Dr. Brown Tackles Your Best Questions

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We've got questions, we've got answers. Any subject of any kind that relates in any way to the line of fire. Anything having to do with Bible theology, politics, culture, Israel. Anything we ever talk about on the broadcast. Anything a guest has ever talked about. Anything I've written about.

Anything you want to challenge me on, probe me on. If you've heard, you want to verify, give me a call. 866-348-7884.

That is the number to call. By the way, sometimes when we start the broadcast on a Friday, on the end of the week. Sometimes when we start, right at the outset, all the phone lines are filled. And they're filled the whole show. The moment one phone line opens, the next one is filled. And it's like that for the whole show.

So it's very challenging to get through. Other times we have some openings right at the beginning especially. So this is a great time to call now. 866-348-7884. It's a great time to call because for whatever reason today we've got some open lines. This way I'll be able to get to more of you more quickly. Okay, just, I've got somebody on hold. Okay, just trying to find out what that's about.

Okay, a couple things before we get to your calls today. When I feel burdened about something, I will address it as I feel led to do. Something I see in the news, I feel to comment on.

Something I see happening in the church. I do not sit around as the spiritual police chief. I do not sit around and my whole purpose is to just, okay, look at what's wrong here.

Look at what's wrong there and find something to write about or find something to attack. That's not my mindset. It is not my mentality.

Alright? My mentality is, Lord, I'm your servant. I'm your son. I'm here to do your will and to honor you.

How can I serve? Am I supposed to write something? Am I supposed to address something? And when I feel led to do it, burdened to do it, directed to do it, I do it. I never do something just to stir up controversy ever. I never ever do something just to stir up controversy. That's completely immature. That's carnal.

And what kind of fruit does that produce? We live in a society filled with controversy. We live in a society filled with confusion. Why on earth would I just want to stir up more controversy? You say, well, it gets more views.

Who's ever about that? Why would I be serving the Lord and seeking to honor him and the whole goal is to get more views? Look, maybe the calling is, your calling is to train five people in secret and those five people will change your generation rather than someone who's a social media influencer with 50 million followers. All right. But many things that I do address draw all kinds of controversy. So be it. We will wade through the controversy, but we'll do so in a way that is constructive. OK, with that, we go to the phones, starting with Steven in central New York.

Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. It's nice talking to you again. Great.

Yeah, I hope you're doing well. I just have a quick comment and then I have a question, kind of an unrelated question. The comment is that you're you often mentioned on the air that Trump provoked the January 6th insurrection. But the truth is that there was a video that I believe it was Project Veritas did, and it was they showed it right on Fox News on Tucker Carlson, where New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg says right in the video they honey trapped him.

He didn't know he was being recorded. He was quoted as saying there were a ton of FBI informants among the people. Oh, Steven, let me just say I'm fully aware of all the charges or Antifa did it. That's all that could be true or false is completely unrelated to my comments that President Trump, for whom I voted twice, President Trump's irresponsible rhetoric definitely tied in to what happened. I don't call them insurrection. I call it the storming of the Capitol. But when you are the most powerful man on the planet and when you are telling people we've got to take this back, the election was stolen, we're going to fight like hell. When you're when you're using terms like that with the power that you have, when he gets up after other speakers that day who were even more irresponsible and doesn't put a proper lid on it, you're going to get crazy people doing crazy things. So you don't know what you don't know what these these informants were were being paid to do or being told to do.

But Steven, but here's the deal. They were multiplied tens of thousands of people there. And there were thousands and thousands of them who stormed the Capitol. Most were horrified.

All my friends that were there were shocked by what happened. And look, there is narratives and counter narratives. I've seen videos arguing for this and I've seen videos arguing for something else. But I have seen with my own eyes the videos of many thousands of angry people.

And they were absolutely not FBI informants or antifa, et cetera. So either way, I stand by my comments about President Trump's irresponsible rhetoric. Look, I have compared to him, I have a tiny audience. I am so if I'm preaching in a church and there are only 100 people there, the tiniest of audiences. Right. Or I'm sitting with a group with 12 students on mentoring. I weigh every word thinking of the consequences of what I say.

How much more when you're the most powerful person on the planet. Anyway, from that, you're a question. Go ahead, please. Yeah, my yeah, my question, the famous quote that you've mentioned that's been quoted many times soon, this life will pass. Only what's done for Christ will last. I was wondering if you could explain that, how it pertains to the entertainment industry, particularly the music industry.

Different music artists or even the entertainment industry. All right. So let me address that from the perspective of a believer. So for me, what I do in the course of my life has to make sense in the light of eternity. If, for example, I was being dropped off in a particular city and I had one hour to be there. And during that one hour, I was told, preach the gospel to as many people as you can. Let's say do for that one hour. If I was there for one week, well, now I need to think about sleeping and need to think about eating. If I'm going to be there for a year, I have to think about working.

If I'm going to be raising a family there, I have to think about other things. I'm going to be on my knees with my little toddler playing and and having fun and and having a date night with my wife, et cetera. So we don't live every second of every day just praying fervently and just preaching the gospel because we have to live our lives. We sleep, we eat, we have fellowship, we have friends, we need rest time, et cetera. So what we do should make sense in the light of eternity.

So there can be wholesome entertainment. That's part of life. You push hard with your job. You're busy with other things in ministry.

Now, OK, just going to chill for a little while with the family or it could be watching sports or something like that. However, if we come become obsessed with things, if things become idols in our lives, if we end up spending hour upon hour upon hour wasting our time, that's a problem. And the same with our music. If I'm going to listen to a lot of music, then I want that music to either directly glorify the Lord or bring a message that turns my heart to the Lord, or that is something edifying and constructive as opposed to just being absorbed with it simply for the sake of stewarding time.

So that's the question I ask. What makes sense in the light of eternity? I had to discipline myself to slow down and to chill. I have to discipline myself if we're going to take a family vacation to get extra articles written, extra shows recorded, and then just focus on having fun with the family, which then I will really do.

But otherwise, I'm always distracted by other things. So in the course of a life, let's say we're here 70, 80, 90 years, what makes sense in the light of eternity? That's how I want to live and that's how I want to incorporate these other things.

And ultimately, to the extent that the entertainment industry and music could have a God-centered mentality, then what they produce could be much more edifying and for our good. Hey, thank you for the call and the comment, and we may differ on our perspectives. That's fine.

That's absolutely fine. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to Kathleen in Duncan, South Carolina.

Welcome to the line of fire. Kathleen, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Alright, go ahead, please. Hi, my name is Kathleen and I have a question and a prayer request.

I'll give you my prayer request first. My prayer request is for my niece, who is a drug addict. She has served jail time. She's out in rehab. But she only has a two-year probationary period and the judge this time was very firm and said if she doesn't get clean or do something, because she's a bright girl, but she's stuck. I mean, she just, and so she has to come back to the Lord or believe in the Lord. I know she believes in Him, but she needs to be walking with the Lord. And I'm just asking for prayer that she can get release of this drug.

A drug, period. Alright, so Kathleen, we've got a bunch of folks listening and watching who are prayer warriors and they will pray for your niece, absolutely. Yeah, so go ahead then with your question. Okay, and her name is Megan, by the way, Megan. Okay, my question is, I have a niece who is living a lesbian sexual lifestyle, which I'm really upset with, but I don't get, I don't tell her that because we live far, far from each other. But I want to know how I can handle it better. I just don't, I just don't handle it at all very well, but I cannot say anything because my family would just attack me like, well, they love each other, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, ah, that's not what the Bible says, you know. You can love each other, but you don't love the same sex. Does she claim to be a follower of Jesus?

No. Right, so Kathleen, that's her whole issue, whether she's lesbian, whether she's a nun in a convent, whether she is sleeping with three different men, whether she's never had sex in her life, she needs Jesus. That's the only focus. She needs the Lord. She needs to come to the Lord. So pray for her salvation. And she's, she's a lost person. And she may really care about the gal that she's with, but they're lost. They need the Lord. We're all lost in different ways.

And we expressed our lostness in different ways. This is just a manifestation of the fact that she needs Jesus. Let that be your only focus. And God will cause other things to fall into place when she comes to him.

Hey, thank you for your love and your concern for both of your nieces. May the Lord touch them. Can't resist us. This is how we rise up. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. Be sure to visit vitaminmission.com, vitaminmission.com. Find out about the great health supplements that I take. My friend, Dr. Mark Stangler, brilliant and always on top of the latest research, trying to get the best products to you. And again, our goal is to see a healthy and thriving spiritually first and foremost, but physically as well.

So go to vitaminmission.com. Be sure to use the special discount you'll find there as a listener to the Line of Fire. We go back to the phones, an anonymous caller from somewhere. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown.

Hey. I just wanted to call and see how you would recommend consoling someone whose partner, spouse died, and the remaining spouse had prayed for the salvation of that other one for over 40 years, and the person died denying Christ. And of course, that's breaking the heart of the other spouse, the remaining spouse, and who that was their number one prayer over four decades.

I do console say you will never obviously, I mean, she'll never see that their spouse again. And, you know, they're, I've been trying to wrestle with it to see what they say and they're, you know, it's interesting because I have no idea what happened to the apostle Paul's parents or family and loved ones, you know, and nor the other apostles, you know, I know a little bit, you know, Peter's wife, obviously, was in the faith, but and just, you know, Jesus said, you know, talked about who is my brother and who is my mother, you know, when they came for him and those who do the will of God, but all of those things don't, they seem empty, trying to console someone, you know, so I wanted to get your advice. There's not an easy answer to such a painful question.

I will share a couple of things with you, but there's no easy answer or magic bullet here that's going to solve everything and the pain, the grief. Paul said in Romans nine that he was in continual sorrow for his own people. He wished he could be cut off from the Messiah for them to be saved. So elsewhere, he writes the Corinthians and said that he was sorrowful yet always rejoicing and when I've read that, I thought, probably sorrowful because of his Jewish people not being saved.

So it was a wound. It was a burden that he carried. There's always the temptation to try to find some ray of hope somewhere, but if the person dies denying the Lord, we don't have that ray of hope and we're not going to create a new theology where they'll get another chance in the world to come or well, eventually everyone will be saved. You know, we can't rewrite the Bible because of the pain that we're in and the closest I can come to this personally was when my dad died suddenly in 77. He had started reading the New Testament. He, and he was just 63 years old. He started reading the New Testament. Remember him saying, when am I going to feel something?

He was open. He would come and hear me preach, but he clearly wasn't a believer at that point, but was open seeking fully received me as a believer and then died suddenly because I thought praying, progress is being made and then he's gone. So I don't know what happened in this final minutes. I don't know what happened between him and God before he left this world. So I had to leave as a question mark, but then the agony is he lost forever.

Well, I never see him again. And so all the more would I be feeling this if it's my spouse and I was praying for my spouse for 40 years and then they die rejecting the Lord. That's your number one prayer.

I mean, obviously terribly, terribly painful. The only thing that I would say is that I learned to trust that whatever God does is good. I don't mean that God damned her husband to hell, and that's why her prayers didn't avail. Her prayers didn't avail because he refused to bend the knee and humble himself before the Lord and believe for whatever reason. You know, he rejected God's grace, which God made available to him.

But what's God going to do and how will God treat him and what will the sentence be and what will happen? So what I would just encourage her in the midst of the pain to say, look, we just like the loss is painful. I mean, he's gone. There's that agony.

Right. And now the double agony of what happens to him. So it is agonizing.

But I would just encourage you to say, number one, how has the father treated you all these years? How merciful has he been? How long suffering? How compassionate? How kind?

How patient? That's who he is. So you can trust whatever he does is right and good. I determined that when I would stand before God and see the final destiny of my dad, then I would know whatever God does is good.

And right, of course, deeply hoping that I'll see him and be with him forever. But that's the one thing. The other thing is that you have to tell her more than ever. You know, God says that he's the husband of the widow and that her all in all has to be found in him, that whatever comfort she had in her husband is gone. Whatever camaraderie fellowship is gone and that she has to get to that place of God, you have to help me because the pain is too deep. The grief is too much. You have to be my all in all.

And he can be that and will be that. And again, if I held to a theology that God predestined my spouse to damnation and therefore all my decades of prayer did nothing to change that, that would be very troubling to me. And of course, I don't see that scripturally, with all respect to my Calvinist friends. But believing that it was ultimately his choice, her prayers obviously made an impact of softening his heart, of bringing the gospel to him in different ways. I mean, you just assume if someone's praying all those years that you're praying according to the will of God. He commands us to pray for everyone to be saved, especially those close to us.

So people still make their choices, tragically. So those are the only things I'd say. Number one, the character of God to focus on that, because surely whatever he does is good and right. You know, in Judaism when someone dies, your first words Baruch Dayan, Emet, blessed is the righteous judge or the truthful judge. And then may she find her all in all in the Lord.

He can give supernatural comfort even when our minds can't conceive it. Hey, thank you for the call. May God's grace prevail.

And by the way, many of us saved in Jewish homes or Muslim homes where there's not a history of believers before us, you wouldn't remember what happened to previous generations. So these are weighty questions that we wrestle with. 866-348-7884. Let's go to Rick in Albemarle, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hey, Dr. Brown. Really enjoy listening to you and just being fed daily. I don't get to listen to you like this part of my day. But anyway, I was talking with a lady the other day and down this way. And luckily, she wasn't part of the once saved, always saved crowd that I've grown up around. But after we got to talking, she was mentioning about her place being closed on Saturday. And, you know, the Sabbath.

She's in the Bible college. And then next thing you know, she she thinks she needs to observe the Sabbath. But then she got talking about how she just loved the law. And it was almost like she was idolized of the law. And I just didn't really. And I've read some Ephesians this morning that kind of backed about observing days and months and years and everything.

But what's your point on that right there? I know we're not under the Sabbath anymore, but she just it's almost like she was a little too much into the law. Or was I looking at her in the wrong way? Well, God knows her heart, right? You know, you may have right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's a believer. Yes. No, no, no. What about that a bit? I mean, right, right.

No. What I meant was you may have rightly discerned that she is putting the law in the wrong place in an unhealthy way, or you might have misjudged her. So I appreciate your humility and asking the question. But the Sabbath given by God seventh day of the week as a sign covenantal sign to Israel, that never changed. But God never commanded the New Testament church to observe the seventh day Sabbath.

And there was obviously flexibility with different cultures, different work situations and settings. And ultimately, we find our Sabbath rest in the Messiah. That's why there's no problem if Gentile Christians said, hey, Sunday is when we worship and gather and it's our day off from work. I don't believe God looks at that and says, that's no good. That's the wrong day of the week.

What are you doing? Because as you said, God speaks other things to us in the New Testament. We're not under that obligation. Even Colossians 2, Paul warns people about being under the obligation to keep the Sabbath. Many people, Rick, when they rediscover the beauty and importance of Torah and the fact that this is not just negative, bad, and that, you know, the feasts and holy days, God says, are his holy days, appointed times.

So they very much get into that and enjoy it. But then our identity can often shift from being appreciative of the Torah to now being under the Torah. And our primary identity is found in observing Torah commandments as opposed to being in Messiah and being forgiven by his blood. And living a new life in the new covenant by the Spirit.

And that's when it can become dangerous. I've seen it now for decades, especially being in the Messianic movement for so many years, that you will see Gentile Christians who get so excited about the law that next thing they're trying to live like Jews and they hardly share Jesus anymore. They won't even say, Jesus, I praise you because it's too direct and that can sound like idolatry and they can fall into error. So there's a healthy appreciation of the beauty of God's commandments. There's a healthy appreciation of how this all points to Yeshua, the Messiah. And there's a healthy appreciation of how we now live it out in the newness of the Spirit.

But there are other things that can be unhealthy and that would certainly be the concern, that the pendulum swings from throwing out the law to making the law central rather than Jesus central. Hey, thank you for the call. Appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words.

Glad you enjoyed listening to the broadcast. OK, we're going to go right back to England on the other side of the break. But once again, we've got some phone lines open if you'd like to call 866-34-TRUTH. Now is the perfect time.

We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. You know, yesterday, late afternoon, I got an email from my own ministry announcing a video premiere of a great interview I'd done with Dr. Bob Gladstone, longtime colleague of mine, tremendous insight into the things of the Spirit and the things of the word. And I found out that this video was about to premiere because I got the email. So even though I lead the ministry, I don't know every detail of what everything is going to be posted. So you get those emails, too, if they inform me, they'll inform you. AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown dot org.

And when you go there, sign up for the emails. Also to everyone listening, if you just started listening now, in other words, you get the second half hour of our broadcast, say KDKR in DFW area. There are going to be some programming changes on KDKR that that impact when you hear the show.

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So you don't have to miss a moment, even if our programing time changes on your channel. With that eight, six, six, three, four truth. Any question of any kind that you want to ask me? Some controversies I'm involved with. If you want to ask me probe, find out by all means. Give me a call. It's six, six, three, four truth.

We go to London. Mario, thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown, for getting the call before asking the question. I want to say I just had my first born child yesterday, a little boy called Giovanni Davide, which is Italian for John David. Yes. My life would absolutely love it. Yes. Wonderful.

Well, we rejoice with you. That's you know, we've gotten thousands of calls over the years, but I don't remember everyone anyone ever calling and saying they just had a first born the day before. Your wife doing well, baby doing well. Yes, very good. Very good.

My wife came to faith in the last probably 18 months. And, you know, you were so much help. And, you know, we absolutely love your show and listen to it all the time.

She would love to hear, you know. Oh, yeah. And I'm thrilled to hear that. It brings me great joy for all of you. Thank you.

Thank you. So my question and it's a little bit difficult. So maybe I won't present it in the clearest way. So there are some passages in the Bible which seems to me to be some form of even prophecy about the Messiah.

One that I really like is Genesis 5, which talks about if you actually take the names of the genealogy between Adam to Noah, it seems you can render the kind of the meaning of the name says the blessed God will come down as a teacher. So that this teaching is that will bring the despairing peace or something like this. So first of all, I want to ask you, what do you think about these arguments that these valid arguments?

And if they're valid arguments, why are they not used in apologetics? Because this seems to me, especially because you're his friend, to be a very powerful argument. And thank you very much. Yes.

So Mario, you're still going to love me even if I burst this bubble and disappoint you, right? Yes, 100 percent. OK. Yeah, it's not true. It's not accurate. That's why you don't see it used in serious academic apologetics and messianic prophecy.

It's more a pop thing. You'll hear a pastor say from the pulpit and he read it on online. First, you have to read a lot into the meaning of the names. In other words, you could you could read this genealogy a thousand times over in Genesis 5 and it wouldn't dawn on you. It wouldn't dawn on you that there is some kind of secret gospel message of being found that you really have to read a lot into it. But then when you break it down, one of the one of the key names is Methuselah. Right. So some metu shelach in Hebrew. That's one of the key names there. And in point of fact, it doesn't mean what it's supposed to mean.

Yeah, I'm just looking at one website that presents it. Death shall send forth. No, the mate part is not death there. But for everything we can tell from comparative Semitic names, it's man. Meaning man of mate can be dead or death in Hebrew or a mate can be man. It goes to another root.

It's probably man of the spear, man of the sword. That's what it means. So just that one breaks everything down. This supposedly deaths and forth is that no, nothing to do with that.

So and then some of the others are really forced along the way. So as much as it sounds cool, I'll make a confession to you. I was sitting with a pastor of a good sized church.

I won't even say where in America some years ago. And he just happened to reference this, how excited he was about this. And just in passing, and I didn't have the opportunity then to tell him it wasn't true. You know, I just let it go past. But no, it's not a hidden preaching of the gospel. That's why you don't see it in serious apologetics. And ultimately, some of the names just break down.

They don't mean what they're supposed to mean. So sorry about that one, but having been studying scripture 50 plus years, I keep seeing more amazing things that are there. So even though some of these aren't real, the real ones are amazing. So keep digging. You'll keep finding more, okay?

I will. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown. At the end of the day, we have to seek for truth, right? Yeah, exactly. The more we seek for truth, the more, the better, yes. And the better we become receiving the gospel, right?

Exactly. All right, God bless you. Thank you, sir. Blessings on this wonderful family.

Oh, what a sweet call. My heart is warmed by all that. By the way, you have no idea what happens when I'll shoot down one of these myths. Not this one in particular, but say that the Hebrew letters actually have hidden pictographic meanings that we can find to this day, and that that expands the meaning of the word and opens. And when we refute that, it's bogus. It's as bogus as that I'm Elvis Presley. It's that bogus.

And there's not a legitimate Hebrew scholar in the world that would argue for that. In any case, you have no idea the way I got attacked for putting out a video on that. I don't mind it.

I'm a big boy. That's not a problem. But sometimes you shoot down people's pet peeves and their theories, and they flip. And they call you a heretic. It's like a heretic for telling me what the Hebrew words mean. So anyway, thankfully, those who want truth welcome it.

It's like, no, that's not accurate, but there are beautiful, accurate things even more powerful. Let us go to SJ in Tampa Bay, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, thank you. And I've had you on my channel before, Dr. Brown, so you know who I am. I love the work that you do.

Thank you. I absolutely love the work that you do, and I wanted to ask you, I have over the years a lot of atheists have gotten on Twitter, and they ask me the same question that they think is a gotcha question based on Abraham and his son, and they say, what would you do if God commanded you to sacrifice your only son, or one of your sons, what would you do? And they say, well of course I say, well God would never ask me that, so that's not a concern, but they think that's not a very good answer. So I'm wondering how you would answer this question.

No, you are right in answering it. In other words, God has revealed plainly that he does not want us to do that, and that he forbade Israel from sacrificing their children, and that he even brought heavy judgment on Israel when they did sacrifice their children, and he even made provision under the law since he said the firstborn belongs to me, that when it comes to a child, that child is not sacrificed, rather you sacrifice an animal in their behalf. So by Abraham doing what he did, and then by laws being established, God would have to contradict himself, he has given all the laws, he has given his ethical commands, he has said throughout the Bible various things against this, whereas that did not exist in Abraham's day. Abraham did not have that information that we have.

You know, it's just like if there's a road you pass by and there's no stoplight there, you drive a certain speed, when there's a stoplight, there's a red, okay, now you know. So these things were given subsequently to Israel, and therefore we have the revelation, so the very Bible that tells us about God's existence tells us, for example, that we're not to murder. So it would be the same as what if I felt God told me to commit adultery? What if God told me to murder? What if God told me to steal?

No to all of them, because he's already spoken. And as far as Abraham is concerned, what does it say? God tested him, because that was never his desire, and Abraham was sure that one way or another he was coming back with Isaac. So you just have to say, are you using the Bible to raise the argument? Yes, well the Bible answers that argument, so they can either accept it or not. If they reject the Bible, that's fine, they're atheists.

But if they're gonna use the Bible to raise an argument, then in the same way, they can't reject the answer that's found within the Bible. The other thing is this, I had a guy, an atheist I was debating on a TV show last year, and he said, God told the children of Israel to kill the Canaanites, what if God told you to kill me? I said, well he wouldn't, because you're not like the Canaanites, you're not doing what they did. God waited 400 years until their transgressions reached a certain point. I said, if I was a soldier in the army, and you were an ISIS terrorist about to kill someone, and God told me to kill you as a soldier in the army, that would be a righteous, good thing to do.

You're about to kill innocent children, and I'm a sniper and I can take you out. That's a good and righteous thing to do, but God would never tell us to murder someone. Sometimes it's just a flippant argument, and the answer is very simple and straightforward. And if they reject it, they reject it. In other words, you're not necessarily going to convince them.

But the same Bible that tells us that story tells us it was a test, and then God subsequently makes clear under no circumstances does he want us to do that, so we have his answer already. Oh, well thank you so much for this very perfect answer, I really appreciate it. Sure thing, and you know, often we know the answer and we give it, and when someone pushes back we're looking for a better one, but sometimes it's just the same simple truth. Hey, listen friends, if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, would you take a moment, click like, thumbs up on YouTube, on Facebook click share, alright, just helps us to reach even more people. I should have mentioned that at the outset, but I'm going to try to grab some questions from social media, Facebook or YouTube, so if you have a question for me in the last segment, I'm going to see if I can grab some of your social media questions.

So post them right now, because time is real short, on YouTube or Facebook, and I'll see if I can grab a few in the next segment. Alright, let's go to Angela in Alexandria, Virginia, welcome to the line of fire. Hi, good afternoon Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call. You know what, hang on, this is really rude, but I got a break coming up in a few seconds, in ten seconds, so if you don't mind, please stay right there, I'm going to get the scripture verse ready that you want to talk about, and as soon as we come back, I apologize for bringing you on right before the break, as soon as we come back, I go straight to you.

Thanks for your patience, I'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire, you've got questions, we've got answers, let's go over to Angela in Alexandria. Alright, thanks so much, welcome to the line of fire. Oh, thanks again Dr. Brown.

Sure thing. So, this particular scripture, I'm using this in regards to, I have a discussion often with someone very close to me in the life of a believer dealing with trials and adversity, and of course we know New Testament scriptures about, you know, a fight not against flesh and blood, believers, and the constant spiritual battle that we're in. And so, this scripture seems to be something that this person that's close to me wants to apply to their own life, because, you know, this happened with Solomon, why can't, you know, they experience a life without adversity being a believer?

So, I was wondering, how would you, you know, answer this, because to me it sounds like a little immature as well, or a cop-out, or... A little too idealistic, right. Right, so, number one, the verse in 1 Chronicles 22, an amateur reference, God telling David, you'll have a son who'll be a man at rest, for I'll give him rest for all his enemies on all sides, Solomon will be his name, I shall confer peace and quiet on Israel in his time. Yes, Solomon's kingdom is so powerful that he didn't have to do war with his enemies until later, you know, when he was really in a bad spiritual condition. But, he had all kinds of personal adversity, he had all kinds of personal issues, you know, and he ended up following idols and sinning sexually, etc. So, and obviously there's got to be pride behind that. Jesus tells us plainly in John 16, 33, to his disciples, but certainly applicable to us, he tells us plainly, in this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, be encouraged, I've overcome the world.

That's just reality. Paul says in Acts 14, we must pass through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God. Jacob, James, the first chapter, 1 Peter, they talk about the trying of our faith, the testing of our faith, and we have to go through that to mature and grow. Romans 5 says that going through difficult times produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. So, for sure, in this world, we will have trouble difficulty. Now, it could well be that one generation experiences things different than another, right, that, you know, for me, for example, part of my calling is to be engaged in 24-7 controversy and polemics and all of that, and that hasn't been the calling for my daughters, you know, that hasn't been Nancy's main calling, but it's mine. So, in other words, everyone has their own journey, but a life without conflict, a life without warfare, is a life that we are already deceased, that we are not in this world, and if she could just understand, okay, there are hellish seasons we pass through, and we hope to never go through them again, and we learn what we can from them to grow, but there are things I've been through, I hope to God, I never, ever have to live through them again. They were miserable and difficult and dark and painful. At the same time, I know there's testing every day, and I learn to rejoice in it, and it's just like, you know, working out, no pain, no gain. I mean, literally, the other day, I was working out, because getting older, it's harder to get muscle tone and things like that, and I was just saying to myself, you're not gonna make any progress at 67 unless you hurt yourself a little more.

You go through a little more pain to get the desired result, you gotta push a little harder. So, yeah, just love on her, patiently help her to realize, in this world, there's trouble. Jesus said it, show her the verse, John 16, 33, but be encouraged, he's overcome the world. Amen, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

You are very, very welcome, God bless. Okay, I'm gonna grab a couple of social media questions now, and still, there's time, if you post something on Facebook or on YouTube in our live feed right now, I can get to your question. I was asked this having written an article regarding some recent comments of Pastor Greg Locke, and he and I are now in private communication, and hopefully it will lead to a broadcast together, where we talk things some through very honestly. But he asked, do I consider Greg Locke a Trumpist, and one of those whose prophecies did not come true? And because I can't interact by phone now, I don't know exactly what you mean by Trumpist, certainly he was a strong Trump supporter, but was he wrong in saying that Joe Biden would not be elected? Was he wrong in saying that Joe Biden would never serve a day in the White House? Was he wrong in saying that Donald Trump would be inaugurated in January of last year? Yes, he was wrong on those points, plainly, flatly wrong. You said the election was stolen. Whether it was or not is not the issue. Here, if I guarantee you that there will be a car in your driveway, a brand new pickup truck in your driveway tomorrow at noon, it is my gift to you, and I buy it for you, and I send it to you, and I guarantee it.

And along the way, the driver decides to steal the car and take it for himself, and it never gets to you. Well, I intended well, but what I guaranteed did not happen. So in the same way, whether you believe the election was stolen or not, if someone guarantees Trump will serve eight consecutive years, if someone guarantees Joe Biden will not serve a day in the White House, they got it wrong. That's not the end of the world if they got it wrong. People can get things wrong.

People can really believe something is going to happen that doesn't. You humble yourself. You get to the root of why you got it wrong. You publicly apologize. You step back from making pronouncements until you get certain things clear and in order in terms of where the error came from.

But of course, of course you deal with it, address it. So that's clear. He got that wrong. And rather than saying got it wrong, he just said the election was stolen, Biden's a fake president, which does not address whatsoever what was spoken. I don't condemn him for getting that wrong. Again, people can make mistakes. Every one of us, if we speak long enough, will make some mistakes and we'll misrepresent something that's important to the Lord. We humble ourselves.

We learn from it and we go forward. Let's see. Henry on YouTube, the concept of Maris Ian exists in the first century.

Romans 14 did the Jewish Christians avoid wine because of the principle of Maris Ian like Jews might today. I just want to check one thing as we're speaking here. Yeah.

Oh, okay. I just wanted to, as you were spelling it in Ashkenazi and I'm used to seeing and thinking of this with a Sephardic pronunciation. So Marit Ian, then Ashkenazi is Maris Ian. So to give you a legal definition online, a concept in Holocaust Jewish law which states that certain actions which might seem to observe us to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed due to rabbinic enactments that were put in place to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion. For example, according to the Torah law, the blood of an animal is forbidden to eat but the blood of a fish is permissible. However, according to the principle of Marit Ian or Maris Ian, it is forbidden to eat the blood of a fish as an onlooker may believe the blood being eaten is from an animal, and may thus believe that animal blood is allowed to be eaten. It wouldn't be a direct application in that no one differed with whether you could drink wine at all. That was not a major debate in ancient Judaism, but drunkenness was forbidden. But wine was part of various ritual observances like on the Passover and things like that. So that to me would not be a direct application because it has to do with my liberty causing someone else to stumble.

So it's a related concept, but not the same. That being said, I know of no evidence, halakhic legal evidence, that that principle was being taught in the first century. It's possible because we don't know how far something goes back. In other words, the tradition may be written in the year 500, but if you don't find things contradicting it steadily, it could have been passed on orally before then, just not written until a certain time. If you see complete unawareness of something, no evidence that anyone held to certain things, then you question, you say, okay, perhaps it's a later tradition. So yeah, I would say number one, it's not really applicable.

Number two, we don't have evidence of that existing in the first century to the best of my knowledge. Hey friends, we are so grateful for the good reports you send us. We are so grateful for the words of encouragement you send us, letting us know how we've been a blessing to you. We simply say if we've blessed you, help us to bless others, help us to expand our reach to touch many, many, many more lives. You can do that by joining our support team, investing a dollar a day.

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