Time to Get Some Backbone

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Friends, this is not the time for us to be looking to others to lead the way. This is time for each of us to stand and do what's right. Welcome to the line of fire today.

This is Michael Brown. Delighted to be with you. 866-342. The number to call. Because I was not taking live calls Thursday and Friday when I was in Fort Worth, phone lines are open wide today. I'll get to calls on random subjects, time permitting.

866-348-7884. Are you with us? Are you getting our Frontline newsletter? The newsletter that we're going to be working on for next month, we're about to send out, literally about to send out the newest edition, the February edition, which is going to rock your world and bless you. The newsletter scheduled for next month is going to have a testimony that took almost 100 years to come to pass. Oh yeah, you don't want to miss that. So make sure you're getting our Frontline newsletter.

You're getting it automatically. If not, go to TheLineOfFire.org. TheLineOfFire.org and sign up today. Alright, I want to begin today's broadcast with an exhortation. I want to begin God's broadcast, this broadcast today, with an exhortation from God's Word that will stir you. It's my goal, you know, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage every single day.

To help build you up in God so that you can stand strong in the midst of the battle. And all too often, we look to others to lead the way. We look to the public faces. We look to the people who are bold. The people that may have more of an outward calling and be maybe more articulate or have bigger platforms. We look to them to do things.

And I know I have a particular role by God's grace. We have a good platform. We have many different fronts from radio to social media to books to articles to TV.

We can reach millions of people. I know I have a particular call to confront controversies. I know I have a particular call to take on difficult subjects. It's something I embrace.

Something that God gave me to do. And it always blesses me when people thank me. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for taking a stand.

Thank you for speaking with grace and truth and so on. To the extent we model that, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. It may make you uncomfortable, but the gospel should make us uncomfortable.

The gospel is very uncomfortable for the flesh, but very liberating for the spirit. Jesus said, Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. So deny yourself means I'm not here for me. I'm not here to do my will.

I'm not here to make myself happy. I'm here to do the will of God. Take up your cross means die to sin, die to this world, die to the claims of this age and now live to do the will of God. In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul wrote this, you are bought with a price, you are not your own. So glorify God in your body. And some translations, some texts, your body and your spirit, which are God's. You, this is God speaking to you and to me if you're a follower of Jesus. You are not your own. As I've often said, I've been in the Lord now well over 50 years and he's not yet asked me for my opinion. He's not yet asked me to give him feedback. Okay, Lord, I like this assignment. I really don't like this assignment. No.

Why? Because we're his servants. We're his bond slaves. We're here to do his will. And he gives us joy in the midst of it. He gives us 1 Timothy 6, richly all things to enjoy.

So we can enjoy the beauties of this world. We can enjoy family. We can enjoy life together. We can enjoy a nice meal.

We can enjoy a vacation. We can have things that we do with purpose. You can be an artist.

You can be an athlete. These are all expressions of the creativity of God within us. Wonderful. But ultimately, doing the right thing, standing up, speaking the truth, pushing back against the darkness by shining the light, that's not an option. That's a command. Jesus says to you, medical doctor. To you, homeschooling mom. To you, college student. To you, great-grandfather. To you, in the Lord.

You are the salt of the earth. What about you, doctor? Yeah, yeah. All of us. All of us. Whoever we are. Whatever walk of life. You.

You. Are you a disciple? Are you a follower of Jesus, Yeshua? Then you are the salt of the earth. You are part of the moral conscience of society. That means that you have to take a stand where you are. It may not be in an outward public way, but where you have to make a decision to do what's right and wrong. You're going to have to take a stand.

You're going to have to say what's right. There are people that only you can reach. There are people that you can touch that never listen to this broadcast. They'll never read my book. They'll never read one of my articles. They won't watch that preacher on TV.

They won't watch that social media influencer on YouTube. You are God's answer for them. You are the one that God sent to pray for them. You are the one that God sent to share the gospel with them. There are people that will listen to you that will never listen to me in a million years. Can verse of their people listen to me?

They'll never listen to you. We each have a role. You say, Dr. Brown, I feel pressure. Feel it. Feel it. And then turn that pressure over to the Lord and say, Okay, Lord, what would you have me to do? Because when we come to him, we find rest.

His joke is easy. His burden is light. In other words, he doesn't hit us in the back with a whip. He doesn't fly us and whip us and beat us down. You better obey me or else. No, his commands are not burdensome. 1 John 5. His ways are ways of life, but we are called to obedience. You are the light of the world.

You. Wherever God's put you, he's put you to be the light. So again, there's a carnal pressure that comes on us where you think, I've got to do something. I'm a student in college and I've got to stand up on a chair and preach to everybody and tell the professor you're going to hell. No, that's just carnal pressure that your own mind's putting on you.

There's some oppressive spirits putting on you. But as a child of God, you should start every day and listen to me. You could be home changing diapers. You could be sitting in the White House at the Resolute Desk.

Okay, you could be at any strat of society. But as a follower of Jesus, every day your heart says, Lord, here I am. Send me. Use me.

Lord, here I am. Use me to make a difference in the world in which you put me. If you need someone to stand for what's right, I'm here.

If you need someone to show the love of God to a hurting person, I'm here. You know my frame. You know my strengths. You know my weaknesses. But I'm here not to do my will, but to do your will. You see, I don't have the wisdom. Join the club.

I don't really know how to join the club. There are endless situations that present themselves to us that are above our pay grade. And I personally love that. I embrace it because I say, Lord, this has to be you. Your strength out of my weakness.

Your endless ability out of my inability. Manifest your strength and grace through me. What I'm urging you to do is not look for others to lead the way, not look to others to be the courageous ones, but to say, Lord, here I am. I want to make a difference. And this is what the word says very plainly.

In fact, we're going to look at Ephesians 4 in a moment. But every one of us, for the body to be healthy, every part of the body has to do its part. And we've all experienced it. You may be an athlete, an elite athlete, but you badly stub a toe because of which you can't perform. Because you have to perform at the absolute elite level, but you can't perform because of a stubbed toe. Or you're a brilliant lecturer, but you can't get up and bring your lecture because you've got a throbbing toothache and your whole head is pounding.

You can't think straight. For the body to function right, you need the thumb and all the fingers, you need the pinky, you need the toes, you need the knees and the elbows, you need the nose, the ears, you need all the organs. Each of us plays a part, and each of us plays an important part. Will you step up? You say, God, give me backbone.

Give me courage. I want to be a difference maker. I just want to be neutral, a part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution.

I want to be salt and light, Lord. That's your heart. We will help you. We'll be right back.

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Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to look at Ephesians 4. We're going to take some calls. And if I have time, I'm going to talk about how to keep your sanity in the midst of what could be the craziest election year we've ever had. Yeah, so that's coming your way the rest of this broadcast.

866-34-TRUTH. Just say this quickly, then we go to Ephesians 4. We're talking about getting some backbone. Every one of us standing up, every one of us doing our part. We're not going to effectively shake the world if we have the audience mentality. We're not going to effectively see the Great Commission fulfilled if we have the audience mentality. We're not going to effectively see the things that we prayed for worked out in this world if we have the audience mentality and we just sit back and cheer on others.

We have to get involved in the front lines of where each of us live. Okay, so just very quickly before we go to Ephesians 4. I was teaching in Lafayette, Louisiana area on Saturday, 9 to 3 seminar and then a gathering with leaders at night. I was going to be preaching a couple services Sunday morning. I'd been on the road for eight days, ministering in Dallas-Fort Worth area, teaching, preaching, etc.

Then I was in Louisiana. It was after lunch break, took a quick lunch break, and I said, alright, let's get going again. I said, hey, some of you need to get your blood flowing.

Can you count? They said, yeah. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll just do 100 jumping jacks real quick. Call the pastor up.

He's a bit younger and in real good shape. I said, we'll just do 100 jumping jacks. Everyone was kind of laughing. Some participated, but the older ones began to drop out the further we went. Of course, I picked up the pace the second 50. And then just went straight from there into teaching and answering questions and things. I said, hey, are you a little wondering how at almost 69 years old I can just knock this out and go to teaching without hesitation?

And they were all smiling. I said, healthy eating, healthy eating. I said, I exercised when I was fat, but healthy eating has made the radical lifestyle change.

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Use the code BROWN25. Okay, Ephesians chapter 4. And let's start in verse 9. I'm saying, in saying, he ascended.

What does it mean? But that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth. So, speaking of Jesus here. He who descended is the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. And you know, there's all this debate. Are there apostles today? Are there prophets today?

How does this work itself out? Let's not debate any of that. Apostles, prophets today, let's not think about that right now. Because that's not the emphasis that I want to bring here. Why are they here?

Why are these different ones here? Pastors, teachers, okay. To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. So, the leaders are here to equip the body to do the work of the ministry. There's a church I used to preach at for years in Toms River, New Jersey, where it said here's the senior pastor, here are the elders, deacons, ministers, you. All of you are the ministers. So, the whole purpose of the leadership is to equip the body to equip each of you to do the work of ministry. You're called to be a gospel minister. Regardless of whether you preach behind a pulpit or go to Bible school or get called pastor. All of us in Jesus are called to be ministers of the gospel.

But look at this. To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint by which it is equipped when each part is working properly, making the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. An incredibly deep, complex, Pauline thought there.

But what I want to emphasize is when each part is working properly, you have a part. You have a role. It could be a prayer warrior. It could be a godly example. It could be raising funds for the kingdom. It could be a bold street preacher. It could be a counselor.

It could be someone showing mercy to the hurting. But every one of us has a calling. Every one of us has a role to play. And I cannot be fully healthy in the body if you're not fully healthy. And you can't be fully healthy if I'm not fully healthy because we can be thriving in God individually, but as a body, we need one another. And the world needs us to all do our part.

So, I believe it is God sending me today to remind you, you have a key role to play as the follower of Jesus. Don't look to others to do it. Do what you are called to do. Do the difficult things. Do the hard things.

Do the uncomfortable things and God will give you grace. Alright, that's my exhortation. With that, we go to the phones.

Changing subjects over to David in Wichita, Kansas. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you for taking my call, Dr. Brown. Thank you for the exhortation.

By the way, the Freudian slip at the beginning of the program wasn't inaccurate. This is God's program. I had a question about the black, Hebrew, Israelite teaching.

I pastor a tiny church here in Wichita, but I have a brother who I love. He's black, I'm Hispanic, but he is driving me nuts with the whole Jesus being black, the Israelites being black, and I know that you have addressed it before. There's a few videos here and there that I find on your site and I can't get enough of them, but I'm wondering if maybe you can point me in the right direction about resources because he'll send me videos that honestly is just too much for me to keep up with.

They get into genealogies and ABLE. It's so complicated and it just drives me insane, honestly. Do you know any resources or websites or books that I don't want to spend endless hours on the topic, but at least to get a grasp of what's going on, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a shame that you have to be bothered by this. First thing, let me remind you that you don't have to respond to everything. In other words, people send me scores of videos, I need you to watch this or check this out, or how do you respond to this, Dr. Brown, and they're hours and hours and hours long.

I'll put out one thing. I critique some of the work of a film named Dante Fortson and he puts out like 15, 20 videos attacking what I put out. Look, the truth is truth. The faulty nature of what he was saying gets exposed easily enough, but the point is I'm not going to now respond to his 15 or 30 hours of videos with 100 hours of videos and he'll respond with 3,000 hours of videos.

It's just endless. And if this person is not really open to the truth, if they're not really genuinely sincere and seeking the truth, why are you dealing with them? There are plenty of people you can meet and help. So that's the biggest thing. Is this person really a truth seeker? So the first question I would ask him is, please show me anywhere in the Bible where it says that the color of Yeshua's skin actually mattered.

Let's start there. That the color of the skin of Jesus, that that actually mattered. Now you say, well, if you just make him into a white man, you have misconceptions. Well, if you make him into a black man, you have misconceptions.

That's not the issue because he transcends any of that. I would start there. I would talk about what it means to be in right relationship with God and receive forgiveness through him and not get caught up in some of the weeds. Otherwise, there needs to be more resources on this. There are a few books that are out, but there's something really comprehensive that's been done thus far. So, you know, look at my videos, the fact checks that we did, the videos recruiting others.

Just search for the word black or Hebrew Israelites. Your place to start as we compile more resources. We'll put them out for others. Hey, friends, Michael Brown here. My delight to serve as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. We are living in such urgent times today, friends, that all of us are in the line of fire. There's a target on your back.

There's a target on my back. If you simply seek to live by biblical values or just conservative moral values, you could be canceled. You could be cast out. You could be put down.

You could be silenced. I'm here to say, friends, that I am not about to be silenced, and I don't believe you are either. It is time for us to stand up. It is time for us to say enough is enough. It is time for us to push back in Jesus name, not fighting the way the world fights. No, overcoming evil with good, overcoming hatred with love, overcoming the flesh with the power of the Spirit, overcoming lies with truth. And that's what we're here to do on the line of fire broadcast.

And friends, it's not just a broadcast. It is a movement of people around the world. God's people standing up saying enough is enough and saying, Lord, here we are. Send us, use us. I want to urge you today to join our support team because we are on the front lines together and we are literally touching people around the world in America, in the nations, in Israel. And together with your help, we're going to amplify this voice and spread this movement around the globe. So I encourage you go right now to thelineoffire.org. Thelineoffire.org. Click donate monthly support. Thelineoffire.org. Click donate monthly support.

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Donate monthly support. This is how we rise up. 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. Welcome back, friends, to The Line of Fire broadcast 866-34-TRUTH.

Going back to your calls in a moment. Again, if you don't get our frontline newsletter, so excited, we're about to send out the current one. I really prayed over the message. I really asked the Lord, what would really help? What could I speak that would build you up and encourage you and strengthen you? What can I bring for leaders that would really be helpful? So, I think you'll be blessed by it and some of the testimonies included.

It brings joy to my heart when I read them and great joy to my heart that I get to share them with each of you. So, go to thelineoffire.org. Thelineoffire.org. Right on the home page. You can then click to get those emails coming your way and get the frontline newsletter coming your way.

Before I go back to the phones, 866-34-TRUTH, just to finish up with a couple of comments, David. When you just look in Revelation, the first chapter, which is when John sees the risen Jesus, sees Yeshua, he appears to him, right? And it says, look, his hair was white like wool. And who has hair like wool? That's a black man's hair, not a white man's hair.

You know, a typical Hebrew-Israelite argument. Well, first, it's not what it's saying. It's that his hair was white like wool. It's not talking about the way it felt, that it was more wiry, right? It's talking about the color. It was white like wool.

But if you look there, look at the King James, which they often use. It says, his head and his hair were white. Does that mean there was a white man with his feet like burnished bronze? But his face, his head and his hair were white like wool. Does that mean there's a white? No, it's not saying because his face or his head is white, the color of wool, his feet like burnished bronze, that he's multicolored.

No, this is so glowing, so glorious. That's all it's saying. And it's just interesting if you look at the video where I reviewed the verses. I went through every verse in the Hebrew Bible that mentioned the Israelites being blackened or darkened. And in every case, it was in a negative context through famine, through being burned in the sun, through disease.

It was a negative context. Now, it's not to say that the Israelites were not darker skinned than me. They were, from what we understand. That's not the issue. And if the Israelites look like Africans, that's not an issue to me.

I don't believe they did, but that's not an issue to me. The issue is that the verses that are used to prove blackness, every single one of them is negative. There's something wrong, that's where our skin is discolored and darkened. And then you have other verses like Lamentations 4, your princes were white, like milk. Does that mean that they were Caucasian? That they had skin like albinos, even more so than Caucasians, actually white looking like milk?

No, again, it's just talking about being radiant. So, I could say they were all white based on a misuse of scripture. So, that's not what the Bible is dealing with. Those aren't the issues when it's mentioned in those things. In fact, from what we can tell, differences in color of skin were just not a big issue in the ancient world.

It was ethnicities where the conflicts arose. And, you know, again, if the person that you're dealing with is a sincere seeker, you can help them. Otherwise, just pray for them and you don't need to respond to the nonsense.

You just leave it there. 866-344-TRUTH. Let's go to Kelly in Los Angeles. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi Dr. Brown, thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. I am an Israeli. I can actually read the Hebrew scriptures.

I have accepted Jesus four months ago, which was very hard to do. And I feel like I've been studying non-stop, trying to figure out where did we go wrong? The Jewish Israelites, where did we go wrong?

Why has this been happening to us? Where we have missed the Messiah. And I've been reading and reading, trying to find meaning to all of it. And then I looked at Genesis, and I was really trying to understand the word through.

Through or through. And the meaning of being fruitful. And then I thought about God and the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. And then I thought, well, the word knowing had very specific connotation to it in the Bible, where it was in connotation of becoming fruitful, of having kids. And I thought, what if Adam and Eve had sinned to God, and the fruit, the result of what they've done was Jesus? Jesus was the result of what they've done. And they had to be banished because what they've done was so wrong it was offensive to God.

Before they didn't know they were naked, later they did know they were naked. And that was very offensive to him. So he kept the baby. So the baby was the son of man, which is the son of Adam, Ben Adam. And then God adopted him, so he became the son of God. And then later, he came back in flesh to pay for his parents' sin, which makes total sense. It's the conclusion, a perfect conclusion to the Old Testament, that Jesus was the original sin, and then his flesh had to be punished because of what his parents did. And only through that punishment of flesh, he was able to be resurrected as a pure soul. And all we have to do is to accept his sacrifice and sin no more, and not to offend God anymore. And therefore, the first chapter, the last chapter, it was always about Jesus and what he had to do because he was the only one who could do it.

No one else was the son of Adam. What do you think about that? Well, I think it's fascinating, but wrong, okay? I think it's a very interesting theory that I've never heard anyone else present, and I appreciate your digging into Hebrew and what a perun revu mean, you know, be fruitful and multiply, and you know, what is knowledge and yadda, what does that really mean to know, et cetera. And I appreciate the journey that you're on, but just to be as clear as I can, no, it's definitely not accurate or true.

Let me explain why, okay? First, the big picture, the only way that Yeshua could die for the sins of the world was that he himself was perfect and without blemish, and actually has the divine nature. It says in John 13 that he knew he came from God and was returning to God. He is the living manifestation of God on the earth.

As one rabbi said to me, he's like a walking shekhinah, the very presence of God on the earth. And he says in John 17, he speaks of the glory that he had with the Father before the world began. So, he exists before Adam and Eve were ever created. He exists before the world was ever created.

He is one with his Father. And then he comes into this world through the Virgin Mary, because he is spotless perfect. He's never been born in this world before. He's now born into the world through her. And then as a perfect human being, God in the flesh, dies as our perfect sacrifice.

So, only he could do it because only he is perfect. Whereas Adam and Eve, after they have sinned, their sin was to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, in a state of disobedience, to have things revealed to them that would only be polluting and destructive, and then the first child that they have is Cain, who kills his brother and comes under a curse. So, Cain is not Ben Adam in scripture, you know, the son of Adam in scripture. Rather, Cain is the son of Adam and Eve, Cain in Hebrew, and he murders his brother and comes under divine judgment, and then like everyone else, he dies, and that's the end of his story.

So, where we got... Don't we have a thing in our Bible, as Jews, where children always pay for the sins of their parents? And also, Nicodemus talked to Jesus, and Jesus says, How can you understand heavenly things when you don't even understand, you know, earthly things? The flesh is the flesh, the spirit is the spirit. A child that is born in heaven would be spirit. A child that is born on earth is of flesh. The only way that the spirit can be cleansed is if the flesh is punished, because it was the eighth forbidden fruit, right? So, it was the sin of the flesh. So, when Jesus came in, he had to cleanse the spirit, which he did. He went to the wilderness... No, no, but it says, but scripture says... He stood against the tension, right?

Hang on, just, Kelly, Slichal, just give me one second here, because you wanted my input here. He himself is without sin. He himself was always perfectly righteous. And again, he came from heaven into this earth through Miriam.

He was not here before. If he was the child of Adam and Eve, then he couldn't die for our sins. He himself would be sinful and polluted. That's why he has no earthly father, because he is the son of God. He doesn't inherit the sin of his father, Adam. Cain did, and Cain ended up a murderer, and Cain paid for his sins. But under the law, Deuteronomy teaches it, under the law, the children shall not be put to death, under the Torah, the children shall not be put to death for the sins of the fathers. So, no, the child cannot pay for the sins of the father. And in fact, Ezekiel 18 says explicitly that if the father does wickedly, but then the son repents and does what's right, then the son won't be punished. But then if that son's son does what's wrong, then the son's sons will not inherit the righteousness of his father, he'll be punished accordingly.

Where we got off track. Right, but you just said it. So Jesus basically came to earth in flesh to repent for his parents, and that's why he was forgiven. But also, Adam was created in the image, but Adam was created in the flesh just like God. So God made Adam in his image, which means if God was in the flesh, then Adam would look exactly like him.

Exactly like him. Except that Adam sinned, and in sinning, destroyed the divine image. Adam in sinning, destroyed the divine image.

So Genesis 5 says after the fall that he had sons and daughters in his own image. Hey, Kelly, do you have my book, The Real Kosher Jesus? The Real Kosher Jesus? If not, I want you to tell our call screener. He's going to check with you, and I want to send you the book as a gift. The Real Kosher Jesus.

Thanks. I'm Paul Burnett, a board-certified doctor of holistic health, and I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about the importance of healthy blood flow and how it's enhanced by a miracle molecule known as nitric oxide. You see, blood vessels release nitric oxide, which increases blood flow known as something called vasodilation. At TriVita, we take blood flow seriously for our members, and we've developed a nitric oxide-plus supplement that has been formulated with natural ingredients designed to maximize nitric oxide production in our blood vessels, which increases blood flow. You may be wondering why you don't have as much energy as you used to. One study that I came across revealed that by the age of 40, we only produce about 50% of the nitric oxide production as compared to our 20s, and by the age of 70, the study showed that we're only producing about 15% to 25%.

I have good news. As we age, there's another way for our body to increase nitric oxide production, and that's by converting nitrates and vegetables like beetroot into nitric oxide. Bottom line, with more nitric oxide, we stimulate more blood flow to our vital organs, and we experience more energy while supporting healthy blood pressure. TriVita's nitric oxide-plus has been formulated to increase nitric oxide production and blood flow at every age. To place your order for products to support your wellness goals, call 1-800-771-5584, or online at trivita.com. As a TriVita introductory offer, use promo code BROWN25 and receive a 25% discount on the products of your choice. Call 1-800-771-5584, 800-771-5584. May you live with greater wellness. This is how we rise up. 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. This call reminds me of the importance of the church as a whole understanding Jewish roots of the faith and of Jewish believers understanding the truths of the gospel. And many times when you come to faith as a Jewish person, you don't have a lot of the church traditions, which can be good because a lot of the traditions are mixed or bad.

You don't have a lot of the baggage that comes through just churchianity, but many times you don't have some of the foundations that others might have. So we learn from each other. My book, Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, we're especially featuring this entire month.

It's church history through Jewish eyes, so church history as you never heard it taught in seminary or Bible college or from most pulpits it lays out God's real purposes for Israel, tells the truth about the modern state of Israel, separates fact from fiction, deals with verses that are used to say that the promises God gave to Israel find their fulfillment in the church. You can get a copy for your gift of any size. We really want to get it out to the maximum number of people, the revised updated edition. So to get your copy of Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, call 800-538-5275 your gift of any size and it'll help us in our Jewish outreach. 800-538-5275 or go to thelineoffire.org right on the homepage.

Right on the homepage you will find a listing and you can go ahead and order that for your gift of any size. And for Kelly who's not on the line now, again, the book The Real Kosher, Jesus, Kelly, I think you'd find really helpful. And I'd love to hear more of your testimony in the future and then just try to give some guidance to make sure that you have the foundations laid right and rightly understood. But as a people, as Jewish people, we often got off track. You know, for example, when you're just dealing with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, well, the further you go, the more failings we have. And then when you get into our history, so we're delivered from Egypt and God gives the 10 Commandments, the Serotet de Broth, the 10 words on Mount Sinai and we end up worshiping an idol a little over a month after that.

Like, what? Bringing the very first commandment? And then judgment there, then a whole generation dies in the wilderness and then the period of the judges is marked with all types of idolatry and sin and morality and injustice and then God raises up a king. By the time of Solomon, he's got between wives and concubines a thousand ladies and he himself is now worshiping idols and then you have the next generation, a split and then the northern kingdom destroyed, exiled, then the southern kingdom exiled and in other words, we've had a history of rejecting God as a nation, of rejecting Moses as a nation, rejecting the prophets.

It's only been a remnant through history that's believed so when the Messiah came, we just continued in those same footsteps and it's been a remnant that's believed ever since and thank God for each one part of that remnant. All right, let us go to Richard in Louisiana where I just was over the weekend. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown. Hey. I just had a question about sinning against the body of Christ and the body of Christ being the church and maybe sinning in spiritual high places and how that affects the church. Mm-hmm.

I want you to come. Right, so. For repentance. Oh, okay, so repentance about sinning against the body of Christ, was that the question and then? Sinning against the body of Christ, I'm sorry, and also sinning in spiritual high places. Right.

What do you mean? What do you mean by sinning in spiritual high places? Well, I guess your thoughts are still a sin. Oh, okay.

All right. So, to try to address that, we sin against the body of Christ when we attack each other, wrongly judge each other, defame each other, fail to love, honor, respect each other. Just picture your body gets into a fight with itself and your fist punches your jaw and then your elbow smashes into your leg and then you take a saw and cut off a toe and then in retaliation you kick the eye, whatever crazy stuff. That's what we do to one another in the Lord. So, we sin against the body of Christ when we don't treat one another as family. Now, you might have a friendly difference with someone that's a brother or sister. You might be concerned about the direction of someone's life. You may be burdened to pray for them.

You might say, that's wrong, I don't agree with that. But we sin against each other when we treat each other unworthily. We sin against each other when we cut each other off when we're actually part of the same body. We sin against each other when we show no mercy and compassion and kindness. We sin against each other more actively when we take advantage of each other, when we commit sin against one another. But like every other's sin, Jesus died for those sins.

Like every other's sin, it's paid for with the cross and what we need to do is humble ourselves, ask God to forgive us, wash us clean and then from there ask us, ask God for his heart for the body, for his heart for his people. Yes, we could sin on our thoughts as well. But the same way, we ask God to wash us, to cleanse us and then to help us to renew our minds. I would meditate on passages about the beauty of unity like Psalm 133. I would meditate on passages like John 17. I would meditate on the opening verses of Ephesians 4, speaking about maintaining the unity and the bond of peace and I would say, God, give me your heart for your people. 22 years ago, after enduring a very difficult split and difficult for everyone on all sides of it, I kind of marveled that God helped the people on the other side of the split because we were so right and they were so wrong.

I mean, that was my perception, right? And some of them wondered how God was helping us when they were so right and we were so wrong. It's just as human beings what we do and God spoke to me and said, I'm for both of you and as an obedient son, I want you to have my heart and we might get this bad church, this good church. I want to talk about believers, brothers and sisters in the same body. God's like, you're my kids, you're my kids. We're not talking about heretics. We're not talking about those that deny the fundamentals of the faith and aren't part of the body.

We're talking about those within the body. And thank you for the call. Let's go over to Ty in Kansas City. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown, how's it going? Going well, thank you.

Good. So I'm here in the wonderful family of IHOP out here and I have a couple, I have just pretty much one question. And so I've been here for a couple years now. Wonderful people and I know recently we've been going through a couple of problems and it's really tough out here and so recently for me, looking at the message of repentance and a call for corporate repentance recently, it's brought up some things in my own heart that have kind of caused some questions to come about. And so for me, when I hear a call for corporate repentance amongst all these problems with leadership, it caused me to think about kind of like, isn't that a little bit hypocritical? And so with that, I just wanted to hear your thoughts about that. Yeah, so Ty, my heart goes out to the community there.

I've been trying to help whatever ways I can behind the scenes or publicly since I was asked in November to be involved. I mean, absolutely horrific, very, very serious allegations against Mike Bickel. So shocking to those of us who've known him and thought so highly of him. So I mean, very, very serious accusations have been brought and seemingly very, very credible accusations, but I mean, on a very significant level, not just like a minor error or misstep. I mean, very, very serious accusations dating over a period of many, many years and then other accusations of other things that have happened with others in the community over the decades that still have to be fleshed out and clarified in terms of what actually happened. So because of that, it's only right as the leaders realize that things were more serious than they'd understood or that the charges were more credible than they had understood. It's only right that they've called for corporate repentance and said, okay, we need to mourn.

We need to grieve together. And we as leaders need to repent for where we've fallen short. I don't mean that they've been engaged in that same sexual sin that Mike's been accused of, but wherever we've fallen short as leaders of the community, we repent and we're mourning and we're encouraging everyone, now's the time to search your own hearts. Those are my words.

I haven't read the actual statement, but I know when I hear an accusation about serious sin with another leader and it's a credible accusation from what I can tell, the first thing I do is I instantly feel this tremendous grief for the Lord. This is his family. This is his body. This is his name. So I feel this tremendous grief. That's the first thing.

And of course I pray for those involved, but then I immediately search my own heart. Is there something unclean in me? Is there something wrong in me? Is there something compromised in me? Is there some flesh in me? Is there something somewhere displeasing, harmful in your sight?

So I always take it as an opportunity to search my own life for fresh and get low. And I think that's what leaders at IHOP are doing right now. Hey friends, we'll take up the subject probably tomorrow out of maintained sanity in the midst of crazy election year. Oh, and a fascinating interview on Wednesday about Jesus and politics. You don't want to miss that.