Book 12, Chapter 2, Section 2
Chil HJeol (7-1 Day) and Returning to Hometown
Tribal messiahship
On September 1, 1991, True Parents directed the blessed families of the Unification Church to return to their hometowns. True Father said that just as True Parents shed bloody tears to restore the world, so also blessed families must return to their hometowns and invest everything with sincere devotion to save their own relatives. Prior to this, on Chil II Jeol, he had stated that all blessed families are tribal messiahs who should focus on activities to restore their tribes.
7 When I proclaimed Chil II Jeol, I instructed members to register as tribal messiahs. Tribal messiahs go beyond family messiahs. A tribe includes two family names—the wife and mother’s name and the husband and father’s name. The tribal messiah is the messiah for two names.
I define the word “Messiah” to mean True Parents; hence, an individual cannot be a messiah. The family messiah is a candidate to be a tribal messiah, and since the tribe combines two family names, the family messiah is elevated to the status of tribal messiah when two families are joined. After that, the tribe is not enough. Next you have to organize a people. A people consists of 12 tribes. If these tribes unite, they will be able to form a nation. (410-119, 2003/07/02)
8 I already made all the indemnity conditions for North Korea. So, no matter what, when I send you to your hometowns, since you are on God’s side, there should not be problem in light of the providence of restoration. I have already proclaimed that unity will occur everywhere under the sun. Therefore, if you want to bequeath this fortune that is coming everywhere under the sun to your descendants and offer its merit to your ancestors, the faster you move, the better.
For example, there are many Kims in the Unification Church. So if your last name is Kim, you had better quickly return to your hometown and stake your claim as the messiah for the Kim tribe. Quickly go! You have to think, “If there is reason for someone to be killed, I will be killed first, before anybody else. If there is reason for someone to be whipped, I will be whipped before anybody else. If someone has to be cursed, I will be cursed and persecuted before anyone else. If someone has to starve, I will starve before anyone else.” With that kind of determination, gather everyone in your village, and stake your claim as the tribal messiah and center of your tribe. (219-153, 1991/08/29)
9 In order to indemnify the fact that the tribe of Jesus could not become one, I granted the realm of tribal messiahship to you and asked you to return to your hometowns. I appeared in the Republic of Korea and dispatched you, my sons and daughters, as tribal messiahs to tens of thousands of villages. The time is different now, so that messiahs do not get killed as they did in Jesus’ time because the time of persecution against me has entirely passed.
Because Adam and Eve could not fulfill their mission as the True Parents, sin spread throughout history. It caused people to be ensnared in misery and sent to hell, and led to their deaths. It is the responsibility of True Parents to liberate them. Our heart as the True Parents is to offer them the benefit of liberation for free. However, even though True Parents want to give you that benefit, you cannot receive it for free. There is a hill to climb, and you cannot go over it for free. That is because Satan is still alive. If you have any condition that Satan can accuse, you cannot go beyond this era of indemnity. Therefore, you must climb up from the rock bottom to the top where you no longer receive Satan’s accusation. What I mean to say is that you must accomplish this in your neighborhood, centered on your tribe. (179-086, 1988/07/22)
10 Before you return to your hometown, you must inherit the condition of unfallen Adam. Once you have it, return to your hometown. Adam and Eve lost everything and declined because they centered on fallen love. However, in this era you are blessed families, connected to True Parents who are centered on God’s Will. Therefore, your position is different from that of Adam and Eve who started a fallen family.
Adam and Eve fell from the completion level of the growth stage. However, today, in the era of restoration, blessed families centered on True Parents are beyond the completion level of the growth stage and can go even beyond the completion level of the completion stage. Because you are standing in such a position, families in Satan’s realm have no condition to accuse you. You all are beyond their level. To maintain this position, you need to return to your hometown with your family, knowing that this is the best way to attend True Parents. I am saying that you should return to your hometowns, following the direction of True Parents, and act in their name, just as the Israelites followed Moses to return to their homeland.
Again, the level at which you return to your hometown is not the same as that of fallen Adam, who was at the completion level of the growth stage. You return having completed that level and moving on the way to the top of the completion stage. Such is your conditional status when you return to your hometowns. You have not yet made the substantial foundation. So you are going there to substantiate it.
To this end, we still have a path remaining before us—to unify divided North and South Korea. Thus, when you work in your hometown in South Korea, you should invest all your devotion and shed tears, sweat and blood three times more than in the past when you received persecution from the outside world. When you do that, Satan’s world will automatically retreat. (178-086, 1988/06/01)
11 What do you have to do after returning to your hometown? Unification Church members have to relieve the painful heart of Jesus and digest his bitter sorrow over everything that happened in all the ages of history. You need to liberate Jesus and True Father. I could not love and embrace my family. For 33 years I strove to love all people from the various nations, without being able to love my parents, my relatives, my wife, or my own children. I had no time in my life for that.
You received the Blessing while following me. Hence, you need to understand that you now stand at the position to inherit the tribal realm that I stood in long ago, during my youth. I did tribal messiah work during the time of my youth. I am always one step ahead of you. I am now standing on the national level, even as you stand on the tribal level. While I am in the position of working to restore Korea on the national level, you are standing in the position to restore your tribe. (185-090, 1989/01/03)
12 On September 1, 1991, I instructed all Unification Church blessed families to return to their hometowns. I love all the families who received the Blessing. I know that they are people who deserve my sympathy, but I was not about to help them. Rather than helping them live in a comfortable situation, I sent them out with their bags packed, like refugees. I said to them, “Return to your hometowns.” I did it because without returning to their hometowns, they cannot liberate their mothers, older siblings and younger siblings. I asked them to return to their hometowns for the sake of those members of their families.
If you move forward to win over your mother and father, older siblings and younger siblings, you will create the foundation for your family home to be a palace of peace. On that foundation, you can expand your base to establish your victorious kingship as a tribal messiah. I am sending you back to your hometowns so that you can make this kind of preparation. (231-101, 1992/05/31)
13 From now on, the era of returning to your own hometown has come, the era to seek for God’s nation. I announced that you should return to your hometowns, but for me it means to return to God’s nation. The fortune to turn North and South Korea around is coming. That is why it is time to get busy.
How do you think you can receive this fortune? The fortune that is coming is world-level fortune. So you have to give it out. It is not enough to just receive the fortune yourself as individuals and families; you also have to give it out to the people of your own tribe. This is the meaning of returning to your hometown. You blessed family members need to share with your relatives the world-level blessings that are coming to Korea in accordance with the providential Will.
As tribal messiahs restore their tribes horizontally, they pass through the number three—formation, growth and completion—symbolizing the age of Adam, the age of Jesus and the age of the Returning Lord. Therefore, you tribal messiahs need to return to your hometowns and restore your mothers and fathers. Your mothers and fathers did not know God, and they committed a historical sin by opposing the Unification Church. But from now on they must follow the same path together with you. (226-150, 1992/02/04)
14 The era has arrived when we can turn hell around 180 degrees. The best way to take aim at Satan is to attend God by returning to the hometowns of heaven’s nation together with your children. That is why I instructed you to return to your hometowns. If I am to give this instruction to the members of the Unification Church, then we True Parents also had to return to our country; this meant we had to go to North Korea. Therefore, 90 days after September 1,1991,1 went to North Korea. God is the God of the Principle. It became true; we returned to the place where we were born. (227-284, 1992/02/14)
15 What I feel most regret over is that I was not able to teach the Principle to my parents and brothers and sisters and bring them to the point of shedding tears. This is my bitter sorrow. You, on the other hand, are so blessed, to be able to witness to your mothers and fathers, older brothers and sisters, and younger brothers and sisters. How else can your family, and you as well, avoid the destiny of going to hell and ending up in eternal misery?
You are responsible to pull all your family out of hell so that they, and you, can live. If you think like that, you will use whatever means necessary, whether tying them to you with a rope and dragging them with you ot^ wrapping your arms and legs around them and clinging to them. Although you have been shedding tears to restore your nation and the world, to win over your family members you need to shed even more tears for them. You have to miss your people, your tribe, your relatives and your parents more than you miss me. And you must have the heart to pray for them. (022-162, 1969/02/02)
16 We, True Parents, gave you the best gift—the authority of tribal messiahs. Wherever you and your family go in the world, there will be no serious persecution. This is thanks to the victorious foundation of the Blessing. Standing on the foundation of 4,000 years of providential history and inheriting Jesus’ foundation after he came to earth as the Messiah, we as True Parents laid the worldwide foundation to dissolve all the conditions of opposition in the environment in Israel and Rome in Jesus’ day, so that your parents and relatives could welcome you in a free and open environment. Therefore, you will not face persecution in the places you go as a family. The title of tribal messiah is bestowed upon you as a gift of special privilege. It is your path to reach the world stage. (196-250, 1990/01/01)
17 All of you must work night and day to restore your tribes in your hometowns. I am telling you that just as I shed bloody tears for the sake of restoring the world, you need to offer sincere devotion to restore your tribes in your hometowns. All blessed families throughout the world must accomplish their responsibility to restore their own tribes.
Now families who have received the Blessing are spread worldwide. God sent only one person as the Messiah: His son Jesus. However, True Parents have mobilized you, their sons and daughters who received the Blessing, with the authority of tribal messiahs; not only you, but also already married blessed couples and their children.
Therefore, the Devil already knows he has failed in this world, and that he will have to pack his bags and find someplace else to go. In the meantime he is standing in the rear, looking for a way to receive salvation. Therefore we have to liberate hell and redeem even the Devil. You people who know God’s providence of restoration must do this. (228-241, 1992/04/03)
18 I inherited the mission of the Second Coming from Jesus, and I have been working on his behalf. Thus, you also should inherit the mission of the Second Coming, taking the position of the people of Israel at Jesus’ time. If you do, then although Jesus himself was not able to achieve his entire purpose in his lifetime, you can represent all the victories that I have won in my battles and inherit my cosmic-level position. For this, you must indemnify Jesus’ path of the cross. You also must indemnify my path of the cross.
The path that Jacob went was the path that Israel’s families had to go, and the course of Moses was the course the people of Israel had to go. The course of Jesus is the course Christians must go. And the path that I went is the path that Unification Church members must go. The situations are the same.
What is the realm of your authority? As tribal messiahs, if you fulfill the responsibility that should have been accomplished in Jesus’ lifetime, I will bequeath everything to you. Compared to the opposition that I faced, you will hardly face anything. When you fulfill it, we will be able to complete everything very quickly, whether on the national or the world levels. (189-152, 1989/04/01)
19 A blessed family should not be drawn to secular society. Did Adam live in a worldly society? Had Adam and Eve not fallen and raised a family, there would have been only God in front of them to attend. You are in the same situation. You must totally rid yourself of any life habits that are based on the wicked and evil world.
You need to have self-confidence that as my sons and daughters you are able to inherit purely the authority of the elder son of the original age. By gaining spiritual children you can restore your authority as parents. First you have to pass through the realm of the elder son, and second by gaining spiritual children and creating your tribal messiah family, you restore the authority of parents. When as a tribal messiah you restore the authority of parents, you will be able to establish your original homeland. You have received such a blessing from heaven.
The tribal messiah is the axis that connects to kingship and to the nation. I already set up the standards for the nation and the world. They stand on a perpendicular line. You need to stand on that line and connect to the four directions—east, west, south and north. The individual represents the formation stage, the family the growth stage, and the tribe the completion stage. You must achieve these stages and then connect them to the nation. Just as the individual is the foundation of the family, the family is the foundation of the tribe, and when the tribes connect in all directions, a nation is formed. (211-349, 1991/01/01)
20 True Parents eventually will go to the spirit world; then what will happen to humankind? Who will inherit the mission of True Parents, and what does that mission entail? If you are truly my children, you will inherit my position. Heavenly fortune will protect that position for eternity. No matter how much the people of the world deny that you are the children of True Parents, they will not be able to sever this relationship.
Do you have that kind of mind-set? You have to inherit the mission of True Parents 100 percent. Being tribal messiahs means that you stand in the position of True Parents’ children. This is the position of perfected children of True Parents. Tribal messiahship is the gift that True Parents bequeath to you.
True Parents are more important than anything: this is the conviction you must keep in your heart always. They are the original human beings. You must live with True Parents, focusing on them in mind a^id body. They have the original position of Adam and Eve. The very first thing that should come to your mind must be “He is my father; she is my mother.”
Whenever you call out, “God!” your mind and body must both be saying, “You are my Father.” You have to reclaim this concept. True Parents have to fill up your mind and body completely. Everything starts from there. That is the most fundamental concept; your thinking must reach at least that level. (244-317, 1993/03/01)
Tribal messiah activities
True Parents stressed that, in order to acquire the position of tribal messiah, we first must have the people in our tribe fill out church membership forms. Then we should get them to honor True Parents in their family by placing True Parents’ picture on the wall and displaying the Family Federation flag.
True Father also said that when tribal messiahs return to their hometowns, they should establish a system to work together and share the burden equally. He advised that jwe do activities as four families together, supporting one another as brothers and sisters.
21 Blessed families who undertake the role of tribal messiahs understand that they need to become true parents, true teachers and true owners. Through God’s love, parents, teachers and owners are one. The starting point for this is the godly family. The teacher and the owner both extend love with the heart of a parent; they are not separate from one another. Everyone wants such an environment of love. When you go to a company, you look for that kind of employer; when you go to school, you look for that kind of teacher. This is the system that applies in the kingdom of heaven on earth.
In this way, tribal messiahs will establish the God-centered tradition on earth for the first time in history. In time, this tradition will become standard practice. Once we develop these habits and they become ingrained in our character, they will not change. The person who lives in the realm of the heart on earth, who centers on the way of heaven habitually, and makes this foundation in his or her life, will, when he or she goes to the spirit world, enter straightaway the world of liberation and freedom. The passage will be as safe as riding a train. Where should people cultivate these habits and this character? It is in the family.
Right now we, True Parents, are working to overthrow the habitual ways of the fallen world. Having fought against them and triumphed over them in Korea, through our efforts we have set up a way to connect these victories to the families of the Republic of Korea. Because the parents of the first human family committed the Fall, to attend True Parents you need to place their picture in your home and have other families do the same.
The picture is symbolic. It is an image of God’s embodiments. Hence, after you hang True Parents’ picture on the wall, the past, present and future will unite before it. Your ancestors in the spirit world will come to your home and bow respectfully before the picture at 3:00 a.m. Then they will take care of your relatives living on earth and will live together with all of you on earth. We are living in an era when once our families make proper conditions of heart, centered on True Parents, the spirit world will care for our families. (213-049, 1991/01/13)
22 Until now, humankind has been living in the age of indemnity, the age when Abel was sacrificed for Cain. The spirit world, which represents the angelic realm, exploited the earthly world, which represents the realm of Adam. But now True Parents have come to earth and restored the authority of the elder son, thereby establishing the proper order between the earthly world and the heavenly world.
The archangel in the spirit world surrendered before Adam and his realm on earth. We have reached the stage in which the archangel and his realm have to accommodate themselves to the authority of the younger brother Adam. The angelic world was supposed to first teach the God-centered tradition to Adam and Eve to help them attend God. Likewise, at 3:00 a.m., your ancestors from the spirit world will line up around the picture of True Parents and respectfully bow toward it. When this happens, the evil spirits in that area will automatically withdraw. (215-106, 1991/02/06)
23 In the same way that I had to cover the 4,300 years of Korean history within a 40-year period in my life, a long journey to deal with your own family’s history awaits you. So you too will have to run and run, day and night, even skipping meals, with no time to enjoy yourself or take it easy. Even if your legs are too tired to take one more step, even if you are about to collapse from exhaustion, even if you are vomiting blood, no matter what, you must climb over the hill. If you die, you'd better die while working for your hometown.
Start with your own family, your parents and relatives. You are seeking to establish the family that Adam was originally to build, a family with the authority of the first son of God. Your purpose is to recover the family of God’s first son who was lost, the family that was to have been the subject partner of all creation. You are sons and daughters of True Parents, the victorious Adam and Eve. You are not the fallen descendants of the fallen Adam and Eve.
Thus, you should go to your hometowns or home villages with the mindset of royal princes and princesses who take responsibility for everything in their realm. You have no idea how serious this matter is. When you look at the hometown that you have come to restore, can you sleep knowing that standing right in front of you is the enemy who caused all nations and the entire world to be lost? You have the inheritance from True Parents, so you must stake your claim, display the flag and hang the photo of True Parents, who possess the kingship, in your home and be registered in God’s family.
When you go to yo^ir family home, you need to do three things: First, register your relatives. Next, have them display and honor True Parents’ picture. Finally, have them put up the flag. If you do this, Satan will leave. Then, your family’s ancestors will come to their home at 3:00 in the morning, and gathering around the picture of True Parents, they will hold a ceremony to return to God. They will be mobilized as soldiers like archangels to restore all of your relatives. They will clear your path and protect you. (221-014, 1991/10/20)
24 When you return to your hometown, you need to establish a system based on the Principle. If you are going to lead your relatives, you just cannot do it randomly or loosely. Eventually you will need to establish a system to equalize the burden; this may involve setting up a system for communal living.
The system of heaven’s nation consists of three levels connected as one, for instance neighborhood, village and town. They share the same destiny. In the future, if there is a problem with any one of them, all three will suffer damage. From this perspective, management of all three levels must be tightly connected.
Therefore, you must train people from all three levels based on the Principle so that they will see themselves as connected. You must set up and maintain close communication with your fellows on each level. That way, whenever there is difficulty, the neighborhood leader, village leader and town leader will be in contact with each other. Also, you need to do activities at the village level that connect with the levels below and above. After the stages of neighborhood, village and town or, in urban areas, block, ward and precinct, the next three stages are city, county, and state or province. (219-209, 1991/08/29)
25 When you return to your hometown as a tribal messiah, if you work alone it will be difficult for you to establish a foundation. It will be hard if you do not have a house for you and your children to live in. Your life could be like that of a refugee during wartime. Accordingly, if one of the families in your four-position foundation has a house there, they need to share the house with the other families. You will have to share a communal life and eat porridge if that is all that you can afford. That is how you can start your life as a tribal messiah.
It is difficult to do tribal messiah work alone, so the four families must work together like brothers and sisters. Together you must decide which part of your hometown area to tackle first: east, west, south or north. Once you decide where to focus, work together and make the education of the people there your single goal. If your manpower is not sufficient to make a foundation, assemble 12 people to work together. By tackling the neighborhoods of your hometown and making foundations one by one, advancing step by step, you should be able to sweep through that area. (219-210, 1991/08/29)
26 Once the Returning Lord recognizes your family as being like Adam’s family had Adam and Eve not fallen, you become a family messiah. Then, after he sends you out to your hometown as a tribal messiah, God can accompany you in your hometown. While your hometown is the place where you were born, now your ancestors are True Parents.
As a tribal messiah you have three important missions: First, you must restore your ancestors; second, you must restore your hometown; third, since the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, fell and God was expelled from their family, you must live with God in your family. These are the three missions of a tribal messiah. (250-177, 1993/10/14)