God is sovereign over the universe. He rules over the affairs of men and women;
God is sovereign over the universe. He rules over the affairs of men and women; He decides their destinies. At the same time, since human beings have the freedom to submit to God’s sovereignty, the proper course is to recognize God’s authority over our lives and make Him our Lord.
This leads to the question of whether God’s sovereignty can be absolute. In this world, the claim that God invariably establishes justice by punishing evil and rewarding goodness is difficult to maintain.
Nevertheless, God’s ultimate sovereignty is certain. Father Moon teaches in some depth about this matter. He asserts the principle that God can be sovereign only when people are in a state of perfection where they can freely submit to His dominion, yet due to the Human Fall, this condition was not obtained.
Instead, the Devil took possession of this world by usurping the human heart.
Therefore, it is first necessary to expel the power of evil from the world and make it a domain over which God can reign without limitation.
That day, Father Moon asserts, is now at hand.
01Almighty God
The Creator of the heavens and the earth; and when He decrees a thing, He but says to it “Be,” and it is. Qur’an 2.117
All that is in the heavens and the earth magnifies God;
He is the All-mighty, the All-wise.
To Him belongs the Kingdom of the heavens and the earth.
He gives life, and He makes to die, and He is powerful over everything.
He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward;
He has knowledge of everything.
It is He that created the heavens and the earth in six days then seated
Himself upon the Throne.
He knows what penetrates into the earth, and what comes forth from it, what comes down from heaven, and what goes up into it.
He is with you wherever you are;
and God sees the things you do.
To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth;
and unto Him all matters are returned.
He makes the night enter into the day and makes the day enter into the night.
He knows the thoughts within the breasts. Qur’an 57.1-6
If He so will, He can remove you and put in your place a new creation; that is surely no great matter for God. Qur’an 14.19-20
You are the one imperishable, paramount, necessary core of knowledge,
The world’s ultimate foundation; you never cease to guard the eternal tradition. You are the everlasting Divine Being.
There is no telling what is beginning, middle, or end in you.
Your power is infinite; your arms reach infinitely far.
Sun and moon are your eyes. This is how I see you.
Your mouth is a flaming sacrificial fire.
You burn up the world with your radiance.
For you alone fill the quarters of heaven and the space between heaven and earth. The world above, man’s world, and the world in between are frightened at the awesome sight of you, O mighty being! Bhagavad-Gita 11.18-20 (Hinduism)
O mankind! It is you that have need of God: but God is the One Free of all wants, worthy of all praise. Qur’an 35.15
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
What is God like? [You say,] He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, who can destroy or create worlds with just one word. However, we do not need this kind of God. What kind of God does our original mind desire? We long for a God about whom we can say, “I love Him more than I love my father and mother.” (147:271)
God is almighty. It was not due to His shortcomings or lack of ability that He has been imprisoned in great pain and has endured immense suffering behind the scenes of history.
It was because there are provisions in the Principle of Restoration, which He was not free to disclose, that called Him to wait with forbearance until Adam and Eve’s positions, lost at the human fall, were recovered with the appearance of the perfected Second Adam. Although God is all-powerful, He will not set aside the eternal laws and principles that He established. (September 12, 2005)
Many people rattle off words about God’s absoluteness, omnipotence, and glory. Nonetheless, through my lifelong search for truth, I have found that to be way off the mark. When the first human ancestors fell, God became a bereaved Parent who lost His beloved children.
Think of it: if your children were in prison, could you as a parent live in glory? So you can understand how God’s heart could be in deep pain and sadness. Furthermore, God also had to hand over to Satan the beautiful creation which He had made for His children. From the moment He lost His object of love, the God of true love became the God of loneliness.
From that moment on, God was in no position to exercise His power as the Lord of the universe. He had no opportunity to display His authority as the Creator of all things, while fallen people go about boasting over their petty creations. Although God is the Lord of all that has breath, He could not display His dignity. Although God is the Owner of all that lives, He was never able to manifest His supreme glory.
Although God is the Author of the Principle, how could He operate freely in a world that had fallen and become unprincipled? Human beings, living with all degrees of distrust and rebellion, mock God as non-existent or dead.
Even those who say they believe mostly ignore God as they go about their daily life. God has endured this long history with a heart full of excruciating pain.
(January 29, 2001)
We need a God who transcends evil and everything, who has absolute power to subjugate all. Even though the Devil exists, he should not be able to hinder God; rather, God should transcend the Devil and be completely unrestricted. Until we find such a God, we will not be able to overcome the present state of conflict.
God has been fighting with the Devil throughout history, and religions have been relegated to an internal, spiritual role. That condition has not provided a way to establish a new culture. Only when God is absolute and transcendent, when the Devil cannot interfere in any way, can there be a new beginning that can resolve the problems of today’s world.
Yet consider the present position of God. He is not a transcendental Being who rules over human history or the history of providence. Why? It is because human beings fell. God stands in the position of a doctor who seeks to cure human beings of this sickness. He is the repairman, mending us of this defect.
Not having yet raised perfected individuals, He could not be the God who stands in the absolute position and guides humankind towards the one goal. (140:18-19, February 1, 1986)
Father! Mayest Thou become the Lord of this heaven and earth which have no lord; the Center who can be responsible for this nation and lead it to its future destiny, the Center of our families’ hopes, and our hopes.
What the world needs, the nation needs, the family needs, and the individual needs art Thou, our Father, the Lord who created all of heaven and earth.
Thou art the Being of infinite might.
Thou art the omnipotent Being,
unlimited in the world of time and space, the Creator of everything.
Thou art the Subject Partner endowing everything with meaning.
Everything exists according to its destined relationship with Thee.
Nothing that exists is without purpose: each is an object partner to Thee, the Subject Partner.
We know that we, our families, nations, and the world, find our position about Thee.
When the sun shines, the life of all beings springs forth from that light. Even microorganisms seek to unite with the light, facing one center.
In the same way, we must attend Thee as the Lord of our lives, our Father who brightens the path on which we must tread.
Unless we unite with Thee and become one with Thee, our path of life will be blocked. (59:65-67, July 9, 1972)
02The Lord Who Rules Over Human Affairs
The Lord will reign forever and ever. Exodus 15.18
Unto God belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth and all that is therein, and it is He who has power over all things. Qur’an 5.120
All that are rulers, kings, potentates, lords,
chiefs, officials— all are God’s creation. Their will is subject to God’s;
On God are they all dependent.
Adi Granth, Bilaval-ki-Var 6, M.4, p. 851 (Sikhism)
Then did I recognize Thee in mind,
to be the first and the last, O Lord,
Father of good thought,
When I apprehended
Thee in my eye,
True creator of Right,
The Lord over the actions of life!
Avesta, Yasna 31.8 (Zoroastrianism)
Revere the anger of Heaven,
And presume not to make sport or be idle.
Revere the changing moods of Heaven,
And presume not to drive about at your pleasure.
Great Heaven is intelligent,
And is with you in all your goings.
Great Heaven is clear-seeing,
And is with you in your wanderings and indulgences.
Book of Songs, Ode 254 (Confucianism)
The Wise One is the most mindful of the plans,
which, indeed, were wrought in the past,
By demons and by men, and which will be wrought hereafter!
He, the Lord, is the sole decider,
so may it be unto us as He wills!
Avesta, Yasna 29.4 (Zoroastrianism)
Whoever vows to tyrannize over the humble and the meek,
The Supreme Lord burns him in flames.
The Creator dispenses perfect justice
And preserves His devotee.
Adi Granth, Gauri, M.5, p. 199 (Sikhism)
Never mind if the people are not intimidated by your [correct] authority.
A mightier Authority will deal with them in the end.
Tao Te Ching 72 (Taoism)
The great day of the Lord is near,
near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter,
the mighty man cries aloud there.
A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
against the fortified cities and
against the lofty battlements.
I will bring distress on men,
so that they shall walk like the blind,
because they have sinned against the Lord;
their blood shall be poured out like dust,
and their flesh like dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold
shall be able to deliver them
on the day of the wrath of the Lord.
In the fire of his jealous wrath,
all the earth shall be consumed;
for a full, yea, sudden end
he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.
Zephaniah 1.14-18
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Have we only regarded God as a concept? Have we only honored Him as Lord in worship? That is not right. God is the Lord of our life, the Ruler of our daily affairs, and the Subject of our thought. (11:87, February 12, 1961)
In order to understand ourselves and give a full account of ourselves, we need a standard upon which to evaluate and judge ourselves. This is the Absolute Being, whom we worship in our faith.
When we enter into a relationship with Him, we can assess ourselves in comparison to Him; then we can understand who we are and what we are.
Therefore, we should be able to deeply experience that there is a God who reigns over us and moves our minds (7:207-08, September 13, 1959)
God gave His Word to the Israelites who left Egypt to recreate them as God’s people. However, when they did not follow His Word, He appeared to them as the terrifying God who struck and punished them.
During the Old Testament Age, before the appearance of the Messiah, Satan still reigned as king; it was an age of the Devil’s power.
Therefore, Jehovah God appeared to Moses as a terrifying, vengeful, and jealous God. He appeared with the Law to strike the people who had become servants of sin, mercilessly punishing anyone who violated the Law. This was the situation in the Old Testament Age.
Look at the attributes of Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament Age. He was a jealous God who terrified those Israelites who worshipped other gods. He was a cruel God who ordered the Israelites to exterminate the seven Canaanite tribes, leaving no survivors. He was a merciless God who wiped out any Israelite who violated the commandments of the Mosaic Law.
Does the loving God who created the universe have the character to feel such jealousy, exact such revenge, instill such terror, and exhibit such cruelty as to exterminate the seven Canaanite tribes? No.
God appeared in that way because during the Old Testament Age, he tasked His angels to serve as mediators in the role of God.
The vengeful legalism summed up in the saying, “A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, and a stripe for a stripe” cannot stem from the character of the Creator God. God is the God of love and forgiveness. (124:202, February 15, 1983)
Please pay attention to my prophetic proclamation. Humankind is now at a historical turning point. Now the God of power and authority, who in the past seemed so powerless or did not even exist, can manifest in our lives.
Now is an amazing time, when human beings in their everyday life can experience the absolute realm of God, the sovereign Lord, whose divine principle governs all things and the universe. People will increasingly be able to perceive God. They will perceive the spirit world and the works of spirits.
As they naturally understand the public laws of the universe through their own experiences, people will undergo definite changes to their character and become true individuals.
They will no longer be self-centered in relating to greater wholes in the universal order of being. They will learn to be altruistic, living for the sake of others. (February 6, 2004)
We are transcending Satan’s limited realm. Once that work is completed, God can take dominion over the universe without any difficulty. Then, Satan’s realm will be gone from the earth, and the new sovereignty of Heaven will arrive.
With God on high, Satan will disappear, and Heaven’s new sovereignty will be established. God’s dominion will extend from individuals to the cosmos, and God will reign for the first time in human history.
The time is at hand when all-transcendent, all-encompassing, all-sovereign, and almighty God can do all that He desires. Being all-encompassing, God will reign over the entire world that formerly had been in Satan’s possession.
Being almighty, God will do whatever He pleases, holding all authority over Satan. (295:254, September 8, 1998)
END OF BOOK CHAPTER