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Chapter four
True Father’s Insights on God
Section 1. A God of Historical Bitterness, Grief and Pain
1.1. God lost the position of parent through the Fall
Our real father is God, but Satan usurped the father’s role. Therefore, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” Knowing the deplorable fact that you carry Satan’s blood, out of shame you should have the courage to put yourself through trials to rid yourself of that stained, false blood. Have you ever thought of doing so? If you are someone who strikes your body with fury saying, “You lump of flesh!” you are a loyal citizen of heaven. (11-243, 1961.10.29)
The religion that can connect with the ultimate world of heart should be one that can teach us in detail about God’s most sorrowful state. God is not just feeling happy and wonderful; on the contrary, His plight is a deeply sad one. He has been mistreated and is overflowing with bitter grief. A religion must appear that can teach these things in detail. Only then can we become God’s filial children. (151-102, 1962.10.28)
How grieved God was that His enemy deprived Him of His throne! You should know His history of sorrow at not being able to become the God of glory. Although He is the King of His nation and King of the universe, He has been mistreated as if He were dead. He was robbed of His ideal and His loving children and our world has fully become His enemy’s plaything. (105-199, 1979.10.21)
Because there has never been a unified people or sovereign nation that God could govern, He could never manifest His authority and dignity as the all-knowing and almighty God. We have to know clearly our obligation as the sons and daughters, children of filial piety, loyal patriots and upright men and women of the Unification Movement, to relieve God’s distress and comfort His sorrowful heart. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free”! Those who know will be liberated! I am teaching this to you clearly. (56-327, 1972.5.18)
How many tears have you shed for God? Have you ever struggled to seek out the path upon which you would suffer God’s own pain and toil on His behalf, even though your own limbs might be torn off? You have never tried. In seeking to become God’s children, you have to shed tears for the purpose of the whole. When you meet Him, your tears should gush out without ceasing as you comfort Him, saying, “Father, how great was Your sorrow upon losing me, Your son, and our first ancestors! Too many times throughout history until the present day have You suffered humiliation, pain and extreme hardship from their descendants!”
God could have judged the entire world and even Satan by His all-knowing and almighty authority. Our hearts break when we think of God crying out over the fact that even though He has toiled so long and is capable of pronouncing judgment, He still could not do so even if He wanted to. Our hearts break when we understand God’s lonely, desolate position, not surrounded by the environment that should have existed, accused by Satan, robbed of His rightful place by the satanic world…. How much have you wept in sympathy with God’s situation? It all comes down to this. (51-111, 1971.11.18)
No parents in the world would want their son or daughter to die, even if he or she were hanged for a crime. If saving the child is even remotely possible, the parental heart will seek out the way, even a hundred or a thousand times. This is especially true for mothers. If this is the heart of all parents in the fallen world, why on earth does the all-knowing and all-powerful God have to exercise judgment in the Last Days? Why can God not pardon humankind? How great is God’s love? If Jesus forgives people seventy times seven times, God has to forgive seventy times seven thousand times. That is God’s heart. (48-235, 1971.9.19)
God’s providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. It started from Adam and Eve because they were the perpetrators of the Fall. Adam was not restored until I appeared on earth. In the course of carrying out restoration and to seek out one man, God, the almighty and all-knowing Creator of the universe has been unable to show His face for millions of years. You must know both God’s love and His deep grief. (237-27, 1992.11.10)
What is God’s will? It is the fulfillment of the ideal of creation. Furthermore, it is to realize the ideal of three object partners in our world. God will say, “How happy I am!” when this ideal is realized based on His love. What enables God to be happy? Today, all Christians think that the all-knowing and almighty God sits on His throne as the Lord of lords and everything proceeds according to His command. But in fact how very miserable God has been at finding Himself constantly alone. (170-95, 1987.11.8)
Who knew the miserable mind and heart of God who had to turn a blind eye to the death of His beloved son, Jesus? The origin and circumstances are not recorded in the Bible, but wasn’t there something that made God unable to avoid His son’s death? How miserable it is to merely gather just like that, claiming to believe in Jesus of Christianity! God has to stand on the side of the chosen people. Even so, seeing that they faced suffering and persecution wherever they went – shedding their blood, being decapitated or burned in oil – we might ask, “Couldn’t God have prevented this?” How grievous and distressed God has been when He could not exercise His almighty power! Have you ever thought about that? How can we say that God is most high? It will be good when this can be clearly explained. (64-222, 1972.11.12)
We naturally want to protect our beloved at the risk of our lives. It is the original ideal of creation to do so. The same is true for God Himself, who loves His children. He is a sorrowful God who has had to invest His very life. (206-24, 1990.10.3)
If Adam and Eve had not fallen, God the Creator would have been the eternal Lord. But due to the Fall, Satan became the lord of the world. This became unavoidable. If a girl of noble birth, who was raised within the walls of her house, is violated by an intruder, to whom is she bound? She will be bound to him. This is what happened with the Fall. Adam could have been the king of heaven and Eve his queen. To restore these original positions requires following the principle of creation. God laid down the law of eternal love centered on Adam and Eve from the outset, so it has to be observed. To deny this law would require the destruction of the heavenly law. If this heavenly law that God Himself set up is denied, humankind and even God Himself as the absolute Creator can be denied. That is why God had to bring order through the course of re-creation. Who has known about this painful course of history? (207-272, 1990.11.11)
Christians today think of God as a glorious judge dispatching people to hell or heaven. But God is the most miserable of all in the world. He has bitterly struggled to overcome what made the luminous heaven and earth fall into the darkness of hell. After God regained His composure, opened His eyes and regained full consciousness, He was intent on giving rebirth to His dead children. Through the efforts made by the Lord of Creation, through the absolute Creator exercising His power, this was possible. Otherwise, it would all have ended. (232-114, 1992.7.3)
What kind of being is God? He is the original True Parent. But His position as the True Parent was usurped, and this resulted in something occurring that had nothing to do with the original ideal of creation. God as the Creator could not interfere with or bear responsibility for digesting an event that could not have happened in the original world of creation. (240-164, 1992.12.13)
1.2.The bitter pain of restoration and God’s six-thousand-year search for His children
According to the Unification Church, what is the original sin? It is love gone wrong. Our love should have been connected to God’s love, life and lineage. Instead, it was connected to satanic love, life and lineage. Because Adam and Eve became the personifications of the devil and left behind the satanic lineage, they produced lasting regret in history. Why was the all-knowing, all-powerful God of autonomous authority, who created heaven and earth from its root, so helpless in the face of the evil being who brought human beings to the state they are in today? If you do not know, it may seem natural for you to deny the existence of God. (211-21, 1990.12.28)
In my background there were many incidents that evoked indignation at unjust treatment. Although many were very terrible to endure, I clenched my teeth and focused on occupying Cain’s world. I had to digest the Cain world rather than merely Cain as an individual and his family. How bitter this has been! It was as if I had to melt something as frigid and huge as an iceberg. Digesting this bitterness, I have had to silently bring Satan to submission. He has been our arch enemy since time immemorial. He brought God and humankind to ruin. (163-163, 1987.5.1)
Satan became the father of the first ancestors of fallen humankind. They received Satan’s love and life, and thus the history of their restoration has been so difficult. Why did God, whom Christians have always understood to be almighty and all-knowing, not intervene in the Fall, rather than just standing powerless? It appeared as though He had died. God cannot liberate human beings until they themselves establish the conditions for their liberation, because it was they who committed sin. If God had been able to liberate Adam and Eve at the outset, He would not have driven them out from the Garden of Eden. If He could have done as He pleased, He would not have expelled them. But He had no recourse but to send them away. (224-46, 1991.11.21)
We should have the true heart that God seeks. God comes to find true love. Should there not be a true son whom God has sought throughout the providence of salvation and restoration? The cascade of pure love from such a son would enable God, who had been defiled, wounded and filled with sorrow, to extend His chest in pride. Could we not imagine a situation where God would embrace that true son, forget everything, and even say that, although the Fall had occurred, He could still find no greater joy? Every man should be able to say that. (127-39, 1983.5.1)
Satan scornfully says to God, “The lineage of love that was needed to create one true tribal domain, the ideal of an absolute realm of love centering on Your ideal of creation, was ruined and destroyed in this way. Yet do You still insist that the ideal principle of creation can be applied?” How should God respond to that? How shocked He is! How many Christians are there who clearly understand God’s grievous heart as He sees human beings, who were originally to become the children of the Lord, become the children of the enemy, trapped in an inescapable state of misery? (200-235, 1990.2.25)
The parent of humankind came, but the people could not attend him as their parent. Could there be such a parent who came to shed blood and die for them? That parent came to host a festival of love at which he could say, “My son! My daughter! My family! My nation!” and the entire universe could reconcile. That parent who was to receive praise for that day of peace and glory should have met his lost children. Yet instead he was killed with the thrust of a blade from those children. Think about how miserable Jesus was. How grieved God was to be choked in circumstances that prevented Him from teaching ignorant human beings! (145-152, 1986.5.1)
I have sorrow and regret from times past. But my pain and grief are nothing compared to God’s. God has not been able to fulfill His role as God. We should know that God’s bitter tears which melt the marrow of His bones, and His bloodstains that spread throughout the course of history are crying out from the ground. I have been doing this work because I know that my remaining mission is to liberate God from His anguish. (137-175, 1986.1.1)
God is responsible for the fallen world and has been restoring it. He does not just dwell in a lofty, precious, holy, and pristine place. His wretched, bitter and brutal situation is beyond our imagination and beyond description. (21-73, 1968.10.14)
You can be consoled by someone with more reasons to be resentful than you have, but God has no one to comfort Him because He has more grievances than anyone in the world. God is the Alpha and Omega. Thus, deep within Himself, God is working out how to resolve His ongoing bitterness. This has been God’s deep, inner anguish. Under these circumstances God has carried out the providence of restoration. (29-294, 1970.3.12)
Have you ever cried, longing to see God? Have you ever cried until your vocal cords ruptured and fluid streamed from your eyes and nose? Have you ever felt so mistreated and sorrowful that tears come to your eyes this way? This experience is crucial for entering the world of heart. (49-291, 1971.10.17)
How resentful, grieved, angered and saddened God became when He was separated from human beings, who should have been with Him permanently! People should have grown to maturity, building the foundation of love that cannot be exchanged for the entire universe. They should have established an axis joining all the vertical and horizontal planes in the universe together. If they had accomplished this, they would have become the standard measure of love among all existing beings and among all things of creation in heaven and on earth. Whatever is connected to that love will be able to match this standard in any circumstances. (149-240, 1986.11.23)
Satan trampled upon four generations, from the queen to the queen’s mother and grandmother, and the queen’s daughter. These four generations lived together. Satan stripped them naked in front of the King in broad daylight, violated and killed them all. Satan even trampled on the daughter. We should know the heart of God who is unable to take vengeance on such an enemy. (200-68, 1990.2.23)
What is it that God regrets? It is that humanity inherited a false lineage. You inherited false blood. Satan is the origin of this. He always wants to create havoc with all things of creation. You are connected to such a universe, such rights of ownership and such a lineage. The sources of all these five functions – what you see, think, smell, say, and touch – belong to the satanic side. Your ancestors are the fruits of a very evil parent. How much distress God experiences in His yearning to save them! Why could God not simply get rid of fallen Adam and Eve and create them anew? He had the power to do this, but because He originally created within an eternal relationship based on eternal true love, God could not do so. (216-36, 1991.3.3)
You should know how miserable and bitterly painful God’s situation is. God can say, “If I had not made humanity, they would not have become the way they are. How could this happen when I was searching for love and longing for the glorious Kingdom of Heaven!” How could this happen? It was because they inherited the devil’s flesh and blood. The devil’s love was implanted, along with the roots of his life and lineage. God could not possess humanity without removing these things, but if He did remove them they would die. Therefore, God had to set up a substitute as a second creation or medium of salvation through an infusion of new blood, life, and love. God should love the enemy. He has to be patient with and love His enemy. (212-42, 1991.1.1)
Did God ever have time to rest just because the sun rose or the weather and season were nice? You should follow His example. You should also love the enemy, Satan, who is hiding in the world. If you know the wonderful value of God’s son and worship his holiness, in light of that value you should follow the path of loving the great enemy, although it would be miserable, bitterly difficult and painful. (127-119, 1983.5.5)
Section 2. God’s Grief and Shock at Losing His Son and Daughter
2.1. God lost His eternal and only son
How sorrowful God was when Adam and Eve committed the Fall and sank away from Him! They were to have been the ideal partners for God, who embodies the pure essence of love. God’s sorrow exceeded that of any person. He grieved so very deeply. The deeper and greater the value of what was lost, the deeper the sorrow. This is the situation of God, who has pursued the way of restoration for His lost children. (127-18, 1983.5.1)
When parents believe in their beloved children but are betrayed by them, there is no describing the shock, distress, and misery those parents experience based on that trust. When people betray, reject and mistrust those who have loved them with their lives, it causes unspeakable misery. You cannot understand unless you experience that struggle and suffering yourself. It cannot be understood merely by words. This is evident in the affairs of the world. Then how did God become as miserable as He is? God is not a nebulous God but a tangible God. Human beings should enjoy the highest relationship with God. God’s joy was to begin by finding a starting point from which He could begin a journey in happiness with human beings, heading toward infinity and eternity. But God lost the basis upon which to begin, due to the Fall. (20-205, 1968.6.9)
How desperate it is when an only son born into a lineage of seven generations of only sons dies, especially if this son were born when his parents were advanced in age! If the parents were young they could have more children. However, if an only son born into a lineage of seven generations of only sons dies, how anxious will his ancestors be for the lineage to continue beyond the seventh generation? Through their descendants and lineage, ancestors want to receive numerous blessings transcending this world. If their children die before they do, parents themselves feel like dying. Adam’s position was like that of the only son – the eternal, only begotten son, not merely the only son after seven generations. Can you imagine how profoundly God’s heart was broken at the death of Adam, who was to establish an everlasting family and accomplish God’s great endeavor of Creation? How would He feel that everything had gone wrong in the way it did? Even after six thousand years, God has not recovered from the shock of Adam and Eve’s Fall. (20-210, 1968.6.9)
According to the Principle of Creation, when God advances into the ideal realm of oneness in love, He is to be the central eternal Owner and Subject Being of love. However, Satan took His place as the center. Therefore, heaven and earth became inverted, turned upside down. Nothing should have interrupted the oneness based on God’s true love, His ideal of love. Humanity’s lineage should have originated from God, but because it deviated, it went the wrong way. (206-236, 1990.10.14)
Can you imagine how much it breaks God’s heart to observe human misery every hour of every day? What happened to God’s dignity when His son and daughter, whom He intended to glorify as prince and princess, became cripples, fell into a dung pit, and were stuck upside down in hell? Where can we find the authority and confidence of the all-knowing and omnipresent God? What became of the absolute God’s dignity? Can He show His face? (218-240, 1991.8.19)
Can a father turn a blind eye to his dying son? From this point of view, God as a loving Father cannot abandon us, His object of love, simply to die. If He is all-knowing and all-powerful, God should make an ideal world and revive His children. This is more than possible when considering the nature of parental love. If God exists He would surely be capable of this. Thus, we can conclude that God should move us to the realm in which we can be resurrected to the ideal. God did not abandon us to misery and death but placed us before the gateway into a world of a higher dimension. How wonderful that is! (67-219, 1973.6.21)
Putting aside His dignity as the all-knowing, almighty and omnipresent Creator, God’s heart longed to love Adam and Eve even to the point of forgetting His own existence. Can you imagine how He felt as He looked upon fallen Adam and Eve from such a position? This is something you need to understand. (7-291, 1959.10.11)
Human beings today are not God’s children. No matter how much God weeps, we pretend not to see His tears. No matter how sorrowful He is, we pretend not to see. This is because the human race springs from the flesh and blood of Satan. They even celebrate to see God in sorrow, and they ridicule His ruin. How much trouble God takes to guide such people and teach them about the path they must forge! God could not guide providential history if He did not have a caring and sympathetic heart. (42-257, 1971.3.21)
2.2. God has been miserable throughout history
How enraged God is when He looks down on us on earth! All human beings should have had His lineage, but Satan pushes them into a miserable state and scornfully jeers at God saying, “Your descendants are miserable.” When Satan asks God, “How will You, with all Your omniscience and omnipotence, redeem this difficult situation?” God can only be silent. He has to pretend to be deaf though He can hear, pretend not to smell though He can smell, and pretend not to feel though He can feel. Have you ever thought about the misery of God throughout history? (183-19, 1988.10.29)
If God were sitting on a glorious throne as the all-knowing and almighty God, as traditional Christianity believes today, and if He were to see His children dying, would He remain there and say, “Come up here, for I cannot leave my seat”? Or, would He rather abandon His throne and come down? What do you think? Will He just stay there or will He come down? Is He going to cast away His crown and jump down from His throne? Think about it. (123-159, 1983.1.1)
You should know that for tens of thousands of years, even millions of years, God has cried out for us, “My son and my daughter!” Have you ever ardently called out to God, “Father!” until your throat becomes hoarse and your tongue dry, until you cannot breathe and your eyes cannot open? How earnestly have you struggled to embrace that standard, which is that of the Subject of life? Your character is measured in proportion to your efforts to do this. (184-219, 1989.1.1)
We have nothing that would enable us to relate with that all-knowing and almighty being. As we were born as fallen people, our eyes are defiled. All our five sensory organs and emotions belong to the secular realm. We have nothing that enables us to relate with God. Although according to the law of heavenly righteousness we have nothing, there is one single path, the law of love, through which we can relate to God. As the years go by you should become well grounded in the philosophy of love, thus becoming a person of faith leading a life of discernment in all matters. As ten, twenty or thirty years go by, those who do so will automatically become the people God needs. (149-37, 1986.11.1)
Was it due to God’s kindly nature that He endured a path of suffering through the millennia of the providence of restoration? How did God continue His providence of salvation for tens of thousands of years without becoming exhausted? It is not because He is all-knowing and almighty. It is because He has been walking the path of love for the sake of His beloved sons and daughters. Therefore, it is the power of love that has enabled God to triumph over a path of tribulation, feeling as if a thousand years were just one day. Is that correct? It is. (109-281, 1980.11.2)
Is God deserving of pity or not? Many people doubt that the all-knowing and almighty God needs to be pitied. However all-knowing and almighty He may be, nothing can alleviate the shock of having lost His beloved children. If there had been a way for God to find relief from that shock by Himself, He would not have had to suffer through a six-thousand-year course of history. (35-88, 1970.10.4)
Even though human beings sinned, God does not just say, “Hey, you! Why did you sin?” He knows the state of people who sin. He cares about humanity rather than Himself. He comes in sorrow to sorrowful people, in suffering to suffering people, and in sympathy with those feeling victimized and angry. How much have you empathized with God’s situation? God comes into our sphere of life in these ways. Moreover, He comes speaking from His heart, “Although you betrayed me, I have searched for you for six thousand years with the heart of your Father.” (9-231, 1960.5.29)
What is the Unification Church? It teaches God’s heart and seeks to liberate God. Christian churches call us heretics because we say these things. If the son of a great president of a nation were to die, would the president maintain his dignity and say, “Even though my son has died, as president I cannot shed tears”? It would be fine if he went to a corner, wept for his son and came back composed; but if he does not cry for his son, the spirit of his dead son would say, “My father was not really my father after all.” If the spirit of his son were active, would he help his father or oppose him? Whatever your position, even if you are the world’s president, you would surely shed tears and weep loudly when your child dies. (196-18, 1989.12.24)
How miserable is God’s inner heart as He watches His children lose their original, privileged value of creation, become like fallen maggots and struggle in a life without value! How mortified He is to see people groaning in lamentation, suffering and despair, ending up being defeated instead of becoming God’s direct children through His love, life and lineage and attaining the glory of the heavenly kingdom! Nobody knew God was so sorrowful. That is why I wept profusely for many days and weeks upon coming to know this God. You should be aware that the Unification Church began amid such profound circumstances. (211-207, 1990.12.30)
No one has known how God has suffered in His heart. Now, through God’s appearances in history through the revelations I received in my profound mission – and which I have shared with you – you do know. Without this, you would never have known. This is a remarkable fact. Even Jesus did not fully know this, and even if he had, he could not have spoken about what was in his heart. No religious leader has known the hidden secrets of the universe. I have come so that the secrets of the universe could be revealed in the course of human history, before the world, for the first time. (215-171, 1991.2.17)
Section 3. A God Confined and Incarcerated
3.1. God lost His rightful position
My own pain and grief are nothing. God has not been able to fulfill His role as God. You must understand that God’s bitter tears which melt the marrow of His bones and His bloodstains which spread throughout the course of history are crying out from the ground. I have been doing this work because I know that the mission remains to liberate God from His anguish. (137-175, 1986.1.1)
We must liberate God. God is confined by love. He may as well be in prison. He has not been set free. Due to the Fall, the ideal world that the all-knowing and almighty God, the Creator of the universe, intended to establish based on love was snatched away by Satan. Thus, God could not be liberated in heart. The foundation for liberating God’s heart has not emerged in this universe. God is thus confined. His mind and heart cannot be at rest when His beloved children have died. (138-261, 1986.1.24)
We should liberate God with our own effort. He is not free. He is in confinement. He lost His sons and daughters. Even if one has ten times the filial piety of the lost filial son, one cannot easily free the original heart of a parent who has lost His sons and daughters, or worse, suffered from the death of His son of filial piety. Yet I am going to liberate this God. (135-283, 1985.12.15)
God is full of grief and distress. Why? Those who work hard in this world during their youth are assured of a hopeful future. Although God has invested painstaking efforts since the beginning of history, when did He have hope? When will His hopes be realized? Is God young or old? How old do you think He is? Because God transcends the universe, He has no age. Does God go around the sun once a year? We do not need to calculate this, because He is beyond the solar system. What is there to calculate? (105-184, 1979.10.21)
God, who is our Parent, cannot free Himself from lamentation without freeing all people from lamentation. How can any parents be comfortable while their loving children are living in anxiety? This explains why we should liberate God who is in such a situation. How will we liberate God? God is restrained from loving all people; we are responsible to find a realm of liberation in which God can freely love all of humankind. Since we were corrupted through the Fall, we must liberate God by becoming children who are victorious over the Fall. (65-100, 1972.11.13)
What happened due to the Fall? God was shackled and restrained and so were the first ancestors of the human race and the realm of angels. Countless religious people in history have struggled against these shackles. It is the same for all humankind. (79-26, 1975.6.16)
You should know that a child who does not demonstrate filial piety restricts the parents. To liberate those parents, the child must display a filial piety greater than his impiety and also be officially recognized by the general public. Only then can he cleanse himself of his past sins. This is the heavenly law. By the same principle, I do not need people who say, “I will live only for you, Father.” The neighbors, this nation, this people – they are all a pitiable lot. For five thousand years we have sung, “I will build a small cottage and attend both parents for tens of thousands of years.” I am glad they will attend both parents, but why live in a small cottage for tens of thousands of years? They are a pitiable people. We must guide them. If these people, who are penniless and poor, also fail to obtain God’s blessings, where will they go and live? (85-263, 1976.3.3)
3.2. God could not function as God
How long will the Unification Church last? The Unification Church must persist until it liberates our planet Earth, the spirit world, and, ultimately, with a heart of love, God. We must ultimately liberate humankind, the spirit world and God. I am sure you are hearing this for the first time. So far we have looked to God to liberate us, but in fact, we have to liberate God. You should know that God’s heart has been restrained. (85-270, 1976.3.3)
If loving parents have a child who does not show filial piety, their hearts cannot be liberated until they see that child rise to the position where he can freely fulfill the parents’ expectation. In the same way, God created Adam and Eve as His greatest partners of love. They are His partners of love. Vertically they are in a parent-child relationship with God and horizontally they were created to become husband and wife. Thus, God intended to practice all the ideals of love in heaven and on earth. Yet God lost everything due to the Fall. Even God ended up being confined. (210-308, 1990.12.27
A person who has not established heaven on earth and lived there cannot go to heaven in the spirit world. Even when I went to prison and manacles were placed on my wrists, they could not restrain me because I had love. When I was in a cramped position that made it hard to sleep, I woke up at night to find light shining from my hand. Why was there light? It was because God was embracing me. I discovered His love. That is why light could shine even in that dark room. If I sat quietly and reverently in the corner of a prison cell after hearing someone groaning and crying, the following day people would give me packets of rice powder. They had heard a distant voice, “If you don’t give this food to this particular prisoner, all the prisoners and even your family will be uncomfortable.” My God is a God of love. The Unification Church members should not be an ungrateful group of people who persecute such a God. (137-202, 1986.1.1)
We should know that for six thousand years, God has sought people thirsting for faith and hope and burning with love who say, “God is in shackles on account of humankind, including me; God was accused by Satan because of me; Jesus died on the cross for me; the Holy Spirit went through a bloody history of struggle on my behalf. God, please give me the strength. I will bring rest and liberation to the Father. I will also liberate Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” (7-162, 1959.8.30)
If God and Satan fight each other, who will stop them from fighting? Would the fight just end? There has been no place for God to stand, because He did not have a devoted son or a system of love through which people could uphold the heavenly kingdom by fulfilling the way of a loyal subject, saint and divine son or daughter. Until now, God has been incarcerated and confined. The heavenly kingdom became an empty ruin. God has carried this sorrow in His heart. (302-226, 1999.6.14)
Have you ever met a grandfather or grandmother whom God is seeking? Because of the Fall, you have not. Have you ever met a mother or father whom God is searching for? Have you ever met a wife or a husband whom God is looking for? Have you ever met a son or a daughter whom God is seeking? How can the bitterness of this quest be dissolved? Who can sever the chains that bind this heart? Nothing except the love of God. Nothing except God’s essential love can do this. (209-106, 1990.11.27)
God can do anything at will, but because of the reality of unprincipled love His hands have been tied. No one knows how He suffers under such lasting regret and sorrow and how unimaginably weary He is. (197-327, 1990.1.20)
In the established churches people say, “Oh! Holy, holy God! Oh! God of glory! Give me blessings.” But God is not that kind of God. On the contrary, He is a miserable God, suffering in confinement. He can be liberated from His sorrowful situation only through the birth of a son. Hence, you must liberate God. Unless you do so, the heavenly path cannot be made straight, and thus the ideal world cannot be established on earth. It has been the history and the mission of the Unification Church to rectify this. (22-151, 1969.2.2)
What lies within the sermons, core teachings and the words you hear from the Unification Church? Its teachings can liberate God, whose heart is in confinement. God is lamenting in grief because of the Fall. From the outset, the history of such lamentation has been a global one. Thus, Paul said that all creation, our ancestors and we ourselves wait with eager longing for the appearance of God’s true sons and daughters. It is because they long to free and separate themselves from that realm of grieving. (65-100, 1972.11.13)
Section 4. The Reason God Cannot Punish Satan
4.1. The reasons for Satan’s accusations
There is theological dispute over whether Satan existed from the very outset. If he has, it is a big problem. If Satan had always existed, craftily defying and hindering God’s providence of restoration for six thousand years, who would be able to subjugate and eliminate him? That is the issue. (54-56, 1972.3.11)
Where did Satan come from? Some say that Satan has existed from the outset. If he were an original existence who opposed the all-knowing and almighty God and caused our original ancestors to fall, then we could not expect complete salvation as long as Satan existed. This would be dualism, and people would conclude that a world with two opposing purposes would continue forever. (53-259, 1972.3.6)
The original will for the ideal world of creation was never fulfilled due to the Fall. However, since God has absolute authority, even though the whole world might change, He can never change. Even though the devil took Adam, Eve and all creation away from God, the Absolute Being must subjugate Satan, who was originally an archangel, naturally rather than by force. Although God exists, it is as if He does not. He has to re-establish His absolute authority. God cannot strike first. The good God cannot strike the evil Satan. (210-340, 1990.12.27)
Why is the all-knowing and almighty God unable to wipe out Satan at one stroke? If He did so, that act would end up extinguishing Adam, Eve and the creation and destroying the ideal sphere of love as well. That is why He is prevented from doing so. The absolute Lord has the responsibility to absolutely fulfill what He said He would do. Despite Satan’s fickleness, attacks and tenacious persecution, the Lord God has endured throughout history in order to recover His established principles. Nobody has known of this God. (208-256, 1990.11.20)
Why has the all-knowing, all-powerful and absolute God been letting Satan infringe upon human beings? Why did He let people be sacrificed, crushed under Satan’s foot? Why was He so unable to exercise His power that people could not recognize His existence? This is a serious question. The answer is that God has had no nation, no people, no tribe and no family that He could govern. Furthermore, there has been no individual whose qualification He could officially recognize. If such an individual, family, tribe, people and sovereign nation are established, He will be able to govern the evil nations, peoples, tribes, families and individuals at once. Only this way will lead to goodness, and only then will God have His authority. (56-247, 1972.5.18)
Can you conquer Satan? Wasn’t even God, the King of wisdom, immobilized due to Satan’s accusation? It is the same for the president of a nation, when the citizens stage a demonstration because of something he did. Can he cut off their heads? Under certain conditions, even the all-knowing and almighty God cannot make a move. Even a government minister would be fired within a day were he found to be at fault. Hence, you must protect yourselves against conditions for accusation. How you develop that protection is an extremely challenging problem in your life of faith. This is a life and death matter. (76-58, 1975.1.26)
The human race was connected to Satan’s life and lineage centered on his love. This is the problem. God cannot intervene or be present under these circumstances. Why has the all-knowing and almighty God seemed so incompetent throughout history? When Satan became the enemy, what did he take away? Satan deprived God of His love. Satan trampled on God’s love, life and lineage. We should always be aware of this fact. (206-236, 1990.10.14)
Satan was originally an archangel. He declares to God, “Even though I became Satan due to the Fall, You should solve the problems according to the principles You set up because You are the omniscient, almighty and absolute God. Although I violated the law and became Satan, You, the all-knowing, almighty and absolute Being must work according to the laws You have laid down. Isn’t that true?” (39-88, 1971.1.10)
I am going to explain why we cannot proceed on our way without loving our enemy. It is very important for you to know this truth, although it is not written in the Divine Principle book. Although the archangel fell and accuses God, God must still observe the principles that He established, because He is God. God is the Absolute Being. Therefore, although the archangel had fallen, God is compelled to rule over His creation according to the principles and rules He laid down. God is always obliged to relate with the archangel in the same way, both before and after the Fall. That is why Satan says to God, “You are supposed to love me until the perfection period and beyond.” (52-87, 1971.12.22)
Adam was supposed to have the three archangels under his command and they were to obey and love him absolutely. As long as the heavenly law and principle that demand absolute obedience and submission remain, Satan cannot do as he pleases with that principle and law, even though he does not absolutely obey and submit to God. Satan himself knows that eventually he has to follow the same principle. God can remove him if he goes against the principle and law. It is like the president exercising his authority through the constitution. If it is not in the constitution, the president cannot do as he wishes. (172-66, 1988.1.7)
The founder of the Unification Church is a serious man. I have always dealt seriously with issues such as God’s existence and why the all-knowing and almighty God did not eliminate Satan at once. If you read the book of Job, you may ask how God can be so powerless. I had to understand all this. How serious I was to do so! I have placed my neck on the gallows and struggled for these truths at the risk of my life. We have to retrieve our original life. (187-122, 1989.2.5)
In the book of Job, God gave Satan all he asked for. Why? God cannot respond to Satan with the same behavior as the devil because God is the essence of love for others. So God is the essence of truth. (144-161, 1986.4.12)
God does not subjugate Satan with His mysterious creative power. He makes Satan yield voluntarily. (207-349, 1990.11.11)
The devil has brought ruin to this world in order to prevent the world from returning to God. All this free sex and so on.... How many people in America engage in incest? A father with three daughters sleeps with all of his daughters. There have been a number of such cases. With free sex, the father’s brother sleeps with the mother or a son sleeps with his mother. They are like animals. Thus, Satan laughs at God saying, “God, do You think You can establish Your ideal of creation and ideal of love under these circumstances?” (222-230, 1991.11.3)
4.2. God abides by the law
What kind of being is God? God is like the mind of the universe; the universe is like His body. However, the devil has infiltrated this body. Satan has usurped the powers of the heavens and thus controls the universe. What should God do to digest this problem? God cannot strike Satan with force. The essential quality in the creation of the universe was love; the historical tradition of this universe was carried on through love. Thus, God must maintain that principle, even if there are violators. Therefore, for the sake of restoring the fallen universe, God had to unceasingly maintain the original standard that He had installed for creating based on the essence of love and fulfilling the ideal of true love. Without doing so, He cannot regain His authority as the Absolute Being. This has been so frustrating for Him. (210-229, 1990.12.23)
The Fall meant establishing a bond of love centered on Satan in the position of a parent. There is nothing to be said about the fruit of good and evil. It cannot be denied. Thus, the descendants by blood who have carried on Satan’s love, Satan’s life and Satan’s lineage have remained to this day. Satan is the enemy of love. He fractured the dream God had of His ideal for creation. The servant forcibly took away the nobleman’s daughter and violated her. Thus, she lost the qualification to be the lord’s daughter. She had to be driven away. This wrongful act of love was a derailment from the track of the great principle of heaven and earth. This fact cannot be denied. (218-230, 1991.8.19)
God cannot achieve His original ideal for creation unless He loves the children of evil much more than His own beloved children. The devil asserts to God, “I have fallen and I am the way I am. My lineage revolts against You. Yet, don’t You, God, have to go on upholding the way of the heavenly law?” God is caught right here. (208-291, 1990.11.20)
Satan accuses God and grips Him firmly in his teeth, saying, “You are the eternal and immortal Subject Being. I know that You are the great supervisor of heaven and earth. Since You are the substance of truth, love and principles, You, like Your laws and principle, cannot change. For this reason, although I am fallen, don’t You have to practice the principles You established? Therefore, as a being of principle, You cannot bring Your sons and daughters to the original world without loving the fallen angel. Your plans for the archangels before the Fall do not allow Your children to enter the heavenly kingdom unless Your son and daughter, and even You Yourself, love me. Thus, though I fell, You must follow that principle. Therefore, You should love me. You cannot be the true God and Your son and daughter cannot be true children without loving me.” (129-215, 1983.11.5)
The devil says to God, “God! I am the chief devil that changes. I am the ancestor who is changeable. But aren’t You the great supervisor of heaven and earth, the substance of truth, the unchanging Lord? Are You not the Being of love that embodies the principles of unchangeableness in life? I fell and became a rogue. But You are responsible to uphold the original ideal standard that You set up. I can freely pass in and out of the doors of the ideal world where Your will is fulfilled. I can freely come in and out, but since I cannot live there I must come out.” That is Satan’s assertion. Then God answers, “You are right.” (191-244, 1989.6.25)
If we commit even one sin, Satan, the devil, will immediately accuse us before God and say, “Because of his sin, this guy must go to hell.” Though Satan, who accuses human beings for their sin, has surely committed sins himself, no one has ever come forward to accuse Satan in front of God for his sin. There will be a path to eradicate Satan if a person can come forth and say, “O Absolute God! From the viewpoint of Your power and authority, Satan has committed such-and-such unpardonable sins against humankind and against You. Please punish him.” If God could not remove Satan even through this method, He would not be all-knowing or all-powerful; He would be on the side of Satan, not of humankind. (54-134, 1972.3.22)
Actually, Satan is an archangel. The archangel must go to heaven after Adam and Eve when they achieve perfection and enter heaven. It is the principle of creation that the archangel enters heaven with Adam and Eve after receiving love from God and then from them. Although Satan made a mistake on the way, if he says, “I am a servant and a traitor. Yet, You, Lord, decided the great principles of heavenly law and established Your essential traditions based on them. Upon these principles You established, there is one that lets You enter the Kingdom of Heaven only after loving the perfected Adam and the archangel. Surely You cannot abandon that principle?” God is caught. He answers, “You are right.” Satan traps God saying, “Although I became what I am, You, God, surely cannot be like me.” (211-177, 1990.12.30)
Since the devil is an archangel, he says, “Weren’t the children who can enter the Kingdom of Heaven originally supposed to love me? Isn’t it the original principle of creation that You, God, and Adam may enter the Kingdom of Heaven only after You and Adam love me?” He further pushes God, saying, “Unless this is done, You cannot avoid my accusations. You have to establish the condition that You loved me and that Your son Adam also loved me.” This problem is the context for the teaching “Love your enemy,” given to religious people. (219-36, 1991.8.25)
After we come into a parent-child relationship with God, when the son wails in sorrow God the Father will also wail in sorrow. Then Satan will be frightened out of his senses and flee. He cannot remain there. (228-217, 1992.4.3)
This world cannot be brought back to the heavenly side unless a person appears who can regain the original authority and stand in a position higher than Satan, the devil. In other words, someone must appear who can drag Satan before the all-powerful and all-knowing God and charge him, saying, “God! Satan has committed such sins! Why don’t You judge him?” (53-335, 1972.3.6)
So far we have been dominated and dragged around by Satan. Now we should reverse this, capture Satan, bring him before God and accuse him. Although people today know about Satan’s existence, they do not know what sin he committed. Until now, nobody has accused Satan before God, saying, “O God! With Your all-knowing and almighty authority, please punish this sinful Satan.” (53-88, 1972.2.10)
Then why is it that the all-knowing and all-powerful God cannot strike the fallen archangel? Why can He not get rid of him? It is because God also must love him. Although the archangel that God created fell and became the devil, God always has to maintain the principled standard of thinking of the archangel as he was before the Fall. That is why we should love the archangel. Adam and Eve are God’s creation and the body of God. Therefore, not only God, but also Adam and Eve, must love Satan. (175-14, 1988.4.6)
God cannot come down hard on Satan for killing millions of His beloved sons and daughters over the past six thousand years, because God is responsible for not having fully loved the archangel. For this reason, whenever someone does something wrong, Satan brings a continuous trail of accusation: “God, so and so is doing this and that.” Because the Unification Church emerged, we can know these things that no one previously understood. (35-95, 1970.10.4)
If you drag Satan, the devil, in front of God and accuse him, would God say, “Hey! That is not how to do it!” or would He be pleased? No doubt God would say, “Oh my son! My only son!” and would want to bless you eternally. We can imagine how intensely God has yearned for that. God is absolute, all-knowing and all-powerful; He is the Lord of righteous judgment. Therefore, if someone comes forward charging and accusing Satan, the devil, God can judge Satan. (54-60, 1972.3.11)
Since Adam and Eve sinned, God is not free to do as He wishes. If someone’s child commits murder, can you say that the mother or sibling can take responsibility for that crime? They cannot. This is the heavenly law. With whom did they sin? They sinned with Satan. Adam sinned, but God has not passed judgment on Satan or on Adam and Eve for what they did. Although He drove them away, God is still leading the providence of salvation. Thus, although God is receiving Satan’s accusation, He was unable to pass judgment. When we look at these issues from a theological perspective, they present a big problem. Why cannot God deal with this? Why is the all-knowing and almighty God unable to deal with the devil? (223-304, 1991.11.17)
God has no interest in fighting because there is no concept of war or fighting in the ideal world of God’s creation. If fighting occurred there, the world would fall into dualism. Fundamentally, fighting has nothing to do with the ideal world of absolute peace. Therefore, you should know that there is no concept of struggle within God’s world of creation. (224-224, 1991.11.24)
How did Satan fall away? You should clearly know the answer to this. Satan has created division in large things and small things. God, however, combines small and worthless things into something large. God’s way is contrary to Satan’s. When we consider the Origin of the universe that seeks true love and the principles by which He created the universe, we see that Satan went against that Origin instead of obeying Him, and thus he fell away. The original nature of the all-knowing, almighty, unique and eternal God is to live one hundred percent for the sake of others. (179-52, 1988.7.3)
Throughout history, the all-knowing and almighty God wins over His enemy not by utilizing His strength and power, but by bringing him into submission through the principles of love. God’s desire is to bring His enemy to voluntarily and completely submit before God and gratefully receive humanity’s judgment in the position of the servant. Unless this happens, his sins cannot be indemnified. (42-279, 1971.3.27)
Section 5. Let Us Liberate God
5.1. God is like a prisoner
Who will be able to end the battle between the good God and the evil god? Neither God nor Satan can do that. Then who can? Without a master of love who initiates and leads with true love and whom all humanity can follow, the battle between God and Satan cannot end. Unless we are freed from this conflict, peace will remain an impossible dream in this world and in history. The word “ideal” is just an abstract and sentimental term, so God sends someone who substantiates true love. Our main belief is in the coming of the Messiah or Savior. The Savior does not just save people but also liberates God. He is the one who punishes evil. The Savior is overall in charge of setting God free and terminating evil. (136-219, 1985.12.29)
The mission of the Savior is to liberate God and punish Satan. Who will get rid of this despicable ringleader who has continuously accused humanity? God cannot do it; only the Messiah, the Savior can. (136-219, 1985.12.29)
What kind of Unification Church do we want? We want to find the parent-centered religion. We are not seeking the sweet life, nor are we pursuing relationships based only on moral principles. Centering on the True Parents, we want to find the way of true love, and in so doing we want to liberate God. There is no liberation that does not correspond to the principles of love. (136-222, 1985.12.29)
Have you thought about the nation that Father loves and is going to find? When one is willing to go to prison, some path will be found on that way. No one knows that pioneering this path of life and death means finding a path of hope that leads people beyond the abyss of darkness. No one knows the circumstances under which I have toiled in order to dig a tunnel to liberate the people of the world. In walking the path of loyalty to God, I have attended God as the center, served Him with great care, and treasured His love. I live in faith that this is the only path that never changes, even though time and tide may change. (163-304, 1987.5.1)
We must liberate God. Each of us must save God. Instead of trying to be saved, we must make God free. This is the consummation of the providence of salvation. (136-263, 1985.12.29)
The Unification Church is a force for the liberation for God. We are not just liberating the world. Bringing liberation to the world is easy. The world will be liberated when people unite, but God’s liberation requires the unity of the realm of heart. We must have the Principle and a system of thought that can unify the realm of love, mobilize the spirit world, and build bridges of heart on earth. This is the most fearsome and difficult revolution. Liberating humanity is easy, but liberating God is difficult. It is an amazing fact that Rev. Moon has emerged as the standard-bearer to tackle this difficult and unprecedented task, with the goal of settling all matters of providential history. (136-285, 1985.12.29)
Religious leaders today fall on their knees and pray for their own blessings. But I have never prayed to receive blessings. Instead I prayed, “Let me be a sacrificial offering for the sake of Your liberation.” The Old Testament Age was an age for restoring God’s people by sacrificing the things of creation; the New Testament Age was an age for restoring parents by sacrificing children; and the Completed Testament Age is an age for liberating God by sacrificing the Parents’ family. We should attend the original parents on earth and live with them forever. There is a Korean folk song that goes like this, “Moon, Moon, you bright Moon, the Moon poet Lee Tae-baek loved…” It goes on singing about a great laurel tree in the Moon. But it also sings of living with one’s parents for tens of thousands of years. That is something of a revelation about the Korean people – living with the heavenly parents for thousands and tens of thousands of years. Whenever I think about that song, I can never forget that surge of emotion in my heart. (137-185, 1986.1.1)
God has been giving world-level blessings to America for two hundred years, but Americans think these are just for them, for their Christian churches, and for their country. They have forgotten their responsibility to liberate all humankind and promote human well-being by sacrificing America and Christianity. Instead, Americans believe in their superiority and think unilaterally, centering on their national interests. God’s will is for America to have a global consciousness and build a worldwide foundation, even by sacrificing itself and Christianity. But because America is going against this and taking a contrary position, it is taking a nosedive. Families are breaking down, churches are collapsing, the nation is being dismantled and everything is in a total mess. Everything is diseased. (143-189, 1986.3.18)
We must penetrate hell in order to liberate God and True Parents and save the world. After passing through the bottom of hell, we will reach the Kingdom of Heaven. The shortest path is to plunge through the bottom of hell. This is why we focus on sacrifice and service, isn’t it? If you say, “I believe in the Unification Church in order to gain my salvation,” you get a zero. You will never be able to reach the worldwide level. You should rather say, “I will go this way in order to liberate God, set True Parents free, and save the world.” Do you understand? That is what is different. (148-163, 1986.10.8)
You cannot continue without straightening your path, in life or death. Because I know this, I’ve been doing this all my life. I carry this burden even though I was persecuted and sent to prison. Did I go to prison because I enjoy it? I did so for the sake of God and God’s liberation. I went for the sake of liberating humankind and the satanic world. I have walked the path of restoration through indemnity, because without going this way liberation does not come and because we cannot separate from Satan amid peace and comfort. (148-168, 1986.10.8)
One’s portion of responsibility for liberation is to liberate the realm of heart. God must be liberated, and so must the Parents. How painful it must be for God to be in the position of having to relate to evil parents ever since they emerged! So we must liberate True Parents and God. You must be such children of filial piety. True Parents are still going through hardships… Are you trying to live the good life, leaving the Heavenly Parent to suffer in misery? Are you thinking how to have your children live the good life? How can you seek a comfortable life? Can you think of doing that? (148-222,1986.10.9)
In your daily life for the sake of God’s liberation, you should know that you cannot call upon God without a heart steeped in tears. This is why John the Baptist cried out in the wilderness, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Even Jesus said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” You need to repent. You should understand how insolent, undignified, and shameless your approach to the providence has been. Even if you fail to liberate the world, you have to release God from His agony. (161-113, 1987.1.11)
How can the world be unified and how can liberation be achieved? The spiritual and physical worlds will be unified and liberated only when someone emerges whom God has empowered to unify the satanic realm. Only when someone who can dominate Satan appears will the spiritual and physical worlds be liberated. Does God need liberation? God is of course already a liberated being internally. God needs liberation because people need liberation. God Himself could already be liberated. God cannot meet the condition to be liberated only because people, who need to be liberated, are not. It is not that God cannot be liberated. It depends on people. (161-243, 1987.2.22)
Christian thought focuses on the Second Advent. What will Jesus do when he returns? There are many Christians today who have lost touch with reality. Do they want to rise into the air on the clouds and have a millennium party? This belief is irrational. What will Jesus do when he comes? What will he be proud of when he comes? Satan resists God by demanding that He establish justice, and unless Jesus eradicates Satan, God can never avoid his unceasing opposition. What is the returning Lord supposed to do on earth? He does not come to bring a comfortable life to a few hundred million Christians. He must liberate God. The returning Lord should follow the way of righteousness and fulfill the responsibility to liberate God. (162-186, 1987.4.12)
5.2. God’s liberation is a task for humankind
In saving the world, we should first liberate God. The world can be liberated only after God is liberated. Isn’t that so? I am saying that we should liberate the world after we have liberated God. So let us spread the Unification Church to the ends of the earth, establish bonds of heart, and show our determination by driving a stake into the ground to melt the world with love. This is the battle we are fighting. (162-221, 1987.4.12)
Resolving to continue until God is liberated, you should gather around you those on our side like clouds to follow True Parents to their final destination. From these individuals, families will emerge; and from these families, tribes will emerge. The value of the sacrificial offerings on the levels of tribe, ethnic group and nation will be reproduced in the world that attends the Second Parents, thereby restoring through indemnity, as resurrected beings of substance, all the saints who sacrificed themselves in history. Our destiny prevents us from leaving this land without fulfilling this. We must fill up this hole even if we die. This is the fate that no one can avoid. We should quickly follow this path. (166-74, 1987.5.28)
We must liberate God. God should be able to visit any corner of this land and sing a hymn of praise: “My ideal of creation is entirely realized through work done by day and night. I am grateful and amazed.” At the same time, God should be able to love the world, the universe, the spiritual world and the physical world. However, this has not occurred and Satan’s dark occupation reaches almost up to God’s throne. To liberate God, therefore, we must liberate the spirit world. (166-78, 1987.5.28)
I like liberation very much. I like liberation much more than you do. I also like unification. How much do I like it? So much that I will die for it. The gate of unification and liberation does not belong to someone named Moon; it belongs to God, the Great Master of the universe. I asked God, “I am sure there are many things that You like, but what is it that You like most?” He answered, “It is liberation.” His answer was simple: “What I like most is liberation.” So I asked, “Why can’t You attain liberation?” And He said, “I cannot do it alone.” This is the problem. God cannot do it alone. (166-99, 1987.5.30)
Do you love your nation or do you love your children? Have you loved your own people only after opening things up for your children? Have you loved the world after opening the way to the nation? Only after opening the way to go to heaven will you see the dawn of complete liberation. At dawn, the rays of the sun permeate every valley and completely liberate all the people who have been held hostage in death. You have to sing of freedom and peace and declare the coming of the unified world along with liberation. Only then can you disregard the history of thousands of years and become a prince of liberation. You must be a standard-bearer of unification in order to receive God’s praise and enjoy eternal happiness in God’s bosom of love. That is how it is. Are you confident to do this? (166-99, 1987.5.30)
Humankind needs liberation, but first we need to liberate God. Only then will the liberation of humankind follow. Nobody thinks about this. Christian ministers think of God exercising judgment surrounded by glory. But this is a mistake. The God I know is not like that. We must liberate God from the realm of death. (166-150, 1987.6.5)
The age of perfection comes after the Old, New and Completed Testament Ages. Perfection means perfection of love. It means the liberation of parents, the liberation of children, the liberation of all things and the liberation of God. All these must be accomplished at once. Everything that went to hell all at once through the fallen parents will be restored all at once at the risk of heaven and earth. (166-326, 1987.6.14)
If a person or an organization claims to represent a people and its culture, who or what kind of organization would it be? It must embody the historical tradition of that people, represent that age, and reach the worldwide level, connecting the mission of this age to the mission of the future. You should know that this person is Rev. Moon and this organization is the Unification Church. The truth of the Unification Church is not invasive. Rather, it seeks to save people and raise them to a higher level. We must accomplish their liberation. We must liberate all people. We are the standard-bearers for liberation. Through the joint efforts of the spiritual and physical worlds we are trying to liberate God. (168-55, 1987.9.1
I do not even dream of receiving praise or a welcome for myself. The philosophy of the Unification Church is to sacrifice itself to save a people, and after saving a people, to save humankind, and after saving all the people of the world, to liberate heaven, earth and finally God. God will reinvest everything He regains, hoping for a special world of a higher dimension free from the Fall and for a great migration toward heaven. (227-272, 1992.2.14)
I am nothing. It is said that human history began one and a half million years ago. When the Parent has lost all His dignity and authority through our long history, to whom will He appeal about His miserable situation as a Parent in the struggle to find His lost children? Before the children come forward and resolve this, God can neither alleviate the bitter sorrow in His own heart nor remove the nail that pierces it. Who will take out that nail and liberate God’s bitter heart, which must be released with flesh and blood through the healing tears of love? We should know that God’s liberation precedes our own liberation. We should know that this is the path to the ultimate liberation sought by people of faith. (187-273, 1989.2.11)
We should know where the seeds of happiness are. We must find them because we lost them through the Fall. This is why we find the true God centered on the Unification Church. So far, God has been the God of restoration, not the original God. He is filled with sorrow and is to be pitied. He is not the God of joy, but of despair. In order to return to the original state, therefore, we must liberate the God of restoration – not with money, not with power, not with any person, but with true love. (174-248, 1988.3.1)
We began with suffering, and so we want to head for the final destination through suffering. I am determined that Rev. Moon will be recognized as one who experienced misery. I do not need money or honor. The hope to find the new homeland lies only in liberating God, liberating humankind, and liberating even Satan, thereby building an eternal base of peace and love. With such an understanding, you should struggle hard to follow this path, forgetting breakfast, lunch and dinner, ignoring day and night, and persevering no matter how steep and rugged the mountains are that stand in the way. The heavenly principle is that the longer you lead such a life, the more God’s ideal love will be with you, your family, your clan, and your nation. I would like to ask you to understand this and live accordingly. (174-53, 1988.2.23)
Achieving greatness does not mean having a wonderful face or a handsome body, but, rather, great thinking. Greatness of spirit enables one to say, “Even God will have to move and follow me. I am asserting that, with love, I will liberate God who could not fulfill the purpose of love.” It is logical to say that our sorrowful God, with His goal of love unfulfilled, is liberated by meeting Rev. Moon. It is not a daydream. I am asserting this based upon actual proof that comes from a systematic theory and precise data. (165-185, 1987.5.20)
Our work is to liberate God. If this is done, everything is concluded, is it not? God will be free to do as He wills. You need to know that when the all-knowing and almighty God can exercise His full authority and full power, the kingdom of peace and tranquility will surely be realized. Only then will we say “Amen.” (221-25, 1991.10.20)
Section 6. The Liberation of God and the Way of the Filial Child
6.1. The path of restoration True Father has walked
I fully understand what it is like to determine to fulfill God’s will. I know what God’s love is like, and I know that I must both kneel in gratitude and walk the path to offer forgiveness. No one has known that God is filled with bitter grief that compels Him to walk the path of liberation even though His blood might be shed. I did not pray to God asking Him to save me even when I collapsed under torture; and though I was pursued, I did not pray to God asking Him to protect me on my path or to save me. As a man of character, I have my own reserve of strength. I have the spirit and the inner strength to fight. I say to myself, “God will probably save me if I collapse unconscious due to lack of strength. But before that, with my own power…” I know that God is waiting, preparing things in advance before I go. (138-358, 1986.1.24)
God is with the Unification Church. If I were to lose my temper, thinking “that good-for-nothing!” and think to myself, “You wait and see; just wait a couple of months,” in the end that person would be broken in pieces. Wouldn’t it be strange to see such a thing? That is why I bite my tongue and control myself. I cannot curse others with my mouth. As the True Parent, I cannot use my mouth to curse others. Even as I hold back my words, Heaven releases me completely from my bitter feelings. When you see this, don’t you think God loves me? (162-205, 1987.4.12)
Nobody ever became a congressman or president of this nation while its sovereign rights were intact, with the authority of a homogeneous people clothed in white, proud of its five-thousand-year culture in Asia. After the liberation of Korea, I was thinking of the possibility of seeing such a congressman and president. You must understand that this was not just my wish but God’s wish as well. When this happens, Asia will be in the palm of God’s hand. Please have faith in the fact that the world should head towards the place God is also heading. (171-190, 1988.1.1)
Harboring bitter grief in my heart, how can I take a rest? My path is a busy one, since I must walk this path to resolve everything from a thousand years of history. For forty years of my life, I could not avoid taking the path of tears. This continues even now. North Korea should have welcomed the new garden of God’s love where young people who can praise God can spring up. Yet seeing them tainted by those who betrayed God, He had to turn away His face. We have to make it so that God can turn His face back. Since I entered North Korea with God and with this system of thought that restores things to their original state, the communist world should thank me, and the democratic world should be even more grateful to me. Let us march forward to this place! (173-116, 1988.2.7)
At Seodaemun prison, a lady evangelist who had persevered for a time in the Unification Church but who then left after things did not turn out the way she wanted, said to me, “Oh, this has turned out well for you. Would this happen to the son of God?” I answered “Yes, I am not someone who will disappear in prison. I will make great leaps toward a liberated world.” I will never forget her face. I heard that she recently died in miserable circumstances, and I felt pity for her. This is how I live. I know everything about how the five presidents of Korea treated me. Yet I do not show this. I do not seek revenge. They did not know. I have to meet them and teach them. After saying what I need to say, I have to resolve everything. (204-118, 1990.7.1)
When I came to this earth what position was I in? As the son, sibling, couple and parent in whom God’s heart of bitter pain remains, I stood in a position to indemnify and release God’s anguish at its pinnacle by giving the perfected love that could not be given before. (234-140, 1992.8.10)
Everything exists for the sake of others. Based on God’s ideal of creation to live for the sake of others, God had to invest, invest, and invest Himself to multiply true love. As He did, we have to spread it throughout the universe and return to the original homeland. When we return, we should not kick others away as our enemies. We have to bring them to naturally submit to us through love. Without this natural submission, God cannot find His position. If I were to use trickery, I would not be defeated by anyone. However, knowing that we must bring them to submit, I have been restraining myself. Can you imagine how difficult it has been for me to suppress my fiery character for forty years?! How much more difficult would it be for God, Who is more intense than I am! (219-93, 1991.8.25)
Once I turned to look back, and God, who was following me, embraced me in tears. When I turned to say, “You are the center of my love; I submit to You; I will absolutely follow You,” God embraced me again. How great it is to be in such a position! Just as God gave me His position, I must also give God’s position to all of you. (215-341, 1991.3.1)
Looking back in history, forty years ago I was hunted by the nation and hunted by the established churches. My position was that of an orphan expelled into the wilderness. From such an awful position, I had to fulfill God’s requirement to restore the historical standard and create a global foundation! I had lost the victorious Christian cultural sphere that had been established on Heaven’s side after World War II, and the foundation of America, the nation that governs the free world. In the position of the owner, I could not help thinking about the intense grief of losing this foundation and about having to accomplish the task of restoration through indemnity again, over a forty-year period. Can you imagine how aghast I was, knowing clearly that I could have brought history to its conclusion – something even God could not do for hundreds of thousands or millions of years! (135-187, 1985.11.13)
I have accomplished these tasks oblivious to rain and snow. Nightfall was like dawn, and I would even forget to eat. I could not take this lightly because I knew God and felt the serious responsibility that comes with knowing God. More than anybody else, I knew how sorrowful God was. Thus, even if my body were torn apart, crumbled into dust and blown away, all those scattered cells could still cry out as God’s cells. I grappled with this path of death, accepting it as a worthy death for a man. As I grappled with this, people thought I would perish and disappear, but things have turned out like this. (137-178, 1986.1.1)
Since I knew the great and bitter pain that was entrenched in heaven and earth, I had to comfort God even when I was vomiting blood. Who could ever understand the bitter reality of my position as the True Parent, in which I could not pray, “I am about to die. God, please save me”? Nobody knew of this. Only God. Only He understood my heart. Even though many people follow the Unification Church, none of them is one with my thought. All of you must understand this. A substandard Unificationist community cannot stand in the sphere of liberation. I know that the behavior of those who have received the Blessing is nowadays like that of the devil’s cousins. (145-332, 1986.6.1)
God would offer a hundred thanks to the brave man who would confess that he has not fought enough, that he lacks the qualifications to shed tears, or that he is concerned that the Father would shed tears if He saw him in sorrow. God would offer those thanks to the brave man who, in the unbearably bitter position of being whipped, would worry that God would be in a miserable position or who would be concerned that God would shed tears when he cries through clenched teeth, “My grief is nothing, my pain is nothing, my sorrow is nothing.” God would offer those thanks to the brave man who would cry out and raise the flag of victory as the vanguard on the path to take vengeance upon the enemy. God would express His gratitude one hundred times, saying, “Should I call you a patriot, should I call you a son of filial piety, or should I call you a virtuous person? In all the history of the world there has been no person more precious than you.” (153-269, 1964.3.26)
To this day, I, Rev. Moon, have walked a lonely path as an individual. Though it has been a lonely path, I know God more deeply than anyone else does. In history, many lonely people cursed their circumstances while asking for blessings. Yet, centering on God’s grieving heart, I did not think like those people. Instead, I said, “God, do not worry.” That is a different way. I am not a man to retreat due to personal trials. A man who pledges to die only after overcoming the trials of the world and liberating God cannot write a letter of surrender during that individual course. He cannot be cowardly. Even though my wife opposed me, my children opposed me and my parents opposed me, I cut them off in order to walk this path. I walked the path in spite of opposition by my nation of 40 million or even 60 million people. (175-257, 1988.4.24)
Time is so short. A lifetime is not enough time to rectify this and compensate for it. That has been my life course. So from a secular viewpoint, my life would be pitied. Try asking God, “What kind of person is Rev. Moon?” The pain I feel causes me to lament in sorrow; I am experiencing bitter pain like that of a man writhing in agony while having his heart cut out. On this earth I am a miserable man. Nobody knows about my suffering. People may boast about themselves, thinking they are wonderful. Yet they do not know my suffering. Even Mother does not know. (213-278, 1990.1.21)
None of you knows the bitter circumstances of my going to Heungnam prison after I lost all the foundation for which God had toiled for over six thousand years. Leaving my hometown was not the problem. My wife and child were not the problem. It seems like yesterday that I cried for those who, as the future hope of heaven and earth, were to welcome me as liberated people. But they vanished into hell in the clouds, disappearing into the world of darkness, even while I cried out to them that we would meet again. It seems like yesterday that I proclaimed, “Although you have disappeared, I will keep to my path and bring the bright morning sun to find and liberate you again!” I cannot forget the sound of my shouting this while in chains. I cannot forget the times I prayed while in difficulty. (220-205, 1991.10.19)
When I ask God, “God, are You not this kind of person? The God I know is like this.” God would take my hand and weep profusely, asking, “How did you find that out, my son?” When God hears this He will weep. Then how loud the sound of His weeping will be! God knows that this situation cannot continue for a thousand more years. Thus, He wipes away His tears, stops His weeping and says, “My son!” You must understand God’s need for such a son and daughter. (176-263, 1988.5.11)
“I will become God’s true soldier. No matter how terrible this battlefield for God may be, I will join the front line.” That is my spirit. I never once complained to God even when the world’s persecution swarmed about me – even when I was in a position of utter loneliness due to persecution and suffering. This is what I can take pride in. (193-73, 1989.8.20)
Have absolute faith in God! If you have absolute faith in God – even when you cannot find faith on the left side or right side, on the north, south, east or west, on the front or back, on the left or right – you will find yourself on the center line. With absolute faith, you will find one position. You will find the absolute position, the place where God resides. From there everything will start to be resolved. In the way of faith, many things are ordained. There is no discussion. Because your life of faith deviates, its angle must be adjusted, even by force. In light of this, how great is God’s pain and the pain of humankind! (188-225, 1989.2.26)
6.2. A lifetime devoted to God’s liberation
You do not know how angry this makes me! There cannot be anyone in history who feels greater indignation than I do. When I weep, there is no one who weeps more bitterly than I do. No one could weep more than I do. I feel God’s heart flowing from my heart as in tears I embrace a thousand years of history on this earth, embracing the lost sorrow. Can you cover up that root, sit there, eat your fill and live in comfort? Even dogs would not eat the carcass of such a wretch. (180-50, 1988.8.20)
Unless a man goes over that difficult mountain pass of indemnity while calmly and happily attending and comforting God, the kingdom of peace on earth will not appear. Such a representative and public person is lonely. When somebody stands up and says, “Rev. Moon did such things as this…,” I feel like bursting into tears. Even though I am an old man of seventy whose tears should have all dried up, I harbor a loneliness that cannot stop the flow of tears of sorrow. You must never forget that there is such a parent. (183-86, 1988.10.29)
Think about how much time I have spent in prison, more than five years in all. Think about how rain dripping from a gutter will gradually make a hole in a rock. None of you would know how bitterly I wept as I gazed upon those drops of water, thinking how much I wished that the teardrops of my love could bore a hole through the rock of anguish embedded in God’s heart! Gazing upon a flowing stream I thought how wonderful it would be if this stream could be pristine water, serving God so that He could come and bathe in it! How wonderful it would be if I could be a child who could prepare such a home or resting place for God! Unless you experience that deep world of heart, you have nothing to do with God. (185-45, 1989.1.1)
How long have I suppressed my indignation? How many times have I been overwhelmed to the point that all five of my sensory organs were choked up? It was not for the sake of meeting all of you. It was for the sake of bringing the rulers of humanity into submission, but not through my body, or by guns and swords. Unless I bring them to natural surrender by influencing their hearts through the lineage of love, God’s desired garden of peace will not come to heaven and earth. It will be impossible to build the kingdom of peace. (197-348, 1990.1.20)
There are many difficulties as we live in this world! Who knows what will befall us today? People who cannot break free from this fearful environment have a wretched life. Who will be the teacher who can mentor them amidst this environment of fear and chaos? There is no teacher. I had to weep bitterly and struggle because of this problem. If there is a God, why could He not step into the role of the teacher? Actually God is a teacher whose principle is love. Not knowing this, we harbored a grievance toward God. He is a teacher centered on love. (203-228, 1990.6.26)
Once I came back in the evening tired. I slept for awhile and woke up, washed my face and shaved. Mother looked at me and said, laughing, “Washing and shaving is what you do when you get up in the morning. Why are you doing it now?” That is how I live. My heart goes in one direction. My devoted effort goes in one direction. Try praying, asking God what kind of person I am. God will wail in sorrow. He will weep so bitterly that His tongue will come out and not go back in. You have to know that those are the circumstances of my life. (221-163, 1991.10.23)
For fallen humankind, I am the savior. But from God’s viewpoint, I am the True Son and True Parent who will fulfill the true-love ideal of creation that was lost in the beginning. The savior is one who pioneered the path of sacrifice, offering his life to relieve God’s anguish that began with the Fall. The savior is not only living in glory. He weeps together with God’s heart and is deeply concerned with bringing Satan to his knees. (232-225, 1992.7.7)
Whose God are you going to make Him? Are you going to make Him America’s God? Will you make Him the God of Korea? Will you make Him your God? Which? You are so greedy! If you want to make Him your God, you have to work for God more than for your own people. If God loves Rev. Moon, and if you can make more effort than Rev. Moon, God will surely love you more than He loves me. Isn’t that an infallible formula? There are no objections to this. I want to see people who have a greater capacity than I do to comfort God, serve God’s will, and offer distinguished service to God. If I wanted people with abilities inferior to my own, I would be a dictator. (184-224, 1989.1.1)
If a marathon runner has completed 80 percent of the race from the starting line, takes the lead by 100 or 1,000 meters, and falls down at that point, that is the end of it. When a marathon champion runs, do the spectators say “Hey, slow down!”? They say “Run fast!” until he drops. It is the same for me. I have to set the record. Only when I hold the record can I receive God’s highest award with a clear conscience. I have to push myself until then. (230-186, 1992.5.3)
Something went wrong at the starting point. It was as dreadful as saying, “Something went wrong at my birth! Oh dear, now that I have grown up, I see that I am a son adopted from beggars; I was the child of a beggar, brought from an orphanage.” This is even worse than being the child of a beggar. When you were young, you thought your parents were your real parents, but later on you realized that you were the son of a beggar. What happens to your household when people find out that you are of such lowly birth? Your household would surely be turned upside down, and people would weep bitterly. How shocked you would be to find out that you were raised in an orphanage when you thought that the mother and father who raised you were your real parents! This is shocking even in the secular world. It would be an even greater shock for God to see His crown princes who were to inherit His kingship and the heavenly palace walking around together with such people and becoming kings of hell. (216-107, 1991.3.9)
Rev. Moon’s concept and the Unification Church’s concept of husband and wife means attending the eternal Parent for a thousand or ten thousand years as a son and daughter born from God’s lineage and attaining the qualification as a son and daughter whom God can eternally praise as His own. Only by going through this position can you heal the wounds that resulted from the Fall and that remain in God’s heart. When you grasp God and say, “Father, how much You have toiled!” He will weep upon hearing your words. He will explode into tears saying, “Thank you; I’ve been doing this through the thousands of years of history.” Tens of tens of millions of years have passed since the creation of humankind. It is not just six thousand years as the Bible indicates based on the history of cultures recorded in its pages. Actually it has been tens of millions of years since God decided to begin the providence of salvation. (232-138, 1992.7.3)
In the past, I saw right through those people who came to the Unification Church with the motivation to use it for their own purposes; those people did all sorts of things. I knew who they were, yet I let them deceive me. Why did I do so? It is because God has been doing so to this day. When people betrayed me and turned their backs, I could have exploded in indignation and resentment saying, “Those reprobates should be struck by lightning.” Yet when I thought about the heart of God who longs for their return, I could not do that. Each time I grasped that suffering heart of God, and had the heart to forgive, a new segment, like that of a bamboo shoot, was created. Do you understand? A segment of the Unification Church was made. That is how we are making family segments, tribal segments and national segments. (197-312, 1990.1.20)
You should not let this historic teacher’s anguish and God’s historical pain flow by unnoticed. You should gently retain love in the deepest part of your heart. When you meet God in the other world, you should embrace Him and shed tears, saying, “I knew of Your grief and I tried to align myself accordingly, but I could not. Please forgive me.” If that kind of heart leads you, even if you weep while grasping God, He will weep together with you and embrace you. I believe that liberation is not possible without that kind of day. However great a wife’s love may be, it cannot reach such a level; and however great a parent’s love may be, it cannot reach that level. Since I know these things, in order to bring about liberation I had no time to take my eyes off that task or to go off on a tangent. (184-246, 1989.1.1)
Until we meet again, you must think of me day and night; think of me when you get hungry. Even if you do not eat, do the things I do for God’s will. When you get drowsy, persevere for God’s will, thinking about me as I go on without sleep. You have to think about your teacher who endures without vindicating himself in the face of slander. Being even more upright in your heart, you should be thirsty for tomorrow’s victory and go forth with the intention of gaining results and seeing your enemies surrender to you naturally. Only through these efforts can you and this people find the path of life. (82-48, 1975.12.30)
Once I received word that a member had been sentenced to death. How could I, the founder of the Unification Church, spend the night without tears after hearing this? How much pity I felt! If he had not known me, this would surely not have happened. As he walked the final path while facing east toward Korea and said, “I will go now,” and wished me a long life, do you know how my heart felt to be unable to hold onto and save such a person who followed beyond his nation’s borders the teacher he had never met? Knowing the heart of heaven that pitied those who were held captive, in pain and suffering under the tribulations of the devil, day and night I had to drive people like him to march forward. (201-152, 1990.3.30)
I never thought, even in my dreams, of becoming the founder of the Unification Church. Even now it is the same. I do not have the concept of being the founder of a religion. I am just an ordinary man. Even today I did not wear a suit or necktie. I am only comfortable in more minimal attire. Why? Because I know that even at this hour, throughout the world members of the Unification Church with their clothes drenched in rain from a gutter are longing for me, wishing me a long life and offering bows. I cannot trample on situations where people are praying for me to receive blessing. Thus, when I open my eyes, I cannot sleep. As the founder of a religion, I feel like a sinner. That is why the Unification Church members cannot ignore me. (197-162, 1990.1.13)
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