Sun Myung Moon
January 17, 1973
Translator: Won Pok Choi
First International Training Session
Photo date and location unknown
Being of different nationalities, we have different cultural backgrounds, customs and traditions. If you consider whether your own culture or tradition is the best one, the one God would cherish, you can never answer in the affirmative. In many things we still want to be proud of our own nation, pointing out its good points. Are those good points up to the standard which we can truly be proud of all through eternity and before all humankind?
In the history of every nation there is rise and fall. Sometimes it goes to the peak of its culture and sometimes it declines. The world as a whole is not the ideal place to live in, or to be proud of. If God exists, we know that this world is not the ideal place which God intended to have us live in. We know God is the utmost, absolute being. Are we pleasing God by our thoughts and actions? There are miles, laughter and happiness in the worldly sense, but after the human fall whether we smile or laugh heartily, those things don't really please God. Our source of happiness must be in God, but our being alienated from God brings sadness, misery. We must think and act in connection with God, centered on God, but the opposite is true. We are living in such a condition on the individual and family level. Those individuals and families form the world.
Since all this is due to the human fall, that kind of world is not pleasing to God. If God exists, He is sad at this situation and would want us to live in an ideal world. He will make one for us.
But the whole population of the world is from stained lineage, so in restoring the world into an ideal one, He cannot do it all at once, but little by little. He wants to work on the individual base, trying to locate a person who is entitled to that. He will then have a family, a nation and the whole world restored. First of all He must locate a person, one single man, a central figure.
He will make this one man known and influential in the whole world. His project is not a simple one -- it may take 50 or more years within the span of a century. So, God needs time. He will work gradually, restoring one by one or family by family. When He restores one person, we may think that He's working on that man alone. Or we may think that God is interested in just one particular family or nation.
Up to the present moment, when a Christian prays hard, leading a Godly life, he is trying to save himself. That needed his full effort. Next, he tries to save his family. They are used to doing that much, but not beyond that. They did not realize that if they really struggled to set up one nation under God's ideology, their families and they, themselves would be included in that scope. By setting eyes on broader things, those smaller areas are already saved or included. Today Christianity is declining, and that is the cause. The Christians have been unable to restore a nation as the solid foundation on which God can work. God wanted that done in that certain period of time; therefore, Christianity is doomed to decline from that point on, losing even the family and the individual. Every Christian believes that when the Lord comes the second time he will be here for himself, to save him and his family. No Christian realizes that when the Lord comes again he will establish a whole nation of God's choice, as a base from which He will restore the world.
There is no single Christian in the whole world who strongly believes that when the Second Lord comes, there must be a nation established for him to work on. If you are asked what would you want to save, you would immediately answer, not yourself, but at least a nation. Because you know that if you could save a whole nation, your family would be included there and so would you. So you and your family would also be saved.
If you recall, in the days of Jesus Christ the same was true. The people of that time thought that God had prepared 4,000 years of history to send Jesus to the Jewish people in order to save that nation. They thought and desired that when Christ came, he would take revenge on their enemy nations. They were the leading nation of the world and all others would come to their knees in front of them. If they had ever dreamed that when the Messiah would come, they would want to sacrifice themselves and their nation for the sake of the world, they would not have crucified Jesus on the cross. If you were in God's position, would you want to save the whole world, save one nation or just one individual? The answer is clear. God would have preferred to save the whole world. He would want any individual to be able to save the world any family to be able to save the world -- any nation to be able to save the world. Is there any single Christian who is thinking like that? Can we find such a religion in which they teach that -- even though it may be other than Christianity?
There may be religions where they teach how to save the world, but in that case they want to include other people of the world under them and in h end they want to subjugate them. But they don't intend to save the world at the cost of their religion or at the cost of the people of that religion.
As I told you yesterday, in the process of creation God poured out all His being into the created. This is to say, He denied himself in order to make the creation. In the course of restoration, also, the subjective person must be ready to pour out all his being into the objective person. So, in saving his family, nation and world, we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves, our family and a smaller group or individual or anything which we had to give up to save a larger thing. So, what I am teaching is the opposite to what other religions are teaching. Christianity has the ambition to bring the whole world including all other religions and all other people under them. Moslems and all other religions are thinking the same thing. We may reach the conclusion that, with an attitude like that we will never be able to establish the kingdom of God on earth.
Which individual, which family, which nation is God going to choose? As we have learned in the relationship between Cain and Abel, those who are in Abel's position will at first be defeated by those who are in Cain's position. Later they will win and have the final victory. It may be easier for us to do that in the family. Each family member may be ready to be beaten or sacrificed for other members of the family. Among the families it may be easy, because the family in Abel's position would be ready to do that. Between nations well, it's going to be a little difficult. Towards neighboring nations you have a good feeling and you want to sacrifice to some extent your own for the sake of the other. But beyond that where there are vast differences in terms of custom, traditions, and other things it may be difficult for you to want to sacrifice your nation for those nations. There is no religion which teaches that kind of sacrificial spirit. If that cannot be done by human hands, God has no hope to be able to restore the whole world, because He cannot do that by himself; He must work through man. If no one is ready for that task, God cannot save the World. But if there is any such individual or any such religion where they teach such theory, God will be pleased with him and with that religion; He will work through him and through that religion.
In this vast world He has never been able to locate that kind of religion, but we are here to fill that need. As members of the Unified Family, you must be ready to love your family more than yourself, love clan more than your family, love your nation more than your clan and love the world more than your nation. Everything is so clear with us. We think it's only too natural to have to sacrifice our nation in order to save the whole world. We think it's natural to have to sacrifice our family in order to save the whole world. We think it's natural to have to sacrifice our own selves to save the family.
When you have won victory on the individual level, having saved yourself by beating your fleshly side to obey your mind, then what are you going to do? You will reach the world by going through the family level and national level. You are apt to think that after you have perfected yourself, you are going to be the boss in your family. That's what, at best, you want. But you are forgetting that you are here to save the whole world and even your family is for that. In the providence of God, your family is playing the role of a bridge to go through and across to the next level and stay there until we can save the whole world. Then what would you do to make your family a success in God's sight? It is not just for the husband and wife to love each other sticking to each other. But in loving each other and doing everything, you must be doing that for the salvation of the nation and for the salvation of the whole world. In order for you to be able to save the whole world you must know that you must be able to sacrifice your nation, and your family for the nation and the world. We are taught that we have to make offering to reach God or reach the salvation of the whole world. That means that what we are going to save at the cost of sacrifice is greater than the thing we are going to sacrifice.
When you are going to save your family at the sacrifice of yourself, you have already obtained a bigger thing -- your family -- at the sacrifice of yourself and when you are going to save your nation, at the sacrifice of your family, you gained the nation, which is greater than your family, and so on.
When you make an offering before God, would you offer Him leftovers? You would choose the best thing out of what you have and would want to sacrifice and offer that. What you cherish most will be your offering.
When Noah spent 120 years of the prime of his life in the business of erecting the ark, he was offering the best part of his life -- or anything he had -- to God. Abraham was in the position to have to offer even his wife to God -- even his dear and only child to God. For him it was more difficult than to sacrifice his own self when he had to sacrifice his son. The same was true with Moses. When he was going to offer the stone tablet, he fasted for 40 days and went through many difficulties and hardships. He was ready to sacrifice himself, his own life, in making the offering before God.
When God was going to have John the Baptist get ready for his mission for 30 years in the wilderness living on wild honey and locusts, God meant to have him sacrifice himself for the salvation of the nation. By denying his own parents, relatives, neighbors, his clan and nation, he was in the position to sacrifice himself, deny himself as the offering before God. When he was in the period to witness to the coming of the Messiah, he was in the position to have to deny himself, his family and all other things on order to receive the Lord. And he would have loved him, the Lord, more than his family, his clan, his own nation.
He was prepared for all that. So, God was on his side helping him. Why would God have him to be sacrificed for the sake of larger things? Because by sacrificing that one man of certain mission he would get larger and more precious things, which means Jesus. By doing that, he was going to locate his partner, which would be his clan, his nation and everything. At the cost of himself, he was going to find more precious things. The same is true with God. He would demand us to offer sacrifice, but from His part too, He has to sacrifice something for the salvation of man. In doing that, He had to sacrifice the man who makes the offering. That means God barely has that person, and already He is going to sacrifice him. In other words for instance, he would sacrifice himself for the sake of the nation, for the sake of the world, he is the only one through whom God can work, after searching for so long. We know that God, after choosing and preparing a nation to receive Jesus Christ, He was ready to sacrifice that nation for the sake of the world. The Jewish people, however, did not realize that fact. God was ready to sacrifice His chosen nation for the world, but they thought that the Lord would come to save their nation and put it above all other nations of the world and God would help them to do that.
If Master wasn't aware of that fact, through his experience he would have many opportunities to go against God or even deny God. God would have him go through that kind of trial so many times. Sometimes a voice from heaven would tell him to go and locate a certain person and do such and such thing -- that it would be a success. He would desperately try to find that person, to persuade him and after doing that, God would sacrifice that person and everything he had done, for the sake of broader things. He would be disgusted at times. He went through many experiences like that, even bigger than the first. He always expected a bigger challenge. All those bitter experiences taught him lessons.
I brought you here and I am going to do some great things in this country. But perhaps you may be skeptical, wondering why I didn't take you to Korea instead, to restore the chosen nation. Why did I bring you to this nation? There are reasons for that. If I brought you to Korea and had you work for the restoration of Korea, it would be good for Korea to be restored in the nearest possible date, but that's only establishing a national base, not a worldwide base. Here we are working to save the whole world. Since this is the nation that leads the world, what we accomplish here will influence the whole world. So, I am setting my eyes on that. I will make you worldwide and, with the least possible effort and in the soonest possible date, I will influence the whole world. If you are ready to do that you must be determined to go through 1973 and up to 1974. The reason why I have brought you here in 1973 is for you to participate in that great task. Now that you are here you must pray not for your own nation, not only for Germany, Italy, etc., but for the whole world. When you pray, think of our Fatherland, not Korea, but the kingdom of God on earth -- that's our Fatherland.
In Jesus' days he failed in his mission because the prepared people of Judaism and the chosen nation of the Israelites did not cooperate with him but killed him on the cross. This time, back in Korea, I was able to influence the Christians and the government. Both the government and Christian people are in favor of our group and recognize that they need our help. With that accomplished, I can develop the broader scope of providence here. What I have achieved on that level must be transferred to this country in order to be connected to the worldwide level.
Everything I do has a significance; nothing comes about meaninglessly. On my way back last time I was here, when I was in Free China doing certain things, back in Korea a great event began to occur: the South-North dialogue began to take place. Since things on the spiritual level had been accomplished on the physical level, the freedom loving side imitated talks with the North Korean regime.
The South-North dialogue is an historical, world event. Until that time, Master had not met any of the well-known personages in Korea, even though they wanted to meet him, but after his public speech in the Western world, then he began to meet them. He met famous ministers, famous presidents of universities and religious leaders. They had been anxious to meet him. From that time, he began to propagate our movement in a very forceful and convincing way.
If our work here is successful, I will bring back this fruit to God. I am here in great haste, impatient to carry this out within two years' time. We must always be sensitive to the time element. There's God's demand on how and when to do it. We must be victors. We are sure to get victory. What are you going to do then? Has there been any nation that God could claim as His? Can we say that the USA is on God's side -- or Britain or Germany, or any other nation? There has never been any nation on the spiritual or physical level that God could claim as His. The Christians are a nation in the spiritual sense, but there is corruption there and God cannot claim it as His.
Then, what is God's desire, our desire? That is to restore our Fatherland which God can claim to be His. In order for us to be able to do that we must get rid of the Satanic condition and by making our project a success, we can establish our own nation which God can claim as the kingdom of God on earth. At all costs, even at the sacrifice of ourselves, we must be able to establish the kingdom of God on earth. We are here for that.
We have the sovereignty, but where is the land? In God's divine providence, Korea is the chosen land. On the spiritual base we are going to connect Korea with all other nations and the whole earth's plane is our land for God to claim as His. In order to collect those lands without national barriers, we are going to send out missionaries as soon as possible to some 120 nations, at least, by May of 1975. By that time the whole earth will be our Fatherland. In God's sight there is no national boundary. With all nations put together, they will be one people in God. With all those people in cooperation with each other, we are going to build God's kingdom on earth. To do that is your mission as well as mine.
(To someone in the audience): Peter [Koch] is just an individual man, but you must be proud of being the representative of all the people of the world as citizens of the kingdom of God on earth, our Fatherland. You must have the same ideal, same thought, each one of you. The US, as well as all other places, will be our future land. Above all the worldly sovereignties, God must be the ultimate one. Originally, God will reign over all the world with True Parents under God's ideology. Then, the ruler will love the people as his own children. This is the place where Adam and Eve, without fall, could have played the role of True Parents to all mankind -- beginning from his family where God could operate. If Adam had not fallen, the family under him would be the world. With the process of multiplication, he could have played the role of the first ancestors and all the people of the world could have been the citizens of the kingdom. It could have been the beginning point of having people, sovereignty, land, which could be called the kingdom of God on earth. The world sovereignty, the kingdom of God, will start from that one point where Adam and Eve were the parents to their family, and after the multiplication of the population of the world, they could have been placed under the sovereignty of God. That was the position of the human ancestors without the fall.
In the path of restoration every one of you must be thinking of yourselves as the starting point. You are going to be blessed and give birth to your children and you will be the true ancestors to your descendants and from then on you will have land, people and sovereignty of yours and all will be citizens of the kingdom of God.
The whole earth being our land, the whole population of the world being our people, God's sovereignty will reign over all mankind. You must strongly believe that any woman is the representative of the female beings on the earth and you must put yourself in the position of the mother to the descendants of all the people of the world. If you have true faith in the Divine Principle, you men are the representatives of all the male beings of the earth. The whole earth will be God's land, the whole population of the earth will be citizens of the kingdom of God and the sovereignty of this world will be God's sovereignty. We must pray for the day and fight for it in utter gratefulness. My conclusion is that we have the glorious Fatherland as our mission directly ahead of us. We are going to fight a glorious battle for that cause and we are going to sacrifice ourselves for that cause and we are destined to be the glorious citizens enjoying the kingdom in the love of God. And for that cause let us march on.
Those who are resolved for that please hold up your hands!