“Do I have to keep on confessing?”

Steve Brown:
“Do I have to keep on confessing?” 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 to the Bible that’ll make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good.

Pete Alwinson:
Good, good.

Steve Brown:
I don’t know if I’ve ever thanked you for coming. You know, you’ve been doing this for over 25 years.

Pete Alwinson:
Can you believe that?

Steve Brown:
Have I ever said thank you?

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. And thank you for the opportunity. This has been a blast, man.

Steve Brown:
It really has. That’s Pete Alwinson and if you want to know something about Pete, go to ForgeTruth.com. That’s an incredible ministry, making a difference in a whole lot of lives. ForgeTruth.com and if you’re a guy and you live in Central Florida, you might want to check out where the meetings are. You might want to be a part of, one of those, at any rate, ForgeTruth.com don’t you dare forget it, By the way, we love to get your questions. And we like to do our best. We’re not always so smart that we get all the answers, but we’re honest. And we love your questions. You can send them 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

You can also call 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s open, 24 7, and we record your question and sometimes put your voice on the air. And of course you can e-mail your question to [email protected]. And if you can help us financially, please do. We’ll be faithful with your gift. Nobody’s getting rich around here. If I could figure out how I would, but we are required by ECFA and CCCC Canada to be faithful with your gift and we would be anyway. So help us, if you can, if you can’t pray for us, we understand. And Pete, you pray for us and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
You’ve got it. Our Great God, we love you and we thank you as we come into your presence today, that you loved us first. And so, we give you honor and praise and glory. God you are good and righteous and holy, you’re also powerful, but you are loving as well. And so, we come to you, Lord as your people today because of Jesus and all that he has done for us and how you brought us to Him. And we do pray that Lord, you would meet us at the end of this week. Some of us are tired. Some of us are angry. Some of us are guilty. Some of us need forgiveness. Some of us, Lord, need to give forgiveness to other people and we’re bound up in our anger and hatred. And so, you know us and you know where we need your freedom. We need the release from our sin. And we thank you that Lord Jesus, you have done that and provided everything necessary to that end. May we celebrate that this week-end in worship and be with our leaders, we pray, all of them, who will stand before us and lead us. We ask your blessing upon them and blessing upon us as we come and meet together. And now we pray for this broadcast and the Q&A and Lord, we just ask, that you would bring good out of these questions. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. All right. First, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
Some evangelicals say that in order to maintain our relationship with the Lord, we need to ask God to forgive us whenever we knowingly sin. I don’t really see that in scripture, what I see is that we’re forgiven once and for all, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Steve Brown:
Well, in one sense, I agree with him. We don’t have to confess in order to maintain the relationship. The way most evangelicals teach that is that you confess your sin in order to maintain fellowship. I don’t believe that either, but I don’t believe what you believe either, sir. I just want you to know that.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay. So what, so where, where should we burn him at the stake? What’s the reason?

Steve Brown:
Well, he’s a heretic cause he’s not confessing and he’s missing one of the great joys of being a Christian. You know, if we confess our sins and this was written to believers by John. If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That’s called repentance and the Bible clearly teaches that all Christians, and not only are we to repent occasionally. We’re to live a life of a repentance cause it’s a life of power. And confession is, oh, thank heavens. I mean honestly, if I couldn’t confess man, I’d be suicidal.

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

Steve Brown:
I mean, I’ve got to have one place to go. I don’t have any secrets to God. I really don’t. And you don’t either. We’re both men of prayer. And one of the reasons is cause we’re men of sin. And if we, and if we couldn’t confess, I, you know, I wouldn’t want to be married, if I were a woman, I wouldn’t be married to you, sir. Cause you bottling up a lot of bad stuff and you know, we’re kidding you. I, that’s a legitimate question, and a legitimate statement.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. You make a great point though, when you say there’s, what hit me was this reality that if I don’t learn to confess to God, I won’t learn to confess to other people. In other words, it’s a process of this new life. It’s how we enter into a relationship with God and how we maintain it and continue it. But it does have effects with other people.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it does.

Pete Alwinson:
Because you’ve got to get grace when you repent.

Steve Brown:
Oh, you do. It makes us, it makes us winsome and vulnerable. And you’ll be surprised, you know, we have a tendency to think, that we’re the only ones, that nobody could be as bad as we are. . And, the great thing is to discover that everybody is as bad as we are. And the things that you thought, nobody else thought, everybody else thinks, and the sins they’re committing are the ones, you’re committing are the ones they’re committing. And it creates a fellowship of grace that is so important. You can’t do it unless you start with God.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
If you don’t confess. Is God, are you in trouble?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know the thing that, no, I mean, because it’s all dependent upon Jesus. But I think you will, I think you will be drawn, you’ll be drawn to your knees at time. And I think if you don’t, you are, recognize sin that leads to repentance, you’re fooling yourself and you may be whitewashing your own self out of your insecurity. And this is where grace, grace makes us incredibly authentic because we don’t have to play a game.

Steve Brown:
Oh. And it’s easy. You know, do you know that being self-righteous is harder than being self-aware?

Pete Alwinson:
It is. It’s an exhausting life.

Steve Brown:
Oh, it’s just awful. I, you know, I go there still and you know, it’s really exhausting. When you know you’re loved and accepted. No, you don’t have to confess every sin. You don’t know half of them.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But you live a life of being aware that that’s what you are and that you’re forgiven.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And we as preachers, we’re the worst at this cause we live six feet above contradiction, right? On the, on the platform.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. Give us a microphone. And then they shine a light on us. Man, it’s hard to be humble.

Pete Alwinson:
And tell us to be humble.

Steve Brown:
And tell us to be humble. That’s crazy. This is an e-mail. What did Jesus mean in John 3:8 when he said.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you can’t tell from whence comes or where it goes. So is everyone who is born again.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, how I see that is that I think in context, it’s really showing us that conversion of the heart for salvation is done by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the one who applies the work of Christ to our hearts. That’s how I would see this, but you never know how the, everybody’s saved and redeemed in a different way cause the Spirit of God is so unique, that we don’t.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
Do you see that?

Steve Brown:
No, I agree with that. I had a guy come to me one time who had just become a christian, he had run to Jesus. And he said, Steve, I have no idea what happened to me. And I don’t know how it happened to me, but I like it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I love that.

Steve Brown:
And that’s like the wind, you can’t define it or hold it or get it.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And you’re right. You know, it’s not just one way that you come to Christ, there are a hundred thousand ways that you come to Christ.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And that’s why when we, if we want to grow with brothers and sisters, ask them, Hey, how did, how did Jesus meet you? How did you meet Jesus? How did it happen? Because it’s all unique.

Steve Brown:
And I know the great stories.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is fantastic.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail too. Is the Apocrypha part of the Bible?

Pete Alwinson:
Not for Protestants. And not for us, in our opinion. I think there are a lot of good pious stories, that can convey Biblical ideas, generally speaking.

Steve Brown:
But we don’t as Protestants, believe that that’s a part of the canon.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And acceptable for reproof and teaching and growth in Christ, but it’s fun to read. And if you have an old family Bible, it probably has the Apochrypha in it. I was trying to think of, you know, some history to it. I can’t right now, but they’re interesting, intertestimental books.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And as you said, they’re good, interesting stories about,

Pete Alwinson:
like the Macabees, does give some intertestimental history, that is helpful, but there are some inaccuracies historically there too.

Steve Brown:
This is probably, we don’t have time to answer adequately. How can I determine God’s voice from Satan’s?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. Well, by double checking, what you’re thinking against the word of God is a good way.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And from brothers and sisters in Christ that are more mature than you are.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean, they could also send a thousand dollars to us with their questions.

Steve Brown:
Oh, we’ll do it.

Pete Alwinson:
And then we could do that.

Steve Brown:
We could do that for you.

Pete Alwinson:
It could be a new ministry we could do.

Steve Brown:
I know, I just thought of that. You have an entrepreneur’s heart.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, there it is.

Steve Brown:
I’m quite impressed.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m not sure if it’s grace based, but.

Steve Brown:
But it’s, you know, some things are clearly from God when they’re Biblical. I mean, if you feel called to love, you know that’s not Satan’s voice.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
If you’ve been called to kill, you know that came from the pit of hell.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. You know, the line that helps me is that evil is always willing to do the unthinkable because it’s willing to do that, which is unthinkable without a concern for the glory of God.

Steve Brown:
So true.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, if you’re having a tendency toward wanting to do something that might be considered evil or wicked, you know, don’t do it. It’s not God.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true. And that’s so good. In fact, I just took notes on it. One quick question, and then we’re out of here. What are the qualifications for church membership?

Pete Alwinson:
Number one would be to be a Christian.

Steve Brown:
That’s it.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, that’s it.

Steve Brown:
In fact, whenever we add to it, we’ve got to make sure that we’re not adding it for the wrong reason.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
You know, we want more committed church members, but listen, if you make it harder to get in the church than it is to get in heaven, you’ve made a horrible mistake.

Pete Alwinson:
In fact, once you accept Christ you’re in that church universal.

Steve Brown:
Exactly. Hey, we’ve got to go. But first, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.