Chunseong Church, Gangwon Province.
The title I wish to speak to you about today is “The Path of Restoration We Must Go Again.”
Those who have come for the first time will not know what the word “restoration” means as the Unification Church uses it. The word “restoration” means returning to the original place. Because the human being fell, this became a world of evil, which means that we who live in this world of evil return to the unfallen, good, original world. That is, it means returning to the world before the fall.
Thus, there remains for us a path of restoration we must go.
The Creation and Fall of the Human Being
God, who made heaven, earth, and all things, made the human being a being He dearly loves. We know that, among all the creatures made in the six days, He made the one human being above all else, with an earnest heart (심정), to set him up as the object partner of God’s glory and hope.
We must consider once more how greatly God desired that this one human being would grow up, accomplish His hope, make a peaceful family that sings of happiness, and live together with Him.
We must consider once more that God rejoiced when He had created the original Adam and Eve, but that, because they fell, He has gone on, holding a heart of anguish and earnestness, desiring the time when He could bring one victory to completion.
We must know that, while it was good to behold the created world He had made for Adam and Eve, it was the Father’s mind to delight still more in beholding the growing figure of Adam and Eve, who were to have dominion over all things.
Adam and Eve could have become the foundation of hope and happiness before God, and they were central beings in the whole world of being, beings without whom nothing could be. Therefore, they were an Adam and Eve who must not have fallen, an Adam and Eve who must not have had a day of sorrow. But through one day’s error the noun “fall” was attached to them, and through this the noun “sorrow” was brought about, and a power of darkness that must not have been in the world God desired came into being. We must know that this fact is grievous and bitter.
That humankind suffers sorrow because the ancestor of humankind fell is only fitting, but we must know how bitter a fact it is that God, who had come forth holding a mind of hope as He beheld the ancestor of humankind, came to suffer sorrow because of them. Because the human being fell into a place of sorrow, God too could not but stand in a grievous and agonizing place.
We must know that the human fall was an event brought about by the error of the ancestor of humankind, of a kind that must not have been in heaven and earth, that could not even have been imagined.
Then did Adam and Eve fall from a place where they knew the whole heart of God, the purpose of God’s creation, and the whole of God’s hope?
They did not. If Adam and Eve had fallen from a place fully equipped and perfected, a place where they had realized everything, then God’s ideal of creation—that is, God’s great work of creation—could have no completion.
Therefore, we can know that Adam and Eve did not fall from a place where, as beings of value who knew all the content God had created and had inherited the whole content, they could have dominion over everything, but fell in the growing process while they were growing without knowing everything.
Today, in the established churches, there are many who think that Adam and Eve fell as adult men and women who knew all the principles of heaven and earth and were equipped with the authority to inherit the whole of God’s heart and great work of creation.
But Adam and Eve fell from a place where they did not know such content. They did not fall from a perfected place but fell from a place where they were going forward toward perfection.
If they had fallen from a perfected place, we could regard it as possible to fall even after going to heaven, which we may call the perfected world. Therefore, we can know that the time when Adam and Eve fell was an imperfect stage.
Adam and Eve fell without keeping God’s great work of creation and God’s ideal of creation in their hearts and without living within the single thought of being able truly to love God. And we must know that the world thus formed is this world in which fallen descendants live until today, and that through this the world became a world of evil. Therefore, we must know that the hope God held when He had made Adam and Eve remains, until now, as hope unfulfilled. That He lost the person who could accomplish that hope is God’s sorrow.
We cannot deny that the greater the hope, the greater in proportion God’s sorrow became, and the more earnest God’s hope, the greater in proportion God’s inner anguish was brought about.
Until now, the ordinary believers did not know that God is sorrowful and did not keenly know that God is One who lamented having made the human being.
Thus, until today, they did not know that the Creator, who made heaven and earth, came to be set in a place of sorrow through the error of the human being.
The Kingdom of Heaven of Hope
For whom was the Kingdom of Heaven made?
The Kingdom of Heaven was made not for God Himself but for the human being. Therefore, the owner of the Kingdom of Heaven is not God but the human being.
The ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven was set up centered on the human being, but because the human being was broken, the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven remained as a mere ideal, and the Kingdom of Heaven became a Kingdom of Heaven without content—that is, only the noun “Kingdom of Heaven” remained—and God could not sing of satisfaction, joy, and happiness. In other words, He could not become the God of glory.
The Kingdom of Heaven has, until now, been empty and sunk in sorrow. We must know that, because this earth entered the realm of Satan through fallen Adam, the power of Satan pushed even to the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven and swept even to the platform of God’s throne.
Therefore, what has God desired until now?
If God has any hope regarding the fallen human world, it is how to restore the original hope of Adam and Eve before the fall. You must know that God has come forth until now, gazing toward that one day of restoration.
What is salvation?
To save one who has fallen into water is to restore him to the state before he fell into the water, and to save a person who has fallen ill is to restore him to the state before he fell ill.
Then what is the work Jesus must do, coming again today?
He must become the Savior. After becoming the Savior, he can become an elder brother, can become an older brother, can become anything to us.
If this world had not fallen and had become the original world God idealized, Jesus as Savior would not be needed; but because this earth is still sunk and groaning in the world of sin, a Savior is needed. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven we desire is a world in which Jesus can be welcomed not as a Savior but as an elder brother, an older brother.
What kind of world is the world the Lord who comes again wishes to set up?
It is the original world before the fall, the world God pursued and pictured within His ideal, a world in which, having accomplished the will of perfection, He can embrace all under heaven in His bosom and delight. Adam and Eve, who were born as the only begotten son and princess of the God of love, were broken through the fall, so this place must be found again.
One must find and set it up again, saying, “Heaven and earth are mine.” Every human being has the desire to make this world his own, and that is the original desire. How splendid it is! Who is God? He is my Father. There is no need to explain what kind of being God is. One can know God naturally from birth.
God, who lost the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, has toiled until today to find for humankind the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, and humankind, you will know, has come forth seeking the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, passing through the long course of history.
Then, if there is something God yearns for in His heart, what would it be? In the process of accomplishing the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, what is it that God most desires?
The people living upon this earth all became dead children through the fall, and because they inherited the sinful lineage of Satan, among these human beings, there is no blood relative whom God can directly love and hold and live with.
So God has carried on the providence to restore humankind, who were born inheriting Satan’s lineage.
In restoring, to what point must one restore?
One must restore them to the position of direct sons and daughters. But through the fall, the human being fell to the position of servant of servants.
What is a servant of servants?
A servant of servants cannot have a master. A servant has a master, but a servant of servants has no master. Therefore, God, to save the human beings who are in the position of servant of servants, seizes the servant of servants back from the satanic world. He seizes back the servant of servants belonging to Satan, has him pledge loyalty before God, makes him a servant of servants on Heaven’s side, and restores him.
God’s Providence of Salvation and the Central Figures
What kind of age was the Old Testament Age?
It was the age of the servant. It was an age that restored the human being, who was in the position of servant of servants, to the position of servant. Therefore, Abraham too was a servant; he could not become a son. God set up servants of servants and established the way of loyalty. And so, drawing and rallying this historical world for humankind, He developed God’s providence while occupying the worldwide wicked stage for Heaven’s side. Jacob, too, won the victory not as God’s son but from the position of a servant.
God has thus carried on the providence, restoring from servant of servants to the position of servant, and from the position of servant to the position of adopted son.
The New Testament Age was the age of restoring the servant to the adopted son.
Romans 8:23 records, “Even we who have received the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly, awaiting our adoption as sons.”
It means that one desires to become an adopted son before God.
The adopted son is of a different lineage. Therefore, after one is set up in the position of adopted son, God’s direct son and daughter must come and graft him—as one grafts a true olive tree onto a wild olive tree—and so liberate the bond of adopted son and form the bond of direct child. This was the hope Jesus was to accomplish without dying.
How must one act to restore from servant of servants to servant, from servant to adopted son, and from adopted son to direct son and daughter?
Originally, God’s ideal of creation is, at the same time as completing the earthly Kingdom of Heaven, to complete the heavenly Kingdom of Heaven—to set up God’s foundation of heart upon this earth and cultivate it even into the heavens.
Only then can one become an unfallen son and daughter as in the beginning. But because Jesus came to this earth and could not teach both the ideal of the earthly Kingdom of Heaven and the ideal of the heavenly Kingdom of Heaven and accomplished only spiritual salvation, Jesus became an only begotten son who prayed to God from the position of an adopted son. That he is praying is because Jesus did not fully accomplish the will.
What did Jesus and the Holy Spirit do for two thousand years?
Praying before God, they sought one day of their desire and pioneered an earthly course by which one could pass from the earth to the heavens. Then where did Jesus go after he died? He went to paradise.
What kind of place is paradise?
It is a waiting room by which one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But why does Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, go before God and pray? It is because he could not fulfill his responsibility.
Originally, Jesus had to come as the True Parents of all people. But because he could not set up the bond of True Parents toward all people, he must make an earthly Second Advent. He must make not a heavenly Second Advent but an earthly Second Advent.
Jesus, who came gazing toward the Kingdom of Heaven, had to set the Israelite people in the position of servant, find and set up the way of the adopted son and the position of direct child, and make them one with Jesus. And so he was to have the Israelite people receive the blessing from God and set them in a position where it could be said that the sons and daughters they now bore had nothing to do with the fallen world, but Jesus could not do this and passed away. Therefore, God has come forth until now, gazing toward the restored Kingdom of Heaven.
If there is a hope of God, what is it?
It is the original Adam and Eve, the Adam and Eve He made with all His sincerity and devotion, staking His every hope. But because they fell, whom did He send as a being to take their place? Jesus. Jesus came as the latter Adam to take the place of the original Adam. Jesus came as the Adam restored apart from the fall. Jesus is the latter Adam, and the Lord who comes again at the Second Advent is the one who comes as the third Adam.
Then what is it that he must do, coming?
It is to accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven of hope. He must accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and establish the heavenly Kingdom of Heaven.
If we analyze the overall content by which God has carried on the providence in the course of history, we can know that God has come forth on the path of restoration, seeking the unfallen original Adam and Eve. Because human beings inherited Satan’s lineage through the fall, human beings cannot become God’s people without passing through God’s lineage.
Wicked though these descendants are, God has nonetheless come forth, hoping that these human beings would believe in Jesus and rise to the place before the fall, making tomorrow His hope. But how many people, until today, have believed in Jesus and risen to the place of Adam and Eve before the fall? Not one.
Jesus and the True Parents
Through four thousand years of toil, God at last found and set up Jesus, the unfallen, restored, hoped-for Adam-type.
Then who is Jesus before the human beings upon this earth?
He is the true ancestor. Had the human ancestors Adam and Eve not fallen but completed God’s will, they would have become the true ancestors of humankind; but through the fall, Adam and Eve lost the position of true ancestor of humankind that God wished to set up as the ideal of creation.
However outstanding one may be, however much one may command and move all under heaven, the human being, every one alike, is born inheriting the lineage of the fallen ancestor. This is a grievous fact.
Humankind, having a fallen ancestor, is racing headlong (猛走) toward hell, so to set up one standard here and seek, wandering, for the original parents who can embrace the true children—that has been the history of humankind until now.
Therefore, what is it that God has come seeking through the four-thousand-year course of restoration? He came seeking the original position that Adam and Eve lost.
Then what is the Messiah? From where must the Messiah become the Savior?
Because humankind lost the position of True Parents through the fall, he must first become the Savior as the True Parents.
What is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb?
Originally it means receiving the blessing God gives, saying to Adam and Eve, “You are a good man and a good woman, the direct son and daughter of the great Sovereign of heaven and earth; through you my lineage comes to be upon this earth, and I rejoice”—that ”is, inheriting the whole great inheritance of God and receiving the blessing of the Holy Wedding. And so what was to appear, acting on behalf of God’s whole authority, was the unfallen Adam and Eve; but because they fell, God’s ideal of creation was all shattered.
What was to accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven of hope centered on these two, six thousand years ago, was, through the fall, smashed to pieces.
Therefore, restoring this human being from servant of servants to servant, from servant through adopted son to direct son and daughter, subduing Satan, recovering the realm of Heaven’s victory, and, as a victorious prince, receiving God’s blessing of the Holy Wedding—this is The Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Christianity does not know this content well. If you do not believe this fact, try praying. The day of completing the salvation and restoring the True Parents, whom humankind lost through the fall, is the marriage feast of the Lamb. Only when this day comes is everything accomplished.
A good human being is born only to good parents. And there a right family is formed, and only when a right family arises are a right kindred, people, nation, and world formed. This is the process of restoration.
What was within God’s view of hope before Adam and Eve fell?
It was that Adam and Eve, as true blood relatives centered on the original True Parents, would form a kindred, people, nation, and world. And so it was originally God’s ideal of creation to accomplish the Kingdom-of-Heaven world, but because the human being fell, the parents were broken, and the children were broken, and in the end it became a world like that of today.
Then, from what position does the Lord who comes hereafter come?
Matthew 24 records that he comes in the glory of the Father. The first Adam fell, and the second Adam could not fully accomplish the will upon the earth, so the Lord who comes again comes, taking their place, as the third Adam. Because the three billion of humankind living upon this globe have, all alike, not passed through the lineal bond of the True Parents, in this present state of the world, they cannot form a relationship with God.
Therefore, the one who comes holding the bond of the True Parents is the Lord at the Second Advent. Then what kind of history was the six-thousand-year history? You must know that it was a history of restoring the lost True Parents—that is, the perfected standard of Adam and Eve.
What the Course of Restoration Is
What is the course of restoration?
Originally, the noun “Savior” is not needed. Only when one can attend to the Lord from the position of a brother with whom one can simply confide does one become a person of the Kingdom of Heaven and become an ancestor of restoration. Is that not as it should be?
Then why must we go the path of restoration?
Because we fell. Had there been no fall, it would have been done with at one stroke, but because of the fall, one passes through three ages.
So we passed through the Old Testament Age of formation and passed through the New Testament Age of growth. And hereafter we must pass through the Completed Testament Age, the age of completion, taking the newly coming Lord as the model.
To recreate one Adam across this historical distance has been the history of restoration until now.
In Adam’s family, God’s will to restore centered on Cain and Abel, because Abel failed to fully carry out his responsibility and was pushed out from Adam’s family to Noah’s family. And this was again prolonged from Noah’s age to Abraham’s age, from Abraham’s age to Moses’ age, and from Moses’ age to Jesus’ age. But Jesus, too, could not resolve such han (한) of God, and this will was again prolonged, passing through the two-thousand-year history of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, until now.
You must know that this historical flow did not come about by itself but unfolds by the program of God’s providence of restoration. And you must also know that God has groped along this path of restoration.
Because the standard of restoration could not be set up in Adam’s family, God labored for 1,600 years and called and set up Noah’s family in place of Adam’s family.
When God foretold Noah that He would judge by flood after 120 years, Noah himself did not know what God’s heart was. What came to him was only the command. He did not concretely know the content of “I will without fail judge this world” after the long years of 120 years from then.
Noah did not know that God, to resolve His own grievous inner sorrow and han, had come seeking him with a grave resolve. Yet Noah silently kept the covenant he had promised with God, with single-hearted devotion, in a conviction that did not forget it even for a moment.
Then how was Noah to act during those 120 years at that time?
To become an ancestor of restoration—in other words, to become the second ancestor of humankind—he had to overcome even when he collided with the harsh winds, harsh trials, and harsh environment of that wicked world.
Whatever trial he met, Noah had to stand upon a foundation of firm conviction that he would not stand, like Adam, in the place of breaking the heavenly law and betraying God.
Therefore, the period in which Noah built the ark on Mount Ararat for 120 years was not a happy period. As the years passed emptily, the countless people of that age treated Noah as a mad old man.
But Noah, even amid an environment in which mockery and derision—“What, he will judge humankind after 120 years!” —and grievance and indignation swirled, did not cast away the one promise he had made with God, and overcame that environment with a single-hearted faith.
Noah’s eight family members—that is, even Noah’s wife and children—denied Noah. This content is not in the Bible. Why was it so? Because for 120 years he went about doing only that work, what would his wife and his children have said?
Put yourself in the place of Noah’s wife, of Noah’s children. Would it be so, or not? Because for 120 years he went about doing such things, what would that figure of his have been like? Even his beloved wife resented Noah, and his beloved children resented Noah.
Originally, it was God’s true intention that He set up that family, hoping they would believe, and He entrusted that mission, hoping they would believe. It was God’s wish that that family, uniting as one, would uphold Noah’s will and be rightly set up before God. But because Noah’s family failed to believe God’s will and stood in a place of raising the banner of revolt and opposition, Noah, leading such a family of his own, endured and endured for 120 years, for one day of freedom and hope, for that day promised with God.
Yet Noah believed and came forth thus, though he did not know the inner heart of how sorrowful, how grievous, how indignant God was. Not knowing that God stood in a place more pitiable than himself.
Each time God beheld Noah, driven and harried in such an environment, God’s mind was pierced with sorrow and bitterness beyond words. But because Noah was in the position of a servant, to whom such circumstances could not be conveyed, God could not speak that inner circumstance and so faced him.
The Heart of God, Who Carried On the Providence Through the Central Figures
Noah prepared a foundation of victory upon the forty-day judgment by flood, but afterward, through Ham’s error, God’s providence centered on Noah’s family was broken.
Having judged the whole world and beheld the remaining family of Noah tumbles once more against God’s will, how pierced with indignation and grievance must God’s heart have been! No one until now has known that God thereby groped along the path of restoration He had to go again. And no one today knows what God’s heart was, who, because the will of the providence was thwarted in Noah’s family, groped along the path of restoration again, with long, single-minded longing, for the long years of 400 years, to set up Abraham in place of Noah.
Thereupon God sought to settle the will by setting up Abraham, but through his error in the offering, it was prolonged, and the sorrowful name “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob—the God of three generations” came to be.
When God, who had sought to accomplish the will by setting up Abraham, beheld the sorrowful circumstance that resulted, how wretched it must have been!
Though His mind was to smash Abraham’s clan on the spot, because the earnest heart of God, who had to go on and accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, remained, He again endured. But Abraham himself did not know this heart of God. When Jacob pioneered a road of victory in his struggle with Esau and passed through a 21-year course of toil in the house of Laban in the land of Haran, Jacob did not know the heart of God, who beheld this.
Even though Jacob was driven into grievous and indignant circumstances, was despised, was trampled, and was tested by the enemy, he did not know that there was a course of God’s restoration that had to be gone through yet again.
Yet in the end, Jacob knew that the promise with God was a blessing. And so, for the will God had promised, holding one faith, he restored everything within the family environment of Laban, won the victory, and came back to the land of Canaan.
By preparing various foundations of victory and receiving the name “Israel,” a condition of victory at last came to be by which God could set foot upon this earth. “Israel” means “one who has won the victory.”
And so it was God’s providence, centered on the Israelite people, to pass through the 400 years of toil in Egypt, lead the multitude of 600,000, and accomplish the earthly Kingdom of Heaven. But because the Israelite people all fell in the wilderness, He sought again to secure a second generation, confront the seven tribes of Canaan, and set up the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven upon that victorious foundation.
This dragged on without progress, and, passing through the land of Canaan and the forlorn and wretched course of history through the generations, it came over to the age of Jesus.
In the course of the providence of restoration, God always wished to restore the individual, family, kindred, and national ages all at once, but no person could take responsibility for it.
Therefore, Jacob bore the responsibility of individual restoration and of family restoration, Moses bore the responsibility of national restoration, and Jesus came to bear the responsibility of restoration at the national level and of restoration at the worldwide level.
It was God’s desired will to send Jesus and entrust the whole responsibility to him.
Therefore, when the Magi from the East, who were astrologers, saw the star, came seeking, and gave gifts, all the citizens of Jerusalem ought to have been stirred. But the Israelite people did not know that the coming Messiah would be born as a human being.
Did any teacher of the law, any scribe, prepare even a single pair of socks?
Was there anyone who, because Jesus was born, prepared even a single garment and went to him? Was there anyone who, saying he must not come to a pitiable place, prepared a holy place instead of a manger, prepared gifts, and greeted the birth of Jesus? Heaven’s time passes, but the human being does not know that fact.
Why did the Israelite people, prepared through the long history of four thousand years, not recognize the Messiah whom God sent to resolve the han of the chosen people?
Why didn't one of the Israelite people recognize the Messiah whom God sent as the protagonist of the four-thousand-year promise? It is a grievous and indignant fact. Why did no one recognize him so?
Jesus’ Hope and Grievance
Where had the priests, the scribes, and the teachers of the law gone?
They knew only how to boast of the realm of the chosen people and did not know that their having been set up was to welcome the coming Messiah, that this was the original responsibility and mission entrusted to them.
Despite this, this nation, these people, opposed him. They said he was “demon-possessed,” that he was “the prince of Beelzebul”; what an enormous historical misfortune this is!
They, joining with Pilate, said, “Ah, Jesus of Nazareth of Judea, he is a fraud; seize him and put him to death.”
Did Jesus die of his own accord?
All the people of Israel killed him.
Jesus was murdered. How desperate it must have been that in the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed,
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39)!
Although God had sent His only begotten son to complete the Kingdom of Heaven upon the earth, because the human beings did not believe in him, Jesus had no choice but to go the path of death.
That is why he prayed, “The original purpose for which Thou didst set me up is to complete the Kingdom of Heaven; now who will take responsibility for this?” For this, he prayed.
But the situation (事勢) had already tilted. When Jesus went up the Mount of Transfiguration and prayed, Moses and Elijah foretold there that Jesus would depart.
At that time, Jesus determined his death, judging that the situation was already lost, that it was decided by God’s will, and that he could not but go the path of the cross.
Did Jesus come to die?
Try praying. Whether it is so or not. This is a fact I came to know by communicating with the spiritual world and praying a prayer of decisive appeal before God.
Today, the Unification Church has made a bombshell declaration before the Christianity of the present world. When the Teacher sees a cross hung up in church after church, a fire blazes in his heart. It is because it is a grievous, grievous cross.
If Jesus had not died but lived, would Jesus not have become the Savior?
Why would God make him the Savior by killing Jesus wretchedly?
He sought to make him a king while he was alive. He sought, after he had passed through the whole course of being Savior, to make himself the King of kings. The believers spread throughout this world today need not a Savior but a king. That is, they need the King of kings.
That this world has not come under God’s sovereignty and received the rule of the heavenly nation is an indignant and grievous thing. This person speaking here, too, thinks of that and is indignant and grieved.
What is Jesus’ hope?
In the final hour of Jesus’ fate, what is the meaning of the thief on the right? What is the meaning of the thief on the left? Why were the apostles not nailed to crosses like the thief on the right, like the thief on the left? It is the most grievous of grievous things.
Who is the vanguard of paradise?
It is the thief on the right. It is not the apostles. Here lies the reason I regard the apostles lightly. When the Teacher met Peter and asked him, he could not budge.
To send alone to the place of death that Jesus, who came as the Savior of all people, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the ancestor of all humankind—they should have died together with him. Had they done so, the disciples too would have been resurrected together with Jesus’ resurrection.
If the apostles had been resurrected, Christianity would not have become a religion of shed blood. Because it was not so, Jesus accomplished only spiritual salvation. Jesus’ original mission was to save both spirit and flesh, but because he could not complete this, he must come again.
So the noun “Second Advent” is grievous and indignant.
Therefore, as the Last Days approach, God, holding the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven, seeks to accomplish that original realm of the Kingdom of Heaven He desired.
What is the desire God wishes, now that the Last Days have come upon the earth? It is to accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven upon this earth. He comes seeking, saying, “Where is the restored Kingdom of Heaven?”
Can the Israelite people today accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven?
After Jesus came and went, the Israelite people suffered dire hardship, and during the Second World War, six million were slaughtered by Hitler. Why did such a thing happen? It was because of the sin of killing Jesus.
One Must Accomplish the Substantial Kingdom of Heaven
Look at the history of Israel. Before Jesus came, whoever wrongly provoked the people perished at once. But for two thousand years after Jesus died, the Israelite people became wandering exiles. They became a forlorn people, harried in the wilderness and chased by many peoples.
Why was it so?
It was all because of the sin of killing Jesus. If it seems the Teacher is lying, stake your life and try praying. Because they seized and killed Jesus, who came as the true ancestor of humankind, the Israelite people, whoever they are, must all repent.
What kind of one is Jesus?
He is one who came as the True Parents of humankind, the true ancestor of humankind. To have killed such a Jesus is the same as killing one’s own parent. Even one who killed a wicked worldly parent would have to be beheaded; how much more, since they seized and killed the True Parents who came representing the heavenly order (천륜), representing history, representing the hope of humankind—none would be caught by the law of Heaven.
Thus, although God sent Jesus to accomplish the earthly Kingdom of Heaven in Canaan, through the death of Jesus on the cross, this will was prolonged. Thereby, through the providence of salvation, at least spiritually, He has come forth for two thousand years, preparing for one time of the Last Days; and this very time today is the Last Days.
Then what will come in the Last Days?
Jesus and John the Baptist cried out,
“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” And when asked where the Kingdom of Heaven is, they answered, “It is within you.”
But will it do to have only the Kingdom of Heaven in the heart? When one says “Kingdom of Heaven,” it refers to a nation, and for a “nation” to come into being, there must be sovereignty, and there must be people and territory.
The meaning is that one should first hold the Kingdom of Heaven in one’s heart. Because there remains a path one must go to hold the content of the Kingdom of Heaven of hope and accomplish the substantial Kingdom of Heaven, it is said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within your heart. This is just like God’s holding the Kingdom of Heaven within His hope.
At that time, the apostles too, because there remained a process of holding the Kingdom of Heaven in hope and accomplishing the substantial Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus, the representative of the ruler (治理者), spoke thus.
But because what God had prepared for four thousand years through the Israelite people, for one day of the accomplishment of His desire, came to nothing, God has walked the path of restoration of shed blood.
God might have brought down fire and a thunderbolt and swept away this Israelite people, and it would not have been enough; but because He remembered the condition of the prayer Jesus prayed so earnestly, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), He did not sweep that people away.
Why did Jesus, even as he was dying, offer such an anguished and earnest prayer?
Because he knew that if, through Jesus’ death, the ideal of the earthly Kingdom of Heaven that remained were lost, the merit of the four-thousand-year history that God had desired and labored over with devotion would collapse—knowing this, Jesus prayed before God with such a historical heart.
Centered on the standard of Jesus, who prayed with such a mind, God has once again pioneered the path of restoration. Thereby, after Jesus died, Christianity came forth, accomplishing the wretched history of having to secure the individual and set up again the family, kindred, people, and nation.
Within the four-thousand-year history the First Israel prepared, sending Jesus, He was to accomplish one sovereignty and nation and, centered on this, accomplish the worldwide restored Kingdom of Heaven; but because, through the disbelief of the Israelite people, this was broken, secondarily, passing through an individual Christianity, a family Christianity, and a kindred, national, and state Christian sphere, He has been restoring it, until now, into a worldwide Christian sphere.
Then, in today’s worldwide end time, what thought must the Christians spread throughout the whole world hold?
They must eagerly await the coming Messiah to accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven.
Do you think that when the Lord comes, he will take everyone to heaven? One cannot be taken to heaven just so. One must accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven and then enter.
Therefore, in the process of realizing the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven, God has, until now, endured our ancestors, though they could betray Him a thousand, ten thousand times. He was a God who went to a village and was treated coldly, a God who, gazing toward the one day on which He could win victory through an individual’s difficult struggle and resolve the han of hope, met that time, came seeking an individual, and was rejected by the individual; a God who came seeking a family and was rejected; a God who came seeking the Israelite people and the nation of Israel and was rejected. Thereby, he was rejected before Rome and shed blood, and you must know that what has carried on the providence by the price of that blood is the two-thousand-year history of Christianity until now.
Although God thus centered on one nation, equipped a worldwide stage, and made the Christian sphere the foundation by which the whole world today could be made a democratic world, this Christian sphere today does not know its direction and has come to the final cliff.
What Christians Must Know
Therefore, what is it that Christians must now know?
It is that they must resolve the han of Jesus, who sought to accomplish the earthly Kingdom of Heaven. This is because the han of Jesus’ shed blood upon this earth remains. They must also find and set up the position of bridegroom and bride.
Because Jesus could not find the one individual, family, kindred, people, and nation that God sought, today’s Christians too, if they do not find that individual, cannot find a family; if they do not find that family, cannot find a kindred, people, and nation; and if they do not find a kindred, people, and nation, cannot choose one bridegroom and bride.
He lamented, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20); who would have known that the crown prince whom God sent was in such a forlorn circumstance?
Was there a true individual that God sought by setting up Jesus?
There was not. Was there a true family? There were many families, but there was no true family. There was no true kindred, no true people, no true nation. In the valley of the Mount of Olives, holding the hope of Heaven and gazing toward Jerusalem in anguish, in Jesus’ heart there was knotted a han to find and set up a true individual.
That the disciples of the Messiah, who came to rule (治理) heaven and earth and to have dominion over heaven and earth, should be mere fishermen. Two thousand years ago, the fishermen of Israel were lowborn men. That such people should be disciples before the Messiah—what is this? That Peter should be the chief disciple before the Messiah—what is this? Think about it.
Where had the well-believing teachers of the law, scribes, and priests gone?
Among the twelve disciples, there was not one who came from among the teachers of the law, scribes, or priests. Those well-believing ones, because they all betrayed Jesus, boarded the train bound for hell.
Could they go to heaven?
Because they became the direct disciples of the god Baal, that cannot be. Yet because the disciples who were fishermen, the very lowest, were chosen as Jesus’ disciples, they could go to paradise.
Is the Lord you have believed in a bridegroom?
It is a grievous and indignant thing. So, to resolve the han of two thousand years, Jesus must come again to this earth. In coming, he must without fail cultivate a foundation on which the han can be resolved.
Therefore, in the Last Days, just as the scribes and priests of Jesus’ day ought to have stood in the position of Jesus’ apostles, the great scholars spread throughout the world must first welcome the coming Lord, saying, “O Lord, come Thou.” So history tends much to reproduce the history of the past.
If Jesus had come riding on the clouds with the trumpet sound of the archangel, from a position where the leaders of Judaism, such as the teachers of the law and priests, exercised their power, how well they would have attended to Jesus!
The Jewish people knew only that Jesus would come riding on the clouds. That Jesus should serve as a carpenter’s helper—does this make any sense? How forlorn must Jesus’ lot have been, who had to serve as a carpenter’s helper! At the mere word “carpenter,” my insides twist. This was because the Israelite people failed in their responsibility.
On that path of indemnifying and crossing over the four-thousand-year history, holding a han in his breast for more than thirty years of his life and gazing toward a moment of hope, even Jesus’ mother Mary failed in her responsibility.
At the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus looked at his mother and said, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” (John 2:4); and again, when the crowd told Jesus that his mother and brothers were outside wishing to speak with him, Jesus said, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” and said,
“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).
Today’s Christians must know well the heart of Jesus.
Jesus’ Han
Do you know at what age Jesus, in whom han was pierced through and through, left home?
In the family of Joseph, though he worked unlike the other brothers, he was hated by Joseph’s direct sons and daughters. Even when a festival came, he never once got to wear new clothes.
In what position was Jesus?
Though Joseph received God’s command and was raising him, because Jesus was a stepchild, he grew weary of him. In the sorrow and grievance of not having a place of heart where, even at festival time, he could freely praise God together with father and mother, Jesus went up to the temple in Jerusalem, parents or no parents. Knowing that the responsibility to guard the temple in Jerusalem was his, he poured out all his devotion near the temple where the priest dwelt.
Jesus, who had so much han—who would have known that he would suffer so greatly to accomplish God’s will upon this earth?
To that Messiah who came as God’s only begotten Son, as the Savior of all people, as the crown prince—what is the meaning of a cross?
Today, I, bearing responsibility for the Unification Church and coming forth, have been persecuted more than anyone and cursed before this people. But let them persecute, trample, and despise the Unification Church, calling it heresy. The root is bound to go down.
Let us wait and see who is true and who is false. Truth is bound to win in the end.
Because I have heard every kind of abuse, I could curse the people and curse the church, but because I knew the path Jesus walked and knew God’s forlorn heart and the course of restoration that must be gone, I have endured and come forth. I am not the kind of person who dies easily just because one drives him into prison to die.
Today, the warriors of unification are going through the remaining course of restoration. The master was born in the Republic of Korea today, but if this master had been born in America, he would not have suffered such wearisome hardship.
When Jesus came seeking the Israelite people as the Savior and the Messiah, which of the Israelite people gave him even a bowl of rice?
Which gave him even one garment?
There was no one. Who would have known the circumstance of Jesus, who went into Jerusalem and tried to pick and eat the fruit of the fig tree?
If one knows the forlorn and grievous heart of Jesus, it is bitter.
Then what is the aim of believing in Jesus? It is to become a true disciple among the disciples. Therefore, the warriors of unification must resolve the han of Jesus, who had so much han, and accomplish for God the Kingdom of Heaven He desired. For that, one must become a true person who can go to heaven.
Next, one must become a true family and become a true people. We must go forward, gazing toward this.
God groped along the path of restoration and came seeking the individual and the family, but was rejected by that individual and that family.
Since such a Father does not halt His step that goes once again toward the world, I too must go. Shall I refuse because that path is steep and rugged? Shall I refuse because there is death on that path?
Shall I refuse because there is a sorrowful complication?
Since I, too, must go the path my Father has gone, when the Father is challenged, I must wish to be challenged too, and when the Father is in sorrow, I must wish to be in sorrow too. This is the ideal of unification. And so, making this small three-thousand-li peninsula of our country our foundation, the aim is to make a distinctive movement before these people and raise a new whirlwind in the world.
The aim is to step forth, raising a new banner, so that democracy and communism may be absorbed within the realm of our ideology.
Each time this master thinks of these people and stands before God, his breast swells. When one comes to know that this will is truly the will the Father set up, one must overcome, however difficult the task. And however difficult the circumstance, because that One is my Father and His circumstance is my circumstance, to inherit the tradition that Father set up and be grafted onto that Father’s history and heart, when that Father suffers, I too must suffer. That is the natural principle. Therefore, Christians today must not sleep. They must not rest. Among Christians today, many denominations have sung of one day of rest. But the Unification members must not rest and must go down that path.
Just as Jesus, even in the place of death on the heights of Calvary, prayed and witnessed, you of the Unification Church must witness even amid this heaven and earth swept by the darkness of death. Even if one goes to hell, the aim is to witness to the most pitiable person there.
The Footsteps of the Warriors of Unification
Compared with the toil God expended in striving to save us, the toil of the tears, blood, and sweat we have shed to set up one child in one place is nothing.
So, considering that God, to resolve the han of six thousand years, has led the history of restoration as a providence of recreation and groped along a course of much grievous complication, we must go and go again.
It is good that you gathered here today, love the Teacher and have a mind that is for the Teacher. That devotion is appreciated. But I do not want you to love me more than you love this nation and these people.
So you must love these people as much as you love the Teacher. You must become one who sheds tears at not being able to give to the people. To go to people placed in such a pitiable plight, longing to have their dying lives saved, and to serve them—that is what accords with the way.
Only then does the Teacher’s mind become at ease. When you make plain barley rice and bring it for the Teacher, if you have such devotion, the aim is to share it for the sake of the thirty million, for the sake of all humankind, for the sake of all heaven and earth. This is the thought of unification.
The Teacher has fasted more than anyone in fasting, has been cursed more than anyone in being cursed, and in being beaten, none can match the Teacher. And going to the labor site too, the Teacher is a first-class laborer.
Today, the Korean people think that to live well is only to eat well in a comfortable seat, but not at all! They are mistaken.
You must become warriors of Heaven who build the Kingdom of Heaven in the actual environment. This is the thought the believers of unification must hold and the tradition that the history of unification has left until now. Therefore, you must take responsibility for this history.
One who fails to take responsibility for this history and only wastes it becomes a traitor to Heaven, and one who makes this history shine becomes a loyal subject to Heaven.
Therefore, we, who have come to know the will of the Father who gazes toward the Kingdom of Heaven, can know that, having come to our age today, we set up the True Parents' Day, set up True Children's Day, and set up the Day of All Things, but have not yet found and set up God's Day.
We must march and struggle for the day when laughter, that we have accomplished the Kingdom of Heaven, will ring out loud across the three-thousand-li peninsula and over the whole globe. Being in such a position, how could we have time to rest? There is no time to rest.
We must live a life of going and going again, of starting up startled the moment we open our eyes, even while sleeping. Such people are the believers of unification. We must become believers of unification who, even while eating, weep and wail.
Why must it be so?
It is to accomplish for God the Kingdom of Heaven He desired and to resolve the han of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who could not fully accomplish it, and the han of restoration of the thousand-times-ten-thousand saints who, unable to eat properly, passed through the process of the offering and could not accomplish the earthly Kingdom of Heaven. Only then is their resolution of han accomplished.
Knowing such an enormous amount of content and shouldering such an enormous mission, where could we have time to rest?
Even if our legs break, even if we die, there remains a path of restoration we must go with all our strength.
The Teacher commanded you to take a three-year course. To go that path, everyone must be resolved to die. Here, there are all sorts of hard tasks.
One must endure countless trials and walk even a thousand-li road without travel money, not calling it far. The young unmarried women, even though they suffer humiliation (羞辱) from many people, must go on, going without sleep and starving and braving danger, to accomplish the single-hearted resolve and the will they have set up. Does this master, who has set such circumstances in motion, have no responsibility? He does.
Therefore, what the Teacher wishes is that, when you come to stand in such a place, you do not complain to anyone. He wishes that, even if you fall and are sacrificed in such a place, you do not lament.
How could there be no arrow of the enemy for a warrior who cultivates a foothold to build the Kingdom of Heaven, and how could one suppose the enemy will not surround him?
Such things can be. But because the mind that is for the master and for God is not for oneself but for these people and for the world, that place is a holy place. You must know that, even though that path be far, to seek the shortcut and go joyfully is the footstep of the warriors of unification.
Today you must, holding the ideal of unification, cross over walls and cross over boundary lines and step forth before the three-thousand-li peninsula and the thirty million people.
The present situation in Korea is such that one must seize even the youths in the street and educate them in the ideology of unification. Such a thing must come about. Otherwise, one will feel at once that the nation will perish.
And in going this path, holding the heart of parents and wearing the body of a servant, one must shed tears for humankind, sweat for the earth, and blood for Heaven. Only then do humankind, the earth, and Heaven recognize the value of your tears, sweat, and blood.
God comes riding upon the foothold of the offering. He has carried on the providence passing through the age of the individual offering, the age of the family offering, the age of the kindred offering, the age of the national offering, and the age of the worldwide offering. Therefore, today the believers of unification must pass through the age of the individual offering, fully carry out the responsibility of the national offering, and go forth on the path of the worldwide offering.
So you must, as far as possible, stand in the very lowest place. Even when others go to escape the heat in the dog days of the fifth and sixth months, and the students all go off to play on vacation, you must go to your hometown and learn farming, even at the cost of blistered hands and feet. You must become a farmer. Or you must become one who pulls an ox cart. And so the Unification members must become the friends of these people and the patriots of this nation. Only by doing so can you come, step by step, to stand on the path of the development of the providence.
Within the three-year course, there is, one might say, much han; but still you must know that God is with us. The Teacher said that when the three-year course passes, the world would become a certain way, and it is becoming just so.
The time has come when enormous things you cannot imagine are decided by our hands. Yet there are also family members who grow weary as they cross the crisis of the three-year course.
You must not, beholding the weary ones, fear that you too will grow weary. Without growing weary, you must bear witness to the end and cross over.
God is now fighting, with the outcome against Satan at stake. While God stands at such a crossroads and fights, we, who must fully render the way of loyalty and filial piety, cannot grow weary. We are just like a bomb. Even if it explodes and my self is smashed to pieces and vanishes, one cannot sink.
Now we are in the process of passing through the four-year course. We must go cleanly through this course, of which three years remain.
The Path of Restoration That Remains to Be Gone
Around the first of October, the district leaders, the ones responsible throughout South Korea, were chosen anew. Until now, they knew only how to give commands from the position of the one responsible and did not know the circumstances of the family members.
So the aim is that, standing in the position of a family member, they go down this path again.
Beholding the district leaders thus standing on the front line, taking thought for God’s will, and going forth toward worldwide restoration hereafter, you too must follow that path. You—will you follow, or not? (We will follow.)
We have circumstances such that we cannot but go, try as we might not to. This path is not a path that a minister of this nation, or a person holding office in this nation, can go. It is a path that only one who can die for the sake of Heaven can go.
When you face a pitiable person or a forsaken person in the provinces, you must not become an ugly crowd that avoids them and passes by.
In the stage of activity where you live, you must, holding such a thought and conviction, witness to them. Your doing so becomes a thing done for the sake of your descendants and becomes living for God according to His will.
If we fail to do that work, our ancestors and our descendants will accuse us.
Because Adam fell, the descendants of tens of millions of generations have much criticized Adam. It is because he trampled the law of the heavenly order. It is because Adam and Eve could not cast off the temptation of Satan, the Archangel, and fell.
So you must, the more disordered the age and environment, be strong and bold with the conviction that you will receive God’s dominion. You are warriors who have stepped forth to accomplish God’s will.
What business does the Communist Party have in this land?
By our ideology of unification, if hundreds of thousands of crack troops are armed, communism is bound to be smashed instantly. So you must know how grave the mission is laid upon us today and the responsibility for this course we must take.
Though history flows on, our responsibility cannot flow away. Though the people of the world rest, we cannot rest. Setting up one day of certain victory, we must accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven that God desires.
You must know this enormous fact: if we do not, we are accused before our descendants. So you must become ones who struggle desperately for these things. Before God, staking your descendants and your people, staking the world, you must pray and pour out devotion.
There remains for you a course of restoration you must go. In going the path of restoration, only after you have cultivated even the standard of the prior stage can you pray for yourselves. That is the law of Heaven. And to die as God’s co-worker is the inevitable law of Heaven.
Then how, after all, must we die? This is the question.
In the end, we must make heaven shine and prepare a foundation on which the people and the world can follow us and bow their heads before God. Only then can it be regarded as a success.
The young men and women of the Unification Church gathered here must go the path of the forerunner who can set the fire of God’s Word to all the young people and lead them before God. For that, one must be strong and bold. Thus, there remains for you a path of restoration you must go.
The countless people of the world are calling us, so we must go down that path. In the process of spending the six months from now, the regional leaders and district leaders will feel much hardship in setting out on a special course. They will come to know how difficult the position of a public leader is.
You who are active this time must inherit the tradition in which the Teacher of old ran in person and ran. The Teacher wishes to run in person for the people, staking his life, but since he sets you up in his stead and commands, I hope you will move diligently as the Teacher’s substitutes.
Knowing that to take part in these six months is very precious, even after you return, you must absolutely obey the words of the one responsible. But toward the world, you must hold a heart of public indignation. That is better for you.
The family members throughout the whole country today must know for whose sake the things the Teacher does are done. And you must equip yourselves with the inner and outer preparation to be mobilized when the whole is mobilized. Everything depends on you.
So you must, even though placed in a difficult environment, pour out devotion for the sake of the brothers of ideology who have stepped forth for the will. Do you understand? (Yes.)
Each time you eat and your belly is full, you must feel shame.
You must know how to reflect, saying, “I eat my fill like this, but our district leader cannot eat even a single bowl of rice to the full.”
Even when you sleep, you must know how to take thought and pray about how the district leader is sleeping.
There remains a path of restoration to be gone while practicing such a life. Because, unless one wins the victory crossing over a national Golgotha, one cannot go toward the worldwide Golgotha city; today there remains for us a path of restoration to be gone toward a worldwide Golgotha, toward a Cosmos-level (천주) Golgotha.
Because God desires to accomplish the Kingdom of Heaven by passing through that course of restoration, we must go today and go again tomorrow.
In going this path, whatever the circumstance— even if parents oppose, brothers oppose, and siblings oppose— we must go.
As long as there remains a course of restoration to be gone, one cannot but keep going. Even if it takes hundreds of millions of years, one must go; and even through tens of millions of generations of our descendants, this path must be followed.