True Parents Birthday, February 2, 1998, was celebrated in Seoul, Korea. On that day, Parents gave us a special gift! Not one of diamonds or gold, but something more precious than that--the content of the Family Pledge, section 8.

With this gift, it is now our responsibility to study this new addition and understand its deep meaning, for this is important spiritual food.

You may be asking, "Will there be a No. 9 or No. 10 yet to come? When? Next year? Well, I actually asked Father the question and he answered me: "No. 8 is the last" he said. It is our heavenly obligation to carefully and deeply understand the entire Family Pledge Nos. 1 through 8.

The Family Pledge is the blueprint of the Kingdom of God. Our goal in our life of faith is to reach that Kingdom. The Family Pledge is also the road map to enable us to successfully arrive there. It is indeed a precious gift to all humanity.

We know from this blueprint that it will not be through individual salvation that we will reach the Kingdom of Heaven, but only through the restoration of our family. Through establishing the family foundation we expand the Kingdom from the level of the family to the cosmic level. Traditional religious teachings are usually ones of individual salvation. However, no matter how devout an Orthodox Jew may be in his faithfulness to the Torah, he must take his family into the Kingdom, not enter just as an individual, The same thing applies to Traditional Christians or any other devout persons, no matter what their religion they simply cannot enter the Kingdom except as families. The Kingdom of Heaven is made up of families--harmonious, wonderful families.

Adam and Eve were created to be a family. Because they fell, humankind became individualistic. To get back on track and reach our goal, we must have a family road map, this Family Pledge road map. When we fulfill Pledge No. 8 we have reached the goal line. If we understand and fulfill all verses from No. 1 through No. 7 but do not fulfill No. 8, then we lose the preceding seven numbers as well.

Pledge No. 1 reads: "Our family pledges to seek our original homeland and establish the original ideal of creation, the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven, by centering on True Love." This is the first step toward the goal in which we pledge to attain the Kingdom of Heaven. Pledge No. 8 is the concluding step; the final step we must reach.

When God created Adam and Eve they were not automatically perfect, for if they had been and then fell as they did, we would have to say that God is not perfect. But rather, Adam and Eve were to pass through three stages: formation, growth and perfection to reach the level of maturity, that total Oneness with God and Completion (see accompanying chart). Just as Jesus told us, "Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Of course, there are many details within each period of growth, but these three stages represent the overall picture of how each of us grows.

Adam means "mankind" which includes Eve. The first Adam was to have grown through the three stages reaching the level of completion. The perfect Adam was to pass from indirect to direct dominion of God. This is the responsibility of each human being. Because of the Fall, Adam lost direction and did not get beyond the growth stage. Adam and Eve failed; so God must restore them (humankind) and bring them back to the top of the growth stage so that they may proceed on from there. That applies to each of us.

We lost the first Adam. Adam and Eve should have absolutely believed, loved and obeyed God's Words "not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:17)." To do so would not simply have been "obedience" but ultimately "oneness" with God, feeling and understanding God's heart. They had to completely understand the purpose of creation and then take responsibility to reach the perfection level.

They lost God's Words, God's Commandment. As a result of this loss, God gave the Old Testament age, with Moses and the Torah. The key message of the Old Testament is the prophecy of the coming of the Second Adam. Humankind would then have to follow and be engrafted into the Second Adam; follow and obey and unite with the Second Adam, in order to become people of original nature. This was the purpose of the Old Testament.

Very unfortunately, those living in the New Testament age killed Jesus Christ, the Second Adam. People did not believe in him, did not love and follow God's Commandment. So he must come again. This became the message and deep meaning of the New Testament age--the coming of the Third Adam. The New Testament teaches us that when the Third Adam comes, we must obey and follow him, fight the battles alongside him, even protect him by fighting the battles for him, and become victorious together with him.

Who is the Third Adam? True Parents. We absolutely believe that. We love them and follow them. True Parents have given us the Completed Testament which is the Divine Principle. The purpose of the Complete Testament is to reach the perfection level with the Third Adam. This is the fulfillment and completion of the dream of human history.

Think of it. We can now reach our completion. Confucius, Socrates, Buddha, Mohamad --all the historical saints, suggested the possibility of this goal, but yet even they could not reach that goal. Now humble you and I can reach the perfection goal. This is very special!

While the entire Family Pledge, Nos. 1 through 8 is the road map for fulfilling the Kingdom of Heaven, still that is not enough. With True Parents, the pioneers, the role models, who have cleared the wilderness path to the Kingdom, we must now climb up the rope which they have provided for us. This is 1998. True Parents began announcing the arrival of this era, the age of the Complete Testament, in 1992. 1992 through 1998 is seven years.

How is it that the age of perfection is available to us? It is because True Father has attained the Fourth Adam position, fulfilling the Four Position Foundation. Adam No. 1 fell and created the most miserable situation possible for all humanity to follow. Adam No. 2 died on the cross; he came to restore Life but the disbelief of the people brought death instead. Adam No. 3, the True Parents, paid such enormous indemnity and sacrificed for the entire restoration and for the failure of the first two dispensations as well; they followed the way of the cross also, but this time it was the cross of love. They paid the physical and spiritual indemnity for the restoration, our resurrection.

True Parents and True Family had to go through such depths of indemnity, being beaten down so many times, over and over again, that they bore all the scars of all the Adams, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, and finally arrived at the level of the Fourth Adam, the original Adam and Eve position, pure and clean with no blemishes. and no struggles.

The position of Fourth Adam, the Completed Testament, was the goal of the first Adam; it was the dream of Jesus and it is the position which is very necessary for the completion of humankind.

You and I are not yet at the place of True Parents. Is it always to remain so? Will it remain like that throughout eternity? Of course not. We also must arrive there. In 1992, True Parents blessed 30,000 couples; in 1995, they blessed 360,000 couples. In 1997, they blessed 40 million couples. This year, 1998, True Parents will bless 360 million couples. They are inviting us, saying "My sons and daughters, please come quickly." By the year 2000--less than two years away--we should reach our destination.

Perfection, according to the Divine Principle, is to "enter the direct dominion with God" (Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 34). God will be dwelling in us and we will be dwelling in Him. We will be the "house" for His spirit to dwell. When we pray, "Our Heavenly Father, I love you, please come to me," God will answer, "Yes, my son, yes, my daughter." When that sound comes, not from the blue sky, but from inside ourselves, that then is the direct dominion.

To become like the Fourth Adam, to be engrafted into him and to become as him, ultimately bearing no scars, no blemishes, we can fulfill the three great conditions of attendance:

1. Absolute Faith

2. Absolute Love

3. Absolute Obedience

These are three very important conditions of attendance. In the first place, what is the meaning of "absolute"? It means "true, stable, unchanging." If we speak of relative love, for instance, that is love which can change. But in absolute love, there is only one vertical line, unchanging. The meaning of absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience is that we have unchanging, true, vertical love for God and True Parents. To say "I love you absolutely" means I love you with an unchanging vertical love (which then stabilizes and makes absolute our horizontal love).When we feel absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, then we can say we are on the perfection level. Adam and Eve received God's will, direction and love but they did not follow and attend God, So they fell. When we overcome the fall of Adam and Eve, it means we have gone in the opposite direction, not the way of free love and free sex. If we achieve God's ideal, then we will be in His direct dominion, having attained perfection.

In America right now we exalt everything which is "free"--free love, free sex, and so forth. So "absolute" to some people might seem like slavery. They don't like the sound of it. But God created Adam and Eve with His absolute love. He sacrificed many millions of years for the creation of humankind and for the re-creation and restoration of humankind to be achieved. God Himself was obedient to His ideal. It is not enough to just have faith, love and obedience. We must understand why True Father uses the word absolute.

Father said that once we reach the level of "oneness with God, oneness of humankind with God," that means God is in us and we are in God. If we use Chinese characters we can make it more clear. How do we arrive at oneness with God? Centered on love and faith (as a spiritual element) and obedience (as the physical attitude), we have give and take in spirit with the direct dominion of God. God is a spiritual being--human beings are physical. We need each other. So centered on True Love, we have give and take with each other and become one.

In the Family Pledge, each number from one to eight, concludes with "by centering on True Love." True Love is the center of give and take. True Love motivation is give and take. The purpose of True Love is give and take. True Love's center of power is give and take. We must really be centered on True Love, and believe in True Love and practice True Love. We practice True Love by being obedient. This is the physical practice of True Love.

When God created Adam and Eve, He needed their physical bodies to house His own Spirit. The substantial physical life is so very important. So the physical practice of True Love is the purpose of creation. We and God become one. So many spiritual leaders and philosophers have this goal. Our goal is to become the image of God; to become as the Living God. You can say "when I am walking down the street, God is walking down the street; when I am sitting in this room, God is sitting in this room; my city is the city of God," like that. This very important level is Shin In Ae Il Che --the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven. This is the Kingdom of God.

Father often uses the word "liberation." What is the meaning? Well, this world has been the kingdom of Satan, Satan's sovereignty, Satan's people, Satan's land. When we overcome this satanic world and bring back God's sovereignty--this is liberation. In America, at the entrance to the harbor of Manhattan, New York we have the Statue of Liberty. What is the meaning of this statue? What does it symbolize? It symbolizes liberation from tyranny. Two-hundred years ago, in America, the ancestors rejected tyranny and fought against it and brought back the people's sovereignty, the people's dominion, the people's government. This was the liberation from oppression of the British monarchy.

In the same way, we must overthrow and overcome Satan's dominion and reach God's dominion; this is liberation. Centered on love, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven have give and take; that is, the spiritual world and the physical world have give and take and through this we reach the Kingdom of God. This means the power of dominion is true love, not fallen selfish love. Unselfish, unique, eternal, sacrificial love, "investment" love, "invest and forget" love, "dominion" love, all of these.

And of course, to bring this dominion about, we need absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, our three great acts of attendance. The Completed Testament age is the age of attendance. By the practice of these three great commandments we reverse all the failures of the original fallen Adam and Eve.

By believing in God's ideal of creation of love and by practicing it we will fulfill this ideal of love. If we practice this, everything is available to us. In this year of 1998 we can practice by fulfilling the 360 million couples. This is our attendance. Our practical goal is very simple: invite people to the Blessing. If we believe in True Father's goal of the Blessing then we must practice it. This is the key point of Family Pledge #8. We can achieve what True Parents have achieved by practicing what they have done. We follow their pattern, their path, their tradition, and then we, too, can become people of perfection, the images of God.

True Parents are always teaching about God and inviting everyone to come and celebrate in the Blessing, not based on religious beliefs but through True Love. Jesus always taught about God. His disciples challenged him "Show us the Father and we shall be satisfied" (John 14:8). Jesus said to Philip "Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father..." (John 14:9). We also must come to the point when we can say those words of Jesus. People should be able to see God in us if we practice absolute faith, love and obedience. Our external positions have no meaning; only how we practice absolute faith, love and obedience, that is what makes us begotten sons and daughters of God.

We have to cut off Satan's blood lineage. We have to cut off our bad habits and lifestyles. We receive God's blood lineage and live God's tradition. St. Paul said "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you"? (I Cor. 3:16). We become saviors. We do this by inviting many people to the Blessing. The spiritual atmosphere has changed and it is easier to accomplish. Many positive elements are existing now, like a change in the attitude of the public and the media.

Let us make our personal motto this year: "Cut Satan's lineage!" Many people are becoming concerned this year with how they are going to celebrate the turn of the century in 2000. Advanced reservations are being made at restaurants and many places of celebration. Should we bring in the Third Millennium by toasting with expensive champagne? No. Instead we are producing "holy wine" (holy juice) to toast in new blessed families! This holy juice is being mass produced in wonderful tiny individual containers that can be popped into the pocket. This is our liberating tool. With these containers we can go about changing the blood lineage from Satan to God in men, women and children.

Before the year 2000 we can dramatically change this world

Two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ sacrificed for God and humankind. So many Christian martyrs and pioneers sacrificed too. Power, knowledge and money will not bring in the Kingdom--only cutting Satan's blood lineage. Before the year 2000 we can dramatically change this world. For this, Father gave us Family Pledge No. 8. This is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. We are fortunate to be living in this age.

In addition, we have the tradition of Hoon Dok Hwe, another gift from True Father, which serves to empower us spiritually as we read and learn the Word. So we have the power and we have the power tools. Now let's make 1998 our great year for attendance to True Parents and humankind.

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