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REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON
Please look at us with compassion. Father, we sincerely wish and desire that You guide us to the position where our minds and bodies can be recognized as Your body and limbs.
Many people are setting out now toward the goal of resembling the heavenly character. However, when we think of how few true sons and daughters there are who go forward with the heart of the Father, we cannot help being concerned.
It has been six thousand years since You called and began searching for us. As the owner of all creation, You have called and sought us in person. When we think honestly whether we come forth in front of Your knees as the fruits of joy who are acceptable to You, we cannot help feeling remorse for all of our past thoughts and deeds. We feel we must reflect on all our normal activities. Please forgive us for being in a position to feel remorse.
The original countenance of the person Heaven longed to see was glorious and proud. Nevertheless, we have not become people of such countenance, the true original countenances upon whom You can call. Since we find ourselves in a position to lament over ourselves, Father, we sincerely wish and desire that You allow us to at least have an ardent mind of remorse over having no excuse to offer You.
Who would not want to become the Father's son or daughter? Who would not vow to become an offering of sacrifice before Heaven? Yet there are extremely few people who have stood as the Father's true sons and daughters. We know very well through the course of history that even though You took those who pledged themselves and led them forward, there were extremely few who appeared as Heaven's pride. Father, please forgive us for all the traces and blemishes of the fall that we bear.
Heaven came looking for us with a true mind, a true heart, and true deeds. However, we could not truly relate to You. Father, we ardently wish and desire that You forgive us for all these imperfections.
Now we know that You long for a true son and daughter who can shed tears together with You, holding hands and looking at the earth. We are aware that numerous people have been forgotten because they let go of the Father's hands. Father, we pray from the depths of our hearts that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who take care of our bodies with single-hearted devotion toward Heaven; who can be informed about the situation and be left on our own, taking hold of the Father's hands in self-sacrifice.
Father, please let us attain our years of discretion in this period. Father, we are aware that although we are looking forward to the time You have promised, we are unspeakably inadequate in many ways. We aware that our steps have already become weary; our eyes look on in an imperfect state. Satan is even trying to take away the mind within us that ardently utters a cry toward Heaven from the depths of our consciences.
Please allow us to realize that every time we are in circumstances like this, Heaven looks at us with a sorrowful heart. Allow us to know the internal situation of Heaven, who cannot lend His hands to grab hold of us or give advice as the time grows nearer for true goodness to reveal the mark of victory. Father, we sincerely wish and desire that You allow us to become heavenly soldiers who can walk the remaining path of fate and the path of bitterness willingly. We pray that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who seek the day of bliss in which You can take delight, embracing Your immutable heart, even if numerous others would quarrel with, reject and betray the providence.
Father, this is a holy day. Please bestow blessing upon all humankind. Look upon the pitiful thirty million Korean people with compassion. We are aware that there is no master on the earth who can take responsibility for these people's lives, fate and path. Please permit those of us who received Your calling first to assume the responsibility as persons of faith in sight of the Father. We must go forth before the Father's dignified presence of our own accord and become trustworthy, then assume the responsibility You entrusted to us. We ardently pray that You will guide us to not forget that such comprehensive responsibility has been laid upon us.
Please allow us to operate not only in our minds. Father, we pray from the bottom of our hearts that You allow us to become the sons and daughters who can reveal the glory of the Father by offering our bodies as holy living sacrifices before You. Father, we sincerely wish and desire that You will bestow blessings upon Your sons and daughters who pray facing Heaven, kneeling down in solitude before the altar at this hour.
Father, we thank You for having guided us to this moment today. We have come to know that the original homeland has remained only as an ideal. Father, we pray from the depths of our hearts that You allow us to know that now the responsibility and mission to realize that ideal on the earth, keeping the Father's heart within us, is left to us.
The Father has come forth to save inadequate human beings. Now we are going toward the day of the last victory. Please allow us not to change our prayerful minds and not to become disloyal. Father, we pray this from the bottom of our hearts.
Father! Please give advice to us. We know that we have the responsibility to realize the will of the Father and that we must go the path to achieve that goal. Father, we pray that You will allow us to be the sons and daughters who are not disloyal to the Father's command, the Father's heart, or the Father's love.
We pray that You will guide us not to be disloyal before the will You have granted. Let us feel the heart of the Father, who has felt sorrow in the course of providential history, toiling over difficult situations.
Please take charge of our minds and bodies as Your own in this hour. I pray and wish that You will understand and accept our minds, since we are gathered on our knees and wish to be embraced in the Father's bosom, our heads bowed over our inadequacy.
Please personally govern the time from the beginning to the end. I pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Beloved Father, please allow us to know that the tear stains of the Father, who toiled to raise us in front of this nation without our knowing, are spread all over. Father, we have been disloyal children who could not make ties with Heaven, having been drawn into the realm of death, sorrow and lamentation. Yet we pray and wish that You will let this be the hour when we can attend You by allowing us to save our own original characters in awe and reverence in sight of the grace You have bestowed.
From the moment we realized there was a path the Father wanted us to go, we realized that the Father is going along the path of tears also; He is traveling the path of the cross with us. He is tra-veling the path of tribulation, the path of sorrow, and even the path of chains along with us. In addition, we know about the thorny path You have walked, treading the historical course, toiling behind Your beloved sons and daughters.
You have repeated the history of toil of which we have no knowledge to gather us today. We bow respectfully, picturing in our minds the Father who toiled in this manner. At the same time, we are deeply ashamed of ourselves. Father, we pray that You will captivate us with the impulses of Your heart. We were called because Heaven has a purpose and hope in us. Please allow us to know that the path of the cross which lies ahead does not originate with us.
Please allow the posterity of a thousand years from now to know the historical path of forming ties based on their ancestors' effort. In this hour, we have the mind that can embrace limitless joy, limitless happiness, and limitless hope. The origin of that is not in us, nor in any human being. All has been initiated by and operated by Heaven. Beloved Father, I pray and wish that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who know and deeply treasure, in their minds and bodies, the longing for the grounds upon which Heaven operated and to shed tears clinging to this.
Father! You know the direction Your sons and daughters, who came seeking this lonely place, must go. You know the path for these people to take and go forth upon. The origin of these people's minds is not themselves. Their being in a position to receive words of advice is not for their own sake, but for the sake of others and the Father. Father, I pray and wish that You will govern these people to be unchanging to the end.
Father, please do not allow us to become disloyal and leave You during this remaining period of tribulation. Allow us to be sons and daughters who do not fail to go through this difficult period, even having felt the sorrow of the Father. We pray and wish that You will let us become the sons and daughters who are concerned about the Father and who comfort His heart, forsaking ourselves for the sake of keeping Your heart until the end. Let us understand the Father's situation.
The time has come when the one who says he has stood on his own will fall. The one who recognizes himself will be that much more prone to betray Heaven. Father, please let Your sons and daughters who are gathered in front of Your knees on this day take delight in Your living words of advice. By doing so, Father, we pray and wish that You will let this be an hour when You can taste happiness.
Nothing other than what belongs to the Father is required in our minds in this hour. Now we must tread over today's tribulations and look to the garden of promise. We must long for the heavenly kingdom of eternal blessing. We are aware that God's blessing to be revealed is great glory, beyond words. Please allow us to remain to the end, having endured with unchanging hearts toward the Father. We pray and wish that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who can stand before You after fighting to the end. There are other sons and daughters who feel concern about the Father's will; we pray that You will bestow blessing upon and give advice to them.
We know that Your children are repenting in Your presence, scattered across the countryside in solitude on this day. We wish with utmost sincerity that You will extend Your hands of undiscriminating grace over them; that You will let each of their minds have discretion. Do not allow us to fall down midway.
Now we offer everything we have to You. We request and wish for You to accept it. Father, we pray with utmost sincerity that You allow this to be the hour when we receive the Father's grace, when our minds turn to the Father's and we thus become able to feel and experience the glory of the Father's victory.
Please take charge of the remaining hour and have dominion over it. We pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Father! Please forgive us. We cannot repay Your grace even in ten million lifetimes, the grace of being able to call You "Father." Forgive us for calling You Father, knowing that You are the Father of blessing. Forgive us for having attended You only as the Father who is in a high and noble place.
You were the Father of a myriad soldiers, the master of the whole cosmos, and the central figure with the authority of the whole world. However, because of the mistakes made by Your sons and daughters, You have been put in such a miserable situation. Father, please allow us to be sensitive to Your heart in this hour. Father, we pray and wish that You not allow us to become weak like the defeated ones after seeing the hill of bitterness in the providence You left behind.
We are aware that even if we cannot go, the Father has to walk the path of the providence. Even if we abandon You, You have to go, filled with the sorrow of being abandoned. The Father has to walk the path of the cross today too, without minding, passing through the nation and toward the world. However, since there are very few people on earth who understand this situation, we cannot help having concern that the Father's sorrow will penetrate to the very depths of this earth, that the Father's lamentation will reach the earth, and that the Father's judgment will fall upon the earth. Father of compassion, Father of love, Your will of promise is alive in our hearts. Please protect us. Father, we pray and desire that You allow us to be the beloved sons and daughters who build the altar of the heart, weeping bitterly on their knees in the presence of the Father.
Please let us have more faith than those of faith thus far, as we go forth, knowing the will of the six thousand years. Allow us to gain victory over any persecution. Allow us to overcome any kind of disregard. Although we could become instruments of betrayal, since we have sought You and come to this place, Father, we pray and wish that You allow us to be unchanging, loyal and filial sons and daughters with passionate devotion toward You. Father, if we stop our pace on this path, we know that the national grief will be increased and that our lamentation will also be increased. Father, please drive us out in a pressing manner. We sincerely wish and desire that You drive us out to the end so that we may establish the fortitude to stand by God's opinions.
We are aware of Heaven's situation. Unless we stand as the Father's sons and daughters, when we convey Heaven's heart, we cannot realize the will. Father, we ardently wish and desire that You allow us to know that You are troubled in mind in a way of which no one knows on this earth. Now is the time when we must offer everything belonging to us in Your presence and make a new vow and resolution. Therefore, please let us reflect upon ourselves, asking how much we have tried to attend Jesus, who left behind sorrow after coming to this earth. Allow us to make a new vow and resolution. Father, we ardently pray and wish for You to please extend Your hands of capability over this sleeping nation. By lowering the long-awaited rain of the Spirit of the Lord, enable them to be proud of the day of victory and sing of the glory of the Father.
When we stepped forth in front of the Father, we were able to feel and experience the lonely heart of Jesus, who resolved to go forth regardless of any difficulties. Now the time has come when we feel proud of the hope we entertain, stepping forth with resolution. Please let us go on, taking the lead, standing on Heaven's side. Let us leave behind the things Heaven would like left behind. Father, we pray with utmost earnestness that You will now take hold of the set of true people who can comfort You with deep hearts and who will fight for Your sake. We pray and wish, Father, that You allow us to know the ideology of the Father, who cannot abandon the dispensation for humanity. Let us know the true mind of Heaven, which must be revealed now. Let us be sensible to the grief of Heaven, who must be struck and come back.
Please embrace us so that we can share weal and woe with the people rendering devoted service, trying to be true Israelites. We aware that the people who were removed to the wilderness under Moses' guidance betrayed the will under the weight of pain and tears. Since the strength of historical transition is being manifested to us today, please let us dissolve the bitterness. We must feel ourselves insufficient when faced with the Father's established will. Father, we pray and wish that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who can represent the heart of Moses, who believed in the Father, even under unfavorable circumstances, and who tried to build an altar for You.
The Father's concern, the Father's pain, and the Father's efforts are incomparably greater than ours. Please allow us to know the circumstances of Jesus as he walked the course of limitless toil. Allow us to look at the internal character of the Father, who is walking a path of limitless pain.
Please guide us to withstand all we encounter today, the feeling of being wronged, the adverse criticism we receive, and the persecution we come upon. Lead us to go forward for the Father's sake without hesitation wherever we are placed. We sincerely wish that You waken us to deeply know all of these facts. Please advise us with a concerned heart until we stand on the foundation of the final victory. Father, we pray and wish that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who care nothing about any obstacles.
Since we have gathered here in this hour, please allow Heaven's counsel to be manifested to us. Sorrow, loneliness and difficulties surround us. We are aware that we cannot dare to be conscious of our importance just because our senses enable us to know how to call You "Father." Father, please come in person and watch over the minds and bodies of each of us. Let us feel the oneness of life. Bestow the grace of glory upon us. We pray and wish that You allow us to be the sons and daughters who step forth equipped with new resolution, new determination, and a new pledge with which we can endure and remain until the last days.
We are aware that there are members filled with tears lying prostrate before the Father's knees in solitude. My Father, we sincerely pray and wish that You will manifest Yourself in this hour as their Father and friend and relate to us and advise us with equal authority. Since we have entrusted everything to You in this hour, please have dominion according to Your will. We pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Father, please allow our minds and bodies to be fraught only with the Father's shimjung, at least in this hour. Let this be the hour in which we become imbued with the mind of original nature and are drawn toward the Father's shimjung. Please allow the deeply penetrating shimjung to put forth its buds in our minds and bodies so that, upon seeing the Father rejoicing, we can run toward Him and enfold His neck with our arms.
We have learned that You are the Father who appears subtly. You will not initiate any action until we lay bare our thoughts. We still have loyalty toward the Father, in spite of our contaminated minds. Father, please seek us through this shimjung. Through this shimjung, give orders. Please allow the ardent shimjung with which we can call You "My Father" to seep out, unconsciously shedding tears, sorry for the insufficiency of our bodies and realizing the inadequacy of our past lives.
We have learned that Heaven feels no reluctance in protecting anyone and everyone; Heaven feels no reluctance in becoming the friend of one who seeks Heaven. Heaven is the friend of those who wail to Heaven and shed tears. He takes delight in showing Himself to be our Father, who will live together with us forever.
We miss the voice of the Father who would subtly counsel us. We long to feel the wonderful love of the Father, who would embrace us in subtlety. We miss the moment when we can call You "Father" and want to boast and exclaim that You are our own Father with uplifted hands.
We thought You were far, far away from us; but we realize that You have been with us in our minds, and we are glad we met such a Father. You were close in our hearts when You were said to be far away from us. You were crying out from afar, saying that You were in our hearts. Human beings today are not attuned to this.
Please allow us to repent in this hour for not knowing that when we thought You had forsaken us in the past, that was the very time when You were closest. When we thought You were not with us was the very time You were.
We did not know about the mind of the Father, who would not wish to leave His sons and daughters in hardship. There have been numerous times when, not understanding Your heart as You went through the tortuous path, we thought You were unkind and heartless to put us out on the path of toil. Many times we bewailed our ill fortune and were spiteful toward You because of the past. Father, please forgive us for having been bitter against You, for having betrayed You, for having denied and distrusted You.
We have learned that all this is due to the crime our ancestors committed by falling. It is the cause of the prophets and sages having died, leaving behind the bloodstains of bitterness in human history. Is the standard of our minds lofty today? Please purify our minds. Am I longing to represent God and put my body and my prestige on the line? I pray and wish earnestly that You let us be the sons and daughters who know how to call You "Father" after striking our bodies, which have no excuse to offer in the presence of the Father's internal character, aware as we are of the fact that the Father is in a miserable place.
Father, we know that there is no need for many words. Heaven delivered the words, but the people could not put them into practice. Upon seeing that, Heaven came to feel sorrowful. We learned that words easily become lies and that the Father's sorrow has been growing more severe every day.
While Heaven is aware of the sorrowful circumstance of having to speak again, humankind is not aware of it. In spite of this, God is in a situation where He has to give advice out of concern for humankind, unable to abandon them. Father, I sincerely wish and desire that You forgive us for having to re-learn Your situation.
We gathered today, considering this a holy day. We gathered, longing for You're words. We gathered, waiting impatiently for Heaven's grace. I know that we gathered wishing for something. Therefore, Father, I pray from the depth of my heart that You now allow us to wish to be our true selves; that You will guide us to know how to listen to the words and commands that are passed down from our true selves.
Father, You know that I did not want to disappoint You, in spite of the sorrowful events that took place as I walked the forty-year life course in obedience to Your will. I did not want to retreat in defeat under hardship. Father, as we come to be aware that the history of tribulation ceaselessly continues on the path that remains, we cannot help informing the Father of our insufficiency with bowed heads. I wish You would allow this one body to bear the grief of history. Please allow Heaven to go beyond all the remaining tribulations, taking this body as a sacrifice.
We long for the moment when the Father can rest, when the Father and I usher in the moment of happiness, having discarded all sighs of grief, arms about each other's necks, calling each other "my son" and "my Father." Please allow us to be the sons and daughters who can go to the spirit world having established single-hearted devotion based on fidelity on the earth, regardless of any sacrifice we may have to make or any misery we may have to go through on the earth. Since we have made up our minds to go such a path, Father, I pray and wish earnestly that You will drive us and lead us to not mind it. Father, I ardently solicit that You will let this be the hour when we form a resolution and make a vow with a new mind and body.
What shall I speak about in this hour You have granted? Since I am trying to convey what You wish to reveal, please allow me to convey Your shimjung as it is. Ardently soliciting that You let this be the hour when the minds of the receivers blend with Your shimjung in one unified shimjung, when we can sing of the Father's glory, embraced in the Father's grand bosom, I pray all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title of the sermon I am about to give you is "The Religious Person's Attitude." I will speak briefly upon this topic.
You have flattered yourselves that you are religious. We have gone forth not longing for this nation in the present state of affairs, but longing for the eternal kingdom. You have neither seen nor been to that kingdom. You simply proceeded forward, believing that the word you had heard was true.
We cannot consider that the intrinsic qualities of faith jell with all conditions of reality. I believe that, for those trying to lead a true life of faith, this only happens when the great infinite Heaven, the garden of eternal ideology that we cannot even imagine, has a reciprocal relationship with the being called "I." Heaven will press me constantly and warmly to make an effort to attain the ideology in reality. The path of faith continues upon that basis alone.
The kingdom we long for cannot be elucidated by dreams or imagination or even by wise conjecture. That world is necessary for us. It is the limitless world of the ideal; the world of goodness, happiness, love, and the ideology of which we dream. That world is the heavenly kingdom of faith in which we wish to live. From a worldly point of view, those who keep faith with the intrinsic qualities of that world might be seen as extremely pitiful, terribly lonely, or ultimately sorrowful. It depends upon how you view them. If there is one who feels and experiences Heaven's heart, even in such a situation, and feels the shock and the stimulus of that realm of the heart, no matter what kind of persecution, suffering or death tries to block the way, nothing can stop him from going this path.
Letting this kind of heart stimulate the mind and letting that mind push the body to move, trying to feel and experience the life in which one unconsciously walks forth toward the endless territory, is the very life of a religious person in this world today. Only when one can lead life with this kind of stimulus and manifest the far-distant ideology as the power of real life is one a truly religious person. Going further, only when one cultivates the foundation of mind with which he can push out power, even the sweeping wave of death, from his surroundings can Heaven acknowledge him as a truly religious person. That is how I see it. What is felt through self-realization, when we cry out facing Heaven, is greater than anything felt through doctrine or thought. The same thing can manifest itself as the value of light in our minds and bodies and in the heart of our life circumstances.
The religious life can be considered going through the path of victory in such an important decisive position. We know very well that throughout history, this path has been heaped with persecution, sorrow, the cross, and death. Because we have this kind of history and tradition, today you also are placed in a position where you must not betray this historical course of faith. For that reason, I must stress that it is more valuable than anything else that we assume a correct attitude of faith today.
To gallantly travel the path of difficulty, the path of persecution and death while walking the path of faith, there is something you must feel first. You must feel that your birth and your being of a particular nation or group was not the result of your individual wish. You will not be able to deny that you were born on this earth by having been drawn into motion that even you yourselves cannot understand. When we think again about how the motive of my being originated and was given to me, how I was to go through this kind of course and am a resultant being, we must not boast of ourselves or our beings. We must boast about the being who has something to show off within the ideological realm of history, the whole, and the future.
Unless you have this kind of conviction and feeling now, a more complicated matter than you might think will occur in your path of faith. Sorrowful and difficult things will take place. You will face undeserved death. You will easily abandon your ties with the heavenly principles. You will stand in a position where it is easy for you to betray Heaven.
Therefore, we must have a heart that is deeply sensitive toward God's ideology and reflect upon our lives in light of this ideology. We should live feeling that our individual selves are sacrificial offerings for the sake of glorifying cosmic relations, for the sake of forming a connection with the ideology of the infinite world of faith. As long as we lead a life of faith in which such an ideology does not disappear from our minds and in which such a feeling does not depart from our hearts, no one will dare intrude upon or subjugate us on this earth.
You must know that our ancestors felt a lot about such a connection. The people who began after Jacob received the blessing of being Israel had the ideology of being God's chosen people. We know that this sense of being the chosen people established the history of the Jewish people. It was the base of hope in the course of building a new garden in the land of bliss. It was the heritage of the history of the restorational providence. This applied not only to the people, but also to the national leader who guided the people.
God sought out Noah and raised him to let humanity, which had abandoned Heaven for the 1600 years after Adam, form new ties of promise. Noah was not looked up to by the people of his time. He was of no importance in the eyes of those people. However, Noah understood the heart of Heaven, who wished to resolve the great regret through choosing a man like him. That is why Noah proceeded forward, surmounting all difficulties for 120 years, holding onto Heaven's will and command.
Noah came to realize the preciousness of the relationship with which Heaven had raised him up, called him and commanded him. The deeper his understanding became, the greater his relationship with Heaven. As days went by, he felt deeply about the greatness of the will of the internal heart of God. For that reason, although no one gave him recognition and numerous people ridiculed and rejected him, Noah did not abandon the building of the ark for 120 years.
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