Sun Myung Moon
January 1, 1989
God's Day Midnight Prayer and Speech
Headquarters Church
Seoul, Korea
Translation: Sang Kil Han and Bernhard Quandt
Notes: Peter Kim
Father and Mother leaving the Little Angel's auditorium after Kook Jin Nim and Soon Ju Nim's wedding
Midnight Prayer
Our Loving God, now we are ending the year of 1988 and are about to receive the New Year of 1989. We look back at the restoration of the family, tribal and national levels during the last 43 years. Since Korean Christianity did not fulfill its mission, God lost all the internal as well as external foundation which He had built through Christianity over the last 2,000 years. As a result, for 43 years many people had to endure a bloodstained, difficult way as we indemnified the course of the fall. During this tremendously suffering time the Unification Church has gone the route of the wilderness.
Now we have won the victorious result. We are truly grateful to God who has helped us to achieve this goal. Until this time, I have worked to establish the foundation for the restoration of the world centering on the United States. Now I am bringing that foundation back to Korea, and it is the time to restore the world on the horizontal plane. In going about this mission, each and every Unification member has to be brave and bold and have confidence in the fact that he can accomplish his responsibility. Our direct mission from God is to establish His sovereignty on earth which He intended at the beginning of the creation.
Col. Han: Father's motto this year is the "Unification of Korea." Last year's motto was the "Unification of the Fatherland." In thinking this over, Rev. Pak and I thought that last year's motto was more general and conceptual, and this year it is more precise and concrete.
From left to right: Jin Hun Nim, Jin Sung Nim, Jin Whi Nim with Shin Hwa Nim, Young Jin Nim, and Kwon Jin Nim praying at God's Day pledge
Midnight Speech
Because of the fall, we became unable to inherit God's direct lineage, so restoration from the individual to the world level has been necessary. Only after the Unification Church emerged on the face of the earth has mankind been introduced to the full reality of God. Until that time we had no complete understanding of God or of the fact that we had inherited a blood lineage centered on Satan.
God's ideal is a world that reflects and is completely united with His personality. God's original plan was to establish a family with true parents who would resemble Him, and through these true parents, He would establish the ideal world. But as the Principle explains, the environment we face now is related to evil ancestors and is dominated by Satan.
The world of God cannot coexist with the world of evil. In the world that God wants, all human beings, from the beginning to the end, would be linked and harmonized through the true love of God; no one would be left out. The world should be like one big tree; the life of the tree is analogous to love in human society. In the tree, the root, trunk, leaves, twigs -- all parts have to be directly connected to the source of life and each part is vital for the life entity itself. If just one cell of the tree is taken away, then that tree tries to restore the cell with other parts of the tree. In our body, though each individual has billions of cells, those cells are not independent and separate but are united as one. In exactly the same way, a world centered on true love is a world where all parts are protected and restored by the whole. All mankind should be connected from east to west, north to south, front to rear, in all conceivable directions; there are millions of people, but essentially they should be linked as one.
We should unite together centering on God's love. God did not create mankind out of His whim, but rather as an unavoidable necessity. He had to create human beings. His love was so great that He could not help but to create sons and daughters. There is not anything which the omnipotent God does not own, but though God can have anything else if He really wants to, even God cannot have love without having an object of love. Therefore He created His sons and daughters for the give and take of love and beauty and the relationship of true love. As a son needs a father in order to exist, a father needs a son in order to be a father.
The most tragic experience in human life is to lose one's child. The moment a man loses his child is the saddest, most painful time of his life. When our children die, then we experience the depth of our love through the grief we feel. There are as many kinds of grief as there are kinds of love.
Even though there are many external changes throughout history, the fundamental contents of that history should not change. No matter how many millions of years may pass, still man's life has to follow the pattern that God has established. The true love relationship between the husband and wife should be unchanging. Who are true children? The children who have inherited the true nature of their parents are the true children -- ones who take after their parents exactly; as adults they will become completely united in heart with their parents. Without parents there is no life and no love, but also the parents themselves must come from love. Therefore, we are a product of history, coming not only from our parents' love, but from the deepest eternal root of their love, which stems from God throughout history. Think about who were the parents of Adam and Eve.
Inherit True Love
Have you ever seen or heard of anyone in history who said he didn't need love? When you become old and look back at your life, can you make any meaning out of your life without love? Love occupies the most important portion of our life. Ultimately, all men and women strive to receive love. Now there are many demonstrations in Korea, but historically we have never heard of anyone who demonstrated against love, or said, "I don't need love; love go away."
Everyone wants praise and success. Would you rather receive praise from the president of a country or from an eternal being? Everyone would like to get compliments from God! How wonderful if God would say to you, "You are an attractive man or woman!"
Love desires to expand to embrace the largest things and also to concentrate and reach in to touch the smallest things. Love is like magic. In love you can act any way you want to, and it's still okay. Have you ever seen children wanting to walk into their parents' room but first checking whether it is proper or not? They just go right in and connect directly in love. Would a mother chase away a child who comes running for love? She would embrace the child no matter how ugly h€ or she may be. If a husband is tired and upset, and his wife tries to embrace and comfort him, would he reject her? If there is a spring rain of true love, then all children of the world would want to go out in that rain and open up all their pores to be drenched to the bone.
No matter how noble a holy man's teaching may be, unless true love is included in it, it will not create an eternal ideal. Things like money, power, or knowledge cannot show how to make a true person or an ideal world. However, false love that is centered only on the self is the most destructive force. Without true order, love gets out of hand and becomes the greatest obstacle to an ideal world. If we make a mistake in the expression of love, it is not only that generation, but also the hundreds of thousands of generations after that which are going to suffer.
For the second generation, and the younger generations in general, maintaining their chastity is crucial in determining their future. We have to make a world where the third generation is completely free from evil and there is only one sexual love relationship -- that between husband and wife. Restoration can never be possible or fulfilled unless a man can withstand the temptation of a naked woman in the same bed with him. Before you love your wife, love yourself so that your mind and body are united and ready to give and receive love with your wife. When the mind and body are immersed in the love of God, then you become an entity that can resonate or vibrate in the same way as God vibrates. Resonance occurs when a certain noise vibration causes another object to vibrate in the same way. In other words, if someone embodies love, the other person feels the love right away. For Unification Church members to be God's race, we must be able to resonate with God's love and bring the world toward God.
Some scholars in the world call Rev. Moon the minister who teaches the philosophy of love. I am causing trouble by slapping the world with true love. The world is in confusion because all the love is horizontal. It needs to be centered in a vertical direction.
Many Oriental women may love a person very much yet they may never say "I love you" or express their feelings as long as they live. That is considered an Oriental beauty or virtue. By contrast, western women are very expressive and tend to immediately say anything they feel.
Women are like a field of soil and men are like a seed. The seed determines what plant grows while the field affects how well it grows.
Do you think God loves love? By looking at the order and phenomena of nature, we can understand that God too must like love. If we talk about love very dearly and very seriously, then all the cells of our body start laughing. When I talk about love, I could speak for 20 hours!
The only power that can stop the fight between mind and body is the power of true love. True love can only be achieved when a true subject finds an object which truly responds to that subject. You should live like that. A true strong united love is so powerful that it is the only thing that can tell God what to do or not to do. Even God has to submit to it. Love is eternal. We have to direct our mind to crave eternity. If it doesn't, then love has to urge it to look for eternity.
Ye Jin prays at pledge for God's Day
How Many Tears Shed for God
If you want to become the object of the love of God then you have to be like God, who is one. Only if we are one within ourselves do we have the qualification to be the true object of God. I've cried millions and billions of tears and gone through worldwide persecution. Why? For God. Because I know God needs an object of love. How many tears have you shed for God? I have cried so much that when I woke up in the morning I could not look at the sun because my eyes were so swollen. When that happened, the grass, trees, and rocks all joined to comfort me and wipe the tears off my eyes. I have lived this kind of life for so many years.
You may think that Rev. Moon achieved a worldwide foundation and now is heading to North Korea and we will ride on his back. Do you think you can receive God's love by going the easy way? Only if you put your life on the line and go the way of death can you receive God's love -- only if you are willing in your heart to die. God needs an absolute object for His love. If we cannot become the true object of God we cannot enter into God. Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor. So loving God is first. We should love God absolutely and then love our neighbor. If you love absolutely then you can pass the exam and become an object for God. If you just listen and do not take my words seriously, you cannot reach the world of love. How much do you think God is suffering, longing to find His absolute object?
Even if you have a degree, don't be proud of it. We have to give everything to achieve oneness with God. I've lived with that determination and attitude. Those who oppose me will fail.
Can you imagine what the 43 years of suffering in my course have been like? How miserable my course was? How there was no one to help me? I am very serious when I speak like this. If you want to inherit the foundation, you must deeply understand the course of True Parents -- the insults, the persecution, the hardships they experienced. You don't know the tribulation God has gone through to find an object of true love. God created the world by investing Himself totally, not holding Himself back. In this world where there is so much evil and so many disturbances, think about the great energy and perseverance that was needed to connect with God.
Make God Your Own Personal God
How great is the happiness when God finally finds His object and the electric current of love can flow? Who has been able to console Him in tears? I have lived my life to comfort God for His thousands of years of suffering, tears and pain.
The Unification Church has to inherit this foundation. This is so serious. How many times have we stumbled and fallen and had to get up again and continue on the way? Whenever I was down, I told God, don't worry about me. I understand that the persecution and hatred I have received is because fallen man lost the connection with God. I told God not to worry.
Do you really love God? Do you want to make God your own personal God? God is not the God of Rev. Moon or of some minister or church. You should feel: He is my God. I must love God more than anyone else. God has to become the God of ourselves.
We have to start by making God our own God before we make Him our family, society, nation or world God. We cannot enable Him to be a world God unless He is first a personal God.
Now we are in Satan's possession and lineage -- even our hands are under his possession. The world today with all its realities has to be taken away from Satan. This world is a museum of evil. Do you instead want to make God's display? There is no other way but to become an absolute object to God with an absolute vertical relationship.
I have fulfilled my responsibility. If I just speak and do not fulfill then I have to be ashamed. When I was young I bought my clothes from the second hand clothes store. I didn't wear new suits like you wear today. Until members are 30 years old they must establish this tradition. They need not live in a comfortable environment. Unification Church members have to go the way of sacrifice, giving up their personal comforts. Father has never been able to sleep even one night with his arms and feet relaxed. You have to know the strategy of God. The more we are hit, the more we can grow and advance. The person in world history who has received more persecution than anyone is Rev. Moon, not Hitler or Mussolini.
I know the things that are going on in the church. I ignore many things, but I know. I am a man who is taking responsibility for all mankind, for all nations. I lost my parents, my son. I've lost so many things to Satan. But the things Satan took are not because of my failure, but because people around me failed.
Father and Mother singing during entertainment at the October 30, 1988, Blessing in Korea
Historical Korean-Japanese Blessing
The unification of Korea is not achieved by itself or automatically. America, Japan, the Soviet Union, and China must be in a certain agreement before the unification of Korea can be achieved. Without the unification of Korea, providentially the USA and Soviet Union cannot survive. Korea should not feel that it is running out of time to accomplish this unification. Just as bearing fruit takes a certain natural amount of time, the same is true for the unification of Korea: we should not be impatient. We should be confident, patient, hard-working and very serious.
If Koreans will not accomplish the task of the unification of Korea, then foreigners will accomplish its unification. This is a warning to the Korean people. Even though the Japanese people are still going strong, if they don't help Korea, they are going to decline. Knowing this, Father hopes that several thousand Korean-Japanese couples will work for the sake of Korea as a condition so that Japan will continue to prosper and not perish. When a person or country receives some benefit or favor from somebody, that person or country must seriously remember it and try to pay back or return it to the benefactor.
Thousands of intelligent Japanese were not only willing to be matched with a Korean woman or man whose face they had not even seen, but also were so grateful that they shed tears. If any Unification Church member does not feel profoundly stirred deep in his heart when he realizes what happened at the October 30, 1988 Blessing, then he is not a Unification Church member at all. When the sun rises, even the insects, even the groundhog who lives under the ground, will direct their eyes into the sun. How much more should you realize what blood and tears True Parents gave to enable this historical Blessing to occur. Mother as well as myself has established the foundation through a bloody trail of indemnity, putting her life on the line. But the war has not ended yet. If you want to win, you have to make God your own God. We can do this by living like True Parents. We should even transcend the love which True Parents have for God.
The Unification Church has gone over the hill of persecution. When I shouted from the top of my lungs that 1988 was the year when we would overcome worldwide persecution, how many people believed it? Now, as much as we sow in terms of hard work and activities, we will harvest. Even if we may be wounded, we cannot afford to die. That is what a Unification Church member is like.
Seven thousand members will be mobilized to begin a holy fight on the utmost front line in Korea. If Jesus, through John the Baptist, had gathered together 7,000 people and educated them, then he would not have had to die on the cross. But there were not even 70. In America 7,000 civic and political leaders have been trained in the Principle. This is like the external foundation of 7,000. But those mobilized in Korea will be an internal army. In order to establish the external foundation I had to go to America, a land which was like the wilderness.
In Jin Nim with Shin Myung Nim, Jin Hun Nim, and others watch the yute game
Know True Parents' Value
The foundation has been established so that the unity between America and Korea can achieved after four more years. If the unity between established Christianity and the Unification Church had been achieved 40 years ago, we could have reached the world level in seven years. But instead, I had to go through the 40 years all alone. You have to know your value, the value of being in the Unification Church and the value of having Rev. Moon as your leader.
Many people who are waiting for the Second Advent are completely dedicated to a religious life, but they are mistakenly looking towards the clouds. How much they will envy you! Since you are fortunate enough to know about the Second Advent, if you don't fulfill your responsibility, how much accusation will you receive from your descendants?
This next four-year period is of the utmost importance. If American leaders and administrators do not go according to the heavenly way, America will perish. There cannot be a Korean Unification member who denies the world tradition. Everyone must follow.
If you want to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven you have to adjust yourselves, just as when you go to another country you have to adjust to their ways of living. From now on we have to prepare ourselves and our families to worship God and follow the heavenly tradition. Without that foundation you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You want to make God your God, but how can you do that -- with money? No, only with true love. True love is love that is existing completely for others -- for mankind, the world, and God.
From now on, all Unification Church members must exemplify our tradition to our own relatives, so that they come not only to respect you, but adore you. The family in which the individuals are ready to give everything for each other is the very textbook where you learn how to love while you are on earth. This is the kind of love we need for the whole world.
When I was a student, I made every effort to understand the suffering of people in all walks of life: laborers, farmers, fishermen, miners. I did not go home during my first school vacation. I wanted very much to see my hometown, but instead I stayed in my rented room in Seoul and shared the suffering of the people around me. I still cannot forget that in my early 20's when I was going to school, with a student cap, I visited a prostitution house and talked to the prostitutes about what human life is and what they should be doing. I do not forget that serious time when I tried to teach even prostitutes the true way of life. Love does not wander around; it travels the shortest distance and then jumps right into things. I believe there cannot be true liberation until we can sit with God, comfort Him, and cry real tears of joy together. I teach you to go the difficult way and to sacrifice, so that you can receive this liberation.
Now there is the so-called "theology of the masses." But how can you make a theology of the masses if you don't understand the central need of the masses? How can those theologians preach liberation when they have not even achieved their own liberation?
Make Your Resolutions
All Unification Church members must repent for and break from their past life during which they lived according to their own idea and will, and make a new beginning centering on God and His ideal. Become an individual who can be the advocate, the spokesman for God, His representative. What kind of God is God? God is the vertical parent based on true love. But with only the vertical axis He cannot move around; He needs a horizontal axis -- True Parents -- to move horizontally. Jesus came to establish the vertical center of true love. But this was lost at the crucifixion. When Jesus was crucified, there were criminals on both the right and left; therefore, the Lord of the Second Advent must become one with both the left and right.
Before the position of True Parents can be restored, the position of Abel has to be restored. In the beginning of my course, America and Korea were in the position to establish this foundation. But the failure of the American and English missionaries, Korean Christians, and national leaders to unite with Father meant this foundation was lost. Therefore Japan took England's place as the Eve country.
This is the reason communism gained tremendous influence. Only now has it begun to decline. Do you think I know the way politics will go in the future? I also know the future economics and theologies. We are now making a world Bible. We have to establish a cultural institution that makes the patterns for a new culture, and we will make a new encyclopedia of the world. Now I am becoming respected by economists and scholars. I have fulfilled my responsibility to raise you; now you have to raise the young people, the new generation.
The task of 1989 is to gather 7,000 members from around the world to love and to serve the Korean race so that they will follow God's will. Even if our own children are hungry, still we must support these 7,000 brothers and sisters so that they can serve the Korean nation. In the future we should be able to feed North Koreans. When unification of North and South Korea is achieved, then the unification of East and West Germany can be achieved in three years, and on that foundation the unification of the world also becomes possible. Without educating the people of China we cannot decisively benefit the world. Soon several thousand elite Unification Church members should serve in China. The unification of Korea must be achieved in four years, starting in 1989.
At this beginning of 1989 make your resolutions. Will you become a filial child or be a burden? We can achieve harmony and go to the Kingdom of Heaven only if we make God our personal God.
Father's Benediction
I am now taking my first step forward in this new moment of the New Year, toward the restoration of the Fatherland. No matter how high the standard of people in the satanic world, our standard has to be higher in yearning for God, in loving God, and in serving God. We have to have a higher dedication than anyone else in the world. God is calling the Unification Church to establish the heavenly tradition of love and to direct our life and yearning toward the heavenly country, or heaven on earth. The course which God has given to Unification Church members is to be the missionaries for peace, the people who work for peace all over the world.
Korea must become a beacon of light that can illuminate neighboring countries as well as itself. Let us be the people worthy of this heavenly mission and style of life. Also, help Unification Church members to become worthy of the name of heavenly citizen. With all of our energy let us serve True Parents and serve God. Let all Unification Church members become like that. We want to offer the 365 future days of 1989 to you. Allow us to liberate this earth and heaven centering on love. Bring all countries into unity and let us dedicate them to our Parents. God, bless us in these four years to come during which time we will race towards the goal of achieving the unification of Korea.
Mobilizing the Spirit World
The Day of the Victory of Heaven
10.4.76, Belvedere
Through the victory [at Washington Monument] we fulfilled the conditions needed to liberate the sorrow of the entire spirit world and the physical world together. I declare today that the time has come for the total liberation of the spirit world and the forgiveness of past sins....
Spirit world is now besieging people on earth. To them the world is small, almost like the size of an ice cube. A treasure chest has been opened but most people are unaware that a new treasure has been discovered and a new power has been released. Spirit world has opened up, but nobody realizes what has happened.
Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, the separation between the spirit world and physical world stretched miles wide. Even though the people in spirit world wanted to descend to the earth to intervene in the life of the physical world, they could not do it because between the two worlds lay a chasm which was in the hands of Satan. Adam was supposed to be in the father's role, but because he failed then all his children failed. Spirit world could not freely descend until the mission of the father was consummated here on earth, and he could open a path to the spirit world. This is the rule of heaven.
God's plan was to work on the individual level with Abel, then with Abel's family, tribe, nation, and the Abel side on the worldwide level. No one could bridge this chasm during the 4,000 years before Jesus' coming. Jesus came in the role of the father of mankind, and in him the spirit of God was manifested through a perfected man for the first time. At that time God wanted to pioneer a breakthrough in history. Because of Jesus' crucifixion, however, this pioneering task was accomplished only spiritually. That is why the Second Advent became absolutely necessary. The position of the True Father must be established in order to pioneer complete salvation from the individual level to the worldwide level, as well as to open the pathway to the spirit world.
All the wrongdoings and mistakes of the past, including the mistakes of Judaism and Christianity, must be indemnified. The Unification Church thus has a mending mission. By paying indemnity we are mending the mistakes of history in the shortest possible time. You call me the True Parent. Why? Because for you my role is that of a true parent, true father, or Adam. I must mend all of the past mistakes, and step by step bring about wholesome restoration from the individual level to the worldwide level. This was symbolically consummated at Washington Monument, so that the individual failure, family, tribal, national and worldwide failures were mended. Thus I opened wide the highway between this world and the spirit world, so that anyone can ascend or descend without restriction....
Now your ancestors can come down freely on the highway between the spirit world and the physical world. Our ancestors in the spirit world are our allies and will help us witness to others. They will come down in an unprecedented avalanche, like Niagara Falls. They will pressure their descendants, "You must become a champion. Go out and witness. You must do more." They will not only come down to you, but also to their descendants who are not yet members, directing them to go to a workshop, or to meet a person from the Unification Church. This phenomenon will happen increasingly.
In the wake of the victory of Washington Monument a far more jubilant victory celebration is being held in the spirit world because they have now been liberated. Now they can freely come to the earth and work with you, their own descendants. From this time on, when you go out on your mission you will receive all kinds of spiritual experiences -- visions, speaking in tongues and special dreams. Not only you but many people outside our church will experience these things.
We must sway three countries to God; once God can influence at least three nations, the whole world will tumble into His arms. Presently in the spirit world there is a great deal of competition. Because good spirits can descend first, the country which has more good ancestors will be benefited first, directly affecting the destiny of that nation. We are not just mobilizing Christian spirits, but even Jesus himself, as well as Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed. Taking a father's role, they will come down to their own followers on earth. Not many people understand these things precisely, but I can clearly testify to them because I am the pioneer who opened the pathway. What I have prophesied has been fulfilled.... You have one simple mandate from God and from the True Parents: to have absolute unswerving faith. Press forward and work more intensely than in the Washington Monument campaign. Then the power of God and the assistance of your ancestors will come with you. Any amount of spiritual assistance you require will be no problem. You will only prosper.