Advertise on podcast: Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

Who was Jesus, anyway? Was he really God? Or was he just an angel in the flesh? Or was he even flesh? We know he was the son of God, but is that literal, or just a figure of speech? If you have simply read through the New Testament, some of these questions may sound strange to you, but every one of them has been asked quite seriously by this or that Bible teacher. The branch of theology that concerns itself with questions like these is called Christology, and if you are going to study Christ and Christology, you have to come to the Book of Hebrews. It contains the deepest and most developed theology in the Bible. And it dives straight into our questions from the first word.

No matter how you slice it, a church is, always has been, and always will be a political institution. And let me be sure you understand what I mean by political. The word has to do with the exercise of power in the governance of an entity. Usually, we think of this in terms of the state, but it applies to any community of people who band together. Now here is the problem that all this creates. The mere forming of a church creates, automatically, power. I suspect that is the intent of building a church—to generate power through the working together of many people, each doing what he does best. You don’t build an entire house with concrete workers. You need a team with different skills. The saints had a job to do, and the formation of a church seems to have been intended to facilitate that job. The problem, though, is familiar to us all. Power corrupts. The larger the church is, the greater the power and the greater the likelihood of corruption.

What happened to old people in this country before Social Security? Did a lot of them starve to death? Did they get sick and die alone with no one to look after them? I ask this, because I once heard a politician bragging about what a good thing social security was for the American people and it surely looks like a good thing. But I asked some friends of mine who were old enough to remember, What was it like before Social Security? They looked at me like I wasn’t all there and explained what seemed obvious enough. No, old people didn’t starve to death. For the most part, they were cared for by family. What brought this to mind was reading Paul’s first letter to Timothy, chapter five, and the discussion about what to do about the elderly in the church.

Do you suppose it is possible that you could be deceived? Religiously, I mean. The answer ought to be evident, because every one of us has been snookered at one time or another. We have been lied to and believed it and gotten hurt as a result. It is hard to grow up in this world without being taken in by a believable lie. So the idea that we could be lied to about religion should occur to us at some point. But a lot of people assume that they have it all sorted out about their faith and that they could never, never be deceived about the Bible or religion. If you have ever argued religion with anyone, you know that the phrase, I may be wrong, is not normally a part of the discussion. So, are we vulnerable or not? Paul makes an interesting statement in his first letter to Timothy, chapter four.

You can't rule prayer out of the schools and God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and then insist that our foreign policy operate on Christian principles, can you? Or do I have this wrong? If we are not a Christian nation, and if we are to be governed by utilitarian principles, then common sense would suggest that we should just get rid of evil men as expeditiously as possible. On the other hand, we perhaps should enquire as to whether we have our Christian caps on straight. The Christian faith is founded, not only on Jesus, but on the law and the prophets of the Bible as well, and most Christians, including Paul, see Christ in the history of Israel and even as the giver of the law. The early Christian faith never had to deal with issues like this, because the early Christians were never in power. But the principle is addressed by Paul. Let's begin by taking a look at his letter to the Romans, chapter 13.

Do you think that ministers should be better than the ordinary Christian? Is there a set of higher requirements for ministers than for others? Like a lot of other questions arising from the Bible the answer is yes and no. Using Paul’s letter of 1 Timothy, we can learn something very important about both the structure of New Testament ministry and Paul’s expectations of Christian conduct.

There is a dirty little secret about religion that I want to air out with you. It has dogged the steps of every kind of organized religion for 2,000 years. It is especially relevant now because in our reading of other people’s mail, we have come to a very personal letter from Paul to Timothy, and this dirty little secret is discussed in what might have been intended as a private letter, but which has now been read by millions. The faith of the Bible, whether it be Christianity or Judaism, is a deceptively simple faith. There is mystery to it, to be sure, because we are talking about things that transcend human experience. So why, then, do people understand it so differently? How come we don’t have one big religion?

Excuse me for asking, but what’s wrong with you people? Why on earth would you dress up your children like witches, or hobgoblins, ghosts, demons, dead men’s bones, and then send out to commit extortion on your neighbors by demanding treats and threatening tricks if the neighbors don’t come across? What could you possibly be thinking and why allow your children to go to the door of a house of a total stranger and accept gifts of candy? I thought we didn’t want our children accepting candy from strangers. And anyway, it’s gotten to the place where you have to take the candy and the apples and stuff down to the hospital to have them x-rayed to be sure there isn’t a razor blade embedded in it somewhere. My, can’t we afford to go out and buy some candy for our kids? Do we have to send them around the neighbor’s house begging for it? They call it Halloween because it falls on the eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day. This is the day when the church honors all the great Christians of years gone by, people who’ve lived good lives and sometimes sacrificial lives in their service to other Christians and other peoples. Considering that, I’ve got a question. Since this day, All Hallows Eve, is all about people who have lived their lives doing good works, why don’t we dress our kids up in costumes representing these good people and take them out on All Hallows Eve to do good works? Couldn’t that have gone either way? Couldn’t we have made that choice? I mean, do we have to go to dead men’s bones and all that stuff, or couldn’t we have gone out and done good works instead of tricks or treats? Why don’t we put together packages of candy and gifts and take our little angels to a nursing home somewhere and go around giving gifts to the elderly and the infirm? Why don’t we teach our little angels to sing songs for the old codgers that would bring tears to their eyes? Why wouldn’t we have, let’s say, one of these cute little girls crawl up in the lap of an elderly lady and give her a big hug? Do you have any idea what a difference that would make in the life of an old person who hardly ever gets to see her own grandchildren because nobody will bring them in? Why is it that we don’t teach our children how good it feels to do nice things for other people, instead of teaching them greed and extortion? Again, I say, I don’t get it. If we had a choice of doing one or the other, who in the world made the choice of taking it one way instead of the other? What you are allowing your kids to do by the way, on Halloween, has nothing to do with All Saints. It’s the old Druid New Year Samhain, the night in which the doors of the abyss, the underworld with all their evil spirits, are released out into the world. I was rummaging around on the Internet trying to find something about Halloween and I came across one of these Internet magazines called Samhain, of all things. I found this little item in there and I thought you might find it of interest. It says this…

There is something really strange going on the Middle East. Yes, I know, it’s the Middle East and that should say it all. The normal rules don’t apply. But something is happening there that ought to give pause to any thinking person. For a very long time, while the peace process went on, our evening news was seasoned with bloody bombings; restaurants, night clubs, school buses filled with children. We sit in front of our television sets and watch all this, assuming that the people who are killing one another are pursuing some rational set of objectives. There ought to be a still small voice in the back of our mind whispering to us. How can there be a rational objective that is being pursued by completely irrational means? And we have assumed that if we could just solve the Arab/Israeli problem, we could have peace in the Middle East. I have a bulletin for you: We are going to have to adjust our assumptions. There is a reality intruding into this picture that no one seems to notice. So what is going on? What is the motive behind all the killings and destruction? Religion? Not really. Which of the great ayatollahs has blown himself up or encouraged his own children or family to do so? None. So, what of the time-honored, familiar motives, the ones all of us understand? Power and money (from trade in drugs and oil)? These all account for much, but not all, of the killing. There is, however, one other motive that we don’t want to think about.

When the survivors of the Holocaust speak, the rest of us would do well to listen. Telling the story of their liberation, one of the survivors told of how their SS guards changed into civilian clothes and tried to hide. The GIs had the survivors point them out so they could be dealt with. And then he said something I will never forget as long as I live. He said: These men were not human. Human beings don’t do what they did. And I wondered how literally we should take that. Was he speaking figuratively, saying that the men responsible for the camps were lacking pity, kindness, or mercy? Or was he speaking literally, suggesting a non-human class of beings? And the question arises naturally: Are there non-human beings? Oh, I know there are dogs and cats, but we don’t describe them as inhuman, do we? I realize in raising this question that I am stepping out into metaphysics, but I’ll take a chance. Understand, though, that I am not going into flying saucers and visitors from another galaxy. I am simply going to the Bible and the spirit world. Jesus himself had an encounter with a nonhuman being immediately after his baptism. We find the account in Matthew, chapter 4.

When Satan had rebelled against God, why didn’t God just destroy him? Why did God allow him to hang around and cause trouble? A friend asked me that question some months ago, and just recently e-mailed me the answer he had finally come to: It is because God is a God of Freedom, to use his words. If God killed the rebels off immediately when they rebelled, then he is not really allowing freedom of action, only the illusion of it. Think about King Saul, for example. When he rebelled against God and God rejected him as king, God did not remove him immediately. He allowed events to take their course even though he had already selected the next king. My friend may well be right, but he has surely put his finger on the answer to the question posed by this series of radio programs. The origins of evil in the world lie in the simple fact that God is a God of freedom. Men are free to do good or to do evil. God will hold them accountable for what they do, but he still leaves them free to do it. But there is a day of judgment when all this comes home to roost. Meanwhile, we live in a world where evil exists. It exists in two forms, human and spiritual. We live right alongside human evil every day, in greater or lesser forms. The evil of the spirit world is here as well, although we are less aware of it for the most part. And there is an incredible amount of mythology about that spirit world, much of it false. The only reliable source of information about it is in the pages of the Bible. If we are going to find answers to our questions about the spirit world, the Bible is the place to turn.

We know from the Bible that there is a spirit world.And it is plain in the Bible that there are many wicked spirits in that world. Is anyone in charge there? We also know that there is a lot of mythology connected with the subject, and the only reliable source of information is the Bible. And in this series, we have been looking to the Bible for a basic understanding of the dark side of the spirit world. One of the most striking biblical passages about this world is in the mysterious book of Revelation. I say mysterious—actually, the name of the book, Revelation, means that it is supposed to reveal things. The problem is that the things are revealed in vision which is rich in symbolism and iconography. The passage in question is chapter 12: And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. Revelation 12:7–12

Does Satan have access to God? Do they talk? There is a story in the Bible that says that they do talk—at least periodically. The story is in the ancient book of Job—what some say is the oldest written work in Hebrew. There are those who believe that the Book of Job is an elaborate allegory, sort of like taking one of Jesus’ parables and enlarging it into many chapters. Those who say this do not necessarily mean to question the authenticity or inspiration of the book. Only its form. Whatever the case, it gives us an interesting insight into the spirit world with a couple of very important, practical concepts.

We really know very little about the spirit world, and it is probably just as well. Unfortunately, a lot that we think we know about is nothing but myth and guesswork. The entire question has been obscured by everything from ghost stories to movies, television, and even video games. As far as I can tell, the only reliable source of information about this world is the Bible. And part of the problem, even in the Bible, is the ambiguity of the word spirit. In both Hebrew and Greek, the words are quite similar in usage to the English word spirit. Except that in Hebrew and Greek, the basic meaning of the word is air, breath, or wind. Of special interest is the German word for spirit: geist, from which we get the word ghost. Hence the King James translators (who were a lot closer to the old German than we are) could speak of the Holy Ghost as opposed to evil spirits or ghosts. This gets lost in the translation, but the gospel writers speak of two kinds of spirit—one of them holy and one of them evil (or unclean, depending on usage). And it is plainly a deliberate contrast on their part. We made the point in an earlier program that the word for evil in Hebrew actually means adverse or opposed. This may mean no more than a general attitude of opposition. But later, we encounter an incident where the spirit is very specific in that it comes and goes—almost personal. It is the first instance we discover in the Bible of a particular adverse spirit, and it is found in the history of the first King of Israel. His name was Saul.

I was doing one of my periodic pilgrimages through the Psalms this week, and I came across a plaintive cry from King David. It got into my mind and I can’t get it out. Here’s what he said: If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? I was struck by a footnote on the word foundations. It remarked that, figuratively, the word was talking about the moral and political support of a society. And, in a lot of ways, that feels like where we are in our own society today. The foundations—the moral and political support of our society are being destroyed. The question of what the righteous can do, then, is not merely a helpless complaint made while throwing hands in the air. It is an honest question: What can we do? And, when you put it that way, there is much that the righteous can do—more than you might have thought. But, for starters, you’ve really got to realize what it is that you’re up against. One thing that stands in opposition are the people the Psalmist calls the Wicked. Who are these people? In Psalm 11, they are as characterized as cowards who shoot arrows at us from the darkness, afraid to fight in the light of day. This theme of the Wicked is common in the psalms. In fact, the psalm just before, Psalm 10, outlines exactly the character of this person. This is not one of the beautiful Psalms; it is downright disturbing. When the Bible speaks of the Wicked, it is speaking of a singular evil. This is not merely a misguided person. This is not an ordinary sinner, like most of us. This is evil personified.