Thanks for joining us, friends, on the Line of Fire Broadcast. Yeah, in all seriousness, we are here to infuse you with faith, with truth, with courage. I pray that the words I speak will not just be human words but will be infused with divine life so that divine life will burn in your own heart, that you'll be strengthened because, like it or not, we are all in the line of fire today. We are.
That's the reality. But you're not alone. There's an army standing with you. I'm standing with you. We are standing together. And above all, Jesus is living in us and all authority and heaven and earth is given to him. We are not those who are smitten down and destroyed so that we lose hope and we cave in.
Lo, we are those who stand because our God has called us to stand. And I want to proclaim to you, in the midst of the craziness of our society, in the midst of what will be a massively chaotic election year in 2024, in the midst of the potential of world war shaking every nation, I want to declare it is not too late. God is at work. We could yet see the greatest awakening, the greatest outpouring in the history of our nation. All this month, we're teaching out of this book, Revival, or we die. We're going to get real personal today. I believe this is going to hit home. I believe today's broadcast is going to change many, many lives. I want to remind you first, if you're not getting our life changing, life impacting frontline newsletter, we're sending out our first, oh, it's going to be any day now that it's going out. The very first edition of this equipping newsletter, as informative as it is inspiring, sign up at the line of fire.org. Be sure you're getting this.
It's absolutely free. Okay. I think the one chapter in revival or we die that I received the most comments to was the chapter called restore my first love. Now I've shared in my own testimony. However, after getting radically dramatically saved in 71 by the late seventies, early eighties, as I was doing my doctoral work at New York university and near Eastern languages and literatures that spiritual and intellectual and theological pride entered my life. And that even though I was an active, committed, hardworking believer known at NYU from my testimony, our family was living out Christian values in so many ways, taking in refugees and poor hurting people, really seeking to live out the gospel together that I had left my first love. You can be Orthodox in your beliefs. You can be committed to church.
You can be living by biblical values. And at the same time, you've left your first love. And that's what happened to me very deeply. And through 1982, as people prayed for me, God began to light a fresh fire in me and brought me through extensive repentance, months of crying out to him. And my life was radically dramatically changed. And he sent an outpouring of the spirit through me that rocked our church back then. And I've never been the same, but still over the decades, even though I've been a changed man, you go through seasons where you realize I've lost something. There's something I had in those early days of a beauty, of relationship with the Lord, of an intimacy that I don't have. Sometimes it's just the toll of life. You have a bunch of kids working extra jobs, get sick, get run down, go through a few church splits, just pounded on by the world and just life takes its toll. Different things can happen.
Sometimes it's just little by little, negligence here, negligence there. Before you know it, we've left our first love and we don't even realize it. So I began to write this chapter in September of 2019. It was during a season of seeking the Lord for a fresh touch. And I began to record, journal, some of the prayers I was praying. So this is very intimate, but I felt I was supposed to share it in book form.
And I want to share it now with you as you're listening to the line of fire. Lord, I pray that you'd restore me to my first love for you, to that time when being with you and worshiping you and feasting on your word was my greatest delight. Light that fire again. I pray that you'd bring me back to that time and place when intimacy was more important than ministry, when knowing you was more important than being known, when it didn't occur to me to be ashamed of you or to treat evangelism as a burden because I wanted everyone to know how wonderful you are. Turn me back, Lord. Help me to remember the height from which I've fallen, to get a glimpse of how special and satisfying my fellowship with you used to be, to recall the indescribably glorious levels of joy I used to experience. Make it real to me again. Help me to love prayer, to long for opportunities to get alone with you for hours or days on end, to delight in communion with you more than communion with any other person on the earth.
That's what my heart longs for. When I sang those old hymns in the first months and years of my faith, the words were so real to me, even though they were so culturally different than anything I'd sung before. I think back to the words of one hymn, which we would sing.
I come to the garden alone. Well, the dew is still on the roses and the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we carry there, none other has ever known. Father, that joy was so real. And there was that Fanny Crosby hymn I so loved, I am thine, O Lord, with one verse in particular being so precious to me. Oh, the pure delight of a single hour, that before thy throne I spend and I kneel in prayer. And with thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend.
It really was pure delight. And so I pray the words of the chorus of that song again with all my heart and soul. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side. Draw me nearer, Lord.
Take my heart and ignite it again with that first love passion, but one that is deeper now, deepened by decades of knowing you, deepened by decades of experiencing your faithfulness, deepened by decades of seeing my weakness and your strength. Oh, Lord, for the end to be great in the beginning and for the years ahead to be more glorious and wonderful than the years before and for the cross to be so central to all I think and do. But it's so easy for me to get caught up in the Word and the work, be it the burden to see this generation impacted from our heart for the salvation of Israel or the consuming call to write or running here or there for ministry without being caught up with you, Abba. Bring me back to that place of worship, of adoration, of profound inexpressible bliss simply in being your child. May you, not ministry, breakthroughs, not wonderful testimonies, not answers to prayer, not successful endeavors, but may you be the greatest source of satisfaction in my life.
You alone. And bring me into an even deeper place of gazing on you, like the 24 elders in Revelation who continuously cry holy when they see you, who continuously cast their crowns at your feet, who continuously are in awe of you. Strike me with that holy Oswald by revealing yourself to me. What else matters? Father, I remember Leonard Ravenhill telling me that the greatest quote he ever heard from A.W.
Tozer was this. There are occasions when for hours I lay prostrate before God without saying a word of prayer or praise. I just gaze on him in worship. But this seems so out of reach.
How do I get there? I want to understand this kind of devotion for myself. I want to experience this while I live here in this world. I want to really see you and experience you and know you in ways beyond anything I've ever seen and known, if not now, when? But I often feel so superficial, so distracted, so on the run, so shallow. Deep in me, Father. And as I prayed hundreds or thousands of times, so I pray again, break my heart with the things that break your heart. Shatter my indifference. Share your burden with me.
Help me to love what you love and hate what you hate. Help me to be one with you. It is possible, Father. I'm going to share a few more prayers I prayed along those lines that are in the book Revival or We Die.
But as I'm speaking to you, here's the reality. Revival starts with you and me. We can pray for revival in our home congregation. We can pray for revival in our region.
We can pray for revival in the nation. But the reality is, it's always an individual thing. It may happen to millions of people at the same time, but it's individual for each of us. I wonder, even as I speak to you, is your heart stirring?
Are you convicted? Are you remembering back? You see, here's the reality. We get so used to our current condition that we think that's always been the norm. And I talked about that last week, you know, that we're so familiar with the now that we forget. It wasn't always like this. And sometimes you go back, I don't know if you journal, but maybe you go back to old journal entries and see, wow, my heart was really burning for Jesus then. It's not so much now.
Wow, I was much more on fire. I used to share my faith so much more bold. I used to care about, I used to actually believe people were lost without Jesus and it mattered to me.
Now we could go a year where that even doesn't even occur to me to witness to anybody. What happened? We left our first love.
You know, we often misquote the Bible and say we lost our first love. You don't really lose it. You know, I've lost my keys. I can't find my keys. I put them somewhere, but I can't find them. I've lost my glasses. You know, you try to find your glasses without your glasses, but that's just you misplaced them. You just dropped them somewhere.
You put them somewhere you don't normally put them and you forgot. That's not what happens. We don't lose our first love. We leave it. We forsake it.
And that's why Jesus says to the church in Ephesus, remember the height from which you've fallen. Repent and do the things you did first. What does that mean? It means, it means go back. Go back to the early practices. Go back to the early days. Maybe in a relationship, a marital relationship and you realize love has gone cold and romance is gone and things are just kind of stale and you realize we never spend time together anymore. We're so busy running in a hundred different directions.
We never spend time. Let's get a babysitter on Monday nights and we'll have date night again. And then, hey, let's do some of the things we used to do in the early days that were meaningful and suddenly that you feel that rekindling of love. How much more with our Father? How much more as we say, Lord, I'm drawing near to you. I'm doing the things we did at first. How much more will he come and renew that holy love? All right, there's much more to come.
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Go to thelineoffire.org, sign up for our emails. A little bit more from Revival or We Die. The chapter as I said that I think I've gotten more responses to than any other chapter in the book, Have You Left Your First Love. These are some prayers I journaled during this season of just praying for a fresh touch from God in my life and let me tell you this, one of the biggest things that helped reignite fresh fire in my own life, I'm talking as one who's been serious following the Lord for many many many years, we still need renewal just like we need physical renewal and we need vacation time or family time or downtime or just weekly Sabbath rest. We need spiritual renewal friends as well. It's just a reality of life in this world but as I've been able to separate myself more, I made life decisions to travel less and minister less even though I live to minister and bring the word to people and even though that ministry going out helps bring in funds so that we can broadcast to more and more people and support our missionaries all around the world, the fact is I knew I had to seek Him first and cut back on certain things to just get more time to separate with God and as I do the communion is wonderful.
I just find myself in His presence for hours telling Him how much I love Him and how beautiful and wonderful He is. He answers prayer friends and sometimes the biggest change comes after years and years of prayer. It comes after years of prayer where you feel like you're hitting your head against a wall but but the breakthroughs are so deep and profound that sometimes it takes years but when the answers come they are absolutely dramatic.
I'm talking about personal revival. Here's some of the other prayers that I journaled. Abba, cause my heart to burn with holy undying passionate love for you. Be glorified to the absolute maximum possible in my life, Lord. Your glory is what I seek.
Abba, don't let me lose what you're doing in my heart these days. Nothing matters more than intimacy with you. As I get super busy, help me to put first things first. Matthew 6 33 where Jesus says seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. These are some of the prayers I pray during prayer retreats separating myself to God. Father, share your heart with me. Let me burn and yearn with holy jealousy for your glory and for your lost creation. God, get hold of me from head to toe inside and out till I don't even recognize myself.
Holy like you through and through. My identity must not be found in being busy but in being your son. Not in being productive but in being devoted. Not in being known by man but being known by you. Oh, to be fully absorbed in God. These are prayers that I was praying from the depths of my heart. Everything, everything, everything comes down to being rightly connected to the head. All focus on King Jesus. All direction from Him.
All wisdom and burdens and plans and insights and marching orders from Him. And one last experience I'm going to share with you. It was on my way to Australia.
It was February 25th, 2020. Flights were starting to be canceled because of COVID so I had this strange route flying to Australia by way of Hong Kong. So it was Charlotte, North Carolina to JFK in New York City, Kennedy Airport. Then there at midnight just kind of empty found a terminal that was just completely empty just to walk and pray there. Then from there to Hong Kong then from Hong Kong to Australia then had to take another flight the next day to another city.
It's quite the journey. So it was, it was February 25th. It was around midnight.
JFK Airport and the terminal was pretty empty and what happened was I was just as I was walking I was just getting this burden from the Lord. And I saw a man just cleaning floors. Maybe he's in his 40s. And my heart just went out to him. I thought man this he must be working an extra job. It's midnight.
Maybe he's married with kids and just trying to put make ends meet and put two cents together. And and I suddenly I became burdened for the state of the world. And I began to hurt over broken humanity. And my heart started bursting. I wrote this out afterwards.
Oh my heart is bursting. Praying alone late at JFK waiting for my Hong Kong flight I get overwhelmed with pain for the world. Just seeing a middle-aged man cleaning the carpets makes me think of how many people have it hard. And I tell the Lord I don't like pain.
I just want everything to be nice. But I ask him once again to let me share some of his pain as long as he gives me the grace to carry it. Oh this is intense. I'm also bursting bursting with the agony of my calling. I cannot shake this burden.
I cannot quench this fire. I must see you work through me until nations are shaken and Israel is saved. Father. Oh the burden.
Oh the pain. Something must happen. Something must shift. I must make the impact God has called me to make.
Father. My heart was bursting. I got to Australia. It was part of a church and state conference there. And just talking on the culture wars and so on that's what the focus was. There was a woman there in ministry with a powerful ministry in Australia who heard that I was speaking and came into the green room where the leaders just sit before the service have some refreshments. She came in and asked me to pray over her for revival. For a spirit of revival.
First time we had met. And I went to pray. She got on her knees and I prayed.
Someone happened to record it on their cell phone. And as I prayed for the spirit fell on her and she began to weep and sob and weep and sob because the hunger that was in her own heart she began to weep and sob. I didn't know but she was not a weeper. I then left to speak and she stayed there on her knees weeping before the Lord for a period of time. She went back to her home church and she showed the cell phone video of me praying over her and the spirit falling on her as she was on her knees weeping and suddenly the spirit fell in her church and they had an outpouring. When I saw her some months later she told me about what happened. She was thrilled overwhelmed with stories of God visiting. And that hunger that was in me that burden that was in me hit her as well. And she's pointed back reading revival. Pointing back to that prayer friends sometimes God gets hold of us so deeply it feels like it's more than we can bear. But that's when the breakthroughs happen.
That's when he's the nearest. And if your heart's being stirred right now say oh God light a fresh fire in me. Oh God share your heart with me. Oh God I repent of sin and busyness and worldliness and hopelessness and cynicism. Light a fire in me. Ignite me again. Bring me back to my first love friend.
He'll do it. And then pursue him and seek him first and make sure you don't repeat the past habits that got you in that rut. That's been the great lesson for me. Don't repeat the bad habits of the past if you don't want to repeat the bad results of the past.
All right. Revival or we die this book will ignite you. It'll stir you with a vision of what what revival really looks like and feels like. It'll lay out the urgency of the moment. No no punches pulled.
Nothing held back. We we tell it as it is. But you know it you know that's the world you live in.
You don't need me to tell you. You'll read and say yes yes yes. And and then what we can do to see revival come.
Starting in our own lives. 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.
