Faith And Reality

The life of faith is not connected with the pragmatic reality of this world, but connected with God. But we are living in this world of reality, a practical world, so we are confronting many practical issues on this earth.

When we think about the world of reality in this world, we can think of many practical things in living, but when thinking of the life of faith, it is not so, because it is a different realm. We seek, in this world, happiness and joy. You cannot have happiness by yourself.

You must have another party to bring about happiness; e.g., something, some person, material things, or academic achievement (intellectually seeking reality).

So we are in a position to make a common critique of this world through man, material things, or academic research. In this world, unless you make progress along the lines just mentioned, you don't feel happy. In other words, to achieve happiness and joy, we need an objective stimulus.

To reach a high goal and ideal, a period of time is needed to reach the goal and bring happiness. The problem is, how do we find an objective stimulus in the relationship between "I" and the object? Through it, we will bring success.

Unhappiness, depression, and despair will be produced if we fail to maintain that standard. For us to continue in this life, it is necessary to have a continuous positive and objective stimulus. The elements of success and failure will come out.

How are you going to have this positive stimulus in your academic achievements?

That is the key point to bring success.

Although you set up numerous ideal standards in the world of reality, if we cut off this continuous stimulus, we are failing to reach that goal. Continuous positive stimulus also applies to the life of faith. But when I discuss the life of faith that we have in this world, there is sometimes no evidence or scientific method to prove this faith.

The problem is, where can we find the source of positive stimulus in the life of faith?

You have learned, and are learning, the basic teaching of the Divine Principle. Our Principle message creates a bridge that can decrease the gap between the reality of the world and the ambiguous realm of a life of faith.

Whenever the problem of the life of human beings comes to the surface, the problem of substance or material things comes up. The problem of cognition or knowledge comes in. Here, the realm of consciousness is critical.

So, the problem is, how are we going to make a connection between the life of faith and this world through our cognition?

It is very difficult to find the motive of this stimulus when we think only of human beings. There is no other way to set up a standard except by seeing and studying all the central figures centering on God from Adam on, so that we may have a standard to look at.

We have to study closely how these people, the past saints and sages, including God's dispensational figures, lived in their relationships with human beings and how they interacted with material things.

Let us look at Noah, Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, and other dispensational figures. All these people are targets for our observation. We must be curious about their objectives and motives. This will be the issue. All of these great men started their lives of faith centered not on themselves, but on God.

Why do we have to respect and even worship them and give them credit for their contribution?

Simply because they received instruction from God, not from themselves. Also, we should know what kind of life they lived for God in that age. We find that they had a conflict—their life of faith versus the life of reality. We find that they were not of one will when they faced a conflict. Also, we find that they solved the problem when they centered on God and not on themselves.

Also, we know that because of this conflict between God's side and the world's side, they multiplied their persecution and suffering. That is why they are great people! We always find that their life in this world was lonely because they suffered many, many things and were persecuted by this world.

When they had nobody to convey their thoughts and feelings to, they could go only to God and talk to Him when they were lonely. Also, when we look at their lives in the world, their material lives—they were so narrowed down, received so few material things; naturally, they turned their hearts and lives toward God.

When we think of how they were living in consciousness in this world, their scope of consciousness was so narrowed down that they had to cognize everything centered on God. That was their life. Naturally, they had to live their lives centering on oneness with God. In every area of recreation with man, knowledge, and material knowledge cognition, they plunged themselves into a relationship with God, because there was no one else to rely on except God.

There was no place to have give-and-take horizontally, to seek the object, so they concentrated on finding their object in God, more seriously than they sought an object in this world. Because the reality of this world at that time was so narrow, they had to rely on heaven to get through such a narrow opening to God and open a new realm by embracing God with hope and having an ideal. Even if a narrow detour must be taken to God, they, and we, are not supposed to be depressed. There is a way out. We cannot be discontented.

God created all things for happiness, satisfaction, and contentment. When we reach this narrow detour, we will not be depressed, but we are going to find a way out with the help of God. That is the place where true happiness and contentment will be.

From that narrowed-down point, the new relationship between God and ourselves will begin to open. For example, St. Francis emphasized pure poverty, a nothingness in which he could find happiness, appreciation, contentment, and satisfaction. From that point on, God can move and let him feel happiness and joy. Oneness with God can be created from that point.

We have to realize that we, as fallen people, are standing in the center of two lines, between the world's side and God's side. We have to know when to narrow down so we will know when the new era of happiness and joy will begin. You know the life of Noah. When he had been deadlocked for 120 years, receiving all kinds of persecution, at that point, he was given a new life of faith, which began.

You will have created a new realm of happiness and blessing when you can overcome the point of being narrowed down, when you prove you can open a new door to your relationship with God.

This same principle applied elsewhere, e.g., Moses, John the Baptist. Let's look at John the Baptist's life. At that time, he was 30 years old, a young man eating nuts and honey in the wilderness just like a hippie, and everybody laughed at him as unacceptable.

And he was in a position to complain about this situation if he had wanted to. We know he did not care about the problem of detour around material things, but he thought, "How can I open a new door?" That is the point where he is great.

Maybe some of you think, "Why believe in God?

He will come down and make a connection with us." If God could do this, we would already have a relationship with Him that would be fine, but as fallen men, we have no proper relationship. Still, God is subject; we are supposed to be His good objects, but we are not there. Subject and object should have some kind of a close relationship. We don't have it.

Under these circumstances, you cannot say, "Why believe in God?"

We therefore have a standard we must endeavor to reach. For instance, in college, a professor is knowledgeable in a certain subject area. Also, we first need an objective standard—you first must register for the course. Otherwise, the professor and the student have no relationship.

Naturally, subject and object go together. They have similar angles, the same point, etc. Otherwise, the professor and the student have no relationship. Between the subject and you, fallen man, the object—if God decides something, because He is an absolute God, what He decides is eternal and unchanging.

Can you meet His standard if you change your mind 100 times each day, from morning to evening? And another example: you come here, very inspired when you hear our lectures, but when you go into the reality of the world, you will doubt.

How long will this inspiration last?

God is eternal. He never changes in the middle of the road. Even if you decide, how long will it last? A month, a few months, a year, several years, or ten years? Your determination will be changing. Sometimes you say, "If it is a good thing, then I will go and do it. If not, then I will not do it."

Truth is truth whether you live or die; it is eternal. Truth is beyond death, beyond changeability; it is eternal. To be a proper person, you have to be beyond death.

You must be carrying unchangeability. This means there will be a collision between changing and unchanging. Unchanging will overcome changing elements.

Changing elements will vanish. Life and death will collide. When you overcome death, you will have life! If you pass through this stage, then you have a connection with God. Then, when will the time of truth come to you and us? When? It is the time when there appears an unchanging and changing at the same time. A life-and-death situation will appear. This is the time of confrontation and challenge; that is when the truth comes.

Unfortunately, when we live in this world, we don't want change. Also, we don't want to die, or we don't want to be defeated in the reality of this world. The secret to overcoming this situation, to reaching the truth, is to overcome death and come to life; overcome changeability and go to unchangeability. Only in this way can you reach the truth. But this world does not want to change, does not want to die, simply because evil forces dominate this world.

Then, naturally, what are the Last Days?

There are days of radical change taking place in this world of reality. In these days, the world will be running to destruction—no hope, only despair. Out of this chaos and trouble must come God's children or some element unchanging and beyond death.

This eternal element should exist among the chaos. Then, the next element is the collision, which will take place just as when the good, strong sword hits the fake, weak sword and breaks it. When we come to this situation, one of the sides must go, and the stronger one will hit the weaker one.

Changeability must go, and the eternal element will remain. If such a person appears in this world, since God is unchanging and eternal, naturally, He will come down to help the people on earth.

Heavenly Father God will be very proud of Himself as the absolute subject. He will remain eternally as such when He sees the changing, chaotic world begin to center itself on the source of life, the source of eternity.

So, because God's essence is this standard, to be His object, we have to copy that standard, meet that standard of pride. So we have to ask ourselves if we qualify to meet that standard. To find if you are qualified, you must be put through suffering and hardship to be tested.

You may sometimes think a test of suffering is too hard for you, but when you look at it differently, this is the means through which God will give you the chance to prove your value. And when you pass the test with a 100%, that means the teacher has given you one chance to promote yourself and exhibit your value.

Usually, the teacher asks those questions that he thinks the students do not know.

Why ask them what they already know?

Usually test questions the professor gives are designed to bring the number one person to him. To achieve that, he picks the toughest questions. When you have passed and are at the top, then you and the professor immediately have a certain relationship. Then you see the professor likes you because you have made it through the test, and a connection has been made.

The professor will bequeath all his legacy of knowledge and work to you. When, after years, he finds only one person who can pass the test, then naturally he will be the heir of this professor, because he is the only one who passed such a hard test. Is this not true?

God is doing the same thing with us. He would not want us to be businessmen or salesmen. He doesn't care for that. He wants to find His loving children to make you His true sons and daughters. When he finds this subject-object relationship, that is the place where inviolability exists.

Nobody can invade there. God feels so sorrowful that this point of a love relationship was lost by the fall. So, He is working through the Restoration Providence to find people on this earth who know this matter. Then He will receive more joy than He felt at the time of the fall of man.

So this God will lead you on earth, who knows Him, to the ultimate highest point, where He can do something for you. He picked up Noah long ago, but in the middle of the road, he failed. Abraham, Moses, and John the Baptist all failed. So he thinks those people on earth, including you, should be superior to those men in the past.

God's desire is for your children to quickly pass the test—to let you have suffering in a short period of time. It took Abraham many years just to establish faith. He must let you quickly pass the test of suffering and hardship to the same degree. He wants to have your time shortened. For the unchanging God to pick up the unchanging children, He must come down and test His tactics in a changing situation. God sometimes appears as a changing God. This is changing from your point of view only.

Sometimes you suddenly go to the left side, then to the right side, then to the rear and the front. It looks like He is a changing God, but He has a purpose behind this.

To bring unchanging children, He has to test you in a changing situation, and if you pass, then later, you will be safe and unchanging. So when the eternally living God comes to you, He will look as if He is leading you to death. It is a test.

So the God of life seems like a God of death to restore His children. In the medieval age of Christian history, we see this method: the God of life appears to inspire only death and martyrdom. Through this paradoxical test, He has been restoring people. So we can easily imagine that all the 2,000 years of Christianity will be falling away—all mankind will be falling away. Then only one man, only one direction, only one faith will come out to restore all things.

We can easily imagine centering on one person. There cannot be many people at one time sent to restore one world. The number of children has to gradually multiply to save the whole world. When Satan looks at the one person on the earth who is centered on God, he is afraid of him. There is no way for Satan to accuse this kind of person.

When you look at the situation, all Christianity is falling away, and the world is sinking. Even the United States, this gigantic whale of a nation, is almost ready to perish.

What kind of object is God looking for in this age?

He cannot accept the people who accept the world as it is. His objects are the people who never change in this changing world. He is looking for the person and his followers who believe, "Even if the world perishes, we shall not." That is the kind of person God is looking for. This should not be just a matter of belief, but, in the reality of this world, should be possible to prove. He is looking for that kind of person. From then on, they shall create a new world. This is what God expects from the sons and daughters on earth right now.

If those people say, "Even without God's help, we are about to complete this mission," then what will happen? If these people appear, then naturally God must pick these people up to His side. Let us look at two kinds of people: those who do things without God and those who always need God to say, "Do this, do that, etc."

Would one of the two get more credit from God?

They will automatically come out and inform existing churches of this world about reality. Also, if there is a thought, a philosophy, through which we can embrace all things naturally, this thought will fill the earth. Then the time will come.

Who will receive more blessings, a communist or a Christian?

God cannot bless communism, can He? It denies God. Communism disregards and denies the center of the universe. Then we have a better ideology than any other.

Why Christianity, if another one is coming up stronger?

Naturally, God will bless the best one. Very soon, though, the time will come when this kind of ideology centering on God will come up and suddenly embrace the whole universe, swallowing up all systems of thought.

Now, the life of faith looks inconceivable, but it is eternal and unchanging. While the reality of this world is vivid and can be seen, it is not trustworthy; it is not eternal and unchanging. The life of faith in God is never changing. So, this means the life of faith and the reality of the world are opposite.

For one thing, in the life of faith, you have to be recognized first by God. Secondly, you are not supposed to be inferior to past saints and sages. Thirdly, even though past saints and sages in the dispensation course failed, this time we must succeed.

Lastly, in the past, God was giving us help—now we have to do things by ourselves. No need to get help from heaven. Genuine good sons and daughters recover everything, believing in God, without His help.

Then what happens?

You will liberate our God by yourselves. Restoration will be completed when these sons and daughters restore this condition and liberate our God. Then he will feel that genuine love is possible, like that which was there before the fall of man. He will be happy to restore His genuine sons and daughters.

God will automatically welcome you to come to His bosom. When you have trouble, don't ask Him to help you. Instead, you should say, "Father, help the whole world." That kind of standard of faith and prayer will be wonderful.

Now this kind of attitude of faith is similar to when you have many brothers in front of their parents, and one brother says, "Instead of helping me, why not help my brothers and sisters? "That kind of attitude will be so precious to the parents.

It is quite proper in the ordinary family that such a son in the family will get up early and talk to his parents while the others are in bed. That's the way God's children make a good relationship. They will take him into their confidence.

The same thing applies to God and His children. Naturally, this son will be the center, the heir, the object of his parents. They can speak of secret and even confidential things to him. This is the standard we are striving for.

Sometimes, in the movies, we see someone being tortured for some reason by gangsters or political agents. So, when you do face suffering, you have to overcome it. You have to see the overall problem of how to solve it and how to attack it to lead to a better solution.

When you walk along the street, why don't you take this kind of God-position, thinking, "This is right. This is wrong." When you look along the street, you have to look at the evil things you have to change, and then good things shall multiply for mankind and for the nation.

When you see it this way, from God's point of view, you will be progressing. When you look at the weakness of the democratic and communist states, when you look at the changing elements from God's point of view, why don't you think, "I am going to reform this and that."

If nobody else does it, you think in your own mind, "I will do it." When you maintain this kind of mind, automatically, angels and saints will come down and help you even if you do not ask for help from God. With this condition of mind, wherever you go, you do not have to worry.

You are perfectly all right in even the most dangerous of situations. With this confidence, you can overcome any difficult situation. Then God will inform you in many ways what shall take place, either through dreams, inspiration, or sometimes through vision. This will be very much fitting to the situation. With this kind of phenomenon and stimulus, we will really have comfort in this world of change.

So he asks you to search the extreme poles—right and left, the end of the situation. You have to study and explore. Just like the North Pole and the South Pole, go there, and then you have to come back. When you go to the end of something, a new thing begins. The end means many things are beginning. That is why I am "Alpha and Omega." That means beginning and end.

If you go this life of faith, you will receive automatic spiritual cooperation. Even from that point, you will be living a joyous and happy life in which you will be restored. Even if this kind of person falls into a dungeon or a prison, then God will work to take him out quickly. Sometimes in your life, you have to look for the end.

That means sometimes, if you look very intensely, even in a short period of time, you will learn the spiritual value of things. Voices talk loudly even if you stop calling "Heavenly Father," your voice is inside. Then later, you can hear the voice of your mind. This is interesting and necessary training.

Then, when you look at something from your side, when you see something, then gradually don't see it, you can still see it. This is searching for the end of the pole and then coming back.

It is very difficult to go from one extreme to another. The problem is, how are you going to train yourself? That means even if you are out of the world, you must live in it. You know the term "restoration. It means, unless you go to the extreme, you cannot restore anything. Therefore, restoration means you have to go to the extreme. Same thing with the family—you have to go to the end—also tribal, national, and world, same thing. You have to go back to the extreme, from which you have to begin.

We are all at the end of the world now. Because we are at the end of the pole, we should be different from the world. In a short period of time, we will extend, and all will be ended. We are at the end of this world of reality, so we are the most suffering people. Should this be? We have no border, but very soon our demarcation line will be expanding. We should be different from the old world.

When the world is declining, we know it should be that way. So in the process of restoration, we have to go back to the extreme.

So, if the European family is told by the Master, "You must stay here," then you stay. That is the end of the road. When he instructed the European family to come, they had to come. The same thing God said to Moses—the Israelites must get out of Egypt or they will perish.

We cannot set up the New Israel without going to the extreme pole of it. We have to get the victory at the end of the extreme. Then all things in this world will end when we reach the individual, family, national, and world levels.

Then we will get victory. You say, "Goodbye to the whole world—I am going." You people stand in the middle of the world, so you have to get to the end to start the New Israel. As of now, in the dispensation, Master started from the individual, family, and clan—now it is the national level. That is why Master is here in the U.S.

So far, he has traveled far in the spiritual sense. You people have gotten so much by doing nothing. It's like a miracle for you that you are here. If you want to leave, then pack up and you may go home. This is the Last Exodus, the end of the road.

In a past life in faith, a person came to believe in something. Now, this time, your life in faith has a factual reality-not necessarily imagination. At this stage, far beyond the world and far beyond the past faith, anything is possible. In the past, those men of faith worked hard, but all the accumulated good did not belong to them; they gave everything to us.

When we believe and work in factual reality, it becomes ours, while in the past, they transferred everything to the future generations. Now your assets, your spiritual property, become yours. This is why He said "factual reality" in this life of faith. Therefore, a life of faith can become a life of reality. Astonishing age! Very soon, the age of the four-dimensional world will be a controversial matter.

Many spiritual phenomena shall take place on earth. When we have set up certain foundations centered on America, the time will come when the entire spiritual world will concentrate on our work, and the whole world will be influenced by spiritual phenomena.

In a sense, our enemy, communism, is helping us because of their aggressiveness and domineering power. Our work centered on the Heavenly Father is the only work that can prevent the flood of communism. The more powerful the communist activities become, centering on America, the closer the time comes, and our physical and spiritual foundation should be ready very soon.

So, this is the topic that was described this morning, the life of faith and the life of reality of this world. But we are driven, not necessarily believing something, to achieve life after death in this world. But we believe we are accomplishing this along with the reality of this world.

Up to now, Satan and his followers have been the domineering forces on earth. Now we, Principle Family members, will be the sovereignty of good on earth. As soon as we pass through the national restoration level, from then on, all happiness and joy will be set up.

New generations, a new age, a new culture, and a new civilization will be created by our hands, and very soon, we will have the kingdom of God on earth. In the past, ideological systems ended up with only ideals. But now our belief system will end in actual reality.

We have to have pride in that, because we have something tangible, a factual reality far above the past conceptual ideas of thinking and the previous life of faith.

Faith And Reality

Maybe some of you think, "Why believe in God?

Then, naturally, what are the Last Days?

What kind of object is God looking for in this age?

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