Hyung Jin Moon
February 23, 2010
As you can see the Cheon Bok Gung Temple has been built. You're sitting in it! We always saw it in pictures and heard about it but now it is built. This is the growth stage, as you know. And we had True Parents, we were able to attend True Parents here just the other day on the 21st. That was really so special. Mother gave such a tearful prayer after the opening ceremony. Father really gave his heart, as you saw, when he was up there. And I told you this when we met earlier, I told you when we declare True Parent Os in the right way, and when we are able to do our job, which as leaders, is to declare the Lord of the Second Advent, the messiah has come. If you are a leader in the Unification Church, that is your job. That is your occupation -- to believe in the messiah, to declare the messiah, and to bring confidence to the people who are saved by the messiah. When we do that properly, when we don't hide it, we don't fudge it at all, then Parents feel confident. As you noticed I mentioned a couple of days before, did you notice Father doesn't speak twelve or thirteen hours when we properly declare him?
And as you saw at the event, we both, Kook Jin hyung and I, strongly declared him as the Messiah. We did have VIPs and the vice-mayor of Seoul City was there. The head of the CIA was there, he is one of the highest government officials in the country. He is president of the KCIA. He was sitting right in the crowd, right in front of you guys. We have two former presidents of Korea that came out of that particular position. So it's an extremely high position. He reports directly to the president every week. He actually came on Kook Jin hyung's personal invitation.
Mine and Kook Jin hyung's experience after having witnessesed in the Che Dan over 1,000 new members, having had them donate to the Unification World Temple, the new members have donated over seven million dollars to the temple. Everyone told us that was impossible. Korean people will not donate. No new members will donate to the Unification Church. This was the culture, the level of faith that was alive in the church, very low. And so whenever we heard that stuff we said, 60,000, maybe you think that, but we believe. We moved forward and we made the results. New members, witnessing, declaring True Parents, bringing higher level VIPs than we ever could.
Because why? We are confident what we believe. We believe what we believe. We don't hide it. We don't let anyone take our religion or our faith away. We are confident we know that True Parents are the Lord of the Second Advent. I have studied religion and I have seen all the founders of the religions, studied them. There is no founder that is more successful than True Parents, none, during the time of the founder. To have this much of a world foundation, you can even be totally secular and admit that. But our leaders and members, we should not even be close to that level. Objectively speaking we can say that. We should really have confidence in True Parents. This is the real key to the Unification Church's success. It comes through no other medium only through True Parents we will succeed and fulfill our destiny. And this, I think, is the hope of our church.
At True Parents birthday celebration, which was on Friday, AP requested an interview. So I did a brief interview with them actually while they -- the members -- were singing and festivities were all around me. We just did it on the side of the room and they asked me a couple of questions, you know, about Father's health, etc., etc. He is extremely healthy. And then they asked me a question, -- So, you are the head of the Unification Church, you are the international president, you are the highest religious authority in the church under Rev. Moon.
So are you his successor? And I said, -- No. And I'll tell you why, because my Father is the messiah and there is no other messiah. There is no other messiah. He has a messianic mission. We don't have the mission, we are apostles. We declare the messiah has come, the Lord of the Second Advent has come, that is our role. Of course Father uses terminology that we have to become tribal messiahs and family messiahs but there is only one person that reveals and substantiates the essence of God. That person is our True Parents. They are the ones who have revealed the truth of God's essence and divinity. They are the ones who revealed the purpose of creation, the purpose for which human kind exists. -- We must not see True Parents with our physical eyes, we've done that too much. We have really lost our spiritual scenes. In the sense that we have viewed and tried to show to the world a more popular vision of True Parents as some kind of peace activists, or some kind of educator. They are not peace activists or educators. They are the Lord of the Second Advent -- Do you understand? They are the messiah.
That is totally different. There is only one. There are tons of peace activists. There are many peace proponents, many, many around the world. Even in history there were many people who worked for peace. But there is only one Lord of the Second Advent, that comes to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ and who fulfills that role through the substantiation and total inheritance of God's essence through his life. And only our True Parents have accomplished this task. When we understand this then we can have our spiritual scenes open, and we can start seeing what kind of individuals we stand before. So at the event, I tried to remind people, "If you stood in front Jesus Christ the Lord and Messiah, if you stood before him, what kind of attitude, with what kind of mind would we stand before Jesus?"
We are living what the apostle Paul only could dream of. It's absolutely incredible. Brothers and sisters, I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying because it's amazing.
Because I feel totally blessed to be able to witness what we have for True Parents. I never knew the extent, the path that they had to walk. I always understood them as my father and mother, you know the normal thing -- why didn't they come to my school plays? Or why didn't they, why couldn't they encourage me? Why are they not home? Why do we have all these people always at our house? You know all the normal stuff that kids complain about. But I never understood who they were. And even in my own immaturity I tried to secularize them, tried to forget, leave out the messiah and Lord of the Advent stuff. But the more I got to study religion, the more I got to understand the founders of the church, how serious were the founders, so radical. All the religious leaders -- extremely radical. They break away from tradition.
Usually they think the Buddha is quite calm and meditating all the time. He was totally breaking away from tradition... There were parts of his life. Jesus of course we all know. The prophet Mohamed we know. The more I got to understand, slowly at least my intellectual mind began to play with the idea that True Parent's are incredible religious leaders, but that was basically the level I arrived at after all my studies, in the school and all that. They are amazing religious founders, they have done an impossible task. And you can only say God bless them. God bless what True Parent's do.
But it was really after I really started practicing. I never tithed in my life. I never was told to tithe. Did you know that? Did you know that? It's crazy. I was never told to tithe. So I didn't tithe until I started ministry. Then I started tithing.
Then I started doing all the special donations that's True Parent's were requesting. Or whatever. Doing the conditions. Still doing the training. Working in the ministry. Meeting members. Going to houses whatever. Doing my stuff. Then something like, I feel something was happening, you know. Going from free loader to owner. Free rider.
Going from the point where, oh our members in Japan, suffering for the rest of the world. There was this whole culture of rhetoric, "They have to do that because they colonized Korea." That was a terrible excuse to make Japanese members suffer. Going to see them, sleeping in the churches. I was visiting them trying to encourage them.
No more, I realized, no more. We are going to have to step up and become owners and responsible and mature, all of us. And we are going to start with the Korean Church, which we did. We started with the Korean Church becoming fully financially stable, so that we do not receive Japanese blood.
Our brothers and sisters. Because I've been to Japan over twenty times now, visiting the members, going to the churches, sleeping in the churches. I've been to the smallest church in Japan. It's tiny, very tiny.
And we really took them for granted. I realized what a sin we have committed. Because I had been in church environments, where people actually made fun of the Japanese. Oh they are just fanatics. Oh you know the Japanese. They used to make fun of them as if that were some radical faith, or as if it was part of the Japanese psyche, to want to practice that kind of religion. I tell you its not. They are people like you and me. Just as much as you do not want to give up you children's education fund that you have saved for, our Japanese members don't either but they have done it. Just as you enjoy your house, or your car that you drive. So when I went to try to encourage them, in whatever way, we just tried to do as much as we could do. We made rules, you know when we went to Japan, they always want to give true children thank you donations. We said we are not going to take anything. We didn't come here to get a thank you donation -- we came here to try to encourage you. We are not going to receive any gifts. No gifts allowed. I'm not going to receive any gifts. I don't come here to receive gifts. Don't prepare a hotel room, I'm going to go to the church. We are going to sleep in the churches. And we are going to pray together. We are going to bow together. We are going to train together. And we are going to believe together.
They truly changed my life. And so I was in quite a dilemma because I have to try to spiritually guide living saints... The lowest of which is 100 times, 1000 times beyond me. And so it was quite a challenge, because spiritually I was not yet opening my eyes to True Parents. I was teaching Divine Principle, I was sermonizing, preaching on the pulpit.
I was in that kind of extraordinary dilemma. If I'm going to have any impact on these saints, Father, it's not going to come out of my own ability. So it was in that time that I entered into more intensive practice and prayer, where True Father revealed, just like the transfiguration, where Jesus showed who he was to his disciples. Where he stood there in front of the disciples. With Moses and Elijah above them all. Completely transfigured, illuminating his eyes burning like ten thousand suns. That's when True Father revealed the seven deaths and resurrections. That completely... completely changed everything for me because I'd never understood, I never thought True Parent's died for me.
Never. Yes they suffered, fought long to build the church. I never thought that they laid down their life for me. But when I realized, that even greater than Christ, he died for a fool like me. Willingly, sacrificing their soul so I can be free. So my children can see the Kingdom of Heaven. Not just once like Christ, but constantly laid down their life to fulfill every stage of indemnity that occurred since the fall. And that they were resurrected by the power of True Love.
And then at night after that vision, after they showed me that, that night I saw Father coming to me spiritually. I saw his face, and it was like the transfiguration. His face was totally like the sun. It was so bright I couldn't look into it. I knew he was there. His eyes were like, just in the Bible it describes. And that night I wrote the repentance letter. I never knew who you were True Parent's. I never believed.
But, I was such a coward. I didn't go the next day to go see them. I felt so ashamed. That's the kind of fool that they died for, I can't even go see them. But I did go see them eventually -- I did. I said to them, "I never knew." And Father said, "Finally you understand." Because I realize Father couldn't tell us. He couldn't tell us because the True Love that he taught gives and gives and forgets. Forgets that it has given, even its life it forgets. It will forget. It will erase. I realized True Father has lived his teaching, the teaching. He has done the impossible. Not just in the world. But the impossible.
And from that point I went from always having some kind of reservation, some kind of intellectual doubt about who True Parents were, to becoming a believer in True Parents. Then I was reborn. My sermons have changed. My devotion had changed. My life has completely changed. Now I understand why Christians all cry, and go crazy when they are reborn. When they talk about eternal life, why they jump with joy. I can finally get it. So that's why it's such an amazing blessing. It's such a profound blessing. That we can be here doing this for the messiah. It's incredible. It's incredible. And it's not a work. It is completely fun doing it. I feel alive doing it. I read the apostles I hear the words of their acts. You know, I can feel that I can understand why they're doing that. How when they testify it brings so much joy.