 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. I'm the moderator, and today our panelists include Dr. William R. Glaze, Bethany Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Ray Hypo Providence Presbyterian Church in Robinson Township, Pete Giacalone, Lead Pastor, South Hills Assembly Guy Church in Bethel Park, Janthony Gilbert, pastor of another level ministries in the North Hills area. Well, today on Hard Questions, we're going to take on your hard questions from our hotline. I love this. I don't have to read anything. No, it's great. I love to hear these from our hotline, so let's start with this one. My question is, if God was upset because they were building a tower of babble, how does he feel about us going to outer space? How does that compare? Thank you. I don't believe we've ever had this question, so Pastor Pete. No, no, no. Well, you know, the whole idea of babble, all right, let me get into that first. Babble, it doesn't compare to what she's talking about outer space. Babble was complete immorality. It's where they were building this edifice that's going up to the throne room of heaven, and it was filled with prostitutes. I don't know how. It's got to be oxymoron, sacred prostitution, you know what I mean? And the whole idea of babble was immoral. So God went down and confounded their languages. But us going into space to discover, and everything about that was pride, it was arrogance, it was all man-focused. But us studying space and going into space has nothing to do, in my estimation, with the tower of babble. Right, absolutely. Well, again, I think that us going into space is more exploration, and I don't see anything wrong with us going, except, if we're going out there to try to disprove God, or we're going out there to challenge God, I'm going into space to show that I'm all powerful, and I can shake my fist in God's face. If that's the attitude, then that's wrong. And that was the attitude of the people about babble. Any other thoughts over here? Yeah, I think the verse that we're looking at here is Genesis 9.7 after the flood, where God re-gives the creation commission, as it were, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it. So God tells him, go out, multiply, fill the earth, and what do they do in Genesis 11.4? Come, let us build for ourselves a city in a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad across the face of the whole earth. The actual intention was to disobey what God had just said. Go and fill the earth. Spread out on the earth. Let's do this so that we don't have to do what God said. That's why the Tower of Babble was wrong, and it really does come down to intention. I can read my Bible so that I can brag to other people about how much more. Therefore, me reading my Bible is actually a sin because my intention is to use it for evil. So really, in the intention, and if our intention, as you said, Dr. Glaze, in space is to try to prove there's no God, and then it's wrong to go into space, but if our intention is just to have dominion and subdue, as God commanded us to do, and to do it in a godly way, not in a moral way, then pretty much the sky's the limit. Why? Good point. It's not a sin to build Burj Khalifa here. It's a sin why we're doing it. One thing that's amazing, just a little side note to all of this, is that the fact that God had to come down and say, they can make this happen. If you think about that for a minute, he said, we have to stop this thing because we let them go. This is not today where we have cranes and we have a rough time building the One World Trade Center. It takes years. These were people using bricks and mortar and saying, we're going to build a tower that's going to reach heaven. And God said, listen, anything they think about, it shows the power of unity when people can come together and what could happen when people of denominations and churches and backgrounds come together? What could be accomplished with man when they come together like that? So just a side note when you mentioned about how they were scattered abroad, they didn't want to do what they wanted. They wanted to do what they wanted to do instead of what God asked them to do, how when they came together, they had that ability to be able to do that is just outstanding to me. I'm like, wow, it's hard to believe. It's the Bible and I believe it, but it's hard to believe it. Could you imagine what happened all of a sudden? Yeah, here's people that you know. And now you don't even understand each other and what has come. Boy, that had the vision. Incredible. Well, let's listen to the next question. I was wondering what counsel would you give to surviving relatives when a loved one of theirs has died and no one really knows whether they ever accepted Christ or not and whether they're in heaven or hell. Now, what words of, I guess, comfort and truth would you give to surviving family members? Thank you very much. As pastors, I'm sure you've all faced this situation. Pastor Jay, will you start us off? Yeah, I just had a situation about a month ago. There was a guy in my church. He's on his way to church and got a phone call that his son was tragically killed in an ATV accident and his son was about my age in his mid 40s and just tragically was killed and he had been praying for years for his kids to be saved. What was really cool about this is that a month before he passed, he left a Facebook post up and he went and visited a church and thanked the whole pastoral staff that he got saved and the father never knew that he got saved. He looked back though and he said, I wondered why he was so different. And after he talked to all of his family, his family talked about how he was just a whole completely different guy. And so just to say that to anybody that's watching, you know, God will leave that little glimpse for you. I mean, especially if you've been believing God for your children, he's going to leave that little glimpse of you to show you that they made it in. And I believe without it being out of shadow of a doubt that this young man will save. So the question though, if you're not sure and you don't get that type of a testimony with that, I tell people this, this is my favorite thing to go to. First of all, won't the judge of all the earth do right? The second thing that I go to as well is that Jesus did not suffer and die to keep them out. He suffered and died to bring them in. So if he can get them in, he's going to do it. So that is what I tell everybody and them are the two things that I do for hope for people that they're just not sure. Did they make it? People say, what did they do 30 seconds before they died and all those types of things. I can't answer all of those, but I can tell you this. If he can get them in, he will. I agree with that. We had, and you guys may have heard about it on the news, this was a couple of months ago, two kids that died in a fire in Wilkinsburg. And the grandmother was a member of our church. And that was probably one of the most difficult funerals. The little boy was seven and the little girl was six. And leading up to the funeral, I didn't really think about, I was thinking about how tragic it is. But when I went to the office on the day of the funeral and my secretary had put the program on my desk with those two little pictures on front. Man, I lost it. I mean, I just sat there at my desk and lost it. And the beautiful thing about kids is that I truly believe that God has made provision in his word to take kids into heaven. So the words of comfort that I had there was that these children were in heaven. And so from that standpoint, it makes it easy. But then if you don't know, I'm kind of like Jay. As a matter of fact, and I tell people this, is that you never know what a person did in their lifetime. I came from Virginia to witness to my dad because he was dying. And I remember telling him about Christ. And he said, well, you know, I've done things, you know, all my life this way. And I don't want this accepting now that I've come to my death bed. And I left there going back to Virginia to believe that my dad was not saved and went to hell. I came back pastoring here in Pittsburgh. This is unbelievable. I should have brought the Bible. Somebody came up to me and gave me a new testament, a Gideon New Testament. And in the back, and they thought it was my Bible. And in the back it said, today I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And it said, William C. Glaze. My name was William R. Glaze. And that was my dad, man. Wow. Wow. Wow, that is such a great, that is a great. So, you know, my point is, we don't know. Like you said, Jay, you know, if God can get a man, he'll get a man. You know, we don't know. Yeah, absolutely. We just have about 30 seconds, right? Yeah. I mean, I basically do the same thing. Sometimes you don't have any earthly reason to hope. Yeah. But I just always tell people, you leave it to God. God is good. God is going to do what is most glorious and most good and in heaven. We will be praising him for everything that he's done. And you just can't drive yourself nuts with it. Because, I mean, even the people that we think we have good reasons to believe, you know, we don't know for sure. I can never really see someone's heart. So, you leave it to God and trust that God is good. The judge of all the earth will do right and will glorify him for everything one day and it all makes sense. That's right. Absolutely. Very good. Good question. Well, we're coming back in just 60 seconds when we ask, does there always have to be an interpretation if someone speaks in tongues? We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hard Questions. Today we're taking on your questions from the Hard Questions Hotline. I love this. So, let's listen to the next one. Hi, my name is Perry and I have a question for you concerning tithing. The Bible says to bring all your tithes into the storehouse. And as I understand it, back in the Old Testament it was into the temple. So my question is, when you bring your tithe in, does it have to be all to the local church or can you split it up between different ministries and evangelists and so forth? Thank you. That's a good question that gets asked quite often. Ray. You know, in Malachi 3.10 is the verse he's referring to about bringing your whole tithe into the storehouse and we could look at the different passages and the different ways in which they had tithes of certain crops and so forth. And I've heard that it's been calculated that maybe 16 to 18% eventually went with all the different tithes. But a lot of those tithes you would bring and then you would get back and eat in some place and have this big feast and invite the Levite and so you would give a tithe but it would come back to you. The way the Israelite practice was and so it is difficult to try to go through and a lot of that symbolic and ceremonial and fulfilled by Christ. But I think if you go back before all that, Abraham gave a tenth of all that God had given to him and it doesn't say that he was commanded but he did it because he loved the Lord. He gave back to acknowledge that it all came from God and Jacob does the same thing. When he's going down and he makes the rock his pillow, you know, Lord, if you bring me back, I'll give a tenth of all to you. And so that's the principle as I see it that if these Old Testament saints who didn't even know the name of their Messiah they just knew someday the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. If they gave a tenth, the Christians should give at least a tenth. So I don't even go to work and I find it commanded. The principle out of the love and faith that these early fathers had, they gave a tenth, we should give at least a tenth of each one of you something aside storing up as he may prosper that no collections be made when I come. Clearly they were giving in the church. They were giving in the context of worship to the church. And so yes, they weren't going to the temple anymore. The believers learned that, you know, you don't have to go to the temple to worship God. You worship God anywhere because his spirit is in you now. So I do think that it ought to go to the church. I think that you ought to support other ministries but I think you should give 10% to the church. Okay. And I think the thing he was also talking about was the splitting of it. And some people have a problem with that. In other words, I don't as a pastor. I mean, the church is going to go on. So in other words, some people will want to split the tide. They'll want to send so much to the church, maybe so much to CTV. I don't want to get that legalistic, you know what I mean? And I think that was the operative word there that was splitting of the tide. Am I wrong? Well, you know, and that's why I would say Tide's an author. You know that, you know, I'm a firm, again, you know, I could get into a discussion about tithing, whether it's New Testament or not, but I'll leave that for right now. You know, I heard somebody say Oh, that's one of my favorite discussions. That's all right. Well, I heard somebody say something a long time ago and I love Charles Stanley. I mean, I love Charles Stanley, but if you, you know, give your tithe or you split your tithe and you send it to Charles Stanley, he's not going to come visit you in the hospital. You know, he's not going to marry you. You know, he's so, you know, again, the principle that the person was making was that, you know, that the focus of your tithe should be, you know, your local church. Well, there's certainly, and of course I'm sitting here in an organization that is sort of a para-church organization cornerstone television that survives on donations as well. So we're certainly asking for people to support the ministry here. How do you slice this up, Pastor Jay? I'm a little bit more dogmatic than probably you would be. I believe the tithe belongs in the storehouse. I believe that. Do you say the storehouse is the church? Yeah, I believe, like you said, there's tithe and then there's offerings. I just had a conversation with somebody in our church that said, yeah, I sent some of my tithe here, some of my tithe there, and I told them, I said, you're robbing yourself of blessing. That's enough. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to split my tithe. No, what it is, is you have a desire to bless another ministry. So you need to put your tithe into the storehouse and then begin to sew above that. I would say that the tithe brings you the fullness. The offering takes you into overflow. But how can you say with certainty that the storehouse means the church? Because that's what they were doing at that time. When they brought their tithe in the Old Testament, they brought it to the place where the priests were. Originally the priests, that was part of their inheritance was the tithe. So they brought it to where they were being fed and where they were being ministered to. And then also, let me say this too, I thought you were going to ask a different question. People will say, well, does this say that in the New Testament? Remember when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees in Matthew 23? He said, you ought to have tithed. And he said, but you have left out the more weightier matters. He said, you should have done this. So even Jesus said, render to God things that belong to God, render to Caesar and I believe that the tithe also is the way that it's kingdom economics. The church needs money. Let's just call it what it is. I mean, you can't, every one of us have a church here even here. It can't operate without this. So when people sew into that, God's name, I'm going to set this apart to sew into the work of the Lord and then the offerings, you put it wherever it is that you feel led and then I will give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So that's my problem. That's good. You know what, we're going to leave this. I'm the guy who thinks tithing is Old Testament, but I tithe. Okay. You know about yourself. Because I like what Ray said about giving that 10th is a good place to start and it's a good place to support the work of God. Well, let's go on to the next question. My question is while when pastors preach and they speak in tongues, there is no interpretation. The Bible clearly speaks about speaking in tongues and there has to be interpretation. So we have a lot of preachers now who will begin to preach and they will be able to speak in tongues, but it's not recognized in that language. So that's my question. Before you answer, I don't really know any preachers doing this, but go ahead. Well, from time to time it will take place. But again, if you really want, if you want to see clarity, it's found in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. And I believe in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is putting the church in order because it was a church out of order. And Paul was telling them that things need to be done decently and in order. In 1 Corinthians 14, I see three gifts here. I see tongues and tongues interpretation for the edification of the body. I see prophecy for the body. And I see tongues for the individual believer. So again, I see three gifts here. And he who speaks in a tongue, he's not speaking to men, but God for no one understands them. However, in the Spirit he speaks mysteries. So we see that. It's very clear. And then Paul goes on to say, I wish you all spoke with tongues even more. You prophesied. So he's giving some clear cut distinctions of what tongues and tongues interpretation is and what the individual praying in tongues. I have a good idea what he's talking about. There's sometimes in the Pentecostal circle. Can we share some of our laundry? Sometimes in the Pentecostal circle, a preacher will get up and he'll start preaching. And all of a sudden he'll start speaking to tongues. And I'm really believing that's what he's saying. And he's saying, well, if he's going to do that, then there should be an interpretation. When I see that happen, I see it more of an exuberance of the individual that's so excited about what he's preaching that before you know it, he may go into tongues. Myself personally, I don't practice that, you know what I mean? Because I do believe that but you know, having been in Pentecostal and mostly charismatic circles for the last 40 years, I really have rarely seen that happen. That's really pretty rare. Well, I think taking it into context too, he's talking about people that are praying in tongues. They're coming together and so I'd get up to address somebody. Amen, y'all. And go sit down. He's like, well, wait a minute. Another speak with five words of understanding because why? Because it's going to edify the church. But there could be some personal edification even in the moment. I'm one of the guys if I get praying and stuff and get flowing in it but there are many times if I do that I will then prophesy right after that. The Holy Spirit will drop something into my spirit and I'll say, I hear the Lord saying and begin to speak what God has given me in that moment. So I think that if somebody just gets up there and prays in tongues I hope you all enjoyed that. May you be edified. Well, that's an issue. Somebody does that for personal edification while they're preaching but then they're all going through. Don't get stuck on that. Well, I know we have different, we're all from different backgrounds here. What's your take on this? Well, yeah, again, I would say that if somebody speaks in tongue in the church, kind of like what Pete said, I would say there has to be an interpretation. You know, just can't get up and say something that's meant for the body and not have the body to interpret what that means. In my congregation what I've always done when that has happened I always go back to the individual. If there's no interpretation, I'll say, brother, sister what do you, and then 99% of the time what they wind up giving is usually. I've actually been in services where the pastor said we're out of order because there hasn't been any interpretation. I like to go back to the individual and, yeah. I mean, I agree with Dr. I don't believe the gift is active now, but I do believe when it was active it would have been improper for someone because Paul's clear there has to be an interpretation and I have, I've been in a lot of different circles. I've been in circles where someone speaks in tongues and then someone else and someone else and, you know, I don't believe that they're doing what the Bible teaches. I believe the Bible teaches a miraculous, you know, if I would say that would be speaking in a tongue if I didn't already know that verse in Hebrew. But I just said to you something in an actual language, Hebrew. Genesis 1-1. Exactly. Yeah, I do interpret. You do believe in tongues. Interpretation, it's over here. But the interpretation is of a real language because it was a real language and so that person was actually understanding what the other person said and that's different than somebody saying something that no one understands and then somebody else saying something that they believe God's giving directly as a prophecy or something. I don't believe that word interpret. It's a translation. It should be a translation of what that person said. So, all right, good, good, good. Important question and important thing to think about. Well, coming up in 60 seconds we're going to answer another of your hotline questions. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hard Questions. We have one more audio question for today. My question is did Jesus turn the water into wine at the Canaan wedding? Or was it just grape juice? Was it fermented wine? A lot of people are telling me that it wasn't fermented. I would like their opinion on this. Thank you so much. All right, and I think a lot of times this comes from, you know, many Christians do not drink and they wonder why would Jesus do this. So, Pastor Glaze, what's your thoughts on this? Well, I am a T. Tolterian. So, I don't drink, but no. You know what, I'll be honest with you, and maybe some of the other brothers can bring clarity to this. I just think it's a confusing subject. And the reason that I say, you know, I grew up Baptist and, you know, Baptist swear up and down. If you drink that you know, someone will even go as far as say that you're going to hell, you know, and so they would say, well why would Jesus turn something into fermented beverage that's going to cause people to get drunk or that's going to cause them to sin, you know, and they don't believe that Jesus would turn something like that into an alcoholic beverage. So, you know, I mean, believe me, I've studied it out. I've studied the Greek words, the Hebrew words, and some of them were used interchangeably, you know, I mean, so, but then you go to the Old Testament and it talks about wine that makes the heart glad, and you know, so you know, it's just to me, I just think that, and again, I know I'm going to get in trouble with a lot of my fundamental Baptist friends. I think that you study the Scriptures, you pray, and you let God lead you. It's a personal connection. Wait a minute, wait a minute, what are you saying then that it was wine? That it was real wine? What am I saying? Yeah. Was it Welch's? I don't know. I'm just going to say I don't know. That's not all I'm saying. I don't mean to pin you down there. No, I don't know. I'm going to go with it was real wine. And because of that, it says, the Scripture says it's John 2.10, and he said that every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests are well drunk. So in other words, they're going, they're on their way. But the culture of that time it was wrong for a Jew to be drunk. You see what I'm trying to say? So I really believe with all my heart it was fermented. But Jesus, you're saying Jesus turned something that caused people to sin, right? Well, if you believe that drinking is the same. Well, getting drunk is a sin. We can definitely say that getting drunk is a sin. Yeah, getting drunk is a sin, but not drinking wine. I don't believe drinking wine is the same. It's like overstudying the question. And I don't want to overstudy the question. I want to look strictly at the question. Was it fermented? That's the question. It was the same to me. Not that Jesus condoned people being drunk. I don't believe Jesus ever condoned people being drunk. But what I believe that wine was fermented. We only have a minute and a half left in the program. Just real quick. By the way, I don't drink. To get at your point, Jesus creates food and gluttonies is sin, right? He doesn't make anybody sin. And I think that's the difference here. You hit on something, Pete. Methusco is the word they were well drunk. It literally means to cause to become intoxicated, to get drunk, to become intoxicated with wine. It's from the noun that means strong drink. But Jesus doesn't make anybody get drunk. Clearly, it had to be wine because there was a guy named Thomas B. Welch who doesn't invent unfermented wine until 1869. It would have turned into vinegar in their climate. So it had to be fermented. I think that's the key. And I think what you said about gluttony and food, God certainly creates food, but he didn't expect us to be glutton. So I think that's an important point as well. So I think we're mostly on the it was fermented side of things here. And I guess a bunch of Pentecostals crying. I know. But we like to end the program with the scripture and today we go to Colossians where it says this, be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, season with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. That's Colossians 4, 5 and 6. Have a great day.