The Political Spirit vs. the Holy Spirit

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I want to make up for not being able to take calls while I was in India all of last week. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Those of you who prayed for my trip to India, thank you so much.

I'll be giving you some updates. I've got a lot of encouraging words for you, a lot of words to stir you as we seek to infuse you with faith and truth and courage and be your voice, be here for you to help you stand strong on the front lines. We are living in very intense times, very challenging times, but very wonderful times, times when God is moving and society is shaking, and even though there's a lot of difficulty, there's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of purging, it's bringing things up to the surface, the bad and the good. That's what God's refining fire does, so I'm going to encourage you, I'm going to challenge you today, but thank you so much for tuning in. I was just talking to John Cooper before the show from Skillet. He said, hey man, I'll be hearing your voice momentarily, talking about so much compromise that we see in the church and so many people that we'd expect to be toeing the line, taking compromised views. But I said, you know, the good is that the fire, the refining fire is bringing all the bad stuff up to the surface, so it's bad, but it's healthy along the way. All right, 86634truth, if you're not getting my emails, now is a great time to be getting them, so another reminder, go to our website, askdrbrown.org, you'll see right there on the home screen where you can just sign up for our emails.

It takes you literally a few seconds to do that. We would love to be in contact with you and let you know about all the free resources that we have on our website and all the ways that we can be here to serve you. Look friends, I am deeply committed to seeing you thrive spiritually, not just spiritually, but physically, mentally as well, to see you in vibrant health so that you can do the will of God effectively. And one thing that we can control is our spiritual health. We can control our physical health to a certain extent, but certain things are out of our hands, but our spiritual health, we can control that. In other words, we can determine by God's grace that we want to seek him, that we want to be with him, that we want to be in his presence, that we want to be changed by him, that we want to grow in his word, that we want to deepen in prayer. And even though there can be challenges and battles, by God's grace, we can do it.

And some have said, you know, we are just as full of the Spirit as we want to be, meaning, how much do we really desire the things of God? Okay, just some thoughts on my heart. But let me share with you a few things of importance. So we're watching a lot of things unfold, the exchange, the prisoner exchange for Brittany Griner from America, imprisoned in Russia for the so-called merchant of death, the Russian arms dealer, and they make that trade, and why don't we trade for the Marine, and why do we leave him there, and all these things, which, ultimately, I don't know the behind-the-scenes details any more than you do. But Nancy and I were talking about this, just like the news and what's in the news and social media, and basically, you just expect everybody to give an opinion, right? Every, you know, this one's got this opinion, and you got this talking head on this TV station, and then a talking head on another view on that TV station, and people, for the most part, are speculating, because we don't have behind-the-scenes facts and information, right? We don't know a lot of details, so we're all giving opinions, and there's obviously a place for that, you know what I'm saying? There's a place where we sit around, and I think this, I think that, but if we don't know truth, of what use is it, of what help is it, how does it actually advance God's kingdom or advance any purpose or advance a good cause if we're just giving opinions about things? Let's say, for example, someone's diagnosed with cancer, and you're not a doctor, and I'm not a doctor, and we're going to give our opinions as to the prognosis of whether the person can survive this or what the treatments can be or should be or shouldn't be. What's the use of it?

None whatsoever. A lot of our political talk is like that. A lot of the battles that we engage in are like that, that we've got opinion about this, opinion about that, this candidate, that candidate, and there's like this whole political talk spirit. There is this whole mindset where we just get like the rest of the world, as followers of Jesus, we who should be based in the word and full of the spirit and doing the will of God here and shining his light. We get just like the rest of the world, and we're just into the latest opinions and the latest polls, and if we can get this candidate in, this and that, and things are so far beyond our understanding in terms of what God is doing and how he is working in the world and what his purposes are.

And we can get caught up in just a worldly, carnal, fleshly mentality that in the end really doesn't do any good, that in the end really doesn't advance the kingdom of God, that in the end really doesn't help our neighbor find the gospel. Here, so I'll give you an example. Give me an example. You can call this the spirit of the age, worldly spirit, or the political spirit, whatever you want to call it, okay?

But I'll give you an example. I wrote an article last night, you can find it on our website, askdartrobrown.org, and it's a call to prayer for Sam Brinton. Sam Brinton is the so-called gender fluid drag queen deputy assistant in nuclear waste disposal department. He's a high-ranking government official, so here's a guy, you know, mustache with bright red lipstick and wearing dresses to government functions and into so-called puppy love, some kink fetish practice, and he's even lectured on the physics of kink at a university and so on. He came to fame because of his testimony of the horrible things he went through with, quote, conversion therapy and what he was subject to as a child, he was a boy, and his parents made him do this, and his terrible treatments. Well, from what we know, from what I've been told, from what people close to the situation say, it's all a myth.

Of course, it was used to get further hostility towards, quote, conversion therapy, as opposed to a professional counselor sitting with someone with unwanted same-sex attractions and talking to them about trying to get to the root of it and help them overcome those things. So in any event, he is now on leave because he has two cases pending against him for stealing luggage at airports, so in one case, he didn't check, according to the facts, as I understand him, he didn't check his luggage, right? Didn't check his luggage, so he just had carry-on, then he goes to baggage claim and takes luggage, so he knew he didn't check a bag, he takes a bag, it's all film, the whole thing, the evidence appears to be pretty damning against him. Well, there had been a previous case where people couldn't ID who the person was when they saw this other case, like, wait, wait, that's the same guy.

So he could go to jail for this, have fines, substantial fines, et cetera, but jail time would be the biggest thing, so he's on leave right now. The fact that someone with his background was put in a high government position, and here he is openly flaunting these things, that he's also a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which is a drag queen, anti-Catholic group that's been infamous at gay pride events and things like that over the years, and here he gets chosen to a high government position. So, of course, now that the charges have come up against him with stealing luggage on two different occasions, and then, you know, traveling with that luggage and using this, whatever, it's pretty outrageous, pretty outrageous.

So, with video evidence, et cetera, bottom line is, you see these kind of things, and what's the secular media gonna do, the right-wing media, mock the guy, ridicule the guy, and further embarrass him, and it appears, again, it's alleged, but he's guilty of these crimes, we'll see. Bottom line is, he needs the Lord, he needs Jesus, he needs to turn to God and be saved and be set free from bondage and be made whole as a human being, and I say that as someone who is set free from my own bondages and addictions. Every drug user, lost rebel, you know my story, radically born again at the age of 16 in 1971, in fact, what's today's date, just getting back from India here, getting the dates through December 12th as I'm speaking to you.

So, five days from now is the 51st anniversary of that time of radical transformation when I said, God, I'll never put a needle in my arm again, and was set free from that day on. We are all objects of mercy, or potential mercy, the mercy's been shown with the cross, it can be given to us directly as we ask God and humble ourselves, but my reaction is not just the reaction of the world or to further condemn him or mock him, but to say this guy needs the Lord, this guy needs the Lord, that's our weapon, the weapon of prayer, the weapon of love, yeah, I'm gonna stand against radical LGBTQ plus agenda, I'm going to resist that and reject it at the same time, I'm gonna pray for God to save, for God to open hearts, open minds, and change lives, I'm gonna love my neighbor even if I differ with my neighbor, I've got a Hindu neighbor, a Muslim neighbor, an atheist neighbor, a gay neighbor, I'm gonna love my neighbor as a fellow human being for whom Jesus died while differing with their beliefs or their agenda or lifestyle, whatever the case might be, but we have different weapons than the world has, and when we just sound like the world, and act like the world, and you go to our social media pages and listen to us and we are just mirroring what's happening on conservative news, liberal news, wherever we find ourselves, we're no better than the world. We forfeit the wonderful weapons God's given us, and for those who think that the solution is political at all, okay, and the Democrats control the Senate, well now Kristin Sinema, she's now independent, where is that gonna leave things? Look, the only way the so-called Respect for Marriage Act passed was with all the Democrats voting for it and enough Republicans voting for it in the Senate and the House to pass. It's an outrage, it is a complete outrage, it is an absolute attack on religious liberties and freedom of conscience in America, and it further enshrines a mistake that the Supreme Court made that the Supreme Court now can't undo. How can any person who's allegedly God-fearing Christian vote for it, but enough did, enough did, that it's now law. President Biden signs it, right?

The point is, I'm not putting my trust in the Republican Party, even though I vote Republican, I'm not putting my trust in the party because it's just not gonna happen this way. The change, the societal change, it's gotta come through you and me, living out the gospel, that's what has to happen. Alright, I got a ton more to talk to you about, give you an India update, take your calls to 866-34-TRUTH. 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. Remember to call 866-34-TRUTH. Bottom of the hour, I will start getting to your calls. By the way, our shows on Black Hebrew Israelites have been getting a lot of attention online, and we've been hearing from different representatives, leaders here and there said that they'd like to debate me. So we're in the process of setting some of these things up, looking to have some folks come on my radio show and discuss things with them, so hopefully early next year, some of this will be happening.

I can't wait to discuss some of these things, and I recognize that there are broad ranges of people and others that would call themselves Hebrew Israelites who are not militant, who are not overtly anti-Semitic, who hold to certain similar gospel views that I would have on certain points. So there's a whole range, fully aware of that. Okay, so I was in India. Trip number 28 would have been trip number 30, but two years because of COVID, couldn't travel over there. I was not there to be preaching large gospel crusades. I was there to see friends and spend time with some dear colleagues in the Lord and got to give a lecture at a local university.

It was just set up kind of last minute. I gave a lecture on morality and modernity, a few hundred students in an engineering school. So this is a secular school. The principal is a highly esteemed academic now in the country, young man with great favor.

We had him on the radio a few months ago. You may remember the interview I did with Yesupatam, his wife, Monica, and this professor, James. So he took over the school, the engineering school. They're about to shut it down, had between 40 and 50 students.

It's got about 2,300 students now and is thriving, winning awards for their excellency in certain departments. So he asked me to come in and do a lecture on morality in modernity. So this was not for me to preach the gospel at a secular school, but rather to talk about the moral crisis we face. And what I did is I talked about the shift, the dramatic shift in America. Psychologist David Myers said if you fell asleep in 1960 and woke up in the year 2000, you'd wake up to the divorce rate double, teen suicide tripled, reported violent crime of four times, prison population up five times, children born out of wedlock up six times, people living together out of wedlock up seven times. And the massive amount of that shift took place in the 60s. And I explained that, talked about the dynamics from the birth control pill coming into America in 1960 to the Supreme Court removing organized prayer from school in 62, organized Bible study from school in 63, the shaking of America through the March on Washington. That was a good shaking against segregation in Dr. King's famous speech. And then later that year, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, how that shook this. I just went through the chronology of the 60s right up through 69 Woodstock, Stonewall riots, radical feminist groups like W.I.T.C.H., that was their acronym, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.

That was literally the name of their organization, yeah, W.I.T.C.H., talking about blatant. And so I talked about all the shifts that took place, and then I said, so we've gone from the belief that there's right and wrong, there's absolute morality, to the view that morality is relative. You have your standards, I have mine, you have your morality, I have mine. Then we shifted over the years, we've gone from absolute truth to relative truth. That's your truth, that's my truth. I'm telling you my truth. Well, my truth may be that I'm 35 years old and that I don't have gray hair, but that's not the truth.

I'm 67 years old and I do have gray hair, right? So it's not a matter of your truth, I may have my perspective, you have your perspective, but there's not my truth, your truth, there's only truth, but now we have relative truth. Then I said we've gone from there to, from absolute reality to relative reality. So I can perceive that I'm a female, therefore I am a female. I can perceive that I'm black, therefore I am black. I can perceive whatever my perception is that I'm part animal and therefore I am. I just remind you, as I'm wearing my smartwatch myself, right, and I can tell you, okay, right now my heart rate's 76 beats per minute.

It says that the man who developed the technology behind the heart monitor that's used on our smartwatches is a highly trained professor, studied at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, any of these schools were taught there, and he for 20 years plus has identified as a furry, that he identifies as a cheetah named Spartacus. Yet that's his reality. So I just was explaining, I said the Judeo-Christian perspective is that we're all created in the image of God, therefore every human being has value, but then there are certain inalienable rights that the creators endowed us. I said this is part of the philosophy of America, but here's what happens when you depart from absolute morality, absolute truth, absolute reality, it goes in this direction.

That was just to get them thinking and open the door for further discussion. But the situation in India is very difficult now for Christians because Prime Minister Modi and the BJP, the BJP, the militant Hindu party, has said that India is a Hindu nation, there's a strong Hindu nationalism movement, and that he wants to eradicate Christianity, Islam as well, but very overt about Christianity even with projected dates which have come and gone so far, but wants to see Christianity eradicated from the country, and re-establish India as a Hindu nation, Hindu only basically. So it's increasingly tough on the ground for Christians because as local radicals persecute them, the government kind of looks the other way. So it's increasingly hard for believers, and the persecution is increasing, the pressure is increasing, but of course the church is growing in the midst of it. At the same time as the church has grown in India, the carnal prosperity message has made its way over from America. Now this was happening already in the early 90s, I went there in 93 the first time and a famous prosperity preacher had just been there ahead of me, and a lot of the local believers were pretty upset with the message.

And they said, look, we know about faith, how do you think we run our orphanages, how do you think we do this with no money, care for the poor, you know, we know about faith. But they really had it with the American prosperity message, well it's become much more prominent, especially through some TV preachers in India and things like that. And I was talking to my dear friend, and he was just saying that the positive is that the persecution is purging the church, it's painful, it's difficult, it's hard.

And we pray for a change of heart for the government, we pray for the Prime Minister and the government to have a change of heart, or for new people to come in who are more in harmony with India's more tolerant religious history. But the fact is that the persecution, the pressure does bring stuff up to the surface, and the carnal prosperity message cannot survive testing. I wrote an article, I felt stirred to write this in India after one of the meetings one day, and it's called The End of Triumphalist Christianity. You can read it on our website, AskDr.Brown.org, or do you have the app yet, have you downloaded it, Ask Dr. Brown Ministries, if not download the app right now and join the thousands that are downloading it and enjoying it on Apple or Google.

Ask Dr. Brown Ministries, and you just click to read the most recent articles. So The End of Triumphalist Christianity. I said this, there's a Christianity that struts and boasts, a Christianity full of riches and swagger, a Christianity full of carnal energy and worldly success. It is a Christianity so full of self that it is virtually devoid of God. That kind of Christianity is headed for a major fall. That Christianity is like the church of Laodicea in New Testament times which said of itself, I'm rich, I've required wealth and do not need a thing.

It was a church that flexed its muscles, a church that had arrived, a happening church. But Jesus saw things differently, he said, but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. In an extreme contrast in perceptions, as the Lord said in another context when rebuking the religious leaders of the day, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. That's Luke 16 and 15. Triumphalist Christianity boasts in its numbers, its power, its wealth, its buildings, its outward success.

It leans on the arm of flesh. It preaches an ear-tickling, crowd-pleasing message. It gains celebrity status in the eyes of the world. This was related to the so-called super apostles who pulled people away from Paul's ministry in Corinth, promising riches and success. They had arrived. They were powerful. They had their act together. Who would not want to follow their lead?

Who would not want to be just like them? For those who had been seduced by these false apostles, Paul had some very strong words. 1 Corinthians 4.

Already you have all you want. Already you have become rich. Without us you have become kings. And with that you did reign so that we might share the rule with you. For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ.

Oh, but you are so wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst.

We are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we entreat.

We have become and still are like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. Tremulous Christianity can only exist when the spiritual climate is favorable, when persecution is minimal or nonexistent, when the gospel can be touted as the fast track to success. But it quickly withers and dies when testing comes, when persecution increases, when following Jesus means loss rather than gain, in the words of Jesus from the parable of the sower. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word that once receives it with joy.

Since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. It's wonderful when God gives His people a time of respite, when the fierce opposition dissipates and the church enjoys a time of peace. Acts 9 talks about that.

It's wonderful when God blesses His people with financial abundance, lifting off the daily pressures, enabling His children to care for their hurting and needing, also helping them to spread the gospel around the globe. But let us never boast in our riches or numbers or buildings. Let us never become complacent or lose our sense of urgency. And let us never forget that the gospel always means the way of the cross.

That was written, friends, in the heart of India. All right, we'll be right back with your calls. Now's a good time to get in. 866-34-TRUTH. Thank you so much for joining us on the line of fire again. Thanks for those who prayed for me on the India trip.

From the moment I leave my home, traveling over there, so we'll tell you what, let me make sure you have the number again, 866-34-TRUTH, and I'm going to the phones momentarily. But from when I leave my home, this time I flew into Virginia, Dulles Airport in Virginia, then have a layover there for however many hours, then flew from there to Heathrow in London, a few hours layover there. Then from London to Mumbai, then get in there, I don't know, like three in the morning I guess I arrived, India time, got to the hotel, maybe slept for two hours, then got back up in the morning for the two flights.

You stay on the plane, but it's two flights to Vishakapatnam, and then get to the headquarters there. So probably 38 to 40 hours, it could be as much as 45 hours from when I leave my house to get there, and then the time differential is 10 and a half hours. So your body has no idea what's going on, what time it is, and normally you're really fighting jet lag, but I was by God's grace jet lag free. I just, I mean the healthy living, that's 99% of it, and just a supplement, a healthy supplement I was using, I'll tell you about it next year, I want to introduce it then and tell you about it, but that seemed to help. But anyway, and came home Saturday night, and I've been on normal schedule, normal sleep schedule, and as you can see, unless I sound jet lagged to you, I'm thriving full of energy now, so man, I can't commend healthy living to you enough.

What a difference it makes. All right, we go to the phones, 866-34-TRUTH, starting with Alex in Huntersville, North Carolina, welcome to the Line of Fire. Hello, Dr. Brown, how are you? Just fine, thanks. It's a pleasure to get to speak to you, my name's Alex, I'm a Jew from New York, born in New York City in 58, so we're similar background. I recently moved down here, and I caught you on the radio a couple of times, I immensely enjoy your program, I sat while you were in India, because it was just recently that I first heard you while you were in India, I looked it up on YouTube, and I've sat during this past week and probably listened to 10, 12 of your programs, which I enjoyed very much.

Awesome. Yes, no, no, and I've seen that you're very gracious with even some of your less gracious people that call in, which is really nice, and in listening to you and speaking of the truth, which is, to me, the most important thing is the truth. Faith in a lie is not faith.

It can't help you at all. And one of the, and many of the topics, of course, as I say, I'm a Jew, we have differences of opinions as to many things, but it comes down to what the truth is in the Bible. Okay, and the first program that I heard you speaking about was about a Trinity, about the Trinity, and it was a Jewish gentleman that was calling in and was asking about the Trinity in the so-called Old Testament, and to the points that you gave, which one of my things that I tell people is, you must always remember, as it says in the so-called New Testament, that Satan will deceive the world. It also says from cover to cover that with eyes you cannot see and with ears you cannot hear, things such as do not take from my words and do not add to my words, all the way from the Torah to the book of Revelation. If you add to my words, I will add to you the plagues of this book. If you take from my words, I will take your name from the book of life.

Now, I've seen that one of your first points to show a Trinity in the Old Testament is Genesis 1.26, which says to us, again, I believe in 3.22, again it says to us, man has become as one of us. Okay? And I've always, and I've been debating Christians for over 40 years, had the pleasure of speaking with some very scholarly people such as yourself, and I would ask to wear like 127, okay, Genesis 127, because us doesn't have a number to it.

Okay, us could be 3, us could be 3,000, okay, us could be as Rashi, and it was very, very nice for you to mention, like Rashi says, he could have been speaking to the angel. Okay? Which, you know, is very debatable, there's nothing to back that, okay? I find that rabbinical opinions are that, opinions.

Unless they're based in what is actually written. Right. Now you go to 127, and it says, he created them. Right. Okay, there's no we created them, it's he created them.

Mm-hmm. Thousands and thousands of times throughout the entire Bible it says, I. Mm-hmm. Okay, and I is not plural, one is, and I do understand the Christian point of view, that one means three, three meaning one, the egg, I've heard them all over the last 40 years. And I would ask, like, from the book of Isaiah, from chapter 40 to chapter 50, okay, and it's versed all the way through from cover to cover. Specifically, and to an extent you have to take out the Lord, because in my opinion the Lord is a totally deceptive word from Satan, to try to say, well it can mean either Jesus, or it can mean Yahvah, it can mean Elohim. And we both know that the tetragrammaton in the Old Testament appears right around 7,000 times. So when you put the name HaShem back in, okay, to where it is, when HaShem says over those 10 chapters, just because that is so intensely versed in this, where he says over and over, I alone, I Yahvah, and we have the discrepancy whether it's Vav is a V or a W. But when he says over and over, when Yahvah says, I alone have created everything, there is nobody with me, there is nobody like me, there is nobody that you can compare me to, over and over, and this would be what you would call the Father saying there is no one with me.

Okay, then we go to the book of John where it states, my Father is greater than I. Okay, all the way through. Just tell you what, let me just jump in. I wanted to give you space to express things, but since it's not a formal debate, and if you go 10 minutes and I go 10 minutes, we run out of time on the radio.

Yes, no, no, please. Yeah, so let me just ask you simply, are you an Orthodox Jew or no? I'm Orthodox in a very unorthodox way. I believe what is written, not so much what the rabbis say.

Okay, right, so you're not a traditional Jew, because you don't follow the tradition. No. Okay, all clear. But you consider the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures, to be God's word? Absolutely, well, it's Elohim's word, yes. Absolutely. Okay, got it, got it. Okay, all clear. And you reject the New Testament? No, I don't.

No, no, no, let me... I believe the New Testament as it is actually intended. It is a totally Hebrew book, books. It was written in Hebrew.

I ask people, you notice that in the end, I'm not a Christian, and then it... So, Alex, you're saying that Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians who were Greek, Paul himself was a Roman citizen born in the city of Tarsus, but you're saying that when he wrote to the Corinthians, say, who were Greek speakers who didn't know Hebrew, that he wrote to them in Hebrew? Okay, well, the letters, no, the letters would have been written, and most all the letters, if you look, they were written to Hebrews, unless it's specifically stated, okay? So when he wrote to the Thessalonians, when he wrote to the Thessalonians as pagans, right, as pagans, and spoke to them as Gentiles who came away from worshipping idols, so they were not Jews, they were pagans who went from idol worship to following the one true God, you're saying that he wrote to them in Hebrew?

Okay, I would ask you this. Did the Romans speak Hebrew? I'm not talking about the Romans.

Because they wrote... No, no, no, I know. Well, if the Romans... No, the Romans in Rome, did they speak Hebrew? No, the Romans in Rome did not speak Hebrew, no. Okay, I would dispute that, okay, to where before Christianity, Jews, well, as it says, you go a million miles... Can you give me textural evidence? Can you give me... Can you give me textural, not opinions, because we don't care about opinions, we only care about truth.

No, no, no. In the New Testament, it says you go, speaking to the rabbis, speaking to the Pharisees, he says you go, you know, so many miles to make one convert, and you make them ten times more. Okay, the Jews 2,000 years ago were all the way in Spain. We were the people that went out all over the world to tell people of Yavah, as Christians do now.

Okay, so hang on, hang on for a second. Textural evidence, why was the Septuagint done? Why was the Bible translated into Greek? Because in the diaspora, they didn't know Hebrew anymore. That's, I mean, this is not disputed, we have thousands of Greek manuscripts from the ancient world, we have no Hebrew manuscripts. The early church does preserve knowledge of one or two books that could have been written in Hebrew, or Hebrews written in Hebrew, or that Matthew also wrote a gospel in Hebrew, but we don't have any textual evidence. In fact, everything is to the contrary, everything we know is that Paul wrote in Greek, everything we know, all of the early fathers that are Greek-speaking, they're quoting Paul's writings in Greek. Nobody in the ancient world heard ever for a split second, Alex, for a split second that Paul wrote to the Corinthians in Hebrew, or that he wrote to the Thessalonians in Hebrew.

That would be like me speaking to you in Russian right now on an English radio broadcast and saying, oh, of course, everybody speaks Russian in America. Sorry, we'll be right back. We'll continue the conversation, and I want to get to some more calls, but we got a lot to talk about.

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 is Dr. Michael Brown. All right, I do want to chat a bit more with Alex, but I've got to get to some more calls. So, Alex, let's do this.

Let me give you a little proposal, okay? Since we can debate the meaning of different verses and dispute theologically, go back and forth, which I'm happy to do, but I want to give you a little challenge, a little assignment, and then you can research call back. Give me some ancient textual evidence, hard evidence, quotations, manuscripts. Find something that said that Paul wrote to the Corinthians or the Thessalonians or Galatians in Hebrew.

Find some ancient sources that verify that or some textual evidence of ancient manuscripts or something that would support the idea that Paul could write to Greek speakers in Corinth and they would understand Hebrew, all right, or in Thessalonia. Okay. And then... Can I... Go ahead.

Go ahead, sir. No, no, I was going to say when you have some actual sources, call me back and we'll continue the discussion. Well, I was going to say this because we both know that when the Romans destroyed Yisra'el, when they destroyed the temple, they utterly destroyed everything. They cut every tree in the country.

They decimated everything. There is absolutely nothing in Hebrew anywhere, okay? The Library of Alexandria burns. No, but hang on.

Okay, but I would... Okay, Alex, sorry, let me just try to set the record straight here. Alexandria is in Egypt, okay? Alexandria is in Egypt. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, they didn't simultaneously destroy, level all of Egypt, okay?

That's one thing. Second thing, we have, you know, we have the Bar Kokhba letters, so this is the war against Rome, 132 to 135, so this is after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. Now, a subsequent war, subsequent destruction, but we have that, and then we do have Dead Sea Scrolls, right?

We do have stuff from the ancient world. We have coins, we have graves, we have different things where we know that Hebrew was used, but we're talking within Jerusalem or Judea, right? That which existed over the land of Israel at that time. I'm saying, show me something where Paul, living outside of that area, outside of Jerusalem, writing, say, from a prison somewhere in Rome, is now writing in Hebrew to the Philippians or the Colossians, because he wrote those from prison. Just give me some textual evidence that he wrote to them in Hebrew, all right?

Because everything that we have says he wrote in Greek. So, the reason I'm pushing this one point is because I want to challenge the factuality of your arguments. In other words, before we discuss verses, because you said you've been debating this for 40 years, right?

Let's start with something tangible. You know, someone called a couple of weeks ago and was telling me that the name Yahweh, the Yah is masked in the way, is feminine. I had to jump in, and this is completely false.

The only one that said that is someone who has zero knowledge of Hebrew. And they said, well, I got a better revelation. Well, there was a false revelation. So, if I can get you to realize some of your, quote, facts are wrong, then maybe your interpretation is wrong. So, we'll continue, all right? But thank you for the call, and I've got my phone lines jammed.

I want to be fair to other callers, but we're beginning a conversation here, all right? So, that's the challenge, textual, factual evidence. Early church leaders saying that Paul wrote these in Hebrew and we translated them into Greek or something, somewhere.

Or that the Thessalonians, pagan, Gentile idol worshiper, could get a letter from Paul written in Hebrew, and he would understand it. Something, all right? Textual, factual. Hey, thank you. Thank you, sir, for the call, and keep exploring all of our YouTube videos.

We've got a couple thousand plus there. All right, let's go over to second in Tennessee. Welcome to the line of fire. Yes, thanks for holding. You're on the air. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead, guys. I do have some questions about the inquisition and the connection to the transatlantic slave trade.

Okay. It says in the source, the critical review or annals of literature volumes 57 through 58. King John II in 1492 expelled all the Jews to the island of St. Thomas, which had been discovered in 1471 into other Portuguese settlements on the continent of Africa. And from these banished Jews, the Black Portuguese, as they are called, and the Jews in Luango, who are despised even by the very Negroes, are descended. By these colonists, St. Thomas soon became a considerable place of trade, valuable for its sugar plantations 30 years after their settlement, not less than 150,000 pounds.

The engines of 60 sugar works turned by slaves, these Negroes were purchased in Guinea, Congo, and many Congo, and the colonists had plantations furnished with from 150,000 to 3,000 Negro slaves. And so that's just one of the references that is coming out about Sephardic, the phenotypical look of Sephardicism. Here's the problem with that is that the Jews were not expelled to places. In other words, the Jews were just kicked out of the country of Spain in 1492 because all non-baptized Jews were kicked out. They were not physically sent somewhere by the rulers. They were just kicked out of countries. The countries did not now put them on boats and send them somewhere. They didn't own them. They didn't have the power to do that.

All right? So if you just look, what's interesting is if you look on, oh, let's see, Jacob Kaplan has an article, Jewish Telegraph Association, I don't see the date here, the surprising Jewish history of St. Thomas Virgin Islands. Jews from Denmark first arrived on the white beaches of what is now St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a tiny speck off the coast of Puerto Rico in the mid-17th century. These were descendants of a Jewish population that had fled Spain for the parts of Europe during the inquisition, saying Thomas afforded them a certain religious autonomy that wasn't always available on the mainland. So it seems the source you're reading there is skipping some steps. So the Jews expelled from Spain went to different parts of Europe, okay, because you're kicked out. It's like if you get kicked out of your neighborhood, you go to the next neighborhood.

All right? So that's what they did. And then ultimately, as it said, Jews from Denmark, so they had been expelled from Spain, they went to different countries in Europe, they arrived in St. Thomas in the mid-17th century. So there is some Jewish history to St. Thomas, but it's not an African history. It's more of a Jews expelled from Spain going to other parts of Europe than fleeing Europe or just coming over to start a new life than making their way there.

So they weren't expelled or like sold there as slaves. So that's the part that's questionable. Follow? Yes, sir.

And I can understand that. There's another source from Nature Knows No Color Line, Research into the Negro Ancestry and the White Race by J.A. Rogers, page 123, 1952, Wesleyan University Press. It quotes the Dutchess, it quotes the Dutchess Abrantas. It says the Dutchess Abrantas, wife of Napoleon's ambassador to Portugal, said that the Jew, the Negro, and the Portuguese could be seen in a single person. So dark were the Jews, especially of Portugal and southern Spain, that many whites thought all Jews were black or dark.

Yeah, yeah. No, there's definitely reference. There's no question, sir, that there are references to dark-skinned Jews in different parts of the world over the centuries. You have Jewish chronographers, or chronographers, probably just made up the word there, Jewish history writers. And just give it their, you know, as they're journaling and they're traveling to different parts, they happen to mention, yeah, the Jews dark-skinned here. For a point of fact, through history, Jews have not been all white-skinned, obviously.

You know, a lot of white Jews think that's the case. But you start with Middle Eastern Jews who would have been brown-skinned, and then as Jews are in different parts of the world. Like, where we trace the white ancestry from is that Jews sold into slavery in Rome and had communities in Rome after the destruction of the temple, that they lived in Italy for so many years, and then as people convert to Judaism and marry in, so over a period of time, the Jews living there, the skin whitened and then ultimately made their way through other parts of Europe and into Germany, you know, the Ashkenazi Jews.

That's where they would stem from. The Sephardi Jews would have had a little different history. Yeah, but certainly, yeah, there were dark-skinned Jews, no question about it. And of course, we don't dispute the existence of black Jews or African Jews, I don't for a split second. Yeah, so the only part, sir, and I'm not intimately familiar with the history, that I have to dig into more that seems questionable to me, is this idea that Jews were expelled from Spain to St. Thomas.

That, I don't understand how they expel them anywhere except they kick you out of the country and then you migrate to different places. But if your point is that there are historical records of dark-skinned Jews that were then separate from Africans, yeah, definitely agree with that, no question. Hey, listen, I apologize. Was there any, I've got like 30 seconds, was there any main point you wanted to raise beyond that, sir? Yes, the main point I wanted to raise, and really quickly, in less than 30 seconds, is it possible that these black, Negro, Portuguese Jews were collected together with West African Jews and transported to the Americas in the slave trade? I can't comment on that. First, I don't think that they were Negroes, the Portuguese Jews, I think they were saying that they were similar in skin color.

I think that's the point that that chronicle was making, that remark was being made, not that they were the same as Negroes. To my knowledge, no, true question, but honestly, I haven't researched that specifically, so let me look at it, and if I learn something, I will let you know. Thank you for the questions and for raising them. Hey, David Carroll, others, sorry I couldn't get you, but I want to take as many calls as I can this week. God bless. That's the word DOS, D-O-S-E, to 66866, that's the word DOS to 66866, and that'll get you on the email list for my daily DOS devotion. Another program powered by the Truth Network.