“Were there boats other than the ark?”

Steve Brown:
“Were there boats other than the ark?” 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. Hi, Pete. How you doing?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m doing good. I’m doing good. It’s Friday. I. Well, you know, like you said so many times we record four in a row. So, I was good last time, cuz I’m still, basically good right now.

Steve Brown:
Hasn’t changed since the last time that’s, right?

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson. Check out ForgeTruth.com if you haven’t read Pete’s book, you ought to get it, Like Father Like Son and fairly recently an audio version of that has come out. So, if you’re kind of into that instead of reading and holding a book. You might want to check that out, Like Father Like Son. And when you go to ForgeTruth.com be sure and check out the podcast. That’s a lot of fun, by the way, as you know, Pete comes in and we answer questions on Fridays and we genuinely love to get your questions. You can ask a question by calling Key Life, 24 7. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE and record your question. And sometimes we put that on the air. Or you can write to

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

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, that would be an appropriate place you could do that. By the way, you can do it on your phone. You can text Key Life at 28950 and follow instructions. And if you can help us, we promise to be faithful with your gift. If you can’t, we understand, say a prayer for the ministry. And, talking about prayer, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to some of these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Father, we do thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you that we can at the end of this week, stop for just a couple of minutes and praise you, our Great God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How we lift up your name and how we are thankful that we belong to you. Lord, we do praise you for your sovereignty, for your power, for your kindness and mercy and grace. Thank you that in your infinite power, you are also infinitely loving. Thank you that you forgive us and we confess our sins now, and we look forward to a time on this week-end when we can worship you together with your people and enjoy celebrating the glory of a living God. We pray for all of our leaders who will stand before us. And we ask that you would give them the very words from Scripture and the very words that we need to hear, that we could grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you for Key Life, for Steve brown, for all of these great ministries that come from this place. And we just commit this time to you now, as we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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

Caller 1:
I have a question about Noah and the Ark. If the world did get flooded, were there other boats on the earth beside the ark?

Steve Brown:
You know, I say there isn’t any question I haven’t heard.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I mean, when you’re as old as I am, you’ve just about heard ’em all. But, I don’t think we have ever got that question before.

Pete Alwinson:
I don’t think we have either, man.

Steve Brown:
Well, the short answer is maybe, but they leaked. But there’s a little bit more complication than that.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, I’m convinced there was at least one Ski Nautique because there had, you know, I mean, I mean there had to be some water skiing going on. That’s a darn question, but it does beg the whole idea that probably it was probably a unique thing. It was a one of a kind.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really was. And you can’t get around that, it’s meant to be that, and it’s meant to the Scriptures mean to teach that, they just don’t reference the other. Maybe there was no rain. A lot of scholars suggest that there wasn’t rain, until, so when people were looking at him build the ark, they didn’t even know what you could use that for.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean, what in the world’s going on here?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Right.

Pete Alwinson:
There’s going to be a flood. What’s that, you know?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. When we get to heaven, we’ll find out. But that’s an interesting question.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is. And thank God for that we can ask, it shows he’s reading Scripture and he’s thinking while he reads Scripture. The Bible is not magical. You’ve got to engage your brain when you’re reading it.

Steve Brown:
This Pete, is an e-mail. What do you think about Lordship salvation?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, so you know, that has not been on the forefront of the evangelical community for a long time, but it basically taught that you could accept Jesus as Savior, but then needed to at some point, accept him as Lord. And, I think you and I both agree that coming to Christ is a total package there. And you accept him as Savior and Lord.

Steve Brown:
You can’t separate that. That’s not by and large, the issue of most people who are reformed. It’s just not where we live.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Jesus is Jesus. And he’s who he is. And I don’t think you can be saved by going to a different Jesus who just acts to save. I mean, Jesus is Jesus.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And you’ve gotta deal with him. But you’ve got to be careful too, because when people say that some of them are trying to emphasize the reality of God’s grace over the reality of works salvation. And, I think that’s a legitimate flag to fly. You know, we’re not saved by how good we are, by the law or by our works or by how obedient we are. We’re saved only by Christ. And only by faith in Christ. And if that’s your issue and you’re trying to make it in the debate about Lordship salvation, I get that. I just don’t think you ought to express it the way you do.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, maybe we would, I would put it this way. I do believe in an increasing awareness. And an increasing position of the Lordship of Christ. So, I accept him at a point in time as Savior. And I’m justified by faith in him, but I grow and I accept him as Lord too, but I’ve got to continue to grow in allowing him and his Lordship to rule over more and more aspects of my life.

Steve Brown:
And that’s called the process of sanctification.

Pete Alwinson:
Exactly.

Steve Brown:
And listen, we’re not gonna make a big deal out of that cause listen to me, you’re going to get better, you really are, and if you stay awake worrying about it all night, just quit it, because God is going to make you better. And someday you’re going to be perfect when you get home. So, love Jesus. Walk with him. Rejoice in what he’s done for you. And go get an ice cream cone. Listen, this is an e-mail too. Why are so many people offended by the grace of God?

Pete Alwinson:
I don’t know? Why?

Steve Brown:
I don’t, well, you know, I bet, I really, I used to think, you know, it’s been a number of years ago when I honestly felt that I was called to have this message, the message of God’s grace. That God created me to be a messenger, to talk about grace and freedom in it. And I was so glad cause my friend Tony Campolo is kind of prophet and all he does is make people angry. And by the way, pray for Tony. I talk to him every couple of weeks and he’s had a major stroke. And we thought he was going to die, but he’s come back.

Pete Alwinson:
Good. Good.

Steve Brown:
And we don’t agree on anything, but Jesus, but we love each other. But I said, Lord, that is so cool. I don’t wanna be Tony Campolo, I’m just going to tell people that God loves them, tell them about his grace if they come to him. That’s everybody, they’re going to think I’m wonderful. And then I woke up and everybody was mad at me and I thought what’s with this? And I really don’t understand it completely. I think in order to accept God’s grace, you’ve got to know you need it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think that maybe there’s that sense of this desire to earn a place, to be able to say, I did it, you know, is so ingrained in us that that’s why they perhaps hate this idea of grace, because it then it could carry this idea of I can do then whatever I want. And that would just be antithetical to the gospel as well.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. You know, I was one time teaching at a conference in Asheville, North Carolina, my hometown.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. That’s where you’re from.

Steve Brown:
And I said, as I do often that God’s not angry at his people. And a guy, during the Q & A period this really happened, a guy raised his hand and he said, I disagree with you. God is angry with me. And I’m glad. And I said, sir, you’re a fruitcake. There’s something wrong with you. And I laughed when I said it, so it was alright. But he said that knowing that God is angry at me, pushes me to be better. And so, but that’s not the Biblical way.

Pete Alwinson:
It is not, it is not. Now, that’ll last for a short period of time.

Steve Brown:
Oh yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, I can, you can get me in line for a short period of time, but ultimately I will rebel against that, but the ongoing loving and wooing and affirming of God’s love for us, that’s what energizes us to grow.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. It really is. That’s good. How can I deal with and accept the silence of God? Oh, I don’t know? I hate it.

Pete Alwinson:
Do you feel that God is silent to you?

Steve Brown:
Sometimes.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Thomas a Kempis said.

Sometimes thou dost withdraw thyself from us, that we might know the sweetness of thy presence.

And I think there are seasons. I think there are times when Jesus is so real, you could reach out and touch him. And other times when you think he’s in Bermuda on vacation. And I think God controls those periods, the seasons of our life. There’s a time when God does not seem, those dry periods doesn’t seem real. And there are those times when it’s so real that you can hardly stand it. And I don’t think you fix that. I mean, I don’t think there are ten ways that you can make it better. I think you accept it and you praise God and you keep doing the means of grace, involving in the means of grace.

Don’t doubt in the dark, what he taught you in the light.

Pete Alwinson:
Ah, yeah. Well, so what you’re saying is what John Powell said on the pain of being human, you know, the whole reality that this just is, and I’m playing around with the idea that God is never really silent. It’s more us that is experiencing the undulations that C.S. Lewis talks about in The Screwtape Letters. You know, the undulations of our emotions. So, God speaks to us, God speaks all the time through his word, through creation. We see his favor. But we don’t feel as close to him. I don’t know Steve, it’s a big subject.

Steve Brown:
I think it’s both sides of that coin. I think what you said is right, but I also think that sometimes God does allow us to go through these periods, because we will know the sweetness of his presence.

Pete Alwinson:
I like it.

Steve Brown:
Good stuff. I like it too. We’ve got to go folks. Well, we don’t have to go exactly now, but now we have to go. Key life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.