Belvedere
Translator - Sang Kil Han
All of humanity yearns to be liberated from conflict and to enjoy a peaceful world. Why do people want liberation? Likewise, why do we crave peace and unification so much? In God's original world, those things would have been inherent. But because of the human fall, we have been lacking peace and unification; therefore, we have been yearning deeply for that.
How was this peace lost? Because of the fall, human beings began to dwell apart from God. Man came face to face with Satan. All of mankind, from the individual to the family, nation and even the whole world, is under the dominion of Satan. Through what condition did Satan come to dominate human beings, who were supposed to be dominated by God? How did Satan gain his power? It was through satanic love that the human blood lineage was corrupted and Satan came to have dominion over people.
Without the fall, all people would have been part of God's lineage. God would be the root, the beginning, and we would all be His offspring. With God as our Father and ancestor, we could become one with Him in love. Yet Satan took that relationship over and imposed his lineage. He has prevented mankind from going to God and kept people under his power. Unless something is done about the present situation, unless man severs his relationship with Satan and goes over to God's side, it is not possible for man to be with God.
Each individual belongs more to Satan than to God. As much as he wishes to become one with God, man cannot freely cut his ties with Satan. However, he is still very fortunate: even though man came to be clearly under Satan, his original mind is intact. The original mind belonged to God originally and it remains strong and active, always repelling Satan. Even though man is living under Satan, his original mind hates Satan.
A struggle exists between the mind and the body because the original mind wants to go to God's side and live with Him. But the body is on the opposite side and desires what the mind does not want to do. Man finds himself compelled to struggle on that level, but he wants to be liberated from that state of struggle.
Where is the border line between God and Satan? A border line is something visible, like the border lines between nations. If one goes across, he is in a completely different country. How do you do away with the border line between God and Satan? God is omnipotent; there is nothing He cannot do. Yet, there is another law involved, and thus God cannot remove that border line.
What is powerful enough to liberate man and God from the agony of this strange, distorted state? We have come to see that only God's love and God's life can do something about this. Because of the love that we have with Satan, even though we are alive, we arc actually dead. Even though we have life, we are lifeless. Only God's love and life can help us.
Man has to go through a transition to allow God's life to flow into him. For God's love to be transmitted to that person, he has to move from the old, satanic place into the new or original place where the flow of love and flow of life can be experienced with God.
Satan's secret, ultimate weapon for occupying man is to push him into individualistic desires. He will make the individual assert himself first and claim individualistic purposes above all. Satan is always urging people, "forget about your family, forget about bigger things like the country. Just think about yourself. You alone must succeed." Satan has never stopped for a moment using people to do things that satisfy Satan himself.
God has a different stance. God works through individuals but not for an individual motive. God works through an individual who has the whole in mind-the nation and the family, anything bigger than the individual. God wishes the individual to be aware of the whole because that is the attitude of original love. Man has that potential in his mind and spirit because it is transmitted from God.
God cannot directly intervene in this situation, snatching a person out of Satan's domain. That is against the Principle. However, God has been building a system or environment which many people can become a part of. The environment through which man can more easily come to God's side is the realm of religion. God has been fostering religion and improving it so that man can eventually come to Him.
We might also describe religion as a factory where damaged human beings can be repaired. There are people who believe in God, those who do not believe in God, and then there are some who say they do not know either way. But it is through the teachings of religion that people begin to become aware of the truth. God has been pushing religion to the central point in history so that man could be brought back to Him.
Some people clearly like what is taught in religion and others don't. Satan does not like it at all. In fact, Satan hates it. But God loves every element of religion. Through history, religion has been growing bigger, like a river. God has been working through history this way.
Looking back on history, we can clearly see the changes in sovereignty. One country or kingdom has risen, then declined and disappeared as another sovereignty has taken over. Worldly powers have always fought each other, and sovereignties are always changing. But religion has been growing and expanding consistently.
Today we see four basic cultural realms in the world. The West is centered on Judeo-Christianity, while Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam dominate in the East and the Middle East. These four religious cultural realms occupy all areas of the earth. Each world religion plays a unique role in accordance with the different backgrounds of the people in it. But all these religions have the same basic purpose and goal. God's desire is for religions to come together, find their common points and go forward in a unified direction. This is what God is working toward.
History has been moving toward a unified cultural realm. Eventually mankind will be living in a world with no national borders or divisions, with free travel and communications. All the property of God's original world will be shared.
We know that every world religion faced persecution. Individuals, governments and sovereignties have given great hardship to religious people. There has been great suffering and martyrdom. History has repeated itself again and again, but in the meantime the power of religion has grown far and wide. The United States is a predominantly Christian nation, and this culture is deeply influenced by the spirit of Christianity. Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam permeate other cultures. God is ready to bring all of the world's cultures into the dominion of religion-in other words, all will be returned to God.
We must also be aware that Satan is trying to work against God. God has been working toward the unity of world religions so that His influence can become greater. Yet if this is fulfilled, Satan will have to let go, which would be the end of the satanic domain. How does Satan work to prevent this? He cannot take dominion by force, so he simply tells lies. He leads people away from religion and into atheism. Satan has been slipping untruths into the minds of people so that they will not go in the original direction.
The work initiated by Satan has now taken on an organizational form in the world: a system of government called communism. Communism preaches its own version of man's original nature, saying that God is only an illusion. Satan has been effectively working through communism.
Here in America, a predominantly religious country, communists want to infiltrate and feed misinformation to the people. They work to move people away from the right direction. God knows what the forces of evil have been doing. God wants to protect each religion and prevent the people from falling prey to Satan's activity so that He can bring the divided religious sectors into unity. God has been working to prevent the wars between religions and races that Satan promotes.
Satan has been working through the tactics of communism in which a few individuals or small groups are guided by Marxist ideology to penetrate a targeted cultural group. For instance, black people are trained and seat to disrupt a white society and vice-versa. White people penetrate black societies to spread resentment and conflict. This is part of the communist effort to cause confusion and spread antagonism, division, and eventually war.
Whose activities have been getting the better of the other-God's or Satan's? Clearly, satanic activities have dominated godly activities in the world, in terms of numbers. In these Last Days, God is doing His utmost to call all religions into unity as quickly as possible. Communists have very effectively promoted Satan's goals, so there must be a group that works even more effectively to bring all the divided world religions together into unity. That is the activity of the Unification Church on behalf of God.
The actions of God and His people are opposed at one time or another by everyone in the secular realm. The Unification movement must be persecuted before people become aware of its goodness. It must experience persecution just as all religious activity in history faced persecution. Each different part of the world, as well as the whole world united, is bound to attack authentic religious activity, just as they have done throughout history.
You may have been puzzled to see so much persecution, but now you can understand why it happens. The communists especially oppose the efforts of the Unification Church to unify religion. Sometimes they work together with the government authorities to oppose the Unification Church's activity. Within Christianity, people often disagree and struggle between themselves. There are many competing factions and sects, but when it comes to opposing the Unification Church, they can work together. Sometimes they bring other religions together to oppose the Unification Church. It may be hard for you to understand, yet this is something that has to come about.
Democratic countries disagree and compete among themselves, yet when it comes to opposing the Unification Church, somehow they manage to work together.
These people who get together and oppose the Unification Church-will they prosper? On the contrary, the more they have opposed the Unification Church, the mole they have declined. This has been going on for decades now and it is clear that the more they oppose us, the more they decline. Yet, they are compelled by Satan to do what they do, and so they continue.
We can see today that no one can take control of the situation in the United States and make it work better. The same is true with communist systems. Communism should have become very successful by this time, but today world communism is actually declining. We can clearly see the steps of its decline: First it was embraced by people as an international, world-level system. Now it has come to be a national or even a racial system.
Communism and the Unification Church will confront each other, but there is a clear, visible difference in their strategies. Satan will keep on attacking good people and keep on losing as a result. That is his nature, so he cannot help but do that. On God's side, people are beaten, attacked and persecuted, yet they make gains afterwards. This is a dramatic difference. We are ready to go through more persecution, more hardship and sacrifice. Why? It is because we know we will gain more ground as a result. That is how we can gain a broader foundation.
We can see this principle working even in everyday life. In a small family, sometimes brothers and sisters fight among themselves. The one who attacks first is always the one in the wrong, the selfish one. After the fight is resolved, he will be pushed into the inferior position, while the other will clearly be in a better position. Expanded to the world level, we can see that the more the evil forces unite to attack the good side, the sooner the realm of evil will crumble completely. When half or more of the world comes against goodness, that serves as a sign that the whole evil world will be crumbling down soon.
That time has already come in history. In 1976, one individual was opposed on the world level because of his religious stance. It was not because he had done anything wrong but because he had the "wrong" religion and way of thinking. This individual is Reverend Moon.
Let's look at it step by step. Has the nation of America opposed Reverend Moon? How about world communism? Has traditional Christianity opposed the Unification Church and Reverend Moon? What about organized Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism? Yes, all of them at one time or another have opposed Reverend Moon and his followers, even to the point of parents kidnapping their own children. Imagine that. How can parents forcibly detain their own children? Communism, democracy, Christianity, the government, you name it-when it comes to opposing Reverend Moon, they can all get together. This really happened.
Then Reverend Moon was sent to Danbury prison. Individuals said, "It is good that you sent him to prison," and families and countries agreed. No country sympathized and said, "He shouldn't be sent to prison." The whole world joined in support of that deed. Most people thought that would be the end of the Unification Church. Reverend Moon has been opposed by a foreign country- this country of America-and he has been persecuted by not only one religion but all the religions of the world, not to mention the powerful force of atheistic communism. Reverend Moon has single-handedly been fighting against all these united efforts against him.
Now God has a condition for achieving future world unity. People have tried everything but nobody can solve the problems of the United States. Young people are using drugs and have been influenced by all sorts of vices. They are being used up, burned-out. Families are breaking up. Leftists and communists are working openly everywhere. So much evil is going on in this country that no politician can say, "I can solve the problems of America." No one has that power and confidence-this is clear.
See how weak the influence of Judeo-Christianity has become. Religion has gotten confused and has been degraded so that people can find little hope there anymore, whether in Christianity or in any other religion. The situation of the world is similar. No one is confident to lead the world to a better place.
After Reverend Moon was sent to Danbury, people said it was a good thing for the country, that putting Reverend Moon away would bring good results. But was that true? No, the public support for the government's actions did not grow. On the other hand, the general feeling is that the Unification Church is doing something right. This feeling has been growing. As Reverend Moon's name was vilified, people gradually became aware of the good things Reverend Moon has been doing. Now my name is being resurrected. More and more recognition is coming in all the different pans of the world. Who is behind this worldwide trend? Is it me, or is it Satan, or is it God? Yes, it is God.
There is division and disharmony on every level in this world, whether between individuals, religious groups, or countries. We can see that Satan in his own way has achieved great success. In all the free world, there is more division than harmony. We have war in the community, war between individuals. Morality here in the United States is virtually an outmoded idea. Parents fight and freely divorce and the children suffer immeasurably. The children no longer feel a part of the parents.
There is so little harmony in Western society that human beings are virtually no different from animals. This is because the West has little reverence for vertical relationships. In the East, the grandparents live with their children and descendants. This rarely happens in America.
Satan has been quite successful in creating struggle among individuals. He has been casting his nets. The slower you move, the easier you will be to catch in that net. Who is going to do away with these nets? God makes the first move to try to take those nets away, but God alone cannot do everything. We all have to join in with God to slash Satan's nets. The human part of the effort is the heavier one. After all, it was human beings who did not complete their portion of responsibility. It was people who fell and, therefore, it lies with man to say, "I will do it." Then God can say, "I will help you."
How will God complete His immense task? Actually, it is more simple than we may think. Satan has been dividing everything meticulously, while God wants to unify everything. God's purpose is to defeat Satan's world. All we have to do is put ourselves in the position to be used by God-that is it. We have to make ourselves usable to God. Then, Satan is no longer a problem.
Satan is not the problem. Man is the problem. The liberation of the spiritual world and the physical world requires a man who can work in both areas. It must be a man, not God, who does it. When that man arises, then the liberation between the two worlds can be accomplished. He will be able to liberate Satan, too.
What is the difference between God and true man? There is none, especially in connection with Satan. God and a true man are one. There is no difference. Is God an individualist? Then what is He like? He cares for the whole, doesn't He? What about Satan? Does Satan care about the whole? He is an individualist above all. If a man comes to care about the whole, Satan cannot work at all with that man. But fallen men are individualists.
If godly individuals, representing unfallen Adam and Eve, get married and form a family, is that their own private family, an individualistic family, so to speak? Or does that family represent all things of the earth? They have nothing to do with individualism. The very nature of that family is different. In God's mind, to whom does a country belong? Does it belong to any one individual or one cultural group? A nation belongs to the whole world, and the world belongs to God.
In a satanic country, everyone is "independent" and individualistic. They do not belong to anyone. But no one and no family belongs just to themselves. On the level of the country and the world, the same is true. We are seeking the original individual, original family, original country and original world. The satanic manifestation is opposite, and in the end, we have to restore the satanic world, family and individual to what God meant them to be.
The conclusion is quite simple. As soon as each person becomes new so that God can work him, then all problems are instantly solved. As soon as you become a Godcentered individual, when you form a family which flatly refuses a satanic way of life and a satanic way of thinking, then God can come and dwell with your family. Is the liberation of God also necessary? Yes, God needs to be liberated so that He can go about saving other people. God's original unity with man was supposed to be absolute, so God is working really hard to save man from Satan. In that respect, God is not free. We need to liberate God from the task of saving man. Do you understand?
So much depends upon human beings. We already know that the only group or organization on the earth, even in the spirit world, which has this purpose is the Unification Church. Here stands one man who is connected to heaven and also to the satanic world. The solution to the world's ills begins right there. If the satanic world declines, then of course the country centered on God will come about. Then God's side will prosper and the liberation of God will take place. What the world needs most is for the power of evil to decline and the good world to rise up in unity. That is what we all desire now.
We have heard the terms "left wing" and "right wing," haven't we? It is almost like the two sides of man- original man on the one hand and fallen man on the other. God is represented by the right side and Satan is represented by the left side. The left wing of the world is the atheistic communist side, and the right wing is the democratic or God-affirming side.
Within the Unification Church as well there are the more eager, enthusiastic, and earnest people who are, of course, on the right side. The less active, less earnest members are on the left side. There are people who are more public-minded and those who are more individualistic. The more public person wants to sacrifice more, while the less public-minded person just wants to sacrifice less.
The difference between us and the secular world is that they fight between left and right wing, such as the struggle between communism and democracy. But here in the Unification Church, even though we have our left and right wings, they are not fighting each other. They are harmonious. Why? It is because we have a "head wing," which controls both the right and left wings. The head can remind the person on the left side to try to be more active. The head will say firmly, "You had better be quiet and start working."
Another difference in the Unification Church is that all members know one thing: they must listen well and obey Father. You all know that, don't you? It really doesn't make any difference whether you have earned a Ph.D. or you didn't finish grammar school. Everyone knows, "I had really better listen to Father."
Do you think God has a color-conscious mind? No, absolutely not. Then will God say, "I like this person from the wealthiest culture in the world-America"? Or will He think, "I don't like that Oriental who is from an inferior culture"? No, God looks at people very differently. He sympathizes more with those who are from a less developed country. How about you? Do you have the same eyes and attitude as God's? Do you think, "Oh, he is an American. She's an Oriental." Do you see that first, or have you gone beyond that sort of consideration?
Would you prefer that I belonged to the white race? Does it makes a difference? What language would you like me to speak? You should say, "Father, you speak any language. I will listen."
In the Unification Church we don't think about racial or national differences. We don't have any concept of boundaries. If I came knocking on your door one night when you were sleeping, would you say, "Father, you are not cultured. Why didn't you call before you came?" Which is first-your life or love? God's love occurred before life came into being. When parents are beside you, no preference or priority comes before that.
When a couple loves each other and Father and Mother call the wife away, the husband should not protest, "My wife belongs to me!" Before she belonged to you, she belonged to God. She is God's daughter. Before you got married, before you were even born, her life was connected to her parents. The origin is always the parents. Therefore, as husbands or wives, we have second claim, not first claim. Do you American men understand this? In the American family, the woman is like a queen, controlling everything. We are changing that. Everything is turned upside down in the Unification Church-or rather right side up! It doesn't sound too good to American women, does it? But it suits the men fine.
When you fight, do you prosper or decline? The more discord, disharmony and fighting the world has, the faster it declines. Meanwhile, the Unification Church will go higher up. This is not just rhetorical and abstract. Today we have come to the point where those who are running for the office of President of the United States of America have to connect to God or else they have no chance.
Is that just my own idea? No, it is a law, based upon a spiritual foundation. Everything is contained within that law. I have been educating people about God, about the original world, and also about Satan. Unification Thought is consistent and all-embracing. It does not leave off some portion while favoring another portion.
The CIA and the FBI are trying to learn everything about us-who we are, how we do things. At first, they assumed that we were doing things for a selfish purpose- like everybody else. Now they're coming to see that the activities of the Unification Church are more beneficial than damaging to America. They recognize that this country has a problem, especially with communist infiltration, and they are greatly concerned. Most individual citizens are not so concerned about this, but agencies such as the FBI and the CIA have been looking everywhere for some possible solution. Now they are realizing that Reverend Moon's solution has great potential. More and more people are coming to understand and appreciate us.
All problems-whether those of youth, the family, social ethics-have the same essential points in common. Now people are beginning to see that Reverend Moon's teaching will help America. Do you Unification Church members know that? Are you as serious about it as those people who have never even heard of the Principle? You should be. As direct sons and daughters, you must be more aware than others. I have been working for years to establish such a group as the Unification Church to lead the people out of darkness to the side of goodness. I have given everything to this purpose.
You also recognize that Unification ideology is strong and great enough to bring the whole world into unity. The value of our thought-yours and mine-is truly, truly great. You mustn't think, "How can any of my thinking be great?" That is unnecessarily humble. This ideology has been systematically developed so that it is capable of bringing anyone-any nationality and any religion-into unity.
Did this understanding come from Reverend Moon or did it come from God? Yes, it is from God. How long has God had this idea? Was it from the time when Reverend Moon was about to be born that God formed this idea, or was God thinking this way tens of thousands of years before Reverend Moon ever came to earth? Did God's thought flow naturally, like water from high to low, into everybody's mind? No, it did not. How did God's idea come to dwell in you and in many other people? How do people realize that it is more important than anything? We must understand that tremendous sacrifice was made before we were able to accept and appreciate it. Not only individuals but also families and whole nations made incredible sacrifices and paid a huge amount of indemnity. On that foundation you can sit here and understand the truth.
The sacrifice has been just enormous, beyond your imagination. Everyone in the spirit world has been part of the sacrifice to help achieve this foundation. During these past forty years or so, how many problems has the world gone through? Actually, it has been an encapsulation of history. The problems of several thousands of years of history have recurred within the last forty years. Without God's attending to every aspect of the turbulence, this world could not be integrated.
I have been working every moment of these forty years. You have been given this great truth and once you learn it, it is rather simple. But do you think that knowledge came to me easily, perhaps one day in deep prayer? No, it took so much more than that. Tremendous struggle and sacrifice went on behind the scenes. Why didn't it come to me automatically? It would have been a lot easier and quicker. But without my working on it in person I could not have inherited the right to dominate the spirit world. You don't know what I had to do in order to pass the test to gain the qualification to dominate the spirit world. I have not told you yet, so you do not know what it was. I don't expect you to know it yet, but you must recognize that there was such a serious foundation.
Without unifying the spirit world, we can never unify things here on earth. This is easy to understand. After working out all things in spirit world, I pushed through all the barriers on earth. Then, since the spirit world has been through it already, all the people there can come down and help out. Suppose one spirit man comes and helps to accomplish a victory for God on earth. Will he go back after he helps, or is it his purpose to continue working here? He will stay and do more and more, not just become a spectator. Spirit world is in the midst of great movement from east to west and west to east. When substantial unity is achieved here in America, a tremendous amount of help from the various corners of spirit world will come right down here. I am expecting this to happen.
When the spirit men of all different countries convene to help the United States, then each nationality here will be pushed to become a part of God's movement. Isn't that true? There are many past presidents of the United States in spirit world. Wouldn't they want to come down to the incumbent President and try to help him? Yes, they would. What if many past Presidents of the United States came down and assaulted Mr. Reagan's thinking, saying, "Listen to me or else!" Don't you think he would have to listen? Yes, but God would not let them do that unless the incumbent President did not have a way of working things out otherwise.
Throughout history, bad spirits have been coming down and influencing the people on earth-sometimes in tremendous groups. Before Adam and Eve fell, they were able to go anywhere in the spirit world without being stopped or bothered. If Adam and Eve had matured properly and gone about their lives, then all their descendants would have had the same privilege. But today we are in a different position because Adam and Eve fell.
For example, this sister is sitting right in front of me, but her thoughts are occupied mostly with her past and what kind of relationships she has had with various people. A lot of self-centered thinking is going on. All of you are like that, as well. That is the difference between fallen and unfallen ancestors. If Adam and Eve had not fallen and we were all original human beings, different things would go through our minds. The world, the nation- these would be everything to us, but that is not how it is today.
How should an individual conduct his life? I have been teaching you many things, but there is one simple conclusion: each person has to change. To what degree must we change? White people must come to love black and Oriental people more than they love their own spouse, or else they cannot find a way to heaven. That kind of thinking is not part of the satanic lineage. If you have such a goal, you did not generate it yourself: it came from Heaven. Heaven gave it to you. Abel must always love Cain first or else he cannot go to rest in Heavenly Father's bosom. Do you understand?
Look at Jesus' example. When he was being crucified, he prayed for the Roman soldiers who were killing him. He wasn't praying for his own brothers, his own parents or relatives. Jesus taught us something which is wry difficult to practice, but it is very essential. lf you love the members of your family more than you love others, then you cannot go into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is true for Reverend Moon, too. That is why I came to America to work as I have.
The United States is a downright enemy to me, since it has persecuted me and done everything to make my way more difficult. But I gave up my own country, my next of kin, and the people of my own race and gave them second priority. Even though the situation was much more urgent in Korea, my first priority was to come to this enemy country and educate the people and love them. I do that for the sake of the whole world. Why haven't I left this country and resumed to Korea? It is because I had to love the enemy first of all. After restoring this country, then I can go back to Korea. This is the Principle.
That way of thinking has nothing satanic in it. It is solely of heaven. As long as you are saturated with that attitude, Satan cannot even get near you. It would be against the law and against the Principle for him to bother you. Therefore, you will be free from Satan and come closer and closer to God.
The topic of my sermon this morning is the liberation of the physical and spiritual worlds and unification of the world. Only through liberation of the spirit world and the physical world can the world be unified. lf liberation is needed, it means that one is confined somewhere, unable to get out. To take him out of there is to liberate him, correct? Who is confined? Everyone, everywhere. Once we come within the boundaries of the Unification Church, which are the boundaries of God, we are much more free than others. In that respect, we are different from other people in the world. After we are liberated, can we just sit and trust that the whole world will come into unity? No, we have to work busily to bring this divided world into unity.
By learning the truth, you are set free. But it is apparent that world unification is not yet achieved. Why have we been liberated? Since we are not living in a unified world, our being liberated cannot have true meaning until we have brought everybody else into unity. We have toachieve substantial harmony on this earth-then we will live in the unified country and enjoy even greater liberation. Once you have been liberated and taught the value and content of God's will, you cannot just sit tight and enjoy that liberation. It is meaningless. We must work diligently and bring about unity of the world.
We have to be completely different from the outside world. By the same token, we have to work very hard. Many people are gathered here, but each individual is unique in the process and path he is going. Some are struggling with individual problems, some are working for family restoration, some are contributing to the restoration of the nation and even of the world. As we are working on our own problems, we must be helping to solve other people's problems. We have to do this all along. It is really important that we do this here on earth because this sets the pattern for our life in spirit world.
In the spirit world, we have to continue this task, but that is not the ideal. The ideal is to complete everything here on earth so that a lot of restoration will not be necessary once we go to spirit world. We have to be really aware. Each family-the Michaels, the MacDonalds, or whoever-is being helped now by all their ancestors because it is such a crucial time. You don't realize that, but spirit world knows it clearly. If you do not act, they are in a very difficult position. If you keep on like that for many years and then go to spirit world, your ancestry will have no more avenue by which to advance, so they will blame you.
(Speaking in English, with great feeling:) They will accuse you, "Why didn't you work to save us?" How can you answer them in such a situation? This is your problem, not mine. You have to learn that point. No matter how much we are persecuted in the world, the Unification movement is the only place of hope. No matter how difficult your living situation is, that is not a problem. More important than that is the problem of eternity. There is no way in the spiritual world to solve these things. You can only solve those problems on this physical earth. You have to know that clearly.
I have the same situation; I did not bypass this on my way to victory. I have received persecution all my life, but that is no problem. A lifetime is a very short amount of time compared to eternity. Spiritual world is forever. I worked hard all my life in order to make that foundation for the world. Father's position and yours are the same.
(Translation resumes:) You must clearly understand that you have your individual work to do. Thinking that some body else will do it has no place here. We must be like the people fighting World War II. Once the war started, everyone went out to fight, didn't they? They could not ignore the war and just stay home. The enemy was threatening and they had to win the war. This is exactly the situation Unification Church members are in now. We are heavenly soldiers. Our war is not one country against another; it is a cosmic war. We have to fight with our heart and with our words.
God wants to see a peaceful world without manmade boundaries and struggles. But historically there have always been boundaries, territorial fights, and no true peace We are working to change that.
Unification Church members have been taught by their commanding general to be able to pack up and go anywhere-from the West to the East, or the East to the West, or to Africa or anywhere. It doesn't matter. We have been preparing ourselves and we are ready to go at any time. Now we are fighting here in America in this cosmic struggle.
True Parents are going this path, as are the True Children and so must you. All children must go the same way as their father and mother. Do you understand? The purpose of our struggle is to liberate the people of the satanic world. We must take responsibility and say, "With my own hands, I will liberate communist countries and overcome injustice. I will liberate this world and bring it back to the original world of God." We must undertake that responsibility now.
I proclaimed that we would march forward to Moscow after the great victory at Washington Monument. The Soviet Union infiltrated and dominated all her satellite countries; now, in the reverse process, we have infiltrated communist and satellite countries for God. Do you know that? What would you do if you were asked to go and work for the church in one of those communist countries? Would you say, "Well, if I have to, I guess I'll do it"? Or would you go joyfully, grateful to have such an important mission?
Did I try to avoid prison at Danbury or did I volunteer for that difficulty? Was I forced to go? I decided, "Yes, I will go. After I go, great advances will be made for God." Adam and Eve were not limited by any boundaries in the beginning, so they did not need to be liberated. They were already free. They were supposed to live in a unified world. Today, we are in that position. We are liberated. Within the boundaries, nothing evil can come in. Satan cannot come in. But we are not yet living in a unified world. That means we have to achieve the unified world in order to live in it. Therefore, we have to liberate more of the outside world so that our unified world can expand. This is our mission now. Only those who are already liberated can liberate others.
You are following the same path as I have walked. But in my time, I had to open the way amidst tremendous persecution. Today, on your path, there is little persecution. That is the difference. I also had to work in many different countries, but you don't have to do that. If you do your home church work, even though it is just one small area, you will receive the same credit as if you had gone to many different countries.
You must make new assessments. What is home church, anyway? It is not something I decided overnight. Before the home church providence was formed and announced, a tremendous foundation had to be worked out. In other words, everything I did in the past was for the sake of the formation of home church. More specifically, without having established enough condition in at least 120 countries for people to come to God and True Parents, the home church providence could not have been set in motion. More than 120 countries are represented in the population of the United States. There may be people from seventy or more countries living within your own home church area of 360 homes. Without first having enough foundation to be successful in converting them, I would not have proclaimed the home church task.
Just as I did for you, you are about to liberate those people and achieve the unified world along with them. You are following in my footsteps; this is the meaning of home church. Without this condition, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Do you understand?
Within your successful home church area, there will be no barriers, national boundaries or racial discrimination. That will be your unified world. You can actually live there on earth, and that serves as a critical condition to live in the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven for the first time. You can free yourself from possibly being blamed by your ancestors and the ancestors of the people of the home church area who might say, "Why didn't you save us, too, while you were on earth?" Through this process, you go to spirit world and actually become a free person.
We are already liberated here on earth in the Unification Church. How do you know you are liberated? Because of the Blessing, we have different roots now. You belong to God and heaven, rather than some physical nation. Thus you are free, like Adam and Eve before they fell. With that freedom, we must go out and free others. In other words, because we are free, because we are saved, we have to free other people. With that condition, we will achieve the unified world. We have to do both.
Our blood lineage changed, so we are undoubtedly heavenly sons and daughters. Does that mean we automatically go to heaven? No, it doesn't. Even though we are in the original true children's position and our blood lineage has changed, we have to do what True Parents have done- liberate others and bring about the unified world. By doing both, we will be able to live in heaven on earth and also in spirit world.
What if I said, "You cannot do home church"? That means you would have no way to go to heaven. That would be the severest punishment, so to speak. You have the privilege of working on home church. You were given it freely. You may think you are doing service for others and that is true to some degree, but it is also your tremendous privilege to do home church.
Today is the day when I went to Hung Nam prison thirty-nine years ago - February 22. Why did I go to Hung Nam prison? It was so that I could liberate the world after I returned. I have faced imprisonment along every step of my path. Satan has been snatching every opportunity to put me in prison. Today, doing the same task as mine, you don't face the same risk of being put into prison, do you? That is because the world has become different. You have already incurred much debt to Heaven and True Parents. Once you know this, you should think, "I have to pay that debt back by receiving my inheritance of home church." You don't pay back your debt directly to True Parents, but to the people of the world. That is the arrangement I have made.
You have been liberated and we are about to achieve the unified world. I have said that over and over. What have you been liberated from? You are no longer confused and uncertain. You are no longer the prey of drug abuse or free sex. Those things are not found within God's boundary. You are free from the secular humanist attitude. lf you went to college, you were surely influenced by secular humanism. Now, that kind of junk is relegated to the past. You can have true aspirations based on a true perspective.
If you had stayed within the world's boundaries, you would almost certainly have been a slave of money and materialist needs. But now you can dominate money and material, rather than be dominated by it. Even your lineage has changed. You no longer belong to America or Japan or any other secular nation. You belong to God, not Satan anymore. So you are liberated in almost every way. But we are not living in the unified world yet. Our task is to bring about the unified world. To do that, we have to shed tears in home church. You cannot do it just by good talk. Many thousands of years of entanglements are still there, so many tears must be shed.
Overcome all the conflicts and wars within your 360 homes. Then you will follow in the footsteps of True Parents. How do we create heaven on earth how? By working successfully in home church. We can symbolically bring all the world into unity within 360 homes. Thirty nine years ago this morning, I was walking into prison. Now you are going into your home church to achieve basically the same results as I have.
If you understand this clearly and deeply, you should say, "Since I'm liberated to dwell in the original state, my task from now on is to do what Father has done. I am ready and willing to go to home church and bring success." Those who pledge this, please raise your hands. Let us pray.
