Making Life Work

By: C. Roderick Martin



    “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, so we may consider them, and know the latter end of them” (Isaiah 41:22 NKJV).

    There is little doubt if we are to know what will happen to this country, we must look to the past, specifically, to ancient Israel.

    One may question if we are indeed the direct descendants of the “Lost Ten Tribes,” but there is little debate that we are spiritual Israel. Biblical history gives us detailed accounts, confirmed many times by secular history, of Israel’s fate when the people disobeyed God.

    God is predictable, he does not change; he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In Deuteronomy...

From Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win Notes

    If God were to send a prophet to us today, what would he have to say? What would his message be? In the first place, the mere presence of a prophet is reason for apprehension. God does not usually send a prophet to tell us how well we are doing. God figures when we do things right, we aren’t really earning any points. We are just doing the best thing for ourselves. That gives no reason to pat us on the head.

    God might tell the prophet to come and tell us: “Thus saith the Lord, the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth who gave you this good land. You have become incredibly rich. There has never been a nation as rich as you have been, and you never ask where it comes from? You never ask, ‘Why...

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win notes.

    This message is crucial for Christians and non-Christians alike. For too long, for generations in fact, Christians have cloaked their faith in church speak, jargon that too often, even they don’t understand. In a sense, it is inevitable, because most church or religious radio and television programs are taped in church. That is to say that the speaker is talking to an audience of insiders who know the vocabulary, or at least think they do.

    On the other hand, when questioned carefully about their beliefs, too many Christians have to admit they don’t really understand what their church teaches.

    This is one difference between the Born to Win program and some others. I am not speaking...

From the Program Notes of Ronald L. Dart

    There was a time when I thought anti-abortion people were a little too cute in calling themselves, “pro-life.” I don’t think that any longer. I have come to the conclusion that it was precisely the right term to use—at least it is the right term for Christians to use.

    The real issue is much bigger than abortion. To some degree, the issue is clouded by the terminology. For example, “choice” is not the opposite of “life,”as in “pro-choice vs. pro-life.” The opposite of life is death.

“This day I call heaven and 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 NIV).

...

By: Stacey Shoemaker

    There is someone who is deeply invested in your child’s spiritual development. He has analyzed her personality for strengths and weaknesses. He knows the intricacies of her relationships with family and friends and has studied every possible angle to win her over. He has a masterful plan for influencing your child’s walk with God. That someone is Satan the Devil.

    Right now a war is being waged for the hearts and minds of our young people (Ephesians 6). The last two decades have seen a flurry of sociological research about Christianity which has revealed changes that have been previously unseen in American history. As Forrest Barry, author of a blog entitled, The Last Christian Generation? states, “The percentage...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    One day last winter my wife Diane was reading the first chapter of Joshua, and she asked a question I couldn’t answer. “Why is it that the phrase ‘Be strong and of good courage’ appears so many time in this chapter?”

    The question is a good one, and maybe even a better one than Diane thought. Not only do these words appear in Joshua 1, but also in Deuteronomy 31 where Moses aims “be strong and of good courage” at both Joshua and the people.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    What did the First Christians believe about the new covenant? I mean those Christians who were alive in the days when the books of the New Testament were being written—what did they believe?

    I have heard a lot of discussion about the Old and New Covenants. There is something about them that I think very few people seem to have understood. Let me lay a little background.

By: Lenny Cacchio  





    Most Christians don’t realize that they keep a Jewish High Holy Day! The day known as Pentecost was originally one of the Holy Days given to the Israelites while in the wilderness. It was known as the Feast of Weeks because it occurred about seven weeks after the people of Israel offered to God the first fruits of the spring barley harvest (Deuteronomy 16:9-10).     The word “Pentecost” is derived from the Greek words “pente” and “koste”, which literally mean to “count fifty” as in counting fifty days from that offering of first fruits to the day known as Pentecost (see Leviticus 23:16 where the instructions are to “count fifty days”). Pentecost marked the end of the spring harvest, so the day was essentially...

 

By: Ronald L. Dart

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29). 

    There are things about God that we are never going to understand for the simplest of reasons. They have not been revealed, and theorizing isn’t going to help very much. It is revelation that we need if we are going to understand.

    One of the things that has been revealed, in part, is the work and character of the Spirit of God, and yet even that is not well understood. A troubling set of questions surround the Holy Spirit, and they suggest that we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere and we need to retrace our steps.

By: Ronald L. Dart

   Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? When I taught Old Testament Survey class, we could never get through this section of Exodus without a lively discussion on this question. Did Pharaoh have a choice in the matter? Was it impossible for him to repent? "I thought all men possessed free moral agency. Did God take that away from Pharaoh?" asked a girl from Glasgow. "Seems like the poor beggar never had a chance," opined an Australian student.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    When God gave Abraham his great victory over the King of Elam, he was met on his return by an enigmatic figure, a priest, by the name of Melchizedek. What is of special interest about this encounter is that Abraham gave Melchizedek tithes (a tenth) of all the spoil he had taken from the opposing armies–much of it the property of the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 14:20). Why did Abraham do that?

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Was there something wrong with the Ten Commandments? Were they weak legislation in the first place? Or did they somehow become obsolete with the passage of time? If, as some suppose, the time came for the Ten Commandments to be abolished, there must have been a reason for it. The idea of the abolition of law is not foreign to us. We "abolish" or repeal laws often enough. But when we do repeal laws, why do we do it? There are many reasons. The law may be unenforceable. It may be unpopular with the people, and because of massive disobedience ("They can’t put all of us in jail"), the law simply can’t be maintained. The classic example of this was prohibition.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    If Jesus told you not to think something, would you believe Him? Or would you continue to suppose that something were true when Jesus told you plainly it was not? For example, if Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets," would you assume that Jesus came to do away with the law?

    Surprisingly, many Christians think that Jesus came to destroy the law when He said specifically that He did not. He said: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).

By: Ronald L. Dart

The Second Key

    The best ideas are usually simple and this one is no exception. The idea was conceived long ago and is so simply stated that most of us would read right over it and never grasp its implications. It reads as follows: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22).

    I can hear you saying, “That sounds like a good idea, but a little tough to execute. I have enough trouble making ends meet as it is without worrying about the next generation.”

By: Ronald L. Dart

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness (Lamentations 4:1-3).

    The high school graduating class of ‘94 was decimated by a terrible plague and no one paid it much mind. If a bus load of them had been killed on the way to a game, it would have made headlines–at least locally. If a school had blown up and killed a few hundred of them it would have made national, even worldwide, news.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    He is twenty years old, but he looks more like sixteen. In blue jeans and sweater, his hair neatly cut, he looks like he should have books under his arm and be headed for class. The district attorney says he is a cold-blooded killer. It seems he held up a convenience store late one night. The clerk offered no resistance and gave him all the money in the cash register. But as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pockets, this “student” calmly raised his pistol and shot the clerk squarely between the eyes just to leave no witnesses. Now the district attorney wants you, the jury, to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Just what does it mean to "keep the Sabbath?" What should a person do on that day? Or, as some would prefer to ask, what should a person NOT do? Can you work at your normal job? What about emergencies? Can you buy groceries on the Sabbath? What if you have unexpected guests? The Sabbath is indeed a holy day, and to worship God properly requires a right view of His day.

By: Ronald L. Dart

“Let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce,
says the Lord the God of Israel.”

    Divorce is painful. If you have been through a divorce, you need no one to tell you that. Not only do the children get hurt, there are the grandparents, the family, the friends. And who can tell of the pain, of the anger that comes in the middle of the night to the two people who once loved each other above all others?

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

 

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Genesis 1:14-19).

    Nothing God gave to man has been used so consistently for the purpose He intended. Every civilization of man has used the sun, the moon, or both for the demarcation of time. They had no choice. Even a hunting society had to take notice of the passage of seasons. When would the animals migrate to the north and when would they return? How soon would the antlered animals make their move down from the high country? No people dependent upon the land could fail to notice that there was a time to plant and a time to harvest. Their problem was the prediction of that time, and that required the observation of the sun. It required a calendar, and some form of calendar has always been a mark of civilization.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Did Jesus adjust God’s ancient laws of clean and unclean meats? The answer shouldn’t be hard to find. It should be right there in the four gospels.

    Everyone is concerned about health these days. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, and yet people often neglect to consider what the best selling book of all time has to say about healthful eating habits.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    There are times when events in the modern world and the events written in the Bible converge, and when they do, they often shed light in both directions. The world and the society we live in is very different from the ancient world, But the hearts of men really are not very different. And, of course, God never changes at all. And in these simple truths, we can learn some very important things.

By: Ronald L. Dart 

    In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, there was one question raised that no one really stopped to answer. Is it wrong for the United States to seek vengeance for the murder of the 5000 innocent people who died on September 11? Should we, as a country, turn the other cheek? There were those who thought the criminals who did this act should be brought to justice, but that it was wrong to merely seek revenge on Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

    I suppose you know where the term "shotgun wedding" originated. It has been the root of many metaphors, but it arose in a time when we assumed that a man had to take responsibility for his actions. A man seduces a maid (or vice versa), and she turns up expecting a baby. I never heard of a true shotgun wedding, because the man married the girl without the father’s prompting.

    Things happen that shouldn’t, but if we take responsibility, sometimes they can be made to work. This was realized (long before there were any shotguns) in the Law of Moses. "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife" (Exodus 22:16 NIV). In Moses’ law, this was to be done whether there was a child coming or not.

By: Lenny Cacchio

    If Jesus held a press conference, what question would you ask him?  The disciples asked him lots of questions you and I might ask.  When will be the time of your coming?  Why do you speak in parables?  Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?   The Pharisees also took the opportunity to ask him questions, but the questions they asked tell us more about the Pharisees than Jesus.  Here’s a curious question they asked in Matthew 19. Tell us, they asked.  When is it permissible for us to divorce our wives?  Moses commanded us to write a bill of divorce if our wives displease us.  What do you say?  

    Considerable debate surrounded that question among the Pharisees.  One school, the school of Hillel, based upon a generous...

By: Lenny Cacchio

The house of representatives...can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. James Madison, Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

    We can presume that Madison’s concept as expressed in Federalist No. 57 was a view that most of the Founding Fathers espoused.  But none of them invented this noble idea.  Its roots are embedded in...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I am a proponent of immigration, but only of the kind that follows the rules.  I’m not just speaking of the rules of the country.  Those are important rules too, although those rules seem to be too porous for proper enforcement.  Rather, I am talking about an ancient law that is surprisingly wise in its intent and application.

    The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy are very much a codification of the basic law of an ancient nation.  They contain hundreds of civil laws and judgments that clearly pertain to an ancient culture, but quite often would be impractical to apply literally to a 21st century culture. 

For example, there is an interesting tidbit from the civil code found in the book of Deuteronomy: “You...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Another harrowing week on the job leaves me drained, and I know that I am not unique.  The strain of our on-the-run culture is robbing us of our freedom and the quality in our lives.  A recent article in the Kansas City Star poignantly pointed out that our information age has linked us to our offices 24/7 not only from home but from virtually anywhere in the world.  Our cell phones and laptops make it next to impossible to escape the yoke of our employment’s reach.     The age of just-in-time inventory, instant messages, and overnight delivery are symptoms of a culture that demands what it wants and demands it now.  The luxury of taking one’s time is no longer afforded us, let alone a full escape from the pressures of...

By: Allie Dart

 

    "What is the most serious threat confronting teenagers today? It’s promiscuity and pregnancy" according to Insights, March 2, 1998. How did this happen? Our society is constantly redefining morality and overlooking the standard whereby we should base our morals.

    But should society be the standard for basing our morality? A counter- culture movement hit our nation throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Students protested what they considered to be repressive of women’s sexual pleasure, which was to be kept within the walls of heterosexual marriage. Medical contraceptives were ushered in, taking away the fear of pregnancy for the free-love movement. This movement told us that premarital sex releases people...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    It is hard to write an essay on the goodness of God when there is so much evil in the air. Why did God allow Katrina to disrupt so many lives? That is a natural question for a ten-year old, and even great theologians wrestle with it. How can all-powerful and all-loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?     I don’t have all the answers, and I won’t tell you that I do. Rabbi Harold Kushner struggled with it, and through simple deductive logic came to a startling conclusion. He reasoned that if God is just, if God is loving, and if God is all-powerful, then such a God couldn’t allow bad things to happen to good people. Therefore, either God is not just, or God does not love, or God is not all-powerful.    ...