Category: Eight Great Textbooks

To Become Winners, We Need to Have A Strategy

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1972

When we observe the birthplace of
civilizations from a geographical point
of view, we see that they developed based
on the conditions of climate, during the
course of world history. Then what kind
of place is most ideal? We can conclude
that the ideal location is one that has four
seasons and connects the sea to the land.
In terms of climate, it should be a region
with four seasons. It should be a penin-
sula, as well as a region where the four
seasons are distinct. What is a peninsu-
lar region? The land symbolizes heaven,
and the water symbolizes the sea. The
peninsula connects these two. That is
the reality of the world. That is how it
works with all the principles of heaven
and earth. In that sense, the Italian pen-
insula, as a peninsular region, contrib-
uted to world culture. This was the first
great staging-post for past civilizations.
You should be aware that this penin-
sular civilization centered on Rome, a
region with an integrated civilization,
had emerged with the authority of the
past ages in history. It had also passed
through the Egyptian civilization and
Greek civilization to become a compre-
hensive area. (107-300, 1980.6.8)

Richard: Sometimes West Virginia is referred to as the “peninsula state”due to the two “peninsulas of the north part between Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the eastern panhandle, where we live. Also the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers are boundaries of the eastern “peninsula”. A lot of significant history and significant black history has happened in Harpers Ferry; for instance, the Niagara Movement, Storer College, and John Brown’s Raid.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1187

Based on this ceremony, I declared
“The ideology centered on the Heaven-
ly Father” on September 1, 1989. Until
the Ceremony of the Settlement of the
Eight Stages was completed, it was still
the age of the restoration of the right of
the eldest son. Restoring the right of the
eldest son! Finally, the right of the eldest
son has been completely restored. Now,
that the right of the eldest son has been
completely restored to God’s side, we
ascend and stand in the highest global
realm, where Satan cannot oppose us.
The time has now come when, if we push
forward strongly and boldly, America,
the communist world, Korea and Japan
will all yield. That is why we should be
strong and bold. (193-204, 1989.10.4)

Richard: We just passed the 30th Anniversary of this very significant ceremony (the Settlement of Eight Stages on August 31, 1989).

Inside God’s Stadium

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
August 9, 1959

1 Corinthians 9: 14-27

We cannot be haphazard. We should have a clear notion of being a winner in a certain event in the race. You have to approach the starting point with such a firm conviction and begin the race. The sages of the past did not teach people about specific fields of work. They did not teach us what we must do to become successful in a certain field. They instructed us on the path we should walk in our life, the path for our minds, our spirits, and for our life.

The path for our thoughts and life does not belong to any one of us alone. It is the common path in any era and is designed according to a certain formula. On it hangs the fate of many generations and human history. We should long for the citizens of Heaven who can fight on this path and bring victory.

If you do it unselfishly, the day you fulfill the purpose is the day that Heaven and earth can rejoice. When a racer representing his people wins in his event, it is tantamount to the victory of all his people. Even if that event is a small one, its value and glory will have an impact on everyone. For this reason, now you need the one day when you can develop this kind of internal conviction, when you can strengthen your conviction and value in order to attain a certain purpose under a certain standard. However, until today you did not have these kinds of thoughts or feelings.

Since we are already racing, we will either end up as winners or losers. To become winners, we need to have a strategy. Internally, we need to have the conviction that we will win, and an unswerving heart fixed on a purpose. Externally, we need to make preparations to facilitate the race. Those who are entering a race should be simple and innocent. We have to prepare our bodies so that they will respond quickly to the direction our minds give. This is why we need training.

The stadium, however, is not built to make it easy for us to run freely toward our purpose. There are many obstacles on the race tracks. Each of these obstacles represents the failures of our ancestors. No matter how proud and determined a racer may be, he may fall down before those obstacles. On our path lie the obstacles which our ancestors could not overcome and fell over. Therefore, as much as possible, we should maintain a simple attitude, so that when our hearts guide us, our bodies can respond quickly and in full harmony. We should train our bodies in this way.

Training cannot be done in a comfortable position. It is achieved when you are being treated harshly. To continue this kind of internal training, you need to harden your bodies so that even if you are attacked internally, you can make a breakthrough and move beyond it. Your internal determination must not change. Even if you run into tribulations which afflict your body, you must not be defeated. Hence, Heaven instructed those who seek the religious way to abandon everything they possess and follow. When Jesus called upon Peter, who was mending his fishing nets, he told him to abandon all and follow him.

There is a rationale behind meditating in the mountains in order to seek enlightenment. We are to cultivate external determination based on our internal determination, and the confidence that we will not deviate from our course, no matter what kind of obstacles we run into. Even if we fall to the bottom, we will support our minds and bodies. Without these convictions, there is no way we can run the race or even enter the stadium. Since each one of us is a racer who should be responsible for an event in the race, we should train ourselves with unchanging conviction in order to accomplish our purpose. Therefore, you must have the attitude of a devout believer, the attitude of a racer who is running the race, and the attitude of a person walking the path of enlightenment. Whether you are awake or asleep, you should have a burning desire to accomplish your purpose.

Among the people who have gathered here there must be those who thoughtlessly believe that they can enter the Kingdom of Heaven just by believing in Jesus. What is the Kingdom of Heaven like? It is composed of various groups of people who have successfully qualified in some event in the race. You should not blindly think that you can enter the Kingdom of Heaven just by believing in Jesus. Of course, there are areas that God will help you in, but there are also areas which require you to fulfill your responsibilities. To prepare for the race, you should make both internal and external preparations. Next, as a racer, you should understand thoroughly about the course that you will be competing on. You should know clearly where you will find what kind of obstacles, and so on. What you then must understand is that although many people have run on the course in the past, all of them failed. They did not win in their races. They quit in the middle of the course.

The Number of People Who Will Receive Awards Is Limited

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 1972

The earth consists of land and ocean.
We see that the ocean has played a
motherly role, beginning with the birth
of the simplest forms of life. The ocean
symbolizes femininity because it nur-
tures and embraces life, while land can
be said to symbolize masculinity. For
this reason, the island nations located
in the ocean are countries that represent
the woman, and the peninsular nations
adjacent to the continental nations are
countries that represent the man. The
people of peninsular nations in par-
ticular have a toughness and intrepid-
ness that come from a life of preparing
against enemies, both from the conti-
nent and the sea. Furthermore, owing to
their pioneering, adventurous and pro-
gressive disposition, the people of pen-
insular nations brought forth a brilliant
culture and disseminated it to the world.
(279-208, 1996.8.20)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1473

How great is the value of human-
kind? They are the only beings that God
would long for over tens of thousands
of years, leaning on his walking stick.
According to my observations, this fact
happens to be the basis for the creation
of the universe. Since God and human
beings related to each other as inter-
nal and external, vertical and horizon-
tal perspectives about the world of love
could be established. Both vertical and
horizontal views on the world of love can
come into existence once upper-lower
and left-right relationships are formed.
God can come to reside in the center
of them all. That place, which can bind
them all into one at the deepest core of
the heart, is the central place of the verti-
cal and horizontal. If they are not bound
into one, the standard of the vertical and
horizontal cannot develop into the ideal
form of love. The existence of the vertical
form alone does not guarantee the exis-
tence of the horizontal form. Therefore,
you should understand that God had no
other choice but to create human beings
in this form. (48-224, 1971.9.19)

Inside God’s Stadium

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
August 9, 1959

1 Corinthians 9: 14-27

In a stadium, they may hold a one-hundred-meter race, a five-thousand-meter race, a ten-thousand-meter race, or a marathon. What kind of race would you be responsible for as racers who have entered the race tracks of God, who is guiding the providence of restoration? How can you find a place in the history of the universe? This is a crucial question. Even if there are differences in your values and character, God certainly wishes ardently that you will fulfill your responsibility in the event that you are responsible for in the race, and that you will establish the standard God wants. Since you have entered the race tracks, you should give all your heart and soul to the race. We should understand which event of the race we are to accomplish through our life and finally stand before Heaven.

Although God has guided the providence for six thousand years, when you look at the entire course, there are still some events in God’s overall race that have not been completed yet. The competition is still going on. The race will go on today and tomorrow. When the entire race comes to an end, God will give awards in each event to all humanity, all the people who ran in the race in the past and all those who will have raced by the day of the conclusion. When is the day the awards are given out? If we use Christian terminology, it is the judgment day. The judgment day is the day the awards will be given out. If we use the terminology used frequently in our era, it may also be referred to as the Last Days.

The important question is whether or not you will have established the victorious standard so that you can receive an award in an event. This is an issue that you will have to deeply reflect upon. There are many ways of racing. Although you are supposed to enter the stadium and race on the marked course, there will be many who disregard the race course. There may be those who run on the marked course but who collapse in the middle of the race. There will be those who run until the finish line but will not be able to receive awards. The number of people who will receive awards is limited. We have to understand this.

Although God guided the providence for six thousand years. He could not give an award even to one racer. For this reason, spirits in Heaven and people on the earth all wish for the day God can appear before humanity and give awards to the many racers who ran in each event of the race. This is the Last Days. You should understand this.

This Master is Constraining Our Every Action

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 1824

I have no concerns wherever I trav-
el. I can go anywhere by myself, without
any worries. If the fishing is no good, I
can make it good. But to have that kind
of confidence, you have to have a lot of
experience. In the future, when interest
begins to focus on the ocean, those who
don’t have any interest in the ocean will
fall behind those who do and lose out
completely. (146-251, 1986.7.1)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1499

What would be inside a package of
love? When you unwrap the package of
love after reaching the homeland, an ide-
al husband or ideal wife would come out.
Moreover, that package would contain a
pouch filled with blessings from which
would spring out an ideal family. Out of
that pouch would come the highest level
of restoration. Consequently, the indi-
vidual, family, tribe, race, nation and
world would all be at this highest level.
If everyone were in such a state, no one
would be above or below anyone else.
Therefore the brothers and sisters as well
as the family itself would be restored. In
order to lay such a foundation for unity,
a package of love, like a treasure chest, is
required. (19-295, 1968.3.10)

Inside God’s Stadium

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
August 9, 1959

1 Corinthians 9: 14-27

14 In the same way, the Lord wants everyone who preaches the good news to make a living from preaching this message.

15 But I have never used these privileges of mine, and I am not writing this because I want to start now. I would rather die than have someone rob me of the right to take pride in this. 16 I don’t have any reason to brag about preaching the good news. Preaching is something God told me to do, and if I don’t do it, I am doomed. 17 If I preach because I want to, I will be paid. But even if I don’t want to, it is still something God has sent me to do. 18 What pay am I given? It is the chance to preach the good news free of charge and not to use the privileges that are mine because I am a preacher.

19 I am not anyone’s slave. But I have become a slave to everyone, so that I can win as many people as possible. 20 When I am with the Jews, I live like a Jew to win Jews. They are ruled by the Law of Moses, and I am not. But I live by the Law to win them. 21 And when I am with people who are not ruled by the Law, I forget about the Law to win them. Of course, I never really forget about the law of God. In fact, I am ruled by the law of Christ. 22 When I am with people whose faith is weak, I live as they do to win them. I do everything I can to win everyone I possibly can. 23 I do all this for the good news, because I want to share in its blessings.

24 You know that many runners enter a race, and only one of them wins the prize. So run to win! 25 Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever. 26 I don’t run without a goal. And I don’t box by beating my fists in the air. 27 I keep my body under control and make it my slave, so I won’t lose out after telling the good news to others.

Prayer

Father, Your sons and daughters have gathered here today. Many flocks of sheep have come to uphold the unfinished providential will and receive Your words of command. We have come before You as some of these people. Father, please have compassion on us as we stand or sit here.

If we have some individual concepts or ideas centered on our own selves, please remove them all. Our fate is to be created again and we have not yet alleviated the grief of the Fall. Hence, even if we possess something which we can proudly present to Heaven, it has no value as an ideal before the Father.

No matter how much we try to come up with excuses before Heaven and assert our own difficulties, we know that none of that can compare with the infinite goodness and toil of the Father.

We have learned that we did not become what we are based on our own efforts alone. We are not just ourselves. Please allow this to be an hour when we can long for our original selves and fathom our original hearts; an hour when we can bow our heads before our original Lord.

We know deep in our hearts that there is an absolute master of the entire universe. When we understand that this master is constraining our every action, please let us feel that this relationship has a clear purpose and that our fate is to live through an environment of being constrained by this purpose.

We yearn for the glorious presence of the Father and have come before the Father’s knees. Yet those who gathered here do not know where their heart is directed or where their heart is guiding them. Please guide them to the direction where their original selves can rejoice with Heaven. Even though we may be shameful and unworthy, please allow us to look upon You in this hour with a longing heart and to bow our heads before You. If we still feel embarrassed and extend our shameful hands out toward You and call out to You, please promise us that You will hold those hands.

We want to bow while clinging to the Father’s heart. We want to enter into a relationship with You. There is nothing else we want. No matter how glittering the treasures of Heaven may be, no matter what kind of glory may be found there, we do not want it. All we want is the promise that we can remain connected to the Father’s heart and live together with You. Hoping that such things can be the signs of glory which we can take pride in for eternity, we have prostrated ourselves before You. Even if we are unworthy in some ways, please forgive us. Father, we sincerely wish that You will cultivate our hearts as You desire and secure an inseparable parent-child relationship with us.

Although many people are calling for You, they do not understand the Father’s situation or heart. We do not want to become like them. Among us there are those who are like Your sons, those who are like Your adopted sons, and those who are Your true sons. We have no desire to be Your sons or adopted sons. We want to be Your direct children, the children who have inherited Your flesh and blood, who can live with the Father for eternity and never fade away from Your heart. We want to possess an undeniable eternal relationship of flesh and blood with You.

We know that to become these kinds of sons and daughters we must feel that the anguish the Father has suffered is our own anguish; the sorrow the Father feels is our own sorrow; the grief the Father feels is our own grief; the responsibilities that the Father has to fulfill are our own responsibilities. Please guide us to become this kind of children.

Father, I stand here, yet what words should I convey? Even though we may want to become the Father’s sons and daughters, if we cannot sense that You are now trying to help us experience Your heart as our own reality and that You desire to build a relationship with us, no matter how profound the words I convey, our relationship with You can never be completed. Hence, please let this be an hour when we can become connected to the Father’s heart; otherwise, we can never penetrate through the Father’s heart or have the experience of clinging to the Father’s body.

Please let the speaker’s heart be in harmony with the Father’s heart. Let the hearts of the listeners reflect the heart of the Father so that our moments of give and take may be an hour of glory. We know that You are driving us down this path for a certain purpose. This path is our ultimate fate, which we cannot avoid. Please let our determinations and actions become conditions of glory. Please allow us to be offered to the Father as sacrifices. Please raise us up as sacrifices who can be offered to the Father. Please do not let Satan find room to invade during this hour. We prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.

Jesus Could not Find His own Bride and Children

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 231

The family is the heavenly base. You
must firmly settle in a family. You should
firmly settle in a family and decide the
direction in which you will go. Center-
ing on True Parents and God, all fam-
ilies should put up True Parents’ pic-
ture, and your four-position foundation
should bow there together. Three gener-
ations must offer a bow. The four posi-
tion foundation involves three genera-
tions. Three generations – grandfather
and grandmother, mother and father,
and children – should offer a bow. After
establishing a four position founda-
tion, when you bow down in the name
of True Parents this is not within the
fallen domain. You will be in the realm
of liberation because God has direct
dominion over you. All the spirits in
the heavenly world will come to earth
and protect you just as the archangel
was meant to protect Adam’s family. We
have entered such an age. In the past, the
Cain domain was the spirit world and
the Abel domain was the earth. Abel was
being used because it was the time when
Abel had to sacrifice to rescue Cain. But
now, since the right of the eldest son
has been restored, the spirit world is the
angelic world and today’s Unification
Church families constitute the Adam
domain; so the spirit world is meant to
support the Adam domain and not use
it for its own advantage. Through this,
the land wherein Satan can interfere
and operate is disappearing. There is no
room for him. Satan is being expelled.
When we march forward strongly and
boldly, without sacrificing our stan-
dards of being the forefront even by one
step and keep a progressive attitude and
unwavering standard, the devil’s forces
will fall off a cliff. Let’s light a fire under
each family. (211-349, 1991.1.1)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1634

Since God has dual characteris-
tics, we human beings also have them.
All forms of creation also possess dual
characteristics of plus and minus. When
God, humankind and all creation are
brought together and connected, the
number seven is attained. There are
three vertical stages, and in spreading
out horizontally, the four-position foun-
dation is formed. When the numbers
three and four come together in harmo-
nious union they form the number sev-
en. The number seven is the number of
completion in the purpose of creation.
(26-187, 1969.10.25)

The True Sons and Daughters of Heavenly Father Who Will Remain in the Last Days

Rev Sun Myung Moon
July 26, 1959

Romans 8: 12-27

We fear the day of judgment and want to avoid it. Jesus proclaimed, “Love me more than you love anyone else in the world. Bear the cross and follow me.” This is the first iron-clad rule. This is the most central message in the Bible and the Gospel. Only when you can say that you have substantially lived through history, experiencing the sorrow and pain of history as your own, can you stand before the judgment of God and Jesus who have been working throughout history.

Many believers today believe that on the judgment day the Lord will come and host an elaborate celebration of marriage in Heaven, in the world of glory. They are sure they will be invited. That is ridiculous. What if that does not happen? Those people will hold a grudge against God and oppose Christ when he returns.

We who are standing before the Father are the descendants of the lineage which was ruined by sinfulness in history. For this reason, even if we were trampled upon thousands of times, we should still feel humble before the toils and sorrow of God, who mourns together with history. However, because the Father’s will is to push forward the providence of salvation, we have no choice but to depend on God’s desire to seek us and say, “If it is possible, please have compassion toward us.” If one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without this kind of mind-set, then anyone can enter it. Nevertheless, that is not how the Kingdom is.

We who should stand before the judgment today should proclaim that God lives amidst infinite sorrow, and we should reveal the course that God has passed through in history. What is the grief of God and Jesus? It is the fact that although they are true and right, they are framed to be false and pretentious. There cannot be greater sorrow than this. What is the anguish of Jesus? It is the fact that he was blocked from walking the path to find his own children and his beloved bride. There can be no greater anguish than this. Finding one’s own sons and daughters requires a path which climbs over Calvary; hence, on this earth there remain both the Golgotha of Jesus’ day and the untrodden path to Golgotha on the world level.

People today understand the Second Advent as waiting for the glory of the Lord who comes to represent the glory of Heaven. However, do not expect to meet the resurrected Christ without the proper preparation. Before the resurrected Christ appears, you should remain alive and be able to climb over the hill of Golgotha on the world level, the crossroads where you have to put your mind and body as well as your life at stake. Then you should pray, “Father, do not do as I will, but as Thou will.” This is why it is written that in the Last Days there will be seven years of great chaos. Those who persevere to the end will be saved.

The person who can participate in the joyful garden of the Lord as his bride is the victorious prince who overcame the pain of the six-thousand-year history. He is the prince of sorrow who can represent humanity in embracing the heart of sorrow. The Lord desires to receive such people as his brides.

In our path to grace, we must deny the elements of joy. Why? God has never had a happy moment. He was never a master over all the things that He created, and He was robbed by Satan of Adam and Eve, to whom He wanted to give His blessing and build a happy family. This is why Heaven and earth are filled with grief. How piercing God’s sorrow must have been when He saw that everything He should rule over was lost to Satan’s dominion, and His children and all of His creation were violated. Nevertheless, because there is no one to whom God can express His grief, He has been burning inside throughout the long history and has continually suffered pain. Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever deeply reflected upon this?

God is the Lord of Sorrow and Pain

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Cheong Seong Gyeong 679

The people to enter heaven first must
be the True Parents. If I were to say that
heaven is empty, people would think I am
demented, yet even Jesus could not enter
heaven. One cannot go there alone. Our
original ancestors should have grown
through adolescence, established the
ideal of love centered on God, become
parents and bequeathed the seeds of true
love. Then, the first place they entered
would have been heaven. As yet, there
have been no parents centered on God’s
love who were able to bequeath the seeds
of true love and thus no foundation of
leaving behind such descendants. Heav-
en, thus, is empty.

Cheon Seong Gyong 1854

We are raising many species of par-
rots on our Jardim farm. Parrots can
live together with people naturally. The
ostriches frequently come to us because
we give them food. They have become so
close to the people now that they do not
run away even when someone approach-
es them with food. I am thinking of cre-
ating a world where Adam can mingle
together with creation, just like the time
when God was happy to gaze upon His
creation. That is what I am doing now.
(278-103, 1996.5.1)

The True Sons and Daughters of Heavenly Father Who Will Remain in the Last Days

Rev Sun Myung Moon
July 26, 1959

Romans 8: 12-27

God is the lord of sorrow and pain. Although God desires to be happy and glorified, He has never had a source of joy and glory. What does He have instead? You have to understand that God is a God of sorrow and agony, burdened with the grief of the Fall and stories of pain and sadness. Isn’t this true?

We think that the Kingdom of Heaven is a garden of joy, but that is not true. You go and see for yourselves. No matter how hard you look for a cause of joy, you will not find any. God, who should command all the authority to rule the world and possess only glory and joy, has lost all joy and glory, all the fruits of goodness, and the elements of the ideal. Only sorrow and anguish remain. This is truly mournful. There is nothing more grievous and sad than this in the entire universe. Those who are genuinely overcome with grief over this and call out “Father” in desperation and humility are sons and daughters close to the heart of Heaven.

Jesus came to this earth as the King of Kings. He came with the recognition from Heaven as the one with the authority of the leader. However, from the moment of his birth, he did not have even one moment of happiness. Although he appeared as the Savior for the sake of humanity on the earth and to save all people, he could not receive glory. Before he could receive glory, he had to pass through a world of agony and a path of sorrow.

Why was it so? It was because Jesus was responsible to pay indemnity for the four thousand years. To become the King of Kings, first he had to pass the qualification as the prince of sorrow and pain. Otherwise, there was no way to comfort the many spirits who had endured sorrow for Heaven while they were on earth.

For this reason, Jesus, who lived some thirty odd years with three years of public ministry, walked a sorrowful path. When he shed tears, he wandered through the valley of tears which his ancestors had shed in the past. Jesus labored arduously as he inherited the path of the people who had cried out in tears as they crossed over the hill of death, stained with the blood of the four-thousand-year history. Eventually, Jesus walked the path of the cross. Today many of us think that Jesus was a prince of love, joy and glory; he was actually a prince of agony and sorrow.