“Where is the secret place?”

Steve Brown:
“Where is the secret place?” The answer to that and other questions, 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:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. I can’t wait for you to divulge that because then I can break into your house and take it, whatever you’ve got hidden.

Steve Brown:
Where I keep all my stuff.

Pete Alwinson:
There you go.

Steve Brown:
We’ll get to that question. That’s Pete Alwinson, as you know, Pete comes in on Fridays and we’ve been doing this for years and enjoy it because we think your questions are great. You be sure and go to ForgeTruth.com and by the way, if you’re a guy and you’ll love ForgeTruth.com podcast, great material that’ll be life changing to you. But I was surprised to find out today, you were just mentioned it in passing, that there are groups of guys that are meeting together and live streaming the Forge meeting. Listen, if you live in another part of the country and you’re thinking, I wish I lived in Orlando so I could be a part of Forge. You know, maybe you could. You might want to check at ForgeTruth.com there’ll be some information and then you might want to have a Forge group in your town or in your city. And you will rise up and call me blessed for having told you about it. As I said, we love to get your questions. You can ask a question any time, 24 7, by dialing 1-800-KEY-LIFE and then following the instructions, and sometimes we use your voice on the air. Or you can send your questions to

Key Life Network
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if you live in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, please do. I promise we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. We’re a member of the ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And both those organizations check to make sure that we’re ethical. So, if you can help us, do, if you can’t, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. Speaking of prayer, Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer, we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
You got it. Our Father, what a joy it is to come into your presence at the end of this week. And Lord God, thank you that you have revealed yourself to us. Thank you that you’re not hidden from us, but you have revealed yourself to us perfectly in what you’ve made, in your word through the prophets in the Old Testament, preeminently in our risen Savior Jesus Christ. And what a joy it is to be your children. We honor you, Lord, for your might, for your love, for your acceptance of us, for your grace and mercy in Christ. And Lord, we come to you and we ask that you would continue your great work that you began in us. Lord, if some of us have gotten tired, we pray that you would make us come alive again. And even this week-end as we worship, use our pastors and priests and teachers and worship directors and all those leaders who serve to bring us into your presence in dynamic worship. So, glorify yourself through them and make us come alive to your grace once again. Thanks for this time of Q&A and for Key Life. We commit this time to you in Jesus’ strong Name, Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
Hi, what is meant by the secret place of the Most High God? I can’t find it now, but it’s somewhere in the Bible. Is that for now, like our private time with God, or is that after heaven?

Steve Brown:
Good question. And it may be, you have the reference since you’re obviously a Navigator and our caller is not, by the way, that’s the Navigator ministry that has a lot to do with memorizing Scripture. And I kid about it sometimes, but you looked it up.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Well, I’ve looked at our producer helped us find it. Psalm 91.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the almighty.

But in the King James, I think it says secret places.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it probably is, the shadow works is probably what it’s referring to. It probably has to do with our private time with God. You know, I’m a man of prayer and I get up early in the morning and I, and you do too. You know, the great thing about that is, nobody else does, you know.

Pete Alwinson:
We have him all to ourselves.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. And it’s our secret place. No, it probably refers just to that, and I wouldn’t probably draw more out of it than that. Would you say? We, when, when we heard the question, we looked up a passage in Deuteronomy that says.

That the secret things belong to God, but the other things have been given to us and to our children.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
And we started to go there, but that’s not the question that was asked.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Yeah. The other one is Deuteronomy 29:29,.

Where the secret place is,

but you’re right, and it really is about being in the presence with God because it goes on

I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God, and whom I trust.

And what a great way to start our day.

Steve Brown:
It really is.

Pete Alwinson:
We need to. And then get armed up by the Spirit before we go out.

Steve Brown:
You know, it sounds so pious to say this, but I’m not sure I could survive without that time in the morning.

Pete Alwinson:
I know I can’t Steve.

Steve Brown:
I mean, it’s just so, and I’ve heard people, I’ve heard preachers say that forever and missionaries, and I always said sure, that’s true. And it sounds pious. I don’t mean it in a pious way. My prayers are not pious at all. Sometimes I cuss and spit and complain to God. Sometimes I tell him I think he did wrong. Sometimes I just play solitaire and say, if you want to play with me, you can, but if you don’t, that’s okay too. Sometimes I’m there and it’s not a religious, it’s the time with Jesus. And coffee helps too.

Pete Alwinson:
Coffee. Yeah, it’s a gift of God. You know, that daily appointment with God. That’s what I call it, a DAWG. And it really is a discipline that becomes a delight because you just realize what a joy it is. We talk about having a personal relationship with the God of the universe. That’s where you develop it.

Steve Brown:
It really is. Dog? “O” and it’s an “A”.

Pete Alwinson:
“D” “A”, Daily Appointment With God.

Steve Brown:
So, it’s a “DAG”?

Pete Alwinson:
DAWG, you know Dawg in the Georgia Bulldogs.

Steve Brown:
Oh,

Pete Alwinson:
“DAWG”

Steve Brown:
If you say so.

Pete Alwinson:
If you say so, I love it.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail. How will we be able to rejoice in heaven, when some of my loved ones will not be there with me?

Pete Alwinson:
Ah, that’s a good question.

Steve Brown:
For which we have no answer.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Brown:
But, it’s going to be okay. People sometimes say, my friends won’t be there, how can I rejoice? Well, I have some friends I don’t want to be there.

Pete Alwinson:
And you’ll be surprised.

Steve Brown:
In fact, I think one of the answers that is appropriate to that kind of question is, you don’t know, I mean, we make such a big deal out of salvation and the methodology whereby one is saved. There’s the Roman road, the four laws, EE’s plan of evangelism, and we give courses on how to do evangelism and lead people to Christ, but it’s not that complicated. It’s simply being needy. And running to Jesus because you don’t have any other place to go. And you’d be surprised how many people have done that. I had a lady who was an atheist that I was, I got a reputation of being a counselor. If you have a deep voice, people feel better if you say it’s going to be better. But she came to me and I really liked her, but she was an agnostic and she said to me one time after we had talked, she said, I don’t want you to ever, and she’s in heaven now, I think. She said, I don’t want you to ever tell people that I said this, but every night before I go to bed, the last thing I say before I sleep is goodnight Jesus. And you know, I don’t, she didn’t know what the four spiritual laws, well, she did after I shared them with her. But you know, I think there are people that are going to be in heaven that we’re going to, and there isn’t anything you do or make you so smart to make you a Christian. I mean, it’s all him and he hugs some crazy people. And we might be surprised at the people in our family, given God’s covenant, that’s a family covenant, how many of those people will be in heaven when we didn’t expect them.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s so true. Well, speaking of heaven, you know, Tim Keller is in heaven now and he used to say, he used to say something like, because the resurrection is true, everything’s going to be okay.

Steve Brown:
Good statement.

Pete Alwinson:
Good statement. And I think that pertains to the lot, the people that aren’t there. It’s going to be okay.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it is. Don’t know how, but it’s going to be okay. This is a interesting, you get this kind of question. Are we a triune being as God is made up of body, soul, and spirit? If so, what happens to the soul and spirit when our body expires?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Good question.

Steve Brown:
Well, first, I don’t believe we are.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay. And that, but that is a big theological area. You know, are we tripartite or dipartite? You know, are we body and soul? Or body, spirit, and soul. And I think some heresies have been created over the years by some teachers.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
If you try to get two immaterial parts of us.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. If you go too far in that, mostly that’s just a phrase that’s used to mean all of you.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Exactly. I agree.

Steve Brown:
And in the Old Testament, when God created Adam, Nephesh, he didn’t have a soul, he was a soul. So, throughout the Scripture, there is a kind of understanding that we’re not to be divided. We are a person and we are, if I say body, soul, mind, and spirit, I’m not giving you a theological statement whereby you can define each of those. I’m simply making a statement that all of me.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. But it is the Hebraic way of thinking. God made us body and soul.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
So eternity, in eternity, we will be body and soul.

Steve Brown:
That’s good. I mean, that doesn’t help much, but it’s true. Guys, we are glad you’re here, but we’ve got to go. First, I must say, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.