Dr. Brown Answers Your 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. Also, a reminder, if you don't get my emails, let me give you three reasons why you really want to. One is, every week we're sharing latest articles, videos, resources, things that could really be of help to you, absolutely free, every week sharing them with you, letting you know about them. Second thing is, we often have special resources and special offers that the general public doesn't know about, you'll be the first to find out about. The third thing is, if we're ever in your area speaking, ministering, you'll know, we'll let you know, hey, we're going to be coming your way. I just ran into folks at the last place I was speaking, they only found out I was there because they got an email. And then actually a fourth reason, you may follow me on social media, but we may get cut off from there. We get restricted in many different ways.

The day may come when our platforms are taken away from us. This way, if you get our emails, you're able to hear from us on a regular basis. And we got some real neat surprises when you sign up, share more of my testimony with you, more of the three R's in our ministry, send you a really neat, free mini ebook. So go to the website, askdrbrown, askdrbrown.org, and just put your first name, last name, email, if you want to give more info, where you live, great. But otherwise, this way we can stay connected no matter what happens in the days ahead. Okay. 866-348-7884.

That is the number to call. And we'll start in Houston, Texas. Brandon, welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Brandon. How are you, Dr. Brown?

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I just had a, I wanted to, one, ask something of you and also have a prayer request for you and anybody listening. So first off, I wanted to kind of ask, how does somebody know where they're at in the track to forfeiting one's salvation? Because I, I've struggled with pornography since I was about 12 years old whenever I was first introduced to it. Fell in love with the Lord around age 17 and had a roller coaster ride of being on fire for the Lord and then just back and back, back and forth to the vomit of pornography and overeating and indulging in entertainment, just idols competing with the Lord over and over again, to the point now where I'm actually separated from my wife and my family with intent on restoration, but this time separated has actually just emboldened my sinful nature even more. And I'm, I'm scared, man.

I don't want to, I don't want this to go the way that it, it just, it looks like it's going to go. And I want to be back in love with the Lord. I want to be a good husband and father. And I want to have a good relationship with my dad who's the pastor of our church, by the way.

So yeah, I wanted to ask that question of you with that little bit of backstory and also just ask for prayer from you and any of your listeners. Yeah, folks, let's, let's really hold Brandon up here and the strongholds you're battling with, many others have battled with, but by God's grace, they found there is victory. So first, the idea of forfeiting salvation, of course, there's some Christians that say you can't forfeit your salvation no matter what. To me, scripture is clear that you can, but that is ultimately a choice that we're making to walk away from God. You're struggling. You want to do the will of God on the one hand, and yet you're struggling.

You are, you are finding the flesh, winning the victory. You hate what you're doing. The reason you hate what you're doing is because you're a believer.

The reason you're calling me on the phone and asking for prayer is because you're a believer. So there should be a healthy fear because you could destroy your marriage. You could alienate your kids.

You could have a messed up relationship with your dad. I mean, all these things are possible and there's no guarantee that they won't happen. Many others have destroyed their lives. So there should be a healthy fear that moves you to take whatever steps you have to take, get whatever accountability you need to get until your life has changed. And God will help you. His grace is sufficient. But I want to encourage you not to think of God in an adversarial way, but of God saying, come on, Brandon, I want to help you.

Brandon, this is why Jesus died for you. As opposed to, well, he's just going to walk away from you because he's kind of had it that you messed up one too many times. That attitude is going to take away all hope. That attitude is going to just bring further discouragement.

But there should be a healthy fear to say, OK, I'm not going to get this right on my own. And if I were in your shoes, I would tell my wife, listen, right now you have no good reason to believe me because I've messed up so many times in the past. But I will not allow our marriage to be destroyed, our family to be destroyed. I have to get right with God and just pray for me. And when you see the change in my life, then I believe you'll welcome me back. So make it clear you're you're not asking for a free pass. You know, the weight and gravity of this. Have you ever been part of an actual program that that was designed to work with someone just like you? Because porn is a massive problem for so many today.

And some can just break free and others can't. So what have you done so far? Yeah, I'm actually part of a Celebrate Recovery group. My home church is kind of smaller and we don't have that ministry, but I am a part of one that's not... it was formed attached to a specific church, but it's not church specific.

Anybody from any church body is welcome. And are you making progress with that? In the sense that I've had more good days, if you want to call them that, over the last couple months that I've been in it than I have in the six to seven months prior.

I mean... And what radical... I'm still a rollercoaster. What radical lifestyle choices have you made to make pornography less accessible?

To be honest, I can't say that I've made any right now. That's what you got to... Yeah, that's what you're going to have to do. As long as the temptation is there and possible, and whatever you have to cut off from your life or cut out from your life, be it a TV, be it a computer, be it a smartphone, whatever steps you have to take, you've got to make some radical lifestyle choices along with being part of a community that's helping you step by step by step, getting to the root of the issues and overcoming from there. So do you care about God? I have removed my smartphone and replaced it with a dumb phone, you could say, but I still do have a computer. I've just been kind of clinging to that with the false notion, you know, you need access to the internet for XYZ and it's just justification. There are ways to even have access to internet and all you can do is get email and, you know, there are ways to do that. So make the radical choice, man.

If you care about God, if you care about your family, if you care about your own soul, and then once you're strong, you can see whether you can have certain things in your life. One other question. Have you had accountability software on your computer where every website you go to, you have a partner, accountability partner that gets a list of every site you go to every day? I have and I still found ways around it. Found ways around it. Got it. Got it.

Yeah. So listen, what does Jesus say if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away? Cut it off. So do the radical thing, Brandon.

Take the radical steps. Live differently. We lived before internet. We lived without email.

There are other ways to do things or, you know, ways where you're in a public place and can just access email if you have to do it, whatever. But there are ways to do this. This is stronghold in your life and it could totally destroy you. And then with that, the overindulging in food, that's just like a logical thing that happens when you're feeding the flesh. You get depressed because of porn. So then you eat and then you get depressed because you're overeating.

Then you watch porn, you know, so flesh gives birth to flesh. Yeah. Yeah.

Come on, Brandon. I believe this is the day you're going to take steps you haven't taken before. And we're going to pray right now. All right. We pray right now.

Yeah. Father Brandon, that holy resolve right now, I pray a holy fear may, may it strike him. I'm about to destroy my life and my family and everything for porn. Lord may, may that hatred rise with such intensity within him. And with that, a sense of your love and kindness and your plan, the good things you have planned for him and may he make that break.

May he find freedom and new life in you, Lord, and live God as an overcomer in Jesus name. All right. Hey, you send us an update in a month or two.

You can, you can write in or call in. I'm expecting to hear good reports. God's faithful.

Thank you for the call and friends, others listening, pray for Brandon. Others. Hey, you said, that's me. You're talking to me. Well then do what you need to do. Do what you need to do to live free. You can, you can live without a computer. You can live without a phone. You can live without a TV.

You can live with a lot of things, but you can't live without God. There are other resources that are helpful. Uh, I've, I've recommended Steve Gallagher's book at the, at the altar of sexual idolatry. There's a video series, a conqueror series that many have found helpful.

Sometimes accountability software, covenant eyes or things like that. But depending on the degree of stronghold that there's been, sometimes the steps have to be more radical. And when we do that based not just on we have to do what's right, but based on the intensity of God's love for us. We have that sense of security and love.

It's easier for us to overcome and find freedom. All right, 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. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire. 866-34-TRUTH. With that, we go right back to the phones and we'll start in Alberta, Canada. Jonathan, welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown, thanks for taking my call.

Just a quick, just a quick comment on your last caller. Computer software that I found really helpful for me was called cold turkey blocker and it's fairly inexpensive and you can just use whatever apps on there and it'll totally disable them for a time frame or allow you to use them at certain times during the day. I found it really helpful.

So what was the name of that again? Cold turkey blocker. All right, so basically you would need someone else to set that up for you with their own password so that you could not then dismantle it when you wanted to, right? No. For me, like I could set it for a week. I could set it for a month. Oh no, no, no. In other words, you had sufficient willpower to do that, but if you could set it up, then you could at a certain point need to dismantle it or not renew it. You know what I'm saying? You could let the thing just run out, so ideally you want someone else to do it and use a password so you don't even know what it is, so that you're stuck with it. But anyway, it all depends on the level of willpower. But thanks for sharing that information. I appreciate it, Jonathan.

Yeah. I just was wondering about, I just see so many Christian marriages struggling and so I was just wondering what Orthodox Jews, how do they view marriage? Like from what I understand, talking to a local rabbi here, that concerning the finances, it's all the money that the wife makes, it actually is for him.

And so that he has precedence kind of over the finances. And just kind of wondering, is there a dowry involved? Well you've got, okay, first you have a wide-ranging Jewish world from secular to ultra-religious, right? So every community is going to be different.

And then some just take on the customs of the countries in which they live, and others are living entirely by their own traditions. But in your average Jewish home, religious Jewish home, the wife is mainly busy having children and taking care of the children at home. She doesn't have an outside source of income for the most part. The husband would be the breadwinner.

If it's an extreme Orthodox home where the husband is expected to be studying day and night, then he may come from a wealthy family where the wife's parents help support him or the community supports him. But the idea of the wife having an independent business would be more rare. As for dowry, you still may have that in the very, very religious settings. But marriage is obviously highly honored and considered very sacred. And divorce is something very solemn. But divorce is certainly part of the culture. There can be divorce. There can be remarriage.

And it can be for any number of reasons in terms of potential. So it's not a matter of there is no divorce in the Orthodox Jewish community. What I would say is that there's a very strong emphasis on the importance of family. And there's a community that really esteems family and that is built especially for husbands and wives and children. And that things are lived out together in that regard. So a strength would be the community life and the high esteem in which marriage is held. But divorce still exists.

And how it breaks down and whose favorite how, I don't know those details if they exist in general terms. And in an Orthodox Jewish marriage, if they do get a divorce, would they most likely just split the money, the finances 50-50? Or would just the woman get her dowry back?

Oh, no, no. It's not a matter of—right. No, the dowry back, forget that.

That's not the issue if there was a dowry. And again, in many cases, that's not—I don't know that there's a general rule to that effect. I don't—there are different aspects of Orthodoxy, different streams of opinion. To my knowledge, there's not just a standard arrangement. Here's how it works in an Orthodox home. Any more than what's the standard arrangement in Christian home or an evangelical Christian home or a Catholic Christian home. You know, I don't know that there's any more standard arrangement in the Orthodox community either in terms of how things are divvied out.

I know there seeks to be fairness for everyone and compassion for everyone involved. But how things work out monetarily, I've never looked at that in detail, nor am I aware that there's any said thing. But certainly, both parties would be free to remarry. You have certain conservative Christian circles in which if you're divorced as long as the spouse is still living, regardless of what the cause of the divorce was that you can't remarry, that's not the case in Judaism. If there was divorce, then both parties would be free to remarry after that. And like back in the 1800s in America, the children in divorce would then go to the father. Would that tend to be the same way that it happened in an Orthodox Jewish home? Was that in the divorce, that the children would be under the father's... Number one, yeah, I wasn't aware of what you're saying in terms of America in the 1800s.

The normal pattern, like you have in Ezra and Nehemiah, that when the Jewish men married foreign women and they were rebuked by Ezra, by Nehemiah, what they had to do was divorce them, because the marriages were not right in God's sight, and send away the wives and children. So the presupposition is that the women are the ones that are with the children on a regular basis. And just like most courts in America, when you're in a divorce settlement will lean a bit more towards the woman, especially with children and things like that in many cases, yeah, the assumption would be that in most cases that the woman is gonna go on with her children. Yeah, I thought just in the 1800s that the kids in America at that time would stay with the father, and so that the father wouldn't be part of the... Where did you read that or learn that? Yeah, it might just be hearsay. I can't say for sure. Got it. I thought that women couldn't own property and would not inherit the children.

No, it's not... Children wouldn't be property, but those would be the ones that are expected to be caring for them, and that are in the home, whereas the men are out working and out in the field all day, and the women won't be teaching the children or working with the children. But yeah, that may be hearsay. I've never even heard that before, actually. All right, thank you for calling in. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let us go to Adam in Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thank you for taking my call. Sure thing. I've recently discovered your ministry just from trying to fact-check Ravi Etobbe, a singer, and one of the interesting points I heard you raise in one of your talks was that you said you believe that, I think in the Jewish literature, it's believed that the Messiah of the Jews had to come before the destruction of the Second Temple, and therefore we have to look at the candidates for who's the Messiah before the destruction of the Second Temple, and then Christ emerges as the only credible one. I was just hoping you could talk a little bit about why you believe the Messiah had to come before the destruction of the Second Temple. Right, so that's based on Scripture rather than Jewish tradition.

Although there's an interesting Jewish tradition that says that the world will exist for 6,000 years, 2,000 years of chaos that would be from Adam until Abraham, 2,000 years of Torah that would be from Abraham until the Messiah, and 2,000 years of Messiah, which would have been roughly the last 2,000 years, but because of our sins, all these things have passed and he hasn't yet come. So there is that statement in Jewish tradition, but I base it entirely on Scripture in terms of my own theology, and it's a three-fold argument. The first argument is that in Haggai the Second Chapter, as the Second Temple has been dedicated and it's like nothing compared to Solomon's Temple, and God says that the glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former house, that he'll fill this place with glory. Now, in context it's also talking about the physical rebuilding and the silver and the gold, but if you look in the context of dedicating the tabernacle or temple, filling with glory was speaking of God's presence. So in what way was the glory of the Second Temple greater than the glory of the First, and that's where we bring in Jewish literature that confirms there was no Ark of the Covenant, there was no Shekhinah, divine presence, there was no fire coming from heaven, the things that were there in the First Temple weren't in the Second, so how is the glory of the Second Temple greater than the glory of the First Temple? Second Temple in Daniel 9, 24-27, where it lays out this 70 weeks of years, this 490 year period, during which the Second Temple will be rebuilt, at the end of which it will be destroyed, it tells us that six different things have to take place. One is that everlasting righteousness is ushered in, that atonement is made for sin and wickedness, and that's not just something of the cleansing of the Temple under the Maccabees, so when did that happen?

When did those things come to pass? Because it had to be during the life of the Second Temple. And then thirdly, Malachi 3, it says the Lord Himself, Ha'adon, the Lord Himself will visit that Temple, the Second Temple. So how is the glory of the Second Temple greater than the First? God also says in this place I'll appoint peace, yet that was marked by war as the Second Temple. How is it that everlasting righteousness was brought in and atonement was made for sin, and how is it that the Lord Himself visited that Temple?

Simple answer, the Messiah came and fulfilled His mission before the Second Temple was destroyed. Stay right here, we'll be right back. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame, send the fire. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on The Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. There's a number to call. Hey, if you have a hard time getting through on a Friday, we're not able to get to your call, we always do our YouTube chats as well, different days of the week. Today it's happening in 45 minutes roughly, slightly under that. We'll be back right on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, so you can just watch there and you just post your questions and we get to a ton of questions. So that'll be starting 4.15 Eastern Time. Got it?

It's about 43 minutes from now. So, okay, Adam in Kansas City, I guess answered the question. Adam, if you want to dig deeper, go through all the arguments in depth, more supporting background from Jewish literature, volume one of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. That's a five volume series. Volume one of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, objection 2.1. That's where I'll get into this in some depth. So it's the beginning of historical objections, 2.1 and Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, volume one. All right, we go to Cody in Cincinnati, Ohio. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. I have a question on Exodus chapter 4, verse 24. Right after God just started to talk to Moses about delivering his people out of Egypt, it says that a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and thought to kill him was really confused, just like right after talking to Moses about this, he comes and seeks to kill him, and then right after that, his wife circumcises his son and calls him a bloody man. It just seems like a really, really odd in the story. Yeah, doesn't it? In fact, I think you're the second person to ask me about the same verse in the last week, so probably every one of us who's ever read that passage has been like, huh?

What's it doing there? So first we understand that when it says God sought to kill him, obviously Moses knew he was in trouble. God's intent was not to kill Moses. God's intent was to use Moses, but Moses was guilty of something very, very serious. So this is what God is seeking to communicate to Moses. He's about to go into Egypt. He's about to tell Pharaoh from the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. Let my son go to worship me.

Otherwise I'm going to kill your son, your firstborn. So it's this heavy weighty message, and there was one sign that God had given to Abraham and his descendants, one sign and one sign only that they were to observe in all their generations that would signify that they were part of the covenant people, obviously as worshipers of the one true God, and that was circumcision for every male on the eighth day. And this is something that Moses would have been trained in, taught in, understood because he was raised by his actual mother before being in Pharaoh's courts and things like that, and yet he hasn't done it. For whatever reason, he is walking in open disobedience to the one covenantal sign God has given for all the sons of Israel, and now he's going to go into Pharaoh, speaking on behalf of God and saying, let my son go, and God was not going to have it. God was saying, this is something you don't mess with, and the penalty was being cut off, you know, if you refused to do that, if you didn't circumcise your son.

So this is God saying, you got to do this now. It could well be that the reason it didn't happen was that his wife didn't want it to happen. You know, that could be reading between the lines there, so he disobeyed God to keep the family happy. Either way, God said, you're not about to go on a mission, this life and death mission to deliver my son Israel from Egypt, when your own life in this most fundamental way is out of order.

And when they do it, then everything moves on from there. So it's a very odd narrative, but that's the backdrop. That's what we have to understand. The failure to circumcise was a failure to obey the one covenantal sign that God gave, and he said, if you don't, you'll be cut off from your people. And God was literally about to cut him off.

Okay. That's a lot, yeah, that brings a lot of clarity to it. Yeah, look, it's one of these things where, just like you're reading in the Torah, laws for the priest, and it says, now don't do this, so you don't die. It's like, whoa! I didn't realize it was that serious. You know, it's like you bring home this thing and you're putting it together, you know, for your kid, and it's this electronic and so on, and you plug this thing in, and it says, make sure you don't plug this in wrong, otherwise you'll die. It's like, okay, I think we better be a little more careful doing this. So there are weighty, heavy things in God that we often trivialize, and this was one God saying, no, no, this must change. If you're going to fulfill your mission, you cannot be walking in open disobedience. Well, thanks for asking, Cody. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to Bischoff in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello? Are you there? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Hello? Are you speaking into your phone? Yeah.

Hello? All right. Go ahead. Let's give it a try. You can hear me? If you talk, we'll see.

Go ahead. I'm talking. This is so confusing.

I don't know. Somehow, whatever's going on, you are not with us. So, Grayson, see if we can figure this out, and then we'll go back to our friend here.

So, Grayson, get on with him and let's see if we can figure out what's up with that connection. Let's go to Lisa in High Point, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown, I have a great respect for your ministry, and I really love to listen to it. I also work at the Celebrate Recovery, and I'm also in treatment.

I work the program myself. I walked away from the Lord years ago, and I didn't really think at the time I understood the Lord. I just didn't understand what had happened to me.

I think there was some severe lack of discipleship at the church I was at. You know, here's your Bible, go pray. And since I didn't understand the Bible, and I didn't pray very much, I don't even really know exactly what happened to me. But I do know that I come to the Lord in the beginning in repentance. But anyway, I led a tragically sinful, sin-sick life.

It was like a horror story. I led that kind of life that even people in the church say that you can't—you know, I was in lesbian activity and pornography and different things like that, but I kid myself. I wasn't proud of it, you know what I'm saying?

It wasn't like one of those people that run up—as a matter of fact, I got upset the other day when I heard that this young girl had put the Christian flag up next to the Pride flag, which represents perversion. I got upset about that. And I was upset because I felt like it put the Lord down. But anyway, what I'm saying is that if I had heard you say—and I don't mean any offense by this, I love you, you're a brother and I love you—but if I had heard you say, while I was on my way back to the Lord, that someone can lose their salvation, I probably would have jumped off a bridge. Because if anyone could have lost their salvation, it would have been me. All right, but Lisa, you also would have heard me say that God will never turn you away, that God will never reject you. I'm just being honest with what Scripture says.

I mean, there are all kinds of wars. So let me ask you something. I don't know if you ever knew the Lord before you said you walked away, but if you genuinely knew Him, and you died, God forbid, as a practicing lesbian, into pornography— I went to hell, I do believe that, yes. I do believe that.

Me personally, I believe that. Okay, well that's all I would be saying, that there's always mercy, there's always a way back, there's always—God will never reject you. If you come to Him and ask for mercy, He'll forgive a thousand times over.

Yeah. I would— I was a heroin addict. Yeah, and look, His mercy is incredible, Lisa, and I would absolutely, overwhelmingly, whoever you are listening, watching right now, whatever you've done, the most despicable, disgusting, ugly things, and hurt every person that ever cared for you, and bit every hand that went out to feed you, and have just been an ungrateful wretch, and mocked God, and did things to publicly dishonor Him. If you turn back to Him for mercy, He'll have mercy on you. He'll have mercy. And He will forgive, and He will cleanse, and He will wipe away that multitude of sins, and give you a fresh start in your relationship with Him. Lisa, thanks for sharing a testimony of God's faithfulness and love, because it's obvious He brought you back.

We don't just make that decision independently. He works in our lives and brings us back, so thanks for sharing that. He's good.

866-34-TRUTH. All right, we connect again with Bishof. Let's try again. Hello, can you hear me now? Go ahead. You can hear me? Just speak, and we're good. I'm speaking. Hello? Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. Oh, you can hear me now? All right, whatever's going on, we'll have to try to reconnect another day, okay?

So, somehow I'm not sure what the issue is here. If you have any problem, try to get in the YouTube chat. We do try, because it's hard for people to get through some days. We want to try to honor that. 866-34-TRUTH, but now's still a good time to call. We've got time to get to more of your calls. Let us go to Caleb in Amarillo, Texas.

Welcome to the line of fire. Caleb, are you there? Yeah, can you hear me? I can hear you. Go ahead.

Hi, Dr. Brown. So, here recently, my wife of five years has told me that she is not believing in the Christian faith anymore. She has issues with the atonement. She doesn't understand why God would require a human sacrifice after commanding the children of Israel not to sacrifice people. And she's looking to convert to Judaism. And mainly, I would like you to pray for me, if you can.

I mean, it doesn't have to be on the air, but whenever possible. But I guess, how would you go about ministering to a spouse who doesn't believe? What would you say to that, the questions of the atonement, and why God chose to do to redeem us in the way that He did? Yeah. First, I'm sorry that you're going through that.

That's got to be massively traumatic. And I've got a couple of questions for you. But one thing we're going to do during the break, I'm going to ask Grayson to get back on the line with you. And I want to send you a copy of my book for your wife, The Real Kosher Jesus.

And there's a chapter in the book that opens up this whole atonement issue very, very powerfully and very clearly about the atoning power of the death of the righteous in Judaism. There are obviously some other bigger issues going on, but 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 866-342. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us. So a little less than half hour from now, so 4.15 Eastern time we'll be back on YouTube.

That's Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube for our weekly YouTube chat where we answer as many of your questions as we can. Caleb is getting his info to Grayson right now, so we can send him a copy of The Real Kosher Jesus. I'm going to come back to Caleb and his situation in a moment. Go to another call but I want to make sure that Caleb gets to hear what I have to say. Next we'll go over to Carol in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hi Dr. Brown.

Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to ask you, sir, I was listening to a documentary some years ago and it was about the Balfour Declaration when the Jewish nation returned to Israel. But I thought that I heard, if this is correct, that some of the land was given to some of the Arab leaders. Is that true? And are they still over that land or was it ever given back to Israel? Right, okay.

So it's a super complex situation, but here's the short version. That was called Palestine for almost 2,000 years. That that part of the world was under different control. It was under times Christian control, it was under Muslim control, it had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and then after World War I it was under the control of the British Mandate. So you had Jews who had been living there through the centuries but they were a minority. You had Arabs and others living there.

They were a larger number and there were landowners among them, but most of the land was undeveloped. In the late 1800s, more Jews started moving back there and then as they moved back and started to develop the land, more Arabs started to move in to farm the land and work for the Jews and things like that. And then the Balfour Declaration declared an intent that there would be a Jewish homeland. And then there were various proposals because it's still under the British Mandate and international control.

Now, you know, they're going to parcel this out. So yeah, there were Arabs who had lived there, some for decades, some for centuries, and were landowners. There were Jews, a smaller percentage, they were landowners.

But the control, the governmental control over the whole territory was under Britain and international oversight. So offers were made in the 30s, okay, let's divide it up, about 75% will go to the Arabs, about 15% will go to the Jews, and the rest will be overseen internationally. And the Jews debated, it's not much, but okay, we'll accept. I mean, that was where they were going, but the Arab leadership said no. So then the UN came up with a partition plan that was more favorable to the Jewish people. Okay, you'll get this part, Arabs will get this part, Jews said yes, Arab leaders said no, and that's when the wars began. So it has been legally recognized internationally that one part of the land is under Jewish control, period.

That's a given. Now, you may have a plot of land, an integral plot of land owned by an Arab, and that's remained, that's not the issue. But if you, what I'd encourage you to do is go to my broadcast from a week ago Thursday, a week ago Thursday, and I get into the history in a lot more detail, okay? So go back a week ago Thursday, 30 Jewish Thursday, you can find it on the YouTube channel for more details, or just go to Jewish Virtual Library Online, Jewish Virtual Library Myths and Facts, and you'll be able to plug in any specific question about the history there. Jewish Virtual Library Online Myths and Facts, and you'll find this.

Thanks. All right, so let me go back to Caleb, are you still there, sir? Yes, sir, I am. All right, has your wife been a strong, committed Christian over the years that has suddenly just turned away? Growing up, she was very dedicated to spreading the Gospel, especially in children's ministries. She grew up in a fundamentalist background that was, what she would describe as being a little harmful to her. Okay, yep. Here, recently, I mean, as long as we've been married, she hasn't been as involved in, I guess what you'd call, like, regular Christian practices.

Got it. And where did the Jewish thing come in? What's making her think that Judaism has the right answers, or that she should convert to Judaism? So she's actually looking to convert either to Reconstructionist or Reformed Judaism, and the main decision behind that is their support for the LGBTQ community and for social justice. Right, I mean, that's, that has almost nothing to do with, I mean, Reformed and Reconstructionist Judaism is tremendously liberal, and it's all social issues.

I mean, they are in massive decline in terms of membership and numbers because there's very little to hold on to. My wife Nancy was raised in different homes because her mom was married several times, but during a formative time of her life as a little girl and growing up, she was raised in a home where they went to a Reformed synagogue, and that's one major reason Nancy became an atheist at the age of eight, was able to recognize that God's not here, and her stepfather was a leader in the men's club and was an atheist. So yeah, there are much bigger issues that are going on here, obviously, and so the book that I'm sending you, The Real Kosher Jesus, it has a chapter in it on the atoning power of the death of the righteous, and that lays out in Jewish terms why Jesus died. It is all about substitution. It is about the righteous willingly taking the place of the unrighteous. It has nothing to do with human sacrifice. We all repudiate categorically human sacrifice. This is a matter of the righteous one saying, it's like, you know, kids are about to be hit by a car and the mother jumps in the way of the car to save the kids.

It's the one that can lay their lives down to save the others that are helpless or lost. So that will be useful, but really the bigger issues are these other things. You know, the whole idea of completely denying Jesus, throwing out God by and large just for social issues, that's the deeper thing. So here's what I'd encourage you to do, all right, and hopefully your wife will be willing to do this. So I'm sending the book, look at the chapter on the atoning power of the death of the righteous, have her read that. Maybe it'll just, enough lights will go on that will help awaken her to turn back in the right direction, but please ask her to sit down with you to watch the movie in His image.

So here's how you do it. InHisImage.Movie. Just put in your email and you can watch it for free. Ask her if she'll sit with you and watch because it'll give her a very different view about gay activism and all of these other things and what the Bible says and what's best transgender issues inHisImage.Movie. Ask if she'll watch that with you and hopefully her eyes will be open and then you can really help her to renew her relationship with God in a real and vibrant and beautiful way. May the Lord work, Kev.

Obviously this is your whole marriage and your life here. May the Lord work. May He give you wisdom. So InHisImage.Movie.

Ask if she'll sit and watch it with you from beginning to end. The Lord could use that to touch your heart. And then this book will help deal with some of the Jewish issues. Even Jesus as a prophet. Jesus as the righteous one overturning the system. Say, hey, we're all for that.

Just the social justice movement is going about it the wrong way. All right. Thank you for the call. Grace to you and your family. Let us go to Chuck in Burlington, North Carolina. Thanks for calling the line of fire.

Hey, Dr. Braun. Love your ministry. Thank you. And love you too, brother in the Lord.

You're a gracious person. I've got kind of a hard question. Well, you know, I guess the Lord figures it out. In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, I think it says he's not imputing their trespasses unto them, but you know where he gives us the righteousness of Christ when we believe? Yeah.

Okay. So unbelievers, when they die, they die in their sin even though Christ died for them. And I think I get the gist of that because when they're judged in Revelation 20, 11, and 15, they're judged by their work, not their sin. Right.

So the long and short of it, and I'm just going to jump in only because I have a minute, and I would hate for you to fully articulate your question and then I can't answer. So at the cross, Jesus pays for all of our sins. And rather than God condemning us, God offers us salvation. God did not send his center to the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Right. So this is God saying, be reconciled, be forgiven, receive grace. Rather than me holding this against you, I'm offering forgiveness to the cross. If you reject that forgiveness, it's just like a drowning person that they were foolish, they jumped in the water. It's their own fault. Nonetheless, you go out in your boat, risk your life, say, reach out your hand to them.

Come on, let's get back in this boat and get out of this water. If they refuse to take their hand, you're going to drown. So if they refuse forgiveness, which must be received by faith. If they refuse that, then their sins are still on their head. Then for them, it's as if Jesus never died because they've rejected the forgiveness, they've rejected the mercy. It's almost like they're going in the prison cell and closing the door themselves. But many people don't even know that debt's been paid. Let's make it known. God bless you. Your program powered by the truth network.