Category: Old Testament

Realize the Hope of Jesus

Luke 27

27 This is what I say to all who will listen to me:

Love your enemies, and be good to everyone who hates you. 28 Ask God to bless anyone who curses you, and pray for everyone who is cruel to you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, don’t stop that person from slapping you on the other cheek. If someone wants to take your coat, don’t try to keep back your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who asks and don’t ask people to return what they have taken from you. 31 Treat others just as you want to be treated.

1 Samuel 7

The Israelites were afraid when they heard that the Philistines were coming. 8 “Don’t stop praying!” they told Samuel. “Ask the Lord our God to rescue us.”

Let Us Open Our Eyes Once More and Behold the Sky

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 15, 1959

Matthew 26: 36-46

Prayer

We must lift our gaze and look to Heaven. Although our eyes have become extremely dim, we must constantly look for something to appear. We must look at everything in history since the time of Adam.

These things have made it impossible for us to find the center of life and the standard of our thoughts. Please allow us to have the heart with which to overcome them and look to Heaven, the heart which can transcend human love and be embraced by Heaven’s love. Please let us recognize that we are struggling in bitter grudges held against the earth, Heaven and all things, and let us set out in search of our second selves, craving our second selves. Please allow us to have an anxious heart, which makes it unbearable for us to leave the matter unresolved.

We are the ones who must govern and protect the original garden which we lost. We are the ones who must make bonds of love with all things and offer them together to the Father. We are the ones who bear the responsibility to make the Father’s flowers of love blossom through the heart with which the Father created the universe. Continue reading “Realize the Hope of Jesus”

Repair the Nail Wounds in the Heart of Heaven

Genesis 25

25 Abraham married Keturah, 2 and they had six sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Later, Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan, and when Dedan grew up, he had three sons: Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4 Midian also had five sons: Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah.

5-6 While Abraham was still alive, he gave gifts to the sons of Hagar and Keturah. He also sent their sons to live in the east far from his son Isaac, and when Abraham died, he left everything to Isaac.

Richard:  You should give your inheritance to the most worthy child/children, not equally to all the children, especially if some have spurned God’s Will and do not honor it.

7 Jeremiah, your cousin Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will visit you. He must sell his field near the town of Anathoth, and because you are his nearest relative, you have the right and the responsibility to buy it and keep it in the family.

Richard:  This rhema (word) is also about the importance of lineage and inheritance.  The most important thing to pass on to our children is God’s Will, God’s Way and His lineage.

Let Us Open Our Eyes Once More and Behold the Sky

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 15, 1959

Matthew 26: 36-46

Our ancestors betrayed Jesus. He was our True Parent, our Lord, our bridegroom, the master of our ideology, the subject of our lives, and the incarnation of Heaven who represented the entire universe. Have you ever felt deep inside that you are the descendants of these ancestors and felt bitter about these historical personalities?

When the disciples could not raise their eyes and look at Heaven, Jesus turned his attention toward them many times during his prayer. Jesus felt so incredibly urgent and anxious as he warned them about trials. With this mind-set, Jesus called upon God. Feeling the heart of God and forgetting himself, he thought about his beloved disciples and looked at them many times. However, the three disciples were dozing off, totally unaware of Jesus’ heart. You have to understand that this situation not only indicated the state of the three disciples, it also exposed the internal situation of all humanity.

You are not aware of the brave, weeping voice crying out loud and clear from the garden of Gethsemane. This voice is telling you to lift your gaze and look again, yet you do not hear. It is shaking the body and striking the head to awaken sleeping humanity; yet, they do not know. There is no one on earth who understands the grievous heart of God as He works hard for the one blessed day when He can raise humanity as His sons and daughters. Continue reading “Repair the Nail Wounds in the Heart of Heaven”

Jesus Felt Blocked by a Wall of Sorrow

Exodus 7

10 Moses and Aaron went to the king and his officials and did exactly as the Lord had commanded—Aaron threw the stick down, and it turned into a snake. 11 Then the king called in the wise men and the magicians, who used their secret powers to do the same thing— 12 they threw down sticks that turned into snakes. But Aaron’s snake swallowed theirs. 13 The king behaved just as the Lord had said and stubbornly refused to listen.

Psalm 125

Everyone who trusts the Lord
    is like Mount Zion
    that cannot be shaken
    and will stand forever.
2 Just as Jerusalem is protected
    by mountains on every side,
the Lord protects his people
    by holding them in his arms
    now and forever.
3 He won’t let the wicked
rule his people
    or lead them to do wrong.
4 Let’s ask the Lord to be kind
to everyone
    who is good
    and completely obeys him.

Let Us Open Our Eyes Once More and Behold the Sky

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 15, 1959

Matthew 26: 36-46

Adam fell because he believed everything that someone told him from the side. If we accept conventional trends of thought, then we may also perish. Therefore, we must re-examine them before we receive them. If you stand in the position of a master who can analyze trends through the philosophy connected to your mind, life and emotions, which philosophy can rescue you? No school of thought can rescue you. Had such fundamental problems been solved, peace would have settled in the realm of heart within you, and there would have been joy in your living environment. You would have enjoyed freedom and equality. No matter how many doctrines are promoting their ideals, we know that there has been no doctrine which has liberated our hearts, emotions and ideologies.

When we hope for the one day when we look up and wake from sleep, when we do away with our present environment and look to Heaven, we will find our Lord there. Human beings have not understood this until now.

What kind of people pursued the will of God during the course of history? They are those who transcended their era and clung to Heaven, those who abandoned earth and yearned for Heaven. They were not tolerated by their era. Rejected by their era, they led a pitiful life. They were extremely miserable people. In this world, where other people have places to rely on and live comfortably, they had nowhere they could depend on, no friend with which to share their heart, no people of similar mind who could give their lives and fight for them. In this sad state, they all faded away. Continue reading “Jesus Felt Blocked by a Wall of Sorrow”

Adam and Eve could not grasp what kind of relationship they had with God

Exodus 1

11 The Egyptians put slave bosses in charge of the people of Israel and tried to wear them down with hard work. Those bosses forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses,[b] where the king[c] could store his supplies. 12 But even though the Israelites were mistreated, their families grew larger, and they took over more land. Because of this, the Egyptians hated them worse than before 13 and made them work so hard 14 that their lives were miserable. The Egyptians were cruel to the people of Israel and forced them to make bricks and to mix mortar and to work in the fields.

Micah 5

Jerusalem, enemy troops
    have surrounded you;[a]
they have struck Israel’s ruler
    in the face with a stick.

2 Bethlehem Ephrath,
you are one of the smallest towns
    in the nation of Judah.
But the Lord will choose
one of your people
    to rule the nation—
someone whose family
    goes back to ancient times.

Let Us Open Our Eyes Once More and Behold the Sky

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 15, 1959

Matthew 26: 36-46

The title of the sermon I would like to share with you is “Let Us Open Our Eyes Once More and Behold the Sky.” I will speak briefly upon this topic.

This land in which we live has not seen the new morning of the realization of God’s ideal of creation. It has slept under the power of Satan for a long time. This is how our history has been. This is how our minds have been, how all that we pursue and the hearts we seek have been. In other words, none can wake from the deep sleep in which they exist, within the realm of Satan. We understand this fact very well.

When God created Adam and Eve and blessed them, they were wide awake, and they were able to rejoice with God in the world of eternal ideology. God created Adam and Eve for this purpose. However, Adam and Eve could not grasp what kind of relationship they had with God and the ideology with which they should relate with all things. In this state of immaturity, when they were progressing toward perfection, they made the grave and sorrowful mistake of the fall. We all understand this. Continue reading “Adam and Eve could not grasp what kind of relationship they had with God”

How God has Worked to Save Humankind

Enjoy the latest Richard Urban Show:

Alex Jones Banned From YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Apple Itunes: Are You Next?

Romans 4

9 Are these blessings meant for circumcised people or for those who are not circumcised? Well, the Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him. 10 But when did this happen? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? Of course, it was before.

11 Abraham let himself be circumcised to show that he had been accepted because of his faith even before he was circumcised. This makes Abraham the father of all who are acceptable to God because of their faith, even though they are not circumcised. 12 This also makes Abraham the father of everyone who is circumcised and has faith in God, as Abraham did before he was circumcised.

Ecclesiastes 7

A good reputation
    at the time of death
is better than loving care
    at the time of birth.[a]
2 It’s better to go to a funeral
    than to attend a feast;
funerals remind us
    that we all must die.
3 Choose sorrow over laughter
because a sad face
    may hide a happy heart.

This reading was given at the 7/1 and 7/8 Jeol Holy Day Celebrations at the Unification Sanctuary on August 20, 2018.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
Feb 10, 1981

 

The title I will speak on today is “History of the Providence of Restoration through Indemnity.” People in general, people in the secular world will not know what this is about.

Today, we refer to God’s providence as the providence of salvation. It is easy to talk about how He conducts His providence of salvation, but until now no one knew this content. Only God knew it.

So why was it that only God knew? When human beings fell, they fell without knowing. They fell without knowledge and in ignorance. For this reason, God has been conducting His spiritual work throughout human history so that human beings could escape from the realm of ignorance. A person who is in ignorance, who is in the environment of ignorance cannot just leave by claiming to know everything. There is the fallen world with problems a person cannot just solve and leave.

Because human beings fell, they live with the results of the fall.

In the providence of salvation, God exists and He conducts His providence to save humanity from the world of ignorance, the world of the fall. And the realm that has fallen into the results that are opposite to the path that God goes, the realm centered on Satan that is opposite to God, always obstructs. So we cannot go this way without resolving all the things that obstruct us. This was where indemnity was absolutely necessary in the course of history. When a person commits a crime and goes to prison, he must pay for his crime or set some other condition to be released. Then he needs to go through a process of defense before this can be officially acknowledged. Only then can he be released. So the term indemnity refers to the absolute need to correct things that have gone wrong in the course of history. Continue reading “How God has Worked to Save Humankind”