REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON
SPEAKS ON
LET US RESTORE GOD'S KINGDOM
AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS
October 15, 1957
Chung Pa Dong Church
Seoul, Korea
Matthew 6:16-34
Prayer
Please allow us to experience through our minds and hearts the fact
that the Father's sorrow for all humankind and the earth still
remains, even in this hour. Please allow Your children who are
gathered here to realize that the scars of the Father's sorrow have
remained in our minds and bodies since God's eviction of the fallen
Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
The cherished hope of our mind is the ideal garden of the eternal
Father. Our bodies long to see the day when we can be proud of
ourselves before the Father, victorious in the battles against Satan.
Please allow our minds to be honored with Your glory and our bodies to
resemble Your image. Let our minds and bodies become the objects of
the Father's joy and appear in glory. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish
and desire this to be done.
We are to be equipped with the hyung sang of such victorious sons and
daughters. Therefore, please guide the sons and daughters who are
gathered here and lay prostrate before You to reveal everything before
the glory of the Father. Let them reveal themselves before the Sung
Sang of the Father. With a sense of awe and reverence, let them be
able to reflect upon their inadequacies in the past and let them
repent in this hour.
Father, if our hearts truly desire to revere the Father's love and
resemble the Father's character, then today the Father's sorrow should
be our own. The Father's brokenhearted attitude should be our own.
Therefore, beloved Father, please unfold the works to make us become
such people.
Father of love! Are there any sons or daughters among us who still do
not repent, though they know their minds and bodies are following a
path of death and darkness? Father, please reveal Your power. Father,
please reveal Your strength. Father, please manifest a work of
resurrection, a work of re-creation. By doing so, allow our minds and
bodies to run to the bosom of Your infinite love. Beloved Father, I
sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
Are there any who have lived away from Your bosom during the past
week? Please let them be willing to repent on their own. Is there
anyone among us who happens to be against Your will, harboring a
wrongful heart? Please guide them to repent before You and rest in
Your grace of compassion and love. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish
and desire this to be done.
Father, please let us understand that, as time goes by, the days of
the last battle are approaching before our eyes. Guide us not to be
discouraged on the battleground. Until the time when the final victory
is brought, let us be heavenly soldiers who are willing to fight over
and over again. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be
done.
Even now billions of satans are trying to invade us. Please allow no
one among us to betray and desert Your grace of love. Do not let even
one life be taken away to the bosom of Satan. Beloved Father, I
sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
Father of love, during the past week, we led a life which was so far
away from You. Please allow us to be embraced in Your bosom at least
during this one hour. Let us become sons and daughters who would not
leave on their own, without Your permission. At this hour we know that
many of Your lonely children, fatigued from the battles against Satan,
are appealing to You. Wherever they are, please be with them with the
same grace You give to us. Raise them into the same position of glory.
Father who has been saddened by us, fighting with us, suffering pain
because of us until today! We understand that we are left with a new
battle to fight, seeking a day of Your hope. Father, please work
through us to win that battle by pouring into us limitless strength.
Help us to not be inadequate before You.
Father of love, are there any who cannot march forward for the sake of
Your will due to personal problems? Please allow us not to have such
people with us. Instead, on this day, help us manifest Your glory
through our deeds. Let us experience Your heart and resemble Your
image. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
I understand that in this hour there will be many altars gathering on
behalf of the thirty million people of this nation. Beloved Father,
please allow them to attain the foretold will of promise everywhere
they gather. By pouring out the sacred spirit over them like water,
please unfold the works to enable them to become precious altars who
can beat off billions of satans and reveal the glory of the Father.
By doing so, please allow this people to be embraced in Your love.
Furthermore, through this people of Korea, allow the countless human
beings on earth to be able to receive a day of Your glory. Father, I
also sincerely wish and desire that we may build one world rather than
two, harmonizing the millions of faithful believers in Heaven with
humanity. Through this, You will unfold the miracles to allow a new
garden of restoration where humanity praises Your glory and lives
experiencing Your love. May this be realized on earth as quickly as
possible.
We who lay prostrate here are sons and daughters who stepped forward
after sacrificing everything to accomplish the will. Therefore,
Father, please allow us not to stop the pace toward the attainment of
the will. Please be with us so that we can make our way through any
tribulations and difficulties that may come our way.
We know that there are many sons and daughters making appeals to the
Father in solitude in this hour and that they are faced with trials
and hardship. Father of love, wherever they are, please work through
them with indiscriminate grace and embrace them with the same love.
I earnestly pray that the Father will help us to not fall down
exhausted in battle until the day of victory, the day when, God
willing, we achieve a nation for the Father. Since I entrust the
remaining hour to the Father, please have dominion over it entirely. I
pray all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Today I would like to reflect with you on the topic "Let Us Restore
God's Kingdom and His Righteousness."
The Words of Jesus, Who Came to Realize Human Hope
Today the many people living on the earth cannot find the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness which God foretold. Consequently, finding
the kingdom of God and His righteousness is the hope of all humankind
today. It has been the hope of humankind in the past, too, throughout
the thousands of years of history. You should understand this.
Why has the hope for God's kingdom and His righteousness remained as
our ultimate goal? It is due to the human fall. Due to the fall, God
and man, who should have been the center of God's kingdom and His
righteousness, came into a state where they could not relate to one
another. That is, people came to a state where they did not know about
God, the center of His original kingdom and His righteousness. God has
been toiling throughout history to educate such ignorant people and,
indeed, all of humankind, so they could learn who is their Father.
That is the reason finding and restoring God's kingdom and His
righteousness remains our hope and goal. Similarly, if the Father
exists, who desires to find and restore His kingdom and righteousness
on earth, you must comprehend that the will of the Father still
remains on earth.
To find and restore God's kingdom and His righteousness, what should
you then do? You should first find the Father, who has been working
hard throughout history to have a relationship with people and
establish His kingdom and His righteousness. If you cannot first find
the Father, you cannot find His kingdom and establish His
righteousness. Consequently, anyone and everyone living in this world
should find the Father, the star of the kingdom, no matter what he or
she may have to go through. However, if humans cannot find that
Father, the glory of that Father cannot be revealed on this earth. The
kingdom and the righteousness of God, for which people long, also
cannot be found and built.
Before Jesus' coming, no one appeared who could claim before Heaven
and earth, "I am the master of the kingdom." In other words, before
Jesus came, no one stepped forward proclaiming confidently that he
could represent the righteousness of God's kingdom, that he was
following God's righteousness, and that he was the substantial
incarnation of that righteousness.
One person, after being born from the hope of Heaven and the lineage
of righteousness, proclaimed before hopeless and desolate Heaven and
earth: "I am the representative of the Father of the kingdom. I am the
substantial incarnation of the righteousness of that kingdom." This
was the gospel of gospels, the most joyous of joyful news for
humankind on this earth.
Who was that man then who stepped forth making such a proclamation?
That very man was the one who was distrusted by the religious leaders.
He was the man who was ostracized by the prevailing denomination and
evicted from the nation. This was the very same Jesus Christ in whom
you believe today. You should clearly understand this.
What did Jesus say when he appeared on this earth? He overturned the
history of 4,000 years and asserted, "I am one with God; I am the son
of God." He also said, "You will come to know God by believing in me.
Only by believing in me will you establish the kingdom." He also
stated, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Similarly, Jesus
strongly asserted that to attain the comprehensive goal of Heaven, man
should believe in him and that man could not help but go through him.
Jesus emerged after making his way through all that was blocking
Heaven and earth and said, "By believing in me, you can have a
relationship with God." He said this to fallen people who could not
possibly have a relationship with God, the center of that kingdom and
righteousness. This was the gospel of gospels. You should understand
this. You should now inform today's Christians who believe in the
gospel of Jesus that the time is near when they should not stand still
just gazing at Jesus.
The Essence of God's Kingdom and His Righteousness, and Jesus' Wish
The wish of God, who desires to establish His kingdom and His
righteousness, cannot be fulfilled apart from humankind and the
creation. It must be attained through people. God's wish was to
harmonize with the creation through a true man. Thus, God sent Jesus
to this earth as the substantial incarnation who represented God and
Heaven's lineage before fallen humankind. That is, Jesus was the man
who came to this earth to fulfill the historical wish of God for the
first time.
For that reason, no human being of those days or these should oppose
Jesus. Nor should any existence with life on this earth oppose Jesus.
Because humankind living on the earth must prepare the living
environment in which they can testify to the glory of His kingdom and
His righteousness, they are longing for the day when the will gets
fulfilled.
Looking back upon such a fact, we can see that Jesus' death was an
infinite sorrow to humankind, indeed, the most heartbreaking event.
Accordingly, people could not avoid confronting the environment
through a process of historical pain and suffering.
What kind of nation are we then looking for? You should understand the
essence of that kingdom and that righteousness. Jesus worked hard on
earth to manifest the righteousness of that kingdom. He loved all
humankind, and he walked a sacrificial path to save them. Thus, the
kingdom that Jesus desired to build was a kingdom filled with a love
that gives. It was to be a kingdom overflowing with the life of
serving sacrifice. You will clearly understand this once you
experience the spirit world.
What kind of being then is the God who has dominion over a kingdom of
this kind? He is a being who takes pains to give love, bearing a
fretful mind toward all of creation and humankind.
What kind of life does such a God desire? God wishes that all
humankind on earth would lead a life lavishing their labor upon the
establishment of that kingdom, giving up everything they have,
sacrificing and serving.
Today the kingdom man longs for is a kingdom where the essence of love
is realized. That is, it is a kingdom where people are anxious to
give. In addition, understanding that the essence of love is to be
anxious to give love, we should walk the course of a sacrificial and
serving life that can correspond to that righteousness.
What then is the sorrow of God? His sorrow is that He could not find
an object of love to whom He could give perfect love. That God could
not find such a person, who could eternally serve and sacrifice for
the sake of his neighbors as God eternally sacrifices for and serves
humankind, is God's sorrow.
When Jesus warned people about the Last Days, what did he say? Jesus,
who appeared as a substantial incarnation of God, having inherited
God's shimjung, talked about God's love. Referring to all humankind on
the earth as his friends, Jesus testified to God's love and practiced
it himself.
What was embedded in the heart of Jesus, who toiled to demonstrate
God's love? It was the question of how he could give more of God's
love to humankind. What was his purpose of giving that love to them?
The purpose was not to love only those who believed in and followed
him; it was to love the Israelites, Judaism, and, further, to love
even the Gentiles. Thus, it was to build an ideal garden filled with
God's love on this earth. However, no one among the disciples or the
crowd of people who believed in and followed Jesus at that time, nor
anyone among the Israelites, was able to have an eternal relationship
with Jesus' shimjung of love.
Seeking one who resembled the heart of the God who desires to give
love, Jesus tried to build the kingdom of God on this earth through
the denomination, the race and the nation of Israel. Furthermore, he
wanted to build it through the world. That will of Jesus was blocked
by his family, by the denomination, by his disciples and by the
Israelites.
For that reason, to fulfill the will of God on this earth, Jesus has
to come again. The day when the Lord comes again is the day of the
Second Coming that Christians wish for today. You should understand
this.
Besides that, you should understand that Jesus was not only anxious to
love humankind in his heart. He also led a life of actual service.
Jesus stepped forth onto the road of sacrifice and service, forgetting
everything concerning himself, willing even to be torn apart by Satan
and to become a sacrifice if it was for the benefit of all humankind.
Jesus' Bride and Jesus' Enemy
Was there anyone who understood Jesus' shimjung at that time? Was
there anyone who, as God's true son or daughter, felt sorry upon
seeing Jesus being chased away and rejected by the race? There was not
even one person. If there had been even one person like that, he would
have carried out an amazing mission of testifying in place of the
4,000-year history. If there had been a man who could represent the
sorrowful shimjung of the love of Jesus, he could have fulfilled God's
will, attending Jesus from the position of a bride.
However, because there was not one person on earth who could
demonstrate the garden of love, the righteousness of the Kingdom of
Heaven, God came to be in the sorrowful position where He needs to ask
you today to build that kingdom of hope and righteousness. For that
reason, you should fulfill the will at all events.
Even if the many Christians spread throughout the world today unite,
you should understand that will not necessarily attain the will. The
question is whether they can be in a hundred percent accord with God's
essential love and whether they can become a bride who can be
connected to the loving shimjung of Jesus, who is anxious to give.
Jesus is looking for a person who can practice love in his place, who
can practice the life of sacrifice and serving that he practiced. You
should also keep in mind that not only is Jesus seeking such a person,
but God is also seeking him.
As long as God's providence for the universe is not consummated, a
certain standard to become such a being should certainly be
established on this earth. If you cannot set up one such standard, you
will then have nothing to do with the purpose of the sorrowful words
of Jesus, who said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness. Then all these things will be added unto you."
What is our sorrow today? What is my sorrow? What is the sorrow of
Christianity? What is the sorrow of the world? What is the sorrow of
this earth and what is the sorrow of Heaven? Where will the love of
God stop? You should understand that the fact that we still have not
been able to solve all problems of this kind is the cause of God's
lamentation.
When looking at human beings living on this earth today, the answer to
the question of whether they have become beings who can solve that
kind of problem is no, they have not. For that reason, God is grieving
and lamenting even in this hour. Furthermore, you are faced with a
historical fate which you should overcome. That is the fate to go
through a process of judgment.
While going such a road, God feels sorrow, not because you do not have
Heaven's love or righteousness. God feels sad because there is no one
with a shimjung to conform to the law of nature and become God's
object, a man with the value of eternal existence, transcending
humanistic ideology and concepts.
Humankind should be able naturally to feel God's love and naturally
live a life with a shimjung of service, which is the essence of that
kingdom and that righteousness. However, they are not able to do so.
For that reason, you must practice God's love by going through a
process of confusion, contradiction and struggle in the course of
faith. You must struggle to lead a life of service.
Who then is your enemy? Who is the enemy of the race? Who is the enemy
of this world and Heaven and earth? The enemy is not something
different. It is this entire universe where billions of invisible
satans reside, even if temporarily.
However, such enemies do not offer any problem to you. The problem is
you, the individual. The pressing question is the enemy hidden inside
your individual self. Who was the enemy of Jesus when he came to this
earth to save humankind? His enemy was the group of people who
recognized him not as someone with absolute value but as someone with
relative value. For that reason, Jesus longed to see one being emerge
from among them to whom he could say, "Your heart and my heart are one
and the same." If such a person had appeared, even if Jesus had died
on the cross, his love and ideology would have been established on
earth. However, it did not happen that way. That was the cause of
Jesus' anxiety. You should understand this.
What kind of world is it where that kingdom and righteousness have
been attained? That is a world of love, where each person enjoys
giving to one another. It is a world in which the life of serving and
sacrificing for the sake of God shines. You should understand this.
Thus, that world is not like this world in which we live today.
The Way to Receive God's Love
What then do you have to do to be able to receive God's true love? As
I mentioned before, when you step forth onto the road of sacrifice,
the road of service for the sake of others of your own accord, you
will then be able to receive God's love for the first time.
Jesus was in a position to lead humankind to that kind of road, yet
there was no one among the people on earth then who wished to love
others and live for the sake of others. Instead, because everyone
wanted others to live for their sake and only wanted to receive love,
all the people Jesus related with were objects of sadness to him.
Thus, you should understand the fact that Jesus could not find even
one person who could give God's love through sacrifice and service for
the fulfillment of God's will. This was the greatest sadness and
sorrow of Jesus.
Jesus was heartbroken, relating to the ignorant people who could not
see no matter how much he tried to show them, who could not know what
something was even if he placed it in their palms. That is why Jesus
told them, "Do not worry what to eat, what to drink and what to wear."
It is the word that tells you to deny your life and all of your
environment.
Jesus did not give this kind of word because he did not know the
necessities of human life. It was because he knew that fallen
humankind could receive a day of hope only when they tread on such a
road. He told them not to worry about what to eat, what to drink and
what to wear, but to seek that nation and that righteousness. Since
the one who attains that kingdom and that righteousness in advance can
have dominion over all things within the realm of natural law, he no
longer needs to worry about such things. That is why Jesus said this.
When Jesus came to this earth, he was tempted several times by Satan.
First, he was tempted through food, during his forty-day fast. Satan
appeared to Jesus and asked him to change a rock into a cake. This
would be good news to a starving human being, but Jesus refused.
Instead, he expressed that he had not come to eat. On the contrary, he
insisted on the importance of God's word and thus established the
position that human beings had not lost all conditions in the realm of
actual life.
Until that time, humankind had come through a history of struggle
centered on material needs. However, with Jesus' winning a victory in
the first test of Satan, the history of struggle centered on materials
was concluded. You should understand this.
What was the next trial Jesus had to face? Jesus was led to the top of
a church temple by Satan. There he was tested by Satan saying, "If you
are the son of God, throw yourself down. . . ." (Matthew 4:6)
Jesus had appeared with the religious ideology that could educate the
Israelites and Judaism. What did the expression "throw yourself down"
signify? It meant that he should abandon the position of being their
educator by succumbing before their religious customs and their
opinions. However, Jesus did not fall into Satan's test here. Instead,
he won a victory.
After that, what kind of test was there? Showing Jesus all the
kingdoms of the world and their splendor after taking him to the top
of a very high mountain, Satan said, "All these things I will give you
if you will fall down and worship me. . . ." (Matthew 4:9) Yet with
the universal ideology that was to establish the will of God, the
kingdom of God, Jesus rejected Satan's demand.
The Significance of Jesus' Victory over
the Three Great Temptations and the Mission of the Faithful Believers
What then does this mean? Jesus possessed the ideology that could
build a new Heaven and earth, namely, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Therefore, he must set up symbolic conditions while realizing and
demonstrating the will to indemnify and restore all historical
conditions of faithlessness.
Consequently, for you today who are faced with the Last Days, a
struggle centered on material conditions will come about. If all
humankind today then gets defeated without winning the victory in such
a struggle, this earth will automatically be transformed into a world
of darkness. Therefore, you of today should step forth upholding the
ideology of Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven, having overcome the
materialistic struggle. You must then build God's kingdom on this
earth by joining forces with Christians throughout the world.
Jesus had the mission to restore the world by being united with the
Jewish denomination, which contained the comprehensive value of
ancient Israel. Christians throughout the world today should
understand that they too have the mission to build the kingdom of God
on this earth by uniting into one, centering on the ideology of
democracy, which represents the world. The ideology of Christianity,
which constitutes the foundation of the ideology of democracy, should
be a part of this.
In the same way that Jesus won the victory by defeating all the
temptations of Satan, you should understand that you too have to go
through such a process. For that reason, when the Last Days are here,
you have to overcome the process of a materialistic struggle. After
that you have to overcome a religious struggle. A religion will emerge
which will resolve disintegration, contradiction and conflict, and
unite these. The trials that Jesus went through symbolize this kind of
an age.
In the same manner that Jesus demonstrated himself to be unchanging,
even in the face of all kinds of hardship and death, you must resemble
the character of Jesus. Christians today, who are in the Last Days,
should not attach themselves to the past. They must find and establish
the ideology of the holy temple of Jesus on a worldwide level. What is
more, because you are on the course that corresponds to the life
course of Jesus and his historic mission, you must know that there
lies a moment of historic battle before you.
The time should come when Satan, who has been enjoying worldwide glory
until now, succumbs and bows down before God's sons and daughters by
losing in the final battle. The day Satan is defeated and only God's
will is manifest must come as soon as possible. A person must emerge
who can fulfill such a mission. If such a person does not appear,
Jesus' will that we seek that kingdom and that righteousness can never
be realized on earth.
What kind of period are you living in today? You are living in a
period when you should accomplish God's will after passing the test of
material. We are living in a period where materials surpass not only
human beings but also all doctrines and opinions on this earth.
Furthermore, materialism is attempting to subjugate even God. This
kind of period is the very Last Days. You should understand this.
The Life That Demonstrates the Essence of the Kingdom
and His Righteousness
What then should you do, being faced with this period where everyone
talks of today being the Last Days? This is the age of the worldwide
conclusion. It will be the close of history, science, ethics and
religion.
According to the words that Jesus cried out, to seek that kingdom and
that righteousness, you should become the people who render
unchanging, devoted service to establish God's kingdom and His
righteousness on this earth. You should not think of all the things
that belong to you. By doing so, you can be proud of yourself and
become a person who fulfills the mission of being a representative of
God.
That is, by applying the essential ideology of that kingdom to your
own life, you should accomplish that one day of hope to formulate the
substantial value and to promise an eternal future. If you do not
become such people, you will have nothing to do with the will that God
had Jesus unfold, sending him after having toiled for 4,000 years
since the fall of Adam and Eve. You will have nothing to do with the
will of the Triune God that unified Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
From this viewpoint, what should you look for now? You should find the
elements of unrighteousness that make it impossible to establish that
kingdom and that righteousness; that is, which make it impossible to
establish the universal ideology. You should then win the victory
after struggling in your own life and become a representative of
Jesus, God's son.
If you want to become righteous people of that kingdom, you should not
be so foolish as to fight over what to eat or what to wear. You should
become people who lead a life of having transcended the problems of
what to eat, what to drink and what to wear. What is more, if you were
given a little bit of such things, you would rather distribute it to
people who are naked and hungry.
Members of the congregation! Do you know what God's heart is like? If
there is a piece of bread, it is God's shimjung to make people want to
not eat that piece of bread alone, but to have a mind that wishes to
distribute it to many others. Although Jesus represented this kind of
shimjung, the people at the time of Christ were not like that.
What then are the causes of family discord and family fights? It is
because each member of the family thinks the family exists for his or
her own sake. If there is something to eat, because the member thinks
it is for him or her alone, fights and discord break out. You should
heed that this is the very arrow of sin and Satan.
Therefore, today you should solve the problems of what to eat and what
to wear. You should break down the mind that only desires your own
individual benefit, namely, the condition of disharmony in the family.
You should firmly step over such a historical contradiction.
Similarly, you should not forget that you are standing in a position
to emerge as a true victor before God, transcending all the problems
of food, clothing and shelter.
What kind of position then was Jesus in when he exclaimed that we
should first seek that kingdom and that righteousness? It would be a
lamentable and sad thing if the minds of God and man were different
over mere things. That is the reason, in the state where God's mind
and Jesus' mind had become one, Jesus wished the minds of men and his
own mind to be united. However, because people disbelieved and
betrayed him, Jesus could not be united with them. For that reason, he
was placed in a position of indescribable sadness and grief.
Suppose you have something to eat. What should you be thinking of
while eating it? You should eat it with a heart of love that longs for
the essence of God and the essence of the kingdom. You should eat with
a heart that you will sacrifice and serve for the sake of others. When
you become a person who lives, bearing this kind of heart, even if you
happen to acquire a large quantity of treasure at a stroke, you will
not do with them as you please.
Thus, you should become the people who eat having the feeling of the
Father's heart, who wishes to give. This heart can be revealed even
through a small piece of bread. You should eat with concern about
God's will being attained on this earth and the many pitiful people
who are in difficult situations. When you become a person like this,
you will not be subjected to material privation.
The Blessing and the Curse Which Come According
to Our Attitude about Material Things
At any rate, you today are not in such a position. You are struggling
in a battle centering on materials. By connecting yourselves to God,
each of you can say, "Father, is there another son or daughter who can
better manifest Your heart through this material, who wishes to give
more than I do and can love this material more than I can? I know that
this material does not belong to me, but to You. Please let that
person use it!" You should also maintain such a humble attitude as
this, that you would accept materials on behalf of him or her. When
that happens, the original nature hidden in your mind can be revealed,
and you can go forth into the realm of eternal hope. You should
understand that Jesus talked about the proper attitude in using
materials for this reason.
What is it then that you must treat as your enemy? It is the
selfishness that thinks materials endowed upon you are only for your
benefit. For that reason, if you have a piece of bread, you should be
able to represent God's heart, which desires to share it with all
humankind. Before you eat something, you should have the mind to
willingly offer it to your family, and to the society, the people, the
nation and humankind throughout the world. Man can perfect himself
through a normal process only if he possesses this kind of mind.
However, most people today lead their lives having forgotten this. You
should feel heartbroken about this and understand that this is the
position of fallen man.
Through what then can an enemy invade? The enemy invades through
material conditions. Yet God's blessings also come through materials.
You should clearly understand that through materials, God and our
enemies can invade us simultaneously. We must become a person who
knows how to establish the center of firm faith through materials.
Whatever a thing may be, once a center is established an object will
naturally come into being. It is a principle of the universe that if
there is a perfect plus, there will naturally occur a perfect minus.
You must establish a core of faith, one standard that conforms to the
principle. You should clearly understand that because Jesus knew such
a principle, he declared we must first seek that kingdom and that
righteousness.
What would be the next thing you should know about? The next thing you
should know is that fights among family members regarding what to eat
will take place. You should understand that because of things to eat,
a fight between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law, an elder
brother and a younger brother, will take place. A fight between
relatives and between nations will also take place. To overcome that,
Jesus lived in sorrow for the family, the society, the nation and the
world, and expressed his heartbroken shimjung of not being able to
build that kingdom and that righteousness. For that reason, you today
should experience such a heart of Jesus and take after his character.
Next, fights over what to wear will break out in front of you. This
means that during your life of faith, you must go over a course of
having resolved the problem of what to wear. Therefore, today you
should be able to freely resolve such problems, without being
restricted by any of Satan's accusations.
Similarly, you should understand that your problem of what to eat and
what to wear will become Satan. At the same time, it will be the
practice ground of activities through which Satan can act. Therefore,
you should know that Satan always has an eye to invading everything
you do. You must become the people who do not provide Satan with any
condition for invasion. Thus, today you should not live only for
yourself. You should live for a greater purpose.
Suppose you belong to a family. If you live for the family, it will be
the same as living for your own sake. If you belong to a nation and
you live for the sake of that nation, it will also be like living for
your own sake. What is more, when you come to live for Heaven, you
will be in a position of truly living for yourself. Thus, you should
keep in mind that all facts of this kind are being realized and
revealed through your own living environment.
Now if you have stepped forward for the sake of God's will, for the
sake of experiencing God's shimjung, and for the sake of establishing
that kingdom and that righteousness, what should you do? You should
become a person with a heart such that if you have something to eat,
you distribute it to people in a more difficult environment than you.
If you have more things to eat, you should be a person who can give
that to the person who presses you.
Thus, you should become a person who can reflect, Am I living a life
where I am desperately wishing to give in a practical way? Am I living
a life where living for the sake of serving strikes home or am I
striving to realize the ideology of that kingdom only after having
surmounted the realities of today? When you do that, you will be able
to feel the shimjung of Paul who lamented, "O wretched man that I am!"
(Romans 7:24)
The Companion of Jesus' Grieving Heart
You should understand that you are entrusted with the mission to
establish the value of your entire life with a heart that in reality
craves to give. The person who came to this earth as a substantial
incarnation of hope to fulfill the mission was none other than Jesus
of 2,000 years ago. Yet humankind today does not know that Jesus
craved to give so much. You also are leading your lives not knowing
that the bread you are eating is stained with God's sorrowful tears,
so is the clothing you are wearing. You should clearly understand that
this is the very grief of God and the condition for His lamentation.
What kind of man would the man be who has to come again, the Lord?
That man also will come to establish God's kingdom, as a hero of the
ideology for the sake of giving. Through the eternally unchanging
heavenly principles, with a parental heart toward the children, he
will come again to give that love to humankind.
For that reason, through that Lord who comes again, you should inherit
the sorrowful heart of God, who has been leading the dispensation for
6,000 years until now to restore the lost value of human beings. By
doing so, you can move forward to the seat of a companion with the
same fretful shimjung as Jesus.
If the believers today cannot move forward to such a seat, even if
there are tons of Christians on this earth, Christianity will not
grow. Even if there are masses of such people in a nation, that nation
will not prosper. Thus, by inheriting God's will that He forewarned,
you should experience that heart of Jesus who grieved concerning this
earth in the realm of your life.
Even now God wishes to see a person emerge who lives with a heart that
is anxious to give. Jesus longs for a person to emerge who can
overcome all the power of evil on this earth, which killed him. If
such a person appears, he will then truly be a hero of this society
and this nation. However, the fact that no such person has yet
appeared is the sadness of God and Jesus.
Although there were many prophets and sages who came to this earth to
be such a hero, our ancestors throughout history consigned them to the
grave, persecuting and ridiculing them. For that reason, it is God's
hope to cleanse all such historical wrongdoing by raising one person
today.
What should you do now to fulfill such a will and God's hope? First,
you should become a person who follows Jesus Christ. He walked the
bloody road of the cross with patience for the sake of God's kingdom
and His righteousness. Next, you should become a person who follows
the road of the many prophets and sages who, having deserted their own
glory, toiled during the 6,000-year history to fulfill the will of
God.
In the meantime, if instead of walking such a road, you walk a road
for the sake of some glory of your own, you will not be able to stand
proudly before God or before the many prophets and sages. Furthermore,
when you go to the spirit world after death, you will not be able to
step forward before the Father, and you will not be able to be
embraced in the bosom of the Father's love. The man who has faith only
for his own sake, who dies only for the sake of his own salvation,
will not be able to stand in pride before the Father when he goes to
the other side of the world. You should keep this in mind.
The People Who Seek and Establish That Kingdom
and That Righteousness
For that reason, you should become people who deny themselves and live
for the sake of that kingdom and that righteousness. No matter what
kind of situation with which you are faced, you should win a victory
after fighting with that environment, remembering that God has hope in
you. Only when you become like that can you, for the first time, call
yourselves God's true sons and daughters.
What kind of people can build the kingdom of God? They are the ones
who deny themselves and sacrifice themselves with an anxious heart for
the sake of Heaven. The people who deny themselves and sacrifice
themselves for the sake of the society, the people, the nation and the
world are the people who can build the veritable kingdom of God.
Furthermore, the person who will sacrifice himself for the sake of
Heaven, even at the cost of having to deny the nation and the world,
will be the one who can build the Kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, even
when faced with a sorrowful situation, without feeling sad for his own
sake, he will feel sorrow for the sake of the society and nation, the
world and Heaven. He will then be able to build the kingdom of God.
You thus should not attempt to satisfy your own desires. You should
lead a life of faith in which you sacrifice and serve for a greater
purpose. By doing so, you should go forward to the heartistic standard
of Jesus, who toiled only for the sake of God's will and humankind.
You should go forward to the seat of God's true children, who comfort
the grieving heart of the toiling God.
For that reason, with a heart that becomes indignant over
unrighteousness and with the heart of the love of God, who wishes to
give more and more, you should toil to seek and establish God's
kingdom and God's righteousness, even going to the ends of the earth.
Furthermore, you could comfort the heart of God, who has toiled until
now to save all humankind, even in the midst of sadness.
By not being defeated and winning a victory in the war against Satan
in that process of seeking and establishing God's kingdom and His
righteousness, you should be able to connect the individual, the
family, the society, the race, the state and the world into one.
Whatever circumstances with which you may be faced, you should prevail
in battle against Satan. When you go out to a society, you should win
in a fight against Satan in any circumstance of that society. When you
go out to a nation, you should become a person who will take the
responsibility for the most difficult problems of that nation and win
a victory in the battle against Satan.
If a person of this kind appears, although from our viewpoint that
person may seem to perish for the time being, you should know that he
will prosper in the end. A person of that kind is the master of any
family, any workplace, any group and any nation. The person who
fulfills the duty of filial piety toward the parents in the family at
the risk of his or her own life, the person who fulfills the duty of
fidelity as a husband or wife respectively, and fulfills the duty of a
loyal subject toward his or her king will become the master of that
very family and that kingdom.
Thus, by becoming such a person, you of today should represent the
purpose of the 6,000 years of providential history until now. By
representing the cosmic ideology that corresponds to today's reality,
even if any roads to Golgotha are blocked, you should be able to
courageously overcome that, saying, "Father! Thank you." Consequently,
by having your commanding presence spring up from the bottom of your
mind and transform into a body, when Satan comes to respect and follow
you, you will finally be able to step forth as a member of the race
who sought and established that kingdom and that righteousness.
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