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| Lecture 32 : [Moses and Jesus 6] The first worldwide journey of return to Canaan (Jesus) | |
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| Date created : 2015-04-15/ Views : 1240 | |
The providence of return centered on Moses and Jesus 6
Chapter 32: The first worldwide journey of return to Canaan (Jesus)
Welcome back to the path to happiness. I’m your host, Dr. Tyler Hendricks.
In our last session, we learned not to get angry. Accept God’s way, don’t worry, and be grateful. And think about the future, about who will come after you. To Moses’ eternal credit, he raised up his successor, Joshua, selflessly gave everything to him, and accepted God’s judgment. Like Moses, let us accept the vision that God has for us. In this session we will apply these same principles to another successor of Moses, and that is Jesus. We will examine the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the founding of Christianity. Because Adam was overcome by Satan and established hell, Jesus, who came as the last Adam, had to restore heaven by defeating Satan.
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But as already stated, Satan, who would not even naturally surrender to God, would not obediently surrender to Jesus and his disciples.
Therefore, God took the first responsibility for restoration. He established Jacob, showing a model course to defeat Satan.
Jacob walked a symbolic journey of defeating Satan on the family level, Moses walked an image course on the national level, and Jesus walked the substantial journey on the worldwide level.
So God said in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18 verse 18: ‘ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him’.
The ‘prophet like you’ was Jesus, who came to follow course as Moses. As Jesus put it, the son can do only what he sees the father doing; he was referring to Moses.
The central being who had to restore the foundation of faith in order for Jesus to walk the worldwide course of the restoration of Canaan was John the Baptist.
John the Baptist came with the mission of Elijah. (Matthew 11)
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As discussed previously, Elijah was a prophet that came from the period of the divided Israelite dynasties, 900 years before Jesus.
In the Old Testament, Malachi prophesied: “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and terrible day of the LORD comes’, so the people of Israel believed that Elijah had to arrive first in order for the Messiah to come.
The father of John the Baptist was the chief priest ‘Zechariah’, and his mother was ‘Elizabeth’.
According to the Gospels of Luke, these two were righteous people, and according to the Law they were flawless.
Although they were old, they had no children.
Zechariah was burning incense as the chief priest in the Temple, when the angel Gabriel appeared.
We was frightened and surprised, but the angel said not to be afraid and that ‘I heard your prayers’.
Your wife Elizabeth will have a son.
‘Name him John.’
And ‘He will become someone great before God, will not drink strong alcohol, and will receive the abundance of the Holy Sprit from his mother, and will turn the faces of the children to their fathers.
He also said, ‘With Elijah’s spirit and power he will appear before God and return the heart of the fathers to their sons and will prepare the people for the Lord.
Zechariah, thinking of his and his wife’s ages, did not entirely believe in the angel Gabriel.
So the angel said to Zechariah, ‘you will be mute until the baby is born’.
And Zechariah was mute until John was born.
When Elizabeth got pregnant and had the baby, neighbors and relatives flocked their house for 8 days to circumcise the baby, and to name him ‘Zechariah’ after his father.
To this Elizabeth said she would name him ‘John’.
The relatives said ‘no one has the name of John in our family’, and questioned Zechariah.
Then Zechariah wrote ‘John’ on a chalk board.
Once he named him, his tongue was free and was able to talk, and he praised God.
This news of a fearful and astonishing miracle spread to the neighbors.
Like this John was born, amid miracles known by those around him, 6 months before Jesus was born.
The life of John’s period of growth does not appear in the Bible, but in the wilderness “John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey”, so you can see what a serious monastic life he led, and he preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”.
And he baptized the Jews who came from Jerusalem and forgave their sins.
And he introduced that the Lord will come.
He said “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matt 3:11-12)
John the Baptist established the amount of filial piety in order to welcome the Messiah.
That is why the people wondered whether he was the Messiah. (Luke 3:15)
Like this he established the foundation of faith for the world-level course of restoration of Canaan’.
From the position of establishing the foundation of faith, he secured the position of Abel to the nation of Israel.
Thus he secured the position of Abel that is needed to establish the world-level condition restoration through indemnity.
Because the Jews believed in and followed John the Baptist, who was established by God, they were able to restore the foundation of faith and substance to remove the fallen nature on the national level and receive the Messiah.
There was no need for another exodus from the Roman Empire, to go to a different land.
They were supposed to live under the rule of Rome and restore it, with the Messiah, to be the heavenly nation.
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Jesus appeared before John the Baptist when he was 30 years old.
He came to get baptized.
At this moment John the Baptist said ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus told him that this was necessary to fulfill the Law, and so John baptized him. (Matt 3:14)
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water, and at that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. (Matt 3:16)
John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me’ (John 1:15), and testified that Jesus was the Messiah.
He also testified that Jesus was the Messiah in front of his disciples.
’Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ he said. (John 1:29)
However, even though he testified that Jesus was the Messiah, John the Baptist did not trust and follow Jesus.
Later, when he was in jail for preaching against the king, he doubted Jesus and told his disciples to ask Jesus,
”Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? ”(Matt 11:3)
Even though he came as Elijah, and declared that he came to make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet of Malachi foresaw (Malachi 4:5), he denied being Elijah. (John 1:21)
Eventually he should have become one with his disciples and trusted and followed Jesus as the Messiah, but he did not do this.
In fact he ended up blocking the Jews from opening their minds to Jesus.
If you look in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 10 from verse 10 to 14, Jesus said John the Baptist was the prophet Elijah the Israelite people were waiting for.
However John the Baptist himself denied that he was Elijah, putting the Jews in a position of not believing in Jesus.
So John did not establish the foundation of substance, and the formation of the foundation for the Messiah failed.
Thus the first course to restore Canaan on the world level failed, and was extended to the second.
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The long-awaited John the Baptist, who was prophesied by Malachi, who came to make straight the way of the Lord, who was admired and recognized enough for people to ask him, ‘are you the Messiah?’ lost faith. Jesus who came as the Lord had no one to lean on, and had to grasp God’s words and continue on the lonely path of the Messiah.
So we learn that in the way of God’s love, we have to overcome betrayal and disappointment, and persist without changing. Rev. and Mrs. Moon, as well, whom Jesus called as True Parents, have gone through so much betrayal and disappointment. But they never accuse or blame; they, like Jesus, maintain the public messianic mission and take full responsibility, sacrificing everything and taking nothing for themselves. How do we know who they are? Just like Jesus… by their words and deeds, and their unchanging and loving hearts.
We’ll continue our study of Jesus’ course, to its dramatic salvation. Please join us.
