Living on the Edge

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Martin Luther King Junior once said darkness cannot drive out darkness,
only light can do that. Stay with me as we
look at the ways that authentic followers of Jesus have
opposed evil for centuries and the inspiration encourage it gives
us to keep up that fight today, don't go away.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to this edition of Living on the Edge with
Chip Ingram. We are a discipleship ministry devoted to helping
Christians worldwide live out their faith for the glory of
God and the benefit of all people. And does today's
Christianity genuinely embody the ideals and vision that Chip described well.
In just a minute, guest teacher John Dickerson will unpack

(00:53):
what we can learn from these world changing Christians from
the past as we continue our series dealing with Doubts.
So with that, here's John with his talk Jesus, You
and the Fight for human rights.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
There are many lights in the world, but when it
comes to the sun, there's only one light of the world.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
There's only one light that when you.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
See it breaking over the horizon. People in Chicago are
seeing it and people in Miami are seeing it. There's
only one light that brings the life and the warmth
that the entire.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Planet depends on. It's like man.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Without that light, not only would we be depressed, but
we would not have life. There's light and there's darkness
in our existence physically, and there's light and darkness in
our existence morally.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
For example, in the small.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Group that I get to be part of, there's a
guy in.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Our group named Chris.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
He's an X ray radiologist at an emergency room. And
it's really fun showing up at small group every week
because we always get to hear another story from Chris
of some person who came in, like, how in the
world did that happen to that person? But tragically, one
of the things that Chris has shared with us is
that lately there's at least one shooting at the hospital

(02:17):
where he works, where he's X raying someone who has
a bullet in their body, one every single night. And
the reality is that is an expression of moral darkness
darkness rather than light. There's physical darkness and light, there's
moral darkness and light.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
There's spiritual darkness and light.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
I wonder for you right now, what evil in the
world grieves you? What evil is it that that is
a moral darkness perhaps or a spiritual darkness that just.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
It grieves you.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
It could be something like violent crime for an entire city,
or maybe it's bullying for your child or grandchild.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
You know, kids can be so cruel.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
And I wonder today, what if there were a light,
just like the sun can brighten the earth, that can
brighten moral and spiritual darkness. What if there were a
light that could brighten any evil, in fact, could extinguish evil.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
Would you want to experience that? Today? We look at
this quote where Jesus.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Said in John chapter eight, I am the light of
the world, not a light in the world, but the
light of the world.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
And then he says this, whoever follows me.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Will essentially be freed from spiritual and moral darkness or
from evil. They'll be freed from addiction, freed from lying,
freed from cheating and stealing, freed from abusing others.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Instead, they will have the light of life.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Jesus claims to be the only light that can fully
extinguish evil. I hope that gives you some hope today.
Wherever there's evil, maybe within yourself of some habit you
can't break, or evil in your family system of brokenness,
or evil in the world. Jesus claims to be the

(04:19):
only light that can fully extinguish that. Now, in our series,
we've been looking at the greatest breakthroughs.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
In human existence.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Now today we're gonna dig into the end of open
and legalized slavery.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
And behind me.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Now you see some of the well known champions of that,
and we're going to look through each one of these
in our time today. But first, before we do that,
it's important that we set the context because when we
talk about history, the last two hundred years is a
very small time and the reality that if we go
back thousands of years, a sad reality about humans is

(04:59):
that slave avery has been a norm in every major
civilization up until the last two hundred years. In fact,
when Jesus lived, the world that he was born into
was under the Roman Empire. We know the Romans had slaves.
It's so well documented. In fact, just this week, researchers

(05:20):
over in Pompei, where a volcano kind of froze a
whole civilization, they found these tiny little slave quarters for
the slaves in Pompeii. About forty percent of the population
in the world that Jesus was born into were slaves.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
This was not an anomaly.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
This would have also been the case in ancient China, India, Egypt, Greece.
In fact, in a historical Guide to World Slavery, researchers
who spent their entire lives studying slavery throughout human history
said this in the ancient Near East, as in Asia, Europe, Africa,

(06:02):
and the pre conquest America. So before the Europeans showed up,
various forms of slavery and servitude almost certainly emerged long
before they were systematized by laws or legal codes. So
when we look at cave drawings and ancient pottery and
ancient records for civilizations that have them, slavery shows up

(06:23):
all over the world. Here's how normal it was. Some
of these quotes are going to make you cringe, and
that's good. Aristotle, who most of you would be familiar with.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
You'll learn about him in.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Your philosophy class. Aristotle lived about three hundred years before Jesus.
Here's how normal slavery was. And by the way, a
lot of people say, like, oh, Aristotle, very sophisticated, wise person.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Right.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
He once said, or wrote, he who is by nature
not his own but another man's is by nature a slave.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
Aristotle wasn't the only one.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Socrates and Plato also argued that slavery is the natural
order of human existence, and if you read their writings
you'll see that they base this argument off of their observation.
They say, we've traveled around and every great society has slaves. Therefore,
slavery must just be part of the natural order. This

(07:22):
is the world that Jesus came into, and it's not
just slavery. Human rights as we know them today. We're
born into a society where we think this is normal,
But so many of our human rights, the rights for
kids to not have to work, the rights for women,
were not the norm throughout history. Here's another thing Aristotle said,

(07:43):
and I hesitate to even read it out loud, because
I'm like, someone's gonna pull a video of that off
the internet and just clip me quoting Aristotle on this,
he said, a proper wife should be as obedient as
a slave, the female as a female by virtue of
certain lack of qualities and natural defectiveness.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
That's her outright evil. It's outright evil.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
But this was the philosophy for slavery, for gender equality.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
Back to the evil of slavery.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Here's how one researcher, Catherine Cameron, who's spent her life
studying this. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia summarizes her work and
says this in her cross cultural So she looked at
all the cultures around the world, historical research, all the
data she could find on comparative captivity. How did different
cultures do slavery? There's lots of variation. She found that

(08:36):
bombs people, that is, slaves, those who were physically enchained
to be property of another person, composed ten to seventy
percent of the population of most societies. So one to
seven out of every ten people in the global average
was born a slave and never had any hope or

(08:56):
opportunity of that changing.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
This lends cre dents.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
To another researcher, Seymour Drescher, who has asserted that freedom,
not slavery, was the peculiar institution.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (09:11):
It's more rare to live in a society that doesn't
have slaves than a society that does throughout human history.
And we know this because even in the last one
hundred years. Did you know that India the country did
not outlast slavery until nineteen seventy six. Saudi Arabia did
not outlast slavery until the nineteen sixties. Slavery was outrawed

(09:35):
in Peru in the nineteen thirties.

Speaker 4 (09:38):
China.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
If you went to China in the nineteen thirties and forties,
you would still see slaves. It was still a normal
part of that society up until the end of World
War II, when the Western nations went in is when
that changed for China. Worldwide, this has been a plague
on human existence, a spiritual and moral darkness all through

(10:00):
human history.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
You're listening to Living on the Edge and will return
you to guest teacher John Dickerson's message in just a minute.
But let me quickly share with you God has called
us to do incredible ministry work all around the world.
And when you regularly give to Living on the Edge,
you're a part of what we do. So consider becoming
a monthly partner today. Then visit Livingontheedge dot org. We

(10:26):
appreciate your generous support. Well with that, here's John.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
I want to skip forward to Luke four, verse sixteen.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Because it was in such a world, a world where
the majority of people couldn't read, where women were often
sold as property into marriage, where slavery was the norm,
where there were not hospitals or antibiotics or immunology. It
was into that brutal world that Jesus said, I'm the

(10:55):
light of the world, and those who follow me are
just going to be a beacon of light in the darkness.
He said this multiple times. Here's another example Luke four sixteen.
Jesus went to Nazareth, which is where he'd been brought up,
and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue,
as was his custom. He stood up to read, and

(11:17):
the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him,
and unrolling it, he found the place. So he searches
through Isaiah for this passage that describes the Messiah God
on earth to extinguish evil from humanity. And Jesus reads
it and he says, the spirit of the Lord is

(11:38):
on me because he has anointed me to proclaim.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
Good news to the poor.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
He has sent me to proclaim freedom to those unjustly imprisoned,
and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed,
that is, the captives, that is, Jesus whole audience knew

(12:08):
the slave class, to set them free Messiah will free
those wrongly imprisoned. Messiah will give physical sight to those
who've been blind. Messiah will set the slaves free. And
what an expansive, impossible, outrageous prediction. And then Jesus looks

(12:31):
out at his friends, people he grew up with, and
he makes this impossible claim verse twenty one. He says, today,
this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. In other words,
I am the Messiah. I'm the one who will set
the captives free. I'm the one who will break the
bonds of the oppressed. Now, if you're a follower of

(12:53):
Jesus and you've been in church for a while, perhaps
you've heard this passage taught in a spiritual metaphorics that
were slaves to addictions and to dishonesty, and to all
sorts of dangerous lusts and passions. And then when we
believe in Jesus, he breaks those spiritual bonds and we
can now say no to those things and yes to

(13:14):
good things.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
And that's true.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
But what I want to talk about today is the
literal fulfillment of Jesus' prediction about what his movement would
do across the entire planet. You see, if you were
to fast forward one thousand, eight hundred and thirty years
from the time Jesus said that, and if you were
to be here in the United States, you'd be in

(13:39):
a nation where half the country thinks slavery's evil and
half still thinks it's okay, and there's great unrest, and
a war is about to begin.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
A civil war.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
And within that time it was a great battle of
ideas or ideologies. And we know the specific people who
led the charge through their writings and their posters and
their books, to convince the entire nation that slavery is
an evil because we live under a God who is just,
who has made all people equal. And that was the

(14:11):
basis of their argument. And we know this because of
their documentation. For example, this publication called The Liberator. Any
secular historian, you don't have to be a Christian to
look at the facts, would say that The Liberator was,
if not the most, one of the most influential publications

(14:31):
in turning people's opinions. See, there were people in the
North who hadn't personally seen slavery, and they're like, well,
I don't have a slave, I'm against it, but what
does it have to do with me, and they needed.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
To be educated.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
But what life was actually like in the South and
for slaves, and publications like The Liberator are what did
that and in time turned the conscience of an entire nation. Now,
within the Liberator, you can see in the middle that
Jesus is standing there, that there's a cross behind him,
and that there's a slave kneeling and praying for freedom,

(15:06):
and there's a Caucasian man sort of repenting on the
other side, and that they're on equal footing before God. Now,
if you were to study the banners and the words
here have highlighted a couple of them, you'd see that
the words are on the top there above Jesus say
I come to break the bonds.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Of the oppressed.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
It's the verse we read in Luke for it's Jesus saying,
me and my followers, we will set the captives free.
In the ribbon beneath you see some other words of Jesus.
It's in the King James, an older translation, but they're
quoting Jesus who said in Matthew twenty two, thou.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
Shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
Now, the reality is at this time in history, people
in the United States and Europe and Western Europe were
the first societies in all of history where most people
could now read. And this had come about because the
Protestant Christians wanted people to read the Bible, and all
of that is documented. And as a result, this King

(16:14):
James Bible was an almost universal textbook.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
So when the abolitionists, those.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Are the people who fought to abolish slavery, when they
tied their argument to the word of God, you have,
for the first time in history an entire nation where
most people have read the Bible for themselves.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
It's a unique window of time.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
And they say, it's according to the Bible that we
have to overthrow this, even if we're not part of it, even.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
If it's out of sight.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
We have to give our lives to follow Jesus. And
if you imagine a barn full of kindling and a match,
the kindling was a nation that knew how to read
the Bible for themselves, the match where the abolitionists, who
like a spark the darkness, said we will give our
lives to end this evil and injustice of slavery.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
It took them hundreds of years.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
In fact, it started in sixteen eighty eight here's a
document well known by historians from the Quaker Christians in Germantown.
So sixteen eighty eight. This is the United States does
not exist yet.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
This is a colony, this is a new land.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
It's pioneers. They're cutting down trees with axes. They're dying
of cholera and stuff. And these Quaker Christians who are
reading the Bible for themselves, wrote the document behind Me,
which most historians say is the first ever universal declaration
of equal human rights, that all people should be treated equally,

(17:47):
regardless of their gender, or their race, or what class
they were born into, or even their religion, that all
people should be treated equally because of Jesus and him
saying over and over again. You can read this document
for yourself, and it quotes about eight times Luke six
point thirty one Jesus saying, as ye would that men

(18:10):
should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
That was the Quaker's mantra. We call it the Golden
Rule today.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
And in modern English it sounds more like this, do
unto others as you would have them do to you,
or at an elementary level.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Treat others the way you want to be treated that
was their whole thesis.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and
you've been listening to the first part of our guest
teacher John Dickerson's message Jesus, You and the Fight for
Human Rights from our series Dealing with Doubts. John and
Chip will join us shortly to share some additional thoughts
on what we've heard. If someone were to ask you,
how do you know Jesus actually lived? Or can we

(18:57):
really trust the Bible? What would you say?

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Well?

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Join pastor and award winning journalist John Dickerson as he
explores these complex topics, drawing on evidence from various credible
sources and the impact Christians have had throughout history. John
builds a credible case for believing in Jesus. Our hope
is that as you listen, you'll be able to confidently
say Jesus is real, the Bible is true, and I

(19:21):
can prove it. In fact, we have some valuable tools
to back you up. Anytime John or Chip mention a book, podcast,
or article in this series, you can easily find it
on our resources page at Livingontheedge dot org. We want
to equip you with practical Bible centered materials to use
personally or share with others. So check out the resources

(19:43):
page at Livingontheedge dot org. Today, well Chips joined me
in studio now to share a brief word before we go, Chip.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Thanks so much. Dave, Hey, I want to take just
a minute to ask you something really important. If you've
been impacted by this industry, would you please pray about
partnering with Living on the Edge in a new way
right now? Nearly everything we do is dependent on contributions
from partners like you. Our ability to reach people through radio,

(20:13):
online or our app, sharing and developing small group resources,
providing broadcasts that are international in Asia, in the Middle East,
and literally dark places around the globe. Please pray how
you might be able to come alongside and be a
partner to Living on the Edge to help us reach
people with the truth of God's Word. Thank you in

(20:34):
advance for whatever God leads you to do.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Thanks Chip. As you've heard, God has called this ministry
to help Christians live like Christians, both here in the
US and internationally, So if you'd like to help us
fulfill that mission, we'd love to have you join the
team by becoming a monthly partner, set up a regular
monthly gift by visiting Living on the Edge dot org,
or by calling triple eight three three three six zero

(20:59):
zero three again that's Triple eight three three three six
zero zero three, or go to Living on the Edge
dot org app listeners tap donate Now with a few
final thoughts before we wrap up, here are Chip and John.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Thanks Dave, John. It's good having you here again, and
I just can't tell you how much I appreciate you
sharing with the Living on the Edge family. You know,
the first half of your message focused on one of
the biggest blights in world history, slavery, and honestly, we're
still dealing with the fallout of that evil today.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yet in the face of.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
This darkness, you've repeated Jesus' challenge for us to be
the light. Could you take a few minutes and share
some real, practical ways that we can be the light
for Jesus in these dark days?

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (21:45):
Thanks Chip. That is a hard question and such an
important question. I mean, how do we today be the
light of Christ? And you know, one of the things
that saddened me, one of the realities of this research
about the history of slavery in the world is that
there were some so called Christians who were on the
wrong side of slavery. And some of them went to

(22:08):
church on Sundays and carried Bibles, but they didn't actually
read those bibles and do what the Bible said. It
was the Christians, those Quakers that we learned about and
many others who took the word of God literally and said,
if Jesus came to set the captives free, that's what
we're going to do. And so we have no hope

(22:28):
of shining the light of Christ unless we're actually obeying
what he said to do. And it's so important for
every one of us who would call ourselves a follower
of Jesus to make sure am I truly reading the
words of Jesus in the gospels, and am I allowing
the spirit of God to convict me, to prompt me

(22:48):
to really be doing what Jesus said. And then the
second thing I would say, how do we be the light?
Is that we as Jesus once said, not hide it
under a bushel, hide it under a basket. Let our
light so shine. And what did Jesus say that men
would see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

(23:10):
So we need to be living among people who aren't
yet believers in a way that they see notice our
actions in a way that points them to God. And
the way we do that is by never forgetting that
the solution to the world's problems is Jesus. We live
in an age where things get labeled and get stereotyped

(23:32):
and get pre judged, and sometimes as followers of Jesus,
we're labeled and prejudged, and we can easily fall into
trying to defend ourselves with words and getting into debates
and arguments about this label or that term, or I'm
for this group or against that group. Instead, we shine
the light through our actions and by letting both our

(23:55):
actions and words profess that Jesus is the light of
the world, that he's the solution to the world's problems.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
He absolutely is John Great word, and we want you
to better know this light and be prepared to share
the good news of Jesus with others. And that's why
during this series we've bundled Chips Why I Believe Book
together with John's book Jesus Skeptic. We hope that through
these resources you'll encounter Jesus the god Man and understand

(24:23):
why we can fully trust and follow the teachings of
the Bible. Four Complete details about this two book bundle
called Triple eight three three three six zero zero three,
or go to Living on the Edge dot org. App
listeners tap special offers. Join us next time as our
guest teacher John Dickerson fix up in our series Dealing

(24:43):
with Doubts. Until then, I'm Dave Druy, thanking you for
listening to this edition of Living on the Edge.