Revival and the Difference Between Discernment and Criticism

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network proving that any claim to revival today is not really from God. 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. Friends, for many years we have said that America is sick because the Church of America is sick, and as the Church of America is healthy, that America gets healthy. And the key to the Church of America getting healthy is a fresh wave of revival, a repentance of our coldness, of our canality, of our compromise, of turning back to God, or being refreshed, renewed, encountering him. As we are changed, change will come around us. Why is it, though, that it seems some people, it's just the moment you give a report about God moving in revival, their first response is, no, it's not God, let me show you why. Why is that?

And what's the justification for it? Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. This is Michael Brown. Here's a number to call to weigh in. I'd love to hear from you if you say, well, you're being unfair, we are just testing everything by the Word, if you think I'm being accurate in my assessment, if you have your own revival testimony, especially relating to Asbury recently, pro or con, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884, or you just have a question you want to ask me in general off topic, I'll see if we get to some of those other calls later in the show.

All right, I tweeted this out on February 25th. I tweeted this out, by all means, we should test all spiritual claims by the Word and the fruit. But it still amazes me to see how the moment we hear reports of God moving powerfully, some people's first reaction is to do their best to prove it is not from God. That's neither biblical nor Berean.

Let me read that again. By all means, we should test all spiritual claims by the Word and the fruit, meaning, judge it by the Word, is an aberrant message being preached or is a true message being preached? Or are there standards that people are being called to live by according to the Word, or are they throwing the Word out? Are they ignoring the Word, or are they basing theology on the Word?

So test everything by the Word and by the fruit. Are people turning to God and repentance, is Jesus being exalted? Are people embracing the Word of God and coming under the authority of the Word of God? And in addition to that, are they developing a burden to reach the lost and share the gospel? That's all fruit of the Spirit. Those are things that only God can produce. I'm not talking about an immediate emotional reaction. Anybody can be talked into something or psyched into something for a moment.

I'm talking about long-term real transformation, which bears the test of time. When you see that happen, and you see that repeatedly happen, then you know the tree is good. So by all means, we should test all spiritual claims by the Word and the fruit, but it still amazes me to see how the moment we hear reports of God moving powerfully, some people's first reaction is to do their best to prove it is not from God. It's neither biblical nor Berean. So what do I mean when I speak of Berean? Let's take a look together in Acts, the 17th chapter. Acts chapter 17, it's a well-known passage, but Paul has been in Thessalonica, and in Thessalonica he has been treated terribly. There were Jewish men who opposed his message and persecuted him, so he has to leave for Berea.

And here's what it says in Acts, the 17th chapter, beginning in verse 10. As soon as it was night, the believer sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.

Why? They're Jewish men. They go to the Jewish synagogue to bring the message of the Jewish Messiah. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. So there are many, quote, discernment sites, discernment ministries, that call themselves Berean. Brother, we are just being Berean. We are just testing everything by the Scripture. Ah, but the Berean Spirit is not simply testing everything by the Scripture.

The Berean Spirit is receiving the message with great eagerness. It would be wonderful if this is from God. It would be wonderful if this talk about Jesus, Yeshua, being the Messiah, if it was true, if it was true, that would be wonderful. We would embrace it.

We would love it. But we've got to test it according to Scripture. With that attitude, if you test it according to Scripture and you conclude it's not from God, the claim is not real, you're disappointed because you were hoping it was real. You're praying for revival. You're asking God to have mercy on America. You're saying, Lord, in wrath, remember mercy. You're seeking God because so many people don't know him and the name of the Lord is being blasphemed and so on.

You're praying, you're seeking God, you're burdened for the condition of the nation for your kids, for your grandkids, for the world they're going to grow up in. You hear reports that God is moving. The Berean attitude is, oh, that would be wonderful if true, but we have to test it according to Scripture. The critical attitude, the destructive attitude, the non-Berean attitude, here's the report says, nah, I doubt it. No, not that group. No, not that person. No, not that school. No, no, no.

Now I'm going to go to the Word and show you. So that's not Berean. That's not Berean at all. That's negative, critical, destructive.

And it's unlikely that that kind of attitude would come to a right conclusion. I remember in the days of the Brownsboro revival that there was a man who was going to write a major critique of the revival, but he had never attended a single service. Never attended one single service. I may have told you the story recently, not sure, but I'll repeat it here.

He'd never attended one single service, but he was going to write a major critique of the revival. I said, well, come down for a week, spend a week here, go to all the services, go to the day sessions, listen to the messages every night, interview people, talk to people, etc. Do a good report, do good journalism. He goes, well, it costs a lot of money to fly there and then to stay at the hotel, etc. I said, tell you what, we'll cover your expenses because we want you to be exposed and do a fair and honest report. So if you covered my expenses, then I'd be beholden to you.

And I couldn't do it honestly. And he never came and he became some expert on it. So that that is the kind of thing we deal with all the time. That's not a Berean spirit. Berean spirit is, oh, it would be great if these reports are true because they are God glorifying and they give us hope and encouragement. But we have to test everything according to the scriptures. And if by the scripture you see it's true, you rejoice. If by the scripture you see it's not true, you grieve. It's the opposite with the non-Berean spirit. No, no, I got quite, oh, no, yeah, yeah.

Another reporter of ours. Sure, right, sure. Let me show you by the word why it's not true. And if you conclude it is true, then you're grieved. And if you conclude it's not true, you rejoice. That's the opposite of the Berean spirit. Let me just give you an example here. I spotted this. I don't see all the comments posted on social media, obviously, but I spotted this one, the fellow user, the man or woman using the name Ear for Truth. And this was in response to me saying that what happened at Asbury, as far as I can see, was the real deal.

To support the Asbury revival, one has to be doctrinally bankrupt, and Brown is. If it is big, popular, on TV, it is real. Nothing could be further from biblical truth. Well, aside from the fact that I'll gladly go up against anybody with my doctrine, I gladly, you challenge me on any major thing that I believe and hold to, let's have a debate on it based on the word. With joy. Every major thing I hold to, these are hills I'll die on, these are things I can absolutely defend based on scripture. If all we have is the Bible and nothing outside of it, I can defend everything I believe based on scripture. With joy.

With joy. But not only does this individual get that all wrong, they get all wrong why I said I believe Asbury is real. It had nothing to do with being on TV.

In fact, Asbury told Fox News, don't come. It had nothing to do with being big. It had to do with being marked by confession of sin, repentance, being marked by humility, by being nameless, faceless, and by suddenly drawing people without advertising, that suddenly people were drawn and the thing was unplanned, unorchestrated, and then even the leadership said it has to decentralize, spread it out, don't make it, just keep it here. But of course, it's going to be misrepresented.

Why? Because there is a narrative. There is a narrative that's being held to. Could it be that it was a Wesleyan school, so an Armenian school, a non-Calvinist, could that have raised questions for some? Well, it was through emotion. I mean, we went through all the objections. Well, it's charismatic. There were all kinds of people there. Plenty of them were not charismatic.

Plenty of people involved were not charismatic at all. But does that stop the criticism? No. And that's what concerns me. Ask all the honest questions you want. Probe, dig. Let's see the lasting fruit. Let's see what comes out of this six months, a year, five years from now. By all means, fair, good to ask that.

But what's the attitude behind it? There will be no more revival till Jesus comes, us all getting worse. I challenge you to prove that by the scripture.

I challenge you. I know all the verses about end time apostasy. I've written about all this. I challenge you to show me that the Bible says as of now, as of 2023, the Bible is clear that there will be no further revival in America or the world where things will only get worse from here. And then tell that to the multitudes of millions getting saved all around the world at a faster pace than we have ever seen in world history, including more Muslims getting saved in recent years than in any time in world history.

Tell it to them that there's no outpouring now, that it's only getting worse. I was looking for some things. Oh, let me spot this.

I was looking for some things last night, just getting ready for the show today. And I spotted this article. It's a classic. I mean, I feel terrible for the people who wrote it and involved with it. But it was the Christian Research Network. Why the Brownsville Revival was a demonic revival run by Satan's servants. And even to read those words is painful because of the sacredness of what God did there, because of how deeply Jesus was exalted, because now twenty five, twenty seven, twenty eight years after the revival began and over twenty two years after it ended, the fruit is so glorious.

The fruit remains so powerfully. Missionaries sent out around the world who have sacrificially given more than two decades of the lies transformed in the revival. Now they're children going out as missionaries. Now them raising up and sending out missionaries to other nations, people whose lives have been transformed to this moment, living godly, holy lives, still burning bright, raising their kids in the fear of the Lord.

All these many years later, their kids now loving Jesus and on and on ministries that were birthed out of it, churches that were birthed out of it, schools that were birthed out of it, the missions movement, and probably more birthed out of it and on and on, all to the glory of Jesus. How blind do people have to be? And when I started glancing through the articles, aside from ugly judgmentalism, sinful judgmentalism, destructive judgmentalism, aside from that is blatant falsehoods.

Blatant falsehoods you say, why? I don't know why people, I guess they're being sincere. I don't want to doubt their sincerity. But it so grieves me that the God that we love does beautiful, amazing, wonderful things and people have to disparage it and credit Satan with doing what God's doing.

I trust it's done in ignorance because that's a very serious sin to commit. 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, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. Hey, I want to encourage you with a testimony, actually a bunch of testimonies that are all on the same theme.

I want to encourage you with that and then enlist your prayer support and give a little project. All right, can I do this as I serve as your voice, meaning it's our message, it's our voice, it's our burden getting out to the nation more and more and more by the grace of God. I hear regularly from folks sometimes face to face, sometimes via email, sometimes through other means, even people calling in the show, that it was our radio broadcast or writings that brought them to embrace the things of the Spirit for today, the gifts of the Spirit like tongues and prophecy, believing for contemporary revival and things like that. They were either raised in an environment where they didn't believe in those things for today or they got burned by some extremes, Pentecostal charismatic extremes, which of course we've addressed and spoken about for many, many years. And as a result, they stepped away. But as we presented things, they were as well, the word is clear on this.

The word is, we can't argue with the word. And then they began to open themselves up to God and themselves were filled with the Spirit afresh or encountered God in a deeper way in worship and began to see a move in their churches. That really blesses me. And friends, I know as God opens the door for us to expand our message across the nation via radio, and it will be by God's grace a radio revolution, I just see lights starting to flicker.

They're dim, but getting brighter and brighter and brighter until they're burning bright, and until they themselves are fires, they themselves are blazing torches, and they themselves are bringing light to those around them. I can see it so clearly in my heart, just as we've been telling you that there's going to be outpouring that's going to come from all over, that it's going to not just be in one location that everyone goes to, but instead it's going to be in thousands of different locations. And just heard from a pastor, he was supposed to be part of a call that, let's see, it was, oh, I think his time it would have been five or six in the afternoon thereabouts, called with some other pastors.

He couldn't make it. He was caught up in the prayer room in his church, the prayer meeting starting at eight in the morning, just going through the whole day. He told me this past Sunday that 175 new people came forward either to come to the Lord for the first time or prodigals coming home.

I think the week before it was over double that. God is moving. Another pastor said, and he reports, and showed me what's happening on a college campus in his city as the students are gathering, crying out to God and then preaching and people getting baptized right there in the fountain, in public, in the square. So God is moving. Things are happening. And I want to ask you to join with me in prayer.

Would you do that? I know so many are so enthusiastic about the line of fire and you send us so many kind words and words of affirmation and encouragement. So thank you for that because I feel the burden.

Do this for us. I feel the burden before the Lord and for the good of the nation. And I know that what God's given us can help stir and spark a revival in hearts and a gospel-based moral and cultural revolution in society.

I mean, so much of it happening around our eyes. Hopefully later this week, I'll talk to you more about the pushback against a negative, destructive agenda in our country and some of the good things that are happening on a regular basis. But I want to just ask you to pray for us. We are now systematically reaching out to different radio stations about getting airtime. Each thing is a step of faith because each thing has to be financed and supported.

So would you pray that God would open the right doors and back the work and back the work? And then here's something you can do. A great way that you can help spread the word and in the process help expand our radio outreach. You've been hearing these TriVita ads.

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I'll describe it to everybody listening. But I'm going to go to the phones first and then I'm going to come back. I've got a lot more to share. And I want to talk about constructive correction, which is life giving, which we should all embrace. Rebuke a wise man and he'll love you versus destructive criticism.

There's a world of difference. You can read that article on my website, AskDrBrown.org. But first, let's go to the phones. We'll start in Houston, Texas. Emma, welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I have a question and it's something that we've been discussing in our Bible study and I wanted to get your take on it.

Yes, please. Our Bible study teacher has been struggling a little bit with the idea of, number one, are there prophets today? Sorry, my phone's a little shaky. That's okay.

That's right. Are there prophets today? And then if there are, are prophets correct all of the time? Now, we did listen to your message where you say that there is a difference between false prophets and erred prophets. Can you explain that a little bit more in depth?

Sure. So there are folks like Justin Peters, for example, who would say that if someone prophesies falsely, they say the Lord says this and it doesn't come to pass that they are false prophets. And they would use that category, which I fully understand why they're saying it, you know, their point of view. I would not call them a false prophet just based on that because according to Jesus in Matthew 7, false prophets are ravenous wolves. False prophets are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are deceivers. They are not children of God. They are deceivers.

Same with false teachers. I see that according to 2 Peter 2.1 that they are heretics who bring in damnable heresies. In contrast, 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that when someone prophesies, then two or three others test what's being spoken. Or 1 Thessalonians 5 says don't despise prophecies, but test everything and hold to that which is good. So because anyone can potentially prophesy in the New Testament, and it's very clear that that's for today, 1 Corinthians 14 is clear, we should earnestly seek these things until this very day.

There's no stopping that exhortation from Paul there. But because anyone can potentially prophesy, everything must be tested. And we're not speaking with the authority of an Old Testament prophet. In other words, we're not giving scripture. We're not giving something that everybody automatically has to obey because we're speaking from God.

Rather, what we say still gets tested by the word. So if somebody claims to be a prophet and they say, Donald Trump, I guarantee he's going to have eight consecutive years in the White House, and we call them out, we call them out by name on the show, wrote about it, my book, Political Seduction of the Church. So they falsely prophesied and they falsely call themselves prophets. But they may be believers who are on some level of deception. They may be believers who are immature or believers who have some compromise. But I wouldn't call them false prophets because that, as I understand it, is someone who is serving Satan rather than God. As Paul says about false apostles in 2 Corinthians 11, 13 to 15, that they are servants of Satan. So some of my colleagues, non charismatic colleagues, believe they are servants of Satan. In other words, believe they're not saved at all. I would say simply because they made an error in their prophecy. Yeah, they need to be quiet. They need to understand why they made their error.

They need accountability. But and even if it's persistent, well, they're clearly not a prophet. But I would not brand them a false prophet unless I knew that that person was not a believer, was serving Satan rather than serving God, and was therefore a deceiver like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

So that's how I understand scripture. That's why I don't use the term false prophet as for these others. Will I call out false prophecy? Of course, done it many times, written about it for decades. Will I say this person is falsely called a prophet? Absolutely. Will I call them a false prophet?

Only if I'm sure they're not a believer. Hey, thank you, Emma. Hope that helps. 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. Do you get my emails? Do you get my emails?

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866-34 TRUTH. I'm going back to the phones in a moment, but several different people sent me a thumbnail from a YouTube channel. And the gentleman on the YouTube channel is, and I'm not even putting up who it is because hopefully he'll fix this, but it's a thumbnail.

So in other words, it's the graphic, it's the picture with the title of the YouTube video. Asbury Revival is led by gays and queers. Fake Asbury Revival worship is being led, I guess they left the word by, homosexuals and queers.

There's a picture of one guy who's tweeted a lot. He identifies as gay, but he said, hey, I'm celibate. So I'm living a single holy life, but he still identifies as gay. Of course, I differ with that.

It's a bad move. It's a mistake to do so, but he does. And he may have been involved on some level there.

So it's his tweets that got all this attention. So this picture of him and me. Me?

OK, we take the picture down for those watching. At first, I have no connection to Asbury except being a close friend of Craig Keener, who's a professor at the seminary across the street, and having interacted with some leaders involved at Asbury just behind the scenes. I've got no connection to it. My name is not known in any way in connection to it. I didn't go there.

I had no plans of going there, et cetera. Didn't. Zero. Asbury did not come to me and said, what do we do with this? Zero.

Zero, zero, zero. I didn't get information when I heard charges, when I heard things being raised. I reached out, was put in touch with leaders who responded.

So I had some information. But I've got no connection. So if you like me, don't like me, don't connect me to Asbury.

Don't put that on Asbury Pro or Con. And then what in the world is my picture doing up there with this graphic saying it's led by homosexuals, queers? Can you tell me, a Christian leader with a major platform in America, who over the last 20 years has more often addressed the question of can you begin Christian? Yes, obviously seeking to do so with compassion, grace and truth together, as we always say, hearts and compassion, backbones of steel.

But can you tell me someone who's done it more than me wrote the 700 page book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, wrote Outlasting the Gay Revolution, wrote Can You Be Gay and Christian? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of articles and LGBTQ related themes always calling us to reach out with compassion and love and grace while holding the line that you cannot practice homosexuality and follow Jesus at the same time and saying that it is unwise for someone to identify as gay and Christian, even if they are celibate and holy and saying no to same-sex attraction, it's unwise because that's not who you are and it's a worldly identification, that's a capitulation to a worldly agenda. And then it puts a weakness of the flesh as part of your identity in Jesus, which is not the case for any of us.

All of us have weaknesses in the flesh that we have to say no to, but you know, I'm a gluttonous Christian, I'm a greedy Christian, I'm a judgmental Christian. No, we don't identify with those things. As for Asbury, I said to me that it had all the marks of real revival, I was fully expecting outbursts of the Spirit all around the country, we've been public on that very, very clearly, so if you've been listening you know we've been expecting things like this to happen. And that, according to everything I understood, Asbury was being very, very careful about who got behind a mic, who came up there with an instrument or anything like that, and that it could be that there were some people who identified as gay Christians who were involved but saying, no, we don't practice this, we know it's wrong, we know we can never be in a relationship with someone else of the same sex, we have to live celibate lives. So I said it's wrong to identify as gay Christian, but that could be what they're talking about, and perhaps they were involved, but to say it's led by, I heard, led by unrepentant homosexuals, if they're unrepentant homosexuals they'd be kicked out of the school. If they were practicing homosexuality, if they're practicing adultery, if they're practicing fornication, they'd be put out of the school.

Those are the school standards. In any case, it's this utter irresponsibility. It is this hypercriticism that is so destructive. And friends watched the video and said, Dr. Brown, the video teaches the same things you teach, and you're not mentioned on it. It was this just cheap clickbait, are we no better than that? Are we just like the world? Is that what we do to draw views in? That we have something sensationalistic and unrelated to content, to draw people? That's what believers do? That's what godly people do?

So I actually, this was sent to me the third time, I thought, okay, I don't post in the comments section with other people's videos, but I did just say, hey, you want to, you need to fix a thumbnail, and then we wrote privately, we'll see. Forget a response, hopefully there's some integrity there. But what are people thinking? It always boggles my mind that in the name of discernment, or in the name of holiness, or in the name of the word, I can now justify slandering people, putting up misinformation about people, walking in utter lack of love, creating unnecessary division. I don't mean division over truth, I mean unnecessary division, false reports, and on and on and on and on and on.

I wonder how people can do that. And it does remind me of Jesus' words in Matthew 23 to the religious leaders, he commended them, when he said, hey, you tithe on mint, dill and cumin, it's the smallest of spices, but you neglect the weightier matters of the Lord, judgment, mercy, and faithfulness. He said, you should have emphasized these and not let the others undone. You know, it's almost like I, you're my spouse, right? And you were five minutes late serving dinner to everybody. I said, hey, real tight schedule, can you make sure we're on time? You're five minutes late. And in the name of Jesus, I berate you and yell at you and scream at you and demean you in front of the kids. Oh, and I'm the righteous one, I'm the holy one. By the double standard, that's what's so concerning. Why?

Why? We should rejoice, when we hear reports of God moving. And unless it's, hey, God's moving in the Jehovah's Witness, Kingdom Hall, and people are flocking there. Okay, I'm not going to rejoice unless repentance is taking place and they're renouncing the doctrine of Kingdom Hall because that's a cult. Well, they're flocking to the Mormon church, I'm not going to rejoice unless they're rejecting Mormonism in favor of the true gospel. But I'll rejoice if they're flocking to a Calvinist church, even though I'm not a Calvinist. I'll rejoice if they're flocking to the church of the church of the church. I'll rejoice if they're flocking to a Lutheran church, even though I'm not a Lutheran. As long as the gospel's being preached, as long as those people hold to the fundamentals of the gospel, I'll rejoice. I'll rejoice if they're going to a charismatic church that I think is a little extreme in charismatic practices, although I'm charismatic myself, unashamedly, wholeheartedly, I am charismatic because I see it scriptural. But it doesn't have to do it exactly the way I do it.

You don't have to do it exactly the way I do it for me to agree. But if God's coming, I'm going to rejoice. All right, let's go to Ike in Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Ike, you're on the air.

Ike, maybe Ike is gone. Let's go over to Greg in Cary, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you, Dr. Brown. Gamaliel, when it talks about him speaking to the folks when they were condemning Paul and when he was preaching on his ministries and missionaries, is that the same Gamaliel that was his instructor when he was a child? Yeah, yeah, so Acts 5 mentions Gamaliel or Gamaliel in Hebrew, and he gives wise counsel.

I mean, they still flog the apostles and threaten them. But yeah, he says, don't try to stop this. This is of God. We can't stop it.

If it's not, it'll just peter out on its own. Yeah, so when Paul references sitting at the feet of Gamaliel and Gamaliel, that's the same teacher. So Paul references it later in the book of Acts, speaking about the same man, for sure.

Wow, that's amazing. Well, I just thought about it. It just made me think of Gamaliel, of him, when you're talking about this revival that's going on in Kentucky, that, you know, what he said, you know, kind of, I don't know what that was. But also, I was kind of curious of these people that are claiming that this revival is of Satan. I was wondering if they were teetering on blasphemy in the Holy Ghost.

I didn't know if that was, you know. Yeah, it's a, as I understand it, you have to knowingly and willingly attribute the works of the Spirit to the devil. Plenty of people all over the world, all the time, attribute the works of the Spirit to the devil, but they're doing it in ignorance. Paul, with everything he did, think of this, persecuting believers, having Stephen put to death, he says in 1 Timothy 1 that God had mercy on him because he acted ignorantly and in unbelief.

Isn't that amazing? So God's mercy is great, and there are Christian leaders who know Scriptures well and who attribute the things of the Spirit to Satan, and they're doing it based on ignorance. In other words, they genuinely think that. They are generally misinformed or misled or deceived, but they're not doing it with malicious intent. And I would be very, very, very slow to say that someone blasphemed the Spirit, just like I'm very slow to call someone a false prophet. I'll say they're prophesying falsely, or I don't recognize this person as a prophet, right?

And I've named names in the process in the past in doing that. At the same time, I can't say for sure that they are children of Satan and unsaved. They're obviously very unstable believers if they are believers. The same thing, I'm very slow to say that someone blasphemed the Spirit, because that's an eternal sin for which there is no repentance. So plenty of people, they make fun of times, they're just gibberish, or God moves powerfully, like this report I read, you know, blasting Brownsville. This is years later, blasting it and attacking, and with blatant misinformation in the article. Well, that's a shame, and it's ugly, and it's destructive. I grieve for the people who miss and misunderstand something so sacred and so beautiful, but I wouldn't say they're blaspheming the Spirit unless they did it knowingly. That's the big thing.

Did they do it knowingly? Hey, thank you, Greg. I appreciate the call. 866-34-TRUTH. Oh, I've got a bunch more things to share. Let's take a few more calls. Let us, tell you what, I'm going to come back to the phones in a minute.

I want to stay on topic of revival for a moment. How do you judge fruit? How do you judge fruit?

How quickly do you judge fruit? Well, if you get reports of meetings happening, and people are going there and leaving the meetings and going out getting stone cold drunk in Jesus' name and saying, God set them free from dead religion, and you hear that over and over and over again, and you don't hear reports of holiness and true repentance, I'm giving you an extreme example, right? Make-believe extreme example. Well, it's obviously not God. It's obviously absolutely categorically not God.

But if you're the contrary, again, Jonathan Edwards emphasized, judge by the main, judge by the whole, not by the part. So you see over and over and over and over reports of confession of sin, of brokenness, of humility, of repentance, of people getting saved, of turning to Jesus, of people now studying the Word, embracing the Word, can't wait to share the Gospel with others. Those are all good signs. Those are signs of God's movement.

When you see it multiplied, multiplied, multiplied, oh, boy, something is going on. 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. And just a reminder, when you call 800-771-5584, our friends in Trivita, make sure you say Dr. Brown sent you, all right?

They'll know from the number used, but make sure you say that they like to hear that, 800-771-5584. All right, I want to give you a few pointers about the difference between constructive correction, which gives life, and destructive criticism that brings death. I want to ask you first to remember to pray for two debates scheduled in March, one with a Muslim apologist in London and whether Muhammad is prophesied in the Bible, the other with a Hebrew Israelite leader about who are the authentic Jews. But just to give you a glimpse of the type of Hebrew Israelite hatred we get day and night online. There are probably thousands of comments like this, and of course, when we see this about any group or any people, we poll them.

But here are just a few samples here. A deceiver, white people are the devil. If there's a Garden of Eden, are they going to make an area that is a ghetto for black people? So that's why, I mean, we get these endlessly.

How about this one? You devil, why? Just mad because Israel, meaning Hebrew Israelite cult there, is waking up. We racist, but what the blank do you call the US government?

A bunch of murderous thieves, pedophiles, and molesters. God will judge you devils. And another, this is from someone calling themselves tribe of Levi. Hitler is an Edomian heathen devil like yourself, Dr. Brown.

The Holocaust never happened, so stop lying to the world. This is part of the sick hatred that's out there. This is part of the deception that's out there. And by God's grace, we'll expose the darkness with the light of truth and with the light of God's word.

All right, I'm going to go back to the phones in a moment, but check out my article on AskDrBrown.org. The difference between destructive correction, excuse me, constructive correction and destructive criticism. The difference between constructive correction and destructive criticism. And I mentioned that constructive correction is life-giving. It shows you where you're going off the path.

It helps you get in the right spot. It edifies and encourages with hope in the midst of this is wrong, this needs to change. And it comes with a mentality of love and support. And there are lots and lots of verses that support that. Proverbs 1, 7 through 9, Proverbs 9, 8, Proverbs 15, 31, 17, 10, 19, 25, 25, 12, 29, 1. Proverbs 27, 5 and 6. You know the verse, open rebuke is better than secret love.

Kisses of an enemy are profuse, but faith fill the wounds of her friend. Ecclesiastes 7, 5. Proverbs 28, 23, the one who rebukes a man in the end will find more favor than someone who speaks with a flattering tongue. And according to the Bible, Godly rebuke is a sign of the Lord's love. One of my favorite passages is in Proverbs 3, verses 11 through 12 that begins with the word in Hebrew. The chastisement of the Lord, my son, don't despise. And don't abhor his rebuke. Because the Lord corrects those he loves.

Even as a father, the son in whom he delights. This is wonderful. Constructive correction is life-giving. I thank God for it.

I thank God for the many times God's put people in my life to receive it. Most notably my wife Nancy, who's full of constructive correction, which has been a path of life for me and an improvement over the decades. It's totally different than destructive criticism. So some aspects of destructive criticism that I list in my article, you read it on stream.org as well. A destructive critic is often self appointed rather than God appointed, taking out himself or herself to set the church straight. A destructive critic frequently speaks out of limited or no personal experience in the matters on which he or she makes pronouncements. A destructive critic is often an expert in tearing down, but a novice in building up. A destructive critic can be a hair splitter and nitpicker straining out a gnat, swallowing a camel. A destructive critic feeds on negativity and fosters unbelief, suspicion and fear. Let me just run through this.

This is a sampling, a sampling here. A destructive critic is often self appointed rather than God appointed, taking on himself or herself to set the church straight. There are people with discernment websites that have no idea who they are. I've said I'll interact with you and even do an interview with you if you tell me who you are.

No, we won't do that. So why in the world should we listen to them? It could be some 18 year old kid with no theological background who's appointed himself as the expert. It could be some pastor caught in adultery who had to step out of ministry and now he's just attacking from the sidelines and sniping. It could be people with a history of doctrinal error, but oh, they're going to be the truth tellers now.

Who appointed you? And where's your, who are you? Now, some are wide open whose they are, but others not. Destructive critic frequently speaks out of limited or no personal experience in the matters in which he or she makes pronouncements. In other words, they can't tell you from personal experience being in the midst of people how these things translate out and work, but from a distance they got attacked. I was dealing with some folks who were criticizing a movement and I said, but I know the people in the movement. You're quoting them. I know them. I know how they're living things out. You're misinterpreting the quotes.

Well, you have an unfair advantage because you know, how is that an unfair advantage? You should get to know them if you want to criticize them. Find out firsthand. Hey, you said this. Do you really mean this? If you think they're in such error, reach out. Third, a destructive critic is often an expert in tearing down, but a novice in building up. Okay, you showed me what's wrong. You showed me where the error is. All right, how about now encouraging me in the truth and life and so on.

A destructive critic can be a hair splitter and nitpicker straining out a gnat that's swallowing a camel. Oh, who told you to pick up your man on the Sabbath? Oh, no, Jesus just healed me.

Well, you should be carrying your match. Excuse me, you're not noticing that Jesus healed me. I was crippled for thirty eight years by the violated our traditions. And then a destructive critic feeds on negativity and fosters unbelief, suspicion and fear. Ask yourself what you produce. There was someone I had to block on Twitter years ago, not so much because of what the individual tweeted, but because the followers of this individual were so vile and so vitriolic and so full of slander and accusation in the name of the Lord. That I just I didn't want that cesspool of filth to be flooding my feed.

And I told them, hey, I blocked you because you're followers. What are you producing? Just questions, just putting things out there. All right, we go back to the phones and let's go to Charles in Chicago. Welcome to the line of fire. Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call. First of all, I have to agree with you. I can't stand destructive crickets. Yep.

Go ahead. Nothing worse. A couple of things. First, I have a question in terms of the attendance at Asbury. Do we know it was a primarily young believers who attended or was it a mix of unbelieve young unbelievers who brought in or believers, I'm sorry, who brought in unbelievers?

Was it a mix? Yeah, I don't think I don't think we could know that specifically at this point, all the demographics. My assumption is like any revival, it starts with believers. It starts in-house believers waking up, compromise Christians getting right backsliders now returning, and then it trickles out to the lost. However, my assumption is on that campus, you had plenty of kids who were not in solid relationship with the Lord, as would be the case on any Christian campus with enough students. You had kids who were there that were outwardly Christian, they were there because their parents wanted them to be there, but they didn't really know the Lord or they were compromised in certain ways or may have been one of these with sexuality issues that was compromised. When the school came under a lot of pressure a few years ago, when they released two professors who were sympathetic to homosexual relations, etc., or who shared some of that ideology, even though they were excellent in so many other ways, there was an uproar among some and there were students who signed a petition and to this day want them back, so those could have been among the ones being touched or God's flushing that up to the surface now.

But I don't think we know that. My assumption is the first wave that normally comes is largely believers, people hungry, people knowing something's missing, they get changed, then it spreads out from there and then it begins to reach the lost more pronounceably. However, since you have a lot of kids coming from other campuses, plenty of them could have been non-believers on Christian campuses, we just don't know the demographics. Right, and I have to admit that when I first heard about it and saw some of the early reports on it, my first reaction was to doubt. My first reaction was to doubt, well, like you were saying, well, I don't know if this could be real right now with everything going on, with emotionalism and things creeping into the church. I started to doubt, personally, and what really hit me and convicted me was John chapter 3, for some reason, came to me. John chapter 3, verse 5, when Jesus is having the deep conversation with Nicodemus and basically letting him know, you can't perceive, you can't see the Kingdom of Heaven unless you're born again, of water and the Spirit, and I realized, wait a minute, who am I? Where was I before I came to the Lord? My mind had to be renewed and my heart of stone had to be turned into a heart of flesh.

Right, and let me just say this, Charles, there's a process, yeah, and I'm just jumping in because I want to read something to you. John Piper has this definition of revival. I just saw it in an article in Christian Post where someone was quoting him. In the history of the church, the term revival in its most biblical sense has meant a sovereign work of God in which the whole region of many churches, many Christians, has been lifted out of spiritual indifference and worldliness into conviction of sin, earnest desires for more of Christ in his word, boldness and witness, purity of life, lots of conversions, joyful worship, renewed commitment to missions. You feel God has moved here and basically revival then is God doing among many Christians at the same time in the same region usually, but he's doing all the time in individual Christians' lives as people get saved and individually renewed around the world. Notice even John Piper talks about joyful worship being a fruit of this. If I didn't see emotion, if I didn't see weeping, if I didn't see people coming under conviction, if I didn't see joyful worship, if I didn't see people visibly touched by the Spirit, I would deeply question whether it was a real revival or outpouring because when God really comes, lives are changed and that comes with emotion. The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network.