Alistair Begg Defends His Advice: A Pastoral Reply

Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Justin Peters.

I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today.

I want to thank you so much for joining me for this podcast.

Many of you saw the video that I did a few days ago on the controversy regarding Alistair Begg's

advice that a Christian could attend a homosexual -slash -trans

wedding, and that has caused quite a bit of controversy, as you know.

I did a video on that.

If you have not seen it, I encourage you to please do watch that.

Since that video was posted a few days ago, Alistair has preached a sermon

in which he addressed the controversy.

Unfortunately, he not only doubled, but in fact tripled down on his position.

He says that he has nothing to repent of.

He remains entrenched in this.

He preached this sermon this past Sunday night.

I certainly have my thoughts, but I wanted to get the input from a pastor friend of mine

named Dan Phillips.

I've interviewed him on this channel before.

He's become a good friend of mine over the past several years.

He's a really good guy, and he's been a pastor for many, many years.

I wanted to get his pastoral perspective on Alistair Begg's

sermon.

And so that is following.

Here we go.

Well, Dan, thank you so much for joining me, brother.

It's an honor to have you back on the program.

The pleasure.

I'm glad to be with you again, Justin.

Yes.

Well, I wish it was under happier circumstances that would bring us

together again on my YouTube channel.

Dan, I wanted to ask you about the sermon that Alistair Begg did as of this

recording this past Sunday night, whatever that was, January 29th or something, 28th or

29th.

He was responding to all of the controversy about the advice that he gave to

this grandmother who has a granddaughter who apparently is trans.

And so I'm assuming a girl who's pretending to be a man and she's

marrying someone.

I would assume another woman, but I don't know exactly how that works.

So it gets confusing.

It gets confusing.

So anyway, a homosexual trans wedding.

And he gave her the advice to go to the wedding, a Christian grandmother, go to the wedding and

even give a gift.

As long as she understands that you disagree with it and you don't agree with this marriage,

you don't agree with her lifestyle, you can still go show her love, go to the wedding and

even give a gift.

And so that caused quite a bit of controversy and Alistair Begg responded to it

in earnest this past Sunday night in a sermon.

So you and I both watched that sermon and I wanted to get your thoughts as a pastor.

Just tell us a little bit.

What were some of your takeaways from that sermon Sunday night?

Well, the first thing I want to say in framing this is a lot of your subjects, the people who you

talk about in your ministry, they're conduits of sewage in their ministry.

There's just a flow of garbage and worse and maybe occasionally here and there

a pearl.

Alistair Begg is just the opposite of that.

He's just the opposite of that.

He's had decades of faithful ministry and on a wide variety of topics.

I mean, the only thing I think I've heard him say that makes me cringe was his amillennialism.

But I mean, you've seen the clip from the sermon or maybe the whole sermon where he talks about

the man on the middle cross said I could come.

It's one of my favorite three minutes of preaching.

Yeah, I can't watch that without being moved to tears.

I mean, I've said that if I had preached that I would feel and only that I would feel like I'd had a good preaching ministry

because that is golden and that's not his only.

I think he's a good guy.

And the first thing I thought about this and then having reviewed it and thought about

it and listened to the sermon twice, the thing I still think most about is that he illustrates the

peril a man is in when he becomes a celebrity pastor.

We often think of the sheep side of it and the influence side of it.

But the man himself, I mean, in the course of this sermon, he basically says, I don't know what the fuss is

about.

And he responds to nothing that the concerns loving brothers and sisters

have said about it impugns to the motives that I mean, if they had that motives, I'd be on his side.

If I had that motive, I'd repent.

But as far as I know, none of them has the moments, the motives that he impugns to them.

And he is apparently surrounded by people who shield him from hearing these things.

And that's a dangerous, dangerous place to be in.

And so I think when he said first came to light from the interview about

his book, Christian Manifesto, and he just said on that interview, the advice they give him

his grandmother and a number of people saw that and went, what?

And I was one of those.

In fact, we're going through the Book of Romans in our men's fellowship class.

And I played that for the guys and discussed it with him.

And I basically said, he's a really good guy.

That is terrible advice.

Everybody has a bad day.

And I said, I'm not going to cancel him.

I'm not going to throw him out or tell you not to listen to him because he gave this terrible advice.

But it's terrible advice.

Well, and then he comes up with this sermon.

And I did a little poll in my Twitter account just to see, asking people which was

more grievous, his initial advice to the grandmother or his defense of that advice.

And about 88 % said it was the defense.

And that's exactly true.

In his case, what he needed to do was he needed to see the kind of quality of the

people who were bringing this to his attention.

And he needed to at least say, you know, I still think I gave the right advice.

But the sort of people who are bringing concerns to me and the nature of their concerns, I just want to make sure,

and I'm going to take some time to think about this and humble myself and make sure I'm not missing something.

And I don't want to just fire from the hip defensively and spray bullets around at my

enemies and defend my position.

I want to think it through because I know all the Proverbs that say that a wise man loves reproof.

A wise man listens to reproof.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend and so forth.

So I don't want to be that guy who, like Proverbs 12 says, hates reproof and is stupid.

I don't want to be that guy.

I just going to take some time and I'll get back to you.

Now, if he'd said that, I would have totally believed him.

And I would have said, good, you do that.

It wouldn't have been like Brian McLaren saying, well, we need to, what do you say, five -year moratorium to figure out

homosexuality.

We know where Alistair Begg stands on homosexuality.

He's taught and taught clearly on it that I've seen.

So I wish he had done that.

But instead what he seems to have done is just, I don't know, see the edges of this

or been told of the edges of it and respond with defensiveness

and just absolutely tone deaf.

I mean, I saw he'd done a response.

Okay, I hope this is good.

And I saw the title.

And just as soon as I saw the title, I thought, this is not going to go in the right direction, is it?

And just as I listened, the worse it got.

And he says, just to stay with my opening thought, he says, well, he says, I

don't know what the fuss is about.

And he says, you know, and basically I'm British.

But he says he's been here 40 years.

But he still says, well, I don't understand, you know, what everybody's so upset about.

And so which is saying that he doesn't know the people he's serving.

He served them for 40 years, but he hasn't.

And he still doesn't think of himself as one of them.

He thinks of himself as still being a product of, he names Lloyd -Jones and

Stott.

And, you know, would Lloyd -Jones tell someone to go to a homosexual wedding?

That's hard to say.

But regardless, you know, he's saying that, and I'm sure he's not hearing it, but he's

saying, I'm not really with the people I'm serving.

I don't really know the people I'm serving.

And that is the whole thing about being a celebrity pastor.

You serve people you don't even know.

If one of them is missing, you don't know he's missing.

If one of them falls into sin, you don't know that unless somebody tells somebody who tells somebody who tells you.

And so in this case, he just, he sounds like a good man who has allowed himself to be

put in a bubble, isolated.

He says his family and friends are shielding him from everything except praise and thanks and commendation

of what he said.

But that is hazardous for the person.

And so it produced a sermon that was just, I mean, it was, well, it was sad.

I mean, the way he characterizes his critics and the criticism.

Yeah.

And I just want to say that if it were true that there were a

person coming into a church I served who was a repentant homosexual or repentant

trans person was coming to Christ and was wanting to walk the way of Christ.

And if the people in the church I served were to repel

that person or recoil from that person or treat them like they were diseased or something, I'd come down on them like

a rain of rocks, like a rain of boulders.

And that is not grace and that's not compassion.

We all come to, there's nobody who walks through the doors of this church or any church that isn't a redeemed

sinner.

And this side of glory, that's all we're ever going to be.

We're going to be redeemed sinners paid for by the blood of Christ alone.

And so, yeah, compassion for the repentant, but he gets into the parable of the

prodigal son and applies that to this situation.

And it just, this granddaughter is not running back pleading for mercy.

She's not running back asking for grace and forgiveness.

She's celebrating her sin.

And I don't know, do you want me to pause?

I don't want to just dominate, but given that there is no such thing as a

marriage of two men or a marriage of two women.

So take that away.

Then what is this occasion that the grandmother is being asked to go to?

It is just a celebration of perversion.

And it's just a celebration of two people promising each other that they will never repent of the sin that

will send them to hell.

How can a Christian go to that with a nice little gift in your lap, with the best will

in the world, communicate anything other than approval of this abomination?

I mean, if she was being installed as the high priestess of the church of Satan, would you go to that to keep your

relationship alive?

And I know, you know, there've been a hundred analogies brought up that everybody would say, no, you wouldn't go to that.

This isn't different from that.

No, it's not.

And, you know, you carry this logic out to its conclusion.

Then you might also wonder, okay, so after these two people get quote unquote married, and then they

decide to adopt a child.

Do some child trafficking.

Yeah.

I mean, do you throw a...

Celebrate the child trafficking?

Yeah, do you give a gift in honor of that?

I mean, yeah.

Right.

Poor child.

I know, it's horrible.

I mean, you wouldn't honor a child being raised in a house of sexual

deviancy.

But now this brings us to one of the sad ironies of his defense.

He says that, you know, all us slope -headed, knuckle -dragging, redneck Americans, you know, we

just don't understand nuance.

And we can't put together two plus two and equal four.

We just, you know, these concepts are above us.

And then he paints a situation where there are only two options.

Right.

The only option is totally to dishonor and alienate this woman with hostility, this

granddaughter with hostility.

Or communicate approval of what she's doing.

And that's okay because you've said you don't approve.

But then go ahead and show your approval by being there.

And those are your only two options.

Right.

That's not nuance.

That is not nuance.

That's binary thinking.

Yes.

There is, for instance, the other option of saying what she says she said to her granddaughter, that this is

a sin and that this is not a valid thing you're doing.

And to go on to say, but I want you to know that I love you and I care for you and I would do anything for your good.

I would do that now.

I would do it the next day.

I would do it any time.

Anything that would point you to the Lord Jesus Christ, would help you towards him, or that would show love to you, I

will do that.

But I can't celebrate the thing that's going to send you to hell if you don't repent of it.

Yeah.

Oh, look, that's a third option.

But isn't that nuanced?

But there's no room for that in his mock -up of the situation.

Right. I know.

Dan, let me ask you this.

What about his use of Luke 15?

You touched on it just a minute ago.

He started by talking about the one lost sheep and then the woman with the ten coins, but most of the time he spent on the

prodigal.

Talk to us a little bit about that, about the use of those texts and his interpretation

application.

Was that valid?

Oh, no.

It wasn't valid at all, and it was very, very sad.

It was almost like you kind of wish he'd said, okay, talk about wonderful

Luke 15 for a while, and what a wonderful picture it paints of the God who loves sinners and loves repentant sinners and goes

searching for the lost.

And then if he just said, no, I want to talk about something totally unrelated to that, and then talked about his advice, I would have felt a whole lot

better.

But the situation he's talking about, there's no prodigal son running home saying, I've sinned

against heaven and against you, and I'm not worthy to be called.

She's not coming to her grandmother saying, I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I'm not worthy to be called your

granddaughter.

Just, you know, if you could even treat me like a neighborhood friend, I'd appreciate that.

And whereupon I'm sure the grandmother would herself run to greet her and show her grace and mercy.

But this is not that situation.

This is more like the prodigal son saying, hey, you know what?

The pigs and I are throwing a little soiree, and I would love if you'd come bring some corn husks and some slop

and get down in the grime and join us together.

If you just wallow around in the mud, and I'm going to ask some of my favorite prostitutes

and engage their businesses.

And, you know, we'd just love if you'd come join us.

But that, of course, is not what the parable is about.

You bring little red bow ties to put around the pigs or something to make them look pretty.

But this is not that.

And that's not the point at which the father runs to the son.

The father runs to the son when he's coming in repentance.

And, yeah, he doesn't make him come all this distance.

He comes and meets him.

And then you talk about the older brother.

I mean, yeah, sure, talk about that.

And if you want to liken that to people who, when a homosexual or any other kind of sinner

repents, does not embrace that person, is not rejoicing for that person, yeah, I'm right there with you.

That's a good application of that.

But there's nobody in this scenario who is advocating lack of love, lack of care, lack of

concern for the person.

But now here's the thing.

Matthew Vines, I think, was one who said he was really happy with Alistair Begg's stance, and it's just such a

great thing.

Okay, dear friends, I want to interrupt here and tell you who Matthew Vines is.

Matthew Vines is a homosexual pastor.

He is author of God and the Gay Christian, and he has been kind of the tip of the spear

in trying to make a case.

He fails miserably, but he tries to make a case that orthodox

Christianity, and by that I mean you adhere to the basic tenets of historical

Christianity, the authority of Scripture, the deity and exclusivity of Christ, those things,

that orthodox Christianity and homosexuality are compatible, that you can

be a gay Christian.

Matthew Vines put this tweet up a few years ago, back into 2017.

He says, I guess it was Facebook anyway, he said, This is a picture of Winston, a faithful

supporter of the Reformation Project, his husband, and their new baby.

So here you see two men with a baby.

That is a tragic picture.

That baby is going to grow up in a home of sexual deviancy.

And so Matthew Vines is affirming this, praising this.

This is what he is about.

And yet, here we see, right after Alistair Begg preached his sermon this

past Sunday, as of this recording, Matthew Vines comes out in praise of

Alistair Begg.

Dear friends, this is Exhibit A on why Alistair Begg's advice was not just bad,

it was sinful and dangerous.

He's being praised by a homosexual pastor who thinks it's a

wonderful thing for a baby, a child, to be raised in a homosexual home, a home of

sexual deviancy, and be robbed of a mother and a father.

Exhibit A on why this was so, so bad.

So here's the whole thing about the Kingdom of Man Project.

We're never going to get away with sin being wise or good.

So the best we can do is to try to make it look like it is.

And so for the grandmother to give a testimony and live it, that this is a sin

and abomination, it breaks my heart you're doing this, and there's nothing I can celebrate in that, though I love you dearly.

Well, that doesn't make the sin look pretty.

So she's got to go there and make the sin look pretty by her presence.

You see, grandma has her thoughts, but really at bottom line, she accepts me for who I am, meaning as

a homosexual.

She accepts my homosexuality.

She accepts my marriage.

She accepts my, you know, the whole nine.

And that a Christian, it's not a loving thing for a Christian to do, to side with a sinner

against God.

That's right.

That's not love.

That's not love.

No, it's not for God or for the person.

Right.

Love and truth are not at odds with one another.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

That's a false dichotomy.

And you don't expect a gospel sound person like Alistair Beck to make that dichotomy.

I know.

I know.

You expect someone who's over the rails to say that.

Right.

I've told people in talking with you and some of my other friends about this.

This is a comment I would expect from someone who's woke, someone who's in the social

justice wing of, quote, unquote, Christianity.

You know, someone who's imbibed in those poisoned waters.

Unfortunately, it was just a real shock to hear it come from Alistair.

Let me ask you this.

So I have no doubt.

Alistair said that his motivation in giving this advice to the grandmother

was to save the relationship with her granddaughter.

I have no reason at all to doubt that.

I'm 100 % confident that that was his motivation.

But when I was listening to him, I couldn't help but be struck, Dan, by

Matthew 10.

I mean, Jesus' words in Matthew 10, I did not bring peace but a sword.

He had to set father against son, mother against daughter, daughter -in -law against mother -in -law.

And I thought, you know, sometimes granddaughters against grandmothers.

I mean, this is not some in other words, this is not something that

should surprise us as Christians when we stand on the truth that it might

cost us familial relationships.

Right, right.

And for a lot of us, it has done exactly that.

Well, part of the trouble was, and I thought this each time I heard him say it, I was just trying –.

I just wanted to try to help save the relationship.

I just wanted to help her not lose the relationship.

And I thought to myself, brother, that is not your job.

That is not your priority.

Your priority is to serve God and to help somebody walk in the ways of God.

And so the question is not what's going to save this relationship.

The question is what's going to honor my relationship with God and my priorities.

What does God say about this?

Is God going to be there rejoicing at this abomination and this deliberate mockery of what he created, his

precious creation, and the picture of his son's union with the church?

No, I don't think – and I don't think Alistair Begg would think that either, not to speak for him.

But – and that also gets into another thing about celebrity pastors and megachurch pastors.

He says he doesn't know this woman.

So why is he giving her counsel?

Yeah.

I have people ask me advice, and many people will tell you that pretty regularly.

What they hear from me is, ask your pastor.

Ask your pastor.

Ask your pastor.

If they'll ask me some doctrinal issues or whatnot, okay.

But if they want counsel for what they should do with their life, I say, ask your pastor.

And that's when if it comes up, well, I don't listen to –.

I don't have a local church.

I just listen to you.

And that's where you say, ah, that's wrong.

That's sin.

You need to repent of that, and you need to get yourself in a local church.

Exactly.

And I'm not your pastor.

You're not attending the church.

You're not the member of the church I serve.

I'm not your pastor.

So you need to get a church, get a pastor, and seek his counsel on this.

Yeah.

Oh, I wish I had a nickel for every email like that that I've answered.

People email me a lot asking me about my opinion on this or that.

And it's like, well, where do you go to church?

Who's your pastor?

That's where you need to go to your elders.

That's right.

They're the ones tasked with keeping watch over your soul.

That's right.

But we are okay with the megachurch model of somebody who gets up and talks but has no

relationship with the people he's serving.

And then, of course, there's the celebrity pastor who has that relationship with people all around the land.

We have a live stream for people in our church who are unable, physically unable to come to church,

or just for anybody who wants to watch it sometime in addition to their own church.

But we often make the point that this is not your church.

As we're doing communion, don't be drinking Coke and Ritz crackers at home.

You need to be in a church to be celebrating communion, and you need to be part of a church.

If you want to financially support us, we'll praise the Lord, but make sure you support your church first.

And often ministries like that don't make that as clear as they should, and they forget what it is to be

a pastor.

So here's a woman he has no relationship with, and he's giving her counsel.

And so now that brings us to another thing, if I may.

It seems to obviously, it shocks him that so many people are upset.

And a thing he said a couple of times is, I was just trying to help a grandmother.

I might give other advice to somebody else at another time, but this is the advice I gave her.

And I just tried to help a grandmother, and everybody blows up.

Well, yes, friend, you tried to help a grandmother in the hearing of tens of thousands of people

across the globe who follow your ministry.

This is why you have all the nice conference invitations, why you have all the nice book deals, why you have all of the

things that go with being a celebrity pastor.

Part of that is that what you say gets amplified on pretty much a literally

global scale.

So you can't, you know, it wasn't just you and Granny sitting over a table with a cracker barrel, having a chat

about this little family thing.

This was something that you chose to share with your tens of thousands of listeners.

And so when you get some biblical pushback, it's not pleasant, it's not fun, nobody likes it.

But a wise man listens to counsel, and he listens to reproof, and he counts those

who love him enough to tell him what he doesn't want to hear as being his choice friends.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I was struck by that as well.

He said in the podcast that this was just advice he was giving to one grandmother, but you're telling it publicly.

And so, as you said, it goes out all around the world, and he's got an enormous

platform, and with that comes enormous responsibility.

He does, and then you add to the fact that he's saying, well, I might give somebody else different advice.

So this is situation ethics?

Exactly.

You took the words out of my mouth.

This is situational ethics, right?

Right, right.

So there aren't transcendent absolutes at stake here.

And he did say as much as that.

What was the way that he phrased it?

He said something like, oh, you've got to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, which he was citing

in terms of you've got to make your own decision, which I don't think that's what that verse means.

But, I mean, your mileage may vary,

like the phrase is.

But there aren't absolutes.

Now, see, this is where if you would even look at some Twitter thread, somebody could explain, my Twitter thread, yours.

And here's a grievous thing.

I've seen people who aren't as doctrinally sound as he who at least get this right.

You know, I could name a couple of names of people who I probably agree with Alistair Begg a whole lot more than them,

but they at least see this one clearly, and they see the principles involved in this.

And he doesn't even get near those in his response about why I gave this advice.

So it's situation ethics.

And so does that mean, too, that he just –.

I guess now he wouldn't be a witness for the defense for poor Jack Phillips,

who won't bake cakes to celebrate homosexual gay mirage.

And for – what's that woman's name who wouldn't do the flowers or the photography?

I don't remember her name.

Well, everybody watching us is shouting it at them.

Yeah, probably.

But, yeah, I mean, all these people who have themselves paid dearly for the fact that they will not

honor this abominable situation.

And I guess he's over there saying he should just bake the cake.

No big deal.

Yeah, no big deal.

Just show that you love them.

Don't break off the relationship, I guess you should.

I mean, now he hasn't said this, and I'm not meaning to put words in his mouth.

Maybe he'd say no, but then I don't know how you would say, well, okay, the granny should go with the gift,

but Jack Phillips shouldn't make the cake, or this lady shouldn't go with the flowers.

Yeah, florists.

Yeah, there's been several cases like that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Several of them.

Just the ones we've heard of.

People have gotten fired.

They've lost everything.

They've lost everything for their stand.

But now they hear from Alistair, someone who is in our theological circles.

No big deal.

Yes, I know.

And there I want to say, too, that's another danger of being up on a pedestal is that you're not down

in the trenches with the people who are actually bleeding and getting bruised.

No, I'll say that they are at a different level, and I mean everything that happens to them happens very

publicly, and thank God when things like that happen to me, 50 ,000 people don't immediately know it,

or when I slip or say something wrongly or unwisely, 50 ,000 people don't

immediately hear it and send me emails.

That's a whole different level, but still, yes, you do feel like often

they don't care about these things because

they don't experience them at the same level.

They're sheltered.

Yeah.

They're sheltered.

That's right.

In that way.

Now, like I say, in other ways they're exposed to pressures that we can only tremble at the thought of, but

that kind of visibility.

Yeah.

And I also have to say that insinuating that probably a lot of his critics are closeted

homosexuals, that was probably not helpful also.

That struck me, too.

I just happened to remember it was at the 20 -minute mark because it was like such a. . .

It branded itself on your mind?

Yeah, it did.

And he said. . .

You're saying what?

I know.

In fact, let's see if I have the. . .

Well, anyway, he basically said, be very careful of the

pastor, the teacher that you're listening to because if he harps on something habitually,

and he says especially immorality, sexual immorality, that is a thin smoke.

I wonder what he's talking about.

Pharisees often complain

loudly of sins.

They would be quite interested in committing themselves.

Be very, very careful.

When you hear your pastor or your teacher or whoever it is lambasting a certain

area of life, especially in the realm of morality, time and time again you will

discover that that loud protestation actually, sadly, tragically,

proved to be a very thin smokescreen for what was actually going on

in the hearts of these people.

I wonder what he's talking about, and I wonder who he's talking about.

Kathy and I were listening to that together.

My wife, Kathy, we're listening to that together at the same time, and she turned to me and she said, so

are you a closet tranny?

Good question.

Yeah, fair question apparently.

I know.

What did you tell her?

Just for interest's sake, what did you tell her?

Not last time I checked, no.

And just for the record, me either.

Yeah, yeah.

I was stunned at that.

I was stunned at that, Dan.

I mean, how ungracious, how unkind.

It sounds desperate.

That one sounds desperate.

Desperate indeed.

And related to that, Dan, we've kind of already covered in a sense, in a general sense, but

specifically he pulled out the often used and

misused Pharisee card.

I get so tired of the Pharisee card.

So can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Was that a valid analogy that people like you, people like me, others?

In fact, I would have to say almost I haven't seen anybody in our theological circles

actually defending the content of what Alistair Begg said.

I don't think I've seen anybody offering a defense for the content of what he said.

So the critics, are we just a bunch of Pharisees?

Probably not in this case.

Maybe in other cases.

But no, the parallel there is just not good.

And I'm glad you brought that up because I want to maybe broaden that just a little bit because what you often hear here, and you see it in Twitter,

and this is a case of like tell me that you haven't even looked into this at all without telling me you haven't

looked into this at all.

The sort of person who says, and you can sing it with me, Jesus dined with sinners.

Jesus dined with tax collectors.

That's absolutely true, but Jesus did not go to strip shows so that he could have a

relationship with the strippers.

He didn't go to, there's no record certainly, and no, I mean he didn't go to

dens of iniquity to talk to people who were practicing that.

Yeah, I'm very, very grateful that Jesus dined with sinners because I'm one of them.

But show me in any of these cases where these sinners continued in their sin.

The only intersection we see between Jesus and people in their sin is them repenting of

it, is them showing brokenness and showing that they are wanting to follow him, and that Zacchaeus

will pay back all the people that he's ripped off and so forth and so on.

He doesn't go to people, to a Zacchaeus who's ripping people off and say, I just want you to know I love you and approve of you

and that I'm here for you anytime you want.

I got your back.

And the prostitutes who are looking up John's and saying, well, I love you and accept you.

This is ridiculous.

It's an abominable thought.

Yes, he does get with repentant homosexuals and sinners of all

sorts, which is great news for you and me because that's just what we are on our best day, this side of glory.

We are repentant sinners.

We're redeemed sinners.

So the Pharisees, they didn't think that he should have anything to do with those people, period,

that he shouldn't talk to a woman because that was just their sin.

But here's the difference, breaking news, there's nothing sinful about being a

woman.

Right.

So Jesus talking to a woman is not the same thing as going to a celebration

of a non -marriage mix of two sexually perverted people promising never to

repent and to go to hell together.

That's right.

These are not, you know, one of these things is not like the other.

That's right.

So you can't say yes.

You disapproving of approving gay mirage is exactly like

Pharisees saying Jesus shouldn't talk to women.

Yeah, it's exactly like that except in every way.

Except in every way.

It's nothing like that.

And also with people who are in the process of repenting of any other sin.

Jesus was with them.

There was no sign that he was making them and no indication that he was making them feel good about their sin.

I mean he didn't even necessarily have to bring something up.

Think of Peter where Jesus tells him to launch off and to catch some fish at

the beginning of his ministry, and Peter does that.

And what does he do?

He falls on his knees and says, Depart from me, O Lord, for I'm a sinful man.

He doesn't say, I just want to thank you for making me feel better about my sin and I just, you know, how

wonderful it is to go forth knowing that no matter what I do out of hatred of God, you got my back and you're

there approving of me.

And that is the situation here.

It is not that difficult to grasp or to express.

The situation is this is a ceremony.

It can't be a marriage because there's no such thing as homosexual marriage.

So all there is is a celebration of two people's commitment to engage

in perverse sex and never repent and go to hell.

And there's nothing there for a Christian to celebrate.

Amen.

Are there two people there for a Christian to love?

Absolutely, but not to approve of their sin.

That is not loving.

And to sit there, to sit there, be a part of that and sit in silence.

I don't know if you saw that.

With a gift in your lap.

With a gift in your lap.

And I don't care what the gift is.

In the sermon, he kind of hinted like.

In the sermon, he said it was a Bible.

He didn't say that initially.

Yeah, but he didn't say that initially.

So that's unclear at best.

Well, I hope it was a MacArthur Study Bible because.

I'm sorry.

I shouldn't laugh about it.

I shouldn't laugh about it.

I really shouldn't.

I apologize.

No, it's okay.

I mean, sometimes you just, it's so.

And since you mentioned the point about Pharisees, something that's occurred to me about this is that that verse in John

7, where the Pharisees say, this crowd who does not know the law is

accursed.

I mean, this is the Amhaaretz.

They just dismiss it.

The rabble.

Now there's the Pharisee spirit that looks down on the commoner.

And I think it might be valid to see a Pharisaic spirit and the sort of spirit that would say, well, you know, all these

Americans that are un -nuanced and can't put together two plus two equals four.

I don't need to listen to them because they don't know the law.

They're not in the slot that I'm in.

That is also a Pharisaical spirit to watch out for.

Right.

And another point to make about attending a wedding is that the idea that you can be

there without approving.

I think about Romans 132, where Paul has just given this litany of sins.

And he says that those who do such things know the righteous requirement of God, that those who

do such things are worthy of death.

But he says they not only do them, but they give hearty approval to those who do them.

Now, unless somebody say, well, I'm just going to this wedding.

I'm not giving hearty approval.

That verb there that's translated to give hearty approval is used one other time in the book of Acts.

It's used about the, well, the future apostle Paul, but then Saul who is standing

by holding the coats of those who are lynching, murdering, stoning Stephen.

And he doesn't throw a rock himself, but the text says he gave hearty approval to what they were doing.

So he's standing there.

He's a witness.

He's not stopping them.

And the text says he gave hearty approval.

And then he later says, Paul says, that he was part of the killing of Christians.

So though he didn't throw a rock or to, to use it in the situation we're talking about, he didn't pronounce the

wedding vows or applaud when they, when they were pronounced husband and husband,

but still by your presence there, you're giving your presence and your silence and your complicity.

You're giving hearty approval.

And that is not obviously pleasing to God.

And it doesn't exempt you say, well, I didn't actually do anything.

Oh, but you were a, you were a passive witness and your, your presence said it.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Dan.

That's a great point.

You know, this is not high level discernment.

This is not, this is just no, it's not Christian doctrine

with basic Christian application.

This, this shouldn't even be a country.

This shouldn't be a hard decision.

I guess is what I'm trying to say.

No, it shouldn't.

This is not theological rocket science.

This is not, you know, Turretin's olympic theology.

This is, this is not that.

And, and when he says that, well, say, I just don't understand you.

By the way, this goes back to my initial point about celebrity pastors and so.

Forth.

So he's been here 40 years and he doesn't understand Americans.

He doesn't consider himself one of us.

And he mainly, he mainly basically, basically I'm basically British, you know?

And so Britain.

Okay.

So what Britain are we talking about?

Are we talking about Britain, the Puritans who would make fundamentalists here look like liberals?

Are we talking about the British who deny the authorship of any of the books of the Bible by

their authors and say, creation doesn't matter and Genesis is a myth and

salvation is whatever you say it is.

And God is whoever you say she is.

I mean, which Britain are we talking about?

Because neither one of those backgrounds is really

to the credit of this specific issue, which is, and if it's not an

issue in England, well then more pity them.

I think it's probably just because they're, they're, you know, they're a half a mile down the road from where we are and

we'll get there.

Too.

Yeah, I know.

It's just, it's so confusing.

So in this one sermon, we've got situational ethics and apparently geographical ethics as well.

So, well, yes.

And in a touch, it sure seems to me, and I don't like to think this, but a touch of what do I want to say?

Cultural superiority.

I mean, was I alone in thinking, basically saying, you Americans have no sense of nuance.

You can't put two plus two together and make four.

And I'm from a culture that is just, you know, so above that I can't.

And this is something that I, again, I've thought about celebrity culture over and over again.

I don't know if you've heard me say this.

I've said this very often that their stance is just towards people like you.

And me.

Their stance is just, I'm sorry.

I know you're saying something, but I can't hear you from way down there.

I know you've got your little concerns you're trying to get my attention on, but, you know, I'm just so far up here.

I'm not putting this on Alistair Begg, but I've thought it many times over the years.

And I mean, to his credit, at least he responds.

A great many of these people do these things and people like you and me will and people who are, you know,

better placed than we, better educated than we, with greater standing than we perhaps, voice

objections.

And they don't even respond.

It's like, I'm sorry, was there a sound there?

I didn't hear it.

So at least he's responding.

I'll give him that.

But he's responding and he's saying, but, you know, I mean, your concerns, your little concerns with your, I'm sorry, you can't even

add two plus two to equal four.

And so I don't know what to say to you except, you know, I'm done with this.

It was very, very condescending.

Very condescending.

I think he had to respond because this has been such, I mean, I saw last night even Fox

News had a story about it, about Alistair Begg.

It's not the way I want to see Alistair Beggs on Fox News.

I'd love to see his name on Fox News, but not for this.

I know.

I know.

You tell me he's going to be in one of these shows.

I just say, oh, that's terrific.

I know he'll speak of Christ, but now this is how he gets their attention.

See, this is why I want to say, I mean, I know, look, Justin, we haven't talked about this, but there are

people who, you know, they see this and they go, got him.

You know, there are people who are just waiting for somebody who's orthodox to fall.

And they will write him off.

I mean, they were ready to write him off with that first response.

Well, that's it.

You know, I'm done.

I'm done with him because he told that information to that Grammy.

I mean, they might say, well, sure, I'll give you time to repent and think this over, and time's up, you know, and

that's basically it.

So this had the feeling of I just, I wish that he had, I wish

he had taken time.

I wish he had the, you know, you pick the adjective, but had the quality of spirit to say,

because obviously he was hurt.

And obviously, and I can understand this.

Obviously he's going, you guys are coming at me like I'm a heretic.

And look, I taught this about homosexuality.

I taught this.

I had lesbians walk out on me because I affirmed marriage at this one meeting.

And all that's true.

And I don't want to take one dot of those things away from him.

But I wish that he could have said, you know, it just to be criticized in this way, I can tell.

It offends me.

It hurts my feelings.

It makes it very difficult for me to think clearly about it.

I just want to defend myself.

And that's not the best frame of mind to be in, to think something like this through.

So, you know, with your patience and your grace, I want to consult some people who I

know will tell me the truth.

I want to calm myself down.

I want to listen and see if maybe I've missed something, or I'm not seeing anything from the right angle.

And for my part, I would have said, you do that, brother.

That is wisdom.

That is a great idea.

Don't rush to the pulpit to defend yourself.

And it feels like that's exactly what he did.

He rushed to the pulpit to defend himself.

It makes me feel terrible because, I mean, he's a brother I've prayed for and prayed that he finish well.

I still will.

The day's not over yet.

I mean, I love him.

Yeah. Yeah.

And neither one of us, to be clear, and I know this is your heart, neither one of us is saying he's not a brother.

This is just, this was a really bad,

unforced error and really disappointing to see, even after all the controversy, for him to

double, well, triple down.

Yes, but is he even hearing it?

Because his friends and his family are shielding him.

Has he even seen, I mean, you know, I know not everybody's a Doug Wilson fan, but he wrote an article in it that would be helpful.

Or Robert, I'm not sure he said his name, Robert Gagnon.

Robert Gagnon.

I don't know if it's Gagnon or Gagnon, but, I mean, just many people and even in the course of just a few

tweets, any one of them would have put him to the issue.

Okay, oh, so this is the issue.

Okay, well, I need to think about that.

But has he even heard them or has he been, has he been sheltered from them?

And this brings us back to my initial point, which is that, yes, celebrity, celebrity pastorhood is

not just not great for the church.

It's not great for the celebrity pastor.

It's a real peril.

And if you're going to be in a position like that, you've got to make sure that you have close friends who absolutely

will call you out in no uncertain terms if you take a foolish step, that they will love you

enough and you listen to them.

Yes, listen, yeah.

This is what I often say of people like Donald Trump, just to get into a totally different thing, I'll often say something like, apparently he

has no grown -up friends we'll listen to who will tell him not to do this or not to do that.

And that's the thing.

You got to have wise friends that you'll listen to.

Wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

Well, there you go.

There you go.

And he who walks with wise men will be wise, Proverbs 13, 20, and iron sharpens

iron.

And David says, let the righteous smite me.

And it's a kindness.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Wisdom there. There is.

And Dan, speaking of wisdom, as we kind of close out here, I want to make people aware of your two books,

The World Tilting Gospel and God's Wisdom in Proverbs.

And those are both excellent books.

I have read both of them and good resources.

So I'll put links down below in the description there for folks.

Yes.

So, but Dan, thank you so much.

And Dan, you're the pastor of Copperfield Bible Church in Houston.

Texas.

Down in Houston, Texas.

Yes, because there are those.

There's a Houston, Mississippi, but you're in Houston.

Not to be confused.

Houston, Texas.

Yeah.

Well, Dan, I've known you for a number of years.

I really appreciate you, your friendship.

I think you've probably heard me say before.

I have a tremendous.

I'm an evangelist.

I travel and I preach and teach.

But I have a tremendous love and appreciation and respect for all of our faithful shepherds

out there.

And you're one of them.

Thank you, brother.

Thank you. Glory to God.

Amen. Amen.

All right, Dan.

Well, it's a joy to have you on, Dan.

And dear ones, I hope this has been helpful for you.

Thank you so much for watching until our next time together.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit be with you all.

Amen.