Born To Win Podcast - With Ronald L. Dart

There is a terrible irony in the prophet Zephaniah. Actually, he did his prophecy in the days of Josiah; and Josiah was one of the best of the kings of Judah but the prophecy that came down in his days were among the most dire ever handed down by any prophet. Here is how Zephaniah starts:The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah. I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.Zephaniah 1:1–3 KJVNow, what on earth can account for such terrible consequences? Well, to tell that story we have to go back in time. I’ve long held that you can’t understand the prophets unless you understand the history of the times in which they worked. When he came on

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 even

When you read the Old Testament prophets, a pattern begins to emerge. And if you know what to look for it begins to clear the air somewhat in trying to understand what they’re about. As long as society is behaving itself—people are living good lives, they’re being moral, they don’t start trouble—you don’t even hear from the prophets. God never sends a prophet to tell you what a good boy you are. So, consequently, the first phase of the pattern of a prophet in the Bible is that things in society have gone terribly wrong.

Living as we do in an age of plenty, it’s hard for us to understand famine. What we do know about it is a long way off and kind of unreal. We see picture of mothers with little babies with their bellies distended and being told they’re starving to death. You would believe it looking at those little twiggy limbs. We might even sit down and write a check for famine relief. Modern science and technology has not wiped out famine, but it sure has shoved it out of the center of most people’s lives. We don’t deal with it; we don’t think about it; we don’t have any experience about how it feels to be in the middle of one and to be helpless.Not many of us know what it means to face starvation. And so, when you pick up an Old Testament prophet like Joel, it’s apt to be just words on paper to us. Now, I can assure you that it was more than just words to those who heard those words the first time Joel spoke them. For one thing, famine was a periodic and a well-known fact of life

Once upon a time there was a man named Jonah. I am sure you heard of him. He was the son of a man named Amittai and we know he was an active prophet during the reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel. In those years Israel was riding high—at their height in prosperity and in military power. But so was Assyria in the east with its great city, Nineveh.

We don’t know a lot about Nahum. He describes himself as an Elkoshite but no one knows where Elkosh is to date him. The date of his prophecy can be placed between 700 to 600 BC. He mentions in the book two particular dates. One is the destruction of the Egyptian capital No-Amon (Thebes) in about 636 to 630 BC and he is speaking of the future destruction of Nineveh which occurs later, in 612 BC. So Nahum is prophesying somewhere after 650 BC and probably close to the time of the fall of Nineveh, when a coalition of Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians attacked and destroyed the Assyrian capital.So Nahum comes on the scene not that long before Assyria’s fall. Jerusalem is still traumatized by the invasion of the Assyrians and, no doubt, praying for revenge. Nahum titles his prophecy, The Burden of Nineveh. And here is something very important to know when you read this. It was probably a work of music—performance art if you will—and would resemble a recitatif from Mendelssohn’s Elijah

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

Reading the biblical prophets—with understanding—is no easy task, at best. But when you try to do it without knowledge of the history behind it becomes hopeless. For one thing, there are parts of prophesies that have to do with the distant future—and then an even more distant. Other parts deal with the prophet’s own day. How can you tell which is which? Well, the place to start is the past. If you’re going to understand what’s going to happen, you have to first go back and see what has happened before.There’s still another mistake you can make as you read the prophets. You can attempt a literal interpretation of the future. The prophets don’t do that. They use figurative language, poetic structure. and imagery. And their prophecies are not laid out in a linear form where you always know where you are and where you’re going. In a sense, you have to feel the prophets. You have to take them as a whole—as a work of art. You have to let them speak to us.

The words of the prophet Micah could just as easily be said and written today. Micah wrote in chapter 2:Lately my people have risen up like an enemy. You strip off the rich robe from those who pass by without a care, like men returning from battle. You drive the women of my people from their pleasant homes. You take away my blessing from their children forever. Get up, go away! For this is not your resting place, because it is defiled, it is ruined, beyond all remedy.Micah 2:8–10 NIVI mean you would think he was watching our television and reading our newspapers. Today, these things are being done by the government—primarily through the courts.You take away my blessing from my children forever. We have the estate tax which takes money away from a person who has worked all his life, saved, and builds up a good estate. They actually tax some of it away and his children don’t have all the benefits of their father’s labor and sacrifice. In living mental memory we’ve seen men returnin

It’s a small wonder that people have a hard time understanding biblical prophets. The truth is, unless you know something about the situation on the ground when they wrote, you’re just left with to come up with your own interpretation. But when you take the trouble to paint in the background, a lot of things become clearer. It’s very easy, though, to become confused when you’re reading the historical books of the Bible.One wonders, for example, how many casual readers understand the difference between the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The truly great stories of the Bible all come from the period when Israel was united under one king—first Saul, then David, then Solomon. But after the death of Solomon the kingdom was divided with the House of Israel in the north (their capital in Samaria) and the House of Judah in the south (their capital in Jerusalem) continued for many years after this—about 240 years, I think, for Israel in the north, and nearly 400 years for Ju

History really does repeat itself. The reason is simple and obvious: We keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again—and it produces the same results over and over again. The cycle of history that we are today repeating is a cycle represented in the Bible by the House of Israel. And it is precisely why, when you read the Bible and come to a prophet like Hosea, he sounds like he’s been reading our newspapers and watching our television.The reason I think we are living near a turning point is we still have leaders who believe in God and are directed, at least in some part, by their faith in that God. But we have a generation coming that has had its faith shredded in the educational system and there is a powerful, coordinated effort coming from a determined minority in this country to eradicate any reference or deference to God in public life. Teachers and preachers who read and expound the Bible are on the agenda of this determined minority, and the day is coming when the Bible will no l

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 ch

At times, when you read the prophets, there’s an almost melancholy sense—a sadness, a blues, as it were—because you realize that God didn’t want things to go the way they were going. The Book of Hosea is particularly poignant because, in order that we would understand this, God had his prophet go marry an adulterous woman and have children with her. He had him take her back after she went and committed adultery again. He did all this to underline for us the reality of what he experienced with Israel.It’s not quite correct to say that God was married to Israel literally. But he was in covenant with her and the comparison with the marriage covenant is so apt because they are both blood covenants. So writing in Hosea God comes to a place where he says, When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. It was precious; it was just wonderful when I found her. I didn’t expect to find her w

The whole idea behind sin offerings in the Bible is for a man to acknowledge his sin and to recognize that there is a price to be paid for it. Now, God didn’t make a very big deal out of it—all it took was a little goat. That the little fellow had to die because you sinned would have an effect on a normal person, I should think. For the most part, when we do something wrong nothing happens—at least that’s what we think. In a society that’s in covenant with God, the sin offering (which was entirely voluntary) served as a regular reminder of the cost of sin. Sin has a price tag. Men need to remember their covenant with God and acknowledge that they have damaged their relationship and to make amends. It’s a simple concept and one that nearly everybody understands.Hosea, speaking for God, says this:I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something foreign. Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord is not pl

It’s painful watching history repeat itself. It’s even more painful to realize you can’t do much to head it off. But there’s nothing new under the sun, and the prophets of old must have felt much the same way. And it was harder for them because God immersed them in what was happening and he used them as object lessons. Poor Hosea had to marry a hooker and have children by her. You know, how on earth a people come to such a sorry pass? Well, it takes time and a long series of bad decisions.For the Israel of Hosea, the first bad decision had been made by their king, Jeroboam I, who turned them away from their God by decentralizing worship, changed the liturgical calendar, and setting up priests of his own choosing rather than God’s priests. (He made priests of the lowest of the people.)It took over 200 years for the effects of this to finally come home to roost. But in the meantime Israel prospered, and the more they prospered they more they systematically forgot who gave it all to

I remember a time when I thought all those references in the Bible—and the prophecies in particular—to adultery and harlotry were talking about spiritual adultery. The idea was that Israel was married to God, she went off after other gods, and thus it was spiritual adultery. It came as a bit of a shock to me when I started researching the issue and found there was a lot more flesh involved, as well as spirit. It is still jarring when you read the Bible and encounter words like whoredom, prostitution, and harlotry, And I think the scripture actually tone down the reality more than a little. After all, God knew the Book was going to be read by family, and even by children, so there are some places you just wouldn’t go.It’s like Paul said in Ephesians 5: Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.So I don’t think it should be terrible surprising if we won’t

There are times, reading the prophets in the Bible, that I feel like I am reading an op-ed piece on current events. The 83rd Psalm is uncanny when read in the light of today’s news. But maybe you didn’t realize that many of the Psalms are prophetic, especially when you understand what prophecy is. It is not a mere foretelling of future events. If that were all it was, I can’t see God bothering to tell us at all.But if it has to do with the why of future events, then there is every reason for us to know. Because if we can change the why, we may avoid the tragedy. Also, this might also explain another peculiarity of biblical prophecy: it has a way of recurring. Every prophet speaks out of history, and to his own generation. But it is eerie how the events described are also directed to the last days of human history.There can be several reasons why this is so. For one thing, human nature doesn’t change and we keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. Unable to learn our le

Unfortunately, the Biblical prophets don’t write their story like history. I say unfortunately, but that’s strictly from a 20th-century point of view. It’s probably because we aren’t really quite on the right wavelength. Instead, the prophets write like poetry—calling up verbal imaginary to add weight to what they’re saying. In fact, what it is they’re adding is an emotional content which, if they just told us what would happen and when, would not be there. They actually lend themselves remarkably well to the oratorio style of recitatif, aria—something like Mendelssohn’s Elijah or Handel’s Messiah.In fact, before delivering a particular prophecy to the King of Judah, Elisha requested a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came on him. Now think about that he’s sitting there and wants to prophesy, but he can’t prophesy until he gets a minstrel, an instrument, and a musician to play for him. Now

I have always said that whenever you see a prophet coming down the road it is almost certainly bad news. Because God doesn’t send us a prophet to tell us how well we are doing. You don’t need an at a boy, when you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing in the first place. But that’s not entirely fair to the prophets—they did have good news in the end. But the problem is it was a long way off and a long time coming. I think it would really be a downer if a prophet said, Forget it. God is through with your people. He has had enough. It’s over. And I think if God really felt that way he probably wouldn’t bother sending a prophet. He would just go and get himself another people—maybe even in another galaxy. The problem is, God had some promises hanging out there concerning Israel and someday he had to come through on them. He had to keep his word.So all the prophets come with their warning and calls for repentance, and almost to a man they looked way off in