The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009 |
Good afternoon brothers and sisters! Today I truly believe that God is our strength. I really hope that you have a blessed week. It is always a great honor for us to have you here in this sanctuary. For those who are joining us via internet -- we are also welcoming you as well. Welcome brothers and welcome sisters!
Welcome brothers and sisters! Today we are going to start with Cheon Seong Gyeong page 600. Father says:
“All of you must embrace the hope with which you can overcome any obstacle, even death when you are confronted by it. After you have traveled that path you must be able to rise joyfully to that original homeland for which you have longed for with the hopeful thought of standing tall in front of heaven.
Brothers and sisters! When we come out to service and we offer our hearts and devotion and we come together to celebrate True Parents and God, then it’s so important that we have that kind of hopeful and joyful spirit. There are things in our lives that we can really get weighed down by, things that can be obstacles in our path but we need to remember what we have as a Unification movement -- the real commitment and mission to be able to spread True Parents’ message, “Inherit the true love of God,” to the rest of the world. Then this time spiritually becomes a very important time.
It is time for us to focus on what’s right in our lives, not what is wrong. When we focus on the goodness of God and on strength, then we start seeing our obstacles in a different way. We start facing our future with more hope and joy, just like our Father said. When we do that then God is going to be able to bring more blessings through us and into our life.
Brothers and sisters, welcome to service! Let’s participate in service with that attitude. Let’s not just observe, let’s sing with the Two Rivers Choir, let’s pray together, meditate together, let’s have all kinds of wonderful practices together and offer it to God and True Parents for all their glory. Welcome to service!
Our Heavenly Father! Our Heavenly Mother! We thank You for this beautiful day that You have given to us and that You helped us to be here today. We are so grateful to You. We want to open our hearts and minds, giving You our thanks and gratitude in deep humility as we stand before You. We recognize Your incredible purity, love and benevolence. We want to inherit that, to go before You with hearts of deep gratitude and without regrets, without remorse, so that we can stand before You as Your true sons and daughters.
We are so grateful to Your supernatural love, guidance and grace. We know that You are raising us up to become better and greater each and every day. Help us to open our hearts and minds today, so that we might receive Your word, love and truth better.
Speak through our speaker today that he may share Your love and truth with us, so that we can be truly empowered to go out and give that true love that we are inheriting from You and from our True Parents. We ask that You bless each person here and each person watching via the internet, that Your grace will shower upon them that they may feel Your abundant love and feel You raising them up, so that they can be the very best for You and for every person they come in contact with. We thank You and we most humbly offer all this to You as blessed central families from around the world. Aju!
Brothers and sisters, let’s give it up for God and True Parents! (Applause) Thank you so much. Please be seated. Let’s encourage the Two Rivers Choir everybody! Let’s give them a huge round of applause! (Applause)
You know before we start we always like to start with something a little interesting.
I heard a story about a man who went to confessional, and he said, “Father, forgive me for I have sinned!” The priest asked, “Well, what is your sin my son?” The man started, “You know this week, I used some terrible, awful, terrible language, and I feel absolutely terrible.” “When did you use this awful language, my son? “ The priest asked. “Well you know I was golfing,” the man said, “and I hit an incredible drive, and it looked like it was going to go 250 yards but it struck a power line that was hanging over the green and fell straight down on the ground only after about 100 yards.” “Is that when you swore, when you used bad language?” The man said, “No, Father, after that a squirrel ran out of the bushes, grabbed my ball in his mouth and began to run away.” “Is that when you used bad language my son?”
“No, Father, you see the squirrel was running away and the eagle came down out of the sky, grabbed the squirrel in its talons and flew away.” “Is that when you used bad language my son?” “No, Father, not yet. As the eagle carried the squirrel away in its claws, it flew towards the green, and as it passed over a bit of forest near the green, the squirrel dropped my ball.” “Is that when you swore then? That’s when you swore, isn’t it?” “No, because you see the ball fell, it struck a tree, bounced through some bushes, careened off a big rock and rolled through a sand trap onto the green and stopped within 6 inches of the hole!” The priest said,” So I see you missed the putt!” (Applause) Oh! You got it today! Oh! You golf lovers, you got it!
Brothers and sisters, I want to talk to you about supernatural preparation today.
You know we have to know that we live in a supernatural time. As a Unification movement we’ve endured the incredible pains and struggles of the indemnity period, and now we’ve entered into the age of liberation through True Parents’ victory. Our church is modernizing; it’s developing to meet the changes of a modern era, and we are changing society’s perspective on Unificationism. Knowing that God has supernaturally prepared this time and to be ready to reap this age’s blessing for the Unification Church, this is one of the keys for us living the blessed life.
Let’s take a look at some of these world Scriptures today.
Today we’ll start with Christianity, Matthew 7:7. We’ll read that together,
“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.”
Here again we see in Christianity’s Scriptures that in the preparation of a new age, it’s important that we have to do some portion, we have to ask. If we don’t ask, if we don’t seek, we will not find. It doesn’t happen, the blessings of the age do not pour upon us by just staying still. We have to be able to reap the blessings, do our 5% so to speak.
Let’s take a look at Islam today, the Koran. This is the 13th Sutra. We’ll read that together,
“God changes not what is in a people until they change what is in themselves.”
Again we see that God just does not pour upon blessings and bring about change in our life until we make the initiative of making that change in ourselves from the beginning.
Let’s take a look at Daoism today. This is the Daodejing, this is the 23rd verse. We’ll read that together,
“He who conforms to the Way is gladly accepted by the Way; he who conforms to virtue is gladly accepted by virtue.”
Again we see that the Way does not just conform us to itself, that we must also conform our self, do our 5% so to speak in being able to reap the blessings of the virtue and the Way.
Let’s take a look at True Parents’ words, centering on True Parents’ words on December 11, 1983. We’ll read that together:
“God creates to the level of 95% and then human beings should add their efforts in accordance with God’s basic rules for creation in order to establish a value standard of 100%. In this way God wants to give human beings the value of having participated in the completion of His will.”
I love that! The value of having participated in the completion of God’s work, allowing us that opportunity!
We know when we look at the Scriptures we see the story of Jesus, and in Matthew 28:16, after Jesus resurrected he told the disciples to go to a certain mountain in Galilee. When Jesus told them to go, Jesus appeared to them, and when they saw him, the Scriptures say they worshiped him but some doubted.
Then in Matthew 28:18 Jesus came down to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age," Jesus says. This, in Christianity, is known as the ‘great commission.’ To spread the word of Jesus Christ, to spread his message, is one of the most important responsibilities as a Christian.
Jesus said to them that he would be with them, and thus began the incredible story and journey of Christianity. It has grown to become the world’s largest religion with over 1.5 to 2 billion followers worldwide. But when you think about it, when Christ was alive, he was probably one of the most controversial figures.
We think that Christ is very kind and very gentle all the time, floating around on a beautiful cloud, whispering to his disciples and uttering beautiful melodious verses, saying, “Love thy neighbor, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” etc. But the Bible paints an extremely radical vision of Jesus Christ.
When we look in the Bible we see Jesus as an incredibly super-super-controversial messianic figure. In Matthew 23, there is the chapter called the “Seven Woes”, and here Jesus is chastising the Pharisees; he’s chastising the Sadducees. These are different sects within Judaism. I just want to give you a sense of the severity in which he speaks. In Matthew 23:15, Jesus says, “Woe to you teachers of the Law, and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and seek to win a single convert, and when he becomes one you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” This is in the Bible. This is straight out of the Bible!
Matthew 23:27, “Woe to you teachers of the Law, and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like white-washed tombs which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside you are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way on the outside, you appear to be people of righteousness, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
Again in Matthew 23:33, Jesus speaks, “You snakes! You brood of vipers!” These are very, very controversial statements. “How will you escape being condemned to hell?” He’s attacking the religious orders here. He’s scathingly condemning them in these scriptures. And sometimes when we reflect back on ourselves, when we look at our own tradition, sometimes we feel Father uses very controversial language.
But when you compare it actually to what’s in the Scriptures, to what Jesus said, it’s actually not as severe as when we see Jesus speaking. In this particular Scripture, Jesus is really calling and challenging the other traditions. He’s calling them snakes, and vipers, and tombs of dead men’s bodies. He uses very controversial language.
But also Jesus’ actions, he is eating with prostitutes and tax collectors. As a Jew that would be totally out of the Law to speak with the people that are really looked down upon in society. Jesus is spending time with them, and saying that he is the way, the truth, and the light! A tremendously controversial figure!
And so when we see Jesus at the end when he is crucified, he dies really with only 2 people that do not betray him, that do not deny him at his death. We see Mary and Mary Magdalene, his mother and the prostitute Mary Magdalene, who don’t betray him to the end.
Many scholars call Jesus an extremely “outlandish and controversial messiah.” One scholar when I was at Harvard said, “Jesus was a social extremist, a very extreme social extremist.” But despite that incredibly outlandish figure, Christianity grows to dominate the entire world and the story of Jesus is known in every single corner of the globe.
But when you compare Christianity’s situation to us, we have to look at our situation with a little grain of salt. When we compare Christianity’s situation to us, True Parents are still here. They haven’t been crucified. They are here and we are already in some way or another in 180 plus nations of this world. We already have thousands and tens of thousands of disciples, believers in True Parents, and society is seeing our movement in a growth stage. It is seeing us change, and it is seeing us mature as an organization, as a movement.
And we are moving to the growth stage temple in Yongsan here. That temple is about 5 times bigger than this and it’s not on one of the side streets, it’s on a major highway. We are in a totally visible social area.
And so in this time in our faith, we can see that so many things have been prepared. Society’s view of us has changed. The media’s view of us has changed. There’s tremendous preparation that has been done, that God has done for this period. And so it is our time to truly be confident in our faith, confident and share our faith, like the great commission that all Christians do.
You know we had some wonderful Mormon visitors from our friend Peter. He is a wonderful brother who always is sharing his faith, bringing people to church, always really explaining and sharing his faith, witnessing to so many wonderful people. And we had some wonderful Mormon visitors here, wonderful young people from the States, and we ended up talking after service. They ended up asking what the throne was, what was the meaning of that set-up. We explained about the meaning of True Parents, how we see they fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ, etc...
And at one point, Peter invited them down, “Oh! Let’s go and have some coffee. We’ll have some coffee downstairs.” And I love how they just simply said, “You know in our Mormon tradition, we don’t drink coffee for this and this and that reason.” As you know, in the Mormon tradition, no addictive substances are allowed, not even coffee or tea. So it was wonderful to see them just explain that, instead of trying to hide behind, “because that may seem strange that we don’t drink coffee or tea, so we don’t know how to explain that.” They were very confident how they explained it. They just very openly, very casually, very naturally explained, "You know in our tradition, we don’t consume anything that has the potential to be addictive.”
And when I saw this, it really struck a chord in me, because I really thought, “Yes! This is exactly the way it is important for us to deal with our own faith.”
See, when people ask us what we believe, it is important for us to tell them what we believe, to just be natural about it and be confident about what we believe. When we do it in a round about way, “Oh! You know, we’re really not a religion. We are just a family federation. We are just peace-loving families gathering together.” This really does not do justice to our mission and to our religion.
See we all know that we’re not only here for world peace. We know that’s one part of our mission, but we are a religion with the Divine Principle. We have a Scripture, we have a theology, we have a truth, and we believe that True Parents came to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ as the True Parents of heaven and earth. This is a very important part of the Unificationist faith. And so we believe that God has been waiting in pain; He is a God of pain, and He has a providential timeline and a history, to see the day when His children can inherit His true love and then establish families and nations and then a world etc...
When I saw those young people from the Mormon tradition, just being very confident about their faith, there was something very attractive to that, there was something very appealing to that, very... in Korean, “meoshiso” (cool!) about that!
You know we’re here in Korea; I was talking to Hoon Sook Nim the other day. Of course hers is the top ballet here in Korea, and she was having lunch with the Sejong Cultural Center president. That is the biggest cultural center here in Seoul. She was having lunch with him and a couple of other dignitaries at a luncheon, and they were talking about religion.
One of the people ended up talking about Christianity, ended up saying, “You know I used to live near Chong Pa Dong, which is this area. I heard in the early days of the Unification Movement about a Ewha University professor who heard about this very terrible cult called the Unification Movement, and who came to actually convert people of that cult to Christianity.
She came to the church and she ended up being converted herself, became a disciple of True Parents, and all of you know who this person is. That’s Dr Seuk’s mother, Dr Seuk who is the president of the Korean church. And so he was talking about this situation where he lived in Chong Pa Dong, he heard about this incredible university professor who ended up being converted to this small cult.
He also head about Colonel Bo Hi Pak selling his own home at that time, to support the church at a very early age. They had a wonderful luncheon while Hoon Sook Nim was explaining. They ended up talking, and at the close of it saying a prayer. One of the gentlemen there was a Song Bo Ku Chung Chang, who is basically a Christian elder of a certain region of Seoul. He is part of one of the largest churches in the world, and one of the largest churches here in Korea. And so he asked everybody, “Let’s just pray together!” They all grabbed hands and held hands and they all ended up saying a beautiful prayer together. And after the prayer he asked Hoon Sook Nim, “Do you actually have a faith life? Do you practice a faith?” And she said, “Oh, yes I do. I am an Unificationist. My dad is Bo Hi Pak, and my father-in-law is Rev Moon!” Let’s give it up for Hoon Sook Nim! (Applause)
She just said it straight up. She said it straight up! No hiding it, just straight, “I am proud of who I am. This is my faith, this is my community, my dad, this is my parents, and this is my father, boom, and boom, boom... very, very confident! And when she confidently expressed it like that, he could not react in a negative way. He only could say, “Oh! That’s very interesting! I was in that area at the time, etc...” But she was so confident. This was one of the wonderful things that she was explaining to me, and it really inspired me. This is really awesome! And because of this confidence, she ends up attracting tremendous people to the church. Just about a month ago, we had the vice-president of Samsung Card come and join us and worship with us at the service. She’s attracting these wonderful people because she’s so open about her faith, about herself as Unificationist.
And in this time the spirit world is moving with us. It’s a prepared time, a supernatural time for us. You know just a couple of months ago, in April, when it was the Buddha’s birthday here in Korea (as you know Buddhism is a very large tradition here in Korea) we were invited to represent Unificationism to go visit the temple to be with the monks and the other dignitaries there, and we had a wonderful celebration at the Buddha’s birthday, very wonderful! They treated us so well! There were hundreds and thousands of people that came out to offer gratitude to the Buddha, etc...
And we ended up having lunch with all these VIPs. There were ministers of all the different representative religions, and the cardinal was there. There were Christian ministers, and of course Buddhist monks were out there, etc... The current minister of culture, many current political figures were also out there, and many societal leaders. I met a couple of businessmen and a couple of lawyers that were present.
After I was called up to offer the flowers to the Buddha on behalf of Unificationism, we started exchanging cards very naturally with the VIPs. You know they started given cards, receiving cards, doing “insa,” doing greetings, and I ended up being seated right next to an evangelical Christian minister. I had no idea that the brother right next to me was an evangelical Christian minister, but as they called us up, “Unificationism, please go up to offer the flowers,” and as I came back he grabbed my hand. He started shaking my hand with this huge smile on his face saying, “Hey! I heard so much about you guys! I heard you guys are going through a lot of good changes and I heard you are ministering at Chong Padong church.”
He started talking to me, I was so surprised. I said, “This is an evangelical Christian minister, Korean Christian minister, so excited about Unificationism!” (Applause) 50 years ago it was absolutely unheard of to have that kind of reaction from an evangelical Korean Christian minister!
A few weeks later (very interesting, we really feel the spiritual world is moving), a few weeks later, I received a call from the minister. This minister that we were sitting next to at the Buddha’s birthday, he gives me a call. We end up finding out that the minister is the chairman of the Big Seven Religious Forum. That is the biggest religious forum in Korea, including Catholicism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc...the big seven.
Unificationism is not part of that forum. But he said, “Hey! I’d like to introduce you to these guys. And so I’d like to have lunch with you and have lunch with us at the Big Seven.” I said, “My God! I’ve been sitting next to this man on the Buddha’s birthday, a Christian minister, and here he is the chairman of the Big Seven Religious Forum!
A year ago we saw the placard advertising the seven great religions in Korea. The seven great religions of Korea participated in some kind of service activity. But we were very discouraged a year ago when we saw that placard. We saw all the different religions, we even saw Won Buddhism, which is a new form of Buddhism here in Korea that has grown tremendously. But we were very discouraged, because we did not see Unificationism up on that placard.
But here we are one year later, and the chairman is inviting Unificationism to have lunch with the Big Seven! This is a great, great start, we really felt! It’s not going to guarantee that we are in this big religious forum, but at least it’s a tremendous start and we want to offer all the thanks to spiritual world and True Parents and God. Let’s give them a big round of applause! (Applause) It really felt spiritual world was moving!
You know Father’s book is number 2 on the best-seller list and absolutely wherever we go -- in the mountain training, every morning we meet these elderly men that are exercising up there, we ended up giving them autobiography books. You know one of them just this morning wrote us a letter, “Thank you Tong Il Kyo ministers” because they know who we are up there.
And we were there at the autobiography party just a couple of weeks ago, and Father got up on the stage. He stressed the importance of the Four Great Saints, and that the Four Great Saints are moving in the spiritual world. When he was doing that, it really struck me, because just a couple of days before, this minister of the Big Seven Religions, the evangelical Christian minister was inviting us to come to have lunch and participate in that meeting with the other big religions. I really felt, “My goodness what Father was talking about really is happening in our own lives.”
A wonderful new progression in our church as well is happening with Kook Jin Hyung here now managing the Jaedan. As you all know he moved that from a hundred million dollars debt to now, within 3 years, a 50 million dollar profit. Incredible turn around! But in order to do that he had to hire a lot of new professionals, people who worked in the top five companies. Of course, In Sup Nim works with a lot of them as well. In Sup Nim also recruited a lot of those wonderful people.
At the time we had about 5% of the Jaedan that were actually Unificationists. Most of the Jaedan representatives and professionals here were not of our tradition. But I am now happy to announce that that percentage has escalated. Now up to 40% of the Jaedan consider themselves Unificationists. Let’s give it up for the Jaedan! (Applause)
And it’s not because they were switched or anything. These professionals that worked at the top 5 firms here in Korea, they have taken on the faith of the Unification tradition. They have understood the founder’s philosophy. They went and listened to the Divine Principle lectures. They listened to the different courses at the 21 Heaven’s Fortune Center, etc... and they decided to become Unificationist.
Kook Jin hyung just told me this the other day when he was talking about the incredible history that is happening here in Korea. You know, for the temple that we are now moving into and we are now renovating (the renovating starts very soon) but Korea for the first time actually raised 22 million dollars for the temple that we will be moving into, for the world temple. That’s an incredible accomplishment! Let’s give it up for Korea! (Applause) Korea did that!
But this is the very amazing thing! Not all just members. The new professionals at the staff of the Jaedan took ownership. They newly became Unificationists, but the Jaedan in and of itself raised over six million dollars for the growth stage temple. They did that on their own with new members. This is an absolutely incredible thing that we’ve never seen in the Korean church! (Applause) It’s an absolutely incredible accomplishment!
One of the women CPAs whom we meet a lot and we work with -- she works very close to the Jaedan, she is one of the top CPAs there -- is extremely proud of her faith as a Unificationist. I am sometimes surprised, sitting in my seat, when she’s talking about her faith as a Unificationist and how proudly she talks about it. She of course contributed to the temple building. She is also so inspired.
We had a Divine Principle lecture where we were choosing and selecting new teachers for the Divine Principle lectures that we do for the Jaedan, and she was one of the judges on the panel, and she was so excited talking about her faith. You know she was saying," You know the reason why I chose this faith is because of this and this and that reason. The reason why I am an Unificationist is for this and this and that reason.” It’s so inspiring to see her so confidently talking about herself as an Unificationist!
And I have seen her in meetings. She is of course one of the most brilliant people at the Jaedan. In the analysis where they analyze and rank the top CPAs, top lawyers etc. in the Jaedan, she was ranked absolutely at the top, number 1. She was off the charts! She’s incredibly brilliant, she is smart, she has an incredible education, and she has an incredible experience base. Just so inspiring to see these kinds of people being excited about their faith as Unificationists!
We work with another person at the Jaedan. He is a human resources director. He’s now helping us reorganize the Headquarters church, helping us strengthen the organization, and helping us strengthen the infrastructure here. He was actually the former HR director for LG. He ended up giving up that job and coming to our team, and now he considers himself to be a very proud Unificationist. Let’s give it up for him! (Applause) Mr. Cho, he’s helping us restructure the church and that will help give strength into our organizations around the world.
And see these new professionals, these people are new members. They did not grow up in our tradition, they are newly witnessed members. And they have world class talent, they have world class education, they have world class experience. They are in the professional field, some of these individuals 20-30 years.
And there is a new wave of Unificationists that are helping us. They are helping us to spread the message, “Inherit the true love of God!” They are helping us build our church, build Unificationism so it can really do like the great commission, and show the incredible work of True Parents, show the providential significance of True Parents.
And one thing that was very inspiring is that whenever these individuals come, they are inspired as Unificationists, but we looked at their membership registration card and underneath where you put your spiritual dad or spiritual mom they put Kook Jin hyung as their spiritual dad. He’s got a lot of kids spiritually (Applause). But it’s so wonderful to see that these young new professionals are joining the movement. They are excited to work with the new leadership, etc...
Brothers and sisters what can we learn today? God has done some incredible supernatural preparation for Unification Church. Remember in the early days when we were in the indemnity period how much incredible persecution we had to endure. The first generation here in Korea, in Japan, even in the States endured incredible persecution. But let’s remember just like the story of Jesus. When Jesus was alive, only two disciples ended up being faithful to him as he passed on the crucifix. But then the tradition and the story of Jesus ended up being supernaturally spread throughout the entire world.
But you compare that to our tradition. We are here, True Parents are here. We are already in 180 plus nations of the world. We’re teaching our faith to those communities, we’re doing works of service, we’re feeding the poor, we’re providing medicine to the sick, and True Parents are still here. See, with confidence and faith in this new era, with witnessing and testifying to our own faith, being confident in what we believe, doing our 5% so to speak, I believe that Unificationism will absolutely move to the world stage, not 2,000 years from now, but we believe in our lifetime we will see it move to the next stage!! Let’s give it up for Unification Church! (Applause)
And it begins with the momentum being created here in the fatherland. It begins with the momentum here where we have an incredible societal readiness for Unification Movement and our teaching and our beliefs. And when we move now to the Growth Stage and Perfection Stage Temples, where we are much more visible in society’s view, I absolutely declare and I believe that we will see Unificationism move through that supernatural preparation and become and be endowed with supernatural favor, be able to really share this incredible story the journey of True Parents’ life, the providential history and all of our own blessed central families throughout this world to truly inherit the true love of God.
Brothers and sisters if you accept the message, let’s give it up for God and True Parents this day. (Loud applause) It’s now our time! It really is!!
Heavenly Father, True Parents, thank You so much for this incredible day that You have given to us. Father, we thank You for preparing this incredible, supernatural age. It is an age where miracles for our movement begin to happen.
We have sweated and shared our tears and our blood for our Unification movement. We have seen True Parents walking the way of the cross in the indemnity period. We have seen the elders in our movement offering their way on that thorny path. But with the incredible opening of the age of liberation and complete release, True Parents were able to become Your object partner and liberate You from Your loneliness.
We know that because of that, this age is opening and we see our movement transforming and changing. We see it becoming so much more transparent and fair. We see the movement being accepted in society’s eyes and more and more impressing society. We see that this age has truly been prepared. We want to acknowledge all Your efforts, all Your supernatural efforts that You have done for us. We also want to acknowledge the incredible efforts of the great saints that are with us and are moving with the other religious people to be able to really understand True Parents’ life and providential course.
Thank You so much for this time. We pray that in this time we can have confidence and that we can share our faith with pride. And that we truly know that we will make a difference in this world as Unificationists. We thank You so much for You have truly blessed us. We want to offer all this to You in joy and gratitude in our own names as central blessed families. Aju!