Many of you here have passed your fortieth birthday and are approaching fifty. Perhaps you will die within the next 10 or 20 years. When you come face to face with death, perhaps you will look back on the course you have taken after the point where you came to know God's will and ask yourselves what you have accomplished. What will be your answer?

How will you be able to keep from bowing your head in shame when you are in spirit world? Because of your failure to complete your responsibility to restore the five billion people who are still descendants of Satan, God still cannot claim his rightful place. Also, you have not been able to remove the servant-like mask of unsatisfied desire from His face. How will you go there and walk around with your head held high? How will you live there? You will just have to go hide somewhere. Everything about you will be revealed for all to see.

Is there anyone who can say he won't go to spirit world? Hold up your hand. No one? Do we all have to go? What will you take with you? What are you going to take with you? When a young woman gets married, there's something called a dowry, isn't there. In the dialect of South Pyong-An Province, the word for dowry is "sirari." Sirari. Sirari refers to all the things that a woman takes with her when she gets married and moves away from home. This is the first time you've heard the word "sirari," isn't it? [Yes.]

In this part of Korea you call it "honsu," don't you? Suppose the daughter of a poor family marries the oldest son of a rich family. Just to look at her own appearance she would find it difficult to present herself to all the relatives of the bridegroom. If she couldn't even take a dowry with her, then how could she go and live in a home shared by four generations where she would be serving both parents-in-law and grandparents-in-law? She's about to go into a household where the families of the groom's siblings alone would number close to a hundred. How could she withstand the ridicule if she were to go empty-handed? When her in-laws tell her: "According to our family tradition, so-and-so did this way, so-and-so did this way, Grandmother and all the other women-folk did this way, and older sister did it this way, and so did everyone else, so what about you?" If she is seen as a failure in the family, how will she hold her head up high, or sit down to eat? How will she pick up a spoon?

It's terrible if you can't fit in with the group, if you can't be a part of the group. What will you take with you? When you say, "I've been a member of the Unification Church for forty years," they will say, "Well, what have you brought with you?" Then, how will you respond? When they ask, "What did you eat? Where did you eat?" you may say, "In the Unification Church I just ate for free." Also, they'll say, "What work did you do? You didn't even do your share of the work. The people whom I attend as my parents lived their lives in such and such a way, but is that how you lived? Are you a filial child or not?" Do you think they won't question you like this? Even if you ask yourself these questions, these are the replies you will make to yourself. What is the position-what is your own authority-by which you will be able to withstand such questioning?

I have taken abuse from the whole world and received persecution. I've been through the worst torture in the world, but I can handle incarceration as easily as I eat a meal. That's the environment that I am in; but what about you? Are you just a spectator? Suppose a man did so poorly in his studies that he didn't even finish elementary school. When it comes time for him to get married, and he goes to the home of his parents-in-law, it turns out that his new bride has graduated from university. How embarrassed he will be in that case!

Is the spirit world where you are going a place that is worse off or better off than here? Is the place where you are going after you die worse off than here or better off? It's a place that is tens of millions of times better than here. It's a world where each individual can easily see how he measures up in terms of anything having to do with to moral discipline. It's a place where each individual feels the pain of knowing exactly where he is situated. If you want to go to another world you can see in the distance, then it will take you thousands, even tens of thousands, of years. Just to raise yourself up one stage in the spirit world will take years. There is no limit to how long it could take. Ask them yourselves.

I will be going to the highest position, to the heavenly throne, but you all will not be able to come with me. Because you received the precious thing called the Blessing, the door is open for you, but you can't go because you don't have the proper clothing to wear. Even if you've been invited to a feast, you can't go unless you have the proper clothing, can you? You've been asked to be a groomsman at a wedding, but you can't go dressed as if you just finished working on the farm, can you? Think about it. You have to dress appropriately before you go. Only then will you be qualified to be welcomed into that environment. If not, then you will be thrown out. They will yell at you: "Get out of here, you rascal." You won't have any friends there.

One time many years ago, there was one rich man in Mokpo. He was so rich that he owned all the land in the northern area around the city. He was the richest man in Mokpo. Then, one of my friends was going to get married to this man's only daughter, and become a son-in-law of this rich family. This was during the Japanese colonial occupation, so almost no one could afford the expense of a modern Western-style wedding with the tuxedos and the formal gowns and such. Most of the time, the groom would just wear his civil defense uniform, make sure all the buttons were fastened properly, and stick a flower on his chest.

This rich man, though, because he was rich and had all these friends coming from Tokyo and everywhere, decided to have a modern-style wedding. And I was asked to be a groomsman. I was actually one of four groomsmen there. The bride, too, had four bridesmaids. And so I went. Well, when the bride's family prepared the outfits for the groomsmen, they figured they could make all of them to match the height of the groom. And that included the outfit that I was supposed to wear. In fact, the groom was about the same height as I. But his body wasn't nearly as plump as mine. He was built really flat, like a piece of plywood. I mean he was really thin from front to back. I'm a bit thicker here from front to back. I have the build of a businessman, don't you think?

So when I put on the white shirt they had bought for me and buttoned it up, you could still see my bellybutton. My bellybutton! (Laughter) Ah, when I put on the suit, it was too small, so it spread apart like this. And the shirt stuck out like this. It was such an tremendous hell for me to have to wear those clothes; I still haven't forgotten how terrible it was. Wow! (Laughter) I think that was an important lesson for me, so that I could know how important it is, in terms of the course of fulfilling God's Will, that I be able to fit in when I go to spirit world.

I had to stand in front of this huge crowd. Here was this groomsman, dressed like this, standing in front of a crowd of thousands of people, including everybody who was anybody in South Cholla Province. It was just terrible. I still want to cry out whenever I think about it. I would much rather have found a rat hole somewhere that I could crawl into. It was all I could do to stay there in my place and endure.

After a couple hours of this, my spine began to hurt. Because the clothes were too small, I had to keep a posture that put a lot of pressure on my spine. Then, I started to get muscle cramps. What was I supposed to do? Could I cry in a loud voice? I remember I went over to a wall that had been set up to block the wind. There, I bent over like this to massage the cramped muscles. Some of you are hearing this story for the first time, aren't you? It's the first time you hear about how I massaged my cramps.

It's terrible when you can't fit into a particular environment. I know the spirit world well. I know all the saints and all the founders of religions who are in any way significant. They don't want to yield to you. You must not be shut out from that group. You should feel a sense of shame before me. Isn't that necessary in order for you to become true parents? Isn't that right? It just stands to reason. If you're just freeloading, then about the only group you will fit into is a group of beggars. (212-224)