Dr. Brown Tackles Your Best Questions

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Let's do it. You've got questions.

We've got answers. Phone lines are wide open. 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. Welcome, welcome to the broadcast.

My joy to be with each of you. Phone lines are wide open. Now is a great time to call 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. You've got questions. We've got answers. And with that, I go straight to the phones.

Let's start with John in New Jersey. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hello. Hey, brother, how's it going? Doing very well, thanks. OK, thank you very much. Thank you for taking my call.

I'll be quick. I just want to find out about a question about Judas. I was wondering, why was it so easy for Satan to enter his heart? Is it because he didn't have the Holy Spirit? Well, it would seem that that his heart was bent on evil. In other words, when he's when he's called the son of perdition, which means the one doomed to destruction, you could say, well, God predestined him to do evil. And that's why he did what he did. Or you could say that God predestined a wicked man to do wicked things.

John tells us that when Judas was upset with Mary Miriam pouring perfume on the feet of Jesus and he said this could have been given to the poor, that John tells us that he wasn't concerned for the poor, but he was a thief and he took from the money bag when he wanted to. So there were sinful, weak aspects of his life. And the devil saw him as an ideal candidate to work through and use. So the the short thing is that Jesus chooses him. John six, he knew who he was. He knew that that he he was of the devil.

Right. But he chose him because he was going to be used for evil. So it just be like if you took some guy that was a con man and brought him into the church and gave him some job in church. Soon enough, he'd be conning people, you know, and make money off of it. So he was a bad guy and he was the right guy to do bad things. And because of that, it was easy for Satan to use him.

Still being around Jesus as much as he was, he ended up having regret for what he did, but it doesn't seem that he truly repented for what he did. I see. OK. All right. Thank you so much for taking my question. I really appreciate it. Yeah, you bet. Thank you for the call. It's six, six, three, four truth.

Truth. Let's go to Michael in the UK. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call. Actually, we spoke briefly yesterday and you said we ran out of time. So you said I could call back and ask and continue.

OK, fair enough. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So do you remember we got my my my initial question was about me. Six twenty five. Right.

Do you want me since twenty five and then related questions to that? Yes, sir. And and I knew I understood your answer.

That's my understanding. And I totally believe that. But what I find difficult to compute and frustrating is it doesn't seem like that's Paul's answer, because if I can give you some quotes from Paul, like in Galatians three twenty one, he says, if a law had been given that was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. And and in Romans eleven thirty two, for God has shut up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all those those. I mean, I'm I'm really not.

I'm totally I would really like to be. Well, those those look like they're contradicting Deuteronomy, because if God has shut up all in disobedience, if that means what it looks like, it means. How is it that Deuteronomy says it's possible for you to do this?

And then there's one more quote. And then I'd love to hear what you thought in Romans nine thirty one to thirty two. It says Israel pursuing a law of righteousness did not arrive at that law.

Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though they could buy works. And obviously, I know God can't do anything wrong.

He's perfect and he's not unfair. But that seems unfair because if you if you were at the receiving end of Moses giving you out these laws and you have to obey them and it says if you obey them, it will be righteousness. It would seem like you were being told to achieve righteousness through that. Right.

So so a few responses. Number one, I see Paul saying the identical thing to what I'm saying. The law is perfect, but giving a perfect law cannot bring life to fallen human beings. There must be something that comes out of faith and that faith ultimately, according to Paul, establishes the law. That where do we learn that Abraham was justified by faith? That's within the Torah itself. Right.

So that's what he says earlier. But I want to point out Romans three nineteen. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified. Incitement through the law comes knowledge of sin. So the goal was to get Israel recognizing we need mercy.

And that that was part of the whole Atonement system to come and say, we've fallen short, we need mercy, we need grace. I totally I totally get that. And I was totally happy with that. And I could totally accept that. And I was and then I watched some debates with you and and I was a bit. I mean, actually, I love you.

I think you're wonderful. So I don't take this the wrong way. But I was really annoyed because I heard some other people say, actually, the law of Moses and the Covenant, it doesn't cover intentional sin. So that's why they absolutely knew they needed a better sacrifice. And then in your debate, you said the Day of Atonement covered for intentional sins. So then it looks like you have a law which says if you try to obey the law of Moses and you are there perfectly, you can get righteousness.

But if you make a mistake, you have the Day of Atonement, which will then give you righteousness. Right. So so here's what. So, again, a couple responses to this.

Deuteronomy 30 is about accessibility. All right. It's it's accessible. It's here.

You have it in front of you. There are no excuses. All right.

Now, some rabbinic interpreters say just just talking about the commandment to repent from earlier in the chapter. All right. So.

Oh, right. So I mean, there is I believe it's Rambam says that. But the Michael, the point is it's right here. There's nothing stopping us from doing it.

It's right here. It's right in front of us. And yet it reveals to us our sin and our need for the mercy of God. Now, Paul, in Romans 13 excuse me, in Acts 13, does say that the law just that that the blood of Jesus can justify us from things that the law couldn't even justify. So it does go beyond that. But here's what you end up with. You end up with no temple. You end up with no atonement system. You end up with the people in exile.

So what do you make of that? There must be a better way. In other words, the end conclusion is to bring Israel to that point of realizing that all of our best efforts have fallen short and we affirm the righteousness of the law and the perfection of the law and our imperfection. But now we don't even have an atonement system. So either the Messiah has come and brought us that better way or we're damned. The one thing we can't do is what rabbinic Judaism does, which is comes up with other systems of atonement, where you have prayer instead.

But you have this instead that you can't do. Yeah, if I can just ask one more thing and then I won't take up any more of your time. I absolutely agree. The rabbinic system, it's hard to believe anyone takes it seriously. God bless them. But so you say, yeah, if you if you if you forget God and you worship Baal and you're going to go into exile, no question. But it looks like the Bible occasionally says actually some people who obeyed the law, like you mentioned yesterday in Luke one, six. It looks like it's possible that God will credit you with righteousness if, you know, like Zacharias and Elizabeth.

Right. So that's a righteousness under the law. It is not sinlessness. It is not it is not no need for atonement.

In other words, Zacharias and Elizabeth would still be repenting and still be asking God for mercy and forgiveness. All it means is that they kept the basic requirements. I know Jewish people do keep the basic requirements. That's not the issue. The issue is ultimately on a national level, we fall short on a personal level. We all need mercy on a national level.

And that's what the law was about. We fall short. We find ourselves under God's judgment. We confess to the rightness of the law and there's nothing stopping us from doing it. And yet we sin and fall short. What then do we do?

We do. And the whole thing is that Paul's point is that it has to start with faith. And in other words, the whole emphasis is that I am trusting God, not myself. I am putting my trust in God for his mercy and for his grace. To the extent I think I can attain mercy and grace by doing what's right. To the extent I think I can come into right relationship with God simply by keeping the commands of the law. That's what Israel did in Romans nine and fell short. And Gentiles who had no hope of keeping the law, it wasn't even given for them, who simply put their trust in God's mercy and fell on his grace, came upon the key thing. So that's the last point. The end goal is to bring us to that point of faith in the mercy of God and in our own helplessness and hopelessness so that now by his power and grace, we can lead new lives. And remember, even in Deuteronomy six, that keeping this whole Torah included the whole atonement system without that now, we're at the place where we have to throw ourselves on God for mercy through the Messiah. Hey Michael, thank you for the follow-up and I appreciate your careful thinking. I pray these things will further sink in. May the Lord bless you. Thank you so much.

By the way, there's a book by Seth Postel and Etan Bar reading Moses seeing Jesus that I think you'll find helpful in this regard as well. Let us go to Todd in North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you, Dr. Brown. In the Old Testament, I know that imprecatory prayers are invoked quite a lot and I've heard some people teach that they should be invoked in the New Testament times as well. I just wanted to get your input about that. Right, so it's a complex subject.

I'll answer as simply as I can. Imprecatory prayers would be prayers where you're calling down curses on people. So and so has done evil. May the Lord curse them. May the Lord judge them.

May the Lord destroy them. I do not believe that, generally speaking, we should be praying imprecatory prayers today. In other words, they served a certain purpose in the old covenant economy and are not to be prayed the same way in the new covenant economy where the emphasis is to pray for mercy, to pray for the repentance of our enemies through the cross. So generally speaking, I do not believe that these are things that we should pray, especially if it's a personal issue, if someone's hurt us, et cetera, that yes, we can pray for God to stop them from doing evil and hurting others and for God's intervention. But to pray curses down on someone, I would see as contrary to the call to bless those who curse us and to pray for those who despitefully use us. That being said, when we pray the Lord's prayer and say your kingdom come, we are praying for the Lord to return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know God. We are praying for God's ultimate judgment to come. So I believe in praying biblical New Testament prayers. Within them are prayers for God to act righteously and when necessary to bring about judgment.

But I do not believe that these are to be a regular pattern of our prayers, even for our enemies and for those who are doing evil. Hey, thank you, sir, as always, for your questions. 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 so much for joining us on The Line of Fire. Hey, we've got a couple of phone lines open, which often we don't have on a Friday. So now is a great time to call 866-348-7884.

866-34-TRUTH. I just want to comment a bit more on Todd's question about praying the imprecatory Psalms. Again, I don't believe it's the New Testament pattern. I believe that it was something that was more appropriate under the Sinai Covenant, even though the Sinai Covenant also called for fair treatment of others and even mercy towards enemies at certain points.

Certainly there's a change with the example of Jesus dying for the sins of the world. Let's say that you were in Nazi Germany, right? And you were praying against the murderous evil of the Nazis. But it'd be right to pray imprecatory prayers. I still wouldn't be praying those prayers, like curses on the children or grandchildren of Hitler or that kind of thing, like you'd have in some of the imprecatory songs like Psalm 109. I would instead say, God, intervene. Stop this evil.

Bring an end to it and leave it to God to figure out, so to say, how exactly it should be enacted. All right, before I go to the phones, friends, our commitment to see you healthy, thriving, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage, we do it with your help. This is a team effort, even answering questions, which I love to do.

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Been a great blessing. Just have a question in regards to how to understand Deuteronomy 6.1 and compare that to Exodus 24, 12. In regards to when it says commands, decrees, and laws of the Lord. For example, I know Deuteronomy 5 has the same commandments and also... So there's a background to what the commands are. I just want to understand where the difference is between commands, decrees, and laws. When we see commands, are we to understand just the Ten Commandments or where the difference is, if that makes sense? Right, yeah.

Thanks for the question. There's overlap in the different terms. And when it says commandment, actually within the Torah, the Ten Commandments are not normally called commandments. They're called the Ten Words. So when you see mitzvah, commandment, it's anything that God commanded or generically the whole thing that he commanded. For example, the New Jewish Publication Society for zotah mitzvah, and this is the commandment translates with this is the instruction.

In other words, this is the whole thing. So mitzvah, commandment, is anything that God commands in the Torah. That's a mitzvah. Then you have the chukim and the mishpatim. Chukim are statutes, mishpatim are judgments. Some say the chukim pertain to things that are just commandments that don't have a rational explanation, like the food laws and the mishpatim are more justice commands, things like that, you know, dealing with laws, with treating your neighbor and civil law and things like that.

But again, there's a lot of overlap between them. So it's almost saying, hey, all of the above are being included. So if you look in Exodus 24, 12, the Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mount and wait there and I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings and commandments which I have inscribed to instruct them. So you have the stone tablets and then you have teachings and commandments. So it's just, it's kind of everything in the law is being included. Teachings, commandments, statutes.

And there is, there's some overlap. As I said, commandment can be virtually anything. In Judaism, you talk about Tarayag meets Voth to 613 commandments. So every Torah law is there for a commandment. But not everything is a mishpat, which has to do with judgments or justice issues related to that.

Not everything is a chok or chukkah, which has to do with statutes. But again, there's overlap in the terms. It's not like, just be totally honest, that you can go through every command and say, well, this one is a commandment and this one is a statute and this one is a judgment.

You can't necessarily sort them out exactly. So it's kind of saying everything. When you have a list, it's saying all the above, all the different elements of the Torah. That's what I'm talking about and what I'd encourage you to do is if you have access to any software at all where you can look up the word. Okay, let's look up the word mishpat, which can be in judgment or a judgment related commandment.

Let's see how that's used throughout the Torah. Let me line up all of those or let's look at chok, chukkah, which is statute. Let's say everything that's called the statute and see if you can put them in categories.

You'll put some in categories, but then you'll see there's a lot of overlap, which is why it's even hard in English to make a distinction, clear distinction between all of them. So it's a partial answer only because it's not that precise in the language, if that's understandable, all right? All right, appreciate it.

Yep, you bet, you bet. By the way, you'll find popular teachings where it's going to break this is this, this is it, but a lot of it's inaccurate. A lot of it's just not accurate to be fair and honest. By the way, I had mentioned yesterday a debate that's being set up with the leader of the Saqqari, like Hebrew Israelite group, and it's a debate on Ashkenazi Jews versus the 12 tribe chart used by Hebrew Israelites, which is legit, okay? And I mentioned some of the groups yesterday, and I used the word Negroes only because it's on the chart. Now, I don't know, there are several different charts out there, so I'll find out exactly the one that the Saqqari leader supports so we can focus on that in the debate.

But here, and for those watching, we'll just put this graphic up for you. This is a Hebrew Israelite 12 tribes of Israel. By the way, there's zero historical basis for it, zero, zero.

And originally, it was allegedly given by revelation, which makes sense because, it's false revelation, obviously, but it makes sense because there's no support for it. So 12 tribes of Israel, Judah, who is Judah today? So-called Negroes, that's what it says on the chart, so American blacks. Benjamin, West Indians, Levi, Haitians, Simeon, Dominicans, Zebulun, Guatemala to Panama, Ephraim, Puerto Ricans, Manasseh, Cuba, it's completely bogus. Yes, of course, they're black Jews and they're Hispanic Jews, of course. They're African Jews, of course. They're Mexican Jews, yeah, yeah, we understand that. They're Jews scattered all around the world, just like they're Caucasian Jews, like me, all right? We understand that. But this whole chart is completely but easily demolished, easily demolished, historically, DNA, genetic, however you want to do it, easily demolished.

But, in any case, that's why I use the term because it's on the charts. All right, 866-34-TRUTH, let's go to Wesley in Gastonia, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Yes, sir, thank you for taking the call.

You bet. We were sitting at Christmas dinner and we were talking about scripture and someone said that we have, through the power of our speaking, as Christians, the power to rebuke Satan. But in Jude 1, 9, it says that Michael dared not to rebuke Satan about the body of Moses. So does a Christian have the power to rebuke the devil and the Christian's own spirit, or do we have to rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus Christ? Well, we have power through the name of Jesus to rebuke Satan.

We don't have power in ourselves. The authority and power comes from the name of Jesus. In a related passage, Luke 10, the disciples say, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name, right? But Jude 1, 9 says, when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said the Lord rebuked you. In other words, he didn't say, I'm the Michael archangel and you're just some idiot fallen being, so I rebuke you and I crush you with, no, he didn't do that.

There was a recognition of satanic power and authority, even though it was in rebellion against God, he was a powerful, created being. So Michael, not relying on his own authority, and again, just speak in a railing way about heavenly beings, that's the point of Jude 1 there, instead said the Lord rebuked you. It's fine for us to use that language too and to say the Lord rebuked you, but another way to do that is by the authority of Jesus, I rebuke you, speaking to the enemy or speaking to demonic power. So it's always by the authority of the Lord that we do what we do, not our own authority as believers. The authority we have is his, is heavenly authority, is God's authority, right? So Matthew 28, 18, Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. So everything we do, we do by his authority. And speaking as his representatives, we can rebuke Satan.

We certainly resist him in Jesus' name. Thank you for the call, sir. 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. Be sure to join us on Monday. We've got some exciting news about a partner that's gonna be working with us with some amazing health supplements that I'm using, super blessed by, and can't wait to share this with you and the opportunity that we have to spread this message across the nation. So be sure to join us next week to start the week together. All right, back to the phones, 866-348-7884. We go to William in Wilmington, Delaware. Thank you for calling The Line of Fire.

God bless you, Dr. Brown. My question is, you mentioned once or twice that Christ can't come back yet. I'd like to know the Bible verses, whatever, so I could just look them up, and why do you say that?

I just want to double check. Yeah, let me ask you one question. Do you believe that anything has to be in place before Jesus returns? In other words, that the Jewish people have to be back in the land of Israel, or Jerusalem has to be in Jewish hands, or the gospel has to go around the whole world? Just personally, not to debate, but in your own view, is there anything throughout history that had to be in place before Jesus returned?

In other words, he couldn't have come 100 years ago or 200 years ago, but he could come now. What's your view on that? My view on that is that the Bible says that the gospel must be spread throughout the world first. Got it.

Okay. So that's where I would start then. Matthew 24, 14, Jesus says, this gospel of the tangent must be preached, and the whole world is a witness to all peoples, and then the end will come. So that hasn't happened yet. There are well over 2 billion people on the planet who've never even heard the name of Jesus, don't even know who he was or that he existed.

So I do believe that the Great Commission has to continue. Now, things could happen exponentially. In other words, very suddenly, the gospel could spread in ways it's never spread before, and it's been picking up speed the last 50, 100 years beyond anything that we've seen. That, to me, would be the biggest thing. Now, I have a question mark if Jesus will return for the church in such a disunified state, or if his prayer in John 17 will be answered more that we come together as one on a different level than we are now, because we are massively, massively divided, and parts of the church damn other parts of the church.

That's a question mark to me. I don't know for sure how much will come into that place of unity, but Ephesians 4, so especially up through verse 11 through 16, seem to speak of the church coming to greater maturity, unity in the faith and greater maturity. So Matthew 24, 14, you mentioned that. I would then mention Ephesians 4, like I said, 11 to 16.

You could even start a little earlier, but let me just read this for everyone and ask the question, will Jesus come before we're anywhere near this point? So it says that he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. So it seems that we're going to come to a unity before he returns to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped.

When each part is working properly, makes the body gross that it builds itself up in love. So to me, sir, that seems to be a picture of the maturity we have to come into before he returns. I would say that before Israel was restored to the land and Jerusalem was back in Jewish hands, that would be another indication that he can't come yet because the Jewish Jerusalem will welcome him back. But to me, the biggest things I look at that there's so many people groups who still have not heard the gospel around the world and the state of the church is where it is, and I don't see how Jesus would return when the church is so divided and so weak and so confused on so many levels.

Those would be the biggest things to me. Beyond that, things could happen suddenly, changes could happen suddenly, and the return of the Lord could happen before we know it. But I just don't believe it could happen at any second.

All right? Okay, thank you. Yeah, let me just say I don't think there has to be a third temple built. It could be. It's possible. You could make a case for it. I'm just not sure. And I'm not looking for that or waiting for that.

So it's pretty broad things, broad strokes from my vantage point. All right, 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Barbara in New York. Welcome to the line of fire.

Barbara, are you there? Oh, okay. Maybe you had to run, but the question was, do you agree on the forced birth for a 10 year old? So let's just think about this scenario. Here's a 10 year old girl who's raped, but it's actually old enough to get pregnant that she's already gone into her monthly cycle, and she's actually able to get pregnant. She gets raped, and now she's pregnant.

I mean, it's the absolute horror scene, right? Whoever raped her, it's an absolute horror. If it's a family member, all the more horror.

And is there going to be genetic? Let's say it was a close family member. What about the genetics of the child and all that?

So for those who just say, most baby in the womb, no abortion, in a heartless way, you're certainly missing the point. This is an agonizing situation. This is a situation that will affect this girl for the rest of her life. This will traumatize her on every level. Barring divine intervention, it could destroy her life in many ways.

How do you get over something like that? How do you have a normal sexual loving relationship with your husband? And what about the child? Obviously, a 10-year-old can't be raising a child. What happens to the child who raises the child?

There are a host of questions. If it doesn't trouble you, if it doesn't pain you, then I say you don't have God's heart on this, and you're not loving your neighbors yourself, and you're being insensitive to a very, very difficult, painful issue. Here's the question. What if the girl was not able to get an abortion, and brought the baby full-term, or whatever part, and delivered a healthy child? Would you then kill the child? Of course not. Of course not.

So once you believe that it is a human being in the womb, that there is a life now that has been birthed, somehow by God's grace or will, in the midst of this human action, God has given life, once you accept that, as agonizing as the situation is, you have to say, okay, let's do everything we can with this 10-year-old to get her through this. And again, I know all the consequences. What about her friends? What about going to school? What about this?

What about that? How does it affect her body or function later in life, and is her own health going to be in danger? If the pregnancy actually threatens her health, right, that's a whole other situation. If she was going to die because of the pregnancy, that's a whole other situation. I don't know of any major pro-life candidate that ran, or law that was being put forward that said you don't save the life of the mother, all right?

I'm not aware of that. So I understand if you just have the abortion, then this goes away, that goes away, no one has to know about it, the friends don't have to know about it, it's just not going to have to know about it, just have to live with that change. I understand all that, but it simply comes down to if you believe it is a human being in the womb, that it already has its DNA, that in a matter of weeks it's going to have a beating heart, that it is a full potential life, and that this life, this child could be adopted in a loving family, and someone like James Robison, born as the result of rape, or Jerry Hill, Steve Hill's wife, the evangelist Steve Hill, his wife Jerry, born as a result of rape, these are world changers. These are godly people, these are people who've been used to touch millions of lives, and there's so many others who were conceived in rape that have blessed lives today. So that's the thing, and I've also heard from women who've been raped, and said that they thought abortion would get rid of the problem, it didn't, now again, 10 year old, it's on a whole different level, but I say on every level you stand with, support the child, get them through the trauma, and then have plans from day one for a family that will love that child, will receive this child as a gift from God, and that perhaps that can even bring healing out of the rape at some point to know that someone's living a productive life, something horrible was done to you, but you don't punish the baby within the womb, but if we don't take this with pain, with sensitivity, agonize over it, then we're missing something.

On the other hand, if we just say, yeah, abortion's the way to go, you're obviously missing the bigger point. All right, thank you for the question, sorry you weren't here to ask it personally. Let's go to Joseph in Killeen, Texas, welcome to the line of fire. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. You're very welcome. Yeah, your ministry has definitely been a blessing to me in the ways that it has been, but I wanted to ask about the baptism of the Holy Spirit for us as believers, how do we properly receive or pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in our lives? All right, so first you're presupposing that the Bible teaches that subsequent to salvation, there is an empowering of the Spirit, a baptism of the Spirit.

By the way, you'll hear me perfectly, you just won't be able to respond, we're getting a crackling from the connection, so I don't want that distracting anyone. So Joseph, I believe, as you do, that subsequent to salvation, there is a baptism, an immersion, an empowering in the Spirit. So that's a Pentecostal belief, many other Christians, the majority of Christians wouldn't hold to that, but it's my view, scripturally, and that's the question you're asking. So the moment you're saved, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within you, the moment you're saved, you are baptized by the Spirit into the body of Messiah, the body of Christ, your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, the moment you're born again, the Spirit appears witness with your own spirit that you're a child of God. But I see, based on a pattern in Acts, a subsequent empowering, a baptism of the Spirit. So how do you pray for it? You pray, God, give me everything you have, Luke 11 13, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask, Lord, give me everything you have for me to empower me to better be your witness, to empower me to better glorify Jesus, to empower me to speak with greater boldness. And you pray in faith, you may ask someone to lay hands on you that is gifted and anointed in this way, many times there is an immediate sign of this as the Holy Spirit comes on us, we speak and we speak in a new language so as you feel just to praise God and begin to speak out, you do, it can be in a new tongue, it can be with prophecy, or you get before the Lord and you pray until you felt you prayed through and you're convinced the power of God has touched you and you can see the changes in your life.

And many times this can be done with a group of people, you preach on it, you teach on it for a series of weeks, lay the biblical foundation, and I say we're going to pray for the Holy Spirit to do it and there are often dramatic results as you do. Hey, thank you, sir, for the question and for the kind words. We'll be right back. All right, time for a few more calls. By the way, if you're anywhere near Denver, Colorado, I think it'll be Englewood ministering there, God willing, tomorrow night and Sunday morning. If you've got our app, Ask Dr. Brown Ministries, ASK Dear Brown Ministries, just check itinerary there or on the website, check itinerary, or if you get our emails, then you will have been notified that I'm coming in your area if you live anywhere near there. All right, we go back to the phones, starting with Travis in Arkansas. Hello, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, can you hear me? Yeah, loud and clear.

Okay, sweet, I'm so glad I finally got on. All right. I got a question for you real quick.

Yeah. So I've heard, I'm a minister here in Percy, and I've heard a lot of our fellow pastors talk about how questioning them is almost equivalent to questioning God, and I've even seen them kind of react oddly whenever people in our congregation ask questions. Some serious, but just start questioning their direction, and I was wondering what you thought about that.

How would you address that if that is erroneous? What are your thoughts? Yeah, that's absolutely not the way I see pastoral authority, and that's absolutely not the way I see secure leadership, so I don't know these brothers individually. I make no judgment on them or their hearts, but we're here to serve. The authority we have is an authority of shepherds that God's given us for the good of the flock, right? And the fact that within a given city, you've got dozens of different churches with different denominations and backgrounds means we can't all be perfectly right at the same time.

Again, by the way, you can hear me fine, but we're just getting some background noise, so if you're talking back to me, I'm not going to hear that at the moment. So Travis, the fact that you've got, here's a Baptist church, here's a Presbyterian church, here's a Methodist church, here's a Lutheran church, here's a non-denominational church, here's a Pentecostal church, here's this and that, obviously, we can't all be right in this way that you cannot question us, right? So that's the first thing, you know, why do we believe this, or I was at this other church, they teach that, well, you can't question me. Well, if everyone's told you can't question, then we're all having our little self-righteous boxes and thinking, I alone am right, right?

Or even a direction, pastor, you're calling for a lot of fasting and prayer, boy, it seems like people are kind of getting burnt out, and could you just, maybe I'm missing something, don't you question that. No, that's not pastoral authority, touch not my anointed, Psalm 105, 15, it's not talking about that and should not be applied in this way, all right? So the authority that we have laid out in Hebrews the 13th chapter is for the good of the flock, to serve the flock, to help the flock, and I want to say this, that in decades of ministry, for a short time as a pastor replacing a friend that had fallen into sin, but that's not my main calling, but leading ministry schools, teaching at schools, traveling and speaking, when I'm not ministering, it's extraordinarily rare that anyone questions my authority. It's extraordinarily rare when I'm in a base and I'm with people all the time, all the time, that I have to say, I'm the head man here, even with the ministry team, even with the faculty colleagues or anything, that I'm the man, I don't think I've had to do that really at all. Whatever authority I have, however I've earned the respective people, that's there and it's just like a dad, if he's going to say, I'm the head man here, I'm the man, if you got to shout that and scream that, something's wrong there, right? So to me, if you serve well, if you conduct yourself in a godly way and if the hand of the Lord is upon you and you minister and speak with a sense of divine backing as opposed to, I got an idea, I got a thought, maybe this, maybe this, I don't mean we're wimpy as leaders, then people will follow and they'll give themselves to the work and they'll even give themselves sacrificially and there are a whole lot of people that have my back in a very devoted way because they know I've given my life for the gospel and for their well-being. So I welcome questions personally, I would welcome the interaction, not like buddy, buddy, right? Like everybody's just equal in that sense and no one is a leader but I would absolutely welcome the questions and ultimately, Travis, if someone says, you know, I just disagree with you, hey, God bless you, maybe this is not the place for you then, I'm not going to threaten them and you're touching the Lord's anointed and how dare you or anything like that. My take is very, very different and I'll say this last thing, in my view, again, I'm not judging these others and a lot of times pastors get hurt, they get betrayed, they get let down and it's often a lot harder than people realize so I bless those serving the flock but say this last thing, when we're really secure, like John 13, Jesus knew he had come from God, he was returning to God, then all power was given to him, then you serve, he washes the disciples' feet. When you really know that God's with you and he's backing you, you can serve with tremendous security and therefore you can welcome questions from people's sincere hearts and you can say, hey, here's why we do what we do, et cetera.

And if people just have a bad spirit, then you say, hey, look, I'd like to help you but obviously you've got a different agenda here so God bless, you'll probably be better somewhere else. So is that helpful, sir? Yeah, go ahead. Yes, sir, it is.

Thank you so much. Yeah, okay, great. Well, good, and listen, again, pray for those, if you perceive weakness or things like that, pray for them because it can happen to anybody. Sometimes you go through church splits, you get betrayed by someone close to you, you start to kind of watch your back all the time. But I made a decision years ago, if I get stabbed, it's going to be in the back. I want to use wisdom, I want to have my eyes open, I want to have people with me that have wisdom, but I'm not setting up a system like a business where I can just fire everybody and fire the whole board and, no, I get a system set up in such a way that I'm trusting people.

And if I'm going to get stabbed, it's going to be in the back because I don't have a million walls up where I distrust everybody. So bless you, Travis, may the Lord use you. All right, let's go to Sam in Raleigh, North Carolina. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, I love the show.

It's my first time calling. I've listened to you for a long time. Well, thank you. Yeah, you've been a huge blessing, man, especially how you're always praying for people who are attacking you and disagreeing. And yeah, I wanted to first comment on the last caller that I think God wants us to bring our questions to him. And if a leader says, not to question him, I totally agree with you, a lot of the questions I've had about God I've just brought to him, and some of them he's answered and some I'm stuck on, which leads me to my question, and it's from Matthew 5, 17-19, about Jesus fulfilling the law. And I've just been hung up on that for a long time. He's talking about, he fulfilled the law, but it will be to the end, and I understand that. Non-Jewish, I don't know how that applies to people who are Jewish and Gentiles, I think there still is a difference of the people, although there is one body in Christ. So I'm just going to jump in to answer, just for time's sake, to make sure I can do it adequately, sir.

But thank you for the kind words. So in Matthew 5, it's no problem when Jesus says, don't think I came to abolish the law of the prophets. It's not just law, but law of the prophets, meaning the whole of the Old Testament, didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill, okay. So that we could say, okay, we understand the sacrifices and offerings, priests of the ministry find their fulfillment in the cross, he takes the moral standards of the Torah to a higher level, et cetera.

So you could say, okay, I get that. But then he says that not one, even the tiniest part of the law is going to go away until everything is fulfilled. And then whoever, therefore, keeps the least of these commandments, is going to be greatest in the kingdom, and whoever teaches others is going to be the least in the kingdom.

That's where people get more hung up. But as I understand it, what you have to do is keep reading now. He is now going to show you how this is done. In other words, when he's talking about these commandments, he's talking about his application of the commandments.

He's saying, this is now how I fulfill Torah. He's not saying, well, the Torah says when you build a house, you build a parapet around the roof so that somebody doesn't fall off the roof. Well, we don't have roofs like that. We don't have flat roofs in our society.

We have slanted roofs, you know, in case of snowfall and things like that, whereas in the Middle East, you have these flat roofs. So I'm going to build a parapet around, if I don't build a parapet around my house, no, it doesn't apply. Or you know, our teenager, he's still in rebellion, he's a glutton, he's a drunkard, I guess we stone him to death. No, no, we're, he's not saying that. What he's saying is, first, that everything finds fulfillment in him, some of it immediate at that point, some of it in an ongoing way. But nothing in the Torah is going to fall short until it's fulfilled. So again, much of it is fulfilled in his own life, in his death, in his resurrection, and then in him taking the standards to a higher level, the calendar finds fulfillment in him. But think of it, the spring feasts, right, so Passover, unleavened bread, firstfruits, Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, they've already found their fulfillment in his death, resurrection, and outpouring of the Spirit.

The fall feasts, right, have not. So trumpets and atonement and tabernacles, they will find the fulfillment when he returns and sets up his kingdom on the earth. So in that sense, some of the law has been fulfilled, some is still awaiting fulfillment.

But now he's going to say, this is how you live it out. You take the spirit of it, and you live it out with these standards. Obviously, the New Testament says that we are under a new and better covenant. Because of Israel's failure under the Sinai covenant, God gave a new and better covenant. When Jesus says the least of these commands, I believe he's now talking about his application of the Torah in the Sermon on the Mount.

And that is uniform, that's for everyone. As to whether a Jewish believer continues to observe, let's say you're raised with Saturday Sabbath and this is part of your lifestyle and part of a historic covenant with God, great fun. Now Gentile is free to do it, but something that's commanded to, nor are you going to be judged, you're least in the kingdom because you don't go by the dietary laws.

I don't believe it's saying that at all. Hey friends, blessings to you. Have an awesome weekend. Keep lifting up Jesus and look forward to being with you to start the week on Monday. Let's get healthy. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.