Category: Old Testament

Do Not Expect to be Complimented

Leviticus 23

37 I have chosen these festivals as times when my people must come together for worship and when animals, grain, and wine are to be offered on the proper days. 38 These festivals must be celebrated in addition to the Sabbaths and the times when you offer special gifts or sacrifices to keep a promise or as a voluntary offering.

Matthew 13

36 After Jesus left the crowd and went inside,[c] his disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the story about the weeds in the wheat field.”

37 Jesus answered:

The one who scattered the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seeds are the people who belong to the kingdom. The weed seeds are those who belong to the evil one, 39 and the one who scattered them is the devil. The harvest is the end of time, and angels are the ones who bring in the harvest.

40 Weeds are gathered and burned. That’s how it will be at the end of time. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everyone who does wrong or causes others to sin. 42 Then he will throw them into a flaming furnace, where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. 43 But everyone who has done right will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. If you have ears, pay attention!

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

Before he shouldered the cross, Jesus said that he would return. Because of this, the disciples were able to overcome difficulties and become his companions, willing to die with him and suffer through hardships with him. For this reason, centering on the twelve apostles, the seventy and 120 followers were able to stand before Jesus and cross over the wall of death.

Although Christianity received all kinds of persecution under the oppression of Rome, because they prevailed, they conquered Rome. Christianity has served as an unconditional sacrifice for the world; this is the reason that it could arrive at a stage where it could literally dominate the world. Hence, now is the time that all Christians of the world can erect the heavenly sovereignty in Satan’s world. We have to understand that Christians all over the world must unite their forces and, representing the embodiment, be prepared to march forward and die together. After the era of the word has passed and the era of practice has passed, the one day of meeting will take place. Only after the one day of meeting can we live the life of Heaven. Upon meeting we have to enter the state where we can say that someone else’s personal situation is my situation; his difficulties are my difficulties; his wounds are my wounds. Then we can attain the level where we can say that his mind is my mind and his heart is my heart. Only after these things have been accomplished can the heavenly family be realized. Only after we bring these together centering on Jesus on the earth will the heavenly family be realized.

Countless people claim that God is in the position of the parent and that they are in the position of children. However, this is in name only. It is like being adopted children. You should meet Jesus through words and deeds. Even if you do not meet him in your prayers, you should meet him in the mountains. If you do not meet him there, you should be willing to seek even death. If you do not find him in the mountains or in your prayers, you will find him in your death, so that is where you must search for him. Jesus also passed through this process. He passed through the course of secret chambers, through the period of praying in the wilderness. He was willing to search for his children even in the hills of death. We have to search with the same determination. You have to understand this through reading the Bible.

Then what will you do the day you meet him? What should we do first for him? The moment that sinful people meet the Lord and the True Parents, they must call out for the Father and the Lord and comfort him: “I have fought like this and like that, and I have brought this and that gift. How much have you suffered during the long six thousand years to find me?” You should comfort him. You think that when the Lord comes to the earth, the Kingdom of Heaven will be accomplished centering on us and the world will operate exactly the way you want it to. That will never be. You have to disappear. You have to abandon all your wishes, all your expectations and all your hopes. From the moment you meet him, since you do not know what may be on his mind, you should be able to do as he commands.

Then what we have to do is comfort him with the most sincere heart: “How much have you suffered? It was so difficult for me to find this path; how much have you suffered to pass through the long six- thousand-year course of history and find your children?” You should say, “How is your heart? How is your heart after having passed through the long six thousand years? We understand that heart. We understand that heart.”

Do not expect to be complimented. When you are searching, you should go about it silently. Right after the resurrection, Mary Magdalene was silent when she came before Jesus. But when Mary tried to hold onto Jesus, he blocked her. Why? It is because human beings have to cleanse themselves of something. What would that be? It is the dirty remnants of history. Human beings have to cleanse themselves of that first. We have to beg for forgiveness for our sins, saying, “This is how Adam’s family was; this is how Noah’s family was; this is how the families of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were, and this is how the prophets and saints since Moses have been. Jesus died this way. These are all sins that I committed, so please forgive me.”

There Was Nothing More Sorrowful than the Death of Jesus

1 Corinthians 16

13 Keep alert. Be firm in your faith. Stay brave and strong. 14 Show love in everything you do.

Isaiah 48

Your nation would be blessed
    with more people
than there are grains of sand
    along the seashore.
And I would never have let
    your country be destroyed.

20 Now leave Babylon!
    Celebrate as you go.
Be happy and shout
    for everyone to hear,
“The Lord has rescued
    his servant Israel!
21 He led us through the desert
and made water flow from a rock
    to satisfy our thirst.
22 But the Lord has promised
that none who are evil
    will live in peace.”

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

Where and how does a meeting take place? It does not take place due to sweet words or good deeds alone. It comes about when there is an intense longing. How will the Lord look? What will his hands, eyes and nose be like? In the end what will determine whether or not you can meet him is the desire you have to touch and see him. This has nothing to do with the Jesus who spoke the words. It has nothing to do with God. When you meet, salvation is not attained by calling out the words of Jesus. You have to long for the substantial Jesus.

We cannot see Jesus no matter how intensely we desire to. Why doesn’t the Jesus who promised to come again come? Jesus told his disciples that he would come back soon. Why doesn’t he come? Why is this so? What is the reason that he cannot come when so many disciples and followers desperately want to see him and meet him? When there is someone who longs for him so badly that he is oblivious to the passage of time, he will certainly be able to meet him. There is a way this will happen.

We are orphans. God sees us as orphans. No matter how great the external family environment may be for someone on earth, in God’s eyes, he is still only an orphan. We have lost our true parents, our true brothers and sisters, our true spouses, and our true children. We are like orphans. Since this is how we are, how can we be at peace? Our hearts are pushing us. What are they pushing us to do? They are asking us to look for our original parents, brothers and sisters, brides and children. However, no matter how many times we circle around the earth in search of them we may not find them. Since we cannot find these even among the words of truth, where can we find them?

The beginning point of resolution is to put oil on our foreheads, enter the secret chamber and be overwhelmed with the desire to see the Father. If there is a way for the Father and the Lord to seek us, you should be ready to brave any path of death or any difficult mountain path, determined to move forward. Jesus went the path of Gethsemane and Golgotha while looking for such sons and daughters. Since he was not successful in his search, he went the path of death. We who long for the one day when we can meet our original parents, long for the day when we can cling to him and call him Father and Lord, how many hours have we shed tears?

Now the time has come when Christians all over the world must solve this problem. We have to yearn to see him more intensely than we yearn to see our own sons and daughters or anything else in the world. We must want to touch his clothes and hands, since he is our Father. We should be able to give all of our minds and bodies upon meeting him and share everything of our past upon entering his bosom, and receive consolation for all our difficulties and labors. We must understand that this is our highest hope.

We should long for the person more than we long for the words or his deeds. After we long for the person, we should long for his mind.

In the past some Jews were able to cling to Jesus. However, has there been even one person who related to him as if Jesus were his own parent whom he longed for, as if Jesus was the parent that he had lost and had been yearning to meet again? When God sent his only son to the earth as the Father of all people and the King of Kings, would He have sent him to be mistreated? God wanted people to honor him as the central person of history, the father of all people, someone everyone longed for and wanted to meet many times over. However, no one of his time treated him like that. This was the sorrow of Heaven and made Heaven most indignant. Although he came to give his blood and flesh for his children, his children pointed knives and weapons at him. How could it be a happy memory for Heaven? If Heaven ever had a cause for deep sorrow, there was nothing more sorrowful than the death of Jesus.

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.



The Emergence of Family Members God Wants is the Day of the Second Advent

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

Psalm 69

I will praise the Lord God
    with a song
    and a thankful heart.
31 This will please the Lord
better than offering an ox
    or a full-grown bull.
32 When those in need see this,
    they will be happy,
    and the Lord’s worshipers
    will be encouraged.
33 The Lord will listen
    when the homeless cry out,
    and he will never forget
    his people in prison.

34 Heaven and earth
    will praise our God,
    and so will the oceans
    and everything in them.
35 God will rescue Jerusalem,
    and he will rebuild
    the towns of Judah.
His people will live there
    on their own land,
36 and when the time comes,
    their children will inherit
    the land.
Then everyone who loves God
    will also settle there.

Nehemiah 1

5 Lord God of heaven, you are great and fearsome. And you faithfully keep your promises to everyone who loves you and obeys your commands. 6 I am your servant, so please have mercy on me and answer the prayer that I make day and night for these people of Israel who serve you. I, my family, and the rest of your people have sinned 7 by choosing to disobey you and the laws and teachings you gave to your servant Moses.

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

You who are living in a world full of grief, this time of sorrow and bitterness is fading away. Your minds are seeking something new. Let’s turn your path around, turn your mind around, and turn your emotions around and think about what longs to build a relationship with us and what is blocking our path. Religion helps us connect directly with the one standard of faith, the one standard in which we can pour out all our hearts. Religion connects this standard to our life. If this relationship is not forged, then God must not exist.

Our minds are calling us to escape from this painful world of reality and head toward the ideal. Every leader will have to wrestle with this reality. However, no one understands this heart which seeks and longs for the ideal. We have to follow the commands of this mind. Many holy men of the past submitted to this mind. The same will hold true for everyone in the future. We should respond to this mind; no one can alter this underlying truth. If we do recognize that our fate is to not protest but to respond to this heart, then we should understand clearly that the world we are living in is not the ideal world and that we cannot connect with the ideal world we dream of and long for. Why is that so? It is because of the Fall.

This is why we need feelings, hopes and relationships. Since such an era is nearing, fear will increase in our minds. If we think about these things, we cannot have faith in this world, and we cannot rest peacefully. It is a world in which we cannot take another step forward on our path. You have been on this course for several decades. We cannot deny that there is Heaven, which instills something new into people and drives them toward a new history. Observing the function of our consciences, we cannot deny Heaven and heavenly principles.

When God created this world, He must have had a purpose and an ideal. What must that purpose and ideal have been? It must be a good person. It must be a good person whose heart is fully in harmony with God. It must be a free man. It must be someone who can rejoice with God and live with God in the garden of freedom. However, even though we have lived through several thousand years of history until now, there has never been even one person who has built a family relationship with God or a family where he or she could dwell with God.

What is God’s purpose of creation? It is to create an ideal family where God can live together with human beings. Although human beings fell, in their hearts they long for the day when God can live as the father of the family or humanity, and people can live as members of that family. If we can serve God as our eternal father and become members of that family and live eternally with God who is the hope itself, who is the ideal itself, life itself, and joy itself, the purpose we all wish for will be realized.

If God created human beings just to enjoy watching them, we do not need that kind of God. What is the reason God has poured out all of His heart and has been conducting the providence concerning human beings for six thousand long years? It is to build the relationship of a heavenly family and of a parent and child. For this reason we have to understand that God is running as fast as He can on this path, overcoming enormous hurdles and all difficulties. The day we emerge as the family members God wants and manifest the authority and value of that family is the day of resurrection and the day of the Second Advent Christianity talks about.

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.