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“If I were God, I would kick the world to pieces. Aren’t you glad I’m not?”

“If I were God, I would kick the world to pieces. Aren’t you glad I’m not?”

DECEMBER 18, 2020

/ Programs / Key Life / “If I were God, I would kick the world to pieces. Aren’t you glad I’m not?”

Steve Brown:
If I were God, I would kick the world to pieces. Aren’t you glad I’m not? Let’s talk on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything. How we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase and worship. So here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man, how you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good for an old guy. You know, I saw my cardiologist this morning.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And he said,

Steve Brown:
Excellent.

Pete Alwinson:
Good. That means your heart’s still ticking.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And you know, he thinks it’s excellent that I got out of bed, you know, and he doesn’t understand because of my lifestyle shouldn’t bring the kind of health I’ve got. I’m not a good advertisement for those health commercials. I mean, I just don’t do any of that. Well, I swim, but other than that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. but you don’t do the, you know, the, the, what are those things? Uh, uh, protein. What are those things?

Steve Brown:
I don’t do that. I don’t drink those things.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Alright.

Steve Brown:
I drink Cokes.

Pete Alwinson:
But you’re in the game, baby.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Don’t, and I’m still kicking, don’t write letters, okay? That was Pete Alwinson, and he comes in on Fridays and he was my former pastor. And I had to be good when I was around him when he was my pastor, but he’s no longer a pastor and I can be myself around him. And it’s kind of, actually always could. And Pete’s been doing this for years, as I’ve told you, get his book,Like Father, Like Son. And if you haven’t gotten it and given it to everybody you know, you’ve made a bad mistake. It’s a great book and a life changing book. And go also to ForgeTruth.com. 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 seven, record your question. And we often put you on the air, your actual voice and your phone call, or you can send your question to

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

If you live in Canada, it’s

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

Or you can email us at [email protected]. And by the way, if you can help us financially, we would very much appreciate it, because when you do you help others who can’t. And if you’re one of the ones who can’t, we get that, say a prayer for this ministry. And God so far has paid every bill and covered. And we’re not a rich ministry, but every bill has been paid because of you guys. So be as generous as you can, if you can. And if you can’t, we understand. Pete why don’t you lead us in prayer. And we’ll turn to some of these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Sounds good. Let’s pray. Our Father, we do come into your presence today. What a joy it is to be able to call you Father. we need a Father. We honor you God, our Father, because Jesus, you did everything to restore us to our rightful place, as the children of the most high God. And we honor you Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God, who has worked together for eternity past, to bring our lives back into relationship with you. Lord, you know us and you know what we need. And as we come into your presence today, it’s the end of the week. And we’ve had a lot of challenges. And so, you know the needs of your people, the need for a job, the need for a health, the need for readjustment after major crises, that our culture has been undergoing, you know, our needs. You know, the families that need to be restored. So we come to you and we ask for your grace and power and wisdom and truth to make us whole again, and to help us experience the abundant life in Christ. Be with our leaders this weekend, as they bring us into your presence, our worship leaders, our pastors, teachers, priests, all those who are ordained by you to lead your flock. And now we commit this time of Q&A to you. We pray that you’d be honored and glorified and that our sanctification would move forward, one step by the answering of a question with your truth. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Pete, this first one question is an email question. What does the Bible teach about our forgiveness of others? Is it really okay to forgive again and again, like Jesus said to forgive 70 times seven. Are there any exceptions?

Pete Alwinson:
Hey, no, we gotta do it, right?

Steve Brown:
There are no exceptions, I wish there were a couple. I really do, but there’s no wiggle room.

Pete Alwinson:
There’s no wiggle room. And that’s why he gave those inflated numbers. If you get seven times 70 or 70 times 70, you haven’t reached the limit.

Steve Brown:
That’s really true. And it just. Do you really mean that Jesus?

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
And he always says, I haven’t changed my mind. It’s true. That’s what, but that means we must be in the process, not necessarily having accomplished the goal.

Pete Alwinson:
I love how you said that, because we have this idea that forgiveness is one and done. You know, I forgive you. Well, we’re too complex for that. Our souls are too broken. and so it’s really peeling the layers off, isn’t it? Step by step moving, I’m forgiving, I forgive you, but I always have more until we finally come to the day where you’re okay. Okay. I’m done. I’m done.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. God does that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Do, what if the person’s not repentant and don’t want your forgiveness?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And I think we have to do, there’s no qualification in there, only if they ask forgiveness, do you need to forgive? No. Forgiveness is not only for them. It’s primarily for us we and how we glorify God.

Steve Brown:
That’s truth, by the way. So deal with it, even if you don’t like it. Let’s go to our phone lines.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright.
Caller:
God destroyed the whole world in the flood. And eight people were left at Noah, his wife, three sons and three daughter-in-laws and he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, now destroying all the world and all those people like that, why couldn’t it be just done away with Satan, Eve and Adam and start all over again?

Steve Brown:
I don’t know if I’ve ever been asked that before, just reboot.

Pete Alwinson:
Just reboot.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright. Well.

Steve Brown:
Well, I don’t think we speak with authority about this, because we didn’t get a vote,

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
and God didn’t even give us the details

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
of why he did it.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s true. I find myself wanting to say something sarcastic. That’s why I’m holding back. Something like that.

Steve Brown:
I noticed you were doing that.

Pete Alwinson:
Did you notice that? God said, I never thought of that. I’m sorry. That’s sarcastic. But you know, he knew what was going to happen ahead of time, is probably the larger point. And back to your issue about God being outside of time, it’s not like he didn’t know what was going to happen, of course he knew what was going to happen and was going to bring great purposes from it, through it. So that’s why he didn’t.

Steve Brown:
And one of those purposes is that we know him. I have a friend who was an associate, and a young lady in our church kept asking, you know, why didn’t God do it this way? This way would have been better. And then he said, would you rather not have known him? This whole thing in I Corinthians three was pre-created for the terrible mate for us. It really was. And in his purposes and the way he did it, is our salvation. If there had been no Satan, you never would have known. If there’d been no sin, you never would have known. If there’d been no failure, if there had never been emptiness because you didn’t know God, you would never know him. And so God, even though he didn’t check with me to, he did right well. I thought your comment about, I never thought of that.

Pete Alwinson:
I never thought of that.

Steve Brown:
So funny.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m sorry.

Steve Brown:
No, that’s funny. I’ll think about that for a long time. In fact, I’m going to give you credit when I use it in a sermon, but only the first time.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And it’s yours, man.

Steve Brown:
This is an email. What do you guys mean when you say grace always runs down to hill?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s a great comment. Trickle down graceonomics. What do you mean by that, Steve?

Steve Brown:
Well that, I believe, just another way of quoting the Psalm, that a humble and contrite heart, He won’t despise. And that means that the lower we get, the more he is honored and glorified. And the more he reaches into our place of humility. And so it’s not on top of a mountain when we have done well and he ought to be proud of us and he’s very fortunate to have us that we get grace, it’s at the bottom of the mountain, after we’ve fallen and messed it up, that we then begin to understand. And so in that sense, grace runs downhill and I didn’t say it, I think that was Jack Miller or Rose Marie Miller, who said it. But whoever said it, reflected the absolute truth of Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, that’s so powerful, so powerful. Well, grace is such a large encompassing issue in the Bible and encompassing of the love and power and mercy of God. So, that’s true.

Steve Brown:
So true.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright.

Steve Brown:
We probably ought to, we don’t have much time, but what do you believe about the Tribulation and the Rapture?

Pete Alwinson:
There will be both.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Just maybe not when you thought.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Yeah. So, so, so in a nutshell, the church age goes into the tribulation period before Jesus comes back, we’re taken off the earth and the purpose of the Rapture is to meet the returning King in the air. That’s my take on it.

Steve Brown:
And mine.

Pete Alwinson:
And we’re pretty close to it, but it shows, it shows that we do, we will go through difficult times and we need to be prepared and grace and loving each other in the body of Christ is so important for making it through tough times.

Steve Brown:
You know, I had lunch with Corrie ten Boom, toward the end of her life. She was speaking for a thing in Miami, and a friend and I met her in her hotel room, cause she was very elderly and got tired quickly. And she was the real deal. I mean, she was an absolute delight.

Pete Alwinson:
She called you Stephen.

Steve Brown:
Oh yes. And she, but she said on that occasion that she saw more tribulation in the world right now. And you gotta remember, if you don’t know her story. She was at a concentration camp, through The Third Reich, and she said, I’ve seen more tribulation in the world right now, then is described in the book of Revelation.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
And I’ve never forgotten about that, that kind of goes along with what you were saying, that we are facing tribulation now.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, we really are, in many respects. We’re doing a series with our men at Forge, called Pandemonium, and pandemonium means pan demons, all demons and the pandemonium that we see is caused by the demonic dark realm around us.

Steve Brown:
It really is. But you do believe in the Tribulation and the Rapture.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And you do too.

Steve Brown:
I just wanted to check and see if you were saved.

Pete Alwinson:
Still Orthodox.

Steve Brown:
Yeah right. Guys, we got to go. We’re so glad when you join us. We’re doing the best we can with these questions and you’re free to disagree. Got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

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