Our Spiritual Awakening: Post #11 (Post #10 of Our Spiritual Awakening can be found here.) “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”  —Malachi 4:5-6 In Post #4 I explained that John the Baptist was the second coming of Elijah. As Jesus had revealed to his disciples: “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.”  —Matthew 11:13-14 But the people failed to recognize that John the Baptist was the return of Elijah. And just as Malachi had forewarned, Israel was destroyed because of that failure.  As I have been sharing in the last two posts of this series, God devised a plan which would enable Him to take back ownership of mankind if “Cain” would recognize and accept “Abel” as being God's representative. When Cain killed Abel, Adam's family (and, ultimately, all of mankind) was lost to Satan. To rectify this failure, God then worked for the next 2,000 years (biblical years) to raise up another family within which a victorious “Cain and Abel” relationship could be achieved. This achievement could finally take place between Esau and Jacob after Jacob had successfully endured a long 21-year course in the “wilderness.”  Then for another 2,000 years, God worked to raise up a chosen people from which the Messiah could be born. This process involved setting up “Cain and Abel” relationships on the clan-level (between Joseph and his 11 brothers), on the tribe-level (between judges and the 12 tribes), on the society-level (between kings and the Hebrews), and on the nation-level (kings/priests/prophets and the Jews).  Once the Israelites had purified themselves through these different levels of “Cain and Abel” relationships, Jesus was able to stand as the nation-level “Abel” (Messiah) and John the Baptist could stand as the  nation-level “Cain.” Their purpose was to achieve the same kind of unity that Esau and Jacob had achieved. If that had happened, then Israel could have been transformed into the heavenly kingdom of God. Then from that nation-level platform, Jesus could have transformed all nations into the heavenly kingdom of God on earth; thus, fulfilling all biblical prophecies concerning the Messiah. But this didn't happen. Why not? “And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”  —Luke 1:16-17 The main problem was that John the Baptist didn't know he was born to work in the “power and spirit” of Elijah. Luke clearly said this was to be the case. But when asked by the religious leaders of Israel if he was “the Elijah,” his response was that he wasn't. (John 1:19-21) This is odd since Jesus understood that John was indeed the second coming of Elijah. (Matthew 17:10-13) How is it that John didn't know who he was? Nation-Level "Cain" and "Abel" According to the new truth from the new Messiah, the answer is hidden in the fact that John and Jesus were half-brothers. Their father was Zechariah, the High Priest or Zadok. Zechariah belonged to the messianic dynasties that were descended from King David. Unlike the other priests that remain celibate, the dynastic high priests are required to marry and procreate for the purpose of perpetuating a lineage from which the possible Messiah could be born. During this time of procreation by the High Priest, both John and Jesus were conceived. (As odd as this may seem, Judaic history shows that trainee priests were sometimes taken from the pool of the priestly and monastic system's illegitimate sons.) Originally, Elizabeth was okay with this "illegitimate" birth, but soon changed her mind once she learned that Jesus was destined to be the Messiah and not her son John. This jealousy grew until Elizabeth forced Zechariah to send Mary away. From that time on, Elizabeth and Mary remained estranged and John grew up without knowing of this originally ordained mission as arranged by the “Gabriel.” (Btw, Gabriel is a title of authority given to certain leaders within the Essenes community.) Thirty years later, when John the Baptist meet Jesus at the Jordan River, the two families had yet to be reconciled. So when John had the vision that revealed Jesus to be the Messiah, John was at first happily amazed. But when the reality set in that it was to be his “cousin” (as far as he knew) who was to be the Messiah, he became jealous and refused to follow Jesus. (On the other hand, two of John's disciples who had heard John's original testimony became Jesus' first apostles.) Tragically, this failure to unite with Jesus was a repeat of Cain's failure to unite with Abel, but on a nation-level. Consequently, without the Elijah to “prepare the way” for the Messiah, Jesus was now destined for the cross. And the need for a second coming of Christ became a necessity as Satan continued to be the ruler of this world. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not...”    —2 Corinthians 4:4 But all this could have been avoided if Elizabeth, as “Cain,” hadn't rejected her “Abel,” Mary. In fact, if it had become known that Jesus had been born as one of Zechariah's son, the monastic dynasty and priesthood of Israel would have eagerly raised him up in the priesthood. (As was apparently the tradition for illegitimate sons of High Priests and Kings.) Then from there it would have been an easy transition into being accepted as the Messiah and King. But none of that history happened.  Consequently, for the last 2,000 years, God has been working to set up a world-level “Cain and Abel” arrangement upon which He can bring about the fulfillment of the Messiah. And, as mentioned in the last post, we are each intrinsically interconnected with this restoration process that God has been implementing, whether we like it or not. (To be continued.)