Join us on an exploration of sin, forgiveness, and redemption through the poignant story of a woman labeled as a sinner. Against the backdrop of religious skepticism and judgment, uncover how genuine love and faith can transform lives where legalism falls short. Highlighting Jesus’ power to heal and forgive, we peel back layers of judgment to reveal the profound grace available to everyone, regardless of their past. This episode invites you to question conventional ideas of righteousness, focusing on personal encounters with divine mercy. Examine the manifestations of miraculous power and the blasphemy that can arise from misinterpreting the
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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How do you look at religion? Is religion a burden that a person has to bear, or is religion more of a release from burdens? Now, I don’t mean theoretically. I don’t mean as some preacher would tell you, oh, well, come to Jesus, he’ll give you rest, and speaking about all the good things that happen to Christians. I mean by your own observation of the religious people you know. As a person becomes more religious, is she more happy or is she less happy? Jesus made a short statement on this, and it’s found in Matthew’s 11th chapter. Leading up to it in verse 25, he said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to babes. Now, this is really a remarkable statement, because I think a lot of people sit around thinking that the doctors of religion, the great theologians, the scholars who struggle with the text of the New Testament, the theologians who struggle with the meaning of the Bible, that these are people that really understand what God is doing. They really understand what God’s all about. You would think that, wouldn’t you? But the truth is, what Jesus is saying, that while the scholars struggle with text and theologians struggle with meaning, the ordinary person can sit down, read the Bible, and understand perfectly well what God is saying to him. Why? Well, that’s easy. It’s because God has revealed it to him. It’s as simple as that. Oh, I’ll admit that there are sections of the Bible that are hard to understand. I’ll admit that there are sections of it that are confusing to a person. But the truth is that down through generation on top of generation, once the Bible began to be made available to ordinary people, ordinary people sat down, opened it up, read it, and understood what God was saying. It’s almost like Jesus said, I speak and my sheep… Know my voice, and they hear what I’m saying. Now, normally, I would consider wisdom and prudence, that is, these two things that God hides the truth from, I would consider these things to be virtues, but not if you trust your own wisdom and prudence to open up God to you. If you think you’re going to do like Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective, and use the little gray cells to find God, you’re dreaming. If you think the people who study the text of the Bible in Greek and Hebrew understand God and the Bible better than you can, you’re wrong. The truth is, it’s there for anyone who will humble himself, read God’s Word, and determine in his mind he’s going to try to live by it. Jesus said, all things are delivered to me of my Father, and no man recognizes the Son but the Father. Neither recognizes any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. It’s funny, you know, John said that Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not, that nobody recognized that he was really the Son of God. And as Jesus went on to say, nobody recognizes God either. I mean, sometimes they think they do, but there’s no real evidence sometimes in their lives. No, no man recognizes the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. So when you open the Bible and you recognize God, it’s because Jesus said he revealed him to you. Come unto me, he went on, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. The word yoke is interesting. You know, you’re familiar with the yoke that you put around the neck of an ox and you have lines that come back to it to the plow and you can plow a field behind an ox because he’s got the yoke. You may have seen pictures of people who carry a yoke across their shoulders with a line coming down on each side to a bucket where they’re carrying water with a yoke across their shoulders. Jesus said, take my yoke upon me and learn of me. My yoke is easy. It’s not hard on your neck. And my burden is not heavy. Now, I’m not so sure that modern man really appreciates this, because in these days of five-day work weeks and eight hours a day of work, and work also that isn’t physical in many cases, I don’t know if we really appreciate what rest means to a body that is really tired from 12 hours of work, six days a week, and sometimes seven. Jesus spoke into a world of hard labor. He spoke to people who worked 12 hours, who sometimes worked seven days. But then there were other kinds of burdens as well, like fear and anxiety. I suppose these words of Jesus still resonate to us in the 20th century. The words rest and easy and light. That sounds awfully good to me a lot of times in my life. When things aren’t working like I wish they would. Is religion hard or is religion easy? Well, at times Jesus suggests it’s hard. And on this occasion he says it’s easy. Which is it? Well, consider the religious world in which these words were spoken. There were sects of religion at the time. Today, everyone knows that Jews divide up into Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, Orthodox, and even more than that, including some Jewish sects like the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And maybe they realize, and maybe they don’t, that in Jesus’ day, there were also sects. There were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and more. You had the Qumran community, which was about as far out as anyone would desire. In all of these religions, there was a yoke, there was a burden to be borne. To one group of these religionists, Jesus said this, “‘Woe unto you, you lawyers! For you laid men with burdens grievous to be borne, and you yourself touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.'” Almost any religious sect, almost any religious group, cult, or what have you, will have their rules. They’ll have their set of standards that you have to live up to. It’s like a yoke. And so when Jesus, in the midst of all sorts of religious sects who came to him, oftentimes arguing with him, oftentimes trying to provoke him, having their own little burdens that they laid upon people, Jesus said, come to me. I’ll give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. For example, how do you look upon the law of God? Do you consider it heavy? Is it a yoke of bondage, a grievous burden? Well, if you can just think for a moment about the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day, that’s the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. And you shall also not require work of anybody else that would be working for you. You are to give all your people a day off. Now, as Jesus walked into his society in his day, and he began to address the Jews in their synagogues, as he began to address people on the mountainside or in the streets, as he began to face questions even of healing on the Sabbath day, he found people who had turned a day of rest into a burden. Now, that’s some trick, folks, if you can figure out how to do that. The original intent of the Sabbath day was to give people a day off. What some religious sects of the time had done was to manage to put people in a straitjacket, to put them in handcuffs, to put them in shackles. They weren’t even supposed to go out of the door of their house. They couldn’t walk but so many yards down the roadway. There were restrictions on top of restrictions having to do with the Sabbath, which made the Sabbath into a burden. And one of the Old Testament prophets said, Look, you need to call the Sabbath a delight, not a burden. So when you look at this, you begin to realize that men can turn something that was designed to be a release, and they can turn it into a burden by legalism, by strict adherence to the letter of the law, by making the law into something that the law is not. The legalist holds a corrupt view of the law. He thinks the law is arbitrary. He thinks that an action is wrong because God says it is wrong, and that God will punish us for doing things that he says is wrong. One friend of mine said, Well, sin is chocolate, and God hates chocolate. That was his analogy. Well, hardly. Sin is something that hurts us, and God’s kind enough to let us know about it. If you really want to understand this, you really want to grasp what I’m talking about here, take your Bible, a cup of coffee, get comfortable, and read carefully and attentively the 119th Psalm. That’s Psalm 119. And you will learn that the law is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. There’s an old story that’s sometimes told about three preachers that were in a boat on a Sunday morning. They shouldn’t have been out there that early Sunday morning, but they were preaching and out there fishing. And they were talking about miracles, about walking on the water. And one of them got out of the boat and walked out across the water, walked back to the boat and got back in. He said, you see, it’s just a matter of faith. The second one said, well, I can do that. He got out, walked across the water, walked back to the boat, got in, said, see, it is a matter of faith, isn’t it? The third preacher got out of the boat and promptly went to the bottom, just disappeared beneath the waves, came back up thrashing around, grabbing the side of the boat and crawled back in, looking kind of miserable and faithless. But he gathered up his faith. He said, no, no, if they can do it, I can do it. And out of the boat he went again, and down to the bottom he went again. And the first preacher looked at the second preacher and says, do you suppose we ought to tell him where the rocks are before he drowns himself? If you really want to understand the law of God, just understand this. The law tells you where the rocks are so you don’t drown yourself. You know, if you consider the law is not a burden. But the things that happen to a lawless man are definitely a burden. And so are the efforts of men to administer the law. When men come along and add all kinds of rules to the law of God and they begin to try to enforce the law of God, yeah, you’ve got a burden. Consider, for example, all the sick people that Jesus healed on the Sabbath day while the legalists criticized him. The Sabbath… To Jesus was a day to release people from their burdens. The legalists succeed in turning the Sabbath itself into a burden. No, it’s not the religion of Jesus that’s hard. Life is hard. And men are hard on people who try to live like Jesus. It’s not so very hard to tell the truth, to be faithful to your wife, to respect the property of others. It’s not so hard even to rest on the Sabbath. Think about that. I’ll be right back with more words of Jesus right after this message.
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You were not born to lose. God has no intention of spending eternity with a loser. You can know what God is doing and why. Drop us a letter or give us a call, and we will send you a free CD introducing the series called Making Life Work. Our address is borntowin.org. Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
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Now I know that everyone is a sinner. But there are some people who are sinners. In capital letters, bold, exclamation point. In Luke 7, verse 36, there’s a contrast drawn between a religious person and a sinner with capital letters and an exclamation point. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, to have dinner. And Jesus went to his house, and he sat down to food. And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner. Now, think about that for a minute. Because for them to identify her in the account, not merely as an ordinary person, but as a sinner, suggests that she was a pretty serious sinner. Perhaps even the town naughty lady. When she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him, weeping, with great tears running down her face. And she began to wash his feet with tears and to wipe them with the hairs of her head. And she kissed his feet and she anointed them with this ointment that she had brought with him. It’s a remarkable picture that we see here of this woman who is obviously brokenhearted, realizes that she is in the presence of the Son of God. And she washes his feet with tears and wipes them with the hair of her head and then gives him a foot massage with a very nice ointment. Now when the Pharisee, now this is a very religious man. who had invited him, saw this. He said within himself, you know, internally said, if this man were a prophet, he would have known what manner of woman this is that has touched him, because she is a sinner. And Jesus turned and said to him, Simon, I’ve got something to say to you. And he said, Master, say on. Jesus said there was a certain creditor that had two debtors. One of them owed him 500 pence, the other only owed him 50. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most? Now, one man owed ten times the amount the other man owed. And when this debt is written off, obviously there is a difference in the response of these two individuals to it, depending upon how much it meant to them and how significant it was. Well, Simon, the Pharisee, answered and said, Well, I suppose that he to whom he forgave the most. He said, You’re right. Then he turned and looked at the woman. He said, Simon, do you see this woman? I came into your house, and you gave me no water for my feet. Actually, that was almost a calculated insult because it was custom. You know, people wore sandals around them. When you come in from outdoors, you’re going to take them off. It was customary to bring water for a servant to come in to wash the feet of the guest who has arrived, give them a towel so they can wash their feet. And, of course, you know how you’d feel after you’d been outside. Your feet were dirty and a little grimy to have something to wash your feet in and maybe a little oil to put on them to make them feel softer. That’d be nice. He didn’t even give him any water. But this woman has washed my feet with tears. And she didn’t have a towel. She wiped them with the hairs of her head. It was customary also in that time that when a guest came into your house that you would give him a brotherly kiss. A kiss on the cheek, perhaps. You didn’t give me any kiss. But this woman, since the time I came in, hasn’t stopped kissing my feet. Normally, when a person arrives as a guest in your home, you would give him a little oil for his head. You know, put a little something in his hair, comb his hair, brush it out, and make him feel and look a little better. He said, you didn’t give me any oil for my head. This woman has anointed my feet with ointment. I want to tell you something. Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. What a fascinating contrast he draws here. And you can’t escape it. Here is the Pharisee who feels he lives a righteous life and hardly needs any forgiveness. And so consequently, he feels no particular affection for Jesus. Jesus doesn’t have anything particular to offer to him. His life is working. Everything’s okay with him. He obeys the law meticulously and carefully and legalistically. And so forgiveness means little. but to a woman whose life was a wreck. Forgiveness from Jesus meant everything. When he turned to the woman, he said, Woman, your sins are forgiven. And others at the table said, What? Who does he think he is to forgive sins also? And he continued to say to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. For this woman who just simply trusted him, believed him, and knew that he could clean her up, that he could forgive her sins, that he could straighten out her life. How did she know this? Well, she’d probably heard Jesus teach. But you know, dominantly, everyone nearly in the community had seen Jesus heal. to heal the lame, to heal the blind, to heal the deaf. And there is nothing that so clearly elucidates a man’s power to heal, to forgive, to do away or to get rid of the things that have destroyed your life, because that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about forgiveness. The things that you have done in your life that have wrecked your life, this man can heal and can make right. And this woman wanted that forgiveness, and she got it. The contrast in this story from the highly religious person who had made the law itself into a yoke of bondage, and this poor woman whose life, whose sins had become her yoke of bondage, is really striking. Give that some thought.
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I’ll be back after these words. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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I suppose the jealousy of man knows no bounds. Here’s Jesus with the power to heal the sick and to give sight to the blind. On this occasion, he was casting out a demon, and the demon was dumb. In other words, the poor man couldn’t speak. He had a demon in him, but the demon would not allow a word to come out of his mouth. And it came to pass that when Jesus cast out this demon, the dumb spoke, and all the people’s mouth dropped open. They wondered at what they had seen. Now, when something like this happens, and you’re not willing to believe it’s of God, well, then you’ve got to go somewhere looking for an explanation. Actually, the problem was that if the people who saw this, some of them, acknowledged that this was of God, well, then since they were supposed to be the religious leaders, here was God working independently of them. And that would never do. Well, some of them then said, Well, he’s casting out demons through Beelzebub, the prince of the demons. And others who tempted him said, Give us a sign from heaven. And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, You know, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against itself is going to fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? You say that I cast out devils through the prince of devils? Well, if I do that, by whom are your sons casting them out? Your sons will be their judge. Other people had cast out demons. Their own sons apparently had done so. He said, but if I with the finger of God cast out demons, well, then no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you in the person, of course, of Jesus Christ. When a strong man, Jesus continued, who is armed, keeps his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes away from him all his armor wherein he trusted and divides his spoils. He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathers not with me is scattering. Now, he served a warning to them right then. You stand out here and start attributing what I am doing to bales above the prince of the devils. I’m sorry, folks. That argument doesn’t work. I’m able to cast out these devils because I am stronger than Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And if you’re not with me, you’re against me. Then he says something truly interesting about this. He said, when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest and doesn’t find it. And he says, I will return to my own house where I came out. Now, I don’t know much about demons, but I gather from what Jesus says that once they are cast out of a person, they are disembodied. They are restless. They are like ghosts wandering through the earth. And they want a place to rest. They want a place where they can dwell. And I gather they are most at home inside somebody. So he says, I’m going to go back where I came from. And when he comes back, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. And so he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. Now, why did he tell us that? He told us that, I think, so we will understand that just because you have gotten evil out of your life This is not enough. You have got to put something else in. If you merely get away from the evil or get away from the evil person or you stop a bad habit, the chances are it’s going to come back on you, just like a demon might come back on you. The question is, what are you going to put in its place? For the poor guy who’s had a demon cast out of him, what comes back into his life now, what needs to be in his life now, is Christ. That Jesus Christ lives in him. If Jesus Christ directs his life, if he dwells with Jesus Christ, then that evil spirit will find no place when he comes back. And you can take that on to anything you want to think about. Whatever it is that you cast out of your life that is hurtful and evil, You’d better put something in its place, or it will be right back. At this point, something curious happened. There was a woman standing there in the crowd listening to him, and she raised up her voice real loud over everybody else and said, Blessed is the womb that bear you and the paps which you have sucked. That’s a bizarre statement to make in the middle of nowhere. I can imagine the disciples rolling their eyes to heaven and saying, Now who brought this woman in here? And Jesus patiently responded. He said, yes, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. Now, Mary, who bore Jesus and gave him suck as a child, is blessed among women to be sure. And this woman was honoring Mary. But Jesus, he didn’t totally dismiss her. He tried, however, to get her to think a little bit more focused. And he said, no, well, okay. But blessed are they that hear the word of God and actually do something about it. That’s where the real blessing comes from. And then he returns to this theme of the people who had said, well, you’re casting out demons by the prince of demons. In Matthew 12, 31, he says, I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, he meant himself, all that can be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come. Now, what in the world is he talking about? Well, he had just cast out demons by the power of the Spirit of God, and they had attributed that to Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Jesus considered that near blasphemy, if not blasphemy. And he gave them a warning. And I think it’s a warning all of us ought to take very seriously. Be very careful about attributing miraculous powers that you see to demonic forces or to the devil. If you don’t recognize it as of God, by all means, leave it alone. But be really careful you don’t wind up fighting against God. People who belittle and demean the faith of others are losers.
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Until next time, this is Ronald Dart, and you were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to You may call us at 888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net Stay in touch with the new Born to Win with Ronald L. Dart app.
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