Sermons of Rev Moon - July 19, 1959 - Man Is an Explorer in Search of Truth 3

[대태양/김현수]

What Kind of Time Is the Time of the Second Coming and What Kind of Time Is Now?

What kind of person is that self? It is someone who is one with God and true parents all the time. It is someone who is also one with the true children, the true people, and the true loyal subjects. In front of that self, true Heaven and earth, a whole new world, will open up. To bring everything to fruition centered upon such an occasion is God's way of governing.

Today many thoughts and ideals seem plausible, but they do have any valuable contents. Although mankind has been searching and searching for truth for six thousand long years of history, people who have fought as true individuals all faded away. The true family, the true people, the true nation, and the true ideal also faded away. It is up to us, living in the last days, to receive those things again.

What kind of time is it now, when we face the destiny to receive those things again? When we truly look with clear eyes, we see this is a time when the individual can unite with the family, the family can unite with the society, the society can unite with the nation, the nation can unite with the world, and Heaven can unite with the earth. The final destination that goodness longs for is in the state of being able to call God our father, and not just in name only. Please raise your hand if you think you are confident that you have reached this standard. If you look at the reality, things are serious. The age of the last days of the six thousand years are here, but we are six thousand years behind. We are six thousand years away from such a time. The external form of the providence has been structured, yet as far as content is concerned, it is empty. As time passes, you will feel more and more suffocated. There will come a day when you will lament how lonely and empty you are. Although you may possess wealth and much more, there will be a certain emptiness inside. There will also be a battle within you. That is because your mind strives to run back to six thousand years ago, whereas your body still remains here, entangled in the present.

Because such a reality exists, the Bible says, "Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened." In this time, when the new environment is about to emerge, you should at least have the conviction to push away the suffering arising from this battle buried deep in the human heart, although you may not know how to solve it. If not, then you cannot stand in the new world that will come. We have to realize this.

What kind of time is it now? This is a time to revolutionize the individual, revolutionize the family, revolutionize the society, revolutionize the nation, and revolutionize the world.

What will allow you to stand firmly against the flying arrows and the cross of death? It is the heart with a father and a son relationship with Heavenly Father. When we call out to Heavenly Father as our father with a desperate, deep heart, God and Satan will both bow their heads. If Jesus did not possess such a heart, he would not have been qualified to be the Messiah. You have to possess such a heart if you want to be the bride. To enter into such a state, you have to embark on an adventure.

Now is a busy time. It is time to go on an adventure. Jesus said that those who are willing to die will live, and those who want to live will die. Those who want to rise will go down and those willing to go down will rise. These words will be fulfilled in the last days.

The Attitude of Faith Believers
Must Have in the Last Days

When you only feel happiness and satisfaction on the level of your own family, that family, the nation, and its system will all break down. Isn't that so? We have experienced it during the Japanese occupation. Humanity in today's age of the providence of restoration has to be an explorer.

Prayers from your heart and lawful prayers will be fulfilled. You have to look carefully at how your prayers are fulfilled. People who pray in this age have said the same prayers over and over for years, but their prayers are not answered. You have to pray with a true heart of love and promise. Pray and wait with a desperate heart, not forgetting your prayer even after thirty or forty years. It will be fulfilled. You don't need many prayers.

In this age, you have to seek out and do the things that others cannot do. If you try, you will be able to do them. It is not like science books where everything is in the books. In Revelation, John pioneered the spiritual world which others could not. He looked at a world at the height of his exploration which no one else could feel. Yet there is no guidance for the course. This is the problem.

You have to once again calm yourself and aim for the truth. As there is life, and there is someone who will cry with the heart in which life dwells, you have to deny all that you have believed. What you believed in up to now is insufficient. You need something which will allow you to deny the heart you have been feeling, and deny the ideal you have been longing for.

While there certainly is a weapon, you cannot find it with an everyday attitude. Even if you are a well-to-do person who is proud of yourself, you have to give up such a position to go back to the very end of the line, in the lowest place, so as to attain the victory. Such was the path that God has pursued.

Although Jesus appeared in this world with the authority of life and resurrection to take over all the sovereignty of Heaven and earth, he had to walk the opposite path in order to fulfill this in the fallen world. When Jesus saw that his life was soon to fade away, he was not concerned for his body. He was concerned for his spirit. When he was looking at the people, he was not concerned about their physical misery. He felt pity for their souls. It is the opposite way. Do you want to be God's sons and daughters? Do you want to go to Heaven? Try to go to Heaven. Those who think they can go to Heaven by believing in Jesus will not go. It cannot be done without a cost.

Why is it that we believe in Jesus? It is in order to create Heaven. What did Jesus tell us? He said our body is a temple. Is it a temple? Jesus desired for the individual to be a temple, the environment to be a temple, and the whole creation to be a temple. God wants to dwell within us, in our family, in our society, and even in all of creation.

What was Jesus like when he was in this world? Although he was supposed to sit on the throne of Heaven, he became a friend of sinners. It is said that he ate and drank with sinners. Jesus said he came to save the sinners, not the faithful. How frustrated he must have been to do that.

The assignment of Christianity is to take care of many things that are painful to deal with. The question is how people will have the heart that says, "Father, please allow us to have the dignified heart that Jesus had when he died on the cross that we may overcome the pain of death and wish blessings upon the miserable people." Jesus came to this world and became a pioneer of the heart. We need people who will go forward with a desperate heart, who can dominate the fear of death.

What is the reason that the churches are separating? The problem is that preachers seek the authority of their position while the people seek their own authority for the sake of personal glorification. Jesus left behind the virtue of service. This path is the closest path to us, yet it is the most difficult path of adventure for humankind. People who conquer a mountain may be secular explorers, but they are not the explorers of the world of spirit. God wants an adventurer who can win over pain in the heart. Isn't that so?

Jesus' Representative

Is there any greater adventure than appearing as the prince of Heaven in this land of sin? Although the cosmos tried to prevent Jesus from treading that path, still he walked that path. Everyone shunned that path, but he went on it.

Now that there is a certain genuine truth, we have to seek for it. If this physical body, which ideally should be centered on our united mind and heart, is still fixed to the things of worldly history, then we should cut away from it and search for the word that can pull both the mind and the body with its truth.

We have to possess the desperate heart that is derived from the eternal world, which transcends time and limitations. We must become people who can dominate and win over any hardship, pain, and fear of death in this world. For you to be victorious on your individual path, you should deny all desires and all pain to walk forward proudly. If a victorious individual can take the same course with the family, the race, the nation, and the world, then this person is victorious over the world.

God could raise and bless Jesus because of this. His path was a pioneering path. To pioneer is to begin with a difficult path. It does not begin with a pleasant and happy path. It is to work backwards.

God has been searching for the ideal form of an individual, a family, a society, a nation, and a world throughout the course of history. He has been searching for us, the seekers of truth.

In order to restore all this in these last days, we have to bear God's heart and become the warriors who will fight against sin as God's begotten son Jesus, the prince of Heaven, became a friend to the sinners. In such a position, we have to throw away all personal pride and prestige and stand bravely in front of Heavenly Father. Only such a person will become Jesus' representative who will not only find himself, but find all the other lost selves. Jesus' representative is one who will hold onto such a heart and fight for the family, the society, the race, the nation, and the world.

No matter how high one may be, he should yield his high position and have the heart to sincerely attend others, saying, "The reason I am here is to help people lower than me be raised to the position I am in." When such an inclination for adventure is present, it may be used as a condition to maintain oneself and win out in this time of turmoil.

When I look at you, I see that you all have the petty ambition of wanting to possess everything in Heaven and earth, yet you are not trying to find your own lost self. I will acknowledge you if you have certain conditions that can coincide with the contents and purposes of God's wish to find the family, the race, and the nation. But you only have the purposes and the ideal; you are lacking in substantial content. You have to have the standards to which Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Heavenly Father can say, "You are right!"

As you live today, it is not enough just to continue the life pattern of searching for values. You have to eliminate yourself. You have to hunt yourself down. You have to get rid of yourself. If not, you cannot go to Heavenly Father. God has never thought about His own pride throughout the six thousand years of the providence in this world. Because His path was to find His loving true sons and daughters, He was determined never to think of His own pride until He met such sons and daughters.

Although Jesus has striven for a long time, he also had to be humble in front of sinners before he could find his bride. One example of this is when he told the thief on the right that he would go to paradise along with him.

Now we have to embark on the final, historic adventure.

For us to be acknowledged as victors among all the explorers who have sought for truth, we have to first welcome the sorrow and suffering of history and the sadness and pain of the ages. We must be able to stand in front of God, the true parents, the true couples, the true children, the true siblings, the true people, the true nation, and the true Heaven and earth. Only when such a deep, desperate heart stands within you can you then take your places as the people of that nation, the loyal subjects of that nation, and the filial sons and daughters of that nation.

The Adventure of Adventures

Then what is the adventure of adventures? It is to cry for the miserable people in Heavenly Father's stead, with a deep, desperate heart. Although you may have received a complicated and difficult mission, and even if your heart desires peace, you have to be determined to fulfill the responsibility and go forth toward the standard God desires, in spite of death or universal opposition.

The world's affairs were pioneered through adventures. But no one took on the adventure of the world of God's heart. Thus, if God says to live a certain way, then live that way. If Jesus said to do this, then just do that. To find out if it is true or a lie, you have to charge through with it until the end.

There is no greater adventure than the adventure regarding the issues of your own heart. Please become the explorers of the world of the heart, and understand that there is nothing more joyous or renewing than to make a relationship with Heavenly Father through those adventures.

Prayer

How much did Jesus sympathize with the miserable fishermen when he walked the beaches of Galilee for thirty years? How much did he sympathize with the pitiful villages? How concerned was he when he saw the state of the Jewish churches and the religious bodies? We realize how miserable Jesus was as he was chased out of the temple in Jerusalem, wandering around from village to village, and later on searching the seaside to find just one disciple who was true in heart.

As we tried to see what was the adventure of adventures, we realized that the greatest adventure is not to an object or something in front of you. It is to conquer yourself and completely dominate yourself and bring yourself into submission.

Jesus knew that the day you go into the world of the heart and conquer yourself is the day all of the cosmos will find you. Because he knew that, he gratefully trod the path of isolation and of being nailed to the cross. Jesus was grateful even as he was sneered at. He even comforted the people. Although his body, dripping with blood, was in pain and his heart was indignant, he saw that the Father's heart was vested in those people as He worked through the providence. Therefore, he was filled with the heart to elevate the Father and deny himself. We now see the heart of Jesus. He prayed that Heavenly Father might bless the people, that he might somehow accidentally obviate the four thousand years of the building of a relationship with mankind and ruin that foundation.

Although humanity has been struggling to explore and conquer the things of this visible world in spite of numerous risks, humanity is not undertaking the adventure of conquering the self, with the internal heart at stake. Please allow us to realize that the course of this adventure is more rough, dangerous, great and fearful than any precipitous mountain of this world; it is greater than traversing any great ocean, and going any place where wild beasts dwell.

Many people who were walking the path of the Way failed when the element of the self came in. We realize that Jesus was able to possess the glory of resurrection when he gave himself up. He became the historic master who was victorious over himself.

We have to lose this world, lose the self, and lose the history of sorrowful regret. Please allow us to fight with our bodies and minds. Please allow us to fight on while holding on to God's heart of the six thousand years. Allow us to realize that it is the historic desire of mankind, the desire of the age, and the request of the future that we be the victors who can rightfully wish blessing upon all creation, representing Heavenly Father. Please help us to realize that it is not God or Jesus, but I, myself, who must become such a being. I, myself, am the true center of God and Jesus, this land, and all the existing world. Let us realize that to find this truth has to start from oneself.

Jesus lived thirty years in this world. He lost himself, and once again lived to experience the joy of the resurrection. Please allow us to feel the joy of finding ourselves again after being lost. If we cannot experience the joy of being reborn after death, the coming garden of blessing does not have anything to do with us. Please allow us to bury and throw away the self that goes along with this world and to live again with Heavenly Father.

We have to carry on a revolution today. We have to find the new world. We need an adventurous and investigative character. Father, we realize that those who think about themselves cannot be included in this number. Those who are clinging to the conditions of the environment will not be able to pioneer that environment. Those who are caught up in the thoughts and ideals of this life cannot partake in the ideology of this new world to fulfill their role as world leaders God can be pleased with.

Please allow us to have the heart that is in tune with the heart of the ideal, from the individual, to the family, up to the cosmos. Let us be grateful wherever we are sent, grateful no matter what kind of offering we may become. Let us be heavenly princes of adventure who can go forth ready to face any risk.

I sincerely pray that we can be the sons and daughters whom God can trust and that we can be responsible for everything. I pray all these things in the loving name of the Lord. Amen.