Friends, we desperately need a revival of the fear of the Lord today. 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. A very, very important broadcast. If you're watching on YouTube and you're not a subscriber, go ahead and click subscribe and then the bell to be notified when we go live.
If you're watching on Facebook, click like and share. Let's get this broadcast out. It's a crucially important topic and I'm so delighted that you're taking this time to spend with us, listening on radio, podcast, and however else you are tuning in. I may get to some calls on different subjects later in the broadcast. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. If you're concerned about the state of the body of Christ in America today, I'd love to speak with you. 866-34-TRUTH. If you're not getting our Frontline newsletter one way that we're doing our best to inspire you, encourage you, hold your hands up so you can stand strong and in the face of crazy onslaught and difficult days, please do subscribe. We'd love to get this to you. It's free.
It's digital. Go to TheLineOfFire.org. TheLineOfFire.org and click on subscribe there. I have no problem, friends, using a catchy title, catchy description for a broadcast. If it's truthful, if it's accurate, if it's going to draw people in, sure, something lively, something attention-getting, something relevant. If it's not clickbait, if it's genuine, fine.
I'm all for it. I'm fully aware, though, that if I mention names of specific leaders and talk about specific situations and put that in the headline, then that's going to get more people tuning in. And even though it may be an accurate description of the show, and I've done it before, talking about an issue with this leader or this leader, and that's the name of the show, that's the title, it's going to draw 10 times more listeners in, 10 times more viewers. I'm intentionally avoiding doing that today. I'm intentionally avoiding that so I can just say, as a father, as an older brother in the Lord, here are some weighty concerns. Here are some things for the body to hear, whether you're charismatic, non-charismatic, whether you're a Jewish believer, Gentile believer, young or old, I believe these are issues of critical concern for the body, for believers in America today.
So I'm intentionally avoiding clickbait. I'm intentionally avoiding names and situations and things like that to deal with larger issues, all right? And then let's sort these things out as we need to. But without question, we're in a time of great shaking, great upheaval in the nation, in the church, a time when God is coming as a refiner's fire, a time of great pruning, a time, friends, please hear me, where we need to get low, where we need to stop strutting and stop being some spiritual big shots.
We need to get low. We need to humble ourselves in the sight of God. One of the most ugly self-deceptions is self-righteousness. It is insidious.
It is ridiculous. Oh, I am so right. I am so holy. Our boast is in the holiness and righteousness of God. And you better believe that we are called to Godly living. You better believe that when we blow, we need to repent and get things right.
Absolutely. But the idea of self-righteousness and moral superiority, we look down on those others and judge them. And it is destructive. And it is so self-deceptive because God in His perfect holiness, God in His infinite life, if He could destroy any one of us at any second and be perfectly righteous in doing it, if not for the blood of His Son. So let's quit puffing up our chest and boasting and praying the Pharisaical prayer of Luke 18.
I thank God I'm not like others. When I see shaking coming, when I see God cleaning house, the first thing I do after grieving over the latest report and grieving over what's happening around us, first thing I do, I get on my face and I search my own heart. And friends, that's why we're talking about the urgent need for a revival of the fear of the Lord. This is not a new topic.
It's not something I'm just bringing up now. It's something you find through my writings over the years, just like all of us have certain areas where we emphasize more than others. This has been a theme, God being a consuming fire, God being a refiner's fire. These have been themes that I've preached about that have been dear to my heart and God's dealt with me about for decades. In my 1989 book, excuse me, 1990 book, How Saved Are We, there's a whole chapter called Whatever Happened to the Fear of the Lord. In my 1991 book, Whatever Happened to the Power of God as the Charismatic Church Slain in the Spirit or Down for the Count, I have chapters with titles like An Outpouring Could Be Fatal. In my 1993 book, It's Time to Rock the Boat, I have a whole chapter on the wrath of God.
These are themes that we've spoken about over the years. In my more recent book, Revival, we dialed this a chapter and said in the trumpet to our mouths and proclaiming loudly and clearly the truth of God, including His holiness and judgment and the consequences of sin. But friends, if we walked in greater fear of the Lord, we would be different and the church would look very different. It is not a servile fear.
1 John 4 tells us that fear has to do with punishment, that type of servile fear. God's out to get you. God's looking for one wrong thing that you do. God wants to expose you. God wants to humiliate you. One wrong thing is catching, catching, caught you.
No, no, no. That is a destructive fear. That is a fear that has to do with punishment. That is a servile fear. And there is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out that kind of fear. But there is a holy fear, a reverential fear. Jesus said, Matthew 10 28 to His disciples, don't fear those who kill the body but can't kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both soul and body and hell. Jesus said that. Hebrews 12 25 to 29, as everything around us is shaking and there will be a final ultimate shaking at the end of this age and the only thing that will last is the kingdom of God.
What does it say? Let us then serve God acceptively with reverence and godly awe for our God is a consuming fire. Even a positive description of the church in the book of Acts thriving and growing in Acts 9, they were walking in the fear of the Lord.
There is a healthy fear. There is a reverential awe. There is a recognition for who He is and who we are that causes us to walk softly, that causes us to get low, that causes us to fall on our faces and worship in awe. Yes, knowing His love, knowing His mercy, knowing His goodness, at the same time we walk in reverential awe.
Look at what the Word of God says. Proverbs tells us, Psalms tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. For example, Psalm 111 verse 10, the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs chapter 1 verse 7, it says this also about the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 14 27, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life turning a person from the snares of death when there is a holy and righteous fear of God.
It turns us away from that which is evil and destructive. Think of the first time that the fear of God is mentioned in the Bible. It's in Genesis the 20th chapter where Abraham gets Sarah who is a half-sister, same father different mother, a half-sister but his wife and says, okay say that you're my sister because otherwise they may want to, you know, if they think you're my wife they'll kill me because they'll want you. So he has her a lie and what does he say, I thought there was no fear of God in this place. I thought there was no fear of God in this place, therefore people might do anything.
That's the first time the term occurs, Genesis the 20th chapter. Abraham thought well there's no fear of God in this place and then it occurs in Exodus the 20th chapter. Our English translations soften it a little bit because the Hebrews is so direct that God comes down on Mount Sinai, flaming fire, thunder and the people terrified and God's speaking and they say, don't let them speak anymore we're gonna die, just hear his words, we're gonna die. And Moses says literally, fear not God has come to put his fear before your faces so that you will not sin. Fear not God has come to put his fear before your faces so you will not sin.
Meaning, as most of our English translations say, don't be afraid, don't be afraid in that sense. But fear, fear God when you know who he is and recognize who he is and his power and his authority and the fact that one day every single one of us will stand before him and give account. It's the truth, it's the Bible, it's reality whether we believe it or not or like it or not. Every human being who has ever lived will stand before God and give account and those whose names are not written in the book of life will be condemned and cast into the lake of fire in the language of Revelation 20. But we as believers who know the Lord, who have been forgiven, we as believers who know the Lord, who have been forgiven, who will not be judged for our sins on that day, we will still give account for what we did with our lives. Paul writes in Romans 14, we will all stand before the judgment seat of Messiah. He writes it as well as 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10 and the many parables of Jesus about stewardship and accountability and responsibility.
They will apply, we will give account. These are sobering things. What does it say in Proverbs chapter 8 verse 13? To fear the Lord is to hate evil and wisdom says I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way and duplicity in speech. Therefore the New Jewish version wisdom says this, I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way and duplicity in speech. Friends, if our God is a consuming fire, Deuteronomy 4 24 in the Old Testament, Hebrews 12 29 in the New Testament. Same God, the same God, our Heavenly Father who so deeply loves us through the blood of Jesus and who receives us by his grace as his sons and daughters, that God is a consuming fire.
You don't play games with a consuming fire. You don't play games with the Holy God. When I see people, preachers, leaders who are flippant about sin, flippant about holiness, casual when it comes to moral standards, I know that they are lacking in a real encounter with God. If they had one in the past, they've lost it. They need a fresh one today because you cannot come out of the presence of the Holy God and be flippant about holiness and casual about sin. You cannot. I don't care how many times you claim you went to heaven and did not have a real encounter with God.
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Call 1-800-771-5584, 1-800-771-5584, or online at trivita.com. This is how we rise up. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.
Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back, friends, to the Line of Fire. You know, we burn to see the Church healthy.
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866-348-7884 is the number to call. I remember prior to writing Whatever Happened to the Power of God, which came out in 1991, that I was reading through some of the Torah and reading through laws in Exodus, Leviticus, etc. And I was just stunned as I was reading God's given direction. Don't do this so you don't die. Don't do this so you will not die. Picture you get a train set for your kid at home and you're putting the thing together and it's like, let's look at these directions carefully.
And it's like, don't connect this to this or you'll die. What? What? You're just assembling some new gadget.
Make sure you put the battery in here rather than here or you'll die. What? The sobriety of it, the intensity of it, and the lessons that God was teaching. This God who himself is love. God is love in the essence of who he is. This God who is so overwhelming with love and compassion and tenderness towards his people. His mercy is beyond our comprehension.
The same God so holy that when you cross certain lines you died. And this was God's way of telling Israel, sin is deadly. Sin is terribly destructive.
Sin in your spirit is worse than cancer in your body. This was God's way of showing, say for example with Nadav and Avihu when after they're ordained to the priesthood by doing what Moses commanded, what Moses commanded, what Moses commanded, what the Lord commanded, what the Lord commanded, what the Lord commanded. They now do something contrary to the Lord's command and die on the spot.
Or Ananias and Sapphira dying on the spot. It was God's way of saying, don't play games or Uzzah touching the ark in 2 Samuel 6. Don't play games. God's holy. And then this holy God reaches out to us with extraordinary love through the cross.
That's when, that's when you can appreciate it. Check out my article on this theme, the fear of the Lord. We need a revival of the fear of the Lord. The very thing I'm talking about, I wrote about last night.
You can read it at thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org. And I wrote this, you cannot possibly be casual about sin when you come into the presence of, quoting now from 1 Timothy 6, the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives an unapproachable life whom no one has seen or can see. When you encounter that God, he's not like, yeah, big daddy up there, man upstairs.
No, no, that's not the language you use. You may relate to him reverently as Abba, as father. You may have a beautiful close relationship with him where you pour your heart out to him and he speaks to you with tenderness. And in that sense spiritually, you lay his head and you just lay his head by your side and say, Lord, just give me your grace. Yeah, you can be intimate with him, but this is the same God. It's the same God.
And you are not going to be flippant and casual about spiritual things when you know this God. Here, was there anyone closer to Jesus on the earth than John in the book of Revelation? Was there anyone closer?
It seemed that there was a special closeness that they had. And yet, when the glorified Jesus appears to John, he falls down on his face like a dead man. This is who he saw, Revelation 1. He just heard the voice of the Lord and it says, I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.
Interesting language, not see the voice of the person speaking, but to see the voice. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet. And with a golden sash around his chest, the hair in his head was white like wool, as white as stone, his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze, glowing in a furnace. And his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand, he had seven stars and coming out of his mouth was a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining on his brilliance. When John saw him, he fell to his face like a dead person.
It's no surprise. He's a holy God. He's a glorious, radiant God.
So even John was undone. What happens to Isaiah when he comes into the presence of the Lord in Isaiah 6? When he sees the Lord, he cries out, Kaddosh, Kaddosh, Kaddosh, Adonai, Tzvalot, Melchol, Arzkodah. Rather, he hears the seraphim crying out, proclaiming Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. Fill in the whole earth with his glory. What does he say?
Oi, li, kini, meti, woe is me, I'm undone. Now, we don't know if this was his calling to be a prophet or he was already prophesying. There's debate among scholars in my Isaiah commentary that I started working on some years ago.
I lay out the different options. But for sure, it's positioned as chapter 6, so you've gotten to know Isaiah already. So you picture the prophet going into this place, where he encounters God.
And certainly, the first five chapters are colored by this revelation that he got of God as the Holy One. And he says, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts, and then he's clean. You recognize your guilt, then there's deep repentance.
No, when you recognize the depth of guilt, I don't mean every single day, every single moment, but when we come to faith, or when we've really blown it, we're convicted by the Spirit, you're undone. And you take the cleansing, you take the purging, you welcome that hot coal to burn on your lips. And then when he says, go, who will I send you? Say, here I am, send me.
Because I belong to you, because I'm holding nothing back. Friends, we need a fresh encounter with God. It would burn out so much junk in the church. It would burn out so much casualness, it would burn out so much compromise, it would burn out so much complacency. Let me tell you something else it would do.
It would take away our strut. It would take away our celebrity Christianity. By all means, if God wants you to reach 100 million people, reach 100 million people. If you're going to write books that the whole world reads, and that's your calling, so be it. If your calling is to speak to the nation every day, so be it. If your calling is to have a face that the whole nation recognizes, whatever the calling is, don't dare strut.
Don't dare think, oh, there's something special about me. No, there's something special about the God we serve, who chooses foolish idiots like we were before we were saved. I'll speak personally like I was before I was saved.
And as mercy on us over and over again, as believers called to His high and holy standards, as mercy on us over and over and over again, when you come into that real encounter with Him, there will not be strutting. There will not be boasting. There will not be, look at me.
There will not be this celebrity Christianity. You say, Dr. Brown, who are you pointing your finger at? I'm not pointing your finger at anyone.
As I say those words, I do not have a single person in mind. I'm speaking about a broader culture. I'm speaking about a plague in many of our church cultures, the exaltation of people, the exaltation of man, of woman, the exaltation of the worship leader, the exaltation of the pastor, the exaltation of the TV preacher, the exaltation of the social media influencer, the influencer. You better believe that gets purged out in the fear of God because we recognize how little we are and how great He is. And our whole goal, our whole ambition, our whole desire is to draw all attention to Him. So those of us called to be public figures, so be it. But we better walk with a limp and not with a strut. I want to address this on the other side of the break because it is a plague in the American church that must be addressed and it destroys those that are lifted up and those that lift to them alike.
It does destroy. Hey friends, Michael Brown here. My delight to serve as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. We are living in such urgent times today, friends, that all of us are in the line of fire. There's a target on your back.
There's a target on my back. If you simply seek to live by biblical values or just conservative moral values, you could be canceled. You could be cast out. You could be put down.
You could be silenced. I'm here to say, friends, that I am not about to be silenced and I don't believe you are either. It is time for us to stand up. It is time for us to say enough is enough. It is time for us to push back in Jesus' name, not fighting the way the world fights. No, overcoming evil with good, overcoming hatred with love, overcoming the flesh with the power of the Spirit, overcoming lies with truth. And that's what we're here to do on the Line of Fire broadcast.
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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to The Line of Fire. Shout out of appreciation to our supporters, our prayer warriors who help us reach those that we reach. And remember, you can get my monthly frontline newsletter and then our weekly email updates with latest articles and videos that you'll find super valuable. Like today's topic, we need a revival in the fear of the Lord. Just go to thelineoffire.org.
Click subscribe. Of course, it all comes your way absolutely free. Let me share something with you that I wrote in my book, How Saved Are We, and that is in my article in the revival of the fear of the Lord. Jesus lived in the light of the judgment. He knew that everything would one day be revealed. Hypocrisy was utterly pointless.
There was no reason to put on an act. It would all come out one day. The whole truth would then be uncovered.
This is what Jesus taught Luke 12 2 and 3. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, which you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.
These are sobering words. Will that day bring us glory or shame? Puritan Thomas Watson said this, those iniquities which men hide in their hearts shall be written one day on their foreheads as with the point of a diamond.
And everyone will be there to see. We may fool a few people now, but we will be exposed before all on that day. We're talking about if we're unrepentant in our sin. Living in the reality of the great divine disclosure can free us from all outward displays.
It can make us disciples in deed and in truth, and it can help us live in true holy fear. God's records do not lie. Hebrews 4 13, nothing and all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. God will set things straight. That's from my book, How Saved Are We? Galatians 6 7 and 8.
Our God cannot be mocked, so how should we live today? And this whole idea of wanting to be seen, wanting to be known. Look, I'm called to be a public figure.
I've been preaching for decades and on different platforms and speaking, be it radio or TV or internet for many years. And yeah, I could be at an airport and someone comes up or read your book or certain YouTubers, certain Brownsville, whatever. So I understand the flight. I get it. I get it. I want people to recognize you.
I want people to see you. Jesus said that's what the religious hypocrites do. He said everything they do is done for men to see.
They love to be greeted in the airport so they didn't have airports then, but in the marketplace. No, rabbi, rabbi or pastor, pastor or brother, but whatever it is, the flesh likes that. The flesh desires that. And then what we do is we feed off that. We feed off the adulation of the crowds. We feed off all the likes on social media. We feed off all the people following us. We feed off the size of our congregation. We feed off people knowing our names.
It's Carl, friends. It's destructive. Then we present ourselves in certain ways to be more appealing to the flesh. I don't mean you don't use excellence. We do our best to have the best quality audio and video that we can. We do our best to have the best lighting that we can. We do our best when we write books, have the best editing and artwork that we can to present things with professionalism and excellence by all means.
God's transformed my life 10 years now with radical, healthy living and eating, so I want to be healthy and fit and all that. But that's what's one thing, doing things with excellence versus wanting to put on a show for the crowds, wanting to be the man, the woman, and have all eyes on us, friends. That is destructive. And here's the deal. Deception is such that you can show up in your storefront church and have six people sitting there and get off on the fact there's six people sitting there and that gives you just a charge and a rise and now look at me. They're looking at me.
That is so destructive. Our heart, our desire, our motivation has to be we want people to look to the Lord. Our heart, our heart, our motivation has to be that we are here to give them a life-giving message. Our heart motivation has to be it's not about us being known. The celebrity Christianity, this superstar thing where the big man of God, the bow man woman of God, and we present it with the lights and the giant screens and look I understand in big auditorium you can't see anything.
There's a screen. Okay I get it but you know we say don't look at me. Look at him.
Sometimes it's hard because all the attention we draw to ourselves and how we lift ourselves up. Careful, careful, careful. And let me take this a little further. Just because you have a big platform doesn't mean God's pleased with you. So let's say on our Facebook page that's our biggest online social media page with like five hundred eighty five hundred eighty six thousand people. So for most that's like a good number but for someone that's big I mean millions and millions it's a smaller number all right but so that's our it's our bigger number. YouTube is only like I don't know a hundred eighty five thousand or something like that which you know YouTube is people with millions and millions and millions of subscribers and all that okay but but here's the deal there's there's some platform our books have gone out or around the world multiple translations we've ministered to people around the world I preach to large crowds it doesn't mean that God's pleased with everything in my life. That doesn't mean that there's a sanctioning of everything in my life. When I went on radio years ago so we started in in 2000 in 2008 so we're 16 years now on radio and after the first few months really I guess as of June of 2008 we're on five days a week if I'm correct started one day a week in March and I believe it's five days a week so five days a week live radio for 16 years before I went on Nancy really felt it was the Lord really affirmed it but she said you have to be really careful here there's a real trap and I knew she was a hundred percent right because I could potentially do a good radio show keep people entertained answer questions get into controversies and do it all in the natural in other words without God's blessing without God's grace see it's one thing if you go to plant a church in an unreached area with heavy persecution and with no one's been saved there in 20 years and you've got to overcome all kinds of demonic obstacles or if your whole ministry is praying for the sick I mean if God's not with you nothing's gonna happen and you're gonna go running out of that place but we know how to do church we know how to put the right singers together the right musicians together the right ambiance get the right speakers we know how to grow numbers but that doesn't mean the church is actually growing doesn't mean we're actually growing in disciples and and and look there's often a mixture of what's going on in other words it could be you have an anointing from God and a grace from God and you've been sincere so God's blessing that and he cares about and he cares about the people that are coming to receive but now there's some compromise another junk in your life God God may not deal with that all at once it was he may give us time to repent he may he may deal us to fix this in private look whatever you can fix in private if you're not breaking a law and if it's not a public offense whatever you could fix in private fix in private it is far better to come clean than to get caught it is far far better it means your heart is postured in a right place it means you're not just doing something to save face or or responding because you got caught yeah I know people who've truly repented after they got caught but most of the time that I've witnessed over the years those who come clean on their own who get things right on their own who are willing to take the consequences on the chin they do far far better than those who get caught and maybe they show remorse without real repentance but look just because things are going well doesn't mean God's pleased and maybe maybe in ministry you're re or in your Christian business you're reaping the fruit of the good seeds that you sowed five years ago four years ago three years ago the prayers the tears the hard work the labor you're reaping that fruit but you haven't yet reaped the fruit of what you've done in the last year and the compromise and the sin don't don't be deceived just by outward blessing and sometimes God's blessing because he loves the people just here and look when it comes to numbers and influence the world's biggest Christian influencer in terms of numbers on social media doesn't touch like a sports star like Ronaldo or Messi you know an international football soccer star or the fame of like the Kardashian family or some other worldly family I mean that their influence in terms of reach is utterly massive but for the most part they're not changing lives certainly they're certainly not changing them in a positive way especially the the Kardashian types may the Lord save them and touch them so let us not get so caught up with that instead let's let's focus on being godly and and developing Christian character please hear me if you care about the work of ministry if you are a leader get low it is not time to strut and boast and look at me you are not building your kingdom it's not about my name or your name we're building the kingdom of God the goal is not that everybody knows the name of our church everybody knows everybody knows you know the goal is that people know the Lord as Whitfield prayed let the name of Whitfield perish that the cause of Christ may live I jotted something down in another article not published but just jotted this down Frank Bartleman said this used by God in the Azusa street revival the fact is when a man gets to the place where he really loves obscurity where he does not care to preach and when he would rather sit in the back pew than on the platform then God can lift him up and use him and not very much before that's what Jesus said about the religious hypocrites he said everything they do is done for people to see they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats of the synagogues they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and be called rabbi by others that's the question do we want to be seen do we want to be known do we glory in our celebrity and fame this is very ugly in God's sight we must run from a desire to be somebody we we must not be deceived by the adulation and adoration of the crowds we must not feed on the praises of people and please please fellow minister servants hear this don't touch the glory please don't touch the glory don't take it for yourself as if it's your gifting your power please draw all attention to him whatever good he does through you or me let him get the glory that yes you can be appreciative of someone you can honor someone but the glory goes to God alone please don't touch the glory are you or a cherished loved one finding it harder to remember names stay focused or maintain a positive outlook on life well you're not alone i'm dr paul and i have a critical health alert did you know that approximately two out of three americans age 50 and older experience some level of cognitive impairment affecting their daily lives it's a serious issue but there's hope introducing trivitas neuroshine brain support supplement developed by male and johns hopkins trained doctors neuroshine is specifically 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promo code brown 25 to receive 25 off your order as a new customer 100 of your order proceeds from your first order will go to support the line of line of fire radio broadcast call 1-800-771-5584 1-800-771-5584 or online at t-r-i-v-i-t-a trivita.com it's the line of fire with your host dr michael brown get on the line of fire by calling 866 three-four truth here again is dr michael brown thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire this is michael brown delighted to be with you as as i do what i believe god's called me to do which is sound the alarm which is focused function as that voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity may our eyes be drawn to a holy god may the fear of the lord be restored to the church it is so insidious and ugly when we somehow let it get to our heads that we are anointed by god or used by god or that the power that comes through us or the grace that comes through us or the healing that comes through us or the prophetic words that come through us somehow magnify us or lift us up or make us special i mean it should be the opposite that we're in awe that god works through us and it gets us on our faces but hey look i'd be as honest as i can it's it's easy to think you're somebody because i mean god has favored you with this you know it's his power but he's favored you with this he hasn't given it to someone else or the big man or the big woman of god the power of god comes out of you look especially those of us in charismatic circles you pray for the sick and you see god move or you you lay hands on people and they're set free and the power god touches them and it comes through you and everyone wants you to lay hands on them it's easy to think hey look look at me oh it is so deceptive and destructive so deceptive and destructive and and that's self-exalting attitude i'm a great bible teacher look at all the people listening to thank god he's given you wisdom yeah you've studied and dug so have i we we pay our dues in that regard but when people are blessed it's the word of god that bless them it's the truth of god that bless them it's the spirit doing the work that bless them i was teaching students at one of the schools where i teach christ for the nations in in dallas texas wonderful school there and and i was talking about someone with a healing ministry and and maybe the lord shows you there's someone in the first row dying of cancer and the lord direct you lay your hands and then now they'll be healed and i said to everyone that i said just the person next to you just touched their shoulder just touched their shoulder and they did i said you're amazing you're incredible and they're all laughing i said the person that just healed the sick that's all they did god healed them they just touched the person god healed them why don't we look at it oh they're amazing no god's amazing not they're amazing god's amazing well but yeah but they had that word i've joked about this but it's a half joke it's half serious that you know i said i sense the lord speaking i just hear the whisper of the lord he's probably been shouting to me for three days and i finally slowed down enough to just hear it now i hear it like a whisper i often tell the lord i'm just a dumb sheep i don't know anything major decisions and things and which way to go and crises to navigate you're the shepherd i'm relying on you psalm 23 i don't know the lord is my shepherd i lack nothing i i i'm relying on you the shepherd to know how to communicate to me the sheep so i'll hear your voice because i'm just a sheep so i'm relying on you and then by your grace i'll obey and follow the self-exalting thing that's wanting to be somebody that's raising up of people this is a great verse and i will wonder if there's somebody great for us the bible's the bible verse in isaiah the second chapter 22nd verse and it's it's interesting the hebrew that he'd lula khamina adam is literally cease yourself from man what exactly does it mean often translate cease to glorify man why is because because his breath is in his nostrils of what account is he that that please please hear me we are called to live godly lives we are and as leaders we're called to a higher standard and we're called to be above reproach so i'm not minimizing that i'm recognizing that i am agreeing with that at the same time god knows us to the core of our being that's why it says about jesus in john the second chapter that he didn't trust himself to man because he knew what was in man he knew what was in our nature if as the psalmist said god marked sins none of us could stand friends think of this what if god revealed your thought life for your whole life just hang on your thought life since you've been a believer you're how would you do how would i do how would any of us do what if god revealed every wrong desire we've ever had if in in the light of his perfect holiness on our best day we fall wretchedly short we stand by the grace of god we stand by the blood of jesus we have access into the holy place because this cleanses us and changes so yes we're called to high standards yes there are consequences to sin absolutely but every one of us should walk with a certain sense of humility and a certain sense of brokenness recognizing how we are carried by grace every single day and and rather than pointing a self-righteous condemning finger at others where we do see sin in humility let's address it yeah it must be rebuked it must be dealt with and we need to change so much of the culture in our church where we have accountability and and and and and we recover the fear of the lord we live differently and we burn out that that self righteousness the fact of the matter is though you can know the love of god be secure in the lord and walk free of condemnation i virtually never experienced condemnation i can be attacked by lies of the enemy here and there but i know i'm forgiven i know i'm cleansed i mean for decades and decades and decades i have been deeply conscious of the love of god and with each year that goes on more and more conscious of my own frailty outside of him more and more conscious of my own righteousness wretchedness outside of him more and more conscious of how much i live by grace and how much every single one of us live by grace that's why it says in galatian six that if someone's caught in a sin that we who are spiritual should restore them in a spirit of meekness considering ourselves less we're also tempted so we tend to either go in the way of you wicked foul sinner i could never use something like that and when i hear someone preaching in a heartless condemning angry way against brothers and sisters in the body i i i don't make a judgment but i wonder what's going on in their own life because something's wrong there and then we go the other extreme i gotta understand everything's okay and no consequences of sin and and we're all we all blow it no there there is a holiness there is a righteousness there is a reverence but it comes with a desire for mercy it comes with a brokenness it comes with a heart to restore not condemn look every one of us has had things we've had to make right between you and god between you and your spouse between you and a roommate a work colleague between you and others in the body between your leaders whatever can be fixed in private fix it don't wait don't let it come out fix it deal with it what requires a larger circle maybe several people have to sit down together and address this address it where there have to be certain actions behaviors and take the steps where something needs to go public as in you committed a crime and you come and confess it pastor i gotta confess you don't read about those bank robberies last six months that's me can i be forgiven yes you can be forgiven in fact you can be you can be cleansed and forgiven right here and then we call the police because you have to go in and confess and you're going to jail for robbing a bank so there are lines that are crossed and certain lines we cross and and they will have an impact for life you know we did a documentary years ago about david burkowitz the the notorious notorious son of sam serial killer the most notorious serial killer in new york history and i met him in prison as this humble kind-hearted man of god that will spend the rest will spend the rest of his life behind bars and when when his parole hearing would come up i remember when he wrote a letter to the governor of new york state saying i i deserve to be behind bars the rest of my life i took people's lives i could never bring that back and and i deserve to be here i should be behind bars i should be incarcerated he's free before the lord he's clean before the lord he's freer than many people who are outside of prison but there are consequences he got born again in prison but he murdered people and there are consequences so there are consequences to certain actions even if we get forgiven and restored by god but friends this is not a time to play games and the image i keep getting is god coming as a refiner's fire and let's let's just say the refiner's fires is two feet off the ground get on your face get on your face don't be cut down don't be mowed down get on your face i you know god's taken me over the years as they say the old expression to the woodshed and i've been dealt with in the discipline the loving discipline and correction of the lord and and sometimes it's had to break me and i realize better to get low than get broken just get low live low be quick to be quick to hear loving rebuke loving correction walk in humility cultivate a spirit of humility you can be confident in god while walking in humility before him but we serve a great and holy god we're in a time of very intense purging and shaking let us examine ourselves let us make things right where we need to and let us get low let the refiner's fire come and make us into something beautiful it will bring glory and honor to the name of the lord and healing and help for hurting body and a lost and a lost nation
