One of the most dangerous things in theology today is trying to find everything in the news in prophecy. And part of the error (and honestly more serious) is applying the prophecies (warnings and promises) given to Israel to the United States. We are not "God's people." We are not Judah. We are not the city of Jerusalem. We do not have a covenant with the Lord. This error is most often seen when 2 Chronicles 2:14 is ripped from its context and applied to the USA or even to the "church." Today, we look at this error with a prophecy in Jeremiah.

We look at a couple of pro-trans laws in Seattle: putting rapists into women's prisons and letting boys compete against girls in sports.

We then move on to the Defund the Police movement of 2020. Like I've always said, states and locales can pass all the laws they want, but they need to be able to live with the results. That's how federalism is supposed to work. And as Churchill once said (paraphrased), no matter how beautiful the strategy, sometimes you need to look at the results.

Time is an interesting character. It never seems to stop, yet it was once unknown and it will one day be unknown again. What does that mean? I have no idea. I'm a creature of time. One thing time did was sneak up on me. One day, I'm playing baseball in the mid-summer North Carolina sun without feeling an iota of tired... next thing I know, I wake up with an aching back, a bulging belly, and four adult people in my life that I could swear were just getting on the school bus for the for time. In one way, we feel eternal, and then reality strikes us. That reality is the deception of time. Time tears away at us non-stop. It's important that we understand and appreciate time as best we can in this life and it is important that we understand how God looks at time from outside of time.

Another potpourri! We overcome (hopefully) technical issue as we briefly wander through a few issues. First, we look at those who create enemies that may or may not really exist. Then, we move in to a brief discussion of movies about the Lord. And, finally, from there, we spend the bulk of our time on the issue of time intervals, time gaps, in scripture and why we need to recognize these. We can do it, because our Lord did it in Luke 4!

We dip back into forgiveness then move on to how the powers that be want us to live in fear. And wonder of wonders, guess who is there to save us from the boogeyman? All they want is our money, our rights, our comforts, our values, our very independence... and for that small price, well, they won't do much apart from move on to the next boogeyman. And then they'll just want more of our money, more of our rights. etc.

We wander through Holy Week, as it's called for a few moments before we broach the topic of forgiveness. We talk a little bit about forgiving others and what that entails, but we want to focus on forgiving the worst person in the room, ourselves.

We remind ourselves that the primary judgment we should be worried about is our own. Not judgment for our sin (Christ has paid that), but judgment as to how we handle the Word of God and how we follow our calling. I'm not your judge and you are not my judge. We can discuss our differences in love, but we must never forget that God is watching. Yes, he is surely a patient God, but He does expect us to study to show ourselves approved unto Him alone.

We pause to examine, from as generic Point-of-view as possible, the state of politics in the good ol' USA. What does it mean to be an American? How can we rise above partisanship? Why don't more people acknowledge the superiority of the Italian people? Important questions like that! We've got a great, if imperfect, country here, people. Let's not allow them to pit us against each other so they can get richer and more powerful as the screw it up. We also briefly chat about John Lennon and Irish desserts. How's that for a change of pace?

We continue to take the prinicipals of interpreting the Bible in context. We look at Paul's instruction to us in 2 Timothy 2:15 to study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing, cutting, separating the Word of Truth. We compare things that differ in scripture. And we look at Paul's worlds of liberty in Colossians chapter 2.

We briefly ramble on about the horrors of war and while sometimes necessary, too often they are fought for the powers that be (politicians, bankers, etc.). As the war in Ukraine drags and the propaganda intensifies, the West seems to be looking for a way to expand the war. We have to ask why.

Just a little side path before we get back to looking at living the Christian life.

We've applied this idea in a number of studies, but today we focus on it alone. That is, the false dichotomy of "Heaven or Hell" and "Saved or Lost." If that is your theology, you will see every verse, every warning, every loss as some comment on going to heaven or hell. We've covered the common mythology of hell previously. Today, we see how that mythology combined with the limited parameters of heaven or hell thinking will lead to many bad doctrines, including a denial of the finished work of Christ.