New Hope - Twelve Talks of Reverend Sun Myung Moon

America in God's Providence

The history of humankind has had no clear goal or motive. From the viewpoint of today's situation, there is a serious question: Do we live in the form of the ideal world, or will the ideal world emerge from an extension of the present world? More and more people long for one ideal world with freedom and peace, and we can readily understand that longing. But by the trend of the present world, we can never reach the world which all people desire. Therefore, our present goal is very indefinite and unclear.

Can we find any one nation which can take the responsibility to build such an ideal world? I think most people living now in the United States cannot lead this world to fulfill such a hope, nor is there anyone in the Communist world who can do so. America has not found the ideal which will make people love the world more than their own country. The present United States, therefore, cannot be the nation to lead us to the ideal world. Likewise, the Soviet Union in the Communist world cannot be the country to establish such an ideal world. There will be no prosperous world, or peaceful world until the American people and the Soviet people can sacrifice themselves for the benefit of all mankind and the whole world, but there is at present nothing leading them to do so.

All things are developing from some cause. Now, this world is not the world all mankind desire. Therefore, in the beginning there must have been something wrong. In other words, history started from a wrong motive. We Must correct this to achieve the goal of God and man. The goal cannot be reached simply by correcting the various problems in this world of result; we must go back to the starting point and correct the original motive.

Was the world created from a unified motive? We find that nations are not unified, and races and families are not unified. And even the world is divided into blocs. In nations there are opposing parties. In homes there are divisions among members, and within the individual, mind and body are divided. The question is: Why is the world divided? What is the cause which brought the whole world, nations, families, and individuals into conflict?

God is absolute. If all individuals and the whole world were made one with this eternal Cause, then how could such a divided world exist? We have to deduce that this absolute God was not involved in forming the divided world.

If the world is to be unified, someone must destroy all the problems that were caused by evil. That is the mission of religion. Whoever is looking for the ideal world must investigate the cause and destroy evil. To find the root of evil is most important. If we can't find it, we can't restore the world. By finding the evil cause in ourselves we can solve all the problems of the individual. The important thing is to find one person who has become one with God, who has a mind and body which do not struggle with each other, centered on God. Therefore, the most important goal is not solving all the problems of the world, but to find the self that is not divided and struggling against itself. If God exists, He must show us the way to restore our origin al state. He must teach us to become ideal individuals.

Therefore, through the course of history, God designed His providence to call one such person from among mankind. Man lives in his home with his family. Also he lives in the material world and in his nation. For God to restore His nation, His family, H is individuals, and His material world, He cannot simply take these things back from evil without any condition. The evil possessor would try to retain all these things. Therefore, the direction of good and evil must be different. If one goes to the right, the other one goes to the left. All people want to have a unified world, but this cannot be obtained easily.

You are in the central position in the struggle between good and evil. It is not easy for you to know which is more serious - the fall of a nation or the fall of an individual. For man, the most important thing would be his own demise. We have a tendency to want not to sacrifice ourselves for others. Everyone has a mind to make all things center on himself. So to reach the world which we long for and desire, we have to overcome obstacles which stand in our way.

If we make one world by conquering other nations, we will never have a peaceful or happy world. We cannot have such a world by fighting others.

Because God knows this, He goes the opposite way. In this world there are two ways of life. Evil wants to make one world by beating others, but God chooses a different way.

The degradation of mankind, the fall of man, came from the attitude that one would be willing to sacrifice others for his own benefit. As you know, the cause of evil was the Archangel who, for his own enjoyment and benefit, sacrificed Eve and Adam. As A dam and Eve were the ancestors of all mankind, he sacrificed the seed of mankind for his own personal benefit. The world has developed according to that pattern, from the evil motive. The Archangel, to fulfill his desire, sacrificed others even though h is desire was false. Likewise, rulers throughout history have sacrificed other people for their own causes. The strong have had the dominating power. Struggle began between individuals, spread to the struggle between families, to the struggle between tribes, nations, and even worlds. Today there is no peace and no ideal world.

Now history is at the stage when the two blocs which have tried to sacrifice each other are tired. The democratic nations want to make one world but have almost given up. The Communist world wants to dominate the whole world, but it has also come to this position. Therefore, this world cannot now be unified by either the democratic world or the Communist world. How this world can in fact be unified is a very serious question.

All people want to have a peaceful, happy world. But we are in despair; we cannot find the way to the unified ideal world. Before mankind is a big obstacle. We cannot pass the obstacle if we put our own national interest in the first place. We can achieve the ideal world only with the thought that to achieve the ideal world we are willing to sacrifice our own nation. With such thoughts alone can we continue and overcome the obstacle before us.

The reason for the conflict between Soviet Russia and China is that Russia wanted to make the Communist world center around herself, while Red China wanted to make it center on China's people. The United States is the leading country in the democratic world, but she has not been able to fulfill that role when she thought of her own interests more than those of other nations. America and Russia seem ready today to throw away the whole world to save themselves. There must be one nation who can sacrifice herself for the establishment of the ideal world. When we find such a nation, we can have hope for one ideal world. That nation does not exist for her own benefit, but for the sake of the world.

The purpose of God is contrary to the purpose of evil. As God's providence was thwarted in the beginning, we have the directionlessness of the present world as a result. God has gone the course of teaching religious people. First He had to find one individual on His side, completely one with Him - who could not be broken away from Him. And this man must come to the position where he can make one unified world. Therefore the primary intention of God is to find someone to become one with Him. And his teachings must be to love God and to sacrifice oneself for the world. Because man is in the position which is derived from the evil cause, as he is he cannot go to God. He must reverse his direction. To love God, man must abandon his world, his family, material things, and even his own life. Then when he really loves God, God must love him. That man, as the one who receives God's love, must sacrifice himself for the world. That is most important; that is the core of God's providence.

When we think about the words of God that we must love Him with all our hearts, all our minds, all our spirits and everything we have, we might think God is like a dictator. But all these commandments are not for Himself. When we love Him with all our hearts and all we have, He will love us just as we love Him. That was God's intention and His first commandment to us. Therefore, the word "love" is absolute. When we love Him, He loves back. The command which asks for us to love Him with all our beings means to love Him with our life by sacrificing ourselves. For God to love others, He must sacrifice the one whom He loves the most. Because of such teachings, we call God love. Because God sacrificed those whom He loved most for the world, God is the greatest Love.

Among the world religions, therefore, Christianity is the one central to God's purpose because Jesus Christ gave himself as a sacrifice for others. More than that, he even prayed for his enemies to be blessed by God. The spirit of Jesus was to be an offering for others. Following his pattern, many Christians have been martyred for God's cause. Families have been sacrificed, and tribes and nations were given up for the sake of God. So for the providence of God to come to the worldwide level, God is demanding that one nation come forth and sacrifice herself for the blessing of all mankind. God needs such a nation to represent the world.

Can we find such a nation on this earth? There is no such nation sacrificing itself. Therefore religion must sacrifice itself for a nation, and that nation must sacrifice itself for the sake of the world. Then the world must sacrifice itself for the sake of God. That way God's ideal of one world can be reached. Religion in America must sacrifice all that it has to save America. That religion should not fight to multiply itself but should work to save the nation, sacrificing its own churches. If it works with such spirit, then that nation will eventually unite with that religion. When this religion and its nation unite they will go forward to save the whole world, sacrificing themselves.

For that position, the United States is the representative nation of the democratic world. God purposed the United States to fulfill the mission of the sacrificial nation. Therefore, God sent to this land the Pilgrims, who risked everything and made such a great country in such a short period of time. When the Pilgrims came to this country, they built first churches, then schools, and finally they built their own houses. The backbone of America's prosperity, the root of the development of the United States into a great nation, is the spirit which puts greater stress on the public purpose than the private purpose.

God is looking for the representative country through which He will inherit the world. To become greater, we must give to those less than we are. When the United States gives greater aid to other countries, she will receive more respect. But as she decreases what she gives, she loses that respect and becomes isolated from other nations. If, in spite of her own difficulties, the United States continued to give foreign aid and directed the giving out of this aid to her fellow democratic countries even t o a sacrificial degree, then what would happen? If the United States became weaker by such a giving- out policy, then all the other countries would become sympathetic to the United States and would defend and support her, come what may.

Why has Christianity spread all over the world? Because Jesus' sacrificial spirit is in the heart of God's providence. It is the basic spirit of God's providence to make oneself a sacrifice for others. Christianity has received much persecution, but the more it received persecution, the more it prospered. Jesus did not leave behind any well-reasoned philosophy like Marxism, but by the spirit alone he produced such a great effect in the world. That was done not only by Jesus himself, but by the providence of God and by the cooperation and will of God Himself. Therefore, the most important thing for any nation is that she sacrifice all things for the world and all mankind. From such a nation will come out a system developed from Jesus himself. The future ideal world will begin from there. That nation will sacrifice her sovereignty for the benefit of the whole world.

The United States is far away from this position. The individual and individualism are good in balance, but if too much stress is put upon that way of thinking, everything collective and virtuous is lost - the love of the nation, the brotherhood of the people, the family integrity, the relationship between parents and children - and finally even the value of individuals themselves. If all things are leveled, you become like hawks and blow where the wind blows. That is the reason there is no peace.

For America to stand in accordance with the providence of God, there must be a new movement in America. Americans as individuals and America as a nation must follow the spirit of God and the truth of Jesus Christ and make this nation a foundation for the expression of God's ideal.

Where do we find such a now movement of spirit? I think there are many churches in America vacant or just attended by old people. There is no fire and no traditional spirit. That means that God has left these churches, and Jesus Christ has abandoned them. Through these churches the providence of God cannot be dispersed. The church must find individuals that will sacrifice themselves for their families, sacrifice their families for the American nation, and sacrifice the United States for the world. T he ideal that can lead the whole world must come from the spirit of sacrifice for the greater cause. For the benefit of the whole world, one nation must really give herself to pursue the one ideal world.

Where can we find such a nation, such a family, such an individual? We cannot find anyone like this. Therefore these are the Last Days. The end has come to the world. The end has come to the church, nation, tribe, and individual. This is the end of the world.

We have to understand clearly our role. The Unification Church was formed to develop the providence of God. The spirit of the Unification Church is first to sacrifice the individual to find the family. We sacrifice the family to find other families; to find the nation we sacrifice the tribe; and to find God's world we sacrifice the nation. This is the role of our church. We are not sacrificing all these things for the benefit of the Unification Church, but we are sacrificing ourselves for the benefit of the whole nation, and for other churches.

I want to give you an example. Let's say a man has ten friends. If this man goes to his friends every day and asks them to do something for him, the friends will do so one time or two times, but then they will go away. They won't even say good-bye. Bu t if this man serves all his friends, sacrificing himself, doing something for them, then the friends will stay with him and will even bring their friends and families to him also. If this man wanted to leave, his friends would cling to him and ask him not to go. In the first case, everyone is leaving him; therefore, that man will come to unhappiness and destruction. In the second case, however, everyone comes to him; therefore he will prosper and grow.

Good and evil are fundamentally different. Evil asks everything and everyone for itself. It asks everyone to be and exist for himself. But good lives for others. The way to destruction is to conquer others; the way to prosperity is to serve others. W e have to understand that this is the dividing point. When we follow the formula of good, we become the greatest people. But if we go the other way, we become dictators. The saints are those who sacrificed themselves for the sake of mankind and God.

We revere four great religious men - Jesus Christ, Confucius, Buddha, and Mohammed. Those are the ones who lived for God. They did not live for themselves, or for just their own nations, but for the whole world. Therefore, they were persecuted by their own people and nations. Those four saints are the founders of the major religions. These are the historical facts; they cannot be changed. But now, the people of this modern world even deny religion, saying that religion has nothing to do with the world. Religions are the symbols of morality and discipline, but the world today tends to reject them. Without religion, however, this world can never restore itself.

The Communists are entirely opposed to this view. According to Communist ideology, "Mine is mine, and yours is mine" [all things belong to the state. For that reason, we can predict that Communism will not last long. To achieve their goal, the Communists never choose the least or the smallest, but the greatest and largest for themselves. On our parts, we must think, "Mine is yours, and yours is the nation's, and the nation's is the world's, and the world's is God's - and God's is mine." If we become people like that, then God will want to give His heart to us.

We believe that everything can belong to God. You and your house and your family can be occupied by Him eternally. The size of the country does not matter. What God needs is this: to find before Satan His faithful son, His faithful family, and His faithful nation. He wants to know that because such a nation exists, evil can no longer dominate the world.

God is the God who has no nation which He can love. God is the One who has no family, no tribe, no individual whom He can love. Two thousand years ago, God sought such an individual, Jesus Christ. With him, with the tribe of the Israelites, and with the nation of Judah, He wished to establish a nation He could love. But that nation looked after its own benefits, rather than seeking the good of the whole world. Therefore, the providence of God was spent, and He couldn't complete the restoration through His son. The people of Israel were devout believers in God. But they didn't think about God's will more than their own individual things, their own family things, their own tribal things, and their own national things. That's the reason why they could not understand Jesus.

By the crucifixion of Jesus, God lost His chosen people. To take their place, Jesus established spiritual Israel, Christianity (Romans 9: 6-9). Christians are today in the position of Israel, the nation of faith which should have received Jesus Christ. There is no one nation in Christianity. Therefore, when the Lord comes again, the pattern will go the same way as it did when Jesus was rejected (Luke 18:8). God chose America as a nation playing the role of John the Baptist, and also the churches in America to play the role of preparing the way for the Lord to come. But America and her churches are thinking of their own benefits more than God's purpose. From God's viewpoint, if America cannot fulfill her mission, God must search for another nation.

So all the members of the Unification Church must sacrifice themselves, their families, their friends, and even the Unification Church itself, to establish such a nation which God can love. The present problem is whether we can act as saints in our daily lives - that is the most important thing.

America has been the most advanced country in the world. If America cannot fulfill her responsibility to love the world at the cost of herself, then America cannot stay in the position of the leading country. We desire to create model individuals, model families and model tribes which will serve as a pattern for the rest of the world.

God is the Parent of mankind so He feels most sympathy and love for those people who are suffering in poverty and distress. In our families, parents feel much more concern and love for the smaller, weaker child than they do for the one who is very capable. God feels the same way.

When a movement with His attitude arises in America, then America will help the underdeveloped countries. Then this country can remain the leading nation. Our members of the Unification Church must always bear in mind when they sleep in a comfortable place that faithful workers for God are sleeping in a worse place; when they eat delicious food they must remember that more hard-working brothers and sisters are eating poor food or have none at all. We must think that we have to raise living standards for all.

When one friend serves ten friends, they will come to him as the leader in service. Likewise, when one nation serves others, they will desire to have that country as their leader. In order for America to endure and prosper, there is no other way than for her to give out her blessings.

Everything goes in cycles. After spring, summer comes; after summer, autumn comes; then winter; then spring; then summer and autumn again. If you go up, you must be prepared to come down. Man cannot go up and up forever. Everything, everything, comes around. So after one has gone to the top, one must know how to come down again.

America must go to the underdeveloped countries and the underdeveloped countries must follow America. In that way the whole world can survive and be united, even eternally. In the center of that unity, God dwells. Then one peaceful, ideal world can exist.