Reverend Sun Myung Moon
This is an excerpt from a sermon given May 4, 1997 at the Belvedere International Training Center, Tarrytown, NY. The interpreter was Mr. Peter Kim
Father’s topic today is: The Cosmic Era of Blessed Families. When the entire five billion people of humanity truly understand this concept of Father’s teaching, do you think they will want to have the family centered upon the True Love and teaching of Father, or the secular-style family we see everyday? Father’s teaching can establish the mainstream family system for everyone to follow.
Even within this audience Father can see five different colors. Are you colored by Father’s teaching or do you still maintain your own unique color? Among the brothers and sisters of the white race, do you welcome or reject black brothers and sisters? Even as a white race you need the color black and vice versa. If day represents the color white and night represents the color black, don’t you think that day needs night? What do you need more, daytime or night time? When do people ordinarily make love, during the daytime or night time? On Fifth Avenue in New York City people are rushing around during the daytime. However, once it becomes dark, night time, they all disappear. For what? To go home and find their love partner. To find their True Love place. This means their family. In the family the love settlement exists eternally. Then which one is more important, daytime or night time?
In the field we see a tree growing. Does that tree exist only in the part that we see above the ground or does it also have an invisible part? Then the upper visible section represents daytime, and the lower section deep within the earth represents night time. Which one is more important, the root system of the tree . If the root system is not strong enough, it makes no difference what color your face is or how proud you may be, because within a few days you will collapse without a strong enough foundation. This Western civilization is now being crushed because it represents the culture of autumn. Therefore, when the winter culture appears, the culture of Siberia, the autumn culture will collapse, will become completely buried. As long as you have strong roots you can expect the following spring. These are the Last Days, when the Lord of the Second Advent will come to this world and give us the new Spring culture. The Spring culture is now on the Earth. The end times.
After the fall, we lost the spring culture world and summer culture world, becoming autumn. Now we are coming back around to Springtime. During these last forty years, the Unification Church leader, Reverend Moon, was persecuted by the cold winter winds. Winter winds, snowy winter. Centered upon Reverend Moon, the Unification Church leader, the so-called, bad guy! From the satanic world’s viewpoint they called me bad, but from God’s perspective, I am good. Without Heaven and God you cannot connect with this good guy. Even Satan’s color is bad. How can we change that back to God’s side? The fallen world and humankind need that kind of mission: how to belong to God’s world and how to change this world back to God’s world. Without that kind of world, you will be forever opposite of God’s side; you belong to Satan’s brood, Satan’s tribe. You have to clearly understand this point.
Even after the severe winter wind and snow, Reverend Moon now has sprung out visibly. However, his root system is strong enough to hold a tree several thousand feet high. Now that Springtime has come to the Unification Church this tree will grow infinitely and unlimited. When Father’s tree grows so rapidly, don’t you want to be a branch or twig on that particular tree? Then what size of branch do you want to become? A branch the size of America or a little tiny branch? If we compare America with the cosmos then it appears no bigger than your little finger. As Unification Church Blessed couples, we need to grow our minds as big as the cosmos. Since the root is big enough to hold any size of tree, then even if any persecution hits you as a small branch, just like Father hit Mr. Kim’s head, because this root system is strong, you will continue to grow. The more you get hit, the bigger tree you will become and even God will be there.
During the last forty years of my life, I didn’t come out of the ground - I didn't want to show myself to the world. But as a root system underneath the ground, Father made sure that the roots were strong and secure. No one likes night time, so Father took the night time and made sure that there was a strong enough foundation to restore the entire world. That has been my goal these last forty years. To work in the night time in order to bring the morning!
What kind of power does it take to bring man and woman into absolute unity? As human beings our goal is to build the original family. As a man and woman we have to become an original couple. That is why we all have to come to the central point. God’s goal or aim is to find His own ideal family there. When boys and girls become mature, without being instructed they naturally find ways to come closer to one another. Didn’t you ladies have such an experience? Girls appear to be very quiet and subtle and don’t even look at boys. However, if there are three boys, you immediately are able to select which one you would like for your ideal partner. You have the ability to make that kind of comparison and choice, do you not? I don’t know because I am not a woman-no matter how famous a man might be, he has to learn through woman.
You thief-like men have the same experience, do you not? You are like thieves because you are the descendants of the Archangel. Who is stronger, man or woman? Who do you think raped whom in the Garden of Eden? Do you think Eve raped Adam or did Adam pull Eve towards him and rape her? Which one? Usually the crime of rape is tried in a court. Have you heard of any case where a woman forcibly took a man and raped him? Father never heard of such a case. The conclusion is simple: Men are in the wrong. Man is bad. When a woman pulls you for whatever purpose, do you have to follow her voluntarily with joy and happiness, or do you have to resist that pull through exerting your strength, using your foot as a brake? Even if you use your foot as a brake to resist, but someone is still able to pull you away from yourself, then that person is a robber or a thief.
In the secular world, if a man seduces a woman and she voluntarily follows that man then no crime has been committed according to secular law. Suppose a woman has a true lover, but sometimes she feels lonely. Don’t you think that she will sometimes yearn for her true lover and desire that he come and take her? When you look deeply into someone’s eyes you can find out what she wants. There is a way of measuring a woman by looking into her eyes. At first she might half close her eyes, not looking at you, but as soon as she feels open to you or comfortable with you, she will look fully back at you. Then if she were to become crazy about you, then her eyeballs will speak. That is the signal and the time for you to pull her towards you and she will voluntarily come. According to the standard of the secular world that is not a crime; it is not rape.
The same principle applies to men. When you women look at men, observe their eyes and mouth because they are in the partner position. If his eyes and mouth smile together when he looks at you that is a good sign. Then you can confidently call him and he will follow you. Even in the animal kingdom, they have certain signals to call one another. Everyone’s aim is the central point-God, man, woman, family, everyone wants to enter into the central point of love. The vertical and horizontal represent the entire cosmos. The center point is where the vertical and horizontal lines meet. That center is your family. At the point where God, man and woman meet, at this central point, there is only one thing to be done and that is the establishment of a family. This is the place of God’s most favored son and daughter. They are our original ancestors, Adam and Eve, who were most favored by God.
Adam and Eve were supposed to go through this process of reaching maturity and reaching the center with God. Did God create two women and one man, or two men and one woman, or one man and one woman? Do you think that was based upon God’s eternal formula, or something God established temporarily? Because Adam and Eve were the representatives of the entire cosmos. Suppose, within our ancestry, there were two grandmothers and one grandfather, what kind of result would we have today? Would there have been peace or fighting between these two grandmothers? Would the grandfather also be involved? Surely he would have trouble too. This would certainly not be a place of happiness. Rather, it would be a hellish place, certainly not heavenly.
When Eve was originally tempted and deceived by the Archangel, do you think she voluntarily followed him or did she resist? Imagine if you will, Adam as a young boy in the Garden of Eden, wild and running around investigating everything and leaving Eve by herself. They were both naked and unashamed originally. As Eve’s body was maturing, suddenly the archangel approached her with an evil intent in his heart. Sometimes Eve would sit in the lap of the archangel and their sexual organs would be quite close to one another. They were accustomed to seeing the animals around them mating and caring for their young. Then, in a flick of a second, easily a relationship occurred between them. The Archangel took interest in this kind of phenomena, so action was taken. It is that easy to fall into an illicit relationship of love.
As a young, strong man, ask yourself, if you were in that situation with a pretty naked woman sitting on your lap, don’t you think that you would experience the same temptation? As a man, in order to fulfill restoration through indemnity, no matter if a beautiful naked woman is in front of you touching your body, your love organ should not become erect. Rather, it should remain almost as if it were dead, without feeling. That is the action for indemnity. If that most beautiful woman attempts to touch and place your love organ into her, then you have to kick her about 1,000 miles away from you. That is an act of self defense. You are all laughing, but you should seriously be able to do that.
The center represents the ideal family which God, Adam and Eve all long for. Centering upon this original ideal family, we have to expand it throughout these eight various stages: family, tribe, society, nation, world, and cosmos. No matter how much this expansion eventually becomes, your individual family is the representative of the entire cosmos. That is how your family becomes qualified to receive God and have God dwell with you. That is where we live as God’s children and the place where God’s lineage can be found. Through the lineage, the parent and child relationship is established. Originally, God wanted to have this kind of family and cosmos, but due to the fall this entire foundation was lost. Therefore it has taken thousands of years in order for God to re-establish this family. Finally in the Last Days, the True Parents came and have established the original family. We now are in the time of the expansion of this True Family to the cosmic level.
Not only True Family, but also the expansion of the True Family should be free from Satan’s accusation, all the way to the entire cosmos eventually. Do you truly understand the concept of indemnity from the individual level to world level? You might think you understand the concept, but in reality, do you really understand? In order for us to be able to reach the goal here [indicating to the diagram] and travel freely vertically and horizontally from the individual level to the cosmic level, we have to inherit the victorious foundation already established by True Parents. That is the only course that we have. All the women in the Unification Church have to become like the second Mother’s position, a branch of True Mother. All the men are in the position of branches of the Archangel position.
Every human being has approximately forty billion cells. Men, please consider yourselves as being attached to Father's forty billion cells and carrying those cells. Likewise, women should consider yourselves to carry Mother’s forty billion cells. In order to do that, you have to demonstrate your absolute faith, love and obedience to True Parents. By doing so, you will become qualified to carry Father and Mother’s forty billion cells. Just like plus and minus, you have to become part of Father and Mother’s cells.
While you really do not truly understand what indemnity means, as long as you have an invisible rope attached to Father, then even when you are far away from Father, you can still hang onto this rope and find your way back to him. That is the key. No matter how far you cast a fishing line, once the fish strikes, then it is simply a matter of reeling it in. You are now in the position of fishermen holding the fishing rod. Father is the king fish which you have to hook and make sure that he doesn’t get free. You just have to keep on reeling him in. This fishing line is absolute faith, love and obedience. Even if he takes a big bite, you still have to hang on and keep on reeling him in.
As man and woman reach maturity they naturally meet together and form the ideal family. Then they can travel freely to the Kingdom of Heaven where God dwells. They can also travel freely to the bottom of Hell and still it will be the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, you are absolutely free. Between the physical and spiritual world there is free travel. There is no limitation or boundary. God is in the position of plus and humankind is in the position of minus. Spiritual world is plus and the physical world is minus. This plus and minus relationship is operating wherever we look. Once the center starts moving, then the entire cosmos will move at the same time.
Once the ideal family is established it represents the entire cosmos. This is the completion point of this right hand section, left hand section, upper and lower sections. From every angle you look, this is the point of perfection and completion. Everything turns around this core point. We have to establish such a family. This is the road that we have to follow in this cosmic era of Blessed families. True Parents are the central root, central trunk, and central bud; all connecting in one direct way. You are branches and twigs centering upon this vertical, central root, trunk and bud. Since True Parents are the central bud, trunk and root, we have to hang onto True Parents and become all different sizes of branches. How big a branch you become is entirely up to you. Would you like to become a small American branch or a big branch? Which country is larger, America or China? The population of China is four or five times larger than America. Even Russia is bigger than America in that sense.
If you become one of the major branches then you will have other small branches and twigs attached to you. If you cut off that branch and plant it in the ground, it will become another tree, which means another nation. I have given you such a blessing as an individual messiah, family messiah, tribal messiah, national messiah, and eventually, the world cosmic messiah. That is the goal we have to strive towards. The blessed family inclusively are true parents, or messiah. True Parents have two kinds of meaning. One is the family and one is True Parents. The Old Testament True Parents are the True Messiah. The first messiah, representing the Old Testament, wanted that kind of point. Jesus came to the Earth as the second messiah, but Jesus was not able to make a family and lost everything as a consequence. He could not make the heavenly settlement on the Earth. The third messiahship is the time of the Lord of the Second Advent. That means the world victorious foundation, beginning from the family and expanding vertically and horizontally.
Now we understand the meaning of True Parents. True Parents are in the position of the third Adam, to restore the failure of the first and second Adam, and they are the True Parents of humankind. The original couple who were to become True Parents in the Old Testament era failed. And in the New Testament era, Jesus failed to establish the position of the True Parents. Therefore, in the Completed Testament era, the True Parents finally came to this world and completed this mission. That is why the concept of Blessed families has come into being and the Blessing is taking place in this world.
This is why my topic this morning is The Cosmic Era of the Blessed Family. This is what it means. The time of the 3.6 million couples Blessing on November 29 will be the time when vertically Heaven and Earth and the entire world horizontally, will meet together and become united. It is like the entire humanity, without the fall, awaiting the Blessing time on November 29, 1997. It has that much value. It is equivalent to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve making the family system. During this heavenly era time you can use your power to bring your parents and relatives to the Blessing without Satan’s accusation. After they receive the Blessing, they will be so grateful to you, even though you might have to somewhat pressure them to attend. This is the place where the family is being created to receive the entire universal value as one family. As I told you earlier today, if we were to pull out the entire lineage from any one woman or man, the entire ancestry would be pulled by that string.
True Parents have appeared in the Last Days. Now, through indemnity, they have won the victory and liberated Jesus and the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament all the way back to Adam and Eve. If you truly follow Father’s direction and bring your relatives to the Blessing, and establish this kind of foundation, then your entire ancestry will be attached to you. Then you will be able to liberate this ancestral line. From November 29, the new era of Blessing from this physical world will be extended to the era of Blessing even in the spiritual world. Until now, even within the spiritual world there existed splits and separation. Originally the Kingdom of God was supposed to be taken by Adam and Eve who were to fulfill their responsibility to build the original ideal family. Then together with their family, they would live together with God and enter into the Kingdom of God in the spiritual world. But due to the fall of man, this did not take place. In other words the Kingdom of God is still empty. In these Last Days, as long as we are totally united with True Parents, then based upon True Parents’ victory of the establishment of the true family on the horizontal level, we will have the privilege of becoming the citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Just as in the time of Adam and the Old Testament era, and Jesus and the New Testament era, we are in the position to be able to restore and indemnify our ancestral line so that the entire spiritual world can be liberated. Up until now, the religions of the world have focused upon individual-level salvation. But once we come out of that shell and follow True Parents we enter into the family level. The family level automatically extends to the nation, world and entire cosmos. Therefore we can build the Kingdom of God here. As Unification Church Blessed couples, if we truly fulfill the role of tribal messiahs, there is an automatic extension. That is why we can truly restore this world into the Kingdom of God. For this purpose, Father took down the HSA-UWC sign and placed a new sign: The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. Until now, unification needed Christianity. Christianity means including the Old Testament era and the New Testament era. If these are cut away, then the Completed Testament era cannot stand. Without the foundation of the Old and the New Testament era, the Completed Testament era could not find settlement. Now the era of Christianity is over. Now the Blessing time has come to this world. Christianity can no longer persecute Reverend Moon in any way.
The members of the Family Federation for World Peace are not just Christian members. They are the sovereignty of nations and powerful leaders. Do you understand? No one can stand against this. The Christian world is following behind Reverend Moon, as well as Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Everything is behind me, making that highway. No obstacles. One Blessing can liberate all the nations’ people too. It is not only an individual salvation way now. It is now the way of the family being saved, the tribe being saved, national salvation and worldwide salvation, all at one time. How wonderful this time is that we now live in. [Applause] Father is not speaking of concepts. This is a reality. Look at this secular world. Everywhere the families are broken down. No leaders, no educators in this world are able to correct this. Only Reverend Moon can do this. Only True Parents. God didn’t touch Adam’s family at the time of the fall. God could not touch them. Only True Parents are able to touch that situation. Without the power of True Parents, humanity cannot be saved eternally.
So remember, we are living in the cosmic era of Blessed families. Therefore our responsibility is to reach out to our immediate family members and relatives so that we can bring them to the next Blessing. Our goal is to bring 160-180 families to be blessed. This is how you can begin registration in the Kingdom of God. Centering upon this number of restored families we can then think of restoring our nation. Since we are living in this providential era, don’t you want to become tribal messiahs or national messiahs? The period for individual salvation is over. This is the era when the family, tribe, nation and entire world can be transformed into the heavenly side. This is a turning time and a most serious time from God’s perspective. From humanity’s perspective it is the same kind of serious time. Without taking this kind of action you cannot connect. No matter how famous your family may be you cannot connect to the national base. Father understands this kind of content. America has persecuted me until now. Why? Father has made the kind of highway where every nation, tribe, and family can travel - the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven.
Father even provided the Divine Principle, like a steering wheel for you. Are you not even able to drive a car? Father has created everything for you. The body of the automobile, wheels, steering wheel and everything has been created. If you cannot use that automobile you are lost. Everything is ready for you. Even the gasoline has been provided and Father even gave you driving lessons. Why are you unable to do it? It is all up to you now.
In April, over 140 national messiahs came to see Father. They testified that as they began working in their mission nations, they came to realize that Father had prepared foundations there without their knowledge. Everything was ready for them. Everything was already prepared by Father. Now all they have to do is give their sincere effort. If in Father’s place they give the message as Father does, then everyone will naturally follow. This was their testimony. There are tens and thousands of so-called movers and shakers in the world. There are all kinds of leaders and VIPs out there. We simply have to work with them.