Responding to The Remanent Radio on Cessationism

Mr. Smalley, do you believe that abortion is moral?

Oh, boy.

I'm glad I'm debating him instead of you.

This is Apologetics Live.

To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your most challenging questions that

you have about God and the Bible.

We're here to answer those because we can answer any question that you have about God and the Bible.

And if you doubt that, well, come on in, ask me your most difficult question

that you could think of.

Just remember, if I say, I don't know, that's a perfectly good

answer.

Let me bring my co -host in here, Mr. Drew Von Nida.

How are you, sir?

I'm doing well.

I just ate dinner.

The kids just went to bed.

So, full belly, silent house.

I'm doing pretty well.

And you haven't left the kitchen, we see, so that's good.

The kitchen is the new family room, is what they say.

And we spend a lot of time in the kitchen, mostly trying to keep the kids from trying to get all the hot stuff or

all the sharp things.

So, we definitely have to be in here.

I'm not buying it.

I actually believe what you're doing is waiting for round two for dinner.

All right.

Oh, no, there it is.

I can just go grab it.

I was like, I thought she put it away because she started cleaning out the dish, but it's

sort of close.

All right.

So, tonight on the docket, two subjects.

Originally, we were going to just talk about, well, the Remnant Radio and some

arguments that they make against the cessationist position.

We're going to evaluate them.

And why are we doing that?

Well, a very simple reason.

The guys at Remnant Radio said that they were open to debating someone on the issue of

cessationism.

I raised my hand.

I said, here I am.

We sent them messages.

And you want to know what we have heard so far from them?

Crickets.

Yeah, we've heard crickets.

Sort of like this.

Yeah, there's the crickets.

So, yeah, they haven't responded.

So, what we figured we would do is we would just respond to

things they've said about our views on social media.

So, that's going to be a major thing.

Not social media, but on their podcast about what we believe now.

Until they finally get sick and tired and they go, all right, finally, Andrew, yes, you can come.

Well, I'd rather have the discussion rather than two monologues.

But this is the thing.

There's a lot of people that say, oh, I'll debate you, but I prefer having a monologue.

We just had that actually on my social media guy.

He basically was just slamming the position we had, my position on cessationism.

Blasting me, saying how wrong I am and how I don't understand the Bible, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, well, you're going to come on to Apologetics Live and discuss it?

I'm not going to have to do it.

Okay, then.

I told him, I said, anything you post after this will be deleted because you only want a monologue.

He'd write these really long posts.

And then not obviously read what I say because he just responds with something completely different.

I'm like, okay, I answer your question.

You ignore it and go on.

So I just said, all right, well, we'll deal with this by just, you either come on

or I'm not going to let you have a monologue on my wall.

Right, right.

At least our audience, I know, has seen that on this show throughout the years.

Which is why you try to have kind of some moderation.

Because when you get people who are, what's the guy's name?

Pastor, what was his name?

Pastor something.

The COC guy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He would come on and then he would just talk and talk and talk.

And it would be, Justin Pierce would have to go, hold on, hold on.

You said a lot there.

We've let you talk.

Let Andrew respond.

Yeah, oh, I forgot that one.

Pastor Norm, that's his name.

Norm, yes, yeah.

So you highlighted a comment there.

I did.

Oh, you want me to put it up because I highlighted it.

I will.

Scott 0020 says, not surprised, speaking about the Remnant Radio guys not

responding to Andrew.

They want soft targets.

But I am a soft target.

You are a pretty soft target.

I'm a big softie.

I'm not mean.

So before we get to that.

I don't have to deal with you.

Before we get to the Remnant Radio, one of the things that we got asked to address was the issue of

Alistair Begg.

So we will start with that.

But before we start with that, we got a special guest backstage.

We have two special guests.

Yeah, but only one matters.

Oh, OK.

But kind of like theology matters.

Or everything's a matter of theology.

Yeah, a matter of theology.

But the other is just a voice that we just, you know, just a voice.

I love to say he's a good voice of reason, is what I like to say.

I think he would disagree with that.

I think he would say that God's the voice of reason.

I think he's going to correct you, but we will see.

OK, so Scott asks this question.

Would you debate Michael Brown on this, Scott?

It's coming.

Yeah, Michael Brown.

Here's the difference with Michael Brown.

Michael Brown said he would be willing to debate someone who is involved with helping the cessationist film.

And I said, I'll do it.

And he said, sure.

And we've been communicating.

He was headed to India before the end of the year.

And we were supposed to talk afterwards.

And I've been busy.

I'm sure he's been busy, so we haven't gotten a chance.

But you have talked with him a couple of times, though, haven't you?

Only since he asked for the debate.

I've never.

I actually OK, I told him this, but I think that I saw him in an airport.

I was in an airport in I think it was Philadelphia.

And I'm like, well, that guy looks like Michael Brown.

And I really didn't know much about him.

And that was, you know, and I should have just walked up and said hello.

But I didn't.

Anyway, the special guest we have, I actually reached out to brother or I should correct that

pastor, Austin, because he's got a conference coming up.

And that conference is right in line with what we're talking about tonight.

So let me bring in Pastor Austin Higgins.

He is from First Love Ministries.

I'm going to let you, pastor, talk about both both your church, your ministry, who you are,

let the audience know a little bit about you.

And I want folks to know about the conference that you're doing.

I appreciate that, Andrew.

First off, you know, thanks for reaching out to us here and offering the opportunity to be able to talk

about the upcoming conference on the Holy Spirit.

I really do appreciate that.

Yeah, just a little bit of background of who I am.

I'm Austin Higgins.

By God's grace, I have the privilege of serving the dear saints at First Baptist Church Baghdad as pastor,

one of two co -elders in the Lord's kindness and providence, the church that I,

the Lord allowed me to plant for about six and a half years ago.

We were using the building here at First Baptist Church Baghdad, and they extended an invitation to us to merge

and to become one church about a year and a half ago.

And we were thankful to accept that invitation, which has also began a something of a

reformation.

You know, we, they were already moving in a more reformed direction.

And we brought the 1689 with us into that.

And so it's been a very sweet time.

The Lord's been pleased to add a number of brothers and sisters that are hungry for sound doctrine, hungry

for truth.

For those who don't know a little bit of this area, we're in Santa Rosa County.

So we're in the panhandle of Florida, you know, famously known as lower Alabama.

But the county is quite large and it goes, you know, from the Gulf Coast to Mexico, which culturally

you have more probably of a northern atmosphere.

You have the beach community.

You have a lot of atheism.

There's a lot of witchcraft and Wiccanism that's, you know, coming up.

And I appreciate you, Scott, on that.

Yeah, it's a blessing.

Scott, for folks who are listening and not seeing, Scott said, nice bookshelf, sir.

But at the same time, that kind of passive, atheistic, could care less

beach mentality, butts right up against the Bible belt for the rest of the county, which

goes all the way up to the state boundary of Alabama.

And in this big county, you maybe have, even though there's a church every 200 feet, of

every flavor, you know, predominantly SBC, independent Baptist, charismatics of all shapes and sizes.

All the cults are here.

You know, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, the like.

There are probably only maybe four reformed or leaning

reformed churches in the entire county, and they are not very large.

And so we have quite a responsibility in front of us to be able to wisely articulate

the doctrine of our forefathers and of the scripture, to be able to defend sound doctrine

in a land where, you know, Arminianism and pragmatism has pretty much ruled the day for, you

know, the better part of 50, 60 years.

And to be able to shed a light in a bit of a dark place.

We're one county over from our dear friends at Chapel Library and Mount Zion Bible Church.

We're very thankful for their friendship and partnership and those guys.

And so, and all the other pastors locally that we get to labor with.

And really the upcoming conference that we're doing this year, this will be our second annual conference,

is in part aimed to address the lack of doctrinal clarity and the lack

of doctrinal solidity on an array of serious issues.

The first year we dealt with the doctrine of regeneration because in the sea of pragmatism and,

you know, sinner's prayer and altar calls and every other thing, there was no

reality as to the supernatural.

Reality of what the new birth even is, what it means to be regenerate, what it means to be born from above, what it means to be made a

new creature in Jesus Christ.

So we dealt with that.

And that was really an answer to my prayers because, I mean, this is my hometown area.

And for all the mission work First Love has the privilege to do, both locally and abroad,

and in particular in a number of areas that we labor in, one of which I am very

actively involved in, which is Nigeria.

And I get to go a couple of times a year there and I'll be headed back in June.

So keep me in prayer.

I'm able to see a lot of these resources go into some really critical areas in the world, host a lot of

conferences, be a part of, you know, live radio shows where we push back against false doctrine in

some major cities like Lagos, you know, 22 million some odd people within

earshot, and see the good that comes by standing

up, opening your mouth, and articulating even difficult things and being willing to take the shots, answer the hard

questions, show them from the word of God, where the things are contained, where these things are written, and give every man an

answer and give a defense and a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear to testify boldly and

graciously of the truth that is found in the word of God and to push back against, you know, so much what the culture throws at

us nonstop.

In my own sense,.

Just whether it's grabbing from its own traditions or it's grabbing from what it saw some, you know, heretic pastor on

YouTube putting out.

My desire was to see that same kind of, I don't know what to call it, maybe concentrated firepower, you know,

here locally on the ground in my backyard.

You know, there was a night where I remember after being, you know, a pastor in this context for years, you know,

I wept and I got on my knees and I said, Lord, don't allow me to

step over my own feet and to step over my own backyard to bring the gospel to these regions all over the world and

not have fruit and not have a harvest right here.

You know, there were years of struggle, you know, because you're, you're on the

defense so often.

And so,.

You know,.

The tides seem to slowly be changing a little bit and it's been exciting to see, you know, to have all

the first love guys, you know, kind of descend in this little town in Milton, Florida,

and in an even smaller historical village inside Milton called Baghdad.

And it's always a real treat to the African brethren whenever they hear Pastor Austin's from Baghdad, but, you know, different

Baghdad.

But.

To have all the guys here, we're having some of our foreign branch leaders fly in from Nigeria,

Pastor Maroon Kigweta is coming in from Kenya.

We have our guys from Nepal and India coming in.

We have Dr. Dalkor coming from California, Pastor Joe Jackowitz, Pastor Paul Nelson.

We have other men coming in for our breakout session.

So it's going to be a really good time.

And the theme this year that we are going to be dealing with, which is literally point number two, if number one was

regeneration, number two, we're going to be dealing with the person and the work of the Holy Spirit,

dealing with who he is as the third person of the Trinity, dealing with all his work,

all that he is scripturally, we see responsible for and pushing back on an offensive way

and answering a lot of the hard questions.

We'll open up with Q &A panels.

We'll have a number of breakout sessions.

People will have an opportunity to come and ask questions.

The registration is free.

That's kind of First Love's MO.

We don't charge anything for our books.

If they go to firstloveministries .org and order a book, we send it to them postage paid for free every month.

You can go back and order a new book.

The conferences are free.

So if you register for the conference,.

We will be providing literature.

Chapel Library is partnering with us.

They will be providing literature and we've got a couple other ministries that should be doing the same.

So it should be a real sweet time to fellowship with like -minded brothers and sisters in the faith from several counties around us.

We have already a lot of people registered from out of state that are coming in too.

So we're really looking forward to it.

So how can folks register for your conference?

Yeah, I appreciate that.

So if they go to firstloveministries .org and I want to be very specific because

there's a firstloveministries .com there's a firstlovemissions .org and they all go to some kind of

strange wackadoodle places.

But if you go to firstloveministries .org as soon as you

get there on the main page, just scroll down a little bit.

There's a conference flyer with dates February 23rd, 24th, 25th.

If you click the more info or the registration button, that'll take you right where you need to go.

Registration will take you to register and that info will bring up the schedule, all the speakers, all the subjects that we'll be

covering as well as another opportunity to find the registration button.

And so First Love folks, if you're not familiar with First Love Ministries, I encourage you to go there, check it out.

Pastor Austin, we'll talk offline.

I tell you how to get a .bible domain so that you could just say go to firstlove .bible.

If you go to sfe .bible, it's a shorter way to get

and just forward that over.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

I need to complain.

I just went to First Love Ministries and looking at the publications, some of them are out of stock.

They look pretty interesting reads.

Well, you know what?

People have found out about us.

So if it's out of stock, it's because people went and ordered it and drained supplies and so we're reprinting.

I mean, you've got a lot of good names on here.

Ian Bounds, J .C. Ryle, just scrolling through some of the ones I've seen.

So it looks like really, really solid works.

Now, are they more like, are they summary, like pamphlet -like

publications, kind of easy to read or digest or it's the full book?

So it's the full book.

There's a few cases where we took a book and we updated the language a little bit, some of the older

works because we have, you know, A .W. Pink, Sovereignty of God, Union and Communion by Hudson Taylor.

We got the works by Ian Bounds, J .C. Ryle's Holiness.

You know, we have some of the classics in there.

Wherever it was helpful to update some of the language, we did that, but it is the full book.

We have the complete works of Ian Bounds on prayer.

We have a prayerful and powerful pulpits.

You know, we have,.

There are some booklets in there, but by and large, most of our library is large books.

And Drew, they even have What Do They Believe and What Do We Believe from Andrew Rappaport.

Oh, wait, no, no.

Oh, who's, who's, hey, Mr. Jacobs,.

Just,.

You know, that's okay because then they can just, they can just come to Apologetics Live on Thursday nights to hear what we believe.

This is, this is a little,.

You know,.

Inside humor with Pastor Austin and I because, you know, his boss there at First Love is also a

Jewish believer and understands what Jewish guilt is.

And we were going back and forth about the fact that I've been trying to get Pastor Austin to act as a Jewish individual to

provide some Jewish guilt to his boss on my behalf.

I'm an honorary 2%, so I have the, the software to do it.

There we go.

So, so, I mean, I, if it wasn't for the fact that I will be at the Open Air Theology Conference

at the same time, but I mean, just folks,.

If you're wondering, well,.

You know, a conference in Florida in February, if you live, say, north

of Virginia, just saying Florida's pretty nice in February.

Inviting and calling all snowbirds, all snowbirds.

So go to firstloveministries .org check out the conference.

You know,.

This is just knowing the guys involved in it.

I know that, you know,.

It's going to be a good conference.

I know some of the speakers personally.

Excellent, excellent men.

And so, all right.

So Joe is asking this question.

If someone explains cessationism, is that like a new name?

Actually, no, it's, it's not, Joe.

It's so, and we're going to try to give a positive answer to what cessationism is tonight.

And I'm sure that that's probably going to come up in, in Pastor Austin's conference.

But it's not exactly new, but it is.

What do I mean by that?

Before about the early, the late 1800s, early 1900s,

the issue of the continuation of gifts or the cessation of those gifts was not an issue, really.

But after what happened and really, really what triggered it was the 1905 Azusa

Street mission that occurred.

Now, there's, it started before that.

Actually, truthfully, some of this stuff started really in Mormonism and in the 1800s

that bled over into, I want to say

Christianity, but a form of Christianity.

And so,.

Watchtower, too, it started some in there as well.

Yeah.

We started getting into Judge Rutherford and his visions and prophecies.

But yeah, Mormonism, yeah.

Yeah, Mormonism was the 1800s.

And so, so what you see is you started to see.

A,.

What they would call a revival of people having the gifts of the spirit

that really we hadn't seen commonly or normatively being the gift of

speaking in languages, what they would call tongues, the gift of healing,

prophecy, and things like that.

And as that became more, I want to say mainstream, the

response became looking at scripture, no, these things have ceased.

And so, Joe, when we say cessationism, it is the idea of that

the gifts have ceased.

They stopped.

So,.

The idea is that this is a doctrine that was developed

in response to a doctrine that started developing.

And this is what we're going to find with theology.

This is very common in theology.

How did we get the doctrine of the Trinity?

Because it was a response to Arianism claiming that Jesus wasn't God.

Because God's only one.

And in response to that heresy, you have a theological

doctrine that becomes formed.

And now, I'm not saying that believing the gifts continues

heresy.

Okay?

So, let me be clear about that.

But the doctrine of cessationism is a response to that that

started up.

Just like people say, well, creationism is a new word.

We first see it in the Seven -Day Adventists.

Which is really kind of funny because the founder of the Seven -Day Adventists, Ellen G. White, believed in evolution.

But the atheists, it started in Seven -Day Adventism and you guys would say they're a cult.

And I don't, some I would say are a cult, some not.

But that aside, the reason it started was because evolution was being taught.

And as evolution started being taught with the

formulation of a new doctrine, yes, it was first mentioned within Seven -Day Adventism.

But the doctrine of.

Creation.

Was a response to the error of evolution.

And so, the doctrine of cessationism is a doctrine that was brought out from what I would

refer to as the error of the continuationism.

And so, it is a new name, but not a new thought.

Because as we'll talk about later, I will find it in scripture in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.

So.

Yeah, I like that.

You know what else came out of the 1800s?

Dispensationalism.

But that's another topic for another day.

Well, it's a good thing that you don't know your history because actually it was the 1900s that we see that

formulated in response to the error of reformed.

See, the reformers stopped reforming and the dispensationalists continued reforming.

Reformed and what?

Stopped reforming?

Is that the motto?

I don't know.

I think you're starting to get into the weeds there.

Dispensationalism in that way.

Yeah, well.

You know who I think is talking about that tonight?

I think Keith Foskey is talking about that tonight.

Yes, because he decided, hey, let's have a debate.

Let's do that.

At Thursday night at 830.

OK, so I couldn't tell because remember I posted under his when I posted under a

comment under the post he made.

And when he responded, I couldn't tell if he genuinely felt bad or if he was being goofy.

No, no, I think he I think when you posted and then I said I was going to talk about it tonight.

I think he felt bad like, oh, no, I wasn't doing it on purpose.

And that wasn't the thing.

And so hold hold that one because we got to get back to that.

And Pastor Austin, you are welcome to stay.

I don't know your time frame, but we're going to we're going to talk about, you know, Alistair Begg.

We're going to talk about we're going to talk about some some arguments made responding to cessationist

arguments.

So you're welcome to stay.

But yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

And I probably will.

I step out.

I've got my family in the other room.

Andrew, I genuinely appreciate having you on allowing me to be on the show with you striving for

eternity and apologetics life.

I pray the Lord continues to bless the work of your ministry.

And again, I greatly appreciate it.

Lord bless you, dear brother.

Yeah, and Lord bless you.

First love and everybody there except that guy at the top.

Well, is this recorded?

Oh, yeah.

You just you just said, hey, hey, you know, Andrew wants a blessing for everybody at

first love except you, Joe, because you blow him off.

Well, since it's recorded, I'll be sure to share it with our dear brother.

For the record, though, I actually love I love Joe.

He's a great brother.

He absolutely he's he is.

He's just great to be around.

But don't let him know I said that.

OK, yeah.

I mean, it's recorded, so he'll know, but keep him in prayer.

The man has survived multiple pulmonary embolisms, leukemia, cancers, bad heart issue that

just came around.

But in God's providence, the Lord's kept that man alive to continue to do the work.

We'll talk about the work of the Holy Spirit then.

Yes, that has to talk about a work of the Holy Spirit then.

Amen, dear brother.

And if I could just throw one last tag on that note, because Drew made a statement I really appreciate.

You know, we're going to have aspects of the conference that do deal with the negative, like what you're talking about, Andrew, where we deal with

the issue of cessationism and defend against some of those heresies.

And that of necessity requires us to take kind of a negative tone of what the Holy Spirit is

not.

Doing.

But one of the things that we as we talked in leadership talk, we wanted to be very clear about was in positive

affirmations.

What does the Holy Spirit do?

Because there are other people on the other side of the lane.

But I don't know how you categorize them, maybe hyper cessationist or something of the like, where they think, you know, the Holy

Spirit is completely no longer at work operationally in the life of saints, that

there's no indwelling power of the Holy Spirit conforming us into the image of Christ, giving us

holy ambitions, holy desires, giving us unction and preaching, empowering us for the work of the ministry

and revealing truth to us that is found in the Word of God in illuminating the text to our hearts and minds.

And so our goal really is to give the saints of God a big view and a wide view

of all that the scripture is clear that the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of his saints

today.

And this is one of our greatest inheritances that belongs, that we are not striving for

eternity in our flesh.

We are striving for eternity by the enablement of the spirit that dwells within us

and by the empowerment of him who raised Christ from the dead.

And he's given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.

So I want the saints of God to have a big view of that.

You know, and this is the thing, folks, again, first love ministries .org.

The reason this conference is important is because, you know, realistically, what you saw in

response in the early 1900s was many, many of the fundamentalist churches, which is my my kind of Christian

background, be the fundamentals Baptist.

And yet many of them just in response to the charismatic movement decided to

just ignore the Holy Spirit.

And they're really if you think about it, there has not been much written on the on

the personal Holy Spirit.

Now, you see some, you know, maybe chapters in a larger book.

But I mean, like Ryrie wrote about the book on the on the Holy Spirit.

But how many books are devoted to the person and work of the Holy Spirit?

There's not many, you know, since the beginning, since the 1900s, when the charismatic movement started,

a lot of Christianity just kind of abandon it, put it aside.

And that's why this conference at First Love Ministries is doing is really helpful to say, hey, let's have a

positive view, lift up the Holy Spirit of who he is, what he does, what his ministry is.

Let's stop ignoring the third person of the Trinity.

Amen.

Yeah, you know, we can be highly, you know, as one preacher said before, we can be highly reactionary and the pendulum can

swing so far away from the very real error, from the very real abuses.

I mean, the things that are being peddled out of the especially the extreme forms of charismaticism are utterly appalling

and disgusting.

The NAR movement, I have to deal a lot with what spews out of the mouth of men

like Kenneth Copeland, men like Benny Hinn and all these cats.

It gets on the ground in Africa.

It amalgamates with African traditional religion and which would amount essentially to

to voodoo and animism.

And when that stuff hits the ground, it creates some of the most noxious fumes you could

possibly imagine.

Some of the wealthiest riches, richest pastors, quote unquote, in the world

are Nigerians who are making some of the poorest people in the world for funds and they're doing it in the

name of the Christ of the Bible, though they don't know him at all.

And so in light of that reality of disgusting abuse, the

pendulum can swing the other way and we can be very guilty of abject neglect.

And so it's in light of that neglect, we want to bring the pendulum not to anyone extreme.

We want to put it center in the narrow way of Scripture.

And just, you know, one other statement.

Are you familiar with Ian Murray's revival and revivalism?

Which really dealt with true biblical revival versus that kind of

independent fundamentalist revivalism, the tent meeting revival that kind of took over where we thought we could get

the Holy Spirit on our schedule and pencil him in on.

Friday night, you know.

Well, he did a real good job at showing what a true move of the Spirit was not.

His book after that called Pentecost Today, the Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival, I think is an

excellent book.

I'm working on it right now, kind of reading through it.

You're saying there's not many books out there, but if you want a big view of the reality of what the

Spirit of God is able to do, willing to do, and may do in our day, the likes of

which Whitfield and Wesley saw in their days, I think that's a tremendous book that I think

your listeners would probably enjoy reading.

You know, you mentioned those pastors in Africa, right?

And let's put them also with the NAR movement and those quote -unquote pastors in there.

If you take Murray's book, Revival and Revivalism, Pentecost

Today, but you also bring in Martin Lloyd Jones's Preaching and Preachers,

one of the things Martin Lloyd Jones talks about is the difference between a preacher and a pulpiteer,

and what a pulpiteer is and what he does, and how he is a master of

manipulation of the crowd to get them to do what he wants them to.

Do.

I love you just for saying Martin Lloyd Jones.

I see the commentaries.

So let me just ask you a question that came up before you take off, and this is from our famous

Facebook user.

We see him responding a lot.

We don't actually know who he is because.

I think this is Darren.

See, it's either Darren or Hops that love to come in here and not give their name, but anyone else,

if this is someone else, you just go to apologeticslive .com.

There's instructions on how to get your name to show up.

You got to just tell Facebook to allow it, but Facebook user is asking you, Pastor Austin, will the conference be

live streamed or recorded at all?

The short answer is yes.

All right.

And where would they be able to, so the live stream, where are they going to be able to find that?

Last year, we were able to stream it through both YouTube and the

A Sermon Audio account.

We're going to take a look at that this year.

All the information will continue to be available on that same page I sent you to earlier, but at a minimum, it'll be being

streamed on YouTube.

Okay.

All right.

Good.

Well,.

Thanks for coming on.

We appreciate it and we hope that your conference does well and look forward to

maybe next year.

Now that I know you're doing it on a yearly basis, maybe next year I can make some time to get down there in sunny

Florida for February.

Yeah, brother, that'd be a great.

Idea.

If you live in Florida, you got to have a conference during the winter to get all the snowbirds down.

The Floridians are inside trying to stay warm and everyone else is coming down in shorts.

Going, this is great.

Yeah, it's a bit tactical.

I won't lie.

Well, hey, you might have a competition with all the other.

Conferences in the summer.

Look, can't you just see Andrew going up to the pulpit and he's got his shirt, his blazer, and he's

got his cargo shorts on?

Yeah.

No, no, it will never happen.

It will never happen at a pulpit.

Okay.

You know, we'll see.

Okay.

So thank you.

No joke.

This this I actually I have weird dreams.

But I had a dream that I've had two dreams that both involve R .C. Sproul.

But I had a dream that I was asked to preach at Ligonier and I showed up in

shorts and a T -shirt.

And R .C.

That's a nightmare, brother.

No, it gets even worse.

R .C. Sproul was so upset with me not being properly dressed.

He was chasing me with a machine.

Gun.

That's the only part of this that's believable.

Yeah.

I'm glad you said that because I was going to say you being invited to speak at Ligonier.

That's definitely.

Yeah.

Well, the funny thing is it.

Would have been funnier if he was saying, what's wrong with.

You people?

He's chasing me.

Yeah.

Brother, if you are able to make it down next year, we would be absolutely delighted to have you.

Yeah.

As well, Drew.

Thank you again so much, Andrew, for inviting me and having me on the show.

Yeah.

Pray God's blessings on your dear.

Brother.

Thank you very much.

All right, folks, first love ministries dot org.

Before we get to Alistair Begg, I do want to do a little bit of in the news now.

Some of what we our main topic we kind of covered with Pastor Austin, but it's interesting in the news.

Let me just, you know, maybe I should just bring in the other guest back here.

He is none other than the one and the only.

Mr.

Captain America himself.

Half of the Voice of Reason radio podcast.

Mr.

Chris Honnold.

That is far more interesting an introduction than the guest itself is.

Right.

I figured I'd bring you in because you may have some comments on this.

Just we do an in the news section because what we want to do is is bring up some things that are in the news and

address how Christians should.

View that.

It's usually a shorter segment.

We know we did a kind of a longer segment with Pastor Austin, but I think it was I hope it was well worth it.

I hope you had a just a view of a better view why we should have a high view of the Holy Spirit.

Some of you guys know and I'll just say this.

If you listen to the rap report podcast, I know that I did not have an episode that came out this week.

I am sorry.

I'll apologize to my audience on the rap rap report.

If you don't listen, what's wrong with you?

People rap with two P's are a PP report.

Go search that on on the podcast apps that you have.

But here's the thing.

Dinesh D'Souza had a guy on that was criticizing Beth Moore.

Now, this is a political show, but at the last part of his show, he usually does something kind of reviews,

reads a Christian book or something.

But it was really interesting because he was had Beth Moore on because she was criticizing Christian nationalism.

And though the guest was pointing out that.

So she's criticizing Christian nationalism.

But just like a few months before, when Trump was doing well, like, you know,

in the polls, he was saying Christians shouldn't be involved in politics.

But here's the thing that I really thought interesting, because if you listen to the rap report, you know that a few weeks ago we started a

series called What is a Pastor?

So why did I think it was so neat that Dinesh D'Souza's podcast this week?

Because his guest speaking about Beth Moore and her views and her being a woman who's

preaching, he said that just like Matt Walsh did a show on what is a woman,

we need a documentary called What is a Pastor?

And I feel like going, Dinesh, I'm ahead of you because it's not a documentary.

I would love to do a documentary.

I actually asked the guys that did the cessationist film, I said, hey, when we get done with this, can we do one on What is a Pastor?

And they were like, well, we got some things we're working.

On.

OK.

So anyone that does documentaries, contact me.

I'd love to do that documentary doing a series on that.

But that is the issue, right?

What is a pastor?

I just thought that was really neat that they were doing that.

I will say this, though.

There's there's I've been hearing a silence.

Chris drew.

I know you probably heard this.

Too.

Remember in the last election we heard about the mean tweets.

And I'm doing air quotes, right?

Oh, all these mean tweets.

That was all you heard about.

Do you know the time that Donald Trump called his

opponents domestic terrorists?

You remember that time?

Oh, oh, no, you don't.

OK.

How about the time that he said that his opponents are Nazis?

Oh, no, I don't remember that.

One either.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That was Joe Biden that said those things.

Oh, who's mean?

I'm just saying.

So.

Trump's only mean to people in his own party that.

They drop out of the race and.

Then they're his best friend.

Exactly.

Oh, Kathy.

Kathy, you're saying yes, a very good series on the rap report.

So thank you for that.

So here was an interesting thing that was in the news.

There was a two there was a same sex wedding that was going to

take place.

So two people of the same gender that wanted to get married, they rented this barn

that would do weddings.

And so they rented this barn and the owner of the barn realized that it was going to be

a same sex couple.

And now we know that legally there's this law that, you know, you can't discriminate.

OK, he could fight the issue of, you know, his his views.

But here's what this gentleman.

Decided to do.

He decided to write a very nicely worded letter to the to this

these two people, letting them know that they have they have the use

of the barn for their wedding.

But as a Christian, he wanted to let them know that he felt that by

God's word, what they were doing was sinful.

And so what did they do?

They went to such a meeting.

And cried in front of everybody.

Yeah, they cried.

And now someone offered them a different venue for free.

And you'd think they'd be happy, but they weren't.

And they weren't because the thing is, is what we see going on with this whole

transgender movement and all is they do not want us as Christians

to disagree.

That is it's not enough to be silent.

They want you to celebrate their perversion.

Now, here's the thing.

It's interesting.

Did the guy tell them that they could not use the barn?

No.

He said, you're still you still have it.

But he wanted to share his views.

And his views made them cry on social media.

They took it to social media to cry to make to get attention for themselves because he shared his

views.

Now, I'm going to ask you, who is the tolerant one and who's the intolerant one?

You see, they will not handle him having his views that disagree with

theirs.

That is the difference that you see.

This gentleman is saying you have your view.

He's not stopping them or even trying to stop them.

He's just saying, I disagree.

And that's enough to make them cry.

Go to social media and whimper about it.

And what are they upset with?

That he does not celebrate what they do.

That he is not bowing down to their superiority in having their views

superior to his.

And yet, if we had the same exact view they had, we would be going to

social media saying, oh, they're so wrong.

Let's cry about it.

Let's get attention for self because they won't accept my view.

You said he wrote this in a letter to them, right?

Yeah, like a letter or an email.

So he wrote it in a private correspondence to them.

What does this movement do?

They turn around and they have to blast everything on social media.

To the public.

Look at me.

I'm the victim.

Woe is me.

And it just shows you how soft that this movement is.

That you can't say anything to them without offending them.

Without them crying.

And when you think about it, 1 Peter 4 actually addresses this specifically.

Peter writes,.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking for

whoever suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh

no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

For the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do.

Living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless

idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery

and they malign you.

That's exactly what their sin -hardened heart, it screams, how dare you not only

say what I'm doing is wrong but you're not part of it.

You're not celebrating it.

You're not being edifying and affirming of this.

You have to be.

And that's exactly what the sin -hardened heart leads them to do.

But I love what he says in verse 5.

But they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

They think they're one -upping us.

They think that they're able to shut us up and shut us down.

But they're going to stand before God one day.

And so this couple who takes, as you said, Drew, this private correspondence to simply say, look, you still

have it but as the owner, I have a right to say something to you so I'm going to.

And I'm going to share the gospel with you and I'm going to tell you that what you're doing is sinful.

They use it in that 1 Peter 4 mindset.

We're going to malign this person because how dare he expose our sin

and our desperate need for Christ.

Yeah, and as Dee says here, Dee says, but he hurt their little feelings.

And as Melissa says, the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice.

That's the thing, right?

Back to Dee's comment and Melissa's comment right there is that I'm not

obligated to care about your feelings.

I'm obligated to give you truth.

So if I'm obligated to care about your feelings, that's going to

hinder me in giving you the truth because then I'm going to be so concerned about how you

respond or how you react or what you think of me.

Well, then I just care too much about myself because I want to care too much about you because I care about how you think about me

and your feelings and all of that nonsense.

No, I should be consumed with truth because the truth is what you need

not your feelings to be coddled.

Yeah, and I'll just put this up and then we'll move to the next section.

Of our show tonight,.

But Melissa says, we have freedom of speech just like they do.

And that's the thing.

They seem to forget it.

No, the thing is.

They don't think.

We deserve.

Freedom of speech and that's the thing.

They haven't realized.

There is a,.

You know, a lot of people.

Are struggling because we tend to be thinkers and they tend to be feelers and a lot of people

don't understand this.

When you're a thinker, you try to think through issues, think of both sides.

But they're feeling their way.

Through arguments and feelings give you the sense of a moral superiority just because you haven't thought

about it, you just feel it's right.

And if someone doesn't agree with you, that's why they call it violence and

because it hurts their feelings.

They actually put it in the same line as violence because their feelings.

Are hurt,.

But their feelings.

Are everything.

When you're thinking.

Through things,.

You can separate your feelings from that and this is something we see in scripture and this is, so

in James, it would say the first defense against sin is your mind because if

sin can get past the mind, it gets to the feelings which is closer to the volition and so the biblical

way of counseling is you counsel the thinking because if a person thinks right, they'll feel right and then they'll

do right but the way the world does counseling is to tell you to feel or to

just do what's right and if you do right, you'll feel better about it and the feeling better

will then change your thinking and then they can't figure out why people keep coming back to them because they're using the

wrong model and they're not using a biblical model, the model God designed and so they just keep

trying to do right and try to get themselves feeling better.

They never feel better so they keep going back to the doctor and paying them more money.

Hence the reason pastors,.

You know,.

They give you the counsel for free because they go, here's what God says and you don't have.

To come back week after week.

Well you know,.

And so Chris can attest to this as well as being on Twitter.

Everyone responds to everything, sorry,.

X.

Everyone responds to everything with emotion.

They will completely disregard everything that you say and they will respond with emotion

and then to go back.

What you're talking about with counseling, last year when Aaron Brewster and I did an

episode on biblical counseling, I loved listening to what Aaron said.

When he's sitting with someone and they're telling him what's going on, his response is,.

Okay,.

Is this an appropriate response to what's going on?

So the stop,.

The stop,.

To think about it, is this appropriate?

And oftentimes, what's the answer?

No,.

This is not an appropriate response to what's going on.

So I need to reevaluate some things.

Well,.

And we've incentivized emotional response in this culture.

One of my,.

You said it yourself, I know what this is like in trying to, and by the way, Christians, we are just as

guilty of this as anyone else.

All you have to do is put a semi -rational point out.

And watch everybody.

Attack you.

Because they didn't.

Like you.

But one of the most frustrating aspects for me is when I'm on social media trying to make,

and I'm not pithy, I write really long stuff because I try to, I've learned how to build a case.

That's what I did for 25 years writing reports was build a case.

And no matter how balanced you can be, there's always that somebody that goes, but you're not, and it's

like,.

Oh man,.

You're not, they looked at all this,.

Went,.

Nah,.

Not going to address that, then go for something else.

Why?

Because that bothered them.

And we've incentivized that because the people that get bothered are the ones that get all the attention.

The people that get upset and boisterous, they're the ones that get all the likes and the hits and the shares.

What we do not incentivize is rational, balanced thinking.

Anybody who's taken any time, even as Christians, to write anything out that is,

that's lengthy and it has, you know, several points.

We'll all get almost crickets in response, but all you have to do is drop a hot take.

And that hot take is gratifying to the person who drops it because look at all this interaction I got.

We have incentivized emotional thinking and we do not incentivize rational

biblical thinking.

And that's just part of the problem.

Yeah.

And I was going to give an example of this because it's not just.

On Twitter.

I'm just, I'm looking for it so I could share this with folks.

But, you know, when Chris posts something, there's just so many, just hundreds and hundreds of

comments.

It's hard to find the one that I was looking for,.

But...

Hundreds of comments.

Well,.

I'm looking at 300 and some comments, so yes.

Okay.

And I can't find the one comment that I wanted.

You know,.

You've made this hard to do here.

I'm trying to remember.

Any time I...

You're talking about this, Chris, right?

Yeah.

So let me share.

I will present it.

So you posted...

This is me.

Yeah.

Well, this is what you posted.

You know, don't blame me,.

But...

Oh, no.

You posted this picture right here.

And you said...

Oh, that one.

Your exact words on this, on this post.

Was...

If I can find it.

Look at all these comments.

He said,.

You said...

Oh, no.

It must be a different one. That's why.

That's why because I've never had one.

That big.

Yeah. You know...

Oh, this is from...

Where's your comments?

Mine was the show where I said, it looks like fun.

Yeah.

Here we go.

Yeah.

There it is.

It says, looks like fun.

Oh, just seven comments.

No wonder.

Okay.

So here's...

Yeah.

So you post something.

With this gun on it and you say,.

Looks like fun and look at that first response there.

Guns are not supposed to be fun.

They are only desirable to killers and evil wicked people that have evil

intentions.

You should know that.

Can you read.

Who it was that posted that, please?

I'm glad that everybody knew.

That I was joking.

The sad part is, is in that 300 comments on the Smith and Wesson, I would not be shocked if there were people that did.

I'm telling you, that is a beautiful...

I don't have $1 ,300 to spend on it, but that's a beautiful looking rifle.

I want one of those.

So let's get to...

Someone was asking earlier if we did this.

So Melissa said, did Andrew talk about Alistair Begg thing yet?

No, but we're about to right now.

So let's address this.

I think that this has been a hot button issue.

Like all of a sudden now.

Yeah.

For the record, this is something that was put out.

I think this interview was like a year or so ago.

It was back in September.

It's back in September.

September of 23 or 22?

23 is my understanding.

Okay.

For some reason, I thought it was 22,.

But okay.

So not as far back as I thought.

I thought it was more than a year ago.

And I'm just going to say, we here at Apologetics Live are part of the Christian podcast community.

It's a community of Christian podcasters of which both Drew, as Matter of Theology, with his

co -host Chris Hough, they're on with us, along with Chris here with

Voice of Reason Radio with his co -host Richard Story.

We all are part of a community of podcasters.

And it's not a competition.

So I'm going to recommend two podcasts for you to listen to.

That I have been sharing with people saying, I think that this is a good, balanced view

of this thing, of this issue.

And I'm just going to,.

Drew,.

I'm just going to mute you until you're ready just because there's, for some reason, we get a hum from

you.

I don't know why.

That was the TV in the other room.

It's trying to, so it's hearing the voices.

And trying to pick up that sound.

Okay.

Got it.

So,.

I think if you listen to the latest Voice of Reason Radio podcast where Chris

was by himself, he didn't have his co -host.

He did an excellent job, I think, of giving a good, balanced view of this.

I also want to recommend another podcast and it would be Nathaniel Jolly's podcast, which is

Truth Be Known.

And he and Eki, again, just like Chris, though Chris beat them to the punch,.

Did excellent.

You know,.

Like, look,.

You got to be first,.

Right?

But,.

So we're third.

But I think I will say that because we're going to do a shorter segment on this, we may not answer

all of the issues, but I wanted to say that if we don't cover everything you

want to know about this, those would be two podcasts that I will

recommend you go listen to.

They're most recent ones that came out.

And when I say recent, because people are listening on podcast and it could be months later,

we're recording this as of January 25th.

And so if you go back from there, you can go to christianpodcastcommunity

.org and what you'll see is all of the

shows, so you can go back and find the shows.

All right?

So,.

This,.

So,.

Drew,.

You were the one that said we needed to address this first.

And then after you and I talked about that, we've gotten a number of people afterwards that had

contacted me asking me if we would address it.

So I'm going to let you set this up for us.

Yeah.

So,.

Again, you know, this was sometime back in September of 23 and

Alistair was doing his radio program and he was,.

He,.

It started off kind of like he was giving advice and giving an example, but, you know, he had someone that

was a grandmother who had written in, either emailed in or called in or something, left a

message, but was looking for advice on what to do because her,

her grandson was about to marry a transgender

person.

I don't know if this was a, a girl trying transitioning into a boy or a boy transitioning into a girl.

And so she was looking for advice on what to do because as a Christian, we cannot,.

Let me,.

Let me say it this way.

We cannot participate in those events.

And really Alistair's position was, have you explained

to your grandson how you feel?

Have you told him your beliefs?

Does he understand?

And everything was, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Okay.

Then it's okay to go.

And by the way, take a gift.

I'm sorry, but no,.

That is,.

And I'm going to quote one of these podcasts that I heard, Chris Honholtz, where he said, that

is bad advice.

Absolutely bad advice.

Actually, both the podcasts I mentioned said.

Well,.

I didn't listen to Nathaniel Jolley's, but I did.

I mean,.

Yet,.

Yet you will.

So,.

So let's,.

Let's,.

Let's deal with this.

So I had several people that reached out to me,.

You know,.

Some people who went to Alistair's church, some people who have read his books and followed the

ministry and all said, I was blessed by him.

What happened?

And here's the thing that I want to say, we do not throw out 40 years of

ministry, of good ministry over one piece of bad advice.

Okay.

If you don't think it's bad, then that's a different issue,.

Right?

Then you don't have a problem with it.

But the, the issue is this,.

And I'm going to,.

I may take a different take than my brothers here.

And so we'll see.

And,.

And,.

But I have two concerns.

Do I have a concern with the advice Alistair Begg gave?

Yeah.

I think there's, there's probably would have been better ways of handling that.

But I understand his intent.

His intent in there was to say,.

Hey,.

Look,.

You've already told this grandson that it's sinful.

He knows it's wrong.

So you shared the gospel.

Hopefully,.

You know,.

I'm assuming with, with your grandson and with that in mind, he says, they expect

you not to show up because that's, that's the way they picture it.

So surprise him, do the opposite, do something to show love.

And we should be showing love,.

Right?

We should be finding ways to do it.

Now there's different ways of doing it.

I'll just say for my own family, when my cousin decided she divorced her husband, and when it's going to

claim to get married to another woman, I love my cousin.

I can talk openly with her.

I,.

I feel like I can talk openly with her, her partner there.

I won't call it a marriage.

And I told him that they, they invited me and they, we sat down and my cousin said, I understand if you

don't want to come, but I wanted to invite you.

And,.

And I said,.

Look,.

A big reason I won't be able to come is not because I don't love you.

I care for you.

I care where you spend eternity,.

Right?

But it's not a marriage.

A marriage is defined by God and not the state.

And so when you get up there and say, you're getting married, it's not

that you're trying to make some social contract.

What you're really doing is spitting in the face of my Lord.

You're taking what he defined and what he has done.

And because you could, as this from a state level, you could call it anything.

They could have same sex unions and call it that, but they don't, they call it marriage for a

reason, because the agenda that we have is to trample everything.

Everything that God upholds.

Yeah. One of it.

Yeah.

There's a couple, a couple of things I want to say, and then I'll turn it over to Han holds.

Well,.

Let me,.

Let me get to my second point then real quick.

Oh,.

And it'd be this.

So that's the one aspect.

My second point is this.

I think,.

And,.

And this is where my brothers here may disagree with me or maybe agree, but we'll see.

I really think that COVID has changed us.

It really has.

In,.

In some ways, very badly because what I have seen since COVID is a Christianity.

That is so much quicker than it used to be.

It used to be quick, but now it's so much quicker to criticize any little thing that may

even seem like someone's going a little bit woke and we're just going to throw you out

completely.

We are going to cancel you like the left does that.

We complain about, because we don't like what you said.

And I really think we, as believers need to slow up a bit.

We should not be a canceled culture.

We should be if there's heresy,.

Right?

I mean,.

When you have people getting up saying heresy, teaching false teachings,.

Yes, we,.

We separate, but Alistair Begg is a brother in Christ.

He has been a faithful minister for 40 years.

We've,.

That I know of now,.

I'm not,.

I haven't really followed him that much and things like that, but I have not heard that he has had

any other issues over the long time of his career.

And I know there was a comment.

Let me find it real quick here.

Dee had said, I read today that Alistair Begg was confronted and refused to change his position on what he

said in regards to Christians attending a trans wedding.

And so, okay.

Does that mean we throw everything out?

No,.

Because we all are disagreeing with each other somewhere.

Okay.

We have to recognize that.

I don't,.

I don't think this is an issue that we suddenly say everything he's done has.

Done.

We throw to the wolves,.

You know,.

Toss him out.

He's gone.

He's dead to us.

But that is how a lot of people are reacting.

And I,.

I'm going to say, I think both of those reaction, both of those advices would be

wrong.

So Drew, what say you?

Yeah.

So I completely agree.

We don't throw out 40 years of faithful gospel ministry.

And the thing, and just in case you haven't followed Alistair Begg and picked up

on this, he is a man who tends to be very gentle when dealing with

certain topics.

He wants to be cautious.

He wants to tread lightly.

He wants you to hear his heart.

He wants to be gracious.

So,.

So he kind of approaches things in a different way that, that others probably aren't used to in the reformed

community, right?

He doesn't, his first, his first response isn't pick up my sword and shield and immediately start cutting throats.

He takes a more gentle approach.

And I think that's one reason why a lot of us, when we hear him saying the same, like a Sinclair Ferguson, right?

When we hear him, who are both Scottish, by the way, it's not just the,.

You know,.

Maybe it's just the accent.

I don't know,.

But,.

But they, they take a little more gentle approach, which I, I think is very, when we hear

that it, it kind of draws us to it.

And it causes us to question what are my motives, right?

What is my intent?

So that's what I'll say about just about Alistair, his, his, his ministry.

But to go to kind of some of the things that he said, if they're

expecting me not to come, if they're going,.

Oh,.

Well we expected you not to come because you're a Christian.

Okay.

That,.

That means you understand my conviction about it.

You may, you may think little of it, but that means somewhere along the lines, I've done a good job in relaying to you

my convictions and why I can't support this.

Because if I do attend, this goes to the second thing I want to say, not it's not

so much that I'm, I'm telling my grandson,.

Hey,.

I love you.

And you know,.

I,.

I can't support this, but I do want to show you, I love you.

What am I testifying to, to the other people who are in attendance that also know my conviction?

I'm telling them that I'm affirming this union because they don't know the conversation I've had with my

grandson or, or whoever, and what it, what it may be.

And I've explained to them my conviction.

They just know that I'm a believer.

I don't think this is right, but yet I come.

And so if I come, then I must be affirming somewhere, somewhere I'm going to start changing is probably their hope.

So what am I saying to the people that are around in attendance to the wedding as well?

Amen.

Absolutely.

And I, I fully agree with that.

I know that when it comes to Aller's Beg, there have been some people who have said they've had concerns.

I think his involvement with the gospel coalition is one of them.

I'll be honest.

I,.

How he or Kevin DeYoung or anybody can continue to maintain an association with them mystifies me, but they stay

solid.

So I'm not going to do a guilt by association.

I'm sorry.

If you want to fire that missile good on you, but I'm not going to do that.

But when it comes to this issue first, he put it out there and let me, let me

just say what I said something earlier.

I said on social media today, we all learned about this about five minutes ago.

Okay.

This,.

This happened say back in September and we all learned about five minutes.

Ago.

That's why I brought up the time because that's the thing that surprised.

Me.

Like no one had an issue until I, I don't know who it is that I think it was protest the, that

released it.

Yeah.

And what's funny is protest.

He had defended him, defended him against this insane attacks that came against him immediately thereafter.

So,.

But yeah,.

No,.

It's a great point.

We've,.

We've known about this for like five minutes and then everybody's upset.

Well,.

He's doubled down.

Yeah.

You learned that about 30 seconds ago and you know why?

Because American family radio did the right thing.

And they went and had a conversation with his ministry staff and they said, we're really concerned about airing you.

If this is where your position is and his ministry staff related back, this is where he stands.

And they gave an explanation why I think they, it was a matter of Christian conscience issue

as opposed to a hard and fast.

Rule.

Now I would disagree with them, but I'm also going to say that's not the same as doubling down and slamming your

fist and saying, this is what a Christian must do.

That's not the exact same thing, but we learned about that less than five minutes ago.

So now we're, we're screaming, he's doubled down.

He's,.

He's clearly knows better.

And I've had people respond to things I posted online.

Well,.

I'm done with him.

He should know better.

Yeah,.

I agree.

He should know better.

As a minister of the gospel, he should know better.

You know,.

It's first Thessalonians five 22 that tells us abstain from every form of evil.

And I think some translations even say every appearance of evil.

So we're not to, to support that, which we know to be sinful goes back to what we learned from first Peter

four, that they get mad at us because we won't support it.

So when a Christian says, do they understand where you're at?

Do they understand why do, do they understand that this is why you can't support it?

And you go,.

Yes, yes, yes.

Then the answer should be good.

You've fully explained it.

Now,.

In order to maintain that position you have with this family member, just keep that bond

of love.

Let's talk about things that you can do rather than going to this wedding.

Cause I, it's exactly what Drew said.

When I go to a wedding like that, what am I saying to the people there?

I affirm this.

I support it because I'm agreeing.

I think some people ask the valid question.

When, if I,.

With the transgender wedding, I doubt this question gets asked, but if anybody has a reason why these two

should not be married, speak now forever, hold your peace.

Now I'm going to guess they're probably not going to ask that question, but if they ask that and you're a Christian,.

What do you do?

Are you going to sit there and say, I'm going to be silent for the sake of love.

I think you would, you would be sinning against your own conscience.

You would,.

You would have a problem there.

So this is,.

This is hugely problematic advice on the part of Alistair Begg.

And I think he's wrong in this.

And I think he needs to back it up and go, what did I do?

Why did I do this?

And then reconsider what he needs to do next, but give him more than 30 seconds before you

throw him to the outer darkness.

Well,.

I think this could have been just a,.

Hey,.

This is the advice I gave.

Maybe not well thought through, but what do we do?

We get,.

There's a lot of different ways of dealing with this,.

Right?

I mean,.

Like for me, for instance, how would I deal with it?

I don't think I would.

Well, I wouldn't go to the wedding, but I think what I would probably do is,.

You know,.

Invite them over my home and have a meal so that I could share the gospel with.

Them.

Maybe the grandson knows, but the partner doesn't.

And,.

And express why it's wrong.

And express God's view on it.

Express why,.

I mean,.

This is what I did with my cousin.

I expressed why I couldn't go to their quote unquote wedding.

And so she understood why I wasn't going to go.

She actually knew, she kind of expected it up front.

So there's, there's someone backstage that is, was asking a question online.

His camera's off right now.

So I don't know if he's,.

If he's still there,.

But I could put his question up.

But Pastor Joe Conkle had, had asked this and Joe,.

If you're,.

If you are backstage and there, just put your camera on and we'll bring you in to ask the question.

But he says, couldn't the same logic be used to condone Begg's officiating

that wedding?

And so I, I'm going to say this just because I know my two brothers here with me, we're only going to give,.

You know,.

Like maybe five to 10 more minutes on this so we can get to the main topic for the evening.

Cause we're, we've done a lot of different segments, but so is it the same thing as condoning a wedding?

I would say no.

I would say if you officiate the wedding,.

You're,.

You're definitely affirming it.

I mean,.

You could be in a, you could be in attendance of something.

And yet,.

I mean,.

I went to a friend of mine who had a wedding in a Catholic church, my wife and

I sat in the back.

And when they got up and did the mass, I purposely did not stand,.

Did not move.

And I sat.

Now,.

Did I participate in the Catholic wedding?

Yeah,.

But I'm not going to participate in their Catholic ritual.

Okay.

Is that condoning their ritual?

I didn't think so.

And my wife and I discussed whether we were going to go to the Catholic because it was in a Catholic church.

So we struggled with that.

I mean,.

This is, if we struggle with going to a Catholic, you know, opposite sex wedding,.

You know,.

Same sex is going to be more issue.

But if you're officiating it,.

Joe,.

I think it's, I think you're, then you're blessing it.

And I would, I would think that that is a higher level.

And I would also add one more thing to that is think about the extent to which Alistair Begg

made it clear.

Does your grandson know where you stand and why?

He is making, and then you look at what he has said consistently about, you know,

sexual immorality.

As a pastor, he's clearly stated,.

These are,.

These are sins.

So with that said, you're not going to find someone like Alistair Begg condoning the

officiating of a sinful union.

He's not going to do that, nor would he counsel someone to do that.

His specific intent as stated in that particular interview was for this

grandmother to maintain that connection,.

To have that,.

That to demonstrate her love for her grandchild there.

That's the point.

And so we, we've got to be really, really careful when we, when we look at what he said and went, that's

bad advice, bad counsel, it's not biblical.

And then it's, and it's, I'm not saying Pastor Joe has said this, but we have a tendency to do this.

We've now generalize it.

And we say,.

Well,.

That could be for this.

And that could be for this.

And it's like,.

Whoa,.

Back up.

There's a context here.

I think the context clarifies, it doesn't excuse it, but it clarifies.

So I would just say, let's be careful when we start saying,.

Well,.

His argument could be used.

No,.

It couldn't because he's not going to use that same argument for a pastor to bless two, two people in

an act of sin.

Yeah.

And,.

And so there's a specific reason I did the segments.

That I,.

That I did, because when you look at what we did in the, in the news segment, and now we take this,.

Right?

So what do we have?

We have a guy who's saying,.

Yeah,.

You can use my building,.

But I'm going to tell you what, that I think it's sinful.

Right now,.

What was their response?

Their response is you must submit to us.

You must celebrate what we're doing.

And that is part of an issue that I think plays into it more than just saying, have you shared

with your grandson that it's wrong?

I would, I would definitely, one of the questions I would ask someone is, does your grandson expect you to

go to affirm his behavior?

Because that makes a major difference now.

Yeah.

Because now if, if he's expecting you to celebrate what these doing and you go,

that becomes,.

You know,.

In,.

In his mind, yes, he knows.

You say it's wrong, but you're affirming them and celebrating it.

And,.

And that then I think becomes a different issue.

Now,.

On the flip side, I also want to say this, Alistair Begg is scheduled to be at shepherd's conference in March.

And I am watching good men who are like,.

They better cancel him.

They better remove him.

You know,.

If, if they don't remove him, they're hypocrites.

Again, we,.

We don't throw out years of, of good ministry just because he gives bad advice once, because guess

what?

Every person that,.

You know,.

That pastors has given bad advice.

I'm sure of it.

All right.

Myself included.

I'm sure of it.

I may not know what it is, but I'm sure of it.

Okay.

So let me go through some of the comments we have.

Dee said, we should avoid the appearance of evil.

Um,.

We have, Kathy, you said,.

Uh,.

We each have our own convictions.

It's not a gospel issue.

And I agree.

It's not a gospel issue.

Um,.

But in, in here's the thing.

Hold on.

You've got, you've got someone backstage.

Who's waving you off.

He's going to say it is a gospel issue.

Hold on.

Uh,.

Let me,.

Let me respond to it and say this.

It's not a gospel issue.

Okay.

But in the first century, we see in the scriptures that people held baptism.

They said, if you basically, they put baptism, almost linked it with salvation.

In other words,.

If you weren't willing to be baptized, people questioned your salvation.

After a couple hundred years, there's persecution coming in.

The Romans come in and say, give us your Bibles.

If you don't give us your Bible,.

You know,.

We're taking you off the prison.

And so there, you had people who said, you're not taking my Bible, take me to prison.

And they take them to prison and they take the Bibles anyway.

And others who said,.

Well,.

You know,.

You're just going to throw me in prison and then go take my Bible.

Anyway,.

I might as well give you a book or one of my Bibles or part of my Bible and keep the rest.

When, when,.

You know,.

Uh,.

Constantine says,.

Oh,.

We're all Christian.

And those people who were in jail were freed.

You know,.

What became a watershed issue?

Did you give up your Bible or not?

And the people who went to jail because they refused to give up their Bible question, the salvation of

those who didn't go to jail and gave up their Bible and, and said like, they're not saved.

It became a watershed issue.

Now,.

Why am I saying all that?

Because in our day and age, this is becoming a watershed issue.

If you are unwilling to stand strong on what the Bible says against homosexuality and

transgenderism, because they are pushing it on us, they are making this a

watershed issue for Christians.

So is it a gospel issue?

No,.

But I would say it's a watershed issue that people end up tying so closely to.

It,.

Just like baptism and whether you'll give up your Bible, it's become so close to it that

it is something that I think is very similar looking to a gospel issue.

And,.

And it's something I, and that's why I defined it as a watershed issue.

I will seriously question any person who says they're a Christian, especially at the

pastorate level, a theology theological level that starts to say that

homosexuality is okay.

I'm going to have to start questioning that because they should know better.

Let me just, I want to rattle off some of these just to get to them.

And then I want to bring Chris Huff in real quick.

And it's hard to say for Chris Huff to be quick, but I'm glad he's laughing

backstage.

Frank says,.

It's not a Ravi Zacharias issue.

That's true.

It's not, but Ravi had bigger issues,.

But it's,.

It's a different issue.

And again, the Ravi Zacharias issue was different.

It was disqualifying, but this is becoming a watershed.

And so I do think it's different.

And I would say, do I think that Alistair Begg has gone woke?

No.

Is he gone off the wrong side of this?

And,.

You know, he's a bad person.

No,.

I think that we, we just have to realize that

this is an issue that for our generation is different than it is in

previous generations.

All right.

Hearing that Ravi Zacharias comment.

I mean,.

It just seems like there's some category errors when just all over the place.

Like what,.

Between what Alistair Begg said and then throwing in the Ravi Zacharias situation, the two aren't even comparable.

Correct.

Which is what I think he's trying to say, but people are probably responding in a similar manner as to though,.

Well,.

Ravi was this and we just, you know, we've ripped down his ministries.

Alistair Begg is being treated in the same way.

And it's like, I think that's his point.

These are not the same situation.

But as, as Dee is saying here, but this is the first step down a slippery slope.

And actually where I think the slippery slope always seems to begin with this is allowing women to preach.

But Chris, I'm going to bring Chris in and he made a good comment in the private chat that maybe he's going to want to talk about, but

a watershed issue we see in the scripture circumcision.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

So,.

I mean,.

It's the same kind of thing.

It's the same kind of concept.

It's like,.

You know people would all the time ask.

And that's,.

That's why Paul addressed it in Romans chapter four, you know?

So,.

So it was Abraham saved.

It was Abraham granted faith and righteousness before or after he was circumcised.

And so Paul, Paul addresses that in Romans four.

So a couple of things about Robbie or not Robbie,.

Listen to me,.

Like you guys are talking about Robbie.

I'm like, no,.

It's not the same thing.

A couple of things about Alistair.

Number one, he should not be removed from the chef con preaching schedule.

I think it would be an absolute blessing and a treat for everyone in attendance and everyone watching on live stream.

If you've never heard Alistair preach, go listen to him preach.

And I'm sure it's going to come up in the Q and a.

Oh,.

I'm sure.

Especially if my Johnson questions.

Yeah. Yeah.

So Q and a shut around the world.

Yeah.

So, so,.

So a couple of things, I mean, a couple of things about this is something else that I heard someone say.

Is,.

You know, okay, so if you voiced your opinion and I put this in the private chat too, if you voiced your opinion and sorry about my

voice, my throat is killing me.

If you voiced your opinion to this person, this family member, and you've let them know that it is a sin against the Lord.

And then I do not support this union.

It's not a union.

It's not,.

You know,.

The state may recognize it as a marriage,.

But before, before the Lord, according to the word of God, you are entering into a covenant that he does not

recognize.

And that he abhors and he hates.

And in turn,.

He hates you for,.

For the sin in your life, just like he, you know, apart from Christ hates me and hates the sin in my life.

And so,.

But in someone, I saw someone in the comments say,.

Well, well,.

If you've voiced that and then you go and attend and stuff, could that be a salt situation

where they see you and their conscience is pricked and it, you know,.

Kind of,.

Kind of rubs that in a little bit more.

Sure.

It could be,.

But,.

But that also does go against the clear commands of scripture.

I think of,.

You know,.

Ephesians five,.

11,.

And do not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead even expose them.

Paul said in first Corinthians five, to have nothing to do, do not associate with sexually immoral

people.

Second Corinthians six 14, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers for what partnership is right.

Have righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship is like.

So, and,.

And,.

And that's that there are multiple other passages of scripture you can look at and go to, but we have to remember too, like someone said that it's not a

gospel issue.

No, it's not.

It's not from a salvific issue.

Sure.

It's not,.

But what is marriage?

Marriage is to be a picture of the gospel.

Marriage is the,.

I can't remember who it was.

A song I heard years ago.

Marriage is the picture of the story that heaven tells.

Right.

And so if you're going in attendance and it's just like, it's the same concept as,.

As, as,.

You know, playing Bethel and Hillsong,.

We don't,.

We don't support their theology, but we're still going to play these songs.

Well,.

You're given that stamp of approval, whether you realize it or not, it's the same kind of concept.

And so by going and doing that,.

It's,.

It's that, but then on the flip side, right on the flip side, I think of I'm, I'm studying Romans right now.

And this week in reading Romans 13 through 16 and Romans 14 talks about weaknesses and

weaknesses and fellow believers.

And earlier in Romans and Romans 12, it talks about giving preference to one another, outdoing

one another and good and showing good to one another.

And so you also have to ask the question is, you know for the believers in attendance at this

wedding,.

Is this,.

Is this an opportunity to grow in sanctification?

I mean, so I think overall scripture is pretty clear that we shouldn't attend.

Obviously someone mentioned something about, about officiating.

Absolutely not.

I don't, and I have a very good friend of mine who is personal friends with Alistair.

Beck.

And trust me, Alistair's not gone woke.

Um, uh, D D,.

You know,.

Said,.

D said, this is the first step in the slippery slope.

Sure.

It could be, or it could be an issue of just like,.

Hey,.

I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to go above and beyond and showing love and, and looking at the example that our Lord

left and, and, you know, going and eating with tax collectors, eating with centers, eating with prostitutes,.

Et cetera,.

So on and so forth.

Now, again,.

He's the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not, that's a narrative,.

Not,.

Not a, not a prescriptive command in scripture.

We,.

We defer to those instead of the narratives.

Um,.

You know,.

But,.

But I think here's something else that really bugs the crap out of me.

It's just like,.

Okay,.

I understand this is on a podcast.

I understand it was released publicly.

I get that.

But part of me brothers is so stinking sick of when somebody says something

like this,.

That doesn't,.

That goes against the clear commands of scripture.

I'll, I'll,.

I'll give up, but not everything has to be tried in the court of public opinion.

Thank you.

And that's,.

That's the point that I think.

That's the thing that has bothered me the most.

Now I'm,.

I want to move to the next segment.

I'm just going to read because this could be concerning.

Melissa Owen says this, not to stir up controversy here, but Alistair did allow a woman to be

in the pulpit at a Sunday serving.

Now.

So Melissa, I would want to know more context to that because that could be now that could be a different

issue.

Like, was she just getting up and sharing a testimony or making an announcement or was she preaching

that that would become a big difference.

And then if he starts waffling on that, like if he waffled on that and now we see this, then yeah, that could

be the slippery slope.

Right.

So that was one of the things that I tried to make a point of on the voice reason radio episode.

We could,.

This be a, an indication of him going a certain direction possibly, but that means giving it

time and seeing what happens, which is why so emphasized.

We learned about this five minutes ago.

The doubling down was 30 seconds ago.

Y 'all need to stop.

And I'm not going to argue this with anybody because we've all said what we need to say.

Now we need to let time go forward.

And,.

And it, this goes back to what you said,.

Andrew.

And I think you're absolutely right.

I actually don't disagree with you.

I,.

When it comes to the issue of COVID, it did change us because that was a watershed moment where

churches closed.

Some didn't, some did.

And many Christians went on the attack against one and other without giving

due credence to the possible reasons why.

And now we've got that divide and we have, we have yet to go back.

So it could be, but it's going to take more than five minutes worth of analysis

and a week or two of, of us discussing this on our own podcast.

And aren't we so great.

We're talking about the hot button issue of the week or whatever we need to.

Stop.

We need to be patient.

We need to trust the Lord.

And if he is indeed going the wrong direction, God will reveal it in his time.

Okay.

So here's, here's the thing,.

Right?

And I know Andrew, we need to move on, but like I'm reading through these this quarter, the Christian complete armor, the

three volume set that came from Alistair's ministry.

Like that,.

That's where I bought these.

Listen to what William says in here.

Our love for one another is the insignia of our allegiance to him.

If Satan can set us at odds with a brother, he gives us, he gives a deep wound to our godliness and

to the whole cause of Christ.

He knows we will hardly join hands in a duty.

If we cannot join hearts and love, where is Christ's compassion in the church today?

It is evident the lack of this last piece of armor gives Satan the great advantage in our time.

We've become penny pinchers with God's mercy for fear.

Our charity will be too broad.

Whereas in a biblical sense, if it's not as wide as the world, it is too narrow for the command, which bids us

to do good to all.

So yeah.

And,.

And all.

Right, let me just, I want to get some of these things really quick after now, because we've been using some terms.

Melissa is saying, what does watershed moment mean?

Watershed.

It's basically like, this is a turning point.

This is a, you cannot go beyond this point where they're forcing this to be an issue of

kind of questioning, like where it becomes sign of, if you are weak on this,

we even question whether you're, you're in the, in the faith.

That's kind of,.

You know,.

What ends up happening?

Kathy is saying,.

Amen.

Christians are becoming like sharks, sharks in the water, seeing blood.

And that's,.

That's part of the thing that,.

That,.

That I've been, that I was wanting to address.

Now,.

The last comment, and I'm not even going to pry answer it, but these just asking what about the fact that Alistair was on the board of the gospel

coalition?

Is that a cause concern?

Actually?

No,.

Because the gospel coalition itself is the cause for concern.

Like, yeah,.

It is a cause of concern.

Why is Alistair on that board?

Not the concern is not with Alistair.

The concern is with Alistair being like, he should know better to be on the board.

All right.

So I wanted to get to this.

So we, we want to deal with the remnant radio.

Okay.

I have five clips from their first argument.

They're making arguments.

Now,.

Let me, I want to preface this by saying I,.

I,.

I have never listened to the remnant radio before.

I have about 60 hours that are downloaded that I started

listening to.

And so I,.

I,.

And I will challenge.

If, if they want to critique me at all, I will challenge them to first listen to 60 hours of me

before they, they critique.

That is no simple task.

Well,.

The reason being is we gotta be, we gotta,.

I want to know where their heart is.

I want to know that I'm not misrepresenting them.

Okay.

It's easy to grab a clip and play it or like a ballast or beg, play a clip and then start

making all kinds of accusations or conclusions.

I want to make sure I hear them out before I start,.

You know,.

Chris.

And if they said,.

Yeah,.

We're willing to debate you.

I would,.

I mean,.

I would listen to all that.

I got,.

I have, I think 80 hours of, of Michael Brown downloaded.

I haven't started listening to that yet.

I have what his books are like 800 and 400 pages on like that, that I have

to read through in prep because I want to make sure that I'm properly representing his position.

Cause what, what good is it doing a debate and arguing?

It's a straw man.

That's not good for the audience.

It's not helpful for anybody.

So I will say this.

I found them to be refreshing.

I think that they try to be very balanced.

Okay.

I don't agree with their conclusions.

We'll go through that, but I did find it to be,.

I,.

I see,.

I,.

They're,.

They seem like very likable men.

That,.

Um,.

They have their views and I'm going to show where we dis I disagree or we disagree with it.

Um,.

So let me play this first clip.

The first clip is,.

Uh,.

Where they're going to introduce the first argument.

It's 53 seconds long.

And then we can address this,.

Uh, together.

These,.

These postures are hermeneutics.

So I think it's probably important to start in, in telling our audience that not all cessationists are going to have the same kind of arguments.

Not all cessationists are,.

Uh,.

Formed at the same kind of theology.

It's not a monolith.

Um,.

Some are going to make the case that the gifts died out.

Some of the gifts, some cessationists are going to make the case that the gifts are tied into the apostolic ministry.

And when the 12 apostles ceased and those gifts see, some will say that it's with the closing of the Canon.

Uh,.

Every cessationist is going to say different things.

Uh,.

Cessationists don't mean that they believe that the Holy spirit is no longer operating in the church, or they don't believe in the baptism of the

spirit, or they don't believe in supernatural miracles.

They still believe God can do miracles today.

They still believe God is working in his church.

So there's no reason to create cessationism in this monolith and, and beat up a straw man.

We don't want to do that.

What we do want to do is try to take some of their argumentations.

And.

And address,.

I, sorry,.

Cut it off, cut it off shortly,.

But, but,.

And that's what we're trying to do here as well,.

Right?

It is about hermeneutics.

We're going to get into the issue of hermeneutics,.

But.

We look just like there.

He's saying rightly that not all cessationists are all monolithic.

Neither are all continuationists.

And so you're hearing that here with him.

Like it's refreshing to hear a continuationist admit that not all sensationists are,.

Don't, you know,.

Deny miracles.

That was a question that I saw in the chat earlier.

Something about, you know,.

Do,.

Do we, you know, do we believe in it?

You know,.

I'm trying to see if I can find it.

If I, yeah, Joe,.

Joe had asked.

So,.

So gifts, not miracles.

Or, or does the doctrine believe miracles have also stopped?

This is the way many people describe it.

Like if you believe that certain of these.

Gifts.

I'm really surprised because I call them revelatory gifts.

I have never heard anybody use it that way before me.

And I was glad when the cessationist film came out, but when they did that and they were like,.

Wait,.

What gift?

There's a first that they had heard that term.

I had to explain that.

And I was glad that I saw that that got into the film.

This clip was long before the film was even a concept.

So they did not get this language from the film cessationist, which if you haven't seen the cessationist film,.

Okay,.

Go do that.

But so they got it from somewhere.

Now,.

I don't know where they got it.

And so maybe you're like, it's one of these things where you think something originates with you.

And then you realize,.