“Why don’t churches do what Jesus says to do?”

Steve Brown:
“Why don’t churches do what Jesus says to do?” 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 from the Bible that’ll make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey!

Steve Brown:
How are you?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m here. I’m here. And you’re here, buddy. You doing all right? There is a Shekinah glow. Well.

Steve Brown:
It’s my baldness.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s the light off your head.

Steve Brown:
We can turn off,. That’s right. People like to have me on television because they save on lighting. They just shine a light on my bald head.

Pete Alwinson:
Amen.

Steve Brown:
But I’m doing good. Just so you know, we have been sitting here a long, we record a number of these programs at a sitting. And this is the last one for today.

Pete Alwinson:
Getting a little giddy.

Steve Brown:
As the horse heads for the barn. That’s Pete Alwinson and the ministry that he heads up, to which he has been called, is one of the finest men’s ministries in America. It’s called FORGE. And if you want to find out about it, go to ForgeTruth.com. If you’re in Central Florida, you ought to go to that website because you can find out where there would be a meeting of Forge near you, and you will thank me for having told you about it. As you know, Pete comes in and we answer questions every Friday. And we mean it. We really love your questions, 24 7, when you have a question, pick up your phone and dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE record your question, and it’s really easy. And we sometimes put your voice on the air. Or you can send your questions to

Key Life Network

P.O. Box 5000

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if you live in Canada, it’s

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

or you can e-mail us your questions to [email protected]. And you know I’m going to say it, if you’re going to help us financially, please do. This is an expensive ministry and nobody’s getting rich doing it. We don’t have planes we fly around in and nobody drives a Mercedes, well, one guy drives a Mercedes, but it’s 80 years old. So, we promise that when you help us financially, we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And we certainly understand when you can’t, do say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, lead us in prayer, and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Merciful Father, we come into your presence on this Friday, and what a joy it is to pause and to pray. Thank you that because of your work, our Lord Jesus, we have access to the Triune God and that we can bring our requests to you. So, we thank you. We praise you for being the God of grace and mercy, the God of all power, all knowledge, all wisdom, all salvation. And we put our hope and our trust in you right now, Lord, you know us. And at the end of the week, you know, we often have many issues that bubble up in our mind, the unsettled issues of the week, the problems with friends and family, the financial, the physical issues. Lord, some of your people listening now simply need healing in their bodies. and encouragement in their hearts. And so, we come to you and we ask that you would provide for us, Lord, what we can’t provide for ourselves. Give us this daily bread. And yet Lord, we ask that you would be honored and glorified in our lives. Be with our spiritual leaders this week-end as we gather for worship, Lord, all of them, be energizing them, filling them with your Spirit, that they could lead us to the throne of grace and give you praise. And now, we commit this time of Q&A and we ask that you would be glorified in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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

Caller 1:
Why does churches not obey the commands of our Lord. In I Corinthians chapter 14, starting with verse 26. Instructions for orderly worship.

Where two or three should speak in tongues, if there’s no interpreter, they should speak themselves and God only. Two or three prophets or spiritually gifted men should speak, and a woman’s asked her own husband at home. These are the commands of our Lord.

And I want to know why they’re not obeyed?

Steve Brown:
Well, you sound angry. I hope you’re not my pastor. I just, as a matter of fact, if the Bible is right about how we are, we don’t do a lot of things that God tells us to do. And if we did, we wouldn’t need the cross. And you can tell how bad something is by what it takes to fix it? And it took the blood of God’s own Son to fix you, sir. And so, as long as you put yourself in the same place, we can talk.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s good. That kind of laid it right out there.

Steve Brown:
Well, I did, and I understand where he’s coming from.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And I think there’s something to be said for that. I think our charismatic brothers and sisters, they have the fire I wish we Presbyterians had, but you also have some admonishments on how to worship. And they’re throughout Scripture. It’s not just the passage that was quoted at that time. There are a lot of passages on proper worship that should take place of a Holy God. And if you’re charismatic or Pentecostal, and most of my Pentecostal and charismatic friends understand that, and have made those rules as a part of public worship. You can’t just stand up and start talking in tongues unless there’s somebody to interpret. And in fact, I have one Pentecostal pastor friend, who got into trouble because he told this woman to sit down because there was no interpretation. So, yeah, we’re a wild bunch and we do things wrong. We have an argument among our people about whether you can do anything that isn’t particularly mentioned in Scriptures proper, which, and they don’t like drums, and they don’t like guitars, and they don’t like tambourines. It’s called, what is that, the something principle?

Pete Alwinson:
The regulative principle.

Steve Brown:
Regulative principle, that’s right. So, everybody fights about this, and I don’t think God is that upset or is upset as we are. We do it wrong.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. You know, and his point, why don’t they obey the clear teachings of Scripture? Why don’t all of us sometimes not obey the clear teaching of Scripture, that’s what you said.

Steve Brown:
And you do most of the time, we’re ordained.

Pete Alwinson:
Don’t try this at home. But, you know, we, generally speaking, I think, from our perspective, we try to follow the word on how things ought to be done in the church to do things decently in an order. Some of my, in this regard, in the text he referenced, we’ve seen many who are of the Pentecostal backgrounds, our brothers and sisters, charismatic friends, they are doing things more and more, according to Scripture. We have seen, they tell me they’re trying to be more Biblical in all of this, and that’s great. And so, what we need is not to be angry at one another, but we do need to love each other and pray for each other, that we would all be more Biblical. And, you pray that for me, I’ll pray that for you. But he’s right to call us to follow the Scripture regarding the church.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And I was just kind of harsh because he has a voice like mine. My wife says I sound angry when I’m not.

Pete Alwinson:
No, it was good. You know, I mean, I thought, he seemed angry.

Steve Brown:
But I’m that way too, so maybe he wasn’t. But, and it was a good question, it needs to be addressed.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, yeah. We struggle with these things.

Steve Brown:
All right, I’m going to do this in a very kind, soft voice.

Pete Alwinson:
All right.

Steve Brown:
Because it’s my voice, and it’s an e-mail, so this is what he says.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay.

Steve Brown:
Or she says. Or, no, I’m not going to go there. I am absolutely, depends on how, never mind. I am absolutely at rock bottom on the issue of my deep sense of sinfulness. I struggle with and lose the same battles on a daily basis. God is very quick to point out when I’ve sinned, but I never have a sense of being forgiven when I agree, confess my sin. What can I do about it? That’s an honest question.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s so honest and it’s really what we’re, what the gospel is essentially about, and what Key Life’s about. And I, my heart goes out to this brother or sister and I think that you’re not alone, number one.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And number two, there’s maybe not across the board, but some of us have one or two things that we come back to

Steve Brown:
besetting

Pete Alwinson:
besetting sins, either that we do, that is hard to break free from, or something that we’ve done in the past that we aren’t doing again, that is such a big issue.

Steve Brown:
It’s still on.

Pete Alwinson:
And Satan is just throwing jet fuel on it. And I think we need to kind of process that a little bit. And one time I was confessing something like that, that had happened long time ago. And I wasn’t, I don’t do it anymore and I’d done it. And I started to confess it. And I felt like he was in, he said, son, I’ve heard that before and I’ve forgiven you.

Steve Brown:
So, quit bringing it up.

Pete Alwinson:
Quit bringing it up. And it was like, okay, all right. And then I was able to focus,

Steve Brown:
There’s freedom to that.

Pete Alwinson:
that I was his deeply beloved son.

Steve Brown:
Now, the person who asked this question needs to understand that there’s something going on here that isn’t Biblical. If you don’t feel forgiven, that’s not true. You’re going against exactly what Scripture, and so your feelings are going contrary to what reality is. You are forgiven.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And if you, if it’s a constant thing of guilt, you ought to check on past issues and to see what, have you been demeaned? Were you in an abusive situation? Have there been sexual things that were directed at you that were painful? Those kinds of issues often create an ongoing sense of unworthiness and guilt. And sometimes you have to work that out with somebody who is mature, maybe a counselor to talk about.

Pete Alwinson:
I totally agree. What you said is so good. It really is this overwhelming sense of shame. Guilt is I did wrong. Shame is I am wrong. I did bad, I am bad. And that shame is what so often wipes us out as Christians.

Steve Brown:
And it’s not Biblical, there’s no reason for a Christian, Biblically and theologically and doctrinally to feel that. So, if you feel that, something’s wrong, not that you’re a greater sinner, but you got the grace wrong. So, tell Satan to leave you alone.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
We’ve got to go. Hey guys, we’re going to leave right now. Thanks so much for joining us for these programs. I also have to say, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.