I just came from Korea last night and I lost my voice, singing so much with the ministers. Thank you for coming to Sunday service. We pray that the message this morning will be a blessing to your soul. I would like to talk about faith today. I want to thank Rev. Lee and Rev. Schauffler for inviting me, and also Rev. Howell and Rev. Francis for leading this church into new development. I see Rev. Oliver and Rev. Anderson. Why are you sitting out there? The reverends should be sitting up here. I don’t know their capacity with the Washington Family Church. And Rev. Joe Taylor. I’ve been running around town with these guys, going church to church. They are real ministers of the gospel and they are doing tremendous work with Christian ministers.
The Christian family has really become our family. How many of you feel that? That’s great. We can change America with that spirit.
Robin Parker Musiol, my spiritual daughter, and her husband Ron Musiol, please stand up. I never can forget how I met Robin, in Texas. I always use it as a testimony about why you should follow Father’s direction. Father told us in Texas back in 1978 to do a series of public meetings during the Christmas season, during fund raising time. Patrick Hickey and I organized a five-city tour. The sixth city we had to do on our own because he had to go back to Houston and I was in Austin. I remember struggling so much because we only had three days left to do the extra event. It was the day after Christmas, and then I had to leave for New York.
I remember that feeling, just follow Father’s direction, so we went ahead and did a little event. We passed out leaflets the morning after Christmas and Robin Musiol came. That was really nice. She’s been a great blessing to our movement, so I’m really proud of her.
Rev. Schauffler asked me to mention something about Christian development, why I got connected to Christian development and work. Father directed us many years ago when we were church leaders to start having conferences for Christians. It began in the Bahamas, where we were ordained by Rev. Won Pil Kim. He held his hand over a whole group of regional directors and ordained us. I walked out of that hotel room as Rev. Mike Jenkins. That was all right. That really helped us at that conference because to walk around and not be a reverend with a conference full of ministers is not appropriate. That title kind of stuck with me. It didn’t stick on everybody else. I felt the calling of God to work with Christian ministers.
We had good experiences, as did all the regions, in the development of the work with Christian leaders. However, something happened in my life of faith that really impacted me very deeply. When we went on to the ACC mission, many of us were transferred from the church leadership to the ACC mission on January 1, 1987. It wasn’t too much longer after that we were doing some public event educating legislators, and the Chicago Tribune attacked us viciously. Big headline -- DePage elected officials linked to Moonies. It was front page, had a tremendous impact on the legislators.
We didn’t really know what to do exactly but we had some ministers that we worked with and we gathered them together, asked what can we do to address this problem? Then I learned something about the power of Christian leaders who really are serious about living a life connected with following the Bible. Many of the leaders that we gathered in Chicago were actually civil rights leaders and they knew what to do, and I was surprised. I didn’t know their power. Many of them had been in jail, many had been beaten, many had experienced death in their families or with their loved ones when they were marching with Dr. King, so in that context they have no fear. That was my first experience where I met Christians that really were willing to face death and really believed that if they faced evil, and even if they died facing evil, God would somehow bless them or resurrect them.
I know when we first marched on the Chicago Tribune, it was really an interesting experience because you separate the men from the boys very quickly when you’re going into a situation where you can be physically hurt, or where your character can be damaged by a bad news article. We had a rally in Rev. Tommy Watson’s Macedonia Baptist Church, and we had these civil rights leaders like A.I. Dunlap and Rev. Bevel and these guys. They knew what to do. About 35 people were at the rally.
We all jumped in cars and Rev. Bevel and Rev. Dunlap and three other ministers jumped in my car. We got down to the Tribune and somehow the other 30 got lost on the way, conveniently. I’ll never forget our first big charge on the Tribune. There was myself and one other minister picketing out front while Rev. Bevel and Rev. Dunlap were inside meeting the editor. That was a pretty humbling experience. But we didn’t give up.
That’s another power that we have as Unificationists. If you’re consistent and you’re really clear what you want to accomplish, God will bless your efforts if it’s in line with God’s will. If you’re consistent and you keep going forward, no matter what obstacle, no matter what sacrifice -- if you make up your mind and it’s within God’s realm of direction, you will be blessed. It’s 100 percent sure. That’s why Father always succeeds. So we didn’t give up.
We reorganized and we got more and we had to educate the ministers a lot about fighting. I had to be educated, too. I learned so much about loving your enemy in that battle. So it went on for about four months, and we worked our way up from the lowest little reporter all the way to every person involved with the article and we couldn’t get satisfaction anywhere. So finally we demanded to meet the publisher, Stanton Cooke. It was in that context that Cooke refused to meet us, so we began to try to work out a way to meet him.
The ministers said, okay, we’ve done everything we can. Now it’s time for civil disobedience. Then everybody got a little scared. What does that mean? It means we’re going to sit in on the Tribune until we get arrested. The ministers knew what to do, and they sat in. Sure enough, the police hauled them off while they were singing. It was quite a scene. But also with the ministers with their collars, I was moved, and so were the police because the police don’t like dealing with black ministers. It can mean a lot of trouble. So they kept asking the ministers, can’t we work this out some way? We don’t want to arrest you. Finally they put them in the paddy wagon, hauled them off. They’re singing. Rev. Dunlap was saying, "Oh, I’m going to jail again." Of course this kind of path to jail wasn’t as critical as when Rev. Dunlap’s house was bombed in Danville, VA, or even in Korea recently with this last week’s minister’s conference Rev. Reed and Rev. Dunlap testified. Rev. Dunlap was in Danville, VA when the Ku Klux Klan came after him. He was marching with about 100 young people. Most of the ministers and most of the adults won’t come out, so second generation, wherever you are, we may need to call on you to march because your parents have jobs, have homes, and they have reputations. Some of the parents will march, but at that time in Danville they wouldn’t march, hardly anybody.
So it was mostly young people behind Rev. Dunlap, mostly high school students that had that zeal, we can change the world. The Ku Klux Klan assembled in Danville, Virginia with their white hoods and white robes, and the leader had a machine gun. Rev. Dunlap said, I had an experience with God. You meet God in that circumstance when you risk your life. God has to appear. If you don’t risk your own situation, it’s very hard for God to come. Rev. Dunlap said God came into him and all of a sudden he quoted Psalms, "The Lord is my help in time of need, an ever present help in time of trouble." He cried out to the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, "You can kill my body but you can’t kill my soul. Go ahead and shoot me." And he just kept right on marching toward them. The head of the Klan was shaking, he was so upset, calling him all kinds of names, but somehow the spirit of God was there and the KKK parted and let the marchers through.
I do want to say to the second generation, you have power that the older generation doesn’t have, because of your innocence and purity. When second generation stands up and marches for righteousness, people know it’s not something like self-interest. It’s different than that because of your purity. So the KKK parted for the children and Rev. Dunlap.
Rev. Dunlap went to the KKK leader, a Mr. Smith who owned the brick company in Danville. Mr. Smith was so shocked to see Rev. Dunlap standing in his office. He said, "Mr Smith, our children need a new school. They’re deficient in math and science and we want to build a new school to educate them. I feel God calling me to ask you to donate 10,000 bricks." You know what? The next day a truck pulled up with 10,000 bricks.
So that’s why the Christian spirit and the Christian ministers and our providence to work together with our Christian family touched me so deeply. I saw it in these men and women of God. It’s real for them. They changed America. Our African-American brothers and sisters know. We don’t realize how bad it was and how bad it still is. What I mean is that when Mrs. Dunlap is standing at the Walmart and she has four university stickers on her car window, some white guy comes up and says, "Hey, lady, you must have bought that car used, right? Because I see all those college stickers on the back." Assuming that her four children didn’t graduate from college, which they did. That’s why I say even today the attitudes are very deep. That’s why our movement can heal that and wash away all the tears and sorrow now.
Back in the past, how bad it was in America. Do you really know how bad it was? I don’t. How can I? You know how as Unificationists it feels so bad to be discriminated against, denigrated because of your faith, but how about when you have nothing other than your appearance? I was sitting with my mother -- she and my dad were blessed at RFK in 1997. They were very antisocial toward our movement for a long time, but the grandchildren helped to reach them. My mother said to me, this thing you’re doing with black ministers is not so bad. I said, "Mom, did you ever think about what it was like in Dayton, Ohio, where we grew up?" She said, oh, there was no problem here. I asked her about what it was like when she went to the movie theater, where black people were sitting. She thought for a moment and said, oh, yes, when I was a little girl, black people couldn’t go through the same entrance as the white people. They had to buy their ticket at the side door and go up the side stairway into the balcony.
I said, how do you think that felt? How would you feel? She said, it got better. After a while they made it so all people could go in the front door. But if a white person came up, they always got to go in front of the black people. And African-Americans were arrested for fighting against that. This thing is very deep, and this is why the change of that attitude in America was not done by a civil rights movement. It was done by a Christian movement. Therefore, we have to reeducate the American people and we have to reeducate ourselves to understand what was the power of the King movement. I believe with all my heart Dr. King was raised up by God as a model for what we can do. He taught absolutely love your enemy, and he practiced it.
I read about how they had a seminar where they taught marchers, especially the young children, when you go up to the policeman with a club, look right in his eyes and say, I love you, because that’s what Jesus taught. Do you know what the theme of the King movement was? His theme was, let us redeem the soul of America. He saw himself as a Christian prophet. He saw himself as a Christian leader called by God out of unknown circumstances to preach and bring down the walls of evil. That’s what he did.
That’s why it was the practice of the Christian gospel that really caused the enemy to turn into a friend. When you love your enemy, when you return love for hate then there are people within the enemy’s ranks that are not really your enemy, are not really bad people. Therefore, if you love them then the good people emerge and the enemy divides. But if you hate them, the enemy stays galvanized. So we learned some of these things. That’s what we applied at the Tribune.
Finally Mr. Cooke was dragged into court. We subpoenaed him many, many times. He dodged every subpoena. Finally we got a subpoena that stuck. Then our lawyer and the other lawyers were talking. By the way, I was so naive. I was going into court, oh, it’s just a misdemeanor, they’ll drop it. I’m in court with all the ministers and I’m really excited. I get there and there are two guys looking like lawyers in their light brown camel overcoats. I walked over, "Are you with the Tribune?" "Yes." "Aren’t you going to drop the charges today?" "No, Mr. Cooke wants a conviction." I said to Bruce Sutchar, who works with us in Chicago, your friend, Don Kaplan, that lawyer friend you said you would call, did you call him? Yes, he did. So Don Kaplan did all our legal work for free.
Kaplan and the Tribune lawyers were talking, and finally what happened was they saw the arrest records of A.I. Dunlap and Rev. Sardon. They had over 230 arrests among the four ministers who were there are the Tribune. So they thought, these guys don’t care, man. We’re not going to crush them.
Also I saw how we don’t know how the institutions of our society, political and social, how vicious they are. They will kill you with bullets, and if they can’t, they will try to undercut you with character assassination, or they’ll try to compromise you with a bribe. One of our ministers was offered a job at the airport through the mayor. Rev. Bevel was called by James Squires, the editor of the Tribune, "Now Jim, you don’t know about Moon. We’ve got this big paper here, we know all about Moon. You’ve got a really nice history, but you’ve got some little dark spots in your history. Now you wouldn’t want us to bring all that out, would you? You shouldn’t walk with Moon."
And Jim said, bring it all out. I’d like to see what you’ve got on Moon because if he’s that bad, I want to be there to also throw rocks at him. That was his spirit. Finally the Tribune knew they couldn’t win, so they dropped the charges. Love was the main purpose of our visit anyway, to love them, to understand and to reconcile. So we sent them a Christmas card right then. Merry Christmas, Mr. Cooke. We mean no harm. We do not assume that you have ill intent, but we still want to meet you. A letter came back two days later. We’ll meet.
So we met with the publisher of the Tribune and everything turned around, including the word Moonie was thrown out. That’s why Christian ministers can change America. But they can’t do that just on their own. They need us. They need our movement.
Who are we anyway? What’s our identity as a people in history? What’s your personal identity right now? If they were to write the Bible years from now, how would you be identified as a Unificationist? How would your movement be identified? I believe it would be identified as the Third Israel. Do you see yourselves as the Third Israel? That’s who we are. We’re every bit as significant as the first Israel, and every bit as significant as the second Israel. Therefore, our calling is very significant.
However, like the first and second Israel it’s very easy for us to lose our identity. In the Old Testament you’ll see a lot of times where the first Israel lost its identity in the desert. After a while they got tired of the desert. The idea of going to the promised land, the land of milk and honey kind of got blurry. Then they started looking back at Egypt.
Has your vision of the land of milk and honey gotten blurry? Or is it crystal clear? Well, it’s time to make it crystal clear so it’s very much a part of your heart and your work. We’re coming out of the desert now, the desert era. The day after True Mother finished her national North American tour, April 19th, Father announced, we now have begun a new 40-year dispensation. You don’t usually hear that from him. He also said, we are entering an age of prosperity and an age of joy.
How will we achieve that age of prosperity? Will it just come down on us all of a sudden? If it comes through the lottery, will it really empower Israel to be a model for the Kingdom? The lottery is not a model for prosperity and wealth. Prosperity comes from giving, from sacrifice, living for others. If you live for others, you will be blessed. All these organizations that are here in Washington -- the Times, Summit Council, the True World group fish businesses, Women’s Federation, Coalition for Religious Freedom, Kirov Ballet, CARP, Atlantic Video, tribal messiahs, public relations outreach to embassies and Capitol Hill, World & I, World Media Association, New Hope Academy, Sunday school. Do you love each other? How much do you sacrifice for each other? How much do the members of one organization sacrifice for the others?
When somebody has need in any organization -- not just the church -- it shouldn’t be centered on the church only. It has to be centered on wherever there is a need. We should be the Third Israel. The number of Jews is small compared to the world’s population, but the Jewish people have a great spirit, and if you threaten them, you’re going to see the Jewish lawyers, see Bnai Brith, see the Jewish bankers, the merchants, and the rabbis, and even the most powerful thing in the Jewish community, the Jewish mother coming at you with a stick. You’d better not mess with Israel, man.
We need absolute faith, love and obedience. Let’s emphasize the absolute love for a while. The Times needs help. That battleship has torn down communism and done incredible things. We should love Mr. Joo, pray for him, sacrifice for him, die for him. You watch what happens to your organization. You will never lose. If the church sacrifices for the sake of others, it will prosper. I’m the church president and I want to give my donation today -- $400. If we continue to sacrifice for one another, we will prosper. It’s a law.
Therefore, I can see America rising so fast because I know the blessed couples in Washington are the senior couples that have been through the fires of the dispensation. You are here today and here to stay. Amen.
Joe and Debbie Taylor are doing a great job with ministerial outreach. We brought so many ministers to Korea. These ministers are very different than the past. They are receiving True Parents. The American Leadership Conference started the ball rolling. They are calling them True Father and True Mother. Something has happened where all of a sudden it broke through and the white ministers are starting to come, primarily from the Pentecostal side because they are more spiritual. But I wish you could have seen the bishops. Rev. Bennett from the mayor’s office here went to the Tree of Loyalty at Chungpyung and all of a sudden was overwhelmed with tears. He couldn’t leave. He realized, I’ve got to give all my loyalty to God. Then I can go to the Tree of All Things and get all kinds of blessing.
We had 70 percent black ministers, and 30 percent white and Hispanic. If you could have seen Rev. Jesse Edwards, the Pentecostal white minister, seen him preaching at the revival on Thursday night at the Segye Times. The Segye Times had never seen anything like this, believe me. But the ministers were moved to their soul. At the DMZ we prayed for peace. God has prepared leaders among the Christians who can move this nation, that have already been in the mainstream of moving God’s dispensation.
Dr. Hycel Taylor stood up and gave the declaration of freedom. He cried out, by what authority do we as clergy stand on this DMZ and proclaim that we’re going to tear this wall down? By what authority? I’ll tell you by what authority. The same authority that God gave Joshua when he marched on Jericho, that God gave David when he threw the stone at Goliath. The same authority He anointed Jesus with. That authority! We concluded with prayer and the ministers were just going crazy. Everybody got their own dove, which were released for peace.
Rev. York from Seattle had never remembered even one time that his father was shot during the Korean war and wounded, and it all of a sudden came over him and he started crying. We went to the freedom bridge where 12,000 American POWs were released at the end of the Korean War. We prayed at that bridge. After praying he looked up and saw thousands of spirit people running across the bridge, Korean refugees, women, children, men.
When Dr. Taylor finished his speech, he said, "Go down, Moses. Go down you black and white ministers. Go down, Moses and tell old Pharaoh in the North to let my Korean children go."
I’d like to conclude with reading Joshua, chapter 2, because we are the Third Israel, standing on the shores of the Jordan river, about to cross into Canaan. We are going to succeed and we are going to prosper, and learn from our ancestors and appreciate them and untangle the mistakes of their past, and also untangle our own.
"And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out two men to spy secretly, saying, ‘Go, view the land, even Jericho,’ and they went. And they came into the harlot’s house named Rahab and lodged there." It goes on, "She said unto the men, I know the Lord hath given you the land and that your terror is fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites. As soon as we heard these things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any more courage in any man in Jericho because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath."
When the two spies went into Canaan and spied upon Jericho, they thought, wow, Jericho is so big, so developed, so modern. We’ve just been living out in the desert, a little ragtag army. But when Rahab told them the truth, that there was no confidence in the people, they even trembled at hearing that Israel is coming. I tell you, Third Israel, the institutions of this world tremble at your coming. Stand up, blessed couples, and claim your inheritance. God has given whatever you will ask in faith, in prayer. It will come unto you. Try it. Amen. Thank you.