Dr. Brown Is Live on Memorial Day!

It's not the Word or the Spirit or the Word versus the Spirit, but the Word and the Spirit. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on The Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

It is Memorial Day and we are live here on The Line of Fire. Maybe you're getting to listen for the first time live. You normally have to listen on podcast or catch us some other way because you're working at this time or busy with school at this time. So, welcome, welcome to the broadcast on this Memorial Day. Maybe you have an opportunity to call that you normally wouldn't have because of your schedule.

So, phone lines are wide open. Like we do on Friday, anything you want to ask me about, anything you want to talk about, we'll take questions on all ranges of subjects. Also, if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, please click on YouTube, the thumbs up sign, give a click on that right now.

If you're watching on Facebook, click share to share this video more. And if you can't call, it's just easier for you to post a question. As the show goes on, we're going to look over on YouTube, on Facebook with our team and grab some of your questions that you're posting.

So, you can call 866-348-7884 or you can post the question on YouTube or on Facebook on Ask Dr. Brown and we'll do our best to get to a lot of your calls and questions as the show goes on. First, of course, it is Memorial Day. So, I want to express my honor, my respect for those who served in the military, those who gave their lives for our country. You think of it, drafted or volunteered, given their lives so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we have or so other countries can enjoy the freedoms they have. They paid the ultimate price in this world. Their families paid the ultimate price. Others wounded. Others suffered.

Other families suffered great upheaval. So, the memories of those that laid their lives down, may they not be forgotten. The families of those who suffered along with them, may they not be forgotten. And may America today do a better job of caring for our veterans who are often neglected, depressed, sick and suicidal. May God help them in the midst of their struggles. May he be a refuge for them and may we as a nation do better.

All right. Over the weekend, I was giving prayerful thought to today's broadcast and I was debating whether to get into tomorrow's subject today to provide an introduction, but felt not to go that way. You say, what's tomorrow's subject? Well, tomorrow I'm scheduled to have Pastor Greg Locke on my show. I played some clips from him a couple of weeks back where he very plainly said that if you vote for Democrats, he wants you out of his church. They're just a bunch of demons.

We can debate who to vote for. That's one thing. Then he, in my ears, clearly warned those on the left about the potential of a violent uprising. Basically saying, you haven't seen anything. January 6th was nothing. You keep pushing our buttons.

You don't know what's coming our way, your way. I found those words irresponsible. I called them out publicly. You say, did you reach out to him privately first? First, I don't know him personally, but because I perceived those comments and many heard them as calling for violence, I felt it was necessary to immediately speak out publicly. He then posted on my Facebook page saying he was taken out of context, et cetera. I was then given his contact information.

Someone sent it to me when they saw our dialogue. He said he would absolutely come on my radio show. He was not calling for violence. He said he wants to make that very clear.

At the same time, as I've expressed to him, many of his followers, and he's got a massive online following, many of his followers were saying, amen, it's time. The founding fathers would be proud of you, Pastor Locke. So, we're going to have a candid discussion. He knows exactly the things we're going to talk about. I'm going to text him again today and say, hey, here's what I'm going to ask you.

These are the subjects I want to discuss with you. And we'll give him the opportunity to speak candidly, and I'll speak candidly to him. That's the goal.

That's coming tomorrow. It may be the whole hour. If it is, then I plan to continue the discussion with you the next day.

It may just be part of the show, in which case we'll dig deeper after we're off the air together. So, in any case, that's what's coming your way. But as I prayed and thought about things, I asked myself the question, what can I put in your lives? What can I give you that would help strengthen you in the Lord, that would help you be healthier, that would cause you to thrive all the more in God?

What's the truth? What's something that could be communicated to you, that would be to your edification, that would build you up and strengthen you? We are here to help you get healthy and strong and thriving in the Lord in every way.

And everything else that we cry out for, revival in the church, gospel-based moral and cultural revolution in society, the redemption of Israel, all that flows out of the church pursuing God in a healthy and Godly way. So, what I simply want to talk to you about is the union of the Word and the Spirit. If you want to ask me a question about any of this or push back on anything I say, again, you can post your questions on social media, on our Facebook page, or on our YouTube channel, or Twitter, if you're following there, or you can call in 866-34-TRUTH. So, I recently did a mini-debate with pastor and theologian, Doug Wilson. It was an absolutely delightful exchange, moderated brilliantly by Justin Brierley on the Unbelievable Network. I've had the joy of being in studio with him for a few debates, a couple times sitting with rabbis. We've done others over the air. This one was over the internet.

It posted at the end of last week. It's getting a lot of positive comments, people really appreciating the spirit of the Bible, appreciating the spirit in which it was done, the honesty, the graciousness that we both expressed. To me, it's very clear that based on the Bible, we must have the power of the Spirit in our ministries. That based on the Bible, that we should still be seeing the gifts of the Spirit, what are called the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, in operation. That based on the Bible, God continues to speak and move and act among his people, and in reaching out to the lost. I asked Doug Wilson if we have a relationship with the Bible, or if the Bible brings us into a relationship with God.

And of course, he affirmed that the Bible brings us into a relationship with God. So when we say sola scriptura, scriptures alone, and that the scriptures are all sufficient, what does that mean? Because he referenced the sufficiency of scripture. So the sufficiency of scripture does not mean that we don't need to work a job and money just comes in because we have the Bible. Obviously not. The sufficiency of scripture does not mean that we never need to exercise wisdom and discernment in our own lives because we have the Bible.

Obviously not. The sufficiency of scripture doesn't mean that we have a relationship with the Bible rather than with God. No, the Bible is sufficient in everything it intends to do. The Bible is sufficient in being the Bible and being God's Word, in revealing fundamentally who he is, in revealing fundamentally what his plan of salvation is, in revealing how we are to live as to please him in this world.

That's what it intends to do. But if you're praying for wisdom about which job to take between two, the Bible may not address it directly. It may give you principles of wisdom, but you're not going to find a page that says, if you're praying about working in the library or working at the computer store, then this is how you go to the... No, that's not written there because it's not sufficient in that sense because it's not there to tell you that.

It can tell you it can tell you that you should marry a godly person of like faith, but it can't tell you should she have red hair, blonde hair, brunette hair, black hair, should she be... No, it's not going to tell you that. So when we say sufficiency of scripture, obviously we don't mean those things. In the same way, in the same way, when we speak of the sufficiency of scripture, it doesn't mean that we don't need God to heal the sick.

We don't need God to reveal things in people's hearts and lies to bring them to himself. It is the Bible that tells us not to be ignorant of spiritual gifts. It is the Bible that tells us to earnestly pursue prophecy, to earnestly pursue the gifts, especially that we can prophesy, and not to forbid tongues. It is the Bible that tells us that the elders of the congregation should lay hands on the sick, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will make the sick person whole. That should be something we see on a regular basis, why the Bible tells us that. According to the Bible, we should have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, communion with the Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, in an ongoing way, Jesus' sheep hear his voice. So according to the Bible, I pursue these things. According to the Bible, I believe for these things. According to the Bible, I test and examine these things. Based on the Bible, I am a charismatic, sola scriptura, and therefore charismatic, as I titled one of my chapters in my book, Authentic Fire, which was a response to Pastor John MacArthur's Strange Fire. That's my heart.

That's my understanding. The Word and the Spirit go hand in hand. When Jesus was rebuking some of the religious leaders of his day in Matthew 22, he said, you're mistaken because you don't understand the Scriptures or the power of God.

You're missing these two central pillars. Jesus said in John 4 that the Father looks for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. Not spirit or truth, but spirit and truth.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 was very plain, that he proclaimed Jesus the Messiah crucified. That was his central message. And he did it in the demonstration and power of the Spirit. It was not message or demonstration, but demonstration and message together.

Now, there are times when our primary mode is teaching. You know, Paul would teach and debate in the synagogues, and it doesn't mention miracles in all those cases, many of those cases. And there were times that the sick were just healed.

Jesus would minister to the sick, and one after another would be healed. But the normal pattern was teach, preach, heal, teach, preach, deliver the captives, word and spirit, hand in hand. Friends, the devil's still active, demons are still active, sickness, disease still active, deception still active, people full of unbelief, counterfeit miracles, all that's happening. What we need is the word, the spirit together. I bounced off different walls over the years, you know, just so heavily emphasizing the word or so heavily emphasizing the spirit, different circles I was in. To me, the word is clear. And the beautiful marriage is the word and spirit together. Based on the word, I believe in the gifts and power of the Spirit for today. And as the Holy Spirit moves, we ground people in the word of God.

It is a beautiful and holy loop. All right, I'm going to come back, take some of your questions and calls 866-348-7884 as we come your way live this Memorial Day. 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. Have you connected with us yet online? You hear us talking about Facebook and YouTube and Twitter, Instagram. Well, I'm on those things. I'm not connected with you, Dr. Brown. Well, let's get connected.

Let's get connected. First thing, go to my website, askdrbrown.org. Askdrbrown.org. We'd love to welcome you, greet you, send you more info about my personal testimony from LSD to PhD, let you know more about the three R's of our ministry and all the resources we have available for you. So much free material online that we've got and keeping you updated, latest announcements, latest videos, latest articles. So, go to askdrbrown.org and click to receive our emails. Take you less than 30 seconds to get connected with us. We'll also send you a really neat free mini book on how to pray for America, an e-book.

And then you've got all the links there right on the website, on social media. Wherever you're connected, let's get connected. All right, we go to the phones. Sam in Denver, Colorado, welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello.

Hello, Sam. Quick question. Oh, also a quick statement. Thank you so much for doing what you're doing, really grateful for all the content.

I've been just going through your videos, recently started watching. Wonderful. Yeah, the quick question I had is, Revelation 22, 20, Jesus says, Surely I come quickly. And then on the cross, He says, It is finished. I had conversations with my friend, and he believed that the millennium is already here. And then I was also pre-Trib rapture for a while, just from my parents talking to me and reading the Bible. And then I listened to the one with you and Isaiah, and how you explained how it's just been kind of like, you know, part of the culture, I guess.

But yeah, also, in one of the videos, I can't find it anymore. Excuse me. You mentioned—you explained Revelation 22, 20, the Surely I come quickly, and can you explain that, please? Sure. So let's break this down into a few things. Pre-Trib, post-Trib rapture is a separate discussion from this. In other words, both those who believe in a pre-Trib rapture or like me, a post-Trib second coming slash rapture together, we still believe the millennium is future, right? So that's a separate question.

Pre-Trib, post-Trib is separate from this. So we are pre-millennial, and the reason we're pre-millennial is because the things that the Scripture explicitly speaks of haven't happened. I mean, the Bible's quite explicit that that'll be a time of universal peace on the earth.

It will be a time when Satan's not deceiving the nations. It will be a time when, after the Lord returns and sets up his kingdom in Jerusalem and rules and reigns from Jerusalem, and all the nations come streaming to Jerusalem to learn from the God of Israel, the things that are clearly depicted in Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 11, the things that are clearly depicted in Isaiah 11 and other passages. And Peter says that Jesus must remain in heaven, and so the time of the restoration of all things takes place, which was spoken by the holy prophets of old. In Acts, the third chapter, he says that. So there are many, many, many passages that clearly speak of promises, literal promises on the earth that God will bring to pass.

Therefore, we say that the millennium is still future, and if you believe that the millennium is here now, in other words, in a spiritual sense, and you would be then called a millennial, that there is no physical millennial kingdom, then you have to say that Satan is bound right now so that he cannot deceive the nations, remarkably. You have to hold to that, whereas we know, as I answered a caller a couple days ago, 1 Peter 5, he goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We're supposed to resist him steadfast in faith, knowing this is the battle our brothers and sisters are undergoing around the world. And, excuse me, Jacob James 4 says that we must resist the devil, and he'll flee. And Satan is mentioned in other passages in the New Testament. Ephesians 6, we're in a spiritual battle with satanic powers, with these principalities and powers, so Satan is anything but bound so he cannot deceive the nations.

Paul even is concerned for the Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians 11, that just as Satan deceived Eve, that they also might be deceived. So, the answers that our millennial colleagues and friends give to me, they're very, very weak, and completely break down with Revelation the 20th chapter, among other passages. So, the other thing we know is that when you read early church literature, 100 years after the time of Jesus, 200 years, 300 years, 400 years, they're all looking forward to the return of Jesus. In other words, none of them are saying, well, he's already come, and we're now in this spiritual time, you know, like a Preterist would say, he's already come, or there's no future kingdom. The disciples of the apostles and their disciples, so for the first few hundred years of church history, they were premillennial. They were looking for, they expected an Antichrist, they expected increased persecution, they expected to see the Lord return, they expected this kingdom to be set up on the earth, many expected Israel to be restored. So, that's overwhelming.

So, the question is, what does it mean quickly? I mean, you have that many times, even in the Old Testament, and it's talking about events that are hundreds and hundreds of years down the line, but it's really speaking of an imminence of this nearness, and that we've lived like this for 2,000 years. In other words, to this day, Christians live with this sense of he's at the door, he could be coming at any moment.

Now you say, well, what about the view that he was talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem? The problem is that doesn't line up with many other passages, like 2 Thessalonians 1, that he's going to come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know God, and at that time, relief will come to us, and he'll be glorified among us. That obviously hasn't happened yet. Or, when he returns, that we'll be caught up to meet him in the air and be glorified, have a resurrected body like his. Obviously, that hasn't happened yet. When he returns, death will be abolished.

That hasn't happened. So we have this overwhelming weight of evidence. You say, well, what does it mean coming quickly? Again, coming with a sense of imminence, coming with a sense of urgency, coming with a sense of it could be at the door any moment. That's been the reality for 2,000 years, and it's in keeping with the way that other things are spoken in the Old Testament. If someone said, well, he's come in different ways in judgment over the years, and we're still waiting for the second coming of which he spoke, okay, I'm not going to argue with that. He's visited in many different ways. But when it's clearly talking about his coming, coming in the clouds of glory, the elect being gathered to him, his wrath being poured out on the earth, that has not happened yet.

And therefore, we need to interpret those verses in light of the rest of the testimony of Scripture. Amen. Thank you so much. Sure thing. You are very, very welcome.

86634, Truth. Again, when you're interpreting Scripture, if you have two or three verses on one side of the scale and 500 verses on the other side, you don't now reinterpret the 500 based on the two or three, nor do you force the two or three into the mold of the 500. You say, okay, how do these work together? Or is there a certain tension here? Or am I missing something in the two or three? But the obvious cannot be outweighed by a verse that raises a question here and there. Now, one other thing, I'm just going to go to Revelation chapter 22 and verse 20. Revelation 22, 20. And I'm going to click on the word soon, which in Greek is taku.

All right? I'm going to do that in my accordance Bible software. Ah, hang on. I have to change the setting. There we go.

Live click. So when I click on it, it can mean, speaking of motion, quick, swift, fleet, et cetera. Oh, let's just see if I can get some good further explanations here. It does have to do with speed. It does have to do with eminence, but it's not necessarily setting a definite time.

And by the way, the only way you can argue for that being a reference to the destruction of the second temple, which breaks down in so, so many other ways to the rest of the New Testament, that it cannot be what is spoken of as the second coming, the coming of the Lord, is then you have to date Revelation as before 70 AD, which the vast majority of New Testament scholars do not do. Okay. Yeah. Just looking at Thayer's dictionary, which is a standard, a standard older reference. So, from Homer down, quick, fleet, speedy. And then James 119 is referenced, notice my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

So, there is definitely an emphasis in the meaning of the word, quickly, speedily. The question is, based on whose timetable, the question is, how does it fit in the rest of Scripture? Or, do you want to argue that there were acts of judgment carried out shortly after that, and in the centuries that followed, and the centuries that followed, but there will be the second coming in the future? You could argue that, I wouldn't fight that.

But to diminish anything about the future coming, the future promises, the future millennium, I would take strong issue based on Scripture. Okay, we come back where you notice some of your social media questions, or you can call in, 866-34-TRUTH, as we are live on Memorial Day. Oh, by the way, I'm scheduled to do an interview with my buddy John Cooper. Who you hear singing right now for his Cooper Stuff podcast.

Hoping to record that this week. 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 The Line of Fire as we are live this Memorial Day. I started the broadcast talking about the union of the word and the spirit together. I want to strongly encourage you not to be reactionary. Meaning, you see something flaky and bad in a charismatic surface. Therefore, you make a general judgment about the gifts and power of the spirit for today.

Or, you're in a really, really dry, dead church that's teaching, teaching, teaching, and no demonstration of power. Don't react against the word as if there's something wrong with the word. The word is perfect. The spirit is perfect. People are not. You say that again. The word is perfect.

The spirit is perfect. People are not. You say, well, I'm one of those cautious charismatics.

My question is why? Are you cautious in your love for Jesus? Cautious in your giving your life to God? Cautious in devotion to the word? Cautious in devotion to prayer?

Cautious in seeking to live a godly life? No. Well, are you cautious in your relationship with your spouse if you're married? Cautious in your love for your kids?

No. Why should you be a cautious charismatic? Well, I'm cautious a lot of the people. Okay, people fine, but not the spirit. Let's not put seat belts on when it comes to the spirit. We test everything by the word, yes, but we embrace. We embrace what's good and real. Hold fast to the good.

When I grab hold of the good, there's no seat belt in that sense. I'm going for it. I'm going for it. So don't be reactionary. When I wrote Authentic Fire a few years back, I began to hear from people who said, reading your book you've convinced me or reminded me again that the Bible plainly teaches that the gifts and power of the spirit are for today.

The charismatic gifts are for today. Now I've got to figure out what to do with it because I got burned. I had bad experiences. In other words, their theology was not shaped by the word but by experience.

You never want to do that. Now you say, well, hang on. Someone has miraculously healed. Someone with the gift of healing ministers to them and they're miraculously healed. Should they not conclude that God heals today? Well, yes, but to teach that it is his will to do it on a regular basis, that we should expect those kinds of things, you need the Scripture then to support that, not just that experience, right? Otherwise, you could just say, well, it's only if this person prays for someone with this condition that it's God's will to get healed.

In other words, what can you draw out of that experience, that God heals today? Yes, yes. But now to teach what should we expect of that?

How regular should that be? Should that be normative? Should it be normative with some other gift of healing?

Was this a complete aberration, an unusual thing? You base that on Scripture. The Word and the Spirit go hand in hand together.

Let me take a question from YouTube, KJVTempler. Why do many Christians have a problem with people like me who believe Jesus suffered in hell after he died but rose after three days? There are Christians who believe that, that in paying for our sins, that Jesus in microcosm took on an eternity of suffering in hell. There are Christians who do believe that.

There is a heresy that says that Jesus descended into hell and died there as the Son of God, demonized, took on a satanic nature, and was then resurrected as a glorified man. That is heresy, period. No doubt about that.

No question about that. On every level, that's heretical. But the reason that many Christians, me included, take issue with that, Jesus suffering in hell, as I wrote a foreword for a book where the author mentioned that that was the case, Jesus suffered in hell, I said, well, compare it to the Scripture. You do have teaching in church history along these lines, but compare that to Scripture. The big issue for me is that Jesus, when he hangs on the cross, says, it is finished, and that's it.

That's it. As one leader who used to teach it wrongly, then repented, got it right, said Jesus didn't say to be continued. It is finished meant everything that had to be done for our redemption was done, all the Scriptures fulfilled, done at that time, done at that point. And what is it that saves us, that cleanses us? The blood of Jesus. And what does Paul preach? Christ and him crucified.

That's the message. So, yes, the early church and the Apostles' Creed, et cetera, did speak of Jesus dying and going to hell, but normally understood to make proclamation to the spirits in prison, to those who died previously in rebellion, that it was finished. There are other things that could have taken place there, but that's why Christians would have a problem with that idea of Jesus suffering in hell, and it's not explicitly taught. You say, well, it mentions the pangs of death couldn't hold them in Acts 2. I understand there are passages you could point to, but the emphasis must be on the finished work of the cross. Some say, well, the cross includes that. That was part of his death experience.

I understand that. It's just not my own view. But that is not heretical to say that after his death that he descended into the netherworld and on some level suffered.

That was part of his dying for our sins, but he always remained the perfect God, the Son of God. That's a separate issue. I don't hold to it. I don't believe it's biblical. That's separate from a completely heretical view.

But that's why people would have an issue with you holding that view. All right, let's go to Jalen in New Jersey. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello.

Are you there? All right. Tell you what, while you're figuring that out, our call screener will get back to you in a moment, and Jalen, hopefully, will get you on the air next time around here. Let us go over to Texas. Man, it's going to Texas to talk to Sean.

Tell you what, I'm going to talk to Sean on our Facebook page. Why do you think Jesus had to leave in order to send the Spirit? It's actually a very interesting question.

It's a good question. Since the Spirit was here working with him and through him, then why did he have to leave? Why did he say it was necessary that he left, that the Spirit would come? So, obviously, it had to do with something in the plan and economy of God, right? Not that, you know, as some would teach, well, it was a different manifestation.

So, it's like he had to go backstage and change clothes and then come back out, something like that. Obviously, not for many reasons, because again, the Spirit was here with Jesus on the earth. And Jesus does tell his disciples that in John 16, he grows with you with you and will be in you, right? So, Father, Son, Spirit being in the same place, same time, no problem with that. But it appears in the economy of God, in the plan of God, that the Spirit's role is to glorify Jesus and to lift him up. Now, as he ascends to heaven, so he dies, rises from the dead, and ascends to heaven. Now, the Spirit carries out the work of Jesus on the earth through us, right? So, it's necessary that Jesus leaves. The Spirit carries out the work of Jesus on the earth through us, and that is proof to the world that Jesus has risen from the dead. And now, the Spirit's work is not limited to one place through Jesus, but with Jesus having left this earth, now the Spirit working through all of us all around the earth at the same time.

That would be the simplest answer to the question. All right, let's see if we can reconnect with Jaylen in New Jersey. Are you there, sir? Yeah, I'm here. All right, go for it. Yes, I can. Great. And it's Jaylen from Springfield, Missouri.

So, I'll be real quick. I'm a preacher and also a Christian rapper, a Christian artist, and I did music with one of my friends who has been crying out to the Lord, but his faith is not as strong. And then he invited another person to do music without asking me, and then I said yes, and then this person's not a Christian, and I feel very convicted about it.

So, it's kind of a two-part question. Number one, is it okay to have this person over to fellowship, and for him to be around me as a believer? But the second part, if I do feel like, hey, I can't do any music and publish it because I can't stand with you as a non-believer, how do I tell him lovingly, you know, that I can't do that? Yeah. I'm just very convicted, and I have a hard time, because I preach the truth of God's word, and I believe in separation, but it's hard to know where that line is sometimes between reaching out to the Lord but not putting your stamp of approval on something.

Yeah, yeah. Jaylen, it's perfectly understandable, and it's a legitimate problem to have. In other words, you want to be loving, you want to open your arms to others, you want to say, hey, good person, let's work together however we can. But obviously, if it's sacred work, if it's a matter of doing war in the spirit, if it's a matter of shining light in darkness, then in that sense, you can't be unequally yoked together with the world.

It simply will not work. So, what I would do is very, very graciously, first I'd pray a lot into the situation, right? I'd ask the Lord to forgive me, and you're not the only one that's done this.

I've done it, most of us have made some mistake, maybe not this exact one, but something along these lines. I confess to the Lord, Lord, forgive me for making decision without really consulting you and not having your heart, and receive forgiveness. He's not here to condemn you, right? There's no condemnation to those inside Jesus. So, you receive that forgiveness, and then you really pray for the person involved that you don't want to push them away from the Lord.

You sit down as a real friend and say, hey, I want to be your friend, but I made a wrong decision about us working together. And do your best to explain, ask if he understands what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and if he would consider himself Lord. Ask him, say, okay, here are my values, X, Y, Z. Ask him, do you share these same values? Well, obviously, he can't say he does. He can't say that he shares the same values about the Lordship of Jesus, or the authority of Scripture, or people being lost outside of the Lord, or whatever, right? And then say, okay, look, this is the spiritual battle that I'm fighting.

I can only fight it with people of like heart. It would be like forming a basketball team, but your point guard wants to be a quarterback on a football team instead, and that's how he's playing the game. It won't work. Try to give him some kind of analogy, that you want to be a NASCAR driver and drive as fast as you can, and he feels led instead to have classes on safe driving and going under the speed limit.

It's just that the two things can't work in the same way. And you do say, look, any way I can be of help in your own music work, talk to you about that, or be a friend, I really enjoy hanging out with you, or share more about Jesus with you, I'm here to do that, but please forgive me. I made a mistake. I don't want you to be hurt, but in good conscience, I can't do this work together because I believe we're not of the same spirit in doing it. And maybe that'll lead to him coming to the Lord.

That'll provoke him to salvation. Hey, sorry we got your location wrong. Not sure what happened, but glad we can answer your question. God bless. 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. Do not forget to visit VitaminMission.com. We want to see you spiritually healthy, but physically healthy too. You can also read my latest article, Fat is Not Fit, at AskDrBrown.org, but visit VitaminMission.com. Check out all the great health supplements by my friend and colleague, Dr. Mark Stangler, and use the special Dr. Brown discount when you're there.

So that's at VitaminMission.com. All right, let's go back to the phones. Joseph in Michigan, welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello. Hello, you're on the air.

Oh, this is Jesse from Twin Cities, Minnesota. Okay, all right, tell you what, we must have a different call screener in today doing his or her best because it's a holiday and the normal studio is closed, so my apologies, but I'm speaking to you, sir, so you're on the air. My apologies, we've gotten a couple wrong here today. Go ahead, please.

Yeah, thanks for taking my call. First off, I walked through a debate with Doug Wilson. I thought the Bible was decidedly on your side. The only thing I disagree with is that I think the charismatic gifts are not always normalized in the New Testament. I have two examples of this, of Scripture. One is John 9, 2 and 3, it says, And the disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? And Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The last part of that is the more important part. And then Mark 9, 28 and 29, where it says, And when he entered his house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out with anything but prayer. And this is accentuated with our experiences as well, because sometimes people's limbs don't grow back or, you know, other miraculous things, people coming back from the dead, at least in the West, there seems to be a spiritual principle of things taking some greater faith at some point. I say this is someone who has had miraculous healings in my experience. I prayed for a man who had to just walk at his shoulder, and when he went to the ER, they said his shoulder was fine. And then I've also experienced the miraculous healing of a toad after I stepped on it, of all things.

So please hear me. I'm not saying I don't believe in... Yeah, just to clarify, and thanks for the good word about our debate. God can have mercy on a toad as well. But the fact is, no one is saying that the sick are always healed all the time, or that the gifts always operate all the time. I mean, right within Corinth, Paul references many of the people being sick and some having died because of their partaking of the Lord's table in an unworthy manner.

And Paul leaves Trophimus sick in 2 Timothy 4, and in 1 Timothy 5, he recommends that Timothy drinks a little wine and not just water, because of his stomach ailments, wine being used medicinally. So there's no, and some would even argue that Paul himself was sick when he came to Galatia, that's what he was saying to them. So no one is saying that if someone has the gift of healing, that everyone they pray for a hundred times out of a hundred is healed, but rather that there is an unusual demonstration of healing through that person above and beyond what's normal. The same with prophecy, this is all as the Spirit wills. So I think it's good, though, Joseph, that you raise these points, because many people think, oh, well, someone with the gift of healing could just automatically walk into any hospital and clear that hospital out.

I don't know where they get that from. In other words, the New Testament never explicitly says that. You do have some examples, like Acts 28, everyone that's brought to Paul, the island of Malta, is healed.

And I have heard from colleagues in different parts of the world of going into a school for the deaf in a particular village and everyone being healed, and that's been reported. I'm not there to see it as an eyewitness. But I don't think of that as the norm. Should we be seeing more? Absolutely. No question about it. That's why I wrote Whatever Happened to the Power of God in 1991.

We should be seeing more, for sure. But, yeah, to clarify, saying that this is normative doesn't mean that it always happens all the time in every situation. The sick we're always going to have in this world. Problems, issues we're always going to have in this world.

But in the midst of it, God moves supernaturally. Hey, Joseph, thank you very much for calling in. I appreciate it. Jesse, excuse me. All right.

I think this is Dylan in Florida. Is it someone else? Um, hello? Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I've been having recently a faith crisis, so I've been wanting to ask you this question is that, you know, because I've been ministering, you know, witnessing to other brothers and sisters, you know, like Muslims and atheists, especially atheists, and I've always doubted God's existence, even as a Christian, although I try to hide it, you know, because I've been raised in a Catholic family. But then, like, the question that really stumps me that when I'm answering, you know, the atheist is like, why doesn't miracles happen like, you know, as they did, like in the Bible, like, basically, like, the answer to that that most Christians would say would be, what do you call it? Well, the Bible is the only revelation that we have, you know, and considering the fact that the Bible hasn't always existed, like, how it has been, you know, like, back in time of Jesus, you know, it just seems like, wouldn't God do more to make himself known, you know, like, through visions?

Like, why doesn't he just appear to people, you know, like how he does? So, Dylan, the answer to the question is, God is doing those things around the world today. Professor Craig Keener, one of the world's most brilliant New Testament scholars, estimates that at least 200 million people worldwide are eyewitnesses to God's miraculous power. One of my colleagues was ministering in Africa, one meeting, and in that meeting, there was a mother there with her three children. The three children had all become blind through disease, and often in many of these countries there's not adequate medication, so you get really sick and then you end up blind, and all three were instantly healed in the same meeting, and he just reported back just with love for Jesus for what he had seen, and there's a lot of documentation about a lot of miraculous things. I'd encourage you to check out Randy Clark's book, Randy Clark, Eyewitness to Miracles, Eyewitness to Miracles by Randy Clark. It's great, it's well-documented, or Craig Keener's book, Miracles, there's a two-volume work, which is a big major thing to read, but then he's got it condensed with lots of testimonies in his book, Miracles, Craig Keener, K-E-E-N-E-R. In the Muslim world, there's an unprecedented amount of visions and dreams, and I have colleagues of mine who work with these Muslims.

I mean, this is what they do, this is where they live, and they're telling me some of the amazing stories. One of the most beautiful ones I heard was, these are people that sat in our school of ministry, I know them well, I know their integrity, that in where they are in Iraq, northern Iraq, they're under the edge of major refugee camp from the war in Syria, as they're there in Kurdistan, and the wife of one of our workers was ministering to a Muslim woman there, she was deaf in one ear, and this Christian woman, the wife of one of our grads, began to tell her about Jesus, and she said, I love Jesus, she just didn't know much about him. She then proceeded to share her story, that she and a number of other women had been badly burned. They were in a ward together, and one by one they were dying, and she realized she's not going to make it. She has this vision or dream, Jesus, I just forget which it was, she conveyed it clearly to our friend, Jesus appears to her, she just knows it's Jesus, as a Muslim she believes that Jesus existed, right, that he's the Messiah, but not the son of God. He appears, and he washes her from head to toe, and afterwards she's healed, she's no longer burned.

However, she's still deaf in one ear. This woman now tells her the rest of the story of Jesus, and she is wonderfully miraculously healed and saved. Another of my colleagues was working with a man who was an incredibly bold witness for Jesus. He had been with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and this friend of mine is very skeptical of a lot of the latest charismatic trends and reports and comes back from overseas and looks at what's happening in America, kind of shakes his head.

He contacts me once, Mike, I'm in the States, we've got to get together, I've got to tell you what I've seen. He had been in Greece, he was based in Italy, he'd been in Greece, been on the mission field over 45 years. He'd been in Greece, there was a place where these Muslim refugees were coming together, and many of them, so many were getting saved, they had to turn their tent in Italy over to them to do teaching and to do water baptisms and things like this, but here he is in Greece, and he's meeting these different people. One was a former member of the Taliban, and he has a dream in which Jesus appears to him and declares, I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

He then begins to declare this to the Taliban who tried to kill him, he flees for his life, and now he's preaching Jesus, obviously gets grounded in the word, hears the rest of the message, preaching Jesus and getting heavily persecuted for it and considered it a great joy. So God did do certain things on a national level, like the plagues in Egypt, to bring Israel out, to tell the nation of Israel, I am the one true God. And then the prophecies now confirm Jesus, and then supernatural miracles, especially during his ministry, confirm him, but now as we preach that message, God continues to move. He doesn't do this every single day, just like in the Bible. He didn't do it every single day through every single person. There was a miracle, which would just be as common as the rain falling or something like that.

No, it's not like that. But he is consistently moving in power around the world. Check out Randy Clark's Eyewitness to Miracles or Craig Keener's smaller volume, single volume on miracles, or, or Lee Strobel's book, The Case for Miracles. There's a lot of documentation for the glory of God. Let's give him praise for it.

It feels like Thunder, Magic, Static. Call me a fanatic. It's our world. They can never have it. This is how we rise up. It's our resistance. You can't resist us.