Why Is the Seven-Year Course Necessary?

Former Headquarters Church.

Before creating Heaven and Earth, God formed the conception that He would create this stage of the universe over six days and rest on the seventh day.

Therefore, God’s providential history began even before the creation of Heaven and Earth.

We Must Turn According to Heavenly Fortune

As you have learned through the Principle, God sought to complete the various stages of the creation of Heaven and Earth centered on the number seven, but because human beings fell, this was prolonged. And so God, centered on the six thousand years of biblical history, has worked until now to bring the providence of restoration to its conclusion.

Whenever God is to reorganize and establish a special providential process anew, a certain period of time is absolutely necessary.

How many years have passed since Korea was liberated from Japan?

It has been a full twenty-one years, has it not?

Twenty-one years hold a grave meaning in the providence. The Teacher thinks that, because twenty-one years have passed, the fortune of the nation will unfold. Hereafter, all international problems will unfold from Korea. We have entered a sphere of the age in which, if one only uses one’s head well, one can raise a worldwide wave.

Heavenly fortune does not turn as it pleases. The sun, moon, and stars, and spring, summer, autumn, and winter all turn according to the law of heaven. They cannot depart from the principle. Because they move along one orbit according to their order, they move without fail by some law.

Looking at an individual’s life, it passes from infancy to boyhood to adulthood to old age.

The I who lived yesterday, the I who lives today, and the I who will live tomorrow are, undoubtedly, all I. Yet do you think that there can therefore be no difference or gap or stage among them?

You may not know it, but when one looks centered on a whole life, there is a person whose boyhood is placed in a fortune like spring. Such a person will have received, in boyhood, the benefit of parents or the benefit of a special environment.

And there will be a person who sets out in the season of spring in his youth and a person who sets out in spring in adulthood or in old age. The time differs, but each person turns through a fortune like the season of spring and likewise through fortunes like summer, autumn, and winter.

Now, if countless people all turned in the same sequence, it would be equal; but this turns crosswise. Some turn in the order spring-summer-autumn-winter, while some turn in the order winter-autumn-summer-spring. Some go up, while some come down.

Why does such a thing occur?

It is because the aspect of one’s life is governed according to the historical background of good and evil. What this means is that among your ancestors, there will be good ancestors and there will be evil ancestors. The differences are of ten thousand kinds, and one receives their influence.

Good seeks to rise; evil seeks to descend. When you have done something, if your conscience is stung over that thing, do you rise or descend?

What about when things are good?

One swells up. The principle of Heaven and Earth is so arranged. The evil person generally goes about with their head bowed, looking only at the ground. And so he shrinks.

Do thieves steal because they feel good?

They do it crawling low. But when there is a good thing, an exciting thing, how is it? Do the arms go down or up?

They go up. The mouth opens wide, and the news spreads through the whole neighborhood. It is not that it stops after a moment; when things are good, the hands and feet continue to rise, and when things are bad, they keep descending.

Moreover, good is loosened, and evil is bound. Because this is the principle of Heaven and earth, history does not move off its orbit. That state, opening out at forty-five degrees or ninety degrees within the three-hundred-sixty-degree circle, takes on a three-dimensional form, colliding and shattering and meeting again, moving in ten thousand shapes.

There are many who, entering within this sphere of movement, measure their position with a ruler and, gazing only at that, declare that this world is unfair, an evil world, a world one cannot live in, and meaninglessly abandon their lives. Such a person does so because he does not know the law of this universe.

The Human Being Within the Cosmic Bond

Even in a single day, there is spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Morning, noon, evening, and night—this is precisely spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The principle of Heaven and Earth is all like this. Because, according to the law by which the earth revolves around the sun through the four seasons of the year, everything that subsists in it is within the sphere of that benefit; it cannot but receive that influence. This is an inevitable fact. You must know this.

Look at whether you yourself are in a rising fortune or a descending fortune, and consider whether you were born bearing the merit of your ancestors or not. There is a person who, though he toils three times as much as others, or more, and gives even more earnest devotion, still fails. This is because his is a descending fortune.

Only after descending all the way does one rise. To give devotion at such a time is to descend faster. When a descending person gives devotion, he does not rise from there but descends all the faster. That is why, when evil people give devotion, some sudden calamity befalls them, or their son dies, or the like. It is because such a thing happening makes the indemnity go faster.

But when a person in a rising fortune gives devotion, he rises at double the speed.

That is why Jesus said,

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” (Mark 12:30)

To love God in this way is the first commandment; and loving God, what is it we mean to do?

We mean to occupy God. For this is the secret of occupying the universe. You are within such a cosmic bond.

Then, in carrying out the providence of restoration, how will God save human beings if He is to save them?

Merely pulling them along as they are will not save them. If He were to pull them, saying, “Since you are all living like this now, all of you take hold of Me,” then hopeless hangers-on would come dragging along. Then such people must be pulled out—but some must be pulled out from the leg first, some from the head first, and some from the side first; it is of ten thousand kinds.

Then why must they be pulled out?

Because the historical background of each of you differs, the phenomena that unfold and appear on the present stage of life also differ. And so different twists and turns arise in each of your lives. Because such a complicated and manifold providence of restoration cannot all be done at once, they must be pulled out.

And so God, setting up some one person as the center within this history, carries out the providential history of restoration. In carrying out the providence of restoration, one must pass from the individual providence of restoration through the family providence of restoration, the clan providence of restoration, the providence of restoration of the people, the national providence of restoration, the worldwide providence of restoration, and the cosmic providence of restoration.

And in the end, one must set up the condition of having passed through a process of the providence of restoration, even regarding God Himself.

You are hearing such words for the first time, are you not?

What it means that a process of the providence of restoration must be passed through even regarding God is this: because God is carrying out a providence to save fallen humanity, until the day the providence of salvation ends—that is, until the day comes when humanity is completely restored—He can be neither at ease nor joyful. He has not yet greeted the day on which God’s heart can dance.

That is why the condition of having passed through a process of the providence of restoration, even regarding God, must be set up.

We Must Loosen the Tangled History

When the day comes on which God, the great sovereign of Heaven and earth, can rejoice and dance for all eternity, saying, “This day too is My day, the coming day too is My day, this world too is My world,” then, however deeply all the conscientious people in the world have been steeped in poison (毒素), that poison will all be dissolved and vanish. Yet this universe has not greeted such a day on which God can so rejoice, an environment in which God can smile.

Because He is a God who, within the process of the providence of restoration, tumbles on embracing this humanity that groans amid trial and dire straits, God cannot but be a God of anxiety, a God of worry, a God of care.

Even if we appeal our circumstances to such a God, that God cannot transfer us into the sphere of the liberation of peace.

So let us gather God’s devotion and our devotion. And by doing so, it is not that we should greet liberation now, but that we should go forward gazing upon the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven to be built hereafter, beyond this age.

This Kingdom of Heaven becomes the purpose of God’s providence to save humanity and the purpose that fallen humanity aims at. That is why you are told to give devotion.

You must know the law of giving devotion. It is well written in the Confucian scriptures, which record the Three Bonds and Five Relationships. I regard such thought too as existing to make known the law of giving devotion. And God, too, carries out the providence in that direction.

What is it that a human being most longs for, and what is it that God most longs for? It is neither to remain in the process of the providence of restoration nor to live in this world within the fallen sphere.

Then what is that longing?

It is to break out of that frame. In breaking out, it is not merely breaking out, but breaking out after loosening all the history that has been tangled until now.

That is the purpose of our studying history today, and that is the purpose of studying the Bible. When one looks at the Bible, two-thirds of it is historical writing. Why? Because the tangled history must be loosened.

In loosening, one must loosen individually, loosen at the family level, loosen at the clan level, loosen at the level of the people, loosen at the national level, loosen at the worldwide level, and loosen at the cosmic level.

Further, Heaven and earth must loosen it together. And after loosening all of that, one must go even into the world of the heart and there make a wellspring of liberation. Otherwise, the Kingdom of Heaven cannot come.

Why did Jesus come bearing love?

To unfold the world of the heart. And so he taught the way of love; but Jesus went without being able to teach how to lay the foundation of the individual heart, how to lay the foundation of the family heart, and how to lay the foundations of clan, national, and worldwide heart, and the foundation of the heart regarding God. That is why Jesus must come again to this earth bearing the hidden world of the heart.

The Arirang Pass Is the Pass of Indemnity

When one quietly watches the young people, their faces are flushed red, brimming with a yearning as if they could leap over even a high mountain in a single stride. Then, shall they cross only that mountain visible before their eyes?

One who does not know thinks it is enough to cross that mountain over there, but once one crosses that mountain, there is another mountain. Cross that mountain, and there is yet another, and another. And at last, one must climb to the summit of the highest mountain. Yet even having climbed to the summit, one must not sleep there.

Having climbed to the summit, one must come back down to level ground and sleep in a place from which one can give command toward the mountain ranges of the world.

One sleeps not at the summit but only after coming down to the lowest level ground; only then can that person be acknowledged as one who has victoriously crossed all the mountain peaks. To climb to the summit is not the purpose.

Even while in a valley, having climbed and crossed the mountains, one must enter a position where, though one commands all the mountains of the world, one can say, “Before You I have nothing to say.”

Only then, even while in a low valley, does one become a person who has conquered all the mountains of the world. To have climbed to the summit is not to have conquered. One may die while coming down from the summit. Why do I say this? Because the providence of restoration is the same.

When one looks at human beings today, each in his own way, using the very last of his strength and giving all his devotion, seeks to cross just one pass. But even if he barely crosses that pass, that place is not a foundation where he can rest and be welcomed before the gate of a kingdom of great peace.

Once he crosses that pass, there is another pass. It would be no problem if that pass were a little lower than the passes crossed until now, but when he looks up, it is higher. And so, if one has crossed one pass, two passes, three passes, how many passes do you suppose remain thereafter?

Among Korean folk songs, the Arirang song is famous, isn't it?

The Teacher is no interpreter of Arirang, but at the end of the song, there are the words “the village of love.” That refers to the Kingdom of Heaven. When I say the Teacher thinks so, people will say that the one called Teacher Moon of the Unification Church does not know folk songs well.

How good it would be if I could say I know it better than anyone among the thirty million people! What is a pass? One must cross the passes well.

The passes are twelve passes—have you crossed the twelve passes?

If you have not crossed them, then just sing the Arirang Pass.

How many passes of the Arirang Pass have you crossed?

Is it called the Arirang Pass because the Arirang Pass is winding? That is the Arirang crisis, not the Arirang Pass. Then, in crossing over—can one be said to cross over while going down?

The Teacher thinks the thirty million people have not yet been able to cross this pass. Though millions may have sung it countless times, there is no one who has completely crossed over it. Yet the Teacher has crossed it. Is that an offense? The Korean folk songs and ballads, in which such a thing can come to pass hereafter, are truly well made.

When one looks at The Tale of Sim Cheong or The Tale of Chunhyang, an apt parable (例話) for explaining the providence of restoration is well expressed. How splendid is the love of Chunhyang and Yi Doryeong! And how admirable is the filial devotion with which Sim Cheong served her parent! In like manner, in the original world to come, one must so greet the Lord and so attend the True Parents. That is why one must win victory by crossing over the Arirang Pass. And so one must cross over the Arirang Pass.

Because we crossed over by falling, we must cross over. It is so now because of the Fall, but originally the human being was born on a mountain summit. The Garden of Eden is not level ground. The Teacher thinks that God made Adam and Eve on the summit of a high mountain, like a pillar of fire in a horizontal world.

Our ancestors Adam and Eve should have crossed over to the good place on the right, but they crossed over into an unprincipled sphere that had not even been created.

Had they crossed over well when they first set out from the mountain summit, they would have reached the destination in accord with the natural course; but because they crossed over wrongly at first, they could not but pass through a course of toil contrary to that natural course.

Jesus, Who Came to Unfold the Season of Spring

Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the countless ancestors of successive ages who came and went in the past, and John the Baptist and Jesus, and the countless Christian martyrs too, struggled to cross this pass, but until now they have not greeted the day on which they could taste the joy of liberation at that summit.

When is that day?

It is the day the Lord comes. Then, where was the Lord said to come when he comes? Christians think he will come to the summit of the Mount of Olives.

I once heard that when someone among the Unification Church family members asked, “Where will the Lord come?” and another answered, “He comes to a mountain,” and the first asked, “Is it the Mount of Olives, or Baekdu Mountain, or the mountains of the Himalayas, or Geumgang Mountain, or which mountain?” the other answered, “He comes to Busan.” A mountain is a mountain, he meant.

That is why, from of old, countless seekers of the Way and people who walk the path of the Way are all bound up with mountains. It is because one must climb to a mountain summit. To climb, one must toil.

Coming down, one may come down gladly, but going up, one must go up leaning on a staff, staking one’s life. Because there is a road that must pass through such a course of heavenly law, the Lord whom Christians today believe and hope will come is also said to come to a mountain summit.

Then where will the Lord come when he comes? He comes to a place where the song of peace and liberation can ring out.

All people, yearning for that day, are enduring the historical twists and turns and historical indemnity, and crossing over. The time of climbing ever closer to that ridge-crest is the Last Days.

What happens when the Last Days come?

There are two types. Those who have greeted the Lord cross over the Arirang Pass, and those who have not greeted the Lord enter the road to hell. How many passes are in the Arirang Pass? Twelve passes, is it not? Seen in that sense, Arirang was truly well made.

To cross twelve passes in a year, one must cross one pass each month. Just as a year, to have its revival of spring (回生春), must cross twelve passes, so too the universe, to have its revival of spring, must pass through such crises.

Jesus came to unfold a new season of spring in the world of human beings.

Because Jesus holds within him all the seasons of the twelve months, he must be able to embrace the twelve apostles, who are the representative type of humanity.

And so, when they opposed him, Jesus played the servant to set up the condition of having crossed over by accommodating their hearts. Therein lies the principle of his washing the disciples’ feet.

Without doing so, Jesus could not return and greet a new spring day, and could not cross over the passes upon passes of indemnity. Such were the twelve disciples.

In the spiritual world, too, there are the twelve pearly gates. Jesus had to seek and set up twelve apostles who could freely come and go through these twelve pearly gates at any time and determine a position in which he could sit at the center and command them to attend him.

The Pass the Christian Must Cross

Vertically, it comes forth so, but horizontally, one must come through seven stages. Looking at the course of Restoration, after Jesus, one has come through seven stages. That is why a seven-year period always brings forth a new problem.

Then what pass must Christians cross?

They must cross the pass of love. There may be those who think that love, being a good thing, exists for one’s own sake; but God’s love is not so.

If God had loved and treated things so, this world would already have perished. God’s love is fair. There are times of crossing and rising and descending, but toward all worldwide matters He has dealt fairly. If there is a good thing, there is also a bad thing in half measure.

Even in a single day, half is day and half is night. Because it is such a relative relationship, if there is a good person, a bad person is mixed in.

Just as God rules nature, His ruling of good people and bad people can be considered ruling within the sphere of good. But now, because the day is ruled by God and the night is ruled by Satan, to set the night upon a standard that God can govern, the saints are entering the world of darkness and doing the cleaning.

That is, to reorganize it, countless people were sacrificed, centered on religion, and countless nations and countless peoples were mobilized, shedding blood. Passing through such a process, history has proceeded for six thousand years by the reckoning of the Bible.

Because the human beings set up by God in the course of Restoration did not fulfill their responsibility, the distance from the starting point of history to the line of complete restoration grows ever greater. And along with that, wicked humanity increases.

Until now, God has carried out the providence of restoration beginning from the outward history, but now the age has come in which the inward history too can be restored. That is, the time has come when inner and outer can face each other. And so left wing and right wing, red and white, have become a relative world, and in the Last Days it must be set in order. Here, white (白) signifies safety, and red (赤) signifies danger. Left (左) signifies the wrong, and right (右) signifies the right.

The true mind of all things in the world of existence, which faces the public law of heavenly law, is such that, having trampled heavenly law, it cannot stand in its original place. That is why, when it goes to that place, it must confess directly.

That they came forth bearing the names of communism, the left wing, red-ism, and black-ism is because those very names are fitting as marks that directly confess the fact.

Even before the substantial being, these have become an object partner and oppose the democratic world. Now left and right are not a mutually responsive (相應) left and right, but a mutually conflicting (相克) left and right.

Mutual conflict can arise after mutual response has arisen, but after mutual conflict has arisen, mutual response absolutely cannot exist.

Because Heaven, earth, and the universe began from mutual response from the very time of their creation, mutual conflict too can exist; but if mutual conflict had come first, mutual response could not exist.

The foundation itself collapses. But if at the foundation there is mutual response, mutual conflict can be harmonized. Here, the four directions can join.

If there is a plus (+) and there is a minus (−), they can join each other, but if one side is removed, among themselves they become a mutual conflict. Yet this world did not start from mutual response but started from mutual conflict—that is, because a seed of mutual conflict was sown, it is the natural principle and the historical principle that a result of mutual conflict is reaped.

Then what must your heart do?

To have the nature that can meet the law of heavenly law as a natural law, one must perfect a mutually responsive self.

Do body and mind mutually conflict, or mutually respond?

When it is mutual conflict, mutual response cannot be in that place. As said before, if one starts from mutual response, mutual conflict can exist, but if one starts from mutual conflict, mutual response absolutely cannot exist. Therefore, however beautiful a person’s ideals and conduct may be, the end of a mutually conflicting person is collapse.

If you know this clearly and apply it as a philosophy of life, you will not fail in life.

One who applies this principle to his life and conforms to heavenly law becomes not a rebel against heavenly law but one who accords with heavenly law before it.

Avoid Mutual Conflict; Be in Mutual Response and Harmony

What is the Way?

It is the mutual response of mind and body. What is good? It is centered on myself, a mutual response with my neighbor. Peace and equality are the common goals all humanity desires. From what will that world start? It must start from the Way and the truth that can bring about mutual response and mutual harmony (相應相和).

Therefore, what is the new truth?

Only a doctrine that can hold a worldview, a view of life, and a view of living equipped with the driving force and content to respond mutually with Heaven and earth and to respond mutually with any being whatsoever that dwells in the three-dimensional world—regardless of up or down, high or low, front or back, left or right—can be the absolute truth that can remain at the end of the world of humanity. Because history started not from mutual response but from mutual conflict, this history cannot but close its curtain in collapse and grief.

If there were no single absolute being calling humanity with the ideal of mutual response, the history of humanity could only be despair. But God, regardless of whether human beings know the ideal of religion or not, has appointed a day of the ideal, and, sending the Messiah to us as the new cosmic subject of mutual response, seeks to newly establish for us—centered on a single ideal—a mutually responsive view of life, a mutually responsive worldview, and a mutually responsive view of living that will surpass all the culture, history, and tradition of the past.

When one sees that there is such a story, from the origin of the arduous world of mutual conflict to the age of the end of history, one cannot but indirectly acknowledge that God exists.

Then, from where does our life start?

On the two boundary lines between Satan and Heaven, by what is it decided whether I am on Heaven’s side or Satan’s side?

There must be a principle by which it can be decided. It is that one must know: what percentage of me is the mutually responsive element, and what percentage the mutually conflicting element?

If the mutually conflicting exceeds the responsive by even one percent, it must be removed.

If it is the mouth, sew up the mouth; if the leg, cut off the leg; if the eye, pluck out the eye; if the hand, cut off the hand. The other day, the Teacher went to a certain place where there were many people.

In front of the teacher, a married woman was sitting, giving off a bad smell in all directions. Beside that woman was a man, and even with the man watching, she brazenly scratched her head—it was really something.

What is that hand for?

When I looked at the fingers, they were like a cat’s claws, and my chest turned cold. Women’s hands are more so. As I spoke of bloodline a little while ago, it is because she was born bearing the bloodline of a viper. Because they are born bearing such an ill-made bloodline. You must take hold of such fellows and see to it that they do not do so.

You must always keep in mind which element—mutual response or mutual conflict—is greater within yourselves. The Kingdom of Heaven is not something God sends you to; it is something you yourselves go to.

Ordinary people, when there is a good thing, cannot restrain their feelings and make a great fuss; but rather than that, you must become a different sort of person who thinks of something new from that.

According as such an element is present in you, the influence upon your descendants is great. Therefore, if you wish your descendants hereafter to receive blessing, when you equip yourselves with the essential element that can bring mutual harmony and mutual response (相和相應) and then pray, God too delights in that.

Whether one goes to the Kingdom of Heaven or not depends on one’s own life.

If there is a good thing, one must not make it one’s own. It is not that everything becomes good just because one has come to the Unification Church.

It depends on how much of such an element is in your essence and on how much value your good weight holds. Moreover, walking the path of religion, one must not be greedy. Do you think God will delight only in what is mine?

We have become in mutual conflict, so what must we do to become the original mutual response?

For example, if the backs of the two hands are stuck together, are these hands in mutual response or mutual conflict?

Since they are stuck together, they must be pulled apart. To become a mutual response, one must pull them apart, even by bending or breaking what is stuck.

You, too, are stuck together wrongly like that. The individual is stuck, the family is stuck, society is stuck, and the people, the nation, the world, and even their culture and tradition are stuck together. Then who must pull them apart? You must all pull them apart.

What Jesus most wished for was “Love me more than anyone.” It was to love beyond one hundred percent, even beyond one hundred twenty percent.

If one loves only as much as one now loves one’s own possessions, one can fall below even the love within the satanic sphere. Loving is the motive for being loved.

To Escape the Satanic Sphere

God has dealt with the highest thing. Mutual response does not exist at the lowest; it exists from the highest standard. Then who must respond first? You yourselves must respond first. Because through the Fall we fell away from before God, we stand in the lowest place. We are in the place of destruction.

Because you were born inheriting Satan’s lineage, you are Satan’s sons and daughters.

But have you been treated by Satan as sons and daughters?

You have not. Because in human nature the taste of love was received from God, if Satan were to treat human beings as sons and daughters and love them, that heart would manifest as prompting a stirring toward good, and that love would quickly return to God.

The more Satan loves, the more one seeks to keep Satan at a distance and go to God. Therefore, you must know that Satan, though in the bloodline relation he stands in the position of the father of fallen human beings, comes forth centered on coercion and plunder, unable to treat them with love.

Therefore, all that Satan delights in must be stripped away. A person likes good, likes love, and likes a resting place of peace. To rest is a place snug like a nest, a place like spring. It is a place where Heaven and Earth are in harmony.

If in such an atmosphere one is only loved, a person leaves Satan’s bosom and returns to God.

Therefore, though born as Satan’s child, one has become a wretched being treated neither as Satan’s child nor as the child of Satan’s servant.

If only such lives could one day be treated as servants before Satan, that would be a joy; if one day to be treated as Satan’s adopted child were the longing of longings; if it were a han that one day one was never loved as Satan’s child….

What will God do, coming to a human being who, in the bosom of the wicked enemy, has received neither such affection (情) nor experienced such an ideal of love?

He cannot, from the start, give the love of a child. God binds to Heaven, in the position of the servant of a servant, a human being who is not even treated as a servant. That is, God takes what Satan has cast away and binds it into a bond in the position of the servant of a servant.

This grace, that fallen human beings can form a bond of the servant of a servant before God, is a treasure that cannot be exchanged even for Heaven and earth.

Though a servant of a servant, one must be tempered here and become a being that even Satan can publicly acknowledge.

When Satan publicly acknowledges, saying, “It is so. However much I analyze and test him, he is undoubtedly the foremost being in the position of the servant of God’s servant,” then God, centered on such a person, raises him to the stage of servant and organizes a people of servants.

From Noah’s time, He has come forth doing so. Centered on such servants, God organized the people of Israel and carried out the providence.

When God publicly acknowledges a representative person among those who can stand in the position of servant, taking the conscientious people of the whole world as the standard, and sets him in the position of adopted child, he must be a person of whom Satan too can say, “It is so. He has equipped himself, inwardly and outwardly, with the qualification to duly become God’s adopted child.”

It will not do for God to say merely, “Among My servants, you are one qualified to become an adopted child.”

There must be a certificate that Satan publicly acknowledges.

One Must Be Publicly Acknowledged as a Substance Uniting Spirit and Body

Next, God sent Jesus to the people of Israel, whom He had set up centered on the bond of the adopted child; had the people of Israel greeted Jesus and become one, they would have been equipped with the direct bond of being grafted in as children. But because they failed to recognize Jesus, the New Testament gospel has come forth in place of the bond of the adopted child.

So though one wishes to graft, there is no main stem. When there is no original substance—that is, no true olive tree—how can one graft onto a wild olive tree? The season of spring must come.

This is why Christianity, together with countless human beings in the historical age, has passed through a history of pioneering a wretched destiny and coming forth searching for the true olive tree.

The true olive tree is precisely the Son of God. When that Son comes, one must receive his sap and receive his branch. One must graft oneself onto that branch.

When Satan sees that one has cut oneself and grafted in, the historical conditions that have remained knotted until now—all the ancestors of the historical age having presented conditions of indemnity, only to be caught and stumble before Satan—all vanish at that place.

One must be grafted not upon good, rich soil, upon a foundation snug like a nest, but in a place like a stony field. It is because one must receive from Satan the certificate that one, equipped with the content of essence and nature not present in the satanic world until now, can become a son of God in the new age. It is not something God does for one.

If God could do it as He pleased, He would have done it all six thousand years ago.

In my case, to get out of prison, it is not the judge who does it.

Then who does it?

Satan—Satan does it. In the courtroom, the prosecutor is Satan. Therefore, one cannot get out unless one receives the prosecutor’s public acknowledgment in the court. Therefore, unless one receives Satan’s public acknowledgment—that is, even if one has received a just verdict from the judge—God cannot say, “You are My son. I will save you.”

One must, without fail, bring back Satan’s public acknowledgment. Have you received Satan’s public acknowledgment, or not? You must receive Satan’s public acknowledgment.

What kind of church is the Unification Church?

It is a place that teaches the method of obtaining public acknowledgment from Satan. But in receiving public acknowledgment from Satan, it will not do to receive it only spiritually. One must receive public acknowledgment as a substance uniting spirit and body.

The history of Christianity, which for six thousand years until now has led the altar amid suffering, shedding blood and sweat, and walked a bloody course of adversity, stands today in a position where it has attained only a spiritual standard.

If there is such a road of heavenly law by which spirit and body can be perfected together at once, then, whatever difficulty there may be, we must walk that road. Many people believe they can walk that road by pushing forward among themselves, but it does not work that way.

When one looks at such people, one feels that their thinking and observing are wanting. However clever, however accomplished a person may be said to be, they all look laughable.

One Must Become a New Bridegroom and Bride

Because the historical background is so, now the purpose of the providence is moving in the direction of seeking to perfect spirit and body. Such a privileged benefit of Heaven and a new historical environment are drawing near before us.

At this point, even if we go out with hands raised to fight and are beaten and wail, the work of perfecting spirit and body is a thing worth undertaking once, if one were born a man. It is the same even if one was born a woman.

Even at the cost of being unable to marry, it is a thing worth undertaking. When one looks at the maidens and bachelors of the Unification Church these days, they seem to me like people who have nothing to do with me.

As a servant or an adopted child, one cannot depart for a new Heaven and earth. From what did the departure of history begin?

It began with an evil son. That is, it started with Cain. That history started from a wrong son is contrary to the law of heaven. It must start from the True Parents.

But before becoming parents, one had to become husband and wife, and before becoming husband and wife, a bridegroom and bride.

From this vantage point, the misfortune of history was lodged in the bridegroom and bride. That is why the final purpose that religion desires today is the bridegroom and bride.

We must bear the name of the bridegroom and the bride. Yet bearing only the name of bridegroom and bride will not do. Only when, having settled the name of bridegroom and bride, one becomes husband and wife, and thereupon becomes parents and makes a departure as new parents, does the history of the new Heaven and earth begin.

God’s purpose of creation was that Adam and Eve should marry as a good bridegroom and bride and become husband and wife, and, through the bond of husband and wife, go on even to the bond of parents; yet because of the Fall, all this was shattered. And so the providence of salvation started from the children, Cain and Abel.

This was not the departure of history that ought to have been met in our human life. That we were born bearing such a history of misfortune in our lives is a grievous thing. It is a thing one cannot bear. It is a thing over which you ought to protest and complain before your ancestors.

Due to this, God is a God who bears a historical han. With each step you take, you must loosen the han of history. That han is the han of our parents, the han of our brothers, the han of our people, the han of our nation, and the han of our world.

Through the single mistake of Adam and Eve on a single day, the bridegroom and bride were shattered, the bond of parents was shattered, and true children, a true family, a true clan, a true people, a true nation, a true world, and a true Heaven and earth were shattered.

Bearing this history of misfortune, how shall we loosen this deep grievance?

We must loosen it by vengeance—that is, by indemnity. How shall we indemnify? I must first take up sword and spear and step forward. “Fierce storm, come sweeping over me; all hardships, come to me; I will face them and settle the matter.”

Only one who steps forward with such resolve and can judge history and build a new age is a true person. One who, instead, is dragged along as the bonds of history dictate cannot be called a true person. There are many such people among the Unification believers.

To have made the Unification Church and led it until now was not to make such a throng.

The new history begins with the bridegroom and bride. And through believing in Jesus, one must form a true, pure bond burning with pure devotion. There, one must not remain at the stage of betrothal but must become a husband and wife who can say, “He is my husband,” “She is my wife.”

That married couple must stand in a position where they can judge the history of the past and, as new ancestors, solemnly make the departure of a new history.

Before that, one cannot be said to have walked all the road a human being must walk.

The New History Begins from the True Parents

Jesus, too, came seeking that road. That God toiled for six thousand years was also to seek that day.

The new world begins when the True Parents lay a new foundation upon this earth. Through those Parents, new children, a new clan, a new people, a new nation, a new world, and a new Cosmos must be organized. This is the purpose of hope for which Jesus must come again and carry out the providence.

For that to happen, that day must not come all at once. The road of the servant of a servant must all be dealt with; the road of the servant must be dealt with, the road of the adopted child must be dealt with, and next, the road of the son must be dealt with. But because all was ruined in the course of six thousand years of history, the Lord who comes must, staking one lifetime, set up the standard of victory of having dealt with the six-thousand-year history. Before setting up the true standard by which he can judge history, he cannot appear upon this earth as the True Parent.

Yet the people who believe in Jesus today are thieves who say, “Oh! The Lord, the bridegroom, is coming to seek me.” Had I meant to have such a faith, would the Teacher have walked such a road until now?

The Teacher has, until now, prayed so much as to yield to no one. In shedding tears, too, he yielded to no one, and in repentance, too, he did as much as to yield to no one. And in zeal, if it comes to zeal, he showed zeal such as to yield to no one.

Why does he walk the road that the established-church people oppose today?

Because this road is without error. However much one turns it over and checks it, it is without error. It is because he is convinced that history will be set in order by this principle.

I intend to meet the young people of this land once. At that time, I will not let them off. An environment in which the Teacher can do as he pleases will gradually open up. That does not mean I am threatening and intimidating you. To become a person who can accord with the principle and principles, a person who can completely conform and respond before the public law of heavenly law—to become such a person is our historical longing and the longing of those who have cultivated the Way from our ancestors until now.

Because I know that not having had a single day of victory, though struggling centered on the standard of conscience, has become a historical han, I must set you in that position even by driving you with blows. Because this is contributing to history and setting up the authority of victory before the present age, it must be done a thousand times, ten thousand times.

These days, those in Confucian academies, or those cultivating the Way in the mountains, await Jeong Doryeong (정도령) and speak of the age of the Former Heaven (선천시대) and the age of the Later Heaven (후천시대), saying that new Parents of Heaven and Earth must appear. What are the Parents of Heaven and Earth? They refer precisely to the True Parents.

From what must history start?

It must start from new Parents. Before these Parents of Heaven and Earth appear, a new history cannot start. There must appear true Parents who have fought and won victory over Satan and been publicly acknowledged, “You are the Parents of Heaven and Earth.”

Before those Parents appear, the great opening of Heaven and earth does not occur. Only when the great opening of Heaven and Earth occurs does the departure of history begin from there.

Sons and daughters who have grown up together with God centered on a new heart must, bearing the heart that God longed for regarding Adam and Eve at the time of creation, make their whole life accord with God’s Will, and thereby fulfill in their stead what God longed for regarding Adam and Eve.

At that time, God, in place of Adam and Eve, will call such children and bless them, saying, “I give you the blessing of all ages. May the bloodline of my heart be with you forever.” True Parents who have received such a blessing must appear upon this earth.

When the Teacher entered the mysterious spiritual world and prayed, the word that rang out was that “the center of the universe is the relationship of parent and child.”

The parent-child relationships spoken of in the world cannot be acknowledged as father and mother, because all were born of Satan. They are mere sires and dams.

Those who like to curse may curse, saying that the one called Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, speaking of “father and mother,” called them “sires and dams”; but the point is that they cannot be true father and mother. They are such sires and dams that Satan can toy with them at any time.

To Have the Bond of Father and Son with God

Originally, the word “father and son” refers to the original father and his sons and daughters. Without such a father and son, that nation too is not realized. All people desire a world of peace.

That world is not realized through the kind of culture that the advanced nations of the world are pursuing today. It is realized through the True Parents.

However much the True Parents may wear straw matting, carry a ragged bundle, and wear faded and worn clothes, and though they come forth exhausted from a pit a thousand fathoms, ten thousand fathoms deep, fallen human beings must learn God’s heart centered on those True Parents.

The Unification Church is a place that teaches the way of the heart. You must be grafted onto God’s heart. You were born from birth as satanic offspring; so how must you graft onto the heart hereafter?

It will not do to graft in the place where father and mother live together and raise a child. Before the sons and daughters are born, before the father marries—that is, before he greets the mother—one must graft onto the heart from the time one is a seed within the father’s body. The history of restoration is so arranged. Victory begins from there. Do you understand such things? You are riff-raff—riff-raff!

Some may say that, having gone to the Unification Church, the one called Teacher Moon of the Unification Church greatly disregards people, but he does not say it to disregard them.

However clever one may be, seen centered on the public law of heavenly law, if one does not know what one ought to know well, one is riffraff.

If one does not know the social system of that nation, does not know the social mood, and cannot reckon all the facts of the relations of high and low, front and back, what is one but riff-raff? In that sense, the members of the Unification Church must know all things clearly, centered on the bond of the heart.

Then, to what degree must one graft the heart?

Having grafted from within the father’s body and set up the condition of having lived together with the father, one must then be born through the mother’s body and, growing, live attending father and mother. Yet it does not end there; one must form a bond of love with the relatives who can live together with father and mother, and form a bond of heart with the clan centered on the relatives, and that clan form a bond of heart with the people, and that people form a bond of heart with the nation, and that nation form a bond of heart with the world, and that world form a bond of heart with Heaven and earth, and, through that Heaven and earth, set up the standard of having formed a bond of heart even with God. Only then does God say, “You are My son.” Would God call one His son who has formed a bond of the heart centered only on himself?

Before God, who has come forth restoring the fallen world, a person who is not equipped with the authority to come and go between the height of Calvary and the Garden of Gethsemane—who, centered on the cosmic bond, has tumbled on shedding tears and struggling and shedding blood and sweat and staking his life—cannot become a son of God.

Jesus too died on the cross, but because he held the authority of resurrection, he was determined as the Son of God. When Jesus prayed, he did not pray a prayer centered on himself, as you do.

The Reason Jesus Died on the Cross

What is the very first part of the Lord’s Prayer?

“Our Father, which art in heaven,” is it not? At the very first, he attached “Father.” One first takes hold of God, takes hold of that nation, and comes down.

Having come down, one must, centered on the ideal of that nation, pray for the world and shed more tears for the world than for any people. To seek God for the sake of God’s Will, for the sake of the world one aims at, if one sheds tears so that the world becomes one, then that nation within its scope simply lives. That is why—what does the Unification Church teach today? It teaches you to love God. Whether one goes to the very summit or to the very lowest place, love God.

If God requires anyone, would He not require such a person?

Even a single one. When one quietly watches the Unification believers these days, there are many people who are an eyesore. There are many fellows beyond saving. The Teacher will once seize hold and see how many remain.

What is the highest model of man and woman that the Teacher, as the Teacher of the Unification Church, desires?

It is likewise the same. Gathering you and training you like this is to bring you close to that model. So that, wherever one goes, one is without fail like a copy that matches the original. When this is presented before the public law of heavenly law, one must be able to be publicly acknowledged as truly conforming to it.

Moreover, at the same time as receiving God’s public acknowledgment, one must receive Satan’s public acknowledgment too, and only then is there liberation. Many people do not dream even in their dreams that the course of human life is placed under such a destiny.

It is difficult to cross over the seven-year course, is it not?

A human being in the position of the servant of a servant must, centered on God’s love, pass through the bond of servant, and through that servant pass through the bond of adopted child, and be restored as a direct child. Then, centered on what must one be restored? One must be restored, centered on the family.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?

Jesus did not die lacking disciples. He did not die because Peter, James, and John did not believe. Nor did he die lacking twelve disciples. He did not die because the people of Israel disbelieved, nor because the Jewish religious body disbelieved.

Then, for what did he die?

There was no content with which to make a departure. That is, if Jesus was the bridegroom, there had to be a bride, but there was no bride. There is no such content in the Bible. There is not, but meet Jesus and ask him.

If he does not teach you, ask him even while holding him by the neck. Ask whether the words of Teacher Moon of the Unification Church are wrong. The Teacher speaks, having found out everything.

Not knowing such things, university professors and doctors of learning submit papers claiming to have newly discovered some global problem; but considered centered on God’s Will, this does not reach even the level of an elementary schooler.

If those people keep doing only such things, they will receive historical judgment. There is no help for it. Because the Teacher has confidence, he is overcoming all manner of trials and storms well.

When Jesus came, the Jewish people should have made a foundation of religious welcome, made a foundation of clan-level welcome, made a foundation of national welcome, and set up a standard on which they could win victory.

Even though God set up Judaism and the people of Israel as the chosen people for that work, because they failed to set up this condition, a han was left in the history of the providence—who knows this?

The Mission of the People of Israel

For what did Jesus come as a man?

Fallen human beings keep multiplying Satan’s children. This prolongs God’s providence of restoration. It took six thousand years even to save one person; to save this many people would take hundreds of millions of years. That is why religion has emphasized the celibate life. It is a matter of not bearing Satan’s children.

When the true Parents have not yet borne sons and daughters, when they have not even had a married life, how can throngs born as an unprincipled clan have a married life? How can they bear children?

Therefore, that religion emphasizes the celibate life is the law of heavenly law. The higher a religion, the more it emphasizes the celibate life.

Is it not reasonable?

When God’s children have not borne children, how can fallen descendants bear children? It is a thing at which Heaven and man alike would rage. Those children are all Satan’s children.

However great a hero or martyr moving the world, seen by the law of heavenly law, they are all Satan’s children.

For Jesus to embrace the dream of the ideal world in his heart and make a new departure, Israel as a nation had to become one, inwardly and outwardly, and confront Rome.

The people of Israel and the Jewish religious body had to become one with Jesus so that where Jesus went east, they went east; where he went west, they went west; and if he went into the sea, they went into the sea. There had to be the conviction: I will die before Jesus dies, we will grieve before Jesus grieves, I will perish before Jesus perishes.

Had the people of Israel and the Jewish religious body been such, Rome would have been conquered shortly. God had prepared such a historical gift upon the foundation of four thousand years of toil, but they rejected that gift.

Therefore, it is the principle, for fallen human beings, that one must come forth for thousands of years indemnifying a course contrary to the natural order amid adversity. To live this principled life, you must not become a throng that forgets the fact that you must plant a sword in your heart and write and offer up a letter of surrender.

Is this a serious matter?

And so the Teacher who speaks here too, having tumbled about, inwardly and outwardly, in the fight with Satan, has laid a foundation until now; therefore, the Teacher knows that the Will will be accomplished. The Teacher is confident that our ideals will conquer the world. This is by no means an easy matter.

Then, from the vantage point from which the Teacher looks, how far does the standard equipped by the Unification Church family members, especially the young men and women, conform to the standard God desires? Here, there is a gap.

What must be done about that gap?

He awaits a day when a social environment can be equipped, inwardly and outwardly, in which the Teacher can handle it as he pleases, even by applying sanctions and taking risks. Do you understand what this means? Do you understand? (Yes.)

The Seven-Year Course and the Twenty-One-Year Course

When the Teacher set out the seven-year course right after Liberation, gazing upon the fate of the nation centered on that seven-year course, it was grave.

For he knew that if things went well, God would be with this nation, and if things went wrong, He would not. A little while from now, a time will come when people believe what the Teacher has said. They will say, “Ah, so it was!” Hereafter, a time will come when Korea agonizes over how to drive out Teacher Moon of the Unification Church.

During the seven-year course, Christianity had become one with the Teacher, and Dr. Syngman Rhee was set to join hands with the Teacher. Had that come to pass, then by the seven-year course alone, our Unification Church could have spread worldwide.

The communists in North Korea would all have vanished, and the communists in this world would already all have vanished. Had the Teacher and Dr. Syngman Rhee joined hands, that would have been no problem. The Teacher plans with clear knowledge.

In the Far East, Japan cannot flourish on its own. Because now the time has come, all of Japan’s resources and wealth and glory will be brought to Korea. Teacher Moon of the Unification Church will bring them. That is why the Teacher is now giving strategic commands.

All the resources, wealth, and glory are not for the Japanese to keep. Japan is the Eve nation—that is, the nation in the position of the bride; and Korea is the Adam nation—that is, the nation in the position of the bridegroom.

Then what did the Teacher have to do during this seven-year course?

He had to make a family departure. For this was the longing of history, the longing of humanity, and the highest hope of all seekers of the Way.

As Jesus should have, so the Teacher too had to depart from Parents that Heaven and earth could publicly acknowledge. That departure is a greater thing than the independence of this nation, this people.

Even if one were to bring all of America’s resources to our Korea and gently feed and clothe the thirty million, that would not be a blessed thing. Just as the moon, when full, wanes, such things all flow away. But the principled standard alone cannot flow away. That is, the standard of the ancestors, of Parents, cannot flow away.

The Teacher is planning to newly establish upon this land of Korea the Garden of Eden as it was before the first Fall. That work is not done in a place of ease. So the place of ease is put off to the very last.

Through the six-thousand-year history of restoration, God has come forth seeking the truest family. To set up the standard of such Parents as He sought to realize in the very first Garden of Eden, whatever difficulty there may be, one must, centered on God’s heart, give more devotion than anyone—for the religious body, for the clan, for the people.

Had this standard been set up during the seven-year course, and had the Ewha (梨大) professors and the established religious bodies become one, America would already have come to be as I planned. Johnson or Brezhnev is no problem. Such people are no more than people who will dance as the Teacher plans. But because the seven-year course was lost, the twenty-one-year course is being sought.

What does one do in the twenty-one-year course?

One does it a second time—a second time. Because the seven-year course was lost, the Teacher went to prison. Just as Jesus died on the cross because he could not walk the seven-year course, the Teacher must restore beginning from prison.

Because Jesus, by dying on the cross, lost the twelve disciples, the Teacher must set up an indemnity condition equivalent to this. And so Jesus himself mobilized the spiritual world and brought to the Teacher more than twelve people to make the Teacher’s disciples. Because of that, while the Teacher was in prison, without speaking, he saved all such people. He saved even communist party members, who were enemies. Thus, the Teacher laid a foundation.

What did he do up to 1960?

He walked a fourteen-year course like Jacob’s course. For you, it is a seven-year course, but for the teacher, it is a twenty-one-year course. Centered on this seven-year course, we must make a fortune meeting these people.

In the first three years of the course, God sets up an inward, family-level standard, and in the latter four years, He sets up an outward, social standard, and so meets the seven-year course.

For this, the Teacher comes forth, setting up the condition of having sought a family representative, a national representative, and a worldwide representative.

For that, he set the Day of All Things and, upon that foundation, chose holy grounds worldwide. You do not know well that there are such complicated and manifold matters. In any case, the Teacher’s words are all being accomplished.

Seen nationally, on the ideological standard, these Cain-type people have come to a stage where they cannot but follow us, the Abel-type. The government officials concerned have come to a stage where they can all publicly acknowledge our ideal. Seeing such a situation, the time is now ripening indeed.

What will the Teacher do when this twenty-one-year course ends?

He will set up a family-level standard and the condition of Restoration, and organize a clan that God can govern. It cannot yet be done because the Teacher’s twenty-one-year course remains.

So the Teacher intends these days, even at the cost of investing enormous funds, to unfold a new movement centered on the established churches. He seeks to set up a condition like that of Jacob’s going before Esau and making restoration through indemnity.

Though they opposed and persecuted the Teacher so that the Teacher at least may not be caught before the public law of heavenly law and may set up the Will, and for the sake of the world’s churches, he is now setting up a certain person and carrying on a movement.

The Seven-Year Course Is the Period That Determines the Children

The Teacher has fulfilled his responsibility toward the people and toward the established churches. In helping, the Teacher must not help the children first.

If there is a difficult problem at a regional headquarters, it must be solved itself.

When the Teacher needs funds, he inquires of the factory, obtains them, and seeks to set up a condition like Jacob’s toward the established churches. Because this is the principle, doing so will without fail accomplish the Will.

If it does not work, then our Principle is wrong. And so the Teacher drove the family members hard, but the people who should have responded did not heed.

One cannot, saying that our workers of unification have toiled for them, lay a foundation of livelihood for the family members. More than the livelihood of the family members, the church is the issue.

If one has a heart for the nation, one must first seek the church. To set up a national standard, one must first lay the foundation of the church. It is the most fitting time for that.

We need Abel-type altars throughout South Korea that can represent the church. That is why we have set the goal of establishing a thousand churches and are now carrying on an emergency operation.

If that fails, it is prolonged inwardly and outwardly; so, to set up a condition of even a single penny, all cannot but engage in this activity.

Some, not understanding this, say, “Oh! Why does the Teacher do such a thing?” but such a person is one who does not know these circumstances.

What kind of period is the seven-year course?

This exists only in our Unification Church. When Jesus set out on his public course at age thirty, had Mary and Joseph inwardly upheld Jesus well in Joseph’s family, Jesus would have accomplished the Will at the family level.

What use would fishermen like Peter, James, and John be?

John the Baptist was Jesus’ maternal cousin, of an elder-brother standing. The relationship with John the Baptist, too, should have been settled within the family, but because the family did not know, the Will was lost.

Had Jesus been able to speak within the family of God’s Will he wished to carry out, and thereby make his departure through the family, the Will would have been accomplished without even the world knowing. Thus, centered on the Joseph clan, he would have gathered the apostles and, through them, organized God’s clan.

Instead, Jesus gathered a rabble of beggars like dregs, made them apostles, and led them about. Not knowing even this, the established churches today look up and cry, “Oh, the apostles!” When the Teacher thinks of such things, his belly bursts. What is Peter? Who is the apostle John? When the twists and turns are so….

If there are people among our family members who commune with Jesus, what do they call him? If the married women commune with him, they could even call him “Brother Jesus,” could they not?

We understand this, but the established churches could not dream of it. If one said, “Brother Jesus,” they would say, “Oh dear, our Lord is the Savior of the whole universe—how dare you say, Brother Jesus?”

Since God is our Father and Jesus too is God’s son, Jesus and we are one family—what is different? So Jesus cannot but be an elder brother, cannot but be a brother. We hold the Principle by which we can call Jesus so.

Do you have it, or do you not?

You have it, do you not? That is why God is our God. The God of the established churches is a stepfather God—that is, a God of adoption. Whose God is God? My God—my God! Is it so for you too? If not, it is a problem.

What kind of period is the seven-year course?

It is the period that determines God’s sons and daughters. You must know that clearly. The Teacher must deal with global problems at stake, and you must deal with individual problems at stake. Why? Because the Teacher has laid the vertical standard, you have only to take hold horizontally. You are carried in on the back. This is not the Teacher’s boasting. Try praying. The Unification believers are deeply in debt to the Teacher.

However loyal you are, there will be no way to repay it.

If you do not believe it, try praying. That is why, when the Teacher merely opens his mouth even a little, however trifling a person may be, he pricks up his ears. A single word from the teacher can kill a person or make him live.

Heavenly law has no pardon. And it is fair. That you accept in a positive posture whatever the Teacher says is itself a miracle. It is a miracle of the twentieth century.

The Teacher has cast away everything for the sake of the Will. He cast away his parents, cast away his wife and children, and cast away everything of himself. When he had completely cast them away, God’s grace poured out all at once.

If one, with absolute faith, casts away completely, God is preparing to give grace so great one cannot bear it, but one fails to see it. If one just peers, thinking a pinhole is good, one will be overturned. The world is a peep show.

What kind of period is the seven-year course, you say?

(Looking at the men) It is the period that determines God’s sons. What period is it, you say? (Looking at the women) It is the period that determines God’s daughters. How good that is!

On the day it is said that God’s sons and daughters have been determined, the apostles of old will come and bow before you. Peter and James will come and bow.

The Teacher wants to say one more thing but cannot, lest it be called a real heresy. It is that the apostles will bow even to you.

Why do you smack your lips?

Is it from gladness or from being dumbfounded?

What use is it to be glad now? It is the same as someone, while others have all boarded planes and gone sightseeing in America, being glad alone, holding a plane ticket to America.

A Strong Character and Abundant Gifts

You must know that the seven-year period is the period in which I become God’s son or daughter. For twenty-one years, the Teacher has had nothing in view. Asleep or awake, eating, the moment he opens his eyes, he thinks only of the Will.

That the Teacher loves the little children, that he keeps a family, too, is for the sake of God’s Will. When they go against that Will, they become the Teacher’s enemy. The Teacher has walked such a road until now. The Teacher knows well what must be done for the sake of God’s Will.

When the seven-year course ends, the Teacher’s twenty-one-year course also ends. The period in which you take part in the Teacher’s twenty-one-year course is this once only. Hereafter, later generations will come to know the Teacher’s figure. The Teacher’s name will keep rising higher. The Teacher was born with such a fate. Even if they throw him into prison and stand him upside down, telling him to die, he is set not to die.

Whoever stands before the Teacher, the Teacher dislikes it most. However loyal anyone was in the historical age, if he stands before the Teacher, he cannot be forgiven. Such is the Teacher’s character.

On the day he once takes hold of any task, he devotes himself to it with his heart: “Either you die, or I die.” To your eyes, the Teacher may at times look gentle, but there is no easy match for a man with small eyes, a nose like this, and quick speech. Probably, had the Teacher not entered this road, whatever he did, he would have yielded to no one. The Teacher is set so that he cannot live without becoming the head. It is so even in sports.

Even at his worst, within three years, he is confident he will yield to no one. It is so with using his head too. In gifts, he was simply born the encyclopedic type. In this way, the Teacher is rich in gifts. Is it not so? Born a man, this much of a body is passable, is it not? Walking the course of Restoration until now, he has never once been able to cut a proper figure as a man.

When one goes to Songdo or Myeongdong, he knows well which clothes fit perfectly, which necktie is stylish, and which pin suits—but the Teacher does not do it. Yet a day will come when he does. At that time, whatever the Teacher does will become the fashion.

If the Teacher were to die without being able to do so, it would become a han. That is why the Teacher is now preparing, so that if there is a precious article, he may, even for a single day before he dies, wear it and pin it on, and thereby set up the condition that it was the highest fashion in the world. But do not, therefore, ask him to give you that precious article. (Laughter)

That is why the Teacher needs a gold ring and a diamond ring too. So when gifts come in one by one, he keeps them. The reason is that if the Teacher does not remove that han upon this earth and depart, you will later be caught by it. So he seeks to depart without leaving behind the condition of being indebted to you while he lives. That is why it is difficult to play the ancestor.

As I spoke of Mother the other day, it is difficult to play another’s parent. One must not, having done wrong oneself and left dirty blood and evil as an inheritance to one’s children, stand before Heaven.

So it is difficult to play another’s parent. Likewise, it is hard for the Teacher to play your teacher.

The Teacher, whether he curses or does anything, feels no reproach of conscience. Night or day, wherever he goes, even if everything is exposed in broad daylight, the Teacher feels no reproach of conscience. On that point, at least he is confident.

Even standing before the Father, he is confident. Even when he sets you to a task, he does it first and then sets you to it. The Teacher does not do things that would bring reproach to conscience.

The Things During the Seven-Year Course

For the Unification Church family members, the seven-year course is the period of taking part in the Abel-type course by which the Teacher can determine the fate of the people.

When the Teacher goes east, follow east; when he goes west, follow west; and whether you become a leaf or a branch, do not fall and do not break. It is a period for setting you in the position of a branch that, though now withered, does not break, and a leaf that does not fall.

So during this seven-year course, as far as possible, all of you must be mobilized.

In this period, the worldwide Satan concentrates all his force and attacks. That time was in 1960. At that time, all the people of the Republic of Korea opposed us. Saying they would lock up Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, they formed processions of fourteen or fifteen and submitted written accusations to the court.

Unless one stands in such a place where the whole opposes, there is no indemnity. When the joint wedding ceremony was held, the ceremony hall became a scene of pandemonium, and the police came and broke up the fighting.

The gate was barred, and outside there was an uproar and commotion, but inside, the wedding ceremony was held. Such a wedding must have been the first since history began.

When the Teacher had done this work for three years, it all seemed like a dream. It must be so. Because there is a reason. It is not that the Teacher cannot calculate as well as others. The Teacher never does business at a loss.

When we set out the seven-year course, did you believe the Teacher’s words, “After seven years such-and-such a time will come”? Hereafter, when we are completely settled and can do just as we will, the communist party will be shattered.

Then what is the mission the Unification Church must carry out?

It is to realize the unification of all under Heaven. That must be resolved inwardly. I said Communist China and the Soviet Union would split, did I not? Did it not all come true? The democratic forces, too, will become two, and the communist forces, too, will become two, making four great forces. That time is our time.

The time is now indeed the unification of all under Heaven! That is, we are entering the sphere of the fortune of unification. The problem is how to handle this.

Well, the seven-year course is working out well, is it not?

Excuse me, but my waistband has slipped down, and I must hitch it up. To speak like this in the countries of Europe and America (歐美) would be a serious matter. Yet the Teacher committed a breach of etiquette in America. As I was speaking a while before a large gathering of people, my waistband kept slipping down. So, pointing with my finger, I asked, “Has this slipped down or not?” and they said it had. And, though it is awkward to say, I asked, “Should I pull it up or not?” and they answered, “Ah! You must pull it up,” so what was I to do? There was no help for it. I had to hitch it up. So I hitched up my waistband. I broke the tradition of America. The Teacher felt excellent. Why do I say this? Because your thoughts have slipped out through the crack of the door over there. Though I have spoken for several hours, the introduction is not yet finished. So whoever must go, go quickly.

Why did the Teacher mobilize you for the seven-year course?

As said before, to make you God’s sons and daughters. For that, whose certificate must you receive, you say? You must receive the prosecutor’s certificate—that is, Satan’s certificate. That is why Jacob had to enter the land of Haran to attain God’s blessing, and Moses too had to enter Pharaoh’s palace to save the people of Israel. It is the same with Jesus.

When Jesus came, to prevent Satan’s accusation, he could not be born in a royal palace but was born in a stable. At that point, eighty percent was already indemnified.

That God carried out the providence from a wayfarer’s plight is because human beings fell into a plight like a wayfarer’s course. That Jesus, who had to bear responsibility in place of the substance of such fruit, was born in a stable is also of great significance in the providence of restoration.

If the descendant of David, who received God’s greatest blessing, cannot make his departure from this earth centered on the religious body God most loves, he must stand at the very end.

When the Seven-Year Course Ends

When this seven-year course ends, the Teacher must enter the family.

Until now, the Teacher’s family has moved about only within a certain fence centered on some standard; it has not settled. That is why even the Blessed Families have not settled.

The Unification Church family members, too, must not settle. To settle down and live is to be caught by the heavenly law. That is why the lives of our Unification Church family members are wretched. Do you understand?

When we look at what Christianity calls the Great Tribulation, centered on our forty-number course, in God’s providential course, ten passes remain in every age.

That is why Christianity says there is a seven-year Great Tribulation to carry out judgment in the Last Days; this means that, because Jesus left seven years remaining in the course he had to walk, there is a judgment in the Last Days.

Because Jesus left those seven years, Teacher Moon of the Unification Church must inherit them and walk them.

What must one do to be determined as God’s son?

One must resolve the han of Jesus. The people of Israel failed in their responsibility, the Jewish religious body failed in its responsibility, the patriarchs and apostles belonging to it failed in their responsibility, and even the three disciples failed in their responsibility.

Moreover, upon this earth, he could not attend a single mother as a bride. Because Jesus died, a han pierced Jesus’ heart. That he was nailed to the enemy’s cross is not the han. That he was persecuted by the people of Israel, whom he had to seek, is the han; and that he was rejected by the twelve disciples, beginning with the three beloved disciples, is the han. But when Jesus died, because the robber on the right, the chief of villains, acknowledged Jesus, Christianity left the people of Israel and became a religion of the Gentiles. And so God’s blessing comes in through the gentile peoples. Seen thus, how great a contribution did one robber make?

What did the people of Israel do to Jesus?

They heaped upon him all the sins and evils of Israel. Jesus died bearing all of it. In like manner, the Unification believers today stand in such a place.

When the Unification Church set out its three-year course and went out to witness, it was rejected everywhere it went.

Were we not rejected?

When we were rejected, it was not the rejection of individuals. Because the spirit of the people was dim, and the fortune of countless churches was set to be shaken, and our road too was so arranged, the nation rejected, the churches rejected, and all people rejected—all rejected. That was because we stood in the position of having to resolve the han of Jesus.

For that, we must enter into the very circumstances in which Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In Jesus’ day, there were no holy grounds. But you must know that the Unification Church has the True Parents' Day, the True Children's Day, and the Day of All Things, and that being able to choose holy grounds and pray at those holy grounds is more blessed than Jesus.

Have you thought of such a thing?

Who could have known the earnest heart with which Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, holding to the branches and tufts of grass, prayed through the night before God, “My Father! If it be possible, let this cup…,” praying so three times, and the heart that burned within him with the sorrowful feeling seeping into his breast as he shed tears unseen by others?

Let Us Resolve the Han of Jesus’ Cross

You must stand in the position of taking responsibility for these people, taking responsibility for the fate of the world, and, with a heart like Jesus’, saying, “Father! Save these people. Save Korea, the new Third Israel. Is not their betraying and persecuting the same as what the Jewish religious body and the people of Israel did two thousand years ago?”

Moreover, you must know that the grave place where Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matt. 26:39), and Jesus’ final, sorrowful appeal, pleading, “If it can be done, save this people,” are piercingly lodged before God. Then, for whose sake did Jesus so appeal? For the sake of the people.

Therefore, we too today, more than for the sake of saving ourselves, must pray for the sake of the people, “Father! If it can be done, forgive these people.”

So that these people can avoid the road of the cross it must walk, you must, in place of Jesus, hold to the cross and wail and fulfill the responsibility of a priest. With such a heart, you must say before Heaven, “Send me out.”

Because now six of the seven years of the course are drawing to a close, I explain this content.

Then to what degree must you be loyal?

When countless people drove Jesus out, and Jesus, bearing the cross, climbed the height of Golgotha, Jesus’ beloved disciples all fled. Therefore, only when you now hold the resolve to step forward before Jesus, at the crossroads of life and death as he goes to meet death, and say, “I will walk that road of death,” is the condition established that you, as one bearing substance, have resolved the han of Jesus.

That is why the Teacher drives you out to a place where you can bear the national cross in his stead. “Go to such a place as God did!” He sets you in such a position.

Then, at the instant of collapsing under the cross, there will be some who say, “Father! Loosen the han. I will overcome this,” and there will be some who, unable to make such an appeal, lament, thinking only of their position and worrying about the road ahead, and struggle, and thereby leave a han before God.

Then was the Teacher who commanded this wrong?

Of course, since the Teacher who gave the command also bears responsibility, I regard it as having fault, but you too bear responsibility. When you, growing weary along this course until now, become a throng that dreams of and worries over your individual tomorrow and stand in a position of hesitating, unable to go or to come—what should be done? The problem remains: “Shall one strike them down with a single sword? Or what shall one do?”

When the seven-year course ends, the Teacher will pray, “Father, forgive their sins”; and when that time comes, where will you flee for the shame of it? The Teacher is thinking of that.

To Be Determined as God’s Son or Daughter

Then by what will becoming God’s son or daughter be determined?

Jesus, on his road of life, saying, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt,” stepped boldly toward the line of death. It was the same as boldly casting his body before the throng of villains. Contrary to this, the twelve apostles fled of their own accord for their own sake. At that time, God’s sons and daughters are determined.

What will the Unification Church family members do in the seven-year course?

You must become a throng that, of your accord, vows before God: even at the cost of offering my life, even at the cost of sacrificing my family, even at the cost of sacrificing my clan, before the Will and center God has set up, I will gladly walk even a harsh road of thorns. When you become such, the course of suffering all passes away.

As the Teacher goes to the factory every day and quietly observes, he has come to know that God is angry with you. Because you are in the position of John the Baptist, you must fulfill the responsibility of John the Baptist.

If you fail in your responsibility, the Teacher will fulfill that responsibility. The Teacher is not a man who goes into debt. Even if he uses money, he will earn it directly with his hands and use it.

What the Teacher plans and comes forth with is for the sake of the nation and the people. That is why, when advancing, even while shedding tears, he will pray, “God, be with these people.”

Even if there is no comrade of the heart, no one to lean on along the road, he will go alone. For the resolving of Jesus’ han, one must walk such a course.

Where is there anyone who wishes to make his beloved disciples, his beloved family members, suffer? But there is no help for it. It was to make you become not fleeing disciples, but disciples who guard the Garden of Gethsemane and guard the height of Golgotha, disciples who can share life and death, that the Teacher sent you out. Then the spiritual Satan attacked fiercely.

At that time, the principle would be to sweep away entirely the family members who grew weary while working, but because the Teacher has not yet made the decision regarding the family, and the seven-year course has not ended, there is leeway. Otherwise, a great disaster would have occurred. God is that fearsome a being.

Have you climbed the Garden of Gethsemane?

Have you gone to the height of Golgotha, receiving blame and derision?

And do you know what the han of Jesus is? It is that he lost the three disciples and lost the twelve disciples. Those disciples must be sought again.

Moreover, because Jesus could not greet a bride, you have a bond of having to equip the qualification of a bride and go before Jesus, the bridegroom. Without equipping it, you cannot go seek the bridegroom.

At the place where Jesus sought to greet a bride, the twelve disciples betrayed, the seventy disciples betrayed, and the whole people of Israel betrayed.

Before Jesus died on the cross, do not become one who, like the three disciples, flees backward fearing death, but become a disciple who steps forward, saying, “I will bear the cross in his stead,” transcending death. That is why three people are needed. Not only three, but twelve people must enter such a position.

Unless one resolves the han of Jesus, one cannot become God’s son or daughter. There is what you call the indemnity fund, is there not? It exists because Judas Iscariot sold Jesus’ body for thirty pieces of silver, and it is to indemnify that. It is not that the Teacher is receiving money. It is to indemnify.

Now everyone comes forth fighting with that condition at stake. For you to become God’s sons and daughters hereafter, you must pass through such a process. You must set up the condition of having escaped the sphere fallen into the Garden of Eden. From then on, the Blessing begins.

The seven-year course is the period that determines God’s sons and daughters; and by what is it determined, I said?

By resolving the han of Jesus, I said. Since Jesus, coming to this earth, could not be loyal to the nation, could not be loyal to the church, and could not be loyal to the people, we must give devotion to the nation, give devotion to the church, give devotion to the people, and thereby comprehensively indemnify the han of Jesus.

The Seven-Year Course Is for the People

Those who have followed the Teacher and been active during this seven-year course will be treated differently. Those who could not take part in this course, whoever they may be, must someday pass through this seven-year course. This is a formula. The seven-year course is unavoidable. Anyone who enters the Unification Church hereafter must pass through the seven-year course. It is so even if our mother enters, and so even if our father enters. All must walk the seven-year course. Do you understand?

When the first seven-year course ends, one must walk a second seven-year course. Originally, when setting out the seven-year course, one must, centered on our Will, pledge before the Father, “Father! I walk this course of Restoration,” and then go.

From after that, it has been seven years. In this process, one is absolutely in the position of the servant of a servant. One must start from the servant of a servant.

Those who enter our church hereafter must carry on their backs all those who came out before. Further, to become one who lives, one must carry them even if one’s bones crumble.

We are setting up a tradition that the thirty million people of this nation will carry on. At that time, God directs and makes one walk the seven-year course.

However splendid a person enters, even if the president of America enters, there is no help for it. Because those people must start from the servant of a servant, even if they are set to clean the latrines of the Republic of Korea, they must do it.

Only then does indemnity go quickly. It is a total indemnity of the seven-year course all at once. To do so, one must walk a contrary course.

For example, in winter one must go out wearing ramie clothes, and in summer wearing padded clothes. And one must be sent out starved every day. The more heartlessly one is treated, the faster the self-indemnity goes for that person.

Because he knew this, the Teacher, however God treated him, broke through this road. God has no pardon. God lets you taste the Blessing and, having left you no choice, drives you back the opposite way. At such a time, you must not resent God.

You must boldly go even to the very bottom of hell, occupy that place, and exit there. That is why, before God gives grace, He without fail gives the needle (針) of indemnity. The six-thousand-year history of restoration was so.

If the workers of unification do their work well during the seven-year course, a great dawn light will shine upon Korea. But if they fail to, the Teacher’s disappointment is very great.

In the seven-year course, one who thinks the clothes he wears are his clothes is caught. And one who thinks the house he lives in is his house is set to be caught. Such people cannot be acknowledged.

If there is rice, one must not eat that rice alone. Why? Because one must eat that rice while attending to two elder brothers. Because we must pass through the levels of formation, growth, and completion, we must, without fail, treat the two elder brothers. It is so arranged.

Even when wearing clothes, one must give the new clothes to the two elder brothers. That is why the Teacher, until now, past the age of thirty, has never bought a single suit of clothes with his hands.

Seen by the providence of restoration, because it is the third of the three stages, one must wear the clothes the elder brothers wore. To wear such clothes, he went to a secondhand shop and bought them.

Let Us Pay the Debt

However cold the winter, one cannot wear three layers of clothes. Because there are three stages of formation, growth, and completion, wearing three layers catches one in the law of these three stages. That is why, however cold it was, one could not wear three layers.

If one has something to wear, one must give it to another. The Teacher has received such training until now.

If I teach you all these things, you will beat the ground. After the seven-year course ends, to those family members worth teaching, the Teacher will teach such laws.

You—our Unification Church is a place that no one can do with as he pleases.

Though the established churches criticize much, the Unification Church will not be swayed and will decide within the sphere their heads think in.

The Teacher has done such criticism and analysis a thousand times, ten thousand times over. Knowing this, one must finish the six-year course and cross over the crisis of the seven-year course.

The Teacher must not cross over into debt. Do you understand? It is arranged that one must not cross over in debt to the satanic world. Yet the Teacher has gone into debt. Had our Unification Church members supported the Teacher well, would the Teacher have gone into debt? On the day the Teacher is in debt to the satanic world, it is a great problem.

How shall this be indemnified?

Originally, the Unification Church members must all bear this, and each of you, whatever the sacrifice, must repay it. Do you understand? You understand without further explanation, do you not?

The Teacher’s cross regarding the family is now at the stage of nearly crossing over. By this year’s December by the solar calendar, at the latest by December by the lunar calendar, without letting the year pass, the debt the Teacher has incurred must be completely settled. The Teacher has incurred a debt of about three hundred million.

If it were allotted and imposed at about five hundred thousand won or more per Unification believer, how many would run away? Will you indemnify five hundred thousand won each? Will you not complain?

Originally, doing business was not the Teacher’s main purpose, but considering the problem of the environment, the Teacher could not help but do business, and so this year he used an emergency operation. Without a single penny, he built a large factory and is running it well. No one in the world does business like that. The Teacher must be the first in history.

This time, had they only heeded the Teacher’s words well, that factory would have exceeded its target by one hundred to one hundred fifty percent; but because they did not heed well, it would come to only seventy or eighty percent. Thus, the Teacher is striving not to be caught by conditions, inwardly and outwardly.

Raise your hands, those who will be mobilized to pay the Teacher’s debt. Good. Then, since it is now a time when only one year of the seven-year course remains, I have allotted it all to you.

If a problem arises, such as having to sell the house, we can just go to that sandy shore, pitch a tent, and sleep, can't we?

Do you think the Teacher has not lived such a life?

He has done it all. When four or five people take one quilt and sleep very affectionately, it is perfect. As one sleeps, even if a leg lies flopped across one’s mouth, no one kicks it away, and if a toe goes into one’s mouth, there is even someone who sucks it, thinking it a breast.

When affection grows, even that is good. A person who has a house, once the couple quarrels, sets up two beds or uses separate rooms and does not even speak; but if you sleep under one quilt in a tent, though you quarrel every day, you unite every day.

Let Us Do It Diligently

Let us suppose we sell our Unification Church. Let us try spreading the rumor that the church, having been sold, the Unification Church has entirely disappeared.

“Ah, they say the Cheongpa-dong Unification Church, in great trouble, has sold the church.”

Then the established-church people, who at the mention of Cheongpa-dong would think of the Unification Church and cluck their tongues, how they would dance for gladness. Is it good to see them dance? It is bad, is it not? Then we cannot sell it. Just so. The church cannot be sold. Even if we become beggars….

Then what shall we sell?

Shall we sell the Teacher’s suits?

If taken and sold now, they would fetch a hundred thousand won each. When he goes to Japan, Japan makes him some; to America, America makes him some; to Germany, Germany makes him some—so the Teacher has many suits.

Shall we sell these?

Though he has many suits, the Teacher, if possible, does not wish to appear at official occasions wearing such suits. Because it is now the age of restoration through indemnity, he cannot. So the Teacher’s clothes too must be sold, must they not? (No.)

Then what should be done?

You say you will take responsibility?

This is where the Unification Church is different. That is why the Teacher wishes to be indebted to you. Your hearts, too, will think that the work the Teacher does needs money. But the Teacher will return your money to you. The teacher, too, will use an emergency operation. The debt will be paid even if the Teacher does nothing. Inwardly, he has incurred no debt.

When all that is to come in comes in, this year we can amass enough property to run the factory and have some left over. Then the debt is set to be paid. Currently, because funds are not coming in at once, they are not circulating. So time presses.

Since time presses, the question is how to unfold it. This time, the district leaders have completely resolved it.

If, by the end of December, one does not do as the Teacher says, the Blessed Families will receive Heaven’s punishment. All the Unification Church members must be mobilized to pay off the not-so-large debt—will you do it, or not? (We will.)

Still, since the factory is large and is making goods, you must be totally mobilized as sales personnel and sell those goods. Do you understand? Those who cannot sell these and bring them back—the Teacher will not set them to it from the start. Such people do not take part.

One must be at least a person who can cross the three-year crisis. Only those who know the Will somewhat, who can hold a heart such that, setting the work before them and thinking, their head aches and their chest aches so that they cannot sleep, who can think and feel centered on the Principle—only such take part. Not everyone can take part.

Why would the Teacher set an unrelated person to it?

He takes part only of those who, of their own accord, say they are willing. Do you understand the significance of the seven-year course? All must cross over.

Then, doing this, what shall we do?

It is to save this nation and these people. When the Teacher thinks of the past, he does not think of eating well in the old days or being welcomed by anyone. He thinks of the times he was so wretchedly wronged. When he thinks of that, his chest aches even now. At that time God said, “So-and-so, I am here.

Whatever the world may be, I acknowledge you, so do not worry.” Because there was a mission to pass through such a course of struggle, one had to go on until the day of fulfilling that mission. Such a road can by no means be walked from an easy, comfortable place.

The Road of Being for the Nation

We, too, must walk such a road. And so, when the people of the world, with their ability and background, live for themselves and devote their lives to society for their own sake and bear some fruit, we must rise to a standard that can surpass them. Such a person is a Unification believer.

Do you understand, young people?

We must aspire to become a throng that is sacrificed in fighting the communist nations in place of the nations of the world. The Teacher does not like the word “anti-communism.”

What is the use of merely being anti-communist?

Yet because victory over communism does not come without anti-communism, after being anti-communist, one must prepare further and achieve victory over communism. Now we must take the offensive against the communist party.

The Teacher plans to organize a nationwide body for this hereafter, and it has progressed about eighty percent, but because it came to be opposed by the world, it has been postponed until now.

It is hard, but we must somehow cross this stage. And thereby we must move Korea and further move the whole of Asia, including Japan and China.

There is an anti-communist league in Asia, is there not?

Centered on this, the freedom of the world will be entrusted to us. Such a time is coming.

Because your toil has resulted in everyone, from local officials to high officials, being able to uphold democracy, if we strive again from now, such a time will come.

Hereafter, centered on Korea and America, we plan to make a worldwide anti-communist body in Washington. And so we plan to absorb all the other anti-communist bodies entirely, arm them with a new thought and ideal, and train anti-communist leadership personnel. This is the Teacher’s plan.

Can you wait until then, or not?

In such a case, the communist party members cock the bolt and, thrusting the muzzle of a gun at you, ask, “Yes or no?” You must know this. The communist party members have never spared those who came over as double agents. Those who came and went as spies a second and third time are all killed. The personnel who do secret work in worldwide intelligence agencies are all vanishing in that way.

Then how will you fight against them?

Do you think you can fight eating well, sleeping well, wearing a skirt, and carrying a parasol? With long hair. You cut your hair here.

Will you cut it or not?

Hereafter, living within the Unification Church, you must hear the people of the world say, “This person has changed since joining the Unification Church.”

Otherwise, your sons and daughters will all be sacrificed. The Teacher is not joking.

Even though now all the people of the Republic of Korea dislike the Teacher, hereafter an environment will come in which they need the Teacher. Even if the Teacher does not ask to meet them, they will come seeking him with smiles.

Hereafter, should they fail to deal with us fairly and justly, they have a bond by which they cannot but become our match.

The Teacher needs a lot of money. As for what operation the Teacher will run in America to find out material resources, it is to witness to the senators and representatives of America.

The Teacher must, from around the time of Liberation until that day, maintain the responsible position of the Unification Church and go ahead. Do you even know that the Teacher is thinking such things...?

Tightening the Belt

You are not set to sleep, eat, and live in comfort. You need the four-stage doubling movement. To make many people on our side, whether misunderstood or not, we must go straight ahead.

Washing away all that we have done in the past, when this seven-year course ends, we must carry on organizational activity centered on the true anti-communist problem. Because that time has come, the Teacher is planning to form such a body. To carry out that plan, Christianity is needed in the outward field.

Now our problem is how to secure as many members as the established churches. Furthermore, now we must, without fail, work out countermeasures for pressing national and social problems. That is why, to witness to many people hereafter, many women are needed. Now the district leaders’ wives all live, having borne two or three children, but their children may all be entrusted to the husbands, and they may be dispatched somewhere in the country for witnessing. Some other extraordinary countermeasures may also be devised.

But more than these, what God desires is many people of talent to deal with the great situation that will unfold hereafter. God needs men and women armed with a thoroughgoing thought through a training process and equipped with strength and spirit, but in fact, how many people at present can be such? There is much to be done, but the human resources we have are extremely few.

God earnestly wishes to absorb all the people of society and lay responsibility upon them, but because such people cannot at once stand in a position to bear responsibility within our ideological sphere, God had no choice but to select worldly people and place them again in the first-order posts of responsibility. How sorrowful this fact is! The teacher, too, feels it keenly.

Once again, we must tighten our belts and shoulder our bundles. The women may carry them on their heads, but it is not that we are fleeing as refugees. Shouldering the baby bundle and the husband bundle, we must make a second march.

From now on, the Teacher is thinking of going to places like schools and government offices and training and educating all those people.

Is that a breach of etiquette?

Men, think about it. Is it a breach of etiquette, or not? Young people, what do you think? (Good.) How good it is! Is it good enough for all to lay down your lives? There is no room to think about it. A slack, half-hearted posture will not do.

Now, a stimulus is needed

Hereafter, when the Unification Church young people, to make the world the Teacher has spoken of, raise a banner and enter some nation, and the people of that nation come and beg to be saved—if such a day comes, would you not be glad?

In the old days, when the Teacher fought, wounds split open by ordinary blows, he did not even put paper on. There is still a scar here. In my student days, one summer, I went with a friend to the bank of the Han River, and we played at skipping stones on the water’s surface; my friend’s stone skipped off a dozen or so times as it went. To do even that splendidly, many conditions must fit perfectly. The stone must be well-shaped, and the throw must be very well thrown.

If one gets the angle even a little wrong, it goes “plunk,” sinking into the water without a single skip. And one must get the angle right; but as the Teacher, trying to throw well, used all his strength and got the angle and threw, his fingertip struck a rock.

With that, was one in a state to play in the water?

Feeling bad, I kept washing my bleeding fingertip in the Han River water for about forty minutes. Then, after a while, it swelled up, puffy as if the lips were blistered.

So I tore my dress shirt and kept dabbing it. Being summer, after three or four hours, it dried up, and a few days later it was all healed.

Now the Teacher is a tiger with a broken back. Is that so?

He just sits still and has others do the work for him. Whatever contest the Teacher holds, our Unification Church young people do it all, and then he comes out and, as their superior, only talks big. So people say he is a tiger with a broken back. But it is not so.

The Teacher likes adventure very much. A person with small eyes like the Teacher has no fear. Generally, people say those with big eyes are fearful, do they not?

Have you heard such a thing?

Women make a fuss about fixing their small eyes to look pretty, and some are frustrated that their eyes are small, but it is people with small eyes who like adventure. The Teacher dislikes sitting still and resting. To receive stimulus several times a week, he does some tremendous thing or takes a needle of acupuncture.

Originally, the Teacher is the descendant of such ancestors. But because there is no stimulating person in the Unification Church, the Teacher goes to the sea and to the mountains and gives himself stimulus.

If only the Teacher were not a religious leader, he would like to go to the middle of the main street and have a good fight. Then he would win at once, but since he cannot, he stays still like this.

Our Unification Church needs stimulus. Not stimulus in a bad sense, but stimulus in a good sense is needed. The Teacher most dislikes coming in last. He also dislikes the middling sort that is neither this nor that.

Looking at the situation in Korea some twenty years ago, one had to become one of the two—either a communist or a democrat; the gray ones, driven this way and that, all died. It is the same with the Unification Church. Either oppose the Unification Church or else actively carry on the Unification Church’s movement. One must so resolve and go straight ahead.

Then, in going, one must go by the fastest road—which road would that be?

That road is the road to the house where Kim Il-sung lives, or to the Kremlin palace in Moscow. To go seeking such a place, one cannot go alone. One needs comrades.

Seen now in terms of the Will, our greatest enemy is the communist party. That does not mean we will fight them with guns and swords. We must toil.

We must suffer hardship. By toiling, we must set up a tradition of having suffered for a worldwide ideal and must be able to surpass them both in loving the world and in the actual deeds of serving the world. Only when we become a standard that those people can publicly acknowledge do they welcome us.

Until now, the Unification Church has moved from a persecuted position in Korea, but because we have set up several conditions by which the public can welcome us, now it has become an environment in which we can be welcomed.

We feel this vividly. Yet, because the Unification believers must fight the communist party, they must suffer still more.

Prayer

We know that, in the midst of flowing history, there was no true responsible one who could say he would follow Thy Will, whatever anyone might say. We know the fact of how noble the Christian believers were who, even amid the arrows of persecution, discussed the profound meaning of Thy beloved heart.

We know that it is the common course of humanity that a life, having come upon this earth, must without fail depart. Grant, Father, we earnestly desire and pray that we may not become pitiful people who, having been born as human beings and going to seek God, cannot take with them any good of their own or can take with them nothing but honor.

We know that, to have a treasure others do not have, we must pass through a process of trial others have not passed through. We publicly acknowledge, through social life and through the bonds of the created world, the fact that without passing through tears and hardship, one cannot raise one’s own standard.

Grant that we, centered on God’s heart, representing the whole of history and representing cosmic value, may occupy that treasured place that can remain, and, by fulfilling the way of filial devotion before the Father, may have the name of holy filial sons that can shine in the annals of history.

We know that this is an exceedingly precious work; so grant that we may not forget the fact that, for it, we must pour out a resolute heart and bloody struggle and bloody effort.

Just as there is the proverb, “A tower built with devotion does not fall,” we know that what is done with devotion can be received as precious value, but what is done without devotion cannot be received as precious value. When we think of such things, we are grateful that Thou lovest the throng of unification.

For a time, we had to receive the arrows of the thirty million people and, bandied about on their lips, endure the whip.

Moreover, they pointed their fingers at us as a throng that makes the world evil, spat, and drove us into a narrow road. But what we suffered was not what grieved and angered us.

That we, unable to repay the Father’s toil, trod upon the Father’s noble name that stood in place of heavenly law—the Father’s afflictions, suffered without sin for this people—these were to us an unbearable ordeal.

But Thou hast endured on and on, and today, commanding us, hast made us light a new beacon before the throng that betrays us, and hast sent Thy beloved envoy before those who wander on the dark road; so before such love of Thine we cannot but give thanks.

We know that the Father is seeking a true person who, in place of the Father’s hand, strokes the wounds of one who has been cursed and beaten and who, in the Father’s stead, feeds the child of an enemy who has nothing to eat.

When we think of such things, we can today give thanks that the throng of the Unification Church had a crisis road of old, when, following such a Will, they trod the back alleys of a cold age and of their accord set out on a road of unseen tears.

And, knowing that we are selves in whom emotion wells up at the Father’s heart that calls us, and who can hold a heart that can bring the bond with the Father to life, grant that we may become children of unification who truly know how to give thanks that we are left within the Father’s precious providence that cannot be exchanged for anything.

Within our breasts there is neither tree nor grass. It is the emptiest of the empty, the most void of the void, the driest of the dry. But there is one thing we hold, and it is the heart that wishes to call “Father,” the heart that wishes to meet the Father, the heart that wishes to attend the Father.

We know that this heart alone is a precious thing that cannot be exchanged even for Heaven and earth. Grant, we earnestly desire and pray that we may hold to the very end the heart of resolving to become the value of that whole.

When we look upon these pitiful people, grant that we may not become ones who merely look on. Grant that we may become ones with such an earnest posture that the blood flowing from our arteries stirs us so that we cannot but embrace one another and wail, and, governing our feelings, cannot but gaze intently upon them. We know that the Father awaits such forms; so we earnestly beseech Thee to embrace such forms.

It is human beings who long for such an owner, such Parents, such a responsible one who can halt the steps that must press on and embrace me, who am on the road to ruin.

Until now, it has been the history of fallen humanity to lament one’s lot, fallen by the wayside on the road to ruin. When we come to know that this was the road fallen humanity walked, grant that we may become Thy children who can feel piercingly how base a thing it is that we have not become children who could be a friend in that back lane and who, setting right the wounded steps, could leave behind one company.

When we set before us the past we have lived and myself in this present age, we come to think: for what is this hand moving, for what is my heart panting, and toward what are my body and face going forth?

Knowing that, before representing the true form the people are calling for, we must become true sons and daughters of Heaven who know how to criticize the past and lament the present—how greatly, how greatly have we resolved to become such sons and daughters, and how greatly, how greatly have we vowed before God?

But a cold wind circles in our breasts, and what God desires has vanished, and we have become a forlorn form placed in the satanic world; so how great must the sorrow of Heaven and the sorrow of earth have been, and how burstingly painful must the heart of the Father, who has fought embracing Heaven and earth, have been? Grant, Father, we earnestly desire and pray that we may not become foolish ones who forget this.

Each time we walk such a road, we must earnestly repent before Thee of the bygone days when we could not be participants of comfort in the Father’s hand-filled course of history. When we think that the throng of unification has not become such children before the Father, we have no face to call The Father; so grant, Father, we earnestly desire and pray, that Thou wouldst pardon this.

In the han-filled course of history, was it because there was none anywhere to seek that Thou camest seeking us, and because there remained no other people that Thou camest seeking this people?

Before the pitiable Father, who must halt His wounded steps, a lonely people was collapsing and scattering; how great must have been the heartbreak with which Thou hadst to gaze, shedding tears, because that people did not reach the standard Thou desirest? We can dimly surmise the heart of the Father who ought to love the little one, the heart of the Father who, though seeing the forlorn form of this people, has endured a hundred times, a thousand times.

We are sons and daughters who have received that Father’s blood and sweat and a throng that can vow to fulfill that Father’s wish. Therefore, we too must resolve to become Thy children who, when we look upon this people struggling at death’s door, know how to cry out the road the people must go, even at the cost of wearing ourselves out through the night.

Father, whatever anyone may say, even though we are dragged off in a shabby form, grant that, knowing how precious that form is, which God can remember, we may not despair on that road and may not grieve. We earnestly desire that we too may share the single-minded devotion of the Father, who, worrying over the Will, gazes upon all parts of South Korea and agonizes.

When we cannot become ones who, knowing that toil of the Father, can attend the Father, love us not. Only when the Father sets us up and praises us, grant that we may boast that we are receiving the Father’s love.

Having passed the Day of Children and greeted December, we have greeted the second Sunday.

Now only twenty days remain of this year, so at this time, when we must send off the bygone matters entirely and greet a new year, grant that we, recalling the past once again, may agonize a little more before the Father with an anxious heart and yearn for the call of re-creation that creates a new future.

Grant, we earnestly desire and pray that we may become true children who know how to feel of themselves that, for the sake of a single day of victory, today too, in hardship, and in the past as well, there was the toil of childbirth and a bloody movement upon this earth.

When, having greeted a single day of victory before the Father, we say, “Father, receive glory,” the Father will weep aloud. Knowing that it is the Father’s heart to yearn for that day, grant, we earnestly desire and pray, that this resolve of ours to run toward that day may not change.

Because these people have shouldered the responsibility and mission of having to save all the peoples of the world—though it was once a people that received and leaned upon others, now it has become one that must give and lead—grant that it may become a people that, bearing this responsibility, must scatter to all the world.

Moreover, grant, Father, we earnestly desire and pray that we may not forget that we bear the responsibility of guiding in the environment and guidance in living.

Remember Thy children who commemorate this day and worship in the provinces, and remember the countless throngs scattered throughout the world. They know God, but they have never met a teacher. Leave them not in a vain place, but grant, my Father, truly we desire and pray, that they may be in a place where a heavenly bond circles—one in which their hearts cannot endure without being loyal, cannot endure without loving the Father—and where life can sprout.

On this day, take charge of and govern the whole. Thinking with regret that the time has come when we must part to head for the remaining road of battle, grant, we earnestly beseech Thee, that we may become ones who know how to strive to leave behind a precious gift to offer before Heaven when we meet again.

Grant, we pray, that the remaining course of grace too may become a course that can choose a single day of victory within Thy Will; and, bearing the holy name of the True Parents, we have prayed. Amen.