The title of which I shall speak briefly before you at this hour is “The Limit of Life and Death.” Each time we greet a day such as today, among those advanced in years, there will also be some who feel its vanity. And I regard that young people too will have thought much in their own way upon the problem of how they will live their lives hereafter and greet their end.
God, Who Desires That Man’s Tragedy Be Settled
Anyone who lives upon this earth, from the past through the present and even in later generations, must know one thing: that the affairs of earth and the affairs of Heaven do not run parallel. We know that the affairs of human beings upon earth and the affairs of God are always discerned and developed in opposite environments. This is God’s tragedy and humanity’s tragedy.
If the road that goes centering upon human ethics were equipped with a direction according to one principle and kept step with the heavenly order, then all the joy that comes about in the human world today would be God’s joy, and all the sorrow that comes about in the human world would be God’s sorrow.
If God is almighty, could He give joy and sorrow together to our humanity?
God would have placed joy above and placed sorrow as something responsive. It is the same as how, if there is a substance, there is a shadow, and the same as how, if there is a high mountain, there is a valley. It perhaps would be necessary if it were to serve as a factor of stimulus needed in a relative relationship, but if He gave sorrow to diminish that joy, we can draw the conclusion that God cannot be an almighty God.
However, one may take hold of anyone and ask about the history of humanity until today; no one hesitates to say that human living is a tragedy, that the very history in which humanity has lived is a tragedy. Whoever we ask, they will not deny the fact that we are now living in such an age and that our forebears too lived and departed in such a historical age.
Then, if such a history has been woven from the past until today, how will tomorrow become at this moment of enveloping the environment of the age and turning toward a new historical age, toward the future? Will it be God’s longing to hand over to tomorrow, as sorrow, all the things that were sorrowful from the past until now?
If there is a person upon earth who bears some Will, he too would wish to bring that sorrow to an end in his generation and not to hand it over to his later generations. That would be so worldwide, or nationally, or as a body, or as a family, and the limits of it would be of a thousand shapes and ten thousand forms.
Even though there be such limits, a person who has a conscience thinks that he wishes to leave goodness behind within himself within the sphere of that limit. This is our natural disposition, inherited from a bond of heavenly nature.
Seen in this way, what we today must consider is this: is there no way to block this history of tragedy, all the factors of sorrow, within my generation?
If it cannot be done in my generation, is there no way to block it centering upon our family? If not by the family, is there no way to block it centering upon our relatives if they be our relatives, our lineage if it be our lineage, or our tribe if it be our tribe?
If not by that, is there no way to block it centering upon some other people?
If not through the people, is there no way to block it even by establishing someone's sovereign nation? This cannot but be a matter of grave importance that people who wish to leave behind a good future, who wish to leave behind a joyful future, must hold onto.
God, without doubt, did not think in the past, and will not think in the present either, that such a history of sorrow should continue even into the future.
Therefore, if there were a person to whom He could entrust this tragedy, God would without hesitation say, “Yes, the substance of the longing I wished to leave behind has appeared!” and would wish to lift history and greet him.
If such a family appeared, He would wish to lay upon that family the whole responsibility for the world’s sorrow and to entrust the whole to that family.
Further, if there is a lineage that can be such, He would wish to entrust it to that lineage. Is this not God’s mind?
If there is a people that says, since it does not wish such a ground of bitter resentment to remain in the future, let the responsibility of blocking that calamity be laid upon them; God will without hesitation lay upon that people the whole of the history woven with sorrow. Even at the cost of making one people an offering and making one nation an offering, God would wish to entrust that sorrow and difficulty to them at once.
You must consider that, however sorrowful and however dreadful to look upon the position of those people’s dying may be, there is an inner heart of the Father who wishes to overcome it and cross beyond it.
The Will for Which God Established a Central Figure, a Central Religion, and a Central People
Then where lies the cause of God’s choosing a chosen people in such a historical age?
God’s establishing the chosen people of Israel was in order that they might at the last enjoy worldwide happiness and thereby stand in the stead of history’s sorrow. It was not that God established them so that they might enjoy historical happiness.
You must clearly know that Israel was not a chosen people established to bind them to a place where, setting countless peoples before them and being seized with a consciousness of highest authority, they alone could be happy and they alone could rejoice upon a ground of happiness centered upon their own independent sovereignty.
Seen from this position, where lies the cause of establishing religion?
One must find one true figure that can be such; and because that is not found at a stroke, He gropes behind countless tribes while passing through the historical ages and rears one figure. It means that God has raised countless religions to discern all the ways of devotion by which each people goes in its own way, saying it will prepare a ground of nurture.
Then those religious people must have faith and offer devotion while hoping that there will appear one individual of longing, one tribe of longing, one people of longing, or one nation of longing that can take responsibility for the historical sorrow.
Then where has there been a religion that has borne such responsibility?
So far as I know, until now there has been no such religion. The Judaism of Israel, too, could not be so.
Therefore, the One whom God sent to this earth as His son to raise such Judaism again to a new dimension and to have it inherited by an individual was Jesus Christ.
We must know the fact that the Son came, before ascending upon this earth to a throne of glory, to discern a road by which the sorrow of all peoples and the course of history could be prepared as a smooth ground of happiness.
Jesus came upon this earth from such a position, but he could not establish that Will and ended by dying, nailed to the cross. Among the countless believers who came believing in that Will, there were many who, of their own accord, sought the road of death to recover their own individual salvation, but were there, in the historical ages, martyrs who died holding the longing that there must remain one precious child whom God is seeking, who can take responsibility for the sorrow of history and of the age, one family that can take responsibility for the suffering of the future? It means that there were none.
Seeing this, though it is said that the history of Christianity has, until now, scattered blood as a history of martyrdom and has repeated a course of suffering, if in the age of the end of history one person who can be such does not appear upon earth, who is more pitiful than God? You must clearly know this.
God has gathered countless religions and has now left behind the form of four great religions. What God desires is to lay upon Christianity, which He has driven to the limit line of the Last Days, the whole responsibility not only for historical sorrow but also for the sorrow of the age and the sorrow that will draw near in the future.
For that, one must greet a son who, embracing history’s sorrow in God’s stead and taking responsibility for the whole world and taking responsibility for the whole universe and taking responsibility for the whole of humanity before and behind and inside and out, can say that he will indemnify this history of sorrow. Despite that, when we look at a Christianity that has not even prepared to greet him, you must feel, “God is indeed a pitiable One.”
The Present Point at Which the Limit Point of Life and Death Has Not Been Determined
Greeting such a day as today, I have considered once again what I vowed before God in former days. God has come seeking a son who can bear such a mission upon the course of history, which no one knows. Then who will that son be? Did the person called "Moon" of the Unification Church come forth to bear that responsibility? I mean that, in fact, I came forth intending to do so. I have thought so and awaited one day on which I could be such.
Yet, in the course of walking such a road, the responsibility our Association must fulfill is to bear, in the people’s stead and in the world’s stead, the sorrow that is laid upon God. Upon the road of going forth to fulfill such a responsibility of a son, a relative environment must be prepared.
Only then can one determine a complete limit point at which one can take responsibility as an individual, and only then can one determine a standard of life before the sphere of death. Despite that, when we see that such a limit point has not yet been determined, it means that here there remains such a sacrificial condition of indemnity in the relative environment.
Therefore, when I today, in upholding the Will and going forward, see a family or a body or a son go to such a place, I cannot grieve. It means that one must not grieve. What God seeks and establishes through me is not to leave behind a history of sorrow but to leave behind a history of joy. Therefore, each time we meet with such a problem, we must all the more cry out toward a new world, crossing beyond this pitiless environment, and must resolve and pledge that we will take responsibility for the whole of the sorrowful content of tomorrow’s history.
Long ago I once prayed before the Father concerning the place the President would go. Together with Mother, holding hands, I prayed with tears. What I desire is not to desire to live, nor to desire to die. Only because the Father’s Will must not die and the Father’s mission must not die; it means that though we die, the Father’s Will must live, and though we be sacrificed, the Father’s Will must remain. When I came to consider this, I found myself unable but to pray, saying that even though a son dies ten million times, if there is a road that gives life to the Will, I know the heart of God, who must send him upon that road of death with joy.
So when I heard the news that such a thing had happened, I felt, “The time that was to come has come!” and felt that God is truly a sorrowful One. I know better than anyone the inner distress and outer distress with which that son, even with a crippled body, writhed in the 1960s, saying he would devote every sincerity centering upon the Will.
When I was in prison, there was a matter in which I received an unforgettable shocking impression. Therefore, in my whole life I wished to relieve him of that condition of being crippled, even at the cost of paying, in that son’s stead, whatever price of sacrifice. I held the mind that if I could see him with a sound body for even a day, as one who looks like a son of God, attending God and laughing with a joyful face for even one day, I would have no han left. Therefore, I ordered him to have the operation. Moreover, when I reckoned all the courses by which the Will had come seeking, I felt that it was a time when he had to shed blood.
When we consider the fact that, taking responsibility for such a course of suffering, he entered the hospital by the Teacher’s command and went centering upon the Teacher’s Will, it is the Teacher’s longing that, though it be not the whole, he might have become a son who takes responsibility in the stead of one part of the sorrow upon the course of suffering that our Association must walk today.
Feeling that I cannot earnestly pray for his recovery, I came forth having entrusted him before God. Why is that? Because an age is drawing near before us in which, to take charge of this vast world, the world’s sorrow must not be left behind. This is unmistakable.
In the Principle of Indemnity, There Is No Forgiveness
It means that a time of suffering is drawing near for which we must take responsibility individually, in the family, as a body, nationally, for Asia, and worldwide. It was centering upon the problem of how to block this that last winter period I sent out the wives of the Blessed Families.
Yet you must know that in the principle of indemnity there is no forgiveness. For me too there has been no forgiveness. Living a whole lifetime of more than fifty years until now, He has taken away all the friends I loved. He has taken away all the younger brothers I loved.
When I come to consider such things, I have felt and reflected through this period on whether I had not stood in a position of loving them more than God.
I am concerned that, because I loved the President before God loved him, that love did not become a burden to God. Apart from that, because I have already entrusted his going to God, I have settled the account so as not to hold lingering attachment.
Now what you must know is from where the limit point of life and death is determined. Without resolving the problem of who will settle the account of the han of the fallen historical age and how, and which people, which nation, will settle it, one cannot accomplish a sphere of life within this sphere of death.
Seen from this perspective, among the Blessed Families today there perhaps have been families that in the 1960s and 1970s were anxious, centering upon each one’s own family, but there is no way for that family to resolve easily the road of suffering merely by being anxious for its family.
If Blessed Families think that it will be resolved by their being anxious, centering upon their family, it is a great miscalculation. It means that it will not do so.
One must think of the people more than of one’s own family and must think of the world more than of one’s own family. Why is that? Because God’s providential history of Restoration is to find an individual, and find a family, and find a tribe, and find a people, and find a nation that can indemnify away this sorrowful history. That is why God established the nation of Israel, and when they could not fulfill their responsibility and He lost them, He established Christianity; and when that too could not fulfill its responsibility and was lost, He has come forth drawing a limit line upon a sphere of the people’s lives for the sake of the foundation of the third Israel.
Then what sort of body is a body that can bear responsibility before such a God? It is neither the Christian church of today nor Buddhism. It is not any religious body whatever upon this earth.
However much one looks about, you must know that it cannot be done except by our Unification Church. This can be known if one considers it from many angles.
Become Sons and Daughters Who Take Responsibility for Historical Sorrow
What God is seeking is one nation that can fulfill the mission of a priest who blocks worldwide calamity, that is, a nation formed by gathering families that can indemnify world-historical sorrow and dissolve the sorrow of the history of suffering and thereby organize a tribe and by gathering such tribes and organizing a people and by gathering such peoples and organizing it. Who will make a national form that can bear such responsibility? You must know that there is none but our Unification Church.
Before we have walked all this road, even if we have money, it is a cross. If we have not had sons and daughters who can go for the sake of that Will and that purpose, that is a han. That is, if before that Will one does not have such sons and daughters, it will be a han; and if, as a Blessed Family, one does not have such sons and daughters, the Blessed Family must take responsibility. You must know the fact that when it becomes so, one cannot but rather become a family that walks with sorrow and misfortune in the course of tying up historical han.
Therefore, it is not a problem that one person is sacrificed and one family is sacrificed. It is not a problem that one religious order called the Unification Church is sacrificed. Though the religious order called the Unification Church is sacrificed, the people must not be sacrificed. It is an iron rule that one religious order must sacrifice to leave behind a people that can take possession of a victorious priesthood before the world. When it does not become so, one must go forward holding a life in which, digesting a course of suffering and toil of a thousand hardships and ten thousand pains with a heart of thanks upon thanks, one is loyal with devotion day by day for the sake of the whereabouts of this people. We must know that this is a worthwhile living.
Yet when this cannot establish one form called a people and a nation, however much one writhes and however much one has toiled, it is of no use. Even though one has become such a tribe and such a people, if one cannot rise to a nation, it will not do. Then who will inherit the responsibility from the people to the nation and go forward?
If one religious order cannot take responsibility for that, in that age it cannot be done. One must know the fact that one cannot greet that day without carrying out a history the same as the history of the Second Advent and passing through an ill-fated historical course of re-indemnity.
Therefore, we must, hand in hand and mind joined with mind, become selves who can step forth before God, saying that we are sons and daughters who can take responsibility for the longing of God, who has come seeking an individual who can block such historical sorrow.
In order for such sons and daughters to join and form one family, one must step forth even at the cost of being unable to sleep at night and colliding with every disgrace and extreme difficulty. Here, though that son dies, it means that he must die not because of sorrow but because of indemnity.
You must know that unless one drives a stake into the heavenly bond and dies, one cannot cross beyond the ground of the tribe and leave behind the ground of a people.
Let Us Not Grieve Over Children Sacrificed for the Will
Unification Church members today have come following the Teacher until now.
Upon entering the year 1964, I entrusted the church to the President. The road I must now pass through is not individual. Because, greeting a family age, I bore the responsibility of digesting with joy a family environment of historical ill fortune and greeting a tribal sphere of sorrow, I have fought alone, centering upon an inner heart that no one knows, to discern that bond. You will not know. Even the President will not have known this. You must know that at this hour I speak before you of what I have come forth bearing, a heart that not even anyone close to me knows about.
Even though a thousand people and ten thousand people be sacrificed in our family and in our village, or even though there be a matter of babies dying, we must not grieve. You must know that at such a time the Teacher was rather concerned lest he fail to stand as a family that can block historical bitter resentment for the sake of humanity.
Last year Hee Jin went. Before Hee Jin went out to witness, having heard all the words of the Principle, I saw him leaping about upon the wooden floor and rejoicing, saying, “That the Lord should come to Korea, that there should be such a thing in our house….” At that time I rejoiced, saying, “Yes, Hee Jin can be filial in my stead for what I could not fulfill in filial piety before God, so that God may see it and receive comfort. You have at least such a foundation of mind.”
Last summer, though I gave the command to mobilize the whole of the Blessed Families, the whole of the Blessed Families was not mobilized. At that time I heard Hee Jin say, “Since the members are not going, I at least must go.” After he set out upon the road, leaving behind such words, I said to the members, “In this holy age, which comes but once in the historical ages, the individual, or family or lineage that becomes the very first offering before God receives blessing.”
Recalling such matters, when Hee Jin went, I prayed, “O God, that there is such a thing in our family is not my individual sorrow but our family’s joy.” You must know that this is the road that goes to Heaven.
All of you, the road that this master must walk remains. You must know that there remains the mission of gathering weary steps and composing my body again and, bearing a mind of concern for tomorrow’s people and tomorrow’s nation and tomorrow’s world, of kneeling weary knees and appealing.
It is not my longing to wear good clothes and lie down and sleep in a good place on a day when rain comes, or on a day when snow falls, or before a lonely environment has passed. It is to accomplish within my whole life the historical mission that must be accomplished hereafter. And so, on that day when I can say that I have fulfilled, together with the people, before the Father the resolve I had when I set out, to look back upon the past and say before the Father, “Father, I have done all the strength I have.” It is to say that one word by which, truly without shame, I can lift my face and appeal before the Father with a natural countenance. I hope that you will bear deeply in mind, taking this day as the occasion, that from the age of discretion until now, passing through the plight of imprisonment and passing through a lifetime of struggle, I have made this my creed.
If One Would Become an Object of God’s Joy and Comfort
We must go. We are people who cannot weep in a place where we ought to weep and people who cannot beat our breasts in a place where we ought to beat our breasts. Therefore, if we are pitiful, we are more pitiful than anyone. That is why the pitiful God sympathizes. This is what the President has left behind today as a gift for you as he went. I think that there is no greater work than this that he did.
Now, as you open your eyes, you must embrace these people and wail aloud, and you must embrace Asia and the world and wail aloud. It means that we must take responsibility for this nation and the whole world. When such a person steps forth wearing good clothes from a position of not having fulfilled his responsibility, he must bow his face in shame; and moreover, when he takes his first step, it must be a step taken after begging forgiveness before God. You must clearly know that such a life is the road by which Blessed Families go, seeking the nation and the road of leading these people and going.
All of you, a time is drawing near when the line of death of the people opens its mouth like an angry lion and rushes toward us. We must wipe away all the grief and the forlorn figure that will be upon our road hereafter and attend to God upon this earth. We must firmly attend to God.
If we were to become an object of God’s joy and comfort, in what position must we stand? It means that being in a happy position will not do. One must stand upon the road on which sorrow comes seeking. That is why Jesus offered his final prayer three times in the garden of Gethsemane, saying,
“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt (Matthew 26:39).”
Jesus knew the Father’s will.
Are all of you the sons and daughters of your family precious?
Are your beloved husband and wife precious? You must know that God is loving us beyond that. A mind that wishes to love beyond a husband’s loving his wife is God’s mind, and a mind that wishes to love beyond a wife’s loving her husband is God’s mind. Your mind, from a parent’s position, of wishing to go seeking a garden of peace and a garden of freedom with love, is precisely God’s mind.
Yet the han of not having yet greeted one day on which it can be so is spread out before the people, and spread out before the nation, and spread out before the world.
If in such a place there is one who holds fast to his family and holds fast to his altar and holds fast to his environment and wails aloud, he will receive blessings.
Therefore, one must go to comfort God. Then at last God can rather take hold of the grieving sons and daughters and sympathize. You must clearly know that a company that does not leave behind such a bond of sympathy does not remain.
The Standard by Which It Is Determined Whether One Is a Person of the Kingdom of Heaven or of Hell
Here you must clearly know the limit of life and death. By what is it determined whether I am a person of the Kingdom of Heaven or a person of hell?
Because God’s longing is to leave joy behind upon this earth, it is determined according to how much I lived, as my life’s task or as my life’s mission, to leave behind joy and how much I lived to leave behind sorrow.
When one concludes one’s life course, a person who has left behind more joy than sorrow is a person of the Kingdom of Heaven, and a person who has left behind more sorrow than joy is a person of hell. It is divided in this way.
All of you, one cannot use the Will. The Will is not used. If you seek to use the Will, the Will departs from you, and you are swallowed by Satan. It means that you become Satan’s offering. You must know this.
It was said that the 1970s were an age of the fortune of the Unification Church. It means that that time is drawing near before our eyes. Therefore, how will you, who have come to know the Will, confront the Kim Il-sung faction in the northern land, or that vast satanic camp of the Soviet Union and Communist China centered upon the proprietorship of the North Korean puppets? You must have a heart like that of David, who stepped forth before Goliath.
We have nothing whatever. We have nothing whatever. There is God alone.
Therefore, we must have a mind of fearing God before we fear Kim Il-sung, a mind of fearing God before we fear Communist China and the Soviet Union. Holding such a mind, to fulfill our responsibility before the heavenly fortune that has come seeking to resolve this people’s han, we must have a heart like David’s, who could take hold of God and step forth at the head before anyone, resolved upon life and death. You must know that this problem is one that can determine victory and defeat.
When you greet this day today from such a position, you too, who while he was alive held toward the President a mind of wishing to fall in such a place, must, centering upon that mind, have his conviction of honoring these people and God’s words and of regarding the Will and God as absolute. Thus, we must melt this people with our minds and melt the world with that mind and heart and lay a ground upon which we can comfort God’s concerned mind. And so there is a responsibility to liberate these people from the sphere of death. You must realize once again that this is the responsibility of you Unification believers gathered here today.
Resolve Anew and Rouse Yourselves
It means that you must not, by failing to fulfill your responsibility, leave that course of suffering to the sons and daughters born after the Blessing. Those sons and daughters are sons and daughters born after you received the Blessing, but you became parents as those who came seeking from the satanic world before receiving the Blessing. Since we are such selves, we must go forth, becoming clean offerings before God.
Upon whether you thus carry out or fail to carry out the responsibility entrusted to you hangs the problem of whether the han of the people and the han of the world are indemnified or not. You must know that such a responsibility is laid upon us, our families, and our church today.
Therefore, whether man or woman, young or old, all must become entirely one. All must be able to have all their environments and circumstances connected into one toward one goal. And so we must be able to accomplish the longing of the people’s liberation and the nation’s restoration.
You must become pioneers of cosmic history and brave soldiers of Heaven who will set this people before a royal palace of peace and, being equipped with an altar of all peoples, will settle the account of the history that has been woven with sorrow and go. You must know that such a mission lies before us, Unification Church believers, today.
Today’s sorrowful matter must not be ended as a sorrowful matter in our church; rather, we must greet it with joy and make it a model in newly holding and refining tomorrow’s founding ideology and stepping forth. When it becomes so, the President will live on and on within our sphere of life and will live on and on within the bosom of our people, within the hearts of countless people in history.
With such a mind, you must pledge to rouse yourselves once again. You must know that this is the limit point at which the people can be liberated from within the sphere of death.
God has passed through a road of suffering, a road of death, a road of Golgotha, for six thousand years until now. We must become one boundary line by which such a Will of God can be unfolded. Lifting high the Unification Church, which has been placed at a point unprecedented and unrepeatable in six thousand years of long history, we must advance toward tomorrow. Thus, I ask of you that you become warriors of unification by whom the thirty million people can behold Heaven.
Hoping at this hour that you will make a new resolve for that, I hope that you will pledge it once again in your minds. Those who wish to do so, raise your hands.
