Midnight Prayer and Commemorative Speeches in Cheong Pyeong Training Center on January 1, 2004
Beloved Heavenly Father! We have seen the end of the old year, the third year of Cheon Il Guk, and this is the morning of New Year’s Day, the first of January of the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, the year that commemorates a new heaven and earth. Now the time has come to declare God’s Fatherland and the Era of the Peace Kingdom, which is the goal we have to accomplish this year.
Beloved Father! We know how You wished for the purpose of the ideal of creation to be fulfilled, as You created the original world of the ideal of creation, in which You placed Your children, Adam and Eve. We know of how Your wish–Your hope that You had cherished as You saw Your children grow–was broken to pieces through the mistake of the human ancestors, which created a wall of grief and suffering in the world. You were left alone, imprisoned and bound in the position of a slave, and Your lamentations and grief continued for thousands of years. Yet You could not forsake humanity and this world, and You suffered in Your endless grief.
Alone, You had first created all things with Your love, based on Your true love. Starting from the microscopic organisms in the mineral kingdom, You created as the direct object of Your love the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, culminating with the world of humankind. The direct object of Your love became the substantial forms of Adam and Eve, and as You stood in the position of the center of the physical world and the spirit world, You waited with impatience for the day of the blessing of Your children. However, you lost that moment of bringing in the liberation of God’s Day on top of the ideal of creation. You were in the poisition of guiding and educating humanity throughout the numerous paths of historical tribulations. But instead, Satan stands in front of humanity, guiding them, and You stand behind. Looking back on that moment of anguish where you had to kick off the era of history with this heart of fulfilling and recovering the providence of salvation, I know that you had endured throughout this course even as you looked upon that blessed position which should have become the starting point of True Love centering on the substantial object. This object again stands in front of the subject which centers on you as you unify the world of heaven and earth centering on the ideal of Adam’s family. I know what it must have been like to totally lose the hopes that You had cherished in Your heart due to the fall, and to see the world turn upside down. I know how You were filled with pain and grief as You embraced the will of Your providence, through which You must reverse the world of pitch-black darkness–which was thrown into the hell of darkness from the ideal of God’s love–back into a world of light.
The whole of creation, which was stained with Satan’s blood, the blood of Your arch enemy, was no longer under Your sovereignty, but under the sovereignty of Satan. The reality of this fact is the grief of all creation, the grief of the whole physical world, the grief of the spirit world and the world of angels, and the grief of the human world. And over it all, You stand in the position of the king of grief. The history of the world attests to this truth.
You looked on this defiled world with the heart of the settlement and unity of absolute purity, pure lineage and pure conjugal relations, and You saw how the world became a world of darkness, in which You could not let in even a beam of Your light. Yet You worked tirelessly and endlessly, as a pioneer in this dark and defiled world, paving the way from the world of chaos to the world of light, embracing the restored kingdom of heaven in Your heart.
We know how terrible it is that the blood lineage was defiled by Satan, and that it hurts You so much You cannot look on the resultant world of the defiled lineage even in Your dreams. We know that the love You had cherished for Your children made You hold on to them, even when tears of grief blinded Your eyes, and that You had to start from the bottommost part of hell to restore them. We also know that from such a position, You persevered and endured all hardships, and paved the path of restoration, by establishing all religions and guiding the religious leaders, through whom You planned to start the restoration of the Realm of Abel.
This is the morning of the New Year’s Day, the first of January of the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, and we are grateful to You for granting us this day. This is the first day of the fourth year of the new Cheon Il Guk, in which God’s victorious sovereignty can be restored, and everything that was lost, the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, the physical world and the spirit world can all be restored. This is the first day of the year in which God’s fatherland can be declared on the foundation of the peace, unity and settlement of noon, and the year in which we can declare the era of the peace kingdom, standing in the position of the victorious sovereignty over all living creation. We are grateful to You for granting us this day, and enabling us to open the gates to the new era.
Now we have entered an era in which You can take responsibility in the position of the original owner, for all we have restored to You, including everything that was purified and cleansed in the history of the providence of salvation and restoration through indemnity. Now You can completely settle down centering on the sovereignty of love, the kingship of love that is unique in the entire universe. During the first three years of Cheon Il Guk, the blessed families in the entire world have cleansed all that need to be cleansed, and now the time has come for us to restore the cleansed things to You. The first three years of Cheon Il Guk have passed by, and we have now entered the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, the year in which we declare God’s fatherland and the era of God’s Kingship of Love on earth. Now, we have entered the era in which everything can be done according to Your will as the Almighty God with omnipotent authority.
Accordingly, You can now carry out all actions according to Your will on the foundation of the unified world, with the authority of the victorious and sovereign king of all kings, the original parent of love, the original teacher of love, and the original king of kings of love. So please look upon the ideal that True Parents have restored on earth, which You had wished and hoped for ever since the creation, as You stand in the original position of the heart eternally. Please look on the path of True Parents, which is hundreds and thousands times more filial and patriotic than that of Adam, and forget the past that is filled with grief and suffering. Please stand in front of True Parents, and look down on True Parents, the True Family, and the billions of blessed families both in the spirit and physical world, who are centered on True Parents’ tribe, because they are the sovereign foundation of Your family. Please become the greatest and most just king as You stand in the position of the owner, the teacher, and the king, and exercise absolute and omnipotent power over all, starting from the smallest to the largest beings in the world. Please be at peace as You stand on the foundation of the declaration made by True Parents this morning, the declaration of God’s fatherland and the era of the peace kingdom.
The substance of the one mind, one body, one ideology and one nucleus is the exercising of absolute faith, and absolute love, and giving everything one has absolutely, and forgetting the fact that one has given. Centering on the Adam and Eve as the absolute subjects, the invisible God can respond to the Adam entity that has dual characteristics, and stand in the position of the substantial parents, the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, and the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.
And standing on this restored foundation, I have declared God’s fatherland and the era of the declaration of God’s Kingdom on this morning, on the first day of the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk. Please inherit the responsibility and transcend everything on earth and in heaven, and rule over us all with absolute authority. Now it is up to us to march forward to the era of the kingship of peace, which will transcend all religious and national boundaries in the world. True Parents will continue the history of humankind as the king of kings, who stand in the position of the central figure in the fulfillment of the liberated ideal of creation. On this New Year’s Day, True Parents report and declare that we will now make the great transition to the era of the liberated and peaceful kingdom of heaven, which will last forever and ever, ruling over the spiritual and physical worlds.
Please accept all this with joy and pleasure, and watch over us as we march forward. I report and declare that God’s fatherland and the era of the peace kingdom have been proclaimed on this day, in the name of True Parents! Amen! Amen! Amen!
Father’s Midnight Speech
Repeat after True Parents: Now that we have entered the era of God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom, we pledge to become families of filial sons and daughters, patriots, saints and sages, and holy sons and daughters of God, and as such become the representatives of our loving Heavenly Father, who is the victorious sovereign of heaven, and on behalf of the families of princes and princesses, to become the owners of the unified world of peace in the era of the settlement of sexual relations centered on purity, pure lineage and pure love sexual relations, as the subject, centering on the heart of one mind, one body, one ideology and one nucleus. Amen! We pledge to inherit the coming unified world of harmony. Amen!
Father’s Speech at Pledge Service
This is the thirty-seventh anniversary of True God’s Day; thirty-six years have passed since the first celebration of God’s Day. The fact that in the same year we mark the thirty-sixth year since the first God’s Day celebration and the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk is astonishing.
What is today? It is the day we have entered the era of God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom; we have entered the era of the kingdom. This is not just a declaration. It is a proclamation! You must know that a proclamation tells us that we have entered such an era. This is not a declaration. Do you understand? You must know that we have already passed the era of declaration, and can now make proclamations, because this proclamation involves not only individuals but also the world at large, heaven and earth.
What does this mean? It means that since the restoration of the independence of God’s fatherland has been proclaimed, as has the era of God’s peace kingdom, we must become people who live in such a world and become the princes and kings who will complete the work involved in making such a world. In other words, we have entered a new era in which we ourselves will draw up new laws and a constitution. Amen!
What is this proclamation of God’s fatherland and this era of the peace kingdom? To people who don’t know what these mean, they seem like something from a dream, but supposing they were true? You should feel truly blessed to be here today, especially when you consider what would happen, once we have entered the new era, to those who consider what I say to be mere dreaming. Remember those people. Let them be a warning to you. When I say remember them as a warning, you must do so, because I have said so. Don’t forget this warning; to whoever heeds it and says that he will follow me, the door will be open. Even people here for the first time should open their eyes and ears wide with hope. Don’t be surprised by what you hear, and sit up straight. Listen to what I say closely from now on, because what I am going to say today is very important. Whoever listens most attentively to what I’m saying, remembers and heeds it will be the first in line even if he is here for the first time today; whoever does not will be the last in line, even if he has been a member since the church started. It seems as if such a change will occur in the near future. So always keep this in mind, open the door of your mind wide, and listen attentively. It is my wish and hope that you do so. Say Amen. [Amen!]…
Say “God’s fatherland.” I declared this term, “God’s fatherland,” this morning, and that means that God’s fatherland has begun as of this morning. I also proclaimed the peace kingdom. I proclaimed that God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom have now begun. They have no connection whatsoever with the fallen world.
You must know what the fatherland really means. It means the nation of God that He had been yearning for before the Fall, the ideal world that will be everyone’s homeland, and the land in which the clans, peoples and nations can live together in harmony. It means that all people living on earth will inherit the heavenly nation and that the actual realm of existence that will come after, rather than before, the heavenly nation should begin on the foundation of the fatherland, and that everything involved should be discussed and carried out on this foundation. If there is no fatherland, everything we have achieved will be lost. If there is no nation, there cannot be anything representing that nation either; words like “Republic of Korea” and the “white-clothed race” could not exist if there were no nation. You must know that everything that is connected to the fatherland, which God has been yearning for, should have begun after the proclamation of the restoration of the independence of the fatherland on the levels of the individual, family, tribe, ethnic group and world. You must also know that we lived in this world before the proclamation was made, because we had to indemnify the fallen world that has failed God throughout history, and that our lives are centered on conditional standards. You must know that when I say the era of God’s fatherland has begun, it means that we have entered a new era, one in which everything we have built up until now centered on this conditional standard for the sake of indemnifying all that had failed should be crushed, destroyed, turned upside down and reconstructed on the foundation of the restoration of the independence of the fatherland.
At this time, the Unification Church is talking about unifying everything. If the fatherland had begun on the foundation of the unity of everything, connected with the ideal of the unity of al things.. Up to now everything centered on the nations in the world–including history, tradition, cultures and languages–was begun without a connection to God’s fatherland, and so history has no connection to God at all. All this came from the past. Therefore, you must realize how disgraceful the name of existing nations are and feel ashamed of them.
When the descendants of the race that had betrayed God hear about the declaration of God’s fatherland, they should repent for everything, starting from the root of sin in their past. Their repentance must go down deep and should be more heartfelt than ever….
Everything should begin based on God’s fatherland. If they had not fallen, Adam and Eve’s family would have had God’s fatherland as their foundation. If they had had a child under those conditions, the child would have been conceived in God’s fatherland, with the sperm meeting the egg in the womb of Eve, who would have had the fatherland as her foundation.
Therefore, everything should belong to God’s fatherland, and with the fatherland as our foundation, everyone should multiply and form families and tribes and nations. If such families, nations, and the like have been formed without the fatherland, they are fakes. You must understand this clearly today.
Since God’s fatherland turned upside down, 360 degrees opposite to what it was supposed to be, I have had to work hard to turn it back 360 degrees, to turn it right side up, so that it is upright once more. To do so, I have had to cleanse and purify the lineages that had been defiled, which is not the work of just a day. The process involved moving from one to the other, even if the latter were only a fraction better or purer than the former. This was repeated several thousands, or even tens of thousands, of times. In this way, I connected with and made whole the lineage that had been ragged and tattered; I indemnified everything.
Some time back I told you to indemnify everything. What that meant was that blessed families should be overhauled completely. It meant you should not remember anything that gives even the remotest hint of your existence in the satanic world, of what you were in the past. You must forget everything. Everything should be wiped out of your head.
I don’t speak of the hardships I went through while I was in prison. The stories I could tell would bring tears to your eyes as well as to my own. The horrible descriptions of it all would make you weep, but I treat those memories as if they do not exist, and so I have not told you about at least a third of my life. I didn’t tell you such things, so you assume that such things did not occur. If I told you, you would have to put it out of your mind, because it happened in the past, and you know how hard it is to do that.
Keeping all this in mind, you may wonder why there are so many things that I have not told anyone for several decades, for the whole of my 85 years. You must know that everything becomes precious only when it begins under God’s fatherland, and so I have refrained from telling you everything until that moment, so that every word from me from that time on would be more precious. This fact has become an undeniable stepping-stone of truth.
You must resolve that your families will become ones who will do away with all worldly things with your own hands on behalf of God and True Parents, families who will indemnify with your own hands everything in the fallen environment including nations, peoples and cultures….
Imagine that you were left all alone in this world God created, and that there were no God or True Parents to guide you. You would have come to the Unification Church because you would have wanted to learn how to get to heaven by yourself. And now the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, which is centered on blessed families around the world that have maintained themselves well, has begun today.
That is why the Parents of Heaven and Earth could not have wed in holy matrimony had they not centered on Cheon Il Guk. If the coronation ceremony had not been carried out, there could not be any holy weddings or birth registrations. Why? Because there would be no nation.
What did we do last year, two years after the Coronation Ceremony for the Kingship of God was carried out? What did we do on Mother’s sixtieth birthday, centering on True Parents’ birthday? We carried out the Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony of the Parents of Heaven and Earth Opening Cheon Il Guk. We opened the gates. Finally, God and True Parents were able to carry out their holy marriage ceremony on the foundation of the restoration of God’s fatherland. When was this? We accomplished this in the third year of Cheon Il Guk–within two years of its founding.
And what did we do after the Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony of the Parents of Heaven and Earth Opening Cheon Il Guk? We conducted the Coronation of the King of the Blessed Families of the Peace and Unity of the Cosmic True Parent and the True Parents of Heaven and Earth. Finally True Parents were able to claim the title of the king of the families, which is an unprecedented event in history.
However, God’s fatherland cannot be proclaimed if we only have a king of the families. How hard did we work in the third year of Cheon Il Guk under the king of families? I was at the brink of death numerous times and traveled from the bottommost part of hell to heaven, and you don’t know what it took for me to finally succeed and come out of that alive.
What happened on May 4? I made the proclamation that we would revert all of Satan’s sovereignty to the dominion of the ideal of creation. From that day on, because I knew that we must establish God’s fatherland by mobilizing everything we could for the sake of the restoration of the independence of God’s fatherland, I put all my effort into proclaiming the end of the era of the providence of salvation through indemnity. When was this? It was before August–July 13. Before we entered August, which represents the number eight, we finished with the providence of salvation by restoration through indemnity on July 13. Through this, nations as well as the worldwide religious sphere will disappear.
The Fall gave birth to Satan’s nation and to religions. Now that we have come out of the providence of salvation through indemnity, the era of religions and politics has ceased to exist, and the only logical conclusion to the current situation, according to the Principle, would be the dawning of the era of the restoration of the independence of God’s fatherland. This is a conclusion that cannot be denied by anyone of intelligence.
I have proclaimed the princes and princesses of liberation, who cast no shadows around them, since the sun rests directly over their heads in accordance with the settlement of noon. This proclamation is based on teachings from the heavenly world and the physical world and can be proved inside and out, up and down, right and left, even in the darkness of hell.
You have received the blessing a second time, haven’t you? What was the name of the blessing? It was the Transition of the Three Ages Four-Position Foundation Registration Unification Blessing. It is the era of the family. In other words, it blessed not only the couple but the whole family. After that comes the preparations for the complete settlement of the heavenly nation, so that we secure enough evidence in regard to God’s fatherland that it cannot be disputed on the grounds of logic or of the providence and the principle. You must know how glorious and blessed is the day on which we proclaim God’s fatherland, supported by evidence that will fill the whole world and fill in the gaps and blanks that exist in human history. On that day, everyone is to be liberated, and even sinners and those who are on the verge of falling into hell are to be brought into equal status with others. National boundaries will be eliminated, and everyone in hell will be released.
This will become possible because the era in which the nation can be liberated is now here. Isn’t it the same in the satanic world? Even in the satanic world, prisoners are pardoned on days of celebration such as the anniversary of the day the country was founded. In the same way, the gates of hell will be opened, and those in hell will be pardoned, and even the sinners in this world, who would have been judged in hell will be pardoned while still on earth.
Absolute faith, absolute love and absolute hope are high standards, and in order to aspire to such standards and attain a higher position in the world to come, you must invest yourself completely and forget yourself totally, over and over again. Only then can you go to heaven after your life on earth has ended….
A constitution that protects God’s fatherland will be drawn up, and that constitution will also protect the different parts of the fatherland. The administration of this law will be very strict. The constitution will not show sympathy that is present in the human world, nor will it show humanity. Such an era is coming.
That is why I bestowed on you the special privilege of your being able to become true parents yourselves. I taught you the ways and duties of the true teacher. Next comes the position of the owner, and I have allowed you to become the owners of Cheon Il Guk, which until that point had been the privilege only of God and True Parents. Since you have inherited the positions of the parents, the teachers and the owners, that nation belongs to you and not to God or True Parents. That nation is your nation, the nation without Adam’s Fall. Based on the family lines in your clan, families must engraft together until there is one great national family, in which everyone in the world is united together, where there is one nation, a unified culture and a world united as one body. The making of that unified world will involve many sacrifices along the way.
I am giving you advance warning when I say that such a world will come to be. From my experience, it seems clear that such a world will surely come to pass unless God permits a special rule of forgiveness. However, I have taught you all I know….
The truth is that as a time of great tribulation, a time of many troubles, will come to pass I proclaimed God’s fatherland. Therefore, you must be joyful and grateful, and you must repent, analyze your past, put your life on the line, and become blessed members who are cleansed and purified of all sins.
I am talking about purity, pure lineage and pure sexual relations. I’m talking about sexual relations. Don’t sexual relations involve the concave and the convex? A family cannot be formed without the concave and the convex, and so purity, pure lineage and pure love sexual relations are needed. A man cannot change his sex and become a woman, and a woman cannot change her sex, either. This is because the man’s sexual organ does not belong to him, but to the woman; and the woman’s sexual organ belongs to the man. You cannot change something that does not belong to you.
If there were no men, there would be no need for women to be born at all. Before God created the woman, the man was a prerequisite. In other words, he created the woman for the man, and the man for the woman. You cannot deny these facts.
Sexual relations are the origin of the universe. If there were no sexual relations, love could not be realized. Wherever you look, in the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom or animal kingdom, you’ll see that everything was created in pairs. Through sexual relations between male and female, history has continued for between 250 and 400 million years. The legacy of history remain unto this day as the fruit of sexual relations; if there had been no sexual relations, the world would have ceased to exist after the first generation.
People who do not abide by the laws of sexual intercourse will perish. They will perish in hell. The reason I can proclaim God’s fatherland at this point is that I have taught you all about the tradition of sexual relations, something you need to know in order to set 100 percent perfect traditions of your own….
Despite the fact that I have proclaimed God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom, there will be many among those blessed who may end up in hell, not being able to go beyond the gates of paradise. Now, instead of the kingdom of heaven, a paradise of blessed families is coming into being.
Since Adam and Eve fell before others ever came into existence, they met no one who would blame them for the Fall from the perspective of someone who knows right from wrong, but the situation is very different for the blessed members who go to hell. How can their descendants liberate them if they end up in hell even after having learned about the Fall and the Principle? Think about this for a minute. That’s what I’m worried about. We need to teach people how to start anew and go towards God’s fatherland. We need to teach them everything, and make them understand.
I am speaking clearly about this point. Do you understand? Why have I lived the way I have, being slandered and persecuted in a world where I could have lived in peace and prosperity if I had lived otherwise? You must know that I have lived the way I have because of God, because He is my father, and because my love, my life and my lineage are connected to him….
Jesus was crucified by the people of Israel, even though he had done nothing wrong. Can you imagine how wretched their ancestors must have felt as they watched this from the spiritual world? This is an act that couldn’t be repented away, even if they had tried. They could not face Jesus after what they had done.
The people of this nation, the descendants of the tribe that killed Jesus, who had come to earth as their king, cannot face him. It’s a difficult situation. Who can correct this and unite them as one? Jesus could not have done it by himself, but because we performed the coronation ceremony for Jesus, who was sovereign over Israel, the wall that had divided the Old Testament Age and the New Testament Age in the spiritual world has been broken down, and the people who occupied those spheres have united. This united nation, the first realm of Israel, could then be connected to the second Israel, the U.S., and the third Israel, Korea.
Because I have indemnified the first mistake, which was Adam’s, the second mistake, on the national level, made at the time of Jesus, and the third mistake on the world level, and because I have opened a new era, that of the proclamation of God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom, from now on there will be no one on earth who can fight against the Unification Church and win.
An environment in which evil will submit to good naturally will penetrate the darkness as does the bright light of the sun in the morning, bringing about the dawn of a new era. Because this morning is not far away, I have no choice but to proclaim God’s fatherland. You should know that even now I am working to save the people.
The conclusion is very simple. It is a principle of heaven that anything or anyone that does not start out on a foundation of the restoration of the independence of God’s fatherland will go to hell, perish or disappear. Amen!
Cherish what I tell you today deep in your hearts. I’ve talked about the unity of everything, as one. I have also talked of overhauling the blessed families. You should know that what I’m saying comes form my heart of love for you, in order to see you stand in God’s fatherland; so you should accept what I’m saying with gratitude.
Now, before we go I’d like to talk about a few of the tasks that lie before us. The most important of these tasks is the fulfillment of the Family Pledge. You must become families that do not bring disgrace to the value of the words, “As the owner of Cheon Il Guk, our family…” There, you must become one with God. Your mind and body must become one; a husband and wife have to become one; and sons and daughters have to become one with their parents. You cannot focus on your object if there is no foundation of love to base the relationship upon, a foundation of love that can be the center of the principle of unity. Such relationships cannot be developed without life based on love, and blood relatives based on that life. The gates of the kingdom of heaven will open only on the foundation of a unified people. Since you have not reached such a standard yet, your passing through the first test into the next stage remains uncertain.
Most importantly, you need to know the fact that we have entered the era of the fulfillment of the Family Pledge. Do you understand? You must fulfill all eight verses of the pledge. Originally, there were to be ten verses, but I have not told you the last two. I’ll announce the last two if the world moves fast enough to accept it, and if not, I’ll leave the last two until I go to the spiritual world. I’ll then announce them in the spiritual world, and all of you will feel as if you’d been struck by lightning.
This is the era of the fulfillment of the Family Pledge. Only when you carry this out can you stand on the soil of Cheon Il Guk. That tells you how much you should treasure and value the Family Pledge, doesn’t it? You must know that people sacrificed their wealth and animals in the Old Testament Age, their sons and daughters in the New Testament Age, and their parents in the Completed Testament Age, all in order to establish a foundation on which the Family Pledge could be fulfilled. The reason God persevered as He lost his nation, heaven and earth to Satan was that He knew a day would come when a family, a race, and a nation would be established, and that the nation would perfect the Family Pledge and bring about liberation, the restoration of the independence of God’s fatherland. Therefore, you must know that the Family Pledge should be the most important aspect of our lives.
The number one aspect of our lives is the Family Pledge. Do you understand that? Should we recite the Family Pledge only by ourselves and leave others to their own fate? Of course not.
Secondly, I’d like to explain the era of the use of special holy salt and holy wine. The Family Pledge is very important, and we have been liberated through the Family Pledge, but the Cain world still remains as bound as ever. So, cleansing the Cain world through the use of special holy salt and holy wine is our responsibility in order to completely break through on the grassroots level.
Only then can Cain and Abel become one, and only when they are united as one can God’s fatherland, the place where God can reside forever, be started. That is why God’s fatherland can only be established after Cain and Abel are united. The people who know and abide by the Family Pledge should bless those who do not know about it through the special holy salt and holy wine and create a united Cain—Abel realm. Only then can the tribe, race and nation that can stand on the soil of God’s fatherland be formed. The tribe, race and nation must be established in God’s fatherland.
The third point is about the era of the settlement of purity, pure lineage, pure sexual relations. Don’t we have a Pure Love Campaign headquarters? Where can you find pure love in the world? Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed? God destroyed them with fire from heaven, because they had become sexually corrupt. Nevertheless, this world is following in the footsteps of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, who had been living in the city, was commanded by God to leave his home, but on the way out of the city his wife looked back at their home and turned into a pillar of salt. You must never forget what this story teaches you, and keep in mind the woman who turned into a pillar of salt, an example of sorrow and grief. It will be the same for you. You live in a similar era. And that is why we emphasize chastity before marriage, and loyalty to your spouse after marriage. After you get married, you must remain pure and keep your lineage pure as well. While you live you will have a chance to live with three generations in a family, four at the most. You have the responsibility to keep your family members pure and chaste, from the grandfather, the grandmother, to the mother and the father, to yourself and your siblings, and later to your children. You may have to give up on those who have already died and gone to hell, but those who are still alive have a chance to receive the blessing. You must know that soon a time will come when you cannot eat anything nor do anything else unless you have blessed all your family members.
The fourth point is that since we have now entered such an era, you must go through the ceremonies of rebirth and resurrection! The era of immortality; the era of purification! What does purification entail? Now that blessed families have entered Cheon Il Guk, they must reflect and see where they are lacking, and carry out hoondokhae with the teachings of the Divine Principle. You must read The Holy Scripture of Heaven1, compare your lives with what I have said in the 400 books of my sermons, and complete what is as yet unfinished in your lives.
The ceremonies of rebirth and resurrection, and the era of immortality… Even if you came here, internally, you must make up for not having come to the church at an early age. That is why the ceremonies of rebirth and resurrection, and the eras of immortality and purification are the fourth point I’m speaking about today. These will give your families and those around you the right to enter God’s fatherland. A family must qualify to stand in that position.
The fifth point regards the era of the passing on of the books of my speeches. What I mean by this is that the grandfather, who is the first generation, should pass on the things taught by me to his descendants, because they are the laws of the heavenly nation, and everyone living on earth and in heaven must abide by them.
How many books of my speeches have been published so far this year? [It’s reached 400 books this year.] That means you must inherit what’s in those 400 books. In blessed families, the books should be handed down from generation to generation, starting from the first, to the second, the third, and so on. In that way the father will conduct his life the same way the grandfather had; the son will conduct his life the same way the father had, and so on. The fourth generation should conduct life in the same way as the third generation, the fifth generation the same as the fourth, and so on. At most, four generations can live together in one house; it won’t be possible for five generations to live together.
This practice of passing on this lifestyle and living in the same way must be continued for at least seven generations. The way to live must be handed down from generation to generation; the parents must pass the constitution of the heavenly world and the laws that control both the spiritual and physical worlds on to their sons and daughters once they have married. Only then can their sons and daughters stand in God’s fatherland. The passing on of these laws will be like a ritual. Those to whom the laws are handed down must abide by and follow them.
Now that the number of books filled with my speeches has reached 400, I don’t think I need to teach you anything more. From those 400 books, the essential points have been selected and are to be found in a book called The Holy Scripture of Heaven. This is like the heavenly bible.
Your lives should revolve around what’s in this book; you should always keep it as a reference. If there is anything you don’t understand in the book, you can always refer back to the 400 speech books. This book will tell you how to live your lives in this world, and even more. It lists the laws that you must abide by in the kingdom of heaven and in the realm of God’s fatherland; it provides you with enough information to draw up extra laws if you so desire. The book is like the constitution of God’s nation, and so it can rightly be called the holy scripture of heaven.
The sixth point I want to make is that everything must be begun on the foundation of God’s fatherland. That is why the fatherland is so very important. Whatever you have done according to your desire until now should be burned and forgotten. I told you yesterday to forget all of that.
Everything and everyone must stand on the fatherland, but until now there has not been even one person who has done so. You must forget everything and not boast of your achievements in the past. Even I will forget everything I have achieved until now and not boast of it. Instead, I am thinking that during the remainder of my life on earth, I should stand in God’s fatherland as a devoted son, serve God faithfully, fulfill the duties of a patriot, saint, and a holy son, and finally become a representative of God Himself.
My life began with hardships and will end with hardships. It is my fate to live that way and finally go to the kingdom of heaven. You should bear in mind that you should not owe anything to True Parents, but who liberate pain and resentment. Give me a round of applause if you are going to bear this in mind.
The seventh point on my list is to recite the other points I’ve made until now, in reverse order: On the foundation of God’s fatherland, where the mind and the body are united as one, the set of books containing my speeches should be handed down, after which comes the rebirth, resurrection, eras of immortality and purification, the era of the unity of the trinity, the era of holy wine and holy salt, and finally the era of the Family Pledge!
All of you should know the Family Pledge by heart. Everything else comes after the Family Pledge. You should know that if you do not fulfill the Family Pledge, you will not be able to fulfill anything in the list I’ve just recited backwards. Bear this fact in mind always, and pledge to live according to the Family Pledge starting from today. You must make the pledge in the presence of your mind and body, particularly the head, where the organs of the five senses, the eyes, nose, ears, mouth and face, are.
Since the body is connected to the eyes, nose, mouth, ears and the face, it becomes an object partner to the subject partner; so you must make the pledge, sticking your sword in the ground to show your commitment. You cannot change as long as the sword remains standing on your oath, as you stand proudly and with confidence in front of God. I hope you become the heirs representing princes and princesses, and the children who will be praised in the presence of God. That is why I am passing on these things to you on this great day, on the day of the proclamation of the era of God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom.
It is my hope and wish that you will pass this on to your descendants, and as your descendants pass what I have said today from generation to generation, I hope that they will follow and obey it. When you resolve to do so today, you are paving the way for your descendants to enable the kingdom of God to last in peace and prosperity for thousands of years to come. You will also make it possible for the era of the liberation and the freedom of the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven to come about, and establish the positions of the parents, the teachers and the kings who will be praised by all and admired eternally. Then everything will have been completed. Amen? Amen? [applause]
Even in your dreams, you should be thinking of God’s fatherland and the peace kingdom. God has wanted His fatherland, and we have wanted a kingdom of heaven. Now that the wishes of both heaven and earth have come true, you must be grateful from deep within your hearts. And when the time comes for you to pass on to the spiritual world, you should not shed tears of regret, but be grateful on behalf of the earth; shed tears of patriotism and filial piety, so that you are not ashamed in front of the creation.
I don’t know if you can do it, but as I conclude today, it is my hope and wish that you will resolve as you leave here today not to become shameful sons and daughters who will only shed tears out of concern for their own enjoyment and pleasure.
Today is God’s Day, and since this year’s God’s Day begun on the foundation of God’s fatherland, this is the representative day on which everyone can complete and fulfill everything. Now we are seeing the dawning of a new era in which everything will be done according to our desire.
The most important day on earth is not True Parents’ Day, True Children’s day, Day of All Things, or even the founding day of this nation. It is God’s Day, and that is why it is the first day of the year. On this day, the day that marks the 37th True God’s Day in the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, I hope all of you will remember this and remain faithful as we march toward the new heaven and earth.
Endnote:
1 A recently published book of essential content drawn from the 400 volumes of Father’s speeches. Its Korean title is Cheon Sung-Gyeong [õºº°Ê]. It was published in Japan and will likely be republished in Korea.