Dr. Brown Answers Your Questions

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Phone lines are wide open. You've got questions. We've got answers. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-3455.

That's 866-3455. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today on The Line of Fire. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. Happy to take your questions on all subjects that relate in any way, shape, size, or form to The Line of Fire broadcast.

You can follow up on previous discussions we've had or ask questions completely unrelated to what we're talking about as long as it's time with our subject matter. 866-342-866-348-7884. The earlier you call in, the better chance we have of getting your call. And we start. Let's go to the West Coast. Casey in Los Angeles.

Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello, Casey. Well, it looks like Casey on my screen, but whoever I'm talking to, it's you. OK. Thank you. Hi. Can you hear me OK?

Yeah, I can. OK. Just really quickly, so back story, since I was five years old, seeing people with disabilities or diseases has really deeply disturbed me. And as I got older, I began to have daydreams about God using me in a healing ministry. And then when I learned about the gifts of the Spirit, I started to wonder, OK, I wonder if this is a gift that God has for me. But then I thought, OK, well, everybody wants to see people healed.

So am I just projecting this? And then I prayed during a year and fast in prayer. I prayed and I asked God to give me clarity on if that is what he had called me for.

And then about a week later, I was paired up with this person at work. And we were talking, just making chitchat, nothing about God, nothing about religion, anything. And he just stopped all of a sudden and said, excuse me, this might sound weird, but do you believe in the gifts of the Spirit?

And I said, yes. And then he said, OK, because the whole time I've been talking to you, the Holy Spirit has just given me these visions of God working in a healing ministry through you, like a major healing ministry, healing multitude through you. But then he said one thing at the end that made me question it. He said, and also a prophetic ministry. So I had never felt about the prophetic ministry. So I thought, is this really from God?

Is this something that he hasn't told me? So that's my question. So a few things. One, we know God's heart of compassion for the sick, for the hurting, and we know that he urges us to seek him and to pray and to lay hands on the sick. So first, I would do my best to open myself up to the Lord, meditate on scriptures about healing, and whether you have a specific gift or not, look for opportunities to minister to the sick.

Ask for the Lord to provide opportunities for you to pray for the sick or see if you can get close to people that God really uses in this way. So whether there is a specific gift or not, it's certainly a good thing to want to see people healed. It's certainly a God thing in harmony with scripture, right? Like, I can't show you in the Bible that God wants everyone to be a millionaire, but I can show you that Jesus healed everyone who came to him and that he urges us to seek him for healing for others. That gives us examples throughout the Bible.

So I would start there, just in terms of our own life. And then the second thing is, as far as a specific prophecy, there are several possibilities with this word. One, it was just the guy's imagination.

That's one thing. Another is that the Lord really did show him about healing and that he added in his own thoughts about prophecy. And the third is that he's right on both accounts. I've had people speak prophetic words to me that had one part very right and the other part was their own idea. I've had people speak prophetic words to me that were totally right on, totally off. And then in other cases where there were like three points and the first two were indisputably true.

I knew to be true. And the third seemed very strange, but I couldn't throw it out because the first two were so accurate. And as I prayed about it, it turned out the third was right as well. So I would not wait for prophetic confirmation before praying for the sick. I'd read everything I could about praying for the sick, about healing ministry.

I would look for opportunities to minister to people, do my best to understand what the word says, and then just go to the Lord. Lord, if you're really saying this, you know my heart. I'm not trying to take on anything that's not from you. Just continue to give confirmation in my own heart, in my own spirit. And maybe there's more. Maybe there are other things that will come out of it. And obviously your goal from what you're saying is not to have some famous ministry, but to see people relieved of their suffering and to see Jesus glorified as healer. So go about that.

You know, go about that as opportunities to present. Many people with healing ministries spent many months praying for the sick without seeing anybody healed. Many of them prayed for hundreds or thousands before they saw breakthroughs. And then the breakthroughs were, you know, became famous around the world. So that's how you grow with it. But either way, it's a good thing to study the word about healing, to read solid books and teachings from people with healing ministries, and then to see how the Lord uses you day by day.

Okay, thank you. It just seemed like such a, I mean, it just seemed like, wow, this can't be a coincidence. Yeah, look, if it was me, I would be thanking the Lord, like, wow, that's really something. And we'll see about the rest of it.

So I would take it in a positive way. Hey, thank you for calling, and may the Lord give you grace to touch and help many who are sick and hurting. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Glenn in Watersmeet, Minnesota.

Welcome to the line of fire. That's Michigan, Dr. Brough. Ah, Michigan.

Well, I'll tell you what. I can only go by what's on my screen, which was MN, which would be Minnesota. But thank you.

Thank you, because I've never heard of Watersmeet, so now we know Watersmeet is in Michigan. So thank you for the correction, sir. Okay, can you hear me okay, then?

Yeah, I can. Okay, here's my question. In the New Testament book of Revelation, Jesus says, I am the Alpha and Omega. And if you translate that into Hebrew, that would be, I am the Aleph and Tav, correct? Yep. Then if you go to Genesis 1, verse 1, it says, In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. And if you look in the Hebrew, you find the two, after the word God, you find the two untranslatable letters, Aleph and Tav.

Are these pre-incarnate references to Jesus? Nope. Zero. 100% false.

That's just a popular Internet myth. It's simply a direct object marker. It's a way of saying, in Hebrew, what follows next is direct object. In Aramaic, it's yath. In Hebrew, it's et.

Okay. Yeah, there's absolutely nothing to it. You know, it's just like, I've got antivirus software, AZ, on my computer.

So, the equivalent of Alpha and Omega in English is AZ. So, AZ antivirus software is not a hidden reference to Jesus as the beginning and the end. So, no, that's a popular Internet myth. There's actually a Bible that tries to make a lot out of that, but no, it's a complete myth.

I mean, that and et, direct object marker, occurs thousands of times in the Hebrew Bible, you know? Right. Once you try to put meaning on it, you get into complete insanity. So, no, nothing to it whatsoever. Nothing to it whatsoever. Yeah, thanks for asking. And anyone that tries to say otherwise, they're wrong. This is not like a debatable, some say this, some say that. No, no, it's just the direct object marker.

It is not a mystical reference to Jesus or God, the Father as the beginning and the end. No, not at all. Hey, thanks for the question. 66634 Truth, let's go to Chandler in Ada, Oklahoma. Or is it Ada, Oklahoma? Ada. Ada, alright, that's what I thought. Just slight misspelling on my screen, no problem. Yes, sir.

What's up? Yes, sir. Just a quick question for you on the Bible. Why does the Bible say that the Father draws it, even though a lot of people say that the Holy Spirit does the drawing? Yeah, because the Father does it by the Spirit. In other words, plenty of times in the Bible, the Bible will talk about someone doing something and they do it through someone else.

You know, it'll say Solomon offered X numbers of thousands of sacrifices. Obviously, he's overseeing the whole thing and many others are doing it. Yes, so no one can come to God unless the Father, no one can come to Jesus unless the Father who has sent him draws him. And how does he draw people? Well, we see elsewhere, even in John's Gospel, that he draws by the Holy Spirit. So, yeah, it's just how he does it and it's not a contradiction. And again, we're dealing with one God on top of all of this.

But yeah, the Father draws people by the Spirit. Okay. And I have just one more quick question. No, go ahead. That was a quick one.

Go ahead, sure. In 1 Thessalonians, I think it was in chapter 5, it talks about how, you know, I think it was Paul praying that your whole body and soul and spirit be preserved under the coming of our Lord. Sometimes it seems that the Bible distinguishes spirit from soul and other times it seems it interchanges both words. But I mean, they're two different Greek words, pneuma and sukay. But what's the difference between them? Right, so he prays in 1 Thessalonians 5 23 that God would wholly sanctify us, spirit, soul, body, in that order. Hebrews 4 12 talks about the division between soul and spirit.

So technically there is a distinction. In other words, technically you can analyze human beings as tripartite. So spirit, soul, body.

But elsewhere, you're absolutely right, there's interchangeability. Elsewhere, spirit or soul can stand for the inner being and then the body is the outer being. So sometimes the Bible speaks of us in a bipartite way, that we're physical and we're spiritual.

There's the outer man and the inner man. Other times it dissects us in further detail and says spirit, soul, body. Look, there are other texts that talk about spirit, heart, mind, soul, you know, what exactly is being mentioned, what are the differences. But again, they can be used in a broad sense, somewhat interchangeably.

Or they can be used in a technical sense, in which case there are differences. And that's what you find in Hebrews 4 12 or 1 Thessalonians 5 23. So broadly speaking, we are physical beings and spiritual beings. Now when you dissect our spiritual being more, you understand that we are spirits and souls. You know, some would say we are spirits, we have a soul, we live in a body. Some would explain it like that. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but that's the further language.

So, yes, sometimes they're used interchangeably. But when used more technically, the spirit is our innermost being that is born anew and now connects directly with God. The soul has to do more with with our consciousness, with our emotions, with our will.

And then our physical body is the way through which everything has manifested and worked out outwardly. Hey, thank you for the questions. 866-34-TRUTH. Hey, we've got a couple of lines open. How's that? Give us a call now.

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Let's go over to Nick in Brooklyn, New York. Welcome to The Line of Fire. How are you, Dr. Brown? Doing well, thanks.

You know, I've been wanting to speak with you on this for a while, so I'll get right to it. So my question is for Acts chapter 2. Now, I've heard many sensationists that don't believe in the spiritual gifts say that they were earthly languages that were speaking. And I've also heard on the more charismatic, kind of, cultural side that believe in speaking in tongues, like I do and like you do, that they're different from 1 Corinthians 14. But every time I've always read it, like how it says in verse 4, where it says that they were filled with the Holy Ghost and they began to speak with other tongues that the Spirit gave in utterance. And in verse 6, how it also says, and then they heard them speak in their own language. I've always interpreted it as when the Day of Pentecost came, when the Holy Ghost came upon them, they started speaking in the spiritual tongues, you know, the ones that are not easily understood. But everyone that was there heard them in their own earthly language. Like, for example, my ex actually, you know, her brother was mocking that she spoke in tongues. And her brother showed her a YouTube video of some pastor just speaking in tongues.

And she was like, what are you talking about? I heard him completely in English and he was giving some prophetic warnings to his church that there were sin in the camps that needed to be repented of. And she didn't hear the tongue, she actually heard it fluently in English. And I always looked at Acts chapter 2 in similar fashion where the apostles that were speaking in tongues didn't realize that they were speaking in, you know, the language of the priest or the Arab means or whatever. They just spoke in the spiritual tongue. And those that were listening heard it in the earthly languages.

But those that mocked thought they were drunk because it sounded like gibberish. Right. So, yeah, there actually is debate about this. In other words, you're not the only one that's had that view.

It's not my own view, but it's possible. One says there is a miracle of speaking. The other says there was a miracle of hearing. And some say that there is a miracle on both accounts. Now, why would some of the people think that they were drunk?

And Peter references what you saw and heard. So were they jumping up and down with joy? Were they overcome and staggering around? I mean, there was something that gave some of the people the impression that they were drunk. Was it that what they were saying sounded like gibberish to them?

It's possible. But then wouldn't that violate Paul's guidelines in 1 Corinthians 14 that you don't want everyone speaking in tongues publicly for that very reason, that outsiders will think it's gibberish because it is not an understandable language. So most scholars and interpreters would say the miracle was in the speaking, that there were new languages given to them, hence the tongues of fire.

It was God's way initially of broadcasting the gospel to many nations supernaturally, and that the others, if they're not hearing it in their own language, and they're just wondering what's this guy saying, and the people were kind of overcome or acting in an unusual way, would give them reason to think they were drunk. However, your view is certainly not impossible. And again, there are other teachers who hold to it that the miracle was in the hearing. And I also have heard of situations like that. For example, one of my friends at the end of one of his messages finished speaking in English and then prayed in tongues, and there was a man there from the Philippines.

And the Philippines has a main language, but you have a lot of tribal dialects that are just spoken by small groups of people. And this man, who is not a believer to his shock, heard a clear message about Jesus in his own tribal dialect and got saved. Now, my friend said, I think it was a miracle of hearing, because as far as I knew, I just spoke in tongues the way I normally did. So was that what happened? It's possible. I don't think it's as likely, but it's possible.

So you're not alone in holding to that, Nick, all right? All right, thank you. I appreciate it. Yep, you are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH. We go to Joseph in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hi there, Dr. Brown. I appreciate your time. Just one quick thing before I get to my question. I did actually find out with Quorin, they actually are releasing a new version of their translation with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and a number of other scholars as well, just as a side note. Oh, the Quorin Bible. It's not the new Israel Bible that just came out. Is it about to come out or has it just come out? It's recently come out. Yeah, yeah, okay, right. Like the Magherman edition or something like that. Yeah, I believe I own it.

Yeah, just within the last two months, I would say, I got it. Okay, anyhow, yeah, so as to your question, sir. So my question is regarding Revelation 12, regarding the woman and the man child. Now I'm curious to know how you understand who the woman and the man child is, but specifically the main question that I have is, who is the man child? Because it kind of implies one thing, but yet there's other factors that have been brought to my attention that basically somehow said it can't be what seems to be the case. Like, for example, it seems almost like this is Messiah who was birthed, but then they say, well, he has not died in this telling.

He was immediately birthed and taken up to the throne. But then again, it has references that he will rule the nations with a rod of iron, which sounds completely what was spoken of of Yeshua. So my question is, how do you interpret this? Who do you think the man child is?

And if you could also explain the woman as well, that would be great. Yeah. So as you know, it's a passage that has been read and interpreted many different ways, and it is apocalyptic language. So nothing is going to fit in the exact normal historical way because it's not math. It's not a newspaper headline or a sports score. It's apocalyptic language, which is visionary, which is full of symbolism, which paints everything in terms of a cosmic conflict at the end of the world. So the idea that immediately after his birth that he's caught up and that can't refer to Messiah, that's not an overwhelming argument again.

It's a fair point to raise. So here are the different ways to read it. The mother is Mary of Mary, the mother of the Messiah, and the man child is Jesus.

That's one way. Another is the mother is not specifically identified, but gives birth to a man child, Israel, or a remnant of believers. And then the remnant of believers is persecuted, but then through Jesus rules at the end of the world. There are various views, but the overall points that you made at the beginning to me seem to point strongly to the man child being Jesus.

The mother, again, symbolically portrayed here is Miriam, his mother, and that he's on the earth for a short time and then taken up to heaven, pictured in this way. And then war is done against his spiritual offspring, against the remnant that follows him. So that to me seems to be the most forthright interpretation of the verses. A lot in Revelation can be read on different levels, but that does seem to me to be the most obvious reading. But like anything else, you know, when you read commentaries, you see there are lots of different lines of interpretation that come. But, yeah, I'm with you in terms of I don't find those other arguments overwhelming. Sometimes you have to say, okay, what's clearest? What's the clearest thing that we have there? And then go from the clearest to the more obscure. And then even if everything doesn't line up perfectly, it doesn't have to. It's apocalyptic language. It's not meant to give things in historical form. And I would do that throughout Revelation.

Go to what is the clearest and go from the clearest to the less clear. Very interesting, too, because the woman, I believe she has 12 stars. And, you know, that could also kind of represent the 12 tribes.

Right, right. That's the other thing, that she represents the nation of Israel, which gives birth to the Messiah. That's absolutely another way of reading it, for sure. And it also kind of reminds me also of the prophecy with Othava, Eve, regarding her seed and the seed of the serpent as well. Seems like that spiritual sense of the seed of the righteous and that there's some connections to that as well. It's just a big mystery as to what the woman symbolized, so to speak. Right. And again, the question is, is there only one legitimate interpretation or is it given in visionary language to be interpreted in different ways, on different levels? There's some biblical texts, which for sure, the vast majority, they are to be interpreted, there's a right way to read them and a wrong way to read them.

It becomes a bit more difficult to say that when going through a book like Revelation, which is presenting things in symbolic, visionary ways. Hey Joseph, thank you for the question. I appreciate it. 866-348-7884. If you have a hard time getting through on Fridays, today's one of those days where we've got some open lines, which is rare, so great time to call in. We'll get to as many calls as we can. 866-344-TRUTH.

We'll be right back. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to the Line of Fire.

Michael Brown, delighted to be with you today. Phone lines are open to take your calls at 866-348-7884. That's 866-34-TRUTH. And with that, we go to the phones starting with Lee in Tehachapi, California.

Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thank you for taking my call, Dr. Brown. You're welcome. Thank you for all that you do to bring clarity to the Word of God and save the world.

Well, thanks. My question is actually about Bible codes. I know you have to be careful in that area, because there's a lot of craziness that goes on. But specifically in regard to Chuck Missler's approach to Bible codes, are you familiar with him? And what's your opinion, if I might ask? Yes, so I'm of course familiar with the late Chuck Missler and known as a real lover of the Word.

We would have some differences on some points, but obviously a man who loved the Lord and the Word. What specifically did he argue with the Bible codes? I don't know if I'm intimately familiar with his views on them. I'll comment on the broader subject of the Bible codes in a moment, but what was his position? He brought some amazing facts out.

I mean, he has a number of videos on YouTube, which, bottom line, certainly proved the fact that God was outside of time with what he was able to ascertain. Some were equidistant letter sequences, which brought forth specific words that were in an encoded method in the Bible. Right. Others were the genealogy from Adam to Noah, and in its original Hebrew meaning, brought out an amazing statement in those names. Right. And others had to do with combinations of seven that were so far beyond anybody's ability to, you know, to actually implant in there that he made it obvious that it came from God.

So here are the challenges with that. We agree that the Bible is God's word. We agree that the Bible is uniquely inspired. We agree that there are many things in the Bible that cannot be explained just by rational reason, that they must point to divine inspiration, with God laying out history in advance.

So there's no debate on that. The question is, are these further proofs of the inspiration of Scripture, or are these phenomena that people are reading back into Scripture? When it comes to Genesis 5, that allegedly the Gospel is preached through the names of the genealogy starting with Adam, it's actually not true. It's based on a misunderstanding of some of the words there.

In other words, if you've got, say, ten links in the chain, and one of the links doesn't work at all, it breaks the whole thing. First, you've got to really over... That's based on the meanings of the names in the Hebrew. And some of the names are completely wrong. For example, Methuselah, which is supposedly, you know, about the Messiah's death, it actually means something like man of the spear. It's a misunderstanding of the Hebrew. Does it mean his death will bring? No, no sir, it doesn't speak of...

I see. Yeah, it's someone that doesn't know Hebrew well, misunderstanding the original name. The Hebrew mate, it does not have to do with death, but it's an old Semitic word for man. If I might interject, in Proverbs, there is something in there that speaks of God. It's the honor of God, so to speak.

To search out a matter. Right. Right, right.

So the key thing is, Lee, that we have to get this right. So that's based on misunderstanding the Hebrew. And then the whole thing is based on reading too much into it. God put it there as a genealogy. That's the whole thing. It's there as a genealogy. That is a mysterious way to preach the gospel.

And if it's supposed to actually work, then get the names right rather than base them on misunderstanding. Now, a Russian New Testament scholar, Ivan Panin, discovered extraordinary, amazing patterns, mathematical patterns through the Greek New Testament that are absolutely stunning, that would seem to point to divine inspiration. The problem is that we don't have the original texts. In other words, we have copies of copies of copies that have been amazingly well preserved, but spelling changed over the centuries. For example, the earliest Hebrew manuscripts, as the Bible was being written, the spelling would have been one thing. The manuscripts from later parts of the Bible, 500, 700 years later in the Old Testament, the spelling changed, and then copyists made the spelling more uniform. So we have the same words, but we don't have all the same letters. The whole thing with the equidistant letter sequencing is based on having the original letters, which we don't. For example, if you take King James English to English today and spelling, like the word color was spelled C-O-L-O-U-R, then it's C-O-L-O-R. Some changes have been in our lifetime. I've watched words shift in spelling over the decades in my own lifetime.

So that's the thing. We don't have the original letters. We have later manuscripts. But here's the other problem, and this is why you have to be very careful with this. There are rabbis, Orthodox Jewish rabbis, who, relying on some of the top computer science that can be found, have found what appeared to be amazing sequences mentioning the names of famous rabbis and their birth date and their day of death, mentioning events that have happened like the 9-11 terrorist attack and finding these things after the fact in the Bible, finding various things that to them proves the inspiration of the Hebrew Bible and the inspiration of the Torah.

You'd say, well, that's great with me. I believe in the inspiration of the Hebrew Bible. However, they also find codes that allegedly identify Jesus as a false prophet, and they use this to say Judaism is true, Christianity is false, we can prove it by the codes. That's why you've got to be really, really careful with this and then ask yourself, does the Bible ever give us a hint to do this?

Does the Bible tell us to go back and read a passage based on a special coding or sequencing or something like that? So I'm not saying it's not there. I'm saying we have to be really careful in using it and really wise in using it, but I very much appreciate the call. And again, I appreciate Chuck Missler's love for the word and your evident love for the word as well. Thank you. If you want more on this, volume five of my series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, volume five, I get into a serious academic analysis of the equidistance letter sequencing argument.

That's volume five of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. Thank you again, sir, for the call. 866-34-TRUTH.

We go to Patricia in Sonoma, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you so much for answering my call, and I so enjoy your weekly radio show and YouTube videos. Well, thank you. You're welcome. The reason I'm going in today is a few weeks back on one of your Fridays, I asked you a question.

I told you that I've been working with God the Lord for about 40 years and have not spoken tongue this whole time and would like to. You directed me to Paul. I mean, Brian. OK, one of my colleagues. Yeah. Yeah. On Facebook. Yeah.

Yes. I've been trying to find him. I cannot. I have not been able to found him.

Do you have any other suggestions? So, in other words, you didn't find his name on Facebook? There was many other Brian persons and there was one that I thought might be. I sent him a message.

I have not gotten a response back. Got it. Well, let's just.

Yeah, I'm just looking. It's actually under Brian and Laurie as one name. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Brian and L-O-R-I.

Yeah, I know that I just know he loves to minister to people and help them receive the spirit and freedom in the spirit. So, Brian and Laurie. So, a bunch of people probably contacted him.

You did say your name, but you didn't have them put together. Yeah. My apologies. I'm looking at it now. So, it's as one word.

B-R-I-A-N and L-O-R-I. Yes, you should find them from there and hopefully he'll gladly open the word with you, pray with you, and you come into a greater liberty in the spirit than you've experienced before. That is what my hope is. All right. Well, keep us posted, okay? I will. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. You have a blessed day. Sure thing. God bless. 866-344-TRUTH. Now, look, I rarely say, hey, contact someone.

I just know that Brian loves to minister to people and pray with people and open up to them what the word of God says about the Holy Spirit and about speaking in tongues and things like that. So, we shall see if the connection takes place. All right. Back to the phones. Jerry in Des Moines, Iowa.

Welcome to the line of fire. Jerry, you're there. Are you there, Jerry? I tell you what, maybe Jerry had to step out, so we'll try to reconnect with him. Our call screener will check to see if Jerry's still there.

And instead, we will go over to Ted in Broken Bow, Nebraska. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, how you doing, Dr. Brown? Doing well, thank you. First time caller, I'll make this quick because I've tried this before and I never got through, so I didn't come prepared with a question.

All right, not a problem. It comes from the heart. How would you, what advice would you give to somebody who wants to reconcile with their father, but they have different beliefs? And said-so father is very stripped on said-so beliefs.

Got it. Did the breach in the relationship happen over the beliefs? No, the breach happened because I was a rebellious son. Yeah. But along the way I found, well I'm finding, I guess I could say I'm finding my way through Christ. Good.

So, and the father's beliefs, what are the things that he's really dogmatic about in these beliefs that are different? I'd rather not get too deep into it because it's not Christ. Got it, got it. Okay, so stay right there, Ted. I really appreciate your opening your heart in this way. And I've just got 10 seconds before the break, so stay right there and I'll give you my advice on the other side of the break.

And I believe as you humble yourself and reach out that God can really give grace despite the differences. Stay right there. Appreciate you asking. Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. All right, I want to get back to Ted. So, Ted, what I would encourage you to do is to humble yourself as low as you can in reaching out to your dad and taking full responsibility for whatever you did as a rebel. Whatever you hurt him, even if, let's say, it was 80% your fault and 20% his fault, you just take 100% responsibility for your fault. Be determined to get as low as you can and to honor him and to tell him that he is your dad and that you'd love to reestablish relationship.

Now, if he starts to put up walls, then you can't stop that. If he starts to say, well, unless you believe this or that we'll never have a friendship, then you just say, hey, dad, I just want you to forgive me for the things I did that were wrong. And I know God's forgiven me and you're my dad. I'm going to honor you. And if the doors you change your heart at any moment, you know, any point, I'm here.

Here's how you can contact me. You put it back on him and and if he pushes any buttons, any things that would normally provoke you, just be ready. You know, and just say, hey, I know what I did was wrong and I'm not here to argue, you know, and and sometimes just the humility, the love, the change is enough to open the door again. And it could be the Lord uses you to to lead your dad to really know Jesus. Dr. Brown, are there any scriptures you can recommend to give me the strength of this?

Yes, I would. Go to First Peter, chapter five, and read in particular the first seven verses. Now, first, he's talking to elders first, right? But then he says to the younger ones, humble yourself and God will give grace to the humble. Ted, what I learned over the years was the lower I got, the more I got blessed, that the lower I got and the more I took responsibility from from my failings, even if somebody else had really hurt me. And I've been with people who really hurt me. And I reached out to them and said, how have I failed you or let you down?

And that changed everything. So you just know that in God's sight that the I don't mean grovel or do something silly, you know, but when you genuinely humble yourself, that his smile is on you, that he's saying, that's my boy. Good, good.

That's my boy. And he will lift you up. There'll be a sense of joy and freedom that you get. So it starts off first Peter five, one through seven, it starts off talking to the to the elders and then to the younger men and that we should all be clothed with humility. God gives grace to the humble.

He resists the proud. And then it says in verse seven, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. So your heavenly father cares for you and knows the difficulty of the situation. So before you go in there, it's like, God, I'm worried. I don't know.

It's going to hurt me if I get rejected. I don't want to open the cast that all upon the Lord and he'll give you peace. Can I just pray with you, Ted? Is that all right? That would be great.

Sure. Also, read Psalm 133. So first Peter five, one through seven and Psalm 133, how God loves unity. So I know it's spiritual concept there, but this is something very important to the Lord. Lord, we pray for Ted that you give him grace to humble himself and reconcile and that you touch his father, that the relationship would be restored and that both of them would walk together following Jesus. Thank you for your blessing, God. Amen. Hey, Ted, thank you for entrusting us with that question.

Let us go to Sean in League City, Texas. You're on the line of fire. Hey, how are you doing today, Dr. Brown? Doing well, thanks.

Good, good. I had a question about, and as far as evangelism goes, I've always, you know, and I know like in my church, there's a big emphasis in a lot of the body of Christ, the charismatic body of Christ. We're pretty strong with that, but I got to thinking the other day about, for instance, the Coptic Church in Egypt or various places. Do you think that those guys were beheaded for witnessing on the street corner or was it because they were known for being Christians?

They were simply Christians, from what I understand. In other words, in a hostile environment. Now, there are parts of Egypt where it's easier to be a Coptic Christian and others where it's harder, but there is almost always discrimination.

Many times, the lowest and worst of jobs are the only things that you could work. There's a lot of opposition to in many areas of society. Under President Sisi, there have been strong efforts to improve the state of the Coptic Christians, but they're in a difficult situation. There's always persecution one way or another over the years from more radical Islamic groups. And when you have crazed groups like ISIS being raised up, simply being a Coptic Christian is enough for you to get killed. Now, it could be that they were very well known for their witness. It could be they were simply known to be Coptic Christians.

Either way, that was enough for them to be beheaded. Right, right. Well, do you think, just as far as in the West, because when I read Scriptures, and I've kept this in mind, I'm trying to bring it back to my mind, because I'm not down in evangelism or anything like that, but when I look at Colossians 4, 5, and 6, it talks about walking in wisdom to those who are outside, redeeming the time, and that we might know how to answer each one, and then 1 Peter 3, 5, I think it's 3, 15, just again, answering people, not so much beating my chest and telling everybody, you know, here, because at one time I would witness to people, but I would witness to people in the sense that I tell them the Gospel, but my witness wasn't all that strong.

Right, right. So, Sean, I think the issue is that you may be caricaturing evangelism as somebody standing on the street corner and yelling, okay? All of us should be witnesses. All of us in one way or another are called to be witnesses. So, first, we live out our faith in front of the world, right?

It's not words or deeds, it's both. We live out our faith in a consistent way that when people see us, they know that we're followers of Jesus. It shouldn't be that they're around us for a year and when we tell them we're followers of Jesus, they're like, what? You're the nastiest, most out-of-control person I know.

How could that be? So, it should be our own lives, our lifestyle is consistent with our faith, and that we look for opportunities to share the Gospel. It's normally one-on-one, but sometimes it can be from the pulpit, sometimes it can be through social media, sometimes it can be preaching to crowds. So, evangelism takes on thousands of different forms, but it's not either or. It's not, well, I'm just going to live out my faith. No, no, you live out your faith and you share your faith verbally.

We do both. But if you share your faith and your life is not right, it weakens the message. If you just live a certain way but don't share your faith, it kind of mutes the message. So, it's both and.

It's both and. And in certain countries and situations, just being a Christian, you're marked. Which is terribly difficult, but often where the Gospel spreads the most. All right, let's go, time for another call or two. Let's go to Jim in... All right, let's go to Christy in Des Moines, Iowa.

Welcome to the line of fire. Christy, are you there? Yes, I am. Well, go ahead, please. I got a question about backsliding.

Yeah. I've been a Christian for 20 years, and there was where I was under a lot of stress, and instead of praying, I failed on that part, and I end up going to cigarettes. And then I've literally felt my Holy Spirit leave this decade, and I took that first bus, but I knew, and I've been kind of distraught from that moment on. Would I ever get that Holy Spirit back?

Well, of course, of course. First, God is not going to abandon you for smoking a cigarette. However, if you knew that you were walking in disobedience to God and grieved the Spirit in a certain way, then it's simply a matter of turning back to Him. Read through Luke 15, read it over and over. It's the story of the prodigal son, but first it's the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son.

All right, so that's in an extreme form of someone completely walking away from God and living in all kinds of sin and obedience. And yet when they come back in repentance, then the Father runs to meet them and embraces them and celebrates with a party. So I would encourage you to humble yourself before the Lord, repent of anything you know has grieved Him.

Maybe you had a very intimate experience with Him and you felt that's lost. Certainly, He loves to restore. He loves to restore and bless so that the end is even better than the beginning. So read that through Luke 15 over and over until it settles in your heart and mind that the Father wants to embrace you with both arms. And Psalm 51, David's psalm of repentance after committing adultery and murder, he deeply repents and says, God, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. If God was willing to hear David's prayer and not take the Spirit from him after those sins, certainly God is willing to bless you with intimacy, with the Spirit, with that sense of closeness after doing what you did.

And obviously under duress. So know that Jesus died for those sins. He died for adultery. He died for murder. He died for pride. He died for abusing our body with cigarettes. And He provides us with complete forgiveness and we ask it for Him. So Psalm 51 and then Luke 15. Let that penetrate your heart and mind. Everyone that's under condemnation thinking, well, God's rejected me forever. Read that. Take it in the Father's longing to embrace you again. Be blessed.