Category: Romans

Home Church Is a Microcosm of the World

Romans 6

15 What does all this mean? Does it mean we are free to sin, because we are ruled by God’s wonderful kindness and not by the Law? Certainly not! 16 Don’t you know that you are slaves of anyone you obey? You can be slaves of sin and die, or you can be obedient slaves of God and be acceptable to him. 17 You used to be slaves of sin. But I thank God that with all your heart you obeyed the teaching you received from me. 18 Now you are set free from sin and are slaves who please God.

19 I am using these everyday examples, because in some ways you are still weak. You used to let the different parts of your body be slaves of your evil thoughts. But now you must make every part of your body serve God, so that you will belong completely to him.

20 When you were slaves of sin, you didn’t have to please God. 21 But what good did you receive from the things you did? All you have to show for them is your shame, and they lead to death. 22 Now you have been set free from sin, and you are God’s slaves. This will make you holy and will lead you to eternal life. 23 Sin pays off with death. But God’s gift is eternal life given by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isaiah 1

10 You are no better
    than the leaders and people
of Sodom and Gomorrah!
    So listen to the Lord God:
11 “Your sacrifices
    mean nothing to me.
I am sick of your offerings
    of rams and choice cattle;
I don’t like the blood
    of bulls or lambs or goats.

12 “Who asked you to bring all this
when you come to worship me?
    Stay out of my temple!
13 Your sacrifices are worthless,
    and incense is disgusting.
I can’t stand the evil you do
    on your New Moon Festivals
or on your Sabbaths
    and other times of worship.
14 I hate your New Moon Festivals
    and all others as well.
They are a heavy burden
    I am tired of carrying.

15 “No matter how much you pray,
I won’t listen.
    You are too violent.
16 Wash yourselves clean!
I am disgusted
    with your filthy deeds.
Stop doing wrong
17     and learn to live right.
See that justice is done.
Defend widows and orphans
    and help those in need.”

Richard: God is telling us to return to basics. Follow His word, do Home Church, know your neighbor, love you neighbor, help your neighbor.

Selected Passages from the Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon about Home Church

Today’s Word magazine, September 1981 pp. 7 – 8

It’s your means of salvation
In order to find salvation, we must:
( 1) Pass through the judgment by words, judg-
ment of character and judgment of heart. All of
you understand that we cannot go to heaven
without passing through these three types of
judgment.
(2) Become a True Parent.
(3) Become a central figure in heaven and on
earth.
(4) Help others reach salvation. How many people
have you helped to attend the two-day workshop,
the 21-day workshop, and so on up to the 70-day
workshop? The number of people you have helped
to go through these courses is related to your
personal salvation.
(5) Gain 84 disciples. Everyone should begin his
course of witnessing, with the primary objective
of gaining 84 spiritual children. The number 84
represents the 12 disciples and 72 elders at Jesus’
time, which added together make 84. In addition,
those 12 disciples include the three disciples,
representing the three stages of growth. (2/3/79)

It brings you great benefit
Home church is the greatest gift God and True
Parents can give mankind. It has never existed
before and will never recur in the future. When
you make this gift your own by fulfilling it, you
will definitely become a son or daughter of God.
For the entire 60 years of my life, I have been
preparing this precious gift for you.and now I
freely give it to you; you can make it yours in six
months. This is an incredible opportunity. (4/15/79)

Home church is a very precious blessing for
you, because through it I am giving you a
condition to go beyond the fall of man. (5/27/79)

The extent to which you carry out the home
church providence determines your level of per-
sonal maturity. Perhaps two thirds of your
spiritual growth will take place through home
church and perhaps the other third will come
through other activities. When you follow Father’s
instructions here absolutely and become successful
in your home church, you will inherit four things:
material, man, spirit world and God. (3/29/79)

Home church is the place where you can receive
the worldwide inheritance; you will receive the
individual inheritance, family inheritance. clan
inheritance, tribal inheritance and national inherit-
ance. Through the home church providence you
will also receive liberation from satanic accusa-
tion. (2/25/80)

What you have in home church is a microcosm
of the world, and by practicing there what I have
accomplished on the worldwide scale, you are
entitled to receive what I have inherited from God.
(5/26/79)

When you become completely victorious, your
360 homes will become your home. All 360 people
will say, You have been hungry for so long-please
come to our house for supper: you have lost so
much sleep-please take this bed as your own and
rest. When they see how hard you have worked,
they will all say. Sit down and take life easy; let me
do your job for you. If people really see God in
you, they will surely say this to you. ( 117/79)

We talk about hope and faith. What higher hope
is there than to look forward to the day when the
people in your home church area welcome you?
When you go around knocking all the walls down,
you will eventually find the 12 gates open to you,
and you will finally arrive at the central point you
should occupy. Then you will become a successful
13. At that moment you will have finished the
historical indemnity centering on yourself. You
will have achieved something no one ever dreamed
of achieving, and you will occupy the central
position with God’s approval. ( 1/13/80)

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.

No One Is Concerned with the Father’s Situation

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Romans 4

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.

Psalm 69

19 You know how I am insulted,
    mocked, and disgraced;
    you know every one
    of my enemies.
20 I am crushed by insults,
    and I feel sick.
    I had hoped for mercy and pity,
    but there was none.
21 Enemies poisoned my food,
    and when I was thirsty,
    they gave me vinegar.

22 Make their table a trap
    for them and their friends.
23     Blind them with darkness
    and make them tremble.
24 Show them how angry you are!
    Be furious and catch them.
25 Destroy their camp
    and don’t let anyone live
    in their tents.

We Who Are Walking a Life Course

Sun Myung Moon
September 6, 1959

1 Peter 1: 21-25

Prayer

We sense that we have come into Your presence, and we lie prostrated after wandering in many places.

How can we ever pay back the grace You have given us by allowing us to call You “Our Father”? How can we ever pay back the grace of Your not hesitating to suffer any hardship to protect and purify us and for Your having guided us thus far? We do not have anything with which to pay it back. We cannot pay back the blessing even if we offer You our bodies; even if we offer all of our minds. We are still unworthy to even raise our heads before the Father’s toils and accomplishments.

We know that the Father who guided us this far has the responsibility to save us, and that Father’s strongest desire is to usher in the day of glory through us. When we reflect upon how the Father wants to be comforted by us, we are ashamed before the Father who put so much hope in us and who has persevered through the numerous difficulties of history.

If our flesh and blood can empathize with the Father’s heart, and our bones have laid the framework of our character building, please let them become a basic unit which can testify to the Father’s unchanging nature.

How much have You longed for the glorious and sacred incarnation whose every cell belongs to the Father and who returns glory to You? In history our ancestors could not honor You in this way. When they were following Heaven’s way, they sometimes held grudges against You and abandoned You. We also know the historical fact that the chosen people had to give up their rights.

Father! Because we have inherited a sorrowful lineage, even if we may say we believe in Heaven today, we are so close to the evil world that we may betray You tomorrow. Please have compassion upon us. Please take hold of us. Please engraft our thirsty hearts onto the Father’s heart of life, and give rise to the work of resurrection which can stir new life.

Many people have lived on the earth. Many people have been born and have died. Yet no one is concerned with the Father’s situation and is mourning over the Father’s sad heart. Please let us become those who can lament over the Father’s situation and heart. Father, we sincerely wish that You will fill the earth with many sons and daughters who are burning with the desire to refute Heaven and earth, humanity, history and their fallen ancestors and to attend the Father.

For whose sake have we come here? It was not to see well-dressed or beautiful people. We who have ugly scars and wounds came to try to resemble the Father’s holy sung-sang. Please do not reject us. Embrace us. You know that we are lonely because we do not have a place to rest our hearts and minds. Please comfort us during this hour.

Please appear before us with this heart and guide us as our subject partner of eternal life. Give us words of life which can penetrate our minds and bodies. Please let this be an hour when we can thank Your grace and bow to You.

We want to receive the words this hour. Father, please be with us. Please help us understand that if there is an internal gap between the speaker and the listeners, Satan will come in through that path. That is the realm Satan is seeking. Please let the heart of the speaker and the hearts of listeners be united so that we can be connected to the Father’s heart and move in harmony with Him.

Your sons and daughters are on their knees and offering lonely and ardent prayers everywhere in South Korea. Please advise them, as they are suffering through all difficulties. You said that those who persevere till the end will receive salvation. Please guide us to glorify the Father by being patient and testify to the Father before the people as Your incarnations. Please bless the many churches and people who are gathering together. We prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.

We Have Lost Our Parents

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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.

Isaiah 38

7 Now I will prove to you that I will keep my promise. 8 Do you see the shadow made by the setting sun on the stairway built for King Ahaz? I will make the shadow go back ten steps.

Then the shadow went back ten steps.

The Father and I

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
July 12, 1959

John 14: 1-19

The title of the words that I would like to reflect upon together with you is “The Father and I.” On a greater scale, this becomes “The Father and Us, God and Humanity.” I will speak briefly upon this topic.

Out of all the sadness in this world, there is probably none greater than that of children losing their beloved parents. Likewise, there is probably no greater sadness than parents losing their beloved children.

Christianity tells us that mankind fell. This is a fact that cannot be denied when we look at or speculate upon society. It can be conjectured that the society we see today resulted from a sinful cause. We are standing on the course of history, which is the result of that cause. Furthermore, we cannot deny that we are struggling because we ourselves are also results of it.

What can be the problem of all problems? It is the agony of losing our parents, who should never have been lost; it is the agony of trying to find the lost parents, the agony of not having parents in spite of one’s right to have them, and the agony of not having children in spite of one’s full right. These are the greatest problems.

We say there was a Fall, but this involves both mankind and Heavenly Father. We cannot help but accept the fact that it involves us, too. We are certainly not ideal. When we accept that mankind has fallen, we cannot deny that a Fall cannot occur without a reciprocal relationship. When we do not feel good, it is because we have the inner potential to be better. When we desire to be greater, it is because we have that potential within us. Such a relationship interconnects each person to everyone else.

We may have a lot of confusing problems, but there is only one fundamental problem in our hearts. It is the fact that we have lost our parents. Mankind’s loss of the parents and Heavenly Father’s loss of His children has to be recovered. It is our foremost priority to reestablish that lost relationship, to regain the lost happiness, to repossess the lost joy.

What will solve all these problems for us? We acknowledge the evil history, we acknowledge that we are living in a sinful world, and we are struggling due to the conflict between our mind and body. This cannot be solved by any systematic philosophy, ideology or conceptual faith. The only way is through the heart. The world of the heart has no before or after, no highness or lowliness. It has no beginning or end. The situation can only be solved through heart.

What is mankind’s sorrow? The sorrow is that, due to the Fall, the true master was lost from Eden. Mankind could not sing and live with eternal happiness in the ideal of creation of all things of Heaven and earth. Mankind could not sing along with the heart and life force of all created things.