This is an unofficial English translation prepared for tplegacy.net. It has not been reviewed or authorized by FFWPU or any official Unification Movement publishing body.
May 29, 1960 (Sunday), Former Headquarters Church.
Ephesians 4:1-16
Prayer
Now we have gathered in this place with the heart of a child, and with an earnest heart like that of a hungry person yearning for food. We yearn for Father's bosom; we yearn for one hour in which we can be fully immersed in Father's love.
Until now, we have heard many words. We have heard the words of the countless people who, from the pulpit, cry out fervently. We have also searched in many directions to relieve the heaviness of our hearts. But we have come to know that those things cannot be what we can entrust our lives to, and cannot be the resting place where the entirety of our lives can dwell forever.
Father, we remember that we, whose hearts were easily swept along as the times changed, were like a pitiful figure of a wandering child or orphan, drifting hither and thither in search of something new as the ages shifted.
We do not seek anything from the world. At this hour, we do not wish to boast of any outstanding thing of our own. Only do we yearn for the place where, seized by the heart of a son before You, forgetting everything of ourselves, we can call out “Father” and yearn for that bosom of Father who, in such a place, embraces us, saying, “My son, my daughter.” We long for the one day when the course of our lives, wandering and searching for such a place, may be transferred before Father's knee.
We who have gathered here today have lived much of the believing life, prayed much, and received much training in faith, but we know that what is more in question is whether we have become a living offering.
When we think of the astonishing fact that the life of the living Father sweeps over our minds and sweeps over our bodies, leading us forth in the figure of victory, we know that only when this is grasped through experience in our bodies will we live, and only when it is grasped through experience in our minds can we be victorious.
Since we are seeking this, we earnestly desire and beseech that You permit it.
Father, what shall I now say? I have spoken many words, but knowing that, with anything human, the bond of eternal life cannot be brought forth, I have come forward hesitating. Father, please personally appear.
Please make Father's heart that wishes to be conveyed harmonize with the heart of the one who conveys it and harmonize with the hearts of those who hear. We have come yearning for that place where we move as Father's flesh and blood; please have mercy.
Now, please make the heart of the one who conveys and the heart of those who receive be one. We know that Satan watches for the gap and works; therefore, please permit us to be those who, returning to the heart of a child, with the earnest heart of yearning for the bosom of the parent, know how to be embraced in Father's bosom.
As we saw in the words of the Bible, yearning for the heart with which Paul of long ago cried out in sorrow and yearning for the figure of the believers of the early church who followed him, we earnestly entreat and desire that You make this hour an hour in which we can run to the world of Father's heart. We have prayed all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title under which I would think together with you is “The Father Who Would Become One With Us.” Under the title “The Father Who Would Become One With Us,” I shall speak briefly.
The countless human beings living on this earth all know well that they are insufficient to believe in themselves and to boast of their value before all heaven and earth. From a position of being unable to believe in themselves, they wander, seeking some other thing they can believe in. We are those who, having forgotten our value, wander searching whether there might not be in some other place something with which we can be bonded.
If there is one who can one hundred percent believe in himself, who can boast of his value openly before all heaven and earth, and at the same time can go before God, who created all the cosmos, and say, “I know that this is the value You are seeking; please receive it” — that one cannot but be the supreme victor of life.
The Mind and Body in Conflict
Although many great figures, sages, and worthies have come and gone in history until now, there is none who, believing in himself, has openly disclosed his own value before all heaven and earth and has gone forth crying out with confidence, “Live as I do.”
We hope to advance toward a good purpose, toward a greater purpose. You will grasp through experience that, even ignoring the present living environment we enjoy, the mind seeks to run toward such a place.
You will also know well, through the working of your conscience, that the environment in which you stay cannot become an eternal resting place.
This conscience, because the place where I stay is not a joyful place, urges me to go and exposes myself as falling short of some purpose and value. We must feel this fact piercingly in our lives.
When the mind has commanded us to go toward some destination and the body cannot go, this is a defeated one in the struggle of good and evil, one who is severed in heaven and the human world.
On the contrary, the one who acts according to that command and tramples down and crosses over his environment is, undoubtedly, one who can contribute something to history and one who can leave something behind before Heaven, which governs the whole.
This mind that urges us to go does not change with the passing of time, and does not change as the environment changes. But when someone asks whether you, having prepared the foundation of rest, can boast before all heaven and earth, “I am the prince of rest,” not one of us can but answer that it is not so, and lament.
Then was this the destiny of the human being created by Heaven's motive?
It was not. Therefore, our humanity has, passing through ages and centuries, repeated the historical course of struggle to advance following the pursuit of a higher conscience. Yet, without resolving it, even now we go forth toward the world of purpose.
When you finish the day's work and return home and reflect upon the day's tasks, can you, smiling fully in heart, say, “Heaven, earth, all peoples — take this joyful heart of mine as your model”?
Originally, our minds wished to be in such a place, but today, since we are not in such a place, this is what is lamentable, what is unhappy, what is grievous.
The mind longs for my life and the question of the whole to be resolved, but the figure of the forlorn human being who, dragging the body in which not one inner condition has been resolved, passes through the destiny of life. Because our bodies and minds are in such a position, whenever we receive the urging and stimulus of going toward some great purpose, the body resists.
We cannot but conclude that, unless we make clear our position of being able to confront that which makes us resist and, from there, resolve the problem regarding it, all the problems of life are impossible to resolve.
Fallen Human Beings and the Path of the Way
Why has all this come to be so?
Because the human being did not by himself begin from goodness but, in the course of advancing toward a good purpose, fell and began with evil as the motive, therefore, he cannot but kick aside that evil and advance.
We are human beings who must walk such a road. We must clearly know that we are descendants born receiving the flesh and blood of fallen ancestors who paved such a road.
However outstanding a person may be, however much he can boast of his glory before all heaven and earth, he too is, undoubtedly, a descendant who has inherited the lineage of the Fall and a race that cannot but fall.
Because we are such, there is no greater thing of shame, no greater thing in which we cannot save face. But when we feel piercingly that we are such and strike ourselves mercilessly, from there a new revolution of the heart sprouts. Heaven is seeking such a one.
If, originally, the human being had become such a self, God would not have appeared to human beings as indifferent.
If, originally, he had become such a self when so many lives shed blood and went in the historical course, the good God who pursues the purpose of goodness would have been clearly shown. But it was not so.
Although we are within the realm of lamentation, we possess the motive by which we can orient ourselves toward goodness.
If there is the Absolute who created the great cosmos, you must know the fact that that Absolute, whether we are awake or asleep, eating or resting, without ceasing for one moment, urges us through our minds and consciences to advance toward that place. Therefore, what is conscientious is said to have value.
However satisfying one's environment, the moment when one feels something of heaviness in the mind and grief seeping in is the moment when the original movement urges us—this we must not forget. To feel such things and to struggle and struggle to resolve oneself, advancing seeking, is the road of religion.
Those who walk the road of religion are not those who stand at the forefront of their age. They are not those who linger after the fashion of some current of thought. They are not warriors who stand at the cutting edge to make a revolution of some current of thought.
They are, undoubtedly, those who are left behind by the flow of the age and who refuse and turn back from the direction in which the age flows. Therefore, the reason religious people have, until now, counseled that we be separated from society, separated from politics, and separated from the ideal of living lies there.
Those who, making a firm resolution, depart from this social environment or living environment, and those who, feeling there a heart-level conflict and grief, deny it and turn back to advance, are those who walk the road of the Way.
Then what sort of person is the seeker of the Way?
He is one who, although he may be in a place of brilliant glory, can shed tears in that place. What is the heart of one who knows the Way? Although he is in an environment of imposing authority that can move all heaven and earth, in his deep heart, he can shed tears unknown to others.
Whatever the society or organization, one who does not bear such a heart cannot be called a true seeker of the Way or a true religious person.
If one is a believer who believes in God and follows the Lord, however much he is in a glorious place, he must not take that place as the foundation of supreme satisfaction and rest and feel joy there, but, passing through that place and coming forth, must be able to shed tears unknown to others.
Only such a one can be said to walk the road of the Way. Yet because those who must walk such a road have not been able to walk it, religion has been driven and chased.
Why is this?
Because the human being is in a destiny of having to depart from the place of sin and return to the original place, he is in a destiny of being unable to go straight and having to go in the reverse direction. Then why has he come to be in a destiny of having to return? Because he fell.
Since the world has rolled downward by the Fall, he must seek and ascend in the opposite direction.
The people who know how to honor history can maintain the national character of their country. The people who have united based on historical heart cannot be subdued by any “ism” except one with a yet higher heart.
If there are sages, worthies, or loyal subjects who have honored history and kept their integrity, they cannot be subdued except by one prepared with a yet higher heart.
Therefore, when the age is evil, only after that evil is severed can one be grafted to some other standard. This is something we always see in the course of social development.
The Domain of Conscience That No One Can Invade
Then what must we do hereafter?
We must transcend the standard of the loyal subjects through the ages, transcend the standard of filial sons and faithful wives. And even after transcending these, there is a purpose to which we must go. He presents an environment far removed from the present world, but it is to transfer us from this present world to the world of the future.
This is God's program. It is to make loyal subjects of loyal subjects, filial sons of filial sons. Although on the earth they may be cast away and rejected, the time will come when they govern, and they enjoy; this is what Christianity calls the world of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, which the Lord, when he comes again to this earth, will build.
In the world, some people pour out loyalty for the sake of the family, some people pour out loyalty for the sake of society, and some people pour out loyalty for the sake of the country.
The one who has poured out loyalty for the sake of the country may set up one condition of tradition in passing the national ideal to later generations. But this earth and all of this world will, eventually, have to stand once at the judgment seat.
To cross over this, religion teaches that not the loyal subject for one people, not the filial son for one parent, but to become loyal subjects and filial sons before God, the King of kings of all heaven and earth, the Master of masters, the Father of all that exists. This is the way of religion.
Then why did God tell believers to throw down this world? Because this world is, eventually, a world that will pass away. Because God bears the eternal heart, the multitude that, even though cast away in this age, in the future will be highly praised in their value as filial sons and loyal subjects, is viewed from the Christian standpoint, the multitude of the sheep among the goats and sheep.
Therefore, we must transcend the standard of the world. Those who pour out loyalty toward that ideal and have come forth determined to run toward that ideal are those who believe in the Way. Therefore, the seekers of the Way must, hereafter, be the vanguard in running toward such a world. Otherwise, they perish. They perish.
However much something may be said to be such-and-such, it perishes. The world today is placed in such a destiny.
Although you yourselves have set out as individuals, you must lay hold of the world of the whole, so that the individual and the world are connected and become a world that can be both the beginning and the end. That is, in respect to what your true conscience hopes to fulfill, you must go to the place where this world can say, “Truly so.”
Force moves toward purpose. Even looking at the natural world, there is no existing thing that moves without purpose. Even the most minute chemical action moves for the sake of a purpose. But when one asks whether the force of conscience, which no one can invade, moves without purpose, it is not so. Conscience, too, has a purpose, certainly.
The glorious environment in which my mind can rejoice with the master of conscience, can rest, and can dance — this is the Kingdom of Heaven that the human being seeks.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not in some separate region. The one who cannot do so will run away even if placed in the Kingdom of Heaven. So it is set.
God has, for the long span of 6,000 years, come forth holding fast to the human beings who have fallen away. Were they people, they would have killed them ten million times over, and still it would not be enough. They would not only have killed them but also doused them in gasoline and burned them without a trace. But God has come seeking such human beings.
What is the purpose of His coming seeking?
It is to become one with the sinful human beings. From the position of the perfect, facing the supremely evil, He says, “Become one with Me in heart, in mind, in body, in environment, in ideal” — this is God's circumstance. You must know what God's circumstances are. Think.
If God were a God who, having created all things one after another, simply punishes only and judges only when something goes wrong, He would not be needed. He must not be such a God.
Therefore, you must resolve this from here. What kind of God is the God I believe in? He is not a God who only judges sin, but One who, before judging, bears an earnest heart. If, in a position not so, God were to judge, I would protest.
If he were a God who only judges sin, I could protest. But I cannot protest. Why? Because God judges with a heart that can transcend ten million times the sin of human beings, the human being, even when judged, cannot protest. God is not the One you know notionally.
The Time We Must Recognize God Anew
Until now, we have sought God, but we have sought the God of ritual.
We have sought the God of the Word. We have sought the God of relationship. But we did not know the God of motive. Looking at the words of the Bible, we know the God of relationship who appeared after the Fall.
We knew how God faced our ancestors and how He faced their fallen descendants.
But we did not know God's circumstances of being unable to prevent the Fall. We did not know the motive by which God could not but drive out the fallen Adam and Eve. Without knowing the motive, one cannot resolve. Even worldly matters are so. When there is a problem, one must first know its motive and resolve it; then there is no aftertrouble.
However thoroughly we master all sixty-six books of the Bible, if we do not know the God of motive, the God of process, and the God of result hidden within the Bible results, it is of no use.
The God of process can be known because He has appeared in the historical course. Through 4,000 years of unimaginable hardship, leading the Israelite people forth, how greatly He labored to set up the foothold for the Messiah! That much can be guessed. But even though we know the God of process, we do not know Him with certainty. Because we do not know the motive, we cannot say we know with certainty.
Then what will the God of results be like? How will He judge?
Now you say you will rejoice without knowing what God's heart is? It cannot be.
There can be no result without motive. Everything passes through motive, passes through process, and the result comes forth. This is the phenomenon of natural science. Human beings did not make it so.
The principle of Heavenly Law is so set, and God's law is so set. There is no such thing as a sudden mutation. There is none. It is orderly. The world in which, centered upon motive, passing through the principled, regulated process, a substantial body of purpose is formed, is the world of the ideal of creation.
Do those who succeed succeed without firm resolve in the heart?
Centering on the motive of the heart, pioneering the environment, and pushing it forward without change, only thus does one reach the destination.
If it is so for an individual to succeed, how much more for God, who created the great heaven and earth, in fulfilling His purpose? It is just the same.
Have you, apart from the historical God, sought the creative God?
Apart from the God in whom you believe in this age, the God who bore the motive of creation, and apart from the God who governs the world that must be judged, did you know the God who, after judging, embraces all humanity must live in glory together with all peoples in joy and happiness? You did not. Even for one person to succeed, one cannot depart from the past, present, and future.
Only when the past has the same source as the principle of Heavenly Law can it be set up as historical tradition, and only then can one boast of that person's deeds together with history into the future; the moment one departs from that motive, at some time judgment comes. Therefore, what we must know today is the God of motive.
Then how must we know the motive of God?
How has God faced us, who remain in a fallen position? In the historical process, God has faced us, the fallen, with the heart of motive and faced us with the heart of the future. Although the human beings living on the earth did not know God, God did not forsake the human beings.
Although 6,000 years have passed until now, human beings do not know God; God has, from the time of creation, faced human beings as His sons and daughters.
Because He has set up the law of Heavenly Law with such a heart, He cannot break this created world. To rejoin what was broken is the providence of salvation. The hole pierced through; the broken thing must be patched.
To patch it, one must, from motive, passing through process, form a bond as the completed body of what was the purpose, and patch it. Until then, before all the cosmos and all created phenomena, He cannot present it as a completed work. Is the principle not so?
We must recognize anew. We must awaken anew. Especially the young must make a firm resolve. In the historical course, we must fight and gain victory. Have you, who walk the road of religion, ever felt that you are being made use of by something? The man crying out here has felt this piercingly.
Today, am I being made use of by God?
Am I being made use of by human beings? Am I being made use of by a denomination? Am I being made use of by history? Am I being made use of by some established theological system?
Which is it?
It must be clarified. I have not seen a book that has clarified this. I have not met any scholar who cries out to clarify this.
These people are, in worldly terms, a forlorn and pitiful people that have not one condition of hope they can present before the world. What I desire is that, while the world is asleep in oblivion, our people must awaken anew. We must reappraise history, reappraise the age, reappraise faith, and go forth to find God.
The one who is made use of by a person, an institution, or a denomination may perish, but the one who is made use of by God does not perish.
Do you understand what this means?
If one is made use of by something put forth with some desire of the human world, one perishes; but if, although driven by the world and rejected by the earth, one is made use of by Heaven, although it seems one perishes, one does not perish.
Young people of meaning must coolly think about what they will choose.
Therefore, at some moment, one must even criticize one's own father, mother, and brothers. Because they are the fruit. Do you understand what this means?
The God Who Has Become Unfree by Reason of Human Beings' Fall
To know the God who has moved forth since Jesus is simple. Jesus came through the heart of God over 4,000 years ago. You must know this.
The God who came together with Jesus when He sent Jesus, the God who, although Jesus went, was with Jesus' cross, the God who, although human beings hung Jesus on the cross and killed him, could not forsake those human beings but came forth holding fast even to their descendants — have you thought of this God? Unless you prepare something to clarify this, do not even dream of becoming a bride.
We have known the Jesus of the Word. The man speaking here also does not say to believe his words unconditionally.
If they accord with reason and reach the mind with something innovative and extreme, with the possibility of breaking down the present me and building something new, lay hold of that and believe—that is what is said. Those who believe in Jesus must pass through such a state.
We are debtors. God has made infinite efforts to hold fast to fallen human beings.
He has made infinite efforts beyond what you can imagine. To repay it, even offering up the 2.7 billion of humanity all at once as an offering would not repay it.
You must know that He is the God who has labored even with nails driven into His heart. That God, in carrying out the providence facing ignorant human beings, has faced them with motive, process, and purpose. In facing them, it is not as a traffic policeman at a crossroad saying, “Go this way, go that way.”
In the Bible, there are words of content in which God commanded the righteous, but God commanded only after passing through several thousand times the process of that work. There were times when, knowing this, I could not even bear to look at the Bible. Tears blocked my eyes, and I could not read. When He says to human beings to do thus, He does not say so from a comfortable place.
God says those words because He has passed through that place several hundred times. He does not say to do it after having tried it once. He says to do it after having done it several hundred and several thousand times.
Only after setting up the standard of, “If you fight with Satan and prevail, I will guarantee thus and so,” does God, for the first time, speak to us human beings, telling us to do. He is such a God.
Even when in the Bible He said, “Die,” God said it only after passing through the suffering of death. Because He has become the master who can speak thus, He can do so. From a position not so, were He a God who, while all peoples are in suffering, only receives glory and sits on the throne and gives commands, Satan would accuse.
The reason Satan cannot accuse is that the heart-level sorrow of God is stronger than all things in the satanic world. Because He bears the eternal principle of Heavenly Law and the eternal heart, Satan cannot accuse.
The Principle cannot be broken. It is inviolable. God has, with a principled heart, embraced fallen human beings until today. Do you understand?
Who is God? And who is the fallen race?
That God is the Father of the fallen race. He is called the Father of all that exists. This Father is a Father bearing han. God has become the Father who follows behind a son being dragged off to prison, having sinned.
We know Him as the free God, but in His heart, shackles that cannot be undone are bound. You must know that God has come forth, following throughout the long ages, with a heart of worry over the death of the Son and the bitter pain of the Son, like one day.
You must pray, “It is grievous. Why have you become the Father of the fallen ancestors? You are pitiful.” If there are sons and daughters who, with the welling-up heart of children, appeal thus, God will hold fast to them and weep aloud. God does not seek to meet us in joy. He wanders seeking sons and daughters who, holding fast to the Father imprisoned behind iron bars, torn and broken, weep aloud, “Father, how greatly have You suffered? It is grievous that you have become my Father.” Such a One is God.
Although all people go as they please and the ages flow on, the single-hearted devotion of God the Father in facing His children no one can invade. The more complex the situation, the more complex the environment, the more God worries.
While 6,000 years ago He grieved over our individual ancestors, you must know that, in this time when the world's humanity struggles in the swamp of death, He is the God who grieves with the most forlorn heart. Therefore, you are sinners that cannot be helped. You are most unfilial.
The Heart of God Carrying Out the Providence of Salvation
To oppose the king of one country was called being a traitor, and to oppose one parent was called being unfilial; but in facing the Lord of the masters and the Father of the entire cosmos, how many times have we been traitors!
How many times have we been unfilial sons! Each one thinks it through once.
Therefore, the deeper one walks the road of the Way, the more one must take off one's clothes, and if that is still not enough, tear one's body with a knife, and even laying one's neck on the gallows, say, “It is not enough.” This is the heart that the son, indebted to God, must bear.
Jesus was so. I am not saying to take some other person as your model. Jesus, when he appeared before all peoples, was an imposing figure, but when alone, he was the One who shed historical, deep tears. He is the master who shed tears of grief. Even in shedding tears, he was a prince.
The Bible does not contain such content. Who knew his heart? None knew. What I desire of the believers of the Unification Church today is that, apart from the Jesus revealed in the Bible, apart from the God designated as the Triune God, you know the God of motive before that. Only thus do you come to know Jesus.
Jesus himself avoided the place of joy. He himself kicked aside his house and went forth. It was not because he liked doing so. It was an environment in which, although he wished to weep facing Father, he could not weep, an environment in which, although he wished to know Father, he could not know Him; therefore, he could not but do so.
Do you think Jesus, hating the Israelite people, went into a quiet place in the mountains to pray? No. Jesus was pierced with the heart of holding fast to the Israelite people, pouring out God's heart, and weeping together. But there was no one who acknowledged him.
If you have inherited the flesh and blood of your ancestors, even down to one cell, the indictment of the bloody sin is hung.
However much one may say of oneself today, thus and so, it is not so. The deeper one goes, the more one cannot help but shed tears, the more one is a historical sinner who cannot lift their face before Father.
God has come seeking us with a heart. He came seeking with his heart. He came seeking with the heart, “I am your Father, and you are, undoubtedly, my son.”
Next, He came seeking with circumstances. He came seeking the circumstances in which the sinful must certainly be saved. Next, He came seeking with hope. This is what is called faith, hope, and love.
Looking at the Bible, the nine fruits of the Spirit appear. Love and joy and peace, patience and mercy and goodness, loyalty and gentleness and self-control—what is the core of these nine fruits? Love, patience, and loyalty.
If you investigate God's providence, you can know that He has come seeking human beings bearing a Will.
What sort of Will?
The Will of saving sinners and making them sons and giving heaven and earth to those sons. With such a hope, He comes seeking.
Having created Adam and Eve, God blessed them to govern all things. Did they govern? Throughout the Fall, they could not govern. Therefore, God seeks again to set the human being in that place. With such hope, He came seeking; with such circumstances, He came seeking.
He is not a God who, when human beings have sinned, only says, “You wretches, why did you commit sin?” He is the God who knows well the circumstances of the sin committed. He is the God who, not thinking of His own circumstances, would acknowledge the circumstances of human beings. To those who grieve, He came seeking with the circumstances of grief; to those who suffer, He came seeking with the circumstances of suffering; to those who are wronged and indignant, He came seeking with the circumstances of being wronged and indignant.
To what extent have you communed with circumstances with God?
God has come seeking, thus even amid the environment of our living. Not only that, He came seeking with his heart. Because there is the mind, “Although you betray Me, I am your Father,” He came seeking throughout the long span of 6,000 years.
Then what is God's final purpose?
It is that “you are I and I am you.” Jesus too said, “On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)
The purpose is to become one. By what does one become one?
One becomes one in heart, one becomes one in circumstances, and one becomes one in hope. For that purpose, God comes seeking.
God's Final Purpose
Yet on the earth, there now live close to 3 billion human beings, but there is not one person who knows God's circumstances.
Do you know what God's Will is?
Do you know what God's wish is? Is it your wish to believe and go to the Kingdom of Heaven? It is an utterly unfitting thought. The man crying out here does not believe in such a God. Do I believe in a God who sends bodies rotted in sin to the Kingdom of Heaven? If so, He is a contradictory God.
Forgive those who have sinned and send them to the Kingdom of Heaven?
Where is there such a principle of Heavenly Law?
Until now, there has not been a person who has gone to the Kingdom of Heaven. All have gone only as far as Paradise.
To live happily with those who have become one, and forever and ever to move all heaven and earth together with those who have become one — this is God's thought. Therefore, God seeks the one who has become one.
However well one preaches, however one does this and that, unless one becomes one with God, all is fake. Fake. Those who act as they really are often appear inferior to fakes. Look at actors. They are all fakes, but they perform better than the real ones. The issue lies here.
The Bible is not necessary. His circumstances and my circumstances must become one, and where His mind turns, my mind too must turn, and the heart He bears I too must be able to bear.
God seeks such a person. He seeks one who has become one. Therefore, the struggles in history are not struggles for human beings to become one with one another, but struggles for God and human beings to become one.
Although in the historical course countless wretched bloody combats have been wrought, you must clearly know that they are not struggles by which human beings find God, but struggles by which God comes seeking human beings.
Hereafter, when God appears as the Lord of judgment and justice, what will that God do? He will say, “I poured out my heart for your sake; how much have you poured out your heart for My sake?
I acknowledged all your circumstances; how much do you know about my circumstances? I struggled with life and death for your sake; how much have you thought of My Will?” By this, the matter will be resolved. It is not set so that, “In the Bible He said do not eat such-and-such meat, but you ate one piece, so you will go to hell.” The world of the heart transcends the law.
When we stand before the judgment seat of justice, Satan accuses. Try going to a court once. Even in the world's court, there is the judge, the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, and the criminal. The judgment seat of justice is in the same form. Satan, like the prosecutor, accuses you. Jesus is your defense lawyer.
Whatever you have done in the past, he sweats to defend it. But because you are a human being who has carried a 6,000-year history of sin, even if one tries to defend you, one cannot. He cannot come to your side. The hung indictment of sin is too great.
There are only conditions to be caught by Satan, so what is to be done?
Father is longing for one person to come forward to settle this. The Lord, having gone to that nation, is praying over this. He is not worrying about whether some on this earth fall. The Lord worries about setting up the great Way of the heavenly law of kinship.
If you, one or two, go to hell, does God perish? No. Salvation is the matter of the individual, but the great Way of the heavenly law of kinship is the matter of all peoples; therefore, even at the cost of sacrificing one person, the great Way must be set up. So Jesus is praying.
When you read the Bible or pray, do this. Knowing what God's Will is, what God's circumstances are, and what God's heart is, hold fast to one of the things over which God grieved most, and weep for a lifetime. Then you go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
However, something else may be; all else is unnecessary.
What is most grievous to God? What is most sorrowful? What is most joyful?
Looking at the Bible, there is no joyful thing. There is only sorrow. Having been rejected and driven, when would there have been a time of joy? What was most sorrowful in Father's work? The issue lies there.
If we resolve this, it is done. Even friends, only when one knows the sorrow of the other and communes in heart, are true friends. The filial son cannot become a filial son in a position where anyone can do it. The loyal subject is the same.
You must know this. You must know what kind of marrow God has walked through over 6,000 years.
The Lord of the Second Advent Who Comes in the Glory of the Father
God, bearing heart and circumstances and hope, faced and counseled human beings. God knew our hearts one hundred percent, knew our circumstances one hundred percent, and knew our hopes one hundred percent, but could not say it. This is God's circumstance.
Why could He not?
Because if He spoke it, Satan would hear of it first. If a wealthy man said to his son, who is still an immature child and a senseless youth knowing nothing, “Such-and-such a treasure is here, such-and-such a treasure is there,” and handed it to him in the presence of the servant who has betrayed his master or the enemy, would they leave it for the son to take? Satan is in such a position.
If God speaks all of it before God's son and daughter do anything, Satan, knowing first, has already done it.
Why is this?
God is far from the fallen world. Who governs this earth? Satan governs it. Satan, who has seized the authority of the air, governs even the earth.
Therefore, on this earth, there are many enemies. Before God's son and daughter do what God has commanded, the enemies, knowing it, have done it first, and then if they demand it based on that, He must grant it.
Because He bears the law of justice, He cannot. Even if the enemy did it, if it accords with what was commanded, it must be acknowledged. Therefore, the Bible is written in parables. It is in parables. It is grievous and indignant.
When the man speaking here, holding fast to the difficult problems of the Bible, prayed, “Father, why has it come to be like this?” he felt these things. When I appealed, “Father, why have You become the Father who must save all peoples?” God said, “There are circumstances of Mine more pitiful than yours.”
When you come to know such things, you are shameless. You go to the Kingdom of Heaven if you only believe? You are shameless. Have you ever attended the Father who would become one with us? Have you ever fought to become one with Father? Not once.
Even if I say it once, you cannot refute it. But how greatly has Heaven labored to become one with us? You must know this.
Look. God counseled the Israelite people to become one in Will. He gave the hope, “Then you, Israelite people, prepared for 4,000 years, will rule the world.” He blessed Abraham, saying, “Your descendants shall be as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore and shall multiply and fill the earth.” He came seeking hope. Then, in the time of Jesus, He came seeking with circumstances. In the Old Testament Age, before the Israelite people had a nation, He gave them the hope of becoming the center of the world, that is, of becoming a kingdom of priests. Before those advancing with hope, God again came seeking with circumstances.
Who brought the circumstances?
Jesus brought them. He came to defend your circumstances. When the work of defending the circumstances ends, what is done? He gathers his heart. For that, the Lord of the Second Advent comes. The standard is love. The very last is love.
Then, in what position are we ourselves?
Are we in a position of knowing heart, circumstances, and hope—all of these? We are in a position of not knowing. We are utter dunces. We know nothing. God is laboring thus for those who know nothing.
Until now, we did not know this God. But God, with heart, leads the entire history from one to the world, and at the very end is laboring to make the time when, as Father, He can love the whole.
In the Old Testament Age, He sent servants and gave them bare hope; in the New Testament Age, He sent the Son and made them commune in circumstances.
The Lord coming hereafter comes with the heart of the Father. He is said to come in the glory of the Father. When He comes in the glory of the Father and sets up the standard of heart, that is the Last Days.
After setting up the conditions of heart on earth and even in heaven, He must proclaim it before all the cosmos. He must do the ceremony, “You are My eternal, unchanging son and daughter.” This is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
How must one act in the Last Days?
In Christianity, it is said, “Bear hope and endure.” Endure, lest by not enduring you break the great Way of Heaven. Look at Jesus, Stephen, or the twelve apostles.
Although they were torn and underwent all kinds of things, they endured. Looking forward to the one day of hope, they endured. Those people were our ancestors.
With hope, endure. With tomorrow at stake, endure. To know the circumstances, pour out all loyalty. Since the Lord died thus for your sake, be loyal unto death.
This is the spirit of Christianity.
What is loyalty?
The character “loyal” means the heart of the center. It is the character “center” with the character “heart,” and the character “devotion” means having fulfilled the word. Before Heaven, there is no excuse-making.
If he says, Die, one must die. If he says, “Enter the fire bearing a load of cotton, one must enter.
The God Who Would Gather the Confused World With Love
He has said, “Love. Be loyal. Be earnest.” This is to connect God's heart, circumstances, and hope. But the time of hope has not yet come for us. The owner of my heart has not come. The one who would acknowledge my circumstances has not come.
Since that age, that One has not come. Until the time when He comes, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, shedding tears, are praying, “Father, look with pity upon the sons and daughters who endure.
Remember the sons and daughters who are loyal. Remember the sons and daughters who, pouring out their hearts, long for You.”
Until that bond is gathered historically, Jesus and the Holy Spirit come forth bearing the burden of the heart.
Thus, when the time comes worldwide, He carries out the work of becoming one. From Abraham, through Jacob's family, the people of Moses, the world of Jesus, to all the cosmos, He has carried out the work of making them one.
You must know that, because He is the God who comes seeking to make this created world one, history too is flowing toward the world of one.
From this historical viewpoint, today is, with one voice, called the Last Days. With one slip, we are in danger of being annihilated immediately. But there is Heaven.
The verdict comes from the supreme two, good and evil, standing opposed. That is a historical struggle. Look. If you investigate history, after Adam and Eve fell, God set up Cain and Abel and sought to gather Adam and Eve's fallen family.
How is the gathering up done?
It is by loving the one whom God loves. Heart through love, circumstances through love, ideal through love. That is, love through the heart, circumstances through the heart, and ideals through the heart.
With such a heart, He sought Cain and Abel in place of Adam and Eve. He told Cain to love Abel. To be grafted. From here, the matter of grafting unfolded. It should have been brought to oneness here, but Cain struck Abel with a stone and killed him. The history of war began here.
The Providential History Through Central Figures
Therefore, the history until now has been a history of good people being killed by evil people. It has been a history in which evil first strikes good.
Generally, when two people each insist they are outstanding, the one who insists first is the bad person. Eighty percent is so. Good never strikes evil first.
Even looking at Korean history, treacherous subjects struck loyal subjects; loyal subjects did not strike treacherous subjects.
Where did such struggles begin?
They began with Adam's family. For Cain to receive God's love, he had to be grafted to Abel, whom God loved. Submit absolutely. Only thus could Satan, who has betrayed God, be subdued.
Although the human being was blessed to govern the entire cosmos, because the human being fell and two bonds with different lineages came into being, according to this law, the world has unfolded in two angles.
Thus, the individual whom God could love, sought and set up, was Abraham. It would have been good had He set up Abel, but because Abel had died, succeeding to that line, the one person sought and set up as the perfect substantial body whom God could love was Abraham, the ancestor of faith, who could stand in place of heart, circumstances, and hope. The providence of God is for the humanity of all heaven and earth to obey Abraham absolutely, whom God loves most.
To submit before the person God loves is to be saved; if not, it is to go to hell.
Therefore, having set up Abraham, He told Abraham's family to first become one with Abraham. Not becoming one is being an enemy. He said that one who receives circumcision through Abraham becomes God's son; those who do not receive it are all enemies.
In the time of Moses, one had to obey Moses' word absolutely. Whether outstanding or not, all had to be grafted to Moses. To be grafted, one must have the same heart, the same circumstances, and the same essential hope.
With the heart that, if Moses said die, would die; if he said live, would live; if he said do something, would do it; or with such a heart, having passed through circumstances, if one had stretched all the way to the foundation of hope, one would not have perished.
Yet what became of the Israelite people who raised the banner of revolt against Moses?
To the Israelite people, chosen with 4,000 years of labor, Jesus came. Jesus came to graft the nation and people, with heart, before God. Since the Israelite people had been grafted up to the standard of hope, he sought, through circumstances, to graft them deep into God's heart. Yet without communing in circumstances, either, he went.
Because human beings, having fallen, received another blood, they are wild olive trees. Therefore, one son must come forth who can respond as God's marrow, who can harmonize, of whom He can say, “You are my flesh and' blood”—one son who has formed the bond of direct line. Then, having set up that son, all humanity must obey absolutely before him. To be grafted to the true olive tree, the wild olive tree must be cut.
To become a complete tree, three or more objects are needed. Was it because any one of the three disciples, centered on Jesus in such a position, was inadequate that he did not speak to them? No. Looking at the time, he sought to tell them the deep heavenly tragedy of the heart, but lest they could not bear it, he could not speak.
Therefore, he said, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12) Pitiful Jesus. Through the three disciples, he sought to manifest God's life, God's love, and the entirety of God's ideal, but they could not bear it.
Therefore, the Israelite people became a people without sovereignty. This is because of the sin of having seized and killed Jesus.
If the Israelite people had attended to Jesus as the King of kings and absolutely obeyed, the world would already have been conquered by God. It would have been conquered just as Moses' successor struck and subjugated the seven tribes of Canaan. There would have been no problem. Had it been so, would the chosen Israelite people of 2,000 years and the later Christians who believe in Jesus have been massacred? It is utterly unfitting. Because they killed Jesus, the recompense had to be received.
Since it is said that the sin of one's ancestor extends to the third or fourth generation, all the recompense must be received. It must be indemnified within 4,000 years. Moses, too, came out of Egypt in the fourth generation. Everything moves forth centered on the law of heaven and earth.
Although we have come through such a history until now, no person on this earth has been grafted to God in heart, in circumstances, or in hope. Therefore, Father, with history at stake, cannot face us as sons at once. Why? Because, having fallen, we have fallen away.
In the original ideal of creation, where is it that God must fight? God did not set up such an ideal. Therefore, He sets the servants to fight.
Since human beings, having fallen, fell into the position of servants, He works so that, fighting and winning there, they may be lifted to the position of a son who can commune in circumstances. They must be cut and grafted; the work of grafting this heart is the work of the Second Advent.
The earnest heart of “Lord, please come” must pierce heaven and earth. With such a heart, one becomes Heaven's side. Toward such a moment, God has worked until now.
The Sons and Daughters Who Can Stand Before Father in the Last Days
What sort of time is the Last Days?
It is the time when Heaven, toward this earth on which He has poured forth energy for 6,000 years, strikes a single blow. It is the time when the highest devotion must be poured out. It is the time when son and servant join together.
Son and servant fight in the same place. Not only that, the Father joins the force too. The time when Father and Son and servant come forth all at once is the Last Days.
Since Father has come forth, Son has come forth, and Servant has come forth, the household of the Kingdom of Heaven must be set up. God originally created Adam and Eve as children and the archangel as a servant.
Toward the time of the worldwide completion, centered upon Father, sons, daughters, and servants can unfold horizontally. Heaven has come seeking until now.
Therefore, in the Last Days, there appear those who say, “I am Abraham.” Try going to a place like Pagoda Park and looking. What kind of words are spoken there? They are all words with motive. Those who cry out, “I am Paul, I am Jesus, I am God, I am whatever,” appear. Why is this? Because it is the end-of-the-age time when servant and son and Father can meet, the time of total settling of accounts.
The leaf, the branch, and the trunk must be grafted all at once and live. The Father, the trunk; the Son, the branch; the servant, the leaf — all appear at once. The currents of the world are going thus.
The work of God in the Last Days is to set up as the masters of this world those who, centered on the heart, have been grafted.
The one who will rule today's world is neither a communist nor a democrat. It is the multitude that, in agreement with God's heart, circumstances, and wish, are grafted and survive. This is the core of the Bible. The final destination of history must appear thus.
Until now, the seekers of the Way have been trampled. At one time, the upper class succeeded; in the age of military lords, the middle class succeeded. The present time is the time of laborers and farmers. Even in companies, there are labor unions, and laborers act with authority.
All have succeeded and all have come up, but those who walk the road of the Way, deemed inferior, were driven by the upper class, by the middle class, and by the lower class as nothing but “Christ-believers.”
Yet when some sons and daughters have been grafted to God's heart, circumstances, and hope, they will not vanish here but will rule heaven and earth.
The time will come when seekers of the Way can rule. Only thus is God impartial.
Looking forward to that one moment that God has prepared throughout the long ages.
Then what does God seek to do?
Setting up servants and sons and daughters, embracing them as Father, thinking of bygone days and shedding historical tears, He seeks to release the overflowing heart of hope, the sorrowful heart of circumstances, and the forlorn heart.
We must yearn for the figure of God who, the moment He embraces the son, embraces the daughter, and sets up the servant, can for the first time look back upon history and laugh, “Ha, ha.”
Satan, where is your authority? Villains, where is your power?
Withdraw before the Lord of judgment and justice. The God who labored for 6,000 years to become one must, in the Last Days, be acknowledged once. He is the God who asks to be acknowledged once in 6,000 years. We must pass through the process of saying, with tears, not knowing where to put ourselves, “You are my Father, and I am Your son and daughter.
Father who has labored thus, I am awed beyond words. I know you have labored thus for my sake. The labor of the ancestors who passed away of old, of Abraham and Moses and Jesus, was also for my sake.”
“I do not have the heart by which I can attend the master of heart. I yearn for it. I do not know the circumstances of the Master who bears circumstances; what shall I do? Do You like this? I have brought what You like.” Have you done so? You must possess the heart of, “Father, I wish to offer this. Father, please eat this.”
You must be able to say, “Is Your Will to save the people of Korea? Is that Your wish? Then even if I die, even if I cannot eat what I have to eat, I will save these people and offer them before Father.”
Not only the world's humanity but even the tens of millions of spirit people in heaven — to save them all, we must endure infinitely, though we endure; embrace circumstances infinitely, though we embrace them; and possess an infinitely sorrowful heart, though we possess a heart. Pouring out heart, pouring out mind, pouring out body, you must become those who can advance toward this world.
Only when, knowing that Father has come seeking thus, you are pierced with tears and a sense of guilt and the feeling of being awed beyond words, can you cross over the ridge of judgment.
Although Christianity began with repentance, it is the highest sinner. We must repent of the sin of not having known circumstances, not having known the Will, not having known the heart.
For the sake of the one day of victory, we must form the bond of son and daughter, or the bond of servant, with the Father who has fought for 6,000 years to become one. When that comes about, He says, “Take charge of the providential history accumulated over 6,000 years in My stead. Settle everything all at once. If My neck is to be cut, cut it; if My belly is to be cut open, cut it.” What God should strike, we strike in His stead, and we settle everything in His stead—this is judgment.
Christians who prepare their hearts, saints who advance to resolve circumstances, Christianity, which must publish the hope of one day before all heaven and earth—now we must pour out all our hearts, all our circumstances, and all our will.
Only with such a thing can we, advancing before the Father who has come seeking to become one, receive the recognition of son and the recognition of daughter and cross over—you must clearly know this.
Although Father poured out infinite passion, we did not know Father's heart. Even when Heaven's circumstances were thus, we did not know the circumstances. Even when Heaven's hope was thus, we did not know the hope. We are awed beyond words.
How greatly have we betrayed You, who came seeking ignorant sons and daughters for 6,000 years? For how many years did we seek? For how many years did we pursue it? For how many years did we bury ourselves in Father's wounded heart? We are unworthy beings unable to lift our heads before the Father who would become one with us.
Father, now Father's blood and our blood must become one. We have come to know that we stand in the wonderful process in which our body and Father's body, our mind and Father's mind, and our heart and Father's heart must become one in the same place of Will and circumstances and heart, mobilizing flesh and blood.
Your sons and daughters gathered here today — even if all is forgotten in going, please let us know only this: that the great Way of the heavenly law of kinship is moving forth thus. We have come to know that we cannot but become a multitude that, after great weeping, can sing of the joy of 6,000 years.
We who, unbeknownst to others, were cursed and driven and treated unjustly—we hope to become sons and daughters who, before the Heaven that has prepared for such a day, before that heart, before those circumstances, before that hope, feeling that we deserve to die ten million times, feeling that we deserve to be torn apart ten million times, know how to give thanks. We have come to know that this is Father's wish.
Having cried out, our strength is insufficient. With what shall we express Father's heart? We earnestly desire and beseech that, feeling moment by moment Father's endless indignation, we may become those who, looking toward the future, endure.
If sorrow there be, Heaven also knows that there is no one on this earth more sorrowful than we. He knows that ours is a wronged life. He knows that we are lonely.
But, knowing it is the road you left behind, we cannot but resolve upon the road of tears, the road on which iron bars are laid, the road of death, the road of risk.
Please permit there to be many on this earth who are prepared for such conditions.
This is your hope and my wish; even if we fall, we earnestly entreat and desire that You make us such sons and daughters and have us fall.
When we earnestly entreat that the Will of providence You left behind, our circumstances, and our heart may be released as Father's own, and that day may come quickly—we have prayed all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
When we earnestly entreat that the Will of providence You left behind, our circumstances, and our heart may be released as Father's own, and that day may come quickly—we have prayed all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.