Imagine the scene in the garden of Eden with a lawn full of flowers and all the birds singing: the original garden of Eden. Not only was nature beautiful; imagine the young boy and girl walking around: the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. Could you find any evil in them? No. You see only hope, joy, innocence, purity, harmony and love. The goal of our life of faith is to restore the garden of Eden. We came to the Unification Church in order to restore Eden in our lives; we all want to live there. Then where can we find Eden? We must make this place the garden of Eden. This isn't such a nice place; nature doesn't welcome us. But there are children here; before there weren't any. Through the Blessing we have children with us.
Whenever I see children I see hope. Children represent hope, joy, innocence, purity, harmony and love. We want to be like our children. Jesus said that unless we receive the Kingdom of Heaven as children we can never enter it. Of course as parents we give birth to children, but they are our teachers; we must learn from them. They want to love, they want to make us happy. This is why you feel happy when you see little children; you can receive much joy from children. Actually little children don't know anything but how to give joy to others. What can we learn from this? That God created man to give joy to others. Even though children have virtually no knowledge, they can still give joy to others because God created man for this purpose.
What about children who aren't blessed? When you see young children you feel joy, but what do you feel when they are grown? Can you still receive joy from them when they become older and contaminated by this evil society? No, because man is fallen. Fallen man cannot make others happy. This is sad. In order to be able to give joy to others we must return to man's original state. Whenever we meet them, we must make our neighbors happy. When you can do this, you are close to the original state of man. On the other hand, if you make others sad, angry or unhappy, you are far from the original state. You must understand this.
We want to restore the garden of Eden. How did we lose it? Adam and Eve left their positions. Do you know what happened in the first family? We weren't there, but we can imagine what happened. Neither Adam nor Eve was mature. Eve fell and later, as a result of her en- ticement, Adam also fell. After maturing to the point where they could observe and judge things for themselves, what do you think Adam would have told Eve? Do you think he praised her? He probably accused her, saying "I fell because of you. It's all your fault!" This would have been his feeling, wouldn't it? And how would Eve have responded? She probably accused Adam, "I fell because you didn't control me."
What about Cain and Abel? What did they experience from the time of their birth? They must have seen that their parents weren't happy, but always fighting and accusing each other. Could they find happiness there? No, they experienced resentment and accusation instead. Cain and Abel couldn't love each other because they didn't have an example of love in their parents. Ultimately Cain killed Abel. This was the result of Adam and Eve's life. Cain and Abel couldn't learn anything but hate and accusation from their parents. As a result human history began with hate, conflict and murder. Parents and children became enemies as well. Because their parents failed children inherited this miserable fate and thus accuse their parents: "Our life became miserable because of you." Accusation is the most striking feature of this fallen world that began with accusation and conflict. We must put an end to all this accusation and conflict. We can never establish God's ideal world if we can't succeed in overcoming accusation. Even in our church, members accuse each other. Sometimes even a blessed husband and wife accuse each other and fight. This is a repetition of the fallen world; can we restore God's ideal in this way? We must overcome and break out of this pattern, otherwise we cannot reach our goal. Father came to pioneer this way of overcoming, because no one could ever overcome these problems before. Father had to pass through all the difficult courses, thereby overcoming all the resentment, accusation and conflict of history. Ultimately he was victorious. And by following his example we can reach our goal. We cannot reach it without the Messiah. Father and Mother won this place by sacrificing their lives. It took from 1920 to 1960 for Father to gain individual victory. He had to fight for 40 years to defeat Satan; on that foundation he could be Blessed.
Father wants to pass his victorious foundation on to us through the Blessing. We cannot return to man's original state nor regain the original Eden without receiving the Blessing. The Blessing is the most important thing ever. Father has organized ICUS meetings, World Media Conferences, God Conferences and many other conferences and groups. But the greatest thing Father has ever done is the Blessing. There have been many different kinds of conferences in the world, but you cannot find any Blessing, past or present. No one else could ever give the Blessing. From this you can understand that the Blessing is most precious. Through the Blessing we can change this world, otherwise we couldn't. Now we can understand how important blessed families are. Blessed families must understand that we cannot change this world into God's world without the Blessing and blessed families. God wants to establish His ideal world through the blessed couples. Can God realize His ideal if we live like fallen couples? No, so we should be different from fallen couples. We must inherit Father's victorious foundation. Of course we don't have to go the same difficult course Father did. Do you think you could do that? It is such a difficult course I doubt any of us could.
We all know that the purpose of the Blessing is to separate us from Satan. But is our fallen nature removed through the Blessing? Father could cut off our spiritual relationship with Satan, but he cannot remove our fallen nature. This is our responsibility, not Father's. Father can eradicate our original sin but we must eradicate our in- herited, collective and personal sins. If we don't, we cannot be called blessed couples. We must get rid of our fallen nature and become as pure as original man. God didn't give man fallen nature, He gave man His divine nature. Our mind and body should be filled with and controlled by our divine nature, not our fallen nature. As long as we are dominated by fallen nature we cannot establish God's ideal world.
Men and women became enemies through the fall, so we must restore the relationship of love between man and woman. We must move from the position of enemies to that of a true loving couple. You must endure and overcome all difficulties after receiving the Blessing, ultimately becoming a true couple of God's love. This is not an easy path, but everyone must succeed. So how are you doing now? How is your relationship with your spouse? Is it an ideal one? Did you overcome all the difficulties, accusations and resentments yet? No, you still have to pass through all this. Ultimately we must be as united as God's male and female characteristics. They are one in God, so as expressions of God, man and wife should also be one. Then the couple becomes God's substantial object. This is the standard we must reach. God becomes our subject and we become God's substantial object. God is like the mind and the couple is like the body, moving as God directs. God's will becomes the couple's will and they live to achieve His will. Because such couples are an extension of God, their children are automatically God's children. This is what God wants on earth. God's children can be multiplied and His ideal realized through such couples. This is the garden of Eden restored. When you enter Eden your heart warms up; you feel free, happy and joyful, with no worries at all. Our church should be like this.
God blessed the couples in our church, so the first place we should establish the ideal should be within our church. The Bible says we can know a tree by its fruit. We are the fruit of our True Parents efforts, so we must demonstrate who our True Parents are through our lives. If we make this the Kingdom of Heaven, we won't need to tell others that True Parents are the Messiah; by observing us and our life, they will come to the conclusion that True Parents must be the Messiah. This is how we should witness. Witnessing is difficult; people often don't want to listen. But if we become ideal couples, it will be easy to witness. They will see that our church is truly different from the fallen world. They will find a new world here, a world created by our True Parents, and conclude that our True Parents must be extraordinary people.
When Father mobilized the blessed wives in Korea, they made teams of ten wives each. The teams that succeeded were those that lived and worked together harmoniously. If they fought amongst each other they couldn't get any result. Could God be there? No, Satan came instead and they couldn't get any results. But when they lived in harmony, loving and helping each other, people came even without being invited.
Many came because they were curious. They wondered, "How can these women live like that? They are not sisters, but strangers, yet still they live in harmony, loving each other." Peoples' hearts were drawn to them. Many people came out of such curiosity. This is automatic witnessing.
God wants us to do such automatic witnessing. When we have good children other parents may wonder, "How come they have such wonderful children?" We can witness to other parents through our children. If we really lead an ideal life, as God desires, we can witness to others naturally; there will be no need to convince them of anything. We can be good witnessers through our lives, through our children. It may be difficult because we are few in number. But our number will grow because we will have more and more children. Father wants us to have as many children as possible, because through them God wants to show others that we are unique, that we are His people.
Everyone wants to become like our True Parents. But how can we become like them? How can we unite with them? What does Father always try to teach us? He tries to teach us God's truth, and about God's heart and love. Father wants to make us men of divine heart, love and truth. This is his purpose in speaking to us. We must inherit God's heart, love and truth: His personality. What is God's personality? We embody God's personality when we live as His words direct us to. Once we inherit God's personality we can unite with True Parents. There's no need to bother trying any other way. Children have the right of inheritance. Thus by becoming one with True Parents, we can inherit everything they have accomplished through their long life of struggle and sacrifice, without having to endure such difficulties ourselves. That is the purpose of sending the Messiah to earth. God doesn't want us to go the same difficult course Father did. Instead, God wants to make us victorious children and citizens of His kingdom by helping us inherit True Parents' accomplishments.
There are many people who passed away, went to spirit world and then returned. Some of them wrote about their experience. There were many different people but their experiences are all quite similar. They say that upon entering the spirit world one is met by a spirit of light who asks if you want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Of course everyone wants to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Then he asks what right you have to enter. To become a citizen of Heaven you must have the right answer, otherwise you'll flunk and go to Hell. You cannot lie in the spirit world; everything you think is expressed. So you must really believe you are qualified. Can you say, "I worked my life long to defeat Satan, so now I'm here."? That's very difficult, isn't it? It's great if you can say that, but it's almost impossible. Then what can you say? "I became one with the victorious True Parents. And as their child I have inherited their qualification and right to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." You must be able to say this. This is the requirement to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. Do you see? So, you have to be able to say this honestly, from your heart, and automatically. During our life we must gain the conviction to say this. When we do we will be victors. This comes only by inheriting absolute faith and God's personality from True Parents. This is our goal. You do many things: you witness and fund raise, many of you work in the jewelry business. Whatever you do is fine, but what should your final goal be? To make earrings or a watch? Is that your goal? That is only a means to an end, but not your goal. Our goal is to become sons and daughters of God. That is our goal.
To gain the qualification of being sons and daughters of God and True Parents you witness and meet many different people. In this way you can correct yourself and remove your fallen nature. By living with others, you can round out your personality. You also meet many different types of people when you fund raise. Sometimes they are nasty, they accuse or insult you, but if you overcome this challenge, if you can still love and serve them, you can develop your personality and remove your fallen nature. We witness and fund raise in order to perfect ourselves. This should be our goal, not to make money, that is a byproduct. Our goal is perfection. If we keep this in mind we can perfect ourselves. If we only think about making money, it won't help us at all. We may make lots of money, but it won't help us reach perfection. Whatever we do our goal should be clear. When we have a clear goal we can reach it. If our goal is vague, however, we can never reach our destination.
What do you do first when you witness? You share God's truth. You cannot witness without God's words. Actually God wants to share His words, but He has no physical body, so He wants us to be his mouthpiece. We are God's spokesman. We speak for God and introduce His heart. When people persecute you, you feel sad. In this case you can see that God must have the same feeling, because He has been persecuted throughout history. When you are persecuted you can understand the persecuted one's situation. You can feel God's sorrowful heart; He has suffered so much for so long. We introduce God's heart to the people and can also feel God's heart. God also wants us to give His love to people through witnessing. And He wants to connect to the people. He wants to make everyone His child. He cannot connect to them by Himself; He needs us. We can connect God to the people. This is our goal and our mission: to be God's spokesmen, to introduce God's heart and love to the people and connect them to God's life.
So, actually witnessing is the best chance to work with God. When we witness we can also mobilize the good spirit world; our ancestors and the person's ancestors come. So this is a good chance to gain help from the good spirit world. If we really pray for the person, then God and good spirits can help us. When we do this we can drive away any evil spirits working with the person. If we come with God's spirit, the evil spirits must leave that person. So, this is the chance to drive evil spirits away. By doing this we can help our spirit man grow. Our spirit grows by witnessing, so it is quite valuable to witness. This is why Father says that the worst thing that could happen to us would be to lose the opportunity to witness. If God prohibited us from witnessing that would be most terrible. But we have been given the freedom to witness, which is a great opportunity to complete ourselves while working with God to mobilize good spirits and destroy evil ones. In this way we can cleanse the world of evil spirits. We must purify this world and establish God's ideal. You can't really be happy if you alone are happy while others suffer. If you are healthy but others around you are sick, you may become ill as well. So we have to make our neighbors happy. To do this we must witness. This is why we witness to the people with God's words, heart and love.
God's restoration work is done through the church. There may be someone who claims, "I can go to the Kingdom of Heaven on my own." There are many members who don't attend service, just staying at home. But to enter the Kingdom of Heaven or work for God you must belong to His church because God works through His church. He would like to work through His nation. We must understand that without a nation God cannot exercise His full power. Up to now God hasn't really been an almighty God because He has no nation. God's power can only be manifested through His church and nation. So we should belong to God's church and nation. Unfortunately God doesn't have a nation yet. As a result Christians and other followers of God have suffered extreme persecution. In order to end this suffering we must establish God's nation. That's why Father proclaimed "The Creation and Building of the Fatherland" as our motto this year. Fatherland means God's nation.
What does it mean to belong to God's church? We have to attend service. This is obligatory. By attending services we connect to God's word and activities. If you don't come to service you cannot connect to God's providence. Attending service is the first requirement. The second is to have a prayer life. If you don't pray you can't connect to God at all. The third requirement is tithing. Even if you don't have much money you should donate part of it for God's work. Witnessing is the fourth requirement to belong to God's church. These four things are the fundamental elements of our life of faith: four things everyone must do to be part of God's work.
I know that you have experienced much hardship in the past as a result of the court case. In the past several years your church didn't grow. You don't have your own center now, just a rented place. That's alright; you must gather together anyway to pray and make your church grow. You must combine forces; if you are divided, you will never develop. From now on make your church grow by working and praying together. Combine your energy with that of your leader; you must become one. When you do this your church will develop. We all want to see this happen.
What is France's role in the European providence? France is the archangel nation. Germany is the Adam nation and England is the Eve nation. What is the archangel's role? His job is to protect Adam and Eve, right? This is why De Gaulle insisted on developing atomic weapons: to fulfill the task of protecting the Adam and Eve nations.
Sometimes he went a different course, however: his own way. As a result you now have a socialist government and the French are learning many lessons. They didn't know what real socialism was or what a real Communist was, but now they are experiencing the reality of socialism. I hope that the French will wake up and fulfill their providential role in Europe. Actually France should be able to lead the European nations in the right direction. The archangel should lead; when the children are young, the archangel is responsible to guide and raise them. When Adam and Eve were young the archangels brought them up. This is the archangel's position.
Marx studied in France and was strongly influenced by the French socialists. You must restore this. This is why we now have CAUSA conferences in France. France also has a great influence upon its former colonies. Through this influence you must help restore these nations to God. So France actually has an important mission. We must unite the people and restore them to their original position so that France can fulfill its mission to help protect the Free World from Communism.
Who should be the core of France? You, the French Unification Church should become the core of France. What will happen if the core isn't strong? The outer shell will also be weak. An apple may be large, but its core is quite small. Strong members should form the core and have a positive influence on the outside in order to lead the entire nation in the right direction. I think God expects many things from the French church. So each and every member and couple must be strong. If you are strong and God works together with you, you can make a strong church. The decisive factor is always whether God can work together with us or not. If He does, we have nothing to fear; no one can stop us. If not, however, we can't do anything. So we must always remember to bring God with us wherever we go. What do we have to do to have God with us? We must return to the original point, have strong faith in God and possess His heart, love, truth and personality. If we possess these things God will stay with us and together with Him we will do His work and achieve His goal.
Let us pray:
Our loving Father, we are so grateful that we could come here to hear your words. You have worked so hard to bring us together here. You worked through each one of us. We don't know how much you have suffered. But to bring each one of us you had to work so hard for such a long time. You worked through our ancestors and finally brought us here to our True Parents where you could give us your words, your love and your heart. Father, we are still young and immature, but we sincerely want to become your true children. We want to become mature children who can work together with you to realize your ideal on earth. Father, we cannot go on without you, we cannot have hope, we cannot have true life or true happiness. We want you with us all the way to our final destination. Father, we want to be like small children and open our hearts so we can bring you into our hearts and truly become your physical body. We want to use our bodies to give your love and your truth to others so they can see that you are working with us. When they see this they will be moved to change their attitude, leave their former life and begin a new one centered on you.
Father, the French church has endured many difficulties in the past few years. We hope that through your work and your help the French Family can overcome these difficulties and experience a new start and a new growth. France is a great nation, it accomplished wonderful things in the past and contributed much to your providence. We know you love this nation and that you want to work through it to realize your ideal on earth. Father, we heard many things today. We want to keep them alive in our hearts and fulfill your desire in our daily lives. Father, we want to witness to others and fund raise to support your work. We do many other things, but whatever we do we want to remember that our ultimate goal is to become your true children and establish your ideal of Eden here on earth.
We pray all this in the name of our True Parents. Amen.