Home Church is the Key to the Kingdom of Heaven

Acts 3

11 While the man kept holding on to Peter and John, the whole crowd ran to them in amazement at the place known as Solomon’s Porch.[b] 12 Peter saw that a crowd had gathered, and he said:

Friends, why are you surprised at what has happened? Why are you staring at us? Do you think we have some power of our own? Do you think we were able to make this man walk because we are so religious? 13 The God that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and our other ancestors worshiped has brought honor to his Servant[c] Jesus. He is the one you betrayed. You turned against him when he was being tried by Pilate, even though Pilate wanted to set him free.

14 You rejected Jesus, who was holy and good. You asked for a murderer to be set free, 15 and you killed the one who leads people to life. But God raised him from death, and all of us can tell you what he has done. 16 You see this man, and you know him. He put his faith in the name of Jesus and was made strong. Faith in Jesus made this man completely well while everyone was watching.

Richard: Here we see the truth that Jesus did not come to die. Rather, the Jewish people should have accepted Him.

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: This is the same rheama that Stacey received one week ago: https://inspiration.visionroot.org/2019/12/27/we-are-entering-the-age-when-parents-will-bless-their-children/ . Jerusalem, and thus, the chosen Jewish people, were to follow God’s laws in preparation to receive the Messiah. However, as we see in the reading from Acts above, that did not happen. In the passage above, we see that they worshiped idols. What are some examples of modern day idols; money, power, ungodly sex outside of marriage, weapons as an expression of power or means of control. God says in the passage above that He will not tolerate these things. Note that the lovers will exact a type of revenge. The very idols that were worshiped will become a curse, and all this iniquity will ultimately be exposed.

Selected Passages from the Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon about Home Church

Today’s Word magazine, September 1981 p. 4

You may have an old idea of home church. but throw it away like winter clothing and have a bright new home church idea, knowing the relationship between yourself, God and the dispensation. (4/6/80)

Providential Aspects of Home Church

Images of home church

Home church is the altar where everything can connect. The offering you make on that altar must be done correctly. Home church is like an extract of the essence of the world. (2/26/78)

Home church is the formula by which we can find our homeland. home nation, home world and home heaven. Home church is like a diamond; the more you polish it, the brighter it gets. (9/23/78)

There are no barriers between you and the home church mission-neither racial, national, spiritual or physical. Jesus gave the key to the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter, and today I give you the key to home church, because that is the key to the Kingdom of Heaven. With one turn of that key, the door will open for the salvation of one tribe. Home church is not a dream or fantasy: this is the real blueprint of God. We have arrived at the final terminal. Home church is one small world representing all mankind and the entire earth: it is a microcosm of the whole earth. Home church is the alphabet of the Kingdom of Heaven. Love God more than anything else. God is the root, and home church is the fruit and harvest of His love. When you come to the throne of God. can you proudly say, God, I loved my tribe and the world, representing You, and now I have come back to You? You are going to the home church as one atom of love, saying to the people, Become like me. You can cause other atoms to split, and they in turn will stimulate more splitting. Our movement exists to duplicate ourselves and multiply. We will create a chain reaction of love throughout the world, and then the world will be converted by the atomic bomb of love. Home church is the battleground where you are going to explode your love. Where can you get more supplies for your atomic bomb? God is tne reservoir. All you have to do is tell God you are firing your atomic bomb, and He will supply you with more. God’s supply depot is a 24-hour operation; you can bring a request at any hour, and God will always say yes, because His supply never runs out. ( 1/7/79)

Home church is the bridge to unite the spiritual and physical worlds. ( 1/14/79).

You Do Not Believe in the Heart and Embodiment

Join us this Saturday for Part 3 of the Unification Principle online seminar. Register here: https://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/109-training/328-unification-principle-online-seminar-coming-november-2nd-2 .

Cheong Seong Gyeong 579

God would not be the Absolute Being
if He had created people to live for just
a few days and perish. He created them
as precious beings that He wants to keep
seeing and cherish eternally.
We know that we are the object part-
ners God can derive joy from. As He is
eternal, we must also be eternal. The eter-
nal God relates with an eternal world.
However, there are many people
who have lived thinking, “I’ve lived up
to eighty. That will do, and when I die,
that’s the end of it.” Yet in the course of
history, there were people who pondered
the question of immortality. They won-
dered if there was any way to live eternally
without dying. The more people held on
to this ideal, the more they thought and
asked themselves, “What’s the meaning
of life? Why are people born and then go
away like travelers?” and they conclud-
ed, “Life is suffering. It is like the com-
ing and going of grass.” Yet, if they could
live forever, there would be no need for
such worries. (39-228, 1971.1.15)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2054

It is Tong-ban breakthrough. What
does tong ban breakthrough mean? It’s
the place where God can meet the father
He has been longing to see. It’s our effort
to return to the family. It’s our effort to
make the mothers and fathers that God
has been longing for. It’s our effort to
make the sons and daughters God has
been longing for. It’s our effort to make
the aunts and uncles that God has been
longing for. This is my desire. This is
God’s desire. Whose desire is this? It’s
the desire of the Great Supervisor who
created heaven and earth. Who will tru-
ly take up and set about doing the work
of accomplishing this Being’s desire?
Are all of you in your homes the type
of parents that God wants to see? That’s
the problem. The term tong ban break-
through is not just a passing phrase.
The fact that Adam and Eve could not
become a true father and mother that
God wished to see is a cause of deep
pain for God. The fact that they could
not become a true son and daughter,
nor a true couple, and the fact that they
could not become true grandchildren, is
a source of bitter grief for God. Where
did this go wrong? It happened in the
family. Therefore, you should feel that
you must heal this bitter pain in your
own family. Only by healing this pain
will liberation start to expand to heaven
and earth. (209-44, 1990.11.25)

Richard: Tong and Ban are Korean words for local ‘jurisdictions’ of about 120 and 12 homes, respectively. Stacey and I are currently engaged in Kingdom building work in our neighborhood. Sign up at the new Tribal Messiah Association to learn more about neighborhood Kingdom building: https://tribalmessiah.visionroot.org/

The Toil of God as He Tries to Raise up His Beloved Children

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 11, 1959

John 3: 11-21

1 Corinthians 7:28-29

Jesus was supposed to walk to the end of the path of suffering while he was on the earth. He had to walk to the end of the path, no matter how difficult it might be. He was born in a barn. No matter how difficult and miserable a person’s situation may be, no one was born in a barn. The providence of salvation begins from the lowest point. Jesus was born in this lowest of situations and did not receive love while he was growing up. Christians should understand this clearly. In the thirty years of Jesus’ life, there were many sorrowful events. Although Jesus was born into Joseph’s family, to Joseph he was a stepson. He was a stepson of no blood relation to him.

The children born between Joseph and Mary looked down upon Jesus. Think about it. Jesus was a stepson. Jesus was a miserable person who was mistreated even by his younger brothers and sisters. He did not have parents he could depend upon emotionally, and he did not have a family where he could find a place of rest. That was not all; yet Jesus grew up under the direct instructions of Heaven. Because Jesus possessed a heart of hope for the future, even in such circumstances, he looked at the people, the nation and the world.

Why didn’t Jesus resent the situation he was in? It was because he understood God’s heart. He knew that the Father he believed in and worshipped had walked a bitter path for four thousand years. He knew that he had the mission to take responsibility for and restore through indemnity all the mistakes of his ancestors who had repeatedly wronged God. Therefore, he could not be resentful toward those who opposed him. Because he had the same heart as God, even when he was dying on the cross, he blessed the people who opposed him. Christians today think that Jesus came to die. It may seem simple because they only look at the outcome. However, they do not understand the situation of Jesus up to his death. They do not understand the heart of God as He looked down at the dying Jesus.

Ladies and gentlemen, what kind of people are loved in this world? Do people love those who understand others’ situations or those who do not understand them?

To whom did Jesus say, “I came to cast fire upon the earth, so if it is already on fire then what more would I wish? I am to receive baptism, so how distressed would I be until that is realized?” (Luke 12:49- 50) Although he did speak those words, he did not have anyone who understood them. Although he spoke the Gospels, no one understood him. Is it true that people say all you need to do to go the Kingdom of Heaven is to believe in Jesus? Although you may believe in the words, you do not believe in the heart and the embodiment. Looking at history, was there anyone before Jesus who responded to the sorrow of God and comforted Him? Was there anyone who became His beloved son or daughter? Although Jesus appeared on the earth as God’s only begotten son, where did the sons and daughters who should have become the only begotten sons and daughters go? Have you ever thought about that?

God has been Seeking for Us Throughout History

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1240

The full authority of Heaven is passed
on when the Blessing is bestowed. (17-328,
1967.4.16)

The Blessing opens the gates of the
Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of
Heaven is a place where only families
with children enter. (12-266, 1963.5.25)

The Blessing is an eternal treasure.
It is a pledge to begin a lineage that will
span ten thousand generations. That is
why when you defile the Blessing, your
whole clan will be affected, just as the
whole nation of Israel was affected by
the crucifixion of Jesus. (God’s Will – 550)

The Blessing is the key that opens the
door to the liberation of all humanity,
which has been pursued throughout the
history of the providence. (22-206, 1969.2.4)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1521

According to the original principle
of creation, heaven is a place where only
families can enter. You can only be happy
when your parents, children, and mem-
bers of your clan have all entered togeth-
er. Could that place truly be called heav-
en if only the children were allowed and
the parents ended up in hell? Therefore,
in paving the way to heaven in the future,
the Unification Church should first cre-
ate the family standard. Otherwise, you
will not be able to enter. Based on the
family, you need to free yourself from
all situations in which Satan can accuse
you. In other words, you need to free
yourself from all the historical and prov-
idential standards of accusation. (21-63,
1968.9.1)

Richard: The primary problem of history is immorality; breaking God’s standard that one man and one woman Blessed in marriage are to form an eternal family.

The Toil of God as He Tries to Raise up His Beloved Children

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 11, 1959

John 3: 11-21

1 Corinthians 7:28-29

When a beloved child falls down in the human world, some parents go crazy. The same must be true for God. The same is true for God. What about God’s love? God’s love is the love of the subject partner which encompasses the love of parents, spouses and children. Before you think about this love, before you yearn for it, before you long for it and seek it, Heaven has already been yearning for it like a crazy person until today.

On top of this, Satan mocks: “God, You should be loving Your children in Your bosom! Why are You sighing and mourning?” You have to understand this situation of God. Although through our faith we may have thought that God is omnipotent and is resting peacefully in some palace, that is far from the truth.

God has been seeking for us throughout history with this heart. He has sought us for six thousand years. Look at Christian history. God came seeking us, taking a beating before our ancestors were beaten. He was persecuted before our ancestors were persecuted. He crossed the pass of death in His search. Every time a faithful person climbed the hill of martyrdom, God experienced the same pain. God as the subject partner of love suffered all the pains and difficulties of His sons and daughters who were living for His sake.

Will God give all that up? God cannot give up. Is He going to turn around in His footsteps toward the people on earth who deserve to be judged and eliminated? God cannot turn around.

Ladies and gentlemen, isn’t that so? No matter how evil and sinful a child in this world may be, parents cannot turn their footsteps away from them. Their hearts are drawn. No matter how evil they are, and no matter how many wounds people have put in God’s heart, God cannot help but come seeking for them. We have to look at the God who longed for human beings in the past. We have to look at the God who held onto the many prophets and sages and mourned over them in the six-thousand-year history. We should look at the God who is struggling and mourning over the 2.7 billion persons of humanity.

Rediscover the Jesus who Prayed for the Sake of His Enemies

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2126

However much trouble Satan may
cause, God cannot punish him or cut
him off. He must establish the basis of
having loved Satan whatever his situ-
ation. God can have complete victory
only when Satan confesses to Him, say-
ing, “Oh, God really is God. I surrender
to You.” This is the issue. Since the prin-
cipled path of the providence of resto-
ration is for God to bring about Satan’s
surrender by loving him, we who are
to become His children must walk this
same path. Whether we are persecut-
ed around the world and considered a
worldwide enemy, we must establish the
basis of having loved those who oppose
us. In this regard, God’s Word, “Love
your enemies,” is His strategy to subju-
gate evil naturally. These words are sim-
ple, but no one realized that they have
marked the boundary between victo-
ry and defeat between God and Satan.
If God were to harbor the thought of
treating Satan as His enemy and seek-
ing revenge against him, then He would
never be able to stand on the pinnacle of
victory. On the contrary, He implement-
ed a strategy of love, declaring, “Love
your enemy.”

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1503

Heaven must be established from
the family. Since Jesus couldn’t form
a family, he could not enter heaven,
but instead is in paradise. Paradise is
like the waiting room you have to pass
through before entering heaven. Hell
came into existence because of the Fall.
God did not create it f

Members Who Will Live In God’s Family

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959

Matthew 12: 46-50

What is the Marriage of the Lamb that the Bible talks about? It is rectifying in the Last Days the position of True Parents, which should have been accomplished six thousand years ago. It is to build relationships of brothers and sisters and children. This is the wish of Jesus in whom we believe, and the hope of God who has suffered for six thousand years to guide us.

Knowing this we should think about what we are holding onto. What are you holding onto? Two thousand years ago, the Jews were in a position to support Jesus. They lived in a blessed time when they could honor and serve Jesus. The chosen people lived in the age when they could attend Jesus and help him reign as the King of Kings. However, because the Jews turned against Jesus and all those who were boasting that they were chosen by God betrayed him, the standard that Jesus was hoping for was shattered. When this was destroyed, the history of Israel came to an end and the Old Testament words which were given to Israel were lost.

It is an hour of grief and sorrow that we have to cry and weep hanging onto Jesus’ words and live by his words. It is our sorrow that we have to pray in Jesus’ name. When you pray, you pray in the name of Jesus, right? It is unfortunate that we have to be tied to these kinds of terms. There must come a time when we can pray in our names. That is the day of hope.

Ladies and gentlemen, now we must cherish the words and live according to the deeds and acts of Jesus and understand what kind of person Jesus was through the words. We have to rediscover the Jesus who prayed for the sake of his enemies even when he was miserably nailed on the cross by them and was shedding blood. What was the internal situation of his heart which forced him to such a fate? Christianity will perish if it hopes to fulfill its mission only with the words of Jesus. They will surely be judged. Only after they cling to Jesus and his heart as he did his utmost to speak, only after building a relationship with him and cleansing themselves of the things of this world can they enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

When we reflect on this, we should understand the true meaning of the words True Parents and God. We should understand clearly the true meaning of the words and not symbolically or metaphorically. Although Christians have studied the Bible for two thousand years, they do not really understand it. They are ignorant. Although Christians today say that they act based on the words, this is still not high enough to connect to Jesus’ deeds. The purpose of words is to induce one to act. If Christianity had been living by the words, then how could it have become the way it is today? The purpose for which Jesus spoke the words was different from the purpose for which Christians listened to his words. This is where the problem lies.

Then what should be done now? It is written that in the Last Days we should hold onto the Holy Spirit and pray without sleeping. It is said that in the Last Days, we should put oil on our foreheads and pray in secret chambers. How will the Lord come? He does not come speaking words, but will come silently, as the embodiment. The farther the gap between where we stand and the purpose of the original words, the more Jesus will receive the hardships of the cross and come seeking for us. Yet Christians do not understand this. Now we should judge whether or not we possess the inner strength to move and shake, which will allow us to build up within us the force of a heavenly revolution and to cross the valleys of death courageously. Can we stand as active subject partners?

To do so, what should you do? You have to yearn for it. Since Christians have longed for the words for two thousand years, we have to long for the words and at the same time long for the deeds which go together with the words. We have to be determined that since Jesus did this, we too will do this and that.

Who is Jesus? He is our True Parent. We have to yearn for the words he spoke and the deeds he left behind. We have to long for his words, deeds and appearance. Isn’t that so? We have to be able to say that we cannot endure any longer because we miss our beloved parents so much. We have to want to see them so badly that we forget eating, sleeping and our own state of being. Have you ever had such a moment?

You Must be Blessed to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven

Watch the latest Richard Urban show with Michelle Burris:  Being Sexually Pure Is a Way of Serving God:  https://youtu.be/ZxFQ6Scr4sc.

Join us on Saturday, October 5th at 10 a.m. for Part 1 of the Unification Principle online seminar. Register here: https://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/unification-principle-training

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2314

You must endure, sacrifice for and
serve your fiancée even if you do not like
her. “If I hadn’t met her I wouldn’t have
learnt anything. Now I see that I was giv-
en this person so that I could go through
more hardships in order to attain a spirit
of service and sacrifice and thus go to
heaven.” Those who think like this can
become great people and enter heaven.
God wants to have even sinners
become His sons and daughters. Just
because your fiancée might not have
such a pretty face or is Japanese or is a
little short, can you think, “Oh, I don’t
like her”? You men should be convinced
that you would go to the highest place
in heaven if you took the ugliest woman
and sacrificed yourself for and served
her more than anyone else. You should
understand that you would then become
the greatest husband and a saint of a
husband. Unification Church members
should be capable of having that level of
thought. (116-95, 1981.12.20)

Richard:  This is perfect advice for any couple.  God will truly bless you if your spouse is in some ways “difficult”.  And who doesn’t have a marriage or relationship where there spouse or fiancee is not difficult in some way?

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1246

Where is humanity supposed to be
heading? No human being on earth can
enter the Kingdom of Heaven if they
have not passed through the gates of
the Blessing. A lot of people believe in
Christianity, but Christianity itself can-
not enter the Kingdom of Heaven with-
out passing through the gates of the
Blessing. When I say things like this,
Christians complain that Rev. Moon
of the Unification Church makes many
self-righteous remarks. There may be
many people who think like this and
who complain out loud, but that is their
problem. All fallen humanity must fol-
low the course of the holy matrimony of
the Blessing that we speak of in the Uni-
fication. Even if we face opposition from
all sides, that does not change the fact
that the holy matrimony of the Bless-
ing connects the spiritual and physical
worlds and allows you to enter the King-
dom of Heaven. (290-167, 1998.2.18)

Richard:  No one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without receiving the Blessing.  Jesus indicated that his followers would enter Paradise, not the Kingdom of Heaven.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
August 30, 1959

John 14:11

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

There must unfold a movement which can bridge the Eastern and Western cultures. This must contain the Christian spirit and have the form of Eastern philosophy and religion. At the same time, it must be in tune with all schools of thought which have guided human spiritual growth. It must reflect the new age but also inherit and embrace the good aspects of the past ages. The world will be united only when a religion or group emerges with a teaching that has met these conditions.

The sun does not rise from the West; it rises from the East. Ladies and gentlemen, where have more wars erupted? We know that there were more wars in the West than in the East.

Knowledge means to understand, and understanding is to gain something. Yet what have you gained? Your gains are not spiritual but physical. Westerners have been building an externally prosperous world through science and material culture. They are sound asleep in their external Kingdom of Heaven. Now the time has come when they should wake up from their sleep.

Easterners worship the way of truth. The way of truth requires that you must give up ten things to know ten things. To understand a thousand things, you must give up a thousand things. The people of the East have become beggars externally because they were worshipping the way of the truth. They became miserable and vulnerable to attack. Eventually, they surrendered to the material world. However, you should foresee that there will soon come an age in the East when we can shake off all of this in disdain.

In this sense, you should feel pride that others don’t feel. Koreans of the East are not inferior to any other people with respect to their faith, hope, and passion.

It is the law of the universe that a person’s life is completed only with water, soil, air and sunlight. Where will the world’s ultimate center of culture be in the future? It will be a place where the water is clean, the land is fertile, and the air is fresh. That is Korea. Water is so clean that you can drink water out of the mountains or plains and not become sick. Korea is a land with good water and good mountains. It is a good, natural place. Korea has pure air. The air is clean in the morning and in the evening all four seasons of the year. When you examine a day in Korea, it is very interesting. Morning is comparable to the spring season, afternoon to summer, evening to autumn, and night to winter. Within a day’s cycle, the shapes of all four seasons of the ideal world can be found. As for its climate, Korea has all the varieties of the four climate types. The people who are living in such a place do not do so by coincidence. If you were to probe into Korea’s religious life, you would find that Korean Christianity has been around for seventy or eighty years at most. Yet within such a short period of ministry, Korea occupies the number one position in the religious world. I am proud of the fact that Korea is second to none when it comes to religion and devotion.