Setting the Record Straight: Dr. Michael Brown Our Special Guest

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00:35

And greetings! Welcome to The Dividing Line. We are starting off 2018, and we are doing so with a special edition of the program.

00:43

When you start at the half hour for The Dividing Line, you know that something is up, and today we have a special guest joining us via Skype that I will bring on in just a moment.

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I want to introduce him first because, well, it's not the first time he's been on. I've been on his program many times, he's been on this program many times, but we have some important things to be talking about.

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Dr. Michael Brown is the founder and president of Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina. He's the director of the

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Coalition of Conscience, host of the daily nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Line of Fire, as well as the host of the

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Apologetics TV show, Answering Your Toughest Questions, which airs on the NRB TV network.

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He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a visiting or adjunct professor all over the place—Southern

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Evangelical Seminary, Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, King Seminary, and Regent University School of Divinity—and he has contributed numerous articles to scholarly publications, including the

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Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion and the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament.

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Here to my right, I have arguably, amongst most people, Dr. Brown's most famous work, the five -volume set

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Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. This is a monumental work.

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If you have not obtained it, I would highly recommend it to you in light of especially the fact that on certain subjects, sometimes it's the only source you can go to to deal with the objections of Jewish apologists.

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And always keep in mind, many of our Muslim friends are very dependent upon Jewish apologetics, and so you will find a tremendous amount of information there.

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Also, I did the book of Jeremiah here in the Expositors Bible Commentary—Jeremiah Commentary—in that series, and I was looking for a number of my other books, and I must have lent them out or something, but A Queer Thing Happened to America, Can You Be Gay and Christian, There's Outlasting the

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Gay Revolution—numerous, numerous books on the subject of homosexuality, which is a very dangerous subject to write books on because, as I discovered, after about 18 months, you sort of need to rewrite it anyways because everything has changed so quickly since that time period.

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And so there are also other books—Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People—and recently branched out because he shrunk so much and wrote

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Breaking the Stronghold of Food, How We Conquered Food Addictions and Discovered a New Way of Living, just last year with his wife,

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Nancy. And we're not going to get into that today because everybody always turns off when

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I start talking about cycling or running or anything else, so we're not going to worry about that today. But let's go ahead and make sure we can make contact here with Dr.

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Michael Brown. Are you with us, Michael? I'm hearing you loud and clear, man. Great to be with you. Excellent.

03:59

It's good to have you with us. And as I noted, you know, we can go back in the dividing line a number of years, and there was a bigger

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Michael Brown that took up a little more of the screen than the Michael Brown we see today. So, you know,

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I'm still hoping that somewhere, that little conversation we had, I think, in 2014 in Málaga, Spain, had a little teeny something to do with encouraging you toward the great transformation you made.

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But I don't know if you remember, we were walking out of the studio there in Málaga, and we had a little conversation about,

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I was getting up in the morning and running down next to the seashore or something like that. And I hope

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I was an encouragement along those lines. Oh, yeah. No question about it. There were a bunch of things that were going on, and I've really been praying for some years just knowing

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I was going in the wrong direction with stewardship of my body. So all these things definitely played a factor.

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And it's three and a half years now of totally healthy eating without exception, by God's grace, and I'm blessed and thriving.

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Although, you're always in my head when I'm rowing, because with your marathon obsessive rowing habits, my best 5 ,000 meter row is like paltry compared to yours.

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So I'm always thinking, okay, James is doing better. I need to row better. But I'm putting good stuff in my body every day.

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You do far better at that than I do. But I did set my all -time 30 minute record on your rower in your house.

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So that still stands as my best record. And I remember you yelling at me, you can do it! You can do it!

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And you're opening the door and fanning me, because it was getting warm down there. So I appreciate that.

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So anyway, that's not why we got together today, however. Obviously, well, let me give the background here, because some people may not know, but most people

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I think tuning in today do know what the background of all of this is. We first met in 1995 when you debated

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Rabbi Shochet at Arizona State University. Is that correct? We had not met before then, had we?

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No, no, we had not met. In fact, when someone introduced you to me, they said that they were joking, said you were a six -point

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Calvinist. So we immediately began to exchange little pointed lines with smiles towards each other.

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But that's the first time we met, in late March of 1995. Yeah, 1995. So we're coming up on 23 years.

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Is that correct? Yeah, 23 years. And you managed to post that debate,

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I think, just earlier this year, or last year, wasn't it? 2017? Sometime. Because I hadn't gotten lost, or the video was lost, or something.

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I forget what it was, but... It's probably more accessible now, but for years all we had was the audio, and then my assistant

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Scott used to work with me as my assistant years back. He was cleaning out a closet because it was his mom and dad that helped sponsor the event there in Arizona, and he found the video.

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So we were able to put the video up some years back, but probably got much more wide distribution more recently. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

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And then I've forgotten most of this, but you remembered it.

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We had some sort of a little clash after that. I don't remember what it was about, to be honest with you, but I guess we had some back and forth for a while.

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I don't remember the details. I just remember it was all via email and posting back and forth.

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In fact, I mentioned something. You said, I'm gonna have to spend more money on Amazon. I said, what's Amazon? So you, of course, turned me on to where I've spent a whole lot of money since.

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But I remember we were debating limited atonement, because I remember we were going back and forth about 2 Peter 2, verse 1, and then you were talking about the purpose of atonement,

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Day of Atonement. And then we went back and forth, and you started pushing on issues about Scripture and Canon, and I remember that's as far as we got.

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I thought, okay, we're gonna have a good challenging interchange. I mean, I always was challenged by what you wrote and thought, okay, we've got a pushback here.

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But it was one of those things of a healthy respect in the midst of our differences. But yeah, I think we bumped heads before we became real comrades -in -arms.

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Really? Okay, all right. So there was that, and then there was sort of a time period where we didn't have much contact with each other like that.

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But then eventually, the next time I think we saw each other was, wasn't it the

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Jewish Voice broadcast? No, no. Well, that's seeing each other, yeah. But what happened was, when

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I was on radio, I started doing my daily radio show. People would ask me about Once Saved, Always Saved, which of course would be a different way of expressing things, and then

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Perseverance of the Saints, and Calvinism. And I said, well, I'd gladly have dialogue with someone about that. And then word got to you, and you said, why don't we do it?

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So that began then kind of an informal debate on my radio show, and then a more formal debate on Dividing Line, which was just great.

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I always refer people, when they ask questions about it, I say, well, watch both presentations there, I think you'll get the best of both sides.

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And then when I was asked by Jonathan Bernis to debate these two guys who denied the deity of Jesus, actually thought he was a glorified man and support the biblical position of God's triunity,

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I needed another person to join me, and I thought, Dr. James White, he's in Phoenix! Why don't we do it?

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So that was the one and only time so far we got to team up together. Yeah, yeah, that's a shame. And since then, we've actually done, now,

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I think you've done more debates with Rabbi Shmuley than me, but has anybody else?

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Because you and I have done a number of debates now. Yeah, you would be number two to Rabbi Shmuley in terms of numbers of debates

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I've done with the same person. Yeah, I figured that was about how it ended up working out.

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So we did two debates in Spain, we did a debate at SES, we were supposed to sort of do something together the night of Snowpocalypse in Charlotte.

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I was sitting at a Chick -fil -A with the Muslim fellow that I was going to be doing the dialogue with.

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You know, I'll be honest with you, I don't know what that dialogue would have looked like. It was really weird what it was gonna turn out to be anyway, so maybe that was just the

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Lord's way of saying, nah, we'll hold that one off until later, I'm not sure. And then it ended up that James Tabor was going to be a participant, it was going to be,

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I don't know, again, which way it was going to go, didn't know, and then he and I ended up having a dialogue afterwards, and neither the video nor the audio of that came out.

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Really? Yeah, I recorded it independently on audio, they recorded it on video, and neither one came out.

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So, well, there you go. So, obviously, you know, I had the opportunity of coming out.

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I taught at RTS in Charlotte, and then we were on the program together.

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I did a presentation on Islam at the church there. We had the opportunity of doing some stuff there.

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And then, of course, we've done a lot, had you on a number of times, talk about homosexuality, because both of us have done debates on that particular subject.

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Did Queer Thing Happen to America, was that 2011? 2011, yeah, that came out then.

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That seems like, yes, I was riding up in Flagstaff listening to that, and it seems like yesterday, but I remember saying, even at the time, keep it in an e -book form, because this kind of stuff is going to have to be updated, and can you imagine what has happened since 2011?

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How would you even keep something like that updated? I don't even know how you do it. Yeah, well, you know, one thing is a lot of the things remain the same in terms of the principles, the arguments, and a lot of stuff that we predicted is coming next is unfolding.

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Then we wrote, you know, two books since then, Can You Be Gay and Christian, then Outlast in the Gay Revolution, but I write between four and five articles every week,

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Norman on cultural issues, so if there's something happening, we update it, and then we have the archive of that, and then published an e -book with supplemental essays and things, so that's the only way to keep up with it.

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Daily radio shows, and we put out videos and articles, and, you know, it's not a matter of us starting a war or trying to pick a fight, it's a matter of, this is knocking on our door every day, and we have to address it.

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It is clearly the chief mechanism that's being used in Western cultures to seek to identify the gospel as hate speech and everything along those lines.

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The sad thing is, in my opinion, the leftists don't care a thing about homosexuals at all. They're just simply using that as a mechanism for fundamentally altering the entire culture, and you've been on the forefront of researching that, dealing with that, a number of debates on that subject, as have

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I. Always trying to find someone that would debate the two of us on the subject, but that hasn't happened yet, either, unfortunately.

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But all of that leading up to the fact that a couple of weeks ago, an article was posted, and I thought

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I'd tell you, I'm not sure if you have a computer in front of you, Michael, but there is a Twitter storm happening right now from the people you would expect it to be happening from, who are, you know, the very fact that I've greeted you has been identified as sin on my part from 2

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John 11 and things like that. So if anyone wants to see just the...

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I'm spotting. No, just the... I'm spotting. Some of these guys are blocked on my account because they just got really obnoxious and stuff, but no,

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I'm spotting some of the posts already. Yeah, you see the Twitter storm, and it's planned.

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You know that this is planned. Yeah, I understand. So what happened was, some of these people, unfortunately, go after you primarily because they use it as a means of going after me, and I suppose it goes vice versa, sometimes the other direction.

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But obviously, you and I, since we have debated each other more often than we have debated on the same side, are not on the same page in our theological perspectives on a number of issues.

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And what we have done is we have seemingly gone against the grain, and for some people, just inappropriately so, in confessing each other to be

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Christians and yet debating each other firmly where we have disagreements.

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And for some people, that's just simply way too uncomfortable. Or for others, not like the unhinged folks that are out there right now, but for others, their real problem is they will look at answering

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Jewish objections to Jesus, and they'll go, man, that's good stuff, and man, that's good research, but how can you speak at the places you speak at?

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How can you be associated with the people that you're associated with? And there is a perspective amongst many that you have to separate yourself from anybody that you have disagreements with when it comes to theology.

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And certainly, I would have been raised with a very strong perspective that way. And so our friendship and our confession of each other as brothers in Christ has caused many people a tremendous problem in regards to, how can that be possible?

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I mean, you debate people, and you deal with doctrinal issues. How can you put up with this?

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And I think I get, I'd like to ask you, who do you think gets more of that, you or me? I think

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I get more of it, from my side. You get more of it because, again, I intersect with the charismatic

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Pentecostal world of which I've been apart for decades, and I intersect with a non -charismatic world of folks that follow me for Jewish apologetics or cultural issues.

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And what I found is that a strength of the charismatic movement is a real openness to embrace other brothers and sisters that may be a little different.

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A weakness is that there's often real gullibility and embracing things that are total error.

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What I've seen as a strength of the non -charismatic, sometimes fundamentalist side, is to be much more careful and critical in terms of what they embrace.

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But the weak side is they can also be very narrow and reject genuine brothers and sisters in the

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Lord. So my presupposition would be that you would get far more flack for your association with me because of those circles than I would get for my association with you.

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Yeah, I think that is definitely what we're seeing, certainly recently.

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And what happened was someone had taken a shot at you, and so I, you saw it, you commented on it,

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I wrote a little something on Facebook. I went through a list of things about what makes a person a

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Christian, the fundamentals of the faith, belief in the true God, the doctrine of the

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Trinity, Christology, justification, soteriology, sufficiency of Scripture, went through these things.

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And the results of that were pretty interesting. And there was an article that was published from Churchwatch Central.

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Now, help me, my understanding is you've had some encounters with this particular website before?

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Yeah, here's the deal. I get sent links all the time, you know, I get attacked day and night from gay activists, from atheists, from radical

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Muslims, from religious Jews, from Christians that don't agree with stands that I take.

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You know, so if anyone raises a valid point, I appreciate it, otherwise you just smile and pray for the people.

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So I started getting sent this stuff that was bizarre, way out, completely inaccurate, conspiratorial, and a lot of it came from this

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Churchwatch Central. So I started interacting with one of the guys on Twitter, or gals, and I said, hey, if you tell me who you are,

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I'll interact with you. But if you're anonymous, I have no idea. You could be an 18 year old kid. You could be a pastor living in adultery that's just been disciplined by his church.

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I have no clue who you are. So have the integrity, if you're gonna blast people publicly, to just say who you are.

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And if you will, we'll interact. And you got honest questions? Great. We end up differing? Fine. But when they refuse to do that,

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I just block them. And so the only, and I never go to the website anyway, but every so often I'll get stuff sent to me, and it's the most bizarre stuff.

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It's like I'm talking about, you know, and when James White was on the planet of Mars, working out a plan to nuke the followers of Elvis Presley, and this is about what you were doing over the

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Christmas New Year break, you're like, where are they getting this stuff from? So I feel bad, because they seem to be very zealous about it.

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And I'm sure here and there, there are things they're debunking that are important with other people, etc., and fine to raise questions that are legitimate, but I still have no idea who they are, and I personally have an issue with that.

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I much more appreciate when someone says, this is who I am, and I'm taking issue with you. Okay, great, fine, but to do it anonymously and hide behind that cover,

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I personally have an issue with it. It does make it difficult, especially in light of the arguments that were presented here, because what bothers me is

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I can't, some of the criticisms, and one of the reasons that I want to have you on is because of the fact that they went down that list that I had put out there, and they made statements about Christology and things like that.

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It would help me so much to be able to analyze what they're saying, to have some idea, have they ever said anything positively about their own

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Christology? What did they understand about these things? If you don't know, you can't hold somebody to be consistent in their criticisms.

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It makes it very difficult. But that was the main thing, and then when I made mention of the fact that we wanted to do this, then everybody came out of the closet, as the people on Twitter right now planning to do this, doing their little

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Twitter storm, started putting stuff up that we can get to some of that. But I thought it was most important, and would be educational for everybody else, if we at least clarified some of the key issues.

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Because obviously many of the people out there are basically saying, well, let's differentiate two perspectives.

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The radicals are saying, you are not a Christian, you're a false prophet, you're a false teacher, you're leading people astray.

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Then there are other people in the non -charismatic group that would say, well, look, we just don't get him because he does such good work in regards to homosexuality.

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He does such good work in Messianic prophecies and Jewish evangelism, and he's obviously done a tremendous amount of study of biblical languages and things like that.

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But where's his discernment? That's what they say. I mentioned a friend of mine who basically just straight out said, look,

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I think he needs to get saved, because if he can't see that these people he's associating with are false teachers, then he can't possibly be a

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Christian. This is the mindset, and there's a spectrum, unfortunately, between the one end of this spectrum and the other end of the spectrum, and there's a nastiness level difference, too.

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Some people aren't nasty about it, they just say, I just don't get it. I don't understand how someone could be in those circles because it's just so different than their experience.

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So what do you say—basically what I tried to say in the article was, can we talk about what makes a person a

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Christian? What are the foundational issues? And would you agree—you know which

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Facebook article I'm talking about, where I went through, check, check, check, okay—would you agree that what

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I listed there, would you think that that's a fairly acceptably biblical list of what the the minimum requirements are?

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And we don't—we need to talk about what minimum and maximum are. In other words, we need to have a minimum to know what a

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Christian is, but then we need to be just as careful about adding beyond what Scripture says, our own little things.

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Yeah, I think it's a great list. It's, to me, standard evangelical Protestant orthodoxy that was laid out.

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In other words, even already there are things that you were saying that, say, Catholics would find exclusionary or others would find exclusionary, so it's definitely something that we would all have on our checklist.

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And I look at it, you know, James, just real quick from my perspective. I understand that there are some people that I'm just not going to be able to help or reach.

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I'm not going to damn them to hell because they're damning me to hell. One guy I reached out to, I said, hey, I appreciate your zeal, man.

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You know, as a leader, one of the guys attacking me, I reached out to him privately, I said, I appreciate your zeal. Even if we have differences,

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I think I can help you. And, you know, he wrote back and said, you're not saved, you're going to burn in the fires of hell.

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So someone like that, you pray for them, I feel bad for them. To me, their circles are going to get smaller and smaller and smaller as they get into a false spiritual elitism, and as you call it, you know, last man standing.

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So those I feel bad for, I can't really help. Then there are others that really just what

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I believe in terms of gifts of the Spirit being for today based on Scripture, and, you know, we debated that in Spain for Revelation TV, what

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I believe about divine healing, things like that. They're really scandalized by it, they struggle with, but they can still accept me as a believer because we agree on the fundamentals, they just can't understand how

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I believe in this other stuff. And then there's another group that hears all kinds of lies and misrepresentations about fine people that I know to be fine believers, that if you spend hours and hours and hours in fellowship with, and probing theologically, you'd say, wow, what a great brother, what a great sister.

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And they believe a lot of nonsense about them and wonder how can I be friends with them? It's because they don't really know who the people are.

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Those are the different ones out there. But here's my goal. However, I can help more people that we can come together in unity in Jesus.

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And I want to be able to serve the body. So I had some folks when I took issue with with Pastor MacArthur after Strange Fire Conference, one guy wrote to me, you know, from that camp and said,

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I can no longer use your books about cultural issues and Jewish objections anymore. That hurts me for them because I want to be a blessing to the body and serve the body.

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So if we can help some folks get over some of the confusion, and also set the record straight where I've been lied about and where people are born for a swoltenness witness, great.

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It's not about proving something about me, it's about trying to get the truth out, separating truth from fiction. So let's do it by all means.

24:56

And the list you laid out, of course, that's that to us is evangelical orthodoxy right there. Yeah, I get the same thing as well.

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I've had people contact me and they can't they can't use my books on the Trinity because I'm a

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Calvinist, or about Mormonism because of, you know, some stance that, well, okay,

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I've had people say they can't use my material on Mormonism because I don't speak in tongues. So it goes both directions.

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Yeah, I'm sure it hit as well. Yeah, you know, and so it goes both ways. So I put that out there and let's let's at least make sure we cover this and then we can get to the some of the stuff that's happened since then.

25:34

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about this issue about Christology. Now, I want to back up here a second.

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You were raised within Judaism. You were converted at,

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I believe, age 17? 16. 16. You were a LSD using

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Jewish rock drummer, I believe. You got it. Okay. You still drum, right?

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Well, I can. I still enjoy it. But no LSD, no drugs since December 17th of 1971.

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And that's, I remember that because that's my birthday. So it goes together well.

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So you obviously were immediately challenged from rabbis and others in regards to your acceptance.

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Now tell us a little bit about the church that you were first a part of. Yeah, it was an

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Italian Pentecostal church, and it was also dispensationalist, so that's the eschatology that I first heard.

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And it was very, very heavily Bible -based. There's a joke that the Italian Pentecostals have one tradition, one tradition only.

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If the Catholics do it, we don't. So, you know, I was kind of, my early years in the

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Lord, almost all the people had come out of Catholicism, so, you know, all I knew about it was their negative experience.

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And for them, even outright idolatry, that was some of their own experience. And we just immersed ourselves in reading

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Scripture and prayer and outreach and worship together. So that's how

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I got grounded. So by the time I was in the Lord a year, I used to spend at least six or seven hours alone with God every day, at least three hours in prayer and at least three hours in the

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Word. I used to read the Scriptures two hours a day and then memorize 20 verses a day. I used to do that in an hour.

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So by the time I was saved two years, I'd read the Bible cover to cover five times and had memorized about 4 ,000 plus verses.

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And that was it. You know, everything to me had to go against the grid of the Word, but from day one, you know, my dad said, okay, we're

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Jewish, we don't believe in this, and then he introduced me to the local rabbi. So within weeks, I was now in dialogue with rabbis and being challenged, and that's the way it's been ever since.

27:53

So I get the feeling, did that Italian Pentecost Church have a strong holiness bent to it?

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Oh yeah, yeah. And that's also why I've never had a drink of alcohol in 46 -plus years.

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And to me, drinking was just something I did in the world. It's something I had an interest in doing as a believer.

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But yeah, I mean, sexual purity and conduct and certain things, there were strong emphases on that, and that could go the way of legalism.

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But for me, it was very life -giving, because I lived in the world in sin, I got saved, I gave myself over to the

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Lord. And even though I know, for example, you know, biblically speaking, you can't make a case for total abstinence.

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For me, that's just been lifestyle and part of those early holiness traditions. Well, the only reason

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I mention that is you've, a consistent part of your ministry over the years has always been an emphasis on holiness, repentance, separation to God, that type of things.

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I just assumed, not knowing the Church, I just said to myself, I have a feeling that was definitely a part of that Italian Pentecostal background.

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Yeah, and then to me, reinforced through Scripture. And it was through reading Scripture over and over that I realized that I didn't believe in dispensationalism anymore, you know, that I didn't believe in it.

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I'm still pre -millennial, but I didn't believe in a pre -trib rapture. I thought, you know, I heard that from people, I didn't get it from Scripture.

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So I don't claim that everything I believe is perfect, I'm the only one with perfect insight. Obviously not.

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But you know, when you're in the Word day and night, day and night, day and night, it does give you a grid against which to measure things.

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So the message of holiness, repentance, has been dear to me since my earliest days in the Lord. Yeah, you talked about your eschatology.

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I still think, personally, there's a little post -millennialism hiding in you someplace, because you seem so optimistic, and the books you've been writing recently, you know,

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I know you say no, but I think there's something hiding in there, personally, I really do. Well, here's what

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I do teach, though. We need to have the spiritual optimism of the post -millennialists, we need to have the spiritual outlook of the amillennialists, you know, recognizing the spiritual kingdom, and the literal expectation of the pre -millennialists.

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So I'm happy with that. Well, some people call that pan -millennialism. It'll all pan out in the end, you get a little bit of everything in the process.

30:09

So that's maybe the easiest way to go. I never get into arguments about that one myself.

30:15

So anyways, so with that said, the reason I asked is the statements concerning, in this article that was republished by another website, false

30:28

Christology, aka Kenotic Jesus, and it says, James White seems to have no problem with Brown's false

30:35

Christ, because I had written, all aspects of Christology, check.

30:41

It says, really, Dr. White? So do you, like Dr. Brown, deny that Jesus gave up his divinity to become fully manned so you, just like Jesus, can do miracles under the power of the

30:51

Holy Spirit? This is the false Kenotic Christ which Brown believes. Can I just say one thing?

30:56

Sure. Whoever wrote that either is lying blatantly or is 100 % misinformed, and I just want to challenge anyone that's listening and you're critical.

31:07

Do you take it lightly to bear false witness against your brother and the leader in the body? Do you take it lightly to repeat things that are blatant falsehoods about someone?

31:19

That there is not one syllable in my entire life of 46 plus years in the

31:24

Lord, thousands of messages, teaching, preaching, that says that Jesus gave up his divinity?

31:31

Not a syllable? Does that disturb anyone that they bear false witness? Here's the quotes, and this is what

31:38

I wanted to do, because this is educational. This is, I hope people will be able to see, this is not how you misrepresent someone, even if they don't believe you're a

31:47

Christian. If you're a Christian, you're supposed to be truthful even when you're representing non -Christians. That's the thing that's scary about so many of these folks that are still doing the

31:55

Twitter storm out there. It says, this is the false NAR Christ, Michael Brown confesses, espousing the typical

32:02

NAR cult litany that comes with the territory. He teaches, quote, Jesus was declared

32:08

Son of God with his resurrection, so he was born the Son of God and then born again as the

32:14

Son of God. You've got to listen to the whole teaching, end quote. Now, I don't see what the source is, but it has quotations around it.

32:23

It's when Bill Johnson was on our radio show. People say that Bill Johnson taught that Jesus had to be born again, and they play a little clip saying, you see,

32:32

Jesus was born again. So I asked Bill, that's not me, that's Bill being quoted there, okay?

32:39

Bill Johnson said Jesus was born the Son of God, but then it says in Scripture that he was declared the

32:45

Son of God with his resurrection, so he was in that sense born again. As far as I know, Bill does not believe that what's a heretical word of faith teaching, some word of faith circles that Jesus died in hell, that he literally became demonized, died in hell, became sin, and then was born again as a glorified man.

33:02

That's a heretical belief that I categorically reject, and I believe Bill rejects that as well.

33:08

So that was Bill explaining what he believed on my radio show, and it's being put on my lips as if those were my words.

33:16

I mean, again, it's either malicious or real, real bad scholarship. Okay, here's the second quote.

33:22

Jesus always was fully God, but like many others teach, while he was on earth he did not use his divine prerogatives to heal, but heal, it's misspelled, heal by the

33:33

Spirit. Jesus himself says that I can only do what I see the Father doing, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach,

33:39

I drive out demons by the Spirit. Now, I'm trying to figure out what's heretical about that. Yeah, as far as I know, that's biblical scholarship.

33:47

As far as I can tell, Jesus didn't work, even though Jesus could have done anything. Jesus could have spoken nine trillion languages in the womb, but he took on human form, and I don't think he was making believe when he said goo -goo -ga -ga, you know, or when he was trying to crawl,

34:02

I don't think he was making believe doing that, and instead he could have flown around the world. He took on human limitations, that's why he got tired, that's why he had to eat and drink and things like that, and at the same time, he, even though he had, by his divinity, he could have evoked any miracle at any point, or called down angels to rescue him from the cross, as he said, that he said that he drove out demons by the

34:26

Spirit. So we emphasize, even though the Spirit was on him without measure, and it's only given to us in measure, that the same

34:34

Spirit was on him as the same Spirit that is in us, and by that Spirit, we also drive out demons and minister to the sick, etc.

34:42

So that's all that's being said, as far as I know, that's just sound New Testament scholarship. Well, when

34:48

I was in seminary, there is a lot of discussion about kenosis, the meaning of kenosis, how far kenosis went, etc.,

34:56

etc., and certainly when I have explained, for example, Jesus' statement where he says, no one knows the day or the hour, not the angels of heaven, nor the

35:07

Son, but the Father only, I've talked about the fact that there are certain divine prerogatives that were by nature the

35:16

Son's that he voluntarily lays aside so as he can fulfill the purpose of the

35:22

Father to be the sacrifice and to be the Messiah, so on and so forth. And it almost sounds, and this is where it bothers me that we can't check what these people's positives beliefs are because we don't know who they are, even though this was republished by somebody else and I guess we can hold them accountable, but I have to really wonder about their

35:40

Christology, because it almost sounds like they're saying that if the Son did lay aside any divine prerogatives, which he clearly did in that instance, and certainly, for example, the fact that he is by nature glorious was only manifested on the

35:57

Mount of Transfiguration, the rest of the time Jesus didn't walk down the streets of Jerusalem glowing with the glory of God.

36:04

It almost sounds like they're thinking that's heretical, and it makes me wonder, you know, where they're coming from.

36:11

But we can't tell because we don't know who it is. Yeah, and just to add to that, was

36:16

Jesus genuinely hungry, or was that just an idea? It says he was hungry. You know, he was sleeping in the boat.

36:23

When he said that he didn't know that the day of his coming, it had to be as a human, because certainly as God, he knows all things.

36:30

So these are just divine prerogatives willingly laid aside for a time. He was always fully God, and on earth he was fully

36:37

God joined with fully man, the miracle of the incarnation. Every major doctrinal statement I know of that I've been in harmony with for decades, and again, never written a syllable against it or spoke a syllable against it.

36:49

And the odd thing is that I actually read one website that was getting into issues, and just about every major evangelical teacher on there was getting bashed for holding to a wrong theology.

37:00

I thought, yikes, that's everybody, basically. So it's, again, I'm not sure what the critique is there.

37:08

Now, are there some people that may teach this in some exaggerated way? Could be, but what have I got to do with that?

37:14

Just like you have no, you don't have to defend a hyper -Calvinist, you know, that's, what are you gonna do? There's error out there. You do your best to just preach the truth.

37:21

That particular section ended with these words, as we pointed out before, some of the demons Jesus encountered recognized the deity of Christ in human flesh, but Michael Brown and his

37:29

NAR apostle buddies do not. I don't, how do you, other than chuckling, what do you say?

37:36

First thing, we'll get to the NAR nonsense in a little while, because I want to make sure we go through the doctrinal things, but I've preached for years.

37:45

Anyone just listen to my series where I taught on angels, demons, and deliverance decades ago, that Jesus was recognized as the

37:52

Son of God. We know who you are. You're the Son of God. And yet, what he did, the way that he drove out demons was, he said,

38:00

I do it by the Spirit of God. Those are his words. Luke 4, the Spirit of the

38:05

Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach and to set the captives free. Is that real or not? Was he just making up words, or was there something that happened because of that?

38:15

And why is it that he didn't work any recorded miracles before his baptism and before he said, the

38:21

Spirit of the Lord is upon me? That was the divine time for those things to be released. He said, if I drive out demons by the

38:27

Spirit of God, Matthew 12 and Luke 11, then the kingdom of God has come near you. And then, you know, when he's equipping us, what does he say?

38:36

Luke 24, 49 and Acts 1, 8, wait for the Spirit. And through the Spirit, you can now bear witness and the

38:43

Holy Spirit will bear witness through you. So the same Spirit that was upon Jesus that raised him from the dead has been poured out on the church.

38:50

Wouldn't we all agree that we preach the God, let's forget healing and demons and stuff like driving out demons.

38:56

Wouldn't we all agree that when we preach the gospel, we're preaching it by the power of the Spirit. Isn't it the same

39:02

Spirit that was on Jesus? So again, to me, it's just pretty simple. I don't know what the dispute is there.

39:08

To me, it's people looking for something to hang their hat on and not having anything, which is why the hat keeps falling to the ground.

39:16

Yeah, we'll get to the NIR stuff later, but it does it does fit in with the idea that as long as there's one phrase or any way you can make a connection, these folks will make the connection.

39:26

Whether it's a valid connection is irrelevant, and one of the reasons I'm sensitive to that is it's done to me all the time.

39:33

It's an everyday event. A lot of these people just cannot make category distinctions, and they're not willing to do so because it requires intellectual effort that there is not willing to do.

39:45

Under false soteriology, now obviously we have differences in the area of soteriology, and hyper -Calvinists and people like that, those people who would demand that you believe all five points, you're lost to begin with from their perspective, so you don't have to worry about them.

40:04

Hey, that's what I could do about it either. No, and on the other side, you know, the people that say, my God is the devil,

40:10

I can't worry about them either. You're not saved. I hate that stuff, but I see it too. We see it all over the place.

40:15

But here's what's said. I had said, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, check. They didn't say anything about that.

40:21

I guess that's the one point they could go, hey, Michael Brown, 100 % on that one, yay.

40:28

Absolute necessity of God's grace and salvation, check. Substitutionary atonement, check. Now I stopped right there for a moment.

40:35

You went to IHOP and debated Brian Zahn on that very issue, and we played a lot of that on the program, and I did a review of it, and including the section that demonstrated that I do live in your head, because you couldn't help at one point while talking about substitutionary atonement to go, now my friend

40:59

James White would say I'm being inconsistent at this point, but I don't think I... You always live in my head, that's a given.

41:05

You had a second debate going on there while the other debate was going on, which I found to be sort of fun. But you've defended substitutionary atonement, which is, look, it's fashionable these days.

41:16

If you want to be at the forefront of New Testament theology these days, you want to go after penal substitutionary atonement.

41:24

You're sort of being a throwback on something like this, but you've been consistent with that, and so I put check.

41:30

Now, obviously, people on my side will say, well, if he doesn't believe in limited atonement, he doesn't really believe in that, etc.,

41:39

etc. But this group said, according to Michael Brown, sins being forgiven by Christ on the cross is not good enough.

41:47

Michael Brown clearly preaches the N -A -R slash N -O -L -R, I'm losing track of the acronyms, gospel.

41:55

And that's because you say, if we believe healing is included in the atonement and is always

42:03

God's desire for his children, then why do we see so few cancer healings today? And then there's a source given to that.

42:09

So my assumption is that the assertion is being made that, well, since you believe healing is included in the atonement, then sins being forgiven by Christ on the cross is not good enough.

42:22

There's got to be something added to that. Now, that wasn't the position... I don't even understand the logic of the false accusation.

42:32

I mean, I know you're trying to piece it together. Well, okay, it said here, we believe that divine healing is also provided in the atonement, and there's a source given to you.

42:41

Now, you said that in our debate in Spain, and so the idea is, if there's something more than just forgiveness of sins in the atonement, then that means that's not enough, there needs to be something added to that, and therefore you don't actually believe in substitutionary atonement.

42:57

Yeah, so okay, number one, I've probably written on substitutionary atonement longer than most people have even been aware it's been a controversy, because that to me was one of the great witnessing tools in reaching my

43:10

Jewish people, the principle of substitution, going back to the atonement system laid out in the Old Testament, and the innocent taking the place of the guilty, and on and on, and I bring it out from the

43:21

Old Testament, and then the clearest exposition of this anywhere in Scripture, in Isaiah 53, that all of us like sheep have gone astray, each has turned to his own way, and the

43:28

Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, and we thought he was dying for his sins, instead he was dying for our sins, he is the great substitute, he took our place, and I've been shouting that from the rooftop for decades, and you know, reiterated in the clearest ways by Paul, and Jesus saying he's giving himself as a ransom for all, so there was one payment, one payment for sins only, the blood of Jesus on the cross, the perfectly righteous one dying for us, wicked ungodly sinners, that we through him might have life, period, end of subject, and as you know,

43:58

I believe, not as a Calvinist, but my own beliefs, that Jesus died to make salvation possible for everyone, but to infallibly secure the salvation of all those who believe, and on that second point, we obviously agree, so as to what

44:13

I believe about healing, look, I have a monograph called Israel's Divine Healer, it's 80 ,000 words of text, and 85 ,000 words of end notes, it is an academic monograph, and I lay out there, clearly what

44:27

I believe, that the reason that healing is included in the atonement is because healing is, sickness is ultimately in the world because of sin, so by dying for the root cause of all human problems, namely sin, there's healing for the whole person, some of it we see in this world, some of it we'll see in the world to come, so I don't see healing as something that God does outside of the cross,

44:54

I see that as another benefit as a result of Jesus dying for our sins, the same way someone comes to mental health and peace, they were tormented, or the same way someone gets delivered from demonic powers,

45:06

I don't see that as separated from the cross, I see all that is flowing out from the cross, our eternal resurrection, and being with the

45:14

Lord forever and ever, with perfect eternal life, I don't see that as separate from the cross, I see it as flowing out from the cross, so to me it's all cross -centered, it's all blood of Jesus centered, because he died for our sins, that is the fundamental thing of all, and out of that, there is healing for the whole man, some of it we experience in this world, some of it we experience in the world to come.

45:37

What is unorthodox about that for the life of me, I don't know. Well, it seems that after they quoted what

45:44

I gave you last, you said, it says, he also affirms that Jesus was born again in hell, and it's the same quote from the previous section, that you say wasn't you.

45:53

That's a lie, that is a lie. Whoever posted that, I just want to say it plainly, because some folks need the fear of God in them, okay?

46:00

You are lying, or you are repeating lies or misinformation.

46:07

Either someone is doing this with malice, or someone is so far off in their understanding that they are willfully misrepresenting.

46:16

I have never believed it or taught it ever. I have rejected it, renounced it, spoken against it for decades on record.

46:25

Produce the evidence or publicly repent. For you, I'm not, I'm fine,

46:30

I'm blessed by God, but for the sake of those bearing false witness, wake up, wake up. Just had to get it off my heart.

46:37

Okay, well, let me, now here's where a lot of these people are coming from. They're saying, okay, you can say that you've spoken against this, but if you don't start going after, rather than doing conferences with people who do teach it, then that shows that you really do believe it, even though you say different things in your books.

47:00

That's almost the mindset, and in fact, I hate to even give any credence to the

47:06

Twitter storm going on right now, but there was a question that was asked that I'm gonna go ahead and use, because it fits in right here.

47:13

It says, if you do not believe in the Canonic Christ, which we were just talking about, why do your friends that you endorse preach the same thing and emphasize the same thing?

47:28

For example, Todd White, C. Peter Wagner, Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson, Jack Deere, etc.

47:34

Now, I'll be honest with you, I don't know what those people teach. That's, I don't spend, that's not my area.

47:41

You would seem to know them better. Is that something that is consistent with these individuals in regards to a

47:47

Kenosis Christology? I've never heard, well, first, I've never met Todd White.

47:52

We were just at the same conference, but didn't meet. I've never heard him preach or listen to any of his messages, so I have no comment there.

47:59

C. Peter Wagner, I don't know. I mean, he's the head of what would be called the

48:06

NAR in the technical sense, so I was never part of that in any official way or in a meeting, you know, presided over by him or anything like that, but if he had certain things

48:16

I agreed with in terms of apostolic movement today and other things I disagreed with, that's why

48:22

I was never part of anything formally in that regard, but does he teach differently? I don't know. I'm not aware of any of these folks teaching differently.

48:31

I'll tell you this, if I knew that I was gonna be at a conference and people were publicly at that conference going to say that Jesus died in hell and was born again there, either

48:45

I wouldn't be part of the conference or if I found out it was done, I would publicly renounce it at that same conference and then talk to the people privately, but I'm not aware.

48:54

I I'm not expert, but I mean, here, just as an example, that statement, people that I endorse, right?

49:03

So I'm not speaking against Todd White. I'm not speaking for Todd White. I don't know Todd. I never said a word about Todd.

49:08

How did I endorse him? I've always said I have some areas of agreement with Dr. Wagner, the late

49:14

Dr. Wagner, and areas of disagreement. How did I endorse him? So just the first two on the list, again, it's not sloppy, it's false witness.

49:23

Well, here's the thinking. This is central to almost everything that is being said here, and that is, you have a responsibility, from their perspective, to check out everyone who is going to be at any conference you're going to be speaking at.

49:41

And unless you cross the T's and dot the I's with everybody, by being there, you are endorsing all the theology that can be put together from every speaker.

49:53

That's the understanding. Yeah, I mean, look, I've spoken quite a few years at the Southern Evangelical Conference, the apologetics conference, probably the biggest one in America every year, and you've got,

50:06

I don't know, 50 more speakers. It could be from William Lane Craig to Josh McDowell, you know, well -known apologists like that, and my friend

50:13

Dr. Frank Turek is a regular speaker. They had a speaker this last year that's

50:19

Catholic. They had another speaker that's Young Earth Creation, another speaker that's Old Earth Creation.

50:25

So what do you then do? You don't participate in any way, because there might be a speaker there with a different theology on a particular issue.

50:36

I mean, here's my problem. The folks that are campaigning for this, if this is how they do their homework, then it's worthless, because their homework is utterly worthless.

50:47

Here, so let's take Heidi Baker. In my entire life, I spoke at one conference with her in Germany, and I read her book,

50:56

Birth in the Miraculous, which I found to be an excellent book, very inspiring for prayer and deeper communion with the Lord, and I had her on my radio show once, okay?

51:04

I've never endorsed something that she's written or anything like that, and we've spent time in fellowship together maybe a couple hours total.

51:14

That was in the Germany conference. Now, I'm not saying this to speak negatively of Heidi. All I'm saying is, how is it now that whatever she says or does in any meeting anywhere that I'm responsible for, or conversely, that whatever

51:26

I say or do in any meeting she's responsible for? You talk about people forgetting what

51:33

Jesus said about having a beam in their eye and looking for a speck. In terms of charismatic issues, fine, we'll differ on those, but the lies and the misinformation, that's the speck, what they're looking for.

51:45

The beam is the fact that they're lying and bearing false witness. If this is how they do their research, their police work,

51:52

I really fear for them. Well, the whole approach, it's very easy to see in this group.

52:01

The whole approach is, I'm not sure what percentage these folks would just be honest to come straight out and say that they really question whether any meaningful percentage of the charismatic community as a whole is saved.

52:21

And therefore, there's no reason to make distinctions between people.

52:29

And that means you can just throw everybody into the same bucket. And therefore, if you've got a conference, a couple days ago, people started tweeting and posting that you're going to a conference,

52:43

I think in Toronto or someplace, I forget where it was. Yeah, in April. Yeah, in April in Toronto. And they're saying, see, this person, this person, this person, this person believes this, and that person believes that, and this just all proves what

52:55

Michael Brown believes. Because the idea is, hey, if you're going to the conference, then you believe everything that everyone at the conference is teaching.

53:02

Now, they don't do that at our conferences. They, you know, we can have all -millennialists and post -millennialists and pre -millennialists and pan -millennialists and pato -baptists and credo -baptists, and we can have, people have all sorts of different perspectives on different things.

53:19

Those things are safe things to be disagreed about, from their perspective. But these things aren't safe things to be disagreed about.

53:27

And so we're not going to make distinctions, and we're not going to do anything like that.

53:32

We're going to just just throw you all into one big lump, and therefore you're responsible for whatever everybody believes.

53:40

That's how it works. Let me say a couple things. One is, I am unashamedly Pentecostal charismatic.

53:46

I speak in tongues. I believe the gifts and power of the Spirit are for today. I believe the gift of prophecy is for today, based on Scripture.

53:52

I believe that God heals the sick today in a way that we can look to and expect, based on Scripture. And if someone wants to reject me over that, no problem.

54:01

And do I consider Mike Bickle a friend? Yeah, sure. And to the folks speaking at the

54:07

Toronto Conference, as far as I know, most of the main speakers, do they hold to Orthodox evangelical theology?

54:13

As far as I know, yeah. Now, I may be mistaken on some, but as far as I know, yeah. And Heidi Baker has a

54:19

PhD in systematic theology from a university in England, for whatever that's worth. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

54:28

I have no problem whatsoever. If someone says, well, we just, you know, if you speak in tongues, if you believe in the gifts for today, you're not sick.

54:36

Okay, I feel bad for them, but I'm not gonna deny believing in any of that, okay? So when

54:41

I deny, you know, involvement in the NAR, I'm a secret apostle, I don't deny it because it's not true.

54:47

You know, every single day, or virtually every day, I get blasted by someone online for being paid for,

54:53

I'm paid by the Zionists, I'm a Zionist shill. You know, I constantly, constantly.

54:59

And then you get, from when you're addressing gay issues, well, you're a closeted gay.

55:04

You get hit with that all the time. And then, you know, whatever it is, you get hit with these lies. So this is another set of these lies.

55:11

You're the secret apostle of the NAR and you're denying it. No, I'm not denying it, it's not true, there's nothing to deny, it's just utter falsehood.

55:19

But the things I believe, I believe. Sure, if we want to differ on those, if your listeners and viewers say, well, look, if you're charismatic

55:26

Pentecostal, I don't think you're saved. Read my authentic fire book, see the scriptural evidence I present, look at my respectful interaction with those

55:34

I differ, do you still feel that way? Hey, I feel bad for you, but we'll catch up in heaven, that's fine. So I don't deny believing in any of those things.

55:41

Great. But the things I don't believe, I don't believe. And, you know, again, to hold me responsible for everything everyone does,

55:48

I found it odd that R .C. Sproul so clearly came out against dispensationalism in his writings, and yet was, you know, partners together with John MacArthur.

55:56

That would be inconsistent based on the same separate and exclude those you differ with mentality.

56:03

Let's get to the NAR stuff in just a second, but there was one other area I wanted to touch on, and that was in the area of scriptural sufficiency.

56:12

Now, let me just add, you know, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but let me just, because this is, we ended up sort of discussing this and started touching on this in one of the two debates in Spain.

56:27

Is there, in your understanding, anything that is theanustos, in the possession of the

56:37

Church, that is normative for every believer outside of Holy Scripture?

56:44

No, nothing. No book, no tradition, no alleged revelation.

56:50

The Bible is the one and only. There's only one thing in the world that is God's Word, capital

56:56

W, that is binding for all believers, that is God's Word to all humanity. That's the Bible, period. End of subject.

57:02

Anything that anyone tries to add to that, be it a Book of Mormon, be it, you know, God showed me additional truth today beyond Scripture, or our tradition is sacred to me, any of those beliefs are to be categorically rejected.

57:14

So anyone who says, God has revealed

57:21

X, Y, or Z to me, X, Y, and Z is always subject to the higher authority of Scripture as its final touchstone.

57:31

Oh yeah, of course. If someone said, the Lord has revealed to me that there are four deities in the

57:37

Godhead and, you know, we should be polytheists, so they're heretics. If someone said, the

57:42

Lord revealed to me that I haven't been kind to my fellow workers at my job, I'd say, oh, could well be, you know, it could be you have been a little nasty.

57:51

That has nothing to do with someone saying that they have further truth, you know, for the body beyond Scripture.

57:57

So anything that contradicts what's written in Scripture, we reject. I don't care what miracles or signs it comes with.

58:03

If it's contrary to Scripture, we reject it. If it claims to add to Scripture, we reject it.

58:08

We view that as utterly heretical. Okay, now, that seems rather orthodox to me.

58:14

Let's talk a little bit about this secret life you've been leading.

58:21

I'm sorry, Michael, it's just time to get it all out there in the light. In fact, even your wife isn't aware of this, but evidently you are the leading apostle of the

58:33

New Apostolic Reformation. Now, I'm a little surprised by this, because I have a book over here.

58:40

Your commentary is so big, I can't get it out. I happened to pick up a book a while back called

58:45

A New Apostolic Reformation, A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement, and I thought, oh, well, this looks like fairly in -depth work here.

58:57

Let me look at Michael's name up, and somehow you are so good, even though you're the chief apostle, you don't even show up in the book.

59:06

I don't know how you're doing this. This is pretty impressive. Well, I find more impressive the fact that you are the number one ambassador for the

59:14

Jesuit movement in the Catholic Church, and that you and the Pope Skype on a daily basis, and you've been able to hide that from the general public.

59:22

That's true. I'm pretty good at that, so I can see how you got away with it. But seriously, let me just read here.

59:31

I mentioned something on Facebook, and here was something that came back to me.

59:38

It says, So, there's the line.

01:00:08

Spirit -slaying, glory -cloud -seeing, grave -sucking, defending, gold -dust -and -chicken -feather -throwing, faith -healing, non -apostle.

01:00:17

Now, I am not smart enough to come up with lists of descriptors like that.

01:00:23

Had you ever seen anything like that, Bill? No, that, in a single tweet or whatever that was, that was one of the classic ones,

01:00:30

I'd have to say. So, here, let's just go through a few of these things. Yeah, let's do it.

01:00:36

To help people. Listen, again, I don't respond to this. I actually block some of these people, because it's not just them, but they come with a horde of others that then...

01:00:43

Here's what I find interesting. I'll interact with a stranger who has eight followers on Twitter, just to be polite, and to say, hey, it's a good question, here's the response.

01:00:51

And then they come back with another question, I'll respond and say, hey, actually, I'm not really able to keep responding. You know, we've got a large social media presence, and I can't respond to everyone.

01:00:59

And next thing, they're getting nasty, and this proves I only care about the big shots, and this and that, and you end up having to block them, you know, for 80 tweets later.

01:01:07

It's unfortunate when you try to reach out. But, not to respond to this nonsense for the sake of those who posted it, but for the sake of those who may be genuinely concerned or wonder.

01:01:19

Do I believe that you pray for people, and sometimes they're overcome by the power of the Spirit? Yeah, I've seen it, and I've seen it where people have been prayed for, and fall to the ground weeping, and get up gloriously born again, and have been following Jesus for many years.

01:01:32

They heard the Word preached, we prayed for them at the end of a service, they were still resistant, the Holy Spirit dramatically touched them, they fell to the ground,

01:01:39

I've seen them shake and weep, and then seen them gloriously born again. I mean, you tell me what happened,

01:01:45

Jewish atheist, heard the Gospel preached clearly in one of our services years ago, was still resisting, still struggling, someone asked, well, can we pray for you?

01:01:53

I prayed for him, the Holy Spirit fell upon him, he fell to the ground, and began crying out to Jesus, and got gloriously born again.

01:02:00

In fact, it was a sight to see. He was crying out, Jesus, Jesus, but I don't believe in Jesus, but Jesus, but I don't believe in Jesus.

01:02:07

And then, within minutes, just crying out to the Lord, and we tracked him for years, gloriously born again.

01:02:13

Yeah, I believe the Holy Spirit does that. Do I believe it's always the Holy Spirit? No, some people just fall sometimes, it's just a show,

01:02:20

I put no stock in the disapproval of anything. Do I believe in grave -sucking? No, I don't know anybody believes in grave -sucking, that people would lay on graves to try to suck in the anointing.

01:02:31

So I had him on the air, and I asked, he said, no, of course not, we repudiate that.

01:02:36

He said, we heard some people were doing it, we've repudiated it, our staff has repudiated it, of course we don't believe in it. So, something that, someone that, me,

01:02:44

I have no connection to anybody who's ever done any nonsense like that. Number one, I bring

01:02:49

Bill Johnson on, on the condition that I can ask him some of these questions. He flatly denies it and says, no, he's spoken against it, here's why it's unscriptural, here's why it's wrong, when they heard some people were doing it, they spoke against it.

01:03:00

And yet, somehow I get blamed for it, again, bearing false witness. And then, and then, what was, there was grave -sucking?

01:03:06

Gold dust and chicken feather throwing. Oh, chicken feather, what is that about? I think the gold dust, isn't there supposed to be, like, gold dust coming down from the vents at Bethel?

01:03:18

Oh, I've heard people talk about having gold, you know, that they were praying and there was gold dust or a feather coming down.

01:03:25

I've heard people say it, I've never experienced the like of it. Is it possible that there could be some sign associated?

01:03:32

It's possible, but I've never seen it, experienced it, but either way, I've never said anything to support, this is what

01:03:40

I believe, or hold to. What about glory clouds? Do I believe that in our day, God's presence can be manifest in a way like a cloud, like in the

01:03:48

Old Testament? I believe it's possible. I don't, I don't see anything in Scripture that says it couldn't happen. And one time, while teaching

01:03:55

Koreans Hebrew, I thought the room was just filled with, with steam from a, from a defective heater, to find out

01:04:03

I was the only one that, that saw that. I took it as just a sign of God's presence in our midst. Do I think it could happen?

01:04:09

Yeah. Do I have Scripture against it? No. Do I ever look for it? No. Preach it?

01:04:14

No. Believe or expect it? No. But this is, again, all this is, is bearing false witness.

01:04:21

And, and to this whole NAR thing, there's three ways of looking at it. Okay. There is a formal movement that C.

01:04:29

Peter Wagner led called the New Apostolic Reformation. Okay. I was never part of that, related to it, period.

01:04:38

End of subject. It's as simple as there could be. There's a distinct thing that's attached with him that he had the leadership over, presided over for years, where he would, in different countries, you know, designate you are, you are the chief apostle for this country.

01:04:52

And I never accepted that. I always was against it. Didn't think that was the right practice. Didn't think it was scriptural.

01:04:58

Didn't think it was the right way to work with local churches, etc. So that's, that's why I'm not in the book, because I've never been part of it.

01:05:03

So this is by alleged crime to deny my part of it when I've never been part of it. Like you deny that you're a

01:05:09

Jesuit. So that's, that's first thing. Second thing, there is a broader movement in the body, especially in the charismatic church that says, we still believe that there are apostles and prophets today, but not a capital

01:05:22

A apostles like Paul or Peter or writing scripture, having that authority, but apostolic leaders who are, you know, they would have looked at say a

01:05:30

Hudson Taylor in a past generation as an apostolic leader. My friend, Yesu Potom was planted 7 ,000 churches in unreached people in, in India and had his people martyred for the gospel and planting works all around the world.

01:05:43

Humanitarian gospel works around the world. I look at him as a real apostolic man. I believe this based on scripture for decades before there was ever such a thing as new apostolic reformation or whatever.

01:05:54

I believe this stuff for decades, just based on Ephesians four, first Corinthians 12, the use of the word apostle in the new

01:06:00

Testament. So to me that the term or the, the title is completely immaterial.

01:06:06

I rather just look to see, does this person carry that this planting fathering type of thing?

01:06:11

And I believe that all of us should be involved in the apostolic work of fathering new works and reproducing new works and things like that.

01:06:19

So that's what we've done with a movement of missionaries around the world. And that sense, we seek to be apostolic, but I believe the whole body of Christ should seek to be apostolic, to plant new works in unreached places, to raise up disciples and reproduce a spiritual fathers.

01:06:33

To me, that's being apostolic, just like all of us should be shepherds in certain ways. So that I believe more broadly.

01:06:40

And then there's the last thing, which is, I guess that the new deal that every aberration that's out there, every weird thing that's out there is a part of this secret new apostolic reformation, which is, you know, influencing hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

01:06:56

And there's, you know, the secret coal, it's like the, you know, the Illuminati kind of thing. And allegedly

01:07:01

I'm part of that because I'm Pentecostal charismatic. The reason I say I've got no relationship to the things, because I don't, if you're talking about what

01:07:08

C. Peter Wagner did, the NAR and new apostolic reformation. Yeah. That's why I'm not in the book because I've never been part of it.

01:07:14

And I rejected some of the teachings of it. And everybody became an apostle. You know, it's just, you went from being pastor to apostle overnight.

01:07:21

And it was like the whole world was becoming apostles. So I never accepted that, but I believe there are apostolic and prophetic leaders today functioning in the body.

01:07:29

And we'd probably even agree on who said, look, I look at Al Mohler as a prophetic man today. You know, obviously he's not charismatic and rejects those things, but I believe

01:07:37

God gives him prophetic insight to speak to the world, you know, with insight and to have timely words for the church.

01:07:44

That to me has been, I look at Francis Schaeffer as a prophetic leader that we had, or Chuck Colson, you know, and I don't think any of these were charismatic.

01:07:52

So to me, I'm looking at it in a broader sense as well. So when I moderated the debate you did, how long ago was that?

01:08:04

Remember we did it on the program on the charismatic gifts and the issue of apostles came up.

01:08:14

So is this the same issue that you all disagreed with during that debate in regards to apostolic sign gifts?

01:08:23

In other words, for you, if it's an apostolic sign gift, it would still be operational because there are still apostles, but not, how would you differentiate between the use of the term apostle today and the use of the term apostle given the biblical parameters that an apostle had to be someone who saw the resurrected

01:08:41

Christ? Yeah. So I see the word apostle as, you know, emissary in Greek, someone that's sent.

01:08:49

And in the Hebrew culture, Shaliyach is just someone that's sent. There was no particular meaning, just an emissary that was sent out to represent someone.

01:08:57

So you have the, the apostles, their names are on the 12 foundation stones of the new

01:09:03

Jerusalem in Revelation, the 21st and 22nd chapter, right? So they are the apostles.

01:09:11

And yet you have others in the new Testament, a few others like Barnabas called apostles that, that seemed to not be part of the 12, but had a ministry beyond that.

01:09:20

That's, that's the only way we see it. We see in Ephesians four, and I know there's debate over the exegesis of the passage, but that God's given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers until we come in the unity of the faith or first Corinthians 12, which has apostles, prophets, but then it brings in teaching, administrating and miracle working.

01:09:39

So as I see it, Acts, the second chapter, the outpouring of the Holy spirit that during the period of the last days, it's written that your sons and daughters will prophesy that your old men will dream dreams.

01:09:50

Your young men will see visions that first Corinthians 12 lays out gifts of the spirit for today, which are for the common good for, for everyone, not just for apostles and leaders.

01:10:00

And then tells us the end of the 14th chapter to earnestly seek the gifts, especially prophecy and not to forbid speaking in tongues that James Jacob five, the fifth chapter presupposes that elders can pray in faith.

01:10:11

And if the prayer often in faith makes the sick person well, that this is just an extension of the ministry of the Holy spirit until today.

01:10:17

And that prophetic words, just like in new Testament times, they weren't considered scripture or the many old

01:10:24

Testament prophecies that weren't recorded, weren't recorded scriptures, scripture, scripture and stands unique by itself. But do

01:10:29

I believe the Holy spirit can speak today in different ways? Yes. But everything is tested by the word. And there is only one, the word, the

01:10:37

Bible. But I don't, I don't see these, the gifts of the spirit as being specifically sign gifts.

01:10:44

And I see apostles used in two ways, the primary way, the apostles and then others that were just apostolic leaders used in the body.

01:10:52

And we shouldn't make any more of that title than the title, you know, pastor or evangelist.

01:10:58

And I do understand that for someone's confusing. I don't, I don't like when people put a parcel in front of their name, personally,

01:11:03

I've never liked it. You know, your apostle James white, you know, so I've never liked when people did that to them, it was no different than putting the name pastor in front.

01:11:12

I prefer we don't use any of the, those, those descriptive things in front of our names, but either way,

01:11:18

I understand why there can be confusion. That's why I often talk about apostolic leaders or prophetic leaders.

01:11:24

Let's people mistake what I'm saying as, as confusing that someone today has new Testament apostolic authority the way the apostles did.

01:11:32

Of course not. I don't believe that for a second. So would that be the same thing? For example, part of the quote unquote, documentation that is offered of you being, an

01:11:43

NAR apostle is the Wagner Leadership Institute.

01:11:52

Evidently at some point back in 2007, I guess you taught something for the

01:12:00

Wagner Leadership Institute or something. And it specifically says a quote, our faculty is made up of internationally known apostolic leaders, end quote.

01:12:08

So that's proof right there, right? Yeah. Well, well, yeah. First thing I taught a class,

01:12:14

I was never an official Wagner Leadership Institute faculty. I taught a class on revival and I fully stand behind the contents of what

01:12:22

I taught. And look, I taught at Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission. Fuller has some liberal classes and some professors that are liberal that I differ with.

01:12:32

Yeah. Remember I graduated from there. Yeah. Okay. So gladly took that invitation to do that.

01:12:38

Look, I teach at Southern Evangelical Seminary. That's non -charismatic. So while I'm there, I would never say anything divisive in any way that would differ with their stance on these issues.

01:12:47

And I focus on what they asked me to teach and fully honor the leadership there. But I would be considered an apostolic leader in the eyes of some meaning, a leader in the body that's doing pioneer work, that's planting, you know, through our workers, planting new works and reproducing and things like that.

01:13:05

But like I said, I, I know many others that are apostolic that don't consider themselves such.

01:13:11

Have I ever used the title apostle? No. Have I ever declared that I'm an apostle? No. Do I have people looking to me and calling me an apostle?

01:13:18

Not to my knowledge, but yeah, I taught a class at Wagner Leadership Institute. Great. I'm glad I did.

01:13:24

I think it was a good course. But it was on the subject of revival. Yeah. That's what

01:13:29

I taught on. Yeah. So when you're invited to go teach, as long as you're allowed to teach what you want to teach, you don't have to hide anything.

01:13:36

You don't have to change your message. You're the kind of person that's just willing to go teach.

01:13:42

Well, not only so, I will honor the parameters. For example, with joy. I mean, it's a, it's a pipe dream, but, but if, if the

01:13:50

Master's Theological Seminary said, we'd like you to teach on cultural issues, that's what

01:13:55

I would do. And if someone said, what about your difference with Pastor MacArthur? I'd say, you're here for Pastor MacArthur, not for me on that.

01:14:01

I would, I would not just avoid the thing. I would reinforce, this is his school. These are what he believes on these things.

01:14:08

Well, what about, that's not why I'm here. I'm not going to teach it. Look, when I was a leader in the

01:14:14

Brownsville Revival, the leadership taught a pre -trib rapture. I didn't believe in that. They understood when I came,

01:14:19

I didn't believe in that. When the students said, Dr. Brown, what's your belief? I said, this is what the church teaches.

01:14:25

They'd say, what's your belief? I'd say, this is what the church teaches. Why? Because I wasn't going to be divisive on that.

01:14:30

And I said, here are the different views. And in my own school, I'll lay it out plainly. So I'm always going to honor that.

01:14:36

You know, if, if, if you had a school and you asked me to teach and people wanted to challenge me on Calvinism, I said, do you want to find out about Calvinism?

01:14:42

You talk to Dr. White, you know, I'm, I'm here to teach on X, Y, Z. And just like when you were in our midst, look, you preach for us on a

01:14:48

Sunday morning, great message from Philippians two that our people love you taught in our school. And in that setting, you could have said whatever you wanted, but you were there to talk about Islam.

01:14:57

You were there to talk about Mormonism and then you stay within those parameters. Look, I, I would, I would teach if I was asked, if I was asked to teach at a

01:15:06

Catholic seminary on Jewish apologetics, I obviously, I would differ with tons of stuff, but if I could impact people on that,

01:15:15

I would do it. And then my hope would be as they read the material, their eyes would be open to other issues, but I'd go in many, many different settings.

01:15:23

Look, if, if I was asked, uh, uh, at a Muslim center to come in and lecture on, on, uh, cultural issues,

01:15:30

I would do it. And then with the hope that out of that, I could preach the gospel. So I go in a million different settings, but within the body, if, if another believer asked me to go do something, there have been places where I thought there would be guilt by association.

01:15:44

And I was aware of some bizarre things. So I said, when I'm here, I may say things you differ with.

01:15:50

And there are other times I will go in saying, you can only have me in knowing that I may publicly differ with your position and they've still had me.

01:15:57

And others have said, no. Right. So if I was going into a setting like that, yeah, you better believe I, I'd shout something out along the way.

01:16:05

Let me, uh, play one thing for you. We've gone a little long. Let me play one thing for you. And, uh, then we'll, we'll sort of, uh, wrap things up here a little bit.

01:16:13

Uh, Rich, you got, uh, got the audio here. Hopefully this will come through. If it doesn't let me, uh, let me know.

01:16:20

But this Michael Brown business normalizing elephant rooming Michael Brown, the chief apologist for the charismatic movement as though he were a brother in Christ.

01:16:31

I'm sorry. We don't affirm false prophets as brothers and sisters in Christ nonsense.

01:16:38

So you want to send me hate mail. You want to, you want to, I don't know, contact my elders.

01:16:46

You want to throw a hissy. You do that. Pulpit and pin is going to stand up against new

01:16:54

Calvinism. It is going to stand up against a humanism because here's what

01:17:00

I have to say about James White and his elephant rooming of Michael Brown. You can stand up against black

01:17:07

Hebrew Israelites. Good for you. You can do debates with Mormons. You can do 1 ,649 debates in Muslims in mosques.

01:17:16

Congratulations. But if what you're left with is the Christianity, supposed

01:17:21

Christianity of Michael Brown, then your entire apologetics career amounts to nothing but a dunghill of waste and refuse.

01:17:34

It is disgusting and vile that someone who has defended

01:17:39

Benny Hinn on my program, I've got the, the audio January 5, 2014 defended

01:17:45

Benny Hinn is not being a false prophet as being a true prophet of God. Someone who goes on Sid Roth's program, someone who defends

01:17:52

Bill Johnson, the new apostolic reformation, all the while lying about knowing whether or not it exists when in fact he's been declared an apostle and a general of it.

01:18:03

Someone who has defended or helped Bethel defend themselves against clearly substantiated claims of grave sucking necromancy.

01:18:15

How many false prophets do you want to affirm as a brother or sister in Christ? So there's a little section of, uh, of the program, uh, that I had linked you to, uh, from a little while back.

01:18:29

And, uh, how do you, what, what after we've already addressed a lot of these things, but, but what are your thoughts when you, when you hear something like that?

01:18:38

Yeah, well, I, first I think, wow, what a, what a waste. I mean, there's someone passionate and eloquent. That's why

01:18:43

I reached out to that individual privately when he posted that I was more dangerous than ISIS or Taliban.

01:18:50

And I reached out to him privately and said, Hey, look, I believe you're called by God and I appreciate your zeal.

01:18:56

I can help you. And of course he wrote back, you know, warning me that I'd burn in the fires of hell.

01:19:03

So I still, I care for him as an individual. I feel bad that he's, he's wasting his time and his gift.

01:19:08

And, and it's grievous that he's bearing false witness for, for example, for example, I have no idea if there is any documented grave sucking associated with Beth and Bill Johnson.

01:19:21

All right. I renounce it. It's idiotic. It's stupid. It's unscriptural. I categorically renounce it.

01:19:28

When I asked Bill Johnson on my show about it, he said, absolutely wrong. Unscriptural.

01:19:33

We don't believe in it. We don't practice it. If he was lying, if he was misrepresented, take it up with Bill Johnson.

01:19:39

Okay. All I know is I asked him flatly. That was his response. I don't defend it.

01:19:45

Of course it's, it's wrong. It's unscriptural. It's dangerously misleading. It's stupid.

01:19:51

And the subject that's bearing false witness here. Let's, let's, let's take another issue.

01:19:58

For example, Benny Hinn. Yeah. I, I, that I said, he's a true prophet.

01:20:03

When did I say Benny Hinn was a true prophet? So here's just the little history for the sake of it.

01:20:10

Let me throw one thing in there. Yeah. Who was one of the, who was the first person on your Facebook page?

01:20:17

Just a history real quick. For years, I had heard stuff about Benny Hinn, and this is wacky, that's wacky, et cetera.

01:20:24

But I had not followed his teaching and ministry. Hank Hanegraaff interacted with him over 20 years ago, at which point he, he rejected some of his like little

01:20:32

God's theology or Jesus died in hell theology. So I had, I used to play clips on the radio of him teaching some of that until, uh,

01:20:40

I was told that he renounced it. And then, and then I searched, and I didn't find it referenced. Even as Justin Peters, who's the chief critic of Benny Hinn, if there were more recent references to that,

01:20:50

Justin provided me with a ton of stuff that he felt was terribly wrong with Benny Hinn and false prophecies, et cetera. But anyway, that was all after I ended up on the show with him.

01:20:59

I was asked by a friend if I would go on and talk about the real Messiah and the old Testament on Benny Hinn's show.

01:21:05

And here's the deal. I knew people that thought he was a heretic and dangerous and a false prophet. And I knew people that said, we've listened to him.

01:21:12

He preaches the gospel. He's a man of God. You should be on a show. So I said, I don't really know. I haven't followed his ministry in years.

01:21:18

I don't really know if I can get my hyper grace message out to his audience and warn the audience about the dangers of hyper grace and build a relationship with him.

01:21:27

And if I find out he is an error, then behind the scenes, I can work to help him.

01:21:32

I'll do it. Well, I think in retrospect, it was a miscalculation. Number one, my hyper grace show that we did never aired.

01:21:40

Number two, there's a lot more baggage associated with his ministry than I was even aware of that Justin Peters and others helped me become aware of.

01:21:48

And number three, we never developed that relationship. So I did write to him, subsequently urging him about issues with fundraising, that needed change, et cetera.

01:21:56

But that's the extent of it. The very first person that posted on my Facebook page when I unwisely just said

01:22:02

I was on a show without any explanation was you. And you got tons of responses affirming you for publicly differing with me on that.

01:22:10

And when we sat face to face and had a meal together in Spain, you said to me very, very lovingly, but plainly

01:22:17

I made a mistake. It was the wrong thing to do. I shouldn't have done it. And probably in retrospect, because some of my outreach purposes and trying to do things behind the scenes weren't accomplished, probably was a mistake.

01:22:27

But when I was on with J .D. Hall and a few others, I explained why I was on. And I said, as far as I knew, for me, when

01:22:34

I say false prophet, when Jesus says, beware of false prophets, he's talking about people who are not saved. As far as I knew from my time with Benny Hinn, talking about the word, interacting before the show, which is why we were so enthusiastic once we were actually on the air.

01:22:48

As far as I knew, he was a fellow believer that, that I believe was wrong in certain areas. And then people made me aware of many, many other areas that raised further concerns after I was on.

01:22:58

I never said he was a true prophet. I never endorsed him. I never defended his work.

01:23:05

I simply explained why I was on the air. But if someone, if J .D. Hall is sure he's unsaved going to hell, that's between him and God.

01:23:12

So even those things are being misrepresented. And you know, what, what can I say?

01:23:18

Here's the deal. I've written now 31 books. My next one coming out in April is called playing with Holy fire, a wake up call to the charismatic

01:23:25

Pentecostal church. Folks can pre -order it now it comes out in April. It is a book filled with correction for serious error, doctrinal error, practical error in the charismatic

01:23:35

Pentecostal church. I've addressed these things years ago. I felt it was time to write a whole book on it now in detail.

01:23:41

You know, so full length book, just addressing errors within the charismatic movement. I have been doing that for decades.

01:23:47

Most of it in, uh, within the circles in which I travel here, we're shouting it out even more loudly, but as to who's saved and who's not saved, if they check off the basic lists there that we agreed on,

01:24:00

I'm not going to question their salvation unless I know they're living in willful denial of the Lordship of Jesus.

01:24:05

But beyond that, you know, look, I feel bad for these folks. I've got no animosity towards them.

01:24:11

I pray for the fullness of God's blessing on their lives. Any way I could ever be of help to them in their walk with God, it's my desire to do so.

01:24:18

It just grieves me that people can so freely bear false witness. And last thing you sent me, and I just saw it tweeted again, which is why

01:24:26

I started laughing like a half hour ago. This whole detailed analysis to prove that I am actually part of the new apostolic reformation because pastor

01:24:34

Walt Helio calls himself an apostles. My pastor back in 2000 wrote this and use the word government. It's like, what are you talking about?

01:24:41

That's even worse than the Zionist shill Illuminati conspiracy stuff I get hit with. That when, when, when

01:24:47

I left Brownsville assembly of God, pastor Walt, with whom I had credentials at church of grace and peace, just put out something in terms of, of, you know, being in submission to leadership, et cetera.

01:24:57

He's a pastor. He's a pastor friend that I started preaching for in late eighties. So what's that got to do with new apostolic reformation?

01:25:05

He used the word government. That, that, that's honestly, no,

01:25:10

I, no, I, no, I think let's make sure people understand this. We can just take a minute. What, what do you point out?

01:25:16

I know, I know. Um, uh, the argument that was made in that article was just posted by the same person we just played is that because in the letter, which seemed to me like a form letter, basically saying that you were in proper relationship with the church, you were properly credentialed, et cetera, et cetera, is standard thing that would be exchanged between churches when someone would be speaking or something like that.

01:25:39

Because I, because I had left one group and people were saying you're out from authority or this, this, no, I've always been accountable all my life in the

01:25:46

Lord. Here's my present accountability. Right. And so he sent that out. Yeah. And so it used the word government and the very statement,

01:25:55

I had it up here, but I can't bring it up right now. Uh, the very statement was anything strange about these words.

01:26:02

You notice the word government. That's what new apostolic reformation talks about.

01:26:07

They talk about the government of the church. And I'm like, um, wait a minute.

01:26:13

We all use that term. In fact, I've got, there's a book sitting right here behind me, perspectives on church government and I contributed to it.

01:26:24

So I guess that makes me an NAR apostle too, I suppose. At least we get to the truth as it took a long enough time.

01:26:31

It's absolutely amazing. But, and that's what the Coogee sweaters are all about actually. Um, but, uh, and then in another article that was sent to me from a discernment ministry, it was about someone,

01:26:44

I'm not sure if you saw this one, but someone had some type of a Facebook exchange with you in the comment section.

01:26:50

I'm always very leery about those types of things. And you had said to the individual at some point that you study the

01:27:00

Old Testament scriptures in Hebrew all the time. And their response to your statement was, well, obviously since Dr.

01:27:10

Brown is writing on Facebook, he's not doing it all the time. And I read this and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

01:27:22

No, that, that, but they thought that was a gotcha. You claimed to be reading scripture in Hebrew 24 seven and therefore you're lying.

01:27:31

And since I've had this done to me, uh, for years, I mean, uh, you just, you just, we, we both have it done to both of us.

01:27:40

I recognize it easier than most people do. Once you get the idea in your mind that I'm doing

01:27:46

God's work to expose this area and you may, and there may be things that need to be exposed, but once you get imbalanced and lose the ultimate goal of always being truthful in everything you say, give the benefit of the doubt when you might be wrong, you might be ignorant about something.

01:28:06

Once you lose that, all balance goes out the window and all you gotta do is look at the internet and see the result.

01:28:12

And it's ugly and it's a mess. Now, Michael, you know, do you think

01:28:19

I'm trying to sneak you into the Reformed community somehow?

01:28:25

Well, no. I mean, I, I'm, I know, I know you can't see me.

01:28:30

I can see you. No, no. I mean, you've never once ever in any of our interaction suggested anything that would get me more accepted in your community.

01:28:41

In fact, you explained to me why I could not preach from the pulpit of your church.

01:28:46

When I invited you to speak at the pulpit of my home congregation, you explained if you had a school, I could,

01:28:51

I could do a lecture, but you've only had maybe five different people from the pulpit of your church and why I would not be, as your friend,

01:28:57

I would not be welcome to preach from the pulpit of your church. No. Why would you even be trying to do that?

01:29:03

Except you want people to know about my apologetic stuff and other stuff, but no. What circles would you be trying to get me into?

01:29:09

Well, that's the current, if you're watching, if you look at Twitter at all, the little Twitter storm going on, it's the hashtag elephant room three.

01:29:19

If you remember now, and you remember this, you and I had a program and I challenged you about the fact that you had used the language of brother of T .D.

01:29:31

Jakes. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I explained to you, we talked a little bit about about oneness theology and manifestations and the denial of the eternal nature of the sun and things along those lines.

01:29:42

Well, the elephant room was where they tried to sort of whitewash the differences they had with T .D.

01:29:48

Jakes and turn him into Trinitarian when he's not actually a Trinitarian. And so this whole thing going on right now is

01:29:54

I'm allegedly elephant rooming you to try to smooth over or whitewash over the differences that you and I have, even though we've been talking about all those differences right now and you and I have done more debates with one another than almost anybody else on those very differences.

01:30:12

As a believer, I've debated you more than any other believer. That's number one. Yeah. And the

01:30:17

Jake's thing, I had read statements he had made where he affirmed the Trinity. And when I just, you know, the little research

01:30:23

I did, he had said X, Y, Z publicly. And I thought, okay, that's, he's made that clear. And I, again, I've never listened to a whole sermon he's preached or read a book of his.

01:30:31

So I just, you know, that, that was the extent of, of the, the comment accepting that on face value.

01:30:37

Right. Yeah. But yeah, that, you know, look, here's the good news though, James, is that constantly, and I'm sure you hear this as well by constantly, constantly,

01:30:46

I don't mean 24 seven without exception. We do have to explain that to some people. Yes.

01:30:52

On a regular basis. And I'm sure there'll be, you know, all over Twitter as well. People thanking us for having differences in a

01:31:00

Christlike way and modeling how as brothers to discuss issues on which we differ.

01:31:05

So I believe in that score that there are far more who are blessed by the friendship and the example in the midst of our differences, which have been forthright to the face, just like with the

01:31:15

Benny Hinn thing, you were the lead critic. You were my lead critic. And I deeply appreciate you expressing that and being that in my life that I think far more appreciate that.

01:31:27

And those that struggle again, truly, I don't mean this in some condescending way. My heart really goes out to them because they're spitting in the wind.

01:31:34

We'll advance the kingdom and by God's grace, touch lots of folks, but that they're expending their energies in the wrong places.

01:31:39

But look, I'm sure you would affirm this. The reason that we could sit down in Malaga and talk about the

01:31:46

Hinn thing was because of the way I approached you. And because of the relationship already established, if I had approached it the way there's other people are, there's no way you could have heard anything

01:31:55

I was saying, even if I had been right. Yeah. I mean, I do my best to hear, even from critics, even in hate mail,

01:32:02

I do my best to hear if there is something, but the fact is I respect you.

01:32:08

The fact is I take you seriously. And again, you know, joking about you being in my head, you know, this on my radio show,

01:32:15

I know you're a regular listener, but if any question ever comes up about Calvinism, I'm always thinking, okay, am

01:32:20

I saying this in a way that James would agree? Am I representing it rightly? I do the same if I know rabbis listen to my show, you know, this thing

01:32:28

I'm talking about Judaism, am I saying it in a way that they would say I'm accurately representing their position in the midst of our differences?

01:32:35

So, you know, look, hopefully we'll, we'll help a lot of folks that are sincerely seeking and those folks that really wonder about my charismatic beliefs, read the book, authentic fire.

01:32:46

And by the way, I, uh, whenever we can, we give books away. And, uh, we did something once with one of my books, hyper grace where the publisher said it's going to be free on Kindle for three days.

01:32:56

So we announced it far and wide. It's going to be free on Kindle for three days. I get someone downloads the book for free and then accuses me of greed.

01:33:03

And then right before Christmas, we said, let's make go and sin no more available for free for three days, 300 page book, the ebook, we made it free.

01:33:11

The very first post on Facebook, responding to the free offer said, Oh, it's probably another book about Jews being superior.

01:33:18

I don't need your book. So you can't help everybody, but we help who we can. You try, you try in, in closing.

01:33:25

I've, I've often said to folks because I've had a lot of people that, again, they don't, they don't know you.

01:33:30

They've not had an opportunity to minister with you or to pray with you or to read, you know, they, they won't even touch your books.

01:33:39

They won't, they won't even look at it. I can't do that. They'll ask me, I just,

01:33:44

I just don't understand this. And I say, look, we obviously have a unique relationship. Um, it's been based upon the fact that we recognize our differences.

01:33:54

We both have an absolute commitment to the word of God and to God's truth. That's why we can go to the word of God with our disagreements.

01:34:03

Uh, you know, so often, so many of the debates don't work because people have different sources of authority, but that's not the case in this situation.

01:34:09

We go to the word of God. Even when we debated spiritual gifts, you weren't sitting there saying, well, I'm right because the Holy Spirit told me so.

01:34:15

You never, you didn't do that. Anybody who watches those debates would recognize that that's the case. And so what

01:34:20

I tell people, I says, look, um, from, from my perspective, I'm always encouraging

01:34:27

Michael toward discernment and, and consistency, uh, in application along those lines.

01:34:34

And from his perspective, what he's done for me is he has drawn me toward being much more gracious and much more loving and much more hopeful about, uh, other individuals and, and to avoid that kind of dogmatic fundamentalism that basically says, if you don't look like me and talk like me and dress like me, then you can't possibly be in the kingdom of heaven.

01:34:57

And I hope that we've, we've had a positive influence on each other in that way.

01:35:03

And, and it is wonderful to see how many people out there do point to us and say, ma 'am, you know, if they can disagree and discuss these issues, why can't the rest of us do the same thing without getting into the constant divisive wars that are just the mark of, of the modern day?

01:35:20

And so I hope we can keep doing that though. I'd still rather do a debate with you on my side.

01:35:26

Uh, but, but, you know, still the opportunities are there and if we can bless the body in the process, we will.

01:35:33

Amen. And yeah, by God's grace, uh, amen to everything that you just said. And hopefully our relationship is iron sharpening iron for the glory of the

01:35:42

Lord. And as I'm rowing tonight, you'll, you'll be in my head again. Yes.

01:35:47

Well, I could send you my best times and you can work on those. So I appreciate it, brother.

01:35:52

Uh, row away. And, uh, uh, I'll be interested in seeing what kind of, I, I, I'm already knowing it.

01:35:59

Go back over the Twitter feed, go to Twitter. So your filters aren't on. And, and go back over the Twitter feed.

01:36:04

You'll be pretty amazed at some of the stuff that's been scrolling, but I haven't seen all of it. Haven't had time to, but take a look at it and we'll be in touch as to, uh, uh, any further responses that might be necessary.

01:36:14

But thank you Dr. Michael Brown for joining us today. My joy. Thanks for having me. God bless. Bye -bye. Okay, folks.

01:36:21

Uh, that's how we started off 2018. Um, I know

01:36:26

I've got a whole lot more, uh, that needs to be responded to as far as some of the stuff that was put out.

01:36:35

Basically, I'll just be honest with you. As we got close to Christmas, I just didn't feel like it was appropriate to be discussing the vile stuff and the nastiness and the mean spiritedness and, and lies and everything else that was being spewed by various people.

01:36:54

Um, and, and I, even as it is, um,

01:36:59

I really want to try to run a filter through the muck to try to find the few things that we can pull out and clean off and actually make useful to a wider audience.

01:37:11

Uh, I try to keep in mind that there are people outside the United States, uh, that really wonder about some of the stuff that happens within the

01:37:21

United States. Uh, what I will be doing, uh, later, uh, you know, probably right after the program here is

01:37:26

I'm going to go back to the Twitter feed and I'm going to make note of the, uh, group that, uh, obviously coordinated their efforts and demonstrated.

01:37:39

And a bunch of apologetics ministries, uh, EBC ministries and stuff like that. Crossroads radio.

01:37:45

Um, uh, you're tweeting while we're actually answering the questions, which means you're not listening.

01:37:53

You don't, you don't care about what's being said. You have no concern for truth at all. None. You've got your, you've got your agenda.

01:38:00

You've got your conclusions and you won't listen to anything other than your narrow little perspective.

01:38:09

Well, there you go. I don't want to be a part of your club. Uh, go ahead and mark me down.

01:38:16

I don't want to be a part of your club. Just I, from, from the first time

01:38:23

I met with elders, Reed and Reese, when they were my age,

01:38:30

I listened to them. It wasn't that, Oh, I've got

01:38:36

Mormon heretics here. Okay. I need to say this, this, and this, I'm not gonna listen to what they have to say. I listened to them.

01:38:44

And that's what we've always built this ministry on. And so those of you who are not even willing to listen,

01:38:55

I can't help you. And if you ever thought that I was on your side,

01:39:00

I'm sorry. You misunderstood me from the start. We've never taken that perspective. We have always had a higher view of truth than you do.

01:39:07

Always. So what can I say about that? Um, but if those of you running around, um, taking on Michael Brown, if you haven't even tried to work through stuff like this,

01:39:27

I'm not talking about that one and get that out of the way, but, um, don't you think that's a little arrogant on your part?

01:39:35

Have you ever thought about that? Are you just so comfortable in your little cocoon?

01:39:42

Anyway, um, won't go into any of that. I, I appreciate

01:39:48

Michael. He had already been on the air for two hours. So that made for a long time sitting and, uh,

01:39:55

I appreciate his taking the time, but, um, hopefully that's useful to a lot of folks.

01:40:02

Be careful of the kind of stuff that you are willing to believe on the internet.

01:40:09

I'm going to be honest, folks, that the articles I've been reading, that even folks who like me have been sending to me,

01:40:16

I start reading them and I go, Oh my, I was wow.

01:40:21

I'm not the only person as people writing stuff like this about me, where they'll take a phrase here, a word there, and they'll completely misinterpret it and attach it to something over here.

01:40:33

And it's just like one of them I didn't, well, I did mention, I mentioned toward the end. Can, can anyone explain to me how a major polemics, well, all of this has been posted by Slander and Keyboard, but so they're accountable for all of us as they posted it.

01:40:49

But, um, a major discernment ministry out there posted this article that specifically made the argument that since Michael Brown said he studies the

01:41:07

Old Testament Hebrew all the time, that he was a liar because he was writing on Facebook, which means it's not all the time.

01:41:19

Really? Really? I mean, that is so absurd. It's hard to even know how to respond to it.

01:41:28

And yet it's seriously taken as an argument by a well known discernment ministry.

01:41:35

It's allowed on their pages. Well, because it's against Michael Brown. Folks, I don't care who you're writing about.

01:41:46

If you're writing about the Pope, be accurate in what you're saying about the

01:41:52

Pope. And then when you're refuted about what you said about the

01:41:58

Pope, if you double, triple and quadruple down on it, you're demonstrating you don't have integrity.

01:42:05

You have none. Zip, zero, nada. I don't know where this hard,

01:42:16

I have the truth and therefore I don't have to be truthful attitude is coming from. But it is a blight on the

01:42:29

Christian faith when people who stand for the truth don't care about being accurate and careful in what they say about others.

01:42:42

I know, I know, I know it's prompting it, but we're serving the Lord. We're protecting God's people.

01:42:47

God does that by his spirit and his truth, not by you. And you do not promote that activity by being untruthful about anybody.

01:43:02

I have been right up front and open with Michael Brown and our disagreements. I'm sorry that there are those of you who just go,

01:43:10

I'm sorry, I just, I can't believe that that person's a Christian. Well, you know, the scriptures talk about the, the sand of the seashore, the stars of the sky.

01:43:26

I'm really starting to wonder if some folks really believe that. It seems like there's some folks that want the number of those saved to be extremely few.

01:43:39

I'm not talking about the broad way and the narrow way. That's about the way of salvation. But the promises of scripture are pretty broad.

01:43:47

I mean, there's, there's not just going to, it's not going to be a tiny little small party. It's going to be big.

01:43:57

It seems like some people just want to keep it as we need to only have the right people at this particular party, forgetting that it's the one throwing the party that gives the bridal gown in the first place.

01:44:08

You know, the, the marriage, the marriage robe you're supposed to wear in the first place. So anyway, that's another lesson we won't get into right now.

01:44:16

So I don't know what we will have to cover come Thursday, but I have a feeling it won't be difficult to do.

01:44:23

But in reality, what I want to do, but I'd rather do, we need to get back to church history.

01:44:30

We stalled. I need someone to look up what the last thing we covered was because I don't remember cause

01:44:36

I'm teaching church history at PRVC. Oh, and by the way, for everybody saying, Hey, where's last Sunday's church history lesson?

01:44:43

You want, you want, want an example of providence here? Did I tell you about this? You know that? Okay. I decided to go ahead and do

01:44:53

Anselm's ontological argument on Sunday morning. I did mention this on Facebook. It's probably where you saw.

01:45:00

And Michael Fallon shows up from Sovereign Christian, Sovereign Experiences, Sovereign, the

01:45:07

Sovereign Group. Let's call it the Sovereign Group. I can't keep up with all of them. Sovereign Alliance, whatever.

01:45:13

It's many things. Alliances, cruises, experiences, luxury experiences, nations, and everything else.

01:45:19

It's, there's too many words. I can't keep track of them all. I'm 55 now. Leave me alone. So he shows up and he wants to record it, video record.

01:45:32

I'm like, I almost said no cause I had to put a second microphone on and all the rest of the stuff.

01:45:39

I almost said no, but I said, okay, fine. So we did the ontological argument, get down with it, go to the back.

01:45:49

And Sean, the guy who runs the sound says, never happened before, but our microphone died halfway through the battery fried.

01:45:57

Had never happened. We've had that same microphone for two years and all of a sudden gone.

01:46:04

We haven't posted it yet because we need to get the video files from Michael Fallon and strip the audio out to post a sermon audio.

01:46:13

But we do have it. It was recorded and that's the first time

01:46:19

I've ever double recorded. And that very time providentially is when the microphone dies.

01:46:26

And so we will be able to have it up. There are some people that actually want for some reason to work through the ontological argument.

01:46:33

It's an interesting argument, but so we will be posting that, but we need to get back to church history.

01:46:41

I need to get back to responding to Ejaz Ahmed's fairly short video in regards to like the

01:46:48

Greek Septuagint and alleged corruption in the New Testament and things like that. Uses of the Septuagint in the

01:46:54

New Testament because it's very educational. It's good stuff. And so we've got stuff to get back to that we need to get back to.

01:47:01

I'm hoping I don't have to spend too much time with the zaniness and insanity that's out there.

01:47:09

Let alone all the slander and stuff that is produced on a regular basis from some areas.

01:47:14

But at the same time, I'm not going to sit back and allow the reform movement to become associated with just in your face, if you don't believe the five points, you're going to hell type of dogmatic nastiness that unfortunately is becoming exceptionally prevalent.

01:47:39

And I think we do need to spend some time considering what the origins and sources of this is, because it will be the destruction of the movement.

01:47:48

These people think they're actually defending it, but it will be its destruction because you cannot preach the doctrines of grace without grace.

01:47:56

If you do not see your own debt to grace, if you don't see the necessary impact that your gracious selection by God has upon your behavior and your speech and your words and your view of others, it will be the destruction of the movement.

01:48:14

No two ways about it. So we'll have plenty to talk about plenty, plenty to talk about here in 2018.

01:48:23

Don't forget the G3 conference. I was going to say next month, but it's not.

01:48:29

It's in a matter of weeks and the debate with Adnan Rashid. I have asked our supporters, those who actually wish us well, we realize every time we turn that switch on that there are a number of you that wish us ill, who are going to be recording and watching.

01:48:47

Well, we recognize that, but thankfully we're much more thankful for the ones who wish us well. And stand with us.

01:48:53

We've been asking you to pray for that debate, to pray for Adnan and the interaction of everyone.

01:49:02

Pray for the ease of his travel in getting to Atlanta. He's coming all the way from Islamabad, I believe.

01:49:10

Obviously all sorts of things can happen in situations like that. Weather, there's just all sorts of stuff.

01:49:15

We need the Lord's grace to bring all of this together so that we can have an excellent discussion about the centrality of the cross there at G3.

01:49:26

And pray for the G3 conference itself for those who will be attending it. They'll be greatly blessed. Pray that those who would seek to disrupt the conference would not do so, that they would be restrained no matter what they think their reasons are, whether they want to disrupt it from the outside like, well,

01:49:44

AHA tried from the inside, then outside last year. But we know there are people who want to show up wearing t -shirts and stuff like that to try to push their own little agenda and things like that.

01:49:54

We know about you. Pray that the Lord will just restrain people that would distract from the actual purposes of the conference, and that the speakers would be well.

01:50:08

We've had speakers that had to try to speak through sickness in the past and things like that. So we pray for all of those things in what's coming up here.

01:50:18

And then I'm going to be heading up to Salt Lake City. I will be up there February 11th and we're putting together some things.

01:50:28

I will be doing a three -hour discussion with Sean McCraney on his live television program on the

01:50:37

Trinity. Sean says he is now a convinced modalist, and I'd like to explain to him why that does not work, biblically speaking.

01:50:46

And so we will be doing that. Hopefully, Lord willing, the night before, a dialogue with the local imam in the mosque there, and then

01:50:56

I'll be speaking the Sunday before at the OPC church out in Magna.

01:51:01

And so stuff coming up there. Please pray for traveling mercies because I'm going to have to drive up.

01:51:08

So it's February and sometimes that's, what's it? Snow, snow.

01:51:13

Yes, I'm from Phoenix. And so that's ice, ice, things like that.

01:51:19

Going to have to rent a four -by, I think, to be able to get up there. So those are the things coming up.

01:51:25

In the near future. So thanks for listening to the program today. Lord willing, we'll see you on Thursday.