Key Life Network

Steve Brown: Thank you Matthew.

Guest (Male): Hey Pete. Hey.

Guest (Male): I can understand you now. I mean, we're post the tower, but I can understand you.

Steve Brown: I mean we speak the same language. That's dangerous.

Guest (Male): It is. It is.

Steve Brown: Because we'll start thinking we're God.

Steve Brown: And then that's not a good thing.

Guest (Male): It is not, especially when you have a voice like you have. People think God is calling them.

Steve Brown: Well, and if you're good looking like the way I am too.

Guest (Male): That go hand in hand. It's it's irrepressible.

Steve Brown: That's Pete Alwinson. By the way, if you haven't checked out fortruth.com, you ought to.

Steve Brown: And we pretty much answered the question on the Tower of Babel in our initial comments. But we'll have some more to say about that as we go along.

Steve Brown: By the way, we love your questions.

Steve Brown: You can call 1-800 Key Life 24/7.

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Steve Brown: Actually, we really are very faithful with your gifts. I know that a lot of you support us financially, and you can rest easy that we really do honor God with your gifts in the ministry that we do.

Steve Brown: So if you can help us financially, do. If you can't, say a prayer for this ministry. Both will be appreciated.

Steve Brown: Pete, why don't you lead us in prayer and we'll get to these questions.

Guest (Male): All right, let's pray together.

Guest (Male): Our holy God, we do come into your presence today. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as your children, we can say it's been a long week and and we're thankful for a moment just to pause and to think about you and to ask you to continue to invade our hearts and minds with your grace and mercy and peace.

Guest (Male): Lord, we confess our sins. You know them. And Lord, we've been separated from you, maybe some of us for longer than we want to be, but we come back home. We confess and we ask that you would continue to forgive and work and develop us as your children.

Guest (Male): Thank you that ultimately that you've got us in the palm of your hand, that you've called us and you will never let us go. And we pray that that level of grace would reach deep into our hearts.

Guest (Male): And even this weekend as we worship you, we pray that that sense that we are yours forever would comfort us, encourage us. Be with our leaders and priests and pastors and teachers and all those that will lead us. Give them your grace to expound your word and lead us in worship.

Guest (Male): We commit our time of Q&A to you now, as we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen.

Steve Brown: Let's go to our phone lines.

Guest (Female): I was listening to the program today and they were saying we have different nationality.

Guest (Female): And from my understanding, when God was trying to build a tower to, I think it's Babel, trying to build the Tower of Babel to reach heaven, God looked down and said it wasn't nothing left to man imagination that they can't accomplish.

Guest (Female): And for my understanding, I may be wrong. He used to speak one language. He split our tongue and at that time the continents were together and the continents came apart. So if you understood what one person was saying, that group went with that person.

Guest (Female): And then I believe he changed our DNA. But anyway, God bless you. Bye-bye.

Steve Brown: That leads to all kinds of thoughts, and thanks for your question.

Guest (Male): Yes, ma'am.

Steve Brown: You don't lose what the main thing is about that.

Steve Brown: I mean, what you said about cultures and different cultures and different languages, that's another discussion and there's something to that.

Steve Brown: There there and the church is universal and incorporates all of them.

Steve Brown: But the issue in the Tower of Babel was pride.

Steve Brown: It was, we're doing God's stuff. We may be God. We're all together. We got power, we got money, we've been blessed. It's the same thing that Jesus talked about with a man who had so many crops and wanted to build bigger barns.

Steve Brown: God said to him, today your life is required. What are you going to do with those barns?

Steve Brown: In the Tower of Babel, he said, today you're going to lose all of this.

Steve Brown: What are you going to do about your life?

Steve Brown: So don't forget that. That's important.

Guest (Male): That's right.

Guest (Male): That's right. And well said. I mean, I and a lot of people don't realize what that was all about.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Guest (Male): It was that human tendency to replace God with human empires.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Guest (Male): It is. And human empires have been coming ever since, and people thought of them as God replacements.

Steve Brown: Yeah. Really, I know.

Steve Brown: And so don't go there.

Guest (Male): That's right.

Steve Brown: That's enough.

Steve Brown: What do you think of church standards? Should we have them?

Guest (Male): Yeah, and I think they mean that like different denominations might have their their book of order or their their their standards.

Guest (Male): Principles of leadership.

Steve Brown: Or maybe a confession that's a part of the standards.

Guest (Male): Yeah, right. And I think that the church has always done that. The church has always tried to put down clearly what we ought to be. But every local expression of the body of Christ has the right to set up, we think, principles about which they, as long as they're biblical, that they can operate by.

Steve Brown: And you but you do have to be careful. I you can go wild over standards.

Guest (Male): Sure can.

Steve Brown: I had an elder who became an elder after he joined the church, and he said, it's easier to get into heaven than it is to get into this church.

Steve Brown: Because there were so many false standards that weren't there.

Steve Brown: And so we have to be careful that we don't require women to have their hair cut in a certain way and guys to wear a tie and no no smoking, no drinking and no friends who do smoke or drink. You can go crazy about that kind of thing.

Steve Brown: But when you come back to biblical standards, I think there is that, and I think it's important that we do it.

Steve Brown: And I think also it's important we discipline around those standards.

Steve Brown: And I don't like that. I don't like it at all.

Steve Brown: But the discipline isn't for the violation of the standards, but for lack of repentance over the violation of the standards.

Guest (Male): That's right.

Guest (Male): That's right. And you know, the church of Jesus Christ is called to be in a sense that fulfillment of the peculiar people of the people of the Old Testament, right? We are God's called out ones, and we're to model his glory and his goodness.

Guest (Male): And and if we're living like a fallen corrupt world, that is not sending the right message about who God is.

Steve Brown: Agreed. So yeah, standards are good. We get that.

Steve Brown: This is interesting. Where did the term mother nature come from? Should we use that term as a Christian?

Guest (Male): I think Steve, and honestly, first came up in the butter commercial. It's not it's not right to fool Mother Nature.

Steve Brown: Yeah, right.

Guest (Male): I don't know when that came up, but that that was my first thought and that that's reflective of my age. But that is an interesting.

Guest (Male): To trace I have never traced that back, so I can't say when did that that go back, but it certainly in one form or another has to go back into ancient antiquity.

Steve Brown: I agree. And and it's heresy and it's not true.

Guest (Male): Right.

Steve Brown: And it's wrong.

Steve Brown: There was a big sign. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina.

Steve Brown: And when my mother was living, I was there a lot because whenever I was speaking somewhere, I would arrange to have a flight going into Asheville, and I'd spend time with her. We were riding down a highway and there was a big sign up said, "Be nice to your mother."

Guest (Male): Ah.

Steve Brown: And it showed a world.

Guest (Male): Uh-huh.

Steve Brown: And I went I I was it really ticked me off.

Steve Brown: And my mother said, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "Because you're my mother. The world's not my mother."

Steve Brown: And so we got to be careful about where we go with that sort of thing.

Guest (Male): She was pleased, I'm sure.

Steve Brown: Yeah, that's right.

Steve Brown: Is my salvation in jeopardy if I don't do the commandments of God?

Steve Brown: I know that once I'm saved, God works in me to change my heart so that my actions will line up with his word. But if I don't obey every command and just accept Jesus as my savior, am I going to hell?

Guest (Male): No, we're going we're going to heaven because of the faith that we put in Christ's finished work. And you can't add to that.

Steve Brown: No, but you got to be careful when you go down this road though.

Guest (Male): That's right. That's right. Because it'd be easy to say, well, like Paul interacted with those people in the book of Romans. What shall we say? Shall we continue with sin that grace might increase? Hey, I used to sin and now I got grace in Christ, should I continue to sin, so I can get more grace? No.

Steve Brown: No. No, it doesn't work that way.

Steve Brown: And I and I think that what happens in the life of the believer is that the reality this person is referring to is often there. We struggle, we blow it, but I'll tell you something. Every time we're there, we live a life of repentance.

Steve Brown: And a life of repentance means a life of agreeing with God about what's right and what's wrong, what's evil and good, what's his and what's not.

Guest (Male): That's right. Yeah, so when John tells us to confess our sins, it's the word is agreeing with God. Like you said, that really when we confess our sins, we're just saying the same thing that he already knows.

Steve Brown: That's true. That's very true.

Guest (Male): So we shouldn't cover it up.

Steve Brown: So rest in it but don't be careful because you can go down that road and become antinomian.

Guest (Male): That's right. I can do whatever I want. Great grace energizes God.

Steve Brown: It does.

Steve Brown: How does God's sovereignty square with the free will of man?

Guest (Male): Wish we understood that completely.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Steve Brown: If you understand it, give us a call and we'll do a book together and make a fortune. It's an antinomy, that's two truths that don't fit. But they're both true and you know they're true.

Steve Brown: Now if you were Jewish, you wouldn't have any trouble with it. That's a break. But we're Aristotelian and Greeks, and everything's got to fit into a nice little system. And that doesn't.

Guest (Male): Mm-hm.

Steve Brown: And so I don't.

Guest (Male): With God, it makes sense, but he's infinite and we're not.

Steve Brown: That's true. So just deal with it. Okay.

Steve Brown: Hey listen, thank you so much for spending this time with us. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Steve Brown: And we'll do it again next Friday and hope you can join us then.

Steve Brown: One other thing before we go, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.