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Just now we welcomed 1982 and bid farewell to 1981. This year is a new chapter in history; yet, as you know, time continues without any gaps. 1981 runs into 1982 without a break. History continues, and a good example of this is the compass. It contains 360 degrees; when the needle passes 360 degrees, it turns to zero and begins again, in a continuous circle. In a way, an entire year such as 1981 is a heavenly compass which has begun again with 1982; we are beginning a new circle. For the outset of this new year of 1982 I wish you God's blessing on behalf of Mother and myself.
Let us consider what kind of day God would want to remember and celebrate. Do you think there was such a day when God Himself started out? Does God have His own calendar which He marks? The lunar calendar has 360 days in a year, instead of the 365 days of the solar calendar. A complete circle and a complete year, according to the lunar calendar, is composed of 360 parts. The difference between the solar and the lunar calendars is this: every four years, the lunar calendar has a lunar year, which includes an extra month, making thirteen months. This is very principled, since the number 13 is important; we have to go back and restore the number 13. Every four years, there are 13 months. The numbers four and thirteen are very significant numbers in the providence of God. In Eastern philosophy, the number four is not a good number; in Western philosophy, the number thirteen is not good. Both numbers have a bad significance, according to East and West.
When God looks at His created world and the universe, do you think He is conscious of days, months, or the flow of time? Do you suppose God thinks of each of the 360 days of each year, or does He just think of special days? What would make a day special to God so that He would remember it? Imagine that God has not yet created the entire universe; God's Day has not yet come into being and He is still at the genesis of the world. According to logic, when someone wants to remember a certain time he will mark either the beginning of that time or the consummation of it. For example, God must remember the day He created the angels. I'm sure God remembers the day when He initiated the creation of all things. God is a very meticulous God; He must have a good diary. So every time He created a new thing, such as a plant, tree, or animal, He must have marked it in His diary:
"I created a rabbit today," or "I created the grass and lilies today," and so forth. Even when God created a poisonous insect, a dirty, smelly little insect, there must have been a beginning point when God began to create it and a point when God completed it. That poisonous insect would also be entered in the diary of God. If God forgot to post the beginning and ending date of his creation, he would certainly protest to God, saying, "God, what happened? You recorded everything else except my birthday, and I am your creation, too!" Does the poisonous insect have a right to say such a thing? If God explained that He did not record the insect because He didn't like his poison, then God would not be a truly good God. He put the poison in the insect in the first place. The insect could even proclaim that God should remember him because of his poison; he is special because of that. Either the good, noble things are worthy of remembrance, or the unpleasant things, like the insect; both are memorable.
What if you were born in a certain country and that country recorded the birth of every one of its citizens, except yours? Wouldn't you have a valid complaint against that country? Without a doubt, you could also complain against your parents if they did not record your birthday.
Think for a moment about which day of all would be the most memorable to God. Certainly God would consider most memorable the day when His loving son and daughter were born. Do you think God would desire to remember sad days as much as the happy ones? Normally, no parents look forward to the death of their children; they await the birth of their children to celebrate. For the parents, the most joyful day is the day of the birth of the son or daughter; and the most sorrowful day would be the day of the death of that son or daughter.
Nowadays, we have the ability to travel into outer space. The space ship is launched from planet earth and lands on the moon; but it is not an easy thing to do, since it is a great distance to travel. Suppose God was to travel from the moon to the earth; does He require a long time to get here? Our universe is incredibly vast; the speed of light is the measurement of distance in space. The speed of light is approximately 7½ circles around the earth in one second. One light year is the distance light travels in one year, which is a great distance. If God was visiting all the heavenly bodies He created and His taxi was slow, He could never get around to all of them. But don't you think God's speed of travel is faster than the speed of light?
God, who is the Father of all mankind, has the ability to travel faster than the speed of light. But what about His children, you sons and daughters of God? We just walk; even after walking a few hundred meters we feel tired from walking such a long distance. Also, when you are only 50 meters or so away from a person speaking, you cannot hear what he is saying. Consider the capability of God's sense of smell. If an odor was coming from a distant star, millions of light years away from here, God would detect the odor. What about your nose, though? The human nose is far inferior to that of the German Shepherd dog. Some people feel great pride in their ability to run for hours; but a dog could easily beat such champion runners. Does God feel ashamed to see His children so clumsy and inadequate? Certainly there is a tremendous gap between what God can do and what His children on earth can do.
The day that God's children were born must be the day that God remembers above all. However, the capabilities of the children are not so much; they are clumsy, from the standard of the Father. Children are supposed to honor their parent, God; so suppose that one day they brought Him a gift. Their gift was a bottle of perfume that the children thought had a wonderful smell. But according to the sensitive nose of God, that perfume was as bad-smelling as human waste. Even though the smell was terrible to God, He would rejoice over the gift because it came from His own dear son and daughter.
Even though His children are clumsy and inadequate in every way to give real pleasure to God, still there must be some element that gives God the ability to rejoice unconditionally over everything that His children do. That element of joy is something noble, sacred, and not of this world. Love has that substance.
The fact that His son and daughter are born on a certain day makes that day memorable to God. Do you think that God's attitude toward their birthday would be superficial or shallow? Wouldn't His attitude be excited and stimulated? The children bring displeasure from their clumsiness and smelliness; but because of His love for them, God embraces them and feels ecstatic joy from their presence.
God, the Father, would look at the baby that was recently born. The baby would be crawling everywhere, smelling bad, sticking his fingers into his own waste, drinking a lot of milk and eating a lot of cereal. Those miserable events mark the growth of the child for the parent. As the child grows up, step by step, the intensity of the parental love grows, too. As the child gets older, he can understand and communicate with God more and more; they can share experiences. Once the child is fully grown, he can do things exactly as well as God does; he can make decisions and behave the way God does. Of course, God would feel great fulfillment.
God is Almighty and can jump from one planet to another very easily; but the son cannot, so he might ask God to take him along with Him. God, however, would tell him that he must stay where he is for a while longer. God would want to explain this and not just ignore His son's request to go along with Him. Men and women who have flesh here on earth cannot follow and do everything that God can, since God does not have flesh. This raises a problem, therefore, since God wants His son and daughter to reflect His image, capable of doing all the things He can do. The children have this desire, too; but there is an intrinsic difference between God and men of flesh. There must be some way that man, who is spiritual and physical, can fulfill the things which God does, who is totally spiritual. We must have some kind of body which is similar to the body of God.
The day we receive new birth, becoming persons with God-like bodies capable of following God anywhere, is the day which we call "death" here on earth. Does it seem that we should welcome death, then? What is the purpose of dying? We die in order to fulfill our craving to experience all the love of God, which is limited here on earth. In a way, physical death is the discarding of our clumsy physical bodies, these "vehicles" we have used on earth. God enjoys total freedom in the universe; so when He sees His children suffering from so many things here on the earth, He can hardly be happy about it. In God's scheme of creation, "death" is another birth for man. We can achieve liberation from the shackles of our physical bodies and enjoy the kind of freedom God enjoys; so death is really a second birth.
The day the children were born was a day of joy and should be remembered by the parents. Why shouldn't their day of second birth, which we call "death" now, be remembered with joy, as well, since they should be going on to the greatest freedom of all? Some of you might think my subject tonight is very deep and profound and even "weird"; you may wonder why I choose to talk about death on New Year's Day. But I have a good reason to do so; to become men and women of true happiness here on earth, we shall be the people who have conquered the fear of death.
Wouldn't you like to own some diamonds? Consider all the stars out in our cosmos. Couldn't God create an entire planet made up of diamonds? What about gold? Here on earth, people go crazy for an ounce of it, but out in the universe, God could have created an entire planet of gold. Our Father in heaven is truly rich-a super-billionaire.
Once we are given total freedom, we can exercise dominion over the entire universe without any restrictions. Does that interest you? Everybody is interested in total freedom, total joy, total love; but in order to achieve those things, we must do something before we die. Just simply death would not bring us freedom and joy. We've got to obey God's commandments while we are here on earth. Are you ready to obey God and His commandments to the letter, every iota?
The first law of God has to do with the dual nature of man-one of spirit and one of flesh: mind and body. Mind is subject and body is object. The body must obey the mind; that is a law, the principle. Are you interested in doing that?
Mankind is designed, according to God's creation, to live three distinct lives. The first life is the vegetation period within the mother's womb. When you are conceived, you begin to live a life within water. When you were in your mother's womb, did you desire to leave, or did you want to stay inside? It is natural for the baby to want to stay inside. The door for leaving the womb is very small; so when God tells the baby he has to leave through that door, he would probably say, "Oh, no, no! I can't do it!" In order to leave the mother's womb, an incredible amount of disorder, pressure, and even pain has to happen to the baby. If he recognized that, the baby would not want to go through with it. Until the very moment when the mother gives birth to him, no baby willingly comes
out. When the mother gives the final push, reluctantly the baby comes out into the world and starts to cry.
In a way, the process of birth is equivalent to the process of death. It's fearful and unknown. When the baby is expelled from the womb, he has an umbilical cord still attached, through which he has been receiving nourishment. Of course, that cord has to be cut. This seems to be destructive, from the baby's point of view. Until then, he was receiving his breakfast, lunch, and dinner from that supply line. He might think, "Everything is miserable. Even my supply line has been cut off!" When God looks down at the crying baby, would God feel sorry and cry with him, or wouldn't He smile very broadly?
It is the exact sort of transition from this world to the next world. We think that this is the only life there is; we cling to our little planet. But after a certain time, God knows that we are ready to go into the next world. As a natural consummation of our life, all men and women are supposed to be elevated to the same level of freedom which our Father in heaven can enjoy. That is, the freedom of having a spirit body.
The creation is designed so that parents and children can enjoy life together. The baby comes out of his mother's womb so that he can someday talk and play with his daddy and mommy and they can become a family. By the same token, we are given another birth where we can join with our eternal Father, God, and live with Him forever in the same realm. This has been the plan from the very beginning of creation.
Our life here is like being inside the womb. We need proper nutrition, we need to be healthy, and we need to live according to certain principles and rules of God. Consider the insect: first it is an egg, then a caterpillar, then a butterfly. Haven't you ever wondered why you can't fly, since even tiny insects can? Even the seeds of the dandelion have a little parachute that enables them to fly all over the place. Plants, birds, and insects can fly; what about us? We are supposed to be the supreme creatures of God, but we can't fly! Each of you must have felt like protesting to God, "Why do I always have to walk everywhere? Why didn't you make me capable of flying?" God's answer to you is very simple: "You will fly. All you have to do is wait a little while and you will fly better than any other creature. But while you are on the earth, you must use your time wisely. You are in the workshop of life, where you have to practice my rules."
Each of you wants to know what God's rules are, right? Someone might complain and ask if he can take his body with him to spirit world. That is like asking, "Can I drive my old, clumsy Volkswagen into spirit world?"
There is an insect called a cicada that makes a noise during the summer. For a while, it is encased inside a certain shell and surrounded by liquid. As long as the cicada refuses to break out of this cocoon, he is simply rejecting his wonderful future of flying around from tree to tree. We are encased inside a shell of flesh here on this earth, destined for a wonderful future. Before now, 1982, we have lived with a certain fear of death. But from now on, we can be free of that fear and understand what death really is.
I want to ask you women a question. Do you sometimes ask God why He didn't create you more beautiful? Do you sometimes feel that you are ugly and blame it on God? Consider the inside of the mother's womb; it is not beautiful. In fact, the ugly womb has the strength to give healthy life to its children. This is good news to ugly women. Those women who have a lot of pride in their appearance and see themselves in the mirror as beauty queens are the kind of people who always live for external values and pleasures. But those who look in the mirror and say, "I give up! I don't want to look!" are the ones who give up on externals and look toward internal perfection; and this is ultimate victory, not defeat.
When one pursues only external values in life, he tends to go away from God's purpose; but whenever a person seeks after the internal purpose of his life, he will get closer to God. Which one would you want? The person who masters the internal way of life is capable of doing things well externally, also, since internal is subject over external. But the person who only values external things cannot ever achieve internal values. You must become a person who is welcomed by both worlds.
Ideal men and women of the Unification Church are those who can move freely in both the internal world and the external world. I would like you to become masters of the art of living. The person who conquers the internal world can gain external dominion automatically. Internal effort will bring you into God's kingdom; but external efforts alone, will bring you into a hellish place. The person who gains dominion over both the internal and external worlds can travel into hell and heaven without limitation, going through any path he wishes.
I wanted to become a man of total freedom, going in and out of any door, from the internal world to the external. That desire is also God's goal for mankind, for all His children. God can travel into hell freely, without needing any visa; He doesn't have to present any papers when He goes through the gates of heaven, either.
Would you welcome me if I came to your home? What kind of a gift would you like me to bring to you? You would naturally want a big gift; but how could I carry a big gift to every home? Rather than simply a big gift, you should prefer a gift of true value, incorruptible, something lasting. Should my gift to you be a diamond or gold? You say you want "true love," but what does it look like? How much does it weigh? There is no weight to true love, but it is so heavy that no one can lift it. It is so deep that once it is entrenched, nothing can remove it. Suppose God is moving with His true love and He comes to a wall. Because there is a wall in the way, should true love not go in that direction? His love should penetrate that wall.
You cannot see the shape of true love. If I go to the home of one of my black sons, bringing the gift of true love, the door is automatically wide open. This is true not only for black people but for everybody. The very best gift I could bring to anyone is true love; true love can go in any direction, and I can carry as much as I want. In order to receive true love from the True Parents, you should be able to go beyond any obstacle or limitation so that nothing can stop you. Once you have gained that true love, then the eternal world of spirit will be opened to you and you will be able to go anywhere in total freedom. If you continue to practice our way of life and live by this principle, then that world of freedom in spirit world will be opened up to you.
All of us can look forward to the time when we have our second birth into the spirit world. There will be no more sorrow or pain there; but we must prepare ourselves here and now so that we can be qualified to inherit it. The Unification Church is the instrument of God to give men and women the passport to such a kingdom. This is where we will claim the right to freedom on earth as well as hereafter. We do this through our connection of love; and we need to experience love through the unit of the family.
The ultimate goal and the most joyful day that God can remember will be the day when His sons and daughters can be born into total life; this will be God's ultimate fulfillment. Throughout history, God has wanted to tell people this one message: we should have no fear of death, for once we go beyond it, we will receive eternity. The Unification Church was born to consummate this teaching of God and to practice it; the place where we must practice it is home church. Thus, the title of this New Year's message is "Victory of Home Church."
Let me ask you: what degree of unity have you achieved between your mind and body? What must you center that unity upon? Power, knowledge, or money? When you focus upon power or force, you can be crushed. When the body is tempted to go towards money, it leaves the mind behind. When one has great knowledge, sometimes that person cannot act; he just sits all day and thinks. The super energy of love is the master over all the rest-power, knowledge and money. Would you sacrifice your love for the sake of any of these?
Sometimes money, knowledge and power become obstacles to the fulfillment of love. When you eliminate all these obstacles, you are certainly doing the right thing. What was your motivation for joining the Unification Church? Did you come to make a lot of money? Or to become a great scholar? To become a powerful man of politics? You joined the Unification Church to fulfill love; to obtain true love. Once you obtain that true love, you can conquer and own everything else. Therefore, our goal is love, the attainment of true love; and in order to attain true love we can break through any obstacles because we have the power to penetrate them. Because of the fall of man, there are incredible obstacles ahead of us. For example, all the things of creation, the material world, become formidable obstacles before us. Also, the world of Satan is another obstacle. Satan is surrounding us, trying to attack us on every level - the family, tribal, national levels, etc. - there you find Satan's barriers.
With what can we penetrate those barriers? With money, knowledge, or power? The only thing that can do it is true love. True love makes a person welcome the dirty little baby, messing up everything in his house, because true love goes beyond everything. True love can turn even a bad smell into a heavenly fragrance; with true love, there are no bad smells. If I ask you to go to the dirtiest place under the sun, where it is smelly, you should be able to go with the power of true love and transform it into a fragrant place.
In the secular world, people try to promote themselves by boasting and pride; but in the Unification Church, we teach the value of humility and meekness and we try to make ourselves small. If you don't want to go this way, then you don't really want to go after true love.
Do we say that white people should only love other white people? Or do we teach that true love is the love that goes beyond race and enables white people to love black people even more than white people? You must be able to go into both worlds. Compare the motions of a circle and a straight line. Which motion has the greatest freedom? When you move forward in a straight line there are always obstacles in the path. But the circling motion can always find a way around any obstacle. The continuation of a circling motion, round and round, of a vehicle, for example, will invariably increase the speed of that vehicle. In the circling motion, the upper position becomes the lower position; the lower position becomes the upper position. East becomes west and west becomes east.
Our ideology in the Unification Church is the highest understanding. Do you, therefore, desire to be elevated above the world and just stay there? Once you taste the highest place, you go down to taste the lowest place. I am not teaching you to keep yourselves clean and go only to the clean places in the world; instead, I push you out into the dirtiest places-the places where there are criminals, prostitutes, and the worst human corruption.
Would you like to become the victors of home church? Do you, then, go to your home church area to be served by the people there? Do you only go to the clean, good places where you expect people to come and bow down to you ? There is no true Jove in that kind of situation. When a woman does the work of a man, or a man does the work of a woman, then that person learns to do something opposite from the usual and he is free to do anything. Similarly, when you mingle with men of literature, you can learn to write good poetry, like they do. You may not be the greatest artist, sculptor, or singer; but when you sing with true love, that is the best music. The painting done with true love is the best painting.
From this year on, will you be different? Will you go to home church and serve the people, cleaning their bathrooms and their garages? You may think you are doing a favor for the people in your home church area, but actually they are doing you a favor. It is not they who will be perfected by the work you are doing, but you; and your certificate of qualification in the home church exam must be signed by the people in your area. For whom are you doing home church? You are not doing the home church providence for Rev. Moon or the Unification Church. You are doing it for yourself. When your body tells you, "I don't want to go to home church," you should kick your body. There will be no one to give you a kick except yourself.
The last time I went to Korea, I began a revolution among our elder members. Even the 36 couples and the 430 couples, those who were enjoying their dignity and positions, I told them to leave their positions and go out to home church. Everyone is doing it now.
If you are a beautiful woman, do you think that you only have to relate with the beautiful women in your home church area? If you are not so beautiful, do you think you only have to relate with the ugly women in your area? It should be the opposite. You waste a lot of time putting makeup on your face and giving yourselves manicures; that's not necessary for doing home church. For the sake of the experience, putting on makeup and having a manicure is OK; but day in and day out is too much. Sometimes, just for the sake of the experience, you should try wearing pink tape on your mouth instead of lipstick. The next day, you could try red tape, then green, then blue. If you are going to waste so much time giving yourselves manicures, why not try painting your entire arm sometime, or even your entire body? When you go out to witness, are you supposed to be wearing absolutely perfect makeup? When you do that, you actually have more to indemnify. Going the opposite way is the way of indemnity; so the beautiful woman should try to make herself ugly and her indemnity will be smaller. Make your body smelly, people will wonder what that smell is. You can say, "That's the special Moonie smell."
People will see that, although they may curse you and spit at you, they cannot upset you; they will wonder what kind of person you are. But the more you are persecuted, the more blessing will come to you eventually. Although many people thought that throwing me into jail would finish me, they were wrong; even if I go into jail, maybe that will be an excellent launching pad for a new revolution.
We are, therefore, craving to become victors of home church. I want you to know that, unless we conquer the evils of this world, this world will not get better and the Kingdom of Heaven will not come on the earth. What about Hollywood; is that a sacred, holy place? Also Las Vegas? Also the streets where prostitutes work? Consider all the gangsters and the communists in the world, multiplying like a cancer. Communism is a lie and it is trying to deceive the world. Satan was a liar, deceiving man. The American media talks about the Unification Church brainwashing people and kidnapping them. Who do you think created all these accusations and innuendoes? The communists, because they want to destroy their opponents; they try to blame others for their own tactics.
In order to be victorious in home church, should we then seek out the beautiful places, where everything smells sweet? Should we go to disco dances for our home church work? No, you must go to the ugly, smelly places and make them beautiful and sweet smelling. You must go to the suffering people and make them feel happy-that is your home church work. If you do this kind of work, then you don't have to make effort to elevate yourself; the people will try to push you into a beautiful, high place, even though you resist and say you want to stay in the low place.
I want you to understand that each person is walking his own unique course of indemnity. One person may be able to fulfill his road of indemnity in one year; another person, two years; another person, three years. Some people may need seven years. Why? It is not because of your lack of effort, but because of the cumulative debt that has been incurred in your entire family tree.
The body simply does not want to listen to the mandates of the mind; so anything that the body wants to do, the mind should say, "No. If you want it, then I don't want it. You say yes, I say no." Original man was supposed to be united in mind and body, with no separation; that kind of man is called perfected man. All things of the world are meant to be enjoyed by such perfected men of the flesh. But those men whose minds and bodies are totally separated have no right to even touch the things of creation. In terms of food, there is heavenly food and hellish food. Fallen, disunited men try to take food, but the food, although you cannot hear it, is violently protesting against being eaten by such an evil person. The food knows that it is intended to support the bodies of good men, not the bodies of evil men. You must realize that your mind must subjugate your body. Your body exists in the evil domain, so every morning before you eat breakfast, you should subjugate your body by the power of your mind so that the food will not resent going into your stomach.
When men and women of separated mind and body try to love each other, it is impossible. Their minds go one way and their bodies go another; that is satanic love. You can love someone else only when your mind and body are one with each other. The husband who caresses his wife should have his mind and body united; likewise, the wife should be a united person, not a person of division between mind and body. True love between husband and wife is the love of give and take between a man and woman of united mind and body. Is there anyone here who thinks he has reached that level? Knowing that you have not achieved that level yet, how can you think that you deserve the heavenly Blessing? Asking for the Blessing before you are ready is an example of a greedy mind. Those who complain, "I'm 32 years old! Why doesn't Father bless me?" are much further away from God than those who say, "Father, I don't deserve the Blessing yet. I want to make more effort to unite my mind and body."
The task of supporting a family is much greater than simply pursuing the love of your spouse. Only one child makes the husband and wife parents, but we desire families with many children and even the grandparents living all together-the bigger the family, the better. By loving in such a broad way and sacrificing the smaller unit, we pursue the path of restoration. We should be able to love our clan more than our family and our nation more than our clan. We must pursue the greatest goal.
The world as a whole is guided by the attitude of caring for oneself first. People want to live only for themselves and their spouses making themselves happy, with no concern for anything larger. We, however, are going exactly the opposite route from this. Why do we go this way? When a person enters into spirit world, he doesn't have relationship with only his spouse, but with everybody there. One's ancestors are there from all past history. Jesus is there in spirit world, also, and he will judge the person who lived only for the sake of his spouse. The people who lived for the sake of loving everyone, including their enemies, at the sacrifice of their own families, would be welcomed by Jesus. The Unification Church is practicing this impossible, peculiar way of life because we are not living for this world, but by the standards of the next world. This is why we are different.
Our goal is to enjoy total freedom, like the singing cicadas that jump and fly from tree to tree. Indemnity is a necessity right now, but it will not be with us for eternity. True love, however, will be our eternal blessing. True love begins from God and True Parents; so the children naturally desire to resemble the parents. You, as the true children, should resemble the True Parents. When the True Parents ask you to do something, you do it willingly and happily, not reluctantly and out of duty. When you do fund raising, you don't try to get out of it, but you go willingly to the most difficult situations all over the United States; then you can continue in Africa. Why do we need fund raising? I spoke at length about that last Sunday. It is the equivalent of the restoration of the Old Testament era. The Old Testament era was the era of the offering; people had to make a material offering to create a foundation of faith. By witnessing and bringing in new brothers and sisters, you are restoring the New Testament era. When you go out into the world to witness, you are going to receive the same kind of persecution that Jesus received 2,000 years ago. As the son of God, he was rejected and crucified; we also must endure that kind of suffering.
The Unification Church is the Completed Testament, the Perfection era, which is carried out through family love. That means you consider all people as your family. Old men are like grandfathers to you; old women are grandmothers. The way of restoration is to love other people more than your physical grandparents, because by doing so, you are expanding your family to the entire world. You can thus create the Heavenly Kingdom anywhere.
The ideal world is the world where mankind is one family, where there are no boundaries between races and skin colors. When a white man goes to the home of a Korean, he is at home there. The other day, Rev. Kwak came back from Africa and shared a report with me. He said that they serve a special meal there, made of worms. In Korea, people normally don't even like to look at worms, much less eat them. But Rev. Kwak knew that if he rejected that meal of worms because of his Korean customs, he would not be showing true love. So he closed his eyes and ate the worms.
It is not an easy task to become true parents. Nor is it easy to become true children. One must be able to do incredible things in order to be a true parent to all people. There are strong hunters in parts of the world that kill an animal and then, with tubes stuck into the animal's neck vein, suck out the blood. A true parent to those people would have to be able to do that, too. It would never do for someone in that situation who claimed to have the heart of a true parent to ask for his usual Korean kimchee and rice.
I have tasted true poverty, experiencing the way people eat their meager food with their hands, even right after having gone to the bathroom. Truly poor people have no facilities to wash themselves, so when they scratch their hands, they draw a stripe in the dirt there. Do you suppose that when those people tried to serve me some of their humble food with their dirty hands, I chastised them and told them to go wash their hands? Of course not. I welcomed their offering and ate it as though it was honey.
I must be the true parent to all women, as well. The last time I went to Korea, I saw the eldest grandmother in our church who has been serving our church members for many decades. She is about 90 now, and her face is completely full of wrinkles. I went to her and kissed her. I want to become the true parent to such elderly women.
There is nothing you cannot do for the sake of love, for the sake of serving. When you have certain things that you simply do not like, you must think, "These are the things I must conquer and go over in order to reach true love." God does not dwell in some high, pure place on a golden throne where no one can reach Him. He has the heart of a parent, trying to love people in the dirtiest, smelliest, most corrupt places. That is the reason why I am pushing you to go to those dirty places. With true love, you must go down to the lowest places and you will discover the shortcut to reaching God.
Why should we live such a life? Because our job is to subjugate Satan, not by force, but in a way that Satan will voluntarily surrender. Who are the true saints? Not those people who are revered by the rich and comfortable people, but the ones who are revered by the miserable, suffering poor people. When such miserable people say someone is a saint, then that person is, indeed, a saint. True love can be found in the lowest places, not in the Waldorf Astoria or in the palaces of kings.
You must become totally free from any accusation from Satan. No matter what you do or where you go, there must be no way for Satan to accuse you. An example is that if you received a Ph.D. from a reputable university, you could go anywhere in the world and people would recognize your degree. Anywhere you go, you have already completed all levels of schooling: elementary school, high school, university, Master's degree. No one in the world could criticize your accomplishment.
Although we have talked about many things today, we come to the one main point: home church. Why do we need home church? Because fallen parents came into being. In order to restore this position, Jesus came to the earth. He had to go through a certain process; he needed to restore the Abel family of Zechariah and the Cain family of Joseph, uniting them. Because this was left undone, we must go, in our time, to the home church mission and restore those positions. Who crucified Jesus? Fallen men, men of faithlessness. Therefore, until you have paid back that debt, you cannot be restored.
There are many steps beyond just home church. After that, there is the clan church, the tribe church, the nation church, the world church. You have to pass through all these levels. Doing home church is not easy, but doing tribe church and nation church are even more difficult. No individual is capable of doing all these levels; therefore, True Parents came to this earth to do it for everybody else, for you and all your posterity.
Do you think I have a battle between my mind and body? Yes, I have the same battles as you; the only difference is that my battles have been victorious. I knew the truth, so I persevered through my battles. On the road of dispensation, when a person loves himself or his own family and things more than he loves the dispensation and his God-given mission, that dispensation will stop right there. My mission has been, in the position of Abel, to win over the position of Cain; to restore the unity on all levels. As the family-Abel, I had to win over the family-Cain; and on up to all the other levels. In order to win over Cain, one cannot stay in the same place and have it happen automatically, but must go out to the world and set the right conditions. On each different level, Abel must go out and win Cain. That is why I came to the United States; I was searching for Cain on the worldwide level.
Here I could be beaten and then restore it. When Abel returns, he becomes the elder brother, restoring the birthright. You must restore the elder brother's position in order to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
I had to go through at least three different nationalities, representing formation, growth and perfection stages of Cain-Abel unity. I had to serve and win over three countries. You, too, must be united with three different nationalities. For me, those three countries were the United States, Germany and Japan. That is the reason I sent out missionaries together from those three countries. Their mandate was to unite among themselves, even though the combination was very difficult, seemingly impossible. I laid a victorious foundation for your home church by the victorious foundation of a world church. Home church is nothing but a microcosm of the world church. It is a mini-world in which you can inherit my foundation and my victory. By setting a condition on the home church level, you will win the right to do the things which even Jesus could not do 2,000 years ago; you will indemnify his position.
Abel cannot return by himself; he must return with Cain and he must travel together with Cain. On the worldwide level, the Cain world is the communist world and the Abel world is the democratic world. Any organization has two parts, including the United States Congress, with the Senate and the House of Representatives. Schools, too, have two factions: the good boys and the bad boys. What exactly is a good boy? A good boy is one who has the capability of melting the evil of the bad boy. The good boy will not be influenced by the bad one, but will, instead, influence him. The good one will not go back and forth between both worlds, since that is a sign of the bad boy.
If you want to become a true person, you must do the things that you say you will do. Your words and your deeds must become one. The good teacher is one who lives his own teachings, not just speaks about them. The true saint is not one who only cares for his family, but who first cares for others, even those who care the least for him, before his own family. We can define the good God as the God who sacrifices Himself for the sake of others. I, too, have lived according to this principle. I have sacrificed my immediate family, even Mother, for the sake of the Unification Church. It is very seldom that I eat a meal with my own children; I usually eat with the church leaders from all over the world. They are the ones who are sitting right next to me and Mother, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, our children are not there. Sometimes when I am eating a meal with the children and some of the church leaders come in, I immediately send the children to the kitchen to finish their meal and give their seats to the church members. My children, as well, must have Cain to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; they cannot enter without Cain.
For True Father and True Mother, there are two types of children: true Abel-type children and true Cain-type children. The true Abel children must be able to unite with the true Cain children. I have been working for them, in their place, fulfilling their role to bring about this unity; so, for that reason, my true Abel children must be grateful to me. On the other hand, the true Cain children must unite with the true Abel children; without that, there is no place for me to stand. There are two kinds of children for Adam: direct heirs and adopted children. Unless these children are united, the world cannot be restored.
This is the reason why, during 1981, which is the year of the final consummation of my 21-year-course, I have been able to give Blessing to the true Abel children. Ye Jin Nim was engaged and married, Hyo Jin Nim was engaged. The ages of the children range between 16 and 21; according to God's original ideal, this is the period during which Adam and Eve were supposed to be married. Do you know at what age Adam and Eve fell? Around 15 or 16, while they were teenagers; so, the first woman became a mother around the age of 16. That is why we are restoring the fall on the same age level.
The fall of man was initiated by Adam and Eve, but was consummated by Cain and Abel. Adam and Eve sowed the seed which was harvested by Cain and Abel. Thus, historically, restoration must begin with Cain and Abel; that is the first step on the restoration process. From the individual level, the process is elevated to the family level, the tribal level, and so forth. Abel is in the position of mind, while Cain is in the position of body. Anyone who is in the mind position must suffer more tribulation than others. How are the positions of Cain and Abel determined in the sight of God? Those who want to sacrifice more and suffer more in order to serve are Abel; those who want to suffer less and still get the greatest benefit are always Cain, from God's point of view.
Among the children, this rule works the same. Therefore, those who want to suffer more for the sake of the parents and the brothers and sisters are always in the Abel position, while those who want to do less and enjoy more are always in the Cain position. Just because someone is born first does not give him the right to order the younger brothers and sisters around. If any younger brother serves more and is more sacrificial, the elder brother should bow down to him and follow him. In the Unification Church of America, who is the Abel and who is the Cain? The same principle applies here, without any deviation. Who among you suffers the most and wants to obey me the most? Who wants to walk the sacrificial path of life? Sometimes people consider the person who wants to carry the heaviest burdens as a fool, but he is not a fool. Considering sleep as an example, between those who sleep more and those who sleep less, which ones are more likely to be Abels? Those who want to eat the best food first will not become Abels, either. Those who spend their fund-raising money on some personal item and give the leftovers to the church are certainly not in the Abel position.
No one is confused about who is Abel and who is Cain. The person who comes into this meeting room several hours early to obtain a front row seat is very different from the person who comes here late and then tries to push his way up to the front. Such a person is not even a Cain, he is a Satan! You should know better than that.
Comparing the two hands, the left hand is unable to do much work, while the right hand is always doing the work. The person who always seeks the best food for himself has a Cain mind, while the one who wants others to take the best has an Abel mind. There are two ways of walking, too. One person might start out and determine that he will reach his goal within 30 minutes, while another might decide to take his time and not worry how long he spends getting there. There are even two ways of eating meals. One person likes to indulge himself in the meal with a leisurely attitude, while another person will sit down and eat quickly, knowing that his time is precious.
Some of you might wonder why I come here on New Year's Eve to give you a message that lasts over three hours, when you would be content with three minutes. But which kind of teacher is Abel? The person who comes here out of a sense of duty and decides to speak on New Year's Eve for three minutes, feeling that he has done his mission; or the one who forgets the passage of time, trying to teach even one more point? I want to be a sacrificial teacher. Lately I have been hearing many reports, every day. Leaders come, one after another, to give their reports; they come for breakfast and I listen to them. Others come in and I listen to them, too; there isn't even time to go to the bathroom. Lunchtime comes, more reports are given, and sometimes I am still sitting at the table when dinner time comes. My hips are burning and sore by that time. But I have the attitude that even when I am receiving reports, I must bear the cross and pay indemnity.
Some people feel that they cannot function unless they can sleep at least five hours each night. If they only sleep three hours, they must go and get another two hours. But I forget the time, the number of hours I slept; whether it was thirty minutes or two hours, I sleep only as long as I can afford to, and no more. Sometimes when I go to the bathroom, I fall asleep and Mother gets worried about me. Even this morning Mother came knocking on the bathroom door, asking, "Father, what are you doing in there'" I woke up and answered, "Nothing, nothing." It is my credo that I will go the most difficult, suffering way, never seeking the easy way. Any time there are miserable duties to be done, I want to be the first to do them without any hesitation.
Why do I go this way of life? Because that is the role of Abel; no one can claim greater sacrifice before me, including the 36 blessed couples. I have never forced anyone to go the sacrificial way, but the original minds of people know where they stand in relation to me. In front of true Abel, Cain must surrender and follow.
God is the eternal, ultimate Abel. No matter what, nobody can outdo God, suffer more than God, or weep more tears than God. Throughout history, every man must bow down to God because God is superior to him.
Cain and Abel must unite, then unite with their mother. This is true at East Garden. When the children have certain things to discuss, they always go to their mother first, before coming to me. When the children of a family are totally one with the mother, the father is automatically one with them. The same mother, Eve, gave birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. In the Unification Church, True Mother is able to embrace both the True Children and the Cain children. To which children should Mother give more love? To the Cain children. The mother would desire that Cain love Abel more than he loves her. There is no way that Cain and Abel can separate under such a mother who loves Cain the most. As long as their mother is loving them, the two sons are united.
The mother's role is to embrace her sons, Cain and Abel, holding one on her left arm and the other on her right, and to go to her husband, Adam. Next, the mother's role is to bring the Abel-children couples and the Cain-children couples, embracing them, to the father and then to God. This is why we teach that you should have your spiritual children in order to be blessed; the bare minimum is two. With Cain and Abel completely united with their father and mother, they can approach God.
In the United States, the government is in the Cain position, while Christianity is in the Abel position. Only through the unity of these two positions can this country be acceptable to God. Today. on the contrary, the United States government is dominating Christianity and this is the opposite of what should be happening. The communist world, which denies God, is in the position of the Cain world and the free world is in the position of the Abel world. The Unification Church is in the mother's position, so we are supposed to embrace both sons: the Abel, democratic world and the Cain, communist world. By doing so, the world can accept the Messiah; it can welcome the universal parent.
That has not been done very successfully, so, for that reason, we have to make the foundation from the very bottom. The very bottom is home church, then progressing to tribe church, nation church, and world church. Who has to do this? The Unification Church is committed to doing this, but I have already fulfilled those levels. Each of you must pay a certain amount of indemnity by doing home church. I have come through the entire process and I have erected such a powerful foundation that those hostile to me have a frenzied desire to kill me. But in your case, you encounter no such drastic opposition. Compared to what I have faced, your persecution is very minor; in fact, doing home church is an easy job. Do people try to kill you? You are not risking your life by doing home church. However, as I work in the United States there is a constant danger to my life. No one besides me is clearly declaring a war against communism; for that reason, the communists consider me their archenemy. I push Tiger Park to squarely confront the communists through CARP. Even though Tiger Park is leading the demonstrations, the communists don't fear him nearly as much as they fear me, since they understand that I am the ultimate source of this war against communism.
I have been doing this mission at the risk of my life, but you don't have to risk your life in the same way. I have created a safer way for you to go. You must become a tribal messiah in your home church in order to save your own family; the tribe is the strength of the family. When your home church is protected by the tribe, nation, and all the other layers, nothing can invade your home and family. When you willingly take up the cup of persecution in your home church area, trying to win the people, no power can invade you.
The home church providence started as a major crusade in 1979. At that time, our slogan was, "Completion of the Kingdom of Heaven through Home Church." In 1980 our slogan was, "Home Church is the Base of the Kingdom of Heaven." In 1981 we had the slogan, "Home Church is My Kingdom of Heaven." After those three consecutive years, we have the slogan for this year: "Victory of Home Church."
If you have been working diligently in home church for the past three years, this is the year that you can finish and graduate. You can joyfully participate in the Blessing and then live in the home church. How many days are you spending in home church? If you are serious about doing home church, should you live in the New Yorker Hotel? You should be living in your home church area. It is very easy to live in the New Yorker, because you can hide behind your door; but home church is not an easy place to live. The New Yorker was purchased for the sake of the world; it is the World Mission Center, not the American Mission Center, or the New York Mission Center. Because you have not yet gone to the worldwide dispensation level, you are not really eligible to live in that house. You must go to the home church and complete the providence there; then you can live at the New Yorker.
I am not the one who should buy myself a home in Korea. The parents' home should be bought by the children, Cain and Abel. God's house, too, is bought by the children; home church will become God's dwelling place, God's house. You cannot win the victory without committing yourself to fighting the battle. You have learned the tactics of victory: just go. The important thing is to go, be beaten, and then win. Satan's method is always to attack first and ultimately to lose, while the method of Heaven is to be beaten first, but to obtain the victory in the end.
In your home church area, if you can win the hearts of your five worst adversaries, the rest of the people will be won easily. Those people who welcome you are the extensions of Abel; they are already on your side. You should concentrate your efforts on the Cain-types; they are the extensions of Satan. You complain because you meet opposition in your area, but I tell you that opposition is the reason why you are in home church. If I had been afraid of opposition, I would never have dared to come to the United States. There is no question that if you are afraid of being opposed, you will be destroyed. The wrong attitude is to shy away from the negativity in your home church area
From now on, everybody must go to do home church. Those of you who accomplish your work in home church will then be qualified to come and live at the New Yorker. You will be in the position of good children, coming to live in the home of your parents. But trying to stay in the New Yorker without making any serious effort in your home church is not good. The rooms are not there for everybody; you blessed families must move into your home church areas- including Rev. Kim, Mr. Pak-without exception, you must all go out to your home churches. Although some people may think this is unreasonable, you will be infinitely grateful when you see that you are heading for the Kingdom of Heaven. I'm very serious. What I am asking you to do is the bare minimum, compared to the real value of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Have any of you finished your indemnity course and earned the right to dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven? If someone is trying to help you avoid your indemnity course, he should take on your indemnity, himself. Should I be sympathetic to you and try to help you get out of your indemnity? If I gave you some easy way, without your finishing your indemnity course, Satan would say, "No, no, no! You haven't done anything; Rev. Moon has done everything for you. You're not qualified to go to Heaven!"
Home church is a far more precious gift from God than becoming heads of state or kings and queens. Once your home church people welcome you wholeheartedly, the entire spirit world will welcome you. Suppose you should drop dead in your home church area. Don't worry, because you are not really dead; you will be resurrected into the highest place in spirit world, where everyone will glorify you. You would like to dwell in the same place in spirit world as I do, wouldn't you? Even though I may be letting you endure suffering at this time, my ultimate plan is to take every one of you with me, arm in arm, to the Kingdom of Heaven. At that time, you will be a true victor. You can take off, non-stop, to the Kingdom of Heaven.
When you declare your victory, following in the footsteps of Rev. Moon, and you ask God to accept you, God will say, "Amen!" In that case, every place is your dwelling place; everything that God and True Parents possess shall be yours, as well. There will be no separation between God, True Parents and yourself. When you go to spirit world, you will encounter the martyrs, whose suffering on earth was much greater than yours. What will qualify you to go to the Kingdom of Heaven before them? Why will you be entitled to go to a place that those people are not? Your one qualification that is superior is that you met the True Parents, you obeyed the True Parents, and you served the True Parents in your lifetime; and you did this in the realm of home church. Spirit men do not have home church, but you do. This is an incredible blessing, one which is hard to believe.
I want you to understand that in order for the Providence to move this far, many, many people have suffered and died. When you enter the spirit world, you will be able to comfort all those spirit men, not by the fact that you suffered more than they did, because you didn't, but by the fact that you served and obeyed the True Parents.
In the beginning of the message tonight, I said that Adam and Eve were never supposed to have a fear of death. They were supposed to be aware of spirit world and eternity; only because of the fall of man did fear of death come into being. Today, we must be the ones who liquidate the fear of death; we shall be aware of eternity and have no fear of it.
The true fulfillment of the Bible is being done by the Unification Church. Jesus said, "Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it; but whoever seeks to lose his life for my sake will save it." This is a dilemma and a contradiction, but we know that those who seek the highest positions shall be lowered, and those who seek the lowest places shall be elevated. Why should this contradictory statement be there in the Bible? People don't realize it, but such a statement is in the Bible because of the principle of indemnity.
Why, then, do you want to go this way? You must achieve the victory of home church. Like marathon runners, you are running, but have you considered how serious this is? Can Satan run to your home church faster than you and sit there, laughing at you when you get there? You must outrun Satan, reaching the area before him, telling him, "Satan, get behind me."
For three years, you have been listening to me expounding on home church. When you go to your area, you must chase out Satan, not by your fist, but by your love and sacrifice. Unless you do home church, you will be like an automobile entering onto the highway of the Kingdom of Heaven with an empty gasoline tank. You cannot go anywhere without gas. How can you claim the right to the Blessing until you have completed your home church work? Jesus was destined to complete his work on the home church level, and afterwards get the Blessing of marriage, but he did not get that far. In the future, I will judge you according to every principle and word which I have spoken; that will be your judgment. The world will judge you, as well. If you are a student, you must obey the school rules laid down by the principal; then you have the right to certain privileges.
Starting from Dr. Durst, everybody has a home church area. Dr. Durst has been thinking that home church is good, but we need to emphasize street witnessing in order to gain new members. But if you witness to someone on the street, it has only the significance of that individual. An amazing thing is that, although we are doing the same activity, witnessing, when you do it at the home church level, it has historical and providential significance because it is connected at that point to the historical indemnity course. When you connect with one person in your home church area, that individual is representing his family, clan, nation, world and cosmos. By working with one person in home church, you connect yourself to the entire cosmos; but when you go out into the streets, you are only connecting with one individual. It is a one-to-one relationship that does not go beyond that level.
It is best to start with the older persons, the grandparents; then go to the uncles and aunts. The Old Testament era is that of the grandparents, the New Testament era is that of the uncles and aunts, and the Completed Testament era is that of young people. You should start at the beginning, with the Old Testament, then the New Testament, then down to the present. Some people complain that their home church area doesn't have any young people, only old people. You are going through an indemnity course, so the older people serve that purpose better. By loving the grandparents, then uncles and aunts first, you are going exactly the same way that I went. You should love older people more than you love your own age group, more than you love yourself; in that way, you can be victorious.
Shall we do it? How do you know that my teaching is not incorrect? If you are not sure, all you have to do is go to your home church and try what I have been teaching. When spirit world and God help you, you will see that what I have said is true. Your position in the home church is that of Adam; the spirit world is in the position of archangel and they are subordinate to you. Therefore, God and the angelic world must come to help you.
Everything depends upon how much you serve and set the indemnity conditions. Parallel with those conditions, your blessings will descend upon you. All your ancestors will come down to your home church area, and the ancestors of the people in the neighborhood as well. When your effort exceeds the level of effort made by anyone previously, Satan will pack up and retreat from your area. You will see that those people who were adamantly opposed to you one day will change, like a miracle, the next day. Those who continue to give you a hard time will receive instant judgment from spirit world. You will see this with your own eyes. After their chastisement from spirit world, those persons will change, too. During my lifetime, I have seen many instances of this, too many to describe. The same things will happen to you in your home church area.
Until you have finished your home church work, you have no way to complain. You should not get tired. Knowing the Principle, I have no way to get discouraged or to slow down. I continue to march forward; even if I collapsed, I would fall forward, not backwards or to the side. I have always known that I must go over the hill and I cannot stop marching before I go beyond that hill; I cannot afford to die before I get there. Since no one can know when he will die, you must begin now to go beyond the hill. My 21-year course was actually completed in 16 years, 5 years earlier than scheduled. Why? Because I did not know when I would die.
You must overcome your fear of death, becoming men and women who can live without fear, dwelling within the love of God. Unless you can live this way, life is miserable. Once you are elevated into spirit world, there is no way to return to the earth. It is your good fortune to have met me and to have heard this message; but if you do not fulfill my message, it is not good. More than anything else, home church is top priority. Push aside everything else to do home church. For whom are you going this way? Not for the sake of the Unification Church and not for the sake of God or True Parents, but for the sake of yourself, your children, and your posterity. For that reason, you must go to home church and be victorious!
Let us pray.