How Did Isaiah Hear the Voice of God?

So how did the ancient prophets of Israel actually hear the voice of God? 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. Thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

It is great to be with you. We're going to dig into the Hebrew scriptures. We're going to respond to some recent charges against Israel and we'll take your Jewish related calls. Any Jewish related question of any kind, give me a call. 866-34-TRUTH. 866-348-7884.

If it's Jewish related, Hebrew related, Jewish background to the New Testament, Messianic prophecy related, having to do with the modern state of Israel, maybe some current dispute of Hebrew Israelites, stuff like that. Give me a call. 866-34-TRUTH. I just got a note that we have gotten the highest number of subscriptions to our emails and our history in the last two months because of the Frontline newsletter and the tremendous interest in this brand new publication. I can't wait to put the March newsletter together for you.

I already know one amazing Jewish testimony that's going to be in there that will really bless you and a lot of other great material or Hebrew word study of the month and then a lead message to encourage, bless, strengthen you. So by all means, if you're not getting the Frontline newsletter and our weekly email updates, go to thelineoffire.org. Go there right now.

Don't put it off unless you're driving. Thelineoffire.org and when you're there, sign up right on the home page. I recently did an interview for a brother on the intranet and he's not a cessationist, but he doesn't hold to my same views or all the same views about gifts of the Spirit today. And he asked me the question, how do I believe the prophets heard the voice of God? How do I believe the prophets in Israel heard the voice of God?

And then that might tie over with how we believe we hear the voice of God today or those of us who believe that God still gives prophetic words or still speaks how we heard the voice of God today. Now in the late 70s, early 80s, that was the time when I really question a lot of my Pentecostal roots having come to faith in a Pentecostal church in 1971. That was a time when I read cessationist books, B.B.

Warfield's book, Counterfeit Miracles, or Robert Gromacki's book, The Modern Tongues Movement. I read books like that and I was very skeptical of the things of the Spirit. I was questioning a lot of things, whether they were true or not. And I was actually trying to convince myself that cessationism was true, but I couldn't.

I'm not speaking for anyone else except myself. I could not convince myself it was true even when I was trying to. And I just found the arguments weak and the scriptures even more plainly, I saw the scriptures as just being too clear, saying that these things were for today and were to continue. But during that time, when I was questioning, skeptical, or saying, okay, these things are for today, but I question a lot of what I see in the broader charismatic Pentecostal church, how real it is, et cetera. I happened to teach a class on the prophets of Israel, an adult Sunday school class, going through different prophetic books. That prepared me for an outpouring of the Spirit because the prophets would get gripped by God. The prophets would be moved on by God.

And that got my attention. The way that God moved on the prophets and the unusual thing that the Holy Spirit did got my attention and helped prepare me for an outpouring of the Spirit that I experienced and that touched our church back then, late 80s, excuse me, late 82, early 83. But at that same time, as I was studying the prophets, I began to ask a question, how did the prophets hear the voice of God? How did the prophets hear the voice of God? I always had assumed that the prophets heard the audible voice of God all the time. Now, they may have gotten a dream or a vision.

That's one thing, right? A dream or a vision. So in a dream, something happens and they may hear God speaking then or see something and then get an interpretation to the message or a vision where they're awake, but they see something as if it's a dream. They see something that's super real or beyond reality. They see that, okay.

But what about hearing a message? The word of the Lord came to me saying I had always just taken for granted that they heard the audible voice of God all the time. Now, maybe that's the case. I can't prove it's not the case.

Maybe it's the case. But I began to wonder, you do have instances where they clearly heard a voice, right? Samuel, the boy in 1 Samuel 3, hears the voice of the Lord calling. Samuel, Samuel. And he thinks it's Eli. Three times he gets up and says, Eli, you call and I didn't call you. And Eli realizes, well, that's the voice of God. So Samuel heard a voice.

All right. At least to him, it sounded audible. So that's clear. Or in the book of Revelation, the first chapter, the apostle John hears a voice sounds like a trumpet.

He turns, it literally says he turns to see the voice that was speaking. It's that emphatic. It's that clear. It's that definite.

It's that indisputable. He hears it thundering. But I found it very interesting that some of the prophets used other language.

For example, Isaiah in the fifth chapter, he and the 22nd chapter, there's a very concise phrase in Hebrew. And it was revealed in my ears. Or, the Lord of hosts was revealed in my ears. And it made me wonder, is it speaking of hearing through the inner ear? Is it that they heard the voice of God speaking inside? Was it always the external voice? Or Mount Sinai, God speaking thunderously in a way that terrifies the Israelites?

And the whole mountain is shaking. And he speaks. Was it always an audible voice? Or was it that something was revealed in their ear, meaning in their inner ear? So they heard it.

They heard it, and it was real to them, but it was not an external voice. So that got me over to Isaiah chapter 50. Isaiah chapter 50, beginning in verse 4. Isaiah 50, beginning in verse 4. So I'm going to quote it to you in Hebrew and then translate it into English. So, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learner or the tongue of disciples. To enable me to comfort the weary with the word. He awakens in the morning. He awakens my ear in the morning to hear, to listen like the learner, like disciples. Then it says, the Lord God has opened my ear. And I was not rebellious.

I did not turn backwards. So, is he saying there that God sensitized his hearing? He's definitely saying that. Is he saying that he learned to hear the voice of God through his inner ear?

Now, here's the thing. You can hear something thundering inside of you loudly and clearly, right? A warning, a shout, don't, don't, don't do this. And it's just as real as something outward. And even if it's an outward voice, you still have to discern whether it's the voice of God. In other words, Satan can speak with an audible voice. Just because someone hears an audible voice doesn't mean that it's the voice of God, right?

Still has to be discerned. Still has to be tested by scripture. But as I began to meditate on that and then consider other scriptures, it struck me that there's no reason why God could not have spoken with a clear internal voice.

So not just my thoughts, I've got a bunch of things in my mind. But no, when something rises up inside of you and you know you've heard the Lord, when something rises up inside of you and the witness of the Spirit is there, and that sense of the presence of God is there, and it seemed at least for sure the prophet could hear what other people didn't hear, right? Like Saul on the road to Damascus and he has this encounter with the risen Lord Jesus with Yeshua, that he heard and the others didn't. Either they heard a sound and didn't know what the sound was or they heard, he heard a voice and they didn't hear anything.

But either they heard, didn't understand, or they didn't hear. We know in John 12 the crowd hears thunder, but Jesus knows it's the voice of God speaking, so he hears what the Father's actually saying, others hear thunder. For sure the prophets heard what others didn't hear. That's what made them prophets. They heard the voice of the Lord.

So Ezekiel could be a room full of people. His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth as per Ezekiel 3 26. His tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth and he can't speak. He's unable to speak unless the Lord speaks through him because Israel was so evil. He had encountered the glory of God.

He had encountered the glory and splendor and holiness of God in the first chapter of the book. And then God gives him a message and it's a message of lamentation and woe and judgment he's going to speak. And then he sees the sinfulness of his people and he sits there devastated for a week.

He doesn't say anything. Just overwhelming, bitter in spirit. And God says to him, your tongue is going to cleave to the roof of your mouth and you're not going to go around as a mochiach, as a rebuker and reprover of the people because it's a wicked people. In other words, Ezekiel you're going to be tempted to rebuke Israel day and night. Rebuke the Judean exiles day and night as you sit there in Babylon because you've encountered the holiness of God and you see the sinfulness of the people.

So your tongue is going to cleave to the roof of your mouth. You're not going to be able to say anything unless I speak. And then when you speak, you say, this is what the Lord says. So Ezekiel could be in a room full of people. The elders of Israel just sitting there. He can't say anything. They're just sitting there. Maybe they're talking to him.

He's just listening. And suddenly he hears the Lord and he speaks. So the others don't hear the Lord.

He does as a prophet. So if he heard an audible voice, they didn't hear it. But it could well be he heard the internal voice of God. That really ministered to me because if God could give specific information through an internal voice and specific words, that same internal voice of God can speak to us. In other words, it does not have to be an audible voice. I've never heard the audible voice of God, but I've heard the inner voice of God speaking many, many a time over the decades. And as you walk with the Lord, your ear gets more and more in tune to recognize that voice. And I believe it's something that the prophets themselves could attest to.

All right. 866-348-784. We'll get to your Jewish-related calls.

And I want to interact with some recent charges against Israel. This is Michael Ellison, founder of TriVita Wellness. I want to introduce our TriVita, Alfred Libby, original patented sublingual B12, B6, and folate formula. I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Alfred Libby, a pioneer in vitamin research. I also had the opportunity to obtain the patented formula, and the rest is history, with over 50 million tablets being taken by our TriVita members through the years. The amazing testimonies of mental clarity, mood enhancement, and more energy have been thrilling to me as a founder of TriVita Wellness. Not only is it an amazing B12 product, but it is loaded with the essential B6 vitamin. I call it the workhorse vitamin. It is vital for strong immune function and every body system. Here's what the National Center for Biotechnology Information says, and I quote, it plays a key role and is crucial to immune function.

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As a new customer, 100% of your order proceeds from your first order will go to support the Line of Fire radio broadcast. 1-800-771-5584 or online at trivita.com. 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, welcome to the Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. If you've got a Jewish related question, 866-34-TRUTH. By the way, just a reminder that to be fair to other callers is some days we'll be opening up the phones, we're just slammed with calls and we don't just like to talk to the same person over and over again at the exclusion of others. So if you do call in and you get on the air, so it's one thing if you never get on, you're on hold and you never get on, you call the next day.

That's fine. But if you do get on and speak to me, we ask you to wait at least three weeks before you call back because if you do call back, maybe it's a different call screener that day and they may not realize it. They'll tell you, hey, you just need to call back.

So if you happen to be on hold and haven't been interviewed yet by the call screener and you call within three weeks, you can just hang up and call when the time's up. Obviously, you understand why we do that. And for fairness, before I go to the phones, I want to read something to you.

A pastor who's got a great heart for Israel sent this to me earlier. Someone's been really harassing him with these posts. And I'm not going to mention the individual's name.

There's no purpose to it. He's not like some known leader. I have no clue who the person is. But he says this, Israeli tanks and snipers massacred, so it's all caps, massacred over 100 starving, defenseless Palestinian refugees, injured over 700 more this morning while they were waiting for trucks to deliver food and other humanitarian aid. It is indisputable that this is a war crime atrocity of epic proportions by the genocidal sociopaths who run Israel's current government and the IDF.

The most disturbing part is that American Christian Zionists will support it, even celebrate it, while waving around the satanic hexagram, Star of Refound, a symbol used in worship of Moloch who demands child sacrifice, see Act 743, because they've been brainwashed to believe Genesis 12-3 means they have to bless whatever Israel does because it's God's chosen people, despite the vast majority of Israeli Jews, including every prime minister being Ashkenazi, which really not the sentence of Abraham per every genetic study. So it's hard to pack more falsehood, hard to pack more nonsense, hard to pack more factually, easily refutable information in two paragraphs, hard to do that. I mean, you talk about having more errors than words, aside from the gross horrific exaggerations, it's point after point after point that's false. First, there was no intentional massacre. There was a disaster in terms of food delivery and crowds and Israeli soldiers feeling that they were threatened and shooting. There were definitely civilian casualties. It's definitely definitely a tragedy and Israel is investigating to see exactly what happened.

Okay, so that's the first thing. It's not a massacre. Listen, if Israel wanted to massacre the people of Gaza, it could have and would have done that with the greatest of ease immediately after October 7th. Just with bombing and not lost a single soldier, instead of the many, many Israeli soldiers that have been killed because they're trying to carry out this war against Hamas and minimize civilian casualties. But if they wanted to just wipe out the people of Gaza, they'd do it overnight, okay?

They have the military power and the people of Gaza, Hamas could not stop that from happening. That's number one. Number two, when things like this do happen, there are thorough investigations and if Israel acted wrongly, people will be held accountable.

That's the second thing. The third thing is the idea that Christian Zionists would rejoice over this. I support Israel as a follower of Jesus, as a lover of the word of God, as a lover of justice and other things. I support Israel. I support Israel's right to exist. I support Israel's right to wage war against Hamas. If something like this, I'm just learning about this, I haven't been able to do a deep dive and study what we know, but if something like this happens, it's tragic, it's tragic, it's horrific. Palestinian blood is just as precious in God's sight as Israeli blood.

I've said that over and over. Immediately when the war began, I said publicly as loudly as I could, we need to pray for the Palestinians because the nature of this with Hamas so embedded within the population and so much of the population sympathetic to Hamas and with weapons being stored in kindergarten classrooms or buildings and tunnels, Hamas headquarters, under hospitals and on and on. You know that no matter what Israel does to minimize civilian casualties, that more Palestinians are going to die than Israelis.

That's reality. More Palestinians are going to die than Israelis die on October 7th and that's tragic. And Israel in certain ways could do better. As much as it makes massive efforts more than other armies in history, more than the allies did in World War II, more than America did in the Gulf War or anything like that in terms of making efforts to avoid civilian casualties, Israel's gone above and beyond with that.

But let's just say they have done things wrong, which I'm sure they have. I don't rejoice in that. I'm not glad to hear it. I'm not glad to hear about Palestinian children being killed. I don't know a single supporter of Israel, a Christian supporter of Israel, who's a genuine Christian that is happy to hear about civilians dying, especially children, women, elderly. I don't know anyone that's happy to hear that when they hear it among Palestinians.

And many of my friends in Israel call Israel to do the very best it can and to do even better to protect the civilians while waging war on Hamas. But, I mean, everything else in here that they celebrate it, what kind of garbage is that? Or that the Star of David is actually the satanic hexagram star of a REMFOM mentioned in Acts 743. Bogus, bogus, bogus. Or that Ashkenazi Jews are not genetically Jewish. The fact of the matter is the one study, major Israeli study, that tried to argue that Ashkenazi Jews were actually not genetically Jewish was so completely debunked by geneticist after geneticist after geneticist. You can even go to Wikipedia if you want.

You know what I'm saying? If you had no scholarly background. And just read there how the study of Al-Haq were just completely demolished as bad, bad, bad, bad. And how much strong evidence there is for genetic origins of Ashkenazi Jews, Middle Eastern, Israeli origins of Ashkenazi Jews, etc. And then, of course, with intermarriage, that's why I'm white and that's why, as I said, black Jews, intermarriage there, Asian Jews, intermarriage there.

That happens. But you can trace in so many cases genetically right back to the ancient Middle East. But here's the thing, it's inflammatory and people will believe it. The fact that it's all bogus, that every major point raised is completely bogus, what does that have to do with anything when people don't care about truth?

Was it the Winston Churchill quote or quote attributed to him that, that a lie has gone halfway around the world before the truth's got its pants on? So we'll keep putting the truth out though. We will continue to put the truth out. We will continue to overcome evil with good and darkness with light in the name of Jesus Yeshua. And recognizing that it is God Himself who has preserved the Jewish people against all odds, God Himself who brought the Jewish people back to the land of Israel, God Himself who continues to preserve the nation of Israel, even against the hatred of the world. It is God Himself who will bring to pass His purposes for Israel and a Jewish Jerusalem will welcome the Messiah back. To all the anti-Semites, to all the Jew haters, to all those who demonize Israel, and to the Christians who say God is finished with Israel, remember, Jesus is coming back to to Jerusalem for a reason.

Not any other city, Jerusalem. And to all the anti-Semites, it's going to be a bad day when the one coming in the clouds of heaven is a glorified Jew. 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.

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Donate monthly. 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 to The Line of Fire. By the way, just looking at one headline here on times of Israel, a dozen killed in Gaza aid stampede. IDF says its fire, meaning gunfire, caused no more than 10 casualties. Hamas was told that 104 blames Israel could suspend hostage talks. IDF more casualties were trampled or run over.

Troops did not fire on crowds. Shot at several Gazans who endangered them. There's actually photographs of everything, seeing what happened. They're saying food was being delivered. People swarmed. There was a stampede. People died. Then the soldiers were endangered. They shot at those endangering them. But of course, the story will be out. Israel massacres in cold blood over 100 people, and that story will go around the world. I regret any civilian casualties here, but let's get the whole story. Let's find out exactly what happened. Before I go to the phones, many of you know the calling I received to reach out and resist in terms of the moral and cultural issues of the day. This is 20 years ago. Reach out to those who identify as LGBTQ.

Then it was the T word wasn't so strong. Reach out to the community with compassion. Reach out to the people with compassion. Resist the agenda with courage.

So that's been a large calling. Reach out and resist. Reach out to the people with compassion. Resist the agenda with courage. That calling to reach out and resist is part of a large calling in my life.

For example, when it comes to the Jewish people in Israel, I'm called to reach out to the Jewish people with the good news of Messiah. We just released an amazing video. People are loving it. It's a new argument for the resurrection of Yeshua, another way to argue it for religious Jews to see it and recognize the validity of the claims.

Powerful, animated video. We're putting out these resources that are being used around the world by different ministries. We're putting these out day and night. So we're reaching out to the people. At the same time, we are resisting the lies of anti-Semitism, resisting the lies of Jew hatred on the front lines, pushing back on the one hand, reaching out on the other hand. I invite you to be part of this amazing effort. I invite you to be part of reaching Jewish people with the good news of the Messiah. We're on the front lines doing the research, doing the week, putting out the resources, doing the work, and touching lives directly, and then helping mentor and disciple those that are in the midst of outreach.

We're doing that and then pushing back against the lies that are spreading that can destroy and hurt so many. It's a great team effort. We do it together with your help. So join with us. Become a torch bearer. Become a monthly supporter.

One dollar a day or more is all it takes. And the resources we pour back into you are worth 10 times, 100 times that. So we trust you'll be blessed as you help us bless others.

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Let us start with Bob in Massachusetts. Welcome, sir, to the Line of Fire. Hello again, Dr. Brown. I just talked to you last week. Hang on, hang on. I thought so. Hey, guys, just make sure as your screen calls, nobody within three weeks just reminded us. Sometimes we have different folks. Bob, I hate to be impolite, but I just reminded everybody of our rules, right? So this would be fair so we get to other calls. So Bob didn't mean to be rude, but you can search for your question on our website.

If you don't get an answer, as long as you wait three weeks, we're glad to take your call again. All right, let's go over to Jonathan in Jackson, Mississippi. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, Dr. Brown.

Hey. I got this book by this prophet lady named Leslie Johnson about Shekinah, and she says that Shekinah is actually a female demonic entity that comes from the mystical writings of the rabbis from around the time of the Babylonian captivity. And I was just wondering if you'd ever heard of such a thing. The specific wording of that is a little different than I've heard. No, the Shekinah in Hebrew, Shekinah, just means the manifest presence of God or the presence of God on earth. It does not go back to Babylonian captivity, in other words, 2,500 years ago, 2,600 years ago. It's after that, but it comes from the Hebrew word shachan. The Hebrew word shachan means to dwell or to tabernacle. So, for example, in Exodus 25, God says to Israel through Moses, and have them make for me a sanctuary, a holy place, and I will dwell in their midst.

If you hear that word, I will dwell in their midst. That's where Shekinah comes from. So, Shekinah simply means the presence of God on earth.

In rabbinic Judaism, it then developed in different ways. In other words, it was seen as carrying some of the motherly aspects of God. You know, the passages of God where he likens himself to a nursing mother caring for children, that it likened the Shekinah to the motherly aspects of God. And then there may be some odd mystical developments and teachings, but when we talk about Shekinah in English or Shekinah in Hebrew, we just mean the manifest presence of God, the manifest presence of God on the earth, or the visible presence of God at times, like on Sinai, but otherwise just God coming in a manifest way. Like Pentecost, it doesn't use that word in Acts 2, but that would be a perfect example of the Shekinah, of the Shekinah glory, of God coming in a tangible way.

Times of revival, you would say that the Shekinah, the Shekinah glory was truly there. The idea that it's some demonic concept, just throw it out. Don't worry about it at all. Okay, thank you, Dr. Brown.

You are very, very welcome. Now let me just say this. If you delve deep enough into Jewish mysticism, you'll find some very odd concepts and concepts that would strike us as very bizarre, and some concepts that might even strike us as demonic. So it's not to say that within some aspects of Jewish mysticism, some very odd or even weird things are said about the Shekinah. But when we talk about the Shekinah, when I do as a Messianic Jew, or when a Pentecostal Christian talks about the Shekinah glory, we're talking about something beautiful and wonderful. And I have personally used the concept of the Shekinah, the presence of God on the earth, to help a Jewish person understand the nature of God as we grasp the nature of God, his triunity or his complex unity. For example, a traditional Jew would believe that God sits enthroned in heaven, that he's not in a physical or spiritual body, but as a spirit. But he sits enthroned in heaven, and certainly his presence fills the universe, and yet there is the manifest presence on earth, the Shekinah. In Jewish tradition, the Shekinah is called the matronit, so again, that's the feminine aspects of God. And the Shekinah in Jewish tradition, this is not in the Bible, but in Jewish tradition, the Shekinah goes into exile with the people of Israel. So there is some disjuncture, some disruption within the nature of God, and there are actually some Hasidic Jews who pray daily for the reunification of the Holy One.

That, in other words, as Israel returns from exile, then God experiences a wholeness in a certain way. Again, these are meant to be mystical concepts, not physical concepts. But I've talked about the Shekinah. I remember asking an Orthodox Jewish bookstore owner once, is the Shekinah God?

Well, it's a yes and no kind of answer. The Shekinah is not all there is of God, yet the Shekinah is the divine presence. And what does it say in John 1.14? And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. In Hebrew, if it was written in Hebrew, it would use that verb Shachan. The Greek verb uses the equivalent, it tabernacled among us.

The ancient tabernacle in Israel was called the Mishkan. So Colossians 2.9, that the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Yeshua. The fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Yeshua. Yeah, so that's something really remarkable. A rabbi I was talking to about this many years ago, we were sitting in a deli together.

If I remember, it was Phil's kosher deli on Long Island. And as I was talking to him about who Jesus was, he said, he was kind of like a walking Shekinah. It's like, yes, yes. Of course, he didn't believe that, but he got the concept. So he is God, but he does not exhaust all there is of God, because the Father remains enthroned in heaven. And even as you had the manifest presence of God in the Mishkan, so the actual presence of God could be there when the tabernacle was dedicated in Exodus 40, Moses and the priest couldn't even enter to minister in it, because of the presence of God being so real and being so thick, right? So on the one hand, you have that reality, and yet the Ruach, the spirit moving all over the earth, and then in another dimension, God saying, for example, Jeremiah 23, don't I fill heaven and earth? And then in another dimension, God sitting enthroned in the highest heaven, so God is complex in his unity.

He can be among us in a tangible earthly way, even come in a visible bodily form like in Genesis 18, or through the incarnation, while his Ruach moves all over the world, the spirit moves all over the world, and he sits enthroned in heaven all at one and the same time, because he is complex in his unity. So Shekhinah has been something very beautiful that I've been able to use and others have been able to use before me and after me to help Jewish people understand some of our beliefs about the nature of God. Okay, Warren, you are up next on the other side of the break.

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As a new customer, 100% of your order proceeds from your first order will go to support the Line of Fire radio broadcast. Call 1-800-771-5584, 1-800-771-5584, or online at trivita.com. 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 to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Much appreciation to our co-sponsor, Trivita, along with you, our monthly supporters, and those who donate one time. Thanks for helping us reach the maximum audience here.

If you're looking for some great healthy supplements, health supplements, then the place that we go is trivita.com. All right, and if you go there, use the code BROWN25 if you go. All right, let's go over to, or we go to upstate New York to Warren. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown.

How are you doing? I'm going to try to condense my question, and then I'm going to get off the phone and let you answer. I'm reading Hebrews 8, and it's pretty much like a midrash on Jeremiah 31-31. And I know there's divergent views on who's being addressed there in Hebrews verses 7-8. Some say it's the Jews, some say it's the church.

And I mean, there's supersessionists who try to say that God's completely done to the Jews. Question, if the passage does include grafted in members of the Commonwealth of Israel, number one, who's being addressed, and if it includes the grafted in members, what are the parameters of their inclusion and what may they claim hold to and what may they not? Second question, Hebrews 8-13 states that the former covenant is getting dissolved and getting ready to pass away. Has this been fully accomplished, or are there aspects that await future fulfillment? Basically, it all boils down to what is the proper understanding of Hebrews 8 in relationship to Jeremiah 31-31?

Got it. All right, I love the questions and very clearly laid out. Okay, so number one, Jeremiah 31 verses 31-34, those are the verses of the new covenant that God's going to make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. So, as Jeremiah prophesies, it's a future thing. They've broken the Sinai covenant, the temple's being destroyed, they're going into exile, but it doesn't end there. God's going to make a new and better covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. He's going to write his laws on the people's hearts and remember their sins no more. So, there's going to be complete obedience and complete forgiveness. All right, that's Jeremiah 31-34.

Interestingly, that's the longest passage quoted in full in the New Testament, as was just referenced, quoted in Hebrews 8 in full, and then in part in Hebrews chapter 10. So, if there's any idea that the new covenant meant a new people and that this new people would displace the old people, first notice that the covenant is made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which clearly means the people of Israel, not Gentiles there, number one. Number two, verses 35-37 in Jeremiah, which follow immediately after that, God categorically says, no matter what Israel does, as long as heaven and earth are still here, God will never reject them as a people. He will still preserve them and keep them as a people.

So, the idea that they have been displaced by someone else, Jeremiah counters that before the objection ever comes up, before anybody even raises it. All right, number three, the new covenant was made, was instituted by Yeshua at the last supper and then with his death on the cross. So, it begins with, and Hebrews 8 is addressing Jewish believers as Jews who are now in the new covenant, and the temple was still standing from what we know when Hebrews is written, Hebrews is written before the destruction of the temple, and therefore, the final vestiges of the old covenant expression, the Sinai covenant, were coming to an end. So, that's why Hebrews says they're fading and about to be obsolete, replaced by a new and better covenant. All right, now, how does that then apply to Gentiles? Well, through the Messiah, they're grafted into the larger people of God. They are not required to live as Jews.

They are not required to be circumcised. They're not required to live out the new covenant commandments that pertain specifically to Israel as a renewed Israel in the Messiah, but they have equal rights. So, a Gentile Christian does not have to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, does not have to keep the dietary laws. This was something the early church ruled on very clearly, but they have equal status.

A Gentile follower of Jesus has exact equal status in terms of being equally loved, equally saved, equally forgiven, equally redeemed, and with equal potential being used, although each one may have a different function and calling, like men and women may have different functions and callings. Within the new and better covenant, we see what it lays out through the New Testament writings. Now, we see what that new covenant means, and we are living in the transition age. We live in the transition age where we have experienced the realities of the new covenant and having our sins eternally forgiven, having the guilt forever removed, and having the laws of God written in our hearts, but it has not yet been fully realized. We still struggle with sin on a certain level.

We still have a fight with the flesh on a certain level. We're still in a fallen world. When the nation of Israel as a whole is redeemed, we will fully come into the realities of the new covenant, at which point in our resurrected bodies we will never sin again and see the reality of that covenant worked out in our lives in utterly glorious ways.

Right now, we are still in that transition age. The Messiah has come, but the fullness of the Messianic redemption for the whole world has not yet come. So, are there vestiges of the Sinai covenant that continue? Well, we don't need blood sacrifices. We don't need a physical temple. We don't need physical priesthood. But, nowhere does it say that the calendar of Israel would change or that the seventh-day Sabbath would change. In other words, there are things that were distinctives in terms of God's calling on Israel as a nation that continue. And as God lays those things on our heart for a Jewish believer, if you were saved, you used to observe seventh-day Sabbath, now you come to faith.

Well, don't throw it out. Just observe it in the life of the Spirit. And it's not that you're obligated to, if you had pepperoni pizza, that you're now sinning against God because you had pork. But if God lays it on your heart, you feel, you know, I identify with my people with the dietary laws.

I understand it doesn't affect my spirit. Well, praise God. Wonderful. Fine.

But it's as it's written on our heart and as it's laid out in the New Testament writings. All right, thank you for the question. I hope that answered. And let's go over to Sean, who is the Sean in Baltimore, Maryland. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown.

Thanks for taking my call. My question is about the war policy in Israel. And I just am unclear as to if are we saying that this war that's being conducted is being conducted similarly to the way the wars were conducted during the monarchy?

Oh no, of course not. Because we put Israel in the biblical context. And I understand that. I know that God's covenants with Israel are everlasting. But I don't understand how they actually fit in the way God dealt with the monarchy and the war policies.

Because we seem to conflate the two. Right, so let me do my best to answer that. And thank you, sir, for calling that. Time is short, so I'm going to do my best to answer. Number one, I'm 100% sure, based on scripture and the reality of things, that God brought the Jewish people back to the land and that the land has been promised to the Jewish people. And it's been our one and only eternal homeland.

That's one thing. Second thing, I care about justice and what's best for the Palestinians as well. In other words, I do not want to see the Palestinians suffer so that Israel can be blessed.

I believe that everyone can be blessed side by side if Palestinian terrorists would stop trying to wipe out Israel and the Jewish people. But when it comes to the actual war, I'm not arguing for this on theological grounds. If America suffered something like this, the population of Jewish people in Israel, compare it to the United States, if America suffered something like this, it would be like the atrocities and the horrors of 9-11 about 17 times in the same day, all right, with, what, 3,000 people taken hostage, and the most horrific acts of terror, far beyond 9-11 in terms of just wiping people out. This is torture, burning babies alive, raping and mutilating women in front of their families, on and on and on.

Mind-boggling atrocities. If that was done to America, you better believe we'd be fighting back with every bit of intensity as Israel. And if this was any other nation on the planet other than Israel, people wouldn't be messing with them. Jewish soldiers are dying every day because Israel is not just dropping bombs everywhere, just trying to wipe everybody out. They're trying to destroy the terrorists who since 2006 Hamas has been the elected government of Gaza. Hamas has one main goal when it comes to Israel and Jewish people, wipe them out.

Hamas leaders have said we're going to keep doing October 7th over and over and over until there's no more Israel. That's what Israel is fighting against. And the whole world should be standing with Israel and saying let's work together to do and saying let's work together to destroy the evil of Hamas.

Let's get those hostages released. Instead the whole world or much of the world stands against Israel and says how dare you do what you're doing because innocent Palestinians are dying. Ultimately innocent Palestinians are dying because of the terrorism of Hamas. Israel is seeking simply to defend itself against a horrific enemy. It's not doing it perfectly but that's what it's doing. I'm not saying this is like King David fighting his enemies and just wipe them out. Israel is fighting evil terror. May Israel succeed in its mission and may innocent Palestinians be spared. Thank you sir for your call.