The Resurrection of Jesus and Ourselves

Easter Sunday is being observed today by the entire world. In our tradition, however, we celebrate next Sunday, April 19, as the true Easter. The word “resurrection” came into being because of the fall of man, but going a step further, why did Jesus even have to come to this earth?

Because of the fall, man's original nature was lost and needs to be restored. This world, being the kingdom of hell on earth, is a place where a savior is necessary.

When men consummate their lives in hell on earth, upon being elevated into the spirit world, they can have no other destination than hell. Let me give an analogy.

In the autumn, beautiful apples are harvested, but if a particular apple is rotten, then the farmer throws it away. There is no other place for it. Those people who end up in hell are human trash in God's sight.

One apple may have bad skin yet be excellent on the inside, while another apple may look good on the surface yet be rotten inside and worthless. Human beings belong in the second category. There is no possibility for a fallen man who is corrupted on the inside to be easily salvaged.

Even though there may be some damage on an apple's surface, if its seeds are intact, then it still has value. However, man is the opposite, being intact on the outside but rotten on the inside. After the fall, man became rotten all the way through.

Would it be simple to restore that kind of man to his original state?

Would it be easier for God to eliminate everyone corrupted by the fall and start all over again, or easier for Him to keep trying to mend those rotten apples until they reach perfection?

There is obvious evidence of how difficult it is to restore such rotten men to perfection; Biblically speaking, it has taken Almighty God 6,000 years of trying to restore man to perfection, and still His efforts are not yet fruitful.

Among the many diseases afflicting man, the worst disease is the one brought by the fall, and to make things worse, men do not even realize that they are contaminated. Today, people consider cancer to be the most horrible disease.

The worst aspect of cancer is that its early growth cannot be easily detected, and a victim may not even know that he has cancer until it has progressed to a lethal stage. Yet, compared to the disease caused by the fall, cancer is easier to deal with because the patient knows ahead of time that he is dying.

The disease from the fall, however, does not give any warning, and a person only knows what has happened after death. Most people are not aware that they are mortally stricken with such an impossible disease.

Who introduced such a disease to mankind?

Satan. He turned himself into the worst enemy of God, not by stealing money or property, but by stealing God's most precious possession: love. What did Jesus mean when he taught that you must love your enemy?

Do you think he meant for us to love Satan?

Jesus taught that you must forgive your enemy not just 7 times, but 70 times 7; Jesus proclaimed unconditional forgiveness. If the Son of God came to manifest the love of God to that depth, why didn't he love Satan?

Jesus' love for Satan would have made it elementary for Satan and God to get together, wouldn't it? But this is impossible.

When Jesus said to love your enemy, he was talking about people who have become the victims of Satan. Satanic men are merely victims of God's enemy, and you must love them and try to restore them, but He did not teach us to love Satan himself.

Even though fallen men have become temples of Satan, all men were originally born to be God's temples. God is destined to restore His body, which is mankind. God can restore man by perfecting the love of God in men.

This morning, we must clearly understand what Satan did. Satan stole and destroyed the very element that God was seeking to perfect with man: His love. The loving relationship between God and men was ripped apart.

If God were to love Satan and forgive the destruction of His love, then God would nullify His entire ideal. No purpose would remain for the continued existence of creation. Even in our lives, the most precious thing is not money, knowledge, power, or anything else except love.

When God is longing for love and man is longing for love, this is one common love; the same love has become the goal of God and the goal of man.

The consummation of God's love without man is impossible. The consummation of man's love without God is impossible. In the consummation of love, the purpose of man and the purpose of God both converge, and clearly, the consummation of love is the realm where resurrection is completed. Only satanic love can be consummated apart from that realm.

There is love in this world, but not perfected love, and for this reason, that love has always become victimized by Satan, who utilizes and exploits it. We have learned that perfected love comes under the direct dominion of God and that Adam and Eve were created to grow into that relationship through three stages of growth.

Because Adam and Eve fell at the growth level, we must not only reach their level of growth but also exceed their accomplishment by achieving the level of perfection.

The entire purpose of Jesus' coming can be summarized in one sentence: Jesus came to bring the resurrection needed to perfect man's love to the point where men can come into the direct dominion of God's love.

Men fell not only to the bottom of the formation stage but even below that to the realm of unprincipled reality, or hell. Had there been no fall, man would have grown straight upward through the formation, growth, and perfection levels of growth in his lifetime.

Adam and Eve started from the point of formation and were supposed to reach the level of perfection and the direct dominion of God's love within 21 years. Even the Garden of Eden could be a lonely place because only one boy and one girl were there, growing up together, eating and playing together.

As they entered their teens, they began to experience new feelings, looking at each other with different emotions. They wanted to analyze and understand those emotions more deeply. Don't you think their relationship naturally would have grown into a deeper realm?

Here in America, when men and women meet, they embrace and kiss each other even in public. Would there have been kissing in the sinless Garden of Eden?

Who would have been the first one to witness a man and woman kissing?

In looking at the first act of kissing, would God have shouted out, “What are you doing there?” How would God have viewed such a scene? Would he have felt upset and angry? God would have felt good because God wanted men and women to experience love and to act in that fashion. That is the way God created man to be.

Where did God put His emphasis, on Adam and Eve or on the relationship between them, which we call the explosion of love?

Since God created love as the supreme power and energy of the universe, anyone who comes into a realization or experience of love will be absorbed into it. The English expression of this is very dramatic; you say, “falling in love.” I think that is a very wonderful expression because being in love is like being given a tremendous shove and falling into a hole. Love is like a trap, you know.

Another word that can be applied in this case is “drowning in love,” such that you do not have even one finger left above the water. Did God want men and women to have an arm sticking out above the water, halfway joined in love?

Or did He want them to be completely intoxicated and drowned in their love?

If God wants that, then men want it, right? Do you want it too? This is the best medicine for waking all of you up early on Sunday morning. Nobody can doze off during this subject!

Women in particular are very greedy regarding love. They would rather not leave one thin hair above the water but have every single bit of themselves submerged under the water of love. Am I telling the truth or not?

Do only white women feel this way, or do all women feel this way?

What about people in the past and people who will come? Does this apply only to you or to all the past, present, and future? This feeling toward love is an unchanging and eternal one, and all of you are ready to be drowned in a sea of love. There is certainly no mistake about it.

If there were a subject and object who were both drowned in a sea of love, would they want to be separated? They would really want to do everything together: reading together, walking together, and laughing together when they were joyful. Isn't that true?

If man desires to reach that state of love, then what is God's highest possible goal? God is just the same. God does not need anything else. He can make as much gold as He wants, and He already has power. He does not need any more knowledge.

There is only one thing God cannot do by Himself. Experience love. For this, God needs an object; when God is alone, not even a word of love can be whispered.

Is God's object of love a monkey or an ugly man like Gerhard?

Are you completely intoxicated by your beauty every time you look in a mirror, exclaiming, “I just can't resist myself!” In most cases, men and women looking into a mirror feel some uncertainty: “I wish my eyes were a little bigger, and I wish I had a better chin and a prettier complexion.”

Cosmetics were invented because people always desire to look better, particularly women. If all you women looked at your faces in the mirror and were absolutely satisfied, would you even bother with cosmetics?

Since you know you are not perfect, you are trying to improve yourself a little in an artificial way. Psychology can be observed in both men and women.

God has the perfection of men's qualities and women's qualities within His own essentialities. The qualification of absolute beauty exists within God, and if we were able to see God, then we would never be satisfied with each other.

If we looked at God's perfection and then looked back at the human level, we would think of ourselves as being ugly. If men and women were to analyze each other's features, they could find a thousand deficiencies.

Men and women would never get together if they only observed each other's difficulties. Harmony between men and women would be impossible. However, there is a magic power that more than offsets the shortcomings of men and women, a kind of veil that can make men and women completely blind to each other's shortcomings.

Such a power is needed not only between men and women but also between God and man. If God were just looking at man from an analytical perspective, He would soon be fed up.

God has no more interest in looking at ugly men and women than you do, so there must be something between God and men that even blinds the eyes of God, making everything look sweet.

Without such a mystic power in this universe, nothing could be held together.

What is this magic power?

It is what we call “love.” When that veil covers men and women, they become blind, and everything becomes sweet and fragrant. Even God is completely melted and cannot see any of the shortcomings but only the sweetness in men. It can truly be called the disease of love.

The beautiful thing about this disease is that once you catch it, you would rather not cure it! Actually, men and women are extremely difficult to unite because they are two such foreign elements. But when they catch this disease of love, they find in each other something comfortable and sweet and close.

Am I right or wrong when I say that marriage can only be successful between beautiful women and handsome men? No, once you have caught the disease of love, it is not relevant whether you are beautiful or ugly because you see only good things in your spouse.

When you catch the disease of love, some deficiency becomes beautiful; a black mark that would otherwise be a blemish on a woman's face is called a beauty mark when she is looked at with eyes of love. I have seen more than one very handsome and distinguished man walking down the street with his wife.

When you look closely at her, she turns out to be a hideous woman, yet her husband appears to be content and happy! That man is completely drowned in that particular woman; some mysterious power is definitely working there.

Such love is truly the greatest of all powerful things under the sun, and when God created all things and men, He clearly put the greatest emphasis on the disease of love.

The entire world can be harmonized through loving relationships and thus come to embody God's highest ideal. God created love to have the supreme position in His creation. In speaking of the perfection of love, is ownership kept separate?

If I truly love my wife and she loves me, then would we keep our money separate, or would it matter whose pocket it was in? Which do you think would be more proper in speaking of the perfection of love?

In America, marriage is tending to become more of a contract with legal rights drawn up ahead of time, and the husband and wife defining who owns what. Would you want to put money and power first in your marriage, or would you want to put those things behind you and put love way up in front?

Do the couples who draw up contracts really have the capacity to enjoy unconditional love, or are they merely using love as a means of exploitation?

How about you women here?

When the time comes to get married, would you hide some precious little things that you do not want your husband to know about?

What is marriage, actually?

Marriage means gathering all your power, knowledge, money, and yourself and putting everything in one package to present to your husband, asking only for his love in return.

You give everything up to him, and in exchange, you receive his love. That is what marriage is all about.

If you want to withhold certain things from that package and keep them for yourself, can you claim to be completely drowned in that sea of love or not? Do you want to get partially married or completely married?

How about your human rights?

Show your hand if you say, “No, Father, I'm just going to give myself totally and not even have one hair showing above the water of the sea of love.” Now you have registered with me!

If there were a big wheel trying to turn forward, but many cables were attached, holding it back, it would have no freedom to move forward faster and faster.

For the wheel to gain momentum, it must be totally free, with nothing pulling it back. A man is like one wheel, while a woman is like another wheel, and without having any strings attached, they are coming from opposite directions to meet and unite.

The loudest thunder in the universe is not thunder itself, and the brightest light is not lightning; instead, the collision in love of a man and woman creates the loudest thunder and the brightest lightning. When you enter that moment of love, you have to close your eyes and ears because you cannot stand the sound and light.

However, when you are drowned in love, you do not hear or see. When you are completely drowned in this original love of God, then there is no moment that you are separated from that particular intoxication, no moment when you feel chilly or cold.

God intended such intoxication of love to prevail throughout His creation so that even without thinking about it, you would be constantly surrounded by goodness and warmth.

Even just thinking about this creates a magnetic power, but to actually experience that feeling and to hear that explosion of love is beyond description. Love can be experienced in every way, with all your senses.

When men and women want to get married, they really desire that kind of ideal love. When a perfect husband and wife are together, they will look beautiful; there is much beauty to be seen when any male and female get together, but men and women are to radiate the most supreme beauty of all.

When men and women are intoxicated in God-centered love, they are so beautiful that God also wants to be intoxicated by their love and drown in it Himself. Not only is the relationship between Adam and Eve inseparable, but even God enters into it, and all three become inseparable! Could you desire anything greater?

Is there any greater goal to pursue than to become completely intoxicated and drowned in such perfected love?

That is the fulfillment of life, and when God also becomes fused into that love, the entire universe is then included. Being near such an inseparable unit is like standing in front of a big furnace where metal is melted.

Under those circumstances, do you think Satan could try to creep in and grab a piece of love for himself? There is no such thing as taking part in it because it has all been blended into one.

This situation is the beginning of God's direct dominion, and it has no end; in that state of love, beginning, and eternity merge. Can you understand? The beginning is already eternity in that relationship.

Once you begin a relationship of true love, then you have achieved eternity. In that case, do you think you could separate out one part of it?

God is a God of wisdom, and if God is intelligent, then He would have created precisely what I have described and more. If somehow this slipped God's mind and He forgot about it until this time, then upon hearing me speak here, He would exclaim, “Boy, he has a great idea! Let me borrow his idea! But God does not slip up; He is almighty, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

Even though you may not feel to the bone what I speak of, you can still accept it for now by logic alone. If love is the supreme force of the universe, then the culmination or consummation of love should bear the fruit of absolute beauty, absolute warmth, and absolute peace. God must have thought about that a long time ago.

Over an hour has passed, and I am also intoxicated by this topic of love! I started to talk about resurrection, and I have not even begun!

Are you interested in my analysis of love?

Those of you who may not have felt this deeply before can at least be convinced that such love should be possible. Logically speaking, there is no other conclusion about love that you could reach. Do you just want to accept this intellectually, or do you want to live it?

What would you say is the fastest thing in this universe?

The speed of light? What is the most powerful thing, or the heaviest thing, under the sun? The answer to all is the same: love.

Love is faster than anything else. Love is the tallest because in history no one could climb on top of love, although everyone can drown in love. Love is also the widest, the deepest, and the flattest. The beauty of it is that even God is not above love. God just becomes totally intoxicated in love!

Have you ever thought, “Why do I walk?” Why are my legs transporting me in a certain direction? Are you going somewhere just to get a meal? Actually, you walk to find your love. When your two legs hear that, they will say, “Yes, yes, we are taking you to love.”

Why do you eat three times a day?

Not to cure your hunger, but to sustain your body so that you can experience more love and perfect love further. Why do you see?

When the dust is blowing, you blink to protect your eyes and then quickly open them up to see again. Why are your eyes trying to see so much? To find love. That is the way men were created to function.

When you receive a gift, you want to receive a loving heart with it. Would you rather receive a more beautiful gift even though there was a greedy and cunning motive behind it? What kind of gift would you like to receive?

Men are supposed to live their lives in an intoxication of love. When married men get together, an ongoing subject of conversation is their wives. When women get together, a subject of endless fascination should be their pride in their husbands.

God wants women's greatest pride to be their husbands. A man's greatest pride and joy is supposed to be his wife.

Your pride in talking about your loved one will have no end. On the other hand, talking about yourself is not uplifting to anybody, and you just do not want to dwell on yourself.

Men and women are supposed to be crazy in their love for their spouse, even to the degree that they tell God, “You know, my husband is a little more handsome than You are. I'm sorry to say this, but God, my wife is a little prettier than You are.” Do you think God will get angry, or will His grin stretch from ear to ear?

Because God does not exist to be proud of Himself or to show off. What God really wants to do is to show off His sons and daughters: “Look at my children; how wonderful they are!” God really wants to be proud of His children, and that is the substance of true love.

When you speak of love, it should be as though you are not there, as though you have forgotten about yourself. Then you have the right to talk about love. If you are just trying to elevate your social standing by talking about your love, then you actually have nothing to say about it.

In the Kingdom of God, a man is not proud of himself but proud of God, proud of his wife, and later, proud of his children. In God's kingdom, a wife totally forgets herself in her pride in God, her husband, and her children.

The children are proud of God and their parents. That is the way God wants society to be. Love is the center of His kingdom. Anyone who is just trying to be proud of himself will be isolated in that society and remain alone. That person will be most unattractive to everyone, and even God will not listen to him.

Boastfulness and self-righteousness are the most foolish ways of life in the world of God. If you have trouble with this, then just completely humble yourself.

Of course, you did not ask to be in that state, but since the fall, selfishness has become the destiny of all mankind.

Man was born in that atmosphere, and thus, in the sight of God, all men are dead. To be resurrected or reborn, you have to reverse the process and die in the opposite direction.

How can we turn this fallen world right-side up? What is the key?

True love should be the guiding light. The most fundamental element in the Kingdom of God is love, and I have explained what kind of love that means. Do you understand what kind of love God created to be the cornerstone of the Kingdom of God?

When you live in the whole love of God, then you have no enemies. Because God thinks in this context, He is always patient. He is so patient that it is almost as though He were not there.

Many people are saying there is no God, but in reality, He has always been there, silent and not even showing His reaction to that accusation.

Perfect love is the goal of resurrection. God can come and have lordship over you directly when you achieve perfect love. You do not even have to ask God to come in; He will come automatically.

People debate the meaning of perfection, but it is nothing apart from the perfection of love. That is all. After you reach perfection, you and your spouse cannot be separated from God, and all three of you are together in oneness. God's direct dominion over men begins at that point.

Since the fall of man occurred in the Garden of Eden, absolutely no one could achieve that state of perfection. Fallen man has been dwelling in the world of darkness, while the world of God's principle is the world of light.

Man's goal of perfection is extremely high, but the reality of man's life is extremely low; knowing the ideal but recognizing that he lives in the very depths of misery, man feels heartbreak, regret, and agony. He is truly in hell.

Death is simply a transformation from living in this physical world to living in the spirit world. Whether you go to heaven or hell, the first thing you realize upon arriving in the spirit world is that man's true goal in life is to achieve perfection.

That becomes apparent to every spirit man upon entering the spirit world.

The second thing you realize is how great a distance you have to cover to achieve that goal and how many barriers you must cross.

The realization becomes crystal clear: “I was supposed to be the child of God, His most precious creation under the sun, but what have I done? How did I make myself so dirty and impure, so impossible that I only deserve the lowest, darkest realm of the spirit world?”

Man is like a bud that was killed by the frost before it had a chance to blossom. But no matter how deeply you sigh, you have no way to recover yourself on your own. God sees that all mankind needs help, and this is why God began the work of salvation right after man fell.

All of humanity has been suffering in the fallen world. Do you see that God wanted to recover all mankind right away?

However, the fall was not the result of any shortcoming of God. Because man committed the crime, man must be responsible for his restoration. It is man, not God, who must take the initiative in restoration.

Originally, man was supposed to be born as a direct heir in the lineage of God, but instead God has had to devote Himself to assisting man indirectly, so that step by step, man might extricate himself from the dungeons of hell.

That is the work of restoration. After all, in the sight of God, all men are the children of His enemy and have become the servants of Satan. You were supposed to be born as children of God, but the reality is that you were born as children of Satan.

In Satan's world, there is no such thing as loving relationships, and thus, fallen mankind has no access to the love of God. Fallen mankind is in a position to be repelled by the world of God's love.

However, once the principle of God's love can be applied to the satanic world, men will understand how to love and exercise the power of love, and Satan knows that man will then be able to liberate himself and enter the world of God. To keep men imprisoned in his realm, Satan has cut man off from God.

The world of God and the world of Satan are completely isolated from each other, and in the world of Satan, there is no way for man to taste true love; instead, Satan is the master and man is his servant.

Because the archangel was supposed to be the servant of God and man, fallen man is then in the position of being the servant of the servant. That is the rock bottom of man's fallen state.

From the servant of a servant position, man has to elevate himself step by step to the servant position and then to the adopted son position. When a man enters the level of adopted son, he enters the world of Principle or the principality of God and has the potential to become a true child of God.

To reach the position of adopted son, however, all the past debts of the fallen world must be paid off. Once he successfully comes out of this dark, unprincipled world, then he comes to a new beginning; the period of growth begins, and he is now free to grow into perfection.

However, Satan's realm is not limited to the dark world. Because man and woman had passed through the growth stage before the fall, Satan's power penetrates that level. This principle applies to the spirit world as well, which is why you still struggle against Satanic power.

If a person leads the worst possible immoral life in this physical world, then that person will find himself in the depths of hell in the spirit world. That is simply cause and effect at work.

The same principle applies to both the physical world and the spirit world because the two are completely interconnected. For this reason, we can see two hells: the physical hell right here on earth and the hell in the spirit world.

The spirit world is the place where we reap the results of what we have done here on earth. Man's perfection needs to be achieved here on earth because God never intended perfection to be consummated only in the spirit world.

Therefore, in the restoration process, man's spiritual and physical courses must be parallel, with the initiative being taken here on earth.

God picked His champion to pioneer restoration on the individual level and then expand it to the family level, tribal level, national level, and world level. Through this person, God can expand His territory, laying a highway so that anyone who wants to can find and follow it without too much effort.

There is darkness in both the spirit world and the physical world, and God's champion has to open the way like a bulldozer so that all men can follow.

Actually, we have two areas to cover. One is vertical, extending from formation to perfection, but at the same time, our territory should be expanded horizontally, from the individual to the world.

Therefore, on a diagram, the family territory will include the area inside a small triangle, while the national territory will cover the area of a larger triangle, and so forth, expanding to a triangle that represents the entire world and perfection. The vertical line is the highway laid by God's pioneer, the central course along which all people can go up to perfection.

The history of God has progressed through three major eras: the Old Testament era, during which man was restored from absolute death up to the servant level; the New Testament era, when man could be restored to the level of adopted son; and finally the Completed Testament era, in which man can receive the qualification to be perfected children and direct heirs of God.

The name Israel, meaning “victor,” was first given when the angel blessed Jacob after his victorious struggle with the angel, which represented Satan. In that way, man gained victory on the level of a true servant in the sight of God.

After becoming victorious in the struggle on the servant level, a person can elevate himself another step to become an adopted son.

What is the prerequisite to becoming direct sons and daughters of God?

Without having true parents, how can you become true children? The tragedy of mankind is that everyone is descended from fallen parents.

God intended to complete two major stages when Jesus came as His son, ultimately elevating mankind to the level of true sons and daughters. To achieve that, Jesus himself was to be elevated to the parent's position. This process should have begun with the unity between Jesus and John the Baptist.

At the time of Jesus, there were three areas represented: the nation of Israel was the realm of the servant level, while John the Baptist represented the realm of the adopted son, and in the center, Jesus stood as the true son of God.

If John the Baptist had accepted Jesus, their unity could have prevented the satanic invasion of Jesus' mission. The two of them united would have brought the victory at the first stage of Jesus' mission.

The nation of Israel, as God's servant, should have joined as a minus with John the Baptist as God's adopted son, representing a plus; then together they would have become an even bigger minus to unite with Jesus as a bigger plus.

All together they could have consummated man's historical advancement to the level of servant and then, at one stroke, progressed directly to the level of the true sons of God.

But what actually happened?

This union was not made between the Jews and John the Baptist, and John the Baptist did not unite with Jesus.

All the foundations God had erected were broken down, and Jesus, as the universal plus, had to start his mission from scratch by organizing his foundation and gathering his disciples himself.

After Jesus' crucifixion, the nation that God had prepared for the day of the Messiah was torn apart and its people scattered, and God was forced to prepare a new Israel for the Second Advent.

That mission was inherited by Christianity. Once Israel lost its mission, the Jews became like gypsies and wandered over the world, bereft of any homeland.

Originally, God intended to have His own physical territory. If the Jews had accepted Jesus, then their nation would have become the physical capital of the sovereignty of God.

Having the authority of God's sovereignty, that small nation could have prevailed against the Roman Empire; however, because of the people's disobedience, the nation of Israel forfeited its position and was dismantled; the Jews completely lost their physical territory.

The sovereign nation to which a person belongs can protect him in the fallen world, and the same is true in God's world. Christianity faced adverse conditions from its very beginning because it had no physical territory.

Christians had to function within Satanic territory, and in being exposed to the satanic world, they easily became targets of persecution.

For the past 2,000 years, Christians have suffered and made great sacrifices because they have had no physical sovereignty here on earth to protect them. You must understand this clearly.

In the Old Testament era, God claimed the physical territory of Israel, and He could always raise an extraordinary power to crush any foreign invader.

In one respect, Christianity is a level lower than Judaism; Judaism had both spiritual and physical foundations, while Christianity is a crippled religion in comparison, having no physical territory.

For this reason, God could not exercise His power to protect Christianity in the same way He did Judaism.

Because the body of Jesus was infiltrated by Satan, the physical bodies of Christians are always vulnerable to Satan's infiltration. We must fully understand that Christian salvation does not derive from Jesus' crucifixion on the cross; the cross is the symbol of Satan's victory.

Christians derive their power from the resurrection, which is a realm Satan has no power to infiltrate.

However, that realm of resurrection also required a foundation on earth, which Jesus erected during his forty days before he ascended into heaven.

Christianity has been a crippled, imperfect religion, and because it could not make physical salvation possible, all of mankind is destined to see the day of the second Messiah. There is no other way perfection can come about.

God's goal is the salvation of the entire globe, not just of one nation or people, and for this, there must be one religion capable of giving salvation physically as well as spiritually. All of this will be fulfilled by the coming of the Messiah a second time.

Jesus came intending to accomplish physical as well as spiritual salvation. In the same manner, when the Messiah comes a second time, he will work on the worldwide level and will bring physical as well as spiritual salvation for all mankind. America today is like a second Israel, being the representative nation of the Christian world.

In form, this nation is symbolic of God's kingdom, yet God cannot claim America as His own territory. God can claim the nation spiritually, but physically, there is no territory God can claim as His own.

God's nation should be the supreme nation in the world and should govern the entire world. In Jesus' time, the political structures of Israel and the Roman Empire were corrupted, and there was a great deal of confusion and chaos. In the same way, as the time of the Lord's Second Advent nears, the whole world is succumbing to similar corruption and weakness.

Today's America is in the same position as the Roman Empire of 2,000 years ago, while Korea is in the position of Israel. Rome and Israel together came against Jesus, but if the United States and Korea together accept the ideology of the coming Messiah, then his mission will be a dramatic success.

Once that foundation is laid, the communist world must be liberated by God's side, and then the entire world can become one.

The second Messiah is coming to establish both physical salvation and a physical territory; his one nation or territory shall be expanded to include the entire free world, and then eventually the nations enslaved by the evil ideology of communism.

The people who are now victims of communism must be liberated, and it can be said that the Messiah's ultimate goal is to unite the free world and the communist world together into one world.

To fulfill such a substantial mission here on earth, the Lord certainly cannot come on the clouds of heaven. All of mankind needs to find a highway reaching from the foundation all the way to perfection, but actually, all that has been done so far is a survey of the route.

The actual construction has not been done, and mankind can only follow a symbolic highway since the physical route has not yet been laid.

The second Messiah must make the physical highway so obvious that no one can miss it, connecting all the fragments of restoration into one wholesome highway.

All those little pieces can only be connected by the heart of God. Thus, the Messiah is coming as God's true representative, bringing the fruit of the love of God as his weapon.

Spiritually laying that principle's highway is the Messiah's preparation to undertake the physical restoration of this earth.

After pioneering the highway, he can begin his physical foundation here on earth, and once he penetrates all the way to perfection, then he can extend his ministry into the entire world. This is the mission of the Unification Church.

You have come here for the fulfillment of physical as well as spiritual salvation.

You did not come here for some crippled purpose but for a wholesome, perfected purpose, which shall be fulfilled on seven different levels: individual, family, tribe, nation, world, universe, and cosmos.

God Himself is our destination, and realistically, bringing God down to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is our desire.

When we have completed our vertical accomplishment and the spiritual highway is laid, then we will expand the physical ministry to the four corners of the earth.

Then our movement will go beyond the worldwide scale onto the universal scale.

The solid foundation has been laid on the individual, family, tribal, and national levels, and we have come to the worldwide level.

Since we are already working on the global level, all five races have come together as one family within our movement, and together we are creating the third Israel.

What is the mission of the third Israel?

As a people living on a global scale, we will be able to bring the physical Kingdom of God, which is capable of bringing salvation physically as well as spiritually.

The second Israel has already been formed on the worldwide level, but the salvation it can bring is only spiritual. Without the Unification Church, there can be no consummation or perfection of Christianity.

The first Israel was formed on the national level and is now trying to go toward the worldwide level, both spiritually and physically. It desires to serve as the base to successfully fulfill the additional level of salvation that it previously failed to fulfill.

We must know clearly that Judaism needs to be consummated. Judaism will not remain as Judaism, nor will Christianity remain as Christianity. God is working to establish one religion through which all religions can consummate their missions and achieve an even greater accomplishment.

From the providential perspective, Judaism has to be elevated into Christianity and accept Jesus as the Messiah, and then both of them must recognize the Unification Church as the third Israel.

Judaism has two steps to take, while Christianity has one giant step to take. There is no way that the mission of Christianity can be consummated within itself.

Instead, Christianity must be elevated to perfection through the Unification Church.

The world embraces smaller levels such as nations, families, and individuals. Even though the second Israel encompasses the world, it is still crippled because it can only give spiritual salvation.

As soon as the Unification Church lays the necessary foundation by becoming victorious over negativity, it will automatically be possible to consummate the worldwide mission. From that point on, the Unification Church will be recognized as the universal religion. That is the destiny of our church.

Restoration progresses according to age, beginning with older people and finishing with young people. The Old Testament era represents the restoration of older people, since God first summoned older people as His instruments. Simeon and Anna were both old when they finally met Christ.

Noah lived to be 950 years old, while Abraham was given his first son at the age of 100, and so forth. The Old Testament era established what could be called a grandfather's religion. I have to pay attention to older people because they were given the first missions in laying the foundation for restoration. God is paying attention to them first.

The New Testament era is characterized by middle-aged people. For instance, Jesus' disciples were working people, and later, when Christianity spread all over Europe, it was middle-aged people with families who became the backbone of the Christian church.

However, they only view Christianity as the source of their salvation, awaiting the day when the Messiah will come and elevate their families into the air for the millennium. At most, they think of their church being saved.

Because they are idealistic, and their universal minds range far beyond national boundaries to look at the world.

When the Lord of the Second Advent comes, his ministry will be fulfilled in the age of idealistic young people. Why should it happen that way? Simply because the fall of man came through young people.

Going through a reverse process in restoration, God touched older people first, middle-aged people second, and young people last. Why are single people primarily attracted to joining the Unification Church? Here, we are heading toward perfection, which comes after marriage. Before the blessing, each person must prepare to become a wholesome man or woman.

For this reason, God is sending young men and women into the Unification Church. Adam and Eve were supposed to reach perfection at the age of 21, but they fell when they were in their high school years. In the near future, our new members will primarily be high school age.

God actually wanted to have all of you remain as pure virgins, but we have a problem with American young people. Strictly speaking, those who have tasted fallen love are not eligible to become members of the Unification Church. Adam and Eve became stained and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden; how then could God now admit those who are also stained? What can be done?

Regardless of how ardently you follow the Unification Church, if you are not pure, then you are not qualified to be here. However, there is a way for God to forgive.

God is thinking, “Since Jesus' body was stricken by Satan, there are no bodies at all that are alive. As long as this person is trying to restore himself, I will accept him.”

Until the Messiah can finally fulfill perfection, God can consider your bodies dead, and whether a dead body may have impurities is just a trivial matter. God is trying to overlook those impurities and leave room for forgiveness.

When the Messiah seals off perfection and God's direct dominion begins, then God's standard will change, but until then, there is room for forgiveness.

God divides salvation into the three different levels of formation, growth, and perfection, and at each level God overlooks a great many things, reasoning, “I can forgive them that much.” He is a little stricter on the second level and absolutely strict on the third level and will finally seal off the fallen standard altogether.

From God's perspective, the Unification Church is in the perfection level, while Christianity, Judaism, and all religions are in the growth level, with the entire non-religious world in the formation level.

Once you join the Unification Church, your standing as a Christian or Jew or as a follower of any other religion loses its significance. Even if you come from the pre-formation level, it does not make any difference once you become a part of the perfection level.

The time of the Messiah is a time of reaping, a time of extraordinary amnesty, and people from all different surroundings and backgrounds can come and reap the same benefit.

How should you behave?

There is room for forgiveness, but God has strict expectations for those who previously led an impure life, and He wants you to renew yourself to the degree that you completely forget about your past illicit love.

How can you reach that level?

No other power is strong enough to wipe away the experience of illicit love except true love. Since the imprint of false love is strong in your mind, the only way it can be eradicated is through true love.

That false love can be eradicated only through the Messiah because he brings the most intense love in the universe: the love of God. When you receive this intense love of God through the Messiah, then your experience of illicit love will be eradicated.

You can uphold this principle and live this truth under the most intolerable hardships when you realize that regardless of what suffering you may experience, you have been given this chance to see the light.

You can remake yourself by following true love. For that opportunity, you can remain eternally grateful, even though 6,000 years of suffering may come upon you at one strike.

Upon coming as the pioneer, the Messiah finds the world in pitch darkness. Going to the forefront of the pioneering task, he receives all the persecution himself; acting as a shield, he creates a space for everyone else behind him.

In that way, the Messiah is preparing the way for you. He alone has the power to bring men out of the dungeons of hell and into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the extraordinary power and authority that the Messiah brings to earth.

Fallen man must make a covenant, saying to the Messiah, “I, my family, and all my possessions are yours. Nothing is mine. Please take everything because I love you more than anyone else under the sun. It is the responsibility of fallen man to make that condition of complete love.

Because the Messiah comes with heavenly love to those who are stained in satanic love, they can only be liberated when their heavenly love becomes more intense than all their satanic love put together.

Through that covenant, the Messiah can elevate fallen man from the dungeons of hell into the Kingdom of God with one stroke. Nobody can criticize his right to do this.

Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

This is entirely true. No heavenly love can begin unless we liquidate the satanic love.

Who would oppose this?

During heavenly restoration, the deeper the loving attachments you had in the satanic world, the more intensely those very people will try to dissuade you from going the heavenly way. That is why Jesus taught that your family members will be your enemies. Their attachment to you is so great that they will not want to release you.

One strength America has lies in the constitutional right to religious freedom. Religious freedom must be upheld even if your faith is opposed by your parents or children, or even by your wife or husband.

Religious freedom is so supreme that your right to believe cannot be denied by anyone. That is the most important preparation God made in this nation for the Last Days.

Who is opposing the Unification Church the most?

Have you ever heard of kidnappers being hired by parents to kidnap their children? Those unprecedented situations came about when the Unification Church appeared.

The Unification Church has opponents all around, not just within the family. Jews, Catholics, and Protestants are usually divided, but when they heard about the Unification Church and Reverend Moon, they hastily got together as allies and issued a joint statement against us.

The communists would also like to side with them in opposing me.

Which side will God support?

Looking at them, will God say, “For 2,000 years I wanted you to unite, and you never did, but as soon as you saw my son, you got together to oppose him?. I cannot stand it!”

Even after 4,000 years, the original purpose of Judaism and its future destiny are not clear. After 2,000 years of Christian history, there are still many unclear points and unresolved questions in the Bible, and Christians truly do not understand the origin, the present, or the future of their religion. But for the members of the Unification Church, these things are crystal clear.

We know our origin, we know God and His heart, we understand the process of restoration history, and we know the future.

There is nothing part-time about our faith because we look at God not in a mirror but face-to-face. Have you ever before had these questions resolved in any class or through any book? Which faith will God favor?

If you consider me to be your true parent, that means you put yourselves in the position of true sons and daughters. When I have truth, then as children you have the right to inherit that, as well as anything else I have. Anything I have absolutely belongs to you. Threats or persecution cannot change that truth.

We were talking about the resurrection of Christ and the perfection of the love of God. We can proclaim that the day of resurrection comes on the day when we can live that love here on earth and perfect our spiritual as well as physical salvation on a worldwide scale. In that realm of resurrection, even Jesus himself will be resurrected.

In the consummation, that perfection is consummated; then, for the first time, the mission of Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection spirit world, will be completed. On that same day, the Kingdom of God here on earth shall become a reality.

In the day when perfection can be declared before heaven and earth, Jesus will come down to the earth to intervene much more directly. “Why do you oppose Reverend Moon and call him a heretic?

Your actions tell me that you are the heretic.” The necessary condition has been made now, and the entire spirit world is coming down to the earth, together with Jesus.

All the saints and holy men must come down here to the earth to influence the entire religious world to unite together in the higher dimension of truth that God has revealed through me. By doing this, they will set the condition of having assisted in God's work on earth in this age, even though they are in the spirit world.

Then, when men on earth achieve the highest perfection, the spirit men can also claim that perfection and freely enter the Kingdom of God in heaven.

Would those in the spirit world want to be married, too?

The desire for marriage is not lost when someone goes to the spirit world, but you must know that even though people lived as husband and wife on earth, there are no husband and wife relationships so far in the spirit world. There are no True Parents in the spirit world, and without parents, how could true children exist and get married?

When the Messiah comes the second time and consummates True Parenthood with his wife, he will form the first couple that God can recognize. With the authority of God, they will give the blessing to the religious leaders who are saints in the spirit world and open the way for them to take their mates as well. In the spirit world, they, in turn, will give the blessing to their followers.

That time has come, and we are proceeding with this schedule to open up the entire spirit world and initiate that great reorganization. It is even possible for a spirit man to marry a woman living here on earth and dwell with her. It is not only possible, but it has actually happened.

The relationship between a spiritual being like the archangel and a physical being like Eve was possible in the Garden of Eden, and that possibility has not changed.

Would you like to be blessed with a saint from a thousand years ago?

Those who say yes do not know the principle at all! Marrying even a cripple in the Unification Church is far better than marrying the saint of saints in the spirit world. Do you know why? The answer is elementary.

If you marry a physical person, you can have a child, and you absolutely need to have a child to fulfill the heavenly four positions here on earth. That is the building block of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a gorgeous truth, and as you really understand the truth, it will make you free.

The Unification Church is the way to achieve the perfection of love, the perfection of men, and the perfection of the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, once you come into the Unification Church, regardless of your past religious beliefs, you just want to be close to me.

The church itself comes second because the members have a much deeper desire to have some personal relationship with me. If a member wants to leave, then the spirit world will come down and push him back, particularly if he formerly had been an adherent of another religion.

Who here sees me frequently in dreams or visions?

If you are spiritually awake and alive, then you will see me in dreams and visions every day. Before the advent of the True Parents, the Christian world spiritually had a most difficult time reaching Jesus because he had been in the highest realm of paradise while they lived in the sinful world. But now God is coming down and making His home here on earth.

You are using spiritual nets to reach out to the people of the world, spreading heaven everywhere. The entire world is starved for love, and when people see true love, they will just eat it up. We are harvesting a tremendous crop of love, and the starving people of the world have to be drawn.

Even if I chased them away with a baseball bat, they would run around and come in the back door because they are so hungry for heavenly love.

The people outside our church have no way to experience what we feel here, which explains why so many misunderstandings arise. Until they come themselves, they have no way to comprehend it.

To advance in the spirit world, one must progress through many complicated formalities. You may think the American government has red tape, but wait until you see the spirit world!

There is one layer after another of red tape, and you cannot easily leap to higher levels the way you can while you are here on earth. On earth, the worst sinner can reach the True Parents in one moment and obtain heaven. These extraordinary things that can happen are part of the privilege of having a physical life.

If you already have a close tie with the True Parents, then behind you are millions of spirit men asking you favors. I want you to know that behind each one of you, all of your good ancestors are lined up according to the merit of their deeds, with the better ancestors right next to you.

There is strict formality, and they cannot push ahead on their own. Their only pride is in you: “See how beautiful he is, what a wonderful face he has, what a strong member he is! “

All of your spiritual ancestors are pushing you and are proud of you, trying to spread propaganda about you. How will they feel if all of a sudden, “My champion is gone! He was deprogrammed! What happened?”

A great conflict between the spirit world and the physical world is going on, with you sandwiched in between. The spirit world is trying to push you to work hard, while the physical world is insisting that you leave the Unification Church.

We are just about to cross the final boundary now, and the tug of war between the spirit world and the physical world will soon undergo an obvious change.

Externally speaking, the court decision in San Francisco approving the conservatorships over five Unification Church members appeared to be a defeat, but internally, we are actually gaining tremendous benefit.

Even though we may have lost one little battle, we are winning the war. I want you to know that you are not only perfecting yourselves to become the recipients of God's love, but you, in turn, can liberate others, including Jesus Christ.

You are given the right and authority to liberate Jesus Christ, and altogether we are liberating God from His sorrow. For the first time in history, this is happening spiritually and physically.

As of 1977, we do not need any more Easter because every day will be Easter.

Today is a momentous day. The key to resurrection is not in the hands of Jesus. The resurrection of mankind, both physically and spiritually, both here on earth and hereafter in heaven, is ultimately in the hands of the Unification Church. We are the ones to perfect the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus wanted to bring that resurrection in his time, desiring to resurrect not only himself and his family but also to spiritually and physically resurrect his society, nation, world, the universe, and God. He left that mission undone, and now in the Unification Church, we have the key to consummate, on every level, the resurrection that Jesus had hoped to achieve 2,000 years ago.

For 2,000 years, the great dream of mankind has been to one day meet the Lord and receive the resurrection. Today, we are sitting in the room of resurrection. We can live through this resurrection and spread it throughout the world by perfecting ourselves and being blessed by God.

The Messiah comes as a savior not only to those on earth but also to those of heaven and earth together. Since he is coming as the Messiah of heaven and earth, his perfection includes universal and cosmic perfection, embracing the God-centered individual, home, society, nation, and world. After that, there is nothing left to fulfill.

The Bible indicates that on the day of resurrection, those who belong to Christ shall be the royal family of his kingdom. When the Messiah comes as the king of the entire universe and cosmos, then those who are his will indeed be the princes and princesses of that world.

Furthermore, in their own respective areas, they will possess kingship and queenship, or messiahship.

When you are victorious on the family level, you are the messiah of that family, and when you fulfill your mission on the level of tribe, you are a tribal messiah.

When you fulfill your mission on the national level, you are a national messiah.

Each one of you must advance to a higher level, and in this room, there are many, many types of messiahships to be seen.

Some are working on the family level, some on the tribal level, some on the national level, and some on the worldwide level.

However, you must concentrate your attention on the worldwide level by dealing with the problems of the world and solving them.

Then the entire spirit world, which is encompassed on that level, shall benefit from you. My goal, therefore, is the world, and I will never be satisfied with restoration on any level less than the worldwide level.

On my way toward that kingdom, I have come to the United States, and next I will go to Moscow. Shall we go or not? In our hands, we have the key to liquidate communism, the worst enemy of humanity in the sight of God.

Thereafter, we will liquidate hell and close down business there. Then we will go up to God, opening the way for the communists and the people in hell to come to Him. Then we will have finished the job, and God will say, “Indeed, my son, you have done your job.”

After the highway has been created, all those who remain in hell and in the communist world will see the signs and drive on the highway. Even so, some crazy people might persist, “No, I would rather not drive there quickly in a car; I'd rather walk.” They are free to do as they choose, but God will not be responsible.

Finally, God will be liberated from His sorrow, and the Messiah shall be liberated.

All the saints and holy men in the spirit world will be liberated from their missions, as well as the Unification Church, and eventually all mankind. I was given a contract by God to lay the superhighway here in America, yet the American people are saying that what I am doing is no good.

Currently, people only see us digging the ditches and clearing the fields, so they do not recognize the highway. However, when they see it after the concrete is poured and the line is drawn and the signs are up, everybody will say, “What a highway! “

They will compete to go first! They will probably keep shouting insults at me because their dignity got hurt, but in their hearts, they will know they have to go that way.

What are the four steps left?

First, the liberation of the free world, and then the liberation of the communist world. Thereafter, we will liberate the spiritual hell, and then we will liberate God. Whether you are keen to join is up to you, but meanwhile, I am busy expanding the realm of resurrection.

Who wants to be a participant?

If you participate in this battle, you might get hit by a bullet! Suppose you were. That is nothing to worry about; the important thing is whether you can say to God at the last minute, “God, I am dying for You and for Your liberation, the liberation of hell, the liberation of the communist world, and the liberation of the free world.” Before you die, your final words should be, “Liberation, liberation, liberation.”

Then, even though you may not have completed the work, God will treat you as though you had already finished it. There is glory in an exceptional place in heaven reserved for such precious martyrs.

We are all destined to die once, right?

You never know when the moment of death may strike you unexpectedly.

Therefore, the person who plans to enjoy his leisure, thinking, “When the emergency comes, I will cry out, 'Liberation, liberation, liberation,' and then I will be entitled to heaven,” is most foolish. You never know when death may strike you, and if you really want to die for God, then you must be ready at every moment of the day.

Easter is being celebrated today by the entire world, but no other group and no other church are resolving themselves to bring the liberation of the free world, the communist world, hell in the spirit world, and ultimately the liberation of God.

If we resolve to undertake such liberation in this particular place of Belvedere, then this is indeed the focal point of attention for God and the spirit world.

Those who feel you can pledge your commitment to God, raise your hands. Your raised hands make this place holy and divine. God bless you. Let us pray.