Sun Myung Moon’s Life In His Own Words
|
|
Sun Myung Moon’s Life In His Own Words |
Kim Baek-moon
On that day, Koreans could rise out of their desperate hopeless situations and become a people who could meet a day of new hope; families and individuals could encounter hope renewed. If you merge the hope of a nation, the hope of families and the hope of individuals into one, it makes a foundation for national-level victory. This was the day of hope, in which we could recover the country; it paralleled Jesus' time, in which the opportunity to gain a country was lost. The day of Korean liberation in 1945 was the day of hope for recovering the lost race and the lost family.
After liberation, patriots who had spread out all over the world returned to Korea; groups arrived from Japan, China, America and Russia. As you know, fighting broke out among the communist Kim Il-sung faction, the Kim Ku faction, the Dr. Rhee faction and the Chinese faction; and a time of confusion ensued. [The Korean Provisional Government (KPG) had been based in China; Kim Ku had led the KPG but also had his own following.] At that time, I couldn't shout "Mansei." Everyone else was so happy because they had been liberated, but even though I wanted to raise my hands with them my hands just wouldn't go up. Everyone else was dancing joyously on August 15, but I was in a tiny room praying in tears.
I was tortured a lot by the Japanese, but when the war ended, I gathered all those of my friends who were planning to take revenge on the special police agents who had tortured them and said, "The Japanese have lost the war and are really in a wretched state. God will punish those who beat people; they have lost sovereignty over Korea and are begging on tended knee for forgiveness." I also quietly called some Japanese who was being pursued in Korea and helped them pack their bags saying, "Go home quickly; before you are tortured." 1945 was a very happy year for the Koreans, but it wasn't for the Japanese, who had lost the war; for them it was a sad year. We need a day on which all the people of the world can rejoice together.
The military ruled Korea immediately after her liberation. [Father is referring to the United Slates Military Government in Korea (1945-1948)] It took three years, until I948, to establish a [Korean] government. The three years immediately after the liberation was a buffer period.
The second Israel had to be established on the foundation of the first Israel. America, the representative nation of Christianity, the second Israel, facilitated Korea's independence. Based on this independence, which came via the second Israel, the problems of the first and second Israels had to be solved and Korean independence had to stand on the resulting foundation. That was the situation at that time.
What would have happened if Christianity and Korea had welcomed me? I could have absorbed Protestant America over the course of seven years. And if I had begun working on the world level after the seven-year course finished in 1952, I would have mobilized all the world's statesmen by the time I was forty years old, leading them in one direction, toward the goal of making the kingdom of heaven on earth. That was the original providential plan. Christianity has made a unified, global territory after four thousand years of Judeo-Christian history. If Christianity had followed me, a unified physical and spiritual world would have come about. The American military government's mistake England, America and France had to return to the center of the unified physical and spiritual worlds. The two son factions and the daughter faction (respectively), which had been fighting among themselves, had to return. From the world's point of view, the eldest son on God's side and the eldest son on Satan's side should have become one and come to the returning lord's country. Why should they have come?
They should have come to inherit the seed. The people who had inherited the false seed of wickedness should have obliterated it and come to the true country in order to inherit the heavenly world's true life.
But the occupation force military governor of southern Korea General Arnold, took over all the Korean government offices. [Archibald V Arnold (1889-1973) was commander of the U.S. Army 7th Division when it landed in Korea on September 8, 1955. Four day, later, Lieutenant General John it Hodge appointed Arnold acting military governor, a post he held until that December.] The translators the American military government used were all former Christian ministers or other people who had studied theology. They worked for the government as translators but ignored God's will, though it was by God's will that the historical foundation to make an Abel-realm political party had been prepared. They became one centered not on God's will but on the country.
This difficult problem arose. Through mistakes within the Christian cultural sphere (the Korean Christian church, Korean leaders, American leaders and missionaries) the platform for the returning Lord's ideal achievement of which would have brought about Heaven's blessing and a glorious banquet, and developed into the victory of the kingdom of heaven began to crumble. America was in the position of the eldest son but did not fulfill the responsibility to be an offering that would have been able to restore the foundation of the father and mother of Korea. Korea's demarcation and Christian disbelief -- God knew that Christians were in a position from which they might oppose His will. He therefore prepared a large number of spiritual groups, internally and spiritually. But no matter how many internally prepared groups there were, Christianity externally already had the form of a country so it was a matter of course that on the day they began to oppose us, we returned to the same situation as when Judaism and the nation of Israel opposed Jesus.
The same destiny was unfolding in this time. I was one of five people who formed the Liberal Party. I was fully aware that things wouldn't work without creating a foundation centered on a political organization. At that time, as a young man of twenty-five or twenty-six, I was about to start joining hands with high-level Koreans. I intended to start with a broad base, centered on the Defense Minister at that time, Shin Seong-ma, but my plan went awry. [Shin Seong-ma (1891-1960). Republic of Korea Defense Minister (March 20, 1949 - May 5, 1951)] I was going to start on the highest level and go out to the world... If only Dr. Rhee and a few members of his party, between three and twelve of them, had supported me, America, the Cain leader of the democratic world, would surely have been connected with this country and I would have been able to move in that direction.
I had received God's permission to start from the highest position but everything was blocked because of two Christian ministers. I was cut off by a very senior minister, so I had no choice but to start the course of restoration again from the lower position. At that time, one person who had formed a close bond with me and was working in the forefront was the famous minister of an established church. Nevertheless, he betrayed me because he wanted to be more powerful himself.
In this way history develops by being divided or brought together by just one or two people. The revolutionary changes of the ages have not been started by large groups of people.
The person who was to become the president of Korea should have represented Abel. In Abel's position, he should not have used Christian ministers who had had an easy life. He should have excluded all those church ministers and chosen instead those Abel-type people who had been in prison or who had suffered in the underground liberation movement. Then he should have reeducated those people in order to establish the country in the right way. If only this had happened then. At that lime, I knew all the people at the ministerial level. I had met all the well-known people in the Korean underground. They also knew who I was. If that had happened, centering on the Abel group, which focused on national independence, we could have automatically started out in a new direction and advocated a new way for the world.
The country could only have been saved if the underground churches and the churches that were being re-created had united and representing the Abel realm had become one with the Cain realm's established churches. And the Old Testament Age spiritual group bent on the restoration of Eden should have followed the New Testament Age group that had a similar focus, but it didn't realize this. It thought it was the best group. Because a center is needed to carry out any activities, in the East or West, if the center doesn't appear, everything collides. North and South collide; East and West collide. I brought these people together. You have to connect them together even if there is only one family member.
It would have been good if my great-uncle had worked in politics, but he was a simple Christian minister. My grandfather was a much-needed person when Dr. Rhee was trying to establish a new country. He excelled in classical learning and in modern studies as well. When he was in Jeongseon, a helicopter was sent to pick him up three times.
But he said, "I don't want to get involved in politics. A religious figure getting involved in politics is so... he didn't join hands with Dr. Rhee. If he had, how good it would have been for my mission! Centering on providence, if I had just persuaded my great-uncle to accept the Principle, it wouldn't have been a problem to absorb Dr. Rhee's clan and all the Christian leaders.
The family has to enter Joseph's clan realm. Then, if Satan accuses some group, he only accuses the tribal realm; he can't enter the family. That is why the tribe is absolutely necessary. But Korea and the established churches set Sung-jin's mother against me. She didn't know I had a global mission on my shoulders. She and her mother united in their opposition to me, saying. "Whoever says the Lord will come in the flesh is an enemy, the Antichrist." It was the same as when John the Baptist did not believe the teachings of Heaven and didn't follow Jesus.
From the viewpoint of the providential will, even if a woman represented Christianity -- which had the mission to be the bride in the course of the Providence of Restoration -- once I met her, she should have surpassed John the Baptist and supported me. Yet, she didn't. This is when problems started happening. The time had come and I had to begin my mission, but hostile feelings against me started to spread.
If people stand against us, they will end up going back to the world on Satan's side. The Unification Church carries the mission of having to conduct itself on a global foundation during my lifetime. Like a group driven into the wilderness, the Unification Church lost the world, the nation, the people, the tribe and the family; the Unification Church had to then manage everything anew. This is the path the Unification Church had to follow.
Because of the Fall, which occurred on the family-level, and at the top of the growth stage, from the providential, historical point of view, I had to hold the wedding within fourteen years after Korea's liberation. Those fourteen years after liberation (August 15, 1945 to 1960) were seven years to represent the Old Testament Age and seven to represent the New Testament Age, following which came seven more to represent the Completed Testament Age (1960-1967).
Because I had passed through the three ages -- Adam's, Jesus and the returning Lord's -- I could connect these three stages of the historical path, represented by three seven-year courses, to each other. I made things that had been separate into one. That is why there were three seven-year courses (1960-1981) in the Unification Church.
During that twenty-one year period, I had to untangle everything, that had been tangled throughout history and connect everything to the tribe, to the ethnic group, to the country, and to the world. I had to make God's highway. So I have led all the families to the world stage.
You must realize that my being able to declare the second set of three seven-year courses (1981-2002) was a truly remarkable and historical event.
It was God's intention to unite the Christian cultural sphere within the seven years from 1945 to 1952. However, because Christians did not understand God's will and did not unite with me, I had to indemnify, again, four thousand years of history in one generation, by 1992. This was the forty-year period in the global wilderness. Forty years from 1915 would be 1985, but an extra seven years passed and it became 1992.
In the course of the providence of restoration, has God ever used the same person twice? He is unable to do that. Who is the only person who can do that? Adam is. If I set up something and it fails, it is my responsibility... This is why God set up Japan, the country Satan loved the most, in place of Britain, Germany in place of France and America in the position of Abel.
I prayed five times a day for forty years for seven countries -- Korea, America, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy. When I woke up in the morning, when I had breakfast, when I had lunch, when I had dinner, and before I slept; I prayed for these countries for forty years (1953-1992).
Why was Korea split in two? That is America's responsibility. It is because Great Britain, America and France were ignorant of their missions. Because of this mistake, communism could rise up and the second coming of the false lord, Kim Il-sung, a man North Koreans regard as their father, could appear. Stalin was the monster who wanted to wipe out the whole of God's world.
North Korea was the Adam nation on Satan's side. China was the Eve nation on Satan's side and the Soviet bloc was the archangel nation on Satan's side. This is why there was hostility on both sides. Then what was Germany? Half of Germany was on Satan's side and half was on God's side. Without the two sides embracing, it could not be the Adam nation.
Until Germany becomes one, Korea too will be in chaos. Korea was also invaded once in a similar fashion, and that is why it had to give away half of itself; the archangel on Heaven's side had to give half of Korea to the archangel on the satanic side and kept the other half for himself. One half was the part that is the Adam nation of Korea. The other half was the part that is the satanic Adam nation. If these two can be unified, everything will be resolved or the global stage.
In the past forty years, I have been in and out of prison six times. I have spent more than five years of my life in prison. No one in the history of the world has been cursed as much as I have. I have been cursed an uncountable number of times. You have to know how much blood and sweat and how many tears I have shed.
In North Korea I was imprisoned three times. Once was because of money. I used the wrong currency. Such incidents occurred so that I could cut any lingering ties I might have had to money or anything else. This was my strategy for denying everything.
Kim Baek-moon (1917-1990) was one of the three main successors to Rev. Lee Yong-do. [Rev. Lee, influential merely because of his spiritual standard, drew followers from different denominations. He died of tuberculosis in 1933.] He led an exemplary life of faith. This group had the status of a John the Baptist group. He heard the voice of God telling him to make a religious retreat. He heard the voice of God telling him to prepare for the returning Lord.
Kim Baek-moon and I were in the position of Cain and Abel, respectively; John the Baptist and Jesus. That's why we hear the name Kim Baek-moon. Some people say that Rev. Moon was Kim Baek-moon's disciple. What would I gain from that? He was a Christian, and according to his Christology, Jesus was God. He didn't know the fundamental Principle. However, when it came to being spiritually attuned, he was on the highest level of faith among the Christians of the time. Because. Kim Baek-moon was close to Dr. Syngman Rhee,
Kim was a John the Baptist figure. God's will could have been realized at that time. But it didn't work out.
I visited this group because I knew it was connected to God's will. It was soon after liberation, October 1945.I first started along this path in 1944 or 1945. At that time, 1 was teaching the church members in the Sangdo-jong church. What did I do for the more than six months that I was there? I acted as a servant. I knew everything about God's will, but in order to inherit it properly I lived a life of devotion and prayer without telling anyone about it. You can't imagine how earnestly I prayed at that time. My tears stained the floor I prayed on, and there was not a day on which the floor was dry.
I was not able to take people secretly out of this group as might be done in the secular world. Because truth is truth, I had to wait for a time when I could find people in that group who possessed the qualities required by God's restoration work. That's why I acted as a servant within that group without saying a word.
It I could have restored from that spiritual group one man and three women who had aligned themselves completely with that man, I could have established all the conditions to restore Eve.
The Old Testament is analogous to an old woman -- a spinster. The New Testament is analogous to a woman who was engaged but was unable to marry. Those two are like a grandmother and mother. The Completed Testament is like a daughter. She would be like Jesus sister. Before Mr. Kim blessed me, there were three women in that group who had testified that I was the Lord.
After six months, Mr. Kim received a revelation from Heaven. He put his hands on my head and gave me a blessing that all of King Solomon's glory in the world would be passed on to me. Then in March, at Easter, Heaven's phenomena manifested among his followers. That is why he blessed me in front of all his followers. It was the same as John the Baptist giving the notice of inheritance. He was wearing white clothes at the time.
From the viewpoint of the Principle, if Abel doesn't persuade Cain to unite with him, there is no way to go. If they unite, they unite the world of men, and the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age and the Completed Testament Age become perfectly connected. If that happens, the vertical history until that time can be established horizontally, and the victorious foundation of complete restoration through indemnity is established.
After he blessed me, all the devout and spiritual people in that group received a revelation from Heaven telling them not to follow Mr. Kim but to follow Mr. Moon. At that time, I didn't promote myself or try to explain things; just waited quietly. God had already prepared everything.
Kim Baek-moon said I had the same mission as King Solomon and blessed me, but he did not understand the significance of what he was doing. He didn't ask me one word about me, and I was unable to volunteer the information of my own free will. He should have asked me everything about me. That was his five percent portion of responsibility. Even so, he blessed me, so I inherited everything he had. In order to accept a new spiritual movement people always have their responsibility to fulfill. Two thousand years ago, the responsibility that the Jews should have fulfilled in order to accept Jesus was to be humble. But they weren't. The reason they did not accept Jesus was that they did not understand that they had a responsibility. I knew about all of Kim's misconduct and mistakes, but I didn't say anything. We have a responsibility to protect the people we know. This is the attitude that religious people should have when they walk the path of faith.
If Kim's group had united with me, it would have immediately become a perfection-level group. Then I should have sought out other Christian groups. Together with those groups, I should then have connected with ministers from other established Christian churches. Next, I should have connected with the government. That would make the number three. The three women testified to me. They should then have united with me, but they didn't. That's why I had to go to North Korea. I had to establish all the necessary conditions to restore three women and one man. Whether brother Kim accepted me or not, from my point of view, I couldn't make a new beginning based on heart without first warning him and wiping the slate clean. So I wrote him eighteen letters, but he tore all of them up. After that, I had fulfilled my responsibility so I left for Pyongyang. Without doing this I couldn't have gone to Pyongyang.
I decided now that I had to go my own way; so I thought that I would go to Munsan and visit Kim Back-moons retreat, where he was holding a special meeting, and say my farewells. In spite of everything, it was the proper thing to do. In meeting and parting from people, you offer a greeting.
After that, I was here in Seoul. The house in Sangdo-dong is still there, isn't it? [Father moved to this small house in October 1945, near the Kashimagumi Construction Company, where he worked as an electrical engineer.] There was a company called the Kashima-gumi Construction Company. It was a big electrical company from Japan... At that time, I was working at the company and was responsible for a church. We had no rice because it was just after the liberation. I bought some rice in Baekcheon, Hwang-hae Province. I put it in the truck. On the way home I received a command from Heaven saying, "Cross over the Thirty-Eighth Parallel." I received the command on May 27, and immediately I went. It was morning and I left abruptly Sung-jin had been born on April 2; I left on May 27. He was just over a month old. I arrived in Pyongyang on June 6.
It was difficult to cross the Thirty-Eighth Parallel, but God guided me in everything. There was a rainbow. You wouldn't believe everything I could say and so I won't tell you everything. I was guided as to where to cross the Thirty-Eighth Parallel, and I entered North Korea. A rainbow led me across. It directly led me for 120 li. [About 47 km; one li is 393 meters]
I gave up everything in order to follow God's will. I already knew what I had to do. I knew that God would surely command me in some way. Would I go the way of my family, or would I go God's public way? I firmly separated the two and said, "I will go the way of Heaven." I went to North Korea in accordance with God's command. Such a critical peak exists -- you cannot do both. You have to choose between two. I gave up a comfortable home and chose the way of death.
There was no back-up plan. It is a small thing to sacrifice one's family for God and the world. "I can't go because of my sons and daughters," is not acceptable. If it were possible at that time, I wouldn't have cast aside my family and gone to North Korea. Only God's ideal for the restoration of Canaan was engraved in my heart. All I wanted to do was find the people and the land that could receive God's blessing. To this day, I have been doing my utmost to accomplish this.
When you go down, you have to go down to the lowest place. That's why I had to go to North Korea and start working my way up again. When King Herod was after Jesus, the people of Israel and Judaism should have joined forces and supported Jesus, opposing King Herod. They didn't fulfill their God-given mission, however. so Jesus had to go to Egypt. I had to follow a similar course.
Even when I went to North Korea, there was no one I could talk to. I was always alone. I put on my backpack. I still can't forget my prayer then, "My loving wife and child, I have to leave you and go. I have no choice but to go." The features of that young man, who was traveling on the path of a wanderer in search of Heaven's way, were like those of a lamb that was being pursued and chased.
My going to North Korea meant that I was going into Satan's headquarters. North Korea was the world-level Satan. I went into the communist realm resolved to die. I had gone into the enemy's headquarters. Because the foundation of the will centering on Korean Christianity had gone over to Satan, I had to go north into Satan's den in order to recover it. God is sorrowful over not being able to relate to Cain, not being able to like Cain and not being able to receive Cain's offering. That's why I had to put Sung-jin aside and cross the Thirty-Eighth Parallel into North Korea. It meant I had to discard my child, in the spiritual sense, and love the people across the Thirty-Eighth Parallel in North Korea.
I had a family because it was God's will for me to connect my family with the church and with the country; but I was unable to connect my family with the country or the church. So I had to start from the beginning again. I had to establish all the indemnity conditions until I could recover everything that had been lost.
If a letter came, I used to send it back or tear it up at the front gate. I treated any kind of news as my enemy. Sung-jin's mother had to make a living selling apples with Sung-jin strapped on her hack. She was even chased by the police. Even though I heard this news, my heart was unmoved.
After having realized this, Sung-jin's mother should have passed over the peak and come back to me. She had to go through a seven-year-course. The mother should have cooperated with the child. With the mission of Eve, she should have sought out her husband, who had not yet established the vertical standard on earth, and for seven years on earth, she should have embraced the baby and raised him more beautifully than any other prince. I had already explained all of this to her when we got engaged.
There were so many Christians in Pyongyang that it was called the Jerusalem of the East, which is why I went to Pyongyang to begin again.
Alter the liberation, in Pyongyang, the churches were being reconstructed in order to fulfill a new, historic mission. It was into this kind of environment in Pyongyang that I went and began a new Principle movement. Al that time, the Christians felt the joy of liberation and the sorrow of their life of faith had lifted. Their faith had been full of sorrow from oppressive Japanese domination, but now they were full of new hope.
At that time in Pyongyang a new revolution of faith and church renewal was engendering hope. I was witnessing in Somun and nearby Kyongchang-ri. It was the beginning of the foundation for the Unification Church.
I was twenty-six years old when I went to Pyongyang. I was a young man. My way of interpreting the Book of Romans or Revelation in the Bible turned everything upside down. Everything in the world. If those people then were still alive now, they would say Rev. Moon, you knew everything. How is it that everything you said has come true?
Choose the smart people. Bring them all. Then I will assign them... If they don't listen, I will persuade them myself. So I chose all the youth leaders, the good talkers, the enthusiastic deacons and deaconesses, the intelligent people; I picked them all. If I took away five from each of the churches in Pyongyang, the churches became very noisy.
The Jangdaejae Church was a large one in Pyongyang. Long ago, Rev. Gil Son-ju held revival meetings there. I prayed there and received a lot of inspiration. The church had a congregation of about one thousand five hundred people. I took fifteen very bright people from that church, causing an uproar. Some elders threatened to kill me. There was an absolute uproar. Because I did that kind of thing, I was bound to be cursed at!
I used to pray "How many people are here that God can use? In the Bible, it says that Sodom and Gomorrah could have been saved if there had been only five righteous men; how many people might be called righteous? If there aren't any, please wait a few months, I will raise such people." You can imagine how busy I was.