The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009 |
It's nice to be here in Taiwan. Actually I did not know I was going to be here in Taiwan but Parents made a special order for me to come to Taiwan this time. We are very happy to be here. We had time to be here, I think 3 years ago -- I was still bald then - we had a little time to come to Taiwan and talk to the members. Mother also came at that time. She was doing a speech tour here. So she was here and she was very happy I could talk a little bit of Chinese, although my Chinese is terrible now. I am in big trouble for tomorrow because I have to do that speech in Chinese. I am already stressed because of that!
You know for us it's very simple. True Parents asked us to take responsibility in a variety of areas. In fact for any of the areas of our responsibility, whether it be Unification Church, World Mission Department, UPF, Youth Federation, CARP, for any of these areas our purpose is the same. Our purpose is actually very simple, and is the same. And that purpose is for people to understand that True Parents are the Messiah and the returning Christ. Very simple!
So our purpose is not just to make people feel good. Our purpose is not just to make networks and contacts. Our purpose is to witness. Whatever we are doing in our lives, we have the privilege of being alive while True Parents are alive.
This is one of the problems that happened to our church. As we were in the formation stage, we were HSA-UWC, and we had to inherit the foundation of Christianity. And through that foundation, the Kingdom of Heaven could have been created in 7 years, Father said. That was the prophecy back then. But of course due to the failure of Christianity that did not happen and there were extensions on that providence. And so in 1993 Father opened up the Family Federation for World Peace. That was to now go beyond Christianity and to spread our network into different areas, politics and all sorts of different areas. And we did that. We did that for many years.
But you know, as I gave my speech when I was inaugurated as UPF Chairman, I told them very clearly, "We've been doing that kind of work, but the reality of it is that all that foundation has come from the blood and sweat and tears of not only True Parents but of the members of faith. So any of those activities that we've done, that came because of Japanese brothers and sisters' blood and sweat and tears." In fact I told them the reality of this situation. Even in the Korean church, every year the Korean church was subsidized $10 Million. Every year! All your churches in all your other different nations, as well, received subsidies from the Japanese church.
So we have to be very clear and honest about what foundation this is coming from. The reason we have to be honest about this is because it is coming from incredible faith, incredible faith! This kind of faith is unseen around the world because when you look at the history of the other churches in the Unification Movement around the world, only the Japanese church has been able, for 30 years, to continue to witness and continue to fund the entire world providence. Only the Japanese church!
And that reason is very simple, actually. It's not that complex, it's very simple! The Japanese church has been able to witness and be that successful but it could have been much more successful if it did not have the burden of funding all the other nations. It could be absolutely one of the biggest forces in Japan right now.
The reason why I can say that with confidence is because there are also other new religions in Japan like Sokagakai which is huge now, millions of believers. In the 1970s our Japanese church was bigger than them. We were bigger than them and we grew faster than them, we could witness more quickly than them, but due to our Japanese church having to burden this huge responsibility worldwide, they were not able to grow their church or invest in their church.
So, the Japanese members have continued to suffer but the Japanese church has not been able to grow. That reason is simple; it's not because it is Japan's fault. It is really our fault. All the other nations received from Japan. If we were able to create self-sufficiency, then all the other nations would have become more owners of their faith. At the same time the Japanese church could have had tremendous success and at this point it could probably be Cheon Il Guk while True Parents are alive.
I say that because any of the activities that we have done, we have to be very clear where this comes from. It comes from faith, and so in this final stage of perfection when Father says, "Put out the Unification Church name", we now put our symbol out. We don't hide it behind Family Federation, behind UPF or behind anything. We put up the Unification symbol and we put the Unification Church sign up very strongly. As you know, the World Temple will be done by February and on that building it's going to say very strong, right on the front, "Unification Church, Tong Il Kyo Hae"; boom, right up there. We're not beating around the bush! We are very straight forward with what we believe.
And in the Unification Church, which all these other activities are branches of, whether it be Women's Federation or UPF or anything else, we have one mission, and that mission is very clear. We have the mission to tell the world that Jesus Christ's mission has been completed by the returning Lord. That's our mission. The mission is not simply just to make friends.
When you look at the life of Jesus Christ, the mission of the Disciples was not just to make Jesus popular. It was to make people believe in Christ, to make people follow Jesus. That was the mission of an Apostle. And we can see the failures of the Apostles to do that to Jesus. They denied Christ, Peter denied him three times, even though Jesus gave him a big blessing. We can see that Judas Iscariot sold his faith in Jesus to get some money from some Roman guards. So we can see this big betrayal of faith towards the Messiah, Jesus Christ, while he was alive.
But the role of the Apostle was not to just take care of his own reputation. You see, the Disciples of Christ did that. They were embarrassed by what other people would think, or they were embarrassed about what society would think or they were embarrassed about Jesus, when they should actually have been proclaiming him.
So this is a very important thing for us to understand as leaders. We cannot be embarrassed about True Parents. We cannot be embarrassed by Divine Principle. We have to have strong faith, because there is only ONE Messiah that comes back, only one! And that is Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Aju! You see, that's the fundamental faith.
When you look at Jesus' life, when you actually study the Bible, you get a feeling of what kind of person Jesus was. Jesus is not a nice guy. He is not like the Dalai Lama! He is not nice! He is very angry; he screams a lot. In John Chapter 8 Jesus is up in the Temple, and starts criticizing them. He starts saying, "I am the light of the world." And he is criticizing the Jews and the Jews say, "How can you say that?" And he says to the Jews, "You are of your father the Devil!" He is basically saying, "You are Satan!" Then they say to Him, "Our father is not the Devil, our father is Abraham." And in John Chapter 8, Jesus says, "Before Abraham, I was!" How arrogant that looks! He looks insane, he's crazy! This crazy 30 year old self-proclaimed Messiah is running around and ruining other religions, walking in their temples and calling them Satan; He looks insane, you see!
But we have to understand that, at the time, when people looked at Jesus they could not accept him as Christ because they did not understand; they had the wrong expectation. I'll tell you why. The Jewish expectation for the Messiah was that he would come from the line of David and that he would actually unite the tribes of Israel and that he would usher in a new era of peace. This was actually what they were expecting. When you look at the messianic expectations of the Jewish communities, this is what they were expecting. They were expecting the messiah to bring peace! But this is wrong. This is a wrong expectation!
The Messiah does not come to bring peace. This is what our members also forget. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus says, "I come not to bring peace; I come to bring a sword!" It's totally the opposite of what Jewish people thought! It's totally the opposite of what normal people thought! "I thought the messiah is going to bring peace to this world!" No! He is going to bring a sword. It's totally the opposite!
So the Messiah comes to bring a sword. What is he going to do with that sword? He is going to cut off our false lineage; he is going to cut off our false life and false love that was inherited from Satan. That's what he comes to do. He comes to bring the sword. The people of Israel wanted somebody that was going to bring world peace and they got Jesus who was so challenging! He is getting up in people's face; he is calling them Satan, and is calling them devils. He is so opposite to what they thought! But this is how we must understand the messiah.
One of the big problems in our movement is that we have brought a lot of VIPs and guests to events. We have explained True Parents as great patriots of Korea, great peace activists, great moguls of peace, and then they come to the event. And Father is on stage; he will be screaming. Sometimes he will say, "You are Satan! All of you have Satan's blood!" Then he will talk about the sexual organ and absolute sex, all this kind of stuff, and they are thinking, "What is this?" They are thinking, "I was expecting a patriot, some kind of politician, somebody who will come up there and say nice words and encourage people and say, 'Let's fight for peace' ".
That's not the Messiah. You see, by explaining True Parents as that kind of person, a patriot or an activist, we are not expressing who he is and this is a fundamental problem because we are hiding his identity, and because we are hiding his identity, people can't understand why he is acting like that.
But, when we witness to people we tell them, "Father is the Messiah. He is the returning Christ. When you go to his event -- if you come this time -- don't expect to be encouraged. You're going to be yelled at, you're probably going to be called Satan. You'd better expect that because he is the Messiah... Look at the story of Jesus!" and we always explain to them the story of Jesus, "Look at Jesus. He did not come to tell people good words. He came to challenge them, to declare that the Kingdom of God has come, to declare that they are of their father the Devil, to declare that they have to change from their wicked ways and repent. This is what the Messiah comes to do."
And so when you come to understand True Father as the Messiah, when you describe to VIPs that he is the Messiah, and when you explain also how Jesus acts, then when they see True Father talking like that, they have their spiritual eyes open. So because their spiritual eyes are open, they see Father and they say, "Oh! Yes, that's what Jesus would do! That's what he is doing. He's up there." You can look past what you see in front of your eyes, you can open your spiritual eyes and see that this man really loves God; this man is crazy for God. This man wants to save the world. You can start seeing that. You see, but that only comes when you are able to open your eyes of faith.
So this is one of the things that our movement has not done very strongly. We've been very weak on this for a decade or so. And I understand that there is a process. We had to make networks and contacts. But now, brothers and sisters, this is the final stage. We are not here to make just contacts. We are here to make victory for the returning Christ, for the Messiah of all humanity.
And we are here to declare his name, and we are here to declare that True Parents are the Messiah because this is what Apostles must do and this is what as Unificationists we must do and as leaders -- if you are leaders in your different areas -- this is what you must do. This is our responsibility, not only to ourselves, not only to the Movement, not only to True Parents and God, but to all our ancestors and all our descendants because this is the one time that all the ancestors have been waiting for to experience, such a time when the Messiah is actually here. All the descendants will look back at this time because the Messiah was actually here.
But the question is, "Were the Disciples faithful? Did they declare the truth of Christ or did they watch their reputations and were shy? Where they scared like Peter? Or were they like Judas who actually betrayed the Messiah?" You see, we have to be very clear about what we are doing. You know, we have to be very clear. We are not here just to gather VIPs together and tell them, "Hey! We are not that crazy!" That's' not our point.
We are here to teach them that True Father, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, is the Messiah; that he is the person that God has prepared as His only son and that he is the one that the whole world, all the religions, and all history have been waiting for.
And this kind of faith is very important because without this kind of faith the spiritual world will not help you in your activities, absolutely will not. It won't help you and neither will the blessing of True Parents come into your region. Only with strong faith, with the foundation of faith, does the foundation of substance arise. So that's why it's so important for us to return back to faith, return back to that faith in True Parents.
We hear many people and many groups that have split off; that say that True Parents are not of their thinking. "True Father is too old or True Mother has failed her mission." That's what some of these groups say, like Nakayama. But if you actually think about it, those groups have no future, because there's only one True Parents. Nobody else is True Parents. There's only ONE Messiah. And if you understand the severity of that, then you understand how incredibly privileged you are, but also the incredible weight of responsibility we have. It's a huge weight of responsibility!
You know, Father has asked us to take responsibility for different organizations but for us the purpose is the same. I don't care what it is! It can be UPF, World Mission Department or Youth Federation. I don't care! For me it's the same purpose, and that is to declare that True Parents are the Messiah. That simple!
When we meet VIPs, when we meet people, we tell them very straight, "True Father is the Messiah! Aren't you delighted that he came to Korea? We are so blessed!" What are they going to say? They're going to say that I am crazy? So what? I don't care!
They're going to say I am crazy? They're going to say that the Unification Church is crazy? Then you have to call all the other religions crazy. Why is us believing in True Parents crazy and believing in a Middle Eastern man named Jesus as God -- not only the SON of God, as GOD -- why is THAT not crazy? We are actually more rational, our theology is more rational. If you call us crazy, then you have to call all Christians crazy. All Muslims are crazy then. You have to call everybody crazy then.
So, for us it's better to be honest. We found the only way to really be able to touch somebody's heart and make them a believer in True Parents, make them serve True Parents as the Messiah is to be honest. Because you know what we found? All the people who are associated with us, as soon as they find out that we are somehow connected with the Unification Church, they look up on the internet and they find exactly what we think. They find out that we all believe that Rev. Moon is the Messiah. So there's no need in hiding it. They can find it on the internet today if they want. There is no need to hide it.
In fact we have to be more confident than that. For us it's much better just to be honest, and upfront, "This is what we believe, this is what Unificationists believe. We are very proud, we are very happy about that." We have nothing to hide. We are very proud of our faith, and it is our democratic right to believe in our religion.
Human rights violations have been put against us in Japan, for example. You all have heard probably about the kidnappings and the forced confinements in Japan. Big problem, big human rights' issue that's going to become bigger! We are going to keep making that bigger. I had lunch with the top 12 newspapers in Korea just before I came here yesterday, and we told them about that issue. It's a big issue. It's a human rights' violation against the Unification Church.
You may have heard the reports, but I am sure, slowly your regions will hear more about it. We will be fighting against these human rights violations. We are going to be suing the Japanese government and the different people, Christian ministers and different Communist lawyers who have been perpetrating these illegal acts.
So, in this time of great immediacy, in this time of great importance and in this time when our brothers' and sisters' rights have been stripped because they are Unificationists, it really is a sin, it really is spitting in their face if we say, "We don't need the Unification Church, and we don't need religion." I hear this kind of language all the time and frankly, if you think about it, it's not really that intelligent, because we can say that about anything. "Father didn't come to create the Unification Church!" Well Father did not come to create a political party, neither did he come to make a school like Sun Moon University; neither did he come to make any other thing. We can say that about anything.
We can also say that in the Garden of Eden there is no religion. OK, in the Garden of Eden there is also no universities, in the Garden of Eden there is also no political parties, in the Garden of Eden there is no Federation for Peace. It's already all done. We can all live in God's dominion. We understand that. But that's not the point. The point is that the world right now is NOT the Garden of Eden. That's why we need different organizations to move the world into the Garden of Eden, to create the Kingdom.
And that's why we have to be proud of the Unification Church and of our faith as Unificationists. Why? Because that is fundamentally the reason why we are here. That is fundamentally the purpose of our existence, of anything that's connected. Because of that we have discovered in our own personal lives that Reverend Moon is the Messiah; that he has come to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ, that he is the returning Lord that and he is the Lord that all religions have been waiting for.
If we hear that and something on the inside of us is delighted and happy and excited, then we have faith. If we hear that and say, "Oh! If other people hear that, they may think I am a little weird" then our faith is weak. Then we have to assess our faith and we have to strengthen our faith and we have to grow our faith.
You see, the reason why the Japanese church has grown until now and continues to make tremendous sacrifice for the whole world is because the Japanese members have incredible faith. It's not because they are super human beings. They are human beings like you and me, but their faith is way above ours. This is the difference -- totally above us -- and I can say that with utter confidence because I have met those families.
I met one family for example with a couple of children in one small apartment. They donated everything, everything they had. They had a big mansion; they sold it to give to the world providence. They were very rich. They sold their cars. All the education funds that they prepared for their children; they sold that to support the providence. Even their health insurance! This one lady, she sold even her health insurance so she could participate in serving True Parents.
Where else in the world do our members have faith like that? In fact when Father has a new project everybody is just rolling their eyes and saying, "Oh my God! I don't want to pay for that!" and the Japanese members do it again. That's the difference in faith, brothers and sisters.
And that's why when we see those brothers and sisters, they really are like our mother. We have to bow down to them because they have true faith. That's the reason why the Japanese church has succeeded even though it has been persecuted, and that's why it continues to succeed.
In the month of October, using the direct witnessing method, which is the method where we declare that we are the Unification Church and that Reverend Moon is the founder, the Japanese church witnessed to 3,609 people. One month! One month!
In the Korean church even in 30 years we could not witness to 3,609 people. 30 years! But in one month, they witnessed to 3,609 people! Think about that! Declaring True Parents, declaring the Unification Church, declaring that Reverend Moon is the Messiah 3,609 people.
And Japan is actually a greater economic power than Korea, Taiwan, most of your nations, right? So they have a higher economic strength, are a greater superpower, and the level of education of these people that were witnessed to are all quite high. So it's not because they are fools that they joined the church! No! It's because they are totally inspired, not only by Rev. Moon or by the Principle but by the people that are teaching it. You see, in the end, witnessing is done by people, and witnessing is victorious only when the people who are witnessing have a phenomenal faith. That is the only way that the Holy Spirit can move.
When you hear a person who is just teaching the Principle because they HAVE TO do it, or on the other hand you hear somebody whose life was saved because of the Principle, then when you hear the person whose life was saved because they found the Principle, there is an excitement there. You don't even know why you're excited. You just see that person and you're excited. Just like your life can be changed if you have a great biology teacher; you want to become a scientist all of a sudden although you actually wanted to study business or something. Same thing! Witnessing is like that. It's all about the level of faith the people have who are teaching it.
But when we came to the Korean church most of the leaders were saying to us, "We can't witness in Korea!" This was the attitude! This was the faith level! "We can't witness in Korea, nobody listens to the Divine Principle. We give it for free! We give it for free and nobody is listening!" This was the level of faith. Honestly speaking, that's quite a low faith. I don't know how you can consider yourself an Unificationist -- especially a leader in the Unification Movement - if you have that kind of faith.
And so, of course, with that attitude you cannot witness! I guarantee, you won't witness to anybody, because even if you tell me the content I won't believe that YOU actually believe it.
So we did not focus on who was a higher family, 36 couple or 72 couple or 6,000 couple. We did not focus on that. What we focused on was putting leaders who had faith into positions of leadership, leaders who had faith, who had the ability to inspire other people to have faith, inspire people to witness, people with real faith, who are really crazy about True Parents, like Mrs. Erikawa. Mrs. Erikawa is crazy about True Parents! I love her! She is crazy about True Parents! All she thinks about is True Parents, all day, all night. She runs around all day, all night with the Japanese and the Korean sisters -- all day all night -- just thinking, "True Parents, True Parents!" She is crazy about True Parents.
So we put a Japanese lady at the head of the Korean witnessing. The head of the Korean church, basically, is a Japanese woman! Not only is she a woman, but she is Japanese! And if you understand, in Korea that can be very insulting. You know Koreans are very prideful of their country. How can a Japanese person come here to Korea and tell us how to believe in True Parents? We are the Fatherland! We serve True Parents! But we put her in the top role for the women's witnessing group, and also above the witnessing department.
So we did not focus on whether or not the person is a higher couple, or this or that. That does not matter to us. She always says to me, "If Father says, 'do the Harakiri', I do the Harakiri!" You know the samurai thing? "If Father says, 'do that', I do it!"
But when we did that, many Korean members were saying, "That's crazy! Why you put that Japanese woman there? We don't like that! This is Korea! We Korean people can't even witness to Korean people. How is that Japanese woman going to witness to Korean people?"
This is wrong thinking. Why? It doesn't matter about race; it doesn't matter about nationality. It doesn't matter if you're white or black. It doesn't matter. Faith transcends all boundaries. If you see a person of real faith life, a person that has been completely transformed by True Parents, they are crazy about True Parents; when you see that faith, then you are inspired.
We have Goto-san, who is the person who was confined for 12 years in Japan. He came to Korea; he gave a speech at Mapo Church, the Headquarter Church. We had VIP's there. He was talking about all sorts of stuff. In his sermon, he was talking about how he was persecuted by the Christians for 12 years; his family were trying to convert him to Christianity, 12 years. But his faith is so strong that in spite of 12 years of hearing negative things about True Parents, and lies and terrible things about True Parents, 12 years, they could not break him. They could not break his faith, you see. He said that in the end he realized how great the truth is, and how he naturally subjugated his persecutors. And he realized that Christians could not live up to Jesus' teachings; and that Father's teaching was the greatest. And so we had VIP's there on that day because our services are open. Members always bring new people at the service then we put them into the witnessing process. We had new people, VIP's, at that sermon that he spoke at. Some of our ministers were worried, "Oh! They may hear too much, too much too quickly, you know. This guy might seem like an evangelist, some kind of fundamentalist Unificationist, too extreme."
So, some of our ministers asked some of those VIP's, "How did you feel about Goto-san's speech?" We were expecting maybe, "Oh! It's very intense. He's very strong." But they said, "I was completely inspired." Totally opposite! They said, "I was crying from beginning to end." And they said, "I want to sign a membership card today." Yes, we had that kind of spiritual phenomena happening. But why are they inspired, although he's Japanese; he's Unificationist? You know, people could see him as crazy. But why are they inspired? They see that kind of incredible faith.
And that's the reason why the Japanese church has been able to support the whole world because they have thousands of Goto-sans. Our brothers and sisters, their faith level is like that. He was tortured psychologically for 12 years but still, his love for True Parents was greater than that. That's how powerful his faith is. Most people break down in 3 months because they have such intense, everyday, 8 hours of brainwashing, of slandering True Parents, and all sorts of lies and terrible things; continuous bombarding. We have to understand that people are not inspired by people who are just trying to maintain their reputation. They're not going to become followers of True Parents if we're just trying to please them. We're not here to please the VIP's; we're not here to please anybody. We're here to make believers. We're here to make them believe in True Parents as the Messiah. That's very clear.
You see when you witness, you can't please people. Witnessing is not about pleasing people. Witnessing -- you have to challenge people. You have to challenge them. You have to sometimes make them angry. Yes, angry. Did you know that when Christian members who became disciples of True Parents, when they first heard the Principle, they were angry. "What! How can they say Jesus did not come to die? How can they say that?" Angry, very angry. "How can they say a Korean man is the messiah, this is crazy!" They were angry. But this is witnessing. We're not there to please people. We're there to tell them the truth, whether they like it or not. That's why the truth will set us free. That's why those people who really witness and testify to True Parents, they are those who are real believers; those are the real disciples of True Parents.
And in the end, brothers and sisters, I'm going to tell you this because I love you, and I'm going to tell you straight up. When you go in heaven, there's nothing else that matters when you go to spirit world. Your title, your position, my title, my position, means nothing. It's useless, waste. What matters when you go to spirit world, "Did you declare True Parents? Did you save souls? Did you bring people to True Parents, or did you try to protect your reputation?" That's a very important point we have to remember. When we die and we go to spirit world, our ancestors will judge us. They have waited for 2,000 years for the moment when the Messiah had come and you guys were there at the time and you didn't even tell anybody because you are worried about what people would think.
That's not how we're supposed to be. We have to have a stronger faith. We have to understand the spirit world. We have to understand True Parents' purpose, their mission. We have to declare that, testify to that, bring new people into that. This is the only way for our lives to have any meaning. Other than that, we have no meaning, no divine purpose. So if we understand this clearly, we can understand how exciting it is to be alive. So exciting! We can understand how amazing it is that we are able to be here. But we're not here to have a job, or have work. That's not our purpose. That cannot be our purpose. Our purpose is here to declare and glorify our True Parents. That's what we're here for. So for me it's very clear; for us it's very clear.
When Kook-jin meets VIP's -- he met all the top VIP's of Korea, the Head of Congress, the Secretary General, all those people, the head of the military, the head of CIA, everybody -- and whenever he meets them, he is very upfront, "Oh! Aren't you happy that the Messiah has come to your land of Korea?" And at first, they are like, a little, shocked by this. Some of them are shocked. But then, they say, "Oh! I guess I am. Yes, I guess I am."
You see, when we talk to people, we're very upfront. I just met the Buddhist monk, head of Taegu order, just a couple of weeks ago. I told him, "You know, we're so blessed to be in Korea. Korea is a prepared nation. This is the nation where the Messiah, the Savior has come. Isn't that incredible?" At first, he said like, "Hmm, yes, OK." At first, they don't get it; at first people don't get it when you say it. But the more you say it, the more they start to understand. "Oh, maybe it's true."
The more we are strong in our faith and tell people, that the Messiah has come... and we believe this not because we are stupid. We believe this because we studied theology; we believe this because we are actually very smart. Because if we look at Christian theology, you realize that it has no theology. It's so weak; the theology is so weak. When you look at Christian theology, for example, it cannot explain the Purpose of Creation. It cannot explain the Purpose of Man. It cannot explain the Divinity of God. It cannot explain how the kingdom can be created. It cannot explain how all these things are connected to the mission of Christ. They say they love Christ but they can't explain how everything is connected. You see, when you study Christian theology, what you realize is that, in Christian theology, God equals Jesus. Jesus, the Arab person, the middle-Eastern man that was walking around 2,000 years ago, is actually God. Anybody from the Christian background can agree with me, okay? He is actually God. He is not a human being; he is God, the God who created the universe and the stars and the fish in the sea, and the salt and the ocean, and the leaves in the tree, everything. That person walking around is God Almighty.
There's an old big problem with that when you've come to it theologically, very big problems with that. In the end they say Jesus is God, but God is unknowable. In the end they say He is a mystery. It's called the Seven Mysteries of Christ in the Catholic tradition, for example. They are the Mysteries of Christ. In the end, because we are sinners and we are fallen human beings, we cannot understand the divinity of God in Christian theology, if you study it. So, in the end, we cannot understand fully the nature of God, and thus, God is completely divided from humankind. And in the end, we cannot become like God. That's why they say, "Just believe, believe and you will be saved. Believe! Don't ask me questions. Believe."
When you study Christian theology, they can't explain how the kingdom will actually be created. They can't. What they say about it, in terms of the kingdom, is that when the Lord returns, we will be taken to the kingdom. And that's known as the Rapture theology. In Rapture theology, when Jesus returns, everybody who believes will be taken up into the sky. You know this theology, right? You've heard of this. Even if you're driving your car, if you profess Jesus, then, when he returns, you will be taken out of your car and you will go to heaven. Even people in the grave will come out and go to heaven. This is the level of how they explain how the kingdom will be created, or how we will be led to the kingdom. They cannot explain it. You see, Christian theology fundamentally is incomplete. It's self-admittedly incomplete. Why? Because it's a theology that is waiting for the return of Christ. It admits that it's incomplete; that's why they must wait for the Christ to complete it. So it actually admits that it is incomplete. Most Christians are unaware of this. You see, when you actually study different theologies, you understand how weak they are actually.
You see, only the Principle can explain these things, only the Principle. Father actually says that we can know the Divinity of God. The Divine God, His Divinity, is not unknowable; it is knowable. And Father defines what God's Divinity is. What is God's Divinity? It is true love. But then, he also defines what true love is. What is true love? True love is a parental love that is so powerful that it can even subjugate Satan, the worst Satan. So he defines God's essence, he defines what true love is. And then what was the Purpose of Creation? The Purpose of Creation was to inherit this love! Very simple! The Purpose of Creation was to inherit God's true love; not false love, true love. And then if Adam and Eve inherited that true love, they would have become the first ancestor. And then from them, their children will inherit true love, and that will become the first family, etc, to the tribe, nation, and world. And through that process of inheriting God's true love the kingdom of God on earth emerges.
See, only the Unification Principle can explain from the Divinity of God to the Purpose of Creation, to the process of building the kingdom, and how that is all tied to the Christ, who is supposed to redeem that. So, if we understand this, then we understand how powerful our theology is. It's so powerful compared to Christian theology! Christian theology for 2,000 years had brilliant thinkers like Aquinas, and Francis Assisi and all of those people who were great, brilliant theologians, great mystics like Teresa of Avila, etc. But still they could not answer these fundamental questions. Only the Principle reveals these truths. Our theology is so powerful. You see, if you actually study other religions, you understand how powerful the Divine Principle is.
The best way for young people like blessed children to understand the value of the Principle is to teach them Christian theology. As BC's, we didn't learn about the Bible, nor did we learn about what Christian's believe. We just learned the Principle so we don't have any benchmark or comparison why it's valuable. But what we're doing now from Headquarters Church is we're educating all the young blessed children in learning the Bible. Everybody is now learning the Bible first. So we start teaching the Bible to the elementary school kids in our Unification Church. We teach them Bible. We teach them 70% Bible, 30% Principle orientation. Then as they go to middle school / high school, we will switch that around, it's going to be 30% Bible, 70% Principle. But if you understand the Bible and you understand the Biblical stories and you understand God and you understand how Christians see Jesus, then you can understand how powerful the Principle is; how it answers the most fundamental questions that racked the minds of great saints in the Christian world. And then you can understand why the Unification Movement spread so rapidly, because it has God's Truth. It spread so rapidly because of the blessing of God, because the returning Christ has come.
I studied religion at Harvard; I studied world religions. I studied all the religions; most of the main religions we had to study. And in one of the classes on world religions, there is a section of new religions. And they cover many new religions, like the Hare Krishna, like the Soka Gakkai movement, or the Baha'i tradition that comes out of Islam. But they also cover the Unification Church. Yes! And guess what? The Unification Church is the most successful religion in history while the founder was here. The most successful; there is no other religion that has grown this rapidly and spread this far while the founder is alive.
You look at the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, he died in prison. You look at the Baha'i tradition, Baha'u'llah also died at a very advanced age in prison. You look at the ancient religions; Jesus died when he was 33. Buddha died when he was 80. He had about a couple thousand monks but still that was not a worldwide foundation. Islam; Mohammed entered into Mecca by force, in warfare. But still, that did not spread to the world during the time of the founder. Only True Parents made this kind of foundation while the founder is present; to make this kind of foundation is unseen.
Study religion, you'll find out. This is very important for us to understand. Because even if we look at True Parents with our physical eyes, they have done the impossible, absolutely have done the impossible. Impossible! Nobody can do this. Not even Jesus could do it. They have done the impossible, seriously. My teachers of religion also, they don't like True Parents, they may not agree with our teaching, but they could not deny that we're such a successful religion. You see? So, even if we look at True Parents with our physical eyes, they have done the impossible. But this is also the problem because we only see them with our physical eyes. This has been a big problem of our church.
When we taught about True Parents, when we introduce True Parents, we did not tell their real identity strongly. We did not go with the purpose of saving people's spiritual lives. For many years, we were into making associates, friends. Just saying Father is a great peace activist, great educator, that he did so much for world peace, did incredible things for the world, that he should win the Nobel Peace Prize. All that's great! But that is not True Father's true identity. His true identity is the Messiah! The Savior! The returning Christ! Aju! (Aju!) That is the truth. You see, if we cannot declare that, we're not being Unificationists. We're not being disciples of True Parents. We have to be able to declare this confidently. We can be confident. Why do we have to hide it? We don't have to hide it.
Well, every other religion does it, why do we have to hide it? I know a lot about other religions, they all do it. Why only we had to hide it? That's ridiculous. That's unfair. We want to declare too. Hiding is not refreshing. We want to declare too. We don't want this hiding, this is frustrating. We have to come out. Why do we have to hold in anything? We can declare True Parents. He is the Messiah. We can declare. Some KBS director was interviewing me. He asked me, "So, you know, you do a lot of peace work and inter-religious work, what are you trying to do there? Are you just trying to have inter-religious dialogue?" And I said to him very clearly, "True Father is the Messiah, my friend. Do you understand that? Do you know what that means? This is what it means. Every age has a prophet that God has sent. But in the final days, the highest truth will be revealed. That is who True Parents are. And all the religions have to understand that. We're not here just to make everybody happy. We're here because True Parents come as the central figure of all religions." I told him that. It's on the video.
Study religion. If you study the Baha'i tradition, for example, they say it, they declare it. Why do we as Unificationists have to hide it? The Baha'i tradition says Baha'u'llah is the messiah. That there's progressive revelation, and his is the highest truth. Of course, they say that after him there will come another one. There will come other ones in the new generation. My point is that we don't have to be shy about saying what we believe. There's nothing wrong about our faith. There's nothing we have to be ashamed of about believing in True Parents as the Messiah. Aju! There's nothing we should be ashamed of. And this kind of confidence is important because if you want to witness to people, if you want to save people, if you want to bring them to True Parents, if you want them to have eternal love and life and lineage, then we have to do it with this kind of heart.
You see, this has always been a big trouble for me because I studied the world religions. I had to learn to have a good understanding of the religious teachings of the world's religions, especially Buddhism and Christianity. That's where I focused on. So for me, I have a great respect for Buddhism. I have a great respect for Christianity, and I have a great respect for other religions. I love them actually; I lived with them. You know, I lived with Tibet monks for about a year and six months. I lived with Korean monks, I lived with Catholic priests. So, I lived with these communities. I love them. They're still my brothers. I still adore them.
They're still my friends. I still write them. So, for me, this was a very big blessing, but also a big problem. I tell you why it's a big problem. Because now I'm doing ministry, and True Father is giving me big roles to guide Unification Church and guide members' faith, but here I am, I've studied the world's religions, and when I look at the world's religions, then they have great teachings, incredible teachings. And when you study the world's religions, you can study the agape love of Christ, you know, incredible love. And Jesus defines the greatest type of love in John 15:13. Jesus speaks about the greatest type of love. What is the greatest love? The greatest type of love is the love that one lays down his life for his friends. It's the greatest type of love. That's known as the agape love in Christian theology; agape love, a great type of sacrificial love.
In Buddhism, you have the great Mahakaruna of the Buddha, compassion, so much compassion to save all sentient beings, not only human beings, also animal beings, microbial beings, all beings. Incredible Mahakaruna, okay? In Islam, you have the great devotional faith to love and have obedience to God, complete obedience to God, submission to God. We have great teachings of love in all the religions. So then, my big question is then, "So what is special about Unification Church love?" So we usually describe true love, everything centered on true love, but I ask many people, "I've studied all the religions, tell me why true love is greater than Jesus' love? Tell me why true love is greater than the Buddha's universal love? Tell me why true love is greater than Mohammed's type of love? Is it greater or is it the same? Is it equal or similar?" You see. This is a big theological question. If you study religion, you will wrestle with this question. You know, anybody who really studies religion has appreciation for other religions. You will wrestle with this question. Because when we describe true love, we say it's living for the sake of others. We say it can naturally subjugate Satan. And we say it's others centered love; others, not self-centered, but love centered on others.
We teach like that. This is what true love is. But then, how is that greater than the love of Jesus? He gave his life for his friends. He did everything. When we talk of true love as living for the sake of others, he did that. He did live for the sake of others. Jesus did that. Then we talk about subjugation of Satan. He did that. Then we talk about love centered on others. He did that. So then what we are teaching is no greater than what Jesus taught the world. So the question is then, why is our true love greater than these other teachings? Why do we try to claim that our true love will bring all the other religions to a new level? If that's true, then how come we cannot explain why our true love is so much more advanced and greater than the love in other religions and why it will bring them to next level? This is a big problem for me because I'm a theologian and also I'm a scholar. I've studied religion and so I also have to be ministering and preaching for Unification members. So this is a very big problem for me, you know, this is a very big problem. Internally very difficult; could not find an answer here.
You know, so at that point then I let go, gave myself up. "I'm not going to answer this question. I can't answer this question alone." So at that time, I started praying more; more serious prayer, more serious prayer. Just a couple of days ago I met a reporter. We did an interview a year ago, then we met again this year, and he said, "You studied all the religions, Mr. Moon. You've studied all the religions. What makes you believe in Rev. Moon as the Messiah? You've studied the greatness of all the other religions, what makes you believe that Rev. Moon is the Messiah?" And I told him, "Look. That was a big question for me too. Yeah, you're right. I did study all the other religions. That was very difficult for me because I love the other religions. I have friends in other religions. I have friends who are Buddhist monks and priests, Catholic priests, and they're great companions to me, as well. They have helped me very much in my life. So it was always a question for me."
But then I told him, "I could not solve this problem. One day, I fell asleep, and then I had a dream. In that dream, I saw True Father in prison." We know that Father went to prison six times. We know that. We know about the helicopter accident, etc. Father, we know of course, was tortured in prison. He was beaten and stabbed and burned and electrocuted, etc., dumped in water, we know that, we can just see that. He worked in an ammonia-filled concentration camp, and all that kind of stuff. In the dream, True Father was in prison, but then at the same time, almost like a split screen, True Father was up in prison but at the same time, True Father was down here. His spirit was going into hell, into hell. And then he went into hell, and all the fallen people were being tortured, down there in the steam, being tortured. And big demons were ripping them and torturing them. And True Father then threw his spirit body and he said, "Don't touch these children. They are my children. I take responsibility. You take my soul, and you torture my soul but let these children go." Then when I awoke from that dream I came to some big realizations.
You see, in Christian theology there's something called the Apostle's Creed. That is the creed of the believers in Jesus. And in the Apostle's Creed it says that Jesus died for us, etc., to become the perfect sacrificial offering for us. That he was crucified and descended into hell. It says that Jesus descended into hell and was resurrected on the third day. You see? If you only see Jesus with your physical eyes, you will only see a middle-eastern Jewish man. That's all you will see, who was running around making trouble and who was crucified. That's all you will see. As a Christian, you have to open your spiritual eyes. And you have to accept that Jesus died for you. And that he went to hell for you. And that he was resurrected to show the power of God. When you open your spiritual eyes and see Jesus, then you can experience rebirth. That's called being reborn. When you open your spiritual eyes, "Jesus died for me, Oh!", then tears come and then you have a rebirth experience.
So if you are to truly understand Jesus' heart, as a Christian, you must open your spiritual eyes. Do you follow? In the same way, what I realized that day was that we only taught about True Parents with our physical eyes. We only taught that Father was in prison six times, that they had a miraculous helicopter accident, that they are great patriots and great peace activists. That's all with just the physical eyes. But we did not open our spiritual eyes. We did not see that every time when Father was imprisoned, he was imprisoned for our sake. He went to prison to die for us, for our family, our tribe, our nation, our society, our world, for cosmic sin; he paid all the indemnity of history. He gave up his life to indemnify all that sin and failure. In each one of the prisons Father was not only physically tortured but his spirit went into hell to save the souls of our ancestors and our souls. We have no chance to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no way that on our own strength we can indemnify the history of sin. True Parents as the Messiah and the true inheritors of God's essence, of His True Love, walked the path of the seven deaths and resurrections and they died for us not once, like Jesus, but over and over. They died again and died again and died again, giving their body, giving their soul, selling their spirit so that their children can one day enter the Kingdom of God.
I realized, "Oh my God! When True Parents say True Love and when we say True Love there is a big difference. All we hear when we hear True Love is, "live for the sake of others," or "other-centered love" -- that is all we know. But when they talk about True Love, they are talking about sacrificing their life, blood, spirit and soul for our sake, not just once, but over and over, dying and dying over and over, willingly going the path of death, willingly going to hell, so that one day we can enter into the eighth stage of God's direct dominion which we call Cheon Il Guk. Only if we open our spiritual eyes can we understand that the True Love that True Parents teach is the highest type of love that the world has ever known. This love is even greater than the agape love of Jesus because Jesus spoke of a love that will lay down one's life for one's friends; it is a horizontal great love, but it is not the parental love. Jesus inherited the greatest type of love that a single man can inherit. He was not a parent, so he inherited the great love that can sacrifice and die for the friends. That's how he described it.
But True Parents would not only lay down their life for their friend, they would lay down their life and soul and spirit over and over and over. They would willingly die again and again so that the children could have eternal life. When I realized that, I realized, "My God! What True Father has lived and what the victory of True Parents is, is the greatest love that the world will ever know. This IS the greatest type of love, greater than the agape love of Christ, greater than the great Mahakaruna the Buddha, greater than the great obedient love of Mohammed to Allah; this is the greatest, this is the center, the parental heart." So when I had that kind of experience, then my faith completely changed. People say I preach so differently now. It is said in the Bible that when you are reborn in Christ you are made a new creature… a new creation. People say, "Hyung Jin, you became a new creature, a new creature!" I feel different.
As somebody who studied religions I could not answer why are we really greater than other religions. Many people in our movement made that conclusion which is, basically, that all religions are the same. "We fundamentally teach the same thing." We got to that level, basically, and that is why we were not declaring True Parents. We got to such a level of relativity that we lost the value of True Parents.
As someone who studied religion and can compare them, after this kind of experience, when I saw True Parents, it felt totally different because now I could at least get a sense of what kind of love they lived with, what kind of True Love they sacrificed with, what a parental heart is, what True Love is. I could start sensing, I could start feeling at least a little bit of what kind of love this was. I could imagine them going into hell crying and sacrificing their soul and being ripped and torn and being eaten by evil spirits and being tortured so that we could be free from that. Not only once they would go into that terrible place; they would go over and over so that our families and our children could be saved. When you start feeling this kind of parental love, then you can understand; slowly you can start feeling how great the parental love is. It is not just like when we say "living for the sake of others" and clean up a little street here, clean there. That is not the level we are talking about when we talk about the seven deaths. Even though you die for the sake of the children, you die again, you die again, you willingly die, for the sake of the children. THIS is the type of love we are talking about.
This is the phenomenal achievement of True Parents. This is why we call them True Parents. This is why they are the center of the entire Kingdom of God. This is why without True Parents there is no Cheon Il Guk. Only with True Parents is there Cheon Il Guk. Only with the Messiah is there the Kingdom of God. Only with the Messiah who comes as the Adam, the returning Christ, will the purpose of creation be fulfilled and the Kingdom of Heaven will be achieved; only with the Messiah. That is why we are called -- as people who believe in the Messiah -- to testify on his behalf, to believe in him, to create that powerful foundation of faith that leads to the foundation of substance.
This is why for us it is very simple. Any organization -- I do not care which one it is -- if True Parents founded it, it has one purpose -- that is to glorify True Parents. That is the purpose of that organization. I do not care what it is. It has a purpose to glorify True Parents, to testify on behalf of the returning Christ, and to announce to the world that Jesus' mission is being fulfilled, that God is being liberated, and that the True Parents of all humankind have come. This is why it is exciting to be a Unification Church member! Very exciting! It is not embarrassing! It is not shy! It is exciting because we have the Messiah. We have the truth.
So for us, when we bring VIPs to Father's events, we make sure that they get the education that they are going to meet the Messiah. "You are not going to meet a patriot, not going to meet a politician, not going to meet a great peace activist. You are going to meet the Messiah! You better come ready! You better have prayed before you come! You better have repented! You had better come ready! I do not care who you are; you can be president of the universe. I do not care who you are. This is the Messiah! When you come, you are coming to see the Messiah! You probably will be challenged! You probably will be cursed! You probably will be told you are Satan's child, which Father says a lot! But, if you accept who this person is, if you understand what mission this person has, then you will understand why he is saying that thing and you will understand why Jesus said the same thing because they are not here to please you. They are not here to give you happy, happy news. They are here to tell you, 'You better serve God. You better cut yourself off from Satan's lineage.' That is what the Messiah comes to do."
So we want to be proud of who we are. We want to be proud Unificationists; no more closet Unificationism! You know closet Unificationism? Do you know that term? It means hiding your faith. We do not want to hide any more. Of course in certain areas like China and so forth, we have to be smart; do not be foolish! What I am saying is that we have to be able to declare our faith. That is actually the only way we defeat communism. If you are talking about China, the only way you really defeat that kind of persecution is by declaring your faith. That is the way Falun Gong has made a big problem for China because they stayed very strong, "This is our religion; you're persecuting our religion." They made a big issue all around the world. "China is bad, oppressive. It is condemning religion." This made a big problem for China, a big, big problem.
The only way we defeat evil is by goodness. The only way you defeat oppression and falseness is by truth and, the only way we are truthful as Unificationists is by declaring True Parents as the Lord and witnessing and bringing new people to believe in True Parents as the Lord and Savior of humanity! Aju!
I pray that you become believers, brothers and sisters, people who are building the Foundation of Faith because it is only the Foundation of Faith upon which the Foundation of Substance will come. We cannot pray for the substance without the faith. We need the faith. We need to once again return to our faith. We are not closet Unificationists. We have no reason to be shy as Unificationists, no reason to think we are crazy because we are an Unificationist. Why do you have to believe that? Why do you have to believe you are crazy? Because you believe Reverend Moon? You do not have to believe that; that is crazy. THAT is crazy.
You can be proud of your religion. You can understand that that is your democratic right. Nobody can take that away from you. This is the modern world prepared to proclaim the Messiah. The nations protect us; they are supposed to. Only when we are confident and declare, only when we are strong with our faith, will people listen to us, will people be moved by our faith, will people come to receive True Parents not just as, "I believe he is a great leader…" -- no, but "I believe he is my Messiah and Savior and I believe that through Him, through True Parents, I receive True Love and life and lineage, and I have been asked and given a great mission: the blessing to be able to live on His behalf, to live on their behalf, to serve them, and to declare them." Brothers and sisters, that is the greatest blessing you have in your life; me too! The greatest blessing we have is that we have the blessing to declare the Messiah when he is here. There is no other blessing greater than that.
Look at all of history. There is nothing greater than that blessing. If you really understand how powerful that blessing is, then you will understand how exciting it is to be an Unificationist! How joyful it is to be able to walk the path of sacrifice for True Parents -- it is absolute joy! He who lives for his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will what? Will gain it, as Christ says. So this is why we have to return back to our faith. We have to remember our faith once again. We do not want to become quasi-Unificationists, you know, relativized Unificationists. We want to be real Unificationists. We are proud of True Parents, believe in True Parents, wish to serve and to testify and to witness on behalf of True Parents. Only when you do this, I tell you, will the VIPs that you know and the people you are connected to, will they finally understand True Parents. Only through that lens and that spiritual eye can you understand why True Father acts the way he does, why he, until this day -- he is 90 years old and still does 16 hour Hoon Dok Haes -- why he is everyday on the front line witnessing about God. He is witnessing every day! Did you know that? Father is 90 years old, he is the Messiah and he is still witnessing to God.
We have many members in the world saying, "Why do we have to witness? We did not witness for 30 years. Why do we have to witness?" This is not right. We are making FATHER witness. He is 90 years old! That is not filial piety. WE have to do that. Because we do not declare True Parents as the Messiah, HE has to do it. Do you see what I mean? This is a problem.
I met the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama does not say to me, "I am the Buddhisatva Agalatishwala." Do you know that in Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama IS the Buddhisatva Agalatishwala? That means he is Gung I Busa! He is Gung I Busa because in Tibetan Buddhism Gung I Busa is actually the male figure, Nan-sung man. Dalai Lama is the incarnation of the Buddhisatva Agalatishwala. He is a perfected being. Do you understand what a Buddhisatva is in Buddhism? That is basically a perfected being. Totally perfect; flawless. He can reach enlightenment if he wants but stays back to save others first. Basically he is a flawless, perfect, perfected being. Did you know that in Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is that deity? Did you know that?
But do you hear Dalai Lama saying, "I am Buddhisatva Agalatishwala"? Do you know why he does not say that? I know many Tibetan Buddhists. You know why Dalai Lama does not have to say that? Because every Tibetan Buddhist will tell you! Every Tibetan Buddhist tells you he is the Cheon Il Zik! So they are witnessing for the Dalai Lama on his behalf. THEY are telling people he is the Buddhisatva Agalatishwala. HE doesn't have to do it. But in our church, what happened? We are not doing that, and Father has to do it. That is not filial piety. It is the opposite. We have to be filial pious children. We have to sacrifice our neck, sacrifice our reputation for our Parents. We should do that; we can do that. I can do it.
I meet outside people all the time. I do not care what they think. I tell them, "Aren't you happy the Messiah has come to Korea? Amazing! We are blessed! Wow!" Then they say, "Hmmm. Yes, we are blessed!" Who cares what they think? The point is that we are honest.
When we do that as Unification members -- not only as leaders but everybody in the church, everybody who knows True Parents -- when we do that for True Parents then THEY do not have to declare that. We can take down that burden. You see? That is actually what children should be doing for True Parents -- for the parents that have sacrificed their life and their soul, have gone to hell in our place. We deserve to go to hell, actually, all of us, even me -- all of us.
We have no right to go into the Kingdom of God; no right. Even True children, all of us, should be in hell. We have no right. Only because of the love of True Parents, because True Parents took our place in hell over and over, and the place of our children and our grandchildren, of all of us; that is the only reason why we can go into Cheon Il Guk. Not only members; I am talking about True Family, too. So if we understand that the True Parents lived and died for us, over and over again, then we can understand that actually we have to serve, we have to elevate them and glorify them more than we are doing now.
For us it is very clear: for all the regions -- Asia, Russia, North America, Central America, it does not matter -- it is so clear. The secret is very simple. Do we want to make Cheon Il Guk? I'll tell you the secret. It is one word, very simple: True Parents. That is it. That is it! Do we want to make Cheon Il Guk? It is True Parents, centered on True Parents as the Messiah and the Christ who comes to build the Kingdom. Without True Parents there is no Cheon Il Guk. Without True Parents there is no Kingdom of God.
When I got to Korea, leaders were telling me: "You cannot witness in Korea." When we put Japanese leaders in to witness in Korea, the Korean members said: "Even we Korean people can't witness in Korea. How can Japanese people witness in Korea? That's crazy." They were saying that. But what happened? We are witnessing again. Why -- because, we put up the people who have the greatest faith. Do you understand -- great faith plus an organizational mind. They are not just doing it out of their own energy, they are organizing other brothers and sisters to move together in teams to witness. This kind of thinking -- faith-based thinking -- created growth again in the Unification Church.
(Speaking in Korean -- switching to English)
Too many languages! (Laughter)
In Korea the situation has completely turned around. You know, before we used to get persecuted all the time in Korea by the media... always negative articles... terrible, all these kinds of things. The church in Korea did not grow for 30 years. I think I told you this yesterday. We have the statistics; we were 16,000 members, 30 years ago; then it dropped to 12,000 members nationwide. It was terrible. For 30 years we had negative growth, negative press. It was very bad. The whole VIP network were all laughing at the Unification Church. I told you yesterday what some of the VIPs told me, right? But that situation has completely turned around. That turned around when Kook Jin Nim came to Korea in 2005. The Tong Il Group, Il Hwa included, was a business group with $100 million dollars loss per year. Do you understand how much that is? $100 million US dollars loss. This is how terrible and unprofessional the businesses were being run. This was not just the case in Korea; also in many other countries we had very unprofessionally run businesses. This was all subsidized by Japan.
So you think about it. Japanese brothers and sisters had to subsidize $100 million dollars for just Korea, for that one business group. And then they did this for all the other countries like America, and for so many others. So we had $100 million dollars a year loss in that business group when Kook Jin Nim came in; he's is a genius, he is an incredible leader. Within three years he turned it around -- a $100 million dollar loss to $50 million dollars profit. Do you understand? That is ridiculous. That is incredible. Nobody can imagine such an incredible result!
Of course right now, since the group has become so successful, Christianity is angry. Korean Christians don't like that. So they did a couple of media programs on us the other day, about how the Unification Church is growing too quickly. They are very worried, they say. They did a radio broadcast, a TV broadcast. CTS is the biggest Christian channel there. "We are very worried about the Unification Church." They did a great marketing piece for us actually, because they told all the Christians in Korea, "This is terrible. How can you let it happen?"
Now the Tong Il Group is turned around. The Tong Il Group is number 70 among the most powerful business groups in Korea. It wasn't even on the list before. Now we are up at number 70. I met two people who were at the Yonsei University, in the MBA program. One person was in our staff, he was the financial director. He is a young man, blessed kid, very smart, and he had outside experience at Samsung; a very smart kid. He'll be moving to Yeongpyeong; but he was attending Yonsei University. That's one of the top universities in Korea; he's in the MBA program. He was listening to the professor lecturing one day, when he said, "Okay, we are going to do a case study of a successful business in Korea that turned around." In Yonsei University, the professors started talking about the Tong Il Group; and they said that Kook Jin Moon turned this company around. They used the Tong Il Group as a case study for successful business-turn-around in the MBA program in Yonsei! (Applause)
So we have to understand that this is real result, okay? We are not here to only talk; we want to make real results for True Parents. Kook Jin Nim made huge results in the business groups; he is in Forbes Magazine and all that kind of stuff. So many interviews we have done -- in the last year and a half, we have done over 120 different media articles. So I've done interviews on the church side; Kook Jin has communicated with media on the business side; we have had interviews with all the top newspapers and magazines in Korea. We are very blessed to report that not one of them was negative. Every single one of them was positive, because we talked to them honestly.
We told them that our Unification Church was collapsing; that it wasn't growing, it was stagnating. Our faith was dying. And we told them very honestly that we changed that. We came in, and Kook Jin Nim changed the business group. On the church side, we started implementing transparent management, so that all the members can see where their donations go. We implemented a "decision chain" in the decision process. All of you understand the decision chain because the World Mission Department has a decision chain now.
That is basically a program that modern businesses use. So the Chedan started using that with Deloy Consulting, one of the biggest consulting firms in the world. They created the decision chain process. What that is, is that they make sure that every single decision is made for the benefit of the organization. In the past, if you were a leader you could just make a decision based on what you wanted. That is not good. That decision has to be checked by all people in the organization to make sure that the decision is the best for that organization.
You see, professional organizations run like this. So even on the church side, in the World Mission Department, we brought in the decision change process. Now, even though I am the Segye Hwaejang (International President) all the decisions are checked. I just don't make decisions. Every decision is checked, and in the process all the subordinate positions of responsibility have to approve those decisions. The decisions come up the decision line and then finally they come to me, and if there is a really big decision, we have to bring it up to Father.
With these processes we are professionalizing the way we operate our church -- transparent financial management, decision chain management, systematization, etc. These are all very important in the modern day to run and grow this kind of world-wide organization. At the same time, these things are being built at a professional level, the top level. As these programs become more available to the different nations, our churches will become more professionally run. At the same time, although we have these systems, we need new talent to run these systems, because most of us don't know how to run these systems. I didn't know how to make or run these systems. I was taught. I have people around me who are professionals in the fields of financial management and business management. They are with us in our team. So as we have these systems, we have to bring in new professionals who come in and work with us, and always audit us and make sure that we are always transparent as we manage things.
But at the same time, we can't lose faith. See, even though you have a system, if you lose faith, the movement will not grow. So you have to have the system and professional management. That is really important in the modern day. We are going to continue to spread it worldwide as we succeed in different countries. We already brought it to Japan, and it's now in Korea. America is starting to learn about these processes. But the system is not enough on its own; it is not going to take the place of faith. Why? Because we are a faith community. Do you understand, brothers and sisters? We are a religion.
For many years we have been kind of saying we are not a religion. That's not true. We ARE a religion. I studied religion and I tell you, we ARE a religion. We have everything that a religion has. We have scripture, we have ritual, we have ceremony, and we have theology. We have every single thing a religion has. So we should not talk about not being a religion. We are a religion. We should be proud of the fact that we are a religion. I'll tell you why: because as a religion you are protected by democratic law. You have to understand that as a religion in democratic countries we have to be proud and state that we are a religion. Nobody can steal this right that we have, which is the freedom of religion. This is why we have to be clear about why we are a religion.
In Japan for example, nobody can take away the right of freedom of religion. You cannot kidnap our members and confine them, like our sister told us today. A Christian pastor did this in Japan. There are 4,300 cases of human rights violations. The only way in this modern world that we are able to have the protection of the law is to understand that we are a religion. We have the protection of the law, and nobody can steal our freedom to have faith. So this is why we have to change the way we deal with society; and also change the way we think, even in our movement.
Of course Father says that we don't need religion in the ideal world. But also in the ideal world we don't need education, and we don't need politics. We don't need any of that. In the ideal world -- in the Garden of Eden -- there was no religion, no politics, no Sun Moon University, no UPF, nothing. So that argument is not good to use, that Father said there is no need for religion, no need for the Unification Church. That's not a smart argument if you think about it. When Father says that, he is looking at the Garden of Eden. When you look at that there is no religion, but there is also no other organization there as well.
So we must not be anti-religious. Actually, we have to be very strong in the fact that we are a religion. The reason why is because we have members across the world who are being violated of their human rights, of their freedom of religion, because of religious persecution. So for us as a movement, we have to be very proud of our faith, proud of our religion, proud of our belief in True Parents as the Messiah. This kind of faith is very important now. In the end, even though we are persecuted, it is only by this kind of faith that we can overcome Communism and overcome other systems that try to oppress religions.
Do you know the reason for the real downfall of the Communist regime in Russia? What was the downfall? There were many factors, but do you know the real factor? Religious people started entering into Russia, and teaching religion, and they were persecuted, but they continued to teach their religion. Do you know why? Because Communism says that the highest authority is the state, but the religion says no, the highest authority is not the state, the highest authority is God. You see that is why Communism doesn't like religion. But this is fundamentally the power that overthrows Communism. It's faith in a higher power than the state. Do you see what I mean? So this is why we have to understand that the power of faith is the power that overcomes evil and falsity. The power of faith is very important.
When we understand that, then we can understand why we have to stand up for our faith, not be weak in our faith and not hide our faith. We have to declare our faith, because this is our human right. This is our democratic right. Nobody can steal your faith. Nobody can force you to not believe in True Parents. Nobody can kidnap you in Taiwan. Nobody can kidnap you and confine you and brainwash you so that you don't have to believe in the Unification Church. That is a violation of your human rights. We have to be clear about that. Brothers and Sisters, do you know what I am saying? This is very important. We are being persecuted around the world, because of our religion. So in this time we can't be hiding our faith, we have to be stronger with our faith.
We have to talk to the media. We had a lecture with the top media in Korea yesterday, the day before I came here, and I told them that in Japan we have huge human rights violations perpetrated against the Unification Church. We have over 4,300 cases of forced kidnapping and confinement. Some of our brothers and sisters were confined for 12 years, five months, like Goto-san. They were starved, they were tortured. One sister was raped for three months every day. The reason why they did that was because they learned the Divine Principle, and when the Christians ministers learned the Principle, they learned about the Fall. So by raping her they made her feel like she was such a sinner that she cannot return back to the Unification Church, and return back to her family. This is a woman who is married and a registered citizen of Japan, who is forced, confined and raped for three months; and the Japanese government has done nothing about it. We have another sister who committed suicide while she was confined for three months. And this in a court of law is murder, because the environment was made such that she committed suicide. That is homicide in modern law.
So you have to understand, brothers and sisters, that this is not a joke. We are being persecuted because of our faith; and we cannot hide our faith, we have to stand up for our brothers and our sisters. As a family member, when our brothers and sisters are being murdered and persecuted because of their faith, this is not the time to be weak in our faith. This is the time to be strong, and to understand that we have to fight for these people's justice. You understand what I am saying, right? This is very important, because these people are the people who subsidize every one of our churches around the world. Every church that you are in right now was subsidized by the Japanese movement. That is the reality. Whether it be in Afghanistan or India, or wherever, the Japanese brothers and sisters have been dying for us; dying for you and for me. When they are being persecuted like this, we cannot leave them to die. We have to stand up.
This is why Kook Jin Nim, in taking responsibility for Japan based on Father's direction, has been working with this issue. Now there are many legal cases we are putting against the government. A lot of members are now organized collectively, and we are suing the government for human rights violations. We are also appealing to the different nations, the American civil rights committees and organizations for human rights. Also in Korea I have already talked to the media. We are talking to the media, and we have already contacted the Japanese Embassy.
This is not a joke. This is a humungous human rights violation. So we have to understand that all of the negative things that people say -- and they created this hate language against the Unification Church in Singapore and Indonesia, and other nations where Unification Church is banned -- that this is because of the lies that have been made by people who have persecuted us. So we have to be clear about this. People who have persecuted us and kidnapped and raped our members and murdered them are the people who have created hate language. Many times they are Christians who have created this hate language against the Unification Church. That hate language has become hate crimes against humanity.
When we witness, we have two ways of responding. When we witness and we meet someone who is positive, we teach how to inherit the true love of God. That one slogan is the slogan we use to teach the Principle very simply. If you understand "Inherit the true love of God," you can understand the Principle very easily. That one line is the whole Principe, if you think about it. What was the Fall? It was inheriting, not true love, but inheriting the false love of Satan, not inheriting the true love of God.
What is the Divinity of God? It is true love. What is the purpose of creation? It is to inherit the true love of God. Do you understand? How are we going to create the kingdom? By inheriting the true love of God -- very simple. We have created the one line slogan to teach the Principle. When you witness, what you actually have to do is to explain the Principle in about less than one minute. And this is hard to do because the Principle is very deep. How do you explain the Principle in less than one minute? You explain it by: "Inherit the true love of God." Very simple.
So if they are positive, we teach them "Inherit the true love of God" and then bring them to the Divine Principle lectures and into the witnessing process. Then after they receive the Principle they don't just listen and say they want to be a member, they make a commitment; they make a donation to the church; a donation to the world providence. Many of our new members have made a big donation to the World Temple construction. So world providence activity is what they are called to do; not only talking, "I am a member." You make the commitment. If you are really going to serve the Lord, then you make the commitment. If they are positive, we bring them that way.
If they are negative, and they say, "I heard bad things about the Unification Church, you guys are a cult." Then what we do is we pull out the pamphlet that shows the illegal kidnapping and confinement, rape and even murder of our brothers and sisters in Japan -- a democratic nation, the second most powerful nation in the world.
In a DEMOCRATIC country this kind of incredible persecution of one religion has never been seen. Only the Unification Church has been targeted to be persecuted like this. So we have to understand that we are victims. When people speak negatively, we have to say, "No, you are very misinformed." If you understand the truth, and you understand the human rights abuse that is happening in Japan, and the fact that we are now legally moving to find justice; and if you show them the evidence that we have been persecuted, that these Christian ministers have kidnapped, confined and raped people, citizens of a modern democratic nation, because they want to persecute the Unification Church… What we have found was that those people cannot say anything.
We tell them that all of that negative stuff has been made by these people who have committed crimes against humanity, human rights crimes. Then we show them that pamphlet, and we show them the picture of Goto-san. What we found is that negative people cannot say anything; they don't know what to say. Because if they say "that's a lie" and if they say "that's not true" then they look like they are someone who supports human rights violations. Do you see what I mean? So they don't want to respond that way. We found that it totally shuts them down. We show them the incredible abuse, and it shuts them down completely. They cannot respond, and because of that we say, "You should learn more." Then we bring them into the idea of Principle.
Using this method of double direct witnessing, we teach people directly that we are the Unification Church. We don't hide it. We don't say "Family Federation." We don't put up the Family Federation sign anymore. We already sent the memo to all of the nations from the World Mission Department, "Take down the Family Fed sign, and put up the Unification Church sign, and put up the Unification Church." Be proud of your religion; be proud of your faith. True Father has given us direction, "Use Tong Il Kyo." He actually wrote in very big calligraphy, Tong Il Kyo Bok: "The fortune of the Unification Church." It's an awesome, awesome blessing for the church.
You have to be proud, brothers and sisters! No more hiding your faith. We have got to be proud. We are being violated; our human rights are being stripped. You have to be proud of your faith. Of course in other nations, such in China, where it is banned, that's a little different story. Each one of those nations is a case by case basis. But in democratic nations, you have to be strong with your belief! In democratic nations we have the right to believe, we have the right to religion.
So in this situation, the media in Korea has changed tremendously, and now we have so much support from the media. Now, we are being recognized in the business world for being quite successful. Now, even universities are teaching the Unification movement as a case study to look at. Now, our church is growing again; we are back up from 12,000 members to 18,000 members within one year after the restructuring. Donations nationwide have increased 110%. This year we have not received even one penny from Japan subsidies -- everything the Korean members have done. Do you understand? This has not happened in 30 years.
So we want to take people out of the mentality of dependency, and move them into inter-dependency. We can do it. We can have ownership in our movement. We can do it. Okay? That is how we move to being responsible for the whole worldwide movement. Let's not be dependent children, always begging, begging. That is very childish. We don't want that kind of future; we can't have that kind of future. We have to become mature adults as a movement. We can support each other, when anyone is in trouble. Then the Unification movement will grow very strong. Okay? All these systems are being created. They are making results, as you can actually hear from the report; making real results in real society. These are not just "talking reports," these are things that are really happening in society. So when we see that turn-around in Korea, we see that people are being witnessed to; every week we are witnessing.
When I got to Korea, leaders were telling me: "You cannot witness in Korea." When we put Japanese leaders in to witness in Korea, the Korean members said: "Even we Korean people can't witness in Korea. How can Japanese people witness in Korea? That's crazy." They were saying that. But what happened? We are witnessing again. Why -- because, we put up the people who have the greatest faith. Do you understand -- great faith plus an organizational mind. They are not just doing it out of their own energy, they are organizing other brothers and sisters to move together in teams to witness. This kind of thinking -- faith-based thinking -- created growth again in the Unification Church.
So don't lose hope in your nation if the church has not been growing. That is not a problem with the content; that's not a problem with True Parents; it is not a problem with Heaven's blessing. It's a problem with us; it is a problem with our thinking. We have shown in Korea that it is a problem in the thinking, a problem with the faith. If our faith level is "We can't witness in this place," then I guarantee you, you will not witness, and you will not grow. You have to change that faith. You have to raise that faith. We can grow, we can change people's lives. Yes, we can make True Parents proud in our nation.
You see, because of our thinking and rational organizational planning, we move as an organization, not as an individual. You move as an organization with our faith. Okay? That's what church action means. Ecclesia: It means a group, a gathering. Okay? So we move as a group, not as just individuals. We elevate people who witness great. People who witness better than you, learn from them -- put them as the leader! Tell them to teach everybody how to witness. When we have this kind of honest church culture and we are not just trying to protect our position, if somebody is better than us, then we say, "You lead, and I will listen. Thank you." Then this honest church culture creates real faith; and people who really witness, who live their life of faith and are crazy about True Parents, and witnessing and changing people's lives, those people can shine. When those people can shine, then our church shines. Why? Because when we elevate the faithful, True Parents shine. When we don't elevate the faithful, True Parents cannot shine. Do you see what I mean? So brothers and sisters, we have to really change our thinking. Change our thinking.
Every one of your churches, I don't care what nation it is, even Thailand for example, or Japan which is a Buddhist nation -- Japan has no Christian foundation, Christianity is smaller than us or it is about the same size, it is tiny -- but Japan can witness to 3,600 people per month. It is not a problem of whether it is a Buddhist nation or a Christian nation; that is not the problem. The problem is how we are thinking. What is our faith level? That's the problem; and that's what we found was the biggest impediment when we got to Korea to start our ministry there. The biggest problem was that the Korean members were saying, "We can't witness. We can't witness. The Divine Principle is not powerful enough in this new age. Yeah, maybe in the 70s it was powerful, but not anymore."
This was the faith. So, of course, with that kind of faith, you can't inspire anybody; you can't even inspire each other. But when you have a faith that is exciting, when you're excited about this truth that is going to change mankind, and you feel that power in it, and you know that you can change people's lives, and you go out and you talk to people and you see them change -- then you start believing again. That's when we saw the Holy Spirit coming; that's when we saw the blessing coming back to the Korean church. That's when we saw Christians converting into the Unification Church, once again after 30 years. We have Christian people now who are converting to the Unification Church! Do you understand that? That is exciting! They are finding the returning Lord! How exciting! How exciting! That is exciting! Do you know how exciting that is? That happens because we have faith. The Foundation of Faith comes before what? The Foundation of Substance. We cannot make Cheon Il Guk and the Foundation of Substance before we prepare what? The Foundation of Faith.
Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you. Have faith! Believe and have hope! You see, if your faith is powerful, and we are creating a culture of powerful faith in all different nations, then we cannot stop growing. I'll tell you why: Because God's blessing is in our faith in the Principle, in the truth that has been revealed. When we have excitement in our faith, and we go out to change people, and to save people's lives, when we go out with that excitement, then Heaven works. Do you understand? Do you see what I mean? Do you believe?
Oh my gosh, I feel like some kind of revivalist or something. (Laughter) This is so important, so exciting for the Unificationists. We are fighting for the greatest cause in the universe. The greatest cause. It is so exciting to be alive; to be able to witness. Every day is so exciting. We go out in the street witnessing. It is so fun. We don't have to be stuck in the office all day. We can be running around in the streets talking to the people about the Messiah, bringing them into workshops, seeing them hear the Principle; seeing them change, talking to them about the Messiah coming. That is excitement. You feel alive. Your faith feels alive.
I tell you if you are not witnessing, your faith is not alive. You will be struggling with your faith all the time. If you have doubt, go out and witness every day. You will have more faith. The best antidote for struggling with your faith is witnessing. Get into the excitement of witnessing. It is so fun. It is not boring office work. You meet people. You go out and feel the fresh air. You go and run around and see and find whom God has prepared that day. It is so fun. Hey, maybe it is that person over there by the bench sitting next to the subway reading a newspaper!
I met a guy who was smoking a cigarette who received the pamphlet and then signed up for a Divine Principle course. We found Christians who converted. They were very professional people working for SK, one of the top technology companies. They were young in their forties, in management positions. This person was smoking and drinking; there is a lot of smoking and drinking in the business world in Korea. In three months he stopped smoking and drinking. He is witnessing on the streets to his friends from SK; one of his friends is in the Divine Principle workshop now.
We have seven different regions in the prefecture. Kook Jin told them, "Make them pay to listen to Divine Principe." What? What? What? We are teaching the Divine Principle for free and they don't even listen. How can we make them pay and listen? Kook Jin says, "You make them pay one thousand dollars.'" What! What! What! Crazy! Crazy! Impossible! Kook Jin Nim!
In the number two region we have a president of a construction company, whose wife is a very devout Buddhist. He was introduced to the Principle. This president of the construction company made the donation of one thousand dollars to listen to Divine Principle. He owned the Principle. He accepted the Principle. Then he made a twenty-one thousand dollar donation to the world temple. Then he had more blessings from heaven; his company succeeded more and then recently, just a few days ago, he made a fifty thousand dollar donation to the temple. This man, the president, is now witnessing to his employees; he is bringing his high level managers into the Divine Principle lectures right now.
So don't tell me you can't witness. I have heard it before in the Korean church. "We can't witness, we can't witness. Korean people don't do donations." That is baloney. There are so many people out there who are looking for the truth. So many people out there who want to do something for the world, so many people who want to change history by their contribution. Our faith was the problem. You understand?
I want to tell you this because I want to give you some hope in your nation. It is not hopeless. It is all about faith. If we have the faith the result can come. If we have the belief and the energy and the excitement in the Principle and in that we found the Messiah then when we go out and talk to people about it there is an excitement there. There is incredible electricity. They don't even know why they are attracted to it. We know that their ancestors are moving in them. This is the substantial resurrection chapter in the Principle. In the time of the resurrected Lord there will be a substantial resurrection.
Well, what is that? The good Christian spirits in the spirit world will come down and move Christians; the good Buddhists will come down and move Buddhists; the good Muslims will come down and move Muslims. It is all about who is leading those people. As Unificationists we have to have strong faith. That is the way we can inspire and help the good spirits that are trying to break through. They are trying to break through just as much as we are. The problem is they are already in the spirit world. They can see everything. So they know. In the physical world we have to have a strong faith. I want to encourage you.
I don't want to go too long, and I went too long yesterday. I want to encourage you, I am telling you, it is not impossible because we are working not with men, but we are working with God. And I tell you something. When you work alone you are a minority, When you work alone as a Unification church member you are a minority. If you work with God and if you work for the sake of proclaiming the Messiah then you are a majority. Do you understand? You will become the spiritual majority. When you come forth with that spiritual confidence and you meet one person, you have millions of ancestors behind you. You are the spiritual majority.
They cannot defeat you if you go with that kind of heart to save them. This is the kind of faith we need to find again. Because of this kind of faith, I am so proud of the Korean church, because they improved so much in the last year, year and a half. Really, our members have grown so much there. I am so proud of them, so proud, I always tell them, of course we are not at the top; we are not at the Fatherland level yet. But we have come a long way. We still have to go to the Fatherland level to truly make a world impact. Brothers and sisters, we are not joking when we say that we are going to make True Parents the True King of this world. We are going to make that result. While True Parents are here we need to make the substantial Cheon Il Guk.
Cheon Il Guk is what? You see Cheon Il Guk there -- you see our mark. (Pointing an Unification Church flag) That is the Cheon Il Guk flag, you know what that is, that is Divine Principle. You know what that is, that is the purpose of creation. You know what that is, that is True Parents right in there. If we don't have that, there is no Cheon Il Guk. If we don't have Divine Principle, I am sorry you cannot make Cheon Il Guk the Kingdom of Heaven without the Messiah. You cannot make Cheon Il Guk by just gathering people. That is called having dinner together. That is not making Cheon Il Guk. Making Cheon Il Guk is by faith. Make Cheon Il Guk by making believers in True Parents. When we have millions and tens of millions of believers that shout that is the Lord, True Parents are my Lord and Savior, and then we have the King of Kings. No King on earth can deny that incredible spiritual nation that will change the history of this world forever. AJU!
I tell you brothers and sisters, believe it, because it is going to happen. Whether we believe it or not, whether you believe it or not, other people will step up in faith. They will lead. It is all about our faith level. Is our faith weak or is it strong? Most of us probably have to repent but after repentance there is always forgiveness, there is always a new beginning. Remember, Unification Church was almost dead; all the members. Christians even laughed at us; they said Unification Church is dead. When we first started our ministry, Christian ministers would say, "Is the Unification Church still alive?" They would say that. Totally dead, the church wasn't growing, stagnating and negative growth. No hope in everything we had done; no business was succeeding, total loss and no success; abysmal, it looked. Of course we talked about how great we were succeeding but in reality we were doing terribly. Real people in society knew this; they have a lot of connections; they have eyes and ears; they can find out very quickly whether we are telling the truth, especially in running businesses; it is very easy to check on businesses in the modern democratic world.
So now that they see real result being made in every field that Unification Church touches, whether it be church, business etc, then they cannot deny the fact that Father's foundation will remain and that Father's foundation will continue to shine. This is what we want to create; we want to create real result. Nobody can deny True Parents.
This is the purpose of any one of our organizations. It is to declare and make believers and announce that the Lord has come. That is the most important thing in all of history. All the providence has been prepared for the Lord to come. If we understand how important that is, then any other thing is unimportant. That is the most important thing. I really want to encourage you, have faith. Faith will set you free. It will set you free. Because when you have faith, you don't have to worry about what other people think. You don't have to worry about your reputation in society. You can be your best and you can declare True Parents. You can glorify them, you can have a heart that is free and liberated, and you can know that in the end you are serving the Lord with all your might. You know that when you go into heaven, you can go in with a pure heart, with all the spiritual children you have touched, and go before True Parents throne and bow before them with a smile on your face.
Brothers and sisters I hope we can all go before the throne of True Parents with that kind of victory. Not in shame or in shyness that we did not declare, like Peter who denied the Messiah. Remember the scripture in the Bible where Jesus says, "Those that deny me, I will deny them in front of the Father in heaven." Remember that. Do not hide True Parents, do not hide the Unification Church identity. Don't deny True Parents. As Unification Church members we should not deny True Parents. We have to proclaim them. We don't want to get in the habit of denying. We want to get in the habit of proclaiming, affirming, telling confidently, that this is what we believe. This is the Messiah, the True Parent; this is the hope for all humanity. If we go with that faith I absolutely know that all the prayers, all the blood, sweat and tears are not going to be lost. We truly hope you are able to return glory to our True Parents while they are here. This is my deep prayer for Taiwan and all the other nations that you came from -- Thailand and the Philippines and Indonesia, Beijing, China. It is all about faith now; all about faith in the Messiah.
You really want to make Cheon Il Guk by 2013? There is no other way, there is no other way then to have faith in True Parents and testify on their behalf. If you do that I do believe we are going to lift up a great victory for True Parents while they are here. So many brothers and sisters and new people that God has prepared and new people that spiritual world has prepared. You will be blessed to meet them and to bring them into your life; to have new life with them in True Parents.
One of the things I feel in witnessing is that you fall in love with True Parents. Every time you witness to somebody, you fall in love with True Parents again. This is what I love about witnessing. It is like endlessly falling in love. Do you understand? The more people you witness to, the more you fall in love. I love that. It is like endless love. As long as you're trying to save someone's life, you feel the value of True Parents. As long as you are praying for somebody every day, having their picture and making the spiritual conditions, then when you see them growing it is like you are falling in love with True Parents, too.
This is why if you are not witnessing you do not have a life of faith. I am telling you it is the most exciting thing. It is so much better than sitting in your office all day. Witnessing and a life of faith is so exciting. It is like falling in love. I love it. Do you understand? It is incredible. It is like falling in love, really. You are falling in love with True Parents, every time you bring somebody before True Parents and that person can affirm True Parents. It is like you are falling in love with True Parents again. This is why if we really want to keep our faith alive we need to SHARE our faith. I am telling you it is so exciting. It is so fun.
I tell you, we are witnessing to prodigious VIPs in Korea. There were these two ladies. We first met them spiritually; I'll tell you how we met them. I had a dream; Hyo Jin and Heung Jin came to me in a dream, spiritually they came to me in a dream. You know we take care of their children; not every day, but we have a day for them. Like every week we take one of Hyo Jin's children and one of Heung Jin's children and do their day; have dinner with them. As they don't have a father figure, I can give them guidance and check on them a little bit, have dinner with them. So we do this, as I do with my children; I do Hyo Jin's and Heung Jin's children every week, etc. And so Hyo Jin and Heung Jin came to me in a dream and said, "It is very nice you are taking care of the children, doing their days. I know you are busy etc. Why you are not taking care of your sisters- in-law? How come you are not taking care of my wife?" I said, "Oh, my God." I said, "Hyo Jin, Heung Jin, I am a busy guy and I am trying to take care of the children as much as I can. I do repent that I did not think about my sisters-in-law." That was honest. I said OK. So that day I called all of my sisters-in-law and said we are going to do a sisters-in-law day; so I told them to be ready on Monday. "Be ready, I am going to take you shopping." There is a joke about shopping -- if you are sad, go shopping. If shopping doesn't make you happy, you are in the wrong mall. Ladies, you understand that.
So that day we were out there doing a little shopping "training" with the women and I was doing deep meditation training because shopping is very painful for me. We were there and I am trying to be supportive; I am choosing clothes and saying "Hey, this one looks good on you, beautiful, beautiful" We were having a good time. They were having a good time. Two ladies come in and are watching us and they say, "Oh, you are such a good husband." I say, "I am doing meditation training today, I am doing shopping training." You see, I am not complaining; no complaining, not saying, "Quickly, let's go home, let's go home."
Anyway we had a good conversation with them and then we found out that this lady sitting right in front of us is the owner of the biggest financial newspaper in Korea, the Wall Street Journal of Korea. They were right there and her friend is a big owner of a golf resort and a big Christian in Korea. I had no idea. So they tell me who they are; I say, "Oh, my goodness!" So I give them my card. They say, "You are Tongil Kyo?" They said, "My father-in-law wanted to visit Chung Pyung, that temple." I said, "OK. I will take you there." She called and said, "Daddy, daddy, I met Tongil Kyo and they gave us permission to go to the peace temple!" So we brought them to the peace temple and recently to Young Pyo and they heard Divine Principle. We spent time with them. Prodigious ladies. These are top VIPs in Korea, but every day we are witnessing and working with them; one of them is a devout Buddhist and the other is a very deep Christian.
I never knew how to use the instant messaging on the hand phone. I can't write Korean very well but every day, because I am witnessing and communicating with them, praying for them, I am using it, every day. I am telling you, witnessing is like falling in love. Of course I have told them many times that True Father is the Messiah. I tell them, "Aren't you so happy that the Messiah could come to Korea?" and the Christian lady nods. This is a Korean evangelical lady, she goes to the top church, that is the SaRang Community Church, the church that the President of Korea attends, and one day we were supposed to meet and I asked, "How come you did not come?" and she said, "I am in a meeting." So we met a couple of hours later and I said, "How come you are so busy and we can't meet you Nunim; I call her sister. I can't meet you," and she said, "I was just meeting the President's wife, I am sorry."
It is so fun to deal with and witness to people because you really feel alive in your faith. Really we must not lose the excitement of witnessing. Witnessing is so fun and when we meet these people that God totally prepared there is a spiritual connection. We did not plan to meet them in the little shop, so they know there is some kind of spiritual thing happening. So we met with them many times and they heard Principle and they are getting deeper in their faith.
You have to remember that when you witness you have to challenge people; you have to challenge the person who you are witnessing to. You can't just tell them nice things, you can't just tell them, "Oh, Rev Moon is so nice and Reverend Moon is such a patriot." We have to challenge them, "Reverend Moon is the Messiah. If you come to this meeting, he is probably going to scream at you; but that is what the Messiah does, because he can see your soul and he can see your sin so that when he sees you he wants to save you. That is why he will say that out of love." When we are honest with the people we are witnessing to, they don't know why, but the spirit is touching them.
For us it is so exciting to be able to be running around witnessing on the street. This keeps up the energy. You know my daily schedule is training, training, training, meeting, meeting, meeting, service, training, training, training, meeting, meeting, meeting, service, that is every day like that. Of course I am very grateful for that, but there are too many meetings. I want to go out and run around the street and witness; that is fun: that is really fun. You go out and smell the nature, you smell all the people that are being prepared. God is preparing that day someone for you to bump into. On the road to Damascus, Paul had a revelation, just got bumped into.
God has prepared ancestors for so many thousands of years and you meet that one person that day. What if you say, "I don't want to go today, I'll just stay in my office": two thousand years of Jeong Seong might die. That is why it is so important to put yourself out. Just think about it. I am the world president, I don't have to go out witnessing, running around witnessing on the street like a crazy man. I don't have to do that; but I don't care about that, position doesn't matter to me. It is more important to feel excited about True Parents. Then I feel alive, I feel like I am doing something for True Parents. Not just sitting in meetings and saying, "Hmm, hmm; yeah, good idea." That is useless. We have to be serving True Parents. It is a fun life, yes?
I want to encourage you brothers and sisters; be excited about True Parents, be excited about your faith; that is really when you are alive. When you can proclaim that the Messiah is here, when you can say that to Christians and get them angry, that is fun; fun to get Christians angry. I was in a train station and sat next to four grandmas and I said, "Hey, how are you doing?" I said, "This is Moon Sun Myung and this is his book. I want you to read this; it is a best seller." We wear a big yellow vest that says Tongil Kyo, huge letters on the back, with a big unification church sign. We wear a yellow vest; we wear a yellow hat and run around the train station. I was sitting there next to the four ladies and I have the big yellow vest on and I say, "I am from Tongil Kyo and this is my father's book; it is fantastic; it is a best seller and I would love for you to read it; I want you to read it."
We went into conversation and I said, "Did you know that Reverend Moon is the Messiah?" And these Christian ladies, these four Christian ladies say, "How can you say that a human being is the Messiah?" I said, "Well, Jesus was a human being, and wasn't he the Messiah?" "Yes, he was the Messiah." "Wasn't Jesus persecuted?" "Yes, he was persecuted." "Jesus came for the mission of bringing the Kingdom?" "Yes, that is what happened." "Well, it is the same thing with True Parents. True Parents are people too; but they came and are being persecuted by Christians just like you. They are persecuted but they are here to build the kingdom. That is amazing news." They got so angry; go away! go away! I said, "Ladies, I love you; I am so happy we had this meeting." I said, "Our blood pressure went up; we did exercise, and it is very healthy. Thank you so much for having this time. God bless you. Here is my card."
Of course those people did not get witnessed to, but that is not the point; the point is to have fun with your faith. Making Christians angry is okay. We do it out of love; we do it with love because we love them. We don't do it because we want to hurt them. We do it because we want to tell them the truth. When I do that I feel so free. They say that the truth will set you free. I feel so free. I don't care if you are a Christian. Then you feel free in your faith. You don't want to hide it. When you hide it you feel so strange. Why do you want to hide it? This is a democratic nation; I don't need to hide this. You feel weird when you hide it. This is why we are so excited about witnessing. This is why, because of witnessing, we are now reclaiming our faith.
We are proving to all the people who said you cannot witness in Korea, that Korean people are selfish and they don't make donations to the world providence, we prove that that is so false. Did you know that new members, these new members have donated over seven million dollars to the world temple? New members in Korea! Korean people said they cannot do that, they would never do that. I tell you why they never did that: Because the leaders had no faith. That is why the leaders in society would not follow them. They won't contribute to that kind of faith community. But when we have faith and we are excited and we are alive and we are so happy to find the Messiah, then somehow we are so attractive. We don't know why we are so attractive, why we are so handsome. I don't know. I am not that handsome, but people say that we are glowing and excited and running around. I like that. We have to be excited in our faith. We have to be excited. So even though you are not a model or beautiful, so what? Your spirit is alive.
People living in this world are so tired, so drained; they have no purpose, just running around trying to make money, no purpose. "I don't know what I am going to do with my life." They want to find somebody who is alive, somebody who is excited, find someone who is testifying and running around trying to save the world; that is so funny, such people are so exciting. Then they meet these people, and it is so exciting and it's moving and becoming more professional. Why should they not join?
See, I tell you why the Christian community has grown up until now. It is not because of their theology, our theology is so much more powerful, so much more powerful. Christians cannot answer the most fundamental, most basic questions; the fundamental question of creation, why God created things; why He created people. What was their purpose? What is the Divinity of God? What is the Kingdom of God? How will it be created? They cannot understand, they cannot theologically explain that. But we have such a powerful theology. So the problem is not our theology. The problem is our faith.
Why can Christians grow? They are crazy about Jesus; they are so excited about Jesus. They want to sing about Jesus, they want to talk about Jesus; they want to put a sticker of him on their car. They have stickers on their car, "I love Jesus," and "Jesus loves you." They are crazy about Jesus, they love Jesus. That is the reason that Christianity grew because they loved the Messiah, they loved the Lord so the Holy Spirit could come and bless that. We have a stronger theology, so if on top of that we have a stronger love for the Messiah, a stronger love for Jesus, a stronger love for the returning Lord, stronger love for True Parents, then why cannot Christians join? They are automatically going to join because their questions are answered in the Principle and their hearts are answered in our community, because our faith is so strong. Our love for Jesus, our love for True Parents is so strong; we are so excited because Jesus has returned. We are alive, we are exciting people. We are not just sitting in an office all day, "Yes, good idea." We are exciting people, running around and saving the world. That is what a Unificationist is.
You see what I mean? I want to encourage you today to be an exciting Unificationist. It all comes from your faith. When you are like that, then it is as Jesus said, "When you say to the mountain: move, then the mountain shall move." When we have faith, all things are possible. Because, we don't work with men when we have faith, we are working with God. Do you understand? So we are not a minority; we become the majority. I want to encourage you today brothers and sisters. Let us build back that faith in the Unification Church, build back that faith in the Messiah. Let's be excited, be a crazy man once again, crazy people once again. That is so fun to be crazy. I love it; why do you want to be normal? Be crazy. You got to be crazy for something in your life. You have to live for something in your life. Live for money and a paycheck every month? That is not a fun life. You got to live and be crazy for something. The best thing to be crazy for is to be crazy for God. Crazy for the Lord, if you are crazy like that you will have that kind of excitement. And people, even they don't know why, they are being transformed. Brothers and sisters, once again, God bless and let's return all the glory for True Parents.
1: but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2: Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
3: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst
4: they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
5: Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?"
6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
7: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."
8: And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
9: But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
10: Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11: She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."
12: Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
13: The Pharisees then said to him, "You are bearing witness to yourself; your testimony is not true."
14: Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true, for I know whence I have come and whither I am going, but you do not know whence I come or whither I am going.
15: You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one.
16: Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me.
17: In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true;
18: I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me."
19: They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also."
20: These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
21: Again he said to them, "I go away, and you will seek me and die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come."
22: Then said the Jews, "Will he kill himself, since he says, `Where I am going, you cannot come'?"
23: He said to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
24: I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he."
25: They said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Even what I have told you from the beginning.
26: I have much to say about you and much to judge; but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."
27: They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father.
28: So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me.
29: And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him."
30: As he spoke thus, many believed in him.
31: Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32: and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
33: They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, `You will be made free'?"
34: Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.
35: The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever.
36: So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
37: I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.
38: I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."
39: They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did,
40: but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did.
41: You do what your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."
42: Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
43: Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
44: You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45: But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
46: Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
47: He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
48: The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"
49: Jesus answered, "I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.
50: Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge.
51: Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death."
52: The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, `If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.'
53: Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?"
54: Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.
55: But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word.
56: Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad."
57: The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"
58: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."
59: So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.
1: And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity.
2: The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zeb'edee, and John his brother;
3: Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
4: Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
5: These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,
6: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7: And preach as you go, saying, `The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
8: Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying, give without pay.
9: Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts,
10: no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff; for the laborer deserves his food.
11: And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and stay with him until you depart.
12: As you enter the house, salute it.
13: And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
14: And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.
15: Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomor'rah than for that town.
16: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
17: Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues,
18: and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles.
19: When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour;
20: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
21: Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;
22: and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
23: When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes.
24: "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master;
25: it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Be-el'zebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.
26: "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
27: What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops.
28: And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
29: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will.
30: But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
31: Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
32: So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven;
33: but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
34: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35: For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36: and a man's foes will be those of his own household.
37: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
38: and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
39: He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
40: "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.
41: He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.
42: And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward."
1: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
2: Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3: You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you.
4: Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5: I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6: If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
7: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.
8: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
9: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.
10: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
11: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14: You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15: No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
16: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17: This I command you, to love one another.
18: "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19: If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20: Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
21: But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.
22: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23: He who hates me hates my Father also.
24: If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
25: It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, `They hated me without a cause.'
26: But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me;
27: and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.
Amen.