“Does Satan know what’s going to happen to him?”

Steve Brown:
Does Satan know what’s going to happen to him? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus in the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone. So, grace is for all of us. But there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author, Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hey Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday to you. It’s not always been happy Friday, when we were pastors that’s when the work began and you’re thinking, oh man, I’ve got this heavy load and I’m going to, I used to say, I’m going to bring shame on Jesus, but I never meant that. I thought I was going to bring shame on me and that scared me to death.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Steve Brown:
Since we’re being honest here. We’ll say that.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
But at any rate, happy Friday. And it is, Hey, by the way, I keep telling you this, you’ve got to do it. Go to ForgeTruth.com for everything Pete Alwinson and Jesus. And you’ll be glad you went there, Pete and I spend Fridays on this broadcast answering your questions and we love you and your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7. And record your question, sometimes we put it on the air. You can write to

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Or you can e-mail us at [email protected]. And if you can help us financially, please do. This is an expensive ministry. Only about 10% of the people who benefit by the ministry are able to help us financially. So, when you do, you become a champion for your brother and sister in Christ. And I promise we’ll be faithful with your gift, as faithful as you were in giving it. Enough said, if he can do, if he can’t say a prayer for us, that would be appreciated too. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to some of these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright, let’s do that. Father, we pause for just a second right now at the end of this week. And we come into your presence and we praise you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,, the Triune God, the only God, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who sustains us, the one who has redeemed us, the one who has turned bad into good, trials into real triumphs in our life. We thank you that we are deeply loved children and that you have a plan that is good and perfect and acceptable. And so Lord, we just come to you now and we ask, you would wrap this week up well, bring us to hear your voice this week-end at church, we pray that we’d be able to really listen to the gospel and that your word would sink down and through our head and hearts and out into our life. And, that you’d be with our leaders. Lord, they’re under spiritual oppression and attack. And we pray that you would help their homes to be happy and healthy so that they can lead us well. Be with our churches, Lord, be with all those who listen to us now. We commit Key Life to you and the time of Q&A. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, this is an interesting question. The Bible says and tells us about the end of statement, Satan. Listen, I talk for a living. Can you believe that?

Pete Alwinson:
You’re an exceptional talker.

Steve Brown:
The Bible tells us the end of Satan and how that will come about in Revelation. Doesn’t Satan know about this too? If so, why would he do everything that has been predicted, if the outcome will be his own destruction?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I like the way,

Steve Brown:
It really is.

Pete Alwinson:
you know, cause he’d say, well, he should avoid those things. You know, the bottom line is, Satan knows who he’s up against, I would say, in a very real way. He knows he’s lost. But he’s a megalomaniac and he’s going to keep fighting until the very end.

Steve Brown:
And hope.

Pete Alwinson:
And hope he wins.

Steve Brown:
Now, we’re not dualists. So, he’s not going to.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
We don’t have two equal powers fighting here.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
We have one small gnat crawling up the leg of an elephant thinking of beating him up and that’s not gonna happen.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
You know, that brings up something else that I think is good to consider. You know, when we were talking about this question, I said off air, no, he doesn’t know, he’s stupid, but you know, we have this idea that evil is wise, that they plan well, that they get things together, that their thoughtful about their destruction and other people. But they’re really not.

Pete Alwinson:
They’re not.

Steve Brown:
Evil really it’s stupid.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is stupid. It really is foolish in the Biblical sense and it violates the principles of the universe. Now, what we can say about evil is it does have a sort of the first advantage because it’s willing to do the unthinkable to the unsuspecting. And so, evil does have an initial advantage. But you’re right. It’s sows the seeds of its own destruction because of its foolishness. It can’t win.

Steve Brown:
Use that phrase again. That’s so good. He does what now?

Pete Alwinson:
Evil has an initial advantage because it’s willing to do the unthinkable to the unsuspecting.

Steve Brown:
Oh man. That is so good. I’ll think about that for a long time. And it’s so true. We need to remember that, but sometimes they’ll mess it up because they really are stupid.

Pete Alwinson:
They really are, ultimately.

Steve Brown:
Alright, this is an e-mail. Does God reveal things to us, as a culture and or individually in stages so that we’re able to better digest it, in bite size pieces.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. What do you think?

Steve Brown:
I think that’s true. In fact, I think. I don’t believe in progressive revelation in the sense that theological liberals do. But I do believe that the Bible clearly teaches that there are things that Paul knew, that Moses didn’t know. And they’re things that the Old Testament covenant people didn’t know that the New Testament covenant people do know. And I don’t think they contradict each other.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Right.

Steve Brown:
I think it’s a gradual revelation. You know, when you look at the history of salvation and Scripture. And you look at it from the perspective where we are, you go, wow, wow, look how God planned that, a little bit here, a little bit there.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
I’m going to throw in a lamb here and you’ll see the significance of the lamb later. Yom Kippor is important and you’ll know why later on. So, yeah, he does. And I think he does that with individuals too.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I do. I think it’s a principle, cause he can only take so much at a time.

Steve Brown:
It’s so true.

Pete Alwinson:
God is never in a hurry, as he unfolds his plan of redemption, down through Biblical history, but it does come in stages. And the covenants unfold differently, but this is also why our dispensational brothers have come up with dispensations because of this staging of God’s unfolding plan.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Do you ever, you ever go back and read really old sermons you preached and winced?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yes.

Steve Brown:
So yes, he does that with individuals too.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh boy, it is true.

Steve Brown:
You know, there’s one time I went back to a church I’d served for a while. And, I opened up, they were having a a hundred year anniversary. I know what they taught you, but it’s important I correct some things.

Pete Alwinson:
That was your message.

Steve Brown:
That was my opening,

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, that’s funny.

Steve Brown:
my opening thing. What is the Bride of Christ mean? The Bible says the church is the Bride of Christ, but who exactly is the church?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow, good question. Well, the church are those, you know, the church universal are those who have all through the ages, placed faith and trust in Jesus as Messiah.

Steve Brown:
And there’s some weird ones in that bunch too. You and me except you and me. And I worry about you.

Pete Alwinson:
We’ve got a checkered family, don’t we?

Steve Brown:
You know, I don’t think we know for sure. That’s why they come up with words like visible and invisible church. It’s just hard to sing in an invisible choir. So, we have a tangible manifestation of the church on earth. And that’s, as it should be, under different names, practicing different things, but who basically belong to Jesus. That’s the bride of Christ.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. The true, the truly regenerated sons and daughters of the most high God.

Steve Brown:
Alright, in 15 words or less, answer this question. What does the Bible teach you about divorce?

Pete Alwinson:
Don’t do it.

Steve Brown:
But if you do, you’ll be forgiven.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, you can be, absolutely.

Steve Brown:
But don’t use that as an excuse to get it.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. Get some counseling, get some counseling and work on your marriage before things get to the irreparable place.

Steve Brown:
And they lied to you, by the way, that it was going to be better, if you found somebody else. And that never works.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
It just isn’t, I can’t have. And I’m sure you’ve had this same situation. I’ve had guys, mostly guys, but sometimes women too, who have said to me, I can’t tell anybody but you this, but I made a horrible mistake and I’ve made my bed and I have to sleep in it. But I wish I could go back and change what I did. So, God doesn’t say don’t get a divorce, cause it’s nasty and you just shouldn’t do something like that. He says it because he loves us.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Because he knows that what I just said is true, in our lives.

Pete Alwinson:
Grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. It’s greener where we water it, generally speaking.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
And yet, that’s kind of a cliché, but we need definitely to work harder on our marriage. Marriage is tough. I think we just need to say it, it’s not easy.

Steve Brown:
It really is. And it has practical implications to it. You know, we listen to the love songs so much, that if our marriage doesn’t match the love song, then we get a divorce. But, you know, there is Fiddler on the Roof, teaches some profound truths about the practical nature of a relationship, where you know that one person is for you, if nobody else in the world is.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Where you raise children together and you grant a father and mother, it’s a place where dishes are washed, where the lawns are mowed, where you get through the last crisis and where you shared jokes that nobody else understands. And God gave it for that too. And there’s passion. And there should be. That very sexist statement, kissing don’t last, but cooking do, has some truth to it. Not in that sense, but in the sense of the gift of marriage, for all of us.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. We tend to overestimate in American culture and probably in most cultures, what marriage was intended to provide.

Steve Brown:
I think, I think we really do sometimes. You know, every time a Christian book comes out on marriage, another ten thousand Christian marriages go down the tube, cause people say, I don’t have that and I never will. And that’s kind of sad. Be honest. Be practical. And the best advice you’ll ever get is don’t leave. But we’re leaving. And Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.