Former Headquarters Church.
All human beings living upon this earth today are seeking a center of comfort.
They seek an individual center of comfort, a familial center of comfort, a national center of comfort, and a worldwide center of comfort. Going further, they seek a cosmic center of comfort representing the whole of Heaven and Earth. This is an unmistakable fact.
The Human Being, Who Needs a Center of Comfort
As long as Heaven and earth exist, one who becomes such a center of comfort must without fail appear. And so that one, becoming the subject of comfort, must be able to comfort all people. He must comfort the individual, comfort the family, comfort the nation and the world, and achieve a world of hope. To send such a one, God set up the Messiah thought before human beings and has led the providential history until now. Judging from such a fact, you cannot deny that God does not exist.
Therefore, that one who comes as the center of comfort does not end as an individual being of comfort; centered on him, a family of comfort representing the whole must come forth, and a tribe must come forth, and a people must come forth, and a nation must come into being. This is the chosen-people thought manifested in the historical course upon this earth.
Upon the foundation on which Jacob confronted evil and won victory, at last a single base called Israel was laid, and, centered on God, the sprout of comfort began to bud.
Starting from that family, when a tribe of comfort, a people of comfort, and a nation of comfort are established, then at last a worldwide standard of a nation of comfort is established.
You must know that the one who came before that national standard, to set up such a standard, was the Messiah.
For such an overall responsibility—to say it again, to move this world steeped in grief and solitude into a world of comfort, into a world of peace—Jesus came to this earth. Had the nation prepared at that time to become completely one with Jesus, from there at last the origin of peace that the human being awaited in his heart could have been found, and all human beings, meeting the subject of comfort, would have seen the start of happiness. And yet, though that one came, they could not receive him; we must know that this is a fact more grievous than anything there has been in the historical course until now.
That is why the human being must have a center of comfort. A center being must come forth who, one nation, one tribe, one family, one being—these being connected—can connect them even to the nation and the world. You must know the fact that unless it becomes so, the Kingdom of Heaven of comfort can by no means be achieved upon this earth.
Adam and Eve, Who Could Not Become the Object of God’s Comfort
Seen from God’s side, had the human being not fallen, the very growing of Adam and Eve would be an object of comfort before God, and the whole of created things He made would be an object of comfort before God. His moving and living, and all things related to him, would become an element that stirs comfort in God. And yet, by the human being’s falling, you must know that God came not to have that very one who was the object of comfort.
Seeing this, one can know the fact that not only is the human being seeking an object of comfort, but that God too is likewise seeking an object of comfort.
Then, to comfort God, what must one do?
To comfort God, there is something one must know. It is what sort of beings Adam and Eve, the first human ancestors, were. Adam and Eve were set up to fulfill in His place all of God’s Will. To say it again, Adam and Eve were created as the center of the whole created world, as beings that could be object partners to all of God’s conditions of joy and happiness.
How good must such Adam and Eve have been for God to see?
At the same time, you must reflect on how much God, centered on that ideal to fulfill His original Will, wished to speak of His story in one place with them and wished to live sharing His heart with them.
By Adam and Eve’s falling, God became unable to deal with them as the true ancestors of humankind, as the parents of humankind, as His sons and daughters.
Though Adam and Eve were sons and daughters without compare before God, it is that they stood in a place where God could not deal with them as sons and daughters.
God also intended, after Adam and Eve grew to maturity, to bless them as husband and wife and make them an object of comfort. And yet they became not only no object of comfort as son and daughter, but no object of comfort as bridegroom and bride either.
Because the wish God cherished was so great, He had endowed them with infinite value and gazed upon them; but by their falling, it is that God could not feel the comforting heart of them as children and could not feel the comforting heart of them as bridegroom and bride, that is, as husband and wife.
God wished Adam and Eve to be, in the future, ancestors of hope, sovereigns before all humankind, and ones establishing the way of loyalty and filial piety before God. And yet you must know the fact that before such a God, they became no object of comfort.
To Comfort God
Then, to comfort such a God, what must one do?
With a standard below that of fallen Adam and Eve, one cannot become an object of comfort before God.
Since they could not stand before God as true sons and daughters, only by becoming true sons and daughters can one comfort God; and since not becoming true bridegroom and bride became han and sorrow, only by standing as true bridegroom and bride can one become an object of comfort.
Because Adam and Eve, who ought to have fulfilled their responsibility as one master who could take dominion over all Heaven and earth, as one sovereign who could take dominion over all nations or all people, stood in a position of not having fulfilled their responsibility, unless one rises to a place above that, however much one comforts God, it cannot be comfort.
That is why someone must come upon this earth bearing such a responsibility of comfort.
If there is no one to bear that overall responsibility, some individual at least must appear. If there is no son, a daughter at least must come forth. Both son and daughter ought to be there, but there must be at least one.
But because the ancestors of humankind fell, and because there can be no restoration without passing through the Principle process of re-creation, the man must come forth first. Without the man coming forth, the woman cannot come forth.
However much one wishes, as God’s daughter, to comfort God, unless the man comes forth first, the woman alone cannot take responsibility for the position of the daughter. That is why the ones who bore the responsibility of the providential history of restoration until now were not women, but men.
Then what was it that the men had to come to this earth and do?
It was to indemnify and restore that standard on which Adam could not comfort God and could not do filial devotion from the position of a true son and to connect humankind with God.
You must know the fact that for this, the ancestors came and went bearing a historical responsibility.
Because this world is an evil world that Satan takes dominion over, when people who bear such a responsibility come forth, one must, centered on them, put this world in order and shatter the satanic world. That is why, in the long historical course of six thousand years from Adam’s family through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and after Jesus until now, the ones who bore the heavenly Will were not women, but men.
Gathering the sum of all the devotion put in by such responsible men, upon the foundation of that devotion, a true son must come forth. It is that one must come forth of whom God can say in praise, “You are a son in whom I can delight.”
As such a single center-being, the one who came to this earth was Jesus. When Jesus received baptism from John the Baptist at the Jordan River and came up from the water, the voice of God was heard:
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:17)
This means that at last a single being whom Heaven and earth could delight in had been found. You must know how great a joy this was.
The Center of God’s Comfort Is the Highest Son
Then what sort of object of comfort must Jesus be before God?
He could not but do the mission of a son who, sweeping away the sorrowful history invaded by Satan and rising above it, could comfort God from a place harmonized with the original burning heart of God.
Therefore, when God gazed upon Jesus, He must not be made to have the impression, “You are a second son restored as a fallen descendant,” nor must there be left the impression, “This is a son found while making Me suffer wretchedly.” He had to be a son of whom one could say, “You are the one I delight in, the one I love.” To say it again, he had to become the subject of comfort as the highest son upon this earth, and that value had to occupy a standard above the pre-fall Adam and Eve.
Because God made Adam and, through Adam, made Eve, only by receiving such a son could the woman appear. And yet Jesus, coming to this earth, stood in the position of an object as a son before God but could not find a single being that could stand in the position of an object as God’s daughter. Therefore, he had to find such a being, and this is the bright idea.
What was it that God toiled at over these six thousand years until now?
He prepared the outer foundation of victory to save the world, but He could not save the world.
Therefore, God, while laying the outer foundation, had inwardly to establish, even amid a fallen world, the standard that Adam and Eve ought to have achieved in the Garden of Eden without falling. That is, He had to achieve within God’s own true heart the standard of an object of love, an object of comfort.
Unless this was achieved, this world could not be restored. Therefore, to prepare a foundation on which this could be achieved, He raised the people of Israel.
And so God set up Jacob and made him suffer twenty-one years in Haran, and, on the road returning to his homeland, made him wrestle with the angel at the ford of Jabbok. Here, the angel was a symbol of Satan.
This fight was to restore the crossing of the heavenly bond caused by the archangel, and it existed to decide whether Jacob, bearing the responsibility of restoration, could fight the angel and win or not. To remove the han knotted within God’s inner heart, the angel, in place of the archangel, and Jacob fought each other.
When, even after fighting all night long, with the heart that he would win even if his life were snuffed out, he said to the angel, “I will not go unless you bless me,” had he heard the angel’s word of refusal, could the people called Israel really have come forth?
For Jacob, in going to his homeland, if he fought the angel and won, he could go, and if he lost, he could not; so this was a decisive battle of life and death. The moment when Jacob, having exhausted the devotion of over twenty years and set a single Will, fought to leave the origin of Israel—to say it again, a blessed lineage—was a make-or-break fight of life or death, staking everything.
The moment when Jacob fought the angel was a moment when conviction and heart, enough to take dominion over and to spare all that he had accumulated over twenty-one years, collided. How wretched were the trials Jacob underwent?
Did Laban not deceive him some ten times and torment him this way and that, saying he would give his daughter and so on?
Kicking off such an environment—do you block my road? However supreme the vigor and strength you have, are you a match for me?—Thus, he set up the standard of victory and came forth.
Would he have done it while, like you, watching the circumstances and reading faces?
It is that he paid no heed to such things. Because he fought the decisive battle, saying you die and I die, the angel could not but give the blessing. Would he have given it gladly? Driven and driven, he gave it because he had no choice.
From such an origin, Satan came to be separated off, and in the sense of having won, he received the blessing called Israel. And so, from Jacob the individual, Jacob the family, it became a tribe, and that tribe must become a victorious tribe. A blessed tribe must not all collapse. A victorious tribe is different.
Then what was the purpose of blessing them, having made them win?
Was it for their own good living? That is a thing said out of not knowing well. It is that the people of Israel, whom God loved and blessed, unlike the Gentiles, are a people God loves, and therefore must live well.
The Purpose for Which God Established the People of Israel
Then, where lay the purpose for which God blessed them, and what was the purpose for which He established Israel?
When He sent the Son, who could become the object of God’s comfort, it was to make them completely one-centered on that Son. Contrary to Jacob’s fighting the angel at the ford of Jabbok, it was to receive the master who could found the fatherland of the original homeland and to become one.
Then what would have happened had they, when the master Jesus went to the mountain, followed to the mountain, and when he went to the sea, gone to the sea—had they all thronged together with him? Think about it.
What would have happened had they held on to him and not let go?
Had they been a people who could become one with Jesus, Israel would not have perished. How wretched has today’s Israel become?
It is being wretchedly punished. That the seed of that tribe even remains is because God protects them…. Even that they ought to think of with gratitude.
God’s establishing Israel was to make it a fence for finding, within Satan’s realm, the son who was the object of comfort; but it is that they did not know that.
If God set up that son as the object of comfort, then, saying to that son who was the object of comfort, “You are My son,” what would God give as a gift? Would he give the satanic world? No. The God of love intended to give Israel as the gift He had prepared over four thousand years. It is an astounding fact.
Jesus, as the object of God’s comfort, is before all humankind a single center of comfort who won victory in Heaven and on earth.
Such a Jesus is the son of sons of God, bone of bones, an object of comfort who could commune with God’s heart; so upon that victorious foundation, what would He give as a gift?
Would he build a brick house? What would He give? Think about it. He wished to give the world. How does one give to the world? Even wishing to give Heaven and earth, it cannot be done by word alone. That is why a nation was needed. That is, the nation of Israel was needed.
What would have happened had Jesus received as a gift the people of Israel, selected at last, centered on the nation prepared over four thousand years? You must know that. Israel ought to have taken such responsibility, and yet it thought only of its nation living well. It was that, excluding the Messiah, it would do if only they themselves were well off.
A single being of whom God can say, “This is a filial son among filial sons, lacking in nothing to boast of in the historical course,” must without fail come forth upon the earth. Such a single man, a single son, must come forth.
When God said to Satan, “Hey, you rascal, I have toiled for thousands of years until now to set up such a son. You opposed it, but here, look today; there must be a son of whom even Satan can say, “Yes, it is right,” a son of whom one can truly say, “He is entirely My love.”
By having that one son, He must be able to forget the world and be glad. Only so can He forget the satanic world. Embracing that one, and the joy felt by finding that one, must be great enough to forget all the stories woven out of the satanic world. Such a being must come forth.
Otherwise, one cannot cross over this ridge, sunken low by the fall in Eden. That is, it is that one cannot set up in God’s heart a heartistic standard of comfort.
Such a one has been sought until now. And yet has that one come?
It is that he is coming. That is why the people of Israel say the Messiah is coming, and today’s Christians say the Lord is coming. Then, where will that one come and do the mission of the Messiah? In what land will he be born? You must know this.
What you must know is that, rather than meeting the one who comes, you must first know the road God underwent to send him.
Only then do you become a person who can receive rebirth directly from that one. To say it again, to send one Messiah to this earth, God has been seeking the road of restoration from Adam’s family until now.
We must know that, to find and set up, in the distant future, an absolute Son of God as the substantial object of love and comfort, He has walked from Adam’s family until now over six thousand years. Among women, there are no sages. It may make women feel bad to hear it, but there are no sages. Then, when can women find their dignity? It is when they meet that one, the Messiah, and become the bride. That is why Christianity is a broad religion.
The Death of Jesus, Which Became an Indescribable Sorrow to God
Then that son had to do the pioneering work of giving new birth to human beings, but until that son came forth, who conducted the providence?
That is, in the four thousand years before Jesus came, who did it?
God did it directly. Think about how much grief God underwent to find out about this son. He had to make people of God’s side surpass the loyal subjects, filial sons, and faithful women of the enemy’s nation.
Moreover, since God had not to bear and raise them but had to seize them from the satanic world and make them of God’s side, how great must God’s suffering have been?
It is an astounding matter. Would it have been easy for God to seize Satan’s brood and make them understand His circumstances and heart and do such work? That was not an easy thing. Even the period of four thousand years was, for God, rather fast. Until that son came—that is, until Jesus was born in Bethlehem—God had to do that work.
Then how many tens of millions of times must God have gone back and forth upon this fallen earth?
How many times do you suppose He went back and forth?
Before Jacob went to Haran, before Abraham offered the offering, and before Noah’s flood judgment—going back and back as this—Cain and Abel of Adam’s family appear. Would God, coming there, have prayed, “Abel, the law of the heavenly bond has been reversed, so please, please make Cain submit naturally and set it right again,” or would He not?
How much must He have prayed in His heart to make Cain submit?
The heart with which God earnestly wished cannot be compared with the way today’s fallen human beings pray, saying they yearn for God and would know God’s heart. How earnestly must He have awaited it? Think once, everyone, of the earnest figure of God, who had staked everything and gazed upon the inadequate Abel, who knew nothing.
That the one who came with such earnest hope had to be driven away by Satan is astounding. Satan came to dance, saying it was good, and there arose the circumstance in which God, holding back His tears, could not but turn back the road He had come.
You must know that their wretched days that had to be turned back were repeated for God. Furthermore, because He did not have the center of the foundation He wished for, God, staking this world’s history and countless peoples, came down seeking one center.
You are saying that Korea will hereafter become a nation beloved before God’s Will, the third Israel that can fulfill the Will. Christianity is not originally a Western religion.
It is that Christianity is not a religion that should have stayed only in the Middle East region. It has been some two hundred years since Christianity, going around Europe, was transmitted to Korea.
Then did God only begin to come seeking some two hundred years ago?
Until Korea came to stand in such a place, God, developing history from the west, prepared historical bonds and stories in the east too, unbeknownst to anyone. Without doing so, the Will cannot be fulfilled.
Furthermore, behind countless people, wrapping the inside and outside, He mustered things, heedless of trials and sufferings, to fit them to the focal point of one time. You must reflect on how great such behind-the-scenes toil of God is.
God set up Noah in place of Abel after 1,600 years. Next, he set up Abraham, and set up Moses, and set up John the Baptist, and set up Jesus. But the result until now was a God who stood in a position of failing time after time.
If it were a person with a sense of face, he could not lift his head and step forth. He would give up everything, saying, “Ah, I give up. Come what may.” And yet God could not do so.
Everyone, quietly think about it. Such humiliation and contempt, the mockery and blame and derision of the enemies—it was not only that. Bleeding and dying were common, so think of the heart of God, who had to conduct a funeral every single day. In the time of the Daewongun, how many Christians were massacred?
In whatever nation Christianity entered, the Christians were martyred. Thus God underwent the grief of crushing defeat, His people whom He had gathered devotion to raise, falling every single day. You must know such circumstances of God.
Such a God, without a day of ease, and yet today’s Christians say He is a God amid glory; so, as it is in the words of the Bible, it is only right that God laments having made the human being. He cannot but lament. A God who cannot but lament….
How did He come to be a God for whom it is only appropriate to lament?
The Victorious Son Who Will Resolve God’s Han Must Come Again
There is a need for a single person, a single group, a single people, or a single nation to bear the responsibility of avenging the enemy, holding the indignation and han over this. A single son who can do so must come and, at the same time as becoming the subject of God’s comfort, avenge this enemy. Because the son and daughter fell, the son and daughter must be recovered as the object of comfort.
That is why Jesus, calling himself the Lord who is the bridegroom, floundered to find, before that bridegroom, a female substance who could be the bride, a true object who could receive God’s love, but could not fulfill the Will and went holding han. In this prayer of Jesus,
“Abba, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt,”
the han of four thousand years of history dwells.
Not only that, because Jesus knew the circumstance that, once he went this road, in the historical course thereafter countless people would have to cross the altar of blood, he appealed, holding an astounding story.
Those dolts Peter and James—what sort of apostles are they?
What is different about Peter from you? To be sure, you are worse than they, who looked on in silence even as Jesus bore and went to the cross, and who fled about.
Still, because they repented after Jesus passed away and was resurrected, the name of the apostle was given again. That is, it was done in reverse. That is why Peter died upside down.
Everyone, does it make you feel bad?
You must know that the religion handed down from such apostles is Christianity. Do you believe the religion that those who had betrayed him set up, having no choice but to band together? The Teacher protests to them. He meets them and attacks them. It is an astounding matter.
However much you beg God for blessing and pray craving a foundation of happiness, unless the heartistic object of comfort that God was seeking is found, that prayer cannot be fulfilled.
If it is fulfilled, it becomes a calamity. The blessing of Israel was to make a fence that could receive the Messiah. Israel could have been lifted as a nation of glory among all nations, but rather, it became a calamity. It would have been better had they not received the blessing.
Therefore, before God, who lost Adam—that is, because God lost the subject of comfort representing the male upon this earth—an object of the heart who can stand in place of that subject must come forth again upon this earth.
Adam could have been embraced smoothly in God’s bosom, but because he is the very one who brought suffering and sorrow, he must come again and comfort all the historical sorrow God was wounded by in the past and pull the han from the human being’s fall out of God’s heart. Thereafter, one must cross over even to the place where one can be comforted as a victorious son.
You must know the fact that, in the position of such a son, until Jesus came, God went back and forth tens of millions of times and paved that road. God chose the people of Israel as the chosen people to set up a son who could become the subject of comfort and, wishing over four thousand years to lead all people to where God is, sent Jesus. And yet, when Jesus bore the cross and, wearing the crown of thorns on his head, headed for Golgotha, was God’s heart glad? He was aghast.
If Jesus came to die like that, for what did God prepare over four thousand years?
That Jesus died upon the cross was purely because the people of Israel failed in their responsibility. Not knowing even that, you say Jesus died to save all people? If a dead Jesus saves all people, do you mean an undead Jesus could not save all people?
To Comfort God Completely
You must know that what has conducted the providence until now, to recover the being that ought to stand as God’s tangible substance but fell, is the history until now.
If the Lord had come alone and become the subject of comfort, what must be done after that? Would it do to say, “God, look only at me and live. Am I alone, not enough?”
Because the motive of humankind’s fall is due to Adam, even though Jesus stood in the position of a son in place of Adam, countless humans remain in the satanic world. It is not that one can say, Let us cast aside and judge all the countless humankind. Because Adam did wrong, the son who comes to conclude the responsibility in Adam’s place must stand in a position of saving all the people of this world entirely. It is that Jesus alone could not serve God. Merely going to the Garden of Gethsemane and praying through the night….
Since Jesus alone could not enter the position of comforting God, how mortifying must the grief Jesus underwent on this earth have been?
At that time, centered on Jesus, the people of Israel had to unite as one. To what degree ought they to have united? They ought to have united more than the wrestling with the angel at the ford of Jabbok. And so, what would have happened had the whole nation of Judea followed Jesus and thronged to him—when he crossed the sea, crossing together, when he climbed the mountain, climbing together?
Had they thronged like a swarm of locusts, would they have perished?
From there, a new historical movement unfolds. He prepared over four thousand years for such a time, but the prepared foundation was all lost.
What did Jesus come to this earth and do?
He wept to resolve the han knotted in history. He had to pray to resolve that wish, which the ancestors, shedding tears, had longed for—the wish they appealed to the heavenly world, that at the Last Day the Messiah would come and resolve their indignation and grievance. Because the tears the ancestors had shed were not gathered, Jesus had to pray, “O Father, gather their tears.”
And yet, when he prayed, the people ought to have received him with joy; but though Jesus prayed and repented in place of the individual and the people, they all opposed him. Again, heedless of face before God, he entreated, “Father, forgive them,” and, receiving forgiveness, stepped before them, and again they opposed him.
So the road of forgiving was blocked, try as he might to forgive. Not once or twice, but doing it dozens of times with no possibility, the road Jesus walked, staking his life as the price of that forgiveness, was the road of the cross. That the road Jesus went was the road of the cross is an astounding story.
Not knowing even this, you go to paradise by believing in Jesus?
Suppose a woman, when she comes of age, marries. Anyone marries. But she may be driven out of the married home, may be despised by the bridegroom, may become a widow, and live under the in-laws.
How will you marry?
You wish to marry from a place everyone envies and everyone is captivated by, do you not? Is it easy to become so?
Likewise, they say that if you believe, you go to paradise. But what sort of place is paradise? It is a place of utmost devotion, a place of utmost loyalty, a place of utmost circumstances. You say you go to such a place merely on belief?
Then, in going by belief, how must one go? One must go from a place where tears of blood cross. When Adam fell and was driven out, was he driven out saying, “Haha, how good!”? He was driven out, shedding tears of blood. To return to that house you were driven out of, must you not be better than Adam?
Suppose, for instance, after being driven out of a village, one goes back in; can one go in worse off than before? Therefore, you must be better than Adam.
If you return from a place worse than Adam, it is certain you will be driven out. God will rebuke you, saying, “You rascal of a child!”
Because there is a God who wishes them to return from a place even better than Adam, the Unification Church does witnessing for a period of seven years.
Going out to witness, one would have been persecuted in that village, and some would even have been beaten by a mob. And there would be those who, in the place of being driven out, vowed firmly to come again, saying, “Just you wait.”
And so, when one returns equipped with a qualification and content, in every respect behind the scenes, that they could not have dreamed of, you come to stand in a place where you can resolve han.
From there, one does as one wishes. Something new unfolds. But if you cannot do that, you are a bucket of contempt. Is there any other way? Is there, I say?
God, Who Carried On the Providence Gathering the Stragglers Behind the Scenes
Unless one makes a place better than the place where Jesus of old passed away, one is driven out again. That is why God drove Christianity on, telling it to go quickly even if crossing the realm of death. To find countless peoples, He drove it on, heedless even of one person being sacrificed.
God, awaiting the day when, making a situation and environment in which He could wash away the shame of the returning son at the Last Days and set up his dignity, that son could appear with a bearing befitting God’s son, drove and drove, despite the catastrophe of sacrifice behind the scenes, and developed it into today’s Christianity.
You must know such a providence of God. That is why the history of Christianity has been dotted with the history of martyrdom. To resolve indignation and han, to make a group that could stand between Heaven and earth, trampling upon mortifying and indignant facts, Heaven has conducted the providence.
The people who think, believe, and stay still that our Lord will surely come and seek me out have all ruined Christianity. And it would be good if these people at least kept their mouths shut, but they say they are the orthodox.
We say, Let us comfort Heaven, but how will we comfort Him?
You must know how the historical story went until the center being of comfort came upon this earth. To set him up, God carried on the providence, gathering tens of millions of times, behind the scenes of humankind, the defeated soldiers, and the straggling soldiers.
You must know the heart of God. The ones said to be excellent were all swept away with the world into the world, but God carried on the providence, leading the people who, straggling here, had nowhere to go and wandered the road of death.
Because such people are people of the same circumstances who could commune with God’s mind, it is that God’s plight, having carried on the providence of restoration, gathering such stragglers of life, is astounding.
Even so, since the young all say they do not want it, the ones called before God in history until now were all in their fifties and above, their sixties and above. They were people old and worn, people who could not but soon go to the common graveyard, a lot near the day of singing the funeral dirge. Behind such scenes, God, though today He conducts the providence holding on to such worn and dried-up elderly, hereafter must conduct the providence holding on to the middle-aged; and it is that He worried over how He would unfold the providence holding on to them. Embracing such a story, He walked the historical course.
The age of old age passing and giving way to the age of the middle-aged, the age of the middle-aged passing and giving way to the age of youth, the age of youth passing and giving way to the age of boyhood, the age of boyhood passing and giving way to the age of infancy—thus you must be born again. Otherwise, you cannot go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
You must be able to be loved like a pure and innocent little child. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again. He said one must be born anew—that is, must undergo rebirth. That is why God, as the utmost gathering-up work, would do the work of salvation even from within the mother’s womb. What an astounding story it is!
Raise the Young People
In our age today, the grandfathers and grandmothers of the Unification Church must retreat.
Does it make you feel bad?
Saying retreat is not to say I would block the road to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Only by letting that age pass will God be comforted, will He not?
When one looks, there are many elderly in the Unification Church, and this, truly, is troublesome. Only by bustling about like the young can one indemnify and restore; but being unable to do either indemnity or restoration, they have no choice but to look only to the Teacher. How pitiable is that circumstance of depending on others!
You must know that. Having, until now, depended on God, depended on Jesus, depended on countless Christians, and survived into this age, having aged gently and yet still having to depend on the young people of the Unification Church, is an astounding matter. One must strive so as not to depend on others.
That is why the elderly must strive, shedding tears, to serve God. The elders, the uncles, and the aunts who keep house with a family must lament, “How is it that in my family I have not had sons and daughters who could stand in place of God and the Messiah?” Others have sons and daughters better than themselves who are loyal to God; why does my house have no such sons and daughters?
Even looking at the mountains, even looking at the rivers, one must feel shame, and, looking all around, feel a shame that will not let one lift one’s face.
Since there are no such sons and daughters, one must at least strive oneself, going all about the village, resolving to resolve God’s han and the story of a thousand years. You must know that these are middle-aged couples who ought to do so.
And yet you eat as you wish, dress as you wish, and do all you wish to do, and that becomes a condition of accusation. Is it your responsibility to nag, saying, “Ugh, other people’s husbands earn money well, and here is this state of ours”? Middle-aged couples must know to feel shame before God for not having had young people who could be loyal to God. Even now, one must raise such young people.
Fortunately, the grateful thing is that in our Unification Church, there is a law called “children of faith.” It is what can save middle-aged couples, sons, and daughters of faith.
For this, run once, truly, until the very marrow melts. And so, when you shed tears of hope before the young people, upon that foundation of the hope of youth, the Messiah comes. Would God do work with old grandfathers like Peter or with people like used-up dregs? Think about it. Would God’s son come seeking a person like a leftover cucumber stem? Not even a fly lands on a cucumber stem floating in rinsing water….
You must guide even sons and daughters, nephews, and an eighth cousin by marriage and make a bond by which this han can be resolved.
The countless spirit individuals gone to the spirit world await their descendants upon the earth, standing before the heavenly bond, holding a bond of indemnity.
You must, while alive, know that Will, and, though you cannot fulfill the responsibility, make a bond by which you can take responsibility and struggle, holding at least the mind that you will take responsibility, so that the environment they wish for can unfold.
The Place Where One Who Comforts Must Stand
Unless one holds a bond by which one can grasp through experience Jesus’ heart with a mind more grave than that with which Jesus went forth toward the cross, one cannot go to paradise together with Jesus.
Jesus, staking his life and bearing the cross, prayed even for the enemies, and only so entered paradise. And yet, if the crowd who, believing that it will do to believe once a week, merely swindled, and when it suited them skimmed and strained—if they, thanks to believing in Jesus, saying, “Aigo, since I am a son or daughter of God, I too must go,” step out with big strides—see whether the legs move. There must be a sense of face. Must a person not have a sense of face?
A man who can comfort God must come forth, and a woman must come forth.
Otherwise, there is no one to comfort God. You must, without fail, meet such a one. Does it comfort a person, downcast because his son died, to say, “I have three sons; take one son as your son”? Does it comfort? But when a person who has lost three sons, shedding tears abundantly, says, “I know your circumstances well,” even a single drop of tears is a comfort. Is that not so?
If, with three sons standing hale and hearty, one says, “How too bad. In their stead I will give you my son,” however one does so, do you think it will be a comfort? By no means! To comfort, one must have a heart more grievous than that person.
Therefore, what sort of person must the Lord who comes to this earth be?
He must become a fellow who can grasp through experience that grievous heart God felt when gazing upon the human being, whom He created in love, falling, and can wail aloud. You must know that otherwise one cannot become an object of comfort before God.
That is why Jesus, holding such a story, even while bearing the cross, prayed that their sin be forgiven. And because God knew such a heart of Jesus, He could be together with that praying mind. And yet, is the standard you believe in a standard that can comfort God?
It is that God is pitiable. Not merely in word, but that in fact it is so. When one considers the circumstances of the mind and body you believe with, can it truly be said that you are the son, the daughter, God is seeking?
One cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven without comforting God.
Then how will one comfort God?
Do you comfort Him with the dregs left after eating all you wish to eat, wearing all you wish to wear, doing all you wish to do? By no means! That is a thing even Satan dislikes. If one puts a scrap of bread before kindergarten children barely four or five years old and says, “Which will you take?” they will not take the corner, saying it has earth on it.
Since even the children of fallen human beings are so, how much more would God, the original owner who created Heaven and Earth, be?
When one considers that the more one thinks, the more inadequate one feels, and the further one goes, one is self-inadequate even to struggle over how to escape this environment that has crushed the enlightened me who could forgive the story of a thousand years within my heart—with this state, how can one say that one’s circumstances are not understood?
Jesus Had to Perfect the Family Ideal (家庭理想)
Who will comfort God’s han?
It is that, centered on Jesus, sons and daughters who can comfort God must come forth, and a couple must come forth, and a loyal subject must come forth. But who will do it? “Ah, we are busy just with our living, so Jesus must do it alone.” Such people are thieves. They are people who are a burden to Jesus. It is that they are traitors.
Because the heartistic world of God, in which the story of six thousand years was tangled, was so, the son whom God sought must likewise be such a son.
Because we knew that, we must be able to say, “Though we cannot become such a son, we struggle to do so, so hear this crying voice. Look upon these struggling circumstances.” Without passing through such a process, it is impossible to comfort God.
You must know for certain that God is a God who has not resolved the history of lamentation, the heart of lamentation. We must become sons and daughters who can comfort God’s heart and the story of His lamentation.
Who could dare to gaze upon the figure of the Father embracing such sons and daughters in His bosom?
But to gaze upon a God who can be so is the highest hope the human being hopes for, and to achieve such a moment is our goal.
You must be able to be confident of that. And so you must greet that day. You must set up one who can be so. That is, if he is a little better than you, set him up; if he toils a little more, set him up.
You must have the mind to set up a person greater than yourself. Israel, which failed in the responsibility of transferring such a mind, forming a people and forming a nation, and preparing a foundation to serve the coming Messiah as the center of the whole world, perished. History is set up so.
Therefore, embracing God with all one’s strength: Father, how has it come to this? It is because our ancestors did wrong. Are the sons and daughters you wished for not such sons and daughters as these?
Is the family you wished for not such a family as this?
You must know that the responsibility to thus resolve God’s story is the responsibility of the coming Lord. The coming Lord must do this. He must come for that responsibility. Adam and Eve, the substance of comfort who left han before Heaven and earth, ought to have achieved the standard of the true ancestors of humankind they wronged. But because they could not achieve this and han was knotted, you must know that Jesus and the Holy Spirit became son and daughter, became bridegroom and bride, and, becoming good ancestors, bore the mission of a pioneer of tears of blood over two thousand years in the historical course to resolve han.
Jesus, at the same time as fulfilling the mission of son and daughter, hoped to fulfill also the mission as husband and wife. And he hoped for the place of a loyal subject.
Jesus had to subjugate all nations and, leading all nations entirely, say, “I offer this before God; please receive it.” And so he had to fulfill toward God the way of filial piety and fulfill the way of a loyal subject.
What is it the Messiah must do?
It is to lay the standard of a familial Messiah, lay the worldwide standard of the family, establish the worldwide way of the loyal subject, set up the heavenly nation in the new Heaven and earth, and set up the law of the heavenly nation. This is the mission of the Lord. And yet, that the archangel’s trumpet sounds thus and so, and that one is caught up into the air thus and thus—these are all antics of people pleased with themselves alone.
The human being has not yet concluded, upon this earth, the standard of loyalty and filial piety. As true parents, in place of Heaven and earth, the man in place of Heaven and the woman in place of earth, by the two forming a true bond of bridegroom and bride in a harmonized figure, can stand as an object of comfort before God. This is set up by the coming of the Lord. And so that family must become a family of loyal subjects, and one must lay even the national place of the loyal subject that all nations can follow.
You must know that this is the standard that the coming Messiah must meet.
Therefore, the Lord does not come amid glory. It is that on the Lord a bundle of suffering hangs raggedly.
Even if three billion people live in the world, seen by God’s Will, there are only two: man and woman. That is why Jesus said to take him as the model. Therefore, you must become a son in place of Jesus and a daughter in place of the Holy Spirit and, holding the substance of bridegroom and bride, equip the bond of bridegroom and bride, and be able to say before God, “Resolve Your wish.” To say it again, it is to recover the qualification of the Messiah as bridegroom and bride, the qualification of a familial savior. Until now, Jesus alone was the savior. That is, until now, the qualification to participate together with the Messiah was not given to the woman.
Laying, from the family, a base on which the way of the loyal subject can be established, when this stands as the center of all nations, the ideal of the Messiah is achieved. Thus, when the Messiah fulfills his responsibility upon the earth and offers this world before God, the mission of the Messiah is concluded.
Only then can this fallen world at last be crossed over.
When Have You Ever Wailed Through the Night to Comfort God?
Now the coming Messiah is pitiable. You too, of course, are pitiable, but what does that trifle matter, a hundredfold, a thousandfold pitiable? Because the seed born pitiable is ill-formed, it suffers. But upon Jesus, who came upon the foundation prepared over four thousand years, what talk is there of a cross?
If one knew that a son of God bearing the cross is not God’s wish and not Jesus’ wish, on the road of belief, if there is a valley of death, one must have the mind that I will go first and fill up that valley.
Are today’s Unification Church members so?
They read faces well enough in trying to follow along. But some are quick at calculation, saying, “Oops, if it is a losing matter, I had better not.” And yet God has been, until now, all losses. He was the great king of loss. He carried on a kingdom of loss.
Now let us comfort God! It is to comfort Him as sons. It is to offer this body and work as sons. When have you ever, in your life, your problem, stayed up through the night wailing and beating the ground?
Being unable to do so even for your life, what is there to hesitate over in doing God’s work? And have the women fully done the part of God’s daughter?
In the Republic of Korea, there is a woman like Yu Gwan-sun, but if told to die for the Will, you would all flee. The fierce enemy world lies athwart before us and does not withdraw meekly.
Since it does not withdraw with dithering unless one pushes ahead, there is no solution. This is the figure of fallen human beings.
Then what is one of the three great wishes of fallen human beings?
It is the completion of individual restoration—that is, I must achieve completion. To achieve completion, one must liquidate what one owes God heartistically.
Therefore, one must bear the cross. To take away the sin Israel committed, only by passing through the process of the offering is there forgiveness, so one must without fail pay the price of blood. Without paying the price—whether tears or blood and sweat—atonement is by no means made. That is why Jesus, too, said to pray without ceasing.
Then, when praying, do you pray comfortably lying sprawled with all four limbs spread?
One must pray on bended knee, striking one’s forehead against a stone, even as the bridge of the nose breaks. Had it been possible while comfortable, Teacher Moon of the Unification Church would already have come in last. It was well that it was not comfortable. Because it was not comfortable, he has come this far until now. You must know that. From a comfortable place, it absolutely does not work.
That is why even now, when I quietly think back on bygone days, what is it I long for most?
Of eating well and playing well, the Teacher has no memory. However well one eats, once the belly is full, eating becomes a debt. Having no choice, he ate, but he ate with the mind that it would become a debt again. What remains most in memory is the place of being driven and chased and caught and taken in and tortured and vomiting blood. That place remains most in memory.
Remembering that place and saying, “Father!” one can feel God’s heart turn over and one’s insides turn over; but the memory of eating well and living well, however much one did it, is unnecessary. The suffering one does in youth cannot be bought even with gold. And one must be able to endure even amid suffering.
Let the Teacher tell one story of the time he was in Hungnam prison. At that time, the Teacher did the work of binding fertilizer sacks at the Hungnam fertilizer factory. The most grueling thing was binding the fertilizer sacks with straw rope; in a time like winter, if one uses straw rope, cotton clothing wears through in less than three days. One had to bind, as a fixed daily quota, one thousand three hundred of them, and ten people had to finish this in eight hours.
If the day’s responsibility quota comes to 130 per person, this is heavy labor.
Ordinary people in society cannot do even 75 or 80, and to be told to do double that is the same as being told to die. It is the communist bunch that made one do such work.
You must know what the communists are like. The Teacher is not a supporter of the ruling party, but these days, the opposition party of the Republic of Korea is running wild, knowing nothing of the world. Even if we wear nothing but rags, whether for three years or five years, we must save the nation, selling off even all the property we have. They do not know that the muzzle of a gun is coming in at the throat. People who know nothing of the world are the ones who will flee first when a problem arises. It is that we cannot trust such people. Everyone, you must know that.
The Prison, Where There Was Nothing That Was Not Precious
In the prison where the Teacher was, because one handled ammonium sulfate, if it got on the hem of one’s clothes, the smell was terrible, but more than the smell, that clothing would have a hole worn through it in a single day. It was work harsh enough to wear a hole in the hem of one’s clothes. When a hole was worn through, one had to mend it, but does one mend with one’s fingers?
What was it that one longed for most?
Of course, rice. If someone came to visit there, of course one longed for the story too, but rather than that person’s face, one would look first at the hands. A person who has done army life will understand that feeling somewhat.
If someone came to visit, the matter is not what one is wearing, but one looks at what one has brought. A person who has not undergone it will not know that.
When you did a week’s fast, what was the standard ten minutes before midnight on the seventh day like? If one sees porridge in that place, one would be gladder than at anything in the world. How earnest it is!
Food is what one longs for most, but next, what one longs for is a needle. Even to mend clothes, is there a needle, is there thread?
Because it is a world of nothing, there is a saying that a person who has spent a long prison life becomes a top beggar. Passing by, if there is a scrap of cloth, whether ox dung is on it or not, one picks it up. Talk of shame or of pride is useless. Shame was bade farewell to long ago, so where is there shame?
Rather, it is a boast. Everyone, do you know that feeling?
If one looks at the bundle of people who have done five years or so, up to ten years, of such prison life, there is all manner of things in it. It is not large, but it holds a whole household of living goods.
If there is a needle somewhere, one negotiates. And even the one thus obtained—to use it once, one has to give a “bribe.” And it is not lent unless one is an acquaintance.
So if word gets out that a needle has come to be in some cell, this becomes a topic of talk. Whether it was borrowed from a close person or brought in by a newcomer, a commotion breaks out. Because people rush in saying, “I am the elder. I am the senior,” the one who borrowed it, unable even to mend, only looks on, and, when the owner asks for it, has to return it. Even the Teacher thought at that time, on seeing the needle, whether there was anything of value greater than this.
The Teacher, whenever he sees his split tooth in the mirror, has something that comes to mind. One sews the sacks with a thin wire, and there was a steel piece into which this wire could be fitted (Golgi). It was steel. To make a needle with it, one placed it on the rail where the trolley cart ran and tapped it, and it would flatten. But even flattened, since one could not bore a hole, one had to bend it and make it. In bending this, one had to bend it well; if by mishap it snapped with a crack, then it was ten years of study come to nothing.
So, trying this way and that, one barely made it. It is truly hard. Such a thing a person who has not undergone it directly will not know. Merely hearing of it, one does not know. High up in the factory, there were glass windows. When glass was needed, one simply broke a windowpane. This is not to say the Teacher did it, but that other people played such pranks too. (Laughter) Whether the guard was there or not. What could even the guards do?
Since they could not provide it themselves, they had no choice. Thus, obtaining a shard of glass, one slit the sack open, but can one match the holes and sew on? Having no choice, one spreads out the fertilizer sack and bores the holes again, and the wire curls in the middle and, leaving about a third of the end, snaps with a crack. Having no choice, one has to pick out a somewhat sturdier wire and stitch, but stitching it one by one, it keeps tangling, and can one do the work?
So biting the wire with one’s teeth to cut it, this is the tooth that split. It is an unforgettable memento. The Teacher, whenever he looks in the mirror, thinks of that. And is needlework a problem today? You Unification Church ladies who do needlework, from now on you must say, “Has the honorable needle come?” (Laughter) “What a grateful thread!”
Continuing to work like this, one day, after a year and a half had passed, while sewing into a sack, there was a needle in this sack. The sacks one sews are all brought from the countryside, and, being brought and gathered in a rush, it seems a needle that had dropped there was swept in. So I got one needle. That rumor spread on and on among the eight hundred, a thousand prisoners in the jail: “Hey, so-and-so has got a needle.” When the needle came, I was as glad as at the time of receiving the heavenly mandate before God. People there can do anything at all. The Teacher makes even underpants well. When I was in school, the cloth for wrapping books was good underpants material. (Laughter)
The Teacher can knit too. There is nothing I cannot do. It is that I can live splendidly on my own without depending on women.
To Comfort God, One Must Be Placed in the Same Circumstances
You who believe in Jesus must think, “I stand in place of Jesus.”
And imitate, even if from the position of Cain, Jesus’ shedding tears for the people. As one goes on imitating, the “imitation” becomes “the real thing.” Otherwise, one does not know Jesus’ heart.
Without having gone hungry, one does not know the heart of the hungry. Without having undergone the same position, one does not know.
If you want to know what the Messiah’s circumstances are like, you must stand in the same position as the Messiah.
If the Holy Spirit, one must see from the place of the Holy Spirit. And if God, unless one stands in God’s position, does not know those circumstances. Then how can one stand in such a position? What teaches that method is the Unification Church Principle.
You must comfort God. Without comforting God, without human beings liquidating the debt of having betrayed God, how can one go to the Kingdom of Heaven? To say one will go to the Kingdom of Heaven without liquidating sin is no different from the disposition of a thief.
Therefore, just as Jesus was chased and driven, you too must be chased and driven. Be used, even, by a bad person, and, for the sake of the nation, for the sake of the people, for the sake of the world, on a public standard, be driven out. And when you are thus chased, do not be grieved.
Everyone, when April passes, pray and look back over your whole life until now.
April is always a time of crossing over one ridge. If you look back over the things that have passed, there will be countless matters. You will come to feel, “Being driven and chased, this is how one goes down the road of restoration.” When you consider whether, when thus persecuted, you have lived a life in which God can say, “It serves you right to be so treated,” or whether you have lived a life in which, when I am in such a place, God can be together, and when I shed tears, God sheds tears together, and when I grieve, God grieves together—if you have not lived such a life, you must repent.
The purpose for which you entered the Unification Church and learned the Principle is to comfort God.
Then how will you comfort God?
You must be able to go out resolved to die to take responsibility for the lives of the thirty million people of the Republic of Korea. Night and day, you must pray for the thirty million people of the Republic of Korea.
You must give all devotion to driving out the villains who block the work of saving the nation or the road of pioneering the good. Going further, Unification Church members must take responsibility for the world.
Since Jesus could not take responsibility, it is that the Unification Church would try to take responsibility. It is to strike down the communists who deny God.
Even if one falls at the front line where guns and swords face the communists, it is to strike them down. That is why the Teacher, though he has traveled abroad for the past four or five years, cannot go about because thinking of them makes him feel bad. The enemies within the country are not the problem. We must know the fact that the enemy outside the country is watching for a chance.
In such an environment, what will the Unification Church do? It must set up, among these people, the bond and heart of God that these people have not had, and set up upon this earth the heavenly bond that the world’s humankind has not conceived. When it becomes so, the very work you do can comfort God.
The Three Judgments That Will Be at the Last Days
To conclude and speak: we have incurred a debt. The human being, created by God’s Word, could not achieve the fruition of that Word. Therefore, you must, by the law of the Principle, set up the standard of what Adam ought to be and what a perfected human being ought to be. To achieve the fruition of the Word, one must become the substance, and that substance can be so only by fighting Satan and winning and forming a relationship of love with God.
That is why what one does in the Last Days is: there will be the judgment of truth and the judgment of the heart. For you to become a substance of comfort who comforts God, you must equip all such conditions of judgment.
What does it mean that Jesus, coming to this earth, said,
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”? (John 14:6)
It is precisely that he is the Jesus of truth and the Jesus of life; truth refers to the Word, and life refers to the substance. Next is love. “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” Here, there is no word for God’s love. That is, had he added “love,” saying, “I am the way, the truth, the life, and love; no one comes before the Father but by me,” everything would have been included….
Until now, the nations that boast of being advanced, having created the twentieth-century cultural world, say that as for themselves, there is no philosophy or thought worth taking as a model. So those are within the sphere in which they must be revolutionized by God’s truth. The communist ideology likewise is not a truth God can delight in.
Looking at today’s society, has it become a society where one can say, “A single word of truth has been connected to daily life, and daily life is living with the truth I hoped for? The foundation of the bond I wished for has come about by the bond of truth?
Our Unification Church believers are different from the people of the world. We speak many words that the people of the world do not know. There are many words they cannot know—spirit, substantial object, indemnity, and Restoration.
The other day, when I asked a certain famous person what God’s Will is, he said it was a difficult and yet easy question and mumbled.
But when one asks you, “What is God’s Will? What is the true road of life?” you will answer, “This is thus.” This point is what is different from them. You are always setting a purpose, but today’s human world is not so. Like a drifting cloud, when the east wind blows, it is swept to the west. Our very words, too, are different.
Our view of the world, view of life, view of the nation, and view of the universe are also different. Regarding that, ordinary people are no match to speak with Unification Church people.
Those who have come out here for the first time will not fully understand the words the Teacher speaks. When the gist of the Principle is spoken through once, it seems one both knows and does not know, so one will be bewildered, as though floating, drifting about on some airplane.
One must be able to discern the truth God can delight in, the living environment that turns into truth, and the living environment that does not turn into truth. When God calls, “Hey, Adam!” one must not answer softly, “Yes,” holding one’s breath behind the fig tree. When He calls, “Adam!” one ought to have been able to answer vigorously with a resounding voice, “Yes, yes, yes!” How good it would have been had Adam done so! So you must be able to answer vigorously, “Yes, yes!”
We have not had a mind that can boast before all Heaven and earth, our speech that can respond to God’s Word. Unless we do a living centered on the world, it is troublesome. Therefore, the family members of the Unification Church must be of a different seed. To be of a different seed is not to say the eyes are four.
To Become an Object of Comfort, One Must Equip Oneself with Actual Achievements
Next is the judgment of character.
What is the human being’s fall, and by the fall, what was invaded?
First, the Word was invaded. Satan tempted the human being in the Garden of Eden, saying, “Hey! How good it would be to pick and eat the fruit of good and evil….
If you pick and eat it, your eyes will be opened like God’s, and you can stand in the same place as God, so God must have forbidden you to eat it out of envy.” That is quite plausible.
If one picks and eats the fruit of good and evil and the human being’s eyes are opened, there is no worry. Truly, it seems plausible. Thus, the word was invaded. When the word is invaded, the body too is invaded. It was not that the fruit of good and evil was eaten, but that the body was invaded, that the substance was invaded. It was invaded not from good but from evil.
When evil invades, one ought to fend it off—what is this?
If one could not hold one’s body in check, one ought to have fled. And yet, struck by Satan, the body went over. That is why your mind and body are different. Originally, every human being dislikes falling. That is why, to perfect one’s character, mind, and body must become one.
When one moves the body as the mind bids, one becomes a good human being. And so one must have the authority to be able to pledge that one cannot tolerate evil and to judge boldly. Adam, too, ought to have been so.
Originally, the archangel is the servant of the human being, so he is no problem. Therefore, you must take dominion over Satan, the servant. Because we human beings were violated by Satan, the fallen archangel, you must restore what was violated to the state as though it had not been.
Even if one puts you into the den of evil of the satanic world, you must be able to say, “I do not receive the invasion of evil. It is I who seize evil and make it submit; evil cannot take away my life.”
Today, the established churches oppose the Unification Church. They say the Unification Church is heresy, so do not go—but why can one not go? To slander the other side as heresy is to have the likelihood of becoming heresy oneself. Heresy cannot go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Just as there is a saying that even if carried off by a tiger one lives if one keeps one’s wits, you must remember the motive by which you were invaded by Satan and keep your wits. The world clamors that the Unification Church is this and that, but the point is: try it. Try it until you are utterly spent.
At first, they make a fuss, but as one year passes and two years pass, it all passes as though it had never been. The Unification Church is one. Rather, we become more and more dignified.
A world that God cannot strike and Satan cannot strike either, that rather can only guarantee forever the road the human being goes; a heartistic world that the public law of judgment cannot touch—the human being fell without making such a heartistic world. By the fall, three things were lost. The Word was lost, the substance was lost, and the heart was lost.
Because Adam, as a son created by the bond of God’s love, lost the position of an object that could comfort God, you must indemnify this on a worldwide scale. Because the one who comes bearing such a responsibility is the Messiah, you must stand in the position of standing in place of the Messiah.
What is the difference between a vine stalk and a vine branch?
They are the same. Since the root is the same, if the root suffers, the leaves and branches cannot but suffer. Unless you become a person who can be interwoven with the Messiah at the same level, with the same living feeling, the same story, you cannot comfort God. Through such a branch the fruit is borne, and only when such fruit comes forth can God be comforted.
But fruit refers to actual achievement, so to comfort God, it will not do to have no actual achievement. That is, only by having actual achievement can one become an object of comfort before God.
Seeing this, we have all incurred a heartistic debt before God. The cross of suffering we ought to have borne, all the places of suffering we ought to have been struck by, God has borne in our place. God, who is the subject of the true Word, has done this work until now.
How will you repay God, who has paved the road the human being ought to go, taught the method of crossing the ridge of indemnity, and made preparation?
Therefore, what we must, in the last, leave behind is to become responsible ones who, as sons and daughters of God, become true good ancestors and establish the way of the loyal subject that can set up the law of the heavenly nation upon this earth and equip all this before God. And so, when we fulfill that mission and go before God, you must know for certain that we human beings can become an object that comforts Heaven. Do you understand?
Prayer
The Father’s wish saw a start, but that wish has not yet seen its conclusion. Together with the Father’s wish, longing saw a start, but we came to know that sorrow extinguished the longing entirely.
Grant, we earnestly wish and desire that in this fallen world we may become Thy sons and daughters who know how to struggle, rousing again within our very selves the Father’s wish and the Father’s longing, so that, on my account, becoming a fence and a breakwater against the fallen world, within the family I can embrace and the social sphere I can embrace, there may be no such historical han.
We know that the one who comes to this earth as Thy son must bear such a responsibility in place of the world. We who wish to become Thy sons and daughters, together with such a cosmic-historical center-being, to make the dream of such a bond in the environment we are placed in, longing for the Garden of Eden of old centered on the heart of original nature and on the Father—grant, O Father, we earnestly wish and desire that we may become Thy children who know how to strive to pioneer this in our environment.
Today was a holy day, so bless the many religious people gathered representing all people, and grant that they who call God Father may truly know the Father’s inner circumstances. Grant that they may know how han-filled the Father’s circumstances were and how pitiable. Grant that they may know that on the rigid road of six thousand years of history, there is no place where the Father did not shed tears.
That the thirty million people of Korea today remain even in such a position is not because the ancestors of these people did well. Grant, we earnestly wish that they may know that this people remains thus because behind the scenes there is the foundation of the Father’s heart, who, with bloody struggle and unceasing tears, has worried over and loved this nation, this people.
We know that it is the mission of Thy sons and daughters in the Unification Church to awaken this people to the fact that there is such content. For this mission, we must, whatever difficult environment we run into, overcome it and set up a final actual achievement and become an object that can comfort the Father.
Father, grant, we earnestly wish and desire, that we may advance and come to feel such a responsibility for ourselves.
Today we emphasized the responsibility that we must comfort the Father. Father, we know how forlorn Thy story was. We know too the mind with which Thou didst pray to command.
When we, weak and paltry, came seeking and, knowing the enormous story, bore the enormous mission, we came to know what the circumstances were in which Thou didst fret in mind.
We, who have come to know Thy mind and stepped forth bearing that responsibility, have come to know that we are in a position where we must go, not declining even the road of death.
Father! In the historical course of several decades of walking this road, there were tearful scenes, and there were many grievous stories. There were many stories in which, without Thee, we could not have gone. But we know that, because amid the flow of a thousand, two thousand years of history, whenever we stood in a lonely place, there was the foundation of the Father’s heart, who protected and kept this people; we have come this far until today. (The recording was cut off here.) …know that we have come this far until today. (The recording was cut off here.)