Hey Major (waves and smiles). You do know I was teasing about the near death experience, don't you? Although now that I think of it... (shrug). I was dead serious about craving a baptism. In the state of consciousness I am in, I want to experience everything anew and I drool at the thought of the holy spirit enveloping me and cleansing my soul. I also think that probably the experience would send me straight to heaven. (Methodists - Unite. The Baptists are trying to steal me).
Alas, I m back with my exasperating ways. Please, I beg, read me very clearly. I am forbidden to lie or even exaggerate. In the next while, many, many people are destined to leave their temporal body and I cannot allow you to deprive them of their last hope. We live in a very wicked world where deceit and lies rule the day. If they think, upon death, that they are already lost, it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy and they will act accordingly. Alarm bells should be ringing and yet there is silence. Pick 1000 biblical scholars and true believers - pick 10,000, or even 100,000 and Satan will beat you all in this debate. His advantage is that he was there when it was written and he knows which parts are muddy and misleading that he put there. Looking at the history of the bible and how it was put together over time, we are shown contradictions that everyone seems to ignore. Mark, Luke, Paul,and Timothy DID NOT know the living Christ. This is not to say that they weren't holy people or that what they said should be ignored. Only Matthew and John knew the living Christ. Most biblical scholars will tell you that none of the books were written by those it is attributed to. Matthew 10:2-4, tells us that there 12 disciples - none of them named Mark, Luke and Paul. Why are you not outraged that most of the new testament was written by people who did not know the livng Christ? The truth of the matter is that all Chrisitians follow the Pauline tradition, established by the Catholics, who were the only viable majority sect that was allowed to keep functioning.
You say that Matthew 16:28 is clear about 3 apostles witnessing Christ meeting with Moses and Elijah as part of the explanation that they saw Christ coming into his kingdom. (First of all, one wonders that the apostles would know what Moses and Elijah looked like 1000 years after their deaths.) Jesus tells us in the same passage that Elijah was re-incarnated as John the Baptist. You Do know that those little italic headings are not part of scripture and that they were added with the Protestant Reformtion, over a 1000 years after Christ's death. Remove the heading and what have you got? That Jesus met with Moses and Elijah as equals. But wait - they are not equal. Scripture also tells us that Jesus could not access his kingdom until AFTER the resurrection. A moot point, I grant you as those 3 apostles saw his death. I hope this shows you why the text is not as clear to me as it is you. Matthew and John both tell us there ARE second chances and the cut off is the mark of the beast. I exhort you to re-read the bible with new eyes.
