Category: 2 Samuel

They Called for the Revival of the Spirit of Early Christianity


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2 Samuel 22

37 You clear the way for me,
    and now I won’t stumble.

Isaiah 36

36 Hezekiah had been king of Judah for fourteen years when King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded the country and captured every walled city 2 except Jerusalem. The Assyrian king ordered his army commander to leave the city of Lachish and to take a large army to Jerusalem.

The commander went there and stood on the road near the cloth makers’ shops along the canal from the upper pool. 3 Three of the king’s highest officials came out of Jerusalem to meet him. One of them was Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was the prime minister. The other two were Shebna, assistant to the prime minister, and Joah son of Asaph, keeper of the government records.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
3 Color Edition-The Red part

Chapter 5

The Period of Preparation for the Second Advent of the Messiah

The period of preparation for the Second Advent of the Messiah was the four-hundred-year period from the Protestant Reformation in 1517 to the end of World War I in 1918. With respect to the providence of restoration, this period is divided into three periods: the period of the Reformation, the period of religious and ideological conflicts, and the period of the maturation of politics, economy and ideology.

THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION (1517-1648)

The 130-year period of the Reformation began in 1517, when Martin Luther raised the banner of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, and lasted until the wars of religion were settled by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.  When the purpose of God’s providence through medieval society was not fulfilled, the direction of providential history shifted and God worked to establish anew the foundation for the Second Advent of the Messiah through the Renaissance and the Reformation. 

In the late Middle Ages, man’s original mind was repressed, its free development blocked by the social environment of feudalism and the secularization and corruption of the Roman church.  The social environment of the late Middle Ages blocked the path through which the original nature of the people could be restored. Fettered by such circumstances, medieval Europeans were prompted by the impulses of their innermost hearts to break down their social environment to open the way for the restoration of their original nature.

Medieval Europeans were to restore their original God-given nature by first severing their ties to Satan, who had defiled the society when the papacy failed its internal responsibility to restore the foundation of faith and sank into immorality. As people pursued the recovery of the internal and external aspects of their original nature, the thought of the age branched out into two movements to recover the heritage of the past, which we distinguish in relative terms as Abel-type and Cain-type. The Cain-type movement began as a revival of Hellenism, the culture and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. It gave rise to the Renaissance,7 whose core value was humanism. The Abel-type movement began as a revival of the Hebraic heritage of Israel and the early Christian Church. It gave rise to the Protestant Reformation, whose core value was faith in God.

1.1 THE RENAISSANCE

 It was explained above that the Renaissance grew out of the external pursuits of the original nature. The movement to revive the ancient heritage of Hellenism caught fire. Renaissance humanism thus rose to prominence. The Renaissance came to life in fourteenth-century Italy, which was the center of the study of the classical Hellenic heritage. Though it began as a movement imitating the thought and life of ancient Greece and Rome, it soon developed into a wider movement which transformed the medieval way of life. It expanded beyond the sphere of culture to encompass every aspect of society, including politics, economic life and religion. In fact, it became the external driving force for the construction of the modern world.

1.2 THE REFORMATION

As medieval Europeans sought to realize the external aspirations of their original nature, they also began to pursue its repressed internal aspirations. They called for the revival of the spirit of early Christianity, when believers zealously lived for the Will of God, guided by the words of Jesus and the apostles.

To raise funds to build St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo X began selling indulgences, which Catholic doctrine affirmed would remit the penalty for sin due in the next life. When this indulgence was proclaimed in Germany in 1517, a movement to protest this abuse ignited a fuse which exploded in the Protestant Reformation under the leadership of Martin Luther (1483-1546), a professor of biblical theology at the University of Wittenberg. The flames of the Reformation grew strong and soon spread to Switzerland under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531), to France as led by John Calvin (1509- 1564), and into such nations as England and the Netherlands. The wars of religion which swirled around the Protestant movements continued for more than one hundred years until 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War.

View slides 1 to 19 below for an illustrated presentation of the above content:

2007p2-CHAPT-5-PrepPeriod-forSecond-Advent_revised-4-28-2014

Return to Basics

2 Samuel 12

12 1 and he sent Nathan the prophet to tell this story to David:

A rich man and a poor man lived in the same town. 2 The rich man owned a lot of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had only one little lamb that he had bought and raised. The lamb became a pet for him and his children. He even let it eat from his plate and drink from his cup and sleep on his lap. The lamb was like one of his own children.

4 One day someone came to visit the rich man, but the rich man didn’t want to kill any of his own sheep or cattle and serve it to the visitor. So he stole the poor man’s little lamb and served it instead.

5 David was furious with the rich man and said to Nathan, “I swear by the living Lord that the man who did this deserves to die! 6 And because he didn’t have any pity on the poor man, he will have to pay four times what the lamb was worth.”

7 Then Nathan told David:

You are that rich man! Now listen to what the Lord God of Israel says to you: “I chose you to be the king of Israel. I kept you safe from Saul 8 and even gave you his house and his wives. I let you rule Israel and Judah, and if that had not been enough, I would have given you much more. 9 Why did you disobey me and do such a horrible thing? You murdered Uriah the Hittite by having the Ammonites kill him, so you could take his wife.

10 “Because you wouldn’t obey me and took Uriah’s wife for yourself, your family will never live in peace. 11 Someone from your own family will cause you a lot of trouble, and I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes. He will go to bed with them while everyone looks on. 12 What you did was in secret, but I will do this in the open for everyone in Israel to see.”

13-14 David said, “I have disobeyed the Lord.”

“Yes, you have!” Nathan answered. “You showed you didn’t care what the Lord wanted.[a] He has forgiven you, and you won’t die. But your newborn son will.” 15 Then Nathan went back home.

Richard: Are we poor in spirit? Are we ready to hear what God is saying? David repented; can each of us do the same?

Proverbs 31

31 These are the sayings
that King Lemuel of Massa
    was taught by his mother.
2 My son Lemuel, you were born
in answer to my prayers,
    so listen carefully.
3 Don’t waste your life
chasing after women!
    This has ruined many kings.

4 Kings and leaders
should not get drunk
    or even want to drink.
5 Drinking makes you forget
your responsibilities,
    and you mistreat the poor.
6 Beer and wine are only
for the dying
    or for those
    who have lost all hope.
7 Let them drink
    and forget
how poor and miserable
    they feel.
8 But you must defend
those who are helpless
    and have no hope.
9 Be fair and give justice
    to the poor and homeless.

Richard: God is calling us to return to basics. Stay abstinent before marriage. Be Blessed in marriage and rear godly children. Follow the great commission; do Home Church, which means witnessing and serving in an area of 360 or more homes, as we have been reading in the past weeks.

Selected Passages from the Words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon about Home Church

Today’s Word magazine, September 1981 p. 16

The unified soldier has a mission to return to
his home town and build a holy temple in the
Kingdom of Heaven. Thus, your 360 houses are
your Cain-type home church and your home town
will be your Abel-type home church.
In the future, our organization will become
completely home church. National leaders, center
leaders-everyone-will do home church work.
Thus, Satan will lose all his ground and have to
leave the earth completely. Thus, the era of mobile
activity will draw to a close, and everyone will settle
down.
You left your home and your relatives have
persecuted you. But in a few years you can go
back to them and serve them better than any son
or daughter has ever done in the past. Soon you
can write a letter home saying, Forgive me. Daddy
and Mommy. for my absence. Now I can come
home and become more obedient to you than the
most dutiful son or daughter that ever lived in
this country. In a few years, you can pack your
bags and go home. Then in one night, you can
explain the Principle to your parents. and they will
cry tears of repentance when they understand
what you have done. When you die, your relatives
will erect a tomb in honor of you who died for
the sake of your parents. (9/23/78)

When you get all your home church people
united. don’t you think they would all want to help
you do home church work with your family? They
will do the witnessing for you. When your relatives
come and see your members serving them and you
so sincerely, they will be deeply moved. This is the
normal pattern: Cain and Abel are meant to love
each other and live together harmoniously. The
Bible says your worst enemy is your family (even
without looking it up in the Bible, you know that
from experience!). But if you succeed in your
Cain-type home church, then you won’t even have
to fight your worst enemy.
After the completion of home church in the
Cain world, you can build one more home church:
your Abel-type home church in your home town.
Then you can invite your father and mother and
your whole family to join you, and together with
them you can enter the Kingdom of God. The
Kingdom of God accepts only families, not just
individuals-and families of three generations,
at that. By physically creating our tribal messiah-
ship, we can open the door for national and
worldwide messiahship. (1/1/79)

We Are Entering the Age When Parents Will Bless Their Children

2 Samueal 12

20 David got up off the floor; he took a bath, combed his hair, and dressed. He went into the Lord’s tent and worshiped, then he went back home. David asked for something to eat, and when his servants brought him some food, he ate it.

Richard: Here David picks himself up and continues life after his young son had died. Whatever difficulties arise, we should compose ourselves and continue with the core mission God has given us.

Ezekiel 16

33 Prostitutes accept money for having sex, but you bribe men from everywhere to have sex with you. 34 You’re not like other prostitutes. Men don’t ask you for sex—you offer to pay them!

The Lord said:

35 Jerusalem, you prostitute, listen to me. 36 You chased after lovers, then took off your clothes and had sex. You even worshiped disgusting idols and sacrificed your own children as offerings to them. 37 So I, the Lord God, will gather every one of your lovers, those you liked and those you hated. They will stand around you, and I will rip off your clothes and let all of those lovers stare at your nakedness. 38 I will find you guilty of being an unfaithful wife and a murderer, and in my fierce anger I will sentence you to death! 39 Then I will hand you over to your lovers, who will tear down the places where you had sex. They will take your clothes and jewelry, leaving you naked and empty-handed.

Richard: Jerusalem had fallen far from God’s standard. And although the language in this passage is symbolic, it is also literal. The moral standards of the Israelites had fallen to a very low level. And are we not int he same situation today. God does not accept homosexuality, extra marital sex and all kinds of sexual perversions that happen now. We have deviated far from God’s standard. Abstinence before marriage and absolute faithfulness in marriage is not just a nice idea; it is the standard that God has set up as His ideal of creation.

Cheong Seong Gyeong p. 1400

Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Section 12. The 360 Million Couples


Adam’s was the representative fam-
ily – formed by the union of God and
true parents – that would have embraced
the universe; had Adam not fallen, being
blessed by him would have been a uni-
versal blessing. Yet due to the Fall, they
were separated, and so families in the
world today cannot enter the realm of
grace of this great blessing. In order to
restore that which was lost in Adam’s
family through the Fall, I will bless 360
million couples standing in the equal-
ized position in the realm of families
worldwide. (287-142, 1997.9.14)
After the Blessing of 3.6 Million Cou-
ples, it will be a downhill ride – descent
is easy. That will be the 36 million Cou-
ples: the growth stage. What follows is
the Blessing of 360 Million Couples; by
then we would reach level terrain at the
bottom of the hill. Descending there, we
can return to the state of Adam’s fam-
ily before the Fall. By achieving this, we
are entering the age when parents will
bless their children. From this point on,
you can perform the preliminary Bless-
ing ceremonies yourselves. Recognized
as John the Baptist families, you will be
able to do that in the name of the True
Parents. (287-144, 1997.9.14)
Three hundred and sixty million
couples! To think that we will soon have
blessed 360 million couples! You cannot
deny that God is with us in this task. If
I were to explain this in detail, I would
have to go into the secrets of the New
and Old Testaments and all the histori-
cal theological systems. Once you heard
those things, your ears would be opened
and you would develop an insight into
the providential future. Then there would
be no one on earth who could stop you
from walking your providential path.
Do you want this insight or not? These
secrets are such that you would want to
see them with your own eyes even if you
had heard them, and once you had seen
them you would want to listen to the
words again and again, whether in per-
son or not. To gain this knowledge you
should not go a single day without hear-
ing my words. (287-201, 1997.10.30)
What would happen after the Bless-
ing of 36 Million Couples is accom-
plished and the next goal of 360 million
couples comes in sight? Since that is the
number of couples, that would mean
there would be 720 million individuals
involved in the Blessing. If each of them
brought four members from their fami-
ly, then four times seven is twenty-eight,
and the total number brought by them
would be 2.8 billion. Some would bring
even more than four people. Are there
only four family members per house-
hold in the East? There are some fam-
ilies with between five and ten mem-
bers in them. That would result in more
than three billion people coming over
to God’s side, which is more than half
the world population. The era has come
when, if you were to weigh the two sides
with a scale, our side would be the heavi-
er. (288-18, 1997.10.31)

God Created Human Beings to Give them His Love

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2 Samuel 23

8 These are the names of David’s warriors:

Ishbosheth[d] the son of Hachmon[e] was the leader of the Three Warriors.[f] In one battle, he killed eight hundred men with his spear.[g]

9 The next one of the Three Warriors was Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite. One time when the Philistines were at war with Israel, he and David dared the Philistines to fight them. Every one of the Israelite soldiers turned and ran, 10 except Eleazar. He killed Philistines until his hand was cramped, and he couldn’t let go of his sword. When Eleazar finished, all the Israelite troops had to do was come back and take the enemies’ weapons and armor. The Lord gave Israel a great victory that day.

11 Next was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. One time the Philistines brought their army together to destroy a crop of peas growing in a field near Lehi. The rest of Israel’s soldiers ran away from the Philistines, 12 but Shammah stood in the middle of the field and killed the Philistines. The crops were saved, and the Lord gave Israel a great victory.

13 One year at harvest time, the Three Warriors[h] went to meet David at Adullam Cave.[i] The Philistine army had set up camp in Rephaim Valley 14 and had taken over Bethlehem. David was in his fortress, 15 and he was very thirsty. He said, “I wish I had a drink from the well by the gate at Bethlehem.”

16 The Three Warriors[j] sneaked into the Philistine camp and got some water from the well near Bethlehem’s gate. But after they brought the water back to David, he refused to drink it. Instead, he poured it out as a sacrifice 17 and said to the Lord, “I can’t drink this water! It’s like the blood of these men who risked their lives to get it for me.”

The Three Warriors did these brave deeds.

Hosea 8

8 Israel, you are ruined,
and now the nations
    consider you worthless.
9 You are like a wild donkey
    that goes its own way.
You’ve run off to Assyria
    and hired them as allies.
10 You can bargain with nations,
    but I’ll catch you anyway.
Soon you will suffer abuse
    by kings and rulers.

11 Israel, you have built
many altars
where you offer
    sacrifices for sin.
But these altars have become
    places for sin.
12 My instructions for sacrifices
were written in detail,
    but you ignored them.
13 You sacrifice your best animals
    and eat the sacrificial meals,[c]
but I, the Lord,
    refuse your offerings.
I will remember your sins
    and punish you.
Then you will return to Egypt.[d]

14 Israel, I created you,
    but you forgot me.
You and Judah built palaces
    and many strong cities.[e]
Now I will send fire to destroy
    your towns and fortresses.

The Toil of God as He Tries to Raise up His Beloved Children

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
October 11, 1959

John 3: 11-21

1 Corinthians 7:28-29

God created Adam and Eve as the heroes who could govern all things of Heaven and earth. God is the motive of love and the origin of love. He created Adam and Eve to invest all His love in them.

God did not create human beings to have them rule the entire universe. We have to understand that God created human beings to give them His love.

If God’s love is the power that motivates all things of the universe, why did God create and bless Adam and Eve? God created Adam and Eve as the people to whom He would give all the love which flows in Heaven and earth. You have to understand that God created our ancestors centering on that love.

God, who established the ideals and created the universe, must have rejoiced when He thought about how the creation of the universe would reach a finale with the creation of Adam and Eve. Moreover, God must have been indescribably happy as He watched Adam and Eve grow up. He looked at Adam and Eve with incredible joy and happiness. Don’t you think this is how it was? That was Adam and Eve.

God wanted to love Adam and Eve to the extent that He forgot about His dignity as the Creator, He forgot about all His powers and His omnipresent existence. You have to understand, then, how it must have been for God to look at Adam and Eve after the Fall.

Although you are children born of Satan’s lineage, you still love infinitely. You know how to love your beloved without limits. If human beings had not fallen, and good children rather than evil children had multiplied on the earth, then you could have looked at your children and felt the same intense feeling of love that God felt toward Adam and Eve after He created them.

We Hope to Become the True Children of His Direct Lineage

Today, August 20, 1985, Rev. Sun Myung Moon was released from unjust imprisonment for trumped up charges of tax evasion and was welcomed by 1700 religious leaders and prominent laypeople at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. I was also present at the celebration: Read a report here.

2 Samuel 21

5 They replied, “Saul tried to kill all our people so that none of us would be left in the land of Israel. 6 Give us seven of his descendants. We will hang[d] these men near the place where the Lord is worshiped in Gibeah, the hometown of Saul, the Lord’s chosen king.”

“I’ll give them to you,” David said.

7 David had made a promise to Jonathan with the Lord as his witness, so he spared Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul. 8 But Saul and Rizpah the daughter of Aiah had two sons named Armoni and Mephibosheth. Saul’s daughter Merab[e] had five sons whose father was Adriel the son of Barzillai from Meholah.[f] David took Rizpah’s two sons and Merab’s five sons and 9 turned them over to the Gibeonites, who hanged[g] all seven of them on the mountain near the place where the Lord was worshiped. This happened right at the beginning of the barley harvest.[h]

Richard: Here the Israelites were punished for the crime of murder committed by Saul. We may have murder in our own ancestry, and could be liable for those sins. For instance, the crime of abortion is murder. The real solution to the problem of abortion is the teaching of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage promoted by Urban Life Training, and explained in the teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and specifically, Peace Message 10.

Isaiah 64

Rip the heavens apart!
Come down, Lord;
    make the mountains tremble.
2 Be a spark that starts a fire
    causing water to boil.[a]
Then your enemies will know
    who you are;
all nations will tremble
    because you are nearby.

3 Your fearsome deeds
    have completely amazed us;
even the mountains shake
    when you come down.
4 You are the only God
    ever seen or heard of
who works miracles
    for his followers.

5 You help all who gladly obey
and do what you want,
    but sin makes you angry.

Rev Sun Myung Moon
July 26, 1959

Romans 8: 12-27

What does humanity hope for? It is to do away with this notion of being an adopted son before God and become the true children of His direct lineage. This is the ultimate purpose which humanity wants and history pursues; this is the central purpose of God, who has been fulfilling the providential will. Only then can we say that the purpose of salvation has been achieved and the providence of salvation brought to a conclusion.

If the almighty God, the origin and center of love, loves us as adopted sons, we do not want that kind of love. We seek to become sons and daughters who can penetrate deep into the core of His heart.

No matter how religious one’s life may be, and even if one calls God his father, there are many different kinds of fathers. Some will call Him “Father” from a position of not being His son. Some may call Him “Father” from the position of an adopted son. However, what is the ultimate purpose which Heaven demands, which will not disappear until the end? It is not to have an adopted son but to have true sons and daughters of the direct lineage. This stands above and beyond the position of an adopted son.

In the Bible, it is written that Jesus restores the relationship of an adopted son. Even if the world is satisfied with achieving only that, this salvation cannot be complete. Many Christians have passed away to the next world, but the Paradise they went to is only a waiting room before entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, the reason Jesus said that he would return was not to make us adopted sons but to forge direct relationships.

God longs for sons and daughters who are one with Him in heart, who do not act based on lessons or commands but who act and build relationships based on the manifestation.

For this reason, even the saints and sages of the past did not attain their ideal if they were not worthy of calling God their father and if God could not call them His own son or daughter. You have to understand this clearly.

This is what is unique about Christianity. Jesus called God his own father and proclaimed himself God’s only son. Jesus was the incarnation. He established the one standard to pierce through the core of Heaven and the foundation of the universe, and to conquer the world of the heart. From this we can understand that Jesus was the Messiah for all people.

What is the Messiah or savior? He is someone who can be the standard to save people who dwell in the realm of death. Therefore, if there is something unique and worthy of pride that Christianity possesses it is this. When the relationship of parent-child is forged with God, no matter how lofty God is, even if He is the absolute subject partner of goodness, He is our Father. Then what belongs to God belongs to us, and we will belong to God. This is the highest hope of humanity. Even if God has been relating to people with the highest standard of love, if He cannot guide humanity to the destination of that love, He must be false. If He cannot do this, then we can only conclude that God has guided the providence only to satisfy His own desires and greed, not for the sake of establishing the ideal of human beings and for everyone’s sake. For this reason, God seeks true sons and daughters.