How Does Old Testament Theology Relate to New Testament Believers?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. So, how do we apply the Old Testament to today?

Are we still under the curses of the law if we don't know the truth? That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

For those watching, I'll explain in a second. Welcome, welcome to the broadcast, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884, any Jewish-related question of any kind. So, it can be about the modern state of Israel. It could be about Messianic prophecy, Jewish background to the Old Testament or to the New Testament, interpretation of specific issues related to the Hebrew Bible, any question like that, Judaism, any Jewish-related question, 866-34-8784.

We'll get to as many as we can. And we're going to dive into really interesting questions about things in the Old Testament, how God describes Himself, how does that apply to His dealings with us in the New Testament, or the way God dealt with Israel. How does that apply to us today as New Covenant believers?

So, I want to tackle that with you. And tomorrow is going to be a special broadcast, 50 years in the Lord, 50 years since the Lord set me free from drugs. And when I came to that point of surrender, I had begun to believe there was something was going on.

God can give you the exact moment of transition in my life, but when I know that I know, when I became fully aware I passed from death to life, when I know that I knew that I had surrendered to the Lord and the guilt was gone, it was December 17th of 1971. So, on tomorrow's broadcast, we glorify the Lord specially, and we'll be answering questions that have been asked about my journey and things learned and experienced over these 50 years. Also, be sure to check my website AskDrBrown.org. I'm going to have a special article posted there celebrating the amazing grace in my life over these 50 years. And there's a request that we're putting out on everything tomorrow, Facebook posts and things like that, and it's simply this. If we've been a blessing to you, if our ministry, be it this radio broadcast, be it books, articles, preaching, service, if we've been a real blessing to you over the years, some for decades, some in recent months, would you take a moment to send us your story as it relates to us, how we were helping, how our ministry was of help to you?

You can just write to info at AskDrBrown.org, info at AskDrBrown.org, and just you put the subject testimony. And exactly as it relates to how we've been a blessing to you, it'll bring great encouragement to our team, and it's something we look back at. I often pray over these things when we want to reach more people, and we hear from you that we were able to help you in this way or this way or this way. It builds our faith to help more people. So if we've been a blessing to you, would you do that? That's at info at AskDrBrown.

Or if you're on Facebook page, you'll see a post there. You can just post your comments there, and we will read every one of them. We will, and we will rejoice in the Lord with you and give thanks that we could be a blessing to you. The second thing is, we know that we know that we know it is the will of God that we massively expand the Line of Fire broadcast. Now, we do send out your end appeals to help us, as many other ministries do, and it's a great time to give.

But I'm not asking for finances. I'm asking for prayer. Would you pray with us and believe God with us?

We are more positioned and things are in place more now than ever before in the history of our ministry for a massive rollout and expansion of Line of Fire. Certain things we can do, certain things only God can do supernaturally. Would you believe God with us? If you sense it's His will, if you believe it's important for this voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity to go around the nation, and obviously with our Jewish roots and background and knowledge of the Word and grace that's in our lives, if you feel, boy, that's important to reach more and more people, just pray with us. That's it. All we're asking you to do, ask God that He would help us do it, because I believe it is the appointed time for these things to happen.

866-34-TRUTH. Okay, we've got special broadcasts prepared for you through the rest of the year right up to what's going to be a real, stirring, inspirational New Year's Eve broadcast. We're going to take you into debates I've done, play some interviews from the past, so we're going to have some really neat broadcasting.

And when we start the New Year, the first broadcast of the New Year, there will be a completely different look for those who are watching, and there'll be some other surprises for everyone listening. So that's all I can say. Okay, right at the start, I said for those watching, I'll explain it. All right, so we had a fun holiday office party yesterday, and one of these things exchanged gifts. So anyway, I ended up with this. It's like a neck and shoulder massage, not massage, like a warmer thing.

Just put it on. It's like, oh, very therapeutic. And by God's grace, I don't have sore muscles unless I do a really, really intense workout. I don't have body ache. I'm healthy and strong, no medicines. So I'm thriving.

But often just doing things the way I do or reading a certain way or writing at the computer, you know, your neck just get a little tight. So I had this right on. And I thought, well, our team said, look, all the look is going to be changing in the days ahead, so why not just leave it on? So for those watching, here we are. All right. Before we take your calls, let's go to Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three. And look at what Paul writes there.

And I'm going to read from the Tree of Life version. For all who rely on the deeds of Torah, others translate works of the law, are under a curse. For the scriptures say cursed is everyone who does not keep doing everything written in the scroll of the Torah. That's from Deuteronomy 27.

So there is a curse for disobedience. It is clear that no one is set right before God, justified before God by Torah. For the righteous shall live by emunah, the righteous shall live by faith, by a faithful depending on God and looking to him and walking with him.

That's how we live. So yes, as a Jew in the first century would do, because you believe God, you obey God, right? But you are not saved by your obedience because everybody ultimately falls short. So if you want to be justified by your works, you'll fall short.

So we come into right relationship with God by faith and then the works are the fruit and the proof of our faith. However, Torah is not based on trust and faithfulness. On the contrary, the one who does these things shall live by them. Leviticus 18. So Paul is saying to these Galatian Christians, you've fallen into this lie that you have to be circumcised and obey the law of Moses in order to be saved. But the law is not of faith, the law is about obedience. So our obedience is a fruit of faith, but just obeying is not going to do it.

You will fall short. Messiah liberated us from Torah's curse, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree in order that through Messiah Yeshua, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise of the Ruach, the promise of the Spirit by faith. All right, so Paul quoting from Deuteronomy 21 says that Messiah's become a curse for us because it says cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

Okay, we'll step back from the text there. We understand the nature of the curse that if someone was executed, then you didn't leave them hanging on a tree overnight. And that was a cursed state. So Paul's saying, hey, Messiah took the curse for us. There was a curse for disobedience. You ran a cursed state hanging on the tree.

He took the curse for us. Now, it doesn't mean that we're free to murder, free to commit adultery, free to steal, free to worship idols. No, we're free to serve God. We have been saved from sin to obedience. But the curses that were there for disobedience are not there now, meaning that under Israelite law, if the nation disobeyed that they would come under the horrific curses in Deuteronomy 28 verses 15 and on, and then in Leviticus 26 as well.

When I've read them, gone through the word, read them, I almost always get sickened to my stomach because of the devastating horrific nature of the curses. We are not under that. We are under a new and better covenant. It's not even a corporate thing where if the whole church does this, the whole church is blessed. If the whole church is the other, the whole church is cursed. Just because we're individual believers scattered all around the world and the body is multifaceted, the body in India maybe in one city may be healthy and another city in America be unhealthy.

So we're not under that corporate curse that Israel was under. And Messiah has taken the curse for us. However, if we individually reject God's grace, scorn his grace, walk away from it, repudiate it, say, I'm going to sin.

I'm going to do whatever in the world I want to do. And I've got nothing to do whatsoever with this Jesus anymore. Hebrews says there's a far worse punishment waiting for us. Hebrews 10 says if those who died under Moses' law were put to death under truth, we witness this. How much worse is it going to be for someone that was washed clean by the blood of Messiah, paraphrase the words there, and now goes out and continues to willfully sin and rejects him and scorns the cross, tramples underfoot the blood of the Son of God. See, in Hebrews 12, if they were judged like this for rejecting an earthly voice, how much more will we be rejected for? We suffer for rejecting a heavenly voice.

So with ultimate apostasy, yes, there's worse judgment, more severe judgment. But for a believer seeking to follow the Lord, no, we're not under the curses of the law. You say, well, can we claim the blessings? Well, to the extent that they apply right through New Covenant living, yes, as many promises as God has made, they are yes and amen in the Messiah. But for us to be the head and not the tail, we may be persecuted.

Paul said the apostles were put last, right? We may be persecuted, hated in this world, but we'll be at the highest level in God's sight. We may not be the head in our society, but in God's sight, we'll be at the highest level and then forever be exalted in Him. But we do not live in such a way of, oh, no, oh, no, I'm going to come under the curse of disobedience. Oh, no, no. Messiah took the curse for us.

He took our place. Do we reap what we sow? If, as I shared in a YouTube chat a few minutes ago, I am a gambling, heavy drinking glutton, will I reap what I sow? Yes, that'll bring destruction on me.

If I was doing ministry, it would destroy the ministry. That's simply reaping what I sow. That is not God bringing curses for disobedience. That is reaping what I sow.

But no, we are not under the curse of the law and the same way we are not living by the law to seek to be justified by the law. Now, a little later in the broadcast, I want to revisit this question and say, well, Satan had access to Job in the Old Testament. Does he have access to us today?

How's that work? We'll talk about this, how we apply truths from the Hebrew Bible to our situation today. And my book, Compassionate Father, or Consuming Father, gives the God of the Old Testament, cut out the new edition of that earlier this year. You'll find it super helpful in this regard. 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.

Oh, yeah. It was and is and is to come. Welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. This is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you, so excited to be alive in the Lord, so excited to be his child, so excited to be involved in reaching the lost sheep of the House of Israel with the good news of the Messiah. Thank you for your prayers, your solidarity, your partnership, your support. Any Jewish-related questions? 866-348-7884.

And we will start with Gon in Germany. Thank you so much for calling The Line of Fire. Yes.

Thanks, Dr. Brown, for having me. I have a question regarding to Christian culture. Before I ask, I would like to say I'm a Bible believer in Christians. I love the Jews.

I've been in Israel, so I'm not from a strange background. But I would like to ask if I look at our culture, especially in Europe today, which used to be very Christian, but now it's totally off the Christian faith. If I look at some movements which have been so detrimental for our history, like, let's say, Bolshevism or Marxism, neo-Marxism in Germany, like Adorno-Horkheimer or post-modernism, like the French philosophers, even though I love the Jews so much, I ask myself, it seems to me a bit that they often have been at the forefront of this very detrimental movement. And I ask myself, I mean, why has it been the case, and it's the Old Testament which you all read, and why is there something that misreads, so maybe they're looking for a replacement Messiah, okay, the Messiah didn't come, let's create heaven on earth, ourself.

What do you think about this, Steve? Yeah, it's a very fair question and a very appropriate question. I don't believe that in most cases there is a consciousness of, well, Messiah hasn't come, let's create a messianic world. I believe it's more fundamental and subtle than that. I believe there is a unique calling on the Jewish people to be world changers, to be a light to the world, to make God known to the world. In that sense, we are cultural revolutionaries, either going against the idolatry of a culture and proclaiming there is only one true God, or going against the sin of a culture and saying these are the standards of a holy God, so in that sense we would be cultural transformers and reformers if we are rightly plugged into God. So the words of Moses, the words of the prophets, the words of the Jewish Messiah Jesus, the words of the apostles, they continue to impact the world. So when we get things right, we have this extraordinary power.

However, because of our calling, we are called to be world changers. When we get things wrong, then we become the Karl Marxists of the world, or, you know, one of the most influential rich businessmen in America, George Soros, or his Hungarian pronunciation, Sharos. So he's a philanthropist giving masses an amount of money, but it's almost always to causes we would consider radical left. Or if you look at the most aggressive groups like the SPLC, Southern Poverty Law Center, which is an aggressive leftist group, or the ACLU, which is the most active legal group advocating for causes, they are largely led by liberal Jews, and they are on the opposite of pro-life issues, pro-family issues, they're on the exact opposite as us. There was a major German scientist, or whatever you would be called, that has a lot of the sexual theory and that paved the way for the sexual revolution.

Even though the leaders of the sexual revolution in America were Gentiles, some of the ideological paving was a German Jew. Or Sigmund Freud, how was it he had the scientific discoveries at Albert Einstein? Or if you look in Pulitzer Prizes, excuse me, Nobel Prize winners in chemistry and this and that, breakthrough discoveries one after another, disproportionately it's Jews. So I've talked about this for years as I've looked at it, that we are called to be world changers. And when we get things right, we have an incredible impact. When we get things wrong, we have a terrible impact. And to whom much is given, much is required.

You know, again, you can have a gift and it can be used for good or for bad. Because proportionately we're a tiny percentage of the earth's population, what is it, 0.05% of the world's population, and often we've been pressed down and rejected and persecuted. So we are preserved by God's grace as Jews, but can have this impact.

Now, yes, okay, so thanks a lot. So the solution would be we continue to pray for them and evangelize them so that they get it right and get plugged in. Not just being blown up, not just being reported, not just being exaggerated, but really many Christians are leaving the faith. Many are losing their faith. Many are in church questioning their faith. Others have dropped out entirely. I mean, people who, according to everything we could see, were believers before.

They were not just part of a liberal church and professed Jesus in name only, but seemed to be Bible-believing Christians. Why are so many falling away? I want to address that in a comprehensive way today. I want to be as practical as I can. We've talked about these subjects a lot in recent weeks, especially with my book, Has God Failed You, coming out last month. But I felt it was important to revisit, to go a little deeper. Here's the number to call.

866-3487. Are we having one of those situations, team? I'm not sure what happened, but if guests are speaking, I can't hear them. So all right, we lost our connection for a minute here. All right, we've had a couple of technical issues in the last few weeks that we are really working hard on to try to find out what happened. So, God, my apologies if we lost our connection there, but hopefully you get to hear my whole answer.

Let's try Aaron again in Chicago. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Barcelona. How are you doing? Doing well, thank you. All right, good. You can hear me? Yeah, yeah. It was on our end.

Yep. All right, no problem. Yeah, so I had a question about the genealogy in Genesis 5 that records the genealogy of Adam, and I know sometimes Christians, and I'm a person, and Christians sometimes make these connections with the Hebrew, and then they try to say, like, this could suggest the Gospel. And so supposedly, I guess, like, the Gospel message is in this genealogy, and if you go from Adam all the way down to Noah, I'm going to read it real quick in English as far as the names and then the definition. So, it says Adam, Seth, Enoch, Canaan, Mahalalau, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, and then the translation. I lost you again there, so I'll go ahead and read the names. So, you have Adam, then you have Seth, then you have Enoch, then you have Canaan, then you have Mahalalau, then you have, because it's got a scroll through for each one, then you have Enoch, then you have Methuselah, then you have Lamech, and then you have Noah. So, supposedly, the Gospel is being preached, and if it lays out how a man is appointed, and takes her place, and all that.

Not true, not true. First, the assumption, feel like you have solid answers. Maybe a meme you saw, just a little line, like how do I respond to that, or something you were confronted with on a university campus, or something let's come up with in your own family. Let's be as constructive as we can be today.

Phone lines are open, 866-348-7884. A few weeks back, I did a video responding to one of the viral TikTok videos of Abraham Piper, also known as Pastor John Piper's son. Look at this New York Times headline. A pastor's son becomes a critic of religion on TikTok. John Piper is one of the most influential theologians in America. His son Abraham calls evangelicalism a destructive, narrow-minded worldview. And excerpts by some of these videos, you can see from these videos, some of you viewed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times.

He's questioning hell, he's talking about experiences he had in a missions trip, et cetera. This is wrong, that's wrong. Daniel, hang on, we'll get parents. And now is a great time to call in 866-348-7884. And whatever connection problems we're having with our studio, boy, this is more frustrating for us than for anyone, trust us.

So we were working hard to figure out where the problem lies getting corrected, but others watching online are not having any issue whatsoever. So we will continue. And what I want to do on the other side of the break, we'll get to more calls, is I want to ask the question, you have God bringing judgment in specific ways. You have like tornadoes, or it doesn't say tornadoes, say an earthquake or some terrible type of storm. And God is bringing judgment with that. Can we therefore deduce that any calamity today is literally an act of God? If there is an earthquake, if there is a hurricane, the terrible tornadoes that took so many lives and devastated the entire town of Mayfield, Kentucky, can we say, well, the Old Testament lays out a certain way, therefore we can be sure it's this? What about Satan having access? He got God's permission to bring natural disasters on Job's family.

Can that happen today? What about our authority over Satan? So I want to ask those questions, which are practical questions when we come back, 866-348-7884, the number to call. And we'll get to more of your calls and your Jewish related questions as well, right here on the Line of Fire. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. Any Jewish related question phones are open.

866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. Remember, we've got a special broadcast tomorrow as we celebrate 50 years in the Lord. Yeah, my spiritual jubilee, amazing, just amazing. And you know, in many ways, because I was such a heavy drug user then, 50 years later, I'm massively healthier now than I was then. If you think of it, obviously my body's older, but massively healthier now than I was 50 years ago.

And of course, eating healthily, which I wasn't back then. In any case, just another thing to thank God for, the spiritual transformation being the massive thing that amazes me to this day. Not just how He saved me, but what He's allowed me to do and be part of all these years.

For Gon in Germany, for Aaron in Chicago, as we had some connection issues. So Gon, in case you missed any part of my answer, in short, I believe God has called the Jewish people to be world changers. He's given us certain gifts. When we use them rightly, we have this incredibly powerful impact on the world. When we use them wrongly, we have a destructive impact.

Too much is given, much is required. Aaron in Chicago, no, there is not a preaching of the Gospel through the etymology of the names in Genesis 5. It's reading way too much back into them. And one of the links breaks decisively, the one allegedly Methuselah is speaking about besides death or pointing to death or something like that, that's a wrong understanding of the word. And if you'll check the best lexical sources and sources on animastica, the words and the meanings and the occurrences and things like that. And I focus on that some in my doctoral dissertation, looking for names with Rafah elements, healing elements, and searched through the ancient Near East and did my best to understand how names work. So I've got a whole bunch of books on animastica or what's called theophoric animastica, which are names that have that have divine elements in them like Eliyahu, my God is Yahu, Yahweh. And then you have what are called hypocoristicons, which is shortened versions where part of the elements drops out and you have to understand it.

So I did dig into this. And for sure, the understanding of Methuselah is incorrect and that breaks down the whole thing. Okay, before we we go to the phones, here's a report, a Joel Rosenberg reporting on this new book by veteran Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, and it's called Trump's Peace in the Abraham Accords. So according to Ravid, Trump had no idea that Netanyahu was planning to place large swaths of the West Bank known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria under sovereign Israeli law. Trump felt blindsided and became angry when Netanyahu announced a so-called annexation plan during the White House ceremony unveiling the Trump peace plan in January 2020, asking AIDS after the ceremony.

What the H was that? Now, I don't know that this is true, but that would sound very believable. When Trump told his team to tell Netanyahu that there was no way that the U.S. would support immediate annexation, Netanyahu felt humiliated and angry. So you've got two very savvy people here in Netanyahu, a veteran politician.

This could all be very accurate, but it seemed true to color. A month later, when Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer met privately at the White House with Jared Kushner, the architect of the Trump peace plan, their conversation devolved into a shouting match and Krishna threw Dermer out of his office. Trump told Ravid that Netanyahu never really wanted to make peace with the Palestinians and this too angered Trump. He says the book is getting lots of coverage in Israel, but not everyone is happy with it. Former U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, who was a senior advisor to Trump and deeply involved in the drafting of the Trump plan, has blasted sections of the book as false. He said Ravid didn't even interview him to get his side of the story.

Dermer has not yet commented. In any case, we are where we are today with great strides that were made under President Trump with Israel and the surrounding nations and with more question marks, especially if the U.S. continues to open the door for Iran to have nuclear weapons. So the plot continues to thicken.

Okay. Can we say that any calamity that comes as an act of God, you know, is there calamity in the city if the Lord hasn't done it? You have verses like in Amos 3 or Lamentations 3 that would say that. Someone argue that and therefore if there is a tsunami, if Hurricane Katrina, the recent tornadoes, that those are all acts of God.

That would be one view. Another view would say, no, no, God doesn't send it because we know Jesus rebukes it. He rebukes the storm in the New Testament. Was he rebuking his father?

Was he rebuking what his father did? And others would say, no, this is the work of Satan. Satan's the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And he's the one that brought these natural disasters on Job with God's permission.

And others would say, we don't know what to make of these. And let me say a few things. Be careful because these are people whose lives, I mean, you have regions of the United States right now, especially in Kentucky, that are devastated and whatever the future holds for the people there will never ever be the same. The tragedy was so great, affecting so many people, so close to them, that it will never be the same.

Even the name of the city will be remembered for the destructive tornado and the pain. And right now there are people in agony, people in shock, people in hospitals, others grieving deeply. So let's, if you have a theology that really believes that any natural disaster is an act of God, be very gentle and careful in sharing it. Make sure you share it with a broken heart of compassion for those hurting. If you say, well, whatever caused it, we should all be in the state of repentance because it reminds us of human frailty. And that could have been any of us. And ultimately in God's sight, we all deserve judgment.

Amen to that. Luke 13, where Jesus tells some of the Jewish men talking to him, hey, these people that died when the tower fell on, are they more wicked than everybody else? No, unless you repent, you'll all perish. In other words, we all, if not for God's mercy, we should all be dead. If not for God's mercy, we should have all died under his judgment or natural judgment or something else. So it's a reminder of our frailty that we all deserve judgment. I'm not saying those people were especially guilty.

No, the opposite, the opposite. Jesus is saying the opposite, that all of us, if we're going to go by guilt, all of us should have died. So it's by the mercy of God that we're not smitten. So if we say, I don't know why this happened, but it reminds me of human frailty and gets me low before God saying, God have mercy on me and have mercy on this frail race.

Amen to that response. We also know that by nature, Satan is a destroyer of innocent lives and God by nature is a rescuer of innocent lives, and that God cannot do evil. So again, we don't understand why and how, but as I break things down, if I see in a very specific and definite way that the judgment is sending a message, ties in with a prophetic warning, then I would have no problem identifying it as a judgment. For example, when Lutherans in Minnesota were contemplating changing their bylaws to embrace homosexual practice among Christians and to ordain homosexual pastors, at that moment, a tornado sweeps through the city at a time where tornadoes are not expected, at a place where tornadoes do not come, and knocks off what's at the steeple of the church building as the meeting is going on kind of next door, that could get your attention. And a lot of people weren't killed. It's not like they think, fell and crushed all these people.

That's spooky. If I was one of those people voting, I'd say, what is going on? And if I was a street preacher calling to repent and I saw that, I would say, God's trying to get our attention. So if you have been warning a region, let's just say that there's child trafficking going on in the particular city and there's a hub for it and porn is being produced, the most horrific stuff you can imagine, and you are warning people in this city, you're complicit with this, you know it's happening and you're not reporting it and these people need to repent. I'm telling you, if you don't repent within six months, judgments come.

I'm telling you, if you don't repent within six months, judgments coming. Within five months and 29 days to the moment, there's an earthquake right there and it's like a giant sinkhole, sucks that region in, I would say God's getting our attention. But outside of that, I would say we don't know why everything happens. They could be sovereign acts of God. They could simply be the way the world responds. The world has been messed up and come under a divine curse because of human sin and the whole creation is groaning.

So it's just the system is messed up because of sin and therefore bad things happen because the system is messed up. How much access does Satan have? Well, we know about Satan in a way that Job didn't.

My friend Dr. Michael Heizer and others say Hasatan and Job won. The adversary is not Satan that we know in the New Testament. So I respectfully differ with that. And there's a debate among scholars over that. I understand that to be the same devil, the same Hasatan, the same adversary, the same Satan. So he had to get God's permission to touch righteous Job. If Job was outside of God's favor and protection, he wouldn't have needed that. But we now have a revelation of Satan that Job didn't. And through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have authority over Satan that Job didn't. At the same time, we have a revelation that he is going about trying to destroy lives. 1 Peter 5, he goes about like a roaring lion looking for people to devour and he's bringing suffering on the people of God. And we know also that we are doing spiritual warfare, Ephesians 6, that our battle is not with human beings, but with spiritual principalities and powers with the devil and his demonic hordes and fallen angels and all of that, whatever goes on in the spiritual realm in an orderly way.

We're at war. So is it possible that Satan could be behind a natural disaster? Well, if he could in the Old Testament, is it excluded that he could in the New?

No, I would not exclude it. If you say, well, it still has to be under God's permission, that could be debated. I did my best decades ago to work out as much as I could to put things in clear lines of demarcation. But you can't always do that with behind the scenes in the spiritual realm. Ultimately, we worship God and ultimately we acknowledge God as King and ultimately we acknowledge that the tornado couldn't happen unless God allowed it to happen. But much happens every day, contrary to his will and desire because we're in rebellion or because we're in a fallen world. Either way, let it be that you worship God who is sovereign and all powerful, that you recognize any of us could have died.

Human life is frail and we all deserve to die. Thanking God for his mercy and then be all the more vigilant to do good, to help those in need. And wherever you see Satan at work, to push him back. You'll find more help with this in my book, Compassionate Father and Consuming Fire. Who is the God of the Old Testament? Make sure you get the new edition.

It came out earlier this year. Okay, we go back straight to the phones. That's where we go. Come let us rejoice and be glad. That's what it's saying. If you know the Hebrew words.

I knew the song as a kid but didn't know what the words meant until years later. Oh, that's like from the Psalms, isn't it? 866-34-TRUTH. Welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Back to the phones.

Daniel in Marshbrook, Pennsylvania. Thanks so much for holding. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Well, thanks for having me. You've been asked several questions.

I don't know how much time I have, but... Well, go ahead. Start with the first. First one is in Leviticus 26, and do it around on the 28, the blessings and curse chapters. Do those chapters applied to the modern-day nations maybe explaining what is happening today to this nation be something to do with that? Right, so they are not national covenants that God made with the whole world. Those are explicit covenants or a covenant that God made with Israel, and made it clear, I've chosen you out, so too much is given, much is required.

Amos 3, 1, You only have I known out of all the families of the earth, therefore I'll punish you for your iniquities. When you read the book of Amos, you see that God deals with other nations based on general rules of righteousness, humane treatment of others, keeping covenant and things like that, whereas Israel is judged for very specific sins under the Torah, under the Sinai Covenant. So you could say broadly there are principles by which God will judge and bless. So generally speaking, if a nation practiced kindness, if a nation helped the poor, if a nation kept its covenantal relations and things like that, versus a nation that was tyrannical, ruthless, slaughtered people en masse, committed genocide, then you would just say that the blessing, general blessings would be on the former, and in general judgment on the latter.

We reap what we sow, and God still does work, but in those general ways. So even in America we have more light because of the gospel, so we're more responsible than some other nation that's not had the gospel, but we are still judged in a more general way than specifically based on the Sinai Covenant because America as a nation is not under the Sinai Covenant. Would that apply to the modern-day nation of Israel then? That's the greater debate.

That's the greater debate. In other words, if Israel is not under the New Covenant, right, then Israel was still under the Sinai Covenant. In which case would you say that God is still dealing with them under the Sinai Covenant?

You could make that argument. So the question is, has God shifted and he is dealing with Israel under the New Covenant even though the nation has not come into the fullness of that by believing in the Messiah, or as Jews still believing they're under the Sinai Covenant, is God dealing with them under the Sinai Covenant? My understanding would be that the New Covenant is for those who have entered into it, so those of us who are believers, but as Israel has not entered into it, Israel is still on some level under the Sinai Covenant and although he's promised to preserve the nation, preserve the people, and he's brought us back not because of our goodness but because of his goodness and for his name's sake, I am always concerned about Israel's well-being when I see so much unrighteousness in the nation. Okay, so if you obey my... Go ahead, it's a little hard to hear you though, but go ahead. I don't have it in front of me, but if I quote it, it says, if you obey my statutes and my commandments this will be the blessing. Right.

If you disobey, this will be the curses. Now, we have to say there's something wrong in America with everything going on, the fires, flooding, everything seems to be intensifying. Is the Jewish people, I don't know if they do this intentionally or not intentionally, they have themselves believing that they are the nation of Israel but wasn't there 11 other tribes that were consisted to be Israel? Right, so America today is not Israel.

Let me say it once more, America today is not Israel. All of the 12 tribes are part of what are known as the Jewish people today, all of the 12 tribes are represented in the nation of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. The idea that America was the original Israel or the Mormon views, no, DNA is against it, history is against it, scripture is against it. So when Paul's talking about the 12 tribes in the New Testament, it's because all 12 tribes were represented among the Jewish people. The Hebrew Scriptures talk several different times about after the judgment of the 10 northern tribes, how they would immigrate down to the south, how they would come to worship Yahweh in the south, so they became part of the larger Jewish people. So there are some scattered different parts of the world who have been lost to history and they may have, like the Pashtun people, so the Taliban, they may have Jewish roots, many of the Palestinians may have Jewish roots, but the idea that the American Indians have Jewish roots, no, no, it's been utterly refuted through DNA and the Mormon teaching of it is very much wrong. So if that's where you were going, either trying to lead me there or doing your own investigation, absolutely not, it breaks down on every level. And if you want to look at the fullness of the blessings and the curses, have we experienced the fullness of the curses with all of our sin?

No, nowhere near it, not a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. Thankfully, we're not under the Sinai covenant and America is not Israel. All right, let's go over to Philadelphia. Greg, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. Hey. I was just wondering if you could help me answer a question about the Hebrew in Daniel chapter 9 and the 70 week prophecy.

Yep, you bet. Basically, as a futurist, I suppose, you know, the verse about, you know, the Messiah coming and in the middle of the week, putting an end to, well, it says He in the middle of the week, the covenant in the middle of the week, put an end to that place. I guess the futurist, you think the He is not referring back to Messiah.

But I personally kind of like the calculation of the classical historicist interpretation, which has Jesus coming at the beginning of the 70, the last week, and dying in the middle, putting an end to sacrifices in the middle of the last week. So if the He in verse 27, I'm wondering if the He in Daniel 9, 27 could refer back to Messiah, or does it need to refer back to the one who destroys the city? Can it possibly refer back to Messiah?

Yeah, you can make a good case for it. It is, the Hebrew is a little bit difficult and obscure, especially as you get into verse 27. So you do have, right, so in verse 26, it's after the 62 weeks, which follow the 7 weeks, so it's after 69 weeks, you create Mashiach for Enlos. So Mashiach will be cut off and have nothing.

And then afterwards, you have the one that's going to come and destroy, it's the people of the prince to come who will destroy the holy city. So you could, historically, commentaries have gone both ways. They have seen the He as continuing the Messiah, who puts an end to sacrifice with His death on the cross, makes the firm covenant, and then puts an end to sacrifices with His death on the cross, or it's been read as referring to what Titus does, whatever agreement is made with the people, and then in the midst of it with the war, is cut short and destruction comes, and he makes an end of sacrifice by destroying the temple.

So it is, it's debated to this day. You might say the more natural reading... The Hebrew doesn't really, okay, but you have no more natural reading, sure. You could say that the more natural reading is that it's referring to the immediately prior subject, which is about the Nagid, the prince that is to come. On the other hand, because it's the people of the prince who do this, and now you have the He, that the He could go back to Mashiach. You've got, look at it like this. I was thinking maybe, can I say something real quick?

Yeah, sure. I was thinking that, personally, that the main subject of verse 26 was the Messiah. He was like the main subject of the passage, so I was thinking maybe, being the main subject of verse 26, maybe he would still be the main subject in verse 27, but I don't know if that makes sense.

No, it's possible, but here's the thing. You're dealing with, as it's broken down, the subject in the first half of 26. So 26a, that's Mashiach, right? Traditional Jew doesn't understand that as the Messiah, we do. So 26a, Mashiach is the main subject. 26b, it's the people of the prince who come.

They're the main subject. So starting 27a, it could easily pick up on 26a, just as easily as 26b. It's not like you've got something four or five verses earlier that you now have to pick up again. And as I said, the Hebrew is somewhat ambiguous.

So let's just say this. I would be the first to say, Greg, if something is an unfair reading of the text or just doesn't work, no, this could be right. So even, like I'm writing commentary on Isaiah now, and there are these endless controversies about how to render certain difficult verses. And you're kind of like, it's like 60, 40 this way, but there's a strong argument on the 40 side that kind of tilts the scales this way. So on the one hand, you could say the more natural flow is 26b goes into 27a. However, as you said, the centrality of the role of this Mashiach in 26a could easily carry into 27a. Absolutely.

It is a fair potential reading of the text. Hey, God bless. Thanks for the call. Listen, friends, special broadcast celebrating 50 years in the Lord tomorrow. Be sure not to miss another program powered by the truth network.