Dr. Brown Answers Your Best Questions

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. It is Friday, which means you've got questions, we've got answers. So, any subject of any kind that relates in any way to anything that we ever talk about on the air, in the article, I've written book, I've written sermon, I've preached, so it's a whole lot of potential topics, or just something that's connected. In other words, we've got the whole Bible, we've got all of theology, all of Christian ministry, culture wars, politics, Israel, a lot of things. 866-348-7884 is the number to call.

The sooner you are able to call, the better chance we have of getting you on the air with us. Let me just mention something that I think will be helpful to many of you. Not everything that we go through when we receive opposition, when we go through hardship and difficulty, not everything is because of the Gospel. Sometimes it's because of our own sin, our own foolishness, our own stubbornness. Sometimes it's not the devil who's opposing us, but the Lord who's opposing us. And there was a colleague of mine who told me a story about a friend of his. His friend had been going through a protracted, difficult trial. And he kept wrestling, and it was a very hard time. And he felt there was a lot of satanic opposition, so he kept rebuking the enemy, rebuking the enemy, rebuking the enemy, rebuking the enemy. And one day, he felt the Spirit of God say to him, you and I would get along a lot better together if you stopped calling me Satan. Because all day, I'm Satan, I rebuke you, Satan, I rebuke you.

Well, it was the Lord working in his life, and the Lord trying to bring him to a place, and he spent his time rebuking Satan. So, there are times when it's the Lord working in our lives to teach us, to humble us, to correct us. And I can tell you this, I wouldn't be who I am today, and I wouldn't be where I am today in the Lord. Whatever good I've been able to do, whatever example I've been able to set, if I had not listened to wise counsel from godly elders over the years, if I had not listened well to things that my wonderful wife Nancy has said to me over the years, and even some things at times from people who were wrong over all, who were critics and hostile over all, but yet there was a grain of truth that I need to hear.

So, I'll say this last thing, then I'm going to the phones. I remember early on in preaching ministry, it's probably around 1984, somewhere around there, I was on the road preaching, I had driven a few hours to a ministry engagement upstate New York, and in those days, maybe if it was 85, maybe I had one book out, otherwise we had these cassette tape series of my preaching or classes I had taught. So we had a little book table, and somebody handed a letter to whoever was running the book table for me. They handed the letter to me, or to be given to me, and when I brought it home, I looked at it, and the person was just attacking me. It was ugly and stupid, and I told Nancy, I said, you're not going to believe this.

This is the early days of having people actually tell me what they were feeling in negative ways like this. So, I gave it to Nancy, and she said, well, I want to look at this. She said, is there any truth to it? I said, huh, the guy's off the bus.

She goes, yeah, I know, I know, but is there any truth to it? I thought, that's a different approach, but that's what I've tried to do over the years. I've tried to do with this person's way out there, but ah, there's something valid in what they have to say. So, let's grow. Go through the book of Proverbs.

Look at all the times it mentions correction, rebuke, and let that be your lifestyle, because when you receive it, it's life giving. All right, to the phones, starting with Peter in California, welcome to the line of fire. Hello.

Hey, you're on the air. I'm coming out of annihilationism, and I have a few questions. Sure. And I thought maybe you could help me, because one thing I want to, I'm looking at Malachi chapter 4, verses 1 through 3, and it says, The wicked will be ashes, and you'll trample them under your feet in the day the Lord does this. And I'm wondering how a believing Jew or an early Christian might understand that before the book of Revelation was written.

Sure. Well, some would just take it as metaphorical language. That's one thing that they'll be destroyed. Others would take it literally that your enemies will be defeated in front of you, and that you'll walk over their dead bodies or their decomposing bodies.

And that's how it could easily be taken. It certainly wouldn't be taken as any type of reference to eternal punishment, and that's not what it's speaking of there. It is talking about a temporal judgment in this world. Yeah, and just like at the end of the book of Isaiah in the 65th chapter, it talks about new heavens, new earth, and then in the 66th chapter, that from one new moon to the next one Sabbath to the next, that people will walk out and look at the corpses of the dead that have been destroyed by God. So it's a similar kind of image, that you'll see the destruction of the wicked. Yeah, I heard that Jews didn't really have an idea of hell presented in the Old Testament, so it wouldn't be that like that. Yeah, I mean Daniel 12.2 is the closest statement that would be made, but the further beliefs in a place of ongoing punishment really are found a little bit later, starting in the literature of the Pharisees and things like that, some intertestamental literature. And you do have some early Jewish references to, there are some people who go down and then go up, there are some people who go straight up, that would be the perfectly righteous, and there are some people who go straight down and stay down, that would be the perfectly wicked. So, you know, that's how it would be viewed. As Judaism developed, it does not hold to an eternal hellfire view.

Okay. And looking at Matthew 10.28, where Jesus said, don't be afraid of the one who can destroy the body, but you're the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell, people say that destruction there could be better understood as ruined, be ruined in hell. But if that's so, why do the translators keep saying destroyed? Yes, so in other words, that would be a strong annihilationist verse, actually. Like Matthew 25.46 is used as a strong eternal punishment verse, so Matthew 10.28 is a strong annihilationist verse. Yeah, it is possible that the Greek used there for destroy can mean ruin.

The question would be, though, what's the analogy there? In other words, don't be afraid of those who kill the body, but can't touch the soul, but rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell, so does he destroy the body? Does that mean utterly wipe out? So let's just say that the more natural translation is destroy. There are arguments that can be made in the Greek that it's talking about bring to a state of utter ruin, so it's possible, it's just not the most normal translation of the verb.

So, yeah, that one again. Look, there are many verses that can be used to argue for annihilationism. In fact, the majority, you know, that speak of perish, or destruction, or death, or things like that. And then there are other verses that do speak of what appears to be eternal, conscious suffering, and that's why the issue is really debated. For me, what I determined, Peter, decades ago, was to quote scripture, and let the word stand on its own, if you follow me. In other words, rather than preach Dante's Inferno, right? I'm going to quote scripture, and let the words carry the weight that they carry, and let people know that there are eternal consequences to their actions, as to the nature of the punishment, and the nature of the suffering, that I simply let the word speak for itself on that.

And I'll say this last thing. On the one hand, you don't want to minimize the gravity of the consequences of rejecting the Lord, that they are irreversible, and that they last forever, even if it's by forfeiting eternal life. You don't want to minimize that. On the other hand, as I've been interacting with atheists in recent weeks, and reading a lot of their comments, one of the strongest reasons that they find it unfathomable that there could be, the God of the Bible could be real, is the issue of eternal conscious torment. And if they were told, though, there's destruction in the final end, it would be less of an obstacle to overcome. So you could argue either way, in terms of how it affects people. The question is, what does scripture say? And to me, the best thing is to quote the word, and let the word have its impact on people as they hear it. Okay, could I squeeze in one more question?

Yeah, go for it real quick. Okay, well, if the sinners get eternal consciousness in hell, why is the reward of heaven contrasted as eternal life? Would some people say that sinners get eternal life in hell? Right, so that's, again, an annihilationist argument, which is a fair argument. The answer would be that life consists in a relationship with God, that existence is different than life. That 1 Timothy 6 tells us that God alone has immortality, but that we know that eternal life is not existing, but rather having an intimate relationship with God and his son, Jesus. So that would be how those holding to eternal conscious torment would answer, but the annihilationist would say the contrast in Matthew 25 46 is between eternal life and eternal punishment, so that eternal punishing.

So those would be some of the answers in the debate. Continue to study the word and ask the Lord for insight. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Angela in Kingsport, Tennessee. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello. Hey there. Hello, how are you? I'm doing great, thanks. Good. I want to first say thank you for the work that you do for our Lord.

You have taught me a lot, and I appreciate that. My question is, how close is the Bible to the original language? Oh, a good translation is very close. In other words, any language, when you go from one to another, it's not going to be exact, because they're different languages. You may have different word order, you may have different emphasis and things like that, but no book has ever been translated more carefully by more scholars working harder than the Bible. So in terms of, when I read the English Bible, I feel like I'm reading God's word speaking directly to me. In other words, even though I read the Hebrew well, like I read English, or I could read the Greek more slowly, when I'm reading the English, they're excellent translations. So here and there, Angela, there's some verses that are debatable exactly how, but a good English translation is, yeah, it's very close to the original.

It is saying to us in English what the authors were saying in Hebrew and Greek. So feel confident in that. You really can. Hey, thank you, Angela, for the call. We'll be right back, folks. 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. Thanks, friends, for joining us. Have you signed up for our Israel trip yet? Do you know about it? Yeah, roughly the second half of May, next year, 2023. Fabulous tour, great sites, great tour guide, great extra attractions, five-star hotels. Yeah, so it's going to be an amazing time. Go to my website, ask Dr. Brown. Seating is limited.

It's not a sales ploy. Seating is limited. So if you're thinking of going and you want to take the step to sign up, ask Dr. Brown, askdrbrown.org. Hey, tell some of your friends who've been wanting to go now that Israel's back wide open. We can't wait to be there.

All right, let us go to Seth in Kansas. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you.

So my question concerns the date, books of the Bible, and really just generally works of antiquity. Do you have any resources that you would recommend, just in terms of how that even happens? Just a very quick story. I've talked to atheist friends before, and it's like, hey, I'm through the prophecy of Daniel. This is remarkable. How do you account for that? And you can just easily say, oh, well, it must have been written later then, because that's not a thing. Where do you start to even begin getting into that world of how they do that? Yeah, okay, so it's multifaceted. One funny thing here.

Our call screener does a great job, because they get a ton of calls, especially on a Friday, and they got to quickly get the information, put it up on the board for me. So your question is posted correctly as resources on dating, but I thought it was dating in terms of going out on a date with somebody, and I was going to tell you, really, I don't focus on that a lot. I didn't have resources. I'm glad your question was what it was. They wrote it up properly, but okay. So this is multifaceted, in terms of, there are a lot of different ways that things are dated. For example, when you're looking at archaeological evidence, so you have what's called a tell, right? So that's a heap of ruins, and you might have a city built on a city, built on a city, built on a city, so archaeologists can tell us, hey, this was Bronze Age, this was Iron Age, this was this, this was this, and they can tell it by the types of pottery and things like that, right? And then, if a biblical book is claiming to be from a certain period of time, they can compare, oh, it accurately represents this, and so on. And then you can say, well, this was anomalous, we got this one piece over here, it must have sunk down over time.

So there's the science of that, right? Then you'll have things like carbon-14 dating, where they're looking at an ancient manuscript, Dead Sea Scroll, and how is that to be dated? And then you'll have things like paleography, what type of script is used. Unless it was used intentionally to try to recreate a feeling of antiquity, then you can see, oh, we have an ancient manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it's using a particular script, but that seems to be a few centuries early, were they using that for the feeling of making it look more archaic?

Okay, then there's linguistic evidence. And the first things I mentioned really don't tie in with dating a biblical book, because we don't have the original copies, right? We don't have the original Isaiah or any of these things, and especially written on papyrus, and that ancient, it would have taken a miracle for them to have lasted. The things we'll still have that are that old are like inscriptions on a wall, or inscriptions on a rock, you know, like a law code, or a stele, or something like that, where it's engraved. That would remain, but the biblical books weren't written like that.

So, how do you date then? So, there is linguistic evidence, and we know that over a period of time, as the book of the Bible was being copied out, that there might be spelling conventions that would change over a period of years, there might even be some linguistic normalization, but you can't have something early that now is completely out of time. For example, you won't have George Washington quoting Ronald Reagan, right? So, when it comes to Daniel, we do have Daniel in the Septuagint, so that's telling us something, but we also have some later books, Maccabees and Ben Sira, you know, Ecclesiasticus and things like that, that are later. We have Daniel in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Okay, that's telling. Well, now linguistic analyses have been done of Daniel by some Aramaic scholars, and they say this reflects earlier Aramaic as opposed to, say, the Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the earliest rabbinic literature, which would argue for an earlier date. Other things, like if you're dating parts of the book of Isaiah, right? If Isaiah mentioned a historical event that happened 300 years after his time, then you have to say, okay, either this is a later edition, or it's evidence that the author himself lived in a later period of time. When was something received, and quote it, when you see references throughout the Old Testament to the law of Moses, or the book of the law, it's telling you that something has been there from very, very early times. Some of the ways of looking at this, there were scholars, critical scholars, a couple centuries ago, that basically determined that the priestly literature was the latest, and that that represented kind of a breakdown in Israelite religion as opposed to early literature.

And a lot of it was theoretical, and then the theory gets debunked. So it's complex, generally speaking, if you will look at a solid introduction to the Old Testament by a good evangelical scholar, right? And the same with an introduction to the New Testament. They'll give you a good idea, and the New Testament is more easily dateable, because we're dealing with more recent documents than the Old Testament with a better history that we can trace out. But they'll basically tell you, okay, here's the critical discussion, here's how we date this, and why. So that's, you get it just in two books, you know, a good introduction to the Old Testament, a good introduction to the New Testament, and just well-known evangelical scholars, you know, that are involved, like a Trumper Longman in the Old Testament, or Douglas Moore or D.A.

Carson with the New. That'll get you a lot of info. The other thing is, there's a little book by F.F. Bruce that was then revised, updated by N.T. Wright, the New Testament documents, are they reliable? And then, I believe Walter Kaiser did the one on the Old Testament documents, yeah. Old Testament documents, are they reliable and relevant? And then the New Testament documents, are they reliable? So F.F. Bruce, Walter Kaiser, that'll give you further aspects of manuscript evidence and why we find these things to be reliable. So those are good resources. Whatever you miss, just go back, listen to the broadcast, and catch some more.

Alright, thank you so much. Alright, let us go to Anthony in New York. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Thanks for joining us. Hi Michael, how are you doing Dr. Paul? Doing well. So my question is about Jesus' 1,000 years reign, and I'm just wondering how, I mean, Scripture tells us how is it going to be, it gives us kind of a vision, but is it going to be, or are we going to be able to, you know, live the same way we're living, you know, like for example, in New York City, we have transit, you know, stock market, how is that Jesus' time, you know, 1,000 years reign? Are we going to go to the dunes, you know, get married, travel, how is the world going to be? I love the questions, Anthony.

So here's the deal. I can answer one thing definitively, and the rest I can't. What I can say definitively is if we're right about the 1,000 year reign, that we who are believers will be glorified. In other words, we'll be in our glorified bodies, what Paul calls the spiritual body. We will not be marrying anymore, we will not be having children, we will not suffer death or sickness or anything like that. We will be glorified with the Lord and the rest of humanity that the survivors of the nations that attack Jerusalem that will enter the millennial kingdom will be in regular physical bodies, they'll live longer, the earth will be filled with righteousness and justice, it'll be the most beautiful, glorious time in world history, but people will still be able to sin and people will die, people will be able to marry, have children, populate the earth.

Those things will happen. But Anthony, beyond that, we don't know. I mean, you read the same Bible I do, right? You might say, Dr. Brown, you know the Bible better. Well, maybe in some ways I do, but it's just not there.

The information is not there. There's no evidence, for example, that human beings will be supernatural at that time, right? That human beings who are not resurrected will be able to fly or walk through walls. No, they'll still be human beings. But will they walk everywhere? Will they ride on horseback? Will they ride in advanced technology that we can't imagine now?

You know, better than airplanes and don't know. Will there be stock markets? We simply don't know. What we do know is it will be a glorious time on the earth, the likes of which we've never seen. The knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas, which is just extraordinary, glorious, beautiful to comprehend. And there'll be no war.

There'll be no war. And the Messiah Jesus will rule and reign out of Jerusalem. At the end of that time, Satan has loosed, Revelation 20, right?

Satan has loosed and deceives masses of people, which indicates that even in a world like that, people still want to rebel against God. And then the final destruction, and then new heavens and new earth where everyone there is only, represents only those who have been glorified, resurrected forever. Hey, thanks for the questions.

And soon enough, we'll find out the answers to the other things. Alright, thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back on the other side of the break. 866-34-TRUTH. 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. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to... Alright, we're going to London.

I guess Mario couldn't hold. That's alright. Let's go to Spokane, Washington. Whoa, what happened to Philip here? Alright, let's try going to Los Angeles. Paul in Los Angeles, welcome to the line of fire. Hi, hello.

Hey. It's my first time. Before I begin, I just want to say thank God. I praise God for your ministry.

It's been very edifying, and I praise God because basically my dad put me onto you, and it's just been a blessing ever since. Usually I go to you when I want to know about Jewish backgrounds, and I love studying that, and so I love studying the Scriptures, and so recently I've been studying about the Son of Man and the Son of God, and I'm just wondering, really, my question is basically in the Jewish mind. Was the title of Messiah connected with the title of the Son of God?

Like, what's the Jewish background, the apocalyptic history surrounding the Son of God in the Jewish mind? Yes, so a Son of God can have several different reference in the Hebrew Bible. For example, in Exodus 4, Moses is told to tell Pharaoh, B'ni B'chori Yisrael, Israel is my son, my firstborn.

Let my son go. So, many Jewish people would immediately say, well, Israel is God's son, and then the king in Israel, David, his successors, would be called God's son, so that was also another referent. And then, in a more unique way, the Messiah could be called God's son. You have that in some of the pseudepigraphical literature, where there's more of a connection between Son of God and Messiah. In Jewish tradition, perhaps as a reaction against Christian teaching, you don't find a strong connection with the term Messiah and the term Son of God. Even so, a traditional Jew would use it, meaning God's son like David or Israel.

In other words, not literally begotten by God or proceeding forth from the Father or Divine, but rather a highly exalted being. Angels could be sons of God as well, individual Israelites could be sons of God. So, in traditional Judaism, the term Son of God is not widely associated with the Messiah.

You could make a case more from the Hebrew Bible and from pseudepigraphical literature, some of the intertestamental literature, where you'd have more references like that. So, the Messiah, so obviously the Messiah has to be the Son of God in order to fulfill the Messianic role, that's kind of what I've come to in my studies, that's the conclusion I've come to, but the Jews never saw it like that? No, in other words, they would say that the Messiah fulfills his role by being a greater David. Now, if you want to say, well David was the Son of God, okay, in that same way the Messiah would be, based on 2 Samuel 7, that David's line, God says I'll be a father to them and they'll be sons to me, right, which is then quoted in the New Testament with reference to Jesus the Messiah.

Where is that? Yeah, that's in 2 Samuel 7. In the New Testament? Oh, yeah, that's quoted in Hebrews, yeah. Hebrews 1? Interesting. Yeah, so you have that reference, you have Psalm 2 is quoted several times in the New Testament, which is best seen as spoken originally over the Davidic king, but with ultimate reference to the Messiah. But again, in the Jewish mind, the Messiah is an exalted human being, is someone who has been anointed by the Spirit to do God's work, and will turn the hearts of Israel to the Lord, and then will bring about righteousness on the earth and bring the world into the knowledge of God, but will be a thoroughly human being who will be born and who will die.

Interesting, interesting. Any good resources, by the way? Do you have my series on answering Jewish objections to Jesus? My dad might have it, but it's not accessible to me. Okay, well volume 2, there's a lot of good information in there, volume 2 of answering Jewish objections to Jesus, you'll get, if you're looking especially for Jewish background, you'll find a lot there. There are many other academic works on Son of God and things like that, but in the question you're asking, you'll find that very helpful. Interesting, thank you very much, I appreciate it.

You are very welcome, and blessings to your dad as well. 866-348-7884. And by the way, because we had a couple of callers, Spokane, London dropped out, we've got a couple phone lines open. So if you've been trying to call, just have some phone lines open.

I always like to let you know when there's a better chance to call. Okay, let us go to Mike in Salt Lake City, Utah. Welcome to the line of fire. Yeah, Ben, can you hear me okay?

Yeah, I can. Okay, so I come from a long line of Mormon pioneers and everything, but I was kicked out of the Mormon church when I was 14, and they told me I was a heretic, and I thought I was some kind of an award. Do you know what it is? Yeah, so a heretic is someone who is holding to beliefs that put them outside the camp of Orthodoxy. In other words, if you were a Muslim and said, well actually, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then to Muslims you would be a heretic. If you were a Christian, and you said, I believe Jesus was a man like anyone else, well you would now be a heretic.

So a heretic is someone who is outside the faith, so as a Mormon, if you said, I don't believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, I don't believe the Book of Mormon is the same as the Bible, then you'd be called a heretic, in which case it would be a badge of honor, because those are correct statements. Yeah, so where do you stand now, Mike, in terms of your beliefs? Well, I started reading the Bible, you know, and all this bad luck started happening, I can't even begin to tell you. But there's a lot of confusing things in the Bible, like in the Lord's Prayer it says, lead us not into temptation. Why would God want to tempt you? He's not, it's just a Hebrew way of saying things. For example, in Isaiah 54, no weapon formed against you will prosper. The way that's written in Hebrew is every weapon formed against you will not prosper. So lead us not into temptation, you're praying against the negative. It's your way of asking the Lord, keep us safe, don't lead us in this way or that way. Also the word temptation can be translated testing, so you're asking for his mercy as well. But you're praying a positive by praying against the negative, all right? Okay, and then just tell everybody out there, because they told me God left me and I'm going not to the top kingdom, whatever they call that.

I forgot what it was, there was a name for it. And I was a heretic, which I thought was an award, I was waiting for my award. And don't believe those Mormons when they tell you that. You know, they'll call you in the bishop's office and they'll scrutinize you, and they'll tell you that you don't believe in Joseph Smith, it's the only true church. I don't believe it's the only true church, and I don't believe they're Book of Mormon, and I don't believe they're Bible.

So Mike, the key thing for you is to get into a good Bible-believing church. You're right in rejecting Mormonism. You're absolutely right, Joseph Prince was not a prophet, the Book of Mormon is not a divine book.

I know we're speaking in Salt Lake City, we've got a great station that's been there for many, many years. I don't go bashing Mormons every day, I'm sure there are many fine, sincere people even listening right now who identify as Mormons. But Joseph Prince, Joseph Smith, is that a Freudian slip for those trying to say it?

Joseph Smith was not speaking for God in any way, and the Book of Mormon in no way compares to the Bible. So Mike, you do well to get out of the Mormon church, but get into a good Bible-believing church, get in a good relationship with the Lord, and get the Word of God in your heart and mind. That's the path to life. Hey, thank you for calling. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Berkeley in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you for taking my call. Just a quick question, wanted to get your thoughts on this, you may or may not be familiar. I was watching a Christian TV channel last night and stumbled across, I don't know if you'd call it a church, but it's Amazing Facts with the pastor Doug Batchelor, and he was teaching on the book of Revelation. And I watched him, I only watched him a few minutes. I know nothing about him. Have you ever heard of him?

What are your thoughts? If you've heard of him, do you know anything about him? I don't know anything about him. He may be very well known, but I've not heard the name, and I've not seen the show. I don't watch much TV, and I don't watch Christian TV, so I'm completely unfamiliar with him.

Was there anything specific? So he may be wonderful, but I don't know him at all. Was there anything specific that he said that caused you to wonder? You know, I think a lot of things, like I said, I only watched him a few minutes. I mean, I think a lot of things he was, I believe he was on target, but I just had this weird feeling.

I can't, it was almost, I don't know. Something didn't feel right. The key thing is, give someone a chance. In other words, I've had people run from somebody that was wonderful, and I've had people drink in stuff from somebody who's terrible. So, sometimes the first glance, the first feeling is not always accurate. So, find out what the person believes, get online, search, see if they have websites, I'm sure they do, doctoral statements, major teachings, what are they known for, and then hear them out. And if in fact something is wrong, well good, then you felt it correctly at the beginning.

But there have been plenty of things where my initial reaction, the first reaction that's not accurate, because I just don't hear enough, and you want to be fair, right? So, that's why you're calling to get more info. But, I'm totally unfamiliar with the man and the ministry.

Like I said, he could be wonderful or he could be way off, I simply don't know. But, best thing is to check further. If you have an interest, check further, and gather your information, and then make a good, righteous decision. Hey, God bless, thank you for the call.

866-34-TRUTH, I will get back to your calls immediately on the other side of the break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back here on the line of fire. Skillet!

Take it away! This is how we rise up. Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train. This is how we rise up.

Harder speed and faster, 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.

This is how we rise up. 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. All right, let's get straight back to your calls.

We will start with Mylan in Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, how are you? Doing very well, thank you.

Awesome, awesome. So I had a question regarding eschatology. I've started to study it a little bit and get into, first of all, I was saved in an Assembly of God church and he is pretty hardcore pre-tribulation rapture and pre-millennialism. And so I've just kind of always accepted it without even thinking it, and I still tend to lean that way, but my question is regarding post-millennialism, and correct me if I'm wrong, but for their view to be correct, first of all, they would have to say that Satan is bound now, correct? No, no, that's the amillennial view, not post-millennial, although there's overlap between them.

No, they wouldn't say that. They would simply say that the gospel will win, that the world will be fully Christianized before Jesus returns, so that Satan's ways will be thwarted, but they would not say that Revelation 20 is happening right now. That's the distinct amillennial view, the view which I hope to be very bizarre, believed to be very bizarre, that Satan right now is bound so he can't deceive the nations.

No, but post-millennialists don't normally teach that. Okay, I was going to say, while I look around, Satan's clearly not bound. Yeah, I mean, the argument with all respect to my amillennial friends who hold to it is that Satan is bound so he can't deceive the nations into the final end-time war, which is reading so much into the text.

It's clear. I mean, the New Testament is warning against Satan's deceptive ways. He's clearly not bound, and to argue that he is, to me, is a complete rejection of the plain sense of Revelation 20, especially in context between Revelation 19, the return of Jesus in glory and power, and Revelation 21, the new heavens and the new earth. Yeah, but post-millennialists believe that the gospel will win out, that everyone will ultimately be reconciled to the Lord, not Satan himself.

That would be an extreme form of universalism. That the parables say of the leaven that's put in four different loaves of bread, it all rises up, so rather than meaning the increase of wickedness around the world, that's the fruit of the gospel around the world. So, the positive aspects of post-millennialism is that they're very positive in thinking and believe that God will change the world and righteousness will rule. And Jonathan Edwards was a post-millennialist who believed that the millennium could be very close, and Charles Finney was a post-millennialist who believed that as well.

And they, of course, were active, especially Finney, in social change, but I find it utterly unscriptural. Now, I myself am post-trib, I haven't been pre-trib in over 45 years, and that to me is self-evident, you know, once I look at scripture again. But there's just too much in the word that I see about the end of the age being parallel extremes, and that the end of the age is the harvest with good and bad, and you have the separation of the sheep and goats, and the nations attacking Jerusalem at the end of the age.

It's clear that although we'll have great light, there's also great darkness right until the end. Okay, so I may just be a little ignorant on post-millennialism, but I thought that for, that scripture, according to scripture, during the millennium, Satan is bound, correct? Yes. Whether that's a spiritual millennium, and isn't that, so, in other words, what you're saying is, I had it wrong, post-millennialism doesn't say that the ruling and reigning, the thousand-year reign of Christ is right now.

Correct. We haven't gotten to it yet. Okay, and even the post-millennialist would agree with that, that it's not here yet? Right, so what, yeah, the post-millennialist does not believe that we're in the millennial kingdom yet, and whether it's an exact thousand years or not, or whether Satan is bound at that point in the future, that would be a separate question for post-millennialists.

Okay, so that's where my confusion was. Right, so the amillennialist believes there is no millennium on the earth, it's all spiritual, alright? It's all spiritual, Jesus is currently ruling and reigning in heaven, and we are in his kingdom, which is a spiritual kingdom, at the end of the age, which will have a lot of darkness, et cetera, at the end of the age, Jesus will return, set up his kingdom, and that's that.

That's, or we just go into eternity, right? So an amillennialist believes, so post-millennialist says we haven't gotten into it yet, the gospel has not triumphed over the world yet, and then we'll usher in that glorious kingdom through the gospel, at the end of which Jesus will return. I see, so literally, pretty much the only difference between pre-millennialist and post is that the post believes that the gospel will eventually win, and at that moment, Christ will return and start the thousand-year reign.

No, no, no, no, we will have the millennium here. After, it's post-millennial, Jesus comes after, post, after the millennium, not pre-millennial, post-millennial. Okay, so Jesus isn't here for the millennial reign? Not in that same way, not physically on the earth in that same way, correct. Yes, so here's where the confusion is, which is totally legitimate, totally legitimate. What you've done is taken a pre-millennial view of the millennium, which is a literal reign of Jesus on the earth for a thousand years out of Jerusalem, right?

Correct. Okay, and now assume that that's what a post-millennialist believes, they don't, they believe there will be a glorious kingdom on the earth with Jesus ruling spiritually, but not physically here on the earth. Until that kingdom ends. Right, when it ends, then he returns and we go into eternity, new heavens and new earth. Okay, I see, I see. So basically you could say that the post-millennialists would say Christianity will rule and reign, but Christ won't return until the end of that. Exactly, so Christ will rule through the church, but he himself will not physically return until after that.

Post-millennial, there we go. Perfect, that makes much more sense. Alright, great, good, good, glad we could help, sure thing. Alright, and look, this can all be confusing. The key thing is to live lives worthy of the Lord, to bear much fruit, to shine the light in the midst of darkness.

We go to Hank in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call.

You're welcome. I read an article a couple of years ago about these scrolls and how some of the manuscripts had documented a debate between ancient Jewish sects, Israeli sects, where they had a debate amongst themselves as to whether or not the text revealed a messiah or two messiahs, and in recent years that debate has sort of been hidden away, and it's not really talked about much in some of the American Jewish world, the secular world I guess. Are you familiar with that debate that was revealed? Yeah, it's not a debate actually, and there's nothing that's been hidden.

No, it's not a debate. Rather, there was an ancient Jewish belief that there would be two messianic figures, a Davidic messiah and a priestly messiah. That was believed by different groups.

We have it already reflected, everyone knew that it was reflected in what's called the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which we've had for many centuries, which spoke of a Davidic messiah and a priestly messiah, but in the Dead Sea Scrolls, so the particular sect that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, aside from just copying the Bible and things, but the original sect that wrote that, most likely the Essenes, they also believed in two messiahs, Myshchei Aharon v David, the messiah, excuse me, Myshchei Aharon v Israel, the messiahs of Aaron and Israel. So, there was an ancient Jewish belief. It's not a debate there, it's just that is reflected in their writings, that they believed that there would be a priestly messiah as well as a royal messiah. Traditional Judaism did not recognize the priestly messiah aspect, so it's just not been taught in traditional Judaism. Traditional Judaism has looked for the messiah son of David, and then later Jewish traditions, after the Dead Sea Scrolls, have looked for a messiah son of Joseph, not a priestly messiah, but a suffering messiah. Yeah, but Hank, if you just get online and search for two messiahs in ancient Judaism, you should find a lot of information there, and again, it wasn't a debate there, it's just these were some of their beliefs which are reflected there, and the Judaism that prevailed was the Judaism of the Pharisees and the rabbis. But if you just check online, two messiahs in ancient Judaism or two messiahs in Dead Sea Scrolls, you'll get the info there.

And for me, sir, it's very important to recognize that this is biblical. Not two messiahs, but two aspects of the messiah's work. Like David, who was a king, but did priestly work as well, alright? The messiah will be a priestly king. So Jesus, the messiah, is both priest and king, so there were ancient Jews looking for two separate messiahs.

We say, no, not two separate messiahs, one of the same messiah who comes at two different times to fulfill two different aspects of his mission. Thank you so much for the call. Hey friends, just another reminder, visit the website, askdrbrown.org, askdrbrown.org. Find out about the Israel trip as seating is limited. And if you don't get my emails, all the announcements, newsletters, latest videos, articles, if you don't get those, go to askdrbrown.org and sign up today for our emails. We would love to be in touch with you. Hey friends, God bless, have an awesome weekend. If you're in the Las Vegas area, come to the meeting Saturday night, Sunday morning.

Hope to see you there. May the blessing of the Lord be yours. Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train, this is how we rise up. Harder speed and faster, 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. Another program powered by the Truth Network.