Joshua 22
4-25 We built that altar because we were worried. Someday your descendants might tell our descendants, “The Lord made the Jordan River the boundary between us Israelites and you people of Reuben and Gad. The Lord is Israel’s God, but you’re not part of Israel, so you can’t take part in worshiping the Lord.”
Your descendants might say that and try to make our descendants stop worshiping and obeying the Lord. 26 That’s why we decided to build the altar. It isn’t for offering sacrifices, not even sacrifices to please the Lord.[g] 27-29 To build another altar for offering sacrifices would be the same as turning our backs on the Lord and rebelling against him. We could never do that! No, we built the altar to remind us and you and the generations to come that we will worship the Lord. And so we will keep bringing our sacrifices to the Lord’s altar, there in front of his sacred tent. Now your descendants will never be able to say to our descendants, “You can’t worship the Lord.”
But if they do say this, our descendants can answer back, “Look at this altar our ancestors built! It’s like the Lord’s altar, but it isn’t for offering sacrifices. It’s here to remind us and you that we belong to the Lord, just as much as you do.”
Jeremiah 36
36 During the fourth year that Jehoiakim[a] son of Josiah[b] was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, 2 since the time Josiah was king, I have been speaking to you about Israel, Judah, and the other nations. Now, get a scroll[c] and write down everything I have told you, 3 then read it to the people of Judah. Maybe they will stop sinning when they hear what terrible things I plan for them. And if they turn to me, I will forgive them.”
God and Humanity Should Live Together
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
January 11, 1959
Prayer
Father, please enable us to understand the grieving heart of Jesus, who had to speak to the beloved disciples about the imminent end of his own earthly life and his departure to the Father’s land. In a temporal sense, we are separated from Jesus by 2,000 years; yet time can be transcended in the world of Shim Jung. Hence, please arouse the fire of direct experience where we can envision Jesus with a disheartened countenance and saddened heart as he earnestly admonished his disciples. This is a scene for which we humans cannot help yearning.
Who on earth understood the heart of Jesus? Since there was no one who experienced heavenly sorrow in seeing his careworn figure, a sorrow which struck to the depth of the heart, we know that Heaven could not help lamenting over those people. Please enable us to sympathize in our hearts with the sorrow of Jesus. Without even one disciple who understood the heavenly Shim Jung and who called out “Lord!” He had to live under constant suspicion and thus ended his woe-filled life. Continue reading “Understand the Heart of Jesus”