Best of Broadcast: Dr. Brown Answers Your Toughest Faith Questions

The following is a pre-recorded program. Where we tackle your questions, you've got questions, we've got answers. Most Fridays, phone lines are open and they're ringing the entire show with your best questions, Bible theology, and you name it.

Today, we are responding to questions that were posted yesterday on Facebook and Twitter. So don't post them now, because we've got many, many questions to get to. I'm going to get through as many as I can, as concisely as I can.

But those that require more attention and detail, I'll do my best to give that as well. So don't call in, sit back, enjoy the broadcast. I'm going to start over on Twitter. And let's just see if I can scroll down to see which the some of the first ones posted were. Let's see.

JMD posted this on Twitter. No matter the explanation, the story of Job is never satisfying. Israelites being told to leave nobody alive, man, woman, child, or animals. God's absence on earth, problem of sufferings.

That's a bunch and big ones. I did address on yesterday's broadcast the profoundly difficult question of not just the slaughter of the Canaanites, but of Canaanite children and babies. We address that at some length on yesterday's broadcast. And in my book, Has God Failed You?, I address that as well. As for Job, I beg to differ. I think the story is extraordinarily satisfying and powerful and moving. And as I say in my commentary on Job, Job interprets you more than you interpret Job. It's a humbling and overwhelming book, but God put in the Word for the whole world to see that sometimes inexplicable things happen to the righteous. And the natural reaction is for the sufferer to judge God. Something's wrong with you, God, or you're not really there.

And the error of the friends of the sufferer who think, well, that shouldn't be happening, say, well, there's something wrong with you. Because good things happen to righteous people and bad things happen to wicked people. It's not always that simple in the book, in this world, excuse me. And that's why we have the book of Job. You say, but everything he lost, number one, he gets doubled back, and after the short, horrific trial, the rest of his life is supernaturally wonderfully blessed. As for children, there's the reunification in the world to come, which is why he does not get double the children. But the unspeakable loss, that's what happens in this world. Tragedy, pain, hardship. But another great lesson, that's not God's heart.

That's the destroyer. That's Satan who does this to innocent, godly people. And ultimately, Job is rebuked for speaking wrongly about God, but commended for speaking rightly about God. He's rebuked for speaking wrongly about God because he accused God of being a wicked tyrant, basically.

He was right in speaking about God because he knew that the God that he worshiped didn't do these kinds of things, and that therefore there had to be justice in God's universe, and somehow he would be vindicated, which he was. So if you can, dig in, get my commentary on Job. It's called Job, the faith to challenge God, a new translation and commentary. If you want something shorter, I have an important chapter on Job in my book, Has God Failed You?

Asking the question, what would Job say? So you can check out the book, Has God Failed You? That also deals with the problem of suffering as well. I can't answer all of these questions that I'm trying to do one per person.

So you hit the nail on the head with key questions here. But I deal with the problem of suffering as well, and has God failed you? As for God's absence on earth, I would emphasize God's presence. I would start to build yourself up and encourage you by what God is doing in the earth today in ways that are shocking and amazing. The more you see of that, the more encouraged you are. Check out the new book by Craig Keener Miracles. He has a two-volume major scholarly study, but he has a paperback version, shorter and more popular, that will really edify you and build you up.

Well researched and encouraging. All right, let's see. Tim asked this on Twitter. The conflicts between Reformed and Pentecostal theologies. Are they both right? Is the turning point at the cross? Did theology change grow after the resurrection? I would like to call myself a Reformed Pentecostal. There is no contrast between Pentecostal beliefs that the gifts and power of the Spirit are for today, that the baptism of the Spirit is in equipping for believers subsequent to salvation, that God heals miraculously today, that we can call on him to do these things. There's no contradiction between that and the five points of Calvinism.

They really intersect on different levels. Now, the vast majority of Pentecostals in the last hundred years have not been Calvinists, and the vast majority of Calvinists are not Pentecostals, but there's no conflict between those. There is no growing of theology in terms of new truth, but there is the full understanding of old truth. There is the greater understanding. Those in the New Testament from that perspective have greater understanding than those living in Old Testament times. And in our own lives, we can grow in our understanding of what is revealed in the Word, but there's not going to be new revelation beyond what's written in the Word in terms of who God is and how we are to live.

Rob posted these on Twitter. Four objections, and I'll answer these quickly. Number one, what do I have to be saved from? From our sin, from our disobedience, from our self, and from the judgment that we deserve. I don't want to become a religious fanatic.

How about becoming a devoted follower of Jesus who has an intimate relationship with God and learns to love God and love his or her neighbor? Three, all my friends will think I've gone off the deep end. Well, you can't live your whole life worrying about what your friends think. Many of us would never get anywhere, and new inventions would not be made, new paths would not be trod, new initiatives would not be taken if we lived our whole lives worrying about what our friends think.

And hey, maybe you need to leave their lifestyle in order to help them. Four, there's no scientific proof for that. Well, you can't have scientific proof for, say, beauty, right? There's certain things that you can't have scientific proof for, such as spiritual truth, but that doesn't mean that these things aren't real. What is the scientific proof of love? Some of the most important qualities of life are not scientifically proven, right?

What scientific methodology did you go through before you got married to determine this was the right person? So that's not how we live our lives, but that which the Bible states is scientific fact is scientific fact. It won't contradict that. Last but not least, who is the so-called Michael Brown guy?

Oh, boy, that's the biggie, right? Anyway, AskDrBrown.org, just check on that. Just check on that. Check on about to find out more about who I am. All right, Wayfarer. All right, three questions, but I'm going to respond quickly to these. Some of those, like problems of suffering, I just couldn't respond to as quickly.

So we answered some questions in greater depth there. Wayfarer, one, when people feel they or someone else is good enough. Two, when people say that there's no life after death. Three, when people say that each religion has some truth, but we can't fully trust any. So the first thing is to really look at what this person says is good enough and say, well, let's listen to what Jesus has to say and read some of the Sermon on the Mount to them.

That ends that. Most people affirm the Ten Commandments, say, okay, well, do you live by these? And the more we probe, the more the answer is no. Second thing, when people say there's no life after death, say, well, obviously, we can't prove that from our vantage point, but does it make sense to you that this is it? Does it make sense to you that the dreams and the ambitions and everything, that they just end here? Does it make sense to you that there can be no justice, no ultimate justice for the murderer that gets away, for the rapist that gets away, for the parents that abused a child?

How does it ever get fixed? Does it make sense to you? And if there is a God who created us, wouldn't it make sense that there is final justice and the fulfillment of the things that were put inside of us? And don't we feel on the inside as if we're supposed to keep on living?

This is not definitive truths. There are fascinating near-death experiences or post-death experiences that have detail and information that are fascinating that can point people in the direction of life after death, or even the existence of a spirit within a human being. There are wild experiences that are documented of people being operated on in a hospital, and they tell the family afterwards, you know, my heart was breaking for you, you know, during surgery because I saw you outside in the waiting room, you're just weeping and okay, you could guess that was the case. But then they said, what do you mean you saw us?

Like, oh yeah, you were wearing this outfit, you were wearing this, you were sitting over here, you got a phone call right in the middle of things and you were crying even more trying to talk on the phone. It's like, how did you see that? You were in the operating room down the hallway because your spirit saw it. So those things point in that direction. And when people say each religion has some truth but we can't fully trust any, is that always true in life? In other words, when one doctor tells you this is a healthy lifestyle and another doctor has a different viewpoint, because they're different viewpoints, does it mean that no one really has the truth? And what about the fact that Jesus makes absolute claims to be the only way to the Father and that there's no salvation outside of him? He's either right or he's wrong. Islam makes absolute claims. So they all can't be right. Why can't it be that there's one true and the others are counterfeit or distortions of the true?

Why can't that be the case? And if there is a God, doesn't it make sense that he sets the standards, right? You're the boss of a company, you set the standards. You decide who gets hired and who doesn't get hired. Well, why can't God, who's the boss of all bosses, say this is how I set things up, this is truth?

And we have to do our best to find out what that truth is. All right, let's see here. Achilchi or CH, I actually answered one of your questions yesterday, but I'll do it again quickly.

I'm from India. I heard a lot of Jews say they won't believe in Jesus because Judaism utterly rejects human sacrifice. What's your response?

We utterly reject it. Absolutely reject human sacrifice, 100%. But Judaism teaches that the death of the righteous atones for the sins of a generation. And Jesus laid his life down for the sheep.

It would be like this. There is a train that's out of control and it's going to crash. And when it crashes, hundreds of people are going to die. And someone is able to jump in front of the train and they throw their body in front of the train and it slows it down enough to stop, well, they willingly gave their lives to save everyone on the train. That's not human sacrifice.

That's someone doing. Or here, in war. I mean, I actually saw some Christian movie about this many years ago where that's what happened. But you know, look, in war it happens regularly. That someone hears a grenade and a soldier throws himself on it, so he blows up and the others there with him don't blow up. That's not human sacrifice. That's laying down your life to save others. That's what Yeshua did. And it's widely taught in Judaism, the atoning power of the death of the righteous, volume two of answering Jewish objections to Jesus.

I believe objection 3.15. I get into this. And if you sign up for our emails, AskDrBrown.org, you'll get a mini version of that as well. 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 for joining us on The Line of Fire.

Michael Brown here. We are answering questions that were posted yesterday on Twitter and on Facebook. Some great questions, some penetrating questions. I asked, what are the toughest questions you deal with, either struggling in your own faith or that others raised you?

I've done this before and so many come in that it's just important that we revisit the subject. Somebody wondering, can we trust the Bible now? Somebody wondering, can God be trusted?

Is he really there? And turning away from the faith. It's so important that we address these questions. All right, I'm going to go over to Facebook now.

These questions were posted yesterday. Patrick, having to be in heaven with people you do not want to be on earth with. Okay, that's not a standard kind of objection that I hear, but the answer to that is easy. You're going to be different. They're going to be different. You're going to love each other forever. It's going to be absolutely wonderful.

Have you ever misjudged a person or you got off to a rocky start in the relationship and then you got to know them better in your best of friends or maybe even married to each other? So that's how it's going to be that we're going to be different. They're going to be different. So whatever flaws, misunderstandings, issues, problems there were that got in our way, personality quirks won't be there forever. And we will get to know this person on their very best side. They'll get to know us on our best side and we'll be friends and we'll love each other. Yeah, it's going to happen.

It's going to happen. TJ, how to have more faith as a believer when you are afraid to die. I appreciate you recognizing that and I appreciate your honesty in posting it.

I'm going to give two answers. The first is as you deepen your relationship with God by spending quality time with Him in prayer and sharing your heart with Him and not just reading the Bible, but meditating on it and taking in verses about fear. I deal with this in my book, When the World Stops, which offers words of hope, faith, and wisdom in the midst of crisis. So I wrote it basically in an eight-day period last year in the earlier stages of COVID, excuse me, in 2020 in the earlier stages of COVID. But I wrote in such a way that'd be relevant 20 years from now in another crisis. And the first chapters deal with fear and building ourselves up in faith and growing and growing in our relationship with God so that faith drives out fear.

That's one thing very important. Now, the reason I'm giving you two answers is you might say, I've done that and I still struggle. Then I would encourage you to ask the Lord to help you to get to the root of the fear. And that may even be with some solid pastoral counselors that you talk together and ask God to give insight and reveal it. And then sometimes when you see where the root of the fear comes from, and it could go back to some childhood trauma, you're able to deal with that and renew your thinking and even receive healing for wounds that may exist. I've had that with a couple things in my own life that when I traced it back, it went back years earlier than I realized. I don't mean some bizarre psychoanalyzing. It's like, oh, the light went on.

And when I saw it, I was much more able to deal with things in the here and now. Let's see here. Okay, that's just a positive statement. Mark asks this, why does God allow iniquity if he knows it will cause the love of many to wax cold? Duh.

He knows this and he knows our hearts. Is that the answer? This life is nothing more than a waste of time. I hate it. So Mark, there's obviously some discouragement and frustration in your voice there. But would you rather that God zaps all of us and we no longer have freedom of choice? You know, sometimes you might feel that because we keep doing wrong things.

But don't you want your essential freedom? Do you want it to be that you only do what you're programmed to do? Do you want it to be that you don't have the option of choosing love or hate, choosing good or bad, determining your course? Because unless God lets us make choices, then we are pre-programmed, just preordained to do a certain thing, follow a certain script, and there is no freedom, there is no choosing. If he gives us the choice, then we're going to do bad things. The good news is God brings good out of evil.

God brings light out of darkness. You know, COVID is a terrible thing. It's an ugly thing. It's a destructive thing. It's an evil thing. Whatever its origins, it's brought terrible suffering on millions and millions of people, hundreds of millions on different levels around the world. But, you know, we've been talking, as family, and Nancy and I getting COVID at the same time last year, right after Christmas, and we see how it's being used for good.

Oh, the thing itself is destructive, and I was in the hospital for a day because of things that triggered with my heart. But we've looked at good that's come out of this in terms of things in our own lives and how we're approaching things and even stuff that was uncovered that may have been there with my heart before that we're now addressing and dealing with so I can be healthier than I've ever been. I mean, that's the goal.

And things Nancy's looked at, lifestyle, and said, yeah, this, this, this. So good can come out of something that is in itself bad. And that's what God does.

He's a redeemer. Lee, what about the idea that we all have the same God? Well, does that work, to go back to things I was saying earlier, in another area of life? In other words, if I play baseball and you play basketball and someone else plays tennis and someone else plays racquetball, someone else plays cricket and someone else plays soccer, can I say, well, we all play the same sport? No, obviously not. If Christians believe that God is triune, and Muslims and Jews believe he is not, and Hindus believe that he has millions of different manifestations that are then worshipped as gods, well, how could it be the same God? It can't be.

It can't be. And when one person's God, right, the God they created in their own mind, when one person's God said, hey, yeah, same-sex relationships, as long as they're based on love, that's good. And another person's God based on scripture says, no, that's not good. Then it's obviously not the same God.

So I would just press the issue, right? So if it's all the same God, then this, then this, then this. If it's all the same God, then that's, God's standards will be the same. If it's all the same God, then that God's judgments will be the same. And then if Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father, but through me, John 14, 6, and Peter in Acts 4, 12 says there's salvation and no other, though the name under heaven by which we must be saved. If that's written in the New Testament, and Jesus is revealed as God in the flesh, the Son of God, and Islam says he's not the Son of God, and Judaism says he's not the Messiah, how can it be all the same God? It's completely contradictory. Now you could say everybody's wrong, everybody has a little part of the truth, and then you have to deal with those arguments, but to say we're all the same God, obviously not. Bruce, I've had an atheist tell me that religion in general is just a crutch for people who don't understand the world they live in.

A disingenuous argument to be sure, but one he consistently asserted. So the first thing I would say is if we knew our condition, we would know that we need more than a crutch. When someone who can't walk is given a wheelchair, that's a good thing. That's a positive thing. If we fully understood the depth of our sin and guilt and depravity, we would realize we need much more than a crutch.

That's the first thing. The second thing is this, that there are followers of the Lord in every generation who are the most courageous people and the people of the strongest character and willing to go to hell and back to help others, and you read about them and they don't even seem human because of their strength of their courage and their resolve, and that is because of their faith in God. That rather than faith in God being some escape mechanism, faith in God has made them courageous. Faith in God has made them heroes. Faith in God has made them pioneers.

And because of their confidence that the God that they serve is faithful and reliable, they have stepped out and done things that few other human beings would do. So, I would respond in those ways, among others, to this argument. I could also say that atheists live in denial of reality. That atheists are not able to come to grips with the fact that nothing did not create everything, and that life did not just pop out of nowhere, and that DNA, this massively detailed code, which if you read like one letter a second would take you 90 something years to read, and is far more complex than the world's most complex computer programs all put together. To say that that just happened in some random way is to live in denial.

And I say, what is it that you are denying? Harji, religion as a façade for political power. Sometimes it is. In other words, religion itself can be a force for good or a force for bad. Religion itself can be man-made or can be based on divine revelation. But when religion is used, not so much as a façade for political power, but as a means of gaining political power, it becomes very dangerous, and people are right to be wary of that. But the question is, what is the core message of the Gospel? It is not one of political power.

In fact, it's separated from the message of political power. Rather, it is the message of sacrifice and service and love. It is the message that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It is Jesus saying, I did not come to serve, but to be, excuse me, I did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many. It is God sending his son as the mediator between a sinful fallen human race and a holy God so that we could be reconciled to God, and our message now goes to the world, 2 Corinthians 5, be reconciled to God. So anything but a message based on political power, and when political power becomes central to religious faith, it does get corrupt.

Let's agree on it. I have a major book coming out later this year, and it should be in September, on the political seduction of the Church. So this is a real issue and a problem, but it doesn't take away from the truth of the Gospel.

This only comes when we stray from the truth of the Gospel. 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 for joining us for a special edition of The Line of Fire today where we are tackling your toughest questions. For those watching, if you haven't seen our new studio, hope you enjoy it.

For those listening and watching, hope you're enjoying our new musical introduction from Skillet and the new announcer's text, which just kind of catches us up to where we are today. All right, not taking calls. This is one of those days where I'm answering questions that were posted on social media. I solicited these yesterday, so don't post new questions now. We've got a bunch to answer. I'm going to go back over to Twitter.

F.V.B. Genesis 1-11 Real History. What Genesis 1-11 intends to tell us is absolute truth. The question is, is it myth, is it allegory, is it just teaching us lessons, or is it real history?

Let me break this down. Genesis 1 is 100% true. If you are a young earth creationist, and you'll see in this Twitter feed, a post from Jonathan Sarfatti, Ph.D. in Chemistry, youngearthcreationistcreation.com is the website where he writes, he would tell you it is literally true, six-day creation, and in this harmony, in harmony with scientific fact.

That would be his perspective. And an old earth creationist like Hugh Ross, Reasons.org, he would say it is absolutely literally true, but not six 24-hour days. Rather, we need to understand it in light of the rest of the Bible and the way creation is spoken of, and this is over a period of time. My own way of reading Genesis 1, along with many other scholars, is that it is not there to teach us about science, but rather to teach us who God is. It is a cosmology.

It is there to teach us about the nature of the God who created the world, and that is the great emphasis there, and that's how I read the text. As to scientific questions, I leave that to those with scientific knowledge to debate because that is a weak spot for me in terms of scientific knowledge in any real serious, depthy way, or even a lot of the basics, to be honest. But why?

Okay, why? Because in high school, when we started to get to serious classes on science, I was getting high and skipping classes or not paying attention. Then the last two years of high school, we would have taken your more serious classes. We'd gone on strike, this is my drug days, for our own school within the school, like 60 students out of 1,200 in the school, West Hempstead High School, and we didn't have to take formal classes because just take whatever we wanted, which is what we did, and created our own classes and stuff. So I didn't have any real science classes for the last four years of high school. Two years I was getting high, wasn't paying attention.

Two years, went on strike with New School, then got bored again. I was just reading the Bible day and night, and then when I went to college, I didn't take any science classes. So I've read a lot over the years, but my knowledge is very basic, okay? So anyway, I let the younger and older scholars debate that because I believe the Genesis text could be read in either direction. That being said, there was definitely an Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 and 3. Now, whether you say it was presented in an allegorical way with a talking snake and things like that, and I don't think there has to be a talking snake, let's just say that that could be theoretically debated. In other words, we know Satan seduced. We know Satan deceived.

There's no doubt in my mind that that's what happened. Is it put in an allegorical form of a talking snake? Even if you want to debate that, there was a historical Adam and Eve. There was a historical fall. They were the progenitors of the human race. Those are historical facts to me, and everything that comes afterwards, the universal flood and then the calling of Abraham.

Those are historical accounts. Is it possible it was a localized flood? The text, as best as I understand it, says no, excuse me, it was a universal flood. And I do believe that strong arguments can be made for a universal flood. Okay, let's just see here.

Looking at some questions I think I've covered. Iris, that our ultimate truth might change as the years pass by. We cannot judge and convict other people that have put their faith in other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam are already condemned and they will end up in hell.

They might have their own way to reach heaven. Well, why does ultimate truth change based on the passage of time? It's one thing if science comes to certain conclusions and science learns more later on and then adjusts its conclusions. Remember, if you're older, you know, growing up you were told certain foods were great to eat and now later you'd say, don't eat those, don't go near those, right?

Butter is better than margarine, margarine is better than butter. Well, there's not ultimate truth. That's just the current knowledge of science and nutrition and views change.

Stay away from all dairy, etc. So that's one thing. But when God reveals himself in absolute and definitive ways and says this is the truth, this is who I am, and this is the truth, that doesn't change over the passage of time.

That doesn't change with our age. We may get more insight, but ultimate truth remains what it is. And because Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity contradict each other, they cannot all be true at the same time.

And I've discussed certain things similar to this earlier in the broadcast as well. Lior, discrepancies I find between Old Testament to Christianity. For example, Zechariah 14, 16 through 19 says the Gentiles in the end times will have to celebrate Sukkot.

So why Christians don't celebrate this holiday today? Not in my salvation, just to do what God wants. Ah, because we are in a time now where Gentiles are being brought into the knowledge of the God of Israel without having to take on the laws of Israel aside from basic morality that is then repeated again through the New Testament. That is the period that we are in, and this is the period of God's grace expressed through the cross. We understand Zechariah 14 to talk about when Yeshua returns. Now, we've already been resurrected with him, so we are now in a heavenly spiritual state and working with him to rule and reign and govern on the earth. As for those that come into what we understand as the Millennial Kingdom, so Jesus returns, we are glorified with him, now he sets up his kingdom on the earth with Israel in the center as a priestly teaching nation, and the survivors of the nations that attack Jerusalem enter into the Millennium, so they are not all born again as we were, otherwise they would have been resurrected with us, with the Lord. This is now the time for Israel to instruct the nations in the knowledge of God, and because God is now ruling and reigning over the earth with an iron rod, this is now how people live. So Sukkot, it has its purpose, but we spiritually celebrate it now.

In the future, it will be celebrated on the earth with Israel as the lead nation. So it's not a contradiction, it's different groups of people in different periods of time. And we all understand that there was a Sinai Covenant and a New Covenant, so we can understand that things do change on non-essentials. In other words, morality doesn't change, the nature of God doesn't change, but certain practices and customs do.

Qajab, or Qajabi. I was challenged by the objection that Protestants do not interpret the Bible as it was intended to be, that we do not reflect what the earliest Christians believed as evidenced by the writings of the church fathers. So the first question is, how does the Bible interpret itself? When a law is given, how is it interpreted later on? When Jesus taught a particular thing, how is it lived out by the believers as reflected in Acts or the Epistles? So that's our authority.

So we can learn principles of interpretation from the Bible itself. Is this a literal commitment? God said, don't commit idolatry, if you do, you'll be destroyed out of land.

Well, that literally happened in a literal way. Okay, so I can interpret the words for what they say. So when you have plain statements that are understood in plain ways, we interpret it within the Scriptures in plain ways, stop means stop, go means go, up means up, down means down, that means that the Bible is telling me to literally interpret what was spoken literally, to understand metaphor for metaphor, simile for simile, to understand poetic speech versus historical narrative, to understand these things, the Bible itself is telling me to do that. And then the Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us do that, that's what the Bible says. All right, so if a later church father, 300 years later, has a different interpretation, why would I even think of following that? And what's interesting is the further back you go, right, so to the earliest documents, you're not going to find the teachings of Catholicism there, or distinctives of Greek Orthodoxy there.

It's only over the passage of time, and the more the passage of time, the more these church leaders got away from some of the foundations. But if you want to talk about, say, the infallibility of the pope, where is that anywhere in the Bible or in the early church fathers? It's not. If you want to talk about aspects of Mary and Mariolatry, where is that, not just in the New Testament, but in the earliest church fathers? It's not.

There are many distinctives, mass, and things like that, and what takes place? Say, in Catholicism, with all respect to my Catholic friends, you certainly don't find them in the Bible, but you don't find them in the early church leaders either. Does that mean you throw them all out?

I would say yes. If it's not taught clearly in the Bible and it's a major doctrine for you, then yes, throw it out and reevaluate it. But I have no problem whatsoever saying the Scriptures or the authority in the Scriptures teach us how to interpret them and understand them.

That's one. And the further back you go to the earlier writings, the less of the later new traditions you will find. That's why there are plenty of Protestant church scholars who read the literature without a sense of deep contradiction. Let's just see here the story of Joshua and the sun stopping.

This is from Cedric. And once a Muslim told him that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 speaks of Jeremiah, as evidenced with some statements from Jeremiah's suffering that parallel the suffering servant of Isaiah. The parallel would be Jeremiah saying, going like a lamp to the slaughter. But Jeremiah did not die for the sins of his nation. The people of Israel and Judah were not healed by Jeremiah's suffering, no.

No such thing whatsoever. And there are many other things in Isaiah 53, which is 52, 13 down to 53, 12, that have no connection whatsoever to the life and ministry of Jeremiah. That's why it's a very, very obscure tradition that claims that it points to Jeremiah. As for the story of Joshua and the sun stopping, someone else asked that as well on Twitter.

The simple answer is that Joshua is using observational language. Just like to this day, we talk about the sun rising and the sun setting, wasn't that a beautiful sunset? So from his perspective, he asked for the sun to stop. The supernatural thing is whatever God had to do in the universe to cause that to happen. That's why it was a great miracle. That's why something that happened one time only. But when he commanded the sun to stop so that they could further defeat God's enemies from his perception, that's exactly what happened.

But to repeat, the Bible uses observational language, and we do it even to this day. 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. I want to go straight back to your questions on Facebook and Twitter. Don't forget, friends, you can pre-order a signed copy of The Silencing of the Lambs. The cover is stunning. Subtitle, How We Overcome Cancel Culture, excuse me, The Ominous Rise of Cancel Culture and How We Can Overcome It. You will find the book not just eye-opening, but inspiring, stirring, faith-building, and moving you to action. Literally, it could change your life when you read it, and you could be empowered and emboldened to stand and speak and help overcome cancel culture.

The Church of Jesus, the Ecclesia, the Messianic congregation cannot be canceled. Go to AskDrBrown.org. You'll see it right on the home page. You can pre-order as many copies as you want. Just let us know who you want us to sign them to. And yes, I personally sign each one. It could be the first few hundred pre-orders that come in, sign it to you, put in a scripture, and we send it out to you as soon as we can get them in and turn them around. So get them to your friends as well. I believe the book is going to help many stand up and push back against cancel culture.

All right, straight to Facebook questions. Mike, deconstructionism and subjective morality. These are great challenges today, and people are turning away from the faith and quote deconstructing. Many of them never really had an experience in God. Maybe they were raised in church, maybe they were convinced of biblical truth by apologetics, but they were never really born again. Or if they were born again, they didn't really have an intimate, life-changing experience with God. They can't point to the intervention of God in their lives in supernatural ways. I was talking to a ministry colleague a couple days ago, and he said, he's been saved almost as long as I am, almost 50 years, and he said, Mike, I could never walk away from God. The way he saved me was so supernatural, so impossible, so life-transforming.

He said, I don't see how I could ever deny that. So many never had this experience, and when you talk to them, it's important to point to. If they say, well, I had that, I had that, well, maybe you never did.

Maybe you never did. And that is so important to understand when you're dealing with someone, because maybe they had primarily an intellectual faith or just raised in the faith. But what we have to be able to do is tackle their toughest objections.

Kill the greatest difficulties they have, and be able, point for point, to help them. As for subjective morality, we need to push that and say, how far does it go? In other words, is morality whatever you think it is, whatever I think it is, whatever the Nazis think it is, whatever the slave traders think it is, whatever the child abusers think it is? Is there no absolute right and wrong? Is there nothing within human beings that fundamentally tells them certain things are right and wrong? Where did that come from?

And if all morality is subjective, then, hey, if I want your car and I've been deprived of a car and you were a spoiled brat and got it, well, it's not right for you to have it, me not to have it. I work hard. I'm going to take it from you.

If you try to resist me, I'm going to stop you. Is that right? Well, I say it's right. So we have to be able to expose the error here and then loving and compassionately and with patience and with prayer for people address these things. Okay, Mary, the suffering of the innocent that breaks so many hearts and turns souls from God whom they blame, using religion or the Bible to protect the abuse of women, leaders looking the other way are actually condoning violent controlling behaviors, none of their business. So the second part, the Bible over and over and over calls for justice. And the Bible over and over and over speaks up on behalf of the underprivileged, the hurting, the needy, the poor, those who are social outcasts, the widow, the orphan, those who can't defend themselves. For leaders to use their leadership power to abuse someone is a heinous act in God's sight that will be strongly judged. For leaders to look the other way of things that are within their own sphere of influence and authority is a great sin in God's sight. So you can't blame God or the Bible when people in his name do the opposite of what he says.

You have to blame them. As for the suffering of the innocent, it's profound. And when you're close to it, when it's your own child, you're held in your arms, and mom, you felt the baby kick the first time and everyone's crying at the birth and just started to crawl and, you know, your little daughter started to crawl and she smiled, mommy. And, you know, you just, you send the pictures to the grandparents and they're excited. You know, we get pictures of the kids we hadn't seen for a little while when they lived in another state.

They would just cry when you saw them because of the grandkids and at the age of three gets leukemia. And after a year of suffering dies, how can it be right, how can it be right for starving children in other parts of the world? We may not think about it, but it remains a reality. Or innocent people that get abused and how can it be right? It is terribly painful. What you need to show in scripture is God hurts over these things too. God grieves over these things too. These things cause God pain and he will fix it in the world to come. Many times he'll do a lot of good in this world and bring redemption out of the pain so that the parents and those close to it become better people.

And then they in turn go help people and maybe that leads to someone finding a cure for this disease or working prevention against something else. So out of the pain in this world, good can come, but then God will balance it out forever and ever. If there is no forever and ever, if there is no God, it's completely random. It's completely senseless.

There is no meaning to it. There is no silver lining. But with God, there can be answers. Check out my debate with Professor Bart Ehrman, E-H-R-M-A-N, it's on our YouTube channel and on AskDrBrown.org. Just type in Ehrman, E-H-R-M-A-N. We debated the subject, what about 11, 12 years ago, does the Bible provide an adequate answer to the problem of suffering?

Let's see here. Yeah, dealt with some of the slaughtering issue. Okay, Todd says wholesale slaughter is that God condones.

I actually dealt with that on yesterday's broadcast. Or does nothing to prevent, for example, the slaughter of the Bethlehem innocents. God does not stop human beings from doing terrible things.

That's the reality. God does not intervene every time something wrong is going to be done. Look at it like this. The people that commit atrocities, that may be step 100 in the sinful development of their lives.

And it may have started with a parent being mean to them when they were a kid and yelling at them and being impatient. And then a school teacher not recognizing that they had some struggles and being mean to them, and then, in other words, you have, you cannot eliminate the presence of evil in the world if you let human beings be human beings, if we have a choice. But God's a redeemer. God can fix things, if not in this world, then forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

But without God, as I just said, then the suffering is completely random, and there's no possible redemption, there's no possible fixing of things. Eric, constantly being told, I'm not keeping Sabbath and wrong for going to church on Sunday by my family, constantly praying they understand true meaning of Sabbath. Yeah, you have to keep praying, and sometimes people have these dogmas and you can't get them to change. And the New Testament does not say that the Sabbath changed from Saturday to Sunday. And the New Testament does not command us to gather on Sundays.

The few verses that have been put together to try to prove that say no such thing. But God never commanded Gentile Christians in the New Testament to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. And then he would have been unable to, being in the Roman world and the lifestyles, it wasn't like he had a whole Jewish community and business community that didn't work on the Sabbath, on Saturday. So ask them, show me in the New Testament where it explicitly commands Gentile Christians keep the Sabbath. It doesn't in Acts 15, it's not even implied in Acts 15, though some have tried to argue that.

In Colossians 2, Paul warns against those that would put you under pressure to keep the Sabbath, saying the substance is the Messiah, the Sabbath is only the shadow. So but again, sometimes when people get set in their ways, they have a hard time seeing this, so you have to pray. Let's just see here, okay, Sue, a lack of signs and miracles, a lack of power in the church, what if bad things happen to kids, if he's God, he could step in and stop.

Okay, so we just dealt with the second part of that. But the first part, lack of signs and miracles, lack of power in the church, yeah, there should be more, there should be more, absolutely. The Bible tells us that, and as we earnestly seek the Lord, pray for his power to be manifest, our own heart tells us that. My book, Revival or Rede, which came out in October, and we're getting great reports from readers on that, the opening chapters, there is more, there must be more, that is a fundamental truth that drives us. My book that came out in 1991, Whatever Happened to the Power of God as the Charismatic Church Slain in the Spirit or Down for the Count, addresses these things head on, saying there must be more.

The thing is, the error is to say, because we don't see more, it's not for today. The error is to embrace the cessation in this position that God's not doing it anymore. What I'd also encourage you in is that God's doing a whole lot more than we realize, that there are more miracles taking place than we can imagine, more healings and deliverances and people's lives being transformed and people being saved in the most radical, supernatural ways. And we should read accounts of this, we should hear the testimonies, because wow, wow, wow, God is moving in the earth.

Do we want to see more, much, much, I believe we should be seeing a much greater demonstration. Perhaps some of it depends on the condition of our own lives and souls, and as we get deeper in God and more mature in God and more grounded in the Word, that he'll be able to entrust us with more, and sometimes it's there for the asking, but we fail to press in. Hey friends, I know there are more questions that I didn't get to, I know they're pressing. Phone lines will be open in the days ahead.

Look forward to hearing from you. God is trustworthy, and His Word can be trusted. God. Another program powered by the Truth Network.