Bring On Your Best Questions

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. Welcome, friends, to our broadcast today on the line of fire. If you are listening or watching live, well, it's Friday afternoon. It's a little bit past three in the afternoon Eastern time, which means you can call in 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87884.

Many times we start to show every phone line jam before we even get started, but we got some open phone lines, so now is a great time to call in with your questions, comments of any kind, 866-34-87884. If you're watching or listening afterwards, just remember we're live daily, five days a week, Monday to Friday, 3 to 4 p.m. Eastern time. Before we go to the phones, many days I'm tremendously burdened about a particular subject, and therefore I write an article on it. I only write about five op-ed pieces a week. They're posted on various sites as well as on our site AskDrBrown.org. Last night I felt needed to write something fresh, and I was praying, Lord, what should I tackle? What should I write about society and the world? And I just got prompted to write an article on God is not discouraged.

Well, discouragement is not in the nature of God, and why if we are in Him, we will not be discouraged. So you can read that by going to AskDrBrown, AskDrBrown.org. Otherwise, let's go to the phones now. Maybe I'll share more of that as we go on in the broadcast.

Let's start in St. Louis, Missouri. Jay, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, so great to speak with you. I really appreciate your ministry. It's been a great help to me, the wisdom that you share in everything, so I just want to say thank you for everything you do. Well, thank you.

I appreciate that. Yeah, so my question is regarding the nature of our free will in heaven. I've been kind of pondering eternity, and it kind of brings up some thoughts into my mind about, will we be able, obviously, to make choices? Will we be able to make mistakes? Will we be able to learn and grow and increase in our abilities? Will we be lacking in anything in heaven, you know? Just wanted to get your thoughts on that and what you feel like the Bible speaks in that area.

Yeah, it's a question I've thought about a lot as well, to be honest. So obviously, sin is impossible. It's not in our nature.

It's not in the environment. It's something that we are forever dead to. So we know that that doesn't exist. So just if we're thinking in general, what does that mean about our memories, right? If we're remembering back to things, well, if we're remembering back to sinful things we did or sinful things that were around us, that couldn't be a memory. So there are a lot of questions the more you dig in terms of what our consciousness will be, what our awareness will be, et cetera. But I don't know that the Bible explicitly answers the questions you're asking, because I've wondered about it as well. For example, if there is no challenge, then can there be any sense of achievement? Because what seems clear to me is the way God made us in his nature and with the universe as he created it, all of its vastness, that we get to grow and explore and do things forever and ever that we don't get to finish in this world.

Ecclesiastes 3 is commonly understood. God put eternity in our hearts, which is why we seek after him. But it's also why for so many of us, their goals, dreams, things that don't get fulfilled in this world, that forever and ever we get to live out.

You know, Winky Pratney once said to me that he plans to learn every language and learn to play every instrument, you know, in the world to come. That could well be the case. Obviously, we worship the Lord that's at the center of everything, but the creativity, the desire, the things he put within us, it would seem will be there growing forever and ever. Again, I can't say the Bible explicitly addresses that. But here's the question, though. Can there be growth if there's no challenge? Can there be growth if there's no failure? Can there be failure without frustration, or can there be frustration without sin? You know, so I don't know that I have answers to these things. When I really think about it, I know there's the sense of exploration and growth and being challenged to go deeper, and you can have that without failure. But if all we ever do is just succeed endlessly without hitting any bumps or obstacles or challenges, then how do we grow? So obviously there's just so much we don't know on this side. And then you add in the endless questions about, okay, a baby that was aborted or a little child that was killed and enters God's heavenly presence. Where do they develop?

How do they grow? Families are reunited. What happens? Even, you know, the challenge that the Sadducees gave to Jesus about the woman that's married seven times because each husband dies, then in the world to come, which will be your husband, Jesus says, well, you don't understand the world to come. That also raises the question, okay, well, what relationship do we have with a spouse?

You'd imagine it would be different than just some stranger. So there are a lot of questions we don't have answers to. The key thing we do know is every tear is wiped away, there's no pain, there's no death, there's no suffering, and that God's light fills the entire world in which we live and that we are in intimate fellowship with him. So everything flows out of that, and I guess that's the biggest thing that we do need to know. Yeah, and I was thinking of those same questions you were just kind of outlining there. I can't imagine eternity without challenge, without goals and, you know, dreams, and it just seems so much a part of our nature.

I just can't imagine it not being a part of it. Yeah, so again, I believe God put that in us. You know, my wife Nancy has many deep spiritual interests, but she's also a master landscaper and gardener and builder who could work side by side with a general contractor planning out a house. I mean, she's just brilliant like that. And many years ago, she said, what are you going to do in heaven? Because there's no one to debate, you know, there's no heresy to fix or, you know, no actives to stand for.

And she goes, I can just keep doing this, you know. So, but, you know, look, Spurgeon said that he would preach to the angels about grace because they don't get it. They don't, they look into our salvation, but they never received grace the way we did. Either they obeyed and were rewarded or they disobeyed and were judged. So you picture, he preaches on grace.

It's like, could you preach one more time? So it'll be amazing beyond anything we can imagine, but we don't have a lot of these questions answered. Hey, thanks. Thanks for asking. I appreciate it.

All right. 866-348-7884. Let's go to John in Wilmington, Delaware. Welcome to the line of fire. How are you doing, Dr. Brown?

Doing well, thanks. So a couple weeks ago, or maybe a month ago, I called you and asked you about Mark Nanos' book and what you thought. And then you kind of asked me, you know, what verse trips me up, or I forget the exact word you use, but I've contemplated that sense. There's nothing, there's nothing that trips, like, I kind of, I actually, I don't kind of, I do agree with you that kind of does twist and turn some things, but Acts 21, to my question, like when Paul comes, when they discuss how he came back, and he was preaching to his Gentiles, and how that was great and glorified God, but the Jewish people that were coming to faith, they were, you know, they had a deal for the law, and they asked him to make the Nazarite vow. If he was 100% giving it up, wouldn't he have said it there at that moment? Like, why do you think he went to the temple and did that? Because he wasn't giving it up. He lived, he lived as a Torah-observant Jew.

Why wouldn't he? He just did it, he did it in the newness of the Spirit, that's what he says in Romans 7, and in order to reach certain people would take on traditions he didn't have to. So you can kind of look at Acts 21 three different ways, but I'll give you my take on it. The most negative take is that he was warned about this, that the Jews in Jerusalem were going to bind him. Acts 21 was not talking about being taken by the Romans, but the Jews binding him with legalism, and Paul fell into the trap of legalism there in Acts 21 and joined all these tens of thousands of other Jewish believers who were caught up with legalism. So for many reasons I reject that viewpoint.

Another is that it would be called an adiaphor, just something that Paul did to do it because it was helpful and useful for ministry. The problem with that is that he was making a statement in doing it. No, I don't teach Jews who believe in Jesus around the world to abandon Moses.

I'm not teaching them to do that. So that's what I argue against that. The last view is that they were zealous for the Torah, so was he, but it was in the life of the Spirit, the fullness of the Spirit, but the fact is the temple was about to be destroyed. In not that many years the temple was going to be destroyed and that would be the final death blow to the old system, that Hebrews 8 says that the new covenant has been inaugurated and the old is obsolete, it's ready to perish. So that with the destruction of the temple and everything changing so radically, you now have pharisaical Judaism as the main thing that remains in that regard because it's synagogue-based, not temple-based, and has these other traditions, and then the Jewish believers in Jesus continued on rejecting the traditions of the Pharisees, but now building a new life of a new covenant in the Spirit.

So things did change dramatically as the temple was destroyed, but until that time they participated, like other Jews, but with a different spirit, with a different attitude, with a recognition of forgiveness through the cross that others didn't have. So look, it's Acts the 10th chapter, so well into the book of Acts when God gives the revelation to Peter that it's okay to go to the Gentiles, so he didn't get that. He probably assumed that as Israel is saved, that their whole mission is to see Israel saved, and as Israel is saved, then that'll bring salvation to the rest of the world, and that's how the Great Commission will be fulfilled. He didn't even get it that he was supposed to go to the Gentiles. The idea of him eating something unclean was unthinkable to him, and God never told him to eat something unclean there in Acts 10 for the record. He just said, hey, don't call unclean what I've cleansed, namely the Gentiles, through the blood of Jesus. So these men lived as Jews.

It was normal, understandable to do that. They did it with a different attitude towards the law. They did it with a different understanding of grace and forgiveness than their fellow Jews who weren't believers. Then with the destruction of the temple, that brings into full measure the depth of changes that will need to be made and the further realities of the New Covenant, which then get lived out in various different ways in various different communities.

So again, and I've got a break coming up, so let me just sum up here. I appreciate a lot of what Mark Nannous has done in his writings. I do think some things, like in Romans, turn things upside down.

But the idea that this was a Jewish movement started by Jewish followers of Jesus who still lived as Jews, yes, that's true, but not under the law as a system of righteousness, not under the condemnation of the law, and not under the law as a tutor to bring them to the Messiah. And with the fullness of life coming now, the destruction of the temple, things now get expressed in different ways. Hey, thank you for calling back. I appreciate it. 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. And welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire. Hey, a reminder, Has God Failed You? Finding Faith When You're Not Even Sure God Is Real is available not just as a paperback or actually on demand hardcover and ebook, but also in audio form. So you can get it any way that you take books in, physical copy, ebook, or audio form.

So to get your different options, go to websites like Amazon.com and other places where you get your books, or go to my website if you just want the physical copy, AskDrBrown, AskDrBrown.org. We're getting great responses from readers. We're getting great responses from interviewers and producers who are reading the book before they talk with me and saying how it ministered to them.

So we're really blessed to hear that it's an important book about an important subject, Has God Failed You? Also, many of you posting questions on social media on our broadcast, our Q&A broadcast that are live on Friday, and then you may be watching or listening different days of the week. We only respond to phone calls, 866-34-TRUTH. However, 4.15 Eastern time today, for those that are watching live, we'll be doing our weekly YouTube chat. And there we just respond to printed, written questions that are posted there during the chat. So we'll get to as many as we can calls and then questions that are posted later. All right, with that, we go straight back to the phones, and let's go to Ruth in New Mexico. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown. Thanks so much for the opportunity to ask you a question that I've wondered about for a while now. Yeah. In some quick conversations online with an Orthodox Jew, I was told that Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 is not included in their Bible because it doesn't really belong, and we never really finished the conversation, but it gave me the impression that he's saying that it's not really there in the original writings. I checked on it in one of their translations online, which is favored by the Orthodox, and I'm sorry, I can't remember the name of the translation now, but sure enough, that wasn't there.

Let me just jump in. It is there. It's just one verse earlier.

It is there. It's in every Hebrew Bible on the planet and every Hebrew manuscript of Isaiah 9 that's ever been found. It's just one verse earlier. It will be translated differently, but you have, for example, many of the Psalms, the Psalms start with a superscription, you know, a Psalm of David, this, that, you know, some other background, like Psalm 63 when he was in the wilderness of Judea. So, in the Hebrew Bibles, that's counted as verse 1. In our English Bible, you have the superscription, then verse 1, so you'll find many of the Psalms are off by one verse, but it's all there.

It's exactly the same. It's just off by one verse. So, when it comes to Isaiah, in our, in Hebrew Bibles, Isaiah 9, 1 in our Bible is the last verse of chapter 8, okay? So, when you get into the ninth chapter, it's off by one verse. So, if you go back and look at that, whatever Jewish translation you're looking at, Stone is a popular one, or the New Jewish Publication Society is more broadly used, Stone used by religious Jews, it's just one verse earlier. That's the only difference. Now, you'll find it translated differently many times because there's a dispute about, is it about the Messiah?

Is the Messiah called Mighty God? But, whatever that Orthodox Jewish person told you, either they were unbelievably ignorant of something or there was a misunderstanding in the communication. And maybe he was saying, what you think is there isn't there because they translate it differently.

Now, if you want more info on this, it just so happens that I just did a video responding to a counter-missionary rabbi who claimed that Christians misunderstand or misinterpret the verse. So, if you go to my YouTube channel, AskDrBrown, AskDrBrown, and just look at the most recent videos, you'll see one where I address that. But, it's just, it's exactly the same, just numbered differently, that's all. Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Yep, sure thing. And, you know, it is interesting because you look, it's like, whoa, it's not there. It's there, it's just verse different. You'll sometimes see, maybe you're reading like a commentary or scholarly book, and it'll say Isaiah 9-5 and then in parentheses 6, or Isaiah 9-6 and parentheses 5. What that's telling you is there's a difference between the English and the Hebrew in terms of what verse number it is.

And you have that in a bunch of other places as well. It's just the chapters got numbered differently or ended different places, started different, began different places, but same verses, same verse. Different interpretations, but same verses. All right, let's go to Yannick in Cooper City, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, God bless you. God bless you. I have a question. Yep.

I was reading, I was studying, oh, I don't know. Genesis 25-23, we got prophesied to Rachel about the elder, the twins in a womb. Right, to Rebecca, to Rebecca. Yeah. Oh, Rebecca, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's okay. Now, I am looking, is there anywhere that it is mentioned that she also discussed that with Isaac? Well, it doesn't say. She's wondering what's going on. I can't hear you. Yeah, I'm speaking, not sure why you can't hear me.

But anyway, yeah, I'm not quite sure what the question would be asking. But in short, yeah, very simply, it says, and just read a translation, I'm looking at the Hebrew, that she's wondering, okay, Isaac prays to the Lord because she's childless. The Lord answers prayer, and his wife, Rebecca, becomes pregnant, but then she's, the children, that's verse 21, in a womb, the children are like wrestling and she's wondering, you know, what's going on. And the Lord says to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated.

One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. So, does it say specifically that she spoke with Isaac? No, you assume that's the first person you tell is your husband, it doesn't say, and she went and told her husband, but she's asking the Lord what's this about, and the Lord speaks to her. But yeah, I certainly assume that he knew that, and how that would tie in with things later, a blessing or doing whatever, that's a separate question.

But yeah, I assume he knew that and she would have told him. I can't prove it, can't prove it. Hey, thank you for the call, I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Kim in Coarse Gold, California. To my knowledge, I've never received a call from Coarse Gold, California before. Where exactly is that? We are just a bit south of Yosemite National Park. Oh, sweet, where does the name come from, do you know?

I don't, I know that it used to be like a gold mining town, but I'm not really exactly sure on that. Now it's like, it could be, I've been doing live talk radio for 13 years, so I may have gotten the call from here before, but anyway, let's assume that it's just the first ever call from Coarse Gold, California on the line of fire. Thanks for calling in.

Well, thank you for taking my call. So I was curious, in Genesis 16, starting in verse 11 here, it says, And the angel of the Lord said to her, her being Hagar, Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son, you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man, his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. My question for you is, is there, is it correct, I guess, to connect this to, I guess, like, currently in the Middle East, like the descendants of the Palestinians, and how all that connects together? Or is this like, is Ishmael of Arabic descent, where, you know, where this is almost prophetical in a sense that it's talking about this, this fighting, if you will. And then also because Islam connects Ishmael to their actual birthright father, right?

Is that correct? Yeah, so Esau is one thing, right? Esau, the Edomites, even though it's a Middle Eastern people, that goes in a different direction. But Ishmael as the father of various Middle Eastern Arab peoples, certainly as the father of Islam, or through Abraham, through Ishmael being the viewpoint of Islam, as you mentioned, versus Abraham through Isaac, as Jews and Christians would see things. So I didn't mean to say Ishmael as the father of Islam. But yeah, I believe you can make that connection.

There is debate about the end of the verse, that he will dwell in opposition to his brothers, or in the presence of the translation you read said in the presence of. You can make a case for that. But yeah, the fighting spirit of Islam, the violence of it, and going back to Ishmael, or every people group having good and bad characteristics, be it Jews, be it Arabs, be it Americans, be it Germans, be it Italians, be it Mexicans, be it Russians, that every one of us has characteristics. Some of them are good and some of them are bad.

And here would highlight some of the more negative characteristics. That could well be. I think you could make that case. What I would emphasize the scripturally is the wonderful promises to the descendants of Ishmael, how they will come to worship the God of Israel, and how they will be among the nations that help restore the Jewish people and together worship the God of Israel. So I'd look to those positive promises. But yes, I think an argument could be made in terms of lineage, or at the very least, spiritual dissent as children of Ishmael rather than children of Isaac.

But ultimately, yes, those to whom promises are made that they too will worship the Messiah of Israel. Hey, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. 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. Thanks friends for joining us on The Line of Fire. 866-34-TRUTH. You've got questions. We've got answers.

And with that, oh, check this out. We've got a phone line open. I looked up and the phone line is open. Maybe more in a moment, but we've got one open right now. 866-34-TRUTH.

Often that's hard to come by on a Friday. Let's go to Angelo in Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome to The Line of Fire. What's going on, Dr. Brown?

Hey, man. So I got a two-part question. So the first one is, how do we have modern-day apostles? And my second one is, what does Paul mean when he speaks to the women wearing head coverings because of the angel?

Right. So let me address the second question first. It's obviously a question that comes up a lot and one that has many, many different answers, a lot of speculation from New Testament scholars.

The answer that seems best to me is that there is a divine order and respect for authority that's important to the Lord and for the angels that are in the midst of our services to do what they do properly. And that in the ancient world, we know that a married woman would come in, in much of the ancient world, would cover her hair when she was out in public, cover her or be veiled, but at home would not be. If you're a younger child, you know, a seven-year-old girl, you wouldn't have to do that. But if you were a married woman, that you would do that. And it was a sign of also of honor and recognition of the role of the husband. So the question within Corinth is, is you're having church meetings in your house, so they're public yet they're private.

So does the woman need to be covered or not? And again, I can't be dogmatic on this, but it seems that he's saying you have a proper understanding of gender distinctions and of a woman's submission to her husband and the husband's submission to the Lord and the son's submission to the father, that that's proper because the angels, you know, they're holy and they bring a holy presence with them. As to the question about apostles, there are over 20 people in the New Testament that are called apostles. For example, Acts 14, 14, it says that Barnabas and Saul or Barnabas and Paul were apostles. So Barnabas is just called an apostle. There are others that are referenced as apostles that are not among the first 12.

So it all depends on definition. If you mean the first 12, those who watched Jesus die and rise from the dead and were with him from the beginning of his ministry, which is the requirement laid out in Acts 14 for a replacement for Judas, then you can only have those first 12. And they had unique authority and some of them were writers of the New Testament. And one of the keys for canonicity in the New Testament was either that the book was written by an apostle or a colleague of one of the apostles or had eyewitness access to information from the apostles.

So those 12, that's it. You can't have them beyond that and they had unique authority. But others that are called apostles, they are emissaries, they had certain roles, they were pioneers, they were builders, they were fathers. There are different aspects of their work and Ephesians 4 indicates that until we come into the fullness of the knowledge of the Son of God and there's no more being tossed to and fro with error that we will have in the body apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. So based on that, apostolic ministry has continued through the centuries.

I just believe we haven't always used that name for it. So when I look through church history, I see a Patrick going to Ireland to become Saint Patrick. That's an apostle centuries ago. Or I see a John Wesley or I see a Hudson Taylor or my friend in India, Yesupadam. Those are all people doing apostolic work, going into new regions, extending.

We're getting some background noise, not sure why, so you can hear me, but we won't hear you. Yeah, so I see that there have been apostles through the ages, we just haven't always used that name to describe them. I think the good is that we recognize that there are people, it's not just a local church, that there are whole movements, there are denominations, there are things that have leaders over leaders and many of these are apostolic people. You can recognize that in a city or a region or a movement that something new is birthed and that can be healthy and wonderful and people really are anointed to function in these ways and be a father to leaders and be a pioneer and extend movements and things like that into new regions.

On the other hand, the negative can be if someone thinks they have the authority of a New Testament apostle like a John or a Paul and they're going to minister in that way, I should say in particular like a John or a Matthew or what they say is on the level of Scripture, so that of course is heretical and to be rejected. Hey, thank you, sir, for the question, I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Elmore in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown, thank you for having me.

Sure. My question is dealing with the Bible, when it was first prescribed by King James, they did not consider something that's written in John 7 as to how to determine whether it's doctrine of man or doctrine of God. If you go to John 7, verses 16-18, Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but He has sent me. If any man would do his will, he would know of the doctrine whether it be of God or wealth.

I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeks his own glory. And God never did say that I suffer a woman not to teach as written and intimidated. That of Paul said, I suffer a woman not to teach, but God never did say that. As you know, in Acts 16, God opened little your heart to attend to the thing that Paul taught. He was not saying that women should be found in the church at that time. As we know, that was a church established in the home, the church as our authority. We also know Paul encouraged other men to help the women who labor in the gospel. And also in 1 Corinthians 14, he was actually admonishing the saints in Corinth. In verse 36, it said, What, children, did the word of God came to you, or came to you only? In some versions of the Bible, they have removed the word what. So what I'm saying is that God has given us a way. Jesus made a clear statement as to how to determine whether doctrine was a man or doctrine of God.

By not considering that particular aspect of it, then there's a problem. Just one other thing, Dr. Brown, when he wrote this doctrine as to who could be a bishop and whatnot, it doesn't really matter. Because once you're born again, you're born again. And whatever you've done in the past, it doesn't really matter. You're born again, then you become God. Whether you've been married two or three times, it doesn't matter when you're born again.

From that point on, you're born again. I'd like to hear your comment. Yeah, so a few things. Number one, I do believe that Paul spoke by inspiration when he said, I don't suffer, I don't allow a woman to teach you, serve authority over men. The question is what exactly was he saying? That he was speaking as an apostle, that's recorded for us and part of scripture for us. But what exactly did he mean when he said that?

That's the question that I would ask there. The same thing with 1 Corinthians 14, since he's already said that women can pray and prophesy in an assembly as long as they're in proper order in 1 Corinthians 11, that he's certainly not saying that women can't speak at all in the assembly in 1 Corinthians 14. So to me, it's just a matter of sitting deeper in context, believing that Paul is speaking the mind and will of the Lord and what he's writing. That's what we have in these letters. That's why they've been preserved for us by the will of God. As for the John 717 principle, yeah, the one key thing is it's not just theory.

There must be doing. So as we set ourselves to do God's will, then things do fall into place accordingly. As for a new start when we're born again, yes and no. Yes in terms of we are new creations. No in terms of, let's say I stole money yesterday from the bank, got away with it, and got saved today and the police came to arrest me tomorrow, I'd go to jail for stealing the money even though I'd go to jail as a saved person. So there are certain things we do and we get a brand new start.

It's just the past is wiped away and we get a brand new start and there are other things that we do that have lasting consequences. If I knew someone that got born again and they had gotten divorced six months earlier, I would ask them, is there any way to go back? Is there any way to reach out to that person? Can there be reconciliation? Can we minister to them to bring them to the Lord? No, they're out of here.

They're in a new relationship, they're ready to get married and well, the past is the past, move on. If there are ways that you can fix things, like restoration, reconciliation, then you seek to do that. But let's never underestimate the power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse and give us a new start. Hey, Elmore, thank you for the call and for interacting. Appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH.

If you want to know more about my views about women in ministry, women as pastors, just go to our website, AskDrBrown.org, type in women or women as pastors and you'll get more info there. Let's go to Jacob in Kevin, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, sir, can you hear me? Yeah, I can. You bet.

All right, thank you. So my question is, it's a two-part question. The first is, how did the Old Testament prophets view child sacrifice and the idols they were sacrificed to, example, Baal and Asherah, and with that knowledge, how should that then affect the way we battle abortion and the idols they viewed as sacrifice today, example, self and the Supreme Court? Yeah, so number one, it was one of the greatest sins in God's sight, one of the sins that would be singled out like in Jeremiah 7 or in Jeremiah 19. When God would speak of the shedding of innocent blood, that was often very, very high on the list, if not the highest on the list. Now, of course, you are talking about taking a living human being outside the womb, so not a child within the womb that has the potential of life outside the womb, but a living human being and burning that child alive in the most horrific manner imaginable to a demonic so-called deity. But it was one of the gravest evils in God's sight, and in my mind, there are definitely parallels, not exact because you're still not talking about taking a living human being outside the womb and killing it, but there are definitely parallels. Now, as to the gods to which they're sacrificed, to me, it's not Supreme Court or local state. To me, it's to selfish, the gods would be to selfishness, to greed, to sexual freedom without responsibility. Those are the deities to which we'd be sacrificing these babies. If you don't have my book, Jezebel's War with America, Jezebel's War with America, I have a whole chapter on abortion that addresses this very subject head on, Jezebel's War with America.

Okay, I'm looking up at our Facebook stream, which is in front of me, and Yannick thanking me for taking her call and saying it's the first time that she called in. I still don't understand if she discussed with Isaac, if Rebecca spoke with Isaac, why would she have gone to such great extreme to make sure that Jacob received the blessing due to Esau? They're parents and they had their favorites. Just because it said that the older will serve the younger, it didn't say that the younger will receive the birthright or the father's blessing. So, she was partial to Jacob and Isaac was partial to Esau. So, you know, one was the firstborn and deserved certain things. So, the prophecy didn't really discuss these other issues.

And therefore, they just acted as parents with their own wishes and desires wanting to see certain things happen. But thanks for further clarifying your question here. All right.

By the way, if you're watching live, it is 3.49 Eastern Time and ticking. And that means in 25 minutes, we'll be back on our YouTube channel, AskDrBrown, A-S-K-D-R Brown on YouTube during our weekly Q&A chat. And once we do the chat, then we archive it privately for our monthly supporters, our Patreon supporters. So, if you want to watch all these YouTube videos and bonus videos, I mean, several hundred of these available now, just join our support team. You can go to patreon.com forward slash A-S-K-D-R Brown, patreon.com forward slash A-S-K-D-R Brown, or our website, AskDrBrown.org. Just click on donate monthly support.

You'll be able to catch any of these episodes after they air. All right. Back to the phones, and we go to Alan in Miami, Florida. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. How are you? Doing well, thanks.

First of all, I want to appreciate that you guys actually take the calls live, and you're not like, 12 years fingers, that it says that it's live, but when you call, it's recorded. And he should be exposed because, you know, he calls Christianity disgusting. And these people should be exposed for their deceit, first of all.

Okay. Second of all, I have a couple of questions. The first question is on Ezekiel 43, 11. And I believe that the temple, Ezekiel's temple, it was a conditional prophecy, because if you see 43, 11, it says, and if they are ashamed of all that they have done...

Right, right. It seems when you're reading it through, as much as it's glorious and it's very easy to just look at it as some type of millennial temple, which many still believe will happen, in context, Ezekiel is being shown these plans in exile. He's supposed to show his fellow Judeans in exile, so they're ashamed. Here we are languishing in exile because of our sin, and this is what God wants us to build. And then Ezekiel was going to be part of the actual building process and participating in the temple rites, yes, so that this was supposed to usher in this glorious age with repentance of the exiles in the building of the temple. See, it would seem in context that it should have happened 2,500 years ago.

I know. And the anti-missionaries, they like to prove that as a gotcha thing for Christians with the Messiah King. But if you look at it, it's a big if.

And actually, when I have asked them about that, they don't have an answer. Yeah, here's another thing to press, sir, is that the dimensions of this are different than the dimensions of the tabernacle-slash-temple in the Torah and subsequently. So there's a rabbinic tradition that says this one rabbi in a state of endless nights reconciling the data, but we don't have what he wrote. So that's a question, too, for the traditional Jew, is why will there be something built that now is different than what's written in the Torah? So in volume two of my series Answering Jewish Rejections to Jesus, I say no matter how you slice this cake, it creates problems and questions for everybody, for traditional Jews, for Christians. And therefore, we shouldn't be dogmatic about its fulfillment. And within these chapters, it mentions a prince from David, but it never mentions the Messiah is another thing to press.

They say, well, if it's prince from David and there's a sacrifice, why would he sacrifice? Well, it doesn't say it's the Messiah there either. So those are valid points to raise. Yeah, go ahead. But do you see the if? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's conditional. So they have to be ashamed at that time. So you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. Again, when they use it as a gotcha passage, as opposed to all of us as students of Scripture trying to understand what this means and does it have future application, et cetera, we have to raise these questions. There's even rabbinic teaching that says that this proves the resurrection of the dead because it says Ezekiel will be participating in the temple rites. But certainly when he was speaking it, that was not what was being thought. It was that it would literally be built and that he would literally be part of it. By the way, as for Tovias Singer, I certainly believe he's been terribly deceitful, destructive. We have a whole series of videos taking his misrepresentations one at a time and demolishing them with the truth of Scripture.

As for live calling, I thought that was someone else's broadcast to noctalk and he does take live calls, but maybe I'm wrong about that. No, no, I call it, it's a lie. You know what I mean? It's like really deceitful, you know? So you're, now one thing, I'll just say this and I want to try to grab some other callers just in fairness here, but I will just say this one thing. I have noticed that someone will, when I've looked at some of these that people have asked me to do videos to refute because I don't watch this stuff otherwise, but when they'll be asked a question, that he'll have a lot of data right in front of him.

Now of course I got a lot in my head, I'm sure he's got a lot in his head too, so he just asked me off the top of my head. I didn't talk for hours on a given subject as he could, but I sometimes wondered, I thought, it almost sounds like it was staged because he had all the stuff right there at his fingertips. Now if it's not actually live, that would explain it. If it is live, yeah, I assume he's got stuff in his head like I do, but good news is truth will triumph.

Light shines in the darkness and the darkness can't overcome it. Hey, thanks for calling in, be sure to call some more, we'll talk again. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Melissa in Houston, Texas. Time is short, so please dive right in. Okay, I wrote out my question for you. Okay, how can someone begin the conversation with someone who's studied the Bible so much that they have decided it's not inerrant and then have in turn converted to Islam? My sister, they were studying to be pastors and, you know, studied and studied and studied and decided that they didn't believe, you know, they didn't believe that the Bible was inerrant, they believed it was wrong and they would have converted to Judaism, but they said they would never be truly Jewish because they weren't born into it and so therefore converted to Islam and said that it is a kissing cousin of Judaism. Right, so first thing, I would really pray to see what came first, intellectual questions or spiritual disillusionment or personal sin or something. In other words, some people genuinely are confronted intellectually, it throws them, they go on an intellectual journey and they end up in some kind of error or denial. Other people, something goes wrong spiritually. A relational breakdown, they get disappointed by their church, that then causes them to question other things, so it's good to know. If you can trace it back, sometimes the root of the thing is not what it seems to be.

Now, in this case, it could be purely intellectual, it wouldn't be the first person it happened to, but I pray and see if just in discussion if you have any insight there. The other thing I would try to do is say, okay, well, can we watch some things together and get some of the very best debates of Christians against Muslim scholars because the idea that you go from not trusting the authority of scripture to trusting the Qur'an is mind-boggling. I mean, on an intellectual level, it can be so absolutely demolished and the reliability of the Qur'an or the authority of the Qur'an or the integrity of the Qur'anic text, I mean, absolutely demolished, whereas there's such solid answers for questions about scripture. So, I would check out the website answering-islam.org answering-islam.org.

You get a ton of information there. Look at some of the teachings of J. Smith, Dr. J. Smith. He's not just an apologist. He kind of goes to war on the false foundations of Islam, Dr. J. Smith, and then debates with Muslims between James White and Muslims and David Wood and Muslims.

All right? David Wood and James White. David Wood and James White. They're on our side. Okay, very different approaches, but they've done many debates with Muslims.

You can find them online. And then Dr. J. Smith go through some of his stuff, but I guarantee you he knows the Qur'an a hundred times better than these family members do. I guarantee he studied the issues more in depth. And what you want to do is get them shaky on their new false foundations, get them to recognize there's no forgiveness and redemption in Islam the way there is through the Gospel, and then try to step by step find out how it is that they went off. Maybe they never really had a solid personal relationship with the Lord, and it was more going into ministry.

They thought it was a good thing to do. But Melissa, write to us. Let us know what's going on. We'd love to know more.

And check out these resources. Challenge them to watch some J. Smith lectures. Find some of the juiciest ones and let their world be shaken a little. And then with that, let's point them back to the Gospel. Lord, intervene and bring them to yourself in Jesus' name. My friends, 15 minutes from now, we'll be on our YouTube channel, ASKDR Brown, answering your questions there. God bless you.