The Sorrow of God Right after the Human Fall

However, there has not been even one person who loved his or her sons and daughters with the same heart of love that God had toward Adam and Eve. There has never been a couple who came together with such heart and love.

Sinning daily and making a lot of noise is love below the level of the angels, love which is a product of the Fall. People are distant from the love of God who exists as the center of ideals and as the ideals themselves.

You have probably not given much thought to the fact that Adam and Eve fell. You are unclear about the significance of what you have vaguely heard. There is no deep response of the heart in you. That should not be so. The moment Adam and Eve fell, God’s heart was torn so painfully He almost went insane. You should never forget about the Father who was shaken so thoroughly as to almost forget Himself. Have you ever thought about that?

Even when fallen people on the earth watch their children die, they feel their bone marrow melt. They want to save their children even at the cost of their own lives. How must the heart of God have been as He watched Adam and Eve walking the path toward the Fall and crossing the line of death? Unless you understand that heart, there is no way for you to become God’s sons and daughters.

If someone has experienced the sorrow of God as he watched the Fall of Adam and Eve, nothing of this human world will pose any problem for him. Even the greatest love in the human world cannot comfort the sorrowful heart of God. We understand the history of restoration through indemnity. To return to the original world, we have to go through God’s heart and build a relationship of love with Him. Only after that can we become God’s sons and daughters. Have you ever felt the heart of God who mourned while watching the Fall of Adam and Eve? For six thousand years, God has been ceaselessly struggling to liberate the grieving heart of the Fall. God sent many prophets to liberate it. He sent His beloved son. God sent His beloved son to execution to liberate the grieving heart of the Fall. It is to liberate this that countless people are in pain.

 

 

The Toil of God As He Tries To Raise Up His Beloved Children
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
October 11, 1959

Everything Would Have Been Realized on Earth

Had the three disciples been willing to die with Jesus, he would not have had to die. Everything would have been realized on the Earth. Since the Holy Spirit came and there were spiritual sons and daughters, the father and mother spirit could build a foundation on the earth, at least spiritually, and fulfill the will. Some people may say that we cannot find these words in the Bible.

Why did Jesus who came to save the earth ascend to Heaven, and why did the Holy Spirit, the mother spirit, come down to the earth on his behalf? The Earth is the symbol for the mother. Since the Fall took place because of Eve, who was the mother, it is the mother who must cleanse the fallen world of sin. The Holy Spirit and believers were to join together to cross the line of death and rise to the position to serve Jesus in the spirit world.

Although God sent Jesus on the basis of the four-thousand-year history, He could not embrace him and love him fully. Although human beings received the beloved Jesus, they could not embrace him and love him. When Mary Magdalene tried to hold Jesus right after the resurrection, Jesus told her not to touch him. Why did he block her? This is sorrowful. When God was sad, Jesus was sad. Because the situations of Heaven and Earth are tied to this, you cannot move forward without unraveling this. How distressed must Heaven have been since He had to resolve the situation?

God is looking for those who can substitute for the lost Adam and Eve. It is said in I Corinthians that Jesus was the last Adam. It is said that Adam is the Tree of Life. Jesus was the one who came in place of the lost Tree of Life. Did God ever elevate beloved Jesus on the earth and praise him before the believers? Did He ever boast about him before the family which is looking for the one person God loves? Although two thousand years have passed since then, God could not boast before any people or the world.

You have to understand that God was indignant when He had to witness the death of Jesus whom He had sent and would have to send again. He was more indignant than when He had to chase Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Although he was sent with the mission of a son, Jesus could not complete the mission. Because in Jesus’ time there was not a moment when God and his son were happy together, there had to be a Second Advent. The day will come when God can rejoice with Jesus. This will be the moment He can reveal the grieving heart of the six thousand years and connect the sons and daughters with God and the Lord who is to come.

 
The Toil of God As He Tries To Raise Up His Beloved Children
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
October 11, 1959

Equality Is Peace

“To shorten the way to heaven, the Messiah, a specific people or individual must take responsibility through self-sacrifice. Many saints have given up their lives for this cause. The rise and fall of many nations was to fill the valleys and level the hills. History to this day has consisted of people making themselves merry, thus it is a history of ups and downs. It goes on a spree, rising and falling. Equality like that of the present was established in this manner. Equality is peace.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon

If a true individual comes who will eliminate this world’s sorrow…

“If a true individual comes who will eliminate this world’s sorrow, liberate Heavenly Father’s sorrow, and bring forth an ideology capable of establishing a peaceful nation on this earth, that individual will have to pass through every difficulty and experience desperation, starting from the sorrow of personal tribulation, all the way to the sorrow of the tribulations of humanity. Furthermore, he would have to delve into the whole sorrowful and desperate heart of Heaven to come out with something that can resolve it. If that is not achieved, the world of humanity cannot push aside the sorrowful and miserable history to establish the world of peace, the world of happiness, and the garden of freedom inviolable by sorrow.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Each person must vividly realize his need to change

It’s a fact of history that to truly live the religious life is very, very difficult. Each person finds himself in the fallen realm with the blood of Satan flowing through his veins. Everyone has to be conscious of that, continually aware that Satan’s influence touches everything we do and that we apt to do everything centering around our baser self. Just shrugging and admitting, “Maybe that is so,” is not good enough. We have to clearly understand how this is the reality surrounding us. How we can change this bad blood into good is the problem facing us.

Let us see in further detail what the characteristics are of a man with fallen blood lineage. The one characteristic most easily discerned is that of ignoring the whole and trying to elevate oneself instead. This is not difficult to do because it was this very self-centeredness that motivated the fall. Thus we find that this is the most noticeable characteristic of a fallen man.

How deeply rooted is this self-centered nature? It is very deep because all the world surrounding us is composed that way and compels us in this direction. We can easily imagine how difficult it was under these circumstances to establish religion, through which mankind could continue advancing toward heaven. The satanic lineage has extended throughout history and there is nothing around us that is not connected to Satan. This is not a concept but the reality, and is the reason why many religious leaders appeared on earth to teach people and try to lead them away from this bad realm.

Putting aside the world for a moment, let’s think about the self. Has anyone been successful at any time in history in overcoming himself, even just one small individual? We know there was no one like that except Jesus. God has never seen one individual reach perfection, although through 6,000 years He has invested all His energy into restoring one man into the original position of Adam. Just restoring one person has taken all this time, and at the same time he has been the only one thinking about saving the bigger things, or even just improving the world. So far most individuals have been struggling just to get themselves out of the fallen realm and haven’t really had concern for what happens to others.

God realized that it would be impossibly difficult for each individual in a population, no matter how small, to overcome the fall in his own way. God thought that instead He would establish one model, and through becoming completely one with that model everyone could overcome himself and go beyond the realm of the fall.

When can we say that we are totally rid of satanic blood and call ourselves good? Which level do we have to reach before we can say that? We can say we are rid of the fallen blood when without exception we never think about ourselves and we live for the whole of mankind. We have to have a clear concept of what this is. It’s very much like the situation of a man who would travel in space; he has to get beyond the earth’s gravity just to get started. As long as he is still influenced by gravity, he will always come down again, no matter how high he goes. Once we get beyond the pull of fallen nature, there will be no force pulling us one way or the other and we can travel in the direction we know is right, eventually to be pulled by the gravity of goodness.

Why are we religious? We want to know how the man in the position of evil can come to the position of goodness. Many people have taught different ways to make a life of goodness and to completely change, but in essence they are all rather simple-to change from self-centeredness to always thinking first about God and others. That’s the essential teaching of many religions, and even though we may not yet be in that selfless position, we can be called truly religious when we at least know the direction in which to go.

It is human desire to meet the one man who will save us and give us new birth. This one man is the Messiah. Because he is completely different from all others, we can be absolutely sure that every hour and 365 days a year he does not live for himself but for the sake of God, the whole world and all things. If he is confident to live that way then we may say that he qualifies as the Messiah. How can you distinguish Jesus from anyone else and say with confidence that he is the Messiah who came to save the world? By knowing this standard, we are sure from what he taught and from what he did in his life that he was the Messiah.

Jesus sometimes taught in a seemingly contradictory way. At one time he said, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” What kind of statement is that? It’s not just 90 degrees different from all others, but 180 degrees different. We have come to understand that in order to change our satanic blood we must change completely, not just a little. In order to do that there is no other way except for our fallen selves to die; then our original selves will live. Changing 179 degrees is not good enough because in moving at that angle we will eventually arrive back at the same place we started from. If we go away 180 degrees from the starting point, however, there is no way to go but in the opposite direction.

Sometimes temptations and trials are difficult, but what is the best way to overcome them? Immediately to say, “I have to forget about myself.” That is a very effective way to go directly to God. It may be easy to say, but how impossible it is to do! When Jesus was crucified, even the people who opposed him knew it was totally wrong, but still he prayed that they would be forgiven since they didn’t understand. How is it possible to feel that way? What do you suppose Jesus was thinking when he was crucified? Did he feel sorry for himself because he was dying? Certainly not. Even as the blood was dripping out of his body, he thought about how the blood he shed represented all mankind who would have to shed their satanic blood. Many people before and since Jesus have shed blood, but how different those deaths were in this crucial point. Jesus shed his blood for the sake of mankind, as the representative of mankind.

If one man is this good, is there any compatible place for him to live on earth? Can he find even a small area to live in? Certainly there was not such a place for Jesus; even religious people at the time were thinking about how they would prosper one day and have great influence on the world. They were centered on their own religion and never thought about the entire world, so there was no place that was adequate for someone like Jesus.

 

I Proclaim That I Know
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
April 1, 1978

Inherit Jesus’ Tradition

If we desire the Blessing, we should concentrate first on how to live solely for God’s will. When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, he prayed that not his own will but God’s will be done. He did not choose the path of the cross because of his own will. Unless, like Jesus, you are confident of being able to overcome the problems of life and death, you cannot welcome or walk the path of restoration. Are you confident enough to dedicate your life for God’s will? If you take this course, you should know you cannot go alone; you must able to relate to all people, and be able to console those who are going to follow you on this path.

Are you really ready to sacrifice your life! You cannot think, “I am a young girl with a beautiful face; I can be welcomed anywhere I go, and I have no particular defects. A girl like myself cannot do sacrificial work.” Or, “I am a man with a great physical body and handsome appearance, with a great family. Whatever I want I can get very easily, So, as such a wonderful man, I cannot do such rigorous sacrificial work.” What’s more, you should not be bitter about walking a sacrificial path.

When Jesus was shouldering the cross, he could have deplored his situation, saying, “I should not have to do this kind of thing. I have not yet married, even though I am a 33 year old man. My mission and my value have not yet been realized.” But Jesus could not think that way. Death was not a problem for him; he was ready to sacrifice his life, and the weight of the cross that he was shouldering could not deter him. Although he fell down physically, he didn’t waver internally, because of his great stamina. No other man in history has ever had such a strong determination connected with God, and because of Jesus’ great strength, human history took a new direction. This became God’s new starting point on earth.

Two thousand years have passed since that time, but the spirit of Jesus has not passed away. Instead, it has been inherited by millions of people. How happy we can be today – to inherit such an important mission – the tradition of Jesus! Therefore, it doesn’t matter if we lose our lives. We should cry out in the darkness of death and shatter that darkness by the light of God’s heart. We should make that light shine throughout all the world. We must become that kind of man or woman. This is the challenge. Originally, the fall of man meant death; salvation means the overcoming of death. If we are determined to be saved, we should be willing to be bold. If we succeed, the world will head in a new direction. We should be excited! Are you confident that you can overcome the problems of life and death? I have faced issues of life and death many, many times – hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of times. Although I may face suffering and pain, although my legs may be cut off and my eyes extracted, and even if I’m beheaded, I am still strongly determined to complete that course I started. My conviction is absolute.

 

Restoration and Blessing
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
February 2, 1969

Eating with sinners

When Jesus was at dinner in his house, a number of tax collectors and sinners
were also sitting at the table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of
them among his followers. When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him eating
with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with
tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this he said to them, “It is not the
healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I did not come to call the virtuous,
but sinners.”

  
Mark 2:15-17

Parable of the seed growing by itself

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time: he starts to reap because the harvest has come.”

Mark 4:26-29

God’s Hope and Jesus

Due to the Human Fall, God who created Heaven and Earth has never experienced joy and glory with the creation during the long history past, through which He has been leading the dispensation of restoration. You must already know this.

 

In other words, God has never received a day of victory in which He could be happy. The reason does not lie with God, but with humans who were created as the masters of all things. Thus, the day of victory cannot come with the effort of God alone, but it also needs the efforts of humans, besides those of God. Otherwise, God and the Creation cannot receive a day of glory with triumph.

 

Then what is the purpose of God’s creating all things? It is to watch all things singing with God’s love and returning glory to Him, centered on humans who have fulfilled the purpose of goodness. All should rejoice in this. Due to the Human Fall, God’s purpose of creation was not achieved. To restore human beings, He has been leading a long battle of 6,000 years of history.

 

God, who has not been able to receive a day of universal victory since the creation, desires to see the day of victory through humans on earth. Thus, unless earthly people do not restore or recover that day, we cannot defeat Satan, who violates humans on earth. Nor can we eliminate the power of Satan, who makes accusations against humans before God in Heaven.

 

Consequently, God does not mind any toil, any sacrifice, or any battles. Until this moment, He has been a shield to restore each of you.

 

When viewed from this standpoint, we can understand what God’s wish is. God wants to establish each of you as an individual and separate the enemy Satan who caused the human fall from you. Thus, the evil history of Satan will be concluded. We should become people who can fulfill the wish of God, come forth in pride before God and all things, and return the victorious glory to God. Then, finally, the purpose of God’s providence, which He led through His hard work, will be realized. Humans have been trying to witness such a day of victory, but until the present, it has not been fulfilled.

 

However, God sent a man who could find the day of victory for humans. This was Jesus Christ. He experienced the internal heart of God, who has been leading a dispensation to restore all humankind through a long history. He experienced all the unjust circumstances of humans. Thus, he came as a representative who could bring victory out of the battles with Satan.

 

Therefore, being faced with Satan, who is blocking the path to attain the will of God’s dispensation and the will that humankind wishes for, you should take over the lifetime undertaking of Jesus Christ, who fought valiantly as the historical man in charge, representing all things with the heart of the Lord of Creation. Also, in your own life, unless you practice the life that Jesus wished for, not only the sorrow of Jesus but also that of God and all humankind will be again embedded on the earth. You should understand this.

 

Then what kind of life course should we take? We should go with the responsibility to inherit the will of Jesus Christ, who came for the fulfillment of God’s Will. We should fight to bring about a day in which God and humans can rejoice together. This is more important than anything else.

 

The life of Jesus was not to live for himself as an individual. It was a life during which, in silence, he took on the responsibility alone for heaven above and earth below, that is, for all the creation. He did this to bring about a day when God’s will would be achieved.

 

Jesus did not make a distinction between day and night. Also, he did not care about persecution from the visible world. He was a courageous man who fought Satan, who was blocking his path, in an invisible place that people did not recognize or see, carrying responsibility for all of humankind.

 

Therefore, today all of us should attend Jesus as a vanguard and uphold his will. Thus, wherever he goes, we should go with him. If he fights, we should also fight with him. That is, we should share the same joy and pain and continue to fight to accomplish the will of God in His providence of restoration, which is the wish of all humankind.

 

Further, Jesus lived for his people and the world, taking responsibility for 4,000 years of history and the many lives in the spirit world. He did not fight for himself alone. It does not necessarily mean that he was fighting only for his people or the world. He fought to fulfill the Will of God, with the mission of upholding heavenly principles beyond history and the universe.

 

Such battles continued throughout his lifetime of thirty years. Even 2,000 years after his death, it is still being continued. You should understand and feel deeply in your bones that although humans can take time to rest, he has been unceasingly fighting along with the Holy Spirit only to fulfill God’s wish and thus find the day of hope for which all humankind wishes.

 

It was lamentable for Jesus to die on the cross due to the failure of humans when he came to earth to save them. Nonetheless, even after his death, still carrying the sins of humans, he has been walking the course of the cross to Golgotha. We should reflect upon our past, thinking about what kind of life of faith we have had toward Jesus.

 

 

Let Us Be a Victor for God
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
June 30, 1957

The Standard of Love that Jesus Established

What did Jesus do to realize the value of such a cosmic life? He elevated love. In other words, he propagated new words of the gospel to complete the value of cosmic life in heaven and earth. The central point of that gospel was love.

What would be the most important thing for an individual to be able to connect his own private life to the standard of eternal value? As Jesus said, he must have such love that he can sacrifice his life for the sake of others. In fact, Jesus established the standard of value of life by loving others more than himself.

Similarly, Jesus, who appeared representing the value of heavenly life, taught humankind to possess such love that they can sacrifice their lives for the sake of others’ salvation. You must understand clearly that the man who appeared with such a loving heart, who loved his colleagues more than himself, who loved the world more than he loved his colleagues, and who loved God and the thousands upon thousands of saints more than he loved the world was Jesus Christ.

Jesus did not live with an individualistic ideology to find the value of his own individual life or with individualistic love. Even when he loved a friend, his love transcended the relationship of loving friendship. Jesus had the perspective that he loved the friend representing the world. He also loved that friend with the heart that represented God.

Likewise, Jesus did not practice love on a one-to-one basis. When Jesus loved a certain individual, it was with God’s love, with cosmic love, and then with individual love. You must be able to experience this. Only when you do so can you rightly comprehend the value of Jesus’ life.

Up to what level did Jesus raise the standard of his own life? He envisioned himself existing for the sake of the world. Even when he loved a friend of his, forsaking himself, he kept the perspective that he loved him for the sake of the world. This was Jesus’ standard.

Jesus could establish the standard of love of worldwide salvation on the cross because he had the heart of love and sacrifice with which he could die for the sake of an individual and for the whole simultaneously. You must know that Jesus was the hero of love, life and character. That was not all. Jesus then prayed toward Heaven, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matthew 26:39) Because Jesus wished to live only according to the will of the Father, he could demonstrate God’s love to humankind beyond the valley of death. Similarly, we must know that the entire course of Jesus’ life was filled with such remarkable love.

Next, what did Jesus Christ, who came with the mission to restore the cosmic life, raise to find the value of life? That, too, was love. This love was not meant for individual human beings but for the world, God and the eternal world — the spiritual beings who are in the spirit world.

In order for us, in our daily lives, to realize the value of the life of Jesus, who represented God’s love, we who must take responsibility for the restoration of the whole life must not deal with whichever matter we face with transient emotions. We must deal with all things with the resolution and determination that we will model ourselves after Jesus’ character, who represented the whole on the cosmic level. Only after we pass through such a day-to-day life can we complete the worldwide life and make a connection with eternal life.

In other words, if your day-to-day lives have a transient value that affects only you, you cannot make a connection with eternity. That is the reason you must lead a life in which you can make a connection with God’s eternal love. Only when you do that will the eternal God be with you. Because Jesus lived making daily connections with God throughout his life, though Jesus is dead, the will of God, who wished it to be completed by Jesus, has been continuously carried on toward its completion.

 

Jesus’ View of Life for the Sake of the Restoration
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
January 6, 1957