In this episode, we delve into the complex concept of acts of God, exploring whether natural calamities are deliberate acts by the divine or a result of nature’s properties. Through a close examination of Biblical stories, we find Jesus challenging assumptions of divine retribution and urging all to repent, suggesting a universal vulnerability irrespective of one’s sins.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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It isn’t always easy to understand why God does some of the things he does. It isn’t always certain even that God does everything attributed to him. In our generation, for example, we have an expression, an act of God. We apply it to all kinds of things that I really don’t think God is directly involved in. An earthquake, for example. Insurance people would call that an act of God. And maybe in the broad sense that God is the creator of all things, and therefore everything that happens in nature is an act of God, even when God is not the proximate cause of the event. I guess we could call it that. In other words, the great tsunami in Southeast Asia was a result of the properties of matter. And since God created the matter, well, I guess we could say the earthquake, the tsunami was an act of God, but it wasn’t a deliberate attack on some people. Jesus addressed this common assumption one day. He was talking to some people who were around who told him, about a group of people who were from Galilee, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. They were out there offering animal sacrifices. Guess what happened? Here comes Pilate, his soldiers, and they mingled the blood of these people with their own offerings. It’s in Luke 13. And Jesus answered and he says, Do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things? Now, why did Jesus respond this way? Well, because there were those who would say that God brought about this result on these people because they deserved it. They were wicked sinners. It was perceived to be an act of God. So Jesus said, now, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than anybody else at the time because these things happened to them? I tell you, no. But except you repent… you shall all likewise perish. Now that’s interesting, because what he seems to do is just to lump all humanity in the same clump and say, all of you are sinners. And it isn’t that these people deserved it more than you do. Unless you repent, you’re all going to perish. And then he went on to say, or how about those 18 people upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them? Do you think that they were sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Now this one is one that an insurance company might call an act of God. People are standing there and a tower falls on them. Actually, it was probably an incompetent builder or a drunken architect or both, but never mind. There were those in Jesus’ audience who would have argued that all those people had it coming. And I understand some well-intentioned but poorly informed persons have argued that New Orleans was punished because it was such a wicked city. Well, if so, God’s aim was bad because the thing almost missed. And if it hadn’t been for the fecklessness of man, it might not have been such a very big loss. The theology behind this sort of thinking escapes me completely. But after reading what Jesus said, I am very reluctant to attribute something like this to God’s wrath on sinful men. The reason is that he might just start judging me by the same standards. And Jesus seems to imply that when it comes to man, there isn’t really a lot to choose between us. Unless you repent, you are all going down, said Jesus. Act of God, then, is an idiom. It’s not a literal attribution, not in our language. No one really believes that God picks and chooses which houses to wipe out when a tornado comes through. Scriptures tell us that he sends his rain on the just and the unjust, or he doesn’t send it on the just and the unjust. So God doesn’t pick and choose. No one says that, do they? Well, almost no one. There are still some people making pronouncements who are depriving a village somewhere of its idiot. What I sometimes wonder when I read the Bible is just how literally I should take everything. I know, for example, that Jesus did not always intend to be taken literally. And I also know that this makes some people very uncomfortable. But, hey, let’s take what Jesus is saying. Let’s take what he means, not necessarily what we think he ought to mean. I know that he did not always intend to be taken literally from Matthew 5, verse 28. Jesus said, I say unto you, that whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. I think he meant that, just like that. It’s easy to understand that. But then he goes on to say this. If your right eye offend you, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it’s profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. If your right hand offend you, cut it off. Cast it from you, for it’s profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. Okay, now are we to take that literally or not? Our right eye offends us because we’ve been looking at a woman to lust after her in our heart. Okay, you pluck out your right eye, but what about the left eye? I mean, it’s kind of silly when you try to take it literally that that’s not what Jesus is saying. But one poor fool, at least one poor fool, has done this. I read about it in the news somewhere. Because he read this, he took a bandsaw and cut his right hand off. I don’t know why. I don’t know what he had done with it. But don’t we understand that cutting off your hand isn’t going to keep you from doing bad things with the other hand? And your hand is only doing what your head says you should do. It’d make more sense, might have better results to cut off your head. But in any case, that’s not what Jesus is talking about. He is using figurative language. Actually, what he is saying in a way to us in the modern world is, if you have a subscription to Penthouse magazine, Cancel it. Cut it off. Get those things away from you, no matter how close they are to you that cause you to offend or to stumble. If you have a destructive relationship with someone, stay away from that person. So it’s safe to say that Jesus did not intend everything he said to be taken literally. No more than you intend to be taken literally when you say you are so hungry you could eat a horse. How would you feel if someone brought in, plunked a cooked-up horse on the table for you to eat the whole thing? It’s silly. Now, how do we decide on these things? Well, we pray about it, we read the Bible, and in good faith, we try to understand what Jesus said and to do it. What we look for when we read the Bible is the meaning behind what Jesus said. Sometimes it should be taken literally, and we are supposed to be smart enough to tell the difference. Some of us aren’t, but that’s our hard luck, I suppose. There was an incident early in the reign of David that I can’t help wondering exactly what it was that went wrong. I’m sure you know what the Ark of the Covenant was. It was the absolute ground zero of Israelite worship. It was the heart. It was the core. It was a wooden box covered in gold in which the Ten Commandments were kept. Now, whatever you may have heard about the temple, it was built to house this little box, the Ark. It had been captured by the Philistines, but there was a power about the box that caused them urgently to send it home. It seems that when people treated the Ark with all due respect, all went well. When they didn’t, things went very badly indeed. The Ark had been kept in a man’s house for some time, and King David, in one of his first acts as king over all of Israel, determined to bring it home. And you’ll find this story in 2 Samuel 6. David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, about 30,000 of them. So we got a pretty good sum of people to go down here. So David arose, and he went with all the people with him from Judah to bring up from there the ark of God. It was God, of course, who is called by the name Yahweh of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. Strange expression, but there were two cherubim overshadowing the ark in the tabernacle. Now, there’s been a name change here. The town of Bela of Judah, which is where they went from, was the town where the ark had resided ever since it was returned by the Philistines. But even now they make a mistake. The ark was always by law to be carried by men, two men, with two staves put through the rings in the side of the ark. And they, in this occasion, they set the ark upon a cart. and brought it out of the house of Abinadab in Gibeah, and Uzzah and Ahio drove the new cart. They brought it out of the house of Abinadab, accompanying the ark of God, and Ahio walked ahead. David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord. They celebrated. They had all kinds of musical instruments made out of fur, harps, psalteries, timbrels, cornets. When they came up the way to Nahon’s threshing floor, The ark was shaken a bit because the oxen stumbled. And Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it to steady it. And the scripture says, The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error, and there he died by the ark of God. Now one has to wonder at this well-intentioned effort by Uzzah. Their big mistake was in not carrying the Ark properly in the first place. They should not have put it on a cart drawn by oxen. They should have been carrying it with the staves through the rings in its side. But still, was this an act of God or an act of God? Was it literal or was the statement a figure of speech? We really don’t know. One also wonders if God actually had to do anything or if the power residing in the Ark was itself enough to kill a man. If you saw the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, the idea was that the Nazis wanted the Ark as a great source of power to use it to make war. The people moving it in the movie understood that, but they still made the stupid error of opening the Ark and looking inside. And once again, a lot of men died. And still, that’s the best special effects visualization of what would have happened that I can imagine. But David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah, and he called that name, the name of the place, the breach of Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, How shall the ark of the Lord come to me? I can understand his confusion. David was not overloaded with self-esteem, which may come as a surprise. His strength and his belief in his strength lay entirely in the Lord of hosts. And why, he asked, should the ark of God be where I am? We’ll continue with the story after this break. But first, grab a pencil and a piece of paper. I want to give you an address and a phone number. And we have a free offer I think you’ll want to take us up on.
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Asking yourself, what would Jesus do, may not be the right question. It may be more important to ask, what does Jesus tell us to do? You can be sure of that. For a free introductory CD titled The Words of Jesus, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
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So David made a decision to leave the ark for the time being in the house of a man named Obed-Edom. Turned out that the Lord blessed this man and all of his household during the time the ark was there, I presume, because he treated the ark with respect. Well, David heard that all was well and that the blessing of God was upon the house, and he thought, well, maybe I really should go ahead and bring it up to the city of God. So he went and brought up the ark from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with gladness. And so it was. This time I think they must have put the staves through the rings in the side of the ark and carried it by hand as they were supposed to. And so as they walked along six paces with the ark, they stopped and sacrificed an animal. did six more paces and stopped and sacrificed an animal. Now, it seems like a strange thing for people to do, but you have to understand sacrifices were eaten. So each step of this was the preparation of a major feast that was going to be taking place. And David danced before the Lord with all of his might. He was girded with a linen ephod, a priestly garment, actually, and I gather not a particularly dignified one, because as he danced, it would seem he showed rather more leg than he should have, according to some people. So he was dancing and shouting, and the people were blowing trumpets and musical instruments were playing. And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michael, Saul’s daughter, whom he had long ago given to David as a wife, his first wife, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord. I guess it was something like ballet. And she despised him in her heart. You know, some people just seem to be cut out to run the entire world. They’re not content with running their own lives. They have to judge the way other people do their responsibilities, the way other people carry out the things they do, in this case, even to the way her husband worshipped God. Well, they brought the ark of the Lord in, set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. Finally, when he had made an end of offering all the burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord, and he dealt out among all the people, as well to the women as to the men, a cake of bread, a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. And everyone went back to his own house to really feast and rejoice. The ark has come home. And David returned to bless his household, to come in the door and say, Blessings on this house and all who are in it. And what should he meet but Michael? And she said, Well, how glorious was the king of Israel today, dripping with sarcasm, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovers himself. As I said, some people just seem to be built to rule the universe. And David said to Michael, It was before the Lord who chose me before your father and before all your father’s house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel. Therefore will I play before the Lord. What an interesting idea that is, to play before God. I’m afraid sometimes we think the only thing we can do in God’s presence is bow down and pray and worship and be very humble and all that. But here, David says, my dancing, my play was all before him. And I will be more vile than this. I’ll be based in my own sight. And the maidservants that you spoke of, of them I will be had in honor. Therefore, Michael, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death. I presume that’s because David never touched her again, never visited her chamber. And it’s important because the wife of a king, her standing in the palace, had a great deal to do with her being the mother of one of the king’s sons. She never had any. Well, it came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all of his enemies, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, Look, here I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent. David was entering on what seemed like a golden age to him, and it just didn’t make any sense to him that he was living in a better house than the tabernacle where God’s ark was being kept. David was not a vain man. He thought about God. He thought about his service to God a great deal. He was not comfortable in his new house, his fine house of cedar, as long as the ark was living out there in a tent. Now, Nathan is a new figure in this story. He seems to be not only a prophet, but a confidant of David’s. They seem to have enjoyed one another’s company. And David is beginning to make the first steps toward creating the concept of a temple. And Nathan said to the king, hey, go do what’s in your heart. It’s obvious that the Lord is with you in everything you do. In fact, it was obvious to everyone that God was with David. But it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan and said, I want you to go and tell my servant David something. Now, there’s an interesting sidelight here. Abraham is called the friend of God. God seems to have spoken directly to Abraham, something he never did with David. He isn’t called God’s friend. He is called his servant. Nevertheless, David is obviously very important to God. Thus saith the Lord, so you want to build me a house to dwell in. It happens that I have not dwelt in any house since the time I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt to this day. I have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. And all this time that I have walked with the children of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribes of Israel, with any of the leaders of them who I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying, Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar? Well, no. In fact, he never had. And this is an important moment in biblical history. God on this occasion takes a man’s initiative. It was David’s initiative. God took it and made it his own plan. It will be worth bearing in mind later when God allows that building to be destroyed that it wasn’t his idea to build it in the first place. It was David’s. Now comes a really important message to David from God. I’ll tell you what that is right after this important message.
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Therefore, said God to Nathan, you go tell David. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took you from following sheep to be the ruler over my people over Israel. And I was with you wherever you went. I have cut off all your enemies out of your sight. And I have made you a great name like the name of the great men that are in the earth. Now, David knew this. David knew this as well as any man possibly could, because he never assumed for a moment that he had had all those wins on his own hook. God continues, Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them that they can dwell in a place of their own and move no more. Neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more as before in time. Now, what a promise! Now, Israel had in those days, as they do in our days, the children of wickedness afflicting them. Nowadays, they’re blowing them up with suicide bombers, being, some of them, children. God continued, And since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies, also now the Lord tells you, he will make you a house. What a thing to say. David says, I want to make a house for God. God says, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you. They who shall proceed out of your inward parts and I will establish his kingdom. He, not you, will build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. We’re going to establish here a Davidic dynasty. I’ll be his father. He’ll be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chastise him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men. But my mercy will not depart away from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you. Now, that’s a wonderful promise because, frankly, you know, God gives a man an unconditional promise. Then the man goes out and commits iniquity. Well, in the case of Saul, he lost it all. This promise is, no, no, you won’t lose it. I will chasten him with the rod of men. And I think we really probably need to be more sensitive than ourselves that many times God’s promises that come to us are such that that we have to be chastened to put us back in line again. Your house, your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne will be established forever. According to all these words and according to this vision, did Nathan speak to David? I can’t imagine what David must have thought about it. Well, I can in a way because he goes on to tell us precisely what he thought about what God had said to him. It was an incredible promise, a promise of a permanent dynasty. And one looks around today and has to ask, well, did they finally in the end lose all this? Or maybe God has a way of bringing it to pass even in the modern world. Well, David, when he heard all this, went in and sat before the Lord and he said, Who am I, Lord God, and what is my house that you brought me to this place? And yet this was a small thing in your sight, O Lord God. You haven’t merely brought me to this place. You have spoken of your servant’s dynasty for a great while to come. This is not the way men do things, O Lord God. And what can David say more to you? For you, Lord God, know your servant. For your word’s sake, according to your own heart, have you done all these great things to make your servant know them. Wherefore, you are great, O Lord God, for there is no one like you. Neither is there any God beside you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth is like your people? Even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself and to make him a name and to do for you great things and terrible. For your land before your people, which you redeemed to yourself from Egypt, from the nations and their gods. David’s prayer continues. For you have confirmed to yourself your people Israel to be a people to you forever. And you, Lord, are become their God forever. And now, O Lord God, the word which you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, establish it forever, and do as you have said, and let your name be magnified forever, saying, The Lord of hosts is God over Israel. And let the house of your servant David be established before you. For you, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, has revealed to your servant, saying, I will build you a house. Therefore has your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer to you. And now, O Lord God, you are that God, and your words are true, and you have promised this goodness unto your servant. Therefore let it now please you to bless the house of your servant, the dynasty, that it may continue before you forever. For you, O Lord God, have spoken it, and with your blessing let the house of your servant be blessed forever. What a prayer. And what a moment in time when something that God had never intended to do, that is to build a temple, it was not in His plan, David wanted to do, and God said, I’m going to let you do it. And I honestly think it was because of the heart of this man that God responded by saying,
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I will build you a house. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at… 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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