Dr. Brown Tackles Your Toughest Questions

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Let's do it. I am especially excited today because we are now using for the first time brand new phone lines that have been installed. So everything should sound, feel the same for you, but it's giving us more flexibility, even opening up some additional lines. So phone lines are open and we have some open lines, which we don't often have on Friday. So call right now if you want to get in the broadcast today, 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. Any question of any kind that relates in any way to anything we ever talk about on the line of fire, anything I've ever written about, preached about, you've ever seen any of our videos, interviews, anything, if it ties in at all, happy to discuss it with you. And if you think I'm wrong on something, by all means, tell us why, 866-348-7884.

With that, we go to Jared. Welcome to the line of fire. How you doing, Dr. Brown? I'm doing very well, thank you. Awesome.

So I'll try to be fast. I had kind of like a three part question on who Jesus is and kind of what He's done for us, and I believe all the things that the Bible says, but kind of just to get a greater understanding of it. So, you know, I go and talking to Muslims or like a Mormon or something like that, you know, like, why was Jesus called the Son of God, you know, and like, and when did He start being called that, you know, it kind of goes in my head to like, was He called that from the, from eternity past? Like, was it when He became a man? Was it when He, you know, became the King, like the resurrection? So that was just kind of one part of it. Part two was kind of like, you know, just curious, again, if He never would have got crucified, like, would He have died, you know, because He was like, He had access to the Father in every way, you know, and sinless, like, would He have died, you know, and then was He able to raise from the dead because He was sinless? That's kind of always been a question in my head, too. And then last one, I'm sorry, last one, like, how did His resurrection and ascension, like, strip the powers of their power, you know, like, couldn't have God just given Him authority, you know?

So obviously we could speak for multiple hours on each one, so I will be as concise as I can with my answer. Scripture identifies Him as Son of God in different ways. For example, Luke 1 35, when Mary and Mary, His mother, is told by the angel Gabriel that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and so that Holy One to be born to her will be called the Son of God. So here, He has a human mother, but God is His Father.

So that's one aspect of it. Another aspect, Psalm 2, you are my son, today I have begotten you. So that has to do with His coronation, with His kingship, which some would then tie in with Acts 13, where with His resurrection He's declared Son of God, and Paul speaks of that in Romans 1 in terms of Son of God in power, you know, being declared Son of God in power. So, on the one hand, He is Son of God in that He has a human mother, but no human father, so He is supernaturally begotten. In another way, He is Son of God in that He is the appointed divine King who rules and reigns. Yet, when Hebrews 1 speaks of the Son being the radiance of the Father, it's speaking of something before creation, and that all things hold together in Him. So, my understanding is that as, in terms of as God has revealed Himself to us, that the Son comes forth from the Father, and then all things come through the Son by the Spirit, so one God, Father, Son, and Spirit. So, the question was, was He eternally known as Son?

That's the only revelation that we have. Certainly, God is eternally triune. Did God eternally exist in the relationship of fathers and spirit? Your church fathers would speak of Him being eternally begotten, which was always a mysterious phrase to me, because if you're begotten, then how is it eternally? So, that was just a phrase that was philosophically complicated for me.

But that's a question that the Word does not explicitly answer. Did God eternally exist in those characteristics of Father, Son, and Spirit, or did the triune God reveal Himself to us in the characteristics of Father, Son, and Spirit? But certainly those are the different ways in which He is the Son of God. The second thing is that we know that He was born, that He grew, that He developed like any other human being would, like He needed to sleep, that He needed to eat, which would suggest that He would ultimately die, not because of sin, but because of lack of access to the tree of life. That was the whole thing in Genesis 3, that if they could eat of the tree of life, they could live forever.

Otherwise, it is just the natural characteristic of human beings to die. Now, all human beings are descendants of Adam in that respect, and bearing his guilt of sin, you know, being in a fallen nature. But theoretically, just like He needed to function in this world, there may be some theologians that tell me I'm wrong here, but theoretically, I would imagine that at a certain point His body, just as He grew as a human being and needed to sleep and eat as a human being and was hungry and tired as a human being, that ultimately He would have physically expired. As for His resurrection, He is raised from the dead as the Son and then declared the Son through the resurrection. He can only be raised from the dead because of His sinless perfection to live forever, but He strips the powers, the demonic powers of their authority, makes a public display of them, according to Colossians 2, and I also believe what's indicated in Ephesians 4, leading captivity in its train, in that every power of darkness in the universe, you could say, was together wanting to stop Him from rising from the dead. This was now the absolute declaration of His power, of His authority, and He was now lifted up to the highest place. So, again, I'm getting a physical picture of a spiritual reality. It's as if everything is trying to hold Him back. His breaking out of it declares His lordship, and by declaring His lordship and by all authority being conveyed on Him, it renders the other powers broken.

It renders them subjugated to His name, and therefore, by His authority, we go and fulfill the Great Commissional Authority in Heaven and Earth, it's given to him, Matthew 28, 18. Hey, thank you so much for the questions, and sorry for the, well, I had to be concise, understood. 86634truth. Let us go over to Laurie in Chicago. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Laurie, are you listening by radio or another means? By radio, I'm W-Y-L-L. Awesome.

We love being in Chicago on a daily basis. So glad to have you as a listener. How can we help, Laurie? Well, this is concerning the millennium, and I know that the rapture will come before the millennium and take all us believers out, and so there'll be so many generations and hundreds of years, so the people that are going to multiply during that period of time of a thousand years, God wants everybody to be saved, so who's going to witness to those people, so they don't end up in the wake of fire? Yeah, so Laurie, it's really interesting you ask this, because earlier in the week, I was asked a similar question about whether the gospel will be preached in the millennial kingdom, so it's not the kind of question that we think of a lot, so let me first be very plain to say that when we talk about details like this about the future, we have to be very tentative. In other words, some people get up and be super dogmatic, it's this and this and this and this. I just don't see that we have sufficient information from God and His word for us to absolutely know that. Let me just talk more broadly, then I'll come back to your question. We believe, for example, that babies who have been aborted go straight into the presence of God and will be with Him forever. Well, let's say the mom now, some years later, she gets saved, now she's going to see her baby in heaven, or maybe there is a miscarriage or something, and at what stage of development is that child, right? You know, we don't know. And then, you know, it's just so many things. Let's say that you had relationships with people that were terribly painful in this world that never got fixed, but you're both saved and now you're together in the presence of God. Do you remember stuff?

Do you not? Just thought we don't know. I remember the disciples had been with Jesus three and a half years and kept talking about His death. It was clearly prophesied in the Bible, but they didn't get it.

So, I think we have to be careful to not be super dogmatic, but you ask a great question. So here's what we know from Scripture, that as we understand God's kingdom on the earth for a thousand years, it will be what's pictured in Isaiah the second chapter, that all nations will come streaming to Jerusalem to learn from the God of Jacob. Isaiah the eleventh chapter, that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. So, it seems that Israel will fulfill a role of being a priestly nation to declare who God is to the world, and that the nations will have access from what we understand Jesus Himself, Yeshua the Messiah, will be ruling and reigning in Jerusalem. So, people will be even learning directly from Him, and then we're not preaching the gospel now, right? We are glorified.

We're resurrected already. We're serving with the Lord and helping to rule and reign and administrate as we understand the Scriptures. So, it would seem that God Himself will be instructing, and that it could well be Israel serves as a priestly nation, and that's how people will learn about God, but it'll be a different situation than today, because again, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. So, everybody will know, at the least to the greatest will know, then the question is, will they rebel or not? Will they follow or not?

Will they submit or not? It seems like the knowledge of the Lord is going to be universal at that point, so it's going to be a different situation than today. Does that make sense to you?

It sort of does. It's just that if we believers are gone, and everybody that's born is an unbeliever, then where are they going to get their knowledge of God and Jesus? Yeah, well that's the thing. He's going to be right there.

That's the point. He's actually going to be right there with them, so they're going to get that knowledge firsthand, face to face. It's not that we're going to be gone, we're going to be with the Lord, but already resurrected. So, it's going to be a very different situation than today. Picture it like this, that the rain's going to be coming down on everybody. Some people are going to put up an umbrella to stop it, but the rain is going to be coming down.

Everybody can get wet if they'll simply open their hearts and their minds. Hey, thank you so much for asking the question. I do appreciate it.

We'll be right back. 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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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on The Line of Fire. 866-348-7884. Boy, I got a new screen, and I am absolutely loving our new phone system.

It sounds terrific to me as well. I'm looking. We actually have two phone lines open, which we often don't have on Fridays. We've been trying to get through. This is the perfect time.

866-34-TRUTH. And let me just tell our production team, maybe we'll grab a few YouTube questions as well if folks want to post them there. That's also fun to do. If you're watching on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel and you haven't clicked like yet, thumbs up on it, do it. And by all means, if you're not a subscriber, make sure you subscribe so you can be the first one to know as soon as we premiere a new video. All right, we go over to San Antonio, Texas. Mike, welcome to The Line of Fire.

Hey, Dr. Brown. Thanks for taking my call. I actually just liked the video I'm watching on YouTube.

So as soon as you said that, I was reminded to watch the video. Good job, man. There we go. Synchronous. Absolutely.

Yes, yes. First, before I ask my question, I just want to thank you for all the work you do. You do an incredible job. I watched some of your debates. I'm actually reading Authentic Fire because I wanted to learn more about The Kiss of the Spirit, watched your debate with Theodore Zacharias twice. And so I think you did an excellent job. So I just wanted to say that.

Well, thank you so much. And, you know, when it comes to The Kiss of the Spirit and that debate, to me, if you're just going to ask, what does the word say? You're not going to talk about your own experience. You're not going to talk about, well, either these false prophecies spoken over me, or we prayed for my mom for years and she died of cancer. I mean, very real situations and very real questions.

But if you're just going to say, what does the word say? It seems pretty clear that it's hard to make, and I say this with all respect to my cessationist friends, I have scholar friends who are cessationists, but I just don't think you can make a case for cessationism just using the Bible. And that's why when that was the nature of the debate, it's like, let's do it anytime for sure. But anyway, thanks for the good word. So go ahead to your question. And I agree with you. And it pertains to this question, though. And I love that you've been talking about this the past couple of weeks of actually, can we let the Bible say, I like that title that you have the other day of, can we just let the Bible speak for itself?

And so I think that's important. So my question is, as it pertains to the Ten Commandments, I want to give a little brief background, I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I'm a former Seventh-day Adventist. And so coming out of that church, one of the things, of course, we believe is the Sabbath, and particularly one of the arguments of why is these Ten Commandments, particularly the fourth one. Well, in my study, I've come to ask this deeper question of Ten Commandments, because if we look in Exodus chapter 20, starting in verse 1, if we go from 2 to 17, the only break we see there is when, of course, the people get scared, and then Moses tells them to stand back, God tells them to stand back, and God keeps giving them the law. So the law doesn't actually stop until Exodus 24. And in fact, we don't actually get the term Ten Commandments until Exodus 34, verse 28, which is the second reading, or after the tablets are broken, and God gives them the second reading. And what we see that's unique about that aspect is that the order is different. So we don't have that same order that we have from Exodus chapter 22 through 17. We have a different order in the beginning of Exodus 34. And then, of course, we have Deuteronomy chapter 5, that's the second reading of the law. So in light of this reality of what we're seeing in Scripture, my question is, am I in error to say that the children of Israel at the time of hearing the law, they would not have heard ten specific things set apart from the whole covenant, that it will all be understood as the covenant, and therefore there are no ten specific set-aside laws and rights? That's my first question.

Am I often saying that? And secondarily, where did that come from historically, where we've understood this to now be these ten specific things, and in some ways, the moral law, apart from all of the covenant, when they would have assumed it to be the whole covenant, because they received it in one way? So those are my two questions.

Yeah, thank you, and those are great questions. Some rabbinic interpreters would say that within the Ten Commandments are all 613 commandments. So Judaism, even though if you go into a synagogue, where what's called the ark and the Torah scrolls are in there, in the front of it, it will have an abbreviated form of the Ten Commandments. So Judaism certainly accepts just like Christianity that there were these first, in Hebrew, ten words that were spoken that were Ten Commandments, so especially Exodus 20, then repeated in Deuteronomy 5, and then in literature through the centuries, it's just understood that these ten did exist in a special way. But for Judaism, they're not separate in any way from the rest.

They, it's not like they're the most important and the others are not important. So, in terms of that development, it developed a little differently in Christianity, because Christianity said, hey, this whole law is not for us, it was for Israel, but these Ten Commandments are for us, and then the Saturday Sabbath morphed into Sunday over church history without biblical precedent or authority. But these were spoken in a distinct way, and they were certainly seen as part of the whole Torah, for sure.

There's no question about that. They weren't seen as separate, or we do these, but we don't do the others. But they definitely were spoken in a distinct way, and there's a Catholic versus Protestant divide in terms of how you count them, are there two covered ones at the end, two separate ones, or are there two different, don't make an image, don't bow down to an image at the beginning. But I would say you're wrong in terms of not recognizing that these ten words were spoken and understood as such, and then reiterate it as those ten words in Deuteronomy 5. Exodus 34, it's better to understand that God speaks the ten words, writes them on the tablets, and then gives these additional commands. Critical scholars call it the priestly decalogue, like it was a separate set of ten commandments, because you're right, it's not just different order, it's different, some very different commandments there, and much more agricultural, cyclically, seasonally oriented. But for sure the ten commandments as such did stand out in history and were recognized as such, but in Judaism, never in a way that you just do those and not the others.

It became something that Christians took hold of more deeply over the centuries, and then rather than saying, hey, the Sabbath was a special sign God gave to Israel, and we find ultimate Sabbath rest in Jesus the Messiah, now how do we live this out practically, instead the church made a decision at a certain point that the Sabbath had shifted to Sunday, as I said, without biblical precedent. But to do, let me say this last thing, sir, to do what Seventh-day Adventists do, and to say, well, that's the commandment and that has to be kept, I tell them, well, how do you separate that from everything else, based on what? Based on what biblical principles? So, the argument you're making is a right argument, that there is no authority just to separate that from everything else, but we do that, you know, ask a Seventh-day Adventist, why don't you keep the Passover, and what about the New Moons, and what about this, you know, and that and the other thing.

So, you're on to something, right, I would just say you swung a little too far in emphasizing it, right, in terms of how you're reading it, but the overall point that you're getting at is the correct point. It was part of the Torah as a whole, part of the Sinai Covenant as a whole, so therefore we need to deal with the question of how the followers of Jesus today relate to the Sinai Covenant as a whole, and then from there we recognize new and better covenant written on our hearts, and then we go through, okay, how does this work out? What does the New Testament tell us about murder? What does the New Testament tell us about adultery, idolatry? What about a Seventh-day Sabbath commandment?

Does that apply to Gentile believers today? So, that's how I'd approach it. Hey, sir, thank you very much for the call, thanks so much. Thank you so much.

Alright, 866-348-7884 is the number to call. Boy, friends, I live in a constant state of encouragement, but I've been even super encouraged in recent days because God's on the move. God is on the move, friends. Don't cast your eyes down.

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I think we've got one phone line open, 866-348-7884. I was speaking to some leaders this week, folks mainly in their 30s, but pouring into Gen Z, so the little bit younger generation. And one of them said, you have given us a blueprint for how to deal with the cultural issues. And that meant the world to me because we're here not just to speak for me, but to speak for you.

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By God's grace, we've been given some wisdom here that we've been able to impart. And things are happening across the country. Hearts and minds are changing. Let's look at another headline here. Illinois College ordered to pay Christian student $80,000 for silencing conservative views.

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Wilmington, Delaware. John, welcome to the line of fire. How you doing, Dr. Brown? Thanks for taking my call. Sure thing. How do you feel about Dr. Michael Heiser's book, The Invisible Realm?

Absolutely right. Yeah, Dr. Heiser and I got to become friends. He was on the show a few times. I got to do some podcasts with him, and we got some good face-to-face time. Of course, he's not with us now tragically.

He died of cancer. So, we were trained in the same fields. In other words, our PhDs in Near Eastern languages, literature. He had more of a history background as well. But we studied the same literature. We read the same texts. And certain things that he wrote about in his book that were kind of revelatory to a lot of believers, like, wow, I never knew this, would have been common knowledge to someone who had studied in terms of ancient Near Eastern background. So, there's so much that he wrote that I agreed with, and that explains some of the dimensions of what's happening in the Old Testament. On the one hand, we know that there's one God and one God only. And Dr. Heiser was a monotheist.

There's one God, one God only, only one Creator, only one who's eternal. We also know that you have statements like in Exodus 15, Mika mocha ba'alim adonai, who is like you among the gods, oh Lord. And that God was going to judge the gods of Egypt in Exodus. So, we know there were other beings that were worshipped as God, that there were angelic princes, you know, Daniel 10, over different countries. So, I think Dr. Heiser has opened that up more, and even some of the realm of angels and what they would do. It's interesting, you have a Hebrew word sod, which can mean secret, or it can mean inner circle. And in Jeremiah 23, through the prophet, God speaks to the false prophets and said, if you had been in my sod, if you had been part of my inner council, then you would have heard this word, a word of judgment, instead of bringing your false message that shalom, shalom, va'en shalom, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

So, and then, you know, Isaiah 6, we've got God in the seraphim, and who will we send and who will go for us? You have those kind of environments that I think Dr. Heiser has rightly pointed to. I differed with him on certain points, for example, I believe how Satan, the adversary in the book of Job, is the devil, is Satan himself, and that, you know, other texts we might have seen differently.

So, there's a lot I would agree with and affirm, and then some specific points we might see differently. Okay, great. Thank you very much. You are very welcome. And of course, he's got a whole lot more insight on that than I do right now, being in the presence of God. 866-348-7884. Let's go to Josh in Durham, North Carolina. Thanks for calling the line of fire.

Yes, sir, thanks for taking my call. My question is, I've seen that a lot of pastors and theologians will date Mark to between 50 and 55 CE, but a lot of critical scholars will date it between 70 and 90 CE. My impression is that they're only dating it that late because of the temple prediction. Jesus predicted the temple being destroyed, and critical scholars say there's no way he could have predicted it, therefore it has to be dated at least 70. Is that accurate, or are they using, are there other things going into their consideration for giving it a later date? Yeah, a lot of it is the presupposition.

You're absolutely right. And you'll generally see conservative scholars dating things earlier and liberal scholars dating things later. So it's almost that one is more prone to have a more positive faith outlook, and the other is more prone to have a negative skeptical outlook. Famously, a few decades ago, J. A. T. Robinson, who was a liberal scholar, process theologian, which had some very odd beliefs, but he wrote a book that shook up a lot of things, called Redating the New Testament, where he, as a critical scholar, said all the books of the New Testament were written before the year 70.

So that really rocked a lot of boats, but things kind of settled back down afterwards, and it was never a consensus view. But I am not aware, I'm not a Marx scholar, but I am not aware of anything within Marx's Gospel itself, anything in terms of textual transmission, anything in terms of historical hints. You know, if I was talking and I happened to reference President Biden, well, that dates me, right? I obviously didn't, I didn't say that in the year 2012, when he was vice president. So, I'm not aware of anything like that. And then in terms of textual transmission, obviously we don't have the earliest copies, the original copies. The copies that we do have are not early enough that they could affect the dating certainly not decisively. And then there's a lot of question about who borrowed from whom, you know, the older views being that Matthew and Luke built on Mark, then other scholars have driven views. So, I am honestly not aware of anything that would challenge what you're saying, that the biggest issue is the specific descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem could not have been clear predictions in advance. They had to be written after the fact. And then you try to dig in and surmise, well, this would be after the fact, that would be after the fact. But I'm not aware of any compelling reason to date it after the year 70. And nothing that I'm aware of that critical scholars have raised that would cause us to really question an earlier dating. Okay, great.

I really appreciate that. Do you mind if I ask you, have you talked to Jeff Durbin at all about doing a debate? What would you like us to debate? Well, I heard you say that you got a few requests for an eschatology debate, and I was just curious to see if you reached that comment. Yeah, no, we haven't. Yeah, I mean, Jeff and I know each other, but I'm real close with James, James White, who's real close with Jeff.

Yeah, so, yeah, he's post-millennial, and I think he's gotten James to shift over to post-millennial. I think it would be great. I think it would be really fruitful and eye-opening and enlightening, and of course, would be mutually respectful. So, yeah, that's a reminder for me to reach out and see if we can set that up.

I think it would be a good learning experience for everybody and help everyone see the strengths or weaknesses of our various positions or how we could each use the Bible and come to such very different conclusions on different topics. So, yeah, by all means, I will have our team remind me to follow up. So thank you, sir, for the call. Yeah, awesome.

Thank you for your time. Alright, 866-348-7884. I've got a break in a minute, so we come back.

Let's see, we go to Alberto and Dwayne and Rick. That's the order that we'll do when we come back. 866-348-7884. Do you have the Ask Dr. Brown Ministries app? I spoke to a bunch of younger people today, and I said, hey, you can take me home with you, and I can answer all your questions in your pocket with your phone. You say, well, I mean, I can't talk to you about, you know, what you can get for lunch kind of thing, but we have thousands of searchable articles and thousands of videos that are referenced. So if you get the app, Ask Dr. Brown Ministries, get the app, and then use the search engine on it, look for subjects you're interested in, and hopefully we've got lots of resources to help you. And you scroll down on the homepage, there's the Real Messiah Jewish Outreach site, the Consider This videos, our animated videos, five-minute teachings, so all kinds of great resources at your fingertips, and it's all free! F-R-E-E. Thanks to our supporters and our friends, it's all free. So get hold of it. If you don't have it, download it. Ask Dr. Brown Ministries.

Okay, we'll be right back, going straight to the phones. Have you had a setback from an injury, accident, or surgery that left you feeling weaker and a loss of strength? Or are you feeling the effects of aging and just don't feel like you have the stamina or energy you used to? Then MyoHealth might be an answer to your prayers. Backed by 24 human clinical studies 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, you can feel stronger at any age, have more energy, and live a life with vitality.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Okay, just a super quick word of encouragement. For those of you going through a really tough time, don't throw in the towel. It doesn't get better if you quit. It doesn't get better if you give up. It doesn't get better if you conclude there's no hope. God is your hope. God is the light in dark places. Even in the times when it seems like He's not with you, you will see over time as you lean on Him, He is incredibly faithful.

It's not some mental thing we're conjuring up. He is real and faithful. So if that's for you, don't throw in the towel.

He remains faithful still and He will give you grace to make it. All right, we go, let's see, to Savannah, Georgia. Alberto, welcome to the line of fire.

Yes, good afternoon, Dr. Brown. When you think about that, when people say, you know, about your religion, keep it at home, nobody wants to hear about it. But the moment a man of God falls, they'll want to blast through it all over the media, all over the news, all over the news papers. So I can say the same thing to them, look, about sports. Look, man, I don't want to hear about your sports. I don't want to hear this guy make a field goal 75 yards across, or a guy with 100 yards dash, he may just judge now.

Do that after yourself at home. That's offensive to me. Yeah, so somebody might say, Alberto, don't compare that to sports. You're talking about your religion, your morality, you're trying to put that on me. I ask him, so how do you feel about Pride Month? How do you feel about that? You know, that's making a declaration. That's a moral issue. That's a cultural issue.

How do you feel about that? You know, it reminds me of a story. We were sitting in my old days of eating pizza all the time, living on Long Island.

I'm out with Nancy and our daughters and we're having pizza. It's in the mid-1980s at our favorite little pizza place. And there's a guy in there who was well-known in the community because of the way he looked.

He was short, but he had kind of a 50s look, like the Fonz character on TV, except he had his hair dyed blonde and it really stood out. So, he didn't know who he was, but he just stood out. So, he's sitting there in the restaurant and Nancy said to me, I just feel like he's crying out for God. He's crying out to know God. And I said, I'm going to go talk to him.

It's a real little place. I got up from my table. I said, did he sit down for me? He goes, yeah. So, I said to him, and I really don't start with this. I said, I just want you to know that God loves you. He gets furious.

God loves you! He's just furious. My daughters actually got afraid that he was going to jump on me, attack me, you know? So, I sat down next to her. I said, oh yeah, that would be great. And she goes, she says to me, I know he's crying out.

It's like, oh yeah, right. So, anyway, I stand up to get some more pizza. He's standing next to me. He goes, God loves me. God loves me. He goes, wherever I go.

That's all anybody ever tells me. God loves me. He goes, why don't you keep your religion in the church? And so, I thought, oh, something is going on in this God's life. God keeps sending people to him, but I did not want to be clever. But, you know what my response was going to be to him? Well, why don't you keep your hairdo in the barbershop, you know?

Well, no, the whole reason he gets his hair done is to wear it out. So, the whole reason we gather together as God's people is to now go and shine the light. And that's our mission, you know? And say, hey, listen, if everybody was dying of cancer, and we had the cure for cancer, it's our holy obligation to tell everybody. We want everyone to, something wonderful and beautiful and amazing has happened to us. And we want everyone to have an opportunity to know this God. If you don't want me to talk to you about the Lord, I'm happy not to.

And if I can do anything for you as a friend, I'm here to do it. I'm not trying to stuff anything down your throat. But the reason we come together is so that we can share the good news with everybody. And that's why we do it, because we love people. And we're not trying to put anything on you, but we love people.

Hey, thank you for the call. And you're absolutely right. They don't want to hear about our faith, but if there's something bad, they want to talk about it. Oh, yeah, my spirit all over the place. Oh, yeah. Even Christians, unfortunately, join into it too. Yeah, it can happen sometimes.

Sometimes the hot news is... The Lord didn't contribute to the cause, did they? Yeah. Yeah, we got to run our race to make a difference. Hey, man, thank you for the call. I do appreciate it.

Let's go to Dwayne in Richmond, Virginia. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Thank you, Dr. Bell. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. All right, so I have a question. I have some family members that are at Venice, and when the guy was talking about the Ten Commandments, my question... Well, I guess a part of a statement and a question.

We're not... The Ten Commandments and those laws, isn't that a covenant between God and the Israelites? Yes. So, the question is, how much of that does that transfer over to us? That was part of the Sinai Covenant. We're now under a new and better covenant.

So, how much of that transfers over? So, when we look through the New Testament, we see that there's the command not to commit idolatry. We see there's the command to honor parents. We see there's the command to not commit adultery, not to murder, not to covet. We see all those things, but we don't see the reinforcing of a seventh-day Sabbath command for everyone. We see Yeshua saying, Jesus saying, come to me and find rest. And then you find within Romans, where you had Jewish believers and Gentile believers together, that some set one day apart, some said every day is the same.

So, within those communities, there were differences. So, there is nothing in the New Testament where there is a command for Gentile Christians to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. So, when people just say, well, it's part of the Ten Commandments, you say, well, yeah, well, how was it translated out into the New Testament and how do we live it out? Right. So, my question is, so, if the covenant was strictly between God and the children of Israel, if you were a Gentile, you were not part of that covenant, correct?

Right. So, the argument would be, Dwayne, that if you came to live among the people of Israel, and now there's one law for everybody. So, if you're part of that community, if you're part of that community, and that the argument would be that believers in the New Testament are grafted into the larger commonwealth of Israel and therefore come into the same law, what I would say is, for sure, for sure, you come into the same new covenant. Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34, God makes the new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. So, it doesn't mention Gentiles there, so it's through the mediation of Israel that the new covenant comes to the whole world in Jesus, to all believers in Jesus Yeshua. But right, you are right, it was a covenant God made with Israel, now the new covenant with Israel and Judah is now extended to everyone through the cross. So, if I want to know how do I live as a New Testament believer, I learn from the Old Testament, but ultimately I have to see what's commanded in the New Testament, what carries over and how does it carry over. Right, and if Jesus said, I give you these two laws, if you do these two laws, you fulfill all of the law, that's pretty much it, right?

Well, yeah, but I mean, here's the whole thing, though. Obviously, in terms of living it out, if you love your neighbor, you're not going to commit adultery, right? That's what Paul says in Romans 13, you're not going to steal. Absolutely.

Right, right. So, ultimately, loving God, loving your neighbor will translate into a holy life, into an ethical life, etc. And he doesn't abolish what comes before he brings it to its fulfillment. So, Sabbath is important. The question is, how is it lived out? Is it lived out primarily through finding rest in him?

Is it lived out as well in a sacred day during the week? And those are things, especially Jewish and Gentile believers will each work out. Hey, Duane, thank you for the call. I appreciate it, man. All right, appreciate you, thank you.

Yeah, God bless you. And let us go to Rick. Where are you in Spain, sir? Hello, Rick, are you there? Okay, Rick was, I don't get a lot of calls from Spain, so I guess we'll say goodbye.

We'll say goodbye to Rick. Oh, right here, I'm right here. You're there, you're there. Okay, great, great. Yes, go ahead with your question, please.

Yeah, right, south of Spain, Mala, which is right on the Mediterranean. Wow, all right. Well, thanks for listening and calling.

You know, thank you for taking my call. So, this is just a couple of Greek words, and maybe they're a possible application from Ephesians 6, 17, the last part, right, where it says, take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Someone read a study that was saying that in Greek, the antecedent there for which is spirit, or should be spirit, and then together with the Greek word rhema, it should read something like this, take the sword of the spirit, the spirit is the rhema of God. Oh, no, no.

I don't know what you think about that. No, definitely not the right way to read it. The most logical one, in terms of the antecedent, the noun that follows is the sword of the spirit. So, spirit there is in a genitive form, it is of the spirit. The noun that comes before is the sword. So, the Greek ha, which is now looking back, which can mean who or which or what, that is definitely going back, not to the of the such and such, but to the thing that is the of the. So, it's the sword that it's going back to. And for sure, the sword of the spirit is the word of God, which is then, and rhema and logos are very much interchangeable in the New Testament, actually. Many people say the logos is written in rhema's revelation. It's overstated.

I mean, it's used in that way in a popular way, but it's overstated. So, the word of God, what does it tell us in Hebrews 4-12? The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. So, there's the imagery there. And then how does Jesus fight the devil in the wilderness? In Matthew 4 and Luke 4, he quotes three times from the word, which is from Deuteronomy there. So, no, it's definitely not the right way or the logical way to read it, which is why translations will universally render it in a way that lends to our standard interpretation. So, the antecedent of which is the sword. Let's use the sword of the spirit, amen? Not just to grow in God, but to push forward against the powers of darkness. Have a blessed weekend.