National Awakening: America's Only Hope

Well, we're going to take a break from Elections and the Chaos of 2020 and talk about revival. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I was praying and reflecting yesterday, saying, Lord, you've given me this great platform on radio and intranet to speak to lots of people. What's in your heart? How can I best serve your body? How can I be different than just a pastor caring for the flock and doing what God's called him to do or a conservative pundit weighing in with political wisdom?

What can I do to serve and help your people? And I felt strongly that it was really important today to take our eyes off the chaos of the world around us, to take our eyes off of the crises that we're experiencing on a daily basis in America, to take our eyes off of the elections, to focus our eyes on the Lord, and to focus on the subject of a national awakening and to ask God, do something even greater in our day. This is Michael Brown. Thanks for tuning in on today's broadcast. You may be listening to this by podcast after Thanksgiving. You might be watching live on November 16th.

You may be watching on a Saturday night on America's Voice on Pluto or Dish TV. This is timely. You can put this on ten years from now. It will be timely. You could put this on ten years retroactively.

It will be timely. Because national awakening has been the great need of America for many years now. I don't just mean people getting all hyped up in emotional and church services. I don't mean people having some type of religious experience that does not bring lasting change. I mean an awakening that can be looked at historically, and we can say this is one thing shifted. Here, we had a counterculture revolution in the sixties, and then it unfolded in the seventies and beyond, and it helps explain some of where we are culturally and morally today.

We look back in the same way, in a positive way, at the great awakening, the first great awakening in the 1730s, 1740s in the colonies, or the second great awakening in the first decades of the 1800s, or various other outpourings, movements in different parts of the world, different countries, and you can mark them, and you can see the fruits. So I want to encourage you that, trust me, you're going to be stirred. You are going to be stirred. Call a friend. Text a friend.

Tell them to tune in, and if you have a question that relates to this, phone lines are open, 866-344-866-348-7884. First, let me give you some working definitions. How's that? So here's my full-length working definition of revival. When the psalmist says, revive us again, what does he mean? When Habakkuk says, Lord, in the midst of the years, revive, do the work again. What does it mean? So here's my practical working definition of revival.

Are you ready? Revival is a season of unusual divine visitation, resulting in deep repentance, supernatural renewal, and sweeping reformation in the church, along with the radical conversion of sinners in the world, often producing moral, social, and even economic change in the local or national communities. Let me read that for you again. Revival is a season of unusual divine visitation, resulting in deep repentance, supernatural renewal, and sweeping reformation in the church, along with the radical conversion of sinners in the world, often producing moral, social, and even economic change in the local or national communities. Listen to Charles Finney's definition.

He lived 1792 to 1875. He said, a revival presupposes that the church is sunk down in a backslidden state, and a revival consists in the return of the church from her backslidings and in the conversion of sinners. So real simple.

If you need to be revived, brought back to life, then you were alive but are not now. There's backsliding. There's compromise. There's worldliness. There's whatever. You're not who you used to be.

You've left your first love. A revival presupposes that the church is sunk down in the backslidden state, and a revival consists in the return of the church from her backslidings and in the conversion of sinners. All right. I've got some clips I'm going to play for you, both audio clips and teaching, preaching, some short clips, some musical clips. For those that like some of the theme music here on The Line of Fire, you're going to get to hear where one of the songs comes from, William Booth piece that was contemporized some years ago, Send the Fire. But it's important, if you've grown up in certain parts of America, in the South in particular, to not think of revival as a series of special meetings. It's just lingo in the South. Oh, we're holding a revival next month. Oh, we've got a revival scheduled for the first of the year.

No, no. You can no more schedule a revival than you can schedule an earthquake. You can no more hold a revival than you can hold a hurricane. Revival is not something a man works up. Revival is something God sends down.

We're talking about something above and beyond what you would ask for, expect. We're talking about something that has supernatural elements because the presence of God is so deep and the conviction of sin is so deep and the repentance is so deep and the conversion is so deep and the transformation is so deep that you can look at what happened decades later and stand in awe of what God has done. I want to read a testimony to you. I know the man who wrote this, know his family. He continues to serve God and burn bright until this day.

And I want to read his testimony. We posted it some years back online called I Saw the Brownsville Revival, which was a powerful move of God I had the privilege of serving in. It was from 1995 to 2000. I had the privilege of being there from 96 to 2000. And Brian Steady Strong on fire to this day, as are his kids.

So listen to Brian's testimony. In July of 1996, over a year into the revival, I was a 17-year-old atheist, regularly doing drugs, toting guns, given to drunkenness, filled with rage and bitterness, and battling suicidal thoughts. My great-grandfather was an A.G. Assembly of God pastor, a man of holy living, and an intercessor, so a man of prayer.

I had been raised in the assemblies, but at the age of 18, I had not yet been born from above. The youth pastor at my parents' church was planning a missions trip to a poverty-stricken area in Madart, Florida. His intentions were to stop for a day at the revival on the way down. My parents asked him if I could go along, and his response was, it's a missions trip. He's not even saved! He agreed to pray about it, and the Lord impressed him to bring me along.

We arrived in Pensacola on July 20, 1996. Remember, he's a 17-year-old, gun-toting atheist. And showed up at Brownsville Assembly of God at about 1 p.m. Already, nearly a thousand people were gathered in a large bunch near the door, waiting for the meeting, which began at 7 p.m. As an unbeliever, I thought, what is wrong with these people?

They're nuts! Why are they so excited to get to an Assembly of God church? I remember spontaneous hymns of praise rising from the throng while we waited outside in the hot Florida sun.

How great thou art, amazing grace, and several others. Passersby on the street, the church met in the poorer area of the city. We're hearing songs of praise to the Lamb of God, and this has been common in times of revival over the course of history.

Oh, that every city would hear again the glory of Christ through the revived hearts of his people. But here I was, in the midst of the crowd, totally detached from their joy. My hardened heart grew curious when the doors opened as I saw men, women, and children moving quickly and earnestly for a seat in the building. As I walked into the building, even as a hardened sinner, I began to sense a difference in the atmosphere. A strange pull began to affect me. I felt increasingly uncomfortable about my sin, but there was an unspoken yearning for truth, reality, and salvation rising in my soul. I watched the people engaging in fervent and sincere worship and praise which lasted well over an hour, and a conviction of my sinfulness was intensifying.

I attempted to put a wet blanket over it, even turning to the young man next to me and speaking in jest about the people worshiping around me, but I could not evade or circumvent the fact that something or someone, as real as he was invisible, was moving in the midst of his people. The evangelist then brought up several women from South Korea who had come to America to pray and street witness to the Atlanta Olympics. What did you come to Brownsville for, dear sisters? To receive the Holy Spirit, they replied. Upon praying for them, they collapsed in a heap on the platform with tears flowing copiously crying out, Oh God, save souls in Atlanta.

Souls, souls. The prayer went on for some time, and when it subsided, the evangelist began to preach. It was a passionate call to repentance, cry to humble ourselves, turn from sin, have faith in the work of the cross, and receive the mercy of Jesus Christ. I later discovered that this was the message this was his message every night at the Brownsville revival, but on that night I felt I was alone in a room with the preacher and the Holy Spirit.

The word was like a hammer that shatters the rock and I could not resist the Spirit any longer. I understood clearly that I had to flee from the wrath to come and receive a new heart from the God of mercy. I was undone in my sin and overcome with the revelation of the cross of Christ. I was gloriously born above born from above that night, and nothing has been the same since. Glory to the Lamb that was slain. When I went back to high school the next semester, 27 students called on the name of the Lord as a result of the transformation they saw in my life. Twenty-seven of his friends got saved. I was immediately freed from the grief of drugs, alcohol, suicidal tendencies, and rebelliousness towards my teachers and parents. One day I even jumped in my 89 Thunderbird and ran over more than 250 of my music CDs that were filled with immoral themes and profanity.

What else could I do? I had experienced the cleanness of a forgiven heart for the first time and I could not engage in that which contradicted it. I began preaching in youth gatherings, bearing witness to the gospel on the streets, and leading prayer meetings.

In August of 97 I went back to Brownsville to attend the ministry school at which Dr. Michael Brown was the president, which I graduated in May of 99. It has been a remarkable journey with the Lord and it all began on that day when I passed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his glorious light. This was the experience of many thousands of souls who came to the Lord through the Brownsville revival.

We were witnesses of this for years. As we saw souls from every background, prostitutes, wealthy businessmen, thugs, even preachers bow low before a holy God, crying out for mercy over their sin, having found that they were in need of cleansing as God stepped down in the midst of the gathering. Many souls like myself entered through the doors in unbelief, dead in trespasses and sins, and were born anew of the Spirit of God saved to the uttermost by the power of the gospel. He said, I remember many meetings when the fear of the Lord would grip the whole congregation of four or five thousand souls. Unbelievers were screeching and crying for mercy, intercessions weeping and wailing, and many throughout the crowd crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord. He said, I used to meet with a brother for prayer before our Bible school classes and I recall pulling up to the school property in March of 98 where the student's morning prayer meeting was moved upon by the Lord the profound way. He says, when I pulled into the parking lot, students were prostrate all over the campus, laying on the grass or on the sidewalks, groaning with hunger for God and asking for mercy on behalf of our nation. Strong men were broken before the Lord, trembling and weeping in prayer, and everywhere in these times the hearts of God's people seem fixed on his throne. Friends, what if something like that happened in great residue all over America?

By the millions, would not that be a great awakening? It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Allow me to encourage your heart, stir your heart today. Friends, no matter who's in the White House, we need a miracle in our nation. No matter who's in Congress, we need a miracle in our nation. Certain scenarios may be better than others, but we're deeply divided. Much of the church confused, backslidden, compromised, many of our young people falling away, the message often being mocked and ridiculed in America. We need visitation.

We need outpouring. We need repentance beginning of the church, spreading into the society. It's not either or. It's not a matter of, okay, we have awakening or we get involved in politics. We have awakening or we get involved socially. No, it's both that and you pray and you act. You pray and you do what you know how to do. You pray and you vote. You share the gospel and do what you can. But hear me. I firmly believe that we have been so obsessed with the elections and politics that we have not been as focused on evangelism and the Great Commission and making disciples.

Come on, tell me if you don't agree with that. As I'm speaking, we're going to run video for those who are watching. And this is a message that I brought in Pensacola. I was not the main night speaker. That was evangelist Steve Hill.

I was speaking this particular night, 1998. It was a message called Holy Desperation, calling for people to get right with God and to seek him earnestly. They didn't know him, to surrender their lives to him. And if you're watching, you can see this is an altar call like you've probably rarely ever seen. People coming as much as there's room by the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds until there's several thousand filling every square inch you could, filling the altars, filling the aisles, people coming down from the balcony, overflow rooms, the same thing happening. And they just began to cry out to God, cry out to God, cry out for mercy, repent.

We had no music background that night. It was just me saying, get right with God. If you're hungry, if you're thirsty, if you don't need more, cry out. Someone posted on Facebook, drove down with my pastor and three other men from Hamilton, Ontario. So they drove from Ontario to Pensacola, Florida. Most amazing week of my life. What this is revival in 2000.

You're telling this at least 20 years ago and saying the most amazing week of my life. People getting right with God. It's not just emotionalism, but when you come under a deep conviction of sin, you're probably going to get emotional. When you know you've grieved and displeased God, you're probably going to get emotional. When he forgives you and you feel freedom and cleansing, you're probably going to get emotional. So the emotions are not what makes the difference. It's the changed heart, changed life that makes the difference. That's what matters. That's what we're after.

I mean, you see there's no room for the people coming out from the balcony, but everything is easily filled. And this could go on for hours and people repenting and crying out. And then you hear the testimonies years later. And that's what would matter.

I will pull the video now, but that's what really matters. Lasting fruit. It's all we ever burned to see lasting fruit. You know, some of the people that were at that very meeting have been on the mission field, some for close to 20 years now, bearing fruit, living sacrificially to reach the lost around the world.

That's what you call lasting fruit. Emotion doesn't do that. You see, Satan can't cast out Satan. Satan cannot and will not bring someone to repentance, bring them to holiness, bring them to devotion to Jesus, the Jesus of the scripture, bring them to love for the word, bring them to love for the lost.

Satan won't and can't do that. And the flesh can't produce that. You can get a momentary high.

Oh, I can preach and stir and everything. Ah, yeah, yeah, ho, ha. But then what comes out of it? Nothing. Just disappointment. It's like an emotional high. What do you have after that? An emotional low. What good is that? No good at all.

Zero. But when the Holy Spirit moves deeply, lives are changed. That's what we have to see across America. When I came to Faith 71 as a heroine shooting LSD using hippie rock drummer, Jewish teenage rock drummer, it was part of something God was doing around America, around the world, the Jesus people movement, the Jesus revolution. But there were not enough spiritual fathers to help disciple and nurture. Churches weren't ready to embrace and absorb so many of us that were coming in the way we were.

There was not a sufficient teaching of repentance, so the harvest did not have the lasting effect it could have had, although many of us were saved and were transformed. Let me just give you some of the sounds. You've heard this song over and again. Let's just grab the clip here.

Clip number four. This is the song Send the Fire. William Booth wrote it, Salvation Army, so in the 1800s, early 1900s, when William Catherine Booth served and founded the Salvation Army, which in its origin was a powerful soul winning army of consecrated believers that also helped the poor and the needy, but they were first and foremost soul winners of Angelus missionaries. So the song Send the Fire was then rewritten in a modern way. So here's one of our events called Awake America, where there were thousands present in the convention center.

And you've heard the song. I want you to hear more of it and get a glimpse of what some of the services looked like and felt like. So here we go. Send the fire. Lift today we claim. Send the fire today. God of His light, hear our cry. Send the fire. And make the spit to live or die. Send the fire today. To burn up every trace of sin.

To bring the light and glory in the revolution now begin. Send the fire today. Send the fire. Send the fire. Send the fire. Send the fire today. Send the fire. It's the fire we want. For fire we bleed. Send the fire. The fire will meet our every need. Send the fire today. Give us strength to always do what's right.

And grace to conquer in the fight. For power to walk this broken line. Send the fire. Send the fire. Send the fire. Send your fire. Come on Holy Spirit. Send the fire today. Look down and see this waiting host. And send the promised Holy Ghost.

We need another Pentecost. Send the fire. Send the fire.

Send the fire. Oh boy. Can you feel the hunger?

Can you feel the thirst, the desire, the recognition of God? We need a visitation. I saw Matt posting on Facebook. Matt Snow said Brownsville changed my life. He said we wait outside all day in line just to get inside the church and not be in the overflow. You know how many testimonies we heard of people who showed up at the building at six in the morning with family and friends, not saved, saying, what are we, what are we doing? Why am I here? I thought I was going to the beach. I thought, what are we, six in the morning? Why are we here in front of a church building?

And there are hundreds of people that are ready. Oh yeah, we're going to church tonight. We're going to church tonight.

I came to Pensacola party to go on the beach. If we're going to church tonight, why are we at six in the morning? Well, the door is open at 6 p.m. We want to get a good seat. We're going to stand on the line for 12 hours to get a good seat in the meeting. Oh yeah.

Why? Well, then the services started seven an hour later and you want to be there. You know how many people we heard their stories? They were there not saved and they got radically burned again. Some standing online outside the building. The conviction of the Holy Spirit would come. The presence of God would be there. People sharing the gospel with them. They'd come under conviction. And we know these stories years and years and years and years later. Now, some cases 25 years later, 20 years later, and the results remaining dramatic to this day. Just picture if instead of happening in one church, it's happening in a thousand churches all across America.

It's breaking out in homes. Oh, some of this did happen, but we need something multiplied and think this is not political. This is not Republican Democrat. This is not Trump Biden.

This is not culture wars. This is an encounter with Jesus changing us. And then as we're changed, we go out and change our world. Testimony I read earlier from Brian as a result of his salvation that next year. So it was over the summer, right? July.

School starts, what, late August? 27 of his friends get saved as a result of that. What happens if this is multiplied all over America? Friends, national awakening starts in the church, starts with repentance for our sin, repentance for our complacency, repentance for our divisions, repentance for our pride. That's where it starts. Starts with you and me.

It starts with leaders. Starts with confession, not finger pointing confession. Lord, I blew it. I've sinned. I'm responsible. And then from there it spreads as we are now on fire.

We want to share the gospel where people can see change in our lives and the Holy Spirit's working. It starts to spread into the society. It's the hope of America. I mean, it really is awakening or it's over. I believe that's where we are. Awakening in the body, into the church, into the society, or America as we know it.

It's a past thing. Well, I've got more encouragement for you. We've got some great clips to play. Stay right here.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It's revival or we die. It's awakening. America as we know it does not continue to exist. Things will change so dramatically. And look, let's be honest, we have been so focused on politics, so focused on the elections that in certain ways we've taken our eyes off the greatest prize, which is Great Commission in the glory of Jesus and a revived church shaking a nation. I want to read a few quotes and I'm going to play some clips for you.

And I may take some questions. 866-34-TRUTH. Peter Marshall, Reverend Peter Marshall, 1944. 1944. Surely the time has come because the hour is late when we must decide and the choice before us is plain.

Yahweh or Baal, Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration. That was 1944. How about 1959? Professor Robert Coleman in the day when unprecedented numbers of people have a form of religion. Well, at the same time, the church seems unable to stem their eyes and tired of degeneracy that threatens the land.

The question must be raised, why this paradox? Should not the church have influence for righteousness in proportion to our numbers? However, one may seek to answer this question is it is obvious that what we need is not more religion, but more power. In short, we need real revival. 1959.

Dr. Bill Bright, 1969. We live in the most revolutionary period of human history. Social band-aids and reform antiseptics give little hope for a cure or even an improvement. A revolution is needed. You can experience this revolution.

In fact, you can help bring it to pass. That was 1969. All right, let me go back to 1949.

1949 to 1952, there was a great outpouring in the Hebrides Islands called the Hebrides Revival, islands off the coast of Scotland, and the principal vessel used was a man named Duncan Campbell. There's a picture of Duncan Campbell, and it is him with these two old ladies. When you look at them, you think, what happened?

They don't look well. Well, one of them was stone cold blind, and the other was bent over with arthritis. You can see they're very old women, and here he is wearing a clerical collar, Duncan Campbell, not some hyper emotional, jump up and down, Pentecostal preacher, right?

He stayed sober. God used him in visitation on the island. It was quite extraordinary, and these two sisters were the ones who helped pray in the revival and pray him in. When he said he couldn't come for scheduled meeting, they said, oh, no, no, God says he's coming. Schedule changed dramatically.

Things were canceled. There he was, and the outpouring began, and they estimate that in the first six weeks in Lewis Island, the parish of Barbossa, I believe, in Lewis Island, that in the first six weeks, 75% of those who were saved were saved outside of church buildings. In other words, the Holy Spirit would just visit them where they were because they were churched and had background, some say taught to death. They had all the background, the doctrine, but they didn't know God. Listen to Duncan Campbell describing this as only he could.

These are the words of the late Duncan Campbell. When God stepped down, suddenly men and women all over the parish were gripped by the fear of God. Who shall ascend the hill of God? Who shall stand in his holy place?

He that has clean hands and a pure heart who has not lifted up his sword to vanity, nor swarmed deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing of the Lord. Preaching about holiness, preaching about God's standards, suddenly conviction would come, people would realize, oh my God, I'm a wretch. People that were boasting in their sin one day, next day weeping, hell is too good for me, and then dramatically changed and radically changed, and the changes last for years and years and years. I am an eyewitness to God doing this year in, year out in Pensacola, Florida, during the Brown's revival.

I am an eyewitness to the lasting fruit, to the hundreds that went to serve in different capacities on the mission field all around the world, to some that remain there, to those that are upright godly people, lives transformed, raising their kids in upright godly homes right here in America, to those who started churches, to those in the business world, to those in the legal profession transformed from lost sinners or backsliders or compromises. What if that's multiplied? What if that's multiplied in church after church and meeting after meeting and denomination after domination from megachurch to house church? What if that's multiplied all over America?

Why can't God do that again? And here's a sound from Brownsville, some of my voice and then my dear departed colleague Steve Hill with the Lord now, the evangelist that God used for years during the Brownsville revival, the evangelist God used to ignite it. Listen to some of our voices from the days of Brownsville. What does it mean?

It means you don't want to live unless you can see people safe. Lord, move on your church. Break our hearts with the things that break your heart. Shatter our indifference.

Strip away our complacency. Lord, we receive your burden for a dying world. We receive your burden, O God, for this generation of young people. Give us America, Father. Give us our schools. Give us our schools where we die. That's the cry, friends, that went up night out, night in, night out.

Give us our schools. Give us revival and dramatic testimonies. People's lives changed and touched over and over and over again. I remember saying, Lord, do something even greater and our day started to work in me. I posted on Facebook yesterday and I said, hey, if your life was transformed through the revival, this is all to the glory of God.

And this is just to encourage others and to give hope and to give firsthand feeling. I said, we've got some major books scheduled for release next year. One's going to be on the subject of revival, Revival or We Die. I said, if you have a personal story of supernatural radical transformation through the Brownsville revival, either in your own life or someone you know, please share it here. In some of the chapters, I'll share some stories in order to glorify God, build faith and increase hunger.

I just got this. You want to put some of these testimonies in the new book, Stir Hearts. So here's one from now a woman married with children, burning bright for the Lord, nor her family, her husband to this day, burning bright for the Lord, raising Godly kids. Listen to what she has to say. This is Elitha's testimony. She said, I was 18 and was asked to be a chaperone and asked to be a chaperone on a youth trip to a revival and was told we would go to the beach too. All my 18 year old ears heard was free beach trips.

So I agreed to my dismay. The first day they woke us up super early to get in line outside a church building. The sun wasn't even out yet. And there were people in line already waiting for the evening service.

We sat out there in the hot Florida sun for 12 hours before we were allowed inside. I wasn't the happiest, but I knew whatever was happening had to be good. Worship was powerful.

And the message Steve Hill preached was intensely convicting. I ran up to every single altar call that week. By the end of the week, I was getting baptized and declaring that I would never go back to my old ways. Up to that point, I had been saved about a year, but still struggle to not be drawn to the world in my old ways. I got saved because I didn't want to go to hell.

And I was constantly giving it to temptation, lots of shame and guilt, as well as fear that I wouldn't make the long haul as a believer. After that week, I was set on fire and hungered and thirsted for nothing but him. The long drive home, I wept cleansing tears the entire 12 hours. I couldn't even go inside the cracker barrel for the lunch break because I was in the back of the van being touched by a spirit weeping. I didn't know my body could produce that many tears.

Some of the kids brought me Kleenex boxes, and I used every single tissue before I got back home. Afterwards, there was a marked difference in the holiness. Living was a byproduct, but overall, I was a woman unchanged and liberated, no longer bound by flesh and desire, completely set on fire for him. Friends, as well, over 20 years ago, an elite is burning bright to this day, as is her husband, who is also touched by the fruit of the revival. Friends, when I talk about emotionalism, our hype, we're talking about lives changed by the power of God. And I want I'm giving you these individual stories because we could talk stats. We could talk other things like that history of revival. But come on, the personal stories. That's what stirs your heart.

That's what gets you to say, Lord, do it again. And when you look at America now, we're in much more critical condition as a nation. We have degenerated in many ways. We have divided many ways. Wherever you stand politically, please hear me. Wherever you stand on so many divisive issues, let's step back from that and look to the one, the only one who can solve our deep problems. And friends, is there a political solution that's going to fix America?

Is there? Is there a person or a party that's going to fix America? We need God, France. And God's move is going to transcend political differences, transcend racial misunderstandings, get to the root cause of our deepest problems and bring about radical change.

And here's a good thing. You can start in each of our lives. Lord, start the work in me. Bring me to repentance.

Restore my first love. Show me where there's compromise in my life. Starts there.

You can get right where you are. If you're away from God, you need to stop and pray. If you've never known him, you can ask for mercy. Recognize your sin. Confess it. Make no excuses. Ask him for mercy.

He'll have mercy and he'll transform you. That's why Jesus died. And again, that's why I'm on the air. Oh, we talk about political cultural issues all the time. It's part of my calling. I am, quote, your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution. I'm, quote, your voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity. We're doing our best to bring gospel reality to what's happening in the world around us. But we never lose sight of the gospel reality. We never lose sight of what is first and foremost. As I've said before, I'm not going to say that I'm not a political cultural commentator who happens to be a spirit-filled believer, preacher, the gospel.

No, I'm a spiritual believer, preacher, teacher of the gospel who happens to be called to comment on political and cultural issues as well. And that's why I'm always going to say the ultimate hope, the ultimate reality is visitation, encounter with God. I'll point. That's it.

That's what we must have. All right. I've got, oh, let's see, another testimony I want to share, one that I wrote out in the Mr. Revival, a joy-filled clip.

You want to see celebration when joy breaks out, because with great revival, there's great repentance, many tears, but also great joy and celebration. I'll take a look at that. And I'm going to go right to the call. All right. Soon as we come back, 866-348-4200. 866-348-784. Hey, did you get my emails? Are you on my email list?

If not, please sign up today. Go to AskDrBrown.org, ASKDearBrown.org. Sign up for our emails. And look, you never know what's happening in social media, media if we get booted from things, but if you're on my email list, we can stay in touch. AskDrBrown.org.

Click to sign up for our emails. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-342.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Revival, awakening, outpouring, that's our focus. And while we are involved in this world and involved in elections and involved in the culture wars and involved in our kids' schools and involved in being witnesses in our places of business and involved getting our message out through media and social media, we are above all contending for the soul of the nation through prayer, through evangelism, calling for repentance, for praying for revival in the church, which will spread to awakening in society. America is in many ways in the worst case it's ever been. Of course, we don't have slavery like we did. We don't have segregation like we did. We don't have other problems like we did, but we've got so many others in such deep levels that you could say we're in the worst state we've ever been. Spiritually, morally, the good news is God has sent revival, awakening, in the past, and that can be the thing that transforms to this day, and that's why I'm contending for it and reminding us in the midst of everything else happening in the world around us. Let's keep our focus where it belongs. Let's go to Dan in Iola, Kansas.

Welcome to The Line of Fire. Yeah, I was, I was worrying about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Yes, what about? Well, I read some old books, Eder and Lettich, you know, some of the sermons they preached, and that's pretty much all they talked about, and I was wondering if there was anybody today, because I don't hear anybody talking about it today. Yes, so the baptism of the Holy Spirit, people freshly touched by the Spirit, people speaking in tongues, people touched by the laying on of hands, God continues to do it around the world. That's why, Dan, if you look numerically, that church growth around the world is massively, primarily in circles that believe in the power of the Holy Spirit for today, with the Holy Spirit coming with signs and wonders, and it's often associated with the baptism of the Spirit speaking in tongues. But you're very right, Dan, that there's been a de-emphasis here in America that we want to see more sophisticated in our churches, even our Pentecostal, Charismatic churches. We have a Charismatic form of worship, so we raise our hands and we sing certain songs, but where's the power of the Spirit? I do have some colleagues, and on a regular basis, it's as people come to the Lord, they lay hands to them and pray for them to be filled with the Spirit, and they're seeing God move powerfully, and those churches are thriving, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's certainly a New Testament emphasis. If you say, well, we received the power of the Holy Spirit the moment we're born again, well, let's just demonstrate it. Let's, let's see the fullness of it.

If it's there, let's see it. If not, let's ask God for that fresh touch. And yes, it often comes through the, through the laying on of hands. That's often the way the Holy Spirit is given in partation through the laying on of hands, like we see in Acts 8, like we see in Acts 19, and as we've seen in church history in 1 Timothy 4, Timothy receives a spiritual gift by the laying on of hands. So impartation through the laying on of hands remains a New Testament phenomenon to this day. Thank you for the call.

Thank you for bringing it up. And yes, we need to hear about this more in our churches. So one thing that happens with revival is there's emotion, people weeping in repentance, people jumping for joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength in his presence, his fullness of joy in the M.I.

8, Psalm 16, those realities, the deep conviction like Acts 2, what must we do to be saved? You know, people cut to the heart. You see a lot of it, and sometimes people are scandalized by it because, like, it's pretty intense, but hey, the maternity ward is not, is not quiet like a cemetery, is it?

Which would you rather have? New life or, or a cemetery? So yeah, with new life, there's, there's going to be noise. And sometimes you have excesses that need to be dealt with.

But, but again, again, that's saying, Brother Andrew, it's attributed to him, easier to, to cool down a fanatic than to, to wake up a corpse. So here's, here's a glimpse of, of a joy breakout. Maybe some of you, a little joy, need your spirits lifted. It's been a tough year and it doesn't show signs of abating. Now, you know, it's going to happen with the holidays and end of the year and COVID and election crisis and on and on.

I mean, 2020, we all want to put behind us, but still in the midst of it, have a little joy. This is a gathering where the Revival team from Brownsville would go out on the road to a convention center seat, you know, 10, 12,000 people, a place to be packed out. We'd have an hour or two of worship and then testimonies, and then maybe an hour of preaching. And then a long altar call as thousands would come to get right with God.

Then we'd pray for them and meet and go maybe five, six hours. But check this out. Here's a little joy of the Lord for those that could use a little bit of a lift. Come on.

Come on. Come on and praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him. Yeah, you could go on like that and then they would deepen from the celebration, the excitement and deepen into praise and worship on our faces before a holy God and then deepen into repentance and weeping and wailing and then back to the joy. And how could you not rejoice when the Spirit was there and lives were being transformed and Jesus is Lord. Again, it's not emotionalism.

It's just when you're touched, it's often great emotion. And then the proof, proof of the puddings in the living, lasting Jesus glorifying word-based fruit. Let me read something to you as we come towards the end of broadcast today from my own journal, January 31st, 1997. I returned from a service in the Brown's Revival at 1 30 in the morning and was moved to write these words.

So again, just home from the service now, it's 1 30 a.m. They were written with an unusual urgency and intensity. No doubt you'll sense it as you read. I want to share my heart honestly with you, holding nothing back. I want to make myself totally vulnerable.

The fact is I must. I've just come from the beautiful presence of the Lord from a night of glorious baptismal testimonies and incredible stories of wonderfully changed lives. A night of sovereign visitation, a night of deep sweeping repentance of radical encounters with the living God, of public acts of repentance from young people throwing their drugs and needles into the garbage to old people discarding their cigarettes. A night of weeping under conviction and rejoicing a newfound freedom. A night when the Spirit fell upon the children in a side room until their intercession and wailing permeated the sanctuary. A night when Jesus was exalted in the midst of his church. Yes, I've come from the holy presence of the Lord in the Brownsville Revival, January 31, 1997. The Spirit moved. The tears flowed. The Lord touched.

The demons fled. This is what happens when revival is in the land. At the end of the night, amidst shouts of joy and victory, amidst the sound of the newly redeemed enjoying their first moments free from captivity, I turned to my dear friend, evangelist Steve Hill, and said, we don't have to quote from the history books about revival. It's here.

We're seeing it before our eyes. Who can describe a night like this? Who can describe what it's like to be so caught up with God that heaven is virtually here and you can almost sense the sound of the judge knocking at the door? What can you say when young men come to the platform and begin to throw away their earrings and another one's counsel because he doesn't know how to remove his eyebrow ring and another toss at his condoms while another throws his knife into the trash? What can you say? What can you say when a thousand people respond to the altar call and stay there for two hours getting right with God? What can you say when the prayers you prayed for your nation, prayers for the real thing, for genuine visitation, for bona fide outpouring, not hype, not sensationalism, not a superficial show, but an awakening of historic proportions, when those prayers are being answered before your eyes and you know that you know that your country will be shaken? What can you say? What can you say when all you want is Jesus, when pleasing him is your total delight, when you just have to tell everyone about God's great salvation, when sin's sweetest temptation is utterly repulsive to you, when you just can't find the words to express to the Lord how utterly wonderful he is, how he really is your all in all? What can you say at a sacred time like this?

It's too precious to fully describe, too intimate to wholly communicate with mere human speech. I can fill a football field with men and women who are hardened adulterers before the revival, but are now serving God with unadulterated hearts. I can present you with a mile-long line of freed fornicators, delivered drunkards, sanctified Satanists, purified perverts, converted criminals, liberated lesbians, and homosexual have been made holy.

I can introduce you to thousands of transformed teens and countless committed kids. I can show you videos stacked to size in New York City apartment building chronically every single service of the revival, letting you hear the simple biblical Christ exalting sin-exposing message that is preached night in and night out, but you don't like the style of worship or the occasional shaking bothers you or the altar calls are not your fancy. So you say to as many who will hear your voice, this is not of God.

How pathetic and foolish and dangerous to take that kind of stand. Friends, all I can say is this. When God comes, welcome him. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Isaiah 55, call on him while he's near. Isaiah 10 12, it's time to seek the Lord till he comes and rains down righteousness on you.

When he begins to stir your heart, go with it. Get into the word more. Seek his face more in prayer. Respond to his prompting. Turn away from a sinful habit. Share the gospel as he prompts you. Pastors, leaders, make room for the moving of the Holy Spirit.

You have constraints in your building and time issues and things like that. Then God begins to break in. Take time away from something else. Take time away from the announcements and take time away from part of the message. One week it's going to be the end of the world. Let the Holy Spirit move. Find ways and groups in home and other meetings where people can come together and encounter God. Friends, you may start with a few here and there and things are happening across the nation, but before we know it, revival could sweep coast to coast and America could be ablaze with the fires of a holy visitation. National Awakening. It's our only hope.