Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 03
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 1: The Principles of True Peace
Speech 1: The Ideal World for God and Humankind, pg 21-24
The teachings of religion
Ladies and gentlemen, would you like to know how this is done? It is not done in a way that you desire. In fact, no one desires this way. First of all, you need to chastise whoever or whatever opposes the conscience.
God cannot do this. Human beings are stuck in the midway position, with God and Satan both struggling to claim them, and if God were to strike them, so would Satan. So God’s teachings center on the conscience and tell you, “Strike, strike, strike your body!” We need to carry out this campaign worldwide. You have to do what your body hates. It is religion that teaches this.
Then what are the teachings of religion? All religions teach, “Strike the body! Don’t eat what you desire to eat! Don’t do what your body desires to do!” All major religions teach this. Buddhism places great importance on asceticism. Also, self-sacrifice is an important principle in Christianity. However, because it is extremely difficult for people to practice this, God has had no choice except to find a way to work with us just as we are.
Since our minds and bodies exert a similar degree of power over us, we tend to alternate between going this way and that back and forth. Religion teaches us to deny what the body wants while offering devotions that give us strength from God. This has been the role of religion until now. God started out working with one individual and advanced through the family, tribe, and people in His desire to gain one nation. In this way, the nation and people of Israel emerged. In short, they were the chosen people. The existence of the terms “chosen people” and “chosen nation” testify to the existence of God.
In accordance with His plan, God promised to send His representative who, as an individual, could completely unite his body and mind, then unite his family, tribe, and nation, and completely unite the world. This was the messianic vision of Israel. Following this pattern, God anticipated that the people would unite with this individual, family, tribe and become the nation to save the world, creating one world and bringing it to God’s side.
Jesus came as the embodiment of unity
Of course, God’s purpose was, in part, to have the people of Israel receive the Messiah and live happily. However, His providence is not merely to save one people; it is to save the world. He was, in fact, trying to save the world, and for that, He established the people of Israel as the foundation upon which He could send the Messiah. Yet at that time, although the desire of the Israelites and the direction of God’s providence ought to have been the same, they went different ways.
Jesus came as an individual with the ideal of a united world. Based on that ideal, he was to form a perfected family, then go on to establish an ideal tribe, people, nation, and world. Instead, he was crucified before he could accomplish this. The nation of Israel was like a field of wild olive trees with which the owner could do whatever he pleased. When Jesus came as the true olive tree to this field of wild olive trees, God’s plan was to engraft all the wild olive trees, from individuals to families to the entire nation, into His ideal. If this had come to pass, the people of Israel would have become true olive trees. If Israel, based on Judaism, had become one with Jesus and backed him with its sovereignty in carrying his mission to the world, the two-thousand-year history of Christianity would not have been necessary. God sent Jesus to a world filled with people whose minds and bodies were not united to embody the ideal and to unite all people. However, the people to whom he was sent nailed him to the cross and murdered him. Because Judaism and the nation of Israel went against God’s Will, the nation and the foundation established by God over the course of thousands of years were lost to Satan’s side. The Israelites became a people without a nation, groaning under tyranny, overrun by other peoples for two thousand years, having to fight for survival. Israel became an independent state in 1948.
This indicates that we have entered a new global era in which the people of Israel can overcome their suffering and regain their good fortune. This means that the time for the Lord to come again is approaching.
Do you think there was a foundation, an individual, family, tribe, and nation that God could use as His stepping stone after the people of Israel did not fulfill God’s providence? There was none. Since the First Israel was unable to fulfill the Will of God, Christianity inherited its position. Christianity must accept the mission of the Second Israel and fulfill God’s Will. However, you must know that Christianity has been unable to set the foundation to unite the physical world and the spirit world. Instead, it denied the physical world and tried to find the one nation based only on the spirit world.
Today’s Christians believe that the Lord of the Second Advent will come from the sky. However, based on such an event, he cannot bring unity within individuals, families, tribes, peoples, and the world. We must know with certainty that the place where the coming Lord can fulfill his purpose is not the sky; it is this earth, this physical world. To do so, Jesus, as the man who has achieved the ideal of integrity, the man whose mind and body are united completely, must find a woman of integrity and form a family with her. Only when this occurs can the united nation and world come to be. How can this be brought about?
Among today’s Christians, is there anyone who is prepared to become the bride of the Lord and form a family with Him? Christians don’t know about this. They don’t even know where and how he will come. The Lord of the Second Advent does not come on a cloud in the sky. The Lord comes to restore the family of oneness, which God desires. It will take more than one family to restore that family. There needs to be a tribe that can live for the sake of the family. There needs to be a people that can live for the sake of the tribe and a nation that can live for the sake of the people. Present-day Christianity needs to understand clearly that without going through this pattern in one nation, the nation that inherits the mission of the Third Israel cannot be restored.
FFWPU, USA