Category: Old Testament

We Should Discover God and Experience His Tears

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Luke 23

6 When Pilate heard this, he asked, “Is this man from Galilee?” 7 After Pilate learned that Jesus came from the region ruled by Herod,[a] he sent him to Herod, who was in Jerusalem at that time.

8 For a long time Herod had wanted to see Jesus and was very happy because he finally had this chance. He had heard many things about Jesus and hoped to see him work a miracle.

9 Herod asked him a lot of questions, but Jesus did not answer. 10 Then the chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses stood up and accused him of all kinds of bad things.

11 Herod and his soldiers made fun of Jesus and insulted him. They put a fine robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. 12 That same day Herod and Pilate became friends, even though they had been enemies before this.

Richard: This is not unlike what is happening to President Trump. Formerly Democrats and Republicans, like Mitch McConnell were enemies, but now they have teamed up to demonize President Trump. You have to ask; why? You also have to see who is more on God’s side, the demonizers or President Trump.

Ezekiel 16

The Lord said:

35 Jerusalem, you prostitute, listen to me. 36 You chased after lovers, then took off your clothes and had sex. You even worshiped disgusting idols and sacrificed your own children as offerings to them. 37 So I, the Lord God, will gather every one of your lovers, those you liked and those you hated. They will stand around you, and I will rip off your clothes and let all of those lovers stare at your nakedness. 38 I will find you guilty of being an unfaithful wife and a murderer, and in my fierce anger I will sentence you to death! 39 Then I will hand you over to your lovers, who will tear down the places where you had sex. They will take your clothes and jewelry, leaving you naked and empty-handed.

40 Your lovers and an angry mob will stone you to death; they will cut your dead body into pieces 41 and burn down your houses. Other women will watch these terrible things happen to you. I promise to stop you from being a prostitute and paying your lovers for sex.

42 Only then will I calm down and stop being angry and jealous. 43 You made me furious by doing all these disgusting things and by forgetting how I took care of you when you were young. Then you made things worse by acting like a prostitute. You must be punished! I, the Lord God, have spoken.

Richard: Wow! This is the Word of God applying to today. Joe Biden and family chased after Chinese lovers; getting money and favors, and literally got in bed, too. However, God will not tolerate this. “Paying your lovers for sex” means giving favors to the Chinese. Again, these actions will be revealed and punished.

Suffering

3. The Path of Tears

Kisa Gotami had an only son, and he died. In her grief she carried the dead child to all her neighbors, asking them for medicine, and the people said, “She has lost her senses. The boy is dead.”
    At length Kisa Gotami met a man who replied to her request, “I cannot give you medicine for your child, but I know a physician who can. Go to Sakyamuni, the Buddha.”
    Kisa Gotami repaired to the Buddha and cried, “Lord and Master, give me the medicine that will cure my boy.”
    The Buddha answered, “I want a handful of mustard seed.” And when the girl in her joy promised to procure it, the Buddha added, “The mustard seed must be taken from a house where no one has lost a child, husband, parent, or friend.”
    Poor Kisa Gotami now went from house to house, and the people pitied her and said, “Here is the mustard seed, take it!” But when she asked, “Did a son or daughter, a father or mother, die in your family?” they answered her, “Alas! the living are few, but the dead are many. Do not remind us of our deepest grief.” And there was no house but some beloved one had died in it.
    Kisa Gotami became weary and hopeless, and sat down at the way-side, watching the lights of the city as they flickered up and were extinguished again. At last the darkness of  night reigned everywhere. And she considered the fate of men, that their lives flicker up and are extinguished. And she thought to herself, “How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all; yet in this valley of desolation there is a path that leads him to immortality who has surrendered all selfishness.”
    Putting away the selfishness of her affection for her child, Kisa Gotami had the dead body buried in the forest. Returning to the Buddha, she took refuge in him and found comfort in the Dharma.
    Buddhaghosa, Parable of the Mustard Seed (Buddhism)

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Adam and Eve and certainly God shed tears over their fall. Adam and Eve wept for themselves. God also shed tears, but for whom? The Father of mankind shed tears for His children, who faced expulsion from the Garden of Eden due to their violation of the heavenly law. God wept not for Himself, but for His children.
    Those tears themselves were tragic. Human history began in tears, and for God also, history began with tears. Human beings live in misery, but so does God. Humans truly deserved to shed tears for their sin, but God does not deserve to shed tears.
    The history of tears that began with the first human ancestors has expanded down through the generations to all mankind throughout the world. Human history is stained with repeated tears, of suffering and struggle and broken-heartedness. People hurt each other and suffer oppression by those above them. No one has been able to put a stop to the tears of history.
    People ordinarily grieve for their own misfortunes. Nevertheless, more than for ourselves, or for our family’s misfortunes, or our nation’s misfortunes, we should grieve for the world’s pain… Everyone has been grieving over his or her own misery, or at best over their family’s sorrows or their nation’s suffering, but what they should focus on is the sorrow of the world. For this, we have to change and reverse the purpose of tears. We still grieve but for a different purpose. We need a reorientation to the other kind of tears—the tears that God sheds when He weeps in sorrow over the situation of humankind. God’s eyes are always filled with tears, but His tears are for others, never for Himself.
    Where can we truly find happiness? First, we should find a way to overcome our own tears; then we should overcome the conditions over which God sheds tears. Then we can find happiness. Why? The history of tears for both God and humans began as a result of the Human Fall; therefore we should return to the time before the Fall when there were no tears…
    It is our destiny to go over these two hills of sorrowful tears—human tears and God’s tears. Those who are traveling the road of truth should climb these two hills of tears. We should shed tears over the misery of humanity and taste many situations of human suffering. While others may live in blissful ignorance, we should grieve over the problems of human life, from fundamental questions down to the prevailing conditions of society. Some young people in particular agonize about such things; those who do not have such experiences cannot live a true life.
    While we overcome our own sorrows, we should also seek ways to alleviate the suffering of the world. Nevertheless, grappling with the suffering and misery of human live is not sufficient to bring a lasting solution. We must go deeper and uproot the fundamental cause of tears. This means reversing the initial tragedy that caused God and human beings to shed tears. Yet no one could comprehend a method for doing this.
    The tears we shed for ourselves or for our nation, on the human level alone, cannot be helpful for reaching the ideal world. They are still within the realm of selfishness, being merely the continuation of the tears that fallen Adam and Eve shed for themselves. 
    What, then, should we do? We should discover another realm of tears, the tears of God’s sorrow. We should deeply experience their taste then surmount them. Otherwise we cannot establish the basis for human happiness. This means learning how to shed tears that transcend our own suffering. First we should discover God and experience His tears; then we should willingly walk the path to alleviate God’s suffering. (94:306-10, October 16, 1977)
 
 

Man Is Born to Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward

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2 Corinthians 7

13 And we were greatly encouraged.

Although we were encouraged, we felt even better when we saw how happy Titus was, because you had shown that he had nothing to worry about. 14 We had told him how much we thought of you, and you did not disappoint us. Just as we have always told you the truth, so everything we told him about you has also proved to be true. 15 Titus loves all of you very much, especially when he remembers how you obeyed him and how you trembled with fear when you welcomed him. 16 It makes me really glad to know that I can depend on you.

Ezekiel 21

18 The Lord said:

19 Ezekiel, son of man, mark two roads for the king of Babylonia to follow when he comes with his sword. The roads will begin at the same place, but be sure to put up a signpost where the two roads separate and go in different directions. 20 Clearly mark where the two roads lead. One goes to Rabbah, the capital of Ammon, and the other goes to Jerusalem, the fortified capital of Judah. 21 When the Babylonian king stands at that signpost, he will decide which way to go by shaking his arrows, by asking his idols, and by carefully looking at the liver of a sacrificed animal.22 His right hand will pull out the arrow marked “Jerusalem.” Then he will immediately give the signal to shout the battle cry, to build dirt ramps to the top of the city walls, to break down its walls and gates with large wooden poles, and to kill the people. 23 Everyone in Jerusalem had promised to be loyal to Babylonia, and so none of them will believe that this could happen to them. But Babylonia’s king will remind them of their sinful ways and warn them of their coming captivity.

Richard: When Israel did not honor God, and the people sold out to the Babylonian ruler and thought they were safe, they were judged anyway.

Suffering

The first of the Buddha’s four noble truths is that human existence is suffering (pali dukkha). suffering is the pervasive human condition, a sort of illness generated by the self through its false attachments. Buddhist texts—echoed in other scriptures—describe it by the metaphor of a universal fire engulfing the world. in Hinduism, the human lot is to go through an endless cycle of death and rebirth, conditioned by the results of past actions. Ecclesiastes is in many ways the most Buddhist of books in the bible in its theme of the vanity of human works. Few are those who ever fulfill all their desires, yet even those who do are not satisfied, ever wanting more. akin to this is the observation in Chinese texts that even when people begin with the best of intentions, their behavior usually degenerates and ends in acrimony, betrayal, or violence.in Christianity, the doctrine of original sin conveys a similar idea: by their fallen condition people are unable to fulfill their life’s purpose. Father Moon often laments about the interminable misery of the human condition and explains how the human Fall brought this about.

  1. Sorrow Is Everywhere

The Noble Truth of Suffering (Dukkha) is this: Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sick-ness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffer-ing; not to get what one wants is suffering—in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.
    Samyutta Nikaya 56.11 (Buddhism)

Affliction does not come from the dust,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground;
but man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward.
    Job 5.6-7

This world, become ablaze, by touch of sense afflicted,
utters its own lament. Whatever conceit one has,
therein is instability. Becoming other,
bound to becoming, yet in becoming it rejoices.
Delight therein is fear, and what it fears is Ill.
    Udana 32 (Buddhism)

Brothers, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning? Brothers, the eye is burning, visible forms are burning, visual consciousness is burning, visual impression is burning, also whatever sensation, pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant, arises on account of the visual impression, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion; I say it is burning with birth, aging, and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.
    The ear is burning, sounds are burning, auditory consciousness is burning… Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion; I say it is burning with birth, aging, and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with
griefs, with despairs.
The nose is burning, odors are burning…
The tongue is burning, flavors are burning…
The body is burning, tangible things are burning, tactile consciousness is burning…
The mind is burning, thoughts are burning…
Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion; I say it is burning with birth, aging, and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.
    Samyutta Nikaya 35.28: The Fire Sermon (Buddhism)

Farid, I thought I alone had sorrow;
Sorrow is spread all over the whole world.
From my roof-top I saw
Every home engulfed in sorrow’s flames.
    Adi Granth, Shalok, Farid, p. 1382 (Sikhism)

Jesus Prayed So Sincerely That His Sweat Fell to the Ground Like Drops of Blood

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Luke 22

43 Then an angel from heaven came to help him. 44 Jesus was in great pain and prayed so sincerely that his sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood.[g]

45 Jesus got up from praying and went over to his disciples. They were asleep and worn out from being so sad. 46 He said to them, “Why are you asleep? Wake up and pray that you won’t be tested.”

Obadiah 1

19 The people of Israel
who live in the Southern Desert
    will take the land of Edom.
Those who live in the hills
will capture Philistia,
    Ephraim, and Samaria.
And the tribe of Benjamin
    will conquer Gilead.

Idolatry and Materialism

Literally the worship of images, idolatry in the broader sense means allegiance to false values that substitute for God. in the Qur’an idols are regarded as evil spirits and Satan; those who worship them are therefore enemies to God. the bible views idols as human artifacts, not as representations of deity. hence idol worship is regarded as a form of materialism, and, conversely, any false reliance on human power or wealth is a form of idolatry. a more spiritual conception of idolatry is to identify it with egoism and human craving, since attachment to these false realities separates us from our true nature. the biblical story of the golden calf describes the worship of the idol as accompanied by orgiastic rites. in the twentieth century, the idols of nationalism, racism, and especially materialism have captivated millions, with horrible results. Father Moon explicitly calls materialism modern-day idolatry and regards it as one of Gods’ biggest “headaches.” his passages on this topic are a contemporary counterpoint to the classic texts.

Lo, Abraham said to his father Azar, “Do you take idols for gods? For I see you and your people are in manifest error.”
    Qur’an 6.74

Shun the abomination of idols, and shun the word that is false—being true in faith to Allah, and never assigning partners to Him: if anyone assigns partners to God, he is as if he had fallen from heaven and been snatched up by birds, or the wind had swooped down and thrown him to a distant land.
    Qur’an 22.30-31

Our God is in the heavens;
he does whatever he pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of men’s hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them are like them;so are all who trust in them.
    Psalm 115.3-8

For many… live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
    Philippians 3.18-19

“There shall be in you no strange god and you shall not worship a foreign god” [Psalm 81.10]. What is the “foreign god” within a man’s body? It is the evil impulse.
    Talmud, Shabbat 105b (Judaism)

Have you seen him who makes his desire his god, and God sends him astray purposely, and seals up his hearing and his heart, and sets on his sight a covering? Who, then, will lead him after God [has condemned him]? Will you not then heed?
    Qur’an 45.23

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Up, make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” And Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made a molten calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the lord.” And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
    Exodus 32.1-6

The god of this World Has Blinded the Minds of the Unbelievers


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1 Samuel 2

30 I am the Lord, the God of Israel. I promised to always let your family serve me as priests, but now I tell you that I cannot do this any longer! I honor anyone who honors me, but I put a curse on anyone who hates me. 31 The time will come when I will kill you and everyone else in your family. Not one of you will live to an old age.

Matthew 3

13 Jesus left Galilee and went to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. 14 But John kept objecting and said, “I ought to be baptized by you. Why have you come to me?”

15 Jesus answered, “For now this is how it should be, because we must do all that God wants us to do.” Then John agreed.

Ignorance and Atheism

3. Spiritual Blindness and Delusion

The unbelievers… are like the depths of
darkness
In a vast deep ocean,
Overwhelmed with billow,
Topped by billow,
Topped by dark clouds:
Depths of darkness,
One above another:
If a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly
see it!
For any to whom God gives not light,
There is no light!
    Qur’an 24.40

Blind is this world. Few are those who clearly see.
As birds escape from a net, few go to a blissful state.
    Dhammapada 174 (Buddhism)

This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns, and never stops. As long as the individual self thinks it is separate from the Lord, it revolves upon the wheel in bondage to the laws of birth, death, and rebirth…
    The Lord supports this universe, which is made up of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual soul, forgetful of the Lord, attaches itself to pleasure and thus is bound.
    Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.6-8 (Hinduism)

On a certain occasion the Exalted One was seated in the open air, on a night of inky darkness, and oil lamps were burning. Swarms of winged insects kept falling into these oil lamps and thereby met their end, came to destruction and utter ruin. Seeing this, the Exalted One saw the meaning in it and uttered this verse of uplift,
    They hasten up and past, but miss the real;
    a bondage ever new they cause to grow.
    Just as the flutterers fall into the lamp,
    so some are bent on what they see and hear.
        Udana 72 (Buddhism)

To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.
    Titus 1.15
 
The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.
    2 Corinthians 4.4 
 
Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking them-selves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind.
    Katha Upanishad 1.2.5 (Hinduism)
 
The soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance. Philosophy sees the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity.
    Plato, Phaedo (Hellenism)
 
 

Although They Knew God They Did Not Honor Him

Happy New Year!

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John 18

15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. That disciple knew the high priest, and he followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest’s house. 16 Peter stayed outside near the gate. But the other disciple came back out and spoke to the girl at the gate. She let Peter go in, 17 but asked him, “Aren’t you one of that man’s followers?”

“No, I am not!” Peter answered.

18 It was cold, and the servants and temple police had made a charcoal fire. They were warming themselves around it, when Peter went over and stood near the fire to warm himself.

Job 7

18 Why do you test us
    from sunrise to sunset?
19 Won’t you look away
just long enough
    for me to swallow?
20 Why do you watch us so closely?
    What’s it to you, if I sin?
Why am I your target
    and such a heavy burden?
21 Why do you refuse to forgive?
Soon you won’t find me,
    because I’ll be dead.

Ignorance and Atheism

Many religions regard ignorance as the cause of evil in human life. being ignorant of God and the purpose of life, people’s values become confused, and consequently they act wrongly. the apostle Paul taught that ignorance of God lay at the root of all forms of license and immorality. in Islam it is called “forgetting God,” causing people to deviate from the path and lose their souls. in Buddhism, this ignorance leads to grasping after self and begets delusion (moha). Many scriptures warn against the illusory goals and vanities that infect worldly life.
In their search for knowledge, people have embraced various philosophies, yet it is clear that none of them have illuminated the truth one hundred percent. oftentimes, valid insights are mixed with false views, leading to confusion and conflict over values, to skepticism and even atheism. this too is the result of humanity’s fundamental ignorance, whose source stems from the human Fall, according to Father Moon. as a prophet of the twentieth century who lived through the struggle with communism, he is particularly concerned about this contemporary form of ignorance.
The concluding passages describe humanity’s spiritual blindness. they describe ignorance as a veil that obscures the faculty of insight. the buddha used metaphors such as moths drawn to perish in a lamp to represent people’s attraction to the illusory vanities of this world. in Hinduism and Jainism, this blindness (avidya) is what binds people to the wheel of birth-and-death (samsara), binding them sense pleasures instead of seeking reality itself. Plato’s famous Myth of the cave speaks to this topic. Father Moon likewise describes a pervasive delusion, born of the human Fall, that leaves human beings blind to spiritual truth and totally unable to know God’s inner heart.

  1. Ignorance of God

Be not like those who forget God, and therefore He made them forget their own souls!
Qur’an 59.19

Although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their sense-less minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Romans 1.21-25

The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are all corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none that does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
upon the children of men,
to see if there are any that act wisely,
that seek after God.
They have all gone astray,
they are all alike corrupt;
there is none that does good,
no, not one.
Have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord ?
Psalm 14.1-4

Whoever wants to do some evil against another does not remember God.
Proverb (African Traditional Religions)

He who does not clearly understand Heaven will not be pure in virtue. He who has not mastered the Way will find himself without any accept-able path of approach. He who does not under-stand the Way is pitiable indeed!
Chuang Tzu 11 (Taoism)

No man lies to his neighbor until he has denied the Root. It happened once that Rabbi Reuben was in Tiberias on the Sabbath, and a philosopher asked him, “Who is the most hateful man in the world?” He replied, “The man who denies his Creator.” “How so?” asked the philosopher. Rabbi Reuben answered, “‘Honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, thou shalt not covet.’ No man denies the derivative [the Ten Commandments] until he has previously denied the Root [God], and no man sins unless he has denied Him who com-manded him not to commit that sin.”
Tosefta Shevuot 3.6 (Judaism)

The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth.

“There is no God,” they say, “no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?” Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.

Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, “Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer.”

Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings.

“I got this today,” they say; “tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity.”

This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell.
Bhagavad-Gita 16.7-16 (Hinduism)