Welcome, welcome friends to the Line of Fire.
If you are listening live on radio or the day the podcast or YouTube broadcast is released it is December 30th. So coming to the end of this year, I am in the midst of an extended time of stepping back from public ministry, teaching, preaching, getting some extra time to meet with the Lord and rest and slow down. Really in my decades of ministry I have never really had a sabbatical so this is a wonderful season for me to just be stepping back and spending extra time with the Lord and Nancy and be refreshed and hopefully come out closer to Jesus than ever, more full of the Spirit and the Word than ever, able to effectively serve you better than ever in the years ahead. But right now time to step back and what we are doing, we did it last week, we will do it again this week, to end this year and to come into the new year we are taking you into some messages that I preached and taught previously. So let you know it is coming this week, so let's say it will be New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, you will hear a message that I preached in 2017 about breaking the stronghold of the food. So it has now been over 10 years that God has transformed my lifestyle, transformed my life and I am healthier now on every level than I was 10 years ago, probably 20 years ago, maybe even 30 years ago.
It is just remarkable to see the changes. This was 7 years into the journey with the results being extraordinary, now I can look back years after that, no this was 3 years into the journey, sorry, 3 years into the journey, now I can talk to you from 10 plus years into the journey and say it keeps getting better. But we will have 2 days with a message on breaking the stronghold of the food and then 2 days of answering questions that I was asked after that message.
So the Q&A because it may be questions that you would have. So I pray it is really going to be a blessing to you and for those that have followed my life in ministry and know there are always things kind of swirling around me if you have heard some of the latest swirl and what is going on with this or that, just go to our website thelineoffire.org and you will see banner on the top of my latest video or statement. Go there, this way you can be caught up on what has been going on, what I have shared publicly and you can be in prayer for Nancy and me and our ministry work that Jesus will be mightily glorified.
I shared last week about when we all go through trials and tests, some practical thoughts on that. If you miss any broadcast, remember it is all archived on the Courage and the Line of Fire podcast together with several thousand live radio shows before that. So if you don't subscribe, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, go ahead and subscribe. Of course it is a free subscription or you can watch on YouTube, the Line of Fire channel on YouTube. Go ahead and watch there. Make sure you subscribe and then click the bell this way. Any time a new video comes out you will be notified about it.
It is our goal, it is our heart, it is our calling, it is everything I live for every day to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front lines. When I did live daily radio, every day for 16 years, sometimes I would travel with an expensive radio unit that would then hook up into the internet through an Ethernet cable, so your cable connection, hook it up there, it could be wireless as well but the cable was better. I do it from India, I did it from Malaysia, I did it from around the world, Italy, I mean whatever countries I was in, around the States because I wouldn't miss a day. I would wake up in the middle of the night, think of this, you are traveling overseas, you are jet-lagged already, you are trying to get your body clock adjusted to the new place.
So let's say I am in India, it is 10 and a half hours different from Eastern time where I live or if I was in Singapore or Malaysia it may have been 12 or 13 hours different. I would get up in the middle of the night and in those days doing two hours live radio, do that and try to go back to sleep a little and minister through the day. At a certain point Nancy said to me, you know it is a little bit much, you should really just pre-record your shows when you are overseas. So I would do that but doing live radio every other day on the road, places where I taught regularly had studios set up for me. So I looked forward to live radio every day.
I couldn't wait to get in the studio and do it every day. It was a calling. When I preach around the world I can't wait to get beyond the pulpit. I can't wait to minister.
It is a calling. So thank you for praying for me as we do our best to serve you. Thank you for being part of our support team either as a listener and we are pouring into you so that you are strengthened to go do what God has called you to do or as someone that says hey check out this podcast, listen to it. Look if you simply are edified and blessed by what we are pouring into you, that is a win. That is wonderful. That is success to us.
If that change in your life blesses others, praise God. If you can then share what we have imparted to you with others, all the more wonderful. If you tell others about the broadcast or subscribe, wonderful.
If you pray for us, amazing. If you help us financially, incredibly because now it helps us reach more people. So that is the goal. That is the purpose.
I remember and I am just sharing from my heart today and then I am going to talk to you a little about food, kind of segue into the broadcast for the next couple of days. I remember someone was watching Christian radio or Christian TV decades ago and they said two minutes of feeding, 28 minutes of pleading. I used to wonder about that. In other words, it seemed that the main purpose of the show was to raise funds for the show but then the show itself was mainly asking for funds for the show. So what was I giving towards?
It is one thing, let's say you have a ministry of feeding the poor and the whole purpose of your monthly TV show is an infomercial to raise money to help you feed the poor. Okay, that makes sense. I get that. I get it. What if your organization existed to reach unreached tribal peoples in difficult areas and it was very costly to get people there to do it and you had a show once a week and the purpose was to talk about the work but to raise money for the work. I get that. Okay, understood. But if the purpose of the broadcast is to teach and edify and minister and bless and help and you spend the entire broadcast raising funds for the broadcast, for what purpose?
For what goal? So when you give to us, it enables us to do what he has called us to do which serve you, minister to you and bless you. So thank you for opening your heart to us. I know there are so many other things you could be doing right now. There are millions of podcasts. There are endless other messages and stations on YouTube and so much else that could have our attention. So it means the world to me that you take the time to listen, to watch on a daily basis and for many years now during live radio which we had planned to phase out by the end of October. So for months we were planning to replace the live show with just this equipping teaching show which we started January of 2024 but only ended the live show October of 2024. So in other words, we were doing the live show daily and then pre-recording five shows a week as well for other stations. So we just phased out the live and just doing this.
The timing ended up working out perfectly. But having 22 minutes instead of an hour gives us much more focus and that's why we're having classes going through subjects, taking a whole month to go through a subject. We're taking a temporary break now from our school of prayer. God willing we will resume that fairly soon. Prayer and intercession really dig in, really go deep, really help build up your prayers. I know it's been speaking to me as I've been teaching and instructing.
But I'm just taking the day as I did last week at the end of the year just to kind of talk from my heart, get away from the notes, get away from the structure, get away from the class and just talk face to face. And what I started saying when I was doing live radio, on a regular basis I'd be walking into a grocery store, I'd be at the airport, a stranger comes up to me. I look at them and I know I don't know who you are. To my knowledge we have never met. I don't know who you are. But you have the smile of a family member or a good friend or a close relative or a co-worker I know well. You have that smile of familiarity but I've never seen your face. And I know what you're going to say when you see me.
I listen to you every day with a smile. And in doing live radio you build up a relationship with your listeners because in real time you're talking about, hey I've been going through this. Or wow I just got in from the airport, crazy, got here just in time, did your radio. I remember one time I got held up in Virginia Beach, my flight was delayed five hours.
It was maybe like a forty-five minute flight back to Charlotte, North Carolina. My flight was delayed five hours and I was doing nightly radio at that point and I thought, man I'm going to miss the show and it's a live show. What am I going to do? And I said, wait, wait, I've got a solution, I've got a solution. So I called my assistant, his name was Eric back then, I called my assistant and I said, listen here's what I need you to do. Because he was going to pick me up and take me home, it was going to be during radio time. I said I need you to park your car, then I need you to go in and get my luggage when it comes out, bring it to your car and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go into the business lounge. I didn't have access to it, I do now, but I didn't have access to it then. There was a fee to pay so I couldn't get in, but I was going to find a way to get in, go into a back part of the lounge, which is like, you know, we've got computers and phones, you can be talking privately. I used to have dial phones then. I'm going to go back there and I'm going to call in the show like a caller and do my radio show from there.
So, I mean, that's how committed I was to doing it. So, real time you're talking about what's happening, so I go in the lounge, I said, listen, I have a live radio show I need to do. I was delayed five hours just, you know, mechanical delays by the airline, so they're responsible for that, right, whether you can't control. Mechanical delays, is it possible I can do my radio show for, so they let me in, they let me in gratis, right, and I go in the back corner, all these people, they're making business calls, I said, will it disturb you if I do a live radio show?
No, no, go ahead, we'll try to be quiet. And I call in, I call in like a caller and did my show from there. But because you're talking about life in real time and you're not just teaching a class and so on, people develop a relationship with you, they call and you go back and forth.
Well, it's not live radio now. I may record a show days in advance, weeks in advance, you know, do a series and it's pre-recorded, right, so I'm not talking about current news events, but in my heart I feel that same connection with all of you. In my heart I feel close to you. In my heart it's as if you're sitting here in the studio with me, taking notes or listening or smiling or saying amen. So I feel you in that regard even though it's not live and I hope you can feel that, that personal, touch that personal heart for me as well.
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As a new customer, 100% of the proceeds from your first order will go to support the Line of Fire radio broadcasts, so call now 1-800-771-5584, 1-800-771-5584, 1-800-771-5584 or online at trivita.com. So when I go out to eat, when I'm on the road with other leaders ministering, they've been told that I'm on a special diet. My office, one of my assistants will send out a note to anywhere that we're going and say, because the places want to know, you know, what should we have in Dr. Brown's room, what is he like.
Now in my old days, my unhealthy eating days, my personal assistant back then would tell them that I want peanut M&M's in my room, I want pretzels and I want Diet Coke. That's what I wanted in my room for my snacks. And then we go out to eat and I want to go to Italian or somewhere I get a big burger or steak and fries or something, you know, whatever, right? That's how I eat. Pizza, endlessly good pizza place, man, I'm there. I'll be there several times in a day. When we lived on Long Island, when I taught at Christ for the Nations in Stony Brook on Long Island, so North Shore, Suffolk County, so Eastern Long Island, when I taught there, there was a really good pizzeria called Station Pizza that was two miles from the school and it's estimated, my estimate, that when I lived there in the four years that I was at the school that I ate 3000 slices of Station Pizza and they were New York slices and they were dripping with cheese.
Yeah. So that's how I ate unhealthily for years and years. Now as I travel, oh, can I tell you a quick story, funny story? And then tomorrow and Wednesday I'm going to take you into a message I preached on breaking the stronghold of food seven years ago and then living like that without exception by God's grace for seven years. Then the last two days I'm going to take you into a Q and A session I did right after that message answering people's questions about food. I don't know much about diet, nutrition. Nancy has studied this intensely for decades and really follows the guidelines of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Eat to Live, that we live by his guidelines and found them to be life changing and super healthy and wonderful. But if you ask me about this nutritional thing or that, I don't know why I eat this or that.
I just know these are the healthy things and I don't eat the unhealthy ones. But quick story. I was speaking at a church in Jacksonville, Florida, big conference there I was going to be speaking and a young man was there on the church staff and he was responsible for setting things up for guests. I knew his dad for many years. We did ministry together and real sweetheart of a guy, young guy and very, very pure hearted if you know what I mean. He was a trusting kind of guy. So my assistant was named Scott back then and could be a real jokester. He reaches out to him and says, listen, listen, Dr. Brown has completely changed his lifestyle.
This is long before I did, long before I changed it. Dr. Brown has completely changed his lifestyle and he only wants vegan stuff. He doesn't want any chocolate, no sweets of any kind, no Italian food of any kind.
Be sure, no pasta, nothing with cheese, no meat. He's made a radical change in his lifestyle. But when he gets there, he's going to tell you, he's going to joke with you and say, no, no, no, he's still eating the old way. But don't believe him, he's just joking. So I get there.
This young man picks me up at the airport. He says, so Dr. Brown, I heard about your lifestyle change and that you're only eating this and this. This is years before I made the change. I said, oh, you're right. I said, no, come on, I want my regular stuff, pizza and pasta and all this. And he said, okay. And he laughed. And so I thought, okay, he gets it. He knows my friend was joking.
Well, he took my friend seriously and he thought I was joking. And I get to my room and it's like, where are the peanut M&Ms? Where are the pretzels? Where are the, who asked for this healthy stuff? And thankfully for me back then, they, all the foods they had prepared, they prepared the unhealthy foods for everybody else. And they had the special healthy thing for me. It's like, no, I'm eating the unhealthy stuff.
Well, amazingly, God does change my life and now wherever I go, they understand this is, this is how I'm going to eat. This is how I'm going to eat. So they have in my room salad stuff, fruits, water and Perrier or seltzer, you know, sparkling water.
They have that for me. And I bring other stuff with me, other healthy supplements and items with me. I bring my Triveda supplements with me, but you know, I'll bring other stuff. I travel with it, travel to India.
Just took my grandson Andrew over to India so he could see life there and, and, and, and work with the ministry team there for a little while. And I travel with my organic beans unsalted. I travel with Ezekiel bread, you know, just have like a little thing. I can cool things and you all the way to India. Yeah, yeah. I plan it out.
I travel bring my flax seed and my, my organic and raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds and things like that. It's lifestyle and it's a joy. It's a joy. So when I'm in the States, I'll go out to eat with pastors and no condemnation. I never, never judge or the person's overweight or obese like I was. And they're reading all kinds of unhealthy things.
Doesn't, Hey, I did that for years. No judgment, no judgment. Maybe eat healthily all the time. Just splurge.
You can, well, there's no judgment either way. I know how hard it is to make changes. But invariably as they see me eating my salad and, and I'll travel with my own dressing, you know, cause, cause you can't always get the right dressing that you want. Cause this is lifestyle.
This is life and death for me. And, and, and, and I want to be here to serve you longer and honor the Lord longer. So healthy eating is, is foundational and super, super important. So invariably they'll want to talk to me about how I'm living and they feel convicted many times about how they're eating.
Now some are healthy, but they'll say to me, wow, you're almost 70 years old and you've got more energy than we do. And you just traveled here, got off the plane and preached your heart out and now you're full of energy and you're ministering to us. And it's like, hey, it's, it's, it's worth it.
It's worth it. So just from the heart, people say, well, Dr. Brown, you're very disciplined person. If I was so disciplined, why did it take me 59 years to get this right? And why do I tell people that giving up chocolate was much harder for me than giving up heroin and the needle when I got saved in 71. Giving up chocolate was much harder for me in 2014.
So all you get from me, from Nancy, who is a super healthy lifestyle, all you get from us is compassion, empathy, understanding, love. It's hard and that's where you ought to start. Lord, it's hard. I'm struggling. Some of you have willpower.
Boom. Once you get educated, you make the changes. Nancy always quotes, you know, Dr. Fuhrman that knowledge is power.
And when you understand what the bad stuff does to your body and what the good stuff does, like, whoa, that's, that makes that now I see what I'm doing. I'll live differently, but many it's a stronghold. That's why the book Nancy and I wrote is called Breaking the Stronghold of Food because it's, it is a stronghold. And where you may want to start is, God, I'm weak. Don't make excuses how busy lifestyle is. Look, I travel around the world and I'm able to maintain this, but before I had a million excuses as to why it was impossible. If God can help me, a poster boy for unhealthy eating, I wasn't a glutton. Nancy is a self-professed glutton. I was an unhealthy eater.
We both had different strongholds. So she was a glutton with unhealthy eating. I was day and night unhealthy eating, even though not a glutton. The fact is if God could help me, a poster boy for unhealthy eating, and help Nancy, a self-professed glutton, and if we both lost around a hundred pounds, and I'm a foot taller than her, but we both lost about a hundred pounds.
And these years later now, by God's grace, we're at excellent weights, ideal weights, and thriving. If he could help us, he could help you. So I encourage you, no excuses.
No excuses. Just honor him, praise him, and say, Lord, I need help here. Make your strength manifest through my weakness. Help me in this journey. It is so worth it as I feel like I'm getting younger every year, as I work out with guys in their twenties and we push each other, and to be basically pain-free, to be entirely drug-free all these years, and ideal blood pressure and cholesterol levels and all of that, and doing whatever you can to make your body healthy. Boy, it's just beautiful. So what I want to encourage is we come to the end of the year, time for resolutions, beginning of the new year.
Maybe this is just the time. Maybe this is what you needed to get started. And one more note, it is the end of the year, and your year-end tax-deductible contributions mean the world to us, whether they're large or small. If you can stand with us right now, I want to thank you in advance. Go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and click donate. God bless.
This is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for tuning in. Just a reminder that we are listener-supported. If we have been a blessing to you, if you're being enriched in the Word and prayer and your own walk with God through this broadcast, then stand with us so that we can reach many, many more and bless many, many more. Together, friends, we're making a difference. So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and click donate.
