In the normal course of things, if a man falls down, he gets back up. If he runs down a wrong track, he will normally retrace his steps and try to find a better way. So what is it that causes men to behave abnormally—to charge on straight ahead in the face of disaster, to be unwilling, having fallen, to get up again? Through Jeremiah, God spoke to …

I used to think that the What Would Jesus Do? movement was a good thing for young people. And it does have merit in helping kids stop and think about the moral issues they face every day. But really, isn’t WWJD? the wrong question? After all, we live in a different world and the best we can do is subjectively guess what Jesus might do living in our…

One thing to watch as we approach the end of history is the city of Jerusalem. Notice that I said the end of history, not the end of the world. When I was a kid I used to hear people talk about the end of the world, and I did not like the sound of that one little bit. The expression the end of the world entered our language from a mistake in the Ki…

There is a very disturbing theme that runs through the Old Testament prophets. It speaks of a complete loss of leadership in a nation. I may groan a lot over the moral decay that afflicts our countries, but I don’t believe we have fallen as far into the abyss as Old Israel had fallen. It would be a mistake to pat ourselves on the back, though, beca…

One of the truly pivotal events of the New Testament church was a conference that took place some 18 years or so after the church began on the Day of Pentecost. It is often referred to as the Jerusalem Conference, and it seems odd in a way that it took this long for it to occur. By most accounts, the year was ad 49. What was at stake (and it is ast…

If you will return, O Israel, says the Lord, return unto me: and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight, then shall you not be moved. Jeremiah 4:1 KJ2000 If God had a message for this country today, I think this is what he might say. There are a lot of good people in this country who are trying to live a godly life, but they are los…

There is an odd thing about the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry. Not only was he very young (he describes himself as only a child) when he was called by God, but the King he served was very young, as well. King Josiah came to the throne at age 8, and Jeremiah began to prophesy when Josiah was 21. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, …

In all the many years of human civilization, basic human nature hasn’t changed at all. Technology has changed the way we live, but the basics remain the same—and they are remarkably the same across all cultures and all people. Also, down through all the ages of time, God has not changed. So, we human beings go through the same stuff over and over a…

If God were going to send us a prophet today, what sort of man would he be? Would he be, perhaps, a rough-hewn, mountain-man type like Elijah—dressed in leather and rising into town on a Harley? Or would he be a smooth, educated orator like Isaiah? Or maybe he would be a man like Jeremiah who gives his name to the Jeremiad, which is defined as a pr…

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 una…

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, …

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…

By webmaster@borntowin.net (Sermon by Ronald L. Dart)

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 …

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 happenin…

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 ha…

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 …

Real prophets are not always bad news. Oh, they have the unpleasant task of telling it like it is, telling us where we're wrong, calling upon us to change, and telling us what is going to happen when we don't. But at the end of the day, for a real prophet, there's hope. Last time, I pointed out some benchmarks to look for when you're reading the Ol…

There are times when I feel like Elijah in his cave. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about—it’s a really important story, and there’s some things about it you may not understand. Elijah was a man of very few words. He made one prophecy of disaster, composed of a mere 25 words or less, and then disappeared. That’s all we hear from him up to …

How can you tell when an Old Testament prophet is writing about the end time? You know, there’s so much stuff in those prophecies, as you read through them, and a lot of it seems really old and out of date—dealing with another time and another place and another kind of people. Actually, much of the time these prophets are writing about the end time…

Real prophets are not always nice people. As I read the Bible, I sometimes think that the prophets are like tools in God’s toolbox—when he wants a hammer, he picks up a prophet that’s sort of like a hammer; when he wants a wrench he picks a tool that is most like a wrench. Now, tools are not naturally beautiful—they have a utilitarian beauty, but t…

They say that history repeats itself; and I’ll have to admit it seems to be true. Actually, there are two perfectly good reasons why history would repeat. Number one: human nature doesn’t change. Number two: God doesn’t change. So in spite of all the changes in technology, man still has the same needs, the same hopes, the same fears, the same lusts…

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 …

And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spoke unto him again the second time, What God has cleansed, that call not common. This was done three times: and the vessel was received up again into heaven. Now while Peter wondered in …

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 th…

I suspect the months leading up to the year 2000 saw more prophecies than any comparable period since, well, the last time they moved into a new millennium. But they weren’t really prophecies; they were just predictions. What’s the difference, you may ask? Well, predictions are not expected to be perfect—they are made on scientific data, like weath…

We were eating in a Chinese restaurant some time ago, and I noticed something funny about my fortune cookie. On the back of the fortune (which, I think, said I was going to have a good year) it had a series of numbers. It was only the second or third time I saw those numbers there that I realized what they were. There were six, two-digit numbers—lo…

Is God a time traveler? How does God know the future? I know the question sounds a little silly. After all, God is God and he knows everything, right? But hold on a second; let’s develop that question a little bit. It may not be as silly as it sounds. In fact, this question is one of the most important questions you can ask about the future. Is God…

Unless you have just recently arrived from outer space, you have probably heard of Nostradamus. The odds are you don’t know very much about him; you may have heard that he made a lot of predictions or prophecies and that some of them have come true. And the presumption is that those that haven’t come true—well, those must be somewhere out in the fu…

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for you to kick against the goads. And he trembling …

Years ago, in watching the three memorial services for Ronald Reagan, and all the formality that went with them, I found myself strangely touched. There were several moments when I had a lump in my throat. I thought it was altogether fitting and right to have such a memorial for one of the great presidents of the greatest and most powerful nations …

We have two sources of information about God. First, we have his revelation of himself in the Bible. Second, we have God’s revelation of himself in the creation. From those two witnesses we have a glimpse into the entirety of God’s plan—from now all the way back to the beginning. Let’s think the unthinkable for a moment. The first words of the Gosp…

In any age, and under all conditions, men and women of God have serious responsibilities. In sickness or in health, in poverty or in wealth, we have a job to do. Perhaps you don’t think of yourself that way—as a man of God. But if you take his name upon you—if you are a Christian or a Jew—you are his man, his woman, and you are where you are for hi…

Sometimes, when I am studying the Bible, I find myself faced with a mystery. What on earth was God saying or doing on this occasion and what does it mean? Someone once complained about this wondering why God hid things from us. Why, he wanted to know, doesn’t God come right out and tell us plainly so we don’t have to guess? I have two things to say…

Like every American I have read and heard the Gettysburg Address more times than I can recall. I had the singular misfortune not to be required to memorize it when I was in school, because U.S. News was right when they featured a brand new book about the Gettysburg Address and called it the greatest speech in American history. And, in one of the tr…

By webmaster@borntowin.net (Sermon by Ronald L. Dart)

Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him […] and were filled with indignation, And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. Acts 17…

When the framers of our American constitution first gathered, they faced a fundamental question. The question was not merely, Can we create a free republic? The question was, Can we create a free republic that will remain free? Those men knew their history, and they knew that history was against them. The first step in gaining freedom was past—it w…

I remember first seeing the movie The Ten Commandments in the theater over 50 years ago. One of the things I remember from the film was the stentorian voice pronouncing: proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. I recall thinking how awkward the King James English was in the picture at that point. I knew it was a ci…

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[.] Declaration of Independence The founding fathers stated in the first official document of our nation that our rights and our freedoms are granted, not by men, but by God. And we laid the foundation of th…

What’s really going on in the world? And what is this War on Terror really about. When you get to the basics, what people call terrorism is actually a war against the spread of freedom. The war is being waged by the enemies of freedom. Their motive? They are mortally afraid. What are they afraid of? Well, freedom of course. They think we are the pr…

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will show w…

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Who also said, You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, who is taken up from you into he…

By webmaster@borntowin.net (Sermon by Ronald L. Dart)

By webmaster@borntowin.net (Sermon by Ronald L. Dart)

The holy days in Israel were prophetic, illustrating God's plan through annual cycles that reflected his work and intentions. Although the people of Old Testament times might not have fully grasped their significance, these holy days carry profound meaning for Christians today. One of these, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost and was a time to thank G…

The holy days in Israel were prophetic, illustrating God's plan through annual cycles that reflected his work and intentions. Although the people of Old Testament times might not have fully grasped their significance, these holy days carry profound meaning for Christians today. One of these, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost and was a time to thank G…

By webmaster@borntowin.net (Sermon by Ronald L. Dart)

By webmaster@borntowin.net (Sermon by Ronald L. Dart)

One week from tomorrow is Pentecost, otherwise known as the Feast of Firstfruits. Traditionally, we have said that Pentecost pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit. It's not hard to figure out why, because on that first Pentecost of the church (a day often called the birthday of the New Testament church) the Holy Spirit was poured out in incredi…