Former Headquarters Church.
John 3:16-21
The Greatest Hope of the Created World
You who have gathered here will, whether at the level of mind, body, or environment, wish to welcome something new and great. This is the same for anyone. As long as life does not end, to long for something new, something more precious, something more valuable, something higher, something more brilliant, was so in the past, is so now, and will be so hereafter.
Just as it is so for the individual, so also for the people composed of individuals, for the nation, for the world, and even for God, who, transcending this world, created all the cosmos. Because God is so, all the creation in the world of existence too is moving, longing for something higher, more precious, more brilliant, more glorious — this we can experience through living.
Then, for all things or for human beings, for the visible world or the invisible world, what is it that, ultimately, is most joyful to welcome? It is not finding the beloved one we have lost; it is not the dead parents coming back to life; it is not the recovery of lost sovereignty.
If there is something we long for and most precious, what would it be? It is welcoming God. We must know that there is no greater joy, no greater glory, no greater hope than this.
What is the purpose for which our minds, transcending the people, transcending the world, transcending all the created world, struggle ceaselessly?
It is to take a position of mind in which one does not need to struggle. Yet such a position cannot be taken by the human being alone. By human beings living in this world alone, it cannot be resolved.
If there is an absolute Master who created this cosmos, only after welcoming that Master can the matter for the first time be resolved.
Then what would be the greatest hope of all existing things living on the earth today?
It is not abiding under any “ism” or sovereignty, nor abiding under the wisdom of some sage or worthy.
The greatest hope and greatest purpose, I believe, is to gather before the knee of the Master who created all things — that is, the absolute God.
Therefore, the ideal that human beings today require is not human but a higher ideal, an ideal centered on the supreme good and, further, extending even to an ideal centered on God.
If our minds are so, the spirit of our people too must be so, and the civilization of the world must move toward such a goal. Otherwise, this cannot be called a world centered on the absolute Master.
In the historical course until now, although countless human beings have pursued such a world of absolute value, there is none who has insisted, “This is precisely the world all human beings can enjoy together.” In this unresolved state, this world, leading history forward to see one day of resolution, is running.
The peoples that compose nations are also running. Not only that, God, who is setting up the heavenly law of kinship, human beings, and the created world, are all marching together toward that place — we must know this.
Therefore, God too is coming seeking this world, and human beings too are in the process of seeking God. However outstanding a person may be, however prepared with the qualifications to stand in place of all the cosmic creation, he too has something to lean upon and hope for in his mind. The supreme center he hopes for is God. To seek that God is, in such a time as today, the urgent and important matter.
God does not forsake humanity but is coming seeking. Humanity is also going to seek God, not forgetting Him. Then will the humanity that is going seeking God, at some moment, welcome that God?
If they welcome Him, what kind of person will welcome Him first?
What kind of people will welcome Him first? It is a wonderful matter. Through what “ism,” what society, or what religion will He come seeking? Through what form will He come seeking? When is the final hour at which God and human beings meet? This is a wonderful matter.
Furthermore, what kind of person is the one who can welcome God, and what should his heart be like — in this end-of-the-age time, when with one voice it is called the Last Days, this cannot but be said to be an important matter.
The Ultimate Purpose of Providence and Religion
Then God surely comes seeking the world, but in what form will He come seeking? God comes seeking through the entire field of our lives. Centered on Korea, which until now has had a 4,000-year resentful history, He has been coming seeking for 4,000 years. Although they did not meet Him, the fact that He has been coming seeking is undeniable.
Although He came seeking, because people did not know that God, they did not know — but there is not one moment when He has not come seeking. We must know that He is the God who comes seeking, regardless of any social class.
Because God is coming seeking, regardless of any field or class, regardless of high or low, the human heart moves toward that one place. God comes seeking each field, but there is one central place — that place is precisely the human conscience.
The purpose of His coming, seeking, centering on the human conscience, lies not in seeking that one individual alone, but in seeking, through that one individual, the whole world. This is God's ultimate purpose. Therefore, God, on the worldwide level, agitates the conscientious and drives them toward the worldwide ideal. What bears responsibility in such a field of mission and comes forth is religion.
When we look back upon the history of humanity until now, the fundamental pillar of any civilization is the spirit. What stands in the position of the spiritual pillar that, transcending ages and centuries, has come continuously through history, is religion. It is not some “ism” or thought. Look at Buddhism. Look at Confucianism. Look at Christianity. They all, although the ages change, inheriting the spirit of their founders, advance, without changing, toward the world of purpose to be fulfilled in the Last Days.
Religion, gathering up humanity and connecting it to the world of one purpose, while at the same time guiding the direction of our conscience and, accordingly, pioneering the social environment, has come forth, broadening its scope. Therefore, through such religion, the world is being moved.
By such providence, in the end-of-the-age time, one day must come in which human beings and God, meeting, can both rejoice — both human beings rejoicing and God rejoicing.
The time when, transcending East and West and any racial difference, human beings whose conscience and heart do not change can rejoice together with God must certainly come.
Otherwise, the history of struggle cannot be brought to its conclusion.
Therefore, Heaven, setting up religions, has, while having them go against the currents of thought of the age, led them toward one destination.
While doing so, He has worked to gather the minds of each human being and connect them in such a direction. That Heaven has carried out such providence until now is a fact no one can deny. If so, human beings are existences in historical debt.
The One Person God Seeks and the Central Religion
God comes seeking this world. At the same time, he is coming seeking human beings. We, whom He is thus coming seeking, have mind and body, spirit and flesh, that is, the inner self and the outer self. Here, only when the world of the ideal in which the inner self can rejoice infinitely is completed, can the outer self also rejoice infinitely.
Heaven, on the standard of conscience, created the inner self, and so set it that, on the day this inner self is completed, the outer world can accomplish the purpose of creation. Thus, God's providence was to set up a person of character who, centering on the value of the personality of the inner self, could live in the world of cosmic-level ideals.
If a person should appear who is, even in God's sight, complete, even in everyone's sight complete — that is, a person whose inside and outside are both prepared, in whom God can rejoice and by whom all peoples can be moved — and the ideal he loves becomes the ideal God loves and the ideal all humanity rejoices in, that person would be the one person God seeks, and would, undoubtedly, be the final one person whom humanity must welcome.
As long as the absolute Creator exists, the person of character who, together with that Absolute who would gather this world, can bring this world to its conclusion as a world of value must appear on earth; this is a necessary conclusion.
Therefore, the human world must set up such a person, one of value, and the heavenly world must welcome him.
From this viewpoint, every Way at the very last speaks of the Second Advent. Christians speak of the Second Advent of Jesus; Buddhism also preaches the thought of the Second Advent; Confucianism is the same.
Now something new must come forth that, bringing to a total conclusion the religious ideals set up by the founders of each Way until now, can connect them to the world of God's heart. God too must carry out such providence, and humanity, whose purpose is to welcome God, must also set up one person of character who represents humanity.
God, having set the meeting with human beings as the final purpose, has hitherto set up countless Ways.
Whom did He choose as the founder of those Ways?
He did not choose people with individualist thought. He did not choose people centered on one person. He did not choose people centered on one nation. He chose people centered on the world. We must know that the stage is the world.
Looking even at Buddhism, which arose in India, its ideal is a worldwide ideal.
Only a religion that, with a worldwide viewpoint, transcends the realistic stage of life and contains even the ideal of the supernatural world can remain until the Last Days.
From this viewpoint, since we have come to know that Heaven carries out the providence, we must now reckon up the established religions once more from such a standpoint.
If God carries out the providence centering on the religion He set up to gather this world, that central religion must, encompassing East and West, be prepared with the substance to move the cultural currents and contribute to thought and civilization.
Therefore, we must judge: what religion has contributed to the cultural history of the world? And does that contribution extend to the entirety of humanity, or stop at a regional scope?
A religion that has displayed value in a regional scope can be said to be a religion with the intermediate mission of governing that region and connecting it to a religion of greater ideals. In the past, there were countless forms of religion.
Of those that have been gathered and gathered up and remain in their present form, we may name Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam.
If God's Will is to drive the world certainly into the world of one purpose, God must certainly set up a Way that contains the worldwide ideal and can fuse with the realistic stage of life.
We may anticipate that a Way that, on the inner side, pursues the worldwide ideal and, in real life, is prepared with the substance to fuse with the culture of the age, can remain until the Last Days.
From this viewpoint, even Buddhism leans to one side. Confucianism, too, is leaning to one side. Buddhism, leaning to the spiritual side, has distanced itself from the relationship with the reality in which human beings are placed; Confucianism, not knowing the substance of Heaven — that is, the spirit world — leans, centering on the Three Bonds and Five Relationships, to the field of human ethics.
A religion that harmonizes these two sides — that is, however history may shift, however revolutionary changes may follow whenever a new age is welcomed and there are changes of environment, the religion that can fuse the feelings of life together with that age — will continue until the Last Days.
From such a viewpoint, Christianity today is, both in name and reality, in the position of a worldwide religion.
Then, having prepared such a form of religion, what will Heaven do?
If God carries out providence toward such a world of purpose, the flow of religion must flow concentrically toward one place. Although the points of departure differ, the destination reached must be one.
Whether prospering or declining, if it does not move toward that place, it cannot be called the religion that God carries out the providence.
There are countless nations on the earth today. Among them, although many nations have, in the historical course until now, contributed to humanity, what nation is there whose sovereignty has, moving under the religious ideal, possessed a long history?
Many nations have passed through history centered on the ideal of one religion, but the only nation that has a history in which countless religions came in, and the ideals of those religions moved the entire way of life of the people who held the sovereignty of that nation is Korea.
Korea's Position in the Providence Through Religion
Surveying Korea's religion in general, from the Silla period through the Goryeo period, Buddhism came in and reached great prosperity. It influenced not only the people of that age but also the currents of thought and even the sovereignty.
Whatever the place of origin or whoever the founder of the religion, the nation in which religious culture has bloomed is Korea.
Although Buddhism arose in India, passing through China and entering Korea, it moved nations and sovereigns in a decisive struggle. Then, in the later Joseon period, Confucianism came in and ruled the sovereignty of the nation and arranged the social system. And in modern times, although Christianity has only had some 80 years of history since its inception, it is moving into this age.
Looking at the flow of the world, the culture of the Far East and the culture of the West must by all means converge centering on such a one starting point. That is the purpose of the heavenly law of kinship. Therefore, in the Far East, Japanese imperialism came forth, and after passing through 45 years of Meiji, 15 years of Taishō, and 20 years of Shōwa — a total of more than 80 years of history — that imperialism perished. When Japan emerged as an imperialist nation, China and Tsarist Russia (Russia), feeling threatened by this, fought over Korea.
Where lay the motive for the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War?
It lay in Japan's, as it grew prosperous in the Far East, seeking to broaden the stage of its power, taking Korea as the foothold for continental invasion. The war that, with Korea at stake, was waged to fill their desire was the Sino-Japanese War.
So too the Russo-Japanese War. Thus, Japan in the end took Korea into its hands and ruled it for 36 years.
The imperialist nations Japan and China and Russia sought to swallow Korea and take it into their hands, but they could not. Although it seemed Japan had taken Korea into its hands, it took its hand off and went. Thus, this country welcomed a new day of liberation, and today it has become the stage on which democracy and communism stand opposed.
These people, in such a situation, have come to know what communism is and what democracy is. Communism cannot swallow up the people. We have seen the end of what communism is, and we have seen the end of what democracy is. We have seen all.
Looking from the standpoint of the currents of thought of the age, what “ism” is there that can occupy this Korea, this three-thousand-li peninsula today, and make it an eternal stage of welfare? And not only in the outer field, but in the inner field too, what religion can captivate these thirty million people of strong religious minds? We must think.
Today, we are confronted with such a situation.
The Korean people did not see Shakyamuni, did not see Confucius, did not see Jesus Christ, but they have seen the very bottom of the religions they advocated.
Although they did not see the founders who advocated the great worldwide religions, they have seen the very bottom of those Ways. Having seen all, we have come to know that those things are not what can be welcomed before these people, but are things to be betrayed and turned away from.
Among them, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity, prepared in form, remain until now, but Buddhism for itself, Confucianism for itself, and Christianity for itself fight. Then, with what resolving point will these Ways at the end accompany the destiny of these people? We cannot help but think of this.
Even from the standpoint of currents of thought, Korea has become the showcase of world civilization. This Korea has faced countless peoples. It has faced countless races that have joined the United Nations centered on America. But it has come to know that no “ism” or ideal that they advocate fits these people.
Korea has been split into North and South, and the North has been occupied by communism. The north has become the focus of the communist camp. And the South has become the focus of the democratic camp. Yet that does not mean that these people contribute absolutely to communism, nor that it contributes absolutely to democracy. We are placed in such a situation.
Then, if God has carried out the providence of setting up religions and gathering all history, do we run into the question of whether the providence He has carried out facing the Korean people until today has been a failure?
Does the fact that Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity have all turned away without finding a complete foothold in Korea mean that God's providence centered on the Korean people has ended in failure?
If so, why has God, until now, made these people live with cultural boundaries differing, centered on religious ideals? It cannot but be a wondering matter.
These people do not have any ideals that have contributed to the modern civilized world. Nor does it have anything especially particular as a race.
If God hopes that Korea may emerge before the God who comes seeking the world, what will be the destiny of this Korea? This is the matter our young men and women must worry about.
The Essence of Faith
Our people have looked into the very bottom of the doctrines set up by Shakyamuni, the doctrines set up by Confucius, and the doctrines set up by Jesus, but those things did not fit these people and have all passed away.
The Bible passage read aloud earlier said,
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."
God would not give the Way alone. At the very last, he would give a person rather than the Way. The conclusion is that. Since He gave the only-begotten Son, whoever it may be, believe in Him.
Today, the world's humanity has come to a place where they should not have the form of religion but the founder of religion. Unless the ideal and thought by which one can possess the founder of the Way appear on this earth, God's work is a failure.
So it is set. The place in which we must abide is not some place of worship. It is not Christianity. It is not Buddhism. It is not Confucianism. At the very last, we must possess the Son whom God can love. Since He gave Him, we must receive Him.
What I would cry out to these people is not “Believe in Buddhism, believe in Confucianism,” or “Believe in Christianity.” More than that, “Have Shakyamuni, have Confucius, have Jesus.”
If the heavenly law of kinship comes forth thus, what people will hereafter rule the world?
That people will, undoubtedly, be the people who have no religion but the founder of religion. Do you understand?
Looking thus, with the one color of Buddhism alone, it cannot be done. With the one color of Confucianism alone, it cannot be done. With the one color of Christianity alone, it cannot be done.
Now there must come forth an “ism” and religion prepared with such ideal substance, recognized by God, in which the three great worldwide founders meet and resolve to fulfill one world under a common goal. Therefore, I hope.
The work of Heaven is said to be Alpha and Omega. He said, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” Therefore, unless the master who founded the Way appears at the end and matches the beginning and end and reveals the value of life of our heart, our living, our society, and our world before heaven, the purpose of the Way cannot be fulfilled.
Today, the countless Christians scattered throughout the world must believe not in the church but in the Founder of the Way. They must possess not the religion but the highest attribute of the Founder of the Way.
Today in Korea, too, there are over a million Christian believers, but interpreting the Bible each in his own way, they are split into Presbyterian, this and that.
Although the Unification Church, too, is, in form, like one of those denominations, no church is the issue. All must, throwing down the signboards, carry out a movement to possess Jesus.
The ideals of the world are moving, and history is flowing such that each religion is to bring such a manifestation of substance to its conclusion. As I said earlier, we must meet one master who can represent the Way, one master who can represent the ideals of the entire world, one master whom Heaven has set up.
You say you believe in Jesus, but the issue is whether you have possessed Jesus.
Since He set it up as the Alpha-level Way, He must gather it up as the Omega-level Way.
If God said, “I am Alpha and Omega,” then together with the conclusion of history, at some moment, He must be able to say to one individual being, “You become both Alpha and Omega.”
Korea is a small country. It is smaller than one province of a great country. That this small country has passed through the long span of 4,000 years in the Far East is itself wondrous. And it has smelled every religion. It has smelled every current of thought, but now the time has come to say, “I dislike them all.”
The time has come to say one dislikes any “ism,” any party, any religion. If today's world humanity is in such a position, for Heaven to lead such humanity to advance toward one destination, since there is the providence of the final gathering, one region in which it can be done must come forth. A nation that can throw all things away, saying, “I dislike them all,” must come forth.
The Korean People Who Must Awaken
If God manifests Himself on this earth, how will He govern this country?
How will He govern this world?
Have you thought of this? If it is the Way that God set up by appearing on this earth, can it be that Buddhism says it is wrong, Christianity says it is wrong, and someone else says it is wrong?
God is setting up several religions and carrying out the providence in order, at the last, to connect everything to the one that comes forth. This does not mean disregarding the histories of each religion. It does not mean cutting off all historical substance. The bonds remain, but the form changes.
Even Christianity, going on just as it is, will not do. Therefore, there must be a struggle. Just leaving it as it is, can the new come forth in this country?
Buddhism is also so, and Confucianism is so. Each denomination must struggle. In the end, you will hear that a church officer killed someone. I cannot give the explanation of why this is so; I cannot give it now, lacking time.
Before Heaven, which carries out such providence, and before the world, this three-thousand-li peninsula, tiny even in the Far East, has become one historical focus. It has become the candleholder of the crossroads of whether to drive the world into a world of darkness or to transform it into a world of light.
On the day this Korea lights the lamp, the world brightens; on the day it goes out, the world enters into a world of utter darkness. The country in which Christianity, doing missionary work in the Far East, can be said to have succeeded is Korea. Not China, not Japan, not any other country, but Korea. The destiny of the entire world's Christianity is determined by the destiny of Korean Christianity.
Today, in such a position, we must come firmly to our senses. Especially, we young people must clearly come to our senses. Do not be toyed with by some authority of the church. Do not be toyed with by some sovereign authority either. Such an age has come.
If God seeks to gather up this world hereafter into the world of one purpose, it is not by communism nor by democracy. Not by Christianity, nor by the form of any Way until now. He may have the substance of these, but not their form.
If it were to be gathered up by Christianity, Christianity would have to be prepared with the substance to embrace Buddhism, Confucianism, and countless other religions.
If it could be done without that, why would He, in the historical course, have left only Christianity and not destroyed all other religions outright, but rather postponed it until the time of judgment?
We who are placed in such an age, even though we sit hungry, must firmly come to our senses and watch. Open your eyes and look. In looking, do not look only at the present, but look at the source and motive by which we have come flowing through the long history.
The Final Issue Is Heart
What is good and what is evil?
To say it simply, what is good is that the beginning and end are the same. What is good is that the beginning and end are the same. Even if billions of years pass, what remains the same is good. Truth is so. Once it sets out, even after billions of years, it must, without changing, remain the same.
On the contrary, what is evil is what changes. Whether democracy or any “ism,” whether any current of thought or religion, that changes with the age cannot be.
Unless there is a shift and development in the world of the heart, it absolutely must not change.
However, the outer environment of life changes; in the world of the heart, there is no change. Until now, there has been no development in the world of the heart. Because human beings, centered on the circumstances of the bond and motive that are connected, are entangled in heart, if I am a person of this country, I must, with patriotism, love it.
Furthermore, if I have parents, I must love those parents at heart. Therefore, if this world goes on just as it is, it cannot stand before Heaven.
Therefore, in the Last Days, what must we do?
Religion, too, is not a religion of ritual. It is not done by going back and forth to church. Nor must religion be one swayed by material things. It must not be a religion that prays and chants when one brings money. They say someone is outstanding and does this and that, but it is not so. What is the final thing that must be prepared as the Way before God? It is the heart. Heart.
In this age in which the world rushes to the very end, our Korean people too have come to the very end. We have come to the end where we cannot have more; however, we would. We cannot look further; however, we would. Unbeknownst to us, we have come to be in such an environment.
Yet at the end, we cannot appear before God wearing the mask of religion or wearing the mask of any ideal or “ism.” With some “ism” we cannot appear. With the name of some religion, we cannot appear.
With what must we appear?
We must appear with heart. We must face God with a heart pierced more than the founder of the Way in whom one believes. That is the judgment of the Way that will be in the Last Days.
When God judges the Way, He will not say, “How many years have you believed? How many churches have you set up? How many temples have you built? Whether thousands or tens of thousands, that is not the issue. The final issue is the heart.
We must become believers with the sorrowful heart with which Jesus, the only-begotten Son of heaven, came to this earth to save all peoples and laid out the Way; the heart with which, dying to save the lives of all peoples, he said, “Not my will but Yours be done.” It is not such a Way as “I will believe the Way and receive blessings and have my sons and daughters live well.”
We who are in the Last Days must firmly come to our senses. Whom can one trust? There is none. Whom can one look toward? There is none. There is nothing of which one can have hope.
There is no religion to be trusted, no “ism” or thought of which to have hope. In such a time, our Korean people in particular are placed in a position where there is less to be trusted than for the countless peoples of the world. This is the actual situation of Korea, visible in reality.
Looking at all the circumstances and environment and situation of reality, we can know that Korea is in pitiful circumstances and placed amid evil conditions. Yet here lies the great providence of Heaven. At this time, Heaven says to cut off all that we have.
Now these people must unite. In uniting, the time of uniting centered on some religion of the world has passed. The time of uniting centered on some social organization has also passed. All has passed. Not communism, not democracy, not any denomination. These people must unite, hoping that a new ideal that is worldwide and cosmic will appear on this earth.
The Way of Life of the Korean People
In Korea, there is a thought handed down from antiquity, the thought of Jeong Doryeong. When we look at such a thing, it is to be thanked. Even though right now we are perishing, right now we are in a place of dying. When we see that there flows a thought of, “Hereafter Korea will become thus,” it is to be thanked.
Then what should the Korean people of today, placed in such a position, do?
What must we appear with at last before God?
We must be prepared with values and standards equal to the personality of the founders of the Way of old.
If we cannot prepare the value of one who, having cultivated the Way for decades, became the founder of the Way, we must at least prepare the heart. Even if I die, with the heart of saving the multitudes by holding fast to the Way, we must be able to say, “Heaven, please save this humanity.”
We must possess the heart of a Shakyamuni who, ignoring his environment, entered the snowy mountains and cultivated the Way, or a Jesus who prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Now, the way of life of these people lies not in some denomination or “ism.” Just as Jesus appeared, embracing the entire world, before the Israelite people who were perishing of old, such a person of character must appear on this earth.
Although these people have nothing, knowing that Heaven would, by setting up such a person of character, lay the worldwide stage; if these people, in this final age, become a people that, prepared with a heart greater than that of any founder of the Way, can say “God, please come,” then these people will live.
To do so, you must lose all things. You must enter the position of losing parents, losing a wife and children, and losing brothers. Then there must be a time of confusion. Looking at it thus, our country has done well. Split into north and south, we have lost our beloved wives and children and parents.
We do not know how it has come about, but, naturally driven into an environment in which we cannot but lose, we have come to confront such a pitiful destiny.
If God's Will is to set these people before the world, we cannot deny that these people clearly have a great mission. Why?
Jesus said,
"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Matt. 10:37-38)
Like the Israelite people, these people too have come to have an environment in which they can love; therefore, God has cut all of it off and naturally placed these people in the position of saying, “God, please save us.”
Even if there are no great political figures, no great scientists, no great religious figures right now in this people who, with some “ism,” can lead the world, in this time when the world's humanity is asleep, these people must wake and, harmonizing at the level of heart, hold fast to Heaven, with an earnest mind greater than that with which the founders of the Way of old received the Way from Heaven, saying, “God, please save this people!”
If such a multitude, such a person, comes forth, through them this people will live.
If so, God will teach a new truth that has not been taught in the world of the Way until today. Should it not be so? He will send the prophets of heaven whom He has not been able to send to the earth until now.
Today, there are all kinds of people. Some say, “I am God.” Many come forth saying, “I am the Mother of the cosmos, the wife of Yahweh, or I am Jesus, I am Confucius.” Try going to Pagoda Park. There are many. You don't understand why this is so. No one knows. Why the world has come to be so, no one knows. The time has come. Such individuals must come forth.
When the false comes forth, the true comes forth. Is it not so?
The principle of heaven and earth does not exist or move outside the principle of relativity. Therefore, when the false comes forth, the true comes forth. That the nouns “heretic” and “antichrist” have come forth means that the truth is coming forth.
In the religious world today, where confusion is unfolding, our Unification Church, too, is treated as heretical, and the man crying out here is treated as the chief of heretics. Fine.
What will remain in the end?
It is not the doctrines or scriptures advocated by some founder of the Way. The time of doing charity, of doing love, of doing this and that, has passed.
Now, knowing many doctrines is not the issue. In the present time, when He says, “What is in you? Bring it out,” there must be something that can be brought out.
We must be prepared with heart. With it, we must, facing God, say, “What is Father's mind in these Last Days, who would gather the world?”
When that Father weeps aloud for the Korean people, I too must weep aloud for them; when He weeps aloud for the communist nations, I too must weep aloud for them; when He weeps aloud for the democratic camp, I too must weep aloud for them. Is there such a person?
I do not seek to make you, who have gathered here today as Unification Church members, into people who, being thoroughly versed in some doctrine, persuade and subdue all people. I seek to make you into masters of such a heart that, even if you are robbed of all, lose all, and become rejected, you can, in such a place, say, “God, please forgive their sin.”
Even when a millionaire passes on his inheritance, does he not pass it not to the son who, as some university doctor, has only ability, but to the son who, although wholly illiterate, with heart worries about his father, whether asleep or awake?
Today, who rules this country?
The patriot does not rule. Therefore, with a misstep, this country will perish.
Who must rule this world?
The sons and daughters of God must rule. The sons and daughters of God who, to fulfill true goodness, can transcend their lives and love the world, the sons and daughters communing with the heart of the Way, must rule.
Yet since this is a world in which such people are trampled, it must perish. There must be judgment. If there is none, I will appeal. I will even resist God. We, Unification Church members, must become such people.
The Responsibility of the Korean People
I should not lament that I have nothing. Let us not lament that these people have nothing. Look at history.
Who would have known that the being called Jesus, who only led the driven and despised fishermen of the seashore of Galilee, would become the person of character who would conquer Rome and move the civilization of the twentieth century? He was the friend of fishermen, but in his heart, the heart of the world was connected.
The heart of heaven and earth was connected. Because the absolute standard of heart that no enemy could occupy stood, the world has gathered around his standard of heart. His heart was not the human heart but the heart of Heaven.
Because it is the history that has come forth, gathered up, and is centering on the heart of Heaven, his “ism,” his ideal, remains until now and has become Christianity that, in name and in reality, moves the world.
Let us not lament that we have nothing, that we know nothing, that we have become like pitiful beggars. Among our ancestors of old who came forth following the Way, none were well dressed. None were well fed. None feasted in towering mansions and lived well.
Driven and chased, whenever they had time, they bowed their heads to stones and called upon God. Unable to live in comfort, they entered earthen caves and held fast to God and cried out. Such people have ruled the world.
Then what must we, the Korean people of today, lay hold of?
Not democracy, not communism, not the established religions, not any ideal. We must lay hold of God. If He is the God who is alive in history and struggles bearing the heart of the world, He certainly seeks sons and daughters with such a heart.
If so, our Korean people are in an environment most likely to be placed in such a position. Do we have parents? Do we have children? Those who came from the north — moreover, do we have land? Do we have houses? We are now in such a state.
I once thought there was hope when I saw refugees come and set up churches. But they, too, should have come forth with a heart pierced and crying aloud, connected to Heaven, but instead, urgent to move, colluding with outer currents of thought, they ended up like this.
If there is a God who is coming seeking this world today, that God is, undoubtedly, the God prepared with intellect, emotion, and will. Why? Because human beings are so. They are not the intellect, emotion, and will centered on human ethics, but the intellect, emotion, and will centered on the heavenly law of kinship.
Looking at the doctrine of any Way, none has said to seek worldly success. They have said, "Cannot eat, cannot wear, sacrifice, and serve.” They said, “Be trampled.”
We must be trampled. The people closest to the standard of the Way that God seeks are these people. Therefore, we must definitely contend with God. The time to definitively contend has come.
These days, you hear of existentialism and so on; search diligently. Try resolving all the problems of reality. See how it turns out. In the end, one runs into despair and loneliness and becomes nothing more than an individualist human being.
With the changes of history, it changes again. Therefore, leaving aside God or whatever, try flowing along with the currents of reality, and see how it turns out. It is set such that things do not come about as they assert.
Our people, having for thousands of years until now passed through history advancing centered on various Ways, latently bear a national character centered on the Way. There are no people with such strong faith as this.
When placed in a lonely and pitiful position, they immediately go to a fortune-teller and ask. Even now it is so. Whether of high or low rank, with such a heart densely felt, this people bears a national character of having to live entrusting itself to something.
Yet now such religions have come to be rejected by these people. Now the religion of the people must come forth. The time has come for the religion of the people to come forth, and the time has come for the “ism” of the people to come forth. That “ism” is not communism nor democracy. It is the heart. Heart. These people must now be able to say, “God! Is it not your purpose to find one personality completed both inwardly and outwardly? Is it not to set up the supreme person within this humanity who can commune with the heart of Heaven?”
These people, being far from worldly bonds, are in the position closest to Heaven. Tightening the belt and binding the head, we must pray. The Bible does not say to pray with one's belly stretched out from eating well.
What did it say?
When fasting, anoint the head with oil and enter the inner room and pray. That is a fine word. This word of the Bible must be fulfilled. In fulfilling that word, even if other peoples do not, the Korean people must do so. There is nothing more to be done now than that. From this viewpoint, something must come forth.
Do you know God's heart?
Because you do not know your parents' hearts, you commit unfilial acts.
If one is truly a son who knows how greatly his parents love him at the level of the heart and how dearly they raised him, he cannot be unfilial.
God's Strategy
Although these people are in such a forlorn and inconsequential position today, since they can commune most deeply with God's heart, they must pray. We must, binding the head, ask, “God, why have these people come to be so, and why has this world come to be so?” There are many subjects of prayer.
Did God, who came seeking Korea, come seeking to become a pitiful God?
No. No. Even those who in the world ate well, dressed well, seemed to believe well, and seemed to stand in good places, when they die and go to the spirit world, are in inconsequential places. Those who have come here for the first time may not believe such things, but those who said “I am the one” in the world, when they go to the spirit world, are in inconsequential places.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the world of the heart. It is not the Kingdom of Heaven of doctrine, not the Kingdom of Heaven of denomination, but the Kingdom of Heaven of heart.
For what reason does God seek the people and the believers on this earth?
In order to make sons and daughters. To make what kind of sons and daughters? He drives human beings out. Saying, “My heart is so,” to make sons and daughters who can pour out their hearts.
Then God's strategy until now has been so. To take a people, God goes and is first struck by the value of that people. It is different from the worldly strategy.
The strategy of the seeker of the Way is to find the value of ten, to sacrifice the value of ten. That is more profitable. Because sacrificing now, finding it 1,000 years later, by then the stage of goodness will have broadened worldwide; therefore, finding it 1,000 years later is more profitable than finding it now. Do you understand?
God's work, together with the age, broadens worldwide. Therefore, sacrificing a good person 1,000 years ago when the historical stage was narrow, 1,000 years later, he can find them again severalfold. Therefore, he sacrifices good people.
Even Jesus, 2,000 years ago, was sacrificed. To find countless people all at once, God sacrificed many good people. Since He sacrificed countless people and Satan took them, He takes them all at once.
Then what is the reason God seeks at the very last?
Even if, several thousand years ago, one had lived well and dressed well, one would only be God's people. Servants or people, no more. The age in which He called the servants of servants and worked is the Old Testament Age. The age at which servants worked. The prophets.
Next, He raises human beings from servants up into the realm of sons. For that purpose, Jesus came as the only-begotten Son. If sacrificing ten persons of the age of servants was to find ten sons in the age of the Son, it was a thing worth doing.
God is cruel. Because He works looking 1,000 years, 10,000 years ahead, He takes no thought of much sacrifice. Therefore, wherever Christianity entered, its believers were greatly persecuted. Because He yearned for sons and daughters who could appear with confidence before the final judgment seat that God plans.
If God's strategy is so, to fulfill God's Will, you yourselves must also be able to move so. Jesus was so. “Abba, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but Thy will be done.” Because Jesus was one who knew that, he so prayed.
Now, even if, in coming forth living through the Way, we lose the Way, lose the people, lose the church, let us not lose God. Do you understand? It is well to lose the denomination. The Founder of the Way, too, in the end, even if you lose Jesus, it is well. Even if you lose Shakyamuni or Confucius, it is well.
For what does Jesus save us? To set up the bride and go before God to receive the blessing. To receive the blessing of God the Father, the bride is needed. Without the bride, the blessing cannot be received. The principle of Heavenly Law is so. Jesus, too, must find the bride and receive from God the blessing, “You are my beloved son and daughter.”
Let Us Attend the True Father of Heart
Today, many say, “Ah, I must become the Lord's bride.” In such a time, even if at last we lose the denomination, even if rejected by anyone, let us not betray God alone. God alone.
Today, in this Korean society, Jesus' reputation has fallen. Jesus' authority has plummeted. Yet that does not mean God has plummeted. Although Jesus' name has fallen, Jesus himself has not fallen.
The present is the time when Jesus is trampled. After that comes judgment. The good person, having passed through a place of insignificance, judges.
Since judgment is the time of newly setting out, to do so, one is always bound to be trampled.
Going in and out of church is also fine. But what I would say is, do not listen to any pastor's word only on the surface. Do not listen to even the words of this young man speaking here, only with the tip of your ear. Listen, grasping through experience something that your own heart cannot deny.
In the end, however much you have made an oath upon hearing some word, that flows away. However much you make an oath upon seeing someone, “Ah! How fine. I, too, must do so," that too flows away. In the end, we must, through the mind, make an oath with the heart.
Otherwise, we cannot succeed. It is so even in the world. After seeing and hearing, “Such-and-such pastor preaches well,” “How is so-and-so?” — all this passes away.
What is important is what our hearts are. These days, looking at Christians, they sit and only criticize: “Such-and-such pastor preaches in this way, but that one preaches in that way.” All have become judges.
With that, can grace be received?
Grace infinitely permeates. Grace is what can flow in without end. You must know this. Yet if discord arises, can there be grace there? Whether the preaching is good or bad, when one enters that place, one must open the door of one's heart. If, even in a passing breeze, one can raise the deep, original mind, that is grace.
You who have attended this place today, although the man crying out here emphasizes it, that hour of offering worship is more grave than fighting an enemy in single combat. Think. In the place of going to seek and attend God, can one attend without putting on the ceremonial garment?
It is not the outer ceremonial garment. It is the ceremonial garment of the heart. Although your figures gathered here may be pitiful, if from your hearts, together with the Word, together with the hymns, the heart of overwhelming emotion flows forth, Heaven works through you.
Although fallen human beings, when expelled from the Garden of Eden, were driven out shedding tears, you must shed tears, but tears of joy, and meet God with smiling faces. Those who have not even shed tears of sorrow must not, from the start, shed tears of joy.
Therefore, we must not lose God. We must not lose the God we have found with our eyes. The God we have heard with our ears, the God felt through our touch, we must not lose. Going further, we must not lose the God who seeps into our hearts.
No one can interfere with this. No great person, no authority, can take away the God who comes into the heart. Therefore, we attend to that God who comes pierced through the heart.
As I said earlier, all existing things are searching for something better. What would it be? It is not some splendid teacher. That teacher is one who, together with the world, will pass away. He cannot transcend any present “ism” or thought, communism or democracy, and all pass away.
Since God is one, He moves toward one ideal. And God's one unifying standard is not a scholarly standard, not an organizational standard, not a power standard, but a heart-level standard.
That God whom ten million people face is more precious than one's own parents, than the one one loves, than any work of one's own, than anything precious on earth, an existence that cannot be exchanged even for this country given, even for this world given.
Only when people with a heart that knows that God appears in this world, the world will, according to God's ideal, according to God's Will, become a unified all-under-heaven. God moves with that as the standard. Heart! The God who comes seeking the converging point of heart — that God is precisely our True Father. The True Father.
Let the Korean People Hold the Initiative of the World of Heart
Today, human beings know the Father in word, but they have not known the Father in substance.
Although they have said it is the grieving God, they have not grasped it through experience; although they have said it is the heart-rending God, they have not felt it. Therefore, one cannot become a filial son. To know the heart of Jesus, who died on the cross, one must, looking at the scene of Jesus hung on the cross, transcend one's own life and death and shed tears, saying, “Lord, what is this?” One who can be so is the Lord's disciple. These twelve disciples! Peter and so on! They are betrayers. Betrayers, betrayers.
I once protested to Peter. What is this? "Splendid," you say?
How splendid is he? If Peter, before Jesus died, with faith, had crossed over the ridge of death, then I would say so. God hopes that many sons and daughters who can do so will come forth on this earth.
Now we must know that God is the indignant God, the wrathful God, the God who has taken up the rod, the God who weeps aloud, and when God grieves, we must also grieve together.
If one is such a person, they can know all of God's plans facing this earth. He knows what currents of thought will perish and how things will turn out. Do you not know? Many such people must come forth on this earth today.
Today's Christians and many seekers of the Way speak of mastering the Way. What is mastering the Way? It is to wander, seeking the hidden heart of God, which has not appeared in the human world until now and which cannot be discovered in the world of the heart, even though human beings possess hearts.
It is said,
"So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:13).
But true love has not yet come forth.
Reckoning all things, since we are closest to God, first for the sake of God, we must become the drivers of this age. We must be driven. We must be driven as heretics, as the chief.
Even if, driven for the sake of the truth, we become bodies confined behind iron bars, the heart of Heaven melts into one who, in such a place, prostrates himself and says, “Lord.” The heart of Heaven melts in. Does an iron bar block the heart of Heaven?
You sit here without any feeling, but until there came to be the movement here today, that course had to be passed through. If it had not been passed through, we would have been broken.
The Way that gathering this and that person, those about to die, can make them, when one says, “This is God's heart; do you feel it? Do you understand? The answer “Yes,” must come forth in the Last Days. It is well even if Buddhism and Christianity both go.
The movement that can take possession of God most easily comes forth from Korea. Therefore, since we will once try, we must become like fools.
The man speaking here is the supreme fool. I do not know how you see it. But the world considers him to be a fool. It is a most unfitting fact. To find that standard of heart, he goes anywhere.
If it is in prison, he goes to prison; if in an earthen cave, to an earthen cave; if in a slum, to a slum.
The bearing of the man crying out here, in seeking to make Unification Church believers who can say they will go to even the place of a century's hardship if they can find God's heart there—that is the bearing. Can one who, in a comfortable place, enjoying it, can laugh and live, attend God? Such a person cannot become God's friend in the place where, bearing the cross, one tumbles backward.
The world's humanity, standing at the cutting edge of twentieth-century civilization today, in a position of common destiny, feels terror before the civilization human beings have made. In such a time, what must we seek? It is well to lose all “isms” and all denominations. We must seek the one God.
With what must we take possession of God?
It is not circumstances, not material, not any denomination, but the heart. We must take possession with heart. Such a person, although having nothing, can undoubtedly move all the cosmos and move God.
If such people appear in the land of Korea, this Korea will, hereafter, hold the initiative in the world of God's heart, command before all heaven and earth's humanity, or before that heavenly world. I have confidence that such a time will surely come. Such a Korea will come.
These days, parents kill children, children kill parents, wives stab beloved husbands with knives and kill them, and elders kill people. In such an age, “Go, all of you.
Even parents have nothing to do with me. Pass on” — a person who possesses something of value greater than parents, greater than beloved children, greater than any “ism” of this world, a person who, even after being robbed of all things of the world, can give thanks and shed tears, a person with such an ideal — there is nothing he cannot gather. Whether a fight or a money matter of tens of billions, there is nothing that cannot be gathered.
We must clearly know that to act on this earth as one master prepared with the authority of the Absolute and prepared with the authority of the heart of the Absolute is God's providence facing human beings. May such providence appear before this world through the land of Korea.
We have come to know that on the long, long road Father has walked, the marks of blood are bound. And whenever lamentation and grief blocked the way ahead, whenever we saw Father's figure weeping aloud, we even resented being the children of the lonely Father; please forgive us.
If there is one who has labored greatly in the historical course, it is not any of our ancestors, not any patriot, not any scientist who has contributed to the civilization of this world.
The One whom the entire cosmos must be mobilized to glorify and praise is not any founder of the Way, not any ruler, but Father, who labored alone — we have come to know.
Now we must cause Your name to resound throughout all directions, so that all peoples may praise it and yearn for it, pouring out their hearts.
Since we have come to know that You are the Father who has labored throughout history, the Father who has received historical suffering, the Father who walked the course, in which the altar of bloody tears was continued without hesitation, please cause the voice of infinitely exalting that Father, of infinitely praising that Father, to ring out through this people.
These people have betrayed Father, but Father has not betrayed these people; the world has betrayed Father, but Father has not betrayed the world; countless histories have rejected Father, but Father has not rejected those histories. Please cause the time to come quickly when, throughout all heaven and earth, we can boast of such a Father and throughout all heaven and earth, we can boast of the heart of such a Father.
Father has labored, but You have not had the army of Heaven that can fight the evil world on the earth in Your stead. You have not had people that, for the sake of Father's Will, for the sake of Father's ideal, with Father's heart, can fight. You have not had sons and daughters; how heart-rending must that be?
Some died for some “ism” or some thought, but You were the Father who could not find one who, with an earnest heart, sacrificed for the sake of Heaven.
Please do not let your sons and daughters gathered here today be those who resent having been born as Korean people.
Since this is a better environment, please cause many of those who have come forth here to become sons and daughters who, pouring out their hearts here, transcending the heart of Jesus of old, who worried about the worldwide life, and the hearts of the countless founders of the Way, can form a bond with Father. Father, we earnestly desire and beseech.
Now, please cause us, knowing that we are Korea, to be in the position of having to attend to the Father who comes seeking the world; Korea is in a historical position, with heart resolving and determining, to be able, even amid darkness and confusion, to present ourselves for the imposing bearing and figure of sons and daughters of whom Father can boast.
We earnestly entreat that there may be many sons and daughters who prepare to become figures of whom You can boast at that time.
We earnestly entreat that the authority of Father's life not depart even from the entire time that remains; we have prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Korea Must Welcome the God Who Comes Seeking the World.
We earnestly entreat that the authority of Father's life not depart even from the entire time that remains; we have prayed in the name of the Lord. Amen.