701 lines
238 KiB
HTML
701 lines
238 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
||
<html lang="en-US">
|
||
<head>
|
||
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=no, initial-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0">
|
||
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
|
||
<title>Speeches of Rev Sun Myung Moon 1983 – Page 4 – FFWPU Ireland</title>
|
||
<meta name='robots' content='max-image-preview:large' />
|
||
<link rel='stylesheet' id="content-blocks-css" href='../css/block-library.css?ver=6.6.5' type='text/css' media='all' />
|
||
<link rel='stylesheet' id='pdfprnt_frontend-css' href='../assets/vendor/pdf/css/frontend.css?ver=2.4.0' type='text/css' media='all' />
|
||
<link rel='stylesheet' id='parabola-fonts-css' href='../assets/theme/parabola/fonts/fontfaces.css?ver=2.4.1' type='text/css' media='all' />
|
||
<link rel='stylesheet' id='parabola-style-css' href='../assets/theme/parabola/style.css?ver=2.4.1' type='text/css' media='all' />
|
||
<style id='parabola-style-inline-css' type='text/css'>
|
||
#header, #main, .topmenu, #colophon, #footer2-inner { max-width: 1050px; } #container.one-column { } #container.two-columns-right #secondary { width:250px; float:right; } #container.two-columns-right #content { width:780px; float:left; } /*fallback*/ #container.two-columns-right #content { width:calc(100% - 270px); float:left; } #container.two-columns-left #primary { width:250px; float:left; } #container.two-columns-left #content { width:780px; float:right; } /*fallback*/ #container.two-columns-left #content { width:-moz-calc(100% - 270px); float:right; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 270px); width:calc(100% - 270px); } #container.three-columns-right .sidey { width:125px; float:left; } #container.three-columns-right #primary { margin-left:20px; margin-right:20px; } #container.three-columns-right #content { width:760px; float:left; } /*fallback*/ #container.three-columns-right #content { width:-moz-calc(100% - 290px); float:left; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 290px); width:calc(100% - 290px);} #container.three-columns-left .sidey { width:125px; float:left; } #container.three-columns-left #secondary {margin-left:20px; margin-right:20px; } #container.three-columns-left #content { width:760px; float:right;} /*fallback*/ #container.three-columns-left #content { width:-moz-calc(100% - 290px); float:right; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 290px); width:calc(100% - 290px); } #container.three-columns-sided .sidey { width:125px; float:left; } #container.three-columns-sided #secondary { float:right; } #container.three-columns-sided #content { width:760px; float:right; /*fallback*/ width:-moz-calc(100% - 290px); float:right; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 290px); float:right; width:calc(100% - 290px); float:right; margin: 0 145px 0 -1050px; } body { font-family: "Open Sans"; } #content h1.entry-title a, #content h2.entry-title a, #content h1.entry-title , #content h2.entry-title, #frontpage .nivo-caption h3, .column-header-image, .column-header-noimage, .columnmore { font-family: "Bebas Neue"; } .widget-title, .widget-title a { line-height: normal; font-family: "Bebas Neue"; } .entry-content h1, .entry-content h2, .entry-content h3, .entry-content h4, .entry-content h5, .entry-content h6, h3#comments-title, #comments #reply-title { font-family: "Yanone Kaffeesatz Regular"; } #site-title span a { font-family: "Oswald Stencil"; } #access ul li a, #access ul li a span { font-family: "Open Sans"; } body { color: #333333; background-color: #F7F7F2 } a { color: #BF4D28; } a:hover { color: #E6AC27; } #header-full { background-color: #FFFFFF; } #site-title span a { color:#BF4D28; } #site-description { color:#444444; } .socials a { background-color: #ffffff; } .socials .socials-hover { background-color: #fdfcfc; } .breadcrumbs:before { border-color: transparent transparent transparent #333333; } #access a, #nav-toggle span { color: #959393; background-color: #fdfcfc; } @media (max-width: 650px) { #access, #nav-toggle { background-color: #fdfcfc; } } #access a:hover { color: #89c76b; background-color: #ffffff; } #access > .menu > ul > li > a:after, #access > .menu > ul ul:after { border-color: transparent transparent #ffffff transparent; } #access ul li:hover a:after { border-bottom-color:#d5e6b3;} #access ul li.current_page_item > a, #access ul li.current-menu-item > a, /*#access ul li.current_page_parent > a, #access ul li.current-menu-parent > a,*/ #access ul li.current_page_ancestor > a, #access ul li.current-menu-ancestor > a { color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; } #access ul li.current_page_item > a:hover, #access ul li.current-menu-item > a:hover, /*#access ul li.current_page_parent > a:hover, #access ul li.current-menu-parent > a:hover,*/ #access ul li.current_page_ancestor > a:hover, #access ul li.current-menu-ancestor > a:hover { color: #89c76b; } .topmenu ul li a { color: #666666; } .topmenu ul li a:after { border-color: #ffffff transparent transparent transparent; } .topmenu ul li a:hover:after {border-top-color:#d5e6b3} .topmenu ul li a:hover { color: #666666; background-color: #FFFFFF; } div.post, div.page, div.hentry, div.product, div[class^='post-'], #comments, .comments, .column-text, .column-image, #srights, #slefts, #front-text3, #front-text4, .page-title, .page-header, article.post, article.page, article.hentry, .contentsearch, #author-info, #nav-below, .yoyo > li, .woocommerce #mainwoo { background-color: #FFFFFF; } div.post, div.page, div.hentry, .sidey .widget-container, #comments, .commentlist .comment-body, article.post, article.page, article.hentry, #nav-below, .page-header, .yoyo > li, #front-text3, #front-text4 { border-color: #EEEEEE; } #author-info, #entry-author-info { border-color: #F7F7F7; } #entry-author-info #author-avatar, #author-info #author-avatar { border-color: #EEEEEE; } article.sticky:hover { border-color: rgba(213,230,179,.6); } .sidey .widget-container { color: #907a7a; background-color: #FFFFFF; } .sidey .widget-title { color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #fdf7f7; } .sidey .widget-title:after { border-color: transparent transparent #ffffff; } .sidey .widget-container a { color: #BF4D28; } .sidey .widget-container a:hover { color: #E6AC27; } .entry-content h1, .entry-content h2, .entry-content h3, .entry-content h4, .entry-content h5, .entry-content h6 { color: #444444; } .entry-title, .entry-title a, .page-title { color: #444444; } .entry-title a:hover { color: #000000; } #content h3.entry-format { color: #959393; background-color: #fdfcfc; border-color: #fdfcfc; } #content h3.entry-format { color: #959393; background-color: #fdfcfc; border-color: #fdfcfc; } .comments-link { background-color: #F7F7F7; } .comments-link:before { border-color: #F7F7F7 transparent transparent; } #footer { color: #AAAAAA; background-color: #1A1917; } #footer2 { color: #AAAAAA; background-color: #131211; border-color:rgba(255,255,255,.1); } #footer a { color: #BF4D28; } #footer a:hover { color: #E6AC27; } #footer2 a { color: #BF4D28; } #footer2 a:hover { color: #E6AC27; } #footer .widget-container { color: #dea1a1; background-color: #FFFFFF; } #footer .widget-title { color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #fcf7f7; } #footer .widget-title:after { border-color: transparent transparent #ffffff; } .footermenu ul li a:after { border-color: transparent transparent #ffffff transparent; } a.continue-reading-link { color:#959393 !important; background:#fdfcfc; border-color:#EEEEEE; } a.continue-reading-link:hover { background-color:#ffffff; } .button, #respond .form-submit input#submit { background-color: #F7F7F7; border-color: #EEEEEE; } .button:hover, #respond .form-submit input#submit:hover { border-color: #CCCCCC; } .entry-content tr th, .entry-content thead th { color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #444444; } .entry-content fieldset, .entry-content tr td { border-color: #CCCCCC; } hr { background-color: #CCCCCC; } input[type="text"], input[type="password"], input[type="email"], textarea, select, input[type="color"],input[type="date"],input[type="datetime"],input[type="datetime-local"],input[type="month"],input[type="number"],input[type="range"], input[type="search"],input[type="tel"],input[type="time"],input[type="url"],input[type="week"] { background-color: #F7F7F7; border-color: #CCCCCC #EEEEEE #EEEEEE #CCCCCC; color: #333333; } input[type="submit"], input[type="reset"] { color: #333333; background-color: #F7F7F7; border-color: #EEEEEE;} input[type="text"]:hover, input[type="password"]:hover, input[type="email"]:hover, textarea:hover, input[type="color"]:hover, input[type="date"]:hover, input[type="datetime"]:hover, input[type="datetime-local"]:hover, input[type="month"]:hover, input[type="number"]:hover, input[type="range"]:hover, input[type="search"]:hover, input[type="tel"]:hover, input[type="time"]:hover, input[type="url"]:hover, input[type="week"]:hover { background-color: rgb(247,247,247); background-color: rgba(247,247,247,0.4); } .entry-content code { border-color: #CCCCCC; background-color: #F7F7F7; } .entry-content pre { background-color: #F7F7F7; } .entry-content blockquote { border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #F7F7F7; } abbr, acronym { border-color: #333333; } span.edit-link { color: #333333; background-color: #EEEEEE; border-color: #F7F7F7; } .meta-border .entry-meta span, .meta-border .entry-utility span.bl_posted { border-color: #F7F7F7; } .meta-accented .entry-meta span, .meta-accented .entry-utility span.bl_posted { background-color: #EEEEEE; border-color: #F7F7F7; } .comment-meta a { color: #8c97b0; } .comment-author { background-color: #F7F7F7; } .comment-details:after { border-color: transparent transparent transparent #F7F7F7; } .comment:hover > div > .comment-author { background-color: #EEEEEE; } .comment:hover > div > .comment-author .comment-details:after { border-color: transparent transparent transparent #EEEEEE; } #respond .form-allowed-tags { color: #8c97b0; } .comment .reply a { border-color: #EEEEEE; color: #333333;} .comment .reply a:hover { background-color: #EEEEEE } .nav-next a:hover, .nav-previous a:hover {background: #F7F7F7} .pagination .current { font-weight: bold; } .pagination span, .pagination a { background-color: #FFFFFF; } .pagination a:hover { background-color: #fdfcfc;color:#BF4D28} .page-link em {background-color: #fdfcfc; color:#ffffff;} .page-link a em {color:#d5e6b3;} .page-link a:hover em {background-color:#ffffff;} #searchform input[type="text"] {color:#8c97b0;} #toTop {border-color:transparent transparent #131211;} #toTop:after {border-color:transparent transparent #FFFFFF;} #toTop:hover:after {border-bottom-color:#ffffff;} .caption-accented .wp-caption { background-color:rgb(255,255,255); background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.8); color:#FFFFFF} .meta-themed .entry-meta span { color: #8c97b0; background-color: #F7F7F7; border-color: #EEEEEE; } .meta-themed .entry-meta span:hover { background-color: #EEEEEE; } .meta-themed .entry-meta span a:hover { color: #333333; } .entry-content, .entry-summary, #front-text3, #front-text4 { text-align:Default ; } html { font-size:14px; line-height:1.7em; } #bg_image {display:block;margin:0 auto;} #content h1.entry-title, #content h2.entry-title { font-size:34px ;} .widget-title, .widget-title a { font-size:18px ;} .entry-content h1 { font-size: 2.676em; } #frontpage h1 { font-size: 2.076em; } .entry-content h2 { font-size: 2.352em; } #frontpage h2 { font-size: 1.752em; } .entry-content h3 { font-size: 2.028em; } #frontpage h3 { font-size: 1.428em; } .entry-content h4 { font-size: 1.704em; } #frontpage h4 { font-size: 1.104em; } .entry-content h5 { font-size: 1.38em; } #frontpage h5 { font-size: 0.78em; } .entry-content h6 { font-size: 1.056em; } #frontpage h6 { font-size: 0.456em; } #site-title span a { font-size:38px ;} #access ul li a { font-size:14px ;} #access ul ul ul a {font-size:12px;} #respond .form-allowed-tags { display:none;} .nocomments, .nocomments2 {display:none;} .comments-link span { display:none;} #header-container > div:first-child { margin:40px 0 0 0px;} header.page-header, .archive h1.page-title { display:none; } article.post .comments-link { display:none; } .entry-meta .author { display:none; } .entry-meta span.bl_categ { display:none; } .entry-meta .footer-tags, .entry-utility .footer-tags { display:none; } .entry-content p, .entry-content ul, .entry-content ol, .entry-content dd, .entry-content pre, .entry-content hr, .commentlist p { margin-bottom: 1.0em; } #content div.entry-meta { display:none; } #header-widget-area { width: 33%; } #branding { height:120px; } @media (max-width: 800px) { #content h1.entry-title, #content h2.entry-title { font-size:32.3px ; } #site-title span a { font-size:34.2px;} } @media (max-width: 650px) { #content h1.entry-title, #content h2.entry-title {font-size:30.6px ;} #site-title span a { font-size:30.4px;} } @media (max-width: 480px) { #site-title span a { font-size:22.8px;} }
|
||
/* Parabola Custom CSS */
|
||
</style>
|
||
<link rel='stylesheet' id='parabola-mobile-css' href='../assets/theme/parabola/styles/style-mobile.css?ver=2.4.1' type='text/css' media='all' />
|
||
<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/jquery.min.js?ver=2.0.2" id="jquery-js"></script>
|
||
<script type="text/javascript" id="parabola-frontend-js-extra">
|
||
/* <![CDATA[ */
|
||
var parabola_settings = {"masonry":"0","magazine":"0","mobile":"1","fitvids":"1"};
|
||
/* ]]> */
|
||
</script>
|
||
<script type="text/javascript" src="../assets/theme/parabola/js/frontend.js?ver=2.4.1" id="parabola-frontend-js"></script>
|
||
<style type="text/css" id="custom-background-css">
|
||
body.custom-background { background-color: #ffffff; }
|
||
</style>
|
||
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
|
||
<script>
|
||
document.createElement('header');
|
||
document.createElement('nav');
|
||
document.createElement('section');
|
||
document.createElement('article');
|
||
document.createElement('aside');
|
||
document.createElement('footer');
|
||
</script>
|
||
<![endif]-->
|
||
<style type="text/css" id="site-custom-css">
|
||
/* General fix for the header image */
|
||
#bg_image {
|
||
width: 100%; /* Scale the image to fit the container */
|
||
height: auto; /* Maintain aspect ratio to avoid stretching */
|
||
max-width: 100%; /* Prevent the image from exceeding container width */
|
||
}
|
||
|
||
/* Mobile-specific fix for the header image */
|
||
@media (max-width: 768px) {
|
||
#bg_image {
|
||
|
||
object-fit: contain; /* Ensure the entire image is visible */
|
||
width: 100%; /* Let the image adjust to screen width */
|
||
height: auto; /* Maintain aspect ratio */
|
||
}
|
||
}
|
||
</style>
|
||
</head>
|
||
<body class="archive paged category category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983 category-50 custom-background paged-4 category-paged-4 tribe-no-js metaslider-plugin parabola-image-three caption-light meta-light parabola_triagles parabola-menu-left">
|
||
|
||
<div id="toTop"> </div>
|
||
<div id="wrapper" class="hfeed">
|
||
|
||
|
||
<div id="header-full">
|
||
|
||
<header id="header">
|
||
|
||
|
||
<div id="masthead">
|
||
|
||
<div id="branding" role="banner" >
|
||
|
||
<img id="bg_image" alt="FFWPU Ireland" title="FFWPU Ireland" src="../assets/uploads/2013/10/BannerFamilyFed_23_10c1.jpg" /><div id="header-container">
|
||
<a href="index.html" id="linky"></a></div> <div style="clear:both;"></div>
|
||
|
||
</div><!-- #branding -->
|
||
<a id="nav-toggle"><span> </span></a>
|
||
|
||
<nav id="access" class="jssafe" role="navigation">
|
||
|
||
<div class="skip-link screen-reader-text"><a href="#content" title="Skip to content">Skip to content</a></div>
|
||
<div class="menu"><ul id="prime_nav" class="menu"><li id="menu-item-241" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom menu-item-home menu-item-241"><a href="index.html"><span>Home</span></a></li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-52" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-has-children menu-item-52"><a title="About Us" href="about.html"><span>About Us</span></a>
|
||
<ul class="sub-menu">
|
||
<li id="menu-item-73" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-73"><a title="Founders" href="the-founders.html"><span>The Founders</span></a></li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-127" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-127"><a href="about-us-organizations.html"><span>Organizations</span></a></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-51" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-51"><a title="Videos" href="videos.html"><span>Videos</span></a></li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-102" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-has-children menu-item-102"><a href="events.html"><span>Events</span></a>
|
||
<ul class="sub-menu">
|
||
<li id="menu-item-53" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-53"><a title="Events" href="services.html"><span>Sunday Services</span></a></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-83" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-83"><a title="Contact Us" href="contact.html"><span>Contact</span></a></li>
|
||
</ul></div>
|
||
</nav><!-- #access -->
|
||
|
||
</div><!-- #masthead -->
|
||
|
||
<div style="clear:both;height:1px;width:1px;"> </div>
|
||
|
||
</header><!-- #header -->
|
||
</div><!-- #header-full -->
|
||
<div id="main">
|
||
<div id="forbottom" >
|
||
|
||
<div style="clear:both;"> </div>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<section id="container" class="two-columns-right">
|
||
<div id="content" role="main">
|
||
|
||
|
||
<header class="page-header">
|
||
<h1 class="page-title">Category: <span>Speeches of Rev Sun Myung Moon 1983</span></h1> </header>
|
||
|
||
<div class="content-masonry">
|
||
|
||
|
||
<article id="post-1665" class="post-1665 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983">
|
||
<header class="entry-header">
|
||
<h2 class="entry-title">
|
||
<a href="blog-2018-06-23-let-this-be-a-good-year.html" title="Permalink to LET THIS BE A GOOD YEAR" rel="bookmark">LET THIS BE A GOOD YEAR</a>
|
||
</h2>
|
||
<div class="entry-meta">
|
||
<span class="author vcard" >By <a class="url fn n" rel="author" href="#" title="View all posts by Fami1yfed">Fami1yfed</a></span> <span><time class="onDate date published" datetime="2018-06-23T14:43:10+01:00"> <a href="blog-2018-06-23-let-this-be-a-good-year.html" rel="bookmark">June 23, 2018</a> </time></span><time class="updated" datetime="2018-06-23T14:43:10+01:00">June 23, 2018</time> <span class="bl_categ"> <a href="blog-category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983.html" rel="tag">Speeches of Rev Sun Myung Moon 1983</a> </span> </div><!-- .entry-meta -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
</header><!-- .entry-header -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<div class="entry-content">
|
||
<h2 align="CENTER">REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON</h2>
|
||
<h3 align="CENTER">January 2, 1983<br />
|
||
World Mission Center, New York City<br />
|
||
Translator – Bo Hi Pak</h3>
|
||
<p>Usually when a new year comes, an older person will think about the passage of time with some regret. However, a young person will look at it as a good thing because he is becoming more and more mature. The teenager welcomes another year because it brings him closer to adulthood. Why do young people feel joyful to welcome the new year and older people regret the quick passage of time? When a boy and girl reach their teens, they open the door into a new world-that of knowing each other in love. As young people leave their teens, they feel they are coming into a broader and deeper world of new fulfillment and excitement. However, when a person becomes older, those memories of excitement in youth begin to fade. This is why older people often hate to see the years go by.</p>
|
||
<p>When a person gets older, many things begin to depart from him. First of all, his children get married and leave home. That means the parents are left alone in the home. Then one or the other of the spouses will depart; husband or wife will die first. Loneliness sets in because of the departure of loved ones. Old people can see the sundown of their lives on the horizon; they know their own day of death is approaching.</p>
|
||
<p>According to my observations, people below the age of 40 generally do not worry very much about their own deaths. They have no sense of dying. However, when a person is older than sixty, he usually starts trying to put everything in his life into order. He wants to prepare properly for his last days here on earth.</p>
|
||
<p>When a person is preparing for something new, he has a lot of hope and vitality. On the other hand, if he is preparing for his death and putting things into order for that, it is usually not so pleasant. When you are young, -your work is the preparation for something greater. When you are old your work prepares you to phase out of this life smoothly.</p>
|
||
<p>Each day can be divided into two parts. Up to the noon hour, your activities are basically in preparation for the day, but after noon you start to wind down and eventually to meet the end of the day. When you face the sunrise in the morning, your shadow falls behind you, toward the west. The sun moves from the east to the west, so the direction of movement in the morning is toward the west. From high noon, your shadow starts to change positions and starts to move toward the east. The sun doesn’t change its direction; it just passes over you along its normal route.</p>
|
||
<p>In spirit world, the direction of east is very important because the east is always the direction of ascension toward movement and hope. Once the sun begins to fall toward the west, the sunlight starts to become weaker and weaker. Why do you think I named East Garden as I did? It was because the east is a symbol of rising, planning and moving toward the ultimate goal.</p>
|
||
<p>By the same token, young people enjoy being young because it is like being in the east-moving and rising toward a prosperous future. A teenager feels his life rising up and he always wants to strive forward toward the highest point of his life. Thus the teen years are the most exciting ones. The highest point of life is reached when a person achieves the prime of his growth and he enters into his married life. At high noon, you don’t have any visible shadow because the sun is directly above you. The sun is absolutely vertical to you.</p>
|
||
<p>In the universe, the same principle is at work. When one side is moving up, the other is moving down, and there must be some universal position of “high noon.” The action of waves is that of rising up, then falling down, over and over again. Going up is not the only goodness and going down is not necessarily bad. Going down enables the waves to go up again; it is impossible to go up without going down. Everything exists in complementary give and take.</p>
|
||
<p>Imagine two people dancing. If every motion they made was identical, with no contrast, that would not truly be dancing. There is a wave-like, curving motion even to dancing. Your mouth cannot stay shut tightly all day long. In fact, it is always working and moving. Even if you are not talking or eating, your mouth still moves. Sometimes you breathe through your mouth. When you close your lips, are your upper and lower teeth completely clenched? No, there is a certain amount of complementary action occurring within your mouth, even when no one can see it. Either you are pulling in your tongue, or moving the parts of your mouth in relation to one another.</p>
|
||
<p>This is the principle we see throughout our universe. Whether it is in the way we breathe, or the action of the waves, it is the same. Human life is like a wave, with youth being one aspect and old age being the other. Yet old age is not the end; it is part of the wave. Youth and old age are part of the rhythm of the wave so it is not necessarily gloomy to become old.</p>
|
||
<p>God is part of the universe so this same principle can apply to Him. What is the point of “high noon,” the point where God and man can meet like east meeting west? There must be a moment or place when Heaven and earth can stand together in high noon, without any shadow. There must be a position where God is in man and man is in God.</p>
|
||
<p>Two people in love achieve that position when they are completely united, spiritually and physically. The husband is the wife and the wife is the husband; there is no separation between them. High noon is the time of the brightest sunlight. There is no darkness anywhere, only brightness pervades the atmosphere. It is the condition of fullness. There is nothing lacking.</p>
|
||
<p>God and men must be able to stand in a similar position like high noon where they feel total satisfaction and fullness, without anything lacking. Then what is supposed to happen? Do God and man stop right there and just stop their motion all of a sudden? No, they must begin moving on the downward side of the wave so that they can begin another climb toward the top. That downward time is not necessarily a painful period. Husband and wife are always moving and weaving in their relationship. It is part of the excitement of interaction.</p>
|
||
<p>Husband and wife represent heaven and earth. Sometimes heaven is in the high position, sometimes the earth is. They exchange their positions freely, centering upon their love for each other. There is nothing more that is needed.</p>
|
||
<p>When a teenager gets some food, perhaps he will be completely satisfied just to feed his own stomach. Normally he is not very concerned about whether or not his neighbor is eating. He is just busy feeding himself. However, once a person gets married, even eating is no longer just a solitary matter. He has to first consider whether his wife has eaten. Suppose the wife starts to eat very rapidly and she sees that her husband is eating more slowly. She will want to slow down, too, to keep pace with him.</p>
|
||
<p>Everything in the universe is imbued with this harmony. Why did God make men taller than women? It was to create harmony. The man looks down and smiles at the woman. The woman looks up and smiles. This is complementary give and take by which everything exists in the universe.</p>
|
||
<p>When you understand this principle you know that old age is not necessarily a bad or gloomy thing. Everything in the universe is designed to fulfill love. Does love only involve men and women, or are there other elements involved? There is the reality of the love of God. When are we supposed to receive that particular love? You cannot see love and you cannot see God or His love, either. How can you be so sure you received that particular love?</p>
|
||
<p>God is invisible and everything about Him is invisible. In order to share in the love of God, people must also have some invisible aspect. How does a person move himself from his visible nature into some invisible nature? In order to move from visibility to invisibility, some revolutionary movement must occur. It is a transformation that requires pushing the visible world completely behind you. You have to forget this world entirely in that transformation. That particular drastic moment when you reach the point of invisibility is what people call “death.,’</p>
|
||
<p>The definition of death, then, is the movement of a person from the visible body into an invisible self. This is not a destructive or diminishing activity because a person is being elevated to a higher plateau where he can directly receive the invisible love of God. Thus death actually transforms a person from the visible form to the invisible form so that he can become a direct counterpart of God, enjoying direct give and take with the invisible God.</p>
|
||
<p>Furthermore, God exists in the dual essentialities, so in order to fully resemble Him, you must be elevated into relationship with Him as a husband and wife together. Alone, neither of you can fully reflect or resemble God. When a man and woman are together, they totally reflect the image of God. Men and women are that much of a necessity to each other.</p>
|
||
<p>We know that God exists in both masculine and feminine essentialities, positive and negative characteristics. However since God is the universal Subject, we know through the Divine Principle that this is characterized as a masculine aspect. Therefore, God would be most sensitive to the “tender touch” which is a characteristic of women. When men and women are transformed into spirit world, the man is like the bones of the body and woman is like the flesh. Women create the touch which is given to God.</p>
|
||
<p>Anyone who touches you touches your flesh. No one touches your bones. No one says, “Your bones are so lovely.” Instead people are pleased by your tender, soft skin. Nowadays the fashionable thing in secular society is for women to diet and be skinny, but that removes the flesh. A woman who has very little flesh just has bones and skin. Perhaps this is the result of women striving to be equal to men. Since men are in the position of “bones,” women are trying to lose their flesh and become more and more bony. In a way, the woman who is truly “equal” to a man must be a woman who is disliked by men. She must be just the same as he is.</p>
|
||
<p>Men do not look for a skinny, bony woman. They always seek some soft, tender woman. If you women want to diet and get really thin, you are actually seeking to become a woman that men dislike. Skinny women do not inspire men to seek to live with them throughout eternity. They simply are not that attractive to men. God provided you women with your natural “cushion,” your buttocks and hips. When men and women come together in love, the man doesn’t want to feel like he is touching a piece of wood. The blessing of love cannot come to a woman who has no flesh. She must be more than just bones and skin to receive that love. If you want to invite the blessing, you must be the kind of person who has a “cushion” upon which love can be comfortable. But skinny people are always jumpy and moving around and do not provide that point of comfort and stability.</p>
|
||
<p>If a woman has a tremendously large bosom, with a very narrow waist and hips, she is unbalanced. Korean women often wear long skirts. In ancient times they even padded their clothes with lots of cotton to make themselves look really fluffy. They wanted to contain plenty of blessings. They put together twelve different pieces to make their skirts. When the husband would come in from the cold, he would want to run and wrap himself in the skirts of his wife to warm up. Those skirts were like the wings of a hen. Inside those wings, the woman had enough room for her husband and her twelve children! When all her “brood” is inside her skirts, that mother should have lots of cushioning to give off the warmth and softness of her love. Nobody would like to touch a mother who was like a piece of wood. It is too harsh. Woman are not supposed to treat others with harshness.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore, you women are privileged to be made by God with large hips, a rounded bosom and a narrow waist. That is the beauty of balance in the woman’s body. The flesh of men is mostly muscle. It is more harsh than woman’s flesh. Women seek to touch masculine flesh. They look for contrast.</p>
|
||
<p>Once I went into a factory which cuts diamonds. Since the diamond is the hardest stone on earth, I was curious to know what has the power to cut it. Some people might think that only something harder than a diamond would be able to cut it. On the contrary, I discovered that diamonds are cut by grinding with copper. It is amazing that the hardest of stones can be cut with a metal which is relatively soft. When the shaft of an engine is turning, it must be supported by a ring. You would normally think that ring should be made of the hardest metal, but that is not the case. It is made of a soft metal. This is a reflection of universal truth.</p>
|
||
<p>All people are meant to be transformed at some point from the visible realm into the invisible one. That is the point we leave this world behind. We forget this world. Therefore when people get older they often complain about losing their memories. Actually that is simply a sign that God is preparing them to forget this world. Also the eyesight of older people normally starts to get worse, but this is another sign from God. They will eventually forget all vision of this world and move into a vision of the new realm. The teeth of older people also tend to get weak and fall out. At that time, they should realize that God is preparing them to leave behind coarse, material foods. The day is coming when they will only take in the invisible food of the invisible realm and they won’t need their teeth to chew.</p>
|
||
<p>People are often termed to be going into their “second childhood” when they become older. The child’s nature is not to worry about anything. The way that God plans everything is dramatic. When a child is born into this world, he grows up to meet with all the physical, horizontal realities. When a person goes into his second childhood, he is preparing to go into the invisible, infinite reality, the vertical world. Therefore, death is not a negative thing. It is the transformation into the vertical world.</p>
|
||
<p>As men and women get older they prepare to go into that vertical realm together. As a horizontally united couple, they meet with the vertical unit of God. The ultimate beauty of that vertical world cannot be experienced until we die, so death is not something to be hated. Were you born because you wished to be born? No, you never willed yourself to come into being. Childbirth and the cutting of the umbilical cord is like a “violent death” to the infant. The infant is moving from one womb to another: the universal womb.</p>
|
||
<p>There are many parallels between the mother’s womb and the womb of the universe. In the mother’s womb, the baby lives as an isolated individual. In the universal womb, men and women must live in pairs and grow together. In the mother’s womb the baby receives all his necessary nourishment for growth. By the same token, we are supposed to receive the nourishment of love from the universal womb. The mother’s body provides everything for the sake of her child totally unselfishly. That child is the representative of love and is the “second self” of the mother. By the same token, the universe looks at you as a second self and it wants to give you everything it has to allow you to grow to maturity.</p>
|
||
<p>Why, then, do we have to get married? It is because God exists in dual essentialities and men and women must reflect those essentialities. Therefore, men and women must come together and unite in total resemblance of God’s image. That is why marriage is one essential factor in your total growth. Without it, you would be crippled.</p>
|
||
<p>The baby inside the womb doesn’t breathe through his nose but instead receives oxygen through the umbilical cord. Therefore, he is “breathing” through that cord. The moment comes when a new system is begun, the system of breathing air through the nose. That occurs at birth. We are now breathing air through our noses but actually we are preparing ourselves for another system. That will be the system of breathing love.</p>
|
||
<p>An amazing parallel can be drawn here. Inside your mother’s womb, your belly was the place where you received nourishment but all the while your lungs were being prepared to receive the intake of air at the moment of birth. By the same token, while we are breathing this air within the universal womb, using our noses and lungs, we are already being prepared to use another set of lungs which will breathe the love of God. You are actually preparing yourself to have the capacity to breathe love.</p>
|
||
<p>While you were inside your mother’s womb, the environment of air was already prepared and waiting for you when you emerged. By the same token, while we are living here on this earth, God has prepared another environment which is filled with love. Love is our air in that environment. We shall all be born into that world one day.</p>
|
||
<p>When men and women are totally blended into one in spirit world, their two noses become as one nose. The man’s nose becomes the right nostril and the woman’s becomes the left nostril. Therefore, men and women are supposed to grow together to achieve a balance here on earth. If you go to spirit world in a totally unbalanced state, your whole face will wiggle in a very unharmonious way. Unbalanced growth here on earth between men and women produces imbalance when you go to spirit world. God doesn’t enjoy the touch of such people. Sometimes the spirit bodies of unbalanced men and women have eyes pointing outward strangely, noses in the wrong place and so forth.</p>
|
||
<p>Marriage is for the purpose of blending men and women into God-like figures, to put people into the image of God so that when they are elevated into spirit world they can enjoy a relationship with God together. We come to the clear conclusion that God created all things and human beings for the purpose of consummating His love. Where can that love be consummated? It can be done while we are here on earth, in the relationship between husband and wife, in the family. Therefore, marriage is the most important event of human life.</p>
|
||
<p>Teenagers greet the new year with great excitement because they are moving toward the prime of their lives- their married lives and married love. Older people are moving toward their transformation from the visible world to the invisible world where they can unite with God; therefore, they too have another “high noon” to look forward to.</p>
|
||
<p>In this world, men and women come together in horizontal unity and blend into the oneness of love; then they move toward their transformation into the next world. There they encounter the dramatic consummation of vertical love. That is the time when people can truly exclaim, “Manse)!” At that point we will alter our traditional three cheers from “Aboji Mansei” to “Saran” Mansei,” or “Love Mansei!”</p>
|
||
<p>We are preparing here on earth for one more “birth,” into an ecstatically joyful new life where we can be consummated with God’s universal love. What is the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven? It is the world of high noon, where God and man meet without any shadow-a total union filled with brightness. This universe is always moving in a wavelike motion toward and away from high noon. If there is a high noon in this world, how much more intense will it be in the spirit world! The supreme high noon of love is awaiting us. God has prepared for us that wonderful high noon; our lives here are to prepare us for that. You are interested in learning these things, aren’t you? The intensity of a person’s love determines his value or virtue. The person who sacrifices himself for the sake of his parents is called a son of filial piety. The one who dedicates himself for the sake of his nation is called a patriot. The saint is like a patriot on the world level; he wants to give himself for the sake of all humanity. The highest title anyone can receive is that of son or daughter of God-those who want to give everything possible for the sake of God. The intensity of a person’s love determines the degree of his value. This is because the ultimate world is made in such a way that love alone determines value. This world is the world of result so it follows naturally that it would reflect those values of the world of cause.</p>
|
||
<p>You American women look directly at me and answer this question: do you want to live for your husband, or do you want to die for your husband? You say “both,” but that is too greedy. Everyone must die sometime, so if you are willing to die for your husband you are going beyond all limits in your love. That kind of standard is an eternal one; that kind of love lasts forever. If your whole purpose is to live in love, then your attitude is closest to wanting only to receive love. But when you say, “I am ready to die for my husband,” that means you are ready to give everything without limit. This is the same principle as in the Bible, when it states that those who want to live for their own sake will lose their lives while those who are willing to die, will gain their lives.</p>
|
||
<p>Now you can answer me with a clear perspective. Do you want to live or die for your husbands? This morning we are witnessing a great revolution which I have ignited here in America. White, skinny, beautiful American women are sitting on the hard floor and telling me they are willing to die for their husbands! You rascal men, you don’t deserve such great wives! You are so selfish and greedy. You must match your wives’ determination with your own.</p>
|
||
<p>Love is connected to death. Why is that? It sounds pessimistic but it isn’t, really. Ultimate, eternal love exists in an invisible form, so in order to reach such an invisible plateau, death is necessary. The ultimate consummation of love arises out of the willingness to die for those you love. Therefore this earthly life must not be clung to so strongly. The person who gives up his life for his spouse, his country, for the world, or for God will be immediately transformed into a correspondingly high place in spirit world. Such a sacrifice is actually the ultimate, supreme way of life. There need be no regrets about it.</p>
|
||
<p>You are hearing such serious things at the very outset of this new year, but does it make you feel bad? I am actually telling you to go ahead, die for the sake of the love of others. There is no greater life, no more saintly action.</p>
|
||
<p>Suppose there is a tremendously independent, aloof American woman who is determined not to give in to any man and get married. If her parents forced her somehow into marriage even against her will but she suddenly discovered the joy of love, wouldn’t she feel grateful to her parents? The same thing is happening here. Perhaps you don’t want to hear the kind of talk I am giving to you today. You feel it is too harsh. However, if you really take me seriously and live up to this teaching, the only result in the end will be the total consummation of love. This is why I always teach you the naked truth without any hesitation or formality. Do you welcome that kind of attitude?</p>
|
||
<p>We are living a dramatic way of life, walking across the bridge of love. The things I am teaching you are very serious and important. You may think sometimes that I am a creative genius who just speaks in an interesting way. However, there is much weight behind what I am saying. The older people in the audience with white hair must feel a sense of new hope when they hear these words today.</p>
|
||
<p>Our topic this morning is Let This Be a Good Year. What should be the contents of a good year? A good year must be one which is filled with love. We are people who are pursuing such a goal in our lives. No better goal can be found for men and women. We are living such a dramatic life!</p>
|
||
<p>We must use our five senses here on earth to observe the universe from the viewpoint which I have been discussing. Your eye must look forward to the vision of eternal love-that is the reason for your eye’s existence. Your ear is meant to hear the sound of eternal love. Your nose is created to smell that eternal love. Your mouth is meant to kiss with eternal love. When you kiss with that purpose, you are kissing God too.</p>
|
||
<p>When you men and women embrace and touch, the woman’s bosom touches the man’s chest. God shows His romantic nature in the way He formed the shapes of men and women. The bosom of a woman extends outward while her sexual organs are inside. The man has a flat chest but his sexual organ extends outward. This is the balance of physical shapes. God is truly a romantic lover, a great scientist. We cannot deny God’s existence once we observe the harmony and balance between men and women.</p>
|
||
<p>The breast of the woman is not only a symbol of love but also a source of life for her babies. Through the breast, she feeds life to her child. The breast is large and rounded, but in the center the nipple is a different color. This illustrates God’s dramatic character. He wanted to focus attention on that nipple, the central point. Perhaps you think this is a most amazing sermon you are hearing! When a man looks at a woman he naturally looks at her bosom – God made men that way and it is not bad. That is the most mysterious area to a man and his attention is naturally drawn to it. If a man has no such an urge or interest, that person is not really a man.</p>
|
||
<p>The mother’s milk is a creamy white color. Do you think that a black woman will produce black milk from her breasts? No, the black mother feeds her baby with white milk, just like every other woman. The contrast between dark skin and the creamy white milk is much more dramatic than the white woman whose white breast produces white milk. God is very artistic and romantic. He appreciates contrast in beauty.</p>
|
||
<p>We seem to have lost track of the time! The focal point of this morning’s message is that death shall be death no more. Death is simply the point when we are thrust into new life. Bo Hi Pak is getting white hair, so he is being given a sign from nature that his time for transformation is getting near! A person must seriously prepare his life for that one great transformation from the visible world to the invisible one.</p>
|
||
<p>When you are transformed from your visible body into your invisible one, do you think you will still need transportation like airplanes? Will you need the Columbia space shuttles to travel the universe? No, you will enjoy total freedom of movement. There are heavenly bodies all over the universe. Multitudes of vast galaxies abound, with thousands of light years between them. The universe can be compared to the human body. Each cell among the billions of cells is like one star. There is a sophisticated system of relationship between all your different cells.</p>
|
||
<p>The universe exists in interrelationship just as everything within the human body is interrelated. There must be some star made entirely of diamond. Can you travel there if you want to? There must be a star made of pure gold, too. There are billions and billions of stars in the universe, every kind you can imagine. They are all yours and you don’t even need any money to claim them. All you have to do is claim them with love. Love is the standard of value in spirit world.</p>
|
||
<p>However vast the universe might be, everything within it is moving toward that center of love. The center of love is God, so God has true dominion over all things in the universe. Each of you is the object of love to God so what God owns, you own. When we come to this realization, the position of Almighty King is the position of Almighty love. Once you have possession of that Almighty love you gain dominion over all things.</p>
|
||
<p>However cold and unresponsive a woman may be, once she is touched by Almighty love she will be immediately ignited. Every part of her starts to respond to that love: her eyes, nose, ears, everything. The human body is a small universe which is totally activated by the touch of Almighty love. When that happens, it makes the loudest sound in the universe. It is not an unpleasant sound, but rather a joyful, romantic sound. How wonderful that is!</p>
|
||
<p>In order to make 1983 a good year, you must begin with a good state of mind. That is where everything begins. To have a good year, you must become good men and women. What is a good man and a good woman? They are people who do not live only for themselves but for the sake of others. When you look at something, your eyes should not look selfishly but should have the desire to give your love. Suppose someone hates you. If you look at him only with love, he will eventually change. Do not look at an evil person with a dirty look. Instead look at him with extra compassion and love. True love has the capacity to digest all evil things. Love is power and energy.</p>
|
||
<p>You must begin to send out messages of love to those around you. That means you must change the way you look at things. Pull out the old vision and put in “new eyeballs,” with the vision of true love. Change your old nose into a new one, which can smell the worst smells with forgiveness and tolerance, giving back love. This new nose can only be fulfilled in that way. We can transform all the smells of the universe into the fragrance of love.</p>
|
||
<p>Practically speaking, you men and women who are willing and ready to go to senior citizens’ homes and take care of them, cleaning their bodies and replacing their bedpans, are exhibiting true love. When you were a baby your parents took care of you, changing your diapers and wiping you clean. They didn’t have any feelings of discomfort to do that for you. You should be able to take care of your grandparents in that manner. That is the beauty of give and take. It is the responsibility of young people to take care of the elderly.</p>
|
||
<p>Most American young people today are eager to leave home for very selfish reasons. They only want to gain their own freedom, their own “identity.” They should be willing to visit with their grandparents and take care of other elderly people. When young people start to have that attitude, a new kind of America will emerge. Your grandparents represent more of God’s image, so when you serve them you are serving God. Through them you can learn how to serve God because you can experience more of God’s love through them.</p>
|
||
<p>When the Unification society gains its sovereignty here on earth, you won’t have to do the things you are doing today, such as witnessing and fundraising. What will you do then? You will serve others. Young people will serve their elders.</p>
|
||
<p>The purpose of your five senses and all the organs of your body is for imparting true love to others. From this moment forward, you should train yourself to think in that way. When you talk, talk of love. Smell only love with your nose. Look at your eyes and mouth with the same viewpoint. All your senses must center upon giving love. Walk and speak for the sake of love. I believe that anyone who is totally functioning for the sake of love day in and day out will not have a susceptibility to disease because he will be surrounded by a shield of love. Even germs are susceptible to love and they don’t want to contaminate a completely loving person!</p>
|
||
<p>Everything and everybody will surrender to God because He is the essence of true love, imparting nothing else, so He cannot inspire dislike in anyone. Even the most irascible, closed person wants to be governed and dominated by true love. Love has the power to dominate everyone. You married women want to be embraced and hugged by your husbands so tightly that it almost hurts, don’t you? Certainly you are not stimulated by some formal, stiff touch. True love has the characteristic of domination.</p>
|
||
<p>A political dictator is usually known for using other people for his selfish purposes. Although love has power over you, you don’t consider it a dictator because it makes your life sweet and whole when it comes to you. Everybody desires to be ruled by a genuine dictator. The greatest dictator is God, but His power over us comes out of His true love. When your eyes are ruled by true love they are totally fulfilled.</p>
|
||
<p>It is not by power, wealth or knowledge that we truly dominate others. It is only by true love that we can conquer others. When true love is in action, conquering is not a bad thing. Men conquer women and women conquer men through the give and take of true love. Therefore, true love is totally concentrated control. You can even dominate God with true love because its power is so great. Everyone has within him this power of dictatorship. Without true love, dictatorship becomes an ugly, criminal thing. With true love, it is beautiful.</p>
|
||
<p>How can we determine if someone is living with true love? The person who lives totally unselfishly for the sake of others is the one who is living with true love. Consider the eye. Is it made for itself or for something else? The eye isn’t even made for the sake of the person. After all, your eye doesn’t look at you, but it looks at others. The only way it could be made for yourself is if it had a long antenna that stuck out and turned around to look at you! Your nose is not created for your sake, either. It is always smelling the world outside of you. Your ears are meant to hear others. Your mouth is meant to talk to someone else, not yourself.</p>
|
||
<p>Why are all the five senses dedicated to experiencing the world outside of yourself? It is because you must receive love coming from outside of you. Love comes from someplace other than yourself. Your senses are meant to receive that love.</p>
|
||
<p>All of God’s senses are also functioning for the sake of others and for experiencing His objective world. God himself exists for the sake of others, specifically people. People live for the sake of other people and God. This turning action of give and take has true love at its central point.</p>
|
||
<p>Everybody wants to receive true love but if we all just stand apart, demanding that others give love to us, nothing will happen. There must be a process of give and take. Who initiated the giving action first and is the subject? Between Cain and Abel, which we talk about a lot in the Unification Church, which one is supposed to initiate the giving? In many cases, people in our church have totally misunderstood what is right. Many leaders have had the attitude, “I’m Abel, so all you members should bring everything to me.” That is absolutely wrong. The Abel figure is the one who is supposed to initiate the giving action.</p>
|
||
<p>Particularly, the wife of a leader of the Unification Church should be one who gives first. She should have the attitude that she will carve out her own flesh to give to others. She should give far more than her husband. There is no room for such an attitude as, “You must serve me.” She must give everything of herself.</p>
|
||
<p>Everybody in the Unification Church bows and pays great respect to Reverend Moon, but that is not my interest. I am always ready to do anything which is necessary for the sake of the providence of God.</p>
|
||
<p>It is part of innate human nature to want to command others and also to be commanded by others. According to the principle of changing positions, the upper position goes to the lower and vice-versa. The right side will travel to the left. This kind of turning cannot happen based only upon force or power. Only through the realm of love is it possible.</p>
|
||
<p>Look at human life. When a child is young, his parents have control or dominion over him. When he is mature, the parents start to listen to him and even be controlled by him. You leaders who have been the “big shots” and giving out orders-I want to transform all of you into servants. How about that?</p>
|
||
<p>Everyone should be able to change positions freely, from higher to lower. That is the beauty of the give and take of love. The person who can adjust himself in any new environment, always changing positions and willing to work in lower as well as higher responsibilities, is truly a person of harmony.</p>
|
||
<p>The whole balance sheet of your life is determined by what portion of your life has been lived for the sake of others. When American wives go to the market and shop, do you buy your husband’s things first or your own first? I have been thinking that American women tend to spend almost all their money on themselves and if there is a little left over, then they spend it on their husbands. Is that true? You say no, but you must admit to having that tendency.</p>
|
||
<p>On the other hand, Oriental women will often spend money for their husbands and children without giving a thought to their own needs. That is generally the Oriental tradition. American men are being drawn to marry Oriental women rather than American women for this reason. The men can’t be blamed for this. It is natural. The responsibility rests on the shoulders of American women.</p>
|
||
<p>This nation is supposed to be a Christian nation, yet here is the land where such fads as “free sex” originated. Between men and women, men are born with the greater sense of dominion or need for power. The man is in the plus or subject position but the woman also has the potential or ability to take the plus position. However, when plus and plus come together they repel each other. The nature of a woman is basically objective, in the minus position. Women may claim their ability to take the plus position in all but one area: you cannot deny that your bodies, namely your sexual parts, must take the minus position. That is one case where you cannot take the role of plus.</p>
|
||
<p>Some women seek to satisfy their sexual needs but then go out and try to take the plus position in everything again. As soon as a man tries to take dominion over them, they immediately reject him. That has to change. I would like to see those American women who join the Unification Church igniting and leading the revolution here in America to make new American women.</p>
|
||
<p>Women who live for the sake of their husbands and children are living for the sake of others. That means you are also living for the sake of the society, the nation, and world. Such a woman is fulfilling the ideal which God envisioned. When you are living in such an unselfish manner, your husband will have to follow your example. He will have no alternative.</p>
|
||
<p>I have a responsibility to educate American women, particularly you blessed couples. You must come to the realization that you were born for the sake of others. Your own physical functions were designed in that manner. Likewise, men must not think to benefit themselves but to benefit others. There must be harmonized give and take which is totally unselfish between men and women. When that happens, it is most beautiful. That is true love. That is universal truth and there is no escaping it. You must follow universal law.</p>
|
||
<p>Once all of you inscribe what you have heard this morning on your hearts, you are guaranteed of having a good year. When you go through certain difficulties and dangers, it is not a completely bad thing because you are creating an exciting history. Danger always comes when you reach the pinnacle or the summit. As you go down, you gain momentum to climb up to the next pinnacle. The universe moves according to this law, so you should, too. Often people only want to go higher and higher, impatiently trying to jump from the top of one hill to the next.</p>
|
||
<p>When you are hiking and reach the top of one particular hill, you may have the urge to jump from one hill to another, but it is impossible. You must climb down to the bottom of that hill, into the valley, before you can climb up the other hill.</p>
|
||
<p>It is only the power of love which enables a person to move freely up and down, from the “high noon” of life to the lower point. As a couple, a man and woman can gain greater momentum when they start to go down after reaching the pinnacle of an experience. Even more momentum can be gained when your children join with you in this up and down movement.</p>
|
||
<p>Do you want to increase and prosper or decrease and decline? If you want to prosper, you must invest more and more in life. Is it good for a couple to have lots of children, or only one or two? What do parents normally feel? It is natural to want to have lots of children. Is that true even for you American women? Why do women in the secular world often use birth control and hesitate to bear children? Often it is because they simply don’t want to be burdened with children.</p>
|
||
<p>Think of it-I am leading people from all over the world, so do you think my life is very simple and I have plenty of time for myself? No, I must go through tremendous difficulty. According to ordinary preferences, nobody would volunteer to live such a life. I, myself, would not volunteer for such a life except for the power of love. Only the power of love enables me to live like this.</p>
|
||
<p>All of us can gather together at the top of the hill like a giant snowball which, when it rolls down, gains tremendous momentum. It is not going to be easy to turn the world around, so we need that kind of momentum and power. Many members think that when our movement becomes bigger we won’t have to go down at all, that we will just begin jumping from one summit to another. However, that will not be the case. We will always have to go down to the valleys in order to go up higher.</p>
|
||
<p>Every seven years, therefore, the Unification Church completes a kind of cycle. The leaders will become servants and the members will become leaders. This interchangeability is necessary. For seven years we go up, then for the next seven years we go down; then another seven years of going up completes twenty-one years. That is why 21 years in the Unification Church is an important figure. There is another reason why 1983 should be a good year. When you add together 1, 9, 8, and 3, they total 21.</p>
|
||
<p>We are saying today that we will overcome every difficulty, even death, and climb upward from there. Why do you think I constantly emphasize the importance of unconditional giving? When you are giving unconditionally, you will find a nucleus formed within yourself which is indestructible. What is that nucleus? As you strive to give of yourself, even to the point of death, you reach a supreme level of love and that is indestructible and unchangeable. That central resolve is your nucleus. Nothing can be higher than that. That nucleus has a direct vertical connection with God and eternity. Nothing can ever diminish it.</p>
|
||
<p>Women become pregnant in different circumstances. However, the most ideal way is when husband and wife are together experiencing the highest point of ecstasy in God’s Love. When a child is conceived under such circumstances, he will be a most brilliant one. Because of the fall of man the focus of love has been blurred and confused. For that reason, children are conceived without God being at their center. Therefore, brilliant children are almost never conceived. Only when the love of God is their source can such a thing happen.</p>
|
||
<p>Pregnancy occurs when invisible love becomes visible at the nucleus, center of life. You must give and give, more and more, so that you can reach that universal nucleus of love. As you give totally unselfishly and when a husband and wife are giving to each other with such a mind, you can hit that nucleus of love. You achieve every level of love: love for the nation, the world, all of humanity. In other words, that nucleus is the highest point, which encompasses all other points.</p>
|
||
<p>In American history, there must be that eternal nucleus point, that supreme demonstration of the love of country. That nucleus point cannot be focused on power, knowledge or wealth. Rather, it must be centered on totally altruistic love. That is the kind of nucleus America can develop. When you try to give more and more, that nucleus becomes stronger and stronger and will not diminish.</p>
|
||
<p>This is why horizontal people want to be united with unselfish, altruistic love. They want to make themselves into a bigger “ball” so that when they roll down into the valley, they can use their momentum to climb up higher and higher. Thus the greatest love is demonstrated through self-sacrifice.</p>
|
||
<p>Normally people try to figure things out pragmatically, saying, “Why can’t I devise a method that will benefit me first, as well as the greater cause?” That won’t work. Serving the greatest purpose is something that will remain for eternity. Serving one’s own purpose will not endure. There is a nucleus of the individual, but greater than that is the nucleus of the family, the society, the nation and the world.</p>
|
||
<p>What is your ultimate goal in hitting that nucleus? You want to unite with the almighty God. Thus you are making yourself a minus before Him. Your nucleus can have give and take with that of God and together you will create a brand-new nucleus. From that point on, the Kingdom of God on earth shall emerge.</p>
|
||
<p>After the realization of this truth, any person who continues to strive hard for his or her own sake is a foolish person, indeed. It is exemplifying a most unworthy, ungrateful attitude.</p>
|
||
<p>As we mentioned, the numerals of 1983 are added together to equal 21. 21 means the three cycles: one up, one down, then another climbing up. Anybody who only wants to stay at the highest level will be demolished. He will automatically have to go another seven years’ course downward. Generally, people who have a great responsibility and find it shifted to another person often feel resentful or offended. That is common human nature. However, we must remember that we are living for the altruistic goal, from the individual level all the way to the highest level. Always there is a greater purpose ahead of us: family is greater than the individual, society is greater than the family, etc. There is one altruistic way of life but there are greater and greater levels of living it.</p>
|
||
<p>I am going to announce revolutionary changes today in our leaders’ meeting. Anybody who goes down into a lower position and fulfills his responsibility well will eventually climb up again toward another pinnacle. Climbing up is not the only way to go. In the secular world, people only want to climb higher and higher but such an attitude is directing them to hell. In the Heavenly world, people strive to go down and down, assuming the lower position of service for the greater purpose. This is the year we will walk such a way. You must resolve not to think about receiving praise and honor. For the public purpose, think, “Father, I want to be treated harshly, criticized every day and burdened. That will be my routine for the whole year.”</p>
|
||
<p>In the Garden of Eden, God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat. Satan said, “Now, now, don’t listen to that commandment; it’s not true. Go ahead, eat all you want.” Adam and Eve received two different forms of advice. Whose side are you on now, God’s or Satan’s? You want to be on God’s side, isn’t that true? That means you must cross through Satan’s side.</p>
|
||
<p>What is the most basic characteristic of Satan? He always wants to do what God doesn’t like. Therefore, you must go completely opposite from whatever pleases Satan. Satan is always thinking of himself as the center of everything. He is also very proud. He will always try to eliminate anything that goes against his will. People who want to live an easy life and not work for what they get are being influenced by Satan. They must say, “Get behind me, Satan. I’m going to work hard and I don’t even care if I receive any reward for it!”</p>
|
||
<p>Satan wants to receive lots of praise and tribute. That means you must seek to receive more criticism and hardship. Satan always encourages you to desire good clothing and to be boastful about yourself. Therefore, you must turn the other way. A beautiful woman or handsome man might be encouraged by Satan to try to become a famous Broadway star. In order to go against him, you would have to seek a humble, meek life.</p>
|
||
<p>This morning I came in here a few minutes before six and the room was almost two-thirds empty. Why was that? People were listening to Satan saying, “You don’t have to go down to the Grand Ballroom so early. You can sleep thirty more minutes.” You did that, didn’t you? Satan is always whispering into your ears. The Heavenly way is to reject him 100% and turn exactly toward the opposite direction from where he is urging you to go.</p>
|
||
<p>My thinking is that whenever someone tells me “Father, I want to do this,” I advise them to do the exact opposite. If you think you want to do certain things, I will often give you the opposite direction. That is because when “you” want to do something, it is usually what Satan is suggesting to you. I spoke a total of eight hours yesterday and now I have spoken for three hours today. The normal advice I receive is, “Father, you don’t have to speak so much and work so hard.” Therefore, since that is the “normal” way, I do the exact opposite and speak longer and longer.</p>
|
||
<p>As I speak more and more and the time passes, it is very usual that the most important part of the message is contained within the last part of that speech. I am looking at the front one-third of this gathering and I feel that those who most intensely love me are usually seated here. One reason that is apparent is that those who are in the front never fall asleep, while in the rear area I sometimes see people actually snoring soundly. Today is January 2, so Satan must have sent some spies into this meeting to find out what Reverend Moon is planning to do this year. Those people will not be sitting right in front, close to me, but rather will be way in the back.</p>
|
||
<p>You should make your resolve for 1983: anything which your physical senses or organs push you to do, do the exact opposite. You women who feel a tremendous urge to experience the love of men should make the opposite resolve. Think, “I want to give my purest love to another woman, rather than a man.” That is not to say that I am trying to encourage homosexuality or lesbianism. I am speaking of the most altruistic love for each other.</p>
|
||
<p>This year, whatever your physical body may dictate that you do, you should do the opposite. You may have a tremendous urge to eat lots of good-tasting food; therefore, in order to go the opposite way you should eat humble, even tasteless food. Satan’s way is always to seek the seat of honor, the place of prestige. This year, when you feel the urge to take the important seat at some gathering, go instead and take the humblest possible seat.</p>
|
||
<p>Since you naturally desire to wear clean, fresh clothing, do you think I am saying that you should wear only dirty, unwashed clothes? Not necessarily, but before you dress yourself with fresh, clean clothes, prepare someone else’s clothes so that they are clean and nice. Be sure your husband’s clothes are clean before your own. Then you can make effort to clean your own.</p>
|
||
<p>A good year is our goal but we must remember that our environment is satanic. Therefore, whatever this world encourages you to do, you should do the exact opposite. Those of you who really like Home Church, please raise your hands. Actually, Home Church is not a pleasant thing. Nobody really enjoys it. From the satanic point of view, Home Church is the worst thing. Also, within the Unification Church, it is the toughest job.</p>
|
||
<p>Many people say, “The Unification Church is very good. However, I don’t like fundraising, and I don’t like witnessing, and I certainly don’t like Home Church!” Many members say, “I like Father!” but in the next breath they say, “But Father’s words are not so great to me.” Everybody wishes that I would just content myself with teaching the Divine Principle and not push them to do fundraising and witnessing and encourage you to sleep a little longer every day. Then, you think I would be just a wonderful, perfect Father!</p>
|
||
<p>However what kind of a Father am I, truly? You have never heard throughout your time in the Unification Church that I told you, “Go off and take a rest.” The secular world has the decency of giving you at least a few days off now and then, but you can say, “I have been in the Unification Church for ten years and Father has never given me even one day off!” Look at my own life. Not for just ten years, but for my entire life of more than sixty years, I have never taken even one day “off.”</p>
|
||
<p>On ceremonial occasions, I wear a dress suit and tie, but as soon as I return to regular daily wear, I am back in an inexpensive suit and shirt, with no tie. I do not like to look well-dressed. I prefer to look humble and unassuming. Many men and women, once they are in the privacy of their own homes, take off almost all their clothes in order to relax. But even within my own home, I have never in my life gone around in an indecent manner. The home is God’s temple. We want to make a good year out of 1983 and you have received some very practical advice from me so far. Now you know that you are susceptible to the satanic world and close to that realm.</p>
|
||
<p>According to the Oriental way of thinking, when it is hot outside the best thing to drink is something hot. In cold weather, drink something cold. Hot can be counteracted with hot, cold with cold. Normally in this culture people try to drink something cold on hot days. Your body may be asking for something cold but instead you should give it something hot. When you sleep in a chilly room in cold weather, your body will normally be healthier than if you sleep in a warm or hot room. When do you catch a cold? Usually it is when you abruptly change from a hot house to the cold outdoors. Abrupt change in temperature will bring disharmony and disease to your body. You have to go opposite from your bodily desires.</p>
|
||
<p>Are you confident to make 1983 a good year? That means those who are fond of sleeping long hours should deny themselves that pleasure. Those who have never wanted to go fundraising should see this as the year to go fundraising. You women who enjoy wearing jewelry should take off your rings and earrings and go plain. Women normally enjoy looking at themselves in mirrors. Why don’t you make a resolve for this year: “I will not sit even once in front of the mirror in 1983.”? If you like to wear colorful dresses of yellow and red and so forth, why not resolve that this year you will wear only gray and black?</p>
|
||
<p>Someone who is very fond of soft, hot breads should determine that he will eat only cold, tough bread. Most Americans love to eat steak, really thick and tasty. Why don’t you resolve to eat thin, tough steak throughout this year? Do the exact opposite from what your body likes.</p>
|
||
<p>Many people seem to be unable to smile. The person who never smiles should kick out the satanic influence and learn to smile broadly from ear to ear. I have done many exercises like that in my life. When I was a young man, I was very sensitive and enjoyed seeing movies and theater productions. Knowing how vulnerable I was to being affected by such things, I resolved that I would not see movies any more. In order to make my resolve very dramatic, I first went to movies for several days in a row, all day long, sometimes watching one movie five times. Then I cut myself off entirely from movies.</p>
|
||
<p>If you decide to stop eating your favorite kind of bread, first buy a big basketful of that bread and eat the whole thing! You will feel so full you will be in pain! When you are stuffed like that, you are unable to move freely. Compare that feeling with the one you get when you are empty and hungry. You will find that being hungry is preferable because you can at least move! You need to experience both extremes of living.</p>
|
||
<p>This year we must go opposite from the way Satan is leading. Without doing that, we cannot create a good year. You Americans, do you love your parents and your grandparents? How do you feel about the smell that very old grandparents sometimes give off? It is not so pleasant. You know your own mind. You like certain things and you dislike others. It is important that you have good friends. Friends affect your love. You need friends and you need a good leader. Knowing your own weaknesses, you should seek out friends who can advise you well and a leader who will give you correct guidance.</p>
|
||
<p>In the Bible, Jesus says, “He who seeks to gain his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” Why should that be? Jesus understood precisely how the satanic world functions. Reverend Moon is also living among the satanic surroundings and Satan is always trying to invade or occupy Reverend Moon.</p>
|
||
<p>Normally men want to possess and control others, rather than being controlled. Also people want to be prosperous and have dignity and status in society. Therefore, we must go the opposite direction and humble ourselves. You should be doing things for the sake of the world, nothing less than that. Resurrection is only possible when you go the exactly opposite way from Satan. Instead of living, you should die-die well for the sake of the resurrection. Each day is part of the dying process, in a way.</p>
|
||
<p>Normally nobody wants to go through suffering and death; therefore, God provides you with added impetus: persecution. Because of persecution from others, you are put into a position in which you really have no choice but to suffer and be willing to die.</p>
|
||
<p>When you face your persecutors you may feel you need to respond to them in an aggressive way. Far greater is the attitude of willingly looking forward to that persecution and suffering. In other words, when you receive the suffering voluntarily you are not only paying indemnity but also moving forward and making progress for Heaven. Thus there are two ways of receiving persecution. One way is to receive it entirely passively, or the other way is to voluntarily reach out for that persecution and suffering.</p>
|
||
<p>If Reverend Moon had stayed in Korea, he would be comfortable today. Nobody would be bothering me or persecuting me now. However, I came to the United States voluntarily, inviting the persecution which lay in wait for me. My own body says to me, “Why do you put yourself into such uncomfortable and painful situations?” However, my mind simply rules out the desires of my body and continues to seek out the difficulties. Because I voluntarily go this way, there is always progress and achievement.</p>
|
||
<p>Perhaps after ten years here I should be ready to settle down in America. However, my goal is not here but Moscow. I am asking for trouble, in a way. But I know I will not be destroyed in this way; rather, I will gain many achievements for Heaven. Unless I went this way, Satan and his forces would surround me.</p>
|
||
<p>The Unification Church doesn’t spend its money for the sake of itself. Our church is actually very poor, yet we spend a lot of money for interfaith, inter-religious work. I will never ask you to do your best for the sake of the Unification Church. Rather, I will ask you to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the country and the world. When you serve those larger entities, the Unification Church automatically receives the blessing.</p>
|
||
<p>This current court battle is not something I enjoy; nobody enjoys going to court. However, I willingly returned to this country and never thought of dodging the situation. I determined to play the most active role in that particular drama. No matter what, I will go on. I will continue until communism is completely subjugated. My life is truly dramatic and extraordinary.</p>
|
||
<p>Two sets of spectators surround me-Heaven’s spectators and Satan’s spectators. From the viewpoints of both sides, Reverend Moon’s drama in life is very exciting. I have been chosen as the leading actor in this Heavenly drama. When my acting is very good, Satan is very displeased but God is very happy. How wonderful that is!</p>
|
||
<p>Your way of life should not be to just pay indemnity passively. Once you have made up your mind to voluntarily travel the road of tribulation asking for difficulties, the greatest indemnity condition is accomplished! All that is left is for you to receive a blessing. All the tribulation will become the means of your receiving more and more blessing.</p>
|
||
<p>All you leaders, do you do your prayer at five o’clock in the morning? You probably hate to get up so early every morning, but still you do it. Since your body hates it, you know that it is good to do. You have to know the taste of prayer and prefer it to your body’s desires. You should be longing for that hour of prayer. In prayer, you can feel the taste of the presence of God. Then when you go out to work, you can maintain that sense of God’s presence. The world may be treating you very harshly, but when you have that feeling of God’s presence and you are going the opposite way from what Satan wants, that is the best way of life. Nothing is better.</p>
|
||
<p>Why do you have to go the opposite way from what your body desires? That is the way of eliminating all the indemnity conditions. Once you have made up your mind to live your entire life that way, you won’t have any other requirements to meet. Satan can oppose you or welcome you-it won’t matter to you, because your own mind is already made up.</p>
|
||
<p>Elder leaders of the church come to East Garden from all over the world. They may be invited to breakfast with Mother and me and then stay all day long. When midnight comes, even though they don’t say it, I know they are wishing I would go upstairs and sleep so they can retire too. I see them sneaking looks at their watches. Last night after the God’s Day performances, I attended a leader’s conference; it was very late and I could read the minds of those leaders. They were strongly wishing I would retire for the night. That is the way I live my entire life-anything I do, I don’t want to be behind anyone else. Even if I am climbing a mountain, I want to get to the top first. I want to be the one to take the toughest, most difficult path.</p>
|
||
<p>I think exactly the opposite from the world’s way.</p>
|
||
<p>Sometimes I travel around the country and I see different sights. I might sit right down on a dirty bench somewhere; other people would try to clean it off, but I just sit right down. When Koreans give a banquet, unlike the American way they just serve everything in the center of the table for everyone to take from. If I see a particularly delicious item and one that is quite untasty, I will put my plate in front of the untasty one and resist the delicious one so that everyone else can enjoy it. Whenever I visit with a friend and stay overnight, I will ask my friends to wear my good clothing while I wear my older clothes. I want others to enjoy better things than 1. I forget about the gifts I make to others, while those who receive don’t forget.</p>
|
||
<p>Do you think I wear expensive shoes? I am wearing well-made shoes, but the only reason I bought them was that they were on sale-for only $29. I had a pair of shoes which I wore for over three years and I still didn’t want to get new ones. Those old shoes were ragged and worn, so Mother or somebody in the house hid them from me. Therefore, I was forced to wear these new shoes this morning. I often wear old worn-out clothing over and over again. Mother is very busy, hiding things like that from me.</p>
|
||
<p>I know that somebody at East Garden has the job of doing the laundry and she is working very hard for the family. I don’t like to give her too big a burden. I don’t mind wearing a shirt for three days, or even one week. Those people who are serving Mother and me at East Garden don’t want to work anywhere else. They want to stay there because they feel the warmth of the love coming from True Parents. I never worry about small things or chastise anyone for something petty. Sometimes a sister in the kitchen will drop and break a dish and she will feel terribly sorry. In order to alleviate her suffering, I will just ignore the event and look in the other direction. If I looked at her, she would feel much worse.</p>
|
||
<p>The satanic world sees things from the opposite viewpoint. They are always trying to find a reason to criticize others. We are living in the midst of a world which is ruled by selfishness, therefore we must protect ourselves from any encroachment by Satan. When you married couples meet with each other, your love is sweet like honey. However, since you have a mission you sometimes have to be tough with your desires to be together and harsh with yourself. Mother knows I am capable of being cruel, in a way, in terms of our relationship. Although I am very warm and loving, when it necessary for me to be separate from her I refuse to compromise at all. I just draw the line and nothing will make me cross it.</p>
|
||
<p>The only way to survive in the satanic world is by going the Heavenly way. I go a way which is very clear-cut and absolute in its reversal of the satanic standard. Every moment of the day I am aware that the satanic world is around me. Do you understand this now?</p>
|
||
<p>Once you have made up your mind to voluntarily take up the cross of suffering and go the opposite way from the world, your indemnity conditions are fulfilled. A long time ago I announced the Home Church crusade and told you it was your road of tribal messiah. However, virtually no one wants to go to Home Church. Why is that? It is because there are many evil spirits, particularly evil ancestors of people in the area, who go to the area and wait for you and give you a hard time. Those enemy ancestors do not want to see you succeed; they see you as the offspring of God, who is their enemy. However, good ancestors also come down and help you to make the offspring of those evil ancestors your spiritual children.</p>
|
||
<p>Evil spirit world is the true source of the persecution and difficulty you encounter in your Home Church area. Therefore, if you refuse to retreat in the face of persecution but instead fight against it and bring victory over it, your reward and benefit will also be transferred to your good ancestors.</p>
|
||
<p>Because I have an international foundation and am well-known around the world, once people accept your teaching and believe that Reverend Moon is a good man, you have won a total victory. That is because you are carrying with you the worldwide foundation of victory which I have already achieved. The only people who will consistently oppose you will be the communists because they are the only ones who have special motivation to do so. Once your Home Church people realize this, they will support you and oppose the communists’ attempt to stop you.</p>
|
||
<p>No matter what, you must make one showdown, one true confrontation with Satan. Without that you will never succeed. Is the heart you put into your Home Church work stronger than that which you put into your studies? Is it more than you do at your job? You should chase after the Home Church work even more strongly than you pursue your own lover. Anything less than that standard will be a condition for Satan to infiltrate.</p>
|
||
<p>You must have a strong, anxious desire to do Home Church. Perhaps you have very little time because you must earn your own living and take care of many other things. If you pray earnestly for God to accept even one hour of work in your area and you do it with great sincerity, God will look at it as twenty-four hours of work. Many people put their outside jobs first and Home Church second, but that is not acceptable in Unification Church. When you are prevented from working in your area because of your mission in the church, that is unavoidable; but when you are trying to earn a lot of money in an outside job and cannot do your Home Church work, that is not acceptable.</p>
|
||
<p>Home Church is the place for you to meet God and love Him. Therefore, it is most logical for you to work in Home Church more than you spend time on school work, on your job, or for your own lover. If the intensity of your love for Home Church is at that level, God’s protection will be added to you and Satan will have no way to infiltrate.</p>
|
||
<p>When I first open my eyes each morning, I think about God’s providence. There is no moment, even during my sleep, when I am not thinking and concentrating upon the providence. That is the way my life has been conducted. That is why God has blessed everything I have done. Sometimes when I have a seemingly impossible task from God, I feel it may take a longer time but I put my whole heart in it. I want you to understand that God cannot bless you and your work until you demonstrate a higher standard than any satanic standard.</p>
|
||
<p>Jesus said clearly that people had to love him, the Christ, more than they loved their own spouse, parents, children, etc. Otherwise they were not worthy of him. You have no idea how impenetrable the indemnity barriers are and how difficult they are to dissolve. For six thousand Biblical years, God has been working to restore one single person, one pure Adam. Think of it. If I can restore during my lifetime one Eve, children, and all mankind, what a great accomplishment that will be in the sight of God and history. This is not just theory I am speaking about-it is reality. I have broken down that incredible indemnity barrier and created an altar before God.</p>
|
||
<p>In the United States, everyone will be able to welcome Reverend Moon on the foundation of the Home Church tribal messiah. On that foundation, the national messiah will emerge. When that foundation is accomplished, the worldwide messiah will emerge. Jesus Christ came as the messiah but his fulfillment was thwarted even on the level of family, thus the higher levels were out of the question. The position you are inheriting-to become a tribal messiah-is greater than the level which was anticipated by the 4,000 year history of Judaism.</p>
|
||
<p>By receiving the position of tribal messiah, you are automatically receiving the right to exceed the accomplishments at the time of Jesus. The victory of the tribal messiah is the equivalent of the victory over Rome two thousand years ago. After that victory you can claim the victory over the entire world, including the communist world. This is why I can immediately set the goal of the Moscow Rally. Therefore, your victory in the Home Church as the tribal messiah is necessary; without that, we cannot move forward.</p>
|
||
<p>Upon that foundation the national messiah will come. Then the worldwide messiah can come. The tribal messiah is the formation stage, the national messiah is the growth stage, and the worldwide messiah is perfection. In order to inherit the tradition of messiahship you must begin at the tribal level which is the ground level. It is an incredible privilege and honor. This is the time for which many millions of martyrs and religious people and saints shed their blood.</p>
|
||
<p>In today’s world communism is the largest and worst form of Satan’s power. From the communists’ point of view, who is the most formidable adversary-traditional Christianity or the Unification Church? Certainly it is the Unification Church. In a few decades the church has come up to this level of direct confrontation with the communistic world. World Christianity and other religions will be following the good leadership of the Unification Church.</p>
|
||
<p>The spirit world consists of hell and Heaven. Since communism is hell’s representative on earth and we are battling it, we will be elevated to the very forefront of the Kingdom of Heaven, once we go to spirit world. At the fore-forefront of Heaven, God is residing. Therefore, the way of the Unification Church represents the best possible goodness; communism represents the worst possible degree of evil.</p>
|
||
<p>Reverend Moon came this far in twenty years’ time. Think about the advances we will make in the next twenty years! In twenty years of progress, we will be able to achieve greater things than anyone in history. Already great things are happening in South America. Heads of state are trying to entice me to visit their countries-they know I can bring good influence to those countries. When I have worked for only one year in such a situation of positivity, our accomplishment will be unparalleled.</p>
|
||
<p>When I hold rallies and meetings, heads of state will attend. The press will see the value and cheer what we are doing. Think about such a dramatically different situation. Each day, whole nations could turn toward Unificationism. There are twenty-six nations in South and Central America, If Reverend Moon is invited to hold rallies and influence people there, the whole continent will be changed. When all of South America is solidly united behind me, I will proclaim to North America, “Well, Uncle Sam, do you still call me ‘the controversial Reverend Moon?”</p>
|
||
<p>Many people want to come to the United States but the U.S. embassies in most countries are very reluctant to issue visas. People in South America wait in long lines for visas. However, the time will come when Moonies will proclaim, “Open the doors between North and South America. We should be one country, one continent, not two.” The time will come when, since Reverend Moon will be in South America and there will be so many Moonies here in the U. S., there will be a tremendous crush to go from North to South America-opposite from what it is now! People will be lined up to get out of the United States so they can see Reverend Moon! As long as this country opposes Reverend Moon, there can be no benefit here at all.</p>
|
||
<p>I feel completely confident that North and South America will follow God’s direction. Someone might say, “In what capacity do you say these things, Reverend Moon? What is your foundation?” My answer is, “Just wait and see. The trend of history will bear this out. What I am saying will come to pass.”</p>
|
||
<p>Under incredible adversity during the past ten years, our movement has laid this strong foundation. The United States will eventually have no power in their opposition.</p>
|
||
<p>America has no reason to be fearful of Reverend Moon. They only need to heed my advice-if they would listen to what I am saying, they would no longer be fearful. I can offer America a way of educating the public to become God-centered men and women, armed with an ideology which would totally uproot the power of communism. Instead, the U.S. has been trying to destroy Reverend Moon in a very cheap way; they have dragged me into the courtroom, thinking they could stop and destroy me in that way. They can never send me to hell; the destiny of hell is never decided by the U. S. government. God is the one who decides who goes to hell; therefore, I have nothing to fear and no reason to retreat. I came here for a straightforward confrontation.</p>
|
||
<p>Perhaps you American women feel I speak too harshly to you sometimes. Nevertheless, you like to hear a man of guts and conviction, based upon God. I’m sure my words are often unpleasant to your ears, but I speak the truth.</p>
|
||
<p>The most formidable group in the world are the Moonies, without question. I have unquestionable power, but it is not from Satan; rather, I am working for God and goodness. Therefore, my entire method and strategy is a peaceful one.</p>
|
||
<p>I have been receiving direct persecution from the United States for ten years. Now the time has come when you Americans must vindicate me. 1983 is the year to do it! The place for that vindication is Home Church. By that, I am not talking about destruction or violence. I am talking about saving America, restoring this nation. Our only form of revenge will be to return love for the hate we have received. I came to America totally on my volition and endured the persecution for ten years. Now you American citizens must march voluntarily toward the Home Church providence and win the vindication for the sake of this world, vindication of the name of Reverend Moon.</p>
|
||
<p>The forces of evil have tried to harass you all the time with methods such as leafleting and so forth. Why shouldn’t you adopt similar methods, only with good intentions. Why can’t you wake up the people to God’s providence and direction? If this cannot be done successfully, I will be forced to pull all the members of the church from their missions, including the newspapers, and mobilize them to do nothing but Home Church.</p>
|
||
<p>This is the year for you to make your victory in Home Church. Make your showdown this year. From that point on, new leaders of this nation will emerge. When your Home Church area responds favorably, you can bind together with ten other areas and elect your own congressman. As you become larger and larger in your influence, you will be able to elect a God-centered good leader for senator or governor, for city councilmen and state senators. Is there some part of the Constitution that says that because you are members of the Unification Church, you will be deprived of the rights of the Constitution and that you cannot run for public office? Can you not become the president of the US or a congressman because you are a Moonie? That is not the law of the land.</p>
|
||
<p>The leaders of the Unification Church are not prohibited by the Constitution from becoming leaders of the Republican or Democratic parties. You know that Reverend Moon came here in order to give education to the president of the U. S. You members of the church will be in the position to educate senators, congressmen, mayors, government officials. What is wrong with that? Right now, those people are not listening to me so I have had to make my own foundation to achieve the same goal. Therefore, I have been organizing people from different professions such as lawyers, scholars and theologians, scientists, and the media. At this time, we could assemble top grade leadership from those organizations such as the Professors World Peace Academy and offer excellent leaders for this nation. We are not looking at this from a “political” viewpoint; this is the way God is looking at this nation and the world. God wants to see certain things happen in this country.</p>
|
||
<p>As you know, the power of communism is organized under the International Communist Party. However, the free world does not have any such thing to match this atheistic organization. Therefore, all the religious people of the free world, including the Pope, should be brought together for this purpose. That is the reason all religious forces must be mobilized. Right now in Florida, many theologians and philosophers are gathering at the Conference on God to discuss this idea. All famous scholars and theologians must be brought together in unity under one system. In order to hasten the day of true peace, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, we must mobilize all religious organizations into one common alliance. In that way we can confront the power of international communism. No other force in the free world has the power to do that.</p>
|
||
<p>I have a plan and method of fulfillment of that plan. Through the mobilization of righteous religious people, this nation can be restored to political righteousness. You women whose husbands get elected to the senate or congress or precedent could even become the First Lady of the nation. Who ever said it couldn’t be done? That kind of event is not so far off.</p>
|
||
<p>The time will come when all the smallest minorities will become important in this country. I have created all kinds of organizations in this country, but there is only one for which I have set aside an endowment fund: the Minority Alliance International, for which I allocated $2 million. Without the mediation of Reverend Moon, there can be no permanent healing of the rift between white and black people. Unificationism is the only power with a universal ideology and way of life. You must have that kind of consciousness, that Moonie consciousness.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore, in the fight against communism nobody else but us will be the front line forces. 1983 is the very year in which we shall proclaim that war, and we shall win the victory. I have a plan to take care of drug addicts. Through the CARP movement we can teach martial arts to students, which is an excellent form of discipline and a way of cleaning up the moral climate of the campuses. That kind of thing is very good for America. By doing all these good activities in 1983, it will be a very good year for America.</p>
|
||
<p>At this time, since the municipal police forces are too small to fight the wave of crime in this country, every Home Church area has the capacity to organize its own voluntary police forces. Moonies are becoming part of those voluntary police forces. That is good for you to do. Because you will work the hardest and give yourselves the most, you will set the standard for the police forces. We will cleanse them in such a way.</p>
|
||
<p>What kind of a member of the Unification Church do you want to be? One who only believes in the Principle, or one who can also actively bring results? The Kingdom of Heaven on earth can only emerge by the actions of believers, not by belief only. Go ahead and expand your influence of goodness as wide as you can. Once your foundation of self-discipline is strong, there is no need for Reverend Moon to be here in America. However, some United States officials believe that if they can kick Reverend Moon out of here, they will eliminate their “problems” because of him. However, they are already too late for that.</p>
|
||
<p>If you have been only a believing member of the Unification Church, you must begin from now on to be an action member. Another job needs to be done, that of cleansing and eliminating the prostitution districts in New York City. Why is Reverend Moon thinking about these things? It is for just one reason: to save America. Actually, what does Reverend Moon owe to America? I could be praying for revenge against this nation, but every day my prayer is how to save it.</p>
|
||
<p>I instructed the Japanese members to learn martial arts very well. Wherever there was a V.O.C. gathering or meeting, the communists would try to destroy it. However, since our members were experts in martial arts, the communists would be unable to stop our rallies. Even the thinnest, shortest members could knock out bigger, stronger communists. Therefore, the campuses were taken out of the hands of the communists and CARP gained tremendous influence in one campus after another.</p>
|
||
<p>The communists in Japan were defeated by Reverend Moon, so they wanted to gain revenge. They spread the reputation of Reverend Moon as a “dictator,” “brainwasher” etc. That kind of terminology was created by the communists in order to launch a character assassination against me. The American media just gobbled up that kind of terminology. That has been going on here for ten years.</p>
|
||
<p>My conviction was to have no fear in waging this battle. As long as truth is on our side, we shall prevail over the lies of communism. All lies will eventually be shattered by the truth. The media has thought they could destroy Reverend Moon by using their “smoke screen” method and spreading lies about me but after ten years what are they saying? They are having to admit that all their efforts have only made Reverend Moon famous in this country! Their problem is that Reverend Moon has consistently spoken the truth, even though they don’t like to hear it. Furthermore, the predictions I have made have come to pass. That is a big problem for the media and the U.S. government.</p>
|
||
<p>Now Reverend Moon has inspired the founding of the <i>Washington Times. </i>Until this time the conservatives in Washington had no voice. When we initially tried to create a new newspaper, everybody said it was impossible and many groups organized to try to stop the efforts of Reverend Moon. Now, though, look what has happened there. Those formerly negative conservative groups are calling it “our” paper now, “our” <i>Washington Times.</i></p>
|
||
<p>The Reagan administration looks upon the <i>Washington Times</i> as a great ally. It is a favored newspaper. Reagan gave the paper an interview, as did several members of the Cabinet and high government officials. Why? It is not because they like Reverend Moon. Rather, it is because they know they need the <i>Washington Times. </i>Even though many American leaders do not like me personally, they like the <i>Washington Times.</i> This is ironic.</p>
|
||
<p>Those people who act in deeds rather than just talk shall be the ones who gain the victory. I want to see those victors. Do you want to become such victors? Will you be people of action from now on? We are like soldiers going into the front line of the battle, not for the sake of ourselves or even for the sake of America, but for the sake of the world.</p>
|
||
<p>As you know, the Unification Church is the greatest adversary of communism. Therefore, anyone who tries to destroy Reverend Moon, for example, the U.S. government, is actually aiding communism. However, soon all these groups will understand the truth and the truth shall make them free.</p>
|
||
<p>Home Church is the first, and the last, battleground for the victory of God. The Home Church providence was launched by me, a person with very thin, small eyes. However, these small eyes will continue to watch until they see the victory in the Home Church providence. Actually, the battle of the Unification Church is finished. Why do I say that? It is because you Moonies are capable of digesting America but America is incapable of digesting you. Also, the Moonies can digest communism but communism has no power to digest the Moonies. Therefore, the real showdown has been won. It is simply a matter of growing ourselves and expanding more and more. Don’t you want to join in this battle in which the victory is truly guaranteed?</p>
|
||
<p>All you need to do here in America is resurrect the name of Reverend Moon. Suppose we mobilized 1,000 members for Home Church; each member will have 360 homes. That will mean 360,000 homes will be included. Suppose each home will hold four people. That means 1,440,000 people will be included within the Home Church areas. They can also mobilize their relatives and friends and at least 3,000,000 people will be included-that could be done in the New York area alone. These people can unite under one common belief: that they need Reverend Moon here in America. These people could therefore resurrect the name of Reverend Moon. The mayor of New York would have to be approved by these people in order to get elected.</p>
|
||
<p>I have no personal interest in American government; however, I want to see you American citizens elected to leadership positions in this country. What is wrong with that? You are entitled to that right by the Constitution.</p>
|
||
<p>All the court entanglements will soon be over. Even if I have to go to jail for a period of time, I am thinking that it will be a very exciting period. All the Moonies will come there to visit me; every morning you will hold a prayer service and demonstrate to be allowed to see me. You will line up for blocks to see me. You will want to write in your diary, “Father was suffering in jail and I went to visit him on this day.” That will be an historical occasion. Not only the Moonies will want to come but you will also bring your parents there, telling them that they must apologize to Reverend Moon.</p>
|
||
<p>If I go to jail, will the Professors World Peace Academy be suspended? No, the heads of all the chapters in fifty countries will come to the jail to meet with me and receive direction. Also, if I call for the chairmen of the Science Conference to come to meet with me, they would come too. At that time, the media would be watching to see who visits Reverend Moon; they would attach a permanent reporter at the front gate of the jail. All those prominent theologians from the Conference on God might be called to meet with me. Would they come?</p>
|
||
<p>We want to be successful within the New York City area. Through the Home Church system we shall achieve our success. Reverend Moon is certainly not a passive religious leader; I am an activist, in a way. I am teaching action, not just belief.</p>
|
||
<p>When we won the victory in the New York Supreme Court which entitled us to tax exemption here, the judge stated that although people criticize the Unification Church as a political or a business organization, he saw after digging down to the bottom that all those activities have been motivated out of a deep and supreme religious conviction. Therefore, they are part of our religious activities. Thus the church is entitled to the same tax exemption as any other church.</p>
|
||
<p>Actually, the Unification Church has no intention to meddle into politics but we have the desire to educate people in every field so that they can become God-centered people of righteousness and nobility. What is wrong with that? The Home Church providence itself is basically an educational activity. We want to stop immorality and educate people into God-centeredness and push them into leadership roles. In that way new leadership will be created for this country. The Unification Church is an organization of “exercise”-no one can just stand still; either you run or jump or do something active.</p>
|
||
<p>From now on, you must take on some type of exercise-some type of action. When will you do that? When Unification members are following my instruction to the precise letter, I know the end result of 1983 will be one of goodness. When December comes, we will be able to say, “It was truly a good year.”</p>
|
||
<p>My great dream is to educate someone to become a truly God-centered president of this country. Do you think American people would welcome such a goal? Those really caring, patriotic Americans will petition me, saying, “You are the only one to correctly educate the leaders of this country.” Imagine if the U.S. president were here and smiling from ear to ear as he listens to this sermon, how would God feel? Wouldn’t God be pleased to see such an event? Suppose all the senators from the fifty states came here and sat in one block, listening for a six hour sermon and forgetting themselves. Would God take delight to look upon such a scene?</p>
|
||
<p>When you women dream of an ideal husband, would you look for someone like me? What can you do about that? There is only one of me and there are 1.5 billion women in the world. There is only one way-you women put your husbands under my care and I will train them and remold and shape them into someone like me and then return them to you. How do you like that? Would you leave your husband in my hands? Or would you try to whisper your own opinions into his ears? Those who would want to leave your husbands in my hands, please raise your hands now. Even you married women? You men heard what I have said-your wives have given you to me. I want to make you into replicas of me, since your wives want it, God wants it, and the world needs it. How about that?</p>
|
||
<p>Revolutionary changes will come during 1983. I am truly going to start a new year. Now, it is the men’s turn: what will you say if I chastise you hard when you fail to live up to my expectations and continue to do things your own way? Would you accept my chastisement? With the American way of doing things, it might take ten years for victory, while with my way it will take only one year. We don’t have much time. This new year is a year of action.</p>
|
||
<p>Even though I have been doing my absolute best and have persevered through many ordeals, if I do not live up to God’s expectations I too will be cut off from God’s blessing. That is the kind of judgment we are all facing. 1983, in particular, is such a crucial year. Many things are geared up for their consummation in this year. The tensions between East and West, particularly Soviet Russia and the United States, have come to a crucial point now. Russia has been ahead of the U.S. militarily for several years; now President Reagan is trying to close that gap. However, some liberal politicians and media forces have been trying to stop him.</p>
|
||
<p>From the Heavenly point of view, the greatest battle in this country is that between the U.S. government and Reverend Moon. The government and the media have come together and tried to push Reverend Moon into an isolated little corner. Now, however, the battle has shifted. The government and the media are not as united as before. Reverend Moon is gaining the support of some media people; also support has come from the religious community now.</p>
|
||
<p>This year which adds up numerically to 21 will be the year in which Reverend Moon will stretch out his wings and fly. “Let this be a good year”-that is a prayerful statement but it also means that we are going to make this a good year ourselves. Undoubtedly Reverend Moon is a famous person. During 1982, I shocked the entire world with the two mass weddings. What shall we do in 1983? I would like to make this year unforgettable by organizing a Home Church demonstration-by creating victory in Home Church. Do you think we could have a rally at Central Park for 500,000 people? We could do that easily, particularly with the work of the Minority Alliance International and our Home Church work. Let us harbor an absolute hope for victory.</p>
|
||
<p>Those of you who would like to become publishers of newspapers in the future, please raise your hands. You are pretty greedy! Do you want to create a company from scratch, or are you waiting for me to give you a company so you can just sit in your comfortable armchair? If you want to create your own newspaper company, you will need much, much money! That is not so easy. Do you want such a difficult job? It is easy to say yes, but doing it is different.</p>
|
||
<p>Why do you think I make things so complicated here in America-why do I bring over Koreans and Japanese elders? Wouldn’t it be much simpler if I just picked American leaders to do everything here? I cannot use only American leaders, even though it would be most convenient for the members. Actually we have created a club of enemies-Korea and Japan were bitter enemies of each other. Japan and the U.S. fought a war against each other and the U. S. and Germany fought two wars. Do you look upon each other with those facts in mind? Think about why I do such seemingly impossible things-why should I bring together all these enemy countries and try to harmonize them? There are incredible cultural and language barriers between them. Why do I do it?</p>
|
||
<p>God uses Cain’s position as much as Abel’s in history. There must be a victorious foundation on Cain’s side, as well as Abel’s. God always sacrifices Abel for the sake of Cain. Therefore, we must love our enemies. In the last days, before the completion of the restoration, God is using enemy territories, enemy countries in which to lay the foundation to restore His own country. Therefore, in order to bring all the enemy countries together, only the United States is eligible to do this. Korea could not achieve such a thing. If we tried to bring Japanese together with Koreans in Korea, I know many bitter Koreans would kill the Japanese. Also, if we tried to bring together everyone in Japan it would be impossible. That is why God prepared this “melting pot” nation for the last days, where all colors of skin and nationalities have come together.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore all the different leaders such as Korean, Japanese and American have come together here for the purpose of achieving true unity. Korea is in the Adam position providentially, Japan in the Eve position and America in the Archangel position. Who made those positions? God did not create them; they came into being through the activity of the providence. In order to fulfill this restoration drama, certain countries took certain roles.</p>
|
||
<p>There is only one Adam and Eve, but there is the Heavenly archangel position and the satanic one. The archangel country must love the Eve and Adam country, otherwise restoration cannot occur. Here in America, there is no real master or leader. The central position of this</p>
|
||
<p>country can go to anyone; anyone who is born here can become the president regardless of his ancestry. The Adam and Eve countries are ones of homogeneous heritage, while the archangel country is a mixture of all heritages. This heterogeneous country of America is being requested to unite with the Adam and Eve countries.</p>
|
||
<p>The archangel was supposed to unite with Adam and Eve according to their standards, but he enticed them to depart from the principle and do things his way. I selected Mr. Kamiyama as my financial advisor; he has been doing this for almost 10 years. In every home, the role of the mother is to take care of the material things; she also is responsible for feeding the children. She gives birth to the two sons-the Cain and Abel positions. At this time, the U. S. is in the position of the Abel archangel and Germany is the Cain archangel in Europe. Eve’s role is to bring Cain and Abel together at her two breasts; without the unity of those two sons, Eve cannot return to her husband. That is why so much support is coming to our movement from Japan; Japan is “feeding” America and Germany. When Japan has brought together these two nations, she can be accepted by the Adam country, Korea.</p>
|
||
<p>America is protecting Korea’s national security; this is most crucial. America must not neglect this responsibility. Since 1978, Japan has risen to become an internationally respected economic power; that is the plan of God. In order for the mother’s position to be fulfilled, she must be healthy and able to give nourishment to the children; she must have plenty of resources.</p>
|
||
<p>Japan also has the responsibility to protect Korea. I asked Mr. Furuta, the manager of the Japanese church’s economic affairs, to bring Japanese people to Korea through the Korea-Japan Cultural Association. He should show them around and take them to the Little Angels School for a performance. That is providentially very important. It will contribute to the joint dependence of Korea and Japan and will be significantly important for national security. I have asked Mr. Furuta to do this without fail.</p>
|
||
<p>The most important internal strategy is that here in America the leadership from Korea, Japan and America must unite and work together. Also many marriages have taken place between those nations, which is a fulfillment of the providence. Even if you blue-eyed Americans are tearful, saying, “We don’t want this!,” you must go this path. Therefore, Korean and Japanese elders are an absolute necessity here in America and I will not pull them out. This is an historical requirement. Do you understand?</p>
|
||
<p>When I sent out the missionaries to different countries, I selected one each from Japan, the U.S., and Germany. Japan is in the mother’s role among the three, so the Japanese missionaries should have fulfilled that mother’s position. When the three missionaries were united together totally, only then could they come and have an audience with me. I told them they should come back to see me after seven years were over. On May 1, the seven years will be complete. Meanwhile the worldwide foundation has been laid. Japanese people are now dispersed over six different continents.</p>
|
||
<p>There are more women members in Japan than men; that is God’s plan, too. Therefore, 500 brides had to go overseas to find their husbands; in that way, the Japanese can link themselves to the entire world. Japanese women have the capability to adjust themselves to different cultures.</p>
|
||
<p>The Unification Church is an exciting place, isn’t it? We have homes in which there are Japanese, Korean, American and German people living together. United States citizens are in the Heavenly archangel’s position, which is comparable to Abel’s position. Abel should be in the serving position to the Cain people. Also, Abel must serve the parents; that is the viewpoint of Principle. The parent countries are Korea and Japan. That means American people have to love Cain-the German people, and also the parents-Korea and Japan.</p>
|
||
<p>Many American leaders have accused Korean and Japanese elders, but that is taking Satan’s position. The Heavenly order of responsibility is Korea first, then Japan, then America, then Germany. Therefore, Japanese leaders cannot argue with Korean leaders and Americans cannot argue with Japanese leaders. Do you follow me clearly? Until now you have had many problems with Oriental leaders, but that kind of situation is what pleases Satan.</p>
|
||
<p>If I decided to make my sermons in English, I could do so. However, if I did that it would not encourage all of you to learn Korean. It is you who are supposed to be learning the mother tongue, not the parents who are supposed to learn the children’s language. Think of how great it would be if I could just speak in Korean without an interpreter. When I made a joke, everybody could laugh in unison. How historical that would be! I am determined that such a thing will happen; you may not do it, but your children will be able to understand me. Do you want to leave it to your children, or will you do it yourself? All right then, do it.</p>
|
||
<p>God has been enduring tremendous suffering throughout history which until now no one has understood. Jesus’ heart on the cross at Calvary has never before been understood until this time, when Reverend Moon could come and reveal the heart of God. Jesus knew the heart of God and even though the Roman soldiers pierced his side as he hung on the cross, he could forgive them and say to God, “They do not know what they do.” How could he say that? He was thinking of the future of the nation, not just of those few Roman soldiers.</p>
|
||
<p>This is the time when God has assembled this one Christian nation of America, in the position of the Roman empire. He is forgiving them, giving them their last opportunity to unite with the other providential countries in order to fulfill God’s will and God’s goal. Asian people have come to America to set the new tradition. I have come here temporarily but it is not my permanent mission. When American and Japanese people are in Korea they are not motivated to believe in the Unification Church. Likewise when Americans and Koreans go to Japan, they are not inspired to accept the Unification Church. Therefore, God’s providence directed that Japanese and Korean people should come to America to witness temporarily to the American people; they must lay the foundation. The Japanese and Koreans will become the spiritual parents of many people. Even if those Americans are told not to go to Korea or Japan, they will not be stopped; they will want to do anything to see the countries of their spiritual parents.</p>
|
||
<p>Unless the United States links herself to the culture of the East, this nation will perish. In the English language, a nation has the feminine gender but when I talk about Korea, it is a “he” nation. The “she” nations need a “he” nation. That is natural.</p>
|
||
<p>You first-class American citizens, are you going to be defeated by all these Japanese people? As the members of the archangel country, you should learn tradition from Eve’s country; so you should hold on to them, imitating them and learning their methods. Heavenly tradition is not set by the archangel; it is set by Adam and Eve. Therefore, Adam and Eve’s actions must become the archangel’s actions. No matter how great your civilization may be, you do not have the Heavenly tradition here. Do you want to inherit that tradition? That means this country needs the Adam and Eve nation very much. Therefore, you must follow and respect those nations. Am I saying these words because I am an Oriental man? No, I am not. You cannot make any excuses about this; this is the truth. If anyone tries to excuse himself from this way, he is excusing himself from Heaven. Be very clear about this and remember from now on.</p>
|
||
<p>This is the time for action so 1983 is the year of action. We are gathered together, all the different enemy nations-Japan and Korea, the United States and Germany -to set the example and the tradition for true unification. That is good for God, but it is bad for your nationalistic pride.</p>
|
||
<p>We must be thankful to God; He always prepares our situation for us. The Unification Church does not use birth control; we bear as many children as God gives us. Mother and I have set the example and Mother has already given birth to 13 children. Having more and more children is another way in which our movement can grow. Since America is so wealthy that you have special foods for dogs and cats, that wealth can be channeled into feeding good human beings. With the kind of multiplication we will be seeing, imagine how large our population will be in fifty years!</p>
|
||
<p>You have been listening to me for a long time today; now it is boiling down to one simple statement. Those of you who can say, “I have made up my mind to follow your direction and bring the success. I will not let you down; please trust me,” raise your hands and say Amen! We are marching on that road to success Amen’</p>
|
||
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
|
||
|
||
<footer class="entry-meta">
|
||
</footer><!-- #entry-meta -->
|
||
|
||
</article><!-- #post-1665 -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<article id="post-1663" class="post-1663 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983">
|
||
<header class="entry-header">
|
||
<h2 class="entry-title">
|
||
<a href="blog-2018-06-23-gods-day-1983.html" title="Permalink to GOD’S DAY – 1983" rel="bookmark">GOD’S DAY – 1983</a>
|
||
</h2>
|
||
<div class="entry-meta">
|
||
<span class="author vcard" >By <a class="url fn n" rel="author" href="#" title="View all posts by Fami1yfed">Fami1yfed</a></span> <span><time class="onDate date published" datetime="2018-06-23T14:41:15+01:00"> <a href="blog-2018-06-23-gods-day-1983.html" rel="bookmark">June 23, 2018</a> </time></span><time class="updated" datetime="2018-06-23T14:41:15+01:00">June 23, 2018</time> <span class="bl_categ"> <a href="blog-category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983.html" rel="tag">Speeches of Rev Sun Myung Moon 1983</a> </span> </div><!-- .entry-meta -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
</header><!-- .entry-header -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<div class="entry-content">
|
||
<h2 align="CENTER">REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON</h2>
|
||
<h3 align="CENTER">January 1, 1983, Morning<br />
|
||
World Mission Center<br />
|
||
Translator – Bo Hi Pak</h3>
|
||
<p>Hananim, the Korean word for God, contains the elements of hana, which means “one,” and nim, which is a title of respect, such as sir. That is the definition of God-He is the One, the Unique, to whom we pay the greatest respect.</p>
|
||
<p>Generally speaking New Year’s Day is supposed to be a happy, fun-filled holiday; but in the Unification Church, God’s Day is a very tough day, filled with difficulties. Everyone of you feels sluggish and tired this morning, don’t you? I get sluggish, myself. You received a powerful message early this morning already, beginning at midnight, so do you think you need any more messages today?</p>
|
||
<p>Most people celebrate holidays with lots of food, such as cookies and cakes; we celebrate with lots of words-the word of God! Physical food, when you take in more than a normal dosage, will always give you a problem with your stomach, but what about an overdose of the word of God? It certainly doesn’t give you stomach trouble!</p>
|
||
<p>Consider God’s situation. He already knows what Reverend Moon is going to speak about this morning; since He does, will He decide to go off and take a nap instead of attending the speech? Or does He intensely want to be here? Certainly God knows everything I am about to say, so the content of the speech will not be anything new to Him. However, God is very much interested in observing the audience and their reaction to these words. He is thinking, “I know the people in this audience have been having particular problems and discouragement, so I hope this message will renew them and bring them back closer to me.”</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore, God has an intense interest in you, the listeners, and also God knows precisely where you are spiritually. He has been hoping and thinking, “My son and daughter have not been doing too well; I hope they can become a new man and woman from listening to Reverend Moon this morning.” He is watching closely what goes on here, every minute during this sermon. When the sermon covers a certain topic, God knows it is intended for that particular son or daughter. What if, when that topic comes up, God looks at those particular persons and they are dozing? God would certainly feel unhappy and frustrated with you. No matter how benevolent and sympathetic God may be toward you, at that particular moment He would really feel like hitting you on the head to shake you up!</p>
|
||
<p>Do you want to be in the position to receive a hit on the head from God on this New Year’s morning? God may have a secretary who is recording every aspect of this message in a Heavenly diary. Would you like to be recorded in that diary as, “He was snoring at the particular moment when the message was meant for him.”?</p>
|
||
<p>When God feels like bringing His fist down on your head at such a moment, how do you think spirit world feels? Your ancestors, especially, have been in spirit world for a long time, waiting for this time; they feel so proud that you, their offspring, are able to be here and listen to this God’s Day message. If you fall asleep all of a sudden, your ancestors will try to do anything to wake you up; they will feel like knocking you over! At that particular moment, your great-great-great-grandfather will say to you, “You rascal! You let me down!” He might feel like pulling out your two eyes because you aren’t using them properly.</p>
|
||
<p>Today is God’s Day. Why do we designate it that way? Is it God’s birthday, or some day that God did something special? What kind of a day is God’s Day? It is a day of joy, that is true; but why should this day be particularly joyful? After all, God can meet with His beloved ones any day and enjoy any day He chooses, not just January 1. Since we don’t celebrate God’s birthday any particular day, we have this day to dedicate to God.</p>
|
||
<p>This is supposed to be a good day for God. Does He want to encounter good or bad people on this day? Are you qualified to call yourself a good person in whom only goodness resides? You say no. God wants to meet an absolutely good person, but you cannot fulfill that standard. Therefore, no matter how much God wants to bless you and celebrate this day with you He actually has no one qualified to receive that blessing.</p>
|
||
<p>People all over the world are celebrating this first day of the year, but where are there people who are celebrating it as God’s Day? It is only among the members of the Unification Church. Therefore God would want to be with us on this day, since we are the only ones who recognize it as His day. If God is giving His presence to our God’s Day celebration, what about spirit world? They too would want to be here.</p>
|
||
<p>Do you think that all the U.S. presidents in spirit world would want to go wherever God goes on God’s Day? Maybe we would only accept one representative from those presidents, rather than all of them. How would they decide which president would be the one? George Washington is the best-known president of the United States. Could anyone claim himself more qualified than George Washington? There is probably at least one. How about Abraham Lincoln? He might accuse George Washington, saying, “When you were president, you allowed many slaves to be imported here from Africa, but when I came into office, I emancipated all of them. Look at the Unification celebration-all five colors of skin are there together. Therefore, George, I am more qualified than you to attend that God’s Day celebration.” That is a strong argument, don’t you think?</p>
|
||
<p>What would George Washington say to such an argument from Abraham Lincoln? Would he dispute it, or would he agree to it? He would probably have to agree to it. If Abraham Lincoln was chosen to attend, where do you think he would sit? Would he try to push Reverend Moon off the stage and claim the central position, since he was the former president of the United States? Suppose a big argument arose between Reverend Moon and Abraham Lincoln over where Abraham should sit. As a spectator, which one would you support?</p>
|
||
<p>If Abraham Lincoln were defeated in the argument with Reverend Moon, would he accept it humbly, or would he go out cursing and denying the value of being here? Maybe after the argument, I would give him permission to stay but he would have to sit beside the trash can. Would he then say, “No! I am president of the United States and I won’t sit there!” What would you say then? Would you be willing to give Lincoln your better seat, since he was a president, and be willing to take his seat by the trash can? Even if you tried to do that, I would tell you to remain where you are because it is your seat.</p>
|
||
<p>This is all very imaginative but I am trying to illustrate for you the reality of spirit world. There are so many people there who want to be here and take any seat, regardless of how miserable, because they want to join in your celebration of God’s Day. When God is attending this celebration, all spirit world sends representatives. What kinds of gifts do you think they would bring? Since God’s Day is the most important day of the year, wouldn’t they bring the most valuable gifts here? It wouldn’t be just some average kind of gift, but something wonderful and absolute.</p>
|
||
<p>Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t come here empty-handed; he would carry a tremendous gift, as a representative of all the other presidents. He would look at you, the citizens of the United States; if he sees you coming in empty-handed, would he be happy? What kind of gift did you bring? Are you bringing a sleepy head that dozes throughout the sermon? Did you bring the gift of fatigue?</p>
|
||
<p>Did you at least wear clean underwear today or did you wear your everyday underwear that you just took casually out of the drawer this morning? Or did you begin to prepare that underwear a long time ago, even one year ago? Did you put it out and look at it and plan, “This is the underwear that I will wear on God’s Day next time.”? Did you pray, sing and do your Pledge in front of that special underwear? Did you put that kind of value into your tee-shirts and underpants for God’s Day?</p>
|
||
<p>Even now you could begin to prepare your underwear for God’s Day in the year 2000; you could pray in front of it and so forth starting now, putting all your heart and soul into it. You could wash it every day from now until the year 2000. Would God say, “You are wasting your money, your time and energy! Go to prison!” When God’s Day 2000 finally comes, seventeen years from now, and you have been washing it every day, you may put it on and discover that it is full of holes! When you wear those ragged underclothes, what would God say to you-that you deserve blame or praise?</p>
|
||
<p>Why would God say you deserve praise? Does God like that kind of holy underwear? God would want to reward you because of your sincerest heart and prayer which you dedicated to that underwear for that special day.</p>
|
||
<p>Suppose Jeung Jin Nim, who is only six months old now, decides to prepare her underwear for that God’s Day when she reaches 100 years of age. She would wash it constantly, praying over it and so forth. Don’t you think God would determine that He would never allow her to be taken from the earth before that special 100th year comes? Even if Jeung Jin Nim did nothing throughout her entire life except devote herself to that special underwear, what would God think? After washing those underthings for 100 years, they would literally be shredded rags when that special God’s Day came, impossible to wear at all. The only way she could take them to the celebration would be to wrap them up in a package and carry them.</p>
|
||
<p>Suppose that when she came to that special God’s Day celebration, when she was 100 years old, I asked everybody who was wearing specially-washed underwear to stand up. Jeung Jin Nim would feel qualified to stand up, even though she wasn’t actually wearing the underwear. Suppose then that I asked everybody to take off their outer clothing and show off their specially-dedicated underwear. Well, Jeung Jin Nim would have to stand there stark naked while everyone else would be covered by their underwear. Would God declare Jeung Jin Nim unworthy of being there then, since she was so terrible to stand there without any clothes on? No, God and everyone else would recognize that she was the one most worthy of being there and attending the celebration.</p>
|
||
<p>Then we would have another problem-when everyone sees Jeung Jin Nim receiving all the praise and recognition for standing there naked, they would all want to be naked, too! We would have to clarify the situation and allow only those who washed their underwear for 100 years to do that.</p>
|
||
<p>Do you want to start on your 100-year program now for your “underwear religion?” Certainly a person with such a sincere heart would immediately be lifted up into the Kingdom of Heaven when he went to spirit world.</p>
|
||
<p>Although this is a funny topic, there is a lot of truth in the idea. Do you think you can have a casual attitude toward God’s Day and just attend any celebration you want, at any time? There will come the time when special professors and scholars will wait for ten years in order to be admitted to the God’s Day celebration. How can you think you can come here now and doze off? When the representatives of entire nations and heads of state come to hear these words on God’s Day, they will be lit up like lanterns of inspiration. They will want to write down every word and put it on videotape to take back to their home country to share with everyone there.</p>
|
||
<p>Knowing this precious value of God’s Day, anyone who just routinely attends the celebration and dozes lazily will be chastised by spirit world. You will be specially tormented by your own ancestors.</p>
|
||
<p>What kind of gift did you bring to this God’s Day? Can you offer this day to God? God is not interested in some material gift, but rather the kind of heart and sincerity you can offer Him. With what kind of heart did you prepare yourself for this special day? Compare the kind of heart and soul you would have toward your own marriage day and the kind of heart you have toward God’s Day. Which one should be more intense and deep? God’s Day should.</p>
|
||
<p>Do you attend the God’s Day celebration with the desire to receive something, such as the good Korean lunch at the World Mission Center? Do you try to use God’s Day as an excuse to escape the forty days fundraising condition? That is certainly not a healthy motivation. Some people might arrange to get together with their spouses by using God’s Day as a reason. People with such poor motivation are most likely the ones who are dozing in the sermons because they really have no interest in God’s Day itself.</p>
|
||
<p>We must celebrate God’s Day with a solid content. We must come to the realization that we set aside January 1st. as God’s Day not because of money or power, nor for the sake of the Unification Church or even the True Parents. We do it solely for the love of God. God has never before had the chance to fully manifest His love throughout history; but because of God’s Day, God now has the opportunity and reason to show His love to His children. Therefore, the celebration of God’s love is the meaning of this day.</p>
|
||
<p>God has been suffering for so long, waiting for this opportunity. Today is the time of fulfillment of God’s love. Love, which was supposed to be God’s property but which was stained and given away to Satan, has been misused and perverted by Satan for his own purposes. God has been desperately seeking the day when that love would be purified and returned to Him. Finally that moment of restoration has come in which God has gained the opportunity to purify love.</p>
|
||
<p>In the Unification Church, we have four major yearly celebrations. Beginning forty days before each celebration, you should set aside certain conditions to which you devote your heart and, soul for the sake of that celebration. That is the only way you can truly come here with a valuable gift to offer.</p>
|
||
<p>We have Parents’ Day, Children’s Day, Day of All Things, and God’s Day. No matter how honorable or good some people may be who are dwelling in spirit world today, none of them could escape the lineage of Satan. They had absolutely no way to be born from true parents, in the lineage of God and had to be born with the stained blood inherited from Satan. Therefore, the entire spirit world has been waiting for the appearance of the True Parents’ Day, since they never had the privilege of being born into True Parents lineage.</p>
|
||
<p>The people here on earth are in the Abel position to those in spirit world; therefore, you should feel more privileged than they to be participating in these holidays. You should be making deeper heart and soul conditions than anyone in spirit world. All of humanity has been agonizing, waiting to become true sons and daughters of God. Religious people have paid incredible indemnity, such as martyrdom and terrible earthly suffering. All of that was to fulfill the day when they could become the true children of God, under the lineage of True Parents.</p>
|
||
<p>All men and women will be competing with each other to become the most pious children of God because True Parents have appeared for the first time. This is the one time they can set the record; anybody who really knows the meaning of this day will dedicate themselves totally to becoming children of filial piety.</p>
|
||
<p>In order to bring the truest heart and soul condition in preparation for these holidays, you need a mate who will be your partner in helping you to accomplish those conditions. Men and women come together as a pair of subject and object to accomplish this.</p>
|
||
<p>In order to make an offering, you need an altar. Once an offering is placed upon the altar, it stays there permanently. However, people fluctuate frequently in spirit-sometimes high, sometimes low. Therefore, you must have some offering in order to be really acceptable to God. It will have value according to the depth of heart and soul you put into it; through that alone can God acknowledge your sincerity and integrity and accept your offering.</p>
|
||
<p>In the Old Testament era, all the things of creation were offered on the altar to God. In the era of the New Testament, the Son of God was offered. In the Completed Testament era, the Parents are the ones who are the offering.</p>
|
||
<p>In the Old Testament, lambs, doves, and so on were cut in half and the person making the offering bowed before it. At the time of the New Testament, Satan crucified Jesus on the cross, which became the sacred altar for all of mankind, before which everyone bows down. At the time of the Completed Testament, the True Parent must be the living sacrifice, bearing one cross after another in everyday life.</p>
|
||
<p>In order for you to prepare properly for God’s Day, you must begin in advance; you must plan what to offer out of the depth of your heart. You must bring your spiritual children as an offering. At this time of the Completed Testament, you are combining the offerings of the past and are offering everything at the same time. Your gift is offered as the fulfillment of the Old Testament era; your spiritual children consummate the New Testament era. When you offer yourself in the parental position, your offering becomes total.</p>
|
||
<p>For that reason-sanctifying and consecration of this kind of offering-God’s Day has been set aside. We did not come here today just for festivities and having a great time; that is not the spirit at all. After today, God’s Day will be over, but that particular offering you made will continue every day and will grow in value. When we continue to accumulate such grateful offerings of heart, with each day added on for hundreds and thousands of years, we will be sanctifying this earth and we shall make the Kingdom of Heaven finally. That is the way the transformation comes.</p>
|
||
<p>The order of celebrations, therefore, occurs like this: first Parents’ Day, because without true parents no new life can come, nothing can happen. Then the parents give life to true children, so Children’s Day comes next. By restoring the true children we can restore the things of creation, so we celebrate All Things Day. After that, finally we can celebrate God’s Day.</p>
|
||
<p>The time will come eventually when, once all these things have been consummated, I will be able to offer all these things to God in their original positions. God will then be in the position to accept them and claim them as His own. The priest of the Unification Church is in the position of receiving all the gifts coming from the world, as the representative of God. My position is that of chief priest.</p>
|
||
<p>Eventually the different parts of the world will prepare special gifts with great heart and soul and offer them for these four great celebrations of God. When a gift is being transported by airplane, for example from Brazil to Korea, all the people on the land in Brazil should bow down when they see that airplane passing overhead. All the Brazilian radios and televisions should report exactly where that plane is along its path; when it starts flying over Japan, the people there would respect that particular plane, too, because it is carrying a gift to God.</p>
|
||
<p>That is the true meaning of a celebration; we are going to set that kind of tradition. In the Old Testament era, the people worshipped in temples; each temple contained a tabernacle in which there was the holy place and the most holy place. Only the chief priest was qualified to enter that most holy place; the regular priests were not even able to do that. There was a certain sacred, procedure in which the offering could be made to God. Any offering had to be made with the proper procedure and could only I be touched by the appropriate religious leaders.</p>
|
||
<p>I An offering is not limited to the one time in which it is I made. It becomes the gift of all things of creation, the gift of the children, the gift of oneself-everything becomes a part of it. Not only all things, but also your children are a better offering; yourself is the very best offering. Together you represent all the fallen generations and when you are coming back to God through the high priest you ask him to receive you as a pure offering.</p>
|
||
<p>All things represent the Old Testament offering; the children represent the New Testament era; True Parents become the Completed Testament era offering. These three offerings come together on God’s Day; we ask God to accept them all at once as our total gift.</p>
|
||
<p>Unification members should not be indebted to others, even in a material way. We should always be moving forward dynamically; we should not be a burden to anybody. The material world has been sanctified through the Unification Church, so Satan cannot claim those things which we own because we have always offered them to God. Always in the past Satan has been able to invade the material possessions of people; but here in the Unification Church, material has gained sacredness. We never consider any material thing as “my own;” we recognize it as God’s property and because of His love, we are allowed to have stewardship of certain things.</p>
|
||
<p>While you are here on the earth, you must attend the True Parents in your daily lives. If you fail to do that while they are on the earth, when you enter into spirit world you will be accused by everyone there. The life we lead here on the earth is for the purpose of creating a truly proper offering to God. Any offering which cannot communicate with the love of God will be rejected by Him.</p>
|
||
<p>Once all things are offered to God, He will give stewardship of certain things to you. When you receive it as a gift from God, you can use it for the sake of your own children, for example. This is because your ultimate offering will be your children and in order to create the Heavenly four-position foundation, you are using certain material things for fulfilling your total offering to God. That is the only way we can justify the use of God’s materials.</p>
|
||
<p>Any offering must be connected with the love of God; even material things have that connection. Certainly children have that connection and you yourself have to be connected with God’s love. Only when all those positions are offered to God can God accept your gift.</p>
|
||
<p>You must see everything, at all times, as connected with the love of God. All the material things you use must be seen as having that connection; your children are connected and you, too, are connected. That is the way you must look at them, every minute of the day.</p>
|
||
<p>You must look at every day as the preparation to welcome the parents into your home. You must prepare your things, your house, your furniture and together with your children, you should be ready to welcome the parents. When True Parents come to visit you, they will feel completely at home and completely united with you.</p>
|
||
<p>When the grandfather prepares to meet his death, he is in the position of the chief priest of his family. He will gather together all the younger generations-his eldest son, grandchildren, etc. He will tell them, “I upheld the principles and the love of God. You must continue to do so; I am now giving you that right to carry on.” The one who inherits that position becomes the master of the house. That is the kind of home tradition which must be created.</p>
|
||
<p>Many Americans say, “The things Reverend Moon and the Unification Church are teaching are only the Korean and Oriental way,” but that is not the case. We are teaching God’s way. When you come to enter the holy or the most holy place, you must be harmonized among husband and wife and children. Men and women who are dedicating their entire lives for the sake of making a proper offering to God-all things, their children, themselves- will still feel humbled and not enough; they will always want to bring a greater offering. When such people die, they go straight into the highest possible Heaven.</p>
|
||
<p>Just as God created all things, He has given stewardship to His children; therefore, you have the right to take care of those things, with the heart of appreciation to the Creator. A person who has lived such a public life may be elevated into spirit world without having been able to receive his proper reward from God. Once he is there, God can reward that person with everything he desires.</p>
|
||
<p>We have only one way directly to God-through the way of true love. Once you truly fulfill the position of restored Adam and Eve, you will take all the things of creation under your care and connect them to the love of God. Then there will be no more boundary between God and you. The very reason I am teaching this principle today is that I have the obligation to nurture you and make each of you a Heavenly person while you are here on the earth; this is your only opportunity. Once you pass away, you have no more chance. This is the very time to become a Heavenly person.</p>
|
||
<p>The clothes you are wearing are not yours; your own physical body is not even yours. Your husband or wife is not yours. There is only one way these things can become yours-by connecting them and yourself with the love of God. When you are totally a part of the love of God and can relate the love of your husband and children with that vertical love, everything will become yours.</p>
|
||
<p>The Principle of Creation tells very clearly that God created men and all things because of His love. Therefore your right to ownership can be determined by your connection with that true love of God. The Unification Church is a very privileged church with a special honor because we have a way in which we can legitimately claim others and all things. You are in the position to return to God.</p>
|
||
<p>Unless you fulfill this process while you are living here on earth, there will be no bridge between you, the physical world and the spirit world. Everything in the Unification Church is done in the name of God. Even our marriages are done in the name of God; they are not for our own sake, but for God’s sake. I want you to understand clearly that you claim all things in order to come closer to God; you want to have something to offer to God. You want to get the marriage blessing because you can possess more of the love of God in that way. You want to have children so that you can consummate the love of God. Everything is connected with the love of God.</p>
|
||
<p>We are walking the original path for man; even your marriage is a part of that path. For the Unification Church marriage is essential. The husband and wife love relationship must be one which is saintly and sacred. When a woman is embarrassed, she often covers her mouth which is a most holy place and which she wants to protect. How do men and women begin to express their love for each other? Naturally, you come together in a kiss; thus your mouth is a most holy place.</p>
|
||
<p>Women have three levels of holy places through which they express their love. One is the mouth, which is the formation stage; the next is the bosom, which is the growth stage; and finally the sexual organs, which are the perfection stage. All these three are truly holy places. Therefore, nobody can touch them without having the special key, special permission. That key is held in the hands of the husband. No one else has the particular key to fit the particular holy places of that woman. Anybody who gives out more than one key is giving out a key to Satan; perhaps Satan will have two or three keys. That absolutely degrades the person.</p>
|
||
<p>The only way a woman or man can open up their most holy places is by going to their husband or wife. When the priest, which is your spouse, comes to you and prepares to enter your holy places, you naturally welcome him or her and just open up freely. Many people consider sexual activities to be dirty or ugly, but actually they are the most holy activities. It is Satan who made them dirty.</p>
|
||
<p>Because those places are so holy, the holiest of products will come out of their use in love – your children They are the most supremely holy things you can create and they are the result of your love. When your children come, you see them as the flesh of your flesh; you want to give everything to them. The child does all kinds of dirty, smelly things, like messing up his diapers, but it doesn’t make any difference to the parents. They welcome it. When your own son or daughter dirties their diapers, it smells like perfume to you, but perhaps as soon as your husband uses the bathroom it is a very offensive smell; it certainly isn’t perfume to you. That is because your husband is still someone other than yourself – a foreigner – although you can join together in love. However, the child is the bone of your bone, the flesh of your flesh.</p>
|
||
<p>When you go to the toilet, do you suffer incredible torture from the smell? Of course not, because it is part of your own bodily functions and you love yourself. Therefore you are not offended by your own smells. Husband and wife should feel the same toward each other. When a couple gets up in the morning and the husband goes to the bathroom first, suppose the wife comes in and cries, “What are you doing! You are polluting the entire house! Open the window, I can’t stand it!” Such a wife would be a very poor one. When there is true love between husband and wife, you will open the door where your spouse is using the toilet and you will feel you are smelling a perfume.</p>
|
||
<p>Love has the power to transform bad things into good-bad smells into good smells, bad tastes into good tastes. Love can sweeten and sanctify everything. An example was Jesus’ love. Even though Judas showed such ugliness toward him and betrayed Jesus for money, Jesus never hated him at all. Jesus’ love had the power to digest that ugliness in Judas and turn it around into something sweet.</p>
|
||
<p>Love is a miracle. When a person falls into the kind of love which is wrongly directed, it will shatter that person into pieces. However, when your love is redirected in the proper way, you can jump right into the bosom of God. Love is miraculously powerful.</p>
|
||
<p>God had virtually no limits on Adam and Eve; He gave them total freedom, except for the commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “The day that you eat of it, you shall die,” was God’s warning. Such was the power of love and the danger of the misuse of it. When you make only one misstep regarding love, you will be brought right down to the bottom of hell; but with the right steps, you can jump directly into the bosom of God. That is the power of love.</p>
|
||
<p>You cannot exercise love by yourself; you must have a partner and you must have parents, children, brothers and sisters. That is the only way for love to manifest truly. The “free love” system is truly a satanic strategy to bring people down into hell. Therefore there are millions of broken families in which the wife or husband or both have been immoral. The mission of the Unification Church is to bring about a revolution in love; we must restore the proper direction to love.</p>
|
||
<p>Why does God let us suffer so much, if He loves us so much? It is because God wants us to find the deepest, sweetest, most perfect love. By going through such ordeals as fundraising, witnessing and so forth, you will be able to experience that kind of truest love. Our fundraisers go out and face opposition from every direction; your parents and family give you a hard time. When you return to your centers, you bring your offering to the altar of God and you cry out to Him, “God, you are a suffering God and I want to make this offering. You have been waiting for an offering of true love, but no one else has been able to give such an offering.”</p>
|
||
<p>You can say to Him, “Heavenly Father, I will go out for the toughest mission-MFT or anything-and I will go as a representative of all of mankind; I want to bring some comfort to You as a gift of love. I will not fail in this gift of love.” That is the way in which you bring all things to the love of God.</p>
|
||
<p>Then you go out to the world and you tell God, “Heavenly Father, you have been looking for your true children; without them, your heart has been broken. I will go out now to represent your love and bring as many spiritual children as possible to become your sons and daughters. I want to do your will and I will not hesitate to take on any hardships to accomplish it.”</p>
|
||
<p>It is truly the champions of God, wonderful men and women, who can say to God, “I brought you the offering of my fundraising; I gained spiritual children for you. Now is the time in which I want to consummate my heavenly four-position foundation, so I need to get married. I want to bring true children into the world, free of sin, for you.”</p>
|
||
<p>After you are consummated as husband and wife, you can walk the road of restoration of all things, children, and parents. Your home becomes the place for your “love workshop,” in which you experience all the different levels of love-parental, conjugal, and children’s. By doing so, your accomplishments will never diminish, even when you are elevated into spirit world. What a wonderful and dramatic life we are living!</p>
|
||
<p>You are becoming the kings and queens of God’s Kingdom; you are like the royal family of God. By fulfilling all these conditions, we can enter into the royal inner circle. What kinds of kings and queens are you? You are true love kings and queens. Adam and Eve were supposed to be the first king and queen of true love. We shall recreate that same kingship of true love here on earth and will be elevated directly into the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven.</p>
|
||
<p>The Unification Church is uniquely privileged to celebrate these holidays. Each of them is incredibly important-Day of All Things, Children’s Day, Parent’s Day, and then all together we consummate them on God’s Day. Each year we return to celebrate God’s Day. You come back one year with your husband or wife; the next year you come with your children; finally you come with all the things of creation. You come together and you are given the passport to the royal palace of God.</p>
|
||
<p>God’s Day is the ultimate celebration of the year. Before you come to God’s Day, all your ungodliness must be repented for and swept away. You must repent if you have quarrels among your family and you must cleanse these things and create harmony before you attend the celebration. The Bible teaches that before a person makes an offering to God, he must first go and settle his differences with his brethren; otherwise, he is not worthy to make that offering. This is exactly what I am telling you. You should be able to offer your children; if they are not worthy, they cannot come, either, to celebrate God’s Day.</p>
|
||
<p>Do you think the teachings of Reverend Moon this morning are just my own, or are they principles straight from the Heart of God? They are pure, genuine principles. When you receive these principles, do you accept them with a totally obedient heart? There is no room for exceptions. It is nature’s law that when you are hungry, you need food; when you are sleepy, you need sleep. By the same token, when you are spiritually imperfect, you need the right principles to live by; it is by principle that your spiritual hunger can be satisfied and you can be made whole.</p>
|
||
<p>We are speaking of the most supremely important principles of all. If you were to become very, very hungry and you just grabbed some food and totally forgot about God for the moment, you would have to lay down your fork and repent, “God, I forgot about you; I loved this food momentarily more than you. I’m sorry.” Since 1978, the rules of the Unification Church have been somewhat loosened; I couldn’t feel confidence in even the leaders. I have been observing what the Unification members are doing; from 1983 on we are going to tighten up. There will be no more halfway-type living in the Unification Church. Shall we do this?</p>
|
||
<p>We shall pledge to God that we will be worthy of attending this God’s Day celebration without any shame or pain in our consciences. That is the way we want to prepare ourselves, isn’t that right? Before bedtime tonight, you must make a covenant between God and you. Tell Him, “God, I pledge to You that I will fulfill my promises. Please help me to accomplish these things.” Once you have made a covenant with God, nothing must stop you. Even your husband or wife should not stop you; your own children, or even the entire world must not stop you. No matter what, you should fulfill that covenant.</p>
|
||
<p>When you move straightforwardly toward your goal, you will give great delight to God; but if you take a zigzagged way, God will not be with you. Think about yourself and repent: you always remember your own birthday, or your spouse’s and children’s but how much did you do for God’s Day? What have you done to remember God? For so many years, I celebrated my own birthday by fasting. I wanted to give all honor to God. The person who fails to properly celebrate any of the major holidays has no right to celebrate his own or anybody else’s birthday.</p>
|
||
<p>Everybody in the church always wants to make a big celebration when my birthday comes, but I always tell them not to. I don’t even want to dress up nicely; I would rather dress like a laborer and spend the entire day fasting. This is because I know precisely the providence of restoration and what it requires. Unless you hit the bottom, you have no right to climb up to the pinnacle of the mountain. If you really want to taste the love of God, don’t try to go up; instead, dig down to the bottom of life. That is where the deepest love of God can be found, not in the highest place of beauty and honor. That is why I always push you men and women down into the lowest situations of difficulty.</p>
|
||
<p>Throughout history, this principle has persisted; in order to reach the highest point, you have to go down to the very bottom first. Are you prepared to do that? Usually everybody just wants to take the easiest way to the top looking for loopholes. In that way, they are already caught by Satan’s hooks.</p>
|
||
<p>The road of persecution is the real bottom line and that is why I have gone this way. Actually I never wished to become a famous man, but God pushed me into that position. This is because God knew that Reverend Moon was the only champion here on earth for the honor of God. In order to make His influence wider, God has pushed me out into this position. I never wished to have a lot of money or wealth, but God has blessed me with tremendous resources. Why is that? Because God knew very well that I would direct the spending of that money for His purposes. All things of creation have been waiting in agony for the appearance of their true master who could exercise proper dominion over them. Therefore, God has blessed me with many things.</p>
|
||
<p>Reverend Moon never really wanted to have to deal with all different kinds of people, but God knew that I would be able to harmonize all people into the one race of God. Therefore, God is pushing everybody toward me, and I am relating with people of all races and cultures. These kinds of things are not the personal wishes of Reverend Moon, but my concern is for one thing: how can I connect the true love of God to all things and all people.</p>
|
||
<p>I feel so much anguish and wrath when I observe the way in which some leaders have actually chased the pure lambs of our membership away. Many members become lost because of the poor demonstration of the leaders of the Unification Church, who are so far away from True Parents’ spirit. For that reason, I am very angry with them. However, the principled conclusion is this: the more they become familiar with Reverend Moon, all things shall be directed more and more toward me; all people shall inevitably come to love Reverend Moon.</p>
|
||
<p>Everybody wants to go through Reverend Moon’s “gate;” they want to touch him. That is the way all of you are thinking, so eventually all mankind will be thinking that way, too. Also all the things of creation will want to be touched by Reverend Moon. Why is that? Because Reverend Moon is representing the true love of God. God wants to touch him, as well. God is thinking in the same fashion.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore, the members of the Unification Church who are led by Reverend Moon shall never diminish or decline; they shall go forward to that ultimate goal of God’s desire. Think of it: even under incredible persecution, we have continued our progress and development up to now. Once society changes and begins to welcome Reverend Moon, what will happen? There will be such a rapid multiplying effect. The time will come when everything and everybody will welcome Reverend Moon.</p>
|
||
<p>Under the utmost opposition and persecution, Reverend Moon still made 45 degrees worth of progress upward. Therefore, when there is no more obstruction and people start to welcome Reverend Moon, what will I be able to do? That time, however, will be too late for you to meet with me. Once I am moving totally vertically, it will be too late for you. The sovereignties of many countries, such as in Central and South America, are already wanting to meet with me and have invited me to visit them. They want to give me honors and permanent citizenship. Meanwhile, North America wants to kick me out.</p>
|
||
<p>Whatever direction Reverend Moon takes becomes the destiny of a certain country. If I turn away from some place, it will decline; if I turn towards a certain place, it will prosper. That is what is happening already, with North America declining and South America moving forward.</p>
|
||
<p>Abraham received his mandate from God: leave your hometown at once. He obeyed without hesitation. God might give that same mandate again to Reverend Moon: take off, and take off with the Moonies. What would you do? Would you immediately obey God? When God sent the Israelites out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership, He gave them a precise timetable of three days. But those who failed to comply would become the victims of Egypt. That is the teaching of history.</p>
|
||
<p>Have you ever thought that this 1983 God’s Day celebration might be the last one with Reverend Moon here in America? That is a possibility which no one can deny. God could give me the mandate and I would be gone to the place where God sent me. That is what I am prepared to do. If I take off to another place, you will have to gain my permission in order to go with me. Even to participate in any of those future celebrations you will have to have my permission. Once I leave here, it won’t be easy for you to see me. You want to be invited, don’t you? You shall have the invitation-if you are qualified.</p>
|
||
<p>Whenever a new class in school begins, everyone in the class starts at the same time, including the teachers and the students. But within the span of one year, some students succeed and some students flunk out. Teachers are bound by the rules; even if the teacher loves a particular student, if he doesn’t make the grade, the teacher cannot pass him on to the next higher class. It doesn’t matter how much the teacher loves the student; he must go through the test and pass on his own. Can the student who fails claim, “My father is a very well known politician and he gave a big contribution to this university.”? Such an effort would not help the student. Nor will it help to say, “My mother is a very beautiful woman and my father is very handsome.”</p>
|
||
<p>You American citizens might try to make a similar claim such as, “I am a citizen of America, so I am a first-class citizen.” It makes no difference; you still must pass the course. You must realize that freedom and equality come under a new definition in the land of God. If you try to continue only by your own definition, it will never work.</p>
|
||
<p>I have always spoken of both the horizontal and vertical disciplines. Equality does not apply to the vertical discipline, but only the horizontal. History always recognizes the vertical chain of command rather than the horizontal. The Western civilization, particularly the American, is a horizontal civilization. If it remains based only upon the horizontal discipline, it will decline; there is no other way for it to go. The vertical must come first; it sets the tradition and discipline. Then the horizontal prosperity can come.</p>
|
||
<p>Let’s say you have a horizontal pole; it must have a center in order to turn in a harmonized circle. Without that, it would turn wildly and without order. Suppose you just wanted to claim your own center at any particular place. No matter what, there is only one true center.</p>
|
||
<p>The custom here in America has produced children who say, “So what about my parents? I am completely equal to them and I am equal to everybody else as well.” However, according to the vertical chain of command, father and son cannot be “equal”; there is no such relationship between them. The center is absolute; it harmonizes everything in a balanced way. All distances are the same from the center to the perimeter. The center of the circle cannot position itself somewhere in the corner of the circle; and there is only one center, not two or three.</p>
|
||
<p>I want you to understand that what you have here in America and the Western world is a horizontal culture. This cannot continue to prosper without meeting with the vertical discipline and principle. That is what Reverend Moon’s teaching is all about. In the American culture, the love between men and women is all-important, but there is little recognition of the love of parents, grandparents and elders. Such a culture will decline, without question.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore Reverend Moon came to rescue America by bringing the vertical discipline to this civilization. You may not want to hear this, but you have to hear it. When you are a patient in the hospital, you don’t want to hear your diagnosis if it is bad. You never want to hear the doctor tell you, “You have cancer.” You only want to hear, “No more problems.” Even though cancer may be consuming your body, you only want to hear that you are fine. Reverend Moon has given you the correct diagnosis because that is the only true way to bring some hope to you. Only in that way can the disease be treated.</p>
|
||
<p>At Yankee Stadium, I proclaimed to the American people that this country is like a sick patient in need of a doctor. Always your doctor will come from somewhere outside of your own home. Also I said that America is like a home on fire; you need a firefighter to come from outside, not inside, to put out the fire. This disturbed people deeply; they didn’t want to hear it. People say to me, “Reverend Moon, you have no right to call yourself a physician or a firefighter. You are a blasphemer to say such things to this healthy country!” In the arrogant minds of some people, they are thinking, “You are just a Korean, Reverend Moon, from that underdeveloped country. How could you say such things to this cultured country?”</p>
|
||
<p>Many white people in this country have been selfish and taken advantage of all the colored people. Reverend Moon has committed no sins against America, yet the white people are trying to destroy him. Even though I have established a worldwide movement, still they seek to destroy me. What about those underprivileged Africans, South Americans and Middle Eastern people who come to this country? They have no power or influence and they are not well-treated by white people; in fact, they are discriminated against. When God looks down at this, He cannot tolerate it.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore the white culture needs to repent with tears for their selfishness. If they do not have that repentance, wait and see what destiny will befall them. This means Reverend Moon will not fall under that same destiny and be destroyed; when Reverend Moon leaves this country, even more decline will be seen. When the day comes for Reverend Moon to depart, it will be a dark day for America. But you must commit yourselves, saying, “Father, I will not let you down. I will fulfill your role here in America to instruct the people and carry out your tradition.”</p>
|
||
<p>I want you to understand that Reverend Moon did not come to America because East Garden Estate is very beautiful, or because of some comfortable Cadillac, or for the sake of delicious American food. All these things hold no attraction for me whatsoever. I came here to do my mission, period, until the last minute possible. If I cannot find fifty honorable people throughout America, I will still seek to find even five honorable people through whom I can save America.</p>
|
||
<p>The time has come, however, when there is some hope. Americans are no longer blindly accusing Reverend Moon, as they were in the past. They are beginning to recognize something of value. Even the media is beginning to change. Exactly one year ago today, January 1, 1982, I spoke to 200 men and women out of this congregation and asked them to go to Washington and create the newspaper <i>Washington Times </i>by March 1. Everybody was incredulous, including Bo Hi Pak. He told me, “This is impossible!” I told him, “You are of little faith! Just do it,” and he obeyed totally. What has happened?</p>
|
||
<p>Of course, I knew it would be impossible to do everything in Washington within two months, so I instructed Bo Hi Pak to create the paper in New York and fly down the negatives to Washington every night. 240 million Americans had been completely unworried about the liberal media such as <i>Washington Post </i>and the New York Times; but as soon as Reverend Moon, Bo Hi Pak and the Moonies come on the scene, they got worried.</p>
|
||
<p>You know we didn’t have enough money for this project, but we gave our blood and sweat to make it happen. Today is our first year anniversary. Looking back, do you think it was the right or the wrong thing to do?</p>
|
||
<p>This is the way the life of Reverend Moon has gone, day after day, moment after moment. Always I am thinking of only one thing-the salvation of America, the salvation of mankind. Therefore, I declared an emergency. I live day by day in the context of emergency. How about you? You always complain and try to find excuses for yourselves. God does not want that. This is serious. Do you think the same way as I do?</p>
|
||
<p>When I look at everything from this emergency point of view, how unworthy you are to deserve my attention! This is 1983. At this time, we will decide the destiny of our movement, this nation and the free world. Either we will go down or we will go up. It is up to you to decide that destiny.</p>
|
||
<p>In a powerhouse, all the lines of electricity are connected to the generator; the important thing is that someone must flip the switch and turn on the energy. Who will do that job? Electricity cannot be turned on halfway.</p>
|
||
<p>This God’s Day we have come here for a celebration, but really we have come for an awakening, a new determination and commitment. That is the true meaning of God’s Day. In that respect we are celebrating the most important celebration. That is the only way we can make this day worthwhile to celebrate. I am saying all these things today and some people might think I am being very severe. Why am I doing it? I am saying these things because I love you; I do not want you to decline but to become qualified and glorious in the sight of God.</p>
|
||
<p>In 1985, the forty years of Unification wilderness period will be over. But we have to shift into high gear starting today; next year will be too late. This year is the determining year. Those of you who say, “We will not let you down. We will do it!” raise your hands. Let us all say, “Amen! ”</p>
|
||
<p>Once again, let me see your raised hands. Thank you.</p>
|
||
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
|
||
|
||
<footer class="entry-meta">
|
||
</footer><!-- #entry-meta -->
|
||
|
||
</article><!-- #post-1663 -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<article id="post-1661" class="post-1661 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983">
|
||
<header class="entry-header">
|
||
<h2 class="entry-title">
|
||
<a href="blog-2018-06-23-home-church-is-our-land-of-settlement.html" title="Permalink to HOME CHURCH IS OUR LAND OF SETTLEMENT" rel="bookmark">HOME CHURCH IS OUR LAND OF SETTLEMENT</a>
|
||
</h2>
|
||
<div class="entry-meta">
|
||
<span class="author vcard" >By <a class="url fn n" rel="author" href="#" title="View all posts by Fami1yfed">Fami1yfed</a></span> <span><time class="onDate date published" datetime="2018-06-23T14:40:46+01:00"> <a href="blog-2018-06-23-home-church-is-our-land-of-settlement.html" rel="bookmark">June 23, 2018</a> </time></span><time class="updated" datetime="2018-06-23T14:40:46+01:00">June 23, 2018</time> <span class="bl_categ"> <a href="blog-category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983.html" rel="tag">Speeches of Rev Sun Myung Moon 1983</a> </span> </div><!-- .entry-meta -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
</header><!-- .entry-header -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<div class="entry-content">
|
||
<h2 align="CENTER">REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON</h2>
|
||
<h3 align="CENTER">January 1, 1983, Midnight<br />
|
||
World Mission Center<br />
|
||
Translator – Bo Hi Pak</h3>
|
||
<p>Father’s Prayer at Midnight:</p>
|
||
<p>Our Loving Father,</p>
|
||
<p>The year 1982 is behind us and we are at the threshold of the whole new year of 1983. The entire world is greeting this moment. Please guide all people who are planning their lives for this year so that their hearts will be in alignment with Your will. Let all religious people be united and let their lives freely develop following Your will.</p>
|
||
<p>In the midst of ordeals and persecution, the Unification members throughout the world marched towards Your final dispensational goal during 1982. Please remember those suffering children who are praying with longing hearts for the year 1983 to be a year of hope.</p>
|
||
<p>Guide the Unification members through this year and towards the time when the new history will begin. Let those who represent history be loyal, on behalf of all historical figures. Also, guide them so they dwell in the depths of Your heart. As soldiers who are establishing the Kingdom of Heaven, may they dwell in Your heart as unforgettable people, worthy of being called Your sons and daughters and deserving of Your abundant love.</p>
|
||
<p>As our members bid farewell to 1982, a year filled with ordeals, their hearts are tearful and their folded, prayerful hands are pointing in the direction of New York and America, where the True Parents are. These places where our members are gathered together are solemn places, where ardent prayers are offered. Please forgive each individual and receive the hearts of those who had given hopeful promise to bring the victory in 1982, but who were unable to fulfill it. I pray and beseech You to bless them, so that this new year will be a year of victory, one which they will be able to go through and look back on with gratitude.</p>
|
||
<p>At this time all the Unification members, representing all mankind, are making a new resolution: to be more deeply loyal and pious in 1983 and to be more united in one heart and one will. Let them pledge to become brave soldiers on the advancing line of the salvation of mankind. Let them determine to become victorious in securing both today and tomorrow. Let them resolve to become unforgettable people in Your heart. Please receive the resolution they are making at this time.</p>
|
||
<p>Ever since the day of infamy, the day in which the human ancestors fell, You have been laboring in man’s place. Laden with sorrow and loneliness, You have been trying to restore the lost history which is filled with many untold stories. In our place, You have voluntarily taken the path of sorrow and agony, lingering ever behind the scenes, watching over mankind and going through the historic path of indemnity with all Your strength. We think about You and all the things You have gone through and reflect</p>
|
||
<p>about the unrepented wrongs which our ancestors committed throughout history. Please permit us now as Unification members to pledge to You our loyalty and piety, on behalf of all mankind. This group of people knows that to follow Your way means to take the path of sorrow but they do not draw back. Neither do they mind enduring the path of persecution and oppression.</p>
|
||
<p>The historic paths of Abraham and Jacob were alike as they followed Your way. It was the same with Moses as he guided the journey of the Israelites. Jesus knew Your will and he was supposed to have built the victorious Heavenly Kingdom by subjugating the Roman Kingdom; but instead he lost the support of the chosen nation and had to take up the suffering path and under the name of Christianity extend it to the whole world. We reflect deeply about these historical events.</p>
|
||
<p>Your will was prolonged for the two thousand suffering years of Christianity, during which the efforts to recover all the years of history have been stained with tears, sweat and blood and filled with deeds which must be repented for. We are going through this lonely journey with You and overcoming this sorrow. You have seen people who prayed, even at the point of death, for that one victorious day in which Your will can be accomplished. We are reminded of Your painful broken heart, looking upon those people who are praying for the day in which the world will realize Your will.</p>
|
||
<p>Today in this time of the last days, Christianity should have fulfilled its responsibility so that the world could stand in the realm of victory. Then, instead of following a path of sorrow, Christianity’s course would have been a glorious one of attending and revering their Heavenly Father. Christian civilization, not just on the individual level but also as families, as a society, as a nation, and as a world, should have developed and taken shape, centering on the long-desired sovereignty of Heaven. Then they could have returned glory and victory and praise to You.</p>
|
||
<p>Again we reflect on the historical fact that the Unification Church, which was chosen to carry out Your will, had heaped upon it the burden of sorrow and obstacles called the way of historical indemnity. Persecution comes from individuals, from families, and from societies and nations as well. Now even here in the center of the free world, America, these members gathered here who revere and follow You have received rejection from religious people, those who are supposed to be following Your way. We know very well that behind the tear-stained sacrifices which we have made in order to pioneer and establish this foundation, lies Your much more sorrowful history. Assembled here together we are pledging to advance and progress and to be the kind of church that will never disappear in despair, but will bring the victorious day to the free world.</p>
|
||
<p>We are grateful for Your grace which infuses us with pride and confidence to take up the worldwide pioneer mission of laying the victorious foundation, upon which we can make a new settlement in this new time period. In this building in the center of New York, we have been the object of persecution, judgment and ridicule coming at us from all sides. But from this day at the beginning of this new year, Your children who are gathered here will be united in one heart and one body and will restore Heaven’s dignity and honor. As independence soldiers, we will establish the sovereignty of goodness and bring about the Heavenly Kingdom. As they rally together for this cause, please help them to be proud and valiant before Satan.</p>
|
||
<p>Father, please have hope in the Unification Church. We are not on the edge of twilight and facing the night, but rather on the verge of dawn, waiting to greet the rising sun. Heavenly Father, I pray that during 1983 You will settle on this earth and uphold all our work in pursuit of the Heavenly Kingdom with dignity and authority and protect it with a shield of victory. Please grant us the determination as we greet this new year to create the foundation on which Your victorious power can be manifested on this earth.</p>
|
||
<p>Please extend Your arms in blessing upon Korea, Japan, America and Germany, those nations representing providential roles. I plead for You to allow this year 1983 to be the boundary mark so that from now on in those countries, people who oppose will be weakened in their opposition and people on the side of goodness will prosper.</p>
|
||
<p>I ask for the entire spirit world to help make this year 1983 one in which the Unification Church members, representing all the nations on earth, will be united with their ancestors and march on together to secure the worldwide victory. Let the entire spirit world be mobilized to suppress the powers of evil which oppose this victory so we can leap forward. Also let this beginning hour be one in which we command the development of a new history. Countless religious figures and righteous people have been longing for the day of victory on earth; please allow them to participate in our efforts and work though their direct lineage in order to fulfill their long-cherished desires. Let them bring their descendants to this Unification banner, even though their descendants may be unaware of their help, in order to realize the victorious ideal world.</p>
|
||
<p>Korea, Japan, America and Germany and the other 127 nations are stained with the tears of the ones You love, as they make indemnity conditions with pleading prayers for the sake of bringing Your victory on this earth. I pray that this new year will establish the foundation for us to bring about the mobilization of tribes, nations and all mankind.</p>
|
||
<p>This year’s new motto is <em>“Home Church Is Our Land of Settlement.”</em> With this motto, we have a confident beginning point. God, please declare this year as one in which You can take command, mobilizing the saints and religious men, uniting all religious groups on earth.</p>
|
||
<p>I believe and I know that from this beginning hour of the new year the command will be given from Heaven and carried out on the earth: to march toward the one victorious day and to establish the victorious sovereignty of goodness and the victorious Kingdom of Heaven. Please declare this. I pray for all this with gratitude for Your grace in allowing us to pray these things. I bless and I pray all these things in the name of the True Parents.</p>
|
||
<p>Amen. Amen. Amen</p>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p>Most religious people in the world today think of God as an almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent being who simply enjoys His glory, as He sits upon His throne wearing His crown. That means they feel that God has nothing to do with pain, agony and suffering. Yet still Christianity calls God “Father” when they pray to Him. This is a contradiction in the Christian faith of our time.</p>
|
||
<p>In the last days, those religions which are parallel with the will of God shall remain, but those religions which are not will diminish. What kind of a being is God? That is the most fundamental and important question to ask. Does He truly have just a glorious position and enjoy every minute of the day?</p>
|
||
<p>When we look at the histories of all religions, we see that there was no real peace. Always religious people have had to endure bloodshed, tragedy and suffering. Why have religious people throughout history gone the road of suffering and martyrdom? It is because they believed it was God’s will for them to go that way. Another common principle persists throughout religious history: any time a religion is receiving persecution it prospers and doesn’t decline. Also it is true that during a time of persecution whenever religious people prayed with sincerity, their prayers were more readily accepted and granted.</p>
|
||
<p>Another thing which is obvious in history is that whenever a religion becomes established and settled, being respected and admired by the society at large, God seems to turn away from that religion. It starts to lose its deep fervor and enthusiasm.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore we can see that God has remained with religions during their periods of persecution but once they became comfortable, God seems to have turned away from them. Why is that? God established certain religions in history; people within them had to go through the individual level of persecution. Again, the key question to ask is whether those individuals who were persecuted were receiving it for only themselves or for the sake of humanity. The particular individual receiving persecution might be bearing it as a representative of 240 million American people, or 4 billion people in the world, or just as one individual, representing no one other than himself. That is an important question.</p>
|
||
<p>Whenever God ordains a certain individual to take on religious persecution, that person must take on representative persecution for the sake of the whole world, not just for himself. We can realize that whenever God supports a religious person who is receiving tremendous persecution, that individual must not be an ordinary individual but must be representative of all mankind.</p>
|
||
<p>What is the reason why God permits persecution of religious people? God tells them that by winning the victory over persecution they can win the victory over the entire world. When God chooses an individual and the world persecutes him, the world displays its evil; if this were a good world, it would not persecute him. By winning over the persecution coming from the evil side of the world, that individual must be winning a victory for righteousness and for God, not just for himself alone.</p>
|
||
<p>What is the definition of the evil world? The evil world is the one which does the work of Satan. Since the evil world is controlled by Satan, it is exactly opposite from the world which God intended. Satan’s desire is to safeguard every one of his children in the satanic world and not to allow any to leave and go to God’s side. However, Satan knows that God’s intention is to pull men out of his hands and to bring them to His world, where He can create the opposite realm from the satanic.</p>
|
||
<p>Those who are selected to be God’s champions have to struggle very hard against the satanic environment and be victorious over it. Without that, those individuals cannot return to God’s side. The Bible tells us that man became a fallen creature; the people who were supposed to be children of God transformed themselves into satanic men and women. Therefore, the simplest definition of the fall is the deviation from the original, healthy form to sickness. Satan is always working very hard to prevent God from mending mankind back into health.</p>
|
||
<p>Once a person is restored to perfect health he always has a certain immunity. Even if germs invade, a strong, healthy body will be able to resist them. That particular person with such immunity would not be contaminated, even if he went to the Orient, Africa, or anywhere Therefore, any satanic opposition toward you must be worldwide and universal in scale; the larger the scale the better.</p>
|
||
<p>God has been seeking of an individual who will be able to struggle against and prevail over all satanic persecution and become invincible over the entire satanic world. How does the process of persecution work? Persecution always comes through other people -from individuals to other individuals. Satan also knows how to best mobilize his forces. He has certain superior forces: people with wealth, intellect, power and influence and he can use these kinds of people for his purposes of persecution.</p>
|
||
<p>In the secular world, every nation has its own sovereignty through which it exerts influence and power. Therefore, we can understand why throughout history most of the persecution of religion and religious people came from governmental and politically sovereign powers. Then what would be God’s tactic? Would He choose one champion who would be opposed by governmental power, become a martyr and be finished? No, God would continue to raise up more and more champions and go from the individual level to the family level, to the clan, society and national levels, etc. Therefore it is most logical that those people who have been chosen by God to be champions must endure all different types and levels of persecution-from the individual all the way up to the world level.</p>
|
||
<p>A sign of the last days is the division of the world into two distinct camps. One of those camps proclaims that God does not exist and the other proclaims that He does. Today we see the existence of the free or democratic world and the communist, atheistic world. The world which accepts the existence of God is centered upon Christianity, which started from the historical background of Judaism. First, all of Christianity was under Catholicism, then Protestantism began; now the new level of Christianity has begun, the Unification Church.</p>
|
||
<p>Each level of religion had to resist certain types of persecution. Judaism, for example, resisted national persecution; Christianity has resisted worldwide persecution; and the Unification Church is resisting universal persecution. According to history, that would have to occur because any new religion which went beyond traditional Christianity would be in the position to receive universal persecution.</p>
|
||
<p>The history of the Jewish nation is recorded in the Old Testament. They received persecution continually; they wandered about and everywhere they turned, they received persecution. When Christianity came, it was the religion of the world; therefore it had the duty to confront worldwide powers. At that time, the Roman Empire was that power; it represented the entire world and it persecuted Christianity. The world of God’s major activity during that time was limited to the European and Middle Eastern locale. China and all the far Eastern regions were not affected by those areas and they were basically unaware of them.</p>
|
||
<p>Where is the Unification Church today? Is there any part of the world which is unaware of us? No, we are receiving persecution from the entire world, the truly universal level. There is no distinction between east and west, north and south; every six continents have seen persecution against the Unification Church. Just by observation of this historical phenomenon in such a short time, we can see that the Unification Church is truly the central providential religion of our time.</p>
|
||
<p>The Unification Church today captures the essence of Christianity; likewise, Christianity captured the essence of Judaism. What is that essence, that center? It is the messiahship. Judaism has claimed throughout its thousands of years that they are heralding the coming of the messiah. Christianity says that the messiah has come but they are awaiting the second coming. Unification Church today is claiming that the second coming has occurred.</p>
|
||
<p>When Judaism was talking about the messiah, they had a vague concept of the definition of that messiah. Christianity, even though they believe in the first coming of the messiah, has an imprecise understanding of the messiah. What about the Unification Church? Do we have a clear concept of the messiah or a vague one? We have a clear one.</p>
|
||
<p>Under what circumstances should the messiah come? Should he appear after all the persecution has been endured, or during the persecution, or before the persecution even begins? Look at the time of Judaism, the time of Christianity, the time of the Unification Church. When did the messiah appear?</p>
|
||
<p>If you say that the messiah should come before or during the persecution, you are saying that he is supposed to be right in the middle of the persecution. Ideally’ the messiah should appear upon the foundation of victory over persecution. If this is true, then all the religions such as Judaism and Christianity should never dodge persecution, saying, “I’m only interested in meeting the messiah and being saved. Let somebody else suffer persecution.” That is the wrong attitude to have.</p>
|
||
<p>We must understand that it was God’s plan to send the messiah only upon the foundation of victory on the individual, family, tribal, national and worldwide level. That was clearly God’s intention. At the last days, then, we must expect to see the appearance of one religion which is saying, “Let us take on the burden of universal persecution so that we can make the foundation to receive the messiah.”</p>
|
||
<p>What about you Moonies; do you like to receive persecution? You could ask me the same question and what do you think I would answer? The same as you: no. Do you think God likes persecution? I’m sure He would answer with a big, huge, NO. That is natural. Why, then, do we willingly accept persecution? It is for the sake of the salvation of the world. You might ask why we have to go through this persecution. Isn’t salvation possible without it? No, we must go this way.</p>
|
||
<p>The world is like a sick patient. When God sees that sick patient Lying on the bed, does He think, “Wonderful! I’m so happy!” No, He suffers heartbroken anguish for the sake of His children. Were the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, the servants of God or His children? They were His children. There was no phony artificial relationship between God and Adam and Eve. He created them in His image, as the bone of His bone, the flesh of His flesh.</p>
|
||
<p>Physical parents who must see their children Lying seriously ill in bed feel more grieved than those children The sick patient doesn’t understand what is going on inside his own body; he only knows that he is in pain. The parents who must watch him suffering will suffer even more in heart.</p>
|
||
<p>Christianity today believes God is glorious and sitting on a throne somewhere, but if God is truly the Parent of all mankind and His children are sick in bed, how can He enjoy sitting on a throne? Wouldn’t God, as our Parent, forget all about the glory of His throne and crown as He works to help alleviate the suffering of His children? God feels the emergency so deeply, He would even kick His throne and crown away and run down to embrace the world, still wearing His pajamas, like a father in the middle of the night.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore we can see that the general Christian concept of a totally glorious God of joy is the wrong understanding. Judaism believes in God and His glory; they also believe in fearing God and His power. Christianity believes in a God of love, but one of total power and glory. The Unification Church has come and is saying, “God is a God of suffering heart because His children are dying.” Is that a right or a wrong concept?</p>
|
||
<p>What do you think the spirit world thinks? Are the people there telling God, “You are the only one who cares about that fallen planet, so You go down and try to help them. We just want to enjoy ourselves here.”? No, they have declared an emergency for themselves as well, parallel with God’s.</p>
|
||
<p>When you members of the Unification Church receive persecution, do you feel regret or not? When people ask you, “What church do you belong to?” do you try to dodge the question? When they say, “Your church must have a name of some sort,” do you answer, “Well, it is an ecumenical church.”? The fact that you are laughing now means that you have done this. You said you don’t like persecution, but now that I have explained the meaning of persecution you can accept it as a necessity. Through persecution, you can return to God and receive the messiah; therefore, it is like a privilege.</p>
|
||
<p>Now that you have heard this, how will you respond? Perhaps you will go out to the street on Eighth Avenue and proclaim, “Everybody listen to me! I’m a Moonie and I welcome persecution! Give it to me!” I have been discussing all the different levels of persecution, from the individual to the universal. Once you have gone over the hurdle of inviting the universal level of persecution you have completed the test all at once. Therefore, that is the easiest way out, in a sense.</p>
|
||
<p>Today we Moonies are living in the era of the universal stage of persecution. Are you proud to be living in this era, receiving this kind of persecution? Do you think Reverend Moon is dumb or wise, sharp or dull? What will happen to Reverend Moon? He looks so dumb because he goes everywhere and receives nothing but persecution. You may think he is almost impossibly dumb because he wasn’t satisfied to receive the persecution of the entire nation of Korea; he had to go to Japan and invite more. Even that wasn’t enough-he came to America and asked for more persecution, and the Americans gave him a big dose. That wasn’t even the end of it because then he said he would go to Moscow!</p>
|
||
<p>Our topic tonight is about the land of our settlement. God and the messiah need to be able to settle somewhere on the earth. So far in history God has been a wandering God and the messiah had to wander also. There was no land for them to dwell in; therefore history must come to that point of final settlement. When the messiah comes he must settle; his immediate family will settle; his nation will settle down, as well.</p>
|
||
<p>By the year 1976, the entire world was persecuting me: all governments, all religions, all races, all the established powers. That was the highest point of persecution. At that time everybody thought Reverend Moon would be finished. But what has happened since 1976? Reverend Moon has emerged step by step as a victor; more and more people are seeing him as possibly the messiah.</p>
|
||
<p>It is obvious that any human’s efforts could not have succeeded in this way. Only with the assistance of God could we have come this far. In the span of 10 years, Reverend Moon has established himself on the basis of the entire world.</p>
|
||
<p>Satan has been the source of the persecution of Reverend Moon but God has been the power which resisted that persecution and gave him the blessing. Without God’s blessing, I could never have come this far. That means the Unification Church is a God-centered, true religion. We have a philosophical and theological foundation which is universal.</p>
|
||
<p>What kind of a man is Reverend Moon? Am I fearful, or evil, or good, or mediocre? There are two definitions of Reverend Moon-one is Satan’s and one is God’s. From Satan’s point of view, Reverend Moon is the most fearful man the world has ever encountered. From God’s point of view, however, Reverend Moon is the man who pleases Him more than anyone else in history.</p>
|
||
<p>We must come to the conclusion that there are two categories of those who like Reverend Moon. One is God and the other is the Moonies. What about the 600 million Christians around the world? Does God care more about numbers of so-called religious people, or about the quality of faith which people exhibit? God is more interested in quality than quantity.</p>
|
||
<p>The greatest phenomenon in the advanced civilization of America today is that the most clever young people are following Reverend Moon and refusing to allow anyone to pull them away, even their parents and families. It is truly a source of great interest and curiosity. When Reverend Moon first came to America and proclaimed his message, most people said, “That’s OK, let him continue. America is the melting pot, so within six months, we will melt Reverend Moon, too.” However, what has happened? Ten years later, American historians have witnessed that, instead of America melting Reverend Moon, America is being melted by him!</p>
|
||
<p>You are the children of this culture which has always taught you to sit on chairs. However, now you have changed and you feel comfortable to sit on the floor. I think you can sit longer than I can! I have even heard that when some of our members go back home to visit, instead of choosing to sit on a couch or chair, they tell their parents they are more comfortable sitting on the floor. You have brought the “Moon culture” to your homes in this way and your families cannot understand what is happening!</p>
|
||
<p>Nobody seems to like you because the American establishment is not accustomed to your new-found culture. You are making money and you only want to spend it for the sake of your mission, rather than buying things or putting it in a savings account. When the Christmas and New Year holidays come, everybody else is thinking about having fun and going to parties; but we Moonies look at the season as the best time for fundraising!</p>
|
||
<p>It is very important in the American culture that young people date and go out with the opposite sex. Many people also think that drugs are fun and harmless. Often parents are urging their children to have lots of dates and an active social life. But in the Moonie culture women who are even 30 years old don’t know anything about dating and social life. Their parents think this is very strange. However is there any Unification Church man or woman who cannot get married? No, we can all get married-in one day!</p>
|
||
<p>From the satanic point of view, the Unification Church is just impossible and Satan has declared this a time of emergency. However from God’s point of view it is a wonderful thing to see. God is pleased to see that for the first time He has some people on the earth who will not be shaken by Satan; He sees that He has some children of His own.</p>
|
||
<p>People who thought our movement was bad believed we wouldn’t last more than one or two years. However, after ten years in America Reverend Moon and the Unification movement is going stronger than ever. When people try to tell you that you are being brainwashed and used by Reverend Moon, you do not respond by believing them. Instead, you become angry with them and tell them off! No real Moonie will stand still to hear such comments.</p>
|
||
<p>None of the efforts of the secular world will work on the Moonies, so they came to the conclusion that you must all be brainwashed. When the Unification Theological Seminary graduates seek their PhDs at major universities, the first thing their professors do is give them an eye test to determine if they really have the glassy eyes. They want to determine if Moonies are really zombies and robots who cannot think or talk for themselves. While those professors have been entertaining all these sensational ideas, Reverend Moon has already embraced the entire academic world, the scientific and theologians’ world. There are no really prominent and eminent professors any more who do not know about Reverend Moon on very good terms.</p>
|
||
<p>Right now, some very highly esteemed theologians and philosophers are gathered at the Conference on God, in Florida. That particular group of scholars used to be afraid of Reverend Moon, but now they are attending a conference sponsored by him and they are hearing talks on Reverend Moon’s ideology. Now when they hear the name or the teachings of Reverend Moon, their heads are lowered in respect.</p>
|
||
<p>The American media managed to completely topple President Nixon within a year and a half. The President of the United States capitulated to the power of the media and got kicked out of the White House. That is something the <i>Washington Post is </i>very proud of. So they thought, “Reverend Moon will not last more than six months.” However instead of capitulating to them, Reverend Moon is moving forward more and more strongly. All the attention of the media only succeeded in making Reverend Moon famous. <i>People </i>magazine listed Reverend Moon as one of the “25 Most Intriguing People” for 1982.</p>
|
||
<p>Look at me now. Am I a good-looking, handsome man? When you look at my Oriental face with your Western eyes, do you really enjoy it and feel good about it? My face normally looks strange to Westerners. I don’t rely on appearances to be likable. Maybe many people don’t think I am anything special to look at. However, I know that you love me because of something within me, not because of how I look. Isn’t that correct?</p>
|
||
<p>How do you and I know that is true? When you pray and meditate and when you have dreams, sometimes you meet with me and Mother. I would never visit with any of you in your dreams or prayers if our relationship were not one of genuine care and love. How many of you have met with me in your dreams or prayers? It appears that almost 100% of you have. How many of the hundreds of millions of Christians have dreams and visions of Jesus?</p>
|
||
<p>You are truly a different kind of people; you are very strange in a way. Therefore you feel the desire to marry someone from the Orient or someone from another culture. This is very extraordinary for Americans. The Unification Church families will be most colorful in the future. On one bosom, the mother will hold a white baby, on the other she will hold a black baby and the third child will be a yellow one! Suppose a white woman had three children, one white, one black and one yellow. It happened that the black and the yellow child loved their mother more than the white child. Would the mother reject those children because they were a different color than her and prefer the white child? No, the mother’s eyes do not see color; they only see love.</p>
|
||
<p>God looks at the earth the same way. Do you think He says, “I prefer white children more, so you white ones can come to Me first, then the yellow ones and finally the black ones.”? No, God will welcome His children according to the intensity of their love for Him. White, yellow and black make no difference to Him.</p>
|
||
<p>Suppose you were an Oriental woman married to a white husband with some black ancestors. You would be a mixture of everything in your family! You might have one white, one yellow, and one black child! That would be a beautiful, multi-colored family. In the recent Korean matching, I matched many Japanese women to black African men; this caused tremendous commotion in Japan. The parents are complaining against me but I am telling them, “What is the problem? As these men and women come together in love, mankind will be brought closer together in love; furthermore, God takes great delight in this. Therefore, I have no shame about it.”</p>
|
||
<p>The majority of the couples in the recent blessing on October 14 came from Japan. This marriage caused a tremendous, earthshaking response in Japan. Most people took it very favorably, saying, “What a sacred way of marrying! What a beautiful way to start the race of God!” Many parents were very pleased to see that their children had gone to take part in that blessing; but then, their daughters came back with a black husband. However, they had already applauded the value of the blessing, so they couldn’t take it back!</p>
|
||
<p>Many Japanese are thinking that Reverend Moon’s mass marriages are truly a wonderful idea. Even the government has resigned itself and accepted it. Initially they thought that Reverend Moon was very evil, but observing his actions they have changed their minds. They have begun to accept that Reverend Moon must be a good man. People have seen that instead of trying to take revenge on the American media, I have created the <i>Washington Times </i>and invited all those negative media people to take a better job with us, to contribute something of value to the country.</p>
|
||
<p>1982 was an extraordinary year. The U.S. government tried to destroy Reverend Moon in the courtroom, but instead of seeking revenge, I have turned around and tried to do many things to help and save the destiny of this nation. Many comfortable Washington political bureaucrats who have had their beautiful offices inside big marble buildings considered Reverend Moon and the Unification Church as insignificant as peanuts. However, now they have found themselves having to respond to the <i>Washington Times; </i>they are reading it and trembling at some of the stories. They find themselves having to take advice from the <i>Washington Times!</i></p>
|
||
<p>Those who are dedicated to the destruction of the Unification Church find the <i>Washington Times </i>the worst thing possible. They are thinking, “Reverend Moon must be a genius to come up with this idea. We were hitting him through the media and he responded by creating the <i>Washington Times!” </i>Traditionally America has been a basically conservative nation; recently, however, there has been no effective conservative newspaper in the nation’s capitol. When the <i>Washington Times </i>first appeared, people just called it “the Moonie paper.” However, now conservative people in Washington are calling it “our paper.”</p>
|
||
<p>In the winter time, honeybees don’t have the ability to find honey so the beekeeper has to feed them with sugar. All winter long they stock up on sugar, but once spring comes and the real honey appears, the bees are so intent on sucking it they are not even aware if someone comes along and tries to pull them away. They might even be pulled in two pieces, but their heads would keep sucking the honey! Something like that is happening now in Washington. People are reading the <i>Washington Times </i>and are oblivious to being “hit” by others; they are saying, “So what! This is honey!”</p>
|
||
<p>Actually, we are the happiest people under the sun. We are leading the most exciting life. Now, during this Christmas season perhaps some of your parents are worrying about you and thinking that you are leading a terrible lifestyle. On the contrary, you are the most vital, happiest people. Also we are very excited because we know that we have the ability to mold the future for the nation and the world. We can create a new moral society on the earth; we can put an end to immorality and drug-abuse. Because of this, Moonies are people of great confidence.</p>
|
||
<p>We consider the whole world as our stage. Many young people are becoming victims of the drug culture; they try to deaden their senses and obliterate the world’s influence. But we want to contribute to the whole world; we want to learn all the languages-French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, etc. This is because we want to be able to survive and prosper wherever we go, anywhere in the world.</p>
|
||
<p>The most important quality we possess is that we are not doing these things because we are being forced to; we are doing them voluntarily and joyfully. How wonderful you are, even though your parents may be thinking, “How miserable and fearful those Moonies are!”</p>
|
||
<p>We have a hope and a pattern for the future; God is preparing it for us. That is what our life is all about. Each of you is heading for that goal which you must be qualified to reach-citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. This means you must be willing to go through the worst possible training period during your life on earth. Every day you experience difficult situations for this very reason.</p>
|
||
<p>What is the uniqueness of Reverend Moon? After all, there have been many religious leaders who went through the road of persecution because they were obeying God. However, very few succeeded on every level. Reverend Moon is the man who not only endured tremendous persecution but who also won the victory on every level- individual, family, society, national, worldwide and universal levels. This is what God has been waiting to see throughout human history; finally He has found a winner.</p>
|
||
<p>The key word is victory. Somebody has to sign the victory certificate and who is that? Satan must be the one. That victory sheet for God is the surrender sheet for Satan. If this is really true, those of you here have really hit the jackpot. When someone plays “Blackjack” at a gambling casino, the owner of that casino never wants to see anyone get a “21” or blackjack. However, if someone gets that, the owner is obliged by the rules of the game to pay him for his chips. Satan is in the same position. However reluctant he is to surrender, he will be forced to when you win the victory.</p>
|
||
<p>At what point will Satan surrender? He will give you his absolutely strongest persecution and if you endure it and show that your love for God is stronger than his persecution, you will have won. Satan will see that no matter how intensely he persecutes and punishes you, you will never surrender and he will feel that he is wasting his time with you. In such a case, Satan will leave.</p>
|
||
<p>What is Reverend Moon’s uniqueness, then? I knew this secret about Satan. I knew how to hit the blackjack against Satan. I brought this secret to the different levels of relationship-individual, family, and so forth-because the principle is the same, regardless of the level. Satan surrenders only under one condition: that you love God more than the worst persecution he can give you.</p>
|
||
<p>All of you are listening to this sermon. but so is Satan! He is jumping up and down in frustration, crying, “Oh no, Reverend Moon, you did it to me again! What will I do?” Once you know Satan’s secret, your way is very simple. You will become men and women who are invincible and no one will be able to stop you. Regardless of what anyone tells you, including your brothers and sisters, your mother and father, your society, your employer, it won’t make a difference in your faith. Even if the communists try to kill you, you will be unmoved.</p>
|
||
<p>Therefore, once you know this secret, you can look at persecution as a suspension bridge, across which you have to walk from Satan’s realm into God’s realm. That bridge will carry you across the wide chasm dividing them.</p>
|
||
<p>This is like a “blessed couples season,” because we see lots of couples talking very intimately with one another. One wife may be saying to her husband, “My dear, you have been a member of the Unification Church for ten years now. You have done your share. For a change, let’s just take a little vacation together.” Then there is the wife who gives her husband a motherly admonition, “Dear, you didn’t learn very much and Father says we must be very wise. Therefore, why don’t you drop everything and go back to college and get your degree?”</p>
|
||
<p>You women, without your even realizing it, can be used as a tool of Satan very easily. When you start talking about all the mundane, practical things of your life, you can easily be led into complaining, which can grow and grow. This kind of process is almost inevitably a poison. At first your husband might resist your complaining and tell you to stop. However, if you persist, after a while he will eventually give in to you.</p>
|
||
<p>What do you say to that, you men? Will you be that kind of husband? You husbands must be able to tell even your wife, “Get behind me, Satan.” What about you women? Can you also say to your husbands, “Get behind me, Satan.”? If you can agree to doing that, even though you might have made mistakes in the past, God will be able to forgive you and give you a new beginning at this new year.</p>
|
||
<p>Home Church is our land of settlement; that means Home Church is the final stage of the providence. After I have received persecution from all different levels and gained the victory over them, my certificate of victory is Home Church. That certificate is given by Satan as well as God; it must come from both sides. Home Church is the place where you can inherit my victories and you can also conclude your indemnity You can separate yourself from indemnity and find your final, ultimate land of settlement. That is Home Church.</p>
|
||
<p>God called Abraham out of his homeland and told him to travel; he had to live like a gypsy. Jacob also had to work throughout much of his life in a foreign land, the land of Laban. Moses left his home and went into the Pharaoh’s palace. Christianity had to leave Israel and go to Rome. The Unification Church today has had to leave its homeland. I had to leave my country, just as many of you did. I left my homeland and came to America where the persecution has been great; however, I have not stopped my journey. I must go toward the ultimate goal of Moscow. In 1976 I declared that the next goal was Moscow.</p>
|
||
<p>I am the front-line soldier against communism. Many people fee] very uncomfortable when they hear that Reverend Moon’s next goal is Moscow. They think I am making very dangerous statements and that someone might try to kill me. Even my close assistants have not understood how we would be able to accomplish the goal of our Moscow rally. Yesterday morning I sat at the breakfast table, surrounded by church leaders, and I talked about how I planned to achieve the Moscow rally. For the first time all those close leaders told me, “Now we understand why you made that declaration to go to Moscow. It makes sense, Father.” I won’t tell you the plan here because you will think it’s too simple and easy. Perhaps you will think you can just relax and not work hard. Also, I can’t release such information too widely because there are spies who hear these sermons, not just our faithful members.</p>
|
||
<p>You women, if I directed you to go to Moscow, would you go? Today there is no country on the face of the earth in which there is not a member of the Unification Church, including Soviet Russia and the satellite countries. You may have noticed that one of your brothers disappeared all of a sudden and you thought, “Maybe he was tired and left the movement.” In many cases, that person went to a foreign country. Even some blessed couples have willingly parted from each other for the purpose of serving in another country.</p>
|
||
<p>What about you? Are you only thinking, “We got the blessing now. All we have to do is create the Heavenly four-positions, so I want to relax and settle down now.” Do you need an ordinary life now, or do you need a mission? You must think, “Mission is first, second, and third in my life.”</p>
|
||
<p>I always go to the Holy Ground every day to pray at 5:00 in the morning and sometimes earlier. It is not easy for Mother, but she accompanies me. Mother has her own accomplishments; she is only one woman and she has brought thirteen brilliant children into the world. That is very extraordinary and I could easily become sympathetic toward her situation for that reason, but I don’t allow myself to do that. I tell her, “You have your accomplishments, but I have my own suffering, too. My path is equally and even more difficult. Therefore, let us move forward without hesitation.”</p>
|
||
<p>Sometimes I don’t feel very well; I get headaches and soreness throughout my body. Whenever that happens, I push myself harder. Normally people say, “I need another two hours rest, perhaps a whole day’s rest, and I’ll be Al right tomorrow.” However, when I don’t feel well I push my body and say, “Get moving.” What happens? I find that my pains and headache disappears.</p>
|
||
<p>Those leaders who regularly come to East Garden come early in the morning and stay until I go upstairs to bed. At night they often feel very tired but they don’t want to say so. Instead they say to me, “Father, I think you must be very tired. Don’t you want to go upstairs and get some rest?” I answer them, “You rascals! Get behind me, Satan!” Then I usually stay downstairs even longer than usual.</p>
|
||
<p>Normally I go upstairs around one or two o’clock in the morning, but that is not the end of my day. I often sit at my desk and read reports and work on papers. Often I spend the entire night on that chair. Five o’clock comes very quickly and I always go to the Holy Ground to pray.</p>
|
||
<p>I can sleep at any time or place. If I sit down for just five minutes, you will hear me snoring very soon. My body is always tired, but I am still pushing myself. Many members think, “Father’s body is special. His bones are made of iron and his flesh is not really like everybody else’s.” That is the way many people try to justify themselves.</p>
|
||
<p>Sometimes my own children feel regret for not having received unlimited love and attention from Mother and me; their hearts are pained by this sometimes. I know they have every right to feel sad and claim that they did not receive enough attention from us, but then what have we been doing? We have worked hard and suffered for the sake of the entire world and humanity, something greater than our own children. Therefore I have no pain in my conscience. Since I have been pursuing greater and greater accomplishments, my family has received care and protection.</p>
|
||
<p>Reverend Moon doesn’t have a land for settlement; he is still a sojourner in a foreign land, living like a gypsy. I am still living this way because God has not yet found His own land of settlement. When God settles, Reverend Moon and the Moonies will settle with Him. This is the most crucial segment of human history-the settlement of God, Reverend Moon and the members of the Unification Church.</p>
|
||
<p>From 1945 to 1985 will be the forty years of wilderness for the Unification Church. We are still marching in the wilderness toward the goal of the worldwide Canaan. We shall move forward into Canaan and leave behind this wilderness. These 40 years are the most crucial ones for the Unification Church because it is the time period during which we must pay every possible indemnity condition that needs to be paid. We must be completely free of accusation from Satan so that he will have no condition to claim against us.</p>
|
||
<p>Reverend Moon is like the elder statesman in the land of darkness, but the dawn is coming. Now I am emerging in the new morning light; this is the end of the 40 years. Right now a big contrast is clear between North America and South America. North America is strongly persecuting me; all the media use negative adjectives to describe me, such as, “controversial Korean evangelist-industrialist,” or sometimes they say, “charlatan,” and so forth. But now in South America many people are looking at me as a source of new hope. The media write about me as, “the internationally famous Reverend Moon.”</p>
|
||
<p>When one side of the globe is in darkness, the other is enjoying the sunlight. While the U.S. is persecuting Reverend Moon, the Orient is starting to see me as one of the greatest Oriental men who ever lived. They are calling me a patriot and so on. Certainly the yellow race is the most numerous throughout the world. Japan is giving great pain to Western civilization because they are outdoing them in everything, such as computers and automobiles. This is the result of the natural turning of the universe.</p>
|
||
<p>The period of persecution against the Moonies is not going to be permanent. That is the time of night and it has to turn toward the time of light. The period of persecution will be approximately 40 years. When the dawn comes, how long will the time of welcome last for the Moonies? The showdown has been made, so we will be embraced for eternity. It will be final.</p>
|
||
<p>Reverend Moon wants to bring all the victorious achievements to you upon the foundation of Home Church. You will be able to receive this inheritance whether you joined the church ten years ago, one year ago, or just today. During World War II, some people fought from the beginning to the end, while some joined only on the last day. Still each person on the winning side could enjoy the victory at the end; each soldier could call himself a veteran. The greatest of all blessings is coming to all the members of the Unification Church, who shall have the right to attend God, Jesus and the True Parents and settle together in the land of Canaan. That is the privilege and honor of the members of the Unification Church.</p>
|
||
<p>Because of the fall of man, all levels of love were lost and need to be restored. You must love God first, before your husband or wife and children. Home Church represents God to you, so you must love Home Church first. Then you should love the True Parents and finally you can love your spouse and children. Four types of love were lost: love for God, love for true parents, true love between husband and wife, and true love for children. These must be restored in the proper order.</p>
|
||
<p>In Home Church you must receive the welcome of everyone, including Satan. In that way you will be granted the right to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This morning at breakfast, Mr. Pak told me that we need to witness more to young people who will be committed members to replace</p>
|
||
<p>the older members. I told him that was important but Home Church is more important. As the head of <i>Washington Times, </i>he should give out his name card to people, especially when he travels back and forth on the airplane shuttle. He could tell people, “I am responsible for the new paper, <i>Washington Times. </i>Aren’t you interested to hear about Reverend Moon and the teachings of our church?” Witnessing to people is doing Home Church, too. All the leaders should think in such a fashion.</p>
|
||
<p>The accomplishment of this Home Church providence is a life or death matter. When something is so serious, there is nothing you cannot do; nothing should make you hesitate. Husband and wife should go together with their children on their arms, visiting their 360 homes. While you are winning the Home Church area, you will be winning spiritual children as well. You must make your Home Church area a place in which you have a free pass everywhere. You are taking God, the True Parents, your husband and wife, and your children with you. This is the gate through which you must be able to pass.</p>
|
||
<p>From now on there are no boundaries between spirit world and the physical world. You can communicate freely back and forth. The land of settlement is almost like Cape Canaveral, with rocket ships leaving regularly.</p>
|
||
<p>God has been holding on to a small, leaf-like boat on the Pacific Ocean, but He is finally finding some dry land. That is the kind of joy which God feels toward Home Church. If you only talk about doing Home Church but you never really get serious about it and do it, when you die and go to spirit world you will feel much regret; but by then it is too late. You cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven until you somehow create your own Home Church base here on the earth. It might take millions of years.</p>
|
||
<p>When you blessed couples spread throughout the world and become very numerous, will you open your doors to welcome the True Parents and True Children, night or day? By the same token, you shall be welcomed in your Home Church area. You have to create the base for that kind of welcome.</p>
|
||
<p>With this formula and tradition established, the Moscow Rally will be absolutely no problem; in fact, it will be simple. The time has come in which I must settle. I have done everything that needs to be done for the sake of the free world. 1983 is going to be a crucial year for you and for me; we are going to bring victory together this year. The court battle shall be won during this year. Perhaps if you don’t fulfill what is needed and expected of you, God will have to leave you behind because you will become like a roadblock.</p>
|
||
<p>Perhaps for a change I will mobilize all scholars. If the white people cannot accomplish, I will use other people. Perhaps Oriental people or some other ethnic group will have to come over here to work. If that isn’t successful, I will mobilize all the Korean people here in America; they will be asked to provide the funds necessary for the American providence.</p>
|
||
<p>Once I make up my mind to do a certain thing, it can be organized within a short time. Will you accomplish your responsibilities, or will you say to me, “I’m in a special situation, Father. I work for the newspaper” or “My mission is different from everybody else’s.”? That excuse will not work.</p>
|
||
<p>Now you know the slogan and goal for 1983-Home Church Is Our Land of Settlement. We must dedicate our heart and soul toward the fulfillment of this goal and win the victory. Last year’s slogan was Victory of Home Church. How much victory did you win? The slogan of the previous year was Home Church Is My Kingdom of Heaven. How much of the Kingdom of Heaven did you actually build and organize? Before that, we had Home Church Is the Base of the Kingdom of Heaven, and Home Church Is the Completion of the Kingdom of Heaven. However, throughout all these years, nobody has achieved the goal. This year should not be the same as those in the past. This year should be different. All you leaders must be aware of the responsibility you are bearing to mobilize everyone this year, without exception.</p>
|
||
<p>Without this attitude, you will not have your settlement but will always be wandering like gypsies, not only in this life but also throughout eternity. When you enter the spirit world, you will not be able to be near me unless you succeed. In the Christian faith, no matter how much they believe they can only go as far as Paradise. By the same token, unless you fulfill a certain program here on earth, you shall enter only into a paradise level of existence. In that place you will receive all kinds of accusation from those closest to you-your own spouse, your children, and so forth. They will complain, “Why didn’t you push me harder while we were on the earth? Because of that, we didn’t work hard enough for Home Church and we couldn’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” I want you to understand that the accusation of Satan is painful, but the accusation from your own spouse and children is even worse. You cannot truly love and embrace your spouse and children without doing your mission.</p>
|
||
<p>This is the reason I have given my entire life, day in and day out, to accomplish my mission. This morning, since you know the truth and you know the slogan, let us pledge to Heaven that we shall march forward to the accomplishment of this slogan and achieve the victory this year. Those who make that pledge, raise your hands and say Amen! You have made so many pledges in the past, but this particular one shall not fail. With that attitude of determination, raise your hands again. Amen! Thank you.</p>
|
||
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
|
||
|
||
<footer class="entry-meta">
|
||
</footer><!-- #entry-meta -->
|
||
|
||
</article><!-- #post-1661 -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
</div> <!--content-masonry-->
|
||
|
||
<div class='pagination_container'><nav class='pagination'><a href='blog-category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983.html' class='inactive' >1</a><a href='blog-category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983-page-2.html' class='inactive' >2</a><a href='blog-category-speeches-of-rev-sun-myung-moon-1983-page-3.html' class='inactive' >3</a><span class='current'>4</span></nav></div>
|
||
|
||
|
||
</div><!-- #content -->
|
||
<div id="secondary" class="widget-area sidey" role="complementary">
|
||
|
||
<ul class="xoxo">
|
||
<li id="nav_menu-2" class="widget-container widget_nav_menu"><div class="menu-menu-3-side-bar-menu-container"><ul id="menu-menu-3-side-bar-menu" class="menu"><li id="menu-item-84" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-84"><a href="the-founders.html">The Founders</a></li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-87" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-87"><a href="services.html">Sunday Services</a></li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-85" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-85"><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
|
||
<li id="menu-item-2566" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-2566"><a href="archive-speeches.html">Speeches</a></li>
|
||
</ul></div></li> </ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</section><!-- #primary -->
|
||
|
||
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
|
||
</div> <!-- #forbottom -->
|
||
</div><!-- #main -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<footer id="footer" role="contentinfo">
|
||
<div id="colophon">
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
</div><!-- #colophon -->
|
||
|
||
<div id="footer2">
|
||
<div id="footer2-inner">
|
||
<div id="site-copyright"><b>Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) Ireland</b>
|
||
<br>Charity no. CHY 6071 All Rights Reserved 2013</b> <br>
|
||
<a href="archive-speeches.html" target="_blank">Speeches</a></div> <div style="text-align:center;padding:5px 0 2px;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:12px;margin:1em auto 0;">
|
||
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification Ireland
|
||
</div><!-- #site-info -->
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div><!-- #footer2 -->
|
||
|
||
</footer><!-- #footer -->
|
||
|
||
</div><!-- #wrapper -->
|
||
|
||
<script>
|
||
( function ( body ) {
|
||
'use strict';
|
||
body.className = body.className.replace( /\btribe-no-js\b/, 'tribe-js' );
|
||
} )( document.body );
|
||
</script>
|
||
<script> /* <![CDATA[ */var tribe_l10n_datatables = {"aria":{"sort_ascending":": activate to sort column ascending","sort_descending":": activate to sort column descending"},"length_menu":"Show _MENU_ entries","empty_table":"No data available in table","info":"Showing _START_ to _END_ of _TOTAL_ entries","info_empty":"Showing 0 to 0 of 0 entries","info_filtered":"(filtered from _MAX_ total entries)","zero_records":"No matching records found","search":"Search:","all_selected_text":"All items on this page were selected. ","select_all_link":"Select all pages","clear_selection":"Clear Selection.","pagination":{"all":"All","next":"Next","previous":"Previous"},"select":{"rows":{"0":"","_":": Selected %d rows","1":": Selected 1 row"}},"datepicker":{"dayNames":["Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday"],"dayNamesShort":["Sun","Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat"],"dayNamesMin":["S","M","T","W","T","F","S"],"monthNames":["January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","October","November","December"],"monthNamesShort":["January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","October","November","December"],"monthNamesMin":["Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"],"nextText":"Next","prevText":"Prev","currentText":"Today","closeText":"Done","today":"Today","clear":"Clear"}};/* ]]> */ </script><script type="text/javascript">var cryout_global_content_width = 800;</script>
|
||
<!-- Shortcodes Ultimate custom CSS - start -->
|
||
<style type="text/css">
|
||
.su-column-size-1-4{
|
||
width:18%;
|
||
}
|
||
</style>
|
||
<!-- Shortcodes Ultimate custom CSS - end -->
|
||
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html>
|