Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

He is the archetype of all prophets; his name was Elijah. Probably one of the reasons he is so well known is because he is so persistent in the Bible—he keeps cropping up. He was to come just before Jesus (John the Baptist, everyone sees, fulfilled that) but most students of prophecy expect him to come again at the end time. This naturally leads to a lot of pretenders. I have met three or four Elijahs myself.If you recall the caricature of a man with a long beard, wearing a robe, and carrying a sign that says, The End is Near, you have an idea what these self-appointed Elijahs looked like. And self-appointed is the word. Most modern, would-be prophets are self-appointed. Prophets, you know, are a dime a dozen. The real Elijah—the prototypical prophet—was emphatically not self-appointed, and God took him out of his toolbox to say what needed to be said. He stepped up to the plate and delivered one short sentence.And Elijah said, As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him today.1 Kings 18:15 KJ2000And then he disappeared for three-and-a-half years. Not another word. I encountered one of these self-appointed prophets a few years ago, and I couldn’t get him out of my hair—not even with a flea comb. He only had one problem. He was wrong on every page. He was trying to tell me things about myself that were matters of verifiable fact, and he missed. He couldn’t have hit the side of a barn with a shotgun from inside. As dramatic as Elijah may seem as you read the book, he was really pretty simple—a man of few words—and he didn’t guess. He had a sure word from God.

I was standing, looking out an open window in my hotel room at Victoria Station in London one night. My wife and I had been to the theater, had just got back in, and opened the window for a little fresh air. I heard a rumble, uncharacteristic of London weather, and I remarked, I hope that’s thunder. It wasn’t. The IRA had set off a bomb two blocks from our hotel in a trash bin along the street. No one was hurt, but it was a little disconcerting. I can’t help wondering what the IRA realistically hoped to gain in all this. Were they really doing their thing with a goal in mind, or are they like bunch of Ozark boys turning over outhouses on Halloween?I am persuaded that, in all too many cases, people who are fighting in wars have long since forgotten what the war is all about. They don’t remember the grievance or, if they do, they have only heard about it from their great-great-grandfathers and never, in all their lifetime, experience the grievance in question. Why on earth did the Irish Republican Army keep on bombing the English? Why can’t they kiss and make up? There are lives to be lived, jobs to be done, grandchildren to be loved. And after all, they are brothers.When I reflect on this, and look back through eons of time to the House of Israel and the House of Judah, I can’t help marveling at the ongoing war between these two nations of brothers. Here we are 24 years since the death of Solomon—24 years since God told everyone to stop fighting and go home—yet still the wars between Judah and Israel go on.

When you settle in to read the Bible, you run into any number of difficulties—none of them fatal, of course. The sense of the Bible is not that hard, it is just that the writers of the Bible wrote, not only in a different language, but out of a different culture. Things that would be important to the modern reader don’t even cross their minds. There are mysteries in the Bible, to be sure, but there is enough plain talk for us to know where we stand with God. The more difficult problem is that the modern reader is used to history being presented in a certain way. The ancient writers of history operated on somewhat different principles.One of the confusing things, for example, about reading the Book of Kings is the structure of the book. 1 Kings tells the story of the division of Israel into two kingdoms. After that, the story interleaves the parallel history of the two kingdoms and it is easy to get lost. There are any number of Bible handbooks and encyclopedias that provide charts and chronologies, but they are enough to make your eyes glaze over. If you really want to get the picture and keep it straight, the best way is to make your own. The careful reading, and then writing down names and relative dates, will give you a feeling for the passage of time.One of the most important things to remember as you read is that there are real people back there who suffered greatly because of the sins and foibles of the leadership of the people. I can’t help reflecting on the poor guy on the farm—with his wife and six kids—plowing the ground, planting crops, breeding his livestock, trying to make a living for his family. It was a hard life even when times were good. But there weren’t a lot of good times, for reasons we will come to understand as we make our way through these chapters. The one who tells the story of this era, no doubt moved by the Holy Spirit, lets his frustration seep through from time to time. Remember, the one who wrote down these words was a real person, too.

At the Last Supper, after washing his disciples' feet, Jesus said something of singular importance. He said, You call me master and lord, and you say well for so I am. The American reader is likely to take these two words, master and lord, as synonyms; but when the King James translators sat down and wrote this out, the head of a school was a master. Even to this day in most English schools the person who runs the school is the headmaster. Consequently, they chose the word master because to their English readers it would convey the idea of a teacher; and not merely a garden-variety, run-of-the-mill teacher, but a significant master of his subject.Jesus said, You call me teacher and lord, and rightly so because that is what I am. The words in the Greek mean a master of a school and a sovereign lord, so they are not synonyms at all; and they define two very different relationships that a person will have with Jesus Christ. So let's take a closer look at these two words, these two relationships, and their significance for a Christian.

By now, everyone realizes that we have a leadership crisis, not only in our country, but in the world at large. I wonder how we got to this place? Where does leadership come from and, maybe more importantly, where does it go? I believe that leadership is a gift from God, and if you’ll spare me a little time, I’ll explain to you why I think that. First, two statements about gifts from God, one from James and one from the Psalms:Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.James 1:17 KJ2000You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive: you have received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.Psalm 68:18–19 KJ2000For some reason, we would tend to assume that God only gives his gifts to people who deserve them. I used to think so. I would have told you that God gave his gifts to Christian people, and to good Christian people at that. But the Psalmist says that he gives his gifts to the rebellious also. What are we to make of that? Well, we know that God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust. He doesn’t make the rain run down the property line, with one man’s field getting a good wetting down and the other man’s getting dry and dusty, right? That would probably be an effective technique for promoting righteousness, but God does not work that way. There is a curious incident in the gospel accounts that I think may give us a hint on this very complicated subject. We can find it in John, chapter 5.

Never take counsel of your fears. The saying is often attributed to Andrew Jackson who also, plainly, read his Bible. It is fascinating how often fear strips a man of victories already won. This was the case with one Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. After the death of Solomon, God handed him the largest portion of Israel—10 of the 12 tribes. He was a good man, and an energetic leader. But he was afraid that, having made the break with Solomon’s son Rehoboam, the people would eventually return to the unity of the Temple. It was not an unreasonable fear except for the fact that God had given him the kingdom and stood surety for it. This fear led him to a decision with disastrous long-term consequences.Therefore the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.1 Kings 12:28–30 KJ2000The incident is uncannily similar to what Aaron did while Moses was up the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments. He made a calf of a God and said, These be your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Jeroboam had to know that, and yet he still did it. The seduction to idolatry in that world must have been extremely powerful. What Jeroboam does here is to substitute a political religion for the real thing. The lesson learned from David and Solomon is so easily lost. Both made moral errors, but because David never worshiped another God, the avenue of repentance was always open to him. When other gods begin to cloud the picture, however, the way back is lost in the fog. We’ll find the story of the prophet God sent to denounce Jeroboam’s spiritual wanderings—but who makes a costly detour of his own—in 1 Kings, chapter 13.

When you read those books of the Bible that contain the history of Israel, the lessons come at you one after the other. There is a man in the Book of Kings named Jeroboam, for example, who will embody several of them. Jeroboam is described as a mighty man of valor. Now, what that means in biblical-speak is that he was a fighter, and very good at it. He was a good man, an able man, and King Solomon promoted him and placed him over all the affairs of the house of Joseph. That made him the head man in the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh in the north. But he had a higher endorsement than that of Solomon, with whom God was, by this time, thoroughly disappointed.And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and the two were alone in the field: And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and tore it in twelve pieces: And he said to Jeroboam, Take you ten pieces: for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to you: (But he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:)1 Kings 11:29–32 KJ2000Why was this being done? The prophet answered:Because they have forsaken me, and have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in my eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.1 Kings 11:33 KJ2000This verse often stops serious readers who realize what a bounder David had been at times in his life. But there is a serious difference between Solomon and David. When David sinned, he repented—and perhaps most importantly, he never, ever, served another God. And it was that faithfulness to God that made his repentance possible. That is a lesson worth remembering. You may go a long way down the wrong road, but if you never allow yourself to forget who your God is, the way back is still open. It may be a hard road, but it’s open.

When you are reading the history in the Bible, you have to resist the temptation to see things in terms familiar to the modern reader. Take the idea of cities, for example. Solomon has finished the Temple, and somewhere along the way, he has married the daughter of Pharaoh.Well, Pharaoh wants to give his daughter a present, so he goes up along the coastal plain and takes a city named Gezer. He slew the Canaanites who live there, burnt the place with fire, and then gave it to his daughter as a present. What kind of a present is that! Gezer probably wasn’t much of a town to start with. Now his daughter gets, as a present from her dad, a lot of burnt-out houses, and a few hundred corpses of Canaanites. What is this?What you need to take away from the account is that it wasn’t the houses that were important, it was the real estate. Gezer might have controlled a few hundred square miles of good agricultural land. And it may also have provided a prime location for an outpost—a fortress, if you will. In fact, a lot of these fortified cities were not so much towns as forts from which the approaches and surrounding areas could be dominated—there were still a lot of outlaws and marauders around. So, as the ruler of an enriched and emerging power, Solomon embarked an a great program of construction and development—walled cities, storage cities, stables, and more—as we’ll see beginning in 1 Kings, chapter 9.

One of the most incredible museums that the world has ever known was also one that hardly anyone ever got to visit; it was the temple that King Solomon built. When the construction of the Temple was finally complete, Solomon brought in the things that King David had dedicated—silver, gold, furnishings—and placed them in the Temple’s treasuries. What a museum it must have made…but the general population never got to go in. Nevertheless, the grand opening still made for quite an enjoyable party. You’ll find the story of this celebration, and the dedication speech that accompanied it, in 1 Kings, chapter 8.1 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chiefs of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto king Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion.2 And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto king Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month [This is the month of the Feast of Tabernacles].3 And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark.4 And they brought up the ark of the Lord, and the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle, even those did the priests and the Levites bring up.5 And king Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel, that were assembled unto him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen, that could not be counted nor numbered for multitude.6 And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim.7 For the cherubim spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its poles above.8 And they drew out the poles, so that the ends of the poles were seen out in the holy place before the inner sanctuary, and they were not seen outside: and there they are unto this day.1 Kings 8:1–8 KJ2000

We Christians have an anxiety about us—about who we are, about our failures, about our differences, about our spats—and we let these anxieties prevent us from doing and saying things that need to be said and done; not only in church, but in the community and in the world.Peggy Noonan - Patriots, Then and Now Link 1 | Link 2

Do you suppose God would ever call a man to be a lawyer or, perhaps, a governor? (And, no, I am not about to tell a lawyer joke.) There is a funny thing about Christian thinking when it comes to a divine calling. We tend to think of God's calling having solely to do with church work or ministry. But is that the right view of the matter?There are two men in the Bible who cause me to think otherwise. They weren't called to be lawyers, but they were nonetheless called to a surprising vocation. Let me tell you their stories:Once upon a time, there was a man named Jacob who had 12 sons—all born to him while out of country. The last was born of the wife that Jacob loved. He was named Joseph, which means added because he was added well beyond the expected family. And because he was the son of Jacob’s old age and of his most loved wife, he was a favorite son, and Jacob made him the famous coat of many colors.When the lad was a mere 17 years old, he was bringing performance reports to his father that did nothing to endear him to his brothers. When his brothers saw the favoritism—and, beyond that, when they came to see him as a snitch—they hated him and couldn't bring themselves to speak to him with any civility. And then, something happened that could only make things worse. Joseph had a dream, and he had to poor judgment to tell it to his brothers. I say poor judgment, but it will turn out to be very important that he did tell the dream. We'll find this dream and what came from it in Genesis, chapter 37.

Sometimes, in the Bible, you come across descriptions, details, and lists that can be a little hard to follow. One example of this is the description in 1 Kings 6 of the construction of Solomon’s temple. It’s not too easy to work your way through it, and there are just too many details missing to get an accurate picture. You can find artists’ conceptions of it in publications and on the internet, but they are all different. Still, when you read through it you get a general impression of the size, the shape, the importance of the building.And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. As for the house which king Solomon built for the Lord, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.1 Kings 6:1–2 KJ2000There is some question about the precise length of a cubit, but the ratio of the building is clear enough. It was not particularly large—about 90 feet long by 30 feet wide, and 45 feet in height. You can visualize the distance from the 30-yard line on a football field to the goal line, then 10 yards wide, and half again tall as it is wide. The importance of the building, however, is out of all proportion to its size. And these are just the measurements of the building proper. There was a lot more construction around the building itself. Let’s examine these blueprints a little more closely, as we continue in the Book of Kings.

In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give you. And Solomon said, You have shown unto your servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before you in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with you; and you have kept for him this great kindness, that you have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this your so great a people?1 Kings 3:5–9 KJ2000As far as I can tell, by this time Solomon was grown. But this is the way that he looked at himself—as a naïf, as a person who had no special knowledge of the world or the world’s ways. He felt totally inadequate to the task before him. There’s a humility in this, of a man who recognizes that the job is just a little bit too big for him.And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life; neither have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies; but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice; Behold, I have done according to your words: lo, I have given you a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like you before you, neither after you shall any arise like unto you. And I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches, and honor: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto you all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as your father David did walk, then I will lengthen your days.1 Kings 3:10–14 KJ2000

Nothing is ever easy in the Middle East, and the transition from the man who was Israel’s greatest fighting king to her greatest peacetime king was stormy. It wasn’t that there was a problem between David and Solomon. The problem was another son (probably David’s oldest) who decided to usurp the kingdom while David was, he thought, too weak to do anything about it.His name was Adonijah and, ironically, he was the brother of Absalom. He had the same mother, and his father David had doted on him as he had on Absalom. David, it seems, was a great judge of men except when it came to his own children. Even so, it wasn’t his will that Adonijah succeed him. He had made a promise to appoint Solomon as king.Adonijah made a very strong power move. You could call it an attempted coup, but I think he thought of it as merely establishing himself in his rightful position. He also had Joab and Abiathar (the leading general of the army and a well-known priest, respectively) with him. They had a big coronation feast underway but, meanwhile, Nathan the prophet got wind of what was happening. He went to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, and arranged with her help to head this off.When David understood the situation, he called three key people: Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the general. He immediately took steps he probably should have taken earlier. In the past, he had probably just assumed that he had time to do it. But now, time was not on David’s side.

Abraham, the father of the faithful, is obviously the greatest figure in the Old Testament. But the greatest man in the history of Israel has to be King David. He was not only a king, he was a prophet. David was not a priest, and he never attempted to usurp the office of the priesthood as Saul did, but he was a man after God’s own heart. He was a man’s man, who men could admire and follow. He was also in the direct line of the Messiah to come. He was, simply put, a type of Christ.The last chapters of 2 Samuel appear to contain appendices to David’s life and career. They are in no special order, but seem to have been copied onto the end of the scroll before it was finally considered finished. In 2 Samuel 23, we have what are said to be the last words of David. We’ll hear from him after this, but this seems to be what David wanted to record as a kind of legacy.Now these are the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain.2 Samuel 23:1–4 KJ2000What a clean and beautiful statement of what God expects of a man who leads a people. You can fell yourself yearning for that kind of leadership. Yet one wonders that, if we had it, if we would kill him. David, for his part, was painfully aware of his shortcomings, though, and he added this:Although my house be not so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he makes it not to grow.2 Samuel 23:5 KJ2000

Halloween is an odd event—very odd, in a way, because in its origins it was not evil; it was actually good. A number of you probably know that Halloween is All Hallows Even; in other words, All Hallows Eve—the evening before All Hallows. And All Hallows is All Saints day. And, originally, All Saints Day (November 1st) was the day when all the saints were honored. In other words, it's a time that the Church had set aside to honor those people who had lived exemplary lives, who had blessed others by their lives, and were considered saints by the Church at that time.October 31st, though, among non-Christian Celtic people, was a different matter altogether. It was the festival of Samhain. What you may not know is the fact it was also New Year's Eve in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon England at that time. It was actually the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. It took place in the autumn, as a matter of fact. It was an occasion for fire festivals, they lit huge bonfires on top of hills to frighten off the evil spirits, and also it was a time when laws and land tenures were renewed.It harkens back, in a way, to the Old Testament. You'll recall where, in the year of release, all the captives were released. People who have been enslaved because of having been a thief and caught and sold into slavery were turned loose, in the seventh year. That was always in the autumn, not in the spring. In that Jubilee year, all the land again went back to its original family owner—the one who received it by lot. Here they had, in the autumn, a time when all the laws and land tenures were renewed.In the Celtic religions, the dead were supposed to visit their homes on this night. As a consequence, you get the sinister aspects of the festival. And, of course, you had the Celtic Church right alongside of the Roman Church; and the gradual melding that took place in these things over time created something along the lines of Halloween. And though it really became in later times a secular holiday, at the same time it has also retained a lot of those sinister overtones.Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations, for marriage, for health, for death, and for luck. And it was the only day when the help of the Devil was invoked in such matters. I think that is fascinating. For people who call themselves Christians—who are believers in Christ, people who try to serve God—you can almost see how it would be tempting, in certain circumstances (and I want to talk about that a little later), to get some guidance from that side of the spirit world.Halloween is a night of great evil. But really, it's a night of great evil only because the Devil is invoked in some of the customs and some of the practices. If it were nothing but a harvest festival, it probably wouldn't amount to much. The question is: Is there really a Devil, and are there demons in a spirit world that come out on Halloween or at other times? I recently received a letter from a long-time correspondent, and he had what I think is easily the most comprehensive set of questions about the spirit world and the paranormal that I have ever received in my life. I mean, to answer it would require me to write a book, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Spirit World But Were Afraid To Ask. And he gave me a really good list. He asked me about spirit sightings, dreams that come true, UFOs, abductions, strange lights, hauntings, healings, psychics, miracles that seem to have nothing to do with God and yet are miracles, and a whole long list. And he asked that, somewhere along the line, I would do a sermon or a tape or something on the subject. And so you owe this sermon today to my friend who wrote to me about this.

Excuse me for asking, but what’s wrong with you people? Why on earth would you dress up your children like witches, or hobgoblins, ghosts, demons, dead men’s bones and then send out to commit extortion on your neighbors by demanding treats and threatening tricks if the neighbors don’t come across? What could you possibly be thinking and why allow your children to go to the door of a house of a total stranger and accept gifts of candy? I thought we didn’t want our children accepting candy from strangers. And anyway, it’s gotten to the place where you have to take the candy and the apples and stuff down to the hospital to have them x-rayed to be sure there isn’t a razor blade embedded in it somewhere. My, can’t we afford to go out and buy some candy for our kids? Do we have to send them around the neighbor’s house begging for it?They call it Halloween because it falls on the eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day. This is the day when the church honors all the great Christians of years gone by, people who’ve lived good lives and sometimes sacrificial lives in their service to other Christians and other peoples. Considering that, I’ve got a question. Since this day, All Hallows Eve, is all about people who have lived their lives doing good works, why don’t we dress our kids up in costumes representing these good people and take them out on All Hallows Eve to do good works? Couldn’t that have gone either way? Couldn’t we have made that choice? I mean, do we have to go to dead men’s bones and all that stuff, or couldn’t we have gone out and done good works instead of tricks or treats? Why don’t we put together packages of candy and gifts and take our little angels to a nursing home somewhere and go around giving gifts to the elderly and the infirm? Why don’t we teach our little angels to sing songs for the old codgers that would bring tears to their eyes? Why wouldn’t we have, let’s say, one of these cute little girls crawl up in the lap of an elderly lady and give her a big hug? Do you have any idea what a difference that would make in the life of an old person who hardly ever gets to see her own grandchildren because nobody will bring them in? Why is it that we don’t teach our children how good it feels to do nice things for other people, instead of teaching them greed and extortion? Again, I say, I don’t get it. If we had a choice of doing one or the other, who in the world made the choice of taking it one way instead of the other?What you are allowing your kids to do by the way, on Halloween, has nothing to do with All Saints. It’s the old Druid New Year Samhain, the night in which the doors of the abyss, the underworld with all their evil spirits, are released out into the world. I was rummaging around on the Internet trying to find something about Halloween and I came across one of these Internet magazines called Samhain, of all things. I found this little item in there and I thought you might find it of interest. It says this…

When I was growing up, Fascism was a political term in common use. I was seven years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the years ahead saw us occupied with the defeat of fascism. I can’t say I knew what it meant. I just knew it was bad. I have this uncanny feeling that, as fascism rears its ugly head again in our world, that a lot of people still don’t know what it means.I had a strange sense of déjà vu watching Oliver North’s War Stories production dealing with the death march in Bataan and the use of slave labor in Burma. The Japanese treatment of prisoners was, excuse the term, inhuman. And the same inhuman spirit—a spirit of fascism—seems to possess some parts of Islam to this day. And I sometimes wonder if the term inhuman may say more than we realize. The way the Japanese overlords treated their own soldiers as less than human gave them license to act inhuman. And, of course, the Germans, while slightly more civilized, were still possessed of an inhuman spirit. It has been common over the years to to attribute demon possession to Adolf Hitler.What is the rest of the world to do when they come up against the absolute embodiment of evil in a man, a nation, or a movement—especially a Christian world that follows the prince of peace, and believes in turning the other cheek? Is it just possible that we don’t fully understand how a godly man might respond to the presence of evil? On one occasion, Jesus talked with his disciples about facing this spirit of hatred. We’ll find it in the Gospel of John, chapter 15.

Christian people have often failed in their responsibilities to their fellow man. This is not terribly surprising. After all, we are human. Jesus, in a couple of his parables suggested that as many as half of us who call ourselves by his name will fail. And, in the end, none of us can escape the judgment that will fall on us for how we live and act in this miserable world.A date that few remember is April 1, 1933. In Germany, it was a beginning. On this day a boycott of Jewish-owned shops began. Members of the Brownshirts picketed the shops to see to it that the boycott was successful. The hostility toward Jews grew day by day. Many shops and restaurants began to refuse service to Jews. In some parts of Germany, Jews were banned from public parks, swimming pools, and public transportation. Germans were encouraged not to use Jewish doctors and lawyers. Jewish civil servants and teachers were fired.As troubling as all that was to me, what was far worse was coming to realize that throughout this period, leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches remained silent. Only a handful of young pastors resisted. You may ask yourself how the German Christians could allow this sort of thing to happen to them? I will give you two things to think about. One: Most of those young pastors who resisted ended up arrested and executed. Two: How much evidence is there that American Christians have any more backbone than the German Christians of that day?Navigation<< Opposing Evil #1

The German people are, in every sense of the word, a great people—intelligent, innovative, accomplished. But for me, the question about the Germans is always colored by the dark shades of Adolf Hitler, and the question of what happened to them…and to the Jews of Europe.Not long ago, I presented a program titled How Freedom is Lost. I turned back the pages to an episode in the history of Israel–you can read it for yourself in 1 Samuel, chapter eight. It came at the end of what may have been a period of unparalleled freedom, that has never been before or since. And the story of why they laid that freedom down, and of what followed after, is an object lesson we must never forget. I am not going to retell that story today. (I will tell you how to get a free CD of that program a little later.) What I want to do today is to draw another lesson from much more recent history, and to consider the implications for Christians living right now.I knew that Germany was a great nation in European history. Christianity was strong there, and the Protestant Reformation was born there. I have heard people puzzle over how a people like the Germans of that era could possibly allow such a lowbrow, corruptible little man like Adolf Hitler to come to such absolute power. Strange as it may seem, it may have been for some of the same reasons I discussed in How Freedom is Lost.I knew of the great intellectual and artistic accomplishments of the Germans, and their great universities. It was in 1517 that Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a great cathedral. In the early 1700s, Bach was turning out some of the greatest music ever heard. In the late 1700s, Beethoven was at his peak. While America was just figuring out who she was, the great German universities were more than 300 years old. So how could a nation like Germany produce an Adolf Hitler?NavigationOpposing Evil #2 >>