Session 9 Welcome again to Discovering the Divine Principle Session 9. The Divine Principle is a revelation from God that was received by the Rev Sun Myung Moon. In the previous session we looked at Adam’s family and the story of Cain and Abel.

2 In this session we will look at God’s effort to prepare for the Messiah in Adam’s family, Noah’s family and Abraham’s family. As I’ve said, history has a goal. After Adam and Eve fell, God’s goal is to send the Messiah as

3 the new Adam. If the Messiah overcomes all temptations and is able to stand as God’s true son, together with his bride, he will be able to establish a family in which God’s ideal is realized. Through that family all people will be able to return to God and participate in God’s ideal of creation. In order to send

4 the Messiah, God requires that we fulfill a portion of responsibility. And what is that? It is to reverse what took place in the fall.

5 We called this, indemnity. In order to do this, God will first choose

6 a central person. In Adam’s family that person was Adam’s son, Abel.

7 We learned that this indemnity to reverse the fall includes two steps. Number one, a condition of faith.

8 The central person demonstrates faith by making an acceptable offering. Abel did this by

9 offering the best of his flock. Number two,

10 the central person and someone else representing the archangel must build a relationship of authentic love that

11 reverses the fall. In the fall the archangel acted out his fallen nature and brought spiritual death. To reverse this, the central person and his or her partner must create a relationship of true, sacrificial love, even against all odds.

12 In Adam’s family Abel, the younger son, represented God, and Cain, his older brother, represented the archangel. God loved them both. God tried to help Cain understand what he needed to do. He promised that if he did what was right, he too would be blessed. Tragically Cain could not follow God’s advice and he

13 murdered Abel. Instead of reversing the fall, he repeated it. After Cain murdered Abel it was years before God was able to work again. Finally God found

14 Noah. God wanted to send the Messiah at this time. Noah was called as the central person. The first condition, to restore faith, was fulfilled by Noah when he

15 built the ark, a great act of faith. He endured years of ridicule, even from his own family. But Noah never gave up and the ark saved his family. After the flood, Noah’s family settled and God needed

16 Noah’s sons to fulfill the indemnity condition to reverse the fallen nature. God’s desire was that, Ham, the second born son, unite in heart with Noah and then unite with his elder brother, Shem. Sadly, Ham did not respect Noah’s foundation. The Bible says that on one occasion

17 Noah drank wine and fell asleep naked in his tent.

18 When Ham walked into the tent, he felt shame instead of innocence, and judged his father. He convinced his brothers to see it his way. They took a blanket

19 and, walking backwards, covered him. When Noah awoke and discovered what had happened, he cursed Ham’s descendants. Noah’s family could not reverse the fallen nature. God was unable to send the Messiah. God had wanted to make a new beginning and was even willing to remove the surrounding civilization through

20 the flood to allow the Messiah to come. Through the Messiah, the sin of Adam and Eve could have been removed and from that point

21 God’s ideal could have emerged. But this was postponed again. After Noah, God waited

22 400 years before calling another central person. He called Abraham in a third attempt to prepare a foundation to send the Messiah.

23 Abraham left his homeland for Canaan. There God made a covenant with Abraham, asking him to fulfill his family’s portion of responsibility to prepare a foundation for the Messiah. First God required a condition of faith. For that purpose God required that Abraham make an offering that consisted of dividing

24 a cow, a ram, a she goat, and two birds in half. Abraham divided everything except the birds.

25 Abraham fell into a deep sleep and birds of prey attacked the offering. God revealed to Abraham that his descendants would suffer for 400 years as slaves in a foreign land. Why? Abraham had not followed God’s instructions and his offering was incomplete. What could God do? He called on Abraham to make another condition of faith greater than the first. He told him to offer

26 his own son, Isaac. It would have been easier for Abraham to take his own life, but in offering Isaac, Abraham symbolically died and was born again. Isaac’s trust and love for his father even as he placed him on the altar made the condition of faith substantial.

27 The Bible tells us that God sent an angel to prevent Abraham from killing Isaac. Then Abraham and Isaac together found

28 a ram caught in a thicket, and they offered that to God. This offering successfully fulfilled the indemnity condition of faith. For the condition to reverse the fallen nature, again God would work through two brothers, the elder in the position of the archangel and the younger on the side of God. These were Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau.

29 In this story we begin to see the important role of women in God’s providence. Rebecca, their mother, recognized that if the blessing, or position of the first born, went from Isaac to Esau, it would be lost. And so she guided Jacob to assume the position of the elder.

30 One day Esau came back from a hunting trip and demanded food from Jacob. Jacob asked him to give up his birthright in exchange for the food. Some time later, when Isaac told Esau that it was time to prepare to receive his blessing, he sent him out to catch some game and prepare him a meal.

31 While he was out hunting, Rebecca disguised Jacob as Esau. Isaac was blind and did not realize it was Jacob, and so he gave Jacob the blessing by mistake. When Esau returned and discovered this, he became furious and pledged to kill his brother. Rebecca told Jacob to flee to his

32 uncle Laban. Jacob worked for Laban for 21 years, humble even as Laban abused and tricked him time and again. But God blessed Jacob with wealth and then finally commanded him to return back to his brother. On the journey home, God sent an angel to test him. This gave Jacob the opportunity to restore the dominion over the angels, reversing the failure of Adam. Jacob wrestled with the angel all night.

33 As the sun was about to rise, the angel struck Jacob on the inside of his thigh, representing the area where Adam had sinned. But still Jacob refused to give up. He told the angel, “I will not release you, unless you bless me!” And the angel blessed Jacob and changed his name from Jacob to Israel.   The next day Jacob, went on to meet his brother

34 Esau. Esau had a gang of 400 men and he was intent on killing Jacob. But Jacob was wise. He offered his servants, his flocks and even his family to his brother. Finally he bowed down before Esau seven times. All of this changed Esau, and the two brothers embraced in tears. This was one of the great moments in Biblical history.

35 God had found a family, men and women, who fulfilled their responsibility; the indemnity to reverse the fall. Abraham and Isaac established faith and with the help of Rebecca, Esau and Jacob reversed the fallen nature. This is why God sent the Messiah to Israel, Jacob’s descendants. At this point you may ask,

36 why didn’t the Messiah come at that time? There are two reasons. First, after Noah, the reality was that God had to deal with the

37 kingdoms of the fallen world. This meant that preparing just a family foundation was not enough. God had to prepare

38 a people and a nation. God’s plan for the preparation of a nation was the mission of Moses. The second reason that it took 2,000 years is that God’s nation-building plan encountered constant setbacks. It was difficult for a nation to keep faith in the central persons that God called.

39 The Israelites turned against Moses, against the commandments, and against the prophets, and the centuries rolled on.

40 What are some of the lessons to be learned from God’s effort in the first families of the Bible? First, we learn that

41 God is working to restore His children according to clear principles. If we can understand those principles, we can understand how God is working with us.

42 Second, we can see God’s unchanging love. If someone fails, God does not stop. And finally, we can see the importance of our portion of responsibility.

43 God cannot advance the providence if we do not do our part, and our part is first to demonstrate faith in God and second to resist our fallen nature and support the one whom God has chosen.

In the next session we will look at the history leading up to Jesus and compare that to the history leading up to the Second Coming. I think you will find it fascinating.