Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

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 the experience is not what this was about. The experience only lasted for a while and faded. And the disciples were left to ponder what the experience was all about and what it meant. It was clear enough right from the start that what was important was not so much the experience, but the meaning. What the disciples were coming to understand was that the Temple was a stage upon which a drama was played out. And that drama was the story of Christ.

There have been some truly great men who held the office of pope down through the centuries, and some men who were…well, not great. Some have been venal. Some have been violent. Some were put in office by imperial authority. Some were murdered in their beds. There have been times in history when schism found leaders and left the church with more than one pope, believe it or not.The word anti-pope is unfamiliar because there hasn't been one for 500 years. What's that? Well, an anti-pope is a claimant of the papacy in opposition to a pope elected according to canon law. To give you an idea of some of the ferment that existed in the past—in the 11th century alone there were 5 anti-popes, and 8 of them in the 12th century. That's 13 anti-popes in 200 years. (Excommunications, naturally, flew back and forth.)It's ironic that since the Protestant Reformation there have been no anti-popes—almost as though we flushed out all the dissidents and went forward. The Reformation, though, was a schism within the Roman Church, as was the split with the English Church under Henry VIII. But in the modern world, we have seen nothing like this. That does not mean we will never see anything like it again. It's entirely possible that we could encounter the old word anti-pope on the evening news in the years to come.I've told you all this to help you understand something else that may well come to your attention in the next few weeks. For generations there have been those who referred to the Catholic Church as the great whore of Babylon [Revelation 17] and who believed that the last pope would be the Antichrist. Each new pope could be the last pope, and may fulfill many of the prophecies of the man of sin and Antichrist. He will, according to these would-be prophets, be the little horn of the prophecies of Daniel and one of the beasts of Revelation. Heavy stuff. But take any self-proclaimed prophet with a grain of salt.Where does all this come from? Some comes from an anti-Catholicism arising from conflicts in the dim past, and indeed there have been popes in the long history of the church that deserve condemnation. Catholics probably know that better than anyone. After the Renaissance popes provoked the Protestant Reformation (and they really did) the Catholic Church made some reforms of its own. Still, there are those who want to label the last pope as the man of sin.So, where did this idea of a man of sin for the last days come from? Well, we can thank the Apostle Paul for that. In one of his earliest letters, he spoke of the imminent return of Christ. Or at least it sure sounded imminent to his readers, within their lifetime. Well, this generated a flurry of concern, and Paul has to deal with it in his second letter:Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.2 Thessalonians 2:3–4This is pretty strong; and as bad as some of the popes have been, none of them ever got close to this. Who, then, would do something like this?

Sheep, grain, bread, salt, seeds. In the Gospels, Jesus uses many metaphors when describing both the harvest that is before us and our own roles as workers, bringing in that harvest.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 Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. As we find commanded in Leviticus 23:From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain […] a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord.Leviticus 23:15–17 NIVThis weekend concludes the third of those seven weeks, so tonight we'll join Mr. Dart in examining this time of year and its accompanying harvest—both of grain and of men.

It was just at the crack of dawn. First light of the new day was just starting to show over the top of the Golan Heights. Still too dark to see anything. The men in the boat fumbled around because they knew where their tackle was, they knew what the boat was like, they knew where everything was by hand, by touch. They had fished a lot at night, so they didn't have any problem with that.But on the shore, off to one side, they could see a little fire burning. They had fished all night long, and they were frustrated because they hadn't caught a thing. And, you know, fishing the way they fished was fairly hard work. And nighttime for them was the time—with daylight coming, hope for catching a lot of fish was beginning to diminish. But that little fire was burning over there. Someone was moving around the fire, and a voice came out across the sea there, about some hundred yards or so away where they were."Boys, have you caught anything?"And one of them put his hand to his mouth and says, "No!"He said back, "You're fishing on the wrong side of the boat. Try the right side."Now, that must have in itself been a little bit of frustrating advice to those fellows out there because they'd been professional fishermen, off and on, all their lives. And there's just not a whole lot of difference between the right side of the boat and the left side of the boat.And one of them says, "There's no point in doing that."He says, "Well, you had a better idea?"He said, "No, I don't."So they threw the net out the right side of the boat. And before they got anything done at all, the net began to get very heavy. There was a lot of vibration coming up the lines, and they realized they had gotten themselves a load of fish.And about that time, John leaned over to Peter and said, "It's the Lord. It's the Lord."And Peter, who had been fishing naked all night (it must have been pretty warm), grabbed something and put it on him and jumped in the water. They were only 100 yards offshore, so they rowed their boat to shore, dragged the net behind them and up on shore, and they got counted over 160 fish they had in that net.But Jesus already had a fire going, had fish propped up against it, cooking away; and he'd taken bread and put it up, toasting the bread against the fire; and so they had breakfast already well underway.After breakfast, Jesus said to Peter (and the way I read the account, I think it was kind of privately when he said it, perhaps walking along the shore after breakfast as the sun was beginning to come up), "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me more than these?"And Peter said, "Lord, you know I love you."And Jesus replied, "Feed my lambs."He walked a little further along, and he turned again and he said, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you truly love me?"And he said, "Yes, Lord, you know I love you."And Jesus fixed him with a glaze in his eyes and says, "Feed my sheep."And then finally he said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?"And Peter was grieved because he said it to him the third time, and I can understand why he might have been. And he said, "Lord, you know everything. You know I love you."And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."Now, I can understand why Peter was grieved, but here's my question for you today (my first question of many): Why did Jesus call his love into question? Why was it questionable? Was it perhaps that he had denied the Lord three times? Most commentators who read this, most preachers who preach on it, make that comparison just like that. Peter denied Christ three times. Christ made him affirm his love back to Christ three times. There was reason for it.You know, to deny your best friend, your closest friend, is a betrayal. And Peter had in every sense betrayed Christ. His love certainly could be called into question, and so Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee did so."Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?"And now my next question for you: What if Jesus had asked you the same question three times?"Robert, do you love me? Feed my lambs.""James, do you love me? Feed my sheep.""Shirley, do you love me? Feed my lambs."Would it cross your mind to wonder why Jesus would need to ask you that question? Why? I mean, "Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?"Because you do have to understand, I hope, that there are more ways to betray somebody or to deny somebody than the way Peter did. There are other ways to do it, as well.I don't doubt for a moment that Peter loved Jesus. I mean, how could you not love a man like him after having spent this amount of time with him? When you read about Jesus, you see the character of the man, you see the charisma of the man, the love of the man. And you remember that Peter and all these guys had been up and down every road in Galilee and Judea with him. They'd camped out on the roadside at night. They'd eaten from the same pot so many times they couldn't even count them. They shared the same bread. They passed it around together. They actually slept next to each other on the ground.How, after all that period of time, would Peter not love Jesus? I don't think there's much of a question as to how that would be so.But we only know Jesus secondhand. We haven't had that chance. We haven't had that time. How could we possibly know Jesus like Peter did to love him as Peter loved him? But Jesus had to ask him anyway.So I suppose he would ask me, as well."Ronald Dart, do you love me?"And it's a painful question. But it's a question I have to answer. And so do you."Do you love me?"

We rarely give very much thought to these days between Passover and Pentecost; but in ancient times, this was a time of very hard work… These are weeks of harvest that we are now going through. What do the weeks between Passover and Pentecost really mean? And what does an ancient agricultural rhythm have to do with the Church today?

There’s an old hymn I remember singing in church when I was just a boy. It’s striking to me today, because it represents an understanding of the Bible in earlier generations that I think has been lost in many churches today. The song goes:Christ our redeemer died on the crossdied for the sinner, paid all his due,All who receive him need never fearYes, He will pass, will pass over you.When I see the blood, [repeated three times]I will pass, I will pass over you.Now, I sang that song for years and never realized where the theme—Passover—came from. There was a time when the great hymn writers had a sense of the connection between old and new. They realized that there is a strong tie between the death of Jesus and the Passover of the Jews. But just as that connection presented problems for the early church (and it did), it presents problems today, as well. A lot of folks don’t like the idea of anything Jewish connected with their Christianity. Yet here is this old hymn. And here is something that inspired it: what God said to Moses in Exodus, chapter 12.

How is it possible that a Christian church, some 25 years after the ascension of Christ, was still observing the oldest known Jewish holiday? And they were. It is easily demonstrated. And they weren’t even a Jewish church. This one was mostly Gentile.Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in about AD 55, and scholars generally agree that the letter was written about Passover season. He was addressing a problem that was disgracing the church, and almost in passing—as though he took it for granted—he made a remark about the Passover that is somewhat startling.Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.1 Corinthians 5:6–8 KJVNow, how is the connection made here to the Passover, and why was this church observing it, and why was Paul advocating it?

There are, in some of Paul's letters, some things that are...well, the only words I can say for it is astonishing and astounding. We spend a lot of time in these epistles explaining the problems, or expounding from those scriptures where Paul exhorts the church to do these things and do the other things, and where he addresses theological concepts, and we have had to spend lots of times with the technical problems.What I want to look at today is not those portions of the Scriptures, but what I call the unswept corners of Paul's epistles—where there are some things said that are not explained, that are not really a part of a technical discussion or an advancing of a doctrine. They are things that are said that are dropped on the ears of people who are new in the faith, when the faith was new.

Nancy Pearcey, in her book Total Truth, brought something into focus that I had thought about but hadn't quite got together. She observed that a common weakness of evangelism is that we start with redemption. It's true, especially among evangelicals. When there is an altar call at the end of a sermon, it can't help but control the entire sermon. The object is to bring the sinner home. Evangelism starts with redemption.I have commented before about the signs we used to see on the sides of barns, and in neon lights on top of a temple in downtown Los Angeles: Jesus Saves. Yes, but what does that mean? Saves from what? Saves for what? What do you mean by that? I have heard Billy Graham cry out, Christ is the answer. Does anyone ever ask, Yes, but what was the question?Christian evangelism seemed to me to be all bound up in their own jargon. It is good that, in spite of all that, they found enough people who felt they needed saving from something and came to accept Christ. And some of these people experienced a changed life as a result.Nothing I am going to say here, and nothing Ms. Pearcey says, should diminish the idea of redemption in the least. That said, she advanced a kind of framework for a worldview composed of three elements: Creation, The Fall, Redemption. Her argument is that the place evangelism should start is not with redemption. It should start with creation. For without this truth at the foundation, nothing else means anything.Unless you believe in the creation, the idea of a fall is meaningless, and so is redemption. Man is just a terrible accident that the universe would have been better off without—except, without creation, there is no better or worse.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study.Tonight, we present Ronald L. Dart with a study on the Epistle of Jude from the CEM Vault.To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.Jude 24–25

I have to read a lot in preparation for the Born to Win radio program, but most of what I'm finding to read these days is about politics. I have a feeling that we're all, you and me, getting a politics overload. I would like to walk away from it, but I don't think I should. There are some important things we need to think about regarding these people who are asking for our votes. We could very easily fall victim to the law of unintended consequences, and we could wind up with something we really don't want to have.No offense, but we don't want someone like you or me running the country. So let's make a note of this for starters: None of the people we are watching in the political arena are normal folks like you and me. They are people who are obsessed with power; and by virtue of the fact that they are running for the highest office in the land, they are seeking more power. It was Lord Acton who said it, and it's become true again and again and again: Power corrupts; and everybody knows that the greater the power, the greater the potential (almost the greater the certainty) of corruption.Now, that doesn't mean that you and I can afford to walk away and ignore the whole process—wash our hands and say, It is too corrupt, I don't want to have anything to do with it, because sometimes we are required to vote for the lesser of two evils. I'm even prepared to say that's what we have to do all the time. I know that doesn't seem quite right. Christian folk would like to vote for the good, and we're tempted to think, Well, if I can't decide for the good. I just won't decide at all. But you have to decide. You can't just walk away from it; and more often than not, refusing to decide is the worst decision of all.

Was Jesus a liberal or a conservative? Looking around the political landscape today, you would sort of think that he must have been one or the other because there are people out there who are Christians who would take very strong positions on the political left or right. Since they’re Christians and they’re supposed to be following Jesus, then one of those groups must be wrong about something. Jesus can’t be both places, can he? Now, I feel fairly sure that the words liberal and conservative did not mean the same thing when Jesus was carrying out his earthly ministry as it does today. In fact, today both terms are basically pejorative. I mean, you say somebody’s a liberal, you’re insulting them. If you say he’s a conservative, well that’s putting him down. Well, what do they mean, even today in the political climate? If you go to the dictionary and look them up, you get one definition. If you listen in on the talk shows and pundits, you might get something else.A conservative defined is supposed to be someone who is disposed to preserve existing conditions and institutions, or to restore traditional ones, or to limit change. Now, when you look at the political landscape, I’m surprised anyone wants to accept the label of conservative—especially Christians. Oh sure, we want to preserve or restore traditional values and institutions. We think traditional morality is a good thing. We think the family is a wonderful thing and we want to preserve and restore those things. But surely we don’t want to preserve the status quo. Nor do we wish to limit change. Surely, not Christians. Conservative is a useless label, frankly, unless we understand what it is we are trying to conserve. You don’t understand what I’m saying? Well, how long has abortion been the law of the land? It’s been that way for a long time now. Now, since that is the status quo, aren’t the people that are fighting to preserve abortion conservative? They are trying to conserve what is, they are trying to conserve this institution of abortion which is now the status quo, the law of the land, what’s expected.You know, there are a lot of good people in this country that are Democrats and a lot who are Republicans, and Christians, in my opinion, are making a big mistake by sticking out a Christian political position—a position on the political right or the political left. Dedicated Christians are—by nature or in the nature of things—ideologues and, consequently, we just don’t have the pragmatism to work effectively in the political arena. There’s a lot of lying that goes on in there. The people who go in to the political arena and try to tell the truth are very likely to turn themselves into victims. Christians can turn up at the meetings of both political parties. And if they did turn up in both places they might be able to heal some of the terrible political divisions in the country. But the problem is: if you take a look at us Christians in the world, we have to be about the worst peacemakers around. We can’t make peace among one another, why in the world should anyone think that we could ever make peace among political parties? But nevertheless, Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And if you’re really serious about abortion, the place to deal with it is at the intellectual level in both parties. You will never get anything done about abortion one way or another by making it a party issue. I would think that would be clear by now, but I don’t see any signs of it starting to dawn on anyone.Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am independent politically, as a disciple of Jesus—an evangelist, as it were—as a preacher of Christian values. I don’t feel it’s my job to be in one political party or the other. Now, liberals and conservatives in this world are defined by political values. If you are Republican you are conservative and if you’re a Democrat you’re a liberal, supposedly. But that brings me back to my original question. And this is why I’m not a Republican or a Democrat. What about Jesus? Was Jesus a liberal or a conservative? In the Sermon on the Mount, which has to be the most fundamental of Jesus’ teachings, He had this to say…

When the framers of our American constitution first gathered, they faced a fundamental question. The question was not merely, Can we create a free republic? The question was, Can we create a free republic that will remain free? Those men knew their history, and they knew that history was against them. The first step in gaining freedom was past—it was the American Revolution. They had step two before them—writing a constitution. But the biggest challenge lay beyond their horizon—sustaining freedom. And law is not enough to sustain it.We believe in the rule of law in this country. It is carefully drawn as a distinction from the rule of a king. What we haven’t really considered is that the law can become just as tyrannical as a king. How does it happen? Well, just look at how the courts are interpreting the law nowadays. We are no longer being governed by all the people, but by the law as interpreted by a few judges. And what is guiding the judges—the constitution, or the customs of the time? According to Os Guinness:[The framers] knew their history in a way many modern political leaders to their shame don’t. If you have a corruption of customs […] the Constitution itself will be subverted. People will follow the same laws, but with a different rationale, and you’ll see a steady decline. What was the Framers’ solution to this? Many people think it’s the Constitution and law. It isn’t. That’s only half the answer. The other half is quite clear and incredibly overlooked today, even among scholars. It’s what I call the Little Triangle of Assumptions.Os Guinness - Speech at the Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC

The conscience is the inner sense of what is right and what is wrong in our conduct and our motives. It’s supposed to be that guiding light that says, You should feel good about this act. You should feel awful about that one. It’s that sense which impels us towards the right kind of actions. It’s that complex of moral and ethical principles that controls or inhibits our actions and thoughts. And, when that’s gone or corrupted, how are you going to live your live? It is possible that we’ve brought up a generation of kids with no conscience, no shame?Let’s talk about this for a minute. A generation with no conscience will be governed by what? Well, it won’t be governed by any sense of right and wrong. What’s left is that they will be governed by what they can get away with. If nobody will find out about what we have done, it isn’t necessarily wrong. If it doesn’t hurt me, cause me any problems, or get me in trouble than it isn’t something I have to be concerned about.All rules are then external. If we can get around them, to our benefit and without getting caught or punished, it’s okay for us to do that. Right and wrong conduct, then, will be directed by the odds of getting caught against the possible gain from the crime—a simple punishment/reward ratio. Is that what we’ve come to? No conscience—just a question of what works and what doesn’t.

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, these weeks highlight the long period of Christ's work gathering his firstfruits, culminating in his return. Join us as we delve deeper into these profound truths and explore their significance for Christians today.

One week from tomorrow is Pentecost, otherwise known as the Feast of Firstfruits. Traditionally, we have said that Pentecost pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit. It's not hard to figure out why, because on that first Pentecost of the church (a day often called the birthday of the New Testament church) the Holy Spirit was poured out in incredible power.The description of those events in Acts 2 is enough, even 2,000 years later, to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck and marvel at what that might have been like. There was a great noise like a tornado that filled the room, and fire descended—shimmering sheets of fire through the ceiling and across the top of the room, then a tongue that descended upon each of those present. That must have been incredible, and one can only imagine. I don't think they expected it; I can't imagine they did. There's not a hint that they had a clue as to what was going to take place on that day. We've talked a lot about that over the years, and of course, the natural presumption then is that Pentecost pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit.However, there's a scripture back in John 20 that I'm frequently asked about relative to this entire question. It poses a puzzler. In John 20:19, after Jesus had risen from the dead and presented himself to his disciples, we're told The same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, Peace be unto you. When he had said it, he showed them his hands and his side, and his disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you. As my Father has sent me, even so send I you. When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins you retain, they are retained.Now, there are myriad questions that arise from this—the questions about the remission of sin, the questions of the retention of sin, just how much authority did he grant to them, and what it meant is all of interest. But of special interest today is the question: If they received the Holy Spirit at this time (which was nearly 50 days prior to Pentecost) why do we look at the Feast of Pentecost and say that it pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit? Was this event merely symbolic? Some people believe that it was—that nothing actually happened at this time, that it was a symbolic act, and that the actual receiving of the Holy Spirit would not take place until the day of Pentecost. Yet there's really nothing here to tell you that that's what happened. So, was it symbolic, or did something actually happen? Is there significance in the difference between Jesus in a room with his disciples, touching them and breathing on them, and saying, Receive ye the Holy Spirit, on the one hand, and this incredible outpouring of power that took place on the other?

The days between Passover and Pentecost were heady days for the first disciples. Jesus had been raised from the dead after they thought he was gone forever. They were joyful beyond belief. Down through the generations all sorts of people have tried to duplicate that excitement of the Pentecost. The problem is it's all been artificial, contrived, manipulated. But man-made excitement is temporary, and when the excitement is gone it may leave depression behind as a legacy. What the disciples were feeling during this period of time was certainly nothing like man-made excitement. They had a joy that I don't think we quite can understand. They also had a challenge before them of enormous proportions.I want to come today to four ideas that we need to take a look at, instead of just looking for some sort of excitement. They form a neat acronym: C.O.P.E.. These ideas, frankly, can transform your life and can also turn your church around in its tracks, if you just understand what is meant by these four words.(Apologies for the relatively poor audio of this message. Use the yellow bar at the top of this page & request a free emailed/printed transcript to help you follow along.)

When Israel settled into the promised land, they enjoyed a time of freedom like few people have ever enjoyed in the history of the world. But I don’t think very many people understand or appreciate the foundation of that freedom and what it took to maintain it.It wasn’t just a matter of God handing them everything on a silver platter. They had to fight for the land, to fight for their freedom, and to work like the devil for their prosperity.But none of that would have worked without the foundation of freedom. Israel was given a law, and a system of worship designed to maintain that law, to implant the law in their national memory, and to shape the national conscience. Moses, in one of his speeches, made some statements on this point that I think are worth remembering. We’ll find them in Deuteronomy, chapter 4.

If you could have lived during the time of Christ, would you have wanted to be close to him? Would you have wanted to be with him? I think it's fair to say that, by the time of the 40 days between Christ's resurrection and ascension, his disciples were close to Jesus. After all they had been through, and the experiences they had shared, they had come to the point were they were quite close. Those three-and-a-half years of Jesus' ministry probably were not particularly easy times. Would you have wanted to be one of those people? If so, why?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 Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. As we find commanded in Leviticus 23:From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain...a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord.Leviticus 23:15–17 NIVThis weekend concludes the fourth of those seven weeks, so tonight we'll join Mr. Dart in examining this time of year and its accompanying harvest—both of grain and of men.

In all of the Bible, who is the greatest example of leadership (apart from Jesus, of course)? Without a doubt, it’s David. When you speak of David in a Biblical context, the name needs no modifier. You don’t have to call him King David for a Bible reader to know exactly who you are talking about. His name occurs more than 1,000 times in the Old Testament alone.A curious fact: No one else in the Bible was ever named David. This is, I think, very unusual given the very human proclivity for naming kids after famous people. Yet, with David, it didn’t happen. It is almost as though God intended for David to be, and always be, one of a kind. Names in Hebrew mean something, and until recently, I had never looked at the meaning of David’s name, nor had I ever thought much about the characteristics of this man that made him such a great leader.He is easily the most influential and dominant figure in the Old Testament. He was the youngest of eight sons. His brothers thought he was arrogant. The key story of his life is familiar, but I want to extract from the story the elements of leadership in David that emerge from it. We’ll begin in 1 Samuel, chapter 17.

There was a time when we knew what terrorists wanted. When they blew up something, they identified themselves and made their demands. We knew what they wanted and why they wanted it. All that has changed. Now terrorists don't identify their cause, nor do they make demands. What do they want? At the time, I concluded that what they wanted was Americans dead, in large numbers.On the surface, this is a religious war. But like a deadly iceberg, there is a lot more below the surface than above it. Europe's great religious wars ended 350 years ago. That's plenty of time for us to forget that it is possible for people to slaughter one another over a matter of religious faith.It is frightening, isn't it? And we do well to be frightened. There is great evil afoot in the world. What makes the perpetrators of this evil dangerous is that they don't care who they kill, and they don't care if they die in the process. And it is only natural to wonder if we are approaching some of the terrible events of the end time described in the Book of Revelation.It's possible, but let me introduce you to one of the players in the Book of Revelation: The Destroyer…

We need to talk about Haiti. I know you’ve probably had more Haiti on your television than you’d like to see for some time; you’ve had enough. My question, though, is, “What more could Christians have done for that poor land?”Haiti is actually a largely Christian country, with Roman Catholicism professed by 80% of the Haitians. Protestants made up about 16% of the population. And then there’s Haitian Voodoo, which is practiced by roughly half of the population. Now it’s in that demographic that you get a hint of the problem, don’t you? Did you see it?How can you have a population that is 96% Christian and 50% practitioners of Voodoo? Something is not quite right in Haiti, and it’s a hard thing to say. Is there anything that we Christians might have done that we left undone?Several years ago, I read a book entitled White Man’s Grave. It was the story of the search for a missing son in Sierra Leone, Africa. The title was the name given to Sierra Leone by slavers who used to call there. I don’t even remember what the purpose of the book was. I was so overwhelmed by the descriptions of tribal life, and the religion and superstitions of those people that I was left feeling hopeless. How on Earth, I wondered, could the Christian faith penetrate that darkness?After some years, I began to see it in the chain that led to the tragic spread of AIDS in Africa. Being a Bible teacher (and in my career I’ve taught all of it, front to back), I came to see in the theories of the development of the disease in Africa a chain of broken laws. Laws the African people never knew because, in many cases, even the Christian missionaries didn’t bother to tell them. The law that would have prevented AIDS from becoming epidemic in Africa, I concluded, was the Law of Moses.If memory serves, in a previous program I did (“A Covenant for AIDS”), I found a sequence of about seven laws; any one of which, faithfully observed throughout Africa, would have prevented AIDS from ever getting a foothold in that continent.Now, while I musing about the wretchedness of Haiti, an article arrived on my desk by Mary Eberstadt. I think she has coined a new term for the Christian failure that’s been much on my mind, and I never got a title on it. Her article (which appeared in the January 2010 edition of First Things) was titled Christianity Lite…

Several years ago, I was driving through an area the weekend after a tragic mass shooting had occurred there. I listened on the radio to the people who lived nearby as they responded to being put in a goldfish bowl for the whole country to watch. I couldn’t help but reflect along with them about how unfair the whole thing was.Every special interest group had their spokesman on television telling us all why this tragedy had taken place. It was guns, of course. Someone noted that crime in the cities was going down while crime in rural areas was going up. He blamed the availability of guns for the problem. The poor fellow obviously has never lived in the rural south. I grew up in northern Arkansas, and I can tell you that guns are not a new arrival there. As a boy, I don’t think I knew a family—especially a rural family—that didn’t have guns and that didn’t teach their kids to hunt. We grew up playing war around the barns, pretending to shoot one another, and faking a fall out of the loft into a stack of hay below. None of us ever killed anyone. As far as I can tell, none of us even thought about it. Some other TV talking head blamed drugs. Another blamed the schools, another blamed the movies, and yet another blamed television violence.It’s true enough that everything that happens is the world is caused by something. But the causes are often so complex that specific prediction is impossible. However, general prediction is not at all impossible. There was no way to predict that those two boys would do what they did. But you can be certain that some boys (or girls) will kill again. It may be Elmira, New York. It may be Fairfax, Virginia. It may be your hometown. I can’t predict where it will happen, but I can predict that it will happen. And so can you. What we can’t be quite so sure is why it will happen. That’s what I want to talk about.

What do you do when God decides to take down his own work? What do you do when things you have believed in, trusted, committed yourself to, worked like the devil for, sacrificed everything for, are completely shattered—not by the Devil, but by God himself? No, I am not talking about this or that church splitting or falling apart. Nor am I dealing in speculation. I am dealing in known events that are well documented and well understood.Walk back with me to another place and time. It is late in the seventh century bc. The place is the equivalent of our courthouse steps today. It is the gate of the Temple—where cases in law were heard, where contracts were finalized and witnessed, where news was announced, and even sermons delivered.There is a very young man standing there to speak, and over his shoulder we can look up and see the most famous building in the world—the Temple of the Lord, built by Solomon, with no effort spared to glorify God. Solomon's Temple was legendary, not only in its beauty but in the events that marked its history. You could ask any of the old men seated near the gate and hear the whole story—how David had the concept, how Solomon inherited the job, all the material that went into the building, all the years it was under construction. They could tell you about the incredible events of its dedication. They all knew the story by heart. God himself actually entered this building and filled it with smoke. That had never happened before anywhere in the world, and it would never happen again.This great Temple had hosted over 330 years of the Passover. For all those years, it had been the hub for millions of camping pilgrims at the Feast of Tabernacles. It had been the center of the worship of Jehovah for generation after generation. It stood there looking as permanent as the mountains around it. It was the very heart of their faith, the symbol of their God, the rock around which all Israel gathered. It was the very work of God, God's own house…and it was doomed.

I’m sure you’ve heard the old axiom: Once bitten, twice shy. Or maybe you heard it another way: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I think that old saw may lie behind my skepticism of prophets. More than once, I have declared that I have never encountered anyone whom I considered a genuine prophet, in the biblical sense. I have no patience with pretenders to the prophet’s office, either, though I have encountered a few of these.One thing that made a major contribution to my skepticism was a book that appeared in 1967. The title was Famine 1975: America’s Decision, Who Will Survive? by William and Paul Paddock. The book had all the statistics, and was shocking in its conclusions and recommendations.What happened? Well, population growth slowed, and food production exploded in the years following. Development in disease resistant crops had been underway even as the Paddocks wrote their book. What is it about disasters that brings so many would be prophets out of the woodwork? It was something Jesus said, that—misunderstood—fuels this sort of thing. We’ll find it in Matthew, chapter 24.

There was a time when I thought the anti-abortion people were just a little too cute in calling themselves “pro-life”. I don’t think that any longer. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was precisely the right term to use. At least it’s the right term for Christians to use because the real issue is much bigger than abortion (if that’s possible).To some degree the issue is clouded by the terminology. For example, “choice” is not the opposite of “life”, as in “pro-choice” versus “pro-life”. The opposite of life…is death. There’s a passage where God tell Moses to pass on the Israel a statement about this. You’ll find it in Deuteronomy 30.This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live[.]Deuteronomy 30:19 NIVI think that it’s important that the words “and your children” were included here because it’s always the children who suffer first. So this choice of life has first to do with children.Okay, now we come to the question. Why is a child, one week before birth, less worthy of the State’s protection, than another child one week after birth. The only difference between them is that the one is not breathing on his own yet. Why aren't parents free to choose to dispose of inconvenient kids? What business does the State have in forcing parents to care for kids?