Episode 13

Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Pastor Paul: Hi everybody, we're back with another episode of Bible Q&A. I'm Pastor Paul. I'm here with my lovely wife, and we are ready to talk about some more Bible questions.

All right, let's see what we've got. We're going to start with Lorna; “Dear Pastor Paul, you mentioned that God didn't create death and that it wasn't in his original plan but came as a result of Adam and Eve's sin. My question is this - before they partook of the fruit, could I deduce then that they had no knowledge of good and evil? And if so, how could Adam and Eve have actually made the choice to genuinely follow God if they hadn't the capacity (before the fall) to actually do so? So was the temptation in the garden and resultant fall actually God's plan?”

When we try to come up with answers to questions that like this, we struggle, and you can tell that Lorna is struggling. She's saying, first of all, we know that when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the knowledge or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is when they gained a knowledge of good and evil. Now, then she goes on to make a deduction based on assumption, and that is that if they had no knowledge of good and evil prior to eating the fruit, could they have logically reasonably made a decision to follow the Lord versus following the enemy? So what she's really asking is, did Adam and Eve have the capacity to make a reasonable, rational choice? And if not, then the temptation in the garden kind of falls into God's plan, or rather we should say the falls into God's plan. So there's a lot of challenging things that are going on here. God certainly knew that Adam and Eve were going to fall in the garden, but I need to make a very important point. It is not possible that that fall was part of his plan. In other words, it's not possible that he set things in place so that they would fall. That just simply isn't possible because of what we know from James 1, which says in verse 13; So if the whole fall of man in the garden was God's plan, then that was God setting up a temptation for Adam and Eve to fall so that God could then create the solution through Jesus Christ and so forth. I don't believe that to be the case at all. I think there are things going on here that we can't know. We can't fully know. We know what we know. We know what the Bible has told us, but to go into the intricate details of so prior to them eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what was their capacity? That's what we don't know. That's the missing piece of information, as they say. So when we try to deduce conclusions based on what we don't know, we just run into roadblocks.

And we get into trouble.

We can get into trouble if we make conclusions. We can pontificate. We can say, what if and maybe and that's one thing to sit and talk about it. I'm not saying she's doing that. She's not at all. But people have drawn conclusions based on what they really with missing information. And you're right, that is a dangerous thing.

All right. Question number two is from James; “Dear Pastor Paul and Sue, through the grace of God I found you. The Bible states that Hades consisted of the James 1:13 (ESV) Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. righteous & unrighteous. Does this mean that before Christ, all people went to Hades when they died as a holding place before heaven & hell?

If you read Jesus's statement in Luke 16:19-31, where he tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, you would have to say ‘yes’, that people were taken to Hades. Luke 16:19-31 (ESV) There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.[a] The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ Hades can be translated just the grave, but it came to be known as the abode of the dead because when people die, only their physical body dies. The spirit and soul cannot die. They were created to live on. So the spirit and soul then goes there to Hades. And Jesus tells us there was a place of separation. There was a chasm that separated a place of comfort from a place of torment. So there were two places, if you will, two holding areas to Hades. So that's what appears to be the situation according to the way Jesus explained it.

All right. “And did Jesus take all of the righteous and lead them to heaven before he was resurrected and then all of the unrighteous were left and they will be thrown in the lake of fire at the end of tribulation?”

Yes, we believe that Jesus liberated those who were in Hades in the place of comfort because they were awaiting the death burial of Jesus to pay the price for sin and that he took them into the presence of the Lord. We believe that the rest of the unrighteous dead remained in Hades, but he mentions that they will be thrown in the lake of fire at the end of the tribulation. That's actually not the case. The final judgment takes place at the end of the millennial kingdom, which is called the white throne judgment. There are some other judgments that take place, but the final white throne judgment takes place at the end of the millennial age.

He had one last question. He says,

Yes, that is still the place. We would assume that's still the place because we know of nothing else. We've heard of nothing else in the Word.

All right. So an Anonymous viewer asks you,

Interesting discussions that people have, isn't it?

Sure.

Conversations that folks have. My personal view is that faith and common sense are two entirely different things. Because common sense comes from an experiential understanding of life where children don't have common sense because they haven't experienced much of life. And they might see this glowing red circle on the top of the stove and think, wow, that's pretty, I want to touch it. But when you have an experiential understanding of life, you go, ‘Oh, if I did that, that's going to burn my hand, so I'm not going to do that.’ That's common sense. And it's something that's gained over time. Faith, on the other hand, is trust and confidence in God in the midst of circumstances that are really kind of beyond my control. So I don't see those as even part of the same universe really. They're very different things. And I think this was kind of an interesting conversation for people to have.

Maybe that's why it was from Anonymous.

Yeah, maybe that's why he kept his name Anonymous.

I have a lot of questions in life that I would like to submit as anonymously. It's like, don't attach that to me. Lorraine says,

There are a lot of things in the marriage series that we recorded that still would apply to unbelievers or I should say, maybe an unequally yoked couple, where one is a believer, one is not. A man who has married a woman is the head of his home, regardless of whether he knows it, or is walking in it. And the reason for that is because God created marriage, man did not create marriage. So when a man and a woman enter into marriage, they're entering into God's…?

Territory.

Territory, that's right. And his rules apply, and his guidelines apply. So, yes, a man is the spiritual head of his home, even though he may not realize it or have any understanding of what that means.

Sure. Sharon asks, she says,

That is a good question.

That is a good question.

First of all, you got to understand God never approves of lying because the Bible tells us very clearly that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. But God also works in the lives of people despite their failures. And if you stop and think about it, if God required perfection to work in the lives of people, he wouldn't work in anyone's life. Because there is no such thing as perfection. None of us. Yes, Rahab lied. Yes, the Hebrew midwives lied and that's wrong. It's wrong to lie. God moved despite their situation, not in agreement with it. And that's the way he works in all of our lives. I have made as a pastor, as a Christian, as a man, I've made tons of mistakes in my years of walking with the Lord. God has graciously walked with me even through the midst of those mistakes. And despite my failings, he doesn't require perfection to work in our lives and to work through the things that we do and say.

Praise the Lord.

Yeah.

All right. Joshua says,

First of all, I don't have a personal view on tithing. I simply embrace what the Bible says. First of all, you understand that everything Joshua said that his pastor points to is from the Old Testament. And what that means is he's ignoring the New Testament on tithing. And the reason pastors ignore what the Bible says in the New Testament on tithing is it makes it too difficult for them to get the money that they want to have. I'm just saying it like it is, because here's what the New Testament says on tithing or giving. When pastors tell people that they are obligated to give to the church and they use passages like Malachi and other stories from the Old Testament, they are compelling people to give by compulsion.

And they're turning them into not cheerful givers. 2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV) Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

That's exactly right. And they are using manipulation and that is really sad. It really is sad. And what it proves is that pastor is not unwilling to twist and manipulate the Word of God to get what he wants. And honestly, I think it's a dangerous precedent for any pastor. And I think he needs to rethink that. I went through 35 years pastoring a church in Ontario, Oregon, and we never once passed a plate. We never once told people they were obligated to give. We never once took an offering never once in 35 years and God poured out abundance that was beyond our imagining. And I would just challenge pastors who may be listening, stop telling the people that they have to give. If money is short, you cry out to God, don't cry out to the people. You cry out to God, he's not going to be offended. He's not going to be turned away, people might. So I just want to encourage people. First of all, to be very, very cautious about attending a church where they are compelling people to give and pastors to stop doing it and to follow the New Testament idea of giving where they are to encourage the people to give according to what they have decided in their heart and they are to be cheerful about it.

Here's a related question from Sandrah. She said,

First of all, those people are right and those people are wrong. They're right about the fact that ten percent is the biblical amount for tithing because the word ‘tithe’ means ten percent. But we just read the passage from the apostle Paul saying that we are to give according to what we have decided in our heart to give. So when people say it shouldn't be below ten percent, they are absolutely ignoring and violating what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 which says people should give what they've decided in their heart. So it would be incorrect to tell people that you may not give less than ten percent because that's between God and the person giving.

She goes on to ask a more tender question that I think most of us can relate to. She says;

She's writing her question from the basis of someone who's being told you have to do this. And even if it means not paying your bills and so forth. So this is all coming from that premise that giving is commanded in the word in that sense. And it rather than springing from a heart of desire.

I think a lot of people are told God can't bless you if you don't tithe. That's the implication that I think is being told to some people. So she's saying, how do you get over that fear of like there won't be enough?

The first thing you have to do is embrace what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9:7 and free yourself up to say, Lord, this is between you and me as to what I'm going to give. And I'm going to give whatever I can give, whatever I can afford to give. Paul even went on to say that the gift is acceptable according to what you have, not according to what you don't have. So when pastors tell people to give, even if they don't have it, that is thoroughly unbiblical and should be rebuked in my estimation. So the answer to her question is, first of all, you got to operate on a biblical perspective, and then you need to trust the Lord and just say, God, this is 2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV) Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. what you've given me. I'm going to give where I can, and I'm going to give according to what you tell me to give and what I've determined in my heart to give. I want to be led by your Holy Spirit, but I also want to be faithful to pay the bills that I promised to pay.

My obligations.

The Bible says, let no debt remain outstanding. So we need to make good on our debts. Our money to the Lord is not a debt. It is a gift that we give from the bottom of our heart out of love and so forth. I hear people say, you need to pay your tithes. You know how I feel about that.

I know. You pay Idaho power. You don't pay your tithe.

You pay your utilities. You pay your taxes. You don't pay God. You give to God as a cheerful giver, what you've determined in your heart being led by the Holy Spirit to give. So that's how you do it. Don't be under compulsion to give as you're being led and then trust the Lord to take care of you for the rest. Trust him and he will.

Hopefully you've turned someone into a cheerful giver with this conversation.

I hope so.

All right. Joanna says;

Joanna, you need to go and read Romans 1, because in Romans 1, we see that God has always declared himself to people. David wrote it in the Psalms, the heavens declare the glory of God. And in Romans 1, Paul says that the revelation of God's existence is so profound and complete that men are without excuse. So in other words, even if they haven't heard the gospel, they will be judged according to what they understand from what they see in creation, because God has declared himself in creation. There's a lot of people that go around saying, you can't prove God exists. That's not true. I can too. You're just not accepting what he has presented as proof that he exists, which is the order and design of creation. So I can prove that God exists. And that is something that God has always used to test the hearts of man. So when she asked the question, does that mean that no Gentiles had any hope of heaven before Jesus? People have always had a hope of heaven by faith. We’re saved by grace through faith. So at any time in history, if someone recognized that there's a God who did this, this could not have just come about, God is going to make himself known to that person. God is not going to leave them without a revelation. So that's the thing we have to understand. Even before the time of Christ, God opened the door and opened wide his arms for people to come to him by faith. And people have always been saved by faith.

And in the scripture, aren't they often referred to as God fearing or God fearers?

That's typically a title used for Gentiles who understand that there is one God and he is the God who has revealed himself to the Jews. So they were referred to by the Jews as God fearers, but that term could apply even outside of Judaism to anyone who recognized the existence of a creator God. So, again, I would encourage Joanna to go back and read Romans chapter one, in light of this question. And I believe it gives some very satisfactory answers.

That's awesome. You know what, that's our last question.

That's the last one for this episode?

Yeah.

But we've got more questions coming because you've been sending them in. And if you'd like to send a question to us, just send an email to questions@lifebibleministry.com and go to our website to find all of my teachings through the Bible and all of Sue's women of the teachings, along with her study guides that can be downloaded or purchased from our website. And many women's groups across the country use your studies for women's groups and Bible studies.

It makes me really happy.

I bet it does. So if maybe you're a woman and you've been part of a woman's Bible study group, you might look into those study guides and studies through the Bible from our women of the Word section. So until we're back again with another Bible Q&A, God bless you, have a good rest of your day, and we hope to see you soon. Bye-bye.