 Welcome to Hard Questions, where we gather pastors together to take on your tough questions and answer them right from the Bible. I'm Tom Hollis, the moderator, and today our panelists include Dr. William R. Glaze, Bethany Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pastor Mark Motor, Berean Church in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, Pete Giacalone, Lead Pastor, South Hills Assembly Guy Church, Bethel Park, PA, Janthony Gilbert, pastor of another level ministries in the North Hills area. Well, pastors, I always say this, but I'm always excited when we get a chance to dig into these questions. Thank you for taking the time to be here. Today we've got topics, communion, tree of life, and aging. I don't know anybody on this panel that's aging, okay? So we'll be taking all of those questions, but we're taking hotline questions, and this is where you call in. So let's start with this one. Why did God put the tree of life and then the tree of knowledge of good and evil and subject that to Adam and Eve where the consequences would be if you eat the one tree, you're going to die, which they didn't know what dying was. They didn't know what the consequences were or what it all entailed because they lived in an atmosphere of utopia. So God loved Adam and Eve so much. Why did he subject them to that where you as a normal father would not place any harm close to your own child? All right. We thank you for that question. This is something that hits right at the whole nature of God, nature of man. Pastor Jay, why don't you start us off? Take a deep breath after that one, right? But you have to think about it too when you're answering this question. We're talking about it from a post-fall. Now, at the time when God was talking to Adam and to Eve, there was no sin in the earth. Man was never meant to know good and evil. We were meant to know life. That's why he said, now man has become like us. The product of us knowing good and evil and having that conscience and dealing with all of that and figuring things out was never what God originally intended. He didn't want us to have to be in that situation. So people say, well, why would God do that knowing this? Well, we were never supposed to know any of those anyways. But because we were fallen, now we're battling with these two types of things. And people always ask the question as well, well, why would God allow Adam and Eve to know if they were going to fall? Well, first of all, he's God. Number two, we have to realize as well, the reason why he put both trees in the garden is because you can't be a worshipper and you can't be obedient if you don't have options. So there must be options. And I always believe that the reason why God did that is that we are Lucifer's replacement. There is the war-faring angel who is Michael. There is the messenger who is Gabriel. And then there was the worshiper who was Lucifer. Well, when Lucifer was cast out of heaven with a third of the angels, there was the worshipping atmosphere that was not there anymore. So what does the Bible say Jesus said he looks for? He looks for one that will worship. Well, why? That's why Lucifer was put down there because he is the antagonistic part of the worship. So he's left there and God says I'm going to put both of these trees there to give you an opportunity to determine whether or not you can share with me in my glory. So that's the whole purpose of this whole life in my opinion is that who can God share his glory with? And will we become the worshippers he's called to be and without having those two choices, there cannot be a true definition. Choice is a big part of this. And something that what I read into this, as I heard him, I heard him say, the idea of the consequences. Remember, these two were extremely intelligent people. The Bible says that God brought all the animals to Adam and Adam named them all. And then the thing was Eve and Adam both knew what their consequences were to their choices. God explained to them so they knew what death was. What I'm getting from this question, he was saying that they did not know what the consequences were going to be. They knew the consequences. But yet knowing the consequences, the Bible says that what Adam ate knowingly. That's what the Scripture, he actually ate knowingly. Eve was deceived, but he ate knowingly what he was doing. That's a good point, Pete, because they had this, we don't know how long. It was a time of eternal bliss in the Garden of Eden where they were walking with God so he would have explained it to them. They knew the consequences. When you look at it, to me, the bottom line is God wants us, as Jay talked about the choices, he wants us to make choices too because we love him. He could have made us robots and he could have made us follow everything that he commanded and just go like the robot and follow along. But God wants us to choose right and choose him. That's why there's options. If God made us love him, is that really love when you're forced to do it? I think that that's a part of it too. Then he gave man authority. When you think about the authority, and I'm going to piggyback on something that Pete said, that he had to know about death because the question that the gentleman is asking seems like he said they didn't have any concept. Not by experience, they didn't have it, but they knew about death and they knew about consequences because God gave them authority. I don't think that he would give somebody authority and them not know what consequences are. Right, absolutely. In God's foreknowledge, he did know that Adam and Eve would sin, but he also knew that Jesus was going to come and redeem mankind. I love something the Apostle Paul said in Romans 7, What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Even though there was a fall and God recognized that, he knew there was redemption and Jesus was going to pay the price. The best choice we can make is I choose Jesus and redemption becomes part of my life. I think this was a great question, a great question to start off with, and I appreciate the caller calling in because this is something that people have wondered and talked about for centuries, but the thing is, we have a choice now. Are we going to choose to follow Jesus and choose to obey God as well? Thank you for that. Let's go to our next one. Hi. I was wondering, is there aging in heaven? Or does everyone stay the same age they are when they go there? And if that's, if it's true, then what about babies that are premature or die in a miscarriage or something? Okay. Good question, Pete. All right. First John chapter 3, verses 2-3, Beloved, now we are the children of God and has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him. And of course the Apostle Paul says to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord. We're going to talk about that later. So I believe as I read this portion of scripture, we're going to be like Him. God is ageless. We deal with time and age, but if we're going to be like Him, and as a matter of fact, He made us in His image in the very beginning. He really made our bodies never to die in the beginning, but because of the fall, our bodies, and because of sin, our bodies will corrupt. But God designed every human being never in the beginning to die. So I really believe it all in my heart. We will be like Him, meaning time will have no effect on us. We will be ageless. So if a baby dies, they're not going to be a baby in heaven. I don't believe it. They'll be a fully conscious, mature adult. We can't prove or disprove this, but I was reading that some people feel that babies, if they die, would be fast forwarded to an ideal age. Maybe like an older person would be rewound to the ideal age, and some people say it could be... I don't know. I think 66 is the ideal age. You see that story of Forever 21? I asked my wife, where's Forever 66 at? I don't know, you know, but anyway... Well, some guess that it could be 33 years of age, and maybe that's how old Jesus died. We don't really know, but it's something interesting. You think about 30, 33 somewhere in there where you're the prime of life. We don't know, but that's one thought. I don't think a baby is going to remain a baby, but we'll find out when we get there. That's a good point. I think we're trying to bring a temporal thing into an eternal thing, and I think that's hard to do. We're trying to figure out, how do we fit earth into heaven in eternity? So I don't know necessarily what we're going to do. We're going to look at things that are terrified, not physical bodies. We're talking about a whole different thing that we're going to step into, so I think looking at that is important as well, because we're trying to figure out, okay, are they going to look like your age? Are they going to look like my age? I don't think they're going to look like any of our ages, because I think when we transition into there, we're going to have a completely different body that is going to be able to do things that we've never even seen before. And when we come back in 60 seconds, we ask, why does God take so long to answer our prayers? They do. Well, welcome back to Hard Questions, and today we're taking on the hotline questions. Let's listen to the next one. I love this station. I love all the programming, and I love how on Move Your Mountain they do communion. My question is, say you're someone who, for whatever reason, your physical locale, you're watching Move Your Mountain and they're doing communion. If you don't have physical access to elements for communion, do you think that the intent of your heart lets you receive communion in a spiritual sense without the physical elements? I believe so, and I'd love to hear what all the ministers think. Love of the program. Thank you for being there. God bless you. Well, thank you for watching. I'm glad to hear that you love the program. This is an interesting question. It brings up a lot of different things to my mind. Pastor Bill? Well, you know, I don't think that it's the focus of the elements, but it's the focus of the heart. I've taken communion before we drank water and we might have had a loaf of bread and kind of, you know. So, you know, the key is is that when you're taking it. Because, you know, if that's the case, you know, Jesus said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. So, you know, we know that some religions have that as their, what we're actually doing. And so, you know, we can't literally eat his body and drink his blood. That represent the body and blood. So, whatever the symbol is, that now traditionally, you know, and they've got these new things out now, right? Where it all comes in one. You know, you got the, you got the Jews. Yeah, right, right. Well, you know, whenever I serve communion, I make sure that mine is already off. Because I don't want to be doing it. But, you know, just think how it's observed in different ways and different traditions. So, it's really not the elements. You know, it's the heart. You know, and if while you're taking it, you know, you think about the fact that, man, Christ's body was broken for me and his blood was shed for me. And that's why I'm saved. And that's where your heart is at. You know, I think that if you have elements that represent that, that God is pleased with that. And I think what you were referring to is that from a certain differentiation where it actually becomes the actual body and blood of Christ. And we know without a doubt, like you said, Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me. So, I believe, like what is taught here at Channel 40, that if you don't have access to grape juice, I believe God will still honor that. It's the idea of what the whole purpose is, we're remembering the death, the burial, the resurrection. And we also are warned that we do it with the right attitude. Because, you know, we're warned to examine ourselves. You know, that's a really good point. And I know that in most of the times and the churches that I've been a part of, they usually say something about, you know, examine yourself and see that there's no sin in there. No sin that you're walking in so that you can have, you know, not drink condemnation unto yourself. But I have another question. It's not in here. So, I'm just wondering why do we need to remember Jesus through communion at all? I mean, obviously because he commanded it. But I mean, we have Christ living inside of us. I've actually pondered this. I mean, we have Christ living inside of us. We walk with him daily. Why communion? Why this kind of ritualistic thing to remember him? Any ideas, any thoughts on that? I think it's a pause in our lives to take the time to reflect. One of the phrases would be a point of contact. Lord, I'm receiving forgiveness and I believe there's no only forgiveness but there's healing through the bread because by Jesus stripes we are healed so we receive forgiveness. We receive healing at that time and I think as a congregation it's a really powerful time of gathering together, connecting with heaven and then connecting with one another. But it's prophetic in Luke chapter 22 14 through 20. Listen to this this is just amazing. I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. This is where he says, I have desired to eat. I have desired to desire. Then he says, then he took the cup and gave thanks. He said, take this and divide it among yourselves for say I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God. So this is something prophetic that there's going to be a glorious communion time so it's there's something more there than what we realize. Yeah, I think same thing that you mentioned as well. I think it gives the opportunity because we forget and I think sometimes we have to be careful too that we don't do communion so often that it just becomes you know just ritualistic and so sometimes it's good to like you said to pause and to remember what happened and ask God Lord show me a fresh what this body if he told us to do it as often then there's a reasoning behind it and so we need to dig deep and understand the mystery of his body and how we can appropriate that in our lives because it says later on down the line many are weak, sickly and even sleep because you did not rightly discern so there's something about it that God wants us to dig into that'll help us. So we mentioned and I want to just dwell on this a little bit more we mentioned that it's symbolic is a symbolic view but there's a power there too isn't there Pastor Glaze it seems like there's a whenever I take communion there's a there's a spiritual thing that happens as well. Right yeah because you know again if you really pause and think about it you're connecting with the the broken body and the shared blood of Jesus Christ and that's what our salvation is all about so I believe yeah you're right there is that spiritual connection that takes place and again you know as Baptist you know we teach that is symbolic and I do believe that but I believe that it's beyond symbolic I believe that there's a spiritual connection with it too and that you know it touches your heart in a special way I think that you mentioned it Pete I think for a long time I've wrestled with okay there's I never believed in transubstantiation that it actually becomes the body and blood but is it purely symbolic so there's kind of like this I won't say middle ground but it's symbolic with power. God revealed this to me one time I was doing taking communion to an individual's home and as I was breaking the host I'll never forget it, it came to me wholeness Christ was broken for all of our brokenness physical, spiritual, mental, financial, emotional all of our brokenness to be made whole so when we break that we declare He was broken for all of wholeness was broken for all of our brokenness so we can believe to be made whole and then the blood cleanses the blood purifies. Wow, that's great so there's healing in communion I appreciate that discussion there's a lot more there thank you for the question let's move on to the next one yeah how come it takes a long time for God to answer a prayer like if you've been praying for like say a couple years and you don't see any change in what you're asking like you know your prayer why does it take long for him to answer a prayer that you want something in your life to change but it's not changing I think this is one that we have all had at one time or another Pete Jeremiah 33 and verse 3 it's God's phone number call unto me and I will answer and show you great many things which you know not but again God's timing is different from our timing we always refer to Pentecostal time we refer to you know the 12th hour at 1159 but the thing is if we were to use the example of Daniel, Daniel prayed and when the angel appeared to him he says I was on my way the very moment you prayed but I was hindered so there's times God says wait we don't want that there's times God says no and there's times that God says yes if I can share real quick I remember one time our food bank was in desperate need of money and I'm praying alone and I just said father my phone went off and it said how much do you need you can't make this up how much do you need and don't be shy I really need a thousand I said 500 and the reply was a thousand would be better now you can't make this up I really I didn't know God had your phone number like that it was a different Mark there is definitely an aspect of God's timing we had a church member who had moved from Pittsburgh to another state they had a house they were trying to sell for about a year nothing happened they prayed they fasted they pulled every lever they pushed every button nothing was taking place all of a sudden she turned 55 the very next day it sold and she came to find out after the fact that there were great tax benefits once you're 55 years of age so even though she didn't recognize God knew what he was doing and he made great decisions that's what we were talking about age is a good thing any final words on the I think that when you start praying God releases his power on that situation regardless of what's happening down here God has unleashed his power because you started praying in that situation so now we just wait for the manifestation of it that's right great question one that we've all had we're going to take a quick break and afterwards we ask how do you get the devil to stop bothering you stay tuned welcome back to hard questions we're taking your hotline questions and remember you can always call in and we'll share that at the end of the show but here is our last hotline question today get the devil to stop bothering you how do we get rid of the devil to stop bothering me we might have to define this a little bit about what's going on but Pastor J take us well you know there's a couple of things that come to mind you know one do we have any open doors because if we've got doors opened the devils understand legal right so sometimes we've opened doors so we need to make sure there's no sin nothing in our lives that's allowing the devil to have access to us to torment us and I'll pass it on to the rest of the fellows how do I get the devil to stop bothering me keep bothering him the bible says the gates of hell won't prevail so if there's nothing in your life that you're aware of that you've done wrong the reality is that you are on the offensive you need to go in and dispossess the enemy and God has put you in the middle of the conflict because he's anointed you with the keys of the kingdom to go in and dispossess the enemy and to take what it is that God has for you we're not going to get rid of the devil he's here as long as we're here but we do know this James 4.7 we know the verse well resist the devil and he'll flee from you but that's the second part of the verse the beginning says therefore submit to God and a lot of people want the resistance of the devil without submitting to their savior so it's important to say Lord I submit to you to your point I want to make sure there are no open doors sometimes we call them blessing blockers no blessing blockers because if you're fully submitted to God when you resist the devil he will flee now he won't flee permanently but he will flee for a season so it's so important to say Lord first of all I submit to you you're my Lord then when I resist the devil he will flee it's interesting isn't it I can remember my own life periods of time where I've committed myself to seek after God and I can remember feeling like completely free temptation, oppression, everything and then a few months down the road it was like the devil was leaning against the side of the wall as I was coming out of the house or something he's like remember me and like you said he's not going to leave forever but when we resist him consistently he's going to flee well again I'm reminded that as we submit to God what happens God becomes more developed or enveloped in us to see more of him than seeing of us he doesn't want to be anywhere in the presence the manifested presence of Almighty God so he's going to run from that so the more we stay in the Lord the more the enemy is not going to want anything to do with us I wrote a book and the title of the book is 50 ways to resist the devil actually based on that Paul Simon song 50 ways to leave your lover I got it and basically what the book deals with there's the word rama every rama that comes out of the mouth of God that word rama actually means the word of God as you claim it as you interact against whatever you're dealing with so if Satan is coming against me as this lady right here is saying what she needs to begin to do is to take ramas in whatever area you're taking her in she needs to find a scripture and she finds that scripture it becomes a rama not where you just read it out of rote memory but it's one that you believe in your heart it's one that has a hold of your spirit and that when Satan comes against you you stand against him with that rama and he'll flee every time because you know when Jesus was in the wilderness and Satan tempted him what did he do ramas and he called it the rama of God and Satan left him he quoted the Old Testament real fast and then after that though that's what I want to mention says then the devil left him until a more opportune that word opportune is Kyros which means a God moment in your life so when you see Satan showing up it's because you are on the verge of something good happening absolutely yeah this is the thing we are going to have difficulties in this life and we are going to have temptations we're going to have that all and so sister just stand with the Lord in all those things we love to close with the scripture and so we have this one are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin and not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will but the very hairs of your head are all numbered do not fear therefore you are of more value than many sparrows that's Matthew 10, 29 through 31 well we hope that you've enjoyed today's program I know I enjoy this time I enjoy the chance to talk to the pastors and hear their answers and we want to hear from you we heard from so many today we're hearing from some more in the future we want you to email your questions to hard questions at ctvn.org or call to our hotline at 412-349-4326 God loves you have a wonderful day