Good morning, it's wonderful to come to Spain and be able to enjoy the sunshine and meet many brothers and sisters. I think you all know what German weather is like. It is usually cloudy, rainy and cold, so I'm specially happy to be here in such nice weather. I think everyone likes sunshine and pleasant, warm temperatures. Man cannot live without nature; we live in the bosom of nature, but we also live with people. Do you like living with cold people, warm people or hot people? No one wants to live in a cold windy place. Likewise no one enjoys living with cold windy people; everyone wants to live with people who are warm and soft, with a good heart. God created the world in order to establish His ideal upon it. But through the fall man established a world of tragedy instead. We must restore the world to its original state of peace and harmony. The ideal world can be compared to springtime. We want to restore spring to this world by making all men people of spring with warm good hearts. When we live with such people we will be living in a world of spring.
There is a small baby here. How do you feel when you see a baby? You feel good; it's a pleasant feeling isn't it? How can a baby cause such feelings? Babies can give joy to others just by being themselves. From this we can see that God created man to give joy to those around him. When you see young boys and girls you feel happy, because they have purity in their hearts; they are not contaminated with sin. Thus you feel joy from them. Can you experience the same joy when they are older? As they grow older they become more and more like fallen people: contaminated. They lose their purity, their innocence and their simple heart and we cannot receive joy from them anymore. Actually man is more precious than the rest of creation. We feel joy when we see the creation, so why can't we feel joy from man? Obviously something is wrong with man: with us.
I visited Toledo yesterday and saw the wonderful cathedral there. It was built between the 13th and 15th centuries; it took almost 300 years to build and is famous for its many wonderful sculptures and paintings. In that age men had strong faith in God and they wanted to express their respect and gratitude to God through sculpture and painting. It is moving to see. But how does God feel when He sees these creations? Of course God enjoys beautiful art. But He created man to be more precious than any other creation; He would be happier if man expressed the original nature given him at the time of his creation, much happier than seeing wonderful statues and paintings. God wanted to have many objects of joy, this is why He multiplied so many people on earth. There are more than 4 billion people on earth; how happy God would be if each of us became more beautiful than any sculpture or painting ever created; When I visited the cathedral yesterday I felt God's sorrow. Even though man has made many beautiful works of art, God is sad because we are not as beautiful as He originally intended us to be.
We must become like babies, with the natural ability to give joy and happiness to others. We have a long way to go before we reach that point. Jesus said, "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matt. 18:3) Many people interpret this to mean man must become pure and innocent as a baby. But the deeper meaning of this passage is that we must become people who can give joy to others. When we become such people, we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the purpose of our life of faith: to become such people. Many people have faith in God without knowing their goal; they don't know their destination. They go to church to receive God's blessing, but forget the fundamental point. We must pray to God to make us people who can give joy to others. We must become such people; that is our goal.
How can we reach this goal? Of course it is important to know our goal. If we don't know our goal we can never reach it. We go this way and that, changing direction all the time without ever finding the right way. Thus the important thing is to know our goal. This is first. Next we must know how to reach it. We know from the Divine Principle that man received original sin through the fall. We have inherited sins from our ancestors as well. Our ancestors' sins are passed on for us to resolve. We also have collective sins for which we must take responsibility together with all mankind. And finally we also have personal sins. We have to indemnify and resolve these four types of sin. God didn't create man with sin; He created man sinless. God has been trying to cleanse man's sins throughout His providence. This is the work of God; the Messiah comes for this purpose.
In our church we have something called the Blessing. Men and women are matched and then blessed in holy matrimony. Even those who are already married can receive the Blessing from God. By receiving the Blessing our spiritual connection to Satan is severed; our original sin is removed. But only our original sin is removed; our ancestral, collective and personal sins remain. The most difficult sin to remove, however, is our original sin. No matter how hard we try we cannot remove our original sin without the Messiah. What about our other sins though? Can the Messiah remove our inherited sins or our collective and personal sins? No, this is our responsibility, not the Messiah's. So even after we receive the Blessing, we have to work to indemnify our inherited, collective and personal sin. Members often forget this, thinking that everything is restored through the Blessing. That's not true.
God's original nature cannot blossom within us unless we resolve our inherited, collective and personal sins. Even if we don't have a relationship with Satan, God's original nature still cannot blossom. When God created man He gave him His divine nature. So from birth we possess God's divine nature. Unfortunately, it is obscured by our fallen nature; it has been covered over with many layers of dirt. Centuries of sin and fallen nature have been dumped on our original nature, thus concealing it. If we don't remove this burden, our original nature cannot be expressed. We are trying to do this through our life of faith. But we must make great effort. Our problem is how to remove our fallen nature. Can we remove it by ourselves?
When we live by ourselves we tend to forget that we have fallen nature, because we aren't confronted with it. Our fallen nature is only exposed when we come into contact with others. How do we make stone into powder? If the stone stays alone can it become powder? It must come into contact with another material. Contact between two surfaces is needed before a mill or a grinding machine can function properly. Likewise to remove our fallen nature we need contact with others. When we live with others sometimes we fight; problems arise. By overcoming these problems and through perseverance, we can remove a small amount of our fallen nature. It's important to live with others so that this process can take place. I don't know about Spain, but in other nations there are members who don't want to live with other members. They say they can't live with other people, that it is too difficult for them. If that is the case, they have no chance to eradicate their fallen nature. Naturally it's easier to live alone, but the purpose of a life of faith is to overcome one's fallen nature and reach perfection, not to live an easy and comfortable life. We have many rough edges in our nature that need to be polished. When someone hits them they fall away, like grinding or milling. Our personality can only be rounded out through such contact, so it's good to have people who are strict with us. If we can learn to love those who cause us discomfort, we can be victors.
We want to remove our fallen nature completely; then our original nature can work fully. Our original nature has been suppressed, it cannot work; but when we get rid of our fallen nature, our divine nature will be expressed and we will be people of original heavenly nature. The purpose of our life of faith is to become people of divine nature as God created us. Such a person is a natural man. What is nature's cause? God. So when we become a man of nature we become a man of God. We must realize, however, that if we are the only one to become a man of God it won't have much value. If everyone else stays the same how can I be happy? I cannot. In order for us to be content our neighbors must also become natural people. So we must help them. Even if your family is perfect you'll still have problems if your neighbors aren't. So we have to make all people and families perfect. Only then can we say we live in the Kingdom of Heaven. In this way we can realize the importance of introducing God to people and helping them rediscover their original nature. This is why we witness.
You must understand your mission when you witness. The Bible says we should give God's words to others. In our church we have 40-day witnessing conditions. When we witness we spread God's words. God has no physical body, so we must be His spokesman. We must also introduce God's heart to people. Many people know that God exists, but they don't know that He suffers. Many Christians believe that God is an almighty God. They don't know how much He suffers because of His lost children. How can He be happy when He has lost His children? God is searching desperately for them. God cannot stop to rest until He finds his lost children. This is God's heart. Could you relax if your child was lost? No, you wouldn't sleep until you found your child. God's situation is much worse than that: all of mankind is lost. We must let the people know of God's suffering heart. God wants to give His love to all mankind. Even though they are fallen God still loves them; they are His children. So when we witness we must convey God's love to the people we meet. By introducing God's heart and giving people God's love and truth we connect them to God and new life. When we witness with God's spirit, love and life we can inspire them to return to God and thus bring God great joy.
We should also know that we grow by witnessing. I said earlier that we can remove our fallen nature by coming into contact with many people. Witnessing is a good way to meet many people and remove your fallen nature. People will insult and persecute you because they don't understand you. But if you can love and forgive them you can overcome your fallen nature and rid yourself of it. God wants us to achieve two things through witnessing: to convey His heart to the people and improve ourselves. Which of the two is more important? Self perfection. God desires this most of all, so this is our primary goal. Giving His words to people is our secondary goal. So if you don't bring any members after witnessing all day long, you will lose power and motivation if you forget that the primary purpose of witnessing is self perfection. When we do something without result, we cannot continue. Something must return; that is the law of give and take action. We are easily depressed if we work hard without any result. But if we remember that the primary purpose of witnessing is to improve our character and perfect ourselves, we will never lose power, but be able to persevere. We can still achieve the primary goal, so we gain something for our effort. If we remember this we can persevere without any loss of power.
Fund raising is the same. Fund raisers often think only of making money. Of course we need money, but the primary purpose of fund raising is to improve and perfect ourselves. This is the primary goal; making money is secondary. So even if you don't make much money you can still carry on if you remember the primary purpose of fund raising. God is much wiser than us. He always gives us two purposes, so that by doing one thing we can gain two results. When we love others we not only give love, but receive it in return. So by loving others we can pleas others and be happy ourselves. There are two purposes in everything we do. God is so wonderful, He made everything like this. When we work for God, God always give us much more. Even if we don't believe it God still gives us something. We have such a wonderful God. So if we keep Him with us all the time there is no need to worry; everything will be fine.
We know that we must defeat Satan, we have to be able to control him. We also know that to do this we have to be one with True Parents and God. Then what do we have to do to become one with True Parents and God? We've heard that we have to love them, but this is very difficult. We don't live with them, so how can we learn to love them? Loving True Parents has become a vague concept to many. So I will give some examples of how to become one with True Parents. You all know the story of Jacob in the Old Testament, right? He received the name Israel because he was the first victor in God's providence. He worked for his uncle Laban in Haran for 21 years. His uncle deceived him many times, but he continued to work hard and eventually established a family and became wealthy by trusting in God and faithfully obeying His instructions. What did Jacob's descendants have to do in order to inherit the name Israel? Did they have to suffer for 21 years in Haran as Jacob did? No, they could gain the name by inheriting Jacob's faith. The divided kingdoms were both descendants of Jacob, but the northern kingdom lost faith and was cut off from Israel. They were Israel's physical descendants, but because they lost their faith they were no longer his spiritual offspring. From this we can understand the importance of inheriting faith.
Our True Parents have worked so hard and suffered so much to establish a victorious foundation. Father has suffered for 40 years, passing through a difficult course. What do we have to do to inherit his victorious foundation? Must we go to a labor camp as Father did? That is too difficult; we couldn't do that. So we must know how our Father gained victory. The main reason Father could gain victory is that like Jacob he has absolute faith in God. We also need absolute faith in God. This is the first requirement. The next reason is that he knows God's heart and has God's love. As a result he could endure great hardship. So we also need to inherit God's heart and love. When Father was in Hungnam, he was in his enemy Satan's territory, nevertheless he worked hard and received three citations from the camp superintendent as a result. He also has a wonderful personality; all the inmates respected him. Because of these attributes he was saved. So we must inherit these things. When we have absolute faith in God, embody God's heart and love and have a good personality we can inherit True Parents' victorious foundation. We are spared the severe conditions our Father had to endure. So to become one with our True Parents means to inherit their faith and God's heart and personality. So we have a clear goal, to become a natural man as our True Father is. Because God is the source of nature, when we become such people we become sons and daughters of God and can inherit everything.
Everyone must enter the spirit world eventually. Even small babies must go to the spirit world after 80 or 90 years. There is no excep- tion. Have you ever considered that? Imagine: not one of the 4 billion people on earth now will be here in a century. We'll all be in the spirit world and the world will be filled with new people. What awaits us in the spirit world? It's good to know what happens when you go to spirit world. This is man's privilege; other animals cannot learn from anothers' experience, man can. Actually we do this everyday. We go to school and learn many things based on the research of others. We don't experiment ourselves, others already did and we benefit from their knowledge. So without repeating their research we can receive the knowledge they gained. There are people who have been to the spirit world and wrote books about their experience there. I am curious about life in the spirit world, so I read many of those books. I read many books and found that all these people were greeted by a spirit of light upon entering the spirit world, that is an angel that asks what you did in your life on earth and what kind of life you led there. The reason the angel asks you what kind of life you have led is to determine where you can go in the spirit world. If you give the right answer you can go to the Kingdom of Heaven. If not, you go to some bad place or even Hell; it depends on your answer.
Then what is the right answer? If you can say you have absolute faith in God, that you embody the heart and love of God and always tried to give God's heart and love to others, then you can enter the Kingdom of Heaven immediately. If you only lived for yourself and your family though, the angel will say, "I'm sorry but you cannot enter Heaven." By living your life to make others happy, by serving the world and doing God's will you live the life of a man of divine faith, heart, love and personality. If we try to make God happy, He will also try to make us happy. Isn't that logical? So He must send us to a good place. We know God is our parent, who prepared everything for His children. Everything He prepared should become ours. It is important that God is my God, not someone else's. God must become the personal God of each one of us. Everyone must be able to say "God is my parent". Then we will be His sons and daughters. If everybody becomes like this, it will be the Kingdom of Heaven.
When God is happy we can also be happy, because God is the cause and source. Once God becomes a happy God, we will automatically be happy people. Currently though this is a world of tragedy and God isn't happy, but troubled and suffering. So we must make God happy. We know we are few in number and not very capable; we are ordinary people. But we must remember that even a small baby delights its parents. So even though we are only few in number and unskilled, we can still make God happy. God promised to spare Sodom if Abraham could find ten righteous men in the city. (Gen. 18:32) So even though we're not a big family, if we do good things for God, we can please Him and He will spare the world and continue His work of restoration. We have very few members here, but if we serve God and do His will, He will bless this nation. We want to work hard so God can bless our nation. God wants this as well. If we do this, history will note that Spain received God's blessing because of us and we can proudly say, "We did our part."
Let us pray together:
Our dear loving Heavenly Father, we thank you; we are so grateful to be able to come here this morning to receive your words and understand your heart. You have worked so hard and suffered so much to restore your lost children, but we not only didn't heed your voice, we actually resisted you. Still you continued because you are the parent of all mankind. Even though we didn't know your truth, your heart or your love, as our parent you continued to try to bring us back to you. We have been chosen from the multitude to know your truth. We want to become your dutiful sons and daughters, fulfill your ideal on earth and console your suffering heart. Father, you cannot achieve your ideal without ideal people on earth. We are determined to overcome our many shortcomings and become such people. We want to introduce you to all people so they can understand your heart, your love and your truth and become original children. Then you can be a God of happiness and all mankind can be happy. This is your desire, Father. So even though we must endure great difficulties we want to continue our mission and see the day when you and all mankind can share joy and happiness together.
Father, now True Parents are on earth and we can learn your truth and love through them. We must be grateful to our True Parents for their hard work. Even now True Father is suffering in Danbury. We ask you to protect him and hasten the day he will be free to work with us again and see the victorious day.
This nation of Spain did many wonderful things for you in the past. But now they don't understand your new truth. We want to introduce your truth to them and make this nation your nation so you can receive glory from it. Father, please remember all those who are working hard to restore this nation. They don't have much and suffer often, but when you're with them they can persevere. We ask you to pour your strength and blessing upon them that they can return glory to you.
We pray all this in the name of our True Parents. Amen.