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Book 3: Cheon Il Guk and Our Mission
Part 1: The Road to a World of Peace
Chapter 17: A Providential View of the Pacific Rim Era in Light of God's Will I
This speech was given by Rev. Sun Myung Moon at the launch of the new beginning of the Pacific Rim Providence on March 17, 2007, and then by Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon between May 2 and June 1, 2007, at a series of Rallies to Announce the Dawn of the New (Heavenly) Civilization of Universal Peace in Japan and the United States.
Respected Ambassadors for Peace and leaders who honor this occasion with your presence, ladies and gentlemen! I extend our heartfelt welcome to you all. Ladies and gentlemen, my heart is serious and filled with emotion as I stand before you today. It is not because of the Misoo celebrations being held around the world to commemorate the 88th birthday of my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Neither is it because, owing to the fact that he is as healthy as a man of 50, he will surely live to be at least 100.
The providence centered on the Pacific Rim
The reason I am so serious is that at the beginning of this year, 2007, the seventh year of Cheon Il Guk, my husband and I declared a jubilee year in God's providence, a jubilee year the likes of which humankind has never experienced. Heaven has greatly blessed this holy year. God's heart has been in pain throughout history because Satan's dominion entrapped humankind within its evil sovereignty, in the fetters of the Era before the Coming of Heaven. That time finally has come to an end, and, from this year on, the gates to the groundbreaking Era after the Coming of Heaven can be opened wide, ushering in an era of a new sovereignty of goodness, in which all people can attend God as the Central Being.
Without your being aware of it, Heaven's providence has been expanding in extraordinary ways. Now Ambassadors for Peace in 185 nations—who number in the millions—have received my husband's teachings and are working day and night in response to a special decree from God. I would like to convey to you Heaven's message, which is titled "A Providential View of the Pacific Rim Era in Light of God's Will: The United States and the Future Direction of the United Nations and the World.” This is a declaration of God's plan for His dispensation and the direction humanity should take.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you carefully examine the progress of human history, you undoubtedly will discover God's resolve and the fingerprints He left as He tirelessly worked behind the scenes. We are familiar with the history of civilization, which began centering on four of the world's great rivers. Later, human civilization moved to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, where the Mediterranean peninsular cultures flourished in Greece and Rome. History continued its progress and the European continental culture emerged. This continental civilization, in turn, became the energy stimulating an island culture, Great Britain, to flourish in the Atlantic sphere.
The British Empire, which dominated the seven seas and wielded its might as the empire on which the sun never set, passed its splendid culture on to North America. We know these facts from history. Human civilization arrived on the North American continent and soon took on the armor of democracy, which was rooted in Christianity. The United States raised the banner of freedom of religion and respect for equal human rights in its struggle against communism, which sought to establish an atheistic sovereignty of evil. Through victories in the First, Second and Third World Wars, America was victorious over totalitarianism and communism. However, that victory does not simply mean that America is great and that the development of human civilization should stop there. Victory came because God had chosen and raised the United States of America as the second Israel in accordance with His providential program and had raised the American people through Christianity. God worked through America to bring His providence to its present stage of fruition.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is in the present time that this issue becomes important. The development of human civilization has completed a circuit of the entire globe and has arrived at the Pacific sphere. Human history has come to a point in time in the providence at which it should reach completion and fruition through the Pacific Rim region. No force can impede the providence now. Though there were both victories and defeats during the course of indemnity under the evil sovereignty in the Era before the Coming of Heaven, nothing could prevent the rise of the Pacific Rim era. Herein lies the reason that Heaven declared this a jubilee year.
Our mission in the Pacific Rim era
Ladies and gentlemen, the arrival of the Pacific Rim era signifies many things. From the perspective of the history of religions, what do you think the world would be like if Jesus had fulfilled the complete messianic mission during his lifetime on earth? Jesus came as the Savior and Messiah to save all people. He did not come just to save the people of Israel, a small nation located on a corner of the Mediterranean Sea. At that time, Rome, based at the center of the Mediterranean, was the center of human civilization. Rome was ready to rule the seas. Heaven's desire was that Jesus evangelize and then rule over Rome, and then bring salvation to all humanity through the strength and resources of Rome's brilliant civilization.
Yet, Jesus died miserably on the cross, as we know all too well through the biblical record. After thousands of years of preparation, God was finally able to send Jesus to the world as His only begotten son. There is no way to fathom God's heart as He anxiously watched Jesus' each and every action. Jesus' death was a tragedy that broke God's heart. It brought Him anguish even more extreme than the time when Adam and Eve, whom He created as the first ancestors of humankind, were lost from the garden of Eden due to the Fall.
During the 2,000 years since the cross, God, in the background of history, has walked a suffering path that is beyond human comprehension. Through this course, He prepared the United States of America to serve as the sphere of the second Israel. As a Christian nation that includes Catholicism and Protestantism as well as the Orthodox faith, the United States' mission is to bring harmony and unity to Christianity and, in the twenty-first century, fulfill the responsibility that had been the Roman Empire's but which was not realized in Jesus' time.
The responsibility within God's providence, to bring harmony and oneness among the world's 6.5 billion people and to expedite the creation of a peaceful, ideal world, is on America's shoulders. These are not simply the words of Reverend Moon. This is a decree from Heaven. Then how can we unify Christianity? God already has revealed the solution through Reverend Moon, the True Parent of humankind. God has given the supreme command to practice a life of true love, understand completely the reality of the spirit world, and find and establish a model, ideal family—a true family. Then what kind of love is true love? And what kind of family is a true family?
A world of righteousness
Ladies and gentlemen, true love does not instill a desire to have one's partner exist for one's own sake. Rather, true love's essence is giving, living for the sake of others and for the sake of the whole. True love gives, forgets that it has given, and continues to give without ceasing. True love gives joyfully. We find it in the joyful and loving heart of a mother who cradles her baby in her arms and nurses it at her breast. True love is sacrificial love, such as that of a devoted son who gains his greatest satisfaction through helping his parents.
The attraction of true love brings all things in the universe to our feet; even God will come to dwell with us. Nothing can compare to the value of true love. It has the power to dissolve the barriers fallen people have created, including national boundaries and the barriers between races and even between religions.
The main attributes of true love are that it is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, so that whoever practices God's true love will live with God, share His happiness, and enjoy the right to participate as an equal in His work. Therefore, a life lived for the sake of others, a life of true love, is the absolute prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. The path is now wide open for humanity to find and establish true families.
The family sets the pattern for living together in harmony. The warm environment of oneness based on love and respect between parents and children, mutual fidelity and love between husband and wife, and trust and mutual reliance among siblings is the manifestation of the model, ideal family. This means that you need to establish a true family wherein the stem of true love emerges from the root of true love and bears the fruit of true love.
In this manner, the three generations of grandparents, parents, and children should live together as one family and serve the eternal God. God desires to see such families, and it is your responsibility as tribal messiahs and Ambassadors for Peace to seek after and establish them—families of Cheon Il Guk, the kingdom of God.
Ladies and gentlemen! You should form families that God will miss and yearn to return to after He has been away. You should raise families to which He can come freely as a Parent visiting His children. This is what it means to live in service to God. In such a family, God is the Subject over your conscience, with a vertical connection. Following God as your vertical Subject, your mind stands in the position of vertical subject over your body, bringing your mind and body into unity.
That is where parental love, conjugal love, children's love, and siblings' love—in short, the four realms of love or the four realms of heart—are perfected. Only in such a family can the upper and lower, front and behind, left and right be connected as one so that spherical motion will ensue. This leads to God's everlasting, model, ideal families and nations and His Peace Kingdom. If only the entire world were filled with such true families! It would be an orderly world where people govern themselves by the heavenly way and heavenly laws, with no need for lawyers, prosecutors or even judges.
The homeland of the new civilization
Peace-loving leaders from the Pacific Rim region! Among the 6.5 billion people in the world today, almost five billion are your neighbors, relatives and brothers and sisters belonging to the Pacific Rim region. In other words, you share the same root as the Mongolian peoples. There is nothing we cannot do if we pull together centering on God's ideal for peace! The future of humanity is in our hands.
God's providence has now spread from the North American continent and blossomed as an island civilization on the Japanese archipelago, which is in a position similar to that previously held by the United Kingdom. Fulfilling its destiny, God’s providence is now about to come to fruition on the Korean Peninsula, the homeland of the True Parents who have emerged on earth as the Savior of humanity and the returning Messiah. From a geopolitical point of view, despite the ongoing work to secure peace on the Korean Peninsula, that area remains an arena of most intense conflict. However, from the providential view, the Korean Peninsula must rise up to take a position similar to that of Rome in Jesus' time, by resolving the world's problems.
The principles of restoration through indemnity dictate that civilization must bear fruit in the Pacific Rim region, centered on the Korean Peninsula. Fortunately, during the Korean War the UN forces, centering on the United States, were mobilized to the peninsula. Yet, they did not recover God's homeland and hometown as they should have, according to God's Will, and they left the job half-done. As a result, global conflict and strife emerged through the Cold War, during which time the Korean people were deprived of their possessions and displaced, leading them to search for God.
To set an indemnity condition to offset this, my husband and I established the Universal Peace Federation and then organized the Peace Kingdom Corps and Peace Kingdom Police Force centering on the women who love the Universal Peace Federation and are willing to serve and sacrifice for the sake of peace under its banner. We have taken the lead in educating those involved with these organizations. As the peace organizations that constitute the vanguard for realizing a world of peace centering on God, they will create the peaceful, ideal world of God's desire.
You may not be aware of this, but my husband is assisting the Six-Party Talks now being held for the sake of resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula and reconciling the democratic nations with the communist nations. He is presenting a solution based on the principles of peace and harmony rooted in "the Way of the Heavenly Parent.”
At such intense times, what exactly is the role of America and the United Nations? New York and Hawaii—which is located at the center of the Pacific Rim region—represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and also all the five great oceans. Hawaii in the Pacific and New York on the Atlantic bridge East and West and link North and South. The Korean Peninsula is the homeland that must bring together the island nations of the Pacific and preserve and defend the Pacific Rim region with the support and protection of the American continent. The future of humanity depends on the security of the Pacific Rim, which ties together Korea, Japan and the United States.
As we were fully aware of Heaven's plans for this area, beginning in the early 1970s, my husband and I invested 33 of the golden years of our lives for the sake of world peace, centering on America. My husband and I visited Hawaii and prayed here at a critical moment, when we were on the way to meet Kim Il-sung of North Korea in 1991 with the purpose of bringing an end to the Cold War era.
Ladies and gentlemen, I ask that you closely analyze the current state of affairs in the world and in the Pacific Rim. Although the days of communism are gone, even now powerful nations such as China and Russia are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to aggressively pursue their own interests with the powerless and small island nations. Regardless of what nation it may be, no small island nation by itself can deal with these powerful surrounding nations and their economic, political or even military ambitions. Those nations are so powerful that, if they wanted to, they could take control any of the smaller nations in a single day, without shedding blood.
Only when peace and security are settled in the Pacific Rim, can peace for all humankind be guaranteed. As I said, the small island nations by themselves will not be able to stop the incredible tsunami of powerful nations moving into the region. The time has come, therefore, for all the small island nations in the Pacific Rim sphere to unite as God desires.
The small island nations dispersed in both the northern and southern regions of the Pacific, on either side of the Equator, as well as Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, should enter into an agreement as one body to sustain peace throughout the Pacific Rim sphere. This will secure peace and stability for all people.
True Parents' achievements
Distinguished guests, my husband has surmounted and triumphed over a course of inexpressible suffering and tribulation. He has not lived for personal glory or comfort. Even as he walked a thorny path, hovering in a state between life and death, he received Heaven's seal and was fully aware of the destination of God's Will. He held dearly to Heaven's command to bring salvation to humanity as he carried on, like a phoenix, with his eventful life.
In Jerusalem in 2003, on the foundation of the victory attained through such blood, sweat and tears, Reverend Moon had Jesus proclaimed as the king of kings before heaven and earth with the acknowledgment of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Following this, in 2004 he was acknowledged as the king of peace, both in a United States Senate Office Building and at the Korean National Assembly. Subsequently, in June 2006 we held the Coronation Ceremony of the True Parents as the King and Queen of Peace in Heaven and Earth.
Ladies and gentlemen, on September 12, 2005, we proclaimed throughout all of heaven and earth the establishment of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), which will enable God's providence to flourish. Now it is entirely possible for the Universal Peace Federation to serve as an Abel-type counterpart to the United Nations in the Era after the Coming of Heaven. It will renew the Cain-type United Nations and activate millions of Ambassadors for Peace throughout the world who have taken up my teachings, the way of the Heavenly Father—which consists of principles of true love and the ideal of a true family—and, without fail, fulfill the heavenly will of creating one family under God.
The international and cross-cultural marriage Blessing
Ladies and gentlemen, the Universal Peace Federation will be the vanguard carrying out the great revolution of restoring the original lineage of humanity back to that of Adam before the Fall through the international and cross-cultural marriage. Some may laugh and say that it is impossible.
Yet, please think about this: What do you think will happen if people from the United States and Russia marry across the boundaries of their nationalities through the international and cross-cultural marriage Blessing, according to the teachings of Reverend Moon who does God's works on His behalf? The two nations will become one family under God, who is the eternal, absolute Master. How could anyone harbor antagonism toward a nation—much less point guns and knives at it—where their own grandchildren make their home?
Distinguished guests, the holy task of restoring the 6.5 billion people of the world to the true lineage, and fulfilling God's wish for an ideal Kingdom of Heaven that is the sacred reign of peace on earth, is being carried out in all corners of the world. At this very moment, people are in intense competition to fulfill their responsibility to hold Hoondok Blessing Rallies in 12,000 locations, including all of the 185 nations of the world.
The advent of the culture of women
You have truly come to a meaningful occasion today. Please do not miss your chance to ride on the currents of heavenly fortune that will surge together during this important and sacred jubilee year. Take the lead in developing the realm of the oceans, which cover 75 percent of the Earth. Where else will you find a treasure store of raw materials that hold the promise to resuscitate the Earth endangered by all manner of pollution and resource exhaustion?
The oceanic era that has begun represents the women's era. The Pacific Rim region must fulfill its mission as the vehicle for creating the culture of the oceanic sphere, which is the sphere of women's culture. It transcends nations and transcends the ocean itself. Please inscribe this in your hearts.
Again I say to you who have come to this meaningful occasion, please engrave this message on your hearts. The families of your good ancestors in heaven are blessed. Numbering in the billions, they have come to earth today and are hearing this message with you. They too must perfect themselves, and they do so through you, their descendants. Thereby they advance to the position of true parents, true teachers and true owners and lords.
Furthermore, they must become one in heart and body with the True Parents, the king of kings. They must uphold the True Parents' standard absolutely, take an active role in carrying out their works, and be mobilized for the creation of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven through a life of service and attendance. Please do not forget that in this way, the spirit world and the physical world exist as one entity, and move and breathe together.
There is one special request I would like to ask of you today. Please immerse yourselves in the contents of the Peace Messages and make them the guidelines of your life. These Messages of Peace are a summary of my husband's teachings, which can be found in more than 1,000 volumes of True Parents' speeches. God will take the lead in uniting the spiritual and physical worlds to protect and aid you in creating the peaceful, ideal world of God's desire in which you can enjoy eternal liberation and complete freedom. Aju!
May God's blessings be with you, your nation and especially upon America and the Pacific Rim region. Thank you very much.