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We can also know that the
present days are the Last Days when we see the restoration of the First
Blessing in the restoration of man's spiritual state. We have already
explained that each person is created to become one in heart with God and
to be able to fully communicate with the spirit world when he has perfected
himself. However, before the Fall, Adam and Eve were able to communicate
with God and the spirit world, although their capabilities were not
completely developed. Because of the Fall, Adam and Eve and all of their
descendants, that is all of mankind, fell into a state where they are
insensitive to the presence of God. But as the Bible indicates,
communication with the spirit world will be restored in the Last Days:
"'"... in the last days ... I will pour out my Spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall
see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; ... on my menservants and
my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy"'"
(Acts 2:17,18). Recent increases in spiritual experiences and psychic
phenomena worldwide reflect the restoration of man's heart and spirit to
the level that Adam and Eve enjoyed just prior to the Fall and indicate
that man is on the verge of restoring the First Blessing.
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God's Second Blessing to man was the ability for Adam and
Eve to perfect themselves as the True Parents and create an ideal family,
and then one society and one world centered on that family -- in other
words, the ability to create the model family and to make the world one
family. The basic unit of that world is the ideal family. Through it
God's dominion of love will transform the world into one of a unified
culture centered on true love.
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However, Adam and Eve fell and became parents with
Original Sin, and thus all of mankind became children with natures of
evil and realized a world under an evil sovereignty. Therefore, God has worked
through religion and through developing the external aspects of
civilization to guide man toward the establishment of this unified
culture and one world family.
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Historically, many different cultures have come into
existence. Through time, however, higher cultures have emerged centered
on rising new religions. Through a process of absorption of the varied
and numerous lower cultures by the higher and more universal ones, a
consolidation of cultures has taken place. As a result, there are only
four major cultures remaining: Christian, Moslem, Far Eastern (based on
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism), and Hindu.
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This convergent flow of history shows the trend toward
man's establishing one world culture -- and that God's Second Blessing is
being restored. The world of one culture centered on God's true love will
be realized when all people become brothers and sisters, with God as
their parent. Based on this viewpoint, Christianity is the central
religion in the work to fulfill God's Dispensation for Restoration
because Christianity introduced God as the parent of all mankind, because
it awaits the Messiah, who comes to establish one culture, and because it
has worked to unite the world as one family.
As a result of
God's dispensational work, man since World War II has, to an
unprecedented extent, become aware of the need for international
cooperation and world government. This awareness has given rise to the
United Nations and many international commissions and organizations, and
concerned with international standards and internal control of everything
from nutrition and food resources to the use and resources of the seas,
from atomic power and ecology to international law, from concern for the
welfare of children (e.g., international adoption agencies and UNICEF)
and disaster aid (e.g., International Red Cross) to world health (e.g.,
the World Health Organization) and world economy (e.g., the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank), and a multitude of others. Economic
interdependence and cooperation have developed to such an extent that the
well-developed nations are to a great degree the marketplaces for the
people of the world. Thus we find ourselves living in a world community,
where the races, nationalities, languages, customs, cultures, and products
of the world intermingle and harmonize as never before.
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Because of the tremendous advances in transportation and
communications, the world has "shrunk" to such an extent that
we can travel to almost any part of the world in a few hours. (Just fifty
or sixty years earlier, in the scope of that same few hours, our
"world" was perhaps a hundred miles in radius.) With this ease
of travel, travel to other countries has increased tremendously, bringing
about unprecedented interaction and mutual understanding and harmony
among
different peoples and their customs, bringing us to the threshold of a
unified would.
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In this century
there has been unprecedented development among many peoples worldwide of
tolerance and understanding of other people and of a spirit of love. It
is God's dispensation to restore the Second Blessing that has given rise
to such attitudes. It also led to the benevolent treatment of the
defeated nations by the democratic victors after World War II and the
granting of independence to colonies and territories;it has led
to foreign aid
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programs, to
increasing ecumenism, to inter-cultural exchange, and to interracial and
international marriages and adoption of children. All of these show the
trend toward the restoration of God's Second Blessing to man -- the
blessing of true love among people and the establishment of one world
family.
All of these
hopes and trends will reach fruition when the final gifts of history
arrive, the Lord of the Second coming and the new universal ideology that
he brings, in other words the gifts of God's Heart and the God-centered
ideology. No home can be truly a home without parents; so man's desires
for harmony and love will only be fulfilled when God and the Messiah can
stand in the position of man's parents.
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God's third
Blessing to man is the right and ability of a perfect person to have
spiritual and physical dominion over the Creation, that is, both internal
and external dominion. Internal dominion over the Creation means dominion
through love. External dominion is man's use and development of the
Creation for his life through the means of science and technology.
Evidence that the present time is the Last Days, and therefore the stage
just prior to the restoration of God'sThird Blessing, can be seen in the developing
concern and love for nature and also in the tremendous development of
science and technology.
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Originally,
man's appreciation and love for the Creation are proportional to the
growth of his spirit. Evidence of the restoration of man's love for the
Creation can be seen in the ecology and conservation movements, in
societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, in drives to restore
polluted areas, and in organizations and clubs formed for the
appreciation of nature.
Through science
and technology, man is restoring his external dominion over the Creation.
Tremendous scientific progress has taken place in this century. Through
this man has been gaining control over disease and over the sea, land,
air, and even outer space. Man is also on the verge of being able to
create an ideal standard of living for all
people through such things as mass production, high yield crops,
transformation of deserts to farmlands, and environmental control. Use of
the ocean floor and even both polar caps are also examples of man's
ability to turn the Creation into an ideal home.
We can see that
the Three Blessings are in the process of being restored to mankind. Thus
we can see that the establishment of God's ideal world is upon us -- that
we are in the Last Days.
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