Dear heavenly father, creator God we thank you for this lovely evening in which we your humble servants can come together and break bread with one another. We ask that you bless this meal for our nourishment and watch over us this evening so that all may return safely to their dwellings. We also ask that you watch over our brothers in arms across the ocean as they will not be returning home this evening or maybe not at all. We trust in your providence and your guiding hand to be with us this evening. Amen.

He will not leave you nor forsake you…when we feel that He has done so it is usually we who have moved away from Him.

Keep this in mind…

I come from a very different school of thot…while most ppl are in their beds sleeping I am a slave driver—pushing my intellect past it’s biases into the plane of absolute truths….

I readily admit when I am wrong…I have had plenty of practice…at 25 yrs old I have admitted being wrong twice as often as most ppl do by 50—thus I am four times further along in my intellectual development than most ;) obviously a math joke…with a hint of truth.

I am reformed, but I did not start that way. I am a Christian but I did not start that way. I hold to libertarian ideology but I did not start that way. I hold to free market economic theories but I did not start that way. I am in a box but I did not start that way…or I started in the same box that most ppl are still in, you can phrase it anyway you like, but I am a “truth seeker” and can easily detect untruths…I have a knack for it and have trained myself to do this for many years…

And I listen…that is my strength…ppl may not think I listen but I do…that is how I know so much. Only becuz I listen. I have listened/read as much as I can/could and sifted the truth from the lies…I have a working body of knowledge/wisdom and the gift of understanding…to understand philosophers and their dark sayings…

I have mathematical as well as visual acumen…I do not allow my own thots to cloud my judgments. I know pride…I have it, I’ve been horribly humbled. Jesus was humble, but he did not budge on truth.

I am not Jesus, but where I detect self-contradiction…I too will not budge…but I now have just come to the startling realization that to further discuss this with you would result in a loss of friendship before truth could be culled from the mess…

It would have been nice if our first parents had never sinned.  We would be ever-living in paradise, never knowing tragedy.  But alas this is not the case…It is what it is.

“To err is human…” that is to say that perfection is not achievable in this life…Enter karma, nirvana, heaven or whatever you think is or isn’t out there.  It is obvious to most people, that we cannot achieve perfection whilst embroiled in the throes of this life.

So what’s the point? Fate? Destiny? Pre-destiny? Make your own way? Well, I do believe in one absolute right path, but that’s another discussion for another day…

For my journey, life is about living for something outside of myself.  A life sacrificed for humanity. Leave this earth producing more than I’ve consumed-then will I have not been a dead weight to humanity.

It isn’t always rose-colored…Do the incongruities damn me eternally or is there “room” for errors?  How much room?  How much can I “get away with?”  Note that I do not jump head long into debauchery and seek to justify it…But there is a certain accommodation that I’ve made with my social environment…I do not ask if this is acceptable, as far as ethics goes; this is not. But as for a question of practical existence (what Jesus might call shrewdness), what is able to be glossed over?

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Ezekiel 37:11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ 12 “Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 “Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. 14 “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.’” (Emphasis mine.)

Matthew 27:52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. (Emphasis mine.)

I don’t recall anyone ever pointing this out, I’m sure it has been in some commentary somewhere…It seems to me that the graves were opened in fulfillment of this prophecy. I have wondered for a long time, the significance of the dead saints being raised and walking through Jerusalem. But it seems that the prophecy was for those in whom God would put His spirit and that He would make them to walk upon the land of Israel. This prophecy is characteristic of many Ezekiel passages which refer to the New Covenant. In this case the only “saints” that could be raised were O.T. believers/saints. But in other passages where promises are given to the living, it appears that they are to the Jewish Christians and “Gentile” Christians; given our N.T. understanding of the mystery which is Christ in us…Every Christian truly is a “Jewish” Christian…This goes against our modernistic thinking, though; but Paul said it:

Romans 2:28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

If I could summarize; there is only one sense to the prophetic passages but there can be many applications. Thus, either the specifically Jewish orientation of the prophecy contains the real sense with the fact that all Christians are “true Jews” as an application or else the sense is really going for a promise aimed at all believers in the N.T. era with an application specifically directed at the Jews. Divorcing non-Jewish Christians from the promises in the O.T. Prophets seems to result in misapplication of the texts or maybe even missing the real sense of the passages; I withhold any conclusions either way on my part as of yet.

I really think this provides some grotesque imagery in consideration of one of America’s favorite past-time: abortion. Abortion is “killing before birth.” No denying that. Even if it isn’t murder, it is killing something that was alive…

But it is murder and that’s what makes it worse. You have turned an instrument of life into a chamber of death. God gave sexual intercourse, a wonderful thing, between a man and his wife. This act serves a two-fold purpose: bonding the couple and producing offspring. Lord knows that if sex wasn’t how children were made and they were made in some neutral fashion as to be a chore, then we as a human race would’ve died out long ago by disobeying His command to be fruitful and multiply.

The womb ought to be a haven not a hades, safe not sheol, help not hell, peaceful not purgatory, life not death…

Who is the Church? And why are Christians so financially burdened? Do we not want to be in the position to assist when called upon? There is no excuse for the Church of Christ to be impotent today given our improved wealth and standard of living, as compared to the first century Church for instance.

The more we have, the more we want. Christians need to stop being so fearful when talking about money. They need to avoid beggars in clerical robes and give to the real beggars. They need to help when it is in the power of their hand to do it. Christ will come back and we will reconcile all accounts with Him. Christians also need to tithe. Don’t be fooled by my soft way of making that last statement.

The bible study I was going to write…someday. If you are nervous about the future of Christianity or the future in general go through this study.