Former Headquarters Church, Korea
The countless people living upon the earth wish to avoid a road they do not want, and all the more a road in which the problem of their own life being threatened is involved. Anyone who is a person would try to avoid such a road.
The Road of Life Caused by the Fall
The road of our life as we live out this present time is not a level road. That is why there is reason in the fact that from of old the course of human life has been called a sea of suffering.
All the more, we human beings, born holding the relationship of the Fall, were born with a destiny by which we must one way or another cross over the course of bitter resentment that arose through that Fall; and we know that unless we cross it, even after passing through a historical course of thousands and tens of thousands of years, that road of han will remain before us eternally.
When we examine the life of a day at this point in which we stand, there will be some people who spend the life of a day meaninglessly, and there will also be some who live regarding the life of that day as something precious that can determine the life of a year. And there will also be some who are contending over that day in a serious position, turning it over with the problem of life and death at stake. There will also be people who are meeting on a day on which they must choose one of the two at the crossroads of whether to die or to live.
Because Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, from that moment our human beings did not set out holding the requisites of happiness but set out holding the requisites of unhappiness. Therefore, in order for humankind today to return to the world of happiness, they must without fail kick their way out of the world of unhappiness. Otherwise, no one at all can return to a happy world.
Because humankind fell, it was not only human beings who became unhappy; God too became unhappy together with them. Therefore, when humankind goes seeking the place of happiness, God too becomes happy. Because God and human beings are thus in the same position and are aiming at one purpose, you must know the fact that both God and human beings have passed through the course of history and come seeking as far as the present point.
Because He lost Adam and Eve, God has walked the most rugged of rugged roads, a road that no human being in the world desires or wishes to go. Therefore, this road that remained because of the Fall became a road of destiny that no one could avoid going, even if he would. Because God was in a position of being unable to cast away Adam and Eve, who were going the road of the Fall, even though it would have been fitting to cast them away, this heaven and earth can leave the one day of the wish as hope.
Though it is a rugged road so tremendous and so serious that no one wishes to go it, we are not pushed back by the rugged road itself; we have a goal that must cross over that rugged road and a mission given by Heaven. Because God is in the position beyond all the requisites opposed to it, having trodden upon them and crossed over to fulfill that goal and that mission, you must know that the road of destiny of Restoration remains in the course of history today.
The Rugged Pass That Adam’s Family and Noah’s Family Had to Cross
We must know that because we human beings fell, God has come across rugged passes that are difficult to cross.
If God had not been able to cross those passes, terms such as the providence of salvation or the Providence of Restoration would have become terms that do not apply to us today. But even though God was in a position where He could not cut off the environment to which we human beings were bound, and even though cutting off that bound environment and crossing over was the most rugged of rugged passes and the hardest of hard roads to go, because there is a standard by which God resolutely crossed it, you must know that a day on which we can meet God again has remained in human history.
Because human beings fell, they fell into a position with no connection to God.
From here, humankind was separated from God, and the road of going to seek God grew ever more distant. When it becomes so, because it is not God who is leading, it is not God who is in a position to take responsibility, but human beings themselves, who cut off the relationship with God, who are in a position to take responsibility. Therefore, when God tells us human beings to pioneer this and go, even though it should cost us the sacrifice of everything, we must go. God, of course, pushed our human road from behind, but we know that in such a course human beings passed through a historical course of leaving God with sorrow compounded again and again.
Looking centering on Adam’s family, because Adam fell, it was God’s Will to restore this through Cain and Abel. To restore this, Cain must without fail attend to his younger brother Abel as his elder. For Cain, this pass was a rugged road hard to cross. This road, seen by human ethics and morality today, is the road hardest to cross. But because, from Cain’s position, he failed to cross this rugged pass, even though he ought to have attended to Abel and crossed over, you must know that history is not only obliged to go back but is placed in a destiny in which the sorrowful road of the past must be trodden all over again.
Because, with Cain and Abel in Adam’s family, Cain failed to cross the rugged road he had to cross, the providential history of the restoration of humankind was prolonged down to Noah, the tenth generation from Adam. Grandfather Noah, in place of humankind, had once again to cross a rugged pass, and that pass was more rugged than the pass Cain had to cross.
In Noah’s family, the whole family had to cross the rugged pass. Therefore, in crossing that pass, it was not only the father and mother who were to go; the children, as members of the family, also had a heavenly mission and a human mission to unite as one and, without fail, cross that road, even though it be a road of family trial or suffering, a road of family tribulation.
But because Noah’s family, which was to fulfill that mission, failed to cross the rugged pass, the Will of God, who had been conducting the providence centering on Adam’s family, was broken.
So because this work centering on Adam’s family had to be gathered once again through his descendants, Abraham was established after passing through a course of hard labor for four hundred years from Noah.
Accordingly, we know the fact that God could not but begin again the historical course in which He endured and sought to cross the rugged road.
The Rugged Pass That Abraham Had to Cross
Then, looking at Abraham, the road Abraham went on was not level. When God sought to form a relationship with him, how good it would have been if God could have formed the relationship from a position of welcoming and acknowledging, just as they were all the ties in the environment in which he stood! But God, who knew that in such a position He could not form a relationship with him however much He wished, could not but issue him a command to cut off all his ties.
So God commanded Abraham to cast away everything in Ur of the Chaldees, his native land, where his kinsmen and his father lived, and to set out on a road in a foreign land. God too knew that this matter was difficult. Abraham himself, though he might not reach the standard God knew, had an inner faith that he must without fail pass through such a time; and so, receiving the heavenly command, he left Ur of the Chaldees and lived the life of a gypsy. For Abraham, this was an unspeakably rugged road.
If Abraham, with the rugged pass set before him, had clung with regret to the ties of the past and grieved centering on the ties left to him, the name of Abraham, the first ancestor of faith, could not have remained upon this earth where we live today. The road on which Abraham stepped forth before the Will was not a level road; a rugged pass barred that road. Seeing this, we can glimpse the fact that without crossing over the rugged pass, one can never go seeking Heaven.
From where did all such motives and origins arise?
They did not arise from Abraham. If this road had arisen through Abraham himself, and if therefore he was destined to go that rugged road, then the more he was stung by his wrongdoing, the more he could have crossed the rugged road with a resolve proportionate to it. Yet seen from Abraham himself, there was no reason at all why he should have to cross such a rugged pass. Abraham, who was called by God from a position where he had no historical sin of his own nor any fault committed in the past, became the first ancestor of faith.
For Abraham, when he came to stand in a position of having to go a rugged mountain road even though he ought to have gone on a level road, this could not but be an unspeakable trial for Abraham himself. But because Abraham was born as a descendant who could not escape all the ties of his forebears, to return to Heaven he must without fail cross the rugged pass his forebears had brought about. Because without treading upon this and crossing over, one cannot return to Heaven, God could not but command again and again, with content like a formula, that this pass be crossed.
For Abraham to cross this pass following God’s command, he had to cast away his beloved parents and cast away his beloved brothers. Furthermore, he had to sweep away not only all the property he had possessed until then but also every circumstance that he had wished for in that land and left behind as a tie and left behind as a concept. And so, unless within a new tie from Heaven, that is, within the ties of new parents and new brothers, with a new mind and a new ideal, he trod upon such an environment and crossed over; no new departure could be seen.
Therefore, we must know the fact that God presented Abraham with a difficult crisis road that a human being cannot go.
If Abraham had not swept this away and departed toward a wilderness like a wasteland, leaving his native hills and streams behind him, we today could not have welcomed this time of the Providence of Restoration. But we must know that because Abraham, though it was a difficult and rugged road of undergoing such trial and suffering, was able to cross that mountain pass without mishap, a historic new origin was prepared from there.
Jacob, Who Crossed the Rugged Pass
That God told him to offer Isaac as a burnt offering was also one rugged pass for Abraham. Looking at Jacob, Jacob’s struggle with Esau was also a rugged pass.
Because Adam’s family left han to God, Jacob, who was to gather Adam’s family, had to go a road of destiny of subjugating his elder brother Esau to indemnify all that the preceding generations, Abraham and Isaac and the rest, had brought about. This was an exceedingly difficult thing for Jacob. And for Esau too, submitting to his younger brother Jacob was an exceedingly difficult thing. That is, it was a rugged road both for Jacob and for Esau.
In carrying out the history of Restoration until now, the question of how to cross such rugged passes has been at stake. It is the same when we look at Jacob. For Jacob, the wilderness course of twenty-one years was a road of unbearable trial and an unbearably rugged road. Yet Jacob, even while in a position where a rugged road barred his way, held a conviction by which he could tread upon that rugged road and cross over with a mind that longed for Heaven; and even when placed in an environment that refused all his assertions, he held a conviction by which he could push through such things, and this became one motive by which he could cross the boundary line between the wilderness of Haran and Israel.
Because Jacob had such a piercing, earnest mind, even when the crisis roads of trial came upon him and every rugged circumstance pressed in, he could cross them without mishap; and even when the evil waves of the world or Satan’s schemes pressed in according to the time and the environment, he could cross them without mishap. He held a foundation of conviction by which he could push forward without receiving any domination or infringement from within or without.
Because Jacob held the conviction that such days of trial were a discipline that would let him find his village and his hometown, and further a discipline that would let him take hold of the Israel he hoped for, he was able to overcome and cross over those days of trial.
If he had not been able to overcome and cross over such days of trial, he could not have appeared holding the right of the chosen people of Israel. Until Jacob found that right of the chosen people, a long span of twenty-one years passed. The road he passed through during those twenty-one years was a road of han and a road of trial and a rugged road, but we must know the fact that because Jacob paid no mind to such a road and pursued the Heaven that pursued Israel, from there the history of the chosen people began.
From this viewpoint, Jacob was not a shrewd man. In his life, he suffered a sorrow that no one else in the course of history suffered. Because on the road of Restoration returning to Heaven, he resolved more firmly in his inner heart than anyone else; he was able to overcome and break through without mishap the difficult crisis roads he ran into in his environment. Therefore, we must know the fact that during twenty-one years he was able to cross even the rugged towering mountains and steep ridges that lay layer upon layer.
The people of Israel, from the day they set out standing on Heaven’s side, ought to have inherited Jacob’s conviction and succeeded to Jacob’s thought just as it was, serving Him as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, or as a tie of family tradition serving God alone and passing through the course of their lives for God alone. But because the people of Israel failed to do so, the rugged pass that the people of Israel had crossed in the course of history, or the rugged pass that Jacob had crossed, came once again before their descendants.
So before the family that crossed the family pass, the clan pass remains; and before the one people of Israel that crossed the people pass, the national pass remains; and before the nation of Israel that crossed the national pass, the world pass remains. Thus we must know that on the road of Restoration ever greater and more rugged mountain passes remain.
God bestowed upon the people of Israel the mission of connecting the history of such circumstances, crossing over one range of towering mountains and steep ridges by which they could go to the stage of the world centering on the foundation of a nation, raising the banner of liberation for all people, and achieving a new heaven and earth upon this earth. That is why He gave the people of Israel the thought of the Messiah and had them go forward, realizing a new world. We must know that until then it was a period of preparation for crossing that pass.
The Rugged Pass Christianity Must Cross
The people of Israel had to become completely one with Jesus, centering on him, and cross over the worldwide rugged pass. But although they had prepared for four thousand years to cross that mountain pass, because the people of Israel failed to become one with Jesus, they retreated all at once and went back to the starting point without even looking upon that pass and without even departing. We must know that what completely dissolved and completely consumed the merit of Israel until then and reduced it to the starting point was the course of Jesus’ cross.
Therefore, we must know the fact that in developing and advancing and coming through victorious until now, Christianity has been crossing the individual pass of the cross, the family pass of the cross, and the clan, people, national, and worldwide passes of the cross. That is why, in whatever clan and whatever nation, wherever Christianity went, a blood-shedding fight without fail unfolded. We know well through the history of Christianity that it has waged a decisive struggle on the final rugged road with the question of dying or living at stake.
We must know the fact that however much Christianity has writhed and struggled, it has not writhed from a position that has integrated the spiritual world and the physical world; rather, it has developed until now to break open this road with a great pass before it, that of having to integrate the physical world by the spiritual world.
After crossing this pass, the spiritual world and the physical world must become one and form a new Israelite clan and a new Israelite people and a new Israelite nation and go to a new worldwide stage. We must know that this is the most rugged of the rugged roads remaining in the course of Restoration.
Then what is the mission of the Unification Church that has come forth upon this earth today? You must know that it bears the mission of breaking open the rugged pass remaining in the spiritual world and the physical world.
Today we must conquer the physical world centering on the spiritual world, and conquer the earth centering on Heaven. For that, one must have the subject's nature by which one can conquer.
One must become a person who stands in a subject position able to digest the conditions of the earth with the conditions of Heaven, rather than one who is digested by the conditions upon the earth; and one must not only strengthen one’s subject consciousness but also open one’s spirit (심령). Therefore, adventure without fail accompanies this. That the road we must go is such a rugged road cannot be denied when we look in the light of history.
The Unification Church, Which Must Break Open the Rugged Pass of the Spiritual World and the Physical World
So God has until now been coming, seeking the physical world, centering on the spiritual world. This road of coming seeking upon the earth is not a level road but a rugged road. Therefore, human beings must cross over the rugged pass upon the earth and prepare one victorious starting point at which the spiritual world and the physical world can be in accord.
If here one has established an individual standard of victory rather than an overall standard, then one must once again cross over the family rugged pass. That is, one must go the rugged road regarding the family.
The road of going to seek the family is not a level road but a rugged road. Because all the twists knotted up in the course of history began through the family, we must know that to seek the family and cross over, one must tread upon countless passes of han and tangled circumstances and must without fail cross the rugged pass one has to cross.
Such things will not end with the family alone. When one crosses over from the family toward a new clan, a rugged pass remains as well.
Likewise, when one crosses over from the clan toward the people, a rugged pass that must be indemnified remains. It is the same when one crosses over from the people to the nation, and we must know the fact that when one crosses from the nation to the world, and from the world to the Cosmos, rugged passes are always waiting before us.
When Jesus became victorious in Satan’s three great temptations, Satan spoke of appearing again with the people at stake and departed. Seeing this, even though an individual has crossed over a rugged pass and been victorious, if he fails to be victorious at the crisis road where he must fight centering on the people, then even he who was victorious as an individual cannot escape the sorrow of the defeated. You must know such a fact.
Seen from this viewpoint, we who are today going the course of Indemnity are placed on a road of destiny on which we must cross such rugged passes.
Who must cross this pass?
No one can cross this pass in another’s stead. Because human beings were born holding the ties of fallen parents, a child cannot cross along with his parents merely because the parents crossed. Because human beings fell and are all bound up in iron chains, they must break these chains and cross over. Merely because the parents broke them and crossed, the trials and sufferings one must undergo oneself cannot be indemnified thereby. Therefore, in crossing over this pass, each one must without fail take responsibility and cross.
Seeing such things, you must know the fact that because our human ancestors, these two people Adam and Eve, fell, a condition of Indemnity centering on the ties of man and woman has been presented to the countless people who have come and gone in the course of history until now, and that this is presented to the three billion of humankind today as well.
Then what kind of people are those who drank the sorrowful cup of the defeated?
That is, what kind of people are those who went to hell?
They are those who disliked crossing over this rugged pass, and those who tried to evade the rugged pass. But we must know that those who, on meeting the rugged pass, knew it as the course of a whole lifetime that they ought properly to cross, and who felt that the strength and effort they put in to cross that pass were insufficient and said they would cross even by throwing in their lives, crossed that pass and pushed through the sorrowful course of history and formed a relationship with Heaven and are dwelling in Paradise, the middle spiritual world.
When we infer through the course of history the background of the people who have gone to Paradise, the question is how many rugged passes they crossed in that course. You must know that the heavenly position is determined according to the difference of whether one crossed an individual rugged pass, whether one crossed a family rugged pass, whether one crossed a national rugged pass, or whether one crossed a worldwide pass.
Jesus sought to cross the worldwide rugged pass alone. Jesus’ going the road of the cross was the final rugged pass of his life. Jesus, contending with God, said, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this road pass from me.” He hoped that God would concede to the utmost possible limit, and he hoped to avoid that road if it could be avoided; yet he said, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as the Father wills.”
In that “Nevertheless…” he laid down his life; that is, he stepped forth resolved upon death. Though it was a position he came to hold, such a conviction, that position was not a position God welcomed; it was a position God forsook, and even heaven and earth denied. Yet Jesus knew that a rugged road of destiny remained that he must go following God’s Will. We must know that Jesus had such a circumstance in which he had to lay down his life and settle the matter.
Jesus, Who Sought to Cross the Worldwide Rugged Pass Alone
If Jesus had made absolute that condition in the Garden of Gethsemane, “O my Father, if it be possible…,” Christianity today could not have been born upon this earth.
However much he came bearing a thousand years of history and came to conclude a historical mission, if he had failed to cross this rugged road, from there the history of Christianity, the history of a new Providence of Restoration, could not have manifested itself upon this earth.
Yet Jesus held a firm conviction as he went the rugged road he had to cross with his life at stake. Because Jesus had a mind that loved his people, a mind that envisioned the Kingdom of Heaven of the future, a mind the same as the mind of God, he trod upon the rugged road and crossed over and broke through. Therefore, from there, a historic new departure proportionate to that rugged road unfolded.
Then was that a goal of struggle for the nation, or a goal of struggle for the world? The content and the standard for which Jesus fought to cross the rugged road had to be such as could become the motive for the departure of a new history centering on God, and such that after the departure the purpose could be accomplished by passing through some course.
The standard Jesus met as a rugged starting point was worldwide. Though he was one body, he stepped forth to break through the rugged road that lay across the world, standing in a position of saying he would save all heaven and earth. Because Jesus’ conviction was not entangled and toppled by the rugged road but crossed the rugged summit together with death, we must know that from here the worldwide history of Restoration set out.
We Who Must Ruthlessly Settle Everything and Go Forth
If one nation with thirty million citizens is in a time of upheaval or an emergency, the one who saves that nation is not the whole thirty million citizens. Even if the citizens number several hundred million, it is not all of them who save the nation. The one who can save that nation is one person who has established one standard.
By the influence of one person, a nation can be saved. He regards as important, more than anyone else from the past until now, the historical achievements of goodness that these people have accumulated. And he is a patriot who takes responsibility at the present point for every problem these people must face, and steps forth resolutely with the conviction that in the future these people must be thus.
The content such a patriot proclaims becomes one starting point, and the road by which this nation can be saved is pioneered. Therefore, it is not the whole citizenry that saves the nation; rather, through the one who represents those citizens, a new fortune can be welcomed. On the other hand, we must know that the position of having welcomed a new fortune can also be lost.
Therefore, the one who proclaims it must go the rugged road to welcome a new fortune. When one compares all the trials and sufferings that press in upon him with the world of hope that is to come, only when the mind directed toward the world of hope is stronger can one overcome trial and suffering. One can cross the rugged pass. Such an attitude of mind must become one body with one’s life. So unless that standard becomes a standard higher than the rugged pass of the environment that comes driving in, one cannot cross over the historical age and establish the foundation of a new age.
Our Unification Church stands in a position of having to march forth from now toward these people. At the present point, when you pursue a new advance, those who retreat, saying that the road going toward the nation is a rugged road, will be judged before the nation. Not only that, they will be judged before the world.
Therefore, for us to avenge ourselves on the enemy on this rugged road, we must be able to judge the nation. Only when we can judge the nation can we judge the enemy.
Furthermore, to judge the enemy who blocks the world, we must be able to judge the world. That is, only when we can judge the world can we judge Satan, the enemy. Seen thus, we must clearly know that the course we must go is a rugged road.
Looking at the course of history until now, whether one goes straight toward this road or goes around it has determined a thousand years of history. Upon it hangs the question of whether thousands of years of history are prolonged or thousands of years of history are set at odds. Seen from this viewpoint, how tremendous and how serious is the present point in which we stand today!
Today, in passing through this rugged road, we must go forward throwing in everything, our life, and our property and all. Just as Abraham resolved, because this is a road we must one way or another depart upon, we who depart must ruthlessly settle everything and go forward. Even if the people oppose us, we must break through all that opposition and go forward.
On the course we have set out upon toward the world, we must tread upon this world and cross over.
If a rugged road lies across our path as we go forth toward the world, we must kick it aside and cross over. Can you do that?
Why Does One Regard Oneself as Important and Absolute
What is closest to oneself?
As reciprocal requisites, there are parents, a wife, and children. Next, there are the material conditions centering on the family. But anyone, when he compares his family with material things, will know that the family is more precious than material things.
When asked whether to cast away the family or cast away material things, in the notions of human ethics and morality until now, anyone regards it as the ordinary rule to cast away material things for the sake of the family. Then when it comes to whether what is closest to oneself is the family or oneself, it is not the family but oneself. Comparing oneself and the family, when one must take only the single most precious thing, what happens? One casts away the family.
The family is a horizontal foundation that has reduced the world in scale. From here the nation and the world unfold. What is the family? The family is a horizontal miniature of the world, a reciprocal standard before the absolute center. Then what am I? I am the footing upon which the absolute center can dwell.
When you have a difficult matter, you go seeking your mother; but for whose sake do you seek her? Do you seek her for your mother’s sake? For whose sake is it that in a difficult situation you seek your mother and hope she will solve it? It is not for the partner’s sake but for my own sake. Therefore, the greatest question is “I.” Then why does one regard “I” as important? Because “I” am the center. There cannot be two centers. Because the being called “I” stands in a position that can stand in place of the central being, it is an absolute reciprocal form before that central being. That partner is not an absolute from a position situated upon a flat plane. It is an absolute as a reciprocal being before three-dimensional Heaven.
Therefore, you must attend to God and live with body and mind united as one. Yet though that body and mind must always be one, they have not been. Our human beings have become one and then split, become one and then split. Whatever one may be like, that one regards oneself as important is one that until now cannot be denied among human beings. When we consider the question of whether we can handle everything centering on ourselves, until now we cannot.
That is because we have not formed an absolute relationship with the center of the universe. But because I am one who is in a position of having to prepare an absolute standard of goodness and form such a relationship, I must go on regarding myself as important. Because we are on such a road of destiny, everyone without exception regards himself as important and as absolute. Therefore, to establish the absolute standard of myself, I must prepare the reciprocal requisites corresponding to it.
To prepare that quickly and completely, you must enter into the center of Heaven’s side. In entering, everything that opposes must be cut off. If material things oppose, one must cut off material things; if the world opposes, one must cut off the world.
Because of the Fall, neither man nor woman, none, has prepared such a reciprocal standard as God has unfolded until now. Therefore, to prepare that reciprocal standard is the lifelong craving of a human being.
Even if one is at the crisis of death, one must prepare that reciprocal standard and then die. Because such a cause exists, one regards one’s own self as absolute.
The Reason God Presents the Rugged Road to Humankind
Then are we, who are within the sphere of the Fall, in a position where we can be in accord with Heaven, a position we can regard as absolute?
Because we ourselves are within the sphere of the Fall, the position in which we stand is not a position we can regard as absolute.
If there were an absolute world within the sphere of the Fall, it would perish. Therefore, centering on Heaven, we must deny it. The one center that can be regarded as absolute cannot be two. Looking at yourselves, each has a different nature. Therefore, each of you has, in your own way, a worldview and a view of the Cosmos that is in accord with Heaven. Accordingly, herein lies the cause why one’s single life is greater than the universe.
But because that central standard has not been decided, to decide it, one must be born again. Is it an easy matter to be born again from a mother’s womb? When all the roads that collide from the four directions of east and west have become completely one, when one has established an absolute standard and prepared one’s position, when Heaven and one’s own self have become completely one body, from there what is lost is not lost. What is lost on the plane is found three-dimensionally. In this fallen world, in place of losing plain material things and a plain family as a plain family today, one comes to find three-dimensional material things and a three-dimensional family.
But people do not clearly know this. When we look at people who do business seeking profit, they set out to lose the present state of things. What does that mean? It means that when a person who holds a hundred thousand won has made a profit of a million won, he must forget his thought about the hundred thousand won.
Seen from this viewpoint, why does God present the rugged road to our humankind?
God does not make us go such a road to ruin us; rather, to speak in terms of business, He drives us out mercilessly to go, even though it is a road of death, to let us leave a profit several times greater. That God does this is because He loves us. To form a whole family, one must stand on the absolute standard. Because of the Fall, two cannot become one just as they are. Unless both the man and the woman stand on the absolute standard, they are made unable to go together.
If they had not fallen, the two would have become one and formed a family; but because Eve fell first and made a front-and-back relationship, they could not have a horizontal relationship, that is, a left-and-right relationship.
A family that is in accord with God on the plane standard and can thereby at last be in accord on the horizontal standard, such a family the world cannot break and heaven and earth cannot break. From that family a new history unfolds.
Until such a family is realized, a historical course of adventure must be passed through. This is the mission that the Lord at the Second Advent must fulfill when he comes upon this earth. Looking at his history, he is a parent who passes through a more rugged course in the course of life than anyone else and comes bearing a more wretched destiny than anyone else. It is so with him, but we must know that God too has until now been passing through a road even greater than that.
If one cannot settle this standard, one must enter a mother’s womb and come out again. Otherwise, there is no Restoration. Because one must be restored, one must enter a mother’s womb and come out again. That is why, when Nicodemus came seeking him, Jesus said that unless one is born again, one cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. To be born again, one must detach from the world of death that has been until now.
One must detach it. Desire for the world, desire for the nation, and authority centering on society—all the desires of this world must be detached. One cannot know how difficult a thing it is in this world to detach such things. Thus, when you think of the concept of Restoration, you must know that the road of Restoration is rugged. On this road, the world level cannot exist. It is a wretched road. Here countless human beings have died.
On that road, for father and mother to be parted is for heaven and earth to be parted, for humankind to be parted, for all ties to be broken. Therefore, to indemnify this all at once, one must be able to say, “I will die centering on God’s Will.” He who would die shall live, and he who would live shall die.
So one must make one’s own will coincide with God’s Will and even go the road of death. Therefore, you must live your lives always able to say, “That I live now is that a body already dead lives as a bonus, so now even if I die, I have no han.”
Since you are already dead, unless you hold a mind able to die at any time for the sake of a road by which you can now live, if there be such a road, you cannot live eternally.
Since you were already dead, that you came to know the Will and were able to remain alive again on the road you go is not something that came about through yourselves; it is God who let you live, and you live as a bonus.
Therefore, if you hold a mind that you must repay God’s kindness, dying and living become simple. In the end, the question is one’s own life. It is the same with becoming a loyal subject or a traitor toward the nation.
The Meaning of Trial and Suffering
Then there will be some who fell because of their eyes, and some who fell because of their ears, and some who fell because of their mouths, and some who fell because of their hands. There are all sorts of people like this. But if all five senses of the body are completely in accord with the Will and one dies, a history of complete resurrection unfolds. This is the history of Christianity.
If one dies completely in accord with the Will as Jesus did, a history of complete resurrection like that of Jesus unfolds.
If one treads upon one’s own life and crosses over, one comes to represent the world. To find the world, one must be able to tread upon one’s life and cross over. And to meet God as well, you must stand in a position where you can tread upon your life and cross over.
As preparation for going that road, you must cast away your family. You must know that casting away a wife and children is preparation for casting away your life. In this way, by casting away everything around oneself, one must become a person who knows how to cast away one’s own self.
Only such people can remain on the path of Providence. Jesus went that way. Jesus did not try to avoid the trials and sufferings that collided with him. Jesus himself made preparations to sacrifice as he went the road of death. Because he went forward holding such a thought, even if a sudden turn of events unfolded before the road he was going, since he had already resolved with the Father’s Will in view, the prayer he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane became a road by which he could resolve upon himself once again.
When we look at certain people, though it is a cross they themselves must bear and a path they themselves ought properly to cross, at even a little hardship they say it is not because of themselves but because of a third party. But if that person is one who becomes strength and a bridge to let them cross that rugged road quickly, in the end that third party is not one’s enemy. He is a guide who helps you cross the pass. Accordingly, if such an actual road lies before you, you must consider him to be the person who presented that road to you and be grateful toward him.
Therefore, even if some nation opposes you, that nation is not an enemy nation.
That nation is a nation necessary for going seeking the heavenly kingdom, which one must cross over to with one’s life at stake. And making you cross the rugged pass is to make you one who passes and can enter the heavenly kingdom. When you have not been presented with such a test condition, you cannot enter the heavenly kingdom.
You have not yet become people who have taken hold of the authority to enter that kingdom. Therefore, you must think that that nation was mobilized to let you take hold of it.
In the end, you must think that it was not done for my sake. Such people are Unification Church members. They are people who say they will believe in God.
Satan has dominated human beings for six thousand years. Yet concerning the true sons and daughters of God, he bears witness. Satan too testifies how much he loves such sons and daughters. That Satan has continuously opposed for six thousand years amounts in the end to bearing witness that God loves humankind utterly.
When Satan, with the world at stake, becomes unable to block the true sons and daughters of God from loving humankind, he must necessarily return humankind to the one who loves them. Therefore, the Fall becomes both the motive by which God’s love was lost and one condition by which love can be found again. Seen from this viewpoint, God loves Satan as well.
It is the same with people today. That one wishes one’s own nation to live well and wishes this world to live well even though one lives poorly; this is precisely the mind of God.
You must become one with God and become fertilizer for the Republic of Korea and fertilizer for the world. You must follow, knowing that even if it costs your life, this is a road that must without fail be gone, a road that must be gone throughout a whole lifetime. And so you must become individuals whom the citizens of the nation revere and a chosen people whom the humankind of the world reveres.
Therefore, you must know that the trial and suffering in which we now stand is an epoch-making fact that can determine a shining value.
The Reason We Are Made to Go the Rugged Road
On the road the Unification Church has walked until now, there have been a great many rugged passes. Those many roads, those rugged roads, are not a bad thing.
This has become one requisite that gives the Unification Church itself a value that can shine in the annals of history and lets it establish conditions of victory; it has not become a requisite that brings it to ruin.
According to how one overcomes and crosses this rugged pass, it is decided how well one can pave the development of victory. That we are made to go such a rugged road is not to sacrifice humankind but to give blessing to humankind.
Abraham and David of old did not realize such things. Jacob too did not know such a thing. But we who live in this age must know such things completely and go this road. So unless one settles the trials and sufferings one will meet tomorrow by measuring them against this standard, one will be unable to present any condition at all when the time comes to settle the final reckoning of one’s life.
When we consider that such a time will not come again, how serious it is! In a position of receiving criticism such as no one else can face, one must take hold of it with both arms, take responsibility, and collide with it head-on. And so you must know that at this time, in a position of dying or living, a tremendous condition is decided by which we as human beings can settle heavenly authority.
Then, all of you, is the rugged road good or bad? “It is good.” Here is a woman who, in the very flower of her youth, ought to have been setting up a newlywed household with her one and only bridegroom; but believing in the Unification Church and walking this road, she ended up wearing nothing but rags and only growing older, and now, looking around her, there is nothing at all left. Past the age of fifty, she regrets, saying, “If I had just lived an ordinary life, I would at least have borne worldly sons and daughters and lived; what is this? With no place to settle, I am utterly desolate, and it is a lonely wasteland. I believed in the Unification Church for nothing.” Women, is this well done or badly done?
If it turned out well, one should be thankful; would it do to complain? You must know that since you turned out badly in a position where you could have turned out well, you must give up that position.
You must not regret having offered up everything for Heaven.
If you offered the flower of your youth for a betrayer, you must take it back again. A betrayer comes to repent only when he is trampled and trampled by the other party until he is about to die. It is the same with a person who told a lie and a person who cannot believe.
In God’s raising children, do you qualify to become able people?
Are you even qualified to receive God’s love?
Because a band riddled with flaws and utterly wretched begs Him to receive them, God has no choice but to close His eyes and hold on to them with His left hand. Yet if it be at all possible, God pulls you along to turn you around. But after coming along a certain distance, you say, “Aigo! I do not want it; I do not want it. Save me. I will go back again.” Having come a certain distance, on the contrary, you ought to go that much farther, but you do not do so. You must know that when it becomes so, the steps you have come until now become a condition of punishment opposed to the merit of your labor.
Is your mind like that, or is it not?
A single unfilial word from a filial child is the same as plunging a knife into the parent’s breast. You must know that it is so proportionally as to how much one was trusted, how close one was, and how absolutely one was regarded.
Seen from this viewpoint, where are you going?
A road of freedom on which one may also turn back, a road of freedom on which one may advance, a road of freedom on which one may step aside, a road of freedom on which one may rest along the way like a traveler; it is such a road you are going.
Since you have become such worthless people and are looking out at the world, are they not all worthless people? When we look at such people, if a deeper and deeper valley appears as they go along the road, they abandon the road they were going, calling it a sheer cliff.
Such people, wherever they go, however much there is a road, and they say they are going, cannot go to the end because they worry about everything. In going a road, as one goes, there are sheer cliffs, and there are great quagmires.
If One Cannot Cross the Pass One Must Cross
If you knew there was such a quagmire, would you go, or could you not go? People say, “Aigo, if I go this road to the end, I will die. My grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, children, all stop me and tell me not to go, so I cannot go that road.” But you must know that when one fails to cross that pass to the end, in the end there is nothing but death. As long as one knows that, however pressing and rugged the road may be now, if one goes to the end, history acknowledges it.
If a parent commands and instructs a child, “Follow me,” is it not the child’s duty to cross the boundary of life and death and keep the parent’s command? A child who fulfills filial piety, even though he should collapse from exhaustion along the way, sets out on that road, sacrificing his body as the parent tells him to go, according to the parent’s command.
In following the Will, even if one has a beloved wife and children, one must leave them and go, and even if one has a beloved husband, one must leave him and go.
If, when told, “Let us go,” you say, “I cannot go,” you are in great trouble. A woman must conform according to the Way of Heaven and go the road a woman must go.
If her husband says, Let us die together, she must be able to die. Even if she dies, it is enough if they live together in that world. There is a road by which one can be liberated after regarding the husband’s command as absolute and obeying the husband’s command.
In the moral view of the human world, even though one is within the evil sphere of the Fall, for those who conform absolutely centering on the Three Bonds and Five Moral Rules (삼강오륜), for those who have established the standard of absolute obedience, a road by which they can be liberated again remains.
We Unification Church members now know that the spiritual world exists, do we not? Do you know whether the spiritual world exists, or do you not?
You know at least that the spiritual world exists, do you not?
Even if all humankind in the world does not know it, the spiritual world without fail exists. The Unification Church has discovered that and has come forth until now. The road to the spiritual world must, without fail, pass through this road. On this road, God is together with us. This is without error.
The Road You Go Is a Rugged Road, but It Has an End
I am not telling you to listen to the words of Teacher Moon of the Unification Church. It is all right not to listen to the Teacher’s words; only believe the words of God. Since you seek to hear the words of God, the Teacher is necessary, is he not? The Teacher too now feels bad about your following me.
Since you would love God, the Unification Church is necessary, and the words of the Unification Church are necessary, and since someone is necessary who must take responsibility for this and go, the Teacher of the Unification Church is necessary. If one does not know this, would there be a destination? The purpose of the Unification Church is that this is what must be gone toward first. If you stay where you are, you perish. You must go farther.
They say that the swallow goes to the south (강남) when the ninth day of the ninth lunar month comes, and returns when the third day of the third lunar month comes. When we see the swallow that went to the south returning, it is truly remarkable.
How is it that it seeks the road for its living and goes to the south and again seeks the road for its living and returns?
When we see it finding its house again, it is marvelous. All of you, think about it. When spring comes, the swallows flock in and cry and make a great fuss building nests at the eaves of every house and hatching their young. Even living like that, when autumn comes, they all go to the south, saying it is difficult to live here. They cross mountains and cross the sea and go back to the house where they lived long ago. It is a truly marvelous thing. Even after a day or two passes, one does not feel the temperature change. But when summer passes and autumn comes, they discern the climate completely and go seeking the road for their living. It is made so, is it not?
It is the same with us human beings, the lords of creation. It is not through a radio broadcast that we know winter is coming; we naturally feel it through the skin. Even if you pretend not to know, you know.
The Teacher knows completely what kind of people you are. Does one not know whether one did well or did wrong? If one knows and does not do it, one perishes. If one could not do it because one did not know, God takes responsibility, but if one knew and did not do it, the road one goes is hell. Then whom does he resent?
That is why I say come seeking the Teacher of the Unification Church. Whatever else may be uncertain, that we believe in God alone is certain. The people of the established churches do not know whether the spiritual world exists or not, or whether God exists or not. They do not know at all whether it is night or day. If you believe in God and go without doubting, you become a Unification Church member. When it becomes so, you do not go the road of perishing. But if you do not go and you doubt, you perish.
The road you go is indeed a rugged road, but it has an end. On the day one sees the end here, the world can form an eternal relationship with me.
Then when will the end of the world come?
The day that the end comes is the Last Days. For this, the world must be mobilized, and all humankind must be mobilized. Because this rugged road is blocked, to break through and go, one must cross over the standard of more than half of the individual, family, clan, people, nation, and world having been mobilized to go the normal course.
We Must Sacrifice to Save the World
When the time comes that the democratic world today says there is no God, that He is dead, they will all be absorbed into communist thought. So they come to stand in a position of trying to clarify God from a scientific standpoint.
Almost all the people in the intellectual class today are of this sort. If in this way more than half cross over into the sphere that opposes God, the world is at its end. That is why one must automatically cross over toward Heaven’s side.
How long will it take until then?
As the Teacher said last time as well, today the democratic world too is at its end, and the communist world too is at its end. Now both are tilting over. If a fight breaks out here, everything collapses. It means the end. If, after breaking through the summit to some degree, one retreats, one falls over.
If the Viet Cong in Vietnam say, Let us fight, we fight. If the communists say let us fight, we fight. To make the world one, we fight. Because God has fought for six thousand years, even if it takes six thousand years rather than ten years or a hundred years, we fight. That is not fighting for one’s own people but fighting for humankind of the world. The purpose of the fighting is different.
The communists have fought in every corner of the world and built up their foundation, but because they did not fight for the world but fought for the Soviet Union, they perished. God does not seek only the Soviet Union; He seeks the world. America must fight for the whole world from a leading position in the democratic world. It is a democracy for finding the world, not a democracy for finding America.
If it fails to be a democracy for establishing the world and is a democracy only for establishing America, this ism perishes. Such a democracy is not needed. Such a communism is not needed either. If it were a democracy that could save the world, a communism that could save the world, it would remain in this world.
That we today live for the Republic of Korea, centering on God, is not for the Republic of Korea alone. It is to establish the Republic of Korea and save the world. The age of nationalism is a bygone age. If there be one who would seek and establish the Republic of Korea and, making it an offering, offer it before the world, he will come to govern the world.
Whoever it may be, if there be a person who, when the world collides head-on with some problem, cries out that he will find the world even by sacrificing his people and nation entirely, centering on his own national concept, he is a child of Heaven and a filial child. One must say one will sacrifice one’s own sons and daughters and find the sons and daughters of others and say one will sacrifice one’s own people and find another people. That is why it is Heaven’s law today that we sacrifice Christianity to find the satanic world.
Therefore, the Teacher says he will find the Republic of Korea even by sacrificing you. Is that the normal course, or is it not? Is it a normal method of guidance, or is it not?
If the Teacher sacrifices you, you draw closer to the Teacher. In any case, God seeks the Republic of Korea by sacrificing you. Otherwise, the Will of Heaven is not realized. It is because resolving the han before the Will with all one’s life depends upon your hands. To cross this worldwide process, a decision is without fail necessary. The Republic of Korea must sacrifice for the world. That is a new person. It means that the Republic of Korea needs the will that it can perish for the sake of the world.
The Rugged Road We Must Go
What we call the rugged road we must go differs in content from the rugged road spoken of in the world. In the world, if people are told to go a rugged road, they all weep and wail and make a fuss. They say, “Aigo, it is too hard; I cannot go. This road is wretched. I do not even want to think of it and do not want to see it. It is a ghastly, ghastly road.” But the road we go, even that ghastly road, even the road we go weeping and wailing, is a road of hope.
Even though there is the pain of having to send away one who is closest to oneself, because one is in a position where one can be victorious, one must not shed tears. In that position, one must be able to give thanks before God. And one must be able to sacrifice oneself.
That one’s own family is sacrificed is a bitter and mortifying and heartbreaking thing. But when one sees that, through the sacrifice of one’s own family, the destiny of the nation that must be found draws near before Providence, one must not shed tears at seeing one’s own family sacrificed.
However sad one may be, if the nation has been liberated, one must raise both hands and cry Mansei. It is a loyal subject of the nation who cries Mansei even with his mother’s corpse beside him if the nation has been liberated.
Hereafter, the unification warriors must have nowhere they cannot go. We must be able to cross even the 38th Parallel. We will without fail be able to cross here. On going this road, there will be some who die, and there will be many who flee to save themselves. Yet when you see that the resolving of the han of national unification is near before your death, you must not grieve over this but must praise on that road of death. To achieve the unification of the people, liberating workers who can resolve upon death is necessary. The workers who, together with the resolving of the han of this people and together with the liberation of this people, return the glory of victory before the thirty million people will join forever the ranks of the patriots who loved this people. Those who died there can be resurrected together with those people.
It is the same when God looked down upon Jesus. Jesus came for the people of Israel, but he had to go toward the world, centering on the people. That is why Jesus went for the sake of the world with his life at stake, in place of the people. It means that through Jesus’ own death, the road of the liberation of the people is established on the near road by which the world can be welcomed. This is a road for the people and, further, a road for the world.
Therefore, though God drove out His beloved son, during the three hours in which he expired on the cross, He wrapped heaven and earth in darkness. How much bitter circumstance must God have had in that moment! In the moment God turned His face away, He lost much, yet He could gaze upon the world of hope. Because it became such a position, He came to welcome the history of a new Christianity, the history of the founding of a new Second Israel.
From this viewpoint, what ordinary people call “rugged” and what the Unification Church regards as “rugged” differ in content. It is on that level that the Teacher went into prison. He went into prison and was beaten and underwent torture. Just like the Teacher, countless young people of our Unification Church and countless families will be driven while following this ideology. But what was suffered a thousand years ago will become a chisel and a hammer that can bore through the barrier of a thousand years. And so, at the position of the last battle to widen that value horizontally and vertically, one must be able to become a treasure and a fruit of Heaven.
Because Adam and Eve fell, they received historical judgment before the countless human beings of history. How much were Adam and Eve denounced and accused? We cannot avoid such a sorrowful destiny as Adam and Eve underwent. We must go a road by which we can resolutely meet it. In this position we must not become petty men. On the road we go; we must not shed tears either. Standing on Heaven’s side, we must go out to actual battle and strike evil with vital power. You must enter a position beyond that in which Adam and Eve were accused, and receive training.
When the time comes, even if the Teacher strikes you, the Teacher is not caught by it. By the law of Indemnity, the Teacher can strike you up to seven times. Even if he strikes not seven times over but seventy times over, the Teacher is not caught by heavenly law. The Teacher has undergone dozens of times the experience of fainting and collapsing in a position where his life was at stake, to the degree that he said dying would rather be easier. This means in the end that the road of trial is what makes one prepare good material by which the supreme victory can be resolved upon. Do you understand what this means?
The Rugged Road Is the Road of Prospering
The victorious condition by which Jesus came to hold the authority of the Messiah, able to realize the heavenly world of ten thousand ages within the satanic world, was the cross. If there had been no cross, there would have been no content at all by which to present that condition.
If God made things pleasant, anyone could easily go the heavenly road, could they not? Going in this way and Jesus’ going bearing the cross differ in content. The rugged road of undergoing trial and tribulation with Heaven at the fore is not a road of perishing but a road of prospering. All of you understand, do you not? “Yes.” Going the rugged road is not perishing but prospering.
Not wanting to go the rugged road of undergoing trial and tribulation is Nolbu (놀부) thinking. On the other hand, wanting to go the rugged road of undergoing trial and tribulation is Heungbu (흥부) thinking. Did Nolbu do well, or did Heungbu do well? “Heungbu did well.”
Then who had it good?
At first Nolbu had it good, and later Heungbu had it good. At first Nolbu, who was on Satan’s side, had it good, but later Heungbu, who was on Heaven’s side, had it good. The various circumstances and twists that Heungbu, who was on Heaven’s side, followed become content through which various blessings can be received.
Therefore, one must become a person who lives grounded in righteousness, fights grounded in righteousness, and dies grounded in righteousness.
Seen historically, in the history of the satanic world, there is no instance of such a person being trodden over. A good person, seen from the viewpoint of his age, looks like a betrayer and one forsaken by that age, but history submits before him.
You must know that the road our Unification Church members go differs in content from the road the people of the world go. You understand, do you not? “Yes.” You who go bearing a tremendous responsibility because the Teacher said Let us go, will be blessed hereafter. There is nothing more fearful than the Teacher telling you not to go. There is nothing more fearful than being told, upon entering the Unification Church, not to witness. There is nothing more fearful than being told not to go on the forty-day witnessing, not to go the seven-year course. Hereafter, a time will come when only particular people among you will be chosen, and the door will be shut and barred. Is it better to be made to go the seven-year course or better to be forbidden to go?
Likewise, is it better to be made to go the forty-day witnessing, or better to be forbidden to go? “It is better to be made to go.” Then is that road a road that is welcomed or a road that is rejected? That road is a road rejected in the world and a road welcomed in Heaven. In the satanic world, what happens by their rejecting us?
The satanic world comes to perish. When Satan loses in a fight, he must pay the price and turn back. What this means is that if one fails to strike Satan and be victorious, one must pay the price when retreating. That is why Heaven’s tactic is a tactic of taking blows and then seizing away the blessing entirely.
That Jesus was put to death was the method by which the whole realm of death of the satanic world was dealt with. All of you, do you understand? “Yes.” Therefore, one who is in a good position must be struck. If one is struck, there is no way one perishes.
If one is struck, one is made to seize it away. This is Heaven’s strategy. The satanic world strikes and perishes, and Heaven’s strategy is to be struck and seized away.
If you examine history, you can know it clearly. Did the Unification Church strike and seize away, or take blows and seize away? “It took blows and seized away.” This has come through a course that passed Heaven’s tactic.
Therefore, the rugged road you go is a road overflowing with hope; it is not a road that forms a relationship with despair. Therefore, even if one is in a situation of begging for food, even in the moment of gripping a rice ball and eating it, one must overflow with hope.
If one can do that, a day will come when this is transformed, and one can smash the sumptuous feast laid out on the jade table (옥상 玉床) of the sinful world, and a day will come when these fingers smash countless golden spoons. Though one is now wearing something like a straw mat, a day will come when one smashes the throne of the royal palace. This can be smashed without laying a hand on it and without fighting. You must know that trial and suffering accompany the work of building a splendid defensive position and a splendid fortress.
Will you go this road, or will you not? Park Gi-ok! Will you go, or will you not? “I will go.” Did you hear what was said a moment ago? “Yes.” Park Gi-ok seems to have eyes and ears that differ? The ears heard, but the eyes played a trick. You women with glasses, sitting there planted since morning, unpleasantly… That too seems to be one rugged pass. Choi Yong-seok! Will you go or will you not? “I will go.” Will you go even if your aged parents with white hair tell you to?
For Whom Is This Will
Never regret the past matters in which you came forth centering on the Will. Think of it as an action you took gladly and took responsibility for yourself, and do not think that you were moved by someone’s command. Although the Teacher told you to go, you must not think that you went because you listened to the Teacher’s words.
You must say that you yourself did it actively and that since you yourself did it, you take responsibility for it yourself. Such a person does not perish. Yet you say, “Ugh! I came seeking Teacher Moon of the Unification Church and ruined my life”; but did the Teacher make it so? You yourself became so. The Teacher has not perished, yet having ruined yourself, you are asserting that someone else did it.
But if they quietly think about it, they know that Teacher Moon is right and that they were mistaken. A certain person makes a fuss saying he cannot go to the Unification Church because he cannot stand the sight of Yoo Hyo-won of the Unification Church. Did Yoo Hyo-won ask him for food, or did he strike him on the cheek? What is that if not a fallen satanic law? Since one did it oneself, there is nothing to regret or anything else.
Therefore, centering on the Will, you must be able to say, “I did it; I did it gladly.” Because one’s own body and mind moved of themselves through a heavenly relationship, it is eternally one’s own possession. When one makes it one’s own possession and makes it steel and makes it an eternal capital, one becomes a citizen of the heavenly kingdom.
From whom will you borrow goods and take them along? Whose body is borrowed from father and mother? Though it was received from father and mother, it is one’s own. It was inherited as one’s own.
Whose Will is this Will?
Is it the will of Teacher Moon for the sake of the Unification Church? It is your will. Until now you have been good at saying “for God, for the Will.” When you are asked, “For what will you die?” you say, “For the Will.” When you are asked, "For whom will you die?” you say, “For God.” But in the end, saying one is for the Will and for God is being for one’s own self.
Although you are all in debt and being indebted day after day, you would rather think as if you were putting others in your debt. You carry on saying that you did so much for the church, but the Teacher does not acknowledge it.
If the Teacher does not acknowledge it, God acknowledges it. When we look at certain people, they send letters saying, “Aigo, this and that… I do well, but the regional leader does wrong, and the district leader does wrong, and this and that.” Such a person is mistaken.
The Teacher was not like that. Even at the crisis of death, having gone into prison, the Teacher did not utter a word of complaint. On the road of death, he sympathized even with his enemy. Only when one stands in a position of sympathizing even when driven into a position of death is no enmity formed.
Otherwise, that enemy begets an enemy, and yet another enemy arises. When you come to know such things, you will come to think, “Aha, crossing the rugged road is not a bad thing.” Do you understand? “Yes.”
Go the Most Rugged of Rugged Roads
Then if you are told, Let us cross the 38th Parallel, will you cross? “We will cross.” On the day one crosses that line, one becomes a patriot whom the people can revere. Was An Jung-geun a university professor? Was Yu Gwan-sun the wife of a president? Did she even get married?
How foolish must the actions these people took have looked! For whose sake did they do so? They all did it for the nation. That is why, as long as this nation subsists, their names will shine in the annals of history (청사 靑史), and their names will be resurrected.
If one dies for the world, on the day the world lives, one is resurrected. Even if Teacher Moon of the Unification Church fights for the world and dies and leaves behind nothing but a handful of earth, as long as the world exists and God exists, he will without fail be victorious and welcome the one day of resurrection.
On that day he appears adorned and crowned with the flower of glory and holding the authority of victory. That one is adorned and crowned with a flower here, meaning that one was victorious even while undergoing trial and suffering until that glory was achieved.
Then is trial and suffering a good thing or a bad thing?
By now you will have come to know that trial and suffering are good. Do you wish the Teacher to call you and give you an easy command again, or a difficult command? “We wish him to give a difficult command.” Will you go on a level road, or will you go on a rugged road? “We will go a rugged road.”
You must go the most rugged of rugged roads. The Teacher is looking for leaders who will go this road. Not one among the Japanese members must try to go a level road. That is why the Teacher asked Kuboki, the Japanese Association president, whether he would go for the sake of the Will even if a gun were held to his ribs.
Would God, who looks upon the one time when the great Will is realized, send out a person He does not trust?
Even in the world, one sends out a person one trusts. That is why what unfolds here is that God cannot but set up and sacrifice the person He loves most dearly.
On the day the person God sent out turns traitor in the world of the enemy, the heavenly kingdom is broken. It means that thousands of years of history shed tears. Therefore, you must realize that sending out one whom one trusts, one who is close, into a place of death (사지 死地) is the way of love.
You must know that a person whom the Teacher can send out on a rugged road that is difficult to go is a person in a position close enough to Heaven to receive a command the Teacher could not give to anyone else.
You must become brave ones who can receive such a command with your lives at stake. You must clearly know that only then does one become a soldier of unification.