The Life and Mission of Jesus Christ: Episode 35

Rev. Sun Myung Moon: The Life and Mission of Jesus Christ
Chapter 4: With The Disciples, The Sabbath Controversy, Page 97-98

The Sabbath Controversy

At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.

If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)

Many people in the process of restoration may have tasted the heavenly kingdom while still in the domain of Satan’s accusations. Yet there is no one who has truly experienced the taste of the fatherland of eternal peace, the heavenly kingdom, having eliminated Satan. He who has experienced the taste of the true heavenly kingdom and felt the love of God will receive the impetus to fight with Satan. Once a person experiences that taste and receives that love, he will never leave God again. A man who has experienced the love of God must appear on this earth.

What should belong to God? It begins from a clump of grass, from an acre of land, from an individual person, and includes everything up to the heavenly kingdom; going further, it includes the world of God’s heart. That ownership should not be relative or conceptual. It should be substantial. Only if such a world is built will God rest for the first time. Human beings cannot help liking what God likes. For that reason, God decided upon the seventh day as the Sabbath and told man to rest. Did you know that God has not been able to rest on a Sabbath day even now, after 6,000 years of history?

Jesus emphasized the Word of God and came forth inheriting the vicissitudes of 2,000 years of providential history, during which the Sabbath was upheld as most important. However, has the day of triumphant glory come when Jesus could approach the Father and invite him to take a rest along with humankind? No, there has not. Since God and Jesus are not in a situation where they can rest, neither can we.

God’s Possession and Our Possession
November 9, 1958