REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON LET US CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS ON BEHALF OF HEAVEN

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON LET US CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS ON BEHALF OF HEAVEN December 25, 1957 Chung Pa Dong Church Seoul, Korea Luke 2:1 Prayer By virtue of Jesus' birth, the providential will that God had been working to fulfill for the 4,000 years since Adam had come to pass. Moreover, we can also say that the wish of our ancestors in the history of the dispensation of restoration since the fall of Adam was also realized through Jesus' birth. We must think again about the fact that Jesus' birth was the moment when both the will of God and the will of humanity were accomplished. Since the birth of Jesus, 2,000 long years of history have passed. Now we feel we are living in the same kind of historic, universal and intense period as the time when Jesus was born 2,000 years ago, when the will of God and the will of humanity were realized. The Meaning of the Birth of Jesus Although Jesus was born in the small, bloody body of a baby, he was the incarnation who could represent the Will of God. His crying voice and movements represented God's grief of 4,000 years. They manifested the pattern of all the things that God tried to carry out on the earth. They expressed the sorrow suffered during the 4,000-year course of history when indemnity was being paid for the sins of humanity. Therefore, through his birth, we could usher in a scene of joy when a new history of goodness began. When we think about how, due to one man, Jesus, the worries of God, the worries of humanity throughout the course of history and the worries of that time could all be gotten rid of, it is clear that Jesus was truly an immense personality. We stand in awe of him. However, in his time, there was no one who bowed before him with utmost sincerity on behalf of the heart of the Father, the hearts of all people and the countless prophets. You must feel indignant about this. What kind of mind-set then is appropriate for those of us who have gathered to celebrate this birthday of Jesus? We must be able to represent the heart of the Father and the hearts of the countless prophets who came throughout the course of history. Moreover, we must feel the desire to offer a gift to baby Jesus on behalf of the hearts of the chosen people, who longed for the promised day at that time and yearned and prayed for the Messiah. You have to understand that only then can we comfort God's heart and the hearts of the faithful believers of that time. Though history has passed by, you can attain the right to participate in the glory of the Father with the qualifications of the chosen people in place of the Israelites. Furthermore, you must offer gratitude with the feeling that the birthday of Jesus is the day that all things in Heaven and earth can express joy. It was the day of God's liberation from grief, as well as the day that the wish of all people was brought to fulfillment. While doing so, you must offer the gift you have prepared through your life of faith, with a nervous heart. With the heart that represents the heart of Father, the historical heart and the heart of the time, you must bow before Jesus and congratulate him. Let us then examine who worked and how hard they worked for the birth of Jesus Christ. First, God worked for 4,000 years. Our ancestors, many prophets, wise men and heroes also worked hard. Moreover, the followers of Judaism, who represented the chosen people of the Israelites, also toiled and offered their lives. Similarly, until the birth of Jesus, you can find many hidden historical efforts that do not seem to have any direct relationship to it. That is not all. Jesus lived his thirty years of life after coming to the earth. Since then, 2,000 dispensational years have passed for the sake of the will of the heavenly principles. Here we can find the historical grief of the past that existed before Jesus, as well as the 2,000-year history after Jesus that has been added to it. The hope of Jesus, who was born for the sake of historical liberation, the liberation of the period, and the liberation of the future, has not reached fulfillment even now, 2,000 years later, because of the mistakes of the people during his time. Therefore, the sorrow of the 2,000 years after the death of Jesus has been piled on top of the sorrow of the 4,000-year history before his time. God's True Intention for Having Jesus Come What kind of mission do we bear on our shoulders today? We bear the mission to alleviate the bitter grief of God which remains, even after Jesus came and passed away. Likewise, we are living in an intense time when we are faced with the will of God's dispensation of salvation for the last time since the creation of the world. In this moment of Christmas, if we are to express congratulations and take the responsibility to return the grace of celebration to Heaven, then we must embrace the heart of Jesus, who was concerned about this world. We must embrace the heart of God, who felt concern as He guided the dispensation for 6,000 years. We must build the altar of celebration for the glorious birth that came into being for the sake of the will of the dispensation. Otherwise, there is no way we can manifest our value as people who have accomplished, on earth, the glorious will in which God has been celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ until now. Moreover, we who have prostrated ourselves before the altar of the Father must be able to represent the heart of Mary, who celebrated the birth of Jesus before Heaven 2,000 years ago. At the same time, we must go one step further and represent the blissful heart of God, who allowed the birth of Jesus. We must represent the hopeful heart of the prophets who worked hard for several thousand years until the time of Jesus' birth and actualize their long-cherished will. Similarly, we must feel the sorrowful heart of God, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds at the moment when Jesus was born on earth as the one who was prepared to liberate the historical heart of the whole. We must feel the heart that agonizes over the fact that Jesus had to lie in a horse manger. Making the preparations to greet Jesus, who is coming with a new determination, we must step forward as the prepared people of glory about whom God can be happy. Otherwise, you must understand that Heaven's intention for having us celebrate Christmas cannot be brought to pass. Until now there were many people on earth, but it is not an exaggeration to say that there was no one who truly celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the one who came with the mission to fulfill the whole will of God's dispensation. What kind of mind-set then must we have today? We must be able to represent the heart of God. We must be able to represent the hearts of the many millions of believers, heavenly soldiers and angels in Heaven. We must cultivate the resolution and sense of responsibility to put to rest all the bitterness and grief of God for Jesus. Similarly, if we do not offer bows of congratulations with a heart that prepares for the day of hope that will come in the future, then the hope of God will end with us. It will not be transmitted to our descendants. You have to clearly understand this. Although, at the time of Jesus, all the people looked upon Christ, they did not think about the will of the dispensation that would unfold after Christ. Although they watched the birth of Jesus, they did not think about the will of God that would come about after his birth. Therefore, although it is good to celebrate the birth of Jesus from the position of the Israelites, it is better to celebrate his birthday by figuring into the picture the will of the dispensation after the coming of Jesus; in other words, by substantially understanding the whole value of Jesus. The birth of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago begot the result of increasing the sorrow and grief, because of the faithlessness of the followers of Judaism. What must we do today to alleviate all this on behalf of the 6,000-year history? We must become the prepared incarnations who can remove all historical sorrow. Furthermore, we must also become connected to the heart of Jesus who is to come. Only then can the significance of our celebrating the birth of Jesus go beyond us and become linked with the eternal, historical ideology of our descendants. The Believers of Judaism Did Not Understand the Will of God As you can see, although God wanted to be congratulated for the birth of Christ, He did not want to be congratulated only in the present moment. He wants someone who possesses the ideology that can pierce through the past, the present and the future to offer congratulations with a heart that can relate with His heart. What kind of people then should you be? You must become people who can represent the heart of God, Who toiled for the birth of Christ. Moreover, you must represent the hearts of the prophets and patriots who came before Jesus and have been exerting themselves in the spirit world since then. How then must God's heart have been as He looked down upon the birth of Jesus? Angels prophesied the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, but there was no earthly person who prophesied the birth of Christ. This was God's sorrow. If there had been people who watched the birth of Jesus and proclaimed it as the advent of the Messiah in place of the angels then, then, just as there was celebration of the birth of Jesus in Heaven, the same celebration could have taken place on earth. On the contrary, we know that because the believers of Judaism, who represented the Israelites, did not accomplish this mission, Jesus had to die on the cross. Therefore, you have to reflect upon whether you are capable of paying indemnity for the condition of faithlessness made by these ancestors and can actualize this will with a sense of responsibility. Moreover, when we reflect upon whether we can actualize this task and even pass that will to our descendants, we have to realize how intense is this moment today. We must reflect, and make a new determination and resolution. If the Israelites at that time had connected with the heart of the angels and represented the rejoicing heart of Heaven, if they had embraced the heart of God who mobilized and sent the angels, Jesus would never have died on the cross. Had the chosen people been prepared to face death to carry on the fight of testimony and had shouldered the cross of Jesus to fulfill their responsibility, Jesus would never have died on the cross. Since the believers at that time listened to the prophecy of the shepherds and the testimony of the three wise men and John the Baptist, they should have been able to fight for the faithless people with a celebrating and glorious attitude from the day of the birth of the historical Messiah for which humanity had been yearning. If there were such believers, then the sorrow of having lost Jesus would not have been transferred to us. Heaven made this move on that day, in that hour, 2,000 years ago. Yet human beings on earth have not been able to stand before Heaven with this kind of heart even after 2,000 years. As you have gathered with the intention to celebrate the birth of Christ on behalf of Heaven, you must understand clearly that this is the source of God's sadness. This moment when we are celebrating the birth of Christ, God will examine whether He can find the same ardent heart He possessed within each of you. He felt irrepressible joy over the birth of Christ, for whom He had yearned as the only hope and about whom He had given prophecies through the angels and shepherds. If we can receive this day with this kind of attitude, then even if we did not directly witness the birth of Jesus, and even if 2,000 long years of history have passed by, our heart can transcend the historical distance to connect with the heart of God and the angels. You have to understand that now is this kind of historical moment. If you have truly reached this state of heart, then you will feel the welling up of sorrow. We are the pitiful people who cannot testify to the glorious Messiah with overflowing joy. Instead, we must testify to the sad story of how he died on the cross. You will feel this today. When you consider this, you must come to the realization that throughout the passage of the long 2,000-year history until now, countless believers have celebrated this day. Yet there is almost no one who truly celebrated for the heart of Heaven. Moreover, in regard to the issue of restoring this day through indemnity on behalf of the 2,000 years, you must now step forward in their place and testify to the death and sorrow of Christ. Just as 2,000 years ago, believers testified to the imminence of the arrival of Christ after listening to the voices of the angels, wise men and shepherds. Only when you realize that it is your fate to accomplish this task will you not be ashamed to stand before Jesus, whose birth was historic. The Way to Truly Celebrate the Birth of the Messiah You who have gathered here today with a new will! You must think about the situation of Jesus and understand that inside Jesus' heart, there was the penetrating sorrow of the 4,000-year history before his birth. Moreover, you have to understand that penetrating deeply into this day is the sorrow of the thirty years of his life after his birth, as well as the sorrow of the 2,000 years after he died with the words of promise that he will return. What kind of mission then must we fulfill today? You must, first, make a deep reflection as to whether you have made it possible for God to comfort you with the same sorrowful heart He felt toward Jesus. You must stand in the position from which you can take over the sad situation of Jesus. Next, you must become people who can receive comfort from all the prophets and patriots who came in history and who can be guarded by and receive the testimony of the heavenly soldiers and angels. You must represent the value for which Heaven mobilized all heavenly soldiers and angels at the time of the appearance of Jesus. You must be able to grab hold and give comfort to Jesus with a heart that can represent the concerns of the countless prophets and patriots at the time of Jesus' birth. If you have not made this kind of preparation and determination, you cannot inherit the will and ideology of the dispensation of the present and the past centered on the day of Jesus' birth. Due to his death, Jesus' intention to realize the purpose of God's dispensation of the 4,000 years was prolonged 2,000 more years. It became a 6,000-year history of restoration. The hope of the ancestors, which should have been fulfilled through Jesus, was prolonged for 2,000 years. The concerns of many apostles and believers and millions of angels were added to the concerns of God. You should feel a sorrow that is more intense than that of God, Who handed Jesus over to the cross, and that of Jesus, who was walking toward the cross. You should feel the sorrow of the millions of believers and angels in Heaven at the time of Jesus' death, as well. By doing so, while reflecting on history, you alone must make preparations, on behalf of all things of creation, to alleviate the sad and grieving heart of Heaven and earth. You must earn the qualification to celebrate Christmas in the way Heaven wants by longing for the one day of the Second Advent and by making thorough preparations. Only when you understand the ideology of the coming Messiah and make the determination to shoulder even the mission of the angels to testify when the will is manifested, can you celebrate Christmas in the way Heaven wants. You, who have gathered here today to conduct this service of celebrating the birth of Jesus, must realize that only when you eliminate the grief of God, Jesus and the millions of heavenly soldiers and angels can God finally behold the one day of eternal celebration. You must become qualified to inherit the will of Heaven and materialize it on the earth. God can then celebrate eternally. As you can see, today you stand in the important focal point of history. Therefore, you are living in a time when you must prepare for the one day of hope when Christ returns. You must reflect upon the birth of Christ and celebrate it as historical witnesses and the heirs of God's dispensation. Only then can God look down upon you and be liberated from all the bitterness and grief that have plagued Him until now. Moreover, while you feel the joy of accomplishing the will of Christ in his place, at the same time, Jesus can also return his glory to God because of you. This is a summary of an article in Sel-Gyo Mal-Seum Nae-Yong Yo-Yak, published by the Witnessing Department of the Seung- Hwa Youth Association.

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON The People Chosen for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON The People Chosen for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven December 30, 1956 Headquarters Church, Seoul, Korea John 15:1-22 Prayer 1 Now we have come to the last Sunday of this year. Father, were there times when we fathomed Your heart and were concerned for You? When did we fight for the Father's affairs? When have we genuinely loved the Father? Father, please forgive us for not having fully coped with the commandments that You have given us with Your concerned heart in this one year and the responsibility that You have entrusted in us for the sake of the people. Throughout the year, there were many commands that the Father gave to us, Your unworthy representatives. Please forgive us for not having been able to complete that responsibility. Please allow us to accomplish the great will that the Father demands. Forgive the fact that the people on earth who associate with the will have been unable to rise to the level of materializing the hope that Heaven desires. They have been unable to obey the commandments because they are ignorant of the time. Although we might have passed through the path of conflict, when we see that we could not bring victorious accomplishments before the Father, we must feel ashamed. Please bestow again all the responsibilities that You once entrusted in the sons and daughters gathered here. Please allow them to dash forward for the sake of the Father's will. Allow us to distinguish our internal self and our external self and reflect in ourselves, "When will we be able to receive the love of the Father?" Father, the mission that You have entrusted in us is not meant to be used just for our own selves, but to seek the people and the world. Furthermore, we are to remove the bitter grief of Heaven. Therefore, we who must take up that mission and follow the Father's orders feel completely awe-stricken before You. Father, please raise us up again before You, we who are weak and inadequate. Allow Your compassionate and grace-filled hand to go beyond this place and overflow toward the satanic world. Father, we sincerely hope and desire this. Father, please look upon these people with compassion. Please consider with sympathy the countless churches that have gathered on behalf of this people. Please allow them to be aware of the presence of the Father's great will and dispensation. Based on this, please allow each church and nation to uphold the will of the Father. Please bring about the fulfillment of Your wishes by working through these people to induce the 2.4 billion people of humanity of this world to advocate the will of the Father. Please let the day come in the near future when the whole 2.4 billion people of humanity can sing that glory. Father, we pray this from the depth of our hearts. On this day, these people have reported all their lacks. They desire once more the compassionate love of the Father and have come before Your holy presence. Please protect them with compassionate love, embrace them with Your glorious grace, and enhance them with new courage and new power. Father, we hope for this from the bottom of our hearts. Now we beg that You will allow this hour to be a moment when, attending Father, heaven and earth can harmonize and the Father's love of goodness can dwell in this place. Let this time be a moment when we can offer the Father the glory that arises from our union with Him and receive love from the Father. Spread widely across the countryside, there are lonesome sons and daughters who are kneeling down and are building altars before the Father. Since the whole mission of the last days has been entrusted to them, please allow them to center themselves on the will of the Father and manifest only the will of Father wherever they may be. We pray with the utmost sincerity. Earnestly hoping that on this day You will let only the glory of joy descend upon the congregation, I prayed in the name of the loving Lord. Amen. Prayer 2 Father! We are grateful toward Your grace, which found and raised us up and allowed us to carry on the fight until this hour. Today we still have the mission to offer all of our minds and bodies to fight for the one glorious day of the Father. Please let us not become exhausted. Father, we have often felt that You have personally walked side by side with us as we traveled the difficult path that we had to take to obey Your commands; that You personally stood at our side even on the path of death. We must offer gratitude before that love of Yours, which guided us inadequate ones and persevered through many things. Father! Although a long time has passed since the day that You promised and permitted, we feel humiliated before the granted will. If Your sons and daughters who have gathered here today cannot return glory to the will, Father, please allow them to at least return tears. Father! In these last days, we pray that You will allow the fulfillment of the wishes of the ancestors, who made appeals on behalf of the people according to Your commands to persevere. Please quickly manifest Your will before the humanity of the world and give Your commandments. Father, among Your sons and daughters who have gathered here on behalf of the people, are there those who cannot realize this great will of Yours? Please let them feel and experience the heart of the Father, which reaches deep down into the flesh and bones. We understand that the path we must walk is long and danger-ridden. No matter what kind of obstacle block our path in whatever time and place, please empower us to penetrate through them. Please lead us not to become ones who feel grief for ourselves. Father, we pray from the depth of our hearts. Father! Let the sons and daughters who have gathered here today eradicate all the things they are attached to and extricate all that has become entangled for 6,000 years. While we root out our own inadequacies, at the same time, please allow us to eradicate in this one place all the inadequacies of these people. By doing so, please allow us to liquidate all the shameful things of the 6,000-year history of humanity. Father, we earnestly ask that on this foundation and in this hour You will let this be the year when we can set the condition of victory before Satan and step over it. Father, please guide us to become like children who do not know anything. Please allow us to do nothing else but obey when we are led and do nothing but submit when we are guided. Please do not let any subjective opinions or concepts remain in any of us. Resembling the heart of the Father and taking after the pure heart of children, let us become people of goodness and keep to this path, regardless of whether we are dead or alive. Allow us to charge forward on the path even if flesh and blood are shed. Lonely members spread across the countryside are clinging on to the way of the Father's will and are fighting to safeguard it at the cost of their lives. Please guide them not to become debilitated. Father, we beg that You will grant them courage and righteous impulses in this hour, so that they can greet the day of joy and glory with a new determination and readiness. Please forgive our deficiencies in this hour. We possess nothing and we have nothing of which to be proud. All we have is our earnest desire to be embraced inside the Father's bosom of love like children. Father, we ask sincerely that You manifest Your holy presence and penetrate deeply into the depth of our hearts. Please personally bestow the blessing according to our given measure. Please let there not be anyone among the sons and daughters gathered here who gets dragged away by Satan. We wish earnestly that this may be the moment when we can receive the seal of purification, hold the flag of joy and victory, and return the glory of Hosanna before the Father for eternity. We offer all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen. Prayer 3 Father! We have learned through the words of truth that heaven and earth are created as one body. When we consider that heaven is the subject and we are the isthmus, we cannot live even one day or one moment without receiving the sap of the Father's love and life. Please forgive us for not having been able to live so as to receive the sap of love that emanates from the eternal God when we should have lived as the branches and leaves of Heaven. Father! In this time of the last days that forebodes the day of judgment, please allow us to be engrafted to the love of the Father centering on Jesus Christ, who is the perfect root. Although we know that God longs to reap from us the fruit of love that is born through the eternal love of Father and of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we fear that we might become an obstruction to the Father's harvest because of our immaturity, imperfection, and frailty, which prevents us from bringing that to pass. We entrust ourselves to You. Father! Please raise us and care for us. By guiding us through the hardships and turmoil, please allow us to mature as ripened fruits. Through the loving hands of the Father, please allow us to become the realization that can build the eternal kingdom of Heaven, the harvester who can reap the harvest. Father! We know that this moment today is not the first time You have predicted this event. You had already prophesied it long ago in the Old Testament era and at the time of Jesus 2,000 years ago. If we really understand this, then we must cultivate ourselves and become the harvest that can be reaped by Heaven and bring peace to Heaven. Yet when we evaluate ourselves, I am sure that there are those among us who do not feel that they have become mature yet. If this is the case, then Father, I ask earnestly and pray that You will allow them to repent before You on their own volition. Lamenting their own frailty, let them repent even for the grief of Jesus Christ. Father, we have gathered here today. Please govern our minds totally, and be the center of operations to reign over us. In this way, please do not tolerate any evil concept or assertion that is unacceptable before the will of the Father. Father, please let these who have gathered here become completely purified children by undergoing repeated processes of purification and bringing an end to the works of Satan. Please allow this to be a time when only You can operate and intervene. Please allow us to understand that You are pressing us to fulfill the day of Christ, and that this is the time when You wish to manifest the love of Christ through us. Moreover, please lead us to understand that by raising us up, You long for us to take hold of the troubles of Christ and step forward in this twentieth century. Father, please lead us not to center our footsteps on ourselves as we dash forward toward the heavenly nature. Please lead us not to remain in the state of offering self-centered prayers. Please allow us to chase out all the elements that invite the invasion of evil as we move forward. Father, we pray from the depth of our hearts that You will hold onto us, so that we can travel through any kind of danger-ridden road of conflict for the sake of realizing the will that You desire and that we can persevere even on a road of utter despair. We know that we cannot receive the glory of earth because we are not men of the earth. Just as it was prophesied through Jesus Christ, we know that when there were citizens and sons of Heaven who possessed the true love and integrity of the Father, they were not welcome on earth in any era during the 2,000 years of history. Father! Please guide us to be able to cope with the persecution we may receive from this people when we try to fulfill the works of Jesus for him. Please empower us to overcome the contempt, the tribulations, and the sorrow that we might suffer at the hands of humanity on earth as we try to lead our lives for the sake of Heaven. Jesus is longing for the day of harvest and is calling for us today, after the 6,000 years. Please withdraw the traces of historical grief and the blood and tears of the crucifixion through us. Guide us to serve as the shields of victory. Please allow us to understand that Jesus, the substantial manifestation of hope, is longing for us to become qualified to dominate Satan. By virtue of this, Father, we ask sincerely that You will allow us to become the sons and daughters who are determined to fight every day with the joyful will of the Father in our hearts and to subjugate the enemy Satan, even if we have to continue and complete it through our descendants because we could not accomplish this mission during our life-long dedication to the Father's works. We who are facing the new year must make a renewed resolution deep in our hearts to walk this path of conflict that endangers our lives. No matter what kind of enemies oppose us, Father, please guide us never to submit to them, and safeguard our fidelity. On account of this, Father, we hope with the utmost earnestness that You will allow us to become Your sons and daughters who can reveal before all things that we are the sons and daughters who represent You. Please let the words You grant us today become manifested and link our hearts. Requesting earnestly that You will move the spirits and mold us anew with Your hands of power in this hour, we offered all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen. The title of the sermon that I want to reflect on with you is "The People Chosen for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven." I will speak briefly upon this topic. The Last Days of the History of the Dispensation When We Must Re-examine Our Own Position Ladies and gentlemen, today we greet the last Sunday of this year. You understand clearly through the principles of restoration that if we do not fulfill our responsibility today, then it must be done tomorrow. Since the creation, history has traveled through the 6,000 years by passing through one day, one year, and then through a long period of time, while times and seasons were changing. Yet you also know very well that now the dispensation of restoration, through which the great judgment will take place on earth all over the world and God will become complete, has to be realized through the 2.4 billion people of humanity on the earth today. We have now come face-to-face with the last days of the 6,000-year history of the dispensation. We have been participating in helping the history of the universal restoration and have stepped forward to achieve the will. The time has come when we must unequivocally understand our own situation. Accordingly, you yourselves must now step over the 6,000-year history to reach the level of Adam and Eve, who were the ultimate ideals of the restoration and the center of creation. Going one step further, your family and society and the whole humanity of the world must reach the standard. Before that standard is met, the dispensation of God will not be consummated on earth. We, the descendants of today, must take responsibility for the gigantic and fearful dispensation of restoration, which is full of ordeals, and for the failures committed by our ancestors as well as the things that they left behind unaccomplished. You must feel deeply in this moment that such a universal mission rests upon you. Due to the fall of Adam and Eve, the ideals of the kingdom of Heaven have been fundamentally destroyed and the ideals of the kingdom of Heaven that should have been realized through humankind have fallen down from Heaven. What is more, until now the kingdom of Heaven has not been realized; the citizens who can build the kingdom of Heaven have not been found. The families that can cultivate the citizens are not established. The couples and brothers and sisters who can form such families are not found either. The Restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Good Life of Human Beings Therefore, the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven is the central purpose of what God demands. Moreover, the movement to restore the kingdom of Heaven must be done in a process of reversal. Starting from citizens of Heaven, the children of Heaven, the brothers and sisters of Heaven, the couples of Heaven, and the families of Heaven must be restored to construct the kingdom of Heaven. Such a mission rests on our shoulders. The land that we are living in today, this world in which we live, is not the land of the kingdom of Heaven and is not the world of the kingdom of Heaven. It is not a world centered on God, but a world centered on Satan, a world that stands opposed to the kingdom of Heaven. Nonetheless, in the concluding period of history, without fail there will emerge the watershed when the evil world is restored to the kingdom of Heaven of goodness. The 2.4 billion people of humanity today have crossed the pass of the restoration of the individual, family, society, nation, and world in accordance with the dispensation of God. The central purpose of Jesus Christ coming to this earth and disseminating the gospels was the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven. This standard called the kingdom of Heaven is supposed to not only restore you as an individual, but going beyond that, also restore the family, society, nation, and world. Therefore, from the day that you began to believe in Jesus, you have been traveling the road of conflict for the sake of restoration. The lives that people lead now in this world are not for the sake of the world. Although they claim that they live for the sake of the nation, they do not. Although they claim that they are living for the sake of the family, they are not living for the sake of the family. Moreover, although they say that they are living for the sake of themselves, they are not really living for themselves. All human beings that live in this world of evil today should live for the sake of the world, but they have not been able to do so. People who should be living for the sake of their nation, their people, their tribe, family, and themselves have lost that fundamental position. When people today live centering on themselves, they are not able to live centering on their minds. When we examine how low we have fallen, you will find that we have fallen so low that although we should live centering on our minds, we have not been able to do so. We have been living for the sake of our physical bodies. We have become people who live only for the sake of our self-centered desires. Similarly, for the sake of restoring fallen men, God has been carrying on the work of rectifying the body to subjugate it before the mind, rectifying the individual to make him submit to the family, rectifying the family to subjugate it before the people, rectifying the people to make them submit before the nation, and rectifying the nation to make it yield to the world. Therefore, in any society, individualistic people have been standing in the position opposing the revolutionary course of faith in Jesus. What is more, people who have centered upon themselves have also stood in the opposing position. Because God works in line with the progress of history, in other words, in the orderly progression through the individual era, the family era, the people era, and the national era, in that course of progress, there have been difficult moments of crisis when people could no longer follow. The Center that We Must Pursue and the Order of Restoration In this era of the last days, when the 6,000 years are being consummated, the ideology of Jesus Christ has been established on earth as the ideology of the restoration of the whole world. In other words, today the ideology centered on Christianity is becoming manifested as the central ideology of the entire world. However, the ideology of the enemy has counter-attacked, and these two divisions are engaged in a fight. Then what is the standard that we who stand in this kind of position must pursue? If we look at it through the hope of Jesus Christ, who established the ideology of the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven, this world is not the only ideal garden that we must pursue. The ideal standard of restoration that God seeks is not only this earth. It is the garden of ideology that has become one based on the union of heaven and earth. Therefore, God has been carrying on the dispensation until now for the sake of finding the one glorious day when we can join in harmony and sing centering on Heaven. What must we, who live in this era, understand? We ourselves must restore through indemnity everything in the history of sin. When you believe in Jesus, there will unfold a fight on the individual level. The fight between the mind and body will unfold. Those who become stragglers in this fight cannot become the citizens of the kingdom of Heaven. When evil acts centered on the body try to subjugate the mind, if you cannot overcome it and be victorious, then you cannot become the citizens of the kingdom of Heaven. We today have the mission to restore from the world to the nation, from the nation to the people, from the people to the family, from the family to the couple, and from the couple to brothers and sisters. Because of such a fundamental standard for the ideology of the kingdom of Heaven, we must first restore ourselves. Since it is said, "the kingdom of Heaven is in you," although the universal kingdom of Heaven must also be built, the individual kingdom of Heaven must first be completed. What this means is that you have to become someone who can stand before the universe after establishing the reciprocal base for mind and body. Therefore, now you must become someone who can be assimilated into and be harmonized with any aspect of the entire ideal of Heaven. If Jesus is compared to a grape tree, you can maintain the shape of a branch of that grape tree, no matter which aspect we belong to. Your moving from the branch to and through the stem is what restoration is all about. The Stages of Restoration into the Citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven The first stage that you must find is the stage of becoming the citizens of the kingdom of Heaven. Before you lies the fate to enter this stage of citizenship in the kingdom of Heaven. You who are in this situation must have a new historical concept. You are not to live for your own sake; you must have the mentality to live for the sake of the citizens of the kingdom of Heaven, the compatriots of the heavenly nation. You must not have a partial concept but a universal one. Moreover, if you belong to a society, then you have to have the mentality of that society. If you belong to a nation, then you must have the mentality of the nation. If you live in a nation, then you must learn how to love the citizens of that nation. We today must be able to assert our will with our minds and bodies before God, who has been guiding history for the sake of the construction of the kingdom of Heaven. We must be able to love the citizens of the kingdom of Heaven. We must have the mind-set that we exist for the sake of building the kingdom of Heaven, for the restoration of the world, which is the will of the Father. We, as the believers in Jesus, should not blindly support Jesus, but be able to believe in Jesus by becoming one with the fortune of heaven and earth internally and externally. God has been establishing the ideology of the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven centering on the universal dispensation. We must become the sons and daughters and citizens who can stand there. Furthermore, we must learn to love the compatriots of the kingdom of Heaven. If there are those who have faith among the people around you or beside you, then you must be able to consider them as your brothers and sisters and your compatriots. Moreover, you must persuade everyone to do the same. When we look at these kinds of things, it is clear that your responsibility is unspeakably immense. Then what is the demand that God is making of us in these last days today? It is none other than mobilizing the faithful believers and building the garden of the kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, individuals must become united and peoples must become united to become compatriots of the kingdom of Heaven. You must understand this. When we look at the 6,000-year history vertically, in the Old Testament era, God gathered the citizens of Heaven. In the New Testament era, God gathered children of Heaven. Similarly, history flowed in a reverse manner. In the world today, there are people who are trying to build the kingdom of Heaven centering on the ideology of the compatriots of the kingdom of Heaven. Moreover, there are also people who rely on the ideology of brothers, sisters, and couples of the kingdom of Heaven to build the kingdom of Heaven. The Legal Standard and the Standard of Life in the Kingdom of Heaven Now you must learn to obey the laws of the kingdom of Heaven in your daily life. To establish the kingdom of Heaven, you must learn to abide by the laws of the kingdom of Heaven. Moreover, while you learn to obey the laws of Heaven, at the same time, you must learn to lead the life of the kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, while you learn to live the life of the kingdom of Heaven, you must also become one through the love of the kingdom of Heaven. God has been working to restore the kingdom of Heaven until now, so centering on what should we abide by the laws of the kingdom of Heaven? We must obey the laws of the kingdom of Heaven centering on the Biblical words that Jesus gave to us. Since words are the very laws of the kingdom of Heaven, we should live centering on the words. This is where your path is. You are to live especially according to the laws of the kingdom of Heaven centering on the Divine Principle words that testify to the internal truth of the Biblical words. Then what kind of life should you live? You must live a life that represents the thirty-year life of Jesus. Your life in the last days today must be a life that testifies to Jesus Christ. Because of this, you should be able to divulge your life to all people. You must live the same type of life that Jesus demonstrated to us. You must follow the example of the life of Jesus, who abided by the laws centering on the words of God. By leading a harmonious life, you should live for the sake of Heaven. Therefore, centering on the words, you must now lead a life that represents the life of Jesus, which is based on the laws of Heaven. Your hope and ideal must be the love of God. For this reason, you must set the condition of harmony for the sake of making a link with the love of God. This is what God demands of all the Christians of the world today. The resin of one tree branch flows to other branches. It circulates through all the leaves and branches. Similarly, you must learn to create harmony between yourselves and give. Such people can possess the eternal love of God. Throw Away Self-Centered Concepts Accordingly, we Christians should abandon our self-centered mentality and develop a new mind-set that we represent the world and the universe. Therefore, when we look at our members, we should understand that they are not simply who they appear to be today. You must feel that they represent the 6,000-year history, the eternal dispensation, and horizontally, the 2.4 billion people of humanity. In each person, we can find the universal promised will of God's love. Consequently, you must become the co-operator of that person. Because such a mission rests on you, you must learn to view the dispensational will of God with a correct perspective and represent that will. The same thing is true in your personal or family life. Your children, your parents, and your spouse do not exist for your sake. Your children are not for your sake and your brothers and sisters are not for your sake. The same thing is true for your parents. They exist for the sake of something greater than the nation and the world, for the sake of the universe. We should be aware of this, and on that level, relate with our brothers and sister and with our parents. If you recognize this fact and feel this in your life, then you cannot judge anyone with words. We must never forget that the universal will of God can be found in each of us. You must be aware of the fact that you do not exist for yourself but for the sake of the world, for the sake of heaven and earth. You represent the mission of restoration. You must become unified in your daily life. You who have been traveling the path that others do not walk must abandon a self-centered life. You should cast away self-centered concepts. Even in our Unification Church, we must throw away a perspective toward life centered only on the Unification Church. The reason is that we are all cells and particles of the universe. We who live in the last days must feel the historical workings, the providential workings of the heavenly principles, the workings of the comprehensive love of God. Moreover, only when you become the victor in the universal fight with Satan by conquering your bodies, can you become the people needed for the garden of the kingdom of Heaven. In this kind of moment, you will develop a relationship with Heaven. You must understand that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have joined their hearts and are fighting with Satan in order to realize this hope. When you try to fight with Satan today, you must distinguish whether or not the thoughts, concepts and ideology that you have are for your own sake. If all of your thoughts are for your own sake, then you will have no way to escape Satan's realm. What is more, we Christians, who are moving forward toward the world, must step beyond the mentality of history constrained in this world. You must be able to transcend that to comprehend and judge the world with a universal perspective of history. Blessed Are Those Who Bring Peace and Harmony Then what would happen now to the world whose purpose is restoration? What would happen to the society, family and to us, whose purpose is restoration? What is the will of God, whose purpose is restoration? You must understand these and go beyond them. To do that, you must be able to live relying on the words, having the sacrificial heart of Jesus Christ, and able to live in harmony. Jesus said, "Blessed are the ones who bring peace and harmony. They will be called the sons of God." (Matthew 5:9) Those who can bring harmony wherever they go can go close to God. You have the responsibility to bring harmony to all individuals, to all people, to the world, and to heaven and earth. If you fail to feel this somewhat substantial responsibility in the living environment that you are in, you must at least feel it in your hearts. You must have the mind-set that you will become the sacrifice who can bring harmony to individuals, to families, to societies, to nations, and to the whole world. On that foundation, you must have the attitude to confront Satan and go before the Father. If you build this kind of relationship and lead your life, then when you see someone who is doing good things, you will naturally have the desire to bow your head down and elevate that person. Moreover, if you see someone who is doing evil things, the thought will arise in you, "It is my task to guide that person. I will be responsible for that person." If there is someone who feels this to the bottom of his heart in his life, then he does not have to pray for his own sake. He does not have to pray for his own family. If each of you makes the determination and pledge that you will build the kingdom of Heaven that God wishes on earth and if you live for that cause, then God will be with you. Therefore, if there are people who can join hands and build the altar of harmony, then they can bring forth a new revolution that will stride forcefully toward the world. The same thing will be true for the churches. If there are people who are determined to die, with the mind-set that they will join hands and become the sacrifice of harmony following the example of Christ, then although the steps they take might seem unsatisfactory and fragile, it is not so. Their steps are robust steps directed toward the construction of the kingdom of Heaven on earth. Jesus Christ came to earth with the amazing mission of heaven and earth on his shoulders. In the 4,000-year course of history in which there was no loyal subject or filial son who lived for the sake of Heaven, it was Jesus Christ who came to fulfill the mission of the loyal subject and the filial son that Heaven sought. The thirty-year life of Jesus was completely for the sake of Heaven. It was a world level and universal life. What is more, his life was a life of sacrifice for the sake of Heaven. You must follow the example of Jesus Christ who, unlike anyone in history, came as the filial son for the sake of Heaven. Father's will is building the kingdom of Heaven. The kingdom of Heaven is the world in which the humanity of the whole world joins hands to be in harmony and in intimate friendship and to intermingle in love and raise their hands to return glory and gratitude to Heaven. When we think about that, then clearly the life of faith that we have led so far is very immature. We must get rid of this kind of immature life of faith. God Pursues the Ideal of Unification The time of any kind of denominationalism has passed behind us. The time of any kind of ideology of people has passed behind us. Now the time has come when we must find the ideology of restoration and the concept of faith on the world level. Koreans today are pitiful people. What these pitiful people must understand is that the history of God tears down the individual to build the family, tears down the family to build the society, tears down the society to build the nation, and tears down the nation to build the world. This is the judgment of Heaven. Humanity has passed through judgment like this, but what is the problem remaining in the last moment? It is to destroy the course of Cain, which is one of the two courses of Cain and Abel that have been in confrontation and in conflict. Therefore, you must become a different person centering on the words of Jesus. You must establish the words of Jesus as the laws and become different people. You must become the loyal subjects and filial sons of Heaven who can represent the life of Jesus. Having done that, you are to go before God, who is pursuing the ideal of unification, and be able to say, "God, please liberate through me the bitter grief of not having been able to unite the world and embrace it in love." Christians today do not understand that there remains before us such a great, historical, universal, and cosmic mission. Then to what extent have you been able to manifest the love of Jesus Christ? To what extent have you realized faith and life based on Jesus Christ? You must understand the line of that limitation. The grace coming from Jesus is universal grace. Therefore, we today must live with the concept of the kingdom of Heaven in us. Your every movement and all of your feelings must be centered on the mind-set, "I am the representative of the kingdom of Heaven." You must live with this kind of mentality. When you are cursed before all people and feel a surge of anger within, you must suppress it based on the concern that your anger might bring curses upon the 2.4 billion people of humanity. This is the heart that Heaven has been feeling until now. If you, even after knowing this fact, become overwhelmed by fury and disobey the will of the Father, then how can this be tolerated? All of you are to join in alliance and help each other. Which people are in difficulty? You must feel that person's difficulty as if it is a wound inflicted on you. You must then co-operate. This must not be done just by the Korean people. The whole of humanity must help. You must walk the path of restoring the kingdom of Heaven. You must become the sons and daughters who receive the love of the universe. Next, you must learn to attend God, who is the center of the universe. The God whom you cry out for and Jesus Christ whom you seek and believe in do not exist only for your own sake. The people who believe in Jesus today do not understand that. They think that Jesus and God are only for their own sake. This is not God's wish. This is not the will of God. God's place is at the center of the whole of heaven and earth. You must learn to attend God like this today. However, this is only possible for those who live the life of the kingdom of Heaven. The Correct Attitude of Faith toward God Then what is the reason that God has been working in history for 6,000 years? It was for the purpose of embracing the whole of history in His bosom. God has been wishing that not just earth but even the spirit world will become one with the whole through His love. He has been longing for that one day. If you want to receive grace from this God, then you must pray, "Father! Please call on me." God's love must never end with you. What you must understand today is that the grace that God gives is not only for your own sake. At the same time it saves your life, it is also for the sake of saving the whole of humanity. Nonetheless, because the people of today live centering on themselves, though many people want to find God, there is almost no one who receives this grace. You must free yourself from this. You must penetrate through it and dismantle it to serve God as the cosmic God. Before this universal God, you must feel the responsibility that penetrates deeply into your minds and bodies. The garden of hope that you believe in and desire is not just your garden of hope. The archangel fell because he tried to seek and believe in God centering on himself. The God that the people of today believe in is both our God and the God of humanity. He is both our God and the God of the world. He is both the God of the world and the God of heaven and earth. At the same time, he is our universal parent. However, if you examine the faith of the people who believe in Jesus today, they are saying, "Please be my God," and those who are a bit better than that do no more than say, "Please be my family's God." Rising a bit higher from this are those who say, "Please be the God of our denomination." We should never have these kinds of concepts. There are many denominations in the world today that are crying out for God. However, we do not need the God who is sought within a denomination. Only when people gather who transcend the denominations and call out to Him as their father centering on the whole of heaven and earth, can humankind attend God on earth. Therefore, we today must let the concepts we have be linked to the whole through our families. You who have embarked upon a new road must abandon your life up to now and make a new and historical departure toward the concepts of universal life. At such times, the attitude that you should have is the heart that can attend the substantial presence of the universal God. By doing so, you can receive the love of God and build the relationship of giving and receiving with God. At such a moment, you can finally consummate the ideology of the universal bride. After consummating the ideology of the universal bride, you can go seeking the restored world. But you can appear as the bride before the substantial manifestation of the universal God only after restoring the people and brothers and sisters, and the children and couples. Only when you reach that position can you stand before the substantial manifestation of the universal God centering on the love of God that springs out there and become one with that love. The couple who comes together in this way is the couple who can dominate this earth and live in the kingdom of Heaven. Moreover, only after you have children as this kind of a couple can you build the family of the kingdom of Heaven. When you form a people with these brothers and sisters and children, you can finally bring the dispensation of restoration to a conclusion and live the life of the kingdom of Heaven on earth. Likewise, the great movement of restoring the kingdom of Heaven is exhibited through you of today. Therefore, you must increase your efforts toward the realization of that will and never become servile before Satan. Just as Jesus Christ did all that was possible as the loyal subject and filial son of God, we must also complete our duties as the loyal subjects and filial sons. To Complete the Restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven and Return Glory You must understand this: only after you cause the humanity of the world and all the spirits in the spirit world to fulfill all their obligations as loyal subjects and filial children, can you become the sons, children, brothers and sisters, family, or people who can return to the Father the victorious glory of having completed the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven. Prayer Beloved Father, today we must dash forward. Although our strength is not enough, we face an amazing historical conclusion in which we must jump over tens of stages at once. Although we are in the position to magnificently pass through the course of judgment, we are in a deep sleep today. Father, we have become bewitched by the secular world. We are accompanying evil. Father, we desire from the depth of our hearts that You will lead us to eradicate all evil elements and raise us as victors who can return victorious glory to the Father, who is the center of the cosmos. All the hidden stories of history have become entangled in us. Father, we pray that You will allow us to cut them all off and find the center of liberation so that we can stand in the position of a friend to Jesus Christ and make a full bow before the Father. Please lead us, the ones chosen for the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven, not to trample upon the ideology of the kingdom of Heaven by centering on ourselves. Father, we hope with the utmost sincerity that, until we can be pulled by the ideology of the kingdom of Heaven and can accomplish it, You will allow us to go forward, to sacrifice, and to fight on. Until we attend You as the universal Father, we pray that You will allow us to persevere and win the victory in the battle. Father, please govern our minds forever. Now please allow us to become sons and daughters who can offer a full bow of gratitude before the Father, who is the center of the whole based on the new standard of universal life. We earnestly request that You will allow us to become sons and daughters who can be immersed in Your love. Father, we prayed all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.

God's Will and the World Rev. Sun Myung Moon Restoration and Blessing

God's Will and the World Rev. Sun Myung Moon Restoration and Blessing February 2, 1969 Tokyo, Japan o one has ever realized that human history has been a history of restoration. The great accomplishment of the Unification Church has been to regard the events of history as a process of restoration. It is God who is the basis of this historical background. He has been in charge of all history up to the present and made all history develop. Because of God's will, individuals, families, tribes and nations have been given missions of restoration, and through them, history has progressively developed. Therefore, the main question of history must be, when will this history of restoration be completed? When will the purpose of restoration be accomplished? The completion of restoration means the restoration of all the unaccomplished or unfulfilled standards, for example, the standard that was not accomplished by Adam due to his fall, and the standard that was not fulfilled by Jesus. These have to be restored through indemnity. This is the mission of the Unification Church. I am leading the way and all the Unification Church members throughout the world are to follow. It is my mission to let all the members work to restore these unaccomplished standards. It is your mission to do so according to my direction. The man who has this important mission should be greater than Adam, and should accomplish the standard in place of Jesus. The woman who is related to this man should go beyond Eve and be accepted as the new spouse of Jesus. The mission of the Unification Church is to give birth to such a man and such a woman. Jesus was crucified. Therefore, all the earthly foundation was completely lost. What Jesus did not accomplish should be indemnified by each one of us. In this way, each of us should go beyond Jesus. The path of opposition n order for us to indemnify what was lost, we must accomplish a standard in this world by going through all the historical struggles. Therefore, we are to be persecuted by everyone, and eventually we have to win them all over. Without this type of suffering course, restoration through indemnity cannot be done. So far, this has been the path of the Unification Church. It has always been hit and persecuted, but we never protested. On the individual, family, tribal and national levels, we have been persecuted and found ourselves in utmost loneliness, And we have had to console God in this kind of situation. This has been the whole history of the Unification Church. You should know that. No one can understand it; only I know it fully. Jesus was opposed even by his three main disciples. The three disciples symbolize and represent three nations in the world. Therefore, when we pioneered our way on the worldwide level, we had to be opposed and persecuted by three nations. But even in the midst of these struggles, we had to set up indemnity conditions on the worldwide level. This is how we made a victorious standard through the first seven year course, which ended in 1967. We are now in the second seven year course, which started in 1968. The reason why we must be victorious in such a path of indemnification is because we have to restore the standards lost by the fall of Adam and Eve and at the time of Jesus. We have to indemnify everything, both internally and externally. The Principle you are now studying records all that has been accomplished throughout history, but even this book cannot yet describe how to indemnify it all. I am struggling now in order to pioneer that course victoriously. Now in Korea, the Unification Church cannot be defeated by any force; our church cannot be eradicated from this earth. I have perfectly accomplished a victorious standard, a victorious foundation, Even if the evil side strikes the Unification Church, God can protect it, and Satan cannot accuse it. This is the precious realm of victory which has been accomplished in the past 21 years centered upon my course. It is a great joy for all history, the world and the cosmos that in the Last Days, the living Christ, whom God sought during the 4,000 years of Old Testament history and the 2,000 years since Jesus' ascension, has completed the lost standard. No other gospel could be more wonderful than this. Nothing could be happier than this opportunity to fulfill both the vertical indemnity conditions and the horizontal indemnity conditions on earth. Restoration through indemnity must be done in a reverse way, In Adam's family, fallen Adam is to be restored through the unity between Cain and Abel. Therefore, unless we restore Cain and Abel, we cannot welcome the True Parents as the Messiah. Therefore, the Lord of the Second Advent, who is one with God's heart, had to go through the thorny path and crucifixion of Jesus. Through utmost suffering he had to solve all the problems and become a living sacrifice in order to obtain victory, Otherwise, the foundation of restoration cannot be made, Thus, the Messiah's first path was one of persecution from all directions. That kind of persecution has not been experienced in Japan, But in Korea, such difficult circumstances were endured in order that God's will might be fulfilled on the worldwide level centering upon my mission. Therefore, the Unification Church began its course in prison. Where did the early Christian church start? It also began in prison. The history of the Christian church, or the second Israel, started from a suffering position of persecution and imprisonment. In order to restore this, we have to indemnify it, Therefore, the Unification Church made its debut in a prison, so that God could work directly with our church. The difference is that when Jesus was imprisoned, his disciples escaped and were scattered. But now you should do the reverse. Even in the face of a terrible, desperate situation, we all should unite with each other and stand boldly in the face of death. It took as many as 21 years to come up from the bottom, to go through God's providence of salvation. Originally, if the central religion in the chosen nation had accepted the Messiah, restoration would have taken only seven years. Since we could not gain that acceptance, we had to go through a course of 21 years. You know something of the first seven year course after 1960, but not its full background. Behind this course was the history of God's family and the history of a God centered tribe. In order for you to understand this history, you should receive the Blessing. I cannot reveal this background unless you receive and inherit the victorious standard of the Blessing. When you know that course completely, you will feel how bitter the history of restoration has been. Therefore, we have to realize how precious the Blessing is. Inherit Jesus' tradition f we desire the Blessing, we should concentrate first on how to live solely for God's will. When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, he prayed that not his own will but God's will be done. He did not choose the path of the cross because of his own will. Unless, like Jesus, you are confident of being able to overcome the problems of life and death, you cannot welcome or walk the path of restoration. Are you confident enough to dedicate your life for God's will? If you take this course, you should know you cannot go alone; you must be able to relate to all people, and be able to console those who are going to follow you on this path. Are you really ready to sacrifice your life! You cannot think, "I am a young girl with a beautiful face; I can be welcomed anywhere I go, and I have no particular defects. A girl like me cannot do sacrificial work." Or, "I am a man with a great physical body and handsome appearance, with a great family. Whatever I want I can get very easily, So, as such a wonderful man, I cannot do such rigorous sacrificial work." What's more, you should not be bitter about walking a sacrificial path. When Jesus was shouldering the cross, he could have deplored his situation, saying, "I should not have to do this kind of thing. I have not yet married, even though I am a 33 year old man. My mission and my value have not yet been realized." But Jesus could not think that way. Death was not a problem for him; he was ready to sacrifice his life, and the weight of the cross that he was shouldering could not deter him. Although he fell down physically, he didn't waver internally, because of his great stamina. No other man in history has ever had such a strong determination connected with God, and because of Jesus' great strength, human history took a new direction. This became God's new starting point on earth. Two thousand years have passed since that time, but the spirit of Jesus has not passed away. Instead, it has been inherited by millions of people. How happy we can be today — to inherit such an important mission — the tradition of Jesus! Therefore, it doesn't matter if we lose our lives. We should cry out in the darkness of death and shatter that darkness by the light of God's heart. We should make that light shine throughout the world. We must become that kind of man or woman. This is the challenge. Originally, the fall of man meant death; salvation means the overcoming of death. If we are determined to be saved, we should be willing to be bold. If we succeed, the world will head in a new direction. We should be excited! Are you confident that you can overcome the problems of life and death? I have faced issues of life and death many, many times — hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of times. Although I may face suffering and pain, although my legs may be cut off and my eyes extracted, and even if I'm beheaded, I am still strongly determined to complete that course I started. My conviction is absolute. The victory that God desires he other day, a group of about 50 people from Japan came to Korea and visited the Holy Ground in Pusan. It is right next to a cemetery, in a stony place where no one lives. On that site I built a small hut of cardboard and mud many years ago. It was far from a glorious place, but even when I was sleeping there, I was walking the path of filial piety before God as His son. My quest was a deep, internal standard that no one else had been able to attain, At that time, I had no external possessions. I had no money. I had a beard and an unwashed face, so I looked dirty, and I wore an assortment of Western and Oriental clothes, But everywhere I went, I spoke about very big things, things that were bigger than a cannon, more explosive than an atomic bomb — so huge that everybody was surprised and ran away. I have endured tremendous hardship all my life, but you may not be able to understand it. It would take as much as 50 years to explain it. But my conclusion is that no matter how much suffering you may experience in your activities, and no matter how much you are persecuted by your environment, you should be able to always remain standing before the face of God. Although Jesus left the earth through the cross, the standard of filial piety he impressed upon God's heart remained, and God had to respond to it. Although Jesus did not seek a reply from God, nevertheless, God's heart could not help but reach out to him. Jesus was the first true child of God after 4,000 years of biblical history. There are about 300 people gathered here. If you all are determined to do the same thing as Jesus, the 43 provinces of Japan will be restored. Victory comes out of the internal determination made at the outset of a venture, not somewhere midway, You should understand this. Even if you can get victory over hundreds of life and death situations, you need still more determination before you can win the eternal victory that God has sought, a place out of Satan's reach. You may wonder if your suffering in the midst of a bitter environment will help the restoration process. But I have already calculated these factors exactly, so that what the Unification Church teaches can move history and become the true history. I am teaching what no one else was able to imagine. In Japan, everybody is talking about the Unification Church. They are wondering why these young people seem to be wasting their youth, walking the path of suffering. Some of you had even entered the University of Tokyo and were admired by your relatives; however, because you joined the Unification Church, your families were devastated. There are many of you who are in that situation. But if you are going to be great men and women, you should work on the stage of the entire world. No matter how you may suffer in Japan, that suffering is not enough for you to be able to enter the ideal realm of God. What is the Unification Church? It is the church whose quest is to establish the standard whereby we may enter the ideal realm of God. Therefore, now that you know this, you have to focus upon that greater value in your life. The path of persecution n the time of Jesus, the three main apostles, the 12 apostles; the 70 and 120 disciples all became faithless. Therefore, in the end Jesus had to go to the cross. We have to indemnify this and resolve to return to God at the risk of our lives. Otherwise, the course of restoration is impossible. We have to go through the path of persecution and take responsibility at the national level. We have to be determined to restore all things perfectly within three generations. Three generations are needed because three is a principled number, and the four position foundation develops in three stages. With this kind of determination we have to endure persecution and overcome all obstacles. Jesus came as the True Parent or True Father, but Judas betrayed him. In his act of betrayal, all mankind was represented. Through him, all human beings, as the offspring of traitors, betrayed their True Parent. Hence, we must make an indemnity contribution to indemnify the act of having sold the True Parent. For 30 pieces of silver, one man banished the True Parent from this earth and completely frustrated God's providence of 4,000 years. At that moment, Satan prevailed on the earth. To indemnify this we have to offer this amount of money symbolized by the number three for four years, as the price for having sold the True Parent. The four years represent East, west, South and North. In Korea, this means we must give 3,000 won [$30] every year for four years. That money should be earned through your sweat and tears, and when you earn that money you should think about God's will more than your own life. That money should be donated to God with this heart. Also, Jesus' three disciples should have united with him, but instead they deserted him. The 12 apostles and 70 and 120 disciples were also faithless. Therefore, in the course of indemnity, we have to restore all of this, Thus, we each must and three spiritual children, and, centering upon them, find 12, then 70 and then 120 followers. This is what I have been doing for the last 21 years. Because Jesus could not accomplish this on the earth, he and God were overcome with sorrow. The mission of the Unification Church is to solve these sorrows. This is our formula course. We have to restore our tribes, establishing our position as new ancestors. And we have to restore Japan, Asia and the rest of the world, thus developing God's providence of restoration on a worldwide level. The Holy Wedding or the Holy Wedding in 1960, we had to set up all the indemnity conditions of the 4,000 biblical years before Jesus and the 2,000 year History after Jesus. The content of that Holy Wedding was worldwide and cosmic, but in actuality, very few people witnessed it. At that time, we still faced unimaginable persecution. The preparation period from 1953 to 1960 was a time of fierce persecution. During that time, more than 3 million people, three major Christian denominations, and three governments in Korea opposed us. In spite of this, we had to bring forth victory by establishing indemnity conditions. That was the background of my Holy Wedding in 1960. That wedding day determined the destiny of the Unification Church. It was a great event for the world and the cosmos. All the vertical indemnity conditions on the worldwide level were restored horizontally an earth through my mission, because I had brought victory both spiritually and physically. One requirement was to restore three disciples before any own Blessing — representing the three disciples who deserted Jesus 2,000 years ago. Adam and Eve fell as a betrothed couple. Therefore, restoration cannot be done by one person alone. Salvation cannot be completed by a man alone. Neither can a woman go to heaven alone. Therefore, a man and a woman together must solve the problem. To establish the standard of Adam and Eve as True Parents on this earth, we had to set up the condition centered on the engagement of three disciples. God's aim was to restore Adam's family, but Cain's and Abel's failure shifted the dispensation to Noah's family. Through Noah's family, all human beings in the world were judged by the flood, in order to eradicate Satan's invasion at the fall. This was God's providence for salvation on this earth. Later, responsibility was shifted to the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and still later to Moses and then Jesus. So we can see that God's providence for salvation has been prolonged several times. Therefore, we must indemnify that path. In order to indemnify the standard of Adam's family and establish the True Parents, we must first restore Adam's three children. Jesus absolutely needed three disciples, symbolizing the three archangels in the Garden of Eden, Because these archangels did not all unite with Adam and Eve completely and serve them, the fallen world came into being, In order for perfect True Parents to accomplish their position, they need three disciples, equivalent to the three archangels, who can serve them completely. Unless this is done, Satan cannot be eradicated from this earth. The whole history of Cain type people disobeying Abel type people is restored through the Lord's three disciples. They represent the three archangels in the spirit world and Cain in the three major providential periods, that is, in the Old Testament, New testament and Completed Testament periods, or Cain in Adam's family, Cain at Jesus' time and Cain at the time of the Second Coming. To indemnify completely this kind of history, the Lord of the Second Advent, representing Jesus, who in turn represents the first Adam, must raise up three chief disciples who represent the three Cains. In the spiritual world, there are three archangels. In the physical world, three spiritual children need to follow their Abel absolutely; three disciples need to remain faithful in spite of persecution. This standard was established in April 1960. Since the course of restoration is the reversal course, those who are in the position of children should be blessed first. Three disciples or three children are to establish that requirement. The blessing of 12 disciples fter engaging the three disciples who signified the resurrection of Adam's three sons — Cain, Abel and Seth — the True Parents stood in the position of substantial parents, as declared in the Holy Wedding of 1960. God had resentment toward Adam's family, but the True Parents were able to forge a unity between parents and three children for the first time on earth. This was done in 1960 in Korea. That, therefore, was the historical event which began a new history. In April 1960, the first stage of Blessing centering upon the number 12 took place. Historically, this is the equivalent of restoring Jesus' 12 disciples. The Bible talks about 12 gates to heaven; the number 12 is central in the history of Israel. Only by indemnifying this history can the ideal of Christianity, which has operated only a spiritual mission, take root here on this earth both spiritually and physically. God's great sorrow has been that since the fall He could not maintain any foothold on this earth on the individual level, family level, or national level. In order to heal this sorrow, we should first accomplish restoration on the individual and family levels. There were 12 families from Adam to Noah's time, including Cain and Abel, Shem and Ham, There are also 12 families from Noah to Abraham's time, including Isaac and Jacob. The resurrection of 12 people in the Blessing means the resurrection of all the ancestors from the time of Adam to Abraham. In other words, a vertical indemnity condition was horizontally accomplished. Therefore, although there were 10 generations from Adam to Noah, providentially there were 12 generations when Cain and Abel are included. Therefore in the substantial realm, 12 disciples were blessed as an indemnity condition. This brought the victory to the second position, which Satan has always been accusing. Noah's family represented Adam's, since I established the foundation to resurrect Noah's family, I was able to resurrect the 12 generations from Adam to Noah, including Cain and Abel. The resurrection of those in the spiritual world and the liberation of the spiritual world was accomplished through my foundation on earth. Three kinds of families he standard for restoring Adam's family, Noah's family and Jacob's family could be established only with the blessing of Jacob's family. For the first time in human history, at the Blessing of the 36 Couples, this vertical relationship was completely established horizontally. The first, second and third groups of families to be blessed are regarded, respectively, as Adam's family, Noah's family and Jacob's family. Adam's family was represented by the first 12 blessed couples, those who had been previously married, centering upon their own desires, Noah's family was represented by the second 12 blessed couples, those who had not been married but who had been seeking marriage and love. Jacob's family was represented by the third 12 blessed couples, those who had been pure. Through this Blessing of 36 Couples, the fortune of the Unification Church and the foundation of the unity of heaven and earth was determined, This brought horizontal victory to the vertical history, which has been filled with many failures that have caused God so much agony. This victory has also linked the spiritual world to the physical world. Now God has a foothold on the earth. Now that God could dwell on earth, the development on the worldwide level on this earth could begin. In the seven years after 1960, God's coming to the earth was to be completed. This required the restoration of children. In the past, Cains could not obey Abels, prolonging human history for thousands of years. In order to indemnify this, Cain and Abel should be united in one family at this time. This was indemnified through the Blessing of the 72 Couples, 36 representing Cain's family and 36 representing Abel's family. Through this Blessing, the four position foundation that our ancestors could not establish was realized, and Satan was forced to retreat. Following the Blessing of 72 Couples, the Blessing of 124 Couples established the standard of worldwide development centering upon the True Parents. The 124 Couples symbolize the heads of all the nations of the world; For Jesus to begin spiritual restoration on the worldwide level, he needed 120 disciples. In the same way, as head of the Unification Church, I had to start my substantial course with 124 Blessed Couples. This I accomplished within 21 years. After finding the people whom He was seeking, God undertook the restoration of all things. The establishment of the Holy Grounds means the blessing of all things. Thus 120 Holy Grounds were established in 40 nations throughout the world in 1965. This was the turning point of our fortune. Declaration of God's Day ne of the most wonderful days is Parents' Day, We fallen men were unable to have parents in whom God could rejoice. But since our True Parents were restored, joy has returned to God and man. Next, we established Children's Day. Until now, mankind has not been able to celebrate these wonderful days because we could not fulfill the course of restoration. But now the great gospel has been accomplished historically. Finally, God's Day was declared on Jan. 1, 1968. The declaration of God's Day made God's presence on earth possible and assured the daily advancement of the Unification Church. Now we can work toward the liberation of the spiritual world as well as the earthly world, and, also the liberation of hell centered upon the truth of the Principle. Because God's Day has been declared, we can return to a situation where hell and Satan have no hold. When God's Day was declared, my mission was completed. For many years, I had been persecuted by Korea and by the established churches, just as Jesus had been persecuted by leaders of Judaism, through his new gospel, Jesus had to pioneer a formula course to gain acceptance by Judaism and remove its failures. Trying to establish a new, second Judaism occupied his three year public ministry. This involved raising the dispensation from the individual level to the family level, and from there to the tribal and national levels, Jesus wanted to establish the eternal victorious standard both spiritually and physically so that Israel might be liberated from Satan. Nevertheless, he was prevented from doing so. Just as Jesus was persecuted by leaders of Judaism, I was persecuted by the established churches here, and in the midst of this, I had to fight to restore everything. In 1945, the situation was such that I had to go to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, into Satan's camp. I had to leave Seoul and my homeland, which God had been blessing and where He had a certain foundation, and go to the headquarters of God's enemy. Unless I overcame the condition of Satan's accusation in this situation, I could not start a second time. This is the reason why I had to live in prison in a communist country. In prison I had to gain 12 disciples to restore the situation of Jesus, who was completely deserted by all his disciples while he was in prison. In this way, a new history was able to start from prison. After accomplishing this condition, I was able to return to the South, where I still had to endure all kinds of accusation and opposition from the established churches. We labored for many years to establish a new movement capable of surpassing all the established churches, in order to fulfill God's providence. This is the Unification Church in Korea. A few months ago, on September 10, 1968, we opened the Academy House and invited all the Christian leaders. Those who responded were leaders of the Christian churches who strongly opposed the Unification Church. About 40 people came. All of them looked very arrogant, yet I welcomed them boldly. Actually, I was so happy that such a time had come. These Christian leaders had been fighting the Unification Church for many years; they used to think that we were insignificant, poor and miserable people, But now they could see that Reverend Moon was not the man they had imagined. This time they were able to welcome me and acknowledge the Unification Church. The Unification Church has become a serious challenge to Korea. We are a most feared group and I am regarded as an awesome leader. Established Christianity could not meet the challenge of the Unification Church, They could not defeat the theory of our church. Therefore, they are now advising each other not to deal with the Unification Church. Foundation of victory hrough enduring persecution, we have pioneered the way of restoration. Even though the entire world is against us, we will be bold. No matter how many times we may die for God, we will definitely do God's will. This has been a riddle for the established churches. I have solved all the insoluble historical problems that had confronted God for 6,000 biblical years of history. Success has been made. Even if I should die now, the Unification theory will prevail in the world. No matter how much the entire country of Japan is mobilized against us, Unificationism will never be defeated. Does God need Japan? He does not need it for itself. He needs it because He needs the world, the spiritual world, the earthly world and the cosmos. God created the world environment first, preparing everything for this time. Therefore, if we do our small part now, the entire world will move. We are living in such a period. You young people should never presume that God does not exist. God certainly exists, but He is not God in the abstract but God at work in our lives. He is not just a being of feelings but a being of practice. How wonderful this is! Standard of Blessing nless we complete the course of restoration on the individual, family, tribal, national, and cosmic levels, thus establishing a standard which Satan cannot accuse, we will not be able to establish the condition for the Blessing. In 1960 we reached the top level of the growth stage, from which Adam and Eve had fallen. In order for True Parents to attain the realm of perfection a period of seven years was needed, representing seven stages. That constituted the first seven year course. When we enter the standard of perfection we go into the realm of God's direct dominion Direct dominion means to be in a direct relationship with God both internally and externally; that it is the standard of dominion both in heart and in life. In 1960 the Blessing was attained, but not the true level of perfection. The world was still in the realm of Satan's dominion. Therefore, Satan could attack the holy True Family. Nevertheless, we have overcome all opposition during these seven years, establishing Parents' Day, Children's Day, Day of All Things, and finally God's Day. Therefore the standard of perfection was completely established on earth. God has been seeking the day when a bridegroom and a bride could meet, overcoming the opposition of Satan. For the past 2,000 years of Christian history, the bridegroom was Jesus working in heaven, and the Holy Spirit, representing the feminine aspect of God, was working on the earth. But through the Unification Church, heaven and earth have been completely united, removing Satan's existence as an obstacle between heaven and earth. The ultimate purpose of religious people has been accomplished. If this tribe grows day by day, it will constitute a nation and then expand to the level of the world. Hence, a new nation, a third Israel, will be created. Although you are Japanese, you are no longer children of Japanese ancestors, but God's children in a new blood lineage. The Unification Church has made this possible. We stand in a different place. This is the victorious realm that takes away Satan's accusation. In what position are you standing? Unless you have reached the perfection level of the growth stage you are not qualified to become blessed. At the fall, one man and one woman were driven gut of the Garden of Eden. Therefore, in the course of restoration, one man and one woman have to overcome a hostile environment. This is the meaning of the Blessing. My own God's Day, Parents' Day, Children's Day, and Day of All Things have been declared on the worldwide level and on the cosmic level. You can be blessed and can participate in that kind of realm, but you have not gone through the same path that I went. Actually, as true ancestors of a new lineage, you have to establish your own Parents, Day. Also, you should establish your own Children's Day, Day of All Things, and God's Day. All of those things the members of the Unification Church should do. This is the reason why we started the second seven year course. Although you are the descendants of the fall, you should surpass the standard of Adam and me, marching forward boldly by subjugating Satan's accusation. This is what is meant by total advancement. Not only ourselves, but the entire world that should be doing that. Both men and women and old and young should do that. The second seven year course is the period of total advancement. I sacrificed my relatives uring my 21 year course, I only regret that I have not yet been able to convey the truth and witness to my relatives. Such was also Jesus' regret. I could not speak about my own mission to my relatives. Of course, my parents and brothers and sisters were able to feel that I was some kind of a great man, doing something great. But I have never been able to speak about the precious meaning of the Principle to them. This has been my agony. I could not give love to my parents or my own brothers and sisters, even though they were physically very close to me. Instead, I had to love the people on the side of Cain more than my own relatives. Because of this, however, the Unification Church has been able to advance. Unless you love that way, you cannot win the heart of your Cain. Without Cain, Abel cannot stand. Unless you raise people who have much more filial piety toward you than your own physical children, you cannot do the work of restoration through indemnity. But to do so means great suffering. Unless you love people without eating and sleeping, you will not be able to dominate them with love. I have been in those circumstances and have been attempting to create the victorious foundation that way. You are different from me, however. In the second seven year course, you can give your precious things directly to your own relatives, parents, and brothers, so that you can become the messiahs to your own relatives. During the second seven year course you should be the messiah of your tribe, and you should accomplish with your relatives that Jesus and I could not do. And by achieving victory in your own tribe, centering upon your parents and your brothers and sisters, you can complete everything. You can do that on the individual level, family level, tribal level, national level. And you can open the way to the entire world that way. The starting point and mission of the second seven year course is to do what Jesus wanted to do 2,000 years ago, to reveal God's will to Mary and Joseph, and let them Participate fully in his dispensation. I was in a position to do that, but if I had loved my own relatives first, then God's providence of restoration would not have advanced. Always, a beloved people have to be sacrificed and are asked to shoulder the cross. God's providential course has shown us that we must sacrifice our own beloved children, family, and tribe, and love Satan's families, Satan's tribes first. God loves and blesses his enemies. When Jesus was crucified, he prayed to God, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Jesus could say that because he knew God's heart. The course of restoration cannot be achieved by the power of the fists, but by the power of heart. The completion of the indemnity must be done that way. We must know that. We must attain the Blessing, which Jesus did not attain. That way perfect restoration and blessing can be attained.