Dr. Brown Tackles Your Best Questions

Phone lines are open, you've got questions, we've got answers. Phone lines are open, friends and foes alike. Phone lines are open to any question you have, anything you want to probe with me, anything you want to challenge me on, differ with me on. Phone lines open wide. As long as it relates to any subject matter on the line of fire, I'd love to talk to you. With that we go straight to the phones. How's that for fast? And we start with Micah, in St.

Cloud, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brono, how are you? Doing very well, thank you.

Well you're very welcome. I wanted to ask you a question about Trump's stance on LGBT issues. On one hand he's been taking action against it and hasn't really done anything to enact LGBT legislation. On the other hand, his campaign launched a group called Trump Pride, and his campaign launched a memo attacking violence record on LGBT.

What are your thoughts? Yes, so it's been a mix, and I addressed it already in 2016, and I addressed it in an article earlier this month, that on the one hand you have numerous pro-gay websites, established gay activist websites, saying he is the worst anti-LGBT president in American history. Then you have folks like former ambassador Richard Grenell, and others with some gay Republican groups saying that he's the most pro-LGBT president in American history.

The latter group would be the minority, the former group would be the majority. So what do we make of it? It's different than his pro-life position, which is not mixed in terms of he's been consistent on that from day one. But during the campaign, the primaries, he proudly held up a flag, LGBT for Trump. He had Peter Thiel speak at the Republican National Convention as an openly gay man, co-founder of PayPal. He said if Bruce Caitlyn Jenner came to Trump Towers, that he could use the ladies' bathroom, which Jenner subsequently did.

That's on the one hand. On the other hand, he has consistently stood against transgender activism. He has consistently put religious freedoms over the stealing of our freedoms by LGBT activists and the like. And the one policy you could say that's pro-gay that he advocated is the decriminalizing of homosexuality worldwide, basically saying you shouldn't be putting gays to death for practicing homosexuality, which I think most of the world would agree with.

So it's a mixture. My take on it is this, that on a personal level, he's got no problem with people being gay. In other words, he's not like, oh, that's repulsive, or ooh, something's the matter with you. And probably for decades in New York, from gay friends, business partners, celebrities, he was around those communities, and it was never an issue for him. So on a personal level, I think he's like, hey, everybody deserves an equal shot. He said about Pete Buttigieg, I've got no problem with his marriage to another man, said that. So on the one hand, he's been consistent in that respect, saying on a personal level, got no issue.

You identify as trans, want to use this bathroom, go ahead and do it. But what I can see is that when it comes to a battle between, quote, gay rights and conservative Christian convictions, or, quote, gay rights and religious freedoms, then he's going to consistently side with us, with believers. So for example, under the Obama administration, the understanding of sex and Title IX now was gender identity, so what was meant to help not discriminate against women, say women's sports and universities and colleges, now was based on gender identity and not biological sex. Well, the Trump administration pushed back against that. Under the Obama administration, if your school district would not allow a 15-year-old boy to play on the girls' softball team and share the locker room with her, then you would lose your federal funding. Well, the Trump administration came against that. So as far as actions that have been taken, policies, then they have been primarily against LGBT activism. In terms of his own personal views, who he'll work with and put into various places, it's been what you could say friendly to LGBT activism. So somewhat of a mixture there. I would like there to be more consistency while still caring about everyone's humanity and honoring that.

I'd like there to be more consistency, but that's who we've had from day one. That's right. Thank you, Dr. Brown.

You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH. Just check my recent articles at s.dr.brown.org, and you will find one addressing this directly. Let's go to Foley, Alabama. Brian, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call. I believe this will be question number three of my 50-question series. Sweet. I remembered the name. Go ahead.

Yes, sir. So let me see if I can rearrange this question right. Me and a friend of mine was having a conversation, and the question came about does God see premeditated sin and a mistake the same, like does he see the same as equal? And my response to that was, well, I mean, we have to be held accountable somewhat for our sins if we premeditate on the sin. That's like, I think, I believe that's differently from, you know, an honest mistake. But then he posed the question of, well, do you believe that, so basically I believe that we can run out of grace.

And my response was like a, it's almost like a 50-50, I believe, yeah, but then again, I don't think so. Because, I mean, if we willfully sin constantly, 24-7, I believe that's almost like getting over or taking advantage of quote-unquote the sin, if you know what I mean. So let's look at this in two different angles, Brian. The first, the question of premeditated sin versus spur-of-the-moment sin, which we won't call the honest mistake, we'll say spur-of-the-moment sin, and then the question of habitual sin. So the reason that premeditated sin is more severe and uglier and more dangerous than spur-of-the-moment sin is that premeditated sin, you have been sinning now for the time you plan this until the time you do it. In other words, you've set your heart to do wrong. And if the Holy Spirit has been convicting you or you've had opportunities to change your mind, you have continued to sin and therefore continue to harden your heart. So you have been sinning, let's say three days in advance, you plan you're going to attack some person and beat them up. And so you've got three days of sinning leading up to the actual act and three days of hardening your heart. On the flip side, if you get in an argument with somebody, lose your temper and beat the person up, okay, that's wrong also. But that was a spur-of-the-moment thing that you're more likely to immediately repent of and say, I'm so sorry, you know, I blew it and hey, I got to be arrested for this fight. Whereas the other thing, you've been planning it, you've been calculating it. So it involves sin over a period of time.

It involves hardening the heart over a period of time and therefore is more serious in its nature. Now, the question of can you be a follower of Jesus and habitually sin without repentance, the answer is no. Either you were never born again and this is the proof of it or you have willfully chosen to cast off the lordship of Jesus. The New Testament is explicit that those who willfully practice sin do not belong to the Lord and will not inherit the kingdom of God. There are many verses that speak to that. So either that person was never truly born again or they have willfully chosen to forfeit their salvation by walking away from the Lord, denying Jesus as Lord. They are in ongoing denial of his lordship saying, I will live my life the way I want. And those who live like that, the New Testament from Jesus to Paul to John explicitly say those who live like that will not inherit the kingdom of God. There's a difference between that and saying, God, I'm so weak, I keep blowing it.

What's the matter with me? I keep watching porn or I keep losing my temper or I keep acting and greeting the Lord. I want to change, help, and you go to God with a broken heart of repentance and desiring to do what's right.

He's near to the broken heart and he'll help us. That's different than, I'm going to do what I want to do. Those who live like that and refuse to repent do not belong to the Lord. So three down, forty-seven to go. Forty-seven. All right, God bless you, man. And of course we have a limit of at least a couple of weeks before someone can call in and to give space to others.

So it'll take a couple of years to get all the questions answered at that pace if he's able to get through every couple of weeks. All right. 866-348-7884. Let's go to Jonathan in Clarkston, Washington. Thank you for calling the line of fire. Greetings, Dr. Brown.

Greetings. I had a question about Buddhism. You see, one of my professors says that he is both a Christian and a Buddhist, and so I was wondering, is that even possible?

Oh no, of course not. So what he most likely means is that he holds to elements of what he believes are Christian teaching and Buddhist teaching and kind of finds them in harmony. But it's impossible to be fully Christian and fully Buddhist at the same time.

They are going to be mutually contradictory. For example, Buddhism does not believe in a personal God the way Christianity does. Buddhism does not believe in the need for atonement of sin or Jesus being the one who atones for our sin the same way that Christianity does. Buddhism does not accept the authority of the Scriptures as the only word of God, etc.

So I'm no expert on Buddhism by any means, but I know enough about it to understand that it's a totally different religion, that when a Buddhist comes to faith, they leave their Buddhism and become followers of Jesus. So if you press things with this professor, you'd find that what they hold to Christianity is sadly lacking. That their views on what it really means to be a follower of Jesus are sadly lacking. That their acceptance of the fundamentals of the Gospel are sadly lacking. So you believe that Jesus died to atone for our sins, and outside of him there is no atonement. You believe he rose from the dead as God's vindication, that he's the only Savior, and that we can only come to God through him, and that the only authoritative revelation we have of God's nature and will is found in the Bible. I doubt that he would affirm any of those, because if he did, then he wouldn't also hold to Buddhism. If he said, you know, there are interesting thoughts in Buddhism, and interesting approaches to the problem of suffering, and interesting ideas about meditation, and I've been able to learn from that, incorporate that in my Christian faith, I mean, that's a stretch. That would be saying one thing, but I doubt that he's saying that.

So just find out more thoroughly what he means by being a Christian, and I think everything will be revealed right there. All right, friends, we'll be right back, 866-348-7884. Thanks for joining us on the Friday broadcast of The Line of Fire. You've got questions, we've got answers.

Hey, if you're watching this subsequently, let's say on NRB TV, or Dove TV, or you're listening to a podcast a few days later, or you're watching on YouTube or Facebook a few days later, and you say, boy, I'd love to weigh in, but I'm not watching live, I'm not listening live. Well, let me give you a phone number. You can't leave a question, or you can leave a question, but we won't be responding to questions on this number, but if you want to sound off on something, if you have a testimony of how our ministry has been a help to you, if you want to differ with me and give me a piece of your mind, here's the number to call.

You ready? 1-800-618-8480. 1-800-618-8480. That's not to get on the air live now. That's if you want to call subsequent to the live show, give me a piece of your mind, share your thoughts, let us know how we've been a blessing or help to you. We'd love to hear from you, and we may even play some of the clips on the air.

Keep it under two minutes if you can. All right, 866-348-7884, that's the number to call to get in live. We actually have a phone line open, also 55 minutes from now, roughly. So about 4.15 Eastern Time, so less than an hour from now, we'll be back on YouTube on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel doing our exclusive weekly Q&A chat, so if you can't get through now, or if you're unable to call, you just have to type, you'll be able to do that a little less than an hour from now, and our exclusive weekly YouTube chat on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel.

All right, let us go to Jay in Boise, Idaho. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Thank you for taking my call.

You're welcome. So to give just a brief amount of context, I recently had the honor of hosting the first English language debate on a topic of, was William Branham a prophet of God? And it was between Jesse Smith and Rod Bergen, it was a very interesting conversation.

The thing that was in view was somewhat troubling to me, though, is that it was indeed the first conversation. The Voice of God recordings, which is probably only half to a third of actual message believers, which is what people who believe William Branham was a prophet, call themselves, right? They claim two million adherents, which is greater than Black Hebrew Israelites and NIFB, it's the same as Orthodox Jews in the world, and yet it seems to be a complete and total afterthought in Christian apologetics, this question of William Branham and his prophethood.

And I guess my question is kind of why, and not so much just why with him, but a few others as well. Nobody really addresses Ellen G. White very much. I think people address Jehovah's Witnesses, but I rarely hear them address the prophet of Jehovah's Witnesses. In fact, I don't even know his name, you know, and just kind of like, why is it that we seem to be ignoring these groups of what are probably, a lot of times, deceived, potentially professing believers, right? I mean, who knows how much of the doctrine these people even know? I mean, I know in the case of message believers and Seventh-day Adventists, they sound Orthodox in virtually every way, except for a few things that you kind of just pick up every now and then.

You know what I mean? Yeah, so let me break this down. We do recognize Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult, and that's been something that apologists have dealt with for decades and decades. Even when I first came to faith in 71 and then started sharing the gospel with Jehovah's Witnesses that I'd meet in my neighborhood and elsewhere, I found that there were books available, testimonies of people who had been in the Watchtower and part of that. So there's been consciousness of that, and the founders of that we'd look at more as false teachers than anything else, and there were several along the way, but ultimately it's the ongoing doctrine.

I think we're sensitive to that. Seventh-day Adventists is more of a mixture. There's the question of the claim of Ellen White being a prophetess and therefore bringing modern-day revelation that in some way tells you how to understand the Bible or supplements the Bible.

So the focus has not been on her as much as it could and should be because of her errors and because of the fact that she was not a prophetess, obviously bringing this new revelation. With Seventh-day Adventists, there are many things that we'd hold to as believers, and I've met born-again Seventh-day Adventists. I don't question that at all, that they're born again, and in many of their viewpoints evangelical, and there'd be a couple of key points where we'd have strong differences, and the ones who are militant Seventh-day Adventists are definitely cult-like in their views. When it comes to Branham, boy, in my entire believing life, and I've spent a lot of it traveling in Pentecostal charismatic circles, I met face-to-face one Branhamite in my entire life, and every so often we'll see them commenting on my YouTube page or something like that. So the idea that there are two million of them, boy, that seems like a stretch, sir.

I mean, if it's that many, then you're absolutely right that we're negligent in not addressing it. But my understanding of Branham, having read some of his biography, having read things of people that were part of his ministry or knew him, is that he was a sincere believer, that he may have had some confusion at times in terms of his understanding of the Godhead, having been around oneness people before Trinitarians, but that he was a sincere believer that had a genuine gift in terms of God revealing things, you know, words of knowledge and things like that for the healing of the sick and for prophetic words, but that he fell into serious error when he believed that he was the end-time prophet, that he had the authority to make pronouncements for God for the entire church, that he was modern-day Elijah, and that he got off track and died before his time because of it, just same as with John Alexander Dowie, a man that was used by God but thought that he was Elijah the prophet and leading this final remnant movement, and he got off before he died as well. It's very different than the role of New Testament prophets, as I understand it, who are continuing to minister in many different ways and hopefully in many local churches.

The idea of being the end-time prophet or the modern Elijah or someone who can bring authoritative pronouncements to the whole church, that we categorically reject as error and it needs to be addressed. And if I may, this is the reason I've actually wanted to get it out, because I know it sounds very unbelievable. Having been in message circles my entire life, I can assure you it is definitely at least double that number. And the reason I know that is because there is splinters within the message where, so this group, Voice of God, that claims two million adherents, they are the head of the Branham Caternacle, where William Branham had actually founded himself, right? So, John, how did you come out of the movement? Well, so I can't definitively say I have.

I'll be completely honest. I have, I started listening to, this will be interesting, David Wood, actually, and my biggest criticism of Branham now has been, I see a lot of parallels between him and Muhammad that I think are very, like, they have shaken me to a point where I think I can almost definitively say I do not believe it. At the same time, there has been some other questions I've had, I find people who do address it to be incredibly hostile, they're not typically actual apologists, that's part of the reason.

I reached out to Dr. James White as well to see if he could potentially address the issue. And the thing is, Dr. Brown, when we say two million with these Voice of God guys, right, these Voice of God guys are so specific and rigid in their ideology. The man I actually had representing the message in this debate, whose name is Jesse Smith, he has about 11,000 subscribers on his YouTube, all of which would call Voice of God heretical, right?

It's that level of split. So when they claim two million, I can say, of a surety, it is more than that. Donnie Reagan's church has thousands of people in it by itself, and they don't agree with Voice of God.

They will point them out on my church. Yeah, the key thing is, you know, Branham died, what was it, in the mid-60s, somewhere around there. And what I think will help you sort this out is that the man had a gift from God that the Holy Spirit did reveal things to him as happens, ongoing way in the New Testament, dreams, visions, revelation, these gifts are here until Jesus returns. I believe the New Testament is quite clear on that. That either by being in the wrong circles or by pride entering his life or some other secret sin that only God would know about, he got off track. And the idea that any human being on the planet can make pronouncements for the entire church, the Lord has said this on any given subject, outside of the Bible, outside of saying, hey, go back to the Bible, we need to go back and recover this from Scripture.

The idea that anyone has that role is a very serious error. He's not the first to believe that he was Elijah, but he won't be the first also to fall into serious error by believing that. And it's totally different than the ministry of prophets in the New Testament and the Lord speaking something so we can be forewarned, we can be helped, or a local body could uncover some sinful root, or someone that doesn't know the Lord can have a word spoken to them that brings them to repentance and salvation. The Lord's doing that probably thousands of times around the world, maybe millions of times using these gifts all the time.

But again, it is the wrong view of oneself. That's why you could say, yeah, God definitely used him from what we can tell. People were saved and healed through his ministry and it does seem a supernatural gift operated through him. Then you have to separate that from the myth about all the other miracles that sanctioned him as the prophet and all this, all the apocryphal stuff that comes in afterwards. So you don't have to throw out prophetic ministry today, you just have to embrace it for God's purpose which was not what it ended up with William Branham.

And those that are in his group, God knows whether they're saved or not, but I'd be gravely concerned over their own lives in God because it's Jesus and Branham the way they preach things and it's just got to be Jesus only, not Jesus and Branham or Jesus and some other person. All right, thank you for the call, sir. We'll 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 so much for joining us on the line of fire, this is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. You've got questions, you've got answers.

Let's go straight to the phones with Carrie in Boone, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for taking my call. Like many Americans last night, watched the debate and then subsequently read John Piper's article after the debate and obviously had a ton of thoughts on it. First of all, I want to say I'm very grateful for Desiring God and John Piper, their influence on my own life and their influence on my ministry.

But like many, I was personally disappointed on the content of the article. I had a lot of thoughts, wanted to share just a few with you. First of all, emailed your show this morning asking for your response and got a gracious response from your team. Really appreciated that and I've seen that you have indeed addressed it and that article will be coming out later tonight. But the big thing for me is, and you may agree or disagree with me on this, but I don't know of a more pro-life president than who we have and Donald Trump right now. And I do believe that John Piper is passionately pro-life. I think he failed to address that in the article.

And then another thought was, imagine being Andrew Brunson reading that article. And I just appreciated what you said in your article recently about why many evangelicals are supporting us. I just really wanted to gather, could you give us just a brief preview of what your article is going to look like and your thoughts on the article? Well, in fact, the article is now up on the stream. So you can actually go there and everybody that's watching on Facebook, I just posted to LinkedIn Facebook and Chris, if you can grab it and post it over for our YouTube followers as well.

It just went live on the stream. So for those who haven't read the article, Pastor Piper basically said that from his viewpoint, barring something unforeseen in the next few days, he's not going to be voting for either presidential candidate and wants everyone to come to their own conclusions. But what he's saying is that you have the sins of Donald Trump being so egregious, divisiveness, boastfulness, sexual immorality, factiousness, that they are so deadly in this world and the world to come that to think that we can support him in the name of pro-life is a big mistake, and that we don't realize that the damage he's doing is going to undo the good of having better justices in the courts and things like that. So in my article, I first give my points of affirmation.

So first I say I wholeheartedly agree with Pastor Piper that the foremost calling of a minister of the gospel is, quote, to lead people who see Jesus Christ, trust his forgiveness for sins, treasure him above everything else in this world, live in a way that shows his all satisfying value and help them to make it to heaven with love and holiness. And then second, I deeply share his concern that many pastors have failed to raise up really radical Christians who are willing to die for Jesus. Third, I agree with him that our obsession with the elections and the well-being of America undermines the reality that we're citizens of a higher kingdom and we're just passing through this world. Fourth, I concur with him that the character flaws of the president have been very damaging.

Piper wrote, when a leader models self-absorbed, self-exalting boastfulness, he models the most deadly behavior in the world, he points his nation to destruction, destruction of more kinds than we can imagine. Fifth, I have no problem with the Christians saying that they can't vote. I have a master problem with saying I'm pro-life, pro-bible, and I'm voting for Biden. But I do respect if someone comes to his conclusion, I differ with it because ultimately you're saying I'm going to leave the results of the election to others entirely, and I'm going to choose to have no influence either way. I respect the humility with which he posted things, and I agree with him that whatever path we take, it must enhance, not detract from our witness for Jesus.

So those were seven points of agreement. As I mentioned, if you've read Evangelicals at the Crossroads, my recent book on the subject, you'll know I've made many similar points. He says, I remain baffled that so many Christians consider the sins of unrepentant sexual immorality, unrepentant boastfulness, unrepentant vulgarity, unrepentant factiousness, and the like to be only toxic for our nation, while policies that endorse baby killing, sex switching, freedom limiting, and socialistic overreach are viewed as deadly. So here's where I fundamentally differ. Number one, you have the character of the president itself, which we can say we don't follow, we don't model, we don't exalt, we don't defend, versus policies that will affect everyday life, versus policies that will enshrine the killing of the unborn, versus policies that will take away our religious freedoms, versus policies that will allow tyrannical regimes and other nations to run rampant.

That's a big, big difference there. And so it's one thing to say, I'm voting for someone who's boastful and divisive, but I'm not empowering a party that's going to bring about policies that are going to be destructive to our nation in many ways and for generations. And again, Trump is one man, as I point out, and as I wrote, and as destructive as his words and conduct can be, just look at the warnings in Proverbs about foolish kings, you can vote for him by the millions while at the same time modeling godly your conduct.

In other words, we can say, okay, that's how he acts, but that's not how we act. We're not his apologists, we're not his defenders, we voted for him for X, Y, Z reasons, but we don't defend this or that, and we're modeling something very different, versus here's a party that is now going to put certain things into practice that are downright evil. So as I wrote, if voting for a boastful man can potentially save millions of babies' lives, can that vote be justified? If voting for a man with a sexually immoral past can give support to persecuted minorities in China, can that vote be justified? If voting for a man who often lies and exaggerates can stop the rise of an anti-god socialism, can that vote be justified? So as again, I've been shouting for years, we can't be his apologists. That's the big issue.

One of my colleagues... Yeah, and I don't think any... I was not expecting an endorsement at all. I just think there's a different way to look at this, and everything you said about platform and policy, it felt off when I read it, and I just felt like it missed the issues that evangelicals like myself, young pastor like myself, man, that's a one issue vote, that's one issue for me. Right, and again, from God's perspective, yes, he'll deal with pride in an individual, but we don't have to follow that individual, but if we're voting for or not voting against sanctioning the sword of the unborn, that's a more serious thing. Now, one of my colleagues, evangelical friend, wrote to me last week, and he said, the gospel witness has been destroyed, especially among the younger generations.

The final straw was the support of Donald Trump by these groups. The non-believing world is appalled by the hypocrisy, the only folks who don't see it are most of the evangelical world. My issue with that is, yeah, there's been hypocrisy when we preach Trump rather than Jesus, when we exalt him and defend him, as opposed to saying, well, we voted for him, but we preach Jesus and live Jesus, but let's be frank, a lot of the younger generation turned against us because we rejected homosexual activism. We rejected the pro-choice position, so that rejection has been there anyway, and I close out the article saying, I wonder if future generations would understand if we explained the loss of our freedoms and the slaughter of millions of more babies by saying, yes, one party espoused these terrible policies, but we couldn't vote for the man whose party opposed them because he was too boastful and divisive. So as far as our own lives, let's be idealistic and strive in every way to be like Jesus. When it comes to our voting, let's be pragmatic. That's what it comes down to. And the issue is not supporting Trump. The issue is we're standing on biblical convictions and we're not moving, you know?

That's the issue, really, with the unbelieving issues. Dr. Brown, I so appreciate your time. Thanks so much for what you're doing. You bet. So, Kerry, go to stream.org, get the article, share it with your flock, and let people pray and vote accordingly.

866-4-truth. Oh, also, you know, in terms of, say, talking about unrepentant sexual immorality, as far as I know, Trump has not continued to practice sexual immorality, not been caught in any scandal since he's running beginning in 2015. I don't believe he's modeling sexual immorality now, and he has expressed regret for some of the past things that he did. And there's the good character, as much as I grieve over the bad character, there's the good character of keeping his promises in his word and standing for important principles. All right. Let us go over to Eugene in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good, Dr. Brown.

Thanks for having me. Just for the record, as a service member, we're encouraged to stay somewhat apolitical, but I'll just say I agree with your stance on Trump. It's a really, really healthy approach, sir. Well, thank you. Yes, sir.

And just as far as my question, you know, I've asked you this question in a similar way, but it's a little different this time. I enjoy James White, John MacArthur, Paul Washer, that whole reform camp. John Piper. Yeah, John Piper, too. Right.

Yeah, sorry. I enjoy that whole camp. But there's theology regarding the depravity of man and what it means to be righteous and faithful. It's very different from what I've heard. I came from a church background where he would vehemently, you know, teach, you're no longer a sinner. You're the righteousness of Christ Jesus.

But that is not the language I hear from Paul Washer. It's very confusing because he'll still say, honestly, like we're horrible sinners, you know, our hearts are depraved and evil, Jeremiah 79. And it's a little confusing because when I read the text, like Ephesians 4 talks about, you know, putting on the new nature, Romans 611, consider yourself dead to symbolize the God of Christ Jesus. And I'm just, I don't really know how to see myself in that respect.

So there are two separate things, Eugene. One is the teaching of total depravity outside of Christ, so that human beings are hopelessly lost and cannot save themselves. Well, we agree on that, otherwise we wouldn't preach Jesus as Savior.

We just say, go and better your life, become better, and save yourself. So while human beings are capable of doing good and making moral choices in many ways because of the image of God within us and the influence of the conscience and things like that, we are hopelessly lost outside of the Savior, cannot save ourselves, cannot even make an effort to come to God without God drawing us. So in that sense, I agree with my Calvinistic friends, although they may sometimes overstate things in my view. But as far as us as believers, no, we don't have depraved hearts now. We are new creations in the Messiah. That's why the New Testament addresses us as saints. So do a little study, go through Psalms, go through Proverbs, look at every time it talks about the righteous as opposed to the wicked, the ungodly, the sinners, and ask, which side are we on? We're on the side of the righteous.

Just read Psalm 1, use that Psalm 1, verse 1, the whole Psalm. Which ones are we? We're the righteous, we're the saved, we're the believers. So while we are still in this world, and we still have to renew our minds and subdue the body, we are new creations. We are to identify as new creations.

Yes, you could say there are sinful tendencies that are still in us, I understand that. And there is an ongoing battle, which is why we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in the sight of Jesus. But without question, the New Testament addresses us as saints, called to be saints. In other words, in the Greek, holy ones called to be holy. That's how we should see ourselves. Holy, set apart to God, living this out by His grace, falling short, needing washing cleansing every day, but nonetheless, new creations.

I do not identify as an ongoing sinner in the sight of God. 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 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on The Line of Fire. Hey, a little less than 30 minutes from now, we'll be continuing at our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-R Brown, over on YouTube with our exclusive weekly YouTube chat. So be sure to join me for that.

All right, we go over to New York City. Nick, thanks for holding. Welcome to The Line of Fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown, thank you. I was just wondering if you could expound on the prophecies in the Bible that say that the Messiah had to come before the destruction of the Second Temple. You often talked about that. I just thought that was really a very interesting take, and it would really be sort of a smoking gun, I think, for our position as Christians. And also, I guess I just want to say, it's just interesting how the Jewish interpretation understands that there had to be some anointed one who came before that time, because they talk about the one who was cut off, and I know that, I think, Rosh said that this was Herod Agrippa, and other Jewish commentators have said that there was someone, but they just don't believe it.

It's Jesus, and I just think that's so interesting. And I'll take your answer off the air, but I just wanted to ask if you would ever consider having Barry Schwartz on your show. He talks about the Shroud of Turin, and it would be really interesting to have him on. I just thought if you would ever consider that, and I'll take your answer off the air. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks, Nick. Number one, thank you for the question, and number two, yeah, I would love to do it. There is someone who is very actively supporting the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.

I've been given scientific data by learned people who have really studied it, looked into it for years. I find it to be very, very interesting, and definitely would love to have him on, and we will make a note to pursue that. In fact, a colleague, a Jewish-believing colleague, works with him, I believe, and has said, boy, you've got to discuss this with him.

So yeah, we'll definitely pursue that. So why do I say that the Messiah must come before the destruction of the Second Temple? I find a threefold cord of witness in the Hebrew Scriptures. One is in Daniel 9, 24 to 27, when Daniel is in exile praying about the seven years of Daniel being fulfilled, seven years of Jeremiah being fulfilled, and it's time for the exiles to return home, as Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 25 and Jeremiah 29. Time for the exiles to come home, and God says to him, the angel Gabriel comes and says, well, let me talk to you about 70 times 7, a period of 490 years. And what's clear in the prophecy is that you have the terminus ad quo, the point from which it begins, and the terminus ad quem, the point up to which it runs. And what's very clear is that it ends with the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, which took place in the year 70. And it mentions either an anointed one or two anointed ones, one is cut off without anything.

We can debate the meaning of that and who's being spoken of, but there are six things listed that have to happen, including atonement for sin being made and everlasting righteousness being brought in, among others. And the question is, did that happen or not? If it didn't happen, then it's a false prophecy from Gabriel to Daniel.

If it did happen, how? And what does that have to do with the significance of the anointed one being cut off? Then we go to Haggai, the second chapter, where we are told that the glory of the Second Temple would be greater than the glory of the First Temple, and that God would fill the place with his glory and appoint peace there. Now you might say, yeah, it's just so much silver and gold and Herod beautified the temple so it was even greater than Solomon's temple. The problem is the phrase fill with glory in the Hebrew Bible always refers to the manifest presence of God, the glory cloud, the Shekhinah, the presence of God in a tangible way, not silver and gold. So somehow the glory of the Second Temple must be greater than the glory of the First Temple, but as the Talmudic rabbis recognize this big problem, because there was no pillar of cloud, pillar of fire, the fire didn't fall from heaven and consume the sacrifices as happened with the First Temple or the tabernacle, the Urim and the Tummim and the tablets of the commandments, they were not there in the Second Temple.

So how was the glory of the Second Temple greater than the glory of the First Temple and in what sense did God appoint peace there? And then lastly in Malachi 3, that the Lord tells his people, Ha'adon, the Lord you are seeking, which is God, will suddenly come to his temple and will bring purification and refining to especially the priests and the Levites and the people of Judah. So did that happen or not?

Well we have an easy answer, yes it happened. The Messiah, the Anointed One came within that time frame. He died for our sins, he brought an everlasting righteousness, he brought to the full human sin and rebellion in its crucifixion of the Son of God and sealed up the vision and prophecy that had come predicting this. So yes, those things happened before the destruction of the Second Temple. If it's not Jesus, then it never happened, prophecy never came to pass. How did God make the glory of the Second Temple greater than the glory of the First? Not with silver and gold, no, but by the presence of God, by the miracles that Jesus brought, by the Messiah himself visiting and by the outpouring of the Spirit at Shavuot Pentecost where the Spirit was poured out on thousands of people, first 120 but then thousands who were baptized, it's an unprecedented thing that took place. And then thirdly, the Lord himself visited that temple, otherwise how did it happen?

When did it happen? Though there was a divine visitation. Now what's interesting is there's a Talmudic tradition that says that the earth will last for 6,000 years, 2,000 years of chaos, 2,000 years of Torah, 2,000 years of the Messiah and that the first 2,000 years were from Adam to Abraham where the law had not been revealed, Torah, God's teaching had not been fully revealed, but Jewish tradition says it was revealed orally to Abraham and then later to the nation as a whole through Moses. So the 2,000 years of Torah from Abraham until the Messiah and when did Abraham live? About 2,000 years before Jesus and then what should have been basically the last 2,000 years should have been the Messianic era. What does the Talmud say? But because our sins were many it didn't happen. The right way to look at it is what God promised in the prophets he did but because our sins were many we missed it but the prophets also said that too, that we would mistake what was happening, we would think Jesus was dying for his sins not for ours and that only later would we recognize that he died for us. The one that became a light to the nations that we rejected was actually our own Messiah. I get into this in volume 1 of my series Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, objection 2.1 if I remember correctly. All right, we've got time for another call or two. Let us go to Bruce in Belgrade, Montana. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you for taking my call Dr. Brown. I have a question about Hebrew root words, trying to study Hebrew and I ran across something the other day. My understanding is that most if not all Hebrew words come from a verbal root but I was listening to someone the other day and I don't know if this is accurate, they were specifically talking about the first chapter of Genesis, brashit, brahrah, etc. and they were saying that the word brashit comes from a verbal root.

Everything I've searched in my lexicon seems to indicate that it comes from the noun root rosh and then in addition to that they were also saying that the word elohim is not a plural form of the word el, but that it also comes from a verbal root and I can't remember what the root words were that they were saying, so I just wanted to know. Where were you getting this from? Well it was a gentleman on the internet, Bill Bullock, who's a, I guess you would call him a messianic slash Hebrew roots teacher and I don't know anything about his credentials in Hebrew or anything. I'm just going to rudely interrupt only so I can answer the rest of your question, but thank you, thank you.

I don't know who that individual is, I was just wondering where you got it from. Okay, number one, the vast majority of Hebrew words come from roots but not all verbal roots, okay? That's the first thing. Then you have interjections, words like oy or hoy or things like that that do not come from roots, they're just interjections, some of them are onomatopoeic, it reflects the way something was said is just spoken and then obviously prepositions and things like that don't come from roots, but you're 100% right that reshit, so bereshit is the preposition be plus reshit that comes from rosh, which is head, does not come from a verbal root. There are denominative verbs, meaning verbs that come from nominal roots, so in English if we have the word hand, right, now a denominative verb would be handed over, handed over, right? Or you have paint, physical paint, now we're going to paint the room, so the physical, the noun comes first and then the verb comes from that, so it's the same thing in Hebrew. What came first, the melech king, from which we get melech reign, or did melech come first and from that we get melech king, that's really not a major debate, in other words it can go either way with some, but others we know, like reshit, derived ultimately from rosh, so head, that which is on top, that which comes first has reshit, beginning, that which comes first, etc. The same with acharit, it comes from a root having to do with back or hinder parts, so acharit is that which comes after, it's the, you have reshit, acharit, those are opposites. As for elohim, that's the plural form of eloah, so an el itself, so you have el, god, elim, gods and normally used of idols, el may come from a root having to do with power, might, strength, you may make that argument, but is it a verbal root first, no, seems to be a nominal root. In any case, eloah is the noun god and then elohim, god, in either the plural gods or the one true god, so you are right and if you rightly represent it what that individual is saying, that website is saying, that is wrong. Alright friends, we're out of time, but 15 minutes from now, join me on our YouTube channel Ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-R Brown, we'll continue with our chat there, check out my latest articles and videos at AskDr.Brown.org and go to the stream, stream.org and read my latest article responding to John Piper.