Powerful Inspiration for the New Year

The following is a pre-recorded program.

It is New Year's Eve, and today you are going to get some special inspiration for the New Year. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, this is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. I have specially put today's broadcast together to make the maximum impact in this time that we have to stir your heart.

I'm going to be playing some clips from the past, some from me, some from others, one musical clip. I believe each of these will stir you, will call you deeper, will beckon you to go after God afresh, will bring great sobriety, and will bless you as we end 2021 and enter 2022. The first is a poem that I wrote called The Rime of the Modern Parishioner following the meter of this old classic poem of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. This is the rhyme of the modern parishioner.

Let's listen together. It happened in the vestibule at ten one Sunday morning. A haggard-looking churchgoer sat plaintive and forlorn. Then suddenly he rose and found a hungry-looking Christian.

He took his hand, took him aside, and asked him a straight question. You've read the word, you know the book, the promises are clear, but have you seen the living God? Have you found him here? Have you experienced holy fire, the spirit in his power, a mighty wave, a rushing wind, a flame that does devour? Is there something more you're seeking so high, so wide, so deep?

Do you find yourself frustrated? Is church putting you to sleep? And listen well, your heart is right, my tale I will tell, this story is your story too, and it's your tale as well. For thirty years I've been in church, it seemed like a good show, but now I've got to meet with God, do you know where to go? I'm trapped in mundane worship times, the praises have grown cold, the preaching's dry and dusty, the teachings stale like mold. Each service feels like a rerun, the songs all sound the same, the prophecies are so hollow, not worthy of the name. Words, more words, they're everywhere, but oh, there is a stink.

Words, more words, they're everywhere, but none to make us think. We lack the heavenly presence, it's clear we're in a rut, I'm desperate for revival, it burns within my God. I'm lovesick for my Jesus, so hungry for my Lord, just look at longing for my Savior, God knows that I'm so bored.

Is there someone who can help me who's touched the real thing? A man who's hurt from heaven with a word from God to bring. Are there prophets burning with fire, servants who are ablaze, anointed and overflowing, appointed for these days? Do they carry the Spirit's burden and breathe the Lord God's breath?

Oh, they set apart and holy, obedient to death. I hear the words of the master, come follow me, he said, if some Christians go their own way, I'll go with him instead. Oh, please don't do as I have done and waste so many years, don't wait and wait for endless months, move on, outgrow your fears. Forget the 12-step programs a seminar won't do, you need a touch from heaven to fill you through and through. There must be change in your life, a work of God that's real. Don't fool yourself with war and cliches, don't let the devil steal, don't miss out on God's presence or let these hours pass, don't stop your soul from hungering, get out of the morass.

Dear friend you are not crazy, dear saints you are not mad, there really is a problem, it's true you have been had, there's more, there's more, believe it, there is that place in God, there are holy visitations, new paths that must be trod. Will you get up like old pilgrim and seek that better way? Will you go forth on that journey no matter what men say?

Will you go out now and meet him and leave the crowd behind forsaking the traditions of Jesus you will find? It's not in another meeting, a nicely packaged hour, another harmless service devoid of heaven's power. It's not in another teaching, three points to fill your head, the word is always vibrant but this stuff is so dead. We need God to send his spirit to fully take control, to transform every member, to come and make them whole.

Enough with man's religion, enough with earthly plans, enough with our new programs produced by fleshly hands. Just then in strode the pastor, his calling to fulfill, just doing his weekly duty, then he became frozen still. For a stir was that parishioner, he grasped the preacher's clothes and grasped the preacher's soul as well and in that grasp he froze. Oh pastor, enter the prayer room and shut yourself inside, be emptied of competition and crucify your pride. Pray for holy visitations, caught up alone with him, consumed with heavenly vision, that's where you must begin. You won't find him in a textbook buried on page 22, he is the living God who acts, he wants to move in you. It's not only the apostles who bless and send in you, he will saturate your own soul if you will not refuse. So arise, get up, pursue him, Jesus your true best friend, he is worthy of devotion, he's faithful to the end.

Why should you starve on crusty bread and crawl along the ground? Your savior is your source of life, seek him, let joy abound. Renew your life, refresh your heart, press in, take hold, pray through, put first things first, make God your goal.

What else have you to do? Your bible teaching stole your zeal, your bible schooling stole your zeal, church life has drained you dry. You used to have such childlike faith, now budgets have your eye. You used to be so passionate, so innocent and free that you've become professional, you'll preach for a good fee. Oh, set your sights on higher goals and not on dollar bills, live in the light of judgment day, ambition always kills. Let Jesus be your daily God, put him where he belongs and soon his presence will arrive, his praise will fill your songs. Simplicity will be your style, devotion your new goal, communion will become your aim, God's life will flood your soul.

Oh, take your eyes off numbers, church growth can be a trap, go out and make disciples, go out and bridge the gap. Pour your life out for broken lives, let God your heart break too. Take up the cross, deny yourself, just live his will to do. Wake up, be brave, be honest, today, oh hear his voice, be ruthless with your schedule, seek God, make that your choice. You won't find him in your planner, your committee has the key, you'll find him when your soul cries out, there must be more for me. There must be more than building funds and sessions past midnight and endless talks with leadership disputing who is right.

Somehow I know I've been misled, the model doesn't work, I'm not called as an executive, nor should I be a clerk. I'm called to be a man of God, a man who's spirit led, a healer of the sick and lame, someday to raise the dead. And with that cry new life will rise, your heart will be revived, heaven's light will flood your soul you will not be denied.

The parishioner then turned his gaze away from flesh and blood, he looked to him who sends the showers, to him who sends the flood. Today oh Lord you hear our voice and pour your spirit out, saturate the thirsty ground, end the spiritual drought. Revive us with your presence, renew us from above, touch the flock called by your name, fill us with your love. Do greater works in our day than that which you have done, bring the fullness of your reigns and glorify your side. That old churchgoer spoke no more, another voice was heard, yet not the voice of flesh and blood, it was our Father's will. And if you listen closely, beyond this little rhyme, you'll hear him speaking clearly, our children it is time. You can find that at the beginning of my book from Holy Laughter to Holy Fire, the rhyme of the modern parishioner. Now I want to take you to the sobering words of Leonard Ravenhill speaking about the judgment seat of Christ. Let's listen.

It is New Year's Eve 2021. We enter the new year and this special broadcast will be prepared for you today on the line of fire to stir your heart, take you deeper on the other side of the break, more clips that will stir your heart fresh in God. 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. Welcome back, friends, to the line of fire on the special New Year's Eve broadcast where we prepared some special quotes, clips to really stir your heart. You're going to next hear the voice of David Wilkerson, Pastor David Wilkerson, and his call to anguish, followed by another voice. I don't know who the voice is, but it's a call to deeper devotion in Jesus, especially those of us who've been in ministry. These words will speak deeply to us.

We're going to play them one after the other without break. And I look at the whole religious scene today and all I see are the inventions and ministries of man and flesh. It's mostly powerless.

It has no impact on the world. And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church rather than the church impacting the world. I see the music taking over the house of God. I see entertainment taking over the house of God. An obsession with entertainment in God's house.

A hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof. Nobody wants to hear it anymore. Whatever happened to anguish in the house of God? Whatever happened to anguish in the ministry? It's a word you don't hear in this pampered age.

You don't hear it. Anguish means extreme pain and distress. The emotion so stirred that it becomes painful. Acute, deeply felt inner pain because of conditions about you, in you or around you. Anguish, deep pain, deep sorrow, agony of God's heart.

We've held on to our religious rhetoric and our revival talk, but we've become so passive. All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ comes out of a baptism of anguish. You search the scripture and you'll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation, he would share his own anguish for what God saw happening to his church and to his people. And he would find a praying man and he would take that man and literally baptize him in anguish.

You find it in the book of Nehemiah. Jerusalem is in ruins. How is God going to deal with this?

How is God going to restore the ruin? Nehemiah was not a preacher. He was a career man. This was a praying man. God found a man who would not just have a fast of emotion, not just some great sudden burst of concern and then let it die. He said, no, I broke down and I wept and I mourned and I fasted and then I began to pray night and day. Why didn't these other men, why didn't they have an answer? Why didn't God use them in restoration? Why didn't they have a word? Because there was no sign of anguish, no weeping, not a word of prayer.

It's all ruined. Does it matter to you today? Does it matter to you at all that God's spiritual Jerusalem, the church is now married to the world? That there's such a coldness sweeping the land closer than that.

Does it matter about the Jerusalem that's in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that's slowly draining spiritual power and passion, blind to lukewarmness, blind to the mixture that's peeping in. That's all the devil wants to do is get the fight out of you and kill it. So you won't labor in prayer anymore. You won't weep before God anymore.

You can sit and watch television and your family go to hell. Let me ask you, is what I just said convicted you at all? There's a great difference between anguish and concern. Concern is something that you, the biggest interest in.

You take an interest in a project or a cause or a concern or a need. I'm going to tell you something I've learned over all my years, 50 years of preaching. If it is not born in anguish, if it has not been born by the Holy Spirit, where when you saw and heard of the ruin that drove you to your knees, took you down into a baptism of anguish where you began to pray and seek God. I know now.

Oh my God, do I know it? Until I have been anguished over it and all our projects, all our ministries, everything we do, where are the Sunday school teachers that weep over kids they know are not hearing and they're going to hell. You see, a true prayer life begins at the place of anguish.

You see, if you set your heart to pray, God's going to come and start sharing your heart and his heart with you. Your heart begins to cry out, Oh God, your name is being blasphemed. Holy Spirit's being mocked. The enemy is out trying to destroy the testimony of the Lord's faithfulness and something has to be done.

There's going to be no renewal, no revival, no awakening until we're willing to let him once again break us. Folks, it's getting late and it's getting serious. Please don't tell me.

Don't tell me you're concerned when you're spending hours in front of internet or television. Come on. Lord, there's so many to get this altered and confess. I am not what I was. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. God, I don't have your heart or your burden.

I've been, I wanted it easy. I didn't want to be happy, but Lord, true joy comes. True joy comes out of anguish. There's nothing of the flesh will give you joy.

I don't care how much money, I don't care what kind of new house there is absolutely nothing physical could give you joy. It's only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey him and take on his heart. Build the walls around your family. Build the walls around your own heart.

Make you strong and impregnable against the enemy. God, that's what we desire. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost that God has put in you is jealous. Do you think God says that in vain in the book? The Holy Spirit that God has put in you is jealous.

He's jealous. In chapter 1 verse 27 he says, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless in windows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Oh, God is jealous of us. God is jealous of us and to those of us who have not kept ourselves unspotted from the world. James cries out in chapter 4 verse 4, he adopts us and adopts tresses. Know ye not that the attention of the world is enmity with God?

You become unfaithful to God. Or do you sit here tonight and your peace with God has become spotted by the world? Your testimony has become spotted. Oh, the devil enticed you as he saw you there when you were vitally real. He trembled. He trembled. Do you remember when you were real?

Do you remember when you were real? When you did more damage to Satan than a man with degrees behind his name because all that he knew was all up here not yet. The little you had was here and every step you took you did more damage to Satan.

He trembled. He saw what you were meaning for the kingdom. Reality is all that matters in this religion, sir. Reality and Satan dream. Do you remember when you were real?

Do you remember when your quiet times were real? Can every one of you please remember when nothing would keep you from prayer? Nothing would keep you from the Bible, no television, nothing, not even church activity. Nothing would keep you from God.

Nothing would make you an adept God. Do you remember when you were real? Do you remember when you used to take the pen, sir? God remembers. Do you remember when you used to mark?

Oh, you used to mark it and put the date. This isn't just coincidence. God's speaking to me. This book becomes a living miracle. God's speaking to me. You marked and you marked all the verses. They just burned into your soul and you became constantly God, God communing with me.

God literally speaking is living. And suddenly you look back and you realize every single verse you've marked on the whole page, the whole Bible throbbing, everything was throbbing. Do you remember when you were real with God? Do you remember?

Do you remember? God remembers! God remembers!

Be jealous! You are the apple of God's eyes. You're the treasure of this God of mine. You filled heaven with such joy that if you just knew all of us would burst into worship, joining them at what is happening right now in the heart of God and the angels.

Don't doubt that. You're so much to God. Go now in the love of Christ and never let it happen again. He gives you the grace.

He'll give you all the grace you need to walk with God through this world to your last step. If you never neglect the quiet time now, that's going to guard what you found here again tonight. The devil won't ever be able to take us away from you if you never neglect the quiet time. The quiet time? Soak yourself in the Bible. 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. Welcome, friends, to this special, inspirational New Year's Eve broadcast as we come to the end of 2021 and enter the beginning of 2022. During a recent prayer retreat, I started to listen to some old clips. I was looking for some worship music to put on as I was seeking the Lord in prayer and came across a few clips that deeply stirred my heart. And I've been sharing some of them with you on the air today. If you just tuned in, by all means, take in the entire broadcast later.

You can do so on our website, AskDrBrown.org, or on YouTube channel, ASK, Dior Brown. You can listen there. Or, of course, on podcast, you can listen to the entire broadcast.

If you're just tuning in on radio, be sure to take in the whole show if you can. This that we're going to play next is a compilation from messages I preached on the theme of spiritual hunger. And if there's anything that has driven me over the years, it's been this great theme of spiritual hunger and this deep pull to know God more deeply and to be more effective in serving him.

It's not a drive like someone from the outside beating you with a whip. You're not working hard enough. You don't love God enough. No, that's destructive. Maybe that's religious tradition you were raised in. Maybe that's the way your family raised you.

But that's destructive. I'm talking about a hunger where you love God so much that you want to be with him more. I'm talking about a burden where you care so much about a dying world around you that you just want to see God move more. That you're so grieved by people not knowing him and his name being trashed and you know who he really is. As I was on this prayer retreat, I just had a moment of overwhelming encounter with a sense of his beauty and majesty and purity. And I thought if people knew him, they'd know he doesn't do bad things just to hurt and destroy people in some cavalier way. He's not some ugly, mean-spirited, tyrannical deity.

Yes, he is the ruler of the universe, but he is the incomparably perfect and pure God. So this is going to be different than my normal radio tone because normally on radio I'm having a one-on-one chat with you wherever you are. I may get passionate about certain things, but we're just having a one-on-one talk. This is from messages preached and you'll feel the emotion, but beyond the emotion, the hunger, the drive, the thirst. Oh, Psalm 63, how often I've quoted Elohim, Eli, Ata, O God, you are my God. My flesh, my very soul, long and thirst for you.

That's the heart behind this. And we put these clips together as I was praying and thinking about the new year, I thought let's do something special and let's play clip after clip that will stir you, that will challenge you, that will call you deeper. And as a cry comes up from your heart, as you listen, God is near to the brokenhearted.

God fills the hungry and satisfies the thirsty. Let's listen. What we've seen has been wonderful, what we've seen has been glorious, but there's got to be more and we're at a place of desperation. We're at a place that we can't live the way we're living anymore. You know, in the early days of revival, we rejoiced when people walk in under their own power and then they're wheeled out in wheelchairs, whereas it should be by now that people are wheeled in wheelchairs and walk out under their own power. It should be that there are not new strip clubs opening up or closing down because there's no business. May not a single one escape your voice tonight.

There's more, friends. We just want to sit back and skip a day of food and maybe pray for an hour and read our Bibles a little bit here and there and turn off the TV. Maybe once or twice a week to meet with God and we think the boy's going to come down. Can you really thank God on that? Friends, let me ask you a question. How much room is there for God in your life?

Are you desperate? It could be one person shut up alone with God that won't come out of their room until the glory comes out and that could change the nation. I wonder are we really willing to let God do that? God is seeking a hunger that will not let go because He cannot let go, a hunger that cannot quit because to quit is to die. That is God hunger. That is spiritual desperation. That is the key to revival. Longing for God. If the Lord is really with us, where is He? Then are the miracles and the signs and the wonders we heard about.

If the Lord is really with us, where is He? I knew no one who had what I wanted. In fact, I did not know what I wanted. But I knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a fraud. God! Whitfield used to pray, give me souls or take my soul.

John Knox prayed for Scotland, give me Scotland or I die. John Hyde, the great intercessor, prayed with such intensity that when he came down sick in his forties and was taken to a doctor in Bombay who was an American missionary in India, they found that literally his heart had moved to the center of his chest cavity. So much broken hearted anguish in his soul going up to God, actually affecting him on the inside. I ask you again, how much capacity is there for God in your life? What was wonderful a week ago and a month ago and a year ago is not wonderful today because the knees are still there, because the sick are still there, because the bound are still there, because the oppressed are still there, because our nation is still going to hell all around us. Something's got to change. I'm telling you, we may have gotten within an inch of the breakthrough, but we can't stop now. We can't settle for things being the way they are. Then I tell you, we're stopping short.

I tell you, we're trying to satisfy ourselves before the breakthrough comes. Sometimes it just hurts too much to carry the burden. Sometimes it's just too overwhelming to think of people going to hell. Sometimes it's just too discouraging to look at a sick person that's not healed.

But I say look at it, feel the pain, feel the burden, and then go ask the dog till he uses you to set the cost to free. That was the point where we either seized the moment or looked back with everlasting shame that we missed. Come on friends, we've seen awesome things from God, but we haven't seen what we're supposed to see yet. If this book is true, if our God is true, we haven't yet touched what we're supposed to see. We've got a glimpse, but that's it. Let's not insult God by saying this is that. Yes!

New Yorkers, church leaders, evangelists, missionaries, young people, long-time believers, brand new convicts, like this one. All right, we're going to break in after that clip, and we've got one more clip to play for you. Again, just doing something we very, very rarely do, playing these extended clips on the air, and playing so many in one show. If we've done this, it's the rarest of rare times because we want it to count. We want it to be special.

We don't want it to be redundant. You know, many times you come to the end of a year and people make all their resolutions. You look back at the year, and I wish I could accomplish this, or we had such loss, or it was a good year, but it could be a different person, and then the new year starts, and before we know it, we're kind of lost with the new year, and then we're waiting another year to make new resolutions. The goal of this show is to so help you focus, to so help you encounter God afresh, to so help you drink in His truth and His reality that it will push you over, that it will push you to that place of breakthrough, it will push you to that place of encounter, it will bring you to a repentance. It may just be one clip that strikes you, that hits you, that resonates with you. Go back, listen to it again, drink it in again, pray it through again. Sometimes, years and years and years of prayer build up and get to a certain point, and then that one encounter and things really change. And if God's working you, don't resist. Maybe you've been away from the Lord, and He's calling you back, or you've never known Him, and He's calling you in.

Don't resist. Today, if you hear His voice, do not pardon your name. 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. Hey friends, welcome back to the Line of Fire on this special New Year's Eve inspirational broadcast. I trust you've been blessed by the clips that you've heard thus far. The voice of Leonard Ravenhill, the voice of David Wilkerson, my voice, another voice as well. I pray and trust that you've been stirred afresh as you've listened, but I want to play a musical clip for you. When I was away at my last prayer retreat, looking for some worship music, I normally pray without worship music, read the word without worship music, but went to do it and then stumbled onto this one song that was written by our team, students and faculty at Brownsboro Revival School of Ministry slash Fire School of Ministry. And it became a theme song by Life by Death, the one CD that we put out from Fire School in this joint way.

That was the name of it, by Life by Death. And as I listened, I began to weep because I thought of our missionaries. I thought of our fire grads and BRSM grads serving around the world, many of them sacrificially. One gave his life to reach the Muslim world. And why we do what we do, why we stand how we stand. Paul said, I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I would lead the students in prayer at different times and we would pledge our lives afresh and say, Lord, whatever the cost, whatever the consequence by life or by death, here we are, send us. So it's a beautiful song.

The words are repeated several times. You'll be able to join in, but may the Lord stir your heart, whoever you are, wherever you are as a follower of Jesus. This is our calling to follow him and to serve him, whether by life or by death. Here's this song, and then I'll have comments on the end. Lord, I hold nothing back from you, so please. Oh, nothing back from me. I give you my heart and my soul. You are the only worthy one and I give you everything I am.

There's nothing back from me. This world has to give. By life, by death, we will serve the Lord. By life, by death, everything is yours.

By life, by death, we embrace the call. We are yours. Lord, I hold nothing back from you, so please.

Oh, nothing back from me. I give you my heart and my soul. You are the only worthy one and I give you everything I am.

There's nothing back from me. This world has to give. By life, by death, we will serve the Lord. By life, by death, everything is yours. By life, by death, we embrace the call. We are yours. By life, by death, we will serve the Lord. By life, by death, everything is yours. By life, by death, we embrace the call. We are yours. We are yours. So take me, take me, use me, use me, fill me, fill me, serve me, serve me, take me, take me, use me, use me, fill me, fill me, serve me, serve me, take me, use me, use me, fill me, serve me, save me, serve me, save me, I'm gonna use me. Lord, I'm gonna use me, serve me, serve me, Tell me, take me, use me, heal me, send me in I am by life, by death, we will serve the Lord By life, by death, everything is Yours By life, by death, we have praise to call, we are Yours By life, by death, we will serve the Lord By life, by death, everything is Yours By life, by death, we have praise to call, we are Yours We are Yours, we are Yours We are Yours, we are Yours We are Yours, we are Yours Everything in me, everything in me, I wanna see the captives free My life for the gospel, my life for the gospel Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have Everything we have, everything we have