Sun Myung Moon
May 21, 2002
Twentieth Anniversary of The Washington Times
Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC, USA
Photo date and location unknown
Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of The Washington Times has a particularly gratifying meaning for me. The memory is still fresh in my mind of how, in May 1982, I made the final decision to publish The Washington Times in response to Heaven's direction. This took place while I was being unjustly tried in a New York federal court, in a prosecution motivated by both racial and religious bigotry.
At that time, communism was sweeping the world like a giant, angry wave. Even America had no effective means to deal with it. I followed the supreme Will of Heaven, which told me that America, the final fortress of the democratic world and a Christian country representing the Second Israel, must be protected from communism. It is also the Will of Heaven to build the ideal world of peace that God is seeking, the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven, through Christianity. It was certainly not my intention to set up a newspaper company to make money. More than a billion dollars has been invested in The Washington Times alone. I have never regretted this nor felt enmity toward anyone, because this is a way to practice true love toward God and humankind.
My final message to America
More than thirty years have passed since I came to America. I have reached the age of eighty-two years, and the time is coming for me to return to my homeland. Before leaving, I would like to clearly convey to America, the nation in the realm of the Second Israel, and to all humankind a message concerning the actual situation of God and the spirit world. This is not just a message given by me as an individual. Heaven is sending the message that humankind needs to receive in this age. Until now, humankind has been living in a state of ignorance about the Will of Heaven. First, humanity has not known about God, and second, we have not known about the spirit world, where we all must go eventually, whether we like it or not.
Now we have entered the Last Days of human history. In the spirit world numerous religious leaders, beginning with the founders of the four great religions, have accepted the Unification Principle, which is my teaching, as the truth of the highest dimension. They have mobilized their disciples and descendants completely and are returning to the earth to resurrect by bringing them to form new, true families through the Blessing of marriage.
Particularly for the sake of America, a Christian country that represents the Second Israel, the four great saints, centering on Jesus, have each chosen 120 of their historically eminent disciples in order to establish a united front. Now, through their spiritual return to earth, they are furthering the work of the Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace and the World Association of Non- Governmental Organizations in order to bring about complete peace on earth.
They are proclaiming that humankind has no future unless we practice true love, or a life lived for the sake of others, which is the True Parents' philosophy. Accordingly, I would like to take this opportunity to give a commemorative address today. It is a valuable message to America and humanity on the topic, "The Life of Jesus from the Perspective of God's Will and God's Warning to the Present Age, the Period of the Last Days."
If we examine Jesus' providence of the cross, we see that Jesus, the thief on his right, the thief on his left and Barabbas sowed the seeds of history. It is a principle that what is sown will be reaped. Thus, the right-wing world and the left-wing world have appeared, represented today by the democratic and the communist realms, reflecting the right-thief type and the left-thief type. After that, centering on Jesus' cross, Islam, the Barabbas type, has appeared. Reflecting Barabbas, who received good fortune because of Jesus, Islam appeared as a force standing in an ambiguous relationship to Christianity.
History thus sown entered the age in which the form of the world was bound together in four major blocs. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt dreamed of forming a united Islamic Arab state. Christianity, meanwhile, is leading a new worldwide trend proclaiming, "Let's unite all religions."
As we observe these currents, we see that history, which was sown in tragedy, now finally is appearing as a good fruit centered on God. In the Last Days such phenomena will become even more pronounced, as that which was sown in the beginning reaches fruition in its exact original form and is harvested. It is inevitable that this will come about, because of the laws of the providence. Unity will be accomplished in accordance with True Parents' philosophy of true love.
The thief on the right and Christianity
If the democratic world is internal, then the communist world is external. If the right wing is internal, the left wing is external. The Messiah who is to come has no choice except to appear upon the internal foundation of the democratic world, which respects God. The Messiah will build a movement that absorbs the external environment and unites the various cultural spheres centering on the mainstream Christian cultural sphere. Such a movement is to be carried out at the end of history and cannot be looked upon as coincidence. Because such a motive was planted, it leads to such a result.
When Jesus was crucified, he died along with the man on his right, who was a thief and a murderer. If the thief had not been there, Jesus would have lost his relationship with the earth and humankind. Even though he himself was near death, the thief on the right defended Jesus. In human history, who was the last to take Jesus' side? It was not Peter, not Jesus' father or mother, not the nation of Israel and not Judaism. It was only one person: the thief on the right.
One individual alone maintained this relationship. While facing death, one man transcended death and placed all his hope in Jesus. That was none other than the thief on the right. You need to know that were it not for the thief on the right, Jesus would not have been able to resurrect and resume his providence on earth.
As Jesus was bringing to a conclusion four thousand years of history and more than thirty years of his own life, there was only one person who connected with Jesus and attended Jesus as the one who embodied his most fervent hopes, even as he accompanied Jesus on the path of death. That was the thief on the right. The fact that the thief on the right had this position means that he surpassed the disciples. He was superior to Peter.
Although the thief did not know Jesus' teachings, his heart directed and empowered him to attend Jesus at the moment of death, until he breathed his last. Peter, James and others of the twelve disciples, by contrast, knew Jesus' teachings and even pledged to become new persons. Ultimately, they were not able to achieve this. You have to know that, for this reason, the thief on the right became a central character in human history, a man who represented the earth and salvaged the future.
Is there any account in the Bible that depicts Jesus as having prevailed completely against Satan by setting conditions on the individual, family, tribal and national levels? He did not prevail completely on all these levels. That being the case, do you think Satan will submit to someone who believes in Jesus? Do you think that Satan, the supreme king of false wisdom who has accused God, violated His Will and ruined His providence for six thousand years, will go away just because he is told to do so? Those words need to be accompanied by the right of inheritance.
We need to gain the right to inherit this history. We must inherit the tradition and foundation of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus and beyond, and represent the historical sacrificial offering. Only then can we confront Satan, shouting, "In the course of history you lost to Noah; you lost to Jacob; and Moses subjugated you! I stand on the foundation of all their victories and have inherited the entire tradition of providential history. So be gone, Satan!" Only then will Satan retreat.
If you simply pray, "Be gone, Satan!" it will avail you nothing. Do you think that Satan, who has been accusing people for six thousand years and has trampled upon God's providence and devastated the providence of restoration, is going to retreat just because you say he has to do so and that you believe in Jesus? Not at all. You need to have the ability to say, "I am without a doubt a person whom God has sought with a heart connected with His history. I am a person who has been grafted into the sacred and holy body of Jesus."
You need your name recorded on the book of inheritance that Jesus received from God. God's book of inheritance records those who inherited God's heart as experienced through the four thousand years until He could send Jesus to this earth. Instead of defeating Satan on the cross, you need to be able to subjugate Satan and be victorious over him without being hung on the cross, take on a body of flesh and be resurrected in substantial form. Those who thus are recognized as substantial inheritors can enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus built the foundation for spiritual salvation
Until now, Christianity has not been able to pursue the kingdom of heaven both in the flesh and in the spirit. Christianity has had no choice except to yield the physical world and attend Jesus as the spiritual Messiah, setting spiritual salvation and a spiritual kingdom as its goals. The people of Israel had a nation and possessed national authority as the chosen people. Worldwide Christianity today is in the position of the Second Israel only as a spiritual nation and has no national authority. Christians have no country. We stand in the realm of the Second Israel with only a spiritual foundation, not a physical foundation. Because Christianity was not able to accomplish the original Will of God by bringing the kingdom of heaven on earth in both spirit and flesh, there is no other way except for the Lord to come again.
I want to make one declaration to you here today. The crucifixion was not God's victory. Instead, it was Satan's victory. You will remember that Jesus said to those who arrested him in the garden of Gethsemane, "But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!" (Luke 22:53). The cross was the place where the nation that God had prepared for four thousand years was lost, the place where the messianic calling of Israel was lost, and the place where the followers of John the Baptist, the twelve disciples, the thief on the left and everything else was lost.
Christianity was not there on the cross. When did Christianity begin? Jesus resurrected after three days and spent forty days meeting the disciples he had lost, who in his hour of passion had turned against him. The Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, and it was then that Christianity began. Christians for the past two thousand years have believed in Christian teaching without knowing that it came into existence not by the principle of the cross but by the principle of the resurrection. If you realize this fact, then you must repent. Because it began on the foundation of Jesus' resurrection, Christianity has been strictly spiritual.
Let us consider this based on Jesus' words. If God's Will was to be fulfilled by Jesus' death on the cross, the prayers he offered in the garden of
Gethsemane would not have been appropriate in his position as the Messiah. This would be truly astounding. How could he, as the Messiah, pray three times, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what You want"? (Matt. 26-39) If Jesus had come to die, wouldn't Judas Iscariot have been rewarded? How, then, will you interpret Jesus' words, "It would have been better for that one not to have been born," (Matt. 26:24) which he spoke in regard to Judas Iscariot?
What would have happened if Jesus had not died on the cross? The nation of Israel would have followed the teachings of Jesus and would have stabilized and endured. Judaism also would have remained. Jesus knew that if he died on the cross, multitudes of people in future ages would have to follow him on the way of the cross, and they would not be able to do so without shedding their blood. Many Christians would have to suffer and, even when the Lord came again, he would have to go the way of suffering.
This is the reason why Jesus had to pray as he did in the garden of Gethsemane. Christians today say that Jesus prayed for deliverance because he had a physical body and feared the pain of death. Was Jesus such a trivial Messiah?
Ladies and gentlemen! What, then, did Jesus mean by saying, "It is finished," when he died on the cross? Jesus had come with the mission to save both spirit and flesh, although he realized that he could not complete the perfection of God's Will in a world in which there was no foundation. He made of himself a perfect offering in order to establish a condition for spiritual salvation and allow that providence to begin. Having completed that, in the end he said, "It is finished."
This is not the age of blind faith
You probably never even imagined this. Christianity and Judaism need to realize even now that the Lord who tried to demolish Satan's nation and do away with Satan's kingship, and who tried to accomplish God's Will and restore humanity, died a tragic death. When they realize this, they will repent and become one. They must become one and prepare to receive the Lord on his return.
Truth must conform to reason. The time has come for all Christians to free themselves from the age of blind faith, move ahead into a new age united as one, sort out this world and bring it to salvation. Therefore, you need to know that the time has come in which the word unity has become necessary.
What does it mean that Jesus suffered pain during the three days following his death? Heaven, the earth and hell all remained in the realm of death. For Jesus to gain authority over heaven and earth, he needed to encompass the depths and heights of the realm of death. In order to pursue the connection of life and go the path that could comfort God, Jesus needed to prevail, even if it meant descending into the lowest environment in hell and suffering pain.
Because Jesus passed through hell, he prepared a path by which a new beginning toward heaven is possible. Though he was cast out and isolated on earth, and finally forced to go the way of death, he was able to leave a path of hope for future generations. That is the reason Jesus had to go on his three-day course.
Jesus did not go to hell for three days just to look around. He already knew about hell. He needed to go there, pass judgment and pave the way to rise from the world of death to the world of life. In this way, he laid a foundation of victory on earth, which is a hell-like world of death, and established a starting point from which it is possible to reach heaven.
In the eyes of the religious establishment Jesus was a heretic, and in the eyes of the nation he was a destroyer of the religious law. His own clan rejected him and chased him out of his home. The group surrounding John the Baptist rejected him. He went into the wilderness and there even Satan pursued him. That was not all. Eventually the entire country mobilized to force him to go the way of death on the cross, the path of Golgotha.
Jesus nonetheless shed tears for the nation that was rejecting him as a traitor. The religious establishment treated Jesus as a heretic, yet he shed more blood and tears for them than any priest did. Not a single person of that age would stand at his side, although Jesus was a friend of that age. He was rejected as a traitor, yet he was the greatest patriot. He was rejected as a heretic, although he was the most devout believer.
Jesus walked a wretched path, the path of the cross, where people ripped his clothing, drove him on, and forced him to the ground. That was not all. Evil men whipped and beat him. In this situation, if Jesus had been like Elijah, he might have said to the people, "I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord." (1 Kings 18:22)
When Jesus left his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, he went to pray, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what You want." (Matthew 26-39) This was his greatness. Though his own situation was dire, he understood that his body was a sacrificial offering for the nation, a sacrificial offering for humanity and a sacrificial offering for Heaven's providence.
Jesus' grief and God's heart-rending sorrow
Jesus understood his role and did not avoid his own suffering. He was more concerned about how great a sorrow God must have felt. Because Jesus had appeared for the sake of the nation, he was concerned for how great God's sorrow was to see him rejected as a traitor. Jesus was the prince of heaven, the central person of the entire universe, and the Messiah. If he chose, he could have fallen prey to self-pity and asked why he had to go the miserable way of the cross. He could have set the entire universe in motion to breathe a deep sigh of despair with him. However, Jesus understood that his position was not to sigh in despair. Instead, he went so far as to feel apologetic toward God for having been rejected.
Jesus bore the responsibility to rally the religious establishment, rally the nation, build the kingdom of heaven and return the world to God's bosom. Yet when he was forced to abandon that mission and walk the way of the cross, he did not feel enmity toward anyone. He did not pray, "Let this cup pass from me," out of a fear of death. Rather, he prayed this because he knew that his death would add to the grief of the nation and to God's grief.
Jesus knew that if he died on the cross, there would be an even heavier cross remaining for future generations of humanity. It would mean that the sorrowful history would not end. He knew that the path of Golgotha and the path of death would not end with him. He knew that if he went the way of Golgotha, those who followed him would have to go the same way.
Jesus knew that an even more difficult course lay beyond the cross. As he was made to wear a crown of thorns, and nails were hammered into his hands and feet, and his side was stabbed with a spear, Jesus knew that these events would have impact far beyond his own death. When he turned to Heaven and said, "It is finished," he did not mean that the path of the cross for the world was finished. He meant that Heaven had received his heart's tearful plea of concern over the cross. We need to know that Jesus comforted Heaven by taking upon himself all the mistakes committed by the prophets and patriots and offering himself as a living sacrifice.
What, then, would God's heart have been like at this point in regard to Jesus? As He looked upon the dying Jesus, crossing the hill of the cross with concern only for Heaven, if He felt resentment toward the human world, His resentment would have been greater than any seen on earth then or at any time in the course of the four thousand years of the history of Heaven. However, as he neared death, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) God had a mind to pass judgment immediately, judgment that was even stronger than that at Noah's time. Jesus died holding on to the nation, holding on to the religious establishment, holding on to the cross, and for this reason God did not abandon humanity; He held on to us. Because this bond of heart existed between Jesus, the future generations of humanity and the remaining people of Israel, God has been unable to abandon the religious organizations and peoples of succeeding generations who turned against Heaven, and instead has clung to them.
God, who had been carrying out the providence of restoration for four thousand years, could not complete this Will in heaven and on earth simply by the providence of Jesus' resurrection. God established His Word as the New Testament and through it worked to bring together His Will on earth as it is in heaven and establish the promised original garden, as you may well know.
Jesus said the bread and wine that he gave us were the promise and the new covenant. After Jesus departed the earth, we received his flesh and blood. These represent the life of perfected wholeness that we must accomplish and, at the same time, the providence in its entirety. What does the fact that we received Jesus' flesh and blood symbolize? This is not just the flesh and blood of Jesus as one individual. In a larger sense these signify heaven and earth, and in a smaller sense they signify the core, the individual body. The flesh symbolizes the truth and the blood represents the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave us all of this without condition.
What has been blocked between God and human beings? Heaven's Will must manifest on earth, and everything on earth ultimately must connect to Heaven's Will. In this way, heaven and earth will move toward a single goal. However, that way is blocked.
Jesus established a new promise before he departed, the promise of connecting the spirit world and earthly world. That promise remained as a condition to be fulfilled by the disciples who followed Jesus. Had Jesus not died, heaven and earth would have been connected through him. Because he died as he did, Jesus came to represent the conditions in heaven and the Holy Spirit came to represent the conditions on earth.
Now is the time to establish God's kingdom of Cheon Il Guk
Respected guests, the time has come. Heaven's time, for which God has been waiting six thousand years and for which Christians have been waiting two thousand years, has come. It is the time to build the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven on an inter-religious, international and inter-NGO footing. The time of heavenly fortune finally has arrived. Jesus, Peter, James and the other disciples, plus thousands and even tens of thousands of religious leaders in the spirit world, are now of one mind and one body, and they are descending freely to the physical world to attend True Parents. Without a doubt, Cheon Il Guk, the kingdom of heaven in which heaven and earth can be as one in eternal peace, will settle on the earth.
Now is the time for America, the Christian country representing the Second Israel, to stand in the forefront. I declare to the world that America has the responsibility to guide all the world's people, not with weapons but with truth and love and by living for the sake of others upon the foundation of true love, true life and true lineage.
In conclusion, I hope The Washington Times, United Press International, and other major media outlets will accept this lofty command from Heaven and take up the task of educating humankind, taking a stance that transcends religion and ideology. Please note that I have distributed to you a pamphlet containing messages from leaders in the spirit world. I ask that you read this carefully.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.