Category: Old Testament

Make Plans for the Spring Season

1 Kings 20

22 Later, the prophet[e] went back and warned Ahab, “Benhadad will attack you again next spring. Build up your troops and make sure you have some good plans.”

Isaiah 30

This is a message
about the animals
    of the Southern Desert:
You people carry treasures
    on donkeys and camels.
You travel to a feeble nation
through a troublesome desert
    filled with lions
    and flying fiery dragons.
7 Egypt can’t help you!
That’s why I call that nation
    a helpless monster.”

The Path of Life We Must Go, Entertaining Hope

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 22, 1959

Romans 8: 18-21

Prayer

Please bless this day to be a holy day. Please sanctify this hour. Please credit these people as a holy throng. Please allow this audience to have only sincere minds that cannot forget the Father’s heart.

Please govern this hour, and do not let it be one in which we feel what we please. Allow our hearts to be transformed into resembling the Father’s heart. Let the sincere heart that desires to relate to the Father’s sacred image overflow within us. Please eradicate all opinions, assertions and notions that have been the backbone of our self-centered thinking until now. Allow only that which can make a connection with the Father seep out of the depths of our hearts. Father, I sincerely wish and desire that You allow us to be anxious only to adore the ideal and purpose You desire, to care for the Father’s will.

There have been numerous people who have come and gone before now for the sake of Your will. We realize that it is Your great grace to have called us and to let us gather here. We are quite beneath notice. We know that You gathered us because You want to give us commands. Father! We sincerely wish and desire that You will please bestow Your words of life and grace upon each of our spirits. Continue reading “Make Plans for the Spring Season”

The Only Fight That Will Be Left Will Be That of the Mind

Acts 17

17 After Paul and his friends had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they went on to Thessalonica. A Jewish meeting place was in that city. 2 So as usual, Paul went there to worship, and on three Sabbaths he spoke to the people. He used the Scriptures 3 to show them that the Messiah had to suffer, but that he would rise from death. Paul also told them that Jesus is the Messiah he was preaching about. 4 Some of them believed what Paul had said, and they became followers with Paul and Silas. Some Gentiles[a] and many important women also believed the message.

Malachi 3

3 I, the Lord All-Powerful,
will send my messenger
    to prepare the way for me.
Then suddenly the Lord
you are looking for
    will appear in his temple.
The messenger you desire
is coming with my promise,
    and he is on his way.

The Heart of Heaven in Relation to Elijah

Sun Myung Moon
March 15, 1959

1 Kings 19: 1-21

Doctrines and thoughts incite you every moment today. This is an odd moment. Fear from the happenings in history drives you. Who would be the one to win in the fight against fear and sing the song of victory on a personal level? There is no one.

Which direction will history take? Where will the cry for new hope and new liberation come from at this time, when death is surging over us? No cry is yet heard. This is the problem.

Now something totally new must come out, something unimagined. You have never imagined or dreamed of that something.

People are going through the age of religious battle now. In the near future, all fights, the fights between peoples, the fights between nations, the fights in the world, the fights between “isms,” and religious fights, will come to an end. The only fight that will be left will be that of the mind. No matter what sweeps over your mind, you must be able to overcome it. We are in such a time. Continue reading “The Only Fight That Will Be Left Will Be That of the Mind”

Where is the Center of Your Life?

Romans 3

1 Now we see how God does make us acceptable to him. The Law and the Prophets[b] tell how we become acceptable, and it isn’t by obeying the Law of Moses. 22 God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. 23 All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. 

Job 19

26 My flesh may be destroyed,
yet from this body
    I will see God.[b]
27 Yes, I will see him for myself,
    and I long for that moment.

The Heart of Heaven in Relation to Elijah

Sun Myung Moon
March 15, 1959

1 Kings 19: 1-21

If we view the phenomena taking place in this world today, they are equivalent to what took place in the period of Ahab, King of Israel in the old days. What is idolatry? It is to abandon Heaven and worship something else; to hold it in equal or higher reverence than we hold God. We must know that numerous people today are worshipping the idol called “civilization” without being aware of it.

At a time like this, if there is one who has the same heart as Elijah as he watched King Ahab, that is, one who feels the sorrowful heart of Heaven on top of his own, and if there is a throng of people who pray, “Please set us up as Your beloved sons and daughters who can bring this land to Your bosom,” comforting Heaven with the heart of Elijah, they would have to look at this age with more indignation than Elijah had. If such a set of people does not exist, we ourselves must become them. We must become the people who build an altar without others’ knowledge and shed tears all unknown, knowing that even if we are of humble birth, our ancestors established the teachings of the heavenly principles by upholding the will of Heaven. We must understand that the work of God, who tries to unfold the dispensation by setting up the providential tradition, is yet to be completed. We must not think we are inadequate, even though we are. Unless such a set of people comes forth and fights upon this earth, the eschatological phenomena of this world cannot be stopped.

Though King Ahab betrayed Heaven and mistreated the Israelites, that happened on a national level. Today, people idolize material things as slaves of civilization, and do not know the location of their center of life. They do not know the direction and location to walk toward, and they make frantic efforts without seeking Heaven. This is similar to the people enslaved by King Ahab in ancient times. Continue reading “Where is the Center of Your Life?”

Mary’s Heart was not to Strike and destroy the Enemy

1 Thessalonians 5

9 God doesn’t intend to punish us, but wants us to be saved by our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 Christ died for us, so that we could live with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes. 11 That’s why you must encourage and help each other, just as you are already doing.

Jeremiah 39

39 1-3 In the tenth month[a] of the ninth year that Zedekiah[b] was king of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar[c] and the Babylonian army began their attack on Jerusalem. They kept the city surrounded for a year and a half. Then, on the ninth day of the fourth month[d] of the eleventh year that Zedekiah was king, they broke through the city walls.

Click below to listen to or download a recording of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s speech “God’s Ideal Family Is the Model for World Peace”, the inaugural message of the Universal Peace Federation on September 23, 2005 at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington DC. Rev. Moon speaks extensively about the Peace Kingdom Corps.:
http://visionroot.org/assets/SMM%20UPF%2009-23-05-combined.mp3

The Heart of Heaven in Relation to Elijah

Sun Myung Moon
March 15, 1959

1 Kings 19: 1-21

Such was also the case with our ancestor, Noah. Noah proceeded to put the word of God into practice. God said, “Since I am surely going to judge the whole world with water 120 years from now, make yourself an ark.” There might have been many occasions when he could have doubted Heaven during the course of the internal fight. He must have felt his feebleness keenly many times. What permeated his mind was that the day was coming near when all the people of the earth would receive the judgment of being washed away in flood waters.

Let us look at Mary. She was a chaste maiden, a faithful Israelite woman who felt a deeper concern in her heart than anyone about the Israelites. She waited for the Messiah to come with a more eager heart than anyone among the Israelites, wondering when the Messiah, the leader whom Heaven had promised for several thousand years, would come.

Mary knew the heart of Heaven in sending the Messiah. The people of that time did not know the heart of Mary, who represented the Israelites. They were supposed to usher in the Messiah in this manner, but Heaven knew it was Mary alone who had such a heartistic standard. Continue reading “Mary’s Heart was not to Strike and destroy the Enemy”

God Called Elijah, the Peasant

2 Samuel 20

20 Joab answered, “No, no! I’m not trying to wipe you out or destroy your town! 21 That’s not it at all. There’s a man in your town from the hill country of Ephraim. His name is Sheba, and he is the leader of a rebellion against King David. Turn him over to me, and we will leave your town alone.”

The woman told Joab, “We will throw his head over the wall.”

22 She went to the people of the town and talked them into doing it. They cut off Sheba’s head and threw it to Joab.

Joab blew a signal on his trumpet, and the soldiers returned to their homes. Joab went back to David in Jerusalem.

Richard:  No one appreciates a troublemaker.  Sometimes, though, according to God’s Will, it is good to make trouble, as in opposing something that is wrong.

Job 22

23 If you return to God
and turn from sin,
    all will go well for you.

Click below to listen to or download a recording of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s speech “God’s Ideal Family Is the Model for World Peace”, the inaugural message of the Universal Peace Federation on September 23, 2005 at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington DC. Rev. Moon speaks extensively about the Peace Kingdom Corps.:
http://visionroot.org/assets/SMM%20UPF%2009-23-05-combined.mp3

The Heart of Heaven in Relation to Elijah

Sun Myung Moon
March 15, 1959

1 Kings 19: 1-21

Looking at the pitiable situation, God sought out and set up a person called Elijah from the peasants living in Gilead. At that time, there was a king of Israel as well as the ten tribal chiefs. However, God put them all aside and elected Elijah, who was a mere peasant in Gilead. You must know how sorrowful a fact like this is.

The king of Israel should have stood guard over the holy temple of Heaven while ruling the nation. However, he forgot that responsibility. He rejected and reproached Heaven and trampled upon the people. Furthermore, he built an altar for Baal, the enemy of Heaven, and made Asherah poles. He put them up in front of the people and worshipped them. We must think about how Heaven could have hated King Ahab for doing such things. Because God could not control the anger and sorrow in His heart at seeing the chosen people being trampled by Satan, God chose one person. That chosen person was not the king of the nation, not royalty, not a tribal chief, but a commoner, Elijah. Heavenly Father was in the situation where He could not find the person He had to find, He could not have the person He had to have, He could not lead the people He had to lead. He went around looking for them, meeting the king, the tribal chiefs and numerous people without success. Therefore, He sought out and set up one person who knew and felt concern about the national grief and heavenly sorrow of that period, a person who prayed and cried out to Heaven. That person was Elijah. Continue reading “God Called Elijah, the Peasant”