For Easter: Excerpt from Swallowed by LIFE

The Apostle Paul wrote, “How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Corinthians 15:12–14). When our daughter, Carolyn, died, I had the advantage of having not only read and studied the Bible for years, but having taught classes from Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a book that examines facts about the Christian faith. One significant part of McDowell’s work is to determine whether the Resurrection is historical fact or a mere hoax. The author wrote, “After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the ‘most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history.’” When a student asked McDowell why he couldn’t refute Christianity, the author answered, “For a very simple reason. I am not able to explain away an event in history--the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” McDowell’s first two books were his attempts to refute Christianity. When he couldn’t, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and became a Christian. I knew the Bible has several internal claims that it is the Word of God. For instance, 2 Peter 1:21 says the Bible was written by holy men of God as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost. I’d already read the testimony of many witnesses, but I needed to read them again. I decided to look again at the Bible’s authenticity, at the divinity of Jesus, at His miracles, and at why we can believe He was dead but came out of the tomb alive. Several biblical writers witnessed the dead raised to life and saw Jesus’ victory over the tomb. I noticed what John says: “That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:1–3). Luke also pointed out he was an eyewitness: “Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses…” (Luke 1:2). The Apostle Peter wrote: “We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). Josh McDowell points out the lives of the apostles were transformed after the Resurrection. According to scripture and biblical historians, every one of the apostles, with the exception of John, who died as a prisoner on Patmos, and Judas, who killed himself, gave their lives because they preached that Jesus rose from the dead. McDowell adds people often become martyrs because of their beliefs—but no one would give his life for something he knew was a lie. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, the disciples would have known it. The disciples knew the earthly body of Jesus was dead and His body was changed and came out of the tomb alive forevermore. Despite being thrown in prison and threats against their lives if they didn’t quit telling everyone about the Jesus rising from the dead, the disciples kept on preaching the truth so others could be saved from eternal death and live. They believed, spread the news, and died for it. Do you believe it? Faith is required for Salvation and if you want to live forever you need to believe. Although much evidence is available to prove Jesus lived, died and walked out of the tomb alive, Romans 10:9 says "If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." That means saved from separation from God for eternity, saved from hell, and saved from death hell and the grave because for you, death will be swallowed by life.

The Truth Test

How do we know truth? Law enforcement, juries, judges, media, schools and parents search for truth, but are they really? The attorney who nearly always enters a “not guilty” plea, even when his client was caught in the act by cameras and there are multiple witnesses? Even television stations or other news organizations who allows the source to “spin” a story? The pastor or priest who teaches something he knows doesn’t agree with the Bible? For centuries before us, people have tried to determine truth. The second chapter of my new book, Swallowed by LIFE, is titled “Truth Sleuth.” Many things in life are so important, we need to know the truth. One of these things we should investigate thoroughly is what happens when our time on earth is over. Will we cease to exist, or will we enter somewhere else? Will we come back as bugs, animals or another person? You could be surprised at some of the truth tactics used down through the centuries and the reliability of current methods such as the polygraph. But you also may be surprised how we determine truth about eternity. To see some of the answers for determining truth read the book. But I'll give you some hints. If you want to know the truth about the eternal, look at the evidence, read witnesses' transcripts, weigh what you know and make a decision. Jesus said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6). That's where to start. But the book will help. It's available on amazon in several countries. Swallowed by Life is available at http://amzn.com/1466200936 The Kindle version is http://amazon.com/swallowed-by-life-ebook/dp/B007BGCVSU/ref=sr_.1_3?s=books&ie+UTF8&qid=1330035854&sr+1-3 It is also available at www.barnesandnoble.com

A Speck in the Universe: Earth

 

      Last night a Christian astronomer spoke at our church. He has a giant telescope and his photos of the universe have been published in some of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world.

      Dr. Richard Hammer is a chemistry professor at Evangel University, and his work with astronomy began as a hobby. Now he’s teaching astronomy as well. He showed us several awesome photos and pointed out earth is only a little speck humankind can see through the windshield of our technology.

      He reminded us David asked, “What is man that God is mindful of him?” Then Hammer pointed out the wonder that God does pay attention to us and Jesus came to earth to end death, the curse of sin, and to give us eternal life.

      Last night after we returned,I read before going to sleep 1 John 3: 1-3:  “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are the children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”

      John says it all.

Link to new Kindle book

The Kindle version of my book, Swallowed by LIFE: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal, became available this week on Amazon.
The link to the Kindle version is

http://amazon.com/swallowed-by-life-ebook/dp/B007BGCVSU/ref=sr_.1_3?s=books&ie+UTF8&qid=1330035854&sr+1-3

The link to the paperback version: http://amzn.com/1466200936

The book is especially valuable to those searching for faith, but also is important to mature Christians who have never thought much about the hope of eternal life since they accepted Jesus as their Savior. Yet, in many Christians there is a hidden insecurity about the end of earthly life. Some refuse to make plans for the future and although some are senior citizens, they will not view the body at a funeral.

None of us knows if our faith is secure if we don't examine it. The Apostle Paul wrote. "Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves.

Swallowed by LIFE gives evidence for faith in the eternal because medical facts as well as the Bible show us we're more than a body. I talk some about being a reporter and how we gather facts, testimony and evidence, to relate to the public. Yet many people don't believe what is written and sometimes they believe things that are published or broadcast that aren't truth.

How do we know what is true?

The book talks about how societies have tried to determine truth historically and up to today. Yet, it takes a leap of faith to accept the evidence as true.

I think after reading Swallowed by LIFE your faith in God and the eternal will be strengthened and secure. But it does take a decision to believe. Each of us decides what we will believe, and we must do make the decision because everything about who we are, how we got here and where we are going is settled by faith.

Is your body like a locomotive? Telegraphing on the Rio Grande RR

A week ago I spoke to the local chapter of the National Association of Retired Veteran Railway Employees, telling the adventures we had when my husband worked as a telegraph operator for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad in the mountains of Colorado.

I told about living in a boxcar when we were in Malta. We lived in the depot in Avon (that's nearr Vail)., where we could hear trains going uphill for miles, even with a helper engine on the rear, but when they went down the mountain we heard a little rumble, the depot would shake and the train was gone. That was before Centralized Traffic Control and Les handed up messages to moving trains with a Y-stick, his pants flapping in the wind, telling the engineer where to go into a siding, adjust speed, or warn about danger ahead.
The railroad brought our drinking water on a motor car.

We lived on the top of nearly two-mile-high Tennessee Pass, across from Camp Hale, and one soldier who got off the train said, "Mountains this way, mountains that way. Mountains over there and over here.  The only way out of this place is up!"

In two-mile-high Leadville Les had been bumped and worked out of town. That's where I got stuck outside at about 2 a.m. in only my nightgown and a big fake fur coat trying to thaw out the freezing water pipes. We had about two feet of snow on top of our mobile home and it was melting from the warmth inside causing water to dribble down the sides and freeze the door shut while I tunneled underneath. Lucky my mother in law was there.  I woke her up and she pushed and I pulled until I got back inside and dressed warmer.  I found out the next day it was 30 degrees below zero.

We moved 12 times the first three years we were married. We stayed in Thompson, Utah, population of about 100, for five years. But we enjoyed our years living different places and meeting people.

Les’s telegraph bug has a special place in a glassed-in display cabinet in our youngest son’s home in Florida now. His old lunch pail with his initials scratched on the side sits beside it.

This is how i ended my speech: We admire railroad relics and visited a number of train museums across the country, including the Casey Jones museum in Jackson, Tenn. Our favorites are old  steam engines, the muscled beasts that streaked across open land like an Indian’s arrow and like a mountain goat around the high peaks. Les has a small collection of HO model engines.

The real engines are the ones that bring back memories. the rhythmic puffing along the tracks, the whistle’s cry like a lonely coyote in the dark of night, as the train carried passengers, mail, cattle, sheep, oil, coal, uranium, war artillery, and vehicles.

We admire the old railroad relics. It’s sad in some ways to see the once powerful “iron horses” taken on one last trip, and like a tombstone, they stand there for us to remember the great things achieved when a locomotive could burst to life with fire in its belly.

In many ways we’re like an old engine. We’ll come to the end of the line on earth someday. But we’re different from man-made machinery.  We were created to live forever. Jesus said whoever believes in me will never die. So although our bodies may someday lie under a tombstone or in an urn, the person we are will live on.

Furthermore, there will be a whistle—or more accurately a trumpet blast, that will echo around the world calling our bodies to rise to new life.

This is more than the restarting of a refurbished train engine. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:50-54).

I have written a book, Swallowed by LIFE: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal.

No one will get off this earth alive in his mortal state. But evidence shows we’re more than a body. Just ask the person who lost a hundred pounds, an individual  with someone else’s heart pumping his blood, a patient who has had part of his brain removed, or the soldier with no legs.

We are more than a body.  Study regenerative medicine and you’ll understand the experts estimate our skin rebuilds itself every seven days or so, and with the exception of our neurological system, almost every single cell in our body is replaced every seven to ten years. So we don’t have the same body we had last year, let alone the body in which we were born.

As a former medical reporter for a daily newspaper, in this book I reveal how science shows us that death is swallowed by life every day. I also examine the words of Jesus Christ concerning eternal life, as well as testimony from witnesses about His death and Resurrection. In addition, I tell the story of a man who was clinically dead, but revived; I interviewed medical professionals and did other research about life and death.

I told ___ (the president)  I would tell you about my book along with our story about telegraphing along the Rio Grande Railroad. If you are interested in a copy of Swallowed by LIFE they’re sold at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com for $12.95, plus shipping and handling.

 Love for the railroad still pumps in my veins, and it’s much more than pointing out the “choo-choo” to children. Railroading is an adventure!

What does a head on a platter have to do with love?

My article, "Love is Dynamite," is a guest post today.  See it at www.kdawnbyrd.blogspot.com.

Check it out!

Happy Valentine's Day to all my followers.
 Ada Brownell

Would Jesus Weep Over My City?

              
The only time I remember seeing my daddy cry was when Grandma died. Dad and his brothers sat in the church after everyone but the family quietly trickled out. A deep guttural sob shattered the silence. Sorrow tore from mature male throats in baritone gasps that made me hurt.
         The sound of grown men weeping stays with me to this day and forever reminds me of Jesus sobbing His heart out over a city.
           The heart of Jesus broke over Jerusalem, where David started his reign, Solomon built the Temple and where the Messiah knew He would die.
           The Lord traveled toward Jerusalem that day on a borrowed donkey. The animal’s hooves clicked up the road carrying Him to the Mount of Olives where he could see the city in the valley below. Jesus knew who lived in each house. Some thought He was their King, but the majority rejected redemption from the Savior. Jesus knew enemies would soon descend on Jerusalem and lay the whole city even with the ground, killing many, including children.
            Jesus slid off the donkey, dropped to His knees, and wept.[1] “The word ‘wept’ in Greek means more than shedding tears,” writes Bible commentator Donald C. Stamps. “It suggests a lamentation, a wailing, a heaving of the bosom—the sob and the cry of the soul in agony.”[2]
         I wonder if Jesus weeps over my city. I’ve wept over cities myself.
         In the early 1980s, I noticed the waning of faith in our nation, and spent time on my knees praying for revival. When I went back to work as a daily newspaper reporter in 1984 I witnessed first-hand the agony sin causes. It increased the burden. I had been out of the news business nearly 20 years and it seemed evil bubbled to the top of our nation in my absence.
           I saw children in hospital mental wards in danger of suicide because of physical and sexual abuse. I saw babies mentally and physically affected by fetal alcohol syndrome or drug addiction.
          A group of 12-year-old boys were in court for gang raping an eight-year-old girl. I asked the juvenile judge whether she thought the boys would change.
           "Usually when they end up in my court they are too damaged to recover,” the judge said. “They haven’t had proper parenting.”
           I interviewed unwed teen moms, most of them angry at their former boyfriend, their parents and the world.
           An estimated 20 million new STD infections occur each year, almost half to ages 15-24.
            Since 1973, 45 million babies have been aborted in the United States and many of those parents still suffer emotionally from what they did. I’ve interviewed some of them.
          Once a year, I reported health statistics for our county, along with murders, suicides, divorces. This generation has trouble making relationships and marriages work, multiplying grief.
          More heart-breaking is what is happening spiritually. Many of our youth say the church is no longer relevant and they proceed to destroy their lives and their eternal future.
          No wonder Jesus wept when he prayed for Jerusalem. He loved them, as He loves us today. The cross demonstrated his deep love.
           Some of my Sunday school students couldn’t understand why Jesus had to die and innocent animals were slaughtered on the altar in Old Testament days.
           Blood is required by God to forgive sin[3] because sin is so terrible,” I explained. “Breaking any of God’s commandments will hurt you or someone else.”
           Love caused our Savior to be willing to die for us and deliver us from sin. Love caused Him to weep over those who rejected Him.
           He told the folks at Jerusalem, "You who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”[4]
           He waits to enfold us into His arms, deliver us from sin and make us into new creations—cleansed by His blood-- save us from our sins and eternal damnation. His goal is to allow us to be changed and swallowed by eternal life so that we will be forever with Him. Sometimes we need to weep over sin ourselves, but He stands near--ready to give us joy unspeakable and full of glory. We're told out of our belly will flow rivers of living water so others may know the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What a Savior!

---

[1] Luke 19:41-44

[2] Life in the Spirit Bible, Life Publishers International 1990, Luke 19:41 comments.

[3] Hebrews 9:21-23

[4] Matthew 23:36-38