Category: New Testament

Engraft to the True Olive Tree

Happy New Year!

Romans 4

13 God promised Abraham and his descendants that he would give them the world. This promise wasn’t made because Abraham had obeyed a law, but because his faith in God made him acceptable. 14 If Abraham and his descendants were given this promise because they had obeyed a law, then faith would mean nothing, and the promise would be worthless.

15 God becomes angry when his Law is broken. But where there isn’t a law, it cannot be broken. 16 Everything depends on having faith in God, so that God’s promise is assured by his great kindness. This promise isn’t only for Abraham’s descendants who have the Law. It is for all who are Abraham’s descendants because they have faith, just as he did. Abraham is the ancestor of us all. 17 The Scriptures say that Abraham would become the ancestor of many nations. This promise was made to Abraham because he had faith in God, who raises the dead to life and creates new things.

18 God promised Abraham a lot of descendants. And when it all seemed hopeless, Abraham still had faith in God and became the ancestor of many nations. 19 Abraham’s faith never became weak, not even when he was nearly a hundred years old. He knew that he was almost dead and that his wife Sarah could not have children. 20 But Abraham never doubted or questioned God’s promise. His faith made him strong, and he gave all the credit to God.

Jeremiah 50

Your rivers and canals
    will dry up.

All of this will happen,
because your land
    is full of idols,
and they have made fools
    of you.
39 Never again will people live
    in your land—
only desert animals, jackals,[g]
    and unclean birds.
40 I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
    and the nearby towns,
and I will destroy Babylon
    just as completely.
No one will live there again.

Cheong Seong Gyeong 1404

Beloved Heavenly Father, on this day,
February 7, 1999, the Blessing of 360
Million Couples ceremony that is being
closely watched by heaven and earth is
being held. All humanity on earth and
all Blessed Families in the spirit world
are represented here, for this is the new
day of the liberation of heaven and earth
when we go beyond the restoration of
the right of the first born, the right of
the parents, and right of kingship. This
is the moment when we have reached
a transition point in world history in
which we can fulfill Your will and Your
wishes to establish a united world of the
sovereignty of true love, the Parents of
Heaven and Earth and the God of the
original ideal of creation.
To restore the spiritual and physi-
cal worlds under Satan’s dominion and
inhabited by humankind which inher-
ited evil love, life, and lineage from
the evil ancestors in Eden, then You,
together in heart with humankind and
the spirit world, passed through the Old,
New, and Completed Testament Ages.
In the Old Testament Age, Adam’s
family failed to keep the covenant to
inherit the lineage giving rise to a par-
ent-child relationship with You, losing it
instead through the Fall.
They would have established that
relationship with You in the place where
they could inherit Your love, life, and
lineage; yet it was in that very place that
the sin of our first ancestors bound them
in blood ties with Satan as their false
parent, thereby giving rise to the sor-
rowful history that began with Adam’s
family inheriting satanic love, life, and
lineage from Satan as his children and
thus becoming his family. This, in turn,
created the environment of conflict
between mind and body, husband and
wife, parents and children, and between
siblings, resulting in Cain’s murder of
Abel in that first family. Consequently,
all of humanity is divided at the levels of
the family, tribe, race, and nation, and
even the world with the democratic and
communist worlds pitted against each
other. Amid the confusion of the Last
Days, it was Your will to establish the
Unification Church in order to usher in
the Completed Testament Age because it
had not been possible to completely ful-
fill Your will in the Old Testament Age or
establish Your ideal kingship in the New
Testament Age. Upon the foundations
laid in those two ages, the True Parents
were to come to earth and complete all
that was incomplete both on earth and in
the spirit world, and form relationships
based on their true love, life, and lineage
on earth in the name of the God of lib-
eration. It was Your will to completely
clear the field of wild olive trees that is
the fallen world and to engraft them to
the true olive tree, thereby forming a
connection as Your kinfolk, and, by so
doing, restore Your family. Upholding
Your will, the Unification Church has
continued its work in performing global
weddings in the name of the True Par-
ents in order to allow all people of the
world to indemnify the wrongful mar-
riages of history and become one great
family of brothers and sisters.

It Is Inappropriate to Pray “Please Save Me”

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Romans 4

9 Are these blessings meant for circumcised people or for those who are not circumcised? Well, the Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him. 10 But when did this happen? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? Of course, it was before.

11 Abraham let himself be circumcised to show that he had been accepted because of his faith even before he was circumcised. This makes Abraham the father of all who are acceptable to God because of their faith, even though they are not circumcised. 12 This also makes Abraham the father of everyone who is circumcised and has faith in God, as Abraham did before he was circumcised.

Richard: Paul is saying here that not only Jews (who are circumcised), or existing followers of Rev. Moon, in the current age, will be accepted by God. All those who faithfully adhere to God’s Words and teachings (the Eight Sacred Texts and the teaching of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in Blessed marriage in the current age) will be blessed and justified.

2 Chronicles 9

15 Solomon made two hundred gold shields that weighed about seven and a half pounds each. 16 He also made three hundred smaller gold shields that weighed almost four pounds, and he put these shields in his palace in Forest Hall.

Jesus Whom God Wanted To Find

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 18, 1959

Matthew 23:29-39

The time is coming for us to prepare our minds and bodies. A person should not do this preparation for himself. People who are spiritually experienced pray for themselves only at the end of their prayer. When someone prays in a spiritual state, he should first pray for God. Since it is time to meet the owner, he must pray for the well-being of the owner. Then he must pray for Jesus. When someone prays for God, he will know the historical heart of God. If he prays for Jesus, he will know the historical heart of Jesus. Then he must pray for the numerous people in Christianity who have fought for the will of God until now.

Searching through the footsteps of so many prophets from Adam’s time until now, a person should pray, “Let me become an offering to liberate them.” Then he should be able to shed tears, saying to the prophets, “I know that your sorrow still survives on earth. I want to liberate that sorrow; therefore, please support me.” After that he should pray for his sons and daughters and then for himself. That is the law of Heaven.

Before he prayed for his people, Jesus prayed for the Father. For thirty years of his life, Jesus comforted God and prayed for Him, saying, “Heavenly Father! How sorrowful You must be.” Then he prayed for the numerous prophets. “I was sent as the representative of your longings, your prophecies, your promises. I will do my utmost to live up to the standard that you have desired.”

Jesus prayed for the age with a historical heart. He prayed for Israel, which had departed from the will of God. He prayed for the Jewish faith, which did not know the will of God. He prayed for John the Baptist, who did not follow him even after testifying on his behalf. Jesus never prayed for himself. Jesus prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. But do as You will, not as I will,” and he passed away without fulfilling his desire.

In the Last Days Jesus can pray for himself. The Last Days are when Jesus can praise himself. The day when Jesus’ sorrow dissolves and he comforts and returns glory to God with his heart full of joy is the Last Day. Jesus has not seen that day. He could not welcome that day because of you, because of humankind, and because of Heaven and earth. This is how miserable he is.

After seeing that our ancestors had this kind of fate, it is inappropriate to pray, “Please save me.” That is not right. I don’t know how you pray, but I do not pray like that. The prophets shed tears for the suffering of their race. Jesus cried for his people. Jesus shed tears for the Jewish faith. Therefore, if there is a person who is living the right course of faith, he should shed tears for the world, shed tears for Heaven and earth, shed tears for his race, shed tears for the church, shed tears for his family members, then at the end pray, “Give me the responsibility.”

No one knows the situation of Heaven, which has not yet welcomed the one day of liberation, the day of fulfillment. Even though many say that they are seeking the will of God, no one knows the heart of Heaven and gives his utmost to uphold that will.

Now even if everything is taken away from us and even if the world rejects us and we are in the most miserable situation, if we can become a brother of Jesus whom he recognizes, a member of his family whom he acknowledges, his bride whom he recognizes, and his children whom he recognizes, then we will have fulfilled our highest desire.

Jesus Did Not Have any Relatives or Kin

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John 6

53 Jesus answered:

I tell you for certain that you won’t live unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man. 54 But if you do eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have eternal life, and I will raise you to life on the last day. 55 My flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink. 56 If you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you are one with me, and I am one with you.

57 The living Father sent me, and I have life because of him. Now everyone who eats my flesh will live because of me. 58 The bread that comes down from heaven isn’t like what your ancestors ate. They died, but whoever eats this bread will live forever.

59 Jesus was teaching in a Jewish place of worship in Capernaum when he said these things.

Richard: This passage refers to Holy Communion. But in the current era, we need to change our lineage, which is the fruit of love and life, from Satan’s lineage to God’s lineage. This is the meaning of the Blessing ceremony of the Unification movement.

Jeremiah 37

After I had spent a long time there, 17 King Zedekiah secretly had me brought to his palace, where he asked, “Is there any message for us from the Lord?”

“Yes, there is, Your Majesty,” I replied. “The Lord is going to let the king of Babylonia capture you.”

18 Then I continued, “Your Majesty, why have you put me in prison? Have I committed a crime against you or your officials or the nation? 19 Have you locked up the prophets who lied to you and said that the king of Babylonia would never attack Jerusalem? 20 Please, don’t send me back to that prison at Jonathan’s house. If you do, I will die.”

21 King Zedekiah had me taken to the prison cells in the courtyard of the palace guards. He told the soldiers to give me a loaf of bread[j] from one of the bakeries every day until the city ran out of grain.

Jesus Whom God Wanted To Find

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 18, 1959

Matthew 23:29-39

Jesus came to uphold God’s dignity and to liberate the numerous saints who had sacrificed themselves to follow God’s will for four thousand years. He came to liberate the resentment of the people whom Satan had infringed upon in this world. He did not complete that work. He came to liberate that resentment, but he did not fulfill that goal. Therefore, he has to come again. We must know this clearly.

What does God want to find? What does Jesus seek with his heart’s longing? He seeks the nation of goodness. He seeks the nation of victory, glory and happiness. Did Jesus meet good people? No. His brothers and sisters chased him out. His parents drove him out. Think about that. Did God establish the Israelites so that they could do that to Jesus? Did God set up the Jewish religion in order to persecute Jesus? Did God transmit the will of the providence for four thousand years and send Jesus to Joseph’s household so that Joseph could treat him that way? Did John the Baptist eat locusts and wild honey for thirty years in order to serve Jesus in that way? Everybody passed away. Everything passed.

When Jesus came to this earth, the people abandoned him. Therefore, Jesus had to collide head on against Satan, who was following behind the people who had been prepared to welcome him. The chosen people should have welcomed Jesus and turned around and attacked Satan. But Jesus had to fight alone on the battle ground. The cross is the road where Jesus died fighting.

Jesus was supposed to give commands to the heavenly soldiers in the forefront to march against the world of Satan. But he was the only one left. Everybody disappeared. Where did the three Wise Men from the East go? Where did Anna disappear to? Where did the shepherds go? Where did John the Baptist vanish to? Where did Joseph’s family go? Where did Jesus’ brothers, sisters and relatives go? Where did the religion, the people and the nation disappear to? They all passed away. Since they all left, Jesus is praying again for the sake of his people, bearing the cross in order to make a connection, saying, “I have died for you.” Jesus thought that even though everything passed and the nation perished, God would watch over him. Therefore, he went up to Heaven and is praying again for those people.

If these are Jesus’ circumstances, what is his desire? He wants to find true disciples. The true disciple of Jesus’ desire is also the disciple of God’s desire and the disciple whom Jesus will testify to.

Did the disciples ever make a comfortable environment where Jesus could rest? Did Jesus have a family? When Jesus’ mother and younger sibling came to him, he said to them, “One who lives by the will of God is my mother and my younger brother.” In this sense Jesus did not have any relatives or kin. He did not have a family or brothers and sisters. Right? Thus, even after he passed away, he has been seeking in the spiritual world a mother, brothers and sisters, a clan, a race, a church, a nation and a world. That is the two-thousand-year history of Christianity. Because Israel was lost to Jesus and left behind nothing on this earth, he must come again. Jesus did not establish his family, his tribe, his race, his nation, or his world. Therefore, he must come again.

Is there anyone who worries that in the Last Days when Jesus comes again, he will suffer the same sorrows as before? Have you ever been his younger brother? Heaven wants to ask this question. The elderly people here, have you ever thought of loving Jesus as if you were his father and mother? Have you ever cared for the beloved son of God with the same heart that Jesus had for his people? Have you ever lived a life of faith where you lived for God’s sons and daughters, not minding whether your bones melted or whether exhaustion and hardship came upon you? Someday Jesus will come to this earth again. Why would he come? He comes again to find his disciples, whom he loves. It is the sorrow of God and of Jesus that in the course of history Jesus did not find his disciples again; he could not gather them and establish the will centering on them. It is the shame of our ancestors and the shame of history that they left behind this kind of sorrow.

Today we attend the apostles and think that they are the ones who are receiving the deep love of Heaven, but that might not be the case. In fact, it is not true. Representing all mankind, they should have comforted Jesus, but they did not. They were people who had to ask for forgiveness after Jesus died.

The Jewish Religion Was Not to Spearhead the Rejection of Jesus

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2 Timothy 4

4 When Christ Jesus comes as king, he will be the judge of everyone, whether they are living or dead. So with God and Christ as witnesses, I command you 2 to preach God’s message. Do it willingly, even if it isn’t the popular thing to do. You must correct people and point out their sins. But also cheer them up, and when you instruct them, always be patient. 3 The time is coming when people won’t listen to good teaching. Instead, they will look for teachers who will please them by telling them only what they are itching to hear. 4 They will turn from the truth and eagerly listen to senseless stories. 5 But you must stay calm and be willing to suffer. You must work hard to tell the good news and to do your job well.

Lamentations 1

20 Won’t you look and see
    how upset I am, our Lord?
My stomach is in knots,
and my heart is broken
    because I betrayed you.
In the streets and at home,
    my people are slaughtered.

21 Everyone heard my groaning,
    but no one offered comfort.
My enemies know of the trouble
that you have brought on me,
    and it makes them glad.
Hurry and punish them,
    as you have promised.

Jesus Whom God Wanted To Find

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 18, 1959

Matthew 23:29-39

What is the desire of God? He is hoping that a world of goodness will appear when Jesus comes. Then what is the desire of Jesus? As the victor of a good nation, he would want to rule over good citizens. By fulfilling the purpose that God desires, he would want to return victory and glory to Heaven. But we who are living on earth do not know that Jesus and God desire these things.

The Last Days, when Jesus has to come again, is the same as the time when God sent him to the Israelites two thousand years ago. The reason that God worked hard for the pitiable, chosen people for four thousand years, the reason why He guided them and led them when other nations were persecuting them and then handed them over to Jesus, was not so that they might betray him. The reason that God established the Jewish religion was not to make it into a religion that spearheaded the rejection of Jesus. In the same way that Jesus was like a lamb in front of God, the Israel people should have been the most obedient lambs to Jesus. Not only the Jewish religion, but also the whole race of Israelites should have said, “East,” when Jesus said, “East,” and “West,” when Jesus said, “West.” They should have been a race that died or lived with Jesus. God worked hard for four thousand years to create that kind of people.

When the dignity of the chosen Israel crumbled, and when God saw that Jesus could not find the children or disciples whom he wanted to find, raise up, and love, God grieved and wailed bitterly.

The citizens of that time did not know that the anxious heart of Heaven, which had endured for four thousand years, had exploded. But Jesus knew Heaven. He knew that God, who grieved looking at his situation, was a God who had persevered for four thousand years. Who ever knew the heart of Jesus as he comforted God, saying, “Father, do not resent my death. Do not resent my sorrow. Do not resent my agony,” even as he was being chased, persecuted and driven away without a place to stay or a place to lean on?

The moment that Jesus died, the Israelites whom Heaven had prepared for four thousand years became Satan’s prisoners. That was the moment when the chosen Jewish religion fell down the trap of Satan. Jesus, who respected the historical labor and historical achievements of the prophets, was appalled and mortified that God’s labor had come to naught. He asked for God’s forgiveness even while his body was being torn to pieces. But who knew that heart?

There were so many people who said that they were chosen, that they were attending God, but there were none who knew Jesus’ heart and situation, his painful cries and his heartbreaking shouts. You believe in this Jesus who could not share his situation with anyone. You believe in Jesus without knowing that he fell down, grabbing his chest, as if his heart were being ripped to pieces. In the Last Days we must show this Jesus. We must show this Jesus to the Jewish religion. We must show him to the Israelites. We must disclose him to the seven tribes of Canaan who betrayed him and to the satanic world. This is the hope of God. Was there anyone in history who revealed Jesus in this way? No one. God’s hope is to expose the true Jesus. Our hope is to manifest Jesus on this earth as the prince of victory and to attend him. This is also Jesus’ hope.

There are numerous religions today. There are many people who claim that they believe. Do not boast. History has progressed through a course of contradiction. The flow of history judges from a disinterested position. History is connected with you even in a flash of thought. In this time when fear is invading you, when you are in chaos and are losing the center, with what heart, with what relationship, and with what value are you worrying about the sorrow of Heaven? Are you prepared to remove the great sorrow of Heaven? That is the issue.

Heaven Wanted to find Someone who Knew Jesus

1 Kings 20

12 Meanwhile, Benhadad and the other kings had been drinking in their tents. But when Ahab’s reply came, he ordered his soldiers to prepare to attack Samaria, and they all got ready.

13 At that very moment, a prophet ran up to Ahab and said, “You can see that Benhadad’s army is very strong. But the Lord has promised to help you defeat them today. Then you will know that the Lord is in control.”

14 “Who will fight the battle?” Ahab asked.

The prophet answered, “The young bodyguards who serve the district officials.”

“But who will lead them into battle?” Ahab asked.

“You will!” the prophet replied.

15 So Ahab called together the two hundred thirty-two young soldiers and the seven thousand troops in Israel’s army, and he got them ready to fight the Syrians.

Richard: Notice here that a small vanguard of bodyguards leads the troops, who are in turn led be Ahab, who was not confident that he could lead the troops.

Mark 12

13 The Pharisees got together with Herod’s followers.[a] Then they sent some men to trick Jesus into saying something wrong. 14 They went to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are honest. You treat everyone with the same respect, no matter who they are. And you teach the truth about what God wants people to do. Tell us, should we pay taxes to the Emperor or not?”

15 Jesus knew what they were up to, and he said, “Why are you trying to test me? Show me a coin!”

16 They brought him a silver coin, and he asked, “Whose picture and name are on it?”

“The Emperor’s,” they answered.

17 Then Jesus told them, “Give the Emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God.” The men were amazed at Jesus.

Jesus Whom God Wanted To Find

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 18, 1959

Matthew 23:29-39

The short speech that I want to give today is on the topic of “Jesus Whom God Wanted to Find.”

We know that Jesus is the only begotten son of God. God wanted to find Jesus for four thousand years. God found Jesus after the Israelites went through all kinds of conditions of hard work. Jesus was a person who worked hard to fulfill the will of God and the will of the people who wanted to attend him. Thus, the fate of Heaven, the historic fate of the chosen people of Israel, the fate of the age and the fate of the future were all entangled centering on Jesus. When God found Jesus, His purpose for choosing Israel was to be fulfilled. When God embraced Jesus completely, He was embracing the chosen people of Israel. When God could dwell joyously with Jesus, He could dwell with the people of Israel. It was the work of God to find Jesus in total fulfillment. Moreover, attending Jesus completely is the hope of the fallen descendants and of mankind, who are anticipating salvation.

To find Jesus Heaven went through all kinds of hardships from after the Fall until his arrival. In order to attend this one man, the chosen people went through a road of unspeakable persecution and the road of death in their historic course. They repeated numerous times the history of struggle where they fell down, stood up, stood up and fell down, and stood up again. This historical sorrow of the chosen people of Israel would have been removed by their clinging to Jesus. The sorrow of God, who had suffered to send Jesus, also would have been removed.

Jesus did come. Jesus came to this land and worked hard. Jesus fought for us in this land. He endured and fought for Heaven. He even went the road of death alone. Jesus actually did come for the age and the future.

But he is in a position of not having removed the sorrow of history and not having removed the sorrow of the age. For that reason today, two thousand years after Jesus’ coming, he has to come again. This age needs Jesus to come again. The future also needs Jesus.

When we think of this, how much would God have longed to see Jesus as a person who had completed God’s hope? How much would Jesus have wanted to stand in a position representing the dignity of Heaven on the one hand and the dignity of earth on the other? But Jesus never got to establish that dignity in its totality.

Jesus, having appeared to his people, probably longed to reign as King of Kings, the governor of all people and the crown prince of Heaven. Even if that did not happen, the Israelites, who had been prepared for four thousand years, should not have abandoned him, even at the risk of their lives. He would not have let go of the Israelites even at the point of death. But with death at hand, they divided and separated. Thus, he disappeared from the people, and he was in a situation where he had to depart from this earth. We should know this clearly. Jesus was filled with a sense of his historic mission and a sense of the mission to the age. Moreover, he was filled with a heart of wanting to save mankind, who were crying out as they were swept away by the wave of death. Was there a person who attended this Jesus, the Messiah, the only begotten son of God? There was no one.

If there is something that Heaven looked for from Jesus, what would that have been? If there was something that Heaven wanted to find, it would have been someone who knew Jesus. The person who truly knows him is a person who knows God. The person who knows God knows him. The Israelites, who considered that they knew God, were supposed to attend Jesus. But mankind lost Jesus. Heaven lost him, and he had to die, leaving his mission behind on this earth. We should recognize this fact again.