Jordan Peterson Says that the Bible is the Book of All Books

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The Bible really is the book of books, and the Bible really has impacted the whole world. 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 for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire. This is Michael Brown, delighted as always to be with you, encouraging, eye-opening, fascinating ground to cover today. And I'm going to open the phone lines to take all calls on all questions, 866-34-TRUTH is number to call, 866-348-7884. So all questions, all subjects, happy to talk with you today on a wide range of subjects. But I want to focus on this issue of the Bible as the unique book of all books, the book that has impacted the world in a unique way.

And we'll focus on America in a little while. What prompts me to talk about this was an interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson. You're probably familiar with him by now. Canadian academic psychologist, professor has just resigned his professorship because of the extreme woke mentality at university, but became internationally known as he stood up to some of the extreme measures being taken in Canada with enforced speech and things like that. And he was on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Joe Rogan, I believe right now has the world's largest podcast. You will hear a lot of profanity if you listen, that's just the way Joe Rogan talks. But I saw some clips, no profanity in these, where Jordan Peterson, Dr. Peterson is talking about the Bible and saying, hey, originally it was the book. Now, Jordan Peterson may have come to know the Lord and be a born again Christian.

It seems his daughter has. If not, he holds too many Christian values and ethics and believes in the importance of scripture and is growing or getting closer, you could say. Again, maybe he's made it more clear more recently, I'm just not aware. But he was talking about, as he went through the Museum of the Bible in DC, that he was struck by the world influence of scripture, by the influence of the Bible beyond how God has impacted an individual life here or there or something like that. And it was fascinating to hear him articulate this. And he does say, interestingly, that originally the Bible was the book, you know, when you talk about actually writing something and putting it together as a book and of course the Bible itself, a collection of books. So initially, you know, it was the main book that was written and copied and then had a remarkable influence worldwide. And look, even in the English language, the King James Bible had a massive impact and impacted thinking and impacted literary forms and impacted idioms and things like that. But that's secondary to the moral and spiritual impact of scripture. And friends, can I tell you something really interesting that even when you have, say, a quote, progressive Christian, so they don't share many of the values that most of us would share and they don't see the Bible the same way that we see the Bible, they'll often still want to quote it. Well, you see, we're really in harmony with scripture because the Bible is a progressive book. You think, why is it so important to be in harmony with scripture? Because in the hearts and minds of many, it, excuse me, remains of fundamental, influential importance and still has a certain authority. Now it's true that in our current culture, in our current setting, that the Bible has been diminished in the eyes of many Americans or plays no role in their lives. So they were raised almost entirely without it. I remember in the eighties when I was teaching Christ for the nations at a branch on Long Island and I had this prayer guide from Youth with a Mission.

So it was just, it wasn't sick. It was every day you just had a place for your appointments or keynotes to write down. And then it would have a quote of interest and then it would have a people to pray for, a situation. I remember reading, this is in the mid-eighties, that your average person who lives in Paris has never held a Bible in their lives or doesn't have a Bible in their home. It was just striking to read. My friend, Professor Darryl Bach at Dallas Theological Seminary has said that in past generations in America, we could say it's true because it's in the Bible. Now we have to say it's in the Bible because it's true. Thinking has shifted and changed in many ways, but I want to take you back into American history, eight, six, six, three, four truth.

And yep, just going to grab off a shelf here. My book, Saving a Sick America came out 2017, I believe a prescription for moral and cultural transformation. And I make very clear in Saving a Sick America that my purpose, my goal, my desire is not to see a theocracy. I oppose that. I oppose clergy ruling over a nation and imposing religious law on a nation and saying we the leaders are God's representatives on earth and everyone must submit to what we say. God forbid we try to have a theocracy in America.

It would be an absolute disaster, absolute disaster. Will there be a theocracy when Jesus returns? Yes, yes. Praise God. There will be. We're looking forward to that.

That'll be absolutely wonderful. When he comes and establishes his kingdom on the earth and rules and reigns, let it be. Hasten the day, Lord. I am absolutely not advocating for theocracy.

I am not advocating that the church takes over America and imposes its values by force on the nation. God forbid. That is not the gospel. That is not the Bible.

That is not my heart. However, I want to see more and more Christians really living out their faith consistently. And I want to see more Americans who don't know the Lord come to know the Lord. And I want there to be a greater turning back by more and more people to the scriptures. And then through our democratic process, we elect people accordingly and we live our lives accordingly.

It's totally different than theocracy. And I make that explicit. I have a couple of chapters making that explicit in Saving a Sick America. But for those who have the book, I'm turning to page 17. For those who don't have the book, I'm turning to page 17. And I want to read a few quotes. Hosea 14.9, whoever is wise, let him understand these things. Whoever is discerning, let him know them. The ways of the Lord are right and the upright walk in them. But transgressors stumble in them.

And then I ask this question. Did you ever hear of the old deluder act dating back to 1647 right here in America? It was a law passed by leaders of the colony of Massachusetts to ensure that children received a proper education so that they would be able to read the Bible. These colonists coming over, most of them were devout Christians. They certainly had practices that in many ways would be too narrow for me. In other words, you had to be part of their particular group or particular Protestant persuasion to be accepted. So one colony might be pro-Baptist and another colony might be pro-Presbyterian, et cetera.

And there would be great division over these issues. Obviously that's not my heart, or as I understand it, God's heart. But on the positive side, they were very much devout Christians. So they would then be good citizens by learning to read the Bible.

As for the old deluder, that was Satan. And the law, the full title was actually Ye Olde Deluder Satan Act. So this is how the text of the law reads, are you ready? It being one chief project of that old deluder Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the scriptures as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, some of these latter times by persuading them from the use of tongues that so at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saints seeming deceivers. And to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our efforts. So here's what they're saying. They're saying that in the past, clergy would prevent people from reading the Bible by not allowing it to be translated into the language of the people. Well, it's too dangerous for your average person to read, so just the clergy will have it. This is something they strongly protested and rejected.

Conversely, they realize it could be Satan's strategy now, like that was his old strategy, to have the Bible in the language of the people, namely English, they used the Geneva Bible primarily at that time, to have the Bible in the language of the people, but people can't read. So what's the use of it? It goes on. It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to 50 households, shall forthwith appoint within their own town to teach all such children, and shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, etc. So this is going to be the law.

You get to 50 people, you have to set up a school. Why? So the children can learn to read the Bible.

Why? Because they can be good citizens. Let me contrast that today, all right, go over to page 19 in Saving a Sick America. As for what's taught in our children's schools today, in 2013, New York City announced an aggressive, comprehensive, and quite graphic consideration for children's schools. And again, in ninth and 10th grade, specifically, high school students go to stores and jot down condom brands, prices, and features such as lubrication. Teens research a route from school to a clinic that provides birth control and STD tests, and write down its confidentiality policy. Kids ages 11 and 12 sort risk cards to rate the safety of various activities, including intercourse using a condom and oil-based lubricant, and all kinds of explicit sex acts. This is for kids as young as 11 in our children's schools.

Teens are referred to in resources such as Columbia University's website Go Ask Alice, which explores topics like sexual positions, sadomasochistic sex play, phone sex, and more. In our children's schools, it's a far cry for when the Bible was used as a primary textbook in our kids' schools. Can you even imagine that for a split second today? All right. We come back. We're going to take some calls, 866-348-7884. Any question on any subject, you're going to have to take your calls. And then I'm going to read some more fascinating stuff. Oh, some really interesting material coming your way later this week.

Stay with us. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-344-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on The Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown delighted to be with you. We are having some really interesting Wi-Fi intranet problems in our offices today. You know, in the old days of dial-up when you used to, you know, you'd use your phone and you'd, well here, you didn't have a cell phone, but you would use your phone, right? And you would, you have, you have a literally called a dial-up connection, right? So you, you call in a number, right? You get dialed in, like a fax thing, you call a number and now, okay, you wait and you wait and you, maybe you're trying to download a picture and it's, an hour has gone by, I mean, old days of internet phone, well, our speeds before the show today were that low, that, that impacts our ability to, maybe that close to it. I mean, instead of, instead of 50 or a hundred megabytes per second, it was under one megabyte per second. Yeah. So that is seeming to affect even our radio feed, oddly enough, as well as our ability to broadcast on Facebook and YouTube.

So we apologize for that. 866-34-TRUTH. Any question of any kind, Bible or not related as we talk about the role of the Bible in American history and even in terms of world impact. There was a question that was posted for me about 1 John 2.19. I want to look at that in a moment and then read you some amazing information about how the Bible was used in American education. I mean, mind blowing stuff. I'm going to share that in a moment from my book, Saving a Sick America. But tomorrow we plan to have a woman who's going to talk to us about some really crazy shocking stuff taking place in France, in UK, in Canada, direct assault on freedom of religion and direct assault even on freedom of personal self-determination and choice in some key, key areas. It's mind boggling stuff.

You know, I even asked, I need links. I need specific info because I knew a lot of this was coming, but some of it is even so extreme. And trust me, friends, if it's possible to implement this in America, attempts will be made to implement it in America.

There's pressure with the UN to implement these things worldwide. So we'll be talking about that tomorrow, probably on Wednesday, and this is a massive news shift that changes the direction we go. I want to give you some insight, my perspective on Charismania and hyper-criticism, two extremes that I find very dangerous and do my best to help deal with and confront, but in a constructive way, not in a bashing, negative, destructive way, but in a constructive life-giving way. On Thursday, I plan to speak with author James Gall about Israel, the Middle East, and intercession. He's always taking your questions on Friday. So we'll see.

There could be major news that shifts some of where we go, but we definitely plan to have these guests on as well in the midst of things. But if you have a question, 866-34-TRUTH. So before I get back to some of these amazing anecdotes about the Bible in American history, 1 John 2.19 is a verse that I discussed last week with the news that Brady Goodwin, known as Fanatic, a highly respected Christian, hip-hop artist and apologist, I did not know of him or his ministry before he announced that he no longer believed that he had renounced his faith. But as I began to check online, you know, many people just shocked because he was loved and had been considered to be very, very solid.

So I talked about this last week, but I want to bring it up again. Many people immediately go to 1 John 2.19, where John says this, they went out from us, but they were never really part of us, among us. Where if they had really been among us, then they would have stayed. And the verse is used to say that if anybody was once a professing believer, so like a Brady Goodwin, and then after 30 years they leave, that proves they were never really among us based on that verse. Now what's really troubling to me, to use the verse in that way, is it undermines potentially every relationship you have in the Lord, or even your own relationship with the Lord. What do I mean? Well, hey, maybe you think your spouse is saved, maybe you thought you led your spouse to the Lord, maybe you prayed together and experienced God together, at least you thought so, but if your spouse ever falls away, then your spouse is never really saved.

What? You're going to live with that possibility? Well, how can I really know for sure? Hey, even in your own life, you could be self-deceived, you could be sure you were really saved, you could have prayed, asked the Lord into your heart, turned away from your sins, experienced what seemed to be transformation, experienced what seemed to be answers to prayer, encountered God in different ways, walked with Him, fellowshiped with Him, loved Him, but if you ever walk away, that proves you were never really saved, well then who knows who's saved? You can't even know if you're saved, because maybe you're self-deceived, the only way you can know is if you make it until the end, and then you kind of like, whew, sigh of relief, I guess I am saved. That's not a scriptural mentality, friends.

Absolutely not. Yes, we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. No, we cannot just complacently say, yeah, man, I'm good. We are to examine ourselves, and we are called to grow. At the same time, over and over in the New Testament, the assurance is given, the spirit of self bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

God puts the spirit of His Son into our hearts by which we cry Abba, Father, these things are written so that you'll know that you have eternal life. I know whom I have believed. So I know that I know that I know that I know, as surely as I know my name, that I'm forgiven, that I'm in right relationship with God, that I'm saved. If I were to die right now, I'd go directly into His presence.

I know that like I know the nose on my face. What about 1 John 2.19? 1 John 2.19 is not making a blanket statement about all believers and all apostates and all the situations.

How do I know it? Because there are many warnings in the New Testament, many to believers, saying be careful that you don't walk away. Be careful that you don't deny the Lord. Be careful that you do not start in the Lord, and then even though He has promised to keep us and nothing can separate us from His love, He will not force us to stay. Be careful that you do not harden your heart, and you willfully turn away. God will keep us forever, but He will not force you to stay. In that sense, you stay on the boat, you're perfectly safe. That boat will take you from a port in New York City to a port in England.

Perfectly safe. It is guaranteed by God. You can jump off the boat and drown if you want to, it's your choice. So what do we do with 1 John 2.19? Sometimes there will be people among us who seem to be genuine for a while, but the fact that they leave together indicates they really weren't genuine, otherwise they would have stayed. It's not saying anyone who ever leaves, that's the case.

It's not saying that. So I have no problem saying that a particular person was a genuine believer, walked with the Lord, experienced God's goodness, I mean Hebrews deals with this chapter after chapter with Jewish believers who thought they could just go back to the old system without the Messiah and be right with God, and there are persistent warnings about that. You can walk with the Lord, you can have fellowship with God, you can be a true believer, you can be truly born again, you can know that you know that your sins are forgiven and that you're in right relationship with God, and willfully turn away, yes it requires a hard thing of heart, yes it's normally going to be a process, but we could willfully turn away and deny the Lord, and at that time he will say that he denies us as well. Let me just bring you over to a passage that is relevant in Matthew the 7th chapter. It's a well-known passage of the words of Jesus beginning in Matthew 7 and verse 21. He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Now you could read this and say, ah, there it is again. These people claim to be believers, but they were never believers. These people claim to belong to the Lord, but never really belonged to the Lord, and he says, I never knew you.

You could read it like that, or as many scholars understand it, these people are saying, hey, we did these things, we did prophesy in your name, we did cast out demons in your name, we did do many mighty works in your name. We were in right relationship with you, but they weren't living right. They turned away.

They fell into lawlessness. And when Jesus says the Hebrew be lo yedaticha, I never knew you, that was a known formula of excommunication in Judaism. This was something known in times not that far removed from the saying of Jesus, that when you excommunicated someone who was once among you, but now had left, you said, I never knew you.

It could be the exact same thing here. In any case, rejoice in the certainty of your relationship with God, that you know that you know your sins are forgiven and you're a child of God. Don't become complacent and forget that he requires that we serve him, live him, live for him, walk from not salvation by works, but salvation from sin to God. 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. The Bible, it remains the book of books. And around the world, efforts are being made on a daily basis. People toiling, working hard to get parts of the Bible to people who've never had the Bible in their language, some obscure tribal dialect, they don't even have their own written language, missionaries, linguists, work with them, understand the language, then come up with a way to write it so now they can have the benefit of a written language. And it can only be a group of several thousand people, but hey, God's Word, we have to get it to them. And then they work tirelessly then to translate that. They may start with Gospel of John or Psalms or different things. And it's an event of great celebration. And then when the Bible is completed, boy, it's wow, amazing.

866-348-7884, the number to call. So a few days ago, I saw a clip, Jordan Peterson, Dr. Jordan Peterson on the Joe Rogan podcast, and the subject of the Bible came up. Jordan Peterson had recently gone through the Museum of the Bible in DC and was reminded and then on a certain level even impacted beyond that in terms of how vast the influence of the Bible actually is and the degree of impact that it's had on cultures and morality. Now look, I am not trying to get back to a place in America now where we say to schools around America, okay, the Bible is going to be used and you're going to read it not just for literary purposes, yeah, read it, however it's going to be read, literary purposes, that's fine. But, you know, you have people reading it, that's still good. But I am not envisioning something where public schools in America start saying, okay, we're now going to be teaching morality, biblical morality, ethics of Jesus, et cetera, Christian morality, Judeo-Christian morality to your kids in school.

No, that wouldn't go in our current pluralistic culture. But in an earlier time in America when the population so overwhelmingly professed Christianity, even if you had your nominal Christians and your non-churchgoers and your atheists and skeptics and mockers, the roots, the mentality so overwhelmingly Christian, even when there was an understanding of quote separation of church and state as that played out on a certain level, okay, the Bible was still used right up until the early 1900s in a very regular way in our children's training, not just religious training, but learning to read right here. So in my book, Saving a Sick America, I have a whole chapter on the Bible in American history. So let me give you some examples just so you can get a feel. In fact, let me do this first. I want to play the audio from the podcast, of course you can watch the video, but I want to play the audio from Jordan Peterson, just a couple of clips. So let's listen and then I want to go back into Saving a Sick America.

So here's the first clip from Jordan Peterson. If categories just dissolve, especially fundamental ones, the culture is dissolving because the culture is a structure of category. That's what it is. So in fact, culture is a structure of category that we all share. So we see things the same way. Well, that's why we can talk. I mean, not exactly the same way because then we'd have nothing to talk about.

But roughly speaking, we have a bedrock of agreement. That's the Bible, by the way. So I just walked through the Museum of the Bible in Washington. That was very cool.

It's a very cool museum. So the structure. That's what the Bible provides. Yeah, that's what I figured out.

I just figured this out this week. So it was a cool thing to walk through because it's chronological. They have one floor, which is the history of the Bible.

It's not exactly that. It's really what it is, is the history of the book. Now, in many ways, the first book was the Bible. I mean, literally, because at one point there was only one book, like as far as our Western culture is concerned, there was one book. And for a while, literally, there was only one book. And that book was the Bible. And then before it was the Bible, it was scrolls and it was writings on papyrus. But we were starting to aggregate written texts together. And it went through all sorts of technological transformations. And then it became books that everybody could buy, the book everybody could buy. And the first one of those was the Bible. And then it became all sorts of books that everybody could buy.

All right. So that's the first clip from Jordan Peterson. Interesting that he was talking about structure because they're talking about transgender issues. And he was saying, look, when you break down categories of male, female, the structure and categories are all throughout society. So when you when you break them down, when you no longer have structure, when you no longer have categories, right, then you can't have a society. And he said, it's ultimately, this is something he said he just figured out, that the structure comes from the Bible.

OK, one more clip. But all those books, in some sense, emerged out of that underlying book and that book itself. The Bible isn't a book. It's a library.

It's a collection of books. And so what I figured out was partly because I was talking to my brother-in-law, Jim Keller, who's the world's greatest chip designer and has now designed a chip that's as powerful as the human brain, which is optimized for artificial intelligence learning, by the way. And so I talked to him about that. He said, you heard of the Internet?

I said, yeah, Jim, I've heard of the Internet. He said, this is way more revolutionary than that. So in any case, we were talking about meaning in text because we were talking about translation and the problem of understanding text. And Jim said, the meaning of words is coded in the relationship of the words to one another.

And the postmodernists make that case, that all meaning is derived from the relationship between words. That's wrong because, well, what about rage? That's not words.

And what about moving your hand? That's not words. So it's wrong. And part of it's right because the meaning we derive from the verbal domain is encoded in the relationship between words. So now then you think, well, let's think about the relationship between words.

Well, some words are dependent on other words. Some ideas are dependent on other ideas. The more ideas are dependent on a given idea, the more fundamental that idea is.

That's a definition of fundamental. So now imagine you have an aggregation of texts in a civilization. You say, which are the fundamental texts? And the answer is the texts upon which most other texts depend. And so you'd put Shakespeare way in there in English because so many texts are dependent on Shakespeare's literary revelations. And Milton would be in that category and Dante would be in that category, at least in translation.

Fundamental authors, part of the Western canon, not because of the arbitrary dictates of power, but because those texts influenced more other texts. And then you think about that as a hierarchy, okay, with a Bible at its base, which is certainly the case. Now imagine that's the entire corpus of linguistic production, all things considered. Now how do you understand that? Like literally, how do you understand that? The answer is you sample it by reading and listening to stories and listening to people talk.

You sample that whole domain. You build a low resolution representation of that inside you. And then you listen and see through that. And so it isn't that the Bible is true. It's that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true. It's a whole different kind of true. And I think this is not only literally the case, factually, I think it can't be any other way. It's the only way we can solve the problem of perception.

All right, he is obviously a deep thinker. Jordan Peterson is obviously a deep thinker and he's laying out some ideas that may sound a little complex, but basically the Bible becomes the filter for truth. The Bible becomes the manifestation of truth, the standard of truth. Okay, from Saving a Sick America, page 20. In 1690, the first New England Primer was published. The alphabet was taught using Bible verses for each letter, and the Primer contained questions on the moral teachings of the scriptures, children's prayers, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Shorter Catechism, and questions on the Bible by John Cotton. The New England Primer continued to be widely used in American schools of all types, public, private, home, or parochial for the next 200 years. So until the late 1800s. This isn't in all of our schools.

I don't mean every single one always, but in quote secular schools. To read the text for myself, I downloaded the 1777 edition of the Primer, meaning the edition that had been used widely at the time our nation was birthed. On the opening page is an Isaac Watts hymn titled, A Divine Song of Praise to God for a Child, followed by Morning and Evening Prayers by Dr. Watts for Children. After listing the pronunciation of letters and words, the first lesson begins with, pray to God, call no ill names, love God, use no ill words, fear God, tell no lies, serve God, hate lies, take not God's name in vain, speak the truth, spend your time well, do not swear, love your school, do not steal, mind your book, cheat not in your play, strive to learn, play not with bad boys, be not a dunce. Sounds like just like one of our kids textbooks today, right? Sarcasm.

Next come the ABCs. So think of this, you're in school and this is how you learn. I'm not saying we can do that today or society's changed too dramatically. This would have to be reserved for our Christian schools or our religious and private schools. I understand that. I'm just saying, can you imagine growing up with this?

By the way, this is one of the reasons ultimately slavery could not abide in America because there is too much Christian truth. It had to be driven out. It had to be ended. Next come the ABCs and this is how kids would memorize ABCs. A, in Adam's fall, we send all, B, having to mind the Bible find, C, Christ crucified for sinners died.

Oh, let's see. The permit continues with biblically based questions such as who was the first man, Adam, who saves the lost man, Jesus Christ, who is Jesus Christ, son of God. And then an alphabet of lessons for youth begins with, a wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. Quoting from Proverbs, better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.

Come unto Christ, all you that labor and are heavily laden, he'll give you rest. Do not the abominable thing which I have, which I hate, saith the Lord. Yeah, check out your kids' textbooks and see how the material there in terms of just a worldly or often anti-God, anti-Christian, well, radical leftist agenda-filled textbook. Compare them.

Things have changed, but the Bible had a profound influence on America in these very ways. Can we come back? Go straight to the phones, 866-344-TRUTH. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-344-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back, friends, to the line of fire, 866-344-TRUTH. Let's go over to the phones finally.

We'll start with Burt in northern Idaho. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, thank you.

You're welcome. My question is about earlier there in your show, you were talking about people that walked away from the Lord, apostates and stuff like that. How would a person know if he had truly walked away from the Lord? Because I'm like really struggling with that, you know?

Yeah. Burt, you know, it's troubling to me, Burt, that I've heard from others just like you who really struggle in this way, and it's painful for me to hear. So let me ask you some simple questions. When you came to faith, how did you understand that you were born again? I really didn't understand at all. I was like on a job site, you know, and somebody gave me a worship tape to listen to. And I assumed, you know, the Spirit came up on me, and I sort of crawled around and wept and stuff.

And then I started to go to a church, and when I got in this church, then, you know, I was there for, I don't know, maybe a month, and the worship leader, a girl, and another girl pulled me right out of the church, took me to their house, and that's when all my problems started, so. Okay. So Burt, here's the good news. Your foundations may never have been laid, but when we get them laid right, you'll be good and strong. So first question, do you recognize in yourself before God that you're a sinner in need of forgiveness? Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So you need a savior.

Yes? With all my heart. All right. With all my heart. All right.

Second question. Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead? Absolutely. Yes, sir, I sure do. With all my heart. Okay. All right. With all my heart.

All my heart. All right. And you desire to live for him? Yes, I do.

Yes, I do. Okay. Then if you've truly asked him to save you, truly asked him for forgiveness, the scripture is clear, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If we believe in our heart that Jesus rose from the dead and we confess him as Lord so he is the one we're living for, then we will be saved and God promises that.

So this is based on who he is and what he's done. What is it then if you've truly gone through that process of, Lord, forgive me, I recognize my sin, I'm asking you to wash me clean, I desire to live for you, I believe Jesus took my place, died for my sins and I received the gift of salvation and forgiveness because of what he did and I asked you, Lord, to wash me clean, give me a new heart, new life. If you've truly done that, what are you wondering about that? The fact that you keep falling back in sin and therefore you're not sure what... No, no. I look at, at nighttime when I go to bed, I just have like my mind, you know, I just feel like these demons are in my mind chasing me and stuff, I can't sleep at night.

It don't happen all the time, but it does come on the time. Yeah. All right. So, so Bert, I do want to pray with you that God would really deliver you from this torment, but in times like that, it's really important that you completely look to Jesus and not to yourself. In other words, if you're getting tormented like that, you just say, Jesus, you're my savior, Jesus, you're my Lord, Jesus, you died for me, Jesus, your blood is enough. In other words, whatever's going on in your mind, you counteract it with truth. And then it could be, if you're not in the habit of doing this, either some favorite verses that comfort you or just key reading of the scripture before I get into the word, you know, if I really get in and study in the Bible, like I'm trying to read the whole Bible right now.

And it just seems like whenever I get in and really get going, then that's when that stuff comes. Got it. Okay. So, so it would seem like spiritual warfare.

So what I want to direct you to is Ephesians chapter six, all right, Ephesians chapter six, beginning in verse 10, Ephesians six, 10, I want to encourage you to read that through where it talks about putting on the armor of God. We are in a spiritual battle. I know. All right.

All right. So what I want you to do is each day, look at those verses, it's really verses 10 through around 19, to pray over them, to consciously even go through it, oh Lord, okay, Lord, I put on the, the, the belt of truth. I'm going to gird myself with truth.

I'm going to renew my mind. We just pray these things, speak these things, and then realize that in Jesus, you have authority over the devil. The word says, submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he'll flee. The word says that the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

Scripture says, resist him steadfast in the faith. So you have authority over these demonic voices and you can say, father in the name of Jesus, I say no, I rebuke these attacking spirits in Jesus name. It is when we put on the armor of God, we are now fighting spiritually speaking with his strength. The sword that we fight with is the word of God. So you quote scripture, even if it's just one verse that you have, right? In Jesus, I have authority over, over, over demonic power, you know, to paraphrase some verses and you have that just ready in your heart, mind that's your sword. You do not have to be tormented. Now sometimes we need to spend more time alone with the Lord in prayer and build ourselves up.

Sometimes we need to make sure we're not polluting ourselves with other things. That's always important, but especially in the midst of war, you want to make sure that what you're taking in is good and wholesome. So Lord, I pray for Burt right now that you would strengthen him in his walk with you, that you would deepen him, that you'd bring him around good godly friends that can encourage and strengthen him and that he would learn that in you he has authority over the powers of darkness, that he does not have to live in torment, that he can live in freedom.

We proclaim that if the sun sets us free, we are free indeed. Hey Burt, thank you for calling in and remember it's God's grace living in you. It's God's power living in you. It's God's strength living in you.

Thank you sir for the call. Let me say this to everyone listening right now. In ourselves, we are toast. In ourselves, we are corrupt and fallen. In ourselves, we are no match for the devil or even for an individual demon. In ourselves, we would live in constant defeat, hopelessness, despair if Satan had his way and God did not intervene and we would be taken out by the enemy.

That is a fact. The good news is that we do not fight this battle in ourselves. The good news, it is Jesus living inside of us by his spirit.

The good news is greater is the one who is within us than the one who is within the world. The good news is that we have, through Jesus, authority over the power of Satan. I don't mean we just worldwide say, devil stop. But when we are harassed, when we are attacked, we have authority in Jesus and we have authority over demonic powers as God sends us and directs us and people cry out for freedom. To this day, we are called to drive out demons. That never stopped.

That never changed. There is not an ounce of a verse in the entire New Testament that says that the authority of the spirit living in us over demonic powers has ceased and therefore we can set others free. Again, you can't just break the power of Satan over someone who wants to serve sin, but when someone wants help, when someone is bound, we can break that power in Jesus name.

And I've seen it over the years. In fact, I wonder why we are not driving demons out more here in America. You go overseas, you know, there's the joke, part joke, part truth through observation that in Africa they drive out demons in Baptist churches. In other words, the demonic is real.

It's being confronted. It's not often as hidden and disguised or put forward in some sophisticated way. But I have prayed for people and I've seen them dramatically set free, healed. It's not my primary ministry to do that.

And sometimes it's very surprising. I remember a woman coming up for prayer, well dressed, very sophisticated woman in a tent meeting in Italy. And the moment I started praying for her, she started to convulse, foam started coming out of her mouth.

She was getting set free and delivered from demonic power. The good news is Satan is, the difference between us and Satan is infinitely less than the difference between the power of God and the power of Jesus. The difference, to be clear, between our power and Satan's power, right, is as big as that is, is infinitely less than the difference between Satan's power and the Lord's power. And we fight our battles in the Lord's power. Friends in Jesus, you are an overcomer. Make sure you sign up for our emails. If you haven't done it, do it now. AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown.org, we will flood you with good stuff in the months ahead and you will be blessed. Back with you tomorrow. Another program powered by the Truth Network.