The Silver Lining in the Humbling of the American Church

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. I want to explain today why my approach to the problems in America always begins with spiritual issues first. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on The Line of Fire.

And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Have you ever heard it said that the darkness is deepest right before the light begins to shine? I mean, it is a reality.

Every single night when it gets its darkest immediately after that, it begins to get lighter little by little. It's often the same in the spiritual realm. Could that be the case now in America, where so many things are going wrong, where we are hitting bottom in so many other ways, when we are in one of the worst conditions we've been in as a nation in many, many decades? Could it be that there's a silver lining in all of this and something spiritual? God himself is doing something in the midst of this. Welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire. This is Michael Brown, by God's grace, here to see you healthy, striving, full of faith, courage, truth, so you can take your stand for God, so you can be a light shining in dark places, so you can make a positive difference in the world in which you and I live. Friends, there is no political solution to the problems in America.

There is no cultural solution. We must have a gospel solution. Now, phone lines are open. Having said that, we're going to talk about a bunch of things of spiritual importance today, but we want to open the phones for any subject you want to talk about, like we do on Friday. We almost never can get to a good number of the callers, so we'll just try to open up the phones for random subjects on other days. If you have a question or comment that does not relate to what I'm talking about at all, a little later in the broadcast, we'll get your calls as well.

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Seating is limited, check it out, Israel tour, May 2023. Okay, so let's start here. If you have followed our work over a number of years, you know that I am not primarily a political commentator. I will speak about politics as your voice from all sanity and spiritual clarity, but I'm not primarily a political commentator, and in fact, there are limited number of subjects that I speak on related to politics.

Tons of stuff is happening all the time in the world of politics, and I'm not commenting on it because that's not my calling, that's not my gifting, that's not my focus, that's not my burden, all right? I address political issues because they intersect with cultural issues. I address those cultural issues because they intersect with moral issues. I address those moral issues because they intersect with gospel issues. I'm a gospel first guy.

That's my orientation, that's my mindset. I started preaching in 1973 at the age of 18, and when I'm out ministering the gospel, that's what I'm doing, I'm out ministering the gospel, and if I touch on these other things, it's as the gospel relates to them. So everybody has their calling.

Some people are economic commentators and conservative pundits and political experts. My expertise is Bible first, and from there, touching every other area of society. So when I look at the state of the nation, when I look at the state of the society, I'm seeing that we're having big political problems, but those arise out of big cultural problems, and those cultural problems arise out of deep moral problems, and those moral problems arise out of deep spiritual problems. If we can get the spiritual rightly aligned with God, then the moral will fall into line and the cultural will fall into line and the political will be in better shape. Obviously, America, and no nation on earth, America will never be perfect in this world.

America will not totally be Christian ever before Jesus returns. My goal is not for us to take over—no, we're not called to take over, we're called to serve. We are not called to take dominion over other people's lives. Our calling is to bring people to Jesus so that they will submit to him.

He is the one who is to rule over people's lives. So you say, well, why do you get involved? No, because we live in a democratic republic and we can vote and we can make a difference in that respect, right?

It's positive to do it. But I'm still choosing between one worldly system and another worldly system. In other words, politics is of the spirit of the age. The difference between the gospel and politics is the difference between heaven and earth.

So my trust is not in the political system, even though I'll vote based on which candidate thinks better, my trust is not in the political system. So I've said that enough, you've heard that enough, but I want to reemphasize it because we've got midterm elections coming in and then it's going to be day and night frenzy until 2024. So it's good if we keep reminding ourselves of that so that we can better keep our perspective.

Here's the problem, big, big, big problem. Jesus tells us his disciples, Matthew 5, you are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. So we are called to shine like light. A few verses before, Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, so Matthew 5, 13 to 60. You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. So we are called to be a moral conscience of the society.

We are called to be a moral disinfectant, as some have put it. We are called to illuminate the darkness. How many times have we said that you go into a dark room and flip the light switch on, and nothing happens, you don't get mad at the darkness, what do you say? What's wrong with the light? What's the matter with the light?

That's the question that you ask. Jesus in a different context in Matthew 6 says, if the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? So the big, big, big problem in America is with multiplied tens of millions of people claiming to be born-again Christians. And with so many tens of millions of people attending church services or watching gospel TV or listening to gospel radio or taking gospel content online with so many tens of millions of us, a substantial part of the population professing to be followers of Jesus. If our light is not shining brightly, now we've got a really, really big problem. Can I just shoot straight?

Be canned it? That's why you're listening, right? Because we have had a whole lot of scandals in the church, whether you're Pentecostal Charismatic, whether you're Southern Baptist, whether you're Roman Catholic, whether you're into academics and universities, or whether you're into apologetics. We have had a lot of scandals in each of these different areas. So Pentecostal Charismatic side of things, that's the world I've lived in for decades, the failed Trump prophecies, the false Trump prophecies, among other issues, but that is massive egg on our face, and then not getting COVID prophecies right, massive egg on our face. And Christian critics have rightly called us out for that and said, how do you justify that? Shameful, shameful, many, many, many leaders, badly deceived, shameful. Then you look over, say, Southern Baptists, so I've got good friends that are Southern Baptists, but that's not my own circle that I've traveled in as much, and you've got the sexual abuse scandals there that, to whatever extent it happened, that it appears that there were key leaders who basically made the victims guilty. They silenced them to defend and protect others, if these charges are accurate, but it seems that much of this is very accurate.

And then, of course, the ongoing scandal that doesn't go away in Catholic circles for years now, in America and abroad, sex scandals there, and I'm not going to start naming names, but through denominations known for worship, through different groups known for this or that, major schools, it's been one scandal after another. And we have been like the world, rather than the world changing us, excuse me, rather than us changing the world, the world's changed us. In many ways, our message in some circles is to become like the world, to win the world. We're going to show the world how much like the world we are. We're just like you. Well, then why would I want to leave everything to follow your God?

Why in the world would I want to do that? So we got a lot of egg in our face, but here's the silver lining in it all. Here's the good news. Judgment begins with the house of God. God is humbling us.

That's 1 Peter 4. Judgment must begin with the house of God. God has been refining us. God has been humbling us. God has been revealing a lot of the junk.

Why? Because he wants to move, because he wants to send revival. He's bringing us down so he can raise us up. He's exposing the junk so that we'll come to deep repentance, so that we won't trust in ourselves, so we won't go boasting about our own power or wisdom or finances or resources or platforms. Instead we'll be on our faces saying, God, we need you. Have mercy on us. And rather than us just pointing the finger at the wicked world and the wicked society and these bad evil people, instead of pointing mainly at that, while we do call sin out in the society, we're first looking at our own lives. And on our faces, Lord, have mercy. Lord, be gracious. So yes, it is a time of humiliation and judgment and purging, but I believe there's a silver lining in it all. That is, the Church of America's humbled will come to a place where we are ready to be recipients of revival.

That is what Jesus said, truly happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All right, phone lines are open. 866-348-7884.

We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-344-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to The Line of Fire 866-348-7884. I am going to go to the phones shortly, but can I bring in one other important perspective when it comes to wanting to see America impacted? And wherever you live, I know folks listen to the broadcast from around the world, different nations, so wherever you're living, it's the same principle.

What I'm going to say here applies to your family, it applies to the community in which you live, it applies to city, nation, same principles. Take a look with me in Ephesians chapter six, all right, Ephesians chapter six. And there Paul is writing to the believers in Ephesus, of course, and it's one of the most famous passages that we've heard, taught on, preached on in the New Testament.

I'm pulling it up in my accordance Bible software so you can just put all kinds of different desktops, each one's called a desktop, so this is one I have with Bible and English on the left and in Greek on the right. So Paul begins in verse 10, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, and therefore we put on the whole armor of God. So look at this again, verse 12, for we do not wrestle against or wrestle with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

All right, so yes, this is personal and individual, right? In other words, individually we are not fighting human beings, we are fighting demonic powers. When you're alone in your room at night and you're getting bombarded with thoughts of anxiety or fear or sinful temptations, you're not battling people, you're battling demonic forces. When you're seeking to plant a new church in an area and there's all types of opposition and hostility, you may see it outwardly from people, but behind that there are demonic strongholds.

So this applies personally, but then on a larger corporate level. Would you agree with me, if you're an atheist, the answer is no, but if you are a Bible believer, would you agree with me that we are in a spiritual battle? Would you agree with me that Satan is actively working to destroy lives in America and in other nations?

I'm not blaming everything on the devil, but would you agree with me that he is actively involved? Well then, how is a solution that does not start with spiritual things, how is a solution that is more natural than spiritual going to change the nation? Here, come back to you're planting a church in an area, right? And there is, let's just say that pot is legal and with it some other things have opened up and it's just had a negative impact on the society and there's a lot more anarchy and chaos and drug use and you work hard to get people to think differently about pot even to the point of changing the law so it's not legal the way it is now. But good work on the law, but unless you change people's hearts, they're still going to be messed up and bound, right? Yeah, better to have a good law than a bad law, but unless you change people's hearts, they're still going to be confused and lost. And if in fact there are demonic spiritual strongholds, as you travel the world, you encounter them like, wow, it's just wide open, the gospel moving incredibly in this country and you go over here and you just hit a wall, like a brick wall, and one place your words sink deep and people are changed and the other place it just seems there's no response.

Why? Well, there are spiritual battles, there are strongholds, these things are real. So I'm not looking for a demon under every rock. I spend, when I'm on a prayer retreat for a weekend, so spending hours and hours in prayer with the Lord, maybe there's one moment in that prayer time where I feel really stirred to come against satanic powers and things like that, but my whole focus is the Lord, right?

I'm meeting with the Lord. Nonetheless, in ministry, I recognize that there are spiritual battles, we're facing. So if our biggest issues are spiritual, right, they're not going to be fixed by politics.

They're not going to be fixed by this one elected or that one elected. Yeah, the voting helps, but it's way down on the list of our spiritual weapons, of the tactics we can use to bring about positive change. So that's why my focus is always on what's happening in the church, and if we can repent, if we can get right, if we can get freed, if we can get set free from bondage in the society and bondage in our own hearts and minds, then we can be agents of liberation.

And that's why I'm always going to be gospel first in my approach. So yes, we intersect here on the broadcast regularly with political issues. Just moments ago, the show's about to start, friends we've known for many, many years ask you, okay, what should we do, someone very, very close to our family, same-sex wedding, do we go or not?

I said, well, I couldn't for the following reasons. Well, this is the world we live in, so this is cultural, this is political. But ultimately, it's spiritual. Are we in sync? Are we on track?

In sync. 866-3-4-TRUTH. Let's go over to Jeremiah in Denver, Colorado. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Hey, Dr. Michael Brown. Hey, my question today is about family members, friends, community, who at one point in time believed in the gospel, they confessed to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and have since abandoned and living a atheistic or agnostic life. You know, obviously these people's salvation is greatly weighing on my soul. And I've heard you say before that people can have their name written in the Book of Life, but when they live in rebellion to God, they can have their name stricken, removed. And I just wanted to know, you know, where in the Bible exactly is that found? Right, so that specific concept comes from the words of Jesus in Revelation 3, when he tells the church in Philadelphia that I will not blot your name out of the Book of Life.

In other words, if you honor me, I will not blot your name out. The larger concept that someone can know the Lord and then walk away from him is found in many, many verses in the New Testament. For example, if you look in the book of Hebrews, chapters 2, 3, 4, 10, and 12 explicitly relate to this.

Hebrews 6 touches on it as well. You have passages like 1 Peter 2, where Peter talks about those who knew the way of righteousness, who knew the truth, and yet turned away from it, that it would have been better if they had never known the way of righteousness than to have known it and turned away. Others would say, no, 1 John 2 says those who went out from us were never among us, that if someone claimed to be a believer, even seemed to be a believer, and then turned away and they die in sin, then they were never truly saved. And others would say, oh no, once you're saved, you're always saved, even if you turn away once you've crossed from death to life, you can't cross back, so maybe your life is cut short, or maybe you don't receive as much heavenly reward. So that last position, sir, I reject strongly. And I agree with you, and I agree with you, but that's the problem, is a lot of elders in my community take that position, and I feel they become complacent with trying to regain the lost sheep.

Yeah, that's dreadful. That's absolutely dreadful, because the word is very clear, in my view, about the possibility of apostasy. So even if I held the second view, that those that turn away were never truly saved in the first place, well then I'd be deeply burdened to see them truly come to know the Lord. And for example, if you were a Calvinist and you believe if someone's truly saved they'll persevere in holiness, if they fall away it's only temporary, then if you were a consistent Calvinist you'd really be crying out to God for them when they fell away to turn back. Look, Jeremiah, hear your name, Jeremiah, you know the book of Jeremiah, this constant call to Israel to turn back, turn back, turn back, with the understanding that if you turn away, you're lost. If you turn away and die in your sin, you're lost. There's not a verse in the Bible, not a single verse, and friends, call and prove me wrong. I put out an open challenge, there's not a single verse anywhere in the Bible that says that if we willingly, knowingly reject Jesus and die in sin and rebellion, that we will still be saved. Not one verse that can possibly support that. You say, well it says if we deny him, he'll deny us, but then if we don't believe he won't deny himself, well, right, if we don't believe he's still there, but if we deny him, he will deny us. So Jeremiah, you are right to have that burden, and it could well be that your prayers or their lifeline, these people who once knew the Lord, my best friend before I was saved, fellow band member, I was best man in his wedding, he was best man in my wedding, he was away from the Lord for over 40 years, close to 45 years, and we were talking on the phone the other day, he goes, well you brought me back, well of course it was the Lord's work, and he knew that, but I would just be burdened to pray, I'm sure others prayed for him as well, but God brought him back, and he's on fire and preaching, and it could have been close to 45 years, so keep crying out, keep believing, honor the elders that differ, but you carry that burden, and the Lord will hear your prayers, he'll see your tears, and you may just be the lifeline of these people coming back to God.

May God restore them, may God bring them to real repentance, and if they've never really known him, may they really encounter him. Hey thank you for the call, we'll go right back to the phones on the other side of the break. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. We're on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Phone lines are open wide, 866-348-7884. You know, the Lord has opened up really neat doors for me over the last, oh, decade, decade plus, to write on political websites, conservative websites, as well as explicitly Christian gospel websites, now the particular political websites are conservative Christian in a larger perspective, but they are political. In other words, if I'm just doing a Bible study every day, the articles won't be posted because they're mainly political cultural issues. So God's opened a door for me to do that, it laid it on my heart that I was to do it, and then the door opened to do it, and I've done it, probably written over 2,500 articles since. The point is, though, that in writing these articles, I'm still coming from a gospel-first mentality. I'm not like some other talk radio host who's a conservative political talk radio host, or some cultural commentator that's brilliant on the culture but is not necessarily a Bible believer.

They have their roles and they do good and they educate, but again, how many times have you heard me talk about economic issues? Almost none. Why? I don't have expertise in it.

It's not my gifting, calling, educational background, and it's not my burden. How many times have you heard me address issues of immigration? Very rarely. Same reasons. Here, do you hear me talking a lot about Second Amendment and our right to carry arms?

No, it's not my emphasis focus. So the areas that I've touched on over the years, pro-life areas, family issues, sexuality issues, things like that, those are things that the Lord burdened me to address, and they then tie in directly with biblical subjects, and now they trickle down and touch every other area of society, hence we address those. But here, you'll never come to this broadcast and hear me making fun of President Biden.

It's not going to happen. To me, it's not a godly thing to do, and it grieves my heart when I look at some Christian's social media page, maybe a minister of the gospel, and one day they've got a beautiful scripture verse, and the next day the link to a beautiful worship song, and the next day a clip of President Biden making another slip-up in a speech and making fun of it. Or if you're on the other side of the political spectrum, you've got a Bible verse here and a beautiful worship song here, and then you're making fun of Donald Trump being fat. That is so obscenely wrong to me in God's sight that we're doing this as believers, as opposed to, hey, we have our strong views and we have our strong differences and we'll call things out, but we'll do it in a way that's honoring to God. I'm going to give you some more scripture about this in a moment, and I've got a really neat, edifying clip to play for you, but first we go back to the phones.

Over in Indianapolis, Indiana, Jan, welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown, I'm glad you just said that. I more have a comment than I do a question, so hear me out. I have been serving Jesus since 86, and I was a part of—I liked it when you had John the Patrick on just the other day. I lived through the Brownsville revival, the charismatic movement, all of those things, and I've been serving him long enough to know now that Apostle Paul and Jesus both said, if I understood them right, it's not my opinion that matters.

And I believe that that is part of what the trouble is. Dr. Brown, people can't hear you, nor can they hear other ministers that I honestly believe are apostles for the body of Christ in this hour, because there's all these different opinions of the scriptures. Some are reading notes out of their Bible or commentaries that are in these Bibles now, others are just giving their opinions that a minister, his interpretation of the scripture. But I remember my pastor, many, many years ago, used to beat the pulpit and say, now I've given you the message, if you don't go home and study this and ask God for the correct interpretation, it's not on me, it's on you. I believe once we become one voice, one spirit, and one mission, some of this foolishness that is in the body of Christ will diminish.

There are people who should not be pastors, there are people who should not be traveling evangelists and so on and so on. That's my comment. We are to reflect Jesus and the Kingdom, and I think there's still too much of the world that is in the Church that Jesus is trying to say, now is your time to repent and get to know me intimately and what my mission is.

That's my heart. So your comment on it. Yeah, my comment on your comment, of course, is absolutely, we've got to make the main thing the main thing. We've got to be focusing on lifting up Jesus and calling people to repent. So we each have different aspects of calling, but if we're talking about people standing behind the pulpit teaching the Word, we've got to make the main thing the main thing, and we've got to be bringing people the Word. We've got to be in the Word and bringing people into the Word as opposed to just a pep talk or an inspirational talk, and we as individual believers need to be people of the Word. The Word and the Spirit go hand in hand. And I've listened sometimes to whole messages where a snippet of a verse is read to start it, and then a thought comes to it, from it, out of context, and then the rest of the message, the Word's not even used, and you think, well, I wonder why we're so spiritually sick.

Well, that's a major reason. We've got to make the main thing the main thing. Obviously, we use study resources, commentaries, things we study, we learn, but ultimately, we've got to let the Word speak for itself as much as possible.

Hey, Jan, thank you. And then for each of us, what do we do? We get on our faces and pray. Lord, what do you want to show me?

Where do I need to make changes? In fact, let me go over to, thank you for calling, let me go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul writes something really, really interesting, and it's, I'm not going to give the larger context of 2 Corinthians, what's happening here, but they really were in some ways full of themselves and thought they knew it all, and were not recognizing Paul's authority. And he says this in verse 3, though we walk in the flesh, meaning in this world, in physical bodies in this world, we are not waging war according to the flesh. We don't fight the way other people fight, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, they're not worldly, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

Those are the weapons that we fight with, divine weapons. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. So through prayer, through the proclamation of the word, through the Holy Spirit working powerfully through us, we bring down these false ideas and demonic strongholds by proclaiming the truth, but not just doing it in a purely intellectual way, and certainly not trying to fight force with force, where you hit the streets in protest, we're going to have even more people out in our protest, where you yelled and shouted, we're going to yell and shout louder. You will get some results, but ultimately fleshly results, and it'll just be whoever shouting the loudest and the longest, wins for the moment. If we want to see real change come, it's got to come from the inside out.

Dramatic, radical, spiritual change, changing hearts, minds, then lives, then the culture. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to Steven in Tampa, Florida. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call.

Sure thing. Hey, I just wanted to piggyback off what you were speaking about a little bit earlier about judgment on the church. You know, I've been thinking about this recently, and I think in my mind there's been three big categories. There's obviously humanity has fallen, and this scandalous thing has been going on forever, since the beginning of humanity. And then you start seeing what Jesus says, the things that are hidden in the dark, will eventually come to light, and you see that at local congregations, and that's been going on.

Well recently, as you mentioned, it's been on the public world news. It's even elevated even higher, more than ever now in my life, that I'm seeing this. So if you could get, let's say, all the world's pastors, or Christian denominations, if you could get a thousand pastors in a room, what would you encourage them to do for the body of Christ? Yeah, so I would encourage them to seek the Lord more earnestly than they ever have in their lives, and wherever they have left their first love, to return to it. I would encourage them not to—it would not be about what they should preach or teach, it would not be about what issues they should address, it would not be about how to structure their church, it would not be about how to reach their communities, even though all of those are important subjects.

You're asking me, right, how I would approach it. As far as I understand what the Lord would lay on my heart to do, it would be, we have to go after God like we never did before. We have to know him more intimately than we ever have before.

We have to experience him more deeply, know his word better, be more passionate for him, be more in love with God and devoted to God and consecrated to God than we have ever been in our lives. And if that happens, everything else will fall into place. Everything else will take care of itself. Look at it like this—you've got a log that's kind of crusty and doing nothing, you've got a blazing fire over here.

Well, you throw that log in the fire, and soon enough, that log itself has become fire. It's the same with us, that if we will burn brightly, if we will be freshly gripped by God, we will love our neighbors like we have not before, we will love our spouses and families like we have not before, or have not for years. We will have a burden to reach the lost, we will grieve over sin and have God's perspective on it. So, if I could push a button, it would be that all of us would pursue God like we never have before, to know him more intimately, to walk with him closely, to be more people of loving Jesus, people of the word, people of the Spirit, and if we do that, everything else will fall into place. That would be my heart, and for everyone listening, to the extent that speaks to you, let's do it. Let's do it. This is the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

We're going to go back to the phones momentarily, but I just want to glorify the Lord and edify you with this. Sidney McLaughlin is one of the top athletes on the planet right now. She's 22 years old, and she has been shattering world records in ways that are just not done, because you've got elite athletes pushing their entire lives to run the fastest and jump the highest and throw the farthest and do what they do. And if a record is shattered, it can take sometimes 5, 10, 20 years for a record to be shattered, sometimes even longer, and then it's just by the fraction.

And then maybe some of those, isn't that a fraction? And Sidney McLaughlin is totally blowing things away. So this is the end of a race at world championships. So these are the best athletes in the world, like the Olympics world championships. This is the end of the 400 meter hurdles, and you'll hear the commentary and just how blown away they are.

Remember what Ado told you about the world record, how it just continually keeps getting better and better and better and better. So they're just stunned. They've never seen anything like this. It is stunning. And if I'm right, as she's sitting there on the ground after the race, she's saying, thank you God. She's just kind of stunned. So I want you to hear an interview afterwards.

So whatever the network that was carrying this, this major network, here's the interview. And I just love the way she's just who she is. And because she's one of the greatest athletes on the planet right now, representing America too, hey, let her speak. So let's listen to what she says.

Well, Sydney, you have crushed your own world record once again, but can you kind of take us inside from the blocks through each section of the race and just how you accomplish this again? Yeah, well, I'll have to start off by saying all the glory to God. These past few days, just getting ready for this race, Hebrews 4.16 has been on my mind, coming boldly to his throne to receive mercy and grace. And I think he really gave me the strength to do it today. So all the glory goes to God.

Yeah, just quoting scripture as if everybody believes the Bible with a smile and not like she's forcing on anyone, just who she is. So I was just blessed when I saw that clip, wanted to share it with you. All right, we go back to the phones.

Our friend Fael in Greensboro, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Yes. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you for that clip. Amazing. Amazing. Wow. Also, thank you for the comments you made to the gentleman before me.

And the bottom line is, of course, we're turning back to your first love. So I can understand why you would say that to thousands of ministers. My question is about tithing. And first and foremost, I do tithing, I'm a tither, I guess.

I might be more than a tither, I don't know, sometimes it's more than a tent, whatever the Holy Spirit tells me to do. Now, I believe that tithing is under grace, and that it should come from the heart. And tithing should come from who you are based on 2 Corinthians 5, 21, that we are the righteous of God.

So I do it based on inside out from the heart. And I know we're not under the law, because Paul makes it perfectly clear in Galatians chapter three. That's not the point. A lot of ministers are now saying, no, you don't tithe under the law, you're right. But we should tithe because Abram tithed before the law, and since Abram did it before the law, that was a principle that was established before the law, so we should do it based on that. And I disagree with that, because when Abram tithed to Melchizedek, which was a type Jesus, it wasn't because it was a principle, it could have been a principle during that time. But he did it because of a response of his goodness, plus he honored someone that was above him, because he was a type Jesus, basically, he was a priest, and he was a king. But what about other things that Abraham did before the law?

We don't make that a practice. So first, I'm with you in the approach. In other words, I look at it the same way, that it's not under the law, but it is something that flows out of relationship with God, and the New Testament does reinforce systematic giving, so regular giving, proportional giving, in other words, the ones that have more should give more, generous giving, even sacrificial giving. So all those things, if put into practice, will bring us beyond the tithe, for sure. I don't see any way that we could fully embrace the spirit of the New Testament and end up giving less than 10% to the work of the Lord and to help those in need.

So you have Genesis 14, where Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, as you said, and then Genesis 28, so it's Abraham in Genesis 14, and Jacob in Genesis 28, when he vows, Lord, if you'll be with me and take care of me, then of everything I'll get, I'll give a tenth to you. So there was definitely a principle that existed and was found in other cultures or in other laws and is then reinforced as the law to Israel. But even if it was a principle that was then, we're not mandated to follow that principle. So with all respect, with all respect to pastors, leaders that use those passages, yes, use it as a principle, but now my question is, okay, now I'm a New Testament believer, why is that principle binding on me? It's still a principle, it's not a law. So we have to move from the Spirit behind it to say, hey, this is a good principle. So I recommend it as a good principle, but it is just that, a good principle, and everything flows out of God's generosity to us and us now reciprocating. So I believe if we'll teach the New Testament principles and then use the Old as examples, then that's great. If we use the Old as some type of law that we're under, or because they did it, we have to do it, then of course we miss the point. So honor those that come from there, that perspective, but I think it's better to approach it this way, better and healthier, all right? Right, and the other thing is too, because I think sometimes there's a thin line between principles and the law, and even though they're using the word principle, it's still in their mind, it's a law.

I understand. Yeah, that's what I was saying, that if we say it's a principle and therefore we must do it or should do it, then we're missing the point. It's just, hey, this is an excellent practice that is a great way of living this out because you're saying we're going to follow the first fruits principle, the first we get we're going to give back to God, we're going to follow the systematic principle, right? So that's 1 Corinthians 16, you know, putting money aside at the beginning of every week, first fruits, and seek God in this kingdom first, Matthew 6, 33, those types of things. And then 1 Corinthians 9 tells us those who preach the gospel should make the living from the gospel so we should support those in ministry, the call to help the poor, which is throughout the whole Bible, if we have, we should help others who don't have. And then 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, proportional giving, right, as well, and 1 Corinthians 9 ties in with that generous sacrificial giving.

So if we live that out, I believe we'll tie that in more, but let it be from that spirit. Appreciate that. All right. Do I have time? Okay. I've got a little bit more time.

Will in Christiansburg, Virginia, dive right in, please. Dr. Brown, I'd like to underscore what you said earlier. I think the Holy Spirit reveals things to us because we have the same Holy Spirit, and he is just one person. So we may be getting the same things.

And I've been saying this exactly the same message that you had. What's been happening is we've been watching the entire world come under siege by Satan, which is no surprise because he is the illegitimate God of this world. And we are in a spiritual war, and to your point, the only way to respond in a spiritual war is spiritually.

But here's the big question. Who are the ones who stand between Satan and this world? We as believers and the church is the only line of defense. There's no other defense.

Yep. It's very true. So does the church realize this, that they are the only line of defense? You know, in Ezekiel there are some verses about standing in the gap. In fact, God says to the prophets, you didn't stand in the gaps. Isn't this something that the church should be doing, that believers should be doing?

Isn't it time for the church to turn their focus on the enemy and stop the friendly fire? Yeah, certainly will. And I've got to jump in just because we've got less than a minute to go.

Absolutely. I believe many know this in part, but because we are often so caught up with the world, or run down, burdened ourselves, or trying to get our own head above the water, or out of debt, or struggling with a long-term illness, or church splits, and so we're weighed down as opposed to saying, hey, we're here for a purpose. No matter what in Jesus, we're overcomers, and our prayers make a difference, and our fasting makes a difference, and our intercession makes a difference, and our standing for righteousness makes a difference, and our sharing the gospel with the lost makes a difference, and our acts of compassion, that they make a difference. Friends, thank you, Will. We are here for a purpose, and we are here on this broadcast to help equip you for that purpose. Let us be a resource to you so that you can stand strong, and that we can push back the forces of darkness by the power of the gospel in Jesus' name. Back with you tomorrow, friends. Another program, powered by the Truth Network.