From the Sunday Service Sermon given January 7th, 2001 at the Washington DC Family Church.

Happy New Year. I pray once again that as the new millennium begins that True Parents’ blessing and grace will be with your family. I want to focus my thoughts and heart in the direction of the second generation youth. What is second generation? Second generation is someone who is born from the first generation. It’s based on the standard of True Parent’s blessing. If you receive the blessing in the first generation, then the children of that first generation are the second generation. So the standard is the blessing of True Parents.

Second generation is someone who is born from father and mother, who came together through the blessing of True Parents. Then there are second generation members who are born from a father and mother before they received the blessing. They are Cain-type second generation, a little bit different type. I hope that this time will be for the second generation a time that you can reaffirm your identity as second generation members.

God created human beings, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, but because Adam and Eve committed the fall, God could never see a lineage that had His true life, true love and true lineage. In the 6,000-year history He has been trying to restore and recover that lineage. True Parents came to this world, and for the first time there could be a true son and true daughter, true husband and true wife and true parents. This is the meaning of the holy wedding ceremony that took place in 1960.

Of course, 2000 years ago Jesus came as the son of God, the second Adam. Jesus came in Adam’s position, but it wasn’t enough just to be Adam. There had to be an Eve as well. Jesus needed to meet Eve and be able to form a true husband and wife relationship and have children, but he died before he could accomplish that. So 2,000 years later, in this age, Father came in the same position that Jesus came, and then Father and Mother inherited the mission of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit formed husband and wife relationship and then established for the first time the lineage of the second generation.

So through the holy wedding True Parents established that position for themselves. Then based on that authority they blessed your fathers and mothers, the first generation. Then you were born as a result of that blessing. So as second generation you have inherited something that no one else in history has inherited. For the first time in human history you were born in the lineage of God. You have inherited that lineage from your mother and father. This is the first time that God has been able to see this in history. Are you then of great value to God or not?

God is watching over you and God has concern and interest in you, every second of every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, because you are of such value. You should never forget that. When you get up in the morning, you should feel pride that you are a son or daughter of God, that you were born from the lineage that God established through the blessing of the first generation. It’s not enough to have a beautiful or handsome face in order to be a wonderful member of the second generation. It’s not enough to have good grades and get into an Ivy League university. The most important thing is that you understand that you are a true son or daughter of God who has inherited the lineage from the blessing of your parents in the first generation.

If it were possible, God would want to have just blessed families on this earth. That was the heart of God in the flood judgment at the time of Noah. What do we learn from the story of Noah and the flood? How many people survived that flood? Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives, so eight people all together. Everyone else received judgment. Why was that? It was to have only God’s pure lineage remaining on earth.

You know in the Bible it says that after the flood that God promised through the rainbow that this kind of thing would never happen again because during that flood he saw many people dying and drowning, crying out for help. Many, many people died, and God saw all of that.

God is a God of love so He continues trying to reach out to everyone in the world, to give everyone salvation, but there has to be a main line through which God’s salvation is carried out. Through Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, then through Jesus, then True Parents has been the main line of salvation history. There are 280 million people living in the United States today, but the main line of God’s providence takes place through the blessed couples, the first generation and second generation. That is you who are here today. Do you believe that? If you believe it, say Amen.

The main part, the core of that mainstream is the second generation. Second generation is more valuable than your parents because you are the core of that mainstream. So each of you second generation, you are more valuable than the remaining 279,999,999 million people who are living in America. Because of Adam, all of humanity inherited sin. God’s providential history, was Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, it was always the case that if one person fulfilled their responsibility then all of mankind could receive salvation through that person’s accomplishment. On the other hand, if that person failed in his responsibility then all of humanity had to participate in paying indemnity for his failure.

Because of the fall of Adam, three things were lost – God’s love, God’s life, and God’s lineage. Among those three things, love, life and lineage, which is the most

important? Is it love? We might think that love is the most important, but recently Father has been saying that lineage is most important. That’s because love and life are just a matter of one generation. It’s through the lineage that love and life are passed on to succeeding generations. So second generation, please hold up your hands again. I want to give you a very serious message today.

I returned from Korea three days ago. Day after tomorrow I go to Korea again. The reason for my coming to America this time was to meet you. As we begin this year, it’s important for the first generation to think of our heart as the chosen people. Also as our second generation grows up, what kind of tradition we are going to pass on to them. I want to discuss those matters with you today.

On the morning of the 4th of January in Korea, all the continental directors went to visit True Parents. We took photographs of matching candidates, and especially the photos of second generation candidates were arranged in albums which we took to True Parents. On that occasion True Parents said, "From now on I’m not going to do the matching. The parents themselves have to take responsibility in all matters." There should be committees on the church, regional, national and world level to decide these things, but basically it should be the responsibility of the parents themselves.

Is this good news or sad news? If you say it is good news then you must be very confident as parents, and you know where you are and what you’re doing as parents, you’re confident of where you’re going and you have nothing to be embarrassed about before God. For me it’s not so good news because, to be honest, when I ask myself have I achieved the spiritual standard whereby I can confidently choose the eternal spouse of my child, I am not so confident yet.

So until now we just made the proper documents and photos and took them to Father, and then the parents just go to sleep and wait for Father’s decision. But when Father says, you do it, suddenly we become very serious. In one respect it means that True Parents have that much trust in us. In that sense it’s good news. We knew that eventually it would be this way. In that sense it means there has been an advancement in the providence. The problem is that we have to be able to follow the spiritual standard that True Parents have set.

In the garden of Eden, who was supposed to match Adam and Eve, and who match their children? Adam and Eve would have matched their children. It’s the original way that parents would have matched their children and given them the blessing of marriage. From now on True Parents are not going to preside over these matters. All the paperwork had been prepared for people wanting to be blessed on the 27th, so we asked Father, please, just this one last time would you do it. He said no.

When you think about matching your children, you may think it’s easy. But think about how it’s really going to work. It won’t be easy. I’m very serious about this. Are you? It means that we will have to advance the maturity of our community spirit because our children are going to be someone’s son-in-law or daughter-in-law, so we must have a higher standard of faith and community life in order to do this in the right way.

Of course parents never have ownership over their children. We are just responsible for them up to a certain point, and then they leave the home. During the time we have responsibility for our children we have to give them the proper standard of faith and tradition.

Let me ask the first generation, what kind of son- or daughter-in-law would you like? I’m sure there are many priorities in your mind, but what’s the most important thing? Faith, filial piety, purity. All those things are what first generation parents would like to see in the spouse of their child, and all the second generation need to be raised in the atmosphere of those virtues. But what about the social environment in which we live?

This morning I received a phone call from a friend who is a professor at a Korean university, but his wife and children are here in America so he travels back and forth. In that phone conversation I gave some advice to my friend. I told him it was not wise for him to leave his family here in America, for two reasons. In the first place, children should grow up in an atmosphere of love of both parents. They need the strict love of their father and the embracing love of their mother every day. Unless there is an unavoidable providential reason of some sort, parents should raise the children together.

The second reason I gave him was the environment in the American educational system. As you know, America is a great country in many ways, and schools here give good external, horizontal education. But it is missing the most important thing – that is, education in vertical values. There is no education at all in vertical values. It has everything else, but there is no vertical teaching about filial piety to parents or patriotism to the nation. It is too horizontal. It places too much emphasis on the individual. It’s too easy for that individualism to turn into selfishness.

It’s good to emphasize the individual character of each human being, but the children can never be placed before the parents. That is why it’s so important to have the tradition of pledge service. I’m sure everyone did pledge this morning, where parents bow to God, to each other, and then children bow to the parents. In Korean society there is a very clear ranking between parents, the first son, and all the siblings down the line. It’s a very vertical relationship. If the parents are not there, the oldest brother or oldest sister will be the center of the family and the siblings unite centering on that child. But if individualism and the horizontal aspect is emphasized too much then there is no respect among the siblings for each other. That’s easy to see in America. Is my analysis wrong?

Parents are in the subject position. When children are growing up, parents need to educate them very strictly. The important thing now is, how do we leave the pure lineage of God. How do our children inherit and receive and carry on the lineage of God so they will be different from the Cain-type society around us. God has opened the gates to salvation. Father says it doesn’t matter if you’re a believer or unbeliever, whether you are in the spirit world in hell, everyone can be saved. The problem now is that everyone has to be re-created centering on the mainstream of the providence.

Even though spirit world has been liberated, in the physical world we are still surrounded by strong Cain-type culture. That is why we have this crucial mission to raise our children to be princes and princesses in God’s royal family so they can be in the core of the mainstream to bring salvation to the entire world. I’m not talking about external education here, but internal education of the heart.

There are four elements to this kind of education. First, they have to know God. It doesn’t matter how great a person may be. If that person doesn’t really realize God in his own life, that person cannot really raise children in the proper way. Second, to help your children know the True Parents, their mission, and their relationship to us. The next important thing is their consciousness of their lineage.

What is it through which we inherit the true lineage? It is through the blessing. So the value of the blessing has to be very clear and must be inherited completely. The church needs to have a very good educational system so the consciousness of the chosen people can be passed on to the second generation. But it is only once a week that the church can do that, for two or three hours. More than 95 percent of the time during the week is spent outside the church, in the family. So the primary responsibility for education lies with the parents, not the school or the church. Particularly education in matters of faith should come through the parents. The most important part of education is to teach how to maintain the purity of the lineage. We need to emphasize the meaning and value of purity in order to strengthen the heart and spirit of every second generation child to a degree that no temptation can penetrate.

After our encounter with True Parents on January 4th, we met with Rev. Kwak and heard a very wonderful testimony. It may be something that doesn’t fit in with the American cultural environment. Rev. Kwak’s oldest son lives at Belvedere, so when Rev. Kwak comes to America and visits this family, he sees his grandchildren, and in greeting they all do kyung-bae before him. Then, as would be common in the Korean cultural context, Rev. Kwak will motion for one of the grandsons to come forward, and he will point his penis and ask, have you kept your part holy? This is very valuable. At first he only did that with the grandsons, but later also with the granddaughters, always reminding them that this part of their body is very important and must be treated very preciously. It would be a big problem if someone outside the family did this. But parents and grandparents do it with an educational purpose.

Next year and the year after about 600 children of the 8,000 couple blessing will be old enough to enter college. The children of our blessed couples are entering college and becoming adults. I’d like to see the hands of the second generation who are 13 years old or older. You need to have a consciousness within yourself of how important your purity is. Your parents can’t do it for you. If you are 13 years or older, it is your responsibility. Just as Adam and Eve did, you are hearing two voices. One voice says, don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the other hand you are hearing a voice that says, go ahead and eat it. It is your responsibility to do the right thing.

When you are at school you may see a beautiful girl in your class, or a handsome boy and your heart may start to pound when you see him or her, but you have to control that. You need to control those things outside the family, with an awareness that you are important to the salvation of America, that it is important for you to maintain your purity in order to accomplish your mission for this country. Your parents cannot watch over you 24 hours a day, so you have to protect yourselves. You heard the Divine Principle, so you have that power.

All the second generation in the back there, do you understand? Your spouse is not going to be someone who is outside of the church. When the time comes, your parents, in consultation with the committee established in the church, will choose your spouse for you. So until that time it is important for you to protect yourself, your life and your purity, and be aware that your sexual organ is not something that anyone should see or touch, and certainly it would be hell for you to actually use that sexual organ in an improper way.

In the media and in the environment around us there is a very libertine attitude toward sexual things, but that is Satan’s environment. We need to be different. We need to maintain purity so we can accomplish our mission in the providence. It would be better if I didn’t have to speak of these things to you, but I have to because the first generation, centering on the continental director, is doing the matching for this blessing. During the course of this matching I got to the point where I couldn’t go any further. I just had to put it away and go some place else for a few hours. There was one female candidate who in her confession said she had had sexual relations with 10 men, that she had used drugs and done other things. Of course she had repented all these things and returned, and now it was our responsibility to find her a spouse.

Second generation, raise your hands again. So I’d like to ask you, five years or seven years now when you participate in the matching, would you like your spouse to be someone who has had sexual relations with many men or women, or even just one other man or woman? Or would you like someone who has remained pure up to the matching? Does it matter to you? (Pure!) Say again, everybody. (Pure!)

Because I am the responsible person, much information comes to me. Money is not a big problem. Knowledge or intelligence is not a priority. Power is not an issue. The most important thing is pure love and pure lineage. That’s valuable and precious. God even took a humble shepherd like David and made him a king. I predict that, if our movement can fulfill the central most providential roll of our Heavenly Father, we will have a president elected from one of our blessed families in the USA before the 50th president is inaugurated. In fact, Father has said that, especially about children of interracial families. Because they have suffered more pain during the course of their growth than others, they will be chosen by God as the first to take responsibility for this country. It is my prayer that the children of a black and a white parent will be the first.

But the most important thing is lineage. You want to have a pure person as your spouse, don’t you, second generation? You need to make sure that your children maintain purity. You yourselves need to keep purity so that you can become the son- or daughter-in-law of someone who is looking for someone who is pure. Parents and children have to work together on this. Your parents are busy taking care of you, and they are busy because they have to follow various directions that come from True Parents. If you are 13 years or older then you have to take responsibility for yourself.

I actually prepared a completely different sermon today, but God told me to speak to the second generation about this serious matter. Among the population of this country, a very minute number are members of the second generation. If it were possible, True Parents would like to have our own schools and universities so blessed children could grow up without any negative influence from the outside. Instead our children have to grow up in the society at large.

If a second generation person made even one single mistake, originally there was no way for salvation. Now Father has allowed a possible way of restoration. That means, after a Fall, a second generation member will lose the status of being part of the second generation. After falling, this member belongs to the first generation instead. So you have to completely and absolutely maintain purity.

On this first Sunday of 2001, all second generation members should make a pledge. All of you stand up, please, and repeat after me. "I will maintain my purity at the risk of my life." I can’t hear you. Again, loudly – "I will maintain my purity at the risk of my life. "It is my responsibility to maintain my purity." It’s not my parents’ responsibility. It’s not God’s responsibility." You have to do it yourself. You have to protect yourself. God is watching you and True Parents are watching you. Your ancestors and all of spirit world are watching you because they want you to participate in building a great America and a great world.

In order to receive the fortune of heaven, you have to maintain your purity. Do you pledge? Pledge with both hands, straight up high. Keep your hands up and show your sincere determination to our Heavenly Father. Please sit down.

As was mentioned earlier, all blessed couples will take the holy wine again, including children and grandchildren. On God’s Day, after 7 a.m. pledge service, there was a ceremony in which Father and Mother gave the holy wine to all the True Children. This holy wine ceremony has a very different meaning from the holy wine at Cheong Pyeong for the national blessing. This is a condition for us to be able to participate in the Coronation Ceremony for the kingship of God that will be held in Korea on January 13th. The second meaning is that it is a reaffirmation of our determination to maintain the purity of our lineage.

Each family can determine exactly what day this will happen. Just be sure it’s before January 13th. Each parent and child write down a biography of their mistakes. Children don’t need to show it to their parents or their siblings. It’s only between each individual and God. Gather them up and burn them, and then follow that with the holy wine ceremony.

This morning after 5 a.m. pledge service at my house I asked my 13-year-old daughter if she had anything she felt regret for. She said yes, and I said, write it down. Maybe children regret something they did toward their parents, or fighting with their brothers and sisters. Please repent everything so that we can return to our pure selves as sons and daughters of God.

In conclusion, I have spoken on Blessing and Responsibility. Our Pledge Service represents the very essence of our spiritual life. The tradition of bowing to our Heavenly Father and True Parents on Sunday mornings, the first of each month and our Holy Days should absolutely be maintained. Here is a quick description of how the Pledge Service should proceed:

1. The whole family bows to Heavenly Father and True Parents.

2. All recite the Family Pledge.

3. Prayer by Father or Mother.

4. After the prayers are completed, husband and wife bow to each other.

5. Parents sit before the altar and children bow to the parents.

6. The children kiss their parents on the cheeks.

7. Words of Principle education.

It is also important to sustain the Hoon Dok Hae tradition on a regular basis every morning at 6am. If you can not do it for one hour in the morning at least do for 30 minutes. If that is not possible it is alright to do it in the evening with your whole family. These Hoon Dok Hae sessions will contribute much to our spiritual growth and maturity.

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