Dr. Brown Answers All Your Questions

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Welcome. Welcome to today's broadcast. It's Friday. That means you've got questions. We've got answers. 866-342-866-348-7884. Many times when we start the show on Friday, before I even come on the air, the phone lines are completely jammed and they stay that way the entire hour that we're on the air.

Today we've got open phone lines right at the beginning, so this is a great time to call 866-348-7884. Glad to answer your questions. Any subject of any kind that in any way relates to the subject matter we cover on the line of fire. In other words, it's got to be stuff we can help you with. There's no reason you're asking my question about a subject of which I have absolutely no knowledge, a subject that you have to define for me and explain, and why ask me? Ask somebody in the know. But there are areas that we do have some expertise and some learning and background wisdom, so very happy to help you with those.

866-348-7884. I wrote something up last night. I just wrote on a writing tablet that I have, a really cool thing called Remarkable.

It's the second edition now. You can't do email on it. You can't surf the net with it. It disconnects you from all that stuff. If I'm reading an article online and maybe it's a 10-page article or something, I'll just click on an icon on my toolbar and it'll send it to the Remarkable, to this writing pad, and then it's just there. It's formatted nicely.

There's no ads, no interruptions, so it takes you away from Internet things. If I'm going to be praying and I want to disconnect, but I may have some ideas I want to write down or things I feel the Lord might be speaking to me, I'll jot them down on that. So I wrote last night, giant letters, Jesus is Lord.

Giant letters, right? And then right on the bottom, elections, Trump, Democrats, America, kingdoms of this world. In other words, that's my perspective. That's what gives me hope, strength, confidence. That's why I live a certain way and function a certain way and carry a certain holy optimism as crazy as things may be around us because that's my focus. That's my mentality. You gaze on the Lord, you worship at his throne, and then you come with a different view towards the very, very real problems in this world, which we don't neglect. We don't stick our heads in the sand. We don't just get so heavenly minded. We forget about this earth.

No, but with a true heavenly orientation, we now come to this earth in a way that can really help people. So I posted my little diagram. Any child could just write out what I did and said, this is what helps me keep the focus that I have. And one woman responded and said, yes, and I really appreciate your voice daily as we face these times. I, like all of us, listen to the news, both sides. I grow weary of their voices, but yours is different.

I know why. It is just like you said in your post, Jesus is Lord. You deliver your thoughts through that lens. You are not only helpful, informative, and biblical, but you are calm. I appreciate that. Well, I very much, very much appreciate that.

I very much appreciate that what we are seeking to do is getting done. I am not, please hear me, I'm not better than someone else on the air. It's just I have a specific calling. Just like your church may not be the best church in your community, but it's the one that you relate to the best, that you feel called to the most, and that you appreciate the burden and vision of the pastor. So that's why you're there, right?

The restaurant you like the best may not be the best in the community, but it's your favorite because of your particular interest. So I have a role and by God's grace, we want to run our race, we want to run Swiss to win, and I want to fulfill that goal and serve you the best I can. So I do appreciate that note. All right, with that, we are going to go straight to the phones, and we'll start in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Joseph, welcome to the line of fire.

How are you doing, Dr. Brown? Very well, thank you. You know, I had a question in Genesis 6 where it talks about the giants, you know, about being on the earth in those days, and the angels had sex with women on earth and produced giants and Nephilim. They were there then and afterwards. How did they make it through the flood? Right, so that would be the question, how did they make it through the flood?

Correct. So there are a couple of ways of looking at it, because it does indicate they were there afterwards, and you do have, you know, the Anakim and the descendants of the Rephaim, which are these races of giants, that seem to have been wiped out in the past or wiped out when Joshua conquered the land. But it would seem that one option is that the sins were committed after the flood as well, because otherwise they couldn't have survived the flood, right? Of the earthly creation, obviously fish survived the flood because they were in the water, but otherwise wildlife died, and all humans died. So it would seem that the same sins were then committed after the flood. We know it's one of the reasons that God wiped out the human race, one of the reasons. You know, wickedness was everywhere, but this perversion and corruption with angels mating with humans, as we understand the text, was one of the reasons for the destruction, but it would seem that it happened afterwards as well, and then it was finally dealt with after the flood. Now there's some that claim it's ongoing and they're niphilim in the world today, and all that, you know, I don't go for any of those theories, but it's a great question, and that would be the only logical answer, sir. Not that they somehow survived or that some of Noah's sons, you know, were niphilim, no, not at all.

It would have to be the same act committed again, presumably. Make sense? Yeah, but if they were mixed breed, half-breed, could they, like you said, the fish in the sea made it? Could they have possessed some kind of gun into the fish like they went into the pigs, like, you know, the demons, the dim demonic part of them? That's how they got through? I just always wondered stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a very unusual passage and a very unusual theory to start, so it's not like you're going completely off the deep end by speculating in that way, but you would be saying then that the spirits of these beings, so the physical beings were destroyed, the spirits went into animals and then from the animals went back into humans, but then that wouldn't explain why the humans were giant. It would just say that they were inhabited by these spirits, so that's where if I was trying to think it through in that way, it would seem to break down.

Yeah, go ahead. I just wondered, you know, I just kind of wondered, you know, and they said that the last giant was Aga Bashan, you know, I heard about that, you know, that he was the last one. But I just always wondered, how did they make it through the flood? Yeah.

So if I'm just looking, say Genesis 6-4, it was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on the earth when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of Baal. Oh, there you go, there you go. Later they came back. Right, right. I didn't catch that, I got it now. Yeah, got it, yes, that's the point I was making, that that would be the logical explanation.

Now, Aga Bashan was the last there, there are others that get killed later, but that would be one of the arguments as to why the driving out of the Canaanites was so ruthless, because there were many giants, Anakim, Rephaim, among them who were a mixed breed. I know it sounds fantastic and wild and bizarre, but that could well be what the text is saying. Hey, thank you for the question, I appreciate it. I remember as a new believer, a guy mocking me in school saying, yeah, the Bible talks about these giants, these aren't giants in the Bible. It's like, oh, got it, didn't know. All right, let us go to Lucas in De Leon Springs, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, thanks for taking my call. You're welcome. All right, so my question, it's about James 5, verses 14-15, where he talks about anointing the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord, and to pray for them, and the prayer of faith will raise him up.

Yep. My question is whether, well, what you think about the reason that he gives that exhortation there is, as I note in your book where you mentioned that it's the prayer of faith which he says will raise the sick person up, but is there some grace from using the oil, and then is it like how they would anoint kings with a horn of oil over their head, or is it like in some churches where they'll just dab it on the forehead? So I just wanted to know what you thought about the reason that he gives that exhortation there. Right, it's clear that the oil is not being used medicinally. You know, some have tried to argue that because oil was used medicinally in the ancient world. You have, you know, the Good Samaritan pouring oil and wine into the wounded man's wounds, but clearly that's not what brings the healing, and as I've joked in the past, I'd love to get my hands on that oil because it seemed to work for every disease. There's something sacramental to it. In other words, just as baptism is a sacrament, and it's a physical thing that you do but with spiritual meaning, so you go down under the water and it symbolizes dying to sin and coming up a new life in Jesus. The same with the oil. It's a sacrament representing the Holy Spirit, and we know that there are times when Jesus just lays hands on people and heals them, or just speaks a word and heals. We know in Mark 6 he sends his disciples out, and they anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

It does tell us that, and they drove out demons. So it's something that is used, doesn't always have to be used. The particular method is not the big issue. In other words, pouring it on someone or dabbing it.

It's really what our custom is. But it is something meant to symbolize the Holy Spirit, and something meant to build faith, that as human beings it gives us a point of contact. You know, you might see a preacher on TV and he says, all right, reach out and touch that television as a point of contact. Well, touching the TV doesn't do anything in itself. There's no magic in the TV. But it's giving that person a contact point to say, okay, this is something I can hold onto and believe that God's power is coming through this TV.

So I'm using a contemporary example. So it is sacramental. It represents the Holy Spirit, represents God's presence in that regard, and is something that will then build faith and also solemnize the moment. You know, when someone lays hands on you before they pray for you, there's something about it that sets it apart more. And in the context here, we're not understanding that anybody that's sick is instantly healed and you never get sick as a believer. And the moment you're sick, you automatically get prayer. Remember, I used to think like that when I was first saved. You know, and you immediately catch a cold, get prayer, just, okay, obviously we go through this world. But here the Lord raising the person up, calling for the elders, it would seem to be a serious illness because the elders come to that person, the person is raised up. And notice also, an aside, but if the person's committed sins, they're forgiven, that maybe, not necessarily, but maybe the sickness is related to sin. If that's the case, this is part of your confession and receiving forgiveness. But again, simple sacramental act.

I think Andrew Wilson, if I'm correct, has written some excellent stuff on this. Hey, thank you for the call. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Oh, this doesn't happen much on a Friday. We've got a line open, 866-348-7884. You've got questions, we've got answers. All right, we go over to Luke in Sacramento, California. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you for having me.

You're welcome. So, my question is that when I read Judges chapter 14, 4, it suggests that it was God's will for Samson to have the personality that he had in order to go and confront the Philistines. And I can't, like, prior to his birth, the angel of the Lord came to his parents and they said that Samson was to be a Nazarite, so that means he wasn't supposed to cut his hair or go near a corpse. And then, given Samson's personality and his strength, which both seem to be sculpted according to God's will, I can't really imagine, like, him confronting the Philistines and him not killing anyone. So, like, why did God call Samson to be a Nazarite?

Why not just say, like, don't cut his hair? But he specifically said for Samson to be a Nazarite. Right, so Samson was set apart from his mother's womb to God, and the fact that he sinned the way he did, that he had the lust issues that he did, that he played with fire by sleeping with Philistine women, pagans that were the enemies of Israel, those were his sins.

That was a result of him disobeying God, and of course it cost him his eyes and then ultimately his life. And there were aspects of his personality that were frivolous and dangerous, but God worked through them. That's the whole thing with God. Every single day, he is working through imperfect people, making sinful decisions in the midst of a rebellious world, and he's carrying things out.

He's using things for a particular purpose. And the Hebrew doesn't indicate that God made Samson a certain way so he would do certain things, so God would get certain results, but rather, he used Samson's flesh, weaknesses, different things, and worked through them to accomplish his purposes. It makes God much more sovereign when you think of it. You know, Joseph tells his brothers that sold them into slavery, you meant it for evil, but God intended it for good. So they did have evil intent, and what they did was sinful and wrong, and brought much pain on them and on their father, Jacob. And part of that, Jacob now reaps what he's sown in terms of deceitfulness and things like that.

Now he's the one that gets deceived, so it was all bad. But God worked through it for the saving of many lives, just like the worst human crime is crucifying the Son of God, and yet that's how God saves the world. So understand it like that. There's an interesting verse in Proverbs 16 verse 4, and some of our translations would render it in a way that would give you the impression that God creates people evil, and he creates them evil for a specific purpose on the day of judgment, or for an evil day, the Lord made everything for a purpose, even the wicked for an evil day, which would give you the impression that God made people wicked and they have a specific purpose in doing that, whereas the better way to understand it is that there's going to be a suitable end for everything. So the wicked, they're going to have their end in a particular way.

They're going to have their purpose in a particular way. So Samson was set apart. The long hair was not anything in itself. The long hair was part of being a Nazirite, and to the extent he wasn't set apart, he created lots of problems. Nonetheless, God worked through him, but it was very costly. To the extent that God works through us in the midst of our sin and our error, good things come out of it, but it'll be much more of a mixture and with a lot more personal pain.

Best that he works through you in obedience rather than in disobedience. Appreciate the question, though. It's an important issue. 866-348-7884. We go to Albany, New York, Lance. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thanks so much, Dr. Brown.

Love the show. Quick question for you. We're hearing a lot of talk about the COVID vaccine that is to be forthcoming, and my question is, how do we balance, as believers, believing in divine health, divine protection, versus trying to be civilly obedient and comply with what the government is highly recommending that everyone be vaccinated? I guess that's the question.

Yeah, it's a great question. So, let's break it down into a few areas. Just in general vaccinations, you know, do we get a flu shot every year, etc., so that's one category. The second is, this specific vaccine, do we have any reason for concern? Because we've heard everything from, there's going to be a microchip, and that's going to be part of the antichrist regime, to, you know, the vaccines developed using aborted baby parts, so the specific vaccine, that's the second question. And the third one is government mandates. So, for example, if the government said, you must have this vaccine, otherwise you're not allowed to function in the society, how do we respond to that?

So, let's treat them in reverse order. I would be very concerned about anything that requires a particular vaccine, one that is not necessary to preserve your life. In other words, the, what is it, one of the thousand people that get the virus will actually die from it. So, if the government says you must have it, otherwise you can't leave the country, you can't get a passport, you can't go to your job, or, then there has to be a healthy pushback, because that's definitely overreach. And the government doing that could do anything, and now you have to have a chip installed so the government knows where you are, you know, who knows what else is coming. So, that would raise a concern to me if it is required and mandated. And that's what I would say leading Christian thinkers, not just people into wild stuff and conspiracy theory, but sober thinkers need to think this through on an ethical, moral level, and give some guidelines for pastors and others to share with their flocks and for individual Christians to make right decisions.

So, that's the one thing. If it's mandated, you must have it, and there are restrictions if you don't, that to me is overreach from the government. That would really concern me. The second thing is the nature of the vaccine itself. I would put aside the fear-mongering and the concerns that this is preparation for the Antichrist and we're all going to be injected with a chip or something like that. I would need really hard, solid evidence that leading scientists verify and say, yes, this is the case. Otherwise, to me, that's just a conspiracy theory. Is there any connection to aborted baby parts, anything we should be concerned about?

I've heard rumors, but nothing of substance. So, if there's nothing specific that we can really determine about this, if it seems that the development has just been amazing work, folks really working hard, and something positive in the midst of this that Trump's helped push forward, then I would just go to number one, which is, do I want a vaccine or not? I would say this. If you are in strong health with a strong immune system and you are not in a vulnerable category, you're not obese, you're not elderly, you don't have other conditions, then you might say, hey, I don't need this. There's no concern for it.

If you are in any of the categories or you have people close to you that are in those categories, then it may be a good thing to do. Just like putting on a seatbelt in your car, it is the law to do it, right? It is the law to wear a seatbelt, but I remember in the years before it was, that was a debate among Christians, do we wear it or not, is that lack of faith? Well, it's got nothing to do with faith. It just has to do with practical wisdom.

You're required to have your seatbelt on on the plane and things like that. A couple of years ago, I thought I was doing a good thing. I was out at an airport and I saw a flu shot, so I got a flu shot and came home and told Nancy, she goes, why did you do that? No need to. You've got a strong immune system and the flu shot has other potential issues.

I didn't do that afterwards. That was based on research she had done. So ultimately that's a personal choice, but under no circumstances would I see it as lack of faith. Under no circumstances would I see getting a flu shot as lack of faith, unless you're in fear and thinking this is going to save my life and I can't trust God.

That would be lack of faith. But otherwise, practical wisdom, way to help others could be fine. That's where I'd leave it. Awesome. Thank you very much. You bet.

So I know that was more than the last I was just asking, but I wanted to try to give a more comprehensive answer. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to Josiah in Dayton, Ohio. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate that.

You're very welcome. So in watching your testimony as a young man, you know, coming to Christ, I remember, I think, seeing you say that you read the Word a lot, you memorized a lot of scripture, and so I was wondering if you could give us some insight, some practical tips in regards to Bible memory. You know, how do you pick the verses, and how do you get them memorized, and how did you do it at such a great rate that you did? Yeah, so first God really did help me. You know, my mind had been so fried with drugs, and it was cloudy, it took a few, a good number of weeks after I was saved before I was just thinking fully clearly, you know, for some of the fog to disappear, but by the time I was saved a year, I would spend between six and seven hours alone with God in the Word and prayer. Remember, no distractions, no cell phones, computers back then. At least six hours alone with God in the Word and prayer every day, praying at least three hours, reading scripture two hours and memorizing scripture for one hour, and God helped me to memorize 20 verses a day, and I did that six months without ever missing a day, and retained really the vast majority of what I memorized then.

So several things. One, you want to have a Bible that you read from all the time. You may study in different versions, but you want to have a Bible you read from all the time. This is going to constantly reinforce, reinforce, reinforce what you're doing. Secondly, I would start looking at passages that really interest me. Maybe a verse, maybe several verses, maybe a chapter, and then without feeling any sense of competition with anyone else, you want to make those verses your own. So what are some of the key things? You want to read it, you want to write it, you want to speak it, you want to review it.

I'll come back and review that with you on the other side of the break. Stay right here. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. 866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. You've got questions, we've got answers. But fear not, fear not if you're unable to get through or just you can't call because of work situation or whatever. About 45 minutes from that, a little less than that, 4.15 Eastern Time, we're going to continue the broadcast, but that'll be exclusively on YouTube.

So not to call them by radio, but that'll be our weekly YouTube chat and you can get that info at Ask Dr. Brown, ASKDearBrown on YouTube and we'll be live there at starting 4.15 Eastern Time. By the way, just looking at a comment from Dawn on our Facebook page, as a nurse, I'm required to take a flu vaccine so that we don't infect our patients. There can be work-related things where a job can require something like that.

My issue would be when the government would impose this on the nation as a whole for everyone, you must do this particular thing. That's when it can get dicey and that's where concerns can come up, although the intent may be good. All right, so back to Josiah's question about memorizing Scripture. So I kind of discovered this on my own accidentally, Josiah. When I was in high school, I was doing a part in a play or something or reacting something out in the class, I forget, but I brought the book home to memorize the part that I had and I could just bring it home for a day. So I wrote out the part that I was going to say. And when I was finished writing, I realized I kind of memorized part of it in writing. So actually writing it out helps.

So I developed a pattern on my own, just kind of my own thing. No one told me how I've never learned like memory techniques. Some people are amazing with this and how to structure a chapter and how to memorize and they really help people with it. I never learned any of that, but what I would do is, you know, I'm reading the word constantly, so I'm excited about Scripture and wow, this passage is amazing. I want to memorize it or maybe it was Psalm 23 or maybe it was a bigger thing like the Sermon on the Mount or whatever. So I would do, I'd look at a verse, I'd keep looking at it, saying it, looking at it, saying it, until I could write it out one time. I would write it out, then I would say it seven times.

That seemed like sacred number, right? I would say it seven times out loud. I had to say it seven times perfectly in a row and then I would write it once more and go to the next. So somehow the combination of reading it, then writing it, then speaking it, then writing it did a lot of good. Now, I'm charismatic, Pentecostal, so every night I would pray in tongues. As I prayed in tongues, I meditated on Scriptures I had memorized, but also as I'd be walking to the bus or then when I started driving my car, driving in my car, I would constantly quote Scripture again, so I'd be saying it, I'd be using it, and then because you're reading through the Bible regularly, you're coming back to verses you've memorized, it's getting reinforced. Some have found it really helpful to write out cards, you know, still works, and you just carry them with you. You know, and if you memorize one verse in a week, wonderful, you know, great.

So you're driving in your car and you're stopping at the light, take out that flashcard and look at it. Now, here's the last bit of advice. What I'd encourage you to do is, once you've memorized a verse, is the next one you memorize, recite the other one as well, and then that verse. This will now reinforce it. So let's say you're memorizing a verse a week, right?

By the time you've gotten to the end of the year, you've memorized 52 verses, but each time you've been saying the first one now over and over, now the second one over and over, third one over and over, that'll help reinforce things. So hopefully those will be some practical words of advice for you, alright? Alright, yeah, very insightful. Thank you for your time, I appreciate it. You bet, you bet. 866-34-TRUTH.

And again, it's great to study the Bible in multiple versions, but for memorization purposes, it's good to have one that you read through most regularly because that, again, will reinforce the verses that you've memorized. Alright, let us go to Anil in Chicago. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Hi, good afternoon, Dr. Brown. I've been in the US for 24 years and now I'm an American. I grew up in India. I feel the American church has become very weak because the churches are pastor-directed. As a result, the pastors do all the spiritual work, all the preaching, all the teaching, and we, the lay people, we just sit in the congregation, we are expected to give 10% of our income, and we volunteer, you know, when they need people to clean up or usher or childcare.

You know, as a result, we've become, the American church has become very weak, and you can see that almost every week you have a new scandal or even a suicide of a pastor. But I grew up in India and in a church, in churches where they had only elders and not pastors. And, you know, and so anyone in the worship could, it was done in an orderly way. People could stand up and teach or, you know, just say praise and worship, you know, and read the Bible or pray and say a few words. The preaching was done only by the elders in rotation, the sermon, but, you know, it was not pastor-directed. So everybody had a responsibility to read and pray and read the Bible for themselves. And I feel this has come about because they have interpreted the pastor, evangelist, all those as offices, not as role. And last week in Joseph Matera's thing, I asked the question, is prophet a role or a office? And he answered, no, it's a role.

But then you see he has a school of prophets and all these people are referred to as prophets. Right. So let me interact.

And I'm not sure how you managed to get through two straight weeks. But in any case, I appreciate your question very much. Just our rule of someone I call within a couple of weeks to give time to others.

But very important question, sir. Let me say a couple of things. I have worked with congregations that are elder led congregations that are pastor led. I've worked with mega churches. I've worked with house churches. And I've seen God work in all of them.

And I've seen failings and weaknesses in all of them. Here's where I totally, absolutely, completely agree with you, that we have a spectator Christianity in in much of America, that we go to enjoy a performance. The worship team performs really well. Give them a clap, give them hands, you know, clap of our hands, applause, celebrate great jobs, give them a hand and a pastor. Great. Wow. What a wonderful as a really, really good message.

Really funny too. And then we pay our dues and and instead of being the church. So we go to a meeting.

It's go be equipped. And you could argue, in my view, sir, you could argue for plurality of elders leading. You could argue with for plurality with headship.

That's what I'm most comfortable with. So a pastor and team of elders shepherds the flock. And I've been in congregations with shared pulpits and single speaker pulpits have been in both and can't say that one is healthier than the other.

But it's the mentality. The leaders are there to equip the body to go and do the work of service. So coming to the meeting is wonderful. I love corporate meetings, but the going out the rest of the week, that's the big issue.

It's the the 98 percent of our time that we spent out of that building. That's the big issue. So coming together wonderful. But being the church in the society is critical. And that's where we must be making disciples.

We can't just do it in a spectator gathering. We've got to be doing it in our families and small groups and then living it out. So everybody is doing the work of the ministry. So, yeah, you can have a school the prophets to teach people about prophetic ministry.

All right. And you may recognize someone functions in a particular calling. But the biggest thing that the real major issue here is to me what you're hitting on, that we have a lot of spectators. You think if you go to a football game, you get the athletes on the field and the fans in the stands and the fans can be obese and drinking their beer and eating their popcorn because they're just there to watch and the athletes are putting their bodies on the line.

Well, we're supposed to be living like the athletes, not like the fans. We're supposed to be the ones going out doing the work. I deal with it in my book Revolution in the church and of course in the book Revolution Urgent Call to a Holy Uprising. So, yeah, it's a great need.

It's a great need. Now, churches I work with in India are led by pastors, but the people are discipled and a lot of it's the world they live in. To be a Christian, you know, much of India is costly. It's difficult. You know that having grown up there, certain places different. But when you make a commitment to follow Jesus in a primarily Hindu country or you may live in a Muslim community, there's going to be more resistance.

And to follow Jesus is a deeper choice that's made. But yeah, I appreciate the point, sir. Thank you. Thank you for calling.

866-34-TRUTH. Have you ordered the new edition of my book Revolution an Urgent Call to a Holy Uprising? I really encourage you to check it out. It'll light a fire in you. It'll stir you. It will give you a vision for God using you to make an impact.

Highly recommend it as a holiday gift. The new edition just came out last month, Revolution an Urgent Call to a Holy Uprising. Let's go over to Verna in Alberta, Canada. Welcome to the line of fire. Well, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brown. So good to finally connect with you.

I've been on the phone many times. My question is fairly straightforward, so I'll try to be brief and quick here. I've heard your explanations on the food and diet laws more than once, but I'm not sure if I've heard an interpretation on the part in 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10 where he talks about not eating food sacrificed to idols. And I'd like to understand how we apply this in our society today, given that we don't have a lot of overt animal sacrifice in our society today. And I think it's somewhat symbolic for us, but I'd like to hear your interpretation on that, please. Right.

Thank you, Verna. So we know in Revelation 2 that Jesus rebukes the woman called Jezebel for teaching God's servants to practice sexual immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols. So the overt, open, flaunting eating of food sacrificed to idols was sinful and wrong in God's sight.

We know that and understand that and something Jesus spoke against. But the question is, does the food itself defile you? If this food that you're eating was sacrificed in some idol temple, and obviously the idol's not going to eat it, right? The priest didn't eat it, so you sell it in the marketplace, so it was sacrificed to a particular God, and now you go and eat that fruit, is that going to defile you?

And that's what Paul deals with. Okay, if it's not going to defile you, what about the person that's eating you, a non-believer, and they offer it to you? So we'll come back and discuss that application today.

Stay right here. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey, real quick, just, I meant to mention this right after an early call about the use of oil laying on of hands, James, Jacob, chapter 5, verses 14 and 15. I mentioned the book by Andrew Wilson, pulled up the title immediately after, and then forgot to mention it. So Spirit and Sacrament, that's the book by Andrew Wilson. Spirit and Sacrament, an invitation to Eucharismatic worship. So Eucharistic, right?

Eucharismatic worship. Spirit and Sacrament by Andrew Wilson. Also, if you appreciate what we're doing on The Line of Fire, if we're a blessing to you, if our voice makes a difference in your life and you'd like to help us reach even more people, if you're watching on Facebook, just click on the donate button. Any gift of any size makes a difference.

If you're watching on YouTube, there's a dollar sign underneath the chat box, click on that, or you can go to the website AskDrBrown.org, click on donate. All right, so, Verna in Alberta. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul's dealing with a very real possible situation. You go to someone's home, the person is an unbeliever, right? They serve you some meat for dinner, go ahead and eat it. You don't need to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, was this sacrificed to an idol?

No, don't need to ask anything. But if they say, hey, this was sacrificed to an idol, then for their sake you don't eat it, because they would then have a wrong impression of your faith or your attitude. You know yourself that it's just food. All this is physical food that you eat, goes through your body, and processes out. But in their mind it's associated with the idol, so for their sake you don't do it.

And then Paul in 1 Corinthians the 10th chapter deals with the issue, again, are we going to partake of the Lord's Supper and then also partake of that which is offered to demons, because the gods are not really gods, the false gods, they're demons. So how would you apply that to your situation today, our situation today? On the one hand, we live in this world, and we cannot try to figure out how every dime of ours is used, how every company operates. When you go to someone's home, you know, if they're giving you something, what they do for a living or whatever, you know, if someone says, hey, I want to help you out, you know, I see you go on the mission field, I want to help you out with some money. We understand all these things are just natural and can be used for the purposes of God. However, if I was told, like someone said, hey, I understand you want to expand and get on more radio broadcasts, so I want to finance you with $10,000 a month.

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, here's the deal. We sell ecstasy or whatever the hot drug is, you know, and we've got a real surface. Sorry, I don't want your money.

I want you to get it right with God. So I would make that general application that you can't try to figure out where every dime comes from when you go to a store. You know what that the owners of that store, what they spend their money, how they use your profits. But if you knew, like if your favorite grocery store now puts up a big ad, 10% of all profits this month are being donated to Planned Parenthood, then I don't go there.

Now that they've made a public statement, I make a public statement and don't give them my money. That's kind of how I'd filter it out in terms of application today because like you said, for the most part, we're not running into food sacrifice to idols. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does help. But like for instance, I was wondering, so if I attended a celebration, let's say it was a wedding of a friend who had a background of Hinduism, and so that everything that was going to be served probably at that celebration may have been, perhaps they say prayers and things that honor their gods. I don't know. I wondered, am I responsible for the fact that I'm attending and by virtue of knowing that I'm eating food sacrifice to idols? Paul gets on a boat, right, towards the end of the Book of Acts, and on the front of the boat are the twin gods, right?

That's the boat he gets on. I've been in India where our missions team is being driven by a Hindu driver who has a Hindu statue in the front of the bus that he drives. We live in this world. However, if the bus driver says, before you get on this bus, I will now bless you in the name of Krishna, we'd say, sorry, you know, we'll take care of the blessing. In fact, our first trip to India, we were going up a dangerous road to this mountain area, jungle area up the mountains in a place called Paderu, a tribal region then, and the driver stops on the side of the road. We've got the leader's daughter, she's like 19, she's with us, Nancy and I, so the three of us, and he stops on the side of the road, goes into this little shrine. We watch him praying, he comes out, he's got the dot on his forehead, you know, he put on, and we said, what did he just do? They said, he's praying for safety on the journey. I said, tell him, you know, because I couldn't speak Telugu, I said, tell him I'll take care of the praying, you take care of the driving, I'll take care of the praying. But you know, I felt our faith is what's essential now. His praying to a deity is not going to get in the way of anything. Hey, Verna, thank you for the question. And you go to the Hindu celebration, you go to the wedding with your friends, wonderful.

If they dedicate, this food is now dedicated to Krishna or something, you say, you know, I'm going to pass on that, and that's just inconscious to make a statement. All right, thank you. Let's go over to Eddie in Madison, Connecticut. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, nice to talk to you again. Dr. Brown, the Bible's last week we had a study again, and I asked another question, which they said, you better call Dr. Brown quick on this one. Yeah, for folks who don't know Eddie from Connecticut with New York background, he's always like a little bit of a troublemaker with his questions, so go ahead.

Go ahead, I'm ready. Well, think about this, Dr. Brown. I said, you've got perfect heaven, God the Father running everything, and all the angels are in heaven. And all of a sudden, Satan has an idea, which an angelic being should have a little brains, saying, hey, I'm going to overthrow my throne above his, and he gets a third of the angels to go with them, why wouldn't anybody say, what are you talking about? You're talking about Almighty God. We don't have a shot. And I said, the analogy of this, I said this to everybody, I said, just like me, on a rowboat with one oar, approaching the United States and saying, hey guys, I'm going to overthrow America, I've got a stick in the boat.

They're going to say, you don't have a shot. So what would make these angels, or even Satan say, I have a shot, of taking over? Right, so there's two things. There's Isaiah 14, where you have the spirit behind the king of Babylon, which would understand to be Satan himself, saying, I'm going to exalt myself above the throne of God. And then he's going to be cast out. Then you have Revelation 12, where Satan is fighting, there's war, and he pulls down a third of the angels. Is that a future thing?

Let's just separate the two for the moment, okay? What happens is, and this is an illustration of it, that when we open our hearts to sin, in other words, God made us perfect, but gave us free will, which is kind of a mystery, right? Because there's no sin, or there's no evil until it's actualized, but that's the mystery of free will. So evil is now actualized when I make the wrong choice. And the moment that I allow pride to enter in, I'm deceived. The moment I allow disobedience to enter in, I'm deceived. So you can be highly exalted and think, hey, I can do anything.

How many people are self-deceived? You know, they get into a fight, it's like, I can take you down, man, and they get crushed instantly. So pride, disobedience, or blinding, the power of self-deception is massive. The other thing is, God may not have displayed his power in that way yet. So it's like, hey, he's not so tough. Oh, that guy's a mixed martial art, praise God he doesn't look so big.

Well, you haven't seen him take out ten people bigger than him. So part of it is, God may not have demonstrated the fullness of his power. The other, which is certain, is that sin and pride are completely blinding, leading people to make horrific choices. And then with that, let's say the other angels, yeah, you should know what you're dealing with, but pride, self-deception can enter in there.

That's one. The other thing is rebellion. It's like, yeah, there's enough with him, enough of them giving all the orders, enough of them like being God.

We just gotta worship him. So there's that appeal. So even if it's irrational, you're gonna try to do something crazy. But the great illustration is, that's how deceiving sin can be. That's how deceiving pride can be.

And the great lesson is, we can deceive ourselves just as easily as we can deceive someone else. All right, so we got the answer for your Bible study. Okay, I got time for another call or two, but remember, about 18 minutes from now, 4.15 Eastern Time, we're gonna keep going on YouTube only. Ask Dr. Brown, our YouTube channel, and we're gonna be taking just Q&A there for, I don't know, 45 minutes or an hour.

Let's see, let's go to Newport News, Virginia. Dean, welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Shalom, Dr. Brown. It's a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you, sir. Hey, I don't know if you, I doubt you remember, but I got to meet you at the Rohr from Zion Conference in Fort Mill last year. You were kind enough to stop and sign your book on Job from Israel as you were leaving. I hope you enjoy the commentary. Oh, absolutely.

Wonderful. Hey, I was wondering if you can address a topic that's kind of been of an interest of mine. Do you see any parallels between Yeshua's death, resurrection, and resurrection after three days, and the ascension to heaven after 40 days, to Jewish beliefs of death and the cleansing of the soul after death in the first century? You know, basically was the fact that he rose and ascended something that Ptolemy would have expected, but possibly surprised it happened so quickly? Or was this something, a new concept, or would this have been a new concept that... No, the, his own, yeah, I'm not aware of parallels that existed that they would have been thinking of in the first century. A future resurrection, yes, certainly.

They believed in that, that was established. You know, the Sadducees had a different view, but that would not have been the view of their circle, so that there was a future resurrection of John 11. Yeah, I know Lazarus will rise at the final resurrection, and Yeshua says, I am the resurrection and the life. But no, the shocker was that he was going to rise. The first shocker was he was going to die. You're the Messiah. You don't die. You set up your kingdom, you know, first. So that's the first shocker, that he's going to die, and that he's going to rise now. That's why it says in 1 Corinthians 15, he's the first fruits of those who sleep.

He's the first fruits of those who will rise, never to die again. All right, we're out of time, but join us 15 minutes from now. Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube.