Matthew 26:36-46
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
Prayer
Father, humanity must awaken from its deep sleep and free themselves from the powers of darkness; yet, they do not. No matter what kind of obstacles block our path, please reveal Your compassionate hand to us so that we may dash toward the beacon of new light.
Father, we know the historical hardships You have suffered for our sake. We also know that You mourn that dark natures lie deep within us. We must look at ourselves and grieve, as the Father has grieved over the earth.
We must go beyond ourselves to pay back the debt we owe to all things, which are deep in sorrow, and comfort the Father's grieving heart. Though we know in our hearts we must fulfill this responsibility, we have not been able to cope with it. Please forgive us.
We have inherited the history of sorrow and borne the fruits of sorrow. Although the Father has tried to nurture a history of joy and the fruits of joy, we have become fruits of bitterness and lament. Of course, this has caused deep sorrow and anguish in the Father's heart. How could it not?
We are pitiful ones who need to be scrutinized and molded again by the work of re-creation. Father, please have pity on us and take us in as Your own. Remold us with Your ideology. Please re-make our minds and bodies according to the original laws of creation, so that we may possess the original beauty of Heaven. This is Heaven's desire, too.
Please allow us to penetrate the walls of sorrow to see the bright morning light, to sing the victory song of hallelujah, to sing of the joy of having found the Lord and Creator of the entire universe, and to rejoice in attending the Father. Please allow us to feel true longing and true pride toward all created things.
We know that since the human fall, all things have mourned, lamented and hoped to be restored to their original position by the true sons and daughters of God. When we think about our mission to comfort the Father and restore all things to their original position, we must honestly report our inadequacies to the Father. Please forgive us for having to await, longingly, the arduous work of the Father.
We know that, even in this manner, we must help fulfill the wishes of the Father and all of Your creation to end the 6,000 years of lamentation and grief. Father of compassion and love, please do not let our hearts deviate far from You. Please lead us not to live far from Your sung sang and hyung sang.
We know that there is a bond within us which can connect us with the Father's mind and body because You created us. We are not worth even a small speck of dust. Please guide us into the domain of Your original power and raise us again in the ideal way.
Please allow us to become sons and daughters who can be proud and dignified in the presence of the Father. Please allow us to become bright lights for the dark world and little lambs who can convey the news of joy to this dark world, representing the light from the East.
We know that the Father can raise insignificant people and overpower the great. We know that You can strengthen a small group and build a great nation from them. We know that You can raise pitiful people to the point where You can boast of them before the previously chosen ones. Please raise us as Your proud embodiments. We are extremely pitiful and have no place to call our own.
We know that You will raise us as You will. Father, we earnestly wish that You allow us to become the little lambs who can obey the Father's commands and follow You with faithful and obedient hearts.
In this way, please eliminate the remaining sorrow and probe into the fundamental nature of the sins which have penetrated deep inside the hearts of all people. Please uproot the sorrow, and then raise us as the glorious foundation of Heaven. Please train us as the workers who can fully cope with this mission.
Please govern the minds and bodies of the children who have gathered here. Is there some private opinion in the hearts of these people? Do they have a desire to live according to their own concepts? Please remove all concepts, and allow them to have thoughts that can connect with Heaven. Please allow this hour to be a time when we can harmonize in the Father's love, experience deep feelings, and become united and connected with our original selves.
Many millions of satans, wielding the dark forces, are watching us. Father, we entreat from the depth of our hearts that You not let anyone be captured inside the realm of darkness.
Please govern this hour. We earnestly wish that You quickly usher in the day of liberation to these members, these people, and humanity. Please give us the strength to accomplish all our missions and responsibilities. We pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Prayer
Father, every time a sad event takes place on the earth, Heaven mourns, our ancestors mourn, all things mourn, and we feel the same sorrow. Father, you have spent 6,000 years in fruitless wandering and struggling, unable to find that for which You were looking or a place to go, wishing all the while for the day of liberation from this sorrow. If You were to appear before us now, we would feel like crying endlessly.
Now we understand everything and have come seeking the original Parents. We wish, from the depth of our beings, for the day to come when we can shed tears of joy, rather than tears of sorrow-when we can cry for heaven and earth with such intensity as to even forget our existence. We wait for the day when we can remove all sorrows and leave only joy behind.
We have realized where we must go, where we belong, and how we originally were to be. We have come to understand the value of the lost children; yet, the cries of sorrow and sinfulness that come from our mistakes are so loud, we cannot even hear the words of the Father, which we want to hear. We are sad because we realize we are powerless to vanquish all these evil forces.
Father, we are dashing toward restoration. We are dragging our wounded legs and climbing the pinnacle for which Adam and Eve hoped. Please spur us on so that we may apply our last ounce of energy and cross over the barrier. Please let us feel this through our minds and bodies.
Father, please be with us today. We know that if there is something about which You want to talk to us, it is not about Your happiness, but rather about Your miserable sorrow and how enormously difficult and painful it has been for You. Please let us fathom and feel this gripping in our hearts, and allow us to represent the original heart of the Father.
How must Heaven have felt after losing human beings? Please allow us to understand this heart and situation, during this hour. Please guide us to become one with the words that are coming from the depth of one who understands the situation of Heaven. Father, this is our earnest wish.
Please let the hearts of the speaker and the hearts of the listeners be one, so that only the Father's will may be manifested in us all. Please do not let Satan invade this hour. We pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title of the sermon I would like to share with you is "Let Us Open Our Eyes Once More and Behold the Sky." I will speak briefly upon this topic.
The Results of the Fall, the Ignorance of Adam and Eve, and the Wishes of God
This land in which we live has not seen the new morning of the realization of God's ideal of creation. It has slept under the power of Satan for a long time. This is how our history has been. This is how our minds have been, how all that we pursue and the hearts we seek have been. In other words, none can wake from the deep sleep in which they exist, within the realm of Satan. We understand this fact very well.
When God created Adam and Eve and blessed them, they were wide awake, and they were able to rejoice with God in the world of eternal ideology. God created Adam and Eve for this purpose. However, Adam and Eve could not grasp what kind of relationship they had with God and the ideology with which they should relate with all things. In this state of immaturity, when they were progressing toward perfection, they made the grave and sorrowful mistake of the fall. We all understand this.
God said to Adam and Eve, "When you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17) He also said, "Become the master of creation and the ruler of the universe." If their hearts had become one with the heart of God as they listened to His words, the fall would never have taken place.
There was considerable distance between the hearts of Adam and Eve and the heart of God. Adam and Eve could only connect with the heart of God by going through the period of growth and accomplishing the purpose of the word. If Adam and Eve had thought about and reflected upon the words of God every time they saw all things and the angels, then they would not have fallen. Had they thought about God and His heart with an awareness of their position and with enlightened hearts, they would have been able to discern the nature of the archangel's words.
Adam and Eve should have always lived in the word and heart of God. When they did not live like that, the archangel tempted them.
Heaven always watches over us, whether we are asleep or awake. Even when we do not understand our value, Heaven understands and looks over us. When we do not understand our mission and responsibility, Heaven understands them.
Furthermore, God understood the value of living eternally centered on the deeply penetrating love in the realm of the eternally inseparable parent-child relationship. With this mind-set, God looked upon Adam and Eve. Yet Adam and Eve did not fathom the heart of God, and they fell. They fell not understanding their identity, not understanding what they should do and uphold, and not understanding what they should love.
If God has grief inside, it is that Adam and Eve did not recognize Him, their Creator and Protector. He was with them every second. They did not understand the heart of God, who was waiting for them to grow to a certain purpose. Because the human ancestors could not forge the vertical bond with Heaven, their descendants were ignorant of God and ignorant of their position. They did not understand to whom they belonged and what their identity was.
Because they did not understand God who protected them, who took responsibility for them and watched over them, they did not know what they should do, what they should pursue and what they should protect. Furthermore, although God was hoping to join in oneness with human beings, because they did not understand, we still do not know our purpose. We have searched for the path to love for 6,000 years.
What Human Beings Must Know, Realize and Experience
The fall took place because God's thinking and human beings' thinking were diametrically opposed. Thus, we must cultivate ourselves and reflect upon ourselves. We must reflect upon and recover ourselves. Because human beings have this obligation, countless philosophers and religious people have sought to resolve this issue, without much success. We understand this very well. In other words, who am "I"?
If human beings necessarily live in relationships, then who is the subject of these relationships? If there is a master of our lives, who is it? It is someone about whom we would say, "Only that person can represent my entire being, my thoughts and my life. I cannot live without him." The day we recognize that person, we will understand God, the unchanging Master, who has been fighting to hold on to us through the long course of history. From that moment, everything will go smoothly. We came from the one Master, so we will understand what the Creator God has entrusted in us and what He has been struggling to govern.
God blessed human beings to have dominion over all things. Why did He give this blessing? Why did God not rule creation directly, rather than intending to rule it through human beings? This is to allow human beings to understand the heart with which God created all things in the universe.
Adam and Eve would have experienced the joyful feelings of love and beauty which God felt when He created all things. They would have experienced this in relation to how much they understood the ownership of God, kept the word of God, and recognized all things. They should have then loved all things and rejoiced before them as the representatives of God. However, they turned away from this responsibility of experiencing God's heart of creation. Instead, due to Satan's temptation, they felt feelings they were not supposed to feel. We should know that when they made this wrong turn into an impermissible place, they fell.
Since we are the descendants of fallen Adam and Eve, we have become people who cannot feel the joyful, creative heart of God as we look at the universe. Therefore, we must rehabilitate ourselves and serve only one master. We must then deeply experience the heart of God, who blessed us to have dominion over all things in the Garden of Eden. We must learn to step forward with this kind of heart. Unless we become this kind of person, there is no way we can alleviate the grief that Adam and Eve caused when they fell.
Have you ever felt and experienced in your heart and in your daily life the kind of heart with which God created all things? If you have, then you will be overwhelmed with emotions of love toward all things. You will hear the words God has spoken loud and clear.
Adam and Eve should have related to all things with the same joyful heart of God at the time of His creation. Adam and Eve, who should have opened their eyes once again and looked toward the sky, did not experience the heart of God.
What We Must Safeguard and Possess
Adam and Eve's intellect and wisdom were not developed. This is why they made the mistake they did and could not feel the heart of God deeply. Even so, had they lived by the word of God in everything they did and felt in their lives, they would have overcome all temptations that came their way.
Adam and Eve did not know the purpose of God, who granted them the authority to govern all things. They did not long for what would come as the result of their successful obedience of the word. If their longing expectation of what would happen after they kept the word of God had dominated and guided their lives, if they had not forgotten their knowledge of life and their feelings in daily life, then Adam and Eve would not have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam and Eve did not have any such yearning, so the words of the archangel seemed more important than the word of God. This is where the sorrow of humanity began. This is the beginning point of the long sleep in the darkness.
If at some point Adam and Eve had opened their eyes again and remembered the commandment of God, if they had sensed the greatness of the blessing God gave them to dominate all things in relation to the temptation of the archangel, they would not have fallen. This became the origin of all the vicissitudes which humanity has undergone. Hence, we must work to find ourselves, make an effort to find our responsibility and think about what we will become.
Had Adam grown up and cultivated the heart to govern all things, what would have been achieved? There would have been a complete bonding of the inseparable relationships of the whole through the unity between the love of Adam and Eve, the love of all things, and the love of God.
However, because we lost all these, we lament today. We are living in this sinful world with deep grudges against it. We have been ignorant of the true value and purpose of life and have been enslaved by Satan. We have been struggling painfully in the realm of the dark forces, where we cannot even fathom the value of death.
You must overcome this environment, open your eyes, and experience a fundamental change in your heart in order to recognize God once more. There must spring from within you a desperate and sincere heart. There must arise from within your heart a new realization about your life. Unless these things take place, you will not be able to take pride in your value. This is because no other value has to do with Heaven. No matter how proud you are of your authority or life, it cannot forge any relationship with Heaven. Everything will be in vain.
Therefore, we must re-analyze the words of the archangel and not repeat the mistakes of Adam and Eve, who did not behold God. We must correct ourselves through self-examination and open our eyes again. From that moment on, our true self can blossom.
Because we have not opened our new eyes, the universe has fallen into the abyss of sorrow, misfortune and despair inherited from the fall. There is nothing more sad or infuriating than this fact. Although we should be working toward alleviating this sorrow and indignation, people do not even know how this sorrow and indignation came about. They are completely at a loss. Though people are pitiful, how much more miserable is God as He watches over this situation?
In the last days, it is the fate of fallen people to examine and recognize everything in a new light. The purpose of history and human life is to attain the day when we recognize everything and open our eyes, the joyful day when we discover our new selves, the moment we can connect with the entire universe as a new self and forge an inseparable bond of love with God. People have been struggling to attain this, even though they were not aware of it.
The Reason We Must Open Our Eyes Again and Look to Heaven
We must open our eyes again. We must open our eyes again and look to Heaven. When we lift our gaze and look toward Heaven, we will feel awe-stricken. Heaven never forgot human beings, who are deep in sleep and lamenting before the death they face, all the while struggling to find the path in the world of death. Heaven has thought about humanity, which has betrayed Him, many thousands of times. You will fathom this and feel the heart of God, who loves human beings. The moment you realize that Heaven really exists, you will cry out of mixed emotions of sorrow and gratitude.
How many times has Heaven looked at us while protecting our lives! Heaven has been watching over us through our life course, our ideological conditions, and our desires, even while we were not aware of it. Do you understand the sorrow of God? Have you ever felt the misery that by far surpasses our misery and sadness? If you have not, you will not be able to bring resolution to all this in these last days of the 6,000-year history. It is not possible. The fundamental problems of humanity cannot be solved before humanity shatters all these walls and experiences the heart of God after returning to the original position of Adam. This is how it is.
We must open our eyes again and look at God, in whom we believe. We must look at Jesus again. We must look again at the countless good ancestors who came with the mission of God's providence of restoration. While reviewing history, we must reflect on this again and think about what will happen as we look at the future with deep concern. If you do not feel like crying out bitterly, "Heaven!" as you open up your eyes and look, your hopes will be dashed.
Why are the paths of modern people blocked? Even the religious leaders who founded religions and guided people's lives could not solve these fundamental problems and came to a dead end. Both philosophy and science have come to dead ends. What is the reason for this? It is because they did not open their eyes.
Since we cannot bring resolution with anything we currently have, we must forsake them all and look to Heaven once more. Those who have an earnest desire to look to Heaven and seek it, those who mourn with this desire to look up, and those who die cherishing this desire are the ones who can lay the cornerstone for the conclusion of human history.
A person concerned about the fate of his declining nation must not shout out for the sake of the people. First, he must cry out for the sake of Heaven, then he should shout out for the sake of the people. This is when the people will revive. History bears witness to this fact.
The moment we chase away the world, where we cannot find a solution even after ardent struggle, the moment when we return to the state of the original mind and open our eyes in the state of complete void is the moment when a new history is created and new life begins. It is the moment of re-creation when we can find our true selves.
We must understand that Jesus struggled to find Heaven as he prayed. Therefore, during the thirty-year preparation period, he could never express joy, even when his brothers and sisters or neighbors and relatives were happy. He saw that there was a huge gap between what Heaven wanted and where humanity was heading. The greater the gap he saw, the more firm his determination became.
Though he had many things to say, Jesus lived in silence. This was the grief of the thirty-year preparation period. After this thirty-year preparation period was over, he left his family and went forth as a pioneer. He went forward with the mind-set, "I will go even in the face of death, even if the path is fatiguing, even if I am to meet my downfall." With this determination, he was able to overcome his environment.
Jesus' Attitude toward His Life
Adam fell because he believed everything that someone told him from the side. If we accept conventional trends of thought, then we may also perish. Therefore, we must re-examine them before we receive them. If you stand in the position of a master who can analyze trends through the philosophy connected to your mind, life and emotions, which philosophy can rescue you? No school of thought can rescue you. Had such fundamental problems been solved, peace would have settled in the realm of heart within you, and there would have been joy in your living environment. You would have enjoyed freedom and equality. No matter how many doctrines are promoting their ideals, we know that there has been no doctrine which has liberated our hearts, emotions and ideologies.
When we hope for the one day when we look up and wake from sleep, when we do away with our present environment and look to Heaven, we will find our Lord there. Human beings have not understood this until now.
What kind of people pursued the will of God during the course of history? They are those who transcended their era and clung to Heaven, those who abandoned earth and yearned for Heaven. They were not tolerated by their era. Rejected by their era, they led a pitiful life. They were extremely miserable people. In this world, where other people have places to rely on and live comfortably, they had nowhere they could depend on, no friend with which to share their heart, no people of similar mind who could give their lives and fight for them. In this sad state, they all faded away.
The young man who came 4,000 years after the fall, the young Jesus, discredited his era, his environment, and the religions up to his time to save all people. What did this young man promote? He promoted the will of God, about which humankind was ignorant.
Jesus cherished the will of God, and knew that what he experienced in reality could be the reference for the comprehensive ideology. Hence, even when the world betrayed him, Jesus overcame it and looked at his new self, his new family, society, nation and world with a new attitude. He was able to look confidently at the new ideology. Moreover, because he understood that its value was higher and more precious than anything else in his world, he was not affected at all by the betrayal of Israel and Judaism. Even when society, his family, a famous scholar, a chief priest or scribe opposed him, no matter what kinds of difficulties and tribulations confronted him from all sides, Jesus remained immutable. He only lifted his gaze again and said, "God!" This was the principle by which he led his life.
Jesus felt infinite sorrow over the environment around him, which denied him. Realizing that God was also grieving over his situation, he felt deeply sorry. Jesus felt blocked by a wall of sorrow toward the people who had repeatedly betrayed God and who had ostracized the many prophets and sages God had sent to establish him.
Therefore, Jesus felt that his death was nothing compared to the grief of God, who had lamented and fought for the sake of humanity. This is why Jesus was able to deny himself and bow down before the heart of God.
This is where a new awakening of humanity and a new beginning of the second selves came about. Humanity was able to meet the spring of life through Jesus. Humanity had been sleeping in sorrow and darkness for 4,000 years. Had they believed in Jesus, they would have been able to greet the new spring and revive their lives.
We Should Possess the Insight and Level of Heart with which to Recognize the Messiah
Today, 2,000 years after the coming of Jesus, everyone who lived for Heaven was attached to his life. There was no one who did not feel sorrow springing from within. Yet, they sensed the sorrow and the torn life of their Lord more than their attachment to their life and sorrow. Our ancestors denied all they had and followed the heart which guided them toward Heaven.
Where has the providential course of Heaven, stained with the ancestors' blood, sweat and tears, gone? It has progressed alongside the course of human history. Where will the last days of history lead us? If at the close of the providence a person appears who can become the sacrifice of blood, tears and sweat for the sake of the whole, who proclaims, "Heaven, please receive me," then that person is the Savior of the last days. He is the Savior of life.
If such a person takes charge of the providence, he will appear on the earth with heavenly conditions and represent Heaven's heart. When you face that prophet, even if you do not understand his heavenly heart and character, you must deny the practical reality and behold him with a fresh perspective. You must open your eyes and be able to see and distinguish the value and character of that person. If you cannot do this, then even if Jesus were to come to the earth, you would not recognize him.
Moses, who stood before the 600,000 Israelites, had grown up in the palace of Pharaoh and had been a shepherd raising a flock of sheep in the Midian wilderness. If you look at that background alone, Moses had no special value which distinguished him from others in the world. However, when Moses appeared after having cultivated a heavenly heart and character, the Israelite people should have opened their eyes and beheld him. Because they did not do so, even though they followed Moses, they still fell down in the wilderness. The same was true during Jesus' day. It also true, today, in the last days of history.
You must liquidate the sinful history starting from within yourselves. If you make a negative contribution to history, you will go to hell. If you make a positive contribution, you will go to Heaven. Moreover, when we compare the era to you, if the era is greater than you, you will go to hell. If you are greater than the era, then you will go to Heaven. This is how it works.
Human beings, who have been guided by the fortunes of the universe, must restore the day when they can control these fortunes. God has been working through the long 6,000-year history with His gaze firmly fixed on such a day. The 6,000-year course of God's providence of restoration has been an attempt to find one brave person who can remove the sorrow of being dragged about by the fortunes of Heaven and can control them.
We who have the mission to renew this must acquire a second eye. We must sense our second life, find our second ideology, cultivate our second character, and take pride in them. Only when a person appears who can raise you and wish blessings for you on behalf of the fortunes of the universe, can the 6,000-year providence come to a close. Moreover, this will set the condition for God to receive glory.
When we reflect on Jesus, who prayed in the garden of Gethsemane with his three disciples, we find that he was brave amid miserable circumstances. He wanted to move the heart of God through the heart of heaven and earth and through his own heart. The garden of Gethsemane was the place where he offered such prayers. Jesus should have moved the heart of humanity to unify heaven and earth, heavenly love, and earthly love. He had to make a connection only with heavenly love, because he was ostracized in respect to the love of human beings and was driven out of the earth. The garden of Gethsemane was where that connection was made. Although the three disciples, representing humankind, were with him, the heart of Jesus and the hearts of Peter and the other two disciples were different.
Jesus, who yearned for heavenly love and beheld Heaven before his imminent death, fixed his gaze on the glory of resurrection beyond the valley of death. The disciples, who had selfish mentalities, could not understand the heart of Jesus. These kinds of incidents took place many times. They were indeed shameful people. These are the deeds of our ancestors, who betrayed Heaven.
What Will Remain in the End
Our ancestors betrayed Jesus. He was our True Parent, our Lord, our bridegroom, the master of our ideology, the subject of our lives, and the incarnation of Heaven who represented the entire universe. Have you ever felt deep inside that you are the descendants of these ancestors and felt bitter about these historical personalities?
When the disciples could not raise their eyes and look at Heaven, Jesus turned his attention toward them many times during his prayer. Jesus felt so incredibly urgent and anxious as he warned them about trials. With this mind-set, Jesus called upon God. Feeling the heart of God and forgetting himself, he thought about his beloved disciples and looked at them many times. However, the three disciples were dozing off, totally unaware of Jesus' heart. You have to understand that this situation not only indicated the state of the three disciples, it also exposed the internal situation of all humanity.
You are not aware of the brave, weeping voice crying out loud and clear from the garden of Gethsemane. This voice is telling you to lift your gaze and look again, yet you do not hear. It is shaking the body and striking the head to awaken sleeping humanity; yet, they do not know. There is no one on earth who understands the grievous heart of God as He works hard for the one blessed day when He can raise humanity as His sons and daughters.
As the original sons and daughters who can uphold the good philosophy of life, you must repair the nail wounds in the heart of Heaven, uproot the historical sorrows, and become the harbringers of love and the media of harmony on behalf of all things and the universe. You must become people about whom God can say, "You are my pride, my beloved, and the highest source and standard of happiness."
God is looking at you with this kind of expectation. When you lift your eyes and look to God, do you find that you have set the foundation for resurrection? God created all things and commanded Adam and Eve to rule them because He wanted them to experience being second creators. You must experience such feelings. Whenever you look at all things, you must sense the skill with which God created the universe and the effort He made in doing so. You must experience the heart He felt as He rejoiced over the created things.
You must find the unifying point with the heart of Heaven and the universe and become their embodiment, in order to offer everything to Heaven. The moment you do, that is the final destination that Heaven and we desire. It is the culminating point for which both Heaven and we human beings have yearned. It is you, not God, who must bring this to pass.
What will remain in the end? Qualified people who have connected with the love of heaven and earth and who have cultivated a new original heart inside the realm of God's love will remain. Here we can witness the new people God has permitted. Having reached the state of original perfected Adam and Eve, we can become new people whom God can bless with both hands. Hence, you must become the heads of new families built in the new heaven and new earth. You must become new parents of a new universe and new children. Such a family must be formed around you.
God has passed through the course of history during which He watched over human beings countless times. Where will be the final destination of history? It is in the one family where God and human beings can live eternally, where human beings are made into the true children of God. In that family, based on God's love, every member and every created being is indispensable. You have to understand that God has longed for such a family.
We do not own ourselves. Our lives do not belong to us. The society in which we live does not belong to us. The nation in which we live does not belong to us, and the world in which we live does not belong to us. The God in whom we believe also does not belong to us alone. Now you must lift your eyes and set out toward Heaven in search of your second selves. This is what the faithful people of the last days must do.
What Heaven Wants of the Faithful People in the Last Days
Attending the True Parents of humanity, you must alleviate all grievous situations, sorrows and grudges. Your heart must completely become one with the heart of the True Parents. You must thus become the incarnation of joy, every part of which is overflowing. In this way, the True Parents must be able to say to you, "You are my beloved. You are my joy. You are my goodness and happiness."
When we reflect upon ourselves and our many sorrows, we have been so miserable that we can hardly say we have been living like people. Now we should no longer be lost in agonizing thoughts. We should become new, second selves who can dance in joy, bliss and glory. If such an event does not take place on the earth, God will truly be a miserable God.
Our fate compels us to deny ourselves and be recognized anew. However, the earth on which we live and our earthly lives have not borne heavenly fruits. Hence, even if the world, your friends, your parents, your spouses, your children and everything on the earth were to leave, your earnest heart which looks to Heaven must tell you not to leave.
Are you going to remain unchanged as God is unchanging? Are you going to cling tenaciously to the heavenly bond and bonds of blessing with the determination that you will bear the fruits on the earth, even at the cost of your lives? Do you have the desire to attain the love of God, even if your hearts are torn apart and you are made sacrifices of Satan in the process? Have you struggled vehemently with the hope and desire that the heart to drive away fallen conditions will remain within you? Have you become someone whom God has sought? Have you become someone who can be presented before Heaven? Have you become someone who can be proud before heaven and earth? You must be able to say, "Heaven, please come down. Humanity, please look at me. All things, please dance in rejoicing."
Using yourselves as the condition, you must alleviate the bitterness of heaven, earth and all things, and remove all sorrow rooted deep in the cosmos. You should then sing on behalf of Heaven, earth and the universe. Moreover, you must be able to ask God, "Please allow only a sincere and loyal heart to remain within us," so that you may command Satan. You must be able to say, "Only someone who possesses such a heart should be allowed to be the Lord of history. Only that person should influence the history of humanity. Only that heart should be the signpost of hope for our descendants." You have to understand that you have the mission to pass down such a heart.
Jesus has fought for the sake of this ideal, and our ancestors also fought for it. God has been awakening the people who live inside the realm of darkness for the sake of this ideal.
Who will penetrate the walls of historical misfortunes and, with the heart of Heaven, awaken the hearts of the people who are fast asleep? Who will awaken their own sleeping self and introduce the exploding heart of God's love? It is none other than you, who appear so unworthy. Therefore, even if you are chased out, driven away and cruelly persecuted, you must always remember that you are the spearhead who must make the connection with this mission.
We have been called before heaven, earth and all things with this responsibility. Hence, we must accomplish our mission and responsibility to alleviate the bitter sorrow of heaven and earth. As the new hope of heaven and earth, you must make it possible for God to forget all grief and look at you with a joyful heart. You must become someone whom humanity can behold with delight; someone whom all things can behold with joy. You must achieve harmony.
This is the garden of the ideal, the original Kingdom of Heaven. The place where people join in harmony and unite around the one ideal is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. God has been seeking us and awakening us countless times to introduce this. However, we have forgotten it, so we must remember this sorrow and ardently strive to find our new second selves in order to take responsibility for this.
Prayer
We must lift our gaze and look to Heaven. Although our eyes have become extremely dim, we must constantly look for something to appear. We must look at everything in history since the time of Adam.
These things have made it impossible for us to find the center of life and the standard of our thoughts. Please allow us to have the heart with which to overcome them and look to Heaven, the heart which can transcend human love and be embraced by Heaven's love. Please let us recognize that we are struggling in bitter grudges held against the earth, Heaven and all things, and let us set out in search of our second selves, craving our second selves. Please allow us to have an anxious heart, which makes it unbearable for us to leave the matter unresolved.
We are the ones who must govern and protect the original garden which we lost. We are the ones who must make bonds of love with all things and offer them together to the Father. We are the ones who bear the responsibility to make the Father's flowers of love blossom through the heart with which the Father created the universe.
Father of love, we earnestly ask that You awaken humanity, who are fast asleep without having taken even one step forward, and that You raise them to become people who can greet the glorious new morning and open their eyes toward the sky.
Please allow us to become people who can open our eyes again to look to Heaven and feel new willpower springing up before world history. Please allow us to tie the new ideology and the new heart together and to move the new tribe. Father, this is our sincere prayer.
If there are such people and such a nation, then let the world become connected to Heaven through them. Please protect the Korean people, so that they will not despair in their present miserable situation.
We understand that what lies ahead of us is the historical valley of misfortune, which will require us to reject everything and lift our eyes again. We Koreans have the greatest amount of undesirable things to be discarded. We cannot boast about our politics or religion, and there is nothing in our possession with which we can go forward. We live in an environment which we must abandon. Please guide us not to cling to them, but let us open our eyes toward Heaven. We know that You have blocked our path so that we may set out toward the new destination which humanity cannot behold. Please guide us not to despair, to forget all our fatigue, and to persistently move forward each day.
We know that only when such people appear, who can open their eyes and look to Heaven, can this earth regain its life and this world live. Please permit us to become those people.
Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane with the heart of someone who was destitute. He felt as if he had lost his parents, his brothers and sisters, his nation and the world. Please allow us to feel the same heart and possess Heaven only after experiencing the feelings of having lost everything. Because the bonds must be made on the earth, Jesus resurrected after he died. We know that Jesus had the responsibility to set the condition of bonds on the earth.
Even if we are to lose everything of the earth and to fall down with the heavenly standard and nothing else, please allow us to march toward the one day when the hope of Jesus, the hope of Heaven, and the hope of humanity can be realized on the earth through us. Please allow us to dash toward that day every day, every year, for the remaining days of our lives. Wishing this most sincerely, we pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
