WWUTT 2085 Q&A Unbelieving Adult Children, Committed Church Membership, the Alistair Begg Controversy

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If a pastor has an adult child living at home in rebellion, is that pastor unqualified?

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Does the Bible have anything to say about church membership? And can Christians attend gay weddings?

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The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word, that we may be trained together in godliness.

00:32

Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

00:38

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. This is our first Q &A of 2024.

00:46

Oh, yeah? We have not done a Q &A yet this year. That's true. And it's already February.

00:52

Yep. Just into February. First Friday of February. Yeah. And we're finally getting to answering some questions.

00:59

Woo! Woo! Some illness has kept us out. Yes. And then we did, of course, like the top 40 news stories of the year.

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We did the top 10 videos of last year. Yeah. So, we've had some programs in here.

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We just have not yet done a Q &A. That's true. Yep. So, if you want to send questions to the program, the email address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

01:23

Some of these comments are backlogs. It's perfect. They go back a ways. I did get one question just yesterday, so there's a fresh question in here, too.

01:32

We'll see how many of these we get to. Okay. But on the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners.

01:38

Once again, that email address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Let's begin with a psalm.

01:44

Yeah. This is Psalm 9. It's 20 verses, so I'm going to read through the first 10. Okay. And then we'll do the second half next week.

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For the choir director, a Psalm of David. I will give thanks to Yahweh with all my heart.

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I will recount all your wondrous deeds. I will be glad and exult in you.

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I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before you.

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For you have maintained my justice and my cause. You have sat on the throne, judging righteously.

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You have rebuked the nations. You have made the wicked perish. You have blotted out their name forever and ever.

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The enemy has come to an end in perpetual ruins, and you have uprooted the cities.

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The very memory of them has perished. But Yahweh abides forever.

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He has established his throne for judgment, and he will judge the world in righteousness.

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He will render justice for the peoples with equity. Yahweh will also be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of distress.

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And those who know your name will put their trust in you. For you,

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O Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek you. Amen.

03:14

That is such an important word to remember, especially in our present political climate. Yeah. Where we're seeing the things that are happening in our nation, so much wickedness.

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There are days, and there have been days recently, like this has happened in 2024 for me already.

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There are days that I just can't read the news today. Oh, yeah. I've got things that I've got to do.

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There are people I need to focus on. There are concerns within my church. There are concerns within my family.

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There's concerns in my own health that I need, because I've been sick the last few weeks.

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And so I know the news is going to be bad, that it's going to be something that's going to weigh me down today, and I just can't do it today.

03:55

Well, I mean, the world is huge, and so there's going to be something bad somewhere. Well, yeah, true. And that's all the focus the news is, is finding that bad thing that's going on.

04:04

But I'm more specifically thinking of the wickedness, the depravity of our culture, our sexually depraved culture.

04:11

I know, but they put it right in front of you. Yeah, well, that stuff's right in your... It's even in the news. Yeah. It's right in your face.

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That's what I'm saying. The news seeks it out. Right. Well, that's true. And then they shove it in your face. That's true.

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Yeah. Even the news knows that sex sells. Yeah. Yeah. They put all that stuff right in front of you.

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And it's all agenda -driven. Yep. And some days I just can't do it.

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And I've noticed, I mean, I've been around the world, not around the world, but around the sun a few times.

04:43

At least 40. Yeah. And so I've seen a pattern where it gets worse whenever we have a presidential election.

04:53

Oh, yeah. Every four years. Right. It's just so much worse. That fourth trip around the sun seems to be...

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When we get to election years, it seems to get particularly bad. I mean, leap year, presidential election, you know,

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I mean, there could be an election. And the summer Olympics. Oh, yeah. We're always in that same year too.

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I forget about that. You get something global, another global aspect of something that's going on. Yeah.

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But this passage reminds us that the wicked don't flourish. They perish.

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They have their seasons. But God and His justice is, He is the one who reigns and His justice will prevail in the earth.

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Yes. So we'll see these things come and go in waves, but we should not despair. It's not that everything gets progressively worse to the point that wickedness now...

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It's just wickedness everywhere. Right. The justice of God does prevail. He is still sitting on His throne.

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He will render justice for the peoples with equity. Yahweh is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of distress.

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And those who know your name will put their trust in you.

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So those days that I can't do the news today is when I read Psalms like this. There you go.

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And I talk about it with my wife and we discuss how blessed we are with the family that we have, our children, the church that we're a part of.

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We just recount God's blessings to us. And those things give us hope in dark days.

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Well, I know whenever I've gone through hard times in my life that I usually praise the

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Lord after I've been saved, have leaned on the Lord so much more than whenever it's all going fine, you know?

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That's true. And so I think it's just a matter of God is bringing us back to Him during these times.

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And so we need to be leaning on Him because otherwise our generations that follow us are not going to know how to lean on Him.

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Right. Well, you know, when we talk about the wickedness of the present culture too, God bringing justice means the wicked are going to be punished.

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There are consequences for their action. There is destruction and judgment that is going to come upon them.

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Those things are going to happen. We need to be out there with the gospel so that people will turn from their sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Without it, they're going to perish in judgment. If they don't see it happen as a result of their consequences in this present life, then it's certainly going to be at the judgment of the next.

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Definitely. And so the gospel is the only thing that saves. The wicked will perish.

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The gospel will save. We have to be out there with the message of the gospel of Christ.

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And we're trying to do that more here in Casa Grande, Arizona, where we live now and part of Providence Reformed Baptist Church.

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So be praying for this church. By the way, I want to bring up a couple of things about that, and this is kind of expressing some personal needs as well.

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We're still paying a mortgage on the house that we owned in Texas, and that house hasn't sold yet.

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Not yet. So your prayers for us would be greatly appreciated. We would love it if you would be praying for us.

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That our house would sell because we're paying rent and a mortgage at the same time. If there's something that you can do to help, we would appreciate it.

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We have had such blessed supporters in the past. And I've never made a big appeal for money.

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I've said, if you would like to support us, please do. But if you can support us now, we really would be blessed by that.

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So again, PayPal is the way that we have said you can get money to us, and it's the email address, whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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If you donate through that, it will get to us that way. If you would like to donate to the church, if you want to give, like I'd rather give to a church because it's a nonprofit instead of giving to you directly, that's fine.

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It will go to the church. It doesn't come to me. But this helps the needs of our church as well.

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Yep. We have some growing pains. We are. We're actually - It's wonderful. It's wonderful.

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It's the blessing of God. We're outgrowing our space, and we're having to talk about maybe we need to build.

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And so we're starting to kind of create a nest egg for that potential project that's coming up down the road.

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So if you would like to donate to the church, go to the website, ProvidenceCasagrande .com.

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C -A -S -A -G -R -A -N -D -E, ProvidenceCasagrande .com. Go there, and there's a link where you can give and donate to the church.

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And that's helping the ministry that we're doing here. It's helping the ministry we do through the podcast.

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I'm blessed to be part of a church that loves that I do this and encourages me to do this.

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Yeah. Definitely. So we're getting the word of God out there. We're feeding our people, and our flock, and our church, and then the mission of that church and what we're doing in our community, and even across the

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United States and around the world. You've got your own church that you're a part of. We would encourage you first to give to your body where you are being fed.

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But if you've got something extra you can help us out with, we would certainly appreciate it. And praise

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God for you by name. Amen. We will. Yes. We will do that.

10:36

Well, thank you once again for listening. I know that you've been hanging on, waiting for us to address the

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Alistair Begg controversy. I've gotten a few emails about that. I am going to get to that probably more toward the end of the program.

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And we're going to talk about whether or not a Christian can attend a gay wedding. These are questions that we've fielded before.

10:55

We've talked about it before on the broadcast. Right. But this controversy that's presently going on -

11:02

Yes. A few more people. It's become - Because of who it's - Who it is that said this.

11:08

Yes. Thank you. Right. Because it's Alistair Begg. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, if Andy Stanley had said what Begg said -

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Yeah. We would have just gone, eh, Andy Stanley. You know, he's already pro -LGBTQ.

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He's given up the Bible. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. He's unhitched - I mean, what else are you going to do? Unhitched from the

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Old Testament and then - Yeah. It's not surprising. Unhitched from the New Testament. Yeah. Nothing is surprising anymore from him. Yeah. Whatever he's going to say -

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Unless he repents. That would be wonderful. That would be surprising. That would be wonderful. That would be the move of God.

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We'd love to see that. But a lot of us had theorized that once Andy Stanley's father passed away,

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Charles Stanley who died last year, when he passed, Andy was going to get worse. There were several of us that were talking about that and that's exactly what happened.

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So Charles Stanley - That's sad. And then Andy Stanley has this pro -LGBTQ conference at his church.

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So that is sad and we should pray for his repentance. But if he continues on this track, as we just read in Psalm 9, the justice of God will come upon his head and that's a scary thing to think about for these false teachers.

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But Alistair Begg is a faithful brother in the Lord and I still stand by that. Yes. This advice was bad.

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We're going to look at exactly what he said and then how he handled the situation. And then we're going to consider, we as Christians, how should we deal with this issue when it comes across our table?

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If this happens with a member of our family who proclaims themselves to be gay or trans and then wants to invite us to a wedding, should

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Christians be attending gay weddings? So we're going to talk about that as well. Let's get to a few questions here, a few other questions.

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We're going to start with some comments. So first of all, good afternoon Gabe and Becky. For us, it's actually still morning.

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We're recording this in the AM. But Jason says, I pray that this email finds you and your family healthy.

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No sniffles. We're getting there. We're almost there. We're getting there. And I enjoy listening to your podcast.

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I'm downloading several to listen to on my flight to Oklahoma, or sorry, I was going to say Oklahoma, my flight to Okinawa next month.

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Much different. Flight to Okinawa. Oh, that's fun.

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Enjoy the broadcast. I hope you get some good episodes. There's a few. There's a few good episodes in there.

13:27

Since I'm in the mood to travel, I'll gladly drive to Casa Grande to film one or two or 50 episodes of Mystery Scripture Theater 3000, critiquing

13:40

The Chosen with you and Becky. Oh no. No, no, no, no. I don't know if I could sit through that.

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So we might have. But I'll volunteer you. Yeah, there you go. We might have to flashback on this one.

13:55

I think this was in our top 10 videos episode where somebody made a comment. I think so. Yeah. On one of our chosen videos that we should do a

14:03

Mystery Science Theater 3000 of The Chosen. I think that would be hilarious, but I don't know if I could be a part of it.

14:10

If you're not familiar with this show from the 90s, it was this guy and these two robots that would.

14:16

Not The Chosen, but the Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yeah, it was this guy and these two robots that would watch awful movies.

14:23

Was it just two? Yeah. Oh, I thought it was three. Yeah, there's three of them. It's a man and two robots. So it's a trio of them sitting in the theater seats.

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You see the silhouettes of them sitting in the seats and they're watching awful movies.

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On a screen like they were in a movie theater kind of thing. So your focus is on the screen, but you still see their silhouettes during the whole thing.

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And then they're making jokes. They're critiquing the movie all the way through. This used to be on the SyFy channel, which was when

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I watched it. It would be on like a Saturday morning. Siffy? Siffy, yeah. Before it was Siffy? I hated that they changed that logo.

14:57

That was so dumb. We know what SyFy is. Nobody knows what Siffy is. Give me a break.

15:05

That was funny. I know. But you're right. You're right. That's what they did. They changed it to Siffy. But before it was

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Siffy. It was SyFy. It was SyFy. It was so funny because they would pick the worst movies ever.

15:20

And then they would just make jokes throughout the whole thing. Now that was the draw, was the jokes.

15:26

I will say though, there were some movies that they did that I watched that were so bad.

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Even the jokes couldn't redeem it. I'm watching this going,

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I just can't do this. This movie is so terrible. Even the jokes aren't saving this.

15:46

One of the worst movies that they ever did, and then I think it was one of the most popular ones they ever did, was a film called

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Manos, Hands of Fate, which the ironic thing is Manos is hands. So literally the title of the movie is

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Hands of Fate. But anyway, it's such a bad movie.

16:08

So bad. And there were people that were telling me, if you love Mystery Science Theater 3000, you got to watch their critique of Manos, Hands of Fate.

16:16

And I mean, oh, I almost could not make it through that film. I think I forced myself to finish it because it really was that bad.

16:23

Such a terrible movie. But anyway, so the joke now is that we need to do a Mystery Scripture Theater 3000 of The Chosen.

16:31

Yep. And make fun of the terribleness of that show.

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I'm going to leave that as a joke. I'm never actually going to pull this off because I barely have time to finish everything else that I'm doing.

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The podcast and the videos, the scripture reading, which I got to pick back up again now that I got my voice back.

16:52

I think you're losing yours again over there. I am. I told you to get some water. I know.

16:58

But the water doesn't help. It really doesn't at this moment. It helps my body.

17:04

Yes, it helps hydrate me, but it does not help take the cough away. Okay. Well, that's true. So we just got to run.

17:10

It's going on. Run through our system here. This next comment is from Daryl. Hi Gabe. When this also goes back to this goes back to our top 40 stories of the year.

17:20

Okay. When people say the fourth trimester, they mean after birth. That reference from a listener was about made medical assistance in dying where Canada is euthanizing people after birth.

17:32

I'm sure you got a lot of these, but I thought I would help explain what they meant. Yeah. I wondered about that.

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If we, when we were reading comments, um, oh no, no, no. That was from our videos. It was the top 10 videos.

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It was the videos. Yeah. And that we did. And um, somebody had, had mentioned a fourth, a fourth trimester.

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And I said, I thought she meant third trimester, but Daryl gave the clarification there on that one.

17:55

Uh, this next comment, this has to do with an interview that I just recently did with Andy Olson on Echo Zoe radio.

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And we talked about entertainment, Christians making good entertainment choices for themselves, for their family.

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Henry said, I enjoyed your interview on Echo Zoe. Just a minor point of correction. You said that Alan Richson who plays in the show

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Reacher was green arrow in the CW show arrow. Actually Richson had formerly played

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Aquaman in the CW show Smallville green arrow, AKA Oliver Queen was played by Steven Amell, which

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Andy Olson said. But I thought I'd clarify that he wasn't also Reacher. That just goes to show you how much

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I pay attention to these shows. Amell also played Casey Jones in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie out of the shadows in which

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Richson played Raphael. Okay. So there's a connection between the two of them there. There you go. Are you familiar with Alan Richson's YouTube channel

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Insta church? What are your thoughts? I haven't watched many videos. I've just seen one or two that go viral.

18:58

Thanks as always for your show. And I talked about that a little bit with my interview with Andy Olson that Alan Richson.

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So he's got this YouTube channel that he calls Insta church, Alan Richson. I'm getting the actor right now plays

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Reacher in the Amazon show of that name. I really don't know this character.

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I didn't watch the movies that Tom Cruise was in. There were two Jack Reacher movies that he starred in and now it's been done into a show.

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I think they've done a couple of seasons and it's been on Amazon streaming. I've never watched it.

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The show is rated TVMA because of violence and their sex scenes in the show. And I checked the parental guide on IMDB.

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I'll look that stuff up because I want to know what's in the show before I watch it if I'm ever going to watch it.

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And so that show clearly had material in it that Christians should not be putting in front of their eyes, should not be entertainment.

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And Alan Richson plays in that show, claims to be a Christian and now has this

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YouTube channel called Insta church where he shares his Christian thoughts on things.

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I have watched a few of his videos. First of all, I watched an interview with him before I ever knew anything about Insta church and he was dropping really bad swear words like R rated swear words in this interview.

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Oh, okay. And so I never would have thought listening to the guy talk that he actually claimed to be a

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Christian and then come to find he's got this YouTube channel called Insta church. Some of the videos really don't have that many views despite the fact that he's a big star.

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Some of the videos just have two or 3000 views or something. He'll do one or two occasionally that go big.

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That'll get, you know, 100 ,000 views on it or something. Yeah, but generally his videos don't have that huge an audience.

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He doesn't have that many subscribers. I think the last time I looked at it, he had about as many subscribers as I do on the channel.

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So, you know, that's going to grow though. He's going to gain more popularity with this. Yeah. At the end of the year,

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I did catch a few pastors on Twix that were posting videos of his going.

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Never would have guessed that the star of Reacher was a Christian. Well, he's not.

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I mean, he can speak the Christian ease, but the things this guy says are very leftist.

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I've watched enough videos of him where he's expressed sympathy toward a woman's choice, a right to choose to murder her own child.

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So he's pro abortion. He is pro LGBTQ. He says one of the very first videos of his that I watched, he says that he doesn't attend a church.

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I watched another video where he said that again. So he's made claims in his videos.

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He's not attending church anywhere. This insta church thing that he does is just progressing that whole you can go to church on YouTube sort of thing about that.

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I think in one of the videos I watched, he even said, this is my church. So what he's doing with insta church is he thinks he's going to church with this.

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Now he'll claim to be a Protestant, even said that in one video. So he at least knows what that means. Grew up Catholic is now a

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Protestant. He knows enough Christian ease to be dangerous. This guy's videos are not anything that you should be watching for any good

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Christian counsel. If anything, you would be watching them to learn what the progressives are saying, because that's really where he's at.

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But it's not good Christian counsel. Anyway, that's just what

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I know from the few videos of his that I've watched of the insta church program. Avoid.

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He's a false teacher. I do hope the guy comes to a right understanding of church attendance, hearing the gospel, pursuing godliness.

22:54

But he's in this show that has sex scenes. And then I confirmed through somebody else, because I've never watched the show.

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I confirmed through somebody else that the sex scenes aren't just somebody else in the show. He does them.

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So this man with another woman that he's he's a married man, and he's with another woman in these scenes doing what is basically tantamount to adultery as entertainment.

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And these are things, like I said, with Andy, this is stuff that you cannot set in front of your eyes, and he will draw people into this.

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He will draw professing Christians into this because he does the insta church thing. And somebody thinks, oh, well, he's a

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Christian and he can do this on Amazon. So it must be OK. And this is the the spiral that this kind of stuff sends you into.

23:40

So, yeah, avoid the guy. Stay away from him. False teacher. Hope he repents. But he is not demonstrating that he is truly a follower of Christ.

23:49

This next question comes. Well, it's a comment as well. This is from Virginia in Alaska.

23:56

OK. Hi, Pastor Gabe. OK, so this is going back to a sermon that I did recently on First Timothy two.

24:04

Where we were talking about the roles of men and women in the church. Women cannot be pastors.

24:10

That is a role that God has specifically for men to fill. So we read through First Timothy two, 11 to the end of the chapter.

24:19

And then I did the sermon the next week on eldership, which was First Timothy three, one through seven. So in the message where I had said that women cannot be pastors,

24:29

Virginia says that about 632, you said Eve listened to Satan rather than God.

24:35

And Adam listened to his wife rather than God. Technically, shouldn't it be Eve listened to Satan rather than her husband?

24:43

Since only Adam received the commands of God about what tree to eat from. Genesis two, 17, as Eve wasn't created yet.

24:49

Or am I being nitpicky? Yeah. If you want to be really technical, correct? Yes. Eve did not listen to her husband.

24:56

But the point that I was making was that they both disobeyed God. So either way, even if Eve receives the instruction from her husband, it's still the instruction that comes from God to Adam to Eve.

25:10

Right. So she disobeys God. She listened to Satan rather than God. Right. And Adam listened to his wife rather than God.

25:17

If I teach my children, this is what God has said and they disobey it.

25:24

They are going against the word of their father, but they're ultimately disobeying God. Right.

25:30

So that was kind of the point that I was making with the way that I said that. So Virginia goes on to say the scriptures you discussed first Timothy three, one through seven.

25:37

This was the sermon on eldership. I particularly wanted to address a personal situation up here in far, far north in Alaska and what your thoughts are.

25:47

I'm not going to say where I live because it is rural and small town and all that stuff. And also change the names for privacy.

25:54

But in regarding first Timothy three, four, it says he must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.

26:05

That's the from the NASB. And I think the ESV said keeping his children submissive.

26:11

Okay. So my pastor has an 18 year old son now 19. But the events that happened was when he was 18, who is not a believer, but still lives at home.

26:22

The pastor has other adult children who are married with children not living at home. His son went and partied with friends drove while drunk and high and got caught.

26:32

The pastor had to bail him out of jail. There are ongoing court hearings, etc. The church was informed of this as well.

26:38

And that is where we're at. Just curious in light of the scripture above. What are your thoughts?

26:44

Thanks. I love the podcast. I pray over you and your family every week. And if we ever get tired of the frozen north, we're definitely going to be looking up Casa Grande to come and meet you.

26:55

Remind me again, just how hot does it get down there? Well, when we roll around July and August, it's going to be pretty close to 120.

27:04

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. But right now we're enjoying 70 to 80 degree weather.

27:10

Right now. Yes. Well, today it's 60. It is because it rained last night. And we're both wearing sweaters.

27:15

We are. Inside. It's sweater day in Arizona.

27:24

And it did. It rained last night. We had a cold front that came through yesterday afternoon. It was about 78.

27:30

It was. It was almost 80. It was so nice. I worked outside finishing up my pulpit.

27:36

Yeah. So this is great working outside weather in January. January and February in Casa Grande, Arizona.

27:44

So this has been unheard of for like our whole lives. Yes. Like normally,

27:50

January, February is not outside weather. Right. Even when we were in Texas, because we missed the winter storm that they had there in Texas in January.

27:58

Yep. So we still had a bit of snow. Yep. They still had snow and ice.

28:03

They just don't have since it's not as regular. They don't have the snow shovels and the salt and stuff like that to take care of it.

28:10

Yeah. So but yeah, we've managed to avoid all that and get here to Arizona and enjoy this nice.

28:16

This is this is outdoor like spring weather for us. Yep. We go on walks all the time. Yes. There's still leaves on trees and bushes.

28:24

Well, I did notice. Yeah. The park that we like to go to. There are two trees right next to where I sit that have been covered in leaves.

28:32

Birds are nesting in there and everything. And all the leaves are off those trees now. It's fall.

28:38

It's now fall. It's fall. Fall has hit in January. It was the end of January.

28:44

Fall has finally hit. I don't know what day that happened. It was just like one day there's leaves on the trees.

28:50

The next day they're all gone. Yeah. It was because the frost. We had a frost. We had a couple frosts.

28:55

A couple nights of frost. Yeah. Oh, I don't even I didn't even catch that. It got below freezing. And that's when all everything died that was left out.

29:04

That's when I covered the bushes. And you thought I was like going crazy. Yeah. We have never covered bushes before.

29:10

I didn't know what you were doing. But our bushes are so much prettier than ones that I covered. Than the neighbors?

29:17

No, than the other side of the house that I didn't get covered. Oh, gotcha. I gotcha. But anyway, all that to say, yes, it is beautiful.

29:27

I don't recommend coming in July or August unless you really want to go back home happily.

29:33

Yeah. Because it's compared to Alaska weather, it would be so miserably hot for you.

29:41

It would get really hot. We've been told that like these are the months where everybody gets outside. Yeah. And loves life.

29:47

Like this is where you go outside stuff. Yeah. But when we get around to May and June, everybody's going to be indoors because it's just gonna be too hot.

29:53

What's it called? Oh, they had a saying for it. It's either pool or.

29:59

Pool or cool. Pool or cool inside. I just made that up. I don't know that that's what they said.

30:06

Because you have the AC and it did rhyme. I remember it rhyming. That's why I couldn't think of what it was.

30:11

Anyway, because inside was the AC. Yeah. And you're either inside with the AC on or you're outside in the pool because you can't do anything else.

30:21

It's just too hot. I gotcha. Okay. Well, okay. So coming back to this situation, let me bring up again, 1

30:28

Timothy 3, the requirements for elders in 1 Timothy 3, 4, it says he must lead his own household well, having his children in submission with all dignity.

30:38

Now, this is out of the legacy standard that I'm reading from here. But if a man does not know how to lead his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?

30:47

So the requirement upon a qualified elder is that he must manage his own household well.

30:54

If his wife is not a believer, and that's happened before in the history of our ministry, we have known situations where pastors had a spouse that did not believe anymore, that walked away from the faith or seriously doubted or something to that degree that caused a serious conflict of conscience for the pastor that he said,

31:17

I have to step away because my wife is not a believer. And so with children, the children must be kept in submission in Titus chapter one and the requirement that's listed there.

31:27

It says that the children must be believers and not under the charge of insubordination.

31:33

They're not rebellious. They're not disobeying parents or disobeying

31:39

God. And so this is a requirement for an elder. Now, in this particular case that Virginia has brought up, this is an adult son, 18, 19 years old, but he's still living at home.

31:50

So what needs to happen here is either he needs to go and his father needs to kick him out of the house, because as long as he's there and acting in rebellion, this father is not managing his own household, this pastor.

32:06

So the son needs to go. Either that needs to be the situation or the pastor does need to step down.

32:13

Now, based on certain details that you left out and all this other kind of thing, this is a job for that church.

32:20

This church needs to evaluate that. If he has other elders, they need to be the ones to come alongside him and tell him that he's acting in a way that his situation at the present is not in keeping with the qualifications of an elder in first Timothy three.

32:36

And they either need to counsel and they know the nuances of the situation. So they know what's happening here.

32:44

And why this son is at home. What needs to happen either for him to go or the pastor to step down?

32:53

That's going to be a job for the church that's in the business of the church. But even when you're talking about a an 18 or 19 year old child that's still living at home, an adult child that's acting in rebellion, that pastor is unqualified for his role as long as that rebellion is still happening under his roof, because if he's not willing to discipline his son to the point of removing him from his own home, then he's not going to discipline members of the church that are in sin that probably need to be removed from the church.

33:24

Right. So you see how that compromise happens. If he can't manage his own household, how will he care for the church of God?

33:32

We knew a couple of men who are in authoritative roles who had to remove their sons because of rebellion.

33:42

And... Yes, yeah. And both times, it's worked out for the best.

33:48

Yes. And they were able to welcome them back, and their sons turned their lives around.

33:55

And it was just... It's praiseworthy. Yeah. It's so amazing how God works.

34:01

But taking that step is very scary. And I don't think either father wanted to do that.

34:09

It was like the last thing they were able to do to help that child.

34:14

Yeah. And so... Now, there are some that take that instruction as far as saying that even if a pastor has adult children that are in rebellion, then he's unqualified.

34:25

I don't take that position, because it's talking about his household. And when you have children that are out of the house and living...

34:33

The daughters get married to men that maybe the husband ends up becoming unfaithful, drags the wife into sin, and there's a rebellion that happens there.

34:45

That's not on the father anymore. His children are not in his home. They are different households.

34:52

So I don't hold the position that if a pastor's adult children are in rebellion, then he's unqualified.

34:58

I don't hold that position. But his household that he lives in must be regularly in view of the church.

35:07

They see that he is a man of God, who is a faithful husband to his wife, who is a good and disciplinary father, loving father to his children.

35:15

The church is able to observe that, because that's part of the qualifications. These things are not hidden.

35:21

He doesn't have some home private life that nobody is aware of. These things are supposed to be a model for other

35:27

Christians in the church. Yeah. As to how I'm supposed to be a faithful spouse and a good parent. And how to handle those hard times whenever they do come.

35:36

Yeah, certainly, certainly. But thank you for the question, Virginia. Appreciate you listening, and especially thank you for your prayers.

35:43

Yeah. For us, for our family. And we'll be praying for your church. Absolutely. Okay, one other question here about church membership.

35:50

Okay. So we're on the conversation about the church. Then we'll get to the Alistair Begg thing. Okay. This one comes from Joseph.

35:56

Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, I want to first say, I'm so thankful to God for your ministry, which has become a daily listen, and I look forward to each new episode.

36:07

As for my question, my family and I have recently found a gospel teaching and Christ -centered church and have really enjoyed attending.

36:17

We are considering putting in our membership there instead of only visiting. When talking about it with my wife, she asks me if it's necessary, and if so, why put in membership to a local church?

36:30

As I thought about it, I honestly could not answer one way or the other. Growing up in the church, it was just always something my parents did, but never explained why.

36:39

I would basically just go wherever they did. All of that to say, is church membership a must?

36:45

Or can you just regularly attend a church body without becoming a member? Thank you in advance and may

36:52

God bless you and keep you and shine his countenance upon you all in Jesus name. Amen.

36:58

Amen. Well, let me go to an article here from Michael Osborne. This was in an issue of Table Talk Magazine back in 2019, and he says the following.

37:08

I'm going to put the link to this article in the show notes. Okay. So you can find the article as well. Thousands upon thousands of evangelical churches today have no formal membership process.

37:18

Furthermore, many Christians never join a church or see any reason for doing so.

37:24

Perhaps it's because they don't see church membership taught in the Bible, or they've been hurt by a church in the past and are reluctant to get hurt again, or they are confused by the plethora of Christian denominations and ministries out there and can't decide what to do, or they simply enjoy living on the periphery of a local fellowship and don't want to give up their independence.

37:45

Whatever the case, they are missing something very important to their spiritual growth and the advance of the gospel.

37:51

Why should we insist that a follower of Christ become a committed active member of a local church?

37:57

I can think of at least nine reasons, and he gives these nine. First, church membership helps us guard the peace and purity of the church.

38:08

In Matthew 18, 15 to 20, Jesus explains how to handle conflict with another

38:14

Christian. A key part of his teaching is to tell it to the church when other avenues of resolution fail.

38:20

Unless we are committed members of a church, it's difficult to see how we could practically apply this command.

38:28

Now, of these nine things that Osborne gives here in this article, one of them is not baptism and the

38:39

Lord's Supper, a right administration of the ordinances. Okay. But I would say a right administration of the ordinances falls under this category, this first reason.

38:48

Church membership helps us guard the peace and purity of the church. So the table is handled in a right manner.

38:55

These people can come to the table. These people who are in a disciplinary situation and should not partake of the table in an unworthy manner, they cannot come right now.

39:04

This person who's being baptized, we have talked with this person. We can establish they are a committed Christian.

39:09

They're going to be baptized in front of the church, giving a profession of their faith that I've been buried with Christ in my sins and risen again to new life.

39:17

And this body is now responsible. Having seen that public profession, we're going to ensure that this brother or sister in the

39:25

Lord continues to walk that path and growing in faith and in closeness with Christ and with his people.

39:35

That's something that has to happen in a body that is committed to one another.

39:42

And church membership is a pledge. I'm committed to you. I'm helping to grow you and you're helping to grow me.

39:49

I will receive encouragement and admonishment from you and you likewise would receive it from me.

39:55

And so that falls under that category of helping to guard the peace and purity of the church. Yeah.

40:01

So the next one, number two, church membership provides the privilege of accountability to church leaders.

40:09

Hebrews 13, 17 says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

40:18

If we hop from church to church or refuse to join a church, how will we obey this verse?

40:25

And if there are no criteria to determine who is inside the church and outside, then for whom are church leaders responsible?

40:35

And the reference there is to first Corinthians 5, 12 to 13, who are inside the church and who are outside the church, right?

40:43

There's also a statement that Paul makes in first Corinthians four about how there must be factions among you so that those who are genuine might be revealed.

40:51

So you'll see conflicts that will arise in the church, but through those conflicts, you see who are genuinely committed to Christ in his body and who are not, who needs to go, who needs to be removed in the midst of those things.

41:04

Number three, third, church membership gives a tangible way to express commitment to a family of believers.

41:14

It's great to say in a general way that we love the church of God, but it's even better to get up in the front of a church, look brothers and sisters in the eye and affirm a set of commitments, vows or promises.

41:28

In my denomination, a person must affirm five vows to become a member of one of our churches. It takes courage to make those promises and even more courage to stick to them.

41:38

But there is a great blessing in making a verbal commitment of love to a group of believers. For us in our church, it's the 1689

41:47

London Baptist confession of faith. So you agree with those things that are said in this confession.

41:52

This is what we have committed ourselves to as a summarizing confession of faith of those doctrines that are taught in scripture.

42:01

And if you are aligned with this, then become a member with us. Yeah. Number four, church membership provides a profound means of telling the world that we are followers of Christ.

42:14

In Mark 8 38, Jesus says, whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him, will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father and with the holy angels.

42:30

It's providential the way that God works in the different things that we do. Small group

42:35

Bible study on Wednesday night, this podcast episode that we're doing today. This was the verse that I could not remember.

42:44

I remember during small group, I was like, where is that verse in Mark? I can't write. This was it. It was Mark 8 38.

42:49

There you go. Based on a completely different subject that we were talking about. Yes. Here, that verse came up in an answer that I was going to give on the podcast that week.

42:57

How about that? Osborne goes on to say, of course, there are many ways to share our faith with others.

43:02

But to say that we are members of a particular church is a great way to come out of hiding and witness to unbelieving friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.

43:11

Number five, church membership pulls us into the grand story of God's covenant love.

43:20

God has made a covenant with us through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

43:26

Covenant speaks of a costly commitment sealed with a promise.

43:32

The covenantal nature of church membership is very precious to God. And when we covenant with other believers, we are imitating

43:41

God. As Walter Hennigar has put it, the church is the bride of Christ.

43:46

He has sworn himself to her and to us. Should we not do the same?

43:54

Number six, church membership encourages participation in the work of the church.

44:00

In Ephesians 4 16, Paul speaks about each part of the body doing its share of the work by formally committing ourselves to a local church.

44:08

We will also feel a healthy obligation to contribute our time, talent, and treasure to the ministry of that church.

44:17

So the time that you give, the talent, the different gifts that you have, Paul talking about in 1

44:24

Corinthians 12, in Romans 12, and in other places about how we've all been given a certain spiritual gift for the benefit of the church.

44:30

We can only do that when we are committed to a certain body. Yeah. Number seven, church membership helps us distinguish between neighbor and household of faith.

44:44

God calls us to love everyone. That's the instruction to love your neighbor as yourself. But Galatians 6 10 says, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

44:58

Paul is making some distinction here between the quality of love we are to give to non -Christians and that which we give to our fellow

45:04

Christians. But how do we know who belongs to the household of faith? When we go through the process of church membership, we normally have to profess our faith to a governing body of church leaders, and maybe even to that body of believers as well.

45:18

This process helps identify, not infallibly, of course, false professions as opposed to true professions.

45:25

Number eight, church membership prevents us from showing favoritism. Because we are sinners, we gravitate toward people who are like us, even within the church.

45:35

We form cliques, we avoid difficult people. But when we become church members, we realize that we cannot do that.

45:43

I, as a pastor, especially, cannot avoid difficult people, because it's part of shepherding.

45:48

Yeah. We cannot pick favorites. We are part of a family, and all members of that family are equally important.

45:55

And that's the point of Paul's discussion about the church in 1 Corinthians 12, 21. The eye cannot say to the hand,

46:02

I have no need of you. Nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. In other words, church membership tames our sinful, selfish nature.

46:12

Ninth, and finally, church membership helps to prevent us from trying to go it alone.

46:18

This was implied in some of the other reasons, but it deserves to be repeated. I'm growing more and more tired of the me and Jesus view of the

46:25

Christian life. The older I get, the more I see how much I need the family of God. As a church member,

46:32

I am to remind myself often that two are better than one. Ecclesiastes 4 .9.

46:39

Yeah. Now, there's a 10th one that I want to add in here. Okay. He didn't mention it, so I'm going to add it.

46:45

But there are instructions in the pastoral letters, in Paul's letters, especially.

46:52

Okay. There are instructions there you can't fulfill unless you're part of a church.

46:58

And one of those instructions is to sing with the saints of God, the praises of God.

47:05

So Colossians 3, beginning in... Let me start a little bit earlier here, because this is an instruction to a church.

47:14

And the only way that you could fulfill this instruction that's being given is to be part of a church.

47:20

Together, you're fulfilling this. Okay. So Colossians 3 .12. As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other.

47:38

Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also should you forgive.

47:46

This is showing here that there is a vulnerability that we have with certain people that we've committed ourselves to, so that they could potentially hurt us and we could potentially hurt them.

47:57

But we demonstrate the love of God when we forgive just as we have been forgiven by God.

48:03

And that happens within the body of Christ. Number 14, or sorry, verse 14. Above all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

48:13

You have a unity with a bond of believers that you have committed yourself to. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

48:28

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. This is being said to a whole church. So let the word of Christ dwell within that committed joined body of believers with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratefulness in your hearts to God.

48:46

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the

48:52

Father through him. Now, as a church right now, if you've been listening to sermons like Virginia had mentioned earlier, we're going through First Timothy.

49:00

What we're going to get to in First Timothy in chapter five, where Paul gives instructions to Timothy and to the church that he's pastoring in Ephesus.

49:07

He gives instructions to them to care for the widows in the church. Well, how do you and there's even a registry.

49:15

If this woman meets these qualifications, she's to go on to the registry of the church.

49:22

So there's clearly in those instructions a membership list of some kind.

49:27

This is specifically regarding caring for the widows in the church. But how do you know who they are if they're not committed to that body and are therefore on that list?

49:37

And so as we fulfill these instructions that we've been given here about loving one another and caring for one another, we only know how to do that when we know who this body is that we are committed to, that they will receive from us and we will give to them.

49:52

We collect, you know, the church collects money. How do we know who needs this money that we can use this money to care for members within our own body?

49:59

How do we know who to do that with? It's a person that is committed to this body. They're on our membership roles.

50:05

We know to look out for this person, check on them, pray for them regularly. And this is what membership helps us to do.

50:13

Yes, you don't find a direct imperative in the New Testament saying you must become a member of a church and your church must practice membership and it must look like this, right?

50:24

There's no direct imperative, but nonetheless, you certainly find it implied in the instructions that we have in scripture as to how we are to be with one another as a church.

50:34

When you read, you know, Ephesians, Paul writing to the church in Ephesus, it's one church in that city.

50:41

At this time, when it's going on in the first century, we don't have these split denominations like we do now.

50:49

It's one church, but it would be no different if there were multiple churches around Ephesus.

50:54

It would be those individual bodies that are getting together that Paul is instructing to follow these commands.

51:03

And this is that body that is committed to one another because they are committed to the Lord. We're committed to Christ, we must be committed to his body.

51:10

Right. That's really what it comes down to. And whether you're in a big church or a small church, it also helps for people not to fall through the cracks.

51:19

Right. And so anybody who's struggling or going through a time where they need the body of Christ to surround them, it just brings, it just doesn't allow them to just disappear.

51:35

Right. Yes. And then usually when people do that, they hold the church accountable and they're like, oh, well, the church didn't look out for me.

51:44

And it's like, we couldn't, you know, because you weren't part of, we didn't know.

51:52

There wasn't that accountability that all of this is brought about, you know. And I don't know, it just makes them part of your life rather than just on the side.

52:02

Yeah. People don't get lost in the scuffle. Yes. This is a typical problem around this area.

52:10

This was something I was warned about when we moved here to Arizona is that people will tend to get very isolationist.

52:16

Oh, yeah. And they feel alone, but they don't really know what to do about it. Right. And so when -

52:23

I think that happens in Alaska too. Yes, right. We heard about that there. When we went up and I spoke in a church in Alaska back in, was that 22?

52:32

That was in - Yeah. August of 22. Yeah. So when I spoke up there, we were told the same thing.

52:37

It's very easy for a person to get isolationist, especially because like you couldn't do door to door evangelism there.

52:44

If somebody's approaching your house, they think you're a criminal. Right. And so it's actually dangerous to just walk up to a person's house without an invitation, at least the area of Alaska that we were in.

52:54

So anyway, there are different places around the country where I'm sure this goes on, where people just kind of get pulled into themselves.

53:02

I think social media is making that more and more common. Yeah. And easier.

53:08

Yeah. Yeah. And people, like we talked about earlier with the InstaChurch thing, people will think they're going to church on the internet.

53:14

Yeah, that's terrible. But you do need a body of believers that you can be a part of.

53:20

You need to find people who struggle that you can help. Yes. And then when you go through situations where you are struggling, that they will help you.

53:29

And this is what committed membership helps you to do. Yeah. And so I appreciate the question.

53:35

It is a very good thing to think about. Thank you so much, Joseph. And that's going to bring us now to the

53:42

Alistair Begg controversy. I've got some other questions here. Like I said, we've got a backlog because we've been behind on Q &A.

53:48

And that's okay. That's all right. I'll save a few of these others for another week. But this one now, since we've been asked to cover this or address this,

53:56

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but at least give you the gist of this particular controversy. Ryan was one of the first to send me an email.

54:04

This was almost two weeks ago now. Okay. What are your thoughts about Alistair Begg and what he said about transgender marriage?

54:11

Now, here's the response that I said to Ryan. He sent me a video that included Alistair Begg's comments.

54:18

Here's what I said to Ryan. And then there's a lot more that has developed since then. Okay. So I'm going to give you my comment to Ryan.

54:25

Kind of catch us up to speed. Yep. Okay. Then I'm going to play Alistair Begg's comment.

54:31

What exactly did he say? So that you can hear it. Okay. And then we'll consider some of the fallout that's happened as a result of that.

54:38

And I want to read to you an article from Carl Truman, where he answers the question, can a Christian attend a gay or trans wedding?

54:44

Okay. So my response to Ryan, brother, it is very disappointing. Heartbreaking. In fact, several have emailed me about this.

54:52

Some saying that they donate to truth for life and have asked me what they should do. I have suggested to them that they express their concerns to truth for life, hoping

55:02

Begg repents and retracts, or they cannot support his ministry anymore. With enough feedback, hopefully the

55:08

Lord will convict his heart. To be clear, this is actually not a result of false doctrine.

55:14

Begg is clearly opposed to same -sex marriage and has preached hard against homosexuality as perversion that will lead a person to hell.

55:22

He did a great sermon series on Romans 1, where he preached hard against homosexuality and even made a comment in that sermon in which he said, we are not at liberty to change the

55:34

Bible on this. It is clear what God has said about these things. Right. And so he is clearly opposed to same -sex marriage and has a great concern in pastoral love for those people that would walk in that sin or be approving of that sin, because scripture is clear that they will come under the judgment of God if they do not repent.

55:53

1 Corinthians 6, 9, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. And those who are in adultery, sexual immorality, homosexuality, among those sins that are listed there that will not inherit the kingdom of God.

56:05

So anyway, going on here with Ryan. So this is not a matter of bad doctrine.

56:12

It's a matter of bad application. It's a lack of wisdom, terrible discernment, and wrong application presented in a badly worded answer, which

56:22

I'll play the answer in just a moment, and you'll hear why it's so poorly worded. The whole thing is going to be a huge mess for Pastor Begg.

56:30

No matter what happens going forward, there will be immense backlash whether he repents or not, though I truly hope he repents and acknowledges that the advice that he gave was bad.

56:41

Thank you for your email. I've got an article that I'll be posting on this later in the week, which did not happen because I got sick.

56:48

So there wasn't a follow -up article. I will do something at some point, and it'll be on a Saturday edition of the broadcast probably next week.

56:56

Won't be tomorrow's Saturday edition, but maybe later on. So let me play the comment to you specifically.

57:03

This is the comment as Begg made it on Truth For Life. Now, I am a regular listener of Truth For Life.

57:11

When I mean regular, I mean three to four times a week. I listen to RefNet, and Alistair Begg would be on RefNet.

57:18

His program, Truth For Life, would be there. There was even a time of the week when we were living in Texas that I'd pick my children up from something, and as we're driving home,

57:26

Alistair Begg is on. That's a 15, 20 -minute drive. I'm able to catch almost the whole program, and my children would be listening to it with me as we were driving.

57:35

So at least once a week, they were listening to Alistair Begg. I did not catch the comment that he made about a

57:42

Christian attending a trans or gay wedding. It happened on September the 1st, and it was in an interview that Begg was doing with Bob Lapine, who's the show's kind of emcee.

57:54

Okay. He's the guy that comes in and goes, thanks for joining us today for Truth For Life. Here's Alistair Begg talking about this.

58:01

So the two of them did an interview about a new book that Begg had coming out. It was at the very tail end of the interview, and it was even very out of place with everything else that he was talking about.

58:10

It was strange that he even included it. It seemed like no controversy would have happened at all if they would have cut out the last five minutes of that interview.

58:21

We would not even know what Begg's position is on this. It was such a strange thing to add at the end of the show.

58:27

It wasn't needed to the topic that he was talking about. And he even acknowledges that it's a hugely controversial answer that he's about to give.

58:36

But anyway, this was on September 1st that he gave this advice on his program. We were here in Arizona.

58:42

We were, yeah. Candidating for this spot at Providence Reformed Baptist Church. So I would not have heard it.

58:49

I wasn't listening to anything at that time while we were here. And that's why an episode of Truth For Life got by me where this thing was said and I didn't even know about it.

58:58

Yeah. There was one of those discernment blog ministries that kind of blew up the story right at the start of the year, in January, start of January.

59:06

And it's been that, and it's snowballed from that. That has become the controversy that it is now.

59:13

Pastor Begg has been removed from American Family Radio. They're not airing Truth For Life anymore.

59:19

Okay. And since then, he's also been removed from ShepCon, The Shepherds Conference, which is coming up in just a few weeks.

59:24

Yeah. And he's been removed from RefNet. So I won't hear him on RefNet anymore because of these comments that he gave.

59:32

Now, really, I think that the most damaging thing that he said was less in this comment, although this advice was bad enough.

59:40

But then he doubled down on it in a sermon that he did just this past Sunday night, which I've listened to.

59:46

And in that sermon, appears to call Christians that disagree with him as Pharisees or extreme fundamentalists.

59:53

And separatists is another word that he uses. So he doubled down on his advice, said that he wasn't sorry for it, and even called those who disagreed with him, compared them to being

01:00:03

Pharisees. And so that really was, I think, the worst thing that he did.

01:00:09

And because of that, I would have to say that I myself am a person that can't recommend

01:00:15

Begg anymore. I still think he's a faithful man of God. I talked about this a little bit earlier this week because we were in Matthew 23.

01:00:23

And as we were talking about the woes that Jesus gives to the scribes and the Pharisees, this is a present controversy, so I brought it up.

01:00:30

But I did clarify, I don't think that Begg is on the level of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus is condemning here.

01:00:37

He did say something that was pharisaical in his attitude and his behavior toward other

01:00:43

Christians, calling them Pharisees because they wouldn't attend a gay wedding. That was pharisaical for Begg to do that.

01:00:49

But he's still a faithful man of God who had a really bad moment where he gave really bad advice and then very poorly doubled down on it.

01:00:59

And he has said that members of his own pastoral staff, this was in the sermon that he preached on Sunday, he said that there were pastors on his staff that disagreed with his advice.

01:01:11

So I hope that the pastors that he's around, his own eldership will correct him on this.

01:01:17

That's what we should hope would happen. That we leave it to this church and the men that he's entrusted himself to, to bring him to an understanding of why his counsel was so poor.

01:01:30

So I'm going to play it here. Here's the clip of Alistair Begg speaking with Bob Lepine. I'm not going to pull anything off of the sermon that he did on Sunday night.

01:01:38

Okay. Because it's a lot more broad. It would take up a lot more time. Yeah. To kind of shuffle through all this. But I'm just going to play

01:01:44

Begg's initial answer here. And then I'm going to read you this article from Carl Truman as to why we as Christians can't attend and participate in gay weddings.

01:01:54

Okay. So here we go. I think every pastor who preaches, every author who writes a book like this, it comes away thinking,

01:02:02

I hope my readers or my listeners will think differently as a result of their interaction with this.

01:02:09

We'll feel differently and we'll act differently. As you think about this book and your prayer for this book, what do you hope will be different?

01:02:19

How do you hope people will be different after they have read this book and they've meditated on this sermon?

01:02:27

Well, let me stop there for a minute. That's Bob Lapine asking this question of Alistair Begg. Sure. And meditated on this sermon is in reference to the

01:02:34

Sermon on the Mount. Oh, okay. Because this is a book that Alistair wrote after thinking about or considering what

01:02:41

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, which Alistair calls a Christian manifesto.

01:02:46

And that's the name of the book that he's talking about here. Oh, okay. So going on. First of all, I hope that I will be different.

01:02:55

The old song that we never sing, you know, it's not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, oh

01:03:01

Lord, standing in the need of prayer. I mean, that is foundationally the case.

01:03:08

And so I hope that that would be multiplied. I hope that our church family, those who choose to read this book, that it might have an impact among us because learning to say,

01:03:24

I'm sorry, learning to say, please forgive me, learning to say, you know, I'm not at my best at the moment.

01:03:29

Can you come alongside me? Learning to say, yes, I know that these people believe a very different agenda, that their lifestyle is orientated in another direction and learning to say, but I have no basis upon which

01:03:45

I could argue that I myself would not be where they are, were it not for the amazing grace of God, were it not for his compassion towards me.

01:03:54

And in very specific areas this comes across, I mean, you and I know that we field questions all the time that go along the lines of, my grandson is about to be married to a transgender person, and I don't know what to do about this, and I'm calling to ask you to tell me what to do, which is a huge responsibility.

01:04:14

And in a conversation like that just a few days ago, and people may not like this answer, but I asked the grandmother.

01:04:23

Okay, so stopping there, he says. Yeah. People may not like this answer. Right. I mean, the advice that he gives to this grandmother is bad, to attend her gay grandson's funeral.

01:04:36

He says grandson here in this answer when he does the sermon on Sunday night, calls the grandchild a granddaughter.

01:04:43

So that just kind of feeds into the confusion of this answer. Well, he didn't say it was a specific example.

01:04:50

Does he? Yes, he does. He says like this. He does say like this, but then he says in a conversation like this a few days ago, and people might not like this answer, but I asked the grandmother.

01:05:02

Okay. So he's talking to a grandmother about the grandmother's grandchild.

01:05:08

Here he says grandson, in the sermon he says granddaughter. And he could have misspoke.

01:05:14

He could have. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Right, right. But I mean, all that to say, it's not a well -formed answer.

01:05:22

The advice he gave was not well -formed. Right. This answer that he gives on this program is not well thought out.

01:05:31

And then even when he is defending himself and responds to it in the sermon that he preached on Sunday night, even there,

01:05:37

I was still left wondering, brother, I really think you need to step back and think this stuff through.

01:05:42

There are things here that even in the way you're talking, doesn't sound like you've actually thought this through.

01:05:49

Now, I don't have any connection to beg. I can't get on that level and make that kind of interaction with him at all.

01:05:55

But again, this is what I hope his fellow pastors who disagreed with his counsel, I hope that they will come alongside him and talk about some of these things.

01:06:03

So here's what he says specifically to the grandmother as we keep going. Okay. Does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus?

01:06:13

Yes. Does your grandson understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can't countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?

01:06:25

Yes. I said, well, then, okay, as long as he knows that, then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony and I suggest that you buy them a gift.

01:06:34

Okay, let me stop there. So once again, I'm looking at the transcript. In addition to you hearing beg say this,

01:06:40

I've got the transcript in front of me. Okay. So again, does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus?

01:06:47

Yes. Does your grandson understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can't countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?

01:07:03

Yes. Well, then, as long as he knows that, then I suggest you go to the ceremony.

01:07:09

He contradicted himself. He just said, does your grandson understand that you can't countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?

01:07:22

Then go to the wedding and countenance in an affirming way the choices he's made in life.

01:07:29

Right. The moment that I heard that I was in my car and I was going, what?

01:07:35

You just contradicted what you said. Yeah. You're going to go to the wedding, which gives an affirmation of this choice that you're making.

01:07:46

I could not understand that. I could not understand why he thought that that was sound counsel.

01:07:53

And a lot of people in kind of pushback since then have said, well, Jesus ate and drank with sinners.

01:07:59

Of course he did. Nobody's saying that you shouldn't eat and drink with sinners. Invite your grandson over to your house.

01:08:06

Right. And eat with him and explain to him why what he's doing is sinful. But don't go to the wedding and affirm in a celebration.

01:08:15

With a present. With a gift. Yeah. What he's doing, that is a mockery of God right there in front of everybody.

01:08:24

Jesus ate and drank with prostitutes and tax collectors, but he didn't go hang out at the brothels.

01:08:30

Right. That's true. So let's go on here, continue with more of Beg's answer.

01:08:35

Because there's another thing that he says here that just kind of makes you go, Beg, I just don't think he thought this through.

01:08:42

Oh, she said, what? She was caught off guard. I said, well, here's the thing.

01:08:49

You're not going to, your love for them may catch them off guard, but your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said, these people are what

01:09:00

I always thought, judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything. Okay.

01:09:06

So these people are what I thought they were. Judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything. But yet part of his question to the grandmother was, does your grandson know that you can't countenance this?

01:09:19

It would be a very tough situation because you love your grandchild.

01:09:27

You want them to repent. Yes. So you want to not burn every bridge in order to reach out to them and bring them to Christ.

01:09:38

Right. But at the same time, he's saying very contradictory things.

01:09:44

I agree. I like your approach of inviting them over to dinner and explaining to them there.

01:09:53

Right. Now we would not do that in our household because we have children. So we would not put in front of our kids, anything that may communicate to our children that we're affirming of this union.

01:10:07

But with a grandmother's probably living by herself, that she can invite them over and eat and minister to them and witness to them and say, you must repent of what you're doing and giving them the scriptures.

01:10:21

Here's what God says about this. You're in sexual immorality. What you're doing is not a marriage. It's not really a wedding.

01:10:27

It is a mockery of God and hoping that in this appeal, in this love that she would show for them, showing that I can fellowship with you, but I'm not going to attend your celebration of this depravity, that you're doing an outright rebellion against God.

01:10:42

I can't partake in that. I can't be part of that. Yeah. There are weddings that I as a pastor have refused to do when a couple has come to me who's been living with each other out of wedlock.

01:10:54

And it said, will you marry us? I've said, no. Yeah. You have to repent and you have to separate from one another and work on you.

01:11:02

You have to show that you genuinely want to pursue Christ. And then if you can do that, then

01:11:08

I'll wed you guys. I would rather you be married than be in the situation that you're in. But as it stands with you living with one another out of wedlock,

01:11:17

I'm not now going to go from that into this wedding that I think is probably doomed to fail.

01:11:24

Yeah. Because of the way that you're living with each other now. And so I've refused to do those kinds of weddings.

01:11:29

There was a wedding I was invited to where a man was marrying a woman and he had gotten divorced and his divorce was unbiblical.

01:11:40

He had committed adultery and ran off. And with this woman that he had committed adultery with, he was now marrying her.

01:11:46

And I'm being invited to that wedding. And I said, no, not going to do it. You are still married to this other woman, even though you've divorced her.

01:11:54

She's your wife and you need to reconcile with her. And I'm not going to participate in any affirming way in this wedding ceremony that you're having with this woman that you're committing adultery with.

01:12:05

Yeah. You're causing her to commit adultery, even by marrying you, according to the words of Christ in the Sermon on the

01:12:10

Mount. Again, Beg is talking about the things that he has learned and how we put these things into practice as Christians, resulting from what

01:12:19

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah. We're not even to affirm a marriage of somebody who has divorced unbiblically.

01:12:30

And yet here we're supposed to be attending weddings in some sort of loving way.

01:12:37

That would actually be the unloving response, I would say. To attend a gay wedding would be the unloving thing, because you're showing an affirmation to a person that needs to know that what they're doing is sinful and will come into judgment if they do not repent.

01:12:50

And it's on a serious level. Like, if you were to say one thing, but do another, that person's not going to take you serious on what you said.

01:12:59

Yeah. I actually had this conversation with Timothy Dalrymple, who is the

01:13:05

CEO of Christianity Today. That conversation has aired on this broadcast. It was a couple of years ago.

01:13:11

But he had attended a gay wedding. And one of the things that I said was, swap out gay wedding with a friend of yours.

01:13:20

He said the same thing in his answer to me that Meg is saying.

01:13:25

My friend knows that I can't affirm this, but he goes to the wedding anyway and participated in the dance afterward.

01:13:32

So he even goes to the whole celebratory portion of the whole wedding. A friend of his who is getting married to a man, he goes to the wedding and even joins the after party out of the whole thing.

01:13:44

And so he said the same thing. My friend knows that I can't affirm this kind of a thing, but I leave the door open to continue to be able to minister to him.

01:13:52

And I said to him, swap this in out with another sin. Let's say your friend was about to be appointed to the head of the chapter of the

01:14:01

KKK that he's a part of. He's part of the Ku Klux Klan, and he's about to become the head of his chapter.

01:14:07

And he invites you to come to the ceremony where he is going to get crowned, whatever they do in the

01:14:13

KKK. I mean, they're really tall hats. He gives himself his really tall white hat, whatever they do.

01:14:21

He's invited you to the ceremony and you say to him, now

01:14:26

I want you to know that I can't affirm of any of this. I don't endorse that you are a part of such a racist group.

01:14:34

I can't be behind this at all. But yeah, now that you've asked, I'll come to the ceremony. Do you really think your friend thinks that you're disapproving?

01:14:42

No. Of him being part of the KKK and then being crowned its head? Because you showed up.

01:14:47

Right. And so, I mean, you know, you take a situation like that, which you know, you wouldn't attend that, you know, you wouldn't go to this

01:14:57

KKK thing where the guy is getting promoted. Yeah, that's terrible.

01:15:03

You can't in any way partner with that or be seen at that or anything like that. But you would go to a gay wedding?

01:15:09

Yeah. It's such a strange time that we're in. Well, I think it's because of media, not just social media, but media in general has made it so soft in our eyes.

01:15:20

Yeah, we're desensitized to it. This is just not that big of a sin. Right. Anymore, because it's just so normal and it's -

01:15:28

And that's been the agenda. It has. Yeah, from the beginning. Yeah, to desensitize us to it and to think that, you know, this is a specific class of people.

01:15:36

That they are just a, they're a race in a sense that a black person is a certain race.

01:15:44

A white person is a certain race. Well, there's LGBTQ people. Yeah, and they use our language of, like Christian language of love is love.

01:15:53

Yeah. And no. Well, water is water, but you don't drink water out of the toilet bowl.

01:16:00

Yeah, gross. What they're pushing when they say love is love is that sodomy is sodomy, and you need to be approving of what it is that I do.

01:16:09

Or they're saying sodomy is love is really the kind of the approach to that. But anyway, going on with Beg's answer here, want to get through this and then get to Carl Truman's article.

01:16:18

Yeah. And it is a fancy, it is a fine line, isn't it? It really is. And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.

01:16:26

But I think we're going to take that risk. We're going to have to take that risk a lot more if we want to build bridges into the hearts and lives of those who don't understand

01:16:35

Jesus and don't understand that he is a king. John tells us he was full of grace and truth.

01:16:43

And we have to figure out how we can be full of grace and truth at the same time, don't we?

01:16:49

Yeah. Yeah, our words should be full of grace and seasoned with salt. Yes.

01:16:54

So easy to get that upside down. And when a pastor does, then that will take on a role in a congregation as well and flavor it.

01:17:04

And so, you know, let not many of you become teachers. What an ironic thing to say.

01:17:11

I mean, he told the truth right there. It's so easy to get it wrong. It's easy to get it upside down.

01:17:17

And that's exactly what he did. And then quoting from James when he says, not many of you, let not many of you become teachers.

01:17:25

That versus specifically James 3 .1, do not many of you become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment.

01:17:34

And we should be critical of these words that Alistair has said. This is why it's become the controversy that it is.

01:17:41

Right. Because truth for life is such a broadly broadcasted program. Begg is not as known as much of a

01:17:50

Calvinist as John MacArthur is, even though Begg is a Calvinist, but he's not as known for that.

01:17:56

And so he tends to have a broader audience. A friend of mine put it like he is more like a

01:18:02

Spurgeon because even Armenians will claim Spurgeon. Right. But Spurgeon was a diehard Calvinist.

01:18:08

And so anyway, because Begg kind of has that broader platform, he's on a very, he's got a very broad spectrum of people that he talks to.

01:18:17

He's got a huge platform with his program truth for life. And I'm not declaring the brother anathema.

01:18:24

I don't think that he's fallen away from the faith. Right. I think that this was a matter. Once again, his orthodoxy is sound.

01:18:30

His proxy is bad. It's heteropraxy. So he's got orthodoxy and heteropraxy concerning this particular situation.

01:18:38

Yeah. Because he gave bad advice to this mother. He has a bad understanding of, frankly, of weddings and our participation in them.

01:18:46

And I hope that he does listen to sound counsel that this backlash that has gone on is not going to be something that's going to cause him to get stiff necked and dig in his heels.

01:18:57

But he's going to soften his heart and listen to those whom he trusts, tell him why his advice was bad, and hopefully that he will repent, that he will come.

01:19:05

And I hope that, you know, that Shepherd's Conference invites him back if he does repent. They'll invite him back again, put him on the docket some other time, or that Refinet will resume

01:19:17

Truth for Life, pick up the program and put it there. Yes. That would be wonderful to see.

01:19:22

But right now, the way that things stand, I am very encouraged to see that the two ministries that have meant so much to me in my life, including

01:19:34

Grace to You and Ligonier, who hosts the Reformation Network, that they have taken a principled stand on this and responded quickly to it.

01:19:45

It's great to see that. And they've not made a big public deal about it. You don't see Grace to You coming out and going, you know, we're declaring beg anathema.

01:19:54

That's not what they're doing. And same with Ligonier. I haven't even heard Ligonier make a statement about it. They're just not airing

01:20:00

Truth for Life anymore. And so, yeah, these things, again, we need to hope and pray that Beg will come around to understanding why this is such a problem.

01:20:09

But nonetheless, it has opened up the conversation across evangelicalism.

01:20:16

Why can't we attend gay weddings? Right. Now, listen to this article from Carl Truman.

01:20:22

This is not the whole article. This is something else I'm going to put in the show notes here so that you can read the whole thing yourself.

01:20:28

But let me give you about the last half of what he says in the article. Okay. There are obvious reasons why a

01:20:35

Christian should never attend a gay wedding. So Truman is not taking nuance here.

01:20:42

There is no guessing. He's not presenting various scenarios. He is saying there are obvious reasons why we as Christians cannot attend a gay wedding.

01:20:52

Many wedding liturgies, including that of the Book of Common Prayer, require the officiant to ask early in the service if anyone present knows any reason why the couple should not be joined together in matrimony.

01:21:05

A Christian is at that point obliged to speak up. I would hazard a guess that such an intervention would be far more offensive than simply to refusing to be at the service.

01:21:18

Well, I know that whenever we were putting our wedding together, it was common to leave that part out too.

01:21:32

So he's... Yeah, our pastor didn't say it. Right. But it's typically a part of many ceremonies. And if you use the

01:21:38

Book of Common Prayer... True. ...to conduct the ceremony, then you would be asking that question. Anybody have any reason...

01:21:43

Yeah. ...why these two should not get wed? That's true. But the fact that that is a traditional question that is asked by the minister of the congregation demonstrates in itself an understanding that a wedding, people who come to a wedding are not spectators.

01:22:02

Right. They're participants. That is true. Yeah. You are witnessing these two people exchange these vows and be committed to one another till death do us part so that when the storms of life come upon this marriage, you can say,

01:22:17

I was there. I heard you say, I do. And now I am holding you accountable to those vows.

01:22:23

We do this in front of friends and family, not just to throw a big party together, but that so these people can witness the exchange of these vows, these commitments to one another, this covenant that we're establishing with each other.

01:22:38

We talked about covenant earlier. God is the one who created marriage and he created it to be a covenant.

01:22:45

Yeah. We're seeing you commit to this covenant and we're gonna hold you to this covenant. That's what the members that are present there are doing.

01:22:52

A Christian cannot, in good conscience, sit there silently and be affirming of this thing that is happening, that is taking place.

01:23:01

Going on, Truman says, the issue can also not be separated from the broader question of sex, gender, and the human nature.

01:23:10

If marriage is rooted in the complementarity of the sexes, then any marriage that denies that challenges the

01:23:19

Christian understanding of creation. It is one thing for the world to do that. It is quite another for Christians to acquiesce in the same.

01:23:30

So we cannot be sitting there and affirming of this outright denial of nature.

01:23:36

Oh, okay. Yeah. Of what God created us to be. And that answers the question, not just in regards to a gay wedding, but even a trans wedding.

01:23:44

So let's say a man is getting married to a woman who claims to be a man. And I had that question about this scenario that Alistair Begg had brought up with the advice that he gave to the grandmother, because there were some details that were left out.

01:24:00

Right. Is this grandson marrying a woman who thinks she's a man? And so it looks like a gay wedding, but it's really not.

01:24:08

It's actually a heterosexual wedding. Again, details that weren't there. Right.

01:24:13

Sure. So maybe that's what he meant. I don't know. But even with the clarification or the attempted clarification that he tried to give in the sermon this past Sunday night,

01:24:22

I still didn't understand exactly what the scenario was, but it doesn't matter. But even we as Christians can't attend a trans wedding where something like that has happened because you have a denial of nature that is happening here.

01:24:34

Yeah. I am not really how God made me. Right. So going on further,

01:24:39

Truman says, the biblical analogy between Christ and the church means that fake marriages are a mockery of Christ himself.

01:24:50

Of course, that applies beyond the issue of gay marriage. A marriage involving somebody who has not divorced a previous spouse for biblical reasons involves that person entering into an adulterous relationship.

01:25:01

And once again, that's exactly what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, which it was in the context of the

01:25:08

Sermon on the Mount that Begg was giving this advice. Truman says no

01:25:13

Christian should knowingly attend such a ceremony either, as Francesca Murphy declared at First Things some years ago, to lose sight of the religious dimension of marriage risks allowing people to commit blasphemy against themselves and against God.

01:25:29

That means Christians have a moral responsibility to stand firm on this issue.

01:25:35

We fool ourselves if we think the bride and groom as individuals are the most significant part of any wedding.

01:25:42

They are not. What their union symbolizes with regard to Christ and the church is far more important.

01:25:50

Yeah. Because remember, God gave us marriage as a picture of the way that Christ loves his church.

01:25:58

And when we participate in something that is a blasphemy against that. Yeah. How can we in good conscience sit there and be affirming of what we are witnessing?

01:26:08

How can we sit there comfortably while that is going on? Right. Whatever the alleged gains that might be made by showing the couple a morally amorphous form of love or by avoiding giving any offense, the price of attendance is huge.

01:26:25

Much has been made of the perplexity sown by the Pope's recent statement about blessing gay couples.

01:26:33

Just as momentous for individuals and churches could be the confusion sown by a failure to think clearly about attending gay weddings.

01:26:40

After all, attendance so as to show love or avoid giving offense is a form of blessing.

01:26:49

Just without the name. Yep. In short, attending a gay wedding involves remaining silent when one should speak.

01:26:56

It involves a concession on bodily sex that undermines any attempt to hold fast to the importance of the biological distinction between men and women.

01:27:06

And it involves approving of a ceremony that makes a mockery of a central

01:27:11

New Testament teaching and of Christ himself. That's a very high price tag for avoiding hurting someone's feelings.

01:27:20

And if Christians still think it worth paying, the future of the church is bleak indeed.

01:27:28

Good words from Karl Truman. One thing that he didn't say in here, but I think is a very important point.

01:27:35

And this especially has to do with what Begg taught on Sunday night. Okay. Comparing those who disagreed with him to being

01:27:42

Pharisees, extreme fundamentalists, or separatists. It spits in the face of those people who have refused to participate in a gay wedding and have paid a huge price for it.

01:27:54

Right. That's true. People who won't use their business to bake a cake for a gay wedding, who won't use their business to do photography for a gay wedding, who won't use their business to do flowers for a gay wedding.

01:28:06

And we've seen those stories on a national scale go all the way up to the Supreme Court. Yeah. And Begg, in what he preached, especially on Sunday night, is basically saying, no, you should have done it.

01:28:17

You should have participated. But there's the controversy. And I am among those now that cannot give a good recommendation to listen to Alistair Begg.

01:28:27

Yeah. I still think - At least at the moment. At least at the moment. Yeah. We'll see what happens with this going forward.

01:28:36

But it has opened up the conversation. These are certainly things that we need to talk about and pray for Alistair Begg and for his ministry that he would repent.

01:28:46

Yeah. And that hopefully in his repentance, relationships would be restored. Amen. That had to be severed, you know, just on a professional level.

01:28:55

I don't think John MacArthur and Alistair Begg are no longer friends just because Begg is not invited to this year's

01:29:01

SHEPCON. One of the things that Phil Johnson said, Phil Johnson, of course, is the director of Grace to You.

01:29:08

One of the things he said in response to that was it would just be a huge distraction. So he doesn't have to make any declaration against Begg at all.

01:29:17

But if Begg were to be at this year's SHEPCON, which is just in a few weeks. Yeah. This is what people would be talking about.

01:29:23

It was like the whole conference would be surrounding that. Right. So you - Instead of what the focus should be is

01:29:29

Christ. Right. So, yeah, for sure. And so that's a wise move just on those grounds. It's a wise move to disconnect and disinvite

01:29:38

Alistair Begg from that. But yeah, like I said, none of us are declaring him to be unsaved.

01:29:45

We just hope that he recognizes how bad his counsel is and that he will repent of this.

01:29:51

There are pro -LGBTQ people out there, including Matthew Vines, who we've talked about on this program before.

01:29:57

He's the director of the Reformation Project. He is himself a professing homosexual, claims to be married to a man.

01:30:03

He loves Alistair Begg's advice. So the pro -LGBTQ lobby, when they think your advice is great -

01:30:11

They're jumping on it, huh? That should be an immediate red flag and going, okay, I said something really wrong here.

01:30:17

Yeah. So hoping that he comes back to that. And I am such a local church activist,

01:30:25

I guess you could say. That's not really the word I want. I have such enthusiasm for the local church that I hope that in this process, it's his own elders that help him to see the fault in the counsel that he gave and the way he even dug in his heels with the message that he gave on Sunday night, which

01:30:46

I think was even more damaging than what he said initially. So anyway,

01:30:51

I'm hoping that those men around him come alongside him, help to counsel him, that he will repent.

01:30:58

A friend of mine, Adam Page, he made a comment on X, where he said that he felt like Alistair was responding as a grandfather, like in the sympathy of a grandfather to a grandmother, that his advice was coming more from there than it really was from a pastoral position.

01:31:19

And that's a good thing to consider. There might be something, there might be advice that I would give out of sympathy in my position for somebody else that's in the same position.

01:31:30

I might give advice, I might say, as a fellow husband, as a fellow father,

01:31:37

I might tell you this, but as a pastor and what the word of God says, I have to tell you this.

01:31:43

There might be something that I sympathize with, but I still have to tell you, this is what God's word says.

01:31:50

And like Alistair Begg said, when he was preaching from Romans 1, we are not at liberty to change what

01:31:56

God has said in his word. And I hope that he listens to his own counsel that he's given in the past and will repent of this and recant the advice that he gave.

01:32:06

And I mean, the easy is the path either that's wide. And so we definitely have a difficult path to take the narrow road.

01:32:16

And that requires sacrifices and hard ones at that.

01:32:22

And not attending a wedding that you really want to go to, so you don't sever those ties with your families.

01:32:30

I can't imagine that being an easy choice. But we read in the gospels,

01:32:36

Jesus saying to his disciples - Necessary. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus saying to his disciples, your family members will hate you.

01:32:42

Yeah, that's true. And we remember at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

01:32:52

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

01:32:59

Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. Yes. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

01:33:08

And that's where our focus should be. On Christ. As hard as that is. Matthew chapter six, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

01:33:18

And all the things you need will be added to you as well. Yeah. My friends, we did a little extended episode today because of that particular controversy.

01:33:26

But we thank you for being along with us. We love that you listen, the encouragement that you give, that you share this with others.

01:33:34

The reason why this podcast has grown the way that it has, simply been by word of mouth.

01:33:39

Yes. We've never taken out advertising or anything like that. So we thank you for sharing this with others.

01:33:45

We hope this was an encouragement to you today. And always wanting to put forward to you the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:33:53

Amen. He who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again from the dead, who ascended into heaven. It is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, who is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

01:34:03

All who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but will live with him forever in his glorious kingdom.

01:34:11

Check out our websites, www .utt .com, and then providencecasagrande .com

01:34:17

for our church website. And then send us an email. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's just a note of encouragement, or you have a question for the broadcast, whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

01:34:26

There were other questions I didn't get to today. We still have a backlog. We like to chat, sorry.

01:34:32

Yeah. And we hope that you feel this being conversational with you as well.

01:34:38

Some people have come up to us at conferences and things and have said, I feel like you're in my kitchen every morning. I love it.

01:34:45

So we're back on with, you know, my voice is healed. I need to get back on the Bible reading on the YouTube channel, www .utt

01:34:51

.com. And then we're back to Matthew 23 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And Isaiah, I think

01:34:58

I'm up to chapter 49 next Thursday. And God willing, you and I will have another Q &A next week. Yes.

01:35:04

Let's finish with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly father, I thank you for the questions that we have considered today.

01:35:11

And I pray these things would be an encouragement to those people who asked them and that we would consider first and foremost, the counsel that comes from your word.

01:35:19

We would also consider counsel that comes from our brothers and sisters in the Lord and our pastors that we've entrusted ourselves to the local church body that we are a part of and that we would receive their correction where we need to be corrected.

01:35:34

Admonishing that very word meaning to correct with goodwill, encouraging one another, building each other up.

01:35:40

Our speech always seasoned with salt and gracious as said in Colossians 4. May we know how we are to respond to each person and doing so with the love of Christ.

01:35:51

For you have responded to us with love. So may we respond to one another with love. An answer that is grounded by is undergirded by the word of Christ that has been spoken to us in the

01:36:04

Bible. I pray for the situation that we read about today from Virginia, the church that she had talked about up there in Alaska.

01:36:11

I pray that that church body would be faithful to the Lord and hold that pastor accountable, that that pastor would be willing to listen to wise counsel.

01:36:20

I want to pray also for Joseph, who is looking for a good, healthy church to be a part of that he would be willing to commit membership to a church and understand the importance of church membership.

01:36:29

And as we have also talked about here, this matter concerning Alistair Begg, that he would listen to counsel from his own church elders and that he would repent from the bad counsel that he gave and give a much better answer that is done in the fear of the

01:36:45

Lord and in obedience to your word. He has been obedient to your word in the past, and may he continue to be and finish strong as a minister of the word.

01:36:53

And I thank you for other faithful ministers out there, not just those big platform people like we talk about here with Alistair Begg, but I thank you for those faithful local pastors, some with very small congregations, but they labor day in and day out to care for those people with the teaching of God's word.

01:37:11

May we continue to be faithful to the scriptures, growing in Christ until the day of his return.

01:37:18

It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. This is

01:37:32

Bubba. I wondered about that. I did not do that. He made that mess.

01:37:39

So on the upside, it actually dampens the sound in this room.

01:37:46

So you need something over there. So yeah, all you need to do is make a big mess in this room, and then suddenly it's like, wow, no echo at all.

01:37:55

There you go. That's all wrong. That's kind of like the science behind sound dampening, which is why those sound panels there have the jagged pattern on it.

01:38:05

It's supposed to be random. I get it. Yeah. You can't have parallel aesthetics in a room you're trying to dampen the sound.

01:38:19

Which is usually how we decorate rooms. Pretty true.

01:38:24

With parallel, you know. So it's funny how the things that we are attracted to does not help with.

01:38:34

Sound dampening. Yeah. With the echo. Speaking of echo,

01:38:40

I got a question about my appearance on Echo Zoe radio. That's awesome. Okay, are you ready?