If you were directly told that a person was the Messiah today on the news, how would you react?"In world news, Oprah Winfrey has declared she has found the living Messiah. She plans to conduct a life class workshop on his teaching this Friday."
Would you think she was mistaken or would you research the person's teachings and ask God in prayer?
What if he came back as an ordinary man just the way Jesus did?
We can easily research the past. How did the Israelites react when Jesus said he was the one they have long awaited; he said he was the fulfillment of God's word? How does one react whenever God commanded a figure to fulfill his Will? It is always met with opposition.
This is described very well in the movie "Evan Almighty" the second installment of Jim Carrey's hilarious film. In it, Evan becomes a senator and moves his family only to have his life derailed when God tells him to build an ark. Everyone, except his kids, thinks that he has lost his mind. This accurately describes how lonely a position one takes when they fulfill God's Will. God's plans are mysterious to the outside world.
Moses Mission Prolonged Due to Faithlessness
Moses was a messiah for the Israelites. He directly freed them from slavery and led them out of Egypt. Was Moses praised for this? Were the people excited even after he led them safely away from the soldiers, did they completely follow God's commands through Moses words?
We know how they had reacted. Over and over they complained to Moses. They even dreamed about returning to Egypt as slaves! The first generation's disobedience led them to die in the wilderness. This prolonged God's plan to send them directly from Egypt, and in a matter of a time period centered on 40 days, they would enter Canaan. They had the responsibility to follow Moses, instead they fell into faithlessness.
They lost the blessing and had to regain it through the indemnity of 40 years in the wilderness. God raised the second generation who would have faith and led them into Canaan.
In Moses's time and also in Jesus's time they were met with opposition that prolonged God's plan to bring his people to the promised land or Heaven on Earth. So, as the Messiah returns in our time he will be seen as a blasphemer because people are looking for another. Even John the Baptist after proclaiming Jesus had doubts, "Are you the one to come or shall we look for another?"
Was Jesus happy with this response, was this part of the providence of Jesus? Jesus answered the messenger to tell John
Yes, God ordained John the Baptist to be a precursor to testify to the people that Jesus was the one to follow. Yes, God does not practice His absolute authority to make a person fulfill the prophecy. Everyone has their portion of responsibility to fulfill God's Will.
So when a person God has ordained to do His works fails to complete His Will, He works through another. It was up to John the Baptist to follow Jesus and testify to the people about him his whole life. Yet, John left Jesus's side and even had doubts that Jesus was the Messiah in the end.
John the Baptist's Failure Prolongs God's Will
Just as God's saints have a role to complete the process of restoring man, so do each of us. We pray to seek God's answer to find out who the Messiah is that has returned now. John the Baptist had been chosen while still inside the womb for the mission of attending Jesus. He led an arduous, ascetic life in the wilderness, building his ministry in order to prepare the way for the coming Messiah.
When Jesus began his public ministry, God revealed the identity of Jesus to John before anyone else and inspired John to bear witness to him as the Son of God. Yet John did not properly receive the grace that Heaven had bestowed on him. Therefore, when confronted with John's doubting question, Jesus did not answer explicitly that he was the Messiah; he instead answered in a round about way.
No doubt, John the Baptist must have known about Jesus' miracles and signs. Despite this, Jesus gave a veiled answer, reminding John of the works that he was doing, with the hope of awakening him to his true identity.
We should understand that when Jesus said, "the poor have good news preached to them," he was expressing his deep sorrow over the disbelief of John the Baptist and the Jewish leadership. The prepared Jews, and John the Baptist in particular, were the rich people who had been blessed with an abundant wealth of God's love.
Yet because they all rejected Jesus, he had to roam the seacoast of Galilee and the region of Samaria to search among the "poor" for those who would listen to the Gospel. These poor ones were uneducated fishermen, tax collectors and prostitutes.
The disciples whom Jesus would have preferred to find were not the disciples who followed him. Since Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, he was more in need of one leader who could guide a thousand, than a thousand who would follow a leader.
Did he not first preach the Gospel to the priests and scribes in the Temple? He went there in search of prepared and capable people.
Nonetheless, as Jesus indicated in a parable, because the guests who were invited to the banquet did not come, he had to roam the streets and byways to gather the poor and maimed, the blind and lame
Instead of having John the Baptist, who everyone revered as a prophet himself, testify unto death that Jesus was the one, Jesus was rejected. This means, God's complete will for Jesus was also rejected and then the dispensation has to wait for another prepared nation, central figure, and people to accept the coming of the Second Advent. This is not God's will. He wants to restore the world as soon as possible, not make His children wait in suffering for 2, 0000 years.
Revelations Prophesy Of Christians Missing Second Coming
There are words that tell us who the returned Messiah is in each the Old and New Testament. Each time the Messiah came, people "did not know their time of visitation or they would not have crucified the man of glory."
Do you think you will see him or are you still looking up in the sky waiting? The bible prophesied that many stars would fall from the sky when the coming man.
If we take this passage literally then Jesus comes to bring literal fire to the earth and only take his followers. Or we take it as symbol and it is the stars/follower and many will fall/miss him because the fire/word of judgement is the truth he brings.
How many have already missed the beginning of the Restoration Process?
It says that "If they knew the time of their visitation, they would not have crucified the son of God." Many Israelites missed the First Coming just as millions of Christians are missing the Second Coming.
Many religions profess that Jesus was a prophet, yet stop there. Even his own people, Jews, do not believe he was the Messiah and are still looking for the first Messiah to come.
If you were told directly who the Messiah is, you would no doubt deny it.
Millions of followers believe that Jesus's people, disciples and religious leaders of his time were absolutely following the law of God's preordained mission. There were so many mistakes by people God had prepared for Jesus, it is amazing their mistakes are still seen as part of God's ideal plan for the Messiah.
First followers believe that the people did not deny Jesus as the Messiah and that he was supposed to suffer from birth to death. But when we truly read Jesus's words, we can see his agonizing heart always trying to show the people of Israel that he was God's son.
For example, when the people asked him what should they do to perform the works of God, Jesus replied:
One day, when he was agonizing over the Pharisees' disbelief and having no one with whom to share his heart. Jesus looked down worked hard through Moses to prepare His people for the coming of the Lord.
On another occasion, Jesus lamented the stubbornness and disbelief of the people of Jerusalem, saying:
I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me . . . if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. , John 5:43-46
Then we say that Jesus was accepted. The people treated him as the Son of God that is what Palm Sunday is about.
Yes, people were starting to believe. But it takes more than just belief when God's son calls you to pick up your cross and follow him. It requires action! Faith without work is dead, this refers to stop just believing in Jesus and do his works.
Just as in Jesus's time, the Messiah has returned and spent the beginning of his life in extreme opposition. It is up to everyone to pray and find in their hearts first, research and find if this is not true.
Many people did not even see Jesus as the Messiah when he was physically on earth. Even after he was healing the sick and walking on water, people judge him with unfaithful eyes and said that he was using satan's powers.
Who is the returned Messiah? If the people had asked God when Jesus had proclaimed he was the one that Moses, our world's history would have substantially changed. We have been told all of our lives that Jesus was supposed to be rejected and persecuted - that is absolutely correct, but for a certain time period not unto death.
Jesus's Crucifixion is God's Last Choice, Not First
Yes, persecution is the very means that an individual attains perfection. Jesus obtained perfection, yet, he was even abandoned at the end by his own disciples. People say, no, they stood with him till the end.
Three times Jesus told them that his heart was heavy and he needed their support by praying. Three times they fell asleep instead of supporting him - he told them to wake up twice. This means that Jesus did not have his own follower's devotion at the end.
So, God had no choice but to use the last resort which was the cross. God's first choice was that Jesus be accepted and glorified as the Son of God with Israel as his followers and together they could conquer Rome.
Will we know Jesus when he returns? One thing we know for sure, God is mysterious in his way toward Restoration.
Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses who murdered a man, Jesus came from a lineage of women who seemingly betrayed their family and Jesus the Son of God came from the Middle East, was poor, and nailed before his people. These all have significance when you know God's process to bring about a pure lineage.
So, when the Messiah returns, thousands of people and Christians are going to miss him. It is up to each individual to ask God to make sure they know that he has returned. They will be looking up to the sky when Jesus will return the way he left, through a physical body.
To know what a Messiah is and why he is different from prophets of other religions, this information can save many people and will be able to recognize him in our time.
What Is A Messiah, What Does He Do?
In the beginning, God did not create the world in which He has to go through a mediator in order to share love with His children. We currently seek salvation through a mediator. Does a God of love wish for this eternally?
Would a God of love give up, return to relinquish fire on the earth and say "You won Satan, I'll just take these few of my children, you can have the rest?" Isn't that what we have been believing all our life?
His Will was that His Children would choose to wait for the blessing. Because they did not heed his warning of "do not eat" He took several pains throughout history in order to bring them back to His original ideal plan for humankind. This dream was to realize Heaven on Earth.
Within the religious realm, there is the belief in the Second Coming of the Messiah. Then, who is the Messiah?
The Messiah is the one whom God loves most.
What kind position is most loved by God? God loves the messiah, whom He sent, but in what type of position is He to be able to express His love to him. There are many people who are standing in front of God as representatives, for example, of the nation, the society, or some other organization.
What kind of a person is the Messiah?
The Messiah is the first person who has the same mind of love and the same direction of love as God. The Messiah is the first born son of God. Jesus was God's only son, His only child. To be an only child means to receive the parent's total love, from the beginning to the end. God is the absolute subject and the Messiah stands in God's sphere.
Their relationship is the relationship of parent and child. He is the one who is born as God's first son and receives the fullness of God's love given to the individual, family, clan, society, nation, and the world. He is qualified to receive the love transcending all these spheres. This is the Messiah. He is God's beloved child.
Since man has been lost as a result of the fall on the earth, he must be recreated on the earth. People desire the Messiah, who knows heaven. This human world deeply desires its proper subject of love and this yearning is the Messianic Expectation.
The Messiah must be welcomed on the world level, beyond the individual, clan and even national levels. The entire world will be able unite with a man of God's love, as the absolute subject.
Self-centeredness cannot exist anymore. To create the environment so that one exists only for the sake of the Lord was the mission of the Old Testament age and of the New Testament age. The mission of both of these ages was also to create an Eve, a spouse, for the Messiah. This is what was left unfinished at the crucifixion.
Messiah Returns But Not Alone
It makes absolute sense that if God has a True Son who has restored fallen Adam; He also wants a True Daughter who restores fallen Eve. When in history has this been fulfilled?
Once restored Eve absolutely follows the Messiah, this expands to the world through their family. Opposition to the Messiah will diminish. In this environment, the entire world will be automatically connected to the subject of love at one point.
To create such an environment on the world level was the mission of the Old Testament age and of the New Testament age. Accordingly, present day Christianity and Judaism must completely follow the Returned Messiah.
Christians and believers of Judaism who have been keeping their faith are supposed to offer everything when the Messiah comes. Their faith teaches perfect obedience to the Messiah. Yet what is the reality of today's Christians? What about Judaism today?
If a religion desires only its own success on the earth, and disregards the returning Messiah and blocks the victorious completion of God's dispensation, it will be a total failure.
Don't you see the decline in Christianity and Catholicism?
Many say, "But our pews are filled, the churches are growing." Is this what impresses God? Do numbers impress God? Decline means that the power that religion had to change people's hearts toward God has declined because they are disregarding the returning of the Messiah. Atheism is on the rise and God has been taken out of our schools.
Who can deny the thousands of pastors and religious leaders who have degraded the name of the church for their own pleasures and world renown? How about the scandals coming out of the Catholic priest? Is this due to the church obeying God's order in the Last Day?
No, it is directly linked to millions of people of faith missing the Messiah who has returned.
Any religion with this kind of attitude will be completely broken in the Last Days, as if hit by God's heavenly hammer.
In this period of the Last Days, Christians in the world are looking for the Second Coming, but if we analyze the motivation of their desire, it is usually, "I want to be saved:" There is no concern for God's victory on the world level. They may say, "I want to go to the Heavenly Kingdom, and I want my family and my country to be saved."
The furthest limit is usually, "I want the Messiah to return to save my country." But people of faith must go beyond the country to the end of the world; they must enlarge their concern to the spiritual world. Yet most cannot go beyond their own self, and this spells success for Satan. As long as this standard remains, God's world cannot be reborn.
Are there going to be millions of Christians that will fulfill the prophesy in Revelations: Stars will fall from the sky? Stars meaning followers led by Jesus. Will millions miss him because they are looking in the sky instead of looking for him on the earth?
Return tomorrow for the topic: Who is the Returned Messiah Part II
Photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net
Note:
Today's words were taken heavily from The Divine Principle which is based on the bible and teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. For more information on the Unification Movement, the fastest growing worldwide community, please take a look at www.familyfed.org.
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