“I didn’t confess this morning. If I die this afternoon, am I lost?”

Steve Brown:
I didn’t confess this morning. If I die this afternoon, am I lost? Let’s talk on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you. But, if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com.

Steve Brown:
Hey Pete.

Matthew Porter:
Hey. This is going to be interesting.

Steve Brown:
Well, it really is. It’s also interesting about whether I can, that’s called a teaser that we do at the beginning of the broadcast, and it has to be precise. I mean, if I go over then the announcer cuts me off. And, so I got to talk really fast and sometimes I talk so fast, nobody knows what I said, but we got kind of a jest on it. So we’ll, we’ll do that later. That’s Pete Alwinson, and as I’ve told you a number of times, go to ForgeTruth.com and it’s a men’s ministry that is impacting lives in incredible ways. You can find out about it at that website. Do you have a Twitter or Facebook account?

Pete Alwinson:
Sure. Facebook Forge, Forge Facebook. So yeah, Facebook, you can go there or Instagram.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Be sure and check those out. And if you live in central Florida, there, you don’t get just one choice. There are two or three choices that you could be a part of it. Check that out on the website too. Pete comes in and we answer questions together and we’ve done that for over 25 years. And, we genuinely enjoy this time and we genuinely like your questions. The only dumb one is the one you don’t ask. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, ask your question and we record it and sometimes put that on the air. Or you can write to

Key Life Network

P.O. Box 5000

Maitland, Florida 32794

Or in Canada, it’s

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

Or you can e-mail us at [email protected]. And if you can help us financially too, we would rise up and call you blessed. And I promise we’ll be faithful with your gift. In fact, for every $10 you get a free sin. That’s not going to work, is it Pete?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, no, heresy.

Steve Brown:
No. We know that some of you can help us, if you can, do. If you can’t, we understand that too, say a prayer for the ministry. Pete, lead us in prayer, and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright. Our gracious God. We come into your presence at the end of the week, and Lord, we recognize that you are good and kind and gracious. You are also sovereign and all-knowing and omnipresent, and we trust you. We trust you, because of who you are, because of what you have done in creation and Providence, taking care of us and in redemption in Jesus Christ. And so, because of your incredible goodness, Lord, we worship you. We ask that you continue the work that you started in us. And Lord, we want to grow, we want your grace to continue to go deeper and deeper into our hearts so that it energizes us in Godliness and holiness. We want to be your people, in every way we can. We confess our sins. We know we need you to continue your work. Father, be with our leaders this week-end, be with our pastors, priests, worship directors. As we go to worship, we pray that you would prepare them to speak to us. Thank you for Steve and all the great people at Key Life, who work behind the scenes. We ask that you would give your power to them that your name could be manifested worldwide through this ministry. We give you this time now of Q&A. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I know Jesus Christ died for our sins past, present, future, but do you have to confess a sin for it to be forgiven? Like, if you die and you have unconfessed sin, are you still saved?

Steve Brown:
That’s a pretty scary thought, isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
It is. And I would say absolutely. If you don’t have ever said confessed, man, you’re,

Steve Brown:
You better do it and you better do it or else.

Pete Alwinson:
Do it, right.

Steve Brown:
No, of course not. You know, you’re making this into a mathematical kind of thing that doesn’t fit with the heart of Jesus, who loves you. He asks you to confess, because he loves you. That’s a great way to move into the presence of God, to know that you’re forgiven. So repentance is demanded in Scripture, but it’s not the basis, if you’re a Christian of whether or not you’re saved, you’re sins are forgiven. They already are. But, listen, don’t hold them, cause they’ll turn your sour.

Pete Alwinson:
Boy. Good, good point. Because sin comes between the relational dimension, right?

Steve Brown:
From our standpoint, it’s not, you did bad, so I’m not going to be in a relationship or fellowship with you, but it does exactly that, in our minds when we hide and we pretend and we prevaricate, in terms of our own sin, we put the barrier between us and God. We make it very difficult for God to hug us. Cause we won’t go to him.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
So, and you know, there’s another question here that we get often from people, cause there’s teaching out there that we should not confess our sins. That it’s blasphemy to do that, since they’re already forgiven.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, but we know in I John 1:9 written to Christians, tells us to do just that. And so, so I’ll take that view.

Steve Brown:
The Biblical view.

Pete Alwinson:
The Biblical view, but what grace does is when it seeps down deeper, than it makes you understand that your identity is as a deeply beloved redeemed child of God. And so, that changes everything. That’s your identity, so that when you see a sin or you commit a sin, grace enables you to face it straight on and not deny it and press it down. And you become more authentic. You become more real.

Steve Brown:
You become free.

Pete Alwinson:
You become free, you become like Jesus.

Steve Brown:
When you don’t have to pretend anymore and you start by not pretending to God. And then you beget to the point where you don’t pretend with your brothers and sisters in Christ either.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. Now, to his point, just a bit, I would say, there are sins of commission and sins of omission, and we just don’t always know when we’ve sinned our, knowledge of even our good deeds or sinful deeds is not clear. And so I, I can’t know, sometimes I feel guilty for stuff that really, I didn’t do anything wrong.

Steve Brown:
I know.

Pete Alwinson:
And sometimes I feel righteous and good, and I actually did something wrong. So, our knowledge is so imperfect that if we had to confess everything,

Steve Brown:
We’d be in trouble.

Pete Alwinson:
we’d be in trouble.

Steve Brown:
And we live in a culture, that creates guilt when there shouldn’t be guilt. You know, terms of what we should feel guilty and should confess, the Bible is very clear. I mean, there is evil and there is good and God is not hesitant about telling you which is which. And when you go to him, he convicts you in the areas you need to confess, but if it’s just guilt because of who you are or your color or the church you’re a part of or the Bible you’re reading. If it’s just that, don’t let him do that to you.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. If you can’t come up with a one or a four in the Born Free teaching, if you can’t come up with a conscious co sin that matches up with what Scripture says,

Steve Brown:
Then it’s not real.

Pete Alwinson:
it’s not real.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Well, yeah, but listen, if you have unconfessed sin, just in case. This is an e-mail. I recently heard a message where the speaker said that we should do good to others, because under common grace, God sends his rain on the just and the unjust. There was no further explanation that we should do good to others, because of the love of God, which has been shown to us in Jesus. I found it troubling that’s a speaker did not mention God’s grace and love towards us as a motivating factor. Am I right to be concerned? Of course you are, you’re right, he’s wrong. Go tell her whoever said that to repent right now, or God is going to destroy them, give them a fever and die or you’ll get the hives or something. You know, don’t be too upset. You know, that’s a good point that the teacher made, it’s the point that Jesus made, so it’s adequate. But, boy, you make a good one too.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean there is common grace and that’s why we should care for other people, who are not Christian, but we need divine grace, we need gospel grace.

Steve Brown:
And when we get that and it’s given to us, we give it. Do you know that Luther quote? I think that’s, I just heard it recently, that God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbors do. I think that’s a, I think that’s a great statement and that should be, there ought to be a part of who we are that shows in those particular areas.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely, faith without works is dead.

Steve Brown:
I’m a Christian, but an unfaithful one, when I’m fine or life is going good, I don’t read the Bible, pray much, go to church. I feel like Revelation 3:14-16. That’s where God says to the church, they’re lukewarm, he’s going to spit them out. And I didn’t, I’m interpreting that. Right. Okay. Neither hot nor cold. How do I know that God will still hear me or care for me and that he isn’t ready to spit me out of his mouth on those occasions when I don’t read the Bible and I don’t care much?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, there’s an analogy here, I think he has faith in Christ. My analogy is this, I’ve got three kids. You’ve got, you’ve got two.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Better than yours.

Pete Alwinson:
And that’s debatable, we’ll arm wrestle that. Yeah. But you know, I’ve got three kids and they’re not always perfect. And I’ve got five grandkids and they’re not always perfect, but you know what? They have a bad attitude and then they come over and sit in my lap. My, my grand kids.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
They’re my kids. They’re my grand kids.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Not going to kick them out.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m going to kick them out.

Steve Brown:
So, that’s the basic promise that Jesus gives to us, that no one will snatch them out of my hand. And so, if you’re a Christian, you’re not going to be spit out. So you go to that Revelation passage and you’ve got to remember, he’s talking to the church and he’s using metaphor. The Carson thing that you were talking about, have we got time? Yeah. Tell us quickly.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, Dr. Carson told me when I was one of his students, that the whole idea of the hot or cold is in that region, not too far from Colossae, there were hot springs and there were cold springs and those are both useful, but lukewarm water is almost never useful. And the point is, the church had gotten to a point where they lost their saltiness, lost their light, lost their usefulness.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. So, be careful. Don’t don’t, don’t live in fear that he’s gonna spit you out. He’s not gonna do that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And, then do, be as faithful as you can.

Pete Alwinson:
Let his grace in though, so that you grow, and to enjoy him more.

Steve Brown:
There you go. We’ve got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.