Category: New Testament

Pompeii Was Destroyed Because of its Decadent and Immoral Social Life

The Richard Urban Show #77
This Coup Will Not Succeed
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2 Kings 20

9 Isaiah replied, “The Lord will prove to you that he will keep his promise. Will the shadow made by the setting sun on the stairway go forward ten steps or back ten steps?”

10 “It’s normal for the sun to go forward,” Hezekiah answered. “But how can it go back?”

11 Isaiah prayed, and the Lord made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairway built for King Ahaz.

Matthew 28

28 The Sabbath was over, and it was almost daybreak on Sunday when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 Suddenly a strong earthquake struck, and the Lord’s angel came down from heaven. He rolled away the stone and sat on it. 3 The angel looked as bright as lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards shook from fear and fell down, as though they were dead.

5 The angel said to the women, “Don’t be afraid! I know you are looking for Jesus, who was nailed to a cross. 6 He isn’t here! God has raised him to life, just as Jesus said he would. Come, see the place where his body was lying. 7 Now hurry! Tell his disciples that he has been raised to life and is on his way to Galilee. Go there, and you will see him. That is what I came to tell you.”

Sin

  1. The Meaning of Sin

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

What is sin? It is what emerges from self-centered living and not living for the sake of others. Why is stealing wrong? A thief steals out of his personal desire—the wrong of the act begins there. What is wrong with stealing a dress from a big department store, where no one will miss it? That dress has value imparted by the people who invested their sacrifice and service in making it. Thus the dress has public value. Stealing it is a sin, because taking something without paying for it nullifies its value. (105:92, September 30, 1979)

We have to recognize and abide by three immutable laws:
    The first law: Do not defile the blood lineage, even at the point of death. The blessed blood lineage, bequeathed through God’s love and life, must not be contaminated by actions immersed in the habitual patterns of the fallen world…
    The second law: Do not infringe upon human rights… Whether female or male, black or white, everyone is equal… Violation of this is the second of all sins.
    The third law: Refrain from stealing money or misusing public funds for selfish purposes. (January 13, 2001)

What is sin? People think sin is to disobey God’s word, but in truth, sin is to make any condition by which Satan can accuse us. While it is wrong not to believe the word of God, it becomes a sin when there is a condition upon which the enemy can grab hold of us. Hence, once we transgress the law, not even God can do anything about it. (22:257, May 4, 1969)

The human tradition of love as it has been passed down through history is evil. It is sinful, unacceptable to God. It is the enemy of God. Of all sins, fallen love is the by far the worst; it is the sin God abhors the most. Those who indulge in fallen love are God’s worst enemies, whom God abhors the most. Unless we correct the ways of love, God will always treat it as a sin and those who engage in love as enemies, and they are bound to perish. It is only natural that they perish. Have you seen Pompeii in Italy? Because of its decadent and immoral social life, the city was destroyed by instant calamity. Sodom and Gomorrah, too, were destroyed for the same reason. The Roman Empire, too, perished for the same reason.
    Looking at this historical evidence, America will also surely perish unless she repents and repudiates its immoral way of love. (104:140, April 29, 1979)

God is Supremely Selfless and Supremely Public Minded

The Richard Urban Show #77
This Coup Will Not Succeed
We now host the video version on Brighteon, and will no longer post on YouTube.

Stop The Steal Jericho March, Gen. Michael Flynn Speech and Prayer Rally, Saturday December 12th-Washington DC
March for Trump: December 12th, 2020-Washington DC
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1 John 4

7 My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. 8 God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. 

2 Kings 5

5 Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army. The Lord had helped him and his troops defeat their enemies, so the king of Syria respected Naaman very much. Naaman was a brave soldier, but he had leprosy.

The Devil and His Activities

4. Human Beings Must Choose between God and the Devil

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

God is supremely selfless and supremely public minded; whereas Satan is absolutely self-centered and only out for himself. (88:209, September 18, 1976)
 
God has no capacity to be corrupted—He is eternal, unchanging, and unique. Therefore, regardless of his power, Satan can never bring God under his control, because God is true, and Satan cannot digest a true being.
 
    Then, why does God, who aspires to be lord of all creation, not bring Satan under His control? It is because Satan does not have God’s unchanging nature—quite the opposite. God is unchanging while Satan is always changing to suit himself. God is unique and Satan is not; God is eternal while Satan is temporal. This, in essence, is their dividing line.
    Why, then, are human beings the objects of both God’s desire and Satan’s desire? People stand between God and Satan. They have qualities that can relate to both God’s world and Satan’s world.
    Is someone who changes from moment to moment more on God’s side or Satan’s side? Is someone who is constantly creating divisions and fights in the home more susceptible to God or to Satan? What about the person who is immersed in his daily affairs and does not think about the whole, or the world, or history, or eternity, or any kind of long-term vision? What about a father who neglects his wife and children, who only goes off to the local bar and drinks every night, seeking his own pleasure? Certainly, Satan will claim such people. (124:243-44, February 20, 1983)
We are living in a fallen realm. That is why we need to live a life of faith. Remember this, and always be aware that Satan governs this fallen world. This is not merely a concept; it is reality. (161:218, February 15, 1987)
 
The Bible exhorts us to pray ceaselessly. The Devil can attack us and even work through us twenty-four hours a day. Although God is with us, He stays in a vertical relationship with only the mind as His base; how effectively, then, can He work with us? Satan can come at us from any direction, from 360 degrees; hence we are bound to be overwhelmed. (200:227, February 25, 1990)
 
Evil activity in the spirit world had been increasing gradually ever since the Human Fall. But the situation changed drastically in the 1980s, when hosts of evil spirits descended to the earth and greatly increased their activities there.
    Why did this happen? In former times, when the central figures of the Providence did not know the identity of Satan, the root of sin, or the nature of the Original Sin, Satan felt at ease and could take his time creating his self-centered world. However, when the True Parents came into the world the situation began to change. The True Parents revealed the identity of Satan, the root of sin, and that the Original Sin was fornication. They figured out all Satan’s traits and all his tricks, facts that not even God had revealed to humanity. Then the True Parents began making conditions so that Satan could no longer stand on his feet on the earth. As they achieved victory after victory in the Providence of Restoration, Satan was taken aback; then he began to get nervous. In response, Satan mobilized evil spirits in the spirit world to work with evil spirits in the bodies of people on the earth, by stimulating their resentment and their desire to take revenge on the descendants of the people who had caused them pain.
    In particular, Satan watched closely for opportunities to invade Blessed families. Whenever he found any bad conditions, he put evil spirits into them. He wanted to block them from advancing and turn them from a God-centered life. God expected that Blessed families would make unity of heart with God and True Parents by living with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. Satan cannot invade such families. But when Blessed families acted in unprincipled ways, they made conditions for Satan to invade them. Most of them expected that the victory of True Parents would protect them; they didn’t look deeply at themselves to check whether they had anything for which Satan could accuse them. They didn’t reflect on whether they still had any fallen nature. Therefore, at least from now on, we must work hard to purify ourselves from evil and sin and be reborn as original, true children. (Heung Jin Moon, Message from the Spirit World, January 1, 2001)
 
 
 
    
 
 

He Who Commits Sin Is of the Devil

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Ephesians 6

5 Slaves, you must obey your earthly masters. Show them great respect and be as loyal to them as you are to Christ. 6 Try to please them at all times, and not just when you think they are watching. You are slaves of Christ, so with your whole heart you must do what God wants you to do. 7 Gladly serve your masters, as though they were the Lord himself, and not simply people. 8 You know that you will be rewarded for any good things you do, whether you are slaves or free.

Matthew 10

5 Jesus sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions:

Stay away from the Gentiles and don’t go to any Samaritan town. 6 Go only to the people of Israel, because they are like a flock of lost sheep. 7 As you go, announce that the kingdom of heaven will soon be here.

Richard: This month, throughout the month and closest on December 21st, Jupiter and Saturn will be in a conjunction (closeness) in the southwest sky at sunset that has not occurred in 800 years. I believe that this is exactly the same occurrence that appeared as the star of David at the time of Jesus birth.
As you have been learning through the study of the daily scriptures, the kingdom of heaven is here, and it is embodied through absolute sexual ethics and the Blessing of marriage.

The Devil and His Activities

2. Works of the Devil

When a man grasps at things, Mara stands
beside him.
    Sutta Nipata 1103 (Buddhism)

Shall I inform you on whom it is that the devils descend?
They descend on every lying, wicked person, into whose ears they pour hearsay vanities, and most of them are liars.
    Qur’an 26.221-223

The foremost of your armies is that of Desire, the second is called Dislike. The third is Hunger-Thirst and the fourth is Craving. The
fifth is the army of Lethargy-Laziness and the sixth is Fear. The seventh is Doubt and the eighth is Obstinacy-Restlessness. Then there are Material Gain, Praise, Honor, and Fame… These, O Mara, are your forces, the attackers of the Evil One. One less than a hero will not be victorious over them and attain happiness.
    Sutta Nipata 436-39 (Buddhism)

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
    Ephesians 6:12

The Evil Ruler spoils the Word,
the plan of life, by his teachings.
He, indeed, deprives me
of the exalted goal of Good Thought.
    Avesta, Yasna 32.9 (Zoroastrianism)

Never did We send an apostle or a prophet before you, but, when he framed a desire, Satan threw some vanity into his desire. But God will cancel anything vain that Satan throws in, and God will confirm His signs—for God is full of knowledge and wisdom: that He may make the suggestions thrown in by Satan but a trial for
those in whose hearts is a disease and who are hardened of heart.
    Qur’an 22.52-53

The Messenger of God said, “There is none among you with whom is not an attaché from among the jinn (evil spirits).” The Companions said, “With you, too?” He said, “Yes, but God
helps me against him and so I am safe from his hand.”
Hadith of Muslim (Islam)

He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God commits sin;
for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do
right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.
    1 John 3.8-10

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But, because I [Jesus] tell the truth, you do not believe me.
    John 8.43-45

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
    Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

And the Great Dragon Was Thrown Down

March for Trump: December 12th, 2020-Washington DC
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James 1

1 From James, a servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Greetings to the twelve tribes scattered all over the world.[a]

2 My friends, be glad, even if you have a lot of trouble. 3 You know that you learn to endure by having your faith tested. 4 But you must learn to endure everything, so that you will be completely mature and not lacking in anything.

Jeremiah 51

51 I, the Lord, am sending
    a wind to destroy
the people of Babylonia
    and Babylon, its capital.
2 Foreign soldiers will come
    from every direction,
and when the disaster is over,
Babylonia will be empty
    and worthless.

The Devil and His Activities

Scriptures of all religions testify to demonic beings and powers. Their chief is known by various names: Satan, Lucifer, Iblis, Mara, Samael, Beelzebub and Angra Mainyu, among others. Some of them we met in the accounts of the human Fall and the origin of evil. yet the Devil is continually active, drawing people’s hearts to do wickedness. While rationalists have difficulty accepting the reality of the Devil, a glance at the history of the twentieth century and its horrors makes plain that the capability of human beings to inflict evil on one another transcends reason. Pope Paul VI said of the Devil,
 
We know that this dark and disturbing spirit really exists, and that he still acts with treacherous cunning; he is the secret enemy that sows errors and misfortunes in human history… who finds his way into us by way of the senses, the imagination, lust, utopian logic, or disorderly social contacts in the give and take of life.
The Devil’s hooks are many and various. scriptures teach that when a person desires to do a small evil, the Devil has a claim and can influence him to do something far worse. conversely, people on a religious path experience the Devil’s temptations precisely at the point where they are about to make great progress. 
    Belief in the power of the Devil does not imply dualism, although in some religions—Zoroastrianism most notably—God and the Devil are in eternal rivalry. For the monotheistic faiths that teach the goodness of God’s creation, the demons themselves are resultant beings, angels who fell from their original status as God’s servants to become the enemies of God. Father Moon explains that the fall of the angel Lucifer occurred at the human Fall, at which time he becomes Satan, the powerful demon who asserts dominion over human beings.     Following these are passages describing the Devil’s nature and the various temptations and stratagems he uses to capture human beings. We should be aware that the key to overcoming Satan is to purify ourselves of every characteristic that resembles him—selfishness, arrogance, greed, craving for sensual pleasures—and instead live a life fixed on God and eternity.
  1. The Fall of the Angels
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Revelation 12.9How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the depths of the pit.
    Isaiah 14.12-15 (KJV)
 
And when We said to the angels, “Bow your-selves to Adam,” they bowed themselves, save Iblis; he said, “Shall I bow myself to one whom You have created of clay?” He said, “What do you think? This [creature] You have honored above me, if You defer me until the Day of Resurrection I shall assuredly master his seed, save a few.”
    Said We, “Depart! Those of them that follow you—surely hell shall be your recompense, an ample recompense! And startle any of them whom you can with your voice; and rally against them your horsemen and your foot [soldiers], and share with them in their wealth and their children, and promise them!” But Satan promises them naught, except delusion.
    Qur’an 17.61-64
 
The Lord God spoke to Moses, saying, “That Satan… is the same who was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying, ‘Behold, here am I; send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that not one soul shall be lost. Surely I will do it; therefore give me my honor.’
    “But my Beloved Son, who was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said to me, ‘Father, Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever.’
    “Therefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give to him my own power; by the power of my Only Begotten [Christ], I caused that he should be cast down; and he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.”
    Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4.1-4 (Latter-day Saints)
 
And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by Him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day; just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Jude 6-7
 
 

Zeus Devised the Worst Punishment He Could Think of and Invented Woman

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#71 Do Not Concede or Consent

1 Peter 1

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

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

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

Mark 14

22 During the meal Jesus took some bread in his hands. He blessed the bread and broke it. Then he gave it to his disciples and said, “Take this. It is my body.”

23 Jesus picked up a cup of wine and gave thanks to God. He gave it to his disciples, and they all drank some. 24 Then he said, “This is my blood, which is poured out for many people, and with it God makes his agreement. 25 From now on I will not drink any wine, until I drink new wine in God’s kingdom.” 26 Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

Richard: We are standing on the foundation of Jesus’ sacrifice, and on the successful foundation of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the True Parent (see Peace Message 10). Righteousness will prevail, but we must fulfill our own responsibility, not the least of which is to understand the New Expression of Truth and act accordingly.

The Human Fall

2. Catastrophic Consequences of the Human Fall

When Zeus was angry with mankind, he devised the worst punishment he could think of, and invented Woman. Hephaestus, the smith of the gods, was instructed to form her from the earth and make her irresistibly beautiful. Each of the gods gave her his own special gift of skill, and from this she was called Pandora, “all gifted.”
    When she was perfected with every gift and arrayed in all her loveliness, this treacherous treasure was taken down to earth by Hermes, the messenger god, and given to Prometheus’ foolish brother Epimetheus. Now Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept anything from Zeus, even if it looked like a gift sent in friendship; but Epimetheus as usual acted first and thought afterwards. He accepted the maiden from Hermes and led her into his house, and with her a great jar—some say a box or chest—which the gods had sent with her, telling her to keep it safely but never open.
    This was too much for Pandora, who among her gifts was endowed with feminine curiosity. After restraining it for a little while, she at last gave in and lifted the lid from the jar, and from that moment began the sorrows of mankind. For each of the gods had stored in it the worst thing he was able to give, and wonderful as had been the gifts with which they endowed her, just as dreadful were the evils that rushed eagerly from the jar in a black stinking cloud like pestilent insects—sickness and suffering, hatred and jealousy and greed, and all the other cruel things that freeze the heart and bring on old age.
    Pandora tried to clap the lid on the jar again, but it was too late. The happy childhood of mankind had gone forever, and with it the Golden Age when life was easy. From then on man had to wrest a hard living by his own labor from the unfriendly ground.
    Only one good thing came to man in the jar and remains to comfort him in his distress, and that is the spirit of Hope.
    Myth of Pandora’s Box (Hellenism)
 
In the olden days, when God still lived among men, Death did not live among men. Whenever he happened to stray onto the earth, God (Imana) would chase it away with his hunting dogs. One day during such a chase, Death was forced into a narrow space and would have been caught and destroyed. But in his straits he found a woman, and promised her that if she hid him he would spare her and her family. The woman opened her mouth and Death jumped inside.2When God came to her and asked her if she had seen Death, she denied ever seeing him. But God, the All-Seeing One, knew what happened, and told the woman that since she had hidden Death, in the future Death would destroy her and all her children. From that moment death spread all over the world.           Hutu tradition (African Traditional Religions)
 
If Adam had not sinned, he would not have begotten children from the side of the evil incli-nation, but he would have borne offspring from the side of the Holy Spirit. But now, since all the children of men are born from the side of the evil inclination, they have no permanence and are but short-lived, because there is in them an element of the ‘other side.’ But if Adam had not sinned and had not been driven from the Garden of Eden, he would have begotten progeny from the side of the Holy Spirit—a progeny holy as the celestial angels, who would have endured for eternity, after the supernal pattern. Since, how-ever, he sinned and begat children outside the Garden of Eden, these did not take root.
    Zohar, Genesis 61a (Judaism)
 
After [they fell] God clothed Adam and Eve in garments soothing to the skin, as it is written, “He made them coats of skin (עוֹר, ‘or) [Gen. 3.21]. At first they had coats of light (אוֹר, or), which procured them the service of the high-est of the high, for the celestial angels used to come to enjoy that light; so it is written, “For you made him but little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor” [Psalm 8.5]. But after their sins they had only coats of skin, good for the body but not for the soul.
    Zohar 1.36b (Judaism)
 
The deities Izanagi and Izanami descended from Heaven to the island Ono-goro and erected a heavenly pillar and a spacious palace.
    At this time Izanagi asked his wife Izanami, “How is your body formed?” She replied, “My body, though it be formed, has one place which is formed insufficiently.” Then Izanagi said, “My body, though it be formed, has one place which is formed to excess. Therefore, I would like to take that place in my body which is formed to excess and insert it into that place in your body which is formed insufficiently, and thus give birth to the land. How would this be?” “That will be good,” said Izanami. “Then let us, you and me, walk in a circle around this heavenly pillar and meet and have conjugal intercourse,” said Izanagi. “You walk around from the right, and I will walk around from the left and meet you.”
    After having agreed to this, they circled around; then Izanami said first, “How delightful! I have met a lovely lad!” Afterwards, Izanagi said, “How delightful! I have met a lovely maiden!” After each had spoken, Izanagi said to his wife, “It was not proper that the woman should speak first.” Nevertheless, they commenced procreation and gave birth to a leech-child. They placed this child into a boat made of reeds and floated it away.
    Then the two deities consulted together, “The child which we have just borne is not good. It is best to report this before the heavenly gods.” So they ascended together and sought the will of the heavenly gods. The gods thereupon performed a grand divination, and said, “Because the woman spoke first, the child was not good. Descend once more and say it again.
    Kojiki 4.1-6.1 (Shinto)