 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, South Hills Assembly Guide Church, Bethel Park, PA, Pastor J. Anthony Gilbert of another level ministries in Mount Washington, pastors, it is great to be with you. We have the plaid section going on here and the tie section over here, I don't know, we'll see. In the new chair. In the new chair. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Move it on up. That's right, well today's topic is where is our allegiance, isn't that an interesting question? Let's dive in here. So here's the first one, to what extent should a Christian's allegiance be to their country? Pastor Pete. The very first quote I thought of immediately and it wasn't scripture, but I'm going to get the scripture. The very first thing I thought of was in the 60s, of course, you know, I was alive then, you know. A few of us were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. JFK said this, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And I see that theme and of course back in those days it was always Uncle Sam needs you. People were stepping up to the plate for helping to meet the needs of America. Also I was told that before that World War Two, many, many, many men took their own lives because of the fact that they didn't qualify for armed services. So what I'm trying to say is that the passion for America was quite different than what it is today. And then I immediately thought, now I'm going to bring this more religious, we're going to sanctify it. I immediately thought of Livingston, the great missionary Livingston. And when he left Africa, the natives stopped the coffin, opened the coffin and cut out his heart and said, you can have his body, but his heart belongs here in Africa. And you know, we hear these slogans, you know, to make America great. And again, I am not going political, I'm just using that. But to make America to be what she needs to be, if the believer doesn't have a passion for America, then who's going to have a passion? We have our faults, we have our failures, we have our mistakes. And immediately my mind ran to 1 Corinthians 13. I do it at every wedding. If you love someone, you'll be loyal to them no matter what the cost. And I think if we love our country, now again, what I want to eliminate here, I'm not talking about a political party. I'm talking about the same America my father fought for, your dad fought for. That's what I'm talking about. So I believe, yes, America needs us as believers to be out in front, leading. And again, I'm trying to disassociate myself with political. That's a good point. I like what you said. Let's go over to Pastor Glaze. And it says to what extent should a Christian's allegiance be to their country? And you know, I look at Daniel chapter 3 with the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And in Exodus, it says that you shall not worship, you know, create any gods or bow down to them. And we know Nebuchadnezzar set up this statue and you're one of them to worship. And so at that point they had to check, well, where's my allegiance? Is my allegiance to the law or is my allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon? And it says here, there are certain Jews who thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. These men, O King, have not regarded thee. They serve not thy gods nor worship the image which thou hast set up. So you know, to what extent, I say that the extent where it causes us to be in violation of the law of God, then at that point, I think that that's where we part our allegiance from our country. Interesting. You know, quite often in history, religion, and we're going to be talking about this a little bit, that there was like the state religion. And if you didn't worship the way they wanted, then there was a problem. And of course the allegiance is first to God. How about on the side? I know for myself, I totally agree that the word of God has to be the full standard. And if anything the government does is against that, we go with the Scripture. But in my missionary travels, 25 countries, I am so grateful for the United States. It is not perfect, but I honor it, I bless it, I pray for it. And I would love to see us get back to recognizing our faults, but realizing that God has blessed this nation to send missionaries out, to be a beacon of freedom. And we need to stand for that freedom, because that's being attacked. I think of one verse in Galatians where the Scripture says that we need to make sure that our liberty is held fast, hold fast to the liberty that we have as a nation. Jesus said, render to God the things that are God, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. You know, even the Marines, where it's God core country, I think it's in that order. And I think it's the same way. God should be number one, then your allegiance to your country. And I'm not talking about the core, but you know, I think that's the order. So when you're looking at in regards to allegiance, I think you can have your allegiance to both, but not at the expense of our walk with God in the word of God. Absolutely. I think we're all coming to the same conclusion that yes, we should be having allegiance to our country, but not where they would have us cross a line of God's word. Well, let's move on to kind of this is how we're working our way in the world here. Okay. How about this one? Should Christians boycott companies that support ungodly policies and practices? That's right. Well, you know, I hate to identify companies, but I know, I know Christians that will not go to Target, you know, because Target does a lot of things, you know, in the to support the gay and lesbian community. I know that they will not let the Salvation Army out in front, you know, during Christmas. And so there are Christians that will not, you know, go to Target, but then there are other Christians that that do go to Target. So, you know, what, you know, how does somebody decide whether to go or not go, whether the boycott or not boycott and speak that for just one quick minute. I boycotted Target after the Salvation Army thing and they wouldn't let them out front anymore and and then Salvation Army settled with them on that. Just to say, just to say that they made a $2 million donation to the Salvation Army, Salvation Army was like, okay, I don't have to ring my bell. I was in front of them more. But anyway, go ahead. But I was going to say in Romans 14, one man stings another day more than another, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. And then it goes to talk about, you know, one person regards one day, another person doesn't regard it. And so what I take away from that in reference to this is conscience, you know, that as you spend time with God and as you seek the Lord, that however he speaks to you to your conscience, I think that that determines whether you boycotted or not. And I think the important thing there also is that we don't allow that to divide us. You may have convictions in certain situations and I've seen these the last couple of years that the church has become divided that if you don't agree with me, then, you know, my convictions supersede your convictions. I think a lot of this sometimes is personal convictions. That's a good point and that's something that, you know, kind of Christian believes something strongly themselves, but not put that on somebody else. That's the question. We get a little, if you start getting too legalistic with it, I get to a point where after a while, well, what if somebody is a dry cleaners and they have a homosexual lifestyle, do you not take your cleaners there? Because they're homosexual. I mean, so it goes back to what you said. I think it comes back to the conscience. I think about the scripture in Corinth you talk about, should I eat meat off of the dietels? And I'll actually break down, I said, well, it's not the meat that you're buying and going home and cooking is the problem. It's the worshiping of the idols with the meat. That's the negative thing. So going to Target to buy a pack of bubble gum, which for some people may say, you know, I don't want to support that because of that. Going there, it doesn't mean a person is in sin, but what they stand for is. So now one thing I would say is that if you're going there on a certain day, maybe they're saying, this is transgender day. Come, all your money is going to go towards that. That might be a time that you may say, maybe we should stop and not go. Everybody should boycott that. But just ultimately, if they stand for something that we don't stand for, you got to go back to conscience like Dr. Lacey. And I think there can be two extremes. When I was in Bible school, the thinking was I'm just called to preach the word. I don't need to be involved in politics or things like that. We just preach the gospel. And then on the other side, there are Christians that are so politically minded, they're not even spiritually minded. So the balance is the kingdom is first. I don't want to be so unwrapped in this that it consumes me. But on the other hand, if the other side is going to take a stand against righteousness, the church needs to take a stand for righteousness. It may be a little different from person to person, but we need to let our voice be known. Absolutely. You know, what's interesting about this is one time there was a certain company that we were being asked to boycott. And I found out they're part of a conglomerate. I was going to have to boycott so many companies. It was like impossible, it was going to be impossible to boycott everything. But real good discussion. Well, we're going to take a quick break. Coming up in 60 seconds, we're going to ask, and this is, we just alluded to this, does religion have a place in politics? You don't want to miss that. We'll be right back. Welcome back to hard questions. We're having a great discussion so far and we have a hot potato for you coming up here. Okay, Pastor Mark, I'm going to ask you to answer this one first. To what extent should we obey those in authority over us? Great question. Romans 13 is what most people would probably think about. Verse one, everyone must submit to governing authorities for all authority comes from God and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. Now I believe generally speaking, as Christians, we should submit to our leaders even if they don't know the Lord. But on the other hand, I do not believe this is unqualified blind obedience. And I believe there are precedences in the book of Acts. I can think of two where the apostles were told, do not preach, do not teach Jesus Christ. And they said, well, we're going to submit in our hearts but we're not going to obey that. We have to obey God rather than men. And so I think it's important to recognize two things. One, God does desire us generally to submit but there are two times I believe we have a time to say, no, I'm gonna stand against that one if it clearly goes against the word of God. And we've seen some of those things in the last couple of years. Secondly, when it goes contrary to our human conscience. And I think of COVID and how that there's no verse that says to get the shot or not get the shot. But I know many of our people would not get it based on conscience. And we did not take a stand as a church but we stood with those that had a particular perspective because we believe nothing should override our human conscience before God. That's a great point. Jay. You know, there's plenty of places in scripture where people have over read government because they caused them to break the word of God. One of the great pastors scripture I think in this day and hour that we should all be reading through which I believe is so apropos for this era that we're in is the book of Daniel. Because that's where we are. That's where we are. I mean, Daniel, they said, you're not allowed to pray. What I love about Daniel, he didn't just not say, I'm gonna pray. He opened up and said, I want y'all to see me praying. And then we see in Acts chapter four with Peter and John and how they chose to preach the word of God as well. What was amazing though, which we don't talk a lot about and then I'll pass it on here. Acts two, we see a baptism but they needed a different baptism for that. Acts four, they said they were filled again to speak the word of God with boldness because they were being threatened. And I believe that's what we need that same boldness that Daniel had, Peter had and John had. And they even prayed that grant us more boldness. So the more the opposition arose against them, the more, you know, it was like a pushing battle, you know. The more the government was pushing against the church, the church said, we're gonna push back. And of course, you already talked about them but I think of Meshach Shadrach and a billy goat. Oh, it's a bendy goat. But you know, when they said, you know, we're quick to answer this. King, we're gonna let you know right now we're not gonna stutter whether it's right or not. You decide but we know we're not gonna bow down to your God. You know, I just wanna say real quick that I'm not sure about these other pastors but I know during the COVID one of the things that I was getting from my members, they were wanting religious exemption. Yes, yes. And so, you know, I had to sit down with them and they were convinced in their heart that God was speaking to them about not taking it. And so, you know, I did grant religious exemptions but one of the things I found out is that several people lost their jobs because their job didn't accept it. You know, they were being required, you know, to get the shot. So again, you know, this falls out in different forms, right? You know, I mean, from, you know, from what Shadrach, Meshach and the bendy goat to COVID, you know, that people were willing to, you know, lose their job as a result of not obeying the government. Yeah, I think it brings, it's interesting. Again, studying history, Luther, Zwingli, you know, Tyndale, they all disobeyed their governing authorities. You know, and frankly, they disobeyed their ecclesiastical authorities too. So, that's a whole other subject we can talk about. But let's move on to the next one. So, this is the real hot potato here. Does religion have a place in politics? What is the role of church and government in society? I have to tell you, Jay, before we get to you, I reframed this, I wrote down here, does God have a place in government? That's how I view this question. But anyway. Yeah, we need like a half hour just for this because there's so much to unpack. It's not a small question, you could say yay or nay. I mean, there's so much to it. You look all throughout the scriptures. The scripture clearly shows that the church has a role. I think it's very unique to notice, going back to Daniel, Daniel chapter seven, it talks about, isn't it unique that the Antichrist, when he comes, will be a political leader? This is what the Lord put upon my heart. And I think this is important. Should the church have a role? Of course it should, because whenever the devil wants to change the times and the seasons, the Bible says in Daniel chapter seven, 25, he said he will seek to intend the times and the laws. Then the saints will be given into his hands. And so when the devil wants to change the times, he uses legislation. When God wants to change the times, he uses revelation. And so what happens if legislation is in place and the church doesn't take its place to speak against demonic legislations and to speak to evil leaders, what happens is that legislation can shift times and shift eras, which is why the Antichrist is going to come as a political leader. So we don't need to be involved in politics per se to just say, well, I'm Republican, I'm Democrat. We have to understand the structure of how demonic foes use legislation to put the word of God into bondage and to bring the church into a place where it can keep it down. That's why it says after he changes those times and laws, the saints will then be given into his hands. So it's important that we're involved in politics to the degree that the kingdom of God is greater than Republican, Democrat, independent, monarchy, all those things. And that is what is called to be the salt of the earth. That is what's called to be the light of the world. And we have to make sure that those things that they're doing, we speak to those and be the voice of the kingdom to those areas. And Jay, if I can trump in there, doesn't it also say that if possible to deceive the very elect? Matthew 24. To deceive. So in other words, if ever there's a day we need the, I'm gonna say the light of Christianity. I didn't like that word religion and I'm not picking on you. Because then that means it's open to all religions. That's not my question. Okay, okay. So, but again, we need those people on the front lines to declaring harrowing the truth. That's right. Because if we don't have that, we're just gonna be like sheep being led. You just said, I don't wanna trump in there. You just said that, didn't you? I mean, that's a slip of the tongue. You ever heard of what I did this past remark? Well, when I first got saved and was hungry for God, we had a church where a lot of young people were coming in and if someone really loved Jesus, we thought you've gotta be called to be a pastor. You've gotta go into ministry. But to me, what I'm finding is ministry is so much more than just preaching behind the pulpit. And I believe one of the things God is doing in this hour is sending people into every man's world. That's good. Now, you've got religion, you've got the family, you've got education. Think of how our educational system has changed in the last 20 or 30 years. Why? The wrong people are making the laws, having a voice there. We need to get godly people who take a stand for biblical values in all of these different areas. And they're called to do that just as much as we may be called to stand behind the pulpit. So I believe it's the hour for people to go into every man's world, whether they're an accountant, an athlete, a sports figure, whatever it is, to make a difference and take a stand for Jesus. You know, I think it's so good what everybody's saying here. And Bill, I want to get your point. What's left a bad taste in some people's mouth is that the Evangelical Christian Church has been identified with the Republican Party very closely. The African American Church, not so much so. But the White Evangelical Church tended to be identified with the Republican Party and people were saying, hey, I don't like what the Republican Party's doing. I don't like, why should that be part of me being identified? So this is where this religion and politics and people are like, I'm fed up with this. But God has something to say to every area of life, including government. Right, well, I think that our founding fathers put that clause in their separation of church and state for a reason. They didn't want the church to run the country and they didn't want the state to run the church. So we need to be wise in understanding how we can make a difference. And I think that what everybody has said around the table lends to the fact that these are ways that we can make a difference without violating the clause of church and state. So I do think it's important that we get involved even though the church can't run the government because I think that's what you see and that's what happened in the church of England. That's what happened in a lot of Muslim countries that Islam runs the country. So you have to be careful from that standpoint. But as Mark said, we have to get Christians involved or bring God into government through transformation. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting about England, the queen passed a little while ago and she was the head of the church. And so the governmental figure was the head of the church. It really hasn't stopped England from sliding far away from biblical Christianity in many cases. Sorry if you're British there. But anyway, we're gonna take a quick break. And after that, we're gonna have a question from our Cohen hotline. When a viewer asks, why does it seem that we were better off as a society in the olden days? We'll be right back. You know, one of my favorite things is when we have the Cohen hotline, all the questions for the most part come from you, come from viewers. And so we've opened up our hotline and we have a question now. I read Ecclesiastes chapter seven verse 10 and it says, do not say why were the old days better than these, for it is not wise to ask such questions. And my question is, why is it not wise to ask such questions? Because sometimes it feels like the old days were better than what we are now. So I'd appreciate your instruction on this and comment on this. Well, some of us remember the old days, Pete. So from the 50s rock and roll to the invasion of the 60s with the England and women's live and all that, yeah, lived it all. But here's the part that concerns me. I believe that if we're constantly looking back, maybe I'm reading into this, but if we're constantly looking back to the old days, then we're gonna ignore what's going on right now and the future's gonna definitely look that much more bleak. So I believe that I think what the writer here is saying is don't get caught up almost like Lot's wife as they're fleeing from Southern Gamora. There was a, something, some type of passion was in her heart that she did not, and I'm not trying to judge her, she did not want to leave Southern Gamora. She already did that. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I think what Solomon is saying here is that you can't get caught up in desiring the old days because then you don't want to change. You know, I see so many people that are in the church that see the way that it was. And they're not open to the spirit of God. The spirit of God is doing something new. The spirit of God is doing something exciting. And so what Solomon is saying, don't get caught up, so caught up in the old days that you, as Pete said, you can't move ahead. You know, you can't look for the future. So I think that that's the key of what Solomon is saying here. Yeah, that's a good point. Where we going here, guys? I have to say this, you can remember the past, you can honor the past, but don't live there. I know that as a church, what church was like before COVID is different than after. And right or wrong, you're never gonna put that genie back in the bottle. So you've got to recognize where we are and make adjustments. So we can all enjoy certain things from our past, but the reality is we live in 2022 and we need to recognize that and put our hearts there. And not just say, I wish it used to be like us and so it's not God is doing a new thing and let's get involved with what he's doing right now. Remember not the former things. Neither consider the things of the Bible makes it very clear, behold, I'm doing a new thing. So whenever you want, this is the thing and I don't know who's watching this, but many times when you're looking back, God is ready to do it. It's the devil's plot to keep you back there because God's ready to spring something brand new into your life. And you're looking at the old manna when he's got a promise land that flows with milk and honey and you're yearning for the, year for the leaks and greens of Egypt. And now don't understand, he's got a whole food group you've never had before that you're gonna own, but we have to be willing to let go of those things. And I think it's so important in the day and hour that we're living it. I get it because it's so difficult right now, but what we do when you do that, you keep looking back, you limit God too. You know, it's almost like, well, God, I wanna go back there. God's like, don't you understand? The same one that blessed those problems in those situations where sin abounds, grace does that much more even abound in our lives now. So instead of looking back, looking for the old days, no matter how bad it is out in front of us, let's begin to thank God that he's still the God that was the God in Egypt. He was the God that caused them when they had all the stuff going on there, that he still brought light to them and there was locust there, but there was no locust in Goshen. He still wants to bless us today. So let's take the limits off and let's believe God for the new thing he's doing today. You know, I was gonna say too, somebody said that COVID didn't cause problems, it exposed problems. And so we need to keep the change and move with the new as the problems have been exposed. And let the problems bring us together and not divide us. You know, the church, we see that in the early church that every problem from serving the widows and ongoing, it brought the council Jerusalem in chapter 15. It brought the church together, not apart. That's right. We shouldn't pine away. I think that's a good way to put it. My wife is real good at turning the page. Me, I'm like, I pine for those old days a lot of times, and we've got, we have to not do that. Well, you know, we have a scripture that we want to end the program with. And here it is. It's the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all that Psalm 10319. What a great thing. What a great way to remember that his sovereignty rules over everything. I've put the capstone on this program, I think. Well, we hope you enjoyed today's program and we want to hear from you. Email us with your questions to hardquestions.ctvn.org or call into our hotline at 412-349-4326. Have a great day.