 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, Ray Hypole, Providence Presbyterian Church in Robinson Township, Pete Giacolini, South Hills Assembly Guy Church, Bethel Park, PA, Anthony Gilbert pastor of another level in the North Hills area. Well, we're going to have a great program today. We're going to take on hard questions from our hotline and most that deal with everything from church membership to giants. Okay, so let's start with this. I want to, one, also by the way, my thoughts about God destroyed all the giants in the flood, but later on, what about David and Goliath? He was a giant. May you answer that question? Jacob, I love it. I love that you called in. I just love it and, you know, get your application ready for seminary right now, because that's great. Dr. Glaze, about the giants, the Nephilim. Yeah. Jacob, that's a very insightful question and one that took a lot of thought. So I appreciate you asking us that. And you are absolutely right that during the flood, all the giants were destroyed. They were called Nephilim and when the flood took place, they were all destroyed. So how did they reappear again is a question, which again is a very good question. Now when we think about the people that went on the boat, it was Noah, his wife and Noah's three sons and their wives. And so if all the giants were destroyed, you know, during the flood, it would make sense that within the genes of one of Noah's sons, especially the son of Ham, because we see that Goliath actually came from the Canaanite race who was a descendant from Ham. And so within Ham was still the genes to reproduce the giants. So even after the flood, there was genes that the people that want to know what sons possess to be able to reproduce the giants. So thank you for that. Thank you for that question. Wow. That is great. Great question. Great answer. Any other thoughts on this? The same thing that there's the genetic information that we all have is Dr. Glaze said genes or DNA and that's why people look different today because different groups of people went different places and, you know, Asians don't look like Africans and Africans don't look like Europeans because there's different amounts of genes that bring out certain traits. And one of those traits is height. And even today, Jacob, I don't know if you know this, but in Guatemala, the average man is five foot three inches tall. And the average woman is four foot 10 and a half. In the Netherlands, the average man is six feet and a half inch. And the average woman is five foot seven. So it's even possible, it seems to me, today, if a bunch of tall people went on some island and had some kind of, you know, new nation that we might see giants again because that genetic information is there. I got some Scandinavian in me. I don't know. That's tall. Yeah. See that? We got, we got. Let me jump in real quick. Years ago, Elaine and I did some college class in Sweden up in the Lapland and said, oh my gosh, I felt like I was in a land. Every woman was about six foot tall and the men were six, six and bigger. I tell you, I had a neckache. I just love it so much, Jacob. And actually, we've got another question from Jacob. So let's go to the second one. Why did God create the devil and Adam and Eve even know they knew the world was going to be like this? Thank you. Bye. Bye. Cool. That's a joke. Why don't you? Again, I love the questions. Yeah. So I believe what he's saying there is why did God create the devil Adam even know the world would turn out the way that it did. And you know, you have to remember too, Jacob, that in God's mind, you know, he had a plan to redeem man even before the devil ever even came out. So he gave us an opportunity to be redeemed even in the midst of all the stuff that's going on in the world. And also something else that we don't always take into consideration is, you know, when Satan fell, he was the worshipper in heaven and God needs worshippers. And you can never be a worshipper until you have options and choices. And so if God is saying, all right, here's all the good things in life. And this is presented by me. Here's all the stuff that Satan has to offer worship is boy, I'd really like to have some of that stuff over there. But God, I love you more. And you can never be a worshipper until you have something compete with priority with what's important in your heart. And so God put Satan in the middle, say, okay, Adam, I want you all to choose me. Eve, I want you to choose me. But Satan said, I want you to choose me. Now we have to make a decision. And that's how we become a worshippers. And I believe that when we leave this planet, if we have served God and made him our Lord and savior, we will be the replacement for the fallen angels and for the worshipping spirit that is now missing in heaven, that Lucifer was once a part of, that now has become Satan. So now we will be the ones that will take its place. That we have not bowed the need to Lucifer, Satan. Now we have not bowed the need to the things of the world and we have chosen God. And so that is the reason why God's allowed this to happen. And all of it is going to come together. He knows exactly what's going to happen, even in the midst of all the suffering and the torment and everything that's going on. He has a plan and he has sent his son to redeem us and that we can also be overcomers in this world as well. Yeah, that's real good. And God didn't really create the devil. He created Lucifer who, you know, was an archangel who fell, right? Yeah, I would just emphasize that too, Jacob, that God never made anything bad. God doesn't make anything evil. God makes only things that are good and beautiful and true. And it's Satan who made himself evil. And he became the father of lies and liars and murderers and Adam and Eve sinned and they fell and became evil. But we never want to say that God did that. God made them good and they should have chosen the good and they should have followed the good, but they desired and chose evil. And we still do that. You know, Jacob, I'm sure you choose things that are bad and you disobey mom and dad sometimes, even though, you know, you shouldn't. And so we just want to recognize God always calls us to do what is right and good. And whenever we see anything bad, that was from a creature. That wasn't from God. Yeah. Well, I agree with Volka say we have a choice. And Jacob as, as Pastor Glaze and everyone is, as specifically talked to you, you have a choice to do good. And remember God says, he says, I would that you would do good. Choose curses or blessings. And then you see the heartbeat of God. God longs for us to always choose to do good. Yeah. That's his desire. It's so true. And I just want to ask Dr. Glaze, why don't you speak to Jacob for a little bit there again and just, I just congratulate him on his questions and on his heart to follow God. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Jacob, you are a fascinating young man. You know, a lot of young people, your age, they're not thinking about the scripture in such a way. And so it just is a blessing to hear you ask these questions because again, it shows that you are thinking at a level, which is where God wants us to wrestle with the scriptures. And even the questions that you ask, you'll go beyond the surface. They go to a deeper level. And so I just want to congratulate you on just being one. And I'm sure, let me say something about your parents, too, that you must have some good parents, you know, that have kept you grounded in the world also. So I take my hat off to your parents also. That's right. All of us up here, we take our hat off to you, parents and to Jacob. Well, coming up in 60 seconds, we ask, are there situations where people should not be admitted into church membership? We'll be right back. Welcome back to hard questions. We're taking your calls from the hard question hotline. So I'd like to invite you, 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 questions on the air. Let's go to the next one. In my church, we had a man and a woman that were living together, but were not allowed to join the church because it was considered adultery. Also, we have a person that plays in a secular man, secular music, but he is not allowed to play in our church. Would you please consult on these two problems and give us your solution to your answer? Thank you. Well, thank you so much for the question, Pete, consult away. First Corinthians, chapter five. All right, there is a morality situation here that, and I think the church needs to stop and please hear my heart before you say I'm a Sadducee or a Pharisee. We need to stop playing patty cake. Fornication for the believer is fornication for the nonbeliever. To say that because you're a believer, you can fornicate. The Bible does not teach that. Sin is sin. And in first Corinthians, chapter five, it says it's actually reported and he's speaking to the church. There is sexual immorality among you and sexual immorality is not even among the Gentiles. And then if you read that, I want you to take a look at it for yourself. Paul says, I'm not even there. I've already made a judgment call. It's a biblical judgment call. Put him out of the church. And the reason why he says that, he goes on and he explains why. A little 11, 11 is the whole lump. I remember as a pastor many, many, many years ago. My kids, they knew the people that were sleeping around and they would even, I mean, as, as 10 year olds and 11 year olds and they would say, daddy, is that right? So how can I say, just because so-and-so comes to church and I don't want to rock the boat per se, how can I later on teach my children it's wrong to fornicate if I allow it to continue on in church? Come on, church. There's this, it's not my standard. It's God's standard. And I know I may sound a little, ooh, maybe my heart's snubbing, but again, this is what the word of God says. No more patty cake. We really, and it goes back to what we talked about before. Warning the wicked man. Being, I've gone to couples and say, hey, listen, you know what? You need to get married or move out one or the other. But you cannot be a member here. Now the second part of that about the musician, I have no problem with that. If that is their talent, if that is, is what they do for a living, if they're a country Western singer, there's nothing wrong with them continuing on in their profession and being able to minister in church. There's clearly two different things here. Ray, why don't we go to you next? Yeah, I totally agree. And I mean, I don't know. I can only go by the way the questions were set before us. But if it's, if that's the case that a man who simply plays secular music isn't allowed to play in the church, well, that's clearly wrong. There's, you know, nothing wrong. There's no sin of playing secular music. I would assume that he can't play that during worship, you know, play, you know, I don't know, you ain't nothing but a hound dog or something. I mean, yeah, sure, that's inappropriate for worship. But I mean, to exclude him for that, that's, yeah, that's what you're talking about. Yeah, but the other issue like Pete said, I mean, you know, that's sin. You can't live in sin and be a member of the church. The church would be unfaithful for that. You know, Paul talks about fornication and all and cleanliness or covetousness. Let it not even be named among you preach it. You know, we do church discipline in our church, and it's a real difficulty because the next church down the road will just welcome them in and say, yeah, it's all wasn't that church. So mean to you. I mean, if we don't tell people who are living together and not married, if we don't warn them that God's judgment is going to be on them, unless they repent from that sin. I mean, I'm patting them on the back as they're walking into hell. You have to repent to be saved. That's part of being saved. And, you know, would you want murderers to be a member of your church? Oh, I'm a murderer. You know, I want to join your church. Sure, you know, we love everyone. You have to repent from that. And that's part of the gospel that we repent. Let me ask you where I agree 100%. But a timing issue here. So a couple walks into your church and they start attending. They attend for three months and then, you know, in the course of things, you find out they're not married. I like, at what point do you say, hey, I've got to confront them? We've had this issue happen. And, you know, I do the new members class all the time. And people were, you know, you talk to different people and we had a couple who were excited about the church and they were coming regularly for weeks and weeks. And of course, you know, you don't know these things. And then it comes out that, oh, by the way, they're living together and they're not married. And I just point blank, said to them, well, you can't join the church. Either you separate or you get married. You either move out and separate or you get married. And then we can talk about joining the church. But until then, I can't even consider it, you know? So I just made it very clear. So it's when it comes to life. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it was a good happy ending. They got married. Yeah, it's good. You know, I have a little bit of a, a little bit of twists on this. And what I mean by that is, of course, anybody that knows me knows, if everybody that was watching, I am not condoning that you should live together. But living together is not a sin. We have to make that clear. Just simply living together. It is the sexual act that you will commit that is a sin. Two people living under the same roof. You can't say, you're going to hell for that. What did they, what's their error? What's their error? If you had a guy that doesn't even date that girl and they live in the same house, but they're sharing the rent, he has one place, she has a place. Does that make them a sinner? No, I don't. We're talking about that though. Well, no, but what I'm saying, that's important that we mentioned that. So I mean, cause a lot of people say, they call it shacking up. Well, I agree. If you're, now do I believe two people being married should or not being married should live together if they're dating? No, cause you're probably going to sin. You know, you're opening the door to that and I don't condone that. But I think that's very, very important. So my thing is also this, if they're not committing sin, they don't have to get out. That's just my opinion. Now, as far as like what they require in church membership. Now, maybe a church says, we don't want that. So membership is a man made thing. That is something that every church, you go to different, what you require to do for you membership, what's required to do for you. Sure, they're all different. That is something. But he saw, when we look at Paul in the scriptures, he's talking about the church. You know, now we have all these different churches with different names and you know, it's a little bit of a different setup. So I think it's important that we point that out as well as like even with a secular music. I agree that not playing secular music, but I also believe if a guy is in a bar where it's a strip bar and he's playing, he should not be a member. You know, we have to also look at everything individually. What is the sin being committed? It's not just, well, you can't play secular music. Well, some things are right until they become wrong. So I think that's also important to look at as well. And once again, I'm not dumbing down or watering down. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying we have to be careful because everybody's situations are different. So I might differ a little bit from where you are in regards to just, well, my question is, are you sleeping together? You need to be moving towards that. Well, as we reach out to the community, and our church has done this a lot and we see new people come in that don't have any knowledge of what it means to be a Christian and they're welcome, but if they're gonna join the church, then there's obviously some things we have to talk about. So are they not saved? No, I don't, that's God's business. So I mean, that's why I have to, we have to look at that, we have to be honest here. Well, if we're looking at something along that line and you get somebody that comes in, they give their life to Jesus and one woman doesn't work. And the other guy does. And we're saying, well, you can't be a part of this until you get everything right. Well, if that's the case, any person in your church that has any sin in their life, we have to get rid of them. Well, that's an interesting question because it brings up, do we have to be perfect to serve God? I mean, in order to join the church, do we have to have everything perfectly right? Maybe you can give us some. I would love for some feedback on that. Well, I think these guys covered it pretty well. I mean, what more can be said than has already been said. Okay, I'm not setting the standard. My church is not setting the standard. When there's a biblical standard there, then that standard has to be upheld. The Bible says, this is what Paul says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When it comes time specifically, he who sins sexually, sins against their body. There's consequences for certain sins. And again, if we embrace, now we embrace the sinner to become repentive. But what I'm trying to say is there's not a difference. You cannot have a difference between Christian fornication and non-Christian fornication. I think we're all saying fornication. Tom, the question is not, are they in sexual sin? They were living together. It was considered adultery. That's why I wanted to be careful about that. Because we can't penalize for stuff the Bible does not clearly say is a sin. Oh, no, no, no. I agree with you, Jay. I agree with you. Everybody knows I am 100% like, you don't have sex before marriage. You don't have sex with somebody else's wife. I'm totally for that. But that's the only point I want to make clear. Yeah, I agree with you on it. Because Jay, let's be truthful. Let's all of us be truthful. Sexual sin is more prevalent in the church today than ever before. I totally agree. And in some ways, somehow. There needs to be a standard. And again, we're separating this completely from whether you go play polka music on Saturday night or something. So this is a clear biblical standard. And I think the question comes, can they attend? Can they, you know, where is that line drawn? I think different churches probably draw that a little differently. I mean, we are called to abstain from the appearance of evil. You know, and I've dealt with that question, Jay. And I would differ with you a little bit where I've had a couple say, well, you know, we'll just, we won't have sex anymore. We'll just stay together. And I'm like, it's the appearance of evil. You're living together. We all know what that means. And that's always been the case. And so, and plus I said to them, look, you know, you don't want to get used to living with this woman. I said to the man and not have sex with her. If you plan on marrying her someday, you're setting a really bad precedent here. For sure. You know, this is, you can't pretend like your brother and sister when you're actually romantically in love with each other, but we're not going to go there, you know. And I would make a distinction too, between living in sin versus someone who sins. We don't say you have to be perfect, but you know, here's, here's first John 3.9. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning. There you go. You know, that's the thing you can't do. Of course you're all sinners, but there's a difference between, I'm embracing homosexuality and, you know, I'm tempted by this, but I hate it and I'm fighting it. This guy's a member. That guy's not. Gotcha. That's a good point. Good point. Well, coming up, we're going to, after our break, we're going to ask, does the Bible tell us we are to claim our healing? Stay tuned. Well, welcome back to hard questions. Let's take our last hotline question. My question is this. There are shows that I watch where it is said that we've already received our healing for physical ailments, emotional, et cetera. And that we just need to believe that we have already received those because those have been taken care of in Christ. Yet Paul had a thorn of some type, which we don't know what possible ailment it was that God chose not to heal him of in order to keep him humble. So I'm a little confused on how we can say that we have always received our healing for everything in Christ, although I know we'll be healed on the other side if we're not healed here. But there are many shows with prominent pastors who claim that if not being healed, you just haven't believed that you have received this healing in Christ. Very confusing. Thank you very much. Well, I really appreciate the scripture. And as the program director here, let me say this about the shows. We welcome a lot of shows as long as they are within the realm of orthodox, the true doctrine, but there's differences of opinion on certain things like healing. So we'll go there right now. So Ray. Yeah, and again, I'm just going by what I'm hearing. If what you're saying to the caller is that a minister is saying that as a Christian, you should never get sick. As a Christian, if you are sick, you can make yourself healthy. Then I would say that's false teaching. That's not true. We have clear examples in scripture. Paul says in Philippians two about a pathoditis, a fellow minister. He says he was longing for your oh, all he was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. Indeed, he was sick almost unto death. Now listen now, Paul resolves it. He doesn't say, but he declared his healing and healed himself. He said, but God had mercy on him. And not only on him, but me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. You know, God can mercifully heal us, but he doesn't have to. Even the apostle Paul, who was, I believe, you know, he had the gift to do certain kinds of miracles, which I don't believe we can do today. But even the apostle Paul, who did heal people miraculously, he couldn't do it to everyone. Second Timothy 420, Erastus has stayed in Corinth, but Trophimus, I left sick in my elitist. Paul says, I left him sick because I couldn't heal him. God didn't give me the ability to do that. So, you know, I would say to you that we do get sick as Christians. We do get cancer as Christians. Someday, every Christian, unless Jesus comes back soon, or before then, they're gonna die. They're gonna die of sickness. They're gonna die of disease. They're gonna die of an accident. You know, things happen to Christians in this world too. And to say that, you know, you should always be healthy and wealthy or whatever, because you're a believer. That's just not true. All right, good point. Dr. Gleis. Well, you know, Paul told Timothy to take a little wine for your stomach's sake. Often infirmity? Yeah. So, I mean, how come he just didn't go touch him and whatever his problem was, healing? You know, as a pastor, you know, I've prayed with people who had faith. I mean, they had great faith. And they were sick and, you know, I went in the hospital. I prayed with them that, that, you know, I always pray that, Lord, your will be done in their life. And so I think that anytime we deal with healing, it has to be according to the will of God. Now, you know, some people will say, well, it's always God's will. But, you know, I would differ with that just based on some of the things that Ray said. So, you know, I pray with people. And then a couple of days later, they went home to be with the Lord. So, you know, God, it does not always heal. But eventually he does heal when they go to heaven. It's not that you had a lack of faith or that they had a lack of faith. It was just at that time was the time. Now, Pete, as I come to you, your assembly's a God. That's one of the distinctive doctrines. Divine healing. Divine healing. So, talk to me about this. So, we do believe in divine healing, but we also can take a look at the life of Elisha, who did twice the miracles of Elijah and he died of a sickness known of man. So, what I'm trying to say is, yes, is healing there? I believe healing is available. But to heal at will, nowhere in the scripture does it say. And then again, some of these teaching of some of these people, they make you believe that every time you pray, they gotta be healed every time. And some of them have had some great things, even in Paul's life. We discussed what Paul was talking about. He would take up his apron because he was a tent maker and he would cut it up and he would send portions of his apron to people that when the cloth touched them, they were healed. So, but again, the thing. I'm okay with that. I don't want to send that to me, but it's got to be real. It's got to be something. We gotta stay away from formulas. Right, right, exactly. Look at Matthew chapter eight. You have three distinct healings there. The leper, the servant, and then Peter's mental law. So again, when we try to create a formula, I believe we're in false doctrine. Thanks, Pete. 20 seconds. 20 seconds. All right. Real quickly, I think also mentioned about Paul. I don't think that's a good scripture to use for believers all the time. First of all, you haven't written two thirds of the New Testament. You haven't been caught up in the third heaven. When you had that he was given that because of the abundance of revelation. So I think we have to compare that as well. When I'm time to go on anything else, but that's something that we need to look at. This is important because we have heard a lot of people in the charismatic movement especially about that it's always God's will to heal, but yet we see a lot of people don't get healed. Then you start, are we blaming this person because they didn't have faith? Next what they did? What about us? Did we not have faith when we prayed? So it's a very important question. Well, we like to end the program with a scripture. And today we go to Ecclesiastes where it said he has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also said eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. That's Ecclesiastes 311, interesting book you should read at some time. We hope that you enjoyed today's program and we wanna hear from you. Email us your questions like Jacob to hardquestions at ctvn.org or call into the hotline at 412-349-4326. We've enjoyed being with you. Please send us your questions here on Hard Questions.