Are We in the Final Apostasy?

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There are solid answers for the deepest, most difficult questions of the faith. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the Director of the Coalition of Conscience and President of Fire School of Ministry. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Could it be that we are in a unique time of people falling away from the faith? Could it be that we are in a time that Jesus spoke of as a final great apostasy? Things will only get worse from here?

Or is this just another one of those difficult challenging seasons that could last for years or decades or go on beyond that, seasons that the Church has faced before? How do we respond? 866-34-TRUTH, this is Michael Brown. Welcome to the broadcast, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm opening the phone lines for anyone who wants to call with a question on any subject whatsoever like we do on Friday.

So, you got questions, we've got answers, we will get into some things that may be completely unrelated to our major subject area today. However, that being said, if you are struggling in your faith, we got into this yesterday, we had more people to get to than we were able. If you're struggling in your own faith, if questions are being raised in your own life or to you and you don't know how to answer them the best way, or if you are watching other people that once walked with the Lord now fall away, give us a call either to share what you're seeing, why people are falling away, what your insights are, maybe you're a pastor or youth pastor, maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a young person. Why do you see colleagues, friends, others turning away from the Lord? Give us a call, share your reasons why 866-34-TRUTH or areas where you're struggling in your own life, your own heart, your own faith or areas where you're trying to help others and they're raising questions and you're trying to figure out the best way to answer.

I'm very happy to hear from you and I will go to those calls first 866-348-7884. I personally do not believe that we are in a very specific end time period of final apostasy. I'll tell you why in a moment. Matthew 24-12, we know that Jesus says, because the love of many, because iniquity will abound, lawlessness will abound, the love of many will wax cold. So, so much sin, so much decadence, so much lawlessness in the society, the love of many will grow cold.

Some translations say the love of most, but shouldn't be there, it's really love of many, that's what the Greek says. But it does say, well, many will fall away. Now, on the one hand, it could well be that it was speaking of a specific season before the destruction of the second temple and pressures rising there because in context, that's the first layer of understanding. But many believe that it speaks of the end of the age as well, and I do too, that whatever happened then is kind of a parallel for what's going to happen at the end of the age in an even greater final form. And we know that a couple of verses later, Jesus said, this gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a witness to all nations, then the end will come. So, he is talking ultimately about the end of the age. And there are other passages that talk about terrible times, you know, 1 Timothy 4, the Spirit expressly says, in the light of time, some will depart from the faith, or 2 Timothy 3, that in the last days, perilous times will come. But when you read them in context, those verses are saying, in these last days in which we live. Paul telling Timothy, Timothy, in these last days in which you'll be doing your work and your ministry, there are going to be difficult times, there's going to be deception, there's going to be apostasy, so that's been there through church history. Will it increase and intensify at the end of the age?

As I understand scripture, yes. In what ways? Well, on the one hand, there'll be the greatest outpouring we've ever seen in world history. As we get closer and closer to the end, I believe the outpouring will increase. The harvest will increase. The signs and wonders will increase. And along with that, the availability of sin will increase. Counterfeit miracles will increase.

Deception will increase. It will be a time, as I read scripture and understand, excuse me, of parallel extremes. The closer we get to the end of the age, it will be a time of parallel extremes. So much light and much darkness. Someone says, how can you have this, that happening at the same time? Light drives out the darkness. Well, just think, on planet Earth today, it's bright light in one part, right?

It's noon and it's midnight in another part of the Earth. That you can have things going on simultaneously. So, I believe that many will fall away and I believe that many will be coming to the faith. It could also be the rapidity and the size of the harvest also means that you have many shallow converts and false converts in the midst of it. Now, yesterday, I gave a bunch of reasons that I said are some of the keys for so much apostasy today. I did say the availability of sin is one. There's just so much sense, so many things available, so much temptation, so many distractions that it makes it much easier for people to think of it like this. If you go away into a cabin, you're going to spend three days in prayer and fasting and there is no Wi-Fi, there is no cell phone signal, there is no TV and there is no food, just lots of bottles of water in the fridge.

That's it. You're going to have a much better chance of successfully spending the time in prayer and fasting than if the kitchen was stocked with all of your favorite foods and you had all kinds of cable TV and awesome internet cell phone signals. It's a lot easier to get distracted and to eat when you have the options.

When you don't, it's a lot easier to do the right thing. So, just the availability of seven websites. What was it? Ashley Madison, was that the name of it? Adultery websites.

You're married, you want to find someone to have a fling with and things like that. This type of stuff, the availability of it is new and is therefore pulling many people away. Not to mention just the constant distractions, even the things that in themselves may not be wrong, but just spend endless hours wasting your time watching videos on subjects that may themselves be okay, but not to spend hours and hours and hours and hours every day. That's one issue. The influence of new atheism, the rise of that about 15 years ago, the attacks on God, the attacks on the Bible, that has filtered its way down through general culture. Solidarity with the LGBT community. And hey, we love them and they're friends and family members and we want to support them and the Bible's against them, so we're against the Bible.

We're going to reinterpret the Bible. That's another major one. The church for so many years preaching a superficial message, a watered down message and a compromised message, and that has produced many shallow converts and then many who think they're saved who aren't saved. That's another issue. So many scandals in the church, so much hypocrisy. The degree to which the church has gotten caught up in politics, not in a healthy way, but in a way that becomes a primary identity, that's turned a lot of people off. Let me just look at my list here.

Yeah, those are the key items that I covered. And the fact is, though, we need to have confidence in the power of the Gospel. We need to have confidence in the goodness of God. We need to have confidence in the authority of Scripture. Now, for some, that's as natural as breathing.

It's a given. Of course God is good. Of course the Gospel changes lives. Of course the Scriptures are reliable.

But others, I mean believers, followers of Jesus, I don't know. I'm not sure. It seems that things I once was sure about I'm not anymore, or things I never questioned, now I'm questioning. I'm going to go to the phone shortly.

866-348-7884. Let me give you an example of something. All of my studies were done in secular universities. I got my bachelor's in Hebrew at Queens College and my master's and PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at New York University. I did not study with a single professor who believed what I believe. I did not study with a single professor who was a professing born-again believer and believed the Bible to be God's Word the way I did.

Not in a single class I ever had. Now, some classes here and there I had with Orthodox Jews, so they believed the Hebrew Bible to be God's Word, but of course their perspective on Jesus was radically different. So from day one, first starting with rabbis that my dad introduced me to as a new believer, I was challenged about messianic prophecy and it's not accurate, New Testament misinterprets the old, etc.

etc. Then when I started college, early on, one of the first classes was an ancient history class, which I was just taking because I was a music major and taking some liberal arts stuff before I switched over to Hebrew. So taking this ancient history class and the guy was a scholar in Acadia and it's ancient Babylonian Assyrian and going through the Bible and talking about how Moses didn't write this and this really didn't happen and that really didn't happen, so I'm confronted with that early on. So getting hit with all these questions, so I know the questions are out there. I've been hit with them for almost 50 years, right?

But many others aren't aware of the challenges and it's only later on in life that they get hit with them. So here's something that's happened. Professor Bart Ehrman, New Testament scholar, respected New Testament scholar, early church specialist, textual specialist, so understanding the ancient text of the New Testament. So, you know, the original copies of manuscripts and things like that. So when he teaches New Testament survey at his university, was it University of North Carolina in Raleigh? Respected professor there. When he teaches his classes, he is a skeptic. He is even a mocker of certain things in terms of fundamentalist beliefs. So you have these big classes of New Testament survey that he'll teach and he is deconstructing people's faith.

How many of you knew that this gospel didn't mean this and this contradicts this and this contradicts... So it really throws people. But it's a limited number.

It is a limited number of people that he's influencing in that way. And then in the scholarly world, well, this is stuff we dealt with for centuries. We know the objections. We know the issues. But what happened with Bart Ehrman, to his great surprise, is when he began to write popular books on this, you know, questioning Jesus, questioning the authority of the New Testament or the reliability of the New Testament, things like that, they became mega bestsellers.

He became a well-known New York Times bestselling author. And suddenly, the general public is getting hit with the issues that in academic circles we've discussed for centuries. Like, yeah, here's the objections. Here's the answer. Sort it out. Work it out. Here's the question.

Here's the answer. See if you feel good about the answers provided. So what's happened is that a lot of the tough questions have filtered down to the general public, but not the good answers, not the solid answers.

And because of that, people have lost confidence. I'm here to say there are solid answers for all the questions that are raised. There are difficult questions, but the good answers. Okay, we go to the phones.

We come back. 866-348-7884. 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. Hey, if you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to the channel and then click the bell. That will remind you when new videos are posted.

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How are you doing? I was just going to ask you a quick question about grace and mercy. After sin is gone, which I believe it will be after the judgment is correct, I mean, there will be no more sin, right? Mm-hmm. Will there be need for grace and mercy anymore?

I was just curious. It just came to my thoughts one day when I was praying and thank the Lord. No, so the need for grace and mercy is because of our shortcomings, because of our sins. So after the final judgment, when we are in the eternal age, when we are in the New Jerusalem with God forever and ever and ever, will there be no sin, there'll be no flesh, there'll be no devil, there'll be no temptation, we won't need grace and mercy to forgive us of our sins or for God to say, okay, you don't deserve to be here.

I'm going to let you stay here, you know, because you keep messing up. No, that would be contrary to our eternal glorified nature. But forever and ever and ever and ever, we will celebrate the grace and goodness of God, the mercy of God. You know, maybe you wake up in the morning and you just, you can't believe, let's say you used to be a criminal and God saved you and you got an amazing marriage and amazing kids and you look around the house like, I can't believe that this is what I have, that this is my family, I don't deserve it, it's just, I can't believe it. Look at what God's done. So even though you're no longer a criminal and now you're loving your wife and loving your kids, you're still stunned by the grace and goodness of God in your life. So forever and ever, we will see God in his glory and the beauty of his essence. And probably every time we look at him and every time we gaze on his beauty, we'll be struck by something else amazing and glorious and incredible and because he's infinite, forever and ever and ever, we'll be blown away at different aspects of his person, of his being. At the same time, we will be eternal recipients of grace and mercy, eternally grateful but not needing to receive grace, mercy, forgiveness in the eternal world. Interesting question, thanks for asking it.

866-3-4-TRUTH, we go to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Laura, welcome to the line of fire. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown.

You're welcome. I have a question. In December of 2019, I was miraculously delivered after I forgave someone. After 40 years, I forgave them unilaterally and the Lord delivered me.

I'd been bedbound and housebound for six years, sir, and I was on 15 milligrams of oxycodone four times a day and watching the clock, I was in that much pain. And that night, I said, I'm going to get in the water and get baptized. It was not a salvation baptism, it was a baptism of fire. And the Lord had just shown me during the message that, oh, it was like arrows of fire hitting my heart saying, you've got to forgive this person. And I didn't even realize I didn't think about her every day. So anyway, I got in the water, I forgave her, I said, yes, I'm going to do everything the Lord tells me to do.

I'm going to say everything He tells me to say and I have to the best of my ability. That night, nothing happened in the water in particular, except that I forgave. And that night, I didn't take any pain medicine. I went to bed, I woke up to go to the restroom and I said, Lord, this is so strange.

I'm not hurting. And He said, welcome to your new normal. And then a little bit later, He said, show yourself. So I've been doing that. I've been going to meetings and all the meetings I can and sharing with people and saying forgive, forgive, forgive, because it was such a key for me, you know, for healing.

But what and I keep really short records with Him. You know, if I if I if something comes up, I really go to Him right away. But the more I mean, I'm strong and I can drive again, praise God. But I've been really struggling with with pain again.

And I've been really active and I'm attributing it to all the all the stuff of last week, I went to eight different meetings and, you know, shared my story, my whatever, my testimony and just encourage people and just also just go into the meeting and praising Him. But I'm I'm struggling and I'm having to use my walker again, which I haven't had to use. And, you know, just for strength. And I use a cane and, you know, all of that. And I just how do I hold on to the freedom from pain?

Got it. Laura, what what condition were you suffering from? I had segoliosis surgery as an adult. And it just and also I fell down the stairs after the surgery and I have a shattered pedicle screw ever since then. Yeah, right. So this was nothing psychosomatic.

These were injuries, surgery issues, et cetera, that were known and understood, hence the medication you were on. And where were you baptized? Was it just your local church or the North Georgia revival came to my church? OK. Yeah, got it. I had a hunch it was it was related to that when you shared because there have been many miracles.

All right. Obviously, there are people that seem to have a breakthrough momentarily and then it disappears and it's kind of mystifying what happened and why. But there's no question and what you experienced that something supernatural happened. You know, you know your body well enough. Right. And this and to have no withdrawals also.

You know, I was on so much pain medicine, but I had no withdrawals and I've been through withdrawal before. But anyway, anyway. OK.

So aside from just asking the Lord and praying if you were pushing too hard, that's the only thing I look at with schedule. We have to look at this as an attack from the devil because of the importance of your testimony, you sharing it and how the devil wants you to be crippled, wants you to be disabled, wants you to be on the sidelines. And he is a thief. Right. He wants you to be quiet and he's a thief. So number one, aside from just saying, Lord, is there anything you want to tell me in terms of schedule and just using wisdom?

Right. Just aside from that, if he doesn't give you any insight on that, we just have to look at this as a spiritual attack. And you have to set your heart of saying in terms of your own attitude, I refuse to go backwards in Jesus name. In other words, the devil will not win. The devil will not try.

I will not be bedridden again. I will not be on that medicine again because God is faithful and God is true. So this is where you confess the truthfulness of God. This is where you declare that Satan is a liar and he's lost. This is when you remind God of his promises. And he's the one that laid it on your heart to forgive. You forgave.

God's being glorified. I would, do you have some solid intercessor friends? I do. All right. So you get them together and, or just alert them and say, okay, look, the enemy is trying to steal and it is that simple. Satan is trying to steal.

Like I said, unless the Lord shows you just use more wisdom with your schedule or something like that. But that being aside, let's assume that's not the case. Then there is an attack. And, uh, I remember when, when Nancy decades ago, when would this have been mid eighties was miraculously healed of something had been a struggle for a long period of time. No sooner did she stand to testify as to what happened to her when she walked back, the thing hit and, and then, you know, just came back immediately and then she believed God.

And then it's like it left halfway and then it left completely and then it left period. But, uh, it was a test and this, this, for whatever reason, these things happen just like, you know, you break through and you're in an area spiritually and you have victory and then you get tempted and pulled back. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to pray with you right now in Jesus name and the authority of the Lord, trusting his faithfulness and that this is an attack from Satan.

Not everything is an attack from Satan, but I really believe this is. And those that are people of faith and prayer, we're going to join together right now. So we've got our prayer army praying for you right now. And then Laura, I want you to let us know the victory that comes because I'm trusting God with you that you're not going backwards but forward. So father in the name of Jesus, by the authority of your son, I rebuke this attack on your daughter, this woman who is your child freed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus and forgive it. We say no more to the attack of pain, to the disability, to the weakness, no more thriving, healing strength for life in Jesus name. Amen. We will 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. I never heard of Tracy Lambrechts before, just read about her in an article online moments ago. She was a New Zealand Olympian in 2016 weightlifter and had for New Zealand weightlifters, female weightlifters in her weight class had all the records. But on one weekend they've all been broken.

Coach told her they've all been broken. Why? Because a man who now identifies as Laurel Hubbard, a male body, a male weightlifter who is now lifting as a woman broke all his records. This is some of the madness that continues to come our way in our society. The social madness, the gender madness that must be opposed, that will be opposed. Society will only go so far before it wakes up to certain realities. Just a price will be paid in the meantime. And I pray for Laurel Hubbard to find wholeness as the man that God created him to be.

Wholeness in the Lord, the wholeness mentally, psychologically and in every other way. But now he is going to be competing in the Olympics. And of course that also means that the woman that would have been on the team, the last woman on the team gets excluded. So works hard for many, many years to get to the level of Olympic athlete. Think of all the sacrifice involved that. Now she doesn't make it because a guy, an older guy, much bigger person than the other ladies.

He makes it because he's a male competing against the females. The pushback will continue. By the way, if you haven't read my latest article about Aesop's fables and defunding the police, it's up at our website AskDrBrown.org. I've also got some recent articles about Gay Pride, other things like that.

So make sure you check them out. 866-34-TRUTH, the number to call, the website AskDrBrown.org. Before I go to the phones, I want to say this. When people struggle with their faith, when people are asking deep questions, not sure if God is real, not sure if they can trust the Bible, not sure if they're really saved, if there is such a thing as salvation, not sure if what they believe is real or not, you may not have gone through what they've gone through. And it may sound silly to you, like you just believe. Of course God's good.

Of course the Bible's true. But that's not going to help that person. The person who's not sure if God is real, if you tell them you just need more faith, they're going to think, so the whole thing is just, it's a game.

It's a myth. You keep psyching yourself up. Maybe the questions strike you as serious, but you don't have the answers. And when they start raising the questions to you, you start to wonder, what about this?

What about that? Maybe their questions are real. So you've got to draw back from that because of insecurity. What I want to encourage you to do is first be as empathetic as you can. I've sat with people and they're about to tell me a heavy situation in their life. And right at that moment, I'm not there.

My mind's somewhere else. I would rather not be sitting and talking at that moment. And I will stop and say, God give me focus and God give me empathy. God give me understanding. So at the very least, friends, it could be your 13 year old kid coming to you with a question you never thought they'd ask or telling you something you'd never thought they'd tell you.

It could be coming from someone that, you know, your friend of yours is an on fire youth pastor now questioning whether whether the Bible is true. It could come from any unexpected angle, but at the very least, let that person know I'm listening and I care. Even if you're thinking, I can't relate to this at all, but I can relate to you.

I care about you. Let them know that you're giving a real listening ear and that if they want to go on a journey with you and discover things that you go on that journey. Or you could say, I've never thought about that. And I don't have the first idea of even where to go for an answer, but I feel confident that there are answers there.

So let's dig together or let me do some digging and get back to you. Or just tell someone, maybe they're hurting. They're a believer, but they're hurting. You know, one of my friends, a pastor was making the first call as a pastor to a home of grieving people.

The family member had just died and he had to go over the whole way. He's praying, praying, what do I say? What are the words? How do I say it? And they walked in the door and realized people just need a hug, need a shoulder to cry on right now.

And somehow that pastor brings a sense of security and faith and they just need to hold them. He didn't say anything. Sometimes you just need to be there to have a shoulder to cry on, let someone know, I really care.

And you don't even try to answer the question because it's just not time for it. Just say, I can't imagine how this hurts. I love you and you're not alone here. You know, let them know that you're there. And then from there you can pray for them and you can work through some of the issues, some of the problems. Okay, back to the phones.

We go to Sean in Knightdale, North Carolina. Thanks for holding. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, what's going on? Hey. So, I don't really disagree. I don't really have a question and I don't really disagree. I agree with everything you said at the beginning, like when I first started listening. Like, I never really heard nobody on the radio, especially when you talk about Christ and God. Never heard nobody really come out like that.

That was a beautiful thing to hear. So I really don't have nothing to add to it. The one thing I can say from my own personal experience is, it seems like people are dedicated to whatever their mind is set on. You see what I'm saying? Like, people have completely, a lot of people have completely, whether it be their phones, whether it be a laptop, whether it be money, whether it be whatever new age belief they got going on in the world nowadays.

It really does seem like people have, I'm not going to say made a decision because it's not my right to say that, but it seems like people have really, really made a strong effort to erase anything biblical that they have ever learned and have really dedicated themselves to this world. And that's what I see every day. I mean, I see people having car accidents. I mean, and a lot of people are on their phones literally like your phone is so important that you will like risk your life just to be on a phone like 5.5 inches, right? Well, you know, Sean, the distractions are super real. We've never been this distracted a society.

And when it's a constant pull and the constant bombardment and a lot of stuff is coming from one direction. And if you're taking that in, it's going to kind of reprogram your thinking. So just think of this, let's say you never really questioned the Bible before. You never really questioned whether it was true. And you just believed it. You just believed it. And now suddenly for the first time you start questioning and then just as suddenly you start discovering website after website, YouTube video after YouTube video and TikTok account after TikTok account questioning the Bible and attacking the Bible. And it's like, aha, I knew it. So all the bad stuff suddenly rises.

Bad experiences in church, prayers that weren't answered like aha. And then once you cast off morality and biblical standards, you have this freedom, but it's a carnal freedom. It's not a freedom that liberates on the inside, but it feels like I'm free.

I do whatever I want, but all you're doing is putting yourself in deeper chains. But it's again, it's that perfect storm. It's all this stuff swirling at the same time because of which many are turning away and then giving themselves zealously for wrong causes. May the Lord bring them back and awaken his people. Hey Sean, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Jay in St. Louis, Missouri. Welcome to the line of fire. Good afternoon, Dr. Brown. Thank you so much for taking my call.

You are very welcome. So I just wanted to touch on kind of your main overarching topic today and focus on the New Atheism. About a year and a half ago, God took me to YouTube and I discovered a lot of this content on there, and it seems like there's a subset of New Atheism that seems to have arisen called street epistemology. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that.

Not that specific term, no, but I'm sure of the content, but go ahead. Yeah, so basically it's a softer approach where they kind of bring up the emotional side of faith, and it seems like a lot of the arguments I see on YouTube really do revolve around emotional-type objections, like God doesn't really give you a real choice between him and hell, Old Testament atrocities, divine hiddenness, things like that, not seeing miracles that are real. And one of the things I wanted to just ask you was, you know, I feel like it's expanding a lot because of that emotional component, because a lot of atheists, it used to be kind of an intellectual engineering-type mindset thing, but now they're appealing to the masses with these emotional arguments. Could you address a couple of those, like at least one of them? I saw one of these guys has a channel, very popular on YouTube, and he took a message from a pastor talking about how God gives you a choice between him, because he wanted to give you a free choice, but his whole argument was, that's not a real choice because the other option is hell, and that's like, you know, pushing someone by fear and things like that, so could you address, you know, how to help out with people?

Yeah, absolutely. And yes, atheists in the past did raise various arguments and did attack the God of the Old Testament or things like that or raise issues of hell, but you are right, it tended to be more of a philosophical intellectual argument. The new atheism has been more aggressive and often more emotion-based, but these things must be dealt with.

Buttons are rightly pushed, so in my book, my new book Has God Failed You?, I have two chapters that especially deal with objections to the God of the Bible or the God of the Old Testament, so two whole chapters in Has God Failed You?, and then I do address the problem of evil and suffering, but what I would first ask, I'd ask someone, would you rather exist or not exist? And most everyone wants to exist, otherwise they take their own lives, right? So overwhelmingly, people want to exist.

Next question, if I could push a button and you'd be just no sickness, no pain, happy the rest of your life, but it's all programmed, you cannot ever make a choice again. You know, people want freedom. They want freedom to determine their course. So if God creates a world like that where we exist and we have freedom, then there's going to be problems.

I might hurt you, you might hurt me, you might hurt your kids, whatever. So freedom has consequences. The question is, is it real freedom when the choice is either love God or burn forever?

How is that freedom? So I'll address that on the other side of the break. Stay right here. 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. Hey, very quickly, before I go back to Jay in St. Louis, and I'll try to get to some more calls after that, we have added a great new station, FM station in Toledo, Ohio, WTOP. If you are listening right now on WTOP, I want to offer you a free copy of my latest book, Has God Failed You?

Finding Faith When You're Not Even Sure God Is Real. So only if you're listening on WTOP in Toledo. If you're watching on YouTube and you live in Toledo, that doesn't count. So if you are in Greater Toledo, listening on WTOP, I want to give you a free copy of the book, No Strings Attached. The first few callers that call in 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-348-7884 only if you're listening on WTOP or brand new station in Toledo. Okay, so Jay, I would then say to someone, so you prize your existence and you prize your freedom, and we agree that these are necessary ingredients if there's going to be a human race, we're going to be able to make choices and determine our destiny. And rather than debate the nature of hell or eternal conscious torment or being tortured forever, look at it like this. God is going to give you what you choose. If you choose to be with Him forever, you will get that.

If you choose to reject Him, you forfeit that forever. It's that simple. So rather than debate the nature of hell, the nature of eternal punishment, and is it like Dante's Inferno? You know, people roasting and you flip them over and roast the other side and flip them back over.

Is that a caricature? Is it that people will be utterly destroyed so in other words they cease to exist at a certain point? Is it rather than debate that, because that's the point, I would say look, it's what C.S. Lewis says, if you tell people I don't want God away from me, then he will say fine, that's your choice. And tell him this, I can guarantee you this, you'll forfeit eternal life.

If you don't want to be with Him, you won't be with Him. It's that simple. And will there be judgment for sin if you violate God's good laws? Should there be punishment? Should there be punishment for violating good laws?

Of course, just like in this world. So if we have violated God's laws, He will deal with us justly. That's the choice we make, right? I'm going to do this, there are consequences, like anything in this world. But the fact is God says I'm going to pay for every sin you ever committed.

That's where you preach the gospel. I'm going to pay for every sin you committed, every evil deed, every wrong thing. Rather than you having to pay for it, my son's going to pay for it, and you can have eternal life and enjoy blessing and goodness forever and ever and ever if you receive me and follow me. If we say no to that, then we are forfeiting eternal life, we're forfeiting eternal blessing. And you say at the very least, scripture says you'll be cut off, that it's over for you. So it's not a matter of God dangling you over hell and saying, believe in my love or I torture you forever. No, it's God saying, I made you, I'm your creator, you're accountable to me, but I'm going to give you an offer. You can be with me forever and I'm going to pay for every wrong deed you ever did, and you will have joy and purpose and meaning beyond anything you can ever conceive, or you can refuse me, live as you want and forfeit all that.

That's the way I would present that. As far as the God of the Old Testament, again, I get into that in depth and has God failed you? But what I would indicate is that God waited over 400 years, according to Genesis 15, even though it made his own people suffer slavery in Egypt for a protracted time, he waited 400 years until the level of wickedness of the Canaanites was such that God said, okay, now you can drive them out. You know, burning their own children in the fire and committing all types of atrocities and horrific things. God waited that long. So look at it like this.

If the inhabitants of Canaan were like ISIS terrorists, to drive them out or to wipe them out was actually doing a good thing, especially when they refused to repent. That's how I would approach these. There are solid answers.

We need to know the right ways to answer them as well. Thank you, sir, for the call. Yeah, we got time for a couple more calls. Let's go to Joseph in, oh, I'm sorry. I've been given, it's W-T-O-D, sorry about that, in Toledo.

Of course, there's the D. W-T-O-D, not T-O-P, got that wrong. So if you're listening on W-T-O-D in Toledo, I'd love to give you a free copy of Has God Failed You? Just give us a call at 866-34-TRUTH. Joseph in Stevenson Ranch, thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire. Joseph's not there.

I guess he held as long as he could hold. We will go to Cecilia in New York City. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. I'm a Christian. I enjoy my Bible studies with my friend. I like to listen to Mike Winger, Dr. Baruch Korman, and your videos.

I just enjoy your debates. From the moment I get up till I sleep, I cannot let myself away from the Bible. It's like, I have to pray, I have to read the Bible, you know, like I feel obsessed. So a friend of mine asked me to attend a C3 church here in New York City, but I don't feel comfortable, not because it's Pentecostal or Evangelical church, I just don't feel okay with it, because I feel either it's a prosperity teaching thing, or, you know, the churches that celebrities attend to say, hey, I attend a church today. So what do you feel about that kind of church? Right, so I don't know the pastors or the group personally, but let me say a few things. Just a little bit that I do know in terms of maybe unconventional ways of meetings, it's perfectly fine if you're meeting in a house or if you're meeting in a building. It's perfectly fine if you're meeting on a Sunday morning or on a Thursday night.

In other words, the physical location is not the issue, and the time or day of the meeting is not the issue. The key thing is that believers are gathering together and that there's a good structure of spiritual authority so that there's oversight. There's pastoral leadership and oversight either trickles down into meetings and houses or it comes from a central pulpit, but the key thing is we are called by God to gather together, right? In Hebrews 10, the most famous passage exhorting us to not forsake assembling together. So we need to be part of a fellowship, part of a body, joining together with others. We are sharpened by them. We grow by them. We offer things to them that bless and help them. And then together in a family setting, because we're made for ourselves, we can better serve our communities and make an impact. Now that may be, and what looks more like a traditional church with a Sunday morning service and maybe a weekly Bible study, it may be something that meets every morning for prayer.

It may be something that meets in houses. So all that is secondary. If this church has an unconventional way of doing things, that's not the issue at all. The issue is what is being taught and preached biblical.

So that's what you have to really see. Do I agree with the main emphasis? Do I believe that the Bible is being held up as God's authority? Do I believe that Jesus is clearly being preached as Lord? Are there calls for repentance? Is there encouragement to live holy lives? Is there an emphasis on God's grace and mercy to transform us?

Is there a desire to reach the lost? You know, if those were the things that were being emphasized, that would be wonderful if you felt called to be part of that. If you're uncomfortable with some of the doctrine and the fact that you listen to folks like me and Pastor Mike Winger and others, you can use our teaching and evaluate, kind of compare if you're at home with what we're saying and find it to be biblical.

So the nature of the meetings, you know, meeting in houses, dinner parties, whatever, that's not the issue. The issue is what's being taught and is there good pastoral oversight? Is it just people getting together or is there some real desire to make disciples, to grow people in the Lord, and to have them reach the community around you?

Those are the things that evaluate. And again, if you find it to be a success in life, prosperity emphasis, come to Jesus and you'll get wealthy and come to Jesus and you'll be really cool. Well, that's not the gospel, obviously. If there's no emphasis on repentance or holiness, that would concern me. But otherwise, I don't know more about the church than just how they meet and who the founders were, etc. So may the Lord give you wisdom from there. Are you part of a church fellowship, Cecilia?

No. Like I said, I just meet up with my friends and talk about the Bible because I don't want to go back to the Catholic Church. It's like everyone wants to, you know, just... Have you ever visited Times Square Church in New York City?

No, I have not. Can I encourage you to do it? A new pastor now took over for Pastor Carter Conlon, and then before that, Pastor David Wilkerson. From like 91 to 95, I preach there, oh, 40, 50 times. And you will have a wonderful time of spiritual worship, a wonderful time, absolutely, of spiritual worship, and you will hear a solid message from the Scriptures each week. But I encourage you to be part of a fellowship where you're part of a family and there's spiritual oversight and you're growing and then you can contribute and things like that. So check out Times Square Church since you live in New York City, but there are many fine churches in the city.

I just can't say more about the one you asked about. Hey, Jason from Toledo, Ohio. Welcome to our spiritual family. Hope you get to listen regularly. We will get your address and send you a free copy of Has God Failed? God bless.