1 John 4
7 My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. 8 God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. 9 God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. 10 Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other.
Judges 16
16 One day while Samson was in Gaza, he saw a prostitute and went to her house to spend the night. 2 The people who lived in Gaza found out he was there, and they decided to kill him at sunrise. So they went to the city gate and waited all night in the guardrooms on each side of the gate.[a]
3 But Samson got up in the middle of the night and went to the town gate. He pulled the gate doors and doorposts out of the wall and put them on his shoulders. Then he carried them all the way to the top of the hill that overlooks Hebron,[b] where he set the doors down, still closed and locked.
Richard: Samson had a problem with unethical sexual relationships with women, which ended up being his downfall.
Exposition of the Divine Principle
3 Color Edition-The Red part
Chapter 4
The Parallels between the Two Ages in the Providence of Restoration
Since the ultimate purpose of the providence of restoration is to lay the foundation for the Messiah, if it is prolonged, the dispensations to restore this foundation must be repeated. In the course of the providence, the repetition of dispensations to restore the foundation for the Messiah has meant, in effect, the repetition of dispensations to restore through indemnity the symbolic offering and the substantial offering.
God’s first chosen people consisted of the descendants of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob, who had established the family foundation for the Messiah. Therefore, the nation centrally responsible for God’s providence in the Age of the Providence of Restoration was Israel. The Old Testament, which records the history of Israel, provides the source material with which to study the history of the providence in that age. Indeed, the people who became centrally responsible for the providence in the Age of the Prolongation of the Providence of Restoration were not the Jews, but rather the Christians. They assumed the mission to accomplish God’s unfulfilled providence of restoration. Accordingly, the history of Christianity provides the source material for understanding providential history in this age.
THE PERIOD OF SLAVERY IN EGYPT AND THE PERIOD OF PERSECUTION IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
After Jacob entered Egypt with his twelve sons and seventy kinsmen,their descendants suffered terrible abuse at the hands of the Egyptians for four hundred years. This was for the restoration of the four-hundred-year period from Noah to Abraham—a period for the separation of Satan—which had been defiled due to Abraham’s mistake in his offering. The corresponding period of persecution in the Roman Empire was to restore this previous period through parallel indemnity conditions. Jesus’ twelve apostles and seventy disciples were the first of many generations of Christians who suffered severe persecution in the Roman Empire over a period of four hundred years. By enduring this suffering,they were restoring through indemnity the four-hundred-year period of preparation for the advent of the Messiah—a period for the separation of Satan—which had been defiled due to the Jewish people’s mistake in not honoring Jesus as a living sacrifice but leading him to the cross.
At the end of Israel’s slavery in Egypt, Moses brought the Pharaoh to his knees by the power of the three signs and ten plagues. He then led the Israelites out of Egypt and set out for the land of Canaan.Likewise, toward the end of the period of persecution in the Roman Empire, after Christians had drunk the cup of persecution to the fill,Jesus increased the numbers of believers by moving their hearts with his power and grace. By stirring the heart of Emperor Constantine,Jesus led him to recognize Christianity in 313 A.D. Jesus inspired Theodosius I in 392 A.D. to establish Christianity as the state religion. Christians thus restored Canaan spiritually inside the Roman Empire, the satanic world.
When the period of slavery in Egypt was over, Moses on Mt. Sinai received the Ten Commandments and God’s Word revealed in the Law,which formed the core of the Old Testament Scriptures. By setting up and honoring the tablets of stone, the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle, he paved the way for the Israelites to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. Likewise, at the conclusion of the period of persecution in the Roman Empire, Christians gathered the writings which had been left behind by the apostles and evangelists and established the canon of the New Testament. Based on these writings, they sought to realize God’s ideals spiritually, ideals which had been enshrined in the Ten Commandments and the Tabernacle in the Old Testament Age.They built up churches and expanded their foundation to prepare forthe Second Coming of Christ.
THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES AND THE PERIOD OF REGIONAL CHURCH LEADERSHIP
Upon inheriting the mission of Moses, Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan. For the next four hundred years, fifteen judges governed the Israelite tribes: thirteen judges from Othniel to Samson record-ed in the Book of Judges, as well as Eli and Samuel. The judges filled the various responsibilities of prophet, priest and king, which became separate offices in the later periods. Israel in this period was a feudalistic society with no central political authority. In the New Testament Age, the period of regional church leadership was set up to restore the period of the judges through parallel indemnity conditions. In this period, regional church leaders—patriarchs, bishops and abbots—led Christian society. Like the judges of the Old Testament Age, they had duties similar to those of prophet, priest and king. As in the time of the judges, Christian society in this period was a feudalistic society under these local authorities.
View slides 1 to 25 below for an illustrated presentation of the above content:
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