The Idolatry of Life Itself

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Superbowl 51 recently opened with a lengthy roll-out by former President George HW Bush and his wife, Barbara Bush.  I read tales of how many people found it touching and emotional.  I found it emotional too, but in an embarrassing and shameful way, and I wondered for a while if I were not watching an SNL spoof, that is just how ridiculous it appeared to me.

It is not that I do not have respect for America or our former presidents.  I am a patriot.  And I am not an ageist, I do have respect for old folks, and all that ails them with the natural aging process.  I take the Bible verse seriously that we should rise and give respect in the presence of the grey-headed and elderly (Leviticus 19:32).

But what greeted our collective eyes on Superbowl Sunday just seemed wrong to me and got my dander up.  Why do all our old people have to be so weak and rely on gadgets to get them around, to feed them, and to keep them alive?  How did old people live in the olden days?  And were they always so weak?

I believe I feel righteous indignation viewing this sort of scene because it illustrates how much we idolize life itself and keep people alive way beyond God’s will for them to be alive.  I already posted here that God’s way is not to use physicians.  Indeed, this elderly Bush couple were recently hospitalized for pneumonia.  How many other hospitalizations and surgeries have they had to ‘improve’ their quality of life and keep them alive?  And the inevitable question begs to be asked, “When would God have naturally taken their life?”

George H. W. Bush, the oldest living president, was in the hospital a week ago in Houston. But he recovered from pneumonia and gave us the rare memorable Super Bowl coin toss.

Bush was rolled out by a military member in a wheelchair while wife Barbara took a golf cart to center field. (http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/02/george-bush-super-bowl-51-coin-toss-barbara-bush-hw)

Chelsea Clinton’s Emotional Experience

Old people in general seem to have more gadgets to keep them alive and mobile than a Millennial living on a trust fund has trendy devices.  It is expected in our consciousness now that most white males (and females) over the age of 60 will receive heart surgery and a joint replacement before their tenure in this world is through.  And we hail this as wonderful and normal!  Christians praise God for doctors.  Deacons and pastors leading church prayers implore the congregation to pray for physicians and their patients, a profession not anointed in the Bible, while the biblical command to call the church elders to pray over and anoint the infirm is completely ignored!

Calling 911 is considered a right in our society, and resuscitation of life the default.  Indeed if one does not want to be brought back to life, one must file a legal Do Not Resuscitate notice in their personal paperwork.  It used to be that being brought back to life was a miracle performed by Jesus Christ Himself and those holiest prophets anointed by God.  Now even EMTs can bring people back from the dead.

Have we stopped to consider God’s will in this matter?

Doctors in America have driven this idolatrous cow with the ever available bait of money.  The prolongation of human life appeals to us because of our innate fear of death, and those who do not have the promise of eternal life are the most fervent adherents of it. The medical establishment over the last 150 years or more has been creeping in and insidiously taking over, like a cancer.  Now we are at Stage 4 where it has become part of every fiber of our beings.  It has become so commonplace to live as long as possible that nearly all of us take it for granted, and think those who do not believe life should exist at all costs, and exist as physically perfect, are crazy.

President George HW Bush’s son, George W Bush, like most Americans is eager to undergo the high priest’s scalpel.  In this article it is suggested he had prophylactic heart surgery just to prevent a problem, and this type of preventative surgery is not supported in physicians’ own medical literature!  He did it because he had the money (or insurance), and he found a willing doctor, just like when Angelina Jolie shocked the world with her preventative mastectomy.

Regarding prolongation of life, much money is spent on trying to keep people alive beyond the age of 65, mainly through hospitalization.

And studies show that we spend the most amount of money trying to keep dying people alive in their last year of life, and that is increasing rapidly as the years tick by.  The numbers show we are collectively afraid of death.

Life is the idol.  Doctors are its high priests.  Hospitals are the temple.  And body parts are the sacrifice.  Blood is let freely and voluntarily to appease the gods of fake life.

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Life itself is being idolized.  Humans are placing the value of their lives over everything, over God and definitely over His will.  Some would argue that God uses physicians to keep people alive, and He might in some cases.  But overall that argument is as baseless as saying God uses sin as a teacher.  God allows us to have free will.  If we choose to try and live forever, He will allow it in His way.  That does not mean He supports it or that it is right.  We cannot understand God’s ways as humans.  We must look to the Bible for knowledge of His will, and we must abide in Christ to keep His will.  Both are necessary for living in His will for us.

…And dying in His will for us.

Clergy Sexual Abuse

Excerpts taken out of this article: http://www.crusadeagainstclergyabuse.com/htm/AShortHistory.htm

1952:              Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Paraclete Order and associated treatment facilities for priests located in New Mexico, Missouri and California, wrote to Bishop Robert Dwyer of Reno, NV, about priests afflicted with sexual disorders that cause them to abuse young boys.  This letter indicates that Fr. Fitzgerald had already treated a “handful” of men charged with such abuse.  He shared his recommendation that such men be laicized since they would never be free of the temptation to act out.  This letter is remarkable in that it clearly assesses both the disorder and the risks.  He warns against the very solutions that many bishops resorted to in the ensuing years: “Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal.”  Fr. Fitzgerald’s efforts at helping troubled priests were unique and quickly became known to all US bishops.  It is safe to assume that his opinions about sexually abusing priests were known to most if not all bishops. Concerning priests who sexually abused minors he said We find it quite common, almost universal with the handful of men we have seen in the past five years who have been under similar charges – we find it quite universal that they seem to be lacking in appreciation of the serious situation.  As a class they expect to bound back like tennis balls on the court of priestly activity.  I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual and when a man has so far fallen away from the purpose of the priesthood the very best that should be offered him is his Mass in the seclusion of a monastery. 

Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare. 

Many bishops believe men are never free from the approximate danger once they have begun.  Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal.” (See Fitzgerald Letter, dated Sept. 12, 1952,)

1957:              Fr. Fitzgerald wrote to Bishop Matthew Brady of Manchester NH on September 26, 1957: ‘From our long experience with characters of this type, and without passing judgment on the individual, most of these men would be clinically classified as schizophrenic.  Their repentance and amendment are superficial and, if not formally at least subconsciously, is motivated by desire to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity.  A new diocese means only green pastures.”  [In short, antisocial, without conscience (song of mary addition)]

1957:              Again, Fr. Fitzgerald writes to Archbishop Edwin Byrne (Santa Fe) that he thought it unwise to “offer hospitality to men who have seduced or attempted to seduce little boys or girls.”  He went on to utter an eerie prophecy of the future:
If I were a bishop, I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary laicization.  Experience has taught us these men are too dangerous to the children of the parish and the neighborhood for us to be justified in receiving them here….They should ipso facto be reduced to lay men when they act thus.

1961:              The Sacred Congregation for Religious issued an official document entitled, “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and sacred orders,” 2 Feb. 1961.  The document states that one of the common causes of “defection’ or departure from the priesthood is “…sexual tendencies of a pathological nature…” which refers to homosexual tendencies.  Later in the document reasons for dismissal are listed.  The following statement is found:

 “Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.”

1966:              A workshop for psychologists engaged in the assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life is held at the School of Nursing of the Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New YorkOne of the participants stated : Perhaps the most troublesome and most frequent appearing sociopathic features or disturbances in assessment work concern the high incidence of effeminacy, heterosexual retardation, psychosexual immaturity, deviations or potential deviations of the homosexual type….A recent study of 107 male candidates, for example, shows that 8% of these were sexually deviant, whereas 70% were described as psychosexually immature, exhibiting traits of heterosexual retardation, confusion concerning sexual role, fear of sexuality, effeminacy, and potential homosexual dispositions.”

1971:              Dr. Conrad Baars and Dr. Anna Terruwe presented a scholarly paper to the 1971 Synod of Bishops at the Vatican and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  Citing 40 years of combined psychiatric practice treating about 1500 priests, they concluded that 20-25% of U.S. priests had serious psychiatric difficulties and 60-70% suffered from emotional immaturity. They concluded that the psychosexual immaturity manifested itself in heterosexual and homosexual activity.

1972:              Dr. Eugene Kennedy published a psychological study of U.S. priests commissioned by the Bishops’ Conference.  His findings concurred with those of Baars and Terruwe and concluded that American priests were
7% psychologically and emotionally developed
18% psychologically and emotionally developing
66% underdeveloped
8% maldeveloped.

Kennedy and Heckler stated that the underdeveloped and maldeveloped priests (74%) had not resolved psychosexual problems and issues usually worked through in adolescence.“Sexuality is, in other words, non-integrated into the lives of underdeveloped priests and many of them function as a pre-adolescent or adolescent level of psychosexual growth.

~~~

I would say these findings are likely true of pedophiles in general.  Pedophile is being defined as adults preferring to sex with children of any age.  It just so happens that the allure of the Catholic priesthood with its power, prestige, accommodations, and unlimited stock of vulnerable children attract those men with proclivities to pedophilia and who are likely immature themselves, either with an underdeveloped (psycho-socially stunted) or maldeveloped (antisocial) ego.

While this article and these studies pertained to Catholic priests, it seems reasonable the data can also apply to protestant clergyman and chaplains as well, though perhaps at a decreased rate than the Catholic priesthood for the reasons mentioned above.  Protestant priesthood still carries with it power, prestige, and a surplus of vulnerable children, though its accommodations are usually meager in comparison to their Catholic counterparts.  The level of blind trust and the pervasiveness of long-standing historical church abuses and abrogation of duty regarding those abuses may be higher in the Catholic dioceses versus those of protestant church communities, but many protestants are starting to speak out about the abuse problem in their own churches and ministries as well.

Stunning to note is the staggering incidence of the sexual immorality of priests, one of God’s holiest offices.  Jesus said if a member of your body causes you to sin, then you should cut it off.  But what if that member is a priest, corporally?  The law in the Bible calls the presumptuous sins of priests the most heinous sins that can be committed among men, and those sins carry greater punishments and need more atonement than other sins.  Jesus also said that if someone causes a child who believes in Him to sin, it would be better for that person to be thrown into the sea.  This leaves a punishment for sex offenders of children life in prison, since suicide is a sin itself.  Unless that person is one of the very ‘few who can effect a real conversion’ away from perpetuating the abuse.

If three quarters of priests are psychosexually immature and deviant, which several studies have shown, then society should expect that the most likely exposure of our children to sexual immorality will ironically be through the church, or those who elevate themselves in the church to positions of power, proving that the devil does indeed masquerade as an angel of light.

 

~selah

Yom Kippur for Christians

Yom Kippur or The Day of Atonement is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.  Historically, it is the one day of the year the holy high priest could go behind the veil in the holy of holies and make atonement for the children of God before the mercy seat upon the ark of the covenant.  The biblical ceremony involved much cleansing, donning of sacred linen garments, sacrificing animals for their blood as a sin offering to the Lord, and finally releasing a scapegoat into the wilderness upon the head of which all the transgressions of the people had been laid by the priest from the previous year.

Since Jesus Christ was born and died, and since He is the perfect sacrificial lamb, He took our sins, past, present, and future upon Himself once and for all for those who accept and believe in Him.  As such, Christians’ tabernacle and holy of holies is our body with Him in residence.  And we may come before God at any time, not just one time per year!

It is still imperative that we observe this day as commanded by God in the Bible, and that we consider how blessed we are to have a savior make us holy for our Lord God!  Whereas the Jewish people believe the law is paramount the rest of the year, and only on one day are we redeemed, Christians believe faith in Christ is paramount every day, and the law is subjugate to that.

Every day for Christians should be the most holy day, because Jesus makes us new and redeems us every day.  We should be living in bliss compared to our Jewish brethren!

Thank you Lord God for sending your Son Jesus Christ to be our sacrificial lamb, and for shedding His blood to make atonement once and for all for us.

~Amen

And They Shall Become One Flesh.

Man and his Wife

And the Lord GOD called, “It is not good that the man is separated from his feminine equal, and a helper to be a mate.”

And the Lord GOD formed from the ground every living thing of the land, and every living bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would proclaim their name to be.

And the man proclaimed all which were breathing and alive with their name; he proclaimed names to all cattle and to all the birds of the heavens, and to every living thing of the land.

But to Adam there was not found a helper to be a mate.

And the Lord GOD caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept, and Yahweh took one rib from his ribs and closed the flesh beneath.

And the Lord GOD made from the rib which had been taken from Adam a woman, and brought her to the man and called the man, “This at last is a body from my body, and flesh from my flesh.  For this I proclaim ‘Woman’ because from man she has been taken.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And they were both nude, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

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I have explored the subject of monogamy from nearly every angle imaginable.  Experiencing the parameters of relationship was an intense interest of mine while I was still married.  I even seriously considered going back to school to study anthropology as it applies to human intimacy such was my obsession with this subject.

I succeeded at monogamy for about 22 years, so I know a bit about it; the high points and the low.  The bliss and the brokenness.  I dabbled in polyamory for many years, mostly in my mind, but occasionally in my flesh as well.  I found this dynamic to be my preferred one.  More love was euphoric, why settle for just one love?

I have contemplated, philosophized, debated, meditated, and imagined the realm of relationships possible in life and lived most of them out, from ascetic to swinger.  I have blogged-and deleted-posts of emphatic feeling one way or the other depending on my perspective at any given time.  I swing this way and I swing that way (pun intended).  And I acknowledge that it is a very complex issue, this one of human intimacy and sexual loving.  Perhaps the most difficult one we face in our tenure here on earth.

I know from intense research that the Bible does not make polygyny a sin, which means one man can marry more than one woman, and which much of the world still practices today.  It makes sense also practically for a man to take care of more than one woman, and for women to be co-wives; women and men both are suited to this, and children can benefit as well in certain situations.  That it is not expressly forbidden in the Torah is profound, and meaningful.

Beyond the law however, when we look to the stories of the Bible, it is clear that in every case of polygyny, even in the most blessed sons of God, like Abraham, families and their future seed suffered negative consequences from being married to more than one wife.  Often in the Bible the children of different mothers aggrieve each other, war with each other, and murder each other out of maleficence born from their familial birthright or lack thereof.  This is a grave teaching from God through His prophets for us with eyes to see and ears to hear.  Indeed the first example of polygyny was in Lamech, seven generations from Adam, the man who was noteworthy for vengeance and bloodthirstiness.  And no matter how noble and honorable the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob (Israel) were, their practice of polygyny caused serious problems in their people which even extends into our modern world!

Polygamy is not a sin, and even though more love seems like a good idea, and man in his flesh might be hardwired for this.  From the very beginning, a couple of key points are unmistakably monogamous.  God takes one rib from Adam and closed the flesh beneath.  One rib equals one woman.  Closing the flesh implies it is done.  Then the man and woman become one flesh.  If they become one flesh, they essentially become joined physically and psychically to the point cleaving apart would cause much destruction and pain.

This is God’s ideal state for man and woman.  A bit further into the creation story God also makes man in His image, male and female He makes them.  But I also know that God can manifest Himself in a myriad of forms and ways, and He has unlimited names for Himself.  In this way, man could make himself fit more than one woman, easily as well, as he is made in the image of God.

The Apostle Paul is clear on this subject regarding bishops in the early church:

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.  ~1 Timothy 3:2-6

Overall, it requires the Holy Spirit moving in man for each man to know the path God has in mind for him.  Monogamy is not for everyone, and neither is polygamy.  It is almost certain that while not a sin, polygamy will cause familial pain and strife.  Finally, pastors and church leaders are called to be monogamous, at the very least.

~selah

Are Birthday Celebrations Christian?

Birthday cakes. Lighted candles. Singing “Happy Birthday.” Receiving gifts. In almost every culture and nation on Earth, virtually nothing is as universally celebrated as birthdays. But is birthday-keeping biblical? Does God agree with this practice?

Source: Are Birthday Celebrations Christian?

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That is a great article worth reading!  It speaks about how the three times birthday celebrations are mentioned in the Bible, they are surrounded by calamity and evil. Pharaoh killed the baker on his birthday; Job lost his sons due to their regular birthday feasting, on the eldest’s birthday; and Herod had John the Baptist beheaded at his birthday celebration.

I have never felt naturally drawn to celebrate birthdays nor weddings.  They both seem idolatrous to me, they overtake everything else going on in life and consume those involved, usually causing much stress overall.  I joke about how all of my five childrens’ birthday parties were not complete without at least one temper tantrum being thrown, and it was usually a worse day than normal regarding my childrens’ behaviors, no kidding.  It’s almost as if we understand at a very young age this is NOT what God wants us to be so focused on–ourselves!

While I have liked celebrating Christmas, I have learned that most of what we do at Christmas is pagan in origin (as the Christmas tree dolled up with ornaments with presents placed under it, as if we are worshiping the pagan goddess ashterah? yikes!), and have taken steps to eliminate these things as much as possible without becoming a legalistic drag in the process.

Thanksgiving is fun because I love to cook for my family and feast on God’s abundance.  I also like Halloween, not because of the ghouls and ghosts, but because it is the one time a year when the community turns out as a family and everyone walks around and enjoys the Fall weather saying hello to each other.  To think that if we all celebrated the annual feasts God commands us to celebrate in His word we would do this at least three times per year is a thought that should provoke much contemplation about our modern day existence and our lack of fulfillment in it.  His most important holiday celebration even involves group camping and feasting for a whole week!  How cool is that?

It is difficult to navigate saying, “No, thank you,” to invitations in our day and time because facebook makes it easy to generate electronic invitations for events like birthday parties, showers, and weddings.  And often people take it very personally, even if they do not mean to, if you do not attend their celebrations to the extent that they can even consider it a fatalistic blow to a relationship if you are absent, or politely refuse to go.  And much time, expense, and even stress is the fate of anyone who does choose to attend, including the planners and recipients!

So either way, it is the antithesis of the original intent:  to celebrate something.  It is fairly obvious from looking at it this way that it is just not something humans enjoy necessarily, but a ritual we have unconsciously adopted and passed down from our ancient pagan days not even realizing that these things do not usually edify us in Christ.  We become affected and guilty of idolatry not unlike how the Israelites became affected by the gentile nations and their pagan practices while living among them.

In the end, God does not want us to expend our time or resources upon celebrating ourselves, only on celebrating Him.

~Selah

Judgment is…

Knowing someone sinned, but loving them perfectly anyway.

The Holy Trinity

It takes obedience to the Law and the Prophets,

Along with grace through faith in Jesus Christ,

To bring us unto God; to know His Divine Will and Living Word.

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Paul argues that being obedient to the Law is not the means to salvation, but that is is faith through Jesus Christ that brings justification unto God.  He points out that otherwise, works would be enough for salvation, and that since all men are sinners, no matter how obedient to the Law we are, we will always fall short of attaining God’s Realm.  He quotes scripture in Genesis relating how,

“He [Abram] believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”  ~Genesis 15:6

This is true, indeed.  It takes faith and belief in God, and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as our Lord Messiah to attain true everlasting salvation.

But scripture also says eleven chapters later that the LORD appeared to Isaac and blessed him by restating the covenant that He had made with his father, Abraham:

“…I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”  ~Genesis 26:4-5

This shows that it is not just due to faith and belief that we, and our descendants, are blessed by God, but that it is very much due to obedience that we, and our descendants, are blessed by God on earth.

This raises the question as to whether faith in Jesus Christ provides us with eternal life, and obedience to God provides with abundant blessings while we live out our earthly lives.  Indeed, the Old Testament did not speak to heaven, though it did speak about having plenty for our generation, and the generations to follow, if we loved God, obeyed Him, and had faith in Him.

Some Christians seem more concerned with attaining salvation in Heaven, while flouting God’s Law here on earth.  What does this mean?

I think it is obvious that both a grounding and foundation in God’s Law and commandments, along with  faith and belief that Jesus Christ is our Lord Messiah, which enables us to have flourishing lives here, and in the afterlife, are important.  Why, as God’s Chosen Ones, have we argued the importance of one over the other for millenia?

I personally want to please God, love Him, and know Him more than anything.  In practicing this, I want to know His ancient Law, as well as live by the example His Son gave.  I am saved forevermore by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice to me on the cross, but I am also living a righteous life under God’s Law, and will be blessed by Adonai Elohim for doing so.

I do not desire to forego either one of these.  Do you?

“Then came Peter…

“Then came Peter to Him, and said, ‘Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?’ Jesus saith unto him, ‘I say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.'” ~Matthew 18:21-22

This beautiful exhortation regarding forgiveness is made even more divine when we realize that Jesus Christ was speaking out against the ancient practice of the Tribe of the Lamechites to diabolically take revenge seventy-sevenfold, including upon the families of those who would so much as wound them; making modern day gang fighting appear almost like a daily tea.

“Then Lamech [great great great grandson of Cain] said to his wives:  ‘…I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me.  If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven fold.'”  ~Genesis 4:23-24

Jesus used his short time here as rabbi teaching especially contentious subjects which had either been long standing ancient practice, as seen here, or reasserting God’s Will where it digressed from Mosaic Law, as regarding divorce.  Sometimes he clarified word meanings, as when he told a story describing what a ‘neighbor’ was.  Almost all of what he chose to discuss with his followers, that we can see in the pages of scripture at least, made some important new point, in direct opposition to what had been the interpreted belief or status quo of that time.

He rocked the ancient world and conservative Jews so much in these ways.  Even though He was speaking mostly of love and compassion and forgiveness, and healed incessantly, it was impossible for the Pharisees to equate this message with God’s direct Word and Will.  They were so used to assuming God’s Will by reliance on their increasingly tortuous interpretation of the Law.

Not that the Law isn’t important!  It is.  We are commanded by God, by Jesus, and by the Apostles to keep the Law.  But not at the cost of the two greatest commandments.

Life [from God] Begins in the Womb, with Conception: Abortion is Another Manifestation of the Abomination of Desolation and the Great Tribulation

God changed Abram and Sarai’s names just at the time that He prepared them to conceive the heir to His everlasting covenant.  He changed their names to Abraham, and Sarah.  H is the letter ‘Hey’ in the Hebrew alphabet.  It means the ‘outbreathing of the Holy Spirit’, and its sound is made by breathing out.  We know that God breathed [Genesis 1: 2-3] all creation into being, so it is just a reaffirmation here to us in scripture that His breath going into Abram and Sarai is what made them parents.

“…God talked with him, saying:  ‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.  No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham…Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan….'” [referring with certainty here to the future Isaac, not Ishmael, his son by Hagar]

“Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.  And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her [again!], and she shall be a mother of nations….'”  ~Genesis 17:3-5, 8, 15-16

Sarah got double blessings!  God blessed her with a son, then he blessed her again by blessing her son.

As God’s breath made a baby within Sarah, it changed her to be a completed woman, represented by the letter hey at the end of the sentence, and because the letter hey at the end of a name makes it feminine.  Sarai had been somewhat lacking before, lacking the completeness of womanhood due to being barren.

It is God who gives the breath of life into us to create us.  And it is when that breath comes into us, that a woman and a man become parents to a living child, created from the living breath of God.  It isn’t when Isaac was born that God changed Abram’s and Sarai’s name, it was at or just before conception–He knew He was going to make them conceive Isaac, therefore the conception was as good as done.

Let no man or woman say that the fetus is not living, or that life does not count until birth.  This is blasphemy to God.  It is His power alone to give–and take–life.  Anything else is murder.

In the case of a pregnancy causing the mother to perish, there is scripture which speaks to this, though it is different that rabbinic literature available.  In this case, God allows the young to be taken, that the mother should live.  It is Deuteronomy 22, verses 6 and 7:  “If a bird’s nest happens to be before you along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; you shall surely let the mother go, and take the young for yourself, that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.” 

Ancient men and women considered animals and eggs as food for themselves.  They did not have the luxury we have today of going to the grocery store to restock their larder, nor the luxury to have a multivariate diet.  When they happened upon a bird in a nest full of eggs it was like finding a small treasure!  It would be normal for an unGodly person to greedily take as much as he could, the mother and the eggs.  However, God understands that the mother’s life is more valuable, when young are still in the nest as eggs, or in the womb as a fetus.  Therefore, He says to take only the young and leave the mother alone.  In this way, the mother can make more young and life can continue.  Otherwise, both would perish and life might not continue.

This is the way it is with abortion too.  Only if the mother is in danger of perishing, shall the young be taken, so that she may live and produce more young.  In every other case, it is murderous to take the young.

Interestingly, this is what will happen in the Great Tribulation; mothers and fathers will eat their own young, and all except God’s chosen ones will perish.

Abortion is therefore a manifestation of the abomination of desolation coming in the Great Tribulation, which is what many so-called ‘first world’ countries are already practicing.

Psalm 19, a Psalm of David~

The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them Your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression. ~Psalm 19:7-13