Dr. Brown Takes All Your Calls and Questions

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

We start in Rock Island, Illinois. Vince, welcome to the line of fire. Hello Dr. Brown. I have a question. It talks about, you know, generational curses today. It just didn't seem right to me. And I know, I look at numbers 14, 18, and 19, and then in Exodus chapter 20, verse 5 and 6, it talks about, oh gosh, it talks about the sower.

Oh gosh, where is that at? Yeah, well, we know the passages in terms of God visiting. But then I go down, okay, and then in Ezekiel, and then in Jeremiah, it talks, it mentions that same thing, and it says, it says no more.

Right. So I was wondering what your thoughts are on that. All right, first, let's understand what the text is saying, then let's understand what was going on with Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and then let's ask the question, how does it apply to us today, okay? So we know in the Ten Commandments that God says that he visits the sins of those who hate him to the third and fourth generation, yet shows kindness to thousands or to the thousandth generation of those who love him. Let's concentrate on the curse part.

So it's for those who hate him. So generation A sins against God, they're judged for that. Generation B now takes things even further, so also the judgment and their tendency to go further, and so on and so forth. In other words, it becomes more deeply entrenched with each new generation that continues in the footsteps of their parents, and the judgment from God goes accordingly. And we can even see that just in terms of when something is generational. In other words, when this is how you've always lived, and you learn it from your fathers, you learn it from their fathers, etc., or ancestors, things become more deeply entrenched, and the consequences as well. What's happening in the days of Ezekiel and Jeremiah is the people are saying, well, we're just suffering for what our parents did. We're just suffering for previous generations.

In other words, sometimes things accumulate, right? God waits, he's patient, he's merciful, and then finally he gets to the breaking point, judgment comes, and they're like, we didn't deserve this. We, like Lamentations 5, you know, our fathers sinned, and now the judgment's fallen on us. God's not saying that that is going to stop in the Old Testament. In other words, he's not reversing the Ten Commandments, but he's saying, all right, I'm going to bring judgment more swiftly.

You sin, you're going to suffer. So, it's not a matter of God rescinding that. It's a matter of God saying, you won't be able to say that anymore because I'm hastening the judgment. That's, for example, what Ezekiel 18 is all about.

They're saying, well, the fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. God says, you won't be able to say that anymore because I'm going to judge you swiftly for your own sin. The big question, right? The big question for us is, does that apply to us as believers? In other words, if your grandparents were guilty of some type of murderous crimes, and now your parents hid it, and now you come to faith, is there some kind of judgment that's going to hang over you, or are you going to be more complicit in doing what they did?

The answer is no. In other words, if you truly make a break with the past, if you truly make a break with, you know, let's say you have generations of alcoholics and each new generation, the kids are drinking younger and getting exposed younger, and now you get radically born again and make a break. To the extent you make a break with the past, you make a break with those past tendencies. On the flip side, I don't believe God is actively bringing those things on us as believers, but there are things that are kind of inherited.

Like, for example, genetically, if you're a child of alcoholics, you are more predisposed to become an alcoholic yourself, or forget genetically just by upbringing. So there are things. The only way that I can look at this, Derek Prince wrote a book on blessings and curses.

Nancy and I read it many years ago, and Derek Prince was a brilliant Bible teacher, really knew the word well in Hebrew and Greek. But when we read it, it's just like, how can you figure it out? Almost everything, this is a blessing, this is a curse. We couldn't wrap our minds around that. But we did know certain people, and it seemed that, quote, bad luck followed them everywhere. It seemed that, I remember one fella led to the Lord in high school, and now we're in college together, and he decided all crazy things all crazy things would happen to him. So he decides, well, I'm not taking my car into school today, I'm going another way.

This way nothing can happen to the car. He gets home, and a street lamp had just fallen loose and crashed through the window of his car. It's like the story of his life. That kind of thing, or just when it's constant sickness, all unrelated, all attacking, and there's been like a history of that, okay, is there something going on? That's when I step back and say, is there some demonic activity? Is there some type of curse that needs to be broken? So I need to see some kind of clear evidence that something wrong is being passed down or happening in the spiritual realm, or the Lord has to reveal it. At that point, then I would deal with it. Otherwise, if I don't see evidence of it, I understand when I surrender to the Lord, he washed me, cleansed me, to the extent I made a break with the past, to that extent the past is not going to follow me.

So hopefully that's helpful. Yeah, so just a real quick follow-up. So say that person whose car was always getting banged up, was he saved or no? Oh, he was a believer, solid believer, yeah. Oh, so if a person did have a generational thing going on, they got saved, it wouldn't automatically break that. Yeah, and look, I cannot claim to give you decisive New Testament scripture on this.

Maybe someone has more insight than I do. What I do understand is that some of these things, for whatever reason, things going on in the spiritual realm, things that have been passed down generationally by habit or lifestyle, things where we fail to make a break with the past, maybe a demonic stronghold that's been entrenched, for whatever reason, if I see that it's there, then we'll address it. Now, I have friends that when they lead someone to the Lord and baptize them, they break all generational curses in Jesus' name. In other words, that's just something they do in case there's something in the background. For me, I have to be confronted with something wrong. At that point, I will then deal with it. And we may ask the Lord to show us what's the root of this or just say, something wrong is going on here. Let's address it, prayer, fasting, spiritual authority, whatever is called for. Hey, Vince, thank you for the questions. I'm sure others have had them as well. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to Chuck in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you. I've got a question in regards to Judges 17 and 18, the curses of the mother. Can you help me to see if that curse followed through all the way to Daniel, to the Danites who conquered that city and made the city of Dan?

I don't believe so. I mean, it's one of the darkest passages in the Bible because, like, everything is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. You know, the idolatry, the compromise, the treachery, the...but Judges is telling you, hey, this is what was going on. This is how life was at that time. I don't believe that you can then trace it out, you know, in a history of the Danites. Some might say it's implied, you know, by the curse.

That's why it's there. But when I've read it, I've never had that understanding that we were to see the curse falling on the Danites and then following them after that. So that's not been my own impression reading it. Because what I'm doing, I'm following into what I believe the Lord is leading me into, is to find the righteousness of giving out of Luke 16. And today this was just my word to read, judging something. I thought, is this showing a path of usury and all that, the curses of usury and all that?

That's the reason why I was kind of asking. Does that make sense? Yeah, I wouldn't see a connection there.

It's always good to dig and think and wonder, but personally, no, I would not make any connection there between those texts or those concepts. Hey, Chuck, thanks for studying the word. Let's keep digging. 866-3-4-TRUTH. Let's go to Jesus in Chicago. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. Thank you for having me on, and thank you for your ministry and you just being able to put your experience with the Lord out there for everyone to, you know, learn from. Well, you're very welcome.

Thanks for sharing that. My question has to do with heresy. What is considered heresy nowadays? And I have two specific examples. This really bothers me, because on one hand we say, there are many people who would say, oh, like, annihilationism, well, hell isn't eternal suffering for the sinner.

They'll suffer immensely, but they will die. You know, there's many people who, like, one couple I really respect, you know, that say, no, that's heretical, that's heresy. And then you have another, but then that's fine, but then there's another one from a very popular, that I wouldn't name, but they say things like, for Calvinism, but extreme Calvinism, that would say, you know, God is the one who puts the evil and the desire to rape children and murder into the people, and then he dictates, like, he personally makes it so that he does this amount of, like, thrust or kill and, like, it's...

In other words, that everything that any human being does is ordained by God, and that he is somehow actively behind it so that God is ultimately responsible for the rape and murder of a little child. It's that heresy. Okay, we've got a break coming up, and I'm going to answer in full on the other side of the break, but the immediate answer, when we speak of heresy in an orthodox, historic way, we mean something that is outside the pale of fundamental faith, that if you hold to this, you are outside the body. This is not a dispute within the body. This is something that would disqualify you from being in the body. That would be a technical understanding of heresy.

Most tend to use it more loosely than that. 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 86634. Truth, you've got questions.

We do our best to give you solid answers. So, back to Jesus in Chicago. So, in the Bible, the Greek word from which we get heresy simply means divisions or differences, but then it has come to have a technical meaning, say, in English when we say that is heresy. Most people use it kind of broadly, meaning that's a dangerous teaching or a bad teaching or something I differ with. I try to use it in a more historic sense, saying, okay, if we're calling this heresy, we're saying if you hold to that, you are not saved. If you hold to that, you are outside the historic body. So, for example, what Jehovah's Witnesses teach is heresy. But the debate about the nature of eternal punishment, say, annihilation versus eternal conscious torment, that's been something that's been debated for centuries within the body or debates about the exact nature of communion. That's been something that's debated over the centuries. So, if someone holds to transubstantiation, a Catholic friend, I absolutely do not hold to it based on scripture, but I would not say that's heresy, meaning they are disqualified from being in the faith.

The worship of Mary is heresy, right? So, in other words, it's where we draw the line, which is your question. So, what I would look at is the fundamentals of the faith, early creedal truths, things that have been held to as the foundations of all things. And if someone violates that or is outside of that, we would recognize that belief as heretical. So, extreme Calvinism that would attribute acts of evil to God's own nature is a terribly dangerous wrong view, as if somehow he was complicit in evil, that he was somehow ultimately responsible for evil.

So that rather than condemning wickedness, he was the source of wickedness. That would be a terribly dangerous belief and certainly deeply unbiblical. Now, what I call it heretical, if it was someone's philosophical conclusion based on being a Calvinist and they simply went too far philosophically, I'd urge them to step back from that and make clear statements about scripture and the nature of God. If it's something they held to as a fundamental dogma, then that would concern me. That would be something that would misrepresent who God is. And look, there are many Calvinists that would absolutely say without hesitation that an open theist is a heretic, because an open theist says that God doesn't know certain things, that human choices and things that lie ahead, God does not know everything that the future holds. And they would say that's a heresy, because it fundamentally changes the nature of God.

This would be in the other direction. So, thank you for the question. Biggest thing to me is, let's really examine what scripture says and let's really challenge others to hold to what scripture says and to abandon any traditions we have that are contrary. Hey look, to me it's very serious that people reject the work of the Holy Spirit for today. I find such an abundant, overwhelming testimony of scripture about this, I find it to be so important and I see the amazing things God's doing around the world, it deeply grieves me that fine brothers and sisters in Jesus say, no, these things are not for today and the things that we attribute to the Holy Spirit are really not the Holy Spirit. That deeply grieves me, but I'm not going to call them heretics because they're cessationists. I would say, let's look at the word again, let's examine it afresh. Hey, thank you for the call.

Let us go to Laura in California. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. So I am a newer listener, so I don't know if the question I've asked you is actually covered or not, but just yesterday I stumbled across a debate that you had with a rabbi about whether or not Jesus was the Messiah, which I thought you did excellently, by the way.

You're welcome. And he brought up Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 11, and he quoted it as if it was the Lord speaking, and I looked it up and it was actually Moses speaking, but basically what it says, because I don't have the text in front of me right now, was he was saying that the laws given, that the commandments were given, were not too hard for us, it's not too hard for us to obey. And I have zero background at all in any Hebrew language or anything like that, any scholarly background, I don't have any. So for somebody who is a Christian who holds to female substitution and why Jesus is death is important, because we can't obey the law, I didn't really know how do we put that into context or how do we answer that or how to rectify the two there?

Like I was kind of confused, I didn't really know how to rectify that. Yeah, great question, I appreciate it, and it's one that's often come up in a Jewish debate over the decades and I'm sure the centuries. So first in context in Deuteronomy 30, it's talking about inaccessibility, okay?

That's the key thing. So I'm going to read to you Deuteronomy 30 beginning verse 11 from the new JPS translation, which goes back to the mid 80s. Surely this instruction which I enjoin you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It's not in the heavens that you should say who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and imparted to us that we may obey it, observe it. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say who among us can cross the other side of the sea and get it for us and imparted to us that we may observe it. No, the thing is very close to you in your mouth and in your heart to observe it. See, I said before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity, etc.

So in context, it's not talking about ability to do it, but ability to understand it and have it accessible. It's not some mysterious thing that's just so far out and I don't know, what do I do? No, no, it's right here. It's right here. It's right in front of you.

You can do it. Now make a choice. So that's the context. So in context, it's not emphasizing the ease with which Israel could do it, but rather the accessibility and the fact that it's straightforward right in front of them. As you keep reading, which I encourage you to do, keep reading into Deuteronomy 31, 32, 33, 34, a repeated theme is, but I know you're going to disobey. Moses is saying, I know you're going to say, if this is what you're doing now while I'm here, what are you going to do when I'm gone?

I know you're going to disobey. So the thing that I would emphasize is to any Jewish person, nobody's stopping you from doing it. Nobody's stopping you from keeping the commandments. Nobody's stopping any of us. And theoretically we could, except we choose not to.

It's been our history that we've chosen not to, which is why so much destruction has come on us. It's been the history of every human being to fall short. And the more you press things with a religious Jew who tends to be very scrupulous in his or her lifestyle, the more readily they'll say, yes, I fall short here. I fall short there. I fall short there. No one's making you, no one's, you, you have the complete ability to do everything written and yet you don't, which is why we need a savior. So rather than that being a negative to me, something that, that is hard to overcome in my witness, I lean into it and say, absolutely, it's right here and yet we don't do it yet. We don't obey yet.

We fall short proving our need for a savior. Okay. Thank you. That was really helpful.

You are very welcome and your questions are always welcome. God bless. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go over to Tyler in Kansas City. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi Dr. Brown. Hey.

Hey. I am, I have a question that is more, uh, trying to find kind of peace with something, uh, that I'm trying to basically convince myself of. Anyways, I've been, um, I'm, I'm a straight man, but I've been interacting with a lot of, uh, LGBT Christians lately and I, um, I've not been able to settle my own mind on the issue of, uh, trans people and transitioning. Um, it's pretty clear. The Bible says about, you know, homosexual relations.

I mean, that's pretty clear to me. I got this settled, so I don't, I don't think it's a sin to be gay. It's a sin to act on it. Um, for transitioning, I've, I've met so many people who are, who are Christian and they're trying, not so many people, a few, and they're, they're Christian and they're trans and they, they struggle with this idea that they can't transition. They can't ease this sort of torture that's in there that's going on in their souls with these, with these medical procedures. And I just. And it's agonizing. It's agonizing.

It's agonizing for them and for me trying to help them. Yes. Fully understood. Fully understood.

So, so let me, before we go to scripture, let me ask you this. Do you know anything about BIID, body identity, uh, body integrity identity disorder? Uh, is that the one where you basically are convinced your body is wrong in some way other than gender basically? Right. Exactly. Exactly. So you are tormented by the idea, you should not have a right arm.

It's like this weird thing, your mind map tells you it shouldn't be there. Okay. The, the, the suffering, the agony, the ability, inability to help people like this is very similar to the torment and agony that, that many trans people speak of. Would it be okay for that person to amputate a limb? That's perfectly healthy. I know it's their body's perfectly healthy, but they would really have peace of mind if they could just take that limb.

It would be incredibly wasteful and I guess you could even say self-destructive, but would it be a sin? What do you think if God, if God gave us these bodies and called us to be stewards of them? If, if would it be right to hack off part of our body simply to give us peace of mind?

Or would you say, look, we've got to find a better way. I'm sure somehow in God there is an internal help for this rather than chopping off a healthy part of your body. No, no, I don't think, I don't think I could honestly say it would be okay. Right. Okay. So I want to pause there and then I want to dig in scripturally and philosophically into the question of whether it is a sin to physically alter your body.

I mean in major ways, major ways, amputating, changing, chopping off healthy breasts in order to get peace of mind. We'll be right back. 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. Last night I tweeted out, pastors, if your congregants are not totally sure about where you stand on homosexuality and same sex quote marriage, then you're not teaching the scriptures and you're doing a disservice to your people. I say that because in every congregation people are hurting. Every congregation people have friends, loved ones, or they themselves are struggling with issues having to do with homosexuality or transgender identity. And for us to not be thoroughly clear in the scriptures and for us to not be there in a pastoral way is both failing to teach the word and failing to care for our flock. If you say, well, I don't want to raise controversial issues. Well, these issues are there already and the kids are facing these issues in school or on social media or media.

This is everywhere around us. To not be clear is to be negligent as shepherds. 866-34-TRUTH, you've got questions, we've got answers.

I want to go to Tyler in Kansas City. So the question, Tyler, as to whether someone who identifies as trans and then say young lady gets a full mastectomy or a man gets surgery to change his private parts into female private parts and now he's going to be on hormones for life. Here's why I say that is sinful and wrong. I'm not saying I guarantee that this person is hell bound.

You know what I'm saying? I can guarantee if someone denounces Jesus, refuses the cross, so I'm going to live how I want to live and dies as an atheist, unrepentant serial killer, then we know that person's lost. I can say for sure that these are sinful and destructive acts. So number one, we go back to being created in God's image where he creates us male, female and throughout scripture, it only knows male, female. We also know that all categories historically in scripture were identified biologically. In other words, there is no category of being a female in a male body or male in a female body, which means throughout biblical history, if someone was struggling on the inside, they were still in either the male or female category. Just to be blunt about that. That's the first thing.

The second thing I always look for is trajectory. Everything reproduces after its own kind. The idea that gender is what you perceive it to be versus your biology or that sex is what you perceive it to be of the male sex or the female sex is what you perceive it to be versus biology. Not only does that violate the simple biblical norm, but it now violates the gender binary because you have countless genders. You have endless numbers of genders and you have people, for example, a woman who's attracted to men but believes that she's actually a man will now transition and become a gay man. So you have these endless variations and if you just get online and search for gender identities, it's endless. I mean, it's scores and scores of them. Why? Because you have now redefined it.

So this tells me on a trajectory level this is wrong. Then there's the fact that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit that we're told to be stewards over our bodies. Sexual immorality is one thing, but be stewards over our bodies. So to hack and amputate and change things simply based on mental perception.

Then to go on hormones for life that are now going to fight against what my body really is. So there's the sinning on the stewardship level and the one explicit verse, it's quite explicit. The challenge is how do we apply it today?

Is this universal? But Deuteronomy 22 5, a woman must not put on man's apparel nor shall a man wear women's clothing for whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord your God. So it's explicit.

It's black and white in the text. Deuteronomy 22 5. The question is, well, that's under the Sinai Covenant. Is that one of those things like Leviticus 18, which was under the Sinai Covenant, but God made clear these are standards for all people of all times, because God judged the Canaanites for incest. God judged the Canaanites for adultery. God judged the Canaanites for homosexual practice. So that's a universal moral principle. He said that the land will vomit you out the way it vomited them out if you follow in their footsteps.

The best way to trace this out is to take that phrase at the end, Toivat Adonai, detestable to the Lord, and to see every time that occurs in Scripture and see is that also a universal principle? And if you can, which I believe you can, that will further underscore the fact that this is a crossing of a line that's dangerous, because God specifically—and you say, well, in our day, you know, women wear pants, right, right, but women wear pants. In other words, that's not a big issue. You could go to other—if I came into the office wearing a dress, everyone would know I'm wearing women's clothes. In other words, men don't wear dresses. Now, if I was in a certain part of India and men wear these gowns, well, it's a different outfit, right? So this would underscore the importance of gender distinctions.

The last thing is that a large percentage of people who then go ahead and have these radical surgeries end up with terrible regret, and a large percentage still remain suicidal and struggle because the issues were not cured by maiming the body. Have you watched the documentary that I hosted In His Image? Oh, no, I have not seen that.

Okay, Tyler, that will really help you go deeper than I just did now. You can go to InHisImage.movie. InHisImage.movie. You put your email address, can watch, or just go to YouTube and type in In His Image movie.

The American Family Studios did it. I had the privilege of hosting it, but you'll get—there's a lot about transgender issues, about the image of God, about what it means. So compelling stories, great theology, some modern wake-up calls, because you're asking the exact right questions. In other words, we have clear biblical prohibitions about homosexual practice. Someone can struggle with same-sex attraction and love Jesus and say no to that attraction, but to walk in it willfully is to disqualify ourselves from the kingdom of God.

Does the Bible make the same statement in the same way about transgender? Well, no one was having sex change surgery, but the principles must be deduced, and the pain you feel is the pain you should feel, because these people struggle mightily. I can't relate to—I felt the pain in prayer for them, but I can't relate to living with that and the torment of it. So all the more reason to me that we really dig deeper to try to get to the underlying reasons why people are tormented and bring them wholeness through the Gospel. That's what compassion would do. And I'm 100% sure for any believer struggling that if they will throw themselves wholly on God, he will help them so that they don't have to commit suicide, so that they don't have to destroy a marriage.

He will give them grace. I interacted with a gentleman some years ago. He identified as a woman, was actively involved in church, his transgender, etc. And I said, well, what happened to your marriage?

I think he was married 37 years. He said, well, I effectively destroyed my marriage and lost my children. I said, but what about the call to lay down your life for your wife? He said, it was either a change, transition, or a suicide. I don't believe that's the option. I don't believe it's ever the option. I either mutilate my body, either go on hormones for life that are going to go contrary to how God created me. I'm going to have to do this or suicide. God will give grace. I'm not saying it's easy.

I'm saying his grace is sufficient. So friends, if you haven't watched this, this is an incredibly important movie. And we've heard of tremendous fruit and feedback, gotten great feedback, not just for adults, but children.

Children have watched it as well. Hey, thank you, Tyler. God bless.

866-34-TRUTH. By the way, oh, what is it? About 35 minutes from now, we're going to be back on YouTube, Ask Dr. Brown. So everyone watching live, 4.15 Eastern Time, I'm going to be back on YouTube answering all your YouTube questions.

You just post them there and we answer them. All right. So join me at Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube, 4.15 Eastern Time. Okay, we go to Luis in Chicago. Thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. I have a question on Acts chapter 8 when it talks about the sorcerer. It talks about how many men and women believed in the name of Jesus Christ and were baptized. It also says that Simon himself believed and was baptized, which is the sorcerer. So my question is, because a little down, a little bit more down it says that once he saw that Peter laid hands on people, so why did the sorcerer have to pass to the Holy Ghost? What did he just receive and what did he believe as well as the other people?

Yes, thank you for the question. So if you go back earlier in the chapter, Luis, you'll see that Philip is preaching in Samaria. Samaria, there's great joy in the city. People are being healed. People are being delivered from demons. Many are being saved.

They're being saved. They're being baptized, but it says they had not yet received the spirit. So there is an understanding that there is an empowerment of the spirit that they had not yet received. It explains Paul's question in Acts 19 when he meets believers in Ephesus and says, did you receive the spirit when you believed or since you believed? So those of us who are Pentecostal believe that upon salvation you are immediately indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The moment you're saved, you're born from above and the Holy Spirit now indwells your spirit, but that there is an empowering of the spirit, something tangible. Something often comes with speaking in other tongues that you have that in Acts 10 and Acts 19 along with Acts 2. That there is something tangible and clear where people receive the spirit. So the apostles came and when the apostles came, Peter and John, they lay hands on the people and they received the spirit. So something happened. Either they were speaking in tongues prophesying, but something happened so that Simon said, whoa, look at this.

Can I pay to get this gift? But when the people believed, they didn't receive the Holy Spirit? Not the empowering. They were indwelt by the spirit, but they did not receive the empowering of the spirit. The spirit had not come upon them. At Pentecost in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit came upon them. It is the endowment of power. Many Christians through the centuries have come to points in their walk where they know there's got to be more. There's got to be more. And they've sought God earnestly and receive power from on high, be it an R.A. Tory or a D.L.

Moody. And these were not tongue speakers, but these were people who said there must be more. So the Holy Spirit did not come on them in power.

That's how I understand it. They were born again. They were believers. They were indwelt by the spirit, but they had not received the endowment, the empowering of the spirit for service.

And that's what we who are Pentecostal still hold to as valid for today. 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. Thanks, friends, for joining us on The Line of Fire. This is Michael Brown, 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Joey in North Dakota.

Welcome to The Line of Fire. Are you there? All right. Looks like we lost Joey. We go over to Ethan. No, we don't go there. Let's go over to Matthew in Apex, North Carolina.

Welcome to The Line of Fire. Whoa. Okay.

I don't know if we just had something that happened with our calls. Looks like we may have a connection issue. So for those who are like, hey, I'm here. I'm here.

Can you not hear me? We'll do our best to sort that out. 866-34-TRUTH. In the meantime, let me encourage you friends in your own study of scripture to not be afraid of digging deep and asking honest questions. I want to encourage you in that regard. I want to encourage you to trust God enough and to trust your relationship with Him. I'm not talking about following everything on the intranet, listening to, oh, this guy's got some interesting theories.

No, no, no. Devote more time to scripture. But not everything in every one of our church traditions or messianic congregations or personal spiritual backgrounds is accurate, right? In other words, over the decades I've been in the Lord, just about 50 years now, I've modified certain things that I've believed within the faith. I've thrown out certain things I held to in terms of end times, embraced others.

I've held to one view and then shifted away from it, come back to it. And then there are other things where I was super dogmatic about, I'm not as dogmatic about, and other things where I am more dogmatic. So I'm not saying that I am now perfectly right on everything.

No, no, no. But there are certain things, there are hills I'll die on, and there are other things I'll say there are different ways of looking at things. Now, some people will attack me because I'm not dogmatic on a point they think is that essential.

I can give reasons both ways within scripture and within the church, within the body. But many times we are very locked in in our focus in such a way that we are afraid to explore. Make a determination, Lord, I want to follow you in your truth. If I have to make an adjustment here or there, if I have to make a major adjustment within the Lord, I want to follow God in his truth. Don't just be locked in by the traditions that you were raised in or by your current surroundings. Dig in the scriptures daily and ask God for insight, wisdom, and do it with humility.

Commit it to follow the truth no matter what. All right, we try to reconnect. We'll start with Joey in North Dakota. Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. All right, sorry, sorry for the hookup problems, but glad you're back. It's fine. Thank you for having me. I'm a big fan of your work. Thank you. I was just wondering if you saved me alive.

What do you mean by that? Like, can you get Jesus Christ to save me? Well, tell me why you think you're not saved, Joey.

I prefer the names people, but I just have been sinning a lot lately. Okay. Do you consider yourself a follower of Jesus? I do. All right, and so you've asked him to forgive you and save you from your sins and you've put your trust in him alone as your savior, correct?

Correct. All right, and you believe that the Bible is God's word and that in that we have wisdom instructions on how to live? I do.

But you're struggling on living it out and because of that you're feeling lost. Are you much of a reader, Joey? Not particularly. Not particularly, okay. I would love to send you the book that I wrote on holiness called Go and Sin No More, a call to holiness which gives us practical steps as well as scriptures, talks about grace, talks about how to live free from condemnation.

Let me ask this, Joey. If you're not much of a reader, how do you take in scripture? I don't really have a message on how. All right. Do you listen on audio books or do you... I typically listen to you. Ah, okay.

Got it. Well, can I strongly encourage you to, on a daily basis, listen to the Bible on audio and to spend time doing that because the key thing is to get to know God in a deeper way. Do you pray much? I pray every night. Okay. Do you just like ask God to help in certain ways?

Do you feel like you have a relationship with him? Well, I mean, me and God, we try to stay place on it, you know. Right, okay.

Interesting answer. So tell you what, Joey, let me suggest a few things to you. All right. Number one, it's essential that you get to know God more deeply. I encourage you through the day to talk to him, honestly.

Talk to him honestly, just like you're talking to me. God, I don't understand this. I don't know what's going on here. I've got questions here.

I just want to know you, please. It's first thing. Second thing is, better than listening to me, listen to the Word of God if your time is that limited. Otherwise, just make it a daily habit. There's so many ways to get the Bible on audio.

I'm sure you're capable of finding that out. Otherwise, just go to christianbook.com and download something there or audible.com and download a contemporary translation of the Bible, so it's in English that you understand, and listen to it on a daily basis. I would recommend you start going through the New Testament, if you're newer things, and then take it in, take it in, take it in. It will help you to turn from sin. It will help you to live a holier life.

Now, some folks may be listening and say, can't you tell this guy's just pranking you, et cetera. Well, I'm going to take, I'm going to take our call, I'm going to take Joey at his word, and maybe this is for someone else as well. Get to know God personally, through the Word of God and prayer, and that will help you live a godly life. May the Lord work whatever is needed in Joey's life, God knows. May He bring it to pass. Hey, thank you for the call. Let us go to Matthew in Apex, North Carolina. Sorry for confusion, glad we got you back on. What's on your mind? Matthew in Apex.

How are you? Sorry if I didn't say that. Yes, go ahead.

Oh, okay. My question to you is, it's in, it's either 1st or 2nd Thessalonians, it's about the spirit of Antichrist that Paul said was in the world even today, and I was just wondering, there's a rabbi I like to listen to that's an Orthodox rabbi, and so he doesn't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but they do teach the first five books of Moses, so I didn't know what your take on that was. Right, so you're thinking of 2nd Thessalonians 2, which mentions that the man of sin describes the Antichrist, and 1st John 2, that says that there are already many Antichrists in the world. So every generation has people who deny Jesus. Every generation has those who come against the faith. Every generation has heretical doctrines. Every generation has false religions. Every generation has people who fall away from the faith.

Every generation has its own set of temptations. We're in an extreme situation today. We're in a situation today where there is a lot of apostasy, a lot of testing, so this is a uniquely dark time. It's a time when the church is suffering public humiliation, so it's a time of us being humbled as well. Good can come out of this, so this can be the time that we really press in to know God more deeply. As to listen to a rabbi teach about Torah, you'll get insights, number one, as to how a religious Jew reads the Bible and sees things differently than we do.

So me as a messianic, you as a gentile Christian. So that would be the first thing. You'll see how they read things differently.

That's a value. The other thing is that you will see where they're missing things, and you'll get all kinds of other traditions added in that are not part of the Bible. So test everything that you hear based on the rest of Scripture.

If it's, wow, I never saw that before, that's an interesting insight, great. If they're basing it on an unwritten tradition, then you have to examine, is there truth to that tradition? Because many of the traditions just come centuries later and they give all kinds of insight in the text, but they're not actually what the text is saying.

They are later traditions. So you listen, but with caution. You take things in, but you're careful. Hey, friends, we are out of time, but I want to encourage you to come back and join me 15 minutes from now, well, 16 to be technical, on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel. This is something we do every week.

We announce it on social media the day that we do it. We spend 45 minutes or an hour on YouTube answering your questions. So that's what we will be doing on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit us online.

Ask Dr. Brown, askdrbrown.org. Visit us there. We've got thousands of hours of free resources waiting there for you. May the blessing and smile of the Lord be yours.