You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. You've got questions, we've got answers, phone lines are wide open. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. We go straight to the phones, and we'll start with Renee in Pahrump, Nevada. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. You are my hero.

Oh, bless your heart. So I just wanted to know about the veil in the temple. We have the account that it was torn at the crucifixion, and I'm wondering if there are any rabbinic accounts or any extra biblical accounts about that veil, and what happened before the destruction of the temple as they were making sacrifices. So can you shed any light on that?

Yes. So three things. First, the only reference we have specifically to the tearing of the veil is in the Gospel accounts. We don't have it in rabbinic literature.

That's the first thing. Secondly, there is an account in rabbinic literature. It's hard to date with precision, but it speaks of the temple doors being swung open and rabbis having to rebuke them and the doors closing. Some think that that could be a reflection.

In other words, in the memory of the people, it got passed on differently and exaggerated. So that's the closest we have, the swinging open of the temple doors. If you just search online for that, swinging open of temple doors, rabbi, you know, you'll find the further details on that.

But the most interesting thing that we do have is this. It's in the Talmud, so this is the third point. It's in the Talmud, Tractate Yoma, which is the tractate dealing with the rituals and laws and customs for the Day of Atonement. Yoma is Aramaic for the day. Yoma 39, A and B.

A is the front side of the page, B the back side of the page. There there's a discussion about what happened on the Day of Atonement that you had these two urns and within them you had two different lots, or excuse me, you had an urn with two different lots in it. One of the lots said, For the Lord, meaning that this goat was the one that would be brought into the temple and sacrificed to the Lord. The other was for Azazel, meaning the goat that would be sent away. And this goat would be sent to the wilderness in biblical days, but then Old Testament days, but by the Second Temple days, they would push it off a cliff. Okay, so according to Jewish tradition, when the priest reached in to the urn, when he pulled out the lot that said, For the Lord, with his right hand, that was a good sign. If he pulled out the lot that said, For the Lord, with his left hand, that was a bad sign, and conversely with the goat for Azazel.

That was one tradition. Another tradition said that on the Day of Atonement that there was a crimson cord that was tied on the temple doors, some would also say on the horn of the goat that was being sent out into the wilderness or off the cliff, the goat for Azazel. And if that turned white, that was a sign that God accepted the sacrifices. If it didn't turn white, then the people would think God did not accept the sacrifices. Then the last thing was that the oil on the lampstand, you would light it from one side to the next side, so the one that should go out first is the first one that was lit, but when that would go out last, that was a sign that God accepted the sacrifices.

When it didn't happen, that would be a sign he didn't accept them. Well, it says that there was a high priest, Shimon Hatzadik, probably lived a couple hundred years before the time of Jesus, two, three hundred years, that the entire forty years that he was high priest, all three signs came up positive, meaning all those years God accepted all the sacrifices. And then in the intervening years, some years yes, some years no, and when it was a no, people were grieved that God did not accept the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. But it says the last forty years before the temple was destroyed, all signs came up negative every time for forty years. And of course, Jesus dies forty years before the temple was destroyed. That to me is a powerful recollection.

I talk about it in some of my books, but it's found in the Talmud Yoma, so Babylonian Talmud Yoma 39a and b is where you read that account. Thank you, thank you so much, that's great, I can't wait to share that. Thank you.

Yep, you are very welcome. 866-342. Now of course, traditional rabbis would say, I'm completely misused in the text, it has nothing to do with Jesus.

Obviously, they're going to read it like that, obviously I'm going to see it very differently with God saying, no more, no more, I've provided a better way. All right, 866-304-TRUTH, let's go to Sims in McAllen, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Good afternoon, Dr. Brown.

Always a blessing to interact with you, your ministry has been a great blessing. I have a question about what's known as the Tali problem. I was not familiar with it myself until I heard it on a YouTube video last night. It's apparently some type of utilitarian type of argument that asks, if you've got three people tied down to a track, a Tali track, and the Tali is coming and you see the handle where you can turn the Tali to move onto a different track, would you? The problem being, though, that there's one person tied on that second track, so if you do nothing, three people are going to die. If you do something, one person is going to die.

What do you do? And then the people making this argument kept complicating things, well, what if it's three older people and a baby? What if it's three critical race theorists and Jordan Peterson and whatnot? It seems very much like a subjective type of system, but I wondered, okay, what would be sort of the biblical response, if any, to a system like that? Obviously, we understand that the source of truth is not the greatest good, or rather the source of good is not the greatest good, it's scripture, but I found myself sort of struggling, okay, how would I answer a question like that, if you follow what I'm saying?

Yeah, of course. The first thing I would do is short circuit the whole argument, because ultimately it's not, unless you're just into philosophical debate, it's not a productive argument that is going to help someone make a godly choice as much as a gotcha kind of thing. So what I would say is, I'd ask the Lord, God told me if I'm lacking wisdom to ask Him and I'll give it freely, so I would ask the Lord what I should do to make it really simple.

That's why I'd short circuit the whole thing, and obviously in that case I said, Lord, show me what to do, show me what to do. Now in principle, the noble and right thing is if you can sacrifice your own life to save the lives of others, you do it, right? For example, you're a parent and one of your kids is drowning and you see some alligators swimming towards them, you jump in and you get your kid and throw them on shore, and if you die in the process, you do it. That's what a parent would do, obviously, say, hey, I'm going to lay my life down to help others.

But in other situations, they're very complex and difficult. There's not necessarily a right or a wrong answer, especially the more equations you add into it, but say, hey, look, this is what we do know is that God did the thing that none of us would do, that he sent his perfectly righteous son to die for every evil, criminal, ugly thing we ever did. None of us would ever do that.

He did it. Jesus died for Nazis, Jesus died for terrorists, Jesus died for adulterers, Jesus died for pedophiles, Jesus died for each of us. So again, I'm not philosophically inclined. If it was William Lane Craig, he would give you a brilliant philosophical answer to the question, but it's just not the way I'm oriented.

So again, I would short-circuit by saying I'd ask the Lord, I'd turn it into an opportunity to preach the Gospel, and go from there with it and talk about God's amazing love. But let me ask you this really quickly, was there something that was supposed to come out of this? In other words, was there some principle or argument that was supposed to come out of this? Well, I'm not sure, because I jumped into the live stream just in the middle of it, so they were just talking about utilitarianism versus deontology, and I had not heard any of these terms before. And they were going back and forth about the problem of utilitarianism is that it's subjective and whatnot. So I'm not sure where the end goal was or what they were trying to... Yeah.

And again, for those... Yeah, thanks. If you want to have more background in this, they're totally familiar with all of this and the arguments, et cetera, ultimately, what we want to communicate is say that there are lots of difficult moral choices, but that we want to operate on the principle of I want to live my life in such a way that I'm willing to give and sacrifice for your well-being, because that reflects the heart of God. Now, listen, if I am the breadwinner of my family and I've just received my paycheck and I'm responsible to go home and pay the rent, I've signed a contract, I'm responsible to do it, and if I don't pay the rent, my family will be kicked out on the street. Also, there'll be no food for my own children. I have an ethical responsibility to go home and use that money to pay the rent. If I see some poor person hurting, I do not have the ethical right to say, well, I'm just going to take the money from my family and get kicked out and violate an agreement that I've signed. That would be unethical, even though I'm supposedly doing something compassionate. Now, God might tell me, give all your money away.

And it's a word from God to do it, and I do it, and by the time I get home, he's giving me five times as much. But see, that's where faith principles come in and the leading of the Spirit comes in. So there's probably more to this, again, philosophically, but I'm just telling you how I would respond if I was in a debate and pushed in these ways, because it's going to be an endless argument with someone going for a gotcha thing in it. So let's try to come away with principles.

Say thank you for the question. I wish I could give you more philosophical responses there. 866-3-4-truth. But, hey, we each have our specializations, right? That's why I can give you answers about rabbinic literature and about Hebrew and other things, but I'm going to be weaker when it comes to philosophy and science. All right, 866-3-4-8-7-8-8-4.

We will be back momentarily on the other side of the break. Hey, have you read my new book, Has God Failed You? Has it been a blessing to you? I really believe, as I'm hearing from readers, that it's going to be a life change or even a lifesaver. So pray God will use it. If you've been blessed by the book, go on Amazon and post a review, and then tell a friend, share it with a friend.

It could be just what they need. Has God failed you? Finding faith when you're not even sure God is real. 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. You've got questions. We've got answers. The line is wide open, 866-34-TRUTH. Let me get to my right screen here. Here we go. And we will go over to Maggie in Austin, Texas. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate your show very much.

Thank you. So I grew up in a Lutheran church, but just recently truly started seeking God and seeking understanding. And with that, I dove into the sea of YouTube preachers, and now I'm thoroughly confused. It seems like Christians refer to God the Father and Jesus interchangeably sometimes, but I do believe in the Trinity and that Jesus and the Father are two persons. We pray to the Father, but everyone says that our personal relationship with Jesus is what matters, and that's the goal, even though Jesus came to reconcile us to the Father. So my question is, who are we to be seeking that daily personal relationship with?

All right. First I answer in the broadest terms, God. I'm seeking to draw close to God. When I'm seeking to draw close to God, I'm not making a major distinction that I'm seeking to draw close to the Father or the Son or the Spirit. I fully understand that there are different roles and functions and that we relate differently in different ways, but when I'm just crying out with all my heart, oh God, oh God, I'm longing for you. I want to draw close to you. I want to glorify you.

I want to honor you. I'm just thinking of the one God. The overwhelming emphasis of the Bible is there's one God and one God only.

So I want to start there. Secondly, in my general praying, yes, the pattern is we pray to the Father. God wants us to come to him as children, and in that sense, leaning on him, looking to him as the source of everything. So if in my mindset I'm looking to the Lord to do certain things and act in certain ways, it would be very natural for me to pray to the Father in doing it because of the nature of what I'm doing. If what I'm doing is kind of having a heart-to-heart about what's going on or struggles or things, it may be very natural for me to be talking to Jesus, and then 2 Corinthians 13, 14 says that we have fellowship, koinonia in Greek, with the Spirit, right? So what I'm experiencing in terms of that sense of divine witness or leading or hearing God's voice, that's the Spirit I'm interacting with. So we can make it complex or we can make it relational and simple.

So to me, I'm with the relational simple way. First, overall, I'm seeking God. I want the blessing of God, the smile of God, the anointing of God, the grace of God in my life. And then secondly, as I'm relating, I don't pray to the Spirit. There's no biblical precedent really of praying to the Spirit. But I am relating as I relate. So sometimes when I'm journaling my prayers, they say, Lord.

Sometimes they say, Abba. Sometimes I'm just talking to Jesus, and it's going to come out in that way. So it's almost like in a relationship when you are dealing with someone as a friend or as an employer or as a family member that you deal with that same person in different ways. So it depends on what I'm doing in my interacting with God in terms of if there are specific aspects of dealing with Father versus Son versus Spirit.

Does that make sense to you on a practical level? Yeah. So as far as God, you're referring to Godhead and then having Jesus as Father and Holy Spirit with no distinction? No. I'm saying that I'm thinking of one God.

That's my primary orientation. There's one God. Right. Right.

Period. One God created the universe. One God saved me. I'm going to be with that one God forever and ever and ever. First commandment.

Love the Lord your God. The Lord our God. The Lord is one.

So I don't even use the term Godhead then because it's a rare term. I'm just thinking God, and it's totally generic. When I'm saying it, I'm speaking of one God. On a relational level, depending on how I'm relating to God, I might be relating more to the Father or more to the Son. I might be thanking Jesus for dying for me and being merciful and kind and gracious and pouring my heart out to Him just friend to friend.

Jesus said, I've called you my friends, right? And then other times, I'm just coming as a child to my Father, so I'm relating more to the Father. So at different times, we'll relate more to the Father or the Son or experience the Spirit. Those are just different aspects of how we relate to God. I wouldn't make it theological.

I wouldn't make it some kind of rules or think of it in mathematical formulas. And that's where you can get hung up. Make it more relational and generic, and I think things will—a lot of the questions will go away. And when people are like, we've got to pray like this, we've got to do this, and they've got all their methods down, I'd step back from that. I don't find that helpful in that regard, all right? So see if that sorts things out for you, and then you can get back to us after a while and tell us about your journey, all right? Yep, absolutely. Thank you so much. Sure thing. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to Eddie in Orlando, Florida. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Hey. So I'm very huge admirer of what you do, and your ministry blesses us and my family immensely. Anywho, the question I have is, we studied the Bible together, me and my wife, and we were coming across in the book of Samuel the relation with Jonathan and David, right? And so a lot of the, I guess, the debates I've heard amongst those who are of the gay community or whatever against Christians is their relationship.

And I wonder, just as someone who, you know, I read my word, and sometimes you just want to be very quick to answer those things, if that makes sense. Is there something maybe to the source of the original way it was written that translates it better to where they're like, well, look at the affection Jonathan had for David. He was in love with him and all this. Like how could that be like, I guess, better interpreted correctly?

Yeah. So number one, there's not a single sexual word that's ever used. There's no word in terms of having a sexual relationship. There's no description even of passionate kissing in terms of kissing one another. Everybody in the Bible kisses each other. One footnote in my book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, where it's like everybody who kisses and it's family members and friends and just, you know, greet one another with a holy kiss in the New Testament.

So there's nothing there. Even exchanging of certain garments, you know, was done in the covenantal way. It doesn't say they stripped naked. There's not a single sexual reference in anything that's said.

The only thing that's spoken of is love. And we know that Jonathan was married with children and that we know that David had many wives and got into all kinds of trouble because it was lust for women. So at the very most, a gay activist or theologian would try to argue that David was bisexual. But you can even say gay because he's clearly attracted to women and then brings destruction on his own life because it was lust for Bathsheba, right? So clearly David was not gay. Clearly Jonathan was not gay, but even more clearly David.

Not a single sexual term is used. And when David says in 2 Samuel, the first chapter, as he's lamenting the death of Jonathan and your love for me was greater than the love of women, he's just talking about Jonathan's incredible devotion. And the other thing is that we know categorically that there were prohibitions against homosexual practice in the Old Testament and in the ancient world in which they lived, you know, the larger ancient world. And the idea that biblical authors would be celebrating this openly when the Torah already blatantly condemns homosexual acts is the most absurd thing. It would be like in the midst of the New Testament saying, oh, and by the way, there are millions of other gods and thousands of other ways to God aside from Jesus. It would be completely ridiculous. So on all fronts, it fails to the point that I've gotten major Bible commentaries by gay scholars and even they debate whether David and Jonathan should be looked at as gay. If it was so clear to them, they wouldn't be debating it.

So it breaks down on every level, lack of terminology that's sexual, David's explicit interest in women, and the overall condemnation against homosexual practice that we know was there in ancient times in ancient Israel. Right. Well, thank you so much. I also wanted to say thank you as well for being an example to like Messianic believers.

I myself am Messianic and I got actually introduced to you through your teachings through Hava King, actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, the theophanies. Yeah, good, good. Good, good. Yeah, yeah. Well, well, thanks, Eddie. Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it. And you did have that that right off the bat that more of that New York kind of spirit and accent.

But of course, in Orlando, that works. 866-3-4-TRUTH-OF. Okay, we have a break coming up. But can I encourage you to do something? We did a YouTube chat before our broadcast today. We do those once a week.

And one of the gentlemen was giving a contribution and saying, hey, everybody, you need to become torchbirds. You need to be supporters. So we don't talk about finance as much. It's by God's grace. We do what we do. People are generous and help us. But would you would you pray about joining our support team? And if we've been a blessing to you in particular to scriptural thing that if you've been blessed, you sow back in. If we blessed you spiritually, you help in the natural as well. So here's what it takes a dollar a day or more if you can, but a dollar a day per month.

So that's $30 or more per month, dollar a day. And you become a torchbearer. So fire, line of fire, you know, all of us fire torchbearers helping us. But we sow back into you with free audio resources, free video resources, discounts in our online bookstore, discounts on our Israel trip. We sow back into in many, many, many ways that will put that $30 a month and more back in your pocket over and again in ways we invest back in you. So would you take a minute maybe during the break now, go to the website, AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R-Brown.org, because we're listener-sponsored. Someone's giving so that we can minister to you right now.

AskDrBrown.org. Click on donate monthly support. Join our support team today.

Thank you in advance. 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 for joining us on The Line of Fire broadcast, 866-34-TRUTH. And with that, we go back to the phones.

And let's see, starting with Guy in Sacramento, California. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Yes, sir. Good to be here.

Hey. Okay, I'm opposed to the persecution of Israelites, Jews, but Ezekiel 36-24 indicates that God is going to force them back to the land, and I'm just curious of just speculating myself of what percentage of Israelites would fulfill this, and what would be the breakpoint between those who would be forced back to the land and those who God wouldn't force back to the land, if you thought about that, or maybe I'll start making you think about that. Right. So why do you take Ezekiel 36-24 in that way, when you use the word force? Because it says, I will take you from the nations, and I will bring you back to the land. So maybe they're crying out for help. I mean, the original context, this is the Babylonian exile, then it has an end-time application as well, but the original context is Babylonian exile. So exile's wanting help, crying out, so there's nothing about force there. Well, I see take as implying that it will, he will make it happen, that he will require it to happen.

And we've seen the increase of persecution of Jews throughout the world as well. Right, right. No, but still, I just want to hang on that for a second.

It doesn't say force, right? I'll take. So take and bring, that could be people crying out for help, or it could be God puts it in their hearts, and they want to.

It could be those just as well. So that's my big thing. I don't want to draw something out of it. Now you could go to other passages, it's fine if we went to other passages like Jeremiah about fishers and hunters and seeking them out, and that may speak of something more. So here's I want to, so I was just challenging that one point, but your overall question is a great question.

So here's the deal. You have to look at the thing itself, anti-Semitism is ugly, is destructive, is hateful, is demonic, is based on lies, and wants to see destruction of the Jewish people. So it's bad, we expose it, we resist it.

At the same time, what Satan means for evil God can use for good. So Satan may be stirring up anti-Semitism, and God uses that to bring people back to the land because they say, I got to get out of here. So you have massive influx of Russian Jews, some decades back, that was because of a massive spike of anti-Semitism in Russia. I'm sure you're seeing a spike in Jews coming from France, Jews coming from England, because of rising anti-Semitism.

So God certainly uses these things, the things themselves may be evil and wrong, but God uses them. Look, when Israel declared its independence in 1948, there were about 800,000 Jews in the surrounding Muslim nations, and they were driven out. They were told you can't be here anymore. It's very difficult.

Expulsion, leaving so much behind, having to start a new life, and not having so many things you would have wanted to bring with you, it's very difficult. But God used that. So people meant it for evil, and God can use that for good.

As for percentages or how it works out, I can't say. The vast majority of those that go to Israel today go willingly of their own accord, but many of them have a fire lit under them because of what's happening in the society around them. So yeah, definitely something I've thought about. It's just the one passage I'd push back a bit. But check out like Jeremiah 16 as an example, and you'll find a little bit more that seems to be more aggressive as God is going to regather his people. Now, could it increase in intensity at the end of the age as we get closer and closer, whether it's 10 years from now or 100 years from now? Could it be that anti-Semitism worldwide gets so intense that Jews almost have no choice but to flee to Israel? Could be.

Could be, but I can't quantify that in any way. Thank you, sir, for the question. I appreciate it. The bottom line of what I'm saying is we should combat anti-Semitism because it's evil and wrong. Let God do what he does, but we should combat the evils of it and expose the evils of it.

All right, 86634truth, let's go to Caleb in Dayton, Ohio. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, it's a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for, you know, everything that you advocate for on here.

I feel like I learn a lot, especially with you advocating for Israel and all that sort of stuff. I am involved with a high school ministry that is facing some backlash because of their political stance on not allowing LGBTQ people that identify as gay or lesbian or transgender to hold positions of staff or, you know, hold volunteer leadership roles. And so it's been under a bit of scrutiny lately that has kind of carried this whole movement. And I think there's two sides of it being encouraging and discouraging and encouraging because it feels like, you know, there's some spiritual warfare that is proving that, you know, God is moving. And then it's also incredibly discouraging because in an age where young people are so influenced by social media, social justice in general, it's becoming harder and harder to advocate for the Gospel to young people because there's this deterrent that, well, you know, as Christians, we don't believe that it's biblical to be involved in a homosexual relationship or we don't believe it's biblical to identify as another gender or change your gender that God gave to you, and it's starting to become this large deterrent. I was wondering, you know, with you talking about this so frequently, maybe from a standpoint of how do you, how would you go about advocating to a generation of people that is really quick to turn away from God because of that belief system?

Right. So, you've got to start by getting to their heart that statistics won't do it, that just throwing scripture at them for many won't do it. What they have to see is because God is so good and so loving and so kind and so compassionate that He has a better way and that if you really love people, if you really want what's best for them, then you're going to go for this better way as well. In other words, it's for a lot of young people, if you just start with theological truth, many of them are not there because they're not listening and they have negative views of the Bible or you're just bigoted or we can't believe those Bible translations. They get all the sound bites down, right?

So, you want to grab their heart and a great way to do that is by testimony. Have you watched the In His Image movie? I have not. Is that on YouTube? If you go to InHisImage.movie, InHisImage.movie, what I'd encourage you to do is sit down and watch it.

It's pretty long, so plan out the time to do it. Watch it with the kids together, with the high school group of Christians. I was ministering to pastors online a couple months ago, some weeks back, and afterwards we're doing Q&A, and one of the pastors said that the kids in their middle school, so Christian kids, had completely bought into the transgender narrative and had changed their views. And he said, we watched the movie with them, In His Image.

He said, and all of them shifted back, they embraced what scripture says, their views completely changed, and the testimonies are so powerful. So, InHisImage.movie, and you can watch it first, just put in your email and then watch it for free, and then sit down with them. So I would start there, the powerful testimonies, the stories with love, compassion, so they don't hear anger, hatred, anything from you, of course it's not your heart anyway. I would immerse them with that, okay? Then with it, and InHisImage.movie will do this too, you help ground them in what scripture says.

Hey look, the Bible is clear and there's a reason for it. So first, you appeal to their heart, grab them in with other stories. Second, you then ground them in scripture. Third, show them the trajectory, show them where the thing goes, and find things that they definitely disagree with, that they definitely think are wrong, and say well see that's where it goes, and that's why God's always telling us don't go here because it leads to this and this and this, a trajectory that's really big, because they'll see, no I don't agree with that, no I don't like that, but see that's where it goes. And then lastly, in terms of pressure within the school, the school has no legal right to force a Christian organization to have kids in leadership or service that are not Christian anymore than you can force it on a gay group that's in the school. So I would reach out to Liberty Council, or Alliance Defending Freedom, any of these major Christian organizations, and tell them what's happening, and sometimes they just write a letter to the school and that's it, that settles it right there on the spot.

I've seen it happen in front of my eyes, and I've had people with whom it's happened where schools were cracking down, you can't do this, you can't do that, and they just got a letter from ADF or Liberty Council and that was it, they backed off because they were overstating things, they were going beyond their own legal rights there. So get to the kids' hearts, watch inhisimage.movie, get them grounded in scripture so they're clear on what the Bible says, then show them the trajectory, this is where things lead, how do you feel, no, okay that's wrong, that's right, that's where this goes, and then fourth, push back legally. And encourage the kids, this is just why we're here, God put us here for this moment because he knows that you're strong in him, and that together we're going to make a difference, and this is what this generation needs, come on, didn't Jesus call us to go against the grain, didn't Jesus tell us to swim against the tide, didn't he tell us that we'd be misunderstood and hated, this is our moment to shine, and the more people hate us, the more we're going to love them back because they need Jesus, and one of these kids is going to come to you privately and say, hey, I got to tell you, I'm struggling, I think I need the Lord too, and encourage them, this is why they're there, this is why they're there.

And by the way, if you had kids that were really ready to go for it, you know, they could sign up for clubs where they totally disagree, you know, an atheist club, or whatever, and say I'm a committed Christian and I'd like to be part of the leadership here, or the gay club, I believe what the Bible says that homosexual practice is sinful, and I'd like to sign up for leadership, and obviously you can't say, well of course, we just want the same treatment for everybody, so may the Lord give you grace, Caleb, and may you raise up a solid army of young people in Jesus' name, and friends, this is why we've been talking about this for 17 years now, because we knew this would be the great issue this generation would have to deal with. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, 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. Welcome back to The Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Fred in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello, Dr. Brown, it's good to be on.

Well, thanks. Yes, my question is, I have a question about the motivation of why the attacks on Israel happen, like it's by Hamas and other terrorist groups, and I'm asking, how much of it is a religious aspect? They're all Islamic, and I know there's sources in the Islamic scripture, like Sahih Muslim in 1767, that says to expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and things like that, and if one of the key reasons is Islam, or the fundamental beliefs of Islam, why is it never talked about on the mainstream news and stuff? It's absolutely religious in its most fundamental way.

It's not talked about in mainstream media because they're going by different—they're looking at just more superficial things that are going on in the society and then listening to the propaganda that's being put forward by some of the participants. But here, there were specific issues that came up that were used as provocations by Hamas to start trying to murder Jews. The two things being, one, alleged violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Israeli answer would be, you planned protests, riots, you were ready to disrupt, we had to go in there and quell the violence. That's the Israeli answer. The other was the potential eviction, ultimately, of 13 families from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, and it's a long-standing legal case, but it's being looked at as Palestinian families, Arab families being driven out by the Jewish occupiers, again, that's why it's presented. In any case, Hamas used those things as provocations to start trying to kill as many Jews as they could, and of course, Israel Defense Forces fought back forcefully to shut this down and take out much of their terrorist infrastructure. But for Hamas, fundamentally, it's political because it's religious. The issue is that the Jews are usurpers.

The Jews have no right to be there. In Islamic theology, the Islamic mindset, Islam is not just about extending peace. Islam does not mean peace. Islam means submission. So the goal of Islam is to bring the entire world in submission to Allah.

It's like you could say the Christian goal is to make disciples of the nations. The goal of Islam is to bring people in submission to Allah, and you have territorial conquest in the process. So if you take over an area, it becomes Islamic. That is now under Islamic authority.

You have two worlds. You have Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Kharab. You have the world of Islam and the world of the sword.

So that's what you're at battle with. And if you can conquer a certain area, so the Ottoman Empire ruling over Jerusalem and Palestine, for it to now come under Jewish control when it had been wrested from the filthy Jews, the descendants of apes and pigs, as Islam would see them, and now in Jewish control, that's abhorrent. And now the Jews are there, and they've expelled the native population, the Muslim population, so they're occupiers on top of it. So fundamentally, Hamas stands for the eradication of the Jewish state. It would technically say it's not trying to kill Jews all around the world, but Jews in Israel must be driven out. So it is fundamentally ideological.

Check Dennis Prager's most recent article. He makes clear it's about religion, and it sums things up correctly. So it ultimately is a religious battle.

That's why it's been such a tough nut to crack because of that fundamental religious objection. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Also, David Wood, I've heard his name talk about this topic before as well. Yeah. David's going to give you a no-holds-barred, straight assessment of where Islam stands on this and will expose the wrong mentality behind it. Absolutely.

So we pray for the Palestinians, we pray for the Palestinian Muslims, we pray for Hamas, and we want to see God's best for them, but that's going to begin with repentance. Hey, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. All right. We've got time. Let's keep going.

We go to Alex in Buffalo, New York. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hello. I just had a question about Joshua 10-13, and it talks about how, like, the sun was... the sun stopped, like, he prayed to the Lord for, like, the time to stop so they could battle, like, Israel, and then Israel stopped, then the sun stopped when Joshua prayed. But then doesn't the sun not move because the earth revolves around the sun?

So, like... Yeah, well, there are a bunch of questions that come out of it, right? Like, if the sun did stop in its course, because, I mean, everything in the universe is moving, right? In a certain way, but the earth is going around the sun. But in biblical... the Bible uses observation of the language. We do to this day, the sun rose, the sun... what time does the sun set, right?

We use that kind of language. Right, and then it actually moved. Right. So if we say, right, stop the sun from setting, so it's observational. Now, I imagine in Joshua's mind, he thought the sun went around the earth.

You know, that would be what he would think. So he's just saying, stop that, however God did it, he did it. But to do it would cause, like, massive upheaval in the solar system, right? And then upheaval in other ways in the universe.

In other words, it's not just, like, slow this one thing down because everything hinges together. So first it's using observational language as if the sun was going around the earth, but it would just be like I was saying, God, slow the sun set. Stop the sun set because we've got to get here before dark.

So stop the sun from setting. How God did it, that's only because he's God. I mean, there's no other possible way it could happen other than an extraordinary miracle of large proportions.

Right, and even... Let me just say this. I heard this thing, you know, decades ago as a believer that NASA scientists did the study and as they're going back in the history of the universe, there was a day missing and someone found Joshua 10 and they said, oh, that explains it. That's just a myth. That's an old myth.

There's nothing to it. But anyway, it's a nice story, but it's just a myth. Yeah. So yeah, it was probably just like you said, like an observation. But then I just thought about, like, since the Bible's Holy Spirit led, like, the people...

He probably would have said, like, the Lord stopped the earth from moving so the sun stopped or something. Right. So here's the thing.

Here's the thing. The Bible has been with us, or parts of the Bible, over a period of over 3,000 years, right? 3,500 years in certain parts written. So if something was written that was scientifically correct today, let's say the Bible talked about the earth going around the sun, then until the time of Copernicus, basically, everybody would have thought that the Bible was wrong because it had that wrong. So it has to use observational language.

And even today, like, there are things we're sure about with science, and then we find out we're actually wrong about that, you know, we've had to reassess that stuff. Yeah. I watched it. Exactly. Yeah, I watched that. So if the Bible said, and the earth stopped going around the sun for this period of time, then everyone would say, well, it can't be true because we know the sun goes around the earth.

So it's gonna use observational language rather than whatever is scientifically correct in a particular generation. All right. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Thank you. All right. God bless you, man.

And we have time for one more call, and that's what we'll do. Hunter in Hartford, Alabama, you are last but not least. Welcome to the broadcast. Hey, Michael Brown. How you doing? Doing well. Thanks. Good.

Thank you for taking my call. I do a lot of dialogue with a Mormon elder. He taught Mormon Institute for a teacher for 30 years, and me and him converse pretty regularly. He brought up a verse to me that I'm having a little bit of a hard time giving a good answer to this. It comes from 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 21. I don't know if you know that Mormons believe you can only be baptized by somebody who has a proper priesthood authority, and that baptism is essential for salvation. People want to take that stance. But verse 21 says, baptism with four funds of this now saves you.

So he's saying that baptism saves you and is a saving act. I disagree with that. Right. How would you respond to that sort of thing?

Right. So first I would go to all of the verses that just speak about being justified by faith and ask him to accept those. We agree that baptism is important, that baptism is a command, that baptism is part of our obedience in the Lord and part of what he requires of us as his children, and that's where you have in the Bible, repent and be baptized, et cetera.

But I would first go, and I'm unfortunately short on time, so let me also encourage you to check out some of James White's debates with Mormons as well, or CARM, C-A-R-M dot org, and check on their material on Mormons. But I'd go to all the verses that talk about being justified by faith and ask him to accept those. Say, well, why accept the one and not the other?

You want me to accept this, I want you to accept these. And being saved so and so in Greek can be broad. So baptism is part of our deliverance, baptism is part of our declaration of death to sin, et cetera. There's a larger complex of being saved, being delivered, as opposed to just born again. I would point to the larger context of our outward cleansing and identification as dying to sin and living to God. With that, we're out of time. We'll have to take it up more. God bless. God bless.