Let Us Be Strong and Bold and Restore the Lost Land
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
June 23, 1957
Joshua 1:19
Prayer
Father, You worked hard to choose and raise the Israelites. When reflecting upon Your earnest heart that ordered them to fulfill Your will, we feel today that we must fully accomplish the responsibility of the Christians, who must fulfill the will of the Father on behalf of the Israelites.
Please allow us to learn how to attend You, You who have been working hard throughout the long history. Let us understand Your situation, in which You have been fighting Satan with concern for us. Please allow us to understand the heart of the Father, who is concerned with embracing the chosen sons and daughters as the hope of the future and bringing them to glory.
The reason we exist today is not based upon our own will; nor does the glory we enjoy nor the joy that we are experiencing before You due to our toil. Rather, it is due to Your grace endowed upon us with humility, You who have been working throughout the thousands of years of history. What would we have to be proud of before all humankind? Would there be anyone among us who can command the universe with the truth? Please allow us to understand that it is not what we are asked to take responsibility for.
Please allow us to become sons and daughters who can manifest the will of Heaven completely on behalf of all humankind, while representing the power of the Father's grace. I sincerely wish for and want this to be done.
Are there any groups of people, who desire to fulfill Your will, who understand You and who wish to be glorified through humankind? Such groups of people could be a base that You would be able to bless. They could become a foundation of glory to bless all of the universe. Please guide us to realize this. I sincerely wish for and want this to be done.
Please allow us not to find ourselves today only as individuals, but to become sons and daughters who would not be ashamed of themselves before the heavenly will, representing history, the entire universe, and the future world. By so doing, allow them to be proud of themselves with glorious joy. Father, I sincerely wish for and want this to be done.
Father, Your sons and daughters who are gathered here, are they honest with You? Did they willingly, of their own accord, bow down before Your altar? Are they prepared to sacrifice and offer themselves so that they can indemnify the historical sins? Have these children the integrity and character to follow Jesus, who climbed Golgotha carrying the cross? Can they offer themselves to be responsible for the sins and crimes of reality? Have they brought the result of a glorious victory from the fights fought on Your behalf against Satan for the sake of the glorious future?
Father, please allow them to be such sons and daughters, and sing glory to You. Please allow them to become loyal and filial children who can follow you for this will. I sincerely wish for and want this to be done.
Now, as You granted us this day, please look at us with compassion. Do not desert us, who have gathered for Your will. Please bless many denominations on behalf of this pitiful people, and bless the people and their altars which have lost the center.
Please grant the grace of Your compassion upon people and their altars, who do not know where the flame of life is burning. Please bless humankind. Please allow a new blessing and a new flame to appear quickly upon this land and people. I sincerely wish for and want this to be done.
Father, please remove the tendency that places weight on human reasoning, and correct all human-centered ideology. Please allow us to become people of character who uphold a God-centered ideology, who establish heavenly principles and ethics by becoming sons and daughters who can reverently attend the heavenly will, be loved by You, and undertake the duty of the chief priests. Through this, please allow us to rise on behalf of this people. Also, please allow us to come forward on behalf of the many churches. My beloved Father, I sincerely wish for and want this to be done. Please allow us to cleanse all of the wrong doings committed during the past week, and allow this time to be an opportunity when we can be immersed in Your new words and grace and in Your profound will and love which is bestowed upon us. Please allow us be proud of You before all of the creation and bow down to You in glory. I sincerely request that this be done.
Wishing that you had dominion over the entire service from the beginning to the end, I pray this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The topic of the speech that I would like to reflect upon with you is, "Let Us Be Strong and Bold and Restore the Lost Land."
The Result of the Human Fall and the Purpose of the Providence of Restoration
The original people would not have needed to long for the blessed land. The garden that God created was to be the blessed land, and it was the garden of beauty that humans could enjoy for eternity. However, because humans disobeyed the heavenly principles established by God, they came to grief, and the blessed land where they should have lived became a mere hope to them. We know all about this.
If God created all things, He would have had an ideal for the creation. If the ideal had been actually realized, not only the Creator but also His created beings could have sung joyful songs in the garden. Then humans also could have sung of their joy and been grateful for this. Due to the human fall, all of this came to have nothing to do with human beings. Further, all things created as the symbol of beauty before God and humans had to undergo a long history of lamentation until the present. They still cannot return glory and appreciation to God.
God has a purpose for creating all things and is responsible for fulfilling the purpose of creation. Thus, God must fulfill His will. Otherwise, God's ideal of creation and the purpose of the providence of restoration cannot be realized as the will to introduce the world of joy. The people living on this earth cannot feel the value of life; nor can the whole universe.
Consequently, to fulfill the purpose of creation, God has been leading a dispensation in order for humans to return to this purpose. You are well aware that this is the long history of 6,000 years of restoration. When Adam and Eve fell, God regretted and lamented over creating them. You should feel to the bone that the lamentation of God began from your ancestors.
Because God is lamenting over it, all the created beings cannot rejoice, even if they desire to. Because the center of the creation is saddened, all the creation is also saddened. Then what would be the purpose of God's unfolding the dispensation? Having set up the will, He wishes that will to be fulfilled. That will is to find someone who can liberate Him, who is sorrowful and grieving because of His grief and lamentation. This is the unifying point of the providence of restoration.
To find the person who can alleviate God's lamentation, that is, the one person who can stop the human history of sin that caused lamentation to God throughout the 6,000 years of long history and cleanse the sinful history, is the purpose of the providence of restoration. To find one original person who can represent this history is the purpose of the providence of restoration. You should clearly understand this.
When you come before God, you need to desire to be forgiven. You also need to ask for the grace of forgiveness for the family, the nation, and the world. Yet we should transcend the level of begging God to liberate us from our personal grief and lamentation and should realize that we need to appeal to God to alleviate His profound grief, deeply immersed in His heart, which started at the beginning of human history and was caused by their wrongdoing.
Then who will be the one who makes us long for the garden of hope, the garden of restoration, and to enter the garden and return glory to God on behalf of the creation? That person will be the one who will volunteer to become an offering of sacrifice to indemnify to God all the sins committed by human beings. Further, this person will be the one who is willing to indemnify all human historical sins until the present and take responsibility for all the sins of the historical figures in human ancestry that led God to work for 6,000 years. He must thus say: "Father, please entrust all the hopes and lamentations that You could not express upon me. I will be the one who can fulfill all of Your hopes and eliminate all of Your lamentations." We should know that God has been looking forward to seeing a person on earth who can replace Adam, the human ancestor, who should have substantialized God's joy, ideal and glory.
Our fate is to free ourselves from the history of sin. Thus you should understand that God has been leading the dispensation of restoration with the wish of seeing sons and daughters who can deserve to be living sacrificial offerings. Such never existed throughout history who can say, "Father, through this, please be freed from all the grief and pain, and rejoice from today on."
The Purpose of Establishing Central Figures and Their Failures
When reflecting on God's providence of restoration, God established one person, Noah, after having endured a long 1,600 years since the fall of Adam and Eve. God chose Noah and saved him and his family. Further, He attempted to put him in the position of a chief priest, as a representative of humanity. This was God's will. If Noah had understood the endeavor of God, who had worked for 1,600 years to establish him and had empathized with His sorrow, and if eight members of his family had felt the heart of God, there would not have been grief caused by the mistake of Ham.
Some people think that salvation is completed by being free from personal lamentations and pain, but it is not true. We should cleanse our own individual sins while also cleansing the universal sin. After pulling out many nails of lamentation from deep in the heart of God, we should be able to say, "Father, please rest in peace! God who has been leading the dispensation of restoration until the present, please be relieved from the heart-breaking grief. Hallelujah! Amen." God has been waiting for such a victor to come to earth ever since the time of Moses.
When Noah's family was saved from the flood judgment, they should have led a life of gratitude, but they continued their habitual life. We who came forth after being called by the heavenly principle can also easily commit the same mistake. Thus we should not be the kind of person who will repeat the habitual life. If Noah had faced God, who had saved him and his family, with a constantly renewed heart, had felt God's heart of wishing for the arrival of a day when all humanity possessed the same kind of heart, and had established a life of absolute faith before God, he would not have committed the mistake of the second fall. Four hundred years after the failure of Noah's family, God established Abraham, but he also failed. Through the condition of offering Isaac, finally during the generation of Jacob, the 21-year course of Jacob to realize the blessing came about.
Ladies and gentlemen, please try to figure out Jacob's situation in which with the heart of unknown sorrow, he lived the life of a servant as a shepherd in the land of Haran for 21 years. The purpose of God's calling Jacob was to complete the will of the blessing promised to Abraham. Taking it one step further, it was to liberate the lamentations of grief between God and humans. The chosen people did not know this.
By returning from the 21-year course in Haran, Jacob established the standard of restoring one generation. From that standard, a victorious foundation where God's inner heart could be liberated was fulfilled. However, due to the failure of Abraham, Jacob's descendants had to suffer in Egypt for 400 years.
The Mission of Moses and Jesus and the Faithlessness of the Israelites
We should understand that after having established the will, God worked vigorously for 2,000 years and restored one person, Jacob. After Jacob, through the course of 400 years, God established Moses, a central person on the level of the restoration of a people from the standard of restoring one generation by Jacob. Thus Moses was restored to be the fruit of God's entire dispensation, conducted through a long period. Consequently, if Moses fulfilled his responsibility, the grief embedded in not only the human heart but also in God's heart was to be relieved. Under such conditional circumstances, Moses was chosen to be the representative of the people.
As the fruit of God's entire dispensation, Moses was the one who could not be substituted for by all the people. Chosen as such, Moses was in a position in which he himself was responsible for indemnifying the historical grudge, grievance and sorrow of the people.
That is the reason why during the forty years of life in the palace and the forty years of life in Midian, a total of eighty years of life, Moses did not lose his consciousness of the chosen people of Israel, inherited from the ancestors. He also maintained unchanging fidelity with all his heart.
Moses maintained the integrity to be related only to God's will even while when he was fighting the Pharaoh. Moses also possessed all the qualifications that could not be replaced by all the people and could fight against Satan's side. Because the Israelites did not become the kind of people who could replace Moses, God hardened the heart of the Pharaoh several times. You must know this.
Then what kind of hearts should the Israelites have had toward Moses? They should have accepted him as the one central person who was established at the price of God's 2,000 years of work and for all the sacrifice made for those thousands of years made by their ancestors.
Because the Israelites did not understand that God found Moses at the sacrifice of everything, a crowd of 600,000 people had to die in the wilderness. If they had known the value of Moses not merely as an individual, but as the one who was chosen as the representative of the nation or all humanity, and had united with him, the people would not have fallen down in the wilderness.
Since the time of Moses, throughout many thousands of years, the purpose of many prophets coming to the earth, even Jesus' coming to the earth on behalf of the world was to take over the labors and lamentations of God, human beings, and the creation. However, who knew that Jesus was the conditional being who came to the earth as the representative of the world? Who knew that Jesus made a triumphant condition against Satan on behalf of God, who had been lamenting during the past 4,000 years? No one understood this.
Then whom should you find today? You should find one person who can liberate the lamentations of God, human beings, and the creation, and you should unite with that person. No hope can be found in you nor can God's glory be found in you, if you do not do that.
Jesus is the one who came with such a mission, but how were the Israelites, the Jewish religious group of people who had been prepared for 4,000 years through God's constant endeavor and toil? You should understand that those who claimed themselves to be living for God, calling to God, were faithless to the Messiah, the central person who came to liberate humankind from the lamentations of heaven and earth. They rebelled against him.
Had they realized that they were the people who should have known God's sorrowful history of the dispensation, they would not have crucified Jesus. Further, when Jesus was hanging on the cross, the thief to his right should not have witnessed to Jesus as the son of God. The saints who were watching the scene should have done so instead, and thus saved his life. However, because there was no disciple of his who could take such responsibility then, we must now take over the mission.
Until the present, God has been working to send one person on earth who could free the lamentations of God and human beings. Human beings have been longing for the arrival of such a person. This is the providence of God and human history as well.
When viewed from this missionary perspective, it can be understood that Moses was destined to lead the Israelites from Egypt into the land of Canaan and destroy the seven tribes of Canaan. On that foundation on the level of a people, Jesus came to fulfill the purpose of the dispensation for the restoration of the world.
Today such a will of Jesus is revealed even in the land of the desert, the wilderness, or the satanic world, as in the palace of the Pharaoh. Yet because the Israelites could not continue to follow Moses as their leader, although they were to cross the Jordan River with Moses with God's mighty power, destroy the seven tribes in the land of Canaan and build the kingdom of Heaven there, they failed to do so. Thus, they had to remain in the land of the wilderness. Similarly, even today, those who do not fulfill a responsibility like that of Jacob and thus do not build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, cannot enter the land of Canaan but must remain in the wilderness. This is what Christians do not realize.
Then what was the condition of resentment that led to a crowd of 1,600 Israelites in the course of wilderness being separated from Moses? You should not be ignorant of this today. It is because among the Israelites, there was a group of people who longed for the life in the bosom of the enemy in Egypt. They attempted to block Moses' path of heavenly destiny.
At first, when the 600,000 Israelites under the leadership of Moses fought Amalek, they won as Moses raised his hand, and the tide turned against them when he put his hand down. Thus, they were united with him. Later, they changed.
The Sufferings and Temptations of Moses and Jesus
From the historical viewpoint, people who desired to attend God first had to fight an invisible Satan and next a visible Satan. Then they engaged in a battle with poverty due to a lack of material. Consequently, Jesus was given a temptation through bread on the personal level; next he was given a temptation through the temple on the environmental level; thirdly, he was given a symbolic temptation on the world level while standing on the top of the mountain. Such events took place based upon the principle of the struggles between good and evil.
Then what kind of heart did Moses keep in the attendance of God? He had the heart to attend God, to fight the enemy Amalek tribe in the wilderness, to fight starvation, and the courage to step forward fearlessly at the risk of his death. Moses fought Satan by himself and fought hunger for a total of eighty years, during the first forty years of his life in the palace of the Pharaoh, and during the second forty years in the Midian wilderness. When he won the fights, God called him.
Moses was not the only person who went such a path. Jesus did, too. Consequently, Jesus himself underwent the temptations from Satan that symbolize the confrontation with Satan. First, to overcome himself, there was a forty-day fasting period in which he fought against hunger, making himself an offering. Next, there was the temptation, "Make this rock into bread," to pass through the temptation of material.
The reason Jesus had to go through this process was that of the fall, humans lost God, lost their position as a son and a daughter of God, and lost the creation. Thus, conditions were required to restore these.
Accordingly, also on a course that saints should walk, no matter the level, individual, a people, a nation, or the world, there are the temptations of Satan, who represents the world of evil. Also, instead of the glory as God's son or daughter, there is a course of the cross to be followed. Next, it is required to overcome the suffering of hunger caused by the loss of the creation to Satan.
The Israelites in the palace of Pharaoh were united with Moses and won over the temptations from Satan, but when they were confronted with hunger while fighting Amalek in the wilderness, they came to resent Moses. Then where did this resentment against Moses derive from and why? If they had been born in the wilderness and had followed God' will while living there, they would not have resented Moses. However, the habits developed during the life of four hundred years in Egypt and the living environment blocked their life in the wilderness. You must keep this in mind today.
In other words, the Israelites depart out of belief in Moses, but they could not forget the previous life environment and could not abandon their previous lifestyle. Thus, they came to perish. It interfered with the path of Moses and it separated them from Moses.
Consequently, the second chosen people who are to fulfill the ideology for the restoration of the land of Canaan on the worldwide level are Christians throughout the world. They can represent Israel on the worldwide level, and they should be proud of being God's chosen people, even if they are faced with times of hardships like those of the first Israelites. At the same time, we should not follow the same footsteps as the Israelites, who perished due to their complaints and faithlessness when they were faced with starvation in the forty-year wilderness course and could not understand the viewpoint of the leader who came alone on behalf of the people.
Who destroyed the future of Jesus? They were the people who were chosen to fulfill the will of God on behalf of God, human history, and the whole. They should have led a life to fulfill God's will and set the standard of their life of faith based upon it, but they failed to do so. That is, as the Israelites who should have upheld Moses' will made him fall in the wilderness, the same people who should have upheld the will of Jesus made him die on the cross due to their faithlessness.
Consequently, Moses' will was transferred to Joshua and Caleb, and they led the people into the land of Canaan. Similarly, the representatives of Joshua and Caleb in the second Israel had to inherit the will of Jesus and enter the land of Canaan on the worldwide level along with the disciples of the second Israel and build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth in that land. This is the hope of Jesus, and the ideal of the Second Coming.
Thus today we who are called for the fulfillment of the will of God should understand the historical background of the providence and should never commit the same sins on the level of the people. You should not become the ones who will again walk the same sinful path that the Israelites walked.
The Lord of the Second Coming and the Mission of Christianity
Then what should we do? We should understand that the Lord who comes in the last days is coming to eliminate the conditions that caused God lamentation for 6,000 years and to fulfill the purpose of the faith of the many saints.
If the Israelites who departed with Moses at first understood that they had to abandon all their possessions, if they had only followed Moses, abandoning everything they had in the wilderness as well, they would not have been separated from him. We should know this.
Today, what are the first things that we should do while we are being prepared to receive the day of the second advent, longing for the ideal garden? It is to deeply understand that the Lord of the Second Coming is the fruit of the 6,000 years of hard work of God and our ancestors.
If he comes to the earth, what are we supposed to do? We should gladly offer everything in the world and be ready to serve him as the representative of human history, the being who can end the sinful history of humankind. He alone is the representative of God and all of humankind.
Unless Christians in the world have such a heart, they will face the same consequence of lamentations caused by the failure of Moses in the wilderness. Therefore we must become those who know how to toil for the sake of the Lord who is coming again.
Each of us in that position today should remember that, after the death of Moses, whose goal was to arrive at the land of Canaan, Joshua and Caleb became the successors of Moses' mission. We are the ones who are to inherit the historical mission of Joshua and Caleb. That is, we should become like Joshua, who made a condition of offering through which God's grief and lamentations of several thousand years could be liberated by leading a multitude of 1,600 people into the land of Canaan.
Unless we are determined to be like Joshua and Caleb today, uniting our people wandering in the wilderness, we cannot enter the blessed land of Canaan, nor can we complete the ideal temple. Since you have understood God's love and grief, you should have a different purpose in praying. Also, we should become the kind of person who can understand the heart of God, who left Moses and the faithless 600,000 Israelites in the wilderness and who through Joshua and Caleb, led the second generation into the land of Canaan.
What is the position that you have reached? You are in the position where you should lift the flag of judgment high, based upon the footsteps of 6,000 years during which our ancestors have been walking in hardships. You should take over the mission of Joshua and Caleb, who roared at the Israelites to cross the Jordan River.
Be Bold and Strong
If we say that we are willing to take on such a responsibility and mission, what would God emphasize to us? As God told to Joshua, who took over the mission of Moses in the wilderness, "Be bold and strong." He would assert us to be the same.
Now we should understand that we are in the wilderness, looking at the blessed land of Canaan on the worldwide level, with the hope to enter the land. We should maintain our mind and body like that of Joshua or Caleb.
Then how should today's Christians throughout the world live? They should appeal to Heaven so that someone like Joshua or Caleb will appear on the earth and lead Christianity today. During the time of the wilderness where the center was lost and chaos and confusion were prevalent, Christians should clearly understand that the time has come when someone like Joshua or Caleb should appear to resolve the problems and give direction to move forward. For this to be done, the denomination of each individual is not important. This is what we should understand.
In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 11, two olive trees are prophesied. What does this mean? Prior to the departure for the worldwide course of the restoration for the land of Canaan, it prophesies that someone like Joshua or Caleb will appear. As Joshua, who appeared on behalf of Moses, entered the land of Canaan, leading the Jewish people, today someone like Joshua or Caleb with the gospel of Jesus will appear and march forward into the new blessed land of Canaan on the worldwide level, leading the people of God.
Furthermore, just as the group of people who entered the land of Canaan with Joshua and Caleb destroyed the seven tribes of Canaan, you are also responsible for destroying Satan. We should understand this. You should become courageous heavenly warriors and be responsible for walking such a path. You should remember this well. Even if someone like Joshua or Caleb who speaks the new word appears at any place in the world, we should become the kind of person who can open our hearts, listen to the word, and live for God.
The path of Joshua and Caleb was full of adventures. Their path was a difficult pioneering one, one of battles. Wherever they went, there were paths to be pioneered. Sometimes on the individual level, other times on the level of the environment, they had to face courses in which they had to fight all kinds of tribulations.
When Moses was about to lead the Israelites into the blessed land of Canaan, Pharaoh attempted to kill Moses, and there were many people who were faithless among the Israelites and opposed him. They faced the same problems. God, who knew this well, said to Joshua and Caleb, "Be strong and bold." What does this mean? That means to transcend all the human conditions. For the same reason, Jesus was triumphant in overcoming all the human conditions through his three temptations. Accordingly, even 2,000 years later, today you should also be strong and bold in overcoming all the human conditions.
Joshua was placed in the position where he had to walk a path of victory until the last moment from the individual course of battle on behalf of Moses. Along with the words, "Be strong and bold," he was also advised, "Consider the individual whom you are dealing with to be an enemy, any people to be your enemy, and any land to be the land of the enemy." We should understand this clearly today.
Today if we stand in the same position of Joshua, we will also meet enemies wherever we go. The environment will also attack us. It will be the same with the people and the nation. However, if we who are chosen are united and become second Joshuas who fight until the end at the risk of our lives, if we become saints who can take responsibility for worldwide Christianity, following Jesus Christ at the risk of our lives, we can win any battles ahead of us. This is the reason God wants us to be strong and bold.
Then what should we do with ourselves? We who are in the position of being strong and bold should be able to see ourselves correctly. We should be able to judge ourselves if we have done something wrong. Also, let us not think that we have lived thirty or forty years of life. Nor let us think of ourselves for the present only.
The Significance of Human Existence and the Mission of Human Beings
Who then are we? We should understand that in order for me to exist today, God has been working hard for 6,000 years, going through worldwide battles. We were found through such endeavors of God. Thus, you should not forget the grace of God who has been nurturing you. Further, we should realize that we are offerings to God on His behalf. You should also understand is that in order for you to have come this far, there has been a path of sufferings and lamentations and grief for God that He could not express. He has been going through a path of difficult and rough battles, paying the price of sacrificial blood, shed by countless ancestors. Further, we should become sons and daughters who can feel this love of God, who has been toiling hard to save us.
Now, we should know to pray to God, "Please help us understand Your heart of 6,000 years ago and that of today. Please help us be Your representatives." We should be determined to be a sacrificial offering to God whether alive or dead. Thus we should be able to pray, "Since we are offered to You as a sacrifice, do whatever You desire with us."
Throughout many thousands of years, our ancestors have been building an altar of blood. Jesus died also as a sacrifice on the cross. After his death, Christians also have been building an altar of blood for 2,000 years. Therefore, we should understand that we come on the foundation of such altars. In that position, we can call God "Father," hear His voice, and appeal to the Father to save all humankind on His behalf.
We should also know the anxious heart and grief of God, who has been leading 6,000 years of the providence, and we should become the children who can comfort God. You should be able to figure out all matters like this on your own and demonstrate them in action.
Then what should we in this position do? To culminate God's dispensation of salvation, we should understand that we must observe the tradition established by our many ancestors. There is also the enemy, Satan, who is trying to destroy the conditions upon which God can operate. To overcome the enemy, we should be determined to become sons and daughters who would feel a sense of responsibility to mobilize even down to the tiniest cell in our body. If we call God from this standpoint, we will come to understand that He would not be God who had a relationship only with Moses. Nor is He the God who only had a relationship with the Israelites. He is the God who can be also with us. God is the one who created all things, who had the relationship with our ancestors throughout history, and who should have a relationship with "me." Especially, God was with Jesus when in the garden of Gethsemane, he came to a final decision to be offered as a sacrifice. The sacrificial spirit of Jesus, who loved all humankind, was bequeathed to the descendants as a tradition, and the revival of Christianity came about.
Then what should the saints who believe in the truth of Jesus, which replaces 4,000 years of history, do in the future? They should become sons and daughters of God, like heavenly soldiers who can save all humankind which is captured in the wire nets of Satan. Also, by correctly understanding God's will, we should not follow in the same footsteps as the Israelites who became the prey of Satan in the wilderness due to their inability to understand the will of God.
Further, we should take the fidelity of Moses, who until he could stand again before God, lived a sacrificial life for forty years in the wilderness, as the root of our faith. We should take after his strong and persistent nature that enabled him to petition to God for eighty days on behalf of Israel. Also, you should understand that you are a tribe of the Second Coming who should achieve the ideal of restoring the land of Canaan on the worldwide level. You are a representative of the second Israel.
Therefore, understanding this, you should be able to come forward and pledge, "Father, though I have to personally undergo all the battles that persisted during the past 6,000 years of history, I will overcome them." Toward the satanic tribe that governs the world, as a representative of the saints and sages who had to climb the hills of death to fulfill God's will during the 6,000 years of history, you should be able to shout, "I am a bomb. I will explode your hearts!" When viewed from this perspective, we should take the words of God to Joshua, "Be strong and bold," as our lesson. We should understand well from the principle that, because the Israelites could not understand the meaning of the words, even when they entered the land of Canaan, they had to pay more indemnity centered on the twelve Judges. Consequently, if we cannot fulfill the responsibility like the one given to Joshua today, the Lord who comes back to this earth to build the Kingdom of Heaven must walk a path of suffering along with you.
God's Hope for the Blessed Land
What will happen to you if you are triumphant in the battle against enemies at the risk of your life in strength and boldness, representing the 6,000 years of the dispensation of salvation for human beings? Then finally, we will meet a day when heaven and earth will be harmonized, and the aching hearts of our ancestors, who lamented over the shedding of blood for many thousands of years, will be liberated. The joy of the Creator will be manifested, thousands and thousand of saints will rejoice within the realm of God's eternal, unchanging love. So will it be for all humankind on earth. Further, God will be proud of you before Satan. Your ancestry will be also proud of you, and you will be proud before each other as brothers and sisters.
Therefore, among you, one person who can be praised, "Please love him since he is your son," should appear. If such a person does not appear with the truth on earth, the joy of human beings, spirit world, God, and Heaven and earth, cannot be fulfilled. You should deeply keep this in mind.
Today, after having cleansed the sinful history of 6,000 years filled with grief and pain, we must become the individuals who can say, "Dear Heaven, please rejoice with me. Please be liberated from the grief through me. Please forget the lamentations accumulated during the past 6,000 years and receive a day when You can finally smile for the first time since the creation." When we become such individuals who can also say, "Our ancestors in the spirit world, as Heaven is rejoicing, please rejoice with us," the land of Canaan on the worldwide level will be restored. Thus we should become the ones who can introduce God's love to all humankind, transferring the 6,000 years of grievous history caused by the fall to the satanic domain.
Without failure, only when we become such people can we represent Jesus Christ in the worldwide land of Canaan, represent the seventy disciples of Jesus, and thus become the sons and daughters whom God desires. Then we can create a family that God can rejoice in, be a person whom God can trust, and restore a nation that God can trust. From here on, the garden of eternal happiness, the blessed land of the ideal will be established. You should know this clearly. Today, this is the time when 6,000 years of providential restoration should be consummated. By making a final decision of courage, we should march forward for the fulfillment of the will. We should not look back. At the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the wife of Lot missed her old family life in her hometown, her old neighbors and her old environment and habits. She looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
The Israelites who followed Moses from Egypt missed their life in the past when they faced difficulties in the wilderness. Thus, they could not enter the land of Canaan and fell to death on the way. When they did not have a shelter to rest comfortably in or food to eat in the wilderness, they resented Moses and complained to him, saying, "If we had remained in Egypt, we could have eaten cake and even meat occasionally." At that time, the ones who complained like that, reflecting upon the past, were the wealthy ones who had been bosses over the others.
Therefore, today we should not follow the same footsteps of the Israelites. Then what should you now seek with this lesson in mind? Is it a house in which you are now living? Is it friends whom you are now associating with? Your house or friends are not the ones that you should seek. If you have a house, it will be a wilderness in a barren land. If you have friends, they will be brothers and sisters who are wandering in the wilderness.
Consequently, in order for you to go the path to heaven, from the levels of an individual, a family, a society, a people, and a nation, we should separate from all the worldly things and abandon them. We should replace them with heavenly things. That is, I should abandon my worldly self and be replaced by a heavenly self. I should restore a worldly family into a heavenly one, and a worldly tribe into a heavenly tribe. Further, we should abandon the worldly people and nation and restore a heavenly people and nation. To establish such things, you should march forward with all of your hearts and minds, in strength and boldness.
Such a person will be grateful even if the collapses while trying to restore one other person. Such a people and nation will be grateful even if the people and the nation perish while restoring themselves. Today we should be able to fight an individual, family, nation and world battle with such determination and be courageous enough to tell Satan on earth to move away.
If there is anyone who proceeds with loyalty toward heaven until the end of life, even if he or she dies, that individual will be resurrected and enjoy glory in the blessed land. If he or she does not die, that individual could live in the garden of blessing. I hope you can keep this in mind.
Prayer
Beloved Father! Please allow these individuals who are gathered here today to be heartistic sons and daughters who can hear Abel's appeal to You. Also, please guide them to be the children who can liberate the heart of Jesus, who could not speak everything that he wanted to speak to all humankind when he was offered as a sacrifice of blood on Calvary on behalf of the blood of Abel. Let them liberate his heart through their blood, their mind and their perception.
We thought that all the passages of the many saints and sages who came and passed away throughout history only belonged to them. Now we finally came to realize that those are the passages that we also need to walk. There are so many people on earth, but You came to visit us, who are unworthy. Please let us be the kind of sons and daughters who can understand Your heart that desires us to liberate you from the han of 6,000 years.
On this earth, there are many smart, superb, and capable people. Nevertheless, You came to us with the desire that wants us to understand the situation of Heaven and experience Your grieving heart. Please guide us to be such sons and daughters. Father, I sincerely wish and desire for this to be done.
As Joshua was strong and bold long ago, today we should be strong and bold on behalf of our people and the world. Father, please be with us. We have many deficiencies. I wish and desire for You to lead us through all of the historical sufferings and to indemnify our own individual selves.
Please let there appear among the Christians many, strong and bold people like Joshua and Caleb who were determined to enter the land of Canaan even if they were to die. Please guide all the sons and daughters who are present here to feel the vivacious movements of the life of resurrection and Your life. With the hearts that are obedient to Heaven's will, as quickly as possible, let them receive a day of glory when they can be in harmony with You. Father, I sincerely wish and desire for this to be done.
Please let us feel Your words given to us as the seeds of life and the center of our lives, that we may carry out the responsibility of burning incense as a chief priest at Your altar and holy place. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire for this to be done. I pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.