Thru the Bible - Questions & Answers

Guest (Male): Exodus 10:20 says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why would God do this? Did He predestine Pharaoh to have a hard heart? On a lighter note, what does the J in J. Vernon McGee stand for? Well, stay with us to find out the answers to these questions and more.

You've tuned into the Question and Answer program, a ministry of the Thru the Bible Radio Network. Let's get right to our questions today. Our first one comes from a listener in Sanger, California who writes, "Could you please provide the scripture references which support your theory of Paul being chosen by our Lord as the 13th apostle?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Well, I do not have a theory that Paul was chosen as the 13th apostle. I have a theory that Paul was chosen to take Judas's place, and that would make him the 12th apostle. There were only actually 12 apostles, and Judas was put out of that office and Paul, I think, took his place.

Now, this party goes on to say, "Since my husband was unable to hear the program, this is completely new area of thought for him. He believes the Lord chose Matthias because of Acts 1:14." Well, I think probably I'll go back to Acts and we'll just look at that for a moment. And I think I said at the time that I was not making an issue of it, but I felt sure in my own thinking that Paul took the place of the other and that the other apostle, Matthias, or the other one here, was chosen not by the Holy Spirit but by these people that were gathered. They felt they should have someone to take Judas's place.

Acts 1:14 says they all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with His brethren. That verse there would have nothing in the world to do about the choosing of Matthias either for or against it, for that matter. It's just a simple statement of fact that they were all together and we're told that the group amounted to about 120 and they met.

Now, the Holy Spirit had not come because you'll recall the Lord Jesus said tarry in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. So whatever they did, they did not do it by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit didn't come until the day of Pentecost, and they're having this election and they were never told to do this. And I think Simon Peter felt like that they ought to have an election and they chose this man Matthias.

Now this party has another verse here. It says those present continued with one accord in prayer. He was with them from the baptism of Christ, verse 22. Now, that does not mean and we are told definitely that the Spirit of God didn't come until the day of Pentecost so that this election they had was taken actually before they should have.

Now, verse 24 is another verse they give me: "And they prayed and said, 'Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen.'" Well, that doesn't mean that the Lord did the choosing. The Holy Spirit wasn't there to give the leading and guiding, and the lot fell upon Matthias. Well, it says the lot fell upon Matthias, not the Holy Spirit.

Obviously, he was not the choice, certainly not the choice of the Spirit of God because later on, we find this man Paul chosen. And this man begins the work of an apostle, and he tells about his call that he was called directly of the Lord to be an apostle. Now, Matthias never could make that claim and you have no record of what Matthias did. It would seem that if he was the Lord's choice that there would be a seal upon him by his ministry, but his ministry's not mentioned. It just mentions that they appointed two, verse 23: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. That group were divided. They didn't know which one to choose. There were two men that they had in mind. So they then cast lots.

And casting lots just wasn't for this particular time. In other words, they actually rather gambled for it, or if they cast lots means that they took a vote on it, then they evidently were a divided group. So that by any way you measure this, I don't think that Matthias can be chosen as the apostle. At least, that's my conviction.

Guest (Male): Our next question comes also from California, but this listener is in Hollywood and he says, "In Genesis, you mentioned that Adam had a choice to go with Eve or stay in the garden, but I couldn't find any scriptural references to back up this thought. Could you provide scriptural support for your comments?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Let me say first of all that if you mean that you've read it and you did not find a verse that said Adam chose to stay with Eve, then may I say that there's no such verse as that. But you need to use, maybe I should say, your imagination in reading the Bible because the Bible doesn't cover all the bases as far as detail facts are concerned concerning any incident that's recorded. In other words, there are so many questions that you'd like to raise about those early chapters of Genesis, and I'm sure this is one. Will you look at the picture for just a moment? And I hope I can draw it for you with words in such a way that you will be able to see it.

God told Adam that he had the run of the garden and you just can't imagine the wonderful opportunities that he had in that garden. We major today on that one tree where he got in trouble and naturally we do, but have you ever stopped to think of the thousands and maybe millions of trees that there were and of all the different kinds of fruit? And I think in view of the fact that we've had so many species of both animal and plant life that's disappeared, that there were many different kinds of fruit that you and I have never even heard of. We know nothing about it, it's disappeared from the earth.

So that Adam just had a marvelous field, but here's one tree. Now, if you eat of that tree, the day you're going to eat of it, you can die. Now, Eve ate of it first. And if you'll notice that Satan was clever, he came to Eve not because she was a woman, I think that's very wrong to say that and that she was the weak vessel. No, he came to her because Eve had no direct instructions from God. It was Adam that he had told that to and Adam passed it on to his wife, you see. So that he felt like he'd have a better chance with the woman. Now she saw it was good to look at, it was also good to eat and then probably good to make one wise. And it was a temptation that came to the physical and mental and spiritual—body, mind, and soul. So that she ate.

Now, it says that she gave to her husband. That's when he had the choice. Adam at that moment could have said, "Well, I'll not eat. I know that the day I eat of it, I'll die. So I choose to stay in this garden. I do not know what God would have for me. Would he make him another mate?" Well, he'd run out of ribs eventually as you well know. And so will he stay in the garden or will he now eat and go out of the garden with the women and accept the judgment upon her? And because of his love for her, he chose to go with her. And I've always felt that that is one noble act on the part of man, and that was before he fell. He's never been that noble since then, but he chose to go with the woman because he loved her.

And I think that God has honored that, He's honored that in the marriage ceremony. And that's my reason, if I may depart just a little for a moment, that's the reason today all this emphasis upon sex and getting rid of marriage, it just doesn't work out. Do you notice now that they're saying among the Hollywood group that so-and-so lived with so-and-so, they were not married, but they don't live together anymore and the reason is that the newness has worn off and the thrill is not there that it was at first. Why isn't it? Well, because God says that you can't just willfully break His law and get by with it. Brother, you're going to run out of soap and sister, the romance is over. You have to do it God's way or you're in trouble.

And that man chose to go with the woman and went out of the garden of Eden. So Adam did have a choice, you see, just as Eve had had a choice. There was a moment when she could eat or not eat of the tree; she ate of it. There was a moment when Adam could have stayed in the garden or gone out of the garden, and he chose to go out of the garden. Now if you're looking for a verse that says Adam chose, it's not there, but it is in the record that's given to us, and I think God intends for us to use our intelligence in places like this.

Guest (Male): Here's a question from yet another California listener who hails from Garden Grove. She writes, "Why did you seem to pass over and not elaborate on 2 Samuel chapter 24?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, very frankly, this is something that I think that you need to take a pretty hard look at it. And I did not want to get involved in what actually could become a political issue. Any nation, any people suffer under a ruler if he's not the right kind of ruler. Now history testifies to that. 50,000 American boys died in Vietnam because we had several presidents that made that political choice, for it was to their personal advantage to do it. And they suffered because of that. Always it's true that the people suffer under a wrong ruler. Now David's wrong, David sinned, and God gave him a choice here. And this man wouldn't make a choice and God did, and I think God took the one that would affect fewer.

Now, a pestilence struck certain people. Who were they? I think they were those that were in rebellion with David because the people also joined in the sin of David in his numbering the people. Now I didn't elaborate on that and I think I hope now you can see why because even here I can't continue to go into detail on it, that the people were guilty. And I feel that we get the kind of ruler that the world always has, that they want, that they ask for. I think the majority of people have no right to criticize a president because they're the ones that—the majority's the one that put him in. And they are going to suffer if he's the wrong kind of a person, and believe me we've seen it in our day. Now David sinned here and the people, that is a certain number of them apparently, because I think the pestilence fell upon those. God doesn't go into detail and after all, He's not responsible to us. We have to believe that whatever God does He does because He's just and righteous and good. So I think He did that here.

Now, this party thinks again that I made a slip up by not dealing with a proverb, and they give me Proverbs 21:16. And I'm going to go over that but let me read what they say. "Again, I can find no answer in commentaries to Proverbs 21:16. What is the congregation of the dead that is spoken of here? Is it the lost souls in lower Sheol?" Now let's turn and read Proverbs 21:16. And Proverbs 21:16 reads: "The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead." Well, who are the dead? They're the ones that the Bible says are dead in trespasses and sins. And a man here, as it makes it very clear that he wandereth out of the way—and who is the way? Christ is the way. And the man that will wander away from that, he'll continue in the congregation of the dead—the lost, if you please. Hasn't anything to do with life after death.

Then we have another question from this party, and this party says, "I'm teaching an adult Sunday school class in the Gospel of Luke and could find no satisfactory answer here either. What did Jesus mean in Luke 7:28 concerning John the Baptist?" All right, we'll turn there to Luke, and Luke 7:28 reads like this: "For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." What He's saying here that among the prophets of God, John the Baptist was the greatest, and at least there was none greater than he is. But as great as he was, the least member in the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God as it is here, is greater than he is. And that means that a child of God today and as a believer, you and I have privileges that actually they did not have in the Old Testament. And one of them is that we individually are a son of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and that is something that you just can't improve on at all.

Guest (Male): Now here's a question that comes from one of our foreign broadcast listeners in Southwest Africa. He says, "Did God predestine Pharaoh to be hard-hearted as indicated in Exodus chapter 10 verse 20? And why did Miriam and Aaron object to Moses being married to an Ethiopian woman, or as my Bible puts it, a Cushite woman?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: First of all, let me take that question, then we'll come back to the question about Pharaoh and we want to answer these the best that we can because though we speak the same language, there is a little bit of difference I notice in our expressing things which represents a difference in culture, and I do hope that I can communicate accurately. Let me say that in Numbers 12:1 in my Bible it says, "And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman." Now in your Bible it's Cush, and actually that's the literal and you're certainly quite right. And he said, "I'm not questioning God's punishment towards Miriam becoming a leper, objecting to it, but I want to know what was their sin? Where did they go wrong? Were they not allowed to correct their brother?"

Well, to begin with, the problem actually was not a question of color or race as we understand it today in this country. There would be no question relative to this woman. The question is that God had told His people not to marry out into other races. Now that was for the children of Israel. And Moses actually had broken the law by marrying out. But after all, you must remember he was raised in the palace of Pharaoh and not among the Israelite slaves. So he had a different background than they did. He was apparently married to the royal family in Ethiopia. I judge that that is accurate. And the sin in objecting to it was that he had done something that was contrary to God's law. In fact, it's Moses who wrote the law and in the five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch, and he's the one that put it down in black and white—or however he did it in his day.

Now, may I say and add this to it: that the objection here is that they are rejecting the authority of Moses, and by rejecting the authority of Moses they are rejecting the authority of God. They had no right at all, either Miriam the sister of Moses or Aaron, just because they were brother and sister of Moses, they had no right to interfere with what he was doing because he was following God's command here, though in his marriage he might have broken it, and they have no right to attempt to bring that up when God now is using him to deliver the children of Israel. And that is the objection that is made here, and that's the reason that they were punished, by the way. But you'll remember that God restored Miriam after she had learned that big sister is not the one to tell Moses what to do. After all, you know she could say something like this, she could say, "Well, imagine Moses putting on airs as he's putting on airs here, assuming command and telling us what to do. Why, I remember the day when he was in a little basket out there in the river Nile and I was the one that was watching him and if it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't be here today. Imagine him talking that way to his big sister and imagine him assuming command over me." Well, you can see that that could enter in; it's the jealousy of these two, Miriam and Aaron. And for that, God was judging them, but He lifted the judgment after they had been punished.

Now, let's come back to your other question here. And by the way, I didn't put in a question that was between the two. It says, "Did Pharaoh have a chance?" In Exodus 7:3 it is said that God will harden Pharaoh's heart. And it's repeated in Exodus 9:12 and Exodus 10:20. I think we'll go to the first one here in the book of Exodus and we'll follow that. It's repeated and it's really the same thing. So in Exodus 7:3, and I'm reading now: "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt." Now what does it mean when it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart? Well, Pharaoh's heart was already hardened, and it doesn't mean that God deliberately hardened his heart.

The thought in the Hebrew, I understand, is to twist a rope. It's to twist a rope. In other words, God forced him to bring out that which was in his heart. Now you know there's so many of us today that we do not tell all we know and in our conduct with certain people we do not let them know exactly how we feel. We compromise so much. And compromise is the password of politics today. You compromise. Well, this man Pharaoh was a compromiser. He could say one thing and do another, or say one thing and change his mind, and we see that. God forced him. God says, "I'm going to force him to bring out that which is in his heart." That's exactly what God means here. "I'm going to force him to bring out that which is in his heart." And what was it? He did not intend to let the children of Israel go. He intended to keep them in slavery. He did not believe in their God. And God's going to force him to bring all that out, and believe me, the Lord did that for him.

Guest (Male): Our final question may be greatly anticipated by many of you as you may have asked yourself the same thing as this listener in El Paso, Texas did. She writes, "What does the J in J. Vernon McGee stand for?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: J stands for John. I came from a family of Johns and believe me, my dad's name was John. Have two uncles that were named John. I had two grandfathers; both of them were named John. So I was named John, but how in the world you're going to tell us apart? So Vernon was the name I've gone by and it's been J. Vernon McGee.

Guest (Male): Although we've ended our question and answer time with a bit of trivia, we hope that you've gained more than a trivia understanding of God's word. If you'd like to have more information on these topics as well as many others, then ask for our resource catalog when you call, write, or email us.

We continue Dr. McGee's five-year study through the whole word of God this week as he digs deep into each chapter. So be sure to join us with your Bible and the notes and outlines in hand. If you're not on our mailing list for notes and outlines, why don't you contact us right now and sign up? You can reach us at 1-800-65-BIBLE Monday through Thursday from 6:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon Pacific time, online at ttb.org anytime, or by mail when you write to Questions and Answers. In the US, Box 7100, Pasadena, California 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario N6C 6B1. Now, we have full confidence in our God that He will answer all your questions and solve all your problems.

Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

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