The Path of Restoration

Former Headquarters Church.

Luke 12:48–53

The title I wish to speak on today is “The Path of Restoration.” “The Path of Restoration.” For us, this word “restoration” is not joyful.

We know well that, because human beings fell, the word “salvation” became necessary, and because we are in a position of needing to be saved, the word “restoration” became necessary.

We also know that, because human beings sinned and fell into death, a Messiah—that is, a Savior—is needed to bring such people to life.

Therefore, had the first human ancestors not fallen, words such as “salvation,” “restoration,” and “Savior” would have had nothing to do with us; but because they fell, we know that words such as “salvation,” “restoration,” and “Savior” came into being.

The Human Fall and the Purpose of the Providence of Restoration

Originally, when God created human beings, He made them as the substance of His hope, as a substance that represents His heart; but through the Fall, God’s hope, ideal, and heart all vanished without a trace, and today upon this earth, there remains the hope of the satanic world and the heart of the satanic world.

This is why all things that exist, though they were created by God, came to exist in the bosom of the enemy they did not wish for.

God made human beings as a substance that could stand in place of God’s inner heart, but through the Fall, that being became a being of heartbreak (傷心) before God, a symbol of regret and resentment—this we know.

Yet God cannot simply leave such human beings, who have been left with this grievance. Why? Because He created heaven and earth and all things centered on God’s Will, and created them through the laws and norms of the Principle. As long as the Father’s heart was the foundation and His Will remains, the things and the human beings He had created cannot be fundamentally destroyed.

If He were to destroy all things and human beings, God would have to bear suffering greater than that of having established His Will and suffering greater than that of having established His heart.

This is why God comes forth seeking the things and the people through whom this world and humankind can once again be set before the original Will and heart.

In restoration, restoring one individual human being is important, but more than that, the whole of fallen humanity must be restored to the original, unfallen position.

Furthermore, we must realize that, unless this heaven and earth and all things—which have left God’s bosom and are held in the enemy’s bosom—are returned before God, the purpose of restoration is not achieved.

We must realize that, if the purpose of restoration is thus not achieved, then for God there is no hope, no ideal, and no glory, and He cannot enjoy happiness together with the things He created with His heart.

Therefore, God’s providence of salvation is to fulfill God’s Will; it is to seek children through whom He can commune in heart and, upon a happy world—an eternally unchanging foundation of glory, a foundation of life and love and victory—to rejoice and delight together with all the things of the universe and to realize the life of the Kingdom of Heaven for all eternity.

Only by making such a heavenly environment can God stand in the position of having found the purpose of creation He desires, and so we must realize that He carries on the history of restoration with this as the goal.

The Content of the Providence of Restoration and Human Ignorance

Then how is restoration to be done?

As we know through the Principle, restoration must begin with all things. This is why, after passing through the age of the offering in the Old Testament and the age of the Word in the New Testament, the providence is now advancing into the age of substance.

In restoring from the age of the offering, through the age of the Word, up to the age of substance, from what position must we human beings restore and ascend?

From the very day the first ancestors of humankind received Satan’s lineage, human beings came to have a blood tie with Satan that cannot be severed and became children of the enemy who cannot be turned back before God.

Yet God places human beings, born as children of Satan, in a position where they cannot receive Satan’s love and draws them toward Heaven’s side. To draw human beings toward Heaven’s side, God works His providence, proceeding from the age of the servant to the age of the adopted child, then to the age of the true children, and then through the age of the True Parents. In this way, God carries out a history of ascending in reverse.

Had human beings not fallen, we would have no need for the word “servant” and no need for the word “adopted child.” We would have become the form God acknowledges, and in God’s eternal garden of goodness, centered on God’s love, we would have advanced to the position of good parents. To deliver us from the lot of the servant and the lot of the adopted child and make us sons and daughters, to have us receive the Father’s love and advance to the position of a true husband and wife—this, we must realize, is God’s providence of salvation and the history of restoration.

Then, when we compare God, who has carried on that history, the ancestors of humankind who faced that history, and the human beings in the present age, the many human beings living on this earth today do not know that God has been carrying on the history of restoration. They also do not know that our ancestors labored greatly to pioneer the course of restoration, and that on that arduous course they would vow loyalty to God and yet break that vow again and again, inflicting sorrow upon God all the way down.

We must realize that it is Heaven’s hidden anguish that such human beings cannot be restored all at once. Because the first ancestors of humankind went wrong and turned heaven and earth upside down, a central figure is needed to restore the fall of Adam and Eve.

So we know well that God wandered through the long span of six thousand years to find one central figure who could become the true ancestor of humankind. We also know that, before establishing one central figure, He prepared the external foundation that could uphold that central figure, carrying on the long providential history for six thousand years up to today.

Yet the Christians spread throughout the whole world today do not know that their mission is great, just as the Israelite people, though chosen as the chosen people through four thousand years of history, failed to fulfill the responsibility and mission of the chosen people… Though the Israelite people ought to have taken responsibility for God’s Will together with the Messiah God sent, because they failed to become one with him, history went awry; the Israelite people whom God had come seeking fell into the world of death, and the Messiah who sought to establish God’s Will died on the cross.

This is why God is gathering the Second Israel and establishing the Third Israel, seeking to restore a new worldwide Canaan upon this earth.

Seen from this standpoint—and from the position that we today must carry out the mission of restoration, comparing God, the ancestors, and ourselves—we must realize that this present age is not the age of the First Israel, nor the age of the Second Israel, but the age of the Third Israel advancing toward the restoration of worldwide Canaan; it is the grave hour in which we must wage a fierce struggle for the restoration of worldwide Canaan, raise high the banner of victory, and cross over together with the command of Heaven.

The Providence of Restoration Centering on Jacob

God, who carries out the providence of restoration, could not restore heaven and earth all at once, and so He came restoring from the individual. To find and establish one individual, four thousand years ago, He chose Jacob and worked to move humankind from the age of the servant of servants into the age of the servant. That is, He worked to liquidate the age before Jacob, which could not be called God’s servant, and to move it into the age of the servant.

Now, to escape the age of the servant of servants, one must obey the command God gave and lay a foundation of victory. Only then can one pass on from the servant individual to the servant family and the servant people.

What was the four thousand years of history before Jesus came a history for?

It was a history of struggle to subjugate the enemy Satan, by widening from the servant individual to the servant family and then building the servant people.

We must realize that providence came through such a history of struggle. To lay the foundation for restoring the age of the servant, Jacob had to pass through a course of individual struggle and lay an individual foundation of victory. Jacob, who was in this position, received the help of his mother.

We know well that Jacob, acting according to the instructions of his mother, who had learned that his father intended to bless Esau, took away the birthright of the firstborn.

Having received the blessing and standing upon an individual foundation of victory, Jacob passed through the wilderness of Haran and went to Laban’s house.

Yet even though he had laid an individual foundation of victory, Jacob had to establish a family foundation before Heaven before he could make a national start. Thus, because Jacob could not directly make a national start himself, he went to Laban’s house and laid a family foundation for twenty-one years.

We must realize that, even amid wretched living conditions, he longed for God alone with single-hearted devotion and yearned exceedingly for the homeland to which he must return. Though deceived by Laban’s cunning, Jacob held fast to God and gave his full loyalty for twenty-one years.

We also know that God blessed Jacob, took away from him everything that was in Laban’s household, completed a new victorious family foundation, and brought him back again to Canaan.

Thereafter, what did Jacob’s family have to do?

Jacob’s family had to go to the national battlefield on behalf of the people. Because they were placed in such a destiny, Jacob’s seventy family members went to the land of Egypt.

Moses’ Love for the People

The four hundred years during which the Israelite people vanished as wretched offerings under the demonic hand (魔手) of the cruel Pharaoh; the four hundred years of bitter toil in Egypt during which the Israelite people vanished as wretched offerings under the tyranny of Pharaoh, who was bent on toying with them at will and sucking their blood and flesh—this was a period of collapsing in exhaustion, a period in which one could only despair and curse Heaven, a period in which one could lose one’s very national character.

Yet the more severe the trials of the Israelite people and the greater the adversity they met, the more a single hope welled up within their hearts. It was that they were the “Israel” God had blessed.

This heart alone did not change, regardless of what trials and what adversity raged. Because they had this heart, even in the national struggle, they did not grow weary but longed for God, and an earnest patriotism welled up in them—a longing for Israel, the blessed nation. We must realize that, because they had this heart, God raised Moses, who could guide their hearts.

We must realize that Moses, after failing in his first plan to establish the Will during forty years of life in Pharaoh’s palace, prayed millions of times as he thought of the restoration of Canaan.

Moses knew that the Israelite people were blessed and knew that they were the blood kin of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So he thought that the Israelite people must not be toyed with by the enemy Satan.

We must realize that even in the luxurious palace of Pharaoh, Moses earnestly awaited the coming of the day of Canaan’s restoration. He did not cease praying, longing for his nation in the distant homeland. We must know this, Moses.

Even amid the luxurious life of Pharaoh’s palace, the more he felt that the Israelite people were undergoing great hardship and suffering, and the greater the gap between the life of the Israelite people and his own luxurious life, the more Moses was pierced to the heart with the conviction that he must love the Israelite people.

During forty years of a shepherd’s life in the wilderness of Midian, whenever he drove the flocks, his heart did not forget the Israelite people groaning in Egypt under Pharaoh’s rule. And whenever he gathered the flocks together and drove them into the fold, his conviction welled up with a heart that stood in for the Israelite people. In such a state, Moses prayed, “O living God! Forsake not Israel.”

Though the Israelite people did not know Moses, we must realize that in his life in the wilderness of Midian, he lived a life that God could not but remember. Moses did not grow weary even amid forty long years of trial and did not become a dropout in any harsh environment. He had only the earnest heart to guide the Israelite people once more, centered on the will of God desired. This is why God finally called Moses and sent him before the Israelite people.

Even on the many courses of struggle, because Moses knew that, as long as God was with the people, God’s Will was his will and his will was the will of the Israelite people, he never even in his dreams thought of betraying God. He never even in his dreams thought of betraying the Israelite people. Though heaven and earth might change, his heart toward the Israelite people could not change. With such a heart, the path Moses walked was the path God walked, and the path the Israelite people had to walk.

From this position, we know that Moses led the Israelite people, repeated several struggles with Pharaoh, then subjugated the Egyptian people, laid a national foundation of victory, and set out toward the land of Canaan.

The Israelite people who left Egypt had to keep in mind that, whether they lived or died in the wilderness, their wish was Moses’ wish, and Moses’ wish was God’s wish; and that, even if they received fierce persecution and every kind of trial on the path, as long as Moses did not forsake God, God in turn would not forsake them. This was the mission of Israel.

Why the Israelite People Fell in the Wilderness

God had them pass through four hundred years of trial to build a new heavenly kingdom of Canaan.

Then why did the Israelite people, who did not fall even while being afflicted on the Egyptian course, fall in the wilderness?

When God raised Moses and guided the Israelite people, the Israelite people thought that, from the very day they received Moses’ guidance, everything would prosper and the world would go according to their will. But originally, the path of restoration is not so.

The Israelite people did not know that, to find the individual, one must pass through an individual struggle; to find the family, one must pass through a family struggle; to find the people, one must pass through a national struggle; to find the nation, one must pass through a struggle on the level of the state; and to find heaven and earth, one must pass through the course of a heavenly (天的) struggle.

When God stood on Israel’s side and sent down the ten plagues, the Israelite people thought they could imperiously command the whole world.

God had raised the Israelite people to found the nation of Israel, yet they failed to fulfil the responsibility they had to fulfil and wished only to stand in the position of one who had fulfilled responsibility.

The Israelite people, in their ignorance that they had to fulfill their mission and responsibility, complained when their path became uneven, and the more difficult their steps, the more they poured out dissatisfaction.

The Israelite people, who did not know the Will for which God had called them, nor the Will by which He raised Moses to guide them, could not overcome the trials they met on the great undertaking (壯途) and fell into despair.

This became the fuse by which the six-hundred-thousand multitude of Israel became food for the vultures in the wilderness.

The original Israelite people, after winning a national victory, had to enter the land of Canaan and drive out the seven tribes of Canaan. This was the course the Israelite people had to walk.

The purpose for which God raised King Saul, too, was to form a single sovereign nation and strike the peoples of the satanic world. Just as the firstborn had been struck in Egypt, the command God gave to King Saul was to strike and conquer all things of the satanic world.

Although King Saul had a great national mission and a responsibility to fulfill, because he thought from a human standard, a private standard, he ended up betraying God’s Will. For this reason, the ideal of the Temple that was to be established in King Saul’s time was extended to King David and King Solomon.

This ideal of the Temple was originally what Moses should have fulfilled, without falling in the wilderness.

Thus, the Israelite people ended up splitting into two at the close of the age of the United Kingdom. They split into the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel and the two tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah. And so they fought one another.

The Mission of Jesus

God called the Israelite people into the land of Canaan to complete a victorious national foundation for building the Kingdom of Heaven in the land of Canaan, to establish a single sovereignty, and thereby to receive the Messiah He would later send.

Therefore, the Israelite people were to attend to the Messiah as the central figure who could rule their nation and, centered on the Messiah, strike the satanic world and bring God’s providence of restoration to a conclusion. Though they had such a mission, the Israelite people and the Jewish religious body did not know it.

At that time, the Israelite people thought only that the moment the Savior came, they would automatically become a people who could dominate the world; they did not know that they had to lay a worldwide foundation of victory upon a national and a state foundation of victory and bring the history of restoration to a conclusion.

Looking back on the time of Jesus two thousand years ago, with what mission did Jesus come?

Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, the one and only Son God has, the Crown Prince.

What was the mission that Jesus came to carry out?

It was to gather the Israelite people and Judaism, confront Rome, and occupy Rome. Not to conquer the Roman Empire four hundred years after Jesus died, but to occupy Rome while alive. Then, at that time, Jesus’ ideology would already have possessed a worldwide foundation of victory.

Furthermore, Jesus was to make one what was divided—heaven and earth, God and human beings—and, by judging Satan, to restore all the human beings in the satanic world to God’s side and restore all the things in the satanic world to God’s side. He was to connect the divided heaven and earth and realize the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven upon the earth. This is Jesus’ mission.

It was not originally the purpose of God’s providence to establish a day of the Second Advent after Jesus died and have people await the Millennial Kingdom.

Jesus was to live and build the Kingdom of Heaven—that is, the Millennial Kingdom—upon this earth, in heaven, and on earth.

We must realize that the purpose for which Jesus was sent was to realize upon the earth the cosmic ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven of Canaan that God desired.

What was Jesus, who came with such a mission, to do?

The Israelite people, prepared for four thousand years as the foundation to receive him, ought to have stood close before God’s Will in faith and in every respect, but they failed to do so. They lost the original purpose for which God had called and raised them.

We must realize that to gather this up was the first purpose for which Jesus set out on the three-year course of his public life. Jesus also had to sacrifice the Israelite people, who were floundering as a subject nation of Rome.

Therefore, although it was God’s wish that the Jewish religious body and the people be united, centered on Jesus, the Jewish religious body was bent on driving Jesus into a corner, and the Israelite people became the vanguard in seizing and killing Jesus. And so Jesus lost the conditions by which he could achieve his intended purpose.

Jesus, Who Could Not Fully Accomplish the Will Because of the Disbelief of the Jewish People

The purpose for which Jesus came was to gather Judaism and the Israelite people and build the worldwide blessed land of Canaan—to fulfill God’s Will; but when the foundation of his desired wish all collapsed, Jesus had no choice but to establish the hope of spiritual salvation through the cross, and so he departed. This we know. This is not a joyful thing. It is a bitter and indignant thing.

And so Jesus said,

“I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?” (Luke 12:49).

My friends, if you resolve just this one verse, all the problems of the Old and New Testaments are solved.

Jesus continued,

“But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50).

One who can completely resolve this holy verse, inwardly and outwardly, can hold heaven and earth in the palm of his hand.

Which is the verse that is the very core of the Bible?

It is precisely this verse.

Jesus said he came to cast fire on the earth—what fire is that? And what baptism is the baptism Jesus must receive?

Is it the baptism at the Jordan River?

No. There are a great many believers in Christianity, but I am the only one who knows its content. If there is a band that knows this content, it is none other than the band of the Unification Church. It is bitter and indignant.

The Israelite people and the believers, who sought and established the linking altars of death upon the bloodstained course of history for four thousand years, failed to recognize the Messiah who came for their sake. Through the course of history, to send the Messiah, God raised and prepared countless prophets and sent the Messiah for the sake of that religious body and that people, yet who recognized that the Jesus who came upon that foundation was the Messiah?

Those who say they believe today are saying, “I believe in Jesus,” but they are like the Jewish believers who did not believe the words of Jesus, who, while alive, introduced God and, while alive, testified to the life of the Kingdom of Heaven.

You probably think that way too—“Well, let us believe in Jesus and go to heaven…” It will be nice because it is simple. As I see it, believing in Jesus and going to heaven is not so simple.

God labored with all His strength for four thousand years to establish a people and a religious body. Do you know how hard it is for God, who exists as a formless deity, to save the servant of the enemy Satan as a servant of Heaven’s side?

You must realize that countless evil people are at work in the physical world in which you live. Those who have done deep prayer and had mystical experiences will know.

Satan holds the authority of the air that connects the physical world and the throne of Heaven. Here, there are countless evil spirit worlds. God broke through this authority and established one person upon the earth. Yet you cannot imagine how hard it is to make even one person who can hold fast to His Will and be resolved to lay down his life. You cannot imagine how hard.

How great was the sacrifice of Heaven, which began with Adam’s family, divided into Cain and Abel, raised Noah, and patiently led the providence for one hundred and twenty years!

How great was the sacrifice in finding and establishing one person who could remain as a single foundation of the providence in a world of darkness!

For one hundred and twenty years, whether in rain or in snow, Noah did not regard his circumstances. Though it is not recorded in the Bible, surely Noah’s children and wife resisted him. They must surely have slandered him, asking what God’s Will could be that he was building a boat on a mountaintop for one hundred and twenty years and reviling him as a madman.

Noah’s Faith, Which Made the Judgment of the Flood Possible

Noah was a sorrowful man. He himself believed in God’s command and Will as firmly as iron and stone, but his wife and children did not believe. How difficult and wretched must the environment of that time have been?

The more difficult the environment, the more Noah said, “O Father, on this earth I am the only one who believes in Thee.” Yet, though the persecution and ridicule were great, because his faith in God was great, he was able to suppress the evil power of that age. We must realize that Noah had such a foundation of faith.

Because Noah knew God’s Will, he said he would go even if he died. Noah had no leisure to think it unjust that he was mocked and persecuted. Though it pained him to be despised, he was bent on comforting God, rising above his sorrow, thinking: God, who had believed in me and come seeking me, has commanded me to build an ark, saying He will judge the world after one hundred and twenty years; how sorrowful He would be if I were to oppose that Will. This is why Noah was able to endure for one hundred and twenty years. Have you endured for even one year?

Noah was opposed morning and evening by his wife and children over the building of the ark. It is not in the Bible, but find out.

If you pray, you can know whether it is a lie or not. They refused to help one another with the work the father was doing.

Would Noah’s wife have permitted the building of the ark?

Though Noah was in such an environment, he stood close before God and, laying hold of the God who had prepared the way for him, comforted Him. Because of Noah’s faith, a foundation more than enough to carry on the path of restoration was laid. This is why God was able to execute His judgment.

When God’s Will—by which He sought to raise the much-labored Noah and accomplish His Will—was broken because of Ham’s mistake, God’s sorrow was indescribably great.

God’s Will to raise Noah as the second human ancestor, drive out the enemy Satan, and make a new heaven and earth with the lineage of Heaven was broken because of Ham’s mistake.

And so, four hundred years after that, He sought and raised Abraham, but because of Abraham’s mistake in the offering, the providence had to pass through Isaac and Jacob. Thus, the term “the God of three generations” came to be left behind.

Today’s Christians think this is a good term.

For two thousand years, God came seeking Abraham’s family, but when He lost that family through the mistake in the offering, He again raised Esau and Jacob.

Thus, Jacob fought against Satan’s side and won, and only then became “Israel.” “Israel” means that one has won. Won against whom? He won against the earthly Satan, and then he won against the archangel.

That is, Jacob’s subjugation of the angel was the restoration of the archangel Lucifer’s shattering of the heavenly order. That is, it returned the archangel to his original position, the position of servant. And so, we must realize, the name Israel was at last reclaimed.

Upon this foundation, God built the family, clan, national, and state foundations for four thousand years, and the one sent as the Messiah was Jesus.

The Center of Christianity Is the Doctrine of Resurrection

This Jesus, the moment he came, was rejected by the Jewish religious body and the Israelite people. Such a Jewish religious body remains.

The Christians of the world today must unite and break through the satanic world. If they think their faith alone is supreme, they are God’s enemies. You must realize that Jesus was one full of han.

Believers who say they believe today say, “Oh! Jesus came to die on the cross to save all the people of this earth.” To think so is simple, but could God, who has such great power, not carry out the providence of salvation without him being killed? This is why you must realize that he is a Jesus who lost the Israelite people, a Jesus who lost the Jewish religious body.

The Israelite people were to be grafted onto Jesus and become heavenly people (天民). To transform the Israelite people into heavenly people was Jesus’ mission. Yet what did the Israelite people do?

What did the Jewish religious body do?

What did the chief priests and the teachers of the Law do? Did God carry out the providence for four thousand years so that Jesus would be seized and killed?

He held a great aspiration, but the environment in which he could express it was not provided. Though he gathered the most cast-off band of that society—fishermen, prostitutes, and beggar-like people—could he speak the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven to them?

How anguished he must have been to leave the words that he had much to say, but that they could not bear it! He was a pitiful Jesus who held the han of not having a single altar where he could speak freely.

Why did Jesus, the Son of God, come to this earth and go all the way to the Mount of Olives in the still of the night while others slept?

Why did he pray in the Garden of Gethsemane?

Had the Jewish believers fulfilled their responsibility and the Israelite people fulfilled their responsibility, all that would have been unnecessary.

If, with God Himself present, Jesus, Judaism, and the Israelite people had become one at that time, a great thing would have unfolded. Rome, too, would have been no problem.

If they had united, Rome could not have stirred.

Originally, the doctrine of Christianity is not the doctrine of the cross but the doctrine of resurrection. Salvation was established because Jesus rose again—was it established because he died? Christianity is the religion of resurrection. All the crosses on the earth today must be burned up.

Who will do it?

Wait and see—whether my words are wrong or right. This does not mean I deny the principle of the cross, the principle of salvation through the cross. The point is: why hang up that cross by which Jesus was pierced by Satan?

It is by the power of the resurrection of Jesus, who died and rose again after three days, that we are saved. Upon the foundation of the forty-day period after the resurrection, a new Second Israel—that is, a new Christianity that took the place of Judaism—at last set out.

Christianity is not the doctrine of the cross but the doctrine of resurrection. Those who cannot believe it, pray. I speak with confidence.

Though our Unification Church is persecuted and driven in this age, the true and the false are certain to be revealed. Jesus too lived by such a conviction.

The Jewish Religious Body and the Israelite People Who Disbelieved Jesus

Let us think once more of the time of Jesus. Where did the people and the religious body who should have become one with Jesus go? Where did they go?

They collapsed. Because they fell into Satan’s hands, Jesus had no choice but to set out again seeking disciples to lay a foundation.

At that time, Jesus’ disciples ought to have been the leading priests and teachers of the Law, centered on John the Baptist. Would the dignity of Jesus, who came as the King of Kings, stand if he went about leading such inferior disciples?

Where did the Jewish religious body go? Where did the Israelite people go?

The Israelite people and the Jewish religious body were nowhere to be found. Where did Noah’s labor, done to establish the history of Israel, go? Where did Abraham’s labor go?

Where did the labor of Isaac and Jacob go?

Where did the Israelite people, who toiled bitterly for four hundred years under Pharaoh’s rule in Egypt, go? You must realize: the foundation of the ancestors, who had built up countless achievements, all collapsed.

At that time, how many people were there before God who prayed for the people, who prayed for the religious body?

This is why God carried on a spiritual providence of salvation, at a historical distance, to rebuild the Second Israel. And so Christianity is a spiritual Judaism, a spiritual Israelite people. The countless Christians in the world stand in the position of taking the place of the Israelite people of Jesus’ day and stand in the position of taking the place of the Jewish religious body.

At the time of Jesus’ first coming, to bring this Will to completion, the providence had to move the nation of Israel and broaden that national standard to the worldwide level. Because this Will was not fulfilled, God gathered it up once more, prepared a worldwide environment, and prepared for the time of the Second Advent.

What did Jesus himself do?

Because the national foundation built up over four thousand years all came to failure, Jesus was tempted by Satan and fought against Satan. When the national foundation came to failure, Satan took everything away, and so Jesus had to fight and win against Satan, who had taken everything away. This is why he received all kinds of temptation from Satan.

Why must the Son of God be dragged off by Satan and tempted?

It was because the condition of having to liquidate the historical grievance remained that he was tempted by Satan.

In this way, we must realize that he formed the hope of the spiritual providence of salvation and formed the basis for developing into today’s Christianity.

That does not mean Jesus’ mission ends there.

Then what is Jesus’ mission?

It was originally Jesus’ mission to lay a foundation of victory in the struggle against Satan, centered on the Jewish people, and to restore worldwide Canaan.

This is why the Lord who comes in the Last Days likewise comes to carry out such a mission.

Because Jacob won substantially, the course he walked became the standard that the central figures after him had to follow.

Jesus had to lay an individual foundation of victory on the individual course and lay again all the foundations—the family foundation of victory, the national foundation of victory. And he had to lay again what the Jewish religious body and the nation of Israel had failed to do.

Because Jesus was a historical figure, for him, as a historical figure, there lay scattered the problem of having to confront and struggle against the historical Satan to inherit all the bloodlines or the traditions of the historical ancestors.

The Secret to Subjugating Satan

If you look at the Bible, did Jesus completely set up the individual, family, national, and state conditions and fight and win against Satan? He did not.

Do you think the Satan who did not surrender even before Jesus will surrender to one who believes in Jesus?

Do you think the Satan—shrewd and imposing, who for six thousand years has accused before God, trampled God’s Will, and ruined God’s providence—will retreat just because one who believes in Jesus tells him to retreat? You must have the right of inheritance.

Do you understand what I mean?

We must have the historical right of inheritance. We must become heirs who, having inherited the tradition and foundation from Adam down through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and beyond Jesus, stand in for the historical offering.

So we must say to Satan, “Did you not lose to Noah, lose to Jacob, and lose to Moses in the course of history?

I stand upon their foundation of victory and have inherited all the traditions of providential history, so Satan! You retreat.” — Only then will he retreat.

Just pray, “Satan, retreat” all you like. Will Satan retreat? He is a Satan who, for six thousand years, was accused and trampled before God and shattered the providence of restoration—do you think he will retreat easily just because I say, “Retreat, since I believe in Jesus”? Absolutely not.

Jesus has a lineage of inheritance (相續譜). Jesus has a lineage of inheritance by which he inherited the heart of God. There was a lineage of inheritance of heart for four thousand years, up to the time of sending Jesus.

Next, there must be a lineage of inheritance for Jesus’ object partner. The one who is to become Jesus’ object partner does not come riding on the bloodline of love but must be born through a good blood lineage. There must be such a lineage of inheritance.

God does not use one who fights and dies on the course of the cross.

Even if one stands in the place of confronting a billion Satanic forces, one must not die but become the substance of resurrection, body, and spirit united, to be used as a substantial heir.

The Teacher came to know that there is such a problem. Those who believe in Jesus, the believers of the established churches, will not know what this means.

The secret to subjugating Satan is for me to enter the right of resurrection through the inheritance of the heart.

One must be able to say, “I am surely the one God sought, through the historical heart of God. I am one grafted onto the holy body of Jesus.”

And so one must subjugate Satan not by winning over him on the cross but without being hung on the cross. And so one must rise again as a substance, wearing the physical body.

Only by being acknowledged as such a substantial heir can one enter this Kingdom of Heaven.

The Israelite people should have fulfilled their responsibility, but they did not fulfill it. You, too, must clearly realize that if you fail to fulfill your responsibility today, an enormous responsibility will follow upon your descendants.

Yet because you today have not been able to stand in such a position, you must ask before the Father, “Send us the Owner.”

Since he said He would send the Owner, you must pave the way for the Owner.

To Attend the Coming Owner

Then what responsibility must be fulfilled to attend to the coming Lord as the Owner of Korea?

Here, only by paving the path on which the Owner will come can one fulfill the duty of bearing responsibility for that Way. To receive the Owner who has come seeking the world, that nation must stand in a position where it can take responsibility. Only then can they meet. That is how it is set up. Is it not so?

Therefore, you must become those who prepare for the Owner. And no matter how heavy the responsibility in any field, you must take it on as your responsibility from the Owner’s position. That is the only way. By doing so, you can become the lost owner, and you can also fulfill the responsibility of attending to the Owner.

What the Teacher has said this evening is without error.

If the returning Lord were to come to this earth today, he would surely come to the nation that has a people who, centered on such a mission and responsibility, have undergone suffering and prepared everything. Even if God told him not to go, he truly must come to that nation.

If you follow the Teacher with such conviction, you will come to know that what the Teacher has said is right. Wait and see. When it is past, you will know.

Now is a time to come somewhat to one’s senses. Soon, the time is coming when the world will roll in. Not roll away, but roll in. How shall we handle this world that rolls in? That is the problem. But there is a way to solve it.

Today, the revolutionary government is floundering before these people, not knowing how to handle things.

What is the way to handle this?

No matter how wrong those people are, no matter how they act, we have nothing to say to them. No matter how far they go into the place of ruin, for now, we have nothing to say.

If only we had a weapon with which we could…. Do you understand what I mean?

The Material That Can Move All People

As long as there is the Teacher of the Unification Church, who has come forward bearing all the worries and sufferings of this world, then, however much this world and the established churches oppose it, they are bound to be absorbed into the Unification Church. It is not that millions will be absorbed and come over this very instant, but it is certain to happen.

So I must become great material that can bear it in the time to come. Then they will be unable to complain to us. They cannot appeal on any ground; there is no such material against us, so to speak.

What material is there today by which one could claim to be the Messiah before all the people of the world, not by God’s authority, but by the authority of Jesus?

It is to have shed tears for all people and to have embraced even the enemy with love and shed tears. Against that, no one can argue. A person with a conscience cannot argue. Because this is the principle of Heaven. One who lacks the courage to surpass this will surrender.

Likewise, how must we, who today bear a worldwide-historical mission, handle this world? When we gaze upon the three billion of humanity, we can see the evil ones dragging the whole world into the pit of death.

Yet we know the existence of the living God, and we must save humankind before they ruin this world any further.

Even if I enter the place of ruin from a lowly position, it is the urgent priority that the Unification Church has material it can present before these people and the people of the world.

This is what the Teacher worries about. Currently, I do not want the number of Unification members to grow. They will grow in any case in the future. God also worries about that. What is needed is that material. We need material that can strike across history, material that can strike across the age, material that can strike across the future.

Then what is that material?

It is blood, tears, and sweat. Blood, tears, and sweat that can commune in the heart; blood, tears, and sweat that can make God shed tears; blood, tears, and sweat that can make the people shed tears.

So there must be blood and sweat at which each individual, and the people of the world, can shed tears when they hear of it.

When the victorious achievements built upon that sweat come to be recognized as material that later generations can revere, material that later generations can need, the world will all be absorbed because of it. This is why the Teacher cried out for you to suffer for three years. Only then will you not perish.

Having sent out the blessed families to every corner of this heaven and earth, my heart aches. I want to wail! But I am restraining that heart. When facing them, I cannot help but appear as a merciless teacher, but because I must set a plan to create history and make them people who can take charge of history, I drive them mercilessly. This is precisely the conviction the Teacher holds. Only by doing so will many of you follow along in a few years.

Because there is God’s dignity and there is His honor, you were blessed in a time of being naked and starving, but it was I who told you to follow such a path. Go such a path, my friends. You will not perish. You absolutely will not perish. We need such material.

Jesus’ Utmost Filial Devotion to God

God can guide the world because, even when He sets an individual in such a position, no individual can protest; even when He sets a family in such a position, no family can protest; even when He sets a people in such a position, there is no people who can protest; even when He sets a nation in such a position, there is no nation who can protest.

After Jesus’ resurrection, Christianity has come to reign as a worldwide religion today.

Why was the foundation laid that could form today’s sphere of world civilization, linking together countless prophets?

It is to send Jesus, one person, once more. Originally, Jesus came to pass on God’s heart during the period up to before Adam’s fall. Jesus could not but fulfill such a mission. Yet when Jesus lifted his eyes and gazed upon the disciples gathered before his knees, how stifled he must have been. Ugh, such wretchedly inferior men….

Jesus came to command heaven and earth and to establish kingship as the King of Kings, but he went to fishermen for his guides—was that well done? It was ill done. Why did Jesus come to such a forlorn and pitiful plight? Whose responsibility is this?

Did Jesus fail to fulfill his responsibility?

The Israelite people failed to fulfill their responsibility. That is why he could not help but be so pitiful.

“Hey, you wretches, was not the wish you longed for over four thousand years for the sake of finding me alone?” When Jesus, bearing God’s han, was dying on the cross, although they were a people deserving to be cursed with all heaven and earth as witness, he laid hold of God’s heart and prayed that their sins not be charged against them, for their sake.

Where had His mind gone—the mind that had held the historical heart of the people up to that point, the mind of the Father who had followed the Jewish people and followed the Jewish religious body up to that time?

Currently, the historical foothold was being severed; where had the Father’s mind gone?

When he thought of that, Jesus laid hold of God’s heart and prayed with this mind: “O Father, forgive their sins; I will bear them in their stead.

So, Father, do not sever the heart tradition Thou hast labored to bring forth over four thousand years; though the First Israel Thou didst prepare for four thousand years has perished, hand it down as an inheritance to the Second Israel through me.”

Because his love was great? Because his love was great?

Not at all. It is because the historical foundation God had labored over was collapsing. When he said, “Truly, truly, their sins…,” was it because he liked them? No. It was, above all, that God was pitiful. God was….

Only if Jesus had a day of hope would God, who had come seeking for four thousand years, also come to have hope. It was fine for me to vanish from this place of death, but thinking that God would grieve, he made atonement in place of the Israelite people. Jesus was thus the filial son among filial sons, who comforted the heart of the Heavenly Father when He was heartbroken.

When one stands in such a place, Satan retreats. Satan is the enemy who has trampled God’s sons and daughters until now.

We must repel Satan by establishing a foundation of the heart, as warriors centered on the name of God.

Jesus is the King of Kings, even in Receiving Suffering, Persecution, and Mockery

When we think of this—that God labored behind history on behalf of countless peoples for six thousand years—will there come some day those who know God’s heart, and will there come some day the day on which Jesus’ han is resolved and consummated (해원성사)?

And can we completely sever from the bloodline of our humankind the enemy Satan, who has tormented us relentlessly for six thousand years?

Today, our Unification Church members say they are the historical fruit. They speak eloquently. To truly become the historical fruit, one must inherit God’s heart.

To become the historical fruit, one must be grafted before the good Jesus and become a good blood lineage. Thereby, on any course of the cross, one must subjugate Satan and become the holy body of resurrection, body, and spirit united. Only then does one become the historical fruit.

We have learned the Principle. One who carries out God’s Word must not go forward for his own momentary desire. To center on this Word, one must have God’s heart. And when we go forward holding this historical Word of the Principle, Satan’s bloodline is bound to be cut off.

When we go forward holding the Word of the Principle, Satan is bound to surrender. We must become precisely such a band. One who, centered on this Word, realizes the position of completion as the substance of the Word becomes a substance.

Yet because the people and their religious body struck down the Jesus who had come to liberate the Israelite people in his day, Jesus came to wage struggles from the individual to the family, the clan, and the people. Only by being able to win those struggles can the divided spiritual world and physical world be unified.

This is why one must go to the spiritual world, shatter the authority of the darkness of Satan who dominates this earth and the spiritual world, and confront and win against the clans of the historical enemies one has fought clan by clan, and the countless evil spirits one has fought for thousands of years—only then does the spiritual world attain equilibrium. Thereafter, one must fight and win on earth. The course of restoration is set up that way.

This is why the completion of Jesus, the one person, is the completion of the Cosmos, and the victory of Jesus, the one person, becomes the victory of the Cosmos.

Jesus was the most pitiful person on this earth. He was the one who received the greatest suffering and lived in the most sorrow on this earth.

Today, people think Jesus was the King of Kings, born as the most blessed son amid God’s glory. But Jesus was the King of Kings even in receiving suffering, the King of Kings even in receiving persecution, and the King of Kings even in receiving mockery before countless enemies.

To Become Heavenly People

What do we go forward, hoping for today?

We must not become like the Israelite people, who were the chosen people (選民). We must become heavenly people (天民). When one says Israel, it means the chosen people (選民).

We must not become a people who are driven by the environment with the changes of the age. Heavenly people means God’s people. It means that, centered on God, that center and ideal began from the very beginning. In that sense, we must become heavenly people.

Do you know what one must do to become heavenly people? One must become that lineage. If Jesus comes to this earth to hand down the thought of heavenly people, we must become his lineage.

Just as if the Korean people are called the Baedal people (배달민족), the nation of Korea was formed centered on the Baedal people; we must become a people centered on Jesus.

Seen in that sense, the Christians spread throughout the whole world must be regarded as not yet having been organized into a people. You must realize this.

There is something the Christians spread throughout the world must realize: among the chosen people of Israel at that time, there was no Israelite who stood outside the genealogical sphere centered on the seventy elders.

Yet today’s Christianity is not united, centered on the twelve apostles or the seventy disciples, but each goes its own way. This is why they cannot but perish.

Just as the Israelite people came out into the wilderness and each behaved as it pleased, and so all perished, if there is sectarian strife, all perish. Wait and see whether they perish or not.

Whoever puts his sect first will perish.

Why does he perish?

If the Israelite people who came out following Moses had established a chain of command centered on the twelve tribes and the seventy-two elders and acted in unity through absolute obedience, they would not have fallen.

If Moses said go, they would go; come, they would come; bow down, they would bow down; fast, they would fast…. Yet they bit and fought one another and in the end perished. They became food for the vultures in the wilderness.

This is why the serious problem is how to unify the countless sects spread throughout the world.

If Jesus had organized the tribes with the seventy disciples, centered on the twelve apostles, and secured a foundation upon which the government of Israel could be established, they would not have perished.

The Mission of the Unification Church

What is the mission of our Unification Church today?

It is that we must fulfill such a mission. Seen historically, whenever someone established the truth and came forward with a new standard, he was always treated as a heretic. Yet history has been gathered and has developed through the footsteps of the bands that were chased and driven. We can see that revolutions, too, have been achieved as their recompense. History proves this.

Just as Judaism opposed early Christianity, let the whole world unite and oppose the Unification Church if it will. If they would oppose, let them oppose with all their might.

Only by that will we be saved for a thousand, ten thousand years. In Korea, the Teacher’s whole life thus far has been such.

Even while receiving persecution from Christianity and the people, I have continued an unseen inner struggle. Unless a victorious standard of unification is established from there, we cannot save face before the ancestors.

This is why the countless people on earth who communicate with the spirit world (영통인) recognize the Teacher. Whether they lie prostrate, praying on some mountainside, or do all sorts of things through spirit communication, they are bound to hear the Teacher’s words.

This is why it is the Unification Church. The Unification Church—how good it would be if it were actually unified, as the name says! Among the band that communicates with the spirit world, there are lords of the Way (道主).

So one must first subjugate these lords of the Way. One must conquer them by the principle of Heaven, by the principle of the heart.

One must conquer through the principle of the order of human relations (인륜) and the principle of the heavenly order. Do you understand what that means?

One must explain that this is the principle of the heavenly order by which God comes seeking, and this is the heart for seeking once more the humankind who have become His sons and daughters. And one must subjugate them all to whether you know what God’s heart was when Adam and Eve fell, and what God’s heart was when Jesus died on the cross.

Thereby, one must automatically obtain letters of protest from the countless lords of the Way of the spiritual world, who bear responsibility for the bonds about the Way (道的) and have the world’s spirit-communicators behind them.

Otherwise, the unification of the spiritual world is not achieved. We Unification members have no time to be holding on to worldly chatter or trifling things.

What Remains in the Last Days

What and how must you do today?

This ignorant and dark world—trampled and defiled by Satan’s toying for six thousand years—comes crashing against me, one individual. Satan attacks from the spiritual world onward.

Yet if only the standard is firmly set, then though heaven and earth quake and change, the place where I stand does not change. Even if the world comes crashing in, it is that world that breaks.

To achieve that, something must be present. What is it? What is it that remains in the Last Days? Even if all is shattered, what is it that will remain on the very last day? It is only God’s sons and daughters who will remain.

Then what kind of people are God’s sons and daughters?

Originally, human beings must be born through God’s lineage. And from birth, they must be raised in God’s bosom, receiving God’s love. Thereby, one must become God’s representative.

Yet the Christians of this earth say that when the Lord comes, original sin is removed; what does it mean that original sin is removed?

It means the restoration of the heart-based lineage that is not invaded by Satan. That is what will remain to the very last.

Then there is no need to explain that I am God’s son. No matter how Satan comes and denies it, it cannot be denied. A person on God’s side stands in a position that absolutely cannot be denied, such that even after one has lectured thousands of times, struggling, and then said “No,” it cannot be denied. Touch his heart, and he is on God’s side; look at his body, and he is on God’s side; look at anything else about him, and he is on God’s side; just set down a single handkerchief of his, and Satan flees. Such a person is what remains in the Last Days.

You must strive to become such a person who remains in the Last Days. This is why the Principle of the Unification Church is great.

There are foreigners here too, but wait and see in the future. You may be displeased, but in the future, I will attach a tag to every one of you and send you wandering across all eight provinces of the whole country. I may even have you crawl barefoot, trembling, along my touring route. In truth, let us not think of such things.

Since that is already past, let us leave it and look at today’s reality.

Looking at our Unification Church today, the Unification Church is lonely. Is it not? A lonely church, is it not? You say no? Why not?

The Unification Church is lonely; Unification members are a pitiful band; Unification members are a band that goes hungry…. Is it so, or is it not?

They are a band who, even when despised, do not know how to rebel for the sake of the Will. The teacher, too, if I were to string together my whole life and tell it, there is much history. Do you know what I mean?

You may think that, if you go to the Unification Church, the Teacher will be sitting there with his beard grown out, going, “Ahem!” —but that is a misunderstanding. So it is good for the Teacher to work.

Even strategically, it has turned out well. People of the world have their thoughts over there while their actions trail behind. They have it wrong. They keep cursing—that we are lewd, that we are this and that—but let them try. We are cursed and driven, but we do not perish. We only keep growing. Peel off the shell, and we do not die but come back to life again.

Goodness Prospers the More It Is Struck, and Evil Perishes the More It Is Struck

Our Unification Church has thus far received persecution from the Liberal Party, as well as the Democratic Party and the revolutionary government. None of those governments took our side.

Rumor has it that the Unification Church is somehow on the side of the revolutionary government, but not at all. That is said out of ignorance. The Unification Church is not the kind of church that takes the side of any political party.

Even amid this fierce persecution and trial today, we have survived without dying even once. Even if the chaotic society of the late twentieth century comes raging in the future, we can cope with it by holding the attitude of “I want to give it a try.” This is nothing compared to fighting after going to the spiritual world.

Today, countless religious bodies brand the Unification Church a heresy and judge it; what a shameful thing that judgment will later become!

Now, why do the ministers of the established churches oppose us?

It is because, no matter how much they say to the members they raised with hardship over decades, “You are my sons and daughters,” once those members are brought to our Unification Church and made to listen to even a few hours of lectures, they are bound to slip away from those churches.

Some cannot even attend the lectures due to a lack of room. But this is absolutely not coercion. Because we have a mission to harvest, when there is ripe fruit, we must gather it. There appears to be much slander from women these days, but why should I make enemies of them?

My friends, better to fight until you collapse in exhaustion than to die without even having fought. And what sense does it make to fight your hardest and then lose? It is the same with Satan.

If you say, “Hey, Satan! Mobilize all your power and ability, use your world, and try to win me over!” — Satan, too, will naturally surrender.

Jesus, too, went back to the spiritual world and built a foothold on earth through countless labors. All of these are what God accomplished in his stead. Overall, it was God who worked. This is why God is great.

For He has fulfilled the Will even amid everything’s opposition. This is why Heaven, struck and struck again, comes taking back what was lost. Evil, when struck, simply perishes; but goodness, the more it is struck, the more it develops. History has flowed that way.

Because Jesus stood on Heaven’s side, though he was driven out as a traitor to the people under Rome’s rule and died—which should have meant ruin—he instead lifts his head and shakes the world. Likewise, goodness is struck and prospers, but evil is struck and perishes.

And so I used to vow, “Father, the man Mun Sun-myung of the Unification Church is being struck a great deal now. But even if struck, I will be struck well. Even while taking a thorough beating, I will be struck so that no mark remains. Yet I will not become a person who is struck and perishes.” I vowed this countless times in my heart. A band that is struck and perishes is a historical traitor; if there is a band that is struck and yet prospers, they remain forever as the righteous, as the judges of history. You young people here—are you that way too? You ladies over there, too? These descendants of Eve…. But do not think the Teacher has cursed you.

In truth, when the Teacher thinks of Eve, she is like an enemy. What sin did Eve commit that humankind has suffered so wretchedly for six thousand years? So when I say “woman,” Eve comes to mind, and when I say “Eve,” the serpent comes to mind. But that does not mean you are so. Because the fallen Eve and the Teacher are enemies, I cannot help but hate her.

Up to now, how much cursing has Teacher Mun of the Unification Church received because of women?

They curse, saying this and that, and criticize, calling us decadent and so on. These creatures are called women…. But the women of the Unification Church are needed. If they all died just because someone said to die, that too would be a great problem.

So, the women who labor so much these days are not Eve but those on Eve’s side, are they not? Your wives over there—do you have the kind of mettle the Teacher spoke of?

You who were born at the end of this fin-de-siècle history—since you were born a man for once, you must settle the matter; and to achieve that, must you not, instead of slyly dodging about, grab the whole thing, throw away what is rotten, and finish it splendidly? Up to now, I have done it that way.

A Warning to Those Who Desire Blessing

The Teacher needed boundless resources. At a worksite, I am a first-class laborer. There is nothing I cannot do. So I am a person who never needs to worry about making a living. Yet suppose I go to some worksite and work—if someone thinks, “Ah, the Teacher of the Unification Church is doing this work because he is hard up for a living,” that is a great misunderstanding.

I can go anywhere right now and do anything with this body. And there is no work I have not tried. Whatever I once took hold of, there is nothing I have not seen through to the end. And whatever I set out to do somewhere, even doing it casually, I place within the top three. Perhaps God, being wise, chose well a special sort like me.

In work I once set my hand to and began, I am not satisfied until I see it through, even if my life should run out and I die along the way. If it is to be done trivially, I do not even begin in the first place. The day anyone takes hold of a task, it is one of two: either you perish, or I perish.

When I set out on this path, too, I dug to the very end, asking, “Is there a God?” and set out only after knowing for certain that God exists. Next, I asked, “God, hast Thou a wish?” and learned that God has a wish. And I asked, “God, hast Thou need of me?” and learned that I am needed.

“How much, then, dost Thou need me?” I pressed. In this way, once I went and clung to God, God had either to answer me or to pack up His bundle and go elsewhere. You, too, must have something like that.

The Teacher has studied human beings a great deal. People are nothing special. If I take hold of a woman in a tavern and, knowing what she most grieves over, say just a few words, she will shed tears. I can guide her to become a good person.

A good person must be able to embrace an evil person. Even when I was in prison, because a murderer-robber was next to me, I went very close and spoke with him. Then there was an explosion of true heart from him. When one triggers an explosion of true heart, there is no one who does not come back to life. This is why love requires adventure.

So one must give good things often. Then good things come seeking you. When I watch quietly, I see that the spiritual world labors on one’s behalf.

Today, people say, “O God, give me a blessing!” “Give me great blessing!” — but is blessing visible? They do not know that the greater their greed, the greater the chastisement. They ask only for a great blessing. But even if a great blessing is given, they cannot swallow it.

You who await only great blessing, you who cultivate the Way to receive blessing, know that blessing has a lump attached to it! O, you who desire to receive a great blessing! When it is turned around, it is like an enormous burden; know that a great blessing can, on the contrary, become a suffering from which you cannot escape.

The Place Where One Can Receive Blessing

What I worry about, from the position of guiding the Unification Church, is that I must, without fail, raise the world of Heaven upon this earth. I know that even if I fail in doing that work, God forgives me. To receive a great blessing, one needs a support that can bear that blessing.

We must handily overcome whatever course of trial we are on. Establishing the tradition of a nation and a people and answering to that national spirit also depends on one’s frame of mind.

When, over several generations, there appear people who establish such a tradition, establish bonds of heart, and can break through worldwide confusion, from then on, those people develop.

This is why, if you come to know the Will, it is infinitely high; if you come to know the Will, you will surely become sons and daughters of Heaven, royalty of Heaven—but in which direction will you set your course? The time to live in a place where one can receive blessings has drawn near, yet if you cannot bear the blessings and have it all taken away, you become a beggar.

We must take our place not where blessing is taken away but where blessing can be received. One must enter that sphere (圈). The Teacher knows that Heaven can open ground starting from the part that believes in this way.

Entering the Unification Church does not mean receiving a blessing right away.

The Teacher too underwent the suffering of begging for food, and there were times of being turned away at the door.

You have come to know that the path the teacher walks is true. And you have come to know that Heaven is not false but true. Then you must attend Heaven truly.

When you go to a place of hunger, starve like a hungry person; when you go to a place of death, grieve more than the loyal subjects of the past grieved when they entered such places, and be more earnest than they. Without becoming the master of such a heart, one cannot face the heavenly order.

We must realize that there are Heaven’s circumstances by which it must drive the exhausted and driven band of the Unification Church down such a path. Though the path the Teacher has walked thus far has been rough, whenever God commanded me to go, I forsook myself and, holding back tears, sought to explode like a final bomb.

By doing so, I was able to achieve today’s success. I could see that Heaven upheld me until there was this today. That Heaven was with me remains as living evidence on the historical course of the past.

Even when I wished that Heaven would not be with me, it was with me. The reason Heaven counsels one to such a place and drives one into such a place is that there is a true love seeking to prepare a ground that can give blessing forever and ever.

Where will you build the Kingdom of Heaven?

You came into the Unification Church and were resolved to lay down your lives for this work, and you took oaths. We vowed to live solely for the Will and to die solely for the Will.

But when will that victorious foundation we vowed to build be realized? Will it be a resting nest?

Or will it be a place where wind and rain rage and storms rage, and where, in the midst of that, one slight misstep could cost you your center? It is the latter. In such a place, one must be able to plant at least a signpost to lay the victorious foundation Heaven has awaited, and one must become a person who can live as Heaven desires. If one becomes such a person, even God cannot forsake him.

In one sense, you may say the Teacher is heartless. Yet what I desire is that the band of the Unification Church, even if it comes to stand at the edge of a cliff to walk the historical path, will not fall but go forward and build up the hope of victory.

God’s Providence of Restoration and Han

Look. The path of restoration on which God has worked is not simple. Six thousand years of history have flowed from the very beginning until now and reached the period of the end; yet if one despairs and falls because of being persecuted, Heaven’s Will is not fulfilled.

For six thousand years, God walked the steps of love and laid hold of me. Therefore, unless I pioneer one path by which we can return, the Will is not fulfilled.

Until now, we have striven to prepare a foundation by which we can return, centered on the individual; but now is the time when we can form a clan centered on the self, a people centered on the family, a nation centered on the people, and a world centered on humankind, and thereby return.

We must realize that the teacher’s demand spoken of here is the wish of our historical ancestors and the wish of Heaven, which guided the ancestors.

If it be that the mission to consummate this historical resolution of grievance—the resolution of Heaven’s grievance and the resolution of the ancestors’ grievance—lies with us today, we must go forward silently, in an utterly solemn posture. The path of restoration must be walked that way.

My friends, look. For three years, we suffered. We could not eat properly or dress properly. Yet we did not grow weary. While the Teacher was at headquarters, I heard that a certain member snatched and ate a dog’s food.

Toward a dog that was eating its food because it was hungry, he said, “Hey, you brute, you may eat your food for the sake of your one master, but I live for the sake of humankind and for heaven and earth, so this food is mine to eat! Mine to eat!” —and ate that food.

So I heard. There must be days when, even while eating a dog’s food, one can appeal before Heaven. As the teacher, it troubles me more to have you eat dog’s food while I eat barley rice.

We—we are a band steeped in han (恨). We must go forward, gritting our teeth. Otherwise, eventually, the Satan who watches for a chance will toy with us. We must go forward with tears each day and rouse ourselves all the more so as not to be defeated.

My friends! We must hold fast to the tradition of Heaven; though there be times when we live with tears, holding the Will to the full, there can never be a time when we betray Heaven and say, “I have no strength; I cannot go on.” We must not become such people.

Even while collapsing under beatings in prison, the Teacher, though I bled, comforted God and was rather apologetic to Him. Before the God who knows such circumstances beforehand, I could make no appeal and no complaint. I only gazed at the path to go and went silently toward the destination.

If You Think of God’s Han, You Can Overcome Your Han

Those who enter the Unification Church now probably do not know such things well. I mean, they do not know the history of the Unification Church.

Why would one show beloved sons and daughters that inferior, wretchedly suffering figure?

Heaven, too, does not wish to teach us that. Yet when one says one wants to know that reality and explores all the way to the very bottom, only then does God teach it.

Whenever we study the Principle, or whenever we enter the place of singing of Heaven’s heart, why did Heaven teach the heart hidden on the historical course?

We must realize that when the heart that wishes to know that heart is more earnest than the heart that wishes to hide it, Heaven manifests a new principle upon the earth for us. My friends, do you understand what I mean?

If you truly wish to know the Teacher’s history, you must be as anguished as the Teacher’s heart, anguished in facing God, was greater than God’s heart that wished to keep that heart hidden.

If you are, I will teach you. But I have not yet met a Unification Church person who truly seeks to stand in such a place.

As for han, I am a person who, if one speaks of much han, has infinitely much. I appealed my han even at the sight of a pebble rolling by the roadside and appealed my han even at the sight of a single living blade of grass. With history as witness, I have resented my own forlorn self and resented my lot gazing at the stars. On the path of restoration I must walk, I have even held the heart of a straggler-soldier.

Yet, knowing how much Heaven despaired after sending human beings for the sake of the restoration of the Cosmos, how sorrowful the Heavenly Father’s heart was, and how much han the Heavenly Father had, I came forward saying that, even if I die a thousand and ten thousand times and my body is torn into a thousand and ten thousand pieces, I will not add sorrow to the Father. I endured everything, saying that currently I came to leave behind the two words “I die”; at the hour of my death, I would not leave a will that said, “If only I had offered more devotion, if only I had tried this, it would have been good.” Such a family is the true family of unification, the band of unification.

My friends! Think of the three-year course. Think of how you moved before the Will during the three-year course. God’s history of restoration came by establishing a family-level standard of restoration through an individual-level standard of restoration.

God is gazing upon restoration from the supreme victorious hope upon the Cosmos, but have you ever dreamed of individual restoration upon a victorious foundation that transcends heaven and earth?

Have you dreamed of family restoration?

Have you dreamed of national restoration, restoration of the nation-state, world restoration, or the restoration of the Cosmos? — That is what I ask.

Seeing my hair turning white these days, past the age of forty, I comforted God thus: “Father! Do not grieve at the sight of me. My resolve and hope were thus, but do not grieve, Father, that at this age I could not realize before the Father such a day of hope.

The band of the Unification family now growing will surely have a day when they uphold that Will and establish the duty of loyalty and filial piety before the Father.” Yet, having comforted Him thus, when I look at you, there are many times I feel sorry before God.

At such times, anyone with a true conscience feels deep shame at having to say, before the Father, that he has not had true children.

If there is a person with such a conscience, his descendants will from there walk a good path.

So, you band of unification—when you think of God’s anguished heart and Jesus’ circumstances, you must know how to be ashamed: ashamed before heaven, ashamed before the earth, ashamed at the sight of a tree or a flying bird, ashamed that you did not fulfill the responsibility given on the course of restoration.

The Kingdom of Heaven Is the Path That Breaks Through the Bottom of Hell

Though we now stand on the trial course of restoration, we must become a heart that always prays, asleep or awake, sitting or standing, to lay an individual foundation, a family foundation, a national foundation, and a worldwide foundation.

Whenever I gaze at people who eat well and live well, I want to ask them whether the place where they are is truly the place God rejoices in.

The descendants of blessed families ought to reach such a place, yet when I think of them living in rags, going hungry, and meeting the cold wind in the wilderness, the Teacher’s heart aches.

Yet we still have a path left to walk. My friends, let us think once more. Ask whether I am a person fit to stand before this heavenly history, God’s providence of restoration.

Ask with Noah as a witness, ask with Abraham as a witness, ask with Jacob as a witness, ask with Moses as a witness, ask with Jesus as a witness, and go seek and ask the countless prophets who walked the path of martyrdom over two thousand years.

You must consider whether you can proudly say you fulfilled your responsibility on the individual course of restoration and whether you can say with a clear conscience that you won on the family course of restoration.

If the clan and national courses of restoration remain, it is our mission to restore them. And yet you must not fail to become a person who can commune in true circumstances.

You must consider the Father’s aching heart, which seeks to call together once more the stragglers on the path of the Will and raise them again. If you forget that aching heart of the Father, the Principle will judge you.

The path of restoration before you today is a path of sorrow. When I think of it, it is a path even I do not wish to walk. There is much han. It is a lonely path. So it is for God, and so it is for Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is a path that cannot but be walked.

You must clearly realize that the Kingdom of Heaven is a path one reaches by passing through hell. The Kingdom of Heaven is not reached by avoiding hell. It is reached by breaking through the very bottom of hell.

The Teacher knows all the local circumstances of our Unification Church and feels them all in my heart. It is not only when I appear before you that I speak of them.

When I see the young people here, I want to say this: fulfill your responsibility when you can.

If you fail to fulfill your responsibility, you will feel sorrow. If you feel such a thing, you must cross over by heart. The path of restoration is a path crossed over by the heart. And you must realize that Heaven first traversed that path tens of millions of times.

Let Us Believe Greatly and Cross Over Greatly

This path of restoration I walk is not a path I walk alone. This path is a path our ancestors traversed tens of millions of times, a path God traversed tens of millions of times. It is not a path you walk alone.

The Teacher acted and commanded in person, so you must, without fail, obey. It is not to simply make use of you.

That the band of unification crosses the hill of hope, crosses the hill Satan cannot follow over, and heads toward the new heaven and earth—yet it is stifling beyond all words.

What Jesus said when he came to this earth was,

“I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?” (Luke 12:49).

You must realize that within this saying lies a sorrow of Jesus that cannot be unraveled.

In any nation, the loyal subject who attends the sovereign feels that the more wretched and difficult the nation’s circumstances become, the more piercing the heart toward the king. Just so, I know that the path walked silently, bearing the Will without a word—where, though others turn back, I cut straight across and go, bearing the resolve not to shrink even from a decisive battle staked on my life—is the path the sons and daughters of Heaven walk, the path the band of the Unification Church walks. What do you think?

When the Teacher sometimes calls the children and talks with them, if such-and-such a plan is not carried out, I let them think of it and teach them only the path to go.

You are going forward seeking God’s nation, are you not?

Yet we must inherit in full, on today’s course of restoration, that heart with which our ancestors faced Heaven. With such a solemn task before you, with what posture will you face that task?

Because the Teacher resolved before God and set out on the providential course, I tell you not to die before such a task. Do not die, do not die, but set out again and go.

This Will set out from Korea and is spreading out to the world; how complex and full of confusion is this world today! The more the world meets complex problems, the more it crumbles down. But we keep rising.

If you will not rise, because there are many spirits in the spiritual world, they will seek to rise. And if the Korean people do not rise, the countless humankind of the twentieth century will rise.

If we rise just a little, just a little more, Korea will turn. Such an age is coming. You of the Unification Church must be thankful when that age comes. You must realize that such a phenomenon will unfold in the not-too-distant future.

To bring such a day, the struggle of a single day is not the issue. Since we seek to set up a great plan for a thousand, ten thousand years, one year, two years, ten years, twenty years, or even a lifetime, it is not the issue.

You must be able to set up such a plan and resolve to go to the very end. Since we set out for God’s sake, let us go to the end.

Of course, we may meet fierce storms along the way. At such times, let us attend to God and escape them. Then God will surely send down blessings.

We are in a reality where we must accomplish this historical task and, embracing Heaven’s han, must consummate its resolution.

If you go left, heaven and earth go left; if you go right, heaven and earth go right; so you must set your posture straight and go forward seeking the great Way of the principle of Heaven. Will you become a filial son, a loyal subject, a faithful wife, a filial daughter, or a sorrowful figure standing for all eternity in the pit of Satan together with the enemies of Heaven and the enemies of humankind?

The heart of Heaven that had to be made known, I have made known in full; the path of Heaven that had to be illumined, I have illumined in full; the Way of Heaven that had to be shown, I have shown in full.

Now there remains only the problem of whether you grow well or not. Depending on whether you use this well or not, the path of restoration will be shortened or prolonged.

The Difficulties on the Path of Restoration

Where does han lie?

Abraham’s not cleaving a single dove was his han. On Jacob’s course, Esau and Laban were Jacob’s enemies.

On Moses’ course too, being driven by the Israelite people in the wilderness was his han.

On the course you walk as well, you must, equipping yourself in the present and gazing at your own future value, become a subject who can rightly handle the present.

You must become a historical starting point, a single substance that can turn around the future history. Only then will you walk the path of restoration for your own sake with gratitude.

My friends, are you resolved? This is the path of restoration. Then what will become of the path of restoration centered on you?

Set down a single individual, and the past and future are connected, centered on today. Past, present, and future are related. The future is related, and the past is related. Centered on the past, present, and future, the fortune of heaven and earth turns round and round.

Then, where do you wish to have yourself settle?

I hope you press forward with confidence. When God comes to render His final judgment, with my body and mind as the ground, only when my individual self becomes the scripture and the law book of judgment and lays a foundation so absolute that it is not caught even under judgment, is individual restoration consummated.

Now is the time to complete the family upon the completion of the individual. The history of the family becomes material for judgment. So when we come to be judged, we must become a pure family that Satan cannot accuse. Only then can we achieve family-level restoration and complete the national foundation.

When the national foundation of victory is completely laid, we can judge all the people of the satanic world, and God Himself stands in the seat of the judge. At that time, Jesus becomes the defense counsel, and Satan becomes the prosecutor.

Only when, as the peoples spread throughout the world and attack Satan, we lay an absolute foundation of victory that receives no protest, can we say we have walked the national path of restoration.

Such a person becomes the lord of redemption of the nation, the world, heaven and earth, and all humankind. And so, when he, in the cosmic world that will unify the spiritual world and the physical world, completes the enormous historical standard of total indemnity, prepares the great judgment seat of countless ages centered on heaven and earth, attends the Father, the Creator, and mercilessly judges the enemy who has defiled heaven and earth until now—only when he establishes a standard at which all, from the betrayer down to the coward, cannot protest and must say it is just, is the course of restoration of heaven and earth consummated. If that is indeed so, think about it. How fearsome it is!

Because it is a history of suffering, Heaven sets me up and drives me out at every opening. Having set up the individual, it drives him onto the family-level course of tribulation of the cross; having set up the family, it drives them onto the national course of tribulation; and centering on the people, it drives them to the nation-state and the world.

So, being chosen is precious, but the path of being blessed as one chosen is exceedingly difficult. Because it is easy to fail to understand the God who seeks, raises, and blesses us, and to resent Him, we must understand well that the path of restoration is difficult.

We must not forget that, even when we eat, we are in a position of having to resolve the han of our countless ancestors in the heavens. Judgment is not something only human beings on earth do.

So please do not be deceived by what is treacherous, but become those who go toward the standard to which God calls you. Thereby, become those who can be embraced by the Father, who wails aloud and gives the praise of having won, and who can sing hallelujah before the Father.

The Final Purpose of the Path of Restoration

And so we must go all the way to the place of receiving the blessing from the Father, “Let the whole Cosmos commemorate this for hundreds of millions of ages,” the place of the position of True Parents.

You must realize that this is the last stage on the path of restoration. So, my friends, do not die. Until that responsibility is fulfilled, you must not die.

This is why we need a strategy before the world. We must be able to set this tangled world right, centered on True Parents.

When a person must cross over the worldwide course of restoration through indemnity, there is a five percent responsibility. At this point, even glory is unnecessary.

We established a national standard and sent missionaries to the many nations of the world; we have taken root in America, like the Rome that was the worldwide center in Jesus’ day, and taken root in our nation, like Israel.

So our situation differs from the circumstances of Jesus, who was driven, persecuted, and made to suffer by Judaism and the Israelite people. Now, however much they oppose, it is of no use.

You know how what the Teacher said over the past several years has turned out now. Having seen with your eyes and heard with your ears, you have now come to understand. Though it is what one person says, you will have noticed that history is reflected in its content.

Behind the teacher of the Unification Church, there is Heaven.

If only we could fight a billion Satans, die, and have our corpses buried in the land of Canaan, that could only be a glory. Because to be buried in the land of Egypt would become a great han, Jacob and Joseph, at the point of death, left a will: please, after I die, bury me in the homeland.

Now the age has passed in which it would be such a han to fight and die in the land of Korea. The satanic world is bound to collapse in any case. You, too, must bear your share of responsibility here and give your whole life.

I ask that, receiving the right of inheritance of the Cosmos before the providence of restoration, you become a person who can go forward at any time. Do you understand? Raise your hands, those who will do so.

Prayer

Father! That, on this savage course where countless people envy us and tell us to die, we have nonetheless not died—this is solely Thy grace. Even amid the sorrow of having to resolve alone while countless people glared and pointed fingers, by Thy protection, we now stand on a path that can rejoice, going forward toward the victory of one day. When we think that the responsibility lies with us to wind up and overturn the whole history of sin in a dignified posture, we give thanks.

Looking at the present international situation, Korea is placed in an exceedingly pitiful reality. It is placed in a state where it can go nowhere. We see once again that these people, who can go nowhere, are now entering an age in which there is nothing left to look to but Heaven.

Now Korea must seek the one God. It must once again call up, from within its heart, the lost world and Cosmos. I have come to know that the Korean people, among the many peoples of the world, are a people that has devoted sincerity to God, a people that has not spared its heart’s blood for the history of goodness.

Since these people, being bound by providence, have shouldered a worldwide responsibility, grant that, even amid the swirling turmoil, they may become a people that does not despair and does not fall—Father, this we earnestly beseech Thee.

Father! Who can know the Father’s heart, and who can fathom the path the Father walks? There is none but the one who knows and the one who has been charged with the responsibility.

When we gaze upon the ignorant people, we can do nothing but wail, and when we gaze upon the lives living on the earth in the midst of sin, we come to know that we have the responsibility and the wonderful mission to guide them by whatever means. We know that we have the responsibility to go to them even while starving and stand before Heaven and the responsibility to clothe them even while we ourselves are naked.

Is there a band of unification sunk in sorrow on such a course? O Father, remove that sorrow. Grant that they may not become dropouts. Grant that they may not become those who leave sorrow and worry before the Father on the final battlefield—my Father, this we earnestly beseech Thee.

Even now, we do not know that the path of seeking Heaven, from the past until now, is this difficult. Is not-knowing a sin?

If not knowing is not a sin, forgive us. And since some block the path ahead of the band of unification, we earnestly entreat Thee to pardon their ignorance.

We know that heaven and earth are one, that heaven and earth are the Father’s, and that all sons and daughters are the Father’s. Grant that the good ancestors who labored to establish twelve children and establish twelve tribes may restore that bloodstained trace (血跡) through indemnity and govern this age—Father, this we earnestly beseech Thee.

Through thousands of years of coming forth to seek a day of victory on the course of the much-han history of restoration that remains, we give thanks that today we come to shoulder the burden to repay Thee before that heart.

We know that the path we must walk, establishing an ideology before tens of millions of forms, is the path of restoration. Grant that we may become sons and daughters who, until the dirt enters our eyes in death, become a plus to that something by which we can without fail remove the Father’s han and return it to Thee—this we earnestly beseech Thee.

Before the much-honored path of restoration that we still must walk, we must raise high the Father’s standard of glory, win, and be able to receive the praise of our descendants forever.

Grant that we may become sons and daughters who can receive the praise of our descendants and prepare an eternal foundation of victory—this we earnestly beseech Thee.

Father, protect the path ahead of the pitiful band of unification spread throughout the world today. Since we know that they are children who yearn with tears of blood and long to see Thee with anxious hearts, Father! Fill their hearts.

Father, on the day when the Will is fulfilled and a worldwide great family is formed, be Thou alone the Father. Embrace us with love, and, realizing a world of love, grant that there may not be even a hair’s breadth (毫釐) of the mind of Satan that criticizes others—this we earnestly beseech Thee. All these words we have offered in the name of the Lord. Amen.