REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON
SPEAKS ON
The True Shepherd and His Flock;
the False Shepherd and His Flock
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
April 6, 1958
John 10:1-21
Prayer
Father! We know that although You chose the Israelites 2,000 years ago
and tried to let them experience Your heart throughout their minds and
bodies, that will was not fulfilled. We have no choice but to intuit that
the Israelites could not distinguish right from wrong. Please guide us
to lead our lives determining right from wrong with certainty, centering
on the words You have granted us. Please allow us to go forward after
connecting to Your heart.
Although we are trying to connect to the Father's heart and follow the
words in our hearts, now please allow us to perceive that we have failed
to live according to the will of God. We know that when the Father chose
us, it was not just for our own sake; it was for the sake of the people
and the world. Please guide us according to Your will.
Father, we thank You for having endured as You watched over the
fallen and faithless social environment and circumstances. Thank You
for being concerned for the world and having chosen us so that we can
stand before Heaven, even as the world becomes more evil. We cannot
help thinking about the situation of Jesus Christ, who had to suffer
in sorrow because of the faithlessness of the chosen people. We know
that he spoke on behalf of the sorrow of Heaven. We also know that his
actions were based on faith and centered on the Father.
In the last days today, please guide us to restore the sins of
humanity through indemnity. By connecting with the heart of the Father,
let us attend Him in our hearts and minds. Although there are countless
people of faith on this earth, Christianity must represent the new Israel
today. Yet Christianity does not understand the will of the Father. Just
as there was no one among the Israelites who sincerely followed the
Father, Christianity is unable to take charge of the entire will of the
providence. Father, please allow us to fulfill that will. Guide us so
that we can respond to the royal summons of the Father and be remembered
for eternity. If we can possess the one life the Father expects, even
by being beaten, torn and persecuted, Father of love, we earnestly wish
You to guide us to persevere until the end and bring victory to You.
We know that many fell faithless, and there has been no one who
possessed a heavenly life that could link with the providential will.
Though Jesus tried to manifest the life of Heaven when he came to the
earth, he had to depart alone because no one followed him. Beloved Father,
we sincerely wish You to guide us, to become the lantern light for all
humanity today, to inherit the mission and will of Jesus.
Please allow us, Your sons and daughters who have gathered here today,
to reflect upon whether we have sincerely come forward for the sake of
the will of Heaven, fathoming Your situation and cherishing Your will.
Beloved Father, we earnestly hope that You will guide us to accomplish
the historical will by offering our minds and bodies for the sake of
righteousness. Let us become the masters of life by taking the situation
of the Lord to heart.
Father, please let this hour be a precious moment when we can pledge
to connect our hearts with the heart of Heaven and fulfill the will of
the Father. Please allow us to take responsibility for the will of the
Father with love. Allow us to experience the heart of God and follow
only the way of the will. We sincerely wish You will allow us to live,
centered only on the will of the Father. Let us cling to the Father
whether we are dead or alive, and let our hearts and bodies search for
the path of Your life, according to Your will. Please allow Your sons
and daughters, who have gathered here to uphold the words and will of the
Father, so that we can resurrect the whole of humanity and offer hearts
of loyalty and filial piety before the Father. By guiding our hearts,
we wish that You will let us follow the will of the Father without regret.
Now is the time to convey the words of truth, so please do not let
Satan invade us. Please do this by removing any gap between the heart
of the speaker and the hearts of the listeners. Please let the true
life that seeks to restore the original garden of the Father come to
life. Sincerely requesting that You dwell in us to grant grace and love
and that You allow us to live centering on the will, we offer these
words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
I will speak to you briefly today on the topic, "The True Shepherd
and His Flock; the False Shepherd and His Flock."
What Kind of Being Am I Before Heaven and Earth?
When you, who are sitting here today, look at so many people wondering
how to lead their lives, you must feel that it is difficult to help
them unite their minds and bodies and guide them in the one direction.
Even when you look at yourselves, you are probably aware of the fact
that unyielding determination and effort must be made to unite your
bodies with the direction your minds are pursuing.
You must clearly realize that it is a historically great, and extremely
important, task to push our bodies to rely on and follow our minds,
and vice versa. No one is deliberately trying to carry out actions that
run counter to our minds in pursuit of our desires. In the course of
history, achieving unity between the mind and body in action has been
the ardent hope of humanity and what Heaven and earth have been pressing
for. Although this is fortunate for humankind, the fact that the situation
has become like this is something over which we must grieve. Even if
someone commands authority and glory in society, if he cannot unite his
body with his mind, he must realize he is an unfortunate person.
We cannot deny that our minds are connected with Heaven, and our
bodies are closely linked to the visible earth. You are probably able
to feel that although we ourselves are extremely small, the minds and
bodies we possess are connected to an extremely large and vast world.
Similarly, although our minds and bodies are infinitesimal, because they
are linked to infinitely large things, our surrounding environment is
urging our minds to build a relationship with the world of the heavenly
principles and is pushing your bodies to build a relationship with the
historical ideal world to come in the last days.
As you become aware of this situation, you must think, "What kind
of person am I before Heaven and earth?" You need to think about this.
Even if there is peace and joy in your heart, to make these qualities
eternal, each of you must create an eternally joyful and happy environment
in heaven and on earth. Yet you have failed to accomplish this.
Now you must make a breakthrough in these difficulties, and allow your
minds and bodies to become one. Relying on the ideology of goodness that
your minds desire, you must search for the joy that can connect with
the ideology your bodies desire. If you can do that, you are entitled
to eternal blessing after you go to the spirit world.
The problem is how to build a relationship with the center of the
heavenly principles, so that the center of our minds can relate with the
heavenly principles. You must solve this problem. God is always worrying
about this.
Now where must your minds head? First, your minds and bodies must
become one to represent Heaven and earth. Even if you have that skill, it
is not enough for you to celebrate your own joy. You must also celebrate
the joy of the whole. If you have failed to do this, you must repent over
your past and criticize it. Moreover, you must also analyze yourself in
regard to the future.
The Person of Universal Accomplishment
Centering on ourselves, we must reach the one standard where our
minds and bodies can become one and fulfill the providential will. If you
understand this kind of path and are living according to the providential
will, you will feel joy. Only when our bodies follow and reflect our
minds can we claim to represent the heavenly principles. If you can
be recognized as this kind of person, you can become happy and form a
relationship of love with God. Your minds and bodies can relate with
Heaven and earth, centering on the heavenly principles.
Therefore, by uniting your minds and bodies centering on your minds,
you must possess the power that can overcome any conflicting element
you may encounter. In this way, no matter what kind of situation you are
in, you can stay in a safe place. You must understand that it is God's
will to bring these kinds of people together to form a family, a church,
a nation and the one united world. They are then to form a relationship
with God Himself.
Therefore, this is not the time for you to mourn because you do not
have money, prestige or authority. These external conditions can never
bring you eternal happiness. If you look back on the course of history,
you will find that although there have been many people who have shed
tears and put their lives on the line to attain these external conditions,
there are not that many people who have shed tears and put their lives
on the line for the sake of internal conditions.
What kind of person was Jesus? He was the person who blocked and
balked at these external conditions. To establish the internal conditions,
he shed tears and fought with his life on the line.
When you believe in religion, what you sense first is that a conflict
arises in your minds. In this conflict, your bodies are your enemies.
One can become one with the heavenly principles by winning the victory in
this conflict, centered on the individual. If you have come to possess a
body united with the mind which is centered on the heavenly principles,
you will be a person of universal accomplishment.
The heavenly laws of God are unchanging, so if your minds can be
in harmony with these laws of the heavenly principles, and your bodies
have become united with your minds on that foundation, then there is no
being on the earth who can cause changes in you. You are an incarnation
of unchanging heavenly law.
If we who are living on the earth today have been carrying on an
unspeakably fierce struggle to set the external conditions, there must
also be a struggle for the sake of setting the internal conditions.
They are the centers of the external conditions. If this is so, you
must realize that in the providential history of restoration, without
a fierce conflict that far surpasses the external conditions today,
there is no way to initiate an internal revolution to modify all these
external realities. What we must be concerned about is not the external
world, but the internal world.
However, until now we have searched for a leader, have sought external
friends, and have tried to establish our ideology in the external
environment, all in an attempt to find external conditions. Yet none of
these can be eternal.
You have to understand that, although each of you is an individual,
you are in a position of contradiction between the two worlds: the
world which pursues external conditions, and the world which pursues
internal conditions. You must understand that because Heaven is already
aware of this, God has been pioneering the course of history in which
you must stand in a sorrowful situation and avert the path that others
like. You must walk the path that others despise for the sake of all
people. Although each of you is an individual, you are not just an
individual. You have to understand that this is the reality found
within you.
Have you experienced the day when you have achieved unity between your
mind and body and can make a request of Heaven? This is what Heaven will
ask you.
The Attitude Which the People of Faith
Should Take in the Last Days
Since you are trying to set internal conditions in a world where
external conditions are set, you cannot avoid passing through the
historical course of being chased out of the world. Accordingly, now
in the last days, you will be swept away by the era of fear in the end
of time.
The reason these phenomena are taking place is to strike the external
center and make it become harmonized with the internal center. To do
this, the social conditions, the habitual conditions, the mental and
conceptual conditions, will be threatened by the internal conditions.
You must forsake them mercilessly. Therefore, you will be overwhelmed
by a fear you do not even understand.
At such a time, what does Jesus demand of the faithful people of the
last days? He is stressing that they impede the external conditions and
establish the internal conditions. If you have some friends or teachers
in the world, you have to examine whether they are centered on the
external ideology or the internal ideology. Moreover, in the church,
the nation and the whole world, you must pay close attention as to
whether their direction is heading toward external relationships or
internal relationships.
Having arrived at these last days, you must not seek your original mind
before you seek a religious leader. Christian people have been pursuing
the heart of God by cutting themselves off from all external things
through prayer. In Buddhism, they have been seeking the original human
mind for thousands of years through meditation. You have to understand
that the very fact human beings must do this is a historical tragedy.
You who have come here! Are there any among you who are making
assertions centering on the body? Such people are traitors before the
heavenly principles. The reason is that there has never been a time
when people could join their minds and bodies together and boast before
the whole universe. In other words, there has never been a moment when
minds and bodies have become one and people have become one with the
Creator. As people who have failed to unite their minds and bodies and
failed to become one with the Creator, how can we dare to be proud before
Heaven? Heaven can never tolerate that. Those who boast about things the
heavenly principles do not boast about will be judged. This is because
according to the principle, we must first cultivate the true minds and
bodies in which Heaven can take pride. We can then become people of
which all things of the creation can be proud.
You say that you have come forward today in search of Heaven and the
path of truth. However, even if there is some truth which represents
Heaven and earth, for you to build a relationship with that truth,
you must first unite your minds and bodies. When your minds mourn, your
bodies must also mourn. When your bodies are sad, your minds should shed
tears. If you cannot experience this in your life of faith, you will
never be able to stand before the heavenly principles. Now that the time
approaches when we must fulfill the will of the heavenly principles,
people feel, without conscious awareness, some sense of urgency and
craving in their minds because they are connected to the will of the
heavenly principles. Therefore, no matter how wealthy are the economic
and social lives of the people of such nations as America, the number
of those who commit suicide, because they feel unrest and urgency in
their hearts, is increasing astronomically.
Centering on your minds, what must you seek? If you feel some sorrow
in your minds without a clear reason, you have to realize that this is
your teacher. You are feeling sad without a reason because your minds
can sense the judgment of the last days as it draws near. Accordingly,
if you feel lonely and urgent in your hearts, then you have to make the
effort to develop a body that can become a friend of that mind. This is
true, not only in regard to individuals, but applies to whole races also.
If there is a people on the earth who can represent the will of the
heavenly principles, then that people will experience the phenomena of
being driven into an environment more miserable than any other. This kind
of person must emerge on the individual level. You have to understand
that you are in that situation. When you view the situation centering
on yourself, as these kinds of phenomena unfold on the worldwide level
you will find that there will come a time when you must strike your body
three times, centering on your minds. However, fallen people are ignorant
of this because their five spiritual senses have become dull. However,
Heaven has the mission to reveal the time of the heavenly principles
to humankind. Heaven has the responsibility to reveal it at least three
times through the hearts of people or through revelations.
However, the human body stands opposing the human mind. The mind is
internal, and the body is external. There is no one who will say that
the mind is false and the body is true. Therefore, only those people who
have struck their bodies and overcome them, centering on their minds,
can experience the world of the new ideology. This is not unfolding just
in yourselves. It is also taking place in your churches.
The Ideology and Hero Who Can
Make These Two Worlds into One
Although there are many churches in the world, there is none which
can conform completely to the will of God. If there is a heaven, then the
truth will be made the center. Based on that, relationships will be built
with the internal and external dimensions. Moreover, as phenomena of the
end of time, there will be conflicts among the religious groups. For any
religion or group, this will begin on the individual level and expand to
the family, church, national and world levels, in that order. A nation
also has the two dimensions of the internal and the external. The world
is divided into the left and right sides. These must become one.
You who yearn for the original world and wish for the ideology of
Heaven, must never ruin history. You cannot overcome the difficulties you
face, no matter what kind of environment you are in or how other people
persecute you. You must become united, centering on the heart, to first
lay the internal foundation and then seek the external foundation. By
doing so, you must transcend your individual self, centered on God, and
seek the family, the society, the nation and the world. Furthermore, you
must go in pursuit of Heaven and earth. What is the most crucial issue for
human beings, who are searching for the one world and one ideology? It
is not the ideology of the nation and the world, which will disappear
after a transitory existence. No matter how much authority you have and no
matter how high your position is, these are not important. The important
thing is the ideology and the hero who can bring the two worlds into one.
When we look at human beings, we find that there is the internal world
centered on the mind and the external world centered on the body. In the
same way that this world is divided into two worlds, the spirit world
is also divided into the good realm that Heaven dominates and the evil
realm Satan dominates.
Do you know that the point of the culmination of the 6,000-year
providence of God is inside your body? Those who have not fulfilled
the one principle that can unite mind and body cannot lead or govern
humanity. This is a serious problem. The problem is not that there
is no God or that Jesus is not here. The foremost problem is that you
yourselves have not become one.
There are two paths lying before any person. One heads toward the
world; the other forsakes the world and heads toward the heavenly
principles. Reflecting on this situation, there is the materialistic
view of history that advocates an external ideology, and there is the
spiritual view of history that advocates an internal ideology.
When will these two perspectives on history merge into one? Where
are we going to make the adjustment to bring these together? This is a
great feat.
When God was creating this world, He was dealing with the two worlds.
God was dealing with the world of the mind and the world of the body.
Similarly, we have to understand that God is yearning for the appearance
of the one person who can bring the providence of God, the two separate
directions, together into oneness.
God also has something that He demands through the internal and
external dimensions. Yet you have to understand that the purpose of
God's providence is to usher in the one day when the world of internal
aspects can absorb the world of external aspects to unite these two
worlds into one.
Therefore, the more revolutionary is the religion that is upholding
the providential will today, the more it has been developing. The more
it is hit, the more it collides with the accepted society, the more
it has been prospering. This is God's history of restoration through
indemnity. First, it is heavenly principle that the one who strikes
first will lose. In World War I, the side that struck first lost. The
same thing happened in World War II. Accordingly, in World War III,
the side that strikes first will also lose.
People in the world often like to hit others first. However, Heaven
does not tolerate those who strike first. Even in our religious world
today, people like to curse and criticize others. Heaven will never
tolerate those who strike first.
Why must the Lord Come Again?
Today there are many who are concerned about the world, but only a
small number of people are worried about the fact that an individual
cannot unite his body centering on his mind. Members of the Unification
Church who have gathered here! You are, of course, to worry about the
nation and the world now, but first you must be concerned about the
fact that your minds and bodies have not become one, centering on your
mind. The real desire of God is to form a nation and a world based on a
gathering of people whose bodies have united with their minds. If this
is the hope of God, then even with respect to being concerned about
the world and nation, God wants this kind of person to gather and worry
about them. This is the true attitude of people who believe. Jesus came
to fulfill this task, but since he left without completing it, he must
come again.
What must the Lord come again and fulfill? Is he going to judge the
world with fire when he comes? No, that is not true. The judgment by
fire can be carried out by God alone, without the coming of Jesus. Why
then is he coming?
Jesus comes as the center who can conduct the internal and external
providence of God in His place, to prepare the one point of unification
and to forge the horizontal relationship. This is why he is coming again.
Today we have arrived at the last age of the end of time. If you
have come forward taking responsibility for this will of God, then just
as human minds have been trampled upon by human bodies and people who
pioneered the internal realm were trampled upon by external things in
the past, you too will be struck. If the doctrines you advocate move
forward for the sake of the world, you will be struck by the world. If
they move forward for the sake of the nation and the people, you will
be struck by the nation and the people. If they move forward for the
sake of a religious group, you will be struck by that religious group.
It is the nature of the fallen world to easily drive out those who shed
tears for the sake of the world. When people shed tears for the sake of
the nation and the people, the nation and the people do not hesitate to
drive them out. It is also easy for religious groups to chase out those
who are shedding tears for their sake.
The person who unites this internal world and external world and
brings with him the form of the original world is called the Lord of the
Second Coming in Christianity. He is called Maitreya in Buddhism and a
true man in Confucianism. In each religion there is a different term for
this person. However, in truth, all these religions are talking about
the same Lord of the Second Coming who is to come.
What kind of person was Jesus? From the perspective of the individual,
he was the representative of Adam. From the perspective of the clan, he
was the representative of Jacob. On the level of the people, he was the
representative of Moses. From the perspective of the world, he came with
the responsibility to represent all humanity. Furthermore, he came not
only for the sake of the world; he came possessing the sorrow of Heaven
in his mind. Who then is the person who will spend his or her lifetime
shedding tears on the individual level while clinging to the miserable
Jesus who passed away? Jesus will look for this kind of person. God also
will look for this kind of person.
It might seem that when fallen humans are born, they are born in joy.
Yet when they die, they go in tears. However, those who shed tears
while clinging to the pitiful people will receive the blessing of the
people. Those who shed tears while clinging to the pitiful church will
receive the blessing of the church. Those who cling to the world and
mourn will receive the blessing of the world.
From the division at the time of the liberation of the Republic of
Korea until now, these miserable people have longed for unification,
but it has not yet been achieved. On the contrary, a relationship of
distrust has developed. These pitiful people are not aware of the time
of judgment when they will fall like the autumn leaves. What must we
do at such a moment? We must look for the root that does not change,
even during the autumn. Its colors and its every aspect will differ from
those we have seen in the world until now.
To Become a True Lamb
What must you become? You must become God's flock of sheep. For
the last 6,000 years, God has been calling for and looking for a flock
of true sheep over whom Heaven and earth can rejoice. Moreover, He is
seeking that flock of sheep today. He will seek them tomorrow too.
Where is the flock of sheep God and Jesus can rejoice over? If you
want to become a true flock of sheep, you must be able to discern the
voice of the true shepherd. In the same way that there are two worlds
representing the internal and external ideology of God, there is an
appeal for the truth which represents the internal world and an appeal
for the truth which represents the external world.
How do we know if we have become the sheep to which the true shepherd
can relate? It depends upon whether you have heard the voice of the
shepherd that comes through your minds. The question is whether you have
heard the voice of the flock of sheep in your minds.
The religious group, people and world who meet the true leader
without tears will be doomed. It is a basic principle that they will be
doomed. Although Jesus clung to the sect and mourned, he was chased out
of it. Although he embraced the people and cried, he was betrayed by
them. Although he shouldered the world and cried in blood and sweat,
the world did not recognize him. The true shepherd is this kind of
person. A true friend and a true teacher are also this kind of person. If
you have found the true shepherd, you must listen to his words with all
your heart and be able to pour out all your mind and body.
God sometimes has to create the unified form of the internal and
external ideology and promote it on behalf of humankind. Accordingly,
when such a time comes, you must manifest the internal voice into an
external form. Moreover, you must forget your minds and bodies. Tying
the whole into one, you must be prepared in your heart to offer them
all. You must offer yourself without any condition and meet the one
shepherd on the earth upon whom you can depend, upon whom you can rely
without ever being separated in your heart. You must find assurance in
him, even after entrusting everything to him. Those who have failed to
do so will never understand the heart of Heaven. Putting this in terms
of a direct relationship, it is the relationship between parent and child.
Human beings have parents internally and teachers externally, but
due to the fall, they have not been able to possess true parents or
true teachers. Therefore, you must find the true shepherd to whom you
can entrust your minds and bodies in place of your parents and teachers,
and whom you can attend with all your heart. When Jesus was passing away,
he wished blessing upon his enemies. Only when you can meet the shepherd
on the earth who has the same heart as Jesus can you attend God on the
earth. You have to understand this.
Because the people have not emerged on the earth who can bring together
the internal and external standards of the heart of God and manifest them,
you do not have any place to entrust your heart. There is no way your
body can rely upon something. Therefore, in the end of time, there must
appear one person who can connect to the heart of God and represent the
internal and external standards of God's heart. You have to understand
clearly that such a time is the day of the Lord of the Second Coming. The
one who is to come is the true shepherd and the returning Lord.
|