Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 412
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 10: True Parents, the Hope of God and Humankind
Speech 08: Let Us Become Filial Children of God Who Liberate His Heart, pg 1539-1543
God’s providence of restoration
Do you think that God, omniscient and omnipotent, seated on a glorious throne, would say to His children, “Come up here; I’m not going to leave this seat?” Or is it more likely that He would kick the throne out of the way and come down to where we are? It is important for you to know that for tens of thousands of years, even millions of years, God has been wailing tearfully, crying out, “O My son! O My daughter!” You may ask how the omniscient and omnipotent God could be in such a pitiable state. God cannot get over the shock of losing His beloved sons and daughters.
If there were a way for God to solve this problem on His own, He would not have had to travel the long, lonely path of suffering through the providence of restoration. No caring parent would stand by idly while his or her child suffers. And because we are His children, it is impossible for the all-loving God to abandon humanity, and let us perish eternally. God is absolutely committed to recovering us and, with us, the world that He originally envisioned. This is the reason that God has ceaselessly worked His providence of restoration to save human beings.
You need to be aware of how intensely God has labored to make progress in the providence of restoration. God is our True Parent. As He carried out the providence, His heart felt human pain as His own pain. Yet it was excruciatingly difficult for God to carry out the providence of salvation, because our first ancestors, who committed the sin that constitutes the Fall, received Satan’s false love and false life. Ever since, Satan has acted as humanity’s false parent and false lord.
You may raise the question, “How could God, who is omniscient and omnipotent, stand by, seemingly impotent, while humanity went down the path of destruction?” The reason is that human beings committed sin in a sphere for which they are exclusively responsible. Therefore, they must fulfill the conditions needed to resolve that sin. God cannot liberate us from sin unconditionally. If He could, He would have liberated our first ancestors in the garden of Eden instead of casting them out. Furthermore, restoration has been even more difficult because Satan uses his lineal relationship to enslave people as their master.
The Fall was something that would never have happened under the original standard of the ideal of creation. Therefore, God was not in a position to intervene, even though He was the Creator. Having been robbed of His position as our original Parent, He could not cover for His children’s mistake. On the other hand, neither can the omniscient and omnipotent God solve the problem simply by casting judgment on the fallen human world and on Satan. Since God created people to be His eternal partners in true love, He cannot just annihilate them. Instead, God has labored with true love to carry out the providence of restoration. While continually enduring Satan’s contempt and accusations, His response has always been to sacrifice and give endlessly.
Satan has been mocking God, saying, “How can you hold fast to your principles, now that the lineage of true love, which was supposed to be the foundation of the ideal world, has been utterly degraded? Your ideal of creation, the absolute realm of love where true people live together as one, is something You will never see.” In this situation, how can God reply? It has been an impossible situation.
Why does God carry on with His work of restoration while enduring such suffering? Is it because He is omniscient and omnipotent? No, that is not the reason. The ideal of true love is the reason that He seeks to recover His beloved sons and daughters. With true love, God ignores His own circumstances and works to understand our circumstances. If people are sad, God approaches them by comprehending their sadness. If people are angry because they have been treated unjustly, God approaches them by first understanding the reasons for their anger.
God’s situation and comforting God’s heart
Respected leaders, in your communion with God, have you fathomed His suffering heart? Have you shed tears for God? Have you ever attempted to take on a task that would lighten God’s load, even a little? Have you struggled to do it even when it meant that each of your limbs might be torn from your body? You haven’t. On the other hand, God ever draws near to comfort us in our difficulties. Through the long ages, with an unchanging parental heart, He has sought out the children who betrayed Him. God, our Parent, will remain in suffering until every last person has been freed from their lamentation. Because He is in this position, we need to comfort God and bring Him liberation.
How are we to liberate God? God lost His beloved children. God is confined in a place where He cannot love humanity with the original love that parents give their children. Therefore, our task is to establish a realm of liberation for God, where He can freely love humankind. God’s confinement was brought about when human beings fell, so human beings have to become victorious sons and daughters who transcend the limits of the Fall. This is what will bring God liberation.
We have been ignorant of the tremendous pain in God’s heart. When I first understood the pain of God, I wept for weeks. Please know that such profound circumstances lie behind the founding of the Unification Church. Longing for those who betrayed Him, those who were enfolded into the bosom of the enemy, God has been calling out, “My son! My daughter!” Yet have you even once cried out, “My Father!” so loudly that it made you hoarse? Have you ever passionately called for your Father until it dried out your tongue and you began to choke? As fallen people, what do we have that would enable us to relate with God? Our emotions and the perceptions of our five senses are entirely profane. Nothing in us is acceptable. Under the laws of justice, there is nothing that will permit us to relate to God. Nevertheless, under the law of love there is a way.
God’s liberation and complete freedom
Because human beings fell, God could not be free. Hence, our first ancestors also were imprisoned; they lost their original freedom. Following this, the angelic world, all religious people, and ultimately all humanity came to be imprisoned. God lives in prison. How can we free Him? We must become devoted sons and daughters of God, more so than the first children whom He lost. We need to do even better than the first children were supposed to do, had they been devoted and had they not fallen. I know that even if we were to accumulate ten times as much merit in every aspect of life and relate to God with great filial piety, it would not be easy to bring God’s heart back to its original state and allow Him to dwell in true freedom. Nonetheless, at an early age, I resolved to truly liberate God with my own hands, and I have lived accordingly throughout my life.
What is the real mission of religion? It is to truly liberate God, truly liberate humanity on earth and in the spiritual realm, and truly liberate planet Earth with a heart of love. People have thought that God will liberate us, but now that we recognize that God’s heart is imprisoned, we understand that we must liberate God and bring Him into complete freedom.
God has long been searching for people burning with zeal for true love, having the faith that says, “I see now that God is in prison because of me. I see now that Satan is accusing God because of me. I see now that Jesus suffered because of me. O Father, I will carry You to the place of true liberation. I will carry Jesus and the Holy Spirit as well to the place of true liberation.” To this day, there has been no sovereign country on earth where people of true love have established God’s dominion. Despite this, people are singing praise to the Almighty. Under such circumstances, how can God’s heart be free? From God’s perspective, there have been no children of filial piety.
There have been no social and political structures founded upon true love that would enable people to fulfill the way of the patriot, the way of the saint, and the way of divine sons and daughters in heaven and on earth. Hence, there has been no way to establish and protect the heavenly kingdom. These circumstances have left God with no place to stand. Consequently, He has remained imprisoned until now, in a state of virtual captivity.
How are we to resolve this grievous situation? The only way is to carry out a movement practicing the love that is God’s original essence. The final stage of religion needs to teach people in detail about God’s pitiful suffering and injustice, and connect us to the world of His original heart.
Let us join in a true love movement to bring true liberation and complete freedom to God. If we do not set this standard of love, we will not establish the heavenly way properly and bring the ideal world to exist on earth. This is the true love movement, and it is bringing an end to the history of division between Cain and Abel by bringing together the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace and the Peace UN in the Abel position, and the Mongolian People’s Federation for World Peace in the Cain position, to form a single body.
I call on America to take the role of the eldest brother, representing the free world, and lead all nations toward the fulfillment of God’s Will. To do this, America needs to put aside selfish and individualistic thinking. When political parties and ethnic groups place priority on their self-interest, they divide and mislead the people. America needs to build a true nation, blossoming with true freedom and peace. Then God will want to reside in your families and in your communities.
For this noble goal, let us all stand hand in hand and establish the kingdom of heaven on earth, the peace kingdom, where God’s ideal of creation is fulfilled. There, God will enjoy true liberation and complete freedom.
I pray that God’s blessings may be with you forever.
FFWPU, USA