Dr. Brown Tackles Your Best Questions

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network Podcast. Welcome to the broadcast Michael Brown here delighted to be with you.

Anything at all questions are warmly welcomed and you may differ with me fundamentally on things and want to challenge that. Ball lines are open for everyone friend and foe alike 866-348-7884. The earlier you call on the show the better chance you have of us getting to your questions but of course we'll get to as many as we can.

Let's start over in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Joseph, welcome to the line of fire. Hi there Dr. Brown, how are you?

Doing very well, thank you. So my question is in regards to Genesis chapter 13 verse 4. There are many passages in Genesis where the patriarchs call upon the name of the Lord. And what struck me as interesting, I have a copy of the art scroll Stone Hamas and it mentions Hashem throughout every reference to God in that translation. And because it says they call upon the name of the Lord, my question is in the Hebrew manuscript, does it actually reference the tetragrammaton? All of the Hebrew manuscripts have the consonants for the tetragrammaton which we commonly pronounce as Yahweh.

They all have that, that's without exception. If you have Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts at times they would actually write it in an older script to distinguish it but the consonants are there. Some of them once vowels were added in the Masoretic text, some of them actually have the vowels for Adonai, Lord, which tells you whenever you see this pronounce it as Lord because it's too sacred to pronounce. Others don't even have any vowels at all which is reminding you it's too sacred to pronounce when you see it say Adonai, Lord instead. So when we have Lord, small caps O-R-D in our English translations, we're doing a similar thing when art scroll uses the Orthodox Jewish expression Hashem, the name, they're doing that. But the manuscripts themselves, they write out the letters and it was only at a certain point in time that the name was considered too sacred to pronounce, sometime probably before the time of Jesus.

But over the centuries the name was freely pronounced before that. My question is in Exodus chapter 6, verse 3, God tells Moshe that everyone before him, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, his forefathers, they only knew him as El Shaddai, and that his name, which is Yud-Avav-Heh with the vowel points, is his sacred name, his personal name that he gave to Moses, and that was when his name was revealed. Since we have in the Hebrew manuscripts the reference to his name beforehand, how does that kind of confuse me there?

Yeah, that's a wonderful question and many have asked it before. Critical scholars, so this is not you, this is not me, critical scholars say, well that shows you had different sources of the Pentateuch and they weren't familiar with each other. So this source thought that Yahweh's name was not revealed before and the other sources did think it was revealed.

Well of course we reject that for many reasons. So the most likely understanding is that God did not bring the fullness of the revelation of that name. They knew him more as El Shaddai, speaking of his power and provision and things like that. But his covenant keeping name, Yahweh, this would tie in with keeping the promises that he had previously given.

That he had not been revealed in that way. You know in Hebrew name is not just name, it's also character. When Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah in the 30th chapter says the name of the Lord is coming or when God says Ezekiel, my people have forgotten my name.

It means who I am. So the most likely understanding and it's a very legitimate question and you've asked it exactly rightly going especially to Genesis 13 for that reference because of the way it's spelled out there. That because we know repeatedly that the name Yahweh is used by the patriarchs in interacting with God and his speaking to them. What it must mean is the fullness of the revelation of that name had not been known. So he was known in his revelation as El Shaddai and now he's going to be known in his revelation as Yahweh. That's the best way to understand it. There's some other explanations given even a double negative rhetorical in the Hebrew that he's saying I was revealed by that name but it seems less likely. The most likely explanation is what I just shared with you and what most conservative scholars would agree on. It also reminds us of what's in a name. It's more than just the name but the person, the character associated with it.

That aspects of God's nature had not been fully revealed until the time of the Exodus. Hey, thank you sir for the question. Go back look at the text and see if it falls into place a little better for you. 866-348-7884. We move over to Portland. Aaron, welcome to the line of fire. Thank you Dr. Brown. God bless you. Thank you for your ministry.

You're very welcome. I wanted to ask a question about 1 Corinthians 5, starting in verse 9-13, where Paul is instructing believers not to have company with a number of different people. The one that I'm focused on today is fornicators is what it's called in the King James which I have in front of me. For someone who claims to be a brother or a sister and is living in unrepentant sin, so in this case sex out of wedlock, fornication, that we are not to associate with such a person. That's what he's talking about in 1 Corinthians 5. Not talking about the world as a whole. He said I'm not talking about the people of the world, otherwise you'd have to leave the world. But rather those that are in the body claiming to be followers of Jesus and living in blatant unrepentant sin.

Yes, that we are to separate ourselves from them. Okay, so my question now to make it very specific and personal, because this is a personal matter that I'm trying to get your count on. I have a brother-in-law who is married to a woman who is divorced. And her husband that she divorced is living. And so my conviction was that I can't eat with this brother because his marriage is adulterous. He's married to a woman who's divorced, her husband lives, there's no grounds for divorce. And I take Romans 7 very seriously when it says that if a wife divorces her husband, as long as he lives, she's found. So that's my understanding, and I would love to be wrong, actually, because I really love my brother and I get along with him great.

And it's very uncomfortable for me. So this is my brother-in-law. I don't want to upset the family that I married into, but that's my conviction.

So just a couple of questions first. In your mind, did he say, I know this is sinful and I'm going to go ahead and do it and commit adultery in my marriage, or in his mind, was the marriage valid? That's questionable because he's raised in a family where this is not okay.

This is not accepted. I mean, his dad told him, don't do this. He did not have the parent's blessing. Every one of us told him this is wrong, don't do it.

And he did it. And the woman getting divorced, without getting into great detail, you said she divorced her husband with no grounds for divorce? That's my understanding, and that may have been even an overstatement because I am not out here investigating her life. And I actually, on a personal level, get along with her.

She seems like a great family person. Let's just say it was a situation like 1 Corinthians 7 where you have a couple say the wife gets saved, the husband is not saved, and he leaves the wife, he divorces her and goes on into a new relationship. Paul, using legal language there, says that she is not bound there. So in a case like that, she would be free to remarry, even though he's still alive, so I understand that she would be free to remarry. So how do you know it wasn't something like that? Well, I know that he was a professed believer in Jesus.

I know that he professed to be Christian, was raised in a Christian house, and those kind of things. But whether or not he had ever been born again, I mean, of course, I don't know. But from all outside perspectives, it seems like it would be advisable not to have married her if you were being careful. If you were being conservative, you would have said, maybe I should marry somebody who hasn't been divorced.

Right. So again, my understanding is that there are some scriptural reasons in which divorce is valid and remarriage is permissible even while the spouse is still living. So there's disagreement in the body over that, obviously, but that's my own view and understanding. So there are many marriages I know that God worked wonderfully redemptively. One party was terribly hurt, abandoned, left, adultery was committed against them.

They were divorced and then they went on with a new life with someone else and have been blessed in the process. What I would basically have to do, so I'm just going to give you two scenarios. And because of the personal nature of it, you're going to have to sort this out. Let's say I had a relative and this relative got involved with a married Christian woman. And this married Christian woman, because of this relationship with this relative of mine, who was a believer, that they agree she's going to divorce her husband and they're going to marry. Then I would say you're an adultery and you have to repent. Now, if they went to God and leaders and repent and laid everything down and there was no way to reconcile with the previous spouse, that person had gone on and remarried.

And is there any way forward? OK, that's a separate question to ask. But until it would get to that point, I would say you're an adultery. You stole this woman from another man and you are an adultery. And if you're claiming to go on in ministry and so on, sorry, I can't support that.

If there is another situation, if the woman got divorced and years later I made a mistake but can't reconcile, is there any path forward? I would then look into it to see, OK, we're always looking for mercy, always looking for a way to move forward. I'd look into it and see is there any way that this could be redeemed. But if it's the former, then until there was repentance, I couldn't have fellowship. Hey, thank you for the call, sir. May the Lord give you wisdom as you sort this out.

Welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire. You've got questions, we've got answers. By the way, if you're listening on radio and just heard the ad for my friend and colleague and our sponsor, Dr. Mark Stengler, by all means, go to vitaminmission.com. Now, look, these are not miracle cure vitamins. These are health supplements. So it's not like if you have brownies for breakfast, chocolate milkshakes for lunch, and peanut M&Ms for dinner.

I wasn't that bad. I was into chocolate like that years ago. And you think, OK, I'm going to take a health supplement. I'm going to get healthy and lose weight. No, these are not miracle pills, but they are really effective in many, many ways.

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Tell your friends the more the merrier. That's why we're doing that's why Dr. Stengler is doing this. All right. We go back to the phones. Eight, six, six, three, four, truth. Let's start with Andy in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

We used to have our ministry offices there. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. How are you? Doing well, Andy. Thanks.

All right. I started revisiting your debate with Dale Tucky about the beauty of Christ. And one of the things that I've been thinking about was what if someone were to say that the Holy Spirit and Jesus were not the same. And that what Jesus gave was more in the spirit that God was giving. Jesus was giving was more like a gift rather than the third person of the Trinity.

How would you respond to that? Yeah, so I'd respond by emphasizing that we know that there's only one God. We all agree on that. Even Dr. Tuggie, who denies key things about who Jesus is, we all agree that there's one God, one God only. Same with my Jewish friends who don't see God as triune.

We all agree there's one God and one God only. Then we see that the Holy Spirit in Hebrews 9 is spoken of as eternal. Then we see in Hebrews 5 that he's equated with God and you can lie to him.

Ananias and Sapphira are guilty of lying to the Holy Spirit which is then called lying to God. We look at a passage like 2 Corinthians 13 and 14 that speaks of us having communion with the Holy Spirit. So you can't have communion with a power or a force.

This is a relational interaction. We look at the manifestations of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 including words of wisdom and knowledge. We see in Ephesians 4 that the Holy Spirit can be grieved as we also see in Isaiah 63. We see that the Holy Spirit leads and teaches various passages in the Old Testament laying that out. When we're done we see the Holy Spirit is equated with God. You can lie to the Spirit, grieve the Spirit, the Spirit leads, teaches. We can have communion with the Spirit. The Spirit is eternal. Then you have in the formula baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It re-emphasizes again one God and yet Father, Son and Holy Spirit simultaneously. Just look at the Spirit as power or force or energy or God's Spirit. I have a human spirit. God has his Spirit. It is to undermine the overall testimony of Scripture about who the Spirit is. The Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth.

Clearly not just a force or a power. So thank you, sir, for the question. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go over to Nathan in Mission, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call.

You're very welcome. My question, I know you're writing currently a commentary in Isaiah, and I'm sure you haven't gotten Chapter 61 yet. No, I'm in Chapter 8, actually. Okay. Well, let's work a little. Yeah, but trust me, I've been in Isaiah for many years before the commentary, so have at it.

Yeah, that's why I trust. I'll take your view on this seriously. Let me specify my question, and then I want to also explain why this question is curious to me. So specifically in Chapter 61, where it talks about the Spirit of the Lord's upon me, and then the clause that talks about to proclaim liberty to the captives in the opening of the prison. I'm reading from the ESV to those who are bound. I'm curious if you think there's probably a connection here with this notion of captives and prisoners to Isaiah 14, where I do admit I kind of look at Isaiah 14 similar to how Dr. Michael Heiser looks at it, where you have their discussions about Sheol and the inhabitants in Sheol, and where it seems like they're described as prisoners later on in the chapter, I think specifically in verse 17. I'm wondering if you think there's a connection there, and here's the reason why I'm wondering that. Chapter 61, that passage is quoted by Jesus in Luke 4, and he applies it to himself, and I also find it curious if whether other New Testament authors are picking up on that, because you have, for example, Paul in Ephesians 4, verse 7 and 9, where he seems to be talking about in Messiah's ascension taking captives with him.

Let me weigh in. There's certainly no connection whatsoever. Certainly no connection. The prisoner is first and foremost, if you have to go back to Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, really Isaiah 40 through 48, so the Jewish people in Babylonian captivity are the constant references to those in prison, those in captivity, and that becomes symbolic of believers in general in captivity and sin, and the words to proclaim the liberty are only found, the crow drawer in Hebrew, are only found in Isaiah 61 and Leviticus 25, which goes back to the year of Jubilee and the 50th year that you proclaim liberty throughout the land, so debts are forgiven and indentured land is returned to the original landowners. So Yeshua is coming and proclaiming an eschatological Jubilee, that this is the day of liberty for the captives, and then he goes about doing it, and it's healing the sick, it's setting free those who are demonized, it's forgiving people's sins and liberating them. And then in 1038 Peter explains how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. So this is the entirety of his ministry, but the imagery, even opening blind eyes, originally is going back to people who have been imprisoned in darkness and they come out and they have to adjust to the light.

That's the first reference there. As to Ephesians 4, leading captivity captive, he's not making an open show over demonic powers. It's not liberating people from Sheol or hell or the underworld.

That's not what it's about. It's Colossians 2 that through the cross he makes an open show of the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms. So this is a public mocking of the powers of darkness and a public declaration that he is Lord, that he has risen, that he has triumphed, that all these powers have no power over him. That's what Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 3, Colossians 2 are all about. But this is first and foremost the imagery. It goes back to the immediately previous chapters in Isaiah and it builds on this image of the Jewish people coming out of Babylonian captivity being restored to the land is then a larger picture which then is tied in with the Exodus imagery which is now the bigger picture of human beings being set free from sin, forgiven, healed, delivered, coming into right relationship with God. And even the concept of forgiveness is the concept of a canceling of a debt in Greek. Forgiveness of sins equates to that. So that's definitely the imagery that's being used there.

And again if you just start reading Isaiah 40 and read up through 49 you'll see quite explicitly where the imagery is building on. Okay, so thank you very much. You are very welcome.

Thank you for the question. All right, our mini Friday miracle here. Okay, once again this is really interesting. I've just got to restart a screen here. 866, three, four, truth. What I was going to say is our mini miracle is we just have two lines just opened up. So now is a great time to call in. Whenever we get some extra lines open we try to tell you because we know often on Friday it's hard to get through.

So 866-348-7884. And we go to Steve in North Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. How are you? God bless. Doing well, thanks. Hey, Dr. Brown. I have a question.

English is my second language so sorry if I stuttered a little bit. I'm having issues with Toby, a singer. And my problem with him is that as a Christian I'm learning more to read the Jewish Torah and getting to know more my faith in death. And I came across one of his videos just out of curiosity, just for lectures to learn more about from the Jewish perspective. And then I found myself leaving his video with this doubt and insecurity and actually affected my faith in Jesus because I felt powerless to what he was saying, that it makes no sense.

And one of them was that the topic was about Jesus not fulfilling the prophecies, that he doesn't qualify as a messiah, like he didn't bring peace, he didn't restore things, and many other things that I don't remember right now. But it left me like somebody punched me in my stomach. It left me like without air. And I'm like, I... I tell you what, stay right there. We've got a break. We'll come right back on the other side of the broadcast. But hey, Steve, you listened to the wrong guy. He's attacking the faith.

We've demolished his false arguments for decades. We've got all the material you need. Fear not. Stay right here. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire. 866-342.

We actually have a couple lines open, so if you're trying to get through with a question for me, this is a great time to call, 866-348-7884. So right before the break, we were talking to Steve in North Carolina. And Steve, you mentioned watching a video by Rabbi Tovia Singer, and it felt like you got hit in the gut.

Suddenly you wondered, what about this? Does Jesus qualify? Did he really fulfill the prophecies? Unfortunately, Rabbi Singer has been doing this for many years.

He's what we call a countermissionary rabbi. And it's been the main thing that he's done for decades. Now, he and I debated in the early 1990s.

You can actually get online and listen to the whole debate. And then I really reached out. We spent a lot of time talking after that. And then he cut me off, and has cut me off ever since. He's refused to ever debate me again, refused to interact with me publicly or privately. There have even been times where he offered someone, he would do a debate.

For example, the head of a Christian university in South Carolina called me and said, Rabbi Singer has reached out to us and said he'd like to do a debate here. Now, would you come and do it? I said, of course.

I said, but the moment you tell him it's me, he'll cancel out, which is what happened. So, we've been bringing everything to the light for many, many years. So, let me give you a few things first, some sources, and then I'm going to answer some specifically. Okay, can you write this down now, what I'm about to tell you?

Yes, absolutely. So, one thing, if you go to AskDrBrown.org, my website, AskDrBrown.org, and just type in Singer. We actually have a series of videos where we take one of his videos at a time and expose the misinformation and what he failed to tell you. So, we've put out nine of those so far. We just recorded three more a few days ago that we'll be getting up in the weeks ahead.

So, that's the first thing, AskDrBrown.org, and then just search for Singer, and you'll see a bunch of those will come up, and then you'll start to breathe easier. Okay, because he'll present things in a certain way that gives an impression, like, ah, but it's only for those that aren't educated in this area. I know exactly how you feel because I'm Jewish, and when I came to faith, early on I met with the rabbis, and then this rabbi brought me to another to another. Sometimes you hear an objection, and it's like, oh, no, am I wrong?

Is my whole faith wrong? In a moment of time, you forget all the things the Lord did for you. In a moment of time, you forget all the real experiences you've had in Jesus, right? And at that moment, it's like, okay, so trust me, I know how you understand. That's why I've spent so many years addressing the issues. So, that's the first thing.

Now, here's another thing. Type in on wherever you search, type in the word, type in YouTube, okay? Then type in Ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-R Brown, and then type in, with a space, and then Episode 1.

So, YouTube space, A-S-K-D-R Brown, that's our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, space, and then Episode 1. That'll get you to a 32-class teaching I did. It's absolutely free, where I explain the Jewish objections and go through one after another, explaining why they're false, why they don't hold up, et cetera.

Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, it can feel intimidating, because, well, you don't know Hebrew. Well, I know Hebrew, and I would debate this rabbi any day of the week, in any setting where we had equal time, and, of course, he's refused to. So, the information is there.

And here's the neat thing. A week from today, I celebrate 50 years as a follower of Yeshua, and through most of that time, I have been in steady interaction with rabbis, debating. The most recent interaction I had with an Orthodox rabbi was an hour ago.

So, in other words, we are in constant interaction and communication. And the more that I studied, the stronger my faith became. And most of the rabbis are not like Tovia Singer. Most of the rabbis say to you, hey, if you're a gentile, you're a Christian, you believe in Jesus, that's fine.

He wants to talk you out of that. So, that makes him, unfortunately, more dangerous. We pray for his repentance, but all the information is there. That is the attitude they came across.

I mean, he comes down nice and loving and kind and friendly, but I noticed that the latest video that I saw on YouTube was, there was a street preacher somewhere on the street of Jerusalem, and then he went right up to him and interrupted him, and then he started attacking him. So, I felt like, wow, if I was that guy, I would have been done. I don't have no defense against this.

But anyway, I appreciate all the information you gave me. I only have one more question. Yeah, now let me just say one other thing. I just want to say this, that every one of us can be a bully in some area or another. In other words, okay, I'm not a boxer, I'm not an athlete, I'm 66, I'm in great shape, but I could still bully a guy that's like 4'8 and weighs 80 pounds. I'm like a giant, I can't bully him, right?

Right, right, right. So, I could bully people left and right with my knowledge of the Bible or knowledge of Hebrew or whatever, but that doesn't mean I'm right. And even if Toby sits and talks to us, the guy's a street preacher. I don't know anything about him. Except someone sent me a link to the video and I just saw the description.

I didn't even watch it. But the bottom line is, anybody can be bullied. So, what I'd always tell people is, okay, then invite me in the conversation. I've done this years past when I had more time. A Jewish believer would be intimidated and hey, they want me to meet with Rabbi Singer because we're in the same community. I said, great, just tell them you'd like me on the phone also.

Cancel, won't do it. So, once we come with a little more light, and if you want to dig deeper, I've written five volumes answering Jewish objections to Jesus that you'll find really edifying. So, those that are purchased by, but everything else I mentioned to you is available for free. All right, so your other question, go ahead.

I'll be adding those to my Christmas list now. Again, one question is about in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, I know you were talking about this a couple of minutes ago, a couple of minutes ago, about the name of Yahweh and Jehovah. What happened with that name in the New Testament?

Like, it was never mentioned. Yahweh was never used. Yes, so the New Testament was written in Greek, and the Greek custom among Jews at that time, which we see in the Septuagint, that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, right? A couple hundred years, three to two hundred years before the time of Jesus, that it was their custom when they saw the divine name Yahweh, they would use kurios instead, Lord, because it was considered too sacred to pronounce. So, the New Testament just continues the Jewish custom, just like if you look at a Jewish translation today, a modern Jewish translation, it may say Lord, it may say Hashem, but it will never say Yahweh or Jehovah, because it's considered too sacred to pronounce. So, Jewish translations for many, many centuries have done this. The New Testament just did what the other Jewish translations did. Now, if you read in Aramaic what's called the Peshitta, which is a translation that was completed a couple hundred years after the time of Jesus, that does make a distinction if it believes the divine name was there. Sometimes it will make a distinction, but even there it won't spell it out.

So, it was just at that time when you were writing, if you were writing in Greek or Aramaic, if you look at the Targums, they'll write it differently as well. So, it's just considered too sacred. Okay. All right. Well, be at peace, my brother. You are on the side of truth. All right, 86634, truth. Okay, there we go.

My screen is responding a little slowly. My apologies. Let's go over to Steven in Chicago. Kelly, if you could just click. There we go.

Click it one more time, and that will lock our guest in. Steven, thank you for joining us on the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. I appreciate you taking the call.

You bet. So, I've been kind of just thinking a lot about just historical perceptions of things. I know in my Bible commentary, there's a little section on the intertestamental period, and it says something about how the Jews recognized that there was this prophetic silence. And I know from the Christian perspective, that ended with John the Baptist and Jesus and all that, but I was wondering, what has been the historical Jewish interpretation? Why did it start? And I'm assuming from their perspective, it's still ongoing today. So I'm just wondering.

Yeah, a couple things. There's a debate in Jewish literature, and you can get a ton of sources on either side, that prophecy ceased with Malachi, et cetera, and others would speak of prophetic activity for centuries after that. So the idea of the prophetic silence from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and you had a period of several hundred years of prophetic silence, there is not a consensus on that in traditional Jewish literature.

There are some sources that speak in that way, and there are other sources that do not. However, for sure, it was viewed by the time of Jesus or with the destruction of the temple, without question, that prophetic revelation had ceased. And the basic shift is that you have the rise of rabbinic leadership, that the Pharisees became the dominant party, because just pragmatically, they were ready to move on without a temple. They were synagogue-based, they were not centralized in a temple, so the Sadducees were temple-based, and with the destruction of the temple, and then the destruction of many of the Essenes, the one group that remained and that was poised to continue to lead was the Pharisees, and then that develops into rabbinic Judaism, and the great emphasis would be on the leadership of the rabbis and the teaching of the rabbis, so the spirit that would have been on the prophets in the past is now there, not as prophets but as teachers, as those carrying on the tradition and expounding the meaning of the law, etc. So it's kind of a theological shift based on rabbinic leadership, more than a theological shift of the days of prophecy have ceased.

Now for sure, in New Testament times, this is the time of the explosion of prophecy, and you have church leaders for centuries talking about prophetic gifts operating after the New Testament, but to me, as best as I can understand it, there is debate in the sources. You can find some that will speak of kind of a period of silence and others that don't, and I read an article years ago that laid them out side by side, and I thought, wow, this is quite a debate, but for sure, once you get into the time of Jesus and then especially after the destruction of the Second Temple, with the shift in leadership and the model now being the sage, the rabbinic teacher, the transmitter of tradition, it becomes a very different mindset, so rather than getting a word from God to speak a certain way, this is how we lead the community. The community leaders now are these rabbinic teachers. Thank you for the question. I hope that answers things for you.

To me, again, it's just the way the leadership changed that something shifted. You know, this is the second time this week that someone called in with a question about a Tovias Singer video. Again, we pray for his repentance and salvation, and it was a great blessing for me to be able to say, oh, we address that directly. We have a video up where we get into that in depth, and we're able to do that because of your help, so thank you, again, to all you who have given support. You're helping us produce these resources, make them available for free to the largest possible audience and many lives are being saved, so thank you for your help, your participation. Let me encourage you, if you've never shared with us financially, this is a great time to do it as we come to the end of the year. Your gift really enables us to move into the new year full steam ahead, reaching many, many more people, so thanks for your participation and solidarity. Those who have given in the past, again, thank you for standing with us. Great time to give a tax-deductible year end gift.

AskDrBrown.org, click on donate, and we'll take it from there. All right, let's go over to Carrie, North Carolina. Greg, welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. How are you doing?

Doing very well, thank you. I have a question about Jeremiah 24, verse 6. Okay. In regards to the Lord setting his eyes upon, I just wanted to have clarification on that. I know I've asked you a long time ago about Peter and Paul, as far as them setting their eyes on someone before they prayed for healing for them, and you had said there was no significance to that. I read this verse in the devotional, and it just jumped out the page at me, when I saw that it said, the Lord set his eyes upon Jeremiah 24.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so Jeremiah 24, verse 6, the Hebrew, v'samti, v'samti einei lehem le'tovah, which is literally, I will set my eye on them for good. Translated in the new JPS, I will look upon them favorably.

That's what it means. In other words, I will look at them to do good for them. It's like, okay, picture it like this. You're in a group of people, and there's somebody I want to help.

I'm looking for someone named Greg from Cary, because I want to help that person out, and I want to give you a business idea. So I'm looking in the room, and I'm looking around, and when I spot you, it's like, hey, here, come here, I want to help you. So that's what it means. I'm going to look at you to favor you. I'm going to act favorably towards you. So that's all the idiom means.

There's nothing mystical about it. You don't have to physically be looking at someone to do it. But again, I will look upon them favorably. So I'm going to say, hey, I'm going to sing you out. I'm going to help you. I'm going to do good for you.

I'm going to look over in your direction and do good. That's the imagery. That's what it means, if that's helpful for you. That is helpful for me. Thank you very much. You are very welcome. God bless. God bless my brother.

866-34-TRUTH. Somehow we're going to have to adjust something on my computer here, just because this thing's not responding. So, Cal, if you can go ahead and drop that call, and let's see if we can get on Roy from Helena.

If we can get him on, that would be great. Are you there, Roy? Yes, sir. Can you hear me? Thank you, sir. Yeah, I can hear you. I apologize for our slowness here, but yes, you are on the air. Oh, that's great.

You're live. What can you do, right? Well, you know what it is? It's a different piece of equipment, and it's acting unusually. So that's never happened with tech before. This is a first, right? Yeah. Well, I just have a couple of questions.

My first is about Finney. Finney said, you know, revival is no more miraculous than growing a crop of wheat. Public prayer, private prayer, application of the truth, and you will have it. But I just wonder if there isn't some providence of God. I mean, the Bible talks about seasons, but I mean, Finney did it, right?

I mean, he did it for decades. Right. I mean, is it all on us? Okay, so, if you just read it like that, it does sound like an overstatement. So, there are three aspects to this, okay? The first aspect is that Finney was encountering a hyper-Calvinism that said there's nothing you can do to bring revival. There's nothing you can do to save a sinner. God does what he wants to do in his sovereign time. So, he's reacting against that.

And sometimes, when we're reacting against something, we can go to the other extremes. That's the first thing. But just the context of what he's dealing with, it's like, well, revival's just a miracle.

It comes when it comes. He's combating that. Secondly, he was anointed as a revivalist, and as he engaged in this and saw others engage in it, he did see revival, right? That's the second thing. The third thing, in principle, it's true. In other words, his whole thing is it's not just a miracle.

We don't know how it happened. Every revival movement I know about, it was preceded by years of agonized prayer, fasting, crying out. In other words, these were the very things that were done. But you could get the impression, just reading it, that, okay, if we do this for six months, then we'll definitely have revival. You may be contending for 20 years before the breakthrough comes the way you want to see it.

You may have lost hope a hundred times over before the answer comes. So, do I believe ultimately in that principle? Yes, that if we will humble ourselves, if we will seek out earnestly, if we will not let him go until he brings the blessing and live with that holy desperation, will we see revival come?

Yes, but it may not be in our timeframe or as expected. So, I agree with the principle. I agree that it's not a miracle the way he was saying, but absolutely, there's much providence involved. So, there's our part and how God responds in his sovereignty. It is the two coming together. And the way James Edwin Orr always used to like to quote it, quoting Matthew Henry, that when God wants to send revival, he sets his people to prayer.

So, it's both and in that respect. So, 25 years of prayer isn't out of the question then, but you will see it. Well, it depends what you're praying for. In other words, if you live in the city of New York and you are the main person praying for revival in the city, a lifetime is not long.

You know what I'm saying? For one person to be able to pray down, if I'm praying for national revival, I might be praying for that for my entire life. And by the end of my life, now hundreds and thousands of others have been raised up, et cetera. So, the more that are devoted to this and the more brokenness and desperation there is, the more likely the answer will come more quickly.

And then many times, what we consider desperation is just a step beyond complacency. But when we get to that place, and look, I remember in the 80s on Long Island, I was so desperate to see a spiritual breakthrough beyond anything I had seen in God's working. And I said to a pastor friend of mine, I can't live another day without the breakthrough. If I can see the breakthrough, then I'm gonna die. I said, true, but you know, you're gonna wake up the next morning, you feel the same.

And if you go on like that for months, I said, yeah, I understand that. But God will fill the hungry. He will fill the hungry. And there are many things I've prayed for, cried out for, and seen over the years, and had the privilege of serving in the Browns for Revival.

And there are other things I continue to cry out for that I've been crying out for decades, and I will continue to cry out. Okay, because Raven, I mean, if anybody had a prayer life, it was Leonard Ravenhill. And I, you know, I mean, he obviously did a lot in his day, but he never saw an outpouring where he was, you know what I mean?

Well, he saw pockets of outpouring. He saw moves of God, you know, preaching on the street and traffic stopping because of the crowds. However, think of this, that his decades of intercession and brokenhearted prayer, and if anyone knows his prayer life, it's me. I mean, we prayed together many a time, and I've never met a man on the planet that played the way he prayed.

One of the most sacred things ever was to pray with him. But two of the people he poured into are Steve Hale and me. And God used Steve Hale to ignite the Brownsville Revival. So Brother Len goes to be with the Lord in November of 1994.

Revival begins in Brownsville in June of 95. God uses Steve to ignite it, and not long into the revival, God calls me to be part of the leadership team and raise up the school in the midst of it. And Steve and I never questioned. We always felt sure that his prayers prayed a role in that. So he saw much happen.

And let me say this one other thing. He would see it happen all the time. I mean, him speaking at a conference. I was there.

I saw it with my own eyes. A holiness conference for John Wimber and the Vineyard in 1990. And they were not expecting many people to come to a holiness conference. They thought, signs, wonders, spiritual warfare, we'll get people, but holiness, they're not going to show up.

So many people applied that they had to run the conference two straight weeks back to back because they seated 4,500 and 9,000 applied. And the last meeting of Brother Len, so he was speaking in the daytime. And he was fragile.

He was in his early 80s then and somewhat weak physically. He couldn't finish his last message because all over the building people were weeping and wailing and repenting, literally all over the building. And this commonly happened. He brought a message in the living room of our house in Maryland with about 50 people squeezed in. And when he was done, we were all on our faces. He talked about the life of Paul. The life of Paul.

And we were so devastated by it that we were on our faces wailing and crying out and repenting and wanting God to work more deeply in our lives. So he did not see a sustained multi-year revival. But I never knew anyone that carried that fire with him like Brother Len and would speak. And it was like what would happen in the height of revival would regularly happen when he went out in a specific place.

And then for sure his decades of prayer I believe are something that God used to help birth the Brownsville Revival which church historians have called the longest running local church revival in American history. And thank you for raising Brother Len and Charles Spinney. Thank you for doing that. Friends, we'll be with you on Monday. If you want more, go to AskDirectorBrown.org. Tune in over the weekend. Another program powered by the Truth Network.