Pure Water, Fresh Air, New Birth

By Rick Blumenberg  @rickblumenberg

Years ago Mutual of Omaha, a large insurance company, studied the salesmen who failed to discov­er the rea­sons for failure and "weed out" likely fail­ures before spending so much money tra­ining them. This would also help many avoid fail­ure. 

Many Ways to Fail

They discovered there are unlimited ways to fail. They finally admitted the study was a fail­ure. Every time they thought they knew every possible way to fail somebody discov­ered a new one!

In any situation, the gate that leads to failure and de­struc­tion is wide with numberless ways to get there. Multi­tudes of people find their way t­o and thru it. Every generation invents new methods and previously un­known ways to go to hell. 

On the other hand the gateway that leads to life is narrow. You have to search to find it. Many lose their way and perish before they  get through. That's why the Bible is so important. It tells The way to get to heaven--the way to put all the various parts of life together so life is a meaningful whole. But it only tells one way of salvation and that way is Jesus.

Some don’t like only one way

Several years ago I watched the Donahue Show as he inter­viewed Billy Graham. When Phil asked how to get to heaven he quoted Jesus' state­ment to Nicodemas; "You must be born again."

As you can imagine, Phil didn't like that answer. He knew before asking he would­n't like the answer. He knew what the answer would be. I think his pur­pose, was to make Graham look stupid to his audience because Phil did­n't think it made sense that God would be so "narrow-mind­ed". Logic says if there is a God he would not make only one way to get to heav­en. Anyone who thinks so is illogical, nar­row minded, and bigoted.

I’m constantly amazed that a per­son who is not smart enough to create even one tiny single-celled amoe­ba, much less anything as com­plex as an insect or worm, would still think he/she is smart enough to tell God how to handle His crea­tion!

But perhaps you've asked that same question. Why did God only make One Way to get to heaven—One way to be saved? Does the Bible really teach that? Let's see.

I John 5: 11-12 "...God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  He who has the Son has life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

Now let me ask you a question: How many liquids do you know that will pre­vent a person from dying of thirst? I only know of one—water. It can come in many forms— milk, cola, cof­fee, or other drinks that are water-based. You can drink gasoline, motor oil or brake fluid but they won't sustain life. In fact, they de­stroy it. If we don't have water, we die. That's pretty narrow isn't it? It just isn't logical. Anyone who would believe such a thing would have to be narrow-minded and bigoted. The problem is…..it's true

How about breath? How many gases can we breathe to maintain life? I only know one—oxygen. We can breathe many gases. Some will kill us, some are harmless, one makes us laugh, but none sustain life. If you don't have oxygen, you die. That's pretty narrow isn't it? It just isn't logical. Anyone who believes such a thing is nar­row-minded and bigoted. The problem is…..it's true.

If we take water out of the liquids we drink, we die of thirst.

If we take oxygen out of the air we breathe we're soon asphyxiated.

If we take Jesus out of the picture, we are "dead in tres­passes and sin". And eventually, when separ­ated from our physi­cal bodies by physical death, that spiritual death be­comes ete­rnal. Without Jesus, life as we know it would not even exist.

Thank God for Water!

Why did God create the human race (and as far as I know, all other forms of life) so we must have water to sur­vive? That's easy. You know the answer. Because water is e­nough! Water is a mar­velo­us li­quid! It brings wealth to a nation, health to it's peo­ple and to all of creation if it's kept clean and pure. Not­hing tast­es bet­ter than a cool, re­fresh­ing drink of spar­kling pure water!  Thank God for water!

Thank God for Oxygen!

Why did God create us so we could only breathe oxygen? Ano­ther easy answer, He only created one gas to sus­tain life be­cause oxy­gen is fully adequate! Oxy­gen is a marve­lous gas! It gives health and strength to all the dif­ferent or­gans in the human body. Nothing feels bet­ter than a deep breath of fresh, clean air! Thank God for oxyg­en!

Thank God for Jesus!

But how about salvation? Why did God plan only One Way for peo­ple to be saved? Why couldn't there be "many roads, winding their way to one God"? The answer is the same as the answer to the two previous questions—because One Way is enough.

Jesus Christ is a marvelous Savior! He brings whole­someness and joy to all who believe! Absolutely noth­ing is as wonderful as living life fully surrendered to the lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the only true and Living God and our Creator!  Thank God for Jesus!  

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.
     

Emmanuel Unleashed!

By Rick Blumenberg / @RickBlumenberg

When God created heaven and earth he created a place and a people that were new and different than anything previously in existence. The primary difference was that we were his beloved creation but we would not live in his immediate Presence. God wanted to create a race of people (humans) who serve him out of love, rather than requirement. He began by creating humanity to spend time with him in what we know as the Garden of Eden. This was the first experience of Emanuel (God with Us) for our human species. It must have been amazing; to live with God so intimately—like heaven on earth.

As most of you know, this “God with Us” experience was temporary because sin entered the picture and separated us from God. This did not catch God off-guard. He knew it would happen and had planned for it, but it took several steps and much time before “Emmanuel” became restored reality in the best sense of the word. God had to move at a pace with which his human creation could cope. They were not immediately ready and Self-Ish-Ness pulled them this way and that in the years that followed.

God used many methods to bring his people back to the “Emmanuel” lost to sin. He used charismatic leaders like Abraham and Sarai, and Hagar, the persecuted concubine of Abraham who was driven from her home by Sarai in a fit of jealousy. Hagar showed great insight in the search for Emmanuel when she called God “the God who sees me”. By this time humanity’s relationship with God had been largely obliterated and it was only in her despair that Hagar realized God was not only alive, but was aware of her and her unborn child. This was a move toward an Emmanuel or “God with Us” relationship.

The early books of the Old Testament abound with charismatic leaders such as Joseph, the mother of Moses and Moses himself. Eventually he established judges to bring people back to himself but when the people asked for a king things went backward for centuries while the Jewish people tried to exist without God.

“But when the time had fully come…”^{(Galatians 4:4)}, after sending us the law and the prophets, God sent his Son. He even called Jesus “Emmanuel” because he would save us from our sin and thus restore the “God with us” relationship. So when Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin and announced by the angels, mankind experienced a whole new level of Emmanuel. God was literally “with us” in the life of his Son Jesus. Fully God and at the same time fully man, Jesus brought God and his creation together in a way never seen before. Through his incarnational (God in the flesh) coming, Jesus lived among us and showed us God’s true nature instead of the warped nature given to him by godless men and women through centuries of godless human living. But instead of merely gloating about the fact he was one with the Father, Jesus helped us see that oneness with God (Emmanuel) was God’s ideal for all mankind and that through faith in him we, mere creations of the most high God were created not for drudgery and death, but for a glorious relationship with the God of all creation. And Jesus had come to make that possible!

When Jesus finished his work and went back to the Father he had already told the disciples of the next, final, and most perfect level of Emmanuel.

That’s right, Jesus on earth, in the flesh, was not God’s best. It was a step toward the best earthly level of Emmanuel. Jesus made this clear when he promised to send the Holy Spirit, saying “It is for your good that I am going away.” ^{(John 16:7)} Jesus had no intention to stay forever in the flesh. He came to make it possible for the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of the Father and the Son—to come and live in us so that everywhere every Spirit-filled person goes, God goes, because he lives in us and works in us and through us, thus restoring the world to the highest and best level of Emmanuel or “God with Us”.

This Christmas and for all time, if we accept this gracious gift of God himself through his Spirit, the “God with Us” phenomenon reaches its highest earthly level, where God Himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, lives in us for His glory and for the good of all mankind.

I’m Rick Blumenberg and that’s My View from Tanner Creek.

   

The Idolatry of Creationary Evolution

The most widespread, vicious and prolonged attack on the concept of the Divine origins of our universe comes, not from atheists, but from those who claim to be atheists while espousing and worshiping the god of creationary evolution. Of course one hallmark of religion is the presence of faith—there are some things that cannot be proven and must be accepted by faith because there may never be objective proof or scientific evidence. Faith, however, to be worthy, must be rooted in something that is provable beyond reasonable doubt by evidence that is authentic and in enough abundance to not be an aberration. Creationary evolution fails miserably to meet such criteria. Creationary evolution scientists want us to accept by faith that the world came into being by purely natural phenomena. They insist that Darwinism is genuine science and Christianity, or any faith that teaches Creation by Divine fiat, is foolishness and fiction. They deride faith while actually being people of blind faith, if they really believe what they claim.

Now you may question why I call creationary evolutionists people of faith, but I ask you, where is the proof of their creator? Where is the evidence of their creation story? It doesn’t exist and only those who have blind faith in an unproven theory with no supporting evidence could possibly believe such nonsense.

Where is the fossil evidence of even one species that has mutated to a totally new species? Such evidence is a requirement for their claims to be taken seriously. Even Darwin, himself, I am told, said for his theory to be accepted as fact, it would need to be proven by evidence in the fossil record. Now, on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s theory, that evidence is still missing, but the blind faith of creationary evolutionists is so vocal and determined to obliterate any concept of Divine creation, that they ridicule scientists who believe in intelligent design. The resistance is sometimes so strong I’ve heard they seek to trash believing scientists’ careers and drive them from scientific professions. People of blind faith cannot allow critical analysis of their faith or it will be proven inadequate at best and at worst, totally false. If you are a creationary evolutionist, clinging to a fallacy on blind faith there is nothing more frightening than critical analysis of your unsupportable theology.

On the other hand, where is the evidence of Divine creation? Does the universe indicate the presence of a creator? How likely is a mixture of chemical soup to grow into such an amazing thing as a human body in all its magnificence, or a human brain that can contemplate such possibilities? And the galaxies of the universe—how could they just happen, with no intelligence behind them? There is much evidence there must be intelligence behind the creation of our universe.

The difficulty, of course, is that evolution is a proven fact, so the preachers and priests of creationary evolution try to parlay this into proof that creation came about through evolution and that is where their argument fails.

The concept of the separation of church and state was created by thoughtful people who wanted to protect genuine religion from the rule of politicians. Now the religion of creationary evolution is being taught in our schools under the guise of scientific truth but the primary purpose is not scientific truth, but the destruction of genuine faith in the Creator God. We need to recognize this religion and reveal it in the public square for what it is—a false religion and pseudo science. It is a false religion that seeks to usurp the rightful place of truth and reason—and replace it with the absurdity of creationary evolution.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . .and that's My View from Tanner Creek.