Is it possible that we've got things completely upside down? It may ruffle some feathers. I'm not doing this to gain friends and win popularity, but what I've got to share is very important and I believe if you have ears to hear you'll find it very life-giving, even transformative in your thinking. Whether you're a pastor, whether you're a Christian in society, whether you're enmeshed in the political scene, what I'm going to share today I believe is going to be very relevant.
Michael Brown, welcome to the line of fire. Let me give you a phone number to call. If you'd like to weigh in on today's topic or continue yesterday's discussion about hearing the voice of God or if there's something else you want to weigh in or get my perspective on that's unrelated, we'll get to calls a little later in the broadcast. 866-348-7884. That's 866-344-TRUTH.
Phone lines are wide open for you. Before we get into the main content for today, last night I was writing the main article, did write the main article for our frontline newsletter for September. Also put out a number of key testimonies, Jewish-related testimonies.
I'm going to bless you. As I was writing the article about Israel, I was gripped with the seriousness of the matter, the urgency of the hour, the degree to which the whole nation has its hearts held hostage in Gaza, the suffering in the entire region, the rising tide of Jew hatred worldwide. I know these things but I felt the intensity as I was writing. And we are friends on the front lines today with your help. Every day we are pushing back against anti-Semitic laws. You would be shocked by the comments and posts that come across our social media pages, especially YouTube and X, formerly Twitter. You'd be shocked by some of the vile, ugly, Jew-hating contrary. Yeah, everybody gets it.
I'm not unique in getting it. I'm just saying it's out there in very, very ugly ways. And when we just give biblical truth or put out truthful perspective, you would be shocked at the ugly lies and attacks and vile junk that comes our way. It's a spiritual battle, friends. And at the same time, we are on the front lines of reaching out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We're making a difference in many, many Jewish lives around the world.
And we're doing it with your help. All this month, for the first time ever, we're doing something with my newest book. This will be out in less than a month, Hearts of Compassion, Backbones of Steel, how to discuss controversial topics with love and kindness.
Normally you pay a certain amount for the book over this price and get kind of a collector's item from the first printing, a signed, numbered copy. What we're doing this time is saying, help us with a gift for our work in Israel, for our work pushing back against anti-Semitism and reaching out to the Jewish people with the message of the Messiah. Your gift of any size, we want to send you a signed copy.
So it's going to have a scripture verse. I'll sign it. We'll send them out to you. We want to bless you. We want to say thank you. We want to pour into you. This book, I think you're going to find incredibly helpful. It's going to make sense. It's going to be practical. It's going to explain how to get God's heart in these issues and give you an important perspective with those we often differ with, how to overcome evil with good, how to overcome hatred with love, hearts of compassion, backbones of steel.
We want to sow that into you. And we want to accelerate and increase or work to the Jewish people in Israel around the world in this urgent hour. So here's how you get the book. Call 800-538-5275. 800-538-5275. This enables you to sow into Israel in a tangible way and it enables you to get a book that'll be a real blessing. And once you get the book, feel free to order more copies to give away to your friends. 800-538-5275.
That's how you can get a copy. All right. What do I mean when I say we've got things upside down? We're looking at things the wrong way.
Spiritually, morally, culturally, politically. What do I mean by that? I don't mean that I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
I don't mean that at all. But here in America, many times our emphasis and our perspective is more reflective of the culture than it is of God and the Word. That many times we are thinking in worldly ways. Remember when Jesus is speaking to his disciples, you have the parallel accounts, Matthew 16, and then in Mark's gospel and in Luke's gospel, so Mark 8, Luke 9, you've got these parallel accounts where he's asking them, who do you say that I am? So he said, who do the people say that I am? Well, some say this, some say that, who do you say that I am? And Peter famously says, you're the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Jesus then commends him for his words that flesh and blood does not reveal this, but his Father in heaven. And then proceeds, proceeds to say that he's going to be killed. He's going to be crucified. He's going to be rejected. He's going to rise on the third day.
This was unthinkable to them. You're the Messiah. You're not going to die. You're going to rule and reign. You're the Messiah.
You're the king. There were different teachings about messianic figures in the first century. It's not that they all thought the same way, but the most common view would have been the one reflected that the Messiah would be a king who would liberate Israel from her captors.
That would be part of, a major part of the mission. So when he says he's going to be crucified, he's going to suffer the most despicable, barbaric, lowly death known to man. What? They couldn't even hear the rise from the dead part.
The first part just short-circuited their brains. And Peter gets up and rebukes him. This shall never happen, Lord.
This shall never happen. You're not going to the cross. You're not dying. I just told you you're the Messiah, the son of the living God. Jesus replies. Yeshua says to Peter, get behind me, Satan. That wasn't God revealing something to Peter. That was satanically inspired speech.
Get behind me, Satan. You're a stumbling block to me. You don't have in mind the things of God, but the things of man. In other words, you are looking at things through a completely wrong perspective. But that's often our approach. Often our priorities are wrong. Our emphases are wrong. Often our whole approach to something is wrong. Often our values are wrong.
I talked about this a few months ago in terms of bigger is not always better. So, yes, I rejoice when more people come to a meeting and more people respond to a message. That's good news. I rejoice when more people read my books and are impacted by them. Wonderful. You're doing outreach to the poor. You've helped more poor people this month. Wonderful. You're doing outreach to the poor. You're doing outreach to the lost in your community. And more people receive the Lord than normal. Wonderful.
We rejoice with all that. You want to fund mission work and more money comes in to do it. Bigger is often better. More is often good, but bigger is not always better. I thought of this little parable, this little illustration that God gives you an assignment to have the best YouTube channel on the internet. And, of course, you're thinking like we're all thinking.
It means to be the biggest. We need to reach the most people. And then as we reach the most people, really have good content.
But we're going to measure things by how many people are watching. What if, in God's mind, when you put out the best cutting edge material? I'm just offering this as a thought. I'm not saying this is the way it is for us.
But what if this was the case? That God wants you to put out the very best cutting edge content that is so challenging that you never get over 5,000 subscribers. Because whenever it starts to get over that, you give one of the radical teachings of Jesus and people just drop off because it's too intense. So the goal was to have like 5,000 subscribers who were all on a Navy SEAL level of commitment.
Right? That was God's goal. And you stand before him and say, Lord, we have 50 million subscribers. We have the most watched YouTube channel in the entire world. You get all these spectators. You get all these consumers. You get people just populating the site that aren't being changed and aren't real disciples at all. So bigger is not always better. I've been in fine mega churches where they're very serious about making disciples. They're very serious about the Great Commission.
They're very serious about getting people plugged in and small group relations and things like that. But bigger doesn't always mean better. Just because you have more people doesn't mean you have more disciples. Just because you have a bigger building doesn't mean you have more the presence of God. Those things can be deceiving. And God's way of measuring is very different than our way of measuring.
A colleague shared a quote with me from an old man of God that God doesn't count people. He weighs them. He's looking at the substance of our lives. I once had this internal vision.
I just saw this in my mind's eye. I saw scales, right? So weights and scales. I saw scales and on the left side was just, it was, there were feathers just pouring out of it, stacked up as high as you could stack it. And then just falling off the sides, just massive, massive scale, a pile of feathers. And the scale just went down the slightest bit.
Then on the other side, on the other side, there was a little rock and it was put on the scale and it completely shifted. And I just heard in my spirit, church goers, those are the feathers, church goers were just like consumers, church goers. And the other side, little rock, disciples, disciples. The great commission is to go and make disciples.
And let me take this further. Many times what we value is not what God values. Many times what we measure by is not what God measures by.
Now I'm going to get political in a moment. Not talking about either party, not talking about the debate, but just spiritual principles related to this. I believe it's going to make more and more sense as I go on. Jesus said in Luke 16, that that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. Highly esteemed among men, but detestable in the sight of God. Jesus said in another context that the first, many of the first will be last and the last first. Those who humble themselves will be exalted. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled. It's often been said that that heaven, getting to heaven at one time will be a great eye opener and a mouth closer.
It will be shocked to see some people there and some will be shocked to see us there. But the way that God measures in ways is different. Leonard Ravenhill used to count church attendance by how many people were at a prayer meeting. He said I have a church of 10,000. He said, well, how many go to prayer meeting? Well, we have 100 of prayer meetings, so you have a church of 100. That's the way he would count. Now, again, I'm not saying that that is always the way God is counting, but could it be that a lot of what we emphasize, a lot of what we prioritize, a lot of what we think is most important is really not that important at all in the sight of God. Could it be that all of our priorities are out of whack? When you know this, friends, it's very liberating because you can concentrate on doing the will of God rather than comparing yourself to everybody else and their, quote, outward success.
Do what God's given you to do and make that a priority. All right, we'll be right back. I'm going to talk politics and culture and we'll be sharing a break. This is Michael Ellison, founder of Travita Wellness. I want you to hear an amazing testimony from my friend James Robison, and most all of you will know of him. He and his wife, Betty, host the Life Today television program. Now, here is James. Let me tell you about a miracle I experienced. My friend Michael Ellison, he and his wife are our 40 year plus best friends.
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It was very difficult to do anything without wearing a tight strap. And then Michael shared the Nopal cactus juice with me, Nopalaya. I began drinking about that much in the morning in the glass and that much later in the day. And in three months I was a different person. I have now gone more than 10 years with no pain, not better. Well, I have no joint pain. I am telling you it did something to the inflammation in my body that was undeniable. Now that's just my testimony, but that's been more than 10 years with no pain. Matter of fact, if I miss for some foolish reason, a few days, I can feel it creeping back that fast. So give it a try, see if it helps relieve your pain. I hope it does like it has mine because it worked for me.
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Call 800-771-5584 or go online to 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.
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All right, if you want to weigh in on the conversation, 866-348-7884. I'm talking about our priorities being in wrong places, that often what we're trying to build is not what God wants us to build. Often what we're measuring by is not the way that God measures. I was speaking to a pastor this past Tuesday, so a week ago today when I was getting ready to speak at Christ for the Nations in Dallas. We met for the first time and he was talking about a church he had taken over a number of years back. It had been stuck at 50 people.
The pastor had to step down because of issues in his life. This pastor now became the senior pastor and it had grown in six years from 15 to 400 people. I thought that's wonderful. That's significant growth, especially from 50 to 400. And I thought, wow, that's significant growth. That's what I was thinking to myself. And he was talking about a lot of people coming in that weren't charismatic now getting filled with the Spirit.
Wonderful. But he said, you know, living in the greater DFW area, this 400 is a very small church. And he was wondering, is everyone called to have a church of thousands and thousands? Could it be that just as God establishes boundaries for nations, that God establishes boundaries for churches?
I'm calling you have a church of this size or that size. Knowing that we do what we know how to do, we honor the Lord, we pray, we fast, we give ourselves to building up the body, to winning the laws, to making disciples. But could it be that not everyone's called to certain things? Well, obviously, it takes one calling to work in the inner city with the poor. It takes another calling to work in the midst of the financial district of the city. It takes one calling to reach an indigenous tribal group from a certain country to another calling to reach wealthy business people in the heart of D.C. or whatever the case might be.
So obviously, there are different callings. But as we talked, I realized that he felt the same pressure that a lot of young people feel today. When you ask them, why is it that so many of your generation are so lonely and depressed, even medicated, suicidal? Many will tell you, it's like, well, we don't really have close friendships, but we know a lot of people online. And what we see is their best life.
What we see is the things that make them so old and looking up, they've got the newest this and the best this, and I'm smiling and happy. And here I am with all my friends on vacation here. And you're like, I'm not like that. I'm not always happy. I'm not always on vacation with my friends. I don't always have cool new clothes.
And you compare yourself to others and feel like your life is nothing and so on. And here, pastors and leaders can do the same thing. Right?
Right. Well, this guy is brand new. And on social media, he's now got, he's now got 2 million followers.
And I've been at this for years. I've got 800,000 followers. And as if, as if the number of followers proves blessing, it might, it might, it might be a sign of the favor of God, but it might not.
It might not at all. The people with the biggest social media followers are often the most ungodly, the most worldly, or just famous athletes or entertainers. And they're, everybody just loves them. They're world famous.
The world's most famous football soccer player will have a massive, massive online following and things like that. Does that mean that God's using them? Not necessarily.
They're gifted athletes. We can appreciate that. But more doesn't necessarily mean more blessing.
It doesn't necessarily mean more effectiveness. I know that there's a calling on me to reach large numbers of people and I love to do it, but that can't be the, that can't be the the way that we weigh things. That can't be the metric that we use because it could be I'm called to reach large numbers of people by making four disciples in private. And they all go out with ministries bigger than Billy Graham.
It could be I'm to do it in secret prayer. And you're the one that's going to reach the millions. In other words, we're, we are looking often through carnal earthly prison, through carnal earthly understanding of things. So yes, we seek to cultivate our social media following. We seek to be good stewards of those that God's given us. We seek to pour in quality things and whenever I get a fresh quote comes to mind, oh this would be edifying.
I'll throw it up on one of our pages and our media team is throwing things up on different pages all the time. We're seeking, you know, we've got the best camera equipment that we could and the best studio that we could so that when we come your way that you can hear us and see us clearly. We, we seek to do all that and be good stewards.
But God knows what is going to produce eternal impact and it may be very different than what we think and, and what matters most may be what we see least and what we see most may be what matters least. Now let me talk politics and culture. Here's how we get things upside down. We start with a genuine burden. We start with a genuine burden for a particular issue or area.
We're very upset when we see videos what abortion is really like. We realize, okay we get really burdened about, we've got to do something, we've got to make a difference. We get really burdened about fentanyl pouring into our country and killing so many Americans.
Number one cause of death for Americans 18 to 44. Or there may be some other human trafficking. We get gripped by that and we get a, we get a burden from the Lord and now we become passionate, we become passionate about that burden. We, we pray into these areas and we think okay what can I do? How can I help? How, how can I bring about change?
What can I do to bring about positive change? So you, you give yourself that you wrestle and then you see, then you see one particular party is much stronger on this issue than the other party. One party, one politician represents your views much more and then you say okay it's important to get that party in. Before you know it almost all of our emphasis has shifted towards politics and elections. We are focused on it, we are thinking about it, we are talking about it, we are energized over it and, and the fate of America depends on getting our candidate in or our party in and each side is saying this is the last free election we'll ever have because if the other one gets in they'll take away all of our democracies.
Each one's making that threat. We get so caught up in that we forget the fact that, that politics can't change the core of America. That politics can't change the heart of America. That politics cannot transform a life. That politics has a role. The people of Germany elected Adolf Hitler which led to a horrific bloodbath in Europe. I understand that.
Electing Abraham Lincoln rather than someone else led to the Emancipation Proclamation and the freedom of the slaves. I get it. I understand that. But all that is quite secondary ultimately in terms of, of the fate of countries and nations over a period of centuries who we vote for is secondary to how we live. The vote's important but it's, it's, we, we reverse the priority.
We make that the top issue. All day and night that's where you're at politics, politics, politics and a lot of folks in the churches, politics, we got to win this election, we got to win this election, we got to win this election. Yeah well our, the Republican platform's watered down, no we got to win this election. Yeah well the Democrats extreme, well we got to win this election.
And, and here let's say it like this. Let's just say that our slogan was not make America great again as the Trump followers would have, but our slogan was make America righteous. Can any political party make America righteous?
Are you kidding me? If we put our emphasis on great commission and standing for biblically based social issues, making an impact there, live that out day and night, 24-7 in our communities and also we vote, things would look very, very different than they look today. Our priorities are off. Our emphasis is off. We're looking for the flesh to do what only the spirit can do.
There are profound differences. Are you hearing what I'm saying? A lot of our approach, we've just been caught up in the spirit of the hour. Friends, if I can serve as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity, this is how we do it.
This is how we do it, but by trying to get us to step back and think differently. Maybe God called you to have a mega church. Maybe God called you to evangelize hundreds of millions. Maybe God called you to be a social media influencer.
That, that is the most trending thing online. So be it. Praise God. But that does not necessarily mean it's any more effective than the homeschooling mom pouring into her kids and raising gobbly kids. And that's her assignment. And the guy with a blue collar job sharing gospel letters at a workplace could be more significant than the biggest evangelist on the planet. What matters is not ability, as those of you who have said, but availability, not our gifts, but our faith in it.
We'll be right back. 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.
And friends, it's not just a broadcast. It is a movement of people around the world. God's people standing up saying enough is enough and saying, Lord, here we are. Send us, use us. I want to urge you today to join our support team because we are on the front lines together.
And we are literally touching people around the world in America, in the nations, in Israel. And together with your help, we're going to amplify this voice and spread this movement around the globe. So I encourage you go right now to thelineoffire.org. Thelineoffire.org. Click donate monthly support.
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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. How are you getting our monthly Frontline newsletter? Many of you are. We've had more people sign up for this than anything we've done, but many are still not getting it. It's free. It's digital. So you can read it on any platform. You read on your cell phone, your tablet, your PC, and it's beautifully produced.
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866-348-7884. I'll go to the phones shortly, but first, I want to share from an article that you can read on the Line of Fire website, thelineoffire.org. It's about Charles Spurgeon and Billy Graham. My friend and colleague, Larry Tomczak, posted an article where he mentioned Charles Spurgeon speaking out against slavery and Billy Graham speaking out against segregation.
So I decided to revisit this and write an article on it. When Charles Spurgeon took on slavery and Billy Graham took on segregation, it ties in with what I'm talking about today. Because even when we get a burden for social issues, for racial inequality, for the redefining of marriage, for any of the other issues that I mentioned before, things that we see in our society that are grievous and wrong, there are some whose primary calling is to be a reformer. You are called to be in that sense like a Martin Luther King, where you are known as you stand against civil inequality.
You stand for civil rights. You are known for that. So maybe you are primarily known as someone who is a pro-life worker. You're on the front lines of the pro-life movement.
Maybe that's the case. But for the rest of us, especially those who are gospel ministers by vocation, we should best be known as preachers of the gospel. And all of us should best be known as disciples of Jesus. And anything we do that compromises that is a loss. In other words, if my political advocacy takes away from my testimony in Jesus, that's a loss. If my pro-life stance takes away from my testimony in Jesus because of the way I act or conduct myself or treat others, that's a loss. So we are first and foremost children of God, disciples reflecting the image of God through Jesus in this world.
And then everything else is secondary to that in terms of who we are and what we do. So Spurgeon and Graham indisputably were known as gospel preachers. Spurgeon is a pastor but with a tremendous evangelistic heart and Billy Graham as an evangelist. But both of them spoke out against social evils in their day. So Spurgeon, remember, is born in 1834. Slavery and the slave trade are abolished in the United Kingdom in 1807. This has been gone over a quarter century before Spurgeon is born. So when he speaks against slavery, speaking in particular about in America, he wrote some very strong letters about it and referenced it in some sermons.
And there was a lot of flack for it. Here's an article on the spurgeon.org website that shares this. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation 150 years ago today.
This is when the article is written. Promising liberty to some three million enslaved black men and women. Charles Spurgeon also fought the evils of slavery. Quote, the hope of deliverance seemed far away. It was God that gave an Abraham Lincoln who led the nation onward till Emancipation flamed upon its banners.
That was Spurgeon. He exchanged correspondences with Frederick Douglass, one of the most famous liberated slaves, received former slaves into his pastor's college and pulpit and condensed slavery in his sermons and media articles. Quote, I do from my inmost soul detest slavery. And although I commune at the Lord's table with men of all creeds, yet with a slave holder, I have no fellowship of any sort or kind. Whatever one has called upon me, excuse me, whenever one is called upon me, I've considered it my duty to express my detestation of his wickedness and I would assume think of receiving a murderer into my church as a man stealer.
So that's pretty blunt. That's extraordinarily clear where Spurgeon stood. How did southern newspapers in America and southern Christians respond to Spurgeon?
Well, here's some representative headlines from 1858 to 1860. Spurgeon is a beef-eating, puffed-up, vain, overrighteous, pharisaical, English blab mouth. Spurgeon is a fat, overgrown boy. Spurgeon is a hell-deserving Englishman. Spurgeon is a vulgar young man with soiled, sleek hair, prominent teeth, and a self-satisfied air.
Many would like a good opportunity at this hypocritical preacher. There were allegations that Spurgeon had removed some of the anti-slavery passages from his sermons and the collections that were distributed in America. So, Spurgeon denied it was true, although he again noted that he had rarely made mention of slavery in his printed sermons. He intended to focus more on the subject, however.
I shall not spare your nation in the future. The crying sin of a man-stealing people shall not go un-rebuked. He followed up this letter with another in which he said that he was not aware of, quote, any illusions in his sermons that were cut. Again, he denounced slavery as a crime of crimes, a soul-destroying sin, and an iniquity which cries aloud for vengeance. No surprise, then, that several volumes of Spurgeon that had a lot of anti-slavery abolition material in them were burned in the jail yard.
And it was speculated that if he had visited the southern states, as he planned to do in 1860, that America might have executed him. Quote, if the Pharisaical author should ever show himself in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his eloquent throat. So Spurgeon is known to this day as a great preacher of the gospel, as a Jesus-exalting preacher of the gospel, known in his day and since as the prince of preachers. His sermons are still widely read to this day, what are we talking, 100, 140 years, 130 years or so after his death. But he did not shy back from social issues. He did not shy back from the evil of slavery, even though it wasn't in his country, existed in such a loud, pronounced way in America. And there were Christians who were defending it and espousing it.
Spurgeon spoke out without reservation. But notice, it was not a political issue. Yes, he did commend Lincoln, but it's not a political issue. It was a moral and cultural issue. What about Billy Graham? So Billy Graham website reports this.
Let me back up. He personally removed the ropes that separated whites from blacks in some of his meetings. The first time was in Jackson, Mississippi, 1952. Here are meetings, blacks in one place, whites in another. He said, no, that's not right. In one case, red rope separated them when people wouldn't take it down.
He went down and took down the ropes himself. When Martin Luther King was put in jail in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, Billy Graham provided his bail to get him out of jail. In fact, when Billy Graham invited Martin Luther King to pray at his famous gospel outreach in New York City, I believe in 1957, not everyone was happy with Graham doing that. Billy Graham website reports Mr. Graham held crusades in both Durban and Johannesburg in 1973, some 20 years after receiving initial invites to preach in South Africa. He wouldn't accept an invitation unless the crusade meetings were racially integrated. Two decades before that, he personally removed segregated ropes at a Chattanooga, Tennessee crusade.
My wife and I have prayed for the country of South Africa since 1951. When I was first asked to hold meetings there, Mr. Graham said in a 1994 statement on the election of Mandela as president of South Africa, we refused to accept that invitation until 1973, when we were able to hold fully integrated crusades in the cities of Johannesburg and in Durban. Overflow crowds of more than 100,000 people came out to see Mr. Graham preach in Durban and Johannesburg in the country's first integrated public meetings, quote, Christianity is not a white man's religion. This is what he preached at the rallies.
And don't let anybody ever tell you that it's white or black. Christ belongs to all people. It was at those meetings, Billy Graham said later, I was struck with the terrible injustice of the apartheid system, which I referred to as sin. So when he invited Dr. King to pray at his New York City gospel rallies in 1957, he received, quote, several threatening messages from white people who disapproved. But remember, Billy Graham and Charles Spurgeon had the same overall perspective. Yes, they spoke out against these social evils, but they understood that ultimately the emphasis had to be on the preaching of the gospel.
The emphasis had to be on winning lost people to the Lord and discipling them in him. Billy Graham said, there is only one solution to the race problem, and that is vital personal experiences with Jesus Christ on the part of both races. Are there things we can do tangibly to combat racism, discrimination? Well, think back to the days of segregation.
Of course, think back to the days of slavery, of course. And if we find evil today, we address it. There are tangible steps we can take to bring about change. But ultimately, the great issue is the condition of the human heart. The great issue is that human beings are caught up in sin and rebellion. The great issue is that we by nature are divided and divisive. We by nature are contentious. We by nature are proud and selfish. We by nature are prejudiced and discriminatory by our fallen human nature with transformed hearts and lives. We can now address the evils around us to the extent we look to the political system to do it.
Only the gospel can do. We are mistaken. And to the extent we measure success exclusively or primarily by worldly terms, we're getting away from kingdom values and a kingdom mentality. Bigger is not always better. Smaller is not always better. There are churches that are small because of poor leadership. There are churches that are small because of compromised leadership. There are churches that are small because of laziness and mismanagement. And there are churches that are small because they're amazingly effective doing what God assigned them to do in a very difficult area, making real disciples. And there are churches that are large because of human promotion. There are churches that are large because of the efforts of the flesh. There are churches that are large because of human gifting.
And there are churches that are large because they're thriving because God's blessing them, because they're people of prayer and fasting and devotion to the word and God's favor is on them and multitudes are coming to faith. Let's do though what that old man of God said. Let's not so much number and count people.
Let's weigh them. Remember, a quality disciple outweighs 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 mere churchgoers or consumers. Let's be disciples. Let's produce disciples. And when it comes to the culture wars politics, let's put the gospel first. Let's give ourselves to the others, but with the right priority. All right, we go to the phones.
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Go to triveda.com or call 800-771-5584. Again, 800-771-5584. 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. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. All right, let's go over to our buddy Jesse in Twin Cities, Minnesota. How you doing, man? Hey, I'm doing good. How are you? Just great.
Thank you. My question is, how do I know if I'm reaching my potential? I have some sinful footholds in my life. I miss church sometimes because of insomnia.
I repent frequently, but I still have sins that I struggle with every week. However, I do feel called to be an online evangelist. I don't have many followers on X, which is my biggest ministry.
I have about 1,700 followers plus. I evangelize on online forums and such. One of them I was banned for five years for evangelizing, and I realize it's not about numbers because I watched this documentary about Arthur Blassett, who carried a cross around the world, and that was really inspiring to me because he showed me that it's not always glamorous.
You don't always get the results. I lead a Bible study here at my apartment complex. I have seen some really big changes in my life, like reduced paranoia from my mental illness.
That is about zero now. I even wrote a book, and I published it with my own money. However, I don't know how I'm doing in my ministry. I don't know if I'm reaching my potential. I don't have a vision for what I am expected to accomplish, and I'm wondering how I'm supposed to know, or how do I know if I'm doing the works God has prepared for me?
Yeah, well, great, great questions, Jesse, and I'm glad to hear about growth in your own life with ups and downs, which sounds like the rest of us. So first thing is, you just want to honor the Lord with all that is within you. You know, you want to start every day and say, Lord, here I am. I'm your servant.
I'm your son. Whatever pleases you, whatever brings you glory, if it's praying all day, if it's distributing sandwiches to the poor, if it's investing in a business so I can give more money to missions, whatever pleases you, whatever honors you, that's what I want to do. And ultimately, all we're living for is God saying, well done, good and faithful servant, right? That's the ultimate goal.
It may not be what people praise and people honor and people think highly of, but in God's sight, what matters is his approval. So you seek to do that. You continue to seek to conform your life to the character of Jesus through the word as you struggle in certain areas. You keep pressing in, taking hold of the word, taking steps as you're able to, asking for him to manifest his grace and power to enable you to change and overcome sin.
And you give yourself to the task at hand. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 mentions, one sows, another waters, but God gives the increase. There is a quote I heard, I don't have the exact source, but from David Livingston, who's a missionary from Scotland to Africa, and according to this quote, which I heard from a missions leader, Livingston said the day will come when Christian missionaries, leaders will lead thousands of Africans to the Lord in a single day. Let them not forget us who labored for years with tears without seeing a single convert.
Sometimes the first generation comes in and they lay down their lives as martyrs and the blood of the martyrs becomes the seed of the church. So you want to be faithful to what he's called you to do as best as you understand. You don't want to walk in willful disobedience. That's the key thing. If you know something's wrong, then you don't give yourself to that.
And if you think, you know, I'm lazy, I waste like seven hours a day playing video games. Well, obviously you won't fulfill God's purpose and calling doing that. On the other hand, his goal is not to run us into the ground by beating us down. His yoke is easy and his burden is life. But first I would cultivate intimacy with God, just cultivate getting to know him in prayer and the word and worship. I would do my best, again, like I said, every day, Lord, here I am, I'm your son, I'm your servant. How can I serve you and be a blessing? And then it's important to live your life out in community with other believers as much as possible.
And that's where you can sharpen each other and encourage each other and help each other. So in that regard, is there, at least if you have a Bible study in your apartment building, are you part of a congregation, Jesse? Yes, I am. I try to go as often as I can. And do you have some friends, colleagues there that you can relate to well that seem to have a like heart?
Well, it's mostly people that are older than me, but I do meet with people from my church sometimes throughout the week. Okay, awesome. Awesome. Good, good. So you're not isolated. Ultimately, I believe when we stand before God, we're going to be shocked to see what he got out of us.
Because like, out of me, you did that. On the other hand, we'll probably look at a lot of things we could have done differently. And there are two extremes that I want to encourage you to avoid. There's the extreme of never resting for a second, because there's always another soldier. I could always do better.
I could always try harder. That's maddening. It's like the carrot on the stick, and you never get that. That's maddening and frustrating, and that's not the heart of God. The other thing is, hey, just kick back, chill. God will do his thing. He just called me to rest.
That's just an expression of laziness, carnality. So find that place of rest and acceptance, and then go for it. Then from there, run your race and see what God can do. I like to look at it as an adventure, an invitation.
Instead of thinking of as, here's the standard that I have to meet. Did I ring the bell today? Did I pray enough? Did I witness enough? Was I holy enough?
Did I ring the bell? Look at it as an adventure. Let's see what God could do through yielded life. In that sense, what one day felt like the ceiling will become the floor.
Meaning, if God used you to do X, Y, Z, you would have been so thrilled and blown away. Now that becomes normal. It's like, now there's more.
There's more. You build on that. You grow in faith. You grow in effectiveness. But look, the whole show, as I've been saying, we don't measure the way people measure.
God has other standards and values. You can't worry about X followers. Hey, I have a lot of X followers compared to you, what, 60 something thousand. But that's tiny compared to accounts with tens of millions, right?
And then yours is giant compared to someone with 10. So it's all that is just human earthly thinking you can't even think about. It's just, Lord, how can I be effective? The last point, what I would look at is if I'm knocking my head against a wall, like I'm trying to interact with people who have no desire to interact, and I walk out of that form or that platform just feeling defiled or just people just threw dirt on me and not getting them to listen. There are times when, in that sense, we don't cast our pearls before swine, that they're not willing to hear. They're only going to get harder through our efforts. So step back and say, Lord, is there another way?
Is there something I could do more effectively? Maybe we pray about it more. And then out of that, something good comes. So keep honoring Him, doing what you're doing. Ask for a sense of approval in your life.
And with that, it encourages you to go for it even more. All right. All right. Thank you so much. You are very welcome. I appreciate the questions. Good data.
Ask the question. Okay. I'm not going to give out the phone number one more time. So a reminder, all this month, so the rest of September, we're encouraging you to stand with us in our sacred mission to the Jewish people. We are every day reaching the lost sheep of the House of Israel with the good news of Messiah. Do you know that many of the most effective evangelistic ministries in Israel have used our material for years?
For some, it was a basis to how they even got started. So they're using it. One network, one online network uses our material where someone, an Israeli, becomes me. And rather than me trying to speak with a miserable Hebrew accent and trying to get through something, no, he's an Israeli, but it's my material, but on his lips, getting it out. We are on the front lines day and night, just today interacting with another Jewish seeker online.
And just it's almost there. God knows who he is. Would you pray for him? Just him. God knows who he is.
He's right on the edge. Pray that he'll take the plunge. Pray that God will make himself real to him and that he'll know that he knows that Jesus Yeshua is the Messiah. So we're doing that through our ministry every day. At the same time, we are pushing back against the evil of anti-Semitism. We are pushing back against the lies that they call in Israel a genocidal state. We are pushing back against a Jew hatred that wants to eliminate Israel from the Middle East. It is diabolical.
It is ugly. It does not mean we have to approve everything the Netanyahu government does or pat the IDF on the shoulder for every act it takes. We can be critical, but we recognize that Satan wants to wipe out Israel. So as we are asking to partner with us, stand with us in this holy initiative, on our 30-minute broadcast that we launched on a couple hundred plus stations all over America, including blanketing like Los Angeles five days a week, major cities we're hitting. This whole month, I'm hitting on Israel related themes, biblically, culturally, what's happening in the world to equip the body. So as you help us with your gift to reach the Jewish people with the gospel and to stand against anti-Semitism, we want to send you, coming out next month, hot off the press, I don't even have the first copies yet, just aside from this one with the cover, Hearts of Compassion, Backbones of Steel, how to discuss controversial topics with love and kindness. I believe you're going to find it to be a really important read, eye-opening, edifying, but it's yours as our thank you gift.
You will have a scripture verse and it will be signed. You can add it to your Dr. Brown collection. Your gift of any size for our Jewish mission, 800-538-5275.
That's how you get a copy. 800-538-5275. Let's partner together. Let's stand against the hatred of the Jewish people, the satanic hatred of the Jewish people, while offering them the good news through Jesus the Messiah. Let's reach out in love while we resist this ugly agenda. Again, 800-538-5275. We'd love to send you the book from your gift of any size for our work in this week. Kabbash.
