In their living, people welcome no day by chance. That is why, to welcome a worthwhile day, in the morning one must plan that day and put that plan into practice.
If one were to put the plan into practice, one must have an environment in which one can be in accord with one’s own will.
If One Would Lead One’s Whole Life to Victory
We know that because the society, nation, and world in which we live are not an environment that conforms to my will, here all sorts of hardships unfold and the dividing point of good and evil crosses. There is no one who can go in my place following the direction I seek to go. It means that a hundred out of a hundred people cannot but struggle with the environment to conduct one day’s living in each one’s own way and cannot but push that environment forward. That is why we feel well in a day’s living that no one can be confident of the day’s work planned in the morning.
Moreover, the more one feels that that environment blocks one’s day’s living, and the larger the scope of that environment, like society or the world, the more one must have a resolve and driving force by which one can cross beyond that great standard proportionally. We can feel well in daily living that otherwise that day cannot become a day of victory. Such days added together become a month, and one month added to another becomes a year.
When we set out for that one month, one month becomes a month if one adds one day thirty times, does it not?
That one month, too, is not an environment in which we can live as we planned. Here, to bring victory for that month, one must have a driving force and resolve by which one can smash all the complicated circumstances equipped in that month’s environment, all the conditions blocking the road one planned to go. It means that without that, one cannot finish the month’s plan in victory.
Furthermore, when we set out a year, a year is made up of twelve months, three hundred sixty-five days. When there is a person who has set some goal on New Year’s Day (원단 元旦) to pledge the victory of such a year, if the conditions by which one can break through all the trials and other circumstances during that year are not in accord with oneself, a repellent, exclusive, ruinous environment appears there.
To push through such a year, one must be equipped with a fighting spirit or driving force by which one can overcome well over three hundred sixty days. We know well that otherwise one cannot adorn a year with victory. It is our road of life that we are passing through days in which ten years are added to such a year, and twenty years, or thirty years. You must know this.
Who Can Be Confident of Being a Victor?
When we set out for a year, difficulties from which one cannot escape will not cease there. Have you had a day when you could live a whole life like such a year and say, “I did it this way and was victorious”? You must know the fact that there was no such person in history. Even sages and great men—did they have a life in which they could say within their lifetimes, “I stood in the position of a pioneer before humankind and was victorious,” or “I was victorious from a position of sacrifice”? What all humankind desires is this?” We know the fact that until now no one at all has had it.
When we think of the fact that we have passed through such a historical process and that we today too have entered such a historical age and are weaving such a history, we must know how difficult the course of life we must fight through is. The more we think of this historic grief of the defeated, this historic environment of incompletion, before the step by which we set up a plan and pledge victory and step forth, the more we come to know how shabby and pitiful that figure that steps forth is in actual terms.
Here, if some person steps forth holding a new resolve and new hope and saying, “I will go this way,” history until now cannot but laugh at him. It means it cannot help but ask, “Can you indeed do so? Can you accomplish it so?” Before such a question of history, where is a person who can say, “For a hundred million years I am confident”? It means there was nowhere in the human world. There will be none but the Absolute Being.
God, Who Still Goes the Road of a Pioneer
Then when we set out on the course of the Providence of Restoration of God, who is the Absolute Being, have God Himself and all the Will He has commanded had one day of victory while passing through a day, several years, or age after age on the course of the Providence of Restoration?
When we ask so, we know the fact that God too has not escaped from a destiny like that of the countless forebears who passed through historical destiny.
That we today must inherit and go with the fact that even God, who is the Absolute Being, could not prepare one base of victory in the historical age is far too tremendous a thing.
Set out your life and think quietly. God has passed through a long span of six thousand years. It is six thousand years seen in terms of the Bible, but this is a long span that could correspond to millions of years, hundreds of millions of years.
God has woven such history until now. What day would there have been on which God did not wish to be victorious? How much must God have pursued one day on which He could fight the enemy and smash that camp and pile up a cornerstone of victory there and rest? But God is in a position where He has still not had that day and cannot but go a course of fighting, a course of a pioneer. When we think of such things, if there be a person who says he will follow behind that and inherit that mission and step forth, how much must he resolve and how much must he pledge?
When we look back upon the past until now, a history of trial has been woven, and when we gaze upon reality, a desolate world is spread out vastly. When at such a point we gaze upon the dark world of the future, it cannot but be a problem whether there is a person who can gather his collar and say, “O God, trust me.”
Even so, it is God’s position that He cannot abandon everything, and because God knows He has a responsibility of having to settle this without fail, how one breaks through and goes this road cannot but be a problem.
Seen from this viewpoint, until now God has had no day on which He walked forth rejoicing. Why is that? Because it is a step to come forth embracing the sorrowful mind of the defeated. The first promise too failed through human beings, and the second promise too failed through human beings, and God is in a position of having repeated failure through human beings through the third, the fourth, or while passing through the historical age and groping behind countless peoples.
When we think that He has not come to be in a position where God can pledge that today, this year, I will be victorious, we must know how pitiful God is, who has shouldered this whole responsibility.
By what can one know that? One can know it by looking at our one day’s living, and know it by looking at a year’s living, and also know it by looking at a lifetime. Because God is today leading countless human beings who long for eternal life, God’s pain as He advances toward the course of eternal life remains as a pain proportionate to it.
We cannot but think of the question of whether, for God, who must go seeking this, there is not intervening an eternal pain, an eternal sorrow.
God, Who Must Bear an Ever More Compounded Cross
Then when we set out our lifetime today from a position of going while forming a relationship with God, am I in a position of being a burden before God, or am I in a position where I can take charge of God’s burden in His place? When we think of such things, we today too are not escaping from a destiny of being time after time a burden to God.
For God, the greater the number becomes, will not sorrow rather than joy be more compounded?
Just as there is a proverb that says, “A tree with many branches has no day when the wind is still,” parents with many children have no day of rest. For God too, who has such responsibility, how wretched must it be as that number increases?
When we look at our Unification Church itself today, we have passed ten years of history. Within those ten years of history, there was no level road. Only such times as when we pledged in a valley of tears remain in memory. What remains in our memory is only that time of shedding tears, that time when it was forlorn and serious. Everything else is all forgotten.
If a thousand people if a thousand had a serious time, those days are not all the same. There will be one serious day. That one day we remember. Is it not that one day for our individual selves but a thousand days for God? When we set out such a problem, we cannot but think of the fact that as our number increases, for God's sorrow rather than joy is more compounded.
The more the number of individuals increases, the more that shape becomes gradually more mottled. It means this shape too arises, and that shape too arises.
Even though all of that combines and is equipped with one form, can that form all become the substance of God’s wish? It cannot. To become that substance, one must shoulder a compounded cross, and either God must cross the road of hardship or the human being must cross it. Unless one of the two crosses this, a significant number cannot appear as joy.
Then who must take responsibility for that?
Must God take responsibility, or must we take responsibility? However hard it is, God must take responsibility.
Why? Because God is in the position of a parent. There are no parents who shift responsibility to the child because it is hard for them. Likewise, the harder it is for God, the more God will take responsibility for it. If perhaps He cannot accomplish what He has taken responsibility for, God will lament over Himself. You must know that God is in a position of having to strike Himself.
Today, when we have difficulty, we pray, “O God, take charge of my difficulty.
Since I am going a difficult road, a course of a pioneer takes charge of all my painful circumstances.” Do we not time after time pray such a prayer? We must know that behind that prayer God’s sorrow is being compounded.
When we come to think of such things, you must feel how fearful a word the word “Father” is. We must know the fact that within that word “Father” the circumstances of heaven and earth are entangled.
We must consider that these words, “O Father who art in heaven, be together with us,” are words asking God to bear thousands and tens of thousands of crosses together with us and words asking Him to stand in a servant’s position for my sake and words asking Him to die for my sake.
A Filial Son Who Can Stand Before God
God, shouldering responsibility from a subject position, has gathered history until now, and so we have come to be able to welcome even such a history as today’s.
Because this history is in a position of having to advance toward the future, it must not stop at the present point. Then who will take responsibility in His place for the road of God’s cross, which is so today and can be so in the future too? If there be a person here who steps forth saying he will take responsibility, it means he must take responsibility even for God’s han.
We know that even a year’s cross is difficult to overcome, and we live while experiencing countless han even within a year’s living. But God has passed through six thousand years of a historical course to save humankind. How many sorrowful circumstances must have been knotted meanwhile, and how many lonely passes must there have been? Isn't God in a pitiful plight that a human being cannot fathom and cannot even imagine? You must know such a fact.
The more we think of such things, the more fearful it is to pray. It is fearful to call the name “Father.” Only when one can discover that it is a thing without a face to call the Father from a position of having left behind a compounded cross can God hold hope in us.
Rather than being in a position of composing one’s posture boldly before the Father and saying, “O God! Boast of me, and since I am shouldering all responsibility, keep me together with this responsibility.” One must become a self who knows how to be ashamed to appear before God while being anxious over that inner cross.
You must know the fact that the one word “Father” that bursts from the mouth without one’s knowing it, after calling it ten times within one’s mind knowing that one is a shameful self who cannot even notify one’s own circumstances with one’s mouth and cannot reveal one’s own figure, is more precious than ten million ordinary prayers.
Only in such a position will God say, “Even though there be a cross I have shouldered, if it be your cross, I will take responsibility and resolve it.” It means that road alone is the road on which God can step forth. When we think of such things, it is likewise the same with the road our Unification Church goes today, facing the Father’s Will.
If we become selves who go before the Father and pray brazenly, saying we have been equipped with such a posture and asking, “Are we not Unification Church members whom Thou lovest, and is this not the Unification Church Thou lovest?” it means that position cannot become a position of hope where God can be present. You must know such a fact.
Therefore, if you have a mind that wishes to boast of the Unification Church, you must stand in a position of fathoming the Father, who comes forth bearing a compounded cross, and fulfill the duty of a child. To fulfill the duty of filial piety before parents who toil for one’s own sake, one must first comfort the parents with tears and boldly bear the cross one has shouldered and go.
One must stand in a position where one can say, holding a mind that notifies Him of the fact that the road of the cross Thou hast walked was wretched because it was for the child, “O Father, do no longer suffer hardship.
O Father, do not be anxious for me any longer.” Is this not the figure of a filial son who can stand before God the Parent, who has come forth suffering sorrow until now? When we think of such things, we come to discover the fact that we today have been far too brazen and far too haughty before God.
Human Beings Who Have Been Haughty Before God
You must know that this position in which we are haughty and hold confidence today is a position where one cannot yet go together with God. You must know that before God, who gazes upon me, that is, between the Father and me, there remains a pit that must be filled in.
You must know that to become a citizen of that nation, there remains a course of a pioneer on which one cannot but suffer trial and pain once again.
No one in the human world today will be able to know the fact that God, more than any pioneer of the world, has repeated the mission of a pioneer in the history of the Providence of Restoration. You will be able to know that fact if you go to the spiritual world, but it means one cannot know it in reality.
That is why, if upon this earth there be a person who asserts that he takes responsibility for the world, or for history, and says to model oneself upon himself, it means one cannot but see him as a deluded person. It means one must encourage people to model themselves upon God rather than upon themselves.
Jesus too knew such a fact, and that is why he could say, “Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” Here my will is a mind that wishes to return at once before the Father, centering on the people of Israel, but the Father’s Will is that to turn that around, one must go the road of the cross.
You must know the fact that the Garden of Gethsemane was a position in which, in going while choosing with that before him, being anxious for God, he resolved that if there were a ground of comfort on which he could invest his person and resolve it, he would properly go even though he tore his person apart and though his person vanished on the cross.
Upon this earth today, in one nation, if it is one nation, it is said there is a pioneer who pioneered that nation, or in a region, if it is a region, there is a pioneer who pioneered that region. But though it seems that in a human being’s pioneering something, the human being himself was the driving force, you must know that behind it there is no matter in which God was not involved.
Because all the affairs of the world must be within God’s sphere and receive God’s dominion, and history must be so, and the age must be so, people who assert something new that can remain in the age and can remain in history are pioneers of that field in that age; but one must know the fact that behind the scenes, until that pioneer appeared, God went back and forth on the course of a pioneer countless times.
You must know that God hesitates to put forward once what He has pioneered a thousand times. One must think of the fact that, knowing that if one puts forward wrongly once a ground of victory built by toiling a thousand times, what one toiled at a thousand times is all broken apart at once, and if one were to gather this up again one must grope through a course of a pioneer compounded several thousand times, to entrust one's work upon this earth and have it pioneered; countless compounded roads of the cross come to be laid before God. That is why we must know that God has walked such a course of a pioneer until now.
When you stand at the head as a pioneer, or as a forerunner, you must not think that you yourselves stood. You must know the fact that before I stood in that position, God first stood several hundred times, several tens of millions of times. It means that before I stood in the position of a pioneer, God stood in the position of a pioneer several tens of millions of times, and before I stood in the position of a forerunner, God stood in the position of a forerunner several tens of millions of times. But God has not once boasted of having been victorious as a pioneer, and God is One who, from the position of a forerunner, set a new age before Him and fought while narrowing that measure but has not been able to boast.
When we come to think of such a God from a forerunner’s position, we must know the fact that the human beings of the fallen world today have been far too haughty. We must think that God is such a One.
Patience and Overcoming
A pioneer cannot go that road without patience. Because this very point called today is a point that requires adventure, everything one collides with there is entirely unfamiliar, and it means one must add an entirely new hand.
Today, when we fathom history and culture, there are cases in which some nation or people are praised as a cultured people. When we look at the relics or remains that people have left, we come to know that they were achieved through countless adventures and are relics and remains made after overcoming countless difficulties.
If it is so even in forming one cultural sphere of the historical age upon this earth, how much more tremendous must the course of God, who pioneers a course of seeking the way for humankind to found the heavenly world, be?
We must know the fact that God’s position to pioneer that road was one in which He could not go down this road without overcoming hardship with indescribable patience.
How much must one endure on that road?
You must know that even though passes of death continue one after another, the road God has walked is a road one must endure and overcome.
It means that if there were no enemy here, that would be one thing, but the fact that there is an enemy and he is attacking, and that God is on a road where one does not know when, receiving the enemy’s surprise attack, a thousand years of work (천년 공사 千年功事) until then may be brought to ruin at once.
You must know the fact that even at this moment when God overcomes the road of suffering holding such an anxious heart (심정), the enemies are lifting swords and aiming arrows.
It means that truly, even while God comes forth from a position of utter exhaustion, gazing upon one time of hope in which black and white can be distinguished, the enemies are aiming guns and swords at God.
Since in such a position where one could be exhausted and a position where one wishes to rest, one is in a position of having to meet the enemy and make a final decision, would there have been any one day when one could set one’s mind at ease and be at rest? That is why one must know that God is pitiful.
Isn't patience and overcoming the whole of His living, and sacrifice the whole of His living? That struggle is not a struggle repeated habitually or historically; it means that as the scope widens, a still more complicated and wide-ranging struggle has come forth, being added from all four directions. You must think how hard it must be for God, who comes through such a historical age.
When it becomes night in our East and it is a time of rest, in the West it is day. At the time when the people of the East rest at night, among Western people there will be people who pray to God, and there will also be people who struggle centering on God. Can God, who gazes upon such a globe, rest even for a single moment of twenty-four hours? Seen from the fact that the affairs of this world cannot be resolved while excluding God, it means God is in a position of having to be involved in everything from one thing to ten million matters and hand down the deciding authority of goodness. That is why it is not God, an exceedingly pitiful One?
When we come to think of such things, it means the question becomes how many times there have been in your life of faith such a position of, while seeking to pray, setting out a complicated problem centered on oneself, being unable to pray, and closing one’s mouth and shedding tears.
The Sons and Daughters God Desires
Many people believe and work from a position of saying, “That I suffer difficulty is difficulty suffered for God, so return that price without fail before my sons and daughters. That I toil so is done for the Unification Church, so return the price of that toil to the Unification Church!” But how many are there who truly embrace God’s inner heart and overcome a course of suffering? Isn't the plight of writhing while embracing the adversity of struggle and saying one must not lose tomorrow’s hope the plight of God, who has sustained history until now?
How much a life of adversity must God’s living have been, sustaining history while shouldering this heavy and hard cross? But that He cannot abandon this is because there remains a parent’s heart (심정) of having to find the lost sons and daughters. It means the road of restoration is a road on which, because He is omniscient and omnipotent, God alone can pledge, saying that only I can take responsibility.
It means God does not dream that one person within a limited sphere of the age will take responsibility for this work through his lifetime course. That is, it means that this work, because God alone is omniscient and omnipotent, is a work for which God Himself alone can take responsibility from the beginning of history to the end, and it is the course of restoration as God knows it that no human being at all can take responsibility for it.
What becomes a problem here is that it is wretched and pitiful that the human being himself, even knowing that God is in such a position, cannot but live a life that compounds the cross before God while living out his life. Then why did that pitiful thing arise? It arose because of the Fall of the ancestors of humankind. That is why what I must cross over is the question of how, centering on goodness, one will exterminate the elements of evil by which the enemy can invade.
In living, living well is not the purpose. Even though one lives poorly, going without leaving one’s own cross to God is itself something that can become filial piety before God.
God wishes to see sons and daughters who writhe, saying, “Though the countless people who come to and go from this earth leave behind a course of a compounded cross before God within their lifetimes, I alone, however much I go a road of suffering in my lifetime and however difficult an adversity I run up against, will not leave my cross before God,” and who say, “What is mine I will take responsibility for.”
Even sons and daughters who say, “Because my cross is my own, I will take responsibility for it without leaving it before God,” God will call filial sons. Furthermore, if there be a person who says, even in words and even in action, “The burden Thou hast shouldered is a burden for our humankind, a burden shouldered because our ancestors did wrong, so I will take responsibility for that burden,” is it not God’s inner mind to wish to take hold of that person and speak words containing historic circumstances, even though one cannot lay responsibility upon that person because he cannot do that work?
Today we must, while recalling once again our thoughtless past course of faith, cast off the view of faith with which from before 1960 until now we have come forth centering on God habitually or conventionally, and in the seventies we must become ourselves and become a Unification Church that, if only for the sake of face, does not leave its cross before God.
Even though one takes responsibility only for this and goes, God will praise us as carrying out the mission of a pioneer that no one at all in the process of human history until now could perform and could bear. You must know that this is God’s mind, which wishes to do so.
I, Who Bear Responsibility for Two Kinds of Cross
Here we have known the fact that God has come forth shouldering every cross of the historical process. That is not because God did wrong but because humankind did wrong. That humankind are our ancestors and hold a bond of kinship with us. I was born as the total combined substance that concentrates that bond.
Overall, if there be a band who shoulder all the historic responsibility God has borne in my place for my sake and devote sincerity before God, what kind of prayer must they first pray? They must pray a prayer of repentance. It means one cannot help but become a person who can resolve the mistaken history that has come down from the forebears.
One must be able to comfort God with tears of repentance, whose han is knotted because He could not settle accounts for the valley He came forth filling in with tears and blood and sweat. It means that without holding such a time, one is in a position where one cannot say that in the actual world one has fulfilled one’s responsibility before God.
That is why Unification Church members today must repent, setting out history rather than repenting centering on themselves. It means Unification Church members, because they have taken responsibility for history, must repent setting out history, and also, because they have taken responsibility for the present age, must repent setting out this age. It means that because it is a position standing in place of all humankind of past and present, one must stand in the position of an offering.
This position is a mournful position, standing in place of the countless forebears who repeated a history of failure until now and the present three billion humans who are repeating a history of failure. That is why, if there be a person who, knowing those circumstances, pioneers even a thread-like road of comfort before God and makes it form a relationship upon the earth or in the historical age, the people living in this age must give thanks to him, and also the countless prophets and noble forebears who came and went in the historical age must, without fail, give thanks to him.
Then at what time in your lifetime will you leave such a time?
You must know that whether one can or cannot leave such a time through that lifetime is a grave problem we who are now leading a life of faith must resolve. In that respect, am I a betrayer of history or a commander of history? And am I a betrayer of the age or a commander of the age? When we think such thoughts, God has fought to command history and fought to command the age. For me to receive support before such a God, I must first have one moment in which I can receive the support of history, one moment in which I can receive the support of the age. It means that without holding such a base, one cannot become a self who can stand before God.
It means such a position is not a position where one reveals oneself, saying that because I have made such and such a resolve and stood in such and such a position, I should properly do this. Such things are a moment and can be nothing but one time. It is the road of faith that one must continue in that moment and pass through a year, and continue a year and pass ten years, and to continue those ten years goes a whole lifetime. The question here is how one connects such a momentary base of victory into a day, that day into a year, that year into ten years, those ten years into a lifetime.
You must know that the road on which one consolidates the mind here and consolidates the heart (심정) and advances is the road of a believer.
In a position of lamenting centered on oneself, the road of faith is not established.
However much difficulty is added to me, one must not avoid it. It means that if one seeks to avoid the cross added to me, a double cross remains. Why is that? Because I am a product of history and a product of the age, the burdens for which the forebears of the past failed to be responsible come compounded to me, and the burden for which the present age has failed to be responsible comes compounded to me. In this way I am shouldering two burdens.
Here, if I avoid that cross, it becomes a result of returning to God the historical cross, the age-level cross, that had been inherited by me. Therefore, the game of shouldering a double cross and going has become our road of faith today.
In this way, you must know that because the being called “I” is sustaining history and sustaining the age, my self is in a position of having to indemnify history and having to indemnify the age. It means that through there being such a relationship, the history of the Second Advent is possible. Because reality bears a double historicity, the victory of reality can bring a historical victory, and the failure of reality can bring a historical failure. Therefore, we must know the fact that if we evade responsibility, we come to compound upon God the double cross we are bearing.
This is a fact: we must not return before God, and a fact: we must not let God suffer. You must think that it becomes the wretched state of the Parent and must fight in your generation to block this.
The Right Posture Toward God
Then how must we ourselves, who are in such a position, face God?
One must always be equipped with a posture by which one can receive compassion from God. Even though I have taken responsibility to achieve the Will, one must not say, “O God, why dost Thou not recognize what I have taken responsibility for?” I have never prayed such a prayer. One must not depart holding such a mind that says, “Because I have prayed and made effort this much, the reward that draws near hereafter is mine.” The question is how one can come to receive God’s sympathy, how one comes to a position where God can think of me.
For that, one must, rather than revealing and boasting of what one is equipped with, hold a posture of being unable to lift one’s face while feeling far too much shame. You must know that the more one knows that one is always in a position where one cannot put oneself forward before God, the more the position where one can receive God’s sympathy of heart (심정) widens. Why? Because one knows God is placed on a road of suffering, one cannot notify God of one's circumstances.
Then if the road of the cross I can bear is this much, would not the road of the cross the people can bear be far greater than this? One must be able to say, “I will bear that cross.” If one holds such a mind, is not the present comfortable position rather a position that is felt as pain? It means the road that people who feel and live so go is a road gone in place of the road God will go.
Rather than praising a day as good and regarding it as a day of joy because one accomplished something in a comfortable position, a person who knows that a more difficult future position remains and, at that position, can pray that one may walk the future road of the cross and have it received as a condition that can reduce the future cross is a person who goes the heavenly road and a person who goes sharing hardship (동고 同苦) with God. Seen from this, the conclusion comes out that people who go a road for God upon this earth are pitiful people.
Even when laughter seeks to burst forth from one’s own breast, a mind that desires a worldwide laughter must without fail come first. Furthermore, one cannot but think of the day when God will rejoice and laugh. When one comes to know that it is God’s wish to desire a day when the world can laugh rather than my laughter, the road of feeling shame about having laughed and been glad is the road of faith.
Therefore, even though we are in a position where we can pledge victory, we must resolve again for future victory. It means the road of thus resolving again for future victory and going is the normal road of faith, attending to God.
A person who goes such a road is a pioneer of tears, a pioneer of pain, and a pioneer of the offering. A position where such a mind goes ahead is a position where God can recognize one in the human world and a position where one can appear in the human world with the standing of a pioneer in God’s place. You must know such things.
Today we often say the word “pioneer” when we pray. And we hold a recognition of being forerunners. But a forerunner or pioneer, as just said, is a person who, even though he stands in a glorious position, on the contrary feels awe and, because the people have not welcomed a day of glory, seeks to make it material for that day.
Furthermore, he is a person who, even when he feels some responsibility on a battlefield where he pledges some victory, approaches it holding a mind that this is training for bearing some responsibility in the future. Only such a person can God acknowledge as one who can walk the course of a pioneer on this earth.
If one stands in that position, God is without fail together. It means that even though he runs up against a crossroads of death, he comes to feel that for him it is not a road of death but that God pioneers a road of victory in his place. You must know that this is the essential course a believer must go.
The Normal and Essential Road of Faith
Do you wish to have comfortable days in your lifetime?
That is nothing but a dream. Do you think you will be happy throughout your lifetime? It means that it is an idle dream. Because God has not been happy until now, if one were happy oneself, being happy would, on the contrary, become nothing but a motive for being struck by God’s whip and growing distant from God.
That is why it is said that one who gives is more blessed than one who receives; that is, one who gives is more blessed than one who receives. What I like is, in every respect, a position of receiving, and a position where I seek to sacrifice is, in every respect, a position of giving. That is why a position of sacrificing is a position of receiving blessings. Then why is a position where one sacrifices oneself a position of receiving blessings? It is because God has come forth sacrificing until now and because that position is a position where one can stand on God’s side.
God has until now walked a wretched course of a pioneer. Therefore, one must not be bold before such a God. Even though there be achievements one has built, one must hold an attitude by which one can make them material for a greater achievement and material by which one can rejoice together with God in the future. You must know that such an attitude is the essential attitude of faith and the course a believer must take.
That is why you must know that the word “Father” you call in prayer is the most difficult word to call. It means that within that word “Father” the circumstances of history dwell, and the sorrow of history dwells, and the twists of having shouldered the historical cross and overcome all that suffering are steeped in it. The question is how, when you pray before the Father, you must grasp such a mind through experience (체휼).
Become a Pioneer Who Founds a New History
Today we must become pioneers who found a new history. And yet one must not be full of confidence before God or say, “Did I not do this for the Father’s Will; why dost Thou not recognize me?” Such a person cannot become a pioneer.
Such a person is in every respect a person who carries the cross before God and a person who cannot bear even his cross. Today we must go the road the individual must go, and go the road the family must go, and go the road the clan, people, and nation must go. This is the road we Unification Church members must go on.
In this way, although there are many stages of the cross remaining on the course of life the individual must go, how can one trust people who, on that course, ask that what I as an individual did be praised and who frown if one does not praise them?
How can one trust them?
It means that from God’s position, who comes forth taking responsibility for a tremendous history, such people cannot be trusted. Because there was no person whom God could thus trust, in the historical age until now no one at all knew God’s inner circumstances and departed. You must know such a fact.
From the present position of thinking of one’s own self, one cannot carry out a pioneer’s responsibility. Why? Because this has not crossed beyond the sphere of recognition of oneself, who was born on Satan’s side. Because we are bodies born receiving Satan’s blood and bone and flesh, that body itself is a self that has not crossed a certain boundary line. While leading such a habitual life, one must not say, “I am a son or daughter of God,” but say one goes the road of God’s Will in the Unification Church. Such a person is of no use. It means such a position is in every respect a position that compounds one’s own cross upon God.
One must hold the conviction that says, “I absolutely will not fall into debt before God. My responsibility I will bear. I do not desire anyone’s cooperation.” And yet there are many among you who, when it is hard, resent time after time, saying they are not recognized, saying Unification Church members do not recognize them, and saying it is worse than the established church. That is because one does not know the road of the Will. Each one’s road to go is time-sensitive. It means one’s own road to go is time-sensitive. How does one escape from such a life in which I compound the cross before God? This is the priority.
Therefore, I must shoulder the cross my household suffers. I must shoulder the cross my people suffer. I must shoulder the cross the nation suffers. I must take responsibility for it, and I must suffer it. If there be such a person, God will recognize him as the first hope of that nation. It means God is One who wishes to entrust that nation to such people and wishes to form a bond with that nation.
You must know this. If each of you today goes the road of the Will from a normal and comfortable position, that is not a road for God. You must not forget that that position is rather a position that compounds one’s own cross before God. When one thinks of this, a mind of being unable to lift one’s face before God and being sorry and awestruck, a shameful mind in which one cannot compose one’s own heart (심정), such a mind must sweep over your surroundings and lead your living.
A position where one has not become such a self is undoubtedly a position that lays a cross upon God. Although one stands in such a position, saying, “They do not recognize me, recognize me”—how rash a thing is that, and how great an unfilial act? So how much must God long for a new pioneer to come out in this world of death?
The Reason God Sets Us in a Position of Hardship
Then the question is, from where did such a tragedy unfold?
Accordingly, one must be able to say, “I must take responsibility for the historical age I have passed through from the past until the present and be victorious before God. Victory is mine.”
The being called “I” holds a historic bond of sin, so if one would escape from it, one must repent in place of history. Furthermore, since one is a product of this age, one must repent in place of the age. Have you made such a pledge as, “All the mistaken facts that were in the family of Adam of the past, the family of Noah, the family of Abraham the course of Moses must not be in us”? I will not do so. My family at least will not do so. Even though God does not cooperate, I will not go down such a road. Even though God thinks me pitiful and cooperates, I will bear my burden.”
God drives you out onto a course of the cross to set up such a condition. There is a three-day course at any time. These three points must without fail set the center in the middle. A straight line will not do. One must bend and cross over. In this position, one must go alone without God’s cooperation. One must say, “Father, I alone go.” This is the road of faith that steps forth, foretelling the departure of a new historical age. And yet many people wish to go, receiving God’s cooperation. The road of faith until now has been so.
That is why one must shoulder a double cross. Isn't the step Adam and Eve came forth on a step of betraying God? So one must say, “O God, betray me.” Only then does one carry out Restoration through Indemnity. One must step forth with the resolve of saying, “Say Thou knowest me not. Even though Thou sayest Thou knowest me not until the final time of suffering, I will fulfill the duty of filial piety. This road is a road I ought properly to go on.”
If there be such a person, even though God does not help him, He wishes to help his descendants eternally. It means the world of heart (심정) is so.
You cling time after time when it is hard, saying, “Father!” Then how must one handle this responsibility? You must become a self who, the more you suffer difficulty, closes your mouth and says, “I will take responsibility for this and go,” while thinking how one can show a shameful state before the Father who forgives me, before the Father who watches over my environment. One must be able to say, “Even by settling it decisively I will without fail go. I will surely go.” At such a time God will say, “Very well, will you go? Then go and see!” It means receiving Satan’s attack. One must overcome and go from such a position. It means one must go saying, “I ought properly to receive it.”
God has come forth, taking responsibility for sons and daughters on the course of restoration until now. So now I ought properly to receive it.
Since God came forth taking responsibility so to cooperate with us, for us to become God’s sons, we ought properly to receive Satan’s attack. Even though one enters a position of being bound to the enemy’s torture rack and struck with the whip, one must be able to say, “O Father, do not worry. On the day I endure and remain, I will repay this a thousandfold and ten-thousandfold.”
Furthermore, even in a position of passing through the valley of God’s deep heart (심정) and receiving a new resolve and new education, one must be able to say, “Father, do not worry and be calm.” It means that without crossing such a road, a motive for new pioneering cannot come out in the human world. It means the world is not resolved just as it is. That is why human beings have come forth through faith. Seen from such a viewpoint of faith, it means the countless religions today must without fail come to an end.
The Pioneer God Sets Forth
Then what must the Unification Church do today on a course of faith that has welcomed such a Last Days?
To cross over to the other side toward a new road, our attitude of living must differ. One must pledge, “As a new pioneer, I will enter a position of pioneering and succeed.”
Until now, countless people cried out for help when it was hard, but the road the Unification Church goes is not so. When we founded the Victory-Over-Communism Federation, people in the agencies said, “Why are they so foolish? If they did it here and there and put everyone forward, they could do any amount....” But I do not desire such a thing. Because it is a course of pioneering, I must go upon the foundation on which God has toiled; it means I will take responsibility and do it. It means I will invest all the sincerity I have. Whether night or day… It means I pour out the utmost energy I can.
If one fails in the first plan, one sets up a second plan. There one will make double the effort. If the second plan also fails, one again sets up a third plan and does it.
One will make effort compounded threefold. It means that the more one repeats failure, the more, rather than becoming a dropout and being defeated through the factors of that failure, one will, on the contrary, make a still more compounded resolve and determination here and go forth.
Only so is the heavenly kingdom achieved on earth. It is not that the heavenly kingdom comes to earth, but that one must make the heavenly kingdom on earth. For that, one must become a new pioneer and move this earth. God too seeks to set forth a pioneer upon this earth; then what kind of pioneer does He set up? It means that such a one as lays a burden upon God is of no use. It must be a person who can take charge of not only his burden but even God’s burden. That you have walked forth until now was to receive individual salvation. It was for your individual selves and not for the nation. It means there are many nauseating crowds who all, within the fence of the individual, strut about trivially, holding a narrow view of life, saying what this is and that is…
I do not know whether I have told you, but even in a position of entering prison and being beaten and vomiting blood and collapsing, I did not pray before God for myself. Because God has come forth suffering several hundred times more than this, I could not pray before that God. A person who is taking responsibility for a future road of suffering could not lift his face and pray because he suffers hardship at present. I held a mind that said, “I ought properly to be struck! I ought properly to be driven! I ought properly to die!” One’s own cross—one must take responsibility for oneself. That is why Jesus said,
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Matt. 16:24).”
If one says one will entrust one’s own cross to God, God does not sympathize. Until today, most believers have sought to entrust their crosses to God. They were believers like parasites who sought to scrape and eat even God’s bones without thinking of what they would leave for God. It means that one cannot go to the heavenly kingdom. It means one cannot go to God’s nation, that is, to God’s house.
However unfilial a child is before his parents, if he knows that his parents toiled to death, he turns and weeps aloud and repents. When a child comes to stand in such a position, he can become a filial son too. But we human beings have not yet stood in such a position.
Therefore, at what time will I prepare myself to become such a figure of a filial son as has not been in the historical age, a figure God can sympathize with, so that God can hold hope and say, “I cannot but place my hope in you”? It means it will not do with the form of religion until now. One must grope for a new form.
Here it means the view the Unification Church sees is different. It is not that I pray and I will receive blessings, but let us pray to lighten God’s burden, to return blessings before God, in order that I may take responsibility for God’s difficulty.
Furthermore, even though one suffers hardship, one must hold a mind that says that suffering is not excessive for me but rather that it is too little and I am ashamed before God. Not only that, but one must be able to say, “Is not Thy position rather one of having to take off the cross Thou hast shouldered for the nation before being anxious for me?
Even though I die, even though this nation and this people perish, is not Thy position one of having to take off the cross shouldered for the world?” Because God is in such a position, even though one drives one’s own child, kindred, and clan out to a position of hardship, a position of hunger, and a position of nakedness. It means it is not a person who stands in such a position and is for the nation a loyal subject.
We Who Must Grope for a New Road of a Pioneer
You must grope for a new road of filial piety, and you must grope for a new road of loyalty, and you must grope for a new road of a pioneer. From where is its origin? That position is not a position where one recognizes oneself and asserts oneself centering on oneself, saying, “O God, recognize me.” You must know that.
From here a new road of a pioneer begins again. You must go the road of a pioneer holding a mind of awkwardness toward God, who helps you. If any of you prayed at some position and God’s grace was together with it, how pitiful is God? How pitiful is He, I say. It means that a mind that struggles much with the spiritual world and opens the road, and forms a relationship and goes seeking until now must be within your life of faith.
So one must go a road of suffering hardship for the people. One must go a road of suffering hardship for the world. One must go while one is alive, until before earth enters one's eyes. Is there not a destiny remaining in my lifetime of having to carry out individual restoration, family restoration, people restoration, national restoration, and world restoration? Isn't life far too short for that? Can one not live but seventy or eighty years?
That is why one must, reducing this, live a life in which one can live for this world, for this nation, for these people today. And one must become a self who goes saying, “O Father, recognize this trial I suffer as one met for this people and the world. Because the trial Thou hast suffered was such a trial, is it not the duty of a child to wish to know that mind of the Father?”
All of you, when has God ever rejoiced?
Today, spiritually gifted people pray and then say the Teacher is pitiful, do they not? But the Teacher is not pitiful. God is pitiful. The One several tens of millions of times more pitiful than I is God the Father. I am not pitiful. What I desire is not your sympathy. Rather than your sympathy, I desire the people’s sympathy. That is why I sacrifice you.
Why is that? It is so that you may become people-level selves. It means that without doing so, one cannot pioneer the road of restoration. That is why, if it be a Unification Church close before God, one must be able to say, even while shouldering a cross one can bear, “O God, set me forth.” This is the position of filial piety.
That is why, if there be a person who has slept comfortably with legs stretched out, he must feel shame from the moment he opens his eyes. Even when he puts on clothes and steps out, he must feel shame, and even after eating rice, he must feel shame. It means the road of faith is one from which one cannot cast away and depart from a road of tears.
From there, one must pioneer the course of individual restoration God has presented, and the course of family restoration, or the pioneering course of the unification family, the pioneering course of people's restoration, and the pioneering course of national restoration unfold. Such things absolutely do not perish as the days go by. If I perish, God too collapses.
Unification Church Members, Who Must Become Pioneers of the World of Heart
All of you, is it not so?
Suppose someone has several sons, and among them one son, whenever there is something to eat, is apt simply to share it with his brothers and is anxious for his parents and so on; if by some misfortune that son died, what would the mind of those parents be? Those parents would be indescribably sorrowful.
Likewise, it is the Unification Church that says let us live and die from such a position of heart (심정).
Therefore, you must become pioneers of the world of heart (심정). On the road that a pioneer goes, there is only overcoming and patience. That is the philosophy of living. No one understands such a position. It is a hard and weary position. It means there are many times when one is weary to the point of utter exhaustion.
Even so, one must say, “That my one individual self collapses is fine, but O Father! If there were not even a person like me upon this earth, how pitiful wouldst Thou be? The more I feel that, when I cannot become the first hope, there are no such sons and daughters who can become the second or the third hope, the more I come to know how pitiful a One Thou art.” You must hold such a mind. And thus, centering on the new religion called the Unification Church, we must raise the flag of a pioneer.
Even after carrying out such a mission of a pioneer, one must feel shame. It means one must feel, “God was together with me again.” Each time I pass through the crossroads of a place of death (사지 死地), I think I am already an abandoned body, but God is anxious for such a one as I and holds me up. It means God is more anxious for you than your praying.
So it means there is no need to pray. In the world of the heart, there is no need to pray. The road of filial piety is not a road of demanding of the parents. The road one goes on must become a road that attests to filial piety.
Then what kind of position is that position?
It is a position where, casting off the mistaken attitude of faith until now, one does not return one’s own cross before God but bears it oneself. If one’s own strength is insufficient, one must writhe, saying one will take responsibility for that road by which one can connect it to the people’s cross, the world’s cross. From such a position, one must say, “O Father! Send me. Strike me. Even for my sake, save these people. That I think of these people is because the Father wishes to save these people.” If one prays holding such a heart (심정), that prayer will reach God.
And yet all pray for the individual, for the individual…? Do you pray for the Teacher? Do not even speak of it. I do not desire prayer for me. You must not pray for yourselves either. You do something and then say the Teacher does not recognize what I did; the Association president does not recognize it. Not being recognized is normal. Being recognized is fearful.
The Teacher, while pioneering this road, has not spoken of that difficulty to anyone, even when running up against the most difficult time. It is so even now. I do not consult even the Association president about the road I must go. Because the road I go on is the first road gone, I must go on it. I go, being struck. I have not yet once rested. Seen from an outer position, it may be better than in the old days, but even so, one cannot be at ease here.
This is the original posture with which a fallen human being must be equipped and go forth before God, who has led the Providence of Restoration. If there be a person who collapses on the way, one must bear even that and go. But is not seeking to bear that cross for another the mind of a parent who holds the relationship of parent and child? When we think of such things, holding such sympathy and bond of God, I must go my road.
Then where is the road I must go? Knowing that a position where one can be asked, “Hey, so-and-so! Can you bear such a cross of mine in my place?” is a position of still greater good value; one must be able to swear that one will devote every loyalty to take responsibility. From here a new road of a pioneer begins upon this earth.
A person who has lived so will without fail remain in history even though he does not seek to remain. You must know that from here a new religion, a new people a new world are formed. Do you understand? “Yes.”
