Let Us Halt in Our Steps and Behold the One Who Is Protecting Us
Psalms 121
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
March 8, 1958
Prayer
We the unworthy have come before the Father, who governs life and death. Father, please receive us. Please take us in accordance to Your Will.
Although we want to dwell inside the realm of life and offer praise to the Father, we are still bound by the sinful nature that dwells inside the realm of death. Father, You have been conducting the providence of restoration to guide us to the new realm. Please be present here in this hour and dismantle the realm of death. Grant the grace of life and resurrection.
Eternal Father, please allow this to be an hour when we can live our lives with the original value of creation. Allow us to become those who can sing praises to the supreme goodness of the Father.
Due to the fall of the first human ancestors, our connection of life to heaven and earth has been severed. The archangel, who should have offered praise on behalf of the angelic world, betrayed Heaven and failed to complete his responsibility.
Since You have called upon us today, please alleviate through us the bitterness You have felt because no one has recited poetry for You. Please consult with us about Your internal situation, which You have not been able to share with anyone. Raise us to become people who can connect with all people and with Heaven. Father, this is our sincere wish.
My Father, we sincerely wish that You guide us to remain loyal to You. You have longed to share Your joys of creation with us. Allow us to build a solid bond with You as embodiments of life.
Please reveal to us that You are looking for someone who can offer You sincere songs of praise, that You long for us to stand as objects who can cooperate with You. Please allow us to fathom the heart of the Father, who has established the ideals of creation and toiled until now to allow us to govern everything. Please allow us to offer infinite help, praise and inspiration to the Father.
We the unworthy have come in the presence of the Father. Please allow us to understand that we cannot achieve any condition the Father wishes us to fulfill, if we center our lives on ourselves. Please allow us to be able to fathom the Father's heart and situation. Father, this is our sincere wish.
Father, we know that during the last week we have committed many things which deviated from Your will; yet, even just for this hour, please allow us to build a genuine common base with You as You desire. Allow us to be embraced inside the Father's bosom of love as embodiments of goodness.
This is a glorious day. Please bless all people and bless this pitiful nation. Please embrace the lonely members inside the bosom of Your grace. We, the unworthy, bow before You. Please govern us. Let no other rule us.
Father of love, please do not let this be an hour when the forces of darkness invade. Let it be a time when we can harmoniously share our hearts with You in this sanctified place and bow before You. Hoping that You will personally govern us from the first of the hour to the last, we pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Prayer
Please let this be an hour when we can commemorate the actual hyung sang of Christ, who originally came to rule heaven and earth. Let this be an hour when we can commemorate his heart as he was praying for his enemies, shedding blood on the hill of Golgotha. Please let us feel deeply, to the core of our flesh and bones, that this is the saddest thing that could have happened on the earth.
Father, we sincerely pray that You allow us to experience, within ourselves, the sorrowful heart of Jesus Christ and understand the bitter anguish of Heaven. We pray further that we can be concerned about Satan, who committed the historical sin, as well as about the direction our descendants will take in the future.
For 6,000 years, You have repeated Your labors and the providence of tears to find us. We are neither worthy nor dignified. You have been concerned for us every hour and every day, and You were never afraid of suffering wounds in Your heart. Please allow us to open the gate to our hearts wide and take after Yours. Please allow us to move our bodies and safeguard the footsteps of toils.
We who have passed through the course of sins and betrayed Heaven in sin have gathered in the presence of You, thoroughly exhausted, having attained nothing. Although we know we are unworthy to stand in Your holy presence, since it is our fate to find You, we bow down before You, cherishing Your heart. Therefore, Father of compassion, please forgive us. Father of love, please show us mercy.
Father, You have endured and continued to battle to find us. Please raise Your whip of advice. If some evil elements remain within us that keep us from You, please remove them. If we do not listen to Your advice, then please use Your whip to eliminate those evil elements from us, so that we may connect to the heart of Heaven and obey the commands of God. My Father, this is our sincere wish.
Father, please look down upon these thirty million people with compassion. Please be compassionate toward these people, who have crossed the valleys of sorrow in the course of their history. They have survived until this moment, even though they were lost and had to search for the way. Please allow Heaven's new message of righteousness to be conveyed to this people, who has been struggling without knowing their true destination. Please grant the day when we can build a new altar of resurrection. Please allow a time of new glory for these people.
We know that You have gathered us here and have ordered us to become sacrifices for the people. Please allow us not to continue to blame ourselves for not being able to cope with the responsibilities Heaven has bestowed upon us, but let us become the sacrifices who can offer all that we have for God's will and become the sons and daughters who can penetrate Satan's city with a bomb and blow it up.
These people are not the only ones who are wandering aimlessly, not knowing where they should go. Please ring the bells of new commandments upon the countless numbers of humanity who live on the earth, and manifest the light of life. Please let the hour come to us quickly when we can introduce the Father's one day of glory. Father, we pray for this from the depths of our hearts.
Father, You have called upon us and have revealed to us the entire will of the providence! Now we have come to understand Your will. Please perform Your works so that we can work to accomplish that will.
Please spur our steps when we falter and invigorate our bodies when we hesitate, so that we may go toward the blessed land which the Father desires with a new determination. Father, it is our sincere to become such sons and daughters.
Please take care of Your sons and daughters who have gathered here. They lie prostrate with desperate hearts. Therefore, please open Your hands of compassion. Please embrace them with the bosom of love, and grant them the glory of re-creation. We know that, at this moment, lonely members everywhere in the countryside are bowing before You. Please take notice of their sincere hearts and grant them the day when all their wishes are fulfilled. Personally manifest Your glory and delight in them.
We bow down before You now. Even though we have not brought any gift, please allow us to expose all our stained hearts and repent before You. Please allow us to expose all that evil has defiled and receive the grace of compassion through our repentance.
Please remove all our concepts. Allow us to revert to the heart of a child. Allow us to be held by Heaven's power and move in harmony with Heaven's motion. Allow us to attain life and sing of the Father's glory.
Although countless satans are eagerly watching us, please do not let any of us fall prey to their temptations. We hope that the Father will rule us. We pray all this in the name of the Lord.
Prayer
Father, we are like orphans who do not know where we should go or in what circumstances we live, but who blindly follow the flow of history without securing the center of life. We have been pushed back and have survived with a pitiful existence until today.
We did not know that the Father was there, holding us and weeping when we were sad. We did not know that our Master has worked day and night to find us, we who were shackled to the realm of death. Please let us understand that it is more precious to come to know and experience these truths than to win both heaven and earth.
Let us understand that we have a Father who has labored for us and has been deeply concerned about our lives. Let us then serve the Father with all our minds and bodies with a sense of great awe. Let us understand the heart of the Father who took wounding blows in our place, who held us and embraced us when we fell down due to exhaustion, and who comforted us and showed us our path. Please allow us to reflect deeply upon our hypocritical lives in which we have not lived up to our words. Please allow us to become one with the heart of the Father and to become the sons and daughters who can fathom the situation of the Father. Please allow us to become inseparably united with the Father and to mourn over Heaven's sorrow as our own and to rejoice in Heaven's joy as our own. Please allow us to consider Heaven's affairs our affairs and see Heaven's responsibilities as our responsibilities. Father, please allow us to concretely feel that we must shoulder the responsibility to fight the myriad satans with an unchanging heart and become a sacrifice to save humanity.
Heaven never dozes, even as we doze. Heaven never sleeps, even as we sleep. The Father has worked hard to awaken this people and guide them. We who have come before You are unworthy, so please forgive us. If there is someone who is dozing off, please chastise them. If there is someone who has been hurt, please pour oil on them and wrap the wound.
If someone is desperately trying to find Heaven, please embrace him and comfort him during this hour. We did not realize that the Father understands our situations and has forgiven our actions, even those which are difficult to forgive. Please allow this to be a time when we can bring out all our difficulties and sorrows from the depths of our hearts and replace them with what You give us. Father, this is our sincere desire.
Father, we pray from the depths of our hearts that You eliminate all wrong elements in our minds. Allow us to make a firm determination to become one with Your heart and sung sang.
Please let no one among us try to fathom Your nature with our concepts, but let us completely obey You and unite with Your will, to be molded as You desire. If we have some element within us which You cannot forgive, then please remove it from within us and personally command us.
Please grant them the words of truth You wish to give. More than any words, we need the new words that come from the heart of the Father. Please allow us to remove all distance in between and immediately feel Your heart, so that we can feel Your feelings and heart as our own. We sincerely pray that You allow us to experience the Father's grief and alleviate Your bitterness. Allow us to feel the impact of the new words of truth in our minds and bodies.
Please let the heart of the speaker and the hearts of the listeners be completely united, and multiply Your grace in this hour. Praying that You will extend Your hands of compassion to all the lonely members who are bowing to You all across the nation, we pray all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Human beings have walked the long course of history, not knowing their destination. With what ideology were they born? At what destination will they arrive with the aid of that ideology? Based on what value are they going to connect to what purpose? You know very well that people have been struggling because they have not found a complete solution to any of these issues.
When people of faith discuss their existence, they say that their existence began from Heaven and will end in Heaven and that they are pursuing the ultimate value before the will of God. Yet, I believe that there must come a time when even the average person thinks like that. Although all we think about is centered on ourselves, our human purpose is not to be found in ourselves. We sense deep within us that we seek to transcend ourselves and be connected to some world of ideology.
However, there is a gap of time and space between that world and where we are now. If something can bridge this gap, it is not an academic theory or some clever means. This gap can be bridged only when we enter the world of the heart.
"Heart" has been a controversial topic in the religious sphere and in the areas of culture and the arts. There is heart at the level of the individual, heart at the levels of the family, the society, the nation and the world. Furthermore, if a Creator exists, an actual Lord, it is undeniable that this Lord is moving in line with the heart.
Let Us Become Someone Who Can See the Whole Picture
People live and act based on their hearts. People act to solve problems based on their hearts, and they build relationships based on that too. This is how society, the world and Heaven's principles operate.
When we take the universe and the cosmos as a whole, the center of their activities is heart. In other words, there is no entity which does not abide by principles based on the heart. We have to understand this.
When we reflect on ourselves with respect to the heart, what kind of heart do we possess? What kind of heart do society and the people of the world possess? If there is a God who is trying to realize a unified cosmos, what kind of heart does He have? The important question is through what means and relationships the hearts are to be connected. If a great religion emerges which can help individuals transcend their hearts and even transcend their societies, nations and the natural world to connect to the heart of God, then all things of creation will naturally wish to belong within the realm of this religion.
What is the ultimate purpose of our pursuing greater goodness, higher beauty, and greater emotional love? It is to connect with the heavenly heart of the Creator. We must reflect upon this situation again.
When we examine the heart of God, the heart of the heavenly principles, and the heart of human principles, it is true that they are not moving toward one purpose as they should. Ethics in human society do not have the same orientation as the heavenly principles which follow the laws of the providence. If we were to use religious language, we can say that this is the result of the fall. Due to the fall, the heart of the Creator, the heart of the heavenly principles, and the heart of human principles are in conflict.
We must understand our situation and realize the state of our society and world. We must stop in our footsteps to behold the resurrected natural world again, to behold the heart of the Creator in a new light, and to look into the actual situations of society again. We must point out our minds and bodies again, otherwise, a new world of ideology and love cannot emerge in human history. We must look at the One who has stopped in His tracks to protect us.
We must stop and feel within ourselves an urgent necessity to reflect upon the One who has been working to build a relationship with us in our lives, even without our conscious knowledge. He is the One who has been taking care of our living environment and protecting us.
The topic of the sermon I want to give to you today is "Let Us Halt in Our Steps and Behold the One Who Is Protecting Us." I would like to speak on this topic.
We must learn to look at the whole picture. Furthermore, we must learn to lift our gaze and behold the world of minuscule organisms. We must lift our gaze and look at the actual situation of society, which is being destroyed by waves of death. We must lift our gaze and look at the world of emotions and ideologies, which longs to link the world of our hearts to the world of ideology.
We must think about connecting everything from the minuscule bacteria to the entire cosmos. We must think about the horizontal world and the three-dimensional world, which is the world of the mind.
The Purpose of God's Creation
The earth in which we live is constantly rotating around the sun, according to the principles of the universe. Not only the earth, but the sun itself is rotating. The sun, which is 1.3 million times more massive than the earth, is in constant motion. In the universe, there are vast galaxies that are many billion times more massive than the sun. We call these galaxies "miniature universes." In the universe, there are countless such galaxies. We call all of these together the "great universe." We must open our hearts wide and look at the huge universe. God, who created this enormous universe, has been acting according to the unchanging principles of the universe for many billions of years. God has been moving this entire universe with powers which are beyond our imagination and sensations.
The more we think about God, the Creator of this universe, the more we bow our heads before His magnitude. The Creator of this gigantic universe is the Father who cares for us, the God who protects us, our great Hero. We must comprehend this by opening our minds wide.
After creating this great universe, God looked upon all things of the universe with great delight. If God could talk, how much He would have said! If He could boast, how much He would have boasted!
Although the universe is so great it cannot be measured by numbers, God's purpose of creation cannot be found in the universe itself. God's purpose of creation can be found on the earth, which is only a small planet inside the solar system, and within human beings, who are even smaller than dust particles when compared to the great universe. When we think about this amazing fact, how delighted, grateful and glorious must we feel?
As we behold all things of the natural world, as we behold the beauty and harmony of how all things follow the seasonal changes in natural phenomena, we should not look at them without appreciation of their profundity. When we look at a flying bird, butterfly or bee, when we look at the flowing streams or the tall mountains, we should learn to feel that each of them is God's creation and the manifestation of God's internal heart.
Even though there are many artists and authors, each of them uses countless ways to describe the beauty of the natural world. This world is closely connected to the arts and literature. When we understand that without the world of creation, the natural world, we would be deprived of the object of our joy, we come to realize that we cannot live without it. We must behold nature through this connection of heart. Furthermore, from the infinitesimal germs, bacteria and cells that are in circular or square shapes, to the great and immutable heavenly bodies, all living and non-living things are acting and moving toward a certain purpose in an orderly manner.
Why did God create all this? With an open heart, you should reflect again upon the fact that He created the universe for the sake of human beings on the earth, so insignificant and small when compared to the gigantic heavenly bodies.
God should be delighted to watch over what He has created, yet He has never been happy. That is because when human beings are suffering in sorrow, there is nothing more sorrowful for God. Nevertheless, human beings do not even feel this sorrow. We have become so insensitive, we do not even feel it. However, throughout history, God the Creator has mourned before human beings did and worried before human beings did, and He has labored for the sake of human beings.
The Original State Where Religions Are Born
You should open your heart, stop in your footsteps and behold God. Only then can the value of human beings be realized.
Today we believe God to be the center of our feelings and thoughts. God is moving the entire universe and is progressing toward eternity without rest. We have to believe in this God. This God has been protecting us for the long 6,000 years. Though we have had time to rest, God has never had time to rest. Though human beings could sleep, God never had time to sleep. He had to recognize human beings when they did not recognize Him.
In the meantime, God has governed all the laws by which the entire universe functions. He has re-created human beings and has been working to raise them as valuable masters of the entire universe, who can act on His behalf. Have you ever been deeply and sincerely grateful to God for all He has done for us?
The moment you feel a sincere devotion welling up inside you, you can look at the creation and bow down before it. As you look up at the sky or nature, when you look at the infinite stars of the universe, you will be overwhelmed by a sense of mystery and awe. Religions have begun from these feelings. We must be able to appreciate natural phenomena and be able to look at all the moving things of the creation and sing a song on behalf of the precious world of the heart within us.
When all living things resonate in our hearts as if they were playing natural music, like the arts or natural literature, we can become connected to God, who rules the heavenly bodies. Only when you feel strongly that you are intimately connected to everything can you can enter a state of the heart that can appreciate them. You have to understand that when we enter a mystical state, we can feel everything as it is really.
This is the relationship which exists between God the Creator and all of His creation. God and the entire universe are intertwined by these relationships, and they are trying to build bonds with human beings. If you behold the natural world understanding this fact, you can finally feel the true dignity of human beings.
When we realize that the reason God and all things are intertwined in these inseparable relationships is to link with human beings, who are so small and insignificant, we will come to fathom the relationship between all things and ourselves, between ourselves and God. In this state of mind, our minds will continue to head in that direction. In our daily lives, we are driving ourselves to move in that direction. You must understand that this is the state where art and religion come into being.
Therefore, we should not look at the infinitely grand universe without a proper sense of appreciation. We should understand that they have an eternal relationship with us, and that they were created for our sake. There we can gain the conviction that no matter what kind of cosmic turmoil, God will protect and care for us.
We can then experience our amazing, inseparable relationship with God and feel that God is our Father, intimately connected to our hearts. We will feel our minds and bodies come in contact with something previously unknown through the heavenly and human principles.
This force comes from God's heart, and is the operating power which has become connected to God and us through the principle of creation. This force is the standard of heart which can penetrate through the world of ideology, the world of the heart, and even the world of imagination. It can even penetrate the invisible world.
The Greatness of God and the Original Position of Human Beings
We have to understand this as we relate with all things and become someone who can sing of the heart of God, who created the natural world. We have to be able to sing of the heart of God who rejoiced after creating the universe; we should sing of the heart of God when He rejoiced after creating human beings. We should sing about how this world of ideology has been made so good, precious and beautiful. When we can praise God with this heart, we can become connected to heavenly and human love. You must understand that this is how the historical and providential bond of heart, which is linked to the heavenly principles and human principles, is forged.
Today, we often understand God as one who has the same sung sang as we. However, in your life of devotion, when you are praying or when you are meditating quietly, watching the natural world alone in the dark night, or when you have opened the door to your heart with a serious attitude and feel the outpouring of your original mind as you behold nature, you will feel that nature exists for you. You will experience deeply that the infinitely large world of the heavenly bodies exists for your sake. If you then bow your head and pray, "Father, thank You," you will offer a more profound prayer than any you may offer based on your personal feelings.
Although we call God "our Father," we merely thought that this Father protects us. We did not know our Father was so gigantic, great and all-encompassing. We have to realize clearly, in the depth of our hearts, that this Father has been working hard to elevate us and build a father-son relationship of heart with us throughout the many thousands of years since the creation of the universe.
When you come to sincerely feel this in your innermost heart, you can use the words "great" and "gigantic" for describing this Father alone and no other. This is how great and immense He is. If we were to praise Him with such words as "great," "amazing" and "dignified," He is so great that there is no other being worthy of being portrayed by the same words. You have to understand that we have been worshipping this Father and that this Father has been protecting us.
Why has our human desire been so small until now? Why has our point of view been so narrow? Why have our feelings been so wicked? We can only lament over ourselves.
If in your life of devotion you have never had the experience of entering this state and feeling this emotion about the world of ideology, bowing your heads and shedding tears, calling out "Father" to the Holy One who is protecting us, then even if you understand our goal of attaining dominion over the natural world, you cannot shoulder the responsibility to accomplish it.
Jesus said, "For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?" (Matthew 16:26) What does it mean that our insignificant and unworthy selves are more valuable than anything in the creation? It is not because we have the most beautiful appearance or shape; it is not because we are so great. It is only because of the fact that we alone can connect to the love which flows internally from the world of the ideal of the creation. That is why we are precious.
No matter how vast the heavens may be, no matter how beautiful nature may be, they can at most give inspiration and stimulation to God. They cannot grasp the Father's heart of creation and bring Him joy by manifesting that heart. The things of creation cannot grasp the entire stream of the creative heart and respond to it in kind. No other being in the universe, only human beings, who have been blessed with dominion over the universe can do this. For this reason, God needs human beings. If you take the heart out of human beings, their value is no longer greater than that of all things.
What is true for our heart is also true for our actions. What must we do to establish the ideology and manifest it as beauty, love and goodness before the heart of God, who created the universe? We have to understand that before our path lies a relationship of the heart which is more lofty than any self-centered desire, hope, joy or feelings.
What Human Beings Must Ultimately Pursue
Though a person may have claimed, "I am happy, successful and a great victor," there still remains a far greater happiness which has never been attained by anyone. We must understand that no matter how successful or wealthy one may boast about being, there still remains far greater success and far greater wealth which have never been attained by anyone.
In the last days of history, today, Heaven is searching for us, and we are seeking Heaven. We can imagine how great is the happiness we do not know, how great the success we can achieve. We can imagine that there is something about which we can sing in joy and boast proudly like no one in history.
What people rejoice over now is not complete happiness or full success. These are only transitory phenomena. Those who are intoxicated with them are truly pitiful.
Jesus said, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?" (Matthew 16:26) The life he referred to is not life inside the realm of the fall. What is that life? It is the life which connects us directly to the life of the Creator. We must understand that Jesus' words refer to the precious human life which can link with God's original love and the love of the original nature.
In our life, we should not boast about happiness which is centered on ourselves, because we are walking a path of sorrow due to the fall. Those who do will fade away. Those who boast of happiness which is founded upon their people, or this world in which we live, also will fade away. Even if one advocates some ideology, if one is fighting for the sake of an ideology centered on his nation or this earthly world, he will also fade away.
If there is Heaven, we must realize how we stand in the middle of a progressing history. We must halt in our steps and reflect again. Who is the Master who governs our lives? We want to be happy, yet who is the Master who can govern our joyful feelings? We want to move toward certain goals and become successful, yet who is the Master of those successes? This Master is not our teacher or some great ideology in which we believe, nor is it a religion. When we consider this, we must stop and think whether there is someone who is protecting us with the true heart which brings us true ideology, happiness and success.
No matter how happy you may be, if your joy does not have any connection with the world, how can your accomplishments make any contribution to the 6,000 years of human history or the eternal history of the universe? Even if a person has made great contributions to his nation, he can be considered a patriot only when he made the contributions for everyone's sake, not merely for his own.
History is moving forward in a serious manner. We must stop and think who is our Lord, whom we wish to be governed by, whom we want to serve in our hearts, and for whom we want to lead our lives. This is the problem.
Why is not possible for you to live happily for your own sake, even if you wanted? If you reflect on this within your living environment, you should stop and ask who is the beloved Master of ideology, who is trying to bring blessings to humanity, and who is our Master who controls the causes of true happiness and steers the course of our history?
The Direction and Driving Force of History
You may not be so well aware of this fact, but history is moving toward some destination. It is ceaselessly flowing toward the one unified world of the ideal. This is not an arrangement made by human beings or something human beings have accomplished. This flow moves forcefully in spite of our ignorance of it. Since it has the power to surround us, move our minds, and steer the course of our nation and world, and since we are on our way toward the world of our destination, we cannot help being a part of this great procession. You should reflect once more upon your being subject to this unalterable fate.
In this flow, where is our path heading? Is it to the left or the right? Is it vertical or horizontal? When we consider this flow, we find that we cannot boast about any self-centered success. The same thing holds true, even if we are delighted in the great world of the arts.
A person has value as the subject in sight of the entire universe in a reciprocal relationship with it. Therefore, until we can achieve the kind of success of which we can boast in the presence of the creation, there is no way we can alter that flow of the heart. The path we must walk is one. We set out from this amazing and great world of relationships and pass through a world of relationships before arriving at our destination. There we can fully manifest our original value and proudly stand in the presence of the Creator. Hence, we must understand that in their innermost hearts human beings long to be such victors and attain such joy and freedom.
Religions and the arts have emerged to guide people. They have been dealing with the realm of our emotion. They have been expanding the realms of emotion from the individual level to the family level, the national level, the world level, and the universal level. This is the direction the arts of the past have pursued.
The arts, culture and literature exist to connect us with the natural world in our hearts and to guide us to the world of emotion and thought. Science has been helping us relate with our external living environment through its external laws. The path of science is more cold-hearted the more one pursues it, while the path of the arts and literature is an increasingly painful path the more one treads upon it. Despite this, everything has been moving toward the one ideal.
What is religion? Even though science, the arts and culture have made contributions to our world and have broadened our emotions, they could not connect our realm of emotions to the eternal world. They could not connect us to the world of original, heavenly emotions. Religion emerged to shoulder the responsibility for this internal world of emotions.
Religion represents the internal aspects of the arts and culture. Religions guide people to worship the invisible Lord, whom artists and authors cannot imagine. They allow people to be moved by the inspirations of beauty the invisible Lord gives them.
There will come a time when religions, which were divided into many denominations and sects, will come together. This will not occur based on the framework of religions or the arts, but through those of you who work to bring it to pass. Ladies and gentlemen, "I" am a being. If there is a religious doctrine which understands this concept well, it can pierce to the heart of the matter and lay a foundation of the heart which can connect with heavenly love. No matter how beautiful and stimulating a work of art may be, if it cannot connect with the religious spheres, history will shove it aside as a failure and expel it from the earth.
The Place of Rest Where the Greatest Blessings Are Given
We should be seeking the self, and religions have made considerable contributions throughout the periods of history. There is no true progress in the world of emotions. Why? It cannot make progress because it has replaced the world of the heart. There was no progress thousands of years ago nor will there be much many millions of years from now. There is no progress in the realm of emotions through which parents can love children, husbands and wives can love each other, and relatives and kinsmen can love each other. This is because one can represent the whole, perfection and happiness of the whole based on heart alone.
Where can one find the greatest happiness and peace in life? Since God is our Subject, it is the place where we can assert that we are His children, where we can call Him "our Father" and He can call us "His children." When such a movement emerges on the earth based on love, the world will become a joyful place from that moment forth, and it will be the world of the greatest accomplishments sought by humanity.
This is why religious people have all pursued goodness and have tried to satisfy their desire for goodness. When Jesus came to the earth he called God "Father" and attested that he was one with Him. There is no one who has announced anything greater than this in the whole of human history. Jesus referred to humanity as his bride and friends. He called them his people and his disciples.
Jesus pointed out all the factors which can stimulate and move every human emotion and asserted his value as the Lord. No founder of religion in history has made such an announcement. When Jesus was looking at all things, he did so with a heart of love. When he was relating with historical figures, he did not relate with them horizontally but with a heart deeply concerned about history. Yet conflict arose. We must understand that such contradiction is caused by the fact that this world is fallen.
Jesus said, "Love me more than you love anyone else." These words were a radical and revolutionary pronouncement to the world in which people had emotional bonds and social relationships. Why? When Jesus looked upon the people with the heart of love that flowed deep within him, when he saw them from this standpoint of being connected to heaven and earth as well as to the heart of every person and the heart of God the Creator, he realized that the love people had shared before then could not be recognized by Heaven as true. This is why he spoke those words.
Since Jesus made such radical pronouncements, everyone who came before him turned out to be his enemy. Thus, the path Jesus walked was a sorrowful one; yet, no one understood his sorrowful heart. No one understood the sorrow he felt when he was nailed to the cross and shed blood in the presence of his enemies at Calgary. Moreover, no one knew the joyful heart Jesus felt, one full of hopes and wishes. Nonetheless, Jesus thought about how God was feeling immeasurable sorrow as He looked upon the fallen people.
God's hopes were unlimited after He created the universe. If God truly lamented over the fall of human beings and regretted ever having created them, His sorrow must be so deep that we can never in a million years imagine its intensity. On the other hand, we also have to understand that before God's heart was stained with crushing sorrow, it was full of infinite joy, longing for human beings.
Therefore, Jesus decided that he was not going to be crushed by the weight of his deep sorrow, but would overcome it and seek limitless joy. How was Jesus able to hold onto this heart and fight? Even when Jesus was living an unspeakably miserable life and was kicked out of Joseph's family, he comforted himself with the knowledge that his situation was not the most sorrowful one. Even when he was persecuted by his nation and condemned as a cult leader by his religion, he knew that greater sorrow than his existed. When he was betrayed by his beloved disciples, he knew it could be worse.
Because Jesus understood, even when he was dying on the cross, that there was a more sorrowful situation than the one he was suffering through, he was able to pray for his enemies. At that moment, Jesus realized that there was a heart which grieved even more than he did and which had suffered through greater sorrows in history.
To Become Brave Soldiers Who Seek the Heart of God
Why did God not abandon the world, even as He was forsaking Jesus? Why did He allow Jesus to be hung on the cross, yet did not forsake his enemies? It was to show that there was even greater sorrow than Jesus' death.
We fallen people must seek the infinite love of Heaven and experience His historical heart as our reality. He has protected us and labored for our sake. We must emerge victorious before God. When you look at society, you will find that it is not a joyful world. Human history is a history of sorrow. Because human history did not begin in joy, but in grief, human history has become a history of sorrow.
When you look at a person weeping painfully over his grief, you probably feel sympathy toward him. However, do not sympathize with an individual's grief or rejoice over your situation. Our grief transcends the individual level and is connected to the family level, the national level, the world level, and even to the level of Heaven.
You commonly weep and grieve over your misfortunes, difficulties and sorrows. Yet there is a sorrow which exceeds your individual grief in your family, society, nation, the world and the universe.
To become brave soldiers who seek the heart of Heaven, we must feel not only our sorrow but sorrow at the highest level. We should reflect upon whether the persecution, betrayal and grief we suffer in our life are for the sake of the ultimate goal, our pursuit of Heaven's love. There is grief which surpasses any sorrow felt in human relationships. If the Creator is great and lofty, His ideals and goodness are also great and lofty. Yet in place of this great and lofty ideal and goodness, sorrow has become the object of God's heart.
When you seek heavenly love, you are to grieve and weep, but you are not to do so selfishly. You are not to bear fruit for your sake. Such people will be bound to themselves and will perish. Those who cling to their families will decline while holding onto their families, and those who cling to their nation will fall with their nation. Those who cling to the world will perish with the world.
What then must we cling to when we cry? We must cling to Heaven's love. We should feel God's sorrow as our sorrow and feel God's difficulties as our own. Because we are fallen people, because we have to shoulder the sorrowful course of history and walk toward Golgotha, we are not to stop at the sorrows we feel today. That is not the end.
Jesus, who understood this, had no problem praying for his enemies. He was determined that, even if he were to encounter more sorrowful trials, he would prevail and complete his responsibility as Heaven's son. Therefore, Jesus could step over the hill of death, forgive his enemies on the cross, and overcome death. We must understand this.
What path does religion walk? Although God established religions and gave human beings something precious, they could not walk this precious path but had to suffer difficulties and grief.
For Whom Do I Exist?
No scripture reveals God's labor and grief of the 6,000 years. However, scriptures extensively elaborate on goodness and the land of blessing where we can live.
Why did God take this approach? It is because God loves us. Because Heaven loves us, He has sought us in this manner. It can be said of our path toward God that joy cannot be attained instantly. Joy can be attained only after we go through the path of sorrow.
If someone on earth longs for the Kingdom of Heaven and longs to become a true son or daughter of Heaven, he should raise his hands and pray in tears, "Please let me shed God's tears of the 6,000 years in my lifetime." He must offer his life and risk heaven, earth and all created things as he cries out.
He who discovers that the Father cannot be found in a good, beautiful, precious, proud and glorious place, but is in a state of deep sorrow will become the master of goodness. You have to understand that such a person can become a true son or daughter of God.
If Heaven had eyes and shed tears, He would have shed more tears than all the waters of all lakes put together, so much that there would be no place in heaven and earth which could contain the tears. Hence, one who has deeply experienced the grief of God will look upon a mountain and feel that it is full of God's labor and anguish. As he beholds an ocean, he will feel that it is God's tears. As he looks upon the trees and plants, he will feel that they are God's concerns. When we behold the sight of the infinitely vast cosmos, we may find all its phenomena beautiful, but we must understand that they are a source of God's sorrow because they have not yet come into a direct relationship with human beings. God will look for sons and daughters who can sense this and call out to Him with this heart of understanding.
A person who is worthy to be called a son of true filial piety is not someone who shares joy with the Father when He is happy. Such a person does not demonstrate true filial piety. Only when someone can shoulder the sorrow and difficulties of his Father can it be said that he has demonstrated true filial piety.
The same holds true for Heaven. Because this is a fallen world where relationships of the heart cannot bear fruit in joy, because we human beings suffer through grief and the vicissitudes of life, even when our hands swell and our bodies become exhausted, we must keep our determination to run toward Heaven. You must understand that the moment you experience a sorrow so deep you cannot share it with anyone on earth and call out, "Father!" is the moment when you can be re- connected to the lost love of Heaven. The moment sorrow disappears from our hearts and we can sing in joy and peace is the moment Heaven will descend, smile and delightfully raise His hands and bless us as His children.
Fallen people must go. They must halt in their steps and take a new course of sorrow. The people should repent who did not understand that Heaven has suffered grief for 6,000 years to protect human beings. They must repent over their family, nation and world.
Unless we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who was concerned about God's suffering, and who prayed for his enemies even when he was crossing the Golgotha of death, we cannot feel the toilsome and grieving heart of God while we are on the earth. Unless we alleviate the sorrow found deep inside God, there is no way for the eternal joy, goodness and happiness lying inside God to forge any relationship with people living on earth.
We must reflect again upon our position today. You must have shed many tears. Yet, to what did all your tears amount? Please reflect critically upon yourself. Your hands are actively moving to help you stay alive. However, for whose sake do they move? For whose sake are you so desperately taking steps? For whom do your minds and bodies long? You must stop and reflect upon this point. You must then realize that you live amid the grief of history and that you must seek the one day of hope. Making a new determination, you are to evaluate your past critically. You must lament over the fact that you have not met God's expectations and have failed to make a relationship with Him.
Are you always going to feel, "I am ashamed to stand before my family, nation and world?" If such feelings spring forth from the depth of your heart, you will shed tears when you face your family, your nation, the world and God. If you do not experience this in your lifetime, you cannot penetrate through the dark barrier in God's heart to find the goodness, joy and happiness which is hidden at the highest realm.
We must now analyze for whom we are leading our lives and understand the One who protects us. We must behold the One who is protecting us, regardless of whether we are aware of it, the One who protects us even as we are going through all kinds of difficulties.