I Peter 1:18-25
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
Prayer
Father, since we have life, please allow the motivating force of that life not to be limited to ourselves alone. Since we have the power of the word, please allow that word not to come to a standstill on the individual level in us. Furthermore, Father, I pray from the bottom of my heart that You allow us to make that word and that power of life into an influence that can move Heaven and earth, going over the nation and sweeping over the world. Although we have tried to receive Jesus from a position of ease and have sought Jesus in peace, we know that we cannot help seeing Jesus appear as a figure covered in blood.
We who stepped forth seeking the Father did not know that the Father is not only the Father of glory, as we might have thought. He is also going through the crisis of the crucifixion. There are many people who wait eagerly for the Lord of glory today, but since there is no one who has the true will to follow the Lord of tribulation, Father, please forgive pitiful humankind. If we ever happen to meet the Lord of glory today, please guide us to think of the Lord who was hung on the cross and to be able to take charge of the body of the Lord who suffered that pain. By doing so, Father, I earnestly pray that You will allow us to receive the protection of Jesus, who stepped forward carrying the cross on his shoulder, after being rejected and pursued by the people of his nation.
Please guide us not to become like the foolish disciples who had nothing to do with the Lord of resurrection, though they had wished to be joyful by meeting him. Please allow us to be sons and daughters who can comfort Heaven by welcoming the Lord of resurrection. Father, I also pray from the depth of my heart that You allow us to be sons and daughters who can more than fulfill such a mission.
Father, please be present with the unworthy throng of people gathered here today. We are the group of people who should cross the hill of sacrifice now. As we come to understand that the Father has made remarkable effort to come seeking us, we begin to feel that we cannot help walking this path.
We are entrusted today with the comprehensive mission of indemnifying all historical debts, even if we are inadequate. Therefore, Father, please allow us to be able to do away with all that and carry out the mission with which we are entrusted.
Please allow us to be able to establish the people of this nation, first, before the Father for the sake of this nation, the world, Heaven and earth. Father, I also sincerely wish and desire that You allow us to be sons and daughters who can do more than that.
We hear the howling sound of sin and evil left during 6,000 years of history. We are aware that we are to cross into the position of the ancestors of goodness, after having passed through the position of Adam and Eve. Therefore, Father of love, I pray from the bottom of my heart that You will raise us as the pillars of Heaven who will tread and step over all things in reality and build a new world.
Although we have sought the Father until now to receive consolation, please allow us instead to be the people who can attend the Lord from now on, he who represents the Father who comforted us. Father, I also sincerely wish and desire that You guide us so that all the strength and ability with which we strive to carry out this mission can be sustained until our hope is attained.
Please allow all brothers and sisters gathered here today to be able to experience the fretful shimjung in the bosom of the Father. By doing so, I sincerely wish and desire that You allow us to be sons and daughters who can comfort the Father with the shimjung of a person who has experienced everything. Ardently soliciting this, I pray all these words in the name of our beloved Lord. Amen.
The title of today's speech is "The World of Ideology Which We Seek." I will speak briefly upon this topic.
God's Ideology of Creation and Reality
You are leading a life today, forming a connection with society and the world based on your individual self. Yet when you come to think about yourself, you come to realize that you have a mind and a body. Further, you begin to realize that there is the land on which we live, as well as your mind and body. On the basis of this, are the courses we have to walk and the environment we seek prepared? No, they are not. Our mind wishes to follow in pursuit of a higher ideology. If you attach importance to the body, you will experience that the body is also moving toward a certain ideology which runs counter to the mind. Next, if you look carefully, getting away from yourself, you know very well that this land is also moving toward a certain grand ideology.
Will everything end with this? No, it will not. Furthermore, since Heaven, earth and human beings exist, though they may seem three different things, they are all moving toward one goal within one realm. Since God, who created all things in the universe surely exists, they all belong to God; yet Heaven is presently in a position that has nothing to do with "me." I myself am also out of synchronization with my own ideology. Furthermore, this land is not in a ready state where it can attain Heaven's comprehensive ideology. We can see this very well as we look at today's reality in society and the world's trend of thought.
All things were originally part of the ideology of the Creator. They were to take up a united action and direction on one unified course and move toward one goal. Because such a will could not be attained, this has remained an issue human beings have to resolve today. The vast majority of people cannot think like this. For that reason, as we live our day-to-day life or as we seek ourselves, we feel that our mind and body are wandering about seeking that something in their respective ways.
In addition, when you look at the world today, this world is also gasping for breath, seeking that something. You are experiencing this fact within your realm of life. Can all be resolved with the visible things belonging to human beings on this earth? Things are not made that way. God the Creator moves, having put forth one certain grand ideology in relation to human beings and the created things. You know this already.
When you look at yourselves today, what lies ahead of you? The world of ideology God has been seeking, the world of ideology that is centering upon your mind and body, lies ahead. You cannot help acknowledging you must proceed toward that world.
As I look at myself today, I realize that I relate to Heaven and to the earth. In view of the comprehensive providence concerning this land, each of you today must reflect upon whether your mind can honorably relate to Heaven and to the one Unificationist ideology, according to the heavenly principles. You might not be able to respond with confidence that you can.
Since God exists, the unified world of the comprehensive ideology, for which God wishes, should also exist. Since God has carried out the providence until now, there must come a time when the Unificationist ideology is attained on this earth. This is a logical consequence.
If that is the case, with reference to the goal of the ideologies of Heaven and earth becoming one, the important issues are what kind of position you are in, what kind of environment you are in, and in what position is the life you are leading today? Yet the human mind tries to depend on Heaven without realizing it. The body tries to rely on the land without knowing it. For that reason, though I appear whole, I am striding forth on a forked road. This is caused by the human fall.
Therefore, you must now become one with the ideology of the heavenly principles. You must equip your body with the qualifications to become one with the Unificationist ideology the world seeks to attain. That is the reason ideologies emerged as introductions in the course of history. When we come to look at the present countenance of the world, we can easily see that the world is moving toward becoming Unificationist in form or shape. Following such a trend, our mind is also entertaining a yet unknown worldwide will. Our mind is always responding to the grand ideology of trying to live together as one individual, as brothers and sisters and members of one family.
The Vital Problem Which Man must Solve
Is this merely some conceptual cognition that comes from delusional thinking, something we cannot possibly actualize? No, that is not so. Today's tendency of mind surely cannot be caused by my one individual self. Yet without my awareness, the grand will of the providence of the heavenly principles is operating to make a connection with my mind. Because this affects the people on earth today, no one can help but be guided forward by the heavenly principles. People's consciences differ. Their emotions differ. There exists a world that the body desires and another world that the mind desires. Which is closer to Heaven? Which should be the master and which should be the servant? This is the vital problem humankind has to solve today. Unless each human being solves this problem, no matter what ideology is attained in the world, even if the will of the heavenly principles is attained on this earth, it will have nothing to do with that person.
The battle of this difference cannot be resolved unless the body puts the mind first in importance. The body must adapt itself to being in accord with the mind. Once the mind and body become united into one, the body should be able to be put first too. The mind and body that can do so stand with considerable merit. Unless you become such people, even if the providential will and the ideology are attained on this earth today, you will have no connection whatever with it.
Now the time of judgment is coming near. What will we have to do to cross this age of judgment? If God exists within this ideological realm and some supreme ideology exists on the earth, my mind and body should experience the one form in which God and the supreme ideology on the earth are united. My own individual self should possess the one center with which I can stand honorably facing Heaven and earth. Unless you become such people, you will not be able to avoid the judgment day.
God has been moving the consciences of human beings until today. Yet there has been a great disparity between the direction God pursues and the direction of the conscience. When God moved a hundred percent, the conscience could not stand in a hundred percent objective position. Human conscience is controlled and has been influenced by the age in which he lives, by habits and cultural conditions. Therefore, the result varies according to the level of control and influence it has been under. The conscience we have is not necessarily congruent with the ideological world of the heavenly principles. The ideological world that the conscience pursues may seem to have taken the same direction as the heavenly principles, yet there is a wide difference between the two. For that reason, when you seek and step onto the path of truth, know that you are placed in a position where you cannot help carrying on the fight to subjugate and strike even your own conscience before the will of God.
The Reason God's Ideology and Man's Conscience Cannot Be of One Accord
Although God is moving toward the ideology, and our human consciences today also seek that ideology, this forking into two cannot continue in a unified way. There is an unavoidable reason for this. Though my conscience wishes to go as God tells it, it cannot. This is because one hill of fear remains for humanity to cross. Accordingly, unless you become able to penetrate and cross the hill of fear, you will not be able to make connection with the eternal ideology of Heaven.
In order for the relations between God and my mind to be set up in the center of God's will, my mind and body must form such relations. My mind and body must stand in the center of the will. Centering upon my mind and body, such relations must be formed with the ideology of the will.
Once your conscience has become one, your conscience and your body have become one, and your body and the environment have become one, you must unite all things into one. Further, you must stand representing that center. Whether it is the heavenly world, the world of conscience, and/or the position of the body, you should be able to stand confidently. The fate remains of seeking those who can do so.
Therefore, human beings today are destined to go somewhere, even if they do not know where it is, even if they do not know for what they are to search. That is why the human mind tries to move toward the heavenly principles and the body tries to move toward the earth centering on itself. Heaven changed the earthly tendency of the body into pursuit of the heavenly principles, by driving many people into sacrifice throughout the long course of history. Now Heaven has come forth to lead the body of all humankind into one world of unification. Furthermore, striking even the conscience that tried to go forth in many different directions, Heaven has guided it to go in one direction, toward the one world of the ideology. Yet the people on earth today do not know this. Therefore, centering on the mind, a fight with the will of God will take place to rightly set up that direction. That is the fight between Satan and God, to seek one ideology centering on the conscience in the invisible world. It is the struggle between the Cain side and the Abel side in the visible substantial world. History has flowed on throughout this internal and external fight.
Since God is a being of personality with intellect, emotion and volition, He also has all feelings. God will certainly have one unified ideology of creation. That ideology will be one for the sake of Heaven, for the sake of all humankind, and for all of creation on this earth today.
Unless this turns out to be an inevitable fact, God's ideology of creation will not have anything to do with us. God created so that He could enjoy Himself in relation to such a comprehensive ideology. At the same time, all created things could not but enjoy themselves.
However, because of the fall of humankind, such a world of ideology has not yet firmly taken root in today's humanity. Such a fundamentally directive world of ideology has not yet taken firm root in relation to the body either. That is why God is driving today's humanity to the path of the conscience internally, and into the closing of the age on a worldwide level, after having sought and set up an external doctrine. Today your mind pursues something. It drives and pushes you to direct your steps toward a certain place. You find that humankind today has no choice but to go to a certain ideological world in connection with me.
Although you who are placed in such a situation today feel insignificant, you are not small at all. You are very important. You are absolutely necessary for the creation of a new history of the universe. First, my mind takes such a position, then my body takes such a position, then the surrounding environment, in which I live, is in such a position.
For that reason, God has been pioneering a lonely path up to now to realize His will through a person's internal conscience. God tried to consummate the will of the providence through one certain base point in human conscience, but humankind then lost the base point of that conscience.
However, since God's will was to establish the truth for the sake of humankind and have humankind seek that lost base point, He has been making effort until now, through many prophets and sages, to link humans to the base point of that conscience, taking pains Himself. Because that effort is being made in the invisible, limitless world, the heart of the original character of humankind is moving toward it without us being aware of it.
As the last days approach, the person who has not completely established the standard of mind will not find his mind at peace, even if he is possessed of many good conditions. You must know that the world of reality is faced with the situation today where a change of direction must take place. That is why, after establishing the truth, God commands us to disconnect all self-centered authority and self- aggrandizing ideologies.
The Meaning of God Telling Us "Give Up"
Why did God introduce this contradictory condition to humankind? Although the minds of human beings want to seek and establish one standard, it is impossible for the mind and body to settle in all at the same time. That is why God has taken such a direction until now. Consequently, the world of ideology relying on the mind must appear in history. That ideology is the operating principle for all of humanity. Accordingly, until the center of that ideology is settled, we must go through a history of giving up things. When this has passed through a certain course, it will be transposed from a giving-up history to a seeking history again.
Therefore, Christianity started on a path of tribulation. Although Christianity started from a position of being abused and hounded on all sides, it came to establish a nation while giving up everything. This extended to form a state. Furthermore, the time has come when Christianity can have a world-level form. That is, today is the optimal time for God to establish that will through one certain center. Accordingly, today we must raise a standard with which we can recoup the material lost. For that reason, all states today have to go through an age of allied power through a world-level ideology. After passing through the form of the allied and associated powers, this cannot but go into the world of one Unificationist ideology as three great blocs.
God directed humankind to rely upon their own minds and to discard the world's external conditions in the last days. Why did He say that? He said it to make those things completely ours. He did not mean we would always have to give things up. Faced with the last days on this earth, humankind must restore, all at once, the things our ancestors gave up in the past. God has been toiling because the will of the providence to return that which our ancestors gave up remains unfulfilled and because all creations on this earth are to be sought and raised. You should know this.
For this reason, a democratic state centering on one doctrine is being formed. The time is coming when this doctrine can appear as a world- level trend. Therefore, the world-scale material civilization and the system will get tied together, centering on this doctrine, and will move forth equipped with one Unificationist form. Similarly, as all these external conditions proceed toward a unified form, we ourselves who are to seek this world should also be able to go forth accomplishing the unification of mind and body at the level of ourselves. This will be in accordance with the trend of the providence.
Because such a time will surely come, a fight will break out in your mind and body. While the mind desires to run toward Heaven, the body is running in an erratic direction toward the world. While the mind tries to go in joy toward the ideology, the body tries to run away.
You should march forth in this fight, clinching a victory, fixing eternity as the standard. When that happens, the lost will of God will be your God for the first time. You will restore your lost mind and body as a unified body of victory, the mind and body God desires. Not only that, you can build one world of creation in the position of yourself. When can we welcome the time of the ideology for which Heaven wishes, the ideology for which our consciences and bodies wish and the ideology for which the spirit world wishes do not take separate directions? They return toward one goal, one direction and one result. This is the last goal we must seek.
Humanity's Self-Examination and the Self-Restoration Movement
When we think about ourselves, we who must march toward this goal, where did the existence called "I" come from? From whence did he come and where is he headed? How far does he have to go? These are the problems we must resolve without fail.
Where did God's ideology start? Where is it headed? How far is it going to go? Where did my mind come from? How far is it going? The same questions apply to my body and to this land. What are the cause and effect with reference to that historical problem? The cause and effect are one. We have not seen the day when we can establish one standard by which our minds and bodies are utterly united. The day must come when it is possible to connect through my body and mind to the world. Heaven has been longing for the day when this world and all the fortune of Heaven and earth can revolve together in unison.
Yet when you set yourselves up before such a will today, your minds and bodies are in a position where they must encounter criticism before the will of God and the ideology of the world. Since Heaven has the responsibility to resolve all historical conditions and humanity has the responsibility to consummate that will, Heaven has established religion. Accordingly, today you must understand that your total lifestyle must not transgress the bounds of truth. Only then can the ideology of the world be united with your own ideology.
How can you know that Heaven and earth have been there since before you existed? How can you know about all the historical facts that took place before your own time? Humankind today shuffles this off to the side as something of which he is ignorant.
How can we perfectly represent Heaven and the earth from a position of ignorance? How can we stand before God's essential ideology? We cannot. To reveal our position today, we must know the cosmic and historic origin. This is a logical consequence. The time of the worldwide movement, when you seek that and present the self- restoration movement, must come. It does not begin centering on some doctrine or ideology. One doctrine has to come with which one can present his own position and lead the self-restoration movement. If you stand in a position where you do not know the cause, even if the effect of that cause is actualized, you will not be able to manage it.
What must we do, we who must walk the course of such a life? Have we become the people who can participate in the self-restoration movement? My life today is not a sudden existence that came into being out of coincidence. You must understand that the one individual being "I" came into being to introduce the cosmic inevitability, the worldwide inevitability and the futuristic inevitability.
The people of a nation should stand before the tradition of the history of that nation. They must follow the legal conditions of that age. Now we must leave something new before the worldwide comprehensive ideology of the future. This is the reality in which we live. If that is the case, the same principle applies in going forth seeking the cosmic world ideology today. Accordingly, we must start from the extremely small task of restoring "me."
Not only that, since the worldwide problem mentioned previously lies before us today, it is important to solve my problem first. While solving one's own problem, since the resultant world appears before us now, I must form a relationship with it. Accordingly, we must seek and establish one base point that can solve this as well as that; that is, an ideology which connects with Heaven and earth and with the mind of humankind. By doing so, you must understand that person will become a person who can boast before Heaven and earth and the whole of created things. We will forget the history of sorrow and the grief of the current period. We will raise our hands in triumph over all the fear in the environment.
Solving the Ultimate Problem
The world that tried to lead people to make effort to solve the origin of the ideology of God, the Creator of the universe, was the world of truth. However, though many ascetics have inquired closely into that cause, history has flowed on and no elucidated center has yet been presented before humankind.
The history that has come down with that original unsolved problem is the history you have inherited today. Therefore, if we cannot solve this problem today, then the human history of bitter resentment will remain until later generations. Not only that, after the present time, God will not be able to solve this problem.
What am I, my one self, today? I as an individual am the very being who can block the way of the world of ideology God desires.
For that reason, before we start taking steps toward the future, we must go back to the past and think about what conditions cause the impairment of loyalty to the heavenly principles. We must rethink the course of history in contradiction to the heavenly ideology.
How many faithful believers are there on earth who, having laid grievous conditions in the past, fight to their last breath to set up a condition of indemnification before Heaven? There are many people who wander around seeking the ideology of the future, having forgotten their own past. There are many people who wander about seeking the truth of the origin of all rooted evil to solve it. However, there has not yet appeared a historical person who can stand on the truth and pursue the more original, causal condition.
As long as the ideology of the future world does not change, people's thoughts about the future world cannot change. You must know that you cannot evade the fear during the close of the world as it drifts along in confusion. The people who are only intoxicated with the new ideology of the future cannot be perfect idealists. The ideal world is attained only after stepping over the stage of the close of this world. What is judgment day? It is the day everything stops. Up to this point, humankind has emerged passing everything, embracing the doctrine, the thought and the ideology that he has kept.
If there were not some condition for humankind, God and the heavenly principles to dissolve the causal impairment of loyalty with all created things on this earth, everything would have to fall. All doctrines and thought would disappear. The trend of thought that steers and serves the future also would disappear. The condition that can unify cause and effect will have to be sought and established. By doing so, "I" the individual can unify that original cause and effect. Only when that happens, will I for the first time become a testimonial, substantial sacrifice who can represent the history of the 6,000 years.
What should we do today? We should be able to make a clean separation from today's real world. We should be able to deny the whole thing. In other words, the questions become: Have I become the one who can make a clean separation from all desires until now? Can I unite everything and act accordingly? Our origin does not reside in the future. We have to pass the barrier of judgment in the future. The key to our being able to restore ourselves is in solving the cause of all vicissitudes woven around God, humanity and the creation.
For that reason, you must become people who have ears that can hear the sound of the mind. Even if you pray, saying, "God! Please attain the will of compassion on this earth for us. God! Please let this world enjoy peace," that prayer will not be heard no matter how hard you try, unless you have a peaceful mind.
You must delve into the Bible now and elucidate the cause of the fall of Adam and Eve. In addition, you must reach the stage where you can shed light upon the internal heart of God, the Creator of all. You must come to have a three-dimensional relationship that can accompany the heart of Jesus 2,000 years ago and God 6,000 years ago. Though you live in today's reality, you can experience their hearts those thousands of years ago.
Although history has elapsed for 6,000 years, today you must bear such a heart. When you do that, you will seek and reach the shimjung of the vicissitudes of God and Adam and Eve and you will understand. Later, you can enter that realm in which you can call God "Father." When that time comes, that 6,000-year history becomes your history. This is the seat of complete harmony where you become one with the 6,000-year history. In such a stage as this, the clue to solving all the problems of today's reality will be found. This is the world we can comprehend through spiritual experiences.
To experience the spiritual world means to connect to the four- dimensional world. When that happens, the prophets and sages who have come and gone can communicate and form a relationship with me today. In other words, in the realm of time of today's realistic life, I can experience and feel their sensations through my own skin.
The Path of the Courageous Person Who Brings God's Shimjung to Light
Humankind today believes in all kinds of religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, et cetera. However, he must not rest content with the religion he believes in as such. He should not believe only in the central figure of motive, who made him believe in a religion, or the word of the truth that appeared with him. He must tread and step above that word and understand the internal shimjung. You must dissect it to see what the internal shimjung is that is hidden inside the present state of things. You should not just set up the words of scripture as the standard of absolute salvation. This is the problem today. God's fundamental problems will not be solved with that. Accordingly, God is seeking courageous men who can penetrate this and go over it.
Therefore, today we should not be controlled by conservative thought or by some founder of truth. You must penetrate and climb over that and reach direct negotiations with God, who set up the founder of the truth. By doing so, you should resolve the contradictory problem in the truth itself and seek and establish the standard of God's internal shimjung. God is still seeking, asking the question, "Where is the group of people who can establish such a standard and step forth?" If there is such a group of people, God will not turn His face away from them.
The time has come to rake up and re-identify all the things of the world. You should re-analyze the religious classics and theological works. Find out what is the one standard that can be found through experience. Find out about Jesus' internal shimjung and God's internal shimjung. You must know that God has hoped for faithful, courageous men who could clarify the working out of the intricacies of the providence this way.
Only when this gets resolved can we, centering on this principle, find the point of solution of the comprehensive principles. In the last days, this will be established again as the second principle and recognized as the second ideology. The will of God's providence regarding the earth is for the sake of this. Therefore, to prove this, you must now cross the deadline that you cannot help crossing. To walk this path, you must step forward, leaving all behind, including your friends and your parents, no matter how close they may be. For that reason, you must know that you are standing in a lonely place where you cannot ever accompany anyone. You are on the course where you have to run ceaselessly to the place where limitless fear sweeps.
If you are unable to seize upon one center that runs endlessly like this, at some point in time you will end up being expelled to the invisible world of this universe. Such a time will definitely come. In religious terminology, such a thing means "going to hell."
Jesus who came 2,000 years ago was so proud and dignified. Why could he not boast of the future and the reality? It was because he was not able to find the perfect point of solution that was in accordance with the principles, the historical point of solution. Therefore, he could not boast of the reality then nor in the future.
Now we Christians must demonstrate the Jesus who can boast of the current reality and of the future with a greatly indignant heart. The time to receive the Jesus who can boast of the future has to come. Why is it not coming? The conditions of historical ups and downs have made it this way. The fight Jesus carried on was a fight to liquidate the course of history. It was not to resolve the current reality. The battle of present Christianity is not a battle for the sake of the future alone. It is the sphere of battle to solve the historical condition. This is the real position of today's Christianity.
The Faithful Believer Who Can Boast of Jesus' Future
Throughout the toilsome course of his thirty and more years of life, Jesus took a change of direction to pioneer a new path, different from all the historical conditions of the prophets and sages which were split and infiltrated. In the process, misunderstanding took place. Because he could not succeed in pioneering that new path on earth, he has sought that new path in the spirit world and has come forth connecting it to the world of reality.
For that reason, Jesus went to the spirit world and sought the realistic and futuristic ideology. He has since unfolded, through the history of 2,000 years, a dispensation of intricacies for the sake of the earth today, through a second course. Although Jesus received rejection on this earth, the spirit world welcomed him; but Jesus should not be welcomed only in the spirit world.
When will the Jesus of the current period and the futuristic Jesus come to this earth? You must understand that is the Lord of the Second Coming for whom we are waiting today. To seek the futuristic Jesus, you must first go seeking the historical process. You should experience the realistic process of the second age where Jesus was welcomed in the spirit world through the historical cause. By doing so, anticipating the one day of hope that Jesus cherished, we should become selves who can represent the reality of which you want to boast and the shimjung of the future of which you want to boast. To do that, we should become selves who can find their own positions today
