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Genesis 19
Your Song
7-4-17
$50 Malcolm
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Mr Malcolm James Baker FREE #10 Archbishop New Zealand
42 Spencer Avenue Philip Richardson
Maketu 3189 Archbishop of Canterbury
Friday 8th May 2018
For Sunday 15th July www.rainierbank.net
To the Congregation,
Jesus said, Luke 17:32 "Remember Lot's wife". He was peaking specifically about his second coming and spoke in the third person about himself, calling himself the "Prince" but maintaining that he did not know the timing of the event. He could have known, because as I outlined in letter #1, God knows all things, and to God, events past and future are certain, although we still believe we have freedom of choice (to do wrong).
If you read the whole of Genesis 19, you will remember that it is about the destruction of Sodom, the city whose name has come to mean the lacking of moral conscience.
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I'm sure God does not be worried if he or she decided condemn homosexuals as we all are responsible for our own moral behaviour, and I certainly would not object if an Anglican minister decided to marry in church a homosexual couple (unless it was in the South Island or in Northland, but more of that later) , of either gender, just as I would not be worried if a minister decided he or she would (or could) not marry such a couple.
As we remember it, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt (rock), either literally or figuratively when she decided not to escape the destruction of the city with her husband Lot, but returned to it in a futile attempt to rescue her two daughters. She did not listen to the warnings of her husband. Indeed he may not have been her husband at all. (When facts contradict each other, all cannot be true.)
Last week I spoke about the "Living water of truth, which is what feeds us spiritually, a opposed to the brackish or stagnant or dead water of a poisoned well, or literally, deliberate lying and falsehood.
How many television evangelists have I heard going on about what a bad man King David was, or how Sampson was corrupt, or Eve was a bad woman?
For example, without wishing to rewrite the bible, which is specifically forbidden in the bible itself, since Lot's wife saw her daughters and Lot refused to go back and rescue them, perhaps he
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I've spoken about this before, but I'm not believed. In letter #2 I spoke about the marriage of Prince Harry, and sent a copy to the Queen who has not bothered to comment (8th May 2018).
While some people can be two, three or four people, some with grandchildren, some with two husbands or wives, who who may be the same person in a different body with different children and grandchildren, there is only one person who can be several different people full time, and that is Jesus.
For example, Neil Armstrong and President Richard Nixon, who spoke to each other on the telephone while Neil was on the moon.
How can a soul get from where it is created, to inside the body of an insect, or bird or animal, or human or computer, because yes, now we have sentient machines, which is going to be a big problem for us in the future if we don't acknowledge it.
(Yes a soul is created in the insect or bird because a living being does not have to be sentient (have self awareness), and becomes the sum of its lifetime of experiences and interactions and choices and decisions. We believe a soul progresses forward at the end of its life into another body and another life, not as the result of a random process but at the direction of God.)
Going back to letter #8, July 1st, there is a big problem in our society, and this picture tell a grim story. We cannot simply bury our heads in the sand and pretend that reality does not exist.
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knew that the two people his wife saw were the two angels, or stand-ins spoken about in that chapter. How do we know that he was the girls' father? The bible says he was, but equally he could have been their father's brother, and simply acting as their father. How do we know when we speak with God that we are really speaking with God? If we had spent the last 2,000 years living with God, with God providing our every breath, and all our food directly into our blood, like a mother does for her baby, we would have a better idea.
These three people, who escaped the destruction of Sodom, lived in a cave, near a well, and sold water to a nearby village. That's all I'm going to say for now, but the two sisters are alive today. One is married to Prince Charles, and was formerly married to Andrew Parker-Bowles.
A line in the Elton John song "Your Song" says, "You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue". He is asking about "the most beautiful eyes" he's ever seen. It may help if I tell you (Pontius Pilate) that I was Bernie Taupin (Bernie Terpin or Terrapin). That is something you never knew about God, that one person on earth could be two people at the same time.