You Dared to Ask and We Answered

It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator Dr. Michael Brown.

Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. And as always, our purpose being on the air with you every single day is to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front lines in the Lord. We have completed our frontline newsletter for the month. We are about to send it out. So if you are not getting these, it's an important message on Israel.

Amazing testimony from the Philippines, Hebrew word study, a powerful book excerpt, some incredible quotes from Spurgeon. You want to get it. If you're not getting my frontline newsletter, go to thelineoffire.org. Thelineoffire.org.

Click subscribe. Okay, phone lines are open. And many times on Fridays, our lines are jammed from the moment I look up at the screen.

But we've got some open lines now to start the show. So this is a perfect time to call in with your questions on any range of subjects. And although it's normally futile, because I get very few that take me up on this, I invite those who differ with me, those who think I'm wrong on different issues. Those who post hostile, nasty, damning comments, all of our social media, I welcome you to give us a call and tell me why you think I'm wrong and deceived, etc. Let's do it. 866-348-7884.

And truth, just remember, I need locations as well as names. I'm assuming this is our buddy Eddie from Connecticut. Is that correct? Yes, Dr. Brown. How are you today? Doing just great.

Thanks. I got two quick points, if you could help me out, doctors. We had a big argument this week about this, sparks were flying. I said, we're talking about communion, and I said, guys, and I'm reading in John 6, I said, how do we remember and honor Jesus in communion with the forbidden practice and the Torah? Eat my flesh, drink my blood. And then when we read that in the Gospels of John, it said that when people heard that, they're like, dude, I'll see you later, pal.

Are you out of your mind? And then I said, if we were students of the Torah and we heard him say that, how can we not run away? You'd have to run away.

You'd say, buddy, you just went over the line. So I said, how do we make sense of this? I don't know, let me get my thought, I got to call Dr. Brown. But that was the first question, Dr. Brown.

All right, so I'll start there. So the whole thing that happens in John 6 is that he's talking spiritually and they're thinking naturally, right? He says, I'm the bread from heaven. You know, we're hungry. It says they didn't come because of the miracles, but they came because they fed the 5000, their stomachs were full, so they came for another meal. So he says, I'm the bread from heaven. I'm the bread that came down from heaven. So they're not getting what he's saying. So he keeps getting more and more extreme in the point he's making to help them understand I'm talking to you spiritually. If you try to understand me naturally, if you think that I'm literal bread that you need to eat, you're missing the point.

I'm the spiritual bread you need to eat. So he gets more extreme to help them to understand what he's saying, but they're not getting it because they're thinking in a carnal way. That's why he says to his disciples, the flesh profits nothing. It's the spirit that gives life. I'm talking to you metaphorically, spiritually, and then he says, what are you going to do when the Son of Man ascends to heaven? In other words, when I'm not physically here, I'm going to eat my flesh, drink my blood.

I'm trying to make a spiritual point to you. So when he sat at the Last Supper and he gave him bread and said, this is my body. Well, they understood it wasn't his body. They understood that. They didn't think the bread has just suddenly become his flesh and now we're supposed to eat his flesh. No, they understood metaphorically, spiritually, symbolically.

So that was the whole point. He was speaking to them in terms they were thinking in such carnal terms that he was forcing them either hear me spiritually or leave. And because they wouldn't hear him spiritually, they left. The disciples didn't know what he was saying, but they said, where else are we going to go?

You have the words of eternal life. They didn't fully understand, but they knew they couldn't leave him. So that was his whole point. You're thinking in such carnal terms, I'm going to speak in more and more exaggerated terms to force you to either hear me rightly or you're going to have to leave. And that's what happened.

They didn't hear him rightly and they left. We understand that we're literally not eating his flesh and drinking his blood just at the Last Supper. He gave him wine. This is my blood. In other words, this represents my blood. So you need to partake of my life spiritually.

If you try to do it in a natural, carnal way, you're going to be misled. So that's the explanation there. Next question. The next one, another one was the second part of the Bible study fight over here was we're talking about the New Covenant and Jeremiah 31. And I said, guys, if you had to say, and you had to write all these down, give me some characteristics of the New Testament.

And the guy said, oh, the Messiah, 33 years, he lived, he buried, crucified, three days. So we're writing all these pitless things that happened in the New Covenant, walking on water, disciples, healing the blind, raising the dead. So I said, but when you read Jeremiah 31, you don't see anything of that. You don't see a hint of anything you guys just mentioned of the New Covenant. And then when I, and I close with this, which caused the, when Jesus said, this is the blood of the New Covenant, which is what we shed.

I said, is that adding to something? Because when God and Jeremiah said, this will be the New Covenant I'm going to make with you, he banged out like five different things. I'll put my laws in your mind, your hearts, you know.

Yeah, yeah. So to explain it, number one, covenants were made with blood. So that's common. Covenants were made with blood. You know, Exodus 24, this is the blood of the covenant.

It's common. Covenants were made with blood. So the New Covenant inaugurated with blood, that's standard.

Nothing new there. But here's what you're confusing. You're confusing the New Covenant, which is the new agreement, the new relationship with God that we have through Jesus, with the writings of the New Testament.

Okay? The New Testament writings, that tells us all about Jesus and the letters to the churches and the book of Acts and all of that. That's what that is. The New Covenant is the relationship that we have. We're not under the Sinai Covenant. So we talk about the Old Testament. That's the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Sinai Covenant is the specific arrangement that Israel was under in the Old Testament. So we're not under the Sinai Covenant. We partake of the New Covenant.

Now it just so happens that we refer to the New Testament in the same terms. These are the writings of the New Covenant. But the New Covenant itself is the arrangement that we now have new life through the Messiah. That our sins are forgiven. So what's the essence of the New Covenant? That our sins are forgiven. That God's written His law on our hearts, that He doesn't remember our sins anymore.

That we don't serve under that. So the best place to go for clarification on that is Hebrews 8. And if you want to go all the way through Hebrews 8 through 10. But Hebrews 8 lays out this is the New Covenant. This is the covenantal relationship.

That's what's changed. So not the New Testament writings, the books of the New Testament. But the New Covenant, the relationship that we're in. So Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34 in full.

And if you want to just get the larger context, Jeremiah 8 and 9 and 10. Hey, thanks as always for your questions bud. Thank you, Doc. All right, God bless. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go over to Jan in West Germany. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Good evening, Dr. Brown.

Thanks for having me. Yes, I have a question regarding Christians and American politics. Yeah, these are basically two questions. My first question is, I mean, the U.S., they are the leading country of the Western world, especially in this situation. I ask myself, why so many Christians in the U.S. support somebody like Trump who is so profane? I ask myself, I know there are many decent, educated people in the Republican Party who also oppose abortion and homosexual marriage.

Isn't there anybody else they could support? And my second question is, again, I get the question with abortion. So why do Christians in the U.S. often totally omit the social question in a sense like, I'm not a socialist and no European country at the moment is socialist. But, you know, the system here is, well, even if your parents are poor, for example, there's some social balance.

You still have health insurance. And even if your parents are poor, you can go to university, study because education is free. Like that, omit the question, you know, there are some weak people and some basic needs for them should be catered for, like health, education. Why do Christians, some omit it and just go to this extreme as if capitalism is the most biblical way of running a country? Yeah, very fair questions.

I appreciate them. So here's the political system is not necessarily going to get the person who is the most qualified for the job. You have to have a certain kind of personality. You have to be able to present yourself publicly. You have to be tough and ready to fight and things like that. So there may be many fine candidates that just can't take it.

They're not able to hack it on the front lines. So Trump is a fighter. And what has gotten the support of Trump is that he has fought for Christians. He has fought for freedom of speech. He has said, everybody's putting you down. I'm going to stand up for you.

And finally fought back. Now, the other thing is we're looking at some existential issues. We're looking at, for example, the real threat from communist China or from radical Islam.

Who's going to stand up better to those? We're looking at the horror of abortion. We're looking at radical ideologies that are affecting our children. We're looking about real dangerous open borders. For example, fentanyl is pouring in through our borders, probably with the help of China.

And the number one cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 44 right now is fentanyl overdoses. So people look at the choices and I would prefer many candidates rather than Donald Trump. But if it ends up Trump versus Biden, then many Christians say, well, there's no possible way we could vote for Biden because he's pro-abortion and stands for all these other corrupt policies. So they choose Trump over him. The error that we've made is exalting Trump, defending Trump, making him into some type of savior figure, making it a spiritual thing rather than saying, hey, we hate his profane ways.

We don't like his character and his narcissism. But we believe when it comes to these issues, he'll do better. Then they'll say, look, Jimmy Carter was a Sunday school teacher. Jimmy Carter talked about being a born again Christian.

And Jimmy Carter is one of the worst presidents we ever had. So say, look, we're just being pragmatic. It's a battle right now. It's like you need a general to lead the army. And the guy that's the best general may be a real profane, nasty guy, but he's going to defeat the enemy that's trying to destroy your lives. So that's the rationale behind it.

The error has been the way that we have exalted him, identified with him more wildly than we identify with Jesus in some cases. So that's just the explanation as to why we are so focused on certain issues and may neglect others. I'll address that on the other side of the break. Welcome back to the Line of Fire. 866-344-TRUTH. You've got questions. We've got answers.

So Jan, in West Germany, there are a few aspects to your question. There are many Christian conservatives in America that really do relate capitalism to the gospel. And they would say that biblical ethic and work and entrepreneurship and things like that go hand in hand with capitalism. And it's what has made America what it is and enabled us to prosper and be a positive influence around the world, helping with humanitarian work, helping push back against world terrorism and things like that.

And that it's a God blessed system. I'm not an economist. I don't get into a lot of economic debates and things like that. But I will say that, generally speaking, Americans have much more in terms of discretionary funds than people do around the world. In other words, we pay less in taxes.

And most Americans prefer that. The fact is we do have social services that care for people. We have a welfare system. We have food stamps.

We have schools where you can get in for next to nothing. We have basically everybody's going to get health care one way or another. So it's not it's not like we're bereft of that. And when we look at things, I know you do have when we look at Canada, for example, we don't like the health care system. There are England and and we'd like to be able to make our choices and go to the places we want to go to, et cetera. So there are definitely some imbalances and there are arguments that can be made for each system. I'm not the one to present that I could explain the Trump thing far better than the economic one. But it's basically we we prefer our independence and our ability to make choices for ourselves and not be locked into a certain system. And we'll take the challenges with it along the way as to why we make it as if capitalism is an extension of the gospel.

That's part of just our our heritage as Americans, as opposed to something that I would really argue from a biblical viewpoint. OK. Yes. So thanks, Dr. Brown for answering my question. Yeah, I appreciate it.

And one last thing. You know, we recognize the evil of abortion because of so much in scripture about about the slaughter of the innocent, especially children. And therefore, this is something of great importance to us. The question is, do we care about the child outside of the womb as well as inside?

I say the answer is yes, but that's where we have to demonstrate that that's our value. Hey, thank you, sir, for the great questions. I appreciate it. It's six, six, three, four truth.

We go over to San Diego, California. Michael, welcome to the line of fire. Hi, thank you, Dr. Brown. I watched your show, The Seven Signs of Abusive Leaders, where you said that church leadership must give transparency and accountability for how donor funds are used. I emailed you a story, a very alarming story, about a church where you are the overseer of, you're on the board of overseers, about financial accountability. Yeah, they are. Yeah, just to jump in here.

I know exactly what you're speaking of. We did receive the reports. This church is at the highest, highest level of financial accountability of any church I work with in America, in point of fact. And according to everything that I have seen, this is a disgruntled person who was rightly confronted by leadership and then left and has been trying to create all kinds of trouble. Everything I've looked at, even this person's individual story, they make it clear this is a personal gripe. I 100 percent stand with the leadership of this particular church. I'm not going to give a platform to abusive comments about them here, but I 100 percent stand with them.

Not only are they part of ECFA, but they have an audit on a very high level, far beyond what is needed and are absolutely open, accountable. I can ask any question on any level and everything I can see is the individual involved, which if it's you and you're the one behind it, you really need to step back and let the Lord deal with your life. What you're doing is destructive, is harmful, is only going to hurt you in the long run. Better to humble yourself, repent to the leaders and say, you're obviously trying to speak into my life and I wouldn't hear it. Again, I'm not going to give a platform to false accusations here. But the moment you started speaking, I know exactly what you are referring to.

I know the videos you've been putting out, etc. And I can tell you, this is a personal issue that you have, the financial accountability, the transparency as someone intimately involved, goes far beyond what is required by law or even by biblical ethic, far beyond, excelling on every level. Whatever it is that happened with you, sir, however you've taken offense, however the leader sought to correct you and you wouldn't hear it, humble yourself before the Lord, receive correction input from him. You may be zealous, but you're in error and you're only going to hurt yourself and hurt others and rob yourself of great blessing that could come. And I'm so pleased to work with leaders who are people of integrity and accountability. I'm so pleased to work with people who really go the extra mile to make themselves available and to be transparent, especially with finances.

I wouldn't work with the church unless that was the case. I pray, sir, you have ears to hear what I am saying. Let's go over to Mary in Arkansas. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thank you.

I'm in Alaska. You know what? You are, and it's just, it's my eyes.

I've got this giant screen with John Prit, but because I'm nearsighted, it's like, I see. Anyway, welcome to the broadcast. Thank you. So I have a question regarding heresy. Like, I think you said something about something crosses over to heresy when the teaching is destructive, damnable, that kind of thing. Is that pretty accurate?

Yes. So the Greek word for heresy is a word just for difference, right, for a divergent belief. So we can use it one of two ways. We can use it for something that we just think is wrong, but it's not a matter of salvation and say that's heretical. For example, if someone says that speaking in tongues in prophecy is not for today, I can say that's heretical because the Bible is so clear on it. However, it's not heretical in the traditional sense of it would damn you to hell if you believe it. If you say that Jesus did not rise from the dead, that is heretical.

If you say that the Bible is not the inspired word of God, that is heretical in the sense of those beliefs will damn you to hell. So that's the historic, more strict view of heresy. That will directly affect your salvation, right? Yes, exactly.

So I have, like, this is probably not in that category, but I want to ask your opinion. I don't believe once saved always saved. I know that a lot of Christians believe that, so you can be a Christian and believe that, but on the other hand, if you believe that and you just take it too lightly, take sin too lightly, you could ultimately be damned.

So here's where we have to walk carefully. There are fine Christians who love Jesus, who believe in once saved always saved, and they say that it's just exalting God's grace, and if you do sin, you're going to lose your reward in heaven, if you refuse to repent, or it may cut your life short, but you'll lose your salvation. And I know they love the Lord, and they don't preach license and sin, and they're godly people. However, for sure, the implications of it, to say that you don't have to demonstrate any change of a life whatsoever, demonstrate any fruit of repentance, you pray a prayer, and you're guaranteed eternal salvation, no matter what happens in your life, you can live as an atheist, serial rapist, killer, whatever, and you're still saved. That is terribly dangerous, and that belief then could well be considered heretical, because it absolutely is damnable in that respect, so I have to say it carefully, because people hold to it who love Jesus, brothers and sisters, that are not heretical, but the implications of it, the dangers of it, yes. In that sense, it is potentially damnable, absolutely. Hey, thank you for the question.

Depends on the person, right? Yep. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on The Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. You've got questions, we've got answers.

I just want to explain why I handled a call the way I did a moment ago. We get tons of emails sent to us. I don't see the vast, vast majority. They're handled by our team. We get tons of letters, packages sent in.

I don't see the vast majority of it handled by our team. But I did get something from a gentleman who started an organization, and it was with all these reports making serious accusations against a church where I serve as an external overseer. In other words, the leaders in the church there, they'll come to us, several of us, with questions or problems, or further accountability is needed.

They'll come to us, or at any moment I could speak into their situation. So this came to us, I think it was overnighted, showed it to others on my team. So it got my attention, and I reached out to the pastor, got the details. Everything on every level, as far as I could see, was right and being done rightly by the church.

Other leaders, outside leaders, agreed as well. These are people of really high levels of integrity, and my own team from everything they could look at, everything was in order. So from everything I could tell, there was an individual who was disgruntled, left the church with a gripe, and has now gone on a crusade, an all-out crusade, putting out videos and so on. And even the video, he's saying, hey, he wasn't treated right, and the whole church should be involved, saying it a very nice way outwardly, but it's an ungodly attack on good people. So I'm not going to give someone the platform now to defame people. In other words, thankfully he didn't do that, but I cut him off before it was going to go any further. I would have interacted unless there was the possibility, number one, of him now mentioning the church and defaming them on the broadcast, that's number one. Number two, I'm not going to give a platform to someone who's acting in a divisive and destructive way. So because I knew the background, I jumped in the way I did, just for your information. All right, let's go to Albert, North Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call.

Sure thing. I have a question about the word tehillah. I grew up in the charismatic Pentecostal church all my life, and being a worship leader myself has always taught that tehillah was like spontaneous praise songs, but actually looking up the words in a strong concordance, it doesn't give that definition.

So being that you are a biblical scholar in the Hebrew language, can you give me the real definition for that word? Tehillah, so the accent on the last syllable, tehillah just means praise. For example, when you have hallelujah, it's from a similar root, the root halal, haleel, to praise. So hallelujah is praise, yah, praise Yahweh. Tehillah just means praise. When people get into, you know, the seven different Hebrew words for praise, and each has, a lot of times it's exaggerated, you know, the meanings that we put on it. So tehillah simply means praise. It doesn't mean praise as distinct from worship, or spontaneous praise. It just means praise.

Okay. So the charismatics kind of put an exaggeration on that word, is what you're saying? Yeah, they add to it. In other words, if you say there's a difference between upbeat, joyful praise, and a deep adoration in worship, or, you know, we, or, you know, there's a difference between like, you know, he's talking about Hebrew to prostrate oneself before the Lord, you know, so you get on your face before God. There's a difference between that and dancing and celebration, etc. So tehillah, the praise part is normally associated more with, you know, clap your hands and shout and sing. It's not as associated with like bowing down in worship.

So we're like, we're trying to read more into it, right? So you're, you're making a distinction beyond what the Hebrew says. It's not wrong. And that, for example, praise God in the Psalms is praise Him with the musical instruments, praise Him with the dance. It's the same root from which we get tehillah.

So that's, that's where people get that from. But the word itself simply means praise. That's all. Okay. And if we make a distinction between praise and worship, like some do, like this is, you know, praise is upbeat celebration or clap your hands or dance and worship is deeper.

I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that distinction because of the, but, but the word itself just means praise. So don't read too much into it. But the overall themes, that's why I never bothered with like doing a teaching against it because the overall themes were good. You know, the concepts were good.

We just exaggerated how much was found in the Hebrew. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

You are very welcome, sir. God bless you. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go over to Texas. Amos, welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown.

How are you doing? Very well, thank you. I had two questions, but the first question is in 2 Samuel when it's talking about God's promise to King David. I just wanted to ask, what does it mean like when he says, when he, when he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men?

Like, because he just didn't do wrong. What does that mean? How does that apply to us?

Right. Well, it's, it's speaking of the descendant of David, the second Samuel, the seventh chapter, first Solomon, but then future descendants, that if they sin, the promise will still remain to David. He'll still have a son on the throne, right? It's an ongoing eternal promise to David, but that God will bring discipline. And what's, what's the discipline he's going to bring? Well, you know, enemies that will attack, like God raised up adversaries for Solomon, different, you know, he was ruling over an empire and then they broke away and started to attack him. So God will, God will bring discipline, but he won't take the light away from, from the sons of David, hence the ultimate fulfillment through Jesus. So Solomon sinned, so the line of David continued then with Rehoboam and then with the kings after that, but they were disciplined. Some, some went into judgment, some lost their lives.

So God disciplined them, but he kept the promise. Okay. I guess, cause I thought I was talking about Jesus there, but I mean, it doesn't make sense.

No, so Jesus brings the ultimate fulfillment as the ultimate son, but that's speaking of the earthly kings that followed him, right? Okay. Okay. And then my second question, you know, I always listen to your program and I was like, man, I got to ask him a joke.

So, uh, I don't know if you've heard it before, but I was like, let me share it. Uh, cause who is the only person in the Bible who doesn't have a father? The only person in the Bible who doesn't have a father.

Well, you'd think Adam, although God is his father. Okay. So go ahead. Give me your punchline.

It's, it's Joshua, son of Nun. Got it. All right. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

That's, that's like, uh, Joseph played tennis cause he served in Pharaoh's court, right? One of those old, I should have remembered that one. I heard it. Thanks. Okay.

Hey, listen, as, as a regular listener, I'm glad he called in, in a lighthearted way with a joke. Um, but we won't start a tradition with that. Okay. But I, that was sweet. I liked that. Okay. Let's go over to Greg in Cary, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. I just have a question about, um, uh, efficacy of, um, someone praying who was not born again, other than praying for their salvation. How effective are they as far as praying without being saved? Other than like praying for salvation, like I said.

Right. So you've got somebody that's fearful and you know, their car, there's an accident, the car stuck on the side of the road and they're saying, Oh God, send somebody, please send help to save me. But they're not a believer. And they're not praying for, for spiritual salvation. So the principle is the general principle, John nine, God doesn't hear sinners.

He hears the prayers of his own people, but he doesn't respond to the prayers of sinners. That's the general principle. And he's under no obligation to write.

In other words, if I'm living my life, however, I'm living it, then I get in trouble. And I pray for God to help me. He's not there just to help. However, he can certainly answer whatever prayer he chooses to answer. That may be the way he makes himself real to someone. And they now realize that God is real. And over a period of time, they come to be saved.

So God's free to do whatever he wants. There's no promise of it. That's the key thing.

There's no promise. But that if an unbeliever calls out to him for help, that he'll help. On the other hand, he does hear the broken hearted. He does hear the desperate. And if it's a sincere call for help, as opposed to just thinking God's obligated to bail me out whenever I get in trouble, God might choose to answer as a way to reveal himself to that person. So the promises are to those who are his children walking in faith with him. But he's free to answer however he wants as God. And that may be the very thing that draws someone to himself.

Makes perfect sense. One real quick thing, Dr. Brown, I don't know how you'd be able to help me with this, but I was wondering about checking my DNA with my ancestry and stuff. I was wondering if there's any way you could get the information without going on.

You may not be able to do it on air or anything, but you can maybe email me or something. But a good reputable DNA search. Oh, OK. Yeah, there are a few.

Yeah, if you generally speaking, I'm no expert on this, sir, but Greg, generally speaking, if you just search online for DNA tests, you know, you'll get a few two or three top ones that will come up. And any of the major ones are considered to be equally reliable as best as I know. So I'm not going to recommend one or the other, but generally there are a few two, three, four that are widely used. And they have the biggest databases. So when you search, those will come up.

And those are generally equally reliable to my to my knowledge. All right. Thank you for the call.

We go over to Chicago, Dakota. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, thank you, Dr. Brown. The reason I particularly wanted to call and ask you this question and I just want I mean, I want to be very succinct, but I just want to give you context is I as much as I appreciate about your leadership and ministry. One of the strongest things is just your heart for revival in America.

And actually, given you've seen different pockets of revival here in this country. And so I'm a young domestic missionary full time here in the country. Went to undergrad, got my Bible undergrad, just graduated seminary. And I believe the Lord has also called me in this country to play whatever role that is. And so currently I work for a parachurch organization serving high school students. But in that, I mean, I am called to interact with pretty much every demographic related. So parents, teachers at public schools, local youth pastors and so forth.

And pretty much over the last couple of years, what I've been coming up against is what I want to ask is, it seems to me that like coming from scripture, though it's multifaceted, one of the strongest evangelistic tools is unity in the body, right? Stay right here. I'll be right back. We'll get to finish your question on the other side of the break. I am so glad to hear you're doing what you're doing. I'm so glad to hear it.

We'll be right back and we'll get to as many calls as we can on the other side of the break. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. Shout out to our co-sponsor TriVita. Check out these great resources, great wellness resources, if you like, by calling 800-771-5584.

Or if you're interested, you can go to TriVita.com. And remember, the code is BROWN25. Okay, so Dakota, your question is then. Yes. So I told you what I do. The frustration, though, that I'm coming up against is, with doing the hard labor's work, I believe that a missionary does, especially in such an of an apathetic country as ours, one of the hard things is getting the church to be convinced that we actually need to not be compromising and need to be speaking boldly. And that actually like comfort Christianity is probably not the biblical Christianity. And to not only be convinced of that, but to lean into that. What I experience is either a lot of either ghosting from different people not wanting to partner, which cuts at the core of like the unity that I think we want to get into or worse, which is just like total breaking a fellowship and so forth. So my question for you, someone with your experience and knowledge is twofold. Number one, for me, how do I as a missionary and those like me that are experiencing this are grieved by this? What text or what scripture can reflect on that will give us hope and perseverance to be diligent, despite the laborious feel that we're in?

I mean, I have yet to really see a resource out there that really speaks to this kind of unique grief. I think that that full time ministers experience. But number two is what prescription might you give us to treat this?

Do we like one of my temptations I feel like is I'm very bold, combative and direct. And I feel like a case to be made on both ends, either calling people out, holding them accountable, not compromise, have good integrity or maybe give them grace and just pray for them and wait it out. So how would you speak into that?

Yeah, so if I could give some very long answers, I'll try to be concise. Number one, you want to pray that God would break your heart for the things that break his heart. In other words, many times we can get angered by the compromise of the church or the sin of the world without being broken over it, without having a broken heart.

So that's the first thing. The second thing is you get low, you honor elders. But where you're convinced that the path that someone's taking would be compromised for you, then you have to do the will of God. You know, Galatians 1, Paul said, if I yet serve people, I wouldn't be a servant of Christ. So there is this recognition that you're owned by the Lord and you're accountable to him. So you bless others, you honor others, but you have to do what God has called you to do.

Better to find a small group of people or one key church of like heart and like mind where you can work together. Then you don't pray accusatory prayers against others. You pray for God to pour out his Spirit on others. You pray for the church to walk in the fullness of its calling. And then you have to run the race that God has called you to run. First Corinthians 9, 24 to 27, run your race so as to win. So you have to determine to do that, understanding that, you know, also Jeremiah 12.

That when Jeremiah has just had it because of mistreatment and misunderstanding, even from his own family and death threats, and he complains to God, God says, oh, you can't take it, you're getting worn out by the foot, and then what are you going to do when you're running with horses? So there has to be a determination, okay, the tougher it gets, the more grace I find. The tougher it gets, the more I take hold of God's promises. And because I'm moved by love, not by anger or frustration, when it's time to forgive and be gracious, I do it.

When it's time to call things out, I do it. And you remain humble and teachable. I had many rough edges in my earlier days. I have less rough edges now, far less by God's grace. But I had to learn to receive, to be corrected.

Even someone that maybe I thought was compromised, they may also have had some wisdom that I needed. So you never want to set yourself up as you got it all and the church is all messed up. But find others of like heart and like mind and refuse to back down from truth and conviction. But let it be that when you're worn, you're worn with tears.

You're worn so that people feel your love for them, that it's not out of harshness and anger. And God will bring people to you, that you will see people born again. And you may not see the numbers you want to see initially, but when you see converts, they'll be real. And then the people you work with will be of like heart. That's the key thing. If it's a unified team of two or three and a church of 30 people, that's far better than having hundreds and mega churches that don't share the same heart.

And I'm sure you can find that, that those of like heart, even if the numbers are smaller, especially in a big city like Chicago. So thank you. Yeah. Do you have my book, The Silencing of the Lambs?

No, I've been trying to catch up on some of your others, so I would love to pick that one up soon. OK, tell you what. Stay right there. OK, stay right there.

And our call screener will get your name and address. I want to send you The Silencing of the Lambs just as a personal encouragement and gift to you. So, Truth, if you could get Dakota's info, we will send him The Silencing of the Lambs.

Thank you so much. All right, let's go over to Greg in Dayton, Ohio. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown. I have a question. I was listening to your show just a little bit ago and just wanted to talk to you about what that lady said about, she was saying, like, being one and done, getting saved, and... One saved, always saved, and the abusive... So, there is a teaching, One Saved, Always Saved, that's widely held, especially in many Baptist churches in America, that says, OK, you ask the Lord to forgive you, He forgives your sins, you're born again, right?

Now, after that, maybe you fall back. You fall back into your old sin, you deny the Lord, you become an atheist, you die an alcoholic, but you're still saved because salvation is based on grace, not works, and that doctrine can be a damnable doctrine because it can tell someone that they're OK when they're not OK. And that's what we were discussing. A Calvinist believes in what's called perseverance of the saints, that if you're truly saved, you will walk with the Lord, and if you ultimately die in your sin, you are never really saved. And someone who holds to one saved always say, look, we serve the Lord because we love Him, not for a reward, but if we do walk away from Him, that we'll suffer either in this world or we'll lose our reward, the world to come, but we'll still be saved.

So, there's a danger with that because it gives a false assurance. The worst form of it says, you don't even have to demonstrate fruit of repentance. In other words, pray this prayer, the moment you say it in faith, you're born again, even if there's no change in your life ever, and you live and sin the rest of your life, you're still saved.

That's a very dangerous thing to tell someone. Yes, because I walked away from my faith for a number of years, and then the last years have been getting real strong, you know, and I always, you know, it wasn't his fault, it wasn't the Lord's fault or God's fault. I walked away, I just walked away for a number of years and was doing things I wasn't doing. I knew He was always there waiting on me, and so, you know, now I'm, you know, doing, you know, bagging, you know, getting strong in my faith, and, you know, the way I believe, too, is we're still sinners, even though we're Christians, we still sin, you know, we're not perfect, you know. So, we're saved by grace and by faith and by what Jesus did. The question is, can I reject that? Do I have the power to reject God's grace and reject the Lordship of Jesus?

Absolutely, yes, and that's the danger. But, Greg, you would say there's a difference now, before you sinned, when you walked away from the Lord, you chose to sin, you knew it was wrong, but you did it anyway. Now, you want to honor the Lord, you may fall short, you may do something wrong, but your heart is to please Him. So, it's a different attitude today, correct? Yes.

Yeah, and that's the big thing. So, every day we live by grace, every day we fall short, even if we don't know it, even if we thought we were perfect, we fall short the hundred ways that we don't even know about. So, we live by grace. But that's different than saying, I'm going to do my own thing. Jesus, I don't want you as Lord, because I want to pursue sin.

That's when we're in danger. Hey, I'm so glad that you're in good standing with the Lord, sir. Thank you. You're very welcome. Have a good day. Thank you very much. Alright, do I have time? Alright, let's try to go really quickly.

Deoxy in Baltimore, time is short, so please dive right in. Alright, thank you so much for serving the body of Christ. Dr. Brown, my question is about 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34, where the Apostle Paul is referencing, as the law says, and I've just noticed how hyperlinked the Bible is, and I'm just curious about what are the verses that are being referenced in the Old Testament or in the law, and in this particular case, it's not clear to me how my reference Bible doesn't seem to point to any particular law or verse. Correct. Right, so first thing, there's a question, some people believe that Paul's quoting that, and it's actually their question to him, and they're getting the question wrong, and he's saying, that's what he answered, like, what are you talking about? He's rebuking it, but let's just say that he's making that statement. So there is no explicit verse in the Torah, which is the law, or sometimes the whole Old Testament can be called the law, because just the whole of the Old Testament is under the category of namas or Torah. So is the whole of the Old Testament, is there an explicit verse that says it?

No. So it would have to be something implied, you know, that the woman is under the husband's authority, or something like that, but even there, there's nothing really clear. That's why some think that that wasn't even Paul's point, that was a question they were raising, and he quotes it to just rebut it. But there is no clear passage in the Old Testament as a whole, or the Torah in particular, that he'd be pointing to. So it has to be speculative, that it's something that's hinted at, etc., and that's all that he was saying about being under the husband's authority. And it's, as a first century Jew, it's possible to interpret scripture like that in terms of principles, but there's definitely nothing explicit that states that. Hey, we'll have to take this up another time, but that's my simple answer. Blessings to each of you on your weekend.