The human being is in an intermediate position where the place in which he is now living must be settled, whether it is the side of goodness or the side of evil, centering on good and evil. Furthermore, whether I go in a good direction or an evil direction is not settled by borrowing the strength of a third party but must be settled by one’s own judgment. We know this well. All the more, we who have become descendants of the human being who fell through failing to bear his portion of responsibility must know that we are at a grave crossroads where we cannot help but settle this.
The Human Being Who Must Discern Good and Evil and Be Born Anew
Because Adam failed to bear his portion of responsibility, we today know that we are in a position where, in bearing our portion of responsibility, we cannot complete that mission by receiving anyone’s cooperation. The final decision is made by us. To put it another way, it means that the decision whether one becomes a good person or an evil person is not made for us by God but must be made by ourselves.
What is the goal of our human lifetime, the standard of our living?
This is goodness. The center of this goodness is God. That is, it is the Father. That is why we must know the fact that the one who discerns whether I become a good I or an evil I, centering on the One who is the center of goodness, is not another person but precisely oneself.
Therefore, we human beings today must be born anew, centering on the Father, and must grow anew and pass through the course of life. To put it another way, it means one must be born through the Father, and live through the Father, and die through the Father. And one must live together with the Father in the eternal world. This is the road we human beings today must go, and also the road of destiny we must go hereafter. Seen in this way, we who have fallen are not in a good position.
We human beings are, through the Fall, in an evil position that is the opposite of goodness. Therefore, I until now am undoubtedly an evil I. Accordingly, my being born too was being born from the lineage of evil, and my living until now too has been living within the sphere of the environment of evil. In this way, because our past and present are evil, we are on a road of destiny where the future too cannot but be evil. To escape from here, one must make a new departure of life centering on the substance of goodness. That is, it means one must be born anew. And thus, we must become an “I” who divides our course of life into good and evil and goes toward a good goal. That is why, if on the road we now go, the left side is evil, and the right side is good; we are in a position where we cannot help but go to the right, centering on goodness.
And thus, one must feel that the present self, newly born and centering on goodness, is more valuable than the time when one was born evil and lived in the past. If one comes to hold a day in which one can live in goodness, then when we set out the course of life in which one must so live hereafter, it means there remains a destiny of having to indemnify the sinful state that was in the past.
The individual called “I” was not formed only by this reality itself. Because one was born receiving the bloodline of countless forebears historically, one is like a secondary relic. It means that in order for the “I” who was born inheriting such bonds of the past to return now to a position of goodness holding a bond of new life, there must be a new resolve and determination by which one can tread upon and cross over the bond of the forebears’ bloodline.
Then what kind of position is such a position?
It is a position where the power to deny evil and affirm goodness is strong, a position holding power more than enough to deny the whole past that is the origin of those people. Only in such a position can one find a bond of new life.
When one lives forming relationships through such a bond, from there goodness arises, and the foundation of goodness widens. It means that living in order, thus widening the foundation of goodness, is the life of us who have known the Will and is the road we must go hereafter. We must know this.
One Must Become a Person Who Forms Good Bonds
You must know that the “I” who is aware today differs from the “I” of the past. The bond that can be formed and equipped centering on the “I” who is aware today must be a bond of more value than the brothers or relatives or the nation or the world or humankind that were bound in the past. That is, we must be aware that we must form a bond of good parents, a bond of good brothers, a bond of a good clan, a bond of good people, a bond of a good nation, and a bond of a good world.
Furthermore, even though one is aware of that, if one lives a life for oneself, it does not become goodness. Though the awareness was one’s own, that living must not be for oneself. A person who has felt such a thing must become a person who lives for the past, and must become a person who lives for reality, and must become a person who lives for the future. One must become a person who lives not only for his family but also for the countless families of history and a person who lives for a family that can inherit the nation that comes hereafter and can inherit the world.
Such a person is necessary. Also, while living in place of the people and the nation, one must live not for one’s own people and nation but for the people and nation to come hereafter.
But that has not appeared distinctly in reality. Because it is a position that begins from us, it means it is our position that unless we live a good life, that is, a public life, centering on the aware "I," we cannot form a bond with a good world.
Why is that?
Because until now we have been equipped with bonds of evil and have been steeped in a life of evil, only by leaving behind, centering on oneself, a bond of God’s creation that can cross beyond this bond of evil and grow broader than it, can we carry out Restoration through Indemnity. Indemnity is setting up in its place a condition of sacrifice for something and crossing over.
If one has suffered a loss of ten, one must set up some condition and bring a benefit of more than ten for it to be indemnity. The indemnity we have carried out until now has been conditional.
Conditions of indemnity cannot but be a grateful grace for us. It means that ninety-five percent is God’s responsibility and five percent is the human being’s responsibility. You may consider this to be a formula, but that we carry out conditional indemnity is an exceedingly sorrowful fact. To raise that conditional indemnity to a standard that is not conditional indemnity, God’s toil and labor must be involved behind it. Why? Because we were born as descendants of fallen forebears. Accordingly, you must become people who know how to feel that we are far too insufficient to establish faith before God. And thus, if there be a person who tries, saying he will go a course of life seeking a road of indemnity beyond a hundred percent, it means this person can live a life that leaves behind a responsible footing before God without fearing conditions of indemnity.
Such a person is one who can always offer up his body and sacrifice for the nation and the world. To put it another way, he is a person who lives holding a mind of filial devotion toward the family, and a person who lives holding a mind of loyalty toward the nation, and a person who lives holding the mind of a sage toward the whole world. With what goal does such a person live? He lives not gazing upon one day of victory centering on his present self but going seeking the victory of the nation and the world. Therefore, it means he lives not for the people of reality but for the people of the future. Because living for the future is a living that conflicts with living for reality, such a person is rejected in reality, and is lonely, and suffers loss. But a person who lives knowing that as something he ought properly to undergo can cross over, however difficult a condition of indemnity lies across his path. We must know such a fact.
When we consider Jesus’ some thirty years of life, though it was a short life, he worked for history and worked and lived for the world. Because he lived together with history and lived together with the world while hoping for that day of raising high the flag of victory, all people cannot but admire him. Because Jesus knew such a thing, however much a difficult environment barred the road he went, he was not discouraged.
Goodness can eternally govern evil, but evil cannot eternally govern goodness. Evil may be able to govern goodness by deceit or by force. But that is temporary.
Goodness can never eternally be ruled by evil. If goodness were eternally ruled by evil, God’s Providence of Restoration would be impossible.
One Must Be Aware of Oneself as Being Before the Father’s Very Eyes
When we consider God’s Providence of Restoration, we can know through the historical process until now the fact that even though the evil that opposed God was dominant for one time, that evil without fail became weak and in the end could not but hand over to goodness the foundation on which it had been dominant.
Likewise, even though goodness is at this moment ruled by evil, it means it is not eternally ruled. It means that in the end goodness eternally rules evil.
Then who becomes the absolute footing that rules evil?
This is neither God nor Satan. This is we human beings. It is precisely I. You must know that God has been coming forth seeking such an “I” until now. But because the “I” God seeks is a public “I,” one must become a person who belongs to Heaven. Here at last the relationship of Father and Son is established. That is, what God thinks is what I think, and the work God does is the work I must do.
That is why, when one comes to stand in a position of keenly feeling the fact that thinking for God’s sake in the end becomes thinking for my own sake and that work for Him is work for me, one becomes a person holding a bond in which God can take pleasure.
A person who, taking upon himself in place of the sovereign the anxiety the sovereign holds, holds a mind that seeks to resolve that matter and says that matter is my matter, can become a loyal subject.
Likewise, when we look centering on the Father and me, the question is how I become aware of the fact that the Father is anxious for my sake, that is, that the Father is doing my work. When one becomes aware of that, it means the Father and I can stand in one position. When it becomes so, the Father and I are one in purpose and one in living, and the fight of contending against the enemy too can be done from one position. Without standing in such a position, one cannot live together with the good God.
Accordingly, from now on we must be aware that we are selves who have now been born anew as people standing before the Father’s very eyes and must from now on go a life of living anew.
A Life of Faith That Gives Thanks
When we think that God’s toiling until now was in the end done for my sake and that the ninety-five percent of the mission of the worldwide pioneering course we must go from now on is being done for my sake, we cannot but give thanks to God.
Therefore, what is the essence of the life of faith?
It is a mind of gratitude to God. When there is such a mind, that becomes the ground on which God and I can be bound in one bond, crossing beyond the fallen bond.
Must one give thanks only when one is placed in a good position in this world? No. It is not that God has toiled for us until now only in good times. The more difficult the time, the more He came forth, pledging to toil. That is why we ourselves today too, to attend God as my Father, must give thanks all the more in a difficult position rather than giving thanks in a good position to God, who has come forth working and fighting in my place. Accordingly, that one can give thanks even upon a course of an excessive cross is possible only when one understands such a principle.
Among the countless people living on this earth, who would be the one at a near distance who gives thanks to God in the true sense?
It is not those who go a road of suffering in a civilized nation or in a society leading a cultured life, but a person who, being in a destiny of going a road of suffering amid the wretched living environment of an underdeveloped nation, yet lives attending God.
If there be a person who lives attending God even in such a position, he is not an unhappy person. There at last a bond of heart (심정) with God is formed.
A position where tears of joy and sorrow can remain interwoven is not made in a position of playing and leaping about. It is made in a position of wretchedly shedding blood and dying. It means that when one gives thanks even in a position of meeting each other in an indescribably ghastly figure, a position where tears cross, a bond with God is formed. A beacon of new revolution, too, and a new innovative movement, too, have been woven from such a position, centering on history. Therefore, we too, in seeking a position where we can give thanks to God, must have the courage to give thanks in a position below the one in which we now live, rather than giving thanks in a position above it.
Because God has until now been in a position of saving me, He is more pitiful than I. It means God is in a more pitiful position than I. If a child dies before his parents, of course the child too is pitiful, but the parents who gaze upon that child are more pitiful.
If a child, even in a position of dying, comforts his parents and offers infinite thanks to his parents and fulfills filial piety, one can fill in the parents’ grief, the parents’ pain, the parents’ wretchedness.
Likewise, when we look at God and me too, is not God more pitiful than I?
When will there be a day when God can give thanks to me? Without holding a day when God can give thanks to me, however much we offer thanks before God, that thanks is thanks that ends only with me and cannot bear fruit as thanks centered on one purpose together with God.
Then what kind of position is a position where God can give thanks rather than I? There is nothing but a position of being filial. Then what is filial piety? It is that the child grieves first over the matter the parents grieve over. At that time the parents wished to set that child up as a substance of infinite hope, as a being of value that stood in place of their whole life. And thus the parents give thanks to the child. The more difficult the environment, the more the parents will feel thanks beyond necessity.
When we consider such a problem, we must think how, before the Father’s very eyes, the Father can give thanks to us. Whether one becomes such a self is the important question.
If we see the day and evening and night of the one day in which we live as seasons, they are a reduction of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Morning corresponds to spring, and day corresponds to summer, and evening corresponds to autumn, and night corresponds to winter. In this way, how must one live this one day, which can stand in place of the four seasons of a year, for it to become a life in which the Father can give thanks to me? Is this not the duty of filial piety and the duty of loyalty we must fulfill before the Father’s very eyes?
From such a position we must, when we rise at dawn, pray that my one day’s living, as a being standing in place of humankind, may become a substance of thanks before the Father and say that in a free garden like a spring garden where flowers have bloomed I will become a fruit of hope through whom the Father can set me up and conduct the providence; and when day comes and we go out to the workplace, we must say that, like summer in which the fruit of hope grows, we will become beings who advance one step further and can appear as a value with which God can be together.
Also when evening comes, because it is a time like autumn in which one can gather the whole and offer one fruit before the Father, we must say we will stand in a position where we can become an offering; and at night, which corresponds to winter, we must say we will become selves who hold vital power and form an inner bond of parent and child with God so that we can receive every energy.
If there be a person who thus makes the three hundred sixty-five days of a year into days of victory and lives a life of giving thanks, that person lives forming a relationship with the Father; because a person who lives such a life will undoubtedly have such an experience, he can spend his whole lifetime in a life of giving thanks. Even if such a person is placed in a position of death, a mind of giving thanks before God remains.
One must live one day so, and one must live one year so, and one must live so through our whole lifetime as well. In our lifetime too there are the age of boyhood, the age of youth, the age of maturity, the age of old age. This is the same as the morning, day, evening, and night of one day and the spring, summer, autumn, and winter of a year. That is why only a person who has lived his whole life so becomes one victorious substance who has passed the original purpose of creation for which God created the human being.
Then from where must one build such a victorious foundation?
Seen in terms of one day, morning stands in place of spring and infancy, and day stands in place of summer and youth, and evening stands in place of autumn and maturity, and night stands in place of winter and old age.
If there be a person who lives a whole lifetime giving thanks for such a life, he is a person who cannot depart from God, however he would depart. It means such a person cannot escape God’s field of vision, however he would escape.
We must think centering on the question of whether he is not a person who cannot depart from the environment God protects; however, he would depart.
The Reason God Makes One Go a Road of Suffering
Therefore, we must live a life of gratitude. I must criticize once again what I wish for, centering on the Father, and must consider whether that wish is something in which the Father can rejoice together with the Father’s Will. It must not be something that conflicts with the Father’s position. To achieve a position that does not conflict with the Father’s position, because one must go back up against the history of Restoration through Indemnity, one must go many roads of suffering.
Who must fill in this road of suffering?
It is not to be filled in by God but must be filled in by us. If the strength of one's own person is insufficient, one must mobilize the family, and if the family’s strength is insufficient, one must mobilize the clan. One must become a person who makes effort, saying he will, even by combining the strength of the mobilized family and clan, fulfill together with them the responsibility he must bear. Such a person, however wretched a life he lived and departed from this earth, because he undoubtedly lived centering on the Father, cannot but become a filial son who can stand eternally before the Father and a loyal subject. You must know this.
Therefore, we must become selves who can live with a mind of gratitude, combining all the sensations felt through the five organs and even the intuition felt with the mind. So one must say that since one was born from the Father, one will attend to the Father and live and go before the Father. Centering on such a question means one cannot but live while always being aware that one stands before the Father. That you be bound to someone while living is a difficult thing.
Even though one comes to be placed at such a difficult crisis, one must thereby by no means be bound by Satan but must be bound by God. And it means knowing that suffering is something God gave me and welcoming it with joy. It means not trying to avoid suffering but confronting it head-on. One must know how to receive this road of suffering gratefully, knowing it as a gift the Father gave me, the Father gave me to love me.
This becomes a motive by which, before anything more difficult comes in my living, I can become one completely bound before God and set out toward a new world. When one crosses over this suffering, God seeks to bestow a greater victorious foundation. To make that victorious foundation form a relationship with oneself, a condition of indemnity is necessary. That is why, to form a relationship with it, one must again break through the sorrowful and difficult environment corresponding to it.
This is God’s strategy for bequeathing a broader environment to me. Therefore, we must live a life in which we can welcome any suffering with joy. The more such a position draws near to me, the more one must become a person who breaks through, holding the conviction that such a trial comes in order that the Father and I may become one. Such a person is a fearsome person.
If there be a fearsome person in the world, there is no person more fearsome than this. It means no person rebels against the satanic world more than this in place of history. From here, the satanic world is subjugated, and God’s foundation goes on being widened.
From this viewpoint, one must know what kind of road the road of suffering the Unification Church must go on hereafter is. Now the age of suffering centering on the family has passed.
Today we are in a position of having prepared a foundation of a clan-level environment among Unification Church members, so it means we have escaped the road of suffering we must go through among ourselves. Now before us, a force greater than this collides with us, representing the forces of evil. That is the presently existing nation and the presently existing world. This nation and world will collide with us.
We must not avoid the road of suffering that collides with us but must welcome it head-on and, knowing it as the final decisive condition by which God would give us a gift, must become people who can receive this road of suffering with a heart (심정) of delight. If there be a person who has fought and won from a position of saying he will not entrust this to anyone at all but will take responsibility himself, upon that foundation there can be no one but that person.
But if one endures the wish to flee cowardly and, unable to do otherwise, fights and stands within the sphere of victory, God cannot give a bond of blessing beyond that. Therefore, since it is a matter I undergo, one must welcome it with joy and go saying, “Even though there be difficulty beyond that, I go. I fight. I take responsibility.” And when one accomplishes this work while holding a mind of gratitude before God and saying, “Tomorrow add a thousandfold, ten-thousandfold, still greater trial, and entrust to me Thy road of toil. When Thou entrustest this work to me, is it not with an apologetic mind that Thou entrustest it?” An origin unfolds in which the Father can give thanks.
By doing so, a position of glory comes seeking me in which one is equipped for the day when the Father can give thanks. Knowing such a fact and devoting one’s whole heart and strength, when one resolves that suffering, the bond of filial piety and the bond of loyalty are settled.
But when one runs up against such a position, a person who takes it on reluctantly, even though he has made a sphere of victory environmentally, when there come second and third conditions of indemnity, roads of suffering, for bequeathing a greater blessing, fails.
Become a Person God Needs
We are already bodies resolved upon death for the Will. Then in what position shall we die? If one dies in a position of being there for the individual, it is grievous.
Dying in a position of being for the family too is grievous. Dying for the clan too is grievous. Dying in a position of being for the people too is grievous.
If one is to die for the Will in any case, is it not the wish we desire to die in a position of being for the world? If the distance for being able to do that is far off, to shorten this distance, one must draw this world into our stage of living. There must be people who go forth devoting every utmost sincerity from a position of having to bear such a responsibility.
God, who has not found an individual, cannot but rely upon me; and God, who has not found a family, cannot but rely upon me; and God, who has not found a clan, a people, a nation, cannot but rely upon me. When one has accomplished even one thing in a position where God can thus rely upon them, it means the bond between God and them becomes firm.
How you hold a self who can cross over the road of suffering not with sorrow but with joy is a grave question for you. That is why one must think about what I, who stand before the Father’s very eyes, will do.
For whose sake are my eyes now gazing?
Gazing upon my wife is to gaze upon my wife in a free world, and gazing upon my child is to gaze upon my child in the liberated heavenly kingdom, and gazing upon and fighting the world today is to gaze upon tomorrow’s world, and making effort and sacrificing now is to exchange it for tomorrow’s happiness and victory.
My sleeping too must be for the Father, and my waking from sleep too for the Father, and every important requisite of mine must be for the Father. I am a body that must live, giving thanks to the Father in a position of living for the world… It means you must live from such a position.
In such a position, so that not only I may give thanks, but the Father too may be able to give thanks, one must pay conditions of indemnity. Ought one not to shoulder family-level conditions of indemnity heavier than individual conditions of indemnity? Only by paying this will God give thanks. When one has paid the family-level conditions of indemnity, God will lay upon one people-level or national conditions of indemnity. When I bear that, God will again give thanks to me. And He will lay worldwide conditions of indemnity upon me. Why is that? Because it is the human being who decides good and evil. Because the Father needs a person, He cannot but entrust every global problem to me. God will put me forward. Therefore, we must not only long for that position but also await the day of fulfilling the mission in that position.
Here, the larger the position established for me, the larger the mission, so sorrow comes proportionally to that large scope, and indemnity likewise comes proportionally to that scope. Therefore, you must know the fact that unless one becomes a self who welcomes such content of indemnity with joy and welcomes it with gratitude, one cannot be set before God and become a son who is praised.
The Unification Church, Which Must Become an Offering
Today we have been bound in a relationship within the Unification body. Then for what does the Unification Church fight? It is not a church that fights for the Unification Church itself. You must know that. The Unification Church is a church that fights for you, a church that fights for your families, a church that fights for your nation, a church that fights for the world to come hereafter. To put it another way, it is the same as an offering laid upon an altar.
For whose sake are this altar and this offering?
They are for the sake of the world of hope to come hereafter. To put it another way, they were established to forgive people who have sinned. Because the Unification Church is like an offering, it exists to forgive all the wrongs of the world of death.
If that be so, it means that as a person without sin, one must undergo mortification greater than that of the person who has sinned. This is precisely the secret of indemnity. As a pure person without sin, one must wear the mask of a person who has sinned and sacrifice as though a sinner.
If what one sacrifices here is because of Satan, to whom is the result of the sacrifice returned? It is not returned to Satan; because one sacrificed to accomplish God’s purpose, it is harvested first for oneself. At such a time one’s own self is resurrected.
Jesus is precisely one who stood in such a position. Jesus stood in the position of an offering and sacrificed for the people and sacrificed for sinners. And as the result of that sacrifice, God’s Will was harvested. The absolute standard by which Jesus’ sacrifice could be harvested is that Jesus was resurrected as God’s own and, together with the resurrection, was harvested as God’s own. Jesus did not resurrect only his substance. Because he was equipped with content that could harvest the family, clan, people, nation, and world, was it not through Jesus that a new family, a new clan, a new people, a new nation, a new world were born?
Then what would the Unification Church today become?
It must become an offering from a denominational position. On the day it is said that it has become an offering, the matter is different. Then what must one do to go forth to that position? There must be a condition by which God can put the Unification Church forward and boast of it. For that, one must do God’s work not reluctantly but joyfully and gratefully.
You must hold the thought that you undergo the trial that comes before you for the sake of the people and the nation and the world. But if I were to flee this road of suffering, I would not qualify to become a son of God.
Let Us Go Forward Gazing upon the Seventies with a Mind of Gratitude
Then how does one discover a self who can give thanks?
However great a difficulty collides with one in whatever village, one must regard it as a matter of thanks and, just as there was a three-day course, cross over a three-year crisis. If you work hard for just three months in a position of not being opposed in some village, that village will without fail give thanks to you.
If one wins by taking full charge of the road of suffering that the village must meet and bearing responsibility for it with a grateful mind and crossing over, the people within that sphere of victory are made to bow their heads to me.
If we think in terms of such a principle, for us who go forward gazing upon the seventies, since the history of suffering is ending and the age of the fortune of the Unification Church is arriving, we must know how to give thanks.
Furthermore, a person who has never given thanks in the past must, from now on, try, saying he will become a figure of whom God can boast by setting him up at this time of welcoming a new age of fortune, even while sacrificing the whole of everything night and day.
I do not need glory. Since God has built the road of suffering until now, if there be a person who runs about in all directions saying that from now on he will give thanks even while offering his whole life and going a road of suffering, that person does not perish. That person will without fail be put forward and boasted of by God.
If he has moved for the sake of the nation, on the day that nation is found, he will become a child who can be boasted of before the nation; and if he has moved for the world, on the day the world is found, he will become a child who can be boasted of before the world. God will put him forward and boast of him.
For that, the Father must be able to give thanks to you. When you stand in a position where God can first say “thank you” to you before you give thanks, God is made to mobilize spiritually gifted people or good forebears, if there be such, and ask them to support that person, and He makes them give thanks to him and bow their heads. You must know that this is the content of restoration.
From this viewpoint, among the newly risen denominations of Korean Christianity today, a group of gratitude appeared, centering on Kim Seong-do, the mother of Jeong Seok-on. Such a fact is heightening the vigilance of our life of faith today.
You must know the fact that they came forth representing one absolute group that must, without fail, complete a life of gratitude. So one must give thanks whether it be this way or that way.
When you become such a person and say you will offer up your whole life before the Father, God will, even though you be in the midst of death, resurrect you and put you forward in the heavenly world and boast of you.
It means, do not lament that one is not recognized in the world and cannot accomplish the affairs of the world. Because we go centering on the eternal Will, we must, in God’s place, who requires conditions of indemnity before the eternal Will, gratefully set up conditions of indemnity and bear the work the Father desires. Therefore, if through that one can leave a bond by which the Father can give thanks, one absolutely does not perish. Therefore, you must know such things and, going back to the provinces, live such a life.
When you step forth to the platform, you must step forth with a mind of gratitude. Furthermore, even though one does gun sales, one must undertake the sales holding a mind of gratitude. The condition that says, “Since I am challenged now, if I do such and such it will be all right,” does not get through.
You must know that you hold a destiny in which you cannot be at ease before God is at ease. And because one is in a position of having to attend to the Father, it is the principle that one must suffer more than the Father. Seen from this viewpoint, there is much for which the regional leaders and district leaders today have failed to take responsibility.
We must know that we are always before the Father’s very eyes. Because I am before the Father’s very eyes, one must go while being aware that the Father knows everything of what I am now thinking and knows everything of what work I intend to do and is observing even every sensation I feel.
If here you only leave behind a standard of gratitude, the road you go will advance by leaps and bounds.
From such a viewpoint, I hope you will reflect upon the past and leave one bond as a good motive by which you can set out again toward the seventies.
