Have You Truly Experienced God?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today, friends, on The Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown, absolutely delighted to be with you. Here's the number to call, 866-34-Truth, 866-348-7884. I will take calls on all questions.

We'll try to get to some random questions later in the show. But in particular, I want to talk about what the Holy Spirit is doing in the earth today. And I want to talk about your relationship with God as a follower of Jesus. And if you don't even know him, what God is calling us into and offering us as part of his family as we serve him and live for him. So, if you have a question about the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit today, if you are wondering about, you know, I've read stuff, I've heard stuff about the Holy Spirit, the gifts, certain things aren't happening today. I got burned in a Pentecostal church. Maybe you've watched a video of someone that we would refer to as a critic of the charismatic Pentecostal movement, or you've seen some weird things, you have some questions.

I gladly take your calls and questions as well. There's a recent video I was sent to link to. I only watched a snippet of it. The snippet I watched was totally false, a misleading, no, just false, blatantly false, the snippet I watched. But it's, I don't know, an hour, some critics of modern Pentecostal charismatic movement and critics of me did a video together.

Friends sent me a detailed outline of the contents of it and totally misleading in terms of overall. But if you happen to watch it and you've got a question or you agree with it, by all means, phone lines are open. I'm happy to speak with people who differ.

866-348-7884. I'm talking about the question of experiencing God today for two primary reasons. By the way, if you're watching, you're like, where are you?

And how come you've got different headphones on instead of your earphones? I am in the new studio that has just been put together for me at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas. I have the great joy and privilege now of partnering with two schools about 30 minutes away, one of them over 50 years old, CF and I, where I am here, the other less than one year old. That's Mercy Culture, the School of Spiritual Leadership School in Fort Worth.

I'm in Dallas, then Fort Worth. The only way that I could make a commitment to be with these schools on a monthly basis, which I deeply sense God has called me to do. This is one of the great joys of my life, pouring into the next generations of those that are going to go out and take the message of Jesus around the world into every sphere of society and to those who've never heard the Gospel before. The only way I could do this when I was asked to do it on a monthly basis was we have to have a studio for me. So this is our first day, and hopefully everything sounds the same. Those listening on radio or by podcast, hopefully everything sounds the same to you. Everyone watching, yeah, things look different.

866-342. So we now have three studios. And our home studio, brand new, so everything new. And we will only, by God's grace, get better in the days ahead as we continue to travel and set up in different locations. But I'm speaking about this issue of experiencing God for two main reasons.

Two main reasons. One, as I've interacted with those who were believers, known as believers, professing believers, Christian leaders in ministry, committed believers by their own description, as I have interacted with a good number of them who no longer believe. Some are outright hostile, hateful, mocking the Bible, mocking the God they used to worship, mocking us for following him. Some just say, hey, I don't believe those things anymore, and I'm trying to process a new way of looking at things, and I'm doing it openly. And others saying, I just don't know how to get back.

So a wide range. But what many of them had in common, not all, not all, but what many of them had in common was a conspicuous lack of experience in God. In other words, talking about walking with him, fellowshipping with him, seeing his miraculous hand, watching him move in different ways, and having that deep sense of fellowship, communion, and things that they, in the past, could only explain that this must be the hand of God. Now they have a new explanation for it.

They didn't even have that. Now, when I talked to Brady Goodwin, the Christian hip-hopper and apologist, when I talked to Brady Goodwin a couple weeks back and asked him these questions just because I don't know him at all, he very clearly talked about his experience in God. He really clearly talked about knowing the Lord. He really clearly talked about things that seemed to be miraculous then that he doesn't have an explanation for before. But one after another that I talked to before him had a very different story. If you ask me, okay, talk about some of the most significant spiritual experiences you've had in the last 50 years.

Well, how many days, how many weeks do we have to recount them? Sure, we all walk by faith. No, I'm not sitting here with my body glowing. I'm not having all kinds of visions and hearing audible voices.

No, no, of course not. I've never heard the audible voice of God in my life in 50 years. But just the way I got saved, the way God brought me to himself, the dramatic nature of that, the months leading up to it, I have no explanation other than God at work in my life. And the way he worked in my life in the immediate days after I was newly saved, immediate weeks, I have no explanation other than the hand of God. And some things I'm going to share with you from the lives of others, I have no explanation other than the hand of God and the daily relationship I have. And when I go on prayer retreats and commune with him for hour after hour after hour over a weekend, the fellowship we have is as real as anything that I touch or feel.

So that's one reason I want to talk about this. Leonard Ravenhill, who lived from 1907 to 1994, author of Why Revival Tarries and other classic books. We became very close to the last five years of his life. He told me that on average he would see 20 people or more every week, and he would give them a half hour. Now this is when I was spending a few days with him at a time, so I was blown away that he took that he took me in like this. I was 34.

He was 82. But he said he gets young ministers, pastors, seminary grads coming in from around the world to meet with him. And the first question is, he puts his bony finger in their face. First question is, do you know God? He said, not do you know about him, but do you know him? There's something about knowing him, which is also experiential.

When the Bible says Adam knew his wife Eve, it's a Hebrew idiom for had sexual relations with her. It is a certain knowing that speaks of an intimacy, a fellowship, a closeness. Jesus said in John 17, 3, praying to his father, and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus, the Messiah whom you've sent. In the same way, Paul talks about his longing in Philippians 3, that I may know the Messiah, but I may know Christ. That I may share in the fellowship of his sufferance, that I know the power of his resurrection. And he said, I consider everything dung, refuse.

You can even translate with a stronger word. I consider absolutely dung that I may know him. Knowing him and experiencing him, he said, to know him meant everything else I had was thrown away. That's not just a mental affirmation.

That's something deeper. 2 Corinthians 13, 14, the benediction that Paul offers there. What does he say? He says, may the grace of the Lord Jesus, may the love of God, and the fellowship of the Spirit be yours. It's paraphrased. So the fellowship of the Spirit, that's koinonia. That's a participation.

That's a sharing. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is having spent a good number of hours interacting recently with one very sincere brother that you would call a critic of much of the charismatic Pentecostal movement and one concerned about extremes and revival and abuses and things like that. As we've interacted a lot, and as I've interacted with others that I would call, quote, critics, and some of them in a dangerous way that I would call hyper critics, I'm not mentioning names now, but what I've seen consistently is this lack of experiencing God in their own lives as we've talked, as we've interacted. I'm not saying this to attack. I'm just saying something's missing.

And with that missing, it changes a lot of things. I want to read something to you from my book, Authentic Fire. And I've got some really edifying things to share with you. And then phone lines are open.

Phone lines are open, 866-34-TRUTH, not just to talk about this, but a little later to random questions. And there are some news items I want to interact with as well. But we can be one day cultural issues, another day theology, another day Israel, another day political issues. So as you know, we cover a wide range of things here.

This is from Professor Daniel Wallace. All right. And let me read to you.

I said slight paraphrase, so you hear exact. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So virtually as I said it, 2 Corinthians 13-14, are you enjoying the fellowship of the Holy Spirit? When Paul says that the deposit that we have from God, assuring us of future resurrection and being with him forever and treasures stored up in heaven, the assurance, the deposit is the Holy Spirit. Is he that real in your life?

I'm not talking about people twitching or shaking or falling. I'm talking about a precious intimacy. Jesus said, my sheep know me and they hear my voice and they follow me. That's ongoing in Greek, not just by way of salvation. You know the voice of the Lord. Can you tell me about some of your most precious intimate experiences in God that this should be part of a life. Now, if you believe it's true scripturally, but haven't experienced it, I'm not condemning. I'm not criticizing. God forbid. I'm inviting.

I'm inviting. Listen to New Testament Greek scholar Daniel Wallace. Not a charismatic, okay? This is in my book, Authentic Fire, which was a biblical and loving response to Pastor John MacArthur's strange fire. I honor him, respect him, thank God for all the good that he's done, and take strong difference with some of his stance on the charismatic movement, which I believe are exaggerated and inaccurate and often do much more harm than good. And of course, it's been a public dialogue or things I've put forward publicly for many years now.

Unable to meet privately, but I've tried. So Daniel Wallace writes this, through the experience of my son's cancer, I came to grips with the inadequacy of the Bible alone to handle life's crises. Let me step back and say this before I go on reading from Professor Wallace. It is not the Father, Son, and Holy Bible, but the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yes, I know God through his word, but I don't know God only through his word. All right, more from Daniel Wallace when we get back. This is going to be eye-opening for you. Stay right here. On the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us fresh out of our brand new studio at Christ Foundation's Institute in Dallas, Texas. I'll be teaching. If you're anywhere in the area, tonight should be a great service. Let the young people come from surrounding communities. I'll be preaching, so love to see you.

866-348-7884. Okay, back to Professor Daniel Wallace. So he said, through the experience of my son's cancer, I came to grips with the inadequacy of the Bible alone to handle life's crises. We're not talking about getting revelation outside of the Bible that is the same as the Bible.

We're not talking about getting information about who Jesus is or who the Father is outside of the Bible, like contrary to the Bible, but the Bible helps bring us to know God and now we walk with him. Okay, Daniel Wallace said, I needed an existential experience with God. I got in touch with my early years as a charismatic, so he left that, and began reflecting on how the Holy Spirit works today. I saw scripture in a new light and began wrestling with the question, if the Holy Spirit did not die in the first century, what in the world is he doing today?

Let me pause here. Friends that watched the entire video of these two critics attacking me over various stands or stands I have taken or haven't taken about charismatic Pentecostal things, they quoted me on the air saying, look, you're missing these amazing things the Holy Spirit's doing around the world today. They then proceeded to talk about the weirdest, wackiest stuff they had seen on Christian TV in charismatic circles and saying, this is what he's talking about. No, I wasn't talking about that. I'm talking about the glorious supernatural salvations of Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus around the world in the most dramatic and incredible and extraordinary ways, glorifying the name of Jesus, and people say, ah, it's not God.

What a shame. All right, so Daniel Wallace, while I still consider myself a cessationist, meaning he doesn't believe in tongues and prophecy and gifts of healing today, the last few years have shown me that my spiritual life had gotten off track, that somehow I, along with many others in my theological tradition, have learned to do without the third person of the Trinity. So I could ask you, what's the role of the Holy Spirit in your life? If you took the Holy Spirit out of your life, how would things look differently?

That's the question to ask. Talk to me about fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Talk to me about leading of the Holy Spirit.

Talk to me about the Spirit working supernaturally in your life today. Where is it? In your church.

How about that? In your ministry. He said, but this did not hinder my academic work. Mine had become a cognitive faith, a Christianity from the neck up.

As long as I could control the text, I was happy. So then he gave 11 tremendously helpful insights. I'm just going to quote a few of them. One, although the sign gifts died in the first century, the Holy Spirit did not. Now, I differ with him. I believe the sign gifts continue right to this moment, and I experienced some of them in my own life.

He says, although the sign gifts died in the first century, the Holy Spirit did not. We agree on the second point. Two, although Charismatics have sometimes given a higher priority to experience than to relationship. True. Rationalistic Evangelicals have just as frequently given a higher priority to knowledge than to relationship.

Also true. Three, this emphasis on knowledge over relationship can produce in us a bibliology. In other words, Father-Son and Holy Bible versus Father-Son and Holy Spirit. A book relationship with God rather than a personal relationship with God. Four, the net effect of such bibliography is a depersonalization of God. Seven, evangelical rationalism can lead to spiritual defection.

It's true. That's why many fall away. They get into a rationalistic faith. They run into rational objections.

They don't have that intimate experience with God to fall back on. Here's something really interesting. A major study was done by a survivor of the Holocaust, himself a Jewish psychologist, and one thing that he learned was fascinating. He said that the people that overall survived made it through. Now some had no choice.

There was it. They're basically liquidated upon arrival. But those that were able to toughen out, make it through, almost all or a large proportion, the clear, clear majority were those who had other family members to live for, either in the camp or outside the camp. And it gave them the incentive to live on. And they had that connection with that person.

The ones that faded the most quickly and were most prone not to make it were the ones whose identity was primarily caught up with their position. You are the mayor of the city. You are the head of this bank. You are a famous musician. You are this.

You are that. And now they're in the camp and they're reduced to nothing. Their heads are shaved. Their bodies are shaved. They have a number tattooed in their arm, and that's it.

They're a prisoner with nothing to live for and everything saying it's over. So relationships are the meaning of life, and relationships are experienced. Relationships are shared. What is your experience in God? I didn't ask you if you speak in tongues. Oh, that's very rich in my own life and very wonderful and brings me into a deep sense of communion with God. And during that time, the Holy Spirit will often speak certain things to me, or bring certain scriptures to life, or lead me in certain ways. And then I'll pray very specifically in English, or sometimes it'll lead to deeper intercession and groaning and travail. Some of these terms are foreign to you. Others understand. And I'm not saying one's more enlightened than the other.

We just have different things we're used to. But I'm not talking about, did you speak in tongues? I didn't even ask you, did God use you to heal someone? I'm talking about you and the Lord. I'm talking about fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about going deeper in Him. And maybe as I'm speaking, the Holy Spirit is challenging you and inviting you and saying, there's more. Go deeper.

There's more. So let me tell you what, I just got this email today from a colleague, a graduate from Brownsboro Revival School of Ministry in Pensacola. We've watched him grow in the Lord. He came as a new believer. The court sentenced him. You either go to jail or you go to a service, church service, ended up, or rehab, whatever it was, he got sentenced to go to a church service.

One of the faculty members of our school was speaking. He got wonderfully born again sometime after that, came to our school. So we've known him since his earliest days in the Lord. Joe Oden now is a nationally leading evangelist, served briefly as a missionary overseas. So he's been based in the Texas area for a good number of years now.

Sold his home, moved to Orlando, Florida, got settled in in December, right before Christmas, arrived with his family, his wife, and his young kids. And he was going to be leading Christ for All Nations. I'm at Christ for the Nations.

Christ for All Nations, which was founded by Reinhard Bonnke, his ministry, now led by Daniel Kolenda, another grad from our school in Pensacola. He was going to be leading their new school. Well, some things shifted because of which the opening of the school was delayed one year. So he gets there to find out these dramatic changes have taken place and thinks, I'm not supposed to be here. You just moved your family. You just moved your family. So he thinks, well, no, I think I'm supposed to go out to Texas.

Now, this can happen. We are human beings. We don't all hear perfectly, or sometimes we take a step in obedience. The Lord says, go here, testing our obedience. Okay, good. I see you're obeying. Now, go here.

It happens. In Acts 16, Paul and his team, they want to go one way. The Holy Spirit says, no. They want to go this way.

The Spirit of Jesus says, no. Then there's a dream. Ah, this is where we go. So these things happen. And sometimes the Lord does tell us to take step A, radical upheaval, to see if we'll obey Him now for step B, another radical upheaval. So he felt the Lord led him to step down from the position, although he hopes to work together with Christ for all nations in the future and evangelistic efforts. And he says this, the day after I stepped down, another door officially opened. I was asked to serve the Assemblies of God as their new national prayer and evangelism director.

This is the day after. He said, this is a dream come true in honor of a lifetime. I knew that this was the will of God and fit what God has called us to do. So he says, so we're moving to Springfield, Missouri. So they uproot, move from Texas, where they, you know, Waxahachie, something like that, move from Texas, seeking to obey the Lord, over to Orlando. Things shift. Okay, change your plans.

We don't feel we're supposed to stay here. I'm going to step down. Next day, this call. But here's the reason I'm sharing it with you. He said, in this transition, we've already been given two prophetic words from two different people who had no clue I was moving to Springfield.

Okay, how do you explain this one? Here's a text I received just today, so he has not announced this, just announced it today. Hope you guys are getting settled in Orlando well. Even though I think you don't really need to get settled in, you are going to end up in Springfield. So he thought, or whoever he or she thought in sending him this message, that they were in Orlando getting settled in and said, but I don't think you should really get settled in because you're going to Springfield.

What do you know? And then here's another one. You're moving to Springfield to work with Rick Dubois. When you get in your truck, call your wife and tell her it's a done deal.

Actually not moving to Springfield, but the suburbs southeast, he said, which is the exact geographic region where we contracted our next home. This person had no clue. God knows when you need encouragement. And boy, did he give it to us. Now, here's the deal. You're not going to tell Joe and his wife, Tricia, that that was a coincidence. It just happened. And when you multiply that by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of events like that, you know what it says?

The Holy Spirit is still speaking today. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, friends, to The Line of Fire. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you coming your way live from Dallas, Texas, at Christ for the Nations Institute, a school over 50 years old with a great legacy all around the world and a great student body that I got to speak to today.

866-348-7884 is the number to call. Any subject under the sun, as long as it's relevant to our broadcast, we will get to some calls hopefully a little later in the broadcast. One major thing happening in the culture, then I want to go back to this issue of experiencing God. One major thing happening in our culture is the freedom convoy, which continues to grow in Canada. I've been watching it with great interest because Canadians just in general as a nation don't have so much of the aggressive nature of Americans. I'm not saying that in a positive or negative way.

We tend to be more shouting our freedoms and ready to fight and even the church more politically involved, and Canada just has a little different personality, again, for better or for worse. But the mandates, the lockdowns, the restrictions, the things have just gone on for so long and been so extreme that many in a peaceful public way are pushing back with these truckers driving. It's quite an event. It's really something historic that they need to step back from, look at, evaluate and then write about or do some shows on. But one thing that happened was really, really interesting that millions and millions and millions of dollars for the freedom convoy have been raised through GoFundMe. And then last week, GoFundMe says, sorry, we're shutting this down and we'll donate the money to charities that freedom convoy agrees to, but they're not getting it. What?

What? Who gave them the right to do that with your money that you donated? Who gave them the authority? Senator Cruz, Ted Cruz has even said they need to be investigated. Now they've had to back down.

But how does that happen? Who gives them that right, that control over money that you gave to a cause on their website? And it's not that the cause now shifted. It's not that everything now radically changed and this is going to be used for some violent, illegal purposes.

No, it is for what it is. So, I mean, if you think you understand on what basis GoFundMe did this and they had a right to do it, give me a call, because that would be news to me. Now on that front, let me remind you, there's still time to pre-order your signed, numbered copy of The Silencing of the Lambs, The Ominous Rise of Cancel Culture and How We Can Overcome It. I feel very confident, as you read this book, it's due out early March, but you get a signed, numbered hardcover.

It's beautiful, hardcover, gorgeous cover. When you get this book, I deeply believe it will not only open your eyes and alert you to what's happening. I mean, in ways you think, well, I didn't know it was this bad, this deep, but you will be so encouraged and so charged with what we can do, how we can stand, what we can make a difference, friends, we can in Jesus' name.

Not by doing what the world does, not with more hatred or anger or intimidation, no, but with overcoming evil with good, overcoming hate with love, overcoming lies with truth, overcoming the power of the flesh with the power of the Spirit. By God's grace, the tide will turn and this book will help. There's even a new holiday we have announced to get everybody involved in making a difference. Yeah, we'll share more about that as we get closer to it in April.

That's when the special day is going to be. So go to AskDrBrown.org if you'd like to pre-order a signed, numbered copy. AskDrBrown.org.

Otherwise, you can order the hardcover or the e-book or the audiobook, wherever you get your books online. Otherwise, AskDrBrown.org. Okay, just tell me what you would make of this, okay? I mean, this has happened so many times when I've ministered. To call it a coincidence would be very odd because at a certain point here, if you're flipping a coin, right, and 91 times out of 100 it comes up heads and that coin is perfectly balanced and, okay, well, how do you explain that happening? Something's up here. It's not just a coincidence.

Or if you do it a thousand times, a million times, or take a hundred different coins and have a hundred different people flip them and each time you get the same results, 90 something out of 100 all coming up one way. Something's going on. So when you have these little providences over and over and over and over, it's just an indication of the reality of the Holy Spirit. So one example I gave in Authentic Fire, during a time of corporate prayer at our home church, one of our leaders who oversees our missions department felt prompted to read from Psalm 27. Well, that was the text that another leader who was preaching that night was going to use, okay? So he reads the very text that someone is going to preach from that night. Then before the message, of course he had no idea about that, before the message a visiting pastor who had been miraculously healed of inoperable bone cancer more than 30 years ago was asked to share his testimony, preaching in microcosm the very message that was about to come from the pulpit.

So he gets up and brings a message almost identical to what the leader's going to bring. Now, okay, those are little things, and themselves could be coincidences, but when you see them happen over and over and over again, you don't rely on that. You don't say, well, now Psalm 27 is true.

No, Psalm 27 has always been true. But you say, wow, there's something to that. It's just that little sign of God being with you, and there have been times when I've just laughed out loud with what he's done.

It's like, Father, you're amazing. Now, let me read you a quote from Smith Wigglesworth from 1859 to 1947. He died at the age of 87. You may hear things about him today, some crazy story. Read his writings. Read his writings firsthand. See what he had to say, and then you evaluate what kind of man of God he was. Listen to what he said. Ah, here it is on my screen, 1859 to 1947.

Didn't have to remember it. He once said, I can't, now he's a Pentecostal pioneer. He said, I can't understand God, excuse me, let me get this right. I can't understand God by feelings. I can't understand the Lord Jesus Christ by feelings. I can only understand God the Father and Jesus Christ by what the Word says about them.

God is everything the Word says he is. We need to get acquainted with him through the Word. This from a Pentecostal pioneer. This from a man who according to reports raised the dead. This from a man who heard the voice of the Lord in very unusual ways and did things in response to that that would take a lot of faith, and yet this is what he says. So it's not the Word versus the Spirit. It's the Word and the Spirit. The Word and the Spirit working in harmony.

Wigglesworth, I didn't hear this firsthand, obviously it died in 1947, but from someone who knew the story, Wigglesworth is in South Africa. He is taking a walk through a nice community one day and he's going to be speaking at a church that night. He feels the Holy Spirit says to him, go to that house, it's a nice house in a nice community, and shout John 3 16 through the keyhole of the door. Shout for God's Son the Lord. Shout it. And he says, Lord I can't do that.

It would be a scandal. And the Lord very sternly tells him you have to do it. So he yells John 3 16 through the keyhole and then runs. He says, that's not God, that's crazy, that's trespassing, that's this, that's disruptive.

You come up with all your reasons, okay. He knew the voice of the Lord, the Lord told him to do it. Well that night he's conducting the service, a well-dressed man comes in.

He wants to testify. He said, I was at my house today. He said, I was standing on the chair. I had the noose around my neck. I was about to kick the chair out from under me and kill myself. When suddenly I heard John 3 16 shouted through my door and I knew God's love for me and I decided not to commit suicide. And it happens to be at that very service where the man who shouted it through the door was speaking. You tell me that that wasn't God. You, but I don't like that.

The style of it's not the issue. He broke no laws, he obeyed the Lord, and a man's life was just dramatically saved. To quote Daniel Wallace again, the Holy Spirit did not die in the first century. Do I want to meddle? I'm going to meddle here for a moment.

I'm going to meddle. What happened to demons? What happened to demons? I have no desire to prove the existence of demons to an atheist. I have no desire to divide over Christians about the existence of demons.

But I have no desire to do that. But did the devil just make a deal with the Holy Spirit? You stop working miraculously with signs and wonders and miracles and prophecy and tongues and interpretation and all that. You stop doing that and I'll stop doing what I do with demons. Obviously not.

Obviously not. So you read in the Bible some accounts in the Old Testament but a lot in the New Testament about demonic activity in the gospels with Jesus and the disciples and then in the book of Acts with the disciples and the apostles. You read about demonic activity. You read about people being set free from demons.

You read about all these things happening. The longer ending of Mark, which if it doesn't reflect the original words of Jesus in Mark, most scholars would say it does not, reflects an early tradition of the words of Jesus that was accepted as true and scriptural by a large portion of the church, that Jesus said that believers, not just apostles or first century preachers, but believers would drive out demons. And then one of the gifts of the Spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, which Paul nowhere says will die out until Jesus returns. When Jesus returns, we won't need these anymore. We'll know God face to face.

Until then, the gifts are operative. Paul's very clear on that. So he says that one of the gifts that God gives is discerning of spirits. That means to discern demonic activity, to discern the difference between the demons and the human spirit and the Holy Spirit. You say, I know these crazy charismatic churches.

They just drive demons out of each other day and night. I even heard of places where you bring a paper bag and you throw up in it because you're throwing up demons. Yeah, I heard of crazy stuff like that too. It's crazy. Just because people are doing crazy things doesn't mean truth isn't true.

The fact that there's counterfeit money doesn't mean real money isn't real. We'll be right back. Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hear that sound of our friends at Skillet, The Resistance. 866-34-TRUTH.

Go into the phones momentarily. Just a few quotes I want to read to you. These are all found in my book, Authentic Fire. W. H. Griffith Thomas, co-founder with Loris Sperry-Chafer of Dallas Theological Seminary. He said, it is of course essential to remember that theology is not merely a matter of intellect but also of experience. Theology is concerned with spiritual realities and must include personal experience as well as ideas. The feeling equally with reason must share in the consideration of theology because theology is of the heart and the deepest truths are inextricably bound up with personal needs and experience.

How about Baptist evangelist Vance Havner? There are Christians in churches that boast of being mature when they really are spiritually frostbitten. We have developed a prejudice against feeling and emotion until amens would be no scarcer if they cost a hundred dollars of peace and the real truth is we have lost our first love. This accounts for a lot of church troubles. When we love the Lord we love the brethren. When we break up the fallow ground of our hearts we uncover roots of bitterness. There is a reckless enthusiasm about first love.

It is not cold and calculating. Leonard Ravenhill once said, you can have all of your doctrines right yet still not have the presence of God. Or how about Jonathan Edwards, the great leader of the one of the key leaders in the first great awakening in the 1700s in America, America's premier early philosopher and theologian. He said, true religion consists so much in the affections, so the desires, emotions in a holy sense that there can be no true religion without them. He who has no religious affection is in a state of spiritual death and is wholly destitute of the powerful quickening saving influences of the spirit of God upon his heart.

As there is no true religion where there is nothing else but affection, so there is no true religion where there is no religious affection. One more textbook on American history notes that Edwards became the ablest apologist for revivals in Britain and America. When Boston's Charles Chauncey, very much a man of the enlightenment, attacked the revivals as frauds because of their emotional excesses, Edwards replied that although no emotional response, however intense, could prove by itself the presence of God the person's life, he insisted that intense feelings must always accompany the reception of divine grace, for Edwards and unemotional piety could never be the work of God. In effect, Edwards countered Chauncey's emotional defense of reason with his own rational defense of emotion. A.W.

Tozer. I said one more, but one more, then I'm going to the phones. In spite of the undeniable lukewarmness of most of us, we still fear that unless we keep a careful check on ourselves, we shall surely lose our dignity and become howling fanatics by this time next week. We set a watch on our emotions lest we become over-spiritual and bring reproach upon the cause of Christ, which all, if I may say so, is for most of us about as sensible as throwing a cord of police around a cemetery to prevent a wild political demonstration by the inhabitants. In other words, most of us who are believers, the last thing we need to worry about is becoming too fanatical or too emotional because we're so cold and held back.

Now please hear me. We walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith, not by feelings.

To quote Wigglesworth, I am not moved by what I feel or see. I am moved by what I believe. So what we believe is based on the word, regardless of what we see or feel, we believe God. And we may go through extended periods of times where we feel all alone, where we have no sense of fellowship with God, where we feel abandoned, when our bodies are hurting, when prayers are not being answered, and we're going through that deep valley, and we persevere by faith.

But that is not the always norm. We are to enjoy His presence, and His presence is fullness of joy. There is a peace that passes understanding. There is a love beyond knowledge. There is an experience of fellowship with the Spirit. There is watching the Holy Spirit work actively in your life as you serve Him.

This is to be the norm. If it's not your norm, no condemnation but invitation. There is more to be had in your relationship with the Lord. Read through the whole Bible. See if what I'm saying is accurate and true, and if it is, say, God, I want everything you have for me so I can do everything you've called me to do. All right, 866-344-TRUTH. Let's go to the phone, starting with Greg in Cary, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown.

Good to talk to you. I have a question, or I want to get your take on this, as far as—I heard Corrie Tenenbaum was doing a speech, or a recording of it, and she had said to some effect that excuses are not covered by the blood of Jesus. And when I first heard it, I thought, that sounds so good.

But then I thought about it, I thought, wait a minute, I think that they all—I mean, I kind of got puzzled by it, but I just wanted to get your take on that. Right, so just hearing that little line out of a larger context, what I'm understanding she's saying is not that there is no forgiveness for doing wrong. I made an excuse.

I didn't do what I was supposed to do. I asked the Lord to forgive me, and he won't, because I made an excuse. I'm sure she wasn't saying that, but from—again, just going based on the quote you're giving me—I would understand it to be saying that we have no right, just because we're saved and forgiven, we have no right to make excuses and think, oh, well, God will just cover that. You know, Lord, I know you called me to fast this week, but I really like this food, so I'm going to eat anyway.

I'm under the blood of Jesus. I think she was saying you can't do that. I think she was saying you can't use it as a cop-out based on what you're saying.

That sounds good. That's probably what I—maybe you misheard what she said. I just wanted to thank you for your—I came in on when you started talking about the guy who had prophetic words spoken over him as far as going to Springfield, Missouri. And I just feel like it's like a Newt Rockne kind of like gets people psyched up, you know, when the football players get all psyched up for coaches and stuff. It's like a psych-up for Christianity, almost, like going out and getting into the faith, you know, getting stronger into the faith.

It's just a—I don't know. Yeah, you know, there's something great about it. I remember at a significant time in my life, God had called me to quit my job. It was June of 1983. I came home from a church service, and I said to Nancy, I said, God's called me to quit my job, and we're going to move out about 50 miles away to teach at a new Bible school in Long Island in Christ for the Nations. And she laughed out loud, not that she didn't believe me, but just that's a lot of news, you know. And she had had a sense about going back there that I'd be called to teach.

This was a sudden thing. I called my mom. I said, Mom, we're going to be moving about an hour away.

She was a widow. We're going to be moving about an hour away on the island. We're going to be teaching at a new school, leaving my job.

I called my boss, and I said, I'm going to be leaving sometime later this year. I don't know exactly when it'll be, but it's going to be going to teach at a Bible school in Long Island. Okay, great, Mike, you know, all that. And then a pastor friend of mine was attending some summer classes.

They had just started in the summer, then going to be full-time with new students in the fall. And he said, hey, Mike, why don't you come out with me for one of the meetings? He had felt God was calling me there as well, even before I knew it. So we go to the class, and it's, you know, it's not a lot of people.

So the teacher is greeting any guests, and, oh yeah, I'm a guest here, first-time visitor. And he said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm doing this and that for a living, but, you know, I'm just waiting for God to call me out and do full-time ministry.

No, no, yeah, I basically said that. And then he says, you're going to be called. You're going to be doing this. You're going to be stepping out. Gave me the description of what I was going to be doing next. And when we drove away, my friend and I, the pastor, we were laughing and rejoicing, and we said, he's alive. He's alive. You know, so it's just that sense of the living God.

Hey, thanks for the call. I was in a book, a scholarly book, different religion scholars, and I got asked to be part of this, about prophecies and failed prophecies and different things. So I'm giving an insider's perspective as a Pentecostal Charismatic about the failed Trump prophecies. So writing this article, I wanted to give examples of the type of prophetic ministry we're used to. And I mentioned this one young man I knew. He was an administrator for a major prayer ministry that would have gatherings of tens of thousands, even several hundred thousand people at times. And he kind of coordinated, ran things. Every time I was ever around him, he was always dressed casually, like shorts and a t-shirt, every easygoing, laid back, able to handle all the pressure. So I'm in an airport outside of DC, and I see him, and he's in a really nice suit. Like, what happened to you?

What are you doing? And he said, well, I was at a meeting, and this one sister, prophetic sister, had a word over me. And she said, God's calling you out for what you're doing, and he's calling you into DC, and you're going to be working with political leaders and government leaders and cultural leaders, etc.

And you're going to need three new suits. No sooner does that happen, and he's like, Lord, what is going on? So he's asking the Lord.

Obviously, you have to know for yourself, right? Is this the Lord? So not long after that, totally different place, setting, a guy comes up to him and says, I'm supposed to buy you three new suits. And he had just gotten off the phone then with three governors where they were planning out a Christian response to a hurricane that had just taken place.

He ended up working in the campaign, presidential primary campaign for Newt Gingrich. He's telling me, yeah, I'm just on the road with Newt. Now it's like, how wild. But this is the living God, and there are many times we don't get words like that, and many times we don't get confirmation, and we just have to press forward anyway. But God so often does these things. The Holy Spirit is living and active and working today. And Jesus said in Luke 11 13, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them? So, Lord, everything you have for us so that we can know you best, experience you best, and glorify Jesus best. We ask for it in Jesus name. Back with you friends, tomorrow. Oh, it's our resistance. You can't resist us. Another program powered by the Truth Network.