A 20-Year-Old Wake-Up Call

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Well, friends, we're going to have a great show today, and I believe you'll be stirred, challenged, edified, educated. That's why we're here.

866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-8, 7884. We will catch up with some of what is happening in Israel right now with Hamas from Gaza pouring rockets down on Israel, Israel retaliating with airstrikes, pouring them into Gaza. We'll talk about that. We'll show you some footage or you'll get to hear some things.

Those watching will get to see some things. We'll cover that. We will get into that. But first, I want to continue on an important conversation about culture that we were engaging in yesterday.

I want to carry that over to today. If you have any questions, comments for me, if you think I'm wrong on these issues, give me a call. 866-34-TRUTH. Then you could weigh in later on what's happening in Israel. For many years now, I have been at the forefront with others, but I've been among them at the forefront warning, sounding the alarm, talking about what was happening in our culture in terms of LGBTQ activism and why the church didn't get to sit this one out. And if you're new to tuning in, when—let me just reiterate this—when God laid it on my heart in 2004, and I sensed this burden to begin to help push back against the tide of homosexual activism, and one of my first questions was, okay, why me?

Why me? It comes to Jewish ministry. I never asked that question.

That's obvious. I'm Jewish, got a doctorate in Semitic languages. God's gifted me to debate. I've been interacting with rabbinic community for almost 50 years. So when God began to lay that on my heart, a calling to put out apologetics material and other things, I sensed, yeah, that's something I'm called to do.

And it made sense. The same with the call to be involved in revival and to help stir the church to return to its first love and encounter God in the fullness of the Spirit. I got radically wonderfully saved. Then I had a radical renewal experience in my own life. After 10, 11 years in the Lord, I'd gotten spiritually proud, theologically proud.

I'd left my first love, and God brought me to repentance and brought that stream of revival through me. So it was natural for God to call me to do that. And there are other things in life in ministry. It's like, yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. You know, just like maybe you're a mother of six and your kids are amazing, following the Lord, godly examples, and you work a part-time job on the side and you mentor young mothers, well, that makes sense. But if God said to you, okay, I want you to get involved in cross-country motorcycle racing, it's like, I've never been near a motorcycle in my life.

It's like, that doesn't make sense. So when God started laying this on my heart back in 2004, I knew the burden was real. I knew the voice of the Lord speaking to me was real. I knew my calling to be involved in the culture wars, bringing Jesus revolution, meaning that Jesus radically changes us, and then we go out through service and love and compassion and the fullness of the Spirit change the world around us.

I understood that. I understood I was called to be in confrontation, but I'm thinking, okay, there's no need for me. You already have fine family ministries, like Focus on the Family with James Dobson. What do you need me for?

And they're massive. And then you've got prophetic national voices like Chuck Colson speaking to the culture. What do you need me to do that for?

And then you've got the 20 Perkins and the FRCs and the national conservative Christian political organizations thinking, well, they're doing what they're doing. I've got no background here. I don't come out of homosexuality.

I never struggled with gender identity. I don't have a particular burden to reach that community. So why me? And I realized, aside from the calling to be on the front lines of difficult situations and be kind of a lightning rod for controversy, that it wasn't just me, that this was one that we didn't get to sit out as a church, that this was a matter of all hands on deck. So now, as we're dealing with these issues day and night, where the assistant secretary of health and human services under President Biden is a man who identifies as a woman, when if you post that on Twitter, you'll get blocked for just saying what I said. It happened to me, posting that on Twitter, just that simple biological fact. I got blocked on Twitter until it was deleted. So my strategy was fine. I'll delete it, but I'll have an article to come out as soon as I'm restored, telling the whole story.

And that was able to stay on. So I thought, great, I'll get more of a message out through this. President Biden himself, when he was candidate Biden, January of last year, January of 2020, said that transgender rights are the rights issue of the day. You've got Sean Hannity embracing, quote, Caitlyn Jenner, potentially the next governor of California. You have governors now in different states having to pass laws saying that biological boys cannot compete side by side with biological girls if they identify as girls. You have a situation now in the Olympics where you may have male athletes who identify as female winning gold medals and still in the dream of a lifetime from a competitor. Maybe they're one and only Olympics, maybe a woman who has worked hard since she was a little child to get to that point. And you have a man who's just bigger, stronger, faster that may take the medal. And you have men who identify as women winning events, say winning a high school sprinting or hurdling event, whereas that person was not in the top 300 in their state among the men.

But they're crushing it among the women, just because of biological advantages. So these are now issues that everyone's talking about. I want to go by 20 years, 20 years. That's when our first grandchild was born, 20 years ago, 20 years. That's that's a long time. 20 years ago, that is 2001.

We were barely in the new millennium. This is in my book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, which came out in 2011. And it was based on six years of research, writing, interacting. So as opposed to a book that I'd write in a matter of weeks, this was written over a period of years, 1500 endnotes, roughly 700 pages.

Okay, let me let me read some excerpts to you from an article by John Haskins. It was entitled It's 1984 in Massachusetts and Big Brother is Gay. This came out to repeat in the year 2001, 20 years ago. Yeah, I've been sounding the alarm for many years. People were sounding the alarm before I was. I found quotes from Francis Schaeffer of 1968, sounding the alarm about gender issues as a result of homosexual activism.

And that was before the Stonewall Rides of 69, before things really cranked up. All right, so here's some examples. Four examples that Haskins gives from Massachusetts schools in 2001. In Brookline, a transsexual told first graders how his private part was cut off and he became a woman. With no sense of irony, the Boston Globe called it sex change counseling. Parents, never notified, had to comfort their terrified children. Friends, this is 2001, 2001. Yeah, I'm like a broken record trying to get that across. People are like, what's happening in our school? This has been happening for a long time across America.

Think of it, why? And it wasn't even called transgender, was not as widely used there. So transsexual would be, you know, someone that had had sex change as opposed to transvestite who just dressed as the opposite sex. Why on earth would you want someone doing that? Telling first graders that his private part was cut off and he became a woman. First graders. Newton North High School. Pupils learned in an R-rated firm how Ludo enjoys being a girl, borrowing red high heels, her lipstick, her earrings, yummy.

Trouble is, seven-year-old Ludo is a boy, even if he's pretty and pink. 20 years ago, Ashland children were instructed to play homosexuals in a skit. As reported in the Middlesex News on, whoa, April 1st, 1994?

So Haskins is writing about this in 2001. This report goes back to 1994. As reported in the Middlesex News on April 1st, 1994, one boy's line was, it's natural to be attracted to the same sex. These are kids acting this out. Girls were told to hold hands and pretend they were lesbians.

1994. Why in the world are we so surprised now? Why are people, how could this be happening? Friends, we've been shouting for years this has been going on.

Let's keep going. A Framingham pupils found themselves answering this Orwellian question. What do you think caused your heterosexuality? When did you first decide you were heterosexual? Is it possible heterosexuality is a phrase you'll grow out of? Is it possible you're heterosexual because you fear the same sex? If you've never slept with anyone of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it? Is it possible you really need a good gay experience? To whom have you disclosed your heterosexuality?

How did they react? Why are heterosexuals so blatant, always making a spectacle of their heterosexuality? Why can't they just be who they are and not flaunt their sexuality by kissing in public, wearing wedding rings, etc.? So obviously, obviously, the whole intent here, and I'm going to go to another part of the book in a moment, the whole intent here is to say, hey, homosexuality is as natural to a gay person as heterosexuality is to a straight person, and they should be able to be who they are just the same. That's the rationale, the argument behind it. They should be able to be out, proud, open in their relationships, and that would be what gay activists are fighting for.

And some of you are listening like, yeah, what's the big deal about that? It's good for one, it's good for the other. Except it's not the case. Because God did not intend us to be homosexual. And God did not make men for men and women for women, but men for women and women for men. And once we deviate from that, society shifts, things happen. Religious rights do get attacked. Marriage does get degraded.

It's inevitability. It does happen. So friends, these are examples from 20 years ago, within a queer thing happened to America. I have gay educators from 1995 thereabouts, talking about the amazing progress they're making in the schools. And for years and years and years, I've had teachers in America and other parts of the world tell me about the curriculum in their schools. Look, there was a young lady who was teaching at a local preschool in Charlotte, North Carolina, highly regarded preschool. So you got kids maybe four years old, three years old.

And this is at least 10 years ago, I would say. And she ultimately couldn't teach there anymore because first she couldn't make gender distinctions with the kids. She couldn't say, boys, boys, be quiet. Boys and girls, listen. No, you just have to say friends or find some other way to address them. But you couldn't address the boys separately from the girls that were making gender distinctions. It's over 10 years ago, Charlotte, North Carolina. And one of the books she was required to read to the kids was Heather Has Two Mommies. She said, I can't do that.

Ultimately I had to quit the job. There's nothing new. Why are we so shocked when the things that we have been shouting from the rooftops for years, some for decades, have not been heard? Friends, how do we excuse our lack of awareness?

How do we excuse our lack of awareness? 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. A colleague of mine, a younger colleague, grad from our ministry school, called my cell phone the other day, left me a voicemail, so burdened about what kids are learning in the local high schools where he lives, the state in which he lives. And as he left me the voicemail, he broke down crying.

That's how burdened he is about this. I was going through some of the material in A Queer Thing Happened to America. We have to do a reprint of the book and get the ebook back out. So right now you can get used copies on Amazon, but we've only got like a couple of copies in stock. The first printing sold out a long time ago. The ebooks company we're working with, we're not anymore. The whole thing has to be reformatted, and I'm thinking of doing an update. But as I'm reading through material that I wrote and put out 10 years ago, I'm getting stirred and burdened by things I know, things that I wrote, things that I recounted. But that's the urgency of the hour, friends.

866-342-866-348-7884. And all of this, we proclaim the same gospel to all people. Jesus died for every human being just the same. We're all created in the image of God and yet fallen. The same blood was shed to save me, as to save a gentile, as to save a black person, an Asian person. Same blood was shed to save gays, straights, all the same blood shed for every one of us.

We all meet at the foot of the cross as lost sinners needing redemption. At the same time, there are agendas in our society. There are goals, there are mentalities, that are destructive, that are harmful.

So what do you do? If you believe that's a good agenda, you want to indoctrinate kids. Hey, if you're a Christian parent, don't you want to indoctrinate your kids with the truth of the gospel? Don't you want to indoctrinate them with godly values? Well, gay activists feel their curriculum, their ideas are good, transgender activists feel the same, so they want to indoctrinate kids. Gotta be aware of it, friends.

That's the reality. So here, from Queer Thing Happened to America, the chapter Big Brother is watching and it really is gay. Look at some of the opening quotes at the beginning of this chapter.

Edinburgh University has banned copies of the Bible from student dormitories after condemning the Christian Union for violating, quote, its equality and diversity policy by claiming that any sexual activity outside homosexual marriage has not got ordained. 2007. Then, next one's 2006. There's a typo there. 2006. A Canadian professor has been fined two weeks pay by a Nova Scotia university for telling a student that homosexuality is an unnatural lifestyle. I believe he was asked and it explains his viewpoint.

Find two weeks pay. This is 15 years ago. Let's scroll down, look at some more here. X-gay messages have no place in our nation's public schools. A line has been drawn. There is no other side when you're talking about lesbian, gay, and bisexual students. There is no other side. Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN, Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, quoted July 27th, 2004. There's no story about people coming out of homosexuality. Forget about that. No such story to be told.

There is no other side of the story. And Camille Paglia, a famous lesbian feminist in her book Vamps and Tramps, said, one reason I so dislike recent gay activism is that my self-identification as a lesbian proceeded Stonewall, pre-1969. I was the only openly gay person at the Yale Graduate School in 1968-72, a candidate that was professionally costly. That anyone with my aggressive and scandalous history would be called homophobic has been repeatedly been done shows how insanely Stalinist gay activism has become. Again, friends, this is over 10 years old and Camille Paglia is saying because she differs with certain aspects of gay activism, she gets called homophobic. She gets called homophobic.

She says she's the last person on the planet that would apply to. And she's talking about how, quote, Stalinist the agenda has become. In the Queer Thing Happened to America, beginning on page 501, faith organizations are losing their rights. April 9th, 2009, article in the certainly not conservative Washington Post documented how faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom. Okay, let's go over to a New York Times report from 2008.

2008, the battle over marriage in California, Proposition 8, which the critics called Proposition 8, which ironically passed saying that marriage was the union of man, woman, even the way the question was posed was posed to get a negative answer, not a positive answer, but it still passed. Ironically, one reason it passed is because California saw, as the nation saw, an increased number of African American voters. And paradoxically, they overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama, but they were strongly conservative in their family values. So they also overwhelmingly voted for Prop 8. So the African American vote both helped President Obama get elected. Remember, in those days, he claimed that he was for marriage as the union of one man and one woman, which we understand was not his actual view, but was said then.

So the same as with who voted for him, large number of them also voted for marriage the right way and helped push that through. And then it got overturned by courts. Okay, anyway, let's just take a look at this article.

And let's look back now and ask the question. This is written October of 2008. Were the people sounding the alarm wrong in what they were saying? I was one of them. I'm not quoted here, but I was one of those sounding the alarm.

All right. Well, the battle over same-sex marriage has been all but invisible in the presidential race this year. It is raging like a wind-whipped wildfire in California. Conservative religious leaders from across the country are pouring time, talent, millions of dollars into the state in support of Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage. They're hoping to reverse a California ruling in May that gave same-sex couples permission to marry, resulting in thousands of exultant same-sex weddings. Some of the marriage amendments are on the ballot next month in Arizona and Florida, but religious conservatives have cast the campaign in California as the decisive last stand, warning in suddenly apocalyptic terms of dire consequences to the entire nation that Proposition 8 does not pass.

Was it a warning in stunningly apocalyptic terms like, the world's going to end, or was it accurate? California, they say, sets cultural trends for the rest of the country and even the world. If same-sex marriage is allowed to become entrenched there, they warn there'll be no going back.

Here's what Chuck Colson said. This vote on whether we stop the gay marriage drug or not in California is Armageddon. We lose this, we're going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.

I call that pretty accurate, pretty prescient. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, it's more important than the presidential election. He said, we've picked bad presidents before and we've survived as a nation, but we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage.

Wow, that's pretty prophetic as well. In television apartments, rallies, highway billboards, sermons, and phone banks, supporters of Proposition 8 are warning, if it does not pass, churches that refuse to marry same-sex couples will be sued and lose their tax-exempt status. Ministers will be jailed if they preach against homosexuality. Parents will have the right to prevent their children from being taught in school about same-sex marriage.

Let's just look at that for a minute. Is it true that parents are unable to prevent their children from being taught this in schools? Of course, because the teacher gets to bring this up whenever they want. It doesn't have to be at an approved time or during a certain curriculum. And then, you know, for example, in England, they're saying, no, you can't pull your kid from sex ed class.

And this is where we'll teach these things. Ministers will be jailed if they preach against homosexuality. Well, there are quite a few examples from England now as this is happening. And there has been opposition and pushback and lawsuits.

Yeah. And there's constant talk about take away our tax exempt status because of these issues. The no on eight forces, which include many liberal religious leaders, dismiss these claims as scare tactics without basis and legal precedent. I wish they were just scare tactics.

These are reality tactics, friends. The idea that we would be forced as clergy to perform a marriage that was against our conscience so that a church would lose its tax-exempt status is ridiculous. If you look dispassionately at the record, there are a lot of churches with policies that are at odds with civil law.

Again, we'll leave the text up there as I speak for a minute. But in point of fact, there is increasing pressure, for example, in Scandinavia, some of those countries where clergy must perform the marriage or there'll be penalties or the bishop has to make sure that it happens if someone refuses to do it. And there are lawsuits that have been taken out against churches and leaders. And if the Equality Act passed as is, this would be the current reality. She continued, I've not heard of a single Catholic church forced to marry someone who's been divorced or a rabbi forced to perform an interfaith marriage or an evangelical church forced to marry a couple who's been living together. Correct. Because you don't have activists pushing for that, but you do have activists pushing for this.

And once you redefine marriage, you are now codified as a bigot if you don't go along with it. Scroll down a little bit, Reverend Jim Garlow talking about some of the opposition, some of what's going on. No, just go back up, go back up a little bit. One more, one more. All right, there we are.

Teamwork. Jim Garlow speaking of a situation, opposition, he's a symbol of what's ahead when you have laws that make homosexual marriage a protected class, then the government has a compelling interest to normalize that and must declare anything in opposition to that hate speech. Okay, done with that article. So you've got Chuck Colson warning, you've got Tony Perkins warning, you've got Jim Garlow warning, you've got Lou Angle going there to lead prayer movements. Everything they're saying was right.

All the warnings are accurate. And we are well, well down that road to the point that if you differ with that road, Rowan, you are now officially a homophobic, transphobic bigot. And as people began telling me years ago, bigots like you belong in jail. That's why there was rejoicing when Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, is that the right last name?

Anyway, you know who I'm speaking about. When she refused a judge's order to write a same-sex marriage certificate when there was no reason that there were many other ways that this couple could have gotten the marriage certificate. When she refused, she was put in jail and there was national rejoicing over it. Left circles, liberal circles, national rejoicing.

Compared her to ISIS. Yeah, crazy, crazy stuff like that. That's why we've been sounding the alarm. Here's the key. We have to change hearts. Changing laws won't do it alone. Change hearts, then change laws.

That's the way to win America. We'll be right back. 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. Right before coming into the office today, in fact, driving up to the studio, I was on the phone with an executive pastor at one of the finest churches I know in America, talking about me coming in over the summer and said, look, we've got to talk about transgender issues and the gospel. And this is the world in which we live, friend. And it's not a new world. This world has been here with us for years and years and years, which is why many of us have been sounding the alarm about an agenda while saying care for everyone, love your neighbors yourself, treat every human being with love and kindness, but stand against destructive agendas. Hearts of compassion, backbones of steel. Reach out to the people with compassion. Resist the agenda with courage.

No choice, friends. You have to be involved, either in prayer or standing up in your schools or speaking the truth in your place of business or being honest behind the pulpit. We cannot avoid these issues and we must reach out to all people. 866-3-4-truth. In a moment, we're going to transition over to Israel and focus on what's happening right now. It's a major moment in the nation. We're going to transfer over there in a minute. But first, let's go to the phones with Todd in Arkansas.

Welcome to the line of fire. All right, thank you. You're welcome. So I've been a big fan. I watched a lot of your content, your videos, and your debates. And so a couple years ago you had a debate regarding, is homosexuality consistent with the New Testament? Yes, sir. And your opponents, I don't even know if you could call it hominidics, their twisting of scripture on essential doctrine of the faith was egregious. And so how do we protect from doing that ourselves? For instance, I know you came to faith in the charismatic movement.

I didn't. And I know I've got friends that will read 1 Corinthians 10 and say, well, the perfect is the closing of the canon. And then I've heard your position which says, no, that's not what that means.

But those are tertiary issues. How do we protect against letting any personal bias infiltrate the gospel? How do we help people see the true gospel? Yeah, what I love about your question is you asked about us first.

How do we get this right? And then secondly, how do we help others? Because we're always focusing on fixing them, straightening them out, and often we don't do a lot of soul searching and examining of our own lives before the Lord. So yeah, Dr. James White and I teamed together, and this was set up by a seminary in Florida, Jacksonville area, and they were able to get a lesbian woman and a gay man, both pastors, to debate us. So they were not experienced debaters in any way, and they would be the first to say it, but they had passionately defended their own positions and views for many, many, many years. But I think you could even tell during the debate, the care that we had for them and the love for them, wanting to see them know the truth and walk in the truth, as opposed to, hey, we'll just crush these guys in a debate. But obviously, watching it, I think if you're unbiased watching it, you kind of grimace at some of their interpretations of scripture or lack of ability to answer other things. So the question is, if they could be so deceived, how do we know that we're not deceived, right? So let's work within the context of the Bible being God's word and Jesus being the Savior and Lord.

In other words, we're not discussing what Muslims believe or traditional Jews believe or Hindus or atheists, but just within the faith as believers. So the first thing is, in prayer before God, really ask him regularly, Lord, search my heart, search my motivation, reveal things that are wrong. You know, Psalm 19 is one of those prayers, you know, keep me from hidden sins and examine me. So that's something I've done many a time over the year, over the decades, especially as a new believer.

I constantly pray for growth in my life and for every area of my life, you know, thought life and everything, my conduct to just be in harmony with the Lord. And then because I was constantly challenged by the rabbis, Todd, I had to, they raised strong questions. And I looked, it's like, wow, I don't have an answer for that. And my pastor was a man of God in terms of prayer and sharing the gospel, but was not a scholar in any way. So, you know, he couldn't answer the question.

The people I went to didn't have answers. So it really raised questions for me. So that forced me to say, God, I just want your truth. Whatever it means to follow you as a loyal Jew, that's what I want to do.

And if I end up leaving, right, right. So if you look in Proverbs one, two, three, four, when it's talking about pursuing wisdom, especially two, three, four, it's everything, God, I need to, I've got to know, I've got to know. So first the attitude of the heart and the real pursuing of God, show me Lord areas where I'm wrong, show me where I'm biased, show me where I'm missing something, show me where I have blind spots. I do that in cultural issues. I do that in spiritual issues. I do that in relational issues all the time. I don't mean that I always get it right, but I mean, I try to humble myself and say, God, what makes me right? Why do I think I'm right here?

You know, why am I so dogmatic? And then the next thing is just keep reading through the word over and again, sometimes reading different translations so that you're hearing things afresh and major on the majors. In other words, when it comes say to the gifts of the empower the spirit for today, aside from the first Corinthians 13, 10, you know, when the perfect comes being a tiny, tiny minority view and something that's almost unheard of in church history, you know, that particular exegesis of that passage until relatively recent years, you know, last century plus. But when I just see the spirit and the gifts and the work of God throughout the New Testament and then we're to pursue these things and you see how the gospel is accompanied with the power of the spirit and that's just there and there's nothing saying, by the way, it's going to stop at a certain point, by the way, only, you know, then to me, it's like, it's a large thing that their doctrines I've come to when I just said, okay, overwhelmingly through scripture, what themes do I see?

What emphases do I see? And then you just try to hold on to that. Now look, I'm not a Calvinist.

My friend James White is. I was a Calvinist for five years, but I haven't been since. And one of the things that was overwhelming to me was the degree to which the word of God calls us choose, choose, choose, choose, choose, as if we have the ability to do that. Having said that, I'm sure there are mysteries in terms of how God works and what he does beyond our own knowledge and understanding that are those very things, mysteries, which is why you have people who love the Lord and are Calvinists and people who love the Lord who are Arminian and studying the same scriptures. There was, I'm, yeah, I'm not a Calvinist and I differ and yet I think there's something that a Calvinist is seeing in terms of God's sovereignty and how he works that transcends our understanding. I just differ with the conclusion. So in other words, I'm going to have humility in the midst of differences with brothers and sisters, but you look, you do solid study and you look at the main themes and then you keep asking yourself as you're reading through the Bible, if I didn't know this particular doctrine, if I never heard about a pre-trib rapture or a millennium or, you know, gift of healing or if I didn't, you know, whatever the thing is, the Trinity, if I didn't hear of any of these things, would I come to any of these conclusions? Would I come to these viewpoints? So for me, I understand. When does the first century church understand it to me?

Right. Now, David Bercot, B-e-r-c-o-t, has a lot of books about this, an encyclopedia where you go by topic and he has quotes from early church leaders, but that's very interesting where he goes back to where the early church stood on things. Now, we know that regionally things developed differently. There was also a culture, as you got more into Greek philosophical culture, other things were very ascetic so that you just separated yourself totally from material things. So there were, you know, emphases that went wrong that church got cut off from Jewish roots, but it's still very interesting to look and see, okay, what was your policy about being entertained by gladiatorial games?

How did you feel about serving as a soldier? What about, you know, it's very interesting to read that. He's got some useful books that kind of challenge our beliefs on that. But again, I think, here, I personally believe that you could read through the Bible cover to cover and land either way on Calvinist or Arminian views because you have so many strong verses that each side can muster. You know, the overwhelming testimony of choose, choose, choose, choose, and then you have like a passage like Romans 9. So again, I don't agree with the Calvinist interpretation, but I can see how you get it. Ephesians 1, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, many passages. I personally, I can even understand how you could believe that you can't forfeit your salvation despite the many, many warnings that are there because of all the promises of God keeping us, etc. When it comes to the end times, honestly, if you just read the Bible, you were alone in a room, you could read Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek fluently, you'd never read the Bible, and now you read it day and night for, you know, for 10 years alone in a room, I don't believe you'd come up with a pre-trib rapture seven years before the second coming.

I don't believe you'd come up with cessationism either. If you were just reading the Bible, just my own views there. But either way, what you want to do is try to understand why someone has a different viewpoint and see how strong their arguments are and weigh them before the Lord.

You know, going back to a political issue, when I had two colleagues that I respected, both believing that God had raised up Donald Trump for some unusual purposes and that he was going to be the president in 2016, and this is when I hotly opposed him during the primaries, I was on my knees. I said, God, I don't see it. I just don't see what these men are saying. If I'm wrong, show me. But I have to go with what I understand to be right, but show me if I'm wrong.

I think if we keep that attitude, no, we'll never have every doctrine mastered on every level. You know, someone's going to understand this better than me, and I'm going to understand something else better than them. But that humility and just going through the word, going through the word. Then lastly, listen to the argument. See how strong it is. And to me, I'll say this last thing.

I know it's a long answer to a simple question, but I said this last thing. One of the pillars for me in exposing false doctrine is when you present a strong argument against it from scripture, and the argument and answer is very weak. You can see how twisted it is. You can see how things are turned upside down. That really, really helps. When every challenge has a solid answer, solid response, it's like, hmm, let me think about that. But when you give your strong scriptures, your indisputable verses in your viewpoint, and the answer you get is twisted, turned upside down, you've got to change the meaning of 30 obvious passages in the Bible to make your doctrine fit.

Sorry, that's not what scripture teaches, and I'll be dogmatic about that as well. Okay, we may get a little bit more on this subject today, but I want to switch over to Israel and give you an update of what's happening there, because it is urgent. Thanks for the call, Tom. Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. That's what it sounds like in Israel right now. One of our grads whose brother and sister-in-law are also grads from a ministry school, the brother and sister-in-law living in Israel, she sent me that link to cell phone footage of Jerusalem being bombed.

That was from yesterday, earlier today, then I just got an email blast from Joel Rosenberg when I went to check my emails during this last two-minute break. Tel Aviv, now under attack from rocket barrage at 9 p.m. local time Tuesday night, so that would be early to mid-afternoon in the States. Right now, Tel Aviv, Israel's second largest city, came under a withering attack of rockets from Gaza Strip. Other towns, villages, cities, and suburbs around Tel Aviv, including Herzliya and Natanya, Rishon and Tsion, among others, are also under attack.

Let's just put some footage up to play as I'm speaking. This is a picture of rockets being fired from Gaza by Hamas, so if you're watching, you're seeing this, not hearing anything except me talking, but this is what it looks like, and here the blast areas are hit. Israel's Iron Dome defense system has intercepted many of the rockets, but it's been an unrelenting attack, and of course Israel retaliating heavily with airstrikes. There were two Israelis just killed in Ashkelon, an elderly woman and another, and now probably well over 25 deaths of Palestinians in Gaza. Friends, in case you haven't followed what's been going on, there has been rising tension recently between Palestinians and Israelis. There have been concerns that Palestinians will be evicted from certain areas for the settlements to be built by the Israelis, and then as you come to the end of Ramadan, the end of last week, this is a very intense time in Islam. You almost always have increases in terrorist acts during the month of Ramadan, as Muslims fast food and drink from dawn until dusk and then feast at night, and then many at the end of Ramadan come together just to receive some type of spiritual empowerment. One of my colleagues who was a missionary in Morocco was telling me about that and what would happen in the mosques, and in his mind people even being demonized in the midst of this. So you have after Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Friday night that the crowds stay there, begin rioting, so the Israelis, they do have to keep the peace. Remember, Muslims have full access to these holy sites in the Dome of the Rock in Al-Aqsa Mosque. Show me the Islamic country where Christians have open access to their holy places and can practice their faith freely, and the synagogues are filled with Jews practicing their faith freely.

That's not the case, especially post-1948. In any case, in any case, the rioting starts, Israel suppresses the rioting, that's it. Anything having to do with Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Temple Mount, anything where Israel lifts a finger and is going to be accused, that's it, they're desecrating the holy sites, the Jews are desecrating the holy sites, and all hell breaks loose. That's it. It has been done over and over and over.

The same scenario played out over and over. You say, what do you mean it's been done? I mean activists. I mean terrorists. I mean Palestinians stirring up trouble. Is that your average Palestinian on the street?

No. Activists, terrorists. Those who mean evil, mean to do harm, whether they knew it would go this far or not, I don't know. But I do know that they helped provoke this, so now when word gets out, desecrating the holy sites, Israel's desecrating the holy sites, and committing genocide against Palestinians, so now the bombs start falling from Hamas and Gaza. Remember, when Israel turned Gaza over to the Palestinians, just turned it over, it was a miserably difficult time for the nation. The same time, right before Katrina hit, it was a miserably difficult time for the nation because the Israeli army physically went in and pulled people, dragged them out. I mean vineyards they had planted, farms they had developed, and synagogues they had built, and houses and thousands of people living there, physically pulled them out, put them in tents, yeah, just to say, okay fine, you have Gaza, it's yours. Used to be, you know, Israeli just go there shopping back and forth and, you know, people do what they do, live side by side.

No, it's all yours. No Jews, all yours, all Palestinian. And who they elected as their government? Hamas. You got a civil war between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority with torture and murder and all kinds of things. Let's read into it.

These things happen, okay? Corrupt leadership. Corrupt leadership. In many ways, the Palestinian people have been victims of corrupt leadership. So you end up electing a terrorist organization to lead the way.

What do you expect? And then tunnels underground to smuggle weapons in or kidnap or kill Israelis, smuggle weapons in from Egypt and stuff. So that's what Israel's been dealing with.

So the reporting consistently will bash Israel. Rather than say Israel is defending itself, Israel is crushing terrorists and the terrorists set up their rockets by hospitals and schools and things like that. Israel does everything in its power, I know this for a fact, and it's been documented, everything in its power to to protect civilian lives in Gaza when they go to war. Everything they can, even at the risk of their own soldiers' safety, I know this for a fact, it's well documented.

Even in official international reports, it's been well documented. The pains that Israel goes through to save civilian lives. Hamas does the exact opposite because every civilian that's killed makes Israel look bad. But let me show you some footage. It's some Israelis dancing at the wall, the Kotel. They're dancing and celebrating on Jerusalem Day, so just yesterday, and there's fire in the background. So let me just play this for you, okay? Okay, so you get the picture. There they are dancing, celebrating.

There's fire behind them. So here's one tweet condemning them, showing the same video, and it's condemning. Let's just check out this tweet.

It's by Joshua Leifer. This video is a horrifying testament to what Zionism has done to Judaism. In other words, Palestinians are being attacked, they're being bombed, whatever Israel's shooting at, whether there's a fire because of that, and there they are dancing and celebrating how evil Zionism has destroyed Judaism. Here's another tweet setting the record straight.

How fake news spreads on social media, and they both have reference to the same video. Why? Israelis dancing and cheering because Al-Aqsa Mosque has been bombed. Truth. It's a tree on fire.

And why? Because of fireworks, firecrackers that Palestinians were shooting out. Two, because Palestinian protesters threw firecrackers on it.

Just told you that. Three, the singing and dancing is for Jerusalem Day, which always ends at the Western Wall. So they're going ahead doing what they're doing, like always, but no, evil Jews. So I post prayer requests, please pray. There were two posted on Facebook yesterday. One with a report from Associated Press that didn't blame or exonerate either side, maybe too pro-Palestinian, but I just posted that saying, please pray.

I didn't say who to pray for, how to pray. We had to delete and pull comments from ugly anti-Semitism. I mean bad stuff, ugly stuff, equating the state of Israel with Satan himself. And then later in the day, or maybe the next day then, there it is posted, and please pray for the peace of Jerusalem. So again, we've got to delete comments. But here, let me just give you an example of some of what was posted.

This is Princess Areej. The Palestinians today in Gaza City have 26 martyrs, including nine children, as a result of the Israel bombing of homes. I hope that the truth will be shown. We in Gaza are an oppressed and occupied people. We are suffering here.

I responded. It's terrible. They have to feel like they're just in a fishbowl being bombed.

It's going to be terrible. I responded, then plead with Hamas to stop being a terrorist organization. The blame is squarely on your leadership. Israel will be living at peace with you, and you would be prospering if not for Hamas. It's tragic, but true.

I took time to respond to that. This next one, we just delete it here. This is the kind of stuff that gets posted all the time. Al-Fati. The Zionist state is the kingdom of the Antichrist, and Christian Zionism is his army, and the barbaric Zionist occupation of Palestine. Zionism is the root cause of all mayhem in the Middle East and using America to fight their dirty waters. Zionism is spreading corruption in the land worldwide.

So friends, this is what people believe. And if you grew up, say, as a kid in Gaza, which has a very, very high percentage of young people, so you grew up in a situation where the money that's poured in to Palestinian leadership goes to propaganda and to weapons, tunnel making, as opposed to educating the kids in infrastructure and hospitals. You grew up with state-funded TV that spreads you the lies. Then you're in a situation where you can't travel freely because of blockade, because of smuggling of weapons and terrorists trying to enter Israel.

You grew up with that. Then Israel's bombing you. You really think that Israel is the bad player here. It is Hamas. Oh, Israel is far from perfect, but it's Hamas. Pray that the Palestinian people will be delivered from corrupt leadership and come to know the truth of the gospel above all. And pray that the people of Israel, in the midst of their distress, return to the one true God and the Messiah whom he sent. Another program powered by the Truth Network.