Dr. Brown Takes Your Calls and Tackles Your Questions

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The phone lines are open. I'm ready to take your calls. It's time for the line of fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the line of fire. And now here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Thank you so much for joining us today on the line of fire. I have been eagerly looking forward to the broadcast. Last Friday, the phone lines went down in our studio because of which we could only take questions online. And then we've had some shows that we recorded without phone calls. So I've been waiting to take your calls. Finally back to do it 866-348-7884. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you.

We go to David in Massachusetts to kick things off. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, God bless you. How you doing? God bless.

Doing great. So yeah, how to, just a quick question about, so I've called in many times and you've answered a lot of questions. So I'm, I appreciate that a lot.

And you've been a great blessing to the body. I had a question just about, uh, uh, the prophecy, a messianic prophecy where Jesus said, you know, Jerusalem shall, um, shall be trodden down by the Gentiles so that until the time of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled. And I was wondering, you know, like how, how do you, um, how do you interpret that scripture and would you see, because obviously when it comes to right now, you know, uh, you know, a lot, you know, especially, you know, people like people who would interpret the regathering, I don't know if they would interpret the regathering kind of already happening with 1948 when Israel became a nation or, you know, cause this is something that is often brought up when it comes to, you know, um, not just black Hebrew Israelites, but, um, cause I, I'm not a black Hebrew Israelite, by the way, I, I, I preach on the streets and oftentimes debate them, but this is something that they might bring up when it comes to there.

Yeah. Let me address it. And I appreciate you being on the streets, uh, fearless for the gospel. You, you have the key passage, of course, is Luke 21, 24, that Jerusalem will be trodden underfoot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. So it'll be trodden underfoot until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. So the until would indicate that there's going to be a stopping and that the Jewish people, Jesus has said before that will be scattered throughout all the world and Jerusalem be trodden underfoot until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. So after that, you would then expect the restoration of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and Jerusalem no longer trodden under foot by the Gentiles. There's a parallel in Romans 11, 25, and 26 that says that the fullness of the Gentiles will come in and then the veil will be removed at that time.

The hardness will be removed and all Israel will be saved. So there there's the culmination of God's working among the, the Gentiles and the nations, right? There is the ending of Gentile domination of Jerusalem and there is the salvation of Israel, but it's not that it's going to happen in one split second. It's not that, okay, this ended, this began, rather, there's going to be a transitional period. I mean, that's how most things unfold in scripture.

It's over periods of decades or hundreds of years. So I would say, number one, that we see the ending of the times of the Gentiles in this negative sense, not just with Israel getting back its statehood, but with Jerusalem coming into Jewish hands, the old city as well, right? So all of Jerusalem and it's no longer trodden under foot by the Gentiles and the Jewish people being regathered. So that negative time of the Gentiles seems to have come to a close now with the Jewish regathering.

That's one thing. And who is it for the Black Hebrew Israelites that got brought back in mass? It's the ones they say aren't Jews from around the world and the one that the world has been trying to wipe out for centuries. Here we are.

Okay. The fullness of the Gentiles. So this season is wrapping up as with great accelerated pace, God is moving around the world so that more people have been saved the last 50 years than in the previous 1,900 years combined. Many would say more Muslims have been saved in the last 50 years than in the previous 1,400 years combined. So we're seeing the acceleration. We're coming into the fullness of the Gentiles and provoked by that. And on the heels of that chronologically, the national turning of Israel.

So we can't say, Oh, that's five years down the line or 10 or 30 or 50, but we can say that we are really getting closer and that the table has been set for our generation in a way that no other generation has seen before. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good answer. You know, so yeah, I appreciate the answer and thank you for your time. Bless you, David. I appreciate it. Thank you for the con words also 866-348-7884.

Let's go to Dwayne in Cocoa, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Well, thank you, Dr. Brown. So my question, I've been thinking about this for, I don't know, two or three weeks, and I hope, I hope this is a legitimate question about this subject. The Hebrew calendar, the Jewish calendar, you know, such as the one, the Essenes used and, and I'm sure that Jesus used it and, and, and they used it back then for the feasts and the festivals and so forth. This is the year 5783, according to the Hebrew calendar. I think I'm correct about that.

Is that right? Yeah, but that doesn't mean that that chronology existed in Jesus' day, that they had a clear chronology where they could say this is exactly the year, the months that was clear and the holy days that was clear, and they had some debate about exactly marking certain things on the calendar, you know, so they had, they had disputes about the calendar, but that was like more minor in-house type of stuff, but the idea that, that this is year 5783 on the Jewish calendar, did that exist in Jesus' time, not necessarily. That could be a later development in terms of, okay, this is the actual years.

I don't know myself because I'm not an expert on the calendar exactly when that dating began. So it's possible there was that concept back then, but not necessarily. Yeah. So if I may just briefly continue what I said, what I meant to my question, my question was if this is the year 5783 and the millennial period starts in the year 6,000, that's 217 years away, but everybody's talking, I know what you just previously said, but everybody's talking about the end is near, the end is near. And I, and I, I believe that I feel that I just can't seem to reconcile this in my mind that, you know, according to that calendar is 217 years away. Right. But you're right.

No, of course. Great question. Who told you that the millennium comes in the year 6,000?

Where is that written? Well, it's just, just from my understanding, my reading is, you know, that, that the, the Jews believe that, that human beings have been on this earth for, you know, what, approximately 6,000 years or whatever. No, no, there are many, many different debates in the Talmud.

Some say tens of thousands, some say hundreds of thousands of years. There's all kinds of different debates. It's not a fixed thing in Jewish thinking, nor is it a fixed thing. There's a tradition that the world, the last 6,000 years, and then the 7,000 years, like a arrest, a millennial arrest. That's just one tradition among many, but it's not in the Bible.

That's the thing. It's not in the Bible. And traditional Jews are waiting for the Messiah to be revealed any day. They've been waiting for that for centuries, for centuries and centuries. They've been waiting, they've confessed it. Moses Maimonides made it something you confess every day.

One of the 13 principles of faith that, that I'm expecting him every day. And this is, Maimonides lived 1135 to 1204. So, no, this is, there is a Jewish tradition, one among many, that there's 6,000 years of world history, and then the 7th millennium will be the kingdom of God on the earth.

There are some church traditions that think that way, but no, there's nothing fixed. There's nothing in the Bible that says that, and explicitly says that the millennial kingdom will be like the 7th day Sabbath rest after 6,000 years. Plus, the 5783 date relies on a chronology, which compresses a period between the, the, during the time of the second temple, this chronology called Seder al-Lamraba, that condenses things by what, like 150, 60 some years. So it's not even an accurate count.

So I put that entirely aside. The Hebrew calendar in terms of how close we are to the coming of the, I put that 100% aside. We could have 200 years. We could have 10. We could have 10, God knows. But anyway, I would not put any stock in, in that issue whatsoever. I think that you can count in any way.

And okay, it has to be this amount of time for numerous, numerous reasons. It's a great question, but that's my answer. Thank you so much. Hey, have you downloaded our app?

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If you like it, tell a friend. All right. Let us go to Jim in Reno, Nevada. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hey, Dr. Brown. Yes. Very quick question. And then comment.

My question is when you read the, when rabbis read the messianic prophecies in Daniel, what percentage do you, would you estimate that rabbis may read those believe the Messiah should have come before the destruction of the second temple? That's my question. And this is my comment, which ties into some of your, your shows that you've had recently about revival and politics. I'm a political consultant and I have a client who's, uh, an Iranian immigrant who was actually sent to death in Iran because she got caught passing out Bible and very, very devout Christian. Spent a lot of time in, in Evan prison.

One of the worst prisons in the world. Yeah, yeah. But she, she's running, um, running as a Republican in Georgia. Yes. Yes. I've read her story.

Yeah. Oh, you know her. Dr. Brown, I'm telling them circle, Marzia and Rosada, because she's running in a very heavily democratic district. Uh, I, I'm working pro bono for her because I believe in her. She, she's going door to door. She's knocked on 11,000 doors and in a very heavily democratic district. And these Democrats, mostly African-American, I've never seen response for a candidate like this. They're inviting her to her home, praying together, they're crying.

Uh, she bumped, she, Kim is in very dangerous neighborhoods. Hey, Jim, yeah, I've got to, I've got to jump in cause I've got a break. I'll answer your question on the other side of the break. We don't give a political endorsements or recommend candidates, but let's pray.

God, you're a very best for this woman, your plan, bring it to past your best for the people of Georgia, bring it to pass your, your best to foster your kingdom purposes in that state and use your daughter to glorify Jesus. That's our prayer. Hey, Jim, keep up the great work. I'll answer you on the other side of the break. Stay right here it's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, get on the line of fire by calling eight, six, six, three, four truth here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire eight, six, six, three, four truth. You've got questions. We've got answers.

You can always write to us on our website, ask Dr. Brown, ask your Brown dot org. So Jim in Reno, the question of the rabbis reading the prophecies in Daniel and, uh, did they believe the Messiah should have come before the destruction of the second temple, um, most of the time, the way that we're reading, uh, Daniel nine, 24 to 27, it's not being, it's never being read the same way. We're reading it in the rabbinic community. However, Rashi, the foremost Jewish commentator lived 10 40 to 11 Oh five.

Rashi does refer to this kind of ending up in the time of Herod and then somehow brings in the Messiah. It's it's one of his least comprehensible commentaries. It seems something's really missing there, but they're not reading that the same way.

We are. However, there is a Talmudic tradition which ties in with an earlier call. This is one of those that says that the earth will last 6,000 years.

That's total, not seven, but 6,000 years, 2,000 years of chaos. That is from Adam to Abraham, 2,000 years of Torah, that is from Abraham to the Messiah. Uh, the rabbis believe in that God revealed the oral and written Torah to Abraham in advance as, and they find confirmation of that in Genesis 26 five, which mentions Abraham keeping God's laws. And they say Torah, that's the oral Torah and the written Torah. Anyway, it's, it's rabbinic interpretation.

There's no historical foundation to that, but in Jewish thinking, the Torah begins with Moses, with, with Abraham, and then of course, the whole nation, Moses. So 2,000 years of chaos from Adam to Abraham, 2,000 years of Torah from Abraham to the Messiah, and then 2,000 years of the Messiah. So that should have happened based on rabbinic dating. That should have happened, oh, 1,800 plus years ago, what happened? And the Talmud says, well, because of our sins, this was all lost. So there was a recognition that something should have happened.

If not before the destruction of the second temple, close to that time. Uh, and that's an interesting thing that I've appealed to to say, what do you think's behind that? Could it be rather than, than the Messiah would have come, but because of our sins, he didn't.

Could it be that he did come because of our sins, we missed him. Hey, thank you for the call 866-34-Truth. 866-34-Truth. Let's go to Christopher in San Diego, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown, uh, for taking my call.

I've been watching your videos for a while now after a recommendation from one of Mike Winger's older videos, so I appreciate everything you both do. Um, but my question is, I'm a little confused about modern Christian music theology, specifically when they talk about pouring the spirit out or asking the spirit to come into such and such a place, uh, the Bible teaches the spirit dwells inside us and he walks alongside of us. If this is the case, why are we asking this if he dwells in believers already?

Yeah, sure. So what do you make of, of acts to when the Holy Spirit comes on the believers there and they're all filled with the spirit and speak in, in, in new tongues. And then in acts 431, these same people, they pray and, and then it says that they were filled with the spirit. This is a new fresh event and they spoke the word with boldness.

What do you make of that? Um, I guess it was more or less the same spirit, maybe, um, showing himself, uh, to proclaim that what the people were seeing and believing were true, um, at the, at the time. No, no. Right. Right. No, but, but the point is in the place they were meeting, the house they were meeting was shaken.

Right. So the Holy Spirit comes in power, shakes the place and it says, and they were filled with the spirit just as they were in acts two when tongues of fire came. So we understand this to say that the moment we're born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us.

We don't get another spirit later on, right? The Holy Spirit comes to live within us the moment we're born again and we, our bodies become temples to the Holy Spirit and the spirit is witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Yet there is an empowering of the Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches in Luke 11, 13, if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. So through church history, before we're talking about the modern Pentecostal movement, you've got church leaders like Moody that knew something was missing. There was an empowering, there was an anointing to come on them. Jesus certainly indwelt by the spirit, but what does he do? In Luke 4 he quotes from Isaiah 61 that the spirit of the Lord is upon him.

And through history, be it the first great awakening, the second great awakening, be it Welsh revival, be it other outpourings, that's how they're referred to. It's a season of unusual outpouring. It's a season of God pouring out his spirit afresh. There's a picture in Isaiah the 32nd chapter where God's talking to Israel and there's desolation and there's judgment and there's sin and everything is fractured until the spirit is poured out from on high.

So it's very biblical language. So we believe that number one, the Holy Spirit can empower us in a special way. He can move upon us. He dwells within us, but he can move upon us. He can come with special power to anoint us, to be used by him. Remember the gifts and power of the spirit, that's to glorify Jesus to the world and to touch his people. And then there are seasons of outpouring where the Holy Spirit just moves in exceptional and unusual ways.

This is what we call revival in history. This is what if you read about awakenings, suddenly the Holy Spirit is moving in these new and pronounced ways. So he dwells within us. We have fellowship with the spirit, 2 Corinthians 13, 14, and we're led by the spirit, Romans 8, 14, and the spirit of the son is put within us by which we cry, Abba, Father, at Galatians 4, Romans 8, and the spirit is poured out upon us in power.

The spirit is poured out on communities and in cities in these unique and powerful ways. And that's what we're praying for. And that's what we Pentecostals, Charismatics see as so important that we have everything that God wants us to have to glorify him to the max and to touch a dying and hurting world. All right, well, thank you, Dr. Brown, for clearing up that confusion for me, I really appreciate it. Yeah, and thanks for asking because many people don't think the issue through and we use language and we don't understand what we're using. And not all of our singing is accurate in all circles.

We all get our songs in line with Scripture, but thank God for those that are and are powerful. All right, let us go to John in Newark, Delaware. There's a Newark in Delaware, seriously? Yeah, Newark. Yep, that's where University of Delaware is. Okay, I didn't, but you pronounce it Newark?

Newark. Yep. Yeah. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. All right. All clear. All clear.

Yes, go ahead. I was reading in the past, I've read about church history and how in the eighth century, Christians took on icons and there was a council on it and the Eastern Orthodox said, you know, they say, like, you know, the temple had images and, you know, they imagine that heaven and earth are together, they're there with the saints, they're praying, you know, to Jesus on the throne. How do you think that that is the same idolatry that you would see in, like, Isaiah and Israel's past? Or, I mean, how do you feel about that in church history?

Right. There is no insult to Eastern Orthodox listeners or Catholic listeners in what I say. It is not the same as the idolatry of bowing down to Baal or Marduk or Asherah or some pagan false God, obviously. But is it wrong if you say, okay, I've made an image of God in some way or an image of a holy one in some way and I am bowing down before it and praying to it, even though I'm praying to it as a symbol of the one I'm praying to, that would certainly be considered idolatrous. The fact that you had, say, images of the cherubim on the walls of the temple, nobody was praying to the images.

If they were, it was sinful, it was misdirected. If you say, well, the cherubim were there to remind us that the angels are near, fine, but nobody was then getting on their knees in front of them and praying to them for what they represented or asking them to go to the Father. There were no images of people, of saints and holy ones that people were then asked to intercede for them. There was certainly no image of God in any way. So in this case, an image of Jesus that you would kneel before. You say, well, I'm kneeling before what the statue represents, but it's just a statue and we're told explicitly not to make one representing God in any way.

So again, I know that there are people that say, Dr. Brown, you just don't get it. This proves how ignorant you are of these things and you don't see the nuance. Listen, I've spent enough time around the world, I've been in India 27 times, seeing how idolatry works there, and they'll tell you the same thing. No, no, no, you're just misunderstanding the nature of what we're doing and so on. And the fact is, it is explicitly prohibited to make a statue of anything in any, with a spiritual representation that you pray to or worship before as such. So I'm not saying that those who do and then the sincerity, they say, hey, that's how you see it, buddy, but I'm worshiping God and this just helps me focus in and I'm appreciating the communion of the saints. I'm not saying you're a hellbound idolater.

I'm not calling down fire on you. I'm simply saying it is contrary to scripture. It would have been very, very foreign to the first and earliest believers. This is not a debate that you're going to find in the first century. And even the iconography and synagogues, you find iconography, they've got different images and things that it may be telling biblical stories, but nobody's praying to it.

These are just reminders. The pictures of the stories are reminders of the history, but there's no prayer or worship or adoration being directed to it. And remember in Exodus, when Aaron says, this is your God or these are your gods, the Hebrew could be translated either way with the golden Catholic he makes who brought you out of Egypt. He wasn't saying this is Baal or this is some other deity or this is Isis or a horse that you worshiped in Egypt. This was an image of God. Of course, it was a pagan image and it was no image at all. But anyway, clearly, I say it's contrary to scripture, which is another reason I'm not Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. For those who say I just don't get it, fine. I didn't come out to bash.

Just answer as honestly as I can. We got a couple of phone lines open amazingly, good time to call. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us already.

Hey, a good day just got even better. Less than 45 minutes from now. Yeah. So 415 Eastern time. I'm going to be right back on our YouTube channel, ASK DR Brown for our weekly YouTube chat.

Haven't been able to do them every week without fail, but do them as much as possible. So you'll get to just post questions and we go flying through questions there. So that'll start 415 Eastern time at the Esther to Brown YouTube channel, ASK DR Brown for everybody that's watching the show right now on YouTube. Have you clicked the thumbs up button? Do that first thing. Just it helps get it out to more people.

If you're watching on Facebook, click share and that helps it get it out to more people so we can multiply the message. All right. We go to JP in Singapore. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi. Hello, sir.

Hi, Dr. Brown. Boy, I miss Singapore. I love to be back, but because I've made some statements about radical Islam, I'm not allowed in the country right now because, you know, the country policy of not speaking against another religion.

So anyway, wish I could be back face to face in Singapore. One of these days. Hopefully. Yes, sir.

Hopefully. Yeah. So, uh, Dr. Brown, I have Google about you. It seems that you don't, I want to know, uh, it seems you have not written an article about this. Can I know what is your position on open people? What do you think about it?

Right. I checked it and where I did write about it was in my commentary to Jeremiah commenting on chapter three, 19 chapter three, verse 19, that open theist will point to as saying this is a proof that God does not know certain choices we're going to make. So for those not familiar, an open theist would say, God knows everything that is knowable, knows every possibility and knows that which is knowable, but because of our free will, he doesn't know what choice will necessarily make. He may have a very good idea, but doesn't know.

And therefore the future is open. Uh, and some would call that outright heresy. I would certainly say it's, it's a serious error in denying God's omniscience and can lead to other heretical views. So an open theist would say, look, you have in Genesis 22 when Abraham is ready to sacrifice Isaac, and the angel says, now I know, speaking for the Lord, that you really fear me. Or you have passages in Jeremiah, like Jeremiah 36, where God tells Jeremiah, bring this message to the people. Perhaps they'll repent, or you'll have in Jeremiah three and four, where God's yearning boy, I really thought they would listen.

I hoped they would listen, uh, but they wouldn't. And they would say that indicates that God doesn't know what's going to happen in advance. Well, the problem there is that the, the statements that are about the nature of God are categorically opposite from that. So you have an Isaiah 40 through 48 talking about the distinctiveness and uniqueness of God, how he stands out from all the idols and the false gods, because he knows the beginning from the end and he challenges them. Have your prophets go tell us what's going to happen. They can't, but I can speak it and I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do in the future. Not only so, but you have books like revelation where the future unfolds in front of someone or, or the prophets would see the future unfold because the future is fully known by God. You already have God making promises to Abraham, uh, saying in the 18th chapter that Abraham is going to guide his children in the right way. And this is one reason God's going to communicate with him.

So how then do we understand this language? We understand that God is speaking in an experiential way that, and this is, I really meditated on it to try to understand, to, to not cancel out one set of verses, but to affirm both. So JP, my understanding is this, that just as Jesus incarnated himself in our world and while he was in our world that, that he, he got hungry, he got tired, he slept, he ate, he was grieved in his spirit and things like that, that he was fully human. And there are things that filled him with joy, right? Like Luke 10, Jesus full of joy by the spirit says, you know, thanks God. Or in, in the other passages where he grieves, he's, he's angry and he's grieves, right? So how could God experience emotion in that sense of God knows everything before it happens, then why would there be joy, sorrow?

But because God can also emotion, speaking in human terms, incarnate himself in our world, in the moment. Sorry to interject. Yeah, go ahead. So let me be honest, I am an open-tease myself and after I've done a lot of investigations, but have you watched open-tease debate before? No, I've read extensive, some years back I read a good amount from some of the key people involved and I find the arguments to be faulty. But here's the... Like what?

Like, go ahead. I find them to have very, very weak responses to God knowing the beginning from the end is part of his very essential nature. It's something that separates him from the false gods is that he can tell you what's going to happen in the future, meaning it is fixed. If he's going to tell you what's going to happen, then it is something that he foresees. The biggest verse to me is Isaiah 57, 15 in Hebrew, it says of him, show pain odd that he inhabits eternity.

So it is present tense, participle. In present tense, he inhabits eternity. Therefore he sees the end more clearly than we see the beginning because he dwells outside of time. So that alone refutes open-theism. But I cannot understand honestly how someone could read Isaiah 40 to 48 repeatedly on their knees before God and come away being an open-theist. Okay, but I think the response that we get is that when God gives a prophecy, that means God gives a plan in advance and when the time comes, God makes it happen.

So God is an interventionist, so God is active in life. But no, no, he says, I know the end from the beginning, the beginning from the end. He says he knows it. He knows it. Okay, and in regards to revelation, hang on, hang on, hang on, let's just, that's the biggest single verse to me, okay, that God knows the end from the beginning and this is what separates him from the so-called gods.

Please respond to that. Yeah, yeah, Isaiah 41, can you give me a specific one? Okay, I mean, it's several times in the book of Isaiah, but just when I quoted you, you know, the context even drills it home even more dramatically, to be honest, okay. But God knows the end from the beginning, right, yeah, it's 46 times, yeah. But this is reiterated in several passages about the very nature of God that separates him from all the others because they cannot declare what's going to happen in advance. It's not because he has the power to make the future go a certain way, it's because he knows what the future will be.

That's the whole context of those passages. Okay, okay, I think it requires a long response and I hope one day you can write an article about it. I'll comment on it. Okay, fair enough. Let me just close with this, JP, I am going to find a way on our website, it's not that long to post the excursus, okay. So as long as you're on our email list, askdrbrown.org, askdrbrown, you can get your emails.

When I post it, I'll send out a note or if you just follow me on social media, I'll send out a note. It's not a whole book, it's just a few pages. But I want to give you one example. Have you ever watched a movie that you've watched in the past? But in the tens of months, that's too, I can't watch, I can't watch. But you know what's going to happen, right? Or you're watching some game, you know, your team comes back in the last second to win and you're watching it and you're on the edge of your seat, you've already seen it. But you experience the emotion of the moment.

I believe that's what God is doing, that he's genuinely feeling, he's genuinely, as we say the word feeling, how that applies to God, he's genuinely experiencing that, that longing, that desire, even though he knows the outcome, he's living it out in real time as well. Remember also when you're trying to deal with this, you don't want to refute, JP, that's the key thing. I determine, I'm not trying to refute anything.

I'm trying to put it all together. I feel what you're trying to do is refute these other statements based on this view. And last point, are you genuinely telling me that God did not know what Abraham was going to do? That God who knew his nature so well, I know people that are just psychologically astute that can tell you what you're going to do before you do it because they observe your patterns. God, who knows everything, right, in ways a trillion, billion, gazillion times beyond anything we can imagine, in terms of his knowledge, he was like, wow, I had no idea, Abraham, why I'm so glad, whew, good, because I made all these promises to you. No, no, no. The promises were unconditional promises that God made in advance, right?

Genesis 15 is an unconditional covenant, a one-way covenant that God made only he passed through the pieces, but Abraham, because he knew what was going to happen. He's God. All right, thank you for the call and the challenge, my friend, 866-34-Truth. Let us go over to our friend Todd in Seagrove, North Carolina.

Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. I have a question about the Hebrew calendar. I've been curious for several years now about why the name of the pagan god Tambu is included in the names of the body. Yeah, so what happened was that the same way as in our language, Monday, right, where does that come from?

Moon Day. Yeah, you know, Thursday was Thor's Day, right, so it has absolutely no meaning to us, Sunday, Day of the Sun. It has absolutely no meaning whatsoever in that regard, but there are historical reasons. So, when the Jewish people were in Babylonian exile, they then took on different month names and they took on a new script, they used the Aramaic script, the square script, as opposed to the paleo form. So it was just a cultural thing, that's what happened, and it was just a month name, and it had no more significance to it than Monday as the Moon Day for us, or on Thursday that we feel especially close to the god Thor.

So yeah, it's just while they were in Babylonian captivity that they took on the, you know, Babylonian month name and some of these things, and some things got switched out, and that's how it happened. All right, well, I'm just curious about that, because it just seemed very strange to me. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Everything.

I mean, it'd be like, like, you know, one day of the week is called Satan, right, Satan's Day or something like that would be odd, but it was just a name, it was just a name, even though Tom Ujia was a deity, a false god. All right, thanks for the call. You will, let's see, we're going to bait and Richard and Travis next, stay right here. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. So less than 30 minutes from now, 4.15 Eastern time.

We'll be back on YouTube, Ask Dr. Brown, ask Dr. Brown on YouTube for our weekly exclusive Q&A YouTube chat. All right, let's go over to Bate in Ozone Park, New York. Did I pronounce the name correctly or did I butcher it? It's just Bette, short for a longer name.

All right, you know this, when I see it, even though Bette would be the obvious way to say it in English, I'm thinking Hebrew and Bate is construct form for buy it how, so I didn't know if there was some, I thought too much here. But anyway, go ahead, go ahead. I understand, yeah.

Dr. Brown, I have one question and one update for something that you counseled me about last year. The question is, in 2 Chronicles 30, I believe, when, I'm sorry, yeah, 2 Chronicles 34, when King Josiah repents and he leads his people to repentance as well and they seek hold of the prophetess and she says to him, she says, you know, go to King Josiah that he's going to go, he's going to sleep in peace. He won't see the terrible things that are going to befall the nation because he sought me. And so that spared the nation during Josiah's lifetime. But hold on, says, you know, there's no way otherwise that the Lord isn't going to punish the things that the nation has been doing up to now. So my curiosity is, if after Josiah there had been a string of godly leaders and each one of them sought the Lord, would the Lord have extended, do you think, his mercy just indefinitely? Or would there have had to be a time where there would have just been punishment from things that the generation living would not have been guilty of in that sense? Right. So we can only speculate.

On the one hand, we do know that the repentance that Josiah led was really led by him and didn't fully go through the nation, Jeremiah 3, there's an indictment on that, where it's the only time that Josiah's name is mentioned in the first 20 chapters after the introduction that the repentance wasn't deep enough. And there's even Jewish tradition that they would trick, you know, they had these idle police, the police enforcing to make sure there were no idols. It's just a Jewish tradition. And they would go through the houses and check and someone would swing their door open and you know, it opened in two ways and they'd see, okay, there's nothing here. But then it would close, there was a face of an idol on it.

They just had it, you know, you couldn't see it because the doors weren't open together. But either way, we know that the repentance was extraordinary from Josiah and he did bring major reforms and things did fall short. We can only speculate, of course. My own thought is that it could have extended a little longer, but the guilt was so great and the punishment so urgent that according to Jeremiah 15, the sins of Manasseh could not be forgiven. Not on a personal level. He repents and God forgives him on a personal level. But on a national level, punishment had to come. I don't know how that would apply, say exactly, to America with the blood of abortion. Is there something where at some point there has to be a collapse because of judgment?

It could be, but even so, the judgment can bring deeper repentance and humility. It was not a judgment to wipe the people out. So it could have been forestalled maybe a bit later, but indefinitely at a certain point it had to come.

In other words, hundreds and hundreds of years go by and then it comes, that doesn't make sense. Of course, God also knew what was coming after Josiah and it really wasn't an option. So my opinion, because we can't be dogmatic, my opinion, maybe it could have been forestalled a little later. If Josiah didn't make the foolish mistake of going into war, it could have been forestalled longer in his own lifetime, but soon enough the judgment had to come. And if he had a godly leader, then the council would be okay.

Take the judgment, recognize what this is for, repent corporately and God can restore more speedily. Okay, that's pretty well rounded, thank you. Yeah, the update. Yes, sir. You told me last year, I believe it was, to strongly consider leaving the ministry that I was in because it was run by a one-woman show type of thing and she was toxic.

She just really was. Yeah. And it took me a while, but the Lord gave me a dream early this year and then just several other things where he slowly built up my ability to leave, you know, when you're in that toxic situation. It's hard. It's very hard. Because if you leave, oh no, something bad is going to happen or I'm defying the authority.

It's like a cult-like bondage, which is never healthy. So you're free. Right.

You're on the outside. I am free. All right. Good, good. Well, thank you. Good. God bless you and hopefully you'll find a good, healthy fellowship to be part of. All right, let's keep going here. Richard in Columbus, Ohio, welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi, doctor.

You're a great man. I listen to you a lot and I've watched a lot of your debates. I really have two questions.

They're pretty quick. The first one is, we all know that God is a jealous God. So as a result of that, wouldn't a product of jealousy be selfishness? If it was human carnal jealousy, perhaps. But the Hebrew, El Kanah, a jealous God, the word jealous also is zealous.

It's a passionate love. So if I say I'm trim, I've got a child and this child is very special to the Lord with a real purpose. And I am super jealous about that child's well-being.

I am jealous for you as there's nothing selfish about it. It's just, I just want God's best for you. So when God will not tolerate idolatry, it's not because when people worship idols, it takes away from who He is or He becomes less self-sufficient. But it is absolutely destructive to them and it is so contrary to His best for them. So His jealousy is a holy jealousy that is always interested in our good. And His love is always altruistic in that He loves us because He is love, not because He wants to get something from us. But isn't He also looking for self-glorification? He's looking for glorification so that we will recognize who He is because it's for our own health. He doesn't need us to praise Him.

So just think of it. When you're like down and everything's wrong and so everything's, you're not helping anybody or yourself when you say, I'm just going to stop and thank God you're good. I worship you.

You're wonderful no matter what. Everything changes, light shines in darkness. So I remember, I remember Richard, when I was not a believer, drug user, but I had to go to synagogue with my parents for a High Holy Day and I'm reading through the prayer book which I hadn't read for a while and never knew all of it. I'm reading through it and all these praises and I'm this and I'm this, I'm God. I thought, man, He's on some kind of ego trip. That was my carnal way of looking at it.

But when you understand that everything He does is for our good, so He calls us to praise Him, not because He gets something out of it like, oh, I'm having a good day because everybody's speaking well of me, but because it is all for our good and it's also right to do it. Yeah. Got it.

Second quick question. All of my life, and I've studied several different Christian faiths, but I also know Satan's easy way to get to twist man is man adds his system of things to the Scriptures and forms new religions. But what I'm getting at is all my life, I've prayed to the Father through Christ in my little hiding place and I've done that, but yet all the time, every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there says, I must have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Well, the goal in my whole life has been to get to the Father through Christ. So can't I have a relationship with the Father through Christ? Right. So tell me who Jesus is to you. Do you consider Him not just your Lord, but He is the incarnate, He is the incarnate of the invisible Father.

Right. But in your own life, do you relate to Him as a friend as well as Lord? Do you ever talk to Him? Do you sing praises to Him? Do you thank Him? I try to pray to the Father through the Son as Scripture says to do, and I also thank Jesus for His sacrifice for what He's done for me.

Right. So there are occasional prayers addressed to Jesus in the New Testament, but the pattern is pray to the Father through Jesus because it's important for us to recognize God's fatherhood and come to Him as Father, as Abba. At the same time, we have a wonderful relationship with Jesus. He calls us friends. We can commune with Him. We thank Him and praise Him.

So it's not either or. Look, I could be on a prayer retreat and be talking to the Father for hours and hours. It's not like I'm neglecting Jesus. It's one God, right? It's one God.

Right. But it's a matter of, look, I love to be able to tell someone that doesn't have a personal relationship with God about what it means to be intimate with God and have them just, you just part your heart and essentially you're going to talk into the wall and Jesus, He's my Lord. I bow down to Him.

I don't know, but He's my best friend. I can just, and there are times when sometimes I just want to say, Jesus, I just, I need, I need your help. I need your grace. So it's perfectly fine, Richard. There are times you cannot just thank Him.

It's not like a law. You can also talk directly to Him, as Stephen is about to die in Acts 7, Lord Jesus received my spirit, right? Or even so, come Lord Jesus in Revelation 22. That's a prayer.

Or first Corinthians 16, Maranatha, Marana, Thoth, right? Our Lord, come. That's to Jesus.

But yeah, the pattern to the Father's new Son, hey, sorry I couldn't get to everybody's calls, but you can join me in 15 minutes, folks, 15 minutes. Go over to Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube for our YouTube Q&A chat and I'll get to a whole bunch more questions there. May the blessing and smile of the Lord be on you this day, this weekend. May Jesus be glorified in you. Your program, powered by the Truth Network.