God Can Open a Door for You!

The following is a pre-recorded program. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for listening. So rather than talking about what's happening in the world around us, rather than talking about the latest crisis, the latest breaking news, the latest issues, and they may be very important issues, and that's why we're on live radio to talk about them on a regular basis.

We're not talking about any of those today. So whatever's happening in the world around us, we're focusing on these truths. So I want to start in Revelation, the third chapter. Revelation chapter 3, Jesus is bringing a message to the church in Philadelphia, to the believers in the city of Philadelphia. Now, mind you, as we look at this text, that there were seven cities that Jesus addressed. The churches, the believers, in each of seven different cities, starting with Ephesus, and then Smyrna, and then Pergamum, then Thyatira, then Sardis, then Philadelphia, then Laodicea. Five out of the seven, Jesus rebukes strongly. Two out of the seven, he does not rebuke.

One is Smyrna, the other is Philadelphia. Now look at what he says. To the angel of the church in Philadelphia. Right, these are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. This goes back to Isaiah 22 imagery there. When he opens, no one can shut. When he shuts, no one can open. Again, going back to imagery in Isaiah 22.

Hear that again. When he opens with this Jesus, who holds the key of David. When he opens, no one can shut.

When he shuts, no one can open. He says, I know your deeds. Now, Yeshua says that repeatedly to the churches in Asia Minor.

To some that's good news, to others that's bad news. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.

That's who I am, that's what I do, he's saying. I'm setting before you an open door no one can shut. Your message will get out. Your testimony will get out. Your witness will get out.

Your work will get out. Because I'm setting the open door before you and no one can shut it. I know that you have little strength. He doesn't say you're the biggest, the best, the most amazing, the most well financed, the largest numbers, the largest networks. No, I know you have little strength. Yet, you have kept my word and have not denied my name. God is looking at us and judging us based on who we are and what we can do, not based on who someone else is and what someone else can do.

I'm just going to step away from the text for a moment and give you this illustration. Back in the late 80s, late 80s, a friend of mine asked me, hey, do you want to work out at the gym regularly? I thought he meant play handball or something just, you know, for cardio. And he said, no, no, let's work out, lift weights and stuff. I didn't really done that much.

I said, sure, glad to go do it with you. I started pushing, trying to get stronger and so on. And the gym owner, it was him and his girlfriend. And they were, you know, they looked like they were in the gym every day for hours. And the gym owner was, I mean, he was big and strong. And, you know, he'd pick up just the heaviest weights, just carry them like nothing. And one day I was working out, he said, hey, he just came walking by.

He goes, try this. And he had me put the bench at a completely different angle. And suddenly the weights I was using, let's just say I was using 100 pounds to give an arbitrary number. Suddenly I couldn't use 100 pounds. And I said, oh, this is embarrassing. I had to go down to like 70, whatever the thing was that I was doing.

And this is arbitrary. It could have been 200 to 120. It could have been 100 to 50. I don't remember. All I remember is I had to drop the weight dramatically.

And I said, well, it's kind of embarrassing. He goes, no, no, it's just resistance. In other words, you are competing against yourself that whatever is getting you that maximum resistance.

When I work out with my friend who's a professional wrestler in his incredible physique and incredibly strong, he's using heavier weights than I'm using. But the goal is that we both push to our limit. God is not looking for talent. He's looking for faithfulness. And if you're faithful in the little, he'll entrust you with much.

These are principles from Luke 16. So he doesn't say you're the biggest, the strongest, the best, the most powerful. No, he says you have little strength, but you haven't denied my name. You've been faithful in what I've given you to do.

And I've seen that. And I'm going to set an open door before you. Now, I know that's just Bible. I'm telling you what's written in Revelation three. But for some of you, that's a word from God directly to you. Those words of scripture leap off the page and touch you, because that's the very situation you've been in.

Going through difficult times, going through hard times, how the pressure come against you. And yet you have remained faithful. You haven't compromised your testimony. You've remained loyal. And I believe that the same words of encouragement can come. God's saying, I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to reward you for that because I've seen your faithfulness when nobody else is watching. You know, it's one thing for me to be on radio and TV and you can see my face and you can hear me and potentially we could speak to hundreds of millions of people. I mean, we don't. Right.

But potentially we could because of Internet and the platforms that are available. Right. But does that tell you how I'm living privately? Does my smile now tell you about how I treat my wife or relate to to our kids or grandkids? Does it talk about holiness of heart?

No. A preacher can get up on Sunday morning and preach an amazing message and have an incredible PowerPoint presentation. And the worship team can sing incredible songs. It doesn't mean that our lives are pleasing to God in private.

All right. And I believe if you watch my life that you'll see I'm serious and live out my faith. But the point is, God's look at your heart, not not some performance, not how much you have or how big you are, how famous you are. He's looking at the little things, things that others don't pay attention to.

He is. And if he sees you've been faithful, you haven't caved in, you haven't denied him. He'll give you greater opportunity to share your faith and to live out the vision he's put within you. OK, so back to the text. So then Jesus says, I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews, Jews, though they are not, but are liars.

I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. He's either speaking of people who in fact were not Jews. They falsely claim to be Jews, like black Hebrew Israelites claim to be true Israelites and things like that.

The vast majority of them, that's not the case. They don't descend from Israel in any way. But there have been through the ages those who claim to be Jews and were not, and were just a synagogue of Satan. So just like Revelation 2, you tested those with Ephesus who claim to be apostles and were not. So these could be people who claim to be Jews and were not, as the text says. But they're liars and they've been opposing the gospel.

I'm going to make them come fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I've loved you. Or it could be talking about people who really were Jews, but because they were opposing the message of Jesus the Messiah. I mean, why oppose Gentiles preaching to Gentiles?

Who cares about that? Because they were in such hypocrisy and sin, God says to them, you claim to be Jews, but you're really not, not in spirit. You may be physically, but you're not in spirit. You're a synagogue of Satan.

It could be either of those two. For sure, Jesus is not saying all Jews on the planet are not really Jews. They're the synagogue of Satan. That's how the antisemites twist this verse. Then he says this, since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. Now, that had to have some relevance for the believers there. It had to have some meaning for the believers back at that time, not just some end-time prophecy for a final generation.

And there were various things in the ancient world that were tests, famines, difficulties, serious times. It doesn't say I'm going to take you out from, but I'm going to keep you from the exact same Greek construction as found in John the 17th chapter, where Jesus is praying for his disciples, for the apostles, and says, God, I don't ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from evil. In other words, right here in this world, God can protect us and preserve us.

Okay, so let's think about this, friends, in our own lives, and I want to encourage you with my own testimony. The fact that I'm speaking to you today, first on radio and then on internet and then by podcast, what I mean is this begins as a radio broadcast. This begins as a radio broadcast going out by satellite to radio stations around America.

That's where this begins, and that's where the line of fire began. And then from there, we went online in various ways. And then, of course, podcasts became a very big thing. The majority of people who watch or, I should say, listen to the broadcast, listen by podcast as we've traveled and met with people. Sometimes our Israel tour will survey people that most all of them are regular listeners will find that some listen live on radio, which is wonderful.

That's what we pay for, and that's where we start. Others watch on Facebook or YouTube live or after the show, but the great majority of you will listen by podcast. The fact that I am speaking to you, the fact that I have been on daily live talk radio now for over 13 years in the midst of what can be an intensely busy schedule. I mean, 2019, I was on the road total between travel days and speaking days, about 200 days in 2019, and then doing live daily radio in the midst of this, sometimes on location in other places. This is a testimony to God opening doors. This is a testimony to God putting something in my heart and then saying, watch what I will do. We come back, I'm going to tell you the story of how I got on radio. Just as I prayed and thought about the broadcast for today, I wanted to share some of my own story. I wanted to encourage you.

I've been in the Lord now just short of 50 years, and I have watched him open incredible doors, mind-boggling doors, and many, many times, my friends, please hear me, many times I've been told this will not happen. You will never do this, you will never be in this platform, you will never speak here, you will never be in these circles, unless you play our game, unless you play by our rules. And I've just said respectfully, sorry, God's called me to minister the gospel, not to play by those rules, not to play your game. You know, the good old boy, send your mind, scratch your back if you scratch mine. And in every situation, God opened the doors, the people said, couldn't heal.

But it's done for me, my friend, in your own life, your own calling. I want to share some of my own story. I am looking at my notes here, and it was March 1st of 2008 that I did my very first broadcast on the Truth Radio Network. It was a Saturday show, it was once a week, that's where we started. And then June 30th, 2008 is when we went to five days a week, it was actually five nights a week, that's when we started. And we have been on live daily talk radio now for 13 years without a break.

By without a break, I don't mean that we didn't pre-record a show or take a holiday, I mean that we have been steadily on the air five days a week, either one or two hours a day ever since. So how did this happen? I'm sharing this story to encourage you. I'm sharing this story so that things that are in your heart, things you believe God's shown you, things that you're not looking for, it's not human ambition, but just as you pray, He drops these things in you. Or you have this sense of destiny and calling, and it's like, but how can it happen? I don't know anyone for that door to open, or this has never happened.

God has reminded me over the years, He knows how to open doors. I'm going to get into this more over the course of the broadcast. But first, all right, I'm looking at journal entries, and they go back into the 90s.

I remember while driving from New York City to Maryland, and as I was in my car, this is in the 1990s, the early 1990s, certainly before 1995 at the very latest, but I think it was the earlier 1990s. I'm driving in my car. I'm switching around on the radio for something to listen to as I'm driving. And I have this sense you're supposed to be doing that. You're supposed to be on the air. You're supposed to be on radio.

I thought, well, that's odd. At that point, I'm traveling around the world. I'm spending up to a month now. You know, I start going to India.

It could be a month in India or going to Europe for two or three weeks. And every day is different than maybe one week I'm teaching in the seminary, teaching all day. And then the next week I'm just home writing. How in the world?

How is this going to happen? But I just had this sense. It wasn't an ambition.

It wasn't like, I'd like to do that. No, it was just this sense of what's supposed to happen. And then I'm looking at words from 1997 about radio shows that were contrary to revival and hostile to revival would be replaced by pro-revival shows. And then I get this sense August of 97, a sense from the Lord that when the revival's over, so as part of the Browns revival up through the year 2000, that when this is over, that I'm going to be on talk radio. And I'm looking at other words here in 1999, growing and increasing.

And I've got one after another. Year 2000, year 2001, 2002, 2003, and on and on. People bringing it up to me.

I'm going to look from 2003. You know, when are you going to get on the radio? When are you going to be on the radio here in New York City? And I'm looking at repeated words and prayer questions. And Lord, when are you going to do this?

This for years building, probably about a 10-year period. And it really starts to get intense in the late 90s, the sense I'm supposed to be on daily talk radio. I'd be listening to some conservative radio host and they're on like three hours a day. And I'm thinking, yeah, how am I going to do that? How am I going to do what?

Why am I thinking about being on radio multiple hours a day? But it was just this sense of calling and destiny. So here's what happens. Now we go back to, let me get my dates here. Yeah, October 17th, 2007. I was doing ministry in Nashville, Tennessee, and I was going to be getting together with a bunch of our grads. Several dozen grads from our ministry schools were there in Nashville.

So we're going to have a get together at one of the homes that one of the grads hang out together, etc. And I was scheduled to do an interview with Stu Epperson. Now, Stu Epperson Jr., you all know on the Truth Radio Network, he's the owner of the network. He's had his own show. He's just a great guy, loves the Lord, loves to reach out, full of enthusiasm, encouragement. I didn't know there was a Stu Epperson Jr.

I just knew there was a Stu Epperson. And he was one of the co-founders of the Salem Radio Network, which is the largest Christian network across America. Radio network and many other things they've done now over the years.

I thought, that's interesting. He still has a radio show. That was the Sun's radio show.

Now here's the interesting story. I was doing radio interviews for a publisher who was working with a new publicist. And this new publicist was showing the publisher, here's a better way to get interviews for your authors.

Rather than just sending out a note, okay, so-and-so's got a new book out. They're available for interviews, which gets you very few unless you're very famous. He said, do this, have your authors write articles that tie in with what's happening in the news. If it's an area of expertise they have, I will use that to get them interviews. So we started working together, and next thing, I'm getting interviews day and night, even though I didn't have a brand new book that came out.

It was just based on any themes I was good at, we'd talk about it in the news, and now we could tie it in with one of my books. So I ended up doing 19 interviews for him in a month. And he calls me one day and says, hey listen, you're doing so many interviews. Whatever I'm asking you to do, you're doing it, you're ready on the spot. He said, give me a subject that you're interested in, and I'll just see if I can get you an interview on this unrelated to your books and things like that. And my book, Can You Be Gay and Christian, had not come out yet, several years before this comes out. I said to him, how about the theme, Can You Be Gay and Christian? He goes, great. Calls me back, he says, okay, I've got an interview with you. Stu Epperson wants to talk about Can You Be Gay and Christian. And it's scheduled for October 17, 2007.

I'm in Nashville. Now remember, I've done 19 interviews that month. And if you've got a new book coming out, that's not a lot of interviews.

I'm just saying, out of the cycle of life then, it was out of the blue, 19. At no interview, did I have any sense of any connection, radio, going to be back on radio? Nothing.

Nothing like that. Before I go on with Stu, I journal. If I'm supposed to be on radio, and I sense it's going to happen, let him ask me to have my own show.

This is out of the blue. I didn't do that for the 18 other interviews. I have this sense. I remember where I was. I remember journaling at the hotel. I remember it all. And it's in my journal. I get on with Stu, and the first break, he says, Doc, Doc, I'm hearing your name all over the place. We've got to get you on the air.

You have to have your own show. I journal it that day. This thing has been building in me now for years.

It's been building maybe for 15 years and much more intensely the last seven, eight years than I'm supposed to be doing this. But I'm traveling here. I'm speaking there. I'm in a million different places. A lot of different places. How's it going to happen?

How's it going to work? Friends, that may be your own situation. Like, I don't get it. I feel the Lord showing me this, but it doesn't work in my life. I feel the Lord burdening me in this way.

It doesn't work in my life. He'll sort it out. The same God who put the vision in your heart will work it out for you. The same God who put the hunger in your heart to pray will fulfill that desire. The same God who called you will enable you to fulfill His calling. If you're faithful and you honor Him and you walk with Him and walk through the doors He does open for you, they may be small, they may be insignificant, they may be a fraction of what He's shown you, be faithful in the little, honor Him in the little, like Philadelphia. I know you have a lot of strength, but you keep my word and I'll bless you.

You do what I give you to do. There's that old poem that we don't know what's big or small, right? God knows.

God knows. And if you do that, He'll take it from there. If the lyrics pop back in my mind, I'll remind you of what the poem actually says. I got it. Find out what God would have you do and do that little well for what is great and what is small.

Tis only God can tell. There you go. I knew it would pop back in. All right, so I journal it that Stu is going to ask me to have a show. Lord, if that's you, let him do it. And before the show's a few minutes in, first break, doc, we need to have your show. He comes to me. Then I meet him and his dad, which is a totally different network, Salem. And then talking about getting on the air and the whole bit. So it now, months go by, five months, I start my first show Saturdays.

I then journal. And I would do the show on a Saturday, and I'd love it. It's like, I got away the whole week? I got away the whole week to do this again? And I drove about an hour and a quarter drive to the studio. And we ended up, before we had our own studio to connect with, I drive all the way there, do the show for an hour. It's like, I'm done?

I want to talk to people more. I'm called to do this. And then all these people start saying, Mike, you called.

We see this, Dr. Brown. You're called to do this. And again, it's like, okay, but how, given my schedule? And then I journal. Stu's going to ask me to go five days a week. I journal it.

And sure enough, doc, doc, we've got this new state. We want to do this. Any way that you could switch, could you be on five days a week?

And then, not long after that, yeah, beginning of 2009, I journal. Once again, he's going to ask me to go daytime. He's going to ask me to go into the afternoon. And then we end up expanding to two hours.

So I'm just saying, God did this. And then other doors that opened, other stations, other networks. There are networks that I've been on and stations that I was on, some of the biggest in America, we're not on them right now, but we've been on them, that I journaled many years ago.

I'm supposed to be on them. You have to understand, it's not ambition. It's not, I want my voice.

I've had enough open doors and platforms. Friends, I've seen this now for almost 50 years. It's serving the Lord. That when he calls you, he backs you. That when he calls you, he enables you.

That when he calls you, he opens doors. And there are situations where I've wanted, I felt God calling me to do a particular thing, but I had no connection. It would be like he's calling me to be an astronaut, but I don't know anyone in NASA. And the next thing I meet someone, what's your name? So-and-so, I work with NASA. We're looking for astronauts.

No, that's just a hypothetical illustration. But that wild, that crazy, put your faith in God. Not the connections you have, not the finances you have, not the life experience you have. Put your faith in God and you will be amazed to see what he does. I'm going to tell you an amazing story. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire. Can I encourage you today? Are you ready to be encouraged, built up, strengthened, edified?

I'm not taking any calls, not commenting on any news, however earth-shattering it may be. Just taking this time to encourage you in the Lord. Can I remind you that the message of Jesus began as obscurity? That he could have simply lived and died and been relatively unknown outside of the circles in which he ministered and the stories would quickly fade. I mean, he dies a criminal's death and that's the end, but God raises him from the dead and then through a bunch of nobodies, unqualified in the eyes of the world, gets the message out to the whole world.

You know, God knows how to do that. He knows how to take a man like Paul in prison writing letters and these letters are read to this day. Whereas the writings of kings and queens and leading intellectuals are the richest of the wrist. We've lost their writings. We don't have their words.

We don't know most of their names. And yet the words of this prisoner who is, according to tradition, beheaded by Rome for his faith, they're read around the world. You think of it, Pentecost, feast of Shavuot, that in one moment of time, God gets the message out to Jews from around the world. That based on his timing and waiting for his moment, not the human plan, but God's plan, suddenly in an instant and with supernatural backing, boom, this message spreads all over the world. Can I share a few things with you? Regardless of whether these are your favorite authors or not your favorite authors, I just want to tell you a few stories.

T.D. Jakes is one of the best known Christian names in America and the book that brought him to national prominence, prominence was Woman Thou Art Loosed. How did that happen? What publicity agency discovered him and how was he promoted?

Here's what happened. He was pastoring in West Virginia. He spoke at women's conferences for ministry, but also to make ends meet. It was a poor congregation.

He himself did not have much money. So he spoke at these women's conferences to make ends meet. Don Noroi, who is the founder, Don Noroi Sr., founder of Destiny Image Publishers, posted a bunch of my books.

My newest book, Revival or We Die, comes out next month with Destiny Image. He went and heard T.D. Jakes speak, came up to him after a meeting and said the Lord wants to get this message out that you have to women. He wants to get it out. Got a prophetic word, prayed from the power of God, fell on T.D.

Jakes at that moment. Don Noroi took the cassette messages of T.D. Jakes' sermons to women, turned them into a book, published the book. Now, Destiny Image is still a relatively small publisher. They've reached millions of people over the years, but relatively speaking, they're a small publisher.

They were much smaller then. Don Noroi gets this prophetic word that God wants to get T.D. Jakes' message out, publishes the book, boom, it becomes this massive bestseller. And suddenly everybody knows his name and this is – you go back – go back to the old days, look for old pictures of T.D. Jakes when he was a pastor in West Virginia, okay? Just check it out. God took somebody who relatively speaking was a nobody unknown serving the Lord, relatively unknown, and next, national prominence. I give you example after example like that.

How about this one? And then I'll share it from my own life. I'm encouraging you from 1 Thessalonians 5, Faithful to see who called you, he will do it. From Revelation 3 that Jesus opens a door for his faithful people that no one can shut. Jamie Morgan just finished her doctorate, has been serving in pastoral ministry in New Jersey for a number of years. I had heard her name because some of my friends are friends with her or have done ministry with her or for her.

But otherwise, unless you were in her area, part of her congregation, you wouldn't know her name. So I see she writes an article on the Charisma News website where I write regularly. I see she writes an article a few years back, 50 reasons why she doesn't drink alcohol.

Okay, put out her reasons. So that's it. Well, it became the most shared article in the history of the website. I remember when I first started writing for them and the numbers jumped dramatically and maybe an article was shared 10 or 12,000 times and we were all just, wow, praise God, because that wasn't the norm. And then I wrote an article that was shared over 100,000 times and wow, that set a record. That was the most I had had one of mine shared on their site. Amazing, praise God, great. And then one got shared several hundred thousand times. It was one of mine and it was amazing to see that. Praise God, the message is getting out.

We were blessed to see it. She writes this article. She didn't even know the Charisma would accept it and it ends up getting shared over a million times.

I think it ended up getting shared over 2 million times, the most shared article on the website. 50 reasons why she doesn't drink alcohol. There's a story behind it.

There's a story behind it. She was praying. She told me this person, I asked her details. She was praying and she was thinking about another woman of God who had a great platform and was kind of asking the Lord if you could just connect me with her or that kind of platform.

I'm not getting this verbatim here, so I'm not making these exact quotes. God spoke to her and said, and this I remember verbatim, I gave her that platform. That's what the Lord spoke to. In other words, if you could connect with her, you'd have a bigger platform.

No, no. God was saying, I gave her that platform. And then gave her a challenge. How much do you want your message to get out? How wide?

How big? And she's like, Lord, pray the big prayer. She prayed a big prayer. And then after that, just gets this idea to write this article and just writing it down as quick as she can. 50 reasons why she doesn't drink alcohol. Sends it into Charisma thinking they're probably not even going to receive it or post it.

I mean, they get enough things sent in from people they don't know and refuse the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of them. Well, not only is this unknown article by an unknown person who does not have a Lord's social media following get published, but it becomes the most viral article at that point in the website's history. Amazing. And God was saying, watch what I can do. Watch what I can do.

I've seen it myself for many, many years. I have preached in churches where if you tried to get in, if you were a famous preacher and you called the church and said, hey, I'd like to speak for you, or you're a ministry assistant or you're a publicity person, called the church and said so-and-so would love to speak with you, just because you called them, they would say no. In other words, on principle, anyone that invited themselves to preach, no matter how famous, the leadership was, no, thank you.

Appreciate it, but no, thank you. I've preached in those kind of places when God put it in my heart that I would. And then in the most unusual, unexpected way, they reached out to me and asked me to speak. And it's before I would have been known like some of the other speakers, but it was God who opened the door.

I remember being in New York City. I was getting ready for a debate with my friend, Rabbi Shmueli. I was walking the streets of New York City and I felt the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and say, I want you more on secular TV.

It's just out of the blue. Okay, well, what do you do? Well, I'm going to call—who? Who am I going to call? Who is I going to call? What talk show? What TV show?

What news brought? Who am I going to—I wouldn't even— First, the thought would never dawn on me. The thought would never dawn on me that I'm supposed to take the initiative. I've walked with God long enough and I understand that he may put something in my heart for me to pray about or believe or just get ready for, but call your PR agent.

I don't have a PR agent. So, like, okay. I just felt God say that to me in my heart while walking the streets of New York City. And here and there I had been on secular TV, local stations and things like that, debating cultural issues and stuff.

But, you know, national TV and that, that was a much more rare thing. But I have that sense. I get home to Pensacola and I get a call.

A colleague has given this producer my phone number. This is shortly after that word. Check this out. I won't give his name. So-and-so from Phil Donahue. Now, Donahue had been a pioneer TV host, talk TV guy, live audience, that kind of thing.

Been a pioneer in that. He'd been off the air for years and now he's coming back on. He's back on TV. Yeah, I'm so-and-so producer with Phil Donahue.

We'd like to have you on the air to talk about do Jews need Jesus to be saved and who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Thinking, this is a prank call. This is just somebody messing with me, some friend having fun. But we keep talking and sure enough it was really this guy from Phil Donahue who just happened to know a friend. Just happened to know this guy and this guy recommended me and sure enough it was a memorable fact. It was me together with Dr. Al Mohler.

No, no, I'm sorry. Me in the studio together with Rabbi Shmuley and then Dr. Al Mohler by video. We did one later in the year and it was Dr. Mohler, Shmuley, and Donahue. Then I came out, then some others, and then another guest by way of video. But if I'm correct, Dr. Mohler was by way of video and Shmuley and I in person.

Anyway, all that to say is out of the blue. I have watched God do this and I'm sharing my own testimony to encourage you that if God's given you promises, yes, you may have to water them with tears. You may have to pray and fast and cry out. You may have to say, Lord, when are you going to do this? Imagine the way a woman would feel who's nine months pregnant and it's just time to deliver and the baby's not ready.

Lord, how long? But to me it's like the rubber band effect that God keeps pulling it back. And we're thinking, Lord, no, no, no, you don't understand, Lord. I can't. No, no, no, you pull this back. No, this tension is too much.

I can't live with this much. No, God, the thing's going to snap, but he knows it can go further, further, further. And then at just the right moment, when we're ready, when the circumstances are ready, when our hearts are deepened and our faith is deepened and there's greater brokenness, whatever it is he's looking for, boom, he lets it go.

And because it's been pulled back so far, the release is all the more powerful. So I want to encourage you with whatever God's put in your heart. Look, I could do a show like this every day in that these are truths that I live with, biblical truths of encouragement that God finishes what he starts and that the seeds that are sowed with tears are reaped with joy. The fruit is reaped with joy subsequently. But I just felt specifically today to share this with you.

We come back. I want to tell one more story from my own life that I trust will encourage you. But the very fact I'm on radio speaking to you is because God put it in my heart and then God caused it to happen. And it's still multiplying. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on the Line of Fire. I know one reason many of you listen to the broadcast and watch the broadcast is because we bring you encouragement. But it's not empty encouragement. It's not encouragement based on simply I'm an optimist. I'm an upbeat person.

I'm wired a certain way. No, it's encouragement based on who God is. It's encouragement based on faith.

It's encouragement based on truth. Friends, I have watched God open doors that people would say could never open. I've watched God put me in circumstances that seem utterly incredible, but it was as well.

And many of them were things I was never even looking for or asking for. Calling me on radio, this began to build in my heart for years before I was asked to be on radio. And I was asked to be on radio the day I journaled that I was going to be asked to be on radio, just sensing it was coming.

When I was in Pensacola, this would be somewhere around 1998, I have the exact information in my journal. There was a very powerful, godly woman, real woman of intercession, great evangelist in her own right. And she had a word for me and I journaled it.

I wrote it down afterwards. Part of the word was that God would bring me to meet princes. I've got to be candid with you. This has never been on my bucket list. It's never been on my bucket list to meet royalty or to share the gospel with royalty.

You know, the same with political leaders. I've met with a few political leaders over the years, but not many. And I've never met – I was at the White House one time and met with some of Trump's people and Jared Kushner came in briefly. But I've never met with the president or vice president or anyone like that or sat with senators.

And, you know, again, I've met with some political leaders and have ongoing contact with some of the regional elected officials in their own state, but not nationally. But it's never been on my bucket list. In other words, I've never felt, Lord, would you open that door?

I feel called to meet with presidents or I feel called to counsel leaders. It's just not – it's in my heart. If he ever opens that door, fine, but it's not in my heart and there are probably many others that are qualified to do it.

So anyway, just an interesting word. Well, next thing, we're on a trip to England. Shortly after that, I mean, with a matter of weeks, we're on a trip to England. And a colleague of ours, my friend Scott and I are there, a colleague who's very, very well connected, he and his wife know British royalty. He says, would you like to have dinner? We're going to be having dinner with Prince Andrew and would you like to meet with us? And here's what we can do.

I can get you a table nearby ours and then let's see if something opens up to me. I said, nah, I'll feel right about that. If we're supposed to meet, we'll meet. But I don't want to just be in the restaurant and maybe something will happen.

I appreciate the offer, but no thanks. So then we're getting ready to leave and get a call. Listen, Prince Andrew is going to give you private audience in Buckingham Palace. You just have to shift your flight to make it later in the day so you can get over there. So you bet.

We're glad to do it. So remember, we had an opportunity. I just get this prophetic word.

I'm going to meet with princes. It went on a couple of weeks. I've got a journal. I mean, it's very, very close together.

Maybe it's a month, but it's very close together. I get this word. And here's a way to try to make it happen. They're going to be at a table here. We'll have a table nearby. Maybe we can introduce you. I thought, nah, that feels manipulative.

I don't want to do that. Now he's going to have a private audience with Prince. I got to share my testimony with him, asked him at the end, would it be appropriate to pray?

I know he's in some challenging times right now in the news and things like that. But is that wild? Again, it's never occurred to me, never thought of it. Here's a word that's going to happen. And within a matter of weeks, we're sitting in Buckingham Palace, and I'm going to share my testimony with the Prince and pray for him? It was just coincidence. Yeah, when you've got 50 years, when you've got so many things over so many years, I don't have time to get into it now, how God connected me with Leonard Ravenhill. A truly amazing story, but something I knew was going to happen. I told people about it before it happened, before it had any possibility of happening, because God put it in my heart. And that was a key connection in my own life, deepening my heart and seeking the Lord in repentance and holiness and fire of revival. And the doors I've watched God open over the decades, truly astonishing.

One of my favorite stories is a smaller one, in terms of not meeting with the Prince, but a significant one. Most of my ministry was travel and writing. So 1994 and 1995, I had given over all my school responsibilities, because I'd been full-time teaching leading schools for about 10 years. I'd given those over, and I was full-time traveling and writing. And I had invitations I was trying to finalize for Italy and Finland. So it was before the email days, you'd have to wait for a fax or a phone call, and we couldn't lock in the dates for Italy and for Finland. And it was frustrating because I got to plan things out. And these were going to be trips for a couple of weeks and things like that. And, okay, I've got to know when we can lock this in so I can then say yes to this or no to this.

So it's a little challenging. I'm praying on a Sunday night, and I have a sense within 24 hours, things will fall into place with those trips. Just be at peace. And you'll hear from England. It was 1994. I had not preached in England since 1987.

Seven years. I'd not been in England. And it's out of the blue, and you'll hear from England. So next day, I forget if it's a call from Italy and a fax from Finland or the reverse, but my secretary's contacted. Okay, we're in the process of working all those dates out. Great.

Good. Then she says, Mike, you got a call from England. Are you serious? It was this quiet voice, and you'll hear from England.

This was all within 24 hours. Italy, yes. Finland, yes. England.

I wasn't thinking about England. So we set up a time for me to take this call. The pastor's name is also Brown, right? We begin to talk, and he says, listen, we've got this annual leadership conference in May. We've got about 115, 120 pastors, leaders, mainly from the UK, but also from other parts of Europe and Africa. They'll be coming together.

Three intensive days. I'd like you to come and minister to them, and then we'll set up some other meetings for you in England. And I said to him, I don't know you at all, but God spoke to me last night that I was getting a call from England, so let's do it.

I was getting a call from England today, so let's do it. He then says to me, I don't know you at all, but I read your book, Whatever Happened to the Power of God, and God spoke to me to call you to invite you. Well, you know how he got the book, Whatever Happened to the Power of God, which came out in 1991? Now he got the book. He was at the house of a pastor in Scotland. Douglas was his first name. While sitting in his study, notices this book on his shelf and says, I want to read that book.

Sees the title, I want to read that book. That's how he got it. How did the pastor in Scotland get it? He was ministering at a church on Long Island where I had previously ministered, and the church got some of my books for their bookstore. I had a few books out at that time. The pastor of the church on Long Island tells the pastor from Scotland, hey, why don't you check out our bookstore here? We probably have books here in America that you don't get in the UK. He walks through the bookstore, picks out one book. He could have taken any book there for free.

One book catches his eye. My book, Whatever Happened to the Power of God, brings it back to Scotland. This other pastor from England sees the book there, takes it, reads it, calls me. Those meetings in 1994 were tremendously significant. It immediately preceded a great outpouring of the Spirit that God sent through others. We helped dig ditches of repentance and preparing for the rain to fall on these hearts that were broken.

And then it opened up years of ministry with different leaders there and key connections that came out of it. And it was as simple as God saying, I want to do this. To this day, friends, there are things God has shown me that he's called me to do that I'm not doing it, that are on a scale beyond anything I've done.

But he's spoken it, so he's going to do it. If I am faithful what he's given me to do, he's going to do it, and you will see and watch with me and rejoice because it's all about his glory. Not my ambition or desire, but his glory, his purpose, his plan. I share all that with you, not to talk about me, but to talk about you. To say that the same God who laid these different things on my heart, the same God who called me to do certain things and miraculously opened doors.

I'm just giving you little snippets to give you examples. It's the same God that will fulfill his purposes for you. Or it could be for those close to you that you're praying for.

If they will honor God, God will bring it to pass. For some of you, this is about public ministry. For others, this is about things in your own life, your own destiny that are much more private. But hear the encouragement from the Lord.

He looks at us as he did Philadelphia in Revelation 3 and says, hey, I know you don't have a lot of strength. You're not some superstar, you're not some big shot, but you've been faithful. You haven't denied my name. I'm going to set an open door before you that no one can shut.

And that's the neat thing. When God opens the door, no one can shut. So be encouraged today. You take a whole day out of the week to bring me this message I felt prompted to.

I know it's relevant always, and for some it's especially relevant. Let's see what God will do in the days ahead. He wants to bring glory to the name of his son. He wants to touch a hurt and dying world. He wants to bless his people in ways massively more than anything we've seen. And he wants to do it through you and through me. 1 Thessalonians 5 again. Faithful was he who called you. He also will love you.