When we look at your activities centering upon your families, there is much to be corrected. In your families, sons and daughters will be born before you receive the Blessing, and sons and daughters will be born after you receive the Blessing.
Yet although the children born after you received the Blessing ought to become the model in our church, there are many cases in which they do not become the model. On the whole, they show such a tendency.
Previously Married Blessed Families Must Give Double Loyalty
In the end, we cannot but think that those parents did not fulfill their responsibility. In other words, the question is whether the result of the parents’ not fulfilling their responsibility as parents toward their children, whether in family life or in church life, has not brought considerable hindrance to those children’s road of faith. I would like to mention that unless such a problem is corrected, we cannot but reconsider the matter of the Blessing for previously married families (기성가정) hereafter.
When we consider such a problem, it means that since you have become parents, you must, to the very end, take responsibility for having failed to take responsibility for teaching your children about the life of the Will. A Blessed Family must fulfill the responsibility of raising sons and daughters of faith centering upon the Will, but it must also carry out the responsibility for its sons and daughters. The Blessed Family bears a double responsibility.
You will have sons and daughters of faith, sons and daughters born before you received the Blessing, and sons and daughters born after you received the Blessing. They form, as it were, a pattern like formation, growth, and completion; and I think that how to educate these sons and daughters is a more complicated problem than anything else.
If you do not resolve this problem in a model way hereafter, will it not exert considerable influence upon the countless families who will receive the previously married Blessing hereafter and upon their sons and daughters? I regard this problem as an important responsibility that you must bear. When we consider it from that position, you must make all your sons and daughters faithful in church life.
Among you, those parents whose sons and daughters were born before receiving the previously married Blessing and are over fifteen years of age, raise your hands. It is probably the great majority. Since you are Blessed Families, your children must become the model in carrying out official service hereafter.
We must examine concretely the question of how many of those children, after receiving the previously married family Blessing, are exemplary sons and daughters in carrying out official service within the organizational sphere of our Association hereafter.
Then, among those sons and daughters, those who have carried out official service, raise your hands. There are only a few. If those sons and daughters are over fifteen, there will be middle school students, and high school students, and university students.
If they are middle school or high school students, ought they not to be raised as active members centering upon the middle and high school students within our Association’s structure?
Again, if there are sons and daughters of an age above that, ought they not to be raised in numbers as personnel who can take the responsibility of regional leader or sub-district leader of our Association?
Again, if there are sons and daughters of an age above that, ought they not to be raised in numbers as personnel who can take the responsibility of regional leader or sub-district leader of our Association?
If the previously married families are 250 families, then even taking only one third of those 250 families, it exceeds 80 families; ought not at least these 80 families to be able to produce people of sub-district leader level? It means that this is a matter that can be so not necessarily with a son but even with a daughter.
When we consider such things, I would like to mention that this is a point at which we cannot but re-evaluate the question of how thorough the previously married families have been, until now, in living the life of the Will, centering upon the family.
Still more, because you are previously married families, you must become an example before other families. Since previously married families are different from ordinary Blessed Families, you must give double loyalty before the Will, more than families formed by unmarried young men and women receiving the Blessing. It has become the reverse. Even giving double loyalty, one would barely be equal to families blessed as unmarried young men and women; yet, in activity and in all the disciplined life of the family, they are not even one half of them, which is a problem that must be corrected.
First, One Must Become an Example Before One’s Children
From this perspective, the Teacher’s thought is that the previously married families are now placed at a point at which they must strengthen their responsibility across the board for the life of the Will of their growing children. It means that this is seen not only by the Teacher but also by the officers of the Association and by the responsible individuals scattered throughout the whole country. You must know this.
Therefore, you, as previously married families, must all the more devote your strength hereafter to consolidating the life of the Will centering upon your children in your family life. Thus, I want to ask that hereafter you not stand in a position of being criticized in that respect.
For that, the parents must become the model in the life of the Will. Whether in the life of prayer in the home or in family service, in whatever aspect, you must show your children a life of faith that is not inferior to that of the established churches. And you must make them recognize how important the Pledge service (경배식) hour is. At that hour one must not end merely with the service of pledge, but as parents, one must educate one’s children centering upon the Will.
To educate children, the parents must first put it into practice. The parents must become the example and be loyal to the Will. Thus, they must set themselves in a position in which, whatever word the parents may speak, the children can revere their parents without a word of retort. It means that otherwise the children do not follow.
When the children, centering upon the Will and the Principle that they themselves know, see that in church life the parents neglect the principles directed by headquarters and do not live according to those directions while telling only the children to live according to the Principle and its principles, it means that they sneer. When we consider such a problem, we cannot but think of the problem of a re-examination of actual life.
Then what must previously married families do?
First, they must be thorough in church life. For that, they must strictly keep the official service hours. They must become the model in the hours at which they must officially attend.
Next, they must become the model in official activity. Among the things of the life of the Will, you will know well the course of restoration through indemnity. You will know well that it is a course one cannot but walk, a course one must walk, staking one’s destiny. Just as you know this well, it means that your children too know it well. Yet when the children see that the parents cannot walk the road the parents must walk, the children will criticize it. When it becomes so, the parents cannot exert influence over their children.
If, having the weakness of the parents not having carried out their responsibility, one could not exert influence upon one’s children, that cannot but be linked to the problem that the parents have been negligent in the life of the Will.
Therefore, whether you attend official assemblies will be a problem, and next, whether you carry out your responsibility in official activity will be a problem, and next, whether in family life you become a model as parents before your children will be a problem.
When Sunday comes, on which service is officially offered, one ought to educate one’s children to make it a way of life to offer devotion from dawn to greet the service hour and to dedicate that day before God; yet despite that, they do everything they have to do…. While saying they live the life of the Will, they neither pray, nor offer devotion, nor study the Principle, nor witness. Having done nothing whatsoever when the Sunday service hour is ten thirty, to attend in time for that hour, they ought to set out at nine thirty or ten to arrive before the service hour; yet it means that they set out from home only after the hour has come and come in during the service and quietly sit down. When it becomes so, it means that one is without fail criticized. It means that however much one educates one’s children from the position of a parent, it does not take effect.
Therefore, you must show the model in public life. In other words, you must be thorough in church life and must be thorough in official activity as well. These two things are the problem.
You will live belonging to some neighborhood group of your village, if it be a village. It means that how much you strive there, in living your life, to absorb that whole group before the Will has a profound influence upon the education of your children. It means that the difference in life after living centered upon the Will, that is, how exemplary a life one lives in the village and how exemplary a relationship one forms in human relations, cannot but become an object of your children’s criticism. Therefore, you must consolidate your public life.
Next is your private life. When husband and wife live the life of the Will in the home, what is there that is different from before the Blessing or after the Blessing? It means that if the husband is stubborn in his own way and the wife is irritable in her own way and nags more than in former days, it does not become an example to the children. It must be different from former days. It must be markedly different. How one becomes different and creates the conditions by which one can be respected by one’s children is an important problem. Therefore, in private life too, one must become a model.
Thoroughness in Public Life, Exemplariness in Private Life
Because they know the Will, I regard them as on the whole better than in former days; yet the children will have their standard by which they look. It means that if they are over fifteen, a standard of criticism has already been set up in them in their own way, and so they know all the rights and wrongs of Mother and Father.
Even if they are only ten years old, they know all whether the mother does well or badly. By about fifteen, their eyes are already opened to society. It means that concerning their friends’ families too, a standard is set up by which they can criticize everything, saying what a certain friend’s family is like and what those parents are like.
Therefore, if there is no difference at all between the parents the children looked at in former days and the parents they look at now, those parents cannot educate their children. Therefore, one must be markedly different from the past. In family life and in human relations in that village, such things cannot but become a problem. It means that the child, in his own way, holds a view that a person who goes centering upon the Will must be thus and so and looks at his parents and marks them.
And so, when they become parents beyond what he has marked, the children submit before those parents without a word. When it becomes so, if the parents with parental authority say, “Now, it must be like this,” it means that they say, “Yes.” There can be no disobedience there.
But when the parents do not become parents beyond the standard the child has marked, saying that parents must be thus and thus and are below that standard, it means that they come to distrust their parents. It means that if the difference from that standard is ten, they come to distrust their parents not merely by ten but by more than three times that. Knowing that such problems and the like lie within, you must carry on an exemplary family life in your private life.
Yet consider how many people among the Blessed Families come out before the service hour on Sunday and prepare. It means that they come in timed exactly for the moment when all the hymns have been sung and it is the hour for the sermon.
How can such people be called people who follow the Will?
It means that such people, however much they excuse themselves, are living not a public life but a private life. It means that there is no content whatever on which to place any hope or expectation in such people. Therefore, you must, through this assembly, be newly awakened before the Will and resolve upon thoroughness in public life and exemplariness in private life, and go.
Therefore, the Blessed Families must, without a single one missing, come before the service hour and create an atmosphere of grace for the countless lives who attend the service and must impart grace to them. Thus, if the district leader, if it be the district leader, or the regional leader, if it be the regional leader, steps onto the platform, one makes and supports such a foundation of heart, and then in preaching the sermon, the minister can look upon the earnest expressions of the members and receive stimulation. The more such personnel there are, the more that church develops.
Then within our system, who must become such personnel?
Must it be families who have not received the Blessing or families who have received the Blessing?
Needless to say, it must be the families who have received the Blessing. Hereafter, you Blessed Families must be bound together, centering upon the responsible person in the church of the region if it be the region, or of the district if it be the district, to which you belong. Is this not the actual situation of the whole of the local churches, that this has not yet been systematized? Of course there will be those who do so, but it means that the whole must do so.
When we consider the problem of the service hour and the problem of activity, hereafter the previously married families too will have to be mobilized. Of course, if there are difficult circumstances, it will not do….
If the women are mobilized, the men must all take responsibility for the work the women do. Therefore, you must, through this assembly, resolve to be thorough in church life and public life and go. That will of course be for the church’s sake, but it will also exert a profound influence upon the education of the children in your families.
One Must Take Responsibility for the Guidance of Children’s Faith
Your children too will in any case hear the words of the Principle. Then it means do not leave it at that. If they, as teenagers, have heard the words of the Principle, then after hearing them they may acknowledge the scope and content of the Principle in words, but they do not know the content to the degree that it can exert influence in relation to society. In order for that time to come, one must without fail pass through a temporal process.
It means that at least they must be past twenty. Then it means that if one is indifferent to the sons and daughters who heard the words of the Principle at fifteen or sixteen, by the time they pass twenty, they will seek, in that intervening process, forms of life far removed from the content of the Principle.
Still more, we now do not carry on activity with the family as our principal concern but with society as our principal concern, and so we have a system of activity in which the young ones easily criticize it and neglect it. Since we are in such a situation, you who are parents must take responsibility for your children.
Therefore, if a child heard the words of the Principle in his teens, do not leave it at merely having heard and known them, but it means in the home, let father and mother regard their sons and daughters as friends and hold discussions with them as well.
It means once a week if it be a week, or once a month if it be a month, centering upon some problem in the life of faith; let the sons and daughters ask the parents and the parents ask the sons and daughters and answer one another and hold discussion.
If one does so, then it means that the words heard in the home in the teenage years do not end there, but on passing into the twenties, they can apply those words of the Principle to their living environment. It means that you must support them and prepare a stepping stone so that it does become so.
Yet you are not doing this. It should not end merely with coming to church; one ought to make it universal upon entering the home as well, yet it means that by neglecting this, such a result has been brought about. It means that at church one does this and that, but on entering the home, one does not do this and that. Then our families ought to become an example to other families, but who must create the motive that can give such stimulation? The sons and daughters cannot create it. The parents must create it.
In order for a person to develop, to attain some purpose, he must without fail receive stimulation. To attain a purpose of one hundred, there must be a resolve of one hundred, and one must pass through that much distance of time.
That is to say, one must pass through a certain period. In passing through that time, there must be a driving force. That driving force arises only when stimulation is given from time to time. It means that if stimulation is not given, it will not do.
Then who must give the stimulation?
The official life at the church perhaps can be a stimulation that can serve as a temporary substitute, but it cannot enter into a close relationship directly within the sphere of life and give stimulation. Therefore, the parents must take responsibility and give the stimulation by which that purpose can be accomplished. This is a fact.
Centering upon such content, you must educate your children from a new angle and universalize faith throughout the whole of life. From the viewpoint that the sons and daughters of Blessed Families must be more thorough than the children of members who have not received the Blessing, I hope that you will guide your children anew hereafter.
Among you, if there are those whose sons and daughters, born after you received the Blessing, received the Blessing of the 430 Couples or have been decided upon as candidates for this Blessing of the Seven Hundred Couples, raise your hands.
One, two, three, four, … twenty-four, twenty-five; it is twenty-five. This number is one-tenth of you. And those who have sons and daughters of an age suitable to receive the Blessing, raise your hands. One, two, three, four, … thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two; there are more. And those who have sons and daughters who are not forming a relationship with the church, raise your hands. Lower them.
You must, without fail, settle your children in a place of faith by forming a relationship with the church before they reach twenty. In other words, it means that if you cannot settle them before they reach the third year of high school, from the middle school years until the first and second years of high school, you will lose those sons and daughters. That has come out in the statistics our Association has produced until now. It means that if you cannot settle them, whether in the home or in the church, by the age of seventeen, those sons and daughters flow away into society. This is a grave problem.
Live According to Heaven’s Formal Order
If, when you go to the spirit world hereafter, you cannot take your sons and daughters with you, it becomes an eternal cross. In the age of paradise until now, families were all bound to be separated according to the spiritual standard at the time of going to paradise. Yet if hereafter one goes to the spirit world in the form of a family, that family alone slips through.
In this way, if parents and brothers all go to the Kingdom of Heaven and there is a child left out from there, would not the parents feel responsibility for that child?
In this way, the problem concerning children is not a problem of this earth alone. You must know that a grave and weighty problem is interposed, centering upon the eternal world.
Therefore, you must certainly offer devotion for your sons and daughters. You must offer devotion with a mind greater than when you go outside and seek sons and daughters of faith. You must offer more than three times the devotion you offer to witness to one son or daughter of faith. Yet it does not make sense that one cannot witness to one’s own sons and daughters, whom one feeds within the fence of the home and sends to school.
If one has fulfilled one’s responsibility as a parent to the degree that one can do no more than this, and those sons and daughters are still not restored, then one severs relations with those sons and daughters. It means that there is no need to educate such sons and daughters. It means that it is better to educate sons and daughters of faith instead.
If a husband and wife, holding such a firm conviction, unify their thought thoroughly and go forward, that family can stand before the Will eternally and more. When you finish this assembly and return to the provinces, you must strive to bring about the result that, in such matters, people say, “The previously married families have become new since they went to this assembly; they have begun exemplary and innovative activity.”
Among you, those who do not eat breakfast on Sunday morning, raise your hands. There are only a few. Then those who eat breakfast on Sunday morning, raise your hands. There are more. This means that, with this, it is already wrong. Again, those who hold the Pledge service in the home at dawn on Sunday, raise your hands. Look at yourselves. The Pledge service is not something done only on Sunday morning. Originally, it must be done every day.
To accomplish restoration through indemnity, you must embrace the way of filial piety centering upon the family and the way of loyalty centering upon the country. It means that we must now do such work. Before parents, one must be filial, and before the country, one must be loyal.
Even between the sovereign and his subjects of a nation, there is without fail a morning audience every morning. If we look at a Korean family, when the parents rise in the morning, the daughter-in-law folds the bedding for them and cleans the room for them and prepares the meal for them, and when the parents go out and come in, she greets the parents.
Are such things not the property of Korea?
You must obey the law. It means that to indemnify all the historical ages of Korea, one must establish the law among laws, the highest propriety even among the laws of filial piety if it be the law of filial piety; and about the nation as well, one must establish a law that can cross beyond the highest standard.
Yet do you think it will do, going about it as you do?
Every day, centering upon the district leader if it be a district or the regional leader if it be a region, one must hold the Pledge service toward headquarters. That is the official ceremony. Yet since doing so every day would have side effects, to avoid the side effects, the condition is set, and it is held only at dawn on Sunday. Originally, it had to be done every day.
Even in the world, when parents die, and one observes the three-year mourning, is there not the propriety of offering the daily food offerings morning and evening every day and of reporting and greeting at the spirit seat when one goes out or comes in? You must do more than that. Is what you are now doing, seen in the light of the Will, a life exactly fitted to Heaven’s formal order? No. It means that it is nowhere near.
Even when you go out to the farming villages and work, it is not so arranged that one goes out alone and simply works. It is so arranged that husband and wife together report that day’s work before God and go out and begin work, and that after finishing and returning they report before God and then eat. You must know how strict a life is that takes God as its standard, in which all such things are made into rules.
For a woman there is a rule of family life that she as a woman must keep, and for a man there is a rule of family life that he as a man must keep. Although it is the course you must walk to systematize such tremendous heavenly rules and live by them, it means that if you cannot walk that course, it is nowhere near enough. It means, is it not the case that in such matters you are not becoming a model before ordinary families?
Then your sons and daughters too will dislike attending that place. You must know the problem of how to lead them into it. To achieve that, in the home the parents must read them story books, and, being equipped with faith, tell them various interesting stories, and criticize and consult about the family from a constructive aspect, so that the children can be closer to their parents than to their closest friends. Doing so, one cannot but settle the children in a place of faith.
Become Tribal Messiahs
When we consider such problems, it means do not think that the present position in which previously married families are placed is a normal place.
So hereafter I intend to hold family workshops. It means that hereafter, when we live a cultural life, we must purchase land on which about a hundred households can be built and build apartments and have everyone gather and live together and be trained. Will it do to leave them just as they are, living any way at all?
Now you must think seriously about the problem of making the internal and external standard that God desires of your families one with the life of your families. And if there is an official commemorative day of the church or some assembly, you cannot but regard it as life itself and move. A family that does not do so fails as a Blessed Family. So you must know that the mission of the Blessed Family is great. You understand, do you not?
You must become parents who can exert influence upon your sons and daughters. This is the first mission. For that, you must be thorough in church life and public life and must become a model in private life. This is absolutely necessary in educating your children so that they can walk the road of the Will hereafter. You understand, do you not?
Next, as the Teacher directed when he blessed the 430 Couples in 1968, it means becoming Tribal Messiahs. You must fulfill that mission. Just as the 36 Couples are organized in the Association centering upon the Teacher, so in the Kim clan, if it be the Kim clan, there must be a 36-Couple pattern of the Kim clan centering upon the family that first received the Blessing. Do you understand?
If it cannot be 36 Couples, you must become at least the ancestors of a 12-Couple pattern. Since you are the parents, you must, centering upon your sons and daughters, form a Three Position Foundation and thereby build that standard.
Thus, ought you not to become the ancestors of your lineage and carry out a new tribal organization centering upon your family?
That is the pattern of the twelve tribes, and if you form it, everything enters within the sphere of those twelve tribes. Just as with the pattern of the twelve tribes, there must be twelve disciples, and the twelve disciples must become the center and become the seventy disciples; and further, one must be equipped with a pattern like the 120 disciples. This is the direct-line tribe.
When it can be said that you have stood in place of this tribe, becoming one and fulfilling the mission of indemnifying the history up to the New Testament Age, you come to be in the position of a son. Because Jesus went forth to determine the position of a son before God but passed on without accomplishing the Will, it means that you must quickly stand in a position like his, centering upon your tribe. In other words, it means centering upon the Blessed Family, making a Kim clan association if it be the Kim family, making a Park clan association if it be the Park family, and making a Moon clan association if it be the Moon family. And then what will you do hereafter? You must inherit the Moon clan association. And this clan association must become the Abel clan association before other clan associations.
Then what strategy will you use hereafter to gather the clan association?
The whole Kim clan, if it be the Kim clan, must join together and make every effort to save the Kim clan association and to develop the Kim clan association. You must establish educational institutions and must do various other works. Thus, it means that only when you prepare a stepping-stone by which your clan can exert influence upon society does the stepping-stone widen by which the ancestors in the heavenly world can return to the earth.
It means that in the returning of spirit individuals to the earth and cooperating, it is almost impossible for a Kim ancestor to go to a Park family and cooperate. It means that there is no way to communicate. In this way, it means that there remains for you a grave and weighty responsibility to connect the spirit world and the physical world and carry out restoration through indemnity.
If the Previously Married Families Do Well
Although you live in one age, you must bring the mission of three ages to a conclusion. Why must it be so? Originally, if man had not fallen, past and present and future would have begun at one point. Yet by falling, it means that these became separated from one another. That is, it means that for us there was an event in the past, and an event has occurred in the present, and a stepping-stone remains upon which an event can occur in the future.
Therefore, it means that unless one integrates all of this and establishes the condition that it has been resolved, centering upon one family of Heaven, the descendants cannot restore through indemnity upon the earth the tribe remaining from the forebears until now.
So it means if a certain Kim received the Blessing, do not think that he received the Blessing to save that one family of that certain Kim. Because he received the Blessing representing his whole tribe, he has a responsibility connected with that tribe. In that responsibility, past, present, and future are connected as a tribe. It means that you must restore this through indemnity all at once. It means that vertical history must be restored horizontally through indemnity.
Therefore, you must resolve the mission of three ages within your generation and pass it on. This is the responsibility of the Blessed Families. It means that if you do wrong, the ancestors in the spirit world are caught up in it. It means that it causes hindrance not only to one’s own ancestors but also to the clan (종중, 宗中) of the present and to all one’s relatives. So how weighty is the responsibility of a Blessed Family! One must think of such a problem.
The position of a Blessed Family, seen centering upon Jesus, is a position of having accomplished Jesus’ hope in his stead. Therefore, just as in Jesus’ time all the spirit individuals of the Old Testament Age received, through Jesus, the special benefit of being able to rise to the growth level through returning resurrection, so likewise it means that although your ancestors have had no relation whatever to the course of the Providence of Restoration until now, they can receive such a special benefit through you who have received the Blessing. That is because, by your receiving the Blessing, you have prepared the internal condition of victory by which you can be related to your ancestors; and so, although those ancestors did not cooperate upon the road of the Providence of Restoration, it means that if they simply ride upon this road, they bear fruit before the Will, taking as their standard the value by which you have become the fruit. It is a fruit born through a bond of six thousand years.
If the fruit born in a relationship centering upon the Teacher is an Abel-type fruit, it means that they have a relative relationship from a Cain-type position. Because they can have such a relative relationship, it means that the bond of the Abel-type fruit can be set forth as the standard of value of the Cain-type fruit.
Although your forebears were neither people who cooperated before the Will nor meritorious subjects in the providential age of restoration through indemnity, it means that depending upon how you act, they can face the earth with a value equal to that of the meritorious subjects who cooperated before the Will in former days. Do you understand what I mean?
In other words, it means that although only those who inherited the direct-line lineage of Abraham can return to the earth, by your receiving the Blessing, a privileged benefit is granted by which your ancestors can return through you. That is, it means that your forebears can, with the qualification of having joined the ranks of the loyal subjects who were loyal before the Will until Jesus came, carry out the work of returning resurrection horizontally through your family.
This is not a vague statement. It means that such is the fact. How tremendous a thing it is that you, without having toiled at all, have become substantial beings who can inherit the authority of blessing of the whole of Israel that has passed through thousands of years of history!
If one knows such a thing, one cannot but move even if one would not, and one cannot do wrong even if one were told to do wrong. Yet because they do not know this, they sway in the wind and go back and forth.
If you, knowing such a Will, cannot fulfill your responsibility, it means that your ancestors scold you. It means that the ancestors scold you to your face. Therefore, I think that hereafter people who know the Will and yet cannot fulfill their responsibility before the Will will suffer many diseases of unknown name. It means that those ancestors come and torment them.
Because you are placed in the middle position of three ages, taking your family today as the standard, if your family does well, they bring history to life, and bring the present to life, and bring the future to life. But if your family does wrong, they bring history to ruin, and bring the present to ruin, and bring the future to ruin.
That is, if you do well, you bring three ages to life, and if you do wrong, you bring three ages to ruin. Because whether such a tremendous responsibility of three ages is fulfilled or not depends upon you, it means that you are precious. That is why the ancestors submit to this.
The Position of the Previously Married Families
Seen from this position, you must know that upon your family a tremendous mission of restoring the tribe has been imposed. To restore the tribe, you must write letters more than you wrote letters in former days to someone you loved or to a friend. You must offer more than double the devotion. The women too must offer devotion to their relatives with a heart of longing greater than the longing they feel for their mother and father. It means that only then are they restored. It means that unless one reawakens a heart of love toward them, restoration does not take place. Go to the spirit world and see whether it is so or not.
The Teacher has walked the road of the Will until now, but he has not fulfilled the mission of tribal restoration. This means that this cannot be done before crossing beyond the national standard. Because Jesus was caught at the national standard and passed on, it is not arranged that one may first love one’s own family before crossing beyond that standard. Because Jesus lost the foundation upon which he could love, centering upon the family of Joseph, to find this again, one must restore through indemnity what was driven to the nation and come back. Because the Teacher has laid such a foundation, it means that you can, upon that foundation, possess a tribal foundation together with the Blessing within your generation.
So what glory it is! Although one ought to know this and be grateful, if one cannot bear that responsibility, does that family not have its responsibility called into question? It means that it is called into question. From this position, the responsibility of the family is a responsibility indeed, but now that family must bear the mission of the Tribal Messiah.
You husbands and wives are in the same position as Jesus and the Holy Spirit of old. If you become one and, centering upon God, take hold of lives and cry aloud, multiplication without fail unfolds. It means try it and see whether it is so or not. If it does not become so, my words are a lie.
So it means stake your lives before the Will, and for the sake of the glory of the coming generations that must be left behind, for the sake of the glory of the Will, unite as one and be unified in one mind and make a foundation upon which you can give and receive with God.
If one gives and receives completely, if one carries out give-and-take action completely, multiplication unfolds. This is the Principle. It means cultivating such a Principled life in your substantial life. See whether it comes about or not. Because that has not come about, things are as they are until now.
Would a family that received the previously married Blessing and a family blessed as unmarried young men and women be the same or different? They are different. It means that they are different. Seen in terms of the linked organization, you correspond to the formation stage. Then how will your sons and daughters hereafter be married? This becomes a problem. It is not arranged that, because previously married families too are Blessed Families, they marry the children of the 36 Couples or of other families. One must be married following the principled order. Is it not so?
Among the Blessed Families too, there must be three stages. There must be three types of families. Centering upon those families, tribal organization must hereafter be carried out nationwide. Then do you know to which you belong? You are, to the very end, families belonging to the First Families, centering upon Adam’s family.
When all this will be universalized is a great problem hereafter. Such problems and the like have arisen, and hereafter, if you do not offer devotion, you will be accused by your sons and daughters. The Teacher has agonized much until now, centering upon how this problem is to be resolved. You must know that it is a problem that can be resolved only when time has passed.
Despite this, will it do for the previously married families to be the very last in moving?
It means that now, knowing that one must not stand last and having come to know the principle, you must be more sacrificial than anyone in running; and if there is something for which one must be martyred, it means that you must be martyred. Do you understand what I mean? It means that if there is something for which one must die, you must die. It means that the fellows blessed as unmarried young men and women, who belong to the Third Families, must not die.
Seen in the light of the Will, people who have formed relations with two worlds are of the archangel type. Originally, dealing with previously married families is not the Teacher’s responsibility. The Teacher is one who established the standard called the Blessing at the completion standard. Is it not so? Is it so, or is it not? (“It is so.”) That cannot be helped. These are not my words.
Originally, it is arranged that the True Parents bless centering upon unmarried young men and women. Blessing previously married families is an undertaking of laying a bridge to save the world. You are a bridge for saving the world. Yet when the people of the world cross over the bridge, what will it do if this bridge collapses and crumbles? It means that it will not do if you cannot fulfill the responsibility of the bridge.
Offer Desperate Devotion to Have Your Children Blessed
Looking at the whole world now, it is composed of families and of a world that is not families. Again, looking at our church, it is composed of previously married families and of families that are not previously married families. One must make a road that can absorb all of this.
The Teacher told you that the second generation of the ministers of the established churches who opposed the Teacher will hereafter come under the Teacher’s dominion, did he not? It means that their second generation comes under my dominion. It means that though the first generation opposes, the second generation is different. That is why in Egypt too God struck all the firstborn but did not strike the second sons. Why was that? Because the firstborn is in the position of the first generation, but the second son is in the position of the second generation and so is of the direct line. The problem is how to bring about this changeover. Have you ever even thought of such a problem?
Hereafter I must put you through terrible hardship. Yet will it do to dislike the road of hardship and merely peer over the wall? It means that it will not do. Seen from this position, hereafter you must, of course, educate your children well, but you must also have them receive the Blessing quickly. It means that if three generations of your family receive the Blessing, you can bind it together. Do you understand? Three generations must receive the Blessing before you die. It means that one must cross over, having done so.
Just as the people of Israel too were all connected, centering upon these three families- Adam’s family, Noah’s family, and Abraham’s family- you too must connect a standard of three generations.
For that, what must one do?
You yourselves must make a lineage centering upon sons and daughters and relatives who correspond to such a condition. It means that only then can one yield and be yielded to, centering upon that lineage. When it becomes so, it means that only then can a foundation of equalization be laid there. Because we must carry out such a purpose, it means that you are told to fulfill the mission of the Tribal Messiah. That mission of the Messiah is carried out centering upon 120 people.
Among your tribe there will be previously married families, and there will also be complicated in-between groups who were betrothed and broke the engagement or were caught in a love relationship and could not consummate the love, and there will also be pure unmarried young men and women. Binding these together, one must indemnify vertical history horizontally. Setting them up in a position where it can be said that they have become one, centering upon three generations, the eldest son of the very last generation, that is, the grandson standing at the completion level, must offer an offering in their stead and offer the sacrifice of atonement. It means that otherwise they do not become one. Do you understand what I mean? Do you understand, or do you not? (“We understand.”)
That is why it means that you must become Tribal Messiahs. Still more, for previously married families, one cannot know how grateful a word the word “Tribal Messiah” is. Without it, the work does not get done. Therefore, it means that all of you must raise your sons and daughters and desperately have them receive the Blessing. Then the grandson your son bears becomes the completion pattern before God. It means centering upon these sons and daughters, seeking the forgiveness of the ancestors.
It was said The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob were it not? This is the position of the God of three generations. And where does this bear fruit? In the tribe of Judah in the fourth generation. Centering upon that tribe of Judah, Jesus appeared. So it starts from the family of the fourth generation. Then why was Jesus born in the tribe of Judah? This is because the principle of heavenly reason was centered upon the number four of the Four Position Foundation.
That is why one holds memorial rites for three generations. It means that one must carry out the undertaking of liberating three generations. It is arranged that from there one forms a relationship with God. This is the Principled view.
If you come to know such things, you must not live as you have lived until now. Therefore, it means that you must fulfill the mission of the Tribal Messiah. You must know that previously married families have a grave and weighty responsibility to bear such a double mission.
The Mission of the Previously Married Families
When the sons and daughters of previously married families receive the Blessing, one cannot know how great a blessing that is. Upon the earth, vertical history is identified horizontally, is it not? Here, if you are of the formation level, the son is of the growth level, and through that son, a son of the completion level can also come forth, and so one can give and receive upon the earth. Can one give and receive in this way in a tribal relationship? One cannot. Giving and receiving must be done as a horizontal relationship. Doing so, one must restore through the indemnity of history horizontally. That is why it means that three generations are required.
Yet a family that received the Blessing from the Teacher as unmarried young men and women has a standard set up by which it can be connected with the Teacher.
Therefore, the center in the family foundation hereafter is the family blessed as an unmarried young man and woman. Knowing such things, you must hereafter establish the order of the family. Even when we consider the 36 Couples, among the First Families, the Second Families and the Third Families, the Third Families become the center.
When we consider such a problem, the important responsibility you must without fail carry out is to fulfill the mission of the Tribal Messiah. Do you understand?
Still more, the First Families cannot but fulfill this mission. And what will you do about your sons and daughters? After they die, you cannot marry them. If the Teacher does not resolve such a problem and pass on while he is alive, you and your sons and daughters will be separated eternally and eternally.
Because the spirit world is composed of three levels of heaven, it means that one cannot pass through. One must, without fail, establish a condition of indemnity. It is arranged that, before that, one cannot meet.
Why do I tell you such a thing?
Because until now I did not, but the time has come to tell you of it. Knowing that you are in such an important position, you must know that in public life and in private life, and concerning the tribe, you are being granted an aggravated responsibility by God. Do you understand? (“Yes.”)
Then is fulfilling the responsibility as a Tribal Messiah confined only to that tribe?
No. Setting forth the tribe, one must carry it on to the nation. This was the mission Jesus came and had to do. Therefore, it means that without establishing the condition of having restored through indemnity that field of mission, one cannot become a son or daughter of God. Ought there not to be some standard for becoming a son or daughter of God? That standard is like the family of Joseph carrying the Jewish church on its back and crossing over and being loyal to the nation of Israel. Therefore, one must live for the tribe and the people and the nation.
The church is a miniature of the organization of a people. Several surnames enter into it, do they not? Your family must become a model and move your clan, and that clan must join together and be enabled to be loyal to the nation so that that nation can be established as God’s nation. Since the Unification Church must now extend internally and worldwide, you must quickly bring about the national standard and cross over.
Without finding the nation, one cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is not something one enters because someone makes it for one. It is something one makes and enters. Who made the Teacher’s position for him? The Teacher made it. It is the same. You are now in a position of not being persecuted. The Teacher has fought, facing spiritual Satan and substantial Satan, but now he is in a position where he need not do so. So you, in a free environment, without the toil the Teacher had, need only fulfill the mission of tribal restoration centering upon the nation. As the Will comes to be accomplished hereafter, the scope of this grows narrower and narrower.
It is to expand such an environment nationwide that we have until now deployed a small company throughout the whole country and carried on a war of attrition while sacrificing. It means that we have carried on such an undertaking until now without any visible result. Why is that? It is to make a foundation upon which you can establish that condition at a certain time. It means that this is why we have carried on such an undertaking. In other words, it means that it was to lay an external ground for fulfilling the mission of the Tribal Messiah. So you too must know that you are a public family and go forward while offering devotion.
Devotion Must Be Offered From a Place of Oneness With God
Let me ask one thing of the wives here. Those who sometimes meet the Teacher in a dream revelation (몽시) or in prayer, raise your hands. Lower them. Women especially must all receive the Teacher’s guidance. It is arranged that if you offer devotion, you will be taught. You must be connected with the Teacher. That cannot be done with the mind alone. It is arranged that if you pray, you will without fail be taught.
If husband and wife become one mind and one body and pray, it is arranged that they will without fail be taught. It means try becoming a family in which such a mind is deeply rooted within the sphere of life, a mind that sheds tears out of longing to see the Teacher and burns with longing to go to headquarters, such a mind as you felt in your adolescence. Then it means that God is together with that family.
The wife members must without fail receive the Teacher’s guidance. And the male members too must occasionally receive the Teacher’s teaching concerning important matters. Otherwise, one cannot become a family of God. For that, one must pray and offer devotion. In offering devotion, one must offer devotion centering upon God’s heart and know which aspect God gives weight to in carrying out the Providence of Restoration. Even in offering devotion, one must offer it from a place made one with the direction in which God can teach; it means that from a place far removed, however much devotion one offers, it does not get through. Therefore, a person whose mind is more earnest than anyone else's to know quickly the news arising at headquarters can go seeking a place close to God.
If families have until now lived a life distant from headquarters, that is a mistaken life. If one is a person who lives centering upon the Will, one must always go, in oneness with the Will, centering upon the Teacher’s family more than centering upon one’s own husband or one’s own wife. Then it means that the Teacher guides them directly. This is the point in which we differ from other churches. It means that such a thing unfolds, transcending nation and people. That is why our church develops worldwide.
More than half of the Japanese members, about sixty-five percent, were receiving the Teacher’s guidance spiritually. Seeing that, it means that in the life of the spirit they are ahead of you. It means that they lived a life of prayer more than you and had more of an anxious mind than you. If it becomes so, you fall behind them. It means that without that, it will not do.
Then what is it that you must regard as important in family life hereafter?
It means that if the Teacher appeared in a dream revelation of your wife or children and taught something, you must believe it.
If your daughter received a teaching, you must honor that daughter’s words like the words of God and regard that teaching as absolute and make a family environment in which you can become one with those words and follow them.
If the husband does not receive that teaching, it is arranged that he will without fail be taught centering upon the wife. When it becomes so, it means know that God has drawn near to your family and regard your wife’s words as the words of God. Whether doing so is a good thing or a bad thing, you will come to know if you wait and see.
If one goes and has it appraised by the church sub-district leader, one comes to know at once. And so one must go on studying, saying that when the Teacher wore such-and-such an expression, a joyful thing came about. It is arranged that a person who prays will without fail be taught.
When the Teacher appears in a dream revelation or in prayer, if he wears a joyful expression, one must appraise why he is joyful; if he wears a sorrowful expression, why he is sorrowful. A sorrowful expression differs according to whether it appears from the front or from the side.
Again, it differs according to whether it appears from the right or from the left, and it means that it differs according to whether it appears from above or from below. It means that one must appraise all such things.
If such things occur, it means that if one takes statistics centering upon them and fits oneself to them, one can go forward knowing how God is now moving toward one’s family and how one’s family will be hereafter. It means that if there is a member of one’s family who receives such teaching from the Teacher, centering upon that member, the whole family, even sitting up all night, must hear that account and decide and pledge how such-and-such a work must be carried out and build it up.
If One Offers Devotion and Receives Grace, the Family Becomes Harmonious
If in this way one centers upon one person and sympathizes with him, it means that that person will without fail be taught. Just as if there is a complete plus, a complete minus comes into being; it means that if that turns out right in that family once, twice, or three times, then the husband or the sons and daughters come to regard it as the thing they are most curious about. And so one widens the spiritual foundation. Yet you have come this far without even dreaming such dreams, have you not? So you must pray. You must offer devotion. Only when one has such experience does one know that God exists and live the life of faith well. It is so arranged.
You who know this must from now on bear witness. For that, you must pray. In praying, the man and the woman do not do it on the same day and at the same hour. When the characters of the man and the woman are complementary, it is good to do it together, but when they are not complementary, the prayer times must be made different. In setting the prayer time, it means trying to do it at dawn, and trying to do it in the morning, and trying to do it at midday, and trying to do it in the evening, and trying to do it at night, whether at ten or at twelve. It means that by living such a life of prayer over many years, one must come to know from what hour to what hour is the hour that suits oneself best. It means knowing that, by offering devotion at the hour that suits oneself.
And it means, if possible, to center upon a person whose standard of grace is high, and let others also pray at the hour when that person prays. Then one receives grace through that person.
If the husband’s standard of grace is higher than one’s own and he is a model in the life of faith too, one comes to receive grace through that husband. It means that when one thus receives grace, the husband looks like the handsomest man in the world.
Again, it means that when the husband comes to receive grace through the wife, that wife could not be more beautiful. It means that she is more welcome than his mother and more welcome than his own elder sister. It means that she is the best among the women of the world. Originally, husbands and wives had to be like that.
And so it means that the moment one opens one’s eyes, one wishes to look, and one comes to wish to talk together in whispers all night long. That is not a matter of ruin but a matter of prospering.
The problem is how to digest the foundation upon which God has come seeking such a family environment. And the problem is how to universalize what one has digested. It means trying to do this. Then God will not be able to turn away from that family. And so the work unfolds in which the daughter says to the father, “Father, you did wrong,” and the son says to the mother, “Mother, you did wrong.”
Now is different from former days. Former days were a vertical age. Because it was a time of developing what vertical centering upon vertical relationships was, the spirit was developed. In the past, many people were martyred to develop Christianity. Upon such a foundation, through a long history, Christianity developed worldwide. But now it is different. It means that one flashes in the east and flashes in the west. Do you understand? The Teacher is now here, but he is guiding every country in the world. There will be countries where this hour is now night. It means that the saying that one flashes in the east and flashes in the west is correct. Such work has been being done until now.
In this way, it means that God is working impartially to develop the world evenly. Because we have entered within such a sphere of the age, the families in Korea ought to be equipped with a higher spiritual foundation than families in any country of the world, and yet, it means that the reverse is the case.
Hereafter, you must, while regarding the life of prayer as important within your daily life, create an atmosphere in which you can receive the Teacher’s guidance directly. You must strive to create an environment in which husband and wife, or gathering the children together, can consult one another about the problem of how to create such a spiritual atmosphere.
If there is a person who has such a bond, it means honor that person. If it is the son, honor the son; if it is the daughter, it means try honoring the daughter. It means centering upon faith, regarding him as an ancestor of faith within one’s household, and cooperating with him and raising him. Then it is arranged that everything is given to the person who has offered the most devotion.
Prayer Is the Root of Faith
You must be equipped with such an atmosphere of spiritual life and show the model in the public life and private life spoken of earlier and carry out the responsibility of the Tribal Messiah. This cannot be done without a spiritual foundation. To have such a foundation, one must have experience. One must honor that experience and apply it to life and analyze it and take statistics and discern whether it is good or bad, or whether one will advance or retreat. And in human relations too, one must discern spiritually. It means that if you go on analyzing in this way, you come to feel by inspiration whether there will be a good thing or a bad thing today. One must live in that way. Yet if one is full of sin and passing over into the satanic sphere while not knowing whether that is good or bad, does one know when and how one will perish and fall? Therefore, to discern such things, one must offer devotion. Do you understand? (“Yes.”)
In offering devotion, one must enter a place of saying, “I absolutely believe.” One must enter a place of saying, “I absolutely believe in God,” and, facing the Will, if it be the Will, “I absolutely believe.” Only in such a place does God cooperate. It means that it will not do to pray while pettily doubting whether the prayer will be fulfilled or not. One must be able to say, “O Father! I alone am left. If it is not I, this country will disappear; and if it is not I, this world will disappear; yet, O Father, at this one juncture, at this boundary line at which Thou hast toiled for six thousand years, I alone am left. Is there no one but I who is close before the Will Thou wilt accomplish? Though the being called “I” is thus important, I am not yet equipped. Even so, since Thou hast commanded such a one as I, I will equip myself with the condition by which I can be such and the foundation by which I can be such, and will stand in place of this whole people. Is this not the Providence of Restoration?”
It means that from now at least, you must shed tears and enter a serious state in which the marrow of your bones melts and settle the matter one to one. Thus, one must enter a state in which, carrying on such an undertaking, when I shed tears, God sheds tears, and when God sheds tears, I shed tears; one can give and receive with God with an obedient mind. Ought it not to be so? It means that it must be so. Whatever the work, one must do it in that way. For that, one must pray. It means that there must be a root. That root is prayer.
The root does not appear outwardly. It is the same as how the bigger the tree, the more deeply and widely the root spreads proportionally to the size of that tree.
Although the Teacher always speaks new words on such official occasions, these new words are not spoken on the spur of the moment. They all have a root. There are many things you do not know. A great tree has deep roots that ordinary trees cannot reach, even if they would.
How deep are your roots as Blessed Families?
Only if the root is deep do those sons and daughters grow sturdily; is it not so? Is it not? In an environment where one is planted in rich soil with an abundant root as the Principle, and God even gives fertilizer, could one fail to grow?
Seen from this point, what is the problem?
It is whether one woman, centering upon one husband, and one family, centering upon one couple, offer devotion or do not offer devotion, from a state of oneness with God; and whether one grafts onto the spiritual root or does not graft onto it.
And if there is a good thing in your family, you must without fail form a relationship with God. Only then does it become for you a foundation of faith that can remain and not fall away. Though you are in an individual position, only when you make a foundation that can be connected with the family does what is below not fall away. Then when the family rises, one rises along with it. It means that one must bind that together.
Become Families With Whom God Is Together.
In the families of the loyal subjects of old, when a good thing came about, they first offered it before the sovereign. This is the way of life of the loyal subjects of Korea.
Seen from that perspective, it means that the propriety of Korea is a central content of the Kingdom of Heaven, such as exists in no other country whatever. Do you understand? In Confucianism they follow the teaching of Confucius, and if we look at the propriety centering upon the teaching of that Confucius, there is much that is close to heavenly law.
Hereafter, you must have your descendants hold memorial rites for you. Until now the rules of life and the procedures for funerals and the like have not been fixed centering upon our Principle; but hereafter, when that propriety comes forth, from that time it will not do to do things any way at all.
From now on you must, centering upon a mind that God is together with you in whatever context, overcome your environment and drive your roots deep and possess a vital force by which you can grow in any wind and frost.
When it becomes so, God’s establishing the law too is no problem. But when that does not come about, it means that it is a problem.
Seen from this perspective, you must, through this general assembly, be all the more awakened to how grave and weighty is the responsibility that previously married families must fulfill hereafter.
Thus, you must fulfill the responsibility of becoming an example and becoming a fence and becoming a wall before the previously married families who follow tomorrow, before the young blessed families, to protect them and block the wind so that they can grow well. It means that only when they like you and say that they will embrace you and take you along can you hereafter stand at the leveled standard of the church.
Knowing that such problems exist means living a much more deeply rooted life of prayer. It means to live a life steeped in the Will. And you must always think of how well you live, keeping pace with the road God walks and the road the headquarters church walks.
For that, you must have a mind that, if you are dying of curiosity about the news of headquarters and cannot go directly, wishes to know even by letter. It means that if it is a family that lives putting such a mind first, there is no way that God is not together with it.
It means try it and see whether it is so or not. Yet if one plants without any root, it dies, and so it is worse than not having planted. I ask that you know such a principle and reorganize your lives and prepare such a foundation.
