Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

Years ago a friend told me what I was. Most of us have had that experience at one time or another. (If not who we are, at least where we can go.) My friend told me that I was an apologist. I would have been flattered if I’d known what that meant. It was

I don’t suppose there has ever been a man on the face of the earth who had the power at his beck and call that Jesus had. But there was never a time when he abused it. He tried to make this lesson clear at the last supper when he got up, took a towel, l

It seems like it’s very hard for the servants of God to keep their act together. The worst thing that can happen to us is good times. For the Israelites who returned to Jerusalem from exile, the times had indeed been very hard for a while. They had star

When you begin pondering the last days (as the Bible presents them) and you read what the prophets have to say about that time, you’re inevitably drawn to the Book of Revelation. And what I find fascinating is how commonly the Old Testament prophets are

There is really no question that when you read an Old Testament prophet you should ask how he was understood at the time, and how the prophecy would apply in his own lifetime. But if you stop there you may miss something very important. What a prophet l

Two things came my way yesterday which, at first blush, seem unrelated. But, in fact, they have a common, underlying philosophy which needs to be challenged every time it raises its ugly head. It may even be called a hidden agenda, because it is an agen

When you are reading the Old Testament prophets, there’s a particular challenge you run into again and again: What time period is the prophecy aimed at? Now, I have long since explained that in order to understand a prophet you need to know where he was

I find myself constantly fascinated at the way the prophets in the Bible interlace with one another. You wouldn’t know this on a single read. You wouldn’t know it by reading a chapter here a chapter there or by reading somebody’s argument that has proof

It seems odd, in a way, that Satan is not mention more than he is in the Old Testament—at least by name. There may be other references, but the word Satan appears only once in all the historical books of the Bible, once in the Psalms, 11 times mentioned

The next-to-the-last book in the Old Testament—the next-to-the-last of the Minor Prophets—is a man named Zechariah. In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the p

Several years ago, I was driving through an area the weekend after a tragic mass shooting had occurred there. I listened on the radio to the people who lived nearby as they responded to being put in a goldfish bowl for the whole country to watch. I coul

Most readers of the Bible are a little vague about the time of the later prophets. They may know that Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed in 586 BC. More likely, though, they will have little idea of the timeline. They may know from Daniel and J

It’s no picnic being a prophet. Of all the jobs God hands down to men, the job of the prophet may be the toughest of the lot. And it may come as a surprise to learn that some of them (maybe even most of them) were poets and musicians. I guess there’s so

The Old Testament book of Obadiah is the shortest of all the Minor Prophets and, strangely, it doesn’t really seem to say a lot to modern man. I can understand why people reading the Bible kind of brush by it. But as I have said before, trying to unders

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 pr

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 himse

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, th

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

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 i

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

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

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 th

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. Yo

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

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 represente

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 f

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 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 di

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 imme

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 w

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, esp

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

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 doi

The Old Testament prophets pose a singular problem for the reader. This is because they are prophets, not seers like Nostradamus. They aren’t there to tell you when things are going to happen off in the future, and in what order, or what the signs are s

I’ve been reading the Biblical prophets for a long time now. In all that time, the thing that strikes me the most about these prophets is how real they were. These aren’t just old Hebrew poets with an axe to grind. These men are who they say they are an

“If a man dies, shall he live again?” That’s the question, isn’t it? “Is this all there is?” People want to know. We are going to live out our lives here in misery, pain, frustration, aggravation, and irritation, and after that comes oblivion forever.