Tribulation

Most religions anticipate a time beyond the present, when human history will be consummated by a decisive act of God. Evil will be destroyed and goodness will triumph.

Millenarian teachings are most characteristic of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptures. Christianity began as a millenarian movement in Israel.

Yet Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism also contain teachings that the world is going through a cosmic cycle in which the decay of morals and religion presages a new Golden Age when life will be renewed and purified.

Millenarian beliefs can be a leavening influence on society, encouraging oppressed people with the hope that the evil system has finally reached its last hour and calling them to renewed faith or even to revolutionary action.

From the Bar Kochba Rebellion of Jews against Roman tyranny, to the T’ai P’ing Rebellion in China and the African Independent Churches’ agitation for independence against European colonial rule, these movements have fostered political and economic self-determination.

Today, Father Moon’s teachings express that same sense of urgency and possibility, proclaiming that humanity is now living in the Last Days and that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. However, these beliefs can also have a negative aspect if they lead people to become self-righteous and judgmental.

Father Moon warns that all the judgments and tribulations of the Last Days will strike the people on God’s side earlier and more severely than non-believers, based on the principle that in the course of restoration, it is for God’s people to be struck first.

Typically, teachings about the Last Days or the end of the world anticipate a course of events in three phases: First, a time of tribulation when evil and confusion will prevail; second, a Last Judgment when God intervenes decisively to destroy all evil; and third, a new age of unparalleled bliss, often called the Kingdom of Heaven.

During the tribulation phase, wars, famines, plagues, natural disasters, and widespread confusion will afflict humanity. Morals will decline as people become engrossed in hedonism and materialism.

Religions will decline, as the teachings of their founders will be forgotten or misused for mean ends. Father Moon affirms that humanity faces such tribulation and traces its roots to the Human Fall.

The Last Days is a time when the fruits of the Fall are to be harvested, he teaches. In some scriptures, the last tribulation will be the appearance of the Beast, the Antichrist or the Dajjal, who will deny the reality of God and deceive millions with a counterfeit truth.

Identifying the Antichrist has been the subject of much speculation, most of it fruitless, often fixing on the church’s favorite opponent.

Father Moon sees the activity of Satan behind the dark forces in history and identifies several of the Devil’s stratagems to attack the people of God, including the rise of materialism and atheistic communism.

Nevertheless, he reminds us that the first people to oppose Jesus were his disciples; hence, we should examine ourselves to see if we are not the antichrist, rather than blaming others.

In the evil age to come, living beings will decrease in good qualities and increase in utter arrogance, coveting gain and honors, developing their evil qualities, and being far removed from deliverance.1 Lotus Sutra 13 (Buddhism)

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. 2 Timothy 3.1-5

The Hour will not be established until (religious) knowledge will be taken away, earthquakes will be very frequent, time will pass quickly, afflictions will appear, murders will increase, and money will overflow amongst you. Hadith of Bukhari 2.17.146 (Islam)

The time is near in which nothing will remain of Islam but its name, and of the Qur’an but its mere appearance, and the mosques of Muslims will be destitute of knowledge and worship; and the learned men will be the worst people under the heavens; and contention and strife will issue from them, and it will return upon themselves. Hadith (Islam)

Rabbi Mikhal of Zlotchov told, “Once when we were on a journey with our teacher, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the Light of the Seven Days, he went into the woods to say the Afternoon Prayer. Suddenly we saw him strike his head against a tree and cry aloud. Later, we asked him about it. He said, ‘While I plunged into the Holy Spirit I saw that in the generations which precede the coming of the Messiah, the rabbis of the Hasidim will multiply like locusts, and it will be they who delay redemption, for they will bring about the separation of hearts and groundless hatred.’” Hassidic Tale (Judaism)

Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? Luke 18.8

With the footprints [heralding] the Messiah, presumption shall increase and dearth reach its height; the vine shall yield its fruit but the wine shall be costly; and the empire shall fall into heresy and there shall be none to utter reproof. The academies shall be given to fornication, and… the wisdom of the scribes shall become insipid, and they that shun sin shall be deemed contemptible, and truth shall nowhere be found. Children shall shame the elders, and the elders shall rise up before the children. The face of this generation shall be [brazen] as the face of a dog, and a son will not be put to shame by his father. On whom can we stay ourselves? On our Father in heaven. Mishnah, Sota 9.15 (Judaism)

Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures; the Brahmanical thread will constitute a brahmin; external types will be the only distinction of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the universal means of subsistence; weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substitutes for learning… Thus in the Kali age shall decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation. Vishnu Purana 4.24 (Hinduism)

There will come a time [the Age of the Degeneration of the Law] when… immoral courses of action will flourish excessively; there will be no word for moral among humans—far less any moral agent. Among such humans, homage and praise will be given to them who lack filial and religious piety, and show no respect to the head of the clan; just as today homage and praise are given to the filial-minded, to the pious and to them who respect the heads of their clans. Among such humans, there will be no such thoughts of reverence as are a bar to intermarriage with mother, or mother’s sister, or teacher’s wife, or father’s sister-in-law. The world will fall into promiscuity, like goats and sheep, fowls and swine, dogs and jackals. Among such humans, keen mutual enmity will become the rule, keen ill will, keen animosity, passionate thoughts even of killing, in a mother towards her child, in a child towards its mother, in a father towards his child and a child towards its father, in brother to brother, in brother to sister, in sister to brother. Just as a sportsman feels towards the game that he sees, so will they feel. Digha Nikaya 3.71-72 (Buddhism)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Today, we face a serious youth problem. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve fell, they were teenagers. They planted the seed of free sex when they fell by engaging in an illicit sexual relationship in the shade.

That is why now, during the harvest time of the Last Days, it was inevitable that free sex would become rampant throughout the world. Satan knows that God is trying to bring all human beings to Heaven by promoting the standard of true love, absolute love without any trace of the Fall.

Because Satan knows that the returning Messiah will carry out this plan, his strategy is to utterly dismantle this standard. Therefore, as there is no longer any basis for love, people today engage in all sorts of behavior, including free sex, homosexuality, and lesbianism.

Homosexuals and lesbians are seeds of the archangel; therefore, like angels, they have no object partner of love. These are the Last Days, when everywhere people are stripping off their clothes and perishing. It is the end of Satan’s progeny.

Now the earth has become hell, where life is in step with Satan’s world of hell.

Therefore, if you seek and follow a way 180 degrees opposite the prevailing lifestyle, it will be a path connected to Heaven. (279:121, August 1, 1996)

Adam and Eve distrusted God and betrayed God; this sowed the seeds of grief throughout the cosmos. Therefore, in the Last Days, parents and children will conflict.

Just as the first human ancestors betrayed and distrusted God, their Father, their descendants in the Last Days will likewise experience children rebelling against their parents…

That is why in today’s society,y there is a pervasive tone of distrust between parents and children, between husbands and wives, and between relatives.

People no longer have confidence in their purpose for living, so much so that those who deny its basis have obfuscated the matter. As you see this happening, you should know that the Last Days are here. (2:330, July 28, 1957)

At the Fall, the archangel Lucifer acted to make Eve his enemy, and Eve acted to make Adam her enemy. As a result, Adam, Eve, and the archangel became enemies to one another.

Therefore, in the Last Days, everyone will become enemies to one another. Your children will become your enemies; mothers and fathers become enemies; brothers and sisters will become enemies. Nations will become enemies.

All relationships will be torn apart, and you will not be able to trust anyone. What will become of ethics and morality? Such a hurricane of chaos will sweep the world that people will lose any sense of direction. People will not be able to tell right from wrong and good from evil. When that time comes, it is the Last Days.

The Last Days are here right now! You will see incidents where children kill their parents and parents kill their children. You will see ministers killing members of their congregation, and acrimonious battles between church members and their ministers. Everyone will be divided. Why is that?

The seed of enmity sown by Adam, Eve, and the archangel has resulted in the world becoming a battlefield. (50:213, November 7, 1971)

All religions have lost their footing. Because Christianity did not completely fulfill God’s will, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam are also going through a tough course. As a result, families, societies, nations, and the world have become hell.

God’s ideal realm of love is nowhere to be found on earth. Even in a vast country like America, God cannot find a true son or daughter whose mind and body are truly united.

God cannot find a husband and wife who are united according to the original standard that God has desired since before the Fall. In every family, parents and children fight. The decline of religion has led to a world of selfish individualism in which everyone is divided. (January 13, 2001)

Without a clear vertical standard, the concepts of male and female are hazy. That is why, along with free sex, we see so much sexual confusion in the Last Days. It is neither this nor that, neither man nor woman… the Devil and evil spirits cause this devastation, leading people into chaos. (189:127, April 1, 1989)

Since the Human Fall took place at the completion level of the growth stage, the completion stage remains unfulfilled.3 The period of that stage is seven years… We are indemnifying this with a seven-year course.

The seven-year course is what Christians call the seven years of the great tribulation. The great tribulation is when a family, which is in the domain of the Fall, receives persecution to be restored and rise to become a family that has nothing to do with the dominion of the Fall.

It is the great tribulation because the families receiving persecution and hardships are the families with whom God longs to dwell…

When Adam and Eve fell in the period of indirect dominion, Satan invaded the domain that had been reserved for human beings and came to dominate the entire realm of indirect dominion.

To restore this, the seven-year great tribulation is not a time of suffering for those who deserve to suffer. Rather, it is a time when suffering comes to people who do not deserve it. (Blessing and Ideal Family 5.1.2)

In the free world today, many people are unwilling to marry. They live together without a legal marriage, jumping from one relationship to another… It seems like everyone is perishing, but through it, God has a strategy to save them all. This trend somehow makes sense if you look at it from God’s perspective.

In God’s view, our spirit and body are supposed to become one, centered on true love, not on false love. Therefore, as people live together who have not found the origin of true love, they will continue to be restless, with their spirit and body divided.

Once they pass through that stage, after a while, they will yearn for the marriage Blessing, the Blessing that only Heaven can give. (91:184, February 6, 1977)

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 24.6-13

And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator. Daniel 9.26-27

Society will be engulfed by ravaging wars, overflowing with havoc and devastation. In the beginning, the conquerors will feel very happy over their successes and booties gathered therein, but it will all have a very sad end. I warn you of the wars of the future, you have no idea of the enormity of evil which they will carry. Nahjul Balagha, Khutba 141 (Shiite Islam)

Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, you will bestir yourself and come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army; you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. Ezekiel 38.14-16

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
God always strikes His beloved children first, and then He strikes Satan. (Way of God’s Will 3.4)

God cannot strike human beings even when they take Satan’s side. God has to use the strategy of being struck first and then taking the victory. Satan always strikes first, but loses in the end.

Throughout history, Satan takes the side of self-centered people and incites them to hatred and conflict to try to destroy Heaven’s side. Heaven, on the contrary, aims for the good of all, working to recreate the world with love and peace.

In the Last Days, when Satan is about to lose his dominion to Heaven’s side, he will suggest atheism to the world, advocating that there is no God.

This will result in movements to establish humanism, materialism, and communism. All over the world, these ideologies of the left are in battle with Heaven’s side on the right.

Ultimately, however, history will enter an era of a Great Revolution when Heaven’s side will win and peace will prevail throughout the world. This could have occurred already, with the victory of Christian culture at the end of the Second World War… (270:232, June 7, 1995)

The satanic world is one step ahead of God. If God has a family, Satan already has a nation. Hence, despite the dispensations from Adam to Abraham, in the history of the Israelites and the centuries after Jesus, the wrongs committed in those ages did not disappear but instead accumulated…

Even after two thousand years, the responsibility of Christianity remained unfinished. How could it be indemnified? This was the purpose of World War I and World War II; they were dispensations to make restitution according to the law of indemnity.

That is w,hy at the end of World War II, the two sides could unite centered on Christian civilization. Germany, Japan, and Italy joined with the United States, England, and France to form a global sovereignty, unified based on Christian values. (292:180, April 12, 1998)

After World War II, humankind was struggling to overcome the pain of war and find a way for all nations to live in peace. At that time, God commanded me to start a world-level movement to establish God’s Kingdom on the foundation of two thousand years of Christianity.

The main point God revealed to me was the formula course to establish the True Parents and [unite humankind] as one true family. However, to God’s great disappointment, the Korean Christian leaders did not accept this truth. As a result, I had no choice but to walk the path of hardship.

Although I had committed no crime, I was persecuted, opposed, and imprisoned. This mistake of Christianity became the condition and spiritual foundation for evil to gain power in Korea.

Herein lies the internal and providential reason for the Korean War and the division of Korea that has persisted for over half a century. (288:166, November 27, 1997)

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth; they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads; they were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion, when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will fly from them. In appearance the locusts were like horses arrayed for battle; on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, and stings, and their power of hurting men for five months lies in their tails. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.4 Revelation 9.1-11

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
The age is at hand when the spirit world is attacking the earth. For this reason, many kinds of mental illnesses are appearing: neuroses, psychoses, and new disorders unknown to science.

Modern medicine has no cure for them. We need a new treatment, a tonic containing elements of Heaven and Earth. (3:353, February 9, 1958) Billions and trillions of spirits are on the offensive, trying to take over the physical world. They can cause mental illness.

After the 1980s, and even more so in the new millennium, great numbers of people will develop some spiritual sensitivity. When they communicate with the spirit world, it could be either with good spirits or with evil spirits. Groups of people possessed by evil spirits may make war on others, causing bloodshed among people who otherwise do not want war.

As an antenna placed high up picks up a cacophony of noises, spiritually sensitive people will suffer from mental illness. It would be a most fearful thing if only evil spirits mobilized to attack the physical world.

There are more than enough evil spirits to strike every person living on earth. Can you imagine then what would happen? To counter it, God is making preparations. By mustering His hosts of good spirits, God is expanding the foundation of the good spirit world. (55:30, April 3, 1972)

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship… The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2.3-12

And when the Word is fulfilled against the unjust, We shall produce from the earth a Beast to face them: he will speak to them, because that mankind did not believe with assurance in Our signs. Qur’an 27.82

The Dajjal will come forth having with him water and fire, and what mankind see as water will be fire which burns and what they see as fire will be cold, sweet water. Any of you who live till that time must fall into what they see as fire, for it is sweet, fresh water. Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim (Islam)

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and great authority.

One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder. Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”

And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months; it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain… Also it caused all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.6 Revelation 13.1-18

Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all know. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and know that no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 1 John 2.18-22

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
The world wars have resulted from Satan’s last desperate struggle to preserve his sovereignty. Since the fall of the first human ancestors, Satan has been building defective, unprincipled imitations of God’s ideal world.

Aiming to restore the ideal world of His Principle, God has been in pursuit, gradually expanding His dominion by reclaiming it from the unprincipled world under Satan’s bondage.

Accordingly, in the course of the providence of restoration, a false representation of the ideal appears before the emergence of its true manifestation. The biblical prophecy that the Antichrist will appear before the return of Christ is an illustration of this truth. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Preparation 4.1)

Satan knew God’s plan to unify the world through the one truth and presented a false imitation of the truth to unify humanity, centering on him. This false truth is dialectical materialism.

Dialectical materialism denies the existence of any spiritual reality, setting up an explanation of the universe based on a wholly materialistic logic. In denying the existence of God, it also denies the existence of Satan.

Thus, in promoting dialectical materialism, Satan was effectively denying his reality, even risking his demise. Satan understood what would unfold at the close of human history and knew well that he would surely perish. Accepting that this was not the time to be worshipped, he rose in a monstrous denial of God, even at the sacrifice of himself.

This is the spiritual root of dialectical materialism. As long as the democratic world lacks the truth that can overturn this evil doctrine, it will always be vulnerable and on the defensive. For this reason, someone on God’s side must proclaim the perfect truth. (Exposition of Divine Principle, Preparation 4.4.1)

Who would have known that the disciples would stand in the position of the antichrist before Jesus?

Who would have known that the chosen Israelite people and Judaism would become the antichrist? We must be concerned about this in the Last Days, too.

You must reflect on yourself whether you stand in the position of the antichrist.

Now is not the time to reproach others or interfere with the affairs of others. The problem lies with you, yourselves.

Other denominations that oppose us are not the problem. You must worry about the fact that you might become a satan in the Last Days. Throughout history, those people who blamed others for their problems have all lost themselves. (2:277, June 16, 1957)

Father! The Day of Judgment now approaches for this city of death. Faced with such a period, struggling in this world of fear, wandering about without knowing which way to go, humankind has lost its center.

People do not know what troubles they will face; they cannot find a place to rest.

Please have compassion for all humankind, and guide them to return to Thine embrace. (5:60, December 21, 1958)