Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

There have been some truly great men who held the office of pope down through the centuries, and some men who were…well, not great. Some have been venal. Some have been violent. Some were put in office by imperial authority. Some were murdered in their beds. There have been times in history when schism found leaders and left the church with more than one pope, believe it or not. The word is unfamiliar because there hasn’t been one for 500 years. What’s that? Well, an anti-pope is a claimant of the papacy in opposition to a pope elected according to canon law. To give you an idea of some of the ferment that existed in the past—in the 11 century alone there were 5 anti-popes, and 8 of them in the 12 century. That’s 13 anti-popes in 200 years. (Excommunications, naturally, flew back and forth.) It’s ironic that since the Protestant Reformation there have been no anti-popes—almost as though we flushed out all the dissidents and went forward. The Reformation, though, was a schism within the Roman Church, as was the split with the English Church under Henry VIII. But in the modern world, we have seen nothing like this. That does not mean we will never see anything like it again. It’s entirely possible that we could encounter the old word on the evening news in the years to come. I’ve told you all this to help you understand something else that may well come to your attention in the next few weeks. For generations there have been those who referred to the Catholic Church as [Revelation 17] and who believed that the last pope would be the Antichrist. Each new pope could be the last pope, and may fulfill many of the prophecies of the and Antichrist. He will, according to these would-be prophets, be the little horn of the prophecies of Daniel and one of the beasts of Revelation. Heavy stuff. But take any self-proclaimed prophet with a grain of salt. Where does all this come from? Some comes from an anti-Catholicism arising from conflicts in the dim past, and indeed there have been popes in the long history of the church that deserve condemnation. Catholics probably know that better than anyone. After the Renaissance popes provoked the Protestant Reformation (and they really did) the Catholic Church made some reforms of its own. Still, there are those who want to label the last pope as the man of sin. So, where did this idea of a for the last days come from? Well, we can thank the Apostle Paul for that. In one of his earliest letters, he spoke of the imminent return of Christ. Or at least it sure sounded imminent to his readers, within their lifetime. Well, this generated a flurry of concern, and Paul has to deal with it in his second letter: Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. This is pretty strong; and as bad as some of the popes have been, none of them ever got close to this. Who, then, would do something like this?

Sheep, grain, bread, salt, seeds. In the Gospels, Jesus uses many metaphors when describing both the harvest that is before us and our own roles as workers, bringing in that harvest. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries . It is good to be with you and we thank you for being there and allowing us to make this weekly service possible. Over the past few weeks, we've followed Ron Dart in taking a closer look at the Passover, the resurrection of Christ, and the beginning of the countdown to the Feast of Weeks or . As we find commanded in Leviticus 23: From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain […] a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord. This weekend concludes the third of those seven weeks, so tonight we'll join Mr. Dart in examining this time of year and its accompanying harvest—both of grain and of men.

It was just at the crack of dawn. First light of the new day was just starting to show over the top of the Golan Heights. Still too dark to see anything. The men in the boat fumbled around because they knew where their tackle was, they knew what the boat was like, they knew where everything was by hand, by touch. They had fished a lot at night, so they didn't have any problem with that. But on the shore, off to one side, they could see a little fire burning. They had fished all night long, and they were frustrated because they hadn't caught a thing. And, you know, fishing the way they fished was fairly hard work. And nighttime for them was the time—with daylight coming, hope for catching a lot of fish was beginning to diminish. But that little fire was burning over there. Someone was moving around the fire, and a voice came out across the sea there, about some hundred yards or so away where they were. "Boys, have you caught anything?" And one of them put his hand to his mouth and says, "No!" He said back, "You're fishing on the wrong side of the boat. Try the right side." Now, that must have in itself been a little bit of frustrating advice to those fellows out there because they'd been professional fishermen, off and on, all their lives. And there's just not a whole lot of difference between the right side of the boat and the left side of the boat. And one of them says, "There's no point in doing that." He says, "Well, you had a better idea?" He said, "No, I don't." So they threw the net out the right side of the boat. And before they got anything done at all, the net began to get very heavy. There was a lot of vibration coming up the lines, and they realized they had gotten themselves a load of fish. And about that time, John leaned over to Peter and said, "It's the Lord. It's the Lord." And Peter, who had been fishing naked all night (it must have been pretty warm), grabbed something and put it on him and jumped in the water. They were only 100 yards offshore, so they rowed their boat to shore, dragged the net behind them and up on shore, and they got counted over 160 fish they had in that net. But Jesus already had a fire going, had fish propped up against it, cooking away; and he'd taken bread and put it up, toasting the bread against the fire; and so they had breakfast already well underway. After breakfast, Jesus said to Peter (and the way I read the account, I think it was kind of privately when he said it, perhaps walking along the shore after breakfast as the sun was beginning to come up), "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me more than these?" And Peter said, "Lord, you know I love you." And Jesus replied, "Feed my lambs." He walked a little further along, and he turned again and he said, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you truly love me?" And he said, "Yes, Lord, you know I love you." And Jesus fixed him with a glaze in his eyes and says, "Feed my sheep." And then finally he said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?" And Peter was grieved because he said it to him the third time, and I can understand why he might have been. And he said, "Lord, you know everything. You know I love you." And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep." Now, I can understand why Peter was grieved, but here's my question for you today (my first question of many): Why did Jesus call his love into question? Why was it questionable? Was it perhaps that he had denied the Lord three times? Most commentators who read this, most preachers who preach on it, make that comparison just like that. Peter denied Christ three times. Christ made him affirm his love back to Christ three times. There was reason for it. You know, to deny your best friend, your closest friend, is a betrayal. And Peter had in every sense betrayed Christ. His love certainly could be called into question, and so Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee did so. "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?" And now my next question for you: What if Jesus...

We rarely give very much thought to these days between Passover and Pentecost; but in ancient times, this was a time of very hard work… These are weeks of harvest that we are now going through. What do the weeks between Passover and Pentecost really mean? And what does an ancient agricultural rhythm have to do with the Church today?

There are, in some of Paul's letters, some things that are...well, the only words I can say for it is and . We spend a lot of time in these epistles explaining the problems, or expounding from those scriptures where Paul exhorts the church to do these things and do the other things, and where he addresses theological concepts, and we have had to spend lots of times with the technical problems. What I want to look at today is not those portions of the Scriptures, but what I call the of Paul's epistles—where there are some things said that are not explained, that are not really a part of a technical discussion or an advancing of a doctrine. They are things that are said that are dropped on the ears of people who are new in the faith, when the faith was new.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries . Tonight, we present Ronald L. Dart with a study on the Epistle of Jude from the CEM Vault. To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Thus begins the 12 chapter of the Book of Revelation. The seventh trumpet has sounded. These seven trumpets are a part of the seven seals of the book of the last days of Man upon the earth and of Man’s mis-government. And we are following on the heels of incredible disasters that have struck the earth. Men have been dying by the hundreds of thousands—no, people have been dying in the millions. Disasters, wars, the beginning of what could be a nuclear winter—words fail to describe the kind of events that John has been seeing in this vision. But remember, this is all just a bad dream in a way. Nothing is happening. John is on the Isle of Patmos. He’s been carried in vision to the day of the Lord—the time of God’s wrath, the time of God’s vengeance upon the earth—and he’s standing there, round-eyed, looking at all these things that are happening and marveling at them as angels showed him one thing after another. So, the seventh angel sounds and blows his trumpet and there is silence in heaven about the space of half an hour, some statements are made, and all of a sudden there appears a great sign in heaven.

If you want to know about one of the places you’ll naturally go looking is the Bible, and if you grab a concordance and do a search for the expression you will find exactly six occasions where the term is found, Old Testament and New. However, if you search the Hebrew phrase, you will find the expression some 13 times in the Old Testament alone. The reason is that in over half of the occasions where it is used, it is rendered latter. I presume there are contextual reasons for choosing one expression or the other. We would like to insist that the expression always means exactly the same thing, but English doesn’t work that way and we shouldn’t expect Hebrew to be any more precise. We run afoul of some very bad interpretations because amateurs find a meaning of the Hebrew that fits their assumptions and then they impose that rendering everywhere it is found because it supports their particular bias. I have the impression that God wants us to be less dogmatic and more enquiring, but that’s a hard adjustment for some people to make. The last time I spoke here, I introduced the topic of the last days with Paul’s warning of debilitating, weakening times in 2 Timothy. Then came Peter’s powerful admonition in 2 Peter 3. I’ll begin here with another occasion when Peter addressed the question of , the , and the prophet Joel. We’ll find it in Acts, chapter 2, occurring on the Day of Pentecost. << Surviving the Last Days #1

The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets. Mystery? What mystery? Well, we’re in the Book of Revelation, chapter ten. And these angels that are appearing to John sequentially are telling things that are going to happen in the future. And John is writing them all down faithfully so that we will know what it is that’s coming, and why it is coming. Now we have come right up against the seventh of the angels that are going to blow trumpets. You’ve heard of Gabriel blowing his trumpet and the judgment day coming? Well, that’s where we are. This angel comes forth, puts the trumpet to his lips and blasts out. This is the time when the mystery of God will be finished. Whatever it is, this mystery is connected with the seventh trumpet. The fact is, John was leading up to this prophet, he saw an angel come down from heaven and stand on the earth and on the sea, and cry with a loud voice and when he did there were seven thunders cracked out with a voice, that said something. John took his pen in hand and was going to write them down, and somebody said, And so he didn’t. And one suspects because they made this statement, and then immediately say, The angel probably had said something about this mystery. John was privileged to hear it. We’re not. Alright, what is the seventh trumpet all about?

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little scroll open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. Now, I am surprised that by now John could even hold a pen to write with all the things that had been happening to him and all the things that he had been seeing. A lesser man would have been prostrate on the ground and unable to stand or look. But I suppose after all the visions and so forth that had come before with John that he had made some adaptation by now, and he wanted to write down what these thunders said. This angel was huge, and the roar of a lion coming from him must have been awesome. And these seven thunders, don’t think of these like distant thunder rumbling in the background on the horizon; something where you see the lightening flash, and then count to five and then there’s a rumble that rolls across the way. No, no! Imagine thunder close enough that there is no discernible delay between the lightening and the sound, and you’ll be a lot closer to what this was probably like. A crack rather than a roll. What do you suppose the seven thunders said that John could not write?

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. Now, this is an ominous silence. After all the seals that had been opened before: the four horses of the apocalypse had thundered across the landscape, there’s been religious confusion, persecution everywhere, a rain of meteors—not a shower, mind you—like a rain they’ve been hitting the ground; and there’s been earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, and signs in the heavens. And then there’s silence for a half an hour. Now, half an hour is not a very long time, or it is a long time if you’re waiting for the next thing to happen. I wonder if it’s long enough to bring a man to the mouth of his cave to see if all the calamities that he’s been fleeing from are past. This is the Book of Revelation. It’s chapter eight. The Lamb of God has taken this book from the hand of him that sat upon the throne, and he has begun one at a time to open the seven seals on this book. The book is the story of the end of the age of man. We’ve had our time here. We’ve been walking about on this planet for at least 6,000 now, making all of our mistakes, and time, for us, will draw to a close. It’s the story of the end of the age of man, and the beginning of the age of the Lamb of God. A different world. The old song, , is right. Then, finally, the seventh seal is opened. There’s an ominous silence for about half an hour. Then, in total silence, seven angels step forward.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts its unripe figs, when it is shaken by a mighty wind. And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the generals , and the mighty men, and every slave, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath has come; and who shall be able to stand? Who indeed? When you consider what’s going on, when you consider that this that is happening is what really everybody thinks about when they think about the end of the world. We have a meteor shower that’s coming down, and this time they’re not burning up in the heavens, but they’re actually hitting the ground. Scientists tell us that this has happened in the past, and what happened in the past led to some of the great extinction when the dinosaurs disappeared off the earth because of all the clouds of dust and smoke and volcanic action and earthquakes and meteors hitting the earth threw so much dust in the air it blocked the sunlight, plant life died off and everything in the food chain that depended on it died off as well. The end of the world indeed. There was a movie some years ago about a meteor that struck at or near Phoenix, AZ, I forget the title of the move, but. I’ll never forget this one scene where a man comes up to a state trooper after all the big event is taking place and he says, And the trooper looked at him and said, Now, when you imagine that it’s like a tree that has been shaken badly and the fruit is falling to the ground like , all over the place, and you transfer that to meteors striking the earth, and you realize that one of them could actually destroy a city; well, I don’t want to scare you to much, but they say something like this has happened in the past, and that it’s sure to happen again. Scientist who specialize in looking at the universe and studying probabilities tell us that if something can happen, it will happen eventually. And, of course, if it already has happened, which it has on this planet, which has happened to the moon if you take a look at it, it’s going to happen again. Apparently it is going to rain very large objects from the sky at one point. In the movie, only one meteor, the people should have fled the city; some did and some didn’t, some had time, some didn’t. When the day of the wrath of the Lamb has come, there will be no place to run to.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. There are two things that need attention in this statement: connects what he is saying with what he has just said—and we will need to talk about that. The word , though, is not exactly what Paul said. Other translations render the Greek word here as or . Actually, it comes from a Greek root that means . It is certainly true that what Paul describes here is a perilous time for men of faith, but it is perilous because the times are weakening—that is, they are debilitating, they tend to take us down. For Paul to caution Timothy as he did is suggestive that, for all he knew, they might be living in the last days. Paul didn’t know, of course. Jesus made it plain that no man knew the day or the hour. But that didn’t keep him from looking at the signs of the times. But then he when on to explain to Timothy, at some length, what it was he was driving at. We’ll see this as we continue in 2 Timothy, chapter 3. Surviving the Last Days #2 >>

And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to loose the seals thereof? And he looked all over heaven, and he looked all over earth, and he couldn’t find anyone that was qualified or worthy to open this book and break the seals, to look inside of it. It was only when the slain Lamb came on the scene that one was able to open it, and to break the seals. This book, this strange book, is the story of the end of the world. That’s a sobering thought. I remember the first time I ever heard that expression. I was just a boy growing up and living in the northwestern part of Arkansas. It was in the early years of World War II, and everybody was worried a lot back in those days. They watched the news daily, they listened to the radio, they read the papers, and it didn’t look good. These were pre-television and pre-air-conditioning days. On a hot summer evening when supper was over we didn’t set around inside the house you went outside and sat on the porch. You maybe swung back and forth in a porch swing or a rocking chair or if you were like us kids, we used to like sit on the cool concrete of the porch and think about this, or play with that, yet in our ears we were hearing what our elders were talking about. And I remember them saying that one of the signs of the end of the world was wars, and rumors of wars; and boy there was plenty of that in 1942 and 1943. I worried a lot about those things in those days. I remember, in fact, there was a light in the sky one night and I thought, This is it, This is it. The Lord is coming back, the end of the world is coming. I think it must have just been the Auroras borealis, but it sure sobered me up a lot. Well, only the Lamb of God who is identified in the pages of Revelation as Jesus Christ was found worthy to break the seals and to look on the book, and the only reason he was found worthy was because he was slain. He is the one that was killed, died for our sins, and the sins of the world, and he’s the one who’s qualified. And it’s not really a matter folks of looking into the book, but the breaking of the seal opens up the events. It’s actually, perhaps the start of the countdown toward what people are fond of calling the end of the world. It’s spooky to think about, isn’t it? The seven seals on this books are the seven steps up to the end of the world. I’ll bet you’d like to know what those seven steps are, wouldn’t you?

And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Now, this was probably a scroll, and scrolls were usually written only on one side. You would write on the inside of a paper and you would roll up the writing on the inside. This one was written within and on the outside and was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the scroll, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the scroll, neither to look thereon. We’re reading from chapter five of the great Book of Revelation. John is in vision, and John doesn’t even know what’s in this book and he was weeping uncontrollably because no one is found worthy to open it—not one of the elders, not one of the cherubim, not even, apparently, the one who is sitting on the throne and holding the book. Now, if you caught the earlier broadcast, you’ll know that the one sitting on that throne is none other than God the Father: the one who is, and who was, and who is to come—the eternal, the great God. He is holding it. And they’re weeping and looking around saying, What is this book, who can open it, and what is its significance?

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up here, and I will show you things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a carnelian stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in appearance like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty thrones: and upon the thrones I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white clothing; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightning and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. Now, if you’ve ever wondered what it looks like where God is, you just heard an eyewitness account. A man named John was caught up in vision to where the very throne of God is, and was shown what things are like there. And, to the best of his efforts, he sat down and wrote it all down for us. We’ll find in the fourth chapter of the Book of Revelation.

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things says he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens[.] Thus begins the sixth of the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia in the mysterious Book of Revelation. If you haven’t got any background in this, these are found in the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation. And what many do not understand is—they’re used to the epistles of the apostle Paul and the epistles of Peter and the epistle of James, and not many realize is that of all the epistles in the New Testament, one of them is the Book of Revelation. It’s a letter. It’s a long letter. And within the long letter are seven letters written to seven churches—real churches on the ground in Asia Minor in the first century. Someone took this letter from John and went to each of these churches, stood before the group and read the letter aloud for them to hear. And John says: Blessed is he that reads, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. And so it is that this letter, penned by John, contains within it seven letters to seven churches. And they are sent around to be read, not just one letter in each church, but all the letters to each of the churches with special emphases to each one of them.

I’ll never forget the first time I stood on the Mount of Olives and looked out over the old city of Jerusalem, and I wondered why on earth someone would ever fight over the place. I wonder if so much blood has ever been shed over any comparable piece of real estate. Because it has gone on for so long, and so often. It was on that same hill where Jesus spoke further about what Jerusalem could expect. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. I marvel over that, because so many people think that these are signs of the end. But Jesus said, the end is not yet. Nevertheless, I expect you have heard of something called . It is a word that has entered our language. It means I have been there and stood on the hill of Meggido and looked out across the valley. The place called Armageddon. And, just like with Jerusalem, I wondered, So I looked in the Bible to see what I could find. Let’s begin in Revelation, chapter 16…