Dr. Brown Takes Your Calls and Questions Live on Good Friday

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

First-ever National Not Ashamed of Jesus Day. Thanks for everybody who participated. Thanks to all of you who posted on social media.

We plan to do a montage in the coming weeks of the some of the videos you posted. One church with a group of people singing together and proclaiming they're not ashamed. Others with t-shirts you're wearing. Others sharing testimony or sharing the gospel at work.

Memes you posted. So great first-ever National Not Ashamed of Jesus Day on 4-14. And now we move forward from there.

866-34-truth. You've got questions. We've got answers. Yes, it is Good Friday on the Christian calendar. Yes, Passover begins tonight on the Jewish calendar.

Yes, originally there was not a separate Jewish and Christian calendar. That's another subject. But, as we always do, phones are open. Any question, anything you want to ask me, anything you want to talk to me about, as long as it relates in any way to the line of fire. If you've heard something you want to clarify, by all means give us a call. 866-348-7884. And with that, we go straight to the phones.

We start with Jared in Capella, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. How you doing? Doing very well. Thank you. Well, awesome.

This should be easy for you. So in the original Passover, I've heard it been said that it wasn't, but was that an atoning sacrifice, because God was, you know, taking His wrath? I guess the last play, exactly, that He was punishing the Egyptians and the Israelites if they didn't, you know, smear the blood on the door. Was that because they were serving the Egyptian gods? Because, you know, in Joshua 24, 14, and then Ezekiel 26-9, it kind of mentions that, how they had been serving other gods. So I was just kind of wondering, like, is the original Passover kind of like an atoning sacrifice for them, too? Or just... Yeah, so the primary emphasis was not atonement in the Passover, as opposed to, say, the Day of Atonement, where that's the explicit purpose of it. It was the celebration of liberation from bondage, and the Passover sacrifice was part of this larger liberation. Now, that being said, because the Passover alone was killed, and blood was shed, and it was substitutionary in that sense. In other words, the Passover lamb dies, and your firstborn son does not die.

It has larger elements in it. So it is not primarily atonement-related, but it does have atonement aspects to it. As to Israel worshiping other gods, even in Joshua 24, it's really talking about past generations, and Abraham's ancestors were idol worshipers, and things like that. But for sure, there was corruption within the Israelites in Egypt. I'm sure there was some idolatry and straying, and God had to bring them back. But there was not a sacrifice, okay, sacrifice this lamb to make atonement for your idolatry.

That was not the purpose of it. But there is that substitutionary aspect, and then, because of the larger theme of liberation from bondage and freedom, Jesus is emphasized as the Passover lamb in the New Testament. For example, in John 1 and in 1 Corinthians 5, that that terminology is used, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, or our Passover, meaning our Passover lamb has been sacrificed in 1 Corinthians 5.

So those images are tied in. So not explicitly for atonement, but definitely tying in with the larger atonement substitution system. Could I ask one follow-up?

Sure, sure, thanks, you bet. So do you think the Israelites, you know, in Egypt, did they have, like, the true knowledge of God? Like, did Moses have that before, you know, God revealed himself in the bush? Like, I guess, how did they worship him in Egypt, or were they just kind of, like, you know, lost until Moses pulled him out of, like, where they were?

Right, you know what I mean? The Bible does not give us explicit information. In other words, it does not refer to your idolatry in Egypt, the idols you worshiped in Egypt. You know, it doesn't make that specific reference. But certainly when Moses is asking, what name do I use?

Who do I tell them sent me? There was definitely a concept of the God of their fathers. There was certainly a concept that there was this God that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob worshiped, and that there were promises to come to the, that the lamb would be given to them. Moses was definitely building on that. But how full their knowledge of God was after those generations in Egypt, that's a very good question. We can surmise that it was very limited.

We just don't have explicit data that tells us more. Okay, well, thank you so much, Dr. Brown. You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Jeff in Toledo, Ohio.

Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you for taking my call, Dr. Brown, and let me wish you a happy upcoming Easter, sir. Thank you. Dr. Brown, I have a question. I spoke to you, I believe, last month on the classic chapter that people who preach faith talk about, and I don't remember the exact passage, but you found it for me, where Jesus says to speak to the mountain. Now, he says, have faith in God, and I've heard some Bible teachers, or several, who say that that can be translated, have the faith of God.

And I respect you, Dr. Brown. Is that an accurate translation? No, it's a misunderstanding of the Greek. The Greek is literally, if you didn't know Greek, right, you would literally translate it, have the faith of God.

But that is the Greek way of saying, have faith in God. You know, there are, in every language, especially when you add in prepositions, there's going to be variance from one language to another. And, for example, if I said to you, what's the difference between going up the street and going down the street? You know, it's, well, hmm, is that, you know, so it's a little bit ambiguous. Or, okay, right now you're listening to me on the radio. Well, if you say that in Hebrew, I was listening to him on the radio, that would mean I was listening to him while sitting on the radio. Because in Hebrew you say, I listen to him in the radio.

It's like, okay, that makes, it's in there, it's coming from there. So, if you don't know the language, you're going to misunderstand it. That's why translations almost universally render it with, have faith in God. So, in other words, Jesus is not saying, have the God kind of faith, meaning supernatural faith that God puts in you, and then you believe, although I believe in that kind of faith, I believe that God does put supernatural faith within us. But the exhortation there is, have faith in God. Trust God. Believe God. This is God you're talking about. Put your faith, put your trust in him. So, it's best to translate it, as you see in Standard English translations, have faith in God. Thank you, Dr. Brown.

That helps so much. May I ask a quick follow-up? Sure, sure. It's kind of tricky here, but what would you tell a man who's spiritually depressed, who seems like God is so far away, and he's not getting prayers answered, and just like there's a blockage in the line or something, Dr. Brown? Or maybe that could be the subject of your next book.

I don't know. So, have you read my book, Has God Failed You? No, I haven't, Dr. Brown. I didn't even know you had that one. Yeah, it came out less than a year ago, so it's absolutely fresh.

It'll be fresh, really, for many years to come because of the subject matter. Has God failed you for a spiritually depressed person or struggling person? That book would be like a cup of fresh water in the midst of a famine because it takes you through the difficult questions. It explains why sometimes we go through these difficult places, and even why the Bible prepares us in advance, with all the Psalms saying, how long, O Lord?

And must I soak my pillow with tears? And Israel saying, why have you abandoned us? And Isaiah saying, you're a God who hides himself.

And then with that, what we do to come out on the other side. So, I would strongly encourage you to check out the book, Has God Failed You? Finding faith when you're not even sure God is real. Has God failed you?

And you'll find it really addresses these issues, even in the chapters about does prayer really work? Why do things take so much time? And sometimes you just think, why bother?

Why bother? Is anything really happening? Is God really near?

Am I knocking my head against the wall? Is God even there at all? Is there a God? These questions are understandable, and the Bible is written in such a way to say, it's okay to have these feelings. And many godly people before you have had these feelings. But here's why God's allowing you to go through this valley. And if you will persevere, you will come out better for it on the other side. And knowing God better on the other side. So again, Has God Failed You? For anyone that finds this relevant, check out the book.

It will bless you. Hey, thank you for the call. By the way, we've got a couple phone lines open, which I thought we might be in Good Friday and people not on their normal listening schedule, maybe out of work and things like that. So, great day to call in. 866-348-7884. Let's go to Matthew in Los Angeles. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. How are you doing?

Doing very well. My question is that Jesus himself kept the Passover and seems to have taught others to obey his father's law. And since the Bible commands us to walk just as he did, shouldn't Christians today be keeping the Passover and the other laws of the Hebrew scripture that Jesus taught?

Right, so it's a very valid question and a common question. So let's talk more broadly about all the laws first, right? The Israelites were commanded to keep the Sabbath, and if they did not keep the Sabbath, they would be put to death. Do you think that that's God's heart today, that Sabbath observance, seventh-day Sabbath observance, is mandatory for all Christians, and if they don't keep it, they're put to death? I believe that there could be spiritual death associated with disobeying God's law, and perhaps that concept of death still carries over to the New Testament church, because we see in Matthew 7, for instance, Jesus telling Christians to tell Christians that he never knew them because they were workers of lawlessness. All right, so then why does the New Testament not contain one single exhortation to Gentile Christians to observe the Sabbath, but it does contain a warning that no one puts you under pressure to observe it, reminding the readers that the Sabbath is only the shadow, that the substance is found in the Messiah.

If it's that critically important and you're being consistent, so I appreciate, then why is there not one single exhortation anywhere in the New Testament, especially the Gentile Christians, saying keep the seventh-day Sabbath? So tell you what, you get to think about it, we'll come back on the other side of the break. Also think about this, should we be practicing the law that a disobedient and rebellious teenager who refuses to repent, that they should be put to death?

Should we be following that law? We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to our special live Good Friday broadcast, 866-348-7884. I'll have an article up, oh, any day, perhaps later today, otherwise over the weekend on the website askdartobrown.org or stream.org or anywhere where you read my articles on the substitutionary atonement of the cross and the power of the cross. I trust you'll be edified by that.

Also, before we go back to the phones, did you get my emails? You know, when I had COVID, my doctor recommended that I get fluids one day. We looked up online, a place comes over to the house, wasn't too expensive really at all, and you know, from an hour you get fluids in your body and certain healthy things, vitamins, just to get strength back and stuff, and that's what we want to do for you every day. We want to just think of that, that steady flow of life, of truth, of encouragement, of boldness, of understanding. We want to pour that into you day by day by day. So sign up for our emails. You'll be blessed. It'll connect you with us even more. If we're coming to your city, you'll get advanced notice about it. And anyway, you just get to take advantage of the treasures that God's shared with us, we get to share with you.

So go to askdartobrown.org, askdartobrown.org, and sign up for our emails today. So Matthew, back to you. I understand your viewpoint and the scriptures you're using for it, but if Sabbath is that important that it might cost us our eternal salvation, that if we are not Seventh-day Sabbath observant, then why does the New Testament never once mandate that for Gentile believers?

Well, Dr. Brown, I would argue that in a way it actually does. I mean, an example would be, I know that the Corinthian letters were written to the Corinthian church that comprises at least some Gentile believers. And in those letters, Paul sits there and tells them, imitate me as I imitate Christ. And when we read the account of the book of Acts, as well as Jesus' ministry, we see both of them not only observing Passover, but you know, the Seventh-day Sabbath and all the other commands that the Father had given them.

All right, but hang on. Matthew, you also know that Paul very explicitly tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7, if you're called circumcised, don't become uncircumcised. If you're called uncircumcised, do not become circumcised. And then he goes on and says in the 9th chapter that when he's with the Gentiles that he submits to the larger law of Christ, but it's not under the law in that other respect, indicating that he may have lived more like they lived at that time. So the example he was setting was not about Torah observance.

So you asked me the question, sir, and obviously you've thought about this, right? No, there is no mandate for Christians to observe the law of Moses because we are not under the Sinai covenant, we're under a new and better covenant. And the requirements of that covenant are laid out throughout the New Testament. So if you as a Gentile believer go through the New Testament and see, what does it call me to do?

What does it command me to do? Okay, there's still the call not to commit adultery. There's still the call not to get drunk. There's still the call to love my neighbor and not to hate my neighbor. There's still the call to do XYZ and the call to follow the example of Jesus and even greater sacrificial love and the call to go and make disciples. They're calls that are now added in, but there is no call to submit to those things that were distinctly given to Israel for a period of time. Galatians 3 explained that the Torah served as a tutor of sorts, as a pedagogue, to bring us to the Messiah. And now that we've come to the Messiah, we're no longer under that tutelage. Look at it like scaffolding to a building.

Now the building stands on its own. Now you could make an argument, Matthew, from 1 Corinthians 5 that Paul says, let us therefore keep the feast and say that the Passover was to be kept. Or you could say he's saying it metaphorically because he goes on to say, let's get rid of the leaven of deceitfulness. In other words, let's spiritually clean house. Is it fine for the church to say, hey, we celebrate Passover in the midst of that? We celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus? Absolutely. It's the liberty and the grace you have.

Is it a mandated requirement that if you don't do it, you're displeasing God? No. So that's my view. But thank you for the intelligent conversation on it and the points you raised. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let us go to Jose in Los Angeles. Welcome to the line of fire. God bless you, Dr. Brown. How are you doing? Doing very well.

Thank you. Yeah, my question is, I'm 18 years old and I recently got baptized in the Holy Ghost. And my question is, is it normal for my tongues to repeat unintentionally? Okay, so you clearly felt the Holy Spirit moved on you in such a way that you were not making these words up that they were now starting to flow from a different part of you. Right. So, you know, in the Bible, you do have certain phrases like holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, right?

So let's just say you were one of the creatures before the throne or one of the elders before the throne. It seems that you are saying the same things over and over and over and over, right? In other words, they're sentences, they're phrases, it's intelligent language. It's not just ba ba ba ba ba, you know, for six hours, right?

That's not a language. But if there is repetition, or it could be you're praying for a particular point, your soul, and you're just burdened to do that. What I would say is that often, what I've seen happen with people who are filled with the Spirit and speak in tongues, as I've done for over 50 years now, that as we pray more in the Spirit, that the language flows more and more. And that, for me, just like I did my recent prayer retreat, and I just kept through the weekend, just coming back to God be glorified, God be glorified through me, God be glorified. It just kept coming up, whatever I'd be praying for, an hour or two later, I'd come back to God be glorified, Lord, I'm jealous for your glory. And then it could be I'm praying in tongues and feel that travail, and it's the same point.

So that could be perfectly normal. And what I would do is just not focus on that. I'd focus on having my heart worshiping the Lord and communing with Him as I'm praying in the Spirit, and then just kind of be led by that, all right?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And what is my mind supposed to be set on while praying in the Spirit? Because my mind doesn't understand what my spirit is praying. Exactly.

So, exactly. So, number one, you can pray that God would give you interpretation. And that's nothing that's ever happened with me, where as I'm praying in tongues, I can always tell you what I'm praying for. And it doesn't seem to be the case with Paul, because he said, if I pray with my spirit, my mind is unfruitful.

So what do I do? He says, well, I pray with my spirit, I pray with my mind. So here's what I've done over the years. As I'm praying in tongues, the goal is not while praying in tongues that I'm looking at emails or while praying in tongues that I'm watching TV, right? The goal is to be fully engaged with God. But what I find is sometimes my mind may wander a little bit, but the next thing, I'm praying other prayers in my mind, or I'm thinking about spiritual things in my mind, or maybe burdens that I have, concerns that I have kind of come up to my mind, and then it seems to just kind of translate into what I'm praying in my spirit. It feels whole.

So does that make sense? In other words, it may feel like your mind wandered, but now you're kind of fixed on this point. And now as you get fixed on that point, the praying becomes more intense and more intense. And then from there, maybe I'm praying in tongues for 15 or 20 minutes. And then from there, next thing, I'm praying for something in English, and it's targeted, and it's very intense.

And so it's kind of like the mind and the spirit working together, and you just kind of find the rhythm. For those that don't believe in speaking in tongues or have never spoken in tongues, this may sound foreign to you, but it's certainly biblical. And your questions are very biblical questions. So I can tell you this, praying in tongues has been a major, major part of my spiritual life for many, many years. And I encourage you to keep growing in that. Amen. Yeah, and I would definitely ask like the people in my church, but none of the male leaders of the pastor speak in tongues.

Oh really? Yeah, so if they don't speak in tongues and you continue to grow in the things of the Spirit, at some point there'll probably be a conflict where you will either feel that their leadership is not spiritual enough or they're not open enough to the gifts of the Spirit, or they may feel that you're contrary to their views. So you never want to make an issue, you never want to be divisive, you never want to be negatively judging.

So look at it in a very simple level. Let's say that they were great Italian chefs, but that you really felt called to eat Chinese food, right? So at a certain point, rather than saying, what are you guys going to cook Chinese? I've been here six months, it's always Italian. No, that's what they do, that's who they are. Or them constantly telling you, what's the matter with you? How come you don't like Italian, man?

It's the best of anything. So it's a matter of fitting, but you always want to honor leadership, you always want to be submissive. But if the church is not heading in that same direction because the leaders don't believe in the gifts and power of the Spirit in these ways for today, then you'll ultimately be more at home in another congregation, and you'll be able to flow more there and grow more there. And then you never want to think, well, God put me here to pray these leaders into these things. No, that would be like saying, okay, I'm going to pray for them to change from Italian to Chinese. The leaders are the ones called to leave. And if you differ with the way they're leading, then you honor them, you bless them, you don't speak against them, but then you move on to a place that's going to be in greater spiritual harmony.

Of course, I believe that the right thing is to embrace these things, and the Bible is very clear on that. But may the Lord guide you, may you commune with him as you pray in the Spirit, and yeah, let the Word of God and the Holy Spirit be your guide. God bless you, sir. 866-348-7884.

We've got a break coming up momentarily. Have you been to vitaminmission.com lately? Have you? Have you checked out the great health supplements there from my friend and our partner in ministry, Dr. Mark Stengler? Check out, check out what they have. Great health supplements, vitaminmission.com. And while you're there, use the special Dr. Brown discount.

Yeah, take advantage of it. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire 866-348-7884. You've got questions, we've got answers live, even on Good Friday. All right, let's go over to Sweden.

Elena in Gutenberg. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. It's an honor to meet with you through the phone. Thank you. I have a question in regards to, is there any research or deep meaning in the Hebrew or anything around why God has picked the blood to be the object of redemption? What does blood really mean after his heart, after his choosing and using it for redemption purposes? I was curious about that. Yes, thank you.

Thank you for the question. The Bible does address that forthrightly, and what it says is that the life of the flesh is in the blood. So the blood leaving the body is the sign of life leaving the body, and the blood is pumping life through the body. So it says explicitly, Leviticus 17, verse 11, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, Leviticus 17, 11, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. And the way one medieval rabbinic commentator explained it was it is life for life, so that you are guilty, you should forfeit your life.

Instead, here is an animal sacrifice. Its blood is now shed, its blood is poured out. It is a vivid picture of death and a vivid picture of the penalty of sin, and then that innocent victim takes our place in the same way, but infinitely greater. The Messiah sheds his blood on the cross, gives up his life for us, reveals the utter horror and ugliness of sin and the penalty of sin, and now he takes our place. He forfeits his life so that we can receive the life that he has.

So that's the meaning of it. The life of the flesh is in the blood. That's why it's given on the altar.

It's also very public. It's also very vivid. To simply stop breathing is not as vivid. And again, even with an animal, you could have a dead animal lying there. No, this is specifically the blood shed for this purpose. And then, blood being a liquid, blood also used in purification, the blood sprinkled on things to symbol purification. That's another part of the imagery. But fundamentally, the life of the flesh is in the blood. That's what Scripture emphasizes. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. That's very enlightening, and I appreciate it. Can I piggyback on another question, if I may?

Sure. So I've been reading Acts, especially Acts chapter three, and I came into verses 20 and 21, which refers to the time of restoration, that Christ has been received unto heaven until the time of restorations of all things happen. What does that exactly mean? Yes, so when you look at the prophets, what does it say in Acts three, the time of restoration spoken of by the prophets? When you look at a passage like Isaiah two, where there'll be no war on the earth, where the nations of the world will come streaming to Jerusalem to learn the ways of God, or like Isaiah 11 describes, that the wolf will lie down with the lamb, that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the seas, that Israel will be restored back to the land, that the wicket will be destroyed.

That's what it's speaking of. In other words, God's kingdom on the earth. So the Messiah will remain in heaven until that time comes, at which point he will return and establish his kingdom on the earth, and all those promises will gloriously and beautifully come to pass. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds so good and aligned to the Bible. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown. I bought your new book, The Silencing of the Lambs. I'm looking forward to reading that.

Wonderful. Thank you very much for all your knowledge and wisdom. My joy, and I'm sure you'll find Silencing the Lambs quite relevant in Sweden, where there are similar cultural battles as well, but the believing church often a smaller remnant in a country like Sweden. May God give you grace. By the way, one more thing on blood atonement.

Look for the concept of substitution in the Bible, where the innocent takes the place of the guilty, or where one representative sacrifices made to pay for the sins of others. That's what's at the heart of this. Hey, thank you for the call and the kind words. 866-3-4-TRUTH. Let's go to Mark in Louisville, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you, Dr. Brown. I spoke to you several months ago, and I haven't had a chance to call back, but you and I are on the same page when it comes to the pre-trib rapture. We agree that there's no pre-trib rapture.

I would like to help. This is probably more for your listeners than it is you, because I think I'm going to have a hard time convincing you. But if you'll look up these passages, Romans 5-12, 1 Corinthians 4-8, Revelation 1-6 and 5-10, those tell you when we reign with Christ. We reign as kings and priests spiritually with Him. Then you can go and find out when does Christ reign.

That's 1 Corinthians 15, 25, and 26. He must reign. He must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy in this story is death.

You'll find out. That's in Hebrews 2-8. Then go to Revelation 20, verse 6, and that'll tell you when the millennial kingdom is. It's the church age. All right, so hang on. Let's just pause there for one second. So during this church age right now, Satan has been bound, and he is not deceiving the nations. That's exactly right. Yeah, well, that completely disqualifies—with all respect— He deceives the unbelievers.

It deceives the nations. It says—no, no, no, no. It says—Mark, so hang on. Let's just read it for everyone to hear, okay?

All right? Let's read exactly what it says. It says, Then I saw an angel—this is after the second coming. Revelation 19 explicitly speaks of the public second coming. After the second coming. Then I saw an angel come down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit in a great chain.

And he seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. So Satan is deceiving the nations every day of the week, every moment of every day, so they cannot be referring to now. Can I ask you one question? Sure.

Okay. What is—now, wait, this is brief as you can—what is the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord begins with his return in glory and power. It can extend all the way through the Millennial Kingdom and the final destruction of the elements, based on 2 Peter 3. Based on 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3, 10 says when he returns, it's over.

He destroys everything. But see, here's the thing. Here's my problem, just to be candid. You have no possible openness to you being wrong. In other words, you already have the answer to the—okay, so 2 Peter 3, the day of the Lord, what does it say? One day is like a thousand years.

That's what it says. I'm telling you that that day—so Mark, you asked— Okay, so Mark, Mark, here. Just to be clear, this is a time for folks to call in with questions, not to say, here's the platform for you to present your viewpoint, all right? But you asked me a question.

You don't let me answer the question. I read Scripture. You interrupt as I'm reading Scripture. 2 Peter 3 indicates the day of the Lord is from his return until the final destruction of the universe. And in that same context, earlier on, it reminds us that one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, right?

So that's first thing. Second thing is—and we'll give you one more shot—Revelation 20 cannot possibly apply to this age now because Satan is actively deceiving the nations. So I just want to give you one more shot. Satan is actively deceiving the nations now during the Millennial Kingdom. He will not. So are you saying that Satan is not deceiving the nations now?

Absolutely. This is what I was trying to make to you. People will write down the Scriptures I gave them.

Look at when you and I ran. No, no, Mark, forget those, because I can answer—Mark, I can answer all those. I just need you to give me indifference to other callers here.

I just need a simple answer. You are saying that Satan is not deceiving the nations now, that he is bound and he is not— If I had my Bible with me, I could tell you all the Scriptures. Mark, you're telling me that Satan is not deceiving the nations now?

Death was abolished at the cross. Mark, last chance, last chance, last chance, are you saying Satan is not actively deceiving the nations now? 100%, no, not the Christians.

Okay, got it, got it. All right, so you have just denied Scripture. Here, here's what the Bible says.

During this time, which I say is the Millennial Kingdom, after the return of Jesus, his thousand-year reign, which is spoken of, I think, five times in this chapter, a thousand years, an angel seizes the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it so that he might not deceive the nations. Doesn't say the church, the nations, any longer. Paul's actually concerned about Christians being deceived by Satan. In 2 Corinthians 11, he actually raises that concern for Christians.

So, Mark, the word is against you. All the verses you raised have easy, easy explanations, easy explanations, but you have to completely deny Scripture, sir, to hold your position. This is after the second coming of Revelation 20, before the new heavens, excuse me, of Revelation 19, before the new heavens and the new earth of Revelation 21 and 22. Remember what Peter writes, 1 Peter 5. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith. You're telling me he's bound.

He's not deceiving the nations, and he's not deceiving Christians. James, Jacob, the fourth chapter, says, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil who is active. He's so active, Peter says, be sober and alert, because what he's doing, right, he's active.

Resist him, resist him, and he will flee. So, Mark, I encourage you, you said that you're not closed. Go back to God, open that word again, then ask yourself, why is it that none of the early church leaders for the first few centuries held to such a thing? Why is it they all expected a literal kingdom of God on the earth?

The disciples of the apostles, how did they all get it so wrong? Thanks for the call. We'll be back with your other calls. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. So, just a word of wisdom. If you hold to a particular theological view, eschatological view, particular bent in your reading of Scripture, and you have a verse that absolutely, categorically flies in the face of what you think are 50 or 100 other verses that go in the other direction, here's my word of wisdom. Don't try to shoehorn it in. Better to leave it there and say, okay, I don't get, I see all this evidence here, but then there's like this big issue here.

Well, let it sit until you can resolve the tension. Or, if this one issue is so clear, like Revelation 20, which no insult intended to almillennial scholars and pastors and teachers and believers, but it simply can't fit. You have to do all kinds of exegetical and hermeneutical gymnastics to make it fit.

If it's that big an obstacle, then go and reevaluate the others. But never try to shoehorn the thing in, and then you happen, have happened what just happened with the call where you have to deny Scripture in the name of putting forth Scripture. All right, let's go over to Dylan in St. Augustine, Florida. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, Dr. Bond, how you doing?

Doing well, thank you. Good. Okay, so my question was about, like, messianic prophecies, so I just wanted to know, like, your thought on this is that, so I was trying to understand, you know, the truth about how Jesus is prophesied throughout the Hebrew Bible, and what we should expect when we read through it, you know, and then we look in what's quote in the New Testament, it seems to be taken out of context as what the critics say. So I would like to know, you know, like, how are we supposed to know, like, what is about Jesus, what is not?

And Catholics sometimes like to make things about Mary, like, Mariology, you know, and like, like they say sometimes Genesis 23 is like talking about Jesus's burial, like, Sarah's burial is supposed to foreshadow Jesus' burial, like, what are we supposed to expect to be messianic prophecies, and then we're not taking things that'd be like a magic hat, and we're just pulling things that are not there? Perfect question. And Dylan, it's one that I was confronted with 50 years ago as a new believer, and that I've studied and thought through and debated endlessly for decades. So to make sure I do this, visit RealMessiah.com. RealMessiah.com. It's our Jewish website. It will take you through messianic prophecies, objections to messianic prophecies, it will give you debates of done with rabbis, it will give you short answers to maybe the hundred most common objections and questions. So RealMessiah.com. It's all free. Take advantage of it.

Dive in. So I just want to make sure I didn't forget to do that. So when it comes to messianic prophecy, there are certain things that are clear and definite prophecies, and if these things do not happen within a certain time frame, then the biblical authors would have been false prophets. So for example, in a different context, when Jeremiah says after 70 years of exile in Babylon, the exiles will return. If they never returned, he would have been a false prophet, because he said it's going to happen in this time frame. So when you look at certain passages like Daniel 9, 24 to 27, is indicating that during the time of the second temple, God has to bring an everlasting righteousness and deal decisively with sin and make atonement for his people, right?

That's Daniel 9, 24 to 27. So something had to happen there that fulfills that before the second temple was destroyed, which is in the year 70. Or for example, Malachi 3, the Lord says that he himself will visit that temple and come like a refiner's fire for his people, right?

So there had to be a divine visitation. And these passages are either quoted or alluded to. Matthew alludes to Daniel 9 and Matthew 24.

The other gospels explicitly quote, you know, Matthew, for example, quotes Malachi, the third chapter as well. So there are certain things that had to happen. The Messiah dying is our substitute and rising from the dead, as per Isaiah 53, that the servant of the Lord suffers vicariously on our behalf and then rises up and continues life after death. So those are things that literally had to happen. And when the New Testament cites them, it's talking about things that were clearly prophesied. Now, it may not have all been clear in advance.

In other words, if you're expecting the Messiah to just rule and reign and set up a political kingdom, you're not expecting him to die a criminal's death and rise from the dead, right? But then after he did, and he goes, look back, it's like, oh, there it is. You're not making it up. We just didn't see it. It's there, clear as day.

We just didn't see it. There are other things that are typological. In other words, as it happened to Israel, so it happened to the Messiah. Just as Israel, as a child, as God's son, went into Egypt and God called Israel out of Egypt, Hosea 11-1, the same had happened to Israel, the same had happened to the Messiah, that he, too, as God's son, as a child, was called out of Egypt. Or, just as David was betrayed by a close friend that ate with him, Psalm 41, the Messiah will be betrayed by a close friend who ate with him. So these are typological in nature, and others are placed on words or more subtle things, which is part and parcel of Jewish interpretation in the day.

That was very common. But you don't base your faith that he's the Messiah on the plays on words, on the secondary accounts, or just, this scripture reminds me of this point. It's kind of used in that way, because otherwise you could prove anything, right?

You could make anything mean anything. And that's what the countermissionaries argue, that all of our messianic prophecy proofs are zero plus zero plus zero. I said, no, no, no, let's let's look, the servant of the Lord, who is going to set captive Israel free, will first be rejected by his own people, but will become a light to the nations. Who is that? Atonement has to be made for Israel in a lasting way before the second temple was destroyed.

How did that happen? When did the Lord himself visit the temple and come as a purifying fire, if not through the Messiah? Who was it that died a criminal's death and then rose from the dead and continues to live other than the Messiah? But God did not lay it out in a mathematical way, just like he doesn't with any subject in the Bible, a theological subject, how we're supposed to live. It's not, in every case, one plus one plus one plus one, just add the whole thing up. Sometimes you have to dig and study and pray, and then God wants us ultimately to look to him, and then he opens our heart, he opens our mind.

If you will watch, Dylan, a debate that's on Real Messiah with Rabbi Freitag, I don't have the dates, a few years back, my opening comments, I decided to kind of make the case for the Messiah based on Messianic prophecy. So you'll see how I argue it out, and then you can evaluate, am I pulling a rabbit out of the hat? Am I making something mean something it doesn't? Am I reading something into the scripture? Or am I reading things out of the scriptures? Or in life of what's happened in these last 2,000 years, am I rightly reading things out of the scriptures? And that's the case that we make.

I think you'll find it pretty compelling in that regard. So is that helpful to address the larger and more specific questions? Yes, but like, what about also like in Matthew 24, like I think I've seen how it says, like you didn't mention like a prophecy, like sometimes it has to happen shortly after the event, like, or else it'd be a false prophet like the Jeremiah, like it says, this generation shall not pass. I mean, I have always really struggled with this one, like I have spoken with Bishop Barron with this one, I don't know if you know who that is, but like... So to simply address that, there are many prophecies in the Old Testament that were expected to have immediate fulfillment and didn't. Partly they came to pass, but the rest didn't. For example, the return from exile, right, that Jeremiah prophesied, that Ezekiel prophesied, that Isaiah prophesied, it only happened in a fractional way. The prophets were expecting much more, but they did say, you will return, you will rebuild the temple.

Let's look at it like this, they said, you will return, you will rebuild the temple, the return will be glorious, the glory of God will be revealed to the nations, and God's glory will be such in Jerusalem that the nations of the world will come to worship the God of Israel because of you. Well, the last few things didn't happen. The first ones did.

What does that tell you? The rest will happen. So you read Ezekiel 36, it's just like Matthew 24. Some of it had immediate application to that coming generation, and the rest is for the future. In fact, almost all the prophecies about the return from exile are exactly the same, that they have immediate fulfillment, but now they're going to have final fulfillment many centuries later. So Matthew 24, the disciples asked him, when are these things going to happen in the destruction of the temple, and what's going to be the sign of your coming in the end of the age, as if they were all the same thing. So he answers those different questions, when's the temple going to be destroyed, and what's the sign of your coming in the end of the age. He answered it all together, so they're overlapped, just like the prophecies of the return from exile. When he speaks of this generation will not pass, he's either, speaking of that generation, is the one that will see the destruction of the temple, so these things that pertain to you now, they will happen now, okay?

That's the one thing. Or, he's speaking of before his return, he's speaking of before his return and saying, and saying there, that those who see these final things happen, this generation will not pass until they're all fulfilled. But because they ask him two separate questions, and the answer is separated by almost 2,000 years, what happens is that you now have the two answers joined together. Once it's understood, then you say, okay, there's application for then, and there'll be application for the last generation.

Hey friends, sorry I didn't get to some more of your calls, I took a few more minutes with some callers. Once you start digging into messianic prophecy with me, I just gotta do it. Go to realmessiah.com if you haven't, and hey, we're on the front lines of helping Jewish people come to faith, one of the most sacred callings of all.

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