Sun Myung Moon
May 21, 2002
Three Nations Conference for leaders of Korea, Japan and the United States
Sheraton National Hotel, Arlington, Virginia, USA
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished leaders of Korea, Japan and the United States, ladies and gentlemen:
I wholeheartedly welcome you to Washington, DC, the capital of the United States. Korea, Japan and the United States are nations of the Pacific Rim. Korea and Japan are each other’s neighbors, and both are allies of the United States. These three nations are linked both internally and externally and share a common goal.
The twenty-first century is the Pacific Rim era
We are now entering the twenty-first century, which can be called the Pacific Rim era. Needless to say, these three nations -- Korea, Japan and the United States -- will lead the Pacific Rim era. Looking beyond the Pacific region, the world as a whole is going to try to follow your example. Nonetheless, this leadership position is not something you can achieve automatically. You can achieve it only on the basis of strong relations between your nations. In particular, it absolutely requires reciprocal relationships between the leaders of these nations.
Therefore, I hope that at this Three Nations Conference you will be able to discuss the urgent problems you are facing and, at the same time, strengthen ties of friendship with one another, to prepare the foundation to pioneer the twenty-first century that is dawning.
Leaders of the three nations, I am not standing on this podium because I wish to deliver a greeting as a courtesy to the conference participants, including representatives who have come from as far away as six thousand miles.
Based on my personal, real-life experience as a man who has lived his life in oneness of heart, oneness of body and oneness of thought with God, I can say that God is a Being who lives and works through a providence in history and in reality. Therefore, it is very important to understand the status of Korea, Japan and the United States from His providential viewpoint.
God’s ideal of creation was for Adam and Eve to attain complete maturity as His true son and daughter, become True Parents, and form a true family, all guided by His true love. Then human beings, with those True Parents and true family as their origin, were to expand and form true societies, true nations, a true world and heaven and earth, and thus build the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven.
Tragically, Adam and Eve fell while in a stage of immaturity, due to the false love of the archangel. In the first family, formed by Adam and Eve who had become false parents instead of True Parents, the fruit of sin was manifested in the form of the elder brother, Cain, murdering his younger brother, Abel.
Jesus’ death and the returning Lord, the third Adam
The Savior, the second Adam who was sent to this world, carried out the providence of God to restore the original purpose of creation. The foothold for this providence was the religion of Judaism and the nation of Israel. On that foundation, Jesus came as the Savior.
From this perspective, Jesus came to accomplish the ideal of True Parents and to create a true family in the nation of the chosen people of Israel. From there he was to propagate it to the world. However, the religion and nation did not believe him. They did not recognize that he was the Messiah. In the end, their disbelief went to such an extreme that Jesus had no choice but to walk the path of the cross, leaving behind his promise to come again.
The resurrected Jesus established the foundation for Christianity, the Second Israel, which became a spiritual kingdom that spread worldwide. World Christianity carried out the Will of God in preparing to receive the Lord of the Second Advent, who comes as the third Adam.
The United States is the nation that represents the entire fruit of Christianity -- that is to say, it is the eldest son nation of the Second Israel. The faith of the founding fathers of the United States and its founding principles were derived from Christianity. The United States was able to grow into a strong nation in the land prepared by God. You have come to lead the world after a short, historic course, thanks to the providence of God. The purpose of this providence is so that you will prepare for the third Adam, who comes as the Lord of the Second Advent.
A critical event occurred at the time of World War II, when the Allies, centered on the United States, Britain and France, were able to defeat the Axis powers, centered on Japan, Germany and Italy. Thereby the foundation of Christianity reached its peak globally. Equally critical was the fact that the United States served as the principal nation to propagate Christianity on the Korean Peninsula, where the Korean people zealously brought it to fruition. It is not happenstance that sixteen nations dispatched troops under the banner of the United Nations to defend Korea, the Third Israel. They supported Korea at their own sacrifice. Those nations still maintain a special relationship. All this took place in accordance with the providence of God.
If Christianity thus prepared had received God’s teachings through me immediately upon the end of World War II, the world could have fulfilled God’s Will within seven years. Korea, the Adam nation, would have remained united as one, and the worldwide expansion of the communist realm would have stopped there. Unfortunately, Christians aggressively opposed and persecuted me. By going against the central figure of the providence, they turned Christianity toward the path of decline. Compared to the period right after World War II, today’s churches have lost almost everything. They lack the life force wrought by faith, passion and purity.
Britain was to have become the Eve or mother nation, but due to the inability of world Christianity to fulfill its responsibility, Japan was chosen instead. The truth is, Japan was quite distant from the central providence of God in the realm of Christianity, and it has continued to worship the sun goddess. It was never in a position to have been chosen. To have been chosen means that it has reaped a windfall. Having said that, I appeal to Japan to fulfill its new responsibility completely.
Then why is the Savior, who is the center of the providence and sent by God, continually the object of disbelief? Since this is a world blinded by the evil sovereignty erected through the human Fall, it does not welcome the substantial being of goodness. God, of course, worries about this. This is why He established the chosen people of Israel with the religion of Judaism to receive Jesus, and He paved a global Christian foundation to receive the Lord of the Second Advent. Nonetheless, the Savior’s path has been one of suffering, as a result of the chosen people’s ignorance of the providence and self-centered thinking in both the First Israel and Second Israel.
The faithful believed that the Messiah would come on the clouds, but he appeared before them as a man. Therefore, they did not believe him. If you look up 2 John 1:7, you will see that it points out that even after the resurrection, some people denied that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, and such people are called the antichrist. The Old Testament prepared the people to receive a human Messiah. Those who sent Jesus to the cross, and those who later denied his physical appearance, interpreted the scriptures wrongly.
If we examine the Bible, we can understand that it contains dual prophecies. It does so because fallen human beings are fickle. Sometimes, a person who was following God will perform an about-face, pair up with Satan and oppose God. Then again, a person who had paired up with Satan will come back to God and oppose Satan. So prophets present visions of both outcomes, because both are possible.
One reason for the lack of faith in Jesus in his time
When you look at chapters 9, 11, and 60 in the book of Isaiah, you find testimony that the Savior will appear majestically as the Lord of glory. Yet chapter 53 of the same book prophesies that the Messiah will suffer. You need to know that the type of prophecy that would be fulfilled depended on the people. Because the people did not believe in Jesus and receive him, the prophecy in chapter 53 of Isaiah was realized. That which would have come to pass if the people had believed in him was left unfulfilled. That providence was prolonged to conclude at the Second Advent.
Based on the principle of restoration through indemnity, the New Testament also gives dual prophecies with regard to the coming of the Messiah, in exactly the same manner as the Old Testament. In Revelation 1:7, it is prophesied that the Lord of the Second Advent will certainly come on the clouds. First Thessalonians 5:2, on the other hand, says that the Messiah will come like a thief in the night. How can he come like a thief and at the same time come on the clouds of heaven? Some Christians today believe that he will come on the clouds; they ignore the prophecy that he will come like a thief in the night.
Therefore, we have to be wise and learn from the actual circumstances of the Old Testament Age. Although it may be possible for the Messiah to come on the clouds, he could just as well come as an average-looking human being.
Now we need to learn the reason the religious and political leaders killed the Messiah when he came, despite the fact that they were the heirs of a tradition that had long awaited and expected God to send them the Messiah.
The Book of Malachi in the Old Testament corresponds to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Malachi 4:5-6 states, “I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents....” We need to take seriously this definitive prophecy, which appears at the very end of the Old Testament.
Elijah was the prophet who ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire nine hundred years before the coming of Jesus. People believed that Elijah, who had ascended in this way, would return in the same way to announce the Messiah. What could they do when Jesus proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, even though there was no sighting of Elijah coming from the sky?
The people naturally asked the disciples of Jesus that if their teacher was indeed the Messiah, where was Elijah? The disciples went to Jesus for the answer, and the scene of their asking him is the gist of Matthew 17:10-13.
It is recorded, “And the disciples asked him, ‘Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ He replied, ‘Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased.’... Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.”
When they heard this answer, the people of Israel reacted with even greater disbelief. They reproached Jesus, accusing him of attaching the name of Elijah to John the Baptist simply to justify his false claim to be the Messiah. Furthermore, they called Jesus a blasphemer who was going to ruin Judaism and the nation of Israel. John 10:20 testifies that many said he was possessed by a demon.
As can be seen, the standpoint of the people of Israel opposed God’s Will and His providence in sending Jesus. God sent the Messiah for the sake of all people, to fulfill His Will on earth. Because Jesus’ religious community did not support him, he died with such a tangled matter in his heart. Our ignorance of this is tragic -- we need to be aware of this wretched history.
Jesus appeared based on the faith of generations of Jewish people who were waiting for the Savior. However, and in fact, the accomplishment of God’s Will through Jesus was to extend beyond their religion and nation to save the entire world. The hopes of the chosen people on earth went in one direction, and the Will of Heaven went in another.
The same situation occurred when the Lord returned. The foundation prepared for the Lord of the Second Advent turned into nothing more than the Christian foundation of faith, that is, their hope for their salvation alone. However, the Lord of the Second Advent comes to achieve the world desired by God, the salvation of all people -- nothing less than the ideal world as originally created.
This world is not just a religious realm where you can attain salvation by believing in your religious tradition. The Messiah comes to realize the world of true love through the True Parents, a world that has nothing to do with the Fall. This will be a world where religion is unnecessary, a world that will have graduated from the school of religion.
The essence of the Creator God is true love. True love is the altruistic love of giving and giving again and not remembering it. I have lived my whole life investing and giving myself for the Will of God to establish the kingdom of heaven through this true love.
The three nations at the center of the providence -- Korea, Japan and the United States -- are in the position to set an example by being models of the ideal world of peace. Only when they live for the sake of the world and the whole, giving magnanimously to others in accordance with the heavenly way, will they attain great prosperity and the infinite blessings of God. If they pursue only their own national profit, they will not be able to maintain their status as the center of the providence, and they will even come to lose what they have.
Life lived by investing for the greater good
I hope you will accept the words I am speaking from my deepest heart, citing lessons from the history of Judaism and Christianity. I know very well that the leaders from Japan in particular may have difficulty understanding me, for they do not have much of a Christian foundation. However, I hope you will realize that today’s Japan is also at the center of the providence. You are quite close to God, even though He has carried out His historical providence through the Christian realm until now.
I have lived my whole life by investing myself for the greater good in order to fulfill God’s ideal of creation on earth and in heaven. From the providential viewpoint I have outlined, I would like to tell you about some of the things on which I have focused my efforts until now.
First, the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of The Washington Times will be held this evening. I want to tell you why I founded The Washington Times and invested an enormous amount of funds in it for the past twenty years. I have not the remotest concern about gaining political influence. I founded it based on my desire to make the United States, a central nation in God’s providence, stand upright and fulfill its global responsibility through the principle that will save the world and save the nation.
The blessings the United States is enjoying as a superpower in terms of political influence, economic development and global military presence are not for the United States alone. If the motto at the founding of the United States was the ideal of one nation under God, from now on it must go further and aim for one ideal heaven and earth under God.
Second, dialogue and harmony among religions are decisive conditions for realizing a world of peace. Though their religious rituals and doctrines may differ, the fundamental teachings of the world’s religions aspire toward goodness and in this they are one and the same. Furthermore, religions were begun within God’s providence to eradicate spiritual ignorance, in forms befitting particular cultural backgrounds. Henceforth, they need to come together under the banner of world peace through ideal families.
I have founded numerous organizations, including the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace; the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations, a movement networking United Nations non-governmental organizations; and the American Clergy Leadership Conference, leading the True Family Values movement in the United States. Each is contributing to the same global vision. To bring about dialogue and harmony among different religions during the past forty years, I have invested more than ten times the budget of my own Unification Church. I support this interdenominational and interreligious movement because I know it is the Will of God.
Third, I have striven to help the world become a global village living as one great family, where the conflicts between races are resolved and we can live as brothers and sisters under the one God. The races are all children of God standing on an equal footing. Neither skin color nor historical background indicates superiority or inferiority in any way. Realizing the ideal of true families transcending race through the marriage Blessing centered on God is the shortcut to establishing one peaceful world.
Having understood this, I have officiated at international and intercultural marriage Blessing ceremonies transcending race, nationality and culture since the 1960s. In particular, the number of people across the world desiring to wed citizens of your three nations -- Korea, Japan and the United States -- is increasing. As the world grows closer and closer, the precious value of the international Blessing will shine all the more brightly.
Providential status of the three nations
At this time, I would like to look into the fundamental relationship between your three nations from the providential perspective. Human history is the history of God’s providence of salvation, and the providence of salvation is the providence of restoration, as it is a project to recover what was lost.
Therefore, the relationship between Korea, Japan, the United States and the world of today can be seen as the global expansion of the Fall. The Fall involved Adam, Eve and the archangel in the Garden of Eden, and Cain and Abel, whose relationship was the first fruit of the fallen family. We have to interpret the international relations unfolding in the Last Days, when the history covering six thousand biblical years is being indemnified, from this providential perspective.
Japan is a nation that by tradition worships a goddess -- the sun goddess. That is why male leaders from Japan are representing the feminine, Eve nation at this conference, whereas mostly women leaders are attending from Korea and the United States. Korea is the Adam nation, the father nation in the providence, and so the Korean women leaders need to stand as the fathers younger sisters and make dedicated efforts together with him for God’s Will.
Originally, Christianity stood in the position of the bride before the coming Lord. Accordingly, the women of the United States, which is the representative nation of Christianity, need to fulfill the missions of the daughter, the sister and the bride in the providence of the Second Advent. Japan needs to fulfill the mission of the mature mother nation to indemnify the position of the fallen Eve on the world level. Toward this end, Japan needs to walk the providential path of sacrifice and love for the world in the position of daughter, wife, mother and queen.
Furthermore, for the three nations of Korea, Japan and the United States to be in the central position in achieving the world of peace, they need to constitute one ideal family of love. The way for you to wash away your past enmities and unite is for the young people of Korea and Japan, and of Japan and the United States, to intermarry. The model for achieving a world of peace, based on the teaching of true love, will be created when they become blood relatives by marriage and thus form familial relationships.
Knowing this multidimensional Will of God, I have from early on officiated at international and intercultural marriage Blessing ceremonies that brought together husbands and wives from enemy nations, such as Korea and Japan, and Japan and the United States. As I have said earlier, the mission of the United States is that of the Second Israel and the eldest son nation. It is to stand at the forefront in attending our Heavenly Parent and helping and guiding its brother and sister nations of the world. Hence I say to you that the mission of American women is of great significance.
Anticipating the birth of a new community of three nations
Through this conference, I hope you will engage in profound and serious discussions on far-reaching issues influencing the future of humanity, and that you will find common ground. At the same time, I also hope that spending three days together here in Washington will provide you with the opportunity to develop friendships deep within your hearts.
This meeting is an opportunity for the leaders of the three nations to play a central role in laying a new foundation to usher in the twenty-first century. I anticipate the birth of a new community of the three nations, through which your nations can continue to discuss and cooperate with one another in various fields and strengthen your solidarity.
Ladies and gentlemen, these new activities for the solidarity of the three nations of Korea, Japan and the United States will continue with the serious goal of establishing a culture of peace and service on the global level. If we work together, we will absolutely accomplish this. I hope that this conference, begun together with you, will grow to become a meeting that can lead Asia and the world.
May God’s divine protection be with you.