Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

I honestly don’t know what the founders of this nation believed about God. But I do have their words to go by. They signed their names—and pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor—to a document that began this way:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We have been given and guaranteed certain things by a creator. As King David wrote, we are fearfully and wonderfully made[.]

The human body is a great starting point for coming to understand this creator (it is closest to us, after all). What can we learn about God just by taking a closer inspection of things like our sense of sight? Beyond this, what does God reveal to us through a common tree or a starry, night sky?

Is God really there? Or are we just an accident in the universe, a product of blind chance? Is there no design other than that which natural law provides?

Stalactites and stalagmites grow in caves by the natural process of water seeping through rock and depositing calcium carbonate. They can create some fascinating, even eerie, forms. In one cave, a collection of these in a corner looks enough like a pipe organ that someone gave the formation that name. Although those things may look roughly like a pipe organ in church, it is still only calcium carbonate, formed over time by dripping water (and it makes no music).

A real organ is designed. It is a work of art and craft absolutely unique among Man's inventions. It has a purpose. It follows the laws of nature, but was not created by the laws of nature. But more than that, the organ is a creation designed for creating. It allows for creation to flow from the mind of a Man through his fingers. No one would ever argue that such a beautifully-designed instrument was created by the laws of nature. Nor would anyone ever try to create an organ that did not obey the laws of nature. It would be pointless, because it would allow nothing to be created that was worthwhile.

But Man thinks nothing of arguing that he himself was created by the laws of nature. Nor of arguing that he need not obey the laws of nature. So Man argues that everything, from the universe to the amoeba to Man, evolved over time following the laws of nature. The argument is that the laws of nature are merely properties of matter. And whence cometh the matter…? Well, the matter just is. It originated out of nothing with a big bang.

Now if you can believe all that, don't let me disturb you; because the alternative to that line of thought contains an idea that will boggle the mind. The alternative is that the whole thing—from the universe to the amoeba to Man—was designed by an intelligence that had the power to make it happen. The idea that Man is an accident of the universe, somehow brought into being by blind chance or natural law through evolution, is hateful because it would mean that life has no meaning at all. And I am reasonably sure that the persistent teaching of evolution down through the years has so eroded the morality of our people that they are completely lost. A kind of advanced utilitarianism now guides the thinking of so very many people. Utilitarianism is a seven syllable word that simply asks the question, Is it useful. You know the word: Utility. The SUV—sports utility vehicle—is a byword in our society today; and the word utility simply means, fitness for some purpose, or worth to some end. Philosophy has elevated utility to a religion, by adding an -ism and calling it Utilitarianism.

Professor Lawrence Hinman, in a series of lectures, lists what he calls the three basic insights of Utilitarianism: The purpose of morality is to make the world a better place. Morality is about producing good consequences, not having good intentions. We should do whatever will bring the most benefit to all of humanity. He then lays out the purpose of morality: The utilitarian has a very simple answer to the question of why morality exists at all. The purpose of morality is to guide people's actions in such a way as to produce a better world. Consequently, the emphasis in utilitarianism is on consequences, not intentions.

Now you don't have to have a PhD to realize that philosophy is offering you an alternative to religion, an alternative to God. Do you see any problems with this idea as presented? It is the absence of an answer to the question, Why? Why should I concern myself with what brings the most benefit to humanity if it costs me more than I want to pay? Why can't I just do what benefits me the most, what works for me? Sure, I need to be concerned about consequences to me, but why should I care about the consequences to Africa except as they might later affect me? And further, what may be the biggest what if question of all...

Many years ago, in the middle of a theological argument about what is required for the saving of a man's soul, I formulated another of what I call Dart's Laws. This one is, simply stated: Disillusionment Is Necessary for Redemption.

I have little doubt that many of you have experienced disillusionment at one time or another in your life. The mentor relationship is a classic example, as the protégée thinks his mentor has the answer to everything. A careless mentor may allow this sort of error to grow if he doesn't make it clear that he is not infallible. Sometimes, when the protégée comes to realize that his mentor has feet of clay, he enters what some call The BOOM years: in other words, becoming one's own man.

Two other classic examples of religious gurus come to mind. They occurred right around the same time. Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, both got caught in compromising situations and were branded as hypocrites. A lot of people got disillusioned about that time. One wonders about the followers of Jim Jones in Guyana who woke up suddenly to realize that the man was a suicidal maniac. For some of them, there was no time for the redemption that can follow disillusionment. There are more examples in politics than I have time to enumerate.

There is one more thing you should know about illusions. I learned this the hard way, and I am giving it to you free. You have no one but yourself to blame. We accept illusions because they give us something we want, need, or think we need. Usually without paying for it. And this may explain why disillusionment comes so hard. People will fight for their illusions. They will defend them to the bitter end. Let's take a look at what God told Jeremiah to tell ancient Israel when they were desperately clinging to their own illusions.

If God in his wisdom were to send a prophet to us today—to stand on the courthouse steps and preach to us like Jeremiah did to the ancient Israelites—what do you suppose that prophet would have to say? What would his message be?

In the first place, the mere presence of a prophet is reason to become apprehensive. God does not usually send a prophet to tell us how well we are doing. He figures that when we do things right, we aren’t really earning any points. We are just doing the best thing for ourselves. There is no reason to send someone to pat us on the head. So, when the prophet shows up and begins to speak, it is time for us to take notice.

I think God might tell that prophet to begin by telling us something like this…

Jesus Christ was no fortune-teller. He didn't go around giving people the answers to future Trivial Pursuit questions. Like all real prophets, he gave knowledge of the future for two reasons. One: so you could do something about it. If you know something is coming, you can dodge, you can change your life. Two: so you can understand what is happening to you when it happens. Life would have meaning.

But Jesus emphasized one side of the prophet's work above the other. The primary object, really, of the prophet's message is our salvation. In old times, it might have been to save yourself from being bottled up in a besieged city; that's the idea behind Jesus' warnings in Matthew 24. Or it may have been to save your life, save you some pain, save you some suffering. That's generally the point of the prophet's message—tell you what's going to happen so you can change it—or, put another way, repent so you can live.

Now, I am going to tell you something that's a little hard to understand. And it's hard to understand, to some degree, by the way the Bible is written. Prophecy is not so much what God is going to do to us because of our sins (which it the way a lot of prophecy reads) but about what our sins are going to do to us.

If you’ve ever settled down to read the Old Testament prophets, and as you read you haven’t found anything that affects the way you live your life, you’re reading the prophets all wrong. I have said that there are only two reasons why God would ever tell us anything about the future. (Why should he? What right do we have to know what is going to happen tomorrow?) But he does tell us. One reason is so we can do something about it. We can change our lives, or maybe run for our lives if need be. Maybe we can even change the outcome. Secondly, so we can understand events as they happen and see God’s hand in history. He has a point whenever he send a prophet along.

Real prophets don’t make comfortable reading. In fact, they can be depressing at times. But there’s a short passage in Ecclesiastes where wise old Solomon said:

It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

And in one of his proverbs he said:

Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

There’s a lot of tragedy in the prophets, and a lot of death and destruction, a lot of fear—people hiding out in rocks and caves. But, you know, in spite of all the tragedy, it is a place where the heart is made better. I feel sorry for those who spend all their time in the prophets trying to outline the future—to chart the course of future events—because when they are preoccupied with prediction, they are missing the life-changing message of the prophecy. You can do a lot of work, put together charts, line it all out—documented and footnoted in every detail—and then…everything can be changed.

When you sit down to read an Old Testament prophet—like Isaiah or Jeremiah; Hosea or Amos—and as you read along you get a distinct impression that, Hey, this guy is writing about the end time, and it sounds an awful lot like the time I’m living in! When you get that feeling, how do you know where the prophecy is directed? In other words, who is he talking about? Does it apply to you, your nation, your people? Is there some way of identifying people in the modern world as they might be spoken about by, say, Hosea?

Well, there are four basic ways that people are identified in the Old Testament prophets. The first two we will look at are ancestry (that is, their ethnic roots) and geography (the land they occupy). The second of these is simple enough—land itself doesn’t move around much—but people do migrate, and at times it is not easy to determine where these people went. Take, for example, a much-quoted prophecy from Daniel 11:

And at the time of the end shall the king of the south attack him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass through. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and most of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth his hand also against the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

Real prophets do not read tea leaves. They do not tell the future by looking at your palm. And you’ll never catch a real prophet studying astrological charts for insight. Well, then, how do they do see the future? The answer is simple: they don’t. A real prophet just minds his own business until God speaks to him. And when God speaks to him, it is a transforming experience. There’s a classic example of this in one of the truly great writing prophets; his name is Isaiah.

There’s a distinction, you know, between the oral prophets and the writing prophets. Elijah, as far as we know, wrote nothing. His prophecies were for the time and the people who were at hand. But there’s a group of prophets who not only spoke to their generation, they wrote the prophecies down. And when you realize the significance of that fact, you begin to see that these were written for posterity—for succeeding generations—because they had a message, they had something to say to the generations that were to come. Isaiah wrote down his experiences for us, and his first encounter with God is found in Isaiah, chapter 6. Isaiah was in the temple when it happened.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

Woe to me! I cried. I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?

And I said, Here am I. Send me!

Do you suppose it’s possible that we would ever have a real prophet show up in our country? You know, like Elijah, Isaiah, or Jeremiah—one of those guys. Someone who would tell us the truth about what we are doing, where we are going wrong, and where it would finally take us? If a prophet really came, would we pay him any mind?

I don’t mean will the politicians in Washington pay him any mind. What about you and me? Of course, for a man to be a genuine prophet, he has to have a reputation as a prophet. He has to be recognizable. He has to be believable. People who claim to be a prophet are a dime a dozen. How can you know for sure? Well, it can’t be a matter of guesswork. It has to be based on something real.

Take Elijah, for example. Why should anyone have paid attention to Elijah? It certainly wasn’t his appearance. He was a hairy man and wore a leather girdle. I expect he would have looked right at home on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. And it wasn’t elegance of speech. It is hard to imagine a preacher with fewer words. But what words they were. Let’s hear his message to King Ahab in 1 Kings 17.