Category: Old Testament

Why God Created All Things

Matthew 12

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.”[e]

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.”

Psalm 132

David is your chosen one,
    so don’t reject him.
11 You made a solemn promise
    to David, when you said,
    “I, the Lord, promise
that someone in your family
    will always be king.
12 If they keep our agreement
    and follow my teachings,
    then someone in your family
    will rule forever.”

Let Us Halt in Our Steps and Behold the One Who Is Protecting Us

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 8, 1959

Psalm 121

The earth in which we live is constantly rotating around the sun, according to the principles of the universe. Not only the earth, but the sun itself is rotating. The sun, which is 1.3 million times more massive than the earth, is in constant motion. In the universe, there are vast galaxies that are many billion times more massive than the sun. We call these galaxies “miniature universes.” In the universe, there are countless such galaxies. We call all of these together the “great universe.” We must open our hearts wide and look at the huge universe. God, who created this enormous universe, has been acting according to the unchanging principles of the universe for many billions of years. God has been moving this entire universe with powers which are beyond our imagination and sensations.

The more we think about God, the Creator of this universe, the more we bow our heads before His magnitude. The Creator of this gigantic universe is the Father who cares for us, the God who protects us, our great Hero. We must comprehend this by opening our minds wide.

After creating this great universe, God looked upon all things of the universe with great delight. If God could talk, how much He would have said! If He could boast, how much He would have boasted! Continue reading “Why God Created All Things”

Let Us Feel Father’s Heart as Our Own

1 Corinthians 2

16 The Scriptures ask,

“Has anyone ever known
the thoughts of the Lord
    or given him advice?”

But we understand what Christ is thinking.

Lamentations 2

Jerusalem Speaks:

20 Think about it, Lord!
Have you ever been this cruel
    to anyone before?
Is it right for mothers
    to eat their children,
or for priests and prophets
    to be killed in your temple?
21 My people, both young and old,
    lie dead in the streets.
Because you were angry,
my young men and women
    were brutally slaughtered.
22 When you were angry, Lord,
you invited my enemies
    like guests for a party.
No one survived that day;
enemies killed my children,
    my own little ones.

Let Us Halt in Our Steps and Behold the One Who Is Protecting Us

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 8, 1959

Psalm 121

Prayer

Father, we are like orphans who do not know where we should go or in what circumstances we live, but who blindly follow the flow of history without securing the center of life. We have been pushed back and have survived with a pitiful existence until today.

We did not know that the Father was there, holding us and weeping when we were sad. We did not know that our Master has worked day and night to find us, we who were shackled to the realm of death. Please let us understand that it is more precious to come to know and experience these truths than to win both heaven and earth.

Let us understand that we have a Father who has labored for us and has been deeply concerned about our lives. Let us then serve the Father with all our minds and bodies with a sense of great awe. Let us understand the heart of the Father who took wounding blows in our place, who held us and embraced us when we fell down due to exhaustion, and who comforted us and showed us our path. Please allow us to reflect deeply upon our hypocritical lives in which we have not lived up to our words. Please allow us to become one with the heart of the Father and to become the sons and daughters who can fathom the situation of the Father. Please allow us to become inseparably united with the Father and to mourn over Heaven’s sorrow as our own and to rejoice in Heaven’s joy as our own. Please allow us to consider Heaven’s affairs our affairs and see Heaven’s responsibilities as our responsibilities. Father, please allow us to concretely feel that we must shoulder the responsibility to fight the myriad satans with an unchanging heart and become a sacrifice to save humanity. Continue reading “Let Us Feel Father’s Heart as Our Own”

The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth Will be God’s Nation

Leviticus 23

Beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month,[m] and continuing for seven days, everyone must celebrate the Festival of Shelters in honor of me. 35 No one is to do any work on the first day of the festival—it is a time when everyone must come together for worship. 36 For seven days, sacrifices must be offered on the altar. The eighth day is also to be a day of complete rest, as well as a time of offering sacrifices on the altar and of coming together for worship.

Richard: “Worship” and “altar” are the words that jump out at me.  The modern day altar is the Blessed union of husband and wife in absolutely good sex.  Visonroot Ministries will be offering STAR Leadership training to empower youth and young adults to lead the way in sexual abstinence and successful family formation: https://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/star-interfaith-leadership-training.

Ezekiel 32

32 Twelve years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, the Lord spoke to me on the first day of the twelfth month.[a] He said:

2 Ezekiel, son of man, condemn the king of Egypt and tell him I am saying:

You act like a lion
    roaming the earth;
but you are nothing more than
    a crocodile in a river,
churning up muddy water
    with your feet.

3 King of Egypt, listen to me. I, the Lord God, will catch you in my net and let a crowd of foreigners drag you to shore. 4 I will throw you into an open field, where birds and animals will come to feed on your body.

Let Us Love Heaven and Become Patriots

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 1, 1959

Matthew 5: 33-48

If we can find an ideal nation on the earth, which nation would that be? We will call that nation “the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.” Only when that nation is realized can we realize the will of God’s blessing to Adam and Eve, “Govern all things when you have grown to perfection.” Only then can human beings emerge as the true masters of this earth. Only then can humanity become true brothers and sisters to each other and the true sons and daughters of God. Before God, we must become true sons and daughters of filial piety and loyal subjects. We must stand before the world as the true masters. When we accomplish this, God will pass to us all our rightful powers, not just external powers, but also the internal center of the heart. We will become sons and daughters in whom God can entrust everything and be at peace.

Such sons and daughters are greater than any patriot, woman of chastity, or son or daughter of filial piety. The day must come when we can be proud of these people before the world. Continue reading “The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth Will be God’s Nation”

Jesus Returns in the Same Manner He Left

Numbers 32:1

32 The tribes of Reuben and Gad owned a lot of cattle and sheep, and they saw that the regions of Jazer and Gilead had good pastureland. 2 So they went to Moses, Eleazar, and the other leaders of Israel and said, 3-4 “The Lord has helped us capture the land around the towns of Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon. That’s good pastureland, and since we own cattle and sheep, 5 would you let us stay here east of the Jordan River and have this land as our own?”

Isaiah 31

The Egyptians are mere humans.
    They aren’t God.
Their horses are made of flesh;
    they can’t live forever.
When the Lord shows his power,
he will destroy the Egyptians
    and all who depend on them.
Together they will fall.

Let Us Love Heaven and Become Patriots

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 1, 1959

Matthew 5: 33-48

The time when we find our own world, our own people, our own tribe and our own nation and serve our Lord are the last days for which Heaven is hoping. This is the last days determined by Jesus, when he came to the earth for the sake of God’s will, the day of hope we should seek. It is the day for which Heaven, Jesus and all of us are hoping. Everything will be resolved on that day.

It is the Principle that the Lord of the Second Advent will return in the same way he left. When you lose something, you must look for it where you lost it. If something is broken, you must fix it in the pattern opposite to the way it was broken. Because this is an iron- clad rule which is bound by the principles governing human affairs, the Lord of the Second Advent will return in the same way he left. You have to understand that things are recovered in the same way they were lost.

Today is the time when all that was granted to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden will be recovered. All the people who live in this land today are descendants of fallen Adam and Eve. You are the descendants of fallen parents. You are not descendants of True Parents. Hence, you must become the descendants of True Parents again. What I mean is that you must receive the blessing of True Parents inside the realm of God’s love, where you can relate with God and True Parents directly. You must then form a couple and enter the lineage of the True Parents. Yet, until today, humanity has never properly governed the earth as children of the True Parents. They could not become the sons and daughters of the True Parents. Isn’t this true? Continue reading “Jesus Returns in the Same Manner He Left”

The Course of Religious Martyrs and Patriots

Ezekiel 47

13-14 The Lord God said to the people of Israel:

When the land is divided among the twelve tribes of Israel, the Joseph tribe[a] will receive two shares. Divide the land equally, because I promised your ancestors that this land would someday belong to their descendants. These are the borders of the land:

Psalm 48

Our God, here in your temple
    we think about your love.
10 You are famous and praised
    everywhere on earth,
    as you win victories
    with your powerful arm.
11 Mount Zion will celebrate,
and all Judah will be glad,
    because you bring justice.

Let Us Love Heaven and Become Patriots

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
March 1, 1959

Matthew 5: 33-48

The patriots fought against all conditions of oppression because they loved their nation and land. They had hope for the one victorious day and had an unshakable belief that such a day would surely come. This is how they were able to not submit to the oppression, and carry on their struggle. We should understand this.

These principles hold true in winning a nation. To establish a heavenly ideology, we must have a stronger sense of unchanging camaraderie. Hoping for the holy land, we must act on behalf of Heaven. Although there have been many religious people who upheld God’s providence in step with the flow of history, among them all, Christians were offered as miserable sacrifices in fierce battles with Satan. We should understand this.

Even when we look at the 4,000 years of Old Testament history and the 2,000 years of Christian history since Jesus, we find that numerous people have followed the teachings of Heaven, while other people have not even dreamed of such an ideology. As they pursued Heaven’s ideals, many people were sacrificed.

In history, many people were sacrificed to establish Heaven’s ideology. Where will these two groups of people come together, those who have been sacrificed for the sake of God’s will and those who have been sacrificing themselves in the fight for their nations? This is the very question of this age which raises our curiosity. People say that a world government will emerge in the future. History is flowing toward one government and the world of one ideology. These two are approaching each other today. What must we do when these two do not seem to be coming together in a harmonious way? Continue reading “The Course of Religious Martyrs and Patriots”