Sun Myung Moon
True Parents' Eightieth Birthday Celebration and North-South Unification Rallies
March 8, 2000
Mokpo Indoor Stadium, Mokpo, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished international guests, my fellow citizens gathered here for the sake of the reunification of North and South, ladies and gentlemen:
We have just begun the new millennium. It is the time for us to wipe away the residue of division and struggle left over from the previous century. It is time to realize the ideal of one worldwide family, one global village of peace and unity. I pray that the blessings of the new millennium will be with each and every family represented here today.
First, allow me to thank you for coming from around the world to congratulate me on my eightieth birthday. However, more than anything, I would like to offer the glory to God. He has been my constant companion and protector, and it is He who has made this day possible.
Looking back on my life, things have never been calm and quiet. I have walked a path of suffering side by side with the people of this nation, a nation whose history has seen inordinate strife and tribulation, nestled as it is here at the junction of great world powers. Ever since I unexpectedly came into contact with the Will of Heaven while in prayer at the age of sixteen, I have devoted my life and given all my thought and effort to bringing about the fulfillment of the Will of God.
I discovered that the root cause of human suffering is that the human ancestors fell into a state of spiritual ignorance due to the corruption of their love, and this severed their relationship with God. As a result of the Fall, humanity became ignorant of basic issues relating to God, life and the universe.
Throughout my life, I have spoken in public more than ten thousand times, presenting the truth about the world, human life and history, based on the principles of Godism. This content in its entirety has been translated into twelve languages and published in some three hundred volumes. I did not discover my teaching by researching ancient documents or academic study. It is based upon the fundamental and essential answers I found by traveling back and forth between the visible and the invisible realms.
Today I am grateful to have this opportunity to talk about a solution to the problem of the unification of the Korean Peninsula, which is my country's most cherished desire and the last unresolved issue of the Cold War. My talk is entitled, "The Course of Life for the Princes and Princesses of God."
What is behind the history of all the world's nations?
Distinguished guests, what nation are you a citizen of? Many of you are citizens of Korea. For you, Korea is your homeland, your homeland, isn't it? Then, where is God's homeland? At present, God has no homeland. Where do all the nations of the world originate? Do they have their origin in God, or is their origin somewhere else? The question of the historical origin of the world's nations is an important one.
All the nations of this world were formed as a result of conflict. In many instances, where a border divides two nations, that border is an emblem of intensely painful resentment. We all know the historical reality that the fiercest fights where the most blood was shed were waged at borders between neighboring nations, not between nations at great distance from each other. The walls between two adjacent nations and the walls between two neighboring ethnic groups are the highest walls. Wars are not usually fought between nations and ethnic groups thousands of miles away from each other. From ancient times, wars were fought over the border between neighboring countries.
By the same token, even you probably get into fights with neighbors and those people closest to you. Why? It is because human beings fell away from God. As a result of the human Fall, fights tend to start with one's neighbors.
What is the meaning of the Fall? It means that there is discord between God and human beings, that conflict has erupted between God and Satan, and that there is conflict between humanity and Satan. It means that there are numerous conflicts between nations, as attested by the large number of nations in the history of this small planet.
This is the history out of which the nations of the world were formed, so where will they go? All nations seek a world of peace, yet are they capable of finding it? This question points to the one common task that remains in front of all humanity today.
Nevertheless, if we harbor enmity toward a neighboring nation, with the justification that it is our historical enemy, we will never achieve a world of peace. If we harbor enmity, we will never reach the ideal, no matter how much we long for it and how often we say we are marching toward it. In order to neutralize the motivation for international conflict and wipe away our malformed, dysfunctional history, we need a movement that will lead the way by substantiating those characteristics that are the opposite of enmity and conflict.
The homeland we should seek
Distinguished guests, even though we live in a nation, in truth we are like people without a nation. Has there ever been a nation that could be considered a true nation? No there has not. Is it for lack of trying to build a true nation? No. The reason we have never had a true nation is that the people of history were never in a position to build one. They could not build one, because the age in which they lived did not possess a fully developed standard upon which to build a true nation.
The homeland we need to build should not have a history and tradition like those found in the world today. It should be of a dimension essentially different from the nations of this world. If we want to build this different kind of nation, we have to be a people who possess the ideological consciousness to make it possible. There is an absolute Creator; therefore our ideology and teaching will need to be one with the Creator's ideology and teaching. What kind of nation does the Absolute Being want? He would want a nation with a sovereignty that would unite its people completely with Him. Its national character and its system would have to be of such quality.
A nation is constituted by sovereignty, people and land. In God's nation, parents represent the sovereignty, sons and daughters represent the people, and the household represents the land. This is an unbreakable rule; a nation cannot omit any of these elements.
What should be that nation's highest value? It is living for the greater good, which extends to the nation and the world. The nation should guarantee that people who live that way cannot fall into ruin. In today's nations people who live for the greater good often end up suffering, but the ultimate nation is a nation where such people can only prosper. If a person dies while working for the sake of that nation, he or she will be honored as a patriot. He or she will be honored as long as the nation exists.
For a nation to be formed, it requires a land, a people and sovereignty. What is sovereignty? Sovereignty is the connection and link with God, who is the root and origin. The people who govern the nation have to first establish their connection with God; only then can they govern. In this way, the rulers will be one with the people. They need to become one with the people and know that whatever they own is not for their own sake; it exists for the sake of the nation. If they do so, the nation will prosper.
From this point of view, when you consider the issue of realizing the kingdom of heaven on earth, who is its owner? Who is the ruler? Without a doubt, God is the Ruler. Who are the people? The people are all the people of the world. And what is the land? The land is the planet Earth.
What does the kingdom of heaven on earth resemble? It resembles "me." As I said, a nation consists of sovereignty, people and land. This is the same as a single human being. Who did I say that the kingdom of heaven on earth resembles? "Me." It resembles "me." Individuals such as "me" gather together, and that forms the nation. Just as I have my own mind, the nation has sovereignty. Just as I have a personal identity, there is a national population. And just as I interact with the created universe, so a nation interacts with the land.
Within this basic principle, the people enable the land to bear fruit, and the sovereignty enables the people to bear fruit. This is how things are. Land, people and sovereignty are the three essential elements that comprise a nation.
Looking at human beings, the basic principle is that our mind is subject partner to our body, and our body is subject partner to the natural world. On the basis of this principle, the definitive outcome of the entire world is "a human being who encompasses heaven and earth." What would you say heaven is? It is the same as the human mind, so it is also the same as the sovereignty. Human beings are the nation’s population and the earth is the created world. In the end, what does the nation resemble? It resembles an individual person.
No matter how big the society, no matter how great the nation, it resembles a human being. This is because God likes that which resembles Him, which is in His image. Then, what things do human beings like most? They also like what resembles them, what is in their image. So what does an ideal nation need to resemble? It needs to resemble a human being in the form of "a human being who encompasses heaven and earth."
In Unification Church terminology, "homeland" does not refer to a single nation, such as the Republic of Korea. It refers to a global nation. Actually, this corrupted, fallen world uses the word "global" incorrectly. The "ism" or teaching that describes this homeland is called "cosmos-ism."
Our homeland is not the Republic of Korea. God does not want the Republic of Korea or the United States or the communist nations as His homeland. God wants an original homeland. We have to create the culture and the history of that new, original homeland. We have to define a new standard of behavior upon which to establish a new and ideal homeland. We have to change our way of life, because the ideal world is completely different from the world of today.
The words and language are different as well. Do the people of today's world understand the meaning of such important phrases as "the realm of dominion of the Principle," "give-and-receive action," "common base" and "foundation for the providence of restoration"? No, the vocabulary of God's homeland is different.
How will the independence of God's homeland first be realized?
If and when the nation that the Unification Church envisions is established, we will have to take down the Unification Church signboard. And when the world that the Unification Church envisions is realized, we will have to dismantle any nation the Unification Church establishes. By the same token, we will have to discard any religion that exists only for the sake of the culture and the character of the Republic of Korea. Only a religion that exists for the sake of the world will continue into the future.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, what would a person who seeks to inherit the Will of God advocate? There is absolutely no way he or she would tell the people of this world to simply go the way of pleasure. In fact he or she would tell people to go in the opposite direction. The saying, "Love your enemies with the heart of true love" expresses this. The words, "Love your enemies" can turn around our false history. They are anchors for a ship buffeted in a howling typhoon. Throughout the providence of restoration no one has truly been able to practice these words, but God nonetheless found those who sincerely tried to love their enemies. He lifted them to the world stage, and built around them some form of systematic organization. God actually has to present this kind of person, and the movement that he or she engenders, to the world. These are the very religious movements that have arisen in history.
Of all the people in history, whom has God loved the most? It is Jesus. Jesus presented a new direction for this conflict-ridden world. High walls are created between oppressor and oppressed nations, such as existed between Rome and Israel, because they viewed each other as enemies. Jesus' philosophy is that these walls need to be demolished. He thought, "You in Rome want to conquer me by force, yet I will conquer you in the opposite way -- with love." This is why he sought to bless his enemies even while hanging on the cross. We need to recognize that when Jesus said of the Roman soldiers, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they are doing," he was expressing this amazing philosophy. (Luke 23:34) Because Jesus made this plea, he became the model and archetype for all nations of the world to transcend the position of enemies, and also the model for transcending national borders.
Jesus knew that individual enemies were not the only enemies. He knew that family enemies, clan enemies, ethnic enemies, national enemies and global enemies surrounded him on all sides. This means there are many enemies awaiting those who follow his path. It also means that if you walk the family path, there are family enemies waiting, and if you walk the clan path, there are clan enemies waiting. You can expect fierce battles; however you must love those enemies whenever you encounter them. If you possess this spirit, eventually victory will be yours.
What is the starting-point for realizing God's ideal nation? What is the starting-point for recovering the original homeland? It will start from individuals who live by the philosophy of loving their enemies.
Therefore, because God exists, Christianity could not avoid becoming a global religion. That is because Christianity is a movement to break down national borders with love, to transcend all environments and cultural barriers, and to embrace even the enemy.
You reap what you sow. If you sow kidney bean seeds, you will get kidney bean plants, and if you sow rose seeds, you will have roses. In the same way, if you plant Satan's seed, a seed of retaliation against your enemies, you will get a tree of evil, a tree of retribution. However if you plant the seed of goodness, the seed of loving your enemies, you will get a tree of goodness, a tree of love. This is just a principle of nature.
Where did I say God's homeland starts? How does it arise? It arises by the path of loving one's enemies. It arises by establishing the tradition of loving one's individual enemies, loving one's family enemies, loving one's clan enemies, and loving national and global enemies. God's homeland cannot appear except by this path.
Take a look. Because the United States opposed me, and its State Department opposed me, and the Congress opposed me, someday I will be granted a certificate of recognition saying I won over the Congress, I won over the State Department, and I won over the United States. I am winning friends even in the State Department, which had been opposing me. In the Congress I am winning many friends. By loving my enemies, I will prevail in the end. Even if I did not have such friends, my conviction is such that I can overcome any opposition and lead the way to victory. The more someone sets him or herself as my enemy and opposes me, the more I love that person. Therefore, I am never worried about how heavy the opposition is.
The laws of nature dictate that if low pressure exists in one place, high pressure will appear somewhere else. If one area develops high pressure, another area will develop low pressure, and as the air from the high-pressure area flows into it, the high pressure area diminishes. If a high-pressure area like the State Department opposes me, then it will have to surrender to me as I develop a field of low pressure, just as a low-pressure area absorbs a high-pressure area in nature.
Even though I took all sorts of abuse in the past, when I didn't resist and instead loved my persecutors, they became my friends in the end. Families that opposed me turned into friends, clans that opposed me turned into friends, and nations that opposed me turned into friends.
If a nation appears composed of people who have this spirit of loving their enemies, that nation will manifest the ideal that God desires. It will manifest the ideal for all humankind.
I don't think there is anything externally attractive about me. Although you people here don't admit it, people in the rest of the world don't find me particularly handsome. Yet God loves me the most. Even if the world thinks I am a terrible fellow, God recognizes me. That is why I can be bold and open in reaching out to the world.
If you love your enemies, there is nothing you cannot say or do. Why? It is because whatever you do out of love has God's blessing. If God says a man is good-looking, then he is good-looking; if God says he is really commendable, he is really commendable; if God says he is brave and fiery, then he is brave and fiery. I take it that I have God's approval, and hence I can take on the world with confidence.
When I become intoxicated with God's approval while working on my own, do you know what happens? Young people -- young men and women -- appear, a great family of all races appears, an entire people appears, a people that God can truly take joy in appears, and the dawning of God's homeland becomes possible.
When Jesus said we have to love our enemies, he meant we have to love even the worst person. If a man who thinks he's really handsome is matched with a woman he considers to be less than himself, his loving her is even more important than his loving his enemies.
The person who loves his or her enemies will march in the vanguard and carry the flag of the most exalted prince. How noble that person is! He or she can leap over national and racial boundaries. On the day you live with a heart to love your enemies, all barriers will fall, the history of the providence of restoration will be shortened, and heaven will come near. My philosophy is that simple.
There is nothing I haven't done. I've been a farmer, a laborer; I've tried everything! Living my whole life in this way, I thought I was all alone. Yet when I turned around, I found British people following me, Americans following me, people following me from all over the world! Even if I pushed them away rudely and moved on in a new direction, they came back and followed me. I go this way, I go that way, yet still they follow me. This is how it is, so no matter how much you research the Unification Church, there is always something more to learn.
Our first destination on earth
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, what is the path we need to take at this time? No matter how excellent your clan is, if Satan maintains its sovereignty over your nation, then in fact your clan is without a nation.
Do you take the Republic of Korea to be your country? You do not have a country! No matter how strong your clan may be, if the sovereignty of your nation is not centered on Heaven, your clan can be annihilated just like that. Isn't it so? Therefore, we need to search for the nation that Heaven can welcome with open arms.
Today when we liken Korea to the realm of the First Israel, we mean that the land needs to become one that Heaven can welcome, a land that individuals can welcome, that families can welcome, that clans, communities and religions can welcome. Not even the Unification Church, much less Christianity and the Republic of Korea, has stood in a position that Heaven can welcome. Each has been going in a direction different from Heaven's direction. For example, the path the Republic of Korea is pursuing is external. It is moving ahead, not centered on God but centered on secularism. This nation has no central guiding thought or philosophy.
We have to connect this nation with God, by having it adopt this teaching as its central national philosophy. Korea needs to form a new national concept, equipped with this multi-dimensional worldview. Otherwise, it will not see the dawning of the original homeland. Once Korea has adopted this national concept, it must present it as the ideal teaching for the nations of the world. Otherwise the homeland will never be established.
The liberation we have today -- Korea's liberation from Japan -- is the first liberation. Now, in the Unification Church, we need a second liberation. The Republic of Korea also needs a second liberation. The people and the nation will not achieve their full desire unless the Republic of Korea undergoes the second liberation. After that, the Unification Church will need a third liberation. That is how things will go. The Republic of Korea established its current national pattern through the first liberation. At this time it requires a second liberation, the reunification of North and South.
What is the nature of the nation to be formed when North and South are united? Because its people have passed through a suffering course in its history, it has to be a nation whose character is capable of becoming one with the principles of restoration through indemnity. It needs to be a nation that is completely united with the Will of God. So how does today's Republic of Korea need to act in order to become that nation?
To rise to the present standard, it needs to unify the North and the South. The divided North and South of Korea are just like the divided northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah, and they need to be united into one. Like Cain and Abel on the national level, North and South were divided, and if they are not reunited, a single, victorious Israelite nation will not appear.
So in this peninsula, how should we reunite North Korea and South Korea? A new global-level ideology is what is needed to unify them. Unificationism, which is being advocated by the Unification Church, was prepared for this very time. Now we are in the position to do two things: We have to form one nation that surpasses every other nation of the world, and we have to embody a single faith so indomitable that it surpasses every other religion in the world. North and South need to be one nation centered on this teaching. Without doing that, God's nation, namely, the sovereignty of the heavenly nation that we can proudly proclaim to the world, will not be born. You have to understand that this purpose is our priority on earth today.
If we cannot establish this nation as the original homeland, we will not be a nation that can center on God and surpass the nations of Satan's world. Without such a nation, we cannot chastise the evil nations of the world. We cannot be free of their influence. To do that, we need more than just a religion, more than just the Unification Church. We need a unified nation whose direction is centered on Unificationism. We need to establish it and then move forward. This issue remains to be resolved.
From this point of view, the Unification Church will be like Judaism, in that the thought of the Unification Church will become the mainstream thought of Korea just as Judaism was the spiritual pillar of the nation of Israel. In the future, there will be a time when Unificationism will undergird the spiritual communities of our nation. This is what some people are saying today, even some members of the National Assembly. If the thought of the Unification Church becomes the national ethos, the Communist Party will no longer get any attention.
Our attitude toward the independence of our homeland
Ladies and gentlemen, the people who live for the sake of Heaven today are the secret emissaries of Heaven sent into Satan's world. Although an emissary may be big or small, broad or thin, tall or short, the lifestyle he or she maintains does not deviate, because that person is always facing life-and-death situations. He or she lives in circumstances where even the smallest mistake can impact someone's eternal life.
If you are to live as an emissary serving a homeland that can support and protect eternal life, your spirit must be hundreds of times stronger than the environment around you. You need to be able to ignore the current situation by thinking of how all the people of the world will rejoice when finally all resentment is erased. You have to look to the glory of the original homeland, even as you create a new history. You need to think that all your efforts will only become known and recognized on the day when the homeland is given birth. Unless you have that mindset, you cannot carry out your mission as Heaven's emissary. In order to overcome all the resentment and execute your mission, your hope for the dawning of a homeland needs to be a thousand times, ten thousand times greater than the influences of the present reality.
If by some chance an emissary were to die due to some unfortunate situation in the line of duty, God can dispatch a new emissary to the same place who can carry out that person's responsibility. Even though he or she has already passed on, people will appear who can become the new emissary's friends and allies. Even though he or she became a sacrifice, because he or she died as a model, people who were his or her allies will remain. Since those people remain, God can send someone in the emissary's place on that foundation. However, if he or she was not ready to die in that situation, no matter what he or she may have achieved, it will end with that person's death.
From this viewpoint, what attitude should you have toward this new age? The desire to begin the original homeland must burn in your heart more passionately than anything else. You have to feel pride that you are a leader who is building the homeland for which God has longed for six thousand years. You have to take pride in bearing the responsibility for this incredible pioneering mission, as a member of the elite group standing on the front line. Many people in the past yearned for this mission, but it was not available to them. You are taking on this one-time-only, privileged mission, so you must have a very solemn sense of responsibility.
Every aspect of your lifestyle -- eating and sleeping, coming and going -- has to be for the establishment of God's homeland. How much do you think God has been longing for you to step forward and joyfully and confidently declare you will carry out this mission? That you accept the role of an emissary dispatched directly by God Himself? Until now, God has been mercilessly pushed aside and heartlessly excluded. Still, He needs to establish the Will of Heaven. The Will that He was never able to unfold, the Will to establish His homeland, only presents its entire contents on the basis of a complete national foundation. It is a Will that He has never been able to fulfill.
Finally, it is possible to establish this homeland, a homeland with sovereignty, land and people. Moreover, there is the lineage of a homogeneous ethnic group connected to that land, which has a history that no other peoples possess. To create this homeland, we need to carry out our mission as emissaries. You need to strive to fulfill your mission sooner than expected so that, thanks to you, the foundation for the dawning of the homeland will be that much closer. Paying the price of sweat and tears today creates the foundation for the appearance of the homeland that much earlier. Thinking like this, you must go out into the world with the determination to fulfill the secret mission of Heaven's emissary. If you don't do it, we will lack the capacity to receive the unprecedented blessing and fortune that God is preparing to give to us.
We have to construct heaven on this earth. To be able to hold up our heads before our Father, we have to establish Heaven's nation on this earth and become one with the center of that nation. Then, as citizens of the heavenly nation, we must live there and die there, always upholding the standard that Heaven hopes for.
Do you have that nation? When you think about the fact that you don't, then you realize that you cannot die even if you want to. If you die, where would you go? How would you avoid a sense of shame and self-consciousness, a feeling of pain? That is why I am so busy. Although the length of my life is limited, I am striving to get everything done while I am alive.
On top of that, Satan's evil environment opposes us. Don't you think our enemies are trying to block our way? If we are to break through it and forge ahead, we cannot avoid the unsettled lifestyle of an emissary.
All our comings and goings need to be for the sake of building Heaven's nation. We have to take up the mission to become true founding citizens who will bring Heaven's homeland to birth. We must receive our orders as Heaven's emissaries, enter the present-day world of evil, and carry out our work accordingly. We must live with these thoughts uppermost in our mind.
Without doing this, you will not be able to establish your dignity and authority as citizens of the heavenly nation that is at hand. Do you want to make a difference as an individual? Do you want to influence things as a family? Nationally? Globally? How do you want to make a difference? You'd like to make a difference globally, wouldn't you? However, if you want to rise to the global level, you will not be able to do it on your own. You will need a nation. That is why I am asking you, where is your nation?
We need to eat and sleep for the sake of that nation, live day and night for the cause of that nation. Don't you understand that you were born for this? You have to pledge your life before heaven and earth. While you are sleeping, imagine that you are in a room where the beds of millions of people around the world are lined up together and you are sleeping at the very head. When you look at a dinner table, imagine that you are eating with everyone in the world. Wherever you go, imagine you are not sitting alone, but that all the peoples of the world have gathered around you and that you are sitting at the head of them all. As sons and daughters of Heaven, you have to think like that.
Each of you needs to understand that the lifestyle of the sons and daughters of Heaven must surpass the authority of Satan's world and be fit for glory. When God loves His sons and daughters, don't you think this is the kind of son and daughter He wants to love? If He loves sons and daughters who aren't even as good as Satan, He can't really preserve His dignity as the Father, can He? I want you all to keep this in mind and determine that you will live every day of your life marching forward in righteousness, hand in hand with the entire world. As I see it, this is where success in the battle for unity is won or lost.
You need to think, "Even though I live in the midst of Satan's world, I am an emissary for Heaven. I am the one ambassador of Heaven." Other people do not know your situation, yet you have to push ahead with conviction. You have the mission and authority of an emissary. Just as a king waits for the reports of his nation's emissaries, when you are fulfilling this mission on the earth, God is waiting for your reports and for your requests.
If someone in the position of an emissary sends a request, "I urgently need such and such," don't you think the king would brave troubles and difficulties from every sector to send it to his emissary? In the same way, if you have the conviction that you are sons and daughters for God's glory, and you report, "This is what I need, Father; please make it possible," then it will come to pass. In this way, you can discover the living God and see Him working.
If you are able to do this, you will be a leader. You will be able to heal the sick. God will help you directly through any difficulty. Through this way of life, you have to learn confidence and conviction so you can break through everything that obstructs your path.
The path for God's true sons and daughters
Respected guests, what are we looking for? We are not looking for the individual, nor are we looking for the family. Our purpose is to find the nation. Whether you're a father, a mother or someone's child, you must do this. If you blessed families in the Unification Church today are complacent within your own clans, saying, "The nation? The church? Don't talk to me about that!" then you all have failed. This is the reality from the Principle point of view.
You need to seek the nation until the day you die. You need to invest your heartfelt effort. Only then will the day arrive when you can celebrate and sing songs of victory at the dawning of the heavenly nation. Among all of Jesus' teachings, this is what you need to know. I am not showing you two directions, just one. If Jesus were to tell you, "Let's go!" you'd have to go, right? So if he says, "Leave your husband at home, leave your family, and go!" do you have to go or not? It would not be for the sake of the Unification Church. You have to do it for the sake of the nation. If you do, things will work out in your family.
Currently in North Korea, they are tearing up the family registers and redoing them. Do you know why? Satan's world does things first. As Jesus said, you have to be able to put aside your husband, wife, parents, children and everyone you love, and step forward. Otherwise, we cannot establish the nation that we hope for. When that nation is established, you will find your family again. If you can't establish that nation, you'll have to sit and see your parents shed their blood, your wife shed her blood, and your children spill their blood. Is there anything worse than that? Therefore, before we find that nation, we cannot love our wives, we cannot love our parents, and we cannot love our children. This is the path Christians need to walk; so it is also the path the members of the Unification Church need to walk.
You have to be able to deny yourself and live for the nation. No matter what kind of difficult situation you find yourself in, you have to be people who can fight and overcome it, fulfilling the hope your Father has for you. This is what you have to do to be called God's true sons and daughters.
So what kind of person can build God's nation? It is someone who can deny him or herself and value Heaven with an aching heart, someone who denies him or herself and lives for the sake of society and the people, for the sake of the nation and the world. That person can build God's nation. Going one step further, the person who lives for the sake of Heaven, even if it means he or she has to deny the nation and the world, can build the kingdom of heaven. The person who can build God's nation is a person who feels sorrow over society and the nation, over the world, and even over Heaven, rather than sorrow over him or herself, no matter what sorrowful and painful situation he or she encounters.
Not only that, you must be victorious in the struggle with Satan during the course of establishing God's nation and achieving His purpose. Then, starting from the individual, you need to unite the family, society, people, nation and world into one. In other words, you have to be able to fight and win over Satan no matter what situation you find yourself in. You have to fight and win over Satan in any environment that society presents you. You have to step forward, take responsibility for that nation's worst problem, and fight and win over Satan's forces.
Do you think that Satan, who has resisted God for six thousand years, is just going to quietly say, "That's enough! I've had it. I think I'll just give up," and lower his eyes and slink away? No, he will not leave us alone, he will scrutinize us even as we might carefully inspect a lowly washcloth, turning it over and over, before throwing it out. What I'm saying is that Satan will not give up and go away just like that. This is why he keeps putting up such a stubborn fight.
To fight Satan successfully, we have to unite with the center. Even I, Rev. Moon of the Unification Church, will be discarded the day I deviate from the center. If the direction isn't right, we can't make any real progress. The reason we seek the heavenly nation is to be able to find the world, and the reason we seek the world is for the sake of the spirit world. After we do that, what is next? Then we attend our Heavenly Parent on His return to the earth. We will stand in our positions and, with all nations attending God assembled on either side, we will march forward with Him to dedicate and offer Him the glory of victory.
Your mission as a member of the Unification Church calls you to engage in this struggle. Even if our shoes wear out and we go barefoot, we have to march forward to build the eternal homeland. Can we save this nation if we eat our fill and only offer leftovers? Can you spend your energy worrying about what you wear, when you'll eat, how you'll get along? We have to clear the path and pioneer the way with our bare feet and bare hands. This is what we do in the Unification Church.
Are you brave, courageous warriors, heroes who can step forward for the establishment of the homeland, or are you impeding it? When we say yeongsa, "hero," we mean those who can represent the nation and accomplish things that other people cannot. We do not call just anyone a hero. Other people are mere soldiers. A hero is someone who succeeds when his or her comrades can't do the job and have to retreat. The Chinese character yeong means swift, quick. A hero has to rim faster than anyone else, even able to virtually dodge bullets. We can't use the word hero for someone who does what just anyone can do.
The foundation to achieve the independence of our homeland
Who can be the hero that stands in the vanguard to pioneer the building of that nation? And where can that nation be established? If you want to establish a nation, you need sovereignty, people and land. Then looking at the challenges centering on the heavenly kingdom, what sites can fulfill the role of the land? They can only be church properties, right? Next, who are the people, the citizens of the kingdom of heaven? They are the congregation, the members. Then who are the public servants? You are. You are the representatives of the village head, the representatives of the tribal head, the representatives of the county head and the representatives of the provincial governor. Have you become such central figures, such subject partners?
When someone attacks with a bomb from Satan's world, you have to be the first in the line of fire. Do you feel you can do that? When you have money, even if it is only a penny, you must use it to develop the church. You need to use it to expand the domain of the nation and to bring the people together. A church director is the representative of the ruler. He or she represents the village chief; he or she stands as a father or mother. You have to establish this kind of tradition and philosophy. We ourselves don't have anything.
What kind of nation are we going to establish here in Korea? When we start distributing goods in the North and communicating with them, is our intention to set up a communist nation, to keep going as the Republic of Korea, or to pursue a new nation that is neither of these? As we consider these things, we can feel that our time is approaching. If you are Unificationists who have to keep things steady and take responsibility for all this, how deep is your sense of responsibility? How much are you willing to sacrifice for it? Do you have the confidence? We will need to go up north, cross over the thirty-eighth parallel, and prepare our foundations in the towns and counties of the North's nine provinces.
At this time when we are short of people, you have to think about who is going be responsible for Jeongju up in the North. Are you willing to invest all your effort and prepare for ten or twenty years so that you will be able to take responsibility for the Jeongju area? If you can't accomplish it, then when you die you need to instruct your descendants to study hard, train hard, prepare hard and take responsibility to represent Heaven in Jeongju. This is what I have been thinking about and preparing for up to this day.
Thinking of this, is it okay for young men just to return to their hometowns, smiling and chuckling, with their wives and kids in tow? Is that okay or not? You've got to resolve that you will first dedicate your life to establish Heaven's nation and only after that go to your hometown. You must resolve that you will first dedicate your life to build Heaven's nation for your children, and then go to your hometown. I'm telling you that for things to go right, you've got to make a new determination. You must resolve, "I will go up there to the Russian and Manchurian frontiers and lock horns with the Communist Party. In the midst of gunshots day and night, I'll take responsibility. I'll be a sentry for the border detachment. Even if my country doesn't know, even if no one knows, even if I have to give my life in the process, my heart and loyalty for the heavenly nation will not change." This is exactly what we need.
It doesn't matter if the world ignores you. Everything will be revealed when you get to the spirit world. This is how the universe is set up. To have the proper perspective, you have to understand that we are short of people. We need more people. Even if some scraggly old scarecrow of a man joins us, we can set him up with a trumpet to proclaim the truth or, we can construct some robots and have them go around the North blowing on trumpets. This is what I wish I could do, and this is what God would like to do.
It just doesn't make sense to lament that you can't teach the Principle, when you were born as a person with a mouth and with feelings, and with a mind and body that is twenty or thirty years old. You have to study hard, even if you get so little sleep that your eyeballs fester and sting. You have to prepare for teaching even if you are so hungry that you are only skin and bones. Ultimately, that haggard, skinny bag of bones will be thoroughly capable of receiving the love of Heaven. What I'm saying is, God wants to place all His expectations on you, even though you might be meager and frail.
How shall we achieve the independence of our homeland?
Jesus also came to establish Heaven's nation. If there is no homeland, then the situation will be pitiful. People of faith have always been in a pitiful situation because they had no homeland. If the judgment is to come, the individual, family, clan, people, nation and world must conform to the unchanging standard of the homeland. Then the judgment will be made on the basis of that standard. The homeland is the final hope. The people, the clan, the family and the individual are all included within it.
Has this three-thousand-li-long Korean Peninsula become the homeland? It hasn't, and we need to settle this matter. Every one of us needs to work with single-minded devotion to create the homeland that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit desire.
What is goodness? Goodness is for the individual to sacrifice for the family, the family for the clan, and the clan for the birth of the homeland. All are sacrificed for the creation of the homeland, and when the homeland is built, all individuals become loyal and beloved patriots. If you offer loyal devotion on the national level, leading to the establishment of the national standard, then you will be recognized as having laid the foundation for the clan and the family as well. The standard of this path is absolute, loyal devotion for the sake of God. Then all the elements of your course are recognized.
How do we have to do it to get things right? Jesus said, "My Father... not what I will, but what You will." (Matt. 26:39) Here, "what I will" is the will of the world, and "what You will" is the Will of God. You Unification Church members, what have you done so far? Have you established the path of loyal patriots and stepped forward with actual results in hand? In order to fulfill the path of filial children, you must present actual accomplishments. You have to be resolved to fight on the individual, family, clan, national and world levels. Jesus came with the mission to be an offering.
You have to build the foundation of our people while moving ahead and working on the global level. You've got to feel you are endowed with a value equal to that of the Messiah. While I am pioneering the global path, you who follow me have to prepare the path of the Korean people.
Many people died while yearning for the path to liberation. They passed away believing that it would be achieved one day, although they did not know when.
Unificationists have prepared the foundation from the individual level, through the level of the Korean people, up to the national level. Now we have to mobilize all peoples and nations of the world. We have to seek the day of the establishment of our homeland, the day of freedom, peace and happiness, and we have to go forward no matter how difficult that path is. This is the way I look at things, and this is the standard God has. Jesus died while living according to this standard. No matter what the suffering, we have to forge ahead on the course to establish the homeland. We have to take responsibility for Korea. We must relieve the built-up pain and anguish that surrounds the fact that Jesus' homeland, the Holy Spirit's homeland, the homeland of all saints and sages, God's own homeland, has never been built. If we do not, there is no way we can hold up our heads.
We must find our homeland. In order to find it, we have to live for it. If we do not live for our homeland, we will not be able to build it. How do we live for our homeland? We do this by setting up the world as our homeland and living for the sake of the world. A person who lives this way is capable of creating the homeland. Eating and sleeping, walking on the street, your entire lifestyle and all your actions have to be for the sake of creating the homeland.
This is why we fight, prepared even to repulse the communists should they attack us with swords in broad daylight. If the people of Korea cannot do the job, we are the ones who have to. If the people cannot go forward, we have to do it. To be able to do it, we have to love our homeland more than anything else. What I'm saying is, when you eat, eat for the sake of the homeland. When you marry and go to join your husband, do it for the homeland. Do everything for the sake of the homeland.
Our first purpose is to save the nation
You are the group that will rise up when I give the word, which will mobilize when I give the direction. Yet I am not the sort of man to be satisfied with that. Therefore, I will continue to develop a foundation that will guarantee the birth of the homeland, even if I have to sacrifice the Unification Church foundation to do it. There has to be a religious group, a people and a nation that can receive the messianic family that has been established as the central goal of the six-thousand-year providence of God.
God had originally prepared the foundation for the world to receive His nation, and God's desire was for everything to be united from the outset. But that foundation was broken and shattered. Now the task to rebuild it remains. To connect everything together, we have to stand on the front line and run forward.
When it gets dark and it is time to rest, you should fall asleep still dreaming of that nation of hope. Of course, that nation does not exist at present. Still, as a citizen, you should go to sleep for the sake of that nation, and when you wake up, you should wake up as one who is working to create that nation. Do not use your senses to see, hear and touch without thinking of that nation. Until the day that nation is born, don't even think of dying. Time is pressing, and we have to overcome every kind of suffering and adversity.
If you have a deadline, you have to get the task done even if it means staying up late at night. So when the only way to establish the homeland is to make yourself a sacrificial lamb for the sake of the providential timeline, it is your responsibility to use your time to shed one more tear and one more bead of sweat to God's providence. Do you think it is okay to just sleep comfortably and wake up stretching and yawning? Rather, as soon as you wake, you need to bow down and pray, "Father, I feel the sorrow of this lonely, miserable path that I am walking to establish our victorious nation, to give You the place of rest and security that You have always longed for, and to build a nation through which You can make the world You have always wanted to build. Father, if I feel this kind of sorrow, how do You in heaven feel?"
You can't just lie down because you are tired. If you die, you should die for the sake of that nation. Because of this, when I get old and start to feel tired, the one thing I want to leave behind is a last will and testament that says, "I did all I could for the sake of Heaven. I did everything I could for the sake of Heaven's nation."
Jesus said, "Do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things, but strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." (Matt. 6:31-33) This shows that the central stream of thought in the Bible is Heaven's nation. The Bible's philosophy says we must seek that nation. It doesn't say to seek your own happiness.
If you are born as a citizen of that nation and you have a husband, then your husband represents that nation, so you have to love that nation before you love your husband. As a wife, you also represent the nation; your husband has to love that nation before he can love you. When your spouse dies, you even have to be able to ask him or her to die with the words, "I did everything I could; there is nothing more I could have done." It is not good if you die saying, "I wish I had tried this or that."
For this reason, we must keep on going, even though we may have accomplished a certain amount. If you walk part way down the path, there is no reason not to go to the end. When everyone else is sleeping, you have to go a step further. You've got to say, "Hey, Satan's world! Take a rest for the whole day if you like! We are going on to seek Heaven's nation."
Fellow compatriots, all who seek the unity of the North and South, I especially want to say that the mission of women is to restore the young people, and the mission of students is to be true children based upon true education. Even going beyond that, mothers and children have to unite to set the standard in order to raise and educate their husbands to be true sons of Heaven. You must restore the ideal of the kingdom of heaven on earth by attending God and True Parents.
In closing, it is my fervent hope that my words today will help you build a nationwide movement that will bring us closer to the day when the North and the South meet in true love.
May God's blessing be with you and your families.
Thank you.