Good morning. We know that the purpose of our life of faith is to defeat Satan and enter the realm of God's love. This is our aim. If we consider this from an individual standpoint it is almost impossible to achieve. Satan has controlled mankind and the world to this day. He knows fallen man very well and all mankind is under his control. Thus it is virtually impossible to defeat Satan from the position of fallen man. That's why God had to send His son, the Messiah, to the world. His true son is the only one who can subdue Satan. To defeat Satan man must become perfect and completely unite with God. Man cannot defeat Satan without God's power.
God had to work for 6000 biblical years to lay a foundation before He could send our True Parents to earth. Even after coming, Father had to lay conditions, fighting Satan physically and spiritually in order to erect a victorious foundation. It took him forty years. By completing this extremely difficult course Father established a victorious foundation. How can we gain the same qualification as our True Father? How can we establish a victorious foundation? That is the question. There are two paths open to us: either we inherit True Parents' victorious foundation or we build our own. If we can't inherit Father's victorious foundation, we must lay our own. The Messiah needed forty years to defeat Satan. And we know that it's practically impossible for us to follow the same course Father did. Thus the only course open to us to become victorious sons and daughters of God is to inherit True Parents' foundation. How can we do this? We must find a way, otherwise we cannot achieve the purpose of our life.
The first man in history to subdue Satan was Jacob. We all know Jacob's course. He worked for his uncle in Haran for 21 years. He was persecuted and deceived many times, but he kept faith in God and worked hard, establishing a family and gaining wealth and property. After 21 years God told him to return to Canaan to his elder brother. Esau was still angry and longed for revenge because Jacob had deceived him of his birthright. But when Jacob returned to Canaan he sent the wealth he had gained through his hard work to Esau. He sent him his flocks and his servants and finally he himself approached his brother in humility and love. Esau's heart was softened and he welcomed Jacob instead of killing him. As a result Jacob gained the substantial victory of Israel. He was the first man to defeat Satan.
The Israelites were Jacob's descendants, but to truly inherit the name Israel they had to inherit his faith. This was the principal re- quirement. The citizens of the divided kingdoms were all descendants of Jacob, but when the northern kingdom lost faith in God they were cut off from Israel. Only those who inherited Jacob's faith could inherit the name and position of Israel. This is what history teaches us. So the first thing we must do is inherit Father's absolute faith in God, otherwise we can't inherit his victorious foundation. When we learn from Father and become like him we can inherit his victorious foundation. We must inherit everything from Father.
The biggest difference between Father and fallen man is his absolute faith in God, so this is the first thing we must inherit from him. Next is that Father has the heart and love of God. Just as Jacob subdued Esau with love, Father overcame Satan not through physical force, but with the heart and love of God. This was how he could withstand Satan's attacks and subdue him. So to inherit Father's victorious foundation we must inherit the heart and love of God that Father has. This is the second thing we need to inherit. The third point is that God wants man to be His physical body, His repre- sentative. In other words we must become the substantial expression of God's personality. Father has always lived to become a man of God's personality, he endured great suffering to accomplish this. When we inherit these three qualities: absolute faith in God, the heart and love of God and God's personality we can claim to have inherited Father's character, and can then inherit his victorious foundation and become children of God. There is no other way to become true sons and daughters of God.
We often say we should love our True Parents and the True Children, but what does this mean? God wants us to love the True Family, this means we should inherit their faith, their heart and love and their personality. However well we serve them, if we don't inherit these three qualities we don't really love them. Many children say they love their parents, but follow a direction contrary to their wishes. That's not love. On the other hand a child may not live with his parents or serve them, but if he fulfills their desire for him, he truly loves his parents. Our True Parents don't want us to serve them, they want us-to become like them, men and women of strong faith who embody God's personality, heart and love. That's what they really want. So we must try to have absolute faith in God. This means having absolute faith in True Parents as well. We should also embody the heart and love of God. We cannot see the heart and love of God, that's why True Parents are here as His representatives.
History has been a constant struggle between good and evil. There are plenty of evil people on earth, but it's difficult to find good peo- ple. Actually until the Messiah appeared, there wasn't a single ab- solutely good person on earth. Of course God chose people to work with, but they weren't completely good. They were relatively good compared to evil people, but not absolutely good. God has carried out His providence with such people. The world is divided into good and evil. Good is represented by the Free World and evil by Communism. The Communist world is an evil world, it is absolutely evil. But we cannot say that the Free World is absolutely good. There is much evil in the Free World. Moreover, how did the Free World respond to the Messiah? It persecuted and opposed him. In this respect the Free World is evil, so how can we say that the Free World represents the side of goodness? There is only one reason. We are free to worship God in the Free World, on this condition the Free World can stand on God's side, the side of goodness.
God is absolute goodness. Thus to side with God brings one to the side of goodness. The priests and scribes thought they were good people when they caused Jesus to be crucified. Even though they may have read God's words and observed the Mosaic law all of their lives, they moved to the side of evil when they persecuted Jesus, the embodiment of perfect goodness. We should also consider the thief on Jesus' right. He had lived an evil life, but when he testified to Jesus' innocence he moved to the side of goodness. Therefore whether we side with Satan or with God and the Messiah determines whether we are good or evil, not the small things we do. Do you see? There is much evil and corruption in the Free World, but we can worship God and spread His words, God's people can work freely. Thus the Free World is on God's side.
Sometimes we say that non-members do much more charity work than we do, helping the poor and many other good things. But when we observe our members situation, we can't help others so much, we are too busy doing our work. When we compare we may think, "Maybe non-members are better than us." But this isn't true. This is a humanistic viewpoint. We work side by side with the embodiment of absolute goodness, our True Parents; this alone enables us to claim we are more valuable. We are helping God fulfill His providence by supporting His representative, the Messiah. Working with the Messiah or opposing him is what determines whether we are good or evil. Small things don't matter so much. We should learn this lesson from the good thief. When God judges us His main criterion is whether we support True Parents or not. We should be proud of working with True Parents and confident that we are helping accomplish God's will on earth. This make us valuable and gives us qualifications of goodness.
We work for God and follow True Parents, but things would be much better if we improved. God wants us to do more than just work with True Parents. He wants us to improve our personality, He needs people who can be an example to the world. This is why He asks so much of us. We must become one with True Parents, inheriting their personality and God's heart and love. Then we will be free to inherit True Parents' victorious foundation and no one will be able to accuse us. We will be victors over Satan.
Children's Day is three days away, the 24th. When we celebrate Children's Day we should ask ourselves how close we are to being children of God and True Parents. In the truest sense only true children can celebrate Children's Day. It isn't just a day of com- memoration, but a day to celebrate being children of God and True Parents. So this is a chance to examine how much we have become children of God and True Parents. If we are distant from the standard we must make more effort to come closer. We should ask ourselves, "In what ways am I lacking?" We need to know this. We are all different, so each of us must discover where we are lacking and make up for our shortcomings. We must all become children of God so that Children's Day becomes our Children's Day. Children's Day is a day for true children to celebrate, not fallen people. We don't want to celebrate someone else's Children's Day, but our own. The first Children's Day was proclaimed in 1961, 23 years have passed since then. We long to celebrate the glory of being true children of God and True Parents ourselves.
Let us pray:
Our loving Heavenly Father, you have clearly shown us how to become true sons and daughters. Without becoming your true children we cannot establish true happiness, true peace and your true ideal on this earth. You created man as your true child, but because of our loss of faith and our separation from you we couldn't fulfill your hope for us. We must restore all that was lost in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve lost faith in you, we must restore this by having absolute faith in you. Then we can restore your heart and love. Man separated from you due to lack of faith. When we restore our faith we can return to you and learn your love and heart. Father, we should also inherit your personality through our daily life. By contacting many people we can remove our fallen nature as we learn how to love and serve others. You want us to live together as one family in our centers. We are grateful for this opportunity to discover our strengths and weaknesses. Then we can develop our strengths, overcome our weaknesses and inherit your heart, love and personality thereby becoming your true children.
We will celebrate another Children's Day soon. We celebrate this day every year, Father. But we don't want to celebrate it as someone else's Children's Day. We want to make it our own celebration by becoming your true children. When we do this we can truly celebrate this day as our own. You want the Holy Days to be for each of us. We must inherit God's Day, Parents' Day Children's Day and the Day of All Things for ourselves, making them our days. Then we will be victors and can inherit the foundation our True Parents laid for us, thus becoming your true children and returning Joy to you.
Father, we want to be pious children and make you happy. We can only be happy when you are happy. You want to see all people living in happiness and peace. We want to realize your ideal world on earth, Father. We must work hard by your side till that day dawns on earth. We pray especially for our True Father in Danbury. He is suffering for us. When we become true children, our True Parents will be liberated from their burden. We want to free our Father and Mother. We ask you to protect them and be with them always.
We pray all this in the name of our True Parents. Amen.