Dr. Brown Answers Your Questions

Full lines are open. You've got questions. We've got answers. When you get to call in any question of any kind on any subject whatsoever, as long as it ties in in any way with the line of fire, anything I've written said, a guest has written said, anything you've heard, you want to clarify.

866-348-7884. We had a few interesting glitches yesterday, one of which was that my voice started to go. Just had a couple allergies and maybe different climate from North Carolina to Texas. Don't know what it was, but towards the end of the show, I almost lost my voice. Thankfully, it came back.

For those that were praying fervently during it, I appreciate. But we got our throat coat tea in. Actually, my tongue's still burning with that a little bit. So nice and hot throat coat tea.

Did whatever else we could to make sure the voice was good and strong. So now's the time to call. Any question of any kind on any subject that relates in any way to the line of fire, 866-348-7884.

We'll start with Caleb in Michigan. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown, appreciate you taking my call. Sure thing. Hey brother, just I got a question about Revelation 21a, and it says there that the fearful, the unbelieving, the idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of God. I'm just by nature just a timid person, you know. I have by God's grace a boldness to witness to people and testify of Christ in his gospel, but sometimes in just in life in general, like if it comes to making decisions that are a little bit risky, I feel timid, I kind of take the sure side.

And being with someone that's just had anxiety for a long time just seems like whatever I do it doesn't go away, but I would just then I sometimes when I go through these things it makes me doubt my salvation in Christ. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on, you know, the fearful there. Right, right.

Well thanks for asking that. First, you should understand the better way to translate that in context is the cowardly. The cowardly. That it is talking about those who under pressure will deny Jesus. It is talking about those who when it comes to following the Lord and being obedient to the faith are cowards. The fact that that in the midst of your natural timidity you're a bold witness for the Lord is the exact opposite of that. Let me make clear that God is not damning anyone to hell because of a personality weakness. I tend to be timid. I'm not so bold.

I'm not that aggressive in my nature. No, God's not going to damn someone to the lake of fire for that. And if you look at other things in the list, faithless, detestable, murders, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, those are people willfully committing sin.

And in fact there's a Greek scholar, C. L. Speek, S. P. I. C. Q., and tremendous research he did on the Greek language and wrote a lot in French and much of it translated into English. But I just want to read to what he says about this. When Revelation 21 8 places the faint-hearted and the unbelieving in the lake of fire, it has in view Christians during times of persecution who out of a fear of suffering renounce their faith. It is a commonplace that human courage and cowardice are revealed in the face of death.

So he goes on with that. So cowardice can then be defined as a more serious disease than those which afflict the body because it destroys the faculties of the soul, quoting from an early Jewish philosopher. So the fact that you're cautious, the fact that you can be anxious, that's not what this is talking about.

This is someone who is cowardly when it comes to the faith and ultimately chooses to preserve his or her own life as opposed to being obedient to Jesus. So fear not, be at peace, and do your best to learn to live out Philippians 4 6-8 where you come to God with your concerns, with your anxiety, with the things that weigh you down, and you give it over to the Lord and he gives peace. Max Lucado has a nice book about this, about not being anxious that you might find very helpful.

He's such an amazing author, and I was listening to it on audio some months back. You might enjoy that, you might find it helpful, but fear not. This is not damning you to hell because of a natural timidity, okay? Amen, brother. Thank you so much. Appreciate you and all you do, brother. God bless you. Thank you.

Oh, one last thing. One other thing is that we learn that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. Paul writes about that in 2 Corinthians 12. In fact, a great theme of 1 Corinthians is the theme of weakness, and God's strength manifests through weakness, and the weakness of the cross being the power of the gospel. So I'm a very self-confident kind of person, and when I got saved I realized I had to put my confidence in the Lord, but over the years there was kind of a subtle mingling of that with self-confidence. It was about 20 years ago the Lord really brought me through something that brought me to the end of myself in different ways, and since then I've learned to lean on God's strength out of my weakness. And when I have an intense schedule or overwhelming responsibilities, rather than saying, I can do this, I say, Lord, you're strength out of my weakness. In fact, I have sometimes walked from the floor of where I'm going to speak up the steps to the platform, and as I go up each step before I speak, I say, before the Lord, strength out of weakness, strength out of weakness. The reminder that it's his strength manifests out of my weakness.

So you can lean on that. Lord and myself, I'm timid, but you haven't given me a spirit of timidity, but of love, power, and a sound mind. Thank you for the call. All right, let us go to Chandler in Ada, Oklahoma. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hi Dr. Brown, I have just a quick question for you. What's the difference between being baptized in the Holy Spirit and actually receiving the Holy Spirit? I know that some believe that at salvation, you know, you're sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, you receive them, but then there's also places like in Acts where it said when they laid hands on them they received the Holy Ghost. Right. So what's the difference?

So it is a debate in terms of terminology. Most Christians teach that the moment you're saved, that you are baptized in the Spirit, that you receive the Spirit, that you have the Spirit, and then in the book of Acts, for example, the Samaritans come to faith in the eighth chapter, but it's not until Peter and John come and lay hands on them that they receive the Spirit. Or in the 19th chapter, Paul asks the believers he meets from Ephesus if they've yet received the Holy Spirit, and they were already believers, though they didn't have the full information of all the Gospel, they would say that was just kind of bringing in these new groups, Samaritans and Gentiles, or Acts 10, the Gentiles, Cornelius, and then they speak in tongues, etc. Those were just signs that they were bringing these groups in.

That's not my own view. My own view is that, and Pentecostals would have this, all right, we lost Chandler there, but I'll finish my answer. So Chandler, my own understanding is that the moment we're saved, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit renews us, and we have the Spirit living within us, we're led by the Spirit the moment we're saved, and the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ, right, that we are now brought by the Spirit into the body. At the same time, we have not been endued with the power of the Spirit. That, I understand, is something subsequent to salvation. This is a difference that I would have as a Pentecostal, as opposed to others who are non-Pentecostal. So I believe, the moment you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit living within you, you're enthralled by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, your body is the temple of the Spirit, all of that, but that the baptism of the Spirit is a subsequent empowerment for service with the releasing of the gifts of the Spirit. And that's what's mentioned as receiving the Spirit, that it was understood that you could be a believer, but there was something more to receive. I asked Leonard Ravenhill, when we were close friends the last five years of his life, I said, I heard a fellow teaching on the radio, and he said, when a baby is born, that baby has everything it needs, it just needs to grow.

It doesn't need new eyes, it doesn't need a new head, it doesn't need new legs, or if it's a healthy baby, at birth it has everything it needs, and now it just grows and develops. He said, it's the same with us, the moment we're saved, we receive everything we need from the Spirit, there's no subsequent empowerment, we receive everything we need from the Spirit, and it's just a matter of growing. I asked Brother Len, how would you respond to that, and he smiled, he said, I've never seen a baby born that was fully clothed, and that was his answer. Even the Greek for being endued with power, some translations say clothed with power from on high. My simple statement to everyone is, show me. In other words, you say we receive it all at salvation, wonderful, show me. Let me just see that demonstration of power of the Spirit in your own life.

I'm not going to debate that. I believe it is something subsequent, but either way, let's ask God for everything he has so we can glorify him to the max. 866-3436. By the way, we've got a couple lines open, which often we don't have at all on a Friday, so if you call in now, we'll certainly be able to get to your call. Let us go to Daniel. Daniel, Canada. What happened? We lost Daniel here. Hopefully we're not having a phone problem today.

Let us go to Greg in Cary, North Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hello Dr. Brown, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, thank you. The question I have, Dr. Brown, is about millennial reign. The way I see it, or the way I understand it from reading the Word is that in Revelation, there's going to be people that are going to be left over from Revelation that would enter into the millennial reign, is that correct?

I just have a question. I thought we were going to be through with, and I'm not saying that it's not good to be around non-believers for witness, but I was thinking, well, while we were going to be around non-believers and the millennial reign, and I don't know how long, because they say a day is less than a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day, so it may be almost like a day, but I don't know, but I was just curious what your take was on that. You understand what I'm asking? Yeah, that's an interesting point. So when you read Revelation 19, it gives the impression that the whole world is wiped out at the return of the Lord, but if you compare it with other scriptures like Zechariah 14, you'll see that there are survivors of those who attacked Jerusalem.

So the nations that attacked Jerusalem, the people actively involved, are destroyed, but the survivors of those nations will enter the millennial kingdom. Some argue that that's the, well, we'll tell you, we'll finish on the other side of the break. 866-348-7884. Now's a great time to call. We'll be right back. Hey friends, I cannot wait to get back to Israel.

It's been a few years because of COVID. Our next trip is planned May 2023. We were able to open up extra hotel rooms in Jerusalem to make room for folks on the second bus.

We're only going to have two buses max, that's it. So it's a great time. It's an intimate time.

We do special meetings every night, Q&A, worship, hearing from a local Messianic leader, live radio. So along with the amazing tour by day, we get to spend time together every night in smaller groups. So if you've been planning on going, thinking of going, and you're able to do it, it's going to be great. It's going to be five star hotels, too. Folks really wanted to do that.

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AskDrBrown.org is the place to go. All right, so back to Greg in Cary, North Carolina. So the millennial kingdom, as I understand it, will be the time when a remnant of people on the earth enter into a time when Jesus is ruling and reigning on the earth. It's like paradise on earth. It's described, for example, in Isaiah 2, 1 through 4 or in much of the 11th chapter of Isaiah with the wolf lying down with the lamb and no war and swords being beaten into plowshares and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the Lord has covered the sea, something we've never ever experienced or seen. It'll be unimaginably wonderful and blessed and good. And we, who are believers already resurrected, will be working together with the Lord, ruling, reigning over the earth with him, as I understand scripture.

Some say there's the sheep and the goats division first, so it's the sheep nations that enter in. Whatever it is, the rebels will not enter in. Those that were at war against God actively trying to attack Jerusalem, they will not enter in. So your question, which is unique one, Greg, which I've never heard asked, is, hey, I just want to go straight into the eternal age where we're just with believers forever and ever in a perfect resurrecting state, there is no sin.

I don't want to be around people who can potentially sin. First, it's going to be an environment on earth the likes of which we've never seen. Second, it seems that this is further preparation for us for eternity. And third, it's a time when multitudes of people will be able to come into the knowledge of God in a way that they haven't before.

And Peter says in Acts 3 that, he calls on his audience of Jewish listeners there, Acts 3 19, repent and turn to God that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that he may send the Messiah that heaven must hold on to until the time of the restoration of all things come spoken by the prophets. So this is going to be a glorious, wonderful time that we get to participate in. And if there is sin and rebellion, it'll be dealt with instantly. It'll be judged. It'll be dealt with.

So it's not like we're going to be around grieved all the time because we're around pornographers and we're around perverts and we're around murderers and we're around rapists. No, that's not going to be the environment. Those people will not make it into the first place. Those that go that way of rebellion will be swiftly dealt with. It'll be a great time to declare the knowledge of God to the ends of the earth. Hey, thank you for the question.

I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to Estella in Greenville, South Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Are you there? All right, let's give her a shot. In a moment, we go over to Sean in League City, Texas.

Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, how are you doing today? Doing well, thanks.

Good, good. I just wanted to ask, can you explain maybe the nuance or the difference between sin, iniquity, and transgression? Yeah, there is overlap in the terms, obviously. Transgression is, as the word says, transgressing something means this is an active breaking of the law. Paul writes in Romans 4 that you can't have transgression where there is no law, right?

Then he expounds on that in the fifth chapter. So transgression is an actual breaking of the law. It speaks most overtly of rebellion.

That would be the strongest in terms of an act. Sin is a very broad term. Yes, it is true that originally in Hebrew and Greek the terms refer to missing the mark, but sin is in any way falling short of God's glory. Sin is anything that we do that falls short. Iniquity has in it the sense of wrongness, of even perverseness. So iniquity almost describes the wrong nature of what we're doing. Sin speaks of falling short of God's standard and mark, and transgression speaks of openly breaking his laws.

So they overlap, but I would say those are the distinctions. Oh, okay. All right, well great, well thank you. My joy to help. All right, 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go over to Bob in Maryland. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. My question comes from Malachi, the second chapter. I was in a conversation with an Orthodox Jewish man. He was in government years ago, you might even know his name if I mentioned it, but I was remarking how it seems that the Jewish faith was much more free about divorce, and I was asking him how they deal with Malachi too, and he said, oh you misunderstand it, if you only knew Hebrew you would understand that it's talking about Abraham, who had a more excellent spirit. It's not talking about divorce.

I couldn't imagine how the translation could be that far off. Oh no, no. I'll just hang up your answer.

Okay, sure thing. No, that's completely untrue. It is true that Jewish teaching on divorce has been more liberal, especially with remarriage, than Christian.

That's true. It is true that there's debate as to exactly how to translate the Hebrew there, but the idea that it's just talking about Abraham, not talking about divorce, it was clearly talking about divorce. There is a rabbinic interpretation that really twists the text, okay? And this was the debate about, can you divorce for any and every reason? This is what Jesus is dealing with in the dispute among the Pharisees in Matthew 19, can you divorce for any and every reason, or only because of sexual immorality? So the more strict school, the school of Shammai said only sexual immorality, the more liberal school Hillel said for any reason. So the verse used in support of for any reason is, God hates divorce, which they end up translating, if you hate her, divorce her.

If you hate her, divorce her. That's certainly not what it says. You'll find that in the Stone translation, which reflects Orthodox Jewish thinking.

But I'm going to read to you from the new Jewish Publication Society version. All right, and first I'll read from the NIV, Malachi 2, beginning verse 10, Do we not have all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why they profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?

And it goes on about marrying foreign women, etc. You fled the altar, the Lord's altar with tears, and go on from there. And then verse 15, Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit.

What is the one God? Seek God the offspring, so be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. Verse 16, from the NIV, The man who hates and divorces his wife, says the Lord God of Israel, does violence to the one he should protect, says the Lord Almighty.

So that's the NIV. The ESV for the man who does not love his wife but divorces her covers his garment with violence. The New King James for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. So clearly all of these different verses are condemning divorce as wrong here, and as someone especially divorcing his wife for no cause. The New Jewish Publication Society translates it, I'll back up, did not the one make us all set all remaining life breath is his?

And what does that one seek but godly folk? This is a Jewish translation. So be careful of your life breath, and let no one break faith with the wife of his youth, for I detest divorce, said the Lord the God of Israel, and covering oneself with lawlessness as with a garment. So the question is, does it say the man who hates his wife divorces her, and that's equivalent to doing violence, so that's wrong? Or does it say that God hates divorce, as well as the ones who do violence?

That's how I've always understood it. God says he hates divorce there. But it's absolutely about divorce. And knowing Hebrew, you know it's about divorce, it's the precise translation that's debated. To translate it, if you hate or divorce her, that's wrong. That's a rabbinic interpretation that is definitely wrong. That's why I read from a Jewish translation to say, hey, top Jewish translation out there recognizes that this is about divorce, and that God opposes it, especially when there's no scriptural justification for it.

So in this case, you were right, and the Orthodox Jewish person you were talking to, who knew Hebrew was wrong, got this wrong. Okay, we'll be right back. Take your calls on the other side of the break.

866-348-7884. I'm just looking at a wide range of questions here. Okay, eager to get to them on the other side of the break. One more reminder, when you sign up for our emails at askdrewbrown.org, askdrewbrown.org, when you sign up for our emails, we put you on our welcome tour, so you get to hear more about my testimony from LSD to PhD. You hear about the three R's of our ministry, revival in the church, gospel-based moral and cultural revolution in society, and redemption of Israel, the salvation of the Jewish people, and all the resources that we have that can equip you. You're on the front lines. You're fighting your battles.

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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. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. Thanks for all those praying for my voice yesterday.

I appreciate it. 866-348-7884. Any question of any kind that relates to any subject we ever touch on here on the line of fire. Anything ever written about, said, something you've heard that you want to clarify, by all means give us a call. And we go back to the phones.

Let's see, we'll go to Bob in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hey, Michael.

I won't try to keep this together, but I kind of want you to put your psychological hat on right now. I lost my son, Mundy. He was no child, but he'd been on drugs for over 30 years, and I don't know how many times he'd OD'd in the last three years, probably 18 times, and there'd always been someone to give him the, what do you call it, Narcan.

I was a little bit late when I got home, Mundy. And Michael, I've been talking to people that knew him in rehabs and stuff, and they said, you know, Mr. Ray, we probably knew your son better than you did, because we knew him when he was straight. And he did believe in Christ. And, you know, the reason I'm calling you, I'm not trying to get you to give me an attable way, I'm just saying, some of these people have told me, said, look, when you're deeply involved in drugs like he has been for so long, it's almost like a psychological disease. But Michael, this boy of mine, he'd get the blue ribbon every time he'd come through a 28-day drug rehab.

Everybody loved him. I tried to tell, he just asked me a week ago, did I have a pack of cigarettes? And I said, well, you know what, I'll make a deal with you. You read the book of Romans, and I'll get you a pack of cigarettes. Well, he never got around to doing it. But he told my sister, he said, I can't read the Bible. He said, Jesus doesn't like me, because I'm a drug addict.

And I just, I'd like you to maybe tell me that drug addicts are not in their right mind, just like someone like myself, that thought about suicide. But Michael, I've been a Christian since 79. I'm 75 years old. How old was your son? How old was your son, Bob? He was 45. He struggled with drugs for 30 years? Yeah, he died, his birthday was September 27th. He was 45, just a week ago.

That's my sister's birthday. He's been on drugs since he was like 13 years old. Yeah, first, Bob, what can I say? I'm so terribly sorry for your loss. And honestly, I can't put myself in your shoes.

I've not lost a child, so I can't imagine this, or the agony you've lived with, with your child's addiction for so many years. I'm sure you prayed, cried your eyes out, praying for him. And of course, only God can say what his eternal fate is. Only God knows that. I can't say that.

And what's the use of cheap words? God is God. We don't know what happened in his life or in his final moments, but for sure, there are people who are bound, and they can't find a way to get free. They keep trying, and they keep falling. I don't know why it happens to some people in these ways. I don't know why one person is able to get free and another not. You know, I did drugs heavily for two years, and God instantly set me free, and that was it.

I know others that went back and forth, back and forth, or others that had been through Teen Challenge multiple times through the program before they got hold, and others that fell again. God can help any of us, right? No matter who you are listening, no matter what your situation, God can help you.

God can deliver you. But yes, it is true that some people, look, I know of people who are believers and struggle, and they fall back. I don't believe that God condemns someone to hell for a wrong act. In other words, let's say someone was a believer. They've been following Jesus, and they struggle with alcohol, and the relationship, the person they're going with breaks up with them, and they lose their job the same day.

Then they find out that one of the parents is dying of cancer, and they just get depressed and go out and have a drink and get in a car accident. That's not going to damn them to hell, because in a moment of weakness, they sinned. And there are people, you know, when someone says, well, a person committed suicide, they can't repent of that, does that damn them to hell?

I don't know. In other words, it could be someone struggling with PTSD, right? And deep depression, and they keep thinking that someone's coming for them, or their bomb's going off at night, and they can't take the torment or the pain, and they they seek to end it, does that mean that they damn their soul to hell? No, many times the person's right mind is not there.

They're not acting with their full faculties. So, you know, the loss is the loss. Again, I can't imagine what you're living with and the massive hole that you're feeling right now, because he's gone, and you can't press a button and rewind, and you think of all the things you could have done differently. So it's not on you.

You got to take the pressure off you. It's not on you, because, you know, God says to the children of Israel, he raised them one way, they did another thing. So it's not, oh, if you could have done this better, you could have done that better. But what you have to just trust is that the God that you love, who's incredibly merciful and long-suffering, along with perfectly just, that he'll do the right thing. That when it comes to your son, that you'll be able to look the Lord in the eye and know that he's done the right thing. And, you know, can you maintain hope that you'll see your son in the world to come out?

I would maintain hope to the last moment, you know. But you can't also be tormented by the thought, because you don't know what's happened to him. Well, he's lost forever.

You don't know that. Only God knows the state of his heart. God knows if he cried out and what's going on in his life. But everybody listening and watching right now, I know there are others in the midst of tragedy, but this is the one we're hearing on the air. Would you join me right now, Bob, as we pray for you? Father, we come to you as children, very, very weak and frail, little human beings, to you, great God. And we pray for Bob, your son, Lord, who's hurting. He's hurting badly now.

There's a massive hole that can't be filled. So I pray in the midst of his grief, in the midst of very real pain because of his love for son, that you would draw near to him, that you would be his comfort, that you would carry him, and that he'd recognize your presence in his life in a stronger way than he has in years. And this terrible situation and another fentanyl death, what a plague, you know how it is in America, Lord. I ask you, God, to turn this around, to bring good out of it, even salvation and redemption out of it for others, in Jesus' name.

And friends, especially those of you that can relate to Bob's grief, really take it on to pray him through these days. Thank you. Thank you for the call. It means a lot that you called in. I wrote an article, should, website. I say should be because we have thousands of articles and videos that we've been transferring to our brand new completely revamped website about fentanyl. And I wrote it to honor a colleague whose grandson died of fentanyl, not knowing he was taking that, not knowing he was going to overdose.

It's a real plague. May the Lord bring good out of this. 866-7884. I left something out. 866-348-7884.

Let's go to Marco in West Palm Beach, Florida. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. How are you? I'm doing well, thank you. That's great, that's great. Dr. Brown, my question is, if Jesus is a mission, what would he say in Matthew 436, but of the day and hour, no man, no the angels of heaven, but my Father only. That's something that I've been thinking about.

Sure thing. Yeah, the most obvious answer is that he said it is a human being on the earth before his resurrection, and not everything was revealed to him. Even though he was omniscient, he laid down the privilege of that.

In other words, I don't believe that every minute of every day that Jesus had full knowledge of everything happening in the universe as he would have had he not been in the flesh. He willingly laid aside the prerogatives. That's why he, do you think he genuinely got tired or do you think that he faked sleeping?

What's your view? I believe that he got tired. Got tired, and you think he faked being hungry or that he was genuinely hungry? He was hungry.

Right, right. So, the same way, so he limited himself to being a human being. In the same way, I don't believe that he could speak every language on the planet. Now, he could have drawn on his divine ability to do it, but he didn't, because he willingly laid down that privilege.

So, in the same way, he didn't know everything. Remember he said in John 5, I can only do what I see my Father doing. So, the Lord would show him things. The Lord would reveal things to him. That's, you know, his Father would reveal things.

The Spirit would. That's how he knew them. So, speaking as a human being, he had limitations, and that's why he couldn't say the day or the hour that he was returning. Do I believe the moment he was resurrected that he then operated in the fullness of his deity?

Yes. So, that would now be fully known to him. But this was said as a man. The incarnation was real. The eternal Son took on human form and human weakness, not human sin, but human weakness, and willingly laid aside his divine prerogative. So, he needed to eat and sleep like anyone else. He needed to learn to walk. He needed to learn to read and to write, just like everyone else, because he laid aside his omniscience, his omnipresence, and these other things as the Son of God on the earth.

All right? So, that would mean, culture, that, but he will be 100% God and 100% human, too, all right, even if he had limitations. Right. In other words, he did not draw on the fullness of his deity.

It's a great follow-up question. So, let me read to you from Philippians, the second chapter, okay, the way Paul writes it there. This is the key passage you want to study, Philippians 2, beginning in verse 5. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He wasn't going to hold on to it, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So, that's the, that's what happened. He emptied himself, meaning he took on human form, and willingly laid down his divine prerogatives.

He could have drawn on them, but he did not to act as a man. I'll give you an example of what this look like on the other side of the break. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire 866-34-TRUTH.

So, I'm going back to the phones momentarily, but just to say this. Let's say that you are a mixed martial artist, so you can wrestle, you know jiu-jitsu, and you can box, and you can kickbox. Now you're going into the ring, sorry for a combat analogy when we're talking about spiritual things, but now you're going to be in a kickboxing event. So, you can't wrestle, you can't use jiu-jitsu, you can't use certain types of strikes you could use in mixed martial arts, but you can use other things. Or you're a kickboxer, and now you're going to box, right? So, okay, you've got skills of a kickboxer, but you can't kick now. So, there are ways where we can limit ourselves, you know, the massive football player, you know, built like a rock and strong when he's playing with his little daughter, just always gentle, and so there is a restraining of the normal power and might to be gentle.

So, it's there, it's just not drawn on. Again, these are not precise analogies, but the Lord willingly laid down his divine prerogatives when he was on the earth. That's why he talked about driving out demons by the Spirit of God, that he healed and drove out demons by the Spirit. Acts 10 38, Peter talks about how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. So, he was anointed. What does he say in Luke 4, quoting from Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me. Why was he anointed?

Because he laid aside divine prerogatives and now, by the power of the Spirit, did what he did. All right, let's go to Orlando and High Point, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. How you doing, Michael? Doing well, thank you. Lord bless you.

I feel bad for that gentleman they called me, they really hurt me. Yeah. Yeah, I was praying with you.

Thank you. Look, my question, my question deals with the millennial. You talked to somebody a while ago because I left the church that I used to go because they started teaching about, you know, they were living in the millennial and I just couldn't find it in the Bible. Yeah. I mean, they tried to tell me stuff about where it's at and the devil was bound, but I just don't see it.

Could you explain a little bit? Yeah, so I had a friendly debate with Dr. Sam Storms, dear brother, good friend, great theologian and scholar, Pentecostal or Charismatic as well. So I was part of a debate with him and some other professors about the end times and about the millennial kingdom. So I did push him hard on that, you know, Revelation 20, that Satan is bound and that refers to now. So there's no way under the sun that I could see reading Revelation 20 that the binding of Satan, that he is currently bound so he can't go out and deceive the nations. Say, well, it just means go out and deceive the nations to engage in an end time war. How can Satan be bound in a bottomless pit?

Let's just say that it's a spiritual image, right? How can Satan be bound in a bottomless pit right now so he can't deceive the nations? Whereas Peter says, be sober, be vigilant, 1 Peter 5, 7, 8. Be sober and vigilant because your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith. Or Jacob, James the fourth chapter, resist the devil and he'll flee. And all the warnings to the New Testament about Satan's deceiving ways and how we have to resist and be strong. Or Ephesians 6, right, that our battle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities, powers. They're under the domain of Satan. So if he's bound, they're bound. So it completely breaks down. So the argument is it's a spiritual kingdom and the reign of Jesus is spiritual and to bring Israel back into it is kind of to be in the natural or almost carnal or something.

No, absolutely not. I quoted Acts the third chapter earlier in verse 19 that Peter says that Jesus will remain in heaven until the time of the restoration of all things. The Greek word used there is often used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, talking about the restoring of the Jewish people back to the land. He must stay in heaven until that time and then what will happen is all that the prophets have spoken, everything they've spoken will happen.

Well, what did they speak about? They talked about all the nations streaming up to Jerusalem in Isaiah the second chapter to learn from the God of Israel. They talked about Isaiah 11, which I referenced, where the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord and there'll be no more war and no one hurting each other and the wolf flying down with the lamb and the little child leading them. That's when these things are going to happen, these glorious, wonderful promises and the prophets that haven't happened yet, they will happen and at the end of it, right, right, that's when Satan's bound during the millennial kingdom. That's one reason it's going to be so glorious. At the end, he's loosed and there's a final rebellion.

Why is there final rebellion? I look at it as God's way of saying, human beings say, well, I would have believed in God but there was too much suffering on the earth or I would have believed in God but, you know, because of this, because of that. Well, that won't be the case during the millennium. God will be right there, God will be accessible, Jesus will be ruling and reigning out of Jerusalem and there'll be perfect justice on the earth where there's injustice and sin it will be dealt with, right? So, at the end of it, when Satan comes to deceive, people are still going to show their sinful nature by rebelling against God even though they've lived in this glorious world. It'll be a final proof that God's ways are good and that the reason for the problem is not because of God but because of us. Yeah, so to teach that we're in the millennial kingdom, it also denies the promises to Israel. It says the restoration of the Jewish people back to the land means nothing. Why, pray tell, is Jesus coming back to Jerusalem? Why Jerusalem?

Why not somewhere else? You know, so... Yeah, they keep teaching that we are Israel and I don't see it. No, no, that's very... That's some kind of replacement. Yeah, it's a serious error. This was not held to for centuries in the early church. You've got to go at least three, four hundred years into church history before anyone started teaching that the millennium was spiritual only. It was widely believed that there would be a thousand year reign of Jesus. Revelation 20 mentions a thousand year, I think, six different times there. And yeah, there has to be a literal fulfillment of the literal promises to the prophets.

Jesus in Matthew 19 28 tells his disciples that in the time of the renewal of all things that they will rule and reign over the twelve tribes of Israel. So, yeah, that's something with all respect to those who teach it, I could not sit under. I would have to, especially the teaching that the church is now Israel, that's led to wrong treatment of the Jews through history, because the church is the new Israel, God's done with the old Israel, so... Do you have... Yeah, do you have my... That anti-Semitism.

Yeah, it can often lead to that. Do you have my book, Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, where I talk about anti-Semitism in church? Yes, I do.

I do have it. Yeah, so if you look at that again, you'll see some of the common roots there, and the end of the book dealing with God's promises to Israel, they will be fulfilled. So... Oh, I know what they will.

Yeah, absolutely, and that means the Millennial Kingdom. Hey, Orlando, grace to you, may you find... Thank you very much, Michael. May you find a new church home, you bet, you bet.

All right, 866, three-fourth truth. Let's try Estella again in Greenville, South Carolina. Hopefully we got you this time on the line. Yes, Dr. Brown, I just wanted to tell you as one who's lost a child, I've got Bob on my prayer list, just devastating.

Thank you. But I just wanted to tell you, a lady called in the other day, she couldn't understand how Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God are one, and one day I was praying, and I asked, Jesus will answer you if you ask him, and he told me to look at the sun, look directly at the sun, and I did, and he said, I'm the sun, the mass, the Holy Spirit is the fire and the heat, and Jesus is the light. And it was like, wow, I understand. Yeah, looking at it from another... And look, sometimes a little simple illustration is enough to click in in our mind. When I've thought of the sun, I've thought of the...

So the core of the sun, we can't even see, right? So I've seen that, just another way of looking at that, I've seen that as the Father. John 1-18, no one has seen God at any time, meaning the Father. 1 Timothy 6, that he dwells in unapproachable light which no one can see. So that's the Father, the source, the core but hidden in his glory. And then what do you see shining forth?

Similar to what you're saying. What do you see shining forth? That's the sun. The sun makes the Father known. If you've seen me, if you've seen the Father, try about the S-O-N, sun. And then we're touched by the rays of the sun, the heat of the sun, but that's invisible, that's the Holy Spirit, right? So the Holy Spirit working invisibly among us. Now, we're dealing with an inanimate star, right? The sun as opposed to a living being, God.

But yeah, these things are helpful. And just another reminder to us that there can be complex unity. There's only one Son and yet distinct different aspects to it.

In this case, distinct Father, Son, Spirit, but explicitly one God. Hey, I'm glad that that opened up for you and that that insight from the Lord helped you. If you are interested in answering Jewish people about this and responding to Jewish objections to God's triunity, which many Jews will hear as three gods, or that worshiping Jesus as God is idolatrous, head over to our Jewish branch of our website. It's either go to AskDrBrown.org and then click on the Jewish part, or just go to RealMessiah.com.

Go straight there. You can watch debates I've had with rabbis. You can watch videos where we demolish the false teaching of kind of missionary rabbi Tovia Singer. And you can just look up, looking for answers. Okay, let's look at some of the objections. Let's look at the most common theological objections. And you'll see, okay, here's how we deal with this.

Some in written form, some in video form. God's triunity, deity of Jesus, things like that. So all there waiting for you. All right, look forward to seeing some of my friends in the DFW area at the Jewish services gateway tonight. God bless.