Confronting Our Religious and Moral Hypocrisy

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. If we had lived in the days of slavery in America, that we would have stood against it, speaking in particular to white Christians, that we would have stood against it even if it cost us something rather than go along with that horrible practice. Are we so sure that if we had lived in the days of Nazi Germany that we would have followed in the path of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer or rescued Jews like a Corrie Ten Boom? Are we sure we would have done that?

It's very easy to condemn the actions or the inactions of past generations. It's a lot harder for us to judge ourselves, but we're going to be honest. We're going to put some things on the table. We're going to get everybody thinking on the line of fire.

Michael Brown, welcome, welcome to the broadcast. We are here, friends, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong in the Lord. Here's the number to call. 866-348-7884.

That's 866-34-TRUTH. If you want to weigh in on the topics that we're discussing today, we're going to talk about our response to the war in Ukraine. We're going to talk about responses to something on a much less emotional level, the buying of Twitter by Elon Musk and free speech issues that you can't compare to the suffering in Ukraine right now. But these are controversial things we're going to talk about and some other issues to check our own righteousness, our own integrity before the Lord. But if you want to weigh in on any other subject or ask me a question about any other subject, a little later in the broadcast, I'll take some calls on random subjects as well. So, now's a good time to call. This way we'll be able to get to your call a little bit later in the show.

866-34-TRUTH. Here's what Paul wrote in Romans 2. He's just gone through Romans, the first chapter. He's shown how the human race has rejected God. He's shown the prevalent sin and idolatry, immorality, injustice in terms of who we are as human beings and the state of the human race. And then he continues.

There's no chapter break in the Greek, so it's the very next verse. It says this in Romans 2, 1, You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Oh, I'd never do what that one did. Then we turn around and do something else that's wrong. Oh, I would never say that. And then we turn around and speak against someone else. Oh, I would never be associated with this. And then we're associated with something very similar. It's amazing how self-righteous we can be.

It's amazing how hypocritical we can be as human beings. Have you ever done this? You're driving in your car, right? And someone cuts you off.

I mean, bad move. They obviously weren't looking before they changed lanes. They cut you off, and you want them to know they cut you off. In fact, you think if you really remind them clearly they cut you off, next time they'll be more careful. So you don't just tap the horn.

You lay on the horn. Just to make sure, buddy, that was a bad move. You could have gotten yourself killed. You could have gotten me killed. You could have gotten somebody else killed. Careful. Be sure to check and check your blind spots.

And we were quite righteous in doing that. Yeah, we're a little annoyed, but they need to know. And then it happens to us the next day, except reversed, that we're the ones that thought we checked but didn't check lanes and switched and didn't see the car that we almost smashed into in the side.

And they lay on their horn like, what are you doing? What's with you, man? You're throwing your hands up.

You're angry. Oh, that never happened to you? Oh, sorry. Sorry.

Got the wrong person there. Well, it happened to some of us, for sure. It happened to me, for sure, that my reaction was righteous. My reaction was right and controlled and good and sending a message.

Buddy, be careful. But when I was the one saying, hey, I was this. I was a mistake.

What are you, what are you mad for me for? Now, to be honest, if I do it and someone, and I realize, oh, no, I went in somebody's lane, I immediately waved my hand like, sorry, sorry, you know. And then if they pull up next to me, I say, so sorry, I wasn't paying attention. You know, I do my best to eat it. But the first reaction, what are you slamming your horn in me for?

Well, we were so righteous when we slammed our horn. I remember I was walking through the airport one day and some gal, I don't know if she was, how she was dressed or just attractive, whatever, just walks in front of my vision. But I really paid no attention to it. But right across from me, the guy that's walking towards me, I see him look her up and down. Just, I see his eyes go up and down. He checks her out and immediately thought, what, you're like an animal, man.

What's with this animal? That's just gross what you just did. Well, have I ever looked at a girl? Well, no, no, God, he knows I didn't mean that. And it's just, it was a temporary glance. And I looked away immediately and I, oh, so it's the other guy's an animal. But me as well, no, I didn't.

It was a momentary thing. And God knows it's not my heart. And so, oh, so we have our excuses. So all I'm saying is, just because I'm not trying to win brownie points here.

This is not how you gain more listeners to your broadcast. This is just me being truthful. It's very easy for us to be hypocrites. The old line, just talking to my producers right before the show, that you point the one finger at somebody, three fingers are pointing back at you. Which means we've got to do a lot of self-examination. It means that we've got to be honest with ourselves before God. We humble ourselves. We receive constructive criticism. We seek to grow. We don't just assume one side of an argument.

We really try to take things in and analyze and ask deep probing questions. So that the judgments that we come to, John 7 24, are not based on superficial appearance, but on righteousness. Based on righteousness.

Now, Jesus says this in Matthew the 23rd chapter, and then I'm going to talk very directly about Russia and Ukraine, and then get to some race issues. So we're definitely going to push some buttons. Hey, before I do that, if you're watching on YouTube, do two things if you can. Click on the thumbs up button. This will just help this be distributed to more viewers right now. Click on the thumbs up button and then just in the comments, just weigh in. I've been checking in to see where you're watching from around the world. And on Facebook, just put a note where you're watching from around the world and then click on share. This will share the video on your feed as well.

And then if you don't want it to stay there just when the show's over, go ahead and delete it. But this just enables us to reach more people and Facebook and YouTube will see that and say, hey, let's push it out to reach more people. We're here to reach people. We're here to make a difference. We're here to be a voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. So this way we do it together. It's bing, click a little button, bing, put in a little comment, and you're helping us.

And you're helping us help others. That's what it's all about. OK, look at what Jesus says in Matthew 23. He's speaking to the hypocritical religious leaders. Did they think they were hypocritical? Did they wear a badge saying I am a hypocrite? Was it written on their forehead?

Hypocritical leader? I remember meeting an ultra-orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn in August of 1973. I was with a rabbi who was a conservative rabbi, so not nearly as religious and observant as this rabbi. And the one rabbi, my friend that brought me there, comes up to the ultra-orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and said something like, how are you doing?

He goes, thank God, thank God. And I was surprised. I was 18 years old. I was surprised. Why? Because I thought, well, he's a religious Jew and he's just following Jewish tradition.

It's just kind of by rote. You know, I had this stereotypical mindset, not having grown up in a religious Jewish community. And I almost thought him to say, you know, for someone just following their Jewish tradition and a lot of hypocrisy, I'm doing OK.

I mean, I would never think someone would say that, but that was almost my mindset. And he responded with a very sincere thank God. And boy, this guy was as devoted as anyone else I met. He truly wanted to honor God and please God.

And I just saw some people in my church talk like that. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank God.

Thank God. So, do you think these leaders knew they were hypocrites? So, what does Yeshua say to them? Woe to you, teachers of the long Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, if we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them, shedding the blood of the prophets. So, you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead then and complete what your ancestors started. And not long after that, some of them are complicit in the Messiah's death. If we had lived back then, we never would have killed the prophets.

And then they go ahead and kill the one the prophets spoke about. Alright, so, I found an article from 2013 on the website thenation.com. The Nation magazine publication goes back to Civil War times. And from what I understand is the oldest ongoing American publication. And is very much, quote, progressive left-leaning. So, this is from thenation.com a 2013 article.

And it starts with these words. In early 1943, at the height of the Holocaust, a prominent journalist denounced Franklin Roosevelt's response to the Nazi genocide in harsh terms. Quote, you and I and the President and the Congress and the State Department are accessories to the crime and share Hitler's guilt, she wrote. If we had behaved like humane and generous people instead of complacent cowardly ones, the two million Jews lying today in the earth of Poland and Hitler's other crowded graveyards would be alive and safe. We had it in our power to rescue this doomed people and we did not left a hand to do it. Or perhaps it would be fair to say that we lifted just one cautious hand encased in a tight-fitting glove of quotas and visas and affidavits and a thick layer of prejudice. And the one who wrote this article was a staunch Roosevelt supporter. The article continues, the nation spoke out early and vociferously for U.S. action to rescue Europe's Jews. After the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, it called for admission to the United States of at least 15,000 German Jewish refugee children, still just a handful.

The administration declined to endorse the proposal. The Roosevelt administration's refugee policy, quote, is one which must sicken any person of ordinarily humane instinct. It is as if we were to examine laboriously the curriculum vitae of flood victims clinging to a piece of floating wreckage and finally to decide that no matter what their virtues, all but a few had better be allowed to drown. So this is to say that there were many who said that FDR and the American administration knew a whole lot about the suffering of the Jewish people in Germany and in Europe and did not do anything substantial to allow Jewish people to leave or help them leave or get into America. We sit back and think, horrible, well, are we doing the same now with Russia and Ukraine? No, it's not on the level of the Holocaust, but are we watching with our own eyes on our smartphones and TVs, genocide, attempted genocide, war crimes?

Are we watching those and saying, well, you know, if we get involved, is it easy to make excuses? 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. Thanks for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire. Do you believe right now, this is weeks and weeks into the war in Ukraine, we are being told by our government that Russia is committing war crimes, that Russia is trying to commit genocide? Should we be doing more?

866-348-7884. We've talked a lot about the situation in Ukraine, especially earlier on. We continue to pray. We've got coworkers there. Some have gone to Poland now to flee for safety with those they've been ministering to and helping. But we get the on-the-ground reports, and it's just brutal, and it's horrible to see, and it's unimaginable to think of going through that when we live in the peace in which we live here in America.

And this past Sunday, after speaking a couple of times at the church where I was near St. Louis, we went over to the pastor's house for a meal before I flew out. And one of the young ladies there was born in Ukraine, lived there the first five years of her life, has family in Ukraine. And you were just talking about, well, if we do more, if we get more involved, right, with Putin seeming to be so either irrational or very rational in terms of dead set on accomplishing his goals no matter what it costs, or maybe having some type of savior idea or complex, I mean, there's a lot of speculation. Only God knows exactly what's in his heart. But, you know, if we got more involved, if we brought in our own planes to start bombing Russian sites or taking down their bombers, or if we massively increased our weaponry or began to bring other troops in or NATO brought troops in and ended this quickly and pushed the Russians out quickly, well, would it lead to a nuclear holocaust? Would it lead to a massive nuclear war and the loss of not just millions but maybe tens of millions of lives? And isn't it better to be patient and let thousands die than provoke something and let multiplied millions die or cause the death of multiplied millions?

Well, is it that cowardice or is it pragmatism? So it goes back and forth. The debate goes back and forth. But that's the point, that when you're right in the thick of this, and this is not just a theoretical debate, we're talking about people's lives, but when you're right in the thick of this, it's not as easy to sort out as when you look back years later and you make decisions years later and pass judgments years later. So we can look back and say the American government should have gotten involved earlier in World War II. Obviously, with the provocation of Pearl Harbor, that's early on with Japan. But in terms of the situation in Russia and not bombing certain tracks with rail cars and things like that or just destroying an extermination camp so they couldn't exterminate more people, you say, well, some are going to die.

Well, many, many, many, many more are going to die unless that's done, that people look back and why this happened and why the inaction, etc. Or let me throw something else out to you. And I'm raising questions, friends, because it just strikes me today. Sometimes the answer is to say, hey, just stop for a moment and watch this.

And on another note, she just asked me to watch this report about what's happening in Shanghai with COVID crackdown. This is my mind bug. I mean, people literally prisoners in their own homes or in their own apartments, many apartments. I mean, just literal prisoners in there and forced by the government. It's it's pretty wild to see. No surprise, though. China being China. And you wonder, do they know more about the virus than we do in terms of the way they're trying to fight it? I don't mean that in a good way, the way they're trying to fight it.

I mean, are they more involved in its origins with knowledge? In any case, you know, just just seeing with your own eyes the suffering that's going on and knowing that with more help from America and NATO, that Ukraine would be able to push back Russia and defeat Russia in terms of this war, not overall defeat the nation, but in terms of the war. Think, well, how do we just let it go? Well, I know the arguments pro and con. I know the back and forth.

But friends, it's easier said than done in terms of knowing exactly what the right thing to do is in a given situation. So back to this this article in in the nation. The article was directed a lot against Professor Lawrence Zuckerman, who had written about FDR and the Jews and was much more sympathetic. And the article was attacking his viewpoint. And here's what he says. I just want to read this from the they gave him the courtesy of a response. And he says this.

He's writing in 2013. Remember, this is when when Assad in Syria is is unleashing atrocities against its own people in the midst of what became a civil war. And he said this at a time when our country's leaders and many of its citizens are agonizing over how to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

We might all agree that figuring out the best way to stop mass murder overseas has never been an easy task. Point being, it's easier to judge past generations than to judge our own generation. It's easier to judge past generations than to judge our own generation. It's easier to judge others than to judge ourselves. Have you ever looked at a picture of yourself afterwards? Someone made a comment like, no, it's not true.

Oh, look at the picture. Or you watched a video and someone said, I remember playing drums with this gospel band late 70s, early 80s. We would travel in the wherever you drive in our general area and do concerts. And I'd kind of preach a message in the midst of the concert.

And in those days, it was right before God had really renewed me spiritually. And our great focus was pro-life, which is a good focus. And our great focus was pro-life, which is a good focus.

And sponsoring refugees, which is another good focus. And I would really bring a strong message, a calling on us to do good works and calling on us to help the poor and the needy and to stand with the unborn. So it was a good word. It did not include a call to really connect to fresh with God and thereby be empowered by him to do these things in a life-changing way or a more life-changing way. But in any case, the band leader told me that I needed to tone down my drum playing and that it had to be much more modest and fit within a group. Now remember, I played with a rock band before I was saved and we'd all just jam and you're all like showing off your musicianship and stuff. And I told him I really don't do that at all, that I play in a way that just fits in with the band. And he said, well, just listen to some of the tapes. And I went back and listened. I was completely embarrassed. I thought, I can't believe that. I was so sure I wasn't doing what he said, but he's absolutely right.

That's exactly what I was doing. And I need to just play in a way that the whole goal is to enhance the sound of the band and not to try to show off some skills. It's a lot easier to judge others than to judge ourselves. You say, well, how do you remedy that? Well, one thing is to go before the Lord and humble yourself on a regular basis and get low before him and say, God, give me an open heart. Give me an open mind.

Shine the light of your spirit into my heart and mind. Show me, Lord, where I've heard. Show me, Lord, where there's things that are displeasing to you.

Show me where there's pride or self-righteousness or double standards. It may not be the most exciting teaching that I'm giving you. It's not like seven secrets to super prosperity, right?

Or three ways to get an immediate prophetic word, although people love those. But I'm just telling you the truth, friends. Another thing is, are you open to receive constructive criticism? There's criticism that just tears down attacks and so on. Are you open to receive constructive criticism? My dear, faithful bride, Nancy, of over 46 years, we joke about it as recently as a few days ago that she is exactly the person I need in my life to this day. She's been an incredible God. Of course, we love each other. We have fun with each other.

We're the best, deepest, deepest, deepest, best friends and on and on. But in point of fact, I needed someone with an absolute immovable backbone of steel, more immovable than mine. Someone that has the supernatural ability to just see what's right and what's wrong or to see where the train is going to get off the track.

I mean, it's uncanny, scarily so. And to just be able to say, no, no, that's wrong. I remember I was writing a book and I thought this is going to be a great opening to the book. And I sent her the opening chapter.

It was a short opening chapter. And she sent it back to me and written in big letters across the top, total fail. That was her response.

Total fail. And I said, I really felt like inspired, because not to start the book, maybe somewhere else, but that does not start. And I stepped back and thought, OK, got it, got it. I see. I'm going to start this way.

And it worked just fine. But by the way, my point is not to say, oh, look at how good I am. Look at how godly I am.

I am sure I have blind spots. I am sure there are things where I will need someone to speak into my life until the day I stand before the Lord. But it's meaningful to me that that others who are my elders in the Lord have told me they've never met anyone more teachable.

That's meaningful. I know that I can be stubborn. I know that I can be opinionated. I know that I can be dogmatic. I know that I have blind spots that I don't know about for sure. But my hope is I love to get low.

My hope is when I recognize criticism as being constructive, that I do my best to hear it because I'm aware. Because in the in the in the years past, especially early in the Lord, I was so incredibly dogmatic and had to be right on every last point, whatever it was. And God knows how to strip you. God knows how to humble you.

God knows how to get you walking with a limp. We come back. Things are going to get a bit more controversial as we plunge into some issues about blind spots when it comes to race.

And can racism go in multiple directions? 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. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. Remember the words of Paul that when we pass judgment on someone else, we condemn ourselves because we are guilty of the same things. Have you ever heard someone preaching passionately and harshly and condemning others wanting to find out they were living in secret sin?

866-348-7884. So I want to continue on the subject of double standards of judging someone else harshly and giving ourselves a pass. Sean King, who is a BLM activist, came into prominence after the killing of my namesake, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. He said this about Elon Musk purchasing Twitter. He said at its root, Elon Musk wanting to purchase Twitter is not about left versus right. It's about white power. He said this, the man was raised and apartheid by a white nationalist. He's upset that Twitter won't allow white nationalists to target harassed people. That's his definition of free speech. So for me, this isn't about left versus right.

Not at all. It's about how the richest man in the world, the son of apartheid, raised by a white nationalist wants to be sure his speech and that of other white men isn't censored. That's garbage that needs to be called out. That wouldn't be the first time that Sean King, I pray that he'll come to know God's mercy and truth and repentance and redemption. It's not the first time that he said radical things like that. And by the way, when I'm done talking, I may get people upset on all sides, but that's not my goal.

My goal is to be truthful and to provoke us to think through some things. OK, that is a racist statement. It's accusing Elon Musk of being racist. There's nothing I'm aware of in his history here in America, in his running of his businesses, in his interpersonal relationships where he's been accused of being racist. I'm not aware of that or truthfully accused, verifiably accused. Anybody can be accused of anything.

All right. And the idea this about white power or this is in order to give white supremacists a platform is a racist statement. It is completely ignoring everything that's led up to this. It's completely ignoring Twitter's censorship. It's completely ignoring Twitter's double standards.

It's basically saying, oh, the double standards are good for us because they're keeping you down. Don't dare level the playing field. Don't dare level the playing field. We get to make every kind of racist comment we want from the left. We get to make every hateful comment we want from the left. We get to make every derogatory comment we want from the left.

We get to belittle whatever people group we want from the left. But absolutely, you don't dare say what you want to say. You don't have that freedom. We have freedom of speech, as the old saying goes. Free speech. In this case, I'll apply the same free speech for me, but not for thee.

That's what works. College campuses all over. The double standard is massively glaring and in many, many institutions in America. If you don't believe me, take the time to read my book, The Silencing of the Lambs. Take the time to read it.

It will be incredibly eye opening for you. And you will see documentation. Check. A fact checker went through every single citation in my book. That was their job.

Carefully vetted it. You will be shocked by the level of double standards. People say, no, no, no, racism can only be practiced by the oppressor class. That if you are among the oppressed, you can't be a racist. Well, that is a new definition. That is a changing of the definition to basically allow for hatred and prejudice to go unchecked and unchallenged. I don't accept that definition.

Just because some people use it like that, I don't accept it. Well, I can't be racist because I'm in an oppressed minority. Anyone can be a racist. There can be a million against one and that one can be a racist. It can go either way.

So I see this. This is blatant racism. This is blatant double standard. It's it's an unverified, undocumented, ugly accusation against Elon Musk or to say there's anything in him that makes him a white nationalist today. And it could well be that the last thing in his mind is to let haters, white nationalists, white supremacists, haters, bigots have a platform. But here, here's my simple philosophy in terms of what should be free.

It's got to be equal. If you want to say up front, we are biased, we are bigoted, we only allow free speech on this side. Well, that's going to destroy your whole platform. If you want to say we are an equal platform and here's what we ban. Either make sure you ban it equally on all sides or my view is if it's legal, if you could do it on the street corner and it's legal. Right.

Then you should be able to do it on one of these platforms. If you cross a line that would be illegal hate speech or illegal hate provocation, then it shouldn't be allowed. Look, it's just like when I have people call in or we do a chat and people post. I don't like some of the comments, but if they don't cross lines, they get approved. Sometimes I just want to see what comments came in over the course of a day.

Maybe it's a controversial subject and I have a few minutes, so I just want to see. Oh, let me just review and see the comments. Most of the time I can't because so much comes in on social media. But I'll look at it and maybe a few of them are linked to websites so they get held up automatically.

In other words, the way it works, say on our YouTube channel, if you post a link with a website, it'll get held up until it's approved. That's just the way it is. And that's good because a lot of them are trashy and things that we just block. But there'll be some comment categorically differing with me in the strongest of terms. And it's every line of it. Every line of it is wrong. Every single line is wrong.

But they didn't violate any rules. I personally approve it. Why?

Because that's what it's there for. Go ahead and disagree with me. All the time this happens, when I have time to look at these, I'm approving things that I completely differ with. And that are easily refuted.

But if they didn't violate our guidelines, you know, false attacks or personal attacks and things like that, we use profanity, it gets posted. Now, now, here's the point. It's very easy for me to sit here and see this is a racist comment.

It's very easy for me to look at a white supremacist and see their racism. However, do I, how do I know? Do I know for sure that if I lived in the 1850s in Mississippi, how do I know that I would have opposed slavery?

What if I was raised in a Christian home and that's how we were taught to read the Bible? And I got to know some of the slaves. We had personal relationships and, you know, I was friendly with them. And when I was a kid, played with their kids.

And this is just the system. And do I know that I would have been on the right side of that? Can I say for sure? Can any of us say how we would have acted? Well, the test is how we act today.

If someone shows me a blind spot today, if I become aware of something. Here, just as an example. In recent years, Southern Baptist leadership has renounced its past, has publicly apologized for its racist origins and things like this. So, for those who aren't aware, Southern Baptist Convention, which was the largest Protestant denomination in America. Southern Baptists began as a breakaway from Northern Baptists because they wanted to keep slaves.

And the four founders, I believe it was the four founders of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, were all slaveholders who justified slave ownership in the 1800s. So, I didn't know that until probably just a few years ago. Of course, I'm not a Southern Baptist. Maybe I would have known if I had been in the midst of it. But I brought that up to groups of Christians. They didn't even know it to this day. Well, many black Christian Americans knew the history very well and knew about it. That's an eye-opener, isn't it?

And that it could go on so long without a real clear public statement about the sins of the past. So, there are a lot of things that are eye-openers. And the more I learn, the more eye-opening is going to happen.

That's going to be for all of us. But, you know, it's easy to spot the racism over there. Do I spot it over here?

It's easy to spot the anti-Semitism over there, but do you spot it there? These are fair questions to ask, friends. And my reason for putting this on the table has to do with as we watch the war in Ukraine and we don't do more. Is our position morally justifiable or one that will be condemned by future generations? I'm asking questions to help us go deeper.

I'm asking questions to provoke thought, not to get people angry, not to try to stir up controversy because that will get more attention. Friends, if that was my goal, I wouldn't be doing the work of ministry. But I fell in prayer and looking at the show and writing about this. We've got to probe deeper. We've got to think about these things. All right, let's go over to Claudius in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hello? Hello. Yeah, this is Claudius.

Yes, sir. Yeah, I want to start with my conclusion to start with. I want to say, if Putin is killed today and the cause is to burn into physics, it does not mean anything to the amount of losses and depression that has happened. So to me, this war is a failure on both sides and it's a loss of life, depression, and it's going to leave us with the whole issue.

Yes, and it's fortunate because one of the biggest problems is most people have thrown the Bible under the trash. If they believe in God and believe in the Bible, Jesus said, Vengeance is man and he will be paid, said the Lord. Our bishops are still sending ammunition and sending ammunition and the Ukrainian people are being killed, killed and slaughtered and beaten like everything. They should stop, they should stop all this ammunition sending and they should start negotiation.

That's what I think. For this war, it's a waste of time. If they kill Putin today and his wife and his girlfriend and his whatever, it's not going to mean anything to what has happened to the whole world. So if they keep on fighting and fighting again, Putin will probably use some chemical weapons and it will affect the world beyond what we can imagine. Listen, talking about sending ammunition, no-fly zone and all these things, it's just a waste of time. The devil is so much in control of these things. They should stop fighting, stop sending ammunition and they should start negotiation. All these things will bring these things together. Yeah, let me just say this though. If we're not sending ammunition and we're not helping Ukraine, then Russia will just completely overrun.

And I do believe that President Zelensky has been trying to negotiate for some time, but finds walls of opposition in terms of Russian demands. Hey, we're asking you to weigh in. Thank you, sir, for weighing in. We'll come back, take some more of your comments and calls. 866-34-TRUTH. 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, welcome to The Line of Fire. If you just heard that ad, my voice talking about my friend, personal doctor and our ministry partner, Dr. Mark Stangler. If you heard that, go to vitaminmission.com. If you didn't hear it, go to vitaminmission.com. Great health supplements.

They'll be a blessing to you as they've been to me. Special discount for those of you that are listening and watching. And with every order, Dr. Stangler turns around and gives a donation to our ministry, which helps us then reach more people with a life-changing message. All right, back to the phones, 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Andrew in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. How are you? Doing well, thank you. All right, I really gotta commend you for talking about self-righteousness, because that's like a very good topic. And I think one of the things I want to say is that sometimes you know people can be secretly self-righteous when they say, thank God I'm not like those self-righteous people.

Yep, that's right, that's right. Right, and another thing is that also with your comments about criticism, I hate to say it, but I'm actually extremely sensitive to criticism. Like, a lot of times, I mean, it doesn't even have to be just with the gut or anything, but it can just be with anything. Like, sometimes I can't tell if something's destructive or constructive. I know it's a personal thing, but for me, I pretty much would like to develop a pretty fixed skin, which I really gotta commend, which I especially gotta commend before with even how you responded, and even how you've even kept your cool when sometimes you get criticized in a way.

So, yeah, that's kind of like a very good inspiration for me. Well, you know, Andrew, I really appreciate that very much, and I just want to speak to the sensitive part. We're all wired differently, right, and I'm called to be on the front lines in a way that others may not be called. You know, if my main calling was to be holding the hands of dying people and ministering to the families as they wept, I'd have to be wired differently if that was my main calling. So, I have friends that are also on the front lines, but they're very sensitive to criticism, too. It's more difficult for them to do what they do, and their team shields them so they don't know about a lot of the attack. My team will tell me about the attack to encourage me that we're making a difference and that people are pushing back.

But as human beings, generally speaking, none of us like rejection, and generally speaking, we don't like to be told what's wrong about us. Two key things. One is, if we are secure in the love of the Father, that's the biggest foundation. John 13, Jesus washes his disciples' feet. What does it say immediately before this?

So, he does what a slave would do, household slave. What does it say immediately before that? Knowing that the Father had given all power, authority to him, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he then humbled himself and washed their feet. So, when you know that you know that you're loved by the Father and that his hand is on your life, I'm not saying you don't, I'm just saying for all of us, it brings a certain strength, and if you have this deep sense of God is with me, God is for me, God is with me, God is for me, and that colors and strengthens everything you do, it's much easier to be hated, to be misunderstood, to be rejected, because you know you're accepted by God. The other thing is, if I realize, if I realize that the criticism is going to make me better, or is going to help me help more people, I know there's a calling on my life to impact many millions of people, and I know there are life and death issues that come with the ministry of the gospel. So, if what someone says is unpleasant, if it's delivered in an unpleasant way, if it's spoken in an insulting way, but there's truth in it that will help me help more people, then I'm in.

Then count me in. It may take me a little while to process. In other words, my first reaction would be, that stings, and you're wrong, man. But then, step back and think about it, Andrew, I remember, I remember when I was out preaching, oh, this would have been the mid-1980s, and I spoke at a church in upstate New York, had a book table then, I may have had my first book out, and some cassette tape series, maybe just the tape series. I spoke at this church, and someone gave me a letter, or whoever was helping at the book table, gave me a letter to give to me. I came home, and I told Nancy, I got this letter, this guy's like, hey, he's crazy, full of hate, just crazy. She said, oh, what does it say? So, I told her, and she said, do you think there's any truth to her? I said, huh, the guy's like a nutcase.

She goes, no, no, no, he's clearly crazy, he's way out there, but do you think there's any truth to the criticism? That was one of the earliest times I remember of the Nancy Brown approach of, well, maybe there's something we can learn from this. And it just helps that, okay, if this could ultimately help me, let's say I'm a baseball pitcher, right, and I'm not doing well, and I'm getting attacked, attacked, attacked, and people say, man, he's a fraction of what he was three years ago, and he should go back and look at those videos.

Like, well, something's wrong. Maybe if I go back and look at those videos, I could do better. And if I could do better, then this person, if they hate me, they've helped me.

So, even if you slap me in the face in that sense with criticism, if the criticism is truthful and I can learn from it, then you may have meant to hurt me, but you've actually helped me. Hey, thank you for calling in. Let's go over to Laura in Texas.

You're on the line of fire. Hi. Hey there. Oh, okay, I didn't know if you were talking to me. Okay, so I have a question. Well, I'll tell you what, let's just be sure. Are you in Texas, and is your name Laura?

Yes, yes, it's Laura. All right, then I'm talking to you. Go for it. Thank you. Okay. Okay, so I'm just a little concerned about, I haven't heard much or anything, really, on the Christian radio station in regards to all the conflict of interest with supporting Ukraine. And so I was just a little concerned why we haven't addressed that. There's just so many things going on, like there's witnesses that are talking about how the Ukrainian army are killing citizens. There's a Nazi force in Ukraine.

Yeah, we've talked about all that. The Nazi force, okay, you have to understand, neo-Nazis, they lost the political power they had. They went to a fraction of the vote, basically got voted out, okay. There has been a unit that has been aggressively fighting against the Russians, which is now under the Ukrainian army, as opposed to being rogue. It would be pretty much like if your city was being invaded, and you had some white racists that had a militia, and now they had just saved your family and 50 other families in the neighborhood, and half their people died on the front line fighting. Okay, I don't like the fact that they're white racists, but right now they're fighting a really bad enemy. We're being invaded by Muslim extremists from Mexico, you know, and they just fought them off.

So that's what's happening. It can be exaggerated. Claiming that they're witnessing, everyone that I know on the ground, and I know fine Christians in Ukraine, would say the Ukrainian army is not killing its own citizens. Those are false reports, and that you've got to really vet things very carefully. Well, I've seen reasons that are so concerning, because I've seen actual footage of witnesses that have seen the Ukrainian army killing their own people, and these people don't seem like they were acting. They don't seem like they're crisis actors.

And then there's several pharmaceutical companies that actually work out of Ukraine, and then they've got the financial ties with Biden and with the Congress. But Laura, isn't it a simple matter of Russia illegally invading Ukraine and its murdering citizens? Isn't that the issue?

I could push back on each of those points, but I don't want to get into a debate about it. Well, I have one more thing, though. One more thing. And then Zelensky, doesn't he have some kind of weird sexual video that he does, like a music video where he's just real perverse and sexual? Okay, here, all right, right.

No, it causes me no concern whatsoever. So here's the deal, okay? The guy is unsafe. He's not a believer. He does not claim to be a religious man or a moral man in terms of Christian morals. He's pro-abortion, pro same-sex marriage. He's a liberal in that respect. Before he was elected, he was a profane comedian, and he does this one video, and they're wearing stilettos and things like that. It's not like some perverse sexual thing.

It's some idiotic, idiotic, embarrassing video. That's who the guy was. And then he ends up being elected. I look at the vast majority of people in politics as pretty corrupt and pretty morally compromised. And Zelensky is no different. But he has been a courageous leader, a fearless leader. And my Christian friends living in Ukraine, who've been there 18 years, one of them married to a Ukrainian pastor, have told me that Zelensky's done a lot to clean up corruption there. So with every nation, look at all the evil America does.

We lead the world in many sinful categories. Yet that doesn't give permission to a neighboring nation to attack us illegally and start slaughtering our citizens. So that's what I would boil things down to. I really appreciate you calling and weighing these concerns. So remember, it's not a matter of unrighteous Russia attacking righteous Ukraine. It's a matter of two fallen nations in the midst of a fallen world, and one of those nations is committing war crimes against the other. That's how I boil it down. Maybe that will be helpful to you. Hey, thank you for the call. We're out of time. We've got two special guests you don't want to miss tomorrow right here.