Taking the Gospel to the Streets

Yes, by all means. It's time to take the Gospel to the streets.

For truth here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Turn around for good. Just think of it. God saves the world through his crucified Son. People of the world commit the greatest imaginable crime, giving the Son of God over to death, killing him. And God uses that to save humanity. He's a redeemer. And there is good that is coming out of this pandemic. This is Michael Brown. Welcome to the line of fire.

Number to call 866-34-truth, 866-348-7884. I have written about the end of what we call, or what I call, four-wall Christianity, meaning that the primary expression of the Christian faith is reserved to what happens in a building on a Sunday morning. Many would refer to it as spectator Christianity, that you show up and you basically are the audience and you are watching a show.

So there's worship, there's singing, there's speaking, and then you kind of pay your fee, your tithe, your offering, whatever it is. And it's great to come together like that. It's great to all join in and sing and worship together. It's great to hear teaching and preaching. But the primary calling is not to go to church, although we gather. It's important that we gather, right?

But the primary call is that we be the church, that we go out in the society, that we live it out, and that we are not spectators, but that we are part of an army. People have referred to it in the past as the holy huddle. So you've got a football team and they get in the huddle. All right, what play are we going to run? Okay, we're going to run this play here. I'm going to drop back here.

I'm going to throw this here. It's like, oh, man, it's going to be a great...whistle blows take too much time. Five-year penalty, go back. All right, let's come... Oh, man, we've got the great plan this time.

Whistle blows, delay of game, five yards back. You keep going backwards. You've got these great plans.

Oh, it's amazing. And you're going backwards. In many ways, that's a description of much of the Church of America, the plans, the vision, all this. In many ways, we're going backwards.

And in the state of the young people in much of the body, the overall health of much of the body in certain ways has gone backwards, not forwards. We become more like the world rather than bringing the transforming power of the gospel to the world. And a lot of it has to do with our go to church, meaning go to a church building and be a spectator in an event that that is our mentality, whereas the gospel is to go out and we are to go out into all the world.

And we live almost all of our lives outside of a church building, right? We live it in our homes, in our communities, at our places of work, at our places of school, the places of leisure. That's where we live our lives. That's where we're here to shine and be witnesses. Audiences don't start moral and cultural revolutions and movements.

It's activists that do. And in that sense, we are to be gospel activists. All right, so one of the things that's happening now with restrictions on church gatherings and things like that and inability to meet in buildings because of codes and threats of fines, some are just going on doing it saying go ahead and fine us.

And we'll talk about that in a moment. But others are saying, well, let's get on the streets. There's great worship services taking place on beaches in California. And here's a report, Sean Foyt, so worship leader in California, actually ran for political office unsuccessfully earlier this year, but he felt he had to do something and take a stand.

Look at this. Portland sees thousands worship amid coronavirus restrictions hours before riots and fire at police union. So what happens is that Sean Foyt has been going in different cities where there have been riots and protests and saying, let's go and worship God.

Let's go and exalt Jesus. People have been coming to faith. People are hearing the message.

One of our grads from our ministry school leads a massive worldwide ministry, Daniel Kolenda. They sent teams of evangelists into chop zone in Seattle to preach the gospel and to declare the good news. Why should the streets just be owned by protesters, let alone rioters or looters or vandals? Why shouldn't we hit the streets and bring the message where people are, where crowds of people are? After all, you have some governors saying, yeah, it's fine to protest, but you can't gather in church services. Well, then we'll gather with the protesters and worship in their midst and preach the gospel.

Yeah, why not do that? And there are quotes that refer to people being defiant. I'm going to show you a clip and touch about Pastor Rob McCoy in California. Now, he's been a politically active pastor, even run for political office and things like that, and unashamed of the gospel and a bold witness.

And one report said he's defiant. In fact, let's watch that clip as there are protests and counter-protests. And can people worship freely or not? You can protest, but can you worship?

Let's watch this clip. A man not wearing a mask and a black and red T-shirt begins to crowd counter-protesters. Then you see the counter-protester take his poster and smack the man away. A scuffle ensues and a woman in a black T-shirt realizes another man is trying to take her sign.

She struggles to get it back, eventually gets kicked, knocking her over. The church's security told me the man who engaged counter-protesters was not a church member and was told to stop. The reason for support on both sides of this issue, Ventura County sued Pastor Rob McCoy, a former city councilman and head of Godspeed Cavalry, for violating public health orders by continuing to hold church services indoors.

A judge ordered a temporary restraining order banning inside sermons, but the pastor is defiant. Now I shot him a note and I said, hey man standing tall, I said the news says you're defiant. He goes, I'm not defiant, I'm obedient to God. See, we don't preach defiance, we don't preach rebellion, we don't preach arrogance, we preach submission and obedience, but you obey the highest authority. See, if I play into a spirit of rebellion, look, Americans, come on, we're independent people. If you grew up in this country and you don't know a lot about the rest of the world and haven't traveled around the rest of the world, you have no idea the degree to which Americans are very independent-minded thinkers. For example, you take an Asian country like Singapore or South Korea and they crack down with COVID-19 and here are the regulations and here, basically everyone's going to do it, everyone's going to live by it.

I mean, there will be massive conformity and respect for the authorities, much, much, much, much more than we'd ever have in America. In America, we've got one state doing one thing, another state doing another thing and we're going to do what the president says, no we're not and who cares what the governor says and we're going to do what the president says, no we're not and who cares what the governor says. There's a lot of rebellion and independence. The independence can be healthy and positive, the rebellion can be negative, destructive, but it's just part of who we are as a nation.

I am not trying to lay into that, play into that, encourage that, cultivate that, come on, we're going to, who cares what the government says, who cares what the, no, no, that's not my attitude. Our attitude is one of honoring authorities. Same God that said honor your father and mother said honor the authorities. All right, even wicked authorities, if they are in power, you still honor the position, all right, but when they tell you to disobey God, you don't rebel against them, instead you say we must obey God rather than man.

That's the issue. We obey the highest authority. So when the Jewish leadership tells Peter, a Jewish man, and the apostles, Jewish men, all of them, you can no longer preach this message about Jesus and they are flogged and warned.

What happens? Acts 5 41, they left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they were counted worthy of suffering reproach for the name and they never ceased teaching and preaching from door to door in the temple, from door to door, they never stopped teaching and preaching that Jesus was the Messiah. Stop doing it, we warn you, they never stopped doing it.

Why? We must obey God. It's what Peter said, we must obey God rather than man.

So Rob McCoy understands this. You say, well, I don't understand, if you obey the authorities, why are you holding services? Why are you holding outdoor services? It is the inequality of what is happening. It is the unjust nature of what is happening.

It is the one standard for the protesters and the rioters and another standard for churches. Come on, we've talked about this before, but it's worth bringing up again in Las Vegas. You can go to a casino. Hundreds of people can be in a casino, thousands. I don't know how big the casinos are, but maybe thousands of people are in them.

There's certain things in place, you know, whatever, safety parameters, but you can pack the place out to an extent, but then you can have a sanctuary, a church sanctuary that seats 3,000 people, but you can't have more than 50 people. What kind of madness is that? Or Governor Gavin Newsom in California saying, go ahead, go ahead and protest. Protests are important. If you need to protest, go ahead and protest.

I'm paraphrasing. But you can't gather for a home Bible study or if you gather for church service, you can't sing. Now here's what's ironic. There are pastors now who are saying we are going to gather anyway. We are going to disobey the government and gather anyway. But in the past, they preached against getting involved in the culture wars.

They said it's not our domain. It gets in the way of our witness of Jesus. It gets us caught up in the political realm. And I understand, to an extent, I agree, and I'm going to give you a little scale.

We use the acronym SMCP, smack up. I'm going to give you a little scale for the order of priorities for preachers and pastors and leaders, and hopefully this will really simplify things for you. But suffice it to say that there are some leaders now that for years have been saying Christians should not get involved in the culture wars and don't get involved in controversies over abortion and homosexuality and certainly don't get involved in political issues. And now that things have gone as far as they have, they are taking stands that get them right in the thick of the culture wars.

How interesting that is. The good news is people are waking up and people are taking the gospel to the streets and saying let's get out and be unashamed of our message because we alone have what America ultimately needs. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I presume you were in defiance of some lockdown order with this event. Well, our tagline for last night was Riots to Revival, which we're also carrying with us into Seattle tonight. And we just believe that the church has the ability to change the narrative. You know, all of America has just seen these buildings burning and they've seen this destruction and this violence. And the news, the mainstream media seems to be infatuated with this. But I'm telling you, there's another story of what God is doing in these cities and the church is rising up.

Come on, Sean. That's it, man. That's what I'm talking about.

That's what many are talking about. Yes, by all means, gather, worship together, meet in homes, meet in large buildings, meet wherever you can. By all means, be edified, strengthen, meet together.

It's great, healthy, wonderful. But then go out and do it. Go out and do the work. Get in that huddle.

Call the play and then run the play. And look, we are being forced out of buildings. We are being forced out of our normal habits. We're being forced to take stands. So as much as it's been difficult, some of you have suffered physically, some of you have lost loved ones, some of you have suffered financially, some just it's been very difficult emotionally for you, for your kids, the shutdowns, no school, the different things.

It's been very, very challenging for many. But let's redeem this moment. Let's see what God can do through this. America, look, as every day goes on, the protests and the riots have less and less to do with the issue of black lives.

Come on, let's face it. And the protests and riots hijacked by others and the legitimate concerns that someone might raise are completely lost in the madness of what's going on. Look, I tweeted out after Bibles were burned in Portland a couple of Saturdays ago. I said, right, first they burn the federal buildings, then they burn the churches, next they burn the Bibles.

Rather than asking what's next, we should ask who is next. And then one week later in Portland, what happens, in case you didn't read about it, the rioters tried to set the police precinct on fire, used an accelerant, tried to set it on fire. With police inside, they tried to burn the police. And the mayor who initially stood with the protesters, this wonderful noise, he said, that's murder.

That's attempted murder. That's the spirit of the age. That's where things are going. Now, there is a Pew Research poll, and according to this poll, most Americans, the majority of Americans do not want special treatment for churches. In other words, they want church gatherings to be held to the same standard as businesses and things like that. I don't have an issue with that. Let it be equal. Let it be consistent.

Let it be fair. If you can have hundreds and hundreds of people walking around a Walmart, or how many scores of people walking around a grocery store, or thousands of people in airports, and 150 people sitting next to each other on planes, if you can have all that, then you can have church gatherings. Now, you have to have wisdom. You have to understand what you're doing. One pastor was holding outdoor meetings for months.

He's been doing it over two months now. And if the weather's bad, they go indoor. But you sign a waiver that if you get sick, you're not holding them responsible, just for legal purposes. I mean, you've got to be wise with things these days.

And you may have elderly or people with compromised immune systems, and you don't think it's wise for them to get... You put out little parameters, be as wise as you want to be. The big thing to me is people are not just sitting around and waiting until everything gets back to normal. We've got to do something. We've got to do something. Our country's being attacked and pulled every different way. We've got to do something. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let us go to Keith in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. How are you? Doing well, thank you.

Good, good. Okay, I'm a little nervous, but I was just thinking about how I saw an article online. This teacher was upset. He basically was upset that he was not going to be able to brainwash the kids because the online learning instead of being in person, right?

In fact, Keith, hang on right there. I've got that article in front of me. So Matt Walsh on Daily Wire, teachers openly fret that parents might hear them brainwashing children call parents dangerous. So they say, whoa, whoa, whoa. If we have to do everything online, the parents might hear what we're actually telling their own children as we're trying to brainwash them and the parents are dangerous. And Keith, in point of fact, there are clips from, oh, I'm thinking 20 years ago of educators in Massachusetts at a liberal progressive, so-called progressive school, and they're sitting around talking to each other about gay activist issues. And are we saying, they're asking the questions. They're asking administrators that we are trying to convince the children. And well, what if the children have a religious background?

Are we telling them the parents are wrong? Yes. So this has been going on. So Keith, go ahead. Your comments.

Yeah, absolutely. And I look at the people in the streets and they don't, they ignore science, like X, Y, X, X chromosomes, all of that, right? They ignore science.

They won't listen to reason. They, these people seem like radical religious fundamentalists to me. That's what it comes across to me as.

I live in New Jersey. I've worked in New York, been around them for, you know, a decade now, more than decades, right? And I just, I find it strange that it's very, it's like an ultra-religious mindset. Yeah, and it's an extreme fundamentalism that is often emotion-based and then has its precepts that it holds too dogmatically. And that no reason can budge them from those things.

Facts don't matter. And then you have these dogmas. Oh yeah, there's absolutely no question about it. And then if you think of it, in my book Jezebel's War with America, I look at parallels with abortion and how that becomes somewhat of a religious right. And you perform these rights and R-I-T-E-S and it is a right, R-I-G-H-T. And yeah, it becomes a cult-like thing with devotion and then ends up with the slaughter of the unborn.

So there's no question about it. The thing that's ironic is that we get accused of being irrational and religiously deluded, whereas we're saying, well, let's look at facts. Let's look at science. Let's look at information. Yeah, and the dogmas drive everything.

Everything is now seen through that lens. So, Keith, what happens when you try to interact with someone and give them facts and information? Well, usually they just don't listen, but they won't hear it. What I want to get to, though, is I don't understand why we aren't petitioning the government to have progressivism and secular humanism legally defined as religion. They should be legally defined as religion and with the separation of church and state, teachers should not be able to teach in public schools, secular humanism or progressivism. You know what I'm saying?

I love the concept. I doubt the possibility of doing it just because of definitions of religion. You know, for example, Darwinism is as much of an ism as Hinduism as an ism or Judaism is an ism.

I agree, yeah. That you have the ideology, the sacred ideology that is bowed down to and that is sacrosanct and that you're within the fold of orthodoxy if you hold to certain things. There are altars at which Darwin is worshipped, so to say, in figure of speech. But, yeah, Keith, conceptually I agree with you that secular humanism is as much a religion or progressivism is as much a religion as the religions that progressivism and secular humanism oppose.

But to have it defined in that way would be very, very difficult in terms of educationally that you can't bring these ideas in. I mean, just think, you can teach the theory of evolution, but in many places you can't teach the theory of intelligent design, even though you have far more scientific data to back that and it answers far more questions. That is because of the cult Darwinism. I've been sent this a few times, this article talking about Satanists and they mention abortion as a religious right of Satanism.

Yeah, it's quite extraordinary. Yeah, you're right on with your comments, Keith. 86634, truth. Friends, how do we keep our faith first, keep our spiritual perspective first, keep our Bible focus first and come from there to impact our society, to come from that point of view and then impact the society, as opposed to just getting caught up in the spirit of the age and with the world around us and then try to bring it a little Bible principle. In other words, we can't just add in a scriptural concept. We have to be Bible-based people. I'm talking as a Bible-based person. I'm speaking to others who agree. If you're more secular or not that religious, just hear me out.

All right, so you're watching a certain newscast and listening to a certain show and you understand what perspective they're coming from. I'm coming from the perspective of the Bible being true, Jesus being Lord, myself as a Jewish follower of Jesus. And from there, we have a calling, whatever society we live in, whatever state, city, to be a blessing, to do good works, to be good examples, to bring a message of truth, to call for repentance, to set standards.

That's all part of what we are called to do. Yeah, and just looking at this headline, The Satanic Temple Raffles Free Abortion Admits Aborting Unborn Babies is a Satanic Ritual. You say, well, that's the Satanic Temple.

Yeah, well, they're kind of giving you the hardcore version of the reality. For many, obviously, abortion is not a religious thing. Abortion is simply a choice a woman makes in a difficult situation. But ultimately, Satanism carries these things out.

Yep, CBN reported. The Satanic Temple Raffles Free Abortion Admits that aborting unborn babies is a satanic ritual. Okay, when we come back, we come back, I want to give you my smack up guidelines for preachers, spiritual, moral, cultural, political. Change the world. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. All right, so how do pastors and leaders keep their focus? How do you avoid, on the one hand, being so spiritual that you're not intersecting with earthly issues, and the other hand, getting so caught up with things around us, politics, culture wars, that you take your heart, your mind off of the heart of the Gospel? How do we do it? How do we live it out?

Well, I think these guidelines will help. 866-34-TRUTH, Michael Brown, welcome to the Line of Fire. By the way, all of our friends in the DFW area, Dallas-Fort Worth, this coming Sunday, August 16th, scheduled to be your way to services Sunday morning at Mercy Culture for Pestilent and Shot, and then Sunday night for Todd White's gathering. So if you're anywhere in the area, join me, and you'll hear my heart poured out.

Not behind the radio mic, but behind the pulpit. All right, smack up. Smack up. S-M-C-P. Put the vowels in to make it into a word.

Smack up. To me, it's a simple way of helping pastors, leaders keep their priorities right. So it stands for spiritual, moral, cultural, political. I'm talking about our preaching, our teaching, our emphasis, all right?

And I believe if you'll follow these principles, things will fall into place for you. So the Gospel, our primary message, it starts with a spiritual message. We've sinned against God. God sent his Son to die for our sins. We can be redeemed and live a new life. All right, it is the cross, it is the resurrection. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, I determined to know nothing among you except Messiah crucified.

But as he taught and wrote, he covered many, many other subjects, but his core foundational message was the cross, was repentance, was resurrection, the Son of God, was the Lord's return, our right relationship with God, prayer, devotion, worship, the Word. That's where it all starts. Everything flows out of that. It starts there.

All right. But the spiritual intersects with the moral. You tell me you've been wonderfully born again. Maybe you were a bad husband father. You're an alcoholic.

You're a gambler. You'd sometimes strike your wife. You terrorized your children. Now you tell me you've been radically born again. You now know the Lord. Your sins are forgiven.

You're in right relationship with God. Well, that means a changed life. That means that your family would expect to see change. That means that you're not going to be striking your wife and you're not going to be an alcoholic. You're not going to be a gambler.

You're not going to be terrorizing your children. Oh, some of the changes may take longer than others to work through, but if any man be in the Messiah, 2 Corinthians 5.17, he is what? A new creation. Change. Change comes.

Radical, dramatic change. I used to shoot heroin. I used to drop LSD. I used to be a rebel. I used to have a horrific temper. I used to have a profane tongue. I used to have a wicked attitude. I used to be dominated by lust.

You just go down the list. I was a wicked, sinning, rebellious teen that got born again, and my life was changed by the power of God, and I continue to grow. I'll be growing by God's grace until I see him face to face. We're all in process.

None of us have fully arrived. But you better believe the Gospel touches on moral issues. Virtually every book in the New Testament is calling for a moral response. So, we start with a spiritual message, but that spiritual message produces moral change.

If it's not producing moral change, you call it hypocrisy. As James Edmund North said, the only proof of the new birth is the new life. Or in the words of Jacob, James, second chapter of his book, paraphrase, oh yeah, great, you got so much faith? Show me. Show me. Show me your works.

Show me your changed life. Paul preached in Acts 2620 that people should repent, turn to God, and prove their repentance by their deeds. So, there's the spiritual and there's the moral.

But hang on. Once you're going to preach moral issues, the moral overlaps with the cultural, does it not? Is not abortion a moral issue? Is not sex trafficking a moral issue?

Slavery a moral issue? So, you will now get engaged in the culture wars on some level, because there's an intersection between the spiritual and the moral and the cultural. The meaning of marriage, for example. That is something of spiritual importance, of moral importance, and of cultural importance.

So, we now are involved on some level, not our primary level. We don't start with the C, culture. We start with the S, spiritual, then the moral, then the cultural. You can read this in my latest article where I lay these principles out.

Spiritual, moral, cultural, political. You say, okay, but where does the political come in? So, let me give you an example.

Let me give you an example. You are in a school district. Your kids are going to the public school. Your six-year-old girl comes home. She's really troubled. Mommy, why is Johnny using the girls' room? Johnny's a boy.

Now they say Johnny's Jane. Well, you think that's unfair for your kid to be exposed to that and for Johnny's internal struggles to now be imposed on the student body. Or, you had a 15-year-old in school, and she comes home traumatized after sex ed class. Mom, it's like public school. It's like pornography. Well, you don't believe what they talked about, what they encouraged us to do.

It's like pornography. So, as good parents, you go and meet with the school superintendent. Oh, that's policy in our county. Yeah, that's school board policy. We don't even have a say.

I think it's great. We like these programs, but it's not even up to us. It's school board policy. So, now you go to a school board meeting and find out that the entire school board is progressives, liberals, not a single committed believer among them, and they're dictating the policies in your kids' schools.

So, you talk to other folks in church network communities and say, why don't some of us run for school board? Well, you're now political. This is now political. The moment you go to the school board meeting, that's political. Listen, friends, there is not this magical line that exists between moral and cultural. Oh, political.

No, no, no. Getting involved in a political spirit or primarily becoming political is a big mistake, or making your church primarily about politics is a big mistake. You haven't yet read my book, Evangelicals at the Crossroads Will Be Past the Trump Test.

I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy and read it. You'll find that one of the most important things you can read right now during this election season and even after. But as believers, we put the cross before the flag. As believers, we want to shout to the world, Jesus is savior, more loudly than we shout who we're voting for.

I mean, it's interesting. Some of us are so unashamed to proclaim who we're voting for, but we're ashamed to proclaim Jesus. What? We've got our priorities off. But once you admit that, yeah, we need to try to get some Christians on the school board, you've now crossed the line.

Intersection, right, of what? Culture and politics. Morality and politics. Hey, I want you to hear this.

It's our video or consider this animated video. So if you watch, you'll see. If you're hearing, you'll hear the audio where we address the question, why don't more pastors speak out?

Let's listen. Have you ever wondered why more pastors don't speak out about controversial moral and cultural issues? Why it's rare to hear a sermon about abortion or homosexuality? I'm sure many pastors would say, that's not my calling. My calling is to preach and teach the scriptures, not to be a cultural commentator. But doesn't the Bible itself comment on culture? Doesn't God's word intersect with society?

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? What do we respond as disciples? Shouldn't church leaders help us answer these questions? Looking back on history, how do we feel about pastors and 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 preach 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? Well 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. Nine in ten agreed that the Bible spoke to all the major issues of our day some of which are highly controversial but only one in ten 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?

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? All right you got about 90 percent of that teaching you can get it all on our website sdrbrown.org forward slash consider this. It's the line of fire with your host activist author international speaker and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire broadcast 866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. Look we have to embrace the mentality of both and versus either or when it comes to the gospel and culture when it comes to the spiritual and the natural. In other words we often have an either or mentality we'll be really spiritual we'll pray we'll read the bible God America's really messed up and there's no earthly hope so we pray and pray there's nothing more important we can do than pray. I believe it was John Bunyan who said to the effect that there's nothing you could do until you pray prayer is the number one thing you could do it's a bad paraphrase of the way he put it but prayer is the most important single thing we could do in terms of a spiritual activity to bring about change crying out to almighty God to act crying out to almighty God to stretch out his hand crying out to almighty God to have mercy crying out to almighty God to intervene praying Lord hallowed be your name Lord your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven so amen to all that it starts there and and in many ways prayer is is the most challenging activity because it is it is the most spiritual and there's spiritual opposition to it if you don't believe me just try to double your prayer time daily let's say you pray on average 20 minutes a day try to double it you'd be amazed the opposition that comes away now conversely try to double the amount of time or add to the amount of time that you watch netflix or that you surf the web or that you just text people and talk you know the natural stuff the earthly stuff it's watch more sports that's easy to do spiritual effort much greater much more intense that being said that being said we don't stop there you don't pray and stop there you pray and act you pray and do you you pray and serve you pray and love you pray and help you pray and reach out it's both that some put so much focus on the earthly things so much focus on activity here and activity there and they forget the prayer part the devotional part and and that's that's basically like the branch trying to run around and produce all this fruit while it is detached from from the vine or from the tree jesus says in john 15 without me you can do nothing that the branch has to remain united with the vine some of us are so busy running here running here and doing this and doing that that that we're running on fumes you know what it's like it's like you are in such a hurry to get to a place that you don't have time to fill your tank with gas except you don't have enough gas to get you there so you're going to end up stalled on the side of the road we start with god we start with devotion to the lord we start with prayer with worship with teaching of the word we start there and then next is how we live our lives in the world around us here i'll tell you a little story yeah it's a perfect illustration of the relationship that i have with my wonderful bride nancy we've been married since 1976 okay when we lived in maryland so between 87 and 96 i was in my study which was in the front of the house came in the house and immediately to the right there was my study i was in my study praying now the door of my study was open nancy was doing some work in the backyard the door of my study was open but i was i was praying nancy opened the door in the back of the house i think the back of the kitchen opened the door she needed my help with something she was doing in the yard so she she called me and i said i'm praying thinking you know unless it was urgent oh okay we'll do something later whatever but she didn't hear me so she called me again well that bothered me a little bit because i'm i'm praying to god this is this is very this is sacred this is spiritual this is very important i'm i'm praying so the second time when she called my name i yelled out i am praying to which she yelled back a lot of good it's doing you to which she yelled back a lot of good it's doing you that's uh that's my bride to this day yes so okay i'm impressed you pray so much wonderful but how are you living how how are you conducting yourself oh it's great you're so amazing you you you pray so much but you show up for working hour late and you're a sloth on your job i'm not impressed oh wow you're never without a bible reading that bible quote on the bible but you're nasty to your co-workers i'm not impressed but it is not simply a matter of being nice being good witnesses it is not simply a matter of of getting involved in the culture wars and and standing for what's right in the political scene everything must flow from the gospel if we are to bring about change now charles finney was a very strong abolitionist charles finney fought against slavery if you had anything to do with the slave trade and you were a member of his church in new york city you could not partake of communion when he was the president of overland college overland was was part of the root of so-called underground railroad where slaves were were smuggled out of the south so finney was was an abolitionist very very strongly but he was convinced that revival had to be first revival first and abolition second conversion of sinners first and abolition second and he warned that if we put abolition first now again he was a a strong abolitionist he was an activist he was not just sitting on the sidelines he was a frontline activist and holding people account for the sin of slavery all right and he made clear in no uncertain terms that it was a sin at the same time he knew that for america to be changed he predicted this he said if it's not through the gospel first if it's not through revival and conversion first then we're going to have a tremendously bloody war of course we have the civil war maybe it was inevitable in terms of where things were going and what was happening and we know there was a revival movement that swept america from 1857 to 1858 i believe that that even drew more people into righteous causes and helped hasten the changes that came but look do you think right now in america let's say we get four more years of trump let's say he appoints two more justices to the supreme court let's say finally the justices get some of these big decisions right with abortion and things like that and row v wade is overturned and goes back to the states do you think that everyone will just say oh well okay you know we used to have abortion but we don't anymore okay no i mean you're you're talking about the type of stuff that you have civil war over that you have massive disputes the biggest biggest changes that are going to come are going to come flowing out of the gospel the spiritual first flowing out of the gospel but it doesn't stop there it flows out into every area of our lives and here's what's interesting the world talking about society as a whole not the believers the world even skeptics mockers expect christians to be different or they know that we are supposed to be on some level now the one hand we're like everybody else we're human beings in in need of god but on the other hand if he has really helped us and changed us there should be evidence of change in our lives and something to point to as paul said follow me as i follow jesus first withians 11 1 that that that should that should be a principle in our lives as well that should be a principle for us to to say follow me as i follow the messiah we should be able to say watch my life and see the reality of what jesus has done in me that should otherwise what what testimony do we have oh we believe in jesus but and we get eternal life we just say so even though there's no evidence of change and there's no evidence of anything in the new testament actually being real because the new testament talks about real change in our lives should be there shouldn't it and therefore the question is how do disciples live the great commission is for disciples to go and make disciples so now that someone's come to faith how does that person live they're going to live differently they will now swim against the tide of the society they will now go against the grain of the spirit of the world and they will stand out so here i want to throw this out to you i want to throw this out to you i want you to consider this and think about this are you more free to share your political views your social views than you are your spiritual views that's a problem that's a problem paul said i am not ashamed of the gospel jesus said those that were ashamed of him he'd be ashamed of them and you really need to ask yourself if you're willing to put a bumper sticker on your car proclaiming your political views if you're willing to put a sign in your front yard if if you're willing to wear to wear the hat that proclaims the political message or wear the t-shirt are you as bold as unashamed of the gospel i'm not saying you need to put a gospel sign in your front yard or a gospel bumper sticker but i'm asking are you more ashamed of your spiritual views than your political views i know we often hear about trump voters being shamed and this and that wherever you're voting that's not the issue here the issue is the condition of our heart you want to see america changed voting's important but our gospel witness is infinitely more important