Sermons of Rev Moon - February 8, 1959 - Let Us Understand God, Who Wanted to be Proud

[대태양/김현수]

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON

Let Us Understand God, Who Wanted to be Proud
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
February 8, 1959

Prayer

Father, please allow us to be awakened to the grieving heart You had when You lost the original garden and mourned over it. We have been ignorant of the fact that the sorrow of Adam and Eve is our sorrow. We have failed to experience through our minds and bodies that the Father's sadness is greater than our sorrow. We sincerely wish to feel in our bodies and minds during this hour that, unbeknownst to us, the Father has shed many tears and has suffered endless and infinite sorrow and pain.

The sorrow of the Father caused by the fall of Adam and Eve was indeed great. Jesus' unfinished mission in the will of the providence of restoration on the earth also caused You infinite grief, loneliness and suffering. Please allow us to experience the entirety of Your agonized heart during this hour.

Because our ancestors betrayed the Father, the history of sorrow that provokes great indignation in our hearts has come into being. Please guide us to reflect on this, so we will not commit the miserable mistake of increasing the Father's sadness. Rather, please allow us to cope with the sorrow of Adam, Eve and Jesus.

Please do not allow our minds and bodies to stop at their limits. Please allow our minds to represent the Father's mind and our bodies to represent the Father's hyung sang. Please allow us to bear witness to the Father, who is deeply sorrowful. Guide us to call upon the Father during this hour.

Although we are shameful, please lead us to become those who can understand the internal heart of the Father, who has sought us and raised us. Although we are inadequate, we hope to become one with the Father in our minds and bodies. Please extend Your arms of compassion and cast the light of love. Please establish us as Your elite troops. Allow us to fight against Satan as Your sons and daughters.

We know that in the 2,000-year course of history since the coming of Jesus, our ancestors failed to fulfill their obligations toward Heaven and caused many prophets to shed blood. Please allow us to feel indignant about these facts and to be able to take responsibility for their sins and mistakes, repenting for them. Please forgive everything.

We have learned of the crimes which our ancestors committed. Please guide us to establish the standard of life the Father seeks. Allow us to become Your sons and daughters who can step forward as the embodiments of the original Adam and Eve.

We know that many millions of satans are watching us in our surroundings today. Please guide us through our path and allow us to make the internal and external preparations to defeat these satans. Beloved Father, this is our deepest wish.

Father, please establish the standard of victory and manifest Your glory in this moment. If there are some who fall asleep, please wake them. Beloved Father, we sincerely wish that You will take care of them personally, and that You will not let the myriad satans invade. Please guide us to resemble Your heart during this hour. Please allow us to experience the Father's indignant heart. Beloved Father, we earnestly wish You to unite us with Your desperate heart and lead us to hope only for Your guidance and instructions.

Please give blessing upon the many altars gathering on behalf of the people. We know that there are many lonely children of Yours scattered across the countryside who are appealing to You with desperate hearts. Father, please give blessings to them and work with them with the same grace. We pray from the depth of our hearts that You grant them the miracle of resurrection which will enable them to fulfill their internal mission.

We have entrusted everything to the Father in this hour. Please govern it from beginning to end. We offer all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.

This sermon is about something with which we are very familiar. God said that the creation He made in the six days was good. We must reflect upon how God's deep desire to take infinite pride in His creation can be found in this word "good."

God Is Looking for Things of which He can be Proud

God wanted to boast about the creation He had made in six days. When He was looking at all the created things, He was extremely delighted. To whom did He speak the words, "They are good"? He did not utter those words to the archangel. He spoke those words to all created things. We have to understand that God's feelings toward all things were that intensely loving.

Nonetheless, all created things lost their value of being good, which God extolled in the Garden of Eden. God's desire toward all things could not be substantially manifested. When we think about this sad situation, we can understand that God's words, "They are good," became words of grief. We have to remember this. The words extolling the goodness became sorrowful words. If someone had recognized the heart and situation of God, then God would have been more happy about the creation He had personally made.

Nonetheless, God did not have anyone who understood the value of His words and related with the creation in the same way. When we think about this, we can see that God's heart of love toward all created things contained a deep sorrow within it. Originally, God wanted to boast about His good creation. We have to understand this.

For this reason, the title of the sermon I want to give to you today is "Let Us Understand God, Who Wanted to be Proud."

After creating Adam and Eve, God wanted them to rule the developing creation and realize His words in the ideal realm of goodness. We must think about how God was looking at Adam and Eve with the hope that the day would come when He could take pride in them and in the rest of creation.

God yearned in His heart for the day when Adam and Eve would reach perfection, emerge as His representatives and rule all things. God must have hoped for the historic moment when He could brag about the creation He had made over such a long time. Furthermore, God longed for the day when He could say to Adam and Eve that they were one with Him, copies of His internal Sung sang and external Hyung sang, capable of sharing all the joys and pleasures of life with God. We must learn to fathom such a heart of Heaven today. Our ancestors fell because they could not understand the heart of God. We know this fact very well.

After the creation of the universe, God longed for the appearance of the person and family in whom He could take pride. Yet because of the fall, the very basis for that was shattered. The basis for God's pride became the cause of His grief. We must remember that it is our historical responsibility to penetrate into this desire to be proud, which is hidden deep inside the Sung sang of God. We must reveal this and usher in the day when we can truly be proud before God.

To Become a Source of God's Pride

We have not known the God who could never take pride in His creation. We did not know that He saw His pride turn into sorrow and manifest itself in tears.

Therefore, now we must find the original heavenly nature and original love of which God longs to be proud. Accordingly, as the people who possess the original heart of love that can relate with God, you must cultivate yourselves to become those in whom God can take pride. Although God has been yearning and searching for the one person who can bring shame to Satan and provide God with a source of pride, He has not been able to find such a person.

People want to boast. It is human nature to put one's self forward and boast about oneself. We have the desire to boast about our parents, our children, and the whole of our family. Furthermore, we have the desire to be proud of our tribes, our nations, our world, and the whole of heaven and earth. Although you are fallen people, your original minds that seek to boast about things are controlling both your lives and history. You have to understand this.

Why do we think of such a desire as wrong? It is because of the human fall. In our daily lives, we want to boast about everything we have. We do not want to boast about them to just our neighbors, but to everyone in the world. The desire to be proud is not an evil desire; it is an impulse of the original mind. This is the original mind through which you can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the desire of our hearts to boast about ourselves and be famous on the level of the society, the nation and the world.

Why does such a desire move in our hearts and stir our feelings? It is because we have the natural desire to boast. Our minds have this desire because, if God and human beings had become one in the ideal manner, that would have been the source of pride for us as well as God. This is why we are moving in this direction, even though we fell. This is why we are struggling to find the central value of the whole cosmos.

However, because human beings fell, the laws concerning pride were not in line with the Principle. They were opposed to it. People should have followed the intentions of their original hearts and pursued the laws of the Principle; yet because of the fall, they lost everything and headed in the opposite direction. As a result of this, the directions that our original minds pursue and the actual environment in which we live are diametrically opposed to one another.

We are searching for God and the path of the Way. In whom should we take pride? Before we take pride in ourselves, we must boast about our center. If we want to be proud of our nation, rather than being proud centered on ourselves, we must be proud of a patriot of that nation. When we are proud of our tribe, we must be proud of its center. The same thing is true for the family.

Therefore, fallen people must reject and transcend themselves to find the source of their pride in the center of a group, province, nation, world and God, who is the center of heaven and earth. Unless we do this, we can never stand as the source of God's pride.

To Acquire the Conditions of God's Pride

Those who boast, centering on themselves, for the sake of their joy will set conditions that violate the principles of the universe. The more one can be proud of the goodness and uniqueness of others, the closer they can get to Heaven.

Although all people want to transcend themselves to take pride in their families, churches, nations and the world, there has not been a world, nation, church or family on this earth that they could sincerely respect and be proud. Although we may be faithless, we must still build a relationship of pride with God. We must transcend ourselves to take pride in our families, our society, our nation and the world. Therefore, our minds are always being pulled in that direction.

Now we must reflect upon the heart of Heaven, who was filled with the desire to be proud of us. When we think about God's tiring providence of 6,000 years, the purpose of which was to seek us, when we think about God, who has come looking for us through a miserable course of history filled with bloody battles, we find that He has never had the conditions upon which He could raise a person and be proud of him in the course of history. When we understand that such is the situation of Heaven, we dare not boast about ourselves or go before Him with some condition.

In the original garden of goodness, God was able to boast about us. He was able to take pride in us before all things and to be proud of all things before the angelic world. Our original desire to boast must begin with us as the starting point and then expand through the family, the society, the nation, and the world. It must become linked to the pride of Heaven. The fallen people, who could not achieve this, must strike themselves before they can set the conditions for pride. We have to understand that we are in this sad state.

Adam and Eve should have set the conditions of God's pride so that even Satan could say, "They are the true sons and daughters of which You can be proud. They truly deserve Your love." They should have been worshipped by Satan. Yet they have turned out to be the sacrifices of Satan for 6,000 years. We have to realize how great the sorrow of God has been, as He looked over this situation.

Now we must set the conditions that can provide a source of pride to God, who is suffering such grief. One must become two, two must become ten, and ten must become ten million to form a people, a nation, a world and go in the direction God desires. The fallen people of the earth must inevitably seek this.

Therefore, you must now go forward toward the world about which God can boast, toward the sovereignty of which God can be proud. You must find and become the original person of which God can be proud and find the original life, personality and love of which God can be proud.

St. Paul did not boast about himself, though he had a high position and a great education. He could have been proud of his background, his tribe, his religious sect, and the chosen nation of Israel. The only things of which he wanted to be proud were what God had established as conditions of pride. You should learn about the life of St. Paul, who held onto that basis of God's pride and carried on the battle. From the time of Noah to the present day, many ancestors who were raised before God suffered great tribulations.

How does God relate to us? He relates to us with what is most despised in the satanic world. We must understand this. Human beings fell because they lacked faith. Therefore, God emphasized that we must develop faith in the most difficult circumstances and that we must not eat the fruit in the most dangerous situation, when death is the consequence of eating it.

Consequently, our ancestors lived according to the word of God in an environment where it was difficult to believe in the word and put it into practice. Noah maintained his faith for 120 years as if it were a day. He chased away all persecution and scorn.

He was desperate to connect with the heart of God. He understood that what God wanted to be proud of was greater and more precious than anything of which society was proud.

The Reason Abraham Became the Ancestor of Faith

Because Noah's course was like that, even when God judged the people with the flood, there was no condition upon which the faithless and rebellious people could protest against Heaven. Noah was someone of which God could be proud. The judgment of Noah was the process through which the value of heavenly pride and practical value were established. The sons and daughters of Noah should have become connected to the heart of pride that God wanted to establish, but they disregarded Noah's devotion and had self-centered thoughts. Heaven was turned upside down.

The same was true for Abraham. It was not easy for him to leave everything behind in Ur of the Chaldeans. Abraham could have led a more joyful life than anyone in the satanic world. His wife was extremely beautiful, and he had abundant wealth.

God called Abraham and drove him the opposite way, toward tribulation. You have to understand that God ordered Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldeans and drove him into tribulations that his relatives, family and people dared not attempt.

We have to understand that Abraham transcended himself and deeply felt the existence of Heaven, which was guiding his tribe and descendants to the ideal world. Abraham knew that ordinary daily life was not something of which the people could be proud. When God's command was given to him in this state of mind, he abandoned all that he owned. It was not easy for him to do that. Abraham set out on a truly miserable journey toward the land of Haran, abandoning all that he had, his family, which had given him great joy, and all his belongings. However, even though he was a pitiful wanderer, his footsteps were full of confidence, because he believed that a glorious and proud day would come, even if he could not be proud of his current situation.

Abraham was determined that no matter what kind of ordeals and difficulties he might face, he would overcome them hundreds and thousands of times. You have to understand that Jesus sought for the garden of God's pride more intensely than anyone else, with this same determination.

Because the heart of Abraham and the heart of God, who was desperately looking for a reciprocal object, came together in unity, God was able to give Abraham His proud blessings, which included the garden of the absolute ideal for which God longed.

This is how Abraham was put in the blessed position of being the ancestor of faith before Heaven. His living descendants thought they could be proud of their place of dwelling. They should have transcended the people and gone forth toward the world, yet they did not understand this. They just wanted to stay in one place and cling to their source of pride. This made them increasingly distant from the ideal of which God can be proud. You have to understand that this is why human beings have entered a long course of sorrowful history.

The same was true for Moses. For forty years Moses lived a comfortable and luxurious life in the palace. Although he lived a most enviable life, more than anyone else, he longed for the day Heaven could raise up his people and take pride in them. Although they were a pitiful people, moaning under the misery of 400 years of slavery in Egypt, he believed that one day God would surely bless them and lead them into the blessed land of Canaan. Moses hoped that God would build a new garden of hope, a nation that surpassed all others, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, of which God could be most proud.

The Reason Jesus Became the Leader of the Israelites

Moses did not lack for anything in his palatial life, yet he rejected it all and did not take pride in it. On the contrary, he wanted to boast of the Israelites, who were moaning and suffering before Heaven. Furthermore, he wanted to be proud of the land of Canaan with which Abraham was blessed, the land that the seven Canaanite peoples had claimed. His desires were in tune with the wishes of God, who wanted to raise a chosen people of Israelites in the land of Canaan and be proud of them. Therefore, God put Moses at the helm of the people and led them to that land. We have to understand that this was the situation of God.

When Moses appeared before the 600,000, no one among them understood his innermost feelings. Most of them opposed him. However, through many miracles and calamities, God led the people to the realization that Moses was the one to guide them to the garden of pride in which they could dwell. They were thus able to fathom Moses' heart, and God was able to lead them out.

The Israelites should have believed in Moses as the one sent by Heaven and should have been proud of him until the end. When he came with heavenly authority and struck the palace of Pharaoh, they rejoiced that he was their Heaven-sent leader. Yet when they faced more humble and difficult circumstances in the wilderness, they lost faith in him and discredited him, saying that he was not fit to lead the people.

Among the Israelites there should have been some who centered their lives on Moses, believing that he was their proud leader. They should have shared his sorrow, his path, and his leadership, knowing that it was all for the sake of saving the people. Had there been such people, then the 600,000 would not have been lost in the wilderness.

The people held grudges against Moses. They betrayed him and did not attend him when they should have boasted about him, followed him and served him. From this moment, the basis for the pride of God, Moses and the people was shattered. This will should have been realized by Moses, yet it did not come to pass. The people betrayed Moses, who was their representative. You have to understand that, at this moment, Moses felt more pain and sorrow than when he was living in the palace, longing for the land of Canaan.

Moses led the people into the wilderness to guide them to the land of Canaan, the land of hope. Even when he was being ostracized and betrayed by the people in the wilderness, he had to guide them. This is why he felt incredibly bitter. The people did not realize they should be proud of him and treated him with contempt instead. They surely deserved to perish. If the Israelites had truly understood the heart of Moses, they could not have complained.

When he was looking at the starving people, Moses was most courageous. He pleaded with Heaven to give blessings to the people. This moved Heaven. The Israelite people never understood that Moses was never concerned about himself. Instead, he was praying for their sake.

The 600,000 Israelites should have understood that Moses suffered more starvation and misery than they did. They then would have avoided destruction. They also should have understood that Moses was trying to save them. When they turned their backs and opposed him, Moses felt much pain and grief.

The people failed to realize that they should comply with the wishes of Moses, who was living for Heaven with all his heart and soul. Their attitudes not only caused grief to Moses, they made God even more sorrowful. You have to understand that God's grief was more intense than that of Moses. Although Moses was the leader of the people and a person in which God could take pride, because of the faithlessness of the people, his life ended in miserable tragedy.

Humanity Should Have Taken Pride in Jesus

Heaven wanted the Israelites to follow Moses. God wanted them to follow him with the same intensity of desire with which He had established him, but that wish was shattered. Against God's will, the Israelites became sacrifices to Satan.

The hope that God held in Moses during his forty years in the palace of Pharaoh, his forty years in the Midian wilderness, and the forty years of the wilderness course was completely shattered. As a result, God no longer had a people and a land of which He could be proud. Nevertheless, Moses wanted to be proud of these worthless people. The tragedy is that the Israelites were, in like manner, not proud of the greatness of Moses, whom God had raised.

What kind of nation and people can possess the heavenly authority to influence the world in the last days? You have to understand that it is the nation or people who take pride in the person God has chosen. Wouldn't that be so?

Let us think about Jesus once more. Jesus was the ultimate fruit of all God's work of 4,000 years. He was the incarnation of God's heart and love. Moreover, his words, situation, hopes and heart represented everything of God. We have to realize that Jesus was chosen to represent and take pride in the hope of God.

After persevering for 4,000 years, God sent Jesus as His representative, the central figure of which He was proud. Yet when Jesus came to the earth, he never boasted about himself.

Jesus never had the chance to boast about himself in a manner that could bring joy to God. No one boasted about Jesus either, which would have pleased God. Because Jesus came in place of God, he had an intense desire to be proud of himself before the family, the religious sects, the people, and the world. Don't you think that must have been true? Because he came as the proud fruit for which God had waited 4,000 years, he really wanted to be proud of that in the presence of his family, society, nation and the world.

Yet Jesus did not have the foundation upon which he could stand proud before the thousands of people. God raised Jesus, intending to boast about him before all created things in heaven and earth, as well as before Satan. Nonetheless, no one ever took pride in him, not his family, not his sect, not his people, nor the world.

We who are the descendants of the traitors to Heaven should feel utterly ashamed in the presence of Heaven. We human beings, who have committed the historic sin, are not in a position to boast about ourselves. You have to understand that it has been the source of God's deepest sorrow that He could not find one person, one sect or one people of which to be proud.

When God chose Jesus as the representative of the 4,000-year history, Jesus shed tears and said, "It is my greatest honor." Jesus became extremely grievous because he could not fulfill this will. Rather than finding an excuse for himself, he lamented and bowed his head before Heaven with the attitude, "I never thought that the wishes of my Father, who has toiled so hard for my sake, would meet such a tragic end." You must understand that the time has come when we must show our pride in Jesus, who had this kind of heart.

Christians today must understand that it is their task to usher in the one proud day Jesus wanted to fulfill for the individuals, families, people and the world. They must attend Jesus. This is what Heaven desires. Now you must be awakened to the original heart of God, who wanted to boast about humanity after creating the Garden of Eden.

Jesus, who should have been glorified and felt proud that he was the son of God, had to shoulder the cross in misery. You must be full of the desire to liberate the bitter heart Jesus had toward the people, heaven and earth, and Satan as he walked toward Golgotha with the cross on his shoulders. You have to feel this in your heart. You have to have a desperate heart toward the will of Heaven.

We Must Take Pride in Jesus

It was our ancestors who caused bitter grief to the True Father. He came as the culmination of shimjung and the hope of humanity to build a parent-child bond with us. Our ancestors' betrayal was the work of Satan. Hence, we must have a burning desire to cleanse the sin of our ancestors and judge Satan. Evil blood is flowing within us. Therefore, we must at least have the desire to cry out, "Heaven, please give us strength. Heaven, please forgive us."

How could the garden of pride have turned into Golgotha? Today, people of faith brag about the cross. They do not shoulder the cross for the sake of Heaven. Even as followers, they do not take pride in Jesus, who struggled desperately to find a living altar for the sake of Heaven. They do not take pride in this earnest heart of Jesus. They do not understand his deep desire to realize the will of Heaven through the individual, the family, and the people sought by Heaven.

Even if we were to abandon all else, we must ultimately eradicate all our historical sins and concretely experience the shimjung of God. We then will appear as the people for which God has been looking so ardently.

Such a family, tribe and chosen people must emerge. A heavenly people must then emerge. No matter how bitter and complicated a person's situation, this should not pose any problem. You must feel a swelling of intense desire to realize that will. Paul had this kind of heart.

Paul, who had a vision of Jesus on the way to Damascus, realized that he was not even worthy to raise his head in the presence of Jesus. After that, he tried to live for the sake of Jesus. He was overwhelmed with the desire to offer his life to Jesus, and he prayed, "Please guide me to glorify you, whether I am dead or alive." Because he had this unchanging heart toward Jesus, he laid a new foundation for Christianity.

Now we must take pride in Jesus. We must be proud of his heart. We must boast about his situation and desire. Furthermore, we must take pride in the bride for which Jesus was looking. At the same time, we must also be proud of the family, the people, the nation, and the world for which Jesus was searching. We must understand that only then can God display us and show that He is proud of us.

What blocks our path as we try to be proud of Jesus? The cross lies before us. It tears us apart and persecutes us; yet Christians walk a proud path. This is a very sad thing. We must display our pride in Jesus. Because the condition to be proud of the crucified Jesus remains ahead of us, you must take pride in the cross. Without setting this condition of having suffered infinite tribulation for the sake of Heaven, there is no way you can become sons and daughters who possess the heart of God or the heart of Jesus, or who have set the conditions for pride in the presence of all things.

Even if you understand this reality in your heart and feel this emotionally, you must still set the condition of pride in the sphere of your activities. Only after you have set the condition equivalent to the proclamation of Jesus on the cross, "All is finished," (John 19:30) can God and Jesus trust us and raise us to show their pride in us.

Let Us Become Those of Whom
God and Jesus Can Be Proud

Although 2,000 years have passed since the coming of Jesus, have you ever met a person who is still burning with the desire to boast about Jesus? If you are not this kind of religious leader, you are a corrupted minister working for mere wages. You must be proud of Jesus. To set the condition of pride before Heaven, he gratefully overcame the path of the cross despite all the pain that he suffered: his torn body, the spear that pierced his side, the crown of thorns on his head, and the nails in his hands and feet.

Although Jesus had the qualifications to boast about his glory, he did not. On the contrary, he lived with the humility of a sinner. Jesus had the mind-set that even in the path of death, he would be proud in the presence of God. As we look at this life of Jesus, we must have the same kind of mentality and cross the pass.

When Mary Magdalene tried to hold the resurrected Jesus, he rejected her. The resurrected Jesus was not to be welcomed. Before the resurrection, while he was alive, his disciples should have comforted him and help him set the condition of pride to say "All is finished," boasting to Heaven, earth and Satan. Because such tragic, historic Golgothas lie ahead, Christians have repeated the process of going up and down that hill until now. They have been repeating the process of climbing up and down the course.

No one has cried out to Heaven and earth that the Lord of Golgotha was his or her spouse. There were many people of faith who prayed, "Oh, Lord, please guide me to the bosom of the Father." Until now, all have been ignorant of the internal situation of being proud of Jesus. They blindly follow Jesus, not understanding Jesus' world of heart, his internal situation.

Jesus should have fulfilled God's desire to be proud. Yet because that fruit has not been borne, Jesus has waited 2,000 years to raise a bridegroom and bear the fruit. You have to understand this and earn the qualifications to become the brides of Jesus. By doing so, you must become those about whom God, Jesus and yourselves want to boast. Only then can you attend the marriage of the lamb. You have to understand this clearly.

Parents naturally want to be proud of their children and of everything about them. Therefore, when you learn to be proud of everything around you, you can be elevated as the condition of pride before God and Jesus, who are the owners of everything.

Those of us who live in the last days must objectively criticize ourselves. Through whom do we show our pride? Through whom do God and Jesus want to show their pride? We want to be proud of ourselves based on Heaven, Jesus and all things. Accordingly, we should pray, "Father, the original person of which You wanted to be proud is here before You. I have become the representative of the Father's heart. Please boast about me before Satan."

If you acquire that proud heart, the authority of life, and the original nature to become someone trustworthy to God, you can boast about your relationship with God before all creation, all people, and even before the Holy Trinity. You must further become someone about whom even Satan can say, "That is right. They are the children of Heaven and earth of whom Heaven, earth, humanity and even we can be proud. Please raise them and be glorified for eternity." God has longed for the appearance of these people for the long period of 6,000 years. He has persevered through the pass of death, the pass of grief, the pass of bitterness, and the pass of blood to usher in that one, proud day of hope.

You must connect with the original heart of which God wanted to be proud. You must reach the level where God can say about you, "Even if I were to lose this entire world, I would be satisfied as long as I could claim you."

At the same time God's deep-set grief is liquidated, His desire and ideal must also be fulfilled. Only then can we unite with the center of true love and build the eternal and inseparable parent-child relationship with Him. Heaven can be eternally proud of us and we can be eternally proud of God. All existing things in heaven and earth can then use us as the condition of pride. We have to stand in that position.

Prayer

Father, the steps we have taken to go before You have been steps of ordeals through the history of contradiction. The saints and sages of the past were not considered normal people in the eyes of the people of their times. We know all too well, through our study of the Bible, that from the standpoints of their times, the saints and sages were stragglers, abnormal people who were ridiculed. This was the case with Noah and Abraham.

Who would have ever praised Abraham, who obeyed God's command to offer his only son as a sacrifice and tried to strike him with a knife? He was the craziest and most strange person. Although he appeared to be insane, You related with him. The saints and sages were persecuted and ridiculed by the ignorant as they tried to bring pitiful people to the Father. Father, You have called upon us to build an inseparable bond of heart with us. We are truly awe-stricken before this infinite grace.

If we are to become the historic living sacrifices who can recompense Your grace by offering our minds and bodies, please allow us to forget our situations and dignity and shed tears of gratitude. Please allow our hearts to turn to Heaven and swell up with infinite longing. Please allow us to become crazy about the Father's will to the extent that we cannot even feel our bodies being torn. We have now come to understand the fervent desire of the Father for such a people and such a nation to appear on this earth.

We have learned that You do not want to boast about us before the people of the earth. Rather, you have driven us into our current situation because You want to boast about us in the spirit world. We know very well that it is Your will to boast about us when we are undefeated, even after being torn and stepped on. We know that You have been working Your providence for the day of restoration.

Those of us who are witnessing the conclusion of the providence today must prevail with our lives and feel the fervent heart of the Father and Jesus. Please guide us to become Your sons and daughters who can step over Golgotha as the condition of pride and be living sacrifices in sight of Satan.

We have learned that only by achieving this are we worthy of the Father's and Jesus' praise. Yet we do not have anything worthy about which to boast. If we do have anything to brag about, it must be uprooted. We have understood that the character we have nurtured, the knowledge we have attained, and all such things are very distant from the Father. We realize that there is nothing on this earth that we really need.

God, our Father, our Lord and our Creator, wants to brag about the people of the earth. How can we forget You and brag about ourselves? We desire from the depth of our hearts that You allow us not to betray the heavenly laws or disrupt the Principle and order.

If there is some basis for pride, please guide us to offer it to the Father. If there is some condition for sorrow, please allow us to inherit it. Please do not let Satan follow us based on that condition of sorrow. Please allow us to boast to Satan that we are Your true sons and daughters. We earnestly pray that You guide us to become sons and daughters who can bow before the Father by establishing such a standard.

We know that although the Father wants to brag about these people, we have not become a praiseworthy nation nor a worthy bride of Jesus. Therefore, Father, we earnestly wish that You allow us to become Jesus' bride after overcoming all conditions of bitterness. Allow us to become sons and daughters about whom You can brag before all things of creation and Satan. We offer all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.