Thanks for joining us on the line of fire.
Michael Brown, your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Friends, we're here to equip you. We're here to empower you. We're here to help you engage on the front lines as we all live in the line of fire. Can I speak with you candidly from the heart as we come to an end of our series, actually 20 part series, talking about the Bible and homosexual practice, same sex attraction, identity issues, how we respond to society, what the Bible says. And you can see there's so much we can talk about, so much more we can talk about.
But I just want to speak to you from the heart. The longer you walk with the Lord, you realize none of us are special. Meaning like superstars or celebrities or the only one that's amazing is the Lord that we serve. We're just servants. But we each have a role.
We each have something we're called to do and uniquely gifted to do. We all have people in our ministry that run our finances. I don't touch it. I don't make financial decisions. We'll make faith decisions together to get on new stations to reach more people. But I don't make financial decisions because it's not my strong point.
I don't administrate the ministry. We have an administrator that administrates and runs everything. The people that do what they do, do it really well. Our producers that put together our radio show. Everyone on our team doing what they do.
Our graphic artists. We're here to help you. I'm not here to talk down to others with different callings. I'm not here to say everyone should be doing what I'm doing. No, no.
There's diversity in the body. I'm here to equip and empower you. But here's my appeal to pastors and leaders. They're controversial issues because they're controversial. Ministry means controversy. Ministry means conflict. We can be loving, gracious. We can pour out our heart for people.
Lay down our lives for people. But we can't avoid conflict. We can't avoid controversy.
It's something that comes with the turf. And we will be misunderstood and we will be rejected as followers of Jesus. So my appeal is let us come alongside of you and help you.
Let us come alongside of you and equip you. And if you've struggled with fear of man, fear of losing finances, fear of being rejected, these are things we can all understand. And I want to speak to everyone that's part of a church that's not in leadership. You might think, what's the matter with my pastor? He won't talk about this controversial issue because he just wants to keep the money coming in.
Well, hang on. The vast majority of pastors are overworked and underpaid. You may see some person that's gotten rich off the gospel, but that is the real problem. That is the rare exception to a massive rule. Most pastors and leaders are overworked and underpaid.
That's why many burn out. That's why many get out of ministry. And when it comes to bringing in finances, in the vast, vast majority of cases, it's not because they want to enrich themselves.
It's not the reason for it. It's because the finances run the church. The finances pay the rent or pay the mortgage. The finances pay for the children's pastor and the youth pastor. The finances pay for the missionaries that they support. Or maybe the church is new. The finances are just the way for the pastor to be there full time on like half the salary they would have gotten in the world. So it's not just chronality. They want to keep the money coming in.
So it's not just practicality. Okay, if I preach on this controversial issue and some of the biggest givers walk out and leave because they think I overstepped my bounds and I'm now getting too cultural or political or whatever the case may be, we just brought in the children's pastor and spouse and they're serving the church and developing children's curriculum and all that. We have to let them go because we don't have the funds or the pastor is going to have to take on an outside job and not as much time to prepare sermons, whatever the case may be. I understand there are real issues, but we're not hirelings. We're shepherds. We've got to do what's good for the flock. We're not here for personal gain.
And if we go through hardship, we go through hardship. We've got to speak the truth in love. And I'm here to help equip. So let us give you the resources. Let us give voice.
There's so many others. There are fine ministries that are helping people, helping people deal with same sex attraction, helping you talk to your kids, helping you talk to your teens, helping you implement curriculum in the church. There are fine ministries out there. If you don't know who they are, write to us. We'll gladly refer you.
We have so many resources. One pastor told me, Dr. Brown, I have I have files where I take all your videos on different subjects and all your articles and I put them in categories. And when anyone in my church asked me a question, those things, I just refer them to your stuff.
Let us do the hard work for you. I'm called to this. I'm not called to be a pastor. I don't I don't have to carry what you carry. I'm not called to do what what others do. Let us be a resource to you. And I want to play a five minute video for you to challenge you and encourage you. And maybe it'll light a fire, spark something.
And those who are speaking, it'll encourage you to keep speaking and it'll help you understand your congregants want you to speak. All right. Check this out.
You can watch it in full animated form at the Line of Fire YouTube channel. So just go there and search for Why Don't More Pastors Speak Out or just type in Dr. Brown, Why Don't More Pastors Speak Out or on our website, TheLineOfFire.org, Why Don't More Pastors Speak Out. Let's check this out together. Didn't the prophets of old confront the evils of their day? Other pastors might say, my calling is not to be political. My calling is to make disciples. But how should disciples live? What happens when we experience injustice in the workplace?
What happens when our kids come home from school crying after the latest sex ed class? What happens when racism raises its ugly head in our community? How do we respond as disciples? Shouldn't church leaders help us answer these questions? Looking back on history, how do we feel about pastors or leaders who chose not to speak out during the days of slavery in America? Don't we question their integrity and their courage? Don't we wonder how they could have nothing to say in the light of such evil? What about those who had no problem with segregation yet preached from the scriptures every Sunday morning about God's love and God's goodness?
Something just doesn't line up. What about pastors and leaders who chose to remain silent during the Holocaust when six million Jews were killed in cold blood? How do we feel about their silence today? And don't we commend leaders like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who refused to compromise their convictions for the sake of safety and career? A quote widely attributed to Bonhoeffer states, Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act. What would Bonhoeffer say to us today when so many of our spiritual leaders choose to stand on the sidelines while our culture crumbles? Let's put aside the larger culture for a moment. What about our own families? In the world we live in today, our kids and grandkids have to deal with questions about abortion, about drug use, about suicide, about sexuality, about the meaning of gender. These issues are directly affecting them and their friends. How can we who are leaders not provide solid answers for them?
How can we not help equip their parents and teachers? Isn't this also part of our role as shepherds and leaders? In 2014, George Barna conducted a poll in which he asked American pastors if they believed the Bible addressed the key moral and social issues of our day. 90% of these pastors said the Bible did in fact speak to those issues. 90%. But when Barna asked them, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues, the number dropped to less than 10%. That's a staggering statistic. 9 in 10 agreed that the Bible spoke to all the major issues of our day, some of which are highly controversial, but only 1 in 10 was willing to actually address those issues from the pulpit, even with the Bible as their guide.
By the way, Barna got the same results when he conducted a similar poll a couple of years later. What reasons did the pastors give for their silence? According to Barna, there are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff and square footage. In other words, these leaders openly stated that they avoided the controversial issues of our day because, in Barna's words, controversy keeps people from being in the seats, controversy keeps people from giving money from attending programs. Isn't this like selling your soul for popularity or for money or for influence? Isn't this following more in the footsteps of Judas than of Jesus? Isn't this fearing man more than fearing God or loving the praise of man more than the praise of God?
Isn't this relying on the flesh more than the spirit? What makes the situation all the more remarkable is that a 2015 Barna poll indicated that spiritually active Christians who hold politically conservative views believe that churches should be more involved in the political process. In particular, they are eager for their pastors to teach them what the Bible says about today's social and political issues. So the congregants want their leaders to address these issues, yet the leaders are afraid to for fear of losing congregants.
How ironic. It's true that pastors are not called to be politicians and that their main focus is teaching and preaching the scriptures and ministering to the needs of their people. But their people live in a very real world and they need answers to the great problems and issues of the day.
And the Bible provides answers to those great issues. To fail to speak is to fail to equip. To fail to speak is to fail to protect.
To fail to speak is to fail to love. All right. I hope that stirred you. I hope that ministered to you. We've played that in public and gotten rousing responses.
I hope it resonated with you. And again, it's not to condemn. It's to encourage. It's to challenge.
It's to say, come on, let's do it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said the ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leads to its children. So what are our kids, our grandkids, our great grandkids going to say to us if their liberties are taken away? The things we take for granted, they can't even do because of our silence.
How are we going to explain that? Let's do the right thing today. All right. Important announcement.
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I can't believe time has flown by. If you found this beneficial, if you've been blessed by these broadcasts, if they've been helpful to you, shoot us a note. Would you do that? TheLineOfFire.org. Just click on contact, shoot us a note. We would love to hear from you. That would really bless us. Or you can respond to one of the emails that you get from us and just shoot a note back. We'd love to hear it. We'd love to share that encouragement with others.
Okay, so let's ask a few more practical questions. We've talked about if your kid comes out as gay, lesbian, bi, trans, how do we respond? What if you're invited to a same-sex wedding? Or the man is really a woman now identifies as a man getting married.
What do you do? Alistair Begg came under tremendous attack from fellow Christians by giving this answer to a grandmother who had a grandchild who now identified as the opposite of their biological sex and said that marrying someone of the opposite sex was really a same-sex wedding in God's sight. And he said this, listen, we're going to have to surprise people with our love.
And understand where he was coming from. We're looked at as bigoted and hateful. There are many who identify as LGBTQ and they reject Jesus because they think that our religion is a hateful religion.
That's why so many Gen Zers have dropped out of church, many even identify as atheists, that they perceive Christianity as bad because it's anti-gay, it's anti-bi, it's anti-queer, it's anti-trans, etc. So Alistair Begg was saying something that I really appreciate, that we've got to surprise people with our love. Of course I differ categorically with his conclusion.
He then said, look, if this grandmother can say my grandchild or my child, whatever the case is, fully understands what I believe, that this is sinful in God's sight, fully understands I'm not changing my position, fully understands my view of the gospel and still wants me to come, you should come bring a gift. Now, of course, he came under tremendous flak for that and lost a lot of radio stations as a result of it. And I strongly differed with his position.
I've differed with that position for many, many years. Why? Well, very fundamentally, you are going to a wedding to celebrate. You, oh, they're getting, I can't wait. They're getting married. Oh, OK, we'll fly in. It's our niece and he's getting married finally. Oh, OK, we'll be there.
We'll change our schedule. You're celebrating the union, right? And, you know, as the bride comes down the aisle to here comes the bride and then you may now kiss, you know, husband, you may kiss your wife and everyone claps. You're celebrating and you're there as a witness. So it's a public event. You're there as a witness and a celebrant. Well, how can you witness in a Christian way something that is sinful in God's sight, no matter how much the people love each other, something that is not a wedding, is not a marriage in God's sight, something that every day of its existence will not have the blessing of God? How? How can you do that? And you can't celebrate it.
You can only grieve it. Why, pray tell, would someone even want you there if that was the case? I mean, maybe they're trying to tweak you by asking you to go.
And it's a way of just pushing you and making you conform. But in other cases, they just want you there. Do they want you there? If you're grieving, do they want you there?
If you're secretly praying that God would bring them to repentance, do they want you there in that case? You say, how do you respond? My counsel for many years has been very simple, that you reach out to the couple, reach out to the individual. If you don't know the one that they're going to, quote, marry, reach out to them. If you can get to both of them, all the better.
If you live nearby, ask them if you can take them out for a meal and sit and say, listen, I love you dearly. I want to be involved in your lives. If you ever go through a difficult time, you need prayer, you need someone to reach out to and talk to.
I want to be here. But I can't go to the wedding because I can't affirm it. I don't agree. You may hate me. You may reject me. I get it. You may tell me to walk away right now.
I get it. I hate that's the fact because I care about you. I'm not rejecting you as a person, but I'm saying that this is ultimately a choice you're making. You may not have chosen to have transgender identity issues.
You may not have chosen to be attracted to the same sex, but you have chosen to go ahead with this. When Nancy and I got married, I'd become very good friends with the local rabbi, and Nancy got to know him as well. So we invited him, Rabbi Berman, we invited him to our wedding.
He politely wrote back and said, I can't come. It's not a Jewish wedding. We just got married in a church. Messianic congregations did not exist in our neck of the woods that never heard of such a thing. So it wasn't like a Messianic Jewish wedding. It was a Christian wedding in a church. And he said, no, I can't come. It didn't affect our relationship at all.
Why? Well, we understand he's a rabbi. And he looks at us as part of Christianity, even though we're still Jews.
So he can do it fine. It didn't affect things. But if it did, so be it.
If we rejected him, so be it. He had to be true to his convictions. You must be true to your convictions. If you want to help people, you've got to tell the truth. If you want to help people, you cannot. You cannot just be so soft and loving and gracious that you end up destroying the fabric of your very testimony, the fabric of truth. So it would be no difference to me if it's a wedding with one of the individuals identifying as trans and now marrying the opposite of their biological sex or same sex couple. Let me throw it out to you from a different angle.
I often say that we overcomplicate. We just need to look at categories, and this is in the category of sinful, wrong in God's sight. All right. So let's throw out a scenario for you. Your brother, zealous follower of Jesus, marries a great Christian gal. She becomes part of your family. So your sister, your brother, your sister-in-law, she becomes part of the family. You do vacations together. You do holidays together. The kids become like your kids.
I mean, it's great. Well, after 20 years of marriage, he's starting to grow cold spiritually. He's working extra jobs. He's getting more carnal.
He's not praying. He's not being nice to his wife and kids anymore. He finds some gal at work, pretty young coworker. He takes an interest in her and divorces his wife without any scriptural basis whatsoever.
And now he's going to marry this gal. And he invites you to the wedding. Do you go? Of course you don't go. It's an adulterous wedding in God's sight.
He abandoned his wife and kids. Of course you don't go. It's not, well, no, you don't go. And in that case, you sit him down and you say, listen, what you're doing is wrong. You're sin against your wife.
You're sin against your kids. Now, I know that's adultery. That's a different situation. But it's the same principle.
It's the same principle. What do you do if someone walks into your church building and they're gay couple holding hands, walking to church building? Do you kick them out? No. Any more than you kick out heterosexual couple who's living together out of wedlock.
But you don't say, oh, sure, you're living together out of wedlock. You want to become members of our church? Great. You're a same sex couple and you want to become members of our church?
Great. Now you preach the gospel to them and you seek to bring them to Jesus. You don't put in a special category.
It's the same thing. It's relationships contrary to the will and plan of God. What happens if a man comes walking in wearing a dress? What do you do? You welcome that person and you help lead that person to Jesus and help them find wholeness. And if you don't have little kids that are going to be confused by this, take them out for lunch.
Spend time with them. If he says, oh, I'm a Christian. I love Jesus.
Well, now it takes on a different tone. Now, OK, let's talk about what the Bible says. Let's talk about who you really are. And if that person is willing to get counseling and find help and change, well, then you help them change. You help them change and embrace who God made them to be. The same thing with the same sex couple. If they say, oh, we love Jesus.
We have sex every night. And God's with us. We love Jesus.
Well, no, now it's like anybody else. If you're going to come here and claim to be a follower of Jesus and live in open and repentant sin, whatever that sin is, you're not welcome. But if you're just coming as you are, come as you are, whoever you are, whatever your background, because we're all fallen outside of Jesus.
We all need mercy and we all came with all our baggage and Jesus saved us. All right. 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. Donate.
