 Hello, 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 get to be the moderator, and today our panelists include... Dr. William R. Glaze, Bethany Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. Ray Hypal Providence Presbyterian Church in Robinson Township. Pete Giacalone, lead pastor, South Hills Assembly God Church, Bethel Park, PA. J. Anthony Gilbert, pastor of another level in the North Hills area. Well, pastors, I always enjoy these times. Thank you for coming in and being part of the program today. And we always take questions that are yours, but today we're going to be taking them from our audio hotline. So let's get started with this. Yes, my name is Lois from Pittsburgh, and I saw on one of the religious programs that Jesus was possibly married to Mary Magdalene and had a child with her. When he was crucified, she went to France and arrived in France after being his disciple and being with him all the time, and she was pregnant, they said, and I guess she gave birth in France afterwards, and they claim that it was Jesus's child, and I never heard this growing up. And I didn't think his purpose was to come to Earth to meet someone and be married or have a child. So it's really confusing, and I don't know if it's any truth to it or not. Thank you. Well, Lois, thank you for the question, and there's a lot of things you will hear out there. Hopefully we're going to hear some things today that will help us sort this out for all of us. Pastor Glaze, can you start us off? I would say that theology comes from Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code, and he talked about it. As a matter of fact, he quotes in the book, he said it's a matter of record that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a pair, and then he says somewhere else, it's a part of the record that they were married. So, you know, and this was a movie that was popular. It's a novel. Yeah, a novel, and then a movie. And so, you know, people took their theology from this. And where did Dan Brown get it from? He got it from the Gospel of Philip, which actually was a false gospel, one of the Gnostic Gospels that was written, you know, hundreds of years after Christ had died, so you can't put any faith in that. And then, you know, there are 11 references to Mary Magdalene in the New Testament, and not one time does it say she was married to Jesus. And then I look at, you know, Paul in 1 Corinthians 9. He talked about his right to be married. He mentions the apostles. He mentions Peter. He even talks about the brother of Christ. But he didn't say that Christ was married. And then when you look at Jesus dying on the cross, you know, when he was dying on the cross, what did he tell John? He said, take care of my mother. Well, Mary Magdalene was right there. You know, God taught that your spouse is the most important person to you. So why wouldn't he say, look, man, watch out for my lady, too. You know, make sure you take care of my lady. And so, you know, I would just say that there's no evidence in the New Testament that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were ever married. And again, it comes from a movie novel theology that's based on a Gnostic Gospel. I totally blamed you. And I said, you know what? I'm going to blow up in his mind and say, yes, Jesus was married to the church. And he is going to be married to the church. He's the bridegroom. But no, he was never, never, never married to any woman here on earth. Yeah, I think, I mean, is there anything we can add over here? Well, you know, Dan Brown, as Pastor Glaze mentioned, not only the Da Vinci Code, but the Golden Compass is the second book and movie. And there's several others. He intentionally said, I believe in an interview, that he sought to create sort of an allegorical myth like Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. But intentionally anti-Christian. That was his goal. And so he makes up so much stuff. Even the New York Times called it, you know, nonsense. He makes up so much garbage. And he distorts so much falsehood. I mean, I could mention a ton of things. But you know what he says about Constantine? False, Rosalind Chappell, false. Sarah's descendants, the Shekinah, not true. King's College, not true. Priory of Zion, not true. The Knights Templar, the Last Supper painting, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. What he says about the Opus Dei, the Cathars, it's all against the historical record. So here we have either a deliberate liar or a very, very ignorant person, or somebody who's just trying to make some money and capitalizing on the fact that people don't really look up the fact. Everybody needs to remember this was a novel. Okay, it's a novel. Well, think about it. If Jesus had a son, I mean, think about that for me. You don't think one of the apostles would have took him up? Yeah. Or, you know, somebody would have said, hey, this is the Messiah's son. We need to do something with him. You said about why would not Paul have mentioned that Jesus was married when he's going through this litany? Do I not have the right to take a wife or something like that? So I think that we can really lay that one to rest there. So let's go to our next audio question. Hi, my name is Sean. I have a question about King Solomon. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, 10, it says that a king was to make a copy of the law of Moses, and that he was not to multiply wives or horses. Yet in 1 Kings 11, he married 700 wives, and he had many horses. I know that the Bible also says that those who start off righteous and turn to wickedness will not achieve salvation. So does that mean that Solomon isn't going to achieve salvation? Thank you. Bye. All right. This is a really good question. Ray, are we going to see Solomon in heaven? What do you think? I mean, different people say different things. The Bible doesn't clearly state that Solomon was redeemed. He's not in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith, as it were. But I think that he was. In 2 Samuel 7, when God makes that covenant with David, he says, you know, your son, even though we know it's ultimately about Christ. And yet it was in time about Solomon. And the Jewish tradition is that Solomon at the end of his life does repent from those sins. And that's when he writes the book of Ecclesiastes, and he talks about all these things that he tried. He didn't keep anything from himself, including women. And not only did he have 700 wives, he had 300 concubines, which is, you know, kind of wife's second class. But, you know, he does sin. He sins in many ways. And the Bible actually says when Solomon was old, his wife turned his heart away from other gods. And his heart was not loyal to God. And so God raised up against him certain adversaries. So, you know, believers can sin. They can do terrible things, anything short of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and bring judgments in their lives. And I think Solomon did that. And God even said, I'm going to take the kingdom away from you, not from you, but from your son. He does, because he raises up Jeroboam, and he gives him the 10 tribes. So, Solomon brought a lot of pain and heartache because he didn't listen to what God said. Yeah. Pastor Jay. Well, I guess when he took the 700 wives, that wisdom cap wasn't on. 700 wives and 300 concubines. I mean, like, you know, something's missing there. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot there. But, you know, when it said that, and maybe you guys can speak to this, I was looking through and doing some research on that, said those that start out righteous and turn to wicked and not receive salvation. Is that the Hebrews 10 Scripture? It's talking about how that we draw back after we're tasting the good fruits of righteousness and then draw back the remains of no more sacrifices. Is that the Scripture he's referring to? Because I was trying to find that. Where does it say that in the Scriptures? He was talking about the good things that he did afterwards will not be remembered. Oh, okay. Yeah, he was talking about the righteous man. Yes. Okay. He found the Ezekiel 33 about the righteous man. Is that what it was? Okay, that was the part. Because I was thinking in regards to that, that's the Hebrews 10 piece or whatever. But I believe there's many people that may start out well and can battle with things and then come back and repent, like you said, even with him coming back later on after having the encounter with God about receiving the righteousness and all, I'm sorry, the wisdom and all of that stuff. He went through all that whole process and still ended up coming back and giving his life back around. Well, like Ray said, I believe that he wrote the Song of Solomon early in life, proverbs in the middle age, and then Ecclesiastes at the end of his life. And then Ecclesiastes, if he wrote this at the end of his life, he says in Ecclesiastes verse 12, 13 and 14, let us hear the conclusion of the matter. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every act into judgment, whether it is good or evil. So, you know, I mean, he came to grips with the fact that, you know, the answer to being right with God was fearing God, realizing that he was gonna have to stand before God and give him a count for his life. So, you know, to me, I think that that strong evidence that he was saved in the Old Testament, that a lot of times the phrase is, use fear God, that he feared God. Yeah, that's good. Well, you know, the bottom line, the final authority is God. Right. That's the bottom line, that's the final authority. And I think, and I can understand because he did, he broke every one of these commandments that the King of Israel was every one of them, multiplied horses, money, many wives. He broke everything. He broke it all there in Deuteronomy 17. But again, we have to trust it into a loving, kind, merciful, shall not the God of all the earth do right. That's a great place to come down on that. So, yeah, we hope that he made it. We believe that in the economy of God that he did, but we are trusting in a righteous and holy God. Well, coming up in 60 seconds, we're going to talk about the Ark of the Covenant. Welcome back to Hard Questions. We're going to have some good discussion, listening to your audio questions. And here's the next one. Reading the Bible throughout the year and starting to have a question about explaining what the Ark of the Covenant is and how that really is imaginable, how and if we to understand that God was captured in a box or what is the meaning of that if you can enlighten or provide any insight into that, that would be appreciated. Thank you. All right, the Ark of the Covenant. So, Jay, why don't you take us down this road? Yeah, let's read Exodus 25 real quickly in verse 21 and 22. That's where they would bring the blood once a year to put over the mercy in there. He would meet with them on top of the mercy seat. He wasn't actually in the box. And that was the place symbolically that he was saying was going to meet. And if we remember too, all of that, the whole inner court, outer court, Holy of Holies, everything that happened in there was all a shadow and type of what was in heaven. So we had a reflection of what the heavenly courts look like. And that can be studied in the book of Hebrews. So he wasn't inside of that. That was a symbolistic place of where he said he would meet with us, almost like where he said when he went to find Adam. And he said, I came to that place and said, Adam, where are you? Because he had left that mercy seat type place. And again, the Ark of the Covenant represented the manifestation of the presence of Almighty God. When they went to battle, I remember one particular scene when they went to battle, they called for the Ark of the Covenant. And of course, they lost the Ark of the Covenant. Because when the Ark of the Covenant came in, this was Eli's sons, Hopni and Phineas, if I remember correctly. And they brought the Covenant in the battle. And man, the ground shook, they were all excited, the people praised. But it was all noise. Because the fact that at that time Israel was backslidden, Israel was not serving God. And the interesting thing, going back to what Jay said about putting the blood on the mercy seat, is that the presence of God was in the Holy of Holies. And according to Josephus, the high priest would go back once a year. And if God accepted the sacrifice, then he was able to come back out. But according to Josephus, they tied a rope around the priest. And if God didn't accept the sacrifice, again, he wasn't in the box. But his presence was in the Holy of Holies. And if God didn't accept the sacrifice, then the priest was killed. And then the people, when they stopped hearing the bells, they began to pull them out. That's a tough preaching right there. That's a tough job. So we can put the rest, the idea that God is in the box. That's from Indiana Jones or something. I was thinking that too. Israel was unique in that they did not have an idol. They did not have a statue. They did not have a representation of God. And he commanded instead an ark to be made. If anything, that would have been God's footstool in the symbolism and the mercy seat and so forth as you said, Jay. But it was a symbol of God's presence. He says, there I will meet with you. And you read Exodus. And there's a couple other places where in Leviticus 16, 2, the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, lest he die, or I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat. So even the cloud wasn't God. God is using these theophanies, these symbols to veil, as it were, his holy presence, because you can't be in the presence of God and live because we're sinners. But he appeared in the sense that he made his presence known and then he would hear prayers, he would forgive sins, and the ark was the place. It was the symbol of God's presence, but it wasn't God. And he really honored his presence because remember, who was it that opened the ark and looked into it, and how many... The Jews who, yeah. Well, and then there was power. Remember, was it Uzzah? Uzzah, yeah. He tried to steady the ark when it was going over a rock. And it wasn't he opened it, he just touched it. Yeah, he just touched it. And he died. Again, that's just the power of God and it's hard for us to even understand why God did that. But Pastor Glaze, could you take this into the New Testament now? What happened? That ark sat in the Holy of Holies, right? Now, one of my favorite symbolisms is about the veil and what happened. Can you just tell us about that? Yeah. When Jesus died. Well, when Jesus died, it says that the veil of the temple was torn in two. And then you go to the book of Hebrews and it says, now we can boldly enter into the presence of God. In the Old Testament, there was that veil, so there was that veil presence. But now, since Jesus died and rose again, we can come boldly to the throne of God. Yeah, I love that symbolism. Again, not just symbolism, but actual fact of what happened. But that was like a thick, this is not like a shower curtain here. I think it was thick. Yeah, it was thick. And it was torn from top to bottom. And to take it back even further, if you go back to the garden, when they are thrown out of the garden of Eden and God puts the cherubim to guard, which is the garden was His presence, right? Well, on the ark are the cherubim. And then on the veil, if you read, they were commanded to make embroidered cherubim. There were cherubim on the veil. And again, those angels that are always in God's presence and the ark symbolizing God's presence. So when God opens the way, as you said, Jesus has completed that redemption. I get the chills just thinking about this, that veil tearing like that. From the top to the bottom. Taking away our sins, not just covered them, so now we can come in. That veil was to protect them. So they wouldn't die. And now we don't need that, Jesus. Was it made out of whale skin? I don't know. And died? I don't remember dying. But in any event, this is good preaching, Pastor Jay. It's open now to us. It is. One thing that's really unique too, the veil was torn. Then the Bible says that the rocks were split, the earth shook, and the graves opened. There's symbolism in all of that. There's a connection with the heart, the heart of stone being split. And it was always in twos, which God brought us back to the garden. Symbolic, now your heart is a matter of choice. Entering into the presence of God is a choice. They had two now, the flesh and the spirit, was all divided so we can now find access back into the presence of God. That's great. So that's a good question. A lot of our questions here today have a lot to do with popular perceptions of things of God versus what is actually in the scripture. It's important that we study the scriptures. Well, coming up, we're going to be talking about celebrity Christians. And what do we do when they're talking and their actions don't match up? Stay tuned. Well, we have good discussions when we're in the break, too. A good discussion about everything we've been talking about, but right now we've got another important question. Let's go to that. I have a question. I have lately been seeing different celebrities and a professional wrestler who claim to be Christians and I see him on Christian ministries saying all the right things. But then the movies they make have a lot of cussing and vulgarity. For instance, that wrestler, he does a very vulgar saying. And I'm just really confused as to how that can happen. All right. So people's talk and their lives maybe not matching up. Pete, what do you think about this? Well, I agree with the sensitivity of the individual that asked this question. And the thing is, in many cases we don't know where these people are at in their walk with God, you know. And we're quick. We're quick, you know, because again, you know, we're told to shun evil, let no evil corruption proceed from your mouth. We're told all of this. And I remember years ago that was happening many, many years ago on the 700 Club, if I can say that, that many of these movie stars were getting saved and they were interviewing right away, but they were living like a double standard life. And then Pat became very cautious of who he was bringing back on. And I'm going back decades ago. I think the thing that we need to be careful of is that we must not allow celebrities to become the example that they live in flesh and blood just as we live in flesh and blood and that if they're, again, I want to emphasize where they are in their walk with God. So yes, I believe they can be born again and yes, I believe that the sanctification process is taking place in their life, but I think we need to be careful, even if we go back to the Jesus movement, if I can just throw this out real quick. And I know we've got some time. Chuck Gerard said this to me one time. I had Chuck at my church. Matter of fact, he was on Cornerstone. Oh, some years ago. And Chuck was an amazing, amazing human being and he preached to my church and then we went out to lunch and I was just asking him all kinds of questions and he told me, he says, we were put on the platform way before we should have been. We were not walking with God. And he said this more than one. Yeah, even in the movie and I heard him say it here and he said, yeah, our worship band drummer has to go finish serving out the rest of his sentence, you know, because he just got saved. All right, so Ray, why don't you take us from here about questions about celebrity Christians and their lifestyle? Yeah, on the one hand, you know, Jesus warns against false prophets who come to you and she's clothing, false teachers, you will know them by their fruits and I think the principle is true of Christians as well. My walk should match my talk and especially as a pastor, you know, when we're interviewing members, we always look for what we call a credible profession. They need to understand the gospel, get the facts right. But we need to see some evidence of it in their lives. But on the other hand, you know, I want to say to the caller, you know, all Christians sin. All Christians are going to be inconsistent at some level. Short of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, Christians can commit any sin that the world does and I just would be real careful with, you know, looking at somebody, seeing some things in their lives that aren't right and saying, wow, you know, that shouldn't be. Look at yourself. I mean, I look at myself and I see things that shouldn't be. I mean, Paul called himself the chief of sinners. I mean, we all still sin. And so the fact that, you know, we see things in a celebrity or a wrestler or something, I'm not going to jump to the judgment. Oh, that's not a Christian because he sinned. Well, then none of us would be Christians because we all sin. And so, you know, I just think we need to be real careful about that. But as Pete said, we don't make anybody the model, right? I mean, nobody is. Oh, this is what a Christian is. The Bible tells us what a Christian is. And when we fall short of that, you know, there's confession, there's forgiveness, there's repentance, and that's what we exhort people to do. And we should pray for one another when we see people falling short. Absolutely. I think that, you know, the whole thing of the soil and sowing the seeds and then some spring up, right? Some spring up right away. They accept the word, but they don't have root in themselves. So yeah, absolutely. You know, what I'd like to do, guys, if we could go to the Scripture, I'd like to read the Scripture and then just get your take on this. And Jay, I'll come to you first, coming out of the Scripture, but it's from 2 Timothy and it says this, The saying is trustworthy. For if we have died with Him, we so also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself. That's 2 Timothy 2, 11 through 13. Whoa, help take this apart for us. Unpack that Scripture for us. I want to tie that into that. You know, the whole thing about celebrity Christians, just because you're a celebrity. There's no fast track because you're a celebrity. You know, you still got to walk through this and that's what the Scripture is saying. If you died with Him, and it says if we endure, another place that says if we suffer, then we'll reign with Him. You know, they have to walk through that process. This is the process of getting to know the Father. You have to suffer. You've got to die. You've got to walk through these things. And He's also saying in there, obviously it goes a little bit further. He says if we deny Him, He's going to deny us. But even if we're faithless, He remains faithful. So He's saying there's a point that it's on you. But in the rest of it, there's some stuff where God's like, even if you fall short, I'm still me. And He's still going to hold it down. But I think there's no fast track in this thing. Everybody's got to walk through the process. Yeah. Pastor Glaze, what are your thoughts on that Scripture? Yeah. I would tag on to the tail end of what Jay said about God's faithfulness. You know, I like to think of somebody who used the Old Testament word, Hesed. You know, the steadfast love of God. And they said like when you're in a relationship with God, God holds on to you and you hold on to God, right? But sometimes we lose strength and we give up. And it's good to know that God still holds on to us. So even when we're unfaithful and we don't have the faith, that God is faithful and He still holds on to us. He didn't post anything. I may apprehend Him who has apprehended me. Yeah, I mean, that's so good. Ray, what are your thoughts? I mean, there's even some hard things in this. I love this portion of Scripture. If we deny Him, He would deny us. That's kind of hard. Can you just unpack that for us a little bit? You know, that became real in the early church when you had to make a choice. You know, would you burn incense to Caesar? You know, the emperor called and say, Kaiser Curios, which is Caesar's Lord. And even though we know we're commanded to respect rulers and so forth, we can't worship them. And the Christians had to make a choice there. Will I deny Caesar? Will I deny Jesus? And we can't ever deny Jesus. Absolutely. It's important to remember that He remains faithful. He cannot deny Himself. He is faithful to you no matter what you're going through, even when you're faithless, even when you have those struggles, He remains faithful to you. Well, we hope you enjoyed today's program. And we want to hear from you. Please email us your questions at hardquestionsatctvn.org or hey, the hotline's an easy way, right? 412-349-4326. We'd love to have your questions. Please contact us. Have a great day.