Luke 11
37 When Jesus finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him home for a meal. Jesus went and sat down to eat.[e] 38 The Pharisee was surprised that he did not wash his hands[f] before eating. 39 So the Lord said to him:
You Pharisees clean the outside of cups and dishes, but on the inside you are greedy and evil. 40 You fools! Didn’t God make both the outside and the inside?[g] 41 If you would only give what you have to the poor, everything you do would please God.
42 You Pharisees are in for trouble! You give God a tenth of the spices from your gardens, such as mint and rue. But you cheat people, and you don’t love God. You should be fair and kind to others and still give a tenth to God.
43 You Pharisees are in for trouble! You love the front seats in the meeting places, and you like to be greeted with honor in the market. 44 But you are in for trouble! You are like unmarked graves[h] that people walk on without even knowing it.
Nehemiah 7
73 And so, by the seventh month,[g] priests, Levites, temple guards, musicians, workers, and many of the ordinary people had settled in the towns of Judah.
Matthew 25
1 When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all of his angels, he will sit on his royal throne. 32 The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats.
33 He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. 35 When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, 36 and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”
37 Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? 38 When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear 39 or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”
40 The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”
Let Us Fathom the Heart of Heaven
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 13, 1959
During the two thousand years from Abraham to Jesus, God established faith as the condition for the Israelites. If individuals believed, they could graduate from that level and pioneer the foundation upon which families could believe. If a family believed, then God elevated a people to the next level of pioneering the foundation upon which a nation could believe. If a nation believed, He took them further and pioneered the foundation upon which the world could believe. You have to understand this.
What kind of person was Abraham, the father of faith, whom God chose? In our terms today, he was a spy in Satan’s world who could communicate with God as an individual. Since the world belonged to Satan, no one received Abraham warmly. Because everyone was his enemy, he had to use discretion when he heard and saw things. He had to use wise judgment in his thoughts and be cautious in his actions.
When he was eating a meal or sleeping, he could not be at ease. In his daily life, he always had to pay close attention to the people around him. This is the path our ancestors who upheld God’s providence and will walked.
God called Abraham, whom He chose, from Ur of the Chaldeans and put him in such a situation. He drove him out to the wilderness. There Abraham awaited the coming of the day when God’s reign could be established. We have to understand that our ancestors left their homeland waiting for the day that the sons and daughters whom God had blessed would multiply and fill the earth like the stars in the sky and smite the evil world.
Why? Since we are enslaved in the country of our enemies, inside their prison bars, we should feel thoroughly disgusted. If you cannot feel this, then you are not worthy to be called true believers before Heaven.
For what purpose did God raise Abraham? It was to use him as a channel to communicate with people far away, those who were in the enemy’s camp and in Satan’s world. Then he was to expand outward horizontally on that basis. However, because the relationship between Heaven and earth is fragile, God had to work through the direct lineage of Abraham, referring to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You have to understand this.
When Isaac and Abraham received the blessing, what did they possess? The only thing they had was their qualification as the chosen people. God blessed Abraham on the condition, “You cannot compromise with Satan’s world. You cannot blend in with Satan’s world. You are My chosen people. Your life is different, your feelings, desires and ideals are all different. Your descendants will live only if they bring victory through Me.” Abraham had to bless Isaac from this perspective. Isaac blessed Jacob from this same perspective, and Jacob blessed his descendants in the same way. Nonetheless, the Israelites betrayed this connection which came down to them through their tradition and blessing.
After Abraham was chosen, he pioneered the individual environment of faith. Then Jacob took seventy members of his family and entered Egypt. What did God do based on this foundation of a family? He chased them out into Satan’s world in order to form a people. It was not their own country; it was the center of Satan’s world. God drove them into Egypt, Satan’s world, the historical enemies of the Israelites. Isn’t this true?
Based on this foundation of a family, they were to endure any kind of suffering, any path of death and grief. They had to endure to the point of forming a nation. Even as the Israelites suffered in a foreign land for four hundred years, they were to maintain an intense desire that God should be relieved of His suffering. However, although the four-thousand-year history passed, the Israelites deviated from the traditional desires, situations and heart of God. Moses was the person who came to resolve this situation. Moses was the leader of the 600,000 Israelites. He was the leader of the people.