Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 365
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 9: The Role of Nations in Realizing World Peace
Speech 11: The Role of Continental Nations in the Twenty-first Century, pg 1366-1369
The Role of Continental Nations in the Twenty-first Century
August 30, 1996
Meadowlands Hilton Hotel, Secaucus, New Jersey, USA
Inaugural Convention of the Federation of Continental Nations for World Peace
Respected representatives of North America, ladies and gentlemen:
I congratulate you on your labors for the welfare of humankind and the realization of a peaceful world. I hope that this conference, convened with less than four years remaining in the twentieth century, can be a fruitful forum of discussion clarifying and expanding our hope for a peaceful world. I would like to share with you my thoughts on the realization of world peace and the ultimate human ideal.
Declaration of the Divine Principle and global mission work
I grew up on the Korean Peninsula, where people suffered greatly as major powers fought over ideology and resources. In my youth, I sought desperately to find answers to questions about life and the universe. I came to know the living God through my experiences with Him, and to know that God is the Lord of true love who has been present with humankind throughout history. I could not believe that God would have planned and created a world in which evil, conflict and war prevail. I do not have time to speak at length about the experiences of my youth. I will testify simply that those days were filled with an intense longing for the truth.
I have revealed the teaching of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, a teaching known as the Divine Principle. It was not easily discovered. Needless to say, I received the essence of the Principle through deep, fervent and prayerful communion with God, Jesus and other saints in the spirit world. Its revelation is a victory gained through a desperate fight with Satan. I am devoting every moment of my life to the teaching and practice of the Principle. Those whose lives it has touched are sharing it throughout the world, in 184 countries. The Principle is transforming people’s lives by bringing them into a new relationship with the living God.
God’s ideal and human perfection
As human beings created by God, we were born with an innate hope to attain our dreams and realize an ideal world in relationship with God. Even under the worst conditions, we never give up our desire for an ideal and peaceful world. When we say ideal world, we need to know that God is the origin of the very concept of the ideal.
God did not create the world for the sake of power, glory or wealth. Being absolute, unchanging and eternal, and being the origin of all existence, He has no particular need for these things, as He already has them in abundance.
However, it would not be right to think that God has fulfilled all His desires. God exists as the embodiment of true love. God needs a partner in order to experience love, just as we do. Love can be experienced only when there is a relationship between a subject partner and an object partner. No being can experience love in isolation, solely by itself.
God created human beings to give and receive love freely in relationship with Him. We were made to be the true object partner of the love of God. He created us as His sons and daughters. He is the True Parent of humankind.
God wanted Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, to mature in purity, centered on true love. He wanted Adam and Eve to become true people. He created this beautiful and exquisite natural world as the environment for their biological growth. Human beings were to grow and develop within this environment.
God’s central concern, however, is with our internal character. By experiencing true love, God intended that we would come to reflect His true love and grow to perfection. God created the power of love to be the strongest of all forces. Through the experience of such a power of love within the realm of Heaven’s love and law, people are to increasingly resemble God, their Parent. To possess unlimited true love, people must first learn to be responsible. When human beings come into oneness with God through true love, they resemble Him and become the perfect embodiment of true love, with wholesome character. Thus we can say that God’s love is the essence of human happiness, life and ideals.
Adam and Eve were meant to mature in God’s love and become true individuals, true husband and wife, and, by rearing children, the True Parents. People experience God’s true love step by step, throughout the stages of life’s growth. Each individual is meant to come to know the heart of children through the love of their parents, the heart of a sibling through the love between brothers and sisters, the heart of husband and wife through the love of a spouse, and the heart of parents through loving children. The family is the foundation upon which we establish these four realms of love and heart.
The family is the basis for love, happiness, life, and lineage. We cannot learn and experience these four realms of love anywhere other than in the family. We know love only through actual experience. The true perfection of the individual, family, society and environment has its root in the realization of love within the family.
World peace and the providence of restoration
What is the reality of our world today? Despite advances in technology and the conveniences of modern life, the world is facing a profound crisis: the loss of our very humanity. Disorders and affliction of every kind—violence, crime, drug abuse and war—plague humankind. More significant, the breakdown of the family, including the rising divorce rate, the collapse of sexual morality among youth and the problem of unwed mothers, is destroying the foundation of society.
Even though we have sought peace and happiness in many ways, none of us can be satisfied with the results we have achieved in our lives. After the First and Second World Wars, the League of Nations and then the United Nations were established to prevent further conflict. However, the global work of these organizations has not brought about a peaceful world. The efforts of religious groups also have not led to a world of happiness. The proud ideals of communism and the fascist illusion failed to bring about an ideal world of oneness. Neither highly advanced technology nor skillful diplomacy deliver us peace and happiness. This is because the cause of humanity’s unhappiness and suffering lies in the human Fall and our disobedience to God. The solution of the problem begins by eliminating this root cause.
Adam and Eve defiled true love during their time of growth. They fell away from God’s Principle by having sexual relations and creating children before they reached maturity in true love.
Human history thus began with Adam and Eve’s lack of faith in God, their loving Parent, and their ultimate submission to Satan. By this action they became a false husband and false wife, and false parents. Our inheritance from the original family includes their legacy of corruption, conflict and suffering. This legacy has nothing to do with God’s ideal of creation. We cannot imagine how God’s Heart is broken!
God must, at any cost, restore His original ideal of true love and peace. What we call God’s providence of salvation means His providence of restoration. For the sake of this restoration, He established religions and expanded a sphere of goodness.
The Messiah, sent by God, is the person who comes with the overall responsibility to complete the providence of restoration. The Messiah must come as the True Parent and must rectify everything, beginning at the very root of the problem.
Jesus came as the Messiah with the mission of the True Parent. He came to resurrect human beings on earth. He would thus restore them as true individuals, so that they might become true husbands and wives who would be true parents themselves. Unfortunately, because of the lack of faith on earth, he was unable to accomplish his purpose fully. However, he promised to return. He must return in order to restore God’s ideal of creation.
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