“What about Diabetes and fasting.”

Steve Brown:
What about Diabetes and fasting? The answer to that, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes. Then this program probably isn’t for you, but if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author, and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey, happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday to you too.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
You know, I’m going to let our listeners in on something. You’ve got to listen very carefully to what Pete and I say in this broadcast. We are sitting in a studio when everybody else is at home, battening down the hatches cause we’re facing another hurricane. That would be the second within a couple of months. So, we could die and we’re not going to lie to you. We’re going to tell you the truth of that. But at any rate, we record these way in advance and unless something particular comes up that they are time sensitive, but I did want you to know that we’re answering your questions scared. When you’re scared, you tell the truth, right?

Pete Alwinson:
We’ve got a crystal clear mind right now. Oh man.

Steve Brown:
Man, we are so good, you know. So, we’re looking out and the trees are beginning to bend and the rain is beginning to come, and we love Jesus enough and you. No, that’s not truthful when you’re about ready to die. We love Jesus some and we love you some. And we decided to come in here and record because if we didn’t, there were problems that you wouldn’t believe.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And this might be the last time we talk to you before heaven.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. You never know. That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way, and we’re kidding around, sort of. And, you ought to go to ForgeTruth.com. And if you’re a guy and you live anywhere in Central Florida, you might want to be involved with Forge. It is an amazing ministry and their podcast is something to die for. You ought to listen to that too, and you can get that by going to ForgeTruth.com. And Pete, as you know, comes in on Fridays and we’ve been doing this for a lot of years. And we answer questions and we love your questions, you can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, record your question, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
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in Canada it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can email us at [email protected]. And by the way, those are places where you could make a contribution if the Holy Spirit moved you to do so. If he does, he’s always generous and you should be too. If you can’t, we understand. But I promise that when you help us financially, we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can’t say a prayer for the ministry. Pete, speaking of prayer, why don’t you pray and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right, let’s do it. Our Father, we do come into your presence today at the end of this week. What a joy to be your sons and daughters beloved, thank you that you know us by name and by face, and that Lord Jesus, when you were on the cross, you were doing that for us, not for a nameless mass of humanity, but those you knew by name and by face, and we honor you. We thank you God, our great God for your power and kindness and mercy and love, and that you have a plan and we’re a part of it. So, we honor you. We need you in every way, and we lift up to you the requests of our heart for a relationship, a restoration for the bills to be paid, for jobs that we need and for your direction in our life. We seek your holy face. Thank you for your grace, even now as we do questions and answers, we pray that you would lead us by your Spirit, teach us and be with our leaders this week-end as they prepare to lead us in worship. We commit our time to you now. In the strong name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Pete Alwinson:
A Diabetic can’t fast, what about that?

Steve Brown:
I, you know, I’ve been doing this for more years than a lot of our listeners have been alive, and I’ve never heard that question.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. Neither have, that’s a new one for me too. So, how do you answer it?

Steve Brown:
You don’t fast.

Pete Alwinson:
You don’t fast.

Steve Brown:
Well, I, you know, I think Jesus understands that. My wife is, can’t fast. She’s not diabetic, but she has a blood sugar problem. She, if she doesn’t eat, she turns mean. She said

Pete Alwinson:
Hangry

Steve Brown:
Yeah. We said when we’re traveling as staff at Key Life to events, the staff will look at Anna and say, feed Anna, or, we’re in trouble, but there really is, she can’t fast.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Interesting. I can’t fast either.

Steve Brown:
Really.

Pete Alwinson:
I’ve got a metabolism issue. I’m, I get hungry really quick.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
But it’s not medically defined like Anna’s, so mine’s an excuse.

Steve Brown:
Your’s is an excuse.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
You know, I, I really think we make Jesus into a child abuser. I mean, he understands, he understands the Diabetes and you can’t get it. And that goes with things like communion and somebody who’s one drink away from the gutter. God cuts slack for us cause he loves us a lot. And, but if you really love Jesus, both Pete and our listener should fast.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, and really on that level, you just guilted me, but there it is. But the reality is it was, it was sort of commanded in the Old Testament, just sort of done too. What it, it was commanded, but in the New Testament, it’s just kind of carried over. So, Jesus says, when you fast. Right? So, really you have to go to the Old Testament for the command.

Steve Brown:
And God cuts slack. And did then I’m sure too, although I’m not sure how much they knew about Diabetes.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
You know, I had a mentor when I served my first church on Cape Cod, Dr. John Stanton. And, he was big on fasting, in fact, he wrote a book on it. And I began to do that and I found it, I don’t have the blood sugar problem that Anna has or the physiological stuff that you have, but, and so that’s not a big deal for me. Fasting is not, you know, I,

Pete Alwinson:
You can do it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. I used to, I can go two or three days with the juice fast.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
And it just doesn’t, I don’t even think about it. I don’t often eat breakfast or lunch, I just don’t. And then I’ll eat dinner, a good sized dinner, so I make up for it. But, that’s not a big, I’m not giving up anything or doing a big deal by doing it. But I think it’s a nice spiritual exercise.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. We have a deal that we do with Forge in one of our, we ask our young men to fast 24 hours before they come to this meeting that we do. And it’s a, it’s a really good time because it focuses your mind, you’re giving up food for spiritual connection with God.

Steve Brown:
That’s good. Do you, does he love you a little bit more if you fast?

Pete Alwinson:
I don’t think he does. Sometimes I think he can get a hold of me more when I do, but he doesn’t love me anymore.

Steve Brown:
That’s a good statement. That’s a good question. This is an e-mail. What does the Bible teach about slavery?

Pete Alwinson:
Interesting, the Old Testament clearly teaches that there was a reason for slavery, even in Judaism, which was to pay your debt. But there were term limits on it and it wasn’t forever.

Steve Brown:
Jubilee. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And the Jubilee. They could get through, so, and then, you know, really, I think the freedom. And you clean up this heresy, but I think the freedom of the New Testament gospel set the stage for the abolition of slavery.

Steve Brown:
Oh, I don’t, I absolutely.

Pete Alwinson:
Do you agree with that?

Steve Brown:
Oh, absolutely. In fact, that’s where Wilberforce was coming from in the abolitionist movement that eventually came here and changed everything. If you didn’t have the Bible, as a matter of fact, slavery would still be extant. And just so you know, and Pete gave you the exception, and that really was not an affirmation of slavery as the person who asked this question was thinking of slavery.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right. Good point.

Steve Brown:
So, the Bible recognizes slavery that it exists, but it never, ever affirms it.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. Every culture has had it and it takes place today, but it’s not affirmed, it’s negative.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really is. And in the early church, just to show you and reaffirm what you and I were just saying. In some of the early churches, New Testament churches, a slave would be sitting by a slave owner and sometimes the slave would be the leader of the church and over the slave owner.

Pete Alwinson:
Yep. Amazing, isn’t it?

Steve Brown:
It really is amazing.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
So, people who are always throwing rocks at the Bible don’t know what they’re talking about.

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

Steve Brown:
And we could say the same thing about women’s rights. We could say the same thing about a variety of social issues, which never would’ve been addressed if it weren’t for Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm-hmm. That’s good.

Steve Brown:
Okay. When we as Christians, and you and I are going to disagree, I’ve got a perfect answer for this and you don’t, so I just want you to know that. When we as Christians die, now where do we go? Do we go to heaven? Do we go to paradise? Are we asleep? Do we wait for Jesus’ second coming?

Pete Alwinson:
Now, listen, we’ve dealt with this before, and I, and you’re going to answer this, but I think we need to set up some kind of plan that if I go first or you go first, we can communicate back because our people out there listening need to know the right answer. Oh, yeah. Well, okay. Whatever Pete says, don’t believe him.

Steve Brown:
What I’m going to say, you can accept as it came from Sinai.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay.

Steve Brown:
No, I’m kidding. And in fact, we don’t disagree, but the classical Christian answer to that is interesting. Why don’t you talk about that.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, the intermediate state, right? To be absent from the bodies and be present with the Lord without your body, but then when Jesus comes back, we get our bodies. Those who are alive on the earth get theirs first, and then those who come with them, get them next.

Steve Brown:
And that makes sense. And that works. And that is, and there is plenty of Scriptural warrant for that in this, in the Bible. And there is less, for what I’m going to say, I really think that it’s an irrelevant question because God is outside of time and space. I mean, everything is present with him now. He listens to Abraham’s prayers and my prayers. And when we die, we enter that place with him. And there is no past or present or future. And as a result, the question is irrelevant.

Pete Alwinson:
And it has a a lot of supporters and it is compelling. God is bigger than all this.

Steve Brown:
Oh, he is bigger than we think. Bigger than we can think. Guys’s we’ve got to go. But first Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.