Cultivating a Healthy Brain

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Is there something you can actually do to get your brain more healthy? 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. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire.

Michael Brown, blessed and delighted to be here with you. About once a month, we put a focus on physical health, on mental health. We always put a focus on spiritual health. But today we're going to actually talk about brain health, and I'm sure you're going to learn something. I think it's going to be eye-opening as we explore the wonder of the human brain, the way God made it. And is there anything we can do to prevent cognitive decline, especially as we get older? Michael Brown, welcome to the Line of Fire.

I'm going to open the phones. If you have a question for my guest, Dr. Paul Burnett, who is the Director of Clinical and Wellness Services at TriVita, our co-sponsor here on the Line of Fire. If you have a question related to brain health, give us a call at 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Many years ago, I was flying somewhere, speaking to the woman sitting next to me. She was a doctor from the Philippines, a Christian woman, and found out that she worked on the brain. I forget if she was doing research or if there were surgery-related things, but she was an expert in this. And I said to her, how much do we understand the brain's functions? Because there's actually very little.

I mean, it's that much of a wonder. And yet a lot of times when we think of mental health, we just think of emotional health and psychological health. But what about the physical brain itself?

What about the health of the brain? Here to help me sort this out is Dr. Paul Burnett. Dr. Burnett, welcome back to the Line of Fire. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. I'm excited to be here today and talk with you and your listeners about brain health and really what we do know.

I know you mentioned there's not a lot that we know about the brain, but we do understand a lot of its functions and even how to support our brain, and particularly as we age. Awesome. All right. And that's every one of us is aging.

And those of us that are a little older, I think we'll listen all the more carefully. Okay. Talk to me about first the brain. I see in my notes, the brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons, making trillions of connections, right? What goes on in the brain?

Talk about it. Well, it's easier to understand what goes on about the brain when we talk about its functions, because we utilize these functions on a daily basis. So that could be our analytical thoughts, such as math and science and reasoning, logic.

Even our left hemisphere of our brain, believe it or not, really functions the right side of our bodies. So I think our listeners can comprehend like, oh, yeah, no, I understand those analytic functions of the brain. But there's also kind of the imagination part and creativity, emotions, you know, our relation to space and, you know, like, as much as that left hemisphere is running the right side of the body, the right hemisphere of our brain is operating the or functioning the left side of our bodies. And, you know, I think one of the most important things to understand is for things like that to work properly, we have to understand that the brain functions on specific frequencies. And so, you know, I think we've all heard of beta, and we've heard of gamma waves and alpha waves, theta waves, delta waves, but like, what does all that mean? Well, you know, again, we want these functions of our brains to work properly, we want good memory, we want good cognition, meaning just how long it takes our brain to figure something out. Particularly those things we want to figure out quickly, but we have to understand when these frequencies get heightened, or they get overwhelmed with thoughts of fear and worry and rumination and high stress, you know, all those things are going to contribute to sleeplessness, you know, feeling more having that melancholy or depressed feeling or anxious irritability, you know, even our immune system is dependent on these kinds of waves or frequencies. All right, so when you talk about operating on a frequency, so I'm not scientifically mechanically oriented, but I'm thinking about, okay, I'm in the car, right, and in the old days, maybe radio signals not as clear, but I'm coming into one area, out of an area, and I'm trying to get this signal, trying to lock on with a frequency. Take me from there to how the brain works on frequencies.

Right, so again, when our fight and flight response kicks in, right, so something stressful occurs, maybe it's a loss of something, maybe it's a high stress environment at work or, you know, different things like that. What we have to understand is beta will take control, and when beta takes control, then these lower frequencies kind of get overrun by that frequency, and again, to be stressed for a moment, not a problem. You've got great resilience, God's given us great resilience to overcome these things, but when those thoughts or those stressors in life continue over long periods of time, that beta really sets in, and you know, so gamma is a lower frequency, like 30 hertz or so, and it's increased while we're alert, and also decreases when we're sleeping. But what would happen, Dr. Brown, if beta was still super high?

Well then, how do you, what is your alertness like when you're waking state, and how are you able to go to sleep? And so, you know, the Bible is very clear that, you know, God wants to give us, you know, perfect rest, but He also says He doesn't want us to be anxious about anything, and He wants us to learn to trust Him. And this is where we can really start to put in, in my mind's eye, the Word of God into action in our lives, to really get to that point of taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and to understand that God will let us know what we need to know when we need to know it, but if we're constantly in that high-stress mindset that beta has taken over, it's even difficult to even, you know, connect to God and hear Him clearly as well. All right, so I'm experiencing something emotionally, spiritually, that's very real, right?

Fear or confidence or trust or stress. It's very, very real. I'm experiencing it, and so having a panic attack or fear attack is very, very real. Someone with a deep sense of peace is very, very real. But you're saying that that also relates to something physical happening in the brain.

So, yes, there's spiritual realities and emotional realities, but it's coming to us by way of physical reactions in the brain. So, with that in mind, we, in recent decades, found out much more about the existence of Alzheimer's and what close to 7 million Americans over 65 years old are dealing with this, 65 years old are dealing with this. It's one thing when the body starts to break down. At least, you know, your mind knows what's going on. So, it's debilitating. It's hurtful. It's, you can't do what you used to do.

You're in pain, right? So, bodily disease, that's an issue. But what about the deterioration of the brain, cognitive decline? Can anything be done to reverse that, prevent that, slow it?

Well, there is a lot that can be done to slow it. And there was a, there's a doctor by the name of Dr. Dale Bredesen. He's a medical doctor. He's a world-renowned neurologist. And he's written a wonderful book called The End of Alzheimer's. And its subtitle is The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline in Dementia.

And what he has discovered is that there are natural things that we can do even in the early stages of Alzheimer's and dementia that we can do. But I want to back up before we even get there because, you know, I know that there are so many people out there that have parents or grandparents that have, you know, gotten Alzheimer's and dementia and there's almost like this fear or stigma of that. What if that happens to me, you know, a child of God?

You know, my grandmother was a child of God and yet this happened to her. What I want people to know is, is acting before you have symptoms is the key to really doing your part and in mitigating your risk of getting that disease. And, you know, there's a wonderful side of science called epigenetics.

And I'm not going to get into the depth of it. But what it really says is, is just because you have a genetic disposition in your genes for Alzheimer's or those kinds of things does not mean you will ever get it in your lifetime. So learning how stress affects the brain, learning how our nutrition affects the brain, our inflammatory markers, which I'm going to talk about a little bit deeper in the show, how those things over long periods of time can actually cause damage to brain tissue. And so, you know, the sooner we can get on board with more of a self-care program, the better chances we have of mitigating our risk of getting this in our lifetime.

All right. So for those that are listening yourself, family member, friend, they're not just inevitabilities. Well, this runs in the family. I've heard people talk about, well, my family has a history of heart disease.

Many times you find out the history of heart disease also relates to history of lifestyle and certain life habits. So where does someone start? I mean, it's a big subject.

We've got about a minute and a half before the first break. Give us a starting point here. Someone's concerned about the health of their brain. Where do we start?

What's the first thing they can do? Well, let's make sure that we have plenty of essential fatty acids. There's really good science to show that in fish oil would be an example of that. You know, the brain requires a lot of fat. You know, we could go back when I was a kid and we were told, well, no, stay away from fat. You know, eat the margarine instead of the butter. And again, that's not a essential fatty acid as far as is omega fatty acid three. But there was such a stigma against fat. Well, now you're starting to understand, oh man, I need fat for my body. In fact, my body might run better on fat and more of a keto kind of a diet than it does on carbs and sugar. And so, you know, the more we can begin to understand and we're going to really get into this as soon as we come back, I want to talk to people about something called type three diabetes, which, you know, again, start with your weight, you know, get your waist circumference under a healthy level and maintain that.

Do your regular tests with your doctor, which I'll cover some of those in this next segment as well. But it's just critical that we understand that our nutrition and our activities are so incredibly powerful that if we don't incorporate those things, it can be a real challenge long term. All right. So friends, think of this nutrition lifestyle activities. It doesn't just affect risk physical body. It can affect your brain as well. Lasting good brain function ties in with how you live today. It really does. We'll be right back.

Hey friends, Michael Brown here. Many of you know about the radical health transformation. My own life starting August of 2014 went from 275 pounds to 180 pounds, less than eight months, not by dieting, but by radical lifestyle transformation, getting rid of the bad, unhealthy things, eating only healthy foods. I've kept it up by God's grace now for nine years, going from three headaches a week to no headaches in nine years. Blood pressure as high as 149 over 103 now, maybe 105 over 70 on average.

I mean, radical transformation. And I encourage you to look at your life, look at your diet, ask, are you going in the right direction or do you need to make some changes? I also want to help you with on a very practical level. I have added into my life as well, some great supplements from our co-sponsor Triveda. In fact, that's why we work with them because I have personally benefited from these as well. I want to commend to you three in particular, nitric oxide, which helps with blood flow, oxygen, energy level, mild health, which helps with skeletal structure muscle, which is really important as you get older. And nopalea, which deals with chronic inflammation. In fact, I've learned that that's the number one killer worldwide, chronic inflammation. I take these three supplements every single day.

As I travel around the world, I travel with these and I want to encourage you strongly check them out for yourselves. 800-771-5584. Get your free online health consultation. 800-771-5584 or go to triveda.com. Use the code BROWN25. You will get a 25% discount on your entire order, whatever size it is. And 100% of your first order will go to support the line of fire and more than a tithe of all subsequent orders.

I use these. I commend them to you. 800-771-5584. 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. I just want to share this honestly with you from the heart before we get back to our guest, Dr. Polburn, that for years now, it's been nine years, August make nine years since God helped me to radically transform my life. I rejoiced in what he had done in my life. If I was sitting with leaders having a meal and they'd ask me about lifestyle change and all of that, I would share freely.

I didn't talk about things that much and certainly never want to make someone feel guilty or under pressure or condemned. And, you know, I didn't eat a healthy way for 59 years in my own life. I love the Lord, but 59 years I didn't eat in a healthy way.

And God really helped me make radical changes. But I've been feeling more and more for several years now growing and growing of the importance of helping others get healthy. I mean, it's life and death. It really is, especially getting older and knowing there's so much we can do to not just prolong our lives, but enhance the quality of life. So, we're really committed to encouraging you on every level and once a month to really just focus on that. On the show, we'll get to all the apologetics, all the controversial issues, all the moral-cultural issues, but this is very, very important. As one doctor said, you'll never fulfill your life goals if you're chronically ill or dead. And certain things are in our power. Now, we'll mention this, we'll get to this later, but if you only have another couple of minutes and you want to find out about our co-sponsor TriVita and anything that ties in with brain health, call 800-771-5584 and ask about NeuroShine.

Call 800-771-5584 and ask about NeuroShine. So, we'll get to that in a little while with our guest, Dr. Burnett. In fact, we are reconnecting with him as I speak.

There's just a couple of phone line issues. So, as soon as I see he is back on, I will get over to him. But I am, if you hear me as doctor, but I'm not a medical doctor for those who just tune in and don't know that. I'm not a medical doctor. I am not an expert on nutrition. I am not an expert on anything medical. I'm an expert on the Hebrew word for healing. I did my doctoral dissertation on that and what the Bible teaches about healing.

I have some expertise there, all right? But even the way I live, the lifestyle, the way that I live and conduct myself, my wife Nancy studied, dug, read about nutrition for decades, really, when she came across Dr. Joel Fuhrman's teachings about Nutritarian diet, lifestyle, it made a ton of sense to her. And once she understood it, and then I realized I needed to make some changes, I said, okay, let's show me what to do. So, to this day, I can't even explain like, I eat this for this reason and this for this reason.

If I had Nancy here, she'd explain this does this, this does this, this is better, for this reason, this is good, for this reason, right? But here's what I do understand. God made our bodies in extraordinary ways. God made our bodies in highly unusual ways that are, I mean, it's so beyond the pale of what we can understand. I was reading one book about God's design of the human body. And it was talking about the circuitry in our brain would be like equal to the electrical circuitry of a whole city. I mean, just these mind boggling concepts and the meticulous way that we've been designed and what's happened, even as I'm speaking, even as we're just sitting, doing whatever we're doing, all the functions that the brain is carrying out, trillions of things, signals being sent out over weeks and days and just, again, almost inconceivably great. The way God made our nutritional system, the way God made our eyes to see and our ears to hear and all of this, it is absolutely mind boggling. It's the only way I could describe it.

What David describes in Psalm 139 is fearfully and wonderfully made. Here's my point. You want to cooperate with the body that God gave. You want to cooperate with brain that He gave.

So if I know, for example, that eating food A brings me short-term satisfaction, short-term good feelings, but long-term health issues, long-term grogginess, long-term fatigue, long-term sickness, long-term depression, shortens my life, saps my energy, increases pain, whatever the case may be, right? If I know that, just stay with me for a second, all right? You said, Dr. Brown, I tuned in to be lifted up and now you're discouraging me. You're going to get lifted up, but the truth is not always pleasant, but it's for our good, right? It's for our good. Truth is always our friend, okay?

So here's the reality. If I know, okay, I'm going to eat this bag of Peanut M&M's. That was one of my favorite things. I'm going to eat these Peanut M&M's now. It's going to satisfy our craving. It's going to lessen a sense of need and addiction. I'm going to enjoy the taste and maybe even get like a little boost from it, but it only hurts my body. It doesn't contribute anything positive to my physical well-being.

It doesn't contribute anything positive to my long-term health. Isn't that sin? Isn't that sin? I was watching a presentation with Dr. Fuhrman the other day and he raised his kids to eat healthily and he said, his kids always wondered, dad, why do parents poison their children? Fuhrman's talking about, you know, kid does well playing baseball and comes into the stands after the game, you give him a donut. He goes, why give him a donut?

You might as well give him cocaine. So that's harsh. Okay, so again, I'm not here to condemn.

I'm not here to criticize. I'm the last one that can point a finger because I was a chocoholic for decades and I got obese ultimately and I was hurting myself physically. I hurt my heart physically as a result of the way I was living.

I clogged my arteries as a result of the way I was living. I remember sitting with this razor-thin guy, active, he'd been a former famous journalist and then he gave that all up just to give himself to campus ministry, I believe campuses in the greater New York area. And we were sitting talking one day and, well, actually it had been with me where I did an outreach at Yale University. We went out to get a meal afterwards. Of course, I got pizza like I used to eat every day, sometimes twice a day. Yeah, so I'm the last person, a critter, I'm the last one.

Last one. But he said, oh, man, that stuff clogs your arteries. I thought, what does he mean clogs your arteries?

I had no idea of the negative things I was doing to my body. God made it so special. Picture someone buys you a half million dollar car.

I think the car costs that much. And you decide to put sludge in it and the lowest quality gas mixed with all kinds of gas and put sludge in it and the lowest quality gas mixed with all kinds of junk. Why destroy a fine, beautiful piece of machinery? Why do it?

It makes no sense. How much more the body? And you only get one. So I am witness number one to tell you that the lifestyle changes produce changes in every other way. And on every level, mentally, physically, emotionally, energy wise, on every level, I feel far better today at 68 than I did nine years ago at 59.

In other words, I feel like I'm getting younger every year. So I want to encourage your friends. I'm here to help. And as I suggested a few weeks ago, last time we did a physical health focus, and we may have to resume the interview with Dr. Burnett. Another day seems that there's been a phone issue connection.

I know he was looking forward to this as well. But maybe just starting here, being honest with God, and just saying, God, I have a food problem. I hear what Dr. Brown is saying, and it makes sense.

There's nothing else we do. Short-term gratification with long-term negative effects, we call that sinful in a thousand other ways in life. But that's often our whole lifestyle diet. Why not just start here by being honest with God, saying, God, I have a problem with food.

I definitely have a problem with food. Is that too much to ask? Is that like going too far? Is that putting you under pressure? Because I don't want to condemn. I don't want to discourage. I want to encourage. I'm here to say, come on, change can come. And if we need to see you physically healthy, just think of all the other things you can do to help others and serve the Lord and be a blessing. Get your mind healthier.

All right, we'll be right back. 866-34-TRUTH. Hey friends, this is Dr. Michael Brown.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. Okay, not sure exactly what happened with our guest's phone line. Apparently the building where he was created some problems for his mobile phone. The landline connection that we need for a studio was not working properly with our studio.

It has to be certain kinds of phones. In any case, my profound apologies. I was ready to learn a whole lot, and I'm not the one to call with your brain-related issues. So here's what we're going to do. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884 is the number to call. If you have any question on any subject of any kind that you'd like to talk to me about, any subject at all, because we've got some unexpected time here, I'm going to open up the phone lines for any question of any kind that you want to discuss with me.

866-348-7884. Okay, before I go to any calls, I'm shifting gears completely from brain health to politics and the believer. All right, so we are in now July of, we are in July of 2023. Before we know it, we are going to be in November of 2024. And every day leading up to that, it's only going to get more and more and more and more and more interesting and complex.

It's only going to get more intense with political rivalries, with this one putting down the other one, with this one rising, with this one falling. For Democrats, is President Biden going to run again? If he does run again, then does he have the cognitive ability, come back to brain health there, to go strong another four years? Do you want Kamala Harris in his place? Who would be another candidate potentially? What about Robert Kennedy Jr. and him rising up and an independent candidate like Cornel West and on and on. On the Republican side, is Donald Trump the man leading in all the polls? What's going to happen with the indictments?

Okay, well, let's go a little further. Is he the right man? Did he do more good than harm the first election? Hey, just look at the recent Supreme Court decisions, those very important decisions.

That's largely because the three justices he appointed. Is he the man we want? Is Governor DeSantis the right one? Is there someone else?

Is it Nikki Haley or Chris Christie? So things are only going to get more and more and more and more intense in the days ahead, okay? More and more intense in the days ahead. I want to urge you, number one, remember there is no political savior. I just want to remind you, there is no political savior. Do not look to a person or a party to bring about the change that only the gospel can bring about.

Do not look to those things at all because you will only be disappointed and to the degree you look to a person as a savior. Obama was the chosen one. Only Trump can save America. We've got all this rhetoric.

It is harmful and destructive, especially for our witness as followers of Jesus. That's number one. Number two, in that same context, remember whoever we pick is still going to be imperfect and flawed. That if you know there's no perfect pastor and no perfect church and no perfect Christian, how much more is there no perfect political candidate? And remember, they're the president for the entire nation, so they can't just have your cause in mind. Hopefully in the major issues, the convictional things, they hold to the things that are right and good.

Hopefully on those issues we can support them, but it's always going to be a give and take on some level. We just have to understand that. You say, that's compromise.

No, no. A political candidate can only do so much. A political candidate is still working with a party, with a system that's part of the flesh and part of the world and therefore in and of itself is imperfect. And therefore we just have to have more realistic expectations. You say, where does change come from? From the church, from God's people, from the gospel. That's where change is going to come from. And politics is important, but it's downstream from culture and culture is going to be downstream from the state of the body in America. So let's put our greatest emphasis on our spiritual health. Let's put our greatest emphasis on our own walk, our own lives, on loving God and loving our neighbor. Let's put our greatest emphasis on prayer and evangelism and discipleship with the power of the Spirit.

Let's put our greatest emphasis on changing hearts and with that also be involved politically. Don't do it in the reverse order. All right?

Don't do it in the reverse order. 866-3-4-TRUTH. I just looked at the screen. We had two callers and good questions and just disappeared. So, okay. All right. To our call screen, we have changed topics. We have changed topics, okay? Just there we go. So we just let Dr. Burnett know we'll have to reschedule because we missed a whole segment. There's too much material to cover. So we will reschedule when we don't have these phone line issues again.

My apologies for that. So those of you that were just on hold, one of those fun days, those of you just on hold, call right back in and we will get you on the air. All right? 866-3-4-TRUTH.

866-3-4-8-7-8-4. So those that were on hold, call right back in and we will get you on the air with us. Okay. So that being said, I think, friends, that it is really, really essential that we look at recent elections and ask ourselves, what did we do wrong? What did we do wrong? And some of what we did here, let me talk to you.

How about this? As a white evangelical follower of Jesus, how's that? As someone that would be put in that camp, yes, I'm a Messianic Jew, but I'd be put in the camp of the Jewish people, the Jewish people, of what? Of a conservative American white Christian. I'd be put in that camp. And I was one of those that voted among us, over 80% voted for Donald Trump.

All right? So for the good that he did, I'm thrilled. For the Supreme Court justices he appointed, I'm thrilled. For moving our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, I'm thrilled. Through working out these massive peace accords with different Muslim nations, I'm thrilled. For him standing up internationally to tyranny, for him pushing back against radical Islam, I'm thrilled. For him working for prison reform and for support of historic black colleges, I'm thrilled. For other things that he did, I'm thrilled. And then for who he is and what he brought and how his character kind of shaped so many in the church and we became, rather than us changing him and seeing he changed us, I'm absolutely grieved over that.

And to the degree that his rhetoric opened the door to, led to the January 6 events, I'm grieved and mortified. So the debate is, did he do more harm than good? And some will say, some will say, obviously he did more good. Others will say, obviously he did more harm.

But here's the biggest thing to me. How did it affect us as followers of Jesus? On both sides, those were pro-Trump, anti-Trump, we really got low.

We didn't get high. We didn't get in a way that the world would look at us and say, well, they really love each other. Wow. These Christians, despite their differences, they really love each other.

No. I even wrote an article, remember the old Christian songs in 1966 that came out, they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, they will know we are Christians by our love. I change it to they will know we are Christians by our hate.

I mean, we savaged one of them. I had people call the show, passionate, passionate. You can't be saved if you vote for Donald Trump.

Passionate. You can't be saved if you don't vote for Donald Trump. And I used to say to our listeners, I thought the dividing line was Jesus, Donald Trump.

And so I saw on all sides of this, we got vicious, we got nasty, we got mean-spirited. Remember, I voted for him twice, okay? And I voted for him saying, when it comes to who's going to do a better job in fighting against the killing of babies, I believe Donald Trump will do better than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.

When it comes to who's going to do a better job of standing up to tyrannical China, I thought he'd do a better job. When it's a question of who's going to do a better job in terms of standing with Israel for righteousness in the Middle East, so Donald Trump, right? So there's just existential questions to me, very, very major questions politically, hence my vote. But I understood there was bad with good like in every case. The issue to me was not so much our vote, but our character, how we acted, how we lived. And that's where we've got to do better. However you voted, whether you're an ardent Trump supporter, whether you hated a MAGA hat, even seeing it, that is not my issue right now. My issue is how did we behave?

How did we conduct ourselves? So yes, there were some significant gains. Look, Roe v. Wade would not have been overturned without Donald Trump being president and appointing the people that he appointed. That's a simple judicial fact. And if Hillary Clinton had been in, things would have gone a totally different direction, maybe for good, maybe not just for a generation, but sealed things in a negative void here in America. So these are very, very real possibilities and things we have to look at honestly.

But here's the question. So there were definitely some positive gains with Trump's presidency, and those are the reasons I voted for him. But what did it do to our witness as followers of Jesus?

It didn't have to. We didn't have to so identify with him. We could have voted for him and he'd say certain things, say, I really don't like this that he said, I wish he'd conduct himself differently. Or hey, this is not who we are. Here's why we voted for him.

We feel these issues are life and death issues and very, very important. So we voted for him for these reasons. But yeah, I agree with you here.

I don't like that. No, we became his defenders and his apologists, many of us, many of us. Okay, so I'm speaking especially as a white, conservative follower of Jesus in America. Many of us became his apologists, his defenders, and we became better known as Trump supporters than Jesus followers. Whoever your candidate is, please don't ever do that. Please don't do that. Whatever side of the issue that you're on, if you're a true follower of Jesus, please let it be better known that you're a follower of Jesus and a supporter of a particular candidate.

And when that candidate acts in ways that are not Christ-like or that are divisive or destructive or harmful or hurtful, rather than defending them, say, yeah, I voted for them for these reasons, but boy, this grieves me and I wish this happened. Let it be that above all, we preserve the quality of our witness because ultimately that's the most important thing that we have is our character, our testimony, our witness. All right, so I just want to share that with you. On the other side of the break, we will get back to your calls.

866-348-7884. All right, got some interesting questions here on the board. And for those that were ready to get into a detailed discussion about the brain, hopefully we will recapitulate, restart this issue, this discussion with Dr. Polburn that on another day, okay, we will be right back after this quick word from our co-sponsor Shrivita. I'm Paul Burnett, a board certified doctor of holistic health. And I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about the importance of healthy blood flow and how it's enhanced by a miracle molecule known as nitric oxide. You see blood vessels release nitric oxide, which increases blood flow known as something called vasodilation.

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I have good news. As we age, there's another way for our body to increase nitric oxide production. And that's by converting nitrates and vegetables like beetroot into nitric oxide. Bottom line with more nitric oxide, we stimulate more blood flow to our vital organs and we experience more energy while supporting healthy blood pressure. TriVita's nitric oxide plus has been formulated to increase nitric oxide production and blood flow at every age. To place your order for products to support your wellness goals, call 1-800-771-5584 or online at trivita.com.

As a TriVita introductory offer, use promo code BROWN25 and receive a 25% discount on the products of your choice. Call 1-800-771-5584. 800-771-5584. May you live with grace. 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. All right. Thank you for joining us, 866-34-TRUTH.

Go into the phones momentarily. I saw some really touching testimonies. I was looking at praying over some things over the weekend, just from listeners whose lives have been transformed and things that blessed me.

I have a former Muslim that came out of Islam after watching some of my debates with Muslims, the couple that I've had, the few that I've had. And just others, you know, one writing the impact we've had, how their seven-year-old daughter loves to listen to the line of fire. And so if you're out there, hey, nice to talk with you.

It's so encouraging to hear. And you know, in recent months, we've expanded our potential listening audience in greater Phoenix, greater Dallas, greater Chicago by 20 million people. Think of that. Think of that potential listening audience. And every day we're looking for ways to reach more people online and via radio.

So thanks for standing with us. And a great way that you can bless yourself and bless many new listeners is by checking out one of these TriVita products, nitric oxide, which I take daily. It just enhances blood flow, energy level. It's a great product, helps lower blood pressure as well, potentially. Or NeuroShine, if you want to do something about brain health.

And the best thing is this. There's a one-month guarantee on all the products, but let's just say you do something for a month and don't see any change at all. Worst case scenario, that's donated 100% to our ministry anyway.

So that's the loss, but I think you'll see positive change. So that's the number to call 800-771-5584. 800-771-5584. Tell them Dr. Brown sent you. Or go to trivita.com.

Use the code BROWN25. You get a 25% discount. 100% of your first order goes to support the line of fire more than a tithe of all subsequent orders. So those that are repeat customers, not only are you blessing yourselves, you're helping us every single order touch more people. So it's a great partnership. We're really appreciative of it for two reasons. One, we reach more people.

Two, people are benefiting as well. All right, let's go to Robert in Louisiana. Welcome to the line of fire. Michael. Hey Robert. Yeah, good to talk to you today. I was in a Bible study yesterday.

I'm sorry I'm having trouble hearing you. I was in a Bible study yesterday and they were referring to the book of life and I didn't know what they were referring to. Can you help me out with that? Yeah, there are only a few references to the book of life in the Bible. There's Exodus 32 where Moses is praying to God because judgment's coming on Israel and he says if you won't have mercy and then blot me out of your book which we assume is the book of life. We have in the book of Revelation in the third chapter Jesus telling the church in Philadelphia that I won't blot your names out of the book of life as you stay faithful.

And then Revelation the 20th chapter where it says that all those whose names were not written in the book of life were cast into the lake of fire. Now traditional Judaism based on Old Testament thinking and related rabbinic traditions, traditional Judaism thinks of the book of life as something whereby your name is written for another year of life. So every year a day of atonement, God decides who will live another year or not and come the new year, that's the prayer, may your name be written in the book of life, may your name be inscribed for another year. What I understand in terms of the New Testament use in particular of book of life, it's just talking about those who have eternal life, those who are in God's family, those who will be with him forever.

And that of course is through what Jesus did on the cross and are receiving that grace in our own lives. So book of life as it's written explicitly in the New Testament is that book that contains the names of all those who are God's children forever, who will be with him forever, who have eternal life. And to not be in the book or to have your name blotted out of the book means that you don't have eternal life and that you will suffer eternal judgment. So those are the references.

Obviously people talk a lot about book of life, but it's not mentioned that much in the Bible. Very good, I'm glad you explained that to me. I was wondering yesterday, I was a little stunned on it, and I really appreciate your show and the fact that people could call you for biblical answers, and I really appreciate it. Oh my joy, absolutely, thanks.

Oh, and by the way, that was LA as in Los Angeles, California, not LA as in Louisiana. Hey Robert, thank you, and it's my joy. And you know what's really interesting, and I'll go back to the phones, 866-348-7884.

You know what's interesting? Very seldom does someone call us who is antagonistic, hostile, differs with me. It's very seldom. It happens, but considering that we've been on the air 15 years daily, five days a week, an hour a day, sometimes two hours a day, the percentage of people who are antagonistic, who differ, is very, very, very, very small compared to how many post on social media, how many post comments attacking on social media on our YouTube channel, in particular in response to our daily broadcasts. And it grieves me that they don't believe, that they don't see things the same way, that they often attack so harshly, but it blesses me that they're listening and that they're watching. Now, of course, some of the comments get removed if they're hate-filled attacks or lies or threatening. Those comments get removed, so you don't see a lot.

We see a lot more than you actually get to see, but our platforms are not forums for attacking people by name and lying about them and spreading all kinds of junk. But every day people are, Brown, you're rolling on this, Dr. Brown, you're rolling on this, you're in error about this. So, I'm so glad that you're out there listening. I'm so glad that right now some of you are sitting in your cars and you're angry with me and you don't like me, but you're listening. I remember once interacting with someone, somehow it came up on Twitter and they were driving and on Sundays American Family Radio broadcast two of our shows, I think the Thursday-Friday show from every week, they broadcast Sunday afternoons on all their stations, a couple hundred stations I think they have across the country. And this woman was driving, she was furious with me, she was not a believer, she was very much a proponent of same-sex marriage and other progressive causes.

And she was going from one state to the next and kept picking up, like lost me in one place, but then picked me up in the next and was listening that devotedly. And I had a dialogue with the person, I mean ultimately they shut me down and wouldn't interact, but I'm so glad you're there. We hear constantly, multiple times a day from different Hebrew Israelites blasting me and attacking me, in particular our YouTube channel.

I mean, sometimes many, many posts in the course of a day, you don't see a lot of them just because the type of content violates our guidelines. But I'm so glad you're there listening and watching. Those who differ with me, thanks. Thanks for tuning in. And I'd love for you to call.

That's one reason we have live talk radio, so that you can call and explain why you differ. All right, let's go over to Penny in Missouri. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown.

Hey. I have something that is kind of deep, but I really hope you can help me with it, because I really haven't been able to find an answer to this, so let me give a brief contact. I am saved, and I received the Holy Ghost and the gift of tongues, and then after that I was tempted, and I admit that I did sin, I committed a sin, and I was given over to open the door to demonic torment, and after a certain amount of time I still turned to the Lord and relied on Him, and He, after a certain time, told me to dedicate my thought life to Him, my body, and my actions, and I was delivered from the torment then. However, there's one little thing that still happens when I go to go to sleep at night. This happens then and it still occurs that I'll get like a, like a pulse in my head, like somebody yelled in my ear, and it just is a twang, and it wakes me up when I'm trying to go to sleep, and that's an overflow, and also I had another thing happen the other night that was like, still a type of a physical attack from the enemy, and I just wonder how is that still happening? Can you answer that?

I cannot answer definitely and specifically because I don't know you, your life situation. It would really be something for a godly friend, a pastor, to answer better. I can simply speak in generalities, all right? Number one, we take our whole lives and submit them to God, understanding that we're imperfect, that we always fall short as we strive to honor and please Him, but we commit our whole lives to God, body, soul, spirit. Over this weekend I was asking God, show me blind spots, show me areas where I need to grow, show me things that I've taken for granted as being right, that are not necessarily right, that I've never really looked at and prayed about and studied, and so you bring your whole life before the Lord. Lord, reveal anything displeasing, I just want to serve you, I just want to honor you.

You do that, it's one. So you offer your body's living sacrifice, Romans 12. Two, Philippians 4, 6 and 7 and 8, that don't be anxious about anything but everything with prayer, petition, make your request known to God, but thanksgiving and the peace that passes all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. So last thing before you go to sleep, just take to the Lord everything that's concerning you, burdening you on your mind, give it over to the Lord, thank Him for His faithfulness, and then meditate on something good and pure and right or a scripture verse.

That's two. Then three, if there's still some demonic attack or interference, I would then sit with a godly leader and just ask them to pray with you to break this thing over you in Jesus' name. It has no place in your life, if it's tormenting you in some way that has no place, rebuke it, take authority over it in Jesus' name, get some outside help to do it because it's been there.

So generically, that's how I'd answer your question. May the Lord bring you freedom and uproot this Holy so you can rest, sleep peacefully and serve Him with full vigor. God bless. And this is how we rise up. It's our resistance. You can't resist us. Another program powered by the Truth Network.