Chapter 4
Inside the Belly Church

You know very well many spiritualists testified and attended Father though no one else could understand him, receiving revelations from Heaven in the early days. They could not contain their joy at having met Father, as they had been seeking the Messiah all their lives. They found not an ordinary person, but the Messiah whom they had been seeking after all those years under the guidance of Heaven.

I could see and feel how glad those people were and how earnestly they attended Father, therefore I couldn't help wondering why they couldn't continue to serve Father up to the very end. Thinking of the Israelites of 2,000 years ago who had been waiting for the Messiah, but couldn't accept Jesus who came as the Messiah, and of John the Baptist who once made a public testimony that Jesus was the Messiah after his revelation, but couldn't serve Jesus, I'd like to talk about why these spiritualists couldn't serve Father up to the very end. I'll talk about one or two instances of spiritualists who were called by God to meet Father, and also about why they couldn't continue in their faith.

Not only the spiritualists, but also those who have been seeking after truth, in the true sense of the term, might fail in their faith.

As you already know, there were religious organizations which had been preparing for the coming of the Messiah about 30 years before Father came to Pyongyang and began to preach God's word. It is still a common idea in the Christian churches that Jesus will come again on the clouds. It is believed that the crucifixion of Jesus was God's plan. For this reason the miserable image of crucified Jesus on the cross is carved and put in the middle of the altar in the churches so that everybody can see.

There is no religious group that worships such a miserable statue as Christianity. Don't you feel bad when you see a dead body? Whether the dead person was good or bad, any dead body never gives us a good feeling. But they don't feel bad even to see Jesus, who died an unnatural death, because they think his death was reasonable or, rather, that it was an expression of God's love to forgive the original sin of human beings.

Even though Jesus died because of Heavenly reasons, it is wrong to feel good looking at his dead body. No person wants to be stripped: do you like to be naked in public? If you don't feel anything bad about seeing Jesus stripped and dead on the cross, it's because you take it from the aesthetic point of view rather than from the religious point of view. The religious leaders of today teach young people that the death of Jesus was providential and that, thanks to his death, our sin is forgiven.

The story which I am going to tell you is the story of the days when the people believed, beyond doubt, that Jesus would come again on the clouds and not as a human being; that the death of Jesus was predetermined; that the Fall of Man was brought about by eating the fruit of the tree, or by faithlessness to God's word; and that he would come to Israel. Because of these beliefs of Christians, God gave revelations to those who didn't know anything about Christianity. God raised them and taught them that the death of Jesus was not inevitable; that Jesus would come as a man in the flesh instead of coming on the clouds; that the Fall of Man was not brought about by eating the fruit of the tree; and that he would come to Korea instead of Israel. God had been teaching these people for a long time.

The revelations God gave them at that time were quite unbelievable. Why did God give so many revelations from the beginning? I'd like to examine this question. As it might be confusing to cite too many examples, I'd like to talk about one particular spiritualist.

There was a middle aged woman who didn't know anything about Christianity; she married into a Confucianist household. The husband's first wife couldn't bear him a boy and so she had been divorced; this woman was welcomed as the second wife. She worked very hard in this difficult household. The family were very gentle, religious and rich, but their only son was suffering from a very rare disease which no doctor or spiritual healer could cure. It was around the time when Christianity first came to have a foundation in Korea. People often heard they could cure the disease in the Christian church and there was a Christian spiritualist who could do it.

The parents loved the child so much that they invited the Christian spiritualist to their house. The child soon recovered from the disease. As a result, Christianity was accepted in this family. The lady in particular became a very eager Christian and attended church and prayed a lot.

She happened to know that the priest in the church had got involved in a love problem; she prayed very hard to God, asking why even the priest had made such a mistake. In the middle of her deep prayer, God taught her the cause of the Fall of Man. Although we are now told clearly the Principle of Creation and the Fall of Man, God at that time told her only the real cause of the human Fall, but didn't tell her why and how it happened. She also didn't have any knowledge about the Bible. God gave her answers to the four questions I mentioned earlier as well. A religious group originated from this lady.

This group had been preparing for the Second Coming of the Messiah. The leader responsible for it was also a middle aged woman. Just after she founded this religious organization, Jesus appeared to her and told her what he hadn't revealed ever before -- namely, his private life since childhood. I'd like to pick out one episode: he said that even though ordinary children were given delicious food or beautiful clothes which they wanted on their birthdays, Jesus had never experienced such a thing. He also saw the clothes that he wanted to wear, but he could never have them. Even though he wanted to go to school, he couldn't. What do you think of it? Do you think this is a true story? Perhaps you think that such things didn't happen to Jesus because he was Christ.

When she heard the things about his miserable life that Jesus couldn't tell anybody until that time, she couldn't stop crying. When she heard that Jesus was crucified because nobody believed in him and when she understood the heart of Jesus, that he did his best to realize the will of God, but couldn't, she cried continuously for many days.

Consider and imagine, everybody. You know that Joseph was troubled very much as to whether he should accept Mary who was already pregnant before their marriage. He did get married to her, accepting his revelation from Heaven, but you should not forget that he was still troubled. Joseph always viewed Jesus with suspicious eyes.

The woman was taught what was not written in the Bible, through the direct testimony of Jesus himself. She thought that she should prepare for the Second Advent so that he would not have the same miserable experiences as the First Advent, and that she should liquidate the resentment of Jesus. She prepared everything needed from his birth to the age of 33, when Jesus was crucified, in two ways: in an Eastern style and a Western style.

I'd like to tell you how she prepared these clothes for Jesus: she was already given the information about sizes and designs, as the Israelites were given all the revelations in the Old Testament days. They had to pray for a certain period for preparation and have a period of purification. When they bought the material for the clothes, they went to the market early, before anyone else had got there; they went into the shop as soon as it was open so that they were the first customers, and they bought only material nobody had ever touched or bought before. Also they weren't allowed to get the price knocked down. As the economy in Britain is stable, all the prices are fixed, and people think it natural to pay the fixed price. It might be difficult to understand for you, but when the economy is unstable there is no fixed price; buyers and sellers both name a price and, when they can agree, the price is fixed. The merchant is always cunning; when a seller thinks 10 pence is right, he asks 15 pence instead of 10. A buyer wants to get it at the lower price and a seller wants to sell at the higher price. They have contradictory intentions towards one another. But, however high a price was asked, they bought the material without knocking the price down

They used a special room for sewing. Korean houses are not divided into rooms like British houses, as people share one room together. Therefore they chose and purified one special room and banned anyone else from entering. As there were no sewing machines at that time, it was necessary to sew the clothes by hand. Also, there was a rule in their sewing: after sewing three stitches the thread had to be tied off. They devoted themselves to this sewing. Why did they have to sew in that way? Because it was an expression of sincerity. It can be considered that sewing three stitches as one unit symbolized perfection. It was a realization of their perfect devotion. Then, as I told you before, those who gathered there totally sympathized with Jesus when they recalled that nobody believed in him and that he had been crucified as a consequence. They spent their days with a strong determination that they would never let the Lord of the Second Advent have the same experience as Jesus had.

Every time before Jesus gave this lady revelations, her belly would move as the belly of a pregnant woman moves. When such a thing happened to her, Jesus appeared and talked to her. Many things were taught in this way. She was also taught how tall the Lord of the Second Advent was, what he looked like and how she should meet him.

When World War II was over, Jesus appeared to her and told her that all the leaders of her religious group would be able to gather together, regardless of whether they wanted to or not, and that somebody would welcome them. It was also always taught that she would meet the Lord of the Second Advent in jail like the heroine in an old Korean story. Jesus told her that she would become a bride of the Second Advent.

The old Korean story is as follows: there was once a couple who got engaged. The man went to the capital to take an examination for a high position in the government, so the young lady had to wait for him alone. The man was successful and eventually came home. However, her bad landlord had meanwhile tried to force the young lady to be his mistress. She had refused and he had become very angry and put her in jail, under sentence of death. But still she didn't change her mind. Then her beloved came back after passing the examination.

When he came back, he disguised himself as a beggar, having been given a special mission to inspect and to punish the bad landlords in the country. There was a chance for him to meet her in the jail before she was to be killed. He was still disguised as a beggar when he met her. When he told her that he had become a beggar after having failed his examination, she said the following famous words: "Whatever you have become, beggar or not, you are still my husband, and my love." They parted from each other in the jail. When she was about to be killed, he appeared and took off his beggar's clothes and showed his real identity. She was saved, and the bad landlord was punished.

In the same way, when Jesus comes again, he will come as an ordinary man even though he is the King of Kings. Then a man of faith will meet Jesus as a bride, keeping faith in the midst of many temptations from Satan. Therefore she was told that she would meet the Lord of the Second Advent in jail, like the story of Chunhanchon which I've just told you.

As there is not so much time left, I'd like to make an end to my speech here. Later I'd like to tell you why those spiritualists couldn't continue their faith in spite of God's detailed and minute guidance. Thank you very much.

Father's Course and Our life of Faith, a biography of Rev. Sun Myung Moon by his first disciple Rev. Won Pil Kim.