 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 Guy Church Bethel Park, PA J. Anthony Gilbert pastor of Another Level in the North Hills area. We've got the South, we've got the South, we've got the North, we've got the West, West. Okay, East, we need some Easter out there. We're in the East. That's why we've got everything covered, all four points. Today on Hard Questions, we're taking on your questions from our hotline, and we love it when people call into our hotline. They deal with Heaven and Hell. Let's start with this. Yes, I'm 73 and I have been a Christian all my life. And someone came along and argued with me the point, but they said you come back again after you pass away and you go to another family and you start all over again instead of being taken to Heaven. Could you please answer me on this question? Thank you. Well, thank you for your question and it's an important one with so much, so many different ideas out in society here. Mark, why don't you start us off? That is a great question and it sounds to me like whoever was talking to you was talking about reincarnation. And this is popular with some of the Eastern religions, but just to be clear, it is not found in the Bible. The Bible clearly teaches that when a Christian dies, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And there's an interesting verse in Hebrews 9.27. It says this. And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes the judgment. So we don't die and then come back and then die and then come back. You only die once and after that we stand before the Lord. We don't come back again and again. So they're confusing Christian doctrine with some Eastern doctrine. Thank God when you die you go directly into the Lord's presence. That's right. I don't want to be coming back here. You know, one of the things that grieves my heart is that what she said there and this is not an indictment against her. She's been saved 73 years all of her life and still unsure about which God has been speaking to me in this generation. We need to get back to just sound biblical teaching. We've been professionals at church but we don't know doctrine anymore and we need truth more now than ever. And to your point, I mean, I think you laid it out very well that there is no afterlife coming back and there's an afterlife when it comes to eternity with God, like you explained, but there's no reincarnation. There's no any of those things and that's the good thing. You know, the Bible makes it very clear on what is going to happen to us as believers. We can go into death understanding and having an expectation that I'm going to meet my Savior. My mother passed at 59 back in 2007 when I found out about us around midnight that night. And I'll never forget the first thing that came to my mind because of what I have been taught, what I believe, is that she came out of that bed and the Savior greeted her. I mean, what a joy to know that as a believer. So we can have great confidence in that. That is so good, Jay. Let us know what you think there are. Yeah, I don't have a whole lot to add. I mean, the brothers nailed it. It's not reincarnation that we hope in. It's resurrection. That's going to happen on the last day when God will give us a new body. There'll be a new heavens and a new earth, but that's not the cycles of living lives over and over again. Mark pointed out Hebrews 9, 27 in the Old Testament. You could look at Ecclesiastes 12, 7 where the preacher is talking about what happens when this life ends. And he says, then the dust will return to the earth and the spirit will return to God who gave it. And that's all we are. We're physical and we're non-physical. And the body goes into the ground when we die and the soul goes to stand before God and then heaven or hell for eternity. There's no purgatory. There's no other place. And there's no repeating this life over again. You get one lifetime. Yeah, very good. I would encourage you and everybody else, I guess I'll go to this camera, that when people come along with these kinds of sayings, just turn to them and say, we're in the Bible. We're in the Bible. We're in the Bible. And then being able to discern if that is biblically interpreted correctly. So I would encourage your mam, as everyone else said, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and you have nothing to fear. Amen to that. All right, let's go to our next question. My question is, in the book of Joshua when Rahab lied, is God still considered a sin or is it something that's automatically overbooked since it's for the greater good? Right. This is a really good question because it comes up in a lot of different ways. You know, if the Nazis come to my door and I'm hiding some Jews, is it okay to lie? Or, you know, what about the midwives in Egypt? God seems to commend them and so forth. And there's a couple of different viewpoints that Christian theologians have taken. Most agree that there is such a thing as just war. And I think this falls under just war theory. So for example, there are times when I'm allowed to actually harm someone, someone trying to hurt me or my wife, I'm allowed to defend myself and even kill them. Self-defense is allowed in Scripture and war, just war is just an extension of that, that a nation is allowed to defend itself. And in war, we try to kill the enemy. And that happens. And killing is a lot worse than lying. And in war, we try to deceive the enemy, which is lying. In fact, God even commands at one point for Joshua after they lose an AI, he tells them to set an ambush behind the city, which is a trick, which is a deception. God tells them to do that. Well, he's telling them to kill them. Killing them again is a lot worse than lying. And I think that that's the way I want to look at this question, that Rahab is actually siding with the people of Israel whom God has commanded to kill and wipe out these Canaanites. And therefore, when she sides with the people of Israel, she's taking their side in war. She is siding with them. And therefore, by acting in deception, she's actually doing a good thing. I don't call it lying. Lying is what you owe to your, or truth is what you owe to your neighbor. The commandment is you shall not bear false witness to your neighbor. It makes a distinction, I believe, between, again, a time of war when there is someone trying to kill you. Then I can say, no, my wife's not in that room so that I can buy some time and get something to just try to stop them. I'm obligated to do that. I agree. Let me just say this. If I'm hiding from the Nazis, please lie through your teeth all you want. And God is not going to be condemning you because of that. Well, going to what Ray was talking about, Rahab, the whole nation says, we are downhearted. We heard about your God and she is making a real choice here. She's going to the winning team. And to protect that winning team. And commended 1,000 years later. Yeah, she's part of the leadership of Jesus. Yeah. I also think lying has a lot to do with motive, as well. Underneath all of that, why are you saying and doing what you're doing? Like, for example, I love surprising my wife. Now, if I'm going to buy my wife something and she asked me, where were you? And I told her something different from, you know, I'm not going to tell her, oh, I was going to buy you a surprise gift. Well, I don't want to lie. No, I'm going to, you know, I mean, it doesn't mean that I need to be deceptive in a negative facet or in an evil way. But I'm trying to, like you said, I love what you said about the whole just war piece and things like that. That's what we're trying to do. So you always have to look at motive. There's, why am I doing what I'm doing? And if it's saving lives, like you mentioned there, to side with God or things like that, that's a whole other story than, Hey, did you steal that? No, I didn't. You know, I mean, I'm trying to save my own backside. You know, and that's a whole different type of deception there. So you think about the Hebrew midwives, they were asked by Pharaoh to destroy all of the male children that were born, and they didn't do it. And they protected them. And it's interesting because the scriptures as an Exodus one, God was good to the midwives. And then because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. So in one sense, it would seem like they lied, but because they were doing something to protect the children, God blessed them and gave them their very own families. So there's a biblical example of that. Can I mention something real quickly with that? Our pregnancy center. I mean, a lot of people that are watching will be Christians. A lot of people say, why do we have the name that we have? We don't have voices from the unborn on there. A lot of people say, aren't you being deceiving? Because when people call in, when we're dealing with a pregnancy center, East Liberty Women's Care Center is the name of our center, the name of our organization's voice for the unborn. When they call in, they'll say, do you offer abortions? We don't mean to say, no, we don't. That's not the first thing we do. Sometimes what we do is we'll say, why don't you come on in and have a talk? Wasn't that being deceptive? No, because we are speaking up for the unborn life of that baby. And so we are doing everything we can. We're not going to lie. If they eventually push it, we will tell them, but we don't initially just go out and just reveal our hand because that baby will be killed if we don't use wisdom and prudence on how we operate. Absolutely. And I agree. Certainly, we are not supposed to bear false witness, but there are situations where the enemies of God really are trying to do something that needs to be handled the right way. So thank you. It's a great question. I appreciate that. Well, coming up in 60 seconds, we ask, where is the lake of fire? Stay tuned. Well, welcome back to the show. We're taking your calls from the hard questions hotline. If you'd like to leave us your question, we encourage you to call 412-349-4326. Let me give you that again. 412-349-4326. We would love to answer your question on the air. Let's go to our next one. Yeah, I was wondering if any of the pastors know of or witnessed someone being brought back from the dead. Okay. Good question. Well, sir, on a number of occasions, I have friends, actual friends, that were pronounced dead. And in a matter of minutes, they came back to life. One particular lady in our church just about three, four weeks ago died four times, and she was resuscitated and she's alive. I've just talked to her the other day. She's alive. She's well. She wants to go back to work. And it wasn't one of these. She died at the right place, the right time. What I mean by that, there was four off-duty nurses there at the time, and she literally brought her back to life. So, yes. And I know of others, too, that have died and come back to life. Well, that's a tremendous miracle. I kind of think they're maybe, he's maybe talking about like what we see in the scriptures with, you know, someone who's clearly dead, but come back to life. Now, I have not seen that personally. I don't know if we want to go. I have one example. Many people know Andrew Walmack, who was a well-known Bible teacher, and he had a son. And if I remember correctly, maybe a teenager, maybe a little older. And Andrew was not there at the time, but his son died, and he had to drive back to the hospital. It was many hours later. It wasn't just minutes. And he raised him from the dead, and he's now alive and in ministry with his dad. And this is a modern, incredible miracle. I heard him give that testimony personally, and I know he's a man of character. So, you know, God can still raise the dead, and thank God for that. Amen. The closest I've had, it's not that, this is the closest I've ever gotten to it. My mother, a year before she passed, I was at a pastor's prayer meeting, and I'll never forget, I got a call, and they said, your mother's dying today. She's going to be dead in a couple of hours. You need to come to the hospital now. She had been battling cancer, and she was all hooked up to tubes and everything. Well, we went in there as a family, said our goodbyes, and waited for her to die. And I'll never forget, the Holy Spirit stepped into that room. And I mean, when I say he stepped in, we looked at each other. I don't know how to explain it. And he said, today's not the day. She sat up out of the bed and started eating within an hour, and lived, went back to working out and everything. I mean, it was one of the most amazing things that I had ever seen. Now, she was not completely dead, but we were in there saying, Mom, you can go now. And she was all, and all of a sudden her eyes came open and she sat, I mean, it was one of the most profound things I'd ever seen in my life. And I said, God, why did you allow that to happen? And he said, because I wanted to show you all, I responded and rewarded your faith, because we had believed the whole time. Now, she passed a year later, but that was not the day. So it's not over until God says so, whether it's hours later, days later, weeks later, or even whenever, God has the final say. Absolutely, right. Any thoughts on that? I mean, the distinction that you made earlier, you know, I've heard of people who have been dead and been brought back and resuscitated. I've never been personally there. And I've been probably at a dozen, at least, members who've taken, I was there when they took their last breath, and we were praying and we were singing. And, you know, it's a great privilege as a minister to be able to do that. In fact, we're planning a funeral right now. And another one of our members just died two days ago. And I was there right afterwards. And so that happens. But I've never personally experienced something beyond that other than, I do know Jesus rose again from the dead, and I do know him, and he rose again from the dead. Reinhard Bonke also had this happen in one of his crusades. I saw the man's testimony, he was dead, and he came back to life during one of the crusades. So that's a great question. Let's go to our next one. Do you think that maybe the lake of fire, or Satan and the demon, cast into the lake of fire? Do you think maybe the lake of fire is another climate somewhere? All right. Thank you for the question, Ray. And I've heard this before, and people try to find, you know, an actual physical component to heaven and hell at this time. And I don't believe there is, or if there is, we can't know that. And the reason is that I don't think that right now we see any bodies in those places. We have the spirits that go to beat it with heaven. And there have been times where God has opened the eyes of his servants to see the reality of heaven. We see that with Isaiah, and he sees God seated on the throne and the angels above him. Ordinarily, you're not going to ever see that with like a telescope or something. And also with Elisha. You know, God, at one point Elisha prays to his servant, he's afraid. The armies are on the city. He said, open his eyes, Lord. And suddenly he sees there's all these chairs to fire. They were there the whole time. And so the way I understand heaven and hell, at least in this time, before the bodily resurrection is there is a spiritual dimension to reality. Even, I mean, it's funny, even secular scientists talk about other dimensions that we can't access, or other, you know, the multiverse that we can't actually access. And so that's not a concept that's, you know, beyond human capability to think. And so I think from what I see in the scripture, hell is a place that's real. People are there right now, but it's a spiritual dimension that we can't access, like sending a ship to another planet or something and trying to bring the people off of the hell planet. I just think that's that science fiction. Yeah. I mean, it's really, it's interesting. I kind of want to take a little different take on this pastors. The whole aspect of the fire prepared for the devil and his angels, right Pete? It's really not prepared for people, but they will be who is cast into the lake of fire. Those whose names are not found in the Lamb's book of life. So it's a contingent on salvation that we don't go there. Right. Any thoughts on that? Well, I also believe too with that that the Bible says in the end of Revelation that there'll be a new heaven and a new earth, that heaven and earth, even said, will pass away. So it can't be there because the heavens and the earth will pass away. And there are bodies that are prepared for suffering. And there are bodies that are going to be prepared for eternity. We're going to get new bodies. And I believe so will it be for them that are suffering outside of Christ. So I believe that just as those new bodies are being prepared, heaven and hell are going to be prepared as well. So I believe that with that, there, there's, it's like, you're going to need that, that new created body, whether it's for heavenly, if we're going to heaven or going to hell, to suffer eternally, because we weren't created to have either one of those in this current state. That's interesting. I've never heard that about the ones destined for punishment. I've heard it certainly for, but that's good. That's good. If you think about, they have to have that because you've got to have something prepared to suffer like that. We weren't created to be in that place. We weren't created to go to heaven eternally. We were created to live here forever. But when sin came into the place, he's going to do over for us at the Judgency. And I believe that will happen. There will be an immediate change for either good or bad heaven or hell, based upon which side of the line you're on. Tom, if I could just jump in too, because I totally agree with that. There will be a physical component someday. I'm saying now, I don't think there is, but someday at the resurrection, the damned will receive bodies and they will suffer spiritually and physically in a spiritual and physical hell just as much as there'll be a new heavens and a new earth. And it will be real and physical. There's going to be a real and physical hell opened up on that day. Well, let me just, Mark, maybe I could ask you to do this. Could you just speak to someone out there that maybe doesn't know about this? They don't know about impending judgment. They don't know about how they can escape. Could you just share the gospel with someone out there? Absolutely. There is a heaven to gain, but there is a hell to shun. Hell is a reality. But the Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And that means we will be saved from the judgment to come. So all you need to do is say, Jesus, I'm a sinner. I recognize that. I call upon you. I believe that you lived and died and were raised from the dead. That's the simple gospel. And if you will believe that and call upon his name, you will miss hell and you will make heaven your home. But the good news is you begin a relationship with the Lord from now until you die. So you don't have to wait until you die to reap the benefits of that. It begins the moment you receive Jesus Christ into your life. It is the most important decision and the greatest decision you will ever make. Absolutely. So I would just encourage you to make that. We have a sort of an intellectual spiritual question here, but the most important thing is where is your spirit? Where are you right with God? Because he wants to pour out mercy upon you. It's his desire. So please open your heart to Christ. You can call here. Call to our prayer line and get a hold of someone here at Cornerstone and they will be glad to pray with you as well. Well, we're going to take a quick break. Coming up next, what is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? We'll be right back. Welcome back to the program. We've been having some great discussions and some spiritual input into our lives. Let's go to our next question. I understand that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the unpardonable sin. Can you please give me examples of that? Thank you and I really enjoy the program. Thank you for the question. We do get this question a number of times. I mean, I've heard this question. I've had people call me in my office. I heard it on the prayer line of people have emailed. So it is a question a lot of people have. Jay, why don't you take us down this road? Well, the good thing is usually if someone's, I would say probably 100% of the time, if they're asking the question, they probably haven't done it. That's one thing I would say. The second thing is the example is where Jesus actually tells them that they had attributed his work to Satan. But they had known enough about him to, you're just that wicked to where you would call me working a miracle, me doing something to help somebody else. You want to hate me that much, that you'll attribute my work to Satan. I mean, you know, he knew their hearts well enough to realize, listen, there's a lot of things I'll forgive you for. I mean, you know, there's some hard sayings that Jesus mentioned. I think that's one of them. There's a lot of things that he says. But that one there, he looks at them and says all sins will be forgiven. But this one here, I mean, he made it very clear, I will not forgive this one. And so I believe when they're attributing his work to Satan, when he was working a miracle in that man's life, that was the place of where he called it the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And so that's my simple definition to that. My perspective may be a little different than some, but to me, the one sin that keeps us from coming to Christ is very simple. It is the rejection of Jesus Christ. And John 16 talks about this where Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit has come, he will convict the world of sin. And it's not sins, plural. It is sin, singular. And then he says this, of sin, because they do not believe in me. So to me, the core sin that keeps us away from heaven and that walk with God is the sin of rejecting the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. So you say that would be the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit there? To me, that would be the unpardonable sin. Yeah, that's my perspective. And it is one of those hard verses that you can have a different perspective on. But to me, what Jesus talked about twice there is sin, singular. That's the sin that he speaks of for the world. Can I throw a kick back? I had to get to the side. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was going to ask him a question. Okay. I got it. I got it. The whole other side passes over here to get to now. I lean Jay's way all the way and not that I'm saying I don't agree with you, Mark. But the question was, are there any examples? And the closest, remember, she said, are there any examples that we can give? And the only one, the closest one I can come to is Anna Nias and Sapphire. Remember Peter's answer? He said, you have not lied to man. You've deceived or lied to the Holy Spirit. Can I read the Scripture real quick? He says, Peter said to Anna Nias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep part of the price of the land for yourself while it remained? And after it was sold, was it not your own? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God. So the only example, as far as a hardcore example for me, would be that. And also Pharaoh. Pharaoh's heart was hardened so hard against God to the point that he would just not recognize God. So that's the only ones I can come up with. I saw it with Jay, 100%. I think it's clear in the Gospels. It happens three times. The synoptic Gospels. The same dialogue that Jesus has. And it's always the same reason. This is the only place where the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is actually mentioned. And that's when Jesus says, and they had just got done saying, he casts out demons by Beelzebub, which is calling the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus says, now wait a minute. If I do that, by whom do your sons cast them out? Only the finger of God casts out demons. Satan can't be divided. So Jesus is pointing out what you said, Jay. They know it's God. It has to be God. And they call it Satan. And so that's what Jesus says. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, calling him Satan. In fact, Mark's Gospels even said, he tells us why. Because they said he has an unclean spirit and he had the Holy Spirit. They called the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit. Mark said, that's why Jesus taught this. They called the Holy Spirit Satan. To emphasize, they did it no way. And they did it maliciously. No way. Which is like, you can't stumble into that. Oh, I just, oh wait a minute. I said the Holy Spirit is Satan. Oops, oh no, I'm lost. No, it's like they believed it. It's intentional. They did it. And I think it's interesting because that's what we hear a lot of when we hear calls to the prayer line or something like that, that oh, have I done this? Yeah, yeah. And I think we could all agree that if you're calling and you're concerned about it, and it's like what Mark said, then you haven't done it. You are, you certainly still have a sensitivity to the Spirit. And what's happening is there's a condemnation factor. I wish I could go to you. No, you're going to go. We're coming up against the end of the program. Well, we'd like to end the program with the Scripture. And we're going to go to Psalms where it says, The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him, though he may stumble, he will not fall. For the Lord upholds him with his hand. That's Psalm 37, 23 and 24. I love this Scripture because of how much God holds us in his hand. Well, we hope you enjoyed today's program. And we want to hear from you. Email us your questions at hardquestions.ctvn.org or call into the hotline like these people have, 412-349-4326.