Welcome, friends, to the line of fire. Michael Brown here to equip you, empower you, help you to stand strong on the front lines. The attack is intense. The battle's intense. And sometimes we can feel it's just too much.
It's over. Everything's collapsing around us. I remind you, Jesus is Lord. I remind you, God is at work in the midst of the earth. I remind you that as we cry out to him, he hears his people's prayers. And my words of encouragement are not empty words, friends. I'm an eyewitness to revival.
I've lived in the midst of it. Revival being a season of unusual divine visitation. I've seen the prayers of years, even the prayers of decades answered powerfully. Why not again? Can God do it again? Is he God? Yes.
Then the answer is he can do it again. It is late, but it is not too late for America. That's why I wrote the book, Revival or We Die. I'll be teaching out of that book all this week. We'll tell you at the end of the broadcast.
You can get a copy for yourself or for your friends. A great awakening is our only hope. Revival in the church leading to reformation in the society. Outpouring in the church leading to awakening in the world around us. The three R's of our ministry, they all tie in together.
They all tie in together. Revival in the church, that's the first R, leading to gospel-based moral and cultural revolution. That's the second R. Leading to the redemption of Israel, that's the third R. It all comes out of a healthy church. A healthy church bringing change to the world around it. A healthy church provoking Israel to envy.
Friends, it starts with you and it starts with me. Every month we'll feature a major article. The first month I'm going to share about what we've seen in Jewish ministry and outreach. I think you'll be really encouraged with that and find out about all the resources we have for that. We've got all kinds of special, neat features added into it. You'll look forward to it.
Trust me. You'll find it both informational and inspirational. So sign up at thelineoffire.org.
We can't wait to send the first one out. Thelineoffire.org. In my book, Revival or We Die, there's a chapter that has this title. It is this. From Amazing Grace to Amazing Sinners. And this is chapter four of the book.
You say, what does that mean? From Amazing Grace to Amazing Sinners? It means that we know how wretched we were without Jesus. How evil we were without Jesus. How wicked and rebellious we were without Jesus.
Just like the word of God describes. It describes us as rebels. It describes us as living in disobedience. It describes us as fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind.
It describes us as enemies of God through wicked works. This is us before we're saved. This is how God saw us. We used to preach that, and against that backdrop, how amazing the grace of God. How incredibly amazing the grace of God. You sang the hymn, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. So we were wretches, God's grace was amazing, and through that grace, we became righteous. In a moment of time, God no longer condemned us. I remember the night I was truly born again, that night I know that I know I was born again December 17th of 1971, and I remember looking for the guilt.
I thought of the worst, most shameful thing I'd ever done, stealing money from my own father and boasting about it. And I looked for the guilt, the guilt was gone. It was gone.
It was gone. God took the guilt away. God made me a son. At that moment, if he was writing a letter and I was included in that letter, I'd be one of the saints, one of the holy ones.
At that moment, cleansed, washed, the depth of love that you experience when you realize how wicked we are without him, and how amazing his grace is, how great his love, it's underscored a billion times over. I mean, think of it like this, think of it like this, Charles Spurgeon used this analogy. The man has got the noose around his neck. He's about to be hung. He's condemned to die. He's about to be hung. And at that moment, when they're about to pull the noose, he receives a pardon, a complete and unconditional pardon, you can go free. His gratitude is a lot deeper than the person who thought, maybe, if I get convicted by the court, maybe I'll have to pay like a hundred dollar fine or something. But that's a slap on the wrist, it's nothing. It's nothing. Okay, you don't have to pay anything. No big deal anyway.
No, no, no. It's a whole lot different when you realize, I'm sentenced to die. When you realize, I deserve hell. When you realize, I'm guilty in the sight of a holy God.
You know what it's like? It's like someone who says, I mean, porn, I'm not like, I'm not a porn addict or anything like that. It's just, you know, every so often. Well, so now you stand before God and that every so often, here comes the record of every single time that you watch porn. And it's on record, every pornographic image and movie and video and everything.
And suddenly you see it's, it's, it's a hundred, it's, it's thousands of, it's tens of thousands of images and times and I plead guilty. Everything changes. And then you see the holiness of God, the beauty of God and his goodness and his love and his perfection.
And it shows us how rich and ugly, despicable we are without him. Richard sinners, but what amazing grace, what beautiful grace cleansed, washed, saved, forgiven, declared righteous, set apart as holy. The moment you're born again, all that happens.
Wow. So there's the old hymn from Augustus top lady who died in 1778, nothing in my hand I bring simply to thy cross, I cling naked, come to thee for great dress, helpless, but to thee for grace foul eye to the fountain fly, wash me savior or I die. That's the hymn.
Rock of ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in the, here's another verse, another stanza, not the labor of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands. Could my soul my respite know, excuse me, could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all could never sinner race, thou must save and save by grace. So as we saw earlier in the week when Peter preached at Pentecost to the Jewish crowd there, Shavuoth the feast of weeks said, God has made this Jesus, this Yeshua whom you crucified both Lord and Messiah. So they were cut to the heart, they realized we crucified the Messiah, we gave over the Messiah we've been praying for for centuries, we gave him over to be killed, what were we thinking?
Because the leadership was responsible, what were we thinking? And they cry out, men and brothers, what do we do? They're smitten, they're convicted. And Peter said, repent, be baptized. So it used to be, that's how we preached, and that's what we believed. Amazing grace, wretched sinners, but it changed, it changed. Our messages changed, and this is another reason why we need revival, and this is another indication of how far we've come from the cross. We don't preach amazing grace anymore, wretched sinners, we preach amazing sinners. I mean, I've actually seen evangelism done like this, that you go up to a lost person, God wants you to know how amazing you are. Okay, let's just say theoretically, let's just say theoretically that the person we're witnessing to is a serial child rapist who has not yet been caught.
Okay, one of the most extreme, horrific crimes that every one of us would agree is absolutely detestable, absolutely detestable, morally evil. God wants you to know how amazing you are. He does not want you to know how amazing you are. He does not want that person to feel that they're amazing. You say, but we're fearfully and wonderfully made.
Well, that's not how you get saved. Wow, I realize I'm amazing, the body is amazing. Many people know the body is amazing. Atheists know the body is amazing. You say, well, if you don't know God, you don't know God. Okay, so you know God made the body an amazing way. This is not, the brain is amazing. You don't get saved by realizing how amazing you are.
Oh, I got it. God wants me to know how amazing I am, and that's why Jesus died on the cross, because I'm amazing. No, no, no, he did not die on the cross because you're amazing or because I'm amazing. He died on the cross because we were rebels.
He died on the cross because we were in sin and disobedience here. Listen to the way Paul puts it as he's writing to the believers in Ephesus, Ephesus in Ephesians, the second chapter, listen to how Paul puts it there. Just writing with his clarity and his candor, he says it like this, Ephesians chapter two, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work and those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts like the rest we were by nature deserving of wrath.
This is Paul the grace preacher. That underscores God's grace, but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in the sight of Jesus for it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
This is not for yourselves and yourselves it is a gift of God not by works so that no one can boast. We were deserving of wrath. Look at how Paul describes us in Titus the third chapter.
This is how he speaks of us. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we had done but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit and he poured out on us generously through Jesus our Savior.
Not amazing, we used to be amazing. We were wretches, we were disobedient. Some of you like me were outwardly wretches and disobedient, shooting heroin, stealing and lying and doing all kinds of other drugs and seeking to fulfill the desires of the flesh.
Yeah, some of you were outwardly liked and some were even worse. Others you were church going or you were faithful to your religion but your heart was wicked. What does Jeremiah 17 say that the hearts deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? Only the Lord. We've changed that to God wants you to know you are so amazing. Now no one gets saved, genuinely saved by being told they're amazing.
What's amazing is God, the love of God, the goodness of God, the kindness of God. This is one of the reasons friends were in such a mess in the Church of America today because we preached this watered down compromise message and we produced a generation of false converts or superficial converts because of which when real shaking comes people disappear because they don't have roots. They don't have deep solid roots. The message that's preached sounds more like a self-help message. In fact, to be totally candid with you, I flipped on TV some years ago and I literally did not know if the guy I was watching, I wasn't familiar with him, if he was a contemporary preacher or a life coach or a real estate salesman showing you how you get rich.
I genuinely did not know. That's how compromised and watered down our message has become. Okay, I'm going to get into that a bit more with you but first we normally have a break in the middle of the broadcast where we talk about our co-sponsor TriVita but today I want to talk about our primary sponsor which is you because we are listener-sponsored radio. This message that God has given us is essential for this hour. I'm almost 70 years old but on every level, turn 69 in March, on every level we are amping up everything we are doing in ministry to spread the line of fire across the nation because friends, it's not just a message, it is a movement of people standing up and saying, we're not going to live like this anymore, we're not going to take it anymore, we're not backing down, we're not cowering in a corner, we're not going in the closet, we're going to stand and proclaim Jesus as Lord and Lord, if you're looking for someone to use, here I am, send me, use me.
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We've seen the cultural chaos, it looks like there is no way back, it's too late for our nation. The vision I see is dominoes propping back up and reverse and life coming and light coming and encouragement coming and hope coming and friends, we do this together. Above all, I'm encouraging you to join our support team, a dollar a day or more. You become a torch bearer, a monthly supporter. Let me tell you what you get back in return. First the joy of knowing that together we are making a difference and treasure stored up in heaven but also many, many other benefits.
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Years ago, A.W. Tozer wrote a penetrating essay from the old cross to the new and he contrasted the cross of the bible and the cross that was preached historically with the cross of contemporary churches in his day, Tozer died in the early 1960s at the age of 63. So we're going back decades now and he already saw the compromise, he already saw some of the spiritual rot, he already saw things getting watered down and cheapened. So Tozer wrote about this and he said that whereas the old cross killed the sinner, the modern cross redirects the sinner. So I preached that for many years but a few years ago I thought you know we've gone further, we've fallen further with the modern American gospel which sadly we have exported all around the world and by the way when you support TheLineOfFire you're helping a worldwide movement, you're helping us not just distribute our resources around the world but we have laborers around the world. We have team members around the world bearing incredible fruit for Jesus, doing incredible things and we'll be sharing some of their testimonies with you in the front line newsletters as you receive that.
So I want to encourage you friends to understand that something's happening on a bigger level, a wider level. So as I was thinking about this I realized we've gone further, we've gone further with this new cross, this modern cross, so the contemporary cross it doesn't redirect the sinner. I'm talking about the contemporary gospel message in America which in many ways is not the gospel at all. It does not redirect the sinner like Tozer said the modern cross does. The contemporary cross empowers the sinner. Come on you've heard this message, to restate it Jesus died to make you into a bigger and better you. Let me say it again, Jesus died to make you into a bigger and better you. That's the contemporary version, that's the modern gospel version. So I mean I've heard people in all kinds of sin and disobedience talk about Jesus being Lord and so on and you know sometimes it'd be a setting you think no this cannot be and the person's using all kinds of profanity and there's all kinds of sexual uncleanness around them and violence around them and they're right in the middle of it and say I've just got to give all praise to the Lord Jesus like if Jesus is your Lord then he'd call you out of that place he'd call you out of that lifestyle and sometimes you know people are brand new they're brand new believers and we give them space but you have to think okay where is the growth and as these people are being put forth as leaders no wonder we're reproducing what we're reproducing and that's why in Revival or We Die I write about this going from amazing grace to amazing sinners instead of preaching that God's grace is amazing we preach that the sinner is amazing. Now absolutely it is so important for us as believers to have a healthy understanding of God's love for us. It is so important for us as believers not to think that every day we have to say God I'm a wretched terrible sinner I'm the worst person on the earth. If you feel that way about yourself and you're truly a believer I encourage you to pray over yourself the prayers that Paul prayed over the different churches and over different individuals to pray them for yourself until you see yourself as God wants you to see yourself as a believer as a child of God as a son or daughter of God as someone loved as someone washed as someone cleansed and let your mind and heart be renewed to his wonderful grace and Christ in you the Messiah in you the hope of glory we're not to beat ourselves up every single day I'm a hopeless terrible wretch and if you're a child of God begin to speak over yourself what God's word says about you that who you are in Jesus what it means to be forgiven and cleansed where you do fall short come to him and he'll wash you he'll cleanse you will give you again that the French sense of his love and goodness but but live in an understanding that you're you're saved not lost that you're righteous not wicked that you're a child of God not a child of the devil but for those who still are lost according to scripture they're children of Satan they're under the power of the evil one we don't say that today that'll turn people what no you know what it'll do if preached with love it preached in the power of the Spirit it'll bring people under conviction and they'll come running to get right with God and that's what happens in revival the false messages get stripped away the superficial messages get stripped away and a clear piercing word comes from the heart of God and us as it does the arrows of conviction penetrate people are shaken people are stirred and people recognize I've fallen short people recognize their guilt before God they cry out have mercy on me a sinner remember Luke 18 the tax collector and the Pharisee so the religious leader I praise in the temple I thank you Lord I'm not like other men I fast twice a week I pray not like that sinner over there the tax collector and the tax collector won't even lift his eyes because he's corrupt he's been stealing money just pounds his chest and says God have mercy on me a sinner Jesus said that's the one that went home justified not the one thinking how amazing I am I'm different than I'm amazing God you're privileged to have someone like me in your kingdom no he did not go home justified at all the one that went home justified clean righteous in the sight of God was the one who said God have mercy on me a sinner so this chapter I've just I barely touched on it today it'll be an eye-opener it's in the book revival or we die in fact I even talk about a comment I saw from one celebrity Christian saying that God would be honored to get to know your sins and no no no he's not honored to know your sins Jesus died for your sins he knows all about us it's our honor to be brought into his family so you get your copy of revival or reduction 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 the line of fire dot org the line of fire dot org and click donate
