Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 2004
Forty-fourth anniversary of True Parents’ Day
New Yorker Hotel, New York, USA
Photo date and location unknown
Most respected guests from home and abroad:
First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for coming. You are leaders from every field and sphere of life and from all parts of the world, attending today’s celebration and offering your congratulations on this forty-fourth anniversary of True Parents’ Day. In particular, at this time I would like to return all glory to God, who has always been with me and has protected me to this day, and I thank Him from the bottom of my heart.
Now is the age of liberation and freedom
Throughout my life, I have made strenuous efforts to resolve the world’s difficult problems, while maintaining single-minded devotion to realizing God’s ideal of creation. I came to learn that God is not a Being sitting on a throne of glory and honor. Rather, He is a God of sadness, lamentation and anguish, endeavoring to save His children who fell and plunged into hell.
After I came to know about this heart and Will of God, my life has been, in a nutshell, a devotion of all my energies solely to fulfill the Will of God, transcending night, day, season and environment. Now the providence has progressed to the fourth year since the declaration of Cheon Il Guk. In accordance with the providence, on May 4 of last year, I made the declaration of the Day of the Great Transition to the Realm of Dominion under the Ideal of Creation. Then on July 13 of the same year, I ended the providence of restoration through indemnity. These activities have lit the beacons of the revolution of indemnity, the revolution of conscience and the revolution of heart.
The efforts to substantiate the nation of the Fourth Israel, proclaimed on August 20, 2003, took shape in the devoted efforts made for peace in the Middle East, which is the realm of the First Israel. They culminated with the Coronation Ceremony of the Kingship of Jesus, which took place in Jerusalem on December 22, 2003. On this victorious foundation, we held the Coronation Ceremony of the Kingship of Peace on March 23, 2004, at the Capitol of the United States, which is the Second Israel. Through this ceremony, the age of true liberation and freedom drew closer to humanity, and we began to actualize the proclamation of God’s Fatherland and the Era of the Peace Kingdom, made at the beginning of this year.
I came to the United States in 1971, in accordance with the command of Heaven. Although I have been subjected to persecution and oppression for more than thirty years, I believe that God has been with me, and that is the reason I can be here with you today.
On this meaningful day, I would like to share with you a speech entitled, “The Path of Humanity and the United States in the Era of the Peace Kingdom,” so that you can understand history and today’s world from God’s providential viewpoint.
From the historical standpoint of God’s providence of salvation, the end of history is actually the end of evil history, the history of Satan’s dominion. At the same time, it is the starting point of good history, the history of God’s dominion. Therefore, the end of the world is the time when we need to complete the entire providence of God. In other words, the end of the world is the Last Days, when we need to complete our individual perfection, as well as the perfection of families, peoples, nations, the world and the cosmos.
The need for an interracial and interreligious teaching
Whenever God ushered in the end times in the course of His providence, He led humanity through His ideological realms. However, people never completely fulfilled their portion of responsibility. Thus, they could not stand in the position of goodness and repair evil history.
Nonetheless, God is an absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal Being and the plan based on His Will is also absolute. Therefore, God will find and establish the world that He can govern both in heaven and on earth, through the restoration of true individuals, families, societies, nations, the world and the true sovereignty, all of which we lost through the Fall. What is this original world for which God is searching? That world is a true world, with the True Parents in the central position.
However, through the Fall, we lost the True Parents of humankind and the true world. The loss was not during the course of human history but at the beginning of human history. As a result, not a single thing can connect us in a direct relationship with the True Parents, be it the lands we live in or the teachings we possess. Therefore, we first need to find out what is true.
On the day we can do so -- thus making it possible for true parents, true husbands and wives, true children, true citizens, true things, a true sovereignty and a true universe to communicate with the heart of the true God and be moved by Him and surrender to Him -- that day will become the Last Day of the evil world. The moment this ideal is realized corresponds to the Last Days, that is, the time of the Second Advent.
That being the case, at the time of the Second Advent, extraordinary phenomena -- such as judgment by fire, the destruction of the earth by fire, or believers rising into the air -- will not take place. Rather, it will be a time when we will indemnify the sorrowful history of tangled circumstances and, starting with the individual and going through the family, society, nation and finally the world, everything will be righted, restored and settled.
In other words, it is a time when the individual, family, society, peoples, nations and world, which were lost vertically, are restored and connected horizontally. This takes place by means of substantial, historic individuals, families, societies, peoples, nations and the world. Humanity has lived in hope for this day’s arrival, for it is the final destination that human history needs to reach. However, individuals, families and nations have all lost the way they were meant to go.
Rev. Moon’s life course to save a world in crisis
Global environmental pollution problems, food shortages, conflicts between religions and troubles between races are breaking out everywhere. They turn into major issues that multiply and enlarge all sorts of disputes. Who will take responsibility for this world? It is a serious problem.
The communist nations of the past could not overcome their nationalism. Even the United States, which is a powerful nation today, has been unable to go beyond the concept of Pan-Americanism. When you prioritize the interests of your own nation, you cannot lead the world. This is a time when we need a certain religion or group of people that is united based on the thought of embracing the world and advancing a higher ideal for nations, even at the cost of sacrificing their own interests.
In this respect, after I came to the United States upon receiving God’s command, I have devoted all my efforts to educating its young people. I have been issuing strong warnings that the United States has a moral crisis and is on the way to its downfall, and I have been attempting to revive a Christianity that has hit rock bottom. You may wonder what the essence of Rev. Moon’s teachings is. The answer is simple.
First, it is to live a life of sacrifice for the greater good. The individual lives for the family, the family for the tribe, the tribe for the people, the people for the nation, the nation for the world, and the world for God.
It is in this way that God will eventually come to the individual. Even in the family, the parents must live for the children’s sake, the children need to live for the parents, the husband needs to live for his wife, and the wife needs to live for her husband. The person who lives most for the sake of others becomes the central figure of goodness.
Second, you must love your enemies. To save human beings, who had become children of Satan, the devil, through the Fall, God sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus, and made him walk the path of sacrifice. When people love their enemy more than their own children, Satan submits voluntarily. Satan’s strategy always involves striking first, but he loses in the end. Heaven’s strategy is the opposite: to be struck first and then to take back what was lost. The reason I have been able to establish a foundation of mission work in 185 nations, despite the fact that I have been subjected to constant persecution and suffering, is that I have lived in accordance with this heavenly way.
Distinguished guests, for whom has God invested and sacrificed all that He has? It was not for the United States, nor for Christianity itself. You need to know that, in the long run, it was to save each person who was lost through the Fall.
Since the Fall began with an individual, salvation must also begin with an individual. Therefore, there is no way to carry out restoration unless a representative person comes forward with the realization, “I will fulfill the responsibility of this age; I will become a person who can settle all the debts that humankind owes God and confidently return what is good to Him.”
Restoration through indemnity can never be carried out in an ambiguous manner. It is not conceptual. One cannot reach the heart of God unless one has a heart that goes beyond the wretchedness of one’s circumstances, no matter how painful, and endure it on behalf of God.
The mission of Christianity
Have you ever prayed for all the people of the world, with such a serious heart that it was almost as if your own children were dying? How much have you sacrificed yourself to save your family, and how much have you devoted yourself to save the tribe, people, nation and world? No one can answer these questions easily and confidently. The person who comes as the representative of such an absolute standard is the Lord of the Second Advent.
God has carried out the providence of salvation ever since the Fall of the first human ancestors. It took two thousand biblical years from the time of Adam for God to be able to find and establish Abraham and select the chosen people from among his descendants, organizing a new family, tribe and people. They were the chosen people of Israel. Because the Jewish people were called based on that victorious foundation to receive the Messiah, they became the mainstream people meant to receive the Messiah in his substantial form. They were supposed to have fulfilled the responsibility of the mainstream people.
If you dig into the core of that mainstream, you will find that we need a standard and a philosophy by which to fulfill the original mission that the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not fulfill. This is nothing other than the philosophy we may call Messianism. From the Christian standpoint, it includes the thought of being the bride of the Messiah. The most important mission of Christianity is to be the bride that can receive the Lord as the bridegroom.
Despite having such an important mission, the very people who were expecting the Messiah sent Jesus to the cross. Thus, the Jewish people, who were called to be the First Israel, drifted away, and Christianity, called to be the Second Israel, inherited the mission. Focusing on the one unchanging purpose, God continued to carry out His providence for more than six thousand years, and the present age marks the end of that providence.
Then what would be the essence of Messianism? It is the philosophy to save the world and unite it. It is the teaching by which to restore the position of True Parents and build the original, ideal family, which were lost by the Fall of the first human ancestors.
The teachings of the Old and New Testaments also tell us that the Messiah comes with the authority of the Father to meet the person in the position of God the Mother, who is the substantial form of the Holy Spirit, and restore the position of the True Parents. After the marriage supper of the Lamb prophesied in the Book of Revelation, the bride and bridegroom will pass through the stage of true husband and wife and become True Parents.
Jesus was the one who came with such a mission. Although he lost the people and the nation of Israel due to their disbelief, he dedicated his life for the world and the kingdom of heaven desired by God. The course of suffering Jesus followed as he was nailed to the cross was a path of anguish he walked together with God.
Even when he was suffering on the cross, Jesus beseeched God to forgive the sin of the people. Even when he was dying, he blessed Rome and those who opposed him, and promised his victory in the future.
Therefore, Jesus’ life did not end at age thirty-three. It continued through history with the help of God. Christianity inherited his spirit and became a global religion.
The cycle of civilizations
Distinguished guests, the United States is said to be the most powerful nation in the world. However, if it does not stand correctly in the course of the providence, its strength and prosperity will not last. When we study the history of human culture, we find that ancient civilizations originated mainly in tropical regions. Ancient civilizations -- such as the civilizations of the Maya, Incas, Egyptians, Indians and Chinese -- were situated in subtropical and tropical regions.
As a matter of fact, if human beings had not fallen, civilization would have emerged from the temperate zone, corresponding to the spring season. Instead, it emerged from the tropics, corresponding to the summer season, and then passed through the temperate zone, or the autumn season. The latter, temperatezone civilization consisted mainly of the free world, with Western civilization at its center. On the whole, the advanced nations of the West, such as the United States, Britain and Germany, which lie roughly between thirty and sixty degrees north of the equator, make up this civilization.
At the close of the temperate-zone civilization of the autumn season, the frigid-zone civilization of the winter season descended upon the world for a period. This was the emergence of communism. Although many intellectuals believe that, after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, the Cold War struggle of the postwar period came to an end, materialism and atheism still prevail in various sectors of the world, presenting themselves as alternatives to the incapacitated ideologies of democracy and communism.
At this time, breaking through the crises of the earlier temperate-zone civilization and the threat of the frigid-zone civilization, we need a new temperate-zone civilization, the true spring civilization that humanity has sought since ancient times. Who can thaw the winter season of the frigid-zone civilization? It is impossible to do so through politics, economic development or advances in technology and knowledge.
When we study the cycle of civilizations that started near rivers and oceans, we see that civilizations are always moving. The civilizations that developed near the Nile River and the Tigris-Euphrates river system moved and formed the Mediterranean civilization centered on Greece, Rome, Spain and Portugal. Then this Mediterranean civilization led to the Atlantic civilization, with Britain and the United States in the central role. Eventually, it will bear global fruit as the Pacific Rim civilization realm that connects the United States, Japan and Korea.
From this viewpoint, based on the history of civilizations, the location of the Korean Peninsula is significant. At its northern border, Korea is at the edge of the frigid-zone civilization connecting Russia and China. At its southern-most end, it is at the tip of the temperate-zone civilization that connects the United States and Japan. Therefore, from the providential viewpoint, the historic temperate-zone civilization of the global spring season, which can absorb both civilizations, will be born at this very place.
In this light, consider the fact that Rev. Moon has appeared in Korea. He has dedicated his life to solve the world’s North-South and East-West problems, which remain as unresolved issues. Moreover, he has appeared at the place where the two types of civilizations have met and borne fruit. We can attribute this only to the outcome of God’s providence.
The “One World under God” movement carried out by True Parents
In fact, I would like to tell you that I have been carrying out the “One World under God” movement, transcending race, belief and nationality, all my life. I have been following this path because it is based on the providence of God. It is grounded in principles that undergird providential history and is not just a convenient theory that I made up.
The Will of Heaven is not just a theory, and there is not a single place in all the oceans and continents untouched by the activities I have carried out to realize God’s plans. Through the foundations laid by my multidimensional mission work, we are carrying out enterprises from Alaska to Antarctica, in the thirtythree nations of South America, the nations of the former Soviet Union and the nations of Asia and Africa. I have made preparations to resolve the pollution and food-supply problems that humanity will face in the new millennium. Recently, I established a substantial foundation for the environmental health of this planet centering on the Pantanal region and Brazil’s Amazon River.
At the same time, on the internal level, I have been leading the True Family Values ministry and have continued to perform international mass wedding ceremonies, in which about 430 million couples recently participated. Thus I have accelerated the construction of the kingdom of heaven on earth based on the ideal family, which God has long awaited.
Respected guests from home and abroad, until now, the world has been ruled by those nations that had superior political, economic and military power. However, a nation that does not stand directly aligned with God’s providence cannot last forever. The downfall of the resplendent civilizations of Greece and Rome are good examples. The position of the United States, which is soaring high as today’s greatest and strongest power, is the same as that of Rome two thousand years ago. Please remember that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was not the result of external invasions, but was in fact due to the loss of Heaven’s fortune. It was a consequence of its immoral culture, which led to a collapse from within.
Until recently, political regimes based on materialism and the materialistic interpretation of history, which exalted factory laborers and farmers, controlled one-third of the world’s population and two-thirds of the earth’s land area, centering on the former Soviet Union and China. Of course, they did not last forever, and I tell you that a time will come when religious believers who speak for the Will of God will gain influence.
Religious leaders are prophets who ought to proclaim God’s Will on earth and guide humanity in the direction it needs to follow. However, the conflicts and infighting that continue among religious denominations discredit them completely. These conflicts are major obstacles blocking the providence of God.
That is why for decades I have invested more than half of the budget of the Unification Church into interdenominational and interreligious efforts to resolve conflicts between religions. Furthermore, I founded the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace to bring about peace for humanity through reconciliation and unity among religions. All humanity, transcending race and religious denomination, needs to understand God’s providence for the realization of the world of the ideal of creation. We ultimately need to be in accord with God’s heart.
God’s liberation will open the path of authentic human liberation
We need to recover the original positions of parents and children by restoring our relationship of heart with God, which was lost through the Fall. Hence, the Last Days promised by God are the time when True Parents are manifested. In other words, they are the time of hope when human beings, who lost their True Parents through the Fall, can once again receive their original Parents.
Therefore, the True Parents are the fruit of the hopes, desires and victories of human history. The Unification Church has continued to globalize this tradition through the international mass wedding ceremonies. The coming together of black, white and yellow as brothers and sisters to be joined as husbands and wives, transcending nationality, race and culture, is one of the most important works in achieving God’s Will to unite the global population as one family.
As can be seen, the path to true happiness can be opened only when today’s people ultimately liberate God, who lost His children and has continued in lamentation over our plight. We can do so by restoring the lost original ties between brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and parents and children. Until now, democracy has asserted political liberation and human rights. By contrast, we must henceforth assert God’s liberation and God’s dominion. Once this problem has been taken care of, political liberation and the recovery of human rights will take place automatically.
In various respects, the United States is a nation that has been prepared through the blessings of God. Among the ancestors who founded the United States were the Pilgrims. These people risked their lives to find their way to a land where they could have freedom of faith.
In search of true freedom of faith, they bid farewell to their beloved parents, brothers and sisters and hometowns, and crossed the Atlantic at the risk of their lives. They resolved to forsake even their own country.
The Mayflower arrived at the shores of New England in November 1620. As they endured their first winter, more than half of the 102 Pilgrims who had arrived there died from the extreme cold weather and starvation. What was incredible about them was that they starved to death rather than consume the seeds to be planted in the coming spring.
Saving the United States, which has lost its founding spirit
No matter what happened to them, the Pilgrims stayed true to their faith in living for the Will of God. They thanked God for the harvest of the first year and built their homes only after they had first built a church and school. In their pioneering course, whether they were about to start farming or defend their homes, the first thing they did was to pray.
At the time of the American Revolutionary War, as General George Washington was in dire straits at the now-famous Valley Forge, he offered a prayer staking his life for his country. He dedicated the coming battles for the Will of God, who stood on the side of the United States and brought it victory.
Great Britain, which was then the mightiest power in the world, stood with the combined forces of the king and his people, while the United States stood with God and His beloved sons and daughters. That was how the United States, the nation upholding freedom of faith, came to be established. Even now, the United States Congress opens its sessions with a prayer. It is a nation where the president takes the oath of office by placing his or her hand on the Bible and pledging before God, and then a minister offers a prayer.
What is more, it is the only nation that has the words “In God We Trust” printed on its currency. In this way, the United States became the one nation on earth that, basing itself on the Protestant faith, assumed global stature.
However, what is the United States like today? The courts have banned prayer in public schools. School boards force teachers to explain the theory of evolution and leave out the hand of a Creator. Moreover, the divorce rate topping 50 percent is mercilessly destroying the integrity of the family.
Upon hearing the voice of God, who feared for this very reality, I came to the United States in 1971, leaving behind my homeland and my family. I spoke throughout this nation several times, shouting out, “I came as a firefighter to a burning house, and as a doctor who has come to heal the ailing United States.”
At that time, I discovered that God had all but left the United States. Even though He needed to be everywhere in the United States, He had in fact begun to leave the nation. He was leaving the hearts of individuals, families and teachers. When I look back, it seems like only yesterday that I walked along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and held on to God, begging Him with endless tears not to leave the United States. Unfortunately, as I foretold, the United States is sliding down the path of moral decline.
The person who loves the United States is its true owner
Ladies and gentlemen, why is Rev. Moon shouting out like this in the United States, while being subjected to opposition and enduring suffering? It is because I know better than anyone the hard work carried out by God with blood, sweat and tears to find His way to the United States today. During the thirty-four years that I have been in the United States, there has not been one day when my heart has felt at ease.
Who is the owner of the United States? It has nothing to do with race. The person who loves the United States as much as God does is its true owner. The United States represents the eldest son position on the world level, the position chosen to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Therefore, Jesus is dwelling spiritually mainly in this land. He earnestly hopes that this nation will fulfill his will.
Meanwhile, in accordance with the Will of God, I founded in 1982. This newspaper has led public sentiment as a conservative political voice that proposes the true direction for the United States. Also, through the True Family Values movement and the Pure Love movement for teens and young adults, I have continued to support strong movements to save the nation and the world. I have made these investments with a heart hoping for the United States to stand truly in line with the providence of God.
When I visited Washington, DC, in 1965, I dedicated a holy ground near the White House. Even now there are many people who stay up nights and pray there for this nation of the United States. You need to open the doors of your heart, so that you can hear the earnest desires, shouts and hopes of patriots dating back to the Pilgrims.
It is time to restore true parents, families, nations and the world
Most honored guests, the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk is when the history of God’s providence of salvation, which He has pursued for six thousand years, draws to a close and the ideal of creation, lost in Eden, is realized in heaven and on earth. It is the time when liberation will end the lamentations of all created things, which lost their owner through the Fall, the moment when the long-estranged parents and children meet again. The new heaven and earth, where there will be no more tears, are being realized. The new age, wherein the spirit world and the physical world are united as one and God’s kingdom is established on earth and in heaven, is finally upon us.
This is the age in which the direct dominion of the living God is manifested through His overall, complete, absolute and omnipotent authority. It is the time when the world based on the understanding of humankind as one great family is realized. East and West will become “One Universe under One God,” centering on the Parents of Heaven and Earth. This signifies perfection of the Completed Testament Age, when the biblical promises of the Old Testament and the New Testament are fulfilled. Now that moment has come. The time has come for the United States to wake up once again.
The time has come to carry out a movement for the second founding of the nation, dedicated to restoring the true parents, true family, true nation and true world, with God in the central position. By so doing, you need to bring back God, who is leaving. If God, who found His way here after six thousand years of preparation, were to leave the United States, where would He go?
If you attend God correctly, the problems of the family, the problems of morality, the problems of young people, and the problems of racism will automatically be resolved. The United States, which is a melting pot of five races living side by side, could become a model of the kingdom of heaven on earth. From now on, we need to unite and harmonize in order to open the path for humanity to follow. This is the time when the United States, which is the eldest son nation, needs to take the lead in attending the Heavenly Parents. It must fulfill the mission of the leader who can guide other nations of the world to the presence of God. I ask you to participate together to carry out this historic task successfully.
The advent of the era of God’s direct dominion
The enthronement of the Peace King as the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, and the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind was held on March 23 of this year at the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC It was a major declaration that substantially secured God’s kingship on earth. Furthermore, the declaration of the ideal Nation of Cosmic Peace and Unity, made at the Capitol on the same day, is the historic opening of the age of the federation of Blessed families of the member states of the United Nations.
It is now the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, in which the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven can be established in reality, based on ideal families that are centered on the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, and the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. Thus, during this period in April, declared on this day, the forty-fourth anniversary of True Parents’ Day, we have ushered in the day of the liberation and complete freedom of the angelic world, the complete freedom of Cain and Abel and, furthermore, the complete freedom of the Parents.
Going a step further, we are approaching the date May 1, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. On that day, we will usher in the day of national liberation. Now that the age of liberation and complete freedom has arrived, henceforth everything will be entrusted to the overall, complete, absolute and omnipotent authority of God, and the era of His direct dominion will arrive, when He can guide us personally.
Once again, I express my deepest gratitude to you for gracing us with your presence. I would like to close by expressing my hope that a new millennial kingdom overflowing with peace, freedom and justice will begin, both on earth and in heaven.
May the blessings of God be with your families and your nations.