Sun Myung Moon's Words From 1959
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Sun Myung Moon's Words From 1959 |
11 Believe me when I say that I am in
the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the
evidence of the works themselves.
John 14:11
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or
of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a
clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I
possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may
boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love
is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It
does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in
evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But
where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues,
they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness
comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked
like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I
became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we
see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully
known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the
greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13:1-13
We do not want to believe in a Father of words. We want to believe in the Father who has been building a relationship with humankind throughout history. We seek the Father who can have a direct relationship with us now; the Father who can give us the words of truth directly.
Humanity today believes in God as an object. Yet today we do not seek God as a mere object of faith. We want a God who is our living and substantial subject partner, who can connect to our situations and lives, a Father who can never be separated from us and with whom we can spend time. Both God and humanity desire the moment that such a relationship is realized on the earth.
Although we may think that the garden of hope of the Father's desires is a concept and an ideal, that is not true. We know that the time has come when we should have a concept of the Kingdom of Heaven as a realm we can enter, which we can feel through our actions and through our concrete senses, a realm which we can sing of with real emotion.
We know that the purpose of the providence of salvation, the history of restoration and salvation through the cross all were to build such a relationship. Please let today be a moment when we can call You our true Father and recognize without shame that we are Your true sons and daughters. In that state, let us sing, rejoice and listen to the words. Father, this is our sincere wish.
Although we have learned a considerable amount about the Father of history and the Father of words, we long for the Father whom we can testify to through our hearts; the Father we can experience through our bodies; the Father who can work the miracle of elevating our own words to be the very words of the Father. We long for the Father who can be together with us. Please let this be an hour when You arouse concrete feelings in us.
Father, please grant Your grace so that the sons and daughters who are gathered here can be in control of their minds and bodies. They are neither the masters of their minds nor of their bodies. They believe, unconsciously looking to some faraway place with a hopeful glance. We want to have faith in and rely upon some absolute being, yet we have not come to a point where we can be recognized by an absolute being.
We know that this is because we, who are in the position of object partners, are unworthy to receive the grace of the absolute being and absolute subject partner. Therefore, Father, please be our Lord, and put us in the position of Your object partners. Please allow Your truth to become our own beliefs. Please elevate us so that our hearts can be intoxicated in that truth, and we can sing of the all- encompassing love of the Father. In this hour, let there be a miracle which moves our minds, which we experience and is conveyed through our hearts and which unites us.
I am about speak the words, so please be with me. We do not want the words of a human being. We hear enough words from human beings. We have heard the words of many preachers who intone from the pulpit. This is not what we want to hear. We want to hear new words of truth which can bestir a dead life, revive a dead heart, and purify our clouded minds. We want the words of re-creation through which we can understand that our Father is the center of our hearts, our wills and our beliefs. We want to sense that we are eternally one with the Father. Please manifest this to us. Let this be a moment when You pour down upon us the sweet rain of grace.
We know that it is the work of Satan to form a gap between the heart of the speaker and the hearts of the listeners. Please guide us to remove any pride of our own accomplishments and recognize that all our accomplishments were done by the Father. Allow us to entrust everything to the Father. Praying that this will be a precious moment when we can receive the compassion of the Father, we prayed all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The title of the sermon I am about to give today is "What Belongs to the Father Belongs to Me." To expand the scope of this, it becomes "What Belongs to the Father Belongs to Us." I will speak briefly on this topic.
Until now we have thought that we have infinite value. We do not know the nature of our value; we only know that we are valuable. However we feel, that cannot establish our complete value and remain till the end. We cannot confidently and with dignity take pride in ourselves before the great universal reality with the mere feeling that we are valuable.
We cannot deny that because this is the state we find ourselves in, we long for the precious being, the precious one, the relationship of value and the valuable world. We are to seek for these. When we recognize what needs to be done and we look at the great universe, we cannot help but have an intense feeling of emptiness.
Hence, we seek something we can depend upon. We sense deeply through our consciences and in our lives that it is our fate to pursue this. From this standpoint, even if there were no God, we would have to create a fictional absolute being. If we understand that we live in such a situation and that there should be some order in our actions, including our feelings, our rejoicing and singing, and if we reflect upon ourselves as to whether or not we can forge a valuable relationship with that and be happy, we can probably conclude on our own that the answer is negative.
Because this is the miserable situation of human beings, if there were a God, He would have some responsibility to establish a relationship with us. If God is the subject partner of absolute value and the origin of value itself, then we cannot logically deny that if God does nothing to establish that valuable relationship, there is no way to attribute love and other such characteristics to God.
We know that human beings fell. We know that they lost their original position. Human beings lost their original value. We should look at the whole world. If there is a God, then we should call out "Heaven." If there is an absolute being, we should call out "Absolute Being," and if there is something which has the form of goodness, we should appeal to it to manifest itself in concrete form. We should ardently long for such an absolute being, a God, or being of goodness.
Because Heaven understands the situation human beings are in, He has not hesitated to exert Himself to the utmost and sacrifice Himself to recover us. He did not hesitate to exhaust Himself in clinging to humanity. He has been searching for the value of the whole and of the ideal. If we accept this, we should have a humble heart. Pressing our hands together, we should bow before Him.
When we fathom this movement of the whole, the flow of history and the sway of our hearts, we find that even if we are not aware of it, some force has been pulling us and prodding us in the background of history and in the depth of our hearts. We have to understand that some force deep inside our hearts prods us to pursue some value. We should not ignore this as a coincidence or phenomenon, because it stems from an inseparable relationship inside each one of us. When we decipher this relationship and examine its value, we find that therein lies something which is connected to God, the epitome of goodness. This relationship has to be built.
Heaven has been toiling until today and persevering through all sufferings behind the scenes in order to give human beings absolute value. God has no choice but to continue this work, even beyond today. When we come to understand this, our heads bow in humility and awe every time we think about Heavenly Father.
For this reason, God has proclaimed words of truth which humanity does not even understand. God told us just to believe in Him, even though His will was to establish religions and build profound relationships with us. The contents of His proclamations were not clearly defined. God commanded us to look to Him. He also told us to love Him. Although we do not know the nature of the relationship and its specific content, through our experience we come to reaffirm that we are inseparably connected to something in the world of the heart. Human beings have depended on and believed in these vague words of truth; they have longed for them and loved them. People of faith were felled as they held true to their beliefs, adhering to their hope and love. Countless people were felled in their life of devotion. Those who died as they adhered to their belief in God surpass the patriots and heroes of a country many thousands of times over. Many have died keeping their hope or love. Among them, however, no one has been hailed as a prince of faith, a prince of hope, a prince of love.
When we reflect upon the six-thousand-year history, we find that there were many who fell while they were aspiring to become victorious in their faith, yet there was no one who was revered by humanity as a great prince of faith. Similarly, we find that although there were many who searched for the foundation of hope, no one was ever praised by Heaven on a foundation of hope or was revered by humanity. Although there have been many people who professed to love, the same thing was true for them. Should we then hold grudges against God for this? Do the notions of faith, hope and love not exist?
Jesus was the incarnation of faith whom God had sought for four thousand years. He was someone who deeply experienced the Father's heart as a concrete reality. The people did not know that Jesus was such a person. No one in all of humanity knew that. If there was a person who did know, it was God.
Hence, Jesus had nowhere to go. Although he came to create the history of faith, because no one recognized him, he had to put the world behind him and go in search of someone who understood him. This was the path of the cross. In this way Jesus inherited the faith and hope of God, who is the hope of humanity. He became the subject partner of faith and hope, representing God in substance. Because Jesus came not as God's relative subject partner of faith but as the absolute subject partner of God, representing the invisible God, even if you do not believe in God, you should believe in Jesus.
The Bible says that you should believe in Jesus, long for him and love him. This is because the incarnation is closer to corporeal human beings than is the invisible God. For this reason, we should tearfully bow before the laborious accomplishments of God who sent and raised up Jesus as an earthly man. Jesus tried to establish the foundation of faith; he tried to pioneer an environment of hope; he tried to build a fence of love. However, his ideals were not realized on the earth.
The purpose of the four-thousand-year history was to establish an incarnation of faith. The purpose of the two-thousand-year history since Jesus and the Holy Spirit has been to establish an incarnation of hope. This is the true standard of thought and ideas. Today the worldview which longs for Jesus and an opposing worldview have manifested themselves as democracy and communism. Because hope has come near the end, we call this time the Last Days. We do not call it the Last Days without good reason.
What kind of ancestor was Jesus? He was an ancestor more of hope than of faith. He was the ancestor who could uphold hope as an earthly man. What would you hope for? We believe that the mind inside our body is precious. We believe that the heart inside the mind is precious. There is no greater hope than to hope for the one who is the substantial subject partner of the mind and heart. Jesus said, "You are my bride and I am your bridegroom." You should understand this clearly. Hence, the world cannot surpass the limit of this hope, no matter how hard it may try.
What kind of hope is it? Christians today yearn for the world of hope based on the word. However, the time for the word is behind us; now we should yearn for the incarnation. More than many thousands of words of discussion on faith and more than the history of faith, we need one substantial person. If such an incarnation does not appear, then the worldview of hope based on the words of truth will come to a dead- end. Unless we are connected to the incarnation, this world will fade away with the flow of history. You wait and see.
Today Christianity literally has become a worldwide religion. The democratic world is rooted in Christian teachings. Now even that is coming to an end. What do we need here? Our purpose is not to merely rejoice in the word. We must be able to enjoy a life of eternal significance on the earth.
History is turning like a tornado. We who are gathered under today's trends of thought are caught in a maelstrom. We venerate our ancestor of faith, Abraham, and all the prophets after him. We look up to Jesus, the prince of hope, who came two thousand years later. We reflect back upon the history of fierce conflicts.
However, what these ancestors of faith accomplished was the hope of a promise. They could not bring the hope which can be manifested in daily life. For this reason, the day their hope becomes materialized as a reality is the Last Days. The work to accomplish this is the ideal of the Second Advent. The one who comes to accomplish this is the Lord of the Second Advent.
What remains now? The age based upon faith came to an end with Jesus. Because Jesus is the embodiment of faith, when you believe in him, you can develop stronger faith than anyone who lived in the four thousand years before Jesus. Jesus had to rectify faith before the people who disbelieved. He had to establish hope before the people who did not have hope. Wasn't that true?
Please read the Bible. Look at the prophecies after Abraham. The one hope in faith is to cling to the Messiah. However, this has remained as the hope of the bride and bridegroom in the realm of symbolic promises because Jesus died on the cross. In your life of devotion, you are not aware of this. Even if you do not understand what I am saying now, there will be a time when you can understand it. Isn't that how it should be if it is the work of a real God? Only then would it be logical.
What does the incarnation of hope and faith want to accomplish? In other words, what is the purpose of hope and faith? It is that the people will find him and sing songs of love. There is nothing else. Why do we want to meet the Lord? We want the Lord to recognize our value, and we want to live in the bosom of the Lord's love. This is the highest purpose of humanity.
The reason that God established faith, hope and love was not just for the sake of Jesus, Abraham or anyone among our ancestors. It was for each one of us. Who looked for me faithfully for six thousand years? It was God. Who is God? He is our father. This is where the great drama of Heaven and earth unfolds.
When you cling to the Father you believe in, hope in and love, Jesus should say, "I have struggled hard to meet you. I have toiled arduously to meet you." God should also be able to say that. At that moment, if you were to offer, "God! Let us live together. Jesus! Let us live together," they will respond, "All right. Let's live together for eternity." This is the Kingdom of Heaven. We have no need for some imaginary and fabricated Kingdom of Heaven. We have to fight to build the substantial Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus told us that he was leaving without accomplishing everything, so he instructed us to believe in the Holy Spirit. Do you think that you will be saved only by believing in Jesus? You can be saved if you believe in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit tries to lead people to believe in the son of God, so you should also believe in the Holy Spirit.
What kind of spirit is the Holy Spirit? She is a mother spirit. Christians today do not understand this. If you think that I am lying, ask God about it. I do not speak from assumption. I am sure.
The Holy Spirit is the mother divinity, and Jesus is the true father of humanity. The true father is the perfected Adam. Because Adam fell and could not become the true ancestor of humanity, we are descendants of false ancestors rather than true ones. The Messiah is the one who comes as the true ancestor. He is the true father. Christianity talks about the Trinity. Since Jesus is the true father and the Holy Spirit is the true mother, we can be reborn only when we receive the love of this father and mother. How can a child be born without the love of parents?
For this reason it is written in Revelation, "The Holy Spirit and the bride call us. They will call upon those who hear, those who are thirsty will come, and they will give the water of life for free to those who desire it." (Rev. 22:17) Such a day is the day the Holy Spirit takes on an earthly form. That is the day of the Second Advent. It is the day the bride finishes the preparations for the wedding. What is the Marriage of the Lamb? It is attending the True Parents who have been lost. When this is accomplished, the conceptual God, the God as the object of faith, will no longer be needed. We will no longer have any need for a conceptual God, or a devotional life in which our faith is only external. What we will have is a substantial, living God.
Who was the substantial subject partner of faith? It was Jesus. Who was the substantial subject partner of hope? It was Jesus. Who was the incarnation of love and the subject partner of love? It was Jesus. Although God sent Jesus, human beings could not recognize him. They did not believe, and he had to die. When will he return? Since no one could recognize him as the bridegroom, he cannot come again. If he were to come again, he would be mistreated; hence, he cannot come again. You have to understand this grief. Those who think, "When the Lord comes he will come looking for me," ruin Christianity and undermine God's will.
God will come looking for us. However, unless an incarnation of faith, hope and love emerges in this world, the purpose for which God established faith, hope and love will not be realized. Therefore, you should understand that God cannot properly play His true role without you. Without you, God cannot move this world. Jesus lived by this conviction. He knew that God's love could not be introduced without him.
Now is a time when people want evidence. This is a scientific era, they say. Science is logical. What is logical must connect cause and result systematically. When we can prove and practice logical truth in our daily life, we call that scientific. This is the original human nature. There cannot be happiness apart from our life and concrete reality. There cannot be satisfaction or other such things apart from these. For this reason, God also wants to work through a substantial embodiment.
What kind of time is the Last Days? It is the time that the two-thousand-year history since Jesus, the purpose of which was to fulfill the history and hope of the previous four thousand years of establishing the faith, comes to an end. It is the time of the appearance of the prince of faith, hope and love. People believe that when he appears he will come on the clouds, in the sky, but that is a misunderstanding. It is literally impossible.
I used to have that type of faith. I felt so frustrated and distressed that I banged on the ground and protested against Heaven many times. When I penetrated deep into it, I found that it was not true. When I spoke words of truth, I was most heavily persecuted. I now wear the badge of a heretic. In the past St. Paul was condemned as a heretic. The Messiah who came with the truth was cursed and laughed at as one possessed by Beelzebub. This is the source of historical sorrow. Since history began in sorrow, it has to end in sorrow.
If there are faithful believers, let them esteem the members who lie prostrated upon and pray upon the wooden floors of churches. When your church leaders chase you out, follow the sheep as you shed tears and look behind you. You will find that you have come near a new garden of flowers. Have you ever thought when chilly winds blow that the spring season will come after the passage of time? The Lord, in my opinion, will come looking for those who can bravely greet the coming of the spring season with their minds, even though their bodies may be suffering winter.
Although there are many princes of words who can speak articulately and powerfully before a large crowd, there is no hero of substance. There is no embodiment of faith, hope and love among the church leaders. Where will this church and its members head toward? Where will the believers of the Last Days go? This Mr. Moon in Korea will walk the path, if doing so will bring blessing to the people. I will do this even if I am condemned as a monstrous heretic and a traitor to the people.
Since there is no longer an altar of substance and evidence, where is the heavenly prince of faith who can build a substantial altar? Such a person is needed. There is no need for large multitudes. What we need is not a general who can command many soldiers majestically, but a general who cannot sleep at night because he is concerned about his soldiers. In history God worried about people who were cold, too hot, or hungry.
Although the Pharisees stood on the front-line and boasted about themselves, Jesus turned around and shed tears. This was the true side of Jesus. The one who shouts loudly in the front is not the one who will save humanity. History has been able to at least reach this point because of the people who, even when they were falling down, clung to Heaven and said in tears, "Please sympathize with them. What can we do about them?" There will come a time when those who are ignorant of this will be struck.
No matter how great the teachings of the Unification Church may be, there will come a time when attention will focus on not the contents of its teaching but on its actual state of being. What do you possess? We have to understand that we need to become the embodiments of faith, hope and love. If we can achieve that, even if the Lord comes a thousand years later, he will not abandon us. There is no worry as long as you can become someone who can say, "I am where faith, hope and love are."
The time is nearing when we must explain history in substantial terms. Our one day of hope is the day we can meet the embodiment. This is the truth. It is not fancy or fabrication.
Is there anyone among you who is qualified to become the bride of the Lord? Who makes that claim? Have you ever seen someone make this claim? Although there are many people who say that they will achieve it, no one has actually achieved it. Then what kind of contents should we develop? We should develop the contents of historical faith, historical hope and the heart of the historical God. We have to become qualified to alleviate the grief of God, who has led the six-thousand-year history concentrating on a substantial person who possesses all these contents. Only then can we attend the Lord.
This world is unbearable even to think about. The six-thousand-year history to find the embodiment is a distressing history fraught with countless human betrayals. It is a history God does not want to repeat ever again, even in His dreams. However, it is the job of the incarnated one to hold onto it, to reflect upon it, to mourn over it, and to repeat it. That is the sole issue.
Then what must you do? You should have the confidence that faith, hope and love belong to you. You should be qualified to believe in yourself for many thousands of years. Do you understand what I am saying? You should believe in yourself more than you believe in God, who carried on the providence for six thousand years. You should be able to say, "I am the incarnation of faith, hope and love."
Do you believe in your bodies? Do you believe in your minds? Do you believe in your hearts? You should believe in them. God gave you everything that He believes in as a gift in order to find you. Therefore, we should fight against evil on behalf of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all people. We should believe in ourselves, that we are qualified to act as the judge and destroy all that is wrong. That is the level we must attain.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time to attempt to enter the Kingdom of Heaven has now passed. You should not try to go to the Kingdom of Heaven by believing in God; you should try to help God enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You should not have the desire to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and meet Jesus; you should build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and attend Jesus.
Do you want to receive the love of Jesus? Are you worthy to demand the love of Jesus when you are soaked in sinfulness? Jesus is the royal prince of God. You cannot make such demands upon the royal prince of God. You should not have such an attitude of faith. If you want to receive his love, you should be filled with a desire to love him that is more intense than his death. Yet all of you have the attitude of a robber. Those who are faithful today do as they wish, but that is not how it should be. That is not how it is in the spirit world. It is fundamentally different.
Thus, it is our fate now to liberate God. God has been seeking those who crave faith and hope and who are burning with love. He wants those who say, "God is constrained because of humanity. God is constrained because of me. God is receiving Satan's accusation because of me. Jesus died because of me. The Holy Spirit has been carrying on a bloody battle because of me. God, please give me strength. I will take the Father to a place of peace and liberation. I will also take Jesus and the Holy Spirit to a place of liberation." We should understand this truth.
Is there a contradiction in these words? Only when we receive such great love can God be our father. In that state, your eyes will overflow with tears just looking at a mountain. Those of us who have failed in our responsibilities will strike our chests in frustration and will not be able to escape the fate of becoming princes of grief, even if we try our best to take steps forward.
You should understand that God is not someone comfortably sitting on the throne of the Kingdom of Heaven. God sees that hell has been created and He feels pain which surpasses that which is felt in hell. Yet humanity does not know this. If God does not feel pain which surpasses that which is felt in hell and allows hell to remain, He cannot be called the God of love. In the six-thousand-year history, there is no pain in hell God did not experience. God experienced all its agonies. In truth, God is suffering the pains of hell. You may accuse me of speaking nonsense, but we should believe in and attend God knowing these things. Only then can God be the true God of humanity. God suffered the anguishes of hell in order to find each one of us.
After Jesus died on the cross, there was a three-day period of darkness. How can this be? He should have been a physical and spiritual savior. He was to witness to people even when he entered hell. For this reason, the people who believe in Jesus should have touched the bottom of hell on earth. This is why they were trampled upon in history and persecuted. Since God walked such a path, we have to accompany Him and work by His side. The providence of restoration and the providence of salvation is the promise to give the garden of glory to such people. You should understand this clearly.
Those who pray with a sincere heart, "God, please let me go to hell and experience the Father's sufferings" will not go to hell. Those who say, "Oh God, I do not want to go to hell; please send me to the Kingdom of Heaven," will end up in hell. Jesus prayed on the cross, "Father, please do not do as I will, but as You will. Please do not let them bear the penalty for their sins." This was because when he contemplated the internal heart and situation of God, who had suffered the pains of hell in order to save the people for four thousand years, he felt that he could not avoid the path of the cross. You should understand clearly that these were Jesus' feelings.
Christianity, which should lay this foundation of love, has been destroyed. We have stood up to rebuild the foundation with our own hands. We should fight and march without words. This path is not one of glory or wealth. If you desire those things, the time of hope will not come. We do not have time to spend our energy on that. No matter what the world does, we are determined to walk our own path.
Is there anyone who came to the Unification Church to listen to these words without knowing anything? To put it simply, the path of the Unification Church is very difficult to walk. We are to experience the pain of banging our heads on the walls of agony and colliding into it with our bodies and having our flesh torn. The path we walk is not a smooth path. Neither the Lord nor the prophets walked a smooth path. Those who were responsible for history were brave soldiers who possessed the vibrant spirit and blood of history. Those who will inherit the ideals and spirit of Jesus, who clung to the love of Heaven in the same way that the prophets led history, must have the same qualities. You have to understand this clearly. I want to tell you that the time of having aimless faith has passed. The empty and fabricated foundation of logic is based on ignorance and there can be no perfection based on that foundation. Therefore, what we should present today is how to believe in ourselves.
Just as God believed in Jesus and Jesus believed in God, just as Jesus believed in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit believed in Jesus, we have to believe in ourselves. We should reach the level where we can say, "Even if the principles of Heaven were to change, I would not change. Even if Heaven and earth were to disappear, the words of Jesus cannot change. Even if Heaven and earth disappear, I will not change."
The problem lies in each one of you. Do you believe in yourselves? You who are trying so hard to go to the Kingdom of Heaven, do you believe in yourselves? We have no need for belief in words, belief that is empty at the core. We have no need for the empty shell, for the empty husk of grain. This is the meaning of the biblical parable of a grain and its empty ear. If we become the incarnations of solid core faith, solid core hope, and solid core love, no matter how vast this world may be, no matter how wide the American continent is and how advanced it may be, it will not pose any problem for us. We will not encounter any difficulty. If there is a group of people who are confident they will conquer the others through love one day, they will surely rule the world. Since eternal hope is in the Father, those who represent the Father are embodiments of eternal hope. Since God is eternal love, you should struggle to embrace that love and give it to others. You should struggle to the point of death to give that love. If you did so, would this country perish?
You should have eternal faith in yourself, hope in yourself, and love yourself before you say, "God, please receive my love and hope and rejoice in my faith." Then God will receive you. This is the purpose for which you have established faith, sought hope, and longed for love. When this is achieved, you will be able to honor the Lord on that foundation. You will be able to live together with the Lord. What is the purpose of hope and faith? It is to live your daily life centering on God's love. The Kingdom of Heaven on earth is the new ideal world where we can discard the entire notion of religion and sing songs of love. That world is not a fabricated world. It must appear as an inescapable reality based on logic.
Who are the people who will remain in this world? They are the people who are burning with faith, hope and passion. We should examine every page of history and investigate the rise and fall of nations and look for the people who held fast to faith and fidelity. The people who are burning with hope and zeal and do not hesitate to risk their lives for the sake of God are the ones who are close to God.
The same is true of a society. Who are the successful people? One can become successful in one's nation when one has faith in one's nation. When one honors the state doctrine as one's own, and appears with the spirit of governing the nation, one can become successful. Isn't that true? The same principle is at work in a family. Those who have faith, hope and love in the family will inherit the family. Isn't that true? Do you deny that?
When we examine history, what people are burning with faith in God? The Korean people have never heard about God and have not had clear revelations from prophets during their five-thousand-year history. Yet Koreans somehow have strong faith in Heaven. Whatever you may say, that is what I found.
It is a miracle that this people, this tiny nation in the eastern hemisphere, has survived for five thousand years and many waves of thought and beliefs. Probe into Korean history. Their history was marked by many dangerous invasions. Invaders devoured Korea before throwing the Koreans back out, over and over again. When they were thrown out, they were stripped to the bone. Nonetheless, the Korean people preserved some unknown source of strength flowing through their national spirit and awaited the one day of hope. Because of the hopeful national spirit which has moved this peninsula in the Far East, the people were able to continue their fight until now. Wouldn't the Messiah come to a people who have demonstrated such a remarkable national spirit? That is what I think. You have to understand this.
Moreover, no people are more passionate than the Korean people. Korea has been called a nation of strong ethics. Both Confucianism and Buddhism have flourished in this nation. The same has been true for Christianity. However, Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity, which claim to be religions of faith and hope, have completed their missions. What remains? There is a zeal exploding from deep within people's hearts which can burn brilliantly for the worldwide ideal centering on the national spirit. Although young people may not understand this, older people know what I am talking about.
What made the people like this? Let us investigate their philosophical and religious history. No value can establish itself unless it first lays a foundation of reciprocity or comparison. Those who know will understand this. Without the positions of subject partner and object partner, there is no way to secure a system of values. If a nation were to emerge with a doctrine which can lead the world, only when a nation follows the leader and works in tandem with him to translate the ideals into reality can that nation become predominant in the world.
What is the original civilization without the Fall? Western civilization is external. Members of the Unification Church do not want to go to places like America. Everything there will be dismantled. If you examine the history of the past, there were matriarchal societies and patriarchal societies based on love. Until now patriarchal societies have survived, but now they are about to be destroyed. We are about to enter an era centered on couples.
Nations like America today only care about their own partners. This also will be destroyed. What will happen after that? There will unfold a world of love based on the governance of brothers, the people, the world and Heaven. Do you understand what this means?
Any imperialist ideology will come to an end. Why? God will not leave evil alone. He will destroy it. It will be shattered. In this way the period of monarchy and imperialism will come to a tragic end. Due to the human Fall, the ideal of heavenly monarchy was shattered. Archangels have acted as monarchs. We have lived through an era of archangelic sovereignty.
When we examine the trends in world thought, we find that anything imperialistic is being destroyed. We will soon experience destruction of anything that has the form of monarchy and enter an era of democracy and equality. What will follow after that? From this point, we are to consolidate a world in which we can call God our king, call those who live for the will of God and goodness members of our family, and call those who are fighting for God and goodness our people.
For this reason, if you carefully examine the trends of thought in the world, you will find many hideous things. You will find some who borrow other people's names and act as kings. People will follow them as kings and queens. Wait until that period passes and see. There will come a time when a handsome man will be made the prince of a city. The trends of thought are going the reverse way. Older women will live with young men, and young women will live with old men. It will be very strange. People do not know the internal causes of these weird phenomena.
This is why democracy was born. Democracy holds to the principle of equality. Why did such a philosophy appear? Christianity was persecuted and mistreated by imperialists. Although they were massacred by the Roman Empire, Christians were able to survive. Those who were thus strongly armed in Christian ideals created the basis of authority rooted in equality, which ushered in the world of democracy. In other words, people on Heaven's side are trying to change the world so that they can control the sovereignty. Another worldwide movement, a universal movement, must come into being which can move the world from this era of equality into the era of God's sovereignty. Yet the path of democracy has been halted today. What will be the direction from here? We are unable to find an answer to this.
What will happen to the world after this age? The people in the West, whose culture was built on external progress, will come to the East, which is more internal. Although Korean women are dying their hair blond, perming their hair and putting make-up on their faces, there will come a time when people will long for the simple and innocent appearance of Koreans, the dignified look of Asians. Wait and see if such a time comes or not.
Their philosophies and teachings have all been uprooted. Eastern philosophy, which was integrated into our philosophy of life, has prospered for four to five thousand years. Today it is to make a grand appearance. Civilizations are coming together in a comprehensive realm of ideas. Christian ideas alone are not enough in this age. The problem is how to bring the religions together.
There must unfold a movement which can bridge the Eastern and Western cultures. This must contain the Christian spirit and have the form of Eastern philosophy and religion. At the same time, it must be in tune with all schools of thought which have guided human spiritual growth. It must reflect the new age but also inherit and embrace the good aspects of the past ages. The world will be united only when a religion or group emerges with a teaching that has met these conditions.
The sun does not rise from the West; it rises from the East. Ladies and gentlemen, where have more wars erupted? We know that there were more wars in the West than in the East.
Knowledge means to understand, and understanding is to gain something. Yet what have you gained? Your gains are not spiritual but physical. Westerners have been building an externally prosperous world through science and material culture. They are sound asleep in their external Kingdom of Heaven. Now the time has come when they should wake up from their sleep.
Easterners worship the way of truth. The way of truth requires that you must give up ten things to know ten things. To understand a thousand things, you must give up a thousand things. The people of the East have become beggars externally because they were worshipping the way of the truth. They became miserable and vulnerable to attack. Eventually, they surrendered to the material world. However, you should foresee that there will soon come an age in the East when we can shake off all of this in disdain.
In this sense, you should feel pride that others don't feel. Koreans of the East are not inferior to any other people with respect to their faith, hope, and passion.
It is the law of the universe that a person's life is completed only with water, soil, air and sunlight. Where will the world's ultimate center of culture be in the future? It will be a place where the water is clean, the land is fertile, and the air is fresh. That is Korea. Water is so clean that you can drink water out of the mountains or plains and not become sick. Korea is a land with good water and good mountains. It is a good, natural place. Korea has pure air. The air is clean in the morning and in the evening all four seasons of the year. When you examine a day in Korea, it is very interesting. Morning is comparable to the spring season, afternoon to summer, evening to autumn, and night to winter. Within a day's cycle, the shapes of all four seasons of the ideal world can be found. As for its climate, Korea has all the varieties of the four climate types. The people who are living in such a place do not do so by coincidence. If you were to probe into Korea's religious life, you would find that Korean Christianity has been around for seventy or eighty years at most. Yet within such a short period of ministry, Korea occupies the number one position in the religious world. I am proud of the fact that Korea is second to none when it comes to religion and devotion.
With respect to belief, hope and love, what kind of person would you like to make friends with? You probably want to be friends with someone trustworthy, someone full of hope and good taste. Isn't that so? The same is true for God. Since we resemble God, God also likes that kind of person. God likes someone who is reliable, hopeful and interesting.
The Bible teaches us to become someone who can take joy in our daily life today and live in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth no matter what our circumstances may be. Hence, we come to the conclusion that the Kingdom of Heaven is inside our hearts. If there is someone who can laugh off the external world and transcend all its pains even while living in a sinful world, he is truly a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The crucial question is where to bring all this together. Where is the beginning point for solving the problems of today? The starting point for solving problems is each one of us.
You should not just worship God but stand in a relationship with Him and establish a reciprocal value. You should say, "Father, I have come. You have waited so long, for six thousand years." Don't you want to do this? God wants to hear the words, "How much have You cried? I have come. How much have You waited? I have come. How much did You long for me? I have come."
God wants to meet such sons and daughters and forget all the grief of the six thousand years since the time He blessed Adam and Eve with the governance of everything in the universe. He wants to say, "Today is My birthday, the day of My joy." God does not want to remember the sorrows of the six thousand years. He wants to sing songs of love with His new sons and daughters in the new universe. We have to understand clearly that the sons and daughters the Father desires are none other than us.
In the course of my speech, I felt how fatiguing it is. Yet how much have You suffered for six thousand years? We are miserable beyond belief, yet how much more have You suffered?
We have learned how much You believe in us and long for us to become true sons and daughters who can comfort You. Please guide us to struggle desperately to heal Your wounded heart by silently making an offering every day.
We have learned that although faith, hope and love are all valuable, those who have lost their bodies cannot stand before the Father eternally; each one of us is the source of the difficulties.
Please guide those who believe in me to declare with confidence, "Father, please believe in me. Please have hope in me. Please love me." Please guide them to take responsibility. We entrust everything to You. Please let everything be fulfilled as You will. We prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.