Sermons of Rev Moon - August 30, 1959 - What Belongs to the Father Belongs to Me 2

[대태양/김현수]

The Faith and Responsibilities of the Believers in the Last Days

Now is a time when people want evidence. This is a scientific era, they say. Science is logical. What is logical must connect cause and result systematically. When we can prove and practice logical truth in our daily life, we call that scientific. This is the original human nature. There cannot be happiness apart from our life and concrete reality. There cannot be satisfaction or other such things apart from these. For this reason, God also wants to work through a substantial embodiment.

What kind of time is the Last Days? It is the time that the two-thousand-year history since Jesus, the purpose of which was to fulfill the history and hope of the previous four thousand years of establishing the faith, comes to an end. It is the time of the appearance of the prince of faith, hope and love. People believe that when he appears he will come on the clouds, in the sky, but that is a misunderstanding. It is literally impossible.

I used to have that type of faith. I felt so frustrated and distressed that I banged on the ground and protested against Heaven many times. When I penetrated deep into it, I found that it was not true. When I spoke words of truth, I was most heavily persecuted. I now wear the badge of a heretic. In the past St. Paul was condemned as a heretic. The Messiah who came with the truth was cursed and laughed at as one possessed by Beelzebub. This is the source of historical sorrow. Since history began in sorrow, it has to end in sorrow.

If there are faithful believers, let them esteem the members who lie prostrated upon and pray upon the wooden floors of churches. When your church leaders chase you out, follow the sheep as you shed tears and look behind you. You will find that you have come near a new garden of flowers. Have you ever thought when chilly winds blow that the spring season will come after the passage of time? The Lord, in my opinion, will come looking for those who can bravely greet the coming of the spring season with their minds, even though their bodies may be suffering winter.

Although there are many princes of words who can speak articulately and powerfully before a large crowd, there is no hero of substance. There is no embodiment of faith, hope and love among the church leaders. Where will this church and its members head toward? Where will the believers of the Last Days go? This Mr. Moon in Korea will walk the path, if doing so will bring blessing to the people. I will do this even if I am condemned as a monstrous heretic and a traitor to the people.

The Incarnation Is More Important than the Words

Since there is no longer an altar of substance and evidence, where is the heavenly prince of faith who can build a substantial altar? Such a person is needed. There is no need for large multitudes. What we need is not a general who can command many soldiers majestically, but a general who cannot sleep at night because he is concerned about his soldiers. In history God worried about people who were cold, too hot, or hungry.

Although the Pharisees stood on the front-line and boasted about themselves, Jesus turned around and shed tears. This was the true side of Jesus. The one who shouts loudly in the front is not the one who will save humanity. History has been able to at least reach this point because of the people who, even when they were falling down, clung to Heaven and said in tears, "Please sympathize with them. What can we do about them?" There will come a time when those who are ignorant of this will be struck.

No matter how great the teachings of the Unification Church may be, there will come a time when attention will focus on not the contents of its teaching but on its actual state of being. What do you possess? We have to understand that we need to become the embodiments of faith, hope and love. If we can achieve that, even if the Lord comes a thousand years later, he will not abandon us. There is no worry as long as you can become someone who can say, "I am where faith, hope and love are."

The time is nearing when we must explain history in substantial terms. Our one day of hope is the day we can meet the embodiment. This is the truth. It is not fancy or fabrication.

Is there anyone among you who is qualified to become the bride of the Lord? Who makes that claim? Have you ever seen someone make this claim? Although there are many people who say that they will achieve it, no one has actually achieved it. Then what kind of contents should we develop? We should develop the contents of historical faith, historical hope and the heart of the historical God. We have to become qualified to alleviate the grief of God, who has led the six-thousand-year history concentrating on a substantial person who possesses all these contents. Only then can we attend the Lord.

This world is unbearable even to think about. The six-thousand-year history to find the embodiment is a distressing history fraught with countless human betrayals. It is a history God does not want to repeat ever again, even in His dreams. However, it is the job of the incarnated one to hold onto it, to reflect upon it, to mourn over it, and to repeat it. That is the sole issue.

Then what must you do? You should have the confidence that faith, hope and love belong to you. You should be qualified to believe in yourself for many thousands of years. Do you understand what I am saying? You should believe in yourself more than you believe in God, who carried on the providence for six thousand years. You should be able to say, "I am the incarnation of faith, hope and love."

Do you believe in your bodies? Do you believe in your minds? Do you believe in your hearts? You should believe in them. God gave you everything that He believes in as a gift in order to find you. Therefore, we should fight against evil on behalf of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all people. We should believe in ourselves, that we are qualified to act as the judge and destroy all that is wrong. That is the level we must attain.

We Must Liberate God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Ladies and gentlemen, the time to attempt to enter the Kingdom of Heaven has now passed. You should not try to go to the Kingdom of Heaven by believing in God; you should try to help God enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You should not have the desire to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and meet Jesus; you should build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and attend Jesus.

Do you want to receive the love of Jesus? Are you worthy to demand the love of Jesus when you are soaked in sinfulness? Jesus is the royal prince of God. You cannot make such demands upon the royal prince of God. You should not have such an attitude of faith. If you want to receive his love, you should be filled with a desire to love him that is more intense than his death. Yet all of you have the attitude of a robber. Those who are faithful today do as they wish, but that is not how it should be. That is not how it is in the spirit world. It is fundamentally different.

Thus, it is our fate now to liberate God. God has been seeking those who crave faith and hope and who are burning with love. He wants those who say, "God is constrained because of humanity. God is constrained because of me. God is receiving Satan's accusation because of me. Jesus died because of me. The Holy Spirit has been carrying on a bloody battle because of me. God, please give me strength. I will take the Father to a place of peace and liberation. I will also take Jesus and the Holy Spirit to a place of liberation." We should understand this truth.

Is there a contradiction in these words? Only when we receive such great love can God be our father. In that state, your eyes will overflow with tears just looking at a mountain. Those of us who have failed in our responsibilities will strike our chests in frustration and will not be able to escape the fate of becoming princes of grief, even if we try our best to take steps forward.

You should understand that God is not someone comfortably sitting on the throne of the Kingdom of Heaven. God sees that hell has been created and He feels pain which surpasses that which is felt in hell. Yet humanity does not know this. If God does not feel pain which surpasses that which is felt in hell and allows hell to remain, He cannot be called the God of love. In the six-thousand-year history, there is no pain in hell God did not experience. God experienced all its agonies. In truth, God is suffering the pains of hell. You may accuse me of speaking nonsense, but we should believe in and attend God knowing these things. Only then can God be the true God of humanity. God suffered the anguishes of hell in order to find each one of us.

After Jesus died on the cross, there was a three-day period of darkness. How can this be? He should have been a physical and spiritual savior. He was to witness to people even when he entered hell. For this reason, the people who believe in Jesus should have touched the bottom of hell on earth. This is why they were trampled upon in history and persecuted. Since God walked such a path, we have to accompany Him and work by His side. The providence of restoration and the providence of salvation is the promise to give the garden of glory to such people. You should understand this clearly.

Those who pray with a sincere heart, "God, please let me go to hell and experience the Father's sufferings" will not go to hell. Those who say, "Oh God, I do not want to go to hell; please send me to the Kingdom of Heaven," will end up in hell. Jesus prayed on the cross, "Father, please do not do as I will, but as You will. Please do not let them bear the penalty for their sins." This was because when he contemplated the internal heart and situation of God, who had suffered the pains of hell in order to save the people for four thousand years, he felt that he could not avoid the path of the cross. You should understand clearly that these were Jesus' feelings.

One Who Can Inherit the Ideals and Spirit of Jesus

Christianity, which should lay this foundation of love, has been destroyed. We have stood up to rebuild the foundation with our own hands. We should fight and march without words. This path is not one of glory or wealth. If you desire those things, the time of hope will not come. We do not have time to spend our energy on that. No matter what the world does, we are determined to walk our own path.

Is there anyone who came to the Unification Church to listen to these words without knowing anything? To put it simply, the path of the Unification Church is very difficult to walk. We are to experience the pain of banging our heads on the walls of agony and colliding into it with our bodies and having our flesh torn. The path we walk is not a smooth path. Neither the Lord nor the prophets walked a smooth path. Those who were responsible for history were brave soldiers who possessed the vibrant spirit and blood of history. Those who will inherit the ideals and spirit of Jesus, who clung to the love of Heaven in the same way that the prophets led history, must have the same qualities. You have to understand this clearly. I want to tell you that the time of having aimless faith has passed. The empty and fabricated foundation of logic is based on ignorance and there can be no perfection based on that foundation. Therefore, what we should present today is how to believe in ourselves.

Just as God believed in Jesus and Jesus believed in God, just as Jesus believed in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit believed in Jesus, we have to believe in ourselves. We should reach the level where we can say, "Even if the principles of Heaven were to change, I would not change. Even if Heaven and earth were to disappear, the words of Jesus cannot change. Even if Heaven and earth disappear, I will not change."

The problem lies in each one of you. Do you believe in yourselves? You who are trying so hard to go to the Kingdom of Heaven, do you believe in yourselves? We have no need for belief in words, belief that is empty at the core. We have no need for the empty shell, for the empty husk of grain. This is the meaning of the biblical parable of a grain and its empty ear. If we become the incarnations of solid core faith, solid core hope, and solid core love, no matter how vast this world may be, no matter how wide the American continent is and how advanced it may be, it will not pose any problem for us. We will not encounter any difficulty. If there is a group of people who are confident they will conquer the others through love one day, they will surely rule the world. Since eternal hope is in the Father, those who represent the Father are embodiments of eternal hope. Since God is eternal love, you should struggle to embrace that love and give it to others. You should struggle to the point of death to give that love. If you did so, would this country perish?

You should have eternal faith in yourself, hope in yourself, and love yourself before you say, "God, please receive my love and hope and rejoice in my faith." Then God will receive you. This is the purpose for which you have established faith, sought hope, and longed for love. When this is achieved, you will be able to honor the Lord on that foundation. You will be able to live together with the Lord. What is the purpose of hope and faith? It is to live your daily life centering on God's love. The Kingdom of Heaven on earth is the new ideal world where we can discard the entire notion of religion and sing songs of love. That world is not a fabricated world. It must appear as an inescapable reality based on logic.

Who are the people who will remain in this world? They are the people who are burning with faith, hope and passion. We should examine every page of history and investigate the rise and fall of nations and look for the people who held fast to faith and fidelity. The people who are burning with hope and zeal and do not hesitate to risk their lives for the sake of God are the ones who are close to God.

The Position of the Korean People from
the Viewpoint of the History of the Providence

The same is true of a society. Who are the successful people? One can become successful in one's nation when one has faith in one's nation. When one honors the state doctrine as one's own, and appears with the spirit of governing the nation, one can become successful. Isn't that true? The same principle is at work in a family. Those who have faith, hope and love in the family will inherit the family. Isn't that true? Do you deny that?

When we examine history, what people are burning with faith in God? The Korean people have never heard about God and have not had clear revelations from prophets during their five-thousand-year history. Yet Koreans somehow have strong faith in Heaven. Whatever you may say, that is what I found.

It is a miracle that this people, this tiny nation in the eastern hemisphere, has survived for five thousand years and many waves of thought and beliefs. Probe into Korean history. Their history was marked by many dangerous invasions. Invaders devoured Korea before throwing the Koreans back out, over and over again. When they were thrown out, they were stripped to the bone. Nonetheless, the Korean people preserved some unknown source of strength flowing through their national spirit and awaited the one day of hope. Because of the hopeful national spirit which has moved this peninsula in the Far East, the people were able to continue their fight until now. Wouldn't the Messiah come to a people who have demonstrated such a remarkable national spirit? That is what I think. You have to understand this.

Moreover, no people are more passionate than the Korean people. Korea has been called a nation of strong ethics. Both Confucianism and Buddhism have flourished in this nation. The same has been true for Christianity. However, Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity, which claim to be religions of faith and hope, have completed their missions. What remains? There is a zeal exploding from deep within people's hearts which can burn brilliantly for the worldwide ideal centering on the national spirit. Although young people may not understand this, older people know what I am talking about.

What made the people like this? Let us investigate their philosophical and religious history. No value can establish itself unless it first lays a foundation of reciprocity or comparison. Those who know will understand this. Without the positions of subject partner and object partner, there is no way to secure a system of values. If a nation were to emerge with a doctrine which can lead the world, only when a nation follows the leader and works in tandem with him to translate the ideals into reality can that nation become predominant in the world.