Excerpted from a sermon given by Rev. Hwang on October 22 at the Headquarters Church in Seoul.

Looking back over our career of faith, we have gone through many courses. We moved from being in the position of belonging to the realm of non-Principle to that of the Principle by our joining the church. As God's word created this world, we, the living dead, have been being recreated by the new word since the day we joined.

I have two children. Although my wife and I had tried to have more children and never even used birth control, it seemed two children was my fortune. Of course, I was not dissatisfied with our two, and there was some limit anyway, as the children came through Caesarean operations. I did want to have one more, if possible, but almost ten years have passed. A few months ago during a morning hoon dok meeting, Father suddenly asked, "How many children do you have, Rev. Hwang?" "Two," I replied. "Why only two?" "Father, you just gave me two, didn't you?" Then Father said, "You must make more!"

Honestly speaking, I didn't pay much attention to what he'd said, because I hadn't had any news of that type for more than a decade. Amazingly, however, my wife had news for me a week after I had that conversation with Father. We are now expecting our third baby. (Applause)

When I was still young, after the blessing, I had babies without knowing the significance of birth. But now, I can feel how great and mysterious life is.

Just as our bodies become independent and substantial through birth, our spiritual bodies and lives are being formed through our life of faith in the church-through such activities as witnessing and fasting conditions. Then, through the blessing, we are born again.

Blessing means rebirth, being born again as a new life. Moved from the realm of non-Principle to that of Principle, we were born as a new independent life through the blessing. After the blessing we are not asked about our previous life, because it has been completely redeemed.

At one of the registration blessing workshops at Chung Pyung, True Father called one person. Personally I had never heard of him. But he was working very close to Father a long time ago. He was so close to Father that non-members mistakenly thought he was the elder son of Rev. Moon. Father suddenly wanted to see that man. Even though he had been a hard-working member in the old days, he had divorced the woman he was blessed to and married another woman.

Fortunately, he came to Father and bowed to him. Father remembered the name of his original wife and, looking at this man directly, asked him about her. The man spoke honestly, saying that he had divorced her and was living with another woman. Father was very calm and said with seriousness, "Return to your blessed wife and come together here for the twenty-one day workshop. Receive the blessing again. This is the last chance for me, as the True Parent, to redeem all your mistakes and sins. Once you receive the registration blessing, you become the fourth Adam and should live independently as a resident of Heaven." Later, True Father instructed us to bring all the blessed families who have left the movement to this last blessing to restore their original position.

From this recent story, we can feel how important this time is as a great turning point and how great the value of the registration blessing is. Please think about what our attitude should be during this time. True Father gave us three directions. First, Father told us to maintain our original heart and faith. We cannot become citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom if we have a different attitude and faith in the evening from that of the morning. We must recover the inspiration we had when we joined and were blessed. Suppose that we are thirsty and languishing for the Kingdom of Heaven, and that we meet True Parents under such circumstances. We should long for the feeling of appreciating True Parents as the ones who have fulfilled that dream.

I started my public course in the city of Taejeon. One day I witnessed to a young man whose father ran a Chinese restaurant. Very much inspired, he began a seven-day fast. On the third day, he went back home. His father saw how weak and skinny he'd become. The son had not said anything about the church to his father. The father ordered the son to eat; the son refused. Finally he brought Chinese noodles and forced them into his son's mouth while he was taking a nap. The young man arrived back at the church and cried bitterly. Humorous as it may seem now, it was very serious at the time. Having failed in the fast after three days, he began the seven-day fast again immediately. I guess we've all had experiences of determination like that when we were younger. Are we still as inspired as we used to be? We need to return to the morning of our faith.

Father next asked us to develop more heavenly habits in our daily lives. True Father warned that the Kingdom of Heaven will not come in an environment of satanic habits. That means the Kingdom of Heaven will appear when we are able to overcome the satanic environment, for Satan lives where bad habits abound. Therefore, Father said that we have to live a life of unselfish habits.

How can we express our faith? Through gratitude. Recently, True Parents often encouraged us to have a heart of gratitude. Do you really understand how precious our life is? Please think about the world we're living in. On the outside everything appears normal, so we don't realize how deep the corruption really is. On any calm evening, when the world seems so fresh and clean, if we could trace a path deep into the heart of society we'd see how much corruption, juvenile delinquency, family breakdown and criminal activity is taking place. It's so much more serious than we imagine. People are surely suffering.

The third thing Father asked of us was from one of his favorite biblical quotations: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." (Luke 10:27) This also appears in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 6:5, and in Leviticus 19:18 we read, "Love your neighbor as yourself." These are the same things Jesus emphasized. There is no more precious a teaching than that which calls us to love God and to love others.

Summing all this up, we are being asked to rediscover our original faith and inspiration, live a heavenly way of life by practicing heavenly habits and to focus our energy on loving God and loving people.

These days, every time True Father ends a speech, he adds, "I have taught you everything you need to know. Even if I go to the spirit world now, no one can accuse me of not having taught you enough. I will watch from the spirit world when I go there." So everything we do will be recorded just as computer data is. Father said that he would watch us from the spirit world. It is almost frightening to think what will happen to us if we do not live righteously.

I'm sorry to bring up another story about my family, but last night I happened to read a book report my son had done. He wrote, "My sister reads a lot of [Korean author] Kwon Chung-sang's books. Everybody seems to know his books, but I don't know much about him. I am worried. What if my sister asks me all of a sudden if I know about him? I would really feel foolish. That's why I decided to read one of Mr. Kwon's books."

My son is only an elementary school student, in the fifth grade. He is worried about feeling embarrassed by his sister who is in her first year of middle school. It made me think about how ashamed I would feel if I go to the spirit world without having lived my life according to what Father has taught us. I think it applies to everyone here.

True Father often quotes the parable of the prodigal son. He tells us that he does not ask about our past. He wants to embrace us no matter what we have done in the past as long as we determine to start anew.

[Originally published in Today's World, October 2000]

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