In this thought-provoking episode, Ronald L. Dart delves into the perplexing issue of violence perpetrated in the name of religion. Despite shared worship of the same God, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have historically engaged in acts of brutality against one another. Dart questions why adherence to God’s commandments often gives way to actions that contradict these very teachings, challenging listeners to reflect on the profound implications of their faith.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 02 :
Why would anyone who claims to worship God, be he Christian, be he Jew, why would anyone who claims to worship God even consider committing murder? Oh, yes, they have. Don’t say they haven’t. Men and women from Jews and Christians have been guilty of murder most foul. The Pharisees did their level best to kill Jesus and finally succeeded. Other Jewish leaders later tried to kill Stephen and succeeded. In fact, the most severe persecution of Christians in the very earliest times came not from Rome. It came from Jews. And while the Jews in later years would suffer greatly at the hands of the Romans, the time would come when they were in far greater danger of their lives from Christians than they were from the Romans as Christians murdered Jews in some kind of bizarre, terrible payback, I guess, in the generations that followed. In Lebanon, Muslims kill Christians and Christians kill Muslims. In Ireland, Protestants kill Catholics and Catholics kill Protestants. In Palestine, Jews kill Muslims and Muslims kill Jews. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, all these people claim to worship the same God. Unless you do not know this, the Muslims claim to worship the same God as the Jews. They call him Allah. The Jews call him El or Elohim, or they don’t pronounce the name Yahweh, but they’re talking about the same God. All these people claimed to worship the same God. In the good old days, people went to war on the behest of their God against the peoples of another God. The worshipers of Baal would fight against the worshipers of Moloch. And so at least you have people not killing people who worship the same God. But all these people claimed to worship Jehovah by whatever name. But the thing you need to understand is it was Jehovah who wrote the Ten Commandments with his own finger. And one of those commandments says… Thou shalt not kill. Well, why then do Christians, Jews, and Muslims kill one another with such regularity down through history? It’s always been that way, and it shows no sign that the present generation of changing very much. It’s a sorry fact, but it’s true. Relatively few people allow their religion to interfere with their life, with the way they actually do things and carry out their works. The Bible uses the imagery in Old Testament and in New Testament of the forehead and the right hand. The law of God was to be bound to the right hand and bound to the forehead and written on the walls of people’s houses. You know what that all means? Well, the forehead is the seat of the will. And the right hand is the symbol of your strength. So the idea is that God’s commandments should have application in your will and in the things that you actually do with your hand. For a Jew to bind a phylactery upon his arm and have the Ten Commandments on his forehead while he plots murder is no different from the Christian who makes a public profession of faith in Jesus and plans to kill somebody. For some people, religion is really a matter of show. It’s just there. It’s just part of what we do. It’s a part of our social life. It’s a part of our image that we have of ourselves. But it does not exist in the will and the doing. So, Christians, Muslims, and Jews can cheerfully contemplate killing one another while they never seem to realize that doing so is a repudiation of the God they claim they serve. Now, when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in the synagogue one day, the Jews were ready to kill him. Oh, they didn’t indicate they were killing him because he healed the man with the withered hand. They were ready to kill him because they did it on the Sabbath day. It’s almost as though the protection of the form of one’s religion is more important than the substance of it. In other words, the form of our religion, including the way in which we observe the Sabbath day, including perhaps the liturgy of our church, or the very form of it in the doctrines and the teachings that we use that distinguish us from other people and that, well, make us better than other people. That in spirit, and I’ll have to back off just for a moment to remind you that Jesus said whoever hates his brother without a cause is in grave danger of judgment. And in truth, it’s the spirit of murder that has simply stopped short of actually carrying out the act. So, the living of the life, the actual obedience to God, takes second place to the protection of the form of religion. Now, when they were ready to contemplate killing him, Jesus’ response to this threat tells us a lot about him and what he stood for. Matthew picks up the story in chapter 12 and verse 15. Now, when Jesus knew that they were plotting his murder, he withdrew himself from there, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all. I think I would, too. I think it makes a lot of sense to get away from people who are thinking about killing you. And as he went around healing all these people, he charged them that they would not make him known. Now, it’s very easy to understand why Jesus would maintain a low profile when there were people out to kill him, to destroy him. But there seems to be more to it than that. Because in verse 17, Matthew includes this little bit of intelligence on the matter. He said, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He will not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he shall not break, smoking flax shall he not quench, until he has sent forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust. Now for the most part, throughout his ministry, Jesus was not confrontational. Basically, we’re told that you weren’t going to hear his voice in the streets. You weren’t going to hear him on some street corner with his voice raised up, yelling loudly up and down, or maybe in the face of some person arguing religion with them and creating a problem in that way. That actually he would be mild. He would not be striving in the sense of arguing and bickering with someone. In fact, what is remarkable in a way about Jesus is the lack of argumentation. Now, not that he never confronted, and not that he never argued a case, but it was not characteristic of him. He was not given over to argument. He did not get involved in debates. He did drive the money changers from the temple, and he did call the Pharisees hypocrites. But these are really exceptional occurrences. The distinction seems to have been between sinners, on the one hand, and the smug and self-righteous on the other. The sinners, for example, who are likened to a bruised reed. If you can look at a plant, one that might be familiar to you, for example, let’s say a cane pole, and you bring that cane pole down into a much thinner, smaller, jointed, green reed, and it gets bruised in one place where it might easily be broken in two. The image that’s given to us here is that not only will he not break a reed, he will not break a bruised reed. I think sinners are what’s talked about here, the idea that they are bruised, that they are smoking flax, as it were, that they’ve been burned in life, and they’re in a lot of trouble. He just is going to take a very gentle approach with these, but that does not necessarily mean he’s going to take the same kind of approach with the self-righteous. Also, in the context of the statement he just made, the Gentiles are a symbol of those who do not know God as contrasted with those who think they do. Look at what he said. I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust. The emphasis seems to be that it’s not going to be the Jews, the Israelites, who really hear him and trust him. It’s going to be the people who don’t know God at all, the nations, the Gentiles. Now, Jesus was called a friend of publicans and sinners because he was gentle and kind to them, even though he did call on them to repent. On one occasion, they brought to him a woman who had been taken in adultery. In the very act, they caught her right there in flagrante delicto. And he, when they asked him what he would do, he said, Well, let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone at her. And everybody standing around there turned around slowly and went out, beginning with the eldest and going on to the last, until there was no one left but Jesus and the woman. And he looked up and saw her standing there alone and said, Woman, what happened to your accusers? Didn’t anybody condemn you? And she said, No man, Lord. And he said, Well, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. A bruised reed he did not break. Stay with me. I’ll be back in just a moment.
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SPEAKER 02 :
By introducing the Gentiles into this discussion, Jesus revealed something very important and something I don’t know why, but it seems to be continually overlooked by people. God had no intention of merely being an Israelite God. He never did. God was the creator of all men, the creator of the heavens and the earth, and He intended and expected that the whole world know Him and serve Him and relate to Him. He intended it from the beginning. It was where he was going when he called Abraham and blessed him and said, In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. But Israel failed him. Israel did not follow through. Israel, in fact, took a proprietary attitude toward our God. He is our God. He is not your God. And stiff-armed the Gentiles. And the result of it was that God, who was supposed to be the God of all men… was looked upon as merely being the God of the Israelites or the God of the Jews. Jesus began the process of breaking out of the Israelite mold and culture. He did not reject the law because, in fact, the law was not Jewish. It was divine. Why in the world would he reject his own law? Well, he did not. But the law had merely been given to the Israelites, and it was preserved and framed, if you will, in their old covenant. The law was brought along and placed in that covenant, and administration was formed around that, forming a frame for the law. Jesus reframed the law in the new covenant, creating an administration of the spirit rather than an administration of the flesh. In the old times, the Ten Commandments were written in tables of stone, written by the finger of God, to be sure, but nevertheless in stone. What Jesus is going to do is to write the law of God in the hearts of men with the Spirit. So in Paul’s words, we obey the Spirit of the law rather than the letter. Oh, it’s a very simple concept, but it’s frightening to a religious establishment that depended upon the administration of the letter of the law for their own control, for their own tenure in office, for their own leadership. And I think maybe Paul’s approach is confusing to people who missed his drift and assume that Paul is arguing for the abolition of law. There’s no way, when you understand Paul and read his writings, that he’s arguing for that. What Paul is doing is arguing for a move from the letter of the law to the spirit of the law, and trying to explain something to his listeners, in particular to his Jewish listeners, that they should have known all along that was true from the beginning, it was true for Abraham, and it was true for David, and it was true for them, but they had an awful hard time getting it through their heads, that salvation is by grace through faith. and you can’t achieve it by means of the law. Why that should be so difficult for people is hard to understand. I guess it’s because somehow it threatens the status quo. Well, even while continuing in the mildest form of discourse with the men around him, in this particular passage in Matthew, Jesus continued to challenge the religious establishment. In chapter 12 of Matthew, verse 22, it says, There was brought to him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb. Now, this is not argumentation. This isn’t bickering. This isn’t raising your voice to the opposition. This man came in possessed with the devil, blind and dumb, and Jesus just healed him. So the dumb and the blind both spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and saying, Oh, this has to be the son of David. This has to be the Messiah. This is the one we’ve looked for. And when the Pharisees heard that, notice it wasn’t the healing that necessarily got them rolling. It wasn’t Jesus’ words that got them rolling. It was when the people began to assume that Jesus was the promised Messiah that the Pharisees said, now wait a minute. This fellow is only casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. He’s of Satan the devil. He’s not of God. He can’t be of God. No rejoicing in the works that had been done. None of these men were happy about the results of what Jesus had done. They just were afraid. But this time, they had gone too far. I mean, it’s one thing to simply oppose Jesus personally. It’s another thing altogether to demonize him. And the word demonize means basically to attribute demonism to a person who’s not. And here was Jesus doing the works of God, and they attributed the works of God to the devil. As gentle as Jesus was with the bruised and the broken, he was very firm with the members of the religious establishment, who were actually now beginning to interfere with the work of God. It’s one thing not to support it. It’s one thing to sit on the sidelines and sit on your hands. It’s another thing to interfere. It was not enough for these men that they would not believe. They had to get in the way of those who would believe. Now, Jesus finally speaks to this attitude. And the following section is a very stern rebuke to these men who should have known better. All things considered, Jesus’ rebuke is rather mild. Continuing in verse 25 of Matthew 12, Jesus, we’re told, knew their thoughts. And he said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall his kingdom stand? And then he hit them with a pretty strong argument. He said, And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out? They’ll have to be your judges. And that was a pretty stern rebuke because the fact is Jews were casting out demons. Jesus was not the only exorcist on the scene at this time. He just happened to be the most visible and the most effective. And he’s saying, okay, fine, here I am. I’m casting out demons. And you say it’s by Beelzebub. What about your own sons? Are they casting it out by Beelzebub? And then he says, but if, and you better allow this, if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. I’m a representative of the kingdom of God. I am a part of the rule of God, the reign of God, and it’s come to you. Because how can a man enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will spoil his house? Don’t you realize that I’m stronger than the devil, that I have the power to bind him, and it’s only because I have got him tied up in knots that I can do this at all. All of you need to watch carefully. He that is not with me is against me. And he that gathers not with me scatters abroad. If you can’t help, get out of the way. Sit on your hands if you must, but don’t interfere. Because I say to you, every kind of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men. But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. Well, what does he mean by that? What he means is simply this. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was casting out demons, and they had declared that it was being done by the power of Beelzebub. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, said Jesus, it shall be forgiven him. Because in fact, when faced with the evidence of the power of God and the working of God among their own children, among their own community, and among their own friends and relatives, they attributed that work to the devil. Jesus simply could not abide that. Stay with me.
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SPEAKER 02 :
But Jesus wasn’t through with these men yet. He continued by saying, either make the tree good and the fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt. For a tree is known by its fruit. What does he mean by that? Well, he’s not through. He says, O generation of vipers, you snakes, how can you, being evil, speak good things? What should I expect from you but this? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. There’s no reason why I should expect good things from you, because you aren’t good. You are evil. Now, I don’t know if you understand the significance of this, but here’s a group of men who, in their community, in their time, appeared to be righteous. They were religious leaders. They were part of the religious establishment. To look upon, they would have been considered by most people around good people. And Jesus looked at them and said that they were evil. He didn’t just say that they were misguided or mistaken or had stepped wrong. He said their heart was wrong. And it was because their heart was evil that they were speaking evil things. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things. And an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. You know, I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but there are evil people in this world, and they don’t look like what you normally see as evil in the movies or television miniseries and what have you. Those people are chosen carefully for their facial makeup and their voice and their approach. Then they carefully study the part and learn how to act evil, and they are made to look evil, sound evil, and the whole circumstances around them is brought to evil. Most of the evil, though, in this world doesn’t look like that. It looks clean, looks good, tall, strong, beautiful. And yet at the core, in the heart, it can be as evil as the devil himself. You will be very wise if you keep this in mind as you walk through the world. Then Jesus goes on to say, “…I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak…” They shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. You go around accusing people who are trying to serve God of being evil. You go around accusing people of wrongdoing when they’re innocent. You’re going to render an account for that, he told these men. And I think you and I ought to shudder a little bit when we read this because I think you and maybe I have been careless from time to time in such accusations. He then says, by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned or judged. We’re going to look at everything you’ve had to say. And the fact is, if you judge somebody by very strict standards, you’re going to be judged the same way yourself. Well, having heard all that, some of the scribes and Pharisees answered saying, Master, we would see a sign from you. Now, don’t misunderstand. In calling him Master, they just simply were saying teacher. They didn’t necessarily accept him as their Lord in any way, shape, form, or fashion. They were saying, Master, we would see a sign from you. And he answered and said, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but there is no sign going to be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Now, we’ll look at this a little later in the book of Matthew, but make a special note of that. Jesus did not say three days. He didn’t say parts of three days. He said three days and three nights. And it really takes a lot of juggling to get that in between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. But as I said, I’ll talk more about that later. What’s of special interest to me in this particular place is that Jesus had been walking up and down their streets, teaching to them from God’s Word, revealing things from God the Father to them, and healing sick people, diseased people, demoniacs, casting out demons right and left, up and down their streets. And they said, Master, we would like to have a sign from you. One wonders, well, why didn’t Jesus tell them you’ve already received a sign? What do you think all this is all about? I don’t know. I do know that Jesus’ healing and all was very much a part of His ministry, not only in the care for the people, but in the meaning of His ministry and the meaning of healing, and all those things were a part of that. But I suppose it was the fact that since they had seen all that and that wasn’t good enough for them, that the evil and adulterous generation, who would not accept those things at all as any evidence of His divine origins— those people would see one sign and one sign only, that he would be killed and buried and would stay in the grave three days and three nights like Jonah did in the belly of the whale and that he would rise again. And while he was on the subject of Jonah, he turned his attention to the men of Nineveh, men to whom Jonah preached. Remember the story of Jonah? How that Jonah was sent to Nineveh and supposed to go preaching in that great city that yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And he fled. He went the other way. And the whole story of how God got him back, how he was thrown over the side of the ship and a great fish swallowed him up and then vomited him up on the land. And he still had to go to Nineveh and he still had to preach. But the story of Nineveh, what is so remarkable, the greatest miracle of the whole thing about Nineveh is not the story about the great fish. The great miracle of Nineveh is that when Jonah went through the town saying, yet 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown, Nineveh repented. Yeah, they fasted. They put on sackcloth. They threw dust on their heads. They even made their animals fast and didn’t feed them so the animals would cry. They turned. And God relented. And Nineveh was not overthrown at that time. And Jesus said to these men, The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it. They’ll actually stand right alongside of you on the sea of glass, and they will look at you, and they will condemn you. Why? Because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and a greater than Jonas is right here in front of you right now. The queen of the south shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it. Why? Because she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. I suppose we just have to face up to the fact that there aren’t very many people like that in the world. Until next time, this is Ronald L. Dart reminding you, Please, God, may you be one of them.
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SPEAKER 01 :
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