Bring On Your Best Questions

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Phone lines are wide open. Let's do it. You've got questions. We've got answers.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Anything we talk about here on The Line of Fire, anything I've written about, spoken about, ever, any area of expertise I have, anything that ties in with a guest we've had, be it political, cultural, be it biblical, theological, be it something else, phone lines are open. You've got questions. We've got answers.

So, as long as it's a discussion we can have on broadcasts that go out on Christian radio across the nation, then go for it. 866-348-7884. 866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. And let us go to the phones.

We will start in League City, Texas. Sean, welcome to The Line of Fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. How are you today? Doing well, thanks.

Good, good. Hey, I got two quick questions, or the second one might not be so quick, but the first one is, is there a difference between an abomination and a sin? And then, the second question is, how does covenant theology differ from dispensationalism?

I'd like to ask more questions about that, but I'd like to just hear what you've got to say on these two. The first one is that to speak of something as an abomination, so commonly in the Old Testament with the word toiva, meaning something detestable, it is simply putting the sin in a certain category. In other words, it's one thing if you accidentally touched a dead body, you were ritually unclean, but you had not willfully transgressed a law. It's another thing if in a fit of anger you struck someone. It's another thing if in a premeditated way you murdered someone.

In other words, there are different categories. That's why there were different punishments for various sins. So, to say that something was an abomination was to simply describe it more. In other words, there may be certain, for example, if there's a couple before they're married and they have sex, they've sinned. They violated God's guidelines, but it's not detestable the way, say, having sexual relations with an animal would be, where certain lines are crossed, or even same-sex sexual act would cross a certain line. Now, the other thing, in some contexts, the word toiva, abomination, something detestable, can simply refer to something cultural, like when Joseph tells his brothers that are coming from Canaan to Egypt, tell Pharaoh your shepherds, because that's a detestable practice. Like, that's a lowly thing that we don't do.

We hire out other people to do it. But in the context of a list of sins, like Leviticus 18, where homosexual practice is singled out as detestable, or in Proverbs 6, there are six things that God hates, seven that are detestable. So, these are things that are high on the list. So, sin can be wide-ranging, but certain sins are worse than others. As far as covenant theology, covenant theology would basically look at one people of God through history so that the church is the new Israel, or that Israel was always called the church, and now the church is many Gentile versus Jew, but the church is the new Israel. And dispensationalism would make a strict separation between Israel and the church and say that we're in the church age now, when the church is raptured out, then we go back to God dealing with Israel. And I believe both of those are in error, that the promises God made to Israel continue to Israel, and even Israel in some belief is still preserved by God, but the ekklesia, those that are called out as God's people and children, that's the elect in every age.

So, Jew and Gentile together in Messiah make up the ekklesia. So, I reject covenant theology's view of the church as the new Israel. I reject dispensationalism's view of the complete separation of entities so that Israel and the church are completely disparate. Okay, so there's no room for maybe, like, nuance with covenant theology. Like, I didn't have a problem with it, but when I started hearing about, you know, the land promises and so forth, because I'm not dispensationalist really either, I don't believe in a preacher of rapture, so I find myself at some kind of crossroads where I'm gonna have to be just maybe just really nuanced in the way I look at it, because I don't really think I agree with either one all the way. Yeah, I mean, it's not even a matter of being nuanced, it's simply a matter of saying God keeps his word, that's all.

Yeah. So, there are people who are in right relationship with him through faith and obedience, right? So, it was mainly Israel in the Old Testament, it's largely Gentiles in this period of time that are walking in obedience to God, but there is always the people of God in every generation, and Israel has been a disobedient people at times. Often in scripture, God says, my people don't know, my people don't obey. So, God keeps his promises. So, he's brought the Jewish people back to the land, because he keeps his promises. He never refers to the church as the new Israel or spiritual Israel. It does not take Israel's place in the plan of God, but Israel, outside of the Messiah, is not saved. What your position would really be is what would be called historic premillennialism. Historic premillennialism, and from everything we can tell, that was the view that was held to for the first centuries, that the earliest disciples of the apostles held to that in their writings as well. Check out the writings of either Barry Horner, Barry Horner, eternal Israel, or future Israel.

See which one is the earlier one, Barry Horner. That'd be one good place to go. Or, yeah, go there. You'll get a lot of good information.

The writings of George Elden Ladd, who is historic premillennial, George Elden Ladd, you'll find helpful as well. Hey, thank you for the call. 866-3-4-TRUTH.

Let's go to Lucas in Dillion Springs, Florida. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hey Dr. Brown, how are you doing?

Doing well, thank you. All right, so my question is, it's about a book you recommended reading on a broadcast I listened to earlier. It was called A Misinterpreting Genesis by Ben Stanhope. So I'd read that book, and I'm still kind of on edge about whether to take Genesis, the creation also, like Genesis 1 through 11, literally or symbolically, as I've always grown up with young earth views. But if you were to take it symbolically, how do you reconcile the quotations and actions which are attributed to God with the rest of the Bible? So like, if God said, if it's written that God said and did this, you know, what was the dividing line between that and the rest of Scripture? Right, yeah, so it's an important book to read to see where others are coming from, some of their challenges, to what would be a conventional viewpoint. Look, I've been used to having my views challenged since I was a brand new believer, and there's hardly a day that goes by where my views aren't getting challenged somewhere.

So many people are not even used to digging and looking at other narratives. So you asked the right question, and the young earth argument would be, how did the rest of the Bible understand Genesis 1? You know, in the Ten Commandments, for six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth and rested on the seventh day. Wasn't it understood in a literal way? Wasn't that the clear understanding through the rest of Scripture?

That would be the pushback. Certainly, to me, you have to believe in historic Adam and Eve. You know, that's clear to me, whether there is something to be learned about the genealogies and the length of lives and if there's any symbolism attached to that, or that's simply due to conditions before the Flood. Certainly, those accounts, to me, have to be taken literally. There has to be a literal Adam and Eve that fell. Otherwise, fundamental truths of the Bible are shaken and challenged. But here's the other question. If you're a first century believer, say reading the book of Revelation, and you're reading the book of Revelation and you know apocalyptic literature, then you're not looking for real dragons and beasts, just like if you're reading Chronicles of Narnia and you understand the literary genre, correct?

Right. I mean, a modern reader is like they're looking for this literal thing, or this is going to be this literal this or this literal that, or I remember reading decades ago about China, the size of the Chinese army, and that lines up with verses in Revelation. But first century readers, they understood apocalyptic literature. So, the question would be, would an ancient Israelite understand Genesis 1 as giving a literal day-by-day, 24-hour-a-day creation account, and that's what they understood, or did they fully understand that this is speaking of God's functional work to create the universe as a place in which he inhabits, and the other accounts referring to it understand it in that way? So, that would be the question.

So, your line of argument is a correct one to probe this. My point has always been, when you look at how the rest of the Bible reflects on Genesis 1, it's not for the purpose of science, it's for the purpose of theology, and that's always been my point. It's there for theology. It's there to teach us about the nature of God and how he works and his order and his structures, etc. Whether it happened in seven literal days or ions, or it's all just a formulaic, symbolic account, that was never the issue to me. The issue was, why is it there? Why is it in the Word? What are we to learn from it? And that's what I see the rest of Scripture doing. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I definitely got a lot to chew on, but thank you. Yeah, and here's just one other thought for you. So, I'm saying you're asking the right question, and I'm not answering it because you've got to look at verse after verse and see how it's reflected on, but check out like Psalm 74, for example, where God's victory over the powers of chaos, even chaos monsters, is also tied in with his victory over the powers, natural chaos forces. You know, like for example, the sea in Canaanite mythology that was a god, Yom was the name of a god. In Hebrew, it's just the sea. Then you have these multi-headed monsters, you know, Leviathan and things like that, and sea personified, you realize, okay, God's victory over demonic powers of chaos is seen in his victory over the powers of the sea and the air, you know, he keeps everything in order. And what's the sign of it?

Day and night. In other words, every single day is another testimony to the fact that God rules and reigns. Every storm that does not destroy the earth, every wave that comes in and goes back out is a reminder that God's in control. That's a reflection, Psalm 74 is then a reflection on Genesis 1. So, read Psalm 74 in that context, even all through Scripture, light versus darkness, day versus night, chaos versus order, the fact that there'll be no sea in the new heavens and the new earth because sea associated with powers of chaos. So, that's what I see Scripture doing. That's why I see Genesis 1 there.

It may be scientifically perfect, young earth, old earth, or that may not be the issue at all. I let the scientists debate that. I'm just reading it as a student of Scripture. Why did God put it that way?

They put it there. And why are there cosmology accounts in the ancient world? Not so much to explain the universe, but rather to exalt one particular deity over another.

Genesis 1 says, God, one God only. Hey, thank you for the call. 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. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. Did you get my emails? We've got so much important information we send out. This way, also, every week, you'll know our latest videos, our latest articles in case you missed something.

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Doing well, thank you. Yeah, I just have a question in regards to the rapture. I know that you don't necessarily believe in a preacher rapture. I wanted to get your interpretations on a verse. In Revelation 1 and Revelation 4 and 5, John gets the vision of the risen Christ in the throne room in heaven, and we see, like, a lot of symbology. For example, seven lampstands, candlesticks, stars, the 24 elders, and stuff like that. And Jesus explained in Revelation 1 says, the mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks.

The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks, which thou sawest, are the seven churches. So some people interpret this to be a picture of the preacher rapture, because their churches are in the right hand of Christ, and around the throne and the lampstand that says in Revelation 5 that these are the spirits that God, God's spirit that He sent out to the earth. So here it shows them in heaven.

What is your interpretation about that? Yeah, number one, it doesn't show them in heaven. Jesus appears in a vision. He's right there with John.

That's number one. Number two, the seven churches were churches in that day, churches in Asia Minor, beginning with Ephesus and ending with Laodicea. So there were seven literal congregations that he was speaking to, and he speaks to them in the next chapters. Plus, the entire New Testament speaks of one second coming, not two second comings, and the one second coming that we're told to expect is his visible appearing, where the whole world will see him when they'll come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know God.

So, you know, I have the weight of scores and scores and scores of verses speaking clearly of us passing through tribulation in this age, being kept by God as His wrath is poured out, and enduring to the end, and then being caught up to meet Him when He returns for the whole world to see, and we descend together with Him. We go out as His welcoming party and descend together with Him in glorified bodies, and with all respect, there's nothing here. This is not Jesus in heaven. This is Jesus coming in a vision where Jesus appearing to John.

John sees him, falls at his feet. It's right here, and this falls at his feet as dead, and yeah, so in no way does this even hint or point that direction. Plus, again, those were seven little churches in Asia Minor. It's not talking about all churches in history. Those were seven congregations in the city churches in Asia Minor. Okay, so you don't think us as a church now are included in those seven churches even though the letters apply to all of us? Only like 1st Corinthians applies, Galatians applies, Romans applies. We make application.

We make application. But certainly, you know, if you say it's church ages, number one, nothing in the text says it's a church age any more than Romans is a church age or 1st Corinthians is a church age. Second thing is that if it was church ages, then every generation reads it wrong. In other words, reading it in the year 1000, you think, okay, we're the last age, so you divide it up differently.

Now, okay, 2021, we're the last age, divide it up differently. And then thirdly, the church in the West may resemble the Laodicean church, but the church that's growing and thriving all around the world, which is massively bigger than the church in the West, is like the church in Smyrna in the midst of persecution and afflictions. So even the order, the church age order doesn't work. So no.

The only way to say that there's any relationship with us in those seven churches is just like I read the letter to the church in Ephesus and see how it applies to my life and the letter to the church in Philadelphia and see how it applies to my life, or if I was a pastor in a congregation, how it applies to us, just like I read 1st Corinthians or 2nd Corinthians or Romans and Philippians and apply it. So, yep. Hey, I appreciate the call, Carmel. God bless you. Yeah, you too.

All right. It's 6-6-3-4, truth. Let's go to Susan in Los Angeles. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Hey. Thank you so much for taking my question.

You bet. So there are people who share experiences they've had and claim but spoke to them to say or do something, and it can feel intimidating to question whether God really did say those things or not. For example, Rob Sanchez claims God told him to punch a man multiple times, and the Passion translator, Brian Smith, claims God is giving him a book of the Bible to share with us. So my question is, how can we discern whether God did speak to someone and is this biblical prophecy?

Right. So under no circumstances should a child of God ever feel intimidated by somebody else saying, God told me. Because as children of God, we all have access to God, and if we're in right relationship with him, then we don't need to fear that God's going to give someone a message for you that he didn't give to you or a message to you to scare you or that you must give this amount of money to this ministry or you must do this or that. In fact, in the early church, there was even a teaching that if anyone says to you, by the Spirit, God says, give me money, then they're a false prophet.

Don't do it. So first, no intimidation. You have to step back, because it is intimidating. Even with all my years in ministry and having a good relationship with the Lord and hearing his voice in my own life, I've had someone give me a word, and it messed with me.

And then years later, they apologized. I shouldn't have said that, but it did its damage. Nancy was talking to me with all the Trump prophecies when she did not see it the same way, you know, that he's going to win or that you have to vote for him. And she's saying, you know, how does this make people feel? What about your own relationship with God? What about your own convictions?

So how do you deal with it? First, you test everything by Scripture. And if anything violates Scripture, you throw it out.

It's that simple. You throw it out. If it's contrary to the to the plain sense of Scripture, you know, let's just say some guy really likes you and you're married and he says, no, God told me that we're supposed to be together. Well, God did not tell him because God said don't commit adultery, right? So certain things you dismiss outright.

You know, if someone says they have revelation from God that's equal to the Bible, throw it out. Don't listen to a word they say. Throw it out. Reject it.

That's the first thing. The second thing is, if it's something that they're saying you are supposed to do or respond to, then you say, hey, I love the Lord. I'm his child.

If he wants me to know, I'll know. If you have something from God for me, then you pray that God will speak to me. Years ago, there were people who wanted me to get involved in a situation and I differed with them. I said, no, it's not my business to get involved with this.

I don't have enough information. Well, they prayed and the Holy Spirit really burdened me to get involved and it was important that I did. But I said, hey, look, I have a relationship with God. If God, if you have something from the Lord for me, I accept it. Let him speak it to me as well.

So that's the second thing. No fear. Just immediately, as a child of God, cast that off.

No pressure. And just say, Lord, I'm your daughter. I'm your son.

Here I am. If this is really from you, you let me know. And by all means, you know, I'll act on it. And then the other thing, you know, if someone says, okay, you know, they, God told them, someone dying of cancer, God told them, you know, that stomach cancer to punch their stomach and they'd be healed. Well, if they were instantly and completely and totally and irreversibly healed, I would say that's odd. Just like Jesus putting mud on someone's eyes was odd. But if resulted in a perfect healing, maybe that was this person's method or not, but I'm not going to go punching people. I'm not going to say that's what we're supposed to do because that would be doing harm to someone. And maybe that was just the person's way of doing it. You know, God didn't tell them that was just their way of doing it. But when you have somebody doing that and the person's not healed, obviously it wasn't God.

Obviously it was just, you know, the person doing what they do. So the biggest thing, Susan, is don't let anyone bring you into bondage. And please, everyone listening, I believe in the ministry of prophets. I believe in personal prophecy. God's used me over the years, especially years earlier, to deliver accurate personal prophecies. And I've had amazing personal prophecies spoken to me.

But please, please don't let anyone ever bring you into bondage through an alleged prophetic word. Even if they did hear from the Lord, if you are God's child and you're in good relationship with Him, you're not walking in daily, willful disobedience and casting God out of your life. If you're His child and seeking to please Him, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice. You have the witness of the Spirit in your own life.

As many as are led by the Spirit, they're the sons of God. Every day God is telling us to say no to sin and yes to Him. So say, Lord, if that's really you, if that's really you, if that word, you know, I don't, words seem odd to me or, but it's not unscriptural.

If it's really for you, make me know. Give me that assurance. And He will. He'll give you that peace. He'll give you that assurance.

If not, just need to throw it out or put it on the shelf. But never, ever, ever act on something just because someone comes in the alleged prophetic word. And by no means let them put you in fear or bondage to them or fear of what's going to happen if you question it.

No, by all means, test it, test it, test it. 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. You've got questions, we've got answers, and I am heading straight to the phones, and we'll start with Matt in North Georgia. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, thanks for taking my call.

Sure thing. I work as a researcher in a lab, and I was discussing my friend about some of the common scientific advancements. One of those is CRISPR, which is essentially gene editing, like genetic sequence editing. And he was discussing this with me, and we got into the topic of essentially what are the ethical bounds of what we can do to ourselves with our current science and technology while still falling in line with moral and biblical values. So for example, with CRISPR, you could literally edit your DNA sequences or even turn on or off genes. So you could do crazy things, like, for example, down the line, you could cure, quote-unquote, cure asthma by, you know, since it's genetic, turning off the genes that cause it in layman's terms, stuff like that. Or even find more effective treatments for forms of cancer that are genetic. So you could do amazing things, but with it comes a bunch of, like, you know, ethical implications and, you know, dangers from literally editing our own genetic code. So I was wondering if... Yeah, and just for clarity, are you saying this could be done in the womb, something that's detected in the womb, or in a human being outside the womb, that you could then, quote, edit their DNA code? It could be both. For example, a professor in China was actually arrested on ethical grounds because he used this to genetically edit fetuses to make them immune to HIV.

Right. So it could be both. And, you know, there were discussions, going back some years now, among gay activists, okay, if you could prove, and critics, if you could prove that someone was born gay, that there was a gay gene, and you could identify that in the womb, would that be something that could be edited? You know, I mean, these types of, I don't know if edit was the word, but, you know, these types of discussions have been had of even the whole issue of cloning, human cloning versus cloning a sheep. Does that cross the line?

Of course, the answer would be yes at this point. So I am no expert on the advanced scientific ethical discussion, simply because I'm not up to date on all the scientific issues. But to me, anything that would fundamentally alter who a human being is, or the fundamental nature of a human being would be when we start to play God. And, you know, is fraught with all kinds of dangers. I, you know, there are whole volumes, massive volumes that are written on this.

And of course, in Jewish law, there's endless discussion of what's ethical and what's not, because everything comes down to matters of law in Judaism. Have you read any discussions on this, in terms of arguments pro or con? Like, here are all the lies you could say, but here's the potential downside? Yes, I've read a little bit into the literature. The thing is, this is a very new field. There's a bunch of risks that we're still trying to fully understand. This is not my area of research, this is just something I was interested in.

So I've read a little bit on the literature. Generally, a lot of the Christian community seems to generally be against it due to the huge risk it poses. Now gene editing, it doesn't allow the stuff you see in like the comic books and the movies and all that, oh, where you could be super with gene editing.

That's, that's not realistic. We're still very much bound by our human, you know, mortal forms in our flesh in terms of what we can do, even with our own genes, there's still limits. But the general stance in the Christian community, from what I've seen in the debate, is that there's a huge risk of it, because DNA is so complicated. We're literally the most complicated organisms possibly in existence that God has ever made, and so the answer from the Christian community is that it's incredibly dangerous ethically, because it is essentially changing a very low-level fundamental part of yourself.

In the society of the community, so I'll keep going. Yeah, just to say this, right, first, under no circumstances should anything be done until all risks are adequately assessed because of the, the Lord's nature of this. Look, it wasn't that long ago that people talked about junk DNA and didn't think there was any function, you know, to, and there is, although there actually is a function, there's more going on than we realize. So the complexity of this so, so far beyond what we understand, yeah, so because of the potential, just my layman's opinion here, but a fundamentally altering human nature, what constitutes a human being or how a human being functions, as opposed to simply dealing purely with a physical issue, you know, you broke your arm, or you have, you know, you have an allergy and, you know, need to take antihistamines, that that to me is crossing a line that you don't even think of crossing. If you could ultimately demonstrate that all this did was deal with a physical issue, you know, just like this vaccine ended polio or largely eradicated polio, you know, whatever, then that would be a very, very different issue. But I would, I would absolutely have the opinion of the Christian ethicist for those very reasons. There are certain things you don't mess with. And if you could ultimately demonstrate, no, this is not messing with anything, this is simply just dealing with something at its source, then perhaps it might be acceptable at some point. But I'd have all reason for caution.

And I would imagine that when you mentioned scientific community, most are not factoring in God's creation or human beings being even different than animals. You would be correct in that assumption. Yeah. Hey, a quick question for you, but I want to be fair to other callers. So just super quick, your own view of the COVID vaccines?

I generally think that they're, that's a tough question. I took it and I would advise other people to take it, especially if they're at risk. I don't want to make any comments on how people feel about the effectiveness of it or if they should get it or not.

I do believe that it should be an individual's choice, but no comment on effectiveness or scientific, anything like that. All right. Got it.

My guess is just that. Fair enough. Hey, Matt, thank you for the call. And this is something we'll keep in mind.

Keep in mind this discussion about DNA in the future. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Bowie, Maryland. Linda, welcome to the line of fire. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah, go ahead. Okay.

You know what? I can't get you here anymore. Since you've gone off the radio station, I can't get you here. So I'm talking by telephone. Yeah, well, that's fine.

But listen, we're... Yeah, Linda, hang on one second. Do you get online on your computer at all? I don't have a computer. Okay.

So here's the thing. What kind of cell phone do you have? Is it... It's called a Lively Jitterbug phone for old folk. Ah, okay. Do you know if it's an Apple phone, an iPhone, or is it called an Android phone?

Do you know? No, it's not a smartphone. It's not a smartphone.

Ah, okay. I'm so sorry because we have an app. You can listen on smartphone.

Yeah, we haven't been on WAVA for many years. Hopefully, one day we'll get back on. But yeah, I mean, we're all over the internet and smartphone.

You can actually get an app and even watch the show. But anyway, we're on the phone now. So sorry that you can't get us in other ways. So yes, your question, please, Linda. Okay. Thank you so much for taking my call. And it's so good to hear your voice again. I have missed you, Dr. Brown. Trust me.

Yeah, I miss everyone that I talk to on those stations. Go ahead. Anyway, I've got two questions to ask you.

I'm going to try to make them real, real quick. Okay, there's a controversy going on about the name Jesus Christ not really being the correct name for Yeshua Hamashiya. It's not the same Christ. It's not the same entity when a person says Jesus Christ. And so I was wondering if you know of any book or anything that addresses this and explains why the name was changed from Yeshua Hamashiya to Jesus Christ, and then from Jesus Christ, but other languages such as Spanish as being Jesus Christos. Yeah.

And do you know any writing on it? Yeah, I have. And I will, when we're done, stay on the phone. Don't hang up when we're done. Someone's going to get on the line with you. And I'm going to send you a free copy of a book I wrote called 60 Questions.

So 60 Questions is the name of the book. We're going to send it to you as a gift. So when we're done, don't hang up the phone. Someone's going to come back on. It may take them a minute to come on, but they'll come back on and get your name and address.

Here's the simple answer to your question, Linda. Hebrew is Yeshua Hamashiach, but the New Testament was largely, if not all, written in Greek. And in Greek, it became Yeshua Christos. And then in English, it's Jesus Christ. And in Spanish, it's just like my name is Michael, but the Hebrew is Michael. And we talk about Moses, but the Hebrew is Moshe.

We talk about the book of Ezekiel, but the Hebrew is Yehezkel. So we're talking about the exact same entity, the exact same person. Just in English, we say Jesus. In Spanish, Jesus.

In Italian, Jesu. But we're talking about the exact same person, the exact same entity. And I explain it very clearly in a book that we'll send you as a gift. And the other question, Linda? Okay, I thank you so much for that.

The other one is this. There's a dear lady who is 100 years old. She's alert. And I've been working with her concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She was born Catholic, and that's all she's ever known, all her life. And to me, she has an attitude that all other Bibles and things are after the Catholic Bible. The Catholic Bible is supreme, that it is the true version of God and all of that.

And I don't know how to explain to her that it is not. And I wanted to ask you, too, do you know of anything that's written up concerning why the Catholic Church came about and why it wrote a different Bible than the King James Bible? Do you know of anything that's already been written up about that? Okay, so that's a separate question. And King James Bible is just one English translation, and the Catholic Bible that she has probably Doreen's is another English translation. But don't worry about that, dealing with a woman that's 100 years old.

Don't worry about that. I would suggest instead that you say, well, let's use your Bible. So take your Catholic Bible, and when you go through the New Testament, all the books are going to be the same.

All the overall meaning of the words is going to be the same. So just say, let's read John 3 in your Catholic Bible. John chapter 3. So let's read John 3 in your Catholic Bible. And then ask her what Jesus says, you must be born again. Have you been born again?

Have you been born from above? What did Jesus mean? So just read her. You'll find the same verses there in her Catholic Bible.

Read those to her. All right, we'll be right back. 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. 866-34-TRUTH. And we go back to the phones.

Sandy in Beaufort, South Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call.

You're welcome. Dr. Brown, lately I've been looking into revival and different denominations. And I was very surprised to find out through Pastor Steve Hill's Wikipedia page that there was a revival over in England happening that had started just a few months prior to Brownsville. It was actually at an Anglican church named, let me look real fast. Yeah, quite familiar with it.

Sure, yeah. Okay, that was my question. Because out of all the things I've ever heard people talk about Brownsville or anything, I've never heard Bishop, no, it's Sandy Miller's name brought up. And I didn't even know about this history until just like a few months ago when I read it on the internet. And that was my question. What are your thoughts about the Anglican church?

Because I never really hear anybody talk about it. And it just sounded all very interesting. You know what I mean?

Yeah, of course. So Steve Hill was a friend of mine before the Brownsville revival. And we were both very close with Leonard Ravenhill, famous for his book, Why Revival Tarrys, which still is a powerful read to this day. And Steve and I were pursuing God earnestly for years for revival and outpouring and desperate to see God bring a powerful repentance movement to the church. And John Kilpatrick, pastor of Brownsville Assembly, in the midst of a healthy, strong church in many ways seemed to be doing well.

He was desperate. He was earnestly seeking God, going into the building alone at night and praying for hours and groaning and crying out, God, there's got to be more. And then they turned their Sunday night service, which was a big service, they just turned it into a prayer meeting and had the whole church praying for revival.

This is for a couple of years before the revival began. And a few months before the outpouring started, Steve Hill called me and he said, hey, I was in England. I got prayed for, just seeing a fresh anointing in my life. So he was excited. I mean, he had been burning bright for years and seeing God move for years.

But he talked to me about getting a fresh touch in his life. And then not long after that, he was in Brownsville. And then God poured out his spirit there. So there are lots of different things that came together. Ultimately, God heard the cries of his people and poured his spirit out.

You know, so John Kilpatrick or his wife, Brenda, had not gone to England or Lendell Cooley had not gone. Then God called me to serve as a leader in the revival about 11 months into it and was with them, you know, those next four years. So I was an eyewitness to, you know, thousands of services and meetings and classes and saw God move dramatically. And the fruit remains dramatically around the world. People who were touched there, transformed.

Some have been on the mission field now over 20 years bearing fruit, sending out missionaries to other parts of the world. It's been an extraordinary series of events. But it was the real deal. And that was a contributing factor. It was just one of many.

But yeah, Steve was prayed for, came back, called me and just said, I'm just seeing God move even more as I'm out ministering. And not long after that, things began at Brownsville. So there were a bunch of things that were happening, you know, different movings of the spirit, renewal, revival movements.

But what characterized Brownsville, you know, it's all the people through whom it comes. So that's your life heritage. What message have you preached?

How have you lived? It's not like the anointing changes you. It's just everything you say is more empowered and the results are more intense. So Steve Hill was always a real passionate evangelist with a strong repentance message. And so that was at the heart of Brownsville, you know, lifting Jesus up, letting the Holy Spirit move, and calling sinners to repent, backsliders to come back, and Christians to get right with God.

And that's why the altars were flooded, you know, for years with literally more than 300,000 different people crying out to God for mercy. So yeah, that's all part of the story. Well, thank you for that history. I did not know most of what you just told me, so that's great.

Yeah, my joy to share it. All right, yeah, and how we pray for God to do something like that and even more again in the days ahead. Let's go to John in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Great, Dr. Brown. There's something that's been on my mind for a long time. It's been eaten at me terribly, and it has to do with something I saw from Richard Carrier, so I guess that Jesus Christ was a myth. And he gives all of his crazy reasoning behind it, talking about dying and rising gods and all that kind of stuff.

But here's my point that I don't think anybody's ever thought about before. If Jesus never existed, wouldn't the Jews of Jesus' time say, hey, who is this Jesus that you're accusing us of crucifying? There was no Jesus, what do you mean? We don't see that in history. Are there any historical Jewish sources that say that Jesus never existed?

No, no, there are none. Nothing historic. You have Maimonides' code of law, the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century, where he just explains why Jesus was given over to be crucified, accepting things as historically accurate, you know, reflecting Jewish tradition at that time. And there's debate about what the Talmud actually says and early rabbinic traditions actually say about Jesus, because the name Yeshua, as it would have been in their literature, was very common. Yeshua was a very common name then. And the Talmud will speak of a Yeshua who lived like 150 years before the time of Jesus, or 100 years after the time of Jesus, so did they get their chronology wrong? If it's the same Yeshua, then they viewed him as an idol worshiper, a false miracle worker, someone who led Israel astray and therefore was killed. But there's no denying of his existence. There's just a debate as to how much early Jewish sources say about him or not. But your point is well taken, that at a certain point this was an openly preached thing. We know the New Testament has the narrative, excuse me, accusing Jewish leaders of turning Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified. That's part of the narrative. And we know that the early church repeated that, and then it became a harsh accusation that they were guilty of deicide, because they had killed the Son of God, therefore killed God.

So in any case, in any case, yeah, at some point you would have expected someone to say, what are you talking about? This person never existed. But the one thing, and this underscores this point, John, the one thing that we know that we know that we know is that there's no dispute. The Roman historians that look back to this, they don't dispute whether he ever existed. The earliest Jewish mentions of him acknowledge his existence, they just have a very different picture of who he was. Yeah, so you don't find any dispute in the ancient world or claim that he was just a figment of imagination, a mythical character like Zeus. It's not there. It's simply not there.

The question, you know, even Bart Ehrman, famous agnostic, skeptic, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, highly influential, wrote a book refuting the notion that Jesus didn't exist. Hey John, thank you. I appreciate it. Do I have time? Yeah, let's go for one more call here.

Cattrall in Queens, New York. Thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire. Oh, thank you for taking my call, Dr. Brown. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

All right, awesome. Well, I have a friend who received multiple personal prophetic words from leaders in his church, and they unfortunately turned out not to be true. And my friend expressed to me that as a result, his faith is a bit shaken up, because he put so much value into his leaders, into the words that they provide to him.

And I was wondering whether I should encourage him to continue with fellowship with the leaders in his church, considering that they are incessantly giving him false words that's shaking up his faith. And two, because they're sort of like incessantly giving words to my friend saying that they received it from the Spirit, are they blaspheming the Spirit? And as a result, are they false prophets? Right, so to blaspheme the Spirit is to knowingly attribute the works of the Spirit to Satan. So no, they're not blaspheming the Spirit, but they may be very guilty, if what you're saying is accurate, of being false witnesses of the Holy Spirit, of claiming to speak for God when they're not. Now, if they're not saved at all, if they're complete charlatans, then they'd be false prophets.

If they are Christian leaders who are just in serious error here, they can't separate the delusions of their own mind from the Holy Spirit, then they are poor leaders, they are bad leaders, or they are falsely claiming to be prophets. But if this happened on a regular basis, I would absolutely get out of there. I would document it in a letter and say, hey, this happened, this has really messed with me. And obviously, this is not the norm in the body, otherwise you wouldn't even have a charismatic movement. But all too often, this does happen.

Cottrell, if you're able, sit down with your friend and read my book, Playing with Holy Fire. I think it will help rebuild his faith in the real. But if this has happened repeatedly and it's clearly false, I would definitely get out of there. I would not want to be under leaders like that.

There are plenty of other places you can go in healthy environments. But encourage him, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. First Thessalonians 5, don't despise prophecies. Don't put out the Spirit's fire, but test everything. Hold fast to the good.

So if he's tested and it's no good, get out of there. But don't despise prophecy in general. And my book, Playing with Holy Fire, I think will help because we call out the false and the unreliable, and we give guidelines about abusive leaders. So may the Lord bring him in a good place, rebuild his faith in the genuine, and thanks for being a good friend. God bless you folks. We are out of time. Another program powered by the Truth Network.