Responding to Your Greatest Faith Challenges

Yeah, I know you're facing all kinds of challenges to your faith today. We're here to help equip you.

How to respond. 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.

Welcome, welcome to the broadcast, Michael Brown. Absolutely delighted to be with you here to provide you with your daily dose of moral sanity and spiritual clarity here to infuse you with faith, truth, and courage. Come on, to help you stand strong on the front lines, because we are. All of us in The Line of Fire today. I'm very happy to take calls if you're struggling.

I don't just mean going through a trial, but faith struggles, things that you're dealing with, things that you're confronting, things that you don't know how to answer, your kids coming with questions or issues or in the workplace or where you find yourself as a student and you're struggling. I want to get to some calls. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87, 884.

Let me tell you exactly where we're going today. Oh, a week and a half, two weeks ago, I posted on Facebook and said, listen, this coming Friday, so I mean this last Friday, answer on the air your questions with some of your toughest faith challenges. So we recorded the entire broadcast.

I went through many of the questions that were posted on the Dr. Michael Brown page on Facebook. And what happened was there was a recording issue. We found out day before the show or the morning of the show, there was a recording issue.

So we were unable to play that. So I thought, OK, I said, I'm going to answer these questions. Let's do it today. That's why we had a repeat broadcast for those that may have noticed that on Friday. Then yesterday I was I was doing some filming for Daystar TV in Texas. So we had a repeat broadcast yesterday.

But we're here live. This will be every day for foreseeable future. And just a lot of stuff's happening in the world. Iran, potential world war breaking out. Well, on Thursday, I have scheduled a guest who was a woman who was actually in prison in Iran. So we're going to talk about Iran. We're going to talk about things happening in the world on Thursday, other times this week. But right now, let's be down to earth and deal with a lot of struggles, a lot of battles, a lot of things you're facing.

866-348-7884. Before we get into that, many of you know that we've launched on different stations a 30-minute equipping broadcast. It's not posted online yet. It's just on radio so far.

We launched on almost 200. It's on the station's already. 30-minute equipping broadcast. And all this month we have been encouraging folks to get a copy of Our Hands are Stained with Blood. It's just absolutely essential reading.

It's we started talking about it yesterday. It's in many ways the most important book that I wrote. When you read it, you'll understand what's happening in the world today.

You'll understand some of the world conflict and why the craziness surrounding Israel. We can only do this in the States, but we really want every one of you to have it. If you don't have it, it's the new, updated 2019 edition. It's yours for your gift of any size because we want everyone to read it and those that can read it.

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800-538-5275. Okay, let me get to some of the the faith questions, faith challenges that folks have shared with me. I want to respond to as many as we can and be as practical as I can.

Let's see, we'll start with Salvador. He says, challenging trying to reach those around me, knowing the rapture is imminent, there's a serious concern in my heart, yet my flesh doesn't prioritize the gospel and every opportunity it's given. All right, I first want to encourage you not to live with the sense of Jesus coming, Jesus coming, and almost get you in a panic mode.

It takes you out of a place of peace and rest in God and it also presents a situation which through all of world history until now has not been true yet. In other words, Jesus has not yet come. What is certain is that we all have one life. What is certain is that everybody dies. Unless we are that generation when Jesus returns, what is certain is that we only have one life and that everybody dies. That's enough urgency for me and that one day we have to give account to God and what we do in this world will make an eternal impact for good or bad. That's enough urgency for me. Plus the world itself is going crazy and imploding and exploding and so I don't need this anything if he's coming to say he's coming any second because why are you listening to this broadcast then if you just think he's coming any second instead of just on the streets yelling, hey, right now, you got to get right with God.

This is your last second, this is your last chance. Why are you working your job? Why are you going to school?

Why do you make any plans about tomorrow? So we obviously can't live like that. Live with urgency. Live with urgency but not with this sense of panic.

Look, Paul talks about goals, I want to get to this city after that, I'm hoping to come here and visit there and he wasn't thinking, any second I'm out of here. It's not a healthy way to live. It's not a healthy way to live. All right, so the healthy way to live is with sobriety, knowing he's going to return, knowing that his kingdom is going to be established, knowing that forever we're going to be with him, knowing that the difference between receiving him and rejecting him is eternal life, eternal death.

That's weighty enough, that's weighty enough. That being said, I would pray for God to give you a greater love for those who don't know the Lord because that's the other thing, if your witness is not out of love, it's just like another stat, you know, another person I share the gospel with or another person prayed the prayer, that's that's not the real gospel either and I don't believe that's your heart either. So pray for a greater love for those who don't know the Lord, greater compassion and that this way God moves you, you feel stirred to share the gospel, you feel stirred to share the good news and then just say, Lord, if this is a, if something you want me to do here, you just build relationships, get to know people, love people, but maybe it's a brief encounter, you're riding a bus or on a train or just meet someone briefly somewhere and you just feel I'm supposed to share, say Lord, if you prompt me, not with this prayer, you have to, you have to, you have to, you better, you better, uh oh, but rather, Lord, if you prompt me, I'm willing. Then let it flow naturally and then God will give you more and more divine opportunities.

All right, let's see. Shawn says this, some Christians I know believe because they are saved that they can live however they want and they still go to heaven. This seems to be a problem in many believers, my opinion. Yeah, whether you believe that there's some form of one saved always say that's true or as a Calvinist, the perseverance of the Saints, those who are truly saved will, will live holy lives if they fall away, it's only part, you know, God guarantees their salvation. There's no possible way that you can love Jesus and say, well, I want to do what I want to do.

It's not possible. Here, if you're married and you truly love your spouse, you don't say, hey, I really love you, but I also want to sleep around with others. No, no, then you don't really love them. You don't really love them.

I would rather make that the emphasis and start there. Do you really love the Lord? Do you really love Jesus? Yeah, but I can get away with what I want.

No, no, no, then you don't love him. What does Jesus say in John 14? If you love me, you keep my commandments. It's a given.

It's a given. He says in Luke 6, why do you say, why do you call me Lord and don't do the things that I say? You can't call him Lord. Lord, master, and then go do what you want to do. Hence Matthew 7 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, go into the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. And Jacob, James says, you have faith, show it by your works. Okay, you really have faith, demonstrate it by your works. Let's see it change life. So I would ask the person, first, can you show me in the Bible where it says I can commit any sin I want to commit, I can commit any sin I want to commit, and still have eternal life.

Can you show me that? Well, nothing can separate me from the love of God. What's it talking about? People, circumstances, angels, demons.

What does it say? Your sin, willful sin, willful rebellion, willful disobedience, willful denial of Jesus, willful walking away from the Lord cannot cost you eternal life. It's not in the Bible. You say, well God will keep me. Wonderful. Praise God, I rejoice in that. I believe he's gonna keep me too. I rest in his keeping power 24-7.

I don't rest in Mike Brown, I rest in Jesus the Messiah 24-7. Absolutely no question whatsoever. At the same time, I recognize that there is fruit that is required. There is fruit that is expected, not perfection, but there's a difference between light and darkness. And if we continue to walk in darkness, hate brothers and sisters, do sinful, defiling, ugly stuff, and that's our lifestyle, that's who we are, then either we were never born again or we've walked away.

It's simple. So I'm like, let's not fight the doctrine. Let's get people to really love Jesus and realize that sin is absolutely miserable and costly. Some wonder about how to not get angry when there's so much sin and junk around and compromise. Look, we're all human beings.

I've had my anger tested, my temper tested more in recent days than in many months and years just because of some pressure-filled situations and misunderstandings and false accusations and different things. And what we have to remember is a bunch of principles. And look, this is real life, right? This is real life.

And I've tried to make it an ethic. You know, there's certain situations where I can be touchier, right? Like customer service on the phone where it's like, they completely took the, they had me wait for two hours other than the guy hung up or that, you know, you get frustrated.

You ever been there? Or, you know, customer service at the airport, the gate agent, and there's an error in the reservation and it's somehow on their end and they're not like, oh, so it should have been this. I get a little testy. It's my ethic to never leave it there. To say, listen, I'm a minister of the gospel and I got a little short with you. Please forgive me. Oh, no, no, sir. We understand.

It's, you know, no, no, no. I'm a minister of the gospel and I should treat you more kindly. You're just doing your job.

Please forgive me. It's my ethic to identify myself if they don't, if they know who I am. I feel I'm a witness. I'm a public figure. I'm a minister of the gospel. I must conduct myself a certain way.

And if something like this happens, then I want it to be known. Hey, I'm a minister of the gospel. I'm a follower of Jesus and I was a little short with you. Please forgive me. And, you know, I shouldn't have treated you like that. I don't mean yelling and screaming and cursing.

I just mean being a little short with someone. But it can happen to any of us, right? And especially when we see unrighteousness. And so what do we do? Well, one principle is remember how compassionate and kind God was to you.

Titus 3. Don't slander others because you were once foolish too. Remember incredible patience of God with you as a non-believer and then as a believer. Remember the principle of Proverbs 15.1. A soft answer turns away wrath.

A harsh word stirs up strife. And ask yourself, do I want to help? Do I want to hurt? Do I want to help?

Do I want to hurt? And then go through the book of Proverbs. Study it and go on every verse about the tongue and every verse about the temper. And go through them. Go through them. And go through them until grace comes. And you can succeed your time.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. If you're struggling answering problems, questions, issues that are coming up in the face, we're here to equip you, here to empower you. We want you to be able to engage on the front line so much of what we do. That's our whole, whole goal. So you can call in some things you're struggling with trying to work through. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884.

Or if you blatantly differ with me and really want to challenge me on the things that I believe, I'm very happy to talk with you. Okay, I just want to talk demographics for a second. Demographics. So if, if you were on YouTube, you follow us on YouTube, it's probably 75%, maybe 80% male, 20% female, maybe, something like that. And on X, I don't know, I think on X it's a lot more men than women. On our Facebook page, which is our biggest, I don't know, maybe 585,000 followers or something like that, it's maybe 55% women, 45% men. And the biggest single demographic on Facebook is women like 65 and older, something like that. So we've got a lot of sisters out there, my age, almost my age, older. But then the next number one demographic on Facebook is, is men 25 to 34. And a lot of our demographic is, is young people, men and women, 25 to 34.

Or if we had to just pick overall on all of our platforms, 25 to 44, something like that. I know many of you listening on radio, maybe a little older, many listening on podcasts, maybe a little bit younger. But for, for those that are younger and want to really enhance your workouts, getting in shape, so what I do every single day, sometimes twice in a day, depending on workout schedule, nitric oxide from Triveda, that helps with energy, blood flow, oxygenation, and then mild health, which helps with muscle buildup and skeletal structure. So I've seen some real good fruit with these. So beginning of the day or before workout, I'll take both of these. And then sometimes if it's a real intense workout, then mild health or something, even both afterwards. So those that are old, those that are younger, you really find a good difference.

Those that are older, hey, I eat super healthy, as you know, exercise, but I take everything I can for competitive events because it's hard to build up muscles as you get older. So check these out. And Triveda so generously pours tens of thousands of dollars back into the ministry to help us reach more people. So 800-771-5584.

Check these out. I think you really benefit from them as I do. 800-771-5584. And look, I'm a minister of the gospel. I'm not a salesman, right? And you know, once a month we'll do a show where you focus more on health things, kind of like an infomercial. But I'm not a salesman.

I'm a gospel minister. When I talk about my books and materials, I just watch them again. That's why I write them. That's why we've given away tens and tens and tens of thousands of books and resources and have, what is it, over 3,000 videos for free that you can watch, almost 3,000 articles for free you could read. So we really do our best. That's why I'm like, get it out. Get stuff out you.

Get stuff out you. Because we want to equip you, help you, stand with you. That's why we're on the air.

That's what we do what we do. And then Trivita comes alongside and says, hey, let's help people get healthy. Healthy Church starts with Healthy You. And we'll turn around and donate generously back to the ministry.

It's like win-win. Let's do it. You can also go to trivita.com.

Trivita.com. Use the code BROWN25. Here's an interesting question from Ron. How do we live out our faith in victory and make a difference after having experienced great revival, as Brown's really talking about, and hungry and thirsty to see it again? If things came so easily then, what do you do afterwards? So my newest book, Kitchen Underwear, sees the moment. How to Fuel the Fires of Revival. Some of the chapters in the book deal with that very thing. What happens when God really moves and you see more happen in a year than you've seen in 50 years, literally.

More lives change than in 50 years of ministry or church work. And then it ends. How do you go back to to normal life?

How do you go back to that? I mean, let's hear it. Let's talk totally in the natural. Let's say you're a door-to-door salesperson, right? And you normally go through the day, you're gonna get two people to bite and, you know, actually go ahead with the sale because it's a big ticket item, right? And if that's success, so you're gonna go through rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, and then you get a person. And then rejection, rejection, rejection.

Okay, great. Now something happens and for three months, nine out of every ten doors you walk, you knock on. They say, yeah, great idea. I'd love this.

I'd love this. What do you do after that when it goes back to the rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection? How do you deal with that? So, you know, one of my colleagues, he was at Berkeley University, a Jewish man, got saved. It's the Jesus Revolution, Jesus people movement, and he said for a season, any Jewish person he talked to at Berkeley about Jesus got saved. He said then one day it stopped. It's just like that.

It just stopped. So here, I'm in the Brownsville Revival, serving as a leader there from 96 to 95. It was going 11 months before God called me to be part of the team there. And every night you're literally seeing people running to the altar and getting right with God.

Running to the altar. I'm talking about during the summer because you get online at 6 in the morning for the, stand out, stand online outside the building starting at 6 in the morning. The doors would open 6 p.m. the service would start at 7. This went on for years. And then the service would go to roughly midnight, maybe 1 in the morning, every night. So you get on at 6 in the morning, and it's summertime, so a lot of guys, you know, they're wearing shorts, standing online, you know, standing outside in the heat.

And, you know, it's through the year, but we'd see this happen in the summer. But Steve, eventually Steve Hill would give the altar call. People were under such conviction of sin they would literally run to the altar. But then some of the guys would hit their knees and slide the rest of the way. They'd get out close to the altar and run and hit their knees and slide the rest of the way to the altar. They literally got carpet burns getting right with God. You can imagine that.

I mean, to see things happen that you felt like you were dreaming and seeing that the dramatic nature of lives being changed and just happen night after night, they're being drawn, then what do you do afterwards? That's like it's a long walk to the well, five miles each way, and then you fill a bucket with water. By the time you get back, half of it's evaporated in the heat of the sun. It's like, well, it doesn't need rain. Then when the rain comes, it's wonderful.

And now what? So one thing is, when the outpouring is there, you got to take everything you can from it. That's why I wrote seize the moment.

You've got to seize it. When God is moving, it's so critically important to embrace what the Spirit is doing and then to do your best to produce something out of it with lasting fruit. So people that were touched, we trained many of them and sent them out.

They're missionaries. They're bearing amazing fruit around the world to this moment. Boom. That's powerful. That's wonderful. That's glorious.

That's beautiful. So you want to maximize that. Then you want to build on it. So whatever God did during that time, it draws you closer to him. It deepens your walk with him. It deepens your understanding of him. Deepens your commitment to him. Deepens your love for him and the word and purity and the lost.

So you're a different person afterwards. And then you realize, okay, that every step we're taking is important. In other words, the prayer we're praying today for the next move of God is part of the process of getting there.

For the next outpouring is part of the process. But today, you can make a difference. It may not be in a spectacular way, but you can make a difference by the way you homeschool your kids. You can make a difference by sharing the gospel with one person because most of church work is gonna happen in the mundane every day. And every so often we have these sweeping moves, but most of life is not like that. Most of life is not lived high on the mountaintop or low in the valley.

It's just lived kind of regular. So just sharing the gospel with someone. Praying for them. An act of kindness. It all makes a difference.

It all makes a difference. So when the rain is pouring, make sure you've got a good system of irrigation and you can get the rain flowing so it goes out and nourishes all the plants and the crops and all of this. And you're storing, you know, the rain and water towers and absolutely. And this way it can sustain you when you have less. And then when there's nothing, then you just pray for the next rain.

But it's all psycho. It's all important. It can be something that ruins us, that we can't go on with normal life because we got spoiled by revival. Instead, let it be re-ruled that way, that they build us a faith for the future and make us more to help more people in the days ahead. And the book sees the moment, of course, we get into that in great depth.

Twenty-five chapters all rich. We'll do it now. Hey friends, Michael Brown here. My delight to serve as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. We are living in such urgent times today, friends, that all of us are in the line of fire. There's a target on your back.

There's a target on my back. If you simply seek to live by biblical values or just conservative moral values, you could be canceled. You could be cast out. You could be put down.

You could be silenced. I'm here to say, friends, that I am not about to be silenced and I don't believe you are either. It is time for us to stand up. It is time for us to say enough is enough. It is time for us to push back in Jesus name, not fighting the way the world fights. No, overcoming evil with good, overcoming hatred with love, overcoming the flesh with the power of the Spirit, overcoming lies with truth. And that's what we're here to do on the Line of Fire broadcast.

And friends, it's not just a broadcast. It is a movement of people around the world. God's people standing up saying enough is enough and saying, Lord, here we are. Send us, use us. I want to urge you today to join our support team because we are on the front lines together and we are literally touching people around the world, in America, in the nations, in Israel. And together with your help, we're gonna amplify this voice and spread this movement around the globe. So I encourage you, go right now to TheLineOfFire.org. TheLineOfFire.org. Click donate monthly support.

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Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. We are starting to work on our front line newsletter for February. I know it's still the end of January, but we're starting to work on it.

It'll be coming out in the middle of the month. Can't wait to get it out to you. And some really neat testimonies. I've got one from a former Muslim and how it ties in with our ministry. And then from some of our grad spiritual sons preaching in mosques in the Middle East.

Preaching Jesus in mosques in the Middle East. It'll all be in the front line newsletter. Make sure you're getting our emails.

You get it automatically. It's free. If not, go to TheLineOfFire.org. TheLineOfFire.org. Sign up right on the home page.

Absolutely free. Let's just see here. Bo is wondering about how we deal with the apathetical approach of most Christians to theology. The most want to stay in a fluffy milk diet instead of the meat of theology.

Let me come at this from a few different angles. If by the meat of theology you mean just theological study itself without practical outlet, practical application, that to me is not meat. That to me is intellectualism. If we're talking about understanding who God is so that we can serve Him better, understanding who God is so we can relate to Him better, understanding who God is so we could better make Him known to the world, that's wonderful. But sometimes we just get caught up in intellectualism. I did.

Late 70s, early 80s. Kind of a theological pride and glorying and an archaeological orthodoxy while we're spiritually dead. So many people react against that. They go to the other extreme where it's just all spirit, spirit, spirit are all practical, practical, practical. There's no theology. So what we need to do is just is is demystify things and say, hey, we need to understand who God is. We need to really understand His nature. We need to better understand His will. We need to better understand human nature. We need to understand why the Word is the Word.

And what does it mean? How do we live it out? How do we live it out? If we can help people understand the practical nature of theology, then I think more people would embrace it. And perhaps that's where we could help people do that very thing. Yeah, for sure many American Christians just want a superficial, kind of a what's in it for me gospel. And then others I see go the other extreme and it's, you know, they're all for the cross and sacrifice but they're not really living it out because it's just they want to theologize. So let's make our theology practical. What about living in this world and you've got non-believers all around us.

We're in the world not of it, right? So most of us will live in a neighborhood where not everybody follows Jesus. Many right within your own family. They don't all follow Jesus. Maybe you're in a dorm and sharing a room and your roommate doesn't follow the Lord. Most all of us are in the workplace where fellow workers are not all believers.

I remember the summer of 1973, so the summer before I started college, working a summer job and I was the only believer in our in our crew that walked around these beaches, got there early in the morning, would clean beaches from stuff that came in by the tide and sort things out and junk that was left the day before by the people on the beach and so on. And I was only non-believer. These guys, these guys were not just, a few of them were pretty hostile, you know, and a lot of profanity. At one point I asked them to not use profanity and then they did and I was like, we're under enough pressure here already, why? And that was a dumb request for me.

Like why? What business do I ask them do I have to ask them not to use profanity, you know, when they're around me? I have no business doing that. I was just a zealous new believer. But anyway, you know, so some of you are in a real hostile environment, you know, the profanity is the least of the concerns. There's a lot of godlessness and you're in school, a lot of your schoolmates are not believers, so how do we not get dragged down, right? How do we not get dragged down? And this is a perennial issue for believers in the world. You know, the one thing is you come out of the world so much, you just never touch the world. We're just in our church services and we're just trying to just be with other believers and, okay, it's a nice little cocoon but we're supposed to go into the world to win the loss. Where we keep ourselves unspotted from the world, James, Jacob 1.27, visit fatherless and widows in affliction and keep ourselves unspotted from the world. That's true religion and the sight of God.

We do that. But along with that, the Great Commission go into all the world and make disciples of the nations by putting together Matthew 28 and the long running of Mark 16. 2 Corinthians 6, come out from among them, touch no unclean thing. So as far as sin, we come out. As far as the gospel, we go in.

As Jesus prayed for us, we're in the world but we're not of it. So the first, first thing, it's so basic, is you've got to put your personal relationship with God first. It is that simple.

Everything, everything, everything flows out of that. What I'm telling you is the very first thing you tell a brand-new believer. I'm telling you the same thing and it's fundamental to me 52 years later. First things first, your personal relationship with God must be the highest priority of your life. It's that simple. If you have solid roots in God, you'll make it through anything and He will keep you. It is that simple. When you see some giant oak tree and big storm comes through and that oak tree is just standing there like, I've seen worse than you 30 years ago.

I'll be here. You know, why? Because the tree is so strong. That's part of it but the great strength is in the root, the root system.

Yeah, so put down roots. You must have solid daily time with God. I'm busy. Well, then prioritize it. Then cut back on something somewhere.

We can all do it. All right, you may not have hours every day but prioritize. Relationship with God, the Word and prayer. Get in the Word, your heart, your mind. Communing with God in prayer, worship. If that's your foundation, everything else will flow out of that.

That's number one. And remember, even though on the one hand, it's, you know, as a pastor said to me many years ago, over 50 years ago, it's easier to pull someone down than to lift them up, right? So if I'm holding a metal bar in my hands, it's easier for you to grab and pull them down than it is easier for me to pull it up. Okay, we understand that. On the other hand, John 1, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness doesn't overcome it or the darkness doesn't comprehend it. That light is more powerful than darkness in that regard and you are light. So you have what the world needs.

You are light shining in darkness. Thank God that you get to be around non-believers. So first thing, your solid relationship with God and then solid fellowship with other believers. So it may not happen every day at work or every day at school but during the week, there needs to be the quality rebuilding. Over the weekend, get quality time with other believers and together you get built up and strengthened and you can make it. And as you share the gospel, maybe someone in the workplace, someone in school, someone in your neighborhood gets saved and the tide can turn dramatically.

Oh, let's see here. Yeah, okay. What do you do? What do you do with just overall grief with the sin in the world, grief over abortion, grief over human trafficking, grief over fentanyl overdoses, grief over the war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, grief is so many sinful, wrong, destructive things happening every single day. How do you deal with this without losing your mind? How do you deal with this without like just flipping out or conversely just ignoring it? Just gonna watch sports, just gonna have fun, just gonna put it out of my mind completely. How do you avoid either losing your mind because the world is going crazy and there's so much suffering? Or just, hey, I can't deal with it. I can't deal with that. I'm just gonna sit down, have fun with the family and chill.

How do we work this out? Well, number one, there's a time to mourn. There's a time to dance. There are times, friends, when God does burden us. When it's a season we pass through of grief and mourning. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Matthew 5. There are those seasons where where the grief is intense and, you know, just like a difficult season in life, you know, maybe you've got a loved one that's that's a fight for their lives and it's a one-year battle with cancer or something and that's a very intense time. And then they make it through and then they end up having children and, you know, and now you're celebrating the birth of children.

That's the very different season. So there are these seasons where you're just overwhelmed and you pour it out to the Lord. You always have to have your outlet. God, my heart's breaking.

My heart's breaking. And then there are times when you feel like you don't have a care in the world. You just want to jump through the roof with joy and worship.

Or you're just having a blast with family, having some playing some fun game and laughing. And it's good, it's healthy, it's necessary. So when the burden is there, go with it and release it in prayer. And when it's not there, don't try to beat yourself over the head and manufacture it. And when the joy is there, celebrate.

And here's the other thing. I pray for God to share his heart with me as he knows best because we can only take the tiniest, tiniest, tiniest, tiniest, one trillionth of a millionth of a billionth of a gazillionth, whatever, of the reality of God's heart because we're too frail. We're just little human beings.

But I ask him, Lord, break my heart with the things that break your heart and shatter my indifference. So I would rather just skip through life and just be happy. I would. And not have a care in the world. And I'm more like that in terms of I could easily just be optimist, superficial, happy, happy, and go on. I could easily, I'm not a melancholic, depressed kind of person by nature or by my walk with God.

So I could easily go that direction. But I know that's not realistic. On the other hand, to just always, it's over, it's terrible, it's hopeless, that's not the heart of God either.

It's not the heart of God. So, you know, right now, as we're talking, someone's being aborted. Right now, as we're talking, someone's being tortured. Right now, as we're talking, someone's being raped or abused or someone's being murdered. Something's happening somewhere around the world that's terrible. Over the course of this broadcast, many terrible things happen. That's not our world.

That's not where we live. You can't be flipping out over it. At the same time, children were born. At the same time, people were healed. At the same time, during this hour, people were saved and born again.

Right? So there's much to rejoice over. There's much to grieve over. So let it be a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to wound. A time to heal. These are spiritual realities.

And above all, say, Lord, give me sensitivity to your heart. In your presence is fullness of joy. And I want to know that. I want to experience that.

I want to know that inexpressible and glorious joy and the King James were joy unspeakable and full of glory. I want to know that. I also want to know your pain. I want to know what burdens you. And then you know me.

You know my nature. Deepen me as a human being and help me to walk in love, but not to the point of love that gets depressed and not to the point of joy that gets superficial. Deepen me. Also pray I pray five months, how many times? Deepen me.

Deepen me. Hope this is helpful. We'll be right back.

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Yes, Dr. Brown. I have a question. While the Pentecostal Church I attend to, they teach that the only condition of God, Patricia, would not lose your salvation if you make an oo-boo or a slip-up type of sin. So on any other type of sin, you would lose your salvation. So if that were true, they're going against what the Bible says.

The Bible says Christ died for my past, present, future sins, right? And basically they teach also that you save Christ by faith and you save by grace, but then they add your holy living in order to get you into heaven. In other words, they believe that Christ sacrificed alone the coverage cross is not sufficient to take you to heaven. They want you to live a holy life.

Let me just ask you a question to clarify. So what Jesus said on the cross is obviously sufficient, but let's say I'm a non-believer, I reject it, that when he does it on the cross, doesn't help me because I rejected it. Would you agree with that? I'm a non-believer. A non-believer?

A non-believer. Right, of course. He's already lost anyway. Oh, okay. So even though everything Jesus did was sufficient, it doesn't help him because he's rejected it, right? Right. Okay. Is it possible for a believer to ever reject what Jesus did, to turn his back and become an unbeliever again? Nope.

You know why? Because the Bible says that Christ died for my past, present, future sins. But hang on.

He died for the sins of that unbeliever too. Yes. Yes, that's true. But that person only applies only if you accept that. But what if you reject it? What if you turn as a believer and you reject it?

No, because you accepted it in the first place. You're a child of God. Let me finish my question. Answer.

Why don't you accept Christ? Listen, sir, please. Elbow, hang on. Hang on. Hang on.

I'm 100% sure we had this conversation before. No, no, no. Let me finish, please.

You never called to ask about this? Nope. Maybe not.

Maybe, but it's a different perspective. Same question, same church. Let me finish, please. Let me finish, okay?

All right. If I got eternal life, I got eternal life. And Christ said, I will never leave you or forsake you. I remain faithful, even when you remain unfaithful, right?

And I'll see you until the day of redemption. An example, if you have a son, right, and he rebels, he runs out of the house, he runs forever from the house, and he rebels from you. He'll always be your child because you got your DNA, your genes, everything.

Your blood, everything. He can deny it. He can say, he's not your child, but the true fact is he is your child. Yes or no? No.

Of course you can cut yourself off. The physical analogy doesn't apply because God told the children of Israel, you're my son, you're my firstborn, and then when they rebelled, he cut them off and judged them. And Paul says to the Gentiles... They all come in here.

Alberto, hang on. I'll let you speak. Paul says to the Gentile believers in Romans 11 that he cut off the Jewish branches because of unbelief, and if you fall into unbelief, to the Gentile believers. If you fall into unbelief, you'll be cut off also.

And Paul tells Timothy, if we deny him, we, as believers, if we deny him, he'll deny us. So he doesn't force you to stay. He doesn't force you to stay in the house. He will absolutely keep you. He will absolutely keep you. You mess up, he'll forgive you a trillion times a day. If you say, Lord, forgive me, he'll forgive you a trillion times a day. But if you decide, I don't want him anymore, I reject him as Lord, I want out, he will not force you to stay.

The father will not force the son to stay in his house. So he won't force us. He doesn't lock the door behind us when we get saved.

So if we choose to rebel and leave, we can. That's why Paul warns us, if we deny him as believers, he will deny us. Okay, my question is, how much level of living or sacrifice or pursuing Jesus do you have to pay in order to determine that he's your Lord? You don't.

Right, that's the point. You already know that. Just like my identity in Christ is totally on the finish board across the country. I accept Christ, I'll see you unto the day of redemption.

My salvation will be in my performance. Okay, first problem is, if you feel like this, you shouldn't be in that church, okay? Which I told you last time. If you feel this strongly, then you shouldn't be there. You don't agree with them, okay? It's that simple. You don't stay there and fight. You think they're wrong and it's really important to you.

That's fine. Many Christians agree with you, Alberto. Many fine theologians agree with you, all right? Sealed does not mean sealed in. Sealed simply means there's a stamp on you. It's the Holy Spirit that's been given. When I say there's not a specific level that you have to get to, okay?

In other words, it's not like you have to go three days without thinking a wrong thought, or six months without smoking a cigarette, or that's why I said there's no level. At the same time, Hebrews 12 14 says, without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Paul says to the Colossians that God will present you holy and blameless if you continue in the faith.

Hebrews 3 says, don't allow your heart to be hard so that you will depart from the living God. Hebrews 2, we are made partakers of Christ if we persevere to the end. So you must maintain faith and the faith is demonstrated by works. Paul, this was Paul's message. Paul, the apostle of faith, Paul's message. I taught people that say, should repent and turn to God and bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. James says, if you have faith, show me by your works. Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. I'm just giving you scripture after scripture after scripture. So if I claim to be one of his and there is no fruit of salvation, no proof of a changed life, I'm still a disobedient, blaspheming rebel, then according to God, either I've never been saved or if I was saved, I've turned away. First John 3, if you continue in sin, so continuing willful, disobedient sin, then you never knew God. So it's a matter of, you're going from one extreme to the other, sir.

No, no, no, no. Are we saved by perseverance, like Matthew 28, 13? Those who endure to the end, is that what's happening at the church age or are people going through a tribulation period?

There is no separation. There's no such thing as church age or tribulation period. That's just contemporary teaching. That's what Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 24, to Peter and John and those standing there. That applies to them and applies to every generation. It's the same principle.

It doesn't change. It's not like there's another age where people get saved differently. We're all saved through the blood of Jesus.

No, no, no. I'm talking about enduring, enduring to the end. You're saying enduring and perseverance. But I'm reading the same verses from Hebrews. I'll give you the exact same verses from Hebrews. Actually, the third chapter, so there's a second, that we are made partakers of Christ if we steadfastly hold on until the end. That's Hebrews to believers. Same principle. So here's where I say they're extremes. There's the extreme, sir, that you are rightly rejecting. You are rightly reacting to this idea that I'm saved, today lost, tomorrow.

Saved, today lost, tomorrow. It makes people schizophrenic. It makes them think I have to try harder. Like, oh no, I thought a wrong thought.

A guy's thinking, I thought a lustful thought. Okay, God, I'm not saved. No, I'm saved. No, that's terrible.

I 100% agree with you, sir. I 100% agree with you that that's not the gospel. That's not salvation.

That's not, it doesn't bear good fruit. It makes you crazy. It makes you, you lose your mind over it, back and forth and back and forth. On the other hand, the idea that I could be saved and be a serial rapist, a serial murderer, mock the name of Jesus and here, a guy that in Pittsburgh it was, went to the LA Fitness and slaughtered people in cold blood and then took his own life and his journal said, hey, I'm saved.

I just got to have him quicker if I do this. No, that's blasphemy. You know, first down three, no murderer has eternal life. If you are an underpinned murderer, then you don't have eternal life.

So look at it like this. God's promised to keep you. The finished work is the finished work. You were saved through the blood of Jesus and what he did is a gift from God and he's going to keep you. Alberto, I never for a split second worry about losing my salvation. It never dawns on me. It never crosses my mind.

I never think of it. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I love him and he's promised to keep me. At the same time, it's possible for someone to turn away and willfully reject him. So the same way you got saved through faith, you can say, I don't want you anymore. I would rather sin.

I would rather walk in the flesh and Paul writes repeatedly, don't be deceived by empty words because those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. So persistent, unrepentant sin where I refuse God, I renounce him as Lord. I no longer believe.

I want to do my own thing. Yes, we can forfeit our salvation. That's a terrible, horrific, monstrous step. Otherwise, in our weakness, God's going to keep us. In our failures, God's going to forgive us. That's the mercy and grace of God.

So maybe that's helpful. I know you're passionate and sharing these things, but digest this. We're out of time, but please digest these things. Think about what I'm saying.

Think about scripture and other Christians, plenty of Christians agree with you in your position. I say it's going from one extreme to another. All right. I hope that helps by dear brother. Thank you. Thanks for calling. Okay.