How to Deal with Rejection for the Gospel

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So, how do we handle rejection for the Gospel and for righteousness? 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 Line of Fire broadcast.

Michael Brown, so blessed to have this time together with you. It really is my goal, it's my heart, it's my prayer that we will infuse you with faith and truth and courage. It's my prayer, it's my hope, it's my desire that if you listen to the broadcast today, you will be strengthened. You will be equipped. You will be empowered. And I want to do my best with the time that we have as you are taking time out of your busy schedule with millions of listening and viewing options available that you've taken the time to listen or to watch this broadcast. I wanted to make it count for you. As I was praying last night, okay, Lord, we have this opportunity. Been on radio, daily talk radio, for 15 years now.

We have this opportunity, we have this audience. What can I do to be of greatest help? And I felt today's topic would really be one to help you which is how do we cope with rejection? Especially speaking of rejection for the gospel, rejection for righteousness, how do we cope with that? Here's the number to call, 866-34-TRUTH. If you've got a specific life question you're trying to process through, it's a difficult gospel-related decision to make, or you're having a hard time dealing with rejection, or you're a pastor leader trying to navigate, standing up for what's right, yet considering the needs of the flock and being strong and yet knowing that not everyone's on the same page, happy to take your call, 866-348-7884. Also, if we have time today, I'll get to something I almost got to yesterday, which was how to keep your sanity in a crazy election year.

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I mean, they're pains and wounds you live with to this day because you're always on the outside. You were the one that didn't get chosen. I remember, you know, just a little thing like playing basketball, and we had 11 kids, and we're, you know, the better players, they're the captains, and they're picking out the other team, and okay, and we realized, okay, that we got an odd number here. We, there's only five on each team, and I was the 11th that day. Didn't get chosen.

Some have suffered things like that. Oh, you're always the one left out. You're family. You're the one left out. The circle of friends, you're the one left out. It just seems you're, or even worse, that people make clear, I don't want anything to do with you. That stings.

That's painful. What about the fact that we will be rejected for the gospel? What about the fact, if we do what's right in God's sight and honor him, there will be rejection. There will be misunderstanding. We will lose friends.

Family members may turn against us. Not because we're obnoxious. That's on us. Not because we're selfish, mean-spirited, hypocritical, self-righteous.

That's on us. If people reject us, that's because we deserved it, because we, we didn't treat them rightly. I'm talking about when you're trying to be a good friend, when you really do love people, when you really do care about people, when you're trying to be a good neighbor or a faithful family member, and you get rejected because of your faith, you get rejected because of a gospel-related stand you've taken, it does hurt. You're a pastor. You love your flock. They're not just numbers to you.

They're not just givers to you. They're people you care for, people you pray for, people you weep for, and you preach on a very controversial subject, but you knew you had to, and you had to obey the Lord, and you look up, and each week there are less people there, and that's disheartening. I remember something, it was so minor, and yet it struck me. In college, I was majoring in Hebrew, so halfway through college switched over to a Hebrew major. So, all my classes, I had a lot of Hebrew classes at that point, other language classes, but all my Hebrew classes were all Jewish kids in class with me. Some of them from religious background, other secular, and the classes at this point were all taught in Hebrew, and so they expected you to have a better knowledge base, and so on, and you know, I interacted, got to share the gospel with different ones.

There was a really, really nice guy, call him Modern Orthodox, like Ben Shapiro, Modern Orthodox, so not, you know, with beard and the black coat and all that, but Orthodox Jew, Modern Orthodox, named Richard, really nice guy, and he was one of the best students, not just in the Hebrew class, because he had good background from Hebrew, but in the Arabic class, because I was taking Arabic as well, plus four other languages, but that's another story. So, anyway, he was really a good student, very diligent, and a nice guy, friendly guy. So, one day, I was scheduled to do some preaching on Long Island, gonna do a weekend series for our church, and I decided to invite him. Now, it was a dumb thing to invite him to church services, I mean, that's the last thing he would have done then, and when it was, he was gonna come on the Sabbath, maybe it was a Sunday as well, whatever it was, I just thought, yeah, let me just kind of open up, and so I gave him that, it's just this invitation, and he said, do you believe that stuff? And I said, yeah, he just smiled and handed it back to me and walked away. He was not nasty, he was polite, he didn't insult me, he just made it clear, nope, and gave it back, and that was it. We never said a word, and I remember it stung. Now, I barely knew the guy, I barely knew him. He was just in the same class that I was, and he was walking out with some of the other Jewish kids in the class, but I just remember at that moment kind of feeling stung by it.

Again, it's super minor, it is ridiculously minor. All that to say that we can be sensitive. I noticed at a certain point as I was taking the train into New York City when I'd be doing grad school work or teaching in the city, that if I was sitting next to someone, towards the end of the ride, I would bring up the gospel and give them a track, and I asked myself one day, why are you waiting until the end to do it? And I realized it's because I don't want to be rejected early. In other words, if it's right at the end, they go, no, I'm not interested, it's okay, no problem, I'm getting off soon anyway. But if it's the beginning of like a 45-minute or one-hour ride, and now you've got that rejection like, no, I don't want to talk to you about this, buddy, you're some religious fanatic, sorry, and they're gonna pull out their newspaper, do whatever they're doing, or talk to the person on the other side, I realized, wow, I'm doing this to avoid rejection because I would always share the gospel. So, I'm saying we're people, right, we're human beings.

What about things that are really costly? What about if you come from a religious family, maybe it's a Muslim family, or a Jewish family, and now you come to faith in Jesus, Yeshua, and your family's gonna put you out, or put you under pressure, or excommunicate you, or have a funeral service for you, as if you're dead, or something worse, come at you with hostility, or, what about that? What about when you have a whole team that you play on, and it's all about camaraderie, and being together, and working hard, and everything, and you come out as a believer, and people know who you are, and the whole team turns, and they won't even talk to you, it mainly goes on and on, some of you, this is your life right now, you were the only believer in your entire home, or in your faith tradition for generations, and it's like you're cut off from everything, rejection hurts, rejection stings, I don't want to downplay it, and I have interacted with those who have been beaten for their faith, and persecuted for their faith, so I'm talking about a very, very real price paid for rejection, so I want to help with that today, I don't just want to encourage you, stand up, do what's right, speak up, which I did yesterday, every one of us has to do our part, time to get some backbone, right, okay, you get backbone, then you're going to come back, Dr. Brown, thanks a lot, I did what you encouraged me to do, I stood for what was right, I just got rejected, I just lost my best friend, I just got disinvited from this wedding, and on, and on, and on, yes, it's painful, it's painful, but I want to give you a whole different perspective on the pain today, I want to give you a whole different perspective on rejection, to help you cope with it, to help you deal with it, in fact, to help you thrive in the midst of it, thrive in the midst of the rejection, all right, you ready? Point number one, first thing to realize, it's not about you, it's not about you, it's about Yeshua, it's about Jesus, it's about righteousness, it's not about you, you're not the one being rejected, he's the one being rejected, why do I say that? Okay, let's say you're a young lady working a new job, just got out of college, working a new job, secular company, and you meet some of the other ladies there in the 20s, 30s, you hit it off, a few times a week you go out, have lunch together, and just start about business more, this general life and that kind of thing, and they really like you, in fact, they've told you, you know, you are so funny, or, you know, you're so sweet, or you really, you seem to really take an interest in other people, I wish there were more people in the world like you, so they really like you, right? And then one day, one of them brings up, you know, it's June, and hey, we're organizing this great group of us, we're going to be going over to the Pride rally on Saturday to the Pride march, and we're just putting flyers on each desk, and hey, could you help us give out these flyers, and of course we want you to come, it's such a special event, it's so important for us to stand with the LGBT community, and you just said, oh no, thanks for the invite, you know, I'm a follower of Jesus, and I love everybody, but I don't celebrate Pride, and then the conversation goes silent, and then you don't get invited to lunch anymore.

It wasn't about you, you did not get rejected, you don't get rejected, Jesus did, yeah, you were the one that got the hit, the attack, but it wasn't about you, it's not like they don't like you, they think you're ugly, they think you're mean, they think you're stupid, they think you're fat, they, no, no, no, it's, they don't like the stand you took because you're in Jesus, it's not about you, don't take it personally. This is Michael Ellison, founder of TriVita Wellness. Being aware of the dangers of homocysteine is crucial to protecting our health. This natural occurring amino acid that the body creates plays a vital role, but when elevated in excess, it can pose significant risk to our health. One of the dangers of elevated homocysteine is the impact on cardiovascular health. Research has shown that high homocysteine can contribute to heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular conditions.

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Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Now, literally, if you're watching the broadcast on YouTube or Facebook, if you're not watching, it's literally the same.

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So check out these great products, 800-771-5584 or online trivita.com using code BROWN25. Okay, talking about rejection, talking about dealing with rejection. So the first principle is that when you're rejected for the gospel or for a righteous stand and you're conducting yourself in a way that's honoring to the Lord, you're not obnoxious, self-righteous, hypocritical, mean-spirited, then the rejection is not about you.

It's about the Lord. Think of it like this. Let's say you live in some community where generations back it was a terribly racist segregated community and your father was one of the great leaders. You're a white American family and your father was one of the great leaders in the community who fought against segregation and who fought against racism and was a champion and loved and respected the African-American community there. Well, now it's 50-70 years later and you meet some folks, same thing, meet them at work and you're having a lot of fun hanging out and talking and so on, but then you get a little deeper discussion one day and find out that these guys are still racist. These guys still wish that segregation was the law of the land today. I don't think slavery was such a bad thing and you're mortified to hear that. And then when you're talking, they put two and two together, wait, wait, you're so-and-so's grandson?

We hate him. And we're sitting there talking to you? You portrayed our race and they walk out. That wasn't about you. It was about your family. And in fact, you feel some attachment to your grandfather and some honor and you realize, hey, I just got rejected for having a good family name.

I feel good about that. So first principle, it's not about you. It would hurt me if people rejected me because of me, because I find out that they were in need and I was insensitive. I find out that they were relying on me and I let them down. I found out that they said, you don't care about any other person. All you care about is yourself. You're a hypocrite. That would hurt me if it's truly about me, then I'm on my face before God. Lord, what kind of a human being am I? What kind of a follower of Jesus am I? I need to grow up. I need to repent.

I need to walk in love. But if people liked me otherwise, but it's because I'm a follower of Yeshua and because I stand for righteousness, they get rejected. I can't take it personally because it's about him. That's the first thing.

And the second thing is ties in with the point I just made. It's an honor to be rejected for his name. It's an honor to suffer for his name. Let me give you some scripture here. Acts 5 verse 41, after the apostles were flogged and were told to not speak anymore in the name of Jesus. Acts 5 41, the apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. They'd just been flogged. Yeah, but they're thinking, they just, we just got flogged for Yeshua. We got flogged for Jesus.

We were associated with him. That's why Jesus says in Matthew 5, blessed, truly happy are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for great is your treasure in heaven. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then blessed, truly happy are you when people revile you and speak falsely against you, say all kinds of evil against you on my account from my name. Rejoice and be glad in that day for great is your reward in heaven.

The same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So it's an honor when people malign you for the gospel, when people speak against you because they associate you with Jesus. Wow, the world just associated me. I just got treated the way he gets treated. I got associated with him. And the analogy I gave, I just suffered because of the good things my grandfather did. I'm proud to have as my grandfather. I'm proud to be part of that legacy.

Philippians 1 29, Paul wrote this, for you have been given the privilege for the Messiah's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. What a privilege, what an honor. So number one, it's not about me personally, it's not about you personally when we reject you for the gospel if we're doing right, but number two, what an honor it is. Pastors, leaders, you stand there for what's right in your community. You get blasted by the local press and blasted on social media. It's not because you have a big nose, you're ugly. It's not because you got caught in a scandal stealing money from sleeping with the secretary.

No, it's because you stood for what's right. When I was in India years ago, ministering in the midst of horrific persecution in the state of Orissa, we were in the state of Andhra, Andhra Pradesh, but many pastors and leaders had come over from Orissa. 50,000 had been displaced, Christians displaced from their homes, they had to flee in the jungle to save their lives. Others beaten to death, burned to death, just horrific. We saw some video of literally of Christians fleeing, stripped naked, beaten, some just beaten till they couldn't move.

It was absolutely heartbreaking, heartbreaking. And that was just a glimpse of what was happening. And we ministered to them and loved on them and encouraged them to stand strong and talked about some of these very principles. And later, one of the leaders came to me and said, there's great joy among the brothers and sisters, because they knew they're going back to Orissa and they're going to be persecuted and they may be beaten, they may be killed. They knew it. They knew it.

This wasn't just talk. They knew it. And they were rejoicing.

And I said, why are they rejoicing? They said, brother, what you said to us, that we're being treated like the prophets were of old. What an honor.

We're being treated the way Jesus was treated. What an honor. So I truly, to this moment, when I get rejected, hated, lied about, because of the gospel, because of righteousness, I count it an honor. I save some of the most vicious, ugly attacks, death wishes, and put them in a file.

And I look at them to encourage me that I'm doing right. That this is the fruit of opposition. Again, if it was because I was insensitive, because I was a jerk, because I was caught in all kinds of scandals and things, and that's why I was suffering, that would be shameful. That would be shameful. But because it's for the gospel, because it's for doing right, because I'm hated as the Lord was hated. Not only do I realize it's not about me, but I feel this tremendous honor. I feel bad for the people. I feel bad for the people who attack me or lie about me or misrepresent me. But I feel the sense of honor.

I wear it like a badge of honor. You send me the worst rejection, this thing like, our book A Queer Thing Happened to America that came out in 2011 and no major publisher would touch it. And so, what we put on the back cover, I didn't mention names because I didn't want to embarrass anyone, but we published it. We started our own publishing company, Equal Time Books, just to get this out. And the back cover reads, the book the publishers were afraid to touch. Yeah, the book the publishers were afraid to touch. And then as you read through it, all the rejections, I put it on the back cover, all the rejections, all the people say, well, they wouldn't touch it, well, they wouldn't go near it. Publishers saying, I'd be better off burning my mother in the fire. It's too controversial. Nobody will take it. Doesn't matter how truthful, how compassionate, how accurate.

Nobody will touch it. I put that on the back cover and shouted that out to the world. What a sense of honor. Okay, I've got a few more points to make in terms of how to handle and deal with rejection, but I hope this is helping you because the more we follow the Lord in the dark times in which we're living, the more rejection we will see. And for some it's costly.

School teacher, young person in school, businessman, businesswoman, just pastors, leaders. There's a price to pay. There is a price to pay. Number one, we're not our own. We're bought with a price. We belong to Him.

And number two, it's an honor to be rejected for righteousness. You want to weigh in? You have a question?

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Click on donate monthly support. So we're talking about dealing with rejection for the gospel, dealing with rejection for what is right. I've said first, when you are rejected for the gospel, remember it's not about you.

Don't take it personally. It's because of Jesus. It's because of Yeshua.

And it's because we're doing what's right. So rather than feeling like, oh, they don't like me, that's not the issue. They don't like the Lord you're serving. They don't like his standards, which should get you praying for them more than thinking about yourself, right?

Second thing is, it's an honor to be treated the way he was treated. Look at what Peter wrote. First Peter chapter four. Dear friends, I'm reading verses 12 through 14. Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Messiah.

It's telling you to rejoice because this is, you're participating in his sufferings, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, the name of Messiah, you are blessed for the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. I've had rejection hit from a major national organization or an organization with international influence and when they put you on their list, people see it, people notice it, governments notice it.

I'm talking about influential organization that can be very hostile to where we stand. And when a colleague told me that I was just singled out among other leaders as a new leader of the radical right, I remember the Spirit just coming on me. I felt this joy, I felt this honor. I did respond to them directly and told them that they were very wrong in what they were saying and challenged them on the accuracy of their positions, but I thank them publicly for making my day. I remember where I was, I remember the house we lived in and where I was sitting in my study and who I got the email from, an ex-gay brother sending me, Dr. Bratton, I don't know if you saw this report on 30 New Leaders of the Radical Right, and yeah, I mean it was, I read it, I saw my name included there along with David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, along with Malik Zula Shabazz, former leader of the new Black Panthers, neo-Nazis, and others on the list, and there I was included, I remember this joy came on me.

Praise God! I'm being rejected for rights, I'm being lied about, I'm being slandered. Why? Because I was anti-gay. Yeah, and therefore, by saying, hey, we care about every individual, I will do whatever I can as a human being to help better the lives of other human beings. If someone ever attacked someone because they were gay or lesbian or bi or trans, they'd have to get through me to attack that person.

At the same time, I'd say that homosexual relations are sinful in God's sight, at the same time that a man, quote, marrying a man or a woman, quote, marrying a woman is not a true marriage in God's sight. Because of that, I'm putting that class to the other, so be it! That was a cause of joy. Interestingly, interestingly, if you go to their site, and that article's still up from years ago, Southern Poverty Law Center, I failed to mention the SPLC, if you go to their site, you'll still find that article. When you click on my name, there's nothing there. They used to have a whole page about me that's not there.

So at least they course-corrected, of course, there were apologies. Look, Dr. Ben Carson used to be on their list. To this day, hate groups they call Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the biggest, well, in terms of numbers of attorneys, the biggest Christian law firm or Christian law organization in the world, taking a number of cases to the Supreme Court, winning a number of cases in the Supreme Court, and they're on the list as a hate group.

Or the American Family Association, on the list as a hate group. I mean, it's just crazy. But it's an honor! I actually felt the Lord. This happened to me numerous times over the years, where even misguided believers will blast me and attack me, and I feel the Lord's grace, because it's for the Gospel, it's for doing what's right. Okay, third thing to help us deal with rejection.

You ready? And just to help you not get weighed down and discouraged, is that around the world, our brothers and sisters are literally being killed for the Gospel. Literally dying. Around the world, Christians are being beaten to death, are being kidnapped and held for ransom, are being tortured, sometimes tortured to death, beheaded, burned alive for the Gospel. Every single day this is happening to believers in different parts of the world. Some of them are in prison for life because they dared to share the Gospel, dared to distribute Bibles, dared to baptize people.

Others have had their children forcefully taken from them to be educated in some state institution or some religious institution of another faith. I'm talking about people paying a very serious price. So, sometimes we just need to toughen up a little bit.

We need to get out of our pity party. We need to stop with the woe is me because I got unfriended by someone on Facebook, because someone posted a nasty comment on X, formerly Twitter, because people express their displeasure with my post on Instagram or Snapchat or wherever you're posting and interacting. That's not persecution, sorry. That does not make it into Fox's book of martyrs. That does not get the attention of all heaven to look down. Angels of heaven looking down asking, God, why do you seem so sad? Because Dr. Brown lost a friend on Facebook today, and it's really hard. No, that's not going to get the attention of God. God's not going to call me Dr. Brown, sorry about that.

Sorry about that. The point is, look, you're going to be rejected. People are going to hate you.

Some are going to malign you. It's just, accept it. It's real life. And it's not anything compared to what our brothers and sisters are going through in other parts of the world. Well, if I was where they were, if I was in Africa, if I was in India, if I was in Afghanistan, if I was in North Korea, if I was in Iran, they were putting a gun to my head, I wouldn't flinch.

Oh, come on. If I flinch because I got unfriended on Facebook, if I decide not to post this article because it may not get many likes, it's going to get more people hostile to me. If I'm afraid to post this video because it's going to get hostile comments, come on. If I'm afraid of that, I'm not going to be bold with a gun to my head. That's what God said to the prophet Jeremiah when he was going through a hard time. He said, if you can't run with the foot, then how are you going to run with horses?

Sometimes we just need to toughen up. I talked to a pastor, real solid leader, early 50s, a grandfather physically, an older man with kids and grandkids, network of churches that he oversees, and a healthy, thriving church where he's the lead pastor. He stands boldly. He takes stands for right things and doesn't back down, but it's painful for him. As a pastor, he loves his people and loves his community. It's a very liberal community where he lives.

We were talking about it and he was asking me how do I deal with it because it's by the moment. In other words, if I just stop now, stop the broadcast and had our team, okay, let's look on all of our social media pages, on YouTube, on Facebook, on X, on Instagram, and let's survey articles that have been posted, all the different places from our articles get posted. Just now during the broadcast, they'd come and say, okay, you got slammed for this, you got attacked for this, you got lied about. It's all the time. I'm a public figure. I address controversial issues.

It's all the time. He was asking me how I handle it because it seems that I walk into these things. Rather than run from them, I run to them. We talked about it and one of the things was you got to sometimes just thicken your skin. You just have to say, okay, Lord, with your help, I'm not going to feel sorry for myself and I'm not going to pity myself and I'm so mad. Look, if your kids get taken from you by the government, yeah, let's weep together and let's wail together and let's try to see what we can do to get them back.

Yeah, your spouse just got arrested, is being tortured right now. You don't know if you'll see them again. That's heavy. That's heavy stuff. God may give you a sense of peace in the midst of it. He may even put joy in your heart. This is all for the gospel and you'll be reunited and be for the good, but that's heavy stuff.

That's heavy stuff, but let me give you a perspective. We get an urgent email from a colleague, single woman missionary in her 60s in Nigeria last year. Pray, pray. My friend's husband has just been kidnapped by radical Muslims and they're holding him for a hostage, holding him for a ransom and we don't know what to do and if we can get them back and they're just killing people, they're going around slaughtering people.

So, urgent. So, we're praying, praying for God's intervention, praying for God's wisdom. A few days later, get the good report, praise God, praise God, they didn't kill him. We're able to get him back.

He's home. He's only missing a few fingers and has a gash in his head. Praise God. You think if that was us, if that was one of us, we'd be fixed for life. We go from church to church, yeah, his fingers here are missing and you still see the scar, the gash. That would be our testimony, our story the rest of our lives, wouldn't it? You have to tell everyone what we went through and how we went through it and on and on and she was saying, praise God, he's only missing a few fingers, he has a gash in his head. Look, when I was in India one time, I asked a couple hundred church planters, pastors, leaders, have they been physically beaten for the gospel? Not verbally abused, but physically beaten and two-thirds, three-quarters just raised their hands, but very casually. Just like I said to them, how many of you had breakfast today?

It was just casual. It's like, yeah, that happens. That happens for the gospel and in fact, we send people out every year. The ministry we work with sends people out every year and they know. They know many young men going out to plant churches in difficult reaches.

They know when they go, they're going to be rejected, they're probably going to be beaten, maybe they'll be killed, but they go because it's for the gospel. So, some of us just need to toughen up. We just need to bite down, as they say on the mouthpiece of a boxing or mixed martial arts image, you know, you bite down, okay, it's a fight, I'm going to get hit, so be it. And we can take a lot more than we think unless we say, God, manifest your strength through me. You're going to be beaten, you're manifest your strength through me. In the natural, I can be weak, but your strength is made manifest in my weakness. Your power is demonstrated through my weakness. So, you be the strength in my life and you'd be amazed to see and give you grace.

Okay, I've got one more point and then a few comments briefly on how to not lose your mind during this crazy election season. Are you experiencing fatigue, heart palpitations, or tingling in your hands and feet? These may be signs that you are deficient in vitamin B12, which may increase your risk of serious cardiovascular conditions without you even knowing it. I'm Paul Burnett, a board certified doctor of holistic health and director of wellness services at TriVita, and I have some exciting news for you. Introducing TriVita's HCYGART, the breakthrough sublingual B12 natural supplement scientifically formulated to support maximum absorption and support healthy levels of homocysteine. What is homocysteine, you may ask?

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These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to The Line of Fire. If you're just tuning in now, you don't get my emails, then you're going to miss the frontline newsletter going out later this week with amazing testimony from the Muslim world.

You won't know about the Jewish testimony next month that took 96 years, 96 years in the making. Yeah, so be sure to get the frontline newsletter. Go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, right on the homepage. Just put in your name, email address.

You can also put your address if you'd like us to know where you are, but just your name, email address, that's all we need and we'll be right in touch with you. Okay, so principles I've been giving about how to deal with rejection for the gospel for righteousness. First, remember it's not about you. It's about your faith. It's about your Lord.

It's about his righteousness. It's not about you, so don't take it personally. Second, it's an honor. Consider it an honor to bear reproach for him, to suffer for him, to be rejected by him.

Consider it an honor because you're being associated with him. And then third, speak to yourself about reality and toughen up because what we suffer here in the West, it's a fraction of a fraction of what brothers and sisters suffer around the world. Rather than feeling sorry for ourselves, we should say, hey, if this is all they got, I mean, when people are dying for the Lord around the world and we're getting unfriended or someone turns away from us on work or it's nasty to us in our community, hey, that's nothing.

Where there's a badge of honor and toughen up. And then last thing, this is not for everybody, but some are called to be lightning rods. And it's part of my calling, which means that even unintentionally, I end up addressing subjects that I didn't even know were controversial. Someone will call their radio show a few years ago and started getting these calls about the Noahide laws and is it true that Jews are planning on beheading Christians because they consider them idolaters and America's signed on for this and the president signed on for it and these guillotines are being shipped over.

And I said, you got a better chance of Santa Claus coming down your chimney than any of this happens. Complete nonsense. Next thing, oh, controversy.

And YouTube channel's bigger than me, bigger than our channel, coming in, how dare you say, I didn't even know it was a controversy. Most absurd thing I've heard. And by the way, I say to this moment, it's absolutely absurd.

The church is absolutely absurd. And I've dug in enough, I've read the literature, I've talked to rabbis, it's utterly absurd. But, you know, I just answered a question and next thing, swirling controversy.

And other times, I go into controversy knowing it's going to be controversial and sometimes I run to it because it has to be addressed. But it's part of my calling. Some of you have a similar calling. And what it means is, as lightning rods, it draws a lot of stuff to us. And think of the refiner's fire coming in Malachi 3 to purify gold and to purify gold and silver.

It brings the impurities up to the surface. So, I want to share this with you, even if you're not called to be a lightning rod, as I am, even if it's not your calling at all. Behind the scenes, I'm always trying to be a peacemaker. And in my tone and interaction with others publicly, I'm trying to be a peacemaker, not a troublemaker. But I know that following the Lord and doing what He's called me to do will bring trouble. But here's something that's helpful for you to bear in mind.

Let's say you posted something, a pro-life article you really liked or a pro-life video on your social media page. The next thing, people you thought were friends are blasting you, attacking you, and it's bigoted and it's hateful and so on. You just learned something you didn't know. In other words, that truth brought stuff up to the surface.

And maybe you're a pastor and you do a teaching series on sexual purity and marriage according to the Bible, thinking that your congregation is really with you on these points, only to find out that people who have been there for 20 years are writing you angry letters and others are stomping out during your sermon. It's like, whoa, and you're being biblical, you're being compassionate, you're being balanced. Well, you just found out what's there.

So, there are times when I get called into things and they are so messy and they are so ugly and they are so vicious and it's painful in that regard because it's dirty. It's this burden you're carrying and yet, God helps me shift my perspective to say, well, that's why you're doing this because it's bringing stuff to the surface. It's showing what's really there. It's revealing all the junk. So, even though you might find that painful if you don't have the calling to controversy the way I do and others do, you realize, okay, it's constructive. It's still constructive, it's still helpful and it's bringing stuff up to the surface that we didn't know was there before. It can happen in your family when you do the right thing and suddenly things surface. So, even if it's painful, look at it as positive that, hey, it flushed things up.

It brought stuff up to the surface. All right, wrote an article yesterday. You can read it at TheLineOfFire.org. Just click read. So, TheLineOfFire.org. Look at the menu.

Just click read and you'll see it as the latest article. It's how to keep your sanity in what looks like the craziest election year we've ever had. I mean, have we ever had this much uncertainty at the beginning of an election season in memory where, okay, the DOJ report, Department of Justice report about documents that President Biden had stored privately that were government classified documents, that report said, we're not going to prosecute. What he did was wrong and illegal, but there's no sense prosecuting because the jury would look at him as, you know, he's a former president in his 80s. He's like, he's like an old guy, elderly guy that doesn't really remember. And, you know, it's not really lucid and responsible for what he's doing.

A jury wouldn't convict him. They just feel sorry for him. This is the Department of Justice. This was not some satire piece. And then the president wanted to fix things, immediate press conference to say I'm with it, and then had some big gaffes there.

It's like, oh no, it's a train wreck. Now, please hear me. I don't say that to mock the president. I don't say that in a way it's to grade him. I'm just saying that it's clear that his cognitive functions are weakening and slowing down. Physically, there are more issues. Can he even serve now is a fair question, but to run again and serve four more years, the rigors of campaign, debate, like, okay, but he's a candidate right now.

And then on the Republican side, you have President Trump. Now, some would say that he's slowing down. His capabilities, cognitive abilities are slowing down.

You can make that argument, too. Not as acutely as President Biden, it would seem. But anyway, he'd be really old in office, but he's got all his indictments. Is he going to be convicted? Is he going to be ableist to run? Is someone going to try to put him in jail?

Sounds far-fetched, but is that what's going to happen? Or is a state's going to successfully be able to get him off the ballot? And what if it's not Biden? Who is going to be the Democrat candidate? And what if it's not Trump who's going to step up?

And who knows what's happening next? It's a time of real uncertainty. Are they going to be able to run in November and so on for any number of reasons? And then there are the divisions over President Trump are so intense.

And by the way, everything I'm saying now is just talking about factual observations. I'm not taking any side and any issue, although you do know that I voted for Donald Trump twice previously, that I said I would rather a different candidate in 2024 for the Republicans, and because of Democratic policies, I could not vote Democrat. But I'm just talking now as a neutral voter looking out, right? Divisions over President Trump are so massive that some say if he gets re-elected there will be a civil war. And others say if he doesn't get re-elected there will be a civil war.

And so one Christian leader said even if there was a civil war it would be worth it to get him back in office. So everything is so volatile and the polls are going to be up and down and this and that and this and this court cases. What's the Supreme Court going to rule out? And it's only going to build with frenzy and it's going to get uglier and uglier, more vicious attacks more. It's going to get messy.

Even more messy than in times past seems very likely. So how do we not get obsessed with this and get caught up in election fever and kind of lose our minds? Well, we start with this foundation. And this is in the articles you can read it over at TheLineOfFire.org, my latest article.

It starts really simply. Namely, God is still God. God is still God. He's been God through world wars. He's been God through plagues, epidemics, tsunamis.

He's been God through the rise and fall of emperors, empires, kings, rulers, everything. He remains a refuge in the strength. We do not have to be moved. He is our refuge in the strength, a very present help in times of trouble. Therefore, we won't be moving. Even though the mountains fall into the seas, we will not be moved.

Why? Because he's God. He's our rock. We're in him. Jesus is still Lord, still ruled, still reigns, still risen from the dead, still accessible. So, if we make a determination to start our day with worship rather than with news, to start our day worshiping God and acknowledging who He is, taking in the Word, we determine to do that. If we'll do that more than we take in the endless news and the polling and this and that, and if we learn what we need to learn to vote responsibly, to know what the issues are, to know who the candidates are, and before the Lord to take this privilege we have of voting and make responsible decisions. So, that's all we need to do and to pray accordingly. We don't need to get caught up in the other stuff because I can't control that anyway, but I can control my relationship with God and the peace in my heart and the decisions that I make and the stance that I take. So, if you will step back from the frenzy of the moment, everything going on, and start with worship, start with prayer, start with adoration and honor and look to the Lord and then wean yourself from the other stuff and make a determination. This election season I'm going to talk about Jesus more than I talk about politics or political candidates and stay away from those that provoke you to anger, get you all worked up. You can go through the election season with faith, peace may be your burden, but with faith and with peace. Alright, we're here to help friends. We're here to help. Make sure you get our newsletter at TheLineOfFire.org. Another program powered by the Truth Network.