It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown.
It's audio only. As you are listening to today's broadcast, I should be en route from Denver, Colorado to Pasco, Washington, scheduled to speak in Pasco Saturday morning and then get straight on a plane to fly to San Francisco to speak in Danville, California Saturday night, Sunday morning. So if you're anywhere in these areas, I really do hope to see you.
Just another reminder, if you get my emails, that means that we have your email address and if you live in the States, we should have your zip code. And that means that if I'm speaking anywhere within an hour or two of where you are, you'll get a notification that I'll be in your area. And I'm not always able to meet and greet folks, but whenever I can, I love it when folks come up, I list it on the station, I watch it on YouTube, or I'm one of your torch bearers. I just love to see you face to face because I have that sense of camaraderie connection when I'm talking to you, even when I don't see you. And I've said, you know, for many years that I'll be walking to a grocery store or seeing someone in an airport, someone I've never met. But they have a smile as they're looking at me that they know me. They're family, but I don't know them.
And I always know what they're about to say, Dr. Brown, I listen to you every day or I watch you every day. So if you're in the area, I would love to see you. Absolutely. And you can always check my itinerary by going to the line of fire dot org or the line of fire app and just scrolling down for itinerary and you'll find it. And any public meetings we have will be posted. There are often teachers I'm doing at schools and things like that that are not open to the public. But if it's a public meeting, you'll know about it, my itinerary around the world, unless it's places where I can't post my itinerary. All right.
I'm not taking calls today again because I'm in transit. So I post it on Facebook and gave folks a limited amount of time to weigh in. And I said, if you could only ask me one question, what question would it be? Now, I thought I might get some more existential type questions, but it turns out that instead I got a very, very wide range of questions.
And I'm going to answer them in the order that they came in as best as possible. Thomas asks, why did God say his name was a share here, which is I am that I am, or I am who I am, or I am that I will be, or I will be who I will be, the various ways to translate the Hebrew. But we're most familiar with hearing it translated as I am that I am. And it even spells out in some Bibles, but we often think of the other one that begins with Y in the Yahweh.
Love you, Dr. Brown. God even says, I am or I will be is my name. So why do we say it's Yahweh? Well, first, they're related forms. I don't want to get into the difference between the Y and the W, Ehiyeh, Yahweh, and the E versus the Yah.
But they are related Hebrew forms. So Ehiyeh, I share Ehiyeh, I am that I am, or I will be who I will be, is an expanded understanding that relates to the name Yahweh. That may mean he who causes things to come into being and have to do with his role as creator, or the one who will bring about what he promises, hence his covenantal relationship with Israel.
But here's what you need to see. The very passage, Exodus chapter 3 verse 14, God said to Moses, Ehiyeh, share Ehiyeh, he continued, thus shall you say to the Israelites, Ehiyeh, sent me to you. And God further says to Moses, thus shall you speak to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Abraham, Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.
What does it say there? Yahweh, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This shall be my name forever.
This my appellation for all eternity. So when he makes that statement, this shall be my name forever, this my appellation for all eternity, he has already said Yahweh at the beginning of that verse. So it's a larger explanation of who he is and then the specific name, by which he's known through scripture over 6,000 times, YHVH in Hebrew, as we pronounce it, Yahweh, today.
Again, even the exact pronunciation is under debate. Don, in the final chapter of Zechariah, it appears that we will be celebrating the Festival of Booths on earth with the Lord. Is this what this passage teaches?
And if so, what is the significance of the Festival of Booths? So those of us who understand the premillennial coming of the Lord, believe that Jesus will come, establish his kingdom on the earth, and will usher in the thousand year messianic reign that would be depicted in passages like Isaiah 2-4 or Isaiah the 11th chapter. And then spoken of multiple times in Revelation the 20th chapter, the thousand year reign of the Messiah. The time when there will be no war. The time when the nations will come streaming to Jerusalem to learn from the God of Jacob. Now we believe that we will already have met the Lord and be glorified with him. So we will be resurrected with the Lord and together ruling over the earth with him.
So these are things that we do believe and hold to as premillennial followers of Jesus. Again, there is debate about end time understanding. We would then say, yes, the nations on earth will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, will come up to Jerusalem.
You say, what's the significance? Well, as we understand the end times, when we get to the seventh month on the Israelite calendar, which has the last three major holy days, it begins with Yom Teruah, the day of the sounding of the trumpet, the shofar blast, which coincides with the return of the Lord with the last shofar, the last trumpet blast. And then that leads to the time of purification, of cleansing, of repentance for Israel, and cleansing of judgment on the nations. So that now coincides with the ten days of testing between the first day of the seventh month and the tenth day and Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement.
So Zechariah 12 speaks of the Lord's return, so we tie that in with trumpets, which in later Jewish tradition becomes Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. Then, ten days later, Yom Kippur, national cleansing, we tie that in with Zechariah 13.1. They'll now be cleansing for the nation of Israel. And then five days after that is Sukkot, Tabernacles. And that's when the nations will make pilgrimage to Israel. And Sukkot not only signifies the wilderness wanderings of Israel and the transient nature of this life, but Sukkot also speaks of the harvest of the nations, the ingathering of the nations. Hence, this is the time when the nations will come to worship the God of Israel in Jerusalem. Others, of course, interpret this in spiritual terms alone, but I believe the literal interpretation is the correct one in terms of the overall application of the passage. Michael, should we rely on the Bible only now for our news source, since there's so much media deception, the enemy doesn't want us to know what's happening in Israel.
I personally believe the truth will go and report it as if nothing at all is happening. Well, the Bible is our source of truth. The Bible is our source of revelation about who God is. The Bible is our source of moral standards.
The Bible is our source of understanding our mission in this world. But the Bible is not our source for contemporary news. I can't go to the Bible to find out what happened in the stock markets. I can't go to the Bible to find out what the crime rate is in my city. I can't go to the Bible to find out the latest happenings in Russia's war with Ukraine, etc., etc. So, I would not look to the Bible as a news source in that regard, but I would look to the Bible to teach absolute values and to teach me how to think critically. And for sure, if you'll go to enough news sources, the news is being reported. And if you read a wide range of different news sources, you may see misleading information on one or another.
But generally speaking, if you do the research and digging, you can come to pretty good conclusions about most things, at least most major things that are happening. Ashil, is it okay to ask Mary, the mother of Jesus, to intercede for us? There's no need to. We don't pray to Mary. She's not listening to our prayers in heaven. That's a later Catholic doctrine without any support in scripture whatsoever.
That may sound insulting to my Catholic friends, but I just have to be totally candid and honest there. And Jesus has directed us to pray to go to the Heavenly Father in Jesus' name. We do not need to go to an intermediary. Jesus has made the way. He is the only mediator between God and man, having come down from heaven and taken on human form. That's what 1 Timothy 2 tells us. For there is one mediator between God and man, the man beside Jesus. And he tells us, he instructs us to pray to our Father in heaven. And if we ask anything in his name, he will do it. We don't need to ask anyone to go to him or to go to the Father on our behalf. We go through him directly to the Father. We can even call out directly to him.
He also says, if you ask me for anything, I'll do it. So there are times when we even pray directly to Jesus. But absolutely categorically, no. There's no need to ask Mary. It basically downgrades our relationship with God through Jesus. It downgrades our relationship with Jesus. It downgrades the Holy Spirit's work in our life. It downgrades our standing and status in the Lord.
So there's no need to do it. It's not honoring to the Lord to honor his mother. We honor his mother by doing what she said. And she said, do whatever he tells you in John 2.
And that's the principle, right? And he tells us how to pray. Dustin, what are your thoughts on Christian universalism, the kind that was taught by St. Gregory of Nyssa or Gregory of Nazanis? Is there room for fellowship with Christian universalists?
Not all roads lead to heaven, but the Christian universalists that want... Okay, that comment just got cut short on my screen here. Let me see if I can grab the rest of it for you. So let's see here. Okay, all right, let me just interact with it. Here we go.
Here's the rest of it. But the Christian universalism that was perhaps the majority view pre-St. Augustine. All right, number one, there's an excellent study of Christian universalism by Gerald McDermott.
Gerald McDermott, he's a top scholar, a church historian and theologian, and he really deals with the subject conclusively to show scripturally, and then ultimately the verdict of history is that no, there is no Christian universalism. It's biblical, even the type that was taught by some of these church leaders. We should respect the glorious view that everyone ultimately gets redeemed through Jesus. We should understand that for them it's a great matter of faith and the power of redemption. But certainly we would say it is not taught in scripture. In fact, scripture does clearly say that some will be irreparably lost and that it's a final state that cannot be fixed or retrieved. I believe you can make an overwhelmingly clear scriptural case for that.
If believers were orthodox in every other way and had a burden to share the gospel, they would have prayed for the lost, they would finally seek the universal to see some escape hatch, and might not have offered fellowship just over this, but I'm sure I would do my best to help them out of their commitment to the poor. All right, here we go. It's our resistance.
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Call 1-800-771-5584, 1-800-771-5584, or online at TriVita.com. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to the Line of Fire.
Michael Brown, thanks for tuning in today. Thanks again to our great co-sponsor, TriVita. I hit a real good workout yesterday in the hotel.
They had some great weight machines, so I really pressed. But before it always might, TriVita supplements nitric oxide and myo health, so just pour that into my body. Of course, supplements, not substitute. There is no substitute for healthy eating. We want to encourage you to get healthy spirit, soul, and body. And this month, the frontline newsletter that we just sent out really featured some inspiring words about healthy life transformation. If you didn't get the frontline newsletter, oh, we've got to get it to you. If you sign up now, we'll send you the one we just sent out. So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and just click subscribe.
We just need your name, email address, zip code, and we'll send it out to you, and you'll be blessed, you'll be encouraged, you'll be edified, you'll be inspired. Danielle asks, how would you advise people against going after dreams and angelic encounters without dishonoring them and keeping the relationship? Well, you can't always preserve a relationship. In other words, if you see someone is doing something dangerous, unhealthy, and you're fairly close to that person, and you feel, okay, I need to talk to you, and they decline, they refuse, or they won't hear you, and the relationship becomes uncomfortable, you can't just close your eyes and ignore what's happening. So sometimes speaking the truth in love, being a real friend, temporarily severs a relationship, and then it may be months or years later before they come back and are united again as friends, and then they'll thank you for being concerned and for speaking the truth. There are other things that are of lesser importance, and it's just not our business to say, so we pray.
We pray for God to open our hearts, we pray for God to work in their lives, et cetera, but we don't push beyond that. So depending on the situation will depend how you handle it, but you can't always preserve a relationship and never compromise your convictions and truth for the sake of a relationship. We're not talking about husband, wife, or family situation.
We're talking about with your friends. So as to, quote, going after dreams and angelic encounters, it's a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous thing to do. It's one thing to say, Father, if you want to speak to me through dreams, through visions, however you want to speak to me, obviously the word first and foremost, but we know he communicates with us. The word says the last days will be marked by old men having dreams and young men seeing visions and sons and daughters prophesying, and we know he hears his voice, so he speaks to us in an ongoing way. And if you say, Lord, if that's your will, if you desire to speak to me through dreams, and that's part of how you want to communicate, just give me wisdom, show me the dream is for you, show me how to interpret, give me understanding. But otherwise, why would you be, quote, going after dreams, let alone angelic encounters?
It's a dangerous thing. You're now opening yourself up to the spiritual realm and inviting some type of manifestation or being, and why would you be seeking that rather than seeking God? I remember decades ago, it's probably my late 20s, we lived on Long Island, and all our bedrooms were upstairs. I was downstairs late at night praying, and a young man had recently stayed at our home and taught at our school, and he talked about all these angelic encounters he had and seeing into the spiritual realm. I remember thinking, I don't see in the spiritual realm, I've never seen angels, I've never seen demons. I've had encounters with demonic powers. I'm sure angels intervened in my life, I was never aware of it, but I certainly had encounters with demonic powers.
That I knew, and I'd seen people set free and come into real battle at times with demonic powers, but I'd never seen in the spiritual realm. And I just remember thinking, I wish I could see in the spiritual realm, not encounter an angel, but just see in the spiritual realm. And at that moment, I was laying on my face praying, and I looked up, I was absolutely terrified. And what it was is our younger daughter, Megan, when she was little, was real, real little and skinny, and she somehow got up in the middle of the night and came walking down the steps to talk to me about something, or saw the light on, so came downstairs. She was wearing her nightgown, and there was her little skinny ankle that I saw across the room. I was terrified. I thought, oh yeah, great, sure, an angel comes into the room, you'll survive that, buddy.
But it was a foolish thing even for me to be thinking about. There's no need for that. So we seek God, we seek God, we seek God, we seek God, and we ask Him to reveal Himself so we can know Him and understand Him. And we can do that without seeing Him in a vision. We can do that without Him physically walking into our rooms.
So you urge folks not to get caught up in this, you warn them about this type of thing, this false spirituality and the passage at the end of Colossians 2, and you pray for them. And if that makes things uncomfortable in your relationship, what are you going to do? Chris, are you voting for Trump or are you voting for Harris?
That question should really spice things up. Okay, categorically under no circumstances could I vote for Harris. Unless God told me I want to bring judgment on America and increase judgment through her and you are to therefore vote for her, which I couldn't imagine Him saying to me. So because she is so radically pro-abortion and many of the policies she's espoused when she was in the Senate and regarded as the most liberal member of the Senate, under no circumstances could I vote for her or could I vote for Joe Biden or really any major Democratic candidate in many, many, many years. Under no circumstances. I said barring God telling me.
I don't believe He would tell me to. So I could not possibly vote for her. I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. And although I much prefer Republican policies to Democrat policies on many key issues, not all, but many, all the key issues to me, the major issues to me, unfortunately they've really gutted their platform. They removed the pro-life plank, the statement that they have.
It's not even one of their 20 goals. When it is referenced, it's referenced in a way that's watered down. It's much better than the Democratic one, but it's watered down. They removed entirely the statement about not recognizing same-sex, quote, marriage and reaffirming marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
So in that sense, the Republican Party has moved away from some of the core things it stood for for years, and that's under the leadership of Trump. While I vote for him, I'm very open to it. There's a good possibility I would, recognizing that he's not the savior, recognizing that there's going to be a lot of good along with a lot of bad. The question is, do I want to vote for someone who does what he does, who lies the way he lies, who stirs up dissension the way he does, and who has so many Christians who kind of become like him? Nancy was reading these verses to me the other night.
Let me just read a selection of them. The Lord hates a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. With his mouth the godless destroys his neighbor. A perverse man stirs up dissension. He who loves a quarrel loves sin. A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor.
Whoever spreads slander is a fool. A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself. He who holds his tongue is wise. The lips of the righteous know what is fitting. A man of understanding holds his tongue. A wise man's heart guides his mouth. He who guards his lips guards his life. The lips of the wise protect him. The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, etc., etc.
And then other verses. The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom. Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There's more hope for a fool than for him. Fools die for lack of judgment. A chattering fool comes to ruin.
And on and on. The mouth of a fool invites ruin. It's all not to say that President Trump did a tremendous amount of good as president.
There's a lot of collateral damage. So it's likely that I'll vote for Donald Trump again. But again with shouting out to the church, do not look to him to do it only the gospel can do. Do not look to him to bring about the change that only the church can bring about. And do not emulate, do not emulate him.
Yeah, be strong in your convictions, fine. But do not emulate his behavior, his words. Right now he's become his worst enemy. Right now the way he's campaigning and speaking he's become his worst enemy. So I pray for God's best for America. I pray for God to bring into office the person that he desires and pleases.
In no circumstances could I hope for Kamala Harris to go over to Donald Trump. But again with lots of misgivings. You could be canceled, you could be cast out, you could be put down, you could be silenced. I'm here to say friends that I am not about to be silenced and I don't believe you are either. It is time for us to stand up, it is time for us to say enough is enough. It is time for us to push back in Jesus name.
Not fighting the way the world fights, no. Overcoming evil with good. Overcoming hatred with love. Overcoming the flesh with the power of the spirit.
Overcoming lies with truth. And that's what we're here to do on the Line of Fire broadcast. And friends it's not just a broadcast, it is a movement of people around the world. God's people standing up saying enough is enough and saying Lord here we are, send us, use us. I want to urge you today to join our support team because we are on the front lines together. And we are literally touching people around the world.
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Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. All right. We will continue with questions that were posted on Facebook. I just opened the door for a little while.
I gave chance to people to post last night. And then began to prerecord because today as you're listening I should be in transit from Colorado to Washington State. And that's why we are audio only.
You know, the moment I make that statement, it's just habit. I'm about to give out the phone number. But there's no need because we are doing this audio only prerecorded but responding to your best faith book questions. Faith. How to go from information head of Bible verses like healing to revelation knowledge heart.
Thanks. So how do we get the truth of Scripture not just in our minds so that we act intellectually, affirm it, but into our hearts so we grasp it and know it and believe it and understand it and it becomes part of us. You know, there was a story told, I heard it from my pastor at the church where I got saved, that a tightrope walker, a stunt man, erected a tightrope from one side of Niagara Falls to the other with his team. They set it up and then he got a wheelbarrow out and said, I'm going to go on this wheelbarrow, I'm going to walk on this tightrope, on this wheelbarrow, across Niagara Falls, all the way across and all the way back. How many believe I can do it? A few hands go up at people in the crowd and they think you can do it. He makes it all the way there, he makes it all the way back. And when he comes back, he says, how many believe I can do it? Yeah. If I do it again, how many? Yeah.
How many trust me? Yeah. He said, well then get in the wheelbarrow. And that's the difference between intellectual affirmation and knowing that you know, having it in your heart. It becomes part of you.
So how do you get that? Of course, it's going to vary for individuals, but the normal process, if this is my life and I'm trying to internalize something, I see it on the pages of Scripture, I know it's true, but I'm trying to internalize it. So I would first speak it out over and over. I would read it and look at it and read it and look at it, read it in context, understand it, and I'd speak it out, walk around the room speaking it out. I'd say, God, you said this in your word, you said this about yourself, you gave this promise. I speak it out so my own lips hear me saying it.
There's often something to proclaiming what's written. It becomes realized to us, it becomes actualized in our hearts and our minds. And then I would prayerfully go over every aspect of that verse, and this is an ongoing process, going from one to another.
You know, reading it, reciting it, praying over it, studying it, kind of weave it all together. I would pray over it, God, you said this. Lord, I'm having a hard time grasping this. Help me to understand this is who you are. Show me how this is your nature.
Help me to take hold of this. So I'd ask him for his help. I'd meditate on the meaning of it. I'd speak it out. And then when I felt prompted to act on it, I would. And I believe through that process, real faith could be generated.
All right, let's go to Gretchen. Can you explain the great cloud of witnesses? I heard a pastor explain it recently and included those loved ones who have gone on to be with the Lord, but said that these witnesses were likely witnessing us in our lives now. And he used the example of Moses and Elijah's witnesses who were able to appear on the Mount of Transfiguration to speak with Christ.
This is not the way I had ever heard it explained in the past. It's not witnesses in terms of they are witnessing our action. They are watching our action. But they are witnesses in terms of those who are testifying. The Greek word for witnesses is martyros.
Ultimately we get our word martyr from that. And a witness was one who testified. So because so many believers paid with their lives for testifying, witness became synonymous with martyr. So this is not witnessing in terms of they're watching us, but witnesses in terms of those who are testifying to what God has done. And that's what you have obviously in Hebrews 11. So Hebrews 11 gives a list of these witnesses.
These who have testified through their lives. The blood of Abel is still speaking, etc. So it's not talking about Moses and Elijah appearing on the Mount of Transfiguration. And they weren't there to witness what Jesus was doing.
They were more there as a sign and to testify. I'm just looking at a couple of paraphrases here to see how it's spoken. So it doesn't say a cloud of witnesses, but uses language that might be...
Okay, the Living Bible, since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down. I don't see it as watching us from the grandstands. The message says, do you see what this means? All these pioneers who blaze the way, all these veterans cheering us on. It means we'd better get on with it. That's the way I understand the passage. That they are, in a sense, cheering us on. The voice says, so since we stand surrounded by all those who have gone before. That's the enormous cloud of witnesses. So it's not so much that they're watching and observing as much as cheering on. They've gone before us. They have testified. So it's as if they're surrounding us, but not in the sense of watching us.
And they're witnesses to what we're doing, but witnesses of the past now cheering us on. Come on, come on. We've done it.
We've gone before. Now you do it. You do it. You know what it's like? It's like if you're part of a relay competition, and the others go first, and they're waiting for you at the end. Come on, come on. Have you ever been in the gym, and others finish before you, and you're lagging behind like, I'm going to quit. No, come on, come on.
You can do it. That's the sense of the passage. Alright, Matthew, what is the importance of the book of Zephaniah in Hebrew, as it relates to Israel's eschatological purpose? So Zephaniah would be an older contemporary of Jeremiah, so prophesying before the destruction of the southern kingdom. And the book has immediate application then of the coming of the day of the Lord and God's judgment on the sinning southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah. So it has that immediate relevance for that time. Then it speaks of judgment on surrounding nations. And it had relevance back then as well because other nations were judged too. But then it speaks in the third chapter about this universal worship of the Lord.
And that obviously has never happened through history. So this is typical of prophetic books. There's the anticipation of the final end in the midst of prophetic words for the moment. It's almost as if we're speaking about the coming elections, but then speaking of a world ruler four centuries from now in that same context. So ultimately, what happened back then is kind of a precursor of the final end, when there will be a final purging of the world, a final purging of Judah and Jerusalem, and a final judgment on the surrounding nations and the nations that attack Israel, and then out of that the ushering in of the messianic kingdom on the earth.
And you'll find that same pattern with many other prophetic books as well. Gail, how do we keep calm and at peace in an increasingly distressing world? For some, it's very easy. For others, it's very difficult. So let me speak to you in terms of one that would find it difficult. I don't struggle with this at all, but I struggle in other ways that you may be strong in.
So everyone's going to be different here. What I want to do is be sensitive to those that really find it hard to maintain peace in the midst of the storm. It all comes down to intimate relationship with God and knowing Him more deeply, and then renewing our heart and mind with His word and not filling our minds with unnecessary things. So number one, we spend quality time with Him.
We really worship Him. We spend time in prayer, pouring out our heart, sharing our anxieties and our concerns, lifting our burdens to Him and then praising Him for His goodness and His grace. Then we fill our hearts and minds with His word. We meditate on His word. We read it. We speak it. We memorize verses.
We fill our heart and mind with His word. And then we don't fill our minds with unnecessary information. We don't need to know every headline. We don't need to watch 24-7 news. We don't need to look at every news feed that comes across social media. And also, things that agitate us may be the type of entertainment we take in, may be the things that we ingest in terms of entertainment or what we read or watch right before we fall asleep. Let's be careful with that.
And if it's stuff that's ultimately destructive, defiling, why fill our minds with it? Well, we need to know what's going on. No, we don't. I need to know what's going on so I can make decisions as to how to live and be a blessing to others. I don't need to know about every latest gossip report about this one and that one. I don't need to know about every war and conflict everywhere in the world.
I don't need to know about all the bad news and who got raped and who got killed. We can't handle this total influx, this flood, this deluge of bad news, and then just junk communication that's scurrilous and scandalous and is unnecessary for us to take in. Let's be careful to follow Philippians 4, 6, 7, and 8. Philippians 4, verses 6, 7, and 8. So 6 and 7 tell us not to be anxious for anything, but in everything through prayer and supplication to make our request known to God.
And do that with thanksgiving. And then verse 8, whatever is pure and noble, et cetera, think on these things. Also, I encourage you to meditate on Psalm 112. It tells us that the righteous will not be moved by bad news.
So you can have that place of peace in the storm. John 16, 33. John 16, 33, Jesus says, in this world you'll have trouble. Be of good cheer. Take heart.
I've overcome the world. And then sometimes if I feel stress rising just because of ministry pressure, or the latest wave of demonic attack, or major deadlines and schedule that seem very intense, sometimes I'll just meditate on Psalm 23 in Hebrew. I'll just recite it, meditate it, speak it, just walk and say it, lay in bed and say it, just take hold of those promises and lie down in those green pastures by the still waters and breathe in the protection, the faithfulness, the grace of our great shepherd. So I encourage you to do that and I assure you that you can find peace in the midst of the storm. Hey friends, if you value having this broadcast on radio, if you value getting this broadcast online, could you stand with us? If you help with a one-time gift for becoming a monthly supporter, go to thelinefire.org. Keep going.
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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. All right, we've got one last segment to answer your questions. Or if you don't have the Line of Fire app, download it. You can listen to the broadcast or watch it wherever you are at any time, be it live or after. You'll have a list of our latest articles, access to my itinerary, etc.
So just get on your Apple or Google Play Store and search for the Line of Fire, Dr. Brown, and you should find it. All right, let's get back to your questions. Carolyn, should Christians be celebrating the seven Jewish feast days that are listed in Leviticus? Jesus said that not one jot or tittle would pass away until all are fulfilled. And then we don't have to become Jewish, but should we observe these feasts? My Jewish husband, who is now a believer, still wants to observe them. We do at our house, but I wonder if churches should add these observances too. What would Jesus do? Jesus would not call Gentile believers or command Gentile believers to follow Israel's calendar, although they are welcome to.
Why that? What about new moons? What about purification rites? What about many, many other things that are under the law? You say, no, no, these are Yahweh's appointed times. Yes, but they were for Israel. And the Gentile believers we see, Romans 14, they served side by side with Jewish believers. And they had conflicts about holy days and things like that. And Paul said, let each do what they're convicted to do before the Lord. So to appreciate them, to celebrate them prophetically, to see how they point to Yeshua, wonderful, great.
To do it in a mandatory way or to judge others by not doing it, no, no place for that. And I believe the church as a whole should recognize the biblical calendar, should know what's happening in the world, say, hey, it's this time on the biblical calendar. Should pray for Israel during those times. Should teach periodically in the prophetic meaning of the feasts and holy days. But if the church ended up developing new traditions and customs that edified people and brought them to Jesus, as long as they weren't considered scripturally binding, that's fine.
There's nothing against that. Bill and Laurie, Mark 2, 26, why did Nadav and Avihu die for unauthorized fire and Uzzah for touching the ark? Yet Dave and his companions ate consecrated bread, not lawful, yet it was okay for them.
So there are a few answers to this. Number one, Nadav and Avihu, immediately after the fire of God fell or came out from his holy presence, and consumed Aaron's sacrifices that were offered in obedience. And the word obedience, obedience, obedience, obedience, according to the command, according to the Lord's word to Moses, etc.
They obeyed, they obeyed, they obeyed. Immediately after that, Nadav and Avihu, now at the consecration of the priest for the first time, go and offer incense contrary to the Lord's command. So the Lord was making a statement. The same with Uzzah, the ark, the major event is being brought back to the temple, a major public event, and he's a priest, and he should know better, you don't touch it, and you're told if you touch it, you'll die.
So they crossed very serious lines. There was not a command that if you ate the consecrated bread, you would die. That being said, David functioned as a king with priestly prerogatives. And this is part of how we see David as a prototype of the Messiah who is a priestly king. So this was part of a special calling and grace on his life whereby he could do this as a priestly leader. That's why he also danced with Linen Ephod in 2 Samuel 24, offers up sacrifices. And why it's said of him slash the Messiah in Psalm 110, the priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
All right, we continue. J. Michael, your take on the doctrine of transubstantiation in Roman Catholic beliefs. Again, no intent to insult my Roman Catholic friends, the listeners right now, but I absolutely do not believe the Bible teaches transubstantiation. The whole point in John 6 when Jesus says to his Jewish followers, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.
The whole point he's trying to make is I'm talking to you about spiritual principles, not physical principles. They were coming to get earthly bread so their stomachs would be filled. He kept talking about heavenly bread. He said, I'm the bread of life.
And they couldn't understand, so he kept getting more extreme. And then he tells his disciples when they don't understand them either, he says, what are you going to do if the Son of Man ascends to heaven? The flesh profits nothing. It's the spirit that gives life. The words I speak to, they are spirit and they are life.
They're never intended to have a... I mean, obviously our Catholic friends don't believe that they go around chewing on the physical body of Jesus, but when they take the wafer, you don't chew on it because it's allegedly become the real body of the Lord. So, drinking the blood, we are forbidden by Torah to drink blood, to willfully drink blood, so eat blood. So, absolutely it was not what he was saying.
It's the opposite point he's trying to make. It's a spiritual principle only. So, if you say that he is spiritually present in the Eucharist, amen, so be it.
Let his presence be known and felt through it. If you say that the elements in any way literally become his body and blood, absolutely not. The same thing at the Passover meal. When he says at the end of Luke's Gospel that this is my body broken free when he gives them the bread to eat, the whole point is he's saying it's symbolic. They understood they were not in any literal way partaking of his body. If I misrepresented Catholic beliefs in any way, that is not my intent and feel free to correct me if I did. I had to briefly witness to a Jew about Jesus Christ using mainly the Old Testament.
Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. May I encourage you to visit realmessiah.com, realmessiah.com. That is our Jewish outreach website, realmessiah.com. If the Jewish person is secular, which the great majority of American Jews will be, not very religious, you know the Bible better than they do. If they're religious Jews, they are very, very devoted to their faith and will look even more cautiously at someone coming with a Christian message. So let's just talk about a secular Jew.
In a nutshell, you want to love them like anyone else and build a relationship if you can. You want to share your own testimony of what the Lord's done in your life. And you do that with any Jew, religious or secular, if they're happy to talk with you. And then I would ask them what are the standards of God laid out in Scripture or have you fallen short of those? I would ask them, do you understand the purpose of sacrifices and offerings and blood atonement in ancient Israel? Do you understand the importance and foundational nature of that?
What was it about? It was about substitution and innocent animal suffering for the guilt of the sinner and how that points to the Messiah. Then I would read a passage like Isaiah 53 and show how that points to him, his suffering and his death and have them read it out loud and ask them who they think it's talking about. But watch some of the debates I've had with rabbis where I lay out our position. Let's see, Nick, in your video about tongues this past month, I believe you said languages wouldn't make sense for speaking tongues because you don't know what you're saying. How would you know what you're saying about speaking the typical tongues? My point was whether my tongues are in Portuguese or in Chinese or in Russian or in a heavenly language, either way I don't understand what I'm saying, right? So, for example, if I start quoting to you in Hebrew, I'm just going to speak to you in Hebrew. Adonai hoei loach sar v'n odesh yar b'tseni hameinu chot yinahalayni nashish shoveiv gam keleich v'geit salma v'tlurghir I'm just quoting different parts of Psalm 23.
You don't know what I'm saying. If I was speaking to you in Aramaic, in ancient Aramaic, b'kad min barad d'nai yat sh'maya v'yat ar'a, from Genesis 1-1 in Aramaic, but not the ancient Aramaic pronunciation, it doesn't do you any good. If I'm saying Greek, anarkay, analagas, in the beginning was the word. So, okay. And if I was speaking in tongues, either way, if you don't understand those languages, it's not helping you. So, that's the point. In other words, what's the use of me speaking a foreign language, praying to God, if I have no understanding of the meaning of it, people that had to be human languages.
Well, why? That would only make sense if I was speaking to others who couldn't understand. Whereas 1 Corinthians 14 says that no one understands. Second part, why has this gift just been given to certain people in the past 150 years, but previously it was historically absent for 2,000 years for the vast majority of people? How can we know which spirit is causing it if we don't have any examples to test the spirits with? Well, number one, it has occurred throughout church history that's been documented, but in lessening ways.
But many things lessened. What do you believe if you're a Protestant? A Protestant evangelical, you believe that many major truths were suppressed or largely lacking through much of church history until the Reformation.
The church often had things wrong in its understanding of Israel and other things. So the miracles have happened, the healings have happened, tongues have happened, it happened just in a lesser way, but thank God we've been in a great period of ongoing restoration and it continues. And that's why in the late 1800s into late 1800s in the other places you have more and more examples of people being filled with the spirit and speaking in tongues. But either way, it's still as the spirit wills. As for testing things, it's not a matter of testing based on 50 different people speaking in tongues and you can examine it. It's a matter of testing based on the effect in someone's life and how we discern that spiritually.
But I would say this, the fact that hundreds of millions of people speak in tongues and it edifies them, it draws them closer to Jesus, that the great impulse of world missions has been greatly, greatly advanced through the Pentecostal Charismatic movement like nothing in world history and Jesus is saving multitudes of people in the midst of this, that would point to the validity and the reality. All right, real quick, since Adam and Eve, O'Neill is asking this, O'Neill, Terry, since Adam and Eve were in a marriage covenant and our Creator didn't intend for death to enter the picture, wouldn't God intend Christians to that marriage covenant today? Still expect that covenant to be an eternal situation?
Thank you. The Bible doesn't say that they were in a marriage covenant with God, by the way, and God fully foresaw what was coming. So no, there is no indication from scripture that our earthly marriage is eternal in the same way, but certainly the relationship we have with some of our marriage in the world can be even richer somehow than it can be, because things go and get better, and that works as we move forward.
