Don’t mess with the truth.
DECEMBER 28, 2022
Steve Brown:
Don’t mess with the truth. I’ll tell you why, on this edition of Key Life.
Matthew Porter:
Key Life is a radio program for struggling believers, sick of phony religion and pious clichés. Our host and teacher is seminary professor Steve Brown. He teaches that radical freedom leads to infectious joy and surprising faithfulness.
Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. If you have your Bible keep it open, the 19th chapter, the first few verses of the book of Acts will be helpful. I didn’t make these things up, I sometimes don’t even like what I have to teach, but once you see truth, you can’t unsee truth. And so, what I’m teaching is true, so you ought to listen up. And another thing for a reason of listening to me is I’m an old guy and I don’t care. Listen, if you want to know the truth, always ask an old guy or an old lady cause they’re not looking for anything. I’m not looking for a big church. I’m not looking for a new wife. I’m not looking for more money. I’m not looking for, I’m not looking for, I’m just an old guy and I don’t care. Some of you don’t like me. Let me give you a quarter and tell you to call somebody who cares cause I don’t, I’m being silly and facetious of course, of course I care. But I don’t care a lot the way I did once. And so, if you want to know the truth, ask somebody who’s old. And I’m old, so I’m going to tell you the truth. And the truth about truth is that truth is important. In this text. Apollos had pre, he was a Christian. I mean, his life had been changed. And man, he was a powerful voice for the gospel. But he didn’t know anything except the gospel. And so, Apollos sang, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And when Paul follows up on Apollos in our text, he meets some Christians and he asks them, have they been baptized and did they know about the Holy Spirit? And they said, well, we are baptized into John’s baptism, but we didn’t even know there was a Holy Spirit. In other words, there was a knowledge deficit that was hurting their lives, and it still does. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so is so important, and it’s so true, and it’s such good news. But the Christian faith is more than that. It becomes the anchor of our lives. We saw yesterday, that if you don’t get the other truth, when it gets cold and dark and things are going your way, you’ll slip into the darkness and that’s kind of scary. I’m a dogmatic person, maybe the most dogmatic person, friend you’ve got, and I’m that for the same reason the controller in the tower at an airport is dogmatic when the pilot asks at what altitude he should fly. The controller doesn’t say, well, it really doesn’t matter, whatever you want. Likewise, I don’t say, oh, it really doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you believe something. In both cases because of the knowledge problem, there is a terrible danger of destruction. There’s an Arabian proverb that you’ve heard before and I kind of like it.
He who knows not, and knows not, that he knows not is a fool, shun him. He who knows not, and knows he knows not is simple, teach him. He who knows, and knows that he knows is asleep, wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows he’s wise, follow him.
Jesus is the only one who knows completely and who knows that he knows. And I will follow him until the day that I die because of the truth. When I’m having a bad day, when things aren’t going the way I want them to go, when I’m facing tragedy, when I don’t like what the doctor said, when my kids are not walking with Christ, when the preacher drives me nuts, when the church drives me nuts, when I’m lonely and afraid, I won’t leave and I won’t leave because I know because Jesus who is the Word, oversaw the written word, and the written word is revealed propositional truth. And that’ll keep you warm on a cold night, but there’s something else, and I’m getting to the end of this broadcast, at least the teaching part, but let me just state it and we’ll talk about it more tomorrow. Bad doctrine first leads to a knowledge problem, but secondly, bad doctrine leads to a grace problem, Acts 19:3 through 4.
And Paul said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance.”
Now, repentance is important. It really is. It’s not what you think it is, and I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow, but repentance is very, very important. But that’s only half the story. And if you only know the guilt and repentance part, you haven’t heard the good news and you haven’t understood what grace is all about. My late mentor, one of them, Jack Miller said, and I’ve quoted this a thousand times and will quote it a thousand times more.
The central thrust of the Christian faith is two sentences. Cheer up, you’re a lot worse than you think you are. And then number two, cheer up, God’s grace is a lot bigger than you think it is.
You think about that. Amen.
Well, sometimes when we have time, I take some time to answer one or two questions on the Wednesday broadcast. Pete comes in almost every Friday and we spend the entire broadcast answering questions, but sometimes I have a little bit of time, so I do it on the Wednesday. And, as I always say, and always mean, we love your questions. You can pick up your phone and call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, record your question, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to
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Or you can e-mail your question to [email protected]. And as I always say, if you can help us financially, please do. This is an expensive ministry and most people who benefit by it are not able to help us financially. So, when you help us, you’re helping your brothers and sisters in Christ. We are, as I’ve told you before, a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada, both of those organizations look over our books to make sure that we are ethical. And we are that, we squeeze every dime for the glory of God. So, if you can, do help us. If you can’t, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. All right, let’s turn to one or two of these questions. This is an e-mail, and I just got it this morning. It says, the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t have the phrase for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, but is usually recited that way. Well, it is by Protestants, by Roman Catholics it’s not, and by a number of others, it just ends.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and deliver us from evil.
And that literally means from the evil one, Satan.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
And this person who asks the question is right, that that’s not included in the original Lord’s Prayer. And was probably added later. He says that seems to come from I Chronicles 29:11. When did it get added and why and how? Well, I would suggest that God is not only sovereign over the original manuscripts, he’s sovereign over how they’re translated and what happens over the years. So, I don’t have a bit of problem with thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, it’s Biblical. It’s a good statement. It is a statement of worship that is appropriate after a prayer. So, who added it? I don’t have any idea. And nobody else does. And if they tell you they do, they don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know who added it, maybe a monk in a monastery who was doing copying and said to himself. Or maybe the Holy Spirit said to him, or to her if she were a nun in a convent said, look, this would be a great thing to add with his prayer. And it is appropriate. So, it is appropriate. I don’t know when it was added, but it’s a good thing to say, and if you don’t want to say it, that would be okay too. All right, this question is what does water baptism do for us? I’m not sure. Well, it doesn’t do what some teach, and that is a doctrine called baptismal regeneration. The baptism does not make you a Christian. The baptism doesn’t make you a better, well, maybe it does, a better Christian in the sense that it’s a witness. Baptism is your statement to yourself and to the world, and anybody who wants to see that you have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back. And so, and it’s commanded by Jesus, and so it’s something we ought to do, but I don’t believe that water cleanses you, the blood of Christ cleanses you. And once that happens, you want to say to everybody and affirm it to yourself by being baptized. Hey, I’ve got to go, but first, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.