The countless people living upon this earth, whoever they may be, wish to attend to someone. The body wishes to attend, taking the mind as its principal thing, and body and mind wish to attend parents or a teacher, or a leader, or the sovereign of a nation. That is, man wishes, from the position of an object, to become a subject. As history flows on, this has gradually widened more and more, and now it has reached even to wishing to attend God.
Man, Who Must Attend God
As long as man does not seek the world of the ideal and attend to the Absolute One, sorrow continues. In the world of the ideal there must be the Absolute One, God, and not a human being. Yet we are still not attending the Absolute One. The body does not properly attend even to the mind, and we do not properly attend even to our parents, and we do not attend to the sovereign of the nation. Going further, we cannot deny that we do not truly uphold and attend even to the Absolute One who made us human beings. We are wretched and pitiful ones.
Originally, we human beings were created as precious beings. Such beings became human beings whose minds and bodies could not become one, who could not become one with their parents, who could not become one with the ideal. That we became thus valueless is the recompense of the Fall. That is why it is the original heavenly nature that the mind wishes to become one with the body.
Though we are such valueless human beings, God, even so, did not cast us away but sought to gather us up and form a bond. Yet human beings do not even know that the Absolute One exists. Now we must know the fact that there is an Absolute One who seeks to raise us up to infinite value.
Just as, when one goes out into society, one must attend to the representative of that society, in the world of the ideal one must attend to the Absolute One. When it becomes so, the world becomes one. Passing through the ideal, at last one cannot but advance as far as the place of attending the Absolute One, God, the one and only Creator God.
How happy would it be if one could attend God through rectification (광정, 匡正)?
The One whom we must attend to at the last is God the Creator, who is the Absolute One. That Absolute One is our Father. It is to attend to that Father that we are going seeking. We must go forward until we become one with this Father.
We human beings cannot feel satisfaction with the things of the world. Only in the place of attending the Absolute One, who can melt down heaven and earth, can one obtain the highest happiness and be granted the highest value. It is for this that human beings are going, today and tomorrow. What is called religion is what causes one to form an inward bond with this Absolute One. Religion is what carries out the Providence not in the outward aspect but in the inward aspect. Evil rules the outward aspect, and goodness rules the inward aspect. Centering upon this goodness, one must accomplish the world of the ideal. The ideal of goodness came about as an inward reflection. What religion pursues is to pursue the inward aspect infinitely and find the world of the ideal and at the last find the Creator and attend Him eternally and live rejoicing together with Him.
God’s Hidden Providence
Now the world is divided into two relative forms, the outward and the inward. That is, it is divided into communism, which pursues the outward aspect, and democracy, which pursues the inward aspect. Here, what must we pursue? We must pursue the inward aspect, which is infinite and inexhaustible. Yet that does not mean that God is guiding democracy on the surface. He is pushing from behind. Yet this democracy too, if it does not go forward centering upon a worldwide ideal, will perish.
We cannot but acknowledge that, until the democratic camp of today unites with one another and is equipped with a new inward form of oneness, there remains something that Heaven must do. We must not be steeped in the currents of thought of the present age and be glad and satisfied with that. Rather than living rejoicing through the cultural benefits that have appeared on the surface or through a foothold of social pleasure, one must go one step further from there and study and seek the inward aspect, that is, a religion that can come into contact with our minds and can form a bond with our minds.
You must not forget that a time is drawing near hereafter when it will not do unless one does so. That is why, at the last, only those who have discovered the fact that there is an Absolute One who does not cast away this earth but works to embrace this world will become the princes of the new age.
If the doctrine of a sect or denomination that has appeared on the surface until today cannot stand in the stead of the whole in this age and cannot be acknowledged as being bound with God the Creator, one must cut off the bond with it.
If God exists, it means that He must without fail carry out a Providence that accomplishes one purpose and one ideal and leads all humanity as far as a place where they can attend Him.
Seen in that light, God’s Providence is not a denomination that has appeared on the surface, nor any doctrine of the present reality that has appeared on the surface. We can surmise by inference that God is carrying out a hidden Providence, preparing the new history of a new age behind it. If one simply left this world as it is, it would perish.
Then if there is something God directly governs, what would it be?
Here we must advocate love of humanity. Not only in words must one also seek a God whom one can experience with a real sense and feel as a fact. That God whom we call upon, saying, “God!” is not a conceptual being but a demonstrable being. He is not God as an object of faith but God as the center of living.
If a company that loves having formed a bond with such an Absolute One does not appear in these Last Days, one cannot but regard that this world will indeed collide with a final crisis.
Yet as long as God the Creator exists, He will by no means leave this world simply to perish. Therefore, in order not to let it perish, it means that a form of the Providence in which God and we human beings act together must appear somewhere. Then what sort of figure must you first become? Rather than attending God as the Creator, that is, as the master, one must be able to call God Father in their heart. Not conceptually, but one must feel piercing the body and mind that God is indeed my Father. A providential force that can raise such an experience must without fail appear.
God, Who Seeks to Form the Bond of Father and Son
Until now, we have called upon God conceptually. We have called upon God only as a religious subject. Yet it is not so. God is the subject of life and at the same time the subject of living, and the subject of living and at the same time the subject of the ideal. Yet, however broad and great that subject of the ideal may be, it will not do unless it is substantially analyzed and experienced within the feeling of living. If there is one who stands in a place where he can boast that the value of that ideal experience in living cannot be exchanged for anything, whatever that may be, he will undoubtedly be the person God is seeking.
If there is something for which we must give thanks, it is that He forms for us a bond by which we can call God Father and can attend Him as Father. There is nothing more valuable than this. God wishes to gather fallen human beings and grant them the highest value, and that is that He will call this humanity, with His own mouth, sons and daughters. You must experience the fact that He comes seeking, bearing such a heart. Not only in words, but also one must experience it.
We are placed in a destiny in which we must without fail attend to this God who thus comes seeking. Even if you are attending some leader, that leader is not one you will attend eternally. Even if there is upon this earth today a representative who asserts some ideal, that representative too is not one to be attended eternally.
Who is the One whom we must attend eternally and live together with eternally? It is precisely God the Father, who exists for ever and ever. You must advance to such a place. From one thing to ten million matters, one must advance as far as a place where one can live, attending to God.
In the world, people boast of being the son or daughter of some sovereign. They boast of being the son or daughter of the president of some company. Yet that is not the problem. That is something that exists and then disappears.
If there is something one can truly boast of, it is that you can call God the Creator, who with His own hand made all things of heaven and earth through the ideal of goodness, Father, and that that Creator can call you son and daughter. Where would there be a place beyond that?
It was said that God is love. God is indeed a God of love.
Why is He a God of love?
It is because He promises man the highest thing that man is seeking and comes forth leading man. We call God Father only with our mouths, but in fact we do not know that content. In fact, one must grasp that content for oneself. Until now we have called the True Father who is in Heaven, the Creator who made the whole universe, Father. Yet if it is asked whether we have attended that Father as a true Father, it means that we have not attended Him. He is not a God who will be satisfied with a name. We must know that He is a God who has come forth longing for the bond of father and son as a center of substance. Salvation is not obtained by a name. Salvation is obtained by substance. One is not bound by a name; one must be bound with substance. A bond through the name of the Creator cannot become something decisive.
God Is Our True Father
Then have you indeed entered a place where you can call the Absolute One God the Father, not as a name but as substance?
The problem lies here. If man had not fallen, what would God have become?
If humanity had not collided with the sorrowful destiny called the Fall, what would have become of it? Needless to say, it would have become happy. That happiness is not centered upon man but takes the Creator as its principal thing. It is an unmistakable fact that one without fail asserts happiness and asserts the ideal of goodness, taking the Creator as its principal thing.
If it becomes so, the Creator is together with your mind and with your body too. It is the same with your living and with the course of your whole life. It means that even our thoughts and feelings and sensations cannot but be bound together with the Creator.
Human beings, who ought to have become so, by falling came to be unable to be so in their living or in their life course and are living centering upon themselves. They are living centering upon some doctrine or national ideal asserted upon this fallen earth. It means that, while there are many people who fulfill loyalty and fulfill filial piety, there are upon this earth no true and genuine filial sons and filial daughters who attend the Absolute One, God, as Father. We must know that God is the Creator who created the whole Cosmos and, at the same time, our True Father.
That True Father will come seeking us. Even though one is placed in whatever twists and turns of destiny, one must go crossing beyond those twists and turns, taking hold of the hand of that True Father, until, bearing the historical longing and the longing of the heart of one’s own life course, one leaves behind a last word, “O my Father!” Even though the road of death lies across the way, one must go as far as that place. When, among the humanity of the Last Days, there come forth companies who run such a road and can call the Creator, the Absolute One, that is, God, “my Father,” from there, God’s new dispensation will begin.
God is the subject of hearts. That is why God too holds infinitely sorrowful feelings and holds infinitely joyful feelings. It is not that, because He is God, He holds only glad and good feelings. We must know that He is One who, if it be sorrow, holds a heart of sorrow so deep and wide that human beings cannot reach it.
Human beings, by falling, presented to God an indescribable sorrow as a gift. They presented suffering as a gift. They presented persecution as a gift. They presented death as a gift. They entrusted to God entirely all the things human beings dislike most. God has until now never received from human beings a gift of goodness, a gift of joy, a gift of satisfaction, or a gift of rejoicing. It means that man has committed the sin, and the One who must forgive that sin is God. This cannot but be a bitterly resentful fact. Though it is the principle that if one has sinned, the one who committed that sin should be forgiven, man commits the sin, and God must forgive the sin. What is the cause of this? It is because there is the bond of father and son.
The Goal With Which God Seeks to Form a Bond
God created all things of heaven and earth and, having set up the ancestors of humanity, who could have dominion over those things, placed His longing there. Centering upon the ideal of creation, He beheld Adam and Eve. He beheld them as substances of longing. It means that after Adam and Eve had grown, God wished to go seeking them. Where? It means that He sought to go seeking into their hearts. Not only the mind; He sought to take His place in the deep place of the heart. The purpose for which God created man was to plant God’s heart in the deep place of man’s heart. He came forth hoping that that heart would be planted, but it was broken off along the way. This is the Fall.
Jesus, facing fallen man, said, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” Yet God has until now not been able to dwell thus. Why? Because it is this sinful earth and an environment that is receiving the invasion of sin. Because man became one who could not carry on a life that communicates through the ideal and heart that God set up at the time of creation, he perhaps attended Him conceptually, but it means that he did not become a human being who lives attending God in his living. You must know that God is coming, seeking a day on which He can settle the accounts of all such things and, with His own person, take His place in the hearts of human beings and live together with man.
If God comes seeking man, to what degree does He come seeking?
He comes seeking as far as the deep place of man’s mind. That is why it was said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy nature.” One must not leave behind even a small part of one's mind. One must do it with all one’s mind. God wishes to come seeking as far as the deep place of our mind. Next, He comes seeking our body. He comes seeking as far as a single cell of our body. Going further, He comes seeking our living.
You must know that He is a God who comes seeking not only mind and body, that is, you as individuals, but even as far as the utterly minute parts of our living. This is the goal with which God seeks to form a bond centering upon love.
All of you, it is the principle that the more one loves a person one loves, the more one seeks to form a bond as far as the deep places of that person. If there is even one word that opposes oneself, or even one thing that conflicts with one’s own longing, one does not tolerate it. Is it not so?
Accordingly, when that God who holds a fundamental heart that can move heaven and earth comes seeking us, it means that He seeks to form a bond even with the very bottom of our minds in a good place without spot or blemish and seeks to form a bond with our bodies too in such a place and seeks to form a bond with our living too in such a place.
The Final Point of Resolution Is to Center Upon God
Then we ourselves, who must without fail attend the Father who comes seeking, must consider deeply just what sort of place we are in now. When one says before God, “This that I hold is good; is this good to Thee too, God?” if He acknowledges it, saying, “Yes!” then there is no anxiety. If one receives acknowledgement, one can possess it, but when one does not receive acknowledgement, one cannot possess it.
God does not acknowledge our bodies. Why? Because ours is a body that is a descendant of the Fall and was born holding the lineage of the Fall. Moreover, God tolerates, to a certain degree, the conscience you have held until now, but as a whole He does not tolerate it. Your conscience is receiving the dominion of the environment. The standard of the original conscience that God set up is not the standard of the conscience you presently hold. God’s conscience is the standard. Moreover, as for the body too, your body is not the standard, but God’s body is the standard. And as for living, too, your living is not the standard, but God’s living is the standard. There will be an environment through this living, and there will be a world of the ideal through the environment.
From the day man fell, he could not form a bond with Heaven. We cannot deny that we, as individuals, could not form an absolute bond with Heaven, and that the living in which we live could not form an absolute bond with Heaven, and that the society, the nation, and the world in which we live could not form an absolute bond with Heaven.
If one goes forward before God, embracing this just as it is, one cannot receive God’s acknowledgement and cannot form a bond with Him. Why? Because Heaven’s principle is so arranged.
Then what will one take as the center of the bond?
What will be the central condition that can resolve and handle every problem? It is neither our conscience nor any ideal upon this earth. It is precisely God. God seeks to accomplish the world He longs for through that standard in which God’s heart and God’s mind and God’s body have become one.
If there is an Absolute One, one must without fail gather this world, taking Him as its principal thing. What is the final point of resolution that the humanity spread throughout the whole world today must know? It is not some doctrine. It is not an advanced nation like America. It is not some hero. It is not some saint or sage. The final point of resolution is God. God’s love, God’s living, God’s mind, God’s heart, God’s world, God’s sovereignty—it means that the problem lies here. It is not a world made by man.
The History of Restoration Is the History of Salvation
Upon this earth, countless people are living. Yet it means that there is not one person among them whom God could take hold of and say, “Thou art indeed my mind and thy mind, my heart and thy heart, my body and thy body.” That is why it means that God must send before this humanity a representative of whom He can say that he is my mind and thy mind, my heart and thy heart, my body and thy body, my ideal and thy ideal. Ought it not to be so? Only then is He God. Only then is He a God who has placed the Will of the providence of salvation toward humanity; as long as He does not send such a representative before humanity, God cannot be believed in.
The One sent as that representative is precisely the Messiah. He is the Savior.
What sort of Savior?
He is a Savior who not only draws us out of the place of death and gives us life but who, in God’s stead, causes us to go up to God’s side—in other words, a Savior who can accomplish the longing of all humanity. Then what sort of Savior is He? He is the Savior of the mind, the Savior of the body, the Savior of the heart, the Savior of living, the Savior of the ideal, and the Savior of the Cosmos.
The history of the Restoration is the history of salvation. God carries out the Providence for that. Yet because God abides as a formless God not equipped with substance (체, 體), the One whom He sent as a substantial representative before human beings who have fallen and do not know whether God exists or not, to form a relationship with us human beings who have substance, is the Messiah. Thus, He comes forth, choosing an individual centering upon the Messiah, a family centering upon the Messiah, and a world centering upon the Messiah. Such a form is the democracy of today.
If the One who came to this earth as the Messiah was Jesus, he ought to have formed for human beings a bond with the heart of God’s love, which is the highest center, but he went without having done that. That is why Jesus promised before all humanity, saying, “I am the bridegroom, so you must become the bride and return to the Father.”
Until now, Christian believers think that all is done if only they meet the Lord, but with that alone it will not do. Having met the Lord, what must one do?
One must return to the Father. It means that one must return to God. It is because one cannot go forward to God without passing through the Lord that the Lord is necessary. After one has gone forward before God, the Lord too is unnecessary. That is why Jesus said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6).
He did not say that one cannot come before Jesus himself; he said that one cannot come before the Father.
Today the world has been equipped with an outward world form in which God can come seeking, but the world of heart has not been equipped. It means that this world has become an environment in which circumstances can be communicated but has not become an environment in which hearts can be communicated.
Now, if God comes seeking, with what will He come seeking?
He will come seeking with heart. If there is a people that can represent this world and can rule the humanity of the whole world, what sort of people would that people be? It would be a people who come forth establishing God’s heart as their tradition.
Moreover, what sort of culture will the culture be that can rule the world hereafter? It is not a culture that comes forth through man’s mind and man’s heart that rules the world; a culture that comes forth through God’s heart will rule the world. The final problem lies there. It means that before you find a world in which heart communicates, a world of the final purpose in which the world of heart can be accomplished, you cannot unpack your baggage here and live a life of eternal rest.
God, Who Comes Seeking With Heart
That is why we must set out seeking the Father whom we wish to meet with all our hearts, the Father whom we wish to meet with all our devotion, the Father whom we wish to meet with all our will; and we must seek an environment in which we can face that Father as Father and can enjoy with that Father a value beyond the world and can face that Father directly. You must know that that place is precisely the place for attending the Father.
Then now you must reflect upon yourselves once. It will not do unless you reflect once again upon where your minds are leaning, and where your bodies are leaning, and where your living is leaning, and where your ideal is leaning, and in what sort of place the God whom you seek to attend is now.
Now God must be together with your minds, and must be together with your bodies, and must be together with your living, and must be together with your environment and with the ideal you are asserting.
If He is thus together with you, your words will stand in the stead of God’s words, and your actions will stand in the stead of God’s actions, and the life you live will stand in the stead of God’s living; but if it is not so, you must know that your mind and body and living have no relation whatever with God.
Because God is an exceedingly holy One, He is in the highest place, in the highest place. That is why the whole of your feeling and your consciousness must pass through the Father and take the Father as its principal thing.
What sort of person is one who attends the Father?
He is one who lives through the Father, and dies through the Father, and acts through the Father. Yet fallen human beings are living through themselves. That is why they have no relation whatever with God.
The saints of the Last Days, who must attend God, must live through the Father. Whether one eats rice or sleeps or wakes or does whatever action, all of those things must be done through the Father. This must be so not conceptually but actually. You must enter a place where you can grasp that through experience (체휼).
God’s Longing
Then what would the Father’s longing be?
My individual self has become the Father’s longing. You must know that my one individual self is His longing, and at the same time the family centering upon me is His longing, and the society centering upon the family is His longing, and the world centering upon society is His longing, and heaven and earth centering upon the world is His longing. What sort of person is one who becomes a filial son before the Father? He is a person who consults the Father even in the most detailed fields. A person who is together with the Father when it is difficult, when it is sorrowful, and when it is joyful is a filial son.
Why has God been unhappy until now?
Why has God lamented until now? It is because there have been no sons and daughters who suffered together with God when God suffered. He is not a God who dislikes suffering. He is a God who, if there are beloved sons and daughters who suffer together with Him when He suffers, regards even that suffering with gratitude. It means that He is a Father who, if there are sons and daughters who can share sorrow and suffering, comforts them when they are placed in the midst of sorrow and suffering that is difficult to endure and difficult to cross over. It means that if there is one who takes part in a place of suffering into which death is striking, He is a Father who holds the authority to transcend that death and to disregard the authority of death.
If it is asked what God’s sorrow is, it is that there is no one who suffers together with Him when God suffers and sorrows together with Him when God sorrows. God, who has come forth embracing humanity for several thousand years until now, has suffered alone. He has suffered grievance alone and suffered sorrow alone.
When God suffered, there was no one who shared that suffering, and when God sorrowed, there was no one who shared that sorrow. That is why God’s suffering has until now been severe and His sorrow has been severe. You must know this.
Today, in these Last Days, however evil this age may be and however the waves of death may sweep in, if there is a person who bears all this and comforts God—in other words, a person who can writhe and tumble in the midst of suffering together with God—he will be a valuable being and will become a true filial son or filial daughter of God. If there are such sons and daughters, God will not be disheartened or sorrowful in such a place but will, bearing longing, exhort and comfort the sons and daughters placed in such a place.
Therefore, you must now truly attend to God. In attending, from where must one attend? One must attend not from a place of joy but from a place of embracing historical sorrow and knowing that mind. Knowing that He is a God who toils because He cannot find such true sons and daughters, when we step forth in such a place, saying that we will sorrow together with God and will take responsibility for everything, it means that only then does God, from there, grant us new joy as an object of His longing. It means that God takes responsibility for and resolves matters for one who takes part in the place of suffering God undergoes and is loyal to God.
We cannot attend God in a place of joy. One must go forward to the most sorrowful place upon this earth, the most painful place, the place people dislike most, and know God’s mind and take hold of God’s heart and attend to God in a place of suffering together with God. Only by receiving comfort from God in such a place and receiving acknowledgement as a son can God, when that eternal ideal world is accomplished, boast of you before heaven and earth for ever and ever as sons, and can you yourselves live attending to God. As long as one does not receive acknowledgement as a son of God in such a place, you will be able to communicate in only one aspect even upon going to that other world. Even upon going to the heavenly world, one goes to the most difficult place. It means that whatever problem one has, one cannot consult God.
God is seeking. Not sons and daughters who can attend the Father in the midst of longing, but sons and daughters who can attend the Father in a place where sorrow and suffering surge…. Sons and daughters who attend God in the midst of longing are many. Yet sons and daughters who attend God in a place of suffering are exceedingly few. It means that they are exceedingly few.
What sort of person is one who truly attends to God?
Not one who attends in the midst of joy and longing, but one who attends in the midst of suffering. He is one whom God takes hold of and comforts, saying, “My son, my daughter, I am here, so endure and bear and fight,” because he knows God’s circumstances and knows God’s heart. You must know that as long as one does not attend to God in a place of suffering, one cannot attend to God as one's eternal Father.
True Sons and Daughters Who Hold a Heart of Loyal Fidelity in the Midst of Tribulation
God foretold before humanity that when the Last Days come, there will be a seven-year great tribulation. This period of tribulation is a time when Heaven’s sorrowful twists and turns upon the six-thousand-year course of history collide with the saints. It is a time when the bonds of human beings are all broken, and one collides with an environment in which one cannot trust. It is a time when, however conscientiously and rightly one lives, one cannot assert one’s own life course with that conscience. It is a time when one cannot assert one’s own life course with such things as faith or some doctrine. It is a time when the more one is a person who bears the Will and has thought, the more one feels suffering wherever one looks. Such a time is the time of the seven-year great tribulation of the Last Days. That is a time when longing is shaken, a time when the center of the faith we believe in is shaken, a time when the leader we believed in and followed is shaken. It is a time when not only doctrines but also religion, conscience, and even the hearts of parents are all shaken.
Then why must God make such a world?
It is to give the value of having taken part with the true God, the God who has toiled historically. Because God has seen countless miseries and undergone countless twists and turns for six thousand years, in the Last Days He causes one to collide with an environment in which one cannot set up a center with such things as conscience or doctrine or faith. It means that such a time comes to find true sons and daughters who love God even in the midst of such tribulation and who live together with God even in such a difficult place.
That is why you must not be sorrowful at seeing the church shaken, and must not be sorrowful at seeing some doctrine agitated, and must not be sorrowful at seeing some sovereign fall, and must not be sorrowful because your parents change, and must not be sorrowful because your brothers change and fall away. Even though all the things of the world you relied upon and believed in are agitated, your mind must be composed. Even though whatever suffering of the world strikes in, your mind must be composed.
You must know that God is not agitated and is at this hour too coming to seek me. You must know that God’s giving us suffering is a great promise for forming for us a bond with His own precious day, with the suffering He has passed through. It means that such a world is necessary to find a person who, in such a place, takes hold of Heaven and cries out and steps forth, saying, “Let us go together. Let us fight together. Let us act together.”
So all of you, do not be disheartened because the road you go forward upon is blocked. Do not be disheartened because this nation grows disordered. God has not died. However much this world may seethe, do not be disheartened. God has not died. God will without fail come seeking. Even though all things are agitated, let only your single-hearted devotion toward Heaven not be agitated. Let only your heart of loyal fidelity (충절, 忠節) toward Heaven not be agitated.
Let only the mind of longing that relies upon Heaven and beholds Heaven not change. Even though God should cast you into some place of suffering to make that mind change, you must hold an earnest mind that can call upon the Father in that place. Even though one falls into whatever place, one must strive to take hold of the rope of Heaven’s heart in that place and climb.
Even though one should feel the suffering of falling into hell, if one goes forward feeling the responsibility and duty of saying that one will go even to such a place, standing in a place of taking part together with the Father and knowing the Father’s suffering for oneself, and believing that the Father will know my suffering, you will not perish.
Today there are countless Christians, but how many such believers would there indeed be?
In attending the Father, we must attend not to that Father who is seated upon the throne in the heavenly world, but to that Father who toils to find true sons and daughters in the midst of the surging waves of death. Knowing that Father is my Father, and taking that Father’s circumstances as my circumstances, and that Father’s heart as my heart, and that Father’s longing as my longing, one must be able to step forth dauntlessly before the Father who comes seeking and say with confidence, “I knew that Thy longing is to find Thy son, and I knew that Thy circumstances are to find that son and lay open Thy historical twists and turns, and I knew that Thy heart is to take hold of the lost son and love him. Even though I am in whatever distress and tribulation and difficulty, I am the substance of Thy longing, the substance of Thy circumstances, and the substance of Thy heart.” You must know that only such a person is a son of the Father and becomes one who can attend to that Father.
The Attitude of True Attendance
Your having come seeking this place today is not to be caught up into the air in glory and meet the Lord. It is not to meet such a Father as commands, leading countless heavenly hosts and angels from the throne of Heaven. It is to be noted that Father, in the midst of distress, fights together with tribulation and lives together with suffering. If God is an impartial One, whom will He bless? It means that He blesses such a person.
Then if in your mind you truly wish to attend the Father, what must you do?
He is not a God who, because you live well, wishes to be attended to in an environment of living well. He does not wish to be attended to in the midst of a luxurious life like a millionaire’s. Then from where does He wish to be attended? It means that He wishes to be attended to from the most miserable place. Jesus, just before expiring upon the cross, said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” but God did not seek to meet him even in the place of death. He sought to meet him beyond the place of death. Why? Because Satan had invaded as far as the line of death. Jesus had to cross beyond that line of death.
If we today were to meet face-to-face with the Father, we must attend Heaven in a place beyond such suffering as human beings avoid. It means that in such a place one must not say one will receive comfort but must rather comfort the Father. One must not call upon the Father for the sake of one's own longing. Before hoping that the Father will grant my longing, one must say that I will accomplish the Father’s longing for Him. It means that when one meets the Father, do not stand in the place of saying, “O Father, do this for me.” Even though one faces the Father in a difficult place, one must say, “I will become thus before Thee,” and hold a mind of wishing to give before the Father. It means that it is bitterly resentful that Jesus too left behind in the Bible these words spoken at the time of his expiring, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” On going to the heavenly world and looking, one finds that in that place of meeting the Father at the last and crossing over, he ought to have said even one word: “O Father, receive glory,” or, “I give thanks that I have accomplished Thy Will of longing.” Aren't such words more splendid?
Because you are in a position of having to attend to that Father who has endured for several thousand years as though it were one day, you must not think the suffering of your own single selves painful. One must cast away even the thought that it is painful. When you pray, absolutely do not pray centering upon yourselves. “Let such and such a thing be avoided for me”—it means do not pray such prayers as that. “Let this suffering I undergo become a suffering fitting before Thy Will”—one must pray thus. One must hold in mind that my being placed in such a plight is all because there is the Father’s Will, and is for the accomplishment of the Will.
You must pull out your fundamental notions from the root. Have people who believe in God until now ever comforted God even once? They have only asked for something to be given. Where is there such a thief’s heart as this? Praying in that way, however much one prays, is not accomplished. Having prayed myself, I find it is not so. “What is it that Thou requirest?” Prayer must be done in this way. Yet fallen descendants, the company that has sinned, only ask for blessings. “What is it that Thou desirest?
What is it that Thou desirest through my body?
If Thy Will is accomplished by my one body undergoing tribulation, let me undergo tribulation; and if Thy Will is accomplished by my body being torn, let me be torn. Receive Thou the blessing and the glory, and give me the punishment and the suffering”—one must pray in this way.
The Greatest Gift to Offer God
The believers of the Unification Church must not attend the Father only in a glorious place. I am doing so. One must know how to attend to the Father who comes seeking from the most sorrowful place.
You must become those who take hold of the mind of that Father who comes seeking, bearing a sorrowful mind, and become the objects of that mind so that the Father can say, “Thou art my son, thou art my daughter.” It is fundamentally different.
If God should bestow blessings at the very bottom of hell, one must hold the mind that one would go seeking even to the very bottom of hell.
If you hold such a mind and go forward setting up the center of your faith, you will absolutely not go to hell. If one goes and sees the spirit world, it is not arranged as the people who cry out that they will go to paradise thought it would be. People who boasted of this or that in the world think that it will be good even upon going to the spirit world, but it means that the spirit world is not arranged so.
The Father we wish to attend—we must attend that Father. You will have longed for that Father to come seeking you and longed to meet Him. Then what sort of preparation are you making while longing to meet Him?
Do you seek to meet Him having prepared a splendid and luxurious good place? Heaven does not meet one in such a place. What Heaven is seeking is not a good place. You must know that Heaven desires to meet one in a place of shedding blood and shedding tears. That Father whom we shall meet is not a Father of laughter but a wounded Father. It means that Father, though He was wounded, on seeing that His child was wounded, comforts him with a face of warm affection and comes seeking to greet that child. From here it becomes upside down. Such sons and daughters come to stand in the highest place, and those who are not are in the lowest place.
You have many gifts to offer before the Father. Though one has nothing and holds nothing, there is a gift one can offer to God, and it is not the things the people of the world delight in but the equipping of that one figure of appearing before the Father while shedding blood and shedding tears and shedding sweat. That is the greatest gift before the Father of suffering, the Father of sorrow, and the Father of grievance.
God does not require gold and silver and treasure from you who come forth following the Will. It means that He is rather a God who takes hand in hand and holds body to body with one placed in the same circumstances and comforts the son who sorrows.
Only one who can call Him Father in such a place has no one who resists him wherever in heaven and on earth he goes. It means that even if He seats him at God’s right hand, they say, “It is right!” It means that if one who is not so is seated upon God’s throne, the heavenly hosts and angels and the myriad saints, and even Satan upon the earth, accuse.
That is why the road a true Christian believer goes is a road of death. The road a true believer goes is a road of suffering. The road a true believer has walked was grievous, a road of endurance, a miserable road. Yet it is by no means miserable. It means that Heaven, which comes seeking to form a bond with us in a miserable place, does not treat us shabbily in such a place but rather treats us generously and forms a bond. You must know that such a bond becomes a condition by which one can stand dauntlessly as God’s eternal son or daughter upon going to the heavenly world.
That is why you must become sons and daughters who can receive an answer when you call upon the Father in the valley of tears. You must become those who can hear the words, “Yes! I am here, so endure,” when in a place of shedding tears you say, “Father!”; and, “I endured, so you too endure,” when in a place where the suffering of shedding blood and sweat pierces you say, “O Father!”; and, “I am here, so be at ease,” even in that moment when death draws near. It means that how much one attended the Father in such a place, and how much one consulted together with the Father, and how much one lived together with the Father, is what becomes the problem; but in a place of glory, even if one called upon the Father, it does not become a problem. Why? Because the Father has not yet seen a day of glory.
Until today, an advanced nation like America has led the world, bearing an outward mission, but now it must go down. It must shoulder its bundle of money and go down seeking pitiful peoples. Not only a bundle of money; it must go down seeking with mind and with heart too.
Otherwise, another people will inherit that mission. So it cannot but give aid even if it would not. Yet does it seem all will be well if it only gives aid with money? By no means.
Since America has been established as a nation centered upon the Christian ideal, representing all the nations of the world, it must help by adding mind and heart to the core of that ideal. Otherwise, it means that other people will take away that mission.
The Road Unification Church Members Must Go
Since the historical current of thought has flowed forth in this way, where must we, who have stepped forth knowing such a Will, go? We must go not to a glorious place but to a miserable place. Since the seven-year great tribulation has not yet come, one must go seeking, in reality, a place like the seven-year great tribulation.
Where would the place be to which the great tribulation comes seeking?
It comes seeking from the place people dislike most. Since it comes seeking not from the place all the people of the world like but from the place they dislike most, if you become those who are victorious in such a place, there is no problem.
The current of thought of history is moving through such stages. Because communism has taken hold of laborers, farmers, and pitiful people, it has come, in a short time, to a stage at which it can shake the world. Yet that is to the very end outwardly. It means that they stood in such a place not with the heavenly heart (천정, 天情) but with human feeling. Since they could not stand in that place with the heavenly heart, hereafter, if one would rule the world, one must stand in such a place with the heavenly heart. If it becomes so, this heaven and earth will be overturned.
That is why, what sort of road is the road that the believers of the Unification Church must go seeking?
It is not such a place as human beings cry out about, asserting that the flag of peace flutters there; one must go seeking the place human beings dislike most, the place human beings avoid most. In going seeking, in what form? One must go seeking in the stead of the form of the Father who has come seeking for six thousand years.
You must know that He is a Father who, when we shed tears, sheds tears together with us and seeks to comfort us who shed tears. Therefore, you must become a company that, embracing that heart of shedding tears, even though you yourselves are placed in a place of shedding tears, takes hold of the pitiful ones who shed tears and comforts them, saying, “Do not weep. There is longing upon the road ahead of you, so do not weep,” and can transfer to them happiness, to them longing, to them circumstances, and to them heart. Only then can one receive Heaven’s inheritance. It means that one can receive the inheritance of heaven and earth. Only then can one rule not the authority of earth and heaven but even the authority of hell.
That is why we must go. Since it is a fact that the historical current of thought is drawing near before our eyes, you must go with all your mind and will and devotion wherever you go. In a place where mind and will and devotion all go, any problem whatever can be resolved. It means that all the things of the world are resolved. It means that beyond that there is no problem.
You must go in the Father’s stead, and when you have gone seeking such a place, if there is one who knows your mind and takes hold of you and sheds tears, you must know how to comfort him in the Father’s stead. Only then can you become true sons and daughters of God; otherwise, you cannot become true children of God.
The road of suffering you go is a road of going around. It is for a brief while. It is not a road of going forward toward a goal while placing longing before oneself. It is a road of going around from the far side of longing. It is for a brief while.
We believers of unification must, in the stead of these people, go the road these people cannot go. Going further, we must move these people and go the road the world cannot go. In going, centering on what must one go? One must go centering upon the heavenly heart and centering upon God’s heart. Then you will rule the world.
Even though the ideal you cry out about and the position in which you are placed and the value you boast of are great, it will not do unless these form a bond with a value beyond cosmic value.
From where is that bond formed?
It is formed from an exceedingly miserable place, from an exceedingly difficult place, from an exceedingly sorrowful place. One who, having formed a bond with the Father in such a place, can disregard sorrow and can digest sorrow and can comfort people who sorrow, is one who truly attends to the Father.
If one is a person who goes forward holding such a mind, suffering absolutely does not last long. One absolutely does not perish. Though one’s single body may collide with suffering, if one crosses beyond that place, an infinite world of freedom unfolds. Because now we are placed at a turning point of the age at which one must cross beyond such a place, you must without fail cross beyond that place.
Therefore, you must, embracing the Father’s heart and as substances of the Father’s circumstances and longing, become pioneers of suffering, and pioneers of sorrow, and pioneers of difficulty, and become those who can comfort the people who follow along that road. If you do so, you will undoubtedly become sons and daughters of Heaven and will represent the whole world.
Moreover, I ask that you know that if these people become such a people, it becomes a people that receives Heaven’s blessing, representing countless peoples, and that you become those who can attend the Father in such a place.
