“Am I responsible for somebody else’s salvation?”

Steve Brown:
Am I responsible for somebody else’s salvation? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better, God will still love them anyway, that teaching raises a lot of questions, so here’s author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with answers to the Bible, that’ll make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hey Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Listen, I’m leaving. You do it. You do this. I’m tired of doing this.

Pete Alwinson:
No. You’re not.

Steve Brown:
You sit there and you answer the, April fools.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. I thought you’d lost it. You got me.

Steve Brown:
Brown finally lost it, man. You’ve been expecting that for a long time. That’s Pete Alwinson and Pete comes in every Friday and we answer questions. And this is the 1st of April, therefore, significant time to play jokes called April fools jokes.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is. And you got me. And we had just talked about it too. It kills me.

Steve Brown:
Alright. That’s Pete Alwinson and he comes in on Fridays and his book Like Father Like Son, the audio version is now out finally. And you can get that at New Growth Press. Or you can get it by going to www.Keylife.org. And for those of you who would rather listen in your car to a book than read a book, and there are a lot of people like that. I’m that way sometimes, then you’ll love this book. It’s a great book and a life-changing book, check it out. And as I said, Pete comes in and we answer questions and we love to get your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

if you’re in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can send your question to [email protected]. And those places are touch points, touch points. It was the microphone. Touch points where you can help us financially, if God moves you in that direction. About 10% of the people who benefit by this ministry are able to help us financially. So when you do, you help your brother and sister in Christ. And I promise that we’ll be faithful. You can charge it on your credit card, include it in your envelope. And we’ll rise up and call you blessed. And we’ll call you blessed, if you don’t. Just say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
You’ve got it. Let’s pray together. Our Father, we thank you today, as we come at the end of this week into your presence. We thank you that, from Key Life, we thank you for our listeners. We thank you, for those who tune in that are a part of what we do. And Father, we thank you that for the body of Christ, we thank you for how Lord Jesus, you have built this people, this people of God, Old Testament, New Testament, Jews, Gentiles, every ethnicity there is. And you brought us into one family. So Lord, we come to you. We thank you for being your children today. And we thank you that you started the process and you maintain us as your children. You, you help us. You encourage us. You develop us. And Lord, we want to grow. We, we don’t want to stay where we’re at and we thank you that you accepted us as we were, but you love us too much to leave us that way. And so, thank you for all the growth you bring in our life. And we pray for our pastors and teachers and worship directors and leaders this weekend, as they teach us and build into us. And we just ask Holy Spirit that you would use their efforts to conform us more to the image of Christ and help us to enjoy the freedom that is ours in Jesus. We commit this time of Q&A to you right now, as we pray in the strong name or a risen Savior and Lord Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, this is an e-mail question. Are we responsible for others coming to Christ? And what is our role in other’s salvation?

Pete Alwinson:
Yes and no. I mean,

Steve Brown:
that’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
that’s how I look at it. How, how would you run with that?

Steve Brown:
Well, It is a wonderful place to be, to believe that God is sovereign. And that he’s going to do whatever he’s going to do. And sometimes he loves me enough to let me be a part of it, but I don’t believe anybody will lose their salvation because of my unfaithfulness.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right, right, right. That’s good.

Steve Brown:
You know, I just remembered when I was serving at church in Boston, you were in the New England area for a while, too. Some kids in our church did a film and I affirmed it. I mean, it was really well done, but the final scene was a young man on the screen who’s going into the fires of hell. And just before he gets there, he turns and says to the audience, why didn’t you tell me? And I remember wincing at that and thinking, good heavens. But I’m older now, a lot older and a lot wiser. And I really believe it doesn’t depend on me.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. No, I think that’s so good. Yet, we do get to be a part of the process.

Steve Brown:
And we do it cause he told us to.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right. And, you know, so God has ordained who comes to Christ, but also how they come to Christ. And typically it’s through us. And that’s why when Jesus sends us out, it’s not like he’s given us this onerous task. He says, I’ll be with you to the end of the age. Go out and do this. And it’s going to be incredible as you see how I use you in people’s lives, but ultimately it is the work of the Spirit and the heart, as we talked about last week.

Steve Brown:
So, don’t stay up all night worrying about it. You remember, do you remember the first time you ever lead somebody to Christ, the way you presented. I do too.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it’s exciting.

Steve Brown:
Oh, it was, I mean, the guy, in my case, the guy was going to commit suicide.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
And when he, when I asked him and I was Campus Crusade, now CRU staff member was with me. And he pushed me into it. And, when I said, would you like to pray that prayer right now? He said, oh, you have no idea. Let’s pray. And I wanted to say, and maybe even did say, you would?

Pete Alwinson:
I know, same thing with me. I was a youth pastor in a downtown church in Long Beach, California. And this woman comes in and she says, I want to become a Christian. And so I said, no, you don’t. I said, I shared the gospel. I said, really? I said, I shared the gospel. And I said, is there any reason why you wouldn’t accept Jesus now? And she said, no. And it was almost like, you know, they were ready. I think in those early days, God has to bring to us. And it’s exciting to be a part of that process.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really is. But don’t, don’t worry. Just be faithful, when you can, when you can’t, you’ll be forgiven. This is all about grace, but it is, trust us, it is so cool to see Jesus do that in other people’s lives. This is, this is, this is one of those questions that you know, that are like, tell me about the incarnation in 30 seconds or less. Do you know anything about the antichrist?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, do you want me to give you some names?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Hitler.

Pete Alwinson:
Hitler.

Steve Brown:
Oh, he died.

Pete Alwinson:
Napoleon.

Steve Brown:
He’s dead too. Can’t be him.

Pete Alwinson:
There’s a couple of Popes that have been called the antichrist.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, but they’re dead too.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay.

Steve Brown:
You know, people throughout the last 2000 years, have been surmising about that. And we were just kidding each other because we both know there are times in the church, when each of those people have been labeled by their enemies as the antichrist.

Pete Alwinson:
And some people today saying certain political leaders are the antichrist. So we know that the spirit…John tells us that the spirit of the antichrist is at work now.

Steve Brown:
In a lot of places.

Pete Alwinson:
In a lot of places. So, there are antichrist figures, but the final antichrist will be a very powerful figure, who will unite the world.

Steve Brown:
And it will be very religious. He’ll say religious things, I believe. And he’ll be patently evil because he pretends to be so good. I think and I may be wrong, I think those prophecies concerning the antichrist are not meant for those who are not living in the time of the antichrist. And I think when that is revealed and it happens, we’ll know.

Pete Alwinson:
I think so.

Steve Brown:
Christians will understand and they’ll know, and we won’t be liked for it.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right. We will oppose it and we’ll suffer under his reign. And so, it’s a very real figure. We should, we should read Scripture on it.

Steve Brown:
Alright, this is it. This isn’t for you or me, we’re ordained, it says, if we are a new creation in Christ, why do we as Christians continue to sin? Well, ordained people don’t of course, but you poor lay people, you continue to sin cause you’re a sinner.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And when you become ordained, I’m going to be on an ordination council soon, so.

Steve Brown:
Are you?

Pete Alwinson:
So, that means I should preach that he will become sinless.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. I mean, if that works, you go ahead. We sin because we’re sinners.

Pete Alwinson:
We’re sinners. We, you know, we still have the sin nature and what’s hard to grasp is that we come to Christ, we get a new nature.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
But we still have in resident in us, the old nature at work. And there is a war going on inside.

Steve Brown:
It really is. You know the thing about Jesus, he takes a lot of the fun of sin out of it. He really messes things up.

Pete Alwinson:
What do you mean by that? It’s true, but what do you mean?

Steve Brown:
It really is true. You know, but you can sin, enjoy it. I am sinking deep in sin, yay. But you can’t do that as a Christian. It’s not because of rules. It’s because you realize the tears of Jesus have to do, that’s what the cross is, have to do with our sin. I put in there, but nevertheless, we still have the wart.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. The wart and you know, Paul says.

No temptation has taken you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful when we’re called into it, he’ll forgive us.

So we are, we are tempted and the battle is intense at times.

Steve Brown:
It really, oh.

Pete Alwinson:
We cave. We lose.

Steve Brown:
When people sin, you don’t know two things, how hard they tried not to, nor the power that was arrayed against that person before they sinned. You know, I was teaching recently on Romans 7 and was referencing again, I thought about it before, some commentaries say that confession of Paul, when he says.

The good that are want to do, I do not do. And the evil I don’t want to do, that’s what I do.

That Paul was talking about his life before Christ. He’s now a new creation and certainly that isn’t true. That’s not right.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I mean, God can conjugate verbs and if had meant to be in the past, he would have put it in the past.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. That’s his current experience and he was an apostle.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, exactly. And you know, you get Paul calling Peter a hypocrite long after the garden experience. Peter was the leader of the church.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And he still had the hypocrisy.

Pete Alwinson:
And this where grace continues to lead us back to the cross, every day.

Steve Brown:
And makes us better.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely.

Steve Brown:
Even if you don’t see it, you’re going to get better.

Pete Alwinson:
Exactly.

Steve Brown:
Hey, we’re out of here, but before we go, one other thing to say. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.