“How do you put ‘Thou shalt not kill’ alongside the military?”

Steve Brown:
How do you put ‘Thou shalt not kill’ alongside the military? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us. But there’s a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey Steve.

Steve Brown:
Hey, listen, we talked last week about you’re giving some help at Forge to guys all across the country who would like to have a men’s ministry in their church. That you’ll help them with setting it up, what’s needed to be done. They just got to go to ForgeTruth. com and click on that information.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Another thing that you told me this morning, you said that at Forge, you’re teaching the Book of Revelation right now.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s very practical, isn’t it?

Steve Brown:
Why is that?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, it’s practical because it shows the cycles of history. And some of the cycles we’re in and why there is pushback on the church even. And understanding the role of big government, that is called the beast. And so, it’s real practical.

Steve Brown:
And you said when we were talking that the church was the most important institution in the world.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it is, because as the people of God, we are the conduit of salvation. In the Old Testament, Israel was the conduit of the Messiah, Messiah’s come. And now we, Jew and Gentile, believers in Messiah, are the main kingdom that is spreading the grace of God.

Steve Brown:
Can people, if they go to ForgeTruth, can they get that teaching?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh yeah, sure, yeah. Just go to ForgeTruth.Com and go to our videos and you’ll get them.

Steve Brown:
There you go. ForgeTruth.com I’ve been telling you about it a long time and you never listen to me. If you do now, you’ll be glad you did. As you know, Pete comes in every Friday and we answer questions. And we love your questions. You can ask your question anytime you want, 24 7, by dialing 1-800-KEY-LIFE and then follow instructions, record your question and sometimes we put that on the air,. Or you can send your question 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 your question to [email protected] and if you do think about giving a gift, a financial gift to Key Life. We realize that some of you are not called to do that, and some of you can’t, and we understand that. But if you can, pray about it and be generous, and I promise we’ll be faithful with your gift. We are a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations oversee our books. to make sure that we’re ethical. And we were ethical before they came along, but you can rest assured that we’re credentialed. So, if you can help us, if you can’t say a prayer. Pete, why don’t you pray for us and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Our Father, our Great God, we come into your presence today and we worship you and we thank you for who you are. And we remember that you are the God who created all things that are good, that you not only create but you provide, that you protect, that you care, you are merciful, you are loving, you know all. And Lord, we can trust you because you are our only Redeemer, Lord Jesus. So, you know us, and Lord, as we tend to trust ourselves right now, we ask that you would help us to trust you. We give you our issues right now, Lord, even at the end of this week, there’s a lot of unanswered questions and issues in our life. And we give our problems to you right now. Lead us and guide us in the way we should go. Counsel us with your eye upon us. And we pray for our military and we thank you for our warriors in all branches of our service here and pray that you protect them, Lord. And enable us to support them in prayer as well. Thank you for Key Life and this time of Q&A, we pray in your holy name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, this is an e-mail. Did Moses or anyone else ever really see God’s face?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, well, Moses had to turn his back. He could see the backside of God.

Steve Brown:
But he got closer than anybody else.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, he sure did, didn’t he? Yeah. Amazing.

Steve Brown:
Show me yourself. And you better be careful when you pray that because that’s a lot bigger thing than you think it is.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. It is. We tend to downsize God and Moses went into his tent and God showed up and he came out glowing.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. You know, God is kind and merciful and he knows that he’s infinite and we’re finite, that he’s big and we’re little, that he’s eternal and we tarry, but just a little while. So, He sent Jesus. So, a lot of people saw the face of Jesus.

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

Steve Brown:
And that was a kindness, among other things, that was a kindness from a sovereign, Holy, separate God.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And man, we ought to rejoice in that particular fact.

Pete Alwinson:
So, even though people say, I haven’t seen God, if you will go to the Gospels, right? What does John say?

We beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.

Just read the Gospels and just drink in Jesus.

Steve Brown:
So good. Hey, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
One of the commandments is, shall not kill, yet we have our military men and women who go overseas, and they kill. So, does that mean they’re going to be condemned to hell because they killed?

Steve Brown:
You know, there are those who will say yes, and they become pacifists, and you can’t kill even an ant. That’s not what that commandment means. A better translation is, thou shalt not murder. And if you remember that’s what it’s talking about, then the issue with military, with capital punishment, in terms of protection the police provide us, all of those issues resolve.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, you’re right. Under duly authorized government is generally how Christians have looked at this. And there is a whole spate of literature on what are called just wars. And I do, I’m one, and I think you agree that there are some just wars. However, there are many unjust wars, too.

Steve Brown:
It’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
And as we elect high government officials, I think we as Christians ought to look into that much more, because it does put our military men and women into harm’s way, potential their loss of life, but also of doing harm in ways they shouldn’t.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
We should not be involved in every war.

Steve Brown:
But some wars, in terms of how the church has defined that, using Scripture, there are wars that are just. It’s hard to make a case for absolute pacifism from Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
It is. It really is difficult. Yes. For sure.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, but you can clearly make a case for not murdering people.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. You know, and murder is taking, is revenge in your own right and playing God’s role. Whereas, a capital punishment, for instance, under the duly authorized process of a government is authorized in Scripture.

Steve Brown:
Moving out from that, I’ve said often, I get criticized every time I do it, that we also, if you’re a gun person, you can use the gun to defend and protect those who are innocent. And I’ve said if you’re a Christian and you’re persecuted for that, you’ve got to take it. But if it’s random violence, you can shoot those suckers and get away with it Biblically. There’s a sense that’s not murder, that’s defense.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s defense. Right.

Steve Brown:
Different kind of thing.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s good.

Steve Brown:
Okay. This is an e-mail. Did our souls exist before we were conceived? Were we with God before he created us? Are we truly eternal? Are we forever going forward from conception? The answer to the question, did we exist before we were conceived? No.

Pete Alwinson:
No.

Steve Brown:
Let’s go to another question.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Well, maybe we ought to talk about that a little bit.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s clearly put in Scripture, right? Psalm 139.

Steve Brown:

That we were conceived in my mother’s womb.

That’s the creation that takes place and we did not exist until then. And anybody who tells you different, multiple lives coming back and trying to get it right, they’re lying to you.

It’s pointed unto man to die once and after that the judgment.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And you’ve got to deal with that fact, even if it’s a hard fact.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right. So, even though we are known as real beings in God’s mind before the foundation of the world. We do not exist before the foundation of the world.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. He knew, and not only did he know our names before he ever created us, he knew our sins.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
He knew our temptations. He knew our failures. He knew our successes. He knew everything about us.

Pete Alwinson:
He knew what he was going to infuse into us.

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
Gifts and talents. You play the guitar. Jeremy, our producer, is quite a musician. I don’t have any of that.

Steve Brown:
Listen, I don’t either. I think I do, but my friends say, nah, put it aside. Don’t do that. Okay. Let me see, this is, Oh, this is good. This is an e-mail. Where are, what are the legitimate reasons for leaving a particular church?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Controversial. What do you think?

Steve Brown:
Well, if you don’t like the way the pastor parts his hair, that’d be a good reason. Or maybe you just don’t like the music that’s there. That’d be a good reason. Or you have somebody that you don’t like who sits in a pew in front of you, that would be a good reason. Don’t you think?

Pete Alwinson:
I, yes, Steve. Those are, you should write a book on that.

Steve Brown:
The reasons for, I’m being facetious of course.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right, right, right.

Steve Brown:
Seriously.

Pete Alwinson:
I would think a couple of things that stand out, given the pastoral epistles, if a church is moving away from sound Biblical doctrine, and is unrepentant when confronted about that, or if there’s immorality among their leadership and it’s unrepentant and they won’t move away from it. Those are really two of the biggest, I would say. But stylistic, there’s a lot of the stylistic things that happen as churches change, as culture changes, or you might want to move on to another church.

Steve Brown:
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just not a good fit for you.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
But listen, do it the right way.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Talk to the pastor, pray about it. Make sure that people know you’re not angry and you’re not making an obscene gesture at the church when you leave.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
And so, there are those are legitimate and understandable reasons.

Pete Alwinson:
I agree, have integrity with it, you might say something like we have a new pastor and he’s a great guy, preaches the word, but we’re going in a direction that’s different from what I prefer and feel God wants us to go

Steve Brown:
Yeah, and that’s good. And a pastor who’s worth his salt, I used to take it personally when they died. When they left, man, I was suicidal. Hey, we’ve got to go. You know, that’s a good way to end this broadcast. But first, it’s important that I say to you that Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.