In the Presence of God [Part 2]

Sun Myung Moon
April 11, 1982
Belvedere
Translator - Sang Kil Han

True love must be something really good for everybody, all the time. I am usually very dignified; I am careful about what I do, and I don't smile or laugh easily. But once I sense true love, I grin from ear to ear; I can't help it. What does that signify? All my cells jump into peak activity, even without my knowledge. Although they aren't told to do so, they focus upon love, and I become totally excited and jump up and down without reservation. Once true love is activated and its engines get rolling, it will continue forever and ever, without fading away.

If you fight in true love, it should be a good love fight. Then nobody would mind. Do you understand? That is the kind of law which is ruling over you.

You have a limited time period in which to pass this course. The most you will live is about a hundred years, but within that life span, you should pass the grade. Then you can make the transition properly. The transition is what people call death. Once we die and go to the other side, being reborn over there, we will be in the presence of God.

Compared to the life we now experience, an unborn baby is almost the same as being dead. It doesn't speak, it doesn't express itself, it hardly does anything. But once it is born, that baby begins a life of greater freedom; it stands in the presence of its parents. Likewise, after so-called death, we are reborn and stand in the presence of God-not the parents of this world, but God. God is our eternal Parent. The parents of this world are our limited parents.

Chong Goo "Tiger" Park and CARP members

Recently "Tiger" Park went to the spirit world. You may feel some grief about his situation, but I completely disagree with you. In one way, I feel, "Lucky guy; he must be doing well now." Remember what I spoke about earlier. With your physical body, could you keep up with God when He travels so fast? When you shake off your body, you become invisible and can follow God. In that respect, a body is something of a nuisance. Also, the universe is so immense that even by the fastest known method it would take a billion years to go from one end to another, but God can cross that vast universe at will. Don't you want to follow Him wherever He goes? The only way to do that is by becoming like God and existing without a body. speak of love at breakfast, lunch, dinner, or bedtime, but is it easy to attain? Yet you speak about it as if it were not difficult. Who says so? God. God is watching over us.

These are not just concepts. This is the reality which we will experience when we stand in the presence of God. We need to devote our time on earth to fulfilling this.

How does God view us? What does He look for in us? God looks for order. There are eight kinds of order: the central order; the order of love; ethical order; family order; social, national, worldwide, and universal order. All mankind is encompassed within this array. God looks at us within these various realms of order.

It is not easy to stay in the mainstream in these eight stages. Without the Principle, very creative or smart people can be successful in only one or two levels. Something unjust or unloving cannot be elevated; only what is genuine and principled can be carried from one level to another. By living a good and principled life, you can successfully penetrate and cross all barriers.

Who can freely pass these checkpoints? It is the person who embodies Principle: the person who can respect his parents, who can love the president of his company as he loves his parents, and love the head of his nation in the same way. Only those who have this principled nature can advance.

These qualities start in the family, in the vertical relationship between parents and children and in the horizontal relationship of husband and wife and brothers and sisters. If you can apply these three relationships on a worldwide level, you can deal with any situation. Once you master this art, you will not find it difficult to take command anywhere. The teacher is like a parent at school; the company president the parent of a business; the head of state the parent of a nation; and God the universal parent. If you can develop this basic heart and expand it to each successive level, you will have freedom on each level. In fact, this is the only way you can go around freely.

You may go to Africa, but still you will develop subject/object relationships there. All other relationships are encompassed within the concept of True Parents. With True Parents, we can transcend differences of history, culture, or geographical location. In the East and the West, True Parents are the same.

We cannot jump directly to heaven from the family level. First we must go through the levels of society, nation, world and universe. Therefore, we must cherish society more than our family and our nation more than our society. The smaller is subjugated by the greater, the individual is the smallest entity. Those who remain on this course, the A students, will land in the very center of love. The less successful ones will be outside the center. Since we are trying to connect with the universe, we have to remain on the central road. After landing in the center of the universe, we link up all the other parts; we become the center of love. God operates through this central axis of love. God is in the center.

This can be explained simply in terms of subject/object relationships. For whom do you live? You answer God, but in reality, often you are thinking of no one but yourself. Before you can establish a subject/object relationship, you have to think of someone else. If you focus your mind on that person, you can begin to create an ideal subject/object relationship.

There is a central order in the universe with which everything has to conform or harmonize. In that order, God is the subject and human beings the object. Also, human beings are the subject over all things of creation, as object. All things are further subdivided into the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms; all of these need to be connected through love. So all things direct themselves towards mankind as the center of love, connected with God.

Who is the subject and who is the object in the Unification Church? You might ask why you can't be the subject for a change. You might want to do things as you wish, instead of listening to me. Or you might want me to listen to you once in a while. But them is an order governing subject/object relations. You might start collecting reasons to support your desires. For instance, you might say you are a white person and I am yellow, and since the white race has been dominant throughout history, there is no reason to change it now. But our relationship has nothing to do with race. This tradition is centered on love; through love we find our parents.

I thoroughly understand this principle, and therefore I can adapt to situations more quickly than other people can. I can go from one extreme situation to another and adjust with ease. When I enter any place or social gathering, I immediately look for its center. I also examine the subject/object relationships.

How do you distinguish between good and evil in a particular situation? Goodness is long-lasting and applies to all circumstances. Evil is relatively short-lived and applies better to some situations than others. Cheating, for example, works for a while, but not for long; the more you cheat, the less your chances of success in the future. Justice, on the other hand, may not be clearly understood; but as time goes by, it becomes more apparent and gains strength.

The same rule applies in my court case. Certain forces think they have something against me. But we have been devoting our lives to this cause, and we will continue doing so for the rest of our lives and even beyond. Our actions have continuity; wherever we go, we maintain the core subject/object relationship, and any horizontal relationships are formed around that center.

The fall of man denied this central order. God is subject, but as a result of the fall, people became ignorant of God and either knowingly or unknowingly submitted to the control of evil. However, we am being taught to have absolute faith in God. Do you suppose that anything less than absolute faith can bring us back to the original, central order from which we deviated through the fall? Absolute faith is a prerequisite for returning to God.

You have learned a great deal about God by now. Do you have complete confidence in Him? Is your faith absolute? If you do not regard God as the absolute subject that means you are not absolute objects. You can drift away at any time. Your direction varies; sometimes you are closer to the center, sometimes farther away.

When you came to the Unification Church, you were convinced it was right and good. But now after many years, perhaps you are more inclined to think your old life was better. Christmas, birthdays, and family occasions were important to you, but after joining our church, you don't even go back home for those events.

Well, there is a reason. You can explain to yourself that you need an absolute relationship with God, and since you do not have that yet, you do not qualify for these other things. Therefore, you have to deny yourself completely. Then, after rejecting all these things and after becoming an absolute object to God, you can own everything. In order to attain the goal, we have to deny everything else. We even fast on our birthday to deny it, don't we?

We deny everything in order to re-establish our relationship with God. Denying the fallen world is not bad after all, right? Unless we deny things temporarily, we cannot re-establish our relationship with the ideal being.

This applies not only to Unification Church members. I myself do it. I tried both ways. I tried not denying everything, but it didn't work out. But through denial, I have been able to establish something permanent for God.

Since you call us True Parents, your physical parents must wonder what they are untrue parents? Bad parents? They aren't happy with that thought, so some try to kidnap their own children. When you find something true, you have to jump for it, isn't that right? If existing families had been true families already, you wouldn't have wanted to change. But when you met the true family, you jumped for it. To jump for something is to deny something else.

People want to stop me from teaching and propagating this message, but if it is the way of truth, how can I stop sharing it? This is what God has been striving to create all throughout history, and I want to follow His way. It is so simple and clew. We have to be victorious in God's sight, whether other people approve or not. Do you understand?

Through the fall, the order of love was reversed and human relations and human ethics were turned upside down. Man was supposed to be the subject but now women have more or less become the subjects. That is a result of the fall.

The center of the home is no longer God, but someone else, namely Satan. How can I say such a thing? It is very easy to see. If God is the center of a family, people will live for each other, serving and sacrificing themselves for one another. But in families today, everybody wants to work for personal benefit, even at the sacrifice of their relatives. Therefore, it is clear that someone other than God is at the center.

Look at society. Nobody is concerned first for society and second for his family. People should focus first on the benefit of society, second on the family, and finally on themselves as individuals. But that original order has been completely reversed. Instead, each individual looks first after himself. Someone who is a little more loving will work for the sake of his family, and, if he has mom time, will serve society as a third priority. People think about the individual first and then the family. Even at work, employees put things into their pockets and bring them home. Anybody can see that the original order has been reversed in such a case.

Furthermore, people should love their country first. But do people think about their nation and work first for its wellbeing, and later think about their society and family? It is the other way around.

Do Americans think about the world and cherish it more than their own country? Do they think in an orderly way? They frankly do not care about the world; at best, they are concerned about their country. But the way the world is going, Americans must focus on the world first and their country second. In fact, the United States would have an easier course if there were another country which could live up to this standard, but there is no other country. Americans assume that there is nothing else they can do, since all the other countries act the same way. The world needs the Unification Church's ideal; without it, it could never survive.

In order to be confident about all these things, you need to understand the eternal spiritual world. This present world exists for the sake of the spirit world, which is closer to God, but many of you are not sure about the spirit world. You are not absolutely convinced that it exists. We are right next to the big city of New York, for example; you can step out and go there. You are certain that it exists, but not as sure that the spirit world exists. It does, though.

Perhaps I know more about the spirit world than anyone else on earth. Some people ask me, "How do you know? Have you been there?" They may not really want to listen, but I am convinced of these things and I base my actions on them.

The spirit world is where God personally resides; anybody can feel Him in the spirit world. Then for whom and for what does God exist? For the sake of true love. Only through love can we be sure of connecting with God.

What is Satan's operating principle? It is easy to explain: Satan's way is anything that reverses or goes against God's desire. God doesn't even want to look at what Satan does.

Knowing this, whose side are you on: the side of God or Satan? Since you say you are on God's side, the next question is whether you cherish the spirit world more than this world. If you die young, you will go there early. So to die is not altogether bad; in fact, under these circumstances, it is good news. Long ago, Jesus said loud and clear that whoever is willing to die shall live. What he said is true, isn't it? Now we understand why.

When Jesus talked of dying, he meant dying for the sake of God. You may say, "But Father, you taught us the principled order. I'm not even married. I should experience family life and have children. How can I die now?" Well, if God approves, you can transcend that order. Dying for the sake of God is more precious than living for the sake of something else. When you go to the spirit world, how wonderful it would be if your eyes, ears, nose and mouth could all claim that they died for God's sake! How wonderful, in the spirit world, to be able to say that you also sacrificed love for God's sake!

Do you actually love the world more than your own country? Do you love your country more than your society? Do you love your society more than your family? And do you love your family more than yourself? We cannot live by just following our impulses or seeking what is nice and comfortable. We are supposed to live for this higher order

The United States has no equal among the nations of the world. But what can it be proud of today? What achievements can it boast of before God? Is its predominant way of thinking true or false? It's false, isn't it? There is no central stream of thought hem. Is there any order to love in America? When you answer no, you have to be sure of what you are saying. If you say human ethics are missing, that means only animal ethics apply Does it sound good to say that Americans we living like animals?

You cannot deny it. There is sex even among close relatives. Well, at least you still have a sense of shame. We have to change this situation.

Is there original order in society? Do people cherish society more than their family? No, the reverse is true. What about devotion to their country? Do they have a world view? A universal view? You may not know precisely, but you can assume that if something is missing at a lower level, the situation will be worse at higher levels.

But the United States is not just any country. Whether Americans like it or not, other nations look up to you as an example. Other people copy the morals of Americans. If the world is washed away, the first country to be punished will be the United States. I came here to prevent this from happening. If Korea collapses, the world could still be saved; but if America goes under, it will be so much more difficult to save the rest of the world.

All these deviations of society have to end. Do you think the gay movement is in accordance with God's central thought? So many things in this country go against God's order. An alarming number of American young people use drugs. After prolonged use, people can no longer function as normal human beings; they become ill and cannot think straight. The number of drug users is increasing, not decreasing. Society is drifting farther and farther from God's order.

God will be the judge, Jesus the defense attorney, and Satan the prosecutor. Satan will accuse people of all these crimes and claim them as his offspring. Jesus will try to defend them, but he knows more clearly than anybody the original law by which mankind must abide. Do you think he can effectively defend the whole of mankind when it is measured against that original standard?

Communism denies God. It does not believe in any need for order in the family; it places no special importance on parents. Communism wants to eliminate the need for nuclear families and for the parental role in families. They call these lofty ideas hallucinations and tell people not to worry about something that isn't there. Communism claims that history advances through struggle and revolution and that the victory belongs to the strongest. Communism denies any central guiding thought in this universe. It denies any order of love, claiming that everything is random. This is a perfect description of the satanic world. South America is becoming more and more inclined toward the satanic side.

Our task is to propagate the truth and restore what has been lost. Tins court case is based on what we have proclaimed. We will never compromise our message. That is why people halt and accuse us. Which step could we compromise on? There can be no compromise

Them are two types of Americans today. One group knows the truth and will defend it with their life; they will not mind dying to preserve it. Another group says they know this, but they don't really care; their personal liberty, safety, comfort and satisfaction take priority. They aren't concerned about God. They don't even know whether He exists. In God's court, the first type will be the true witnesses for righteousness, and the second type will be witnesses for unrighteousness. A judge who understands both sides will rule in favor of the righteous. He will strike out the unrighteous and preserve the righteous, no matter how small their number may be.

You should remember that it is not just one individual who goes to court; it is everybody. At some time in our life, we must stand before the court of the universe.

This court case deals with events that happened not this year or last year, but ten years ago: 1972, 1973, 1974. In the spirit world, it is very much the same. You will face everything that happened ten, twenty, thirty or more years ago. And it is a very serious matter. You shouldn't worry about whether people prosecute you but whether you have done anything wrong. If you have developed a character pleasing to God and have not done anything wrong, then it doesn't matter who tries to blame you. If you are willing to take on tasks nobody else wants to do, if you sacrifice yourself for greater and greater causes, when you stand before the court of justice in the spirit world one day, the judge will favor you. Those of you who are studying for a doctorate degree, are you studying for the sake of God, for your fellow human beings, for your fellow Americans, or for yourself? If you study for God, His greatest mandate is that you use your influence to save this nation and its people-not to focus on your future and so-called career.

You may object that since you have spent so much time studying, you should be entitled to lead an easy life. That is wrong. 'Me more you study, the mom indebted you are to society and the universe.

Those who are going to school should feel more indebted than the average church member. The average members go fundraising and witnessing; some may even lose their life in an accident. You have security and prestige, and you are enjoying the pursuit of so much knowledge. But why are you continuing your studies? When you master Principle, you should be able to witness better than your less-learned brothers and sisters. With your higher education, you should be able to raise mom funds than those who had to work all the time without the chance to further their education.

After you graduate, you could become the most respected scholar in your field, correct what is wrong, and steer its development in the proper course . If that is your ambition, your studies are justified. But if you think the challenge is too difficult and you don't want to devote yourself to that task after graduation, there is no purpose to your studying.

For this reason, I send the Seminary graduates to CARP and Ocean Church. They are the most difficult missions in our movement. Those of you who are pursuing a doctorate degree, do you expect to keep going up after graduation, or are you willing to go down first and rise later? You have to know what course lies ahead of you. Your mission is to make a confrontation. You were sent to school to proclaim clearly what is right and wrong. Your task is to challenge the wrong and effectively deny it. That means you have to work harder than anybody else. Don't dream of just being a white-collar worker and having a nice career; that will give you no position in history.

People must prepare themselves for their appearance before the court of the universe. You should be concerned about how you can be acquitted, how you can leave no room for Satan to accuse you. The judge knows everything; he sees who is right and who is wrong. The prosecutor knows more about the bad side than anybody else, and the defense attorney should know everything about the good side. He has to repel every argument the prosecutor may raise.

As I said, all Unification Church members will one day have to stand before God's court of the universe and face Satan as your accuser. I will be your defense attorney. If you don't listen to me and follow everything I direct you to do, can you survive before the court of the universe? Those who don't listen will have to go through an ordeal. The ideal would be for you to get my signature testifying that you have passed the course. Then you wouldn't have to stand in court at all. If you had your choice, would you prefer to stand trial, no matter what? Certainly, you would rather avoid it. How wonderful it would be to have a pass entitling you to enter the spirit world freely, without having to face the court of the universe.

What is the pass? True love, on all levels. Wherever I go I carry this banner of true love. If you can take this banner to Africa, to Korea, or to whatever land, and live up to its standard, you won't have to stand trial. Without it, however, you will be stopped and questioned.

You all know that. If you live a different way, you realize that the court will eventually call you to account for it. If you don't satisfy the law of God, you cannot enter His realm; bad people cannot trespass there.

I have lived by this principle while in the United States. I don't feel indebted to America; rather, America is indebted to me. People may judge me, but I know clearly the ultimate judgment. Nothing that happens to me will cause me to waver. Even if I am condemned, there will be a day of resurrection.

If your hands work against God, their deeds will testify in court. The same holds true for your eyes. Can you pull out your eyes to indemnify their wrong doings on earth? Certainly not. Especially if you misuse love on earth, how can you avoid embarrassment and shame in the spirit world? If you don't do something about it here, how can you escape the misery to come? Your shame will not be confined to yourself and your generation alone, but to your entire lineage. All the hundreds of generations connected to you will endure the same situation as you.

Unless you pass every detail of the course here, such a trial surely awaits you. We must prepare for the time when we will stand in the presence of God. If you need proof, when you die you will see whether my teaching was wrong.

Every day you should improve yourself, always building up your qualifications for the day when God can commend you and give you His approval. The prosecutor will still bring out the bad things in your life, but you should devote every day to the task of winning the title. It is difficult to persevere, without enough food or sleep, but you should overcome all those challenges for the sake of your country and for the love of God. Once you build up credit, the universe will need you and protect you, no matter how viciously Satan attacks.

People think they are free to do anything they wish, but it is not true. Our only real choice is to do good, in accordance with God's order. We need to choose the best way to do that and continue on that course so that we can stand blameless in front of God. Do you understand?

The law of the universe governs us, whether we are aware of it or not. That law demands that we go a certain way. Don't imagine that you can take just any course and be successful. The best way to transcend this law and be free of its restrictions is by love. If you live with love, even though you may be ignorant of the law, you can never violate it. You can freely pass through any place, even hell. If you have absolute love, hell will open up its gates for you.

Actually, Unification Church members don't live with as much a sense of guilt and fear of hell as other people. While others may fear it greatly, we don't. But we should realize that hell definitely exists. We are not in it now, so we don't know too much about it. Our task is to march forward with the banner of love and put that love into practice. If we don't do that, a truly formidable future awaits us.

So I want each of you to be victorious in the trial which you will face. If you are guided by love, you don't really need any leader's recognition or approval, do you? You can be your own leader, you know best how to go the way of love Whether people take notice or not, whether people approve or not, I will do what I have to do, and I will not do what I know I shouldn't. Likewise, you don't need an MFT leader, a witnessing captain, or a home church director. You know the purpose of home church; you know the goal. Whether people are watching you or not, you should continue your course.

Actually, love develops better when you do things without other people being aware. Sometimes you see a man and woman embracing and kissing in the street and wonder what kind of special privilege from the court of the universe they think they have. I told you not to kiss or even hold hands while you are engaged because it could lead to something more. But if you are truly grounded in Principle, it is hypothetically possible for you to kiss without it being bad. But until the proper time, don't do it.

Our entire purpose is to elevate the value of love. Something may not be wrong, and we may want very much to do it, but we will hold back because if we can overcome it, our level of love will be greater. Do you understand? In front of True Parents, yes is the only proper answer.

Even bad parents don't want to teach their children bad things. Even bad teachers want their students to learn good things.

When you follow the proper direction, you will always rise because the universe will protect you. If you object to what I say and refuse to do it, you are taking the opposite course. It's impossible for you to reach the goal by merely doing whatever you wish. Doctoral students may know a lot, but they cannot receive their degree without the approval of their examiners. No matter how good you are, somebody still has to approve of you. So it is natural to conclude that, if you want to go to the same spirit world as I do, you will have to follow my way of thinking and acting. You will have to value the things I value and live by the same law I live by.

My desire is for you always to focus on this one goal and think of nothing else. I want each one of you to become a victor and be free from any accusation by the court of heaven. Will you put this into practice and five each day for this goal? If you will commit yourself, please raise your hands. God bless you.

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