Sunday Service Message: Rev. Hori Masaichi (Japan)

Below is the English translation of the Sunday Service message delivered by Rev. Masaichi Hori in Japan on March 15, 2026. If you would like to watch the original video in Japanese, you can find it here.

Good morning to all blessed families and members across the nation of Japan.

I would like to share a message with each one of you attending Sunday Service today this March 15.

Although we are currently facing very challenging circumstances, I feel sincerely grateful, and delighted that we can still share this message together, gathering like this in spirit for Sunday service.

As I mentioned previously, after last week’s message from True Mother, we also received an encouraging message from the Inheritors of Heaven’s Love and Blessing.

I simply asked if they could send brief words of encouragement, rather than a long message, so that our members could see their faces and hear their voices. And so, without feeling pressured, they kindly shared a message in a natural and relaxed way.

I believe that in the future there will be more opportunities to share messages from the Inheritors of Heaven’s Love and Blessing with everyone.

Above all, please remember that all the True Family and brothers and sisters around the world are deeply concerned for Heavenly Japan at this time. They are constantly praying and wondering what they can do to help and support. We must take this spiritual encouragement to heart and continue moving forward.

Today I am speaking without a prepared script, so  I may occasionally glance down at my notes. I kindly ask for your understanding.

There are three points I would like to share today. The first point is our gratitude for the message from the Inheritors of Heaven’s Love and Blessing. The second point is that although we are currently going through a very difficult time, I’d like to share two hopeful and inspiring testimonies with all of you. Some of you may already know this, but on March 4, when the dissolution order was issued, we were all deeply shocked. However, since that day I have received  several reports of people connecting with our church after the dissolution order.

These are people who had been in contact with members before, but after the dissolution order they reached out and said, “I’d like to begin studying the Principle seriously from now.” It sounds like a humorous story. However, we asked them to confirm: “Are you certain about this? Our organization has been ordered to dissolve. Are you sure you still wish to begin studying the Principle now?”

Their response was: “It doesn’t matter. I sincerely want to study this teaching properly, so I would like to begin now.” And so they decided to start the lecture series. There are several such cases.

Even though the Family Federation has been dissolved, or perhaps precisely because of it, the attention of society toward us has greatly increased. People may hesitate to become directly involved with us, yet they are watching us, our actions, our attitude, and the way we live our lives with even greater interest than before.

For this very reason, we should recognize that this is also a time of opportunity for witnessing. Just as one sharpens a kitchen knife so it is always ready for cutting food, we must continually prepare ourselves through devotion and effort so that we are ready whenever the moment comes.

What we should strive for now is to firmly believe that, especially in times like these, there are certainly people who can be reached through witnessing. Therefore we must continue our witnessing efforts with the same attitude as before. I believe this is the most important thing for us at this time.

There is also another encouraging story. In Okinawa, a Christian pastor named Rev. Sunagawa offered our members the use of his church’s chapel, saying “If the members of the Family Federation are struggling because they cannot use their churches, please feel free to use ours.” Amazingly, he even offered to lend it free of charge. Thought it may be some distance from most of us, the fact that such a Christian pastor made this offer is truly remarkable.

It is an incident that makes us feel that such things really do happen, and we may even expect to see more things like this in the future.  

In a sense, precisely because the framework of the “Family Federation”, or the “former Unification Church,” has now been removed, this may be an opportunity for us to take a true step forward toward Heavenly Parent’s Holy Community, one that transcends the boundaries of religion and welcomes all people of faith under the ideal of “One Family of Humankind under God.”

At present we cannot use our church buildings for our worship services, and this causes us deep pain and concern. We are also inconvenienced because we cannot hold memorial services and memorial services. My mother’s 40th-day memorial service was scheduled for March 14, but because the church was unavailable we had no choice but to hold it privately. From now on, I believe we should carefully record each of these events without letting our emotions get the better of us. Members should write about the anxiety, confusion, and uncertainty they are feeling in personal reflection journals and share them with the world.

Rather than portraying ourselves as victims, we can simply and calmly say, “Through what has happened we have come to realize how blessed we were to live our life of faiths until now.” I believe this itself can become a testimony that we can share with the world. We have been shown that having a church, being able to gather together, and hold events as a community, things that once seemed ordinary, were not something to be taken for granted. Now that we are no longer able to gather, we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot even cry out freely in prayer at Cheonshim Won. Even so, while maintaining good relationships with the liquidators to oversee the current process, we hope that we can gradually regain opportunities to hold certain church events again.

Now, I’d like to move on to the third point, which is the main message I would like to share today, the story of Noah. Many of you are familiar with the biblical account of Noah and the flood. Recently as I reread what the Bible account, I felt it offers insights that are very relevant to our situation today. So I’d like to briefly share some thoughts from that story with all of you here.

According to the Bible, the flood began on the seventeenth day of the second month when Noah was six hundred years old. It is remarkable that such details were recorded even in ancient times. The Bible also tells us that before the flood began, God allowed seven days for all the animals to enter the Ark, which had already been completed. After the Ark was filled and its door was closed, the rain began to fall and continued for forty days and forty nights. Eventually, the entire earth was covered by the floodwaters. When we hear “forty days and forty nights,” we often imagine only the period during which the rain was falling. However, according to the biblical account, after the rain stopped the waters remained covering the earth for 150 days.

The time during which the earth was fully covered by water was nearly four times as long as the period when the rain was falling. This may also be something to keep in mind.

After that, the waters gradually began to recede and the land slowly started to dry off. This period was actually longer than the initial 150 days. As the waters continued to subside, the mountains gradually appeared and the earth steadily dried, until at last it was safe to step outside. It took a total of 181 days before Noah could finally leave the Ark and set foot again on dry ground. Altogether, from the beginning of the flood until Noah came out onto the dry land, exactly one year and ten days had passed. It was on the twenty-seventh day of the second month of Noah’s six hundred and first year that he came out of the Ark near Mount Ararat. Therefore, the events such as Noah sending out the dove three times occurred during this 181-day period,  when the waters were gradually receding from the earth. We see that Noah proceeded with great caution and patience, taking careful steps until it was certain that the land had fully returned to its former state before leaving the Ark. This, in essence, is the timeline of the flood. 

Even now, one cannot help but sense something resembling a historical parallel. Of course, our current situation of dissolution does not mean that a literal flood is about to occur. However, if we were to place these circumstances along the timeline of Noah’s flood, it feels as though events might unfold in a very similar way. This is the perspective from which I am speaking today.

At the beginning, the animals gathered together, and during that very period the rain began to fall and the door was closed. From that moment, forty days of rain followed, bringing about the flood. In a similar way, if we think of the period after the dissolution as comparable to those forty days, the various difficulties and uncertainties that arise may correspond to that time. The question, then, is how we will live through these forty days.

Across the nation we have already begun a 40-day period of devotions. If we understand our present situation as overlapping with that biblical period, it may be easier to grasp the overall picture. After that 40-day and 40-night period of turmoil, we must navigate the following 150 days, when the waters were still covering the earth, perhaps that will be three to four months. After that will come the time when we move forward toward a new situation, the beginning of a new church and the establishment of a new organization.

The Bible records that on around the seventh month the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. Then, around the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains began to appear. After another period of perhaps half a year, the ground finally dried out, and it became safe to go outside. During that time Noah released the dove, and step by step the moment of a new beginning approached.

At that new starting point, Noah offered sacrifices and burnt offerings before God in a festival of thanksgiving before God. In response, God placed a rainbow in the sky. It was a day of blessing, marking the providential victory of Noah who stood as the second good ancestor of humankind, after Adam and Eve.

For us in the Family Federation, this current ordeal of the dissolution must ultimately lead to a new beginning of the Family Federation worthy of the substantial Cheon Il Guk. I am convinced that those of you across the nation who are receiving this message have already prepared your hearts with such resolve and determination. In response to this situation of dissolution, I hear many people saying, “We do not know what will happen from now on,” expressing anxiety. It is very natural that we have those feelings. Even if one week passes after the dissolution and we still do not know what will happen, that is simply the nature of such a shocking event. Yet this moment also presents an opportunity for witnessing. Therefore, I encourage those who can maintain a bright and hopeful spirit to continue stepping forward and continue their activities.

As we internally receive this shock and seek to move in a new direction, the timeline of Noah offers us a valuable point of reference. When we consider that the flood of Noah began on the seventeenth day of the second month, preceded by about a week of preparation, we cannot help but sense a certain symbolic significance to this situation.

God has left us many lessons and teachings throughout the history of the restoration of humankind, guidance that enables us to overcome every challenge. The 5 percent portion of human responsibility refers to the attitude of those living a life of faith who say, “I don’t know what to do—God, please help me.” Yet, in this era of Cheon Il Guk, as people living a life based on filial heart (hyojeong), our response and attitude should be different. Rather than saying we do not know what to do, we ask, “What guidance and method of surmounting this has God already given us? Let us once again examine the Word, our teachings. Let us reflect on our life of faith,” rediscovering that within it lies the opportunity to overcome.

Therefore, our faith is not one in which we simply pour out our anxieties to God and ask God to solve them. Rather, we already stand directly connected with God and are walking together with our True Mother. Even now, True Mother, who remains in the detention center, is calmer than those of us outside. She is filled with greater conviction and a more peaceful heart, seeing the situation with clarity. She assures us, “Be at peace. Remain calm. In time all truth will be revealed, and God’s will shall surely be fulfilled.”

What we should realize through our filial heart (hyojeong) at this time is not that the world outside of the detention center is freedom and the inside is a prison. Rather, where True Mother is, there is heaven; where we are distant from her heart, there is not. When we unite our hearts with True Mother, even while she is in the detention center, we discover that becoming one with her is, in fact, the key to resolving everything. This is not merely theory, but something to be embraced in heart. Where there is absolute conviction, there is also absolute peace. And why can we say there is peace of mind? It is because we are certain that the love of Heavenly Parent and True Parents is directed toward us, and also that we love Heavenly Parent and True Parents. When these relationships are absolute, our hearts can remain calm and steadfast. With such an attitude in our life of faith, we will be able to prevail throughout this time. Today, we explored the Bible and shared those insights as a way to better understand our present situation.

May your coming week be guided by Heavenly Parent, and a week in which you walk together with True Parents in filial devotion and love. If you experience hardship or sorrow, please record those experiences. And if there are moments of joy, share them with everyone, so that we may encourage and strengthen one another as we continue forward together.

Thank you so much.