Born To Win Podcast - With Ronald L. Dart

I honestly don’t know what people expect in terms of a prophet. I don’t think many people even know where to look for one. You certainly would be making a mistake if you looked for one in a pulpit of a church or speaking in a stadium in front of 60,000 people. You aren’t likely to find a real prophet in those environments.One ancient prophet, for example was a sheep-herder and a fruit-picker before God spoke to him. And he seems to have been a reluctant prophet, at that. He wasn’t schooled, trained or taught. On one occasion, when he had delivered an unpleasant prophecy concerning Israel, he was told to knock it off, go home, and shut up.We’ll find his reply, as well as a most interesting principle regarding how God chooses to reveal his secrets to man, in the Book of Amos.

Would you agree that Jesus was a good man? I doubt that we could find anyone who would argue to the contrary. Would you then agree that Jesus was a righteous man? I am reasonably sure you would. But what exactly does that mean?I have asked the question: If you only had a short time to tell someone about God, what would you want to be sure and tell them. Each of us might have our own list, but God gave us his in Jeremiah 9. [T]hat they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight[.]The last thing on God’s list of things he wants us to know and understand about him is that he exercises righteousness in the earth. And since Jesus is God in the flesh, we would surely expect him to be an example of righteousness. But again, I have to ask, what does that mean?

If you sit down to read the Old Testament, you’re very likely to come across some events that are profoundly disturbing. There are instances where God commands Israel to wipe out whole cities—men, women, children, and animals. And it is not easy to reconcile these events with what we otherwise know about the nature of God.People make two big mistakes when they tackle this issue. They try to justify God or they condemn God for allowing bad things to happen. As to the first error, God is sovereign and can do as he wishes. My task is not to justify God, but to understand and know him. As to the second error, this arises from the human desire to have our cake and eat it too. We want to be free to live our lives as we choose without anything bad happening to us.But the freedom to live our lives as we choose means that we each have the freedom to harm one another—which we often do. The presence of evil in the world is relatively easy to understand. Man is free. Man commits sin. When we commit sin,

We know from God’s own testimony that it possible, not only to know God, but to understand him. But to really know and understand God at a personal level, one has to know Jesus. On the night of the last supper, Jesus had a rather long dialogue with his disciples. He said something quite remarkable and puzzling, recorded in John 14. It almost sounds as if Jesus is saying that he is the Father. But that can’t quite be true. Jesus is on earth and the Father is in heaven, and they talk to each other.The Gospel of John is very strong on this point. He even starts out with it. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now this poses a logical problem. How can the Word be God and be with God at the same time? What was Jesus explaining in this passage?Christian theologians have wrestled with this down through time and have come up with the idea that God is a Trinity—three persons in one. The precise nature of the Trinity is said to be a mystery, so we can’

When you have a limited time to tell someone about God, what are the important things for a person to know? For a person who knows nothing about God, I would be hard-pressed to start anywhere except with the simple concept of God as creator.What is interesting is that this is precisely the place the Founding Fathers of our country started in laying out their case for independence.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.The very guarantor of our most fundamental rights is, according the Founding Fathers, the Creator.The Founding Fathers concluded some very important things from the idea of God as creator. They saw logically the same thing that Paul outlines in Romans 1—that the creation is a self-evident fact. Something that is self-evident needs no proof. It is there and its self is evidence. Let’s look at how this simple concept&m

Would you buy a used car from a salesman who had lied to you on previous deal? No way. Not only that, but I wouldn’t do any business with that dealership again. I think we could agree that it is not wise to buy a used car from a known liar.Now why do I raise this question? It seems to me that there are people out there who would never trust a used car salesman who was a known liar, but they will vote for a politician who has lied to them more than once.Why do we get played for suckers by professional liars? Because they tell us what we want to hear. What I am describing here is a colossal lack of wisdom—what we sometimes call common sense—but what is increasingly uncommon sense. It came to mind recently when I was reading the introduction to the Book of Proverbs.

Speaking to the young prophet named Jeremiah, God had this to say about himself:But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the Lord.Jeremiah 9:24 KJ2000Now I would be the first to admit that there is a problem with this, at least on the surface. There is a tension between a God who exercises loving-kindness on the one hand and judgement on the other. Take Sodom and Gomorrah, for example. It isn’t immediately apparent that Sodom is an example of the loving-kindness of God.The tension between the first two aspects of God’s character, loving-kindness and judgement, is resolved in the third aspect of his character—righteousness. In Hebrew, it comes from a root that means straight. Some of the instructions of God don’t become clear until much time has passed—or, when ignoring them, after much harm has been done. We have to depend

Have you ever heard of the Wicked Bible? No, I am not making a joke. Back in the very earliest days of printing with movable type, someone made a mistake in setting the words of the seventh commandment, and out came a Bible which read, Thou shalt commit adultery.And as ridiculous as it sounds, I have a legitimate question: Why not? There are those who argue for the abolition of divine law, but for that to be possible, the law itself must be arbitrary. That is, God could just have easily said Thou shalt steal as to say Thou shalt not steal.Now I’ll guess that you intuitively know that is not the case. God said Thou shalt not steal because it is intrinsically wrong. And it is intrinsically wrong because it is harmful. Now, what does that tell us about the nature of God?

Some people are fond of speaking of God as omnipresent, everywhere at once, present in every blade of grass, existing throughout the entire universe. But they never seem to consider that in the process they depersonalize God and that they are advocating a kind of pantheism.Yet the Bible reveals a God is a person and acting in time and space. You can think of God presenting himself as standing alongside a road talking to a man named Abraham about his plan. This aspect of God is revealed in the pages of your Bible.Now if God is a person, then it is logical that he has a personality and character. In fact, that is precisely what the Bible reveals to us. So the question naturally follows: What kind of person is he? What is he like? God himself tells us what we must know about him. Let’s begin by reading his words to Jeremiah.

If you only had a short time to tell someone about God, what would you tell them? What is the most important thing to know about God? In a way, we may think we don’t know much about God—that God is some great mystical being of whom we only have the faintest idea.But if we think very long about this, we are liable to find that some of the things we know about God are contradictory. This suggests that we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere and that leads to an important principle found in Deuteronomy:The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.Deuteronomy 29:29 KJ2000So there are things we can know about God and things that are unknowable for us. The curious thing about man is that we become quite sure of things about God that we really can’t know, while we are doubtful about the things we can know. So instead of busying ourselves with the secret things, creating dogma

Several years ago I knew a young woman who was frustrated in her marriage and wanted a divorce. Her family pleaded with her not to do it, to seek counseling, and to try to work things out. So many couples, they said, tough it out during the hard times and later they find themselves with good, strong marriages. Her husband did not want the divorce and was prepared to do almost anything to keep the family together. They said, Think about your little boy. He needs a father in the home. But she had married young, felt restricted, and wanted to spread her wings. Her reply considering the little fellow was dismissive, Oh, he will be all right. You know, I don’t think she knew the risks she was taking.Children without fathers in the home are almost twice as likely to be hyperactive as kids in homes with two parents. I don’t think she knew that 63% of youth suicides are kids who grew up with no father in the house. I don’t think she knew that 90% of all the runaways and homeless kids out there grew

The apostle John came as close to being a time traveler as any man is likely to be. When he was sitting near the coast on the isle of Patmos one day, a great voice behind him said: “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia.” And what John saw was enough to make our hair stand on end.But we have to decide what it is we are reading when we pick up the Book of Revelation. There is a view that says John traveled in vision and saw the future. He saw people and events and tries to describe them for us as best he can. One source on this, for example postulates that John actually saw a helicopter assault in this vision, but having never seen a chopper, he described them as locusts. Mind you, he didn't say they were like locusts. He said they were locusts. The fundamental assumption here is that John was carried into the future and saw real events. And from that assumption comes another one. The events described in Revela

Do you have the power of the Spirit in your life? The Spirit is a gift promised at baptism in Acts 2:38—so if you have it what are you doing with it? For the spirit to be empowered it must have a source. What is the source that is powering your spirit? Are you plugged into the world or are you plugged into God? How do you stir up the Holy Spirit to good works?

The holy days in Israel were prophetic, illustrating God's plan through annual cycles that reflected his work and intentions. Although the people of Old Testament times might not have fully grasped their significance, these holy days carry profound meaning for Christians today.One of these, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost and was a time to thank God for the bounty received. It required the firstfruits of the harvest to be offered to God before the harvest could be enjoyed. This act symbolized the beginning of a seven-week period of work, culminating in Pentecost. Although we may have distanced ourselves from these agricultural roots, Pentecost remains a festival of thanksgiving for the harvest.The seven weeks leading up to Pentecost represent the Messiah's work—from his acceptance by God as the first of the firstfruits until his return and the establishment of his kingdom. This period was marked by labor, punctuated by rest, symbolized by the seven Sabbaths leading up to Pentecost.In this prophetic scheme, th

What did the First Christians believe about speaking in tongues? It is always risky assuming we know what people think, but we have a pretty impressive body of writing by these folks, and from those writings, we can get an idea of what their experiences were and what they thought about them.Just to clarify: When I speak of the First Christians, I am talking about those Christians who were alive and active when the various books of the New Testament were being written. That puts them all in the first century, and mostly before the fall of Jerusalem.I am not arguing a case for what 21st-century Christians should practice. That is an issue that churches will decide for themselves. But if we do differ from what the First Christians believed and practices, reason suggests that we should frankly acknowledge the difference and offer a reason for it. The logical place to start is with the first instance of speaking in tongues recorded in the Bible. But to put that in perspective, consider something Jesus said:And Jes

Imagine yourself sitting in a room with 120 of the first disciples of Jesus. You have been through an emotional roller coaster the last two months, from a triumphant entry into Jerusalem of the Messiah, to his ignominious torture and death, to his resurrection. And you all saw him alive; some of you even saw him ascend into heaven. You are expectant, but you really have no idea what is coming. It is Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Christ’s resurrection. You have all come together to observe the feast of Pentecost as you have all your lives.Suddenly, with no warning, the room is filled with a great roaring sound, something very much like fire shimmers across the ceiling of the room, and a little stream of that fire descends upon each of you sitting in the room. Each of you finds yourself with the ability to speak in a language you have never spoken before and bursting with a message about the wonderful works of God.It would be an unforgettable experience, wouldn’t it. Energizing, empowering. But

Of all the Christian holidays, the one that surprises me the most is Pentecost. It surprises me that every Christian does not observe it. After all, it is the birthday of the New Testament church. It is the day the Holy Spirit fell on the church in power. You would think that if they are going to celebrate anything, they would have an important anniversary every year at Pentecost.On the other hand, it is a fact that more than half of all Christendom observes Pentecost. In England it is a national holiday, called Whitsunday, or White Sunday—because of the custom of wearing white for baptism, and the large numbers of baptisms on Pentecost. But most American churches remain blissfully unaware of Pentecost. It is a word they attach to a charismatic movement that includes speaking in tongues. They don't think of it as a day. And yet Pentecost is definitely a Christian holiday.There is a curious thing about Pentecost, though. The word Pentecost is a Greek word that means Fiftieth. The fiftieth what? Well, since it

Many people have called Pentecost the birthday of the New Testament Church. It has also been called a lot of other things down through the years. It has been called a harvest festival. It’s been called a celebration of the resurrection. It’s a celebration of the Holy Spirit. It’s been called the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits, and the name we generally use—the Feast of Pentecost, itself a curious little Greek word signifying that it is the fiftieth day. In the very beginning, though, Pentecost was a harvest festival. Let’s begin with the very earliest reference to the feast, found in the 23rd chapter of Exodus.Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study. It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible.Over the past few weeks, we’ve followed Ron Dart in taking a closer look at the Passover, the resurrection of Christ, and the beginning of the countdown to the