True Parents and Our Responsibility (Part 3)

When you think about it, every person has committed crimes in the realm of the heart. Climbing up to God could take hundreds, even thousands, of years. No one could live long enough to do it. Someone had to come to build the bridge and set the condition so that mankind could leap forward and achieve salvation. My work, especially during the past 20 years, has been to lay that bridge. The parents walked the course of restoration, so when their children follow them, Satan cannot invade. The family bonds between us give you a free pass and guarantee protection against Satan. The worst, most odious words for Satan are True Parents and true children, because this is precisely what renders Satan powerless. The universe has to turn over everything to the True Parents and the true children; that law binds even Satan.

God and history endorse the True Parents. I am trying to turn over this inheritance from God and history to you. How can you deserve such an extraordinary blessing? Only in the capacity of True Parents' children and in a relationship of love with them. There is no other way to qualify for the blessing of True Parents. When you declare yourselves to be the flesh and blood of the True Parents, you are qualified to receive their inheritance.

Only in a parent-child relationship can such an inheritance be passed on. If a teacher were to bequeath all his wealth to a student, the teacher's children could take it away. Only when an inheritance is passed on to you by your own parent can you be sure to keep it.

Why do you need the inheritance of the True Parents? You were born from the tree of sin; you are the fallen children of a sinful lineage. Therefore you have no way to enjoy the true freedom of sinlessness. No matter how large your family tree may be, it is still a tree of sin. You must cut yourself off from that tree and graft yourself onto the tree of sinlessness. The Bible speaks of the true olive tree onto which the wild olive branches must be grafted.

The process of grafting an entire nation, such as the United States, which is 200 years old, cannot occur overnight. Many Americans believe that their tradition is superior to others in the world. They do not want to be severed from their former ways in order to achieve something better.

You must become totally new: a new sprout on the true olive tree. Only then can you become a true olive tree. The good foundation of the United States can be valuable only when it is grafted onto the true olive tree. Only within the new tradition of heaven can the good foundation within America truly come alive. As an individual, each of you is like a tiny shoot, which has been grafted into the tree of the True Parents. Only within the relationship of parents and children can life be grafted.

Have you come to the realization that you need the True Parents? How much do you need them? Can you buy that relationship with all the money in the United States or all the wealth in the world? Even if you had a diamond the size of the planet earth, you could not exchange it for a relationship with the True Parents. Such a bond can never be purchased. Only because of the amazing grace of God have you been blessed with a relationship with the True Parents. This can be a source of joy for your entire life. Even if you had to remain celibate your entire life, you could be happy as long as you had that relationship with the True Parents.

After you are married, if your spouse became an obstacle to your faith to the point of pushing you away from the True Parents, you would have to choose which is more valuable -- your relationship with your spouse or your relationship with the True Parents. Even at the sacrifice of your family life, you should be willing to follow the True Parents. It is a very precious thing to have a family and it is ordained as the purpose of your life, but if you had to sacrifice either the True Parents or your spouse, you should cling to the True Parents.

The truth is that once you have that relationship with the True Parents, you can build every other true relationship. You can gain your spouse and children. The entire world becomes your brothers and sisters. Ultimately, you can lose nothing by choosing the True Parents first and foremost.

This is a significant sermon since it is the last Sunday of 1981. I have been speaking about certain core truths of the Principle and the Unification Church. Which should be deeper and stronger: your love for your fiancé or your love for the True Parents? There have been virtuous husbands and wives who have given their life for the sake of their spouse or children. Even in the secular world there is a power that allows people to sacrifice themselves for their family. How much greater power must exist within the heavenly world!

When you can dedicate your life to advancing the cause of God and the True Parents, the joy you experience is greater than any other joy. Have you come to such a realization? Your standard must be to love God and your True Parents with your life. You must not focus on the limits of family, race, culture, or nationality. Through the love of the True Parents you can transcend them all. In the eternal realm of God and the spirit world such boundaries simply do not exist. In the spirit world there is certainly no language barrier. The worst barrier is the one between you and the True Parents. If you do not overcome that barrier while you are on the earth, you will not be able to remove it in the spirit world.

When I was a young man, my greatest friends were old people, grandparents. Now that I am getting old, young people are my best friends. I served old people by carrying them piggyback where they needed to go. I have also served middle-aged people and young people. Do you want to inherit only the blessings I have gained on earth, or do you want to inherit my tradition as well? Is this tradition too harsh for you?

One of the first places we must liberate here in the United States is those senior citizens' institutions. The elderly people in those homes represent all the ancestors of their lineage. By serving and taking care of the senior citizens on the earth, you can serve all their ancestors in the spirit world -- all the way back to the beginning of history. Then everywhere you go, you will receive the greatest welcome.

Who is the eldest senior citizen in the universe? It is none other than Heavenly Father Himself. As you tend to the needs of old people, do it with the attitude of caring for the needs of God Himself. God's desire is for us to take care of all His children. You must understand this heart of God.

Each of you has become a new person after having met the Principle and Reverend Moon. What do you first-class citizens of the United States have in common with me? We are very different and we met as strangers. But with the shared understanding of the Principle of Restoration and the terminology of True Parents, we can become connected and overcome all distances. We become one family -- parents and children.

What kind of children do parents desire? The ambition of all parents is for their children to achieve the greatest possible success in the world. By the same token, the true parent would not want to see his child go to spirit world and not be welcomed into the Heavenly Kingdom. He would want to see the entire spirit world embrace and welcome his sons and daughters.

Social and economic inequities have produced terrible conflicts throughout human history. Some people are rich and others are poor; some are successful and others are not. There has never been a true solution to this problem. Only as people learn to love others with the heart of a true parent can this fundamental problem be eliminated.

The principle of parent-child love can be applied to every relationship. Within a business, the employer must have the heart of a parent toward the employees, who are in the position of children. As long as the employer makes money for the benefit of the entire company, the employees do not mind it and they willingly contribute their efforts. Those employees will inherit all the wealth of their employer. This kind of philosophy can eliminate the resentments that have occurred between the rich and the poor.

When you receive the inheritance from True Parents, you will be elevated to the level of true parents yourselves. By starting out at the level of true child, you eventually become a true parent yourself. Is the relationship between you and the True Parents more clear now? This is very important for you to understand.

Between God and me, how many generations have there been? Therefore, the physical distance or vertical times span between God and me is quite great. Between you and me as well, there is a great horizontal distance: that of culture. Only the power of the parent-child relationship can close those great gaps.

Is it easier for me to call God "Father" or for you to call me "Father?" So many people have tried to call God "Father," but because they could not fulfill the incredible conditions necessary to bridge the gap between them, they could not truly live up to their position as child of God. But it is easier for you, since all the preparations have been made. You can come to the Unification Church and digest the truth of the Principle; then you can easily call the True Parents your own parents.

Who has the greatest cause for rejoicing: me when I call God my Father or you when you can call us your True Parents on earth? I had to suffer so much in order to be accepted as God's true son, but you have been granted such an easy course. All you have to do is learn the Principle, change your attitudes, and come to a new realization of the existence of the True Parents. But since it was so easy for you, some of you cannot appreciate the value of knowing the True Parents. You should rejoice the most, since you paid the least price for the greatest blessing. You have obtained a priceless treasure for a tremendous bargain!

Maybe the price you paid to understand the message and the existence of True Parents was only a seven-day workshop. However, I had to pay with gallons of blood and sweat to give you that message. Everything you read in the Principle is the record of the struggles and pains I have endured.

You must realize the preciousness of the Principle. Now you can understand why the world is going the way it is and what God's dispensation is all about. You have been given more knowledge than any other people -- more than any philosopher, past or present. You know more than any great scholar does because you understand all the secrets of history. You are not actually, qualified to receive such an understanding; so many people have dedicated their entire lives to pursuing the truth, but they died without ever knowing what you have been handed so freely.

You have been given this great understanding, so you are qualified to hold up your head without shame before the world. If I had been ashamed of what I am, God could not have been proud of me either. Jesus himself declared that his disciples should go out and bear witness to him. "So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven," Jesus said, "but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven."

The same is true with the Unification Church. Are you afraid and ashamed before the world to be a member of the Unification Church? The Principle represents the entire truth of the universe, including the highest realm of the spirit world, so whenever you deny your association or behave in a shameful way, you are denying your connection with all those realms.

I want you to understand clearly the meaning of the True Parents and their relationship with you. Are you indebted to the True Parents or not? To what extent? It is impossible to repay such a debt with material goods; only one small thing can repay it: your love. You have been given great love, and you can repay it only with your own love. In the past, you knew True Parents only abstractly. Now through this sermon, you can come to know us in reality. Certainly there is a difference between the abstract and the real. God desires real people; He needs to deal with the realities of life, not concepts or abstractions.

When you come to Belvedere and I do not give the sermon, you feel slightly unfulfilled, don't you? A man may return home after a long day's work and his children jump up to greet him, but if his wife is absent he feels that nobody is home. Likewise, no matter how many loved ones come to greet a woman, if her husband is not among them she feels unfulfilled. From the viewpoint of the language of love, if the central object and focus of your love is missing, It's as if no one was there. When I am not here, you Unification Church members feel as if no one is home don't you?

In the whole universe, the most important word is parents. There have been many wonderful sons and daughters of great loyalty and devotion in secular society. For the sake of True Parents, shouldn't there be even greater sons and daughters of filial piety? The title "True Parents" means universal parents; parents whose concern is universal. Therefore, the sons and daughters of true filial piety must adopt the same concern. You must not be content to live just for yourself and your family if you are truly the sons and daughters of True Parents, whose concerns encompass the whole universe. The True Parents need sons and daughters who can put their love for the world and all mankind before personal needs. This is logical as well.

What is the attitude of the True Parents toward their sons and daughters? Do they want their children to love only them and not be concerned about the rest of the world? No, even after the children have gone to the entire world and returned home, the parents will humbly ask, "If you have any energy remaining, can you please go out and give more for the sake of the world? That is our desire." The True Parents want the child to love others as much as he loves them; that is how the joy of the parents is increased. Unfortunately, the attitude of many parents is very selfish. They only want to receive their children's love and hope they will disregard the world.

You know that True Parents are always pushing you out to give more and work harder for the sake of the world. Do you like it? I know that you would really prefer to enjoy a relationship with me rather than being sent out into the world. However, when you do those things, you are building the Kingdom of Heaven for your own children and all your future descendants. If I passed away, how would you behave? The only thing you will retain is the tradition, which you are learning now. That is the tradition of loving the people of the world as much as you love your own parents. Such a tradition of love will be the means of transforming this world of hell into Heaven. Even after I have passed away, such a tradition will live on.

The entire spirit world will be able to welcome you when you arrive there; people of all ages will greet you. By the same token, I want your own children to take pride in you because you belonged to the True Parents while they were on earth. In order to gain such a position before the world and your own children, you must practice today the teachings of the True Parents. By imitating our actions, you can incorporate our parental qualities in your life and then pass them on to your children. It may be very difficult for you to swallow so much difficulty, but doing so will give great benefit to your children, your nation, and the entire world. Now do you clearly understand these points?

Don't expect many words of praise from me. I seldom say you have done wonderful things. To hear me praise and honor your work while on earth is already to receive your reward. When you go before God, He will note that you were already rewarded. However, if you did not receive many prizes and honors on earth from the True Parents, Heavenly Father will want to give you eternal blessing in Heaven. So is my attitude loving or cruel? Which kind of reward would you prefer: a temporal one on earth, or the eternal one in Heaven?

When top Unification Church leaders come to East Garden, I usually criticize them so much that some of them can't bear it. They should be grateful for such treatment, however. I feel that anyone who can endure my criticism and scolding and remain humble and obedient is really special. Certainly God too notices such a person. Once you understand this profound truth you can go beyond such trivial concerns as who got the best Christmas present from True Parents.

In the Unification Church we always dwell in two worlds -- this physical realm and the spirit world -- and we have to deal with both. Therefore, we cannot just think about the requirements of the physical realm; in fact, we must learn to consider eternal spiritual values first. Sometimes the eternal values conflict with those of this physical world and we experience difficulties and persecution as a result. But because we understand that we are winning on the eternal level, we can rise above the problems presented by this physical world.

When I entered prison in North Korea, I arrived as a humble newcomer. I never demanded respect from the others as the founder of a world-level religion. Since the other prisoners present were my elders, I acted like a private in front of superior officers. After eating our evening meal, there was nothing to do except talk. Prisoners talked about their lives and their various experiences. Everybody wanted to talk about his mistakes or crimes and how he had been caught and imprisoned. They also wanted to discuss their families. But after a few months those topics ran out, so the others had nothing more to speak about.

I had been the only person who had not spoken very much, so everybody else was very curious to hear what I had to say about myself. "Shall I talk about anything I feel like?" I asked them. They all said yes, they were interested in whatever I had to say. So I started to tell them a story that was a fictionalized version of the Principle. Every day I explained to them various contents of Principle, but in the form of a long narrative tale. This continued for about a week. After seven days of sharing, I suddenly stopped and said, "Well, I am finished. I don't feel like saying any more." But the leader of the group demanded that I continue because everyone wanted to hear more.

When I entered prison, I looked for the worst position in the cell. There was one corner where the terrible toilet bucket was kept, and I chose that spot as my place. However, the head of the cell ultimately demanded that I take a better place, away from the toilet. Even though those men were criminals, they still possessed an original mind and were able to respond out of the goodness in their hearts.

Do you think that I am an extraordinary person? You say yes, but my way of relating with other people in society is very ordinary and down-to-earth. I can make friends with anyone; I can laugh and joke with anyone, anywhere. When people meet me they are attracted by this quality.

There were many young girls who wanted to be my girlfriend when I was young. I was never rude to them, but I always tried to educate them. One by one, they came to understand what I was saying. Many girls had a very strong purpose: to win my heart and marry me. Some of them did some very crazy things. Obviously, none of them succeeded. Even now, as old grandmothers, each of those girls can remember how I treated her. They all have good memories of me, even though they were frustrated in their original desires. If I had been born in the West, do you think the same thing would have happened here? Probably so. God's heart and God's love are like true magnets, pulling all people toward the one whom possesses them.

As a rule, I never discuss my personal experiences. Each of you must attend the 21-day and 40-day workshops to learn more details about my life. I don't want to talk about myself before you and reveal all the difficulties I suffered for your sake. Your elder brothers and sisters should educate you about your parents. They should teach the younger brothers and sisters about the parents' heart, and help them appreciate the hardships the parents endured. This is more valuable than hearing it from the parents themselves. In order to understand the heart of the Unification Church, you must attend these workshops. Most of you have already completed a seven-day workshop.

What kind of course are we treading in the Unification Church? Where are we now? Our course is one of paying indemnity to accomplish restoration. Without the payment of indemnity, no restoration is possible. Unification Church members do not want to pay indemnity, but to dislike indemnity means to dislike restoration. Most of you are clever, however, and you realize that restoration is valuable. You don't want indemnity, but which comes first: restoration or indemnity? The answer is indemnity. Still you don't like it, do you?

God has a certain point of view. Whose side are you standing on, God's or Satan's? You must be certain that you are standing on God's side. You know that you want to be restored and fulfilled under God's dominion, but from God's point of view, there is no way He can receive you and restore you unless you fulfill the necessary indemnity. Therefore, those who like restoration but don't appreciate indemnity are still standing on the side of Satan and not God. Which side appreciates indemnity? Only God's side.

Within the Unification Church itself there are two sides: God's and Satan's. Analyze yourself clearly and ask yourself which side you are on. After this sermon, you should realize that only by embracing and accepting the course of indemnity can you truly align yourself with God's side. According to God, the person who embraces the road of indemnity and fulfills the conditions, which come to him, will be the leader in the future.

Some of you might wonder why I don't speak more tactfully and behave more diplomatically to avoid causing so much controversy. The answer is that I need to go a difficult way if I am going to champion the cause of God and pay the most indemnity. I cannot pay indemnity by placating everyone. Instead, I have had to stir up the world. I even had to invite suffering in order to endure for God's sake. After all these years, however, the world is running out of ways to abuse me; my indemnity is running out. The world has nothing more to give me except recognition.

Once the world starts to welcome me, it will welcome each of you as well. What if there was no way for you to pay indemnity even though you still needed to do it? If no one in secular society persecutes you, I will persecute you in order to allow you to make the proper conditions of indemnity. Perhaps I will mobilize the leaders to help me in this task. I will send black leaders to give the white members a hard time. Maybe I will send you out to sea or down into the mines or I might even send you out on a boat when a typhoon is coming. In such ways you could get a good dose of indemnity!

Many of you wonder how many more Korean leaders you will have to receive! You think you cannot stand another short guy from Japan either! But you must welcome such people and the difficulties you encounter in your relationships with them. That is a way of paying indemnity.

When you come to a matching, many of you ask for an international marriage, a Japanese or Korean spouse, for instance. Some of you had to use interpreters to converse with your fiancé. What indemnity! A handsome man engaged to a small, potato-shaped Korean girl with a nose so flat he can't even see it might wonder what is happening to him! The answer is simple: indemnity.

I have continuous peace of mind, regardless of the fact that the U.S. government is trying to convict me of criminal charges and send me to jail. I accept it as just one more form of indemnity. Since I am still paying indemnity after all these years, how can you think you can avoid it? Are you going to ask for the good part of my inheritance without also expecting to receive the indemnity course I went through? When you accept indemnity willingly and without complaint, your inheritance and blessing automatically become greater. This is logical.

However, many members have conditional faith. They praise all the good aspects of our faith: the Principle, the love of brothers and sisters, True Parents, unity, but they cannot accept such things as fundraising. Then what does that indicate about your attitude toward indemnity?

Those of you, who welcome indemnity, show me your hands. Actually, I don't want it either! But I must welcome it because it is the only road we can follow to free ourselves from Satan's accusations. Because of where it takes us, we can welcome the road of indemnity.

Everyone wants to graduate from the course of indemnity. It is natural to want to graduate as quickly as possible, so that means you should seek out the toughest tasks. If you have a fine, outstanding fiancé, you should feel: "I don't deserve such a person. Somebody else must have paid the indemnity for me so I could receive him (or her). Thank you, Heavenly Father."

We have a unique, dramatic way of life. We have learned to overcome all fears. Even prison should not be feared. I know that I can transform the worst prison cell into Heaven. With such confidence, nothing can really bother or disturb you.

This sermon is an example of what I have been talking about. A preacher will normally speak for only 40 minutes or so, but I have already been speaking four hours. Can you welcome this? Before you meet the New Year, I want you to be cleansed and prepared. You must reorganize yourself before the New Year.

From this time forward, will you willingly accept the course of indemnity? If your leader doesn't push you enough, you can go and pull him forward! The opposite attitude is to say, "My leader isn't really following the true course of indemnity Father talks about. If he doesn't do it, I won't either." Are you going to choose that route? From this understanding, you can clearly judge the truth about your own situation.

Among 10 people, if nine rise at 8:00 a.m. and one at 7:50, who is the winner in the indemnity contest? Why shouldn't lie get up at 6:50-or 1:50? Those who come to Belvedere first are paying the most indemnity in this situation.

Harlem is known as one of the most dangerous, rundown areas in New York City. The person who goes to work there for that reason understands the principle of indemnity. Hardly anyone wants to go to work in Africa because it is less developed, but the person who seeks out such work also understands indemnity.

All you Korean fiancées please raise your hand. I made up my mind to give you a special course of hardship as a group. All the Japanese fiancées of Americans are included in this category as well. You are going to be pushed into some special indemnity course. When the Pilgrim fathers first came to this land, they endured terrible suffering in order to survive and establish this country. Therefore, those foreigners now coming to this nation as wives of American young men should endure even worse suffering. You are becoming the true ancestors of the ideal nation and world. You are the bridges being built between the East and West. You Koreans and Japanese should be exemplary in serving your parents-in-law. This will start a great movement in America -- parents pushing their children to marry Orientals.