REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON

Respected members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, members of the diplomatic corps, recipients of the American Century Award - whose contributions have helped make this the country most blessed by God - ladies and gentlemen:

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude that so many leaders from a wide variety of fields in American society have gathered here today to celebrate faith, freedom and family. As founder of The Washington Times Foundation, I commend all of the award winners. All of you are champions who through your service have made significant contributions to improving the quality of life for all Americans.

I also want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for recognizing my life achievements and congratulating me on my 80th birthday. I am particularly grateful to God, who has been my constant companion and protector. To Him, I offer all glory and honor given to me.

I have lived my entire life with the earnest desire to solve the many problems related to manifesting God's ideal of creation. When I came to America in 1972, I saw that this country was facing a severe crisis that affected the world. On my first evangelical tour of all 50 states, I declared that God had three major headaches: the threat of communism, the lack of cooperation among religious people against evil, and the moral crisis afflicting youth.

Your responsibility as human beings requires that we meet God halfway and fulfill what God has asked us to do in the areas of freedom, faith, and family.

America saved my country

Because God loves America, I initiated many organizations, including The Washington Times, to respond to these challenges. I am grateful that God gave me the opportunity to serve America, because American-led U.N. forces, in the process of saving my country during the Korean War, liberated me from a communist concentration camp where I had been imprisoned for preaching the word of God.

Since receiving God's calling as a boy of 16, I have delved into the meaning of God's Will and fought against tremendous odds to fulfill the history of His restoration providence for the sake of human salvation.

I have come to realize that God does not sit on a throne of glory and grandeur. Instead, He is a God of deep sorrow and profound suffering, who has endeavored to save His children who fell into hell. As a result of the fall, human beings fell into spiritual ignorance. This meant humanity was fundamentally ignorant regarding God's existence, the meaning of human life, and the entire universe. People did not understand how they should live their lives while during their time in this world with their physical bodies. They didn't understand that there is a spiritual world after death. They didn't understand that life in this world should be lived so that it would properly prepare them for the spiritual world.

Because I have known God's Will and His heart, I have worked with single-minded determination to devote my entire heart and energy for the accomplishment of His Will, without regard to the time of day, changes in the seasons, or the environment around me. As I look back on the 80 years of my life and all the difficulties and persecution I have received, I realize I would not be here with you today were it not for the help that God has given me over the years.

I have spoken publicly on some 10,000 occasions in many places around the world. These speeches have been published in a series of more than 300 volumes. On this very significant occasion today when I am meeting some of the most distinguished leaders in the United States, I would like to share with you the essence of the guiding principles in my life and work under the theme, "The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Fatherland."

We exist in the context of relationships

The cosmos was created as an enormous house where human beings would live as the masters. Human beings, who are at the center of the universe, live in the context of a series of relationships, that is, the parent-child, husband-wife, and sibling relationships. The parent-child relationship can be described in terms of a vertical axis between "above" and "below." Since a husband and wife are on an equal level, their relationship can be described in terms of a horizontal axis between "left" and "right." We can say that the sibling relationship is on a third axis between "front" and "back." Every individual exists within the sphere created by these three axes. If the ultimate points on these axes are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, then God exists in the seventh position at the center of the sphere. This is how God can guide us in our daily lives, even while existing in a central position that cannot be seen.

Since the fall, human beings have existed in the satanic realm of bondage and suffering. With God's help, people can be set free. They can mature as true sons and daughters, meet their mates, and become true husbands and wives. They can go on to have children and become true parents. This is the normal course of human life. Thus, we cannot reject the concept of true children, of true husbands and wives, or of true parents. To do so would be to violate a fundamental principle of the universe, thus destroying our own existence. Each of us must participate in building a true family consisting of true parents, a true husband and wife, and true children. In fact, the family made up of true parents, true husband and wife, and true children is the model for the ideal existence.

In the context of the family, people need to fully receive the love of true parents and of a true spouse. Then, they need to fully receive the love of true children. Money, knowledge, power, or physical force cannot bring such human relationships to their completed form. Only the true love of God, which brings balance to the world, can do this.

True love is a force that invests. It is a giving force, not a force that only receives. True love gives completely. It is total giving, to the degree that we ultimately reach a point where there is nothing left to give. After we reach that "zero point," we will have the capacity to receive much more than we gave. This process of giving and receiving will achieve a balance that continues forever. This is the reason that relationships of giving and receiving will produce a world where people live for the sake of others centering on true love.

Likewise, all beings in Heaven and Earth exist in mutual relationship with other beings so as to form a world of true love through giving and receiving relationships. In mutual relationships every giving force causes a returning force, and this is what gives eternal stability to the center point. God exists in the central position of true love - a position of the "lucky" number seven - giving balance to the entire universe. Heavenly fortune develops in the process of receiving this and returning it. Within such relationships, the flow of love, air, water, and light takes place in circular motion. And after going round and round, the flow returns to the original form.

Ladies and gentlemen: What makes someone a good person? We can answer this in many ways. We could say that a bad person is someone who takes whatever he is given and keeps it for himself or herself. A good person, then, is someone who adds to whatever he or she is given and passes it on to others. This is why no parent wants his or her child to grow up to be something less than the parent. We all want our children to be better than ourselves. Also, a husband would like for his wife to be better than himself, and a wife wants her husband to be better than herself. Further, an elder brother and younger brother would each want the other to become better than themselves.

We all want to give back something more than what we receive. This is our fervent wish as parents, as husbands and wives, and as children. It is also the fervent wish of all things in nature. Ultimately, it is the fervent wish of the entire universe.

Moreover, only those whose hearts are so wide that they can say, "The cosmos is my hometown and my fatherland," will be welcomed by the cosmos. We can conclude, then, that in order to become God's true sons and daughters we must be welcomed by individuals, by families, by nations, by the world, and finally by the cosmos. That being the case, where would you most like to go and live? I think you would like to live in the original homeland where you were born.

Our "fatherland" is wherever God is

Broadly speaking, "original homeland" can refer to the planet Earth within the cosmos, and our fatherland is wherever God can be found. God is the founding father of our fatherland. Our homeland is the Earth as God originally intended it to be - a place where parents, siblings, and children who did not commit the fall would live together. This was to be a place where black people, yellow people, and white people could live together in harmony. Who is the parent of all these different races? There is only one parent. The God who is with us wherever we go in the universe is the father of humankind. Thus, it would be a mistake for anyone to think that white people, black people, or yellow people are the masters of America. God is the master of America.

Differences in skin color are nothing more than the result of our ancestors having had to adapt to different climates and environments in different parts of the globe. In areas with large amounts of snowfall, we find mainly white people living. In places such as Africa where the rays of the sun are particularly bright, we find mainly black people. Fundamentally, though, people are the same. The color of our blood is the same. Our flesh and bones look the same. We all have the capacity to love. Thus, there should be no discrimination based on race.

This is why the Unification Church has been working through the International Blessed Wedding Ceremonies to create unity and harmony among the races. In accordance with the natural principles of universal love and equality for all people, we have performed many interracial marriages. When a black person and a white person marry, it is like the North Pole and the South Pole coming together in unity. When a yellow person and a black person marry and have children, both parents contribute their good attributes and their descendants are better as a result.

Where there is love, there can be no strife. Each of us comes from a different hometown and fatherland. Yet we can all agree that the world of God's true love is the homeland of faith, peace, and unity.

Nothing is more important in the human world than true love, true life, and true lineage. True love leads to true life and true lineage. True love cannot be fulfilled unless it results in a true lineage. Further, love without true life is false love. True life is conceived within the context of true love and true lineage.

God's ideal for creation

Thus, true love, true life, and true lineage open the way to eternal life. God's ideal for creation is for each to become true individuals and pass on true love, true life, and true lineage to our descendants.

God is the ideal being and the master of eternal true love, eternal true lineage, and eternal true life. Those who resemble God become His true sons and daughters living in the Kingdom of Heaven. Why do men and women get married? They do so to link together the past, present, and future in the tradition of true lineage that I have described.

Before the fall, Adam and Eve could relate to God freely and directly, but this was no longer possible after the fall. Likewise, because of the fall, Cain and Abel, the children of Adam and Eve, could not inherit God's blood lineage. They inherited Satan's lineage instead. This is why Jesus said in John 3:3, "... unless one is born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."

People need to know that they have inherited a false life through a false lineage, which originated in a false love relationship. God feels pain and sorrow when He sees the promiscuous sex and homosexuality that are so prevalent in our world today. When people realize that they have inherited the position of the enemy of love, enemy of life, and enemy of lineage, they will be filled with shame. God's nature, though, is to love the sons and daughters of His enemy even more than His own children. He has invested himself completely without expecting any return, and He will continue this process until He has restored all the children who were taken from Him. This is God's providence of salvation.

For God to bring a fallen human being back to life, He must provide a life force even more powerful than false life. How pitiful God must be, tormented by the misery of each baby brought into this world through the false seed resulting from the fall! Such children have multiplied to the point that now there are six billion fallen human beings in the world.

Humans are created to pass through three stages of life: in the mother's womb, on Earth, and in the spirit world after death.

The planet Earth, where the physical body lives, is similar to the mother's womb. In the same way that a fetus grows by receiving nutrition through its mother's womb, we grow on Earth, by eating food taken from the creation. That is why we should love the Earth as our mother.

In the spirit world, light as bright as the sun shines continuously. If a person were in space somewhere in the solar system, the sun would shine on him continuously. That is the way it is in the spirit world. The light of love in the spirit world is constant and unchanging. Love does not change, whether it is day or night, at the North Pole or South Pole. The spirit world is the world of love filled with the true love of God. The spirit world is also like a storehouse in which the fruits of our hard work on Earth are stored. Our life in the spirit world will reflect our accomplishments on Earth.

Jesus was directly connected to God's lineage

During the course of God's providence of restoration, Jesus was the only one born with true life directly connected to God's true lineage. Accordingly, no one among fallen humanity has ever entered God's realm of direct dominion, either on Earth or in the spirit world. That is why God has been alone, leading a lonely and sorrowful existence. Hence, the world has become a place where people and all of nature are sad.

God has been searching for one person whom He could trust - one man who could purify the fallen lineage of humanity and transform it into true life. That man is the Messiah who inherits God's true love and brings liberation to all humankind. The Old Testament age after Adam's fall is the history of the people chosen to receive the Messiah. God's will was for Jesus to come as the Messiah through the chosen people of Israel, for all people to be grafted on to Jesus' family, and for this to be expanded to encompass the world. However, due to the unbelief of his contemporaries, Jesus died on the cross, leaving this process as an ideal to be accomplished at the time of the Second Advent.

Thus the returning Lord must stand in the position of the True Parents of humankind and recover the position of embodying God's true love. He must fulfill the position of the parents of Heaven and Earth and bring God's providence of salvation for all humankind to completion. The Messiah must begin by forming a family that attends God more gloriously and with greater filial piety than the family that Adam and Eve would have formed had they not fallen. The Messiah is the head of the family that represents the core of the ideal for a new humanity that must begin by linking to the lineage of true love through the life of true love. He must connect blessed families to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven so as to expand and complete the Kingdom on Earth and in Heaven.

Therefore as the True Parents of all humankind, the coming Messiah should renounce the love of the fallen satanic world and fallen human ways. He must establish the path and tradition of a perfected man and woman, perfected family, clan, people, nation, world, and cosmos linked to God's true love. All humankind must receive the new Blessing through the love of the true parents, and inherit the new family lineage. Humanity must understand that there is no way to do this except through true love. This is how the hellish world of Satan's dominion can be supplanted and overcome.

Thus, all humankind must go through the following eight-stage process of restoration and recover their positions as God's sons and daughters. Everyone must restore the eight stages of womb period, infant period, sibling period, engagement period, husband-wife period, parental period, grandparent period, and finally reach the period of king and queen. We should understand that we were born with the ultimate purpose to become princes and princesses who inherit everything in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Marriage is God's blessing

Ladies and gentlemen, it was originally intended that each man would meet a woman as his wife to become a king, and that each woman would meet a man to become a queen. As a prince and princess of Heaven, they would inherit everything in Heaven. To restore the Kingdom of Heaven, every person must start at the bottom of hell, and work his or her way up through the eight-stage indemnity process until unity is established at every stage. This is possible only through the Blessing of the True Parents, who come as the Messiah.

Therefore, "blessed couples" should become "plus couples" who contribute for the sake of others in the world. To become completely reborn, we should practice absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience centering on God. I have personally practiced this throughout my life.

When God created the universe, He acted with absolute faith. God created us to be His absolute partners of love. Absolute obedience means that we invest ourselves completely to the extent that we give up all self-centeredness. Furthermore, one totally forgets about the investment that one makes and invests all over again. Such a process continues until one reaches a zero point without any concept of one's own self. Since God poured out all of His faith, what is left is zero; since He poured out all of His love, what is left is zero; since He poured out all of His obedience, what is left is zero. Nevertheless, Heaven's true love is such that the more it is invested the more it grows. We must come to resemble God in this way.

Even if our love is rejected, we should continue to love even more; even if we invested everything that we have, we should continue to invest until we can make our enemy voluntarily surrender. Our Heavenly Father walked such a path, and the Parents of Heaven and Earth walked such a path.

The person who invests love continuously without expecting a direct return becomes a central being, the one who inherits everything, and the person of greatest filial piety. In a family of ten people, including a grandmother and grandfather, the one who lives most for the sake of others will be the central person. The same principle applies with respect to patriots in the nation or to saints in the world. The more one invests without expecting a direct return, the higher one can rise as a patriot, a saint, and a divine son or daughter of God.

Since the beginning of human history, God has lived more for the sake of others and invested more of Himself than any being. He has continuously invested Himself without expecting direct return. And because He will continue to do so for eternity, He can be the king and ancestor of all those who live for the sake of others.

The reason the Unification Church that I lead could become a worldwide religious group in such a short time is that its members have worked hard according to this principle. When I reflect upon my life totally committed for the sake of humankind, I can testify that it truly has been the focus of opposition from billions of evil satanic forces in both the invisible and visible worlds, as well as from numerous religious leaders and many governments. Yet because I lived for their sake, I eventually came to stand in their center.

As I lived for those who opposed me because of their inability to understand the truth, and as I invested myself for their children, and lived for the sake of governments that persecuted me, they eventually came to respect me. From this, we can learn God's strategy in contrast to that of Satan. God's strategy is to take the blow and initial loss, then regain everything in the end. Satan often is the first to strike, but he loses in the end.

Why I conduct international weddings

Under this principle, I blessed many millions of young couples from all continents in International Holy Blessing Ceremonies as a means to save all humankind and establish one world under the one God. When the West and the East come together as one, the greatest cultural conflict in the world will be overcome. When an American and a German marry each other and become husband and wife, then perfect harmony will be created between these two nations, even though they were once enemies.

Furthermore, I gave the blessing even to those now living in the spirit world. In order for the Kingdom of Heaven to be realized on Earth, the cosmic realms of the spirit world must also be liberated, and only True Parents on the Earth can do that. As false parents, the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, sowed sinful seeds. The Messiah should liberate humankind both on Earth and in the spirit world, by coming as the True Parents.

Even God, although omniscient and all-powerful, cannot by Himself untangle the problems brought about by the wrongful blood lineage of humankind. If God could accomplish this alone, He would have saved His children a long time ago. In fact, He would not have allowed the fall to occur in the first place. However, God is a God of Principle. This means He cannot interfere in the responsibility given to human beings. Accordingly, the returning Messiah who comes as True Parents should give rebirth through true love to humankind, whose blood lineage was defiled by the original sin. When viewed from this perspective, the International Blessing Ceremonies are not conducted simply to bring young men and women together as husbands and wives.

In fact, they are holy ceremonies in which people are reborn as God's true children through the original seed of life from God. The principle is that restoration requires indemnity, and we have passed through the stages of individual indemnity, family indemnity, tribal indemnity, people's indemnity, national indemnity, worldwide indemnity, and universal indemnity. Now, finally, we have arrived at the time of liberation for both the spirit world and the physical world.

The world is divided into tens of thousands of ethnic groups. Relationships between parents and children, husbands and wives, and brothers and sisters have been divided. Even the religious world has been divided into the four great cultural spheres of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Confucianism. However, we have now entered the age of cosmic unification by entering the Age of the Realm of the Fourth Adam, passing the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age, and even the Completed Testament Age, which is the era of completion.

In other words, we no longer live in an age dominated by nationalism, or even in an age of globalism. These have already passed. National purpose and global concerns still exist, of course, but we now live in an age when the universe is to be united with one God. Moreover, by becoming the hometown of blessed families, the planet Earth will become one with the spirit world. Then, the Kingdom of Heaven will come about on Earth and in the realm of eternal life.

Ladies and gentlemen, with the arrival of a new millennium, at midnight on New Year's Eve, I proclaimed a message for the new year titled, "The Cosmic Expansion of True Love is the Completion of the new Millennium Kingdom." By "cosmic expansion of true love," I mean that Heaven and Earth should become a "house" of true love. The new millennium must be a time in which we complete the building of God's Kingdom throughout the world.

The cosmos originated from God, so families, tribes, peoples, nations, and the world must work to complete a house of love that stands in a position of reciprocal relationship with God. They can do this by each establishing their own house of love according to the principle formula and by becoming one with each other. The nation must be a house of love where all families can enter, and the cosmos must be a house of love that embraces the world. Here, the family of true love is particularly important, because it becomes the core of the cosmos, which is our enormous house in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The house of love

Within the family, the husband must be the house of love for his wife, and the wife must be the house of love for her husband. The parents must be the house of love for their children, and the children must be the house of love for their parents. God's Kingdom is the place where the ideal of true freedom blossoms, and where humanity's hopes are fulfilled. It is a place inhabited by true families that are the products of true love, true life, and true lineage. It marks the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom overflowing with eternal true love and true happiness.

I have promoted true family values, because the family formed by a union between a true man and true woman where God can dwell is the center of the cosmic realm where Heaven and Earth can rest. This is the reason the Garden of Eden mentioned in the Bible must be realized on Earth.

The new millennium is the time to complete the 6,000-year history of the providence for the salvation of humanity and build the original Heavenly Kingdom centered on the ideal of creation. It is the Completed Testament Age, when the promises of the Old and the New Testaments are to be fulfilled. This means a new Heaven and new Earth, where "he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, and neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more." (Rev. 21:4) It means a time of unconditional true love, when all people will be able to drink the water of life that is as clear as crystal.

It will be a time when the spiritual world and physical world will be open to each other, and God's Kingdom is established. The direct dominion of the living God is to begin through restored elder-sonship, parenthood, and kingship, opening a new era of God's transcendence, imminence, abundance, and sovereignty.

As I have already mentioned, the planet Earth is the hometown of all humankind, and the spirit world is the eternal fatherland where all humanity will eventually arrive. Finally, the time has come for the global family ideal to be realized on the planet Earth centered on the Heavenly Parent, moving us beyond "One Nation under God" to "One Cosmos under God."

Therefore, I request first that you understand that the fundamental relationship between God and humanity is that of parent and child. On that foundation, I ask you to take an active role to transform the "cosmos," that is, the spirit world and the physical world, into "our hometown and fatherland."

Once again, I thank all of you distinguished American leaders for your presence here. I would like to conclude by expressing God's desire that people of the world of all colors and races will come to live as true brothers and sisters and build a new millennial kingdom of love, peace, freedom, and righteousness. I believe that God prepared America for this very time to help lead the world into this new era.

May God's blessing be with you and your nation. Thank you.