Do our political leaders love the nation? Politicians do not care about what is going on in the nation, but just fight to get the presidency. Just let them try and do it! Everything will just fade away eventually, dissolving like bubbles, because they do not have the heart to sincerely live together with the people. If a leader cannot love the people, then he cannot escape the judgment of his people and history. (148-275, 1986.10.11)
Richard: False and fake political leaders will meet their reckoning.
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How many times a day do you think about your portion of responsibility? You have to remember this many times: when you eat, when you hold a spoon, when you wash the dishes, while you go to the toilet, while you walk…. Adam and Eve did not think about their portion of responsibility and consequently came to ruin. We must not become people who, like Adam and Eve, cannot fulfill our responsibility and fall. To become someone who can be restored and be victorious we have to respect and consider our portion of responsibility twenty-four hours a day. (124-103, 1983.1.30)
Noah
Noah is the first Biblical father of faith. His remarkable work to build an ark, believing God’s command that a flood was about to destroy humanity, showed faith far beyond the ordinary. Father Moon emphasizes the incredible faith of Noah, which was difficult to comprehend even for his wife and family. Another quality of Noah was his compassion for the people whom he knew to be doomed, enabling him to follow God’s command that he announce to the very people who were mocking and persecuting him that the judgment was imminent and invite them into his boat. The story of Noah goes far back in the historical record. Diverse versions of the story go back 5,000 years, to ancient Sumer and Babylon. There is reason to believe that the account is based on historical fact, from evidence of a massive flood that wiped out a whole civilization in the region of the black sea some 7,500 years ago. The biblical story of Noah ends with the sin of his son ham. Father Moon regards this as a serious setback for God’s providence. Always viewing history from a family perspective, he sees ham’s mistake as fracturing the unity of Noah’s family such that it could no longer serve in God’s providence.
1. Noah and the Flood
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the lord…And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
Genesis 6.5-8, 13-16
My counsel… was inspired in Noah: “None of your people will believe except those who already believe, so grieve not at what they do. Make an ark under Our eyes and by Our inspiration, and speak not to Me on behalf of those who are unjust. Surely they will be drowned.”
And he began to build the ark. And whenever the chiefs of his people passed by him, they laughed at him. He said, “Though you mock us, yet we too mock you even as you mock; and you shall know to whom will come a punishment that will confound, and upon whom will fall a lasting doom.”
At length when Our command came to pass and the oven gushed forth water, We said, “Load in two of every kind in pairs, and your household—but not those against whom the word has already gone forth—and those who believe. Yet but a few were they who believed with him.
He said, “Embark in it, and in the name of God may be its sailing and its anchoring. Surely my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.”
And it sailed with them amid waves like mountains. And Noah called out to his son, who was standing aloof, “O my son, embark with us, and be not with the disbelievers.” He said, I will betake myself for refuge to a mountain that will save me from the water. Noah said, “This day there is no one safe from God’s command, but he on whom He has mercy. And a wave came between them, so he was among the drowned.
Qur’an 11.36-43
God… did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the ungodly.
2 Peter 2.5
Lo! We sent Noah to his people, saying, “Warn your people before there comes to them a painful doom.” He said, “O my people! Verily I am a plain warner to you. Serve God and keep your duty to Him, and obey me, that He may forgive you some of your sins and grant your respite to an appointed term. Surely the term of God, when it comes, cannot be delayed. Did you but know!”
He said, “My Lord! I have called unto my people night and day, but all my calling has added to their repugnance. Whenever I call them that You may pardon them, they thrust their fingers in their ears and cover themselves with their garments and persist, magnifying themselves in pride.”
When a man and a woman come to
stand in the position representing God
centering on love, they become connect-
ed to everything in the universe. When
this happens, everything God possesses
becomes theirs. The reason true love is
great is that through true love you can
become God’s object partner and God
can also become you. The Bible says
that God and Jesus dwell within you.
It is from here that we can say that the
father is in his son, the grandson is in
his grandfather, and the grandfather is
in his grandson. The grandfather and
grandmother should make a relation-
ship of heart with their grandchildren.
Only then, will the vertical line of love
start. Also, the grandchildren must
become one with their grandfather and
grandmother. Since the grandfather and
grandmother are in the position of God,
they should be attended like God. Oth-
erwise, the axis of love will not be deter-
mined. The horizontal line will arise
after this is established. Human perfec-
tion starts with creating a vertical rela-
tionship with God. (298-308, 1999.1.17)
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He created Adam and Eve as the hor- izontal basis of reproduction and foun- dation of love. Since they stand on the horizontal plane, they revolve from East to West. A 180-degree plane stretches out infinitely. Consequently, reproduction can take place in all directions. Repro- duction is necessary in order to create those who can be born and grow on this vast horizontal plane before passing to the spirit world as the eternal citizens of heaven. Reproduction takes place on earth. This is because reproduction is possible only through the physical bod- ies of men and women. Babies cannot be born in the spirit world. (213-265, 1991.1.21)
Noah punished himself in order to establish the standard of the family. He punished his body for 120 years to conquer it. He was in a harsh environment of criticism, sneering, and all sorts of unimaginable difficulty. Can’t we imagine that?
In spite of it all, he said, “Let’s persevere. God has promised me and is leading me, so would I ever turn away from the heartistic standard that God has established?” He conquered all difficulty by punishing himself.
Had Noah’s family given up all worldly conditions and hoped to found a race, then God’s will would have been accomplished during that time. God’s will would have been fulfilled if Noah’s family had denied all personal family matters in search of a race, holding onto the standard of Noah’s heart.
But Noah’s family broke away, unable to fulfill the will centering on the family. But the providence to fulfill the will still continued. Heavenly law was at work. You cannot just keep holding onto an individual when the individual fails. Just because the family failed and the family cannot be established does not mean that heavenly law stops going forward. Although an individual may fail, heavenly law still moves on.
Although an individual failed, God still had to work the providence to establish the family since the moment of the family was coming. He had to work to establish both the individual and the family. Even though that family failed, the providential time table did not slow down. The providence has been widening from restoring the society to the level of restoring a race.
Having lost the individual Noah and his family, God established Abraham after four hundred years. Abraham had to set more severe conditions than those through which Noah went. But having lost even Abraham, God established Moses after four hundred years. Now it was the age of the nation, so He drove the Israelites into Egypt and trained them hard. To train them hard is to strike them. It is a strategy to bring unity. It was the plan to make them into one.
God told the Israelites, “The land in which you are living is the land of the enemy. The palace of the Pharaoh is the palace of the enemy. The people of Egypt are all your enemies.” Because the homeland for the Israelites would be possible only when they could all unite, God drove the Israelites forth, looking only at the moment when they would enter the blessed land. God raised Moses as the leader of the adventure. He represented the nation since the providential time entailed a nation. Moses, the leader of the adventure, was the greatest explorer and the greatest of spies going into the uncharted land of Canaan.
For Moses to kick away the interference of the Pharaoh’s palace and lead the Israelites into the land of Canaan was not an easy path. It was the course of the unknown. Yet despite any difficulty that lay in front of him, Moses was determined. His heart was unchanged. He said, “Get in my way if you want to, but my heart of trying to find the land of Canaan that God has promised since the time of my ancestors will never change.”
17 The Lord is our God. We were slaves in Egypt as our ancestors had been, but we saw the Lord work miracles to set our people free and to bring us out of Egypt. Even though other nations were all around us, the Lord protected us wherever we went. 18 And when we fought the Amorites and the other nations that lived in this land, the Lord made them run away. Yes, we will worship and obey the Lord, because the Lord is our God.
Ecclesiastes 11
9 Be cheerful and enjoy life while you are young! Do what you want and find pleasure in what you see. But don’t forget that God will judge you for everything you do.
10 Rid yourself of all worry and pain, because the wonderful moments of youth quickly disappear.
The Path of Faith Which Should be Examined Carefully
You should look and be careful in your speaking, hearing, seeing and feeling now. How hard have you tried to fulfill the historical responsibility? Have you ever surrendered everything and come forward, disregarding difficulties, anger, being chased away, hunger and death? How careful a heart have you had?
How often have you been overwhelmed by the Shim Jung that burns with a sense of responsibility, and desired to regain it? How often have you examined whether the heavenly hand was guiding you within your circumstances, reaching out to you, thereby coming to deny your previous position and embarking upon a new reflection? If you have not had such an experience, you should feel that you cannot show your faces.
In the Garden of Eden, the archangel was created first. The archangel had been ruling over the environment. When Adam and Eve appeared, he became an attacker. This was the beginning of history. Human beings, who insisted on habit and tradition in history, always opposed God’s way. They never cooperated. As the ancestors are, so are the descendants. Those who were being driven away have been leading history, fighting all the while.
It was thus with Noah as he served Heaven. To those who insisted on the social tradition, he appeared to be a madman. He looked demented, ridiculous and stupid. It was the same with Abraham. He tried to kill Isaac, whom God had blessed him with at the age of one hundred years. It was the same with Moses. Who instigated the people to accuse, betray and drive out the people of mission? They were the ones who clung to the historical traditions. If there is a Heaven, they should receive its judgment. The ideology of restoration is to sever attachment to the historical details, to take off the old clothes of the past, to meet the new morning in the new garden, and to appear in white clothes with new hope. Continue reading “Noah Appeared to be a Madman”
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
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”
Book Review: The Rod of Iron Kingdom by Hyung Jin Sean Moon
Exodus 12
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
Psalm 59
You are my strength, I watch for you; you, God, are my fortress, 10 my God on whom I can rely.
God will go before me and will let me gloat over those who slander me. 11 But do not kill them, Lord our shield,[d] or my people will forget. In your might uproot them and bring them down. 12 For the sins of their mouths, for the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride. For the curses and lies they utter, 13 consume them in your wrath, consume them till they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob.
The Sorrowful Heart of Jesus as He Went to the Mountain
Jesus appeared as the only son of Heaven, the one to resolve the 4,000 years, and the hallmark of victory God could boast about before the age and the descendants of countless generations. We must remember the sad heart of Jesus as he went into the wilderness alone, without a friend, leaving behind the people, the church, the chosen John the Baptist, and Joseph’s family. Continue reading “Jesus and the Historical Course”
