Category: Jeremiah

The Family Is the Center of the Kingdom of Heaven

Jeremiah 23

23 You leaders of my people are like shepherds that kill and scatter the sheep. 2 You were supposed to take care of my people, but instead you chased them away. So now I’ll really take care of you, and believe me, you will pay for your crimes!

3 I will bring the rest of my people home from the lands where I have scattered them, and they will grow into a mighty nation. 4 I promise to choose leaders who will care for them like real shepherds. All of my people will be there, and they will never again be frightened.

Mark 12

35 As Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, “How can the teachers of the Law of Moses say that the Messiah will come from the family of King David? 36 The Holy Spirit led David to say,

‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    Sit at my right side[c]
until I make your enemies
    into a footstool for you.’

37 If David called the Messiah his Lord, how can the Messiah be his son?”[d]

The large crowd enjoyed listening to Jesus teach.

Richard: Jesus was pained that the Jewish people did not understand that he was the one whom David spoke of, the long awaited Messiah.

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

Fallen people have to pass through a time when they long for the words of truth. In history God has been moving the hearts of people to practice and live by the Father’s words.

What does it mean to live centering on the words? It is to live with the son whom God has sent as the heavenly embodiment. That son is the true father of humanity. Jesus came with that mission.

What did Jesus represent? Jesus was to become the true father of humanity who was lost due to the Fall. He came as the embodiment of the words established upon the substantial foundation of the words laid in history. He came to represent the Father. This is why Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one will go before the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Only Jesus is the center of faith, mind and heart. Why? It is because Jesus has the quality of the Father. For this reason Jesus is the Savior of humanity and represents Heaven and earth. Christianity is the religion which seeks the appearance of the Father through the words, seeks the mind of the Father through the words, and seeks the love of the Father through the words.

Jesus came to the earth. He came with infinite ideals. If he had a wish, it was on God’s behalf. What was God’s wish? It was to realize the ideals and goals of creation. When Jesus came as an individual with this wish in his heart, the environment at the time was not good. The environment, which was not in line with the providence, bitterly opposed Jesus. Jesus had to leave a certain standard of the heart on earth even if he was to be struck down. This is why Jesus stressed that he was the father and humanity the children. To form parents there must be a true father and a true mother. After Jesus passed away, the Holy Spirit was the one who came as the mother figure.

Jesus’ sorrow was that he could not experience the day when as a physical and spiritual being on the earth he could bless sons and daughters. Jesus’ grief was not having spoken all the words he had to speak and not having established the standard of the heavenly family before he passed away. Since he could not form a heavenly family, he could not raise up members of a heavenly family, kinsmen centering on family members, a nation centering on the kinsmen, a country centering on the nation, and a world centering on the country.

Israel should have laid the national foundation. The Jews were the chosen people, yet the relationship was severed and Jesus was cornered by the Jews. Jesus was persecuted miserably as a traitor. In the end Jesus was betrayed even by his twelve disciples. Jesus’ sorrow was dying without forming a blood lineage connected to God’s heart on the earth.

Before constructing the family that God desires, there is no way to establish the people that God wishes for. Before establishing a people, there is no way to found a nation or a world. Therefore, when Jesus, who was fighting to establish a family, could not fulfill the will, he had to leave behind the concept that he was the bridegroom of humanity and that humanity was his bride. Ladies and gentlemen, do you know the significance of this? It means that the family is the center of the Kingdom of Heaven.



Jesus Walked a Lonely Path

Happy Veterans Day!  Thank you to all who have served in the armed forces.

Watch the latest Richard Urban show: Who is Really in Charge of the Sanctuary Church? https://youtu.be/DDQL4QhwfsM

Joshua 19

35-39 The Naphtali clans received this region as their tribal land, and it included nineteen towns with their surrounding villages. The following towns had walls around them:

Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Chinnereth, Adamah, Ramah, Hazor, Kedesh, Edrei, Enhazor, Iron, Migdalel, Horem, Beth-Anath, and Beth-Shemesh.

Jeremiah 11

11 Here is what I’ve decided to do. I will bring suffering on the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and no one will escape. They will beg me to help, but I won’t listen to their prayers. 12-13 Then they will offer sacrifices to their other gods and ask them for help. After all, the people of Judah have more gods than towns, and more altars for Baal than there are streets in Jerusalem. But those gods won’t be able to rescue the people of Judah from disaster.

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

46 While Jesus was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and brothers came and stood outside because they wanted to talk with him. 47 Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to talk with you.”[a]

48 Jesus answered, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” 49 Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “These are my mother and my brothers! 50 Anyone who obeys my Father in heaven is my brother or sister or mother.”

Prayer

Father, we came here from many different places. We were born as the children of many different people. We cannot help but think about the many intertwined causes and situations which burden us with debt today.

Father, there are good people here and those who are not so good. The state and form of man’s mind and body vary infinitely. Yet our deepest desire for truth and the highest goodness, and our longing for the original Father, our God, will never change.

The Father does not seek external forms or appearances but is eager to awaken our original selves, hidden deep inside our hearts. He is eager to find the hearts of those who long for Him. Please allow us to experience and realize this in the depths of our hearts. Please allow us to realize that if we cannot recognize this truth and demonstrate it, there is no meaning to our gathering here today.

When we think about how hard You have worked to find the kind of people You wished for during the complex course of conflict in history, we feel that we could not have become what we are today by virtue of our own efforts alone.

When we were born on the earth, we were born into relationships above us, below us, in front of us, in back, and to the left and right. Please allow us to understand that these relationships are somehow prompting us to seek the value of the one perfect purpose, or the reciprocal value of the whole. Please help us realize that Heaven is above; below us the history of goodness is moving with the heavenly principles; in front of us is the world of hope; and to our left and right are our colleagues and relatives. Please help us become sons and daughters who can sense this reality and hold onto our original hearts as we observe all these and make our utmost efforts to build all these relationships.

If there is someone who forgets everything they have and who struggles desperately against their attachments, even if they walk out of step with their generation and are opposed in their daily life, they will be raised up before Heaven in the Last Days. We came here longing for and seeking such a path. Father, please command us. Please speak to us. We yearn for the Father’s heart in our hearts. Father, if something displeases You, please allow us to experience it as our own reality. If there is something which causes You distress, please allow us to experience it through our bodies. Please allow us to become sons and daughters who can sense the Father’s existence, demonstrating it through our bodies. Allow us to bow before the Father in gratitude.

Even if we are evil and chained in sin, please allow us to experience in a real way that Heaven is looking at us with pity. We know that those who should be here are those who understand that they are the greatest sinners. They are those who understand that there is no way to pay the indemnity they owe. They bear a heavier burden the more they go forward and the more they feel and understand. We cannot help but feel that unless we remove our own assertions and concepts, we cannot enter Heaven.

Father, Your sons and daughters have gathered here. Since they have come here, please do not let their visit be in vain. Since we came together as assigned by fate, please do not let this meeting become meaningless. We sincerely wish our relationships not to be humanistic. Please let them develop into relationships of the original nature, heart and life.

What should I speak of? We want only the Father’s heart to be manifested and the Father to appear before us. We want to feel the sung-sang of the Father concretely. Please let us sense during this hour that we are brothers. Please let the members who represent You build one altar before You. Father, this is our sincere wish.

Please bless all the churches who have gathered on behalf of the thirty million people of this nation. Please bless Your sons and daughters who are lying prostrated before You on behalf of the 2.7 billion people of the world.

Although our ancestors fought against evil, that fight has not come to an end yet. Please allow us to understand how to cope with this conflict and be fully prepared internally and externally as brave soldiers representing Heaven. Let us become sons and daughters who can stand before humanity and all people.

We witnessed Jesus’ sorrow in the Bible verses that were just recited. Although Jesus was born in Joseph’s family and had parents, siblings, relatives and kinsmen, he walked a lonely path. Father! Please allow us to connect with the sorrowful situation of Jesus. We sincerely wish that during this hour You will reveal the knowledge of Heaven which must be revealed.

We wish to offer our minds and bodies to You, and we wish that everything will come together as the Father’s. Father, hoping that You will protect us directly, we prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.

Jesus Wanted to form the First Family of Heaven

Join us tomorrow, Saturday, November 2nd for part two of the Introduction to the Unification Principle online seminar at 10 a.m eastern time. Register here: https://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/unification-principle-training .
We will cover

  • The Last Days
  • The Mission of the Messiah
  • Predestination
  • Readings from The Family Rooted in Absolute Sexual Ethics, which is the Model for God’s Absoluteness, Peace and Ideal, and the Global Kingdom, by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Watch the latest episode in an eight part series about forced vaccination: The Vaccine Industry is Fraught with Conflicts of Interest: https://youtu.be/vXFFafKdQIU.

1 Timothy 1

5 You must teach people to have genuine love, as well as a good conscience and true faith. 6 There are some who have given up these for nothing but empty talk. 7 They want to be teachers of the Law of Moses. But they don’t know what they are talking about, even though they think they do.

Jeremiah 25

4 The Lord has sent prophets to you time after time, but you refused to listen. 5 They told you that the Lord had said:

Change your ways! If you stop doing evil, I will let you stay forever in this land that I gave your ancestors. 6 I don’t want to harm you. So don’t make me angry by worshiping idols and other gods.

I Am Relating with Two Worlds

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 20, 1959

Romans 7: 15-25

What kind of person was Jesus? He was someone who was to use the nation to found a world. Although he came with such a mission, when the nation and the people opposed him, he had to die. Therefore, the providence must begin from the individual and pass through the family, people, nation, and rise to the level of the world.

Israel became an enemy of Jesus. The Jewish people whom God chose through four thousand years of toil became the enemy. Although they had the responsibility to restore the world on the foundation of the nation and to restore the land of Canaan on the world level, when the foundation of the nation was shattered, the four-thousand-year history was completely destroyed. You have to understand that for two thousand years Jesus was laying that foundation.

However, no matter how many Christians there may be in the world today, there has not been even one family centered on Jesus. Has there been? Jesus himself could not fulfill the ideal of the bride and bridegroom and form a family. Do you know what the bride and bridegroom are? They are the second standard on the family level which enables one to stand before Heaven. They were the second family standard to restore the one that Adam and Eve could not establish because of their Fall. On that foundation Jesus should have become the head of the family of Heaven. Did he become the head of the family? The most important purpose on earth is to become the head of a family. Only after you become the head of a family can you have children. Only when you have children can you have a people. Only when you have a people can you have a nation. Isn’t this true?

The time has come for Christians of the entire world to repent. Christians of the world have not become citizens of any nation. They do not belong to any tribe or clan. For Jesus to become the head of a family, the twelve apostles should have united and laid the foundation upon which Jesus could form a family. Yet they failed to do so. For this reason, the providence of salvation on the world level could not be consummated.

Thus, Jesus and the Holy Spirit had to endure through hardships of blood and tears for two thousand years. What was the purpose of that? It was to found the first family foundation. They were to found a new Israel, a new family of Jacob, and raise them from the level of a family to the level of a people, from the level of a people to the level of a nation, and from the level of a nation to the level of the world. Then they were to bring the revolution of the Kingdom of Heaven based on this world as the foundation, to liberate hell in the spirit world. This is the ideal of the second providence. The Lord of the Second Advent does not come to be glorified. He comes with the mission to use the world as the foundation to destroy even hell in the spirit world and to build the Kingdom of Heaven on the cosmic level. Only when this is done can God rest in peace.

Richard: Jesus did not come to die. Rather, he desired to form a godly family. See The Messiah in the Unification Principle Two hour lecture: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aj5ekHDYOaCihch0RQ2UZE78bh9c3w?e=nqulZK.

Since Human Beings Fell, Human Beings Should Do This Work

Joshua 15

45 Ekron, with its surrounding settlements and villages; 46 west of Ekron, all that were in the vicinity of Ashdod, together with their villages; 47 Ashdod, its surrounding settlements and villages; and Gaza, its settlements and villages, as far as the Wadi of Egypt and the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea.

Richard: Here God allotted land for the tribes of Judah.

Jeremiah 5

14 Therefore this is what the Lord God Almighty says:

“Because the people have spoken these words,
    I will make my words in your mouth a fire
    and these people the wood it consumes.
15 People of Israel,” declares the Lord,
    “I am bringing a distant nation against you—
an ancient and enduring nation,
    a people whose language you do not know,
    whose speech you do not understand.
16 Their quivers are like an open grave;
    all of them are mighty warriors.
17 They will devour your harvests and food,
    devour your sons and daughters;
they will devour your flocks and herds,
    devour your vines and fig trees.
With the sword they will destroy
    the fortified cities in which you trust.

Richard: When the people of Israel and Judah turned against God, they were punished. Right now the United States is seeing various killings and atrocities of various kinds happening. We too can cry out to God and repent, for have we not turned far from God as a nation, as a whole?

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

Matthew 10:24-39

We are the people who should go before God. We are the sons and daughters of Heaven, part of God’s family, heavenly couples and heavenly brothers and sisters. Yet what is our current situation? We lost our brothers and sisters. We are pitiful people who do not have parents, families, citizens and partners. These are what we must restore. We have to recover them.

When we seek them, we have to do so through our minds. Heaven comes to us through our minds. Heaven knocks on the doors to our minds and enters. For six thousand years of history, Heaven has instilled in us the feeling, “This is not how I should be; I have to escape from this world.” The six- thousand-year history of war is the repetition of fights between those who represent goodness and those who represent evil. Human history has been a history of war.

In the beginning, it may seem that evil people strike and prevail over good people, but when good people are struck, they multiply. When they die, they multiply. The condition in Heaven allows three people to be recovered when one person is struck. For this reason Christianity is struck first in any nation. God’s tactic is to send His beloved sons and daughters to Satan’s world and let them suffer through beatings and death. In exchange for their suffering, He takes back a comparable amount from Satan’s world. Good people never strike first. For the same amount that they are struck, they make a claim from Satan’s world. This is the tactic of Heaven. This is the reason that the history of Christianity until today has been a history of martyrdom and blood.

In history those who strike first always lose. Look at the World Wars. In the First and the Second World Wars, the side that struck first lost. In the third World War, the side which strikes first will also lose. This is why even in an individual’s life, it is said that one should persevere and restrain oneself; those who persevere will be blessed. One is to take the beating and persevere. This is because when you endure, you will rise up one day.

God has been enduring through all manner of grief. Even when He was accused by Satan during the six thousand years, He was not able to alleviate His indignation and sorrow. There will come a time when God will empathize with you and say, “You are also bitter; you must belong to My side.”

For this reason the religious world today tells us to endure. They tell us to believe and persevere. They tell us to be meek, obedient and sacrificial. Why? When we do so, the time will come when we will rise up.

Because Heaven’s tactic is to be hit first before taking things back, Jesus prayed as he was being struck. He did not even want to violate the laws of Satan’s world. If he had considered the people his enemies, he would have been violating the laws of Satan’s world. Such have been God’s tactics.

We have to understand this. You who are here today should understand that each of you is a son or daughter of God and a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. God sought you many times in history. You have to understand that you are members of the family in the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, you have to understand that you are the sons and daughters of God’s direct lineage. We have to become these sons and daughters, members of the heavenly family, people and citizens.

We have not understood God. God of the past, present and future came to us for our own sake, yet we did not know that God came to us with the hope that we would become His true sons and daughters. God is truly miserable. Did you know that God sought you?

Now that we look back, we find that we have a responsibility to our Father. Although God has exerted Himself for six thousand years on earth, has there been a person who can be proud of himself eternally before Satan and not be attacked by Satan’s world? There has not. There has not been a family about whom God could say, “This family is my family,” or a people about whom God could say, “This people is my people,” and whom Satan could not attack. There has not been a land which God could claim, “This is My land.”

This is the situation God is in. Then who should do this work? Since human beings fell, human beings should do this work. We should say, “Father, my home is Your home, and this home never allows Satan in. It will never allow him.” However, is there a home which can make that statement?

We Have to Totally Change Today’s Understanding of Faith

Happy Independence Day!

Registration for the Urban Family Life Success and Happiness Training Seminar (July 5th to July 7th, 2019) has closed. Call to inquire about the availability of remaining spaces: 202-544-5081.

Amos 9

I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:

“Strike the tops of the pillars
    so that the thresholds shake.
Bring them down on the heads of all the people;
    those who are left I will kill with the sword.
Not one will get away,
    none will escape.

Jeremiah 50

As I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah
    along with their neighboring towns,”
declares the Lord,
“so no one will live there;
    no people will dwell in it.

Richard:  God has declared a war on lewd ungodly, immoral behavior.  Hopefully this war wil be carried out by propagating the Word of God.  As more and more people realize God’s family ideal, that will bring a world of peace.  There is no other way.

The Father and I

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
July 12, 1959

John 14: 1-19

What kind of person is a true Christian? It is not someone who dances with joy. It would be someone who prays with concern for God. He or she would not pray for themselves but would pray for the sake of God. That person would not worry whether he or she would become the bride or not, but would worry about whether Jesus, the bridegroom, is happy or not. The person would not pray asking God to send him or her to Heaven, but instead would pray, asking to free God of His sorrow. The person would not ask for his or her value to be acknowledged in Heaven, but would hope that God’s value may be acknowledged in this world, even through his or her own death.

We have to totally change today’s understanding of faith. It has to be changed fundamentally. Do people want to go to Heaven by believing? What are they going to do in Heaven? Are they going to steal from God again when they are there? That is like being joyful after losing the heavenly essence. The essence is the heart of giving. Even fallen minds can perceive such a nature of love. The pit of death awaits those who are striving to receive. The realm of resurrection of life awaits those who are struggling to give. Jesus was someone who struggled for thirty years of his life to give. Jesus endeavored to give during his three years of public ministry. In the end he even gave himself. You have to realize that the Messiah was the prince who strove to give and give again.

Those who are following such an example must repent and see how much of an offering you have made yourself in order to liberate God’s sorrow in your lives. Such a person has no concept of Heaven or hell. Such a person would say, “Who cares if I go to Heaven or if I go to hell?” When God wants to resurrect such a person, even Satan has to agree. Here the historic standard of life gets established.

Today’s Unificationists need the words of the Bible in order to console the Father who is filled with sadness. You also need a teacher. But I do not want you to go forth just looking at the teacher. I hope that you yourselves will establish the bond of relationship with Heavenly Father’s heart, with the teacher as the center. God will never desert you when you pray for this nation with heartfelt pleas, when you strive to introduce God’s heart to it, and when you become the offering. God will not give up on us.

When we think about God, we know that He is the master of all things. But have you seen His deeds? As the subject of love, was He ever able to say “I love you” to mankind? Never. Although He was in a position to own everything, He was never able to claim mankind as His own. And although there are numerous people in this world, and although there were the Israelites who were prepared for four thousand years, Heavenly Father was never able to raise them up as His own sons and daughters or as warriors who could defeat Satan.

There are many Christians in the democratic camp today, but God has not been able to place them as generals in command of an offensive attack against Satan. He also wanted to have Jesus command the angelic world to establish a relationship with this world, but that could not be achieved. God gave mankind the ideal of the bride, and He sought to find such brides. But He could not find one person who could stand as the proud bride in front of Satan. We are truly sorry in front of Heavenly Father.

The world calls the leader of the Unification Church the ringleader of a cult. That’s fine. I just want them to receive all the blessing. I don’t want to give excuses or explanations. This is not the time to fight over such things. Our lives are busy, and what is more urgent is how we are to be recognized by Heavenly Father.

We are all miserable, we are all the same. There were times when we called on the Father and all pledged to die together if we had to. There were times when we called on our Father with tears. We had to stand in such a position representing this nation. Although there may have been times of sorrow, we have to go this path as the Father has led us. We should be grateful and feel unworthy if we can’t feel this historical sorrow. We should be grateful that we can feel the traces of our ancestors’ tears and blood, to tread together down this sorrowful valley. Even if this body may be ripped to pieces or fall down, we have nothing to feel sad about. We have to realize we are the Christians of the last days who have to find and walk this path of heart again.

It is fine to be called a cult or to be misunderstood. None of that can be an obstacle for me. I am here to clarify the heavenly concept. I am telling you now that God will by all means pull us forward along with history if I can share that heart, kneel down in understanding of such a heart, and speak with the heart to raise up the people who will cry with that heart.