The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1975 |
Restoration Through Indemnity
Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 1975
Barrytown, New York
Translated by Won Pok Choi
"Restoration Through Indemnity" is my topic today. When you go out to the frontline to witness to people, you don't like to be defeated by other people. You want to witness to more people than others, but you cannot do as you will. At the starting point, everyone thinks that he or she will achieve the goal earlier than others, but at the end, you find that that hasn't happened.
You are endowed with certain gifts. In the course of restoration, too, in paying the toll of indemnity, the degree and the extent of paying the toll of indemnity is different from person to person. But you want to pay the price of indemnity wherever you are assigned as missionaries; there are ways in which you must pay that indemnity. First, you must pay indemnity for yourself. Secondly, your members must pay a certain amount of indemnity. Thirdly, you should know that there is a certain amount of indemnity to be paid by the district, state, or country.
Who makes you pay the indemnity? Does God do that, or Satan? You must know clearly. Both God and Satan decide what portion of indemnity you should pay, but you are the ones who are going to pay the indemnity. If you plan to do something which has a value of 100 units, you must pay a price of indemnity at the rate of 100 units. If you are planning to do something which has a value of 1,000 units, you must pay the price of indemnity at the same rate: 1,000.
Sometimes you have to pay the indemnity by yourself, sometimes in cooperation with others. The degree of unity will decide how quickly you can pay off the debt. Who is in the position to help you out in paying the toll of indemnity? Can God help you? (No!) Can Satan help you? (No!) Then who can help you out?
Would you rather pay the indemnity by yourself, or with the help of others? (By ourselves!) If you want help from others, who would that be? The course of restoration is the course of recreation; by paying the toll of indemnity, we are restoring ourselves to the original state. We are going back to our homeland, our proper domicile. So, it is Satan and the angels who are in the position to help us because they caused the human fall.
Who else can help you? In the providence of restoration, Abel has always been in the central position. Abel has to restore or save those who are in Cain's position. In order for him to be able to save Cain, he's in the position to have to pay the toll of indemnity for those who are in Cain's position.
If you are in the position of Cain, would you rather have help from those who are in Abel's position, or from those who are in the angelic position, or both? There's no question -- you would like to have help from both sides. Then how can you mobilize those who can help you is the question. You must play the role of God when He created the universe. When God created man, there were angels helping Him, and after the creation of Adam and Eve, they could help God by multiplying their own children.
In recreating, too, in restoring yourself, you need to invest your whole being, like God did when He created man. Every day, you must throw your whole being into what you create. If you yourselves pour out your whole being more and more every day, then Satan cannot accuse you even though you are getting help from the angels and from Abel.
But in general, when you think of paying the toll of indemnity, you do the same thing again and again; yesterday, today and tomorrow, and you still think that you are not getting help from others. That's not the way you should be doing things. You are retreating, rather than advancing. A little something additional should be added to what you have already done every day.
It doesn't mean that you must have more spoonfuls of rice every day. It doesn't mean that you have to have more hours of sleep every day. Instead, you must sleep less than you did yesterday, eat less than you did yesterday, but not work less than you did yesterday. In that way you pay the toll of indemnity by putting yourself in a position of difficulty and hardship; if you do more every day, then you will arrive at the goal sooner.
You can advance forward faster. In fundraising, too, if you earn more money today than yesterday, and more money tomorrow than today, then the way will be opened before you so that you can go through the indemnity gate or toll gate easier and earlier than others. If you have not done more than what you did yesterday, then don't go to bed before you try to humble yourself before your brothers and sisters; try to do something more.
At least say a word of love and do a humble act. If you humble yourself and are kind to other people, does it mean that you are humiliated, or that you'll be lifted up? (Up!) If you pour out your energy and invest your whole being into a certain thing, you do not lose. You should act just as God did, when He created man, poured out all His energy and all His being into the creation. In that way, you don't lose anything. In that case, you are in the position of God, so you are not liable to satanic invasion.
When you go out witnessing to people, if you complain and if you frown at people and if you hate the idea of your having to do the job, can you pay the toll of indemnity that way? (No!) If you do that, Satan will rejoice, with a big grin he will smile at you. But God will turn away from you. If you keep on doing things but hate to do the job, however long you may work and however hard you may work in that way -- 10 years, more than 10 years -- what you have done will be nullified. There will be nothing gained. We cannot even use the word indemnity there.
We pay the toll of indemnity in order to restore ourselves. Restoration is the course of recreation. So, we must do the same thing that God did at the time of creation -- invest yourself, invest your whole energy, your whole being. This justifies Jesus' words, "If you want to lose your life, you will gain your life." In pouring out your energy and your being, do it without reservation. If you want to gain your life, you will lose it. If you do things in a self-centered, selfish way, you will lose everything, yourself included.
If you have really understood what I mean in your heart, then as soon as the 120-day training is over, you must be anxious to go out to the frontline: to the states, to other countries, to witness. I want all of you to be jet planes, but even a jet plane, when it loses direction or power, can crash. I have motivated you to go and the engine has started, but how long will it last?
You are using the ladder, and you go up and up, step by step, sometimes by leaps. Reflect on yourselves: How many years can you go on with that enthusiasm and zeal? With the knowledge of the law of indemnity, I want to expand everything, and I want you to do more difficult things every day than what you have done the previous day.
God likes a man like me. If you go the opposite way, you will narrow down to nothing, and that's the satanic way. You must rejuvenate yourselves and set the engines to move, and go faster and even faster every day. Then the indemnity toll will be paid faster, even without your being conscious of the time passing.
There are people who advance forward two or three steps and retreat a little bit, and advance three more steps, then take one step back. In that way, would you be able to pay the indemnity? If you keep stepping forward and retreating, God will forgive you three times, maybe, because of the three stages, but not more than that. Then God will give you up if you go on like that. If you are a vacillating type of person, God won't like you because He can't rely on you.
Now you know clearly that we have three kinds of indemnities: indemnity for ourselves, indemnity for the members, and indemnity for the district. If you are in the position to be able to pay all those indemnities, so much the better. If it is in your power to drag all the people in the vicinity, so much earlier and speedier, you can pay the indemnity. You must try hard to stand in the vanguard of others in everything.
If you keep going ahead of others, and keep doing that for three years or more, then you are sure to get many members -- perhaps 300 members or more. Prove it yourself by your own deeds. It is the wisest way. If you realize that it has to take at least three years to pay off your personal indemnity toll, and three years to pay off the indemnity toll for the members, and three more for the district, and if you want to take the responsibility for all those three stages, then you are going to have to condense many difficulties into a relatively short period of time.
In using your eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, you must use them for the sake of the will of God, for the sake of your members, and for the sake of your district. If you are invited to witness to the people by a prepared group, then you must fly to that place, out of joy and happiness. If you do that unwillingly, that act cannot be counted. If there are people ready to hear you, then you must be eager to go to that place more concerned than you are concerned with food when you are hungry or with clothing when you are naked.
If you go on doing things that way, all the people of your district will cling to you, like children wanting the breast of the mother. They would always miss you and never want to leave you. Now, do you have a clear notion of what it's like when you want to pay indemnity? (Yes!) If you pay the indemnity, the people of the district, and the district itself will belong to you without any doubt.
In light of this principle of indemnity, I want you to try to pay more indemnity, so that the duration of the period of indemnity will be shortened, and God will rejoice over what you have done; then there will be no need for you to pay any more indemnity. You're now placed in the position where you have to pay the indemnity. But if your spiritual posture is right, then all Spirit World, especially the angelic world, will be mobilized to help you out.
They will move the hearts of conscientious people to come to you and help you. Good people in the villages will be naturally attracted to you and be willing to help you. Angels, too, being spiritual entities, know that they should be helping those who are in Abel's position for them to be saved. So, they will be in an all-out effort to help you. I want you to be that kind of person.
What I have done these three years in America is exactly the same thing. I wanted and I tried to love America more than any Americans would do, and I would pay any indemnity or go through any difficulty for this nation, more than any Americans would. By doing that, I found myself famous.
Those who are on the side of God, those who are conscientious without their being conscious of the fact, are drawn to our side. Many of you have been drawn to us, driven by an unknown power. In our movement, we have more young people than elderly people. God also likes young, energetic Abel-type persons. Young generations are in the position of Abel to those senior people.
Do you find Master helping you? Why? Because you are younger than I am, I want to benefit by helping you. Even though you are in the position of Cain, Cain is entitled to be helped by Abel. Every moment I'm studying how to invest more of myself, my whole being, every cell of mine. I'm confident that however giant a continent America may be, all their forefathers in the Spirit World are helping me. They cannot but help me; that's the formula.
When you go out to the place of your assignment, you must be able, in your prayers, to call the ancestors of the population of that state or any district, and call the spirits of the people living there, and you can even mobilize the spirits of future generations. They should be indebted to you, so they cannot help but come to you.
But more than anything else, you must always think of having to pay some amount of indemnity for the people of the village. You must do things in such a way that by the time you have to leave, all the villagers would just cling to you, not wanting to let you go, crying, weeping. That is the secret formula in Spirit World.
If it is a real formula, it can apply to any situation. Just try it. Apply it over and over and see if God is helping you. Then, while other people want to have you fail in your mission, you will prosper and you will get more members, and you will find yourself being successful. No matter how many people persecute you or oppose our movement, the more they do that, the more prosperous will be our movement.
However hard they may struggle to bar your way, they will end up in not being able to stop you from doing the job, and God will be victorious through you. If you go on like this, paying the toll of indemnity, willing to do the job, then you will find yourself in the position of God towards other people around you.
Do you clearly understand what I mean? (Yes!) If you are determined to do and to live that way, to do the job that way, hold up your hand. If you really mean it, I am not worried about the salvation of this nation. It'll be done and finished at the soonest possible date. (Yes!)
Scanned by Hans-Juergen Hutzfeld, 03.01.2008-Duesseldorf.