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REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON
We do not want to believe in a Father of words. We want to believe in the Father who has been building a relationship with humankind throughout history. We seek the Father who can have a direct relationship with us now; the Father who can give us the words of truth directly.
Humanity today believes in God as an object. Yet today we do not seek God as a mere object of faith. We want a God who is our living and substantial subject partner, who can connect to our situations and lives, a Father who can never be separated from us and with whom we can spend time. Both God and humanity desire the moment that such a relationship is realized on the earth.
Although we may think that the garden of hope of the Father's desires is a concept and an ideal, that is not true. We know that the time has come when we should have a concept of the Kingdom of Heaven as a realm we can enter, which we can feel through our actions and through our concrete senses, a realm which we can sing of with real emotion.
We know that the purpose of the providence of salvation, the history of restoration and salvation through the cross all were to build such a relationship. Please let today be a moment when we can call You our true Father and recognize without shame that we are Your true sons and daughters. In that state, let us sing, rejoice and listen to the words. Father, this is our sincere wish.
Although we have learned a considerable amount about the Father of history and the Father of words, we long for the Father whom we can testify to through our hearts; the Father we can experience through our bodies; the Father who can work the miracle of elevating our own words to be the very words of the Father. We long for the Father who can be together with us. Please let this be an hour when You arouse concrete feelings in us.
Father, please grant Your grace so that the sons and daughters who are gathered here can be in control of their minds and bodies. They are neither the masters of their minds nor of their bodies. They believe, unconsciously looking to some faraway place with a hopeful glance. We want to have faith in and rely upon some absolute being, yet we have not come to a point where we can be recognized by an absolute being.
We know that this is because we, who are in the position of object partners, are unworthy to receive the grace of the absolute being and absolute subject partner. Therefore, Father, please be our Lord, and put us in the position of Your object partners. Please allow Your truth to become our own beliefs. Please elevate us so that our hearts can be intoxicated in that truth, and we can sing of the all-encompassing love of the Father. In this hour, let there be a miracle which moves our minds, which we experience and is conveyed through our hearts and which unites us.
I am about speak the words, so please be with me. We do not want the words of a human being. We hear enough words from human beings. We have heard the words of many preachers who intone from the pulpit. This is not what we want to hear. We want to hear new words of truth which can bestir a dead life, revive a dead heart, and purify our clouded minds. We want the words of re-creation through which we can understand that our Father is the center of our hearts, our wills and our beliefs. We want to sense that we are eternally one with the Father. Please manifest this to us. Let this be a moment when You pour down upon us the sweet rain of grace.
We know that it is the work of Satan to form a gap between the heart of the speaker and the hearts of the listeners. Please guide us to remove any pride of our own accomplishments and recognize that all our accomplishments were done by the Father. Allow us to entrust everything to the Father. Praying that this will be a precious moment when we can receive the compassion of the Father, we prayed all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title of the sermon I am about to give today is "What Belongs to the Father Belongs to Me." To expand the scope of this, it becomes "What Belongs to the Father Belongs to Us." I will speak briefly on this topic.
Until now we have thought that we have infinite value. We do not know the nature of our value; we only know that we are valuable. However we feel, that cannot establish our complete value and remain till the end. We cannot confidently and with dignity take pride in ourselves before the great universal reality with the mere feeling that we are valuable.
We cannot deny that because this is the state we find ourselves in, we long for the precious being, the precious one, the relationship of value and the valuable world. We are to seek for these. When we recognize what needs to be done and we look at the great universe, we cannot help but have an intense feeling of emptiness.
Hence, we seek something we can depend upon. We sense deeply through our consciences and in our lives that it is our fate to pursue this. From this standpoint, even if there were no God, we would have to create a fictional absolute being. If we understand that we live in such a situation and that there should be some order in our actions, including our feelings, our rejoicing and singing, and if we reflect upon ourselves as to whether or not we can forge a valuable relationship with that and be happy, we can probably conclude on our own that the answer is negative.
Because this is the miserable situation of human beings, if there were a God, He would have some responsibility to establish a relationship with us. If God is the subject partner of absolute value and the origin of value itself, then we cannot logically deny that if God does nothing to establish that valuable relationship, there is no way to attribute love and other such characteristics to God.
We know that human beings fell. We know that they lost their original position. Human beings lost their original value. We should look at the whole world. If there is a God, then we should call out "Heaven." If there is an absolute being, we should call out "Absolute Being," and if there is something which has the form of goodness, we should appeal to it to manifest itself in concrete form. We should ardently long for such an absolute being, a God, or being of goodness.
Because Heaven understands the situation human beings are in, He has not hesitated to exert Himself to the utmost and sacrifice Himself to recover us. He did not hesitate to exhaust Himself in clinging to humanity. He has been searching for the value of the whole and of the ideal. If we accept this, we should have a humble heart. Pressing our hands together, we should bow before Him.
When we fathom this movement of the whole, the flow of history and the sway of our hearts, we find that even if we are not aware of it, some force has been pulling us and prodding us in the background of history and in the depth of our hearts. We have to understand that some force deep inside our hearts prods us to pursue some value. We should not ignore this as a coincidence or phenomenon, because it stems from an inseparable relationship inside each one of us. When we decipher this relationship and examine its value, we find that therein lies something which is connected to God, the epitome of goodness. This relationship has to be built.
Heaven has been toiling until today and persevering through all sufferings behind the scenes in order to give human beings absolute value. God has no choice but to continue this work, even beyond today. When we come to understand this, our heads bow in humility and awe every time we think about Heavenly Father.
For this reason, God has proclaimed words of truth which humanity does not even understand. God told us just to believe in Him, even though His will was to establish religions and build profound relationships with us. The contents of His proclamations were not clearly defined. God commanded us to look to Him. He also told us to love Him. Although we do not know the nature of the relationship and its specific content, through our experience we come to reaffirm that we are inseparably connected to something in the world of the heart. Human beings have depended on and believed in these vague words of truth; they have longed for them and loved them. People of faith were felled as they held true to their beliefs, adhering to their hope and love. Countless people were felled in their life of devotion. Those who died as they adhered to their belief in God surpass the patriots and heroes of a country many thousands of times over. Many have died keeping their hope or love. Among them, however, no one has been hailed as a prince of faith, a prince of hope, a prince of love.
When we reflect upon the six-thousand-year history, we find that there were many who fell while they were aspiring to become victorious in their faith, yet there was no one who was revered by humanity as a great prince of faith. Similarly, we find that although there were many who searched for the foundation of hope, no one was ever praised by Heaven on a foundation of hope or was revered by humanity. Although there have been many people who professed to love, the same thing was true for them. Should we then hold grudges against God for this? Do the notions of faith, hope and love not exist?
Jesus was the incarnation of faith whom God had sought for four thousand years. He was someone who deeply experienced the Father's heart as a concrete reality. The people did not know that Jesus was such a person. No one in all of humanity knew that. If there was a person who did know, it was God.
Hence, Jesus had nowhere to go. Although he came to create the history of faith, because no one recognized him, he had to put the world behind him and go in search of someone who understood him. This was the path of the cross. In this way Jesus inherited the faith and hope of God, who is the hope of humanity. He became the subject partner of faith and hope, representing God in substance. Because Jesus came not as God's relative subject partner of faith but as the absolute subject partner of God, representing the invisible God, even if you do not believe in God, you should believe in Jesus.
The Bible says that you should believe in Jesus, long for him and love him. This is because the incarnation is closer to corporeal human beings than is the invisible God. For this reason, we should tearfully bow before the laborious accomplishments of God who sent and raised up Jesus as an earthly man. Jesus tried to establish the foundation of faith; he tried to pioneer an environment of hope; he tried to build a fence of love. However, his ideals were not realized on the earth.
The purpose of the four-thousand-year history was to establish an incarnation of faith. The purpose of the two-thousand-year history since Jesus and the Holy Spirit has been to establish an incarnation of hope. This is the true standard of thought and ideas. Today the worldview which longs for Jesus and an opposing worldview have manifested themselves as democracy and communism. Because hope has come near the end, we call this time the Last Days. We do not call it the Last Days without good reason.
What kind of ancestor was Jesus? He was an ancestor more of hope than of faith. He was the ancestor who could uphold hope as an earthly man. What would you hope for? We believe that the mind inside our body is precious. We believe that the heart inside the mind is precious. There is no greater hope than to hope for the one who is the substantial subject partner of the mind and heart. Jesus said, "You are my bride and I am your bridegroom." You should understand this clearly. Hence, the world cannot surpass the limit of this hope, no matter how hard it may try.
What kind of hope is it? Christians today yearn for the world of hope based on the word. However, the time for the word is behind us; now we should yearn for the incarnation. More than many thousands of words of discussion on faith and more than the history of faith, we need one substantial person. If such an incarnation does not appear, then the worldview of hope based on the words of truth will come to a dead-end. Unless we are connected to the incarnation, this world will fade away with the flow of history. You wait and see.
Today Christianity literally has become a worldwide religion. The democratic world is rooted in Christian teachings. Now even that is coming to an end. What do we need here? Our purpose is not to merely rejoice in the word. We must be able to enjoy a life of eternal significance on the earth.
History is turning like a tornado. We who are gathered under today's trends of thought are caught in a maelstrom. We venerate our ancestor of faith, Abraham, and all the prophets after him. We look up to Jesus, the prince of hope, who came two thousand years later. We reflect back upon the history of fierce conflicts.
However, what these ancestors of faith accomplished was the hope of a promise. They could not bring the hope which can be manifested in daily life. For this reason, the day their hope becomes materialized as a reality is the Last Days. The work to accomplish this is the ideal of the Second Advent. The one who comes to accomplish this is the Lord of the Second Advent.
What remains now? The age based upon faith came to an end with Jesus. Because Jesus is the embodiment of faith, when you believe in him, you can develop stronger faith than anyone who lived in the four thousand years before Jesus. Jesus had to rectify faith before the people who disbelieved. He had to establish hope before the people who did not have hope. Wasn't that true?
Please read the Bible. Look at the prophecies after Abraham. The one hope in faith is to cling to the Messiah. However, this has remained as the hope of the bride and bridegroom in the realm of symbolic promises because Jesus died on the cross. In your life of devotion, you are not aware of this. Even if you do not understand what I am saying now, there will be a time when you can understand it. Isn't that how it should be if it is the work of a real God? Only then would it be logical.
What does the incarnation of hope and faith want to accomplish? In other words, what is the purpose of hope and faith? It is that the people will find him and sing songs of love. There is nothing else. Why do we want to meet the Lord? We want the Lord to recognize our value, and we want to live in the bosom of the Lord's love. This is the highest purpose of humanity.
The reason that God established faith, hope and love was not just for the sake of Jesus, Abraham or anyone among our ancestors. It was for each one of us. Who looked for me faithfully for six thousand years? It was God. Who is God? He is our father. This is where the great drama of Heaven and earth unfolds.
When you cling to the Father you believe in, hope in and love, Jesus should say, "I have struggled hard to meet you. I have toiled arduously to meet you." God should also be able to say that. At that moment, if you were to offer, "God! Let us live together. Jesus! Let us live together," they will respond, "All right. Let's live together for eternity." This is the Kingdom of Heaven. We have no need for some imaginary and fabricated Kingdom of Heaven. We have to fight to build the substantial Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus told us that he was leaving without accomplishing everything, so he instructed us to believe in the Holy Spirit. Do you think that you will be saved only by believing in Jesus? You can be saved if you believe in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit tries to lead people to believe in the son of God, so you should also believe in the Holy Spirit.
What kind of spirit is the Holy Spirit? She is a mother spirit. Christians today do not understand this. If you think that I am lying, ask God about it. I do not speak from assumption. I am sure.
The Holy Spirit is the mother divinity, and Jesus is the true father of humanity. The true father is the perfected Adam. Because Adam fell and could not become the true ancestor of humanity, we are descendants of false ancestors rather than true ones. The Messiah is the one who comes as the true ancestor. He is the true father. Christianity talks about the Trinity. Since Jesus is the true father and the Holy Spirit is the true mother, we can be reborn only when we receive the love of this father and mother. How can a child be born without the love of parents?
For this reason it is written in Revelation, "The Holy Spirit and the bride call us. They will call upon those who hear, those who are thirsty will come, and they will give the water of life for free to those who desire it." (Rev. 22:17) Such a day is the day the Holy Spirit takes on an earthly form. That is the day of the Second Advent. It is the day the bride finishes the preparations for the wedding. What is the Marriage of the Lamb? It is attending the True Parents who have been lost. When this is accomplished, the conceptual God, the God as the object of faith, will no longer be needed. We will no longer have any need for a conceptual God, or a devotional life in which our faith is only external. What we will have is a substantial, living God.
Who was the substantial subject partner of faith? It was Jesus. Who was the substantial subject partner of hope? It was Jesus. Who was the incarnation of love and the subject partner of love? It was Jesus. Although God sent Jesus, human beings could not recognize him. They did not believe, and he had to die. When will he return? Since no one could recognize him as the bridegroom, he cannot come again. If he were to come again, he would be mistreated; hence, he cannot come again. You have to understand this grief. Those who think, "When the Lord comes he will come looking for me," ruin Christianity and undermine God's will.
God will come looking for us. However, unless an incarnation of faith, hope and love emerges in this world, the purpose for which God established faith, hope and love will not be realized. Therefore, you should understand that God cannot properly play His true role without you. Without you, God cannot move this world. Jesus lived by this conviction. He knew that God's love could not be introduced without him.
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