How to Love Our Enemies

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Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, but how do we do it? 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, I am deeply committed to seeing a Jesus-based, scripture-grounded, gospel-empowered moral and cultural revolution in America. I am deeply committed to being your voice for moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. In order to do that, we must embrace the principles of Jesus and not fight with the weapons of the world or fight in the flesh. I'm not talking about if we were at war with an invading enemy that we can't use physical weapons.

I'm talking about the church being the church and carrying out our mission in this nation, whatever nation God puts us. If we fight in the flesh, we will lose in the flesh. If we fight in the spirit, we will see lives radically changed for the glory of God.

This is Michael Brown. Welcome to the Line of Fire broadcast. Here is the number to call to weigh in today, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. We're going to talk today practically about how to love our political and ideological enemies. Again, the number to call 866-34-TRUTH. Now, if you want to weigh in on yesterday's discussion about pro-life legislation that can only pass if it has a rape and incest clause, so abortions with the exceptions of rape and incest, no abortions with those exceptions, and of course to save the life of the mother, the discussion we had yesterday, if you want to weigh in on that, you can still do that. Again, we were not debating whether the clause itself is a good clause.

We were saying as pro-lifers, we don't like the clause, but what if it's the only way to pass legislation in your state and eliminate 98% of abortions basically on the spot by doing so? Also, if you just have a general question you want to ask me, something you want to talk about, Bible, theology, culturally related, a bone you want to pick with me, a rumor you've heard that you'd like clarified about our life in ministry, by all means, give us a call at that same number. All right, the words of Jesus, let's start there. Matthew chapter 5, and we'll pull up our accordance Bible software, great software to use if you really want to dig into the word and dig into the languages and get some great resources there. So Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 43, from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward you have?

Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles, meaning the pagans, the auto worshipers, do the same?

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. All right, now let's step back and think about this for a moment. Where does this idea come from? You've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. We know Leviticus 19, the hafta lerecha kamocha, this becomes foundational in Jewish law, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. We know that over time Jewish law discussed and does to this day, well who is my neighbor? Is my neighbor my enemy? Is my neighbor the one that's out to kill me? Or is my neighbor the person who lives next door and we may be having an argument about something?

So that's disputed. You know in Luke the 10th chapter in the parable of the good Samaritan that Jesus tells the the Jewish lawyer who's asking him questions, you go be the neighbor. The neighbor is the one who helps, so you you go be the neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself.

How about going and being a good neighbor to someone else? But we do know that in ancient Jewish teaching in Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls, there were some texts that point it in this direction about hating your enemies. And you might derive it from say Psalm 139 when the psalmist says, God I hate those who hate you with a perfect hatred. So you might derive it scripturally in a second-handed way. You might get it from other Jewish teaching today. There is no known rabbinic source that says love your neighbor, hate your enemy.

However, this was something as best as we can tell that was taught in some of these ancient sources and we know for sure it was taught because Jesus is addressing it. So yeah, love your neighbor, but hate your enemy. I mean your enemy's out to hurt you. Your enemy might be out to kill you. Your enemy wants to hurt you, hurt your family, hurt your work, hurt God's work. Your enemy is bad, bad, bad. Therefore, it's righteous to hate your enemy while loving your neighbor. Jesus says, no.

No. Jesus says, I'm telling you, love your enemy. Love your enemy. I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

Whoa. For he makes his sunrise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Love your enemies, a command from Jesus, and pray for those who persecute you. Now, let's go over to Romans, Romans chapter 12. Romans, the 12th chapter, and here Paul is addressing the believers there, how to conduct themselves, how to live in this world.

Romans 1 through 11 lays out theology, then 12 through 16, the practical application. Romans 12, 9, let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection. Then we'll skip down to verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

Romans 12, 14, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. So you're not saying, Lord, bring down judgment on our enemies and destroy them. You're saying, Lord, save them, Lord, redeem them, Lord, set them free. You can say, Lord, stop them from doing evil, but bring them to repentance, bring them to salvation. And then he says this, verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord. To the contrary, now Paul quotes here from Proverbs 25, these are commands to us as New Testament believers. If your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap coals on his head. What exactly that means has been disputed, but I think the best interpretation is it means you will bring that person to repentance. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. All right, question is, how do we do it? We're commanded to, how do we do it? So I posted an article yesterday, day before, on Daily Wire, how to love your political ideological enemies.

It's for subscribers there, which I don't know, maybe close to a million people that are subscribing, but I'm gonna run through what's in the article, and if you're a subscriber there, you can read it in depth. So, number one, Jesus is not saying that we should stop opposing destructive ideologies. He's not saying we should water down our convictions. He's not saying we should compromise our standards. He's not saying that at all. He's not saying that we should not hate evil.

He's not saying that we should not hate the destruction that evil brings. You can grieve over it. You can hate it. I hate human trafficking. I hate abortion.

I hate pornography. I hate these things. I hate the destruction that they bring. I hate the lives that are affected. I hate those things.

I don't hate the people involved with them, but I hate those things. So Jesus is not telling us not to hate evil. In fact, we are called to love good and hate evil. So love does not mean passivity, and love does not mean compromise. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13? Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. But the Lord is calling us to be different than the world.

He is. He is calling us not to repay insult with insult, not to repay hurt with hurt, not to personally retaliate the way others do. He is calling us to step higher. My new book, The Political Seduction of the Church, if you haven't pre-ordered yet, please do so. On our website you can pre-order a signed, numbered copy. The book's going to print any day now, and we should have copies hopefully this month to send out to you even before the end of the month, if things go well.

It's due date to come out is September 6th. But in The Political Seduction of the Church, one of the key things is I said, look, we cannot fight the way the world fights. The political system is just dirty. There's corruption. Even though I voted Republican for years and overwhelmingly affirmed the Republican platform versus the Democrat platform, I realized that both parties are of the world and fleshly.

I realized that there's corruption in humanity and there are power plays and things like that. And while we work in the political system and we are involved in the political system, we do not become like it. In the same way, you want to get ahead, you know, you attack these, attack ads and demeaning and you fight fire with fire and dirt with dirt and junk with junk, not us as followers of Jesus. We don't, excuse me, retaliate in kind.

We don't fight with worldly weapons. The Political Seduction of the Church will really help you see how the church engages, how we are in this world, but not of it, how to have our views without losing our souls in the process. And if I can be candid, many of us lost our way in 2020. Many of us got so consumed with the elections. Many of us got so consumed with President of the United States, whoever that's going to be, whoever that is, many of us got so absorbed that we became like the world.

We were as divided as the world, as hostile as the world, as immature as the world, and as partisan as the world. It's the truth, friends. I'm not here to win friends. I'm here to equip and strengthen by telling the truth.

Jesus calls us higher. So that means that I truly love my ideological enemies, those with agendas that I believe are destructive and wrong. I truly love them. I want to see them saved. I want to see them come to repentance. I don't long to see them destroyed. I don't see their pictures and they're filthy, slimy. It's like, God, get hold of them.

Bring them to her pets. All right, we're going to talk about how we do that when we come back. 866-34-TRUTH. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire.

866-34-87884. How do we love our enemies? I was looking at some news headlines Sunday night, sitting down to have a meal after getting back from a day of ministry, flying back. And I noticed a picture of one political leader who stands for a lot of things I deeply differ with and has made some very volatile, ugly statements, even dangerous statements in my view. And when I saw him, I immediately had feelings of negativity, even animosity.

Now, I immediately checked it and said, I don't know this man at all. I've never read an article praising him or speaking well of him. I've never spoken to people close to him that can tell me about his good qualities in other ways.

But I'm so used to seeing news presented a certain way and seeing him on the other side of issues that are important to me that immediately it was easy to demonize him. And even if I deeply differ, even if I think the man stands for wickedness, do I have God's heart for that person? Would I do good to help that person?

Would I sacrifice for that person to come to know the Lord? These are questions to ask ourselves. And as God changes our hearts, we're able to love those that we wouldn't have otherwise loved. Okay, so how do we do it? How do we love our enemies?

Obviously, with God's grace and help, let me give you some practical pointers. Number one, we remember that none of us are perfectly righteous. And if God gave each of us what we deserve, we would be in big trouble.

That's where we start. We recognize that, hey, I am not the perfectly righteous one here looking down at this evil person, evil person, because if God was going to scrutinize my life, every detail of my life to this moment and give me what I deserve, I'd be in trouble. And I'm a serious follower of Jesus. I'm seeking to please and honor the Lord. But if he judged me right now for who I was and who I am and my shortcomings, I'd be in trouble.

And so would you. Paul wrote this in Titus 3. He's talking about our speech and how we shouldn't slander others. And he said, at one time, Titus 3, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another, until Jesus forgave us and transformed us. So remember who you were before you were saved. Those of you who weren't raised in the Lord and have always walked with the Lord, remember who you were before you were saved.

Remember the mercy that God had on you and therefore be merciful to others. Don't, don't go around as a slanderer. You say, well, what I'm telling about that person is the truth. If you're speaking the truth in love with the goal of producing edification and righteousness that is very different from attacking, hate ads, slanderous memes, mocking, it is very, very different.

Here, let me take this a step further. As followers of Jesus, we have no business using our social media pages to post defamatory attacks on others which are just mocking attacks. It's one thing if you said, I'm concerned about President Biden's ability to function. He's an older man and he seems to be in deteriorating health. He does not seem to be a sharp mentally. Let's pray for God to help him or come up with another way to protect our country. That's one thing.

That's legit. It's another thing to post the latest video of him making some egregious error and making a mockery of himself in public speech and posting this where everyone will laugh at it. Or on the other side of the spectrum, it's one thing to say, you know, President Trump is getting older and he is overweight. Let's pray for him just for his own life to be in better shape and so on. Okay, that's one thing. It's another thing to post some picture of him mocking, look at how fat he is playing golf.

We've got no business doing the latter as followers of Jesus. That's inappropriate. Well, it's funny.

I don't care if it's funny. A lot of things are funny that are wrong. Well, you just sound like a legalist. No, I sound like a Jesus lover. Yeah, and I'll justify everything from what I'm saying scripturally.

Go ahead and justify your position scripturally. All right, number two. Number two, how we learn to love our enemies. Martin Luther King said this, there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. And when we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. And so every time you begin to hate that person, he said, and think of hating that person, realize that there's some good there.

Look at those good points, which will overbalance the bad points. I remember a woman calling in the broadcast and saying, my partner and I are lesbians and we don't drink. We don't smoke.

We don't get high. We're faithful to each other. We're raising our children.

And the way you're talking about our community, it's caricatured, it's negative, it's wrong, et cetera. Well, they may be more faithful to each other than a heterosexual couple. And they may be more devoted to their kids than a heterosexual couple. It doesn't make same sex practice right, but it does take away some of the caricaturing and some of the demonizing that we can often engage in.

So yeah, I want to get to know the person I differ with to see them as a fellow human being with some good qualities as well. Look, as crazy as it sounds to those of us who are pro-lifers, there are people who believe the compassionate Christian answer to many unwanted pregnancies is abortion. That's, it's an outrage to me, but they're, they're doing it not because of a blood lust, but because they genuinely think that's going to be the best for the family, for the child, for everyone involved.

This is going to be the best course, et cetera. And to bring the child into the world, into this world, they're just going to end up in foster care. They're going to end up on the streets and how was it good for them and so on. I, I categorically reject their arguments, but I understand where some are coming from. So that's the second thing. We realize that there's, there's some good in other people, all right? And we don't just demonize them. Now, number three, we can cultivate love for our enemies by praying for them regularly. It's amazing to see what happens when you pray for people regularly.

It's amazing to see what happens when on a daily basis you get on your knees or however you do your praying and lift them up before God. Because the more you do, you want to see good come to them. You want to see positive things in their lives.

You don't just want to see them die in a car wreck or die of cancer. So what about a human trafficker, someone getting rich on human trafficking? One of the most abhorrent things a human being could do and they're getting rich on it and they don't even care.

Hey, everybody's got to make a, make a, make a dollar. What about them? Well, loving them means I want to see them repent and turn themselves in and, and, and bring the industry down, but by turning themselves in and giving names and all that, I would rather see that than see them struck by lightning. I would prefer to see because I, I want to see them saved. I want to see them forgiven. I want to see them get right with God. And yes, there are people or human traffickers that are believers now. God saved us from all kinds of horrific things.

It will be amazed to see what God saved us from. So love does not endorse what they're doing. Say, oh, whatever happened. No, no, no.

Love wants to see it. Stop. Stop now. And if it has to be by judgment, so be it. But I would rather see them repent.

All right. Number four, we must understand that when we repay hatred with hatred, we become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. We lower ourselves, we defile ourselves and we lose credibility in the eyes of a watching world. We're no different than the ones we're criticizing. Dr. King said this, if I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see that goes on ad infinitum.

It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense and that's the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. So let's be the strong. Oh, Brown, you're just being weak. No, it takes much more strength to be restrained.

Much more strength. Proverbs 15, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 25, through patience a ruler can be persuaded and a gentle tongue can break a bone. Dr. King quoting once more, here then is the Christian weapon against social evil. We are to go out with the spirit of forgiveness, heal the hurts, right the wrongs and change society with forgiveness. And friends, in the end we reproduce who we are. The question is, what kind of movement do we want to birth?

Well, we have to model it ourselves. Have you ever had the experience where you're driving on a busy road, there's a long line of cars waiting to make a turn at a light, and someone is trying to edge out, maybe out of a parking lot, grocery store parking lot, they're trying to edge it. So you slow down to let them out.

On the one hand, I mean, you're in a hurry, you're on this long line, but hey, I'm just gonna stop for a moment so they can get out here, because otherwise it's a long line, they may not get out for a while. So you do the nice thing and you let them out, right? And they don't acknowledge you. They don't wave to thank you in the window.

Have you ever had that happen and gotten like, what? I just did a nice thing, how come? It's like, oh, very, very nice personality.

I've caught myself with that attitude. I've been gone out of my way, which I try to do all the time, it's just an extension of who I am as a lover of the Lord and a lover of people. It's always thank people, appreciate people, you know, check out, counter person, wherever, just to try to be courteous and friendly to try to be courteous and friendly and God bless or have a great day, whatever, just to be a nice person. And I've done it sometimes, I'm like, wait, you're supposed to be nice back to me, I thought, isn't that wonderful? I'll do it as long as I get my nice reward as well.

Friends, let's model who we want others to be as well. Let's take hold of these words of Jesus, hard on the flesh, oh, but liberating to the spirit and something that produces wonderful fruit, Lord, help us to love our enemies, teach us how to do it. We'll be right back with your calls, 866-34-TRUTH. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on The Line of Fire. All right, if you want to weigh in on any subject, ask me a question on any subject, phone lines are open, 866-34-8-7-8-8-4. Before I go to the phones, just thinking about this, have you ever been to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia? Went years back with Nancy and absolutely loved it. You go back to colonial times, they've got everything as if you were in colonial times, the people are dressed in that way, and they role play, so if you're talking to them, they're talking as if they lived back then. I remember talking to one of the guys about the minister, the preaching of George Whitefield, and he was interacting with me as if, you know, he heard him preach, and you go to the restaurants, and they try to have a certain ambiance that would be as it was, you know, a couple hundred years ago. It's like, wow, this is really cool, it's taking back in time. Then you go over to England, and say you go to Oxford University, and you just found it in 1096, like, what? So you're talking about something that's not a couple hundred years old, but like a thousand years old?

Are you serious? Then you join us on our tour in Israel, they go, yeah, this goes back to about 1000 BC, in other words, 3000 years old. Or, yeah, there's, this is where King David's palace would have been 3000 years ago, or where this probably dates back to 3200 years ago. It's a whole different world. So you step back in time in that regard, and then say we're on Mount Carmel, and we look out at Armageddon, and we talk about the end of the age, you know, so Elijah called on fire from heaven here, this is the end of the ages. It's just extraordinary. Right on the boat, the Sea of Galilee, like Jesus and his disciples would have been, it's just extraordinary. So if you haven't signed up to join us yet, go to our website, askdrbrown, askdrbrown.org, you'll find it right on the home page, probably the second item that pops up after the political seduction book.

Get your deposits in, the sooner you do, the more your space is guaranteed and locked in. All right, 866-34-TRUTH will go over to David in Corpus Christi, Texas. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown, it's always an honor and privilege to be able to call into your show. You know, you're filled with great wisdom, I love what you're talking about, so let me just start off with that.

Appreciate that, thank you, David. Yeah, and so I want to talk about a starving enemy thing, because I'm a combat veteran. I've been to Iraq three times, many of my brothers in arms killed by radical Muslims, right? They tried to kill me, right? They only by the grace of God I'm alive, but my point being all that is because of that, I used to hate all Muslims. I dumped them all together, I hated them, right? Not right, am I excusing you, but I wasn't a believer yet. But I'm going to be honest, right, in January 2019, when Jesus saved me, healed me of PTSD in an instant, literally, right?

I had, I couldn't hate them anymore, right? I had to pray for them now, right? And I think also, that's a great way, for instance, when the Bible says, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, right? Why not pray for radical Muslims and all Muslims to be saved?

Wouldn't that be bringing peace if people came to the Prince of Peace, right? Because we often say, well, look at how horrible they are, look at what they've done. But we don't realize that our sin grieved God. Our sin made it so that Jesus had to come and suffer and endure.

So, I'm getting emotional talking about this, but I can't help but pray for us. Yeah, I love what you're saying. And look, you're in combat, there's someone trying to kill you, and if they get past you, kill other innocent people, and it is your duty at that moment to try to take that person out.

But hatred is very different. There's one thing to say, hey, this is a war, we're fighting it, these people are out to kill. You know, for example, if you're a sniper, and here's an ISIS guy, and he's about to execute a child, and you're able to take him out, we'd all say, you did a good thing. At the same time, you realize, okay, he probably left behind a wife and child, probably they were raised a certain way and only know a certain thing, so there's grief for the loss of life, but you did the right thing. You saved the innocent and you took out the guilty.

You know, it'd be just like if someone's captured that as a prisoner of war, that you don't go around, you know, kick that person in the teeth and torture them, but it's a violation of their rights. And if you're Christian, it's like, I wish you'd see the truth, I wish your eyes could be open, that's what I want for you. Even if you had to die for war crimes, you'd die in right relationship with God. But David, I think many people don't see things through the eyes that you did.

In other words, they may not hate in that extreme way, but they have really bad attitudes towards others. They generalize, they stereotype, they forget the mercy that God had on us, so if we use a combat veteran to share that is very, very powerful. Can I ask you this, David?

I know we've interacted, so I mean, there are lots of people that call, I don't know who they are, but people I've called repeatedly, sometimes I know who they are. You said you got saved in January 2019, so you're a little over three years in the Lord. How is it that the Lord saved you? What happened that brought you to that point?

Oh, absolutely. So up to that point, I was about 15 years trapped in extreme PTSD. I mean, I was a terror to my family, just a really bad, angry, I mean, you list all the symptoms of PTSD, that was it.

I was on three different psychiatric medications because I couldn't sleep. But in 2018, in the end, I felt God was impressing upon me like, Son, this is not my plan for your life, PTSD. And so I chewed on that, like I said, I wasn't saved yet.

But make a long story short, I, you know, Dr. Caroline Leaf, I read a book by her, The Perfect You, you know, really, really great Christian biblical-based book. Anyways, and so one day, here we are in a tiny apartment because we had lost our house. I was just in a tiny apartment sitting in my red chair, and I got sick of it. And I knew the world was lying to me, you know, because they didn't tell me I could be free from PTSD.

They never told me that. And so sitting in my chair, I just told Jesus, I am done listening to the world. I only want to listen to you from now on. And from that moment forward, my life was literally changed in an instant. You can ask my wife, right, you can ask my children, the radical change that only Jesus could bring in me. And from that point forward, God has never stopped talking to me. And I'm not saying that from a prideful thing, you know, because God alone.

But from that point on, He does not stop literally talking to me. And I thank God for it. I thank Him for the radical change because I was on a bad path. And I don't want to think about how my children would have turned out had He not rescued me, because I grew up in a family where my father was very violent, and had a very negative effect on me. But Jesus saved me. He changed me completely.

He literally set me free. I mean, I literally threw away those psychiatric medications in the trash, cold turkey, always through the power of Christ. And I'm a different man today. So when I get on air, right, and I do my show, or I preach, right, I'm not preaching from a place of pride.

It's only the work of Christ in me that did this, and now enables me every day through His grace to live for Him as much as I can. And I hope your audience hears that. That's the power of God to set men free, the Bible says. And I've experienced it firsthand.

And that's for anybody who wants it. It doesn't matter what you've done. I want your audience to hear this real quick. I want you to hear this from the Lord. You know, no matter what you've done, come to Him.

Fall on your knees. He will forgive you. He will change you.

There's no more radical transformation that can happen in this world. Jesus is the only way, and He will do it. He will heal you. By His stripes, you are healed. You are healed from every trauma, every bit of violence, whatever you have suffered at the hands of mankind. Take it to Jesus.

Take the sins to the cross. He will completely, radically transform you. And I'm saying that not only because of experience, because the Word of God, right, the soul of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture tells me the freedom promised in Scripture. And I pray that this blesses your audience who hears this.

Dr. Brown. Well, David, thanks for sharing that, and thanks for giving honor and glory to the Lord who saves us. What a wonderful testimony. And look, God works differently in everybody's life, but many have lost hope.

Many suffering with PTSD and other disorders, you've lost hope. Let David's testimony give you hope that Jesus can really change, transform, heal, set free. Hey, thank you for calling in. Keep honoring the Lord, my brother. Hey, you too, Dr. Brown. Love you. All right, love you too, man.

Thanks. Well, what a, what a a glorious word. What a glorious God. What a glorious Savior.

And here's the reminder about loving our enemies. Remember what I read from Titus 3, that we too at one time were wicked, evil, foolish people. We, we too, maybe not all in terms of walking it out, living it out in the world, maybe you were raised in the Lord and as far as you can remember, you loved Jesus and, and never fell into the sins of the world, or a nice person, okay, I mean you needed redemption, we understand that, but maybe you didn't live the way some of us lived. But we deserved the judgment of God. We deserved his wrath. Ephesians 2, by nature we were objects of wrath.

It's just who we were. And God had mercy on us when? When we were in our sins, right? Romans 5, well we were still enemies. Messiah died for us. So that's God's heart towards us. I've met people on the other side of the cross, oh man, they're great, I love them.

Great heart, great personality, great to be around, humble, nice people, but on the other side of the cross that's not who they were. If we could take hold of this, we'd see the world differently. Yeah, we'd still stand against evil, we'd still hate unrighteousness.

We don't get soft, we don't get passive, quite the contrary. The closer you are to the Lord, the more you share his heart for justice, for righteousness. The more you're poor or evil, the more you love good.

But your attitude towards people, the sinners, the ones that are doing wrong, your attitude towards them will change. And I remember being, well okay, September of 2020, being in DC in a hotel talking to some other Christian leaders that were there for a gathering, and I was introduced to one brother who subsequently came on the air. Former Muslim, former member of the PLO, worked with Yasser Arafat. What was his job? He was an assassin. He was an assassin for Yasser Arafat, and Jesus wonderfully saved him, and now he is a lover of God and a lover of Israel and the Jewish people. So God from day one saw his destiny in him, saw him as a sinner deserving judgment, but saw who he could become in Jesus. That's how we need to look at the world. This is an opportunity for us to share the gospel with people who are on the other side of us politically, morally, culturally, religiously, and every other way.

Who knows what God's going to do in their lives as we extend mercy and grace to them through the cross. We'll be right back. Welcome, welcome, friends, to the Line of Fire broadcast.

866-34-TRUTH. Be sure, I know I'm like a broken record here, but want to make sure all of you are getting our emails a few times a week. We're not out to pester you. We're out to equip you, to help you, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front lines where you are in the home, in the neighborhood, in the workplace, behind the pulpit, wherever God sends you. Let us partner with you to help you. If everything God's called you to be, let us be your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. So we'll do the hard work and dig on lots of subjects that you may just not have time to get to. Let us equip you with articles, videos, then you in turn can share these with others.

I've been on radio shows with colleagues and they'll say, hey, Dr. Brown, you may not know this, but I use your material on a weekly basis to prep for the radio show and we talk about these things. Hey, that's why we're here. That's why we're here. Pastors say, hey, I'm just quoting you from the pulpit. That's why we're here to help equip.

So get the emails, go to ask Dr. Brown, askdrbrown.org. And you know the beautiful thing? We don't have to spend a lot of our time fundraising, not because we have independently wealthy people backing us. That may happen in the future.

Wonderful. If that happens, they underwrite, you know, a thousand projects for us. But it's because so many of you have been blessed around. So we want to pay forward. We want to pay ahead. We want to help the next group get plus. We want to help you to get on radio in another city. We want more people to get your writing.

So they partner. It's a small army growing that stands with us. And this way, we can keep putting out a lot of free content, a lot, a lot, a lot of free content for everybody. So you who have help us to reach others that have not. And it's our joy to do it. I saw some responses to my article about loving our enemies on The Daily Wire. I don't read all comments anywhere, but because I've only been writing for Daily Wire regularly since April and added that to the sites where we're writing, I've been looking at some of the comments to see responses.

And I've been really pleased to see how many are excited about biblical content, biblically based content on a conservative political website. I'm not the only one doing it, but glad to see the positive response. And overwhelmingly people thanking me for the article on loving our enemies and saying, yeah, it's challenging, but I needed to read this. I needed to hear this. It's helpful. So I'm grateful for that.

But I read a few comments. We don't need the hippie Jesus anymore. We need the table flipping Jesus, the Jesus who went into the temple and flipped tables and drove out money changers and drove out the animals with a whip. That's the Jesus that we need. Well, are you telling me we threw out the Sermon on the Mount?

I'm not clear there. Or are you suggesting that we do away with authoritative teachings of Jesus? Remember the Great Commission, right? The Great Commission is to go and make disciples of the nations, teaching them everything I command at you, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, right? Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18 to 20, that all authority is given to Jesus and he's with us always to the end of the age. The Commission, as we go, to make disciples of all nations and to teach them what Jesus commanded us. What did he command us? Well, one thing was love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who persecute you. That's one of the things that Jesus commanded us to do himself.

So we throw that out? When did he command us to overturn tables of corrupt money changers? I'm just just wondering where he commanded that.

Well, where to follow his example? Okay, so just let me ask this then. When are you going to be physically crucified?

I'm just just wondering. Because he was physically crucified, then you're going to be physically crucified. Oh, oh, we take up our cross spiritually.

Yeah, of course. And some of us will be killed for the gospel. But the the point I'm making, if you say, well, he flipped tables, we're going to flip tables. He never commanded us to go and flip tables.

That's the first. The second thing is, when the New Testament tells us the behavior to emulate, right, in 1 Peter 2, for example, that when he was reviled, he didn't revile back. He set an example for us. On the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The example that we are to follow is that example. Should we have righteous indignation?

Yes! Here, friends, you don't need to lecture me about righteous indignation. You don't need to lecture me about speaking against evil.

I've been doing it day and night for years and years and years, and many of you have been doing it long before me. So, we don't need a lecture about righteous indignation. And we don't need a lecture about taking stands that are difficult. I'm sure if you've taken stands for righteousness, you've lost people over it. You've had family turn against you. You've had Christian colleagues walk away from you. I've had it. I've lost a lot for standing for what I was convicted was right. So be it. And I've had my life threatened, literally, physically threatened for doing what's right. So be it.

No big deal. We signed up for this when we got born again. Our lives are not our own.

They belong to the Lord. But under no circumstances will I use the gospel as a cloak for my flesh. Under no circumstances will I use the gospel as a cloak for my carnal attitude. I'm not going to man you. I'm not going to mean to you. I'm going to attack you because I think what you're doing is bad.

Forget about what Jesus said, love your enemies. No, no, that's weak. No, that's not weak. It's weak to give into the flesh, friends. You know, it's like, I know the majority of those that follow our ministry voted for Donald Trump.

I'm 99% sure that's the case. So if I'm going to swim against that tide and go against that grain, I'm going to offend some of those people or potentially lose some. You're just being weak, bro. Oh, weak by doing what I believe God wants me to do, even though I know it's going to push people away and offend people and maybe lose support and so on.

What we often mistake for strength is carnality. I like the way he does it. Why? Because he's nasty? When I'm saying he, it's a generic he. I'm not speaking of any specific person. I like the way he says it. Oh, because he's nasty and uses profanity and rips people to shreds and says things that we're not allowed to say as believers. That's what we often applaud. It's got nothing to do.

I like that guy. He got in his face and he punched you in the nose. Well, I don't like that behavior because Jesus said step higher. The guy got in your face, walk away. No, we're not talking about self-defense.

We're here. If a guy breaks into your home, all right, you see him going down the hallway, trying to attack one of your children and you got a baseball bat in your hands and you screaming them to stop and you know, he's going to go try to hurt your child and you could hit him in the back or in the head with a baseball bat to stop him. You stop him. If that's the only way to do it without, without getting yourself killed and there's no alternative, then you do it. You don't say, well, I bless you.

I bless you and I just pray you'll have a nice day and I hope you get away before the cops get. No, you stop the guy. We're not talking about that. We're talking about carnal behavior. We're talking about walking in the flesh and justifying it, but that's being strong. No, that's being weak. That's just having a short temper.

That's being carnal. Go through the book of Proverbs. Do what I've done because I realized I got to shore up my wisdom over the years. Read through a chapter a day.

Go through it for years and see the way we're to behave and conduct ourselves. Uh, all right. Tell you what, Ray in North Carolina, time is really short, but get to your point if you don't mind and maybe we can interact briefly.

Thank you, sir. Hey, uh, Dr. Brown curious, uh, as to where, uh, whether you've heard anything about the moment of truth summit that's coming up on August the 20th. Um, this month, uh, the Michael and Dale and his team have gathered undeniable evidence that the election was fraudulently taken. I didn't know if he, uh, no, I've, let me say this. Um, I, I love Mike's testimony, Ray.

Uh, I'm blessed to hear how the Lord changed his life and set him free, but all I can say is everything thus far that's been claimed because remember this was going to happen last, last year. We're, we're, we're a year out from this or already and different conferences where he was bringing in experts to present irrefutable truth that the elections were stolen and it was a complete disappointment. I mean, I know people that were watching it were watching it and observing it.

One of my colleagues even tried to go to it. I don't think he got there, but he, he paid to watch and he's a researcher and he, he personally leans towards the idea that the election was stolen and that there was a lot of digital stuff that happened. So he personally leans in that direction, but he was completely disappointed.

So whatever's been presented thus far has been a real bomb and is probably hurt Mike's reputation on a, on a larger level. I appreciate his fearlessness. I appreciate his dogged perseverance. I appreciate his testimony for Jesus, but thus far nothing has delivered.

Whatever has been promised hasn't delivered. So no, Ray, thanks for alerting me. I was not aware of this, but I will, I will follow with interest. Thank you so much. Oh, and um, Robert from mountain home, Texas. Yes, sir. You're absolutely right. A five year old girl did conceive that the moment the show ended, I did exactly what you asked me to do, searched and, and got, got those details about the girl and even others at the age of six and things like that.

So Robert mountain home, Texas, I was shocked when you said it, you said to Google it, literally the moment the show ended, I looked it up and I said to my team, wow, he was right. So thank you for that information, sir. All right. Back with you tomorrow. Another program powered by the truth network.