Category: Luke

We Should Begin from Adam’s Family

Luke 21

34 Don’t spend all of your time thinking about eating or drinking or worrying about life. If you do, the final day will suddenly catch you 35 like a trap. That day will surprise everyone on earth. 36 Watch out and keep praying that you can escape all that is going to happen and that the Son of Man will be pleased with you.

Mark 10

26 Jesus’ disciples were even more amazed. They asked each other, “How can anyone ever be saved?”

27 Jesus looked at them and said, “There are some things that people cannot do, but God can do anything.”

28 Peter replied, “Remember, we left everything to be your followers!”

29 Jesus told him:

You can be sure that anyone who gives up home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or land for me and for the good news 30 will be rewarded. In this world they will be given a hundred times as many houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and pieces of land, though they will also be mistreated. And in the world to come, they will have eternal life. 31 But many who are now first will be last, and many who are now last will be first.

Inside God’s Stadium

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
August 9, 1959

1 Corinthians 9: 14-27

The same principles apply to the path of religion. Since the birth of history, no one among all those who walked the path of religion and those who went before God in the name of religion were able to receive the award of God, proclaiming Him the ultimate victor. The race is still going on. The purpose of our race is to connect to the universe, which is the ultimate purpose of the race over which God presides. For this reason, no matter how small our own race may be, we should persist until the moment we can become connected to the universe. If there is someone who won the hundred-meter event at one particular time, that alone will not qualify him as a winner. He must maintain the value and glory of his victory until the Last Days.

We who stand in the stadium should know the stories of the many people who fell down on each obstacle of the course. We should know under what circumstances they fell and how they fell and how they were defeated in their fight.

Until now, people have been racing toward an unclear destination, but we in the present age should not run such an aimless race. Since we are running the race, we should understand every detail of the race course clearly.

We know that to run on the course of God’s providence we must pass through the course of restoration. What must we do? We have come forward as racers seeking to find God. Where should we begin? We should begin from Adam’s family. Where is the starting point for human beings? It is Adam’s family. We have been running the race from that point. From that point, God and humanity have run the race together for six thousand years until today. Yet the race is not over. It is still going on.

What must you do? You should inherit the tradition and spirit of our ancestors. We should understand where we belong. Isn’t this true? You should understand which race you are running, to which group you belong, and what role you are to play. Only then can you be the winner of the award. You should understand that all racers belong to certain spheres based on the historical spiritual tradition they associate with. You should understand which event you are participating in. You should understand who in the past set the record and who in the past failed. After knowing all these good and bad conditions, you should be prepared to deal with all the bad effects of the conditions.

In the course of our life, many enemies have placed obstacles in our path and are blocking our way. The obstacles they placed are not visible; they are invisible. They are the very obstacles that many saints of history could not overcome. You should have an understanding of the past and knowledge of where the hurdles lie. We should understand history for this reason. We must understand the past, the present and the future. This is the essential knowledge that racers should have. In the middle of your race, you cannot be sure that the sponsors of the race will not change the courses designed under a certain purpose. Hence, you should understand the historical course of the saints of the past, the stories of their battles on the course, the present situation of our battle, and the plans by which the future battles will be fought. Only when you understand all this can you become the ultimate victor.

However, if we examine closely the lives of religious people today, they do not know how God has been working in history. They do not know God’s program and plans, based upon which He is carrying out His work in the present. How can we call these people racers? You should understand clearly. In the six- thousand-year history, God guided the events of the race toward a certain direction. There is a central thrust. This is what we must understand. God has been working with a uniform program and purpose from the time of the first human ancestors to the last days of humanity.

Maintain an Intense Desire that God Should be Relieved of His Suffering

Luke 11

37 When Jesus finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him home for a meal. Jesus went and sat down to eat.[e] 38 The Pharisee was surprised that he did not wash his hands[f] before eating. 39 So the Lord said to him:

You Pharisees clean the outside of cups and dishes, but on the inside you are greedy and evil. 40 You fools! Didn’t God make both the outside and the inside?[g] 41 If you would only give what you have to the poor, everything you do would please God.

42 You Pharisees are in for trouble! You give God a tenth of the spices from your gardens, such as mint and rue. But you cheat people, and you don’t love God. You should be fair and kind to others and still give a tenth to God.

43 You Pharisees are in for trouble! You love the front seats in the meeting places, and you like to be greeted with honor in the market. 44 But you are in for trouble! You are like unmarked graves[h] that people walk on without even knowing it.

Nehemiah 7

73 And so, by the seventh month,[g] priests, Levites, temple guards, musicians, workers, and many of the ordinary people had settled in the towns of Judah.

Matthew 25

1 When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all of his angels, he will sit on his royal throne. 32 The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats.

33 He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. 35 When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, 36 and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”

37 Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? 38 When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear 39 or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”

40 The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”


Let Us Fathom the Heart of Heaven
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 13, 1959

Matthew 10:24-39

During the two thousand years from Abraham to Jesus, God established faith as the condition for the Israelites. If individuals believed, they could graduate from that level and pioneer the foundation upon which families could believe. If a family believed, then God elevated a people to the next level of pioneering the foundation upon which a nation could believe. If a nation believed, He took them further and pioneered the foundation upon which the world could believe. You have to understand this.

What kind of person was Abraham, the father of faith, whom God chose? In our terms today, he was a spy in Satan’s world who could communicate with God as an individual. Since the world belonged to Satan, no one received Abraham warmly. Because everyone was his enemy, he had to use discretion when he heard and saw things. He had to use wise judgment in his thoughts and be cautious in his actions.

When he was eating a meal or sleeping, he could not be at ease. In his daily life, he always had to pay close attention to the people around him. This is the path our ancestors who upheld God’s providence and will walked.

God called Abraham, whom He chose, from Ur of the Chaldeans and put him in such a situation. He drove him out to the wilderness. There Abraham awaited the coming of the day when God’s reign could be established. We have to understand that our ancestors left their homeland waiting for the day that the sons and daughters whom God had blessed would multiply and fill the earth like the stars in the sky and smite the evil world.

Why? Since we are enslaved in the country of our enemies, inside their prison bars, we should feel thoroughly disgusted. If you cannot feel this, then you are not worthy to be called true believers before Heaven.

For what purpose did God raise Abraham? It was to use him as a channel to communicate with people far away, those who were in the enemy’s camp and in Satan’s world. Then he was to expand outward horizontally on that basis. However, because the relationship between Heaven and earth is fragile, God had to work through the direct lineage of Abraham, referring to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You have to understand this.

When Isaac and Abraham received the blessing, what did they possess? The only thing they had was their qualification as the chosen people. God blessed Abraham on the condition, “You cannot compromise with Satan’s world. You cannot blend in with Satan’s world. You are My chosen people. Your life is different, your feelings, desires and ideals are all different. Your descendants will live only if they bring victory through Me.” Abraham had to bless Isaac from this perspective. Isaac blessed Jacob from this same perspective, and Jacob blessed his descendants in the same way. Nonetheless, the Israelites betrayed this connection which came down to them through their tradition and blessing.

After Abraham was chosen, he pioneered the individual environment of faith. Then Jacob took seventy members of his family and entered Egypt. What did God do based on this foundation of a family? He chased them out into Satan’s world in order to form a people. It was not their own country; it was the center of Satan’s world. God drove them into Egypt, Satan’s world, the historical enemies of the Israelites. Isn’t this true?

Based on this foundation of a family, they were to endure any kind of suffering, any path of death and grief. They had to endure to the point of forming a nation. Even as the Israelites suffered in a foreign land for four hundred years, they were to maintain an intense desire that God should be relieved of His suffering. However, although the four-thousand-year history passed, the Israelites deviated from the traditional desires, situations and heart of God. Moses was the person who came to resolve this situation. Moses was the leader of the 600,000 Israelites. He was the leader of the people.

Have a Wildly Adventurous Nature

Luke 4

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Richard: Today, the good news is being preached. Yet again, many will not listen because the messenger who brought it is Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Psalm 27

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
    he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
    and set me high upon a rock.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
July 19, 1959

John 10: 1-18

Although he was living in the land of the Pharaoh, Moses’ heart was ready to sing a song of happiness in the land of Canaan. Moses had pioneered a solitary path of going forward with an indomitable heart.

He headed out to Canaan with the mass of 600,000 people. But during the forty years of the wilderness period, all was lost. If the Israelites knew how to take adventure like Moses did, they would not have failed. Had their desperate heart to seek the promised land been greater than the feelings and thoughts arising in their daily lives, the Israelites would have never fallen in the wilderness. Yet they cried out in panic, complaining how hungry they were and complaining of their hardships. So they died out in the wilderness, unable to enter the land of Canaan.

Any historic figure or pioneer has the natural tendencies of an explorer. He can overcome everything to reach a higher ideal or promised destination, not seeking worldly pleasures or satisfactions.

Moses was like that. What is the meaning behind the Red Sea incident and the attack of the tribesmen of Amalek in the wilderness in front of the Israelites? Men who had escaped the shackles of the Pharaoh all collapsed on the way as they wandered aimlessly for forty years.

Moses had sent twelve people, representing the twelve tribes, to spy out the land of Canaan. When they came back to report what they had seen, ten of them said they would not be able to defeat the Canaanites, but Joshua and Caleb said otherwise. Joshua and Caleb were not particularly intelligent. You are more intelligent than they were. They were dull and stubborn. But they had a wildly adventurous nature.

Joshua and Caleb stood firmly against the opposing people, saying, “God, who has been leading us until now, is alive. God, who has defeated the magic of the Pharaoh, is alive. God, who divided the Red Sea and helped us cross it, is alive. God, who sent us quail and manna while we were starving and struggling, is alive.” You have to know that such was the key that opened the road for the Israelites, who were struggling to follow the course of restoration.

That is not all. All of history is such a course. After the age of the race came the age of the nation. Although they had entered Canaan, the Israelites had to fight to establish a nation. How heavy-hearted must God have been at this. They needed to acquire the form of a nation, the form of a family, and the form of an individual. Although they had acquired the form of a nation, they could not become the foundation of complete victory that God wanted. We have to realize God’s heart as He worked through history with such situations.

God has been struggling. He struggled to find an individual, but He lost that individual. He struggled to find a family, but He also lost that family. He lost everything, including the blessed nation and the people of Israel.

Jesus seems to have come as the prince of the defeated. He inherited all this. He was a representative who came to take on the pain of world restoration. He came to the land of Israel. He only went to a few places, a few temples near the wall of Jerusalem and the beaches of Galilee. Yet his words and actions represented the will of God and history.

Two thousand years of history have passed since Jesus died after struggling on such a path. Today a certain victorious base to restore the nation of Israel must be established. The history of the two thousand years after Jesus (which we may call the two thousand years of the history of the Holy Spirit) were the process of keeping the world in line with the standard of God’s will.

Today is the era of the last days. The last days are to perfect an individual, perfect a family, perfect a race, perfect a nation, a world, and furthermore, a cosmos. Humanity is not aware of the heart of God, who has been leading such a grand mission.

Even if God Did Not Send Him, That Person Should be Acknowledged as the Messiah

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Luke 11

37 When Jesus finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him home for a meal. Jesus went and sat down to eat.[e] 38 The Pharisee was surprised that he did not wash his hands[f] before eating. 39 So the Lord said to him:

You Pharisees clean the outside of cups and dishes, but on the inside you are greedy and evil. 40 You fools! Didn’t God make both the outside and the inside?[g] 41 If you would only give what you have to the poor, everything you do would please God.

Ezekiel 45

45 When the land of Israel is divided among the twelve tribes, you must set aside an area that will belong to me. This sacred area will be eight miles long and six[a] miles wide. 2 The temple will be on a piece of land eight hundred forty feet square, and the temple will be completely surrounded by an open space eighty-four feet wide.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
July 12, 1959

John 14: 1-19

God does not will that humanity perish. Instead, He has gone forward with the will of the providence to show us the way to live. Thus, a figure who can restore the relationship of father and son, which both God and humanity desire, absolutely must appear. In looking back through history, this is undeniable.

We should criticize our sinful, struggling selves. We have to be indignant over this reality as well indignant over the Fall. Then what should we long for? We should long for our original parents who were lost. A lonely path of sacrifice will open up for those who are sincerely longing to find the original father who was lost. If such an individual, such a group, and such a movement exists in this world, then Heavenly Father, who is searching for His children, will work with such people. Wanting to regain the father and son relationship, He will hold on to such people.

If we have not heard of this from people throughout the thousands of years of history, they are to be blamed. If holy sages throughout the course of history have not introduced such facts, they also should be blamed. If such contents could not be found in the words of the sages who have lived to fulfill the will of God, it would be permissible to deny that God exists.

God, who works the providence to restore mankind, wants to live within us and wants us to reside within Him. Thus, Jesus told his disciples, “I am God’s begotten son and you are my brethren.” He also said, “Where I am going is not of my own will but of the will of the Father. The nation that I want is not my nation but the nation of the Father. The people I am looking for are not my people but the people of the Father. The place I want to live in is not with my family but with the family of the Father. The nation that I can be proud of is not my nation but the nation of the Father.” He also said, “God is the Father and earth is the Mother.” Toward mankind, he said, “I am the bridegroom and you are the bride.”

We can acknowledge God’s existence if these valuable propositions remain within heavenly law. Religions have been established to usher mankind in the right direction. From this perspective, the religion that can reveal the proper relationship between father and son, husband and wife, and between siblings would be the final religion. We cannot deny that Christianity possesses these qualities. We have to be grateful for this.

Although numerous sages have come and gone throughout history, they have only revealed God conceptually and vaguely. They did not bring the answers as to how to substantially experience God. Jesus called the invisible God “Father” in spite of the mockery of the Jews. He overcame hardships and showed concern for God in spite of heavy persecution. This shows that Jesus had experience and knowledge like no one had ever had before. He stood in a position to clarify the universal frame of mind and the frame of mind for life, which no one had ever known.

Jesus illuminated this through his heart rather than through his circumstances. Since he illuminated it with his substantial self, he was the Messiah. If someone like that appears, even if God did not send him, that person should be acknowledged as the Messiah. Heavenly law works in such a way.

Jesus was sent by Heavenly Father. Jesus did not come to this world to work beneath sin and evil. He came as the central person who could liberate all the sorrows and resentments of history caused by the Fall and sin. He came to solve all problems, starting from where God’s heart could still abide to where it could no longer flow. Jesus wanted to connect the love of Heaven to this world. He said, “I am the bridegroom and you are the bride.” We should then acquire the position of children, bear the heart of a bridegroom and bride, and ultimately reach the position of the parent, which is what Jesus called Heavenly Father.

Shine Your Light

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Luke 11

33 No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a clay pot. A lamp is put on a lampstand, so that everyone who comes into the house can see the light. 34 Your eyes are the lamp for your body. When your eyes are good, you have all the light you need. But when your eyes are bad, everything is dark. 35 So be sure that your light isn’t darkness. 36 If you have light, and nothing is dark, then light will be everywhere, as when a lamp shines brightly on you.

Matthew 3

3 John was the one the prophet Isaiah was talking about, when he said,

“In the desert someone
    is shouting,
‘Get the road ready
    for the Lord!
Make a straight path
    for him.’”

Richard:  These rheamas together make a very compelling case for letting all people know about the good news of the Kingdom, that it is now at hand, and that God and his messenger Rev. Sun Myung Moon have given us the Eight Sacred Textbooks:  http://visionroot.org/resources/the-eight-books-of-holy-scripture/.

The Path In Search of the Original Homeland

Rev. Sun Myung Moon July 5, 1959

Luke 15: 11-32

This is where individuals with heart can live. This original homeland is to be introduced in the final days of human history. If not, this world will not be saved. You must realize that the time is coming when an ideology or doctrine should be established which can introduce the whole thing on a logical basis. We long for the world of the original homeland where we can live forever as brothers and sisters and a family in the garden.

Is there anyone among you who can say, “I have found such an original homeland”? No. Therefore, we are destined to seek it. Jesus came as the Savior and showed the way to the original homeland, yet he could not bring the garden of the original homeland into reality and invite us to live there together with him. God is leading humanity forward, unfolding the dispensation. He says, “Let’s go to the garden of the original homeland, the one we wish for and live for.” But He cannot say, “Come live there together with me” yet. Since God and Jesus are so destined, so are each of you living on earth today.

Members of the congregation, breathless from your journey, has anyone ever had such a day of happiness? Has anyone had such a day and sung out of joy? No, no one. Has God ever enjoyed such a day? No. Is there some kind of principle that can lead you to such a day? No. Even Heaven has not enjoyed such a day. This is the situation of Heaven and earth.

The man of conscience, who cannot live apart from the fate of Heaven and earth, must feel and experience God’s heart as he seeks the way. Your mind may be sincere in its pursuit of happiness, yet the further you walk, the more happiness itself is moving a far distance from you. It might seem that you have arrived at the end of your hard journey, ardently wishing for freedom, peace and happiness. Yet in the light of reality, your mind is full of indistinct contents and happiness is at a far, unreachable distance.

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