Dr. Brown Answers Your Best Bible and Theology Questions

Let's do it.

Phone lines are open. You've got questions. We've got answers. Here again, is Dr. Michael Brown.

Welcome. Welcome to the Friday edition of The Line of Fire. You've got questions. You've got answers, Michael Brown.

Delighted to be with you. I'm not going to be giving reflections on the president's acceptance speech last night at RNC or the news related items. We don't do that on Friday. We're watching from my articles, commentary over the weekend or early next week. Today's just your calls, your questions. 866-34-Truth, 866-348-7884. Any question of any kind that relates in any way to any subject matter, we cover here on The Line of Fire.

My delight to hear from you, especially if you disagree with me on something. All right. We go straight to the phones and we start in Kingston, Jamaica with Blake. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. My question is about the Stillfield Reference Bible.

It's something that I'm familiar with and has used, you know, from when I was a teenager. I've recently come across some stuff that calls into question some of his character, and specifically, it's a document by Gene Rushing from East Tennessee State University that I read. It kind of made me pause and just want to get your thoughts. How reliable should we take the Stillfield Reference Bible or should we look for other resources that might come from a more sound perspective? Right.

So, C.I. Stillfield was an American Bible teacher that is best known for the Stillfield Reference Bible. The Stillfield Reference Bible, I think he died around 1921. The Stillfield Reference Bible helped spread the concept of future prophecy, and in particular, Rapture, Second Coming, Dispensationalism helped popularize that in evangelical circles and really around the world.

It was a major, major boon to the teaching. So, I don't know about the character accusations. I did read some of them one time, but it was no particular interest to me. In other words, I had no reason to really research and find out whether they were true or not. So, let's put that aside. I don't know.

It could be true, but I don't know. Just the Study Bible itself, the Reference Bible, obviously, it has a lot of good notes in it and helpful material. And to the extent it reiterates that God has future plans for Israel, the national regathering of Israel, and things like that, and that there's a future Millennial system, all of that is positive. To the extent it teaches dispensationalism, pre-Trib, Rapture, separates in a total way Israel from the church, it's negative. So, to the extent it spread dispensationalism, I look at it as negative. To the extent it has spread the idea of these prophecies still being future and God's promises to Israel remaining, I look at it in a positive way.

So, it's a mix. You know, like any human production, you have to remember that many people saw no future for Israel to Jewish people, that they're forever cursed for rejecting the Messiah, that individual Jews can be saved, there are no national promises that remain. Scofield corrected that error and emphasized that the promises remain, but did it in a way that is dispensational in teaching a pre-Trib, Rapture, and things like that, which I differ with and reject.

So, yeah, I would either eat the meat and throw out the bones when it comes to dispensationalism, although that kind of runs through his comments, or just look for some other, and if you've used it for years, then by all means, look for something else. There are lots of good study Bibles of all different kinds, depending on which translation that you use, and most of them are going to give more historical background, archaeological background, explain some of the Hebrew and Greek words, and give some theological commentary, but not in as slanted a way as Scofield. In other words, there was a particular thing he was really communicating, and that's how the Bible became so widely used. So, yeah, I'd look for something else, especially something more recent, reflecting even more recent scholarship and things like that. What translation do you use primarily? KJV and ESV. Yeah, so, I mean, check out the ESV study Bible. You'll find it very helpful. You'll find a Calvinistic reading, so I'm not Calvinistic, and it's not charismatic, which I am, but you'll find a lot of good information and notes in that as well. It will not be as strong on future prophecy, but at least you'll have a lot of good information in that.

But like anything else, it's the Bible, it's the Bible, and the notes are human notes that people have put in, so put the main emphasis on reading scripture and use those in a secondary way. But thanks for asking, Blake. I appreciate it. Thanks for your answer, Dr. Brown. I appreciate it. Sure thing. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to David in Oceanside, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thanks for taking my call. Sure thing. So I just wanted to ask a quick question, or at least maybe get a comment on the last Reformation movement, headed up by Torben Thunderguard, reason being is because my wife and I and a couple friends were going out to, we're actually going to be driving out to North Carolina next week to participate in their Luke 10 school, it's like discipleship training school, and yeah, actually like a lot of family members have reached out to us and expressed their concerns about it being a cult or this, this, and that. And honestly, I've disregarded their comments about it being a cult, but I'm just trying to navigate in a way that is exercising godly wisdom, godly character, and not ripping into them, not getting defensive or anything like that, but also standing my ground. And yeah, I guess if you can speak to what you know about the last Reformation and maybe how I can go about speaking to family members about what it is that we're doing. Yeah, so first let me just give the general answer in terms of speaking to family members. What I would do is after the weekend, go back in a very non-defensive way and say, hey, here's what was taught, here's the scriptural basis for it, what do you differ with? And why would you think it's a cult?

You know, I would just ask them honest questions. It's actually going to be for two months. Oh, okay.

I'm going to be out there for two months. Got it, got it. Okay, so in the meantime, you can just say, okay, hey, let's watch some of the videos and please tell me what is cult like about this? You know, first, how would you define a cult? Not in a challenging way, but hey, how would you define a cult? Okay, and then what makes this cult like?

Those are the questions I'd ask. I actually got to spend a couple hours with Torben last year as he moved into the North Carolina area. We haven't seen each other that much since then or talked that much since then. Some of the grads from our ministry school got to spend time with him, work with him, and felt very good about working with him. Some colleagues contacted me and said it sounded like he was teaching baptismal regeneration, namely that you are born again through baptism.

I asked him about a point blank. He said absolutely not. He doesn't teach it, but he does emphasize the essential nature of it. And when he and I talked, the main thing that I said to him was that this is not Denmark. In other words, the charismatic church, Pentecostal church, or even just vibrant evangelical church in Denmark is very, very small. And when you are preaching on the streets, leading people to Jesus, believing in deliverance and healing for today, baptizing people as they come to faith, praying for them to be filled with the Spirit, it's very disruptive.

It's very contrary to the system. And I said here in America there'll be plenty of people that agree with you, people that'll be happy to work with you, so do your best to be in fellowship with other churches in the area to get to know pastors in the area because you'll find a lot of people of like heart. And what he expressed to me at that time was that's what he understood that things would be somewhat different in America. So in terms of the fundamentals of what's being taught, that we should try to live out the New Testament faith, that the same power of the Spirit is available, it was available to the first followers of Jesus, that we should be preaching repentance, that in Jesus' name we should be healing the sick, driving out demons, baptizing people, praying for them to be filled with the Spirit, all those things, amen, wonderful, go for it.

The key thing is to stay united with other brothers and sisters in the body. If he said you must sever your ties with your home church, you must come under my leadership and only support my ministry, then even if what he was saying was good, that would be a cult-like emphasis. One of the students at our ministry school years ago with a big smile on his face I said, Dr. Brown, is it true that our organization is a cult? Because some people had told them that.

And I said, the answer is no. And if people say, how do you know that? Tell them your leader told you.

And we were all laughing. That's cult-like when there is an allegiance to the leader in this hyper obedient way and you have to separate from other believers and things like that, then that's cult-like. But if someone says, hey, I'm here to equip you and help enable you to go out and do the work of ministry and get back home and work with other believers of like heart and honor the leaders in your church, wonderful. Then be equipped and go back and serve and be a blessing. And the challenge is going to be when people ultimately see things differently, don't believe the same way, then the key thing is not to separate from them and just be on your own, but to find others of like heart and like mind, be in fellowship, be in accountable relationships. And again, I would, I would just ask with all respect, all right, so what do you differ with scripturally in terms of what he's teaching compared to what the Bible says? That's one thing.

And then two, what would make this cult-like? And, you know, go from there. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown.

Sure thing. And David, in your understanding after two months training equipping, what happens after that? Oh, we're going to come back home and just with a fresh fire and come out and continue doing the work of ministry out here in Oceanside, like we're going to continue preaching the gospel and continue growing our home church and hopefully planning other home churches as well. God, yeah, the key thing is to be networking. The key thing, whatever their perspective, be it someone who's in a Baptist denomination, be it someone who's part of a house church network, be it someone that's a street preacher, is to stay connected in relation with other leaders so there's fellowship, there's accountability.

When we separate and it's just my work and I'm the only one, then that's problematic, whoever we are, whatever our background. So, hey, may the Lord use you and may his fire burn through you. God bless you, David.

Yeah, God bless you, Dr. Brown. Thank you. All right, sure thing. 866-34-TRUTH.

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Click on donate monthly support. Be right back. 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 friends for joining us. I'm just finishing a text to family on one of our sons-in-laws, sons-in-law, one of our sons-in-laws, that's it, apostrophe S after that, sons-in-laws birthdays. So happy birthday, Jimmy, if you are listening. Well, of course, how could you not be listening to the line of fire on your birthday? What else are you going to do on your birthday?

Obviously, obviously. 866-344-TRUTH. We go back to the phones and let's go to Christopher in Dallas, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Good afternoon, Dr. Brown, how are you?

Doing very well, thank you. Good. So Dr. Brown, I'm giving you a call today here because I was rereading Matthew and it struck me that the Pharisees were upset with Jesus initially because He claimed to be the Son of Man. Now, I don't understand why this is a particular thing that would have set the Pharisees against Jesus because the entire book of Lamentations, someone is being called the Son of Man.

Can you help me put that into some context? Yes, sir. So there are two expressions in the Old Testament that would be translated Son of Man. One you find especially frequently in Ezekiel, Ben Adam, Son of Man, which just means mortal.

So that's an emphasis on mortal, nothing special about it, Ben Adam, oh mortal. Then in Daniel 7, there is Barnasha, which is Son of Man in Aramaic. And He comes in the clouds of heaven before the throne of the ancient of days, and then rules and reigns over the world. And that was the phrase that became well known in Judaism. And especially if He was teaching in Aramaic and referred to Himself in that way in Aramaic, He'd be specifically pointed to Daniel 7, start around verse 13 and 14 and read the rest of the chapter.

So that's what they were understanding. That's why He's asked that, are you the Son of Man in terms of, okay, let's lay it out. Are you making that claim that you're going to be the one that comes in the clouds of heaven? And He says in Mark 14, for example, you'll see me coming at the right hand of power.

So yeah, that's me. So it's a different usage. And that's the one that became more proverbial.

And when Jesus was referring to Himself in that way, they understood what He meant. Okay. All right. Well, that answers the question very well. Thank you.

Yeah, you asked the right question though. Thank you, Christopher. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Russ in Salt Lake City, Utah. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, Dr. Brown.

Good to talk to you again. I just have one quick question. I've always wondered about Romans chapter 4, verse 15. And just basically it says, where there is no law, there is no transgression.

My question is, prior to Moses bringing forth the law there, how can the people before him be held accountable? Ah, he doesn't say there was no sin. He said there's no transgression. In other words, sin is breaking the law.

So if you have a law against stealing, then when you steal, you break the law. If you don't have a law against stealing, you haven't broken a law, but you still sinned. You still sinned against somebody. And that's why Paul reiterates sin was present.

Sin was present from Adam down. But transgression, which specifically means breaking the law, wasn't there. So were you driving too fast, going 100 miles an hour in a neighborhood where it was only safe to drive 30? Yes, you were driving too fast. You were driving unsafely. You might get killed or kill somebody. But if there was no speed limit on that road, you weren't breaking the law.

You were just driving too fast. So in the same way, sin was present from Adam on. And Adam transgressed. Adam and Eve transgressed by disobeying God's commandment not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But other sins that they committed were just sins. When Cain killed Abel, he sinned, but did he break a law? Did God give them laws against murder?

Not that we know of. So he didn't break the law, but he sinned and was held accountable for his sin. So it's just two different concepts, breaking the law versus sinning. All sin is breaking the law. Excuse me.

Breaking the law is always sin, but not all sin is breaking the law because there's not a law against everything in terms of where we sin. Does that make sense? Okay. All right.

Yeah. And if you keep reading, you'll see as Paul lays this out that he's very explicit that it's not that sin wasn't there and that death wasn't there, right? For the law brings wrath, but there is no law. There's no transgression. That is why it depends on faith.

And he goes on from there. And then as you get into the fifth chapter, he continues to explain, therefore just as sin came into the world through one man, Romans 5, 12, and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sin, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. In other words, you can't say you're a transgressive, but you're still sinning. And as a consequence of sin, there'll still be death.

One last example. There's no law in America that you have to eat in a healthy way. But if you ate in a totally destructive way every day of your life, it would kill you.

You would die prematurely because of it. So you didn't break a law, but the bad eating had its effect. The same with sin. Sin had its effect. Sin was destructive. Sin brought death.

But if there's no law against it, it wasn't counted as a transgression. Thank you for the question. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Ronald in Grass Valley, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Well, good morning and good afternoon to you, sir.

Thank you. I believe I choose to believe that all nations need to have a credible system of beliefs that provide a moral foundation for public and private behavior. And that was institutionalized in our Constitution. For me, that foundation can be provided by Christian theology. Unfortunately, statistics show us that Christianity is declining in both Western Europe and North America. In fact, it's becoming irrelevant to over 50 percent of the people living in these nations. So I am bothered by that. I believe we need a renaissance of Christian theology, one that draws a clear distinction between Christian doctrine and, for example, socialism.

And we must have a clear restatement of Christian theology in terms that are credible to a 21st century Christian and non-Christian audience. Yes. So do I agree with you?

Or do I? Do you agree with me, first of all? In general terms?

Yeah, in general terms, yes. And in fact, my issue is not so much socialism versus capitalism, but socialism when it comes against the Gospel, when it comes against belief in God, when socialism ultimately leads to communism and the all-out attack on the faith. So even though I'm a capitalist versus a socialist, the reason it really matters to me for the Gospel is socialism versus the Kingdom of God and knowing the humanistic, destructive way that socialism goes. But yeah, overall, something radical has to change.

There must be a capturing of the heart and laying solid foundations with the mind so that people are touched, they encounter God, they recognize their need for God, they see that his ways are best, and then we answer the questions and lay out intellectually as well why God's ways are best. Yeah, so it's something that has to happen as the Gospel is spreading around the world. The decline is very serious, especially in Europe and in America as well, although there's a pushback here. Well, of course, there is the problem that the socialists in the United States want to kill Christianity, and I've made that very clear, including the Democratic Party.

And aside from that, I have studied socialism versus Christian theology, and there's marked differences in the philosophy and the theology and the basis for both of them, so there is a clear difference. But I'm more concerned about the fact that in 45 years of marketing it discovered that we have a problem with our audience. If we want to appear credible to a larger audience, we need to have a rethinking of our Christian theology.

In what way? I think it needs to be understandable to a larger audience. I think there are problems with the Bible in which you talk about, for example, that people find that there's a credibility problem, and we need to address those things. Right, so what we have to do is on the one hand not shy away from the challenging passages, from the challenges to the authority of Scripture and the character of God in the Bible and God's standards, God's ways with sexuality and family relations and things like that. And there is good being done, but it needs to reach more people, and then we have to find ways to make it tweetable, to bring things down to little slogans and concepts, which then that's the tip of the iceberg, then we present the rest of the iceberg. And then what we do, we must do in the love of God and our outreach, compassionate service, and in the power of the Spirit so people are really encountering the Lord and being changed. So there are efforts to do this. What often happens though, from what I can see, Ronald, is that sometimes in our desire to reach the world we then water down the message. We try to make it more acceptable.

That's not the answer. The answer is not to try to make God acceptable to people. The issue is people being acceptable to God. What we have to do though is present things without compromise in a way that's understandable and that can get people of all ages hearing our message clearly, and then if they reject it, they reject it. And of course, we've got to be on our knees praying. Hey, thank you for the call, and I agree with you about Christianity versus socialism.

Absolutely. We'll be right back. Hey friends, 45 minutes from now I'm going to continue answering your questions on YouTube. That's right, our weekly exclusive YouTube chat. So if I don't get your questions on the air today, we can never get to all the calls on Friday, then by all means just join us for the YouTube chat or join us there just to listen, participate, watch.

That'll be on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel, ASKDRBrown. Also, if you're a subscriber on YouTube but you haven't clicked the bell that notifies you when we come up live or post a new video, then by all means do that. So where you subscribe, then there's a bell. Click on that.

This way you can be sure to be alerted when new videos go up and things like that or when we're doing a special live broadcast. 866-3-4-TRUTH is the number to call with your questions of any kind. Let's go over to Denny in New York City.

Welcome to the line of fire. Hi Dr. Brown, thanks for taking the call. Sure. So I watched Abby Johnson's movie and planned and the scene that got me emotional was the one with the ultrasound image of the baby trying to evade the metal probe on the operating table. And it was clear to me that the baby was sentient, self-aware and felt pain.

And there's scientific evidence for that. It also struck me that if we have laws in this country that forbid cruelty towards animals and laws that protect animals because we believe they feel pain and suffer when they're tortured, why don't we have similar laws in place that protect the unborn who also feel pain when they have been aborted? And furthermore, we have laws that protect the wants and killing of animals too. So why not have laws that protect the unborn that want an aborting of the unborn?

Of course. Well, it is a terribly immoral situation that we're in, a hypocritical situation. There are endangered species and if you destroyed an egg, there's a penalty for that, but not destroying the baby in the womb. So there have been bills that argue that you cannot abort after a certain time because that's when science agrees that the baby in the womb can feel pain. So there are attempts to pass bills like that. Then there's the fetal heartbeat bill that's being passed in different states saying once a heartbeat can be detected, you can abort the baby. So that would even be before people would agree about pain. I mean, obviously, I stand against all abortions, but that scene devastated me as well.

Of course, the critics said, well, it's not possible. The baby couldn't have moved. Even so, just seeing that baby being sucked out is just devastating and the fact that it happens millions of times and it's overwhelming. So you're absolutely right. It's completely hypocritical. The compassion we'll have on an animal versus the compassion for a human being in the womb. But there are attempts to push for these very laws, Denny. If you just got online and search for that fetal pain, abortion laws, things like that, there are attempts pro-lifers are pushing this direction. And there's a reason that the Republican National Convention was overwhelmingly, overtly, loudly, clearly pro-life. And the Democratic convention, despite having the most radical ticket with Biden-Harris in terms of the most radical pro-abortion ticket in American history, said very little to nothing about abortion just because the radical position of the Democrat Party is less popular, that even though Americans would say, yes, someone should be able to abort under certain circumstances, most Americans do not agree with the full policy right up through the ninth month and things like that. And because of ultrasounds, because people recognize the humanity of the child even more, there is a pushback. So check on that, Denny.

People are making this very same argument that once you recognize that this baby in the womb experiences pain, then under what justifiable means or justifiable reason, I should say, can that baby's life be taken? Hey, thank you for the call. Keep praying and then find out what you can do locally.

Look for local pro-life organizations and see what you can do to throw yourself in because people are needed on every front. God bless you. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Jason, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Denny. I can hear you. Okay, good.

It sounded like there was static right before I got in. I just had a question. I'll try to just make it short and get at other people. I kind of started to believe, I guess, something differently to what you said on the podcast because I'm kind of far behind, so it was probably a while ago, but you said that only God can forgive people. I guess I just didn't know how that works because there's some scriptures that seem like where it says, like, whoever sends you forgive, they're forgiving them. The power of forgiveness has been given to the sons of men. So I just didn't know how, I guess, how those two work together, how our forgiveness works with his.

Let's put it in different categories. Ultimately, only God can forgive sin. In other words, we sin against God, and it's only God who can pronounce someone forgiven for sinning against him. For example, if I sin against you and I haven't come to you to make things right, and I go to someone else and say, well, I sinned against Jason. Okay, I forgive you for your sin against Jason.

Well, that's not up to them to do. I sinned against you. So since all sin is ultimately against God, even though we can forgive one another, only God can ultimately forgive sin.

That's the first thing. The second thing is when Jesus forgave sin, he wasn't saying that I'm doing this just because I'm a human being, but that God has given the son of man, namely him, the Messiah, the power to forgive sin. So he as God incarnate had that authority to forgive sins. The other passage, though, you're speaking of is in John the 20th chapter when Jesus breathes on the disciples, says, receive the spirit and say, whoever sins you forgive are forgiven, whoever sins you retain are retained. That is, as his representatives, we can now pronounce sin forgiven or say that sin is upon you.

In other words, we're not doing that in our power, so it's good to have that clarified. We are doing that as his representatives. So if someone has sinned against God in the body and they come in repentance and brokenness and we say we pronounce you forgiven in Jesus' name, in other words, as God's ambassadors, we are proclaiming his forgiveness. If that person refuses to repent, we say, well, then your sin is on your own head.

We are saying that as his ambassadors. So it's not our choice, our will that I can choose to forgive or not, rather as his ambassador, I can affirm and proclaim what he has said. You repent it. You honor the Lord. I declare to you in Jesus' name, your sins are forgiven.

That's all that I'm doing. It's not, okay, you know what? I'm not going to forgive you. So there. So God doesn't forgive you.

It doesn't work like that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That brings to mind that we implore you to be reconciled to God, like we're pleading on Christ's behalf. He's the one that reconciles us to God. So yeah, I like that parallel with me, you and me having sinned against us. It's like that mercy and forgiveness, like creates the perfection and we'll cover that up, but that's only between you and me.

Yeah. And if you think in James, Jacob, the fifth chapter, so is there any sick among you that I call for the elders of the congregation? Let him pray over him in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. And if he sinned, he'll be forgiven, right? So it's right there as that person comes for prayer, for healing. And obviously if they've sinned, they're coming in a repenting, repentant way. So we pray for them. They're healed. We can say, and in Jesus' name, your sins are forgiven because it's written in the word.

So we're affirming it and proclaiming it. Hey, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Hey, rare at this time of the show, we've got a couple of phone lines open, so great time to call and get in.

All right, let's go over to Lynn in White Wright, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello. How are you doing today? Doing very well. Thank you.

Good. My question is we have moved and we are attending a new church and I've only been there for, like, a month. But I've already caused a lot of problems because they don't teach repentance, they do not talk about scriptures or anything regarding sin or judgment, and I've had people come up to me and start confessing their sins. And I've quoted scripture to them and some of them got offended and actually came to a place where I was at a ladies' meeting and someone was up there saying, we're not to judge anything or anyone for any reason, and it was the third time I heard this person say that.

And I just said, can I obey God? And they nodded, and so I started talking about God's judgment and how we are to judge with good measure. As we judge, we will be judged.

So be gentle with people, be kind to people with love, get them on the correct path. And some turned around scolding me, yelling at me, basically calling me evil. Others got up and walked out and said, I'm not going to handle this judgment. And my last thing I said was, you know, judgment begins at the house of God, and I want God to judge me, to correct me, to get my path straight, don't you?

And then I was ushered out. And so the group obviously told the main pastor who texted me and basically said, be still, sit down, be taught, and I have a problem with trying to correct people. So anyway, so that's kind of where I'm at.

I'm trying to decide, because it's really the only place that's even close. I mean, they at least believe in being born again, but I don't know what to do. Here's the short answer. The short answer is that you sit down and meet with the pastor one on one, explain what you believe. If he says, I agree with every point you're making, but you just have to get more in the community and get people to know you more, and then you'll have more of a right to share your heart.

That's one thing. If he disagrees with you, you've got no place there. It's not going to work. You will not be able to honor his authority. You will not be able to amen his preaching. You will be more in opposition than support. You won't be edified. You'll find yourself in conflict. You need to leave. So what you have to do is see, are there any house fellowships anywhere where other believers are meeting? Otherwise, get part of some online community, and then maybe every so often drive a distance and get to a place where you're really hearing the gospel, but under no circumstances you won't even think about making that place your home, unless it's the first scenario where the pastor says, I totally agree with you, but people need to get to know you, and then you can do what you're doing.

Otherwise, you don't want to be there, and they don't want you there. Save yourself some conflict. 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 866-342.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to The Line of Fire. Remember, less than 30 minutes from now, 4.15 Eastern Time.

We'll be back on YouTube answering as many of your questions as we can on our exclusive weekly YouTube chat. All right, we go over to Jacob in Miami, Florida. Welcome to The Line of Fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown. So I have a friend who is super deep into this, you know, the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. I know you've dealt with it a lot before. Me and him have gone over Deuteronomy 28 and Isaiah 14, and we've got into all the New Testament texts about the salvation of the Jews, and I'm only sent to the Law of Sheba house of Israel, and I've tried to reason with him and exegete Scripture correctly, and he, it's almost like he's not interested in digging any deeper.

So do you have a go-to text or an argument? He clearly cares because he continues to bring this up and have a conversation with me, even though he's told me he doesn't think I can be saved. So there's something in him that, you know, the Spirit of God keeps having us to have this conversation.

So what do I say to him? I mean, the biggest thing is to pray for him because he's really under deep deception. The arguments are so impossible. When my friend Dr. James White debated a Hebrew Israelite, as a result of that, we've been hearing about people that left the movement after that because they saw the Hebrew Israelite elder was so wrong in his treatment of Scripture.

Dr. White took it apart. So it does shake people up, but many, when they're confronted with the truth, they just dig in their heels more. When I expose error, we'll get a flood of them pouring into my YouTube channel saying, you're a liar. You're an Edomite liar. It's like, don't you have a better line than that? You want to engage what I actually said?

So I might, if I was going to do one thing, you check out a video I have on it. It may actually have the Deuteronomy 28 reference in it, so you can search on AskDr. Brown for Deuteronomy 28 or either that or Black Hebrew Israelite. But I go into that text and show why it cannot be, it absolutely cannot be talking about Christians or African Americans as Hebrew Israelites, that the verse cannot apply to them, especially when the Hebrew has in the same verse, buy and sell. Every time it's literal, it's not metaphorical, it's literal, buy and sell. And when you're trying to sell yourselves, which is what the Hebrew says, no one will buy you, that never happened.

That was not the case. The slave trade was thriving. Number one, people are not trying to sell themselves, they're trying to not be slaves.

And number two, people were buying them. So I might hammer one thing just to see, sometimes if you can get someone just to question one bit of their foundation, to suspect that there's maybe something wrong, you get that ray of light where their brain is actually computing the thing, then you can get them to look at the rest and show them salvation by grace and so on. You can just also search for vocab Malone, Hebrew Israelites. He has a book on it as well.

He's got Obama's name in the title, kind of make it catchy. But you may look at some of his material and see what you find helpful there as he's delved into this a lot. But maybe just stay with one thing and just, well, let's go back on this again. And otherwise, just pray for him that God will deliver him and open his eyes if he's not willing to listen.

But sometimes hammer the same truth. Or whenever, watch my video, see where we get into it and then go through it with him and see what happens. All right?

Sounds good. Thank you so much. You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Mike in Burlington, North Carolina. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Thank you.

Happy Friday to you. Thank you. My question is in Matthew 25 and 1 Corinthians 3. And at the latter part, it's talking about a servant who dug his gift and put it in the ground. And then the Lord said, take it away. And it says, a cast-on, profitable servant who out of darkness did this servant lose his salvation?

Right. Well, remember, it's a parable to teach us about stewardship, right? It's not necessarily teaching about being saved or lost as much as reward punishment for good stewardship or bad stewardship. However, you could say that if this person demonstrated irresponsibility, demonstrated that they were not a true servant, then either that was manifest that they were never really saved or that their actions of disobedience had, quote, forfeited their salvation.

But you cannot, certainly in scripture, we don't lose salvation if you believe we can forfeit our salvation, which I do believe. But it's not because I didn't do enough. It's not because God called me to preach and instead I just went into business. I got a car dealership or God called me to be a missionary.

And instead I became a schoolteacher in America. You're not going to forfeit your salvation. We forfeit our salvation by denying Jesus as Lord by refusing to serve him and by turning to persistent, willful sin. So this is this is more to illustrate a point than to teach us about salvation. And you don't want to read too much into a parable because it's there to illustrate a point more than anything else. Okay, thank you.

I got just a quick another question. It's in 1 Corinthians 3.15. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss.

He will be saved as through fire. I guess I was looking at Matthew 25 in light of this. Yeah, it could well be. I mean, the fact that outer darkness is mentioned, that's normally associated with judgment in the Bible. Right.

So that makes it more of a negative. But 1 Corinthians 3, it's either talking about a Christian leader or any individual believer. So if what we do was done in the flesh, if what we do was done for human pride, done out of human effort, done with wrong motivation, not building on the foundation of Jesus, so building on other things, then the day before God, that'll be burned up. There won't be a reward for our works, but we'll still be saved, which is supporting the point I was making about salvation, that we don't, quote, lose our salvation because we weren't good stewards of what God gave us.

But we can lose our reward and be rebuked by the Lord. Hey, thank you, Mike, for the questions. Appreciate it. Let's go over to Chuck in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Thanks, Dr. Brown.

I pray that you and your family are doing well, man. A quick question or two, actually. First deals with the two witnesses in Revelation. Are the witnesses literal, or are they representing nations? And then the second question is, in your own personal walk, when presenting Christ to someone, what route have you found yourself taking in your presentation? Do you do, like, certain creationists that start with the Genesis account? Do you go straight to the Gospels?

What route have you found yourself taking, or is it just a myth? Yeah, so the first question, Chuck, I am absolutely not dogmatic in my understanding of Revelation 11. It could refer to two individuals, or it could refer to groups of people raised up by God that these two witnesses symbolize. You know, Revelation is a book of mystery, and things are painted in symbolic ways, you know, with these mythical creatures now, or, you know, you've got a dragon with seven heads and ten horns, like, there he is. And so things are depicted in these ways.

Will they literally happen like that? It could be. Or is this depicting something, or are these figures and symbols and things like that, like Chronicles of Narnia, you know, where the crucified Jesus is this lion getting killed? So I'm not sure. If it is two people, you know, will it be Elijah? Will it be Moses back from the dead or Enoch back from the dead? Will there be two key people on the earth, or does it represent the people of God rising up in this way? I'm not sure.

I don't see it as two nations, though. As far as witnessing, you know, I used to share the gospel when I was in high school every day with at least one new person. And I had no technique in terms of wisdom, but I was very zealous. And I would sit down with somebody, just someone, sometimes they would see me coming and actually walk away. Or I'd sit down, can I talk to you? No, and they'd walk away. But most people would talk to me. And I would start off by saying, Are you saved? And then I remember the one guy was under deep conviction.

I don't know if there's a God, but I want to be saved. But most didn't start like that. But in retrospect, that was not wisdom. You know, what kind of conversations are.

That's just what I did. But God used me to win people to the Lord. So I realized the key thing was getting out and being with people and talking with people and sharing with people. But now, because it's mainly meeting strangers or flying or in different settings, I just try to start talking about their life and then ask them about religious beliefs and then try to back it down to wherever they start. Well, I believe in a God. Well, does this God care about how we live or, you know, what do you make of his commandments? If they believe in that in some way, then we can use the Ray Comfort approach talking about the Ten Commandments or where they stand with that. If they don't believe in anything, then we'll go back to the argument for the existence of God or maybe just the meaning of life.

Is it all just random? Is this world all there is to try to get them thinking? And then the key thing is to get them to a place where there's some consciousness of God and their need for God, some consciousness of that they've sinned and that they need a savior. And if there's an openness, you know, we may talk about prophecy being fulfilled in Jesus or, you know, the craziness of the day.

And and it's because we're rejecting God in his ways. If they're sick or in some need right off the bat, I'll often ask, Hey, can I pray for you? I'm a follower of Jesus. Believe in praying for the sick, just anything that'll open the door. And then from there, honestly, it can go in many, many different ways. The key thing, though, is to sit, get that person to recognize that you genuinely care about them.

Sometimes it means a lot of listening before you get to speak. All right. God bless you, man. Thank you for the question. And friends, join us 15 minutes from now on YouTube. Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube will continue with the exclusive weekly chat. God bless.