 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 Ray Hypo Providence Presbyterian Church Robinson Township. Mark Motor, pastor of Berean Church in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. Pete Giacalone, South Hills Assembly Guide Church, Bethel Park, PA. Janneth and Gilbert pastor from another level in the North Hills area. Pastors, thank you for being with us today. It's going to be great. A little bit later in the show, we're going to ask, did Jesus have a sense of humor? That should be really an interesting one, but let's go to this question first. A group of women, we just went to see Moses at the Sight and Sound Theater. And in the production, they mentioned that Moses stuttered. And so that brought up the debate because it's like a contradiction. Moses said to the Lord, I'm a man of slow speech. And so the belief is that he stuttered. But then in Acts chapter seven, it said he was educated in all wisdom and eloquent in speech. So what's going on here? So I thought that would be a good, hard question for the team. Did Moses stutter? Thank you so much. Well, thank you for the question. Ray, what's going on here? I think this is one of those questions where the English translation really makes an issue that isn't there. First of all, in Exodus four, it does say, as she said, Moses answers God, I'm slow of speech, slow of tongue. The Hebrew word is kavod, which in the PL stem, the intensive would mean glory. But in the ordinary Cal stem would just mean heavy, dull. It could mean a lot of things. One of the theories is Moses is saying he stuttered. I think that's kind of loose with, I think that maybe, you know, slow of speech is a better. And that's what the English, most English translations say, but there might be a few paraphrases that say stutter. That's, you know, that's a theory. In Acts where it says Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, you know, and I know some English translations again say was eloquent in words. That's not what the word is. The Greek word is dunatos. It's power. And so the better translation, the more literal translations. New King James, for example, says he was mighty in words and in deeds. And so we're not talking about he was able to speak, but not able to speak and therefore a contradiction. We're talking about something that made him, maybe he just, he had to think a little bit. He was a little bit slow. It might be literally slow to get his words. But when he spoke, they were powerful. Let my people go, or God is going to judge you. His words were powerful. And whatever trouble it was for him to speak them, that's a different thing. So it's, we're not talking about, you know, eloquent, not eloquent contradiction. We're talking about some kind of a speech difficulty. But when he got the words out, they were powerful. What was the Greek word again? Dunatos. Dunamai. Yeah, it would be the same root. So it's in the adjective there. Dunatos. Same root word as dynamite because I'm sure everyone else doesn't realize that Dunamis is dynamite. It's power of the Holy Spirit. But not eloquent. That's not the word for eloquent. That's the word for powerful. Okay. All right. And for our person who called in, the thing is this really bothered Moses. I don't think Moses was saying no to God that he didn't want to be used to God. But this impediment, whatever it was to the point, didn't finally got to look at, we'll use your brother Aaron. You'll be as God and Aaron will be your spokesman for you. So was Moses given an excuse here? Was he trying to just get out of it? I don't believe so. I personally believe. I think one thing we have to take into consideration is who you are under your anointing may not be who you are when you come out of your anointing. Just because you don't stutter under the anointing doesn't mean you won't stutter when you come out. I don't know how many of y'all have felt. I mean, you feel like you can leap tall buildings in a single bound when you preach and then you go home to a family situation where your humanity comes out. Benny Hinton, I don't know if you know about his story. He said he stuttered all the time. He said when that anointing would hit, there were still times he said I would get in that place. He said I've never stuttered in the pulpit. He said, but I come home and I'd be talking to my wife and I would get my tongue tied and I couldn't talk. He said I had a stuttering problem my whole life. So we can't disregard the fact that God uses the foolish things to confound the wise. So just because Moses had an impediment, but when he went to pharaoh, that anointing hit, he knew what he was going to say. But then when he was done in his call, he could come home and talk about get me a few loaves of bread and couldn't do it because then he always knew his power rested in God and not in himself. Since he made himself use your words dunitas with his words, he said, I'm going to make sure I use somebody that doesn't have any confidence in what they say. So then I get the glory for everything that is done. I thought Ray's insights and Jay's were so good. And I think there was probably some insecurity with Moses because it wasn't God that was saying that you are slow of speech. This was what he was saying. He said that. But one commentator said something I had never thought of. God made Aaron his mouthpiece and during the fifth plague, then Moses rose up, pushed Aaron aside and began to speak from then on out. And so it wasn't forever that he did that. It was a season that he did that. And I think Moses got more confident learning to trust in the Lord and getting bolder in that. So very interesting. I just can't think about Moses speaking without thinking of Charlton Heston. I just can't do it. He was great. But they had an actor playing Aaron that had a tremendous voice too. So it was all good. But great question. I really enjoyed that question. Let's go to the next one. This is kind of whimsical, but I am really curious. You know how they would tie a rope to the ankle of the high priest when he went into the Holy of Holies for the atonement? Is there any record in the Bible or in any of the ancient Hebrew writings about them having to haul out a high priest from the Holy of Holies? I happened to see a program about that the other day and it was on my mind. You know, did they ever have to pull a high priest out of the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement? Well, let's haul them out of there. It looks like you fell over. It's an interesting question. Again, Holy of Holies Day of Atonement only allowed to be in there once per year to make atonement. Mark. I thought this was a great question and I've actually taught that example before. But I found as I did some research, there's nothing in the Bible that says that obviously. And Josephus didn't talk about that. There were some other well respected writings that did not talk about it. But some of the Jewish people in ancient practices and rabbis did talk about this as something that was a reality. So there is no evidence outside of perhaps some Jewish rabbis that talked about it. But really, I can see both sides, but I don't think we can be dogmatic on that. I agree. I don't see anywhere in scripture that the rope was there, the bell and the pomegranate was there. The bell and the pomegranate, tell me about that. Well, as the priests went in, the Holy Holies, as long as they heard those bells going off, they knew it. The bells on the bottom of the road. Right. As long as they heard that, they knew everything was safe. He was still alive and they knew once these. But again, I don't find anywhere in scripture. Now, we do have Aaron's two sons who offered strange fire, sacrifice to the Lord. They dropped that immediately. But that was not in the Holy of Holies. It wasn't even the temple at the time. Right. It was outside. I agree. I tried to find some more information. And I've heard this. I think we've all heard this. And it's not in the Bible. We do know that. And I've read conflicting information. I read some people claim it's in the Talmud. And some others rabbis claim it wasn't. And rabbis were claiming it was. I didn't check the references. Some other Jewish works, you know, that say that they did it. Some rabbis saying yes. And then I read the rope was around the waist, the leg, the ankle. It was a chain, not a rope. So there's just so much information out there. I don't know. I think there's a genuine tradition that probably does go back ancient of days, whether or not they actually did it. I don't know how we can know that. You know, I think maybe if we tie a rope around the pastor, if he's going too long, pull them off the bed. Pull them off the bed. Pull them off the bed. Pull them off the bed. Pull them off the bed. The Apollo theater, the guy with the hook and brought them in. Just real quickly with that, you know, I think there's a lot of things that, you know, some stuff that become tradition, obviously you couldn't go in there. So they had it in some way that they pulled him out and they couldn't go in there. They dropped dead too. So just how like, you've been down to the Ark encounter. You know, I never thought about the filtration system for water, for animals and what they did with all of that stuff. And obviously there was nothing. They had all of that figured out. It's not in the scripture, but you can kind of gather some things, what they might have been able to do. So we don't base our theology on these things, but to be able to speculate and kind of give some insight to it, you know, it doesn't hurt nothing. These are some great questions. And when we come back in just 60 seconds, we ask, is the whaling wall an idol? Wow, great question. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. We've been having a great show. We're taking your calls from the hard question hotline. If you would like to leave us your questions, we encourage you to do that. You can call us at 412-349-4326. It's just an automated line. Leave your question like the people today have. We would love to answer your question on the air. So I'm going to go, I'm going to get this one next. You get the next one. I get the next one. You get the next one. Yeah, so here we go. Yes, I have a question. It's bogging my mind. Now the Jewish men go to the whaling wall. And as they pray, they bow. Is the whaling wall an idol? Interesting question. And I have some other thoughts on that too. But what do you say? Well, first of all, they're not, this is an idol is something you worship. It's something you adore. They go to the whaling wall. They're not worshiping the wall. At this particular time, they even have people there. I've been there. Oh, and I hope if you guys have never been there, please go. But the idea is they're not worshiping the whaling wall. They're there at the whaling wall, seeking and bringing their prayers as they know what to God. They even have rabbis there that if you pay them so much, they'll pray for your prayers. And I told them, no, no, I could pay for them. And it was a neat experience. I wasn't worshiping the wall. I wrote down many names of my family members and stuff like that, that you're allowed to put into the cracks of the wall. But my perception is it's not a place that you go to worship a tangible thing. It's go to a place that you pray before the Lord and seek the Lord and believe God as far as the believers. Not to me. Right. Maybe you could give us some context on what is the whaling wall. So the wall, the Western wall, as far as we know, it was the foundation wall. And I wasn't the actual temple, but the foundation upon which Solomon's temple was constructed. I mean, going that far back, we're not talking Herod's, but Solomon's. So it's the Jews very much reverent, what's left of this great time where there was a temple. And I think my answer would be maybe. Maybe it's an idol. And part of it depends on what's in your heart. Right? I mean, if I put anything before God, if I think anything somehow brings me closer to God, and you've got to understand that Jews are making an error here, there is no more need for a temple. There's no more Holy of Holies. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. I think that's the significance of that. The veil was torn in two. And that the Holy Spirit dwells in us now. So to think that there's a place to go to that brings you closer to God. I think sometimes we get that, you know, in Christian circles, there is a holy land per se. You know, the whole earth is ours now. We're called to take all of it. Jesus owns it all. We're called to proclaim His Word. And Jesus dealt with this a little bit when the woman at the well said to him, should we worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem? And that was part of God's law for a time. You had to go to Jerusalem. But Jesus said the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem God wants people to worship Him in spirit and truth. And that's what we do now. Wherever we are, God is with us. God is in us. I don't have to go to the welling wall. I don't have to go to Jerusalem. I don't have to go to the front of the church. God is with me by His Spirit. There is no more holy dwelling. So I think the Jews, whether or not they're idolizing the wall, they're making an error. Christ has come. They need to seek God in their hearts and not having a reverence for maybe another temple. Well, I like that. Again, well, let's just go to the pastors over here. Just real quick, I think it's, to your point, I agree it could be an idol. I think it's outstanding that we have remains from that. And what an outstanding thing to go to. But the bowing and all that goes back to, like you said, what's in the heart of that individual? And to be able, I've never been there. But I mean, to be able to experience and be like, wow, this is from Solomon. I mean, wow, this is outstanding. But the Bible, we have a whole book in the Bible of Hebrews on how Christ is better. So as much as we appreciate that, there's something even greater that Christ did and who He is now as our high priest that is far greater than any wall could ever been built by man. I just think it's interesting, I did some study and found that over a million notes a year are placed in that wall. So obviously to Ray's point, you don't have to go to the western wall to pray. But I think because of the symbolism of the Holy of Holies, for Jews and Christians, there's something about that. We're not worshiping a wall. We don't have to be there. But there's just something about all that took place there being significant for believers. But there's no efficacy of putting a paper in. Not to say there was anything wrong to do, but there's no greater like, our prayer is not going to be answered better because I put this paper in the wall. Exactly. But I think the emphasis is, what are we worshiping? If you're going there as a place of prayer, it's one thing. But if you're going there to worship the wall, yes, that would definitely be... Well, let me broaden this. Ray, you can speak this again. Are there holy places now? Where's the holy place? Where's the holy place on earth? I think the believer. That's where God dwells. This is the holy place. There's no more holy place on earth than in the believer. So your church is in the holy place. No. I mean, in the sense that we gather there and we are worshiping God, we could say because of that, but when we leave, it's just a building. The veil. We were just talking about the Holy of Holies being so holy that the priest couldn't go in there without being maybe dragged out by his ankle. Thick curtain has been torn top to bottom completely. So that has kind of ended that holy place. And I believe now, this is my take on it, is that what was in the Holy of Holies is now in us. We are now living, breathing, moving arc of the covenants that God wants to flow through and use. So that's what makes it so much powerful. They had to go to a specific place. Jesus said, now that I go away, the Holy Spirit can come and now there can be tons of us all taking dominion. Keep preaching. I'm getting chills over here. That's some good preaching there. Well, a great question. Thank you for it. Let's go to the next question. Hi. I would like to ask the question, will the mark of the beast be visible or will they be scanned? Will they be able to be seated? We have been sealed too. Well, we're going to go to Jeff. This card gets me anywhere I want to go. So I hope it's not, you know, is that RFID? Yeah, something like that. Well, that's basically one of the things that's coming. There's a whole lot of, we don't have time to go into it all, but it may be visible, it may be not. I don't know if you guys heard of Amazon One now. If you go to any Whole Foods in the South Hills, also in Wexford, they have a thing where it's infrared now. It reads your palm. You can register for $99 on Amazon and it reads the structure of your palm and the vein structure in your hand and it records that. And now when you go, you can pay for that and upload all your stuff. They're going to be doing, it's right now, you can go today and use it. It's now in here. And so I'm saying that we are moving towards that. Yes, without a doubt. Now I don't know if it's going to be red, if it's going to be under the skin. We don't have time to go into what the market of the beast is going to be, but I believe that it's going to be more than just something, a chip in the hand. It is going to alter the minds of individuals because it's the only sin. Think about it that when you take it, there's no redemption for. So if you took it in your hand or forehead, just cut it out. So what happens to us, to where we are no longer able to redeem, be redeemed anymore. So besides the unpardonable sin, which we've talked about in previous shows, this here is another one. So will it be seen? Maybe, maybe not. But I can tell you this, every day we are moving so close. Go to your Whole Foods. You'll see it right there. Wow. You know, anytime I can't find my keys to the car, I tell Jean that if they just put a chip in me, I wouldn't have to worry about it. I'd be good. Of course I'm joking everyone out there. I don't know. Send me letters. Mark. I think the one point we need to make is that we are seeing things now that could be a precursor to the Mark of the Beast, but it's not the Mark of the Beast now. That's right. And to me, believers are going to be raptured before that's even going to be a reality. So we don't have to be afraid of it. Yes, we can recognize that that's very possibly something that will be used in the future, but that's something in the Tribulation where people are worshiping the Antichrist. I don't believe we'll be here. We'll definitely not be worshiping the Antichrist. But they are a precursor, I believe, to what's coming. Amen. Jump in there real quick. It's the idea that, you know, because we'll have dear saints thinking, oh, can I receive this? Not knowingly. It's an intentional thing when it does take place that you're not going to be able to buy or sell. That's going to be the whole deal with your life. And then again, you'd have to be a martyr for Christ if you refuse to take the Mark of the Beast. All right, Ray. I do think that what Jay said is something that helps me to try to understand this, that you can't have faith in Christ and then have something done to your body and you lose your salvation. If you're trusting in Christ, you're saved. You're a regenerate. You're a new creature, greater. He is in you. Now, apostatizing from Christ, saying Caesar is Lord is something that you can't do either. And so to me, that's what the Mark of the Beast here has to be. I think it's when the Christian is persuaded, the professing Christian, because I don't think you can lose your salvation, but when you're persuaded by the lie, whether it's from the world, the flesh and the devil, and you worship the beast, it's always, except for once, it's always coupled with, they took the Mark and they worship the beast in his image. So there is this element of you're giving yourself over to someone when you should be worshiping God. And I think that's why everyone who takes the number is thrown into hell because he's not a believer. He hasn't come to Christ. So I don't think real Christians should ever fear somebody doing something to you that's going to take away your salvation. The only thing that way that can happen is that if you don't believe in Jesus. I guess we didn't really answer the question, is it visible or scanned? There's a lot of different theories. I don't think we really know. The Bible seems to say that it's a visible symbol, either on the forehead or the hand. All's I know is while we take a break, I'm going to go shred my proximity card. Okay, so I don't get messed up here. But we'll be back in 60 seconds and we're going to ask, did Jesus have a sense of humor? I hope so. Well, let's go to our next question. The ladies at my retirement home were wondering, does Jesus have a sense of humor? Well, ladies, that's a great question, right? I think when we look at Christ, we have to remember who he is. That he is the God-man. That he is one person with two natures. He is fully divine in his God nature. That is, he had no beginning. He had no birth. He cannot die. He doesn't sleep. He's everywhere at once. He's fully God in that sense. And he has that nature. But he's also fully human. You know, he had to go to sleep in the boat because he was tired. He was hungry. You know, he could die. And so to me, it comes down to, is a sense of humor an inherent part of human nature? Because if it is, then he had to have a sense of humor. If it's not, then he maybe didn't. But I think it has, it is. It's part of human nature. I don't think we see a whole lot. I tried to find some things. Maybe when Jesus says, you know, when they say about Herod, and he says, go and tell that fox. You know, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. He clearly uses satire, irony, you know, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and things like that. He does that. But I don't think we see a lot of it because he was a man of sorrows. He came to bear our sins. We never read. We do see Jesus wept. We never read Jesus laughed. That doesn't mean he didn't. But the picture that we get of him is a man who came to do some serious work. And he talks about that to his disciples. You know, they're going to take you and they're going to think they're doing God's service when they kill you. And so, you know, we're in a spiritual battle. Jesus came to conquer. You don't see conquering generals making jokes while they're going into war. He came to do a war. Again, I'm not saying he never laughed. He never told a joke or whatever. But I think he did because it's part of human nature. But I think the Bible is showing us the reason why Jesus came. And again, at the end of what John's gospel said, there wasn't enough books in the whole world to write every emotion of Jesus. And I'm putting it in there as far as every emotion. But we do have Jesus being so warm and friendly. The fact that kids saw something in him that they could just run up and... You see what I'm trying to say? So that he wasn't, you know, this hard... Stand the horse. Yeah. But he was this... That he was so warm, so accepting, so receiving that even little children can come and run to him and maybe jump on his lap. So, and he said, forbid them not. I want them. So at a moment like that, I can't help but see Jesus just having a time of rejoicing with these children. I like that. I like that too. I think that's a great take on it. I never thought about that because I think what that shows too is the religious folks that he can have a sense of humor. He don't want to be around the kids. And he actually went to the end of the spectrum and actually said, bring him to me. And the kids were attracted to it. So I didn't even thought about it. Kids aren't usually attracted to stone-faced guys. Yeah, they want someone that's fun. And having the kids felt... He was approachable. So I think that's pretty neat. And I think a bigger question is should Christians laugh and have humor and so forth? And I think too many Christians are too somber, too serious. And I know when we have had some gatherings with our leaders and wanted to honor them, we had a Tim Hawkins night where we just showed Christian comedy and laughed and enjoyed things. And I think it's good, it's healthy to laugh. It's important to do that. So yes, our role is serious. Yes, we have demons to fight. But I believe that there's anyone that should be joyful and full of humor, it should be believers. And so, absolutely yes, Jesus was a man of sorrows, but he came to give us life and that more abundantly. You know, there's two things I thought of. Jesus was the user of ridiculous examples. Like, don't take the speck out of your own eye when there's a log, you know? Or camel going through the eye of a needle. A kind of a ridiculous kind of comparison. So I think that kind of humor level was there. It doesn't say he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. So there's something there as well. Well, we'd like to end the program with a scripture. And today we go to Romans where it says this. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15, 13. Who's got a quick 20 seconds on this, Ray? You got 20 seconds on this? Sorry, I was zoning out there. I'm already on the next program. I need to have a bunch of those. He is human. I know. That's a humor right there. We hope you were paying attention to today's program. And we want to hear from you. Email us your questions at hardquestionsatctvn.org or call into our hotline at 412-don't-ask-for-Ray 349-4326.