For Whom Are We Living?
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
April 7, 1957
John 14:1-20
Human beings cannot live without creating relationships with other people. An individual exists because his mind and body are in a relationship and are in the position to live for the sake of the other. This altruism must develop further to care for the family, people, society and the nation. Furthermore, even the universe is to lead a life of altruism. In religious terms, this kind of altruistic life is a life lived for the sake of God.
Centering on yourself, you must find the standard that will enable you to care for others in horizontal relationships. Then, creating three- dimensional relationships, you must find the standard that will enable you to live for the sake of the one center. After that, you must lead a life that can connect with the one center on the levels of the family, nation, world, and universe. Without this kind of central standard of altruism, we human beings cannot obtain satisfaction and happiness.
You must find that central standard of altruism which can be responsible for history, which possesses the value of the whole, and which pursues the universe. You must do this in order to build a relationship of life. By connecting with the root of power centering on love, you must absorb infinitely and be absorbed infinitely. Furthermore, you must be able to receive validation of this from the entire environment that surrounds you.
Throughout the length of history, human beings have been searching for an eternal and unchanging someone upon whom they can depend. They want to entrust themselves to him, and experience the love of God for eternity through him. They want to praise that love. Similarly, human beings are seeking the one master who can eternally vouch for them before all things of the universe.
That one master is none other than the master of eternal love, life, and hope. Moreover, that master is a being of altruism. He is the representative hero of living for the sake of others.
That master of altruism must be able to realize both the desires of the mind and the desires of the body. He must be able to take responsibility for and represent history and universal wholeness. If you have not found this kind of master and have not united your ideals with his, and if you have not materialized the environment in which you can serve him and live with him and share joy with him on the universal level, then you will not be able to free yourself from the universal fight and fear which will unfold in the last days. These will unfold on the three-dimensional level.
Human beings must seek after this eternal, central standard which they lost because of the fall. Conflict is inevitable in the course of restoration which pursues this standard. This conflict, which began on the individual level, has been expanding to the family, national, and world levels. After concluding this horizontal fight on earth, there will come a time of conflict in three dimensions that will even involve the spirit world. All the human beings who encounter that time must find the standard of true love, true life, and true hope. Based on that, they must vanquish that period of chaos and fear. If this is not accomplished and we cannot present before all things the condition that resides in the one master of love, life, and hope, then human beings will not be able to avoid the time of judgment.
In the near future, we will meet the end of history, when we must divide left from right and good from evil. What must we do at such a time? If we cannot find the one master who is the standard for separating good from evil and left from right, we will not escape judgment. Not only must we divide good and evil according to his standard, we must also carry on all tasks centering on him. If we cannot purify our spiritual and physical selves through him, then there is absolutely no way we can be excused from the judgment of the last days.
All the people of history have hoped for the one master who will become the standard of reference for all values. Now this hope has arrived before our eyes. Therefore, centering upon that one master, we must put forth before history all our accomplishments, having fulfilled all of our responsibilities, in order to satisfy the hope of all people. Going one step further, we must remove the grief of Heaven.
The course of God's dispensation of restoration and human history intersect centering on one being. That point of intersection expands from individuals to the nation, to the world, and goes on to the universe. Therefore, you must understand that each of your lives represents the universe.
For six thousand years, God has been seeking substantial beings who can represent His internal heart and go beyond the point of intersection. However, if God cannot find that kind of person and cannot manifest His internal heart and His wishes through that one person, God will always remain in the position of transcendence and will not be able to create a substantial relationship with human beings at all.
Originally, human beings were supposed to connect with that one center of altruism and begin their life. However, because of the fall, they could not begin their lives out of altruism but instead began them out of selfishness. It came to be that they always tried to build their relationships centered on self-centered thoughts.
Now then, we who are marching toward the goal of eternal freedom and peace must cast aside the fallen nature which tries to conclude every affair to our own benefit. Transcending that, we must be able to live for other people first. By doing so, everything will make a reciprocal relationship of service and circle around for eternity.
In order for Jesus's divine and human nature to substantially manifest themselves, we must also build an altruistic relationship of reciprocity with all existing beings in the same way that all things exist in reciprocal relationships. Moreover, that relationship must exceed the individual to expand out toward the family, nation, world, and the universe. Eventually, all such comprehensive relationships must be built for the sake of that one central being.
In this way, by offering our love, life, and truth before that eternal and unchanging center, we must forge bonds with his love, life and truth, which is the core of his value. We must inherit them and experience them.
That one being, that master, is none other than the person who is trying to connect with us by uniting disparate things into oneness: the humanistic hope and the heavenly hope, the historical life and the dispensational life, the historical love and the dispensational love. This person is the Lord of the Second Advent.
That person has been seeking for you for 6,000 years. In order to stand before him, you must attain qualifications in regards to truth, life, and love. You must not take away from his dignity. You must be able to connect everything in the universe in this relationship.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." In order for you yourself to become the way, the truth, and the life, you must embrace the whole universe and bring harmony to it.
The Lord to come is the person who will embrace everything from the individual, the family, the society, religious groups, the nations, the world, and so forth and stand before Heaven. He will emerge with unlimited hope and value which we cannot even imagine. Therefore, as an unchanging being, you must make the determination to act on behalf of the universal dispensation and take responsibility for it. You must learn how to fight with Satan. This is the only way you can confidently meet him in the last days. That person is the essence of our human love, life, and truth. We can stand before all things only if we also can represent the love, life, and truth.
What are your lives like, you who are to take up this kind of position? Are there any among you who are concerned about things centering on yourselves? There will surely come a time when such people will break apart. You must become people who can use the world as a foothold and live for the sake of everything and be happy even after abandoning everything.
Do you have anything that you can offer to him? You must understand that even your bodies can be absorbed into the universe. You must understand that God wishes that you will voluntarily offer yourselves to him with joyful hearts. This is also what all things desire.
If you cannot do this, then even if you live for thousands of years, you won't be able to build a relationship of love with all created things. After forgetting yourself completely, you must be happy that you are possessing the world. God hopes for the one person who can be as happy as if he possessed the whole even when he possesses only a part, realizing that something is both a part of the whole and the representative of the whole.
Human life on earth has been full of bloodshed. In other words, there was never a time when peace was realized on earth. However, if you connect with him and realize the value of that love, life, and truth, you will fight at the risk of your life. That time is the period of revolution without bloodshed; it is the time when we can enjoy eternal, universal peace. In order to usher in that time, you must be able to offer everything.
Because it is the principle of creation that things which are empty will be filled up again, without fail, if you yourself offer your body, then something will fill in that vacuum. Humanity has been ignorant of this fact until today. Jesus was able to establish the standard of salvation through the cross in the vacuum created by offering his body.