The Fall and Rise of America?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. We think about the rise and fall of America.

What if it's the fall and rise? 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. I know this is a very different way of looking at things. I know it's not the normal way we'd think about this, but what if America's greatest days could be ahead? What if our greatest days morally, spiritually, culturally could be ahead?

Is that even in the realm of possibility? Welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire. Michael Brown here, your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Friends, you have my word. By God's grace, we will not back down. We will not shut down.

We will not compromise. We will not dilute the truth of God. We will bring you grace and truth with a heart of compassion and a backbone of steel. Friends, it's our desire to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front lines where you are in the world where God put you. So, I want to speak truth to you. I want to speak scriptural truth plainly, candidly.

I want to look at the world around us, the situation in which we live, and ask some honest questions to get us maybe to think differently. Now, you can weigh in on this subject. Here's a number to call, 866-342-866-348-7884. Or, if there's any question you want to ask me on any subject related to anything we cover here on The Line of Fire, I'm going to open the phone lines. They're open now. It's a great time to call, 866-342.

Then, a little bit later in the broadcast, we will get to your calls on a wide range of subjects. Let me go back a few years. I was praying one morning by my bedside, and I was thinking about working on a book, and I felt I heard the Spirit say something to me. It wasn't one of these deep, convictional things that I'd staked my life on, but I felt I heard a gentle voice saying, write a book on the fall and rise of America. That's very contradictory to my thinking, because I'm thinking about the rise and fall. Yeah, obviously, I understand America has a blemish past, but there's much in American history that's also rich and beautiful. There's much on our roots that has contributed to the good that's in America. Maybe in recent years, we've focused more on the horrible blemishes and sins of our past, but the fact of the matter is, there's also a rich and beautiful past, and there's no question that God richly blessed us as a nation that kind of came out of nowhere and became the most influential nation on the planet and a nation that has helped spread the gospel around the world, as well as spread pollution and other junk around the world as well.

Obviously, it's a mix. The church within America has done a lot of good. America as a whole, some good, some bad, and some within the church have done bad as well. But the point is that in many ways, we can look back to the past as positive. Now, if you're a Native American and you hear MAGA, you're going to think of that a little differently.

If you're an African American and you hear MAGA, you're going to think of that a little differently. But in point of fact, there were times in our history where we were much more moral. There were times in our history where our children were more innocent in a positive sense of the world.

There are times in our past history where we were more God-fearing and Jesus-exalting and Bible-respecting than we are today. Surely, the fact that we have an epidemic of pornography in America, that kids as young as eight or nine years old are getting exposed to porn for the first time, that most teenagers have viewed porn, surely that's a big problem. And it's led to a lot of divorces as well within America and a lot more promiscuity according to all the surveys that I've read and according to what many marital counselors would tell us. The fact that we have the level of immorality in our movies, the gratuitous violence, the sexual scenes.

This has been around for decades and decades. The fact that some of our most popular songs are as base and vulgar as they could be. The fact that millions and millions and millions of kids are raised in fatherless homes in America. The fact that we have the largest prison population per capita in the world. There's a lot of things that do not speak of the health and wellbeing of our nation.

The fact that we are not just so strongly LGBTQ activists in radical ways, fighting for, quote, trans rights like the right of a man to compete against a woman in sports and things like that with, quote, the right of a man to use the woman's bathroom. Not just leading the way in America with this aggression, but leading the way around the world with this aggression. These are all very negative signs. And with that, people leaving churches and the number of professing Christians in America dropping by 10 percent in a decade. We never had a drop in recorded history of that precarious. It goes on and on. And it's very easy to think it's going downhill from here. Everything is going downhill from here.

Everything is going to get worse from here. It's very easy to think like that. However, it's not written in the Bible that that's the case. You say, no, it says everything's going to get worse before Jesus returns. Well, I dispute that. I dispute that that's what the Bible plainly says, number one. Number two, how has there ever been any progress anywhere then with that mentality?

Right? If you all think, well, Jesus is coming any minute, we're living in what could be the last generation, then why ever abolish slavery? Why ever deal with segregation? Why ever turn Roe v. Wade? Why push back against the horrific plague of fentanyl overdoses in America?

Why fight against human trafficking? Why do anything if it's only going to get worse? That's a very paralyzing, self-defeating mentality. But I say, where is it written? Where is it written that it's only going to get worse?

It's not. And America has been in dark times before in our history and returned the tide each time was a mighty outpouring, was a revival. My newest book will come out, God willing, in November called Revival Rising, how to fuel the fires of renewal. And the whole emphasis of that book is as God is moving and the Spirit's being poured out, beginning stages still, but in church after church across America, what can we do to see a sustained revival movement to cultivate that so that it strengthens the church and pours out into the world? And then, finishing this book now, this next one due out in March of next year, that's tentatively titled From Revival to Reformation, How to Ignite a Cultural Awakening. And there we want to lay out, okay, as God moves in the church and the church is awakened, what must we do to see societal change come? How can we be reformers? How can we be the abolitionists of today and address things that are wrong and unjust and bring about God's righteousness and healthier families and healthier young people and healthier old people and see the nation blessed and thriving more in God? What can we do?

So, these are things that are on my mind a lot. And if God is burdening us to pray for revival, it's because it's not too late. It's dire. It is, as I said in the previous book, revival or we die, but it's not too late.

Say, Dr. Brown, I don't get it. What news are you looking at? Well, first, I'm looking at a lot of news. I am looking at a lot of news. Every day I get key news updates from certain outlets on a regular basis. Friends send me, have you seen this news? Have you seen this headline? What about this?

What about that? I've been tracking a lot of bad news for many, many years. Here's what I can say. That's the world. That's the world. Tell me, since Adam and Eve fell and since their first born son murdered their second born son, that's pretty bad.

That's pretty bad. Tell me when there hasn't been bad news in the world for a single day. Tell me where over the years there hasn't been tragedy, when there hasn't been the ugliness of human sin. That's the world. I expect the world to be the world.

And with the inundation of headlines and news that we get every second of every day now, it all depends on what you want to pick. You know what I'm saying? You go to one website and you think the world is a certain way.

You go to another website and you think the world is another way just based on news headlines, depending on what's being posted, what you're seeing. But here's my big thing. And I was praying last night, Lord, here we are. You've given us this great platform on radio and on internet to reach so many people. What a great privilege. And you're taking your time and effort out of everything else you could be doing. You're listening to this radio broadcast. You're watching us on YouTube.

You're listening up by podcast. You're taking valuable time to do this. Lord, how can I best minister to our listening audience? How can I serve the purpose you've put me on the earth for?

Not to do what others do well, not to try to duplicate someone else, but to do uniquely what you've given me to do. And I know that part of that is to speak biblically based hope and speak words that'll produce biblically based courage. By biblically based, I mean not just human optimism, not just I hope so, not just wouldn't that be wonderful.

No, I mean biblically based hope and faith and confidence and courage. Here's the deal. As much as America has gotten worse in many ways over the decades, it's also gotten better in many ways over the decades. Look at the pro-life movement today versus where it was at 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Look at where we are with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Look at the rising pushback against LGBTQ plus extremism and radicalism while at the same time more and more people are being reached with the love of God and are now ex-gay, ex-trans through the love of God, through Jesus touching their lives. Things are turning in that regard. Look at, yeah, we're still growing as a country, but are we better today in terms of the state of African Americans?

Are we better today or under the years of segregation or the Jim Crow laws and slavery? So, in many ways, positive change is coming. And one of my pro-life friends said this to Nancy and me, oh, probably 15 plus years ago, he said, you've got to look at the big picture. And a lot of these changes take place over the course of generations. And what I believe we're going to see, I can't guarantee this, I can't say it is written, but what I believe, what I am hoping for and expecting and I see the signs of is that just as there's been such a turning away from the gospel in so many lives and just as so many young people have been turned off to Christianity and even in their mind, if gay is good, the church is bad.

In my most recent book, I deal with that, a whole chapter on why so many Christians have left the faith. But just as there's been a turning away, what's filled that void? What's filled the loneliness, the depression, the hopelessness, the suicide rates, sorry. Nothing's filled that void. Social media is not going to fill that void. The latest hit movies aren't going to fill that void. The latest video games aren't going to fill it. Drugs, sex, nothing's going to fill it.

Even getting involved with some activist cause where you can fight for some type of utopian society and bring about Marxist ideas, that doesn't work. It's only the gospel that's going to change people's lives and get to the core of their being and transform them and bring them that sense of eternal hope that can face death itself and live on with victory and joy and confidence. I believe we're going to see a massive harvest of young people in the years ahead.

I mean massive. Then it's going to be our job with God's grace to make them into solid disciples and many are going to come identifying as LGBTQ plus beyond what we're expecting and if we are ready to meet them with the love of God and the truth of the gospel. Friends, our problem is going to be where do we put all the people and how do we disciple them? Could it be that the tide is going to continue to turn and that we may have amazing days ahead as a nation?

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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. We are going to the phones in a moment, 866-34-TRUTH. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. Hey, just for those of you that tune in periodically and have heard these ads from our co-sponsor Triveda, I was so blessed when they reached out to me some months back and said, Dr. Brown, we want to help get your show around the country and we know health and wellness are important to you and what if we find a way to partner with you, we can donate whole orders to the Line of Fire.

I was blown away by it because we prayed for so many years to reach more people in a more effective way. I burn every single day. If we reached a million today, I'm burning to reach 10 million tomorrow. Do you hear me? If we've made 100 quality disciples that are out affecting the world, I will make 1,000.

I will make 10,000. Whatever it is, I'm burning with this calling from God because I know the time is right, friends. I know the time is right. I know something is happening.

I know hearts are being stirred. As one who sees the bad news, who reports out the bad news, who writes articles about bad news, who talks about the bad news, who is fully aware of the junk going on in our schools and in so many other ways and how young and old are being assaulted, I get it. I understand I live in this world and as a cultural commentator and as an author and radio host, yeah, I'm bombarded with it, but I'm not discouraged. I'm in pain for people who are hurting. I'm in pain for people who are lost, who are in pain. I'm in pain for those who think that as we take our stance that we hate them or reject them.

If you're a gay-identified or trans-identified person, you think, man, you're a bigot. Why are you attacking us? Why do you hate us? That hurts me. I'm going to stand for what's right and what's true and what's best, but it hurts me that you feel that way and those that feel that abortion is a woman's right and why are you so misogynist and women-hating. That hurts me.

You feel that way. Nonetheless, I'm going to stand for the life of the unborn, but friends, I am so overflowing with holy confidence and it comes from above. When I spend more time with God, I don't get discouraged.

I get encouraged. When I spend more time on my knees with the word of God open, yes, the alarms go off and yes, I feel the need to shout, awake, awake to the nation, but it's not with the hopelessness. It's with the confidence that something's happening, that hearts are being stirred, that God is taking action in answer to the prayers of his people, praying, fasting, crying out, many for decades, round-the-clock prayer, people that we don't even know their names, alone with God, seeking the face of God. Something good is taking place and despite fringe stuff and despite crazy stuff that happens and bad stuff and scandals, in the midst of it, God is building this ecclesia, he's building this church and good things are happening. So I'm encouraged and I want that encouragement to ignite something in your own heart and then you take it to the Lord and see, see if it's something from him and if he gives you some holy fuel for that holy fire burning in your heart and faith and confidence begin to rise. At the very least, hey, maybe you could see more happen in your family or in your own life, in your local church.

Why not? Forget the whole nation for a moment, right where we live. Sometimes I'll pray the Lord's Prayer and I just will pray for the name of God to be held, start there and around the world and end up in our own ministry and finally just my own life. May Jesus be exalted, may the Lord's name be exalted for the whole world to see through me, through you. You know the old advice, the advice of the old evangelist from generations ago when he was asked, how do you pray for revival? He said, I draw a circle on the ground, I get inside it and I say, Lord, revive everything in this circle.

I've actually done that, I've shared it before that the previous house we lived in in my study was just, it was a wood floor and there was one little piece of carpet by one of the chairs and sometimes I would stand on it, it's literally big enough to stand on, just that and I would stand on it and say, Lord, revive everything standing on this carpet. You can start there, you can start there. I'll mention a little later in the show some resources we have especially available this month that will tie in with things but that's why I've been so blessed, not just the great wellness products from Triveda but the fact that they said, Dr. Brown, we want to help with this vision because we agree with it.

So, if you've not checked out nitric oxide, some of the other great products that we highly recommend that I use daily, they're not substitutes for healthy living but, boy, they're great supplements, 800-538, whoops, I'm giving you the wrong number again, 800-771-5584, that's similar to call it, 800-771-5584. If you go online, triveda.com, use the code BROWN25, remember 100% of your first order, all of it, every one of it is donated to help the land and forest spread across the country and over a tithe of all subsequent orders. So, I hope you're being blessed by these but in the process you are also blessing others as we are impacting the nation together and you'd be thrilled with the testimonies we hear from pastors, leaders, moms, dads, students, individuals thanking us for the impact we're making, that's a joint effort, friends, we're doing that together, we're doing that together. All right, to the phones, we will start with Jalen in Springfield, Missouri, welcome to the line of fire. Hello Dr. Michael Brown, I've spoken to you a few times and really honor your ministry, I really appreciate your message as well because the Lord burnt my heart that I need to not be so gloomy about the days ahead and realize God can still save a nation, so I really appreciate that. I was going to ask about Israel, as Christians, what is our obligation to the nation of Israel financially? I guess what I'm saying is, for instance, I know I used to support like John Hagee, Christians United for Israel and stuff like that and I still appreciate his ministry, so I'm kind of just wondering biblically as New Testament Christians, do we have a financial obligation or what would be our obligation towards the non-Jewish people that aren't Christians, aren't saved?

Yes, Jalen, thank you for the kind words first. Secondly, I don't believe that Christians, you can make a blanket statement that Christians have a financial responsibility to support modern Israel, I don't believe you can make that statement at all. And I certainly appreciate John Hagee and Kufai, Christians United for Israel in terms of advocating for Israel, in terms of raising consciousness about God's purposes for Israel, in terms of pushing back against anti-Semitic laws and concepts and ideologies that are out there, I appreciate that. I would say that the emphasis should be to the Jew first with the Gospel and that therefore if you want to invest financially within Israel today, recognizing that it's God who regathered the Jewish people and brought them back to the land, that if you want to do that, the best thing is to invest in Jewish evangelism, invest in reaching Jewish people, or helping Jewish believers that are impoverished in different parts of the world, especially in Israel. In Romans 15, Paul says to the Gentile Christians, if you have been enriched spiritually by the Jewish people, so the Jewish Messiah, the Jewish apostles, the Jewish prophets and all, if you've been enriched spiritually, then you should help financially. He was talking about helping the poor believers in Jerusalem. A great way to do that is check out togetherforisrael.org, togetherforisrael.org.

It's led by one of my closest friends, Scott Volk. God burdened him years ago to begin to help believers in the land. They help our believers as well. But in particular, Jewish believers in need, for example, getting a van for Ethiopian Jews that were believers that had no transportation to a congregation, things like that, helping in so many ways, and then impoverished Israelis in general.

That's a great thing to do. So, togetherforisrael.org, and highly recommend what they do, how they do it. Get online, find out more about them, or specifically those that do Jewish outreach in Israel and around the world, be it one for Israel or Jews for Jesus or a chosen people or our ministry, we do that as well, to help bring the good news of the Messiah to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Because there are not two covenants. God did not make a special covenant with the Jewish people and say, you can be saved outside of Jesus, Yeshua. Important fact, he came first to his own people.

And if there was another way for salvation to come, he would not have died on the cross. And the first messages that are preached in Acts are all Jews preaching to other Jews about the necessity of faith in Jesus, Yeshua. So, either help with needy believers within the land or help directly in Jewish outreach, bringing the good news of the Messiah to the Jewish people. Thank you for the call. But again, I do not believe there is a quote financial obligation of Christians today to support Israel as a whole.

But yes, there should be consideration for needy believers within the land. God bless you. Hey friends, this is Dr. Michael Brown. I want to invite you to join our support team.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. All right, Robert in California, I'm so glad you were able to call back in. We couldn't get your call yesterday. Yes sir, we are all ears.

What's going on? Thank you, Dr. Brown. I know that sounds like kind of a dumb question, like, I've gone to church a long time, know the fundamentals of the Bible, agree with them and all that, so why would I ask such a dumb question? Well, hang on, Robert, just for the sake of our listeners, that dumb question is, am I a true or false convert?

I don't think it's a dumb question generically to ask. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13 to the recipients of his letter, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. In 2 Peter 1 urges us to make our calling and election sure. So it would be a dumb question for some to ask who are 100% sure for many reasons that they're true converts, but for others it's an important question.

So what makes you ask it, sir? Well, I had no issues and I went to Ray Comfort in Kirk Cameron's evangelism boot camp. They had a decade or so passed, they no longer have them, but one of their teaching was the true and false convert, and ever since I watched that video, went to that teaching, it's always, wow, man, it's like, I don't know. It kind of went at my assurance, but the other thing is, after 40 years of marriage, my wife left me, but she was mostly Catholic, she was Catholic, and then my daughter came up last November and said, I don't believe in God, and the Bible's a bunch of fairy tales, and Bolden told me, and you're not going to heaven, and I know that's like trials, and we all go through trials and stuff like that, but that shit emboldened me to even draw near to the Lord and get stronger. You're a human being, your wife of 40 years leaves you, your daughter says those things, Jesus doesn't believe in you, you're a human being, Robert, and you already had this thing in the back of your head because of that teaching that took away from some of your assurance.

So let's start with the foundation. Before you watched that teaching on true versus false converts, why did you have assurance that you were a believer? Just like in Romans 8, his spirit witnessed with my spirit, I was his child, and not just out of feelings, but I think even as you speak about, you sense God talking to you, but it's a deep... I just know that I know that I know kind of thing. I believe his word, and after I got saved, I just knew I had to go to his word. I wasn't told to do it.

Stuff like that. So Robert, when you say that you got saved, I know it's a long story, but I'm just going to ask a couple of real simple questions. So you recognize that you were a sinner guilty in God's sight, correct?

Absolutely. Right, so we're going back to this time in the past when you believed you were saved. Secondly, did you truly believe that Jesus had died for your sins and rose from the dead, that he was the Son of God, he died for your sins? Absolutely, yes. And it was based on what he did that you received forgiveness, not because you were now a better person, but because of what he did, you were forgiven, right? Ephesians 2.8 and 9, absolutely. Okay, and on top of that, you now experience the reality of the new birth in that you wanted to read the Word, and you wanted to live differently, and you had this assurance in your heart that you were born again, correct?

Yes, sir. Right, so that being the case, that's everything that checks off, you know what I'm saying? That you recognize your sin, you recognize Jesus as Savior, you recognize his death and resurrection. It does say if you believe in him, you will not perish for eternal life, that if you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead and confess him as Lord, you will be saved, so either God's Word is true or it isn't, and then you had the evidence of the new life in that you wanted to follow him, you wanted to honor him, you wanted to share the good news with others, so everything after that is now an attack. Everything after that, as long as you're continuing to want to serve him, it'd be one thing if you were now a practitioner of Hare Krishna and wondering, was I a true convert?

But you're not. You're the same person wanting to honor the Lord, so according to the Word of God and according to the integrity of God, of course you're a true convert based on what you're saying, and nothing should be able to steal that away. What is it, sir, that when you heard the teaching on the difference between a true and false convert, what is it that messed with that assurance? I believe I allowed, since I was a kid, these condemning spirits to come at me, and I'm giving you the best answer that I think I know of, and that was, and it kind of just went from there. Right, so that is fully understandable, Robert, and when you hear a good strong teaching, I've heard people hear some of Finney's teaching on true and false converts, and there are Christians for years saying, I think I just got saved again, because it seems like, wow, it was a wake-up call. But the enemy can get in there, even with good teaching, and think, yeah, well, do you have a lustful thought? Well, did you pray enough?

Oh, did you witness? Ah, there's another true convert, and that can really mess with us. That's why we have to get our assurance from who Jesus is, from what God says, and not from who we are. Now, again, if we are true believers, then we will want to follow the Lord and honor Him, and if we turn our backs on Him and deny Him, either we were never truly saved, some would say, or we've renounced our faith.

But there's nothing that you've said that should cause any questioning of your assurance whatsoever, and what I've often recommended... Can I ask this, then, sir? God delivered me from drugs and alcohol. I got in a car accident 35 years ago, I'm paralyzed, and I got addicted to painkillers. He delivered me from all narcotics, painkillers, and everything.

But then I jumped... I'm smoking like a third of a pack of cigarettes a day. I'm kind of, you know, and I've got to put that down, and I'm having struggling... So, these thoughts in my mind, like, you set you free, and you jump back into things that put you in bondage, that kind of said that in my... Yeah, yeah, that's detrimental, but it doesn't unsave you.

Follow me? In other words, smoking a cigarette does not damn you to hell. Do you know how many people every single day, Christians in America, are addicted to unhealthy foods, far more dangerous than cigarettes, and they can't go a day without their unhealthy foods?

That was me for most of my life until nine years ago. I was still a child of God. You were not walking in willful rebellion and denying the lordship of Jesus. You're saying, Jesus, my Lord, help me, because I'm struggling here. So, is that your very prayer? Heavenly Father, God, Father, help... Your very prayer is the prayer of a child, a child of God, right?

Struggling. Yes, Jesus' help. Jesus' help, yes. Because He's your friend.

He's your Savior. You talk to your Father. God didn't stop becoming your Father because you struggled with cigarettes, right? Even if you were smoking three packs a day, He wouldn't stop being your Father. It would just be a matter of you've got a destructive habit you should deal with.

It's not helpful to your overall health, and it's not good for us to have these habits, but it doesn't affect your being a son of God. I've recommended to a lot of folks a book that my son-in-law Ryan Bruss wrote, B-R-U-S-S, called Living Loved. Living Loved. If you're on a tight budget, I'm happy to send you a copy.

Otherwise, you can get the e-book or the physical book at Amazon. Ryan Bruss, Living Loved. And it's just one of these things that goes through so much in Scripture about God's heart towards us as His children. And the degree of love and kindness He has. And I actually have students in a ministry school where I teach. And the first year, I have them read two books. The first one is Living Loved, the first semester. And the second is my book, How Saved Are We? Which is one that would take you by the throat and shake you a little, like what it really means to be saved, right? So, before they read that, I have them read Living Loved so that they are basking in the love of God. And now, from that position, it's like, let's go for it. Let's live for Jesus. Let's let our lives count. So, I encourage you to get that if you can. Is that last name, did you say B-R-U-S-S? Yeah, B-R-U-S-S, Ryan Bruss.

Living Loved is the name of it. So, Robert, whenever you struggle, instead of looking at you smoking a cigarette, look at Jesus on the cross. Because that's the hope of your salvation. And look, I love the Lord. I really want to serve the Lord and honor Him.

But I haven't lived a perfect day, right? I mean, if you watch my life, you're not going to see the life of some sinner or rebel. You'll see the life of someone who wants to serve the Lord. But, I mean, I got convicted again of prayerlessness because I get so busy. I'm going to have these prayer retreats once a month and I go after God hour after hour. But then, I get so busy and other stuff, it's like, oh, is that, what's worse? Are you smoking a cigarette or being prayerless? You know, it's like, oh, convicted of that lack of love for others. So, the Holy Spirit's at work in all of us. We are in a process of growth. And remember, when you struggle, you're struggling as a child of God.

You're struggling as one of His kids. So, I just want to pray with you, all right? And I believe as you renew your mind according to the Word. Yes, thank you so much for your words. The words were very encouraging. And I didn't speak empty words. I spoke truthful words. If your story was different, I would have spoken differently. If it was clear that you were never born again and didn't know the Lord or just had a form of religion, I would have spoken differently.

But it's quite the opposite. So, many others listening right now, you're in Robert's call, it's like, that's me! That's me! So, we're going to pray for Robert right now and we're going to pray for each of you.

Okay? And prayer team, army, let's pray right now. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray for Robert. That your love, just waves of love would flood him. That liquid love that Finney talked about, just waves of love would flood his heart, would flood his mind. Robert and others in the same position that are listening right now, that they would be overwhelmed with your goodness, Father, with how much you care for us as your children, that knowing that they know that they know that they're your children forever, that they'd so overwhelm them with the power of the blood of Jesus, the reality of what was done on the cross made that so overwhelming and flood their souls.

I mean, whatever issues they're struggling with, these things that can seem so big but they're so little, may they just be removed, Lord. You're the same God that set Robert free from drugs and other things, even narcotics as a paralyzed man. You're the God that'll set him free from cigarette smoking as well. Above all, may he know that he knows that he's your child. May he never be robbed of this assurance again, the same for others we're praying for. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'm so glad we got to that call. We've got more calls.

Let's see David, Robert, you're next on the other side of the break. ...and over $20 million in government-funded research, MyoHealth contains a perfect balance of all nine essential amino acids. With MyoHealth, you can rebuild your strength, improve your balance and mobility, have more energy while restoring your health and vitality, and start building new lean, stronger muscle in as little as 30 days. By combining MyoHealth with a healthy diet and regular exercise, exercise, you can feel stronger at any age, have more energy, and live a life with vitality.

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And I just thank God for it. I would definitely recommend MyoHealth. I'm sold on MyoHealth. MyoHealth tastes great, and it helps me in the gym. I feel like I've got my strength back. My upper arms are tighter. I have a great deal more energy. I encourage anybody to try MyoHealth.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. Okay, so the two books that tie in with what I talked about at the beginning of the show today, we've put together for July and July 4th, Saving a Sick America, which is a prescription for moral and cultural transformation, and The Political Seduction of the Church.

These two books will really help in terms of our history, in terms of our right path, in terms of wrong paths to avoid, and get them in a special discount. And this also helps support our radio outreach, 800-538-5275 is the number to call, 800-538-5275. Okay, let us go to David in Los Angeles. Welcome to the line of fire. Yeah, hi. Good afternoon to you.

Hey. I have a series of questions, and I'll make them really quick. You can just make it a yes or no answer, and then I'll stick true to your theme for today. So my first question is this. Are you talking right into the phone, David? Because we're getting a little echoing here. Okay. Okay. I'm curious to know if being a Jew is a race. Wait, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

Said S it again? Being a Jew, if being a Jew is a race, is it a race of people? Yes and no. It's a race of people, and it's those who convert into the Jewish religion. That's the way it's been through the centuries.

Okay. And, see, I'll have to call back on maybe another day, Thursday, maybe, because in the book of Esther, chapter 8, verse 17, it says that the people, out of fear of the Jews, became Jews. So if it's a race of people, I couldn't become a Jew.

David, I just answered your question. It's a race, and it's also those who convert to Judaism. Yeah, but... That's what you just confirmed from Esther. It is a race. If it's a race, then I couldn't convert to it, I can't change my race. But okay, that's fine.

My next question, my next question, no, that's fine, my next question is this. Where in the Bible does it say that King David had a star? It doesn't. So then where do we get the Star of David from? It's just a term. It's not the actual Star of David, it's just a term. So again, I don't get that. It's just a term, we all have all kinds of terms.

I remember I was in Texas with my family when I was a boy, and they had New York cut steak, my dad said I've lived in New York my whole life, I have never heard of a New York cut steak. It's just a term. The Star of David is just a term that people use later. It's not connected to David himself. Okay.

Just a term. All right, well that's fine. Well, to get to today's theme, you were talking about America being so great and all of the things that America's done. I'd like to know when was America so great and what is it that Trump said, make it great again.

So when was America so great? Well, I said depending on who hears it, they hear it differently. If a Native American hears it, they would say when was America great. If a black American hears it, they'd say when was America great in the past.

So it depends on who's hearing it. But there were many things in the colonies that were so Christian and so strong in our universities. The vast majority of all of our universities were started by Christian denominations, Christian individuals with the goal of grounding people in scripture and helping them grow as Christians in their education. That was a lot of good. I could go to more recent things like World War II helping defeat Hitler and helping to defeat the rising dangers of Japan. We helped save many lives ultimately in doing that.

That's very, very important. We have exported the gospel, humanitarian care around the world. We have pushed back against radical Islamic terrorism. To this day, these are very positive things we've done as a nation. And if you go in the Muslim world today, slavery remains, and you've got blacks enslaving blacks and browns enslaving whites, and this has gone on for centuries and others enslaving blacks.

I mean, it's just remains in countries. America overcame that by God's grace. That's very, very positive. We've had outpourings of the spirit that have gone from America to around the world like Azusa Street.

So many, many good things have come out of the country, and of course, our past has been very blemished, as I've said quite plainly and without reservation. I always say that. I never leave that out. That's reality. Hey, thank you, sir, for the calls.

I appreciate it. To go back to the first question, okay, is being Jewish a race or not? Yes and no. Through the whole Bible. So you get the verse in Esther about people converting, becoming Jews, but through the whole Bible, you've got the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You have physical descendants, but then you have those that join in, like a Ruth, like a Rahab.

So you have it. They join in the physical descendants, and then some of the physical descendants practice Judaism and some don't. So there are some of the race who are not living as Jews, but they are Jews. There are others who came from other races and converted to Judaism. That's how you have black Jews and white Jews and Asian Jews, because as the Jewish people were scattered, the people of Israel scattered around the world, originally as best as we understand it, brown skin in the origins, scattered around the world, then in particular, say, Ashkenazi Jews, I may get into some of the genetics on Thursday, because this is commonly misrepresented, but the genetics are well known.

So you had these men, Israelites, traced back genetically and historically in other documents, traced back to Israel, began to be exiled into different parts of the world. Women now convert in, say, in Ashkenazi, you can trace back a lot of the women, converted in to Judaism, married the men, they're European, so over time, became white. You have an interracial couple, right, a black man, white woman, they have a kid, the kid looks somewhat in between in skin color often.

It could be more white, more black, but often in between. You do that several generations, you keep intermarrying, you end up taking on the skin color of those around you. Same thing with black Jews. Richard Jews weren't black, all the verses that allegedly say that are easily debunked, maybe I'll do that in the air one day, but as they were exiled, went to Africa and other countries and intermarried there, people converted into Judaism, especially the women converted into Judaism, married the men, and now over a period of time you do that enough, you end up becoming black.

Same thing with Asians, same thing with Indian. So it's a race and it's a religion. Okay, let's go to Robert in Mount Home, Texas. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi Dr. Brown, in Revelation 17, 16, now a hearty amen for your optimism and enthusiasm about the United States and the future and so forth, and I can't tell that I disagree with anything that you say eschatologically, even though I have not actually read Not Afraid of the Antichrist, but in that verse, in Revelation, is there room in your theology for the United States and maybe specifically D.C. to be the whore mentioned in that verse? I don't see America as the great whore of Babylon, I don't see, whoever we try to apply it to in some states, the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformers said that and others know it's this other world system or it's this group or that group, I don't see any one group that fulfills everything that's written about it in Revelation 17, especially when ultimately you have the blood of all the martyrs in history or in her, so it's obviously not America and it's obviously not the Roman Catholic Church, et cetera, I know some of these things sound absurd to people. So Robert, I just, I do not find America in biblical prophecy, in other words I do not find anything that is specifically speaking about America, I see principles, which is why I'm gravely concerned, I have a certain confidence in God, but I'm gravely concerned, our future is not set and we hang in the balance in so, so many ways, so, so many ways, so there's an urgency I have with the hope, there's no, hey, is this gonna happen, no, I don't know it's gonna happen, I believe, I'm praying, but it's so hinging deeply on our repentance, no, I don't see Washington D.C. or America in any way fulfilling Romans 17, hey, thank you, sir, for the question, I appreciate it, let's go to Robert in San Diego, I apologize, our time is short, but I wanted to get your call, please share your thoughts, sir. Yes, I would have to add that what I, well, okay, I'll ask the question really quickly, I'd like to know if the devil is the spirit, and what your thought is on that. Yeah, the devil's the spirit, absolutely, just like God is the spirit, the angels of spirits, Satan is an angelic being that fell, so he's invisible, he is not omnipresent, sir, so he's not like God who's everywhere, he's not omniscient like God, but he is a spirit, so he lives in a different world, we don't see him with our physical eyes, but he's very real, he is our adversary, we are called to resist him, James, Jacob, the fourth chapter, first Peter chapter five, we're told to put on spiritual armor to combat him and his demonic powers that are under him, in Ephesians the sixth chapter, we have authority over him in Jesus, Luke the tenth chapter, there is a very real battle, he is out to seduce, second Corinthians the eleventh chapter, he is the tempter, Matthew the fourth chapter, he is the accuser of the brethren, Revelation the twelfth chapter, there's a lot in the New Testament about him, he is our adversary, he's out to attack and destroy, we should be vigilant, but in Jesus we have authority over him, we have victory over him, and although we're in a real battle with him, we need not fear him, we only need to fear God, hey if there's more to your question, sorry we didn't get to it, but at least we got to that part, hey friends, we're gonna have an amazing interview tomorrow with an astronaut who took space photography, kind of wild, and some great shows coming your way the rest of this week, thanks so much for tuning in, if you don't get my emails, take a minute, sign up, ask directorbrown.org, we want to put you on our welcome tour, we want to pour into you every single week, ASKDRBrown.org, send us your emails today, back with you tomorrow. Another program powered by the Truth Network.