Ep 433 - A Course of Life and Death Struggles Part 1
A Course of Life and Death Struggles #68 - January 1, 2022 New Years Day
Happy New Year! I hope that this year will bring you more health and that all your wishes based on God's will come true.
The first day of this year, my whole family worshiped Heavenly Parent and True Parents and said Family Pledge and prayers. Today was New Year, so I had a beautiful family ceremony, Kyeong bey and Family Pledge. This is a photo of my father-in-law and my wife and I. My father-in-law in our house is the God of our family. He is now 86 years old. My wife and I gave a blessing to each of our grandchildren one by one. I think they were very happy. Our couple gave a blessing to each family.
My son-in-law had gone to a second-generation workshop as a staff member, so we took a family photo with everyone except my son-in-law. I am so grateful that True Parents blessed four generations to live together in this way. I am deeply grateful to Heavenly Parent and True Parents for giving me the opportunity to directly experience the world of the four great realms of heart and the three great kingships, not just in theory, but through the family kingdom of heaven. Our family spent a day starting anew this year, setting our goals for prayer and devotion for our family in 2022.
Today I’d like to talk about “A course of life and death struggles” from True Mother’s Anthology, Book 1.
When I was married at the age of 17, I resolved to do the best I could, no matter how difficult it might be, to achieve what God desired, the ideal He envisaged at the Creation, and to simplify all complicated matters and arrive at simple solutions. Heaven blessed us with many children, and I did my best in giving birth to them all. From 1972, when Father began his work in America, we had many difficulties. Communists followed Father wherever he went and interfered with his work, and there were many threats and dangers along the way. My nerves were on edge all the time. I had to travel by car constantly, so over a five-year period I had many miscarriages. In 1975, Kwon-jin was born, and after that I gave birth to five more children. The doctor told me, “You should concern yourself with staying healthy for the children you have now. Why aren't you concerned about protecting your health?”
From my point of view, however, I couldn't say I wanted to stop. An elder sister went up into the mountains for three days to pray especially for me. She returned and told me, “Mother! God says you should have 13 children.” Then I had Young-jin; I tried to give birth by natural delivery, but his head was large and it seemed I might die during childbirth. Father was in Germany, and the doctor said that both mother and baby would be in danger if a decision was not made in 30 minutes. I had no choice but to have a cesarean section, and so Young-jin was born. Once you have a cesarean section, you can't give birth by natural delivery. Therefore, I had to offer a special prayer to find out what God wanted me to do. Heaven confirmed that God was waiting for me to give Him 13 children. It was a surprising answer. After that, I had Hyung-jin, who is my seventh son, and including the last two daughters, I also have seven daughters. So I have given birth to 14 children, an equal number of boys and girls. (2011.03.04, Cheon Jeong Gung)
I hear a family with many children usually means between five and nine children. However, how many have I given birth to myself? True Parents are tones who indemnified and restored human history, which had gone astray, to its original state. Isn't that so? That is why I had to match the number of my children to the providential number for the sake of family perfection. To give birth to 14 children within twenty years is virtually impossible. Having even one cesarean section is difficult, but I have had four. What made me do so, do you think? I did this to save you. Don't you think I am a mother you can be proud of? From this point alone, the satanic world cannot say anything against True Parents' achievements. (2015.04.26, Cheon Jeong Gung)
Let’s look at True Father’s word about the birth of the 13 children.
Unificationists Must Leave Behind Many Fruits of Love
<234-314> What will singles leave behind after they marry? It will not be gold and silver treasures. God doesn't want that. He doesn't even want knowledge. The base of power also flows away. What are you going to leave behind? You have to leave behind the fruits of love. They are your sons and daughters. Do you want to leave behind many of them or a few of them? "You have to leave behind a lot." That's why Unification Church members should give birth, give birth, and keep giving birth.
True Mother also gave birth to 13 children, right? How many children do you want to have? The more babies you have, the more cells you have that are inspired by love. None of the women who have had many babies are evil. The more babies you have, the better you become. Whenever a mother gives birth to a child, she hands over her life to the child, right?
True Parent’s Mission to Leave Behind More than 12 Children
<194-334> True Mother gave birth to a lot of babies, right? If I had just stayed still, there would have been 20 children. True Mother had a C-section four times. I heard that I was called a savage because True Mother would be in trouble if she was cut one more time. I was called a savage. Why? Because of the Unification Church? Why is that because of the Unification Church? I don't want to have a lot of children. But when I asked God, He said, "Hey, you punk. You must have more than twelve, thirteen children.”
There are 12 months of four seasons in a year. Jacob walked on the path to restore twelve sons. Moses had 12 tribes, Jesus had 12 disciples, and True Parents had to have more than 12 children on the path of restoration.
When our True Parents had 13 children, it was not for their own plan. Everything was for the sake of God’s will. Everything was the path of God’s restoration. Can you imagine that our True Mother delivered more than 12 children? She had a C-Section four times. I think this qualifies True Mother to be True Mother. At the risk of her life, she delivered more than 13 children, not for her own sake but for the sake of all humankind, for the sake of God’s will. I really appreciate our True Mother’s great effort and sacrifice.
LIVING DIVINE PRINCIPLE: Principle of Creation 9 - Life of Give and Take Action 1
• Through the agency of universal prime energy, the subject and object elements of every entity form a common base and enter into interaction. This interaction, in turn, generates all the forces the entity needs for existence, multiplication, and action.
• The interaction generating these forces through this process is called give and take action.
Life of True Love
1. Principle of True Love: Give first and then receive later.
2. Unprincipled Love: Take first and then give or even forget to give back.
Yesterday we learned from Father’s word: Giving first and then receiving is the Principle. However, trying to receive first and then giving back is the fall. We need to know and apply this fundamental principle in our daily life.
Based on give-and-take action let’s study Father’s word.
Give and Take Action is a Circular Motion
<213-215> For example in Japan, when saying ‘success in life’ what does it mean? It means to become a company chairman or a director, doesn’t it? Then what happens after reaching the top? The answer is stepping down from the top. One must step down. That is the problem. Everything must be in a circular motion. It is natural to go down after going up. But the world doesn’t desire this. Up until now when looking at famous or successful people, they try to stay in that position. What to do after succeeding? When reaching the top in the country, unable to go higher up, come down and educate the juniors at the bottom. One must educate others to create more people like oneself. Consequently, when going up, one must definitely come back down.
Give-and-take action is circular motion.
After a person succeeds and climbs to the top, they have to come down from that position. You shouldn’t be greedy to maintain your position.
The truth of the universe is that everything moves in a circle. But this world is trying to stay in one spot forever.
What do you do after you succeed? There is no place to go up to anymore, so you have to go back to the bottom and educate those under you. You have to educate them to produce a lot of people like you.
If you go up, you must go back down. This is the circular motion of the universe.
However, there is no such thing in this world. Satan clings on to the things he occupies. That is the satanic world. Therefore Satan occupies the individual, the world, and furthermore denies the existence of God, trying to maintain his position on top forever. But the law of the universe is what goes up must come down and move in a circular motion.
In every relationship, be it human, social, financial, etc, they are mutually correlated in a give and take action of yielding. When looking from such a fundamental viewpoint, Satan doesn’t desire this. To hold on to and maintain his position, Satan eradicates all challenging forces, using a strategy of killing everyone. Seen from such a standard, the dictators such as Saddam Hussein are prime examples of this.
In this world, we ignore the law of the universe of circular motion. Satan tries to hold on to the position he occupies until the end.
Satan occupies the individual, the country, the world, and furthermore denies God, and tries to maintain his position on top forever.
But the law of the universe is that once you go up, you have to go around and around in a circular motion.
In all relationships, including human relationships, social relationships, and financial relationships, all must relate to each other, yield to each other, and have give and take action.
But Satan tries to maintain his position. And in order to protect it, he eradicates and kills all challenging forces.
This is Satan.
I am continental director, the highest position. Why am I in America? My most important mission is to raise our second generation to fully take ownership. Father just now spoke about this. At any time I may need to go down, this is circular motion.
In UPF and its affiliated organizations, in WFWP, in all affiliated organizations, anyone who has a certain position really needs to raise our second generation, our young generation, to take over someday. Without raising our second generation, our young generation, if we just try to keep our own position, that is not so great. That is not circular motion. Let’s follow the universal principle of circular motion centering on give-and-take action. Father has guided us properly. After you go down, what should you do? You need to raise the younger generation.
Look at (this diagram). Circular motion starts from the bottom, right? It goes up and goes up, finally reaches the summit, then because of circular motion it goes down and goes down and then goes up again to the summit and then down again. This is the universal principle of circular motion.
Of course, if True Mother asks you to keep your position, that is fine. But in our heart if we are 60 or 70 plus, we need to keep our focus on how the young generation can take over and fully take ownership. I strongly request each of our brothers and sisters, let’s support the second generation. Now our national president, Naokimi, is doing an excellent job and many other second generation are uniting with our national leader. My main focal point is second generation and third generation.
They are no longer young. Some of them are 40 plus, some close to 50. Our first generation concept is that second generation are young guys and don’t have much experience. Sometimes we ignore that.(?) However, when we give them an opportunity to focus and take responsibility, they can do very well. As a leader (if) you trust your members, your younger generation, they will have the confidence to take ownership. When I travel around America on a 50-state tour, we really need to ask our younger generation to take responsibility.
TODAY’S YOUTH MINISTRY: Jesus Course - Jesus 40-Day Fast and Satan’s Three Great Temptations
I would like to talk about Jesus 40-Day Fast and Satan’s three great temptations.
Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
1. The following is the secondary providence centered on Jesus. If John the Baptist’s group had believed and accepted Jesus, who faced disbelief from his family, Jesus would have been able to accomplish God’s will of establishing a family at once, and the path to restore Canaan would have passed the national level and be opened worldwide. If John the Baptist’s group had accepted and attended Jesus, conditions for Satan to invade would not have been established. Furthermore, if they had proved that Jesus came as the Messiah and witnessed to it, it would have resulted in the entire Jewish people attending Jesus. In other words, they would have been able to accept Jesus at the national level.
Jesus’ first providence needed to start centered on his own family. When Jesus looked at his own family, he could not endure it any more. So he left home, and started a new beginning centering on John the Baptist. If there had been unity between Jesus and John the Baptist, God’s providence could have developed very rapidly to the national and worldwide levels. That was God’s secondary providence centering on Jesus.
If there had been oneness between Jesus and John the Baptist … Where there is oneness somewhere, God always protects it. When there is unity between Cain and Abel, where there is unity between subject partner and object partner, there is always universal protection and God’s protection guaranteed. When there is unity, Satan cannot invade any more. Therefore if John the Baptist’s group had fully accepted and attended Jesus, God would have given revelations and more details about what to do, how to attend Jesus. Then he would have been the one to boldly proclaim who Jesus was. However, when there is doubting and disunity, lack of trust, instability, this is the condition for Satan to invade.
Where there is unity between mind and body, Father said everyone without exception can feel God, can see him, can know God is helping. Why can’t we see God? Because there is no mind and body unity. If my body always controls my mind; then Satan invades.
If there is beautiful unity between husband and wife, God will intervene directly and give revelation about what to do, how to take care of the children. However, if there is no unity between husband and wife, Satan directly invades children. This is the principle. If Jesus’ mother, Mary, and Joseph centering on Jesus as a trinity, had really united together, Satan could not have invaded anymore. If Satan were able to invade such unity, then there would be no God. Where there is oneness and unity, Satan cannot find any condition to invade. Jesus had to go through suffering because of disunity and disbelief. That was the problem.
2. However, due to the faithlessness of John the Baptist, all foundations were lost and Jesus himself fell into a position where he had to take the place of John the Baptist. Jesus fell to the position of the servant where he had no choice but to take responsibility for the second worldwide course. Having lost the foundation due to John the Baptist’s faithlessness, Jesus came to fight directly with Satan. This is the 40-day fast and Three Temptations. John the Baptist was supposed to be the on front line and protect Jesus, but when the front line was breached, Jesus came to stand in a position of directly confronting Satan.
Jesus, God’s only begotten son, came to earth to save God’s sons and daughters whom he had lost. But Jesus needed to do a 40-day fast, God’s only begotten son! Nobody protected him. His family could not protect him. Nor could John the Baptist. He went down, did a 40-day fast, and had three temptations from Satan. What a miserable situation for our beloved Jesus! This is a sorrowful story.
3. After being doubted by his family and the prepared John the Baptist, all that was left was Satan’s front line. In Jesus’ family, Mary was supposed to separate Satan, and in the synagogue, John the Baptist was supposed to separate Satan through his faith. Jesus was disbelieved internally and externally, so he was dragged down before Satan.
4. Satan was well aware of the purpose of Jesus' coming to this earth. Satan knew better than anyone that Jesus was trying to recover God's three great blessings, the purpose of creation. Knowing that Jesus needed to fulfill individual perfection, find a family, and become an owner with dominion over creation, Satan gave the Three Temptations accordingly. In fact, centering on Mary, Jesus’ family had to cooperate internally and John the Baptist and the church had to unite and cooperate with Jesus, but it turned out in failure. Satan’s three great temptations were directly testing and accusing Jesus, “Are you really God’s son and Messiah? Did you really come to fulfill God’s purpose of creation?”
5. Satan’s first test of Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”(Matthew 4:3),” was a very meaningful test. In the Divine Principle, stones means the Word. Those who need to find the stone must not change their hearts to live by the Word even though they are hungry. That is why Satan tested Jesus to turn the stones into bread, “Jesus, did you not feel hungry after fasting for 40 days? So, isn't it better for him to turn these stones into bread and eat them.” But Jesus answered “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Even when Jesus fasted for 40 days, he was able to defeat Satan by saying that He ignored the bread and gave priority to the Word.
Jesus is really the son of God. He has that quality.
Jesus was a human being; after 40 days of fasting, how hungry he was! Satan appeared asking him to make bread from the stones. Jesus answered, “Man does not live by bread alone but from every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He said clearly that human beings need to live centered on God’s word more than on material (things) and more than on food. Jesus' level of spirit was very high. He had already overcome materialism. He had overcome his eating desire. That is why in any situation if we have not overcome our eating desire, if we do not focus on God’s word more than on our desire to eat, our level will remain very low. We are supposed to live centered on God’s word more than on material (things) and more than on food.
6. The second test was, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” This was Satan’s accusation, “Who believes in Jesus as the son of God? Look! How can you claim to be the son of God when your own family doubted you and even the prepared John the Baptist doubted you, and now, there is nobody who believes in you.” With this, Jesus answered, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7) and defeated him. This was asking whether you can test God from the position of having betrayed God.
7. As the third test, Satan led Jesus to the top of a mountain and said, “All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). This means that Satan tempted Jesus with ownership and dominion over creation. However, Jesus said, “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only” (Matthew 4:10). This response meant, “Aren’t you also a being that worships? Yet are you not a thief? Are you not a thief that regard’s God’s things as yours? This is where Satan's true identity is completely revealed.
“This archangel, Satan, is supposed to worship God. You are a betrayer. Why don’t you worship God? You are asking me to bow down? You don’t have any foundation to do that. You are a betrayer.” Jesus spoke clearly about Satan’s identity. He completely revealed Satan’s true identity. Jesus really was a son of God.
8. Jesus, who came as the substance of the Word, Lord of the Temple, father of all people, and the man of individual perfection who can have dominion over creation and human beings, overcame Satan's three great temptations, so Satan retreated. So, from then on, the only way Satan could work was to hinder him through those who believed in Jesus.
Satan never gave up. Even though Jesus won over Satan, Satan tried to find disunity among Jesus’ disciples.
9. What we need to realize through Jesus’ course is that after we join the church, we must first restore our family and build the foundation of faith. The very first thing is restoring our physical mother. If we do not receive the cooperation of our physical mother, we must know that the trials to come in the future will be great. We have to know how difficult it must have been for Jesus to lose the mother and child foundation. If you have not been able to build a foundation for Mother and Son cooperation centered on your own family, you should find someone in the church who can play the role of a spiritual mother and build a foundation for mother and son cooperation of faith.
In order to stabilize your life of faith after you receive the Divine Principle, you need to find a way to restore your physical mother. If you restore your physical mother -- that is mother-son cooperation -- then smoothly you can witness to your own brothers and sisters.
My case followed that way exactly. Seven days after I joined the church, my mother received inspiration (about me), but our main neighbor persecuted her. “Your son is a clever guy; why did he join the Unification Church?” Much persecution came to my mother. She said, “Hey, my neighbor, I trust my son more than you. That is why I let him go. I will join him.” Since that time there was more persecution. Because of that foundation, (I was able to) witness to my younger brother, my sister and all my family members. This is really the Principle. How can I restore my physical mother? If your mother has passed away or you do not have a good relationship (with her), then you have no choice. You need to build a foundation in the church, (and find someone) who can play the role of your spiritual mother. Mother-son cooperation is very important to stabilize your life of faith.
10. Next, as I practice a life of faith, I must find and establish a spiritual child who will play the role of John the Baptist to me. If I do not find Cain, there will be many difficulties along the way of my faith. First, I need to restore my own family centered on my lineage, then heavenly fortune and grace will follow. And on my way, I need to find John the Baptist and build up my spiritual foundation. Therefore, no matter what happens, there must be three John the Baptist figures around me. Personally, I need to find 3 spiritual children and set them up so that I can always give and receive with them heartistically.
In the family you need to restore your physical parents. If you cannot restore your physical mother, then you need to find someone in the church who can protect you and raise you. Mother and son cooperation is vertical alignment. Then secondly you need to find a horizontal foundation. You need to find a John the Baptist, your three spiritual children. When you are stable because of mother-son cooperation in your family or in your church, you have a foundation of faith. Then based on that, you need to create a foundation of substance through creating three John the Baptist figures who are your three spiritual children. When your three spiritual children respect you, love you, follow you, obey you, then you have the foundation of substance. Everybody needs to follow this principle -- foundation of faith and foundation of substance -- and then we can finally enter the realm of God’s heart.♦
NOTE: This lightly edited transcription may contain errors and omissions. Indecipherable or uncertain words are tagged with a “(?)” and phrases with an ellipsis “ ...”. First, second and third person pronouns have been left as spoken, and other apparently Korean English expressions have been preserved. Some repeated phrases have been eliminated. This text and the powerpoint slides from this speech are available as pdf files at the top of this text and attext.morndev.com &yong.hoondok.com. Audio only is available atanchor.morndev.com,spotify.morndev.com &audio.morndev.com.♦