The Key to Breaking the Yoke

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It all comes down to this. Only a healthy church can turn the tide in the nation. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity.

Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on The Line of Fire. And now here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to the broadcast to those just tuning in for the first time this year today. Happy New Year. May this year be a year of blessing. May the smile of God be upon you. May you experience his grace and goodness and get more deeply grounded in his truth and in the personal knowledge of him. That's my prayer, among many others for you. Welcome.

Welcome. Here's number to call. Phone lines are wide open for any question on any subject at all.

Off topic today doesn't matter. 866-348-7884. That's 866-34-TRUTH and I'll get to calls a little later in the broadcast. I've got some really important things to share with you that I believe are going to help you, stir you, encourage you. Pastors, leaders, believers, singles, parents, children, families.

I believe what I have to say will really help and encourage and strengthen you today. I want to read a quote from Charles Spurgeon who said this, a healthy church kills error and tears in pieces evil. We're not talking about attacking people. We're talking about ideologies. We're talking about falsehoods. We're talking about error. We're talking about deviation from God's purposes and norms.

Spurgeon said a healthy church kills error and tears in pieces evil. So I want to talk to you again today about getting healthy. Yesterday I shared my own journey in 2014 by God's grace.

And I say by God's grace, not lightly. I mean it from the heart going from 275 pounds to 180 pounds. Having my life totally transformed, not by dieting, but by getting rid of all the bad food always and by eating only healthy food. Thereafter, it has been life transforming.

And it's 67 going on 68 in March. I feel more vibrant, energetic, focused, clear headed, blessed physically. Then I can remember in years and years and years.

I literally feel as if I'm getting younger. I don't boast about tomorrow. My hope is in the Lord.

I take no credit. Like, look at what I did. I know that God helped me. And because he helped me, that's helped me to stay focused. That's helped me to not play games. That's helped me to not deviate. When pastors would pick me up from the airport, they knew me in the past.

And I came in, they saw the weight loss. When the first questions they'd ask is, how often do you cheat? And I would ask them, how often do you cheat on your wife? Now, I'm not comparing having a dish of ice cream, having a bowl of ice cream with committing adultery. But I am saying if you realize that it's wrong and for you it becomes sin, then you don't do it.

You don't play with it. I'm going to tell you why that mentality has been really important for me in a moment. But first, today I want to speak also about spiritual health. And tomorrow we're going to really dig into some heavy culture wars issues as we talk about a healthy church. And then Thursday, God willing, dig into what the Hebrew Bible says about the connection between spiritual wholeness and physical wholeness. I may also be doing an interview with a man who claims to be the Messiah of the world.

Yeah, we'll see what happens with that. And Friday is always taking your questions. And then next week we've got a new sponsor we're working with. Dr. Stengler is really keen on this wellness sponsor that we'll be working with. And we are going to introduce some exciting supplements to you.

They're not substitutes for healthy living, but they are supplements that can really help you in so many ways that I am enjoying the benefits of them even at this moment. But before I talk about keys to physical health, let me get back on the spiritual health point for a moment. It was in the spring of 1983, in early April 1983, that I heard the voice of God speaking to my heart clearly, saying, wake up the sleeping church, call God's people to repentance. The time is at hand. I had a sense of urgency and I've lived with that urgency for decades. The urgency of we only have one life, the urgency of so many lives hang in the balance, the urgency of one day will stand before God, the urgency of the return of the Lord draws nearer.

Right. The table is set in ways that it's ever been set for previous generations in terms of the return of the Lord. So living with that sense of urgency and this this wake up call has been part of my ministry in life for decades, preaching a wake up message, preaching a message of repentance and return to first love that's been foundational for years and years. The message of revival. If you're new to our ministry, we have three main R's we emphasize, revival in the church, gospel based moral and cultural revolution in society and the redemption of Israel, the salvation of the Jewish people. Those three R's. But the second and third R flow out of the first R, the church must be revived.

So this wake up call has burned in me for many years. A little over a year ago, I was really seeking the Lord at the encouragement of a friend and colleague. I was really seeking the Lord for more specific understanding of his purposes for our ministry. Lord, why are we on the air? Why are we doing what we do?

I could give you the three R's. I could tell you that we are your voice from moral sanity and spiritual clarity. But my friend was saying, there's something else you need to hear. There's something else God wants to say to you. And as I was in prayer a little over a year ago, I mean, in my spirit, it was like shouting in my spirit the Lord saying, get my church healthy.

Though not that I'm the only one to do it. I've got my little role. Everybody else has their little role. But this this was to be a focus of our ministry. Get my church healthy. You think for a second.

OK, wait, wait, wait. What how is that going to be so revolutionary? How is that going to be so radical? How is that going to bring about such dramatic change? I mean, doesn't that sound a little benign and almost non threatening to the kingdom of darkness?

But as I meditated, I thought, no, no, actually quite the contrary. The reason you want to wake the church up is not just to stop there, but now to see the church thriving and healthy and the purposes of God. And yes, physical health plays a role in that.

Physical health is important when it comes to that. But the reason that nothing else is going to happen effectively around us if the church is not healthy is simple, that that if the light is defective, as Jesus said in a different context in Matthew six, if the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? Our light must shine. Jesus said, if the salt is lost, it's saltiness.

What use is it? If we are here to be the moral conscience of the society, if we are here to be the light of the world and we ourselves are compromised, we ourselves are backslidden, we ourselves are worldly, we ourselves are beaten down. We ourselves are discouraged. We ourselves are spiritually unhealthy. How are we going to bring health to those around us?

It was just like this. Let's say that you're a doctor and and you help save many lives physically every single week with your medical practice. But now you yourself are sick and you are bedridden. And because you're bedridden, you can't get to the office. And in fact, you feel so miserable.

All you want to do is get under the covers and sleep. You can't help the people that you want to help. It's the same thing spiritually. If we ourselves are not walking in the life and power and beauty of the spirit, if we ourselves are not intimate with the Lord, how are we going to bring about positive change around us? We can't walk in the flesh and set people free in the spirit.

That's not going to happen. And I went back in my mind to Isaiah 10 27. Now Isaiah 10 27. Many know, especially Pentecostals, Charismatics know it in the King James and speaking of the yoke that was on Israel, the yoke of oppression from Assyria, and the yoke will be broken because of the anointing in Hebrew, it says me Pena shaman, so shaman would be a by form because of the last word in the sentence accent changes. And it would actually be the word shaman, which is oil, right? So the yoke will break because of oil. Well, what oil? Well, the oil of anointing, the Targum, ancient Jewish paraphrase translation actually says, Mashiach there, Messiah, that Messiah will break the yoke as if it's the oil of anointing, and from that you get to Messiah.

But that's a jump. The Hebrew says nothing about anointing, not a syllable about anointing. It simply says oil. Or if you change the vowels, the vowel points were put in later to reflect the best traditions that the Jewish scholars had.

But the vowel points are not part of the original written text. If you change the vowel points instead of shaman, change it to shaman, or instead of shaman, change it to shaman, that means fatness. The yoke will break because of fatness.

You say, what does that mean? It means that the animal has a yoke on its neck. And as the animal gets stronger and stronger, so a really healthy animal, you're going to slaughter the animal, right?

It's a fattened calf, right? So as the animal gets stronger and stronger and stronger and in this sense, fatter, the yoke breaks, the yoke breaks. This is not just the anointing comes momentarily and breaks the yoke. And yes, I believe that the anointing breaks the yoke. Jesus said the Spirit is on him to set the captives free. In Luke 4, quoting from Isaiah 61, we understand that. But this is a much more practical picture for our own lives. The yoke of oppression, the yoke of bondage, the yoke of worldliness, the yoke of fleshly addictions, the yoke of fleshly attitudes, the yoke of discouragement, unbelief, that yoke is broken as we get healthy.

Right? So take fatness here, not bodily fatness, which is not healthy, but spiritual fatness, meaning you're thriving, you're healthy, you're strong. I'm here on the air five days a week to help you thrive in God, not just survive, but thrive, help you be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Let me read this quote again from Spurgeon. A healthy church kills error and tears in pieces evil. And Spurgeon says this about William Wilberforce, who lived from 1759 to 1833 and was converted under the Ministry of John Wesley. And just a few days before Wesley died, Wesley wrote to him about Wilberforce's battle to eradicate slavery from the United Kingdom, which at that point seemed completely impossible. And Wesley said, unless God's with you, there's no way you're going to do it. No way.

Never happened. But if he's with you, maybe not only will you see slavery eradicated from the United Kingdom, but from America, the worst of all. See it eradicated from America as well. This is what Wesley wrote shortly before he died at the age of 88 in 1791. Spurgeon said this, not so very long ago, our nation tolerated slavery in our colonies. Philanthropists endeavored to destroy slavery, but when was it utterly abolished?

So people doing good did their best, but when was it abolished? It was when Wilberforce roused the Church of God. And when the Church of God addressed herself to the conflict, then she tore the evil thing to pieces. I've been amused with what Wilberforce said the day after they passed the act of emancipation. He merely said to her friend when it was all done, Is there not something else we can abolish? That was said playfully, but it shows the spirit of the Church of God. She lives in conflict and victory.

Her mission is to destroy everything that is bad in the land. Friends, if we can get healthy, if the Church can get healthy, America can be changed for the good. Right, going to go to the phones shortly. 866-348-7884. First, though, I want to tell you why it's so important not to play games with your health. 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. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey, for all of you who sent in year-end gifts to help with our ministry.

Thank you so much. We are really blessed. We are so encouraged by your generosity towards us. And as many of you have told us what our ministry means to you, all the more are we committed to standing strong.

Tomorrow's broadcast, you don't want to miss. It's going to be an eye-opener. And it's one of the reasons that people support us as we keep speaking the truth and love as the world goes crazy around us. We're determined not to go crazy with it. We are determined to stay with what God says.

We are this ridicule, reproach, whatever. God is true. God is faithful.

God's ways are best, period. The end, as my wife Nancy likes to say. 866-34-TRUTH. I'll get your call shortly, so appreciate your patience.

If you don't have the book Nancy and I wrote together, the one only book we wrote together, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, How We Conquered Food Addictions and Discovered a New Way of Living, I encourage you to get hold of it. There's a special offer this month. Go to our website, store.askdrbrown.org. So store.askdrbrown.org.

Just click on special. There's a special offer with the book and a powerful, encouraging video message that will stir your heart and give you faith, hey, if God could do it through me, can do it through you. So last night, in case you didn't follow the news, I know that every moment of every day there are people in critical condition in hospitals. I know that every minute of every day there are people hanging between life and death. There's a tragic car accident. There is there's a freak accident, someone just drops dead of a heart attack or something happens. So this is happening all the time.

But some things happen and just get the attention of the nation. That's what happened last night. I was watching the beginning of a football game, doing some writing. And then on my computer had the game on Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals. I was watching the beginning.

I thought, OK, let me just get back to work and doing what I'm doing here. And and then I just want to check the score later. Right. And I see game delayed. I thought game delayed. What would they delay a game? I mean, unless it's unless it's a lightning storm or something like that, you know, they are going to delay a game. I thought injury is only so long.

So I got back online and oh, boy, if you follow the drama and the shock of this, so it's a 24 year old player, Damar Hamlin. And just it was it was a collision, normal tackle. I mean, you see it happen every game multiple times and he stands up and then he collapses back to the ground. And and so this was not on camera then. You know, they were just talking about it afterwards. But emergency medical respondents right out on the field because NFL is quite ready because of the amount of injuries they have. But they're actually doing CPR on this young man CPR there.

And and it's in these, you know, it's like nine, 10 minutes CPR. And I'm talking about, you know, the shocks and things. And they rush into the hospital. And then, you know, you're waiting for hours for word. Like what's going on? You kind of feel paralyzed. Now, again, I understand the tragedies are taking place all over.

But this is one that just here's a guy playing. And next thing, he's hanging between life and death. Everybody praying and waiting for reports. And then he's his his heart's beating, but he's not breathing on his own. He's intubated and he's on a ventilator and what actually happened. The only thing I read by a cardiologist was that it looked to him one of these absolute freak accidents with nothing to do with football. It could happen in any other sport where you get hit in the chest a certain way in between heartbeats and suddenly your heart stops. And so an absolute freak accident, the typical types of accidents that the NFL is so careful about and trying to crack down on ways that they happen with head trauma and things like that or with leg injuries and arm injury, this this was a total fluke. What I read, this happens in lacrosse or baseball. Somebody just gets hit at that one split second. According to what I read, if this is what happened to this young man, it's 30 times in a year that it's reported. So, again, an absolute fluke to this moment. I just checked during the break.

There's there's still not a further update from the one really late last night, early this morning, in terms of his condition, still in critical condition. But it reminds you, it jars you with how fragile life can be. And it jars you with with being thankful for health and vitality. Here you have someone's obviously an athlete.

So an incredibly good physical condition. Right. But so many of us are sick. We're in pain. We're tired. We're not sharp mentally. We can't do a lot of the things important to us.

So many of us. It's not because of a fluke accident. It's not because of some genetic thing.

For some of us, it's because of our diet. We're doing it to ourselves. Doesn't love tell the truth? Doesn't Proverbs say open rebuke is better than secret love? Doesn't Proverbs say that the kisses of an enemy are profuse but faithful to the wounds of a friend? It is in love, it is in love for your calling, pastor, my brother. It is in love for the calling on your life.

My sister, it is it is in love that I say these things. Some of us are hurting ourselves. You know the saying digging our graves with forks and knives.

The lifestyle we're living. It may not catch up with you early, but as the years go on and I am a witness to it as the years go on, it does catch up to you and the ways you ate early. You think you were getting away from it.

You never were. You're contributing to the hardening of your arteries or the malfunction of your heart. When I got COVID a little over a year ago, I mentioned this yesterday and it seems so minor. I didn't even want to post that I had COVID because people might pray and get all concerned, but after a week I got worse and I could barely move. I didn't want to get out of the bed. I was terrified of getting out of the bed, the freezing cold and going to the hospital. And I mean, I was completely overwhelmed. What had happened was that COVID revealed issues with my heart. These issues had been there, but I didn't know about them.

Right. And this is after years of healthy eating. So what happened? Well, fifty nine years of unhealthy eating. I reaped what I had sowed. Fifty nine years of unhealthy eating from everything we could tell negatively affected parts of my heart. Thankfully, the rewards of healthy eating are such that it undoes a lot of damage.

Certain things can't be undone. I had a procedure done called an ablation. And thank God for the doctor who performed it.

And for God's grace, it came out the best possible case scenario. So I'm thriving even more now. I feel healthier now than I did a year ago, let alone three, let alone five, let alone ten, way healthier than I did ten years ago. So I just want to encourage you being healthy for your family.

You know, maybe you're fifty one years old and your daughter is going to be getting married in a year and you're already slowing down and you can't do the things you want to do. God forbid you're taken out of the way because of unhealthy eating. Look, I'd rather just go out restaurant with everybody and eat whatever everybody wants to eat and just have fun, but it doesn't work like that. So here's why I don't deviate. And by the way, I do have grilled meat on average once a week.

Sometimes it's less than that. Very, very rarely red meat. I go out with a special family event and have red meat and, you know, and just get it the most basic way. All right. But I don't deviate. I don't go back to chocolate. I don't go to fried things.

I don't go to dairy products and other stuff that I used to eat all the time. All right. But the reason that I don't deviate basically no exceptions.

All right is number one. God helped me. And because he helped me, I don't want to mess with it.

I want to play games with it's too sacred. He extended my life. We found out I had a condition that with a high blood pressure, I could have killed me. So God extended my life and has massively enhanced the quality of my life. So I'm here for you. I'm here to travel around the world and minister. I'm here to pour in to reach our Jewish people.

I'm here for Nancy and for our kids and grandkids. So that's first. I don't want to mess with it. God did something sacred in my life. The second thing is, what if I went back and ate some of the old stuff and suddenly I wanted it again?

Suddenly I was craving it again. By God's grace, I'm free from it. You see, Mike, you say by God's grace a lot because I'm conscious of it. I don't boast in my discipline. I boast in the Lord who's helped me.

He's intervened in my life. So I don't want to open the door right now. I'm often in restaurants on the road and with other people and they eat whatever they want to eat. And I'm fine with it. I mean, for their health, I hope they'd eat better. But it doesn't tempt me.

It doesn't bother me. What if I ate some of the wrong stuff and it suddenly opened up the door for all the old cravings and desires? That's the second thing. Third thing is, what if by eating something unhealthy now the healthy stuff didn't taste good anymore?

That's what I hadn't thought of. But Nancy pointed out to me because she had made the same mistake. She'd given herself cheat days and then fell off the wagon and realized, wow, it's a lot harder to get back on the wagon the second time. So it's cautionary for us. So if you eat unhealthy stuff, the foods that you've not gotten used to that don't have all the salt, don't have all the sugar and don't have all the other unhealthy elements.

I love eating them, right? But if I ate the old stuff, now the new stuff, it might not taste good anymore. And I might not just be craving the old, but not wanting the new.

And then the last thing, just so practical for me. If I could find an excuse to cheat today. Well, it's this one's birthday. Well, it's this one's anniversary. Well, it's this one's going away party. Well, it's Christmas. Well, it's Thanksgiving.

Well, I'm only in this country this one time. Well, I've been ministering data. So if I could find an excuse to eat unhealthily today, I could find an excuse to eat unhealthily tomorrow.

And all the people that I've talked with personally who started well and then messed up, it's because they gave themselves cheat days, you say, but I can't live without hate and Jesus. You can live without food addiction. You can be set free. And I'm telling you, the reward is so wonderful that I don't feel I don't feel deprived. I do not feel deprived.

I am thriving and thoroughly, deeply enjoying the blessings of life. So go to store that ask Dr. Brown dot org, click on special, take advantage of the book and video offer. We're here to help. And as soon as we come back, I mean it. I'm going straight to the phones.

Thanks for your patience. That's where we start when we return. 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. Phone lines are wide open. 866-34-TRUTH. Remember, if you don't have our app, it is so convenient. It is so helpful. It is right there at your fingertips. Latest articles, latest podcasts. You can listen live wherever you are. If you have cell phone connection, ask Dr. Brown Ministries, Ask DR Brown Ministries on Apple, Android, Google. Make sure you download it.

If you enjoy it, post a positive review. All right. We go to the phone starting in Richmond, Virginia. Daniel, welcome to the line of fire. Well, thank you, Dr. Brown, for the opportunity to be on the line of fire and for all that you do for the kingdom.

You're very welcome. I had a quick question for you. If possible, I'd love to ask the second question. But my main question is that in Genesis 4, the Bible says that Adam knew Eve, his wife, and they had Cain, which seems like Cain was the first child that they had or whatever. But that's where when Cain kills Abel and God punishes Cain, Cain says that my punishment is too great to bear and that everyone who comes in contact me will want to kill me. So my question is, like, where did these people that would kill Cain come from? Did Adam have other children that we don't know about? Or was there like another pre-existence society? That was my main question.

Yeah. And, you know, this is a this is a common question that people have when reading Genesis. It's a logical question. And the key is if you just keep reading in Genesis, the fourth chapter, it does mention Adam and Eve having other sons and daughters. So initially the human race in the first generation had to intermarry. Right. In other words, a physical child of Adam and Eve had to marry another physical child or grandchild of of Adam and Eve. Right.

Those were those were the only options initially as things spread out. But yes, the Genesis for us, as you keep reading, it does reference them having other children. Now, when Cain is killed, it specifically references having Seth.

Right. You know, so he's the one in that sense that takes the place. But here in Genesis, the fourth chapter, as we scroll down, oh, let's just see. So in the fourth chapter, he gives that whole account.

We get into the fifth chapter, then it mentions even after the burying of Seth, which is in verse twenty five. This is the book of the generations of Adam chapter five. God created man. He made him in the image of likeness of God, male and female.

He created them. He blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam lived one hundred thirty years, he followed the son of his own likeness after his image and named them Seth. Days of Adam after he fathered Seth for a hundred years and he had other sons and daughters, so it mentioned specifically other sons and daughters. And it also skips here over Cain, over Abel and just mentioned Seth. So, yeah, they just had more kids. And initially that's how the earth was populated. And then once the Earth's humanity grows, then there are laws against incest and things like that.

But initially, the very first born would have had to be with other first born and then it goes from there. You can ask a second question. Go ahead. Sure.

Thank you so much. My next question was and I'm sure you've gotten it before, but how do we like when I was younger, I remember I really like, you know, leading up to Easter, the whole Passion Week and stuff. How do we reconcile the whole John 12, Matthew 21, Mark? You know, Mark, like the differences between how John says that the Palm Sunday happens apparently after Bethany's visit, whereas Mark and Matthew have the idea of what's happening on Sunday, there seems to be a difference in the timeline between John and the other gospels. How do we reconcile that?

Right. So let me give you the simple answer first. The simple answer is we recognize in many cases that we have different eyewitnesses or different ancient reports from different perspectives telling us the same story, in which case they sometimes appear to be contradictory. I'll give you an example when you have the transfiguration that's mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke. So they all mention that they all mention it in the same context.

Jesus saying there's some here who won't taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. Then one says that it's after six days and the other says on the eighth day. Right. Well, that's just two different ways of saying the same thing.

Right. So if if let's say today is Tuesday, right, then after six days. So so so after Tuesday, right, so then you add six days to that. So now it's Tuesday, your Monday of the next week. And then it happens after that. So that's that's next Wednesday.

Or you could say it's the eighth day from today. It's just two different ways of describing the same the same thing. And J. Warner Wallace, who is famous as the cold case detective, said that when he would read the gospels, they bore witness of truthfulness because when he would interview people that read a crime scene or involved with something, if they all told them the exact same story, the same way he knew there was collusion between them, because he knew that that genuine eyewitnesses are all going to report things a little differently. So the overall story is absolutely totally clear between them. But there are some apparent discrepancies. So that's where you dig into more deeply.

You dig into some of the the harmonies of the gospels or New Testament commentaries. If you just check out a colleague that's been on the air with me recently, Professor Jonathan McClatchy. So M.C.

C.L.A.T.H.I.E. Jonathan McClatchy. If you just type that in and then look for gospel discrepancies or death of Jesus, just search for those general things. He's done some really good in-depth teaching on this recently. There's also the Talk About Doubts website. Hang on.

Let's see if I. If it's TalkAboutDoubts.com, let me just check here. And this is where they've got teams of scholars that have come on and said, hey, we'd love to help you with your questions and people can actually interact. Talk About Doubts. TalkAboutDoubts.com.

Yep, submit a question. So check it out. TalkAboutDoubts.com. And a lot of the questions they've got great resources for.

It's a good place to go. So the long answer is, if you dig deeper, you find that there are answers. Sometimes it's a certain phrase used a certain way, certain Jewish background, things like that. You know, sometimes we're dealing with a Roman way of keeping time with a Jewish way of keeping time.

We talk about the beginning of the week or the first day and things like that. You know, that occurs in other places. But what I discovered, Daniel, over the decades is the deeper I dig, the more answers I get. In other words, it's not the deeper I dig. It's like, wow, we have an insuperable problem. But ah, there are answers to the apparent contradiction.

So I don't struggle with them because I know it's been 51 years of digging that there are good, solid answers. I say thank you, sir, for the call. Much appreciated. 866-344-TRUTH.

Let's go to Max in Miami, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Shalom, Dr. Brown.

Shalom. Thank you for taking my call. And I want to also encourage you to keep on with your amazing message on the lifestyle of eating and health. I I'm going on a cruise this Sunday.

I'm a little depressed after that message, but it is what it is. Well, you know, two things with that. One is if you've been determined to make a lifestyle change, probably wait till after the cruise. The other is the one time we were on a cruise. You're not required to eat like a pig. In other words, the food is there, but you're not required to eat like a pig, you know, or to only eat unhealthy stuff, and you probably get good amounts of salads and fruits and other things, and you that the first I do that the first day with the cruise, I do I do the salad thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, like I said, if you're making a lifestyle change, probably wait till after the cruise. But yeah, anyway, that's a great word.

Yeah. So also, I'm still waiting for you to receive our blessing. Twenty years ago, I offered you some prescription glasses at Cornerstone Church, but I'm still waiting. But that's OK. All right. Hey, so where where is so you're in Miami?

Miami, all right. Next next time I'm I'm I'm near you. We'll have to shoot us a note right into the ministry told me that's what you told me last night.

But yeah, she should have known it. And then when we're down your area, I'll take you take you up on your offer. Go ahead. Well, that's well, that's great. OK, so I know we don't have that much time to give a lengthy backdrop on how I came to this question. So I'm I'm going to shoot right at it.

Yeah, we're dealing with Malachi three six. I am the Lord and I change not for the last six months. I've been privileged by the Ruach HaKadosh to have the stage with the Orthodox on the barber to Rabbi in Miami Beach. And we've been dialoguing. And yesterday I was on the beach. I called you. But we some reason the enemy did not let us go through. He was he was with me and one of the statements he made was that he was acceptable.

Yes, you are. Mashiach has his Lord and Savior. He'd have no problem if he was the Messiah.

And then he came at me and and he said, Malachi three six. How do you explain when Hashem said? To keep the Shabbat, the Shabbat and quite honestly, I unfortunately, I didn't have the answer for him.

Yeah, so it's a very, very simple, very simple answer. Very simple answer that God gave the Sabbath to Israel as part of the Sinai Covenant, right? There's no there's no evidence that he called Abraham, Isaac, Jacob to live by the Sabbath. Even though he sets it apart of creation, there's no evidence of the reference to them keeping the Sabbath. Exodus 16 is when they're introduced to the Sabbath. And this is now part of the Sinai Covenant, right?

And it was required along with many, many other things in the Sinai Covenant that were required. And we broke the covenant and we broke the covenant and we broke the covenant. So God said in Jeremiah thirty one that he would make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. And that's where that Jeremiah chapter thirty one versus thirty one to thirty four, Jeremiah thirty one versus thirty one to thirty four.

Now, here's what's going to happen. He'll say to you, yes, but it says that God will now put the Torah in our heart. But that doesn't mean that everything that's currently in the five books of Moses is necessarily part of the new covenant.

So the short answer is that Sabbath observance, just like many other things under the Sinai Covenant, death penalty for disobedient, rebellious children, death penalty for adulterers, death penalty for sorcerers, and many other things were required under the Sinai Covenant. And and he would not say that they are required today. He would say that the rabbis made changes and things like that.

So, in fact, I will tell you what, I'm going to come back to this on the other side of the break. But the short answer is we failed. God made a new and better covenant. And Torah does not necessarily mean just the five books of Moses, but God's teaching.

All right. So if keeping Sabbath could have saved us, we would have been saved a long time ago. Instead, we're condemned by our failure to keep the Sabbath.

And now Jesus comes to bring us into the Sabbath rest that God intended. We'll be right back. This is the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling eight six six three four Truth.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. Eight, six, six, three, four, truth number to call. OK, Max, I would encourage you to get hold of volume five. It's called The Volume Five of my series answering Jewish objections to Jesus and to go through it with this rabbi, volume five of answering Jewish objections to Jesus. And I would say, OK, if the rabbi is saying that God doesn't change right. Well, he says in Deuteronomy twice, don't add, don't take away from the commandments.

Right. So when you pray the Sabbath prayer, when the woman prays the Sabbath prayer over the candles and lights the candles and says that you have commanded us to say this blessing, right, you've commanded us to kindle these candles. Say, where is that? That's added to the Torah.

It's not there. They commit. Well, he says, well, if the command is to listen to the rabbi. Oh, well, now the rabbis can add anything.

Ask him, why is he wearing a yarmulke? That's the latest thing that's not in the Bible at all. And most of the things he does are not found in the Torah.

They are rabbinic additions to the Torah. So you could say you're upset with me saying that I'm taking away. Right. And I'm telling you, you're adding for every one thing you say I've taken away.

You've added 10 or 20. So how is that God not changing? The fact is, God in his essential nature doesn't change. But even rabbinic tradition says that in the age to come, you won't have like atonement offerings, but just Thanksgiving offerings. So things will change. Even traditions about foods that are unkosher will become kosher.

That's a secondary thing. So just say that we fail to keep the Sabbath. We fail to keep the commandments. God gave us a new and better covenant. We receive forgiveness in Messiah and we enter into the spirit of the Sabbath through Yeshua.

And in fact, probably most messianic Jews keep the Sabbath as well on the seventh day, but that's not to save us. Hey, Max. Hopefully that is helpful. God bless. I appreciate it. If you have further questions, write to us as well. We're very happy to answer your questions directly via email. All right.

Let us go over to Blake in Nashville, Tennessee. Thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, thank you so much for taking my call. I've learned so much from you over the years.

Appreciate that. Yes. So I have two quick questions. The first one would be in the context of church leadership. I believe in the expression of the fivefold ministry with apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, but also an eldership. Of course, the office of the deacon as well. But I was hearing a guy recently and I'm not going to say his name, but you're connected with him and he was discouraging using the term lead pastor instead using senior leader and my wife and I are in the early stages of pioneering a church here in Nashville.

We have two boys under two. So we're having a lot of fun. But my question is, if you could prescribe language and I know that title in terms are really not that big of a deal when servant leadership, I mean, it's we don't want to be top down, we want to be bottom up. And we really fall a call to raise up and release or send people. But so my simple answer is my simple answer is it's really, really secondary.

All right. Whether you whether you have a title or not, it's really, really secondary. The key thing is that there's a calling on your life that's lived out that people recognize it and follow accordingly.

Yeah, but a lot of it is cultural. In other words, in certain for example, one one church colleague of mine was the lead pastor, senior leader, whatever you want to call it, and he liked just to be called by his first name. And there was a brother there from Africa and referred to him as pastor.

So and so. And he goes, I just like you to call me by my first name. He goes, no, no, that would be dishonoring in my culture.

I couldn't do that. When one of my colleagues was leading a Messianic congregation and an old Jewish woman came to faith, she called him rabbi. You're the leader of the congregation. You're my rabbi.

So he thought, I'm not going to try to talk her out. So so whatever is culturally suitable to me, I don't know why someone would make a big difference between senior leader and lead pastor to me, it's just six of one half dozen of the other. So whatever you're comfortable and helps convey to the people that you're there to serve and lead. We're very familiar with pastoral ministry. So using the pastor, all elders should be shepherds on some level and hence involved in pastoral ministry. But if you are the founding leader and you'll have a team of elders, but it'll be plurality with headship, you'll be the lead elder. You could be called the lead elder. You could be called the lead pastor. You could be called the senior leader, the senior pastor.

Or you could just be Blake. You know, I'm privileged to lead this congregation. You know how whatever works naturally, don't get hung up on it. Don't get hung up on it. All right. Yeah.

And then the last question. If you were in my shoes, pioneering a work, planting a church, what would you want someone to tell you in the very early stages of this work? So we've been spending a lot of time in prayer, worship, and just really learning how to host God's presence and then establishing culture.

Right. So I would say very, very clearly, Blake, you need to have a clear. Why is God calling me to do this? Why is God calling our family to do this? What is our vision? What is our purpose?

Because it's very easy to get off that purpose and things can change over time. But if you're called to plan, okay, why are we here? What's our vision? What's our purpose? What's our specific mission?

We're not comparing ourselves to anyone else. Why are we here? But you want to be focused with that and then really gather around you people of like heart, like mind, and then feed in, build them together with this common vision. And this is why we're here. And this is what drives us.

And this is always what's in front of us, because many times along the way, other good things happen and get us sidetracked. So that's what I would say. What is the vision? Write it down. Make it clear. Even at the risk of being redundant, as new people come in, you keep emphasizing it so that it becomes part of the culture, that you actually have a spiritual culture with those particular goals.

I say that is super, super important. May the Lord bless you and guide you. All right. Let's go to Rudolph in Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Yes, sir, if the term Jewish come from the tribe Judah, why does everyone refer to the Hebrews as Jewish and not Hebrew? Yeah, great question, Rudolph. So here's what happened. The northern tribes, the 10 northern tribes of Israel were exiled and scattered with only remnants of them remaining in the north.

Right. Then in the southern, the kingdom of Judah, they go into exile. Now they come back and they are now where they live. It's called the province of Judah or Yehud in Hebrew.

And someone who lives there is a Yehudi. So basically, at this point, any of the 12 tribes that were scattered, that were exiled, the only place that they were really identifiable as a people in a single place was there in Judah. So that over the set, so you had people from Israel scattered around the world, right, and you had them maintaining identity on a certain level.

But at a certain point, it all funnels through there. So by the time you get to the New Testament, instead of just referring to Judeans as the people of Judah only, that this term Judean or Jewish referred to all the people. So it's because it all got funneled through the southern kingdom of Judah, and the others got largely scattered and exiled. So on the one hand, if you're a descendant of Aaron, if you're a descendant of Manasseh, if you're a descendant of Ephraim, if you're a descendant of Reuben or any of those, you still are technically part of the Jewish people worldwide.

And that's New Testament terminology. The 12 tribes of Israel are also called the Jews. Now, you could say technically, this person is not a Judean. They're an Israelite, right, the Lemba tribe in Zimbabwe, right, African Jews or Ethiopian Jews, you know, they would trace their descent differently. But worldwide, they would still be recognized as part of the Jewish people today. So it's basically think of it like a funnel that the different scattered tribes ultimately make their way through Judah and then are called Judean, hence Jewish. So the 12 tribes of Israel around the world are called Jews. Now, are we also Israelites? Yes, we're also Israelites, but we're just more commonly known as Jews.

And that was common terminology in the New Testament. OK, thank you very much. You explained it perfectly. Thank you very much. Have a good day. All right.

You are very welcome. Oh, do I have time? OK, Robert, I do not have time to take your call. But I will be tell you what, I'm going to look up your verses.

Is there a connection between Psalm 119, verse 62 and Acts 16, 25? Off the top of my head, I've got to look those up. So I'm going to do that, sir. And I will answer that question at my earliest opportunity. But I don't want to rush the question and then not have a chance to get it answered. So but you got me intrigued. That's what I'm doing. The moment this show ends, looking up the verses, because off the top of my head, I'm not getting the connection, but you've had some good questions in the past.

So I will check this out and give an answer. Remember, if you need some encouragement, help jumpstart the year with a call to healthy living. Oh, is it worth it? You know, I was I was teaching a class, mainly folks older, 40, 50, 60 and some even older. And I talked for two hours and we had a break.

It was a night class. I said, let's get the blood flowing a little bit. And I said, if you can count, you count and I'll do jumping jacks. So I did, you know, I did one hundred jumping jacks and then just went to teach. It was no big deal to do one hundred jumping jacks. But I was joking with them. I said, the key is to do the hundred and go straight into teaching without even breathing. Just go right into it.

I did it to encourage him to say, hey, healthy living. All the benefits are massive. So go store that. AskDrBrown.org, click special and get hold of the book and video. Tomorrow, you can be stirred. Don't miss the show. Another program powered by the Truth Network.