Sun Myung Moon
February 17, 2002
Congratulatory Banquet for the World Culture and Sports Festival 2002 and the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace Assembly
Little Angels Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Respected world leaders and delegates to the Eighth World Culture and Sports Festival and the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace Assembly 2002:
Please accept my compliments for having devoted your best efforts during the past few days to the World Culture and Sports Festival and this international conference held to search for solutions to critical global problems. In this evening's remarks bringing events to a close I would like to make a number of requests to you.
First, let me express my gratitude that a number of people have offered much praise for my accomplishments during today's celebration marking my birthday. You have expressed amazement as you praised my visible accomplishments. I would request, though, that you take greater interest in studying the depth of my sincerity and dedication, as well as the spiritual foundation that underlies these visible accomplishments, and their significance in the history of God's providence.
Participate in the movement to bring about true families and the ideal of a peaceful world
From the time of my birth, my life has been connected directly to the consummation of God's providential history. I would like to make clear that what I have done is based on more than a single individual's study or evaluation. What I have done, I did together with the heavenly way, with the official acknowledgment by the spirit world, and on the foundation of remarkable conditions that God established ahead of time. I faced death many times, and had I not been supported by God's unlimited protection and love, I probably would not be here standing before you today. Let me take this opportunity to once more return all gratitude and glory to God.
You are leaders in the world and ambassadors for peace. Having learned the way of Heaven in the context of your relationship with me, you need to make certain to educate those in your sphere of influence about it. If ambassadors for peace around the world connect with each other focusing on the way of Heaven and work together with one heart, you will be able to change this world into an ideal world of peace.
Even today, my heart is so engrossed in the task of bringing God's providence to its conclusion that I forget how old my body is. I cannot take a single minute, or even a single second, more than is necessary to save humanity from sin, attain the ideal world of peace, and completely liberate God.
For this purpose, I ask all of you to take an active part in the movement that I have founded and am pushing forward. In particular, I ask you to stand in the forefront of the pure love movement for young people, and the marriage Blessing and true love movements that put into practice the sanctity of marriage and the unchanging love between husband and wife.
People must attend God as their first-generation Father, and then join as husbands and wives in the positions of completed Adam and completed Eve to establish the realm of the second generation. It is only when such people form true families by becoming parents standing together with their children that God's ideal of true love will settle on the earth.
The marriage Blessing is the ceremony in which men and women completely reject the love of Satan and his ownership over love that exists in the realm of the Fall. They pledge themselves to a life of pure love, chastity and fidelity and register in the realm of God's true love. The act of receiving the Blessing and the task building a true family are the most precious and meaningful endeavors in all of providential history, from the Old Testament Age to the New Testament and Completed Testament Ages.
This is a movement for reconciliation that transcends nation, race and religion. It is a holy movement for world and national salvation. I ask the ambassadors for peace and all of you who are leaders to take the initiative and actively give your guidance. I sincerely request that in each country there will be a thousand, or even ten thousand, of my representatives working to realize the ideal of Cheon Il Guk -- the Cosmic Nation of Peace and Unity -- which is God's fervent desire.
My struggle against evil
Leaders of the world, I have dedicated my life to fulfilling the mission of True Parents in response to God's call. On this path I never asked anyone to help me or lead the way. There were no signposts. It was the path of a pioneer that no one had traveled before. Attaining the position of True Parents meant Satan's destruction, so I could not avoid Satan's all-out attack. Satan is a spiritual being, and at times he would attack directly in a spiritual manner. At other times he would incite his representatives to stage a wide variety of attacks. Satan is the false king who claimed for himself an ephemeral power. He transcended time and space to plot against me and obstruct my work.
There was only one path to overcome such an enemy: the path of giving out of true love and of making indemnity conditions by sacrificing myself. This is because it is God's Principle that not force but only true love can bring an enemy to surrender naturally.
Throughout my life, I lived continuously for the sake of those who opposed me, unable to understand God's truth. Without anyone knowing,
I invested more love for the children of those who persecuted me than for my own children. When countries or governments opposed me, I lived even more for their sake. Today the world acknowledges me, and those who oppose me express their respect for me.
In this, we can discern the difference between the ways God and Satan pursue their purposes. Heaven's strategy is to allow itself to be struck and then receive something in compensation. Satan's strategy is to strike first, but he ends up suffering a loss as a result of that strike.
World peace through the cooperation of the earthly world and the heavenly world
Respected leaders, I want to affirm an important fact that I mentioned briefly in my Founder's Address during the opening plenary. A perfect world of peace on this earth will come about in the context of harmony and cooperation with the heavenly world.
The heavenly world, that is, the spirit world, is another world of its own. Many spirit people live there. All the spirits there are eternal beings. They were once earthly people but have shed their physical bodies. All of your ancestors live there. Human beings know very little about the spirit world, because our spiritual sensibility was vastly diminished and our five spiritual senses ceased to function as a result of the human Fall. I was able to look across the entire spirit world at an early age, and throughout the years I have communicated continuously with that world. Even at this moment, the founders of the four major religions are testifying to me as the True Parent and are sending messages to the earth as I have requested.
The spirit world is a limitless and eternal world, so it is far more complex than this world of external phenomena. People there are divided among many levels and groups in accordance with their degree of spiritual development. I have devoted much effort through the years to give the marriage Blessing to people in the spirit world and to bring harmony and unity to that world. As on the earth, a victorious foundation can be laid in the spirit world only by means of sacrificial conditions of true love. Throughout the years, many conditions have been offered. Many fierce battles have been fought to subdue Satan and evil spirits, and much grace has been poured out for the sake of bringing the good spirits together and educating them. In particular, the availability of the holy marriage Blessing to people in the spirit world is a grace of revolutionary significance.
For decades I have made declarations and established conditions to liberate hell and abolish the boundary between hell and paradise. With difficulty, I have opened the gate to the marriage Blessing in the spirit world. To open wide the way for people in the spirit world to receive the marriage Blessing, I established important conditions, including the Declaration of Cosmic Liberation, the Declaration of the Realm of Cosmic Unity and Liberation Centered on the Parents of Heaven and Earth, and the Ceremony for the Liberation of the Spirit World. These are miraculous events. While you were unaware, all your ancestors have come into the realm of the grace of the marriage Blessing. Further, as a result of offering the Coronation Ceremony of God's Kingship, God's absolute authority now extends throughout the spirit world as a life-giving grace. It has linked the ideal of the Cosmic Nation of Peace and Unity to the fervent desires of all people in the spirit world, enabling spirit people to return to the earth and actively cooperate with people here.
World leaders, the day will come soon when the cooperation of good spirit people returning to the earth will give enlightenment and guidance to people in the physical world for resolving conflicts by means of true love. As leaders, you need to practice the heavenly way so that you may receive cooperation from the spirit world. That way you can bring about the ideal world by forming ideal families, which is the desire within all people's original minds. Such a world Will substantiate a culture of peace. It will be a world rooted in a culture of heart, the Cosmic Nation of Peace and Unity.
I would like to express my gratitude again to all participants in the World Culture and Sports Festival 2002. I pray that God's blessing will flow abundantly to your families, countries and world.