Why does God tell us to write things down? I'm going to talk about the line of fire. Michael Brown delighted to be with you and hear, by God's grace, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front lines. The last couple of days, we talked about political issues. We've done it more since the attempted assassination of President Trump.
And then with President Biden dropping out of the presidential race. And I've done my best to try to give spiritual perspectives and helpful perspectives because I'm not a political pundit or wimp. I'm a Washington insider. I'm a minister of the gospel, commenting on cultural, political world issues. So I've done that. I'm happy to take calls on those subjects as well later in the show. 866-3-4-truth, 866-348-7884. So you can call me if you wanted to get in yesterday and join the discussion, didn't have a chance.
I will have a couple of comments about some observations after yesterday's broadcast. But today, I want to focus entirely on a spiritual subject first and foremost. Something I believe will be of real help, maybe even of life-changing help to you. Before I get into that, I really work hard every single day getting God's mind on what I should write about for an op-ed piece. And I write on average five op-eds a week.
So just about one every day over the course of the week. And it can be talking about what's happening in Israel. It can be talking about spiritual phenomenon in our country. It can be giving a kind of perspective on what's happening in politics. But I found that people read these, often they use them for material in preaching or radio hosts. I've been on interviews on radio stations.
This is Dr. Brown. We use your material all the time. Others just, oh, okay, that helped. I can share this on social media. So we're so blessed to know that these have helped so many of you.
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The number again to call to get in on today's broadcast. It was back in around 1983 that my pastor asked me, do you journal? And I said, no. He said, you need to start journaling. In fact, I was just starting to go to this new church and just getting to know this pastor. So it was one of the first things that he asked me. God had done some radical, wonderful things in my life in the months before. He had restored me to my first love after a time of theological, intellectual pride. He had poured out his spirit in me and through me and touched many in the previous church that I was part of. And it was a time of great shifting and change in my life. This pastor asked me if I journal.
I said, no. So you need to start. That is one of the greatest points of advice I have received in my entire life, and it continues to impact me to this very day. Now, I want to give you a biblical principle, and I want to go to Habakkuk, the second chapter. Habakkuk is a contemporary of Jeremiah. He is prophesying at a time of great upheaval in Israel. He's prophesying at a time when the nation of Judah is being threatened by Babylon and is soon going to go into exile.
It's a time of great sin. God has promised his work, his intervention, but first it's going to come by way of judgment. And Habakkuk says, chapter 2, verse 1, I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts.
I will look to see what he will say to me and what answer I am to give to this complaint. The Hebrew can be translated a couple of different ways. I don't want to focus on that last part of the verse. Then the Lord replied, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits at a point in time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it lingo, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay.
See, the enemy is puffed up. His desire is not upright, but the righteous will live by his faithfulness. Alright, why is that such an important passage? Write down the revelation.
Hold on to it. Make it plain so that people can see it and understand it and read it and hear it because the revelation awaits at a point in time. But there's going to be a delay. That's why you have to live by faith and by trusting in the faithfulness of God. The words of God will come to pass, but there's going to be a delay. Friend, every major purpose of God in your life will be tested.
Say that again. Every major purpose of God in your life will be tested. God tells Abraham through his seed the whole world will be blessed. Already he knows that he and his wife are unable to have children.
He's 75, she's 65, and yet it's another 25 years before the promise comes to pass. How many spiritual deaths did Abraham die, so to say? How many times did he lose hope? How many times did he come to the end of himself and yet somehow was strengthened in faith to believe God and then the promise came to pass? Every good purpose of God in your life will be tested. You say, what does that have to do with writing things down?
Several things, several things. Number one, when God gives you a promise, maybe it's a scripture that comes alive. Maybe it's a prophetic word that you receive through someone that you know it bears witness with your spirits, but God's been speaking to you. Maybe it's something the Lord just shows you in a personal way.
Maybe it's a dream you had you know was from God. He continues to communicate very clear in the New Testament that Jesus' sheep hear his voice in an ongoing way. And he continues to communicate with us in so many ways. The Bible is the Bible.
That stands apart. The only word of God. The Bible. Period.
End of subject. It is the Word. And there are many ways that God continues to speak to us outside of the Bible that are not the Bible, that don't add to the Bible, that don't complete with the Bible. And when he speaks something to you, Paul told Timothy, 1 Timothy 1-18, to fight the good fight based on the prophecies that he had received. So when God speaks something, you want to write it down because often we forget.
I'll never forget this. Often we forget. In fact, I have been shocked to see how I have forgotten things that God spoke to me that were so powerful and so real.
And yet, a day later, a week later, a month later, I'm acting as if I've never even heard this. I go on a prayer retreat virtually every month. There may be a scheduling issue here and there, but basically every month of the year I'm going on a weekend prayer retreat.
And I shut myself in Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. If I'm ministering on the road, I'll just stay extended place where I am there. Otherwise, just get a hotel suite near our house. It's just to be away. Or if Nancy's with family, then I'll just be at home alone.
So it's Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. It's been absolutely life changing since May of 2021. In December of 2020, I went away on an eight-day prayer retreat. I hadn't done prayer retreats in a long, many, many years. I went away for eight days.
And just to be with the Lord and spend hours and hours in His presence and communing with Him and talking with Him and meditating on His word and refreshing my mind on things He said and promised over the years. So life changing. When I came back from that, I told Nancy I think I should probably do one weekend a quarter. She said, you'll never get where you need to go doing that. You need to do one a month.
And she was absolutely right. So it's been since May of 2021 virtually every single month. My last prayer retreat was this past weekend. And during those times, God's spoken things to me.
I was praying about lots of things in our ministry. And I felt the Lord said to me, keep doing what you're doing. A few months later, I journaled. I felt the Lord saying, keep doing what you're doing. A few months later, I journaled the same thing.
I thought, wait a second. This is the third time I'm journaling the same simple word. And I forgot the previous two times. In other words, each time I felt the Lord speaking it to me, it was as if this first time I was hearing it.
And then I said, wait a second, wait a second. Look, I went back in my journal entries. By writing things down, you memorialize it. By writing things down, you also say, OK, this happened on this day. And it's not just journaling things of significance where I felt the Lord spoke, but maybe an answer to prayer.
Or maybe just journaling how you're feeling. I remember one year I had incredible spiritual experience. I felt like I was at the highest mountaintop, communing with God and enjoying His grace and goodness. I remembered another time I had journaled. I just felt like the bottom fell out. Like just I was in a black hole and saw no way out.
And I remember those things. Well, when I went through my journal at the end of the year, I was shocked, shocked, absolutely shocked to see that the spiritual high, this mountaintop experience was one night. And the next morning was the bottom fell out. There was nothing happened.
Nothing changed. My circumstances were exactly the same from the night to the morning, but my emotions were completely and totally different. And it was a tremendous insight to see that. Or maybe you journal at times, Lord, I'm tired, I'm weird, I don't feel like there's any hope. And you see a year later, wow, God's answered.
Wow, I'm out of that rut. Many times we forget how bad things were. We forget how good things were. We even forget important events. I'll never forget life has a lot of stuff going on.
And especially if you're busy and around lots of people and lots of places, it's hard to retain everything. Why do you think so much of the Bible is repetitive? Why do you have overlap, say, from 2 Samuel in 1 Chronicles? And then why do you have 1 and 2 Kings and then so much overlap with 1 and 2 Chronicles? Why do the Gospels overlap as much as they overlap? And why do the Psalms keep rehearsing Israelite history? And why were there even certain holy days? Do this so that your son will ask, your children will ask, why do we do this? And you can tell them about the Lord. It's to memorialize things. We have short memories and we often forget things of great significance. When you journal spiritual insights, things you feel the Lord shows you, key events, prayers, answers to prayer, and you go back and look at it over a period of years, my friends, it is revolutionary. If you don't journal, start journaling today.
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Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. This is actually good timing today. Got my nitric oxide and myo-health mix. Just drink it during the show today.
Yeah, so good timing for the Triveda ad. 866-348-7884 to get on the air. I'll get to your calls shortly, but I want to get back to this issue of journaling. So on an average day, if it's just a normal day, there may just be a line in my journal. Initially, I wrote things by hand and then had these YWAM, Youth With a Mission, prayer guides, and then you had a little space for each day, so I'd write things by hand. Then I started to enter some things in computer, and then got journaling software. There's a lot of it out there, a daily journal, different journaling software, and that's what I've done since, oh, the mid-90s. So that means I can search for any subject. When did I meet that?
It's an important meeting with a certain person. Boom, there it was. When was I in this country during particular?
Boom, just search, and there it is. So at this point, we're talking like 30 years worth of journaling. And I have certain categories. So it's just the basic daily, and if it was a normal day, I just might say radio, dinner with Nancy, and my normal night, something like that, or catch up on research, whatever, prepare for some debate, that's it. Or great time preaching and such and such, that's it. If there's something of significance, maybe an insight, maybe something happening in my life, maybe a major meeting, maybe some major development, I'll note that.
But otherwise, it's just a line or two. Then when I'm really praying, seeking God, there may be something important, and I'll write that out. And I have different categories, special categories. I have one that's Jewish ministry, so important developments in Jewish ministry. Another is personal prophecies. If someone gives me a word that I really feel has substance and credibility, that's not often, but that's journaled there. Another is prophetic words, meaning just insights I feel the Lord's giving me from my life and direction from my life.
I'll journal that. Another is prayer requests, so just pouring out my heart to God. Another is prayer questions. God, I don't understand this.
What about this? I need insight on this. Another is media, things that have to do with radio and TV ministry and things like that. And those would be significant, maybe a significant development or a significant insight or something like that. And what I just started doing the other day, I said, okay, let me grab different categories and put them all in documents, Word files. And I started going through Jewish ministry, so I've got entries going back to the mid-1990s.
And I don't know, maybe a couple hundred entries total over that period of time under Jewish ministry. And so much I completely forgot. Like, whoa, yeah, that happened. Okay, I didn't remember feeling it. I remember that call.
It's been amazing. So it's just on the one hand remembering. But friends, we forget how faithful God's been.
We forget how many times he delivered. We forget prayers that were answered. We forget the times when we thought we were going down for the count.
It was over. We were sinking and could get up no more. We were drowning, and there was no hope. And wow, God brought me through that, sustained me. I was sure it could never happen, and here I am today.
I found a journal entry, which I had written out by hand on a tablet, whatever I was using. We read that out by hand, and it was, God, if you don't come through now, it's over. Meaning our ministry has no funds and will not be able to function.
And personally, in our own lives, we won't have any funds. God, if you don't come through now, it's over. A few months later, I found that entry, and I couldn't even remember what it was. But it was a crisis. Well, it felt like a crisis. It seemed like a crisis, but God carried me through and carried us through.
And he carried us through so beautifully, I couldn't even remember what the crisis was. You have to go back to those dates in my journal and find it. But what I found so significant here, it's the things that you really believe God, maybe it's a scripture. Maybe you believe the only way God speaks is through scripture.
Fine. But it's a scripture that, you know, God's speaking this to me. It's a word I have to take hold of, a promise I have to take hold of. Maybe three, four years later, that verse jumps out, oh, it's a scripture I have to take hold of.
Maybe five years later, it jumps out again. What happens is we forgot that we were supposed to take hold of it. We forgot that God was preparing us for a battle to come.
We forgot that this was a promise that was going to be tested. And on Father's Day, I felt the Lord gave me a word of encouragement, and I journaled it, wrote it down. And when I do my prayer retreats, I have digital paper, so it's not like an iPad or tablet. It's just like you're writing on paper. And this way I'm not distracted with other things as I'm doing it.
And I write things out by hand and then subsequently enter them into my journal. And that's when I'm writing down lots and lots of prayer requests. I mean, when I pour my heart out to God and feel I want to memorialize that. I want to remember the prayers I was praying.
Because sometimes even that is an educational experience. Wow, God's had me pray the same thing over and over. There's a reason for it. He's behind this. That's when I'll write down key insights, especially on these prayer retreats. At the beginning of the prayer retreat, so this is now about a month after Father's Day, right? I feel the Lord gave me a word of encouragement. And I wrote it out. And then I look back and I thought, I wrote out almost the identical word a month ago. And I totally forgot. I sensed it in my spirit. I wrote it out. And then I forgot. I thought, that's pathetic.
What is that? And sometimes the busyness of life, running here, here, here, doing all this stuff. And for me, it can be like a focus. But going back as I was on my knees praying during the prayer retreat. And looking back at years of promises and years of divine intervention and years of answers. And years of seeing His grace and being reminded.
It stirred my own heart. And based on that, I could pray more effectively. And believe more aggressively. And serve all of you more effectively.
So, I encourage you. This is not political insights. This is not cultural insights. This is to help you grow in God. Because the ultimate goal, the ultimate burden, the ultimate vision we have is to see a thriving, healthy church. Because look, we're not going to see cultural change unless the church leads the way. And it's only a healthy church that can help bring health to a sick America.
And it's only a healthy church that can provoke Israel to envy. The three R's of our ministry. Revival in the church. Gospel-based moral and cultural revolution. And the redemption of Israel. Those three R's hang on the first R. It's only a revived church that can bring about a gospel-based moral and cultural revolution. And it's only a revived church that can pray for and provoke Israel to jealousy. So, ultimately, as much as I hope I can give you wisdom in different areas and answer theology questions.
And give us some helpful perspectives in the midst of the political turmoil. The biggest thing I could do as a servant of the Lord is help you get healthier and stronger in the Lord. So, I'm not your pastor. I'm not your local elder with oversight over your life. Hopefully you're in a good, healthy community.
But that's the goal of your local church, isn't it? To see you healthy and thriving. So, I want to contribute with the gifts and graces I have to that. Think about doing this.
If you haven't journaled, do it. And those who have, go back. Dust off some of those promises. Look back at things you really believe the Lord spoke. Even if something died along the way. Someone died along the way and it seemed over. God can bring life out of death. There can be a resurrection.
There can be another chapter. He's the ultimate redeemer. So, incorporate this in your life. It has been life changing for me.
Remains life changing, literally, to this day. Okay, we'll be right back. I'm going to shift subjects and I'm going to go to your phones.
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.
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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey, I just got a text from my grandson, Andrew, watching. Very encouraging word today. Come on, actually, we had this chat a week or two ago. I was encouraging him to make sure he journals things.
So 20 years old. Get ahead of it. 866-348-7884. Ashley, Kyle, you're next. Go in your way momentarily. You know, I put together going to the phones and going to your calls. It came out as going to your phones.
That's where I'm going, right? If I'm not going to your phone, then you can't come on. Come to your phone, then we'll talk.
So it wasn't as erroneous as it sounded. OK. Switching subjects now from the importance of journaling and remembering, taking note of things.
I want to make this one observation and then your calls. So when I first got on live talk radio, it was in 2008 and began broadcasting five days a week. So we're now coming into the political campaigns for Barack Obama's first presidency. And I wasn't sure yet because I've been preaching for years. I've been teaching in Bible schools, ministry schools for years. I had done different prerecorded radio shows, done many interviews. But this was going to be my first time with my own show, Live Talk. And I didn't know how much I was going to talk about politics because, again, I'm not a political pundit. I'm not a Washington insider. This is not the place you go to get the latest breaking news from D.C. From, you know, I've worked in this White House administration and that. No, that's not me. There are others that have that experience.
So what I'm doing is always seeing you bring a gospel kingdom perspective. And I felt it was appropriate to weigh in on certain things. And Senator McCain was running then. I explained why I had some differences with one of his positions and the primaries.
And Barack Obama was senator then. And one day I took issue with something that he had said. Someone called in and said, why is it that all you do is bash Obama? I said, well, I don't get it. I actually took issue with something that Senator McCain said. Then I took issue with something that Senator Obama said. And I maybe mentioned him twice in my broadcast.
Well, why are we always bashing him? So immediately I realized that we all, every single one of us, I don't care who you are. We all hear things through our own perspective, either as men or women or as Americans, or as believers or nonbelievers or whatever our cultural view, whatever our perspective. That's how we process things. That's the only way we can process things is from our own perspective.
We do our best to hear and understand other perspectives. But when I hear certain words, they have certain meaning, context. Okay, so from this person's perspective, maybe they were so thrilled with Senator Obama and so excited about him being a candidate. Or maybe, maybe, and this happened to be an African American caller, maybe she had seen so much discrimination over the years. Maybe she had seen those African Americans that were rising to the top always being pushed down.
So maybe she was hypersensitive. So once he became president, and I realized, although I couldn't vote for him myself, convictionally I couldn't vote for him because of the stance that he had taken, I wished I could have because it was a historic moment in America in so many ways. I wished I could have. And thereafter, if I was going to differ, and I didn't talk about him a lot, but if I was going to differ, I would say my prayer is that he will be the greatest president in American history.
That's my prayer, but I don't see that happening yet. I have these concerns, and if there's something he said that I agreed with, I went out of my way to highlight that. So again, I realized that there were sensitivities I might not have because I don't have a certain background. And again, I'm a Jewish American. I have sensitivities that a non-Jewish American doesn't have. We all have that.
My wife has sensitivities as a woman that I don't have as a man. And so we do our best to listen and understand. So yesterday I was talking about Trump in Project 2025, and I was talking about him outwardly trashing Heritage Foundation and the project itself, whereas he worked closely with Heritage Foundation during his years in the White House. And I said, it seems like an obvious political strategy.
The left is making this, Project 2025 is the work of radical extremists, Christian nationalists who want to take over the country, and it's Trump's agenda. And because of that, Trump said, I've got nothing to do with this. That's extreme. I don't want anything to do with it.
It's crazy stuff. So it just seems like a political football. But I said, look, he may be your candidate. I voted for him twice. He may be your man, but don't over-exalt him.
Don't make him into some kind of savior figure. And someone called a regular listener, which I love that, when someone listens and wants to take issue, calls in. It's basically the perception is, why do I have to bash Trump all the time?
So this is obviously a Trump voter, someone favorite. I'm not. I'm not. I wasn't doing that. I wasn't doing that.
So I posted something on X, formerly Twitter, and I just asked this question because I see it a lot. And I said, can someone explain this to me? I'm a two-time Trump voter. I've said that in my view, a pro-life Christian cannot vote for a Democratic presidential candidate and for the vast majority of Christian conservatives, Trump would be their candidate of choice. Yet the moment I urge Trump followers not to over-exalt him, look to him as the savior of the Christian right, many get angry with me, accusing me of being a Democrat or of always attacking Trump.
Why so sensitive? Why the need for unhinged, unquestioning support of Trump? And it got over 80,000 views, which for when I post is an excellent I've only got like 50-something or 60-something thousand followers. It's not like millions. And, you know, 1.1 thousand likes. And then, whoa, oh my, 676 comments in response. OK, I guess I opened the question up there. It was relevant. I spotted some responses.
Whoa, I didn't realize it was that many. The point is this. Why can't we vote for a candidate and say, I prefer this candidate for X, Y, Z reasons, but not be so sensitive to criticism of that candidate? Look, if I was running for office and I had your vote, that's what I want is your vote. And if you say, I don't like this about your personality, I think you have a big nose. I think your mustache is ugly. I think you're proud, or I think whatever, but I'm voting for you. OK, that's what I want is your vote.
That's what I wanted. So with President Trump, I said, boy, I wish he didn't say this. And he just stuck his foot in his mouth here.
And this is completely counterproductive, but he had my vote. So that's what I don't understand. And that's what concerns me. And it could be across the board. That's why I mentioned Obama and Trump. So I'm not picking on Democrats or Republicans or black or white. I'm saying this happens across the board.
We can all do this. Why do we have to be so hypersensitive? Here, even as believers, we can have some differences. I just got a text from a nationally known pastor that I've had strong differences with. He's just reaching out as if nothing ever happened between us.
Is there a related question for me? You could say, Mike Brown, what about this person? You're friends with them. And they said this. I said, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. We can disagree. It's OK. Nancy and I disagree on things.
It's fine. But why do we have to be so sensitive about it? That's what concerns me. It's one thing when someone attacks our savior.
OK? That's one thing. Hey, that's my savior you're talking about. But a political candidate? They're just people like us with strengths and weaknesses. Let's not demonize them. Let's not deify them. That's my appeal.
By all means, vote. But don't demonize, don't deify. All right. With that, we go to the phones. Maybe that riled up a few. I don't mean it to rile up.
I'm just trying to be practical. 866-348-7884. Let's go over to Ashley in Mississippi. Thanks so much for holding. Welcome to the line of fire.
Thanks. So here's my question. With all of the political tension and unrest currently happening in America, many Christians are, again, talking about preparedness. However, there seems to be a divide. Some say tomorrow will worry about itself and even say it's a sin to store up food because that is being unfaithful. And the other side says that being prudent is wise. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Thanks so much. Yeah. Thank you for having your question so clearly articulated, Ashley. By all means, it is wise to think ahead. And when Jesus says, don't be anxious about tomorrow, King James, give no thought to tomorrow. But it's talking about being anxious.
So being anxious does no good. Who's going to win the election? What's going to happen to the economy? Climate control.
Is it going to be a third world war? That doesn't produce any fruit. It doesn't help us in any way. So being anxious about the future is counterproductive. Rather, the principle is Philippians 4, 6 through 8, that we are anxious for nothing. Instead, we give to God all of our requests, all of our prayers with thanksgiving. And then his peace guards our heart.
And then we think on things that are good and pure, et cetera. So I want to take all anxiety, 1 Peter 5, 7, casting your care, your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Lord, I'm concerned about the future. I don't know about raising my kids in this world. I feel uncertain.
You cast that all on him. And then you use wisdom, not fear-based action, but wisdom for the future. So I remember hearing decades ago that we needed to hoard food. I remember where we lived in Maryland. So it was late 80s, early 90s, that we were told then that there's this crisis coming.
It just kind of spread in the Christian world. And we need to store food because this crisis is going to happen. Of course, it never happened. We were on vacation with a former Green Beret from Vietnam. And he said, I've got a question for you. If you're a Christian, are you storing food for yourself or for your neighbor? He said, because aren't we to love our neighbors ourselves? He said, here's the other question. If you're storing food, are you also storing weapons?
He said, I've been in the midst of famine overseas. And if you're the one with food, the only way you're going to keep people from taking your food is with weapons. So you're prepared to kill the people that come for your food.
In other words, sometimes we don't think things through fully and well. So it's wisdom to have supplies on hand in case there's some power outage and things like that, you know, a hurricane, etc. But to plan as if it's the end of the world, to plan as if we need to stockpile food for this dark day that's going to last for months, some apocalyptic siege. I don't see that as biblical or wise. God will give us forewarning in such a way that there's substance and wisdom to it, not the fear-mongering type of thing. So practical wisdom to have supplies on hand if there's ever a power outage or some natural disaster, that kind of thing, that's one thing.
There's wisdom in it. But reports, prepare for this, for this, the end time. No, that's where I'm really going to trust God. I'll act with wisdom today, but I'm really going to trust Him. If that calamity comes, He's going to keep us through the storm. Thank you so much for the question and the call. We'll be right back.
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Get 25% off nitric oxide plus. Call 800-811-9628. 800-811-9628. This is how we rise up It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.
866-34-TRUTH is the number to call, and going to go to Kyle in a moment. Just some of the little sound bites from Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, and we'll talk about it on the air tomorrow. That's our plan. He said that gays for Gaza is like chickens for KFC. Just speaking reality there. He said that for Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy.
For Hamas, it's a strategy. That's a play on words I had not heard before. You know, not all of our presidents have been great orators. Ronald Reagan really knew how to deliver a speech.
It wasn't like the passionate thing, but just this calming statesman thing about him. Think of George H.W. Bush, George Bush. They weren't really strong orators.
Bill Clinton had his way. Barack Obama, strong orator. Donald Trump is more just kind of talking to you. Joe Biden the same.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, he knows how to deliver a message as well. And I've heard parts of his speeches in the past, and it could just be my perception, but he seemed more emotional today. He seemed more passionate today, which would be fully understandable, given the stakes of what's happened since October 7th. And he may have even flubbed a word here or there as he was being more emotional.
It could be. But just remember, he's far more popular in America than in Israel. Far, far more popular in America than in Israel.
The nation is much more divided over him in Israel, whereas here he is much more praised and respected. But by the parts of the speech I heard, I was with him inch for inch on those. All right, changing subjects again.
Let's go over to Austin, Texas. Kyle, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, thanks so much for taking my call. I really appreciate it. You made some great political points earlier. I feel like a lot of Christians nowadays are conflating Christianity with support for Trump, so you make some great points, and I feel like that's probably why you're getting a lot of the pushback you are right now.
But in regards to my question, I watched your debate with Gabe Finocchio the other day and wanted to first commend you for your patience and grace even in the midst of his lack of good faith debating. But my question is primarily around Jeremiah 30 and 32, and I obviously agree with your view of national Israel and their future and the fact that Jeremiah 31 verse 1 through 3 says both Israel and Judah would be restored to the land, and I would assume you would agree that since Israel is included there, it would point to a future event since they haven't yet come back to the land as rather Judah has in the midst of the Babylonian return. Or the return from Babylon. But as I was reading Jeremiah 32 verses 31 through 32, I wanted to get your take on something because it seems as if Jeremiah here is maybe using Israel and Judah together, which might combat that interpretation that you and I probably have of Jeremiah 30 verses 1 through 3. But Jeremiah 32, 31 through 32 says, This city has aroused my anger and wrath from the day that it was built to this day so that I will remove it from my sight because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger. Their kings and their officials, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
So really my question is, if Jeremiah there is kind of conflating Israel and Judah, would that also, or could that also be interpreted earlier on in chapter 30 verses 1 through 3? Thanks so much, Dr. Brown. Yeah, yeah, so let's work through this. Do you have your Bible open in front of you or no? Yeah, I do. Okay, so let's go to, let's first go to Luke's Gospel, okay? All right? Absolutely. Luke chapter 1, and there's a woman there, a well-known woman, Anna, right?
Correct? She was in the temple day and night praying. So what does it tell us about Anna in Luke the first chapter? Luke chapter 1, and we'll scroll all the way, I'm sorry, Luke chapter 2, of course. Sorry about that. Luke chapter 2.
That's all right. Yeah, so it's going to tell us about Simeon and then his prophecy over Jesus, Yeshua, in verses 34 and 35. Then it's going to tell us about Anna. What does it say about her? Are you going to read verse 36? Yeah, go ahead.
Awesome. And there is a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Sannuel, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, of the tribe of Asher. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Where was she from? Where is she from? Asher. Asher. That's part of the 10 tribes, right? The northern kingdom, Israel. Yep.
Right. When Jacob James writes in chapter 1, he says, to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. Paul makes reference to the 12 tribes in Acts 26, serving God.
In fact, just go over that passage, Acts chapter 26. And he says, this is the promise, verse 7, our 12 tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. So always, through Israel's history, there were parts of the 10 tribes that became incorporated in Judah. You even see during Hezekiah's reforms and Josiah's reforms that people came from Ephraim and Manasseh.
And so this is before the fall of the north and after the fall of the north. So Judah always included remnants of Israel. So yes, there are scattered tribes, and I believe that's part of the end time restoration, the regathering of scattered Israelites whose identity may have been lost through part of history, but has been recovered, and they'll be brought back. And there's some type of reconciliation of Israel and Judah that's spoken of through the prophet Ezekiel, some future event.
But otherwise, they're frequently used interchangeably. So for example, if you go to Jeremiah chapter 2, and you see the oracle there to go proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, I remember the devotion to your youth as a bride, so you go on from there. And then he's addressing verse 4, Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob, all you clans of Israel. So when I did my Jeremiah commentary, so remember, Jeremiah's prophesying, he begins prophesying in the year 627, the 13th year of Josiah, who became king in the year 640.
So he begins prophesying in 627 BC, and that means it's almost a century after the fall of the northern kingdom to Assyria. And yet he still addresses his own people, Judah, as descendants of Jacob and clans of Israel. You'll find Judah being referred to as Israel over and over. So you can distinguish Judah from Israel on the one hand, and you can speak of Israel and Judah meaning everybody, but you can also refer to Judah as Israel. Just like when Paul's writing in Romans 11, and he uses Israel 11 times, the only time in Romans he uses the word Israel, but he uses it 11 times in Romans 9, 10, and 11, he's speaking of the Jewish people as a whole.
The Jewish people as a whole. So Jews and Israel can be used interchangeably. So that's the norm in the prophetic books. Again, during my commentary, it forced me to dig deep on these things, but you'll see it very, very commonly. Sometimes they're just addressing the habits of Judah and Jerusalem. Other times they are specifically addressing, they're just speaking to the nations as a whole, referring to Israel. One more thing that's interesting. If you had a guess, where's the first time that the word Jew or Jews occurs in the Bible? If you had a guess. I'm guessing sometime in the New Testament.
Exactly. That's what I would have thought off the top of my head if I hadn't noticed, wait a second, years ago of course, that let's say Ezra references the Jews in Jerusalem, Jews in Judah. But now let's get into Nehemiah because this could be outsiders talking. Nehemiah says, Nehemiah 2.16, the officials, this is an Israelite himself, a Judean Israeli.
The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing because as of yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or the nobles or officials or any others. Here Nehemiah, a Jew, is referring to the Jews, meaning the local Judean population. You have the same usage even in the book of Jeremiah, but it's over and over in Nehemiah. This is not outsiders talking about the Jews. This is a Jew talking about fellow Jews.
I'm just scrolling down for references. It's towards the end of Jeremiah that this comes up, meaning the local Judean population. And then when you get into the New Testament, especially John's Gospel, the Jews can mean the people as a whole or it can mean the local Judean population. Like John 7, Jesus is afraid to go into Judea because the Jews mean the Judeans. Or it can mean the Jewish leadership. So that would be called poly-violence, the different meanings of the word. So where there is something very distinct and clear where we need to separate Judah from Israel or Israel from Judah, et cetera, then the overall context will make that clear.
Otherwise, there's tremendous blending. For example, throughout the historical accounts, especially in Chronicles, it mentions all Israel, all Israel, all Israel. Most of the times it means the ten northern tribes. Sometimes it means everybody. So context, as they always say, is key. I could have given you a one word simple answer, but the key is, yes, Israel and Judah often use it in an overlapping way. And it's just a more comprehensive way of God speaking to people as a whole, but not as two distinct separate camps. All right, thanks for the question. And I hope everyone else enjoyed the journey through Scripture. Back with you on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday tomorrow. Make sure you... This is how we rise up It's our resistance You can't resist us
