“Why has Jesus not returned?”

Steve Brown:
Why has Jesus not returned? 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. Hello Peter.

Pete Alwinson:
How you doing, man?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing good. I really am. You know, since I was not a pastor, ever since I’ve not been a pastor, I’ve looked forward to Fridays.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
When I was a pastor, that was the beginning of my depression.

Pete Alwinson:
Because you’ve got a gear up.

Steve Brown:
Oh yeah. And you know, man, everybody else is out having fun on the week-end and we have to stay with our nose up to a typewriter or computer, putting together a sermon that we’re not sure is even going to make it.

Pete Alwinson:
So, pray for your pastor every week-end.

Steve Brown:
So, pray for your pastor, whatever you do. That’s Pete Alwinson. And you can find out more about Pete and his ministry. It’s an incredible ministry to men. And those men meet in groups around Orlando. And if you’re anywhere near Central Florida, you might want to check out that website and become an in person involver, in that particular ministry, which is called Forge. And the website again, ForgeTruth.com Pete comes in on Fridays and we answer questions. And we genuinely look forward to this time and your questions. You can ask any question and the only dumb one’s the one you don’t ask. You can pick up your phone, dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE and follow instructions and ask your question, 24 7. Sometimes we put your voice on the air. You can send your question 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 send your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, please do. I promise that when you do that, we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can’t, we understand. Do pray for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you pray, and then we’ll turn to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray together. Well, Our Father, we come into your presence today and, what a privilege to be able to communicate with you, sit before you, to listen to you, but also to pour out our heart to you. And so, we honor you, our great God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Lord, you know the way this week’s been, and some of us are really tired. Some of us are frustrated, angry. Some of us are just glad for the week-end. And so, you know us and you know our needs. And Lord, we bring those to you. We bring you the heavy heart, the happy heart, and the needy heart, Lord. And we just ask that you continue to do in our lives what you want done. Help us to, as we read your word and listen to you, to hear your voice. Lead us and guide us in the way we should go. Counsel us with your eye upon us. And be with our leaders this week-end, as we head toward worship, we’re going to be there in person, Lord. And we ask that you would enable us to honor you, to hear your voice, to worship you, and to be set free and freer and freer because of the gospel. Receive this time of a Q&A as a gift, we pray and ask for your power in your holy name. Amen.

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

Caller 1:
Why do you think that it’s taking God so long to come back?

Steve Brown:
I’m not exactly sure, but part of that is because He’s given us time to do some really important things, that He, in fact the Scripture says that. That He doesn’t delay in the way you think of that, but because of His mercy bringing in as many of the sheep as he can bring in and having time to do that, he’s going to wait until we’re all where we’re supposed to be. We’re all home.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm hmm. Yeah. So good. Yeah, you know, that is, his view of time is just completely different from ours because he’s outside of time. But his will is good and acceptable and perfect, Paul tells us. So, we do rest in his timing on everything in our own life, but also in those cosmic things, where he’s going to, but he is going to implement his plan. And the Book of Revelation shows us that there will be a completion.

Steve Brown:
Absolutely. And you know, I think that this whole thing was designed for two purposes. One, that every believer could say, it could be today. And find reasons for it because the signs of his coming are extant almost all the time, the wars and rumors of wars and those kinds of things. And secondly, that he halts and waits because the time will be right when it happens, and we don’t know when it is.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Neither did Jesus.

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

Steve Brown:
He could have known if He had wanted. But he said, you know, even nobody knows.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, and that real immanency that it could happen anytime is a major New Testament approach to life for us, is a real gospel approach is, to live each day as if this could be the time, this could be the day and to live with that level of purpose and repentance and focus.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And not to tell God what to do. I think what prompts a question like this is we see so much evil, so much lying, so much bad stuff, so much hurt. We want pain to go away, and we want the establishment, finally, of the visible kingdom of God.

Steve Brown:
So true. I often pray, Lord, today would be a good day to come back. It really would be, wouldn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely.

Steve Brown:
I mean, things… Did you ever think things were going to be this bad?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. I don’t think we ever

Steve Brown:
And this fast.

Pete Alwinson:
No, I know, it’s crazy. And when you read history, and you and I have read a lot of history, we know, you know, World War II was bad, World War I before that was bad. But these days are very bad.

Steve Brown:
They really are. Then why are we laughing?

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
We know because we know Jesus.

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

Steve Brown:
I mean, we’ve seen the movie. We know how it’s going to end. All right. This is an e-mail. Do you believe in the filling of the Holy Spirit? You know, that’s interesting. Most questions asked about the Holy Spirit, are phrased. Do you believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit? And this one is, do you believe in the filling of the Holy Spirit?

Pete Alwinson:
And that’s sort of a softball, because Ephesians 4:30 says.

Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. So, of course we do.

Pete Alwinson:
We do. Absolutely. It’s New Testament teaching.

Steve Brown:
You know, I guess maybe this would be a good time to talk a little bit about that. There are Christians, and they are brothers and sisters in Christ, and so we’re not throwing rocks, but who teach that there are two workings of grace, that one is when you’re saved, and another is when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit. And generally, these are Charismatics and Pentecostals, they believe that that is usually, maybe all the time, accompanied by the speaking in tongues, which is a sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, I personally don’t have trouble with that, I just think the language is wrong. If you change it to the filling of the Holy Spirit, and drop the stuff about second working of grace and talk about a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth, then I could go there. Well, if you stick in the tongues, I don’t think you have to do that. But we’re not so far apart, we both believe that the Holy Spirit works in the life of the believer and that he fills the life of the believer, because we’re commanded to be filled by the Holy Spirit.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. With that command to be filled with the Spirit comes the reality that we can be filled with the Spirit and that what hinder, anything that hinders the filling or the full working of the Spirit has to be, you know, gotten out of our life. You know, we can’t cherish sin and rebellion and expect that God is, God does bless us anyway, but expect that we would be filled with him, not if we’re trying to be filled with other things.

Steve Brown:
Do you know, do you remember when Dr. Bill Bright would talk about how to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, he had an interesting way of going about it.

Steve Brown:
Well, and it was, it was really good. My wife, Anna, years ago heard that lecture and told Dr. Bright, you know, that changed my life. So, he talks about spiritual breathing. You confess the things you were just talking about, the sins, the places where you’re out of whack with God, you breathe that out, and then because you’re commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you breathe in. He called it spiritual breathing. And I don’t know if that metaphor works all the time, it was quite helpful for the Christian.

Pete Alwinson:
I think it conveys what has to happen, something’s got to go so that he can fill us.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And that’s a good thing.

Pete Alwinson:
I like that idea. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And so, when you’re baptized, there’s only one baptism.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
So, don’t call it that, call it filling.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
And do the other things I told you to do and we’ll be all right.

Pete Alwinson:
Then you’re on the right path.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I’m right and you’re wrong. What, this is an e-mail. What Bible translation do you use?

Pete Alwinson:
What is the most and best accurate, well, most, I think, I use the ESV mostly, but the New American Standard and the ESV are my two go tos.

Steve Brown:
One because it’s quite literal.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. In fact, the New American Standard is English as it’s never been spoken. It’s so literally wooden to the original text. The ESV is a little bit more how we speak English today. NIV, how we really speak English.

Steve Brown:
And they’re all good, you know,

Pete Alwinson:
Those are good translations.

Steve Brown:
I have a friend who says that they can even find a plan of salvation in a cultic translation of the Bible. And so, when they sit down with that cult to argue, they use their Bible translation and win the arguments. And that’s just to say that there’s enough in every translation to change your life and to draw you to Christ. So, use one of the great translations and spend time in it. It’ll make a difference.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. That’s good.

Steve Brown:
That’s it. We could sing a hymn.

Pete Alwinson:
And that would really end the show, might end it permanently.

Steve Brown:
Or I could ask you to close in prayer since you opened in prayer, we’re out of here. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.