Category: Matthew

With Whom Will God Share His Heart?

Matthew 5

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the side of a mountain and sat down.[a]

Blessings

Jesus’ disciples gathered around him, 2 and he taught them:

3 God blesses those people
    who depend only on him.
They belong to the kingdom
    of heaven!
4 God blesses those people
who grieve.
    They will find comfort!
5 God blesses those people
    who are humble.
The earth will belong
    to them!
6 God blesses those people
who want to obey him
    more than to eat or drink.
They will be given
    what they want!
7 God blesses those people
    who are merciful.
They will be treated
    with mercy!

Job 16

12 Everything was going well,
until God grabbed my neck
    and shook me to pieces.
God set me up as the target
13     for his arrows,
and without showing mercy,
he slashed my stomach open,
    spilling out my insides.
14 God never stops attacking,
15     and so, in my sorrow
I dress in sackcloth[a]
    and sit in the dust.
16 My face is red with tears,
and dark shadows
    circle my eyes,
17 though I am not violent,
    and my prayers are sincere.

Richard: No one has a “right” to complain about their situation. We can not definitively say whether a particular circumstance is good or bad, in the long run.

The Toil of God as He Tries to Raise up His Beloved Children

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 11, 1959

John 3: 11-21

1 Corinthians 7:28-29

God’s goal is to raise up individuals and people and to send one embodiment whom He can love and do His work of liberation through. God has been guiding history toward that purpose.

After the Fall, even though human beings betrayed Him so many thousands of times, because God considered them His children, He did not hesitate to do any difficult work or face the risk of death for the sake of achieving His goals. A parent cannot abandon a child just because he is committing sins. Original human beings are the direct children of God who are connected to God’s heart. Even if human beings were to abandon God, God cannot cut off this relationship and abandon people. This is what you have to understand.

When we think about this, we see that we are descendants who deserve to be mistreated by the universe and labeled as violators of filial piety. The same is true for every single person in history, including our good ancestors. From the standpoint of a nation, God is the king. We should serve God as the king and become loyal ministers. Because we are unable to do so, we cannot protest, even if people label us traitors and expose our sins to the world. This is what we are.

If such a relationship existed between two people, they would surely be the bitterest of enemies. How can God overlook these facts? It is because God has a never-ending desire to see people as sons and daughters who will live with Him eternally. Thus, even if God were ostracized today and tomorrow, turned away from this place and that, He could not turn away from His pursuit of the true child.

I have thought about it like this and have cried, “People on the earth! Before you long for your children and cry, long for God and cry. Before you become indignant about something, you should look toward Heaven and feel its indignation. If there is someone who is crazy about something on the earth, he should forget the earth and become crazy about God.”

God is an infinitely sad person. These are not abstract words. With whom will God share His heart? To whom will God reveal His pain and bitterness? There is no such person. For this reason God yearns for sons and daughters to appear on the earth, sons and daughters who can cling to God’s sorrow and pain and comfort Him. This is the highest standard we should aspire to.

What kind of person is God? He is not a ruler but a Father whose relationship with you is inseparable. That Father struggled in relation to the earth with a heart as desperate as if He were going crazy for six thousand years. Nevertheless, people repeatedly caused that Father pain and betrayed Him. If there is someone who recognizes this sin and becomes crazy about God even now, God will not abandon him.

Do Not Expect to be Complimented

Leviticus 23

37 I have chosen these festivals as times when my people must come together for worship and when animals, grain, and wine are to be offered on the proper days. 38 These festivals must be celebrated in addition to the Sabbaths and the times when you offer special gifts or sacrifices to keep a promise or as a voluntary offering.

Matthew 13

36 After Jesus left the crowd and went inside,[c] his disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the story about the weeds in the wheat field.”

37 Jesus answered:

The one who scattered the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seeds are the people who belong to the kingdom. The weed seeds are those who belong to the evil one, 39 and the one who scattered them is the devil. The harvest is the end of time, and angels are the ones who bring in the harvest.

40 Weeds are gathered and burned. That’s how it will be at the end of time. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everyone who does wrong or causes others to sin. 42 Then he will throw them into a flaming furnace, where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. 43 But everyone who has done right will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. If you have ears, pay attention!

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

Before he shouldered the cross, Jesus said that he would return. Because of this, the disciples were able to overcome difficulties and become his companions, willing to die with him and suffer through hardships with him. For this reason, centering on the twelve apostles, the seventy and 120 followers were able to stand before Jesus and cross over the wall of death.

Although Christianity received all kinds of persecution under the oppression of Rome, because they prevailed, they conquered Rome. Christianity has served as an unconditional sacrifice for the world; this is the reason that it could arrive at a stage where it could literally dominate the world. Hence, now is the time that all Christians of the world can erect the heavenly sovereignty in Satan’s world. We have to understand that Christians all over the world must unite their forces and, representing the embodiment, be prepared to march forward and die together. After the era of the word has passed and the era of practice has passed, the one day of meeting will take place. Only after the one day of meeting can we live the life of Heaven. Upon meeting we have to enter the state where we can say that someone else’s personal situation is my situation; his difficulties are my difficulties; his wounds are my wounds. Then we can attain the level where we can say that his mind is my mind and his heart is my heart. Only after these things have been accomplished can the heavenly family be realized. Only after we bring these together centering on Jesus on the earth will the heavenly family be realized.

Countless people claim that God is in the position of the parent and that they are in the position of children. However, this is in name only. It is like being adopted children. You should meet Jesus through words and deeds. Even if you do not meet him in your prayers, you should meet him in the mountains. If you do not meet him there, you should be willing to seek even death. If you do not find him in the mountains or in your prayers, you will find him in your death, so that is where you must search for him. Jesus also passed through this process. He passed through the course of secret chambers, through the period of praying in the wilderness. He was willing to search for his children even in the hills of death. We have to search with the same determination. You have to understand this through reading the Bible.

Then what will you do the day you meet him? What should we do first for him? The moment that sinful people meet the Lord and the True Parents, they must call out for the Father and the Lord and comfort him: “I have fought like this and like that, and I have brought this and that gift. How much have you suffered during the long six thousand years to find me?” You should comfort him. You think that when the Lord comes to the earth, the Kingdom of Heaven will be accomplished centering on us and the world will operate exactly the way you want it to. That will never be. You have to disappear. You have to abandon all your wishes, all your expectations and all your hopes. From the moment you meet him, since you do not know what may be on his mind, you should be able to do as he commands.

Then what we have to do is comfort him with the most sincere heart: “How much have you suffered? It was so difficult for me to find this path; how much have you suffered to pass through the long six- thousand-year course of history and find your children?” You should say, “How is your heart? How is your heart after having passed through the long six thousand years? We understand that heart. We understand that heart.”

Do not expect to be complimented. When you are searching, you should go about it silently. Right after the resurrection, Mary Magdalene was silent when she came before Jesus. But when Mary tried to hold onto Jesus, he blocked her. Why? It is because human beings have to cleanse themselves of something. What would that be? It is the dirty remnants of history. Human beings have to cleanse themselves of that first. We have to beg for forgiveness for our sins, saying, “This is how Adam’s family was; this is how Noah’s family was; this is how the families of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were, and this is how the prophets and saints since Moses have been. Jesus died this way. These are all sins that I committed, so please forgive me.”

The Lord Comes with a New Truth of Higher Content

Matthew 27

22 Pilate asked them, “What am I to do with Jesus, who is called the Messiah?”

They all yelled, “Nail him to a cross!”

23 Pilate answered, “But what crime has he done?”

“Nail him to a cross!” they yelled even louder.

24 Pilate saw that there was nothing he could do and that the people were starting to riot. So he took some water and washed his hands[c] in front of them and said, “I won’t have anything to do with killing this man. You are the ones doing it!”

25 Everyone answered, “We and our own families will take the blame for his death!”

26 Pilate set Barabbas free. Then he ordered his soldiers to beat Jesus with a whip and nail him to a cross.

Richard: Crucifying Jesus was a tragic mistake. It was NOT God’s original plan. The chosen people should have accepted Jesus: Exposition of the Divine Principle Chapter 4, The Messiah: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aj5ekHDYOaCihchktF6T5-QJyENGeg

Proverbs 18

5 It’s wrong to favor the guilty
    and keep the innocent
    from getting justice.

We Who Are Walking a Life Course

Sun Myung Moon
September 6, 1959

1 Peter 1: 21-25

Christians today should lead this kind of life. Those who praise the dreams of the new age and are content to be at the cutting edge of a splendid culture will be denounced by history and forced to stand for judgment at the bottom of this world. Conversely, if there is a group of people who say, “All of you go back; I will guard this place,” and fill up the ditch of death with their own blood, sweat and tears and make a level ground, then God will work through that group.

History is created with new ideologies and in new forms, yet it does not begin from a good situation but from a bad situation. You’ve learned all this. For this reason, where there is sin, there will be much divine grace.

We who must go now should open our hearts and protest, “God! Although Jesus came, I could not establish a standard in my heart which would enable me to go confidently before the absolute being as His object partner. What am I to do?” We should cling to Jesus and protest. We should cling to the Bible and protest. If we were only to listen to the words of other people, we would perish. The Korean people have suffered the misfortune of becoming a colony of another country because they listened to someone else’s words.

Now, as we stand before God who has been seeking humanity speechlessly, we should not unconditionally believe other people’s words. There are fundamentally different forms of words. You cannot believe others.

Therefore, although it is said that the foundations of heart and truth in our hearts should be like this and that, when these words do not come true, we should protest. If you want to protest, you should be able to defend yourself as such and such a person. If you say, “Father, this should have become such and such because of this and that. Why was that not realized?” then God will immediately say, “That is true.” Have you thought about this?

Christianity today says that the Lord will return. Buddhism claims that the Maitreya will return, while Confucianism says that the true man will appear. Each religion is talking about the return of the Lord. They do not mean that he will simply relive the words in the Bible. He is not someone who will relive the words of the Bible or repeat the words of an already established faith. These religions are talking about the return of a Lord who will come with a new truth of higher content. For this reason, if Heaven exists, we should protest until we can obtain an answer concerning him from Heaven. Have you ever tried that? The time has come when we should protest, “Is that really true about Jesus? Is God really like that?” Only then will history make progress.

Although many faithful people worshipped the founders of their religions and took a direction in history, that did not manifest itself in their lives. For this reason we should rise above the founders of religions and grab hold of God. Shouldn’t we do so? Since not everything can be explained by what is written in the Scriptures, we should rise above their pinnacle and protest to God. We are to protest about the founders of religions.

What is the purpose of believing in Jesus? What are we to accomplish by believing in him? To become his bride? What are we to do once we become brides? To live a good life? What are we going to do once we live a good life? We are to reciprocate. Hence, if this has not come true, then shouldn’t we protest? Our goal is to meet Jesus, our bridegroom. Yet have we ever received the love of Jesus? That is not what I believe. Regardless of whether Jesus loves us or not, I want to reach beyond Jesus and receive the love of God. Jesus is a condition. He is the condition through which we can receive the love of God.

Thus, Paul said, “Who will ever cut me off from the love of God which dwells within our lord Jesus Christ?” God’s love within Jesus is not the love related to a bride. If Jesus cannot take a bride and receive God’s blessing, he cannot inherit the great work of Heaven. You have to understand this. You should build a relationship of God-centered love.

Have you ever opened the gates to your heart to obtain this quality and felt the waves of truth? Have you ever prodded an extremely clear conscience? Have you ever grabbed onto the traces of life coming through the voice of your conscience and praised it? Have you ever felt something in your heart which is connected to the infinite world and emerged with an explosive power of life? Have you ever felt it?

God Will Have to come Up With a Set of Teachings

Hint:  to learn about those teachings, join us this morning, Saturday, October 5th at 10 a.m. for Part 1 of the Unification Principle online seminar. Register here: https://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/unification-principle-training
or call 202-544-5081 with any questions or for help.

1 Chronicles 6

71 The Gershonite clan received two towns from the tribe of East Manasseh: Golan in Bashan and Ashtaroth, including the pastureland around them. 72-73 The Gershonites also received four towns from the tribe of Issachar: Kedesh, Daberath, Ramoth, and Anem, including the pastureland around them. 74-75 The Gershonites received four towns from the tribe of Asher: Mashal, Abdon, Hukok, and Rehob, including the pastureland around them. 76 Finally, the Gershonites received three towns from the tribe of Naphtali: Kedesh in Galilee, Hammon, and Kiriathaim, including the pastureland around them.

Matthew 9

28 After Jesus had gone indoors, the two blind men came up to him. He asked them, “Do you believe I can make you well?”

“Yes, Lord,” they answered.

29 Jesus touched their eyes and said, “Because of your faith, you will be healed.” 30 They were able to see, and Jesus strictly warned them not to tell anyone about him. 31 But they left and talked about him to everyone in that part of the country.

We Who Are Walking a Life Course

Sun Myung Moon
September 6, 1959

1 Peter 1: 21-25

For this reason no one alive on the earth can claim to be a good person. Upon our birth we find that we are not from a good lineage but an evil lineage. After our birth we find that we are not qualified to stand before the ideal of re-creation or to sing of our value. We cannot deny that we are unworthy, immature and imperfect. In Christianity such people are called fallen.

People’s original minds were not born to live happily in a fallen world. Although human beings have been trying to turn away from the fallen path for six thousand years, they could not set the standard upon which they can claim they have avoided it completely.

Our flight from evil and our pursuit of goodness as we seek to reach a purpose is called the course of life. The path of destroying evil and adhering to goodness every day, even in the face of death, is the course of life.

For this reason your minds are shivering in fear. This is not true when you are heading towards the original homeland of the heart. When you are under the control of evil, you will feel fear that something has grabbed you. We have to remember clearly that this is because our original minds shun the sinful history, the powers of death, and the forces of darkness. We are in the course of fleeing. If there is a God, what will He do with all these refugees? How will God instruct the humanity of the world who must flee evil? If there is a Heaven, He will surely have to come up with a set of teachings.

What kind of course is the path of flight? There is no leader on earth. No one is in position to deal with other people’s situations or to share his situation with other people. Although many people have lived, the fate of humanity has always been to flee. They are busy pursuing their own paths. This is the fate of a refugee. Ladies and gentlemen, when a criminal is escaping from the prison he was locked in, what will he see before him? He will surely see the path of survival, the free world, which is certainly a world he yearns for. The stronger his desire for the free world and the world of his ideal, the more he will struggle to escape from the situation he is in.

However, although humanity has to flee, they do not know the whereabouts of the garden they crave and hope for. Under these circumstances, human history continues to circle around. We have to understand clearly that people have not understood their purpose, direction and situation. We know that human beings committed sin before Heaven when they fell. We are escaping from the unjust bondage of Satan, so we are deserters and refugees from the viewpoint of this world. Where is salvation? Where is the Kingdom of Heaven? This world is a city from which we must flee.

When we are running away, there is a way to flee successfully on the personal level. Since we cannot run away by ourselves, there are ways to flee with the family, as a people, and on the world and cosmic levels. If God does not instruct us in these ways, there is no way that we can refer to Him as the Creator, a being of love, or an absolute author of ideals.

Then where is the standard based upon which Heaven can teach us about the ways of running away? This is not some academic theory. These ways are not in Heaven. They are inside your minds. You have to understand this clearly: they are found in your minds.

The Time of Fantastic and Illusory Notions of Faith Has Passed

Urban Life Training Monthly Newsletter:

In this issue:
Urban Family Life Success Training Report
Update on forced vaccination in Washington DC and West Virginia
President Trump Comments on Big Pharma Price Gouging

Genesis 38

15 When Judah came along, he did not recognize her because of the veil. He thought she was a prostitute 16 and asked her to sleep with him. She asked, “What will you give me if I do?”

17 “One of my young goats,” he answered.

“What will you give me to keep until you send the goat?” she asked.

18 “What do you want?” he asked in return.

“The ring on that cord around your neck,” was her reply. “I also want the special walking stick[c] you have with you.” He gave them to her, they slept together, and she became pregnant.

19 After returning home, Tamar took off the veil and dressed in her widow’s clothes again.

20 Judah had his friend Hirah take a goat to the woman, so he could get back the ring and walking stick, but she wasn’t there. 21 Hirah asked the people of Enaim, “Where is the prostitute who sat along the road outside your town?”

“There’s never been one here,” they answered.

22 Hirah went back and told Judah, “I couldn’t find the woman, and the people of Enaim said no prostitute had ever been there.”

23 “If you couldn’t find her, we’ll just let her keep the things I gave her,” Judah answered. “And we’d better forget about the goat, or else we’ll look like fools.”

24 About three months later someone told Judah, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has behaved like a prostitute, and now she’s pregnant!”

“Drag her out of town and burn her to death!” Judah shouted.

25 As Tamar was being dragged off, she sent someone to tell her father-in-law, “The man who gave me this ring, this cord, and this walking stick is the one who got me pregnant.”

26 “Those are mine!” Judah admitted. “She’s a better person than I am, because I broke my promise to let her marry my son Shelah.” After this, Judah never slept with her again.

Richard: Tamar risked her life to fulfill God’s will. As Jesus said (Mt. 10:39) ”
39 If you try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you give it up for me, you will surely find it. “

Matthew 10

16 I am sending you like lambs into a pack of wolves. So be as wise as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 Watch out for people who will take you to court and have you beaten in their meeting places. 18 Because of me, you will be dragged before rulers and kings to tell them and the Gentiles about your faith. 19 But when someone arrests you, don’t worry about what you will say or how you will say it. At that time you will be given the words to say. 20 But you will not really be the one speaking. The Spirit from your Father will tell you what to say.

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

What do we mean when we say that we have not understood Jesus accurately nor served him properly? Ever since Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden and could not grow up inside God’s bosom, Jesus was able to appear before Israel only after four thousand years of fierce battle with Satan. Yet the Jews did not understand this. If the Jews of that time had submitted themselves to Jesus, the failures of Moses during the Exodus, the failures of Noah’s family, the failures of Abraham’s family, and the murder of Abel could have been all corrected as victories. Jesus embodies such tremendous value. He was the living incarnation of history. He was the living incarnation whom God had been seeking throughout the four thousand years of His providence. Although Adam died, since the heart of the Father who had been raising him up did not die, that was the living incarnation.

In the last days, many people will come forward with the teaching that they are the center of the universe. However, what is the purpose of the providence of God who has been working through the six thousand years? It is recovering what was lost. What kind of man is Jesus, who was sent due to Adam’s mistake? He is the second Adam. Christians claim that Jesus is God Himself, but they are mistaken. It is written in the Bible that Jesus is the last Adam.

The true son whom God is seeking now is the third Adam. Before the third Adam can stand in the position of the true son, it does no good to claim to be a bride or an adopted son. Although Jesus came with the glory of a son, he could not play the role of a son. In order to act as one, all the necessary preparations must be completed in Heaven. Then it is not enough to have just a son. The preparations can be complete only when there is a bride.

What was lost in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve were lost. Adam and Eve were to become the true ancestors of humanity. However, because the true ancestors of humanity were lost, the true ancestors must be restored.

Jesus is in the position of a father. He is like the father of humanity. The Holy Spirit is a mother spirit, the mother of humanity. The purpose of the Second Advent is to manifest substantially on the earth the true mother and true father.

The Last Days are when true sons and daughters appear before humanity. What kind of time is that? Since we have become the descendants of the Fall and have lost the lineal relationship with true parents when we lost the true ancestors, the Last Days are the time when the reverse path is taken and the sons and daughters lost in the Garden of Eden are to be recovered. God’s work is to forge relationships with a reversal process, the work of restoration, to elevate people to the position of adopted children. If you think that what I am saying is wrong, then go to the spirit world and protest. If you were to ask, “So and so said this, but is this true?” then they would reassure you that it is true.

The time of fantastic and illusory notions of faith has passed. The time of believing in a conceptual God and living under such concepts is also behind us. You should attain a certain standard where your flesh, bones and heart come together in oneness so that you can call God your father and be able to boast of the father-son relationship after connecting your heart to the heart of the Father, who has been exerting Himself for six thousand years.

Humanity, which is seeking Heaven and the world of purpose, should walk this path. For this reason in the East they have advocated Confucian ethics: give all of your heart and soul for Heaven, exert yourself for the sake of your parents, become a patriot, and uphold chastity in order to build heavenly relationships in your immediate environment. In the East, people upheld internal trends of thought, while the West is more external. It will come around to the external sphere. You wait and see.

The time of the success of the adopted children is the twentieth century up till now. The ideal world which will come is the time that the true sons and daughters will become successful. Wouldn’t that be natural if God existed? The past was a time when the children of others prospered; now is the time when adopted children based in the democratic sphere centering on Christianity prosper. The time after this period is when true sons and daughters live in prosperity. That is the time of the Second Coming and the time of the ideal that Christians are waiting for.

What should we do to become true sons and daughters who can rise to such positions, whom God will seek? You should not boast about how you have been a devout believer for so many years. All those who seek happiness based on the name of Jesus, saying, “I am a minister of this church; I am a leader of that church; through my efforts so many people have come to know Jesus and follow him,” are not worthy. Why? It is because during the six thousand years of the providence, God has never had one day or one moment when He was truly happy. How can a father who is so desperately seeking for true sons and daughters be happy when He has not yet found them?

In the course of history there have been a lot of people who enjoyed themselves. There have been people with power and authority who have received glory in place of God. Yet God, who has been struggling for four thousand and six thousand years, searching for His sons and daughters, never had such moments of happiness. God, who should enjoy glory and happiness, has never had such a time.