God’s gracious love can be found amid hardships and suffering. The person whose mind is fixed on God takes life’s trials and challenges as a means to purify his or her faith, correct flaws and refine character.
Could it be that such trials are not accidental, but expressions of God’s love to discipline and educate His children? (See also Chapter 15: Testing.)
Moreover, God’s word presents us with the challenge to live by it. Scripture therefore likens the word of God to a fire, which burns away everything that is false.
Father Moon explains that the judgment that many Christians fear is actually an opportunity to purify ourselves in the truth and reach the point where we are one hundred percent united with the word of Christ. Thus, the purpose of judgment is to save, not to condemn.
Sun Myung Moon
Judgment by Fire
I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. Zechariah 13.9
Just as a great conflagration Can burn up all things, So does Buddha’s field of blessings Burn up all fabrication. Garland Sutra 10 (Buddhism)
As the heat of a fire reduces wood to ashes, the fire of knowledge burns to ashes all karma. Nothing in this world purifies like spiritual wisdom. Bhagavad-Gita 4.37 (Hinduism)
Just as a fire quickly reduces decayed wood to ashes, so does an aspirant who is totally absorbed in the inner self and completely unattached to all external objects shake to the roots, attenuate, and wither away his karma-body. Samantabadhra, Aptamimamsa 24-27 (Jainism)
Make chastity your furnace, patience your smithy, the Master’s word your anvil, and true knowledge your hammer. Make awe of God your bellows, and with it kindle the fire of austerity. And in the crucible of love, melt the nectar Divine. Only in such a mint, can man be cast into the Word. Adi Granth, Japuji 38, M.1, p. 8 (Sikhism)
“From His right hand went forth a fiery law for them” (Deuteronomy 33.2).
The words of Torah are compared to fire, for both were given from heaven, both are eternal. If a man draws near the fire, he derives benefit; if he keeps afar, he is frozen, so with the words of the Torah: if a man toils in them, they are life to him; if he separates from him, they kill him. Sifre Deuteronomy (Judaism)
For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3.11-15
Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces? Jeremiah 23.29
With fire we test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants. Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Arabic 54 (Baha’i Faith)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Each of us has many different kinds of thoughts, all varieties. Do you think we can easily negate them all to uphold the standard of absolute faith, love and obedience? Is it easy or difficult?
How difficult! Even if we were to die and be reborn one hundred times, it would still be difficult. It doesn’t matter how many times we say the words “absolute faith, love and obedience”; we should enter the furnace and have our impurities burned away until there is only pure gold left. (320:235, April 5, 2000)
Jesus came into the world to cast this judgment, as he said, “For judgment I came into this world.” (John 9.39)
Jesus also said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth.” (Luke 12.49) “Fire” here represents the means of the judgment for which Jesus came into the world.
Nevertheless, there is no record that in his time Jesus judged the world with literal fire. The verses referring to fire must be symbolic. It is written, “Is not my word like fire, says the Lord?” (Jer. 23.29)
Therefore, judgment by fire represents judgment by the Word of God. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Eschatology 3.2.2)
The words you are familiar with are connected to Satan. Your beliefs and thought processes have not escaped a relationship with Satan. All elements in the satanic world were created from a humanistic perspective, not from God’s perspective.
They cannot go beyond Satan’s realm. That is why we need to renovate everything through the new Word of God. Once we know God’s Word, can we also live in harmony with the old words and move on with our lives?
Absolutely not. We must completely rid ourselves of the old words. We must clean out all our satanic ideas, beliefs and habits. Then, by living according to the Word of God and its absolute standards, we must establish a new tradition. (21:327, January 1, 1969)
To acquire true love, you should invest yourself totally. You should be willing to burn your own name, your pictures, even your own clothes.27 (398:328, December 17, 2002)
Oh Father! Look upon us with Thy fiery eyes, and allow not the bitter roots of sin and death to remain deep in our hearts. Look upon us with Thy fiery eyes, that today we may pull out all the roots of sin and be unified before Thee. (20:10, March 31, 1968)
Father! We pray Thou wilt remove all that is humanistic and private. Born as descendants of the Fall, we used to wear masks as we saw fit and relied upon our own views. Purge us of all these elements as we come before Thee. (21:132, November 17, 1968)
Heaven’s Discipline
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of His reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom He loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Proverbs 3.11-12
I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O Lord, but in just measure; not in thy anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Jeremiah 10.23-24
Do men imagine that they will be left [at ease] because they say, “We believe,” and will not be tested with affliction? Lo! We tested those who were before you. Thus God knows those who are sincere, and knows those who feign. Qur’an 29.2-3
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. Romans 5.3-5
Yet the suffering involved in my awakening will have a limit; It is like the suffering of having an incision made In order to remove and destroy greater pain.
Even doctors eliminate illness With unpleasant medical treatments, So in order to overcome manifold sufferings, I should be able to put up with some discomfort. Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life 7.22-24 (Buddhism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
All difficulties and trials confront you so that you may correctly experience and understand God’s past days. Therefore, when any difficulty comes upon you, you should rejoice and be thankful. It is the proof of God’s love for you. (Way of God’s Will 3.4)
The reason why the Unification Church requires its members to live three years of public life after receiving the Blessing is to enable them to taste true love. The reason why I tour the world and give speeches, braving persecution and opposition, is to train you to make beautiful families of true love, surpassing all other families.
We go the way of God’s Will despite the world’s harsh persecution and oppression because we love our children and want to enable them to live in the beautiful nation of God. In this way, we live for our children and love our children more than the people of the world love their children.
You must carry on this fight throughout your lives. If you see your husband or wife being persecuted and opposed, you must pledge that you will love your children more than your feeling of distress over your spouse’s plight. You must be trained in this way in the midst of persecution and opposition.
A wife who has received this ‘love training’ will not fight with her husband. If he crosses her with a cutting remark, she will not respond with machine-gun volleys of scolding words.
A husband will not beat his wife or dominate her with his authority. Why not? Having been through love training, each spouse has come to know the other’s precious value. (Blessing and Ideal Family 4.4.8)
Make us into people to whom Thou canst entrust Thy Will by molding us according to Thine internal nature. (2:241, June 9, 1957)
Sun Myung Moon