November 1, 2009

Dear Friend,

When Jeremiah walked the streets of Jerusalem after the city had fallen, he wrote with a sad heart about a broken country. He was old but when he had first begun to preach, he was so young he considered himself a mere child. Over the generations, he warned about what was coming. He had been reviled, hated, rejected, thrown in jail, tossed into a dungeon, and left to die. Rescued through the back door, he was in prison until the city fell.

But now, freed by the Babylonians, he walked the streets and thought about what he had seen and heard. For a long time, as he preached, he had assumed that repentance was possible. But now, as he considered the tragedy of Jerusalem, he had to wonder if the die had been cast long before he first began to preach as a very young man. Now, on this day, it seemed that everything he had preached had been in vain, and there had been no hope from the outset. So why had he been commissioned in the first place?

He knew the answer as he formed the question. The people had to be told what was coming and why. And the roots of evil went so deep. No one remembered where they had made their first mistakes. As he walked, Jeremiah formed the words he would later write: "What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you? The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading" (Lamentations 2:13-14 NIV).

So, why did they listen to the prophets who were false and reject the one prophet who told them the truth? It isn’t hard to answer that. The false prophets told them what they wanted to hear. And by the time Jeremiah came on the scene, it was too late to change the hearts of the people. But they still had to be told. Jeremiah doesn’t seem to have been melancholy by nature, but by the end of his days, there was no brightness on the horizon. His faith in God had to tell him that the hope that indeed lay ahead was beyond his meager span of years.

For some reason that I don’t fully understand, I feel drawn to Jeremiah these days. Maybe it is because I am sensing that the die is cast on this nation, and our precious freedom is slipping away. And, just like the people of Jeremiah’s day, we can’t pin down the moment when we began the process. For Israel, the moment came when they decided that freedom was too hard, and they asked for a king. Samuel told them what their king would do, and it was an astonishing picture he painted. Astonishing in that, with a few alterations to allow for technology, the picture looks too much like us. (For a thorough explanation of what happened, request How Freedom is Lost.)

So Israel started down a road that led inevitably to the corruption of leadership. God gave them the best there was. Saul, handsome, tall, and strong, yet a man who was humble and converted. The onset of power changed everything. As time passed, Saul cared less and less about the people, and more and more about his power. It’s a truism, you know. The people we put in power come to care less about us and more about how to hold on to their power.

When David was perceived as a threat to that power, Saul tried to have him killed. His obsession grew on into a kind of mental illness. David did better, Solomon worse, in that he took 700 wives, many of them pagans, and built temples to their gods. Finally, God decided to take the kingdom away from Solomon’s son, and created a new House of Israel under the leadership of one Jeroboam.

Jeroboam was handed a kingdom on a silver platter. But once power entered the equation, fear led him to commit acts that would spell the doom of Israel, even though it took more than 200 years to happen.

Space doesn’t permit me to tell the whole story here, but I do tell it in a FREE program titled, The Ends of Power. I am not sure when it will air, but I don’t want to delay getting it to you. We will rush a FREE CD of this program to you if you call or write us by December 15, 2009.

Keep in touch. We have to work while it is day. The night is coming!

Keeping the light burning with Christ’s blessing,

Ronald L. Dart

PS. The more radio stations the Born to Win program is on, the more people who can be warned about the night coming. Your help is always appreciated.

Listen or download The Ends of Power now! 

SPEAKERS CHOICE #54

Where Have We Gone Wrong?

We have been sailing happily on our way, looking as if we’re the richest nation anyone has ever seen. And then we find that it is all debt, all borrowed money. Our ship of state is headed toward the rocks and there seems to be nothing we can do to stop it. Does anyone know where we went wrong? Do you? I’m left with the sinking feeling that no one knows what to do. If a Jeremiah showed up and laid it on the line from God, what would he say? I don’t think he would speak to the proximate causes or our financial mess. He would go deeper than that, because you can’t cure a disease by merely treating the symptoms. Learn what the causes are and what you can do about it. This is a must have CD sermon.

A Culture of Corruption

With the stench of political corruption filling the air, is it fair to ask how we got to this miserable place? The picture is clear at the immediate level—power corrupts and money is merely one form of power. It’s that simple and there is nothing new about it. Our founders understood this from history, and perhaps even from the Bible. Power destroys freedom, and it must necessarily be so. Learn how God held maximum freedom for the individual as a fundamental value. This eye-opening broadcast lays out what God did to insure that his people were free and the warning of what would happen if they relinquished it. Our nation is at a crossroads today where our freedom stands in peril. Has it never occurred to us that government has nothing that it does not take from us? Hearing this message is an absolute must!

Why is a man expected, even commanded to give to God? Let’s clear the air. If you get upset when a minster talks about money, or assume he’s trying to line his own pockets, please do not send any money to that ministry. However, I ask that you hear me out. This sermon is for you and not for me. It could be a life-changing experience for you and that is important. Among other things you’ll learn from this broadcast how God explains in a Psalm that he doesn’t need your gifts; after all, he owns everything. You will also learn how you, not God, are the bountiful beneficiary of your gifts to Him.

What did the First Christians believe about the Jewish Sabbath? What was their practice during those early years? Did they really switch from Sabbath to Sunday, or did they continue observing the Sabbath as they had done all their lives? Did you know that even the non-Jews among the first Christians were already God-fearers and Sabbath-keepers before their conversion to Christ? What would it have taken for these God-fearers and Jews to give up the seventh day Sabbath? Is there a place in the New Testament that says Christians should no longer keep the Sabbath and start observing Sunday? It’s time for you to search the Scriptures to learn the truth about which day Christians should observe today. This CD will provide exciting and remarkable insights to a new relationship with Jesus, your Savior.

For online ordering of Speakers Choice please click the link below:

SC54-1CD    Where Have We Gone Wrong?/A Culture of Corruption

SC54-2CD    Everyone Needs to Give/About the Jewish Sabbath #3