The Words of In Jin Moon from 2011
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The Words of In Jin Moon from 2011 |
We are truly delighted to be with all of you this morning. My team and I are truly honored to partake of this beautiful Sunday morning with our African brothers and sisters. I've long heard about Africa for many years, but this is my first visit to your beautiful country. From the moment we arrived at the airport to this morning, where I get to meet all of you face to face, my family, my Lovin' Life team, and I are truly moved by the embrace that you have shown us and by the love and the sheer beauty of your country, and by the beauty of all of you.
Father always says the most beautiful things are when you take two contrasts and put them together into one entity. You all have such deeply black, beautiful, ebony skin. But when you smile, your teeth are so gloriously white and you have such beautiful faces. When I look at all of you, and I know when True Parents look at all of you, the first thing True Parents see are the white in your eyes and the beautiful smile that you share with our True Parents every time you are so happy to see them. I know that they are overcome with love. When they gaze into your eyes, I know that they sense a great destiny and great blessing for this country of Nigeria.
Sun
Myung Moon being welcomed to Nigeria by President Goodluck Jonathan
It's interesting, and this is another reason that having our True Parents with us at this time is an incredible blessing for all of us around the world, but for Nigeria in particular, our True Parents had an opportunity to meet with your president. I thought it was quite interesting that you have a president named Goodluck Jonathan, and his first lady is Patience. Now if these two words don't give us a signal as to what this country is all about, I don't know what is.
But I believe that with a president named Goodluck Jonathan, if Nigeria can truly embrace and unite with our True Parents, united with the heavenly fortune that travels with our True Parents, that travels through our True Parents, if Nigeria and the good president are really in the heartistic position of receiving this great heavenly fortune, Nigeria can continue to prosper as the great country that I know God has planned for it.
We all know that your country is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. I heard that we will be traveling to the capital of Nigeria and the name is Abuja. For those of you who know a little Korean, bu-ja in Korean means wealth, great wealth. So the capital of your city is ah-bu-ja, gloriously wealthy city. You have been incredibly blessed by Heavenly Father. The rich oil reserves that you have in your country are going to make Nigeria a significant economic player in the future.
But Nigeria, instead of concentrating on its external resources and its external riches, if it can truly inherit the heart of God and the importance of building character in our youth, in the different curricula that we have ongoing in the country, and really raise this country, united with our True Parents, as a paradigm of true love and great heartistic character, there is no limit to what Abuja can become.
Nigeria, the word itself in Korean is very interesting. When you say it slowly, nai-ja-ri-ah, it sounds like "my place." So if it unites with our Heavenly Father and our True Parents, to truly inherit the true love of God, realizing who we are and what kind of a destiny God has for the good country of Nigeria and for all of Africa, then we realize that as eternal sons and daughters of God, every one of us is a handiwork of God. Every one of us has been specially prepared, beautifully crafted into that beautiful, man, woman or child that you are. You have been anointed to be living at this incredible time of the breaking news with our True Parents.
When we can know our place as that eternal son or daughter of God, born with the destiny to be living and breathing and walking at the time when our True Parents breathe, walk and work together with us, then we realize that our mission in life is really to unite, really to work together with our True Parents, apply the philosophy of living for the sake of others, truly empowering each other, and in realizing our place as that eternal son and daughter of God, work on who we are. Not what we are. We can be great in many different things. The band that played earlier, Sonic Cult, can be great musicians. That's what they are. But they also know that they're not just great musicians but they're children of God, sons and daughters, divine beings of God. As long as they remember who they are, then they can channel this universal energy, the incredible power of true love, and inspire people wherever they go.
Likewise, all of you sitting in the auditorium today can be that agent of change that changes your country of Nigeria, truly understanding your place as that child of God. You can be that agent of change that changes your continent, this great continent of Africa, to be something incredible, something brilliant, something inspiring for the rest of the world.
When I think about how blessed we are, I like to turn to the Good Book, the Bible, and there's a passage, Jeremiah 29:11, which reads, "God said, 'I know I have a plan for you.'" God clearly says, I know I have a plan for you. God is not simply wishing a plan for you. God is not simply praying about this plan for you. God knows. He knows your destiny. He knows the divine son or daughter that you are.
God goes on to say in Jeremiah 29:11, "I know I have a plan for you. I want you to prosper. And I do not wish harm on you, but I wish upon you hope and the future." So God, knowing He has a clear plan for all of us, there's a clear path. We are not just dust in the wind, endless, nameless faces in a crowd. Every one of you has been specially prepared by God to be at this anointed hour living with our True Parents. And God wishes – not just wishes but he knows that your destiny is the destiny of prosperity, a destiny of hope, and a destiny of an incredible future. God declares so in the Good Book.
Many times, as the senior pastor, as I travel around the country and meet many brothers and sisters, they always come to me and like to share with me some of their personal testimonies or different things they are going through. But many times they ask me, "In Jin Nim, I really want to be a great winner, that successful child of God. I want to be a great winner for God. How can I become a great winner for God?"
The interesting thing about life and about who we are as human beings is that when we have a sincere desire to make something wonderful out of our lives, when we have a sincere desire to win at something – for instance, win the gold medal at the Olympics – when we have a sincere desire for a particular purpose or a destination that we would like to accomplish, one of the things that we need is a clear plan of action. We need a strategy of sorts. We need a purpose. We need a reason for why we do the things that we do.
When we want to build a great house, we have to have a plan as to how the house is going to be manufactured, how it will be constructed, what it will look like. Before you build a house, you need to create a blueprint. Perhaps some of us would like to travel around the world, but before we travel it would be beneficial to have a great map in front of us so we can think about where we want to go. If we want to go to France, we may want to look at the map. If we want to go to the south of France, we might want to investigate what towns we would like to visit. In other words, before you go on your travels you need a map, a plan, a purpose, a strategy.
But many times in life, in the most important things that make us human – for instance, becoming a family, becoming husband and wife, becoming blessed couples, raising children of our own, deciding to raise our children in a certain way – many of us do not have a plan. Many haphazardly fall into the responsibility of being a husband and wife. We haphazardly fall into the responsibility of becoming a parent without a clear plan as to how we want to raise our children, what kind of a home we want to construct. We have not thought about what the blueprint of an ideal family is going to be all about.
The incredible thing about True Parents is that they provide exactly that. They give us a blueprint or map through our travels in life. They give us a blueprint how to become that solid, loving, beautiful blessed couple, or how we can build a family that actually nourishes the children and empowers them to be great men and women of not just Nigeria, but as citizens of the world, and as part of one family under God.
Through the example of our True Parents, the way we look at Father and Mother, the way Father so lovingly walks around holding hands with True Mother, the way he brings her close and sings together and kisses Mother on the cheek – it turns us into small children, does it not? We love that because it's so beautiful.
So we realize, looking at Father and Mother's example, "Oh, a husband needs to honor his wife. Oh, the wife needs to honor the husband." Look at the way our True Parents live their lives for the sake of others. They try their best in empowering, encouraging, advising, guiding the children, yet at the same time engaged in the work of service for the rest of mankind. Through them we have a paradigm of what true love looks like for the first time in religious history. It's no longer the male model of what the world needs to be. But standing next to our True Father is a beautiful woman that we can relate to as True Mother. We have the yin and the yang, we have the masculine, the feminine through the victory of our True Mother, standing in the position of perfected Eve, working together as that great partner of our True Parent.
Mother becomes the secret ingredient that allows our True Father to be the True Parents of mankind. Father is that messiah, the Lord of the Second Advent, the Second Coming, but without True Mother he cannot be True Parents. That is why our True Mother is incredibly important, and that is why we as a worldwide movement have to recognize that we are a worldwide movement following the example and the guidance of True Parents.
So, just as we love and admire our True Father, so too do we admire and honor our True Mother. They become one in that harmonious relationship as that paradigm of true love. They are separate, but through this magic of love they become one entity that we can proudly call our True Parents. They become the physical manifestation of our Heavenly Parent up in heaven, and through them we realize for the first time what it is like really to be with God. What does it feel like actually to be in the same room with our Heavenly Parent? Well, we can experience that by being in the same room with our True Parents.
What does it feel like to hear the laughter of God? We can experience that by physically experiencing the laughter of our True Parents. Through our True Parents we become closer to our Heavenly Parent, and through our True Parents we realize the importance of grafting onto this new lineage.
Our True Parents are this beautiful man and woman, but the great gift that they bring into the world is the [marriage] Blessing. It's through marriage that different people coming from different backgrounds and different cultures become one family. How else does a black man from Nigeria become one family with a Japanese lady from Tokyo? They come together as one family through the magic of the Blessing.
So, the miraculous magic of our True Parents is that through them we can be released from the bondage of sin and from the bondage of all the burdens of having to deal with the fact that Adam and Eve fell away from God. Because they fell away from God and they united with Satan, humankind has lived as that child of a satanic lineage. But through our True Parents and through the magic of the Blessing we can come to graft onto this true lineage of God. We can be released from the bondage of what we were before.
Our True Parents take us from where we were before to realizing our true potential as divine children of God, and compel us to move forward to fulfill our destiny. They compel us to move forward as the citizens of Nigeria to be great men and women of God. Not just become rich in your natural resources, or in the external accomplishments that your country will go though. But experience and partake of the heartistic revolution that is taking place through our True Parents.
Brothers and sisters, just the fact that our True Parents shook hands and met with your president, Goodluck Jonathan, is an auspicious sign for many great things to come. I've heard many people throughout my life say, "well, that person is lucky, that person is not lucky, that person is a little bit lucky." But the thing about good luck is that people have good luck when we can exercise our five percent responsibility truly to unite with our True Parents. When we do that, then we are channeling the heavenly fortune that comes through our True Parents, so everything we do becomes anointed. Everything we do becomes blessed. Everything we do becomes inspired.
But knowing that our Heavenly Father and Mother put a great blessing before each and every one of us, we also know that in preparation to receive such a blessing we have to do a little bit of work, right? It's interesting that when my children were little, I used to say to them, "Kids, come and eat breakfast, come and eat lunch, come and eat dinner." Many times they were not too keen on eating. They wanted to go out and play, play football, play video games, to read, but many times they didn't want to come to the meal. I would have to chase my children around and then entice them to the table. I would have to promise them a delicious dessert, and then they would come.
And when the kids came, many times they would start eating and quickly try to leave. But trying to encourage this family atmosphere where we all sit down at the table, and we discuss our plans, what kind of a family we want to be, what kind of a team we want to be – I've had to do a lot of thinking as to how to capture their attention.
One of the things I used to do when they were little and making a lot of noise, we would be sitting around a round table and they would be eating and laughing and making a lot of noise when I was trying to talk to them about what kind of a family do we want to be, what kind of a team do we want to be, and they would talk loud, loud, loud. Sometimes I would say, brrrrrrupp! And the children would say, "What's that?" They would suddenly stop, trying to figure out where the sound came from. They would stop what they were doing, become very quiet, look around the table, at me, and then they listened. But after a little while they got noisy, noisy again. Then I would go brrrrupp again. Once again they would stop and look at me and they would listen. This is very, very interesting to me. When there's a sudden sound, tiny children, even 12 months old stop everything they are doing, they look around and they listen.
I thought it was really interesting because when I was flying into Abuja, and I realized that ever since I came on board as head of the American movement, one of the occupational hazards is I'm constantly traveling. I'm basically living on different airplanes. One of the things I thought about is it's absolutely incredible that at a big airport like JFK or LaGuardia you have thousands of planes coming in and landing and taking off every day. Every day. And it's a miracle that there are no accidents. It's a miracle that we're not having crashes in the air every day.
But when you think about it, you realize that in the airport all these destructive crashes in the air are avoided because there are certain principles at work. When you go to the airport you realize that every airport has one control tower. There are never two or three control towers. There's always one. You realize that there is usually one main runway. Of course, you can have small runways, but one major runway. And you also realize that every plane coming in, regardless of how sophisticated we become – and many times the planes fly autopilot in the air – but when taking off and landing it has to be manually done by a pilot and a co-pilot.
You realize there is a clear principle at work. There is one control tower giving directions to the pilot who navigates the plane in and out of the airport using the runway. When you think about this, you realize the reason we can have safe travels and can evade huge destructive accidents in the air is because the pilots and the control tower have an ongoing conversation, an unobstructed conversation. There is a process of listening. There is a process of looking. There is a process of working together. Nevertheless, the pilot absolutely trusts the voice coming from the control tower. It tells you to take the plane in, landing at a certain degree. The pilot must obey. The pilot must listen. Otherwise the pilot might bring the plane in on top of another plane taking off.
So, you realize that a beautiful symphony is taking place. I was thinking about this, here we are 30,000 feet in the air, coming down for landing, and you're riding on this plane guided by a pilot who is in communication with the control tower. We don't hear what's taking place, but we trust that the pilot is one with that control tower. And he's not communicating with two or three control towers telling him what to do. He's only listening to one.
You realize that regardless of where you go in your travels, when you get on a plane you have a clear destination. You have an understanding of how many hours you're going to travel, but you know that when you get on the plane British Airways #83, you are going to Abuja. You clearly know your destination. You get on the plane, you trust the pilot, and you trust the pilot because the pilot is in direct communication with the control tower that will bring you into a safe landing.
In many respects the control tower is like God, or like our True Parents. Our True Parents have laid great foundations all throughout their lives. Our True Father is well into 91 years of age but he is still going strong. Our True Father and our True Mother have paved the way. They have paved all the runways that we will need to do our job at hand. God has prepared us, has shown us, has guided us. They have given us the longitudinal numbers, clearly showing us how to come home.
Every travel is an attempt to reach a new destination, but from that destination to come back home safely. If you think about it, brothers and sisters, every one of us has a different journey in life. We were born to a different family. We were born to a different nation. We were born to a different culture, a different background. All of us are different in that sense, but we have our particular destination, our personal destinies that we are meant to fulfill in our lives.
But the ultimate goal in life is to come home into the embrace of our Heavenly Father. So, if God is our control tower, there is only one God, and there is only one True Parents. There are no True Parents and then a substitute. There is only one, now and forever. And we as the True Children, it's our duty and privilege to honor them as the eternal True Parents. As long as they are with us, they are our one and only control tower.
Through their good works, they have paved the runways in every city, in every country, through their blood, sweat and tears, and through the good missionaries they have sent all around the world, people like Kathy [Rigney], people like the boon bang wangs [representatives of True Parents], people like the continental directors [Unification Church directors of groups of churches on a particular continent]. True Parents have paved this glorious runway that you can use to come home, no matter how far, no matter how fast, no matter how high you travel, to bring you back safely.
Each and every one of us is like a pilot of our families, our own little teams. We as blessed central families need to be totally united with our control tower, knowing that we have nothing but gratitude for all the different runways that await us everywhere we go. Our job as pilots is absolutely to unite and listen and obey the commands and the guidance that is coming through the control tower, through God and our True Parents.
When God talks to us, just like a little child, when we hear a little sound from God, God is telling us, it's the breaking-news time and we need to stop what we are doing. When God has paved different runways for us to use to come home, we need to look at that runway, be grateful, knowing that we're going to be guided safely. We need to listen to the different coordinates that the control tower, our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents are telling us. We need to follow the different coordinates so that we can come home safely. We need to listen, we need to obey.
Just as a little child responds to a little sound, God is talking to us each and every day. Many times God talks to us through the little things. Many times we as sons and daughters want the grand miracle in life: "God, save me from my misery! Do you not have a glorious plan for me? What is my strategy in life? God, take away all my suffering. God, please relieve me of my misery."
We have to understand that God talks to us and shares miracles with us in the little things that many times we take for granted, the little blessings that many times seem to go unnoticed. Little blessings like the person sitting next to you in the hall today. That brother or sister who helps all of us become a community. The little blessing like the gift of joy, or the gift of a beautiful Nigerian smile that reaches the heart and inspires anybody that sees your beautiful smile. That is a miracle.
It is a miracle to think that I, a child that was born in Seoul, Korea, could come to love a country like America as my own because I have been taught that we are one family, that we need to go beyond our national boundaries, we need to go beyond our cultural boundaries, and that together with our True Parents can come to this beautiful country of Nigeria and meet all of you, my brothers and sisters, and feel incredibly welcome as your family. That's a miracle, brothers and sisters. It may not be a miracle that takes away all your pain, but these are the little miracles that make life beautiful.
When we realize God in the little things in life, we realize how truly blessed we really are. Many times when we're talking about the different things we have to go through in life, things we're dealing with, our spouse or with our children, we all want to be winners in life. Many times people say, "I will be a winner, if only. I would be a great husband, if only – my wife was prettier. I would be a great wife, if only – my husband was only a little bit more intelligent." In other words, when we tell ourselves we can only fulfill our own destiny if only – that means that we are waiting for some kind of contingency to take place that God has not provided for us already.
But what we realize when we come to understand God as our Heavenly Parent, that they are our Father and Mother, and when we have a chance to have children of our own and we look into the faces of our children, we don't love our children conditionally. We don't love our children based on some contingency. We don't tell our children, "I love you, if only you were good." We love our children regardless of whether they are good or bad. We don't tell our husbands, "I will only do your laundry if only you will take out the garbage." In fact, we want to do things for each other because we simply want to, and because we simply want to love.
When we are thinking and complaining to God: "Where is my winning plan of action, God?" Many times we have to realize that everything we need we already have. And what we need to do in order to become that incredible winner in life is simply to change our way of thinking. Simply change our way of thinking in realizing that we are not dependent on something to become great. We are our [own] agent of change, so there is no need to say, "I will be a great eternal son or daughter of God, if only God would give me this." God gave us everything, and we can become great if we only believe, and if we only work, and if we are only grateful.
Many times, I think in a religious life, or in a religious community like ours, the work of actually dealing with our spouses in creating a lovely family, or dealing with our children in creating that ideal family, is sometimes too difficult. I've seen different husbands and wives say, "I need to work on my ideal family, so I need to go pray for 21 days." That's wonderful. Prayer is wonderful. But the work, the good work that we need to do in this world has to be a combination of prayer together with effort. We cannot pray all our dealings away that we need to work on in the family.
A wife that just prays and never really works on a relationship with her husband by talking about the difficult things, by seeking help, by doing the homework, by applying different principles that a husband and wife can apply to make the relationship better – if this work is not done in conjunction with prayer, the effectiveness of prayer is not going to be felt.
Likewise, many parents come to me as the senior pastor and say, "Can you please pray for my child, please take care of my child." I always say, "You need to help me take care of your child. You need to pray but you need to work together with your child. Do that homework. Take that drive and talk to your son. Take that time and have that difficult conversation that you've been ignoring with your daughter. Talk about the difficult things. Work on the relationship."
See, prayer without work, without effort rarely results in a winning formula for a winning family. Again, we need to eradicate this dependence on if-only. We need to realize that in order truly to become winners in life, we have to understand that as incredible as prayer is, it needs to go hand-in-hand with effort. It needs to go hand-in-hand with manual work. Spiritual work needs to go hand-in-hand with manual physical work that we need to do here on earth, in the realities of our families.
Another thing we need to think about in order to become a really successful, that winning couple, that winning team, that winning family, is to realize that we need to stop being that sideline critic. I remember when we spent summers in Dusseldorf in Germany with True Parents. One summer Father spent there where he wanted to watch soccer games all the time. Almost every other day, every soccer game that we could find Father took me and my younger brother Hyun Jin to all these soccer games.
For any of you who enjoy watching soccer, watching soccer on TV is relatively mild compared to sitting in the stadium and watching soccer with big, burly, strong and loud Germans cheering for their lives, with beer kegs at both hands, drinking up a storm. It's quite an experience.
The interesting thing about watching a soccer game is that everybody sitting in the stands thinks they can do better than the professional player on the field. Every time somebody misses a kick, or a goal, or the ball goes off the field, the Germans will stand up and shout, "What are you doing? You should have done this." They are the sideline critics who always know better. These are professional players on the field. They've trained their whole lives to have the privilege of playing on the team, to the enjoyment of so many people. But it's the people in the stands, the sideline critics, who have a whole lot to say, and are constantly telling the players, "How can you miss the ball? You should have kicked it with your left foot, not your right foot. You should have headed that into the goal." Everybody has an opinion.
See, the incredible thing about being that winning person, having that winning formula to build an incredible family is to take ourselves away from the sideline-critic mentality and to put ourselves into the game. This is why I'm encouraging all the different brothers and sisters in America, and all the district directors I work with, to not be sideline critics telling the professional players what to do. Everybody has an opinion, everybody can tell somebody what to do. But it's a whole different ballgame when you yourself are on the field kicking that ball, dribbling that ball, heading that ball into the goal and scoring that goal. It's a totally different game.
Many times in our movement different leaders, different members or brothers and sisters heartistically mean well, but we find ourselves in the position nai-ah-ja-ri-ah. What is my position? Many times we find ourselves in the position of sideline critic of one of the most phenomenal movements in the world. Our movement, the Unification Church, is by far – when you look at the history of religion – the most phenomenal religion in that the growth continues exponentially, even while the Founder still lives. Nobody has seen church growth like the Unification Church. We are an incredibly powerful church.
God has anointed our True Parents. God has hand-crafted and hand-picked all of you to unite with the Messiah at this crucial time, to bring about a change in the world, to bring about a change in the way people think, to bring about a change in the way people feel, revolution of heart. Change in the culture, the way we relate to each other, the way we look at each other, the way we love each other.
True Parents come at this incredible time to usher in this great new millennium, but many of us are still stuck in our stadium seats as sideline critics, not realizing that God needs all of us on the field, playing the game so we can make the world a better place. God needs all of us to get up from our seats, not to just be the critics. Anybody can do that. Even children know how to criticize things. But the truly wise and the truly mature person knows the importance of gratitude and knows the importance of seizing the opportunity at hand, seizing this incredible opportunity and turning it into a victory. That's the time that we're living in, brothers and sisters.
Nostradamus
Our True Father and Mother are not just mere mortals. They're not just your everyday man and woman. They have been providentially prepared, especially anointed. They were prophesied. Even Nostradamus, the celestial scientist, prophesied several hundred years ago that a great man, the prince of peace, would come from the East and call the West his own. Nostradamus goes on to say that this man will wield the rod of Hermes. For those of you well versed in philosophy, the rod of Hermes symbolizes the rod of enlightenment, the rod of truth that the Messiah brings, or the prince of peace brings upon the world, to usher in a whole brand-new religious consciousness.
This prince of peace is not just going to wield this rod of Hermes, but in many respects not only does the rod of Hermes symbolize the rod of enlightenment, but Hermes symbolizes also the god of commerce. This is a man that might be better known as a businessman, better known for all the different businesses that have started in the world. And many times in the 1970s when they were busy calling us "Moonies" and a cult, they always called Father a "self-proclaimed messiah" and a "businessman." So again, this was prophesied several hundred years ago in the volumes of predictions called "Centuries" that Nostradamus published.
He also goes on to say that this man will be an outlaw in that he will move in and out of jail many times. And he will be an outlaw in a sense that he will destroy the rocks but not harm the living. What are the "rocks" of society? They are the established religions, or the established dogmas or principles of ways of thinking. The prince of peace comes to destroy our old ways of thinking. Not harming the living. He comes to truly share the rod of the enlightenment, or the new truth or the new consciousness that he brings.
Nostradamus goes on to say that, protected by the planet Mars, this new sect that will come from this man will spread like wildfire all around the world. If you look at our movement, it has a presence all around the world, like none other. Nostradamus goes on to say that this man comes to unite against the red with all the religions. Red is a symbol of communism, but this man comes to unite all the religions, God-fearing people, to fight and put away communism.
You tell me how many other religious leaders in the world have done that, have put in billions and billions of dollars through organizations like the Washington Times, fighting together with the Reagan Administration, bringing down the Berlin Wall, bringing down the Iron Curtain that has in a way been the bulwark of communism for years. Only Father as a religious leader came to unite the religions, unite the faithful children of God to fight against communism.
Nostradamus also says there will be a great significance in the color red when it comes to this man's sect. It would be like a symbol upon the world, and he uses the word 'the rose.' The rose will be his symbol. Anyone who knows the Unification Church symbol, the color is red. And, to many people who don't understand what it represents, it looks like a red flower or red rose.
These are the predictions made several hundred years ago. Nostradamus goes on to say – this is the biggest clue he spoke about. He said that this man will have somewhere in his name "Diana's moon," meaning the word "moon." Literal name "Moon." Now, can you be more specific than Rev. Sun Myung Moon?
He also goes on to say that this man will be characterized by constant traveling. He will travel through the skies. Now think about it. How did Nostradamus know that this man, who will come as the prince of peace, will travel through the skies? Because he must have seen an airplane but could not describe what it really was. Our True Parents are flying through the skies in an airplane following the control tower that is our Heavenly Parent up in heaven. They are traveling and sharing in the breaking news that True Parents are here and that we need to wake up to a new religious consciousness that is going to unite the world, that is going to usher in a peaceful world, a world of love and harmony and justice.
Nostradamus talked about it several hundred years ago. And he also found something I find incredibly interesting. Something about this man will have something to do with rare birds. This is where I feel that Nostradamus gave the greatest gift for humankind. He couldn't quite understand how the prince of peace was going to be symbolized by rare birds because in the Christian model you only had the model of Jesus Christ. He was one man. He did not have a wife, his feminine counterpart, he did not have a family.
But the beautiful thing about Nostradamus' prophecy, when he talks about this man having something to do with rare birds that will travel through the skies with him, declaring "Now, now, now is the time." Well, I find it incredibly inspiring that our True Mother's name means "heavenly crane." Nostradamus probably did not know how to describe what he saw, but he knew it was a rare spiritual bird. My mother's name means "heavenly crane." So, he prophesied that somewhere in the life of this prince of peace somehow this bird would manifest as part of his grand symbol. He didn't have the terminology yet of True Parents because True Parents did not exist until 1960. But what was prophesied was that a rare bird will symbolize something great about this man.
I thought it was incredibly exciting that it would be our True Parents declaring the dawn of the Pacific Rim era, and it's our True Mother, the power of the feminine, the beauty of a compassionate spirit, the beauty of a loving and empowering spirit, that is being pushed to the forefront. Our True Mother is the one sharing the breaking news of the Messiah being here, of True Parents being here, of us living at the anointed time. She is the one traveling through the skies, brothers and sisters, saying, "Now, now, now is the time of the breaking news." Now is the time of our True Parents, and it is our responsibility to know our place as those eternal sons or daughters of God. And by knowing our place, we realize that God has this incredible plan for us. And His plan for us is for us to prosper, for us to have incredible hope, for us to have a future – future meaning many, many beautiful descendants.
God is saying, when you know your place – nai-ja-ri-ah – if you know your place and you are united with our True Parents, then ah-bu-ja. Nigeria will be a bu-jah country. It will be a country of wealth, not just in terms of its external economic successes, but, united with our True Parents, the spirit and the vitality and the power of true love will flow through your veins, and each and every one of you will be mobilized into that agent of change that will bring incredible changes all around the world.
When I contemplate this word "unity," I remember we usually think of our movement as an acronym, Unification Church. We will begin to see the truth. We will begin to see what the true plan of God is for all of us. We will begin to see our own destinies when we are united with our True Parents, when people slowly come as part of our community, as part of this one family under God. Unification Church – you will begin to see. And we will realize that the word that we need to concentrate on is this word called unity. "U-need-T." We need True Parents in our lives. You need True Parents. I need True Parents. Nai-ja-ri-ah needs True Parents.
And the great thing about True Parents is that, just as they are the parental figures, Father doesn't say, "I'm going to do it all." What he does is, he raises up his children. He raises up unworthy children like me and you and all of us, asking us to do great things. Our True Parents, as the eternal True Parents, have done us a great favor of declaring and proclaiming his spiritual head of the movement. After the True Parents will be the youngest son, Hyung Jin. He is the spiritual head of our movement and the spiritual head of our family. And it is the job of the True Family truly to unite with that head, as different body parts, like different hands and different feet, and work as one body for the sake of the world, in service of the world, in service of the True Parents that had been prophesied several hundred years ago by this man named Nostradamus.
Brothers and sisters, there is a great Persian poet that is one of my favorites, whose name is "Rumi." He used to say to his disciples that the joy of being human is truly the process of uncovering the core of what we already are, the treasures within the ruin. Meaning, even when we might feel like a ruin most days of our lives, we are these divine creatures. We have this treasure, and the joy of our life is having the opportunity to uncover this beautiful treasure that God placed in every one of you and in every one of us, that makes us a child of God.
Brothers and sisters, on this glorious Sunday morning you will be meeting this man and woman several hours from now that Nostradamus prophesied, that we have the honor to call "True Parents." You need to understand what an incredibly blessed time this is and how lucky you are. Out of all the Nigerians that have lived, why you? Why beautiful you? Why unique you? Why special you? Why were you given this chance to work together with our True Parents?
I will be the first one to say, "Why not me? And why not you?" So, brothers and sisters, go in peace and go with a heart of gratitude because you have our True Parents with us in Nigeria today. God bless, and thank you very much.
1: These are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnez'zar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
2: This was after King Jeconi'ah, and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.
3: The letter was sent by the hand of Ela'sah the son of Shaphan and Gemari'ah the son of Hilki'ah, whom Zedeki'ah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnez'zar king of Babylon. It said:
4: "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.
6: Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.
7: But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
8: For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream,
9: for it is a lie which they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the LORD.
10: "For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
11: For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
12: Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
13: You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart,
14: I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
15: "Because you have said, `The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,' --
16: Thus says the LORD concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your kinsmen who did not go out with you into exile:
17: `Thus says the LORD of hosts, Behold, I am sending on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like vile figs which are so bad they cannot be eaten.
18: I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,
19: because they did not heed my words, says the LORD, which I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, says the LORD.' --
20: Hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon:
21: `Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kola'iah and Zedeki'ah the son of Ma-asei'ah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrez'zar king of Babylon, and he shall slay them before your eyes.
22: Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: "The LORD make you like Zedeki'ah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,"
23: because they have committed folly in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words which I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, says the LORD.'"
24: To Shemai'ah of Nehel'am you shall say:
25: "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: You have sent letters in your name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephani'ah the son of Ma-asei'ah the priest, and to all the priests, saying,
26: `The LORD has made you priest instead of Jehoi'ada the priest, to have charge in the house of the LORD over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and collar.
27: Now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of An'athoth who is prophesying to you?
28: For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, "Your exile will be long; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat their produce."'"
29: Zephani'ah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet.
30: Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:
31: "Send to all the exiles, saying, `Thus says the LORD concerning Shemai'ah of Nehel'am: Because Shemai'ah has prophesied to you when I did not send him, and has made you trust in a lie,
32: therefore thus says the LORD: Behold, I will punish Shemai'ah of Nehel'am and his descendants; he shall not have any one living among this people to see the good that I will do to my people, says the LORD, for he has talked rebellion against the LORD.'"