Key Life Network

Steve Brown: If Joseph wasn't Jesus' father, how was Jesus in the line of David? The answer to that on Key Life.

Voice Over: Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He's nobody's guru, but he does have honest answers to hard questions about the Bible. God's grace changes everything. How we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, and worship. Now, here's Steve and Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth with street smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. How are you doing?

Pete: I'm doing good, man. How are you doing?

Steve Brown: I'm doing good. I love your shirt. For those of you in our television audience, you know that Pete is wearing a really cool Forge shirt. And that's the name of the ministry you ought to check out. It's forgetruth.com. Check it out and you'll rise up and call me blessed.

And if you haven't read, or how's your new book coming along?

Pete: Hey, you know, really, it's it's in editing still. I'm still editing it. But it's done. It's done, virtually done. Almost done.

Steve Brown: Are you really?

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Brown: All right, well, let me know when it's out.

Pete: I will, I will. Yeah, we need.

Steve Brown: What's the title of it?

Pete: It is the five marks of manhood right now. That's what.

Steve Brown: All right. And if until that one comes out, if you haven't read Like Father, Like Son, you ought to get it. You'll like it a lot.

Pete comes in and we spend this time every Friday answering questions. And we love your questions. You can ask any question anytime if it is something that's on the back of your mind. Pick up the phone, call 1-800-KEYLIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433.

And then follow instructions and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your questions to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794.

In Canada, it's Key Life Canada, Post Office Box 2060, Waterloo, Ontario N2L6J8. Or you can email us at steve@keylife.org.

And if you can help us financially, please do. We are a member of ECFA in the states and Forcies in Canada. And those are credentialing organizations for ministries like ours. They check our books to make sure that we're ethical. We were ethical before they came along, so we still are. So we'll be faithful with your gift. If you can help us, be as generous as you can and you'll help a lot of people who simply can't.

And if you can't, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, speaking of prayer, pray for us and we'll get to your questions.

Pete: All right. Our great Father, what a joy to pause just for a moment and to thank you at the end of this week for who you are and what you are doing in our life. We thank you that you're not a God who is far away.

You are high and holy and lifted up, and we worship you. And yet you are imminent, nearby, even in us as your people by your Holy Spirit. And so we we honor you. We want to honor you with our bodies and our life. And at the end of this week, Lord, we know that we still have many needs.

Lord, we've worked hard, we're tired, we're emotionally drained. We need your restoration in Christ. And so we do pray, even as we come to the weekend, that we'd get some good family time, some rest time, as well as good worship time. Coming into your presence and listening to your word and singing hymns of praise and glory to your name. We need your glory in our lives.

We have many needs, you know them, and we lift those up to you right now and yet ask for your power and grace in our lives. Father, be with this time of Q&A. We commit it to you as we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen. Pete, this is an email. How was Jesus from the line of David if Joseph was not really his father?

Pete: That's a really good question, isn't it? So, how do you how do you answer that?

Steve Brown: Well, legally, when the scriptures point to the line of Joseph, legally, which passed through the father always. David, well, it did sometimes with the mother too. David was a part of Joseph's line.

But if you'll read Luke, you get another genealogy and that's Mary's. So God said, I'm going to do this legally and I'm going to do it biologically. And so in both cases, Jesus is. Why is it important that Jesus be in the line of David?

Pete: Hey, what you just said is one of the best explanations that people don't hear anymore.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete: That's good. Very good. That was good. You ought to do some radio or something sometime.

Steve Brown: Well, but seriously, why was it important?

Pete: Well, because God had prophesied from the Old Testament times that it would be the descendant of David, who would be the anointed one, who would be the savior of the world. So that line, that kingly Messianic line would come through David.

Steve Brown: And you know that has all kinds of implications that go beyond that. The choice of Israel by God as his own chosen people. And as God was saying, I didn't choose the Babylonians for a reason. And I'm going to show you something about lineage and how I keep this thing within this family.

And it has to do with God's sovereignty and what he taught.

Pete: That's right. So he chose chose the line, chose the people, protected the line, protected everyone.

Steve Brown: That's so true. Isn't that cool?

Pete: God's plans always are accomplished.

Steve Brown: And also, you got Christians who say, look, they only carry a New Testament.

Pete: Uh-huh.

Steve Brown: They say the Old Testament is no longer relevant. And our friend, mutual friend, Richard Pratt says that the New Testament is God's addendum to his book.

Pete: Uh-huh.

Steve Brown: And that's a good point.

Pete: Good way of putting it.

Steve Brown: But what God was saying in making this connection is that I haven't changed.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: This is a part of who I've been forever.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: And in the lineage, you see my hand in every name that's mentioned there.

Pete: That's right. That's right. Powerful. That's great stuff.

Steve Brown: Yeah, it is.

Pete: Read the Old Testament, read the new.

Steve Brown: This is a weird question. I bet you never heard this before. If Adam and Eve had a child before the fall, would that child have grown up without sin or would the child be with sin as all of creation has suffered?

Pete: One of my professors said at Bible college that's a question, the heresy of the hypothetical, right? Everywhere we go, we might get in trouble on this one, but so if they had had a child before the fall, that child would have not been fallen.

Steve Brown: That's true, but it's the heresy of the hypothetical. That never would have happened.

Pete: That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: And then since we're talking about it, they would have had to have the child before the fall.

Pete: That's right. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Yeah. I mean if they had it.

Pete: That's right. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Or the baby would be fallen just like everybody else.

Pete: That's right. That's right. So the reality is is that that's not what happened. We know that. But yeah, but but but clearly, you know, something would have happened. Eve fell and she was not the child of Adam. So theoretically, theoretically, again, we get in trouble with all this kind of stuff. We need Richard Pratt right here now as an Old Testament.

Steve Brown: To answer this question. That's right.

Pete: I know that's right. Richard, where are you? But I would say, I would say Eve fell too. So Adam fell, Eve fell, the child would have fallen.

Steve Brown: Yeah, I agree. There we go.

Pete: Well, that settles it.

Steve Brown: Yeah. Even if it never happened.

Pete: We've never gotten that question before.

Steve Brown: No, I've never heard that question before. This is an email too. We all know that Lucifer, Satan and one third of the angels. Does it say one third of angels?

Pete: Well, I can't get a verse on that, but.

Steve Brown: But you know it's a large number of them.

Pete: A lot of them. Yeah.

Steve Brown: One third of the angels were banished from heaven for their rebellion towards God. But I always thought that sin was not even allowed in heaven. How was this sin allowed to even occur? Could angels or any spirit in heaven still be rebellious toward God today?

Pete: Yeah, well, there's several questions there, right? How did God allow this sin? He obviously he obviously created the angelic realm with the possibility to fall, to rebel.

Steve Brown: And it it's the lapsarian thing again. You know, did God this was not a surprise to God.

Pete: No.

Steve Brown: I mean, God didn't say, I had such high hopes for those jerky angels and look what they've done. He was thinking about you, Pete. He was thinking about me when he ordained everything that has taken place including the fall of angels.

Because that was going to affect our salvation. And so that was a part of the permissive will of God in heaven before creation. That the angels were rebel. God wasn't surprised. Will they now? Well, if God decided that, no, they won't. But if God decided they would, they would. And there would be a good reason for it.

Pete: That that's I think that's a good way of putting it because we really don't have any biblical evidence to say that an angel today couldn't fall. I yeah.

Steve Brown: Maybe they could if God wanted them to.

Pete: It seems like scripture is set up to where that fall that happened, that angelic fall was a one-time event.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete: It does when you read Genesis to Revelation. It has that feel to it and that it's not possible for those who remained faithful to fall. It that seems like the tenor of scripture.

However, we don't have biblical evidence to prove that.

Steve Brown: And where the Bible doesn't speak, we shouldn't speak.

Pete: Yeah. So and really the the focus of scripture with a question like that reminds us that there is a demonic realm that is attacking us as as believers and unbelievers as well. And that we need to take seriously that demonic realm.

Steve Brown: It really is. You know, next summer I'm going to be doing a seminar at the Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center. And the subject is God, evil, sin and the devil. And the title of the seminar is The Tail Still Swishes.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: In other words, the dragon's been slain but the tail still swishes. So I've been doing a lot of research.

Pete: Good. Good for you.

Steve Brown: And I've been blown away. I mean, I think I don't think we give enough attention to that.

Pete: The demonic realm is much more on the surface these days.

Steve Brown: Yeah, I agree. A lot of evil and a lot of places that I didn't recognize. Guys, time for us to go, but first, let me say, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.