The place amid heaven and earth where the base for the salvation of the fallen world first emerged, centering on the heart of the Father, is this miserable and shabby Unification Church in Cheongpa-dong [Seoul’s Cheongpa District].
How much pity we feel for God, who has come forward to dissolve all His sorrows, accumulated over six thousand years, when He looks at this place! When I look within myself in such circumstances, tears come to my eyes.
When you are entering this historic altar, you should start shedding tears as you cross the threshold. To me, this building is more precious than the most luxurious and glamorous house.
Though there are cracks in it, those very cracks are the historical traces of the hardships of history. Looking at the scars on this house, you should think in your hearts, “Your injuries have not yet healed.”
As you shed tears on this wooden floor and offered prayers kneeling on this floor, did you ever feel that this was the very place of the fulfillment of God’s desire that He has looked forward to for thousands of years?
This is the very place that saw the gathering of the True Parents; an unprecedented event, the Holy Wedding ceremony, took place in this house. It was also from here that all kinds of rumors began or passed through because we did things never before seen in history.
It was here that God’s Day, Parents’ Day, Children’s Day, and the Day of All Things were established. Here, the thirty-six couples and the seventy-two couples were blessed. It is historic.
History was wrought here. Even if the prince of the world is born, he is still born from a womb like anyone else. Regardless of what this house looks like, history was begun here. I am even thinking of making a model of this house and building one just like it in Cheongpyeong, or leaving it here as it is.
The more important the topic of your prayer is, and the more important the solution, the more your heart in prayer needs to be as if you were offering devotions from the Headquarters Church.
You need to have a heart full of tears as you trace back the historical connection and background of the Headquarters Church from its onset until now. God will be with you when you do that.
If someone is praying in the Headquarters Church centering on the will of God, you should have the heart to pray from a position of greater loyalty than that person.
A historic holy ground
The Headquarters Church is a significant holy ground connected to the one hundred and twenty holy grounds in forty nations. What are the holy grounds in Jerusalem, Busan, and Cheongpa-dong? The first is the holy ground of the son, and this is the holy ground of the mother and the father.
Cheongpa-dong will not end as it is right now. In the future, wherever Unification churches are built, innumerable members will love Korea as their original homeland and their fatherland and come to visit it. They will come here yearning for this very place, Cheongpa-dong.
You completely renovated the Headquarters Church while I was not here. I felt sorry about that. I was doing a tour, but I even sent a telegram instructing you to stop right away. This place is a historical relic. It’s a historic memento.
Anyone who knows the providence will find their way here, knowing it encompasses history.
An intense period of pioneering
For seven years from 1957 to 1964, I didn’t sleep for even two hours a night. I usually slept for an hour. I trained myself so that I would not feel tired. Furthermore, I did not know how to be tired. During those seven years, I seldom took off my clothes to sleep. I wore clothes like these.
I prepared and trained myself for seven years, so that when I set out for a new world in the 1960s, I was able to succeed in a twenty-year course that I have no reason to feel ashamed of in front of Heaven. For seven years, I was working until three or four in the morning, hunched over in a chair.
I told myself, “Give your whole heart. Pour out your entire heart until you get tired. Pour it out even though you may feel hungry. Pour it out even in sleepiness, until Heaven accepts it!”
Since I planted seeds in that way, those seeds will go all over the world through the heart of God, even though members of the Unification Church today cannot accept what was planted. I thought that they would certainly be harvested one day, if not in Korea, elsewhere in the world.
In our pioneer stage, it was not unusual for me to stay up all night. I would even doze off in the bathroom. I was so exhausted. Occasionally, when I sat down, I would lean against something and begin snoring.
Until the 1960s had passed, I ate squatting down because I was so busy. My meals didn’t include more than three side dishes. I did that for three years. I didn’t eat at a table. Furthermore, I ate with the plates on the floor, on a small board, because I was working to save everybody and everything. If I had not been able to do that, I would have been a sinner.
For seven years, I fasted on my birthday. How brazenly arrogant I would have felt if I had eaten well and celebrated my birthday with my responsibility still uncompleted and heavenly law not yet established.
This was a serious problem. Though I lived in a nation, the nation was not mine. The world was not my world, and regardless of what I had, I could not assert that it was.
The power of prayer for each member
When I started this church, the wooden floor in my room, wet from tears, wouldn’t dry out. I didn’t sleep. I prayed even when I had a nosebleed….
In about 1957, I was praying for about four hundred members every day. Once I prayed, I could sense their spiritual situation. That kind of thing does happen. God is the supreme being.
God is the trunk, and church members are connected to Him as branches. So, if you act together with this subject, don’t you know He will teach you about other members?
Of course, he does. Just offer your jeongseong. If you pour out your heart for church members, God will show you in various ways if there’s something wrong with their spiritual state.
I prayed while calling out the name of each member. Even before I called a name, the person’s face appeared. Just to say the names took about forty minutes. Some were smiling; others appeared worried.
I instantly knew how a person was doing. Prayer showed me who was sick, so I called those members and said what prayer had revealed. I asked them whether it was true, and without fail, it was. Then the person would go to a doctor for a diagnosis and treatment.
Only in this way could I fulfill my duties. As I did, people could align themselves and follow me without going astray.
Furthermore, when looking at the names, I might think, “This lady should come today.” Without fail, she would come. One lady was actually on her way to a market and ended up coming to the church without even realizing it.
She asked, “Oh, did I come to the church?” When this kind of thing occurs, can you say that God doesn’t exist? Can you deny that the spirit world is helping us?
A lifestyle of investing in others
In 1957, I was doing one-to-one witnessing. I would give a lecture to a person as if I were speaking to a hundred or a thousand people. I took the viewpoint that several thousand people depended on that person.
To transform a person into someone who could follow whatever instructions I might give, I should exert effort equal to the extent of the transformation so that the person could develop strong enough motivation to make the necessary changes.
I felt upset that church members were unable to love Korea the way they should, so I would sometimes speak all night. Isn’t it right that at some point, I should be involved in raising you?
You can send a child to elementary school only after you have devoted yourself to bringing up the child to about the age of six, isn’t that so? That’s a basic principle, which is why I’ve told you that you must go through a seven-year course. It takes seven years to educate a person in Cain’s position.
Even if the church had not existed, I had to train people by myself. That’s why I’ve been doing this work for fifty years, forgetting to eat, sleep, and rest. You don’t understand reality. You think, “Oh, he freely does whatever he wants. He has no backbone.” But that is by no means the case. I do have that backbone.
Despite that, I still began my work holding people and crying over them. Holding one person, I would weep while trying to work out the nation’s misfortune through him and the bitter feeling of the nation’s people through his family.
Heaven was present, and a strong “electricity” was flowing. You feel strength as if hundreds of millions of volts are moving through you, as if the world is at your command. How exciting!
At a time like that, your eyes won’t close even though you may try to close them. Even when you are asleep, your eyes open all of a sudden.
What kind of person was I in 1957 or 1958? I was a teacher who listened better than anyone else did to what others said, regardless of who they were. Elderly ladies would come and talk about their lives from the day of their marriage.
They would tell me everything about how much they loved their husbands. They would say everything they had wanted to say until that moment. Everyone who had visited me said, “He listened to what I had to say.”
I sincerely listened to them all night, and I spoke from my heart. This is the key. In listening and speaking to others, be genuine. Keep sweating and pouring out your entire heart.
Worship services based on the heart
I am a person who is afraid of praying in a public place. In other words, I am in a position of having to move people into the realm of life while still attending to a father who is mourning the loss of His children. It is a serious matter.
Judgment, showdowns, and decisions on matters of life or death arise. One draws the final line in the sand there. Coming here and taking responsibility for that is like coming to a place where executions are carried out. I began to have the heart of a person at a place of execution.
One has to pray, therefore, for God’s sympathy and God’s compassion. Furthermore, a person can have a more abundant life when he prays for God’s sympathy, and God’s compassion and God’s mercy surround him.
If possible, I don’t think about the title of a sermon in advance when I appear in public. Thinking about the title just leads to a private result. It may become a yardstick by which I boast of my knowledge, my organized plan, or my brain, but it fails to express my heart.
Instead, I offer jeongseong for more than ten hours before giving a sermon. Let me have deep, sturdy roots before emerging through the surface. Sprouts don’t matter.
I wouldn’t care if something eats the sprouts [if the root is solidly put down]. It’s okay not to speak in polished sentences. The question of how you connect your genuine heart is what decides life or death.
Sanctification by tears and sweat
I have lectured and delivered many sermons here. Since the 1950s, I have preached in tears. Was there a time when I didn’t? Tears should fill your cup and run over.
They should overflow. Heaven consoles you and works for you only when you exert all your energy, when you bleed and sweat, and say that the place you collapse and die will be your starting point.
In the early days, I delivered sermons even amid ruthless persecution, with my sweat turning to blood. You have to make an impression by delivering a sermon at the top of your lungs.
You may be more weary from today’s persecution than yesterday’s, but a way forward does exist. So invest your strength and driving force in your sermon and wear down the opposition!
Accordingly, I poured out all my energy and led members in this way. When I gave sermons, sweat flowed down my back. My shirts and underwear were drenched, and drops of sweat fell from my head as I spoke. A sincere heart is offered with sweat….
President Eu’s offering
When our church was just starting, for three years and eight months, President Eu Hyo-won lectured eighteen hours a day at Cheongpa-dong even though his health was destitute.
I’m telling you that I had a sickly man continue to lecture for forty-four months, eighteen hours a day. It set a tradition, and that’s why we lectured for two days, finishing both parts [of the Divine Principle] in two days.
It must have been very hard. As the lecturer, he may have felt pain in his lungs and other parts of his body, but when he was not lecturing on Divine Principle, I would say, “Hey! You are a trumpeter of Heaven’s will; you have to lecture if asked, even for eighteen hours.
The spirit world is preparing to speak now. How can you possibly be like this? Get to work!” We did things in that way for all those months. It’s a record.
Do you think I slept while he lectured? I was sitting upstairs listening to him teach, and I had been fully informed as to who had come to listen. If no one came, I sat and listened to him attentively. Then, it was my turn to ask him questions. I raised him in that way.
I just sat down, observed, and supervised him. Furthermore, I corrected any mistakes. That’s how I created a substitute for myself in three years and eight months.
We had a welcoming party for people at night when the lecture had ended. When there was a party, I took charge of it. People found themselves in a party mood.
We did this while just eating boiled barley as a meal twice a day. The side dishes were not good, either. President Eu had his favorite dish, which was tiny shrimp preserved in brine…
Its smell was more offensive than that of excrement, but there he was dipping his finger in it, saying it was delicious. I still have a vivid memory of that.
How hard must it have been for him! Even now, when I visit Paju to pay my respects at the graves, I think I could have given you that musty, salted shrimp…. I would roast a whole cow and give it to you.
There are times when I think that I would truly appreciate it if President Eu were alive now. After all, the increasing rate of membership is proportional to the number of Divine Principle lectures.
Establishing a national foundation
From 1954 to 1960, we had to go through the nation-level persecution and advancement. Do you know how hard we worked during that time?
Originally, I started working, based on the course of Jesus’ public life, to pay indemnity within three years. Therefore, after I became thirty-seven years old, I established a solid foundation for the Unification Church and began to expand the history of restoration through indemnity to the national level. Everything proceeded by the Principle.
In those days, everyone, especially those in the Korean Christian churches, was against us. Consequently, I was imprisoned in 1955, wasn’t I? Therefore, in 1957, we established an all-inclusive fasting condition and held a proclamation ceremony. We began preparing a nationwide foundation. We began to take the offensive. Furthermore, we witnessed and expanded across the nation. It was a new stage in the Unification Church’s development.
At Cheongpa-dong, like a wounded lion, we had to wait for the right time, making preparations. I trained young members and created an elite group. I traveled across Korea to prepare the foundation upon which we could stay alive. Likewise, I made the foundation myself while the entire nation opposed us. I experienced every kind of persecution a man could endure.
Members offer a seven-day fast
Everyone who was a member of the church in 1957 changed. They all fasted for a week. All the members in Korea started the fast on the same day. We made a new beginning as a church through this fast. I fasted with them.
If you join the Unification Church, you must fast for a week. I did this, so you must do it too. I am not trying to make you go through hardship. Furthermore, I am just making you strike your body as a condition, fulfilled in the presence of God.
One method to strengthen the power of your love is to strengthen your spiritual power. Another method is to hit your body. You cannot become a Unification Church member unless you do a week-long fast. How long did Jesus fast? He fasted for forty days.
What is convenient about fasting for a week? You don’t have to worry about eating, and you will stop complaining about your fate. Those thoughts would cease. I gave the order to do a week-long fast so that you can attain the ability to confidently move forward, ignoring material things.
Those who responded to my instruction by actually doing a seven-day fast will transcend the anxieties of daily life. You have to exhibit the truth based on this standard.
Once you start a seven-day fast, a day or two will pass while you think, I’m hungry! But I must endure. I must carry on.
After the third or fourth day it becomes more difficult. You really want to eat so many things. Everything you see looks edible! You will go so far as to reminisce about the barley rice cake you ate in the past. Gluttonous evil spirits are all mobilized!
After a week, there is no happier sound than hearing the clock chime on the wall.
When five or ten minutes remain before the end of the fast, how desperate your heart is! When you can transcend that, you will be able to meet God.
Your desperation for love should exceed your desperation for food. We cannot come into a relationship with God by focusing on the necessities of life in the fallen realm.
The first summer witnessing campaign; July 20–August 31, 1957
Our first special witnessing campaign was in 1957. Through this, history moved toward a turning point. That is, Heaven came to have all the power needed to control history. God does not act blindly. He keeps pace with what is happening on earth.
We started our forty days of special activities on July 20. It is the usual date we begin on each year. It’s the hottest season, and it’s during the school vacation. We must work hard in the hottest weather, sweating to fulfill God’s will. I chose that time of year because the heat is useful in setting strong indemnity conditions.
In 1957, I decided on one hundred and twenty witnessing locations. When I sent the members, I told them, “Consider yourselves to be people doing your three-year military duty.
Have the mindset that you have been sold to the villages you’ve been assigned to, and work as hard as you would if that were true. God, and devote yourselves to the villages.
What will you teach people?
Teach them loyalty. You should not only teach but also practice it yourselves and demonstrate it to them. Then, even if you do not tell them what to do, they will take up what you are doing.
When many people come out, saying “Me too,” you will be able to completely settle in that village.
Sun Myung Moon