Sun Myung Moon
July 13, 2001
Federation for World Peace and Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace - Rev. Sun Myung Moon invitational lecture
National Assembly Building, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Respected guests from home and abroad, ladies and gentlemen: I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the members of the National Assembly of Korea and the distinguished guests who have come to participate in this meaningful gathering despite your busy schedules. I am honored to have this valuable time to speak to you in this great chamber of the National Assembly, which, from the viewpoint of God’s providential history, represents all the people of Korea.
This year, which marks the beginning of the new millennium, I held the Enthronement Ceremony for the Kingship of God on January 13. Then, in the fifty-two-day period from February 25 to April 17, I successfully completed a fifty-state speaking tour of the United States, in which I addressed the public in fifty-two cities and also spoke before members of the United States Congress and at the United Nations.
During this time I addressed more than one hundred thousand religious leaders, mainly from the Christian faith. I presented a course that is based on God’s Will and that all people need to follow, those in the spirit world as well as the physical world. Furthermore, I visited Uruguay and, at a gathering of current and former heads of state and leaders from the nations of South America, I opened the South American headquarters of the Federation for Cosmic Peace and Unity. I also renewed and restructured the organization. For the purpose of realizing a world of peace, I educated some seventy thousand leaders representing all levels of society from one hundred ninety-one nations of the world, appointed Ambassadors for Peace in six continents, and returned to Korea after having prepared this international foundation for the reunification of our homeland.
After my return, from July 3 to 12, I held the “Rally to Establish God’s Homeland” in twelve major cities of the Republic of Korea. At the rally I proclaimed that the time has come to create God’s homeland, where He can take root in this land He has chosen. I emphasized that we all need to step forward to become pillars for the reunification of the homeland.
When I was sixteen years old, I met Jesus Christ in the early morning of Easter Sunday. Since then I have embarked on this path of God’s desire in order to accomplish His Will and to liberate Him from sorrow. I persevered unyieldingly for the past eighty years of my life, even as I was subjected to all forms of misunderstanding and persecution. I exerted myself fully until now to realize a world of peace based on true, ideal families. In particular, in accordance with God’s command, I went to the United States in 1971. I invested my entire being for thirty-plus years so that the United States could understand and fulfill its God-given mission as the Second Israel on the global level.
During the past couple of years, through hundreds of conferences for United States leaders, I urged politicians and religious leaders to transcend their political affiliations and denominations to work together cooperatively for the sake of their community, their nation and the world. In addition, through the fifty-state speaking tour I strongly encouraged clergy to go beyond their denominations and unite in solidarity. In reality, through an association of churches formed by the American Clergy Leadership Conference, one hundred and forty-four thousand churches are leading a movement for world salvation.
At the same time, I proclaimed at the United Nations the need for a movement to abolish all types of divisions between nations for the sake of world peace. This proposal is already being implemented vigorously. The Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace is leading this movement, which has expanded rapidly across the oceans from the UN headquarters to all of the world’s continents. The World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO), a UN-affiliated NGO, is playing a central role in this effort.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now are ushering in the era of a new millennium, corresponding to the seventh millennium in biblical history and the third millennium since the time of Jesus. Throughout human history God has longed for peace, and through religion humankind has also dreamed of an era of peace. Now is the time when this era of peace shall take root on earth.
Human beings have been looking forward to the time when God’s ideal of creation is realized. Starting with the appearance of an individual whose mind and body are completely united, with God at the center, we will see the emergence of a perfected family, society, nation, world and cosmos based on true love. Therefore, this era refers to fulfillment of the Completed Testament Age, when the kingdom of God in heaven and on earth is established, the covenant prophesied in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible is fulfilled, and the spirit world is perfected. The Completed Testament Age means an era in which all people receive the holy marriage Blessing at the original standard.
Until now, everything created by God was unable to stand within the realm of the Blessing due to the Fall of the first human ancestors. God, however, raised numerous religions, focusing on Christianity, and educated people along the path of the providence of salvation. He gradually raised their spiritual standard to enable them to usher in the Completed Testament Age. In concert with this, all of us have become substantial fruits of faith, completing God’s providence of salvation to restore the foundation for kingship on the cosmic level. That process began with kingship on the level of the true individual and expanded to kingship on the levels of the true family, tribe, people, nation and world. Eventually we were able to attain the position to hold the original Enthronement Ceremony for the Kingship of God. This ceremony can be held on that foundation only when all people in heaven and earth form true families and nations, receive the Blessing and create one lineage, one human race with a single, united lineage.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you consider love, life and lineage, which of these is most important to human beings? Many people say that love is most valuable. However, no matter how valuable love and life are, they are horizontal in the sense that they end in a single generation. However, lineage is vertical and is passed down through the generations for eternity. That is why lineage is most important.
In the original world, had the Fall never occurred, a true family would have been formed with God at the center. A family of true sons and daughters, a true lineage, would have been established. To become a child of true parents, there must be a connection of lineage. It would be absolutely impossible to link the terms “parent” and “child” unless they were connected by lineage. Once this lineage was established, not even God could cut it apart. Not even fallen Satan could divide it.
That is why the true lineage, received through True Parents’ Blessing, can restore through indemnity the mistakes of the Old and New Testament Ages. By engrafting onto God’s lineage, which is the original standard, even a field of false olive trees can go beyond the realm of life and death. Such involves becoming one in body, heart and mind with the lineage of the true olive tree, based on true love. Satan cannot interfere with people who have determined in their hearts to transcend even the realm of life and death on the levels of the individual, family, people, nation and world, no matter what the sacrifice. Once you go beyond the national standard, you have already entered the realm of perfection, the realm of God’s direct dominion. It then becomes impossible to enter into a relationship with Satan.
If Jesus had been able to marry, he would not have gone the way of the cross. No one would have been able to kill him. That is because he would have been able to connect with the realm of God’s direct dominion under the ideal of being God’s object partner. In terms of the Principle, he would have satisfied the standard of having completed his portion of responsibility. That is why he would have entered the realm of God’s direct dominion, which is connected to God’s lineage. There would have been no way for Satan to sever this connection.
During the process of growth, the first human ancestors were not able to reach the position of uniting with God’s heart; they fell. That was the problem. If Adam and Eve had become a couple and engaged only in true love, they never would have fallen. Satan would not have been able to tear them apart. Yet, in their course of growth, they represented fruit that had not fully ripened. If you plant a fruit in the ground before it is ripe, its seed will never produce a root. It does not have eternal life and will be disposed of as if it were devoid of life. That place is hell. It is a place that is unrelated to God.
The parent-child relationship has to be connected with True Parents’ lineage. It cannot simply connect to that lineage on its own accord. The lineages of a man and a woman have to be combined. Under the fundamental laws of the universe, human beings were created and are to be perfected when the inner nature and external form of their lineages unite as one. They can be perfected when the mind, representing the inner nature, and the body, representing the external form, rejoice together in love. Each family needs to stand in the position of substantial object partner of the perfected Adam’s family, which is like a large and substantial tree. Then each family is expected to multiply and expand to form “branch factories” that in turn will produce countless citizens of the heavenly nation.
Thus, God in the spirit world and substantial parents on earth can live together on earth and cooperate in producing heavenly citizens, who can then form a united body living eternally in the spirit world. When the citizens of the heavenly world and earthly world unite, with the earth as the center, the ideal kingdom of God on earth and in heaven will be completed.
Who will deliver that kingship to God? Who was the one who made a mess of the kingship in the first place? It was Satan, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve did not become true parents. They allowed Satan to enter their relationship and did not establish the standard of true parents’ lineage on earth. Due to the Fall, Satan’s lineage took root. Neither God nor Satan can negate and reverse this completely. It is difficult for Satan himself to destroy the nation he has been building until now. Nobody likes someone remodeling something that they made with devotion. It is the same with Satan. God cannot reverse this lineage. If He could, He would not have lost Adam’s family in the garden of Eden in the first place. There was no principle that allowed God to touch it. Then who can touch that which God could not touch? It is perfected Adam, in his original state before the Fall.
The only family that can be in the position of the original, true family is none other than the family of the true Adam and Eve. The issue is the center. Can restoration be completed without a center? What is at the center of blessed families? Who gives the Blessing? It is the True Parents. Who officiates at the marriage ceremony? Who bestows the Blessing at that marriage ceremony, connecting your children, who resemble their parents, to God’s lineage? Were it not for the Fall of humankind, all parents, who would have been in the position of true parents, would have given the Blessing to their children.
Until today, someone in the position of the archangel has led weddings. Thus, a famous person or someone well known in society officiates at the wedding. It is like climbing up a ladder that is lying on the ground. These days, the order of marriage is a total mess. Marriage cannot be done randomly. It needs to be done in the proper order. Yet people do it in reverse and make a fuss about it these days. Restoration means to line up with the proper order. Originally the first son and second son were to marry in the order of their birth.
Sexual decadence has now reached serious proportions. Incestuous relationships are proliferating. I am referring to fornication. In some nations a grandfather may live with his granddaughter or a father-in-law may live with his daughter-in-law. These kinds of incestuous relationships are spreading. People going into the spirit world do not know the central standard and thus live following their lusts. If this is not hell on earth, then what is?
Who will resolve this entire mess? Even God was unable to intervene when Adam and Eve fell in the garden of Eden. He could not even interfere in the marriage Satan conducted. Then would He be able to intervene at all in the Last Days? Eventually false love, false life and the false parents entangled everything into a false lineage. Therefore, the True Parents need to come and restore this situation through indemnity. In other words, they have to completely negate and reverse this situation and fulfill God’s Will.
The biblical phrase “those who lose their life will find it” means that until indemnity is paid, anything that lives in the world of death can remain alive only if it has the strength to live beyond death, to go through this world to the place of death. A person who is saddened by death or feels like running away from it will not enjoy the realm of resurrection for eternity. That is why the Bible says that those who try to make their life secure will lose their life, while those who lose their life will find it.
It is the same in the case of God and True Parents. What about people who say they are going to the heavenly nation? Even God has to go to the place of death in order to save that life. Otherwise, it cannot have the support it needs to live. When using a rope to save someone who fell off a cliff, you need to pull that person up with all your strength. Only when your standard is higher than this can people and even God gain life.
Don’t people in the modern world talk about freedom? No matter how good the structure of the modern education system may be, your concept of freedom still lies within the fallen realm. You cannot understand the value of freedom from an individualistic perspective. What about the notion of freedom for the tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos? How will you help people understand the issues from the broader perspective? Rev. Moon has been teaching that we have to develop a holistic outlook toward the individual, family, society, nation, world, cosmos and God, and that we need to liberate God.
I began from the lowest level and rose to the highest level of liberating God. How did I accomplish this? I began by uniting my mind and body. From the position of absolutely uniting your mind and body, you can advance to the levels of the family, nation, world and God. No matter how much you want to reach the higher positions, you cannot do so if you hold on to an individualistic perspective. That concept is your enemy. It is God’s enemy, the enemy of the religious world, the enemy of the world of conscience and the enemy of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the enemy of all because it is connected to the position of Satan, the archangel.
Promiscuity, homosexual love and drug addiction potentially lead to infection with the virus that causes AIDS. Drug abuse and AIDS are threatening to devastate humankind. It is reported that in Africa, AIDS is reaching dangerous proportions. If you consider the fact that the AIDS virus is dormant for eight to twelve years, it is not impossible to imagine that the population of a given area could be wiped out in two generations.
Non-governmental organizations affiliated with the United Nations are burdened with many problems. If you asked them to do the most difficult tasks, would they present anyone to carry them out? Officials at these NGOs may point out many issues related to the current regimes and social ills. However, do they talk about the role of the UN or about digesting communism and humanism or other core issues, as I have done? You can debate with me only if you can address such high-level issues; otherwise, you cannot. These organizations do not know how to solve problems such as the degradation of youth, family breakdown, drug addiction and AIDS, and they especially do not know how to establish a pure lineage. Leaders of nations and global institutions such as the UN do not know the solutions to such problems. They just say whether something seems right to them or not.
Now that I have completed the Enthronement for God’s Kingship, I will teach the world’s leaders clearly about the steps that need to be taken. The problem until now was the problem of restoring the lineage. Lineage is the most important factor. Being a social organization, a government, or a school makes no difference. There are many nations in the world; none of them is connected to God’s lineage. They are all under the dominion of Satan. There is nothing they can do about this, except to follow the way of God and True Parents. If they do not, they have no center.
What will you do now, in this era of the new millennium? Until now, God had not been liberated and True Parents had not been liberated. I tell you, do not fear. The liberated Parents of Heaven and Earth and their children have emerged through the establishment of God’s kingship. Do not be afraid, even if you find yourself in prison. If there were people who wanted to go to God’s kingdom quickly, what a blessing it would be if they could go when they were young! Would it damage anything? Why reject this opportunity when the entirety of the universe and heaven is in your grasp, with you as its owner? You don’t have to worry whether you live or die.
Do you know how to perfect your individuality? Do you know the path by which to unite the mind and body of an individual? The power of love that carries on Satan’s lineage from the Fall has been stronger than the power of the conscience. That is the problem. Whatever happens, do not obey the commands of your body.
From now on, here is the ironclad rule you need to follow: First, at the cost of your life, do not stain the pure lineage that Heaven bequeathed to you. Second, do not violate human rights through erroneous personnel decisions. Men and women, whites and blacks are all equal. I am urging you not to exercise prejudice against others or violate their human rights. Leaders cannot dismiss a person just because they don’t like that person. The mainstream guidance on human rights consists of becoming people who have true love, that is, people who live with love for the sake of others. God created heaven and earth based on that principle. Discarding that mainstream belief system is unforgivable. It is the second sin of all sins.
The third rule is to not steal public money and to not use public money for your personal purposes. These are the three rules. All of these problems originated from fallen Adam as an individual, and his family. More than seventy percent of the people in jail are there for these very reasons. If you go to prison, you can confirm this fact. The prisoners violated human rights or stained the lineage and were incarcerated because of problems in relationships between men and women. The next problem is that of money and power. In this regard, money, knowledge and power are your enemies. Those who received the Blessing belong to God’s lineage and carry on God’s true love and true life. Thus, you must not stain the lineage with the habits you acquired while living in the fallen world.
Can you protect the lineage? Whether you are a couple or a single individual without a partner, today can be the day that you resolve and pledge not to stain the perfect lineage. Article One of the constitution of the heavenly nation is “You shall not stain the lineage; you shall preserve its purity and eternally protect the pure lineage.” Article Two is “You shall not violate human rights.” Article Three is “You shall not embezzle public money’’ This constitution is absolutely necessary for all of you to maintain the kingship of the heavenly nation and become its people, a parent, a spouse, a child and siblings before that kingship. That is why you must not ignore your elder sibling. You must not ignore your younger sibling just because he or she is physically challenged. University graduates who believe they are knowledgeable may not disregard those who have only a high school diploma. That would constitute a violation of human rights.
Destroying the public environment is just as serious as embezzling national assets. People who live like that will not receive heavenly fortune. No matter how hard they try, they will not be successful. The entire universe dislikes those who are indebted to others. If a person in a particular clan causes a problem, he or she will be driven out of that clan.
When living according to God’s laws, in what kind of environment and with what kind of people do you live in order to say that you are living well? It is simple. There are three ways: It is within a parent-child relationship, conjugal relationship and relationship between siblings. Siblings are children with common parents. The relationship between such children is that of siblings. In your family, you have a mother and father, a husband and wife, and brothers and sisters.
Therefore, just as I have relationships with my siblings, likewise, through our parents our first cousins and third cousins of our in-laws are all related. That is why the fundamental relationships in a family are the parent-child relationship, conjugal relationship and sibling relationship. Once the parent-child relationship is established, relationships between siblings are automatically generated. If you cannot present your family as an example, you are not living in the right way. That is why, during your life, you need to set the example in front of your parents, husband and wife and children. Only then are you living well.
What will happen when you are prospering in this way? The family model resonates with the models of the nation and the kingdom of heaven. We give an award to a family that has lived according to the ideal of the four-position foundation, where the three generations of the grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, and children have lived in that way. That is why no one can exclude a person from the heavenly nation if that person, when living as a .subject partner, influenced and reconciled others under the joint responsibility found in the sibling relationship, or the relationship between children.
From now, if you live while upholding this law, you will surely become part of the royal family of the heavenly nation and become a family endowed with freedom, unity and liberation wherever you go. That is why today I am designating this as the motto for commencing the third millennium. On the one hand, we have to take the lead in protecting the pure lineage, the standardization of human rights, and the assets of the nation. On the other hand, we have to become the model for relationships between parents and children, husband and wife, and siblings. If everyone in the village can say, “I want to follow that person,” and, “I want to emulate that person and live with that person,” then he or she surely will become a citizen of the kingdom of God and one who is remembered in the heavenly nation. I, Rev. Moon, also am living in this way.
I taught you three central and ironclad rules, the most important rules that were proclaimed at the Enthronement for God’s Kingship. All people need to uphold these rules and thereby be public persons. These rules must never be violated, not in the family and not in the nation.
You need to know clearly about the heavenly world at this time of the Completed Testament Age, when God’s omnipotence, omniscience, full authority and true love are manifested directly on the earth. I pray that you will study diligently about the spirit world, receive the Blessing with God in the central position, form families of the true lineage, and prepare for eternal life through a lifestyle of living for the sake of others. People now have to know that the time has come for the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven and the fulfillment of God’s ideal. They need to invest their efforts to perceive the hand of heavenly fortune, which cannot be compared with our limited abilities. A person who walks the path of a filial son, patriot, saint and divine child, spreading Heaven’s true love with warmth and humility in the presence of the living God, shall be blessed to belong to the kingdom of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, the twenty-first century, with which the new millennium has commenced, is a time to eradicate the relics of division and conflict from past centuries and to realize the vision of one great global family of reconciliation and unity.
I understood from early on God’s Will in choosing the Korean people to establish a new world based on a culture of peace. Thus, for the past fifty-plus years, I have been investing my entire self in building a foundation for the reunification of the Korean peninsula, on the platform of a movement based on Headwing Thought and Godism, in Korea and abroad.
To this day I have been advocating Godism. This is the only teaching that will integrate the conflicting value systems of theism and atheism and, as it does, liberate humankind from secular humanism. This truth has already been validated by leaders of different nations of the world and by many scholars in the academic circles of philosophy and ideology.
Honorable members of the National Assembly, ladies and gentlemen with the grand mission of leading the Korean people to leap and soar into the world, let us all establish our value system with Godism based on true love, and rise up to empower our people with this teaching nationwide. Let us make this movement for the reunification of Korea as part of our faith, for the sake of ourselves the Korean people, and world peace. Let us become individuals and leaders who can spearhead this movement for the unification of the Korean peninsula, South and North, with true love so that we can live together with a heart of loving even one’s enemy!
On the occasion of the era of God’s kingship, let us all become partners in establishing the reunification of Korea, placing God at the center. Let us create a world based on the culture of God’s heart that transcends nations and achieve the liberation of God’s hometown and homeland. I pray that God’s blessings may be with your nation and family for all eternity.