Category: Eight Great Textbooks

Noah Had Severed His Ties to Satan

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2053

Since we have to work for the tong ban breakthrough, you must return to your homes. Adam and Eve started out as a man and woman, and became defiled as a son and daughter. So in order to get this situation under control, we must return to the family. You must seek out your tribe and relatives and wash them by investing your blood, sweet, and tears. Don’t wash them with water. Only when you wash them by investing your blood, sweat, and tears will you be successful. Unless you enter the house and invest your blood, sweet, and tears, restoration will not take place. That way is the way I must go. (208-172, 1990.11.17)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1111

What is most needed in the fallen world are the True Parents who have gone beyond the realm of the Fall. According to the Principle, they are the ones who have completed their portion of responsibility and have transcended that sphere. They have entered the realm of direct dominion, having left the realm of indirect dominion. What is the realm of direct dominion? It is a world united in love. At this stage, the other master cannot appear. This is absolute. If you are completely united in love you will not follow two masters. God Himself does not desire to see another master and neither does humankind. Achieving this stage establishes an eternal foundation. If this is extended to a family, a tribe, a people and a nation, then the heavenly fortune will rotate centered on that axis of love. (149-154, 1986.11.21)

Noah

2. The Sin of Ham

Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
    Genesis 9.20-25

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Noah’s position right after the flood was much like that of Adam after the creation of heaven and earth. Adam and Eve before the Fall were close in heart and innocently open with each other and with God; as it is written, they were not ashamed of their nakedness. Yet after they fell, they felt ashamed of their nakedness. They covered their lower parts with fig leaves and hid among the trees of the garden, fearing that God would see them. This shame was an indication of their inner reality, for they had formed a bond of blood ties with Satan by committing sin with their sexual parts. By covering their lower parts and hiding, they expressed their guilty consciences, which made them feel ashamed to come before God.
    Noah, who had severed his ties to Satan through the forty-day flood judgment, was supposed to secure the position of Adam right after the creation of the universe. God expected that the members of Noah’s family would react to Noah’s nakedness without any feelings of shame and without any thought to conceal his body… Had Ham been one in heart with Noah, regarding him with the same heart and from the same standpoint as God, he would have looked upon his father’s nakedness without any sense of shame. He thus would have fulfilled the indemnity condition to restore in Noah’s family the state of Adam and Eve’s innocence before the Fall.
    We can thus understand that when Noah’s sons felt ashamed of their father’s nakedness and covered his body, it was tantamount to acknowledging that they, like Adam’s family after the Fall, had formed a shameful bond of kinship with Satan and were thus unworthy to come before God. Satan, like the raven hovering over the water, was looking for a condition to invade Noah’s family. He attacked the family by taking Noah’s sons as his object partners when they in effect acknowledged that they were of his lineage. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Foundation 2.2)
 
Our forefather Noah worked alone. He built the ark with absolute faith, but his family did not unite with him. Because of this, everything fell apart. If Ham had become one with his father in love, why should he have felt shame? If Ham had been one in heart with Noah, he would have had no reason to feel ashamed at seeing his father’s nakedness. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Ham had lay down to sleep naked beside his father? If so, when Noah awoke to see him naked, don’t you think he would have blessed him, saying, “My son is just like me”? (268:293, April 3, 1995)
 
If only Noah had been more prudent after the Flood and had not lain naked! Had he been more prudent, would he have done it? Had he been more persevering, would he have allowed himself to get drunk? Certainly not! (99:38, August 27, 1978)
 
 

When God Gives a Command, It is not Something that Is Easy to Believe

Hebrews 13

11 After the high priest offers the blood of animals as a sin offering, the bodies of those animals are burned outside the camp. 12 Jesus himself suffered outside the city gate, so that his blood would make people holy. 13 That’s why we should go outside the camp to Jesus and share in his disgrace. 14 On this earth we don’t have a city that lasts forever, but we are waiting for such a city.

15 Our sacrifice is to keep offering praise to God in the name of Jesus. 16 But don’t forget to help others and to share your possessions with them. This too is like offering a sacrifice that pleases God.

Jeremiah 50

37 Then your chariot horses
and the foreigners in your army
    will refuse to go into battle,
and the enemy will carry away
    everything you treasure.

Noah

1. Noah and the Flood

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

When God gives a command, it is not something that is easy to believe; rather it is something unbelievable. For example, God ordered Noah to build an ark for 120 years for the preparation for the flood judgment.9 Further, God ordered him to build the ark not by a river but on a mountaintop. Was it easy for Noah to believe this direction? The human ancestors fell due to the faithlessness; therefore, God needed Noah to stand on absolute faith. That is the reason He did not give him a command that was easy to believe. (53:93, February 10, 1972)

What do you think Noah’s family thought of him? Noah built the ark on the top of a mountain. If it had been on flat land it would be one thing, but building a ship on the top of a mountain is not only beyond common sense, it also certainly exceeded the limits of tolerance. In any ordinary sense, Noah was acting like a crazy man. If he wanted to build a ship, he should have built it on a river-bank, but since he built it on a mountain, his action was totally beyond common sense.
    When God gave that command, do you think He did it in a joking manner? No. God knew better than anyone that Noah’s course would require lifelong dedication on a path of unbearable suffering. God’s anxiety at giving that command was greater than Noah’s suffering. Nevertheless, God commanded Noah to go the path of suffering for 120 years, hoping thereby to gain a way to resolve His inner situation. How miserable was God’s heart? His misery was indescribable.
    At the decisive, tense moment, when whether or not to accept that command hung in the balance, Noah chose to obey God. At that moment, who do you think was happier, God or Noah? Had it gone the other way, God is the one who would have been saddened more than Noah. God’s position is that of a Lord who takes responsibility for joy and sorrow. (48:69, September 5, 1971)

Imagine, you women here, that you were Noah’s wife. Do you think you would have approved of him? Perhaps not. Every day he must have climbed up and down the mountain to build an ark, claiming that he had received a command from God. Every day his wife must have packed his lunch. Since Noah was too busy building the ark to provide for his family, she must have had to take the burden of providing for the family. In the beginning she might have been able to manage it, but within a few months family squabbles must have begun. Yet this difficult situation had to continue not for just twelve months or twelve years, but for 120 years. When she realized that she had to do it for 120 years, she must have fiercely accused her husband, saying that he had gone insane.
    Why couldn’t God instruct Noah to carry out His Will in ordinary circumstances? The reason is this: God cannot dwell together with evil. God’s direction is 180 degrees contrary to the direction of Satan. God abhors evil! If even a few people who are comfortable living in the satanic world have a small amount of faith in Him, God would not be pleased. In God’s sight, the things that are precious to people who compromise with evil would only defile His world.
    Even ordinary people have such a feeling. We do not like anything about our enemy; we do not even want to see him. If so, would the absolute God be pleased to receive praise from the evil world? Hence, God worked in a way that made it impossible for the people of the fallen world to have faith in Him. (69:94-95, October 21, 1973)

For one hundred and twenty years, Noah tolerated the faithless people who opposed and ridiculed him. Even when God told him to warn them that the earth was about to be judged, he accomplished his duty to God in faith. Because he was a righteous man, he was deeply concerned and saddened for the corrupt society in which he lived. While most people were living for their personal comfort, Noah alone struggled to uphold the commandment of public righteousness; Noah alone was concerned about the will of God; and Noah alone grieved in circumstances no one would want to endure. (3:169-70, October 25, 1957

He Began to Build the Ark

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 2082

Do our political leaders love the nation? Politicians do not care about what is going on in the nation, but just fight to get the presidency. Just let them try and do it! Everything will just fade away eventually, dissolving like bubbles, because they do not have the heart to sincerely live together with the people. If a leader cannot love the people, then he cannot escape the judgment of his people and history. (148-275, 1986.10.11)

Richard: False and fake political leaders will meet their reckoning.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1127

How many times a day do you think about your portion of responsibility? You have to remember this many times: when you eat, when you hold a spoon, when you wash the dishes, while you go to the toilet, while you walk…. Adam and Eve did not think about their portion of responsibility and consequently came to ruin. We must not become people who, like Adam and Eve, cannot fulfill our responsibility and fall. To become someone who can be restored and be victorious we have to respect and consider our portion of responsibility twenty-four hours a day. (124-103, 1983.1.30)

Noah

Noah is the first Biblical father of faith. His remarkable work to build an ark, believing God’s command that a flood was about to destroy humanity, showed faith far beyond the ordinary. Father Moon emphasizes the incredible faith of Noah, which was difficult to comprehend even for his wife and family. Another quality of Noah was his compassion for the people whom he knew to be doomed, enabling him to follow God’s command that he announce to the very people who were mocking and persecuting him that the judgment was imminent and invite them into his boat.
The story of Noah goes far back in the historical record. Diverse versions of the story go back 5,000 years, to ancient Sumer and Babylon. There is reason to believe that the account is based on historical fact, from evidence of a massive flood that wiped out a whole civilization in the region of the black sea some 7,500 years ago.
The biblical story of Noah ends with the sin of his son ham. Father Moon regards this as a serious setback for God’s providence. Always viewing history from a family perspective, he sees ham’s mistake as fracturing the unity of Noah’s family such that it could no longer serve in God’s providence.

1. Noah and the Flood

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the lord…And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
      Genesis 6.5-8, 13-16
 
My counsel… was inspired in Noah: “None of your people will believe except those who already believe, so grieve not at what they do. Make an ark under Our eyes and by Our inspiration, and speak not to Me on behalf of those who are unjust. Surely they will be drowned.”
    And he began to build the ark. And whenever the chiefs of his people passed by him, they laughed at him. He said, “Though you mock us, yet we too mock you even as you mock; and you shall know to whom will come a punishment that will confound, and upon whom will fall a lasting doom.”
    At length when Our command came to pass and the oven gushed forth water, We said, “Load in two of every kind in pairs, and your household—but not those against whom the word has already gone forth—and those who believe. Yet but a few were they who believed with him.
    He said, “Embark in it, and in the name of God may be its sailing and its anchoring. Surely my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.”
    And it sailed with them amid waves like mountains. And Noah called out to his son, who was standing aloof, “O my son, embark with us, and be not with the disbelievers.” He said, I will betake myself for refuge to a mountain that will save me from the water. Noah said, “This day there is no one safe from God’s command, but he on whom He has mercy. And a wave came between them, so he was among the drowned.
    Qur’an 11.36-43 
 
God… did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the ungodly.
    2 Peter 2.5
 
Lo! We sent Noah to his people, saying, “Warn your people before there comes to them a painful doom.” He said, “O my people! Verily I am a plain warner to you. Serve God and keep your duty to Him, and obey me, that He may forgive you some of your sins and grant your respite to an appointed term. Surely the term of God, when it comes, cannot be delayed. Did you but know!”
    He said, “My Lord! I have called unto my people night and day, but all my calling has added to their repugnance. Whenever I call them that You may pardon them, they thrust their fingers in their ears and cover themselves with their garments and persist, magnifying themselves in pride.”
    Qur’an 71.1-7
 
 

No One Living on Earth has ever Seen God’s Day.

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 1474

God created humankind for the sake of love. Why were human beings created? They were created because of love. The reason human beings are different from other forms of creation is that they were created as God’s sons and daughters. They were created as object partners who can receive love directly from Him. Such is the privilege of humankind. (132-245, 1984.6.20)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1100

No one living on earth until this time has ever seen God’s Day, True Parents’ Day, True Children’s Day, and Day of All True Things. There are 365 days in a year. You should clearly understand that the most important days among all 365 days are those days that I have just mentioned, which have now appeared in providential history. You should know that these days are the king of all days, and if a year like that existed it would be the king of all years. (92-252, 1977.4.18)

Richard: These are four foundational Holy Days of the Unification movement and all mankind, as if Adam and Eve had not fallen.

Founders, Prophets and Saints

3. Keeping the Tradition of the Fathers of Faith

Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Matthew 5.17-18
 
I [Krishna] told this eternal secret to Vivasat. Vivasat taught Manu, and Manu taught Ikshvaku. Thus, Arjuna, eminent sages received knowledge of yoga in a continuous tradition. But through time the practice of yoga was lost in the world. The secret of these teachings is profound. I have explained them to you today because you are my friend and devotee.
    Bhagavad-Gita 4.1-3 (Hinduism)
 
Moses received the Torah on Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua [delivered it] to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets delivered it to the men of the Great Synagogue.
    Mishnah, Avot 1.1 (Judaism)
 
Confucius said, “I have transmitted what was taught to me without making up anything of my own. I have been faithful to and loved the Ancients.”
    Analects 7.1 (Confucianism)
 
Mention Abraham in the Book. He was a truthful prophet when he told his father, “My father, why do you worship something that neither hears nor perceives, and does not benefit you in any way?…
    When he moved away from them and what they worshipped instead of God, We bestowed Isaac and Jacob on him. Each We made a prophet. We bestowed some of Our mercy on them and granted them a sublime tongue for telling truth.
    Mention Moses in the Book. He was sincere, and was a messenger, a prophet. We called out to him from the right side of the mountain, and brought him close to confide in. We bestowed his brother Aaron on him as a prophet through Our mercy.
    Mention Ishmael in the Book. He kept true to the Promise, and was a messenger, a prophet. He used to order his people to pray and pay the welfare tax; he was approved by his Lord.
    Mention Idris in the Book. He was a truthful prophet; We raised him to a lofty place.
    Those are some of the prophets from Adam’s offspring whom God has favored, and some of those We transported along with Noah, and some of Abraham’s and Ishmael’s offspring, as well as some others We have guided and chosen. Whenever the Mercy-giving’s signs are recited to them, they drop down on their knees and weep!
    Qur’an 19.41-58
 
It was in this way that Emperor Yü, Kings T’ang, Wen, Wu, Ch’eng, and the Duke of Chou achieved eminence: all these six noble men paid attention to propriety, made manifest their justice, and acted in good faith. They exposed their errors, made humaneness their law and prudence their practice, thus showing the people wherein they should constantly abide. If there were any who did not follow these principles, he would lose power and position and be regarded by the multitude as dangerous.
    Book of Ritual 7.1.2 (Confucianism)
 
Of yore I followed countless Buddhas,
And perfectly trod the Ways
Of the profound and mystic Law,
Hard to perceive and perform.
During infinite kotis of kalpas,
Having followed all these Ways,
Attaining fruition on the Wisdom-throne,
I could perfectly understand. 7
Lotus Sutra 2 (Buddhism)
 
 

Religious Founders Taught the True Way to Live

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John 21

12 Jesus said, “Come and eat!” But none of the disciples dared ask who he was. They knew he was the Lord. 13 Jesus took the bread in his hands and gave some of it to his disciples. He did the same with the fish. 14 This was the third time that Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from death.

Isaiah 24

24 The Lord is going to twist the earth out of shape and turn it into a desert. Everyone will be scattered, 2 including ordinary people and priests, slaves and slave owners, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, the rich and the poor. 3 The earth will be stripped bare and left that way. This is what the Lord has promised.

Founders, Prophets and Saints

2. Every Prophet and Saint Endured Hardships and Rejection

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Of all the people throughout history, there are four great saints worthy of reverence; they are Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius, and Buddha. Did they have big, fancy houses? Did they even live a settled life in a village? No, wherever they went they were persecuted, despised and driven out. Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Is that a characteristic of a great man?
    During his time Confucius was called a “homeless, wandering dog,” as he put it, because he had to beg for food while traveling from place to place. The Buddha was born into a palace as a great prince, but he gave it all up for his spiritual quest, living as a hermit in the mountains, praying and searching for spiritual truth. None of these saints had a house to live in; they died without a nation. Yet today everyone considers them great. (115:14-16, October 25, 1981)

When a prophet spoke out strongly, warning the people not to follow the ways of the world, the people would say angrily, “That man is not one of us!” They would beat him and persecute him and cast him out from their midst. After much bitter rejection, the prophet would reach out to the failures of the world, to the crippled, the wounded, and those discarded by society. He would tell them of his mission as a prophet and describe how the people persecuted him and drove him out. Thus he would build relationships with those who were similarly rejected by society.
    He would give hope to people in despair, telling them of a new world, one far better than the existing society of their day. They would naturally listen closely to the message, while the stylish and well-to-do people were nowhere to be seen. Only society’s rejects became his followers. None of the people with talent and good family backgrounds joined him because Satan took them all away. All that remained were those whose hearts were hurt and scarred. They were the ones with no ties to the world and who wished for a new world. They were the ones who responded to the prophet’s words of hope. (106:176-77, December 30, 1979)

The founders of religion taught the true way to live. They taught the people of their age about the world to come, but the people were ignorant and could not understand. Why? The difference between the future world and the present reality was too great. Hence, the rulers of their time persecuted, expelled and even murdered them.
   These saints did not harm their countries. They only wanted to rescue their countries from chaos and lead them to hope. However, the people did not understand, and drove them out. Yet, over the course of time, people began to accept their teachings because they showed the way for all people. In due course, their teachings would become the nucleus of the world’s civilizations. (39:256, January 15, 1971)