Speeches of Hak Ja Han 2 - 1 - 6. Women Will Play a Leading Role in the Ideal World II

[대태양/김현수]

Book 2: A Model for the Family Ideal and World Peace
Part 1: The True Love Movement and the Role of Women
Chapter 6: Women Will Play a Leading Role in the Ideal World II

This speech was given at Women's Federation for World Peace rallies held between June 10 and June 30, 1992 in 40 cities, counties and districts throughout Korea.

Women members and dear friends in the audience! It is a great pleasure and honor for me to stand before you as founder of the Women's Federation for World Peace. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the members who have come from Japan and for your hard work in preparing this rally.

The title of the speech I will give today is Women Will Play a Leading Role in the Ideal World. Ladies and gentlemen, if someone were to ask whether this world is a world of good or a world of evil, what would you reply? You undoubtedly would answer that it is a world of evil. You would have no choice except to say that the world of this age in which we live is evil, and that the nations and the world of all past historical ages have been evil, when judged by the original ideal of goodness.

It has become a world in which people commit sin rather than do goodness, pursue war rather than make peace, champion injustice rather than justice, and express hatred rather than love. Division and conflict, rather than unity and harmony, have become the rule.

No one desires to experience the pain of this sinful world. People seek the way to end this sinful world and construct an ideal world of true love, overflowing with peace, freedom and happiness. Members and leaders on all levels, from the individual to the family, tribe, people, nation and world share that one common desire. For thousands of years, since the beginning of human history, humanity has struggled toward this dream and this ideal; yet the ideal world desired by humanity has yet to be realized.

Today I would like to reveal to you the fundamental cause of this problem; and at the same time, I would like to suggest the solution to realizing the ideal world, for which we yearn with all of our hearts. This is not something that comes from human knowledge or thought.

As you may know already, my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, has devoted his whole life to solving these issues. Living by his side and attending him, I have been deeply moved and inspired by his teachings and his life of practicing love for God and humanity.

When a wife has attained such deep enlightenment about the truth, and when she has been inspired and moved constantly by her husband's character and his life, I believe that it is her task to make it known. This is because family breakdown and disharmony in the relationship between husband and wife are the fundamental causes of problems in humanity and are reflected in today's troubled world.

When you think about it, there are only two types of people living on this earth today. These two types are men and women, that is, husbands and wives. Though innumerable people are living together and all kinds of relationships and problems are arising, the core of all those problems is the relationship between these two types of people, men and women. Therefore, we need to examine the original heavenly way that God established to be followed by the first man and the first woman.

God gave three great blessings

According to the Book of Genesis, after God created heaven and earth, He created the ancestors of humanity, Adam the man and Eve the woman. God gave them the three great blessings and simultaneously their own portion of responsibility. These blessings were “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over every living thing in the sea, on the earth, and in the air.” And at the same time, God gave the man and the woman their responsibility, telling them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

This teaches us what God's purpose was in creating human beings and the universe, and at the same time it reveals the fundamentals of life. The blessing that they be fruitful means that all human beings are to develop their character and perfect their ability to love. The second blessing of multiplying life means the mature man and the mature woman should form a relationship of husband and wife, and have children and raise them, thus walking the path of parents. It is God's purpose of creation for the husband and the wife, leading the family and fulfilling the duties of father and mother, to make this world into the blessed land of comfort and riches, thereby establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth.

This purpose of creation could have been attained only if our ancestors had upheld God's commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, Adam and Eve broke this commandment of God. This happened before they had completed their growth, while they were still in their adolescence. Our first ancestors fell because of Satan, thus causing all humanity to inherit a lineage of evil.

Misery and tragedy borne by humanity

Ladies and gentlemen, what was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God told Adam and Eve not to eat? It was not the fruit of an actual tree. The fruit signified the love that would bring the ancestors of humanity together as husband and wife in the future. While they were still immature, God gave the commandment so that they would not be seduced into an illicit sexual relationship with a third party or a premature sexual relationship with each other.

As a matter of fact, there was a third party in the garden of Eden. Besides Adam and Eve, there was the archangel. The Bible reveals that the archangel that seduced Eve and made her commit the sin of illicit love was named Lucifer. This was the Fall, and this is the original sin that set down the roots of evil in the human world. In the garden, the first human beings committed sexual sin before God, their Heavenly Parent and the Lord of heaven and earth. Beginning with our first ancestors, we have continued to make a world of evil in which we give birth to descendants through illicit love. Expanding from the individual to the family, tribe, people, nation and world, the lineage of evil brought about by this illicit relationship between man and woman has spread, making this world a hell on earth filled with crimes, wars and fear. The fallen ancestors, Adam and Eve, who were to have firmly established the position of true parents as the eternal human ancestors of goodness, instead were degraded and became false parents who left behind a lineage of evil. This is the first cause of the misery and tragedy borne by all of humankind.

What could be more miserable and more mortifying than for all humanity to lose the true parents and be born as descendants of the false parents? How great would be the sorrow and anguish of God, the Parent of humankind? God's original purpose of creation was to establish the true ancestors of humanity and multiply people of goodness. However, all humankind was swallowed up by the illicit lineage of evil because of the Fall of our first ancestors.

To cure a disease you need to know the cause

To save someone suffering from an illness, you need to discover the cause of that illness. Similarly, for human society to be liberated from the anguish of sin and misery, we need to discover the fundamental cause of this sin and misery. The fundamental cause is the original sin, which came from the Fall of our first ancestors. Unless the cause of the original sin is eliminated, the roots of sin and misery cannot be uprooted from the human world. No matter how many prominent figures, heroes, sages, scholars and politicians appear with methods such as reforming the constitution or implementing morality education, without clarifying the human Fall, it will be impossible for them to right this world. These approaches will prove useless, because the fundamental roots of sin and misery will be left untouched and will continue to sprout.

Religion teaches us that human beings have fallen and discloses the details of this Fall, thereby letting us know both directly and indirectly about God's providence to save humankind completely from sinfulness. That is why religions are the most constructive method for transforming this sinful world into a world of goodness and saving it.

The Korean word for “religion,” jonggyo, is formed using the Chinese characters jong (宗), meaning “the top,” and gyo (敎), meaning “to teach.” This means that the word religion signifies the highest thought of all education and teachings. Transcending age and environment, the teachings of all religious founders have served as the driving force for protecting conscience and morality and developing culture. Accordingly, all religions are co-workers and collaborators in ending the world of sinfulness and constructing the ideal world desired by God and humankind. Among the scriptures that reveal God's providence of salvation most plainly is the Christian Bible.

The providence of restoration to end the lineage of sin

The Bible makes it clear that the core of human history is the providence of restoration, through which God is trying to achieve the purpose of creation lost when Adam and Eve committed the original sin and became false parents. The Messiah is the True Parents who give rebirth to all humanity on behalf of Adam and Eve.

God's original purpose of creation was for Adam to become the true father of humanity and for Eve to become the true mother of humanity. In order to restore this purpose of creation to its original state, God has no choice except to carry out the providence of re-creating Adam. That is the basis of the providence behind preparing the chosen people of Israel for the birth of Jesus.

From the moment that Adam and Eve fell and humanity began to multiply centered on Satan, God began the work of separating the lineage of good and evil. In Adam's family God separated Abel, the second son who was in the position of God's object partner, and Cain, the first son who was in the position of Satan's object partner. God set the conditions for Cain to submit voluntarily to Abel, thus restoring the order of creation to its original state. Instead, Cain murdered Abel and the history of the struggle to separate goodness from evil was prolonged.

God's attempts to bring the lineage back under God passed through Noah, Abraham and Isaac and reached the generation of Jacob. With the help of his mother, Rebekah, Jacob brought his twin elder brother, Esau, to voluntary submission. Jacob thus played a decisive role in establishing the chosen people of Israel. Jacob's son Judah had twin sons, Perez and Zerah, through his daughter-in-law Tamar. Perez fought with Zerah while they were in Tamar's womb. Zerah, who was about to be born first, was pushed out of the way by Perez, who then was born in the position of the eldest son. This fight between the firstborn son and the second son is the struggle between good and evil. Restoration was achieved when the younger brother, Perez, won over his elder brother within the womb. Thus Perez, who would have been born the younger twin, was born as the firstborn son.

Because of that restoration within the womb, Jesus, who came as the Messiah, was born forty generations later in the family line of Perez. To conceive and give birth to Jesus, his mother, Mary, risked her life with devotion. God's providence of salvation is the providence of restoration. God carried out the providence of restoration to bring an end to the lineage of sin that humanity inherited through the illicit sexual relationship between Adam and Eve, preceded by Eve's seduction by Lucifer. Such was the course of restoration and the history of the chosen people of Israel from the time of Cain and Abel to the birth of Jesus.

Jesus came as the True Parent of humanity, the second Adam, passing through the course of struggle to separate good and evil and restore Adam's becoming the false father due to the Fall. That is why Jesus needed to restore a woman in the position of Eve, who would be his object partner, and become a husband with her as his wife. They were to have children and ascend to the position of having dominion over all living things. This was also the purpose of Jesus' coming as the Messiah.

In other words, Jesus came as the Messiah to restore the three great blessings bestowed by God after creating Adam and Eve: to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over all things. However the people of Israel did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and ended up dying on the cross. Jesus promised his Second Advent, that he would come to the earth again. He said that when he returned, he would come as the Bridegroom, so humanity on earth needed to prepare itself as his Bride and wait for him.

Chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation records that Jesus at the Second Advent will come to earth and hold the Marriage Supper of the Lamb to celebrate his wedding. This signifies restoring the position of the true husband and wife and True Parents that Adam and Eve would have fulfilled if they had formed a family without falling.

The Messiah comes to Korea

Dear WFWP members and friends who are attending this rally! The question we face today is how we can guide this society, in which all kinds of sexual crimes, immorality and corruption that threaten to destroy our families are rampant. If we cannot resolve the problem of unprincipled sexual relations, human society will bring destruction upon itself. We can already see the beginnings of that. A natural consequence of the disorder of sexual morality, about which Heaven has warned humankind, is the often fatal disease known as AIDS, among other sexually transmitted diseases.

Jesus said he would return in the Last Days of this sinful world. Jesus at the Second Advent will come as the True Father of humanity and show us the path of the true children, true couples and true parents, which all men and women in the world need to follow. Only then can the fundamental problems of all humankind— fornication and sexual corruption that originated from original sin—finally be resolved. This is truly the ultimate Gospel that will save humanity from this world of sinfulness.

It is the mission of the Messiah and Savior to teach humanity the way to bring an end to the history of sin, which became twisted when humanity lost the path of the true parents, true couple and true children. I declare today before the entire world that my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, is the man who has pioneered this path of the Messiah and the True Parents throughout his entire life. My husband continued to pioneer the future of humanity by revealing God's purpose of creation and exposing the original sin committed by our first ancestors, even while he was subjected to the ruthless persecution and oppression of the evil world.

According to the Unification Principle, all religious believers uphold the ideal of the Second Advent of their founder. The second advent of Maitreya Buddha, the True Man, and the New Confucius, as well as the Second Coming of Jesus are all realized through the second coming of the one Messiah, the True Parent of humanity, and through that one Messiah all religions, also, are bound to become unified.

However, the Messiah and True Parent who comes again is not Jesus himself. Jesus died 2,000 years ago; he will not come again, riding in the sky on the clouds. Rather, a new person who has inherited the mission of Jesus will be born on this earth. Though it may be astonishing, the Messiah who is the True Parent of humanity will be born in Asia, in the nation of Korea.

Then when will the Messiah come? According to the Unification Principle, the time when this sinful world is brought to an end is the Last Days, and the Messiah of the Second Advent is supposed to come in the Last Days. The Last Days correspond to the period of about eighty years from the end of the First World War to the year 2000. This period corresponds to the transition period of world history in which the Lord of the Second Coming and the True Parents of humanity will be born in this land of Korea. The Last Days are a time when the world filled with sin, war and conflict will be transformed into the ideal world of goodness overflowing with freedom and peace.

Therefore, this will be an age of great chaos, when conflict and struggle between good and evil take place on all the levels from the individual to the family, tribe, people, nation and world. During this period, humanity went through the First and Second World Wars. Even after the Second World War there has been unceasing conflict and struggle between the two camps of democracy and communism. Meanwhile Korea suffered for forty years as a colony under Japanese rule. This was followed by the division of North and South Korea, which led to the tragedy of the Korean War, and the country remains divided to this day.

The reunification of Korea will lead the world toward peace and unity

A divided Korean peninsula is the manifestation at the global level of the original seeds of good and evil planted by the separation between Abel and Cain as part of the process of restoring the Fall of our first ancestors. In other words, communism in North Korea is the global fruit of the Cain-type worldviews and systems that have appeared in the course of history. It has formed an atheistic, communist nation that denies religious values; it is the stronghold of worldwide communism.

In contrast, South Korea, the fruit of all Abel-type worldviews and systems that have appeared in the course of history, is a nation where religions flourish, second to none in the world. It has become a representative nation of the free world. In other words, the Korean peninsula is an encapsulation representing the entire world. The entire world has been divided into good and evil, and Korea is the final battleground between the South, separated to stand on the side of goodness, and the North, separated to stand on the side of evil. Therefore, the unification of the North and the South on the Korean peninsula is the key to world peace and unity. For this reason, the reunification of North and South Korea is not just a political agenda. It assumes the providential historical aspect of being the gateway to restoring the kingdom of heaven on earth, which is the ultimate goal of the history of God's providence of salvation. In other words, Korean reunification stands as the gateway to realizing the ideal world of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values. This is a task to be shared by all of us living on the earth, together with the myriads of spirits who have lived on the earth and passed on to the spiritual realm.

Accordingly, the unification of Korea is not a problem that can be solved by politicians alone. That is why my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who knows all too well about this Will of Heaven concerning the Korean peninsula, took decisive action by visiting North Korea for seven days in early December of 1991. He met with President Kim Il-sung, the ruler of North Korea, and notified him of the Will of Heaven in regard to the matter of the reunification of the Korean peninsula.

My husband clearly said, “The unification of North and South Korea cannot be brought about through Juche ideology. The unification of North and South Korea can be brought about only through Godism and Unification Thought, which is the head-wing thought proposed by Reverend Moon. This nation then will become a unified Korea that can lead the entire world.” In regard to their constant refrain that the Korean War started when the South attacked the North, my husband directly told President Kim that the war was caused when the North first attacked the South.

I have accompanied my husband as he visited nations worldwide and met with many heads of state. However, on our visit to Pyongyang, we could not help our feelings of unprecedentedly grim resolve and serious determination. Our visit was similar to the story in the Bible of when Jacob impressed his brother, Esau, who had intended to kill him. Through his indescribable hardships, wisdom and devotion, Jacob moved his brother's heart to such an extent that they finally were able to make peace with one another. My husband and I similarly concluded our conference with Kim Il-sung of North Korea with a successful reconciliation.

Now the unification of North and South Korea has not been left in the hands of politicians alone. It has become a matter in which God can intervene. Reverend Moon is working hard, day and night, to have his worldwide foundation help achieve the unification of North and South Korea in accordance with the Will of God, and construct the ideal world of peace, free from immorality and corruption.

The words I have spoken today do not express ideas that are believed by only a few Unification Church members who follow my husband and me. Leading figures in every field of life and young men and women in more than 160 nations are working hard to realize a new world of unity filled with freedom and peace, in accordance with these teachings. In various parts of the world Korea is already revered as the nation to which the True Parents of humankind have come. The number of people coming to Korea to learn its language, culture and customs is rapidly increasing.

Women must fight to realize a united world

The Women's Federation for World Peace is a global women's organization inaugurated by representatives of more than 70 nations and 150,000 Korean mothers. On April 10 at the Seoul Olympic Stadium we launched this organization as the fundamental cure to address and remedy the reality of our families threatened by the degeneration of sexual morality, the spread of drug use, and all kinds of depraved and disordered sexual relationships.

Our task is urgent. We need to redirect human society, now corrupted by all sorts fallen behavior, and the social climate in which men have oppressed women. Our march to learn and practice the duties of true parents, true couples and true children has taken form in the Family Federation for World Peace. We need to make certain that immorality and corruption cannot take root anywhere across the six continents of this planet. We must quickly prepare to usher in the new world without the lineage of evil that has plagued humanity ever since our ancestors committed the original sin of immorality in the garden of Eden.

Until now, no one has been able to do anything about immorality and illicit love, which continue to bring ruin to humanity. The new expression‎ of truth that brings hope to resolve this problem completely and faultlessly has sprung up in the land of Korea in this age in which we live. This new teaching revealed by True Parents will become the light of humanity, which will unify North and South Korea and construct the world of peace. Let us all stand up together to become the women warriors who can build a world of unity overflowing with freedom, peace and happiness, by learning this new principle and rejecting this world of sinfulness that has tormented us since the onset of history.

Let us walk the path of the true mother. Let us walk the path of the true wife. Let us walk the path of the true daughter.

Thank you.