Old Testament | Daily Inspiration

Stalin Was the Anti-type of the Second Advent of Christ

View my latest video at the VisionRoot channel: The Emperor Has No Clothes; Stop the Madness and Lock Downs : https://youtu.be/i9HCbM-bwtE.

Numbers 9

⁹The Lord then told Moses ¹⁰to say to the community of Israel:

If any of you or your descendants touch a dead body and become unfit to worship me, or if you are away on a long journey, you may still celebrate Passover. ¹¹But it must be done in the second month,^[c] in the evening of the fourteenth day. Eat the Passover lamb with thin bread and bitter herbs, ¹²and don’t leave any of it until morning or break any of the animal’s bones. Be sure to follow these regulations.

¹³But if any of you refuse to celebrate Passover when you are not away on a journey, you will no longer belong to my people. You will be punished because you did not offer sacrifices to me at the proper time.

¹⁴Anyone, including foreigners who live among you, can celebrate Passover, if they follow all the regulations.

Isaiah 3

¹⁶The Lord says:
    The women of Jerusalem
are proud
and strut around,
    winking shamelessly.
They wear anklets that jingle
and call attention
    to the way they walk.
¹⁷But I, the Lord, will cover
    their heads with sores,
and I will uncover
    their private parts.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
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4.3 THE SECOND WORLD WAR

4.3.1 SUMMARY OF THE PROVIDENCE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

In the Second World War, democracy, while standing upon the formation stage victory attained in the First World War, defeated fascism and secured victory at the growth stage.

4.3.3 THE NATIONS ON GOD’S SIDE AND THE NATIONS ON SATAN’S SIDE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

In the Second World War, an alliance of the democratic nations of the United States, Great Britain and France led the nations on God’s side. Satan’s side was the alliance of the fascist nations: Germany, Japan and Italy.

4.3.4 THE PROVIDENTIAL ROLES OF THE THREE NATIONS ON GOD’S SIDE AND SATAN’S SIDE

In the beginning, it was due to the Fall of Adam, Eve and the Archangel that God’s three great blessings were not realized. During the Second World War, the three nations on God’s side representing Adam, Eve and the Archangel led the fight against the three nations on Satan’s side, which also represented Adam, Eve and the Archangel. The victory of the nations on God’s side would make a growth-stage indemnity condition for the restoration of the three great blessings. Satan, who was aware of this providence, took the lead by mustering the three nations representing Adam, Eve and the Archangel on his side and had them attack the three nations on God’s side. The United States, as a masculine type of nation, represented Adam on God’s side. Great Britain, as a feminine type of nation, represented Eve on God’s side. France, as a mixed type of nation, represented the Archangel on God’s side. On Satan’s side, Germany, as a masculine type of nation, represented Adam; Japan, as a feminine type of nation, represented Eve; and Italy, as a mixed type of nation, represented the Archangel.

4.3.5 THE PROVIDENTIAL CAUSES BEHIND THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The internal, providential causes behind the Second World War were as follows: First, the war broke out to fulfill the worldwide indemnity condition at the growth stage to restore God’s three great blessings.

The second providential cause behind the war was to have the people on God’s side overcome Jesus’ second temptation on the world level. In light of the meaning of Jesus’ three temptations, we can recognize that God’s side had to prevail in the Second World War to fulfill the indemnity condition to restore worldwide God’s second blessing.

The third providential cause behind the war was to lay the growth-stage foundation for the restoration of God’s sovereignty.

4.3.6 THE PROVIDENTIAL RESULTS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The victory of God’s side in the Second World War fulfilled the growth-stage indemnity condition to restore God’s three great blessings worldwide. Having the significance of overcoming Jesus’ second temptation on the world level, the victory fulfilled the indemnity condition to restore God’s second blessing worldwide. Finally, by laying the growth-stage foundation for the democratic world, it established the growth-stage foundation to restore God’s sovereignty.

Stalin was the anti-type of the Second Advent of Christ on Satan’s side. The age for building a new heaven and new earth under the leadership of Christ at the Second Advent had begun. At the conclusion of the Second World War, the growth stage of the dispensation of the Second Advent commenced. Many Christians began receiving revelations about the return of Jesus, and God’s spiritual works began occurring throughout the world.

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A Third Religious Reformation is Badly Needed

View my latest video at the VisionRoot channel: The Emperor Has No Clothes; Stop the Madness and Lock Downs : https://youtu.be/i9HCbM-bwtE.

John 20

20 On Sunday morning while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. ²She ran to Simon Peter and to Jesus’ favorite disciple and said, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb! We don’t know where they have put him.”

Richard: The early disciples were uncertain after Jesus’ Crucifixion, not sure what was going to happen. We are also in a time of uncertainty now. Yet, as you are reading, Rev. Sun Myung Moon has left a clear path for us to follow.

Ezra 1

⁵Many people felt that the Lord God wanted them to help rebuild his temple, and they made plans to go to Jerusalem. Among them were priests, Levites, and leaders of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. ⁶The others helped by giving silver articles, gold, personal possessions, cattle, and other valuable gifts, as well as offerings for the temple.

⁷King Cyrus gave back the things that Nebuchadnezzar^[c] had taken from the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem and had put in the temple of his own gods. ⁸Cyrus placed Mithredath, his chief treasurer, in charge of these things. Mithredath counted them and gave a list to Sheshbazzar, the governor of Judah. ^9-10Included among them were: 30 large gold dishes; 1,000 large silver dishes; 29 other dishes;^[d] 30 gold bowls; 410 silver bowls; and 1,000 other articles.

Richard: Some people feel that President Trump is in the position of Cyrus (https://youtu.be/XWZ5wnuZthE, start at 13:26) or https://youtu.be/2Z4u2494vHI. He had an unusual win in the 2016 Election, and has managed to anger corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle. Prayerfully, he will lead us in the right direction during the current crisis. See my video The Emperor Has No Clothes; Stop the Madness and Lock Downs : https://youtu.be/i9HCbM-bwtE.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
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3.2 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS

The concept of the separation of powers into three branches of government was advocated by Montesquieu (1689-1755), a leading thinker of the Enlightenment. It sought to prevent the concentration of political power in the hands of a single individual or institution, as was the case with political absolutism. The idea was proclaimed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man during the French Revolution. From the beginning, the separation of powers was to be characteristic of the political structure of the ideal society which God has been working to realize. Yet here again, as we observe throughout the course of the providence, Satan was defectively mimicking an aspect of the Principle ahead of its realization by God.

In the human body, the lungs, heart and stomach maintain harmonious interaction in accord with the directions of the brain, transmitted through the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system. By analogy, the three branches of government in the ideal world—the legislative, judicial and executive branches—will interact in harmonious and principled relationships when they follow God’s guidance as conveyed through Christ and people of God. In the ideal world, because people’s horizontal relationships with each other are rooted in their vertical relationship with God, they will form one integrated and interdependent society in which they share all their joys and sorrows.

3.3 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

God’s ideal of creation cannot be fulfilled merely by forming a world without sin. God blessed human beings to have dominion over the universe.11 We are to seek for the hidden laws of nature and advance science and technology to create a pleasant living environment. Thus, we can understand that the Industrial Revolution which began in England arose out of God’s providence to restore the living environment to one suitable for the ideal world. In so doing, the Industrial Revolution opened up a vast territory for the propagation of the Gospel. Accordingly, it contributed to both the internal and external aspects of the providence of restoration.

3.4 THE RISE OF THE GREAT POWERS

Science, industrialization created economies characterized by overproduction. The great powers of Europe, which felt an urgent need to pioneer new lands as markets for their products and as sources of raw materials for their factories, grew strong as they competed with each other in the scramble for colonies. Thus, two factors—the two trends in ideology and the course of economic development following the progress of science—caused the later political division of the world into two blocs: the democratic world and the communist world.

3.5 RELIGIOUS REFORMS AND POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS SINCE THE RENAISSANCE

The Cain-type movement which began with the revival of Hellenism overthrew the medieval world and gave birth to the humanism of the Renaissance. As this movement developed further, moving in Satan’s direction, it gave birth to the Enlightenment, which may be regarded as the second renaissance in the current of ideology. Enlightenment thought further matured in the satanic direction, giving birth to historical materialism, which is the core of communist ideology. This may be regarded as the third renaissance.

Since the satanic side mimics in advance the providence of God, we may expect that God’s providence calls for three stages of revolution to take place in each of the three spheres of religion, politics and economy. In the sphere of religion, the first reformation took place under Martin Luther’s leadership after the first renaissance. A second reformation was launched after the second renaissance by the spiritual movements led by people such as the Wesley brothers, Fox and Swedenborg. From our examination of the progress of history, it is evident that a third reformation will occur following the third renaissance.

In the political sphere, we can surmise that reform also is taking place in three stages. First, medieval feudal society collapsed under the weight of the first renaissance and the first reformation. Next, absolute monarchy was destroyed by the forces unleashed by the second renaissance and the second reformation. Finally, the communist world was formed by the political revolutions brought on by the third renaissance. Through the coming third religious reformation, the democratic world on God’s side will triumph in the ideological war and bring the communist world on Satan’s side to its knees. Then the two worlds will unite into one Kingdom of Heaven on earth under God.

The economic changes which follow the religious and political reforms have been progressing in three industrial revolutions. The first Industrial Revolution originated in England and was based on the steam engine. A century later, the second Industrial Revolution took place in many advanced nations based on electricity and the gasoline engine. The third Industrial Revolution will flower by safely tapping the power of the atom; it will construct a pleasant living environment for the ideal world. In the centuries of preparation prior to the Second Advent of the Messiah, the three stages of revolutions in the three spheres of religion, politics and industry, which followed the three renaissances, have been a necessary course for the construction of the ideal world, as required by the principle of development through three stages.

Richard: Here is what Wikipedia says about the “Fourth Great Awakening”.

The Fourth Great Awakening is a debated concept that has not received the acceptance of the first three. Advocates such as economist Robert Fogel say it happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s.^[21] The Jesus Movement is one evidence of this awakening, and it created a shift in church music styles.
Mainline Protestant denominations weakened sharply in both membership and influence while the most conservative religious denominations (such as the Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans) grew rapidly in numbers, spread across the United States, had grave internal theological battles and schisms, and became politically powerful.^[22]

I would add to the Jesus Movement the Unification Movement founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose teachings you are reading in this blog. The concept of the second or third Renaissance is not one generally accepted, but I believe it is related to the Great Awakenings. Also, Rev. Moon worked extensively to show the fallacies of godless Communism, and was instrumental in the fall of Communism and the former Soviet Union

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They Called for the Revival of the Spirit of Early Christianity

View my latest video at the VisionRoot channel: Can You Trust the CDC and the World Health Organization on Covid-19? Evidence from the DTP Vaccine and H1N1 “pandemic” : https://youtu.be/1np0IMw97fk.

2 Samuel 22

³⁷You 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 ²except 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. ³Three 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
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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.

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Religion and Economy are Integrated with our Life in Society through Politics

Genesis 45

¹²All of you, including my brother Benjamin, can tell by what I have said that I really am Joseph. ¹³Tell my father about my great power here in Egypt and about everything you have seen. Hurry and bring him here.

Psalm 78

God made a path in the sea
    and piled up the water
    as he led them across.
¹⁴He guided them during the day
    with a cloud,
    and each night he led them
    with a flaming fire.
¹⁵God made water flow
from rocks
he split open
    in the desert,
    and his people drank freely,
    as though from a lake.
¹⁶He made streams gush out
    like rivers from rocks.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
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7.2 THE PROGRESS OF HISTORY IN THE AGE OF THE PROLONGATION OF THE PROVIDENCE OF RESTORATION

7.2.1 THE PROVIDENCE OF RESTORATION AND THE HISTORY OF THE WEST

The original providential role of the Roman Empire, which had unified the ancient world around the Mediterranean Sea, was to lay the foundation for Christ’s kingdom on earth. Had the Jewish people believed in Jesus as the Messiah and united with him, the Roman Empire would have been won over by Jesus during his lifetime. Jesus would have been honored throughout the empire as the King of Kings. He would have established a worldwide dominion with Jerusalem as its capital. However, because the Jewish people disbelieved, Judea was destroyed and the Roman Empire was fated to decline. After a century of barbarian invasions, the Western Roman Empire came to an end in 476 A.D. In this manner, the center of God’s providence of restoration shifted from Judea, the land of God’s bitter grief, to Western Europe, formerly the territory of the Western Roman Empire now occupied by the Germanic tribes. Accordingly, the spiritual providence of restoration based on Christianity has been conducted primarily in Western Europe. Only in Western Europe has the history of this era progressed strictly according to the pattern set by the providence of restoration.

7.2.2 THE MUTUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS HISTORY, ECONOMIC HISTORY AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Although religion and economy, like religion and science, seem to develop at variance with each other, they are related in the life of society. Thus, there has been some mutual influence between the history of Christianity and economic history. Religion and economy are integrated with our life in society through politics.

7.2.3 CLAN SOCIETY

With the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish nation had fallen to Satan’s side and God could not continue with His providence of restoration in that society under such circumstances. Consequently, God broke up that society, calling devout believers out of it to establish a Christian clan society.

Despite severe persecution, Christian clan society gradually prospered in the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea and developed into a Christian tribal society. Battered by the mass migrations of peoples which began in the latter half of the fourth century, the Western Roman Empire fell by 476 A.D. Christian society expanded greatly as Christianity was brought to the Germanic peoples who migrated into this territory.

7.2.4 FEUDALISTIC SOCIETY

With the progress of history, clan society developed into feudalistic society. A feudalistic society was born in Europe when, around the fall of the Roman Empire, imperial authority waned and the empire sank into chaos.

Out of the ashes of the Western Roman Empire, God raised a feudalistic society among the newly-Christianized Germanic peoples whom He had chosen to lead the providence. By strengthening small units under godly sovereignty in the spheres of religious, political and economic life, God laid the groundwork to establish a godly kingdom.

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God Has Been Creating the Religious, Political and Economic Environment Conducive to the Work of Christ at His Second Coming

Hebrews 11

³⁵Some women received their loved ones back from death. Many of these people were tortured, but they refused to be released. They were sure that they would get a better reward when the dead are raised to life. ³⁶Others were made fun of and beaten with whips, and some were chained in jail. ³⁷Still others were stoned to death or sawed in two or killed with swords. Some had nothing but sheep skins or goat skins to wear. They were poor, mistreated, and tortured. ³⁸The world did not deserve these good people, who had to wander in deserts and on mountains and had to live in caves and holes in the ground.

³⁹All of them pleased God because of their faith! But still they died without being given what had been promised. ⁴⁰This was because God had something better in store for us. And he did not want them to reach the goal of their faith without us.

Richard: With the teachings you are studying, we can fulfill “something better in store for us”.

Jeremiah 22

²⁴King Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, even if you were the ring I wear as the sign of my royal power, I would still pull you from my finger. ²⁵I would hand you over to the enemy you fear, to King Nebuchadnezzar and his army, who want to kill you. ²⁶You and your mother were born in Judah, but I will throw both of you into a foreign country, where you will die, ²⁷longing to return home.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
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THE PERIOD OF ISRAEL’S EXILE AND RETURN AND THE PERIOD OF THE PAPAL EXILE AND RETURN

By falling into faithlessness without repentance, the people of Israel failed to realize the ideal of God’s nation founded upon the Temple. God had the people suffer hardships as exiles in Babylon. This was similar to when God had the Israelites suffer as slaves in Egypt. The emperors and popes became corrupt and did not repent. The popes did not lay the spiritual foundation upon which the emperors could stand as the central figures for the foundation of substance. Therefore, the foundation for the Second Advent of Christ was not established. To begin a new dispensation to restore this foundation, God allowed the popes to be taken into exile and suffer captivity. In the earlier parallel period, nearly seventy years elapsed from the time King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took into captivity King Jehoiachin and his royal family, as well as prophets including Daniel and Ezekiel, priests, officials, craftsmen and many other Israelites, until the fall of Babylon and their liberation by the royal decree of King Cyrus.14 It then took another 140 years for the exiles to return to their homeland in three waves, until they fully reformed themselves as a nation united around the Will of God as proclaimed in the messianic prophecies of Malachi. Henceforth, they began to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

This period of approximately 210 years ran from 1309, with the papacy’s seventy years of exile in Avignon, through the Great Schism, the conciliar movement and the restoration of papal authority in the Roman church, to the eve of the Protestant Reformation spearheaded by Martin Luther in 1517. Its purpose was to restore through indemnity, in the form of substantial parallels, the 210-year period of Israel’s exile and return—from Israel’s seventy years of exile in Babylon through the stages of the returning to Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple, until the reform of politics and religion under the leadership of Ezra, Nehemiah and the prophet Malachi.

THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH AND THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION FOR THE SECOND ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH

Following the period of Israel’s exile and return, another four hundred years elapsed before Jesus came. This was the period of preparation for the advent of the Messiah. Likewise, Christianity is to meet Christ at his Second Advent only after passing through four hundred years of the period of preparation for the Second Advent of the Messiah, which has followed the period of papal exile and return. It should restore through indemnity in the form of substantial parallels the period of preparation for the advent of the Messiah.

Upon returning from the Babylonian exile, the Israelites established the foundation of faith by repenting of their past sin of idolatry, rebuilding the Temple15 which had been destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar, and reforming their faith based on the Mosaic Law under the guidance of Ezra the scribe.16 They then began to prepare for the coming of the Messiah according to the word of the prophet Malachi. Likewise, after the papacy’s return to Rome, medieval Christians established the foundation of faith by seeking to reform the Roman church; these efforts culminated in the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther. This movement pierced the gloom of medieval Europe with the light of the Gospel and pioneered new paths of faith.

Meanwhile, among the world’s peoples, God founded religions suited to their regions and cultures by which they could make the necessary internal preparations to receive the Messiah. In India, God established Buddhism through Gautama Buddha (565-485 B.C.) as a new development out of Hinduism. In Greece, God inspired Socrates (470-399 B.C.) and opened the brilliant age of classical Greek civilization. In the Far East, God raised up Confucius (552-479 B.C.), whose teachings of Confucianism established the standard of human ethics. Jesus was to come upon this worldwide foundation of preparation, and through his teachings he was to bring together Judaism, Hellenism, Buddhism and Confucianism. He was to unify all religions and civilizations into one worldwide civilization founded upon the Christian Gospel.

Since the Renaissance, God has been creating the religious, political and economic environment conducive to the work of Christ at his Second Coming. Beginning with the Renaissance, progress in virtually every field of human endeavor, including politics, economy, culture and science, has increased at a rapid rate. Today, these fields have reached their zenith and have created a global environment conducive to the work of Christ at his Second Coming. In Jesus’ day, the Roman Empire ruled the vast domains around the Mediterranean Sea, integrated by an advanced and extensive transportation system reaching out in all directions. This was the center of a vast Hellenistic civilization founded on the Greek language. Thus, all the necessary preparations had been made for a swift transmission of the teachings of the Messiah from Israel, where Jesus lived, to Rome and the world. Similarly, in the present era of the Second Advent, the influence of the Western powers has expanded the democratic political sphere throughout the world. The rapid progress of transportation and communication has greatly bridged the gap between East and West, and the extensive contact among languages and cultures has brought the world much closer together. These developments characterize an environment in which the teachings of the returning Christ can freely and swiftly be conveyed to the hearts of all humankind.

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