Seventieth Birthday Celebration Banquet

Respected guests from overseas and distinguished Leaders of Korean society.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you for taking time from your busy public and private schedules to attend this banquet in celebration of my seventieth birthday. Your presence makes this a truly festive occasion. In particular, I am grateful beyond words that so many distinguished guests who have served as presidents and prime ministers of their countries, as well as former senators and congressmen from the United States, have come for this occasion. I offer you my very special gratitude.

Further, I would like to thank the International Law Society of Mexico, which boasts a distinguished history stretching back 180 years and whose authority is recognized widely throughout the world, for awarding me a very distinguished medal.

I am particularly grateful that Ambassador Medhat el Masri and Ambassador Mario Antonio Munoz, who are both vice presidents of the society, have honored me with their presence for the purpose of the awards ceremony. It is an infinite honor to me to be awarded a medal which I understand is given only to royalty and heads of state. I am also very happy to have been included among the honorary members of this society.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Bloomfield University in New Jersey for awarding an honorary doctorate degree to Mrs. Moon. It is difficult for me to describe in words my gratitude toward Dr. John Noonan, President of Bloomfield University, and Dr. Sal Mazzande, Vice President, who have made a special trip to Korea to present this award. I pray that infinite blessing may be upon your institution.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the mere fact a man lives to be seventy does not make him successful. Age by itself is not a goal worth striving for.

Never during my life did I even dream that someday when I lived to be seventy, there would be such a large banquet and that so many distinguished guests would gather to congratulate me.

I was sixteen when I first met God. Ever since, I have just done my best to hold on to God as tightly as I could and stay close to Him. As a result of that, I find myself standing here this evening.

God alone has made this evening possible. It is a miracle that He has brought about, and for that reason I must offer to Him my most humble gratitude. The encouragement you have given Mrs. Moon and myself and the praises that you make of my work-expressed through messages of congratulations, medals, academic degrees and all other form`: are rightfully offered back up to God. The glory does not belong to me but to God, and so I offer all of these to Heaven.

Looking back, my life of seventy years has been an indescribably thorny path. It has been a path of constant struggle and adversity.

I understand the strategy of Heaven, whereby Heaven allows itself to be struck and then uses this condition to take that which rightfully belongs to Heaven. The truth of the universe is that good prospers while being struck, and that evil creates its own downfall by striking at good. For example, in both the First and Second World Wars, the side that struck first finally lost the war. We may consider the confrontation with Communism to be the Third World War; and here too, it is aggressive Communism that is now collapsing. Knowing this truth, I found the energy to persevere even in the most difficult of situations.

After meeting the living God, my Father, I have not had so much as one minute, or even one second, for extraneous thought. I have lived my entire life with the singular determination to accomplish the Will of my Father in Heaven, that is, to bring salvation to the world and to establish a true peace among all men.

God has been burning with the desire to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth so that all people of this world can live in happiness. The essence of God has been true love and his relationship to humanity has been that of a father to his children. Through history, however, mankind has not only been ignorant of God but has repeatedly pierced His heart with the nails of betrayal. I discovered that God in Heaven, the Father of all humanity, lives with deep resentment caused by the heartrending sorrow of a parent who has lost His children.

My goal in life has been to resolve this resentment of God. My purpose for living has been to liberate the God of sorrow from His sorrow, loneliness and anguish. This has been the fundamental motivation for all that I have done through these seventy years, whether it be related to religious activity, the media, business and finance or politics.

I have taken on a great many tasks. I have also invested a great deal of money. Never have I invested money, however, for the purpose of amassing a large fortune for myself. Never have I taken on a task for the sake of my own honor and glory. Out of the sole desire to liberate God from His sorrow and suffering, I have shed blood, sweat and tears in an attempt to bring about the true peace of mankind.

I also realized fully that it is impossible to achieve such a peace, unless we first give God joy by liberating Him from His sorrow and suffering in terms of the individual, family, nation and world. I have sought to practice this through my own life. I have taught:

"God lives for us and the world, so should we live for the world and God."

Surely, the greatest enemy of God is selfishness.

Altruism-investing all of oneself for others, for the nation and for the world; living a life of sacrifice and service to others-may be considered by today's society to be a most foolish philosophy of life. As I came to understand the deepest truths, however, it became obvious that altruism is the path most beneficial to human society. It is the secret for living in eternal happiness.

That is why I have taught the believers in ;30 countries around the world who transcend racial and national barriers to follow me that they should live lives of constant sacrifice and service for others.

I am well known around the world as a leader in the anti-Communist and victory over Communism movements. The purpose I conduct a movement for victory over communism is not to kill communists but to liberate them with truth and true love so that they may live. This is the reason I am working to help the communist world today and rescue it from its current distress. For that reason, I have been welcomed even in the Soviet Union and China. Even Kim Il Sung in North Korea cannot be my enemy.

Recently, a distinguished group of Soviet journalists visited Korea for the first time at my invitation. On their return trip, I asked them to visit North Korea. They were at first reluctant, but finally they accepted my earnest request to go to Pyongyang and relay my message to Kim Il Sung.

This message contained the following three points:

First, I am not your enemy.

Second, you must give up your wild ambition to communize South Korea.

Third, stop trying to swim against the tide of world events. Throw out that which is false, and return to the truth. When you open your doors and reach out, you and I will become brothers, and we will be able to live together in prosperity and happiness.

Kim Il Sung will have no choice but to respond to my proposal. Failure to do so will only precipitate his own downfall.

In China I have made an initial investment of $250 million in the project to build the Panda Motor Company industrial city. The purpose of this investment is not so that I can establish a foothold in China as a way of making a fortune for myself. It is my principle that not so much as a penny of the profits from the China project will be taken out of China. These profits will be reinvested in China to construct the International Highway of Peace and to bang China up to international standard in other areas of high technology. Thus, the motivation of my investment is to help the 1.3 billion Chinese people achieve a satisfactory standard of living.

I have reached agreement with the government of the Soviet Union to hold the World Media Conference and the International Summit for World Peace in Moscow this April. At these conferences, I will announce a draft proposal on how the 270 million citizens of the Soviet Union can achieve a satisfactory standard of living.

Dr. Joseph Churba, who is responsible for the International Security Conference that I founded, recently returned to me from Moscow with a very satisfactory report concerning an ISC conference held there January 25th and 26th. Dr. Churba was accompanied to Moscow by an ISC delegation that included a former U.S. Secretary of Defense, was well as a number of retired generals and other experts in the field of global security. Soviet participants in this conference included the highest military leaders of that country.

My purpose in holding this ISC conference was to further East West reconciliation, and, in particular, to solidify the bonds of friendship and trust between the United States and the Soviet Union. The results of the conference show that these expectations were fully justified.

I am determined now that I will do my best to improve the economic situation and well being not only of the Chinese but of the Soviet people as well.

Ten years from now, we will reach the year 2000. The task I have before me now is to see whether I can achieve world peace before that time. When we gather in the year 2000 in the same way we are gathered here tonight, it should be for the purpose of holding a banquet to celebrate the establishment of world peace.

We are all brothers and sisters before the one Creator God. As we live together through the next decade, let us transcend racial and national boundaries, break down the walls between religions and denominations, and climb over the barriers of culture and language. Let those of us who have plenty help those who have less, so that we may be the laborers to build a peace that will be remembered in history.

If the world leaders who are gathered here tonight will combine your strengths together, we will be more than equal to this task.

During this next decade, we will see the fulfillment of mankind's earnest desires for a true reconciliation between East and West and for an economic reconciliation between the richer and poorer nations of the world. Also, our long cherished desire to see the unification of North and South Korea will be realized.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as we begin this new year of 1990 with great hope, I pray that God's blessing and good fortune will fill all of your homes. Let me end my message at this holy banquet that we offer to God by inviting you all to do away with selfishness, practice a life of living for others and be leaders in the vanguard for building a new century of world peace. Thank You very much.