Dr. Brown Tackles Your Toughest Questions

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on this special edition of the Line of Fire. Well, every day is a special edition, but today as we just take your calls, 866-348-7884. Any call of any kind that relates in any way to any subject matter that we ever talk about here on the Line of Fire or that I've ever written about or spoken about.

That's a whole lot of topics. Phone lines are open. 866-348-7884.

We start in Dallas, Texas with Jared. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. How are you doing? Doing very well. Thank you. I'm definitely your biggest fan, probably outside your wife, Nancy. So, I just want to say thank you for all you do for the body and just really appreciate you. Well, thanks, Jared.

My wife would be my wonderful lifelong best friend, supporter, and number one critic. So, you're good in that score there. Yeah.

I like that. Well, again, thank you for answering. And it's kind of a three-part question, but I just want to give like a kind of just a short background of why I'm asking. I just wanted a better understanding for myself and then like when I talk to a Muslim friend or even a Christian that kind of has like that new perspective on Paul, kind of outlook on things. You know, I just want to draw a better connection of like salvation and forgiveness and righteousness from the Old Testament and kind of connect it better to the New Testament.

So, it's kind of a three-part question. So, part one was like, what did Paul mean when he said like he was blameless according to the law? So, like versus like the law or versus like the righteousness of God. So, that's kind of part one is like, what is the righteousness that comes from the law versus like that which comes from God? The part two was, so you know how like Abraham was just justified by faith, where does that come in with like, what does that tie in with forgiveness of sins that came through like the sacrificial system? Is righteousness and forgiveness kind of like one and the same?

Can you have one without the other? That was part two. I know it's a lot, but it's just kind of a lot on my mind. And then the last part was, was Jesus' sacrifice kind of retroactive?

Like, did he, what he did on the cross actually affect the Old Testament believers? And like, why do we need that today? So, I know that was a lot, but I had a lot to talk to you about, so there it is. All right, great Jared.

So, obviously we can unpack this for hours from many, many different angles. So, I want to try to be helpful rather than just leave us with an endless string of unanswered questions. Let's start with the last point. My understanding of Scripture is that all sin that God has forgiven throughout history was ultimately forgiven on the basis of the cross. People did not fully realize the extent of forgiveness available until Jesus died and rose from the dead. Hence, Hebrews saying in the 11th chapter that the believers before the Messiah came were not yet perfect, not yet complete without us.

So, obviously the completion of us being one body, but also the completion in terms of the fullness of forgiveness. That's what Hebrews emphasizes, especially in chapters 8, 9, and 10, but even throughout the book. So, because in God's mind the Messiah was crucified before the foundation of the world, which Peter tells us, Revelation tells us, and because it's ultimately His blood that removes our sin and takes the place of our guilt, that everything up to that, blood sacrifices, everything else, personal repentance, God responded to all of that genuinely, but in terms of the ultimate payment, that was at the cross. That's what God always saw. So, in that sense, yes, it worked retroactively by faith.

People did not know they were looking towards the cross. Galatians 3 says Abram believed the gospel, pointing back to Genesis 15. Well, he didn't fully understand everything that would happen, but he believed the seed of what was spoken, literally that through his seed the world would be blessed and put his trust in God.

As for the other questions, let's start with a New Testament perspective. When the Bible speaks of righteousness and being declared righteous by faith, it's not a declaration at that moment about our conduct. We are called to walk in holiness as a result of this, but being declared righteous means we're now in right standing with God. It means we've gone from the guilty column to the righteous column. We are justified, and God says, okay, I throw out the charges against you. The price has been paid.

You are now in right standing with me. So, that comes in harmony with forgiveness of sin as well. You can have no true righteousness without forgiveness because it's that forgiveness that removes the debt and makes us righteous in God's sight. And you'll see this in Romans 6. We are now called to live out the fruit of that in a holy life. And the larger concept of, quote, salvation is much more holistic than that. It's being saved from sin, saved from death, saved from judgment. Hence, we are saved, we are being saved, and we will ultimately be saved with the resurrection. So, there are different aspects to our salvation. We are already saved, we are being saved as we grow from day to day in God and overcome sin and the world.

And we will ultimately be saved in the future when we are resurrected and joined together with Jesus forever. As for Paul saying in Philippians 3 that he was blameless according to the law, which is what it says about Zechariah and Elizabeth in the first chapter of Luke, and what the psalmist could say about himself at times that he was blameless. As far as obedience to the Torah system, you could do that, and if you fell short, which everyone does on a certain level, there was the atonement system, sacrifices, and offerings, so you could live a life that would be exemplary on that level, and yet you still need forgiveness and mercy.

The most religious Jew on the planet today, seeking to scrupulously live by all Jewish laws and traditions, prays daily, multiple times a day, for mercy and forgiveness. What Paul would ultimately say was that that is a righteousness that only goes so far. That is a right living and a right conduct. He talks about it in Romans 3, for example, or Philippians 3 again. That there is a right conduct and a right living, but there is a higher righteousness that God brings us into, and that can only come, that ultimate righteousness, through the Messiah. If you tie this back into the Old Testament, you will see that there are many people who are called righteous, which primarily has to do with their conduct.

They obviously believe first, and because they believe, they now live lives in a certain way, which James Jacob talks about, show me your faith by your works. Your justification will be demonstrated by your righteous works. But even those people were not sin free. Even those people needed a redeemer. And then when you look at the larger picture of Israel's history, it's the picture of the failure to live up to the law's demands, and the confession that then comes in the book of Isaiah that all of our righteousness, it's just like filthy rags, menstrual rags, that that's the quality of our own righteousness, hence our need for a redeemer and a savior.

So that's my simplest way of putting these things together, without getting into some of the controversies with new perspectives of Paul, all of the aspects of the various verbs and nouns used semantically, where they go. That's just my concise way of explaining things. All right? That was super helpful. Thank you so much.

You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Robert in Sanford, North Carolina. You're on the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Michael Brown.

Hey. I wanted to speak with you about the Good Friday Matter. I know that you spoke once before, that you had at that time not researched it to its end, and I think it's important that we do, because once we determine the correct day of the week, it helps us to determine which 70-week prophecy is the correct interpretation. If we look in the 24th chapter of Luke, it tells us the women come into the empty tomb, and they come back and tell the other 11 and others that they found the tomb empty. And the scriptures go on to tell us that on that same day, two of them went on the trip to Emmaus. And then it goes on to tell us that Jesus came and spoke with them, but he didn't reveal to them who he was.

And so they were telling Jesus about Jesus being crucified. And then they make this awesome statement, they say, But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel, and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. So if we start backtracking and look at Saturday, if it had happened on Saturday, Sunday would have been the first day since those things had happened. Friday, it would have been the second day since those things happened. So it happened on Thursday, so it would be the third day since those things happened. Or, this is the third day, Friday was the first, Saturday was the second, this is the third.

That's the other way you could very naturally count that. In other words... Well, it says, since those things happened, if it happened today, it's not the first day since... If we... No, if I said, in other words, if I told you there was, let's say there was a big accident on Friday, and pile up of cars and they're still clearing out the road, yeah, today's the third day since this happened, many people would have no problem if it was Friday. In other words, in colloquial speech, no one, someone might say whether it happened Thursday or Friday, so the third day since, so this is when it happened and you start counting that day, that would be very common.

The reason... The key point I'd emphasize is this, I know arguments for the crucifixion taking place on a Wednesday or a Thursday, and personally, I don't have a dog in the fight, in other words, there's not an axe I have to grind there, but there are strong reasons why there is such overwhelming testimony of Messiah's crucifixion on Friday from so much of the ancient church, and that all of these, none of this, sir, was a stumbling block to any of them. In other words, all of these verses that you mentioned didn't trouble them, and bear in mind that people that say Wednesday crucifixion read it differently than you're reading it. In other words, they're saying, no, no, no, your sense is wrong, and it has to be different because it's crucified Wednesday and then the controversy, so it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and now we're looking back talking about those days. The other thing I'd say, and I've got a break coming up, so I just have to end here, I don't believe on any level whatsoever, on any level, in the slightest, even in the most minute way, that the day of Messiah's crucifixion influences how we interpret Daniel 9, 24 to 27. I can say that dogmatically. I don't believe that there's any connection whatsoever or any issue with it.

Perhaps you can raise that argument another time, but I see not even the slightest possibility that debating the day of Messiah's crucifixion influences our interpretation of the 70 weeks of Daniel at all. Hey, God bless my brother. That is the number to call with your questions of any kind, 866-348-7884.

If you want to challenge me on something as long as you can get to the point and rather than preach your whole sermon about it, great, because we always want to be fair to other callers. Hey, during the break, I don't know what you heard during your feed on podcast or radio or watching online, but I heard our 30-second ad for Dr. Stengler's vitamin supplements, healthy supplements of all kinds. I've been using the supplements for years.

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So go to vitaminmission.com, vitaminmission.com and use the Dr. Brown code, DRBROWN when you order. Two things happen. One, you get a 10% discount on all your orders if you subscribe to something as 10% for the life of that subscription. So that's wonderful. Secondly, with every order, Dr. Stengler makes a donation to our ministry work. So we're teaming together in a great way for your health and to reach more people. So vitaminmission.com. Check it out or it's right on the homepage at askdrbrown.org. All right, we go back to the phones. Let's go over to Bulgaria. Daniel, thanks so much for calling the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Michael Brown. Thank you so much for your biblical and spiritual wisdom. And I really need your input on the situation my family and I are in. And we just want to make sure we're doing what the Bible is telling us and not to approach it in a humanistic way. My dad, who was a pastor, divorced my mom with no biblical or logical reasons. He just decided he was not happy with his life and he rejected any counsel or advice. Then he went out of our church with about five people, started his own small group, continues to preach online now.

He's married to another woman. And according to the Bible, how should we treat him? Should we have connections with him according to First Corinthians 511 unless he repents? Because we want to be respectful as children, but we can't agree with his choices. And if he repents, how would that look like?

What does it have to happen for him to repent since he's already married in a second marriage? And also he wants to see the grandchildren regularly, but we're afraid of the negative example his life can be to them. On the other hand, we know how important it is for children to have relationships with their grandfather. So we would greatly appreciate your input. Yeah, it's a very difficult and painful situation.

I'm so sorry you've had to live through it. Let me just ask you this. When confronted with Scripture, what did he say? Well, he's changing his mind. He's twisting Scripture. He just says God wants me to be happy. God will understand just the typical answers to people in his situation. And did other Christian leaders in your community try to speak to him?

He wasn't open for any counsel. Right, right. How long ago did this happen?

Three years ago. And this year, in the beginning, he married this other woman. Yeah, so unfortunately, according to Scripture, he is living in adultery. And it would be one thing if he left the Lord entirely and no longer claimed to be a believer, in which case you reach out to him like you would reach out to another sinner and try to bring him back to the Lord. But as he's claiming to be a believer and as he is preaching and everything, 1 Corinthians 5 is what has to be done. And you need to encourage all other Christian leaders in the region that know him.

I imagine Bulgaria, there are not that many. But to stand together for his own soul's sake and to call him to repentance. And even the sting of temporary separation from grandchildren, he has to feel the weight of it. And he's really in danger of damning his own soul. So as painful as this is, it's God's way of waking him up and bringing him back. So it is the right procedure biblically. It is what love requires as much as it seems against love.

It is love because you're striving for his soul's sake. And he is claiming to be a believer and living in adultery. What repentance would look like is the recognition that his current marriage is not a real marriage, that God's blessing is not on it, and that he would have to separate from this current wife and do what he can to help provide for her if in some way she is dependent and do his best to reconcile with your mother. Again, that can be a more difficult process in certain ways, but he has to break off the adulterous relationship and then open the door to recognizing, in a way, he had no right to divorce his wife.

It may be difficult to get them back fully together, but at least he can be taking steps and trying to humble himself. But the first thing would be he'd have to sever this relationship because the word is clear, he is in adultery living in it. And I don't know what else would be a better example of it. I mean, obviously, he could still be married to your mother and sleeping with another woman, and that would be blatant adultery. But this, too, it's the very example Jesus talks about.

You divorced your wife for no cause, you marry another woman. Now the woman is in adultery and he's in adultery. So it's painful, it's difficult, but that's the biblical process. And then much prayer and tears for him, you know, appealing every way you know how. And hopefully he'll feel the weight and sting of this and God will bring him to repentance.

Thank you so much for your answer. I think we as a family are really thinking in the same lines. And it is a real encouragement for us because very few people around us support us in this way of thought, and sometimes we're looked upon as judgmental and people with no grace and mercy. But as difficult as it is for us emotionally, we just want to stay true to the Word, and this is why I wanted to hear your input. Yeah, and Daniel, we can do things, sometimes we can do the right thing in a cold legalistic way, which is not the way God wants it to be done, or we can do the right thing with a broken heart.

We can do the right thing with tears. You know, you get on your knees in front of your dad and appeal to him with tears as the consequences of this and so on, and deep down something in him must know something is wrong. And deep down, the more he preaches grace and the more he preaches a new freedom in Scripture, he's got to know something is wrong, and that's where your loving prayers can be his lifeline, and he can basically wake up out of the spell. And the lesson for all of us is that any of us can take these wrong steps, and something starts off innocently enough.

You have an argument with your spouse, you stay bitter, things aren't normal between you, you start to get more and more distant, one thing happens in another, and then somebody else is friendly, and you like that, and before you know it, you're in adultery. So may it be a warning for all of us, and for those who don't see things your way, and you can just lovingly say, what do you think Jesus means here? When he says this, what do you think Paul means? You know, we love Jesus, and we love our dad too much to compromise here. So may God's grace be yours, Daniel. And may he bring your father to repentance. Thank you so much. Yes, sir.

May he also turn the heart of this woman that is married to this man as well. Okay, last comment. I'm just looking at the clock. All right, tell you what, I'll save my comment.

Let me get your question, and I may have to answer on the other side of the break. We go to Philip. No, we don't go to Philip. It was a question on the rapture. Maybe he got raptured.

No! No, he didn't get raptured. How do I know it? Because we're all here. How do I know it?

Because the rapture is one with the second coming, which happens at the end of whatever tribulation and craziness happens on the earth, and we ain't there yet. All right, let's go to Chelsea in Silver Spring, Maryland. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Bowne. You can hear me okay? Yes, I can.

Okay, great. Just two quick questions for you, if you have time. I've read an article where you talked about your stance on alcohol, but what would you say to the people who say that the wine that Jesus created was grape juice?

I know you don't believe that, and I don't think you believe that, but what would you say to combat that? And then my second question is, how do they handle keeping the Sabbath when it comes to health things? Do they believe that doctors can work, or do they believe that you can do that in the Sabbath, or are they even strict to it like the way it was in the Old Testament times? Right, okay, so your second question, Judaism teaches that if it is saving a life, you can work on the Sabbath. But if it's something that can be done on another day, then you can't work on the Sabbath. So for example, if I'm a doctor, and I have to stop what I'm doing and write a prescription for you and rush you over to a pharmacy to get that filled, you're going to die, I'm allowed to do that. If you need a prescription for some condition that is life-threatening, and I don't have to write it on the Sabbath, then don't work. So if it is to save a life, it is life-threatening, you can work on the Sabbath.

If something can be done on another day, then you can't do it on the Sabbath as a doctor. As for wine, my stance is that the Bible forbids drunkenness, it does not forbid moderate use, non-intoxicating use of alcohol, I choose to fully abstain, I've done so for 50 years. But the idea that it's grape juice in John 2 breaks down on every level. Not only does the text not say it, it says that it was wine, and wine was part of festive celebration at a wedding in Jewish circles and beyond. But the other thing is, it would take everybody's going along with the joke, oh, he saved the best, it's just grape juice, but we'll all go along with the joke that he saved the best for last.

That being said, wine then was not as fermented as it is today, it would take more wine drinking to get one drunk. Hey, thanks for your questions. 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. Welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire broadcast. Here's the number to call, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. You've got questions, we've got answers. We go to the phones starting in Stone County, Missouri.

Jared, you're on The Line of Fire. Hello, brother Mike. God bless you. Hey, God bless you.

Mike, I knew you back in 1983 and 84 in CLCF Fellowship. Seriously? Yeah. All right. To Rod and Linda. Wow, that goes back a long ways, man. God bless you, buddy.

I remember you guys. Wow. All right. Glory to God. And I just want to say that you are doing an excellent service to the body of Christ. And, man, my heart is with you, brother. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Amen. All glory to God, brother. And, brother, I've written a book, and it's about the Jews. It's actually about King Josiah in particular. But it goes into all the Scriptures in the Old Testament that were around 600 B.C. All the Scriptures related to Jesus Christ, from Psalm 53.

I mean, all of them. Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Micah 5-2. I bring all those Scriptures out because my burden for years, brother, even though I'm Italian, my burden was for the Jewish people to come back in. And I prayed, and I said, Lord, please, I'm not an orator, I'm not greatly educated, but please give me something to help your chosen people come back in, because I have a broken heart for them. And one day I was just delivering my mail, and I was a mailman in New York City, and God said, I want you to write a book for me. And I said, what? And God said, I want you to write for me. And I said, I can't do that. And God said, I can. Will you let me use you as a vessel?

And I said, well, yeah. And the result was an incredible book for the glory of God. Now, brother, this book was published for 10 years now, and God told me to, actually two weeks ago, God told me to cut off that contract, because he wanted it republished. And I sent 13 pages in his book. Actually, it's seven pages in an envelope, brother.

I sent it to you on Monday, so it should be getting to you within the next few days. All right. And my question is, would you just prayerfully read that, brother? You bet. For an old friend, yeah, we get a ton of stuff sent to us, obviously, and 99 percent of it I'm not able to look at personally. But since you've given our old connection and you've taken the time to call in and set this up, absolutely, we will look for it, and I will personally take a look at it. And I'm sure you've got return address info in there and everything, correct? Oh, absolutely, brother. All right. Hey, may the grace of the Lord be yours.

And let me just say this one thing while you're there. So before I got to Brownsville and raised up the ministry school there and served on the leadership team during the Brownsville Revival, people knew me around the world as Mike Brown. So I got my Ph.D. in 85, but even after that, everybody knew me as Mike Brown. And unless I was teaching somewhere, you know, lecturing at a seminary, teaching at a Bible college in which they knew me as Dr. Brown or Professor Brown, I was always Mike Brown. So anyone that had that connection in the past, I'd go back to Italy and they'd say, you're Micah Brown. When did you become a Dr. Brown?

I'm Micah Brown. So good to hear from you, Jared. And listen, man, it was Italian Pentecostals that prayed me into the kingdom.

So the Italian Jewish connection is rich. Blessings to your whole family. Good to hear from you. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let us go to Patricia in New Zealand. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Thank you for your program. I listen to it when I can because it's a time difference. Yes.

At 7.30 a.m. here Saturday. Well, remember, you know, everything we do is archived. So you can always just get the podcast from iTunes wherever you get it.

Or if you actually want to watch on YouTube or Facebook, every show is archived. So don't worry about the time difference. But to call in, yeah, you got to be live. So glad you made the effort. Yes. Go ahead.

Thank you for calling. I have a question about 1 Samuel 28 when Saul consults the witch of Andor. I just have a my problem is the Bible.

I understand. I've been taught all my life that you can't talk to the dead. And the witch talks to Samuel and Samuel said, Why did you disturb me in my sleep? But fast forward to New Testament. Jesus on the cross tells us these.

Even today, you're being paradise with me. So one is sleeping. The other one is going to be in paradise, which is the truth or what is the correct way of interpreting this?

Right. So if we think of Jesus on the cross, there is a new day beginning with his death on the cross. So you could say that the status of someone who died right then was different than the status of someone who died before.

That's an argument that could be made. It was that everything changes with the cross that Jesus now opens up heaven in a new way. Also, if we look at a lot of Old Testament text, paint a picture of the netherworld as a place of rest or as a place of repose, you know, kind of waiting for a future resurrection. So in the account in 1 Samuel 28, the woman says, Who shall I bring up for you? He said, Bring up Samuel for me. Then the woman, when the woman saw Samuel, she cried out in a loud voice, et cetera. And Saul says, Okay, what do you see? What's he saying? He said to her, What is his appearance? He said, An old man is coming up and he's wrapped in a robe. And then Samuel said, Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?

Right? So it doesn't specifically say, Why did you wake me up from my slumber? But why did you disturb me? So there is a great debate among scholars, Patricia. Some of them say the whole thing is a deception, right?

It's just it was a demon. It was a deception. Others say it's real. And that's why she's so shocked because it actually happened.

So I have no problem with it being real. In other words, that Samuel was in like a resting waiting place until Jesus died and rose and then experiences the fullness of glory. Or it could just be Samuel is brought down from from heaven. It looks like he's brought up. I mean, that's what the witch knows. And he said, Why did you disturb me?

Why do you know that I've got no business being here? So I have no problem with it being real. And that's what's so shocked her that God did something highly unusual. I just wouldn't draw I wouldn't draw theology from it. I wouldn't. So I wouldn't I wouldn't ask that deeper question about the state of the dead based on this. I'd say it was an exceptional case and we can't read more into it than that. Does that make sense?

OK, it does. I just I'm just thinking about the South American religions because I did. I come from South America and over there it's really big people speaking talking to the dead.

It's a horrible religion. Yeah. Oh, yes. I've always told everyone this is demonic.

You can't talk to the dead. And they always told the argument of Samuel. Yeah. So so the response there. I always tell them. Yeah. Go ahead.

Go ahead. So I always tell them this is a different case. It's an exception. And, you know, it's it's difficult to argue. But my I think I think that you're right. This could be something that God opened an exception.

It was something really different. And what's that? Right. Exactly.

You can't. And Deuteronomy 18 forbids it. Other passages forbid it. So it is sin. What Saul did was sinful. He ends up dying.

OK. He ends up dying. You know, as those chapters unfold, he's under judgment. This is a divine rebuke. And this you don't do.

It's all everything about it is wrong. And God's rebuking Saul through it. It's an act of desperation out of which he gets a divine rebuke and then dies.

So this is anything but a passage to point to. And unless you want to come under divine judgment and die. That's what you tell someone. OK, do what he did. Come under further divine judgment and die.

Again, expressly forbidden and out of bounds. Hey, thank you for for the call. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Eugene in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. How are you, sir? Doing fine, thanks. Yes, sir. It's good to hear from you. My question is just about man's depravity. I actually watched a three hour long video you did with a brother in Christ. I don't know his name.

It's late in flowers, but pronounce that correctly. And you guys spoke a lot about how you understand a biblical understanding of what it means for man to be depraved. And the way you guys communicated that was really well. And I'm asking this question because I do watch a lot of reform material. And like people like Paul Washer, I understand he has a heavy emphasis on repentance in a way. And the way he tries to expose man's need of God's grace is by talking about how sinful men are. And it sounds not really just harsh, but in the Reformed community, they emphasize that quite a bit.

And Matt Chandler, he's Reformed too, and he even said he believes that there needs to be more of an emphasis on being a new creation in Christ than on your own depravity. And I see that a lot in the charismatic community, where they seem to emphasize more that you no longer should identify yourself as a sinner, but you need to identify yourself as a saint. And I'm trying to understand it, and I don't want this to be the basis of my theology, like my experience in accepting something. But I do kind of have an issue with hearing the Reformed community emphasize man's sinfulness all the time. It's not appropriate for New Testament believers to emphasize that. It's one thing to point to the depravity of the human race outside of Jesus, to our inbred desire for that which is wicked and wrong, to our inability to save ourselves, to our absolute 100% need for a Savior, otherwise we die eternally.

So that's one thing. But for the believer, as a New Testament believer, you are not morally depraved. There is a sinful nature which we say no to, which we crucify, and we are called to not be in the flesh and not walk in the flesh, but rather walk and live in the Spirit. So whatever Paul wrestles with in Romans 7, that's sandwiched in Romans 6 and Romans 8. And the New Testament describes us as saints, consistently.

The only time New Testament believers are called, quote, sinners is in Jacob, James, the fourth chapter, where believers are living in adultery and all kinds of sin. Our identity is in Jesus, overcomers, new creations, empowered by God to say no to the flesh and yes to God. I'll say more on the other side of the break. 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.

Hey Eugene, one last exercise for you to do. Go through the book of Psalms, starting in Psalm 1, go through the book of Proverbs, starting in Proverbs 1, and note every reference to righteous, godly, versus every reference to wicked, sinners, and see which category you're in. In other words, the righteous are God's people. The righteous are the ones who have been redeemed, who love the Lord. The wicked, the sinners, they're the rebels, they're the ungodly, they're the ones who cast off God's laws. So when we read that, we naturally, we put ourselves as believers in the category of the righteous and the wicked are the worldly enemies of God. The sinners, that's the vocabulary, that's biblical vocabulary. So the New Testament does not speak to us as sinners, to all the sinners in Corinth. No, it's to the saints in Corinth called to be holy, so it's literally to the holy ones in Corinth called to be holy. So we must step up and live in this.

It is imperative that we do. Repentance is an ongoing activity in the life of a believer. Pastor Larry Schlink wrote a book years ago called Repentance, the Joy-Filled Life. So that's absolutely foundational to us as believers, but as God's people, as the redeemed, as those empowered to live righteously. I am God's Son. I am loved by God and favored by God and empowered to live above sin in Jesus. Sin should be the aberration in our lives, not the norm. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Andy in Hensville, New Hampshire. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hey, Dr. Brown. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question regarding Judges 19. It's kind of a heavy chapter. I guess it's an R-rated part of the Bible. And basically to paraphrase, there was a Levite who he was living in Ephraim, and he gave his concubine to the Benjamites, and they basically took her and raped her. And then they returned her to him, and then he subsequently murdered her and cut her up. No, he didn't murder her. He didn't murder her. He found her dead. He found her dead. No, he didn't murder her. It is one of the darkest chapters in the Bible in terms of the sinfulness of man being revealed.

Yes, so he's journeying through, stays at a home. The men of the town want to rape him. Instead, he sends out his concubine instead.

The whole thing is utterly horrific. And then they abuse her through the night, and she makes her way back to the house and collapses at the door front. So it's understood she's dead. And when he sees she's dead, he then chops her up into 12 pieces, sends the 12 pieces to the 12 tribes of Israel and says, look at the horrific thing that was done.

And then the other tribes come and attack the Benjamites, etc. Yes, so he doesn't murder her. He murdered her by sending... I mean, he killed her by sending her out, right? I mean, he sent against her by sending her out, and it's the lower status of women that gets shown off there. Yeah, but that's the one part of the account you had wrong. He doesn't kill her.

Okay, understood. So the point of the story is basically to illustrate the 12 tribes of Israel. No, the point of the story is to show how sinful Israel was without a king, that the book of Judges is constantly exposing that and that they just did whatever. Basically, a lot of the purpose of Judges is to show how sinful Israel was. And then, of course, even with a king, they continued in sin. So that's just another example.

Why is it in the Bible to show how sinful human beings can be and to recount some bad parts of our history? Sure. Okay. Thanks for the call, Andy.

Thank you very much. You bet, you bet. All right, let's see.

Let's go to Christian in Toledo, Ohio. Welcome to the Line of Fire. What's going on, Dr. Brown? Hey, man. I have a quick question. I've seen something online where somebody was talking about the, you know, Revelation, the mark of the beast, where basically where it says on your right hand, that could mean in the Hebrew, the whole arm, and I was kind of wanting to get it from you.

Is that true or no? Yeah, yeah. The Hebrew word yad. Okay, so you have the word zorroah, which is the arm as a whole. You can even go up to shoulder. You have amah, which ends up being a cubit, but that's like from the elbow, you know, to the end of the hand, like about a foot and a half. But the Hebrew yad does mean the hand. It certainly could include up the wrist. You know, does it mean all the way up the arm? You wouldn't really think of yad so much like, you know, with up to the shoulder and things like that, but certainly partway up the arm. For example, the Messiah being crucified in his hands, most understand that that would mean in the wrists, but in Hebrew, that's certainly part of the hand, the yad. Yeah, so it's not as defined as in English that hand would, you know, would stop right there at the bottom of the palm. A Hebrew definitely could extend further, but again, not necessarily all the way up the arm. The question is, is Revelation 13 symbolic or literal, right? Is it talking about, you know, something in terms of what we can do, what we can think, you know, limitations there, because Revelation is filled with symbolism. But the point they're making in general is fairly true. Just don't want to exaggerate it to think that it was totally abstract that yad could, you could talk about your shoulder, which is shechem, but you could talk about your shoulder and call that yad.

That would not be true. All right? Okay. All right. Thank you. You bet. Sure thing.

86634—that's my habit, coming out the number with four minutes left and a bunch of calls still. Okay, let's go to Chuck in Burlington. Welcome to the line of fire. Yes, sir, Dr. Brown. Love your show and love your Christian spirit. Well, thank you.

Yes, sir. I believe, and I know you might not want to answer this question, but I read a good article in a Christian journal, Jewish Genius and the Existence of God, it was called. And, you know, it says the Jews are going to be the—God has blessed the Jews as being the brightest people, you know, because, in history, because it says it proves them in the Old Testament and New Testament, he gives references.

It's a pretty good article. And, you know, think about it. There's 15 million Jews in the world. There's 6.2 billion people or more. Jews have won 20 percent of the Nobel prizes out of 90 given.

20 percent. And, you know, look at TV shows. Oh, yeah, Chuck, just to save time because of being on this at the end of the show.

Yeah, go ahead. I've written about this in the past. I did a whole video for our Think It Through TV series. In fact, it was the very first show we did. It was called World Changers. And I talked about the extraordinary impact of the Jewish people on the world, you know, even Mark Twain commenting on it in the 1800s and others that this tiny percent of the population has such a world-changing influence.

That's unbelievable. Yeah, and then also, Chuck, the bad stuff, the, you know, the Karl Marx's of the world and others of Jewish descent that have had a negative impact. So I asked the question, why is it that we've had such a disproportionate effect?

I mean, whatever the areas are, be it in music, be it in comedy, be it in Hollywood, be it in the economy, be it whatever. And my conclusion was that God had called the Jewish people to be world changers and gave a certain grace to do that. When we get things right, be it a Moses or a Paul, it affects the whole world for good. When we get things wrong, be it a Karl Marx or, I don't want to put anyone else in this category, but, you know, other Jews that have done destructive things, then we get it really wrong. Now, some responded and said, no, it's just the Jewish emphasis on education.

It's that simple. And the Jews have really emphasized education through the ages that Judaism itself, so devoted to study and Talmud and all of this, has produced better working minds. And then when they go out from just studying Jewish literature into the wider world, it has all this effect. So I think the study academics is part of it, but there's so many people who are not academic and Jews and have had a disproportionate influence. So to me, it's a calling, and that's my understanding. So we're at a certain level of harmony here. It's a calling and it's not being better than anyone.

It's just like I said, Jews are like everybody else, except more so. So when we get it right, we get it really right. When we get it wrong, we get it really wrong. And we have a lot of influence for good or for bad.

So that's how I understand it. And if you check, boy, if you just check on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, A.S.K., D.R. Brown, if you just check there, check for World Changers. I think what the video was called, so put in my name and World Changers, and you should see the first video in the Think It Through series that we did. I think we put out about 22 broadcasts over a two-year period. Really, really well done on the streets of New York City and Beverly Hills and different parts of America, all with the purpose of Jewish outreach.

And our message ultimately was that this is why God sent the Messiah into the world as a Jew, Jesus the Messiah. Hey, thanks for the call. Sorry I couldn't get to everybody today.

We can on a Friday, but we do our best. And if you're in the Kannapolis, North Carolina area, this whole weekend starting tonight, then tomorrow morning, tomorrow evening, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, a special Israel conference. I'll be there. My dear friend, Scott Volk, Bob Gladstone will be there. Another good friend, Lou Engle will be there. Local pastors coming in to join in prayer. Special times of worship. So if you're anywhere in the area, it's on our website, Ask Dr. Brown, A.S.K., D.R.

Brown.org. Just click on Itinerary and then remember on our home page, click on the vitaminmission.com. Find out how you can get healthier and bless our ministry at the same time and save money in the process. Hey, may the blessing of the Lord be yours.