Ep 729 - God, Women and World Peace Part 13
God, Women and World Peace - October 24, 2022
PDF Printable Text and Images + Testimony Mihwa Prieto
Key Points
Because the Jewish people were consumed by the law, they did not accept Jesus. Similarly prepared Christian people did not accept True Father because they were bound by the Bible.
Listening to God’s voice or having a heartistic exchange with him through prayer and jeongseong are important as is studying the Word, but we need to always listen carefully to the voice of the original mind centering on heart in order to grasp the essence of God’s providence.
The human fall drove a huge nail into God’s heart.
The great thing about Father is that he discovered the intense sorrow of God after the fall, experienced his circumstances and heart, and then proclaimed it to all humankind.
We need to know that God pulled Himself together after the fall and couldn’t help but love humankind.
Anyone who truly understands God’s sorrowful reality would never commit sin.
In order always to live with God's approval and not leave your proper position, you should continuously pray and ask, “What would God, True Parents or my Abel do in this situation?”
You need to keep praying and offering devotion until you receive an answer from your heart and you have conviction.
We can grow and develop and cultivate our heart if we keep asking and seeking heaven’s guidance.
Pray with a sincere, pure heart like a baby crying and searching for its mother’s milk. Then God will surely give you an answer.
If you remember the faults of others, it becomes an obstacle for God to come to you. Rather, deal with them with a parental heart.
You need to value and cherish the relationships with all the people connected to you with all your heart, mind and soul.
A person who values relationships as much as he values his own life is a happy person.
Faith is ultimately forming good relationships with everyone.
The purpose of forming relationships is living with affection for each other and longing for each other through relationships.
Heaven is a place where affectionate people gather and live.
The secret to forming relationships well is serving others with the heart of a parent in the body of a servant.
Faith is knowing myself as belonging to God, knowing the other person as belonging to God, and attending each other.
The purpose of a life of faith to develop heartistic relationships with each other as God’s children.
Wherever you go, you always need to think, “How can I testify to God? How can I witness to people? How can I let them know God?” If you have that kind of searching heart, that heart of witnessing, you can maintain your motivation and your life of faith all the time.
Transcripts from November 3, 2021 to the present, personal notes from November 11, 2020 until November 2, 2021 and slides from August 29, 2021 to the present are available at MD.Hoondok.com as PDF files.♦
How was yesterday? Yesterday was Sunday.
We had a very beautiful time. Yesterday, we celebrated the 63rd True Children’s Day and 35th Foundation Day for the Unified Nation of Heaven and Earth at the Clifton Church.
First, members who are attending 2022 Autumn Hyojeong CheonBo Great Works had the opportunity to receive the Special Holy Candle of the Tree of All Things.
So many people came to the church! It was crowded! The Heavenly USA team gave a beautiful performance and led the service. Wow! Our Heavenly USA team is the hope of our movement!
Then, we congratulated people whose birthdays are in October, including me.
I gave a sermon regarding filial piety as we celebrated True Children’s Day.
Now more and more people are coming, and it is crowded. I think soon we will need a second Sunday service. It is so exciting! Many brothers and sisters are supporting our Clifton Church through witnessing and supporting our activities. Thank you so much!
We took a group photo. Downstairs was full; we occupied everywhere!
Today I’d like to talk about “God, Women and World Peace” from True Mother’s Anthology, Book 2.
<This was an invitational address delivered on September 7, 1993 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York> Despite this preparation, God's dispensation was not fulfilled at that time. God's representative came to bring God's Word, yet he was met with tremendous persecution and almost universal misunderstanding. This paralleled Jesus’ situation 2,000 years earlier. Just as the people of Israel in Jesus' time were awaiting the coming of Elijah on a chariot in the clouds, Christians awaited the Second Coming by expecting Jesus himself to come on the clouds. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus reveals to John the Divine that he will come with a new name. (Rev. 3:12) This foreshadowed that Jesus would come again through another man, just as Elijah returned through the person of John the Baptist.
At this crucial time after World War II, God instructed my husband to bring a new message of truth to Christians in Korea. Korean Christian leaders, however, rejected the possibility that he, a humble young man, had been chosen to bring this new message. They could not believe that the Lord at his Second Coming would be born as a man on earth any more than the people could believe it at the time of Jesus. If the Christian churches had united with my husband, the heavenly kingdom already would have been established on earth as well as in the spiritual realm. During the seven-year period from 1945 to 1952, which marked the end of World War II and of the New Testament Age, the entire world could have united in accordance with the providence of God. Instead of uniting with him, however, these religious leaders were jealous as they saw the number of his followers growing. They blindly opposed my husband without hearing him out. They even spread lies about him. Rumors of sexual misconduct and greed, the very antithesis of his teachings, were used to assassinate his character.
When we look at how the Jewish people did not accept Jesus or how the prepared Christian people did not accept True Father, we can tell that the people of the Old Testament Age were consumed by the law, and when the Second Coming came, the Christians were bound by the Bible scriptures.
Therefore, the thing we need to be careful about in our life of faith is our attitude of judging everything based on existing traditions or customs, our own knowledge and experiences, assertions, ideas, or scripts from our own denominations. If you have such an attitude, the thing that becomes a problem is that you easily lose the essence.
Therefore, we can know that in order not to make a mistake, listening to God’s voice or having a heartistic exchange with God through prayer and jeongseong are very important and essential. Studying the Word is important, too, but we need to always listen very carefully to the voice of the original mind centering on our heart.
(After the) formation and growth stages, we need to enter the world of the heart. Sometimes we are possessed by tradition, our own habits and knowledge and lose the essence. Therefore, (we should) always listen to the voice of our original mind centered on heart. When you connect to your heart, you never miss God’s voice. You never make a mistake. That is why recently these days I have continuously talked about how to cultivate our heart. That is the point. The final restoration is the restoration of heart. What is the purpose of tradition and rituals? It is for the purpose of restoring our heart.
But people could not go to the level of heart. That is the issue.
Judging with one’s habits or preconceived notions or external knowledge is very dangerous in judging or measuring God’s providence.
For that reason, just as the Jewish people at the time of Jesus could not believe in the emergence of Jesus, the Christians in Korea also could not believe that the Lord at his Second Coming would be born as a man on earth.
If the prepared Korean Christian leaders had accepted Father, during the seven-year period from 1945 to 1952, which marked the New Testament Age, the entire world could have united in accordance with the providence of God.
LIVING DIVINE PRINCIPLE: The Fall - 4. The Identity of the Serpent
• In the Bible we read that a serpent tempted Eve to commit sin (Gen. 3:4-5)
1.This serpent was able to converse with people.
2. It caused the Fall of humans, who are spiritual beings.
3. Furthermore, the serpent knew the Will of God, which strictly forbade human beings to eat the fruit.
4. As it is written in Revelation 12:9, "The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth," the serpent had lived in heaven.
5. Also, it is able to transcend time and space to dominate the human soul.
• This is compelling evidence that the being which the serpent symbolizes was a spiritual being.
• This spiritual being was originally created with a good purpose, but later fell and became Satan.
• There are no beings endowed with such characteristics other than angels. Therefore, the serpent which tempted human beings and sinned is an angel.
• Also, in Il Pet. 2:4, it is written "God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom."
Let’s study Father’s word.
God’s Heart When Adam and Eve Tried to Pick the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
<21-141> Would God say, ‘That’s what I’ve been worried about, you can do more’ when Adam and Eve were trying to pick the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? No, that’s not true. God might feel that his heart was shrinking, then all the nerves seemed to be assimilated in one place. He had to put him under the circumstance that he could not think anything but saying, ‘You must not pick it’ and bleeding and trembling with a look unspeakably distressed. Do you think God with such a feeling just had observed when Adam and Eve were eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? He must have thought that if he had a sword, he would cut this history and this whole world, but he could not do it. That’s why he had to lament so much.
And Christianity said that Adam and Eve did it because the Serpent (snake) whispered to them to do it. They are idiots who do not know the Principle. Therefore how pathetic, miserable and lamentable God was! He has been a more pathetic, miserable and lamentable one than anybody else in the history. However God had to love Adam and Eve. You must understand it.
Seeing that the first ancestors fell, God could not be joyous. For example, an only son of 7-generations was born with tremendous conditions (Jeong Seong) by his own parents, grandparents and even the villagers, and raised by them like a treasure. What if he just died all of a sudden, how would his parents feel? Those parents with their child must have known this.
How was God’s heart when Adam and Eve were about to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
God might have felt that His heart was shrinking, that He could not think anything in the depths of sorrow that could not be expressed in words.
The human fall was an incident of driving a huge nail into God’s heart. When Adam and Eve were eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do you think God was just observing like a spectator?
Even though the fall was caused by human beings’ own fault, it was God who created man, so how much would God have grieved in His heart and regretted making human beings on the earth, as mentioned in the Bible? No one knows how pathetic, miserable and lamenting God was.
No one understands God’s miserable heart. He is a God of sorrow.
From the moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God was a being who had a lamenting heart as if His heart had exploded. However, we need to know that God is a God who pulled Himself together and couldn’t help but love them.
Father said no matter how many times fallen men die and are born again, it is not easy for them to understand God’s heart.
God is really amazing! Even though human beings committed sin and made a problem, God had to be responsible as a creator and as a father and mother: “If I had not created Adam and Eve, had not created human beings, this never would have happened like that!” “As a creator no matter what, even though Adam and Eve made a mistake, I have to be responsible.”
He had such a heart of lamentation and sorrow. Can you imagine how miserable God’s heart is? No matter what, he has to be responsible. He forgave them repeatedly. They made more mistakes, and he again forgave them.
Though Adam and Eve made a mistake, their descendants did nothing wrong. That is why God has to be responsible no matter what. Again and again he gave them opportunities and held forgiveness ceremonies. What a miserable God!
The great thing about Father is that he discovered such a sorrowful God – no one had discovered God’s situation. But Father experienced God’s circumstances and heart, and then proclaimed it to all humankind. It was the first time that he brought out that God was a God of sorrow, such a sorrowful God!
God is not only an almighty, omniscient and omnipotent God, in terms of love and heart he is so miserable.
Personally, what I am most grateful to Father for is how he taught us that God became a sorrowful God due to the fall of man.
Nobody else taught me that God is a God of sorrow. Even my physical father and mother and teacher did not know about this. Saints and sages, even though I studied (them) a lot and read many books, none of them talked about God being a God of sorrow.
That is why I am so grateful to True Father for teaching me God’s reality, that God is a God of sorrow. How many human beings understand God’s reality? Now True Parents are teaching all humankind not just God’s existence and the parent-child relationship between God and humans, but that God is a God of sorrow. We need to convey to our neighbor, our nation and the whole world who God is, what his reality is. That is our mission.
Anyone who truly understands God’s reality would never commit sin. Why do we commit sin again and again? Because we do not know God’s reality.
TODAY’S YOUTH MINISTRY: What Kind of Position Do I Have in a Relationship?
If You Don’t Want to Leave Your Proper Position…
1. Life of faith is to treat yourself as God's. Therefore, I must always live with God's approval. Accordingly, as long as I immediately check who I should receive approval from as I live, then I am a person who does not leave my proper position. Even if a person does not know God well, there is no denying that they should always have a good relationship with the people who protect and care for them. It means you should not assert yourself if you are a student in school, if you are a member of your family, and if you are a believer in a relationship with Abel. It means that you should not be upset or clash with others centered on yourself and asserting yourself. Don't remember the faults of others and keep your proper position. If you observe this well, you will develop infinitely. But the self-indulgent person decides everything for himself under the name of freedom. Such a person cannot develop because he is a person who does not value the relationships around him.
The life of faith is to treat myself as God's. I am telling you this over and over because this is a fundamental point. Therefore, I must always live with God's approval. Adam and Eve were supposed to have gotten approval, “Should we eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or not?”
Accordingly, as long as I immediately check whom I should receive approval from as I live, then I am a person who does not leave my proper position.
If you live receiving God’s permission, you should continuously pray and ask “What would God do in this situation? What would be True Parents’ command if they were in this situation? If I were the Abel whom I respect, what would I do in this situation?”
Always ask. “Heavenly Father, Sunday is coming. You asked me to deliver a sermon. If you were here, what kind of sermon should I deliver?”
“Today I am going to meet someone; Heavenly Father, what should I say to him?”
“Today’s schedule, if you were here, what kind of comment (about the schedule?) would you give me?”
Always ask and ask. Try to get confirmation centering on God’s point of view and on his situation. If we continuously ask, in the beginning (it may be) very blurry; you won’t know God’s answer, but keep going, asking and asking.
The Bible says if you ask you will find it. You can get an answer. How much do you ask with desperation? “I really want to live centering on you, Heavenly Father. In this situation, what shall I do?” Ask with desperation and an earnest heart. “I want to really unite with you. I don’t want to take action by myself. Heavenly Father, what shall I do?”
“True Parents, what do you think about this? What kind of comments should I give?”
Always ask and ask. In the beginning it is not easy to receive answers, but keep going. Keep asking and searching. Then one day your heart will really reach heaven and you can receive an answer. But the condition of asking is very important.
Why can’t we develop? Because we never ask. We decide everything by ourself. That is the problem with fallen man’s nature. He never asks God, True Parents and his original mind. He decides everything according to his physical mind.
You need to keep praying and offering devotion until you receive an answer from your heart and you have conviction.
That is why the habit of always asking through prayer and jeongseong is very important. If you do not get an answer even after asking in this way, you need to ask Abel and receive answers from him. Do not decide by yourself.
Therefore, you should not assert yourself under any circumstances. If you handle things according to your existing methods and habits, you will not be able to experience the world of God's heart and you will not be able to communicate with God heartistically.
This is important. How can I cultivate my heart? Even though God is invisible, keep on asking: “Heavenly Father, if you really exist and are really my father and mother and I am really your son or daughter, in this kind of situation what should I do?”
Ask very seriously: “I believe in you. You are my father. I believe that I am your son. I don’t want to take action by myself. I don’t want to have my own opinion. I want to live centered on your heart. (Please) give me an answer.”
Pray with a sincere, pure heart like a baby crying and searching for (its) mother’s milk. Then God will surely give you an answer. Not only by voice. When you read the Bible or Father’s word or listen to God’s word, you can (receive) an answer.
It means that you should not be upset or clash with others centered on yourself and asserting yourself. Do not remember the faults of other. If you remember the faults of others, it becomes an obstacle for God to come to you. That is why you need to deal with people with the heart of loving everyone. In other words, you need to deal with them with a parental heart.
But the self-indulgent person decides everything for himself under the name of freedom. “Oh, I am free. No one disturbs me! My life is my life! Even though you are my physical father and mother, why are you disturbing my life? My life is my life!” My goodness! In the name of freedom, such a self-indulgent person cannot grow up.
Such a person cannot develop because he is a person who does not value the relationships around him.
If We Ignore Relationships with Each Other, We Become Enemies
2. Those who are students but have left the position of being a student, those who live with their siblings but do not value sibling relationships, and those who are married but live like they are separate—these people are enemies even though they live according to the Bible. Jesus said that if we ignore relationships with each other in this way, we become enemies between husband and wife, between father and son, and between brothers and sisters, so everyone in the family becomes enemies. Those who read the Bible without knowing the Principle do not know why Jesus said such words. It was only when we knew the Principle that we could understand why he said that we must destroy this enmity. And Jesus passed away after speaking only about God-centered siblings, God-centered couples, and God-centered parent-child relationships. However, it is the Unification Principle that draws a clear conclusion on this.
The attitude of always consulting with and asking God is important, too, but the next important thing is that we cannot leave our proper position. I need to value the relationships with all the people connected to me centered on my being.
We are beings of the Four Position Foundation. Everything needs to relate: relate to God, to husband and wife, to parents, to brothers and sisters, to juniors and seniors, and to children. We are living based on the Four Position Foundation; that is why our relationships are very crucial and important.
Those who are students but have left the position of being a student, those who live with their siblings but do not value sibling relationships, and those who are married but live like they are separate—these people are enemies even though they live according to the Bible.
People Who Value Relationships as Life are Happy
3. Our Unification Principle tries to realize true love by having siblings live in harmony, having husband and wife treat each other like God, and having parents and children treat each other like Heaven so that parents, couples, and siblings can treat each other like Heaven. You are a person who has sibling relationships, a conjugal relationship, and a parent-child relationship. A person who values these relationships as life is a happy person. If you ignore this relationship and leave it, you are unhappy. The Principle was taught this way. Can anyone say that they are very happy and hopeful after leaving this relationship? In school relationships, is there anyone who can be happy apart from their relationship with their teacher and peers? If so, that's a crazy person. If the sibling relationship is bad, the life of that person cannot be good, and if they make their parents worry, there is no way for them to develop.
In a life of faith, everything is relationship: relationship with God, with my spouse, with my father and mother, with my children and siblings. Everything is relationships. That is why when you (handle) relationships very well, everything can be done very well.
I am a being who has sibling relationships, a conjugal relationship, and a parent-child relationship, and Cain and Abel relationship at work and in church.
A person who values these relationship as much as they value their own life is a happy person. If you ignore and deviate from these relationships, you are an unhappy person. In a life of faith, if you deviate from these relationships, you can never be happy. There is no joy or hope. Joy, hope, love and heart come from relationships.
If your relationships with those around you are bad, there’s no way your life can be good, and if you are a child who always causes your parents to worry, there is no way you can develop. Faith is ultimately forming good relationships with everyone. Vertically, we need to form good relationships with God and True Parents, and horizontally, we need to form good relationships with our spouse and siblings.
That is why you need to have a good vertical relationship with God. At the same time, you have to be truly horizontal, have a true relationship with brothers and sisters.
So, you not only (have to be) vertically good, (but at) the same time, you have to be horizontally good.
Then what is the purpose of forming relationships? It lies in love and heart. It is living with affection for each other and longing for each other through relationships. Such a world is ultimately the Kingdom of Heaven. Heaven is a place where affectionate people gather and live.
What Kind of Position do I Have in a Relationship?
4. What kind of position do you have in a relationship? If you know that relationship, you should value it the most. It means to cherish it with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. This is the most important thing. When God told Adam and Eve that they were His children, and they ate the forbidden fruit and fell from Him, He said, “Adam, where are you?” and came out searching for His relationship with them. Not only that, He was a God who always had a relationship with humankind, calling out, “Noah, Abraham, Jacob, people of Israel, I am your God and you are my people.” Jesus also came and said, “Chosen people, let us serve God as our Father. God has sent me so that you may have a relationship with Him. So, become children of God through me.” Thus, Jesus came to mediate between God and human beings.
What kind of position do I have in a relationship? If I know that relationship, I should value it starting from the people closest to me. It means to cherish the people who relate to me with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul.
Then what is the secret to forming relationships well? It is none other than to serve the other person unconditionally. It is serving them with the heart of a parent in the body of a servant. This is most important.
When God told Adam and Eve that they were His children, and they ate the forbidden fruit and fell from Him, He said, “Adam, where are you?” and came out searching for His relationship with them.
Heavenly Father tried to recover his relationship with human beings.
Jesus also came and said, “Chosen people, let us serve God as our Father. God has sent me so that you may have a relationship with Him. So, become children of God through me.” Thus, Jesus came to mediate between God and human beings.
Therefore, the thing we must never forget in our life of faith is that faith is knowing myself as belonging to God, knowing the other person as belonging to God and attending each other, and become closer in heart, and living a life of the Kingdom of Heaven.
A life of faith has to create heartistic relationships. That’s it. What is the purpose of a life of faith? To have heartistic relationships. That is already the Kingdom of Heaven.
(Testimony Mihwa Prieto, 3rd year Heavenly USA)
You (on the Heavenly USA team) are now living together and having activities together with brothers and sisters. Every day you go to the front line and meet people. You experience God.
But you need to think that (when) GPA members are not with you when you go back home, when you go to school, how will you maintain your life of faith? (Now) you are living together; that’s fine. But (when) you are alone, how will you manage well – not just one day, two days, one month...
You need to think (about this) while you are (still) there: “My heart does not want to change wherever I go. If GPA members are with me or not, whether I (am doing) this kind of activity or not, no matter what, wherever I go, let me testify that you are a living God. How can I testify about your situation to people?”
That’s why in order to keep your life of faith, it does not matter whether GPA members are with you or not. At any time, how do you maintain your life of faith? Wherever you go, you always need to think, “How can I testify to God? How can I witness to people? How can I let them know God?”
If you have that kind of searching heart, that heart of witnessing, I am telling you, you can maintain your motivation and your life of faith all the time.♦
NOTE: This text and the PowerPoint slides from this speech are available as a link at the top of this text. Transcripts from November 3, 2021 to the present, personal notes from November 11, 2020 until November 2, 2021 and slides from August 29, 2021 to the present are available at MD.Hoondok.com as PDF files. Books of the transcripts and notes are available as PDFs at MDBooks.Hoondok.com.
This lightly edited transcript may contain errors and omissions. Indecipherable, inaudible or uncertain words and guesses are tagged with a “(?)” and indecipherable phrases, with an ellipsis “...”. First, second and third person pronouns have been left as spoken if the meaning is clear, and other apparently Korean English expressions have been preserved if understandable. Some repeated phrases have been eliminated.
Audio only is available at anchor.morndev.com, spotify.morndev.com & audio.morndev.com. Notes or transcripts of Dr. Yong’s Morning Devotion speeches from November 11, 2020 through March 29, 2022 are available as six paperback books at cost at Lulu.com/Shop -- search for Dr. Chung Sik Yong -- and as PDF downloads free of charge at MDBooks.Hoondok.com.♦