On Christ Alone

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

Friends, there is only one that we can rely on, and that person will never be sitting in the White House. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on The Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks friends for joining us on The Line of Fire. This is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. We are audio only for those watching on Facebook and YouTube, those listening. We should sound perfectly normal.

866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. I've got a guest that'll be coming on. Fascinating guest at the bottom of the hour. We're going to have a very, very interesting discussion then, but I want to talk to you about the one and only rock on whom we can stand.

All other ground is sinking sand. Yeah, if you grew up in church, you knew that great hem, that Christ alone is the rock on which we can stand as we are getting into the heat of the political season again with the 2022 elections upon us and with a lot of talk about 2024. I think it's so important that we are constantly reminded of this truth, that our ultimate faith can only be put in one place, and that is in Jesus alone. The political system will never deliver the way Jesus delivers.

What I mean is the political system will always be mixed. Human beings can never deliver what Jesus delivers because human beings need saving and Jesus alone is the Savior. So while we appreciate the work that people do, while we cast our votes accordingly, while we make our decisions accordingly, we must be very, very careful where we put our trust, where we put our hope. We must be very, very careful not to look to the flesh.

That's why Jeremiah 17 says, cursed is the one that leans on the flesh, but blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. 866, 3, 4, truth. You can agree or differ, but I hope you hear my voice loudly and clearly today. I did a poll yesterday. I did a poll yesterday asking this question.

We took calls as well. The question was this. In fact, I just posted another poll.

I was looking at the wrong one here. Let me just scroll down to it. Okay. So my poll yesterday asked this question. Here we go.

Do you believe that God has a special covenant with America because of our founding or does he look at our country like every other nation or is it somewhere in between those two options? And then I asked people to explain. So we got almost 1300 votes, 83 points of people weighing in with their explanations. So those who said no idea, that was 4.3%. Those who said that God has a special covenant with America, only 7%.

Wow. Those who said somewhere in between 14.3%, excuse me, 14.3%. And those who said God looks at America like every other nation, that was the overwhelming majority. Almost 75%, almost three out of every four, 74.3% of those responded to my Twitter poll, and these are going to be mainly conservatives and large numbers of Christians among them, says God looks at America like every other nation.

Very, very interesting. I just posted this moments ago. I mean literally moments ago, right before the show started.

I mean seconds before the show started, literally. And we ve got our first, I don t know, 40, 50 votes over on Twitter. If you believe in the God of the Bible, as he looks down on America today, do you believe he is primarily pleased with our nation or primarily displeased? You can weigh in on this as well if you like.

If you believe in the God of the Bible, as he looks down on America today, do you believe he is primarily pleased with our nation or primarily displeased? Now, only got the first 40, 50 votes so far, okay? But none have said please so far. Only 2% have said 50, 50. Only 2% have said no idea, and 96% have said displeased.

Hmm. Now, why is that such a big issue? Because even if we think God wants to use America, bless America, the problem is America right now is not blessable. Without deep, sweeping, massive repentance in the church that then filters out into the society, America is not blessable right now. If anything, we should receive judgment. If anything, we should receive cursing, not blessing.

Are you hearing me? All right. My book, The Political Seduction of the Church, which you can pre-order, signed, numbered, copy, you can pre-order on our website, AskDrBrown.org.

You'll find it right on the home page. It's only for the first few hundred copies of the first printing of a new book that comes out. We just do it at the outset, signed and numbered.

So it's kind of a collective item. It's almost 300 pages. It'll be one of these page turners, one of these eye openers, one of these oh my books, but one where I do my best on every page, friends, to be fair, to be honest, to be truthful before God and for you, truly, to be your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. That's why we do it, so that you can be healthy and thriving, so that every yoke of bondage can be broken off, deception can be broken off. It's the truth that sets us free. So in The Political Seduction of the Church, chapter 10 is called The Fatal Error of Wrapping the Gospel in the American Flag. Now think of this for a moment.

Let's say you lived in China right now, mainland China. What does that flag represent? Does that flag represent anything Christian to you?

No. It's just another nation, and it's a nation that is heavily oppressing the Christian population and heavily resisting the Gospel. So you're not going to think of being like a Chinese Christian nationalist, are you?

Because that's just China, and China needs Jesus. And think back to the Roman Empire, the flag, the banner of the Roman Empire. Christians in the early centuries did not associate that with the Gospel.

That was a worldly empire that often persecuted Christians and was often hostile to the Gospel. There was not a slogan among the early Christians, let's make Rome even greater, right? You say, well, you're against making America great.

No, no. I'm all for God blessing America. My point is that's not part of the Gospel. That's just God dealing with a nation.

What I mean is that making America great is no different than having a notion of making Rome great again or making China great. Those are not Gospel issues. The Gospel issue is for the Roman Empire to know Jesus, for China to know Jesus, for America to know Jesus.

That's the Gospel issue. But in America, because of our founding and because of a bunch of our history, because Christianity has been the dominant religion, even if not practiced, because of all those things, my friends, we often mix Christianity with the Gospel. We have many churches where we have a flag representing Christianity on one side, and then we have a flag representing the American flag, and they're both there. I've done rallies, Christian rallies, where it was not my choice, but at the rally, and maybe it was a leader's luncheon talking about politics and the Gospel, maybe it was something larger, but we said the Pledge. Now, I'm all for the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm fine with that, but it was very odd for me to do it at the beginning of a Christian rally.

I'm thinking, again, it's not being anti-American. It's just saying this is Gospel. There's a difference.

There's a difference, and we get them so confused. So Francis Schaeffer said this in 1984 in his book The Great Evangelical Disaster. We must stand against those who had naively baptized all in the past and that would wrap Christianity in the country's flag. In other words, make our whole history just beautifully Christian and would wrap Christianity in the country's flag. He said there is the danger of confusing Christianity with the country. In this area, he said, I have stressed first that we must not wrap Christianity in our country's flag, and second, that we must protest the notion of manifest destiny that would permit our nation to do anything it chooses.

We are responsible for all that we do and all that God has given to us, and if we trample on his great gifts, we will one day know his judgment. So he's combating the idea that there is this special destiny that God has for America, and therefore whatever we do will be blessed by God. So here, again, I'm just sharing my heart with you openly and honestly. I'm not trying to tickle people's ears. I'm not trying to get you to like me. I'm not trying to increase our platform. I'm doing my best to minister truth to you for your life, for your well-being, for your health, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage so you can stand, you can fulfill God's purpose and calling.

So friends, let me put it like this. I was watching a political rally some years ago. In fact, I remember distinctly it's when John McCain had announced Sarah Palin as her running mate, and initially when she came on the scene, a very popular governor of Alaska, strong Christian woman, the consensus was that she was chosen because McCain was not considered to be a conservative enough Christian, and Sarah Palin would really fill that void. And I really liked what she had to say and how she presented herself and all of that, and I had mixed feelings about Senator McCain.

So I remember as she was introduced, she was saying something, McCain was saying something, and everyone started chanting, USA, USA, USA. On the one hand, I'm an American. I love our country. I've been outside of America a couple hundred times, and I appreciate America. There's a reason people come flocking to our country from around the world. There's a reason people are doing their best to get into our country. There's a reason people are coming to our schools. There's a reason people are traveling to go to our hospitals. I understand that.

USA, USA. On the other hand, I felt very uncomfortable because I know that God looks down at us and is not pleased with so much. Friends, we must not mix the Gospel with politics. They intersect, but we must not mix them. I'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 back, friends, to the Line of Fire. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you again. We're audio only, which for those listening to my radio podcast, like, yeah, you're always audio only. 866-34-TRUTH.

I will take a couple of calls relating to the subject at hand, and then we'll be going to our guest at the bottom of the hour. Again, my brand new book, The Political Seduction of the Church, how millions of Americans have confused politics with the Gospel. Think of this for a moment. The Gospel of Jesus is pure, and perfect, and saves, and transforms, and delivers, and forgives, and brings people from darkness into light, from death into life, from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God. I mean, think of this. It is absolutely from above, and transforms those of us who live here below.

It tells the perfect story of the perfect Savior, and God's perfect love for sinning, dying world. That's the Gospel. Politics is you vote for different people, fellow human beings. They're part of parties that have agendas.

There are attack ads. There's dirty stuff. There's corruption.

There's the good old boys syndrome. There's lifelong politician, career politicians. In other words, the difference between the Gospel and politics is the difference between heaven and earth. Now, we live in this world, so we're involved with all aspects of society, including politics, right?

That could mean getting involved in your local school board. That could mean voting for mayor in your city. That could mean voting for president. That could mean praying for our elected officials to come to know the Lord, and act in godly and righteous ways, right?

But we understand that these are two distinctly different things, correct? We also understand that the church transcends the world of politics. The church transcends every nation, so you have believers. You have Jesus followers in every nation on the planet, right? But the nations themselves are lost and need the Lord, right? So the overwhelming population of most of the world doesn't know the Lord. Within every nation, you have believers, and then the believers from every nation, Jew, Gentile, black, white, red, yellow, male, female, we all come together as one. And within the political parties, you may have one party that has more believers than the other, but neither party is the saved party, the church, right?

But often we mingle these things in dangerous ways. Look, I know that many of you agree with me, but I know that many in your society say, Mike, you don't get it. Dr. Brown, you're missing the point. We know that Trump is not our savior, or Biden is not our savior. We know that only Jesus is our savior, but it's really important that we put in office, and you're making as if we're confusing the two. Look, I understand that in the heat of the 2020 elections, that none of you had a shrine to Donald Trump in your home. I understand that. I understand that none of you bowed down and worshiped at a big picture of him in your yard. I understand that. I understand that no one took communion thinking that Trump died. I fully understand it. And those who voted for Biden looked him as God's man, whoever of you did that. I understand that you didn't have a shrine to Biden. I get all that.

There's no confusion there. But when we put our trust in a man, that this is the one that can change America, this is the one that can save the nation, and that man is another flawed human being just like us, working with our flawed system. That's where we're putting our trust in the wrong place. And that's why so many people got so frenzied when it looked like Trump had lost the election. You say, but it was stolen.

Stolen or not is not the issue. It was as if the world collapsed. It was as if it's over.

We will never have another free election. I remember, you know, famous actor John Voight saying only Donald Trump can save America. Now, he didn't mean in the God sense. He meant in terms of a man sense.

But that kind of language is dangerous. And that's why I witnessed it with my own eyes, friends, online. I witnessed it with my own eyes. A respectable Christian leader reading from the Psalms, praying down curses on those that he had believed had stolen the election. Seriously. A respected Christian leader and hundreds of people adding in their amens as it was happening.

I thought, what is going on? That's why I wrote the political seduction of the church. And that's why I will be a broken record by God's grace for many months and for many years, saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let us keep our focus. It is on him.

It is on him alone to the glory of the Father. Let us not mistake the gospel for politics. Do I believe Christians should run for office? Absolutely. Do I believe Christians should vote? Absolutely. Do I believe Christians should call on their elected officials to do what's right? Absolutely. Do I believe Christians should be involved in what happens in their schools and in local settings and local politics? Absolutely.

Especially as the need is there and the need is real. Absolutely. Do I believe that we should bring the political scene front and center in the church? No. For prayer, yes. For prayer for the salvation of leaders.

But as a central focus in our churches, no. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to Connor in Colorado. You are on the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. How are you doing today? I'm doing very well. Thank you. Of course. First, I just wanted to say thank you for your ministry. I've been listening for a few years now, and I know it's been a blessing for me and for many other people, so I just wanted to say thank you. I haven't really had the desire to call in until now, but I wanted to touch on politics in the church a little bit, since you've been bringing it up so much lately, and I wanted to push back a little bit, but also agree with you in a way, and just kind of get your thoughts.

Yes, sir. I agree with you that the church and the gospel should be above all for Christ's flock, but the reason I want to push back a little bit is that I believe that we are called to go out into the world and to confront evil, and whether that's in the realm of politics, school board meetings, or even in our own church, I believe basically to obey His word, we need to confront evil where it's found, and I think it's important for Christians to be involved in politics and things such as that, and the discussion you had the other day, I forget the guest's name, but he was talking about the basically legalized child mutilation that's happening in California, and I just believe that not confronting this with the gift that God gave us, in my opinion, would be in a way disobedience to Him. I believe Ben Franklin, one of our founders, even said something like, rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God, but however, I do want to agree with you, because I believe it's super important that we do not intentionally wrap the gospel on the flag, and I think that Billy Graham's metaphor of a marriage between the church and the riot, as you were talking about the other day, is a perfect example of that, but I just wanted to say I think there's a defining line between trampling on the enemy and turning our political opponents into the enemy, because you know, we do not fight against flesh and blood, and I think a good example of that is Andrew Torba, he's the CEO of the social media platform Gab, very anti-Semitic all over the place, but in my opinion, people like that, they are intentionally and explicitly trying to mix the gospel with the government, and I don't believe we can have the church or the state unless we have the church and state, if the state becomes the church and church becomes the state, it's just the church is in church and the state is in the state. So in terms of Christian— Well, tell you what, let me just jump in only to make sure that I can respond while we still have time. Connor, overall, I think you recognize that unceasingly for many, many years, I have encouraged us to confront evil, and there's not a week that goes by on the broadcast, there's not a week that goes by in writing where numerous times we are not calling out evil, moral compromise, things like that. So we're absolutely in harmony there, the church must do that. The problem is, when we put our trust in the political system to do it, that's really the issue, and that's what I'm doing my best to articulate.

So as we talk these things through, that we'll be able to understand each other better, and that's why I wrote a whole book to really lay this out and what we got right and what we got wrong. So on the one hand, say what's happening in California, we recognize we must continue to confront that evil of California saying, hey, if you're transgender and you're a minor, you want surgery, you want hormone treatment, come here, this will be a sanctuary state for you, even against your parents' desires and wishes, I mean, that's absolutely shocking. And we're calling on the legislature to do the right thing. But without the gospel radically changing hearts, without the church living as the church, without the loss being reached in a profound way, all we're going to do is put a Band-Aid on someone having a heart attack.

So that's the bigger issue there. So we are very much in sync, sir. And again, it's a matter of putting our trust in a worldly system and then marrying that worldly system so that when people think of us, right, they think of Jesus and Trump, Jesus and Biden, Jesus and the Republicans, Jesus and Democrats, and that's where we must make a very, very strong distinction, though Jesus only as far as the gospel.

Now we have these other issues and we interact as followers of Jesus. We'll be right back. I'll get you some more calls later in the show. First, we've got a special guest to bring on with us. 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 friends for joining us on The Line of Fire. So we're talking about Christians being involved politically. We're talking about Christians being a voice to the nation, as Dr. King said, the church must be remembered.

It's not the master of the state or the servant of the state, but the conscience of the state. So we're talking about our role in doing that and yet the dangerous union that can come when we join together politics and religion. My guest now, Reverend Dr. Bill de Arteaga, has a new book out that's going to be very controversial, as I've mentioned in my new book is going to be controversial. His book is America in Danger, Left and Right, Biblical Analysis, Actions and Intercessions for the Current Crisis. Reverend de Arteaga is a church historian.

He is also an ordained Anglican priest, so he's coming from a spiritual first perspective, but a very interesting perspective. Bill, thanks for joining us on The Line of Fire today. Thank you for having me. I'm a long time listener and I really enjoyed your program over the years. Thank you very much. Well, thanks. With all of our interaction, I didn't realize that you'd listen that much.

Thanks so much. What prompted you to write this book at this time? You know, that's a very interesting question.

It started a couple of years ago. Well, first of all, early in my research, I had done work on false prophecy and false visions. That was one of my first books, that whole issue. So I had studied the issue of mass false prophecy in the early church. And about 2015, 2016, I started hearing prophecies that Trump was, you know, sort of God's man for the error, and a lot of Christians were buying into it.

And I said, maybe, but let's take a look at this. And then I noticed a lot of things about Trump I didn't like, his nasty dispute with McCain, his brashness, etc. So I kept on doubting, this perhaps is not a true prophecy.

And I kept on studying that. And of course, the Mark Taylor book, which was hugely influential in the 2016 election, said that Trump was, you know, God's man on the spot. And that book contained blatant errors of prophecy and things that God would not say, etc. And I discern the problem here, that many Protestant ministers have very poor understanding of church history, so that their church history goes from the axe to Martin, skips to Martin Luther, and then perhaps Slick, Smith, Wigglesworth, etc. And they miss some of the traditions of the early church. And the early church had massive experiences with ways of false prophecy. And that continues today.

So I outline that in my chapter. Now, from what I understand, and listening to your programs, you were very alert to the hideous results of the false prophecy about the 2020 election, that Biden would be arrested, the government would intervene, and they set a date on this, and they kept on being false, etc. That's a hideous appropriation of prophecy. And it was all very false. And the sad thing is, many of those have never admitted that they were into false prophecy. And again, the problem is, many evangelical ministers and charismatic ministers have never tuned in to the literature of discernment in the early church. They would have quickly seen, hey, this is a false prophecy issue. Got it, so that's what got you prompted to do this, and especially in our Pentecostal charismatic circles, more than just broadly evangelical, there is a lot of ignorance of church history. And we do kind of go straight from the book of Acts, and then bounce it right out until today.

So that can happen. So in your title of your book, though, you mention American danger left and right. So a lot of this danger that you just spoke about, that's on the right.

But what about on the left? The main part of my book, and I believe the major problem is on the left, and it is the continuous radicalization of the universities in the educational system that has happened for 50 years, and the church never really handled it properly. I'm a historian, so I analyze, number one, that Marxism and these radical ideologies are indeed demonically empowered. Now, even Christian historians don't like to say that, because then it puts your history writing into a sort of mythical type of thing, and it's very dangerous to do. So I outline a chapter on the demonic as historical character. Why can we truly say that, for instance, Karl Marx's hatred of the bourgeois, the middle class, was a demonically inspired idea, and the thing is the fruit, that that idea killed millions and millions of people who, well, now that China is a post-communist country, they realize they need the bourgeois for innovation.

But very few Marxist educators will say, oh, we were catastrophically wrong on this. So there is a demonic impetus in this that has spread through the educational system, and now with post-modern thinking also. So my opinion is that since the educational system is so captivated by the left, the danger is more from the left than from the right, even though the right makes a lot of noise sometimes and they have armed militia, the overwhelming numbers of people coming out of the educational systems are very left-oriented, and my conclusion is the Church has not handled this well, number one, because a lot of traditions within the Church, evangelical and certainly cessationists, don't know how to do deliverance ministry or exorcism ministry, so they can't get their arms around, hey, these guys are demonized, these students that come out of the university have demonic structures in their mind that make them very dangerous in the long term. And so I say, in part of the book, the actions and intercessions are, we need massive intercessory prayer coordinated to take down the principalities and powers around the universities, so they come back to their original chartered intentions of seeking for truth and being open-minded. Right now, they're captivated by demonic spirits that very elegantly say that freedom of speech is not necessary, etc., are very, very, very dangerous, as I see it.

So let me ask this. We understand that we don't have the power to drive demons out of people that do not want to be free. In other words, we can't just walk around driving demons out everywhere, and you talk about massive intercession that's needed to deliver universities from power.

So how does that work? In other words, what are we praying for? Okay, number one, the intercessory prayer is like heavy artillery which can prepare the hearts, you see? And then, and I've had a little bit of experience on this, you see the old Billy Graham system of gospel preaching, song gospel preaching and all the cause, not going to work, because these kids and professors will not come to a Christian church.

So that's out. You have to bring the church to them through personal engagement. One is a prayer station where a student can come by, and even though he's woke, he's a Marxist, etc., he's hurting, and you offer prayer for him, that will give an insight and entry into, oh, the spiritual stuff is true, you see? You have to do that, you have to intercessory prayer, personal engagement, and now, the Lord used me to discover this, and I thought, well, this is a little bit crazy. Acts 13, 8-12, Paul, and I call this a command disablement, the sorcerer of Limas was coming against the gospel, and Paul disabled him with blindness, and that astounded the witnesses, etc., and we've never used this, actually, let me take that back, the church has seldom used this, and I believe this can be a tremendous tool if we awaken to it, to, for instance, stop a school board from adopting the most radical agenda, etc., somebody can stand up and say a command disablement, now a lot of people say this is crazy, especially the cessationists who don't even believe in healing, but I found historical evidence that people later on after the Bible used this, St. Martin of Tours is a great example, he was a bishop in the very early church, I forget his days, I'm going to say about 350, where much of his country, France, was still not evangelized, the major cities were, and he was on a tour of his churches because he was a bishop, and he saw a pagan ritual up ahead, and he thought these were pagan priests doing some sort of sacrifice, and he lifted up his hands, and he prayed against them, and the guys came into confusion, and they couldn't go forward, all they could do was make tiny little circles, they couldn't even march forward, he found out they weren't pagan priests, as he got closer to them, they were pagans, because they hadn't been evangelized yet, in a funeral rite and carrying a casket, now even though his original idea was wrong, the demonic attachments of those people, and probably they were carrying food offering for, you know, for the dead and stuff like that, was enough for his command disablement to work. Now this has tremendous implications for the church today, we are so frustrated that when we argue in front of school boards, or a CTR committee comes to a corporation, they don't listen to us, what if we issued command disablements?

Wow, that has tremendously done. My take on that, obviously we have that one example there in the book of Acts with Paul in Acts 13, my take would be first, we shine the light as brightly as we can, which I'm sure you agree with, right? That we, and let me talk fast because we're just about out of time, so number one, that we shine the light as brightly as we can so the light exposes the darkness, number two, we pray for God to bring into confusion those who want to do harm, we certainly pray that, so friends, even if the command disablement thing strikes you as odd, you can get there in a different way, Lord, bring confusion on those who seek to do evil, let your light shine brightly.

Hey, the book, American Danger, left and right, William D. Ortega, I think you'll find it as interesting as my guest just was. Thank you, sir, for joining us. This is how we rise up. 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 friends for joining us on the Line of Fire. You may have a different take than my guest did on some of the subjects that we just discussed, but let me stress that we are in a spiritual battle, and natural weapons cannot win a spiritual battle, right? Just like the saying, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight, well, if you think that we can change America, here, I'll give you an example, if you think that we can change America by protesting in the streets, and that's going to bring a fundamental change of heart, no, now you're fighting a spiritual battle with natural weapons.

So we've got to be really, really clear in our thinking. What is the single greatest weapon that the church has? Prayer, obviously.

Obviously. Prayer is always going to be a starting point. Well, you back it up even more, us getting right with God. So repentance in our own midst, as I've said endlessly that when I walk into a hotel room at night and flip the switch on and nothing happens, and I'm checking in, walk in the room, flip the switch, the light switch, nothing happens, I don't get mad at the darkness. My question is, what's the matter with the light?

Either the light switch is not working, or a bulb needs to be replaced, or something else needs to be turned on somewhere, but that's the question, what's wrong with the light? So presuming that we get our light shining, right, so we start with the church being the church, we start with the church being revived, we start with repentance in the house of God, we start there, we give ourselves to prayer, America can be dramatically shaken, and we get involved as well. It's not either or. It's a matter of emphasis. It's a matter of priority.

It's a matter of where is our heart. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go over to Indiana, Jan, welcome to the line of fire. Yeah, hi Dr. Brown, it's me again. You know, you was talking about Trump and the Christian nationalism and stuff, what really helped me there during all that time, because Mr. Trump's personality I wasn't fond of, but I did like his policy. But what really helped me, and I didn't read those books about the martyrs, whatever, prophecies or all that, I heard of them, but I didn't read it. But what helped me was Joel Richardson had done a message on Habakkuk, and I thought, well I want to hear this. So I went to it, and then I read Habakkuk, and Habakkuk was basically crying out for Israel, for his nation, and telling God he was complaining in the very first chapter, you know, how long am I going to cry for help?

And you won't hear. Don't you see this violence? Don't you understand what they're doing to us? Don't you understand this? And you would think that God would have said, Habakkuk, I hear you, you know, I'm going to answer you, it's going to be okay with Israel, but that's not the answer he gave me.

No it's not. This nation's going to rise up, they're going to choke you, invade you, and do all these things, and then Habakkuk continues to complain, and he's like, well Lord I know you're the God of the seed, you know, and you've got ways of doing stuff, but then the Lord tells Habakkuk, you know, the just will live by faith. That's the reason I love it when you constantly are talking about intercessor prayer. One of the things that Jesus had taught me years ago about the ten virgins was five of them did not have the current God Jesus appointed revelation. Five of them did, and they had it in reserve. They might have seen what was going on in their nation, but they had prepared themselves for future revelation that Jesus had dropped into their little oil container, and they knew they could rest because they would continue to live by faith. That didn't mean they approved the stuff that was going on in the nation, but like you said, our weapons are not carnal. We have to pray these things through, and if we don't care enough to pray them through, how are you going to get the fresh revelation that Jesus will give us the answers what we need to do, when we need to do, and I'll be quiet.

You had a lot to say. You said it well. Yeah, see, the thing is when we make it an either-or issue, and it's not either-or. It's prayer and action.

It's preaching the gospel and feeding the poor. It's loving your neighbor and voting, you know, it's not either-or. And a lot of times, Jan, what I've found is if in today's climate, if you're not aggressively political enough and you're not aggressively USA-USA enough, you're considered weak. You're considered spineless, and that is so grievous to me. You know, I would watch people call me weak and spineless for calling out the false prophecies as opposed to having courage to stand with them, I'm attacked and maligned here, losing thousands of online followers because I'm calling these things out, but I'm the weak one in doing it, instead of going with the crowd that's prophesying the reelection. Candidly, I do believe the 2016 prophecies about Trump were accurate, that he was an unlikely person, like a Cyrus, like someone who didn't know God, being raised up for divine purposes.

But I also believe the prophecies that if he didn't humble himself, and if the church looked to him in an idolatrous way, that he'd be removed, and that's what happened. So it's a matter of priorities, friends. Here, if I'm, and thanks for calling, Jan. If I'm looking up at a scoreboard somewhere, right, and I happen to walk past in this big billboard scores, and there are teams that I don't follow or a league that I don't follow or a sport I don't follow, it's like, oh, whatever, but let's say it's my home team, and it's their first time in the championship in 50 years, and I've even got people that I know that are on the team, and it's the last game, and it's hanging by a wire, and they just lose, and they lose by a bad call by a ref. That's going to affect me differently, right, because I've got more at stake in that, even though it's just a game, but you hear what I'm saying, right? In the same way, our focus, our hope should be so overwhelmingly in the Lord and in God's work to change a nation and to change hearts of individuals that politics and who gets in, it's important, but it's way, way down the list of what grips our heart and what moves us and what dominates us, and when I saw more prayer when people believe the election was stolen, and I saw more prayer for overturning the steel, more concerted prayer, more city by city prayer, more large prayer meetings online, when I saw more prayer and more fervor for that, that I had seen prayer for revival in the church or prayer for the winning of the lost. In decades, I knew something was terribly wrong.

On that score, let's go to Robert in California. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. I was listening to you, and my initial question was kind of answered by you and your speaking. I believe the very exact same thing in 2016, that Trump, like a King Cyrus, he came out of nowhere unlikely and everything, and then how you add it on, but if he did not humble himself, he'd be removed. So I guess my next question is something personal in my own life. Have you ever seen, like Matthew 10, 34-36, where, you know, we want peace, we want to be peacemakers and everything, but in that section, it says, Christ did not come to bring peace but a sword, and at the end of it, your own household will be your enemies, kind of thing. Like, my whole family is, like, turned from the Lord, and I'm the bad guy, and sometimes I even wonder, am I even saved or anything like that?

I just wondered if you've seen that personally. Robert, I'm very sorry to hear that. First, your own relationship with the Lord has to be your relationship with the Lord. In other words, no matter what happens around you, you have to know that you know that you know that you're right with God through what Jesus did, that you're forgiven through what he did, that you've turned to God, asked him to save you and forgive you, that you belong to him, and no matter what storms arise, your salvation then is secure. As for others turning away from the Lord, we can't control others. I was just talking to a friend of mine whose wife left him. He loves the Lord.

She told him he's been a great husband, but she just turned away from God and went off with someone else, and it's tragic to see. In the context, though, of Matthew 10, what Jesus is speaking of there is that there is this messianic expectation that the Messiah would come and bring peace, which he will at his return, but that with his first coming, he said, quoting from the end of Micah 7, he didn't come to bring peace but a sword, namely a sword of division, because families would divide over him. So for everyone listening, if, as you follow Jesus, not in an obnoxious way, not in a self-righteous way, not in a way that's condemning to others by your arrogance, but as you genuinely and sincerely follow Jesus and seek to be loyal to him, if that means that a separation comes, then it comes.

If that means that people turn against you, then they turn against you. If it means that families separate in profound ways over Jesus, you can't control that. All you can do is be a peacemaker. All you can do is love people. All you can do is seek to honor the Lord with your conduct, with your words, and be loyal to him. And then what happens to others, you know, as a Jewish believer in Jesus, of course, these are things you live with. These are realities. Believers live with it all around the world. But let it not be people love our Jesus but reject us because we put politics first and the gospel second. Back with you tomorrow, friends. Another program powered by the Truth Network.