Former Headquarters Church, Korea
Even in living out a single day, a human being lives with some sense of direction. If this is so of a single day, it will be so of a year as well; and if it is so of a year, it will likewise be so of the goal of our lifetime, the goal of the existence we call our life.
Through the Fall, a path arose in a direction opposed to God.
Even when we consider a single human individual, such a direction is surely required. The same is true of the family, which is the sum of such individuals; of the nation, which is the sum of families; and further, of the world; and even of God, who moves this world.
All of these are bound together behind the scenes by the same kind of relationship as our own. For this reason, as long as my individual self advances with such a sense of direction, we cannot deny that this universe, too, is advancing with such a sense of direction.
If heaven and earth advance with such a direction, then God, who created heaven and earth, will likewise do so. And if this is so of God, it is, of course, so of all the things God created; and if it is so of the created things, then it is an undeniable fact that every individual entity and every existing being belonging to them is likewise placed under such a destiny.
Seen from this perspective, the foremost question is this. The movement of this universe today surely proceeds according to a flawless and perfect ideology—an ideology that cannot be changed, however one tries to change it, that cannot be moved, however one tries to move it. To borrow the terms of our Principle: if there was a Creator, then when that Creator created heaven and earth, there must have been a purpose of creation. And that purpose must surely pass through the essential content of goodness and the ideal.
Therefore, even seen from this perspective, there must surely be a place—or a world, or an original homeland, or a land of our happiness—centered on a single eternity, possessing infinite value, where anyone can render loyal devotion as a condition of happiness. There must be such a place; there cannot fail to be.
If this is so of the Creator who created heaven and earth, then supposing that human beings originally had no Fall and stood in a position of goodness, that goodness would not belong to human beings; since it began from the Creator, it would belong to the Creator.
Therefore, if the Creator originally advanced toward the direction of such a good goal, then the created things, made in a world without the Fall, would likewise have acted and lived in a good direction. Their value would inevitably have been bound up with eternity.
Yet because the two unwanted syllables “the Fall” came into being in the human world, a direction arose that failed to accord with the direction desired by God, desired by heaven and earth, desired by the Creator.
What is the Fall?
If God goes to the right, it goes in the opposite direction; even if God goes forward, it goes in the opposite direction; even if God goes upward, it goes in the opposite direction. To stand thus, with everything within the realm of the Fall set against God, acknowledging a separate direction and proceeding by it—this is the fallen world, fallen history, this fallen history of the universe up to now, and the fallen direction of living along the fallen course of human life. This reaches even into the personal emotions of us fallen people.
Therefore, if this history today is being drawn, all unawares, into the embrace of one great aspiration, toward some world of a future goal before some absolute Master, then surely, whatever today’s victory, its direction will at some point be set and made to proceed.
What ought to have gone in a straight line is surely going along a curve—tracing a long, distant curve as it proceeds. It is an undeniable fact that this world today is winding its way along, with the countless forks and directions of that curve contained within it.
The Central Stalk Is the Representative of All Four Directions
When you consider yourself, or when you consider any single human being, a human being inevitably has desires. There are wishes. When you take hold of any small child, a child young enough to understand the words, and ask, “Hey, when you grow up, do you want to become a good person or a bad person?”—that the child answers, “I want to become a good person!” is reason and principle itself.
If you ask a clever child, “Do you want to be a good person or a bad person?” he will at once retort, “Why do you even ask?” That is a fixed principle.
If we can suppose that there are even children who feel so strongly that the standard of the answer is so obvious that it need not even be asked, then it is the same for us grown-ups today.
If you ask, “When you live your life, should you live a good life?”—the answer is, “Oh, of course.” But if you ask, “Should you live a bad life?”—the answer is, “No, I don’t want that!” That one will pursue what is good, and good is the same, not only for a small child but for any individual whatsoever. That all alike arrive at this—the lowly and the noble, the poor and the rich, the high and the low—cannot but be a fixed principle.
Yet when you observe such things in your mind, although you no doubt feel them within yourself, when you look at yourself, you will feel that things do not go as your mind would have them. You cannot deny that you stand in a direction apart from the direction of my mind.
Looking at this, God, from a fair and impartial position, connected me along a straight line, corresponding to one clear goal; and that goal is tied by a cord deep within my breast, within my mind.
The mind is pulling, tied to this cord, but the body goes its separate way. To put it another way, however many branches this great tree may have, there is one central stalk reaching up through the center of the tree.
If you look at that central stalk, the shoot of a side branch and the shoot of the central stalk rising straight up look the same. Their shape is the same, I mean. If you gather them at the tips, this one looks like that one and that one looks like this one—they are identical.
And yet they cannot be the same. The central stalk is the representative of all four directions. When asked, “Where are you?” it answers, “Because I am at the center, I am in the east, I am in the south, I am in the north, I am in the west, I am above, and I am below.” So says the central stalk.
Then what becomes of the four branches?
If you gather the countless branches of east, west, south, and north, the shoots of these branches are the same. But what kind of branch is the fourth branch? I am not a branch of east, west, south, or north, it says; like a shoot placed in the single direction of the west or a shoot placed in the single direction of the east, a shoot in any one direction cannot be a shoot that represents the whole.
It is the same with the goal our human life longs for. The single goal-point that can become the shoot of our central stalk. This is why, when you look at grass, the shoot rises straight upward.
Look closely even at a sweet-potato vine: although it spreads over the ground because it likes the soil, the shoot never buries itself in the ground. It always lifts its head as it goes. This is because the direction of heaven and earth is so ordered.
Then, where is the direction that can become the shoot in your mind?
This, in a word, is also called the shoot of history. It is the shoot of history, the shoot of the age, the shoot of the future—and this shoot is power.
What power is it?
However many peoples and however many things there are in heaven and earth, they all stand in their natural position founded on the conditions of hope, and they possess natural value.
What does this mean?
It refers to a position that cannot be dispensed with in any of the four directions—east, west, south, or north.
Seen from such a vantage, all things must have such a direction. When we infer it by conjecture, we can answer that it is a definition requiring no argument.
However many shoots there may be growing in the four directions, not all of those shoots face that way. The tip must be gathered, together with the center, in the direction of its position. The direction alone, at least, is unmistakable. It is the same.
The Historical Consummation Must Align with the Direction of Providence
That the direction of us fallen people today is split into myriad forms is a historical phenomenon. Yet our original mind alone holds one standard equipped with a direction oriented toward the mind of Heaven. This is why this standard is precious. On the day this standard is cut apart and planted elsewhere, I become the center.
Then what must one do to become that center?
If one has the social environment, the living environment, the temporal environment, and the spatial environment to receive the vital force of that shoot vigorously before the highest standard the universe today aims at, then even if it is cut and transplanted, it can perform the role of that tree wherever it goes. Thus, the shoot of history accords with the direction of the hope God desires, and accords with the content of history’s hope.
Yet the positions and situations in which the lifeblood of the environment can cooperate with that shoot are of myriad kinds. Therefore, however one plants it, it dies off. Such are the worldwide phenomena of today. The people of today are within such a realm.
Seeing this, what will God do?
To such human beings, God surely foretells, even today, a standard of direction toward one goal, like the shoot of history. When such a foretold place is prepared, the garden of this world’s longing that God desires holds within itself the directionality of all four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, winter—yet in itself it must possess a content that can always be spring or summer.
Then human beings, gathering the history that fell from heaven, fashion a world history that can accord with one directionality of the age and with the fortune of the times; they seek a history of providence that can so accord, I mean. At that point, then, it proceeds through winter, autumn, summer, or spring—so we view it.
In seeking it out, when one cannot go straight, it is joined through the environment; history is gathered and stretches on, beginning from a season like the winter we both loved and did not want in the past. Thus, there must come a time when the worldwide currents of thought that human life longs for, and all the conditions our mind awaits, can appear as principles and ideologies—as natural cravings upon the ground of daily living. This is appearing today as a worldwide historical current of thought.
This is why here people cry out for democracy, for freedom, and for equality.
If you are glad, I am glad, I mean. It is not only some particular person who rejoices: the central stalk in the spring garden rejoices, and the branches in all four directions rejoice as well.
What comes of this rejoicing?
The central stalk bears fruit, and the branches bear fruit too, I mean. Centering on a value whose content is communal and equal, a time when one can possess equality of value with anyone—able to commune with the ideal of freedom and happiness—is the time of history’s consummation; it is a necessity we cannot but acknowledge, viewed through every historical lens. We cannot help but establish such a condition.
Seen this way, even if there is a Creator, we do not know that Creator. Would the lens through which the Creator sees, and the direction of the lens through which the Creator sees, be mistaken?
This direction is not mistaken, I mean. God cultivates history in accordance with the differing degrees of our human intelligence and civilization—cultivates it.
Then will He finish merely by cultivating history?
He cultivates the direction of history. He cultivates the direction of history, but at the very first, because it is a small branch, a one-year-old or two-year-old plant, it cannot bear seed before it has matured further.
Just as history up to now has not yet reached the goal of bearing one great fruit, it has been unable to stretch out in the course of direction during the period of cultivation. That is how it has been.
Now, in the present time, all of this must be gathered, the two streams must collide, and one world must be formed. From what standpoint must this become one world?
When we consider our own individual selves, we have desires. There are desires. There is something you want.
If I alone like what I like, that is worthless. What I like, you too must like, and the world must like, and heaven and earth must like, and God must like. Only then does it become an absolute value.
You must understand that in the human world, an absolute standard cannot be set before a relative being. You must arrive at a standard where even the absolute God can say, “Hey, that is good!”—and there possess the conditions of absolute joy and happiness. That I have value means that heaven and earth have value and that God has value.
Therefore, the origin point of the direction of the great universe today, that value, must not be liked by me alone. Heaven and earth must rejoice.
Our ancestors of the past, too, must rejoice; and those now within this heaven and earth must all rejoice. Yet this is not so. Therefore, we must make such a world.
If, by such logical dialectic, we infer and draw a conclusion, then surely the historical consummation must become one world, I mean.
Becoming citizens of such a Kingdom of Heaven, and at the same time, the historical direction must accord with the direction of providence. Such is the conclusion.
The Fulfillment of Desire and the Fulfillment of Purpose Are One
Then what is needed here?
What do we fallen human beings need here today?
We were born, and we find ourselves now in the latter half of the twentieth century—so we find ourselves being born. The world’s currents of thought today have become like this, and scientific civilization has developed so that this has become an age in which one can dream of a free heaven and earth. Yet by the currents of thought of a few thousand years ago, this would be a dreamland. Therefore, we must know that there are phenomena of the age and stages of the age, and before the providential Will.
If we think about this once more from our standpoint today, what are you to do when you meet the God who drew you along with such a lens, or meet some historical representative who can bind together all of that history, having neither learned nor known anything?
Therefore, only one vaguely graspable conjecture remains. Just as a magnet pointing north and south does not change its direction, however, the times and environment change; an essential nature, like a single indicator of direction, is implanted in us, and that is your conscience, your conscience. The pure conscience, I mean. The conscience with self-interest removed.
It lies at a distance of ten million years, at a distance of hundreds of millions of years of time. Yet even a compass shrunk to within a mere two meters, or within a few small centimeters, runs parallel to the direction of the needle. The line is drawn thus, and this line runs parallel. So it is ordered. To take such a direction is your conscience, I mean.
Just as it is said that the human mind is the mind of Heaven, where is the world that appeals to the conscience, the world that attains the very purpose that appealed to the conscience, the free heaven and earth where one can sing the song of the conscience’s liberation?
This is the path God has sought by direction up to now, seen from the providential standpoint; and it is the direction that the people of history who faced the providential Will, and we people of the present age, must seek.
Within you, through the true conscience, there is in my mind too a desire of the conscience welling up, I mean. The conscience of the human world surely needs hope. There must be hope there, and there must be some result.
Next, circumstances are needed. This is the horizontal relationship. It is the horizontal relationship, I mean. In living day by day, there must be circumstances, and next, the heart is needed. The relationship of feeling.
Thereby, one must transcend the historical nature of feeling. One must transcend one’s own age, I mean. This is not needed only for today; it is not needed only for today. Why? To have a national spirit and form a national character, one must transcend the historical nature and go beyond the nature of the age. A people with such a national character, as such a nation, can transcend the age and govern the future world.
Therefore, if you fulfill all three great conditions of God, there will be hope, there will be circumstances, and there will be the horizontal relationship. Heart is the historical relationship. It means going beyond the historical nature, I mean. Being filial to one’s parents, being loyal to one’s nation, and obeying public principle—all these are one, I mean.
To make all such things honored, circumstances alone will not do. It is only the world of the heart. There is the world of the heart. It is the world of the heart, the world of circumstances, the world of desire. Seen thus, it is unmistakable. Then who is the One who wishes to live in that world of the heart? (The recording was briefly interrupted.) This is why you speak of heart, of circumstances, of our desire. These are the things we so often speak of.
Then what kind of being is God?
When He created heaven and earth, He had a purpose for creating such things.
Therefore, to forge the relationship along the way that can fulfill that view of purpose, there can be no desire or hope. There surely was a desire. There is a purpose to the Creation of heaven and earth. There is a purpose. That the purpose has been fulfilled is the fulfillment of desire. The fulfillment of desire and the fulfillment of purpose are one, I mean.
The Broader the Ideological Foundation, the More It Is Accompanied by Worldwide Sacrifice
Therefore, it is the same with God. For God to fulfill His desire, there must surely be circumstances, I mean. To pass through circumstances, a horizontal relationship is needed. Since I alone will not do, here Adam and Eve are needed, and the angels are needed.
And then what is to be done?
A world that can rejoice must be realized. That lies in the world of God’s heart, I mean. When one comes to live in the world of the relative purpose whose desire has been fulfilled—beyond the stage of daily life where one must yearn for the world of the heart that can flow on eternally and rejoice eternally, the inwardly felt world of emotion—here one cannot but pass beyond three stages. Satisfaction and happiness must pass beyond three stages. Look.
For my mind to rejoice, it can rejoice only after the body has, through itself, secured an object partner. The principle of heaven and earth is so ordered. The law of heaven and earth is so ordered.
Therefore, when seen from God, in coming to create, it is not that God lacks a view of the heart, nor that He lacks an inherent view of circumstances, nor that He lacks an inherent view of desire. Passing through a relatively substantial being, bridging the world of circumstances, passing through the world of desire, and after attaining the purpose, God created a world where He can embrace in His bosom, all at once, the emotions of the three worlds in which heart, circumstances, and desire are united, and can sing of happiness, satisfaction, and joy.
If only this world of the heart could be pursued, God alone could do it.
Then why on earth did He create the world of creation?
It is precisely to feel this. He carried out the Creation of heaven and earth for the sake of that world where the joy in which heart, circumstances, and desire are united can be felt all at once, I mean. Therefore, seen from this perspective, if there is a Creator who created heaven and earth, then the Creator has a heart; if there is a heart, there are circumstances; and if there are circumstances, there must be desire.
Seen thus, on the fallen historical side, for us fallen humankind, we do not know what God’s heart is, what God’s circumstances are, or what God’s desire is—we do not know. We did not know. So that which is meant to introduce this heart, that which is meant to introduce these circumstances, that which is meant to fulfill this desire, is the providence of restoration up to now. It is the providence of salvation up to now. In other words, it is the work of re-creation. You probably already know this.
Even if you are hearing such words for the first time—though you are hearing them for the first time—you must know that if such a world existed, it existed long ago.
The historical distance up to now is a long distance, yet my lifetime is barely under a hundred years. When you consider that a lifetime not even reaching a hundred years sits upon the eternal line of history, would it be even one millimeter? It is not even one millimeter. It is not even one millimeter.
And yet these little ones, these tiny ones—this one too, declaring it will live as it pleases—stand flatly upside down before the great righteous current of the universe’s direction, opposing the universe. They betray Heaven, I mean.
However much they thrash about like popping beans, however they cry out for this or that ism, this or that thought, this or that ideal, it is not valid. They topple over.
The curve along which this line can turn has not yet begun. (He spoke while pointing to what he had written on the board.) Yet the curves along which this line will turn are many. It flips over. Therefore, history is a history of simultaneity. Its scope grows so large. And yet it is gathered into one.
The little ones, I mean—the tiny ones—how many times a day do their consciences flip over, centering on the mind?
Again and again, time after time in a single day, they flip over.
This movement must be made. “Know that the larger this grows, the more victims are wound up and toppled here!” This is the backdrop of the history of struggle up to now.
Centering on the First and Second World Wars, they are the sacrificial offerings of the history of struggle that appeared behind the history of each people.
The greater the footing of an ism, the broader the ideological foundation of a society, the more the accompanying sacrifice is a worldwide sacrifice. The smaller it is, the greater the sacrifice is in proportion.
If an individual undertakes it, individual sacrifice unfolds and topples over.
Therefore, since today’s historical current of thought is split into such great isms, and an environment—call it a magnetic field of sacrifice that can flip one over—is bearing down, on the day I flip over here and turn and topple down, I perish. But the one who flows on and steps onto the origin point of the first direction of a new history remains. This is why history.
So it is firm as iron. This principle does not change. Why? Because it existed before your ancestors were born. It existed before Adam and Eve fell.
What existed from the beginning of the Creation of heaven and earth has never disappeared up to now. From the time the value view of existing reality began, the present time, when that value view has not yet been decided, is the period that becomes the crisis. It exists as a necessary period.
Seen from this perspective, then, what is God’s desire, what are God’s circumstances, and what is God’s heart?
When we consider such questions, is it not the same for you, too? What is political policy today? It is to commune with the desire, the circumstances, and the heart of the sovereign. It is nothing else.
When one responds in heart, then through circumstances, fulfilling desire circumstantially, holding the joy and happiness in which heart, circumstances, and desire are united, what is the conclusion by which one can say, “Ah, indeed all my past was good.
Oh, indeed, the Creation of heaven and earth in the beginning was good, and indeed all the past in which God created was good.” Currently, these three conditions strike their point of agreement and are fulfilled; the whole world becomes the standard of demarcation. Only by passing beyond three points does it revolve eternally.
A straight line is one point, but from three points, the curve begins to open out. Therefore, this curve surely opens from three points.
The creation of heaven and earth opens out from the harmony of three points. From there, the tenacious, subtle value opens out.
The Present World Is a World of Pending Judgment
Then what is the life of faith you yourself need today?
The conclusion is simple.
What is the life of faith?
It is to come into contact with God’s desire, to come into contact with God’s circumstances, to come into contact with God’s heart. Yet among the countless religions, there ought to be more sects of circumstances.
Even among circumstances, which circumstances are better?
There are countless ranks. There are many denominations. And heart and desire, too, differ from one to another.
Therefore, standing in for countless people and obtaining the terms of countless religions, gathering them up to connect them with this great historical current, one direction-bearing fortune is being borne forth. This we cannot deny.
Then what is the problem here?
Who will discuss God’s heart? Who will discuss God’s desire? Who will discuss God’s circumstances? Has there ever been such a person in the past? The problem is great. Has there been anyone who could say, “As far as I know, it is so-and-so”? Has anyone possessed the content by which, with a firm answer of “Indeed, I am the one,” even one of however imposing a spirit would helplessly kneel before such circumstances and say, “It is so”? It is still undecided. It is unsettled, unsettled. It is still unresolved—unresolved. It has not been decided.
This is why, before this world, Christianity is truly to be thanked: it struck home well, declaring, “In this world there is judgment.” Because there are those whose cases are pending, the work of judgment comes forth. S
Seeing this, we surely cannot deny that the content of the perspective and the content of the direction we are speaking of today are unmistakable. It is unresolved, unresolved. It is undecided.
Therefore, God too will not become the Master in a world of pending judgment.
And if there is a master of teaching who came to this earth bearing great worldwide content, they surely declare that they will not become the master of the present time. They will become the master of the future.
That is the doctrine of the Second Advent—the doctrine of the Second Advent. They will not become the master of the present time.
Jesus, too, created the title “King of kings”—but what kind of King of kings is that, what kind of King of kings? It means that he declared he would come again on a victorious foundation after the purpose of judgment before this heaven and earth has been attained in the Last Days to come.
So at present, he is one whose case is pending. He is in the cell of prisoners awaiting trial. Have you ever lived the life of a prisoner? There, nothing is in want. Nothing is precious.
For the Term “Second Advent” to Appear, the Conditions Humankind Longs For Are Needed
Here, first, look at the women—you know women’s hair?
When a woman’s hair falls in your room, you say it is bad luck. “What is this? How unlucky,” you say. Is that not so—you say it is bad luck? Well, who is it? Which spirit? Hey! Is it Eul-yong? (Yes.) But in a prison cell, hair is needed. Even a single strand of a woman’s hair is needed. When you live the prison life for a long time, there is nothing that is not needed.
To one who has done much prison time, how precious is a little scrap of cloth this size?
When you unwrap the bundle of someone who has done much prison time, there are all manner of things in it, colorful odds and ends. People want to have many things. The quantity is small, but having it is important.
If one has even such a thing, one ought to show it off. One must have something to possess.
Up to now, no religion has been able to settle all the historical content.
Therefore, there must surely be a single time that can decide such content. And along with there being a single time, there must be a single figure who can govern that single time. And that single figure must be one who can forge a relationship with the world. This, from a Christian perspective, is the doctrine of the Second Advent. So Christianity is to be thanked. Seen from such a vantage, it is to be thanked.
Seen from this perspective, when the term “Second Advent” is needed, when the term “Second Advent” appears, surely the conditions of the whole content that humankind longs for are needed.
If there is a God, then one can know God’s circumstances, can know God’s heart, and can know God’s desire; and if there is history, then there will be the heart, circumstances, and desire of history. And in this age, there is such content for this age, and in the future, there will be the content that the future requires.
If there is one figure who, passing through these three ages as a whole, possesses the conditions of a principled direction that can represent the whole of this content and who has moved that direction forth, then that figure too must become the very substance of this content.
Therefore, there must be a person who, inheriting the will, content, and mission of that substance, comes to this earth. When God cannot personally come forth and teach such things, He surely raises human beings on this earth and works through them.
Then, at what time does God teach?
He teaches at the very last. This is why He raises human beings and takes hold of the direction of history.
8If there are countless peoples here, those countless peoples also hold a confrontational direction; yet among those peoples one individual is needed who can accord with one direction. An individual is needed.
Because we human beings stand at a vantage we do not understand, the term “belief” or “faith” is set up, and subtle content is embedded within it: “Let us believe blindly. Sons and daughters, let us believe. They say God will judge, and that things being thus and so, all who are loyal for the sake of Heaven will fare well.
Let us believe!” Such is reckless faith. They seek it out in that way. And it is in that way, too, that they believe.
Suppose there is a master of some great house. When that master wishes to distribute something among his servants—when he has property he gathered with devotion, or some precious thing, and is about to distribute it—he does not wish to distribute it unconditionally. He must surely test them, and if they cannot do it, he must coax them, even give them a sign with his eyes, and certainly, after testing them and having them pass through it, set up at least the semblance of a form he can love. Only then, looking upon it, does he give.
If even people of the world are so, then having set up the work of faith that says “Believe!” for how many thousands of years—four thousand years today, or more—and within that history, holding to a faith that says “Believe,” is there anyone who can believe and go forward for several thousand years and more?
Otherwise, one cannot believe in God. One cannot believe in God. It is to fail to believe in God. God sees it thus. Or, has there been a believer who has had faith for several thousand years up to now? This is what He has been seeking.
Now a Cosmic-Historical Conception of Faith Is Needed
It has been four thousand years up to now since Abraham became the father of faith. “Through that four-thousand-year father of faith, a conception of faith that says ‘believe’ was set up; but is there the substance of a person of history who can represent, through that conception of faith, a traditional life of faith?” Thus it comes forth.
Then what kind of faith is that historical faith? It is not the faith of that age. It is the believer who, modeling himself on the faith of Abraham, or the faith of Moses, or the faith of Jesus, can take responsibility before this age—he is the one who will give account in place of Abraham before this age, give account in place of Moses, and give account in place of the Messiah before the Christ.
When it becomes so, he is a historical believer. He pursues such a thing. God sees it thus—God does. God today, while seeking a historical believer, at the same time seeks a historical people, a historical master, and a historical world of the ideal.
What has been found up to now within religious ideology through the Bible?
It has not explained the content. Vaguely though it be, it has set up a conception of faith and come forth.
Then, for how many thousands of years must one believe?
It must be a faith that can say, “Even if I should run into countless twists of sorrow over more than six thousand years, my iron-firm mind to believe will not change.” Is there such a faith?
Today, too, is a time when such people are needed. Seen from the standpoint of faith, God too seeks no less than such a person.
If we call Abraham the father of faith, then Jacob is the father of faith on the family level. Abraham is the father of faith on the individual level, and Jacob is the father of faith on the family level.
This is not even in the Bible. Yet when you look at the Bible, it is unmistakably so. Jacob is the father of faith on the family level. Therefore, the families before that family-level father of faith, obeying absolutely and believing only in Jacob, become the peripheral shoots of the four directions that can connect with the shoot of the central stalk.
Then what is Moses?
He is the father of faith on the national level. Therefore, centering on that national-level father of faith, if one obeys absolutely the conception of faith that he advocated and believed, the mission and scope of the peripheral branches can stretch out from this national standard. And so it grows ever larger.
Founded on the shoot of individual faith, the shoot of family faith, and the shoot of national faith, to conduct providence centering on some worldwide sovereignty before a worldwide people, the idea of the chosen people emerges.
Where this idea of the chosen people arises is the chosen people of Israel, the Jewish people. You must know this well. Founded on the Jewish people, individual faith was steeped in the root of the historical conception of faith, steeped in the root of the family conception of faith, and steeped in the root of the national conception of faith.
The one who came to set up a worldwide conception of faith upon that foundation is the Messiah. The Messiah. The one who came to set up a worldwide conception of faith in this heaven and earth is the Messiah.
That Messiah came, and as he departed, he said he would come again. But if the Second Advent had not been needed, what would have happened?
At that time, the Messiah whom God, the great Ruler of heaven and earth, sent was God’s direct son, the only begotten Son, the Crown Prince of Heaven. Therefore, one must know him. There must be no ignorant conception of faith.
Why did he say he would come again?
The heart is seen from God’s providential standpoint, the circumstances are seen from God’s providential standpoint, and the ideology is seen from God’s providential standpoint. Jesus walked the course of a life of some thirty-odd years, but the principal ideology was content to be spoken only after going beyond the world stage, after the world had been gathered.
In an age when the nation had not been gathered, it could not be spoken. Therefore, Jesus became one who could not speak it and bore it away in his breast. And so he said, “I will come again.”
Now, what is required upon the foundation of worldwide faith?
A cosmic-historical conception of faith is needed. Jesus is a Savior, yes, but he does not save only human beings. He must save heaven and earth, and he must save God as well. He must save God. Because God is needed, He sends Jesus and endures even as He is killed. He is a Savior, yes, but what kind of Savior?
Of course, he saves as the Savior of human beings and of all things in heaven and earth, but he must become the Savior of liberation in whom even God can rejoice. This was not accomplished.
Then what must be done?
Since God’s heart, God’s circumstances, and God’s desire were not fulfilled—since one cannot commune with His heart, cannot commune with His circumstances, and the desire was not attained—can God too not be in agony?
So the conclusion comes forth that God cannot perform the role of God. In conclusion, because He could not perform the role of God, up to now. Watching this doomed world quietly, it has all been turmoil and strife.
Therefore, by the completion of the doctrine of the Second Advent, God’s circumstances, God’s heart, and God’s desire accord with this view of faith for heaven and earth, and a fresh start can be made.
The direction such human life must go. (The recording was briefly interrupted.) Our church too entered into such matters, and the Teacher suffered greatly.
We Must Raise Believers Who Live on the Foundation of a Religion of Value
When we look at any ism or thought today, the person who adapts to the new current, centering on an individualistic notion and an egoistic notion, will perish unless this current remains forever. He perishes. The conclusion is established that no history has ever governed religious people.
The believer himself, on a standard transcending history, has that standard both at the leap and at the consummation point. In the process of historical change, that standard, which requires no relative condition, is established. And on the standard that can connect the final goal, we must have one Last Day. Only then is the perspective of faith we have held to up to now established.
What has appeared representatively and concretely is Christian thought. This is why the Teacher too comes forth, centering on Christianity. Otherwise—had there been some other thing—I would never have set up the Christian standard at all.
We must understand this. This is not an age of worldwide faith. There must remain on this earth such a person, such a believer, who is cosmic and at the same time has the conviction to complete all of God’s inherent circumstances, heart, and desire, and to judge the twists of this earth and everything that does not accord here. Only then can one know that the Last Day is near. Before such people come forth, the Last Day will not come.
At this time today, when the world is thus being gathered and crossing over toward one world, we must gather the countless isms. Two isms came forth, but one systemic realm has been brought under rule.
The Bible also says that the sheep and the goats are separated and made into two groups. Seeing that an environment has come about that fits so exactly as it is, and seeing that a time has come when one can govern and have dominion over one world, we can know that the Last Day has come.
When one engages in a decisive battle with the world’s currents of thought under the banner of “religion,” then to possess the content of a faith that can trample down and rise above these worldly currents—to possess the foundation of content that God can surely set up—a new ideological faith and view of religion must come forth, bearing the footing of those three great conditions spoken of up to now.
We must raise believers who live upon the foundation of a religion of such value—one that cannot be ignored even when centering on any historical period of all ages, East and West; that cannot be ignored even when argued dialectically, centering on traditional standards and standards of heart; and that can be said to possess the conditions to subdue, one by one, even the patriots and loyal subjects of any nation’s history. Unless we do so, the religion of the future will be devoured before the world.
Then what has become of religion before the world?
Rome could not devour Christianity. However, many Christians were massacred during the Joseon era; they could not be devoured. On the contrary, it is the persecutors who are devoured. It seems to be devoured and to vanish, yet being struck, it wrests away and comes forth.
Outwardly, in sacrificing on the national level, this is individual sacrifice and family-level sacrifice. It amounts only to that. Such a sacrifice, in conducting the providence of a great work, cannot but be permitted before the Will of God, and so such a sacrifice already remains as an inevitable condition on the way. Therefore, braving such a sacrifice, it has come forth up to now.
What will become of it in the end?
In the end, religion cannot be devoured by any sovereignty. In the future, an age must come when those bearing some heavenly religious title can bless even the president who governs one world and perform his coronation, anointing his head with oil and perfume.
For that, religion must be revealed more and more.
External Creation Comes First, Internal Creation Afterward
Passing through the footing of such an ideology, we must seek a place that can represent the historical nature, represent the nature of the age, and represent the future—that can hold the content of the conditions all human beings must embody—where the three great realms of heart, circumstances, and desire spoken of earlier can be together.
To become so, one must become a representative of faith who passes through the individual to the family, the people, the nation, and the world.
When all such traditional content of faith is set out as the value-content of a planar relationship, there must be a representative of religious faith of whom it can be said, “Hey, you cannot be exchanged even for Abraham. You cannot be exchanged even for Moses.
You cannot be exchanged even for the universe. You possess such a qualification of heart, such a posture of faith of heart.”
One who, standing no less than before the providential Will at the worldwide summit, takes responsibility for and guides religion, does not submit before the ideologues. The ideologues must bow their heads before them.
Who would raise his head before Godism?
Could any humanism raise its head before this world ism?
Would those who think of God and advocate Godism bow their heads before any human thought or ism? It will not do.
Unless a faith theory that can possess content more systematic, more logical, and more demonstrable than the ideology of loyalty and filial piety becomes the foundation, centering on the content of religion, and presents a worldview ideology before this history today, then God is dead, dead.
Since God is dead, what kind of religion is religion?
Religious people must all die.
If God is not dead, then surely such a time will come. That can be known by looking at history. It is unmistakable that it will become so. By what can it be known? It can be known by looking at history.
Look. When we quietly observe the principle of the Creation of heaven and earth, it is not that the core was made first and the object partner afterward. Before making the core, the relative conditions are made. To make a person, the soil was made first. Founded upon the external, the internal is set up. That is the principle of the Creation of heaven and earth. It is to seek something greater than the present thing, something more valuable than what is without value. It becomes so.
The principle of the Creation of heaven and earth is so. Even when we look at the creation of human beings today, in making the human being, the body was made first, and the spirit was made afterward.
I gave this the title “The Direction of Providence” earlier, and when we consider the direction of providence of the original six-thousand-year history, what God called religion was a single undertaking through which He determined the external providence and the internal providence and came forth.
When we consider Adam’s family, the preparation to offer the sacrifice is the external-creation type. And at the very moment of offering the sacrifice, one must complete the internal standard and make the victorious decision that completes it in each family. Cain and Abel carried out the gathering of the internal creation. Through the cooperation of Cain and Abel, God interposed the thing called the offering and came forth, deciding the internal value. It is all internal creation.
When we consider Noah’s family, too, he lived in the external environment for 120 years and made the internal decision through the forty-day judgment. And in the process of that forty-day judgment—if the forty days are the external—the internal standard of one work must be completed and crossed over in Noah’s family.
It is the same with Abraham. Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans, was driven out to the blessed land, to the future land of hope, Haran, or went even to Egypt, where he could uphold the providential Will, and after returning, made the internal decision, all of it.
So it was with Abraham, and so it was with Jacob. When Jacob crossed over, centering on the internal standard for twenty-one years, he made the internal decision at the ford of Jabbok.
It is the same with Moses. Moses, too, after making the external decision over forty years in Pharaoh’s court and then forty years in the wilderness of Midian, made the internal decision of leading forth the people of Israel. It is the same with Jesus.
Jesus, too, upon the course of his external thirty-three-year public life, was trying to complete the conditions of the internal decision when he died on the cross.
Therefore, in every case, external creation comes first and internal creation afterward. Before the internal matter is decided, all the external matters are equipped in their four-directional nature, and by deciding a standard like the shoot of the central stalk of the four-directional nature, a single perfect value-standard was realized in that environment. Though the scope and environment differ—individual, family, national, worldwide, or cosmic—it is an unmistakable fact that providence has come forth in that way.
In the Last Days, a Great Migration to Attend God Will Take Place
When we view the people of Israel from such a vantage point. When we consider Adam’s family in the case of Adam’s family, the question is whether one can face God. A great migration takes place.
When one comes to attend to God, one surely moves and unites. Cain and Abel, too, wandered about as they pleased and then came into harmony.
Noah likewise: though that family wandered about as they pleased for 120 years, in the ark they united. Abraham is the same before the providential Will. Moses is the same.
Only by passing through the external can union come about, and the subject and the factor that can become the object partner to the subject do union come about. Therefore, in that process, a great migration takes place. A migration takes place.
Looking at Jacob’s family: when Jacob, as a family of God’s restoration, came from his home, forsaking the land of Haran and returning to the land of Canaan, a migration took place. And when the people of Israel went from the land of Egypt into the land of Canaan, too, a great migration took place.
Christianity is likewise the same. God brought about the great migration of the Christian believers who came to restore the new land of Eden upon this earth, centering on the evil world of Rome. Yet even when He had them migrate, because they would not follow, He gave persecution—gave persecution. Killing them, making them food for lions.
Why does He do this?
When we consider the individual mission of providence, in coming to believe on the individual level, one environmental father of faith is needed. So at that time, one person will do. But to conduct the providence of an age that can, by connecting one person, equip the whole and a complete international nature, it will not do to hold to Abraham alone.
By this, applying ever more complex persecutions from all four directions, our ancestors who took responsibility for the providential work came to be such that they could not but take responsibility and bear it. This is why it was more in Jacob’s time than in Abraham’s, more in Moses’ time than in Jacob’s, more in Jesus’ time than in Moses’, and at the time of the Second Advent, a still greater migration takes place.
In the world of the people, in the notion of one people, Jesus tried to spread his message in the one Jewish nation centering on Judaism; but once spread, it is a worldwide religion, not the religion of Judaism.
Therefore, to broaden the worldwide footing, what must be done?
Since being massacred and killed, all flee from Israel and proclaim it swiftly, swiftly, to make an environment where a worldwide John the Baptist can be needed.
Through history, let us make an environment where a worldwide Abraham can be needed, make an environment where a worldwide Jacob can be needed, and through history carry out the mission of a worldwide Moses and a worldwide John the Baptist.
Until God Strikes One Side, the Will of Providence Cannot Be Fulfilled
Seen from this perspective, when one meets a single providential time, when one carries out a great migration in one world, one must surely strike either one world or else strike this side’s blessed person—one of the two must be struck.
What does this mean?
When Jacob went to Haran and, over twenty-one years, labored before the providential Will and came forth to bless Jacob, Laban had to be struck.
During the period of bitter toil in which the Israelite Jewish people endured forced labor for four hundred years, for God to strike the people of Israel, He had to make the power of Egypt strong. Egyptian civilization developed at that time.
Therefore, to make one flourish, one must surely be struck; and when one is struck, the other comes to flourish. When Satan’s side is struck, blessing must be given to Heaven’s side; and when Heaven’s side is struck, only by giving blessing to Satan’s side does it gain the upper hand.
Then at each fresh start, what happened?
Did Heaven’s side prevail, or did Satan’s side prevail? At each fresh start, Satan’s side prevailed. You must know this, always.
In Jacob’s time, too, when he came out from home, Laban prevailed. In Moses’ time, too, Pharaoh prevailed; and in Jesus’ age, too, likewise, Rome prevailed.
Founded on an environment in which the national systems centering on the ideology of all the worldwide nations can prevail over the whole world in the Last Days, the consummation age of worldwide religion comes.
When such a consummation age comes through the ideological footing of the Second Advent, then centering on that time, a great migration phenomenon must take place in an environment of great chaos and great struggle. This is the historical nature seen from the providential standpoint.
Then, supposing there is a special providence in Korea hereafter, how must the religious people who can uphold that providential Will be?
They must have a worldwide ideology. They must implant the ideology that “this world is the land of our fatherland.” And to fulfill this ideology, before this ideology is struck, Heaven’s people must first be struck. This is the heavenly order.
When the time of judgment draws near, He strikes the beloved sons and daughters of God. This is why Christianity is a religion that, being struck, wrests away and comes forth.
When there is a religion that comes forth at the consummation bearing a worldwide ideology, then centering on that religion, in an environment that can be said to throw open the way of the world from national rebuttal, be struck. While being struck, do not despair; there sing of hope, there sing of our welfare, there pursue our land of Canaan, devoting all sincerity and earnestness; and you must resolve not to refuse even the way of death, not to refuse even a thousand-li road.
And so, going and going again, going and going again, even if there is a crisis of death, you must say you will go again. At the time of death, looking upon your descendants, you must say, “Though I die, you enter in and accomplish it.
If you cannot accomplish it, accomplish it through your descendants. Having passed through the term of the threefold God—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—connecting the will of these three generations and taking as our tradition that the will was accomplished only in the third generation, we too must pass through three generations and complete this will.”
Unless there are sects and believers with a faith ideology resolved to go on even if a course of three generations of suffering lies before us, then when a worldwide great migration takes place hereafter, and the providential Will must be fulfilled centering on the world toward the goal, one cannot remain.
The Three-Year Period Fought Through to Complete the Horizontal, Internal Standard
This is why, in our generation, we keep telling you, “Let us be struck, struck, struck.” And thus we say, “Let us plan three years, set those three years before the Will, and go!”
In going, where do we seek to go?
We seek to go to Pharaoh’s court. “To seek to go to Pharaoh’s court, how must we go? Let us go to the gate of Pharaoh’s people and make it so that they cannot speak, so that they yield before our word!”—and so we go.
And so we are playing that game, setting a three-year direction. Everything that rises from the external to the upper level, centering on such a standard. When the three years end, then, centering on one standard and going boldly, believing that a time will surely come, before the standard promised with God’s Will, the difference between three years ago and now will be as great as heaven and earth.
Since the providential Will cannot be fulfilled until God strikes one side, let us be struck first, be struck first. Abraham, too, and Jacob, too, sought Egypt because of famine.
Who is Jesus?
When a famine of heart had fallen, to save the famine-stricken people, he came as the Savior amid great tribulation, upon a world of heart in which destitution was extreme.
Before today’s worldwide currents of thought, this Korean peninsula, which suffered as the arena of trial where they took up guns and swords on the left and the right and became one stage, shall not collapse here. Because these people, representing the world, were struck first when seen providentially before world history, I think it surely cannot be at some near distance.
This is why, centering on the ideology of religion, let us be struck by these people. Let us be struck. And the one who takes responsibility for and guides religion must also strike those who follow him. Jesus and Jesus’ disciples were too. They had the mission to drive out, to give suffering to the Jewish religious order, and thereby save the people and save the world.
Moses too had the mission to take up the whip still more and drive on the six-hundred-thousand multitude of the people of Israel as they were tormented by cold and collapsing from hunger; but, failing to drive them on, he perished.
That currently seems a road of sorrow, but once it has passed, upon that footing the second generation is surely made to prepare a victorious footing before God. For such a reason, we have come to know that before such a fortune of heavenly principle, there is such a strategic period of heavenly principle.
This is why, before you today, the Teacher comes to feel a sense of mission that he must drive you on mercilessly.
Then how must one drive?
Within God’s providence, the individual providential age was so, the family providential age was so, and the tribal, national, and worldwide providential histories were so.
Today, setting my own individual self before the whole providential Will, one must be able to walk the path of an individual representative of faith, a family representative of faith, a national representative of faith, or a worldwide representative of faith.
Unless one is confident that “I can have such self-conviction and take responsibility,” one cannot become a person of responsibility who upholds the providential Will centering on this great historical nature.
Therefore, the suffering you feel is not your suffering. It is Abrahamic suffering, or Noah’s, or Moses’, or Messianic suffering. What is it to live such a life? The purpose lies here: “Setting down God’s heart, let us pray before God; setting down God’s heart, let us swear and resolve to avenge God’s enemy; and through my life, let us make a person who can have God’s circumstances entrusted to him.”
Because God is in such a position, unless one is placed in such a position, one cannot find the place of accord in circumstances. (The recording was briefly interrupted.) It can be said that the three-year period is the time we fought our way through, staking our lives, to attain this missional responsibility of completing the horizontal, internal standard by which one can go forth in that way.
In the 1960s, centering on the 3 Couples, the 36 Couples and the 72 Couples were established.
What are the 36 Couples?
They are the vertical, historical representatives.
Then what are the 72 Couples?
They are of the Cain-Abel type. In the providence of restoration, because Cain and Abel erred in going to seek the Parents, the aim is to complete the number, centering on Cain and Abel who can represent the 36 Couples that represent the whole of all history.
And thus, before the horizontal standard, and standing in place of the vertical standard, making a horizontal foundation—making that Cain-Abel foundation—and upon that Cain-Abel foundation, centering on the number twelve, which centers on the twelve apostles, broadening the horizontal foundation and unfolding it founded on worldwide nature: this is our Blessing of the three-year period. To explain this would take much time.
Because we have suffered today, haven't these people suffered too?
Over these three years, the world has fallen into great turmoil. Once this year passes, it will move into a phase of being gathered. What the Teacher said—after three years had passed.
The communists were all so at that time, but what could they do?
In a world where there is a God, nothing can be done. Nothing can be done. When one place takes its place and comes forth, one place must collapse. Watch and see.
Because the internal aspect is the object partner of the external aspect, when the external takes its place, if the internal—and when the internal takes its place, if the external—cannot take responsibility for the value of its object partner, it collapses. It collapses.
Therefore, everything is going just as the Teacher said. Democracy too is all becoming one bloc, and communism too becomes one bloc. Religion too becomes so, and all unfolds. Even looking at it centering on Christianity, it unfolds in such a form, and the world surely unfolds in that way.
Though you do not know it, this three-year period today, before the heavenly Parent. Now the Teacher has done all that he must do in one generation. Now it is fine to die. Even to die is fine now. From now on, I will take many risks.
Up to now, the Teacher has been truly content. The three years are a three-day period. They are a three-day period regarding Jacob, a three-day period regarding Moses, and the three-day period of Jesus.
Extending the three days and centering on a historical, cosmic-historical standard, through the number three, we grew up and crossed over in the three-year period, all unawares to these people.
Abel Has the Responsibility to Lead Cain
Now no one can say anything against us. God is watching. God will no longer leave it be. Now the Teacher is at ease. Now, even if I die somewhere along the way, I do not worry. The Teacher truly loves taking risks.
In carrying out such a work of providence, think about it. The direction in which God conducted providence and the direction of history have been at odds up to now; then, who will adjust this?
Who will take measures?
The ones who must adjust this are religious people—religious people. Not ideologues, either. Nor any deluded dreamers who advocate isms. The ones who will adjust and decide this are religion—religion.
This is why the Roman Pope, you see, played quite a mediating role this time between democracy and communism—and that has its reason. It must be done. Hereafter, our believers must do that. We today are not believers caught up in sectarian notions. We are worldwide believers.
Ask anyone in the world, and in the world of teaching, they have nothing to answer. They will be unable to answer. Even meeting one who has cultivated a teaching for decades, it is so. They all fall within our fist.
Furthermore, we know the direction of history. That is so. So today, if there is a worldwide leader, a cosmic leader who can require an ism or thought, when they are needed, who are they? They must become the sons and daughters of God. Only thus does it become so. Then what kind of place is such a place? One must always go forth toward such a goal.
Then, in going this road, what if reality becomes a problem?
What must you do? You must not forget to say, “In the past I always failed to take responsibility and failed to act, but in my mind I am such-and-such a person. Father, I am one who failed to take responsibility at such a time.”
Even if you cannot, you must not forget this for a certain time. You must not forget it. Even when you go out to any public gathering, you must introduce yourself, saying, “I am such a person.” It is so ordered.
Here, when we look at our church, it is split clearly into Cain and Abel. Yet Abel, as Abel, has the responsibility to save Cain, and the responsibility to lead Cain forth. The two must unite and fulfill the responsibility to attend to one set of Parents. One must go forth in that way.
In matters of reality, what must you do?
You must be just like me. Up to now, the Teacher has been so. To become the heir of the spiritual world, the Teacher has received persecution, from individual persecution clear through to the persecution of heaven and earth. And thus he is one with the placard of opposition hung upon him.
It seems to have been so destined in his fate. It was so in the spiritual world as well. Entering the spiritual world, he won through countless contests and struggles.
If You Have an Object Value, You Must Become One with the Subject
Now our ideology will become an issue once again before the world. Before long, it will confront communism. It is surely so ordered.
Up to now, the Teacher has had no time even to speak to any individual in the past. I cannot tell how much it has developed. In those days, one could not even speak of living a life of faith.
Therefore, it was a position in which God alone recognized one. Passing through the age of individual hardship into the age of family hardship, how much persecution was suffered.
Did the people who came here originally come having taken any side?
They are all such meaningful seeds. And so, passing right through that age, now it is the threshold of forty.
When the Teacher considers it—when God considers it too, it is so. The past was regret and lamentation, and the present, too, is regret and lamentation. Yet before Jesus, who came forth lamenting, the past and present may have been so, but in the future.
Who is the one who can take responsibility for the future?
This is why a greater person is needed. Because the world unfolds so greatly, a person who can be greater, a person who can be concerned, is needed.
Up to now, the Teacher is the same. Up to now, in the past it was so, and now it is so too. In the past, I said, “In such-and-such a generation, crossing over the threshold of forty in such a situation, crossing over the threshold I stand at, fitting everything into the program before God, and then, founded on the people, I must fight.” Thereafter, the unit is not a unit concerning the tribe.
If it is Korea, it is Korea’s unit. The unit changes. And so, from now on, centering on the worries and cares of reality, I conduct the work.
You do not have such a notion. Even when you worked in the past, you said you were working for our church, did you not? “Ah, I serve for the sake of the church, for some work of the church”—but that is not it. Now it is not that.
You must serve for the sake of this nation. Loving the nation, you must say, “How much did God labor to recover the three-thousand-li peninsula? The thirty million people could not but come through such a course of sorrow, and these people today stand in such dire straits.”
Just as you love God, love the nation; just as you love the individual, love the nation; just as you love the Will of God, love the nation; do you love this nation and these people as you love our members?
When you come forth thus, you cross over one stage. As for the concrete content, I do not intend to explain it. From now on.
Whether we die or live, we have cried out the Word in a harsh environment, under the banner of freedom, in our church—how they raised an uproar to kill us! Now that the time is coming around.
Leading these pitiable people, we can show them off on the world stage. This movement is the movement that remains from now on. This is why the teacher, too, is now preparing for that.
To prepare for it, this band must first be put through hardship. So draw out the families—the families. Draw out the families. Even though they were blessed, they absolutely must not become people who have nothing to do with me.
If you possess object value, you must surely accord with the content of the subject. As for the result, I do not know. I do not explain the result.
“My family must migrate more than any family in history has ever migrated.”
When the marching order falls to take, as one’s own land, the new heaven and earth of Israel blessed by God, destroying the seven tribes of Canaan, heading toward a free heaven and earth from the land of Egypt where one lived until now, the wretched and sorrow-filled land where one lived until now—the going is the great migration.
We Who Must Set the Example, Centering on This Nation and These People
This migration movement must be presented as a worldwide movement. One must say, “However first-rate America may be, I dislike America. However shabby a thatched hovel Korea may have, I will go to Korea.”
When the people of Israel entered the land of Canaan, did they have houses?
They had not even a plank shack. Did they have houses? They had to enter what the enemy had burned and what remained, gather that burned-out environment, and live. Did they have a temple?
You must know that one must gather even the believers who attended the god Baal. We have no house—no house. It is the same as our position. That we have raised the banner and set out toward the worldwide blessed land of Canaan, centering on a great providence and ideology, is the same as the people of Israel setting out against the seven tribes of Canaan. They are just like ragged beggars. Just like beggars. Having nothing to eat, they ate manna and quail—how pitiful.
To cross the Jordan River, one must invest one’s own effort. Crying out toward the worldwide seven tribes of Canaan, centering on a national vital spirit, one must go forth with such conviction: “To live thus is for the sake of saving the nation. And in my living on, the nation lives on; this world and God’s providence live on. Our historical ancestors are resurrected and go forth.”
Under the conviction that “I must not die. I must live on and not die. Only so do I save history, save this age, save this nation, save this people—you must go forth with the confidence that the world revolves within our grasp, with an iron-firm foundation. Only so, you must know, do you become the masters who govern this three-thousand-li peninsula and move the world.
As said up to now, at the time when a worldwide Canaan movement can be presented hereafter, there must be a great migration of the people. Just as there was a great national migration in the past, a great migration movement must take place, transcending denominations and sects and transcending the traditions of peoples, and be gathered into one place. And thus, before one central stalk, all the shoots must stand on a standard that can share one goal with one direction of fortune. When it becomes so, this world gathers the direction of a new history, sets up one goal, and crosses over. Otherwise, it is all smashed to pieces.
Therefore, from such a vantage, how important is our responsibility?
At this turning point, we must cross over to turn this right!
You must know that it will not do to be at ease, eating, sleeping, and waking. The Teacher too is too. It will not do to be at ease. One must go out to sea and suffer hardship, or suffer some hardship, for the mind to be at peace. One gets by, filling the gap with that.
Such is the providential Will, the providential Will. Therefore, from now on, we must set the example, centering on this nation and these people. And further on.
Unless we gather that up and equip such a direction, I am confident these people cannot be saved. One must say, “It will not do for the nation to go on without such a direction, nor for the world to go on without such a direction.”
Thus, when the providential direction at last appears as unity through our daily life, and one comes to take an individual, historical direction, history becomes bound up with us.
And when the historical foundation becomes us, that history, inherited as a history brought about by us, connects this value of the age to the foundation of an eternal value of the age. And so one must become a qualified person with the conviction that, together with the goal of hope God desired, one has made a point of accord—that, centering on oneself, one has decided it. Only so can one become a son or daughter of God.
The Purpose That Providence Pursues
Up to now, you have lived as you pleased. You lived as you pleased. You ate when you wished to eat, slept when you wished to sleep, went when you wished to go, and came when you wished to come—you lived as you pleased. And while doing so, did you live according to a direction? You had no direction either.
You were people who could be governed as one pleased at any time. You became people who could be deceived with a few words, who could be moved as one pleased with a bit of whispering. This was precisely the accident.
Today, you must be such that you cannot be moved even if given heaven and earth. You must know that you must not be moved even if given heaven and earth. You must not be moved even if given all under heaven.
With single-hearted devotion, who?
Standing in for heaven and earth and for Heaven, centering on the heavenly circumstances and desire that put Heaven’s court first, that notion, centering on our value content—when one cannot grasp it, what becomes of oneself?
You must take your direction well. Even if a typhoon blows and you fall, you are so ordered that you live and die on that spot.
Therefore, one must follow the time well, situated at a historical turning point. From now on, what the Teacher emphasizes to you once again is that we must unite. Aiming at national unity, we conduct a movement that can move the worldwide foundation. When these people will not do it, we will mobilize foreigners and do it.
So let us see whether these people get dragged along or not. Let us watch and see whether the ones who ought to move do not move. And so, if all moves bear a worldwide character, then once it passes about halfway over one crisis, it takes its place completely. From then on, it takes its place completely.
Only by doing this can you gather all peoples. At such a critical moment, you must show—individually, in the family, on the national level, on the level of the nation-state, and religiously—that “unless we know the Will and stand at the vanguard and do thus, it will not do.” And thus, equipping such an ideological notion and ideological unity, we cannot but equip one direction. The time when this can at last sprout in a spontaneous environment and live is, I see, not far off.
This is why, now, for about four years, I will drive you and set you out front, and you must know that if you will not go, we must go even by lashing you with a whip and kicking you forward with the foot.
If Moses had not left the six-hundred-thousand multitude of the people of Israel to themselves in the wilderness, but, even while collapsing himself, had kept cutting off their necks—even cutting off some hundred thousand—and gone toward the land of Canaan, what would have happened? Then the five hundred thousand would not have died.
That does not mean the Teacher will do such a thing. It must be even more than that. God too will judge anytime, anywhere. Precisely because I love you infinitely and cherish you infinitely, and because I feel the responsibility to leave that value as an eternal value, transcending history and the age, to make at least a foundation of such content, at least the condition of such an achievement—I cannot but speak even such strong words. You must understand that I stand in such a position. You understand, don’t you? (Yes.)
Thereby, you can at last take part in the place of the heart before God, who has come seeking up to now, centering on the historical direction of providence.
Therefore, the standard of having borne the point of accord of desire upon the footing of a living environment where circumstances can be communed with must be found in the consummation age of my lifetime.
Only then does one at last praise that person—praising his past, praising his present, praising his future—saying, “I am one who represented the past, I am one who represented the present, I am one who represented the future.”
At that time, at last, before the course of God’s providence and the direction of providence, I am like the one who was in the past, I am like the one who is in the present, and I am like the one who can be in the future. To be called such a one, and at last, before the standard on which the direction can accord, to be given the Blessing and to inherit all the Cosmos—this is the purpose of the direction of providence. Do you understand what I mean? (Yes.) Do you understand? (Yes.) You understand, don’t you? (Yes.)
Then, is it at ease to go forth to that place, or how? Are you at ease, or how? We must suffer hardship. Anyhow, what of dying—you die once, do you die twice? If Jesus had not suffered even one hardship, what would have become of him? Do you understand? (Yes.)
We Must Become Victors Who Center on the Time
The ladies here today—when you return home, do not complain that your husband has no means of livelihood. Currently, our Japanese members, even when they have nothing to eat, even when the rice runs out, do not worry. When I see that, I say, “How remarkable.” I am the same; I am the same. Even when the rice runs out, I do not worry. You and I are the same. The seeds are all made that way.
Therefore, God too comes forth that way. No law says all must starve to death. Look—does a wild boar starve to death in the mountains?
Does a fish starve to death in the sea?
I have never heard of baby ants starving to death, however bad the famine. It is people who starve to death. Why do they starve to death? They starve to death for being inept.
The Teacher has been out boar-hunting and has gone out to sea to catch fish. The Teacher is like that. If there is nothing to eat, let us shoulder even an air rifle, or else make a snare and go to the mountains. Why starve to death—why starve to death? When there is food in abundance. How much there is! Go to the sea—how many fish there are! Is that not so? Never think that you will die.
We, too, have all mostly fasted a week at a time, have we not? (Yes.) We all fasted for more than a week. We fast for thirty or forty days. The members in Japan, among brothers, broke through a forty-day fast with ease and caused quite a worldwide sensation, becoming a matter of note.
Hereafter, if these people starve to death, our believers will all gather, several thousand sitting down to wage a hunger strike of some twenty, thirty, or forty days. And thus, with not a single person dying, if we publicize that we do not starve to death, the effect will be a hundred percent. (Laughter.)
So why on earth would we die? We will not die.
How much food is there?
How much food there is! There is plenty of air and plenty of water. Two-thirds of the human body is water, and that's why even grass. It is through one process from the soil that rice is made. Grass, too, can be eaten in place of rice. Never worry.
Does the Bible say to worry, “What shall we eat, what shall we wear, what shall we drink?” Does it say to? That Bible must be fulfilled. It says to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. That has nothing to do with eating or sleeping. The Teacher is so. It is more urgent than eating.
As for rice, eat it if you will eat; even being told to eat one bowl of rice is a bother, I mean. The other day, too, at home, they were going to make some side dish, and I found that a bother. Even plain barley rice is fine.