorious, restored
features of Judaism, Christianity, and
the Unification Church with the bless-
ings of Buddhism, Confucianism and
other religions, I am forming a consoli-
dated nucleus. This is your inheritance
and the essence of the tribal messiah’s
position. You do not need to worry
about the nation. There is no need for
you to worry about the world, either. All
you need to worry about is your family.
(198-270, 1990.2.4)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1446

In the future, centering on the order
of registration, the great national level
migration will take place. Then those
who have opposed the Unification
Church will have to pack up their bags
and leave. Because he symbolized the
Lord at his Second Advent on Satan’s
side, Stalin ordered the Korean people of
Sakhalin to be banished to the deserts of
Central Asia, and they were left there to
die. Nevertheless, they were able to sur-
vive. The Korean race is very persever-
ing. The Korean people united togeth-
er and survived in the desert. Now, in
the same way, people will have to move.
On that occasion, people were forced to
move, but now they will move voluntari-
ly. This is in accordance with the Princi-
ple. By saying that they are going to the
Kingdom of Heaven, can they move to a
place where they can make a good liv-
ing? Of course not. When the Kingdom
of Heaven is manifested on earth, a great
migration will take place. In the order
of registration, people will line up start-
ing from right beside True Father. Then
those who opposed us will be driven out
of Korea. They will have to pack their
bags. (253-299, 1994.1.30)

We Who Are Walking a Life Course

Sun Myung Moon
September 6, 1959

1 Peter 1: 21-25

The title of the sermon I am about to give you now is “We Who Are Walking a Life Course.” I will speak upon this subject.

It is commonly said that people are born and will pass away. From ancient times, even the greatest personalities have passed away. We have to think about how this pattern in history and Heaven relates to us. We will one day pass away. Although it is not clear what the relationship is, we know clearly that we came to the earth and will pass away from it after interacting in a complicated manner with many things and under the influence of some ideals.

For what purpose did we come and for what purpose are we going? Although many philosophers and religious people have tried to answer this question with all their hearts and souls, human history has progressed in sorrow. This continues to this day.

We are in an intense moment. We cannot deny that we are walking a life course that we cannot avoid. We were born through the lineage of our parents and found ourselves in a world that we never even thought about before. It is our fate that at some point in our life, we will grow old and die. No matter how great a person may be, he cannot stop the passing of his golden youth. We know the sad reality that there is no way to prevent one’s aging, no matter how hard one may try.

Several times in the course of your life you probably felt deep remorse and regret during a moment of reflection, as well as a strong urge to stir things up around you. Why were we born, why should we live, and where should we go? You should not think that you were the cause of your birth. We do not know the origin and purpose of our birth. Although we were born, we were not born because that’s what we wanted to do. Although we are living, it is not because we want to live that we are alive. When we die, it will not be because we want to die.

Then what do you have that is still worth being proud of? We are not born out of our own desire; we cannot live the way we want to; and we cannot avoid death. We should not be proud. If we are proud, we will only be miserable. Since we were born and are leading our life, we are to pass away after living such a life.

What is the purpose of this life? You should reflect on this question once more. Since you are not the cause, your purpose must not lie with you. Who does not want to be happy in his life? Who does not want to lead a rich and glorious life? Yet we cannot live as we want to. Still, we want to be proud of ourselves, live as we wish, and be remembered the way we want to be. In each of our hearts, we find this clash of contradictions.

Why do we, who did not cause our own birth, desire something great, wish to live well, and seek a more valuable and greater purpose? Is it because of ourselves, or is it due to some reciprocal purpose? We have to understand this clearly. There is probably no one who would raise his hand and claim that it is because of he himself. Were you born through your parents’ lineage because that was what you wanted? Although your parents gave birth to you, they cannot determine the course of your life. They cannot set its outcome the way they want to. They can neither kill you nor save your life.

Who possesses this power? The day we can clarify the possessor of this power, we can rejoice centering on ourselves. People of the present era, however, are struggling and have failed to surpass this standard. We have to understand that we are these people.

For this reason, we are pursuing something greater in our hearts. Moreover, we want to push away the realm of death in our lives and become connected to a greater life and world. Moreover, since we have a heart of emotion and love, we want to transcend the world of human emotions and connect with the world of eternal and unchanging emotions. Although it is hard to explain or demonstrate, we are often pulled by these feelings. The purer your conscience is, the more you will feel that some force is prodding you to forsake this world full of contradictions.

No One Is Concerned with the Father’s Situation

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Romans 4

18 God promised Abraham a lot of descendants. And when it all seemed hopeless, Abraham still had faith in God and became the ancestor of many nations. 19 Abraham’s faith never became weak, not even when he was nearly a hundred years old. He knew that he was almost dead and that his wife Sarah could not have children. 20 But Abraham never doubted or questioned God’s promise. His faith made him strong, and he gave all the credit to God.

Psalm 69

19 You know how I am insulted,
    mocked, and disgraced;
    you know every one
    of my enemies.
20 I am crushed by insults,
    and I feel sick.
    I had hoped for mercy and pity,
    but there was none.
21 Enemies poisoned my food,
    and when I was thirsty,
    they gave me vinegar.

22 Make their table a trap
    for them and their friends.
23     Blind them with darkness
    and make them tremble.
24 Show them how angry you are!
    Be furious and catch them.
25 Destroy their camp
    and don’t let anyone live
    in their tents.

We Who Are Walking a Life Course

Sun Myung Moon
September 6, 1959

1 Peter 1: 21-25

Prayer

We sense that we have come into Your presence, and we lie prostrated after wandering in many places.

How can we ever pay back the grace You have given us by allowing us to call You “Our Father”? How can we ever pay back the grace of Your not hesitating to suffer any hardship to protect and purify us and for Your having guided us thus far? We do not have anything with which to pay it back. We cannot pay back the blessing even if we offer You our bodies; even if we offer all of our minds. We are still unworthy to even raise our heads before the Father’s toils and accomplishments.

We know that the Father who guided us this far has the responsibility to save us, and that Father’s strongest desire is to usher in the day of glory through us. When we reflect upon how the Father wants to be comforted by us, we are ashamed before the Father who put so much hope in us and who has persevered through the numerous difficulties of history.

If our flesh and blood can empathize with the Father’s heart, and our bones have laid the framework of our character building, please let them become a basic unit which can testify to the Father’s unchanging nature.

How much have You longed for the glorious and sacred incarnation whose every cell belongs to the Father and who returns glory to You? In history our ancestors could not honor You in this way. When they were following Heaven’s way, they sometimes held grudges against You and abandoned You. We also know the historical fact that the chosen people had to give up their rights.

Father! Because we have inherited a sorrowful lineage, even if we may say we believe in Heaven today, we are so close to the evil world that we may betray You tomorrow. Please have compassion upon us. Please take hold of us. Please engraft our thirsty hearts onto the Father’s heart of life, and give rise to the work of resurrection which can stir new life.

Many people have lived on the earth. Many people have been born and have died. Yet no one is concerned with the Father’s situation and is mourning over the Father’s sad heart. Please let us become those who can lament over the Father’s situation and heart. Father, we sincerely wish that You will fill the earth with many sons and daughters who are burning with the desire to refute Heaven and earth, humanity, history and their fallen ancestors and to attend the Father.

For whose sake have we come here? It was not to see well-dressed or beautiful people. We who have ugly scars and wounds came to try to resemble the Father’s holy sung-sang. Please do not reject us. Embrace us. You know that we are lonely because we do not have a place to rest our hearts and minds. Please comfort us during this hour.

Please appear before us with this heart and guide us as our subject partner of eternal life. Give us words of life which can penetrate our minds and bodies. Please let this be an hour when we can thank Your grace and bow to You.

We want to receive the words this hour. Father, please be with us. Please help us understand that if there is an internal gap between the speaker and the listeners, Satan will come in through that path. That is the realm Satan is seeking. Please let the heart of the speaker and the hearts of listeners be united so that we can be connected to the Father’s heart and move in harmony with Him.

Your sons and daughters are on their knees and offering lonely and ardent prayers everywhere in South Korea. Please advise them, as they are suffering through all difficulties. You said that those who persevere till the end will receive salvation. Please guide us to glorify the Father by being patient and testify to the Father before the people as Your incarnations. Please bless the many churches and people who are gathering together. We prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.

You Have to Inspire People by Love, Not Force

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 266

What was the Fall? The Fall was that
people did as they pleased. Therefore,
we must tear down that which was not
done centering on God and True Par-
ents. Men should become incarnations
of Father and women incarnations of
Mother. Wherever God enters you,
whether through your eyes or anywhere
else, you should welcome Him. You can-
not say, “Oh no, you cannot come in.”
Do you want walls to remain in place?
God’s love comes through you. You need
to study all this. You must not be negli-
gent. You should all do this. When you
inherit the tradition, True Parents will
come to you. True Parents will come to
you as God’s messenger and give you the
inheritance. (118-271, 1982.6.13)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1189

Cain represents Satan’s side. It is the
position of the elder brother. Abel repre-
sents God’s side. This is the battle. Orig-
inally, God would have loved the first-
born son, and then the younger son. Due
to the Fall, the first son, Cain, stands on
Satan’s side. He belongs to Satan’s side.
In order to save him, God designated
Abel. God designates Abel to restore the
right of the firstborn son. This cannot
be achieved by force; you have to inspire
people by love. You have to achieve res-
toration by melting them with love. If
you cannot stand in the position of hav-
ing loved them, if you cannot win their
heart through offering your love, then
you will not be in a position to truly love
your own son or daughter. As viewed
from God’s ideal of creation, the first-
born son was originally to be loved first
rather than the second child. (140-38,
1986.2.1)

We Who Are Walking a Life Course

Sun Myung Moon
September 6, 1959

1 Peter 1: 21-25

21 And when he did come, it was to lead you to have faith in God, who raised him from death and honored him in a glorious way. That’s why you have put your faith and hope in God.

22 You obeyed the truth,[a] and your souls were made pure. Now you sincerely love each other. But you must keep on loving with all your heart. 23 Do this because God has given you new birth by his message that lives on forever. 24 The Scriptures say,

“Humans wither like grass,
and their glory fades
    like wild flowers.
Grass dries up,
and flowers fall
    to the ground.
25 But what the Lord has said
    will stand forever.”

Our good news to you is what the Lord has said.

Prayer

Father, You guided our ancestors without any hesitation, doing the most arduous work for six thousand years. Yet our ancestors often betrayed You. They failed to bring You joy, not standing on Your side in victory and glory. When we think about this, we cannot help but admit that we are shameful descendants of the Father.

Father! Please consider us with sympathy. Although we may be unworthy, You must hold us and restore us. Since You are well aware of this, when we think of how You have come in search of these unworthy ones, we are deeply ashamed before You. However, we have gathered with a heart of repentance before the Father who longs for us with a heart of love and is seeking us even today.

How many words of admonition do You want to give us? Yet You cannot speak as You want, and we have become incapable of communicating with You. Please guide us to understand that this is a source of infinite grief to Heaven. Let us mourn over our inadequacies.

The Last Days, when the power of death must be destroyed by the power of life, are nearing. Yet even as we thirst for life, we lack a heart of yearning for life. Please encourage and inspire us so that we can become sons and daughters who can step forward before our enemies bravely, with power and forceful heart, by depending upon the Father, the sovereign of life.

It is our wish that our hands be held by You and that we may take after You. Please, even for this hour, allow us to resemble the Father’s internal sung-sang by removing all traces of defilement. Let us manifest the original beauty by resembling the external hyung-sang and glorify the Father. Father of love, we pray sincerely that in this hour You can rejoice with those of us who have cultivated the Father’s original heart and have become the embodiments of the ideals of creation.

Please allow us to understand that the waves of death are hovering over us. Satan is trying his best to wipe away the power of life. Please let us first lay a solid foundation of the heart and rectify our bodies so that we can stand securely before the Father. Please guide us to feel that unless our minds and bodies are set on one goal and bow with a sincere heart, countless devils will trample us. Let us humbly and sincerely offer: “Please receive this, since this belongs to You.”

Please eliminate all subjective concepts and thoughts of the past. Let us be filled with an ardent desire to call Heaven with a voice springing forth from the deepest part of our hearts. In this way, please let this be an hour when we can build a new relationship with Heaven. Give rise to a new heart, and bring about a new work of resurrection.

Now the wall of battle blocks our path. Please let us understand that we have arrived at the final stage of battle when we have to become the elite corps of Heaven and break through the wall. Please allow us to become brave soldiers of Heaven who can step forward and confront the power of death. Let us become sons and daughters of the Father who can march forward toward the enemy camp. Father, we pray that You will guide us to become the elite corps of Heaven who do not fear death and who can run silently toward victory.

Although those who are bowing their heads here may be different from one another, please let them have the same goal and the same heart. Even if our situations and states of heart may be different, let our heart toward God be the same. Please receive our sincere desire to do our very best for You.

Your sons and daughters who have gathered here have fought lonely battles. Struck by arrows shot by their families and society, they have been following the light of life and calling upon Heaven. Since You initiated everything, until the moment we can return victory and glory to the Father, please let there not be even one person who collapses out of fatigue. We have set out for the sake of the Father. Please allow us to bear the fruits of joy and broaden the foundation of the Father’s glory.

This is a glorious day, so please bless all people. Bless the entire church, and bless the pitiful thirty million people of this nation.

We know that the light of life is in Heaven, and that the fate of walking the path of restoration depends upon Heaven. Father, You understand the situation of this people well. Father, You understand the state of the churches in Korea. We know that there must appear many living sons and daughters of the Father who can connect people’s hearts and praise Heaven from the heart. If there are sons and daughters who are clinging to hidden altars and are desperately appealing to Heaven, please gather them together and fulfill Your words that You will use a small group of people to shame the larger multitudes.

Father! Just as the seven thousand people who did not submit to Baal were able to ward off the forces of evil, let there be a group of seven thousand people of goodness who can ward off Satan’s malice. Please gather together into the Father’s family all the hidden sons and daughters who can mourn with You, who can discuss and think with You. By connecting them together as members of Your family, please quickly restore the garden of glory and achieve liberation.

We entrust everything in this hour to You. Please preside over this hour from the beginning to the end. Please do not let our evil minds influence us. We pray that You will let the bows we offer You enable the whole of Heaven and earth to meet the standard of longing for the Father’s glory and be in harmony. We prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.

God Likes Someone Who Is Trustworthy

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John 20

3 Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 They ran side by side, until the other disciple ran faster than Peter and got there first. 5 He bent over and saw the strips of linen cloth lying inside the tomb, but he did not go in.

6 When Simon Peter got there, he went into the tomb and saw the strips of cloth. 7 He also saw the piece of cloth that had been used to cover Jesus’ face. It was rolled up and in a place by itself. 8 The disciple who got there first then went into the tomb, and when he saw it, he believed. 9 At that time Peter and the other disciple did not know that the Scriptures said Jesus would rise to life. 10 So the two of them went back to the other disciples.

Ezekiel 40

28 We then went into the inner courtyard, through the gate on the south side of the temple. The man measured the gate, and it was the same size as the gates in the outer wall. 29-30 In fact, everything along the passageway was also the same size, including the guardrooms, the walls separating them, the entrance room at the far end, and the windows. This gate, like the others, was eighty-five feet long and forty-two feet wide. 31 The entrance room of this gate faced the outer courtyard, and carvings of palm trees decorated the walls of the passageway. Eight steps led up to this gate.

32 Next, we went through the east gate to the inner courtyard. The man measured this gate, and it was the same size as the others. 33 The guardrooms, the walls separating them, and its entrance room had the same measurements as the other gates. The guardrooms and the entrance room had windows, and the gate was eighty-five feet long and forty-two feet wide. 34 The entrance room faced the outer courtyard, and the walls in the passageway were decorated with carvings of palm trees. Eight steps also led up to this gate.

Richard:  God works very consistently and logically and mathematically, too.  People are not just going to levitate in the air, for example, at the time of the Second Coming, which is now.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon

August 30, 1959

John 14:11

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

With respect to belief, hope and love, what kind of person would you like to make friends with? You probably want to be friends with someone trustworthy, someone full of hope and good taste. Isn’t that so? The same is true for God. Since we resemble God, God also likes that kind of person. God likes someone who is reliable, hopeful and interesting.

The Bible teaches us to become someone who can take joy in our daily life today and live in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth no matter what our circumstances may be. Hence, we come to the conclusion that the Kingdom of Heaven is inside our hearts. If there is someone who can laugh off the external world and transcend all its pains even while living in a sinful world, he is truly a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The crucial question is where to bring all this together. Where is the beginning point for solving the problems of today? The starting point for solving problems is each one of us.

You should not just worship God but stand in a relationship with Him and establish a reciprocal value. You should say, “Father, I have come. You have waited so long, for six thousand years.” Don’t you want to do this? God wants to hear the words, “How much have You cried? I have come. How much have You waited? I have come. How much did You long for me? I have come.”

God wants to meet such sons and daughters and forget all the grief of the six thousand years since the time He blessed Adam and Eve with the governance of everything in the universe. He wants to say, “Today is My birthday, the day of My joy.” God does not want to remember the sorrows of the six thousand years. He wants to sing songs of love with His new sons and daughters in the new universe. We have to understand clearly that the sons and daughters the Father desires are none other than us.

Prayer

In the course of my speech, I felt how fatiguing it is. Yet how much have You suffered for six thousand years? We are miserable beyond belief, yet how much more have You suffered?

We have learned how much You believe in us and long for us to become true sons and daughters who can comfort You. Please guide us to struggle desperately to heal Your wounded heart by silently making an offering every day.

We have learned that although faith, hope and love are all valuable, those who have lost their bodies cannot stand before the Father eternally; each one of us is the source of the difficulties.

Please guide those who believe in me to declare with confidence, “Father, please believe in me. Please have hope in me. Please love me.” Please guide them to take responsibility. We entrust everything to You. Please let everything be fulfilled as You will. We prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen. 

You Must be Blessed to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 2314

You must endure, sacrifice for and
serve your fiancée even if you do not like
her. “If I hadn’t met her I wouldn’t have
learnt anything. Now I see that I was giv-
en this person so that I could go through
more hardships in order to attain a spirit
of service and sacrifice and thus go to
heaven.” Those who think like this can
become great people and enter heaven.
God wants to have even sinners
become His sons and daughters. Just
because your fiancée might not have
such a pretty face or is Japanese or is a
little short, can you think, “Oh, I don’t
like her”? You men should be convinced
that you would go to the highest place
in heaven if you took the ugliest woman
and sacrificed yourself for and served
her more than anyone else. You should
understand that you would then become
the greatest husband and a saint of a
husband. Unification Church members
should be capable of having that level of
thought. (116-95, 1981.12.20)

Richard:  This is perfect advice for any couple.  God will truly bless you if your spouse is in some ways “difficult”.  And who doesn’t have a marriage or relationship where there spouse or fiancee is not difficult in some way?

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1246

Where is humanity supposed to be
heading? No human being on earth can
enter the Kingdom of Heaven if they
have not passed through the gates of
the Blessing. A lot of people believe in
Christianity, but Christianity itself can-
not enter the Kingdom of Heaven with-
out passing through the gates of the
Blessing. When I say things like this,
Christians complain that Rev. Moon
of the Unification Church makes many
self-righteous remarks. There may be
many people who think like this and
who complain out loud, but that is their
problem. All fallen humanity must fol-
low the course of the holy matrimony of
the Blessing that we speak of in the Uni-
fication. Even if we face opposition from
all sides, that does not change the fact
that the holy matrimony of the Bless-
ing connects the spiritual and physical
worlds and allows you to enter the King-
dom of Heaven. (290-167, 1998.2.18)

Richard:  No one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without receiving the Blessing.  Jesus indicated that his followers would enter Paradise, not the Kingdom of Heaven.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
August 30, 1959

John 14:11

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

There must unfold a movement which can bridge the Eastern and Western cultures. This must contain the Christian spirit and have the form of Eastern philosophy and religion. At the same time, it must be in tune with all schools of thought which have guided human spiritual growth. It must reflect the new age but also inherit and embrace the good aspects of the past ages. The world will be united only when a religion or group emerges with a teaching that has met these conditions.

The sun does not rise from the West; it rises from the East. Ladies and gentlemen, where have more wars erupted? We know that there were more wars in the West than in the East.

Knowledge means to understand, and understanding is to gain something. Yet what have you gained? Your gains are not spiritual but physical. Westerners have been building an externally prosperous world through science and material culture. They are sound asleep in their external Kingdom of Heaven. Now the time has come when they should wake up from their sleep.

Easterners worship the way of truth. The way of truth requires that you must give up ten things to know ten things. To understand a thousand things, you must give up a thousand things. The people of the East have become beggars externally because they were worshipping the way of the truth. They became miserable and vulnerable to attack. Eventually, they surrendered to the material world. However, you should foresee that there will soon come an age in the East when we can shake off all of this in disdain.

In this sense, you should feel pride that others don’t feel. Koreans of the East are not inferior to any other people with respect to their faith, hope, and passion.

It is the law of the universe that a person’s life is completed only with water, soil, air and sunlight. Where will the world’s ultimate center of culture be in the future? It will be a place where the water is clean, the land is fertile, and the air is fresh. That is Korea. Water is so clean that you can drink water out of the mountains or plains and not become sick. Korea is a land with good water and good mountains. It is a good, natural place. Korea has pure air. The air is clean in the morning and in the evening all four seasons of the year. When you examine a day in Korea, it is very interesting. Morning is comparable to the spring season, afternoon to summer, evening to autumn, and night to winter. Within a day’s cycle, the shapes of all four seasons of the ideal world can be found. As for its climate, Korea has all the varieties of the four climate types. The people who are living in such a place do not do so by coincidence. If you were to probe into Korea’s religious life, you would find that Korean Christianity has been around for seventy or eighty years at most. Yet within such a short period of ministry, Korea occupies the number one position in the religious world. I am proud of the fact that Korea is second to none when it comes to religion and devotion.