Special Sermon by Rev. Lee Jae-Seok -- "Let us Establish True Parent's Status"

Hyung Jin Moon
June 27, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan, Seoul Korea

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Video message by Hyung-jin nim:

Good afternoon brothers and sisters. We're here at Inchon Airport. We're heading to Brazil by True Parent's request. We'll be there for a couple of days but we'll be back next week. This weekend we have Rev. Lee Jae-seok who will be speaking. He is one of the earliest members, one of the 36 couples, a real senior member here of the Korean Church and we're very delighted that he's able to speak to us all today, and really coming back to the centre which is True Parents. Brothers and sisters, we'll be back next week but we're praying for you all and we hope you all have a victorious week this week. We'll see you next week brothers and sisters. Bye-bye.

Short Introduction of Rev Lee, Jae-Seok:

Joined in: 1956
36-Blessed Couple
Former President of the Korean Unification Church
Minister for about 10 years
Very active in Religious Interfaith Activities
Author of several books
Honorary Professor at Sun Moon University in the Dept of Theology

Main Sermon by Rev. Lee Jae-Seok (Video)

Good afternoon brothers and sisters. You and I are all Unification church members. But what is the Unification church or Unificationism? Unification is the religion of the True Parents. So what do you think is the difference between our religion and other religions? All the religions on this earth are in charge of leading people towards individual salvation. Yet the Unification Church is the religion of True Parents. Thus it strives for the salvation of families through the True Parent. In that sense, there's a need to distinguish our faith from the other religions. Our religion, or the Unification Church, began from and because of, True Parents. We are Unificationists who live in attendance to True Parents or God in the flesh.

Yet recently we have seen a rise in tension and conflict within our community. This has caused great confusion and bewilderment to many people. If we are unable to resolve the manifested problems that we see, then the only way to resolve them is by going back to our roots. We should go back to our roots, to our essence, and try to find the solution of these problems from there. The root of essence of Unification Church is our True Parents. Then what kind of people are they? What kind of path have they walked in order to uphold and fulfill God's Will? We must know clearly the answers to these questions and firmly establish True Parent's stature and authority. Brothers and sisters, that is the responsibility and heavenly duty of all those who believe in True Parents. There was a certain force through which True Parents became the Messiah and the Second Coming of the Lord and they also followed a course for becoming the True Parent. I am sure that we are all familiar with this content and so you may think that we do not need to talk about this. However, since the theme of my sermon today is Our True Parents Stature, I think there is a need for us to review and once more confirm the details of the course that True parents have walked to this day.

In 1935, while deep in prayer on top of Mount Myodu, Jesus appeared and asked Father if he would fulfill the mission that He, Jesus, was unable to fulfill. Jesus asked Father many times to take up this task. In the end True Father humbly accepted God's calling through Jesus and began his mission as Messiah. From then on he prepared for 10 years. He made preparations for 10 years after this incident. He spent 3 years in intense prayer at his hometown in North Korea. He prayed extensively in the area around Huk Suk Dong after returning from his studies in Japan. He underwent numerous trainings to gain control of himself and he studied extensively formulating the Principle. He went to Tokyo and also there he began to study the Bible in earnest. He read many other academic disciplines in order to systematize the truth. And at the same time he engaged in manual labor and a dedicated life of volunteerism, all the while thinking about the people who were suffering in poverty and in pain. Through all these experiences and more, he came to discover and experience God's heart.

After Korea gained independence, Father returned to Korea and then began to attend a monastery. This [Israel] monastery was built by one Reverend Baek Moon Kim who, after receiving a revelation from God, was waiting for the Lord of the Second Advent to come to Korea. There Father offered conditions and engaged in service activities for six months without saying a single word. After the six months, Reverend Baek Moon Kim received another revelation from God, designating Father to be a person that is like King Solomon. And there Reverend Kim testified and blessed Father in that way. This testimony, this revelation, came from God. Thus Reverend Kim was supposed to serve and attend Father according to that revelation. Yet, he lost that faith in those revelations. So six months later Father had to leave the monastery and even during that time many people started to whisper about Father.

A while later, a woman claiming to be Jehovah's wife appeared in Pyongyang. There were also many rumors that God's wife or someone claiming to be God's wife had appeared. Father received an urgent revelation from God, and immediately departed to North Korea. There he went to a meeting that was organized by one old lady named Park Bu-yong, who was claiming to be Jehovah's wife. There Father led a life exhibiting the standard of absolute obedience and absolute faith to this old lady. We all know about the process of restoration through indemnity, through the vertical eight stages. Father went through that indemnity course. Each stage old lady Pak testified to Father and blessed Father saying, for example, that he was now a servant of servants and then in the next stage, a servant, then adopted son, a concubine son, and finally God's son. Ultimately she blessed him as being God's partner, God's object partner. So each time she testified and blessed Father according to the eight stages. And by paying indemnity and being victorious through these eight vertical stages, Father was finally able to receive God's seal of approval. For that he had received the royal seal from Heaven.

I'm sure you know in detail of the course of 10 years that it took to gain this official recognition. In this way, by paying the vertical indemnity conditions or paying the indemnity conditions on the vertical level, Father was able to restore all of the positions including that of being God's son and also of the position of God himself. Yet the people of that group only testified and blessed Father; they failed to attend and follow Father. So after Father completed the paying of these conditions of the vertical eight stages, Father began to give orders to old Lady Pak with the full authority of Adam in his own right. Yet she did not obey and the foundation at the time that was to be built was lost; Thus Father had to walk the path of indemnity in prison.

Later with the outbreak of the Korean war, when the UN Peace Keeping Forces moved into North Korea, Father went down to Busan with all the other refugees. There he built the mud hut at Beomnaegol and began witnessing and compiled the original Divine Principle. Witnessing activities spread to Taegu and also to Seoul and then in May 1954 Father established the HSA-UWC and from here in Korea the Unification Church was spread out to the world.

In 1961 the Feast of the Lamb was held as written in the Bible and through that Father was able to attain the position of the True Parent. But Father did not immediately become a True Parent on completion of the Holy Wedding. He was only able to reach that position after completing the three seven-year courses or 21 year course through indescribable trials and sufferings in order to once more build the vertical indemnity condition and to spread it horizontally to the world. That is why Father began to lay the indemnity conditions for the horizontal eight stages and this spread out to the world and on that foundation he was able to proclaim Pal Jeong Shik and also the Heavenly Fatherism.

After that, Father began to visit and tour the entire world to proclaim that he was the True Parent. We have heard about and we have studied about the courses that he had to go through to attain the Messiah and Lord of the Second Advent; also the course he had to go through in order to become the True Parent. We learned about the great suffering and persecution he received on that path and of the many life or death situations that he faced through which he had to shed many tears and sweat and blood. Through all that kind of suffering course, True Parents were finally able to appear as the True Parents and now come before all of us to find each and every one of us. All of those efforts and hard work was in order to restore us, 'me', each and every one of us. True Parents have walked that path in order to save me, the individual, in order to save one person which is us. And that is why he walked the path of the Messiah and that is why he walked the path of the True Parents and blessed us, allowing us to become families so that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore each and every one of us is indebted to True Parents, the Second Advent of the Lord and the Messiah; for he is the one who came and saved each and every one of us.

The reason why we are able to attain new life and to attain new hope and to attain a new perspective on how we view the universe is because True Parents have walked this path as the Messiah, Second Advent of the Lord and overcame numerous tribulations and trials and on that foundation of victory, they were able to find and save each and every one of us. They gave us life and they allowed us to live a life where we can live in joy and happiness within God's True Love. It was only because True Parents came and found us, because they came and chose us among the multitude and blessed us. And it is only because of the hardships that they have gone through, through the eight vertical and horizontal stages that finally we were able to form families without paying any further debt.

This is something that we must understand and we must never forget this fact. We have to engrave it in our hearts, the fact that we are able to stand before God is because and only because we are born into a new life through the blessing by the Messiah, the Second Advent of the Lord, who are the True Parents. It was only because of them that we were able to meet God and it is only because of the blessings that we could form a family to stand before God as a family. When we think about these things, we cannot deny that our lives, our family, our happiness, were all made possible only because of the True Parents.

Then how is it that True Parents became the Messiah, the Lord of the Second Advent? What do they have to go through as they walk the path of True Parents? And we must ask ourselves, "How do we gain this new life? And from whom do we get this new life? And how is it that we are now able to have a family?" If you value your family, if you value your life, then it is only because you value and appreciate True Parents, who are the source and root of our life and our families. This life was given to us by the Messiah, The Second Advent of the Lord and the True Parents. Our families and our life was given in such a way, then who else but we should be the ones who should uphold True Parents authority. We are the ones who should elevate True Parents (applause).

Now that we are talking about True Parents' position or stature, there is something I'd like to talk about. Recently I think many of you feel that the ideal you've had about True Parents is disappearing and that is why I must emphasize that True Parents' stature is eternal. When I first began a life of faith, when I first met True Parents, they were on a totally different dimension. To me he was not even human, even though I would see him at Headquarters church, sweating and meeting, singing of hymns and praying and giving sermons. Because of that intensity, all the people that were there also were crying and speaking.

If Father said one word for us to be quiet then everyone would be quiet, immediately. So it felt as if God was with us. After that, at the end of the service, Father would go up to the second floor of the old Headquarters church and when he went up the stairs, it felt as though he was going back to Heaven. That is why before Father was married, before True Parents' Holy Wedding, we thought that Father never went to the bathroom; he was not like a human being like us. We thought he was a divine being, a superman, a transcendent being, a mysterious being. But recently, as True Father has grown old, what is happening now? We see that Father has difficulties moving around with his physical body. In the morning when we participate in Hoon Dok Hae with him, it's hard to understand what he is saying. Father speaks for two and three hours. Most of us feel very tired and we'd wish that Father would stop speaking.

We wish that True Father would stop speaking and don't understand why he would go on and on like that. Whenever we have an international conference and Father holds a banquet he will speak for three hours before beginning the banquet. That means if the banquet is suppose to begin at 6 pm, he will speak until 9 pm and many of these VIPs who participate in the conferences would be falling asleep. A number of them are probably wishing the founder wouldn't be speaking, and yet Father continues to speak.

When we see Father speaking and behaving in such a way, some of us may feel that all that we had felt in the early stages with lack of faith dissipates, and that Father is just like all of us; that he is a normal human being. Some may feel that Father is becoming old, facing his physical limitations and therefore look at him as an ordinary old man. But can we allow this to happen? If we would view Father in such light, where do you think is that coming from? Even though his face may be wrinkled and he may not walk as fast as he used to; what is it that we should be seeing in him? What is it that we should be feeling from our True Parents? We know and believe that True Parents are God in human flesh. So when True Parents are God in true flesh and we look upon True Father's face, what should we be seeing? We should be able to feel that we are seeing and meeting God. For 75 years Father walked the providential path in order to find and save each and every one of us. His lifelong suffering is entrenched upon his face. That is where we should be able to see and feel God, where we should feel the emotions we want to feel toward Him whenever we look upon True Father's face.

For 75 years Father had to overcome the most terrible hardships. All of that is recorded in his physical flesh. On Fathers physical flesh and on his face you can see the record of the 75 years of suffering! Shouldn't we be able to read this?

Father is the embodiment of the Word. He gave us the eight great teaching materials and textbooks. Why are we reading his word? When we are studying his word we are trying to be a part of True Parents life at that time and there we want to meet God, at that moment. We only have a limited understanding of God. But we know that God is multifaceted. In the Bible it is written that God is above the creation and also within the creation; Saying that He is above the creation means that He is an absolute God who transcends this existing world. He is an eternal, unchanging, omnipotent and omniscient God. And yet, this God created this world. What does this mean when we say He created? According to Fathers words 'creating' means to invest oneself completely. Therefore, that God created this world means that He invested Himself completely into this world and that He is within this world. Therefore, what kind of God is He if He is within this world? It means that God is in relation to a God who changes. If He doesn't change, if there would be no such case as 'change', how could such an universe been created and how could life grow and develop? 'Change' is also another aspect or attitude of the unchanging God. That is why life is a repetitious cycle of creation.

Life tries to sustain its status quo although all the while it seeks to evolve and in the end dissolves itself. So there is no need for us to fear death. We are now living in the time of Seunghwa Blessing Ceremony. Before this Seunghwa Blessing Ceremony people believed that the order of creation would in the end dissolve and then people would be reborn again. But death is a natural process. It follows the laws of God's Principle of Creation. It is only natural that we start to have wrinkles, and that it becomes more difficult for us to move around with our physical body. It is all part of God's Principle of Creation. Therefore we should not refuse to understand True Parents. We should always look at True Parents through the eyes of our life of faith, so that when we look upon True Parents we are looking upon God and upon the 75 years of providential history that True Father had gone through during his life course.

These days I hear people say that Father needs a successor because he is becoming senile. But the position of the Messiah, the position of the True Parent is not something that can be inherited or succeeded. There will only be one True Parent, and there has only been one True Parent throughout all of history. Think about the 2000 years of Christian history. During this long period there have been many extraordinary Christian leaders like some righteous popes who ruled over all of Europe during their time. Yet, did people ever regard the pope as the Messiah? Christianity or Catholicism has spread around the entire world. There are more than 1.2 billion people who believe in the catholic faith. At the top of that organization is the pope. And yet, can he become the Messiah? He cannot. Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. Even if Christianity will prosper and grow and have hundreds and thousands of churches and even more denominations; it is only the Messiah who brings them all together.

The coming of the Messiah was only a one-time incident during mankind's long history which will never happen again. Just as Jesus is the Messiah, True Parents are the Lord of the Second Advent. And this event, the emergence of the True Parents on this earth, will never happen again. This is why we Unificationists must remember that we have received salvation from the Lord of the Second Advent, our Eternal True Parents. Even though we may see that True Father is facing his physical limitations on this earth, we should always remember that when we are seeing the True Parents we are seeing God and that we are seeing the whole history of suffering of our True Parents for our salvation. With this perspective we must be leading our life of faith.

As the conclusion I would like to talk about the life of faith. What is faith? Faith is something that you choose. It is your choice. We know there are Confucianism, Buddhism and many other religions on this earth. Yet you chose the Unification faith; or you might say, Unificationism chose me. When God seeks each and every one of us, He, as the subject partner, seeks us as His object partners. Through the Principles we were converted and joined the movement. Through True Parents word we met True Parents, and through the word we were finally able to stand before True Parents and God. When we can respond to God and True Parents, we can become their object partner and they become our subject partner of faith. And also they are our object of faith.

Till now we talked about True Parents charisma, their leadership and that it felt as if we were being pulled by their charisma and leadership until this day. We forgot that we are the owners of our own faith. Each and every time until this day, whenever we took a step, it was done by our own choice and by our own faith. This path, this life of faith is what we chose to follow and chose to live, to receive the blessing and to become a blessed family. This is because we desired it, we wanted it and we chose it: Therefore it is my faith, my life and my family. Who will allow this to blossom and flourish? Do you think that there will be a teacher at your school or our True Parents who will applaud your life to be successful? It's up to you and it's your responsibility to cultivate your character and yourself. You must strife and make effort to live a happy life! You must make effort to study. Therefore, it's my life and I'm responsible for what it is now and will become in the future. That is why we must make our life an illuminated, beautiful and a happy life! And who are the ones who will elevate and glorify True Parents? Will it be the Buddhists, the Christians or the Taoists? It should be you and all of us. It is we who have chosen True Parents, and we are the ones who have to elevate and enhance True Parents.

How it is that we have attained this life? It is said that there are 300 million sperms at the time of conception. And yet out of these 300 million only one sperm will meet the egg. And only when both unite can life be born. So that is the miracle of life, the miracle of how we have been born here on earth. The more you think about it the more you feel the truth of the miracle. We were miraculously able to give and receive life on this earth. And life is truly mysterious. We are alive. We breathe in and we breathe out. And in the same way in our terms of faith we can understand that God enters our body and goes out of our body. That is why our respiration is important, i.e. how we breathe. As it is written in the Bible that He breathed in the life and that became the spirit (Gen. 2:7).

Here at Cheon Bok we also have meditation. I'm sure you have experienced this mysterious experience of meeting God. They are many ways to meet God; by studying the word, or through worship. When you pray and engage in meditation the path or channel leading to God will be broad and fast, and it will be much easier to meet God. And when you do meet God you will be overcome with joy. That is why, as you are overcome with joy, you will be singing with such passion during worship and then you'll feel connected with God in your heart. When your prayer and meditation will deepen your relationship with God you will really feel God through your physical senses.

You will be able to see and hear Him through the sound of the wind and the birds and feel the caresses of the wind on your cheek. You'll feel that your body is expanding and reaching out to the universe, and finally you will feel that you have become one with God. However, after you have had this kind of experience you will come back and you'll realize you are still living in this sinful world filled with fallen nature. That is why it is important to come to the equilibrium of joy, peace and happiness. That is perfection. That is completion. What do we mean when we say perfection? We mean the perfection of joy in ecstasy. We should always maintain this kind of state whether we are asleep or awake.

Now, what is the purpose of our faith? It is to resemble God and to live within that kind of unchanging joy and bliss. Once you begin to meet God in prayer and meditation this channel will grow wider and wider and you will be able to meet God in your heart and through your physical senses. After that you will experience the sensation of becoming one with God and of finding that God is within you and that you have become His Holy Temple. Even though you may have grown old and you may have been training for ten years, the slightest incident will be able to touch your heart and make you cry.

So why are we living? Don't we live for happiness? Why do we seek God? It's because we can't find the path to happiness in our daily lives. We seek out God so that God can show us the road towards love, joy, happiness and peace because He is the source and root of all these things. So by meeting God we can find the root of our life and connect with Him. Without being connected with God, love is not true love. It is just love in form. We may have believed so many times that we love somebody, but that has been only superficial love which is love not rooted in God. Without being deeply rooted into Gods loving heart, we are not connected to the essence of love. We have to know that deep sensation when we meet God through meeting True Parents. Then we can tearfully and with all gratefulness thank God and True Parents for being there.

We have to live this kind of life. It's only when seeing us live this kind of life that True Parents can find joy. And when we can live such a life then God can also come and visit us. If we would be always simmering in anger, hatred or are complaining, do you think God would come to you? God would run away. We have to protect His dignity. We have to remember the times when we found ourselves crying just thinking about True Parents.

We can be truly grateful and thanking True Parents for having been able to meet them in our lifetime. Our greatest happiness is the fact that we were able to meet God through True Parents. Through this kind of life of meeting God through True Parents and by having this kind of heartistic appreciation of True Parents we should be able to glorify and elevate God and True Parents to the people of this world by showing them True Parents true stature and glory! 

Moving Towards the Light

Hyung Jin Moon
June 20, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan, Seoul Korea

Welcoming Remarks
Yeon-ah nim:

Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Good afternoon. Welcome to the headquarters of the Unification Church. It is really, really great to see you all. Today we sincerely hope and pray that, through this service, we can rejuvenate our daily life and we can return our praise and thanks to our Heavenly Father. We know that we love True Parents with all our hearts and we truly, truly believe in them. Aju.

Hyung-jin nim:

Good afternoon, everybody. We have brothers and sisters from everywhere today. We have many brothers and sisters from Japan, I believe. Let's give our brothers and sisters from Japan a very warm welcome.

We are practicing something now. Usually it is said "Hallelujah" and then "Amen". "Hallelujah" basically means "Praise the Lord" and "Amen" means "truth" in Hebrew. We have all learned a bit of Korean, and this is the Fatherland, so we have understood the word "Aju". "Aju" means "My Lord" in Chinese characters. Instead of "Amen", in the Unification Church, we say "Aju" because every time we hear something very powerful, then we proclaim and we lift up God. When we do that, it does not matter what country we are from because this portion we can all understand -- that we all say "Aju".

Before then, we have been practicing saying "Na-e junim", which basically explains what "Aju" means. "Na-e junim" means my Lord or praising the Lord, and then we say "Aju" which means "My Lord", lifting up God again. So, even though we are from different countries, on that point, we can know, and we can all say and lift up God. Let's try that one time, "Na-e junim" ("Na-e ju nim"). One more time, "Na-e junim" ("Na-e junim"). That's exactly the point.

Let's start by manifesting the Principle: give and receive action; four position foundation; may I inherit the true love of God. Aju.

Today, we read from the Cheon Seong Gyeong, page 604. Father says,

"We know of the existence of the spirit world. It is more certain than this world. What kind of a world is it? It is one in which everything is possible as long as it is acceptable in God's plan."

Brothers and sisters, we know the reality of the spirit world and we also know that the great spirits and the saints and sages of the past are looking down on True Parents, helping the providence, and also protecting our brothers and sisters all over the world. Let's give it up one time for all our brothers and sisters in the spirit world.

Today we want to meet a very special family. Every week we have the chance to meet wonderful families, our Blessed families that are really living the life of faith; fighting the good fight of faith on the ground, in the real world; such wonderful people. Today we are going to meet Miyajima-san and Jo-jipsa nim. Let's take a look at this video.

Video: "I am a Proud Unificationist" Miyajima Kasuo (44) and Jo Mi-Seon (42) 30,000 Blessed couple

Husband: In Japan, I heard the Divine Principle and True Father's life course, and how much he was persecuted by the Japanese police. I felt like I had been the one who tortured True Father, the Messiah, but he forgave me. I cried so much after that experience, and I felt that this is the path I have to follow.

Wife: While I was reading the Bible, the scripture "love your enemies" stood out to me very much for a month. Who are my enemies? Who is this enemy that God and Jesus tell me to love? I thought my enemy is really our country's grudge toward the Japanese. I was very grateful and inspired to see True Father give us the chance to love the Japanese people through the International Blessing.

Although I was a Christian, I couldn't find a way to love my enemies until I realized it is achievable through the Blessing. I thought to myself 'I can go to heaven,' and with that determination, received the Blessing. (Her husband is Japanese.)

Dream of True Mother

After the Blessing, my husband came to Korea. Within seven months after he came, he said he wanted to make a branch of the Segye Ilbo. My husband told our pastor, "It is the company Father made, and if nobody does the job because it is too difficult, who is going to do it?"

It was a very small church, with one room for the brothers and another room for the pastor's couple. But this church life was extremely difficult for a person like me with a feeble life of faith. It was so difficult to get up early and make deliveries, even in the rain. The church life itself does not give you much time to rest, and even though I received the Blessing with the determination of loving my enemy, because it was so difficult I even thought of leaving. It was very difficult to continue to keep up this lifestyle, especially when I could not have a prayer life.

Right around the time I was thinking of leaving, I had a dream. True Mother appeared in the dream, but she was not the usual beautiful mother. Her hair was a mess and she had no makeup on. She told me, "I have suffered a course of hell, but was victorious in order to become the True Mother I am today. If I do not experience a life of suffering, how would I understand the people who are in hell, and how would I offer them up to Heaven? Because I experienced a course of suffering, and was victorious, I am who I am today."

After the dream I said, "Yes, I, too, will be victorious in this hell. Without overcoming this course of suffering, I also will not understand the people who are living in hell and cannot attend God." That is why I am still here.

The End of Suffering

Why did we have to face such trials? I was not resentful, though. Just like Job in the Bible, where everything he had was taken away but was returned as a bigger blessing, I also believed that this course would bring about a bigger blessing. We were in a situation where we had to leave our home as soon as possible, and I felt like I had become an unfilial daughter to True Parents because I had let Satan take away our possessions. I thought I should set a foundation on Heaven's side before we moved out. I thought of making an offering for the Cheon Bok Gung. It would allow us to stand in front of True Parents in honor, instead of in shame. So I secretly offered the Cheon Bok Gung offering and we moved into a small one-room apartment.

But I wanted to report this joyful incident to the International President and our pastor as soon as possible. Not a report saying that we moved to a smaller place, but informing them about the Cheon Bok Gung offering and the blessings we have and will receive, and showing other members how we have overcome the challenges that all members worry about.

After the offering, my husband's work has been going well, and my heart-broken parents have been supporting us as well. It has been eight months since we were kicked out of the house, but now we have moved to this place. People around me ask, "Can this really happen?" But now I can confidently say that these blessings were brought upon me because we made that offering for the Cheon Bok Gung.

With love, we can overcome anything! Brothers and sisters, we love you.

Main Sermon by Hyung-jin nim:

Today, brothers and sisters, I want to talk to you about "Moving Towards the Light".

As our core scriptures, we are going to use the "World Scriptures". Let us begin with Christianity, Romans 12:9-11.

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord."

Aju.

Here, we can see Paul talking to the church in Rome and describing the power of love. Paul says that in order for love to be genuine, first it must be sincere. Many people mix up the next point which is that if you are called to love, then you cannot hate. But this is wrong. Paul teaches us with wisdom that, if one truly does love, one must also hate evil.

If you truly love your spouse, you must hate adultery. You cannot have a quasi love towards adultery, "Oh it's OK, just love everything." You cannot have that. If you truly love your spouse, you will hate adultery; you will hate infidelity, because that will destroy your spouse. That will destroy and bring them great suffering and pain. In the same way, if we truly love our parents, then we must also hate shaming them, because that also brings destruction to their hearts.

In the providence, we can see that God separates good and evil all throughout providential history. The Principle reveals that all throughout history, God had to make the difference between good and evil. Because God is the absolute standard of goodness, there is a clear differentiation between what is good and what is evil. It is not a relativistic view. God separated good and evil in the flood; with Moses, in the separation from Satan period when he went to receive the Commandments; Abraham, in separating the offering, separating that which is good from what is evil. We can see this all through providential history.

We can also remember that love, as Paul talks about, is, moves, and has its being in action; that love is a verb. He calls us to hold to goodness; for us to be sincere and hate what is evil and also to hold and to cling to what is good. To love other brothers and sisters -- in this context he means believers in Christ -- with brotherly affection. Honor those who are among you. And stay strong in spiritual fervor and, the main point is, in serving the Lord. When Paul explains love, the fundamental point of love is to serve and uphold, uplift the Lord. It is all about God. Everything must be centered, and here, love is centered on serving the Lord.

For us as the Unification Church, we only have one center. This is forever our center. True Parents are forever our center. They are the king of kings and the lord of lords. They are the True Parents that we as Unificationists serve. Na-e junim! (Na-e junim). It is so important to understand that we have an eternal center, that we do not have a new center or a new king. This is a very fundamental point.

During my fast, I had a great experience. I found a wonderful new appreciation and gratitude to our brothers and sisters around the world, who all fasted before they were Blessed, and numerous other times during their faith life, praying for True Parents' victory and praying for the Unification Church, etc. Today, at the first service, we had one brother from Japan who did forty-day fasting ten times during his life. I did eight days and that was something else. Forty days! Ten times! Let's give him a great round of applause, because that is incredible discipline. So, I found a whole new appreciation for our brothers and sisters who practiced fasting training and especially our brother whom I met this morning.

Brothers and sisters, we as a movement may be facing certain storms and confusion right now, but we must remember that these issues are not simply physical. They are not only rooted in the physical; they are rooted deeply in the spiritual. There is darkness where there is confusion. There are clouds that confuse. The only thing that defeats darkness, as the old saying goes, is the light. The only thing that can penetrate through the thousand eons of darkness is the candlelight or the light from the sun. The light can destroy the darkness that surrounds it.

We, as Unificationists, are light. We move forward with the light of truth. We serve True Parents. We declare True Parents, testify about True Parents. We live to glorify True Parents and God. This is our eternal center, which, for us as Unificationists, does not waver. In this very difficult time, this is the light; this is the horizon, the rising sun that we must seek. This is the light that, I believe, will save a dark world. Brothers and sisters, we want to always recall that this is the reason why we are all here.

Let's look at our second world scripture today. This is Buddhism, from the Dhammapada 1.

"Mind is the forerunner of all evil states. Mind is chief. Mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, because of that, suffering follows one; like the wheel of a cart follows the hoof of the ox."

We know that Satan always assaults the mind; that he assaults the spiritual before he assaults the physical. When Adam and Eve fell, Lucifer tempted them spiritually first. He made them fall away from God spiritually before they engaged in a physical fall. Satan knows that if he can turn the mind and heart away from God and True Parents, then he can start controlling all things and, as he does, create suffering.

We also know that in the life of Jesus, Satan tempted Jesus with material goods. He said "I will give you all the kingdoms of this world if you bow before me, Jesus." He tempted him with material goods.

When True Parents had the Entrance of the Cheon Jeong Gung Palace Ceremony in 2006, they gave us many responsibilities as citizens of Cheon Il Guk. One of them was very important: this was the one that said that we must not abuse public foundations. You see, the foundation of the Unification Church is public. It is True Parents' foundation. It is the Unification Church brothers' and sisters' foundation.

It is from the blood, sweat and tears of our brothers and sisters -- primarily for the last thirty years, of our Japanese brothers and sisters, who sacrificed everything to create the world foundation that we have today as the Unification Church. These are not simply things that we can use at our own discretion because we have some title. The foundation of True Parents, of the Unification Church, was built by members who sacrificed; built by members who donated and contributed. This cannot be misused. If this is misused for personal purposes or against the will of True Parents' providence, then we are committing grave sin, very grave sin.

We must realize that these things are not just physical but they are also spiritual, because many of our brothers and sisters, particularly in Japan, had spiritual experiences from their ancestors, from people who had passed. I remember one sister telling me that she saw a picture of her parents, her physical parents, crying and begging for her to contribute and help True Parents' providence. So, we must remember that this public Unification Church also belongs to the spirit world. It is not just a physical thing. If we misuse these public foundations, we receive condemnation not only in the physical world, but also by the spirits.

I remember talking to Otsuka-san, who is now our continental director of the North East Asian region. He used to be the president of the Japanese church when we were visiting the Japanese church, even before I did ministry. We were visiting and staying with the Japanese members in the local churches and trying to encourage them and thank them for all their sacrifice throughout the years. At that time, I had a chance to have lunch with Otsuka-san.

He told me of how his wife is a descendant of samurai. She has in her possession a samurai sword that has been passed down through the generations. However, she has never opened or unsheathed this samurai sword, not even once. They keep it locked up, tied up and hidden away. He explained that this is because the samurai sword is cursed; anyone who has opened it has had some kind of disaster happen to them. They would pass away or have an accident or get a terrible, incurable sickness. He explained that the spirits cursed the sword. They have resentment and pain because they had been hurt by that sword.

What we must also remember is that when we use True Parents' foundation against their will, foundations that were built by the blood, sweat and tears of brothers and sisters who sacrificed, it is just like the samurai sword. There is so much pain and there is so much effort that went into that foundation from the spirit world. In the same way, those spirits do not forget if we misuse those things. That is why Father has given us, as one of the laws, to not misuse the public foundation. This is why, as the Buddha said, we must guard our mind from being tempted by thinking that we have the ability to use these things at our own discretion.

This is why, in the Korean church, we have gone through so much effort to create transparency in the church. This is why, every two months, we report to the congregation how the donations have been used. This is the reason why we have decision-line chain management which records every single decision and every single person who tried to make the decision, so nobody can say that they did not make the decision. It is all recorded. This is the reason why, whenever we have a major decision that has to be made, True Parents must approve it before we are able to act on it, because it is not our foundation. The Unification Church was built upon True Parents' victorious foundation, upon the victorious foundation of the brothers and sisters who helped to build this incredible church.

Let us now look at the Hadith from Islam.

"The heart is like a king with his troops. If the king is a good one, then his troops will be good too, and if the king is wicked, his troops follow suit… If a person's heart is healthy, his body will be at ease, and if a person's heart is malicious, the body will be malevolent."

Here, we are reminded by the Qur'an to guard the heart from malice and also from temptations of the material. We can pretend or try to rationalize the reasons for engaging in temptation or committing sin, but in the end, the sin remains. As the Qur'an warns, if the heart is overcome, then the body also will move in that direction. It warns us that in order to be good leaders, we must seek the public good and live by example, and then, as the Qur'an states, the "troops" will follow suit.

If the mind falls away from that which is true, honest, good and transparent, then the body, too, will fall away from that which is good and we will do bad actions. So, we must keep our mind focused and, as Unificationists, our mind must be focused on serving True Parents.

Even though, we are in tough times now, I told Korean members that I don't worry, because the tough times are impermanent. Storms are impermanent. But there are things that are eternal that we can focus on, and that we must focus on. The things that are eternal are our true Parents, the victorious foundation of our True Parents. It is that which is eternal. The things we can follow are God and the goodness of God, focusing on right goodness action, right deeds, etc.; things that are in conjunction with, that move along with God's goodness, that don't go against this. We can also learn to differentiate, discern what is good, what is evil, not take a relativistic view -- what in Buddhism they call a "foolish compassion" -- which is "Accept everything is OK". No, there is right and there is wrong. Rape is wrong. Abuse is wrong. Misusing public foundation is wrong. That is discernment, the discernment of love, that Paul talked about. These things that we are dealing with now actually give us an opportunity to remember why it is that we are here. In Cheon Bok Gung, we have three main objectives that we are given by True Parents. The first objective is that we create the temple of God in the third Israel, the Holy land of Holy lands, the Jerusalem of Jerusalems, the land from which the returning Lord has come.

We know that when the Israelites left bondage in Egypt, the generation that walked through the wilderness with Moses couldn't enter the kingdom of Canaan. Only the new generation, the young generation, entered into the land of blessing. But they made a critical mistake. The critical mistake was that, once they had the spoils and riches of Canaan, they became secular; they forgot their faith. They forgot the God who had brought them out of bondage and led them through the wilderness so that they could be free in Canaan. They forgot their ancestors who died before them so that they could be free in Canaan. They forgot to center everything on the worship of God, the God who had brought them through the tribulations of the people of Israel. We know from the Principle perspective, that because they didn't do that, and because they became secular, the national foundation for the Messiah couldn't be created and that providence failed.

In the Unification Church, because we know about that providential failure, we're not going to make the same mistake again. We are going to enter into Canaan as believers and faithful people. We are going to erect that Temple of God which will be our eternal point of reference, our eternal remembrance of those who have come before us, and of True Parents who have led us out of bondage and into the Promised Land. Let's give it up for True Parents and the Unification Church! This is our first purpose for the Cheon Bok Gung: to create the Temple of God where God is praised, where He is remembered, where He lives in our lives; and where we come to be rejuvenated, to be cleansed, to make ourselves new, and then go out into the world again and challenge the world. That's the number one purpose we have in Cheon Bok Gung.

The second purpose is what Father calls the "Abel UN", the substantialization of the Abel UN, to bring religious unification and national unification, particularly North and South unification.

We here at the Cheon Bok Gung, because of True Parents' order, have been engaged in a 120-day Jeong Seong as an offering of sincerity. Father has called all the leaders around the world, particularly the ones who are growing up into leadership, to come and to give Jeong Seong devotion, center their lives on the Word of True Parents, center themselves on True Parents. This has been going on for over 100 days, and will finish next week. At first, we did not know why True Parents were asking us to do such a thing. We just thought it was time to give Jeong Seong, so forty days was the initial one and then Father extended it to 120 days. But during this time, we discovered so many incredible things happening.

During this time, True Parents have been going around the world, holding the Seunghwa Chukjae, that is the Ascension Ceremony, for those who have passed, those people who have served the providence in different areas; for example, General MacArthur, and Alexander Haig who, with his troops, freed True Parents from Hungnam prison. True Parents went around the world to honor the lives of such individuals, or "to honor the legacy of peace" as we say in English. Literally, it was a funeral, an ascension ceremony, where they were given the greatest blessing, the blessing that Unificationists must work their whole lives to receive.

We must go through the Eight-Day Offering Ceremony as a newborn child, then we receive the Blessing, and when we die, we receive the Seunghwa ceremony -- and through that, we can go to Heaven with True Parents. But now, during this time, True Parents have given this blessing to a very special group of people. This was the first that this ever happened on such a level. It's absolutely incredible!

While True Parents were creating that spiritual foundation, during the 120-day training in Cheong Bok Gung and the Guri center, where many brothers and sisters from around the world have been participating, incredible things have happened. There were things happening that have never been seen in Korean history. We had a huge situation in Korea. The explosion of the submarine Chonan, in which South Korea lost 46 navy men, was discovered to be an attack from the North. It was again bringing back the whole struggle between North and South Korea. Actually, for the last few decades, Koreans cannot remember a situation where there was such tension between North and South.

Interestingly enough, the whole 120-day Jeong Seong ceremony ends on June 25th, which in Korea is called Yuk-Ee-Oh (6.25, June 25th), that is the beginning battle of the Korean War. It is the 60th anniversary of Yuk-Ee-Oh jeongjaeng (the Korean War), the war in which North and South fought, killing one another. How coincidental that it is the exact time when the Jeong Seong finishes! Sixty years -- because we gave the dedication with True Parents, Father and Mother, the condition becomes 120. So many things happened here with the South Korean military. We had the opportunity, with Father's great blessing, to meet a monk who opened the doorway to meet the Korean military, preparing the way so we could do the Seunghwa ceremony for the soldiers who have passed and lost their lives in the war. For this, Father had to give special permission, because, as I mentioned, the Seunghwa ceremony is the greatest blessing. It allows one entrance into Heaven, a task which Unificationists must live their whole life of faith to achieve, but Father has given that blessing. Three weeks ago, we went to Daejeon, and for 4,024 Korean patriots who died in the Korean war, we were able to give the Holy Wine Ceremony along with the Seunghwa Ceremony because of Father's blessing. We were able to have great meetings with the current two-star general who was there.

Also, because of this situation, another opportunity has arisen on June 23rd, when we head down and do a Seunghwa Ceremony for over 37,000 American soldiers who lost their lives fighting for this land of Korea. Let's give it up for all those American soldiers who lost their lives to fight for the Holy Land! Father gave an incredible permission this time, to be able to give the Chuk Bok Shik, which is the Holy Wine Ceremony, and the Seung Hwa Shik, which allows them entrance to Heaven. We're so grateful for all those spirits who can now receive that incredible blessing.

It is also the time when, through those connections, the North and South Korean governments gave us permission to send a Unification Church pastor into the military. Until now, when our children went to the military -- because in Korea it is mandatory, all men have to go the military service -- they had no guidance because there was no pastor. Many times, they were alone and were greatly depressed. We have been fighting to get a pastor into the military, but because our Unification Church is still small, we were not able to do so. However, during this incredible time of Jeong Seong, when we were praying for North and South Korea, and when incredible things were opening up on the South Korean side, we were able to send a Unification Church pastor into one of the main training centers, which is called Nonsan training center. Now, when our kids are there, they can receive guidance, they can offer service, they can study True Parents' words, and continue their life of faith in the military when they are giving their service.

It is a year full of worldwide catastrophes. We see the volcano eruptions in Iceland. The first time, the Europeans said they looked into the sky in the broad daylight, and it was dark. There were earthquakes all over the world: in Haiti, Chile, and also in China. For the last hundred years, Korea had never received such an incredible amount of snow. All these incredible natural signs have been culminating at the same time as the 60th anniversary of the North and South Korea conflict. Only during that time, a new conflict arises between North and South, where there is actually an attack on the South.

But I do believe, brothers and sisters, that because True Parents understand the shift of heavenly fortune, they knew that crisis would arrive, that a crisis would occur again between North and South Korea. They called us and told us to give our sincerity, to pray for North and South Korea. They reminded us to center ourselves back on the Word. I believe because they did so, and our brothers and sisters who are participating did so, that we had a minor incident like the Chonan, and we didn't have a full scale war North on South. I believe that our brothers and sisters and leaders who participated in the Jeong Seong were able to protect Korea and be a conditional offering before Heaven, and protect this world from absolute chaos and this nation from war. Let's give it up for our brothers and sisters who are in that Jeong Seong. That's the second purpose of the Cheon Bok Gung, the Abel UN.

Now in the growth stage of the Cheon Bok Gung we have a prayer room which houses the Saints from all religious traditions, but in the perfection stage Temple, that is the worldwide Temple, the world will see True Parents and will know who they are. In that temple, even though it is the Unification Church world headquarters, there will also be a Christian Church, there will be a Catholic Cathedral, there will be a Mosque, and there will be a Buddhist temple in there.

We're not just talking about inter-religious tolerance or peace. In that temple, we'll be living it, we'll be living with those communities, and we'll be creating the new model of peace. We will actually be substantializing the unity of the religions. Let's give it up for the Unification Church! We're not just going to talk about it; we're going to live it! That is the perfected stage Temple. I've been around the world, studying religion, and I have never ever seen such a thing as that. That is the second thing we do at the Cheon Bok Gung.

The third purpose is the substantial foundation for Cheon Il Guk: 21,000 believers at the growth stage, 210 000 believers at the second stage, in the middle of Seoul, to truly create the center where all believers come together, where people who believe in True Parents, who truly want to fight for North and South Korea unity, those people who have discovered who the return of Christ is, come together and start creating the substantial foundation for Cheon Il Guk, not just doing ceremonies, but actually living the life of faith together.

It is my thinking -- I know I cannot read heavenly fortune like True Parents can read it, and I cannot predict these things like they can -- that incredible world change will happen. I do believe, more specifically, that something will happen in a new relationship with North and South Korea. Isn't it ironic, that in this time, when North Korea has cut off every single line of communication around the world with every single government, and every single organization, that only the Unification Church has the final avenue with North Korea? Isn't it ironic that only True Parents now have communication with the North? Isn't it ironic that we're imploring them, through Mr. Park, who is there on the ground, to build North and South unification?

In fact, now many Koreans in the peninsula believe that. The highest monk in Korea, Cha seonsaeng nim, the president of the Chogae order, with 20,000,000 Buddhist followers, came to Cheong Bok Gung last week because he knows, all the Buddhists know, and now the citizens of Korea know, that Tongilgyo is the last avenue of communication to the North. They are begging, they are searching for the Messiah, searching for the Savior, searching for someone who can try to create this peace we all yearn for here on this peninsula. It is my feeling that in 2013, there will be an incredible opening, somehow a new relationship with the North, a new relationship that will bring depression.

Until now, the North has been told that it is the greatest nation in the world, the most powerful nation, but I believe that when the North has a new relationship with the South and actually gets a view of the South, they will face the reality of the situation that they are not very developed in comparison with the world. We have to understand that the North Koreans have incredible patriotism. Their patriotism will collapse, and they will fall into great depression because their self identity as proud North Koreans will crumble before their eyes. There is also the situation where, if 20000,000 North Korean people have to be assimilated with the South, it will be a huge economic burden that the Korean government cannot deal with. This is a situation of great difficulty.

However, when the North realizes the true reality and falls into a state of depression because of losing their own national identity and their sense of self pride as North Koreans, when they feel that kind of depression and emptiness, what can fill that void, who can fill that void? Doing service works, cleaning the streets will not fill that void, that loss of identity that has been totally destroyed. I believe there is one thing that can fill that void and that is the True Parents of Heaven and Earth! That is what I believe, brothers and sisters!

What religion proclaims that the Messiah, the returning Lord, comes from North Korea? There is no other religion that does that. If the North Koreans are going to find hope in a life of faith, wouldn't they find great hope when they discover that the Messiah has come to their land, and has gone to the world and founded the most successful religion in the time of its founder, and created a worldwide foundation? Because of True Parents' foundation, over a hundred thousand brothers and sisters come to the Holy Land, to Korea, every year. Because of True Parents, people around the world want to learn Korean, just like Muslims want to learn Arabic.

When people all around the world who are Unificationists receive the Blessing, we offer thanks and bow to Korea. We offer our great gratitude towards the Holy Land. Who was able to do this as a Korean? If there is anyone that a Korean person can be proud about -- and especially a North Korean can be proud about -- it is the Reverend Sun Myung Moon who is from that nation, who has gone to the world and has brought the True Parents of Heaven and Earth! That is who they will find new hope from!

I believe something of this nature can occur; it is not impossible. We're on the brink of war right now. The tension is immense. Brothers and sisters, True Parents tell us there is a world change happening. We may have the opportunity to communicate with our brothers and sisters in North Korea in a new relationship with them, when they want to learn the faith, and try to find a new identity that can give them even a greater sense of pride -- not arrogance but a new sense of pride of who they are -- a sense of mission and purpose that they lost in facing the reality of their situation as North Korea. It is during this time of Jeong Seong that things are being prepared.

I asked the leaders why True Father is making them center themselves on the word, why he is making them almost professionals of the Principle. It is because, if we have a new relationship with the North, people will want to learn the Principle, and we'll need people who can teach the Principle. We need people who are living the Principle, people who can inspire the life of faith in new members and build them up so that they can be great people and testify about True Parents. That is the reason why I believe True Parents have sent us on this 120-day Jeong Seong offering, which will actually end next week. Let's give it up for all our brothers and sisters who are participating in that! Give them encouragement! It's ending next week!

Even though we are dealing with certain things in our movement now, confusion and such, I'm simply not worried about that because they are based on things that are not eternal. Things that are based on falsehood are not eternal. We don't have to focus on that. We can focus on what is eternal. We can focus on our purpose, on our relationship with God. We can focus on our True Parents who are victorious before Heaven and Earth. We can focus on the mission of North and South Korea and their unity. We can focus on building the Promised Land, building the Kingdom of Cheon Il Guk. These are things we can focus on. These are things we can put our faith and energy into. These are the things that will bring about Cheon Il Guk, not other things. These are things that remain, that are eternal, that are our legacy in the Unification Church.

Let's end with True Parents' final word, which is from the collection of speeches, volume 17, page 227. Let's read together:

"In order to attain the object of your sincerity, your mind must be unified. You must possess a single mind; you cannot have two minds. You must offer your sincerity with a single mind from the beginning to the end. Sincerity is not something you can lend to someone and then take back. Therefore, if your initial sincerity is not matched by equal sincerity in the middle and at the end, it cannot be called sincerity."

Aju!

Final prayer:

Dearest Heavenly Father, we thank You because we need You, we need our True Parents. You are our eternal center; there are no other True Parents than True Parents. There will never be another True Parents, and there will never be a new returning Christ. Father, we pray that we can find this center in this time when many forces are trying to shake the Unification Church. We know and we are confident that we will overcome these storms because we hold the Truth, we hold to what is good.

Although we may not be perfect, we move, we take action in our lives, trying our utmost to represent You with our best ability. Father, we pray during this time that You may be with us, and we may have strength, even though we are weak before Heaven; that You may make us strong; that we can pass through this storm and see the new horizon, the sun that is rising up ahead.

The precarious situation between North and South Korea, this relationship that can escalate into a conflict -- Father we pray that it doesn't get to that level. We pray that the Jeong Seong that our brothers and sisters have offered for the last 120 days can be remembered by Heaven. From now on, we will continue to pray and to work so that the North and the South can come to peace in the Holy Land.

Father, thank You so much. We know You are preparing great things, especially for 2013. We look forward with expectancy, but not foolish expectancy. We want to prepare our life of faith and our study so that we can truly represent You, teach the Principle, move people, and save those people who are so in need of knowing You.

We pray for the North Koreans. We don't want to see them as our enemy. We see them as our brothers and sisters. We pray for the Holy Land, for unity here. Once more, we thank You for all things. We move toward Your light and Your presence forever and ever. Thank you, True Parents and thank You, God. We give all these things in our own name, the names of central blessed families, the name of True Parents. Aju. 

Hyung Jin Nim's Couple Victoriously Complete 8-Day Fast of Repentance and Devotion to God, True Parents and All Members Worldwide

June 14, 2010

Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim pray to end their fast, Cheon Bok Gung Prayer and Devotion Room

Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim pray
to end their fast, Cheon Bok Gung
Prayer and Devotion Room

Hyung Jin nim's couple started fasting from June 7th to June 14th after receiving the June 5th Proclamation given by our True Parents. This fast was dedicated to repentance and devotion to God, True Parents and all members worldwide. It was particularly challenging because he also fulfilled his previously arranged schedule of all meetings and events during the eight days. Throughout the eight days, Hyung Jin nim constantly reminded himself of the difficulties and burdens of our True Parents and all devoted members. This, he says, gave him the strength and determination to successfully complete this offering.

Hyung Jin nim's Jeong Seong was an altruistic expression that took him beyond his own mind-body unity. As before, whenever he made Jeong Seong conditions, he humbled himself and offered greater respect and honor to God and True Parents. His love and heart toward all church members deepened. Hyung Jin nim feels he needs to develop and understand many things. His desire is to attend God and our True Parents eternally and to make a foundation for all people to do the same. He continues to study True Parents' teachings, to attend True Parents and to help members to become proud Unificationists. He is also deeply grateful for the prayers of love and unity many members gave to support his humble offering. 

Special Sermon: International President, Hyung Jin Moon's Speech to the 120-Days Workshop Participants

Hyung Jin Moon
June 13, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung
Yongsan, Seoul Korea

Korean War Military Cemetery in Daejon Korea

Korean War Military Cemetery in Daejon Korea

Yesterday, we traveled to Daejeon to conduct a Seunghwa Ceremony for the 4,024 patriots who lost their lives in the Korean War. With the special amnesty blessing by True Father, the Seunghwa Ceremony for these soldiers who died in defense of Korea was allowed.

I officiated the ceremony in place of True Father, but some amazing military men participated. There was a general in active service, local politicians and regional leaders, and many elder citizens, who had fought in the war, approx. 200-300 took part.

I said to the participants, "I am honored to be able to speak before you, because in Tongil-gyo, we believe that our country is not just a small country in the Orient, but that it is the center of the world. We believe that this country is a holy ground, where the Lord of the Second Advent has come. You fought to defend this country, so I wish to offer you my heartfelt respects. And I offered a bow.

We are grateful that you risked your lives to fight to defend this Fatherland.

After the Seunghwa Ceremony and Holy Wine Ceremony were over, many of the veterans came up to me, saying, "You were raised well by your Father. You were born in America but you studied Korean well, and you were raised in the US but you value Korea well."

I said to that General, "I'm not special. All of our Unificationists are like that. I'm grateful that I can offer a bow to all of you."

Brothers and sisters, why did True Father say to offer the 120-day Jeong Seong condition? Have you thought about it? Already 100 days have passed, but have you thought about this? Why did he gather you from all over the world and say, bring together your Jeong Seong, and return to the principle?

It's quite amazing. This 120-day condition ends on June 25 (the starting day of the Korean War). Your Jeong Seong period ends on 6.25. Do you think True Father looked at a calendar, chose 6.25 and counted 120 days backwards? Why is the day of 6.25 at the end of this Jeong Seong period, and why did the sinking of the Cheonan ship take place during this time? And why are North and South Korea in a situation like the brink of war again?

Why did the explosive events worldwide take place this year -- Iceland's volcanic eruption, the Haiti earthquake, many deaths in Chile? It's like the Last Days. It was the first time that Europe's skies were so dark, in broad daylight.

In Korea as well, there was incredible snowfall. Why have such strange phenomena taken place this year? And during such conditions, why has True Father held numerous Seunghwa Festivals throughout the world, moving on the frontlines, offering Jeong Seong and conditions, and asked all of you to offer the 120-day Jeong Seong as well? These are not coincidences. The heavenly fortune is at an incredible time of risk now. True Father had already felt this, and someone had to be offering Jeong Seong. Is there another church, another religion offering this kind of intensive Jeong Seong at this time?

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 6.25 Korean War. It is exactly the 60th year, and double that is 120. When offering Jeong Seong, it's not just True Father, but True Mother also offers it together. So 60 doubled is 120, as True Parents are one.

If during this period, we had not offered our sincerity, and the world leaders and public office holders of the church worldwide had not come here to hear God's words, there was the possibility that an incident much more serious than the Cheonan ship accident would have taken place. If someone had not become an offering before heaven, had not set up new conditions centered on God's word, it would have been difficult to move together with heaven's fortune.

Do you understand the meaning of this? Because of the Jeong Seong conditions, North and South did not have to enter into war. The reason why a war did not erupt between North and South Korea, was because of the Jeong Seong conditions set by True Father.

Please understand this. Why do we want all of you to become experts of the Principle? When True Father speaks about January 13, 2013, please believe in it. At that time, he said an incredible change will come about in the world, and that Cheon Il Guk will become established, so please believe that. True Father said that at that time, a great transition will take place in the world, and as True Father already knows where heaven's fortune lies, amazing things will occur. I myself am not able to see this heavenly fortune, so I will just feel it. At that time, a truly amazing incident will occur. Especially, a great event related to North-South unification will occur.

Brothers and sisters, our country is now at the brink of war. It's possible that North and South will again enter into war. North Korea is only a few hundred kilometers away, so it's possible that in an instant, half of Seoul will disappear.

It's quite amazing that we are almost at war. When this issue of North-South unification arises, people will come to seek for the savior. When a country is happy and rich, we live easily and don't seek for a savior. But when war is at hand, a savior who can solve this problem quickly is needed. All of us are searching for the Messiah.

Many years ago, True Father said, that one day, people will flock to the Unification Church. One day, all religious leaders will come to the Church, and even if we build a wall to keep them out, they'll climb over it to join the Unification Church. Now, because Korea is faced with possible war, all are looking for someone who can resolve the situation. Today, the South Korean government and the North Korean government are not communicating; the Lee Myung Bak government isn't communicating with the North. Hyundai, Samsung, and other organizations have been kicked out by the North. Who is the only person with a connection to the North now? The Lord of the Second Advent. The only person in the world, who still has a connection with North Korea.

Next Friday, the Venerable Rev. Jaseung of the Buddhist Chogye Sect with 20 million followers will visit the Cheon Bok Gung. He is the current Secretary General and one of the top leaders of Korean Buddhism. The top monks and their staff will visit the Unification Church Headquarters Church. We've had Christian ministers visit us also. Last week, two Christian ministers came to visit. They are watching how we will solve this issue. Last week, several monks also visited, and through one of them, Rev. Peoban, we came to organize the Seunghwa Ceremony for the war veterans.

Rev. Peoban built over 130 monuments for Korean soldiers who fought for our country. He is closely connected with the military because of the soldiers, and because of him, the Wonbul-gyo (one Korean Buddhist sect) was able to enter the military. This time, this Rev. Peoban set the Unification Church Seunghwa Ceremony completely at the center! An active two-star general and current politicians also attended. In the next two months, over 2,000 Korean veterans who live overseas will be visiting Korea to attend this special Seunghwa Ceremony.

We will be offering prayers nationwide for all of these people. The military approved that these events proceed centered on the Tongil-gyo (Unificationist) Seunghwa Ceremony. A Buddhist representative of the Wonbul-gyo sect is now allowed into the military as a pastor, and this time, a Unificationist pastor has been allowed into the military at, I believe the Nonsan training center for Korean soldiers. It's the first time in history that a Unificationist pastor will be accepted by the military.

Why are these things happening? During this Jeong Seong period, why did the North Korean incident take place, why are religious leaders visiting and why is the chief monk of all Korean Buddhists visiting the Unification Church headquarters Church? Why, after the Seunghwa Ceremony was allowed, has it already penetrated into the military? Why are past war veterans receiving the Seunghwa Ceremony? We have to open our spiritual eyes. These incredible events are all taking place during the Jeong Seong period that True Father has set.

I am feeling this spiritually, that at this time, whether we will have North-South unification or not, a very great opportunity will come. And the 20 million people of the North will enter into a certain new relationship with Korea, and they will witness how much greater South Korea is, compared to the North. They will fall into great despair, and feel isolated. Throughout their lives, they believed in Kim Il Sung, and that North Korea was the best in the world, but now, when they further their relations with the South, they see that they were nothing. And then 20 million people will experience a deep identity crisis. The people of the North are very patriotic. Isn't that so? Probably more so than the South Koreans. Having lost their identity and feeling totally isolated, what kind of faith, what kind of religion do you think will fill their heart?

For the Christians, it was the Messiah from the Middle East, India for the Buddhists, the Middle East for Islam. The Lord of the Second Advent who was born in North Korea, and brought followers from the whole world. When they hear that millions are now facing North Korea, True Father's homeland and offering bows, the passionate patriotism of the North Koreans and their sense of lost identity will come together, they will know that True Parents are the Lord of the Second Advent born from our country, that the center of the world is our country, and that the center of the heart of all the cosmos is the Korean peninsula. The passion of the 20 million, and their patriotism that died and was reborn will become one with faith. Even if not all 20 million will, even two million or 10% will come to think in this way.

Japanese members must know -- the faith of Japanese members is extremely strong. When you go to a Unification Church in Japan, their faith is incredible. They witness, witness, witness every single day.

What I feel is that if North Korea comes to know True Parents, think about what will happen to Leader Kim Jong Il? Didn't President Gorbachev become a Catholic? He became someone who believed in God. If Leader Kim Jong Il had to choose a religion, do you think he'll choose to become a Catholic? Italy? Or do you think he will choose Tongilgyo, who can help illuminate North Korea? We'll be able to see firsthand the history of King Constantine.

Then, if two million people come to truly believe in True Parents, and their hot patriotism and passionate faith wanting to testify to the Lord become one, two million will become missionaries, and if their lost identity and lonely hearts can be filled with the love of True Parents completely, they will become warriors for True Parents. I believe they will go out into the world, and produce amazing spiritual works to establish Cheon Il Guk.

When crowds of people become Unificationists in this way, won't we have to be teachers? We will need people who live centered on the Principle, who offer Jeong Seong centered on the Principle. True Father taught you to return to Jeong Seong, spirituality and True Father's words during this 120-day Jeong Seong, didn't he?

Against this backdrop, the North-South issue, the incident that almost brought about war erupted. Heaven's fortune is beginning to change. The final path connected to North Korea, is our Lord. Why at this time does True Father write as the title of the Seunghwa Festivals, that South Korea is the Cheon Il Guk? South Korea is the completion of Cheon Il Guk.

Because we are at such a time, let's go forward with True Parent's words, before True Parents, believing in True Parents. We did not know about this kind of heavenly fortune.

I also repented from my heart. I didn't know this content. I just went ahead without knowing, but such events kept occurring and so I was wondering about them. How can it be that the last day of this Jeong Seong period falls on the day the Korean War began? When True Father says that a great global transition will take place in 2013, this is no joke.

Especially at this time, we have to offer Jeong Seong, we have to pray so that all people can become one with True Parents. We are all sinners, and we were forgiven before True Parents, so we must repent and offer Jeong Seong for their glory.

Let's all return glory to True Parents at this time. What is your greatest responsibility? Your second? Third responsibility? To return glory to True Parents, and there is nothing else.

This is what I always speak about. We all will come and go. We are not eternal. I say this to our 2nd generation too. They will be happy if they hear that the age of the 2nd gen is here. I'm sorry, but there is no age of the 2nd gen, nor the age of the 3rd gen, or the 4th gen, or the 100th gen. There is only the age of the True Parents. We must know this clearly.

Christians don't say, now that our elders have left, it's the age of the 2nd gen. No Christian talks in this way. It was Jesus' spiritual love and the works of the Holy Spirit that dominated Christian history.

Jesus' love is eternal, for every generation. The love of the Lord was the center. It's the same with our 2nd gen. When a 1st gen gets old, he may become a Unification Church leader, but it's different for the 2nd gen.

If that 2nd gen doesn't believe in True Parents, there is no value, and if s/he is not a Unification Church member, there is no value. If the person doesn't believe in True Parents as the Messiah, doesn't know the love of True Parents and does not repent, there is no value… no use. We are in that kind of an age, and we must know this clearly. There is no era of the 2nd gen or the 3rd gen, only the era of the eternal True Parents. Our eternal king is the True Parents, our eternal parents are the True Parents.

There is nothing else. So, in the future there will be tons of 2nd gen Unification Church members, but there is no such thing as the Unification Church era of the 2nd gen. 2nd gen should know that if they don't believe in the True Parents, they are not Unification Church members. Some 2nd gen go against True Parent's words and don't listen to them. Such people cannot be called Unification Church members. The first criterion is faith.

It's whether you believe True Parents saved me or not. That is the basic standard of the Cheon Il Guk citizen. If you believe that, how you are living, whether you are making constant effort to practice the love of giving no matter how many times you die… even if not perfect, always trying to practice this. Have you come to hate the sin you've loved until today? Through your encounter with True Parents, through faith centered on God's word, have you come to hate the sin you loved? Am I now living a life of repentance? This is the basic standard.

Isn't that so, as a Unification Church leader? Our senior members, isn't that so? Are you living in that way? It's exactly the same with 2nd gen Unification Church members also. It is not that we can go before True Parents because we don't have original sin. Absolutely not that we can go to heaven because we don't have original sin. What True Father says is, it's absolute faith, love and obedience. We may have official positions but we are human, so, of course, we waver at times, and there are difficulties. To sort out those difficulties always, repent and try to live in that way is the training of our lives. That is Jeong Seong. And that is our joy. Please don't make a mistake. If you think this is suffering, then it is not love for True Parents. If you love True Parents, and if you know that they have given to us even if they've had to die and die and die for us, then it becomes a joy to constantly repent, offer bows and gratitude.

But if you think that is suffering, then you can never become a Unification Church leader. We are not able to repay our debt no matter what we do, so instead, the more we offer repentance and gratitude, this becomes our joy. If we really love True Parents, trying to pay back even a little of what we owe them, that will become evident in our life. It will clearly show in our life.

Are we living a life of Jeong Seong and repentance? Have we come to hate the sin we used to love? Are we always making effort to resemble True Parents? We will never be able to become the True Parents. There is only one Messiah, and we are not the savior, nor are we God's perfect offering. So, our efforts to resemble True Parents should be evident in our life.

We want to always be with people who try to lead that kind of life. We want to be with people who believe in the True Parents, love and repent. Or do you want to be with those who constantly argue and complain? Do you want to be with secular people? Then, we can see where our heart is. That is a test of our faith that everyone can see.

The more we resemble the love of True Parents, the more we should pursue the great love of the parents. We should try, offer Jeong Seong and try to resemble them. As we try to constantly seek for true love, we will begin to hate sin more and more. That sin is what builds a wall before the love of God and separates people, so when we see this sin, we hate it. We must love others constantly. Brothers and sisters, we must love the person we hate the most in this world. That is truly the right thing to do.

At this moment, we must hate the sin within us, we should witness to others, and love them so that they can repent before True Parents, and remove their sins. They are not able to stand before God and True Parents, so as missionaries, we should love all people and help them remove their sins, guide them to the way of repentance.

We should become those with faith, who take initiative to practice the way of repentance. Then, at the same time, our guests, or 2nd gen who have left the church but want to return, can learn to live the life of repentance from us, with joy, and come to know the True Parents. When they repent and learn to remove their sins, we can also feel their liberation together. We should become people with that kind of faith. 

We Need the Savior

Hyung Jin Moon
June 12, 2010
Chung Pyung
To Japanese Leaders
Chung Pyung Heaven and Earth Training Center translation

True Parents give us True Life, True Love and True Lineage and then our responsibility is to give them Absolute Faith, Love, and Obedience and we all fail at that to certain degrees during our life of faith. And if we look at our lives we will notice that actually that we are not perfect either, that we all have sin.

We may not have the original sin due to True Parents' Blessing, but we have collective sin, hereditary sin, and individual sin, which we accumulate on a daily basis. So, one of the things that we must remember is that we are sinners. I think our members and churches have forgotten this fact. We have forgotten that we are sinners. We have forgotten to teach our children that they are sinners as well, that they can accumulate all sorts of sins. The reason why this is so important is because if you realize that you are a sinner then you realize that you need a savior. If you don't feel that you are a sinner you will believe that you don't need a savior.

Do we truly desire and truly understand that we need True Parents? We need the savior and I think this is very basic of knowing that we all have tremendous amounts of sins. Without understanding this point, one does not understand or does not feel the importance to pursue the Messiah, to pursue the life of faith with all their heart. And this is really important. It's only when we understand that we have sin and make sin everyday. We do sinful actions everyday, every single one of us here are sinners, including myself.

First generation never told us that we were sinners. That we need a Messiah. First generation never educated us, that we were sinners. So this was a very big thing for me to realize, so I asked True Father, when he was doing the Seunghwa Ascension Ceremony Tour in Korea, we were having lunch in one of the cities, and I asked him 'Father, just because I am a blessed child and do not have the original sin does that mean I can go to heaven?' and he said, 'Absolutely not.'

See, we as blessed children have been told that we are without the original sin. That we are God's greatest creation. That the providential history has been waiting for pure children like us. The problem with that kind of education is it makes us very arrogant. Makes us very spiritual arrogant, but then we don't have the ability then to see that we are filled with flaws, filled with sin and if you believe that you don't have sin, and then you will also believe that you don't need True Parents. And this is the reason why many Blessed Children turns their back on True Parents. Saying, I don't need them, I'm going to heaven anyways.

So this is something that we must fundamentally understand again. Whether you are Blessed Child or Jacob child, doesn't matter, we have to realize that we commit all sorts of offenses against heaven everyday. You will be quite shocked if you actually take notes of yourself, from your thoughts, words and actions, for one single day on how much you have trespassed God's command. This is very important for us, because it's only when we recognize in humility the fact that we are not perfect and we lean and yearn for the one who is perfect and that is God and His embodiment which is True Parents.

Once we realize what the savior has done for us then we wish to offer our life in return because that is exactly what True Parents have done for us. The only reason why we can stand in front of God is not because we are born as Blessed Children or without the original sin it is because True Parents paid the price of the indemnity course that they had to walk as a Second Coming. If we don't realize this we will be filled with spiritual hubris. We will believe that we do not need True Parents we do not need their commands or we do not need to follow them and that will lead to the tremendous suffering everywhere.

One of the things that I feel that our church has been completely lacking is that we have shied away. We have now been scared to talk about sin, when sin is so prevalent in the Divine Principle. When you look at the principle sin is everywhere. The rubric about sin, the needing of True Parents, the types of sin that have accumulated over the past Providential History and the rubric of personal sin that we accumulate against heaven. This is so basic.

Brothers and sisters, we have shied away from this because we think that this is very negative, that we think it will not raise a positive child. That has the opposite result, because we took out the rubric of sin we have a situation where young people believe that they are more perfect than they are. This is very dangerous before heaven. Because before heaven we have to have humility, we have to have repentance, we have to have confessing of our sin, realizing our weakness, because it's only the weak that God chooses to turn into the strong, it's not the strong that God uses, neither it's not those who believe that they are so powerful.

It's so important to realize that we do need True Parents. We do need God, it is not an option. We cannot go this path alone only with the ability of the first generation, second generation or even all the way to the thousandth and millionth generation. The only rock that we have, that will change the world is True Parents. Aju!

No generation can replace the True Parents. That has to be very clear. None. I don't care how great they are. No one walked through the course of lord of the Second Advent. No one paid the indemnity to the stages of the individual, family, tribes, society, nations and the world cosmos to the servant of servants. Nobody has paid the indemnity, nobody has died seven times to pay for the indemnity that has been accumulating over history. But True Parents had to go through this course, to fulfill all the eight stages, and so we have to realize that no generation in the future can pretend to be True Parents.

This has to be very clear because the absolute center of the unification movement, is True Parents. This religion has become the most successful religion at the time of the founder and it has spread more and more. But it will never succeed and flourish if we forget this point that it's all about True Parents. It's not about us.

It's about each generation inheriting True Love, the sacrificial love that True Parents have practiced. Each generation going back and trying to inherit that love of the parent which will die and die again for the children. Do you see what I mean? It's not about pretending we are the next generation which will inherit it all. This is a wrong thinking. So we must be very clear, our eternal center is True Parents. There is no one like True Parents, they have walked through the courses of history to fulfill the mission of Jesus to actually become those who have liberated God himself. So that God can dwell in the physical world in the body of True Parents.

There is only one the Second Coming of Christ. There is only one that is the Messiah. There is only one who paid this indemnity for the sins of all humankind in history, there is only one who has paid the price for us, our families, our grandchildren, our tribes and our nations, to be worthy to go before God.

Once you believe in True Parents you realize they are your lord and savior. They are your True Parents, who have died and died so, an unworthy sinner like myself could go before God. When you realize that you have that kind of parent, then you don't take them for granted. You wish to offer yourself to them, as they have offered themselves to you.

When we say we believe in our True Parents it must arise in our life. In doing so I have four ways that I always tell people to reflect themselves whether they are on the right track.

First, you can check yourself asking, am I repenting everyday? Do I carry out a life of repentance? Do I understand my unworthiness before the perfection of God? Do I repent at all? Not repenting in pain, suffering and in torture but do I repent with joy? Do I have the ability to see that I am flawed and to come honestly in front of True Parents and to repent? Am I living a life of repentance?

Second, do I hate all sins? Including the sins I thought so casually about. Those small things that you probably thought is so tiny that even True Parents would forgive. Now I hate these things and must hate it with all my heart.

You see, because God is love He must hate. People really mix up about this. God is love so He cannot hate me. Unfortunately, because God is love, sin cannot go near Him. Evil cannot go near Him because there is no evil in love. There is no sin in love, no false in love, no infidelity in love, and no adultery in love. So because God is love, He hates sin, adultery, and infidelity. Do we hate the sins that we used to think so casually about?

Now do we feel the chastising of the Holy Spirit and the spirit world upon us? Now do we feel the weight of the spirit world watching and judging us? Do you live like that? As members of the Unification Church do we live like that?

A third would be the friends and people that I choose to associate. We may associate just with the people who make us feel good whom we want to be with for a good time.

But when you have changed, and realized that True Parents have saved you and now you don't want to spend time with those kinds of people. You don't want to spend time with them. You want to spend time with people who love True Parents whole heartedly, who will die for True Parents, and who will sacrifice everyday for True Parents. You want to be with people who are fighting for True Parents, witnessing for True Parents. You start loving those people of faith. Because you look up to them and feel the realness of their life.

The fourth point is, when I was young boy, we used to go to Gloucester with True Parents, that's on a beach ocean side. When we were around four years or five yeas old, True Father felt so big like a giant. When he walked on the sand, we could see his powerful footprints in the sand. And then we as young children, we try to always walk into those footprints, try to copy him. Trying to follow his footsteps. But Because of course we are too small, our legs are not that long, we can't do it. So as we reach we fall down.

But this is the last point, do we strive? Even though we will never be like True Parents, do we strive like that pure innocent little child, that tries to follow the footsteps, do we strive? Even though we stumble and are not perfect, do we endlessly try to inherit their heart?

Now remember what is their heart? Their heart is a True Parent. What is a heart of a True Parent? The heart of a True Parent is a heart that will die and die, so that the children maybe saved. Do we realize this? Do we live our life of faith, checking ourselves on these training points? Or do we just go by our work. This is so important. Because we don't realize it even though we are leaders and we have people following us we are still sinners. Do we realize this?

If you realize you are a sinner, I want you to raise your hand. I raise my hand with you. You see, this is why we need True Parents. This is why we have to understand even though we don't have the original sin, we still have so many infidelities before Heaven. And as leaders this is so important because, we must always reflect on ourselves.

We must always look at ourselves. Because the real cause of the fall before it was the fall of Adam and Eve, it was the infidelity of Lucifer the arrogance the hubris that lead to disobedience. And this is something that we must always be reminded in our life of faith.

Just because we are leaders in the unification church, there is no guarantee, just because you are Blessed Family or Blessed Child there is no guarantee that you are able to go to heaven. No guarantee. In fact amongst the leaders in this room, who, who can go before the perfection of God? None of us. We will immediately be repelled.

True Parents says that God does not have to judge us. What does that mean? Does that means we can live as we want? Quite the contrary. God doesn't have to judge us because He is love. He is goodness.

So if we are evil or even if we have a little bit of sin, we will be repelled. We naturally are pushed away.

So brothers and sisters in this time of confusion and challenge you must remember that we have one rock. And as leaders of unification church we have one purpose. That is to bring glory to True Parents.

You know, we try to in our utmost effort, to dissolve. We are like the little children who are imperfect trying to follow the footsteps, but that continual effort that continual perseverance is what is important. Not only the effort but also to actualize what True Parents have set the foundation for, so we must also create the resolved that True Parents have set the 95% foundation for.

Brothers and sisters I pray that you may realize that we are sinners. Don't be arrogant and say you are going to sin more but realize you are a sinner that you hate this sin. We want to do everything to get rid of it.

When you realize you are a sinner you end up hating the sin. And you do all that you can do to try to walk more accordance with True Parents. So that you do not accumulate that kind of sin and you repent so that you can be forgiven for that sin.

Brothers and sisters, we all must do this. We must all realize this and practice it. If we do that then God can be pleased with us when we enter Heaven. He can bless us with greater ability and strength. I believe that if we do this in our nations and center our selves on True Parents and their teachings, continuously hold on to True Parents, this is the saving grace, for your countries and for the world. Aju!

So I hope that we can reflect on such things and we can go back with a true heart to our nations or states. And really make a difference with True Parents. They have really done the impossible. Now it's our turn to completely become one serving our True Parents forever, continue to do what is impossible. 

Speech to National Leaders

Hyung-Jin Moon
June 12, 2010
Chung Pyung

Brothers and Sisters from around the world, it is again a pleasure to see you all here at Chung Pyung. I am sure that a lot of you have actually heard rumors or whatever, surrounding certain issues in our church, which are causing confusion in different regions. [Hyun Jin Moon's visit Brazil] And you probably even saw stuff on the Internet. But I am sure you did not see this in so much detail.

The fact of the matter is though; True Parents have been suffering greatly over the past 15 plus months. On many occasions, as all of you who are with True Parents during Hoon Dok Hae know, Parents very strongly said, even many times, to take legal action. And I and Kook-jin nim, we went to Parents multiple times, and we begged them to please give a little more time, before we do such things.

So it may seem to our worldwide membership that this is very sudden, but actually for the past 15 plus months True Parents have been suffering through this ordeal. I am sure that you all know that the real reason that True Parents are going to Las Vegas is because they are, of course, trying to meet their son [Hyun Jin Nim]. So it is actually a very painful situation for all of us in the Unification Church. Anybody that has to be in leadership, and especially in the True Family, especially True Parents, this is absolutely heart-breaking.

So I think that we all have to remember where our faith is at the center. True Parents give us life, true love and true lineage; and then our responsibility is to give them absolute faith and love and obedience. We all fail at that to certain degrees during our life of faith. And if we look at our lives, we will notice that actually we are not perfect either; that we all have sinned. We may not have Original Sin, due to True Parents blessing, but we do have collective sin, we do have hereditary sin, and we do have individual sin, which we accumulate on a daily basis every day. So, one of the things that we must remember is that we are sinners.

I think our members in this church have forgotten this fact. We have forgotten that we are sinners. We have forgotten to teach our children that they are sinners as well; and that they accumulate all sorts of sin. And the reason why this is important is because, if you realize that you are a sinner, then you realize that you need a Savior. If you don't feel that you are a sinner, you will believe that you do not need a Savior, and that you do not need to meet the returning Christ. It is only when we have the humility to recognize that we also have sinned, do we truly desire, and truly understand that we need True Parents. We need the Savior. And I think this is very basic not only in Christianity or in Islam, but also in Buddhism; it is very basic that we all have tremendous amounts of sin.

Without understanding this point, one does not understand, or does not feel the impetus to pursue the Messiah; to pursue the life of faith with all their heart. And this is really important. It is only when we understand that we have sin that every day we make sin; every day. We do sinful actions every day, every single one of us here are sinners, including myself.

You know, when I was in high school I did not date, and I did not have a girlfriend, I did not smoke or drink, I did not do drugs, so I followed True Parents rules; and so thus I believed I was worthy of respect; members had to respect me, even though I was quite a terrible person. I was quite an arrogant little high schooler, a bully. I learned martial arts, so the kids were scared of me. So even though I followed True Parents mandates; still I was sinning, because I was so arrogant. I was filled with hubris. I believed that because I did not commit those sins, I did not have girlfriends, I did not drink or smoke, or I did not have drug problems that members automatically had to respect me and that they should greet me by bowing when I came in the room, just because I followed those precepts.

But that in and of itself was completely arrogant and in and of itself was sin. I never realized that until I really started training, pursuing a spiritual path. I realized how much I had sinned even though I had fulfilled the basic precepts of our church, which we tell our blessed kids.

This is very important to realize because a lot of us, as blessed children, we've never heard that we are sinners. First generation never told us we were sinners, that we are sinners, that we need a Messiah. First generation never educated us that we were sinners. So this was a very big thing for me to realize. So I asked True Father when he was here doing the Seunghwa Ascension Ceremony Tour in Korea. We were having lunch at one of the cities and I asked him, "Father, just because I am a blessed child and do not have original sin does that mean I can go to Heaven?" And he said, "Absolutely not."

We, as blessed children, have been told that we are without original sin, that we are God's greatest creation; that His whole providential history has been waiting for pure children like us. But the problem with that type of education is that it makes us very arrogant. It makes us very spiritually arrogant and we don't have the ability then to see that we are filled with flaws, filled with sin. If you believe that you do not have sin, then you also believe that you do not need True Parents. This is the reason why many blessed children turn their backs on True Parents saying, "I don't need them, I'm going to Heaven anyway."

So this is something that we must fundamentally understand again. Whether you're a blessed child or a Jacob child, it doesn't matter. We have to realize that we commit all sorts of offenses against Heaven every day, from our thoughts to our words to our actions. It is because we have so much. If you actually watch your life and you see how many trespasses you make against God's commands in one single day and you take note, you would be quite shocked. But this is very important for us because it's only when we recognize in humility the fact that we are not perfect, where we lean and we yearn for the one who is perfect; and that is God and His embodiment which is True Parents.

So this is very important; once we understand we have sin, once we understand we are sinners before Heaven, and once we understand that True Parents, through their life course, through enduring the seven deaths that they had to go through, spiritually descended into hell so that they could save our souls. When we understand the price that had to be paid, then we too wish to give back to True Parents. Not just in monetary or physical things but we wish to give our life. Once we realize what the savior has done for us, then we wish to offer our life in return because that is exactly what the True Parents have done for us.

The only reason we can stand before God, is not because we're born as blessed children or we're born without original sin. That is not the reason. It is because of True Parents paying the price, the indemnity course that they had to walk as the Second Coming that we are able to go before God. This is so important for us to realize and remember. Because if we don't realize this, we will be filled with hubris and we will believe that we do not need True Parents or that we do not need their commands, or that we do not need to follow their will. That will lead to tremendous suffering everywhere.

So one of the things that I feel our church has been completely lacking is that we have shied away, we have been scared to talk about sin: When, actually, sin is so prevalent in the Divine Principle. When you look at the Principle, sin is everywhere; The rhetoric about sin, the rhetoric about needing the True Parents, the rhetoric about the types of sin that have accumulated over the past providential history; The rhetoric of personal sin that we commit against Heaven. This is so basic. But brothers and sisters, we have shied away from this because we think that it's very negative or we think that it's not going to raise positive children.

Brothers and sisters, it has the opposite result because we took out the rhetoric of sin. We have a situation which can occur which is young people that believe they are more perfect than they are, and that is very dangerous before Heaven. Because before Heaven we have to have humility, we have to have repentance. We have to have confessing of our sin, realizing my weakness. Because it is only the weak that God chooses to become strong, to turn into the strong. It's not the strong that God uses. It's not those who believe that they are so powerful that God uses. God always uses those who are inadequate in some way.

You know through providential history that Moses was a murderer; that he could not even speak, that he had a terrible stutter. Joseph was a criminal placed in jail. All the providential figures you look at. Jesus was a beggar or weak. You look at all the providential figures. But they have one thing. That is not arrogance before God. Because it's through our disposition of surrender that God makes us strong that makes us able to do more than we are actually physically able to do on our own ability.

Dear brothers and sisters, this is so very important at this time because we really deeply need the Messiah; we need the True Parents. We cannot walk this path all alone. We absolutely need the True Parents.

If we think we could do this alone, that is the hubris of the first Archangel that betrayed God, Lucifer, whose name actually has the good meaning of being the bearer of light. Lucifer was filled with talent. He was the best among the archangels. He had the greatest name which God had bestowed upon him. But he did not have humility. He had hubris and that led him to disobedience. And it is hubris which leads us to belief that we do not need God. Therefore, for us it is very important to realize that we do need True Parents -- we do need God!

It is not an option. We cannot walk this path alone on the ability of the first generation, or the second generation -- even all the way up to the one-thousand-millionth generation. It does not matter. We cannot walk this path alone. The only rock we have and which will change the world is the rock that is True Parents! Aju! This is what we have to realize. I often tell blessed children, "You may often hear that now is the age of the second generation, that then there will be the age of the third, then fourth generation," but I tell them, "I am sorry, my friend, that is wrong. There is no age of the second or third generation. There is only the eternal age of the True Parents. Aju!

This is very important for us to realize. No generation can replace the True Parents. That has to be very clear. No one, and I do not care how great they are, has walked the course of the Lord of the Second Advent. No one has paid the indemnity through the stages of the individual, the family, the tribe, the society, the nation and the cosmos, from the servant of the servant, then to the servant, to the adopted stepson, to the real son, to mother and father and then to God.

Nobody has walked that course, nobody has paid that indemnity and nobody has died seven times to pay the indemnity for the sin that has been accumulated over history. Even Jesus died once and was resurrected. But True Parents had to go through the course to fulfill all of the eight stages. Therefore, we have to realize that no generation in the future can pretend to be in the position of True Parents. It has to be very clear because of the absolute center of this Unification Movement: True Parents.

The Unification Church, in this very short period of time, has become the most successful religion at the time of its founder. And it will spread more and more and become the most successful religion in the world. Watch it. But it will never succeed and flourish if we forget this point. It is all about True Parents. It is not about us. It is not about the next generation, or the thirties generation -- it is not about them. It is about each generation inheriting the true love, the sacrificial love that True Parents have lived.

Each generation has to keep going back and trying to inherit that love from the True Parents, a love which will die, and die, and die, and die, and die, and die and die again for the children. Do you see what I mean? It's not about pretending that we are the next generation which will inherit it all. This is wrong thinking. So we must be very clear. Our eternal center is True Parents. Our eternal King of Kings is True Parents. There is no one like True Parents. They walked the course of history to fulfill the mission of Jesus. They actually became the ones who have liberated God Himself so that God can dwell in the physical world, in the body of True Parents.

It is very important for us to realize that we can never be like True Parents. We are ontologically different. It is a very fancy theological world. We are different beings. And this goes for all people, including True Children. I think True Children are making mistakes at times and we as well are ontologically different to True Parents. We cannot be True Parents! We cannot! Father may bestow all the titles on me. But I am not True Parents and I will never be True Parents. I am not the Lord of the Second Advent. I am not the Second Coming of Christ. There is only one who is the Second Coming of Christ. There is only one who is the Messiah and there is only one who has paid indemnity for the sins of all of human kind and history. There is only one who has paid the price for us, our families, our grandchildren, our tribes and our nations to be worthy to go before the throne of God.

Father may call us tribal messiahs or national messiahs, but we must not confuse this. This does not mean we are The Messiah! Yes? We know this, right? We are not The Messiah! This is very important for us to realize, because when we walk a life of faith, we have to come into the path of humility, otherwise we become obscured and obstructions arise. All sorts of confusions will arise. All sorts of temptations will arise; temptations, weaknesses that we have. Whether it is lust or craving or greed or jealousy; these things will become greater if we don't have the discipline of humbling ourselves, the discipline of training ourselves continuously. Once you believe in True Parents you realize that they are your Lord and Savior. They are your True Parents who have died and died so an unworthy sinner like me can go before God. When you realize that you have that kind of parent, then you don't take them for granted. You wish to offer yourself to them as they have offered themselves to you.

So one of the things that results is this -- just because we claim to believe True Parents this does not mean we actually do believe True Parents. We always have to be careful of this. If we claim to believe in True Parents, if we claim to see them, serve them, offer them glory and happiness as the returning Christ, the perfected man and woman, Adam and Eve, the True Parents of Heaven and Earth and the King of Kings; if we say we do this then it must arise in our life. You must be able to see it in your life.

So when I train my Hoonsa nims, I always tell them, you check yourself. There's four ways you can check yourself. Always watch yourself. There's four ways. There are four basic ways you can watch yourself.

Number one: You can watch yourself, asking, "Am I repenting every day? Am I repenting every day? Do I carry out a life of repentance? Do I understand my unworthiness before the perfection of God? Do I repent at all? Do I repent every day? Not in suffering, not repenting in pain and suffering, and in torture, but do I repent with joy? Do I have the ability to see that I am flawed and come honestly before True Parents and repent? Am I living a life of repentance?" You know this is so important. This is the basic training we do; devotion of training every morning from meditation training to bows. The center of this is repentance.

Second: The sins that I thought so casually about. I used to think, "Oh, True Parents saved me; I have no original sin, they'll forgive this little sin. They'll forgive me here; they'll forgive this little sin." I thought so casually about it. Now when I see those things, I hate them. I hate them with all my heart. You see, because God is love, He must hate [sin]. People really are mixed up about this. God is love so He cannot hate me. I am sorry because God is love, sin cannot go near Him. Evil cannot go near Him; because there is no evil in love. There is no sin in love, there is no falsehood in love, there is no infidelity in love, and there is no adultery in love.

So because God is love, He hates sin, He hates adultery, He hates infidelity. And so in our life, the sins that we thought so casually about, now do we hate. Now do we feel the chastising of the Holy Spirit of the spirit world upon us when we commit those sins which we usually thought so casually about? Now do we feel the weight of the spirit world watching and judging us? Do you live like that? As leaders of the Unification Church, do we live like that?

A third would be the friends that I choose to associate with. Maybe we associated just with people who made us feel good. We want to really be with them, people who just give us a good time. We want to be with those kinds of people, more secular people, but when you change, when you realize that True Parents have saved you, you don't want to spend time with those kind of people. You don't want to spend time with them. You want to spend time with people who love True Parents wholeheartedly, who would die for True Parents, who sacrifice every day for True Parents. You want to be with people who are fighting for True Parents, witnessing for True Parents. You start loving those people of faith, because you look up to them, you feel the realness of their life.

You know, it's very sad because I see a lot of Japanese missionaries who go to different countries, and they are many times ridiculed because they have such a powerful faith. And it's a very sad thing. They're ridiculed because they're too intense. Too intense. But that's what I'm talking about; these Japanese members who have absolute faith in True Parents, who would sacrifice and sacrifice -- when we see them in our nations, do we ridicule them? Do we, in our hearts say, "They are too much," or do we want to be with them at all times because we can learn and grow? You see? That's the difference.

And the fourth point is: when I was a young boy we used to go to Gloucester with True Parents -- that's on the beach, ocean side -- and True Father, when we were very small, five years old, four years old, and for us, we are very tiny and True Father was so big, like a giant, he was so large, like a giant. And when he walked on the sand we could see his footprints in the sand. We could see his powerful and True-Father-like footprints in the sand. And then we, as young children, we tried to always walk in those footsteps, tried to copy him, and stepped in those footprints; but because of course we are too small and our legs are not that long, we can't do it. So as we reached we would fall down and we stumbled, etc.

But this is the last point: do we strive even though we will never be like True Parents? Do we strive like the pure, innocent little child that tries to follow the footsteps? Do we strive even though we stumble and even though we're not perfect and we fall and stumble? Do we endlessly try to inherit their heart? And remember, what is their heart? Their heart is of a True Parent. What is the heart of a True Parent? The heart of a True Parent is a heart that will die, and die, and die, and die, and die, so that their children may be saved. Do we realize this? Do we live our life of faith checking ourselves on these training points, or do we just go about our work?

You see, this is so important, because we will realize that even though we are leaders, and we have people following us, we are still sinners. Do we realize this? If you realize you are a sinner -- I want you to raise your hand if you realize you are a sinner -- raise your hand; if you have sin, raise your hand. I raise my hand with you. You see? This is why we need True Parents. This is why we have to understand that, even though we don't have original sin, we still have so many infidelities before heaven. And as leaders this is so important because we must always reflect on ourselves. We must always look at ourselves. Because the real cause of the fall, before it was the fall of Adam and Eve, and the lineage fall, it was an infidelity of Lucifer, arrogance, hubris, which led to disobedience. And this is something that we must always keep in our life of faith; this is so central to our life of faith in True Parents.

Just because we are leaders in the Unification Church there is no guarantee; just because you are a blessed family or a blessed child there is no guarantee that you will be able to go to heaven, to the place near God. No guarantee; in fact, amongst the leaders in this room, who can go before the perfection of God? None of us. We will be immediately repelled. God doesn't have to judge us; see, True Parents say that God does not have to judge us. That is so striking, if in the spirit world God does not have to judge us. What does that mean? Does that mean, because He doesn't have to judge us, He doesn't judge us, and we can live as we want? Quite the contrary. God does not have to judge us; I'll tell you why He does not have to judge us, because He is love. He is goodness. So if we are evil or even if we have a little bit of sin we will be repelled like a magnet that is plus to plus -- it repels.

God does not have to judge us, we naturally are pushed away and we must remember that in the spirit world, if we read Father's words -- and I said this in front of True Parents -- there was an interviewer from the media that asked me, "Do you believe in hell in the Unification Church? Do you believe in a fiery hell?" And I said -- "No, we don't! We don't believe in a fiery hell." Then he asked me, "What is the incentive for me to behave well, then? Shouldn't you have something that is a little scary?" I told him, "You must remember that in the Spirit World God's love is like the air that we breathe."

If you are pushed away from God because of your sin and because of evil, you will be repelled out of God's realm of love without His judgment. And if you are out of His realm of love -- what is love? It is air. Without His love, you have no air. Then I told him the world record for holding your breath is, I believe 18 + minutes and the person that did that stated that when he was at about 14 minutes of holding his breath -- he was in the most agonizing pain that he had ever felt in his life. Remember, it doesn't finish after 20 minutes. If you are out of the realm of God's love, you are suffocating for eternity. Not only is it a place that we cannot breathe God's love, but there we will also receive the judgment of the ancestors. Because, although God may not judge us, our ancestors will, other spirit beings will. Because they can see our life, as Father says, on a video camera, completely transparent -- you can see your life completely. You can't hide anything.

So brothers and sisters, when we truly realize that True Parents have done what they have done -- that they have saved us like the song "Amazing Grace" says "saved Saved wretch like me" -- a wretch like you and me -- when we realize that our True Parents have saved us -- they have saved our eternal soul. They have become our parents. They have allowed us -- if we stay obedient -- if we offer them absolute faith and obedience -- that is the thing that we must offer them. They offer / give us True Love, True Life, and True Lineage. We are called to return absolute faith, love and obedience.

When we realize that they have done such a thing, then we cannot be the same way. I know certainly that my life has completely changed ever since I experienced the Seven Deaths and Resurrections of our True Parents -- ever since I realized what they had done to save a sinner like me. You see, brothers and sisters, in this time of confusion and challenge, we must remember that we have one rock and as leaders of the Unification Church, we have one purpose -- ONE PURPOSE -- that is to bring glory to True Parents.

That is the one purpose we have. We bring glory to True Parents. The second purpose we have -- is to bring glory to True Parents (smile). The third purpose we have is to bring glory to our True Parents! That is our purpose. You know we try in our most effort to do so. We are like the little children who are imperfect trying to follow the footsteps. But that continual effort -- that continual perseverance -- is what is important. Not only the effort, but also to actualize what our True Parents have set the foundation for. So we must also create the result that our True Parents have set the 95% foundation for.

Brothers and sisters, I pray that you may realize these things -- that we all may -- but we can always reflect in humility before God and True Parents (and) we can realize that we are sinners. But not just say "OK, I admit I am a sinner, OK -- then I will sin more -- I'm a sinner anyway!" No, not that kind of arrogance. We realize that we are a sinner, and we hate the sin. We hate it! We want to do everything to get rid of it. This is very important but many people forget. I can admit, "OK, fine, I'm a sinner. OK I'll just sin -- I'm a sinner anyways." This is arrogance. This is a convenient way to fool oneself -- to believe that one is righteous. No, when you realize that you are a sinner, you end up hating the sin. And you do all that you can to try to walk in more accordance with our True Parents so you do not accumulate that kind of sin. You repent so that you can be forgiven of that sin.

Brothers and sisters, we all must do this. We all have to do this. This is something for everyone in the Unification Church. We must all realize this and practice it. Because if we do that, when we do that, then God can be pleased. When we enter into Him, when we come into His presence with thanksgiving and gratitude and humility, then He can be pleased. Then He can bless us with greater ability than we have, with greater strength than we have. And I believe that if we do this in our nations, we center ourselves on True Parents, center ourselves on the teaching of our True Parents, continuously hold on to True Parents, this is the saving grace for your countries and for the world. Aju! (Applause)

So, I hope that we can reflect on such things and that we can go back with a true heart to our nation / state and really make a difference for our True Parents. They have really done the impossible. Now it is our turn … to completely become one centered on our True Parents forever and continue to do what is impossible because we have God and because we have True Parents.

Thank you brothers and sisters. Let us bow our heads in prayer.

Dearest most beloved Heavenly Father, Father we thank you so much for calling us today. Father, we thank you for giving us a new resurrection because, Father, without Your incredible history that You have walked through the True Parents of Heaven and Earth, the returning Christ, the path of continual sacrifice and death, torture descending into hell so that all of us may enter into Your grace with our families and with our children.

Father, we pray that we can truly imbibe that sacrificial heart. That, Father, we may know the difference between what is right and wrong; that we may not, Father, water down sin in our lives or in the lives of others, but that we can make a clear stance when something is wrong. Father, let us have strength and unity. Father, let us always be centered on True Parents whom are our eternal rock -- whom are our King of Kings. Father, we pray that we may rely on Your wisdom -- we may rely on Your grace.

For Father, we wish to live our lives in training ourselves -- training to repent, Father, to truly not just commit sins casually, but to really begin to hate our sin. Father, to move closer towards goodness, towards Your presence. Father, we pray that we may continue to walk, albeit imperfectly, in the direction and in the footsteps of our True Parents. Not that we emulate their physical actions or we emulate their style of speaking, not these superficial things, but we inherit their parental heart which is the center of their being. The heart that will die and die and die and die and die again for the salvation of humanity -- to return the people that have fallen away from You -- the souls that are full of death -- to bring them into everlasting life in Your presence. And Father, we pray that we can inherit THAT kind of heart -- THAT essence of True Parents.

Father, please bless these leaders that are here today. Father, we all know that we are sinners before you -- we know we need True Parents. We know that we commit sin every day and, Father, we want to stop committing those sins. We do not want to believe that Grace that True Parents give us is a license to sin for that is the greatest insult to True Parent's sacrifice. Father, let us be those who are more perfect -- more good -- more saintly before heaven. Let us walk in the way of goodness. Let us strive for perfection even though we may never reach it.

Father, we Thank You so much, because we know that it is our effort, our 5% responsibility that allows the Providence to move forward as well. But let us not be arrogant in thinking that we have done it all. For You have done 95% in everything, Father, for us to walk this path. We Thank You so much. We want to offer True Parents our love. We want to offer them our life. We want to offer them everything that we have so that we can truly bring the true love which they have embodied to the rest of this world.

Thank You so much, Father. Be with these leaders as they return back. Father, let them truly stand for righteousness, Father, and let them be exemplars in their regions. God bless all the regions. Father, we pray all these things in the names of all our blessed families -- in the name of our beloved True Parents, Aju. (Applause)