The Lord Is My Good Shepherd
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
March 24, 1957
Matthew 25:29-46

Prayer

Please allow the countless lives which You created to emanate the light of revival based on the words of Your commandment. Please allow shields of eternal victory to be raised high above the heads of the soldiers who have responded to Your call sending them out and are marching toward the battleground.

We who are living on this rugged and chaotic land, this land through which streams of sin and death are flowing, this land on which those who possess the true heart of Heaven cannot make a move forward without putting their lives on the line, we have come before the Father despite the wounds inflicted on us during the past week. Father of compassion! Please extend to us Your hands of patronage, and comfort us with Your hands of love.

Father! These are the children You have been seeking. We earnestly wish that You divulge before them, during this hour, the circumstances that have penetrated deeply into Your heart, and that You will command us. We, who are unworthy, wish to bring out all that we have according to Your commanding words and offer ourselves as sacrifice of redemption. My Father, please do not abandon this hour but forgive us. Please protect them directly, guide them, raise them and purify them.

Beloved Father, we wish from the depth of our hearts that we can radiate the light of life on behalf of all faithful believers who have died while striving hard to leave this dark world and go toward Heaven. We pray You will allow us to penetrate through the tomb of sin.

Today is a holy day, a day that You founded to bless all people. When we realize that even in this hour there are many in this lonesome group of people, this pitiful group of people who are lamenting and prostrating themselves before the Father because they do not have any way out, we feel that the Father must open the way that they can walk and set the standard for their actions.

We have come to realize that Your hands of counsel must expand their influence in this nation. We believe that the heavenly passion of the Father must reach every one. Beloved Father, we pray earnestly that You will first entrust the sons and daughters who are attending here with the entire mission in the last days. Allow them to enlighten the thirty million people who are groping in the darkness and even to awaken the miserable foreigners who are being washed away by the waves of death.

We understand that no matter how great the will and the human beings established, no matter how great the purpose they are pursuing, if Heaven does not move, then nothing can be realized. We know that the institutions and the formalities of man will fade away in front of the stage of judgment in the last days. Only the sincere heart fixed on the universal principles, devotion and fidelity can allow us to pass judgment and usher in the day when we can enter Father's bosom and receive praise and glory. So, Father, I entreat you, from the depth of my heart, to let these members become the loyal sons and daughters whose heart is soaked in loyalty and fidelity, so they can pass the judgment of the Father and be remembered in your internal heart.

We have fallen prostrate before you hoping for the promised words and the granted grace to fall upon us. So, beloved Father, we earnestly wish that your works will manifest themselves during this hour, that the Father's work of inspiration that penetrates internally and externally will cause an explosion in the hearts of these sons and daughters who must proceed through the course of conflict this year, so that elements of sin can be quelled and they can ascend as the substantial manifestation of goodness.

Now we have gathered the previously disorderly heart and are showing you the scars of our wounds and offer them to you as they are, so please hold us with your hands of compassion, rub on the aromatic oil of victory, and wrap them up. We have entrusted this hour to you, hoping that you will govern over this hour so that it will not become a time when Satan invades us, we prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.

The title of the sermon on which I would like to reflect is "The Lord Is My Good Shepherd." I will speak briefly on this topic.

Because of the fall, human beings do not have the master they should serve. Moreover, even all things have lost their master.

Today between all the human ideologies and assertions, there is not even one that originated from the true master. Because human beings are in such a state of imperfection, they are trying to escape from it, are seeking perfect things, and are trying to flee from unrest to find peace.

Human beings lost the master of life, love and hope because of the fall. Originally, the purpose for which God created human beings was to live, centering on eternal life, in the garden of eternal love while singing eternal ideals. However, because everything was lost due to man's fall, God has been exerting Himself over a long period of history in an attempt to claim and return all these to man.

Moreover, every human being is subject to the fate of making the body that does not obey the mind to follow the mind and persist until he or she becomes the owner of a true mind. However, this does not take place naturally. One must be determined to confront death and pass through tribulations and conflict.

How then should you penetrate through this fateful path blocked on the universal level in this way? This fateful path is the pass of bitterness that human beings have been anxious over because they have not been able to cross over it, in other words, they cannot go seeking the master of goodness, love and ideals. Consequently, for 6,000 years, centering on the ideal to rejoice and live with original human beings, this master, God, has been carrying on the dispensation of salvation of raising fallen people up again.

We have longed for the original, ideal garden, centering on God, but because we are immature and incomplete, we who are walking the course of conflict must examine ourselves to reach the complete standard. In addition, we must be able to observe the countless satans and evil people who are blocking the paths all around us.

Moreover, fathoming the sorrowful heart of God who is toiling internally and externally to lift us out of the darkness, we must fight with the forces of evil and vanquish them, so that we can liquidate the sadness and resentment of the whole; otherwise, we cannot pass through the course of restoration. If we cannot pass through the course of restoration, there is no way that we can face the Father who comes as the true master in the last days.

God has the responsibility to guide all human beings to that one garden where they can meet the eternal master for the sake of elevating the fallen people as the people of life. Consequently, God sent Jesus as the center of life, hope and love to the weak and unprepared people.

Furthermore, God has allowed us to meet that center of hope, whom we must meet, not at the end of the historical hope, but He established him as the one who dwells in our lives and provides new life to us to realize God's wishes. We must become one with the blessing of God, who placed the center of hope and life in our lives, and by attending that true master, we must fulfill the will of God. If we do not hold tight to this universal master, Jesus, the center of the universal life, who is leading us through the path we must walk, we can never find hope, and we can also never find life or ideals.

To become one with Jesus, the center of hope, the center of love and life, we must become connected to his internal and external circumstances, which shows how he has been striving and fighting to realize the dispensational will of God. Otherwise, we cannot become one with Jesus who is the true master, and cannot become one with the Creator God.

You must reflect on how Jesus, who can be the master of life, love and ideals for all people, has walked the toilsome path to seek you, that one person. Jesus was born under pitiful circumstances and led a miserable life. While he suffered through unspeakably contemptuous treatment, he fought with the evil forces and, without being able to obtain one comrade to stand on his side, he passed away. Not only that, after his death, Jesus has been fighting until today to liquidate Satan who has been torturing human beings for many thousands of years. You have to understand that Jesus is someone who lives with such a sorrowful heart that we cannot even imagine.

Among the Bible verses I have read this time, it says that the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and puts the sheep on the right and the goats on the left; this predicts that the time of ultimate judgment will come when God will divide all people and place the good people on the right and the evil people on the left. In that day of judgment, based on what kind of condition would He divide them into left and right sides? You should understand that He will set the condition of judgment by using the entire life course of Jesus from the time of his birth to his death as the standard.

What then should we who are trying to become one with Jesus do? We must follow the example of the whole life course of Jesus, walk the same path as he, feel the same internal and external heart that he felt, have the same thoughts as he, and wish for the same things as he. Otherwise, we cannot become one with Jesus, and we cannot serve him as our master.

Moreover, if there is none who assists, fights and takes charge of tasks on behalf of Jesus, who as the center of all human beings has been singularly responsible for the historical battle against Satan, then the will of God that seeks to send him as the savior of men and save them will never be materialized. If that is what takes place, then human beings also cannot serve God the Creator as parents. This is because fallen men can serve God only through Jesus. Furthermore, when we contemplate ourselves, who are living in the realm of the fall, you must feel that if the life course that Jesus left unfinished and the historical fate that we must face remains unaccomplished with us, we cannot attend Jesus as master, and we cannot attend God as our eternal father.

What is more, in the Bible verses I have recited, there are words that reveal the hungry and desiccated situations of Jesus, his situation of having become a wanderer, his situation of being without clothes to wear, of being sick, and of being locked up in a prison. They predict Jesus will return and tell the people on the right side, "When I was undergoing this kind of difficult situation, you helped me." You must keep in mind that these words are meant to be told not to the disciples that followed Jesus while he was alive, but to the Christians of the last days who will confront judgment.

When it says here that he was hungry and thirsty, it symbolizes the unspeakably sorrowful situation he felt. Moreover, because Jesus felt unspeakable loneliness, he spoke about how he became a wayfarer, and because he suffered pain unjustly, he talked about a situation of being locked inside the prison. The life course of Jesus in which he forecasts that the Lord of Second Advent in the last days will experience the same situation was indeed a path of distress, sorrow and anguish that others cannot even imagine, and he traveled it without anyone sympathizing with him. You must understand that he had led such painful life from the time of his birth.

We must build a direct relationship with Jesus who endured such pains and persevered through his life course, and feel the same sorrow and loneliness that he felt. Otherwise, we will be in the position of not having anything to do with him, who walked the course of heavenly life.

Jesus walked through doleful, lonesome and painful path for thirty years of his life on earth. After his ascension until today for 2,000 years, he has also been walking a path of sorrow and loneliness. Yet, Jesus did not walk this path for his own sake. He voluntarily walked the path of suffering because of fallen men, in other words, to restore fallen human beings back to God.

There were times when Jesus was hungry, thirsty and sick, and when he became a wayfarer and was locked in the prison. He experienced the same difficult circumstances, not just externally, but also internally.

The Israelite people should have inherited the will of God who led the dispensation for 4,000 years, should have realized the will, that the life of God has run dry, and that God's hope has become exhausted. To be responsible for this, Jesus became a wanderer without any possessions and traveled all over Israel visiting the Jewish people. Originally, the Jewish people should have walked such a path. However, because there was none among the Jewish people who was walking such a path, Jesus, in their place, voluntarily led the life of a wayfarer to find true sons and daughters of God and to establish true life and love among the people who did not welcome him. Moreover, because the Jewish people should have been in the position to undergo the suffering and be locked in prisons completely neglected it, Jesus was in the position to substitute for them, suffer the ordeals and be locked up.

We must understand that Jesus, who passed away while leading such a life, has been seeking us with the same heart since his resurrection and ascension. To put it another way, Jesus has not been living in glory or freedom with a joyful heart, but even in this moment he is in great anguish because he sympathizes with the pitiful people of this earth who are internally and externally suffering severe hunger and thirst. He worries about the believers who are groping to find the path of true life. On behalf of the believers who are imprisoned, he is in a position of imprisonment. Consequently, you have to understand the situation of Jesus who is not in the position to rejoice with God though he has left this earth and dwells in the Heavenly Kingdom.

Jesus told the twelve disciples that he loved, as he distributed bread and wine, "From now on, I will not drink that begotten from the grape trees until the day that I can drink it with you in the Father's kingdom as a new substance." He meant that until the day the sorrow of all human beings is resolved on the earth, he also cannot rest in peace. After understanding this situation, we should never cause Jesus to feel more lonely, painful or constrained.

We must experience all these situations with our mind and body to understand the situation of Jesus, and on his behalf fight with Satan and win over him to put God's worries to rest. If we cannot become the ones who can take care of the people of this earth in Jesus' place, then we will not be able to receive Jesus who is coming to this earth in the last days.

The heartbreaking situation of Jesus immersed in sorrow, loneliness and pain during the long course of the dispensation for the thirty years of his life and the following 2,000 years must not just end with Jesus. We must take over the heartbreaking situation of Jesus and comfort him. Unless we can do this, we will not be able to go before Jesus, and we cannot call Jesus our Lord. Therefore, we must offer all of our lives to live a life connected to the situations of Jesus in our hearts and minds. You must understand that this is more important than anything else.

Although Jesus came to this earth as the true master, human beings have not been properly attending him as the master. Moreover, although Jesus has been working to fulfill the will of God, he is in the position where he cannot even govern over the things created to help fulfill the will of God. The reason is that, until now, human beings are shackled inside sorrow, suffering and loneliness, and because the will of God has not yet been fully realized. Similarly, unless Jesus is in the position of glory by fully accomplishing the will of God, he cannot dominate over all things with joy.

Then, how can we receive the true master of glory and joy? We must become people who can bring happiness to the Lord by, first, alleviating the sorrow of the Lord that has accumulated through the course of history; otherwise, Jesus cannot rule over us. If Jesus cannot govern us, God also cannot govern us. Moreover, if we cannot be ruled by Jesus fully, then we cannot forge a complete relationship of love with Jesus, and, as a result, we cannot serve him as true master.

If there remain in you the elements that cause Jesus to become sad, lonely, painful and shackled, then in the day that he returns, you cannot stand before him. Moreover, if you cannot secure the center based on which you can take responsibility for the agony of Jesus on behalf of history, then you will not be able to stand firm as the co- ruler before Jesus, who is in charge of the historical dispensation.

If Jesus has a wish to govern each of you, then it must be a universal wish. If there is some will that he set, then that will must also be the universal will. Not only that, even if there are love and glory that he wants, that love and glory must not be only for the sake of himself, but they must be universal love and glory.

Then, do you have some sadness in you today? Do you feel loneliness and pain? Are you feeling restrained? It should never be that you are the ones who are causing the master of the universe, the Lord, to feel this kind of sorrow, loneliness or pain. The reason is that we are connected to Jesus; even if it is an insignificant feeling of sadness or pain, it does not stop with you but reaches Jesus.

If you are entrenched in sorrow, then it will become the sorrow of Jesus who is ruling over all things. If you feel lonely, then this feeling will become the loneliness of Jesus, who is the owner of all things. If you feel pain, then this will become the agony of Jesus who represents the universe. So if you cannot solve and overcome sorrow and agony in your own life, then you will not be able to attend Jesus, master of the universe, as the master in your life. Then, in place of Jesus, Satan will invade you, and you do not have any way to ward him off.

Moreover, if you cannot become connected to the situations of Jesus, then the situations of Jesus, who has been taking responsibility for the historical dispensation and has been fighting, will not be conveyed to you. If you cannot become people who can act on behalf of the will of God, the sorrow of Jesus will never be lifted, and there will not be any way that you can win in the fight with Satan and return that glory to Heaven.

You must understand that Jesus feels individual grief as the grief of the whole and is worried about it. The reason is that each of us is a part of the whole. Therefore, unless all of you who are incomplete beings reach the level of perfection based on the standard of the whole, the comprehensive will of Jesus also cannot be fulfilled. In other words, if one of you does not reach perfection, then the comprehensive will that Jesus is establishing will not be realized. Unless the will of the whole is realized, Jesus cannot rule over us as the shepherd of goodness who represents the whole. If that takes place, then the love of God, hope of God, and life of God will not be able to forge a direct bond with us.

Jesus has been working for a long time to emerge as the substantial manifestation of universal hope, as the substantial manifestation of universal life and universal love before the will of God. Today, we, as the sheep who are being led by this shepherd, must move when he moves, halt when he halts, and rejoice when he rejoices. Otherwise, the will of God, which seeks to clear the universal grief and bitterness through Jesus, will not be realized, not only through Jesus but also through you.

Although you are extremely small individual parts, you must act on behalf of the universal good shepherd and serve him. Even if there are times when you suffer grief, loneliness and pain, you must overcome those difficulties by thinking about the situation of Jesus who is undergoing greater ordeals. If you cannot live this kind of life, then you must remember that you will never be able to participate in the seat of glory of Jesus, who is the good shepherd.

Father, we earnestly hope that the day will come soon when you can become the master of eternal life to soundly govern over all things under heaven and indulge with them. Father! Please forgive the human beings who could not serve their Lord Jesus, who came as the representative incarnation of Father, although you sent him as the good sovereign and dominator of eternal ideals to bridge the gap with you that widened because of the fall of the human ancestors.

We know that the deficiency of the ancestors has caused Jesus' sorrow, and we are learning that the sorrow remains in Jesus because of our deficiencies. Please allow us to realize the hopes of the Father who desires that we inherit the great mission of the good shepherd and proudly go before all things. Please allow us to realize the hope of Jesus, and allow us to become the ones who can emerge with the life of the Father, the love of the Father, the life of Jesus and the love of Jesus. We realize that unless we can become like that, there is no way to ever remove the heartbreaking situations of Jesus Christ, who came as the good shepherd, in the human world. Please open the gates to our hearts and guide us to listen to the voice of the good shepherd who is calling out to us.

When we come to realize the mournful situation of the Father, the lonesome situation, and the situation of the Father who is struggling, we are so utterly ashamed. Father, please guide us not to become wretched people who are begging to transfer our own sadness, loneliness, laborious word and pain to Jesus.

Father, we wish from the depth of our hearts that you allow us to understand all the secrets of Satan, the internal situations of the Father, and the internal heart of Jesus, and that you give us the strength to be responsible for the situation of the Father and take charge of Jesus' sorrow, loneliness, agony and shackles to fight with the many millions of satans. Father, please allow us to see Jesus who is deeply immersed in worries about our situation and is at work. Please allow us to understand that Jesus is hanging on the cross even today because of our own pathetic situation.

We have been ignorant of the fact that, when we feel mournful, sad and lonely for the sake of Heaven, Jesus is feeling greater loneliness, sadness and pain, to comfort us. Now, please help us to become true sons and daughters who will appeal desperately to alleviate the sorrow of Jesus, as well as loneliness and pain of Jesus, even when our pain is greater than that of Jesus, our sorrow is greater than that of Jesus, and our difficulties are greater than that of Jesus. In this way, we entreat sincerely that we can become people who can follow in the footsteps of the good shepherd and comfort his drenched heart.

Father, we now know that the sons and daughters who have gathered here have joined the historical ranks in which we must offer all our minds and bodies. Moreover, we have come to realize that before us lies the fateful path that we cannot but travel through and with us lies the responsibilities and mission that force us to fight, so please allow us to prevail over all the sorrow, loneliness or anguish that we might face in our path.

We earnestly hope that even if the invisible Satan directly invades our lives and provokes chaos and fear, we can become missionaries who represent Jesus, confront it and persistently battle and triumph over it. We also hope that, at this moment, You will lift us up newly as the sons and daughters who can continue the life of Jesus on his behalf.

Hoping that You will use all of our minds and bodies to fulfill Your wishes and guide us to become the source of the Father's joy, glory and pride. Earnestly requesting that You allow us to become sons and daughters, whom You can govern and command as You will, and whom You can claim to place on your right side, we prayed all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.