A Messianic Rabbi and the Unseen Realm and a Professor on the Death of Humanity

I'm about to talk to a messianic rabbi about the supernatural realm, the unseen realm. No. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, we're going to have a great broadcast today on the line of fire in a few moments.

I'm going to be joined by Messianic Jewish leader Jonathan Bernes. But first I need to give an important personal Update Friday. I was in Dallas, Texas. I was getting radio, getting ready for what I was going to be doing on radio that day. On our Friday show, you've got questions, we've got answers.

And saw an email, I had missed the phone call somehow, saw an email from Nancy that my mom, Rose, had gone into cardiac arrest. And when I got on the phone with the folks at the nursing home where my mom is, she was gone at that point, 94 years old. I don't think we thought we'd see her live that long. She didn't suffer. She remained herself with her sarcastic sense of humor and absolute unselfish love for me and for my sister Melissa.

So I fly up to New Jersey after the show today. And then I recorded earlier today a special broadcast for tomorrow. At this very moment, tomorrow, I should be at the funeral service. In New Jersey at the cemetery in New Jersey with our younger daughter Megan, able to come along with me and my sister and her.

Son as well, and then some other friends and relatives hopefully will be there as well from the area. And you just do a lot of reflecting at a time like this. Couldn't have asked for a better scenario in terms of her not suffering and going quickly. I last saw her Wednesday morning. She had to sign some documents.

It's just hard for her to write. And we were the lawyer and I just kind of smiling, just things I had to get signed over, power of attorney and living well, and things like that. And I just grabbed her hand, her real, real frail hand wrist, and just kissed her hand and then said, I'm going to be going to Dallas for a couple of days, Dallas and Florida.

So we got the word Friday morning. And I immediately canceled the weekend of ministry with regret. Speaking at a Messianic conference Friday night, Saturday morning at a church in Jacksonville, Sunday morning, Sunday night.

So I had to cancel that out immediately and fly right back home. And, you know, a time like that, you appreciate family more than ever. You appreciate the closeness you have, you appreciate the shortness of life, you appreciate the importance of making this life count. And the thought of my mom. Being In the world to come.

being in this place with the Lord. And I sincerely hope with my dad as well. You know, it's unreal. But it is real. It is real.

And I want you to think of this. We were all in our mother's womb at some point. We were all in our mother's wombs for the first nine months of our existence. That seems completely impossible. It's utterly and completely impossible to even conceive of such a thing, but that was the reality.

And that was our existence. And forever, we're going to be with the Lord in a place of perfect peace and joy. and eternal purpose For our Father's glory, how utterly Absolutely. Extraordinary.

So I look forward to seeing my mom again, but it won't be in this world. And how appropriate that I'll be joined momentarily by Messianic Jewish leader Jonathan Burness. A rabbi looks at the supernaturalist, his brand new book, a revealing look at angels, demons, miracles, heaven, and hell. What an appropriate day to be talking to my friend Jonathan.

So we'll be right back with that. And if you say, hey, what can we do? A place to send flowers or reach out to a loved one. Reach out to a loved one. Let them know during this holiday season how important they are to you.

And if you've got broken relationships, make them right. You'll be glad that you did. We'll be right back. Around the new sign, shaking this time, change the world. Change the world we want, for fire we please.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-342. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire today. One of my dear Messianic Jewish colleagues is. Jonathan Burnes. He's the host of the Jewish Voice broadcast. He's had the privilege of preaching the good news of the Messiah in the former Soviet Union in Latin America and seeing many thousands of Jewish people respond, come to faith in Jesus the Messiah.

And he's written a new book. A rabbi looks at the supernatural, a revealing look at angels, demons, miracles, heaven. And hell.

So, as a messianic believer, Jonathan shares his perspective on angels, demons, occult sin, suffering, healing, and miracles. And it's not just doctrine, it's stories, it's illustrations, and it's always done in a sober-minded way.

So, Jonathan, great to have you on the line of fire today. Thanks so much for joining us. Michael, it's great to be with you. And let me just begin by expressing my condolences on the loss of your mother. You'll see her again.

We'll all see her. And rejoicing with that. But we're all praying for you and your family. You're a Jewish voice. I just want you to know that.

Well, thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate it. I appreciate the personal note you'd sent as well. You know, I was going through some of my mom's stuff last night and looking at old pictures and things like that, and then looking at pictures of me when I was a little boy, and then our kids when they were little, and our grandkids, our youngest grandchild is 10, oldest is almost 16, but looking at pictures of them when they were first born, and you realize how quickly life passes by. And all the more reason to enjoy the time you have with your family and then to live a life that counts.

You don't want to go to a funeral or to the day of your own death filled with regret. And what a way to make a lasting impact. Pour into loving family, loving God, loving your neighbor. You'll never regret it. Yeah, how true.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Now, Jonathan, over the years. You've really seen some very supernatural things. And I remember decades back when you pastored a small Messianic congregation in upstate New York that you were hearing the voice of God then and seeing God do unusual things. You've always been though sober-minded. You run a large ministry, you've got the business skills of a CEO.

And yet you believe in the supernatural realm. Can you do both? Can you be both level-headed and a supernaturalist at the same time? I absolutely believe that you can, Mike, there's principles Uh For example, let's take finances. we can confess the word, we can have faith for divine provision.

And at the same time, there's principles of how we Spend money. How we make money. principles of integrity. Uh y I see so many people, unfortunately, that are claiming the promises of God concerning financial blessing and they consistently spend more than they bring in. They're living on credit.

And then they're wondering why isn't God hearing my prayer? Because and the answer is because you have to have the balance faith operating by faith and and and uh Uh trust in Yeah. And at the same time, apply biblical principles, natural principles. You have to do base. Both.

One will will will In some cases, stamp out the other.

So I believe absolutely, there's many things that we need to do in this life that are simply practical. wisdom and then there's a dimension of faith that can augment that and take us into a dif completely different realm.

Now, how would you describe yourself as far as natural born doubter, skeptic, man of faith, believe anything? How would you describe yourself?

Well, I would say that I grew up very very rationalistic, uh, which is typical of uh the West. uh and especially typical of Jewish people very rationalistic, very materialistic. Uh I'll see it when I believe it. And uh I I w I don't know if I believed in a personal God. I believe there must be something more to this life but I didn't have any real knowledge of the invisible world.

of a supernatural world Mike and chill I was a teenager and started to use drugs. that's when I realized there's more to this life than meets the eye. That was very a very eye-opening, if you will, spirit-opening experience. for me as as a teenager. And then I knew that I knew there's something more out there and had many encounters.

both beautiful encounters and encounters that I knew were I don't know if I put this word on it, but came to know to understand we're demonic. Right. My wife, Nancy, when we met, she was very, very strong atheist. We were both 19. And she first became aware of the realm of evil.

Of the supernatural demonic realm. And then the light went on that if that existed than the realm of God and the supernaturally good realm existed. And that's when she first believed. You had something happen to you, though, Jonathan, that you you were a drug dealer for for the grateful dead. Is that correct?

Yes, you remember this story. Absolutely. Right. So you were hardcore into this lifestyle. You had a whole lot of money that you had made as a drug dealer.

You were living that a sinful life. And Did you hear a voice of some kind? That's exactly what happened. I was I traveled around with the Grateful Dad for a two-year period. And I was being introduced during this whole time to Uh The living God.

Friend. who was a Christian, who was sharing with me on a regular basis. I was starting to read the Bible and at the Grateful Dead concert in Buffalo, New York, I was on the soundboard. I was actually standing on the soundboard. And I had asked the lead guitarist for to play a specific song.

and kind of didn't know if he would do it, but they began to play that song. And I was just. I was just thrilled. I I felt this uh a sense of elation that I was able to actually le lead them to do a song of that I had chosen And then in the middle of this this uh moment of bliss I heard a voice. And it was the vo I believe it was the voice of of Satan were a very high uh demon or principality saying, I don't know if it was to me or to the forces that be that you must release him because he is called by another.

And it was very startling. Uh Mike, I remember it like it was yesterday. this voice that was actually commanding That I'd be released from this whole, it was really a demonic environment. I see it clearly now in hindsight. And that's shortly thereafter I began to fully serve the Lord.

By the way, just to add to that, probably six months to a year later, Uh I was taken to a uh country profit. this isolated man probably in his seventies had very little contact with the outside lived in a little uh house in the middle of the country outside of Buffalo, behind is daughter's house. Uh and He just somebody took me there and Literally out of nowhere after he introduced himself, he looked into my eyes. And he said, I command this this psychedelic spirit to come out.

Now, Mike, the whole Grateful Dead scene was Based on psychedelic drugs, psych LSD. This man had absolutely no idea what psychedelic meant. And yet he commanded the psychedelic spirit to come out of me. It was a very real experience. And actually, I was there was a freedom that came after that experience.

Yeah.

So I just was thinking of that. There is a supernatural realm of evil and good. And I was experiencing it without fully understanding it, and I was set free. By the Spirit of God. Not even looking for that, but it was an amazing story.

Supernatural event in my life. You're the only one that remembers that story. Yeah, I remember it.

So I'm in here, someone's obviously praying for you. And orders were given to some demonic power that they had to let you go. And it's before you even knew the Lord, and then walk from there. Into God's loving arms. My guest, Jonathan Burnes.

That was weird. Yeah, and you heard it.

Well, God was allowing you to hear what was going on. Quite amazing.

So God's hand was laid on Jonathan Burness before Jonathan even knew him. And he's written a book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural: A Revealing Look at Angels, Demons, Miracles, Heaven, and Hell. By the way, it's got chapters on ghosts in the Bible. and the invisible world And the problem of evil. We're going to touch on some of those subjects when we come back.

Miracles or Mishugas are these really miracles, or is it just crazy stuff? And you can get the book and our exclusive interview today, only here on the line of fire. You can get these at a very special price if you order now. Go to thelineoffire.org. Go to our radio website, thelineoffire.org.

Order as many copies as you want. And of course, we'll get them to you before the holidays. Change the world. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Have you ever wondered if miracles really happen? Are ghosts and spirits real? Why do some people experience supernatural events and others don't?

In my latest book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural, I answer these questions and more. You'll read real life stories of supernatural encounters as you explore biblical truth about miracles. Healings, the spirit realm. Heaven and hell. Through it all, you'll discover the heart of a faithful God encouraging you to embrace His supernatural working in your own life.

My guest today is Messianic Jewish Leader Jonathan Bernest. He is the host and CEO of Jewish Voice Ministries International, Jewish Voice broadcast. His new book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural, 10 chapters: Dust in the Wind, not quite Mr. Darwin: The Invisible World, Ghosts and the Bible, Sin and Righteousness, The Problem of Evil, and Sickness and In Health, Miracles or Mishagoths, More Than Fairy Tales, and the Search for God. For meaning, you can get the book together with our exclusive interview by going to thelineoffire.org.

Jonathan, in your book, you deal with scripture, you deal with experience, you seek to separate truth from error and that which is demonic from that which is heavenly. And you talk about some amazing stories in the book. Who is Ben Alexander and what is ESP ministries? Mike, I actually was making a list of things outside of the book that I could talk about that so I didn't Uh give the book away because I was I have so many unique stories personally that I've been meditating on of things that I've seen both back from the time that I've passed her to congregation. And then in Russia and uh the focus that we've had on Africa.

And in India. Can I share a couple of those? Yeah, absolutely. All right.

So so listen, friends, if you want to find out who Ben Alexander is, ESP Ministries exposing Satan's power, you're going to have to get the book A Rabbi Looks at the supernatural. All right, let's hear some stories. to the glory of God out of your own life experience.

Okay, so uh Free. Yeah.

Nine years I pastored. the Messianic Jewish congregation in upstate New York, And one of the things that I really uh disliked was um counseling. I I just hated the process of counseling and having people over and over and over again. week after week dealing with the same issues without results. and it became a source of great Fresh.

frustration to me uh So Uh I began to Fast and pray. and look for a different paradigm. And supernatural things began to happen. We all know the story of the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years, spent all her money on different doctors. And then when t she touched the hem of Yeshua's garment, she was immediately healed.

I wanted that kind of that that kind of of supernatural uh encounter Uh with some of the people that I wasn't able to help week after week, month after month, year after year in my congregation. And there was a woman named Sue That had severe depression. Mike, you could feel it around her. She just exuded depression. And she, like that woman, had gone to so many different doctors Uh and spent a lot of money, and she was still clinically depressed and Um I'm in the office with her and I had after this time of fasting and prayer, And the Holy Spirit showed me.

I just looked at her and I saw a demon. There was a demon of depression That was actually tormenting her. And two th I did two things. One, Um I told her that I gave her a list of scriptures. He who the sun sets free is free indeed.

Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, a list of those scriptures. And then I told her I wanted her to confess those scriptures and build faith And if she did that, I would she would come I invited her to come back the next week, and I was going to set her. free in the name of Jesus. through faith in his name. And that's exactly what happened.

She prepared herself. I believe that people actually have to prepare themselves. to receive and come to a place where they really want to be delivered Uh Mike. she did just that. She came in the next week and immediately out of just Out of my lips.

It was absolutely in the spirit. I commanded the spirit of depression to leave. instantaneously. She was completely set free from depression. I watched her whole.

face changed, her eyes changed. And she's never been the same since. This is years and years ago. After decades of being bound up by depression, Now I'm not saying that they're that Uh I'm not Uh suggesting that people not go to seek counseling and and and whatever medical attention needs to be given to depression in some cases. But in this case, it was a demonic spirit She prepared herself through the word, through proclaiming the word and believing, and then I.

commanded that spirit to go and instantaneously a change. Uh Another case A woman who had also been suffering from depression and rejection. Uh torment. Uh came forward. I laid hands on her, closed my eyes.

And when I did, Mike, I saw in the spirit It's all I can the only way I can describe it. I saw a chain Around her. that was actually wrapped around her. and particularly around her head, And I saw myself in the spirit or what I didn't as I with my eyes closed as I imagine grabbing those change and pulling them apart And as I pulled at them, I saw them with my eyes closed come apart And as I did, my eyes were still closed. She began to shout out.

I'm free, I'm free. She started jumping up and down. And it was exactly at the time that I saw I believe in this spirit realm, Mike, the chains being pulled apart. Mm.

So Those are just two stories that came to mind. I do talk in the book about. ESP exposing Satan's power. And Ben Alexander, a former spiritist, but I'm a medium. uh who came face to face with demons, but I'm gonna save that for for people to read the book.

It's a really great story. All right, friends, here's how you can get the book along with this interview. We're going to continue another 30 minutes.

So you'll have all this on a CD, along with the book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural by Jonathan Burness: a revealing look at angels, demons, miracles, heaven, and hell, full of scripture, full of amazing stories, full of amazing spiritual insights that will powerfully. Impact your life.

So go to thelineoffire.org. Thelineofire.org. Go there. You'll be able to order as many copies as you want of the book and the interview, and we'll get them to you for the holidays. And tomorrow, there's going to be a special broadcast, a tribute to my mom, and encouragement about how to live our lives.

Do be praying for our family. The funeral of my mom is tomorrow, and I do covet your prayers. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire. I'm not giving out the phone number because I'm having a great time speaking with my dear friend, Messianic Jewish leader, Jonathan Burness.

His new book, A Rabbi, looks at the supernatural, revealing a look at angels, demons, miracles, heaven, and hell. Jonathan, Why did you tackle the really difficult problems, the problem of evil? And things like that. In a book about the supernatural, what prompted you to tackle such difficult subjects?

Well, uh The biggest let me go back to my experience with the Lord at age twenty. The biggest miracle that took place in my life was a shift of worldview. that opened my eyes to the reality of a personal God. Uh a literal heaven and hell. an unseen world that I had dabbled in through drug use, but did not understand That Change of worldview, Mike, was miraculous.

It was supernatural. It was the result of years of hearing the gospel. and then eventually going to a Bible study where I was challenged with the reality of my separation from God, I did not see any Vision. I did not hear any voice, But Mike, it was thirty six years ago, and I can tell you Still, thirty-six years later, The presence of God came into that room. And in the presence of God, I felt.

my separation from God. I believed in my heart without even realizing it. My mind wasn't there yet. But I believed in my heart, and according to Romans 10, I called upon the name of the Lord. And in that moment, 36 years ago, I was saved.

That's when I began to read the Bible, really for the first time other than preparation for my bar mitzvah. uh when I was uh thirteen. and went through this rite of passage. That Jewish boys go through, but I had no knowledge of the scriptures. And as I read the Bible and discovered that Jesus was Jewish, that his name was Yeshua.

I had been taught that this was the book for the Christians and had nothing to do with Jews. I thought Jesus was born and raised in the Vatican. and made this incredible discovery. and then went back and read my own scriptures, the Torah, the prophets, the writings. the books that the Christians call the Old Testament.

and found prophecies written hundreds of years before Yeshua was ever born. that clearly revealed where he would be born, when he would be born. that he would be be be rejected by our people. That he would die before the destruction of the temple, but not for himself. This was all supernatural for me.

And that whole shift of worldview, Mike, that allowed me To begin to understand things that I could not have understood before. That's supernatural. And I want to. to explain that to people. All of my rabbi looks books.

Are the same. simply laying out facts. and letting the reader decide. That that's So I lay out the question of why do bad things happen to good people. Rabbi Kush Kushner, Harold Kushner.

wrote that book years ago, A Bestseller, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People. And he came away with two with two answers. God is not all loving. Or he's not all-powerful. We Jews have to deal with the Holocaust.

Six million Jews. uh murdered by the Nazis. and wondering why would God allow such a thing. And so I think that's one of the biggest issues of life. It's certainly one of the biggest issues for the Jewish community worldwide And why bad things happen to good people is one of the great questions in life.

And I think there's a supernatural answer. I don't believe that God is not all loving. He is all loving. I don't believe that God is not all powerful. He is all powerful.

The real answer biblically, Mike, is why do bad things happen to good people? Because there's no one good. All right friends, more in the book, in the chapter on the problem of evil. The book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural. My guest Jonathan Burness will be right back with some supernatural stories that are all to the glory of God.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Welcome back to the line of fire, my guest. Messianic Jewish leader Jonathan Burnis, his new book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural, revealing look at angels, demons, miracles, heaven, and hell. Jonathan, before we talk about some of the things you've seen with your own eyes, seen God do, and you're doing this as a level-headed Servant of God, not as someone who believes every report. In fact, you have a whole chapter in your book, Miracles or Mishugas, Mishugas being the Jewish word for craziness, saying, Is this stuff real or is it just counterfeit or made up or what? But before we talk about more of what you've seen, you have a chapter in the book about ghosts.

And the Bible.

So obviously, folks need to get the book to get the full scope of what you wrote there, but Is there such a thing as ghosts? I mean, how do we explain this phenomenon?

Well, yes and no. Hollywood has uh given us this uh picture. of ghosts.

So from the cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost to these horrific movies that sort of sensationalize And almost dull our senses to the reality of evil, I think, uh Hollywood evil. Uh are really spirits. In the Bible, and it's depending on what translation you look at, the TLV. Mentions the word ghost six times to s to distinguish ghost from the spirit, any uh the spirit related to God. And then one hundred and eight times in the King James, usually the expression giving up the ghost.

To die, in other words, ghost is usually translated from the Hebrew word ruach. which means spirit, breath. Uh life. And yes, there are Spirits in the Bible, both evil and good spirits, and from my understanding of Scripture, Mike, every human being. has a spirit.

We a spirit that lives in our body. And when the body dies, the spirit departs. Uh That's my understanding, but there there are Clearly, there's clearly in a biblical worldview, going back to a worldview. If you look at the scriptures, Through a biblical worldview rather than a rationalistic imperial. And you do see The reality of spirits, both evil and good spirits.

Uh angels. uh supernatural phenomenon Something the East and the developing world, places like Africa and India and so on. Is more open to, which I believe is one of the reasons we saw more, we see more miracles. outside of the Western world. But yes, if you look at the Bible with an open mind, it's filled with the supernatural.

the unseen world. And uh there are ghosts, there's evil spirits. uh tormenting spirits Uh some of which the Bible strictly forbids any connection with, Yeah, and in point of fact, when you mention folks, say, in Africa or other continents or countries like that, what's interesting is that They don't make a major distinction between the natural realm and the spiritual realm. They're both equally real to them. Whereas in the West, we often have them as two totally different categories.

One is real.

So, right now, I can touch my desk, I can touch my keyboard, I can touch this mic. That's real. But the spiritual realm is somehow. Unreal, or maybe even just made up, or if it's there, it's kind of Untouchable, unreachable, nebulous. Whereas, according to the Bible, God, who is spirit and invisible to the natural eye, created what we can see.

So the natural comes second, and the spiritual comes first. And when you read the scriptures, it's very clear that the spiritual realm is real and that people interact with God, that they interact at times with angels or with demons, and that these are not just. Made-up entities doesn't mean that everything said about them is true. And certainly demons give all kinds of false information. In fact, you talk about that in the Bible: was it an angel that appeared to Muhammad, or was it an angel that appeared to Joseph Smith?

And how do we sort these things out? But in your own life and experience, Jonathan, you have had ample reason to say the Bible speaks about this supernatural realm, and I believe it.

So, what have you seen ministering overseas, former Soviet Union, or Africa, or Latin America, that has further confirmed to you the reality of what God's word plainly says? Yes, I've seen two point five decades of supernatural phenomenon both evil spirits manifesting and empowering people to do things that I couldn't imagine a human body could do. By the way, I just want to back up and say what you just described is a biblical worldview. That is absolutely the worldview of those that wrote. descriptors.

Uh just for example, the use of the word ghost that's preserved in the TLV. Three of the six are the parallel story in the synoptic gospels. In Matthew 14 and Mark 6 and Luke 24, where Yeshua is walking on the water and d the disciples are terrified. And yell, it's a ghost, it's a ghost.

So that was part of their world view. But let me just give you a few examples of what I some of the things I've seen. And one of the few of them have just been recent, in fact, are of recent mind. we were in a worship service in Ethiopia. And a young boy, a teenager, began to manifest And He was he became so strong, Mike, as this evil spirit.

This demon or demons manifested in him, He was able to fight off three people that were trying to wrestle him down. And then I know this is going to sound bizarre, but I saw him. Walk up the side of the stage. What a he I saw him. Wrestle people away.

Like someone walking up a wall. It's like someone walking up a wall. It was it wa I saw him walk up a wall with my own eyes. and then flip back. I just I've never seen that before, I don't have any rational explanation but I'm telling you, I saw it with my own eyes just recently.

And let me give you a great one that I saw of healing, and I believe deliverance. We were in a small village in northern Ethiopia. And we Offer free medical care and dental care and eye care, and then we invite people to come into a prayer tent. that we've set up for one on one counseling. And I was in the courtyard with the elders of the community.

This is a Beta Israel Jewish community. remaining in Ethiopia. And I began to hear this hollering and joyful noise that's coming from the prayer tent. And they ushered out a young man, probably sixteen, seventeen years old. Who had been who had been deaf and mute from birth.

Now here's what's so interesting about this environment. This has a This is like being in in biblical times 2,000 years ago. These people grow up in their village. They don't leave their village, so everyone knows them. Yeah.

You know the stories in the Bible where they all know the Lame man who's begging at the gate, beautiful. They all know these people that are healed. because they've grown up with them. They're not transient. And so This was a A boy who was born and raised in the village.

Okay. Deaf and mute. Yeah.

Earth.

Well, they had been praying for him, and he had started to to speak. Uh not that audibly, but he had started to speak. And I did sort of this Ernest Angely approach. I brought him out into the courtyard. I stood behind him and I whispered into his ear Yeshua.

Yeshua. And out of his mouth, we all heard, including the elders of the community, Yeshua. And then on the other ear, hallelujah. And Mike. out from his mouth.

Hallelujah, hallelujah. It was it it wasn't that clear in the beginning, but it got clearer and clearer. And I watched the faces of the elders of that community completely confounded. because they knew this young boy They knew that he was deaf and dumb from birth, they had no explanation whatsoever. That was supernatural.

And that's just the kind of stuff the Bible speaks about. And sometimes, due to demonic spirits, and you think of the demoniac who is chained and he breaks the chains, and Mark 5, you think of the demonized man in Acts 19, who seven Jewish men tried to cast the demon out of him, and they ran out naked and wounded. And it's not because he was a mixed martial artist, it's because he was demonized.

So the supernatural power of demons, but it's destructive. And then the supernatural power of God to set people free. And that's what it says about Yeshua: that he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.

So that many times these sicknesses and diseases are oppressive attacks from hell. And then Jesus comes and sets them free, and people realize he's alive. He's risen from the dead. I want to hear the response to people. If you see in these miracles to the glory and honor of Yeshua's name, I want to hear the response to people who didn't previously believe what happens.

Friends, these are the kind of accounts you can read about in the book. A rabbi looks at the supernatural. Here's how you get it, along with this interview, which includes lots of accounts not in the book. Go to thelineoffire.org or your copies today. As you do, you're also standing with us and helping us reach many people with the good news of the Messiah.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks again for joining us on the broadcast, having a fascinating interview with my friend, Messianic Jewish leader, Jonathan Burnet.

His newest book that I'm holding in my hands, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural, Revealing Look at Angels, Demons, Miracles, Heaven, and Hell. A lot of what we're talking about on the broadcast is not in the book.

So when you get the book, we'll also send you the CD with the complete interview for today's broadcast. That's exclusively through our ministry. Go to thelineoffire.org to order. Jonathan, you just talked about being in Africa, seeing a boy who was born deaf and dumb, instantly healed.

So not only able to. Uh to here. But now able to speak, it could take years to really learn how to pronounce words, but very quickly he was able to start to speak with more and more clarity. What happened to the people who were there who did not believe in these things before or who did not know who Yeshua was because they knew this was done in his name? What was their response?

Well, two two responses to the the elders who was I don't know, six six, seven elders that were watching, they were all amazed. They were all in shock. Uh About half and half. About half.

So this is God. And they either had already made a profession of faith So they were halfway there and they gave their life, really gave their life to the Lord. and the other half were very upset about it. And this is exactly what you see in the Bible. When uh when something miraculous happens, It's a dividing Wedge.

It's like a m if you take a magnet and you put it next to a magnet turned one way, it will draw it'll draw together. It'll attract. If you turn it the other way, it will repel And what I found, and what I see in the Bible is miracles. The super Supernatural realm either repels people or draws them to God. And that's what I saw with the elders, split right down the middle.

And a few few of them were outright angry. They were just. And it wasn't rational. It was a a it was a um Demonic anger, and the others were, what must I do to be saved? By the way, you quoted Acts 19 before, Mike.

I just want to go back to the evil spirit. In X 19 Yeah. You know, the evil spirit overcame those people. Uh but first he says, I know Yeshua and I know Paul, but who are you? Evil spirits Know Yeshua.

They know Jesus. And they know those that. are servants of the Most High. Those that have the name of Yeshua and are walking In faith, and his bondservant.

So we have power. over serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. and nothing shall harm us. that young man was healed and delivered through the name of Yeshua, through the name of Jesus. You know, I remember, Jonathan, when I ministered for you in upstate New York.

And you're in the Messianic congregation, you led back then, and we were having prayer. After the service one night for people that were sick, terminally ill, and other serious issues. And I remember an older woman came up. To me, she seemed very old at that time. But I remember she was an older woman, and she was going in for cancer surgery.

And I only knew one part of the story. You told me the rest of the story. But I remember she was going in for cancer surgery. She had a cancerous tumor in her stomach. And obviously, deeply concerned about it.

And I remember when I went to pray, I felt this holy anger against the enemy. Against the work of sickness to destroy human lives, against Satan, who hates us. Not all cancer is from Satan, not all sickness is a direct satanic attack, but we understand what he loves to do is destroy. And I remember I felt this holy anger and I just cried out and The power of God touched her. Uh she was overcome by God's Spirit.

subsequently found out, she said that she felt something move in her. And when she went in for surgery, the doctors found no tumor to operate on. That's the reality of God's power. And that's what you attest to in your book. But also dealing with larger issues: sin and righteousness, the problem of evil.

Jonathan, what's your hope in writing this book? What impact do you hope it to have on the readers? I want people so I you asked why I talked about the dilemma of bad things happening to good people. Why is there evil in the world? I talk about that to bring hope.

Because I want people, once they understand that there's no one good, So it's not a God who's not all-loving or all-powerful, but there's no one good. that there's that God also has a plan of redemption To change all that, that he's in the process of writing the world. And with sickness, with the reality of sickness in the world, why do people get sick, Mike? because we live in a condition of sin. But the good news is, is there's hope, there's deliverance, there's wholeness.

There's healing in the name of Jesus. Jesus in the name of Yeshua. And I want people to understand that that is truly available to him. And by the way, one more story: what you were talking about that meeting in that youth chapel. There was somebody in the back screaming.

I don't know if you remember this to do that manifest. Yeah.

And you just pointed to him and said, be gone. Person fell on the floor and started convulsing, and very calmly. almost like you were taking a walk in the park. You walked around to him. and you just bent down and you Yes.

Yelled over him or raised your voice and sprung your arms out at him and said, Go. And that person was instantly delivered. I'll never forget that: the calmness, the peace. Uh that that you that you That was really enlightening for me. I learned a lot from that experience.

And that man was set free. With one word. Go. And he and that demon left. That's the hope we have, Mike.

We people that are watching that are listening today may be facing terminal illness or the terminal illness of a loved one. They may be bound up with all kinds of terrible things, rejection. and depression and despair, but there is an answer. And I want people that read this book to find that answer: that there is a supernatural God. who wants to touch people's supernaturally and do miracles in our life.

Yeah, and you know a chapter Of real interest to me, also with my mom just leaving this world, is talking about the world to come, is talking about heaven and hell and spiritual realities, the invisible world. Again, topics covered in the book: Is there more to life than we know? A purpose and plan for existence? Is there a supernatural realm of angels, demons, seers, prophets, spirits, and the like? Or is it all in our minds?

If God is so powerful, how did the devil get so strong? If God is so good, why do bad things happen? If God is a healer, why are people still sick? Are heaven and hell real or imaginary? Where are they?

Who goes where? All in the new book, A Rabbi Looks at the Supernatural with my guest, Jonathan Berndis. He'll take you behind the scenes, but in his sober, biblically based, level-headed way, which I always love about my brother and friend. And you'll get that book with the CD of this exclusive interview that we did today. You can order it by going to thelineoffire.org.

We'll get them to you in time for the holidays. Hey, Jonathan, we're out of time, but I've rejoiced to see God's hand on your life these many years. Expect great things in the days ahead. Love you, Mike. Keep pressing on.

Bring revolution. We're going for it. Thanks so much. All right.

My bottom line today, yes, Yeshua is risen from the dead, ruling and reigning. You can know him today. A professor comes on the air to talk to us about the death of humanity. It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thank you so much for being part of the broadcast today. In a moment, I'm going to welcome to our broadcast Professor Richard Weickert. He's got two books we're going to talk about, The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life, and Hitler's Religion, The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich. Really, really interested. to speak with Professor Weichart.

But life and death issues are on my heart very, very deeply today. My beloved mom passed away on Friday. At the age of 94, I really never thought she'd live to 94. Lost my dad when he was 63. And she's lived these many decades on her own.

We took her in to live with us some years back when we realized she couldn't care for herself and then got her in a nice place a few minutes from our home where she could get better care and more help. You know, right to the end, still had her sense of humor, still had her. New York sarcasm. and always was putting first her kids, my sister Melissa, who's three and a half years older than me and myself.

So tomorrow, right at this time, I'll be at the funeral service in New Jersey. And we have a special broadcast prepared for you. I recorded it earlier this morning, so you don't want to miss tomorrow's broadcast. And may I encourage you. We're coming into a season where some of you are going to be with family members that you don't see at other parts of the year.

You're going to be. seeing family over Thanksgiving. or Christmas. or maybe if you're Jewish over Hanukkah. Or just having breaks and seeing family that you wouldn't normally see.

And I want to encourage you: if there's any breach in a relationship, Do what you can to make it right. I want to encourage you. To just think for a moment. What if this the only time you're going to see this relative? This friend from whom you've been estranged, you're not going to see them again until they leave this world.

You think, well, I want to make things right now. Maybe they've sinned against you, and you've held something in your heart. You've been bitter, you've been angry, you've been too hurt. Forgive. as the Lord forgave you.

with that same supernatural love Forgive as he forgave you. Maybe they've cut you off and you don't know how to reconcile. Humble yourselves and reach out. Pray and reach out. It's worth risking the the challenge of rejection.

It's worth risking that. to reach out again and say, Hey, I care about you. And whatever I've done to hurt you or offend you, I want to make things right. And if it's all in their mind and they believe lies about you, pray blessing on them. And reach out afresh and say, hey, I love you, I care for you.

Can we get together? Can we talk? Can we interact? You will never have a regret. for loving.

You say, yeah, but you get hurt, yeah. It's like that old line which I'll paraphrase. Better better to love and be hurt, better to love and have a broken relationship. than never to love at all. And remember how God's love towards us is so incredibly unrelenting.

how God's love towards us doesn't let up. and think of the love he had on us when we were foul, wicked sinners Maybe like me. putting our parents through such grief and pain And yet they loved us, and God loved us, and now. we can shed that love. abroad into a hurting and dying world.

So I just wanted to share that with you from my heart before we bring my guest on. Please do pray for the family. We're doing well. My mom lived her life well, but still, You hate to see them go. and a whole lot to think about, reflect about.

Once they're gone, we'll be right back. Shake the Next time change the world. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. You know, one thing that happens when you're a radio host is your staff gets an endless number of books sent in.

Sometimes stacks of books on a weekly basis from publishers who say, Hey, check out this book. You should have this author on your radio program. And for the vast, vast, vast majority of books, they get donated to our school library. And the guests never get on. When I saw this book, By Professor Richard Weichart, The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life.

I said, We've got to get him on.

Now, he's got another book that's come out as well. I want to talk about that too: Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich. But Richard Weichart is professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus, and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He's published numerous scholarly articles as well as four previous books, including From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Professor Weichart, great to have you on the broadcast today.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. All right, the death of humanity and the case for life. What do you mean first by the death of humanity?

Well, I'm actually using it in a sort of a double sense Here, because I'm trying to track the way that secular ideologies have. have brought about an undermining of the view of humanity that we've had traditionally through the Judeo-Christian tradition of humans having being created in the image of God, having purpose. In life, having meaning and such. Signal that there is now a death in this whole notion of what it means to be human and a death of humanity in that sense. But then of course it also is referring to the real death of people that are happening as a result of that.

That is people being killed through abortion, through infanticide, through euthanasia, physician assisted suicide and other things. All right, so let's think a little bit about our culture of death. Before we get to the underpinnings, how we got where we are today, what are some of the evidences that we have an increasing culture of death in America and Europe?

Well, of course the abortion has been going on fast and furious. since the 1960s. especially 70s with Roe v. Wade. Uh but today one of the biggest issues that we're uh Losing incrementally is on the physician-assisted suicide front, where California just a year ago began allowing physician-assisted suicide, so with the largest state in the country.

And then Colorado, just with these elections that just happened a little over a week ago, Colorado also passed physician-assisted suicide. Washington, D.C. City Council has passed that, although I haven't heard if that actually got finally ratified by the mayor yet. But it's coming. And they're also in Europe, we have several European states that are Uh work that have a physician assisted suicide, the Bet the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

And they're beginning to even after they've instituted that, they are now expanding the numbers of people that can qualify for it. They're now allowing children uh to be euthanized uh in our half position assisted. suicide Uh they're beginning to allow people with uh uh with dementia. and mental problems to have uh physician assisted suicide, so it's just broadening out and out. Although it's uh Not happening maybe dramatically either.

Yeah.

still illegal, nonetheless it's creeping and it's gaining ground. What if someone argued that, no, this is all about life because you respect an animal enough to put that animal to sleep if it's suffering? And why bring a child into the world if you know the child is going to be born with a severe handicap and will only suffer for the months that it's here? Or maybe why shouldn't a 12-year-old who's sentenced to a life of agonizing pain, why shouldn't that 12-year-old be able to terminate their life? Or someone who feels no purpose in life, they're just existing and they're going to die anyway.

Why not honor the dignity of their lives by either killing them or by allowing them to be euthanized? How do you see that as actually the opposite of the real argument?

Well, actually, one of the things you said there was that when they don't have any purpose in life, and I think this is one of the things that these secular ideologies are trying to. uh convince us of, which I am not convinced of as a Christian, and that is that Certain people's lives don't have purpose.

Okay. They don't have meaning any longer.

Now, if you're a materialist and you don't believe that there is any purpose in the universe on the whole, then that makes sense. But if Of course, the materialist and atheistic worldview on a large scale doesn't really make sense because they don't live consistently. Let me just give one example of this, too, and I think this will. hit on your question here. Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, who's written books like Why Darwinism is True.

He wrote a book called Fact versus Faith. more recently. In his book, Fact versus Faith, he argues for euthanasia and he uses a very similar kind of idea that you just said there. He said, well, you know, we we put our dogs down, we have compassion on them and we don't allow them to suffer. We we put them down.

So why should we do that with humans?

Well The reason that we don't do that with humans is because humans are fundamentally different. than the rest of nature. And that's one of the things I'm trying to tease out in my book and show that these secular ideologies by undermining the notion that humans are different than the rest of nature. Have Got us to buy into this wrong mentality and idea that we can just treat humans just like we treat everything else in nature. But the reality is that they don't do that.

They're not consistent with that.

So, Jerry Coyne, for example, if you look at his. Political ideology and such. He's very progressive. He basically buys into the notion, in fact, he actually says that secular morality is better than religious morality, which, by the way, there's no such thing as. superior or better in his worldview, so he's actually being inconsistent.

So, I think that's a good idea. But if I told Jerry Coyne, okay, let's Let's go into New York City. Let's round up all of the homeless. Yeah.

Uh let's sterilize them. And then let's lock them away until someone comes and gives them a home. Or if no one gives them a home, we'll just kill them. He would erupt with furor and say, No, that's outrageous. You know, how could you ever think of something like that?

But that is exactly what we do to dogs. Yeah.

He doesn't really want us to treat people. like dogs. He knows better. But on the other hand, when it suits his particular Yeah. circumstances he will try to make that kind of argument.

Another argument I'd make too is that if you If you look at the people who actually are getting assisted suicide, Oregon has kept statistics on this, for example. A lot of the people in Oregon who get sys uh Yeah. Yeah.

Percent of them are not in any pain whatsoever. Really? They're getting assisted suicide because they don't have a network of family and friends who are supportive, who spend time with them, and they feel like they're a burden to society. And so and we're t and by passing assisted suicide laws, we are in essence telling them that you are no longer important enough to us for us to fight for your life. Extraordinary.

So the very claim that it's about life and human dignity is completely undermined. And if we are just going to look at things in a material way, as you say in your book, Man is a Machine or Created from Animals, what's the difference between looking at human beings as created in the image of God versus having a purely materialistic viewpoint that we are just the freak products of random natural evolution?

Well If we're just the random products of just chance events, then essentially, and the way evolutionary biologists can True, this is that we're the product of these mutations. Mutations are mistakes that are happening, copying mistakes that are happening from generation to generation. What that really means is that we're just a colossal mistake. And in fact, there actually are some pretty denigrating terms that some of these materialists use about humans at various times. One Lawrence Krauss said.

That we're a piece of cosmic trash. And some of them they're Eric Pianca, who's an evolutionary biologist at the University of Texas, says that he thinks it'd be a a good thing if 90% of the human population got wiped out by some kind of Ebola. virus.

So these attitudes that we're just a mistake and sometimes they even think that we're a bad mistake, hurting the rest of the environment and hurting the planet you know, such, it leads to these attitudes that human life doesn't really have a lot of value. There's no real meaning or significance to it. Jerry Coyne, whom I already mentioned earlier, Jerry Coyne said that we have no more value than a squirrel or an armadillo. Mm.

Yeah, well it's got to be consistent, right? Got to be consistent with that worldview. All right, in contrast, we've only got about a minute and a half. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? To be created in the image of God means that we have distinct attributes that are quite different from the animals and plants on the planet.

We have an eternal space. Spirit or soul that communicates with God has spirit, can communicate with spirit, with God as a spirit. We have creative abilities that go way beyond anything that is out there in any other part of nature. We have rationality, far, far superior. And again, in a quantum leap, not just, you know, Darwinists would say, oh, it's just a little bit more of this, a little bit more of that.

That's not really the case. Our rationality is. Is a quantum leap way beyond what anything else in nature has. Our creative abilities, likewise. And so there are ways that we can see that humans Right.

distinct from Other creatures. Right, and in that case, every life does matter, every life does have. purpose. because of the fact that we're created in God's image. Exactly.

And if we go back to what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal. And that's what gives us these inalienable rights that he was talking about. And so once you get rid of the idea that we're created in the image of God, then you also get rid of the idea that there's any kind of human rights, there's any kind of morality, there's any kind of protection that humans should have in sort of an overarching sense. Right, and ultimately, if it is natural selection and the survival of the fittest, then one group of humans killing others to get ahead is no different than a lion killing a zebra. There's no moral issue whatsoever.

All right, much more with Professor Richard Weickart, his two recent books, The Death of Humanity. and Hitler's religion. Change the world oh God of burning cleanse. Same flame. Send the fire.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire. My guest, Professor Richard Weichart, has two recent books: The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life, and Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Police That Drove the Third Reich. Professor. Would I be wrong in thinking that there's a connection between these two recent books of yours? Yeah, there is a connection.

In fact, in The Death of Humanity, I talk about a wide range of secular ideologies, and I do include Nazism as one of those, although I cover several dozen. uh different kinds of secular ideologies from the time of the Enlightenment period.

Okay. uh the present, but certainly Hitler is one of the most dramatic Uh cases. of a person who devalued human life because of the secular ideology that he was promoting. All right, well, what about the alleged connection with Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood, eugenics, and the Nazis? We have to be so careful the way we throw words around today.

Steve Bannon, who is Donald Trump's chief strategist, is being called a Nazi and, of course, without basis. But these terms are so volatile, and you don't want to make a false association because of the extraordinary evil of someone like Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. But is there a real connection between eugenics, the Nazis, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood, or is that just some figment of the imagination of conservative right?

Well there's certainly strong connections Okay. And Margaret Sang. And between the eugenics movements. and Adolf Hitler. That's very clear.

Both of them were imbibing. Ideas about eugenics, that is the idea to try to improve human heredity. And there are varieties of ways that people tried to do that. Compulsory sterilization was one. Major program that was being done in the United States in the early 20th century.

And Margaret Sanger was pushing for birth control of various sorts to try to Dude. uh push forward this eugenics program And such. And Margaret Sanger was extremely racist as well in the way that she was trying to push forward her. uh promotion of eugenics.

So she believed that there were certain inferior races and that Her program at birth control is really trying to target those. identified as inferior races to keep them from more prolifically reproducing.

So there are certainly some key ideas of Margaret Sanger's that are very similar. To some of the ideas that were integrated into Hitler's ideology and the Nazi regime.

Now, obviously, that doesn't mean that she would have endorsed the Holocaust. Cost or anything like that. But there certainly are certain ideas that are, and it's not just Sanger and Hitler either. I mean, if you look at in my earlier book, From Darwin to Hitler, I look at a whole host of intellectuals, biologists, Anthropologists. In Germany, which was considered The most educated country of the world at the time, had the leading university system.

In the world. There were a lot of people in medical professorships and biologists who were. promoting ideas of eugenics, promoting ideas of racism, scientific racism, and they were using various secular ideologies such as Darwinism and other and positivism and other and materialism to support their particular programs. All right, so as we flesh this out. and the inferiority of certain races or groups of people, the quote human weeds and Sanger's terminology, and that she was speaking of quite a few different groups of people at that point.

Is there a direct connection between that and Planned Parenthood clinics being largely available in poor neighborhoods? Or is that simply people caring about the poor and wanting to offer them birth control options and health care? Again, we only want to understand things accurately. If there is a horror, let's understand it. If it's being exaggerated, let's be truthful about it.

Yeah, I think in its origins it clearly was targeting those who are identified as racial inferior. clear. in the early origins. I mean it's it's since then uh transformed Uh a good deal. Uh so that uh their claim today is that it is just all about Uh dealing with people in poverty, but certainly in the origins it was uh Uh in dealing with racial inferiority.

And that's what I think it's I so uh Odd that uh Many progressives today, you know, who are uh horrified by you know any racist from the past. past give Margaret Sanger uh a a free pass. I mean there was a situation recently where Princeton University students were protesting the naming of one of their buildings or centers or whatever after Woodrow Wilson because they were identifying him as a racist. And yet Margaret Sanger in all the progressive circles gets a free pass. And Planned Parenthood is still giving out Margaret Sanger awards to people.

people and Hillary Clinton was one of them who received one of those awards once. Yeah, again, extraordinary. And I think some of the double standards becoming clearer and clearer in recent days. One other question before we have a break here on the death of humanity and the case for life. In our culture today, there's an increasing Uh Um interest, fascination, obsession with things like vampires.

And zombies. And I'm not a viewer of the shows, be it True Blood or be it The Walking Dead. I saw a little bit of Walking Dead one time, and then I because I heard so much about it, and then I read that the most recent one, the season opener this year, was considered so violent that the parents were upset. Is there a connection, the culture of death? And this fascination with vampires, zombies, and even just with the violence and the gore, it just seems to be another attack on the humanity of human beings.

Or am I reading too much into this?

Well I don't examine that angle of it, but I do think that that sort of does help. play into this. I mean, this fascination with violence, I mean and again, I don't think that just comes about uh in our day, I mean, that fascination with violence I think goes back to our Yeah. Yeah.

such. But yeah, I mean the fact that we're being bombarded with it. certainly does, I think, make people callous Uh and human value.

So I think it does feed into the culture of death. I mean I don't really Explore that. I'm looking more at the intellectuals and the way that they are trying to Create different categories of people. And so you were talking earlier about the Nazis and Margaret Saint others targeting particular categories. The categories have changed, and that's what's different about.

today than Nazism. People are not targeting necessarily racial groups, but they're targeting they've we've We always have some other group that we target as being inferior or not having value of life. And today it's the unborn, and it's typically the people who are. uh elderly or disabled who are being targeted primarily in our society. Yeah, my mom just passed away at the age of 94.

But you realize that in other cultures, the elderly are held in the highest esteem. And in our culture, they just seem to be pushed away. In biblical culture, you would rise in the presence of the elderly. And someone that was a righteous old man or woman had said that the gray hair was like a crown of glory. And today it's almost as if the elderly are just.

Just push them out of society because they're in embarrassment. Again, it's a fundamental attack on being created in the image of God and in the real meaning and purpose and beauty of life. Sure, exactly. And if you look at like Nazi propaganda, and not just Nazis, but a lot of the eugenics propaganda of the early 20th century, a lot of it was talking about how people are a burden. on others.

American eugenics display that was shown at a lot of county fairs and state fairs that said, some people are born to be a burden on the rest of us. And that notion of a burden is now being put on elderly, as you're suggesting, as well as well. And so now instead of seeing them as a blessing, we see them as a burden. And so now we want to sort of get rid of this burden.

So, and as our population is aging, this is getting to be quite frightening prospects. Yeah, so baby in the womb is just a tumor. Massive tissues needs to be removed, the elderly just a burden. Or do we need to recover the culture of life? It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr.

Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Friends, the issues of life and death are especially before me these days. Friday, Late mornings, I was getting ready for radio while in Dallas, Texas. I was there to speak for the weekend and was going to go from there to Jacksonville, Florida on Sunday and speak. Got word that my 94-year-old mom, who was in frail health, had left this world Went to cardiac arrest and had left this world, thankfully, without suffering, without pain, and not even on medicine, 94 years old.

So, I recorded earlier today a special broadcast for tomorrow because at this time tomorrow, I'll be at a funeral service or leaving the funeral service and then back with you, God willing, live on Thanksgiving, the day before Thanksgiving.

So, on Wednesday, it's very appropriate that we had previously scheduled to have with us today Professor Richard Weichart. He is professor of modern European history at California State University Stanislaus and a senior fellow at Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture. I've got two of his books on my desk right here: The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life and Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich. Richard, Professor Weichart, what is it like to be at a secular campus in California and to be a pro-life conservative Christian professor.

Well, there's certainly aren't many of us around, so you do feel very much like a loner. Out here. I must say though that over the course of my career, God has given me favor. Uh You know, favor with those you favor with your enemies, as it suggests in Proverbs, that those who are faithful to God.

So I have gotten favor. I've I've Uh I have tried to express my ideas uh fairly boldly in my publications and such. Uh I my colleagues uh Have respect for me because they see my attitude toward them and toward others, and even though they don't agree with me ideologically, we've been able to. In fact, one time or just to give one of the Anecdote. I was chair of my department for six years, and one of my colleagues looked and said, How can you, you know, how can you?

Yeah.

When he'd been chair earlier, and he said, How can you stay so peaceful, you know, and all this? How can you have a smile on your face, you know, when I'm coming by here? And I said, Well It's the Lord Jesus, you know. It's because of him. He changed my life, because that's not what I was like.

you know, without him.

So but God has given me favor here too, even though ideologically most people are opposed to me and I do feel very much a loner in a lot of times. Yeah, I can easily imagine just going through college and grad school as a believer and study never studying with a single person who believed what I believe right through my PhD. Yeah, it can be lonely. And then being a professor, all the more. But have you seen any shift in terms of pro-life mentality with young people?

Uh you know, I I haven't Actually, the area that I'm at is actually a fairly conservative area. I'm in a more agricultural area of Central California. I'm not in the Bay Area, which is totally different or the LA area.

So that's probably helped protect me a little bit too from Uh Yeah, yeah.

So a lot of my students have been pro-life over the The years. We have a lot of Hispanics in this area as well.

So there's actually a good bit of pro-life sentiment here already, and has been for quite some time. Based on the st I've seen though from polling and such, though, it does seem like the Yeah. Young people, and I think for a good reason. The more we learn, the more get out things like ultrasounds and such, which people start seeing. Wow, you know, and people start understanding.

Understanding what's going on. Uh however the Working against that, of course, is the sexual immorality of our age and the breakdown of the family and the other things which are then very often leading people in the opposite direction.

So I'm not exactly sure which direction we're heading right now. It seems like we're gaining a little bit of ground in the pro-life movement. But on the other hand, on the other side of the spectrum of the euthanasia physician assisted suicide issue, we're definitely losing ground over the past few years.

Alright, so we want to discuss some of the origins of that, what the secular philosophies are that are leading to this culture of death. And then we come back. I want to ask specifically Antonin Scalia. What does his recent death mean? How does that affect the Supreme Court?

And what about now President-elect Trump in the Supreme Court? It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us today, my special guest, Professor Richard Weichart. His two recent books, The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life, and Hitler's Religion. The twisted beliefs that drove the Third Reich. Professor Weichart.

Uh Antonin Scalia, champion for the conservative position, champion for the pro-life position as a committed Catholic, dies suddenly.

Now the Supreme Court balanced it 4-4, or somewhat balanced, you could say. And either way, you don't have the ninth vote. And now President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to. to elect Constitutionally conservative justices. What does all this mean?

What did the death of Antonin Scalia mean? And how important are these next appointments?

Well, of course, even with him on the bench, there still were not enough votes to overturn Roe v. Wade. So, even getting him replaced with a pro-life judge, which I'm hopeful will happen under Trump, is not going to. you know, end Roe v. Wade by any stretch of the imagination.

However, with one or two more, if one or two of the Liberals who are very pro-abortion end up leaving the bench by dying or resigning in the course of the Trump presidency, then there would, or even later, whoever becomes president after that, and get replaced by pro-life people, then it could bring. Roe v. Wade into question.

However, even if Roe v. Wade got overturned, All this would do was bring it back to the States.

So each one of the states would then be able to pass whatever laws they wanted to relating to abortion.

So states that were pro-life could do that, but. Like big. For example, where I'm at in California, the most likely scenario would be it would still have a legal abortion because they could legislate. Yeah.

uh here in California. Unless they could get uh the Supreme Court to rule the exact opposite, which is that Uh the unborn is a person. Under the jurisdiction. Yeah.

Uh protection of the law and that thus would uh But that would be a good idea. Uh that would be uh Who knows what? happened there. But I'm sort of concerned. about the long haul.

In my own book, The Death of Humanity, and thinking about the Uh because uh the legislation's not going to solve all of you know, getting pro-life judges is an important thing to happen. But that's not going to solve all the problems. And certainly, if we can't win the ideological struggle, and I think that's going to be won not just by. Um intellectual battles, that's part of it, but it's going to be spiritual battles. It's going to be a spiritual revival, I think, that we need ultimately uh to win this uh ideological battle.

My book is trying to show that all these uh With all these intellectual ideas that are being promoted at the university level and in law schools and in graduate schools and such, we need to challenge those and to try to get the people who are promoting them to recognize the inconsistencies in their worldview and the problems With their worldview that it doesn't match reality, so that they can then adopt the worldview that does match reality, which is the Christian. View of the world and then submit themselves to Jesus Christ so that we can then bring about a culture of life.

Now, Mother Teresa has had many quotes that are widely used in the pro-life movement, some of which basically say when a mother kills her own children, then what else can happen in a nation? And we understand for many women who've had abortions, these were terribly difficult decisions. They're still in pain over them many years later, so we don't want to throw further condemnation on them. And we always want to point to the cross where Jesus died for every one of our sins, including the sin of abortion. But when we look at this larger issue of abortion and the culture of life, and then you start to tie in some of the ideologies that led to the atrocities committed by Hitler and Stalin, this is something that America needs to come to grips to.

So let's say you're lecturing a bunch of college students. Let's say they're mainly secular. How would you then talk about some of the past ideologies resurfacing, maybe clothed in different terminology, but how would you make that connection for them? We all know what Hitler did was horrific and what Stalin did was horrific and we all want to separate ourselves from that. How do you make the link for people to understand?

Well actually in the book The Death of Humanity, what I do is I go back to the Enlightenment period in the 18th century, uh which was the period when many intellectuals did begin to embrace materialist philosophical materialism. And while the mainstream Enlightenment didn't, the mainstream Enlightenment was deist, that is, they believed there was some kind of God that created the universe and created moral laws. That would be like Voltaire and Monesque and some of these other mainstream figures in the Enlightenment. There was a group known as the Radical Enlightenment that embraced materialism. And so once they embraced this materialist philosophy and began seeing humans as just a machine, and that's actually the title of a book by a prominent Philosophical materialist in France in the middle of the 18th century.

His book was called Man the Machine. a guy named Julian Della Matri. Delimatrie saw humans as just being a machine And then you move into the 19th century and you get evolutionary theories saying that humans are just an animal. And that really is the way they're construing it. I mean, there were some people that tried to overlay it with theistic evolution of airy kind of ideas and such.

But Darwinism was saying, no, we are essentially just not qualitatively distinct from animals.

So, once you have that kind of a view of humanity, that has fed into these ideas like Socialism, communism, Stalinism, Nazism, and it has fed these. Notions of what humanity is about. And so in my book, I go and I track a number of different key ideas about humanity and human nature. and show how they fed into these different ideas and created this the problems that we have, the dehumanizing impacts of the 20th century, and not just Stalinism and Nazism, because again, we look at our own culture and we have different categories of people that we marginalize and dehumanize: the unborn, the elderly, people with disabilities. Uh and uh although some of those groups overlapped because the Nazis also targeted people with disabilities.

But we have different groups that we may marginalize, but still it's a notion that we have certain people that we don't think have any kind of value. And if we look at it in the context of certain individuals too, I mean, there are certain individuals and I bring up some pretty shocking cases here. For example, in fact, the movie just came out recently about Columbine, and so Eric Harris. Who was the The key perpetrator there at Columbine was wearing a T-shirt that said natural selection. you know, when he went and shot up uh Columbine, Uh and if you read his Uh journal which I've done you find out that he was very thrilled with Nietzsche, with Hobbes, with I mean, he was an intellectual of sorts.

I mean, he was reading some of these key philosophers that were bringing about these secular ideologies. That we're now having to live with. And Darwinism was a big one, too, but so was Nietzsche. There were others as well. And I discuss all of these in my book and how they bring about these ideas.

And so once he came to that convic conclusion that humans are just uh animals That there's no such thing as natural rights. And he says very clearly: he says, just because your mommy and daddy tell you that blood is bad, you know, and that violence is bad, you know, that's not true. You know, that's not no. There's no natural law. The only thing that's true, you said, are physics and math and chemistry.

That's all that's true. You know, morality is just made up. And so, once we come to that conviction, then we've sort of thrown away the idea that humanity has any kind of value. That's how I try to connect that. I don't try to say we're directly connecting Nazism to our But They all sort of grow out of the same soil.

Yeah.

And it's not just friends that That the The Columbine Killers were, say, playing video games like Doom or Mortal Kombat, or watching movies like Natural Born Killers. Yes, it was the popular media that affected them, but also philosophical writings and worldviews affected them. Professor, maybe you can do this in two minutes or less, maybe not. But if an atheist says, no, no, no, no, you got this all wrong. Religion is the cause of war and death.

It's religion that's the bad guy here. How do you respond?

Well there are Yeah. that uh can cause all sorts of problems and so But That's not what Jesus was teaching. And so if we want to get back to uh the Christian religion uh which I believe is true. True. I mean, if you want to talk about Islam or other religions, then there may be other kinds of things we could talk about.

But if we're talking about the Christian religion, that's not what Jesus was teaching when he was teaching us to love. our neighbor as ourself. to love our enemies. That's what he taught. He didn't teach us to kill others.

And in fact, it was Christianity that brought on an end to infanticide, to gladiator combats and other kinds of things that were going on in the Roman Empire because he did have a sense of the value of human life. Yeah, exactly.

So there are hypocrites who poison things, and there are some religions that have a lot of death within them. But even if you contrast, say, the example of Muhammad with the example of Jesus, Muhammad ultimately is a military man and a warrior, whereas Jesus is crucified. No one following the teachers of Jesus is going to behead someone in innocent blood and say this is for the glory of God. We come back. We've just got a few more minutes.

I know you've got to go teach. Professor Richard Weichart is my guest. His two books, The Death of Humanity and The Case for For life. And Hitler's Religion, the twisted beliefs that drove the Third Reich. When we come back, I want to talk about this very recent book on Hitler's Religion with my guest, Professor Richard Weichart.

The name is spelled W E I K A. RT. We will be right back on the line of fire. Remember, a special broadcast tomorrow that you certainly don't want to miss. Around the new sign, shake the news, change the world, change the world.

Oh God of burning, cleansing flame, send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

I'm holding in my hand a book with a very intense cover, a picture of Adolf Hitler. Staring With those demonic eyes, the book Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Police That Drove the Third Reich. This is a book I'm eager to read. The author, Professor Richard Weichart, professor of modern European history at California State University, looking at some of the endorsements for the book, including important words on the author from men like Ravi Zacharias. Professor, we only have a few short minutes and so many questions to get into, but was there something actually demonic about the beliefs of Adolf Hitler?

Was it purely just human evil, or were there supernatural elements? of his beliefs, his mindset, his worldview, his religion that fueled the fires of his mania.

Well, you know, actually I I closed the book with a reference to John 10 10. Where it says the thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that you might have have life and that you might have it more abundantly. And so I believe that the ideas that are behind uh Hitler's penchant for stealing, killing, destroying are demonic in the sense that, you know, all deception ultimately is coming from Uh evil.

However, A lot of people tend to try to jump to the conclusion that therefore it must have something to do with the occult or some you know, with the black arts and different things like that. And that actually is not accurate. as it turns out. In fact, there's a really uh strange episode that took place because Hitler was against Astrology Yeah. Yeah.

Associates weren't. I mean, Himmler and Rudolf Hess were into astrology themselves. Uh very strange episode that took place. was That when Rudolph Haas Uh Hitler washed his hands. Yeah.

Hess had gone insane when he did it. In fact, Hitler was angry and uh blamed. the astrologers for putting Hess up to that. Uh and making Hess goes. crazy.

And so Hitler, a couple of weeks later, had his SS round up astrologers and prognosticators and other people involved in the occult from throughout Germany, and they put them in concentration camps. But in a bizarre twist, Uh one of these guys named Wilhelm Wolf, was taken by Himmler personally out of the concentration camp and made Himmler's personal astrologer. Mm.

There were some people in the high up in the Nazi hierarchy who were directly involved in the occult, like Himmler and like Haas. Hitler saw Yeah. being more scientific in his orientation. Interestingly, And what I u ultimately argue in my book is that Hitler was a pantheist. He believed that nature was God, and he thought that he needed to cooperate with the laws of nature and the primary one that he thought was sort of most important for him.

Yeah.

Uh core to Darwinian law of the struggle for existence and natural selection, so that the struggle wrong should prove the weak, essentially. Yeah, and if we're all just evolved animals, it makes sense for the good of the preservation of the race, the survival of the fittest. You get into other questions in the book. Was Hitler an atheist, a Christian, an occultist? Did he derive his anti-Semitism from Christianity?

What did Hitler not believe? I wish we had time to get into it. I know you've got a class to teach, and I'm out of radio time, but the book, Hitler's Religion, The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich, and a book that is certainly a related book, The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life, Professor Richard Weichart. Thanks for your time, sir. Thanks for your hard work.

And may a generation of readers have their eyes, hearts, and minds opened. Thank you very much for having me. My joy. All right, friends. Especially important to talk about life and death issues for me right now, as my mom passed away Friday at the age of 94.

I prepared a special tribute for her as well as words of edification for you and encouragement for you as we come into the holiday season to think about life, to think about family.

So tomorrow at this time, I should be leaving the funeral service with our younger daughter, Megan, and flying back home where we'll gather with family for Thanksgiving break. And look forward to being with you again on live radio on Wednesday. But tomorrow, I think a special broadcast you'll be blessed by and helped by and encouraged by and challenged by. And thank you for praying. We received a flood of kind words.

I posted things on Facebook once the immediate family was informed. Posted things on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram with a picture of my mom and me from a few months back. And just Okay. gave her a tribute there and then wrote a tribute immediately. And I'm so thankful for the various websites that carry my material for posting that tribute to my mom.

And interestingly, the rabbi At the cemetery, a Performing the funeral service tomorrow.

So, this is just someone that is hired through the Jewish. Cemetery turns out to be a regular listener of the line of fire. Not a believer in Jesus, a Reformed rabbi, but a regular listener to the broadcast.

So we'll have a lot to talk about when we do get to see each other. And please do check out the tribute that I wrote to my mom. It's my way of honoring her, and you'll honor me by reading it and enjoying this testimony of her life. You can do that by just going to the Ask Dr. Brown website, a SKDRBrown.org.

You'll see it as the most recent article. And we've got a book that's so appropriate this week that it's part of our special offer.

So, if you want to stand with us and help us, but be greatly blessed at the same time, then order this today. Jonathan Burnis, a rabbi, looks at the supernatural, revealing, look at angels, demons, miracles, heaven, and hell, even dealing with the problem of evil and why sickness and disease, and what about sin and righteousness? What about ghosts? What about the invisible world? What was Charles Darwin missing?

And eternal truths, more than fairy tales, with lots of amazing stories. When you order the book, we're giving you with that. My exclusive interview with Jonathan Burn is almost one hour long. Where rather than tell you stories from the book, he said, Let me tell you stories that are not in the book, things I've seen with my own eyes of the spiritual realm.

So we had a great, great talk together. And that interview on CD comes along with the book when you order.

So you can order right on the website, ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-RBrown.org. And have you ever noticed when you go to a funeral that so many things that seem so important? It's so big. And they were consuming, you know, problem on the work or problem with the new carpet that was put in, or just kidding, got a bad cut and scratch, it's infected, and they've got to go back to the doc.

And these things, just everyday life, and they weigh on you, and this bothers you, and this disappointment, and this just a hassle. You go to a funeral, you think, wait, wait, wait, this is all so secondary.

So, I want to encourage you to major on the majors. Yeah, we all got to deal with those little things, be it. You've got to bring your car in for inspection. Or, or be it that, oh, you didn't send the payment out on time. You got, I mean, all these little things, real life we have to deal with, and a bad report from kids, you know, your kid at school, and yeah, yo, that's all part of life.

and some more important than others. But the biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest things are loving God and loving our neighbor. And that neighbor starts with your own family.

So my personal encouragement to you as I celebrate the life of my mom tomorrow at her funeral. Make life count. Make life count. My bottom line today, Ecclesiastes says, Better to be at the House of Mourning. and the house of feasting.

Time to be sober and then think about living life to the full. Change the world.