If we were to escape from the fallen environment, it would not do to choose a level and smooth course. Even if man had fallen into such an environment by his will, he could not escape; but because he fell not by his will but by another’s will, he can never escape by his own will. It means that this environment must, without fail, be escaped by another’s will. In other words, because we fell into such a place from a passive position, we cannot escape from this place from a passive position.
Therefore, to pass through this road, one must without fail wage a struggle. It is not that I escape this environment into a free environment; here, unless one treads upon and crosses beyond content that is conflicting and contradictory, one cannot escape this environment. We must know that this is our fallen position.
Satan, Who Has Trampled Upon Humanity
Today we have lost Heaven and lost the earth. To say it another way, it means that we have lost ourselves. Therefore, it means that we have lost all the historical content that we ourselves wove until now to exist and have lost all the content of this present age in which we are living. It means that because of the past and the present thus lost, we come to be placed in a destiny that cannot but make us lose the future as well. Therefore, to go back against this environment of past and present, which makes me lose myself, and to kick it away and cross beyond it, there must be a power stronger than the power of the past and stronger than the power of the present. So here, how one is to discover a self possessing such power becomes the problem.
As we know, when we consider the history of the countless prophets who came forth taking responsibility for Heaven’s Will, they walked a wretched course of destiny. We know that they were our historical forebears who guided this crisis-ridden road, staking their lives, centering upon the goal of life. Yet we must know that as a result, the road they walked passed through the course of the Providence of Restoration with the grief of the defeated. When we come to consider such things, the fact that we once again inherit such a historical destiny and step forth professing historical victory is truly the revolution among revolutions and cannot but be a greater event than any event in history.
Then what is the cause of all the historical failures?
It is not that one goes to such a place of failure because one wishes to go. It is because an inner power drives one out so that one cannot but go. It is because all the bonds of the environment drag us along. Because that power that thus drove and dragged was greater than their resolve and stronger than the environment in which they were placed, our forebears failed again and again. We must know that this is the motive of failure woven by the Fall.
Then what is the origin of this motive?
It is the evil that we must remove. Then what is the subject of this evil? It is what we today know as Satan. This Satan has been trampling upon humanity until now and has been trampling upon history and is trampling upon this three billion humanity of the present age today.
The Salvation of Man and God
Then how are we to drive out this chief who is trampling upon humanity?
It cannot be done by our strength alone. Even if we grope out some method or wise device by our knowledge, it cannot be driven out by that. It means that here a power apart from our power is needed.
That we today have collided with such a result of the Fall is not because I was the motive. It came about from a passive position for us. Then who is the subject that caused us to stand in a passive position? It is Satan, the enemy of God and the enemy of humanity. Satan does not cooperate by standing in a position of being able to bring conditions of happiness to us human beings; he opposes it across the board and opposes it as a whole.
All the content of that opposition is not merely some material or condition of the environment handled upon the stage of our daily life today. We must know the fact that he binds us fast with such content as can cross beyond that environment and beyond the world and to spare and can cross beyond history and to spare.
Then what must we do to kick away such an environment and step forth?
We must have a new conviction stronger than all the bonds historically bound to us and must have a new ability and a new resolve and new knowledge. What sort of thing is that new knowledge, and from where does that new resolve come forth? It does not come forth through us. There must be One stronger than Satan. It means that if there is an evil subject, there must be One who can be stronger than that evil subject. Humanity is seeking that One. Human beings must greet a day on which they can meet such a subject. It will not do unless one goes forward with a new plan that He has prepared and a new measure that He has established. This is the road that fallen man must walk. We must know that there is only this one road. That is why countless human beings have come seeking God.
Those who until now came seeking the true road were our ancestors who wove history, people who could save the nation. It means that such ancestors of ours prayed, “O God, save us. O God, help me.”
What God Desires of Man
What is it that God demands of us human beings upon the road of His toil for the sake of His providential Will and for saving man? It is, “Hold fast to Me. Grope out a road by which you can become completely one with Me.” Without man’s groping out that road by which he can become completely one with God, there is no way to escape this tremendous sphere of death today.
Then what is it that man longs for most?
If one has some desire, that desire must not be one that comes about through oneself and is for oneself; one must go seeking a road of desire upon which it can newly set out as a desire grafted onto God and bound in relationship with God.
Though one pursues some absolute value, one must pursue it not from one’s own position but from a position of having formed a relationship with the Absolute One.
We fallen human beings today cannot escape the bond of the Fall without passing through such a position. Without escaping this bond, however much we may wish to possess conditions of happiness, those conditions of happiness have no relation to us. One must become strong together with Him who is stronger than this environment and stronger than the one who was the motive that made this environment. Otherwise, there is no method by which this can be resolved.
Because humanity is in such a pitiful position, God takes responsibility for the historical ages and carries out the providence of salvation to teach that road. Isn't taking responsibility as the stepping stone of the providence of salvation the mission of religion?
Through religion, one must regard God as absolute. Even in believing, one must believe absolutely, and in acting, one must act absolutely, and in fighting, one must fight absolutely. By doing so, a new departure begins. We must know that this is a necessary requisite for groping out one plan for us fallen human beings.
Therefore, if one were to draw an overall conclusion from the words of the Bible, it would be, “Believe in God.” Yet in believing in God, it is not to believe from some intermediate position but to believe from an absolute place, crossing beyond the history of East and West and ancient and modern. God has been coming, seeking such a person. Therefore, it is God’s longing to seek one person who can believe absolutely. It is the same with believing and putting it into practice. He comes seeking one center who can believe absolutely and put it into practice and set forth absolute actions.
Therefore, man must stand in such an absolute place and must act from such a place. Moreover, in living in such a place, that living must not be a living centered upon oneself; one must become a self of whom it can be said that one lives centering upon God and lives in God’s stead. Even if one lives in such a place and dies, one must stand in an absolute place where one does not live through oneself and die for one’s own will, but lives through God and can die for God. Otherwise, one cannot escape this fallen sphere today.
If one lived for oneself and died through oneself, one would not be able to escape from within the sphere of death. It means that if one lives centering upon oneself, since that living is a living within the fallen sphere, one cannot escape that sphere.
Moreover, if it is a faith within the fallen sphere, it will not cross beyond that fallen sphere. Thus, if one cannot transcend the sphere of faith within the fallen sphere and remains bound in a bond with Satan just as one is, one cannot go forward into God’s sphere.
One cannot know how filthy and how evil and how false a world is, the world in which we live today, the environment of this historical age through which we are passing.
This is connected without end, however much one cuts it away and cuts it away, and is entangled without end; however much one parts it and parts it. It means that we must cut through this and part it and go. We who are within the fallen sphere are placed in a destiny in which we must demand absolute trust, absolute longing, absolute love toward the absolute God.
The Road the Man of Faith Must Walk
This world is not so arranged that I can live absolutely centered upon such longing, such trust, such love. So one must fight with this surrounding environment. This is the road the man of faith must walk.
For such a reason, God and we today are at an unspeakably far distance. Yet we must certainly form a relationship with God. Then how is it to be formed? It cannot be formed by any means. It means that it cannot be formed with a plan we have groped out. It is not something formed by my seizing it with force and exercising some skill. Then there will be one plan, one method by which it can be formed closely, and what is it? It will not do to step forth imposingly and full of confidence, saying that any enemy in the world may come at me.
The satanic world has continued to develop. The more we drag evil along until the end of the world, the more the fallen environment of the satanic world pushes us forward. Herein God seeks to form a relationship with man and says, “Separate from Satan. Separate from the evil world. Turn the boat backward. And when, being equipped with a bond in which one cannot turn about, one looks back, there is not the nation he is seeking; there is the nation he seeks to avoid from his present position in his own way, and there are such parents, and there are brothers, and there is a wife, and there are children. How good it would be if you could turn about taking all these with you! You would wish to turn about with all these at once, but you cannot turn about at once. One must turn about, one by one.
You will know the principle of restoration through indemnity. When one is parted from a person one loves, one must turn about with tears held back. One cannot turn about joyfully. When Adam and Eve fell and were expelled from God, could Adam shed tears looking at Eve? Could Eve shed tears looking at Adam? And could Adam and Eve shed tears looking at the archangel? They could not.
Then when Adam shed tears of repentance, centering on whom would he have shed tears?
Would he have shed tears centering upon Eve or shed tears centering upon the archangel? Or, because God had become sorrowful, would he have shed tears centering on God? No. He shed tears centering upon himself. This is the Fall. Adam said to Eve, “It became like this because you did wrong.” And Eve, though she was the one who caused Adam to fall, said, “Adam, if you had not listened to my words, would I not have been kept from falling as well?” In this way, they shed tears while blaming one another.
Then what must be done to restore this?
One must not shed tears centering upon oneself. The road of repentance begins from a place where one holds a mind that can shed tears for a person more pitiful than oneself. You must know this.
God too is in such a place. How lonely and sorrowful must be the mind of God, who has lost His children! Yet God thinks more of the sons and daughters who are groaning in a place of despair, bound in the enemy’s iron chains and unable to escape eternally, than of His own sorrowful position.
We must know that it is the mind of God, who is the Father, that when He comes to behold the sons and daughters groaning in such a place, He forgets all His suffering and difficulty and rather sheds tears for the fallen sons and daughters.
For Us to Return to the Original Place
Then what must we do first today to escape from such a place of sorrow in which Adam and Eve fell and to return to the original place?
It may be necessary to grieve that I am in a place of being a traitor before God and unable to be accepted, but one must know that there are many people more pitiful than I.
Though I too am pitiful, I must be able to shed tears for the people around me who are more pitiful than I and for the pitiful peoples of the whole world. Centering upon a mind that can shed tears for pitiful people in a more difficult environment than I, one must hold an earnest mind that one must sympathize with them and save them.
Thus, if there is a person who says, “Though I shed tears a thousand times for the world and the nation and the people and the tribe, this is what I must do; and though I suffer loneliness ten thousand times, this is what I must suffer,” and who, in place of the tears of the past, says, “Let us do this,” God is together with that person.
When we look at ourselves repenting today, we are repenting in order that we may go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
John the Baptist also said, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” but for what must one first repent?
One must repent for the nation. Even though it is said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, the person who will be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven is the person who is for the nation. A person who cannot pray for this nation cannot be saved into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Therefore, one must not live the life of faith for one’s own sake. Such faith cannot establish a nation. Such faith cannot form a worldwide state. God’s providence of salvation is to save the nation.
Because the Fall began from an individual’s tears and was thrown into disorder, we today must be equipped with the privileged grace of a resurrection by which we can return through tears of repentance. Otherwise, we cannot be saved. Therefore, we today, in shedding tears, must not become people who shed them for our sakes. Even though one has committed many sins in the world and is in irons, one must become a person who sheds tears for those people and sheds tears for that nation.
One must be able to shed tears, saying, “Though I am in such a place of ruin, O this nation! Oh, these people! Do not become as I am!” A person who sheds tears, wishing that upon the road the people walk there may be nothing so bitter and full of bitter resentment as his case can be revived. It means that a person who ceaselessly walks the road of death holding fast to the holy longing of the people, even though he be a sinner, can be saved as long as that nation does not perish.
When Jesus went the road of death bearing the cross, he said,
“Abba, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Then what is that Father’s will?
It is to accomplish a holy world. The life he lived and the value of life he possessed were not centered upon himself. Though he was in a situation of being driven within the sphere of the people of Israel, he shed tears and writhed together with the world while picturing a future world that could welcome him.
We too, while living upon this earth, though our living be difficult, must be able to say, “Though I am thus, you must not be thus.” One who becomes a center must not say that it must be done according to his own will. If one seeks to be for oneself more than for the nation and to be for one’s parents more than for the nation, one cannot receive blessings.
Seen from this perspective, we must greet the sphere of resurrection with tears of repentance. To say it again, it means that we must strip off this sphere of death with tears of repentance. It means that though there is but one life, and though one holds a faith that uses any means and method whatever to strip off the sphere of death, one cannot escape. One must escape by shedding tears that Adam and Eve did not possess.
We must not hold a mind of glaring at one another in enmity, saying, “The motive of my sin is you. I would not have been thus, but because of you it became like this,” seeking to transfer one’s own grief to a third party and saying, “I am affirmative and normal.” One must deny oneself and affirm the environment. One must wish that the nation be saved rather than that I be saved and shed tears for the nation. And one must be able to wish that the family be saved and shed tears for the family.
He Who Would Die Shall Live, and He Who Would Live Shall Die
Why is it that today Christianity, if it be Christianity, or the countless religions, are gradually perishing as the Last Days come?
It is because they have lost the nation. What they pray in the morning and evening is all so that they themselves may receive blessings. They are all praying to make their own God. So when will He become the God of the nation and the God of the world? If one analyzes the content of God’s shedding tears, it is not that He sheds tears for His own sake.
He sheds tears to save us and restore us. When we know that there is a God who is for saving us and sheds tears not only for us but also for the nation and for that environment, God works from there.
There will be those among you who have experienced that at some time, without knowing why, grief wells up and tears without cause flow like a waterfall. We must know that grief. That grief is not one’s own grief. When one comes to know it, it is a historical grief. Who brings that grief? God brings it. Then because of whom is that grief? It is not because of God but because of us. Overall, it is a grief for saving us. It is not for the salvation of me alone but for the salvation of the nation and the world. If there is no nation, we ourselves cannot be saved. You must know that.
That is why Jesus said,
“Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”
Even in repenting, one must repent holding fast to the nation and repent holding fast to the world. A person who is thinking, “That person has stood before the Will, but what is to be done about these people? That village has stood before the Will, but what is to be done about this village?” It stays awake through the night and offers devotion beyond the devotion that the village offered, and can silently occupy another village even though that village does not receive him. You must know that such a road is the only road by which God and man can form a relationship.
When we consider Jesus from this perspective, what was Jesus’ view of life?
Even when Jesus ate his meal, he faced that table; he beheld the nation through that table. It was the same when he spoke. It was to the very end not speech for the sake of carrying on his living but speech for the sake of accomplishing the Will of the world.
Everyone, whatever, wishes to become a filial son or filial daughter and wishes to become a loyal subject or faithful woman. However much one may wish to become a filial son, a person who thinks only of himself cannot become a filial son.
If one sheds tears because one’s own clothes are inferior to one’s brothers’ clothes, that is not a filial son. Is there a filial son who protests to his parents that he is inferior to his brothers? It is the same with a loyal subject. Is there such a loyal subject who betrays the sovereign and betrays the nation because he goes to a place more wretched than the wretched destiny of that nation?
If one would become a true filial son, one must have a mind that is for the brothers. Even in shedding tears, one must shed them with a mind that is for the brothers rather than shedding them for oneself. With a mind of feeling anxious in the parents’ stead, one must be able to hold fast to the brothers who cause the parents concern and shed tears.
If one stands in such a position, the parents cannot but acknowledge him as a filial son. It will not do to be selfish and to think that one comes first.
Therefore, religion must cross beyond the limits of a people and cross beyond the longing of the world’s humanity. In other words, one must cross beyond the limits of humanity’s longing and go as far as the limit point of God’s longing. One must not remain at the limit point of the longing that fallen human beings desire.
We must repent. Because our human ancestors fell, there came into being today an individual such as I, and a family such as mine, a society such as mine, a nation such as mine, a world such as mine. Embracing the whole of this, one must cut away all the iron chains of the environment entangled within this world. One must cut away the iron chain upon the world, the iron chain upon the nation, the iron chain upon the environment, the iron chain upon society, the iron chain upon the family, and the iron chain upon myself.
What is more urgent than the world?
The family. If the world were to be saved, the family must first be saved. If the citizens of a nation are to be saved, there must be a person who sacrifices for the nation.
Anyone, whatever, after knowing the Will and knowing God, comes to pray, “Thou needest not save me. Save the world, and save our nation.” In this way, in shedding tears too, one must shed them for one’s own people, for one’s own nation, and for all the peoples of the world.
Then is the person who repents in place of humanity for the salvation of this people and this nation and the world’s humanity and offers all the devotion he has before God and wails and gives his life on God’s side?
Or is the person who says that whatever becomes of others and whatever becomes of the nation, he himself must live on God’s side? The former is the true side of God. That is why it is said, “He who would die shall live, and he who would live shall die.” It means that one must strongly deny oneself.
To Build the Kingdom of Heaven, One Must Shed Tears and Repent
Then what sort of person is the wisest person?
He is a person who kicks away this place of the sphere of death and crosses beyond it. One must kick away this base of bitter resentment, this environment in which the enemy toys with us, and cross beyond it. In the midst of this, one must fight with the enemies and win and pioneer a new road by which one can form a relationship with God. What must one do to form a relationship with God in such an environment? It will not do without tears. It will not do without tears. That is why John the Baptist also said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and Jesus too said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
How greatly the people of Israel awaited and adored that nation, weaving a history of tears for four thousand years! They so desired that the nation of their longing might come. That is why it was said that a single person would appear who could greet the national longing of Israel; and because the new day of that longing was drawing near before their eyes, to connect it, John the Baptist came and said, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” You must know that those words were spoken about the people of Israel, while beholding human beings who could not stand in a position of truly repenting.
That Jesus, dying, nailed to the cross, said, “Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt,” was because Jesus himself thought that though he died within the Father’s Will, he was dying not for Israel but for the world. Yet Jesus lived for Israel and died for Israel.
Though the tears of blood that Jesus shed while dying may be precious, it means that they were not tears shed for the world before the Father’s Will. Therefore, One who can shed those tears must come again.
In order for an individual to be resurrected, an environment must be equipped in which the family can be resurrected. Why must it be so? Only when an individual is resurrected after the sphere of the family’s resurrection has been equipped can he be saved and rest; otherwise, if an individual is saved and resurrected in a state where the environment of family salvation has not been accomplished, he must undergo the trial of the family again.
We must shed tears and repent to build the Kingdom of Heaven. That method is the only method for building the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, it is a history of Restoration through tears. Humanity, bound in the iron chains of death because of sin, must take a position of being for one another between brothers and comrades. One must always be able to feel that another is more pitiful than I.
Then how did we become such a company and come to possess such a substantial form? It became so through the mistake of the first ancestors of humanity.
Therefore, one must have a mind of love. We must know that this became the driving force by which the Father has been able to sustain history until now and press forward the providential Will.
Therefore, we must become sons and daughters who can meet the Father with a tear-filled heart. Though we cannot individually attend the Father for a thousand years and ten thousand years, we must have something we long for before that Father for a thousand years and ten thousand years. That is to become a prince of victory for the Father who comes seeking the nation.
The descendants of our Unification Church, though they cannot attend the Father who comes seeking for this land and this people, must certainly attend the Father who comes seeking for the world. Which is greater: attending to the Father who is for the nation and the people, or attending to the Father who is for the world?
Then must people wait a thousand years more, or wait ten years more, or wait for eternity?
Eternity is not within ten years. It comes after a thousand years of history.
Therefore, we who long for eternity must cross beyond the limit of a thousand years of human-filled historical worlds. Therefore, however much we may be denied, we must offer devotion and shed tears for the world of tomorrow. Even though the recompense for it does not appear within our generation, we must not be discouraged but must hold the conviction that history will without fail become so. Shedding tears of repentance, by which one can repent for a thousand years, one must set up one altar that can prepare for a thousand years and be equipped with a central origin of God. Even though there is a person who does so and dies, if such a history and such a bond are made, there is nothing that blocks it in any age or in any place. Because God is alive, God always pioneers that road.
Because Jesus died in that way, even though the people drove those who followed him into an environment of massacre, God, in such an environment, drove out that enemy and pioneered the enemy nation and established the Christianity of today. Who would have known that Christianity, thus established, would become the spiritual foundation for founding the culture of today’s democratic world?
Jesus was not a limited Messiah for Israel alone but a Messiah sent for the world. Therefore, Jesus was able to shed tears and give his life from a position of saying, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt.” This was able to establish Christianity, which became the driving force for founding a new world such as we have today.
In the process by which Christianity has developed until now, countless swords and countless enemies and environments lay across it individually, nationally, and worldwide. Yet it came forth, breaking these down and pioneering that road. This is the history of the successive development of Christianity.
The Completion of Resurrection
Today we are in a destiny in which we must be resurrected. Then what sort of resurrection must be done? Even though an individual has been resurrected, the family must be resurrected.
Moreover, even though the family has been resurrected, tribal resurrection must be done; and even though the tribe has been resurrected, national resurrection must be done; and even though the nation has been resurrected, the world must be resurrected. And even though the world has been resurrected, without resurrecting God, it is of no use whatever.
So today in our Unification Church, centering upon God, holding a bond of loyalty from a position of representing the nation and a bond of filial piety from a position of representing the individual, we set up the great purpose called "world resurrection" and go forward toward that purpose.
Therefore, we must shed tears and repent to accomplish this purpose. This is not something that can be finished within a year. The sin of a nation cannot be forgiven with the shedding of tears for one year. Yet one must not retreat, saying, “Alas, God or whatever, I want nothing to do with it.” Then ten years and twenty years go flowing by.
That is why the undertaking of shedding tears has unfolded in Christianity for two thousand years until now. Among the countless people who shed tears, there were many who repented for the individual and strove to find the ideal of an individual Kingdom of Heaven.
Yet God, in every age, sent special prophets who were for God and for the world and for the nation and for the people and made them representatives who could become the matrix and the nucleus of those who said they would sacrifice and save for the individual and thus connected history onward.
When we behold the history until now from this perspective, we can know that presently a worldwide age has come before us. The world of today is at last crossing beyond such a sphere of the age in which it could be guided, centering upon some people or some nation. The whole world is stepping forth, professing one new world. Now the whole world must become one world. Therefore, a time has come when a method of salvation can be set forth centering upon a particular people. We who were born in such an age, in which the salvation of the world can be led, are blessed people.
Now is not an age for professing the completion of individual salvation, but an age in which, crossing beyond the nation, the salvation of the world can be completed. Because we have entered within such a sphere of the age, now the whole of our living must cross beyond the wall of the world. When we consider the fact that events unfolding in the world unfold within our sphere of daily life and that all events have one stage, we all belong to a worldwide sphere of environment. Here, if there is something for which we must repent today and go, that repentance must be done holding fast to the world. One must repent for not holding fast to oneself but holding fast to the world.
In the world there is the democratic world and the communist world; how shall we handle this?
Before we ourselves shed tears, we must first make God shed tears, saying, “O Father, is not the road Thou must walk such a road? Is it not that Thou hast come forth thus to break through that difficult road?” Because He is a God who has more grief than I, and a God who has more anguish than I, and a God whose indignation and bitter resentment are greater than mine, one must first make that God shed tears and then become a person who can shed tears following God.
God has been shedding tears until now to save the world. If there is a son who, knowing the circumstances in which He has come forth bearing the inner bond of han knotted in His breast each time He crossed a chilling historical crisis, as though facing the most wretched offering for the world, says, “I have come to know that Thou art such a Father.
How is it that such a Father has pleased to let me know these circumstances in this age?
I know that Thou hast walked until now with it as Thy han, because there were no forebears of ours who, thousands of years ago, knew such circumstances of the Father and accomplished that Will for Thee.
Now, through us, forgive the faults of all the forebears of the historical ages.” Then God will take hold of that son and say, “Yes, you are a filial son equipped with such qualifications and, undoubtedly, the one son whom I have been seeking and can set forth worldwide.” Then through that son He will be able to melt down all the forebears of history and even the enemy Satan, who remains at the limit line of the age, saying, “Since today you love me more than I do, I will grant your longing.” You must know the fact that if it becomes so, one can comfort God and can establish God’s dignity. We must become such sons of Heaven.
Now Is the Time to Pray for the World
Therefore, our Unification Church today does not wish to be people called for the sake of the nation. Now the time for praying for the nation called the Republic of Korea has passed. Now indeed is the time to pray for the world. The time for praying for America has passed, and the time for praying for this nation has passed. It is the time to pray for the world.
God desires that we human beings love the world more than we love our nation, and God Himself also desires the salvation of the world’s humanity more than the salvation of this people. Before such a demand of the Father, one must have a mind that can love the world more than one's own nation and love humanity more than one’s own brothers. Thus, we must become sons and daughters who can shed tears and writhe while appealing, “O Heaven, I will bear the cross for the great fortune of the Kingdom of Heaven, so entrust it to me.”
Hereafter, throughout Asia and the whole world, a movement of great resurrection will unfold through the altar of the Unification Church. Herein, that sphere of resurrection is not the sphere of an individual’s resurrection but the sphere of the world’s resurrection, crossing beyond people and nations. Therefore, we must become sons and daughters who, holding fast to the nation with the left hand and holding fast to the world with the right hand, and with a mind that this nation is needed to find the world, follow God, who sheds tears for the nation and sheds tears for the world.
If some sons and daughters forget the salvation of their own single selves and also forget the salvation of their clan and shed tears and fight to become an offering for the salvation and liberation of the world’s humanity, crossing beyond the people and the nation, then here a new historical world movement will unfold and a new worldwide change will arise.
Would it not be so?
Then it will come about that the countless peoples who behold it and the humanity who could not join in that movement will bow down before them with tears, saying they are thankful that they shed in their stead the tears they ought to have shed. You must know that thereby the new ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven develops onward.
When we face that supreme love of Jesus, who walked for the sake of humanity, and the mind of Jesus, who, to love humanity, forgot his own single self and walked the road the Father desired even while losing Israel, we must know how to shed tears before that holiness. Moreover, we must become disciples who follow Jesus and must say that, to become disciples, we will meet any trial whatsoever.
God desires a people that bears the providential Will of saving the world more than a people that bears a will of saving centered upon its people and nation. If there is such a people, however evil the history of that people may have been, they can save the world. England in former days was a band of pirates. Yet because they carried on Christian missionary work for the world, crossing beyond their people, they were able to lead the world’s civilization. Thus, together with the rise and fall of culture, they became an advanced nation of this age. It is not that their history was good. It is because they shed tears for the worldwide process that was coming and walked such a wretched road and became the vanguard of a pioneering course that was for the world that they are receiving such blessings.
Such a fact we can know through modern history. Therefore, we of the Unification Church today too must shed tears. Those tears must be shed not for my own sake but for the people and the world’s humanity. If one sheds tears with such a mind, the world’s humanity is resurrected, and that nation too is resurrected.
If there is a son or daughter who thus gives his life and, while walking the road of that bond, can shed tears and set up an altar of repentance and an altar of atonement, God cannot let that person die.
When God asks, “What is it that you long for? Do you desire your family?
If one says, “No. I do not desire a family; I desire that nation which Thou art coming seeking.” God will shed tears and take hold of one’s hand and say, “My beloved so-and-so, I have been coming seeking a son like you, and only now have I met you,” and will lay open His circumstances and wail. It is in such a place that a bond is formed with God. That is, it means that a bond is formed in that place where one can say, “Abba, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
We Who Must Shed Tears to Restore the World
My will is a will that cannot cross beyond the limit line of sin and evil centered upon the individual, but the Father’s Will is a will that can cross beyond history and beyond that age and beyond the future and that has crossed beyond today’s national feeling and world feeling. Therefore, the blood and sweat that Jesus shed when he walked the road of death while feeling the Father’s mind, which beheld a new state to come in the future, a worldwide Israel, were not shed for his own sake.
When he said, “Father, forgive them,” that forgiveness holds good until the day this universe is saved. It means that under such a law of forgiveness, one should have a magnanimity of mind that can forgive even the prophets and martyrs who came and went in all the ages.
We are now at a distance from which we can return to God’s bosom.
Therefore, we must consider what I must do. This road we walk, knowing the Will, is not a road we walk in order that I may be saved and I may be blessed. That is not the Will. That I need a family while following the Will is to make a family that can contribute to the world’s humanity, and that I need a tribe is to make a tribe that can contribute to the people and the nation and the world. Therefore, one must be able to stand in such a position and move in oneness with this thought.
A body in which such people are gathered does not perish even though the world perishes. Even though tears cease in this world, in that body tears do not cease. Consider God’s position. It means that God’s tears have not ceased.
We are those who must behold the restoration of the world and pursue it.
Therefore, tears cannot cease for us, and we must become people who pledge to live in that way and who say that they will go, whatever price of sacrifice they may pay, to accomplish the resurrection of the world.
If my individual self is insufficient, one must be able to writhe, saying that one will mobilize my family; and if my family is insufficient, one’s own tribe; and if one’s own tribe is insufficient, one’s own people; and if one’s own people are insufficient, one will go even at the cost of mobilizing and sacrificing one’s own nation.
Because our ancestors went thus, and the person we love went thus, and because His salvation is such, from a position of saying that I too can be such, one must think it thankful to become a national offering and think it thankful to become a tribal offering. To become an offering does not mean to perish. Those tears can be changed and stand as a sphere of resurrection and rejoicing. It means that death is changed into a sphere of resurrection and victory.
Yet it is not that tribal resurrection is accomplished at once simply because one became an offering from the position of the tribe and died. It is not that one becomes at once a 100 percent resurrected person who can be resurrected and fight for tomorrow. It means that one must go as far as national resurrection, by which it can be propagated freely and vigorously toward the world. You must know that the Unification Church is what must go as far as the final resurrected place.
To pray for oneself is a shameful thing. To shed tears for oneself is also a shameful thing. God has never shed tears for Himself until now. Therefore, if one has something one possesses, one must be able to give it all away for the nation and for the world. When that time comes, one must offer all that is mine, a hundred percent, without regret, before the heavenly order (천륜). One must become a person who, with the spirit of a young and flowering youth, can seize the whole world under heaven and offer it before God with an earnest heart, crying out with all devotion and all strength, and who can take hold of the Father and offer up the result of victory before the Father.
If one person who can be such a one dies, it remains as a bruise in God’s heart. Such circumstances must without fail be paid for with sacrifice at some time through that person’s descendants, and the day when those descendants receive such a mission from God is the day when forebears and descendants are bound together.
Their ancestor and descendant, father and son, can become one. It is to set up a standard that makes them one across the historical ages, whereas Adam and Cain could not become one in Adam’s family.
In this way, if one has not determined such a standard from the position of the people and the world, or has not become such a self, or has not even left behind descendants who can be such, then when at the place of death one looks back upon the whole of one’s past, one comes to regret. Therefore, if even at this present moment there are tears that one has not yet been able to shed, one must with those tears pray for the blessing of the world’s humanity rather than pray for the blessing of one’s own sons and daughters. And one must become a self who prays that there may be blessings upon humanity’s future and must become a human being who, having passed through a life of repentance with tears, again hopes for forgiveness and at the same time can bestow blessings and pass them on. This is the final place to which fallen man must go.
To Form a Bond With Heaven, One Must Give One’s Body and Sacrifice
Today you are like a duck with its head thrust into a ditch and its body floundering in the dirty water. If it is a certain Kim, it is a certain Kim, a certain Kim who will rot. It means a certain Kim who will rot together with the environment. Only when one becomes such a figure is one an eternally shining master of the Unification Church and the foundation that can give birth to a new kingdom in the future.
From such a position, one must become a son who can accomplish for Thee the longing of Thee, who dreams of the future Kingdom of Heaven, and must become a son who can take responsibility before our descendants and walk the road of the cross that the countless forebears remaining upon that road could not walk. Thus, one must be able to give Heaven’s blessing to all under Heaven from the Father’s eternal dwelling place and must pray that, if there is a burden one has not managed to bear, that burden be left to one’s descendants.
If there is such a person, he does not perish. It means that though the world perishes, he does not perish.
When Christianity first entered Korea, when Pastor Thomas prayed in that place where he was shedding his blood and dying, would he have prayed,
“O Father, I have come here and am dying. Since I came out to witness to be saved, let me go to the Kingdom of Heaven and let these people go to hell”?
No. It means that he prayed, “O Father, though I die, in place of this blood I have shed, resurrect this people.” Because he did so, the thirty million people can revere him as a son of God.
A person who says he will make himself shine by using the nation is a person who has nothing to do with the nation. Even in shedding tears, we must shed them for the world. Because national repentance has not been accomplished here, we must shed tears for the nation. Because worldwide repentance has not yet been accomplished, tears cannot cease. People who are going toward a future that can be such are bound before the Will of that history.
You must not set out centering upon yourselves but must set out centering upon God. You must know well that if you set out centering upon yourselves, pain remains for God. You must without fail go together with God. It is all right even if you do not know how to pray. It is enough if, when God is sorrowful, one becomes of a sorrowful mind without knowing why; and if, when the day is clear as it is today and there is content in the environment by which one can be joyful, one comes into a position of rejoicing without knowing why.
Even in witnessing, when one is in a position of fretting and writhing because one cannot do it according to one’s own will, one must compose oneself and say, “What is it that Thou grievest at this hour? I know that there remain circumstances of Thine that would make us wail”; and one must become the son of that house and the servant of that house and give one’s body and sacrifice so that that family may form a bond with God.
When we come to think of these people through such an experience, we cannot stop the tears that overflow without end. In loving these people, which has been invaded, the Father is shedding tears in our stead night and day so that they may be bound before Heaven. So one must not wish that Japan perish because it is an enemy nation. One must have a mind that can pray for blessings upon them. Through such a precious mind, a relationship of the ages is formed.
Then which nation would be the enemy nation for the Republic of Korea today, and which body would be the enemy of the Unification body, and again, who would be the enemy for a certain Moon of the Unification Church?
And what will I say when I meet them?
Though they treat me as an enemy, I do not consider them to be enemies. To avenge the enemy of the world, I fight with the world and forget the enemy and cross over. Then what is that method of forgetting? The method is nothing else.
The Sons and Daughters of the Enemy Must Be Restored
Even in the case of the same enemy, his sons and daughters are different.
Therefore, though one avenges oneself upon the enemy, one must save his sons and daughters. Though I strike down my enemy, I cannot but rescue that enemy’s sons and daughters. It means that the Will is so arranged. It means that in avenging oneself in that way, it is not that we should avenge ourselves upon three generations, upon that enemy’s father, and even upon his sons and daughters.
This word means precisely that restoration must be done.
Can the Providence of Restoration be accomplished by cutting off Adam and Cain and Abel?
Though his father is an enemy, one must restore their sons and daughters and set them in a place where they can offer devotion before God more supremely than anyone. From there, the history of Restoration sets out. The Unification Church members today are the people closest to such groups. You must know that the person closest to such groups is Teacher Moon of the Unification Church.
If it be the communists, the communists have a responsible person, and that sovereign is our enemy; the citizens of that country are not our enemies. The Teacher too hates the communists. I would like to make all the communists food for eagles. Yet it means that all of them are not enemies. The enemies are a few people of a special class. The citizens of that country are not enemies.
What the Teacher is now concerned about is that the established churches oppose the Unification Church. From the Unification Church’s position, the established churches are the foremost enemy, are they not?
If opposing me is being an enemy, they are an enemy without a second thought. Because the established churches opposed it, the Unification Church has struggled thus far. For that reason, the Teacher has suffered until now, and the flowering young years of the Teacher’s lifetime were sacrificed. It means that they are an enemy such as one will not see again.
Because of the Ewha and Yonsei incident, the door of the Unification Church was almost completely closed. To establish that foundation again, it took its place after twenty-one years of suffering.
Jesus, who came seeking Judaism, at first sought to accomplish the Will centering upon Judaism, but because Judaism opposed him, he had to seek and establish Christianity. In the same way, the providential Will that was to be accomplished, centering upon the established churches of the Republic of Korea, sought and established the Unification Church because the established churches of the Republic of Korea opposed it. It means that the Unification Church is now walking a road of destiny upon which it must break through all that opposition. Therefore, you must pray diligently. In praying, it means praying not for yourselves but for the world.
The Unification Church is not a church for the sake of Teacher Moon. The road you walk is not a road walked for the sake of the Teacher and for the sake of the Unification Church. Before you love the Teacher, you must love God more than you love the Teacher.
First love God, and next, love the world, and next…. Only then does one abide within God’s true love. It will not do to love centering upon oneself and with one’s own greed. Such a person cannot represent the world. You must go with a mind that says that while bearing the cross of the world alone, if it is for the world, it is all right even if I perish. That is why it is said, “He who would die shall live, and he who would live shall die.”
It means, look at Teacher Moon of the Unification Church. When it was said of what remained in history, “It must be done thus,” people like you would all have packed your bundles and run away. Yet he said, “I am willing. I will do it diligently.”
If it be the tribe of Judah, before the tribe of Judah there ought to come forth a person who can be such; and if there is none, one prays for that. Only when one prays from such a position does God respond.
The Unification Church, Which Must Take Responsibility for the Resurrection of the World
When the angel said to Mary, “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son,” what did Mary say to the angel?
She said, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” At that time, when the angel said, “For with God nothing shall be impossible,” Mary said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
We must have such conviction as Mary. Do you, of the Unification Church today, have such conviction? The question is whether you have the conviction to say confidently that I attend the Unification Church. The Teacher is always full of confidence. It means that he can say confidently, “I am Teacher Moon of the Unification Church and a Unification Church member without shame.” It means that on the platform, in a public position, he is full of confidence. It means that only then is one at ease. Those who live alone are lonely people, but those who live within the bosom of parents are happy people.
It is the same with those who are candidates for the Blessing. Let us say that among the candidates for the Blessing there is a good woman. Outwardly she looks fine. Yet what is important is whether she has value enough to exist before the Will hereafter. What sort of man such a woman meets is an exceedingly important problem.
Yet a certain woman among the candidates for the Blessing came before the Teacher and said, “Since I graduated from university, ought not my partner to have graduated from graduate school or above?”
So the Teacher said to that woman, “Yes, you are excellent. Since you said you have a good head and graduated from university, choose a man to your liking as your partner and marry him.” How good it would have been if that woman had said, with a mind of being loyal to the Will, that she would do it with anyone, whatever!
On the other hand, among the candidates for the Blessing this time there was a woman who had graduated only from primary school; and when the Teacher called her and said, “Your face is passable enough, but how good it would have been had you at least graduated from high school,” she shed tears and said, “Since I graduated only from primary school, anyone at all is good, as long as he is a person who is silently struggling with all his might for the Will.”
So the Teacher matched her with the most capable regional leader among those of high school background. Was the Teacher’s method wrong? It means that such is the road heavenly fortune goes.
If some assembly becomes necessary, the Teacher tries to take charge of it and do it if at all possible. Then that assembly is an assembly of Heaven’s side.
Parents must offer devotion for their descendants. One must say that one will bless all one’s descendants and let them live well and then pass on. Such a family does not perish. If there is such a body, that body does not perish. A person who is in a position of taking responsibility for and guiding such a body must form a new bond with God for the sake of a greater Will of tomorrow.
Otherwise, if one rushes about saying one will take responsibility alone and then fails, one cannot even pray to God. Could one pray? With what face would one pray? It means that one cannot offer any prayer worth mentioning before God.
Even in the world, there is a saying, “The one who is to give the rice cake has not even thought of it, yet he drinks the kimchi broth first,” is there not? Consider someone drinking the kimchi broth first when the one who is to give the rice cake has not even thought of it. How unpleasant it would be!
Would one like such a shameless person?
It means that one should say one will not eat it even when offered and that if there is something good, one will take it to one’s own sons and daughters. Again, it means trying to give even a day-old rice cake, meant for one’s own sons and daughters, to the sons and daughters of that house. Then it is so arranged that it is returned several times over. That is the human mind.
Seen from this perspective, it means that at this time when the world draws near before our eyes, God is undoubtedly coming, seeking a body that can hereafter lead the world and can become one together with the world. You must know this.
Therefore, we must sacrifice for the world, serve the world’s humanity, and bestow blessings upon the world. Then the world can receive blessings.
Since we have come to know this first, we must take responsibility. It means that if we do not perish, we must do well. Amid such things, for our Unification Church to possess a worldwide sphere of resurrection, we must confront worldwide human ethics. A year, or ten years…. If one does so, the Will cannot but be accomplished. If the Will should not be accomplished, then rather, through one person, ten people come to receive blessing.
What does that mean?
Consider it, all of you.
If some parents had beloved sons and daughters, and those sons and daughters all grew up and died without being able to marry, how would the minds of those parents be? Would they be at ease or not at ease? Those parents would lament, saying, “Alas! That poor child died without even being able to marry. Those parents would wish to do it for him even at the cost of adding a heart several thousand times over if it were something they could do for him. This is the mind of parents. It is the same with God.
What Can Make God Eternally Happy
Teacher Moon of the Unification Church does not desire the Teacher’s individual success before God’s Will. What the Teacher desires is to gain a success beyond individual success, a success that can be manifested before the Republic of Korea and can be manifested before the world. That is the problem.
The problem is whether God loves me and I love God. That love blooms in the place of death. When the flower of love blooms in the place of death, all peoples come to take interest and will seek to greet an environment in which they can bloom in a place of glory. From this point you must know that Jesus’ teaching, “He who would die shall live, and he who would live shall die,” is heavenly reason.
For the resurrection of the world, we must plant the Will in the world. If it becomes so, the world will greet a ground of victory in which it can rejoice for a thousand years and ten thousand years, centering upon the Will bound from the historical ages; and a day will undoubtedly come on which God is liberated, and God can rejoice. Therefore, we must strive for the resurrection of the world. Do you understand?
Has a certain Kim come here?
It seems he came to the Teacher the other day, and it was decided that he would go to America this time. He shed tears, saying that afterward the Teacher did not understand his circumstances and that it had come to the result of driving him out abroad, and said this and that; but is America some other place? It is an America within the world. We are not people who work only for the Republic of Korea. We must work for the world.
The ladies here too pray diligently, and they perhaps say that the Teacher does not recognize it, but though the Teacher has prayed for several decades until now, God did not stir at all. Not seeking to teach and as though without interest, He was simply silent.
If one offers devotion for several decades and even so that devotion is insufficient, one must offer devotion even at the cost of giving one’s whole life.
If that too is insufficient, one must offer devotion even across several generations of one’s descendants. Why is that? Because God helps only those descendants who have offered devotion for a thousand ages and ten thousand generations. He teaches only such descendants. It is the same with whatever people, whatever tribe in the world. If one becomes such a people, one will come to rule the world.
Therefore, it means: become people who can pray, staking a thousand years and ten thousand years. Do you understand what I mean?
For what is that? It is to restore God’s sovereignty. It is to liberate God eternally. Then what is it that can make God eternally happy? Consider that. It is to liberate the world.
For that, one must become a son who can receive God’s eternal love. To receive that eternal love, one must become a son who can be dedicated eternally before God. Therefore, one must pray and offer devotion for the world. That place, which can stand in place of the value of that eternal love, that road of which it is said that no one can walk it—that road you must walk and cross over, and for that you must offer devotion. It means: do not offer devotion for yourselves. Do you understand?
When one is in pain, tears come out. Do tears come out, or do they not?
Yet one must not shed tears because one is in pain. It means: strike me if you would strike. Having been beaten, one must absolutely not weep upon coming in. It means: absolutely do not weep. It means: do not weep for yourself. Those are the tears of fallen human beings. One must not shed tears for oneself.
Jesus, even when placed in such a sorrowful place, did not shed tears for himself. A person who sheds such tears is a person who has suffered for his own sake.
Even in shedding tears, one must shed them for the world. Then those tears will, without fail, accomplish a sphere of resurrection that liberates the world. Do you understand?
