ORDER NUMBER
80-10-04

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON
SPEAKS ON

THE DAY OF
THE VICTORY OF HEAVEN

October 4, 1980
Belvedere
Translator - Sang Kil Han

Copyright © 1980 by Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity

What day is this? You said it: The Day of the Victory of Heaven. In Korean we call it Chun Soon Il; Chun means heaven; Soon means victory; Il means day.

Thinking back, it has been four years since this day was first set. Of course, no one else in the world recognizes and celebrates this day. Does that mean heaven has never been victorious on earth? Can Unification Church members say that God has always been defeated, and never had a victory until this time? It's all a matter of what standard you use to determine victory and defeat. How was God defeated, and where did He gain victory-in spirit world, or on earth? Centering on what was victory or defeat determined? Was it one man or many men?

Almost everyone chosen for the dispensation failed God. We know that it was because of man's failure on earth that God suffered defeat. Was it God that failed, and that caused defeat? It was not God who was defeated, but God's dispensation. The history of providence has repeated itself and always ended in failure. There is a subject who plans the providence, and an object who carries it out. The subject is God, and man is His object.

We know that unless subject and object are joined in unison, a victory will not come forth. Why did God create in such a way that subject and object must come into oneness? This is because man has a responsibility; without man's responsibility, God's history would have started gloriously from the very beginning and concluded victoriously. Why did God set up man's responsibility then? We already know the answer: it is so that people can participate in their own creation, and achieve status as creators.

We can see examples of this on a daily basis: all you sisters know you have to marry in the right way, uniting with a great and correct spouse. Why are you so careful not to make any mistake in selecting your spouse? It is so you can ensure the success of your marriage, and thus become the object of a higher plane of love.

Take the example of the President of the United States; regardless of whether he is a great man, the office he holds is a very great position. Everyone envies him, and would like to be there themselves. No matter how small or even deformed a person may be, he or she would still like to hold that office. What about Moonies? They are no exception. If a man is eminently qualified to be President and is elected, but his wife is lame, should he set the standard that someone like her cannot ride in his limousine? Would the First Lady obey such an order, or would she feel badly and rebel? She might protest in front of the television cameras! Then would the wife suffer, or the husband?

Would the people of the nation agree with the President? No, the audience will protest the President's decision as well. This is how Koreans would think, for sure; what about Americans? How do we know such a decision is wrong? Why is a wife entitled to the dignity of her husband's position? Because of the love binding them together. Here or anywhere, love is the greatest of all. A wife who loves her husband automatically has the right to participate in whatever her husband receives. They are no longer two, but one.

The sisters would like to have great husbands so that they could participate when their husbands rise to great heights. This is also why all men are very serious in choosing their wives. Is God any different? Does God have anything to do with love? As far as I know, God would say He has never been in love, but all you Unification Church members say you have seen God in love. What you are saying is that God is anxious to love someone, but has not loved anyone so far. What are the things of God's creation anxious to see? What would they want to see God doing? If we asked the birds this question, certainly they would enjoy seeing God's creation, but wouldn't they also like to see God in love with man? Not only to see God love, but to feel God love.

But you might ask how trees, for instance, can feel love. Animals act by instinct, you might say, but they don't really feel emotion. If a woman owns a dog and loves it very much, would the dog just love her, or love her husband as well? The dog would love them equally, wouldn't he? Does the dog hesitate to approach the husband, or go straight forward to express his love for him? Would he be looking around as he goes toward his owner, or just bound straight forward to her? Still he is anxious to make sure that they are both in agreement in loving him.

When a farmer invests heart and love in raising his crops, they are much more fruitful. When you ask any creation, small or large, what it would like to see, it will say, "I want to see God in love. I want to feel God's love."

If I keep talking at this rate, it will take all day! Also, I didn't intend to give you a Divine Principle lecture, but first I must explain some things before I talk about the victory of heaven. We know that all creation is anxious to see God in love. Is man such a high being that he is not bothered by love? Especially Moonies, who have no feeling-isn't love outside your concern? If even Moonies are concerned about love, it must mean that all mankind are concerned about love!

If you ask God the same question, would He say that He already has everything so He doesn't need love? What would God be anxious to have? Why don't we think about this and figure out what God would want, and then tell Him. Would God want to see things in love and be in love also? If you are very sure of this, and you tell Him that is what He must want, then everything is settled at this point. Then all the world would come into unity. and never be in conflict over ideals.

If you feel good when you are only hearing about love, what will happen when you really are in love? How much better would you feel when you see love? If a woman's hair is drooping but then she hears about love, her hair will bounce up! But if she is in love, what will happen to her hair? It will start dancing! This must be the ultimate description of a woman in love. Men wouldn't experience this, though, with their short hair, right?

I wondered why hippies would want to look so bad by letting their hair grow long and get wild and dirty. But I thought that it might be because they want to feel love just like a woman. This was just my thinking; it doesn't mean you should start growing your hair! I have seen that when I just mention something, people start doing it immediately. If I say long hair is good for feeling love, brothers will grow their hair. But that is not my meaning!

What is the purpose of your living? To sleep and eat three meals a day? To work all day long? To study for a degree? If you haven't even seen love, how can you say it is your purpose? The explanation is not complicated. When a man and woman embrace, will they say, "I am now looking at God's love"? This is a serious question. Maybe they thought that what they are feeling is what God would feel, so they think they are feeling God's love.

Did anyone teach you about this in school? Only the Moonie university teaches this. Would other people say this is good? They would tremble, shake their heads and also use both hands to emphasize how bad it is. You who are here for the first time, here I am, that very Reverend Moon!

There is only one Reverend Moon, but some people say he is good, and others say he is bad. Both of them cannot be correct. How would you settle this problem? God must have a reason for His answer. Would God say I am good because I know about love, and I arrange things so that God can love people? God's reasoning would be that this is exactly what all the universe wants, that I am the first to teach everyone about this. When He gives that reason, the world can listen and agree, but if He gives no reason for His answer then the world will keep on opposing me. Can I be proud because you say I am good, even though other people say I am bad?

God has everything, power, silver and gold, authority, but why did we say God has always suffered defeat? Does God need a PhD? Does He need to eat three times a day like we do? Then what is it God needs? You say He needs true love; He needs sun love, which also includes moon love! If you ask God what He needs, He will say He already has everything. If you ask whether He can give it to everyone, He will say yes.

If you ask why He doesn't love you, what will He reply ? This is a difficult question for God to answer. That touches the most sensitive point in God's heart, and at that moment God is the saddest being on earth. After a long hesitation He will reply, "I cannot love you because I have not yet loved my eldest begotten son and daughter; therefore, I can love no one." The law of love says the firstborn must be loved first. There are billions of people who were born of the first begotten son who became a failure because of the fall. God cannot love those generations born of His first child until He can love the firstborn. That is God's own law.

It is God's will that He love the first true son and daughter first, and then go on to love the true family and clan, nation and world, and true heaven. This is the order of love. To this day, God has never loved to that extent. Many people know that even though God created the world, He is not with them, meaning He is not loving them. As a result, there are many contradictory things in the world, such as war. But God has never intervened to stop war. What do all men on earth want, more than money or power? They want God to come to earth and live with them, loving them.

Then why is the concept of a Messiah necessary? Some would say he is necessary in order to connect all the failed relationships in history, finally bringing them together. He will be the center of all God's love, distributing it to the entire world. Religion exists to prepare the foundation so the Messiah can come and work with ease. God worked very hard to send the Messiah, who will make sure that God's love can reach the first son, first family, and first nation.

Because God lost His firstborn due to the fall, the Messiah must come to let God love the firstborn, allowing Him for the first time to love the true family, true nation, true world, and true cosmos. After that, God will say that everything is accomplished. That's the tradition of love.

Christians think that because on the cross Jesus said, "It is finished," that there is nothing more to be accomplished on earth. There is a vast gulf between this idea and the Principle. God has to send the Messiah once again; does that mean everything was accomplished in Jesus' time?

Here in Unification Church we emphasize True Parents, true family, and so forth. Where does this "true" come from? It comes in this connection of love. It is reasonable to say that this is the reason there are no problems between races here, and that everyone can come into unity. The individual, family, clan and so forth are here in Unification Church, but without being "true," they would be false things.

White people will say they are sure God loves white people only. Does He? Do the white people who say I am wrong for disagreeing with them realize that actually they are in the wrong? It is those people who hate me. The white people in Unification Church are very different. Proof of that is the fact that white members want to be matched to black spouses, and when I say, "Let's think about it," they reply, "There is nothing to think about." White people hate me because they think I am endangering the traditions of white civilization. Would God feel they are right?

When you look at things in view of true love, nothing is very complicated. The highest place in spirit world is reserved for those people who want to see what God wants to see-who want to see God loving the true man, true family, and so forth. The people who love those things as well will also go to the highest heaven. If even a non-religious person hears this, he will not be able to understand why all people don't believe this obvious truth. In most churches the congregation have comfortable chairs and the minister shakes their hands, but here you sit on the damp ground. But if God pays most attention to this place then this is the best place on earth. Moonies are happy people, aren't they?

Now you know how God wins victory, centering on love. God sent me to earth, and I made God see and feel love as He intended. This is all I did, yet this is how God won the victory. That is fine for God, but most people do not know about God, and therefore feel threatened by me. This is why they try to discredit God-centered activity. They want to know what will happen to their tradition and history. We still have to struggle to educate them and bring them closer to God. The biblical dispensation was never fulfilled, simply because there was always a lack of love. In this perspective, Christianity has not accomplished anything either, so we have to fill these gaps in horizontal restoration and win the opposing world with love. This has yet to be accomplished.

We have faced the highest hill of opposition, filling in all the holes in the dispensation with love. This is why victory has come about. If Korea and its churches had accepted me when I first came with this mission, would I have had to go through the troubles and persecution that I have faced here in America? If I had been accepted then America would have supported the Korean people after World War 11. Then communism would not have spread throughout the world as it is today. But as it turned out, Korea opposed me, so other Asian countries and also America came to oppose me, along with the communists.

Because the Korean churches opposed me, organized persecution came about. Individuals do not oppose me as individuals, but in an historical way. This is also true of families and nations. For the first time the satanic world had found something to unite around! This entire world wanted to crush one small individual. What would have happened if I had run away from all that? Then the question would be settled, wouldn't it? Could the victory have come to be? The heavenly champion has to meet all his challengers, inviting the world to come oppose him, and he will defeat them single-handed.

In 1976 the media, Congress, and the world came to oppose me. To make sure that this opposition was complete, I sent the best American members to 124 countries as missionaries. Then in 1976 their countries came to oppose me. All 124 nations united in opposition. Centering on Washington Monument, I had to fight all America and the entire world, including national governments. Everyone opposed me at that time, but I won over all the opposition, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, which had so actively opposed me. They had to recognize what took place the day before.

Do you think I could be opposed any more than I was in 1976? The worst has been overcome. No one said I was defeated at Washington Monument; the world was defeated by one single man. But what did I fight with? With the one principle of showing the world true love, of overcoming the force that opposes God. Until that time, no matter how much people criticized me unjustly, 1 did not do anything against them. I tried to return love to them, and I simply persevered.

God wanted me to bring Him into love, not in a plush, comfortable living room but in the abyss of misery, bearing the cross. That is the point God wanted me to bring Him to love the world, showing love at the point of greatest pain. With only a handful of supporters on earth and in the worst possible persecution, I showed true love to the world, love that God could recognize. On this foundation the Day of Victory was proclaimed, four years ago today. Furthermore, on February 22 the next year I declared the beginning of a new era, stating that whoever opposed this established foundation would be the one who received suffering. The more people opposed us, the more ground they would lose and the more we would gain.

Until that time there were walls around the individual, family, clan, and so forth. But now the walls are broken down and love is free to travel anywhere on earth. Therefore, many international marriages have taken place and will continue to take place.

At the same time, there have come to exist a family, clan, nation and world surrounding Reverend Moon. With what was it organized? With matching and blessing, the organization of heavenly families. After that there is no valid way in God's sight for anyone to stop me. On that day, Satan signed his defeat and acknowledged my victory. I knew that from that day on the communist world must start to decline, that the year 1978 would be the peak year for communists to flourish and afterward they would slide down. Because that was settled, the second three seven-year courses could be proclaimed. Without that victory, they could not have been started at the right time.

I wish I could say that all Moonies love Reverend Moon. Those who say it is true, raise your hands. Why do you love Reverend Moon? Just to be nice? It is so that you can live again. I have the seal of victory, so all I have to do is stamp your application. With that stamp you have a free pass to heaven, so if you can get that stamp from me then you love me even more, right? To win this foundation of victory I had to go to strange countries and fight my way inch by inch in places where I was not wanted. I have been working since that day to create additional foundation on which you will suffer less, but you have to produce some proof that you have loved me. Where will you find your proof? Home church. With my victory you have a valid passport, and now you need to take off like a rocket, launching to reach God's heart in love.

Where is the person who would proclaim this ideal in the first place? Was there anyone like this in all history who could bravely come forth to do this mission until the final victory, regardless of the consequences? I have looked many times through history to see if there was someone like that, thinking he would be honored as the greatest man. I worked my whole life like that, experiencing millions of incidents of suffering. I am fascinated by myself for that reason.

Imagine God's feeling at knowing there is such a person at work on the earth. What about the spirit world too, looking down, knowing what this world and spirit world will be like because of this person? They will dance in wild joy, dancing that would be far more fantastic than disco. Who is qualified to dance that dance? Only the blessed couples of the Unification Church. Why? Because it is a dance you do after you experience love.

Once God can love the firstborn and then bless the restored ancestors. loving each in his or her turn, then with proof of that blessing one can qualify to do the love dance. Since the fall took place in the family unit, restoration must happen in the family. When you are blessed, you are registered to be a citizen of the heavenly kingdom.

What happens if you do not understand this clearly? Maybe you won't like your spouse because she didn't go to college, or his temper is too fierce, and because of that you decide to leave. Then what happens? Here the fall is not reversible; when a person fails here it is worse than Adam and Eve's fall because he understood the consequences and then fell anyway.

If a spouse really understands this, he has to cling to his fiancee or spouse and say, "It is not me you are leaving, but God, so you will have to kill me before you can leave." Is your love stronger than death itself? Wouldn't you desperately protest if the other person tried to leave?

This is the first and only time in history this situation will happen; what a chance you have to be here now, in spite of incredible odds. There have been many, many celebrations here on earth, including Unification Church celebrations, but the most important is the celebration of this day of victory. In order for this day to come, many people suffered and were sacrificed; you cannot imagine how many. To indemnify those sacrifices, I had to suffer more than all those people put together. Year after year in jail I confronted these circumstances, all in order to reach this destination. This day happens to be the day I was released from prison in South Korea. To make this day valid, I had to go through all historical suffering and receive abuse from the world. Now because of love I can give the banner of victory to Adam's family which once failed. to Noah's family, Abraham's family, Moses' family, and Jesus' family. Wherever I go I can plant the flag of victory and love. Now there is no way the Unification Church can decline; it must flourish.

The minds of Unification Church members are always focused on the place where I am, whether in Gloucester, New York, England, or Korea. You always ask where I am. don't you? People don't understand why you do that. Your answer is "Because of love." I must sign before you can receive God's love, and with that passport you can go anywhere in heaven or hell, and ultimately on earth as well.

Do you need that passport? How much? When you are told to go fund raising or witnessing, you do so because of love. A PhD can willingly become a captain of a fishing vessel because of love. Would Dr. Durst feel I couldn't send him there because he is boss of all America? The reason for him to go is that I love the captain of a fishing vessel.

If I went to hell would you come with me because of love? Love means long, long, very, very much long. Love is long, long, very much. That's why everyone likes love. You never knew this. Now you know that this Day of Victory of Heaven is more beautiful than the most beautiful river or forest, or any creation. It is the most beautiful thing on earth. Would you say you are unfortunate to be able to celebrate this day? How happy are you?

God bless you.

Father was released from prison in North Korea on October 14, and from prison in South Korea on October 4; he has said that an observance on October 4 would represent both dates.