Beg For Forgiveness :: By The Gospelist
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
That having been said by the Holy Spirit, what the heck is Alistair Begg thinking?
Alistair Begg is a 71-year-old evangelical Scottish pastor at Cleveland’s Parkside Church. He was thought to be a solid preacher of God’s word until some of his latest advice regarding ‘transgender’ marriage came to light.
In response to a question from a grandmother about whether she should attend her grandson’s ‘transgender wedding,’ Begg revealed that his theology has now gone off the rails.
He informed her that not only should she go to the ceremony, but she should also buy them a gift.
I wonder if she can attend a demonic baptism in which her loved one is baptized into the name of Satan. It is possible that Begg’s theology can accommodate that as well.
After all, according to Begg, Jesus did tell us to love even those we disagree with or disapprove of. Apparently, when Jesus told us to love our enemies, he meant we were supposed to submit to our enemy’s deviant view of sex roles.
Begg also has a radio program called “Truth for Life.” It may be time to change the name of his show to “Worldly Wisdom for Ruin.”
We all make errors in theology and judgment from time to time, but there are a number of serious issues here.
First, Begg is old enough to know better than to give this kind of advice.
Second, he is a pastor who is supposed to be providing Biblical guidance.
Finally, he shows absolutely no understanding of the Gospel or how it is to be employed in real-world situations.
If someone claims to be a mathematician and we ask him what two plus two is, and he responds with five, or sixteen or sixty-seven, his credentials as a mathematician should be questioned. Regardless of the justifications that he offers to defend his position, he should no longer be considered a mathematician.
He should be placed outside of the discipline of mathematics. At least until he corrects his error.
The same goes for a pastor.
The first thing Begg should have told this poor grandmother was that there is no such thing as a ‘transgender.’ We do not have the ability to transcend our gender because God created us male and female.
There is no third sex.
This is a demonic man-made ‘social construct’ from the pits of hell.
If Begg understood the Gospel, he would have informed this grandmother of her obligation to call her grandson to repent and be forgiven in the name of Jesus.
This action should get her disinvited from the ‘transgender wedding’ pretty quick.
Homosexuality, regardless of the form it takes, is a terrible sin in the eyes of God, and no loving grandmother should withhold the call to repentance. Especially when she has the responsibility of guiding the younger generation by teaching them acceptable behavior.
When our loved ones descend into depravity, it is an extremely painful experience. However, we must never forget our primary obligation as Christians, which is, once again, to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus.
Jesus was very clear that if we love our own son more than we love him, we are not worthy of him. The refusal to call your child to repent of his wickedness is a serious violation of that tenet.
A ‘gay wedding’ should be viewed as a Satanic ceremony. These people cannot be joined together in holy matrimony. Neither of these people will be able to sanctify each other in marriage.
They are not capable of becoming ‘one flesh.’
Further, we cannot allow ourselves to serve as cooperative witnesses to an event that profanes marriage. The ceremony of marriage is designed to inaugurate a lifelong commitment of a man to a woman, not only for the good of each other but for the procreation of children.
Marriage, which is the embodiment of love, keeps us from sin, which, in turn, helps to ensure that we remain in the faith.
At the conclusion of this ceremony, there should be a husband and a wife bound together until death.
But Mr. Begg may wish to claim that Christians should attend the ‘gay wedding’ of a loved one to show Christ’s ‘love’ to him/her. Unfortunately for Begg, this kind of ‘love’ is worldly.
It is devoid of truth and righteousness.
Love that is empty of truth and righteousness is not love at all. If your wife claims that she loves you and then proceeds to sleep with other men, there is no truth or righteousness in her love.
She is a fornicator who is only capable of loving herself.
When we go to a ‘transgender wedding,’ are we supposed to toast the couple and congratulate them on their new life together?
It seems to me that we are escorting them into the pits of hell with applause and a smile. I do not see how any Christian can do that in good conscience.
Mr. Begg has demonstrated that he lacks the ability to evangelize the lost and instead has become a friend of the world. What is frightening is that he was considered to be a solid preacher of God’s word.
Maybe it was the Scottish accent.
This tends to be what happens when a preacher abandons the simplicity of the Gospel for the over-intellectualization of Scripture. When we over-intellectualize Scripture, we become wise by the standards of this corrupt and perverse age.
When a pastor proclaims God’s word, he is supposed to lay a foundation as an expert builder. Unfortunately, Begg was not careful how he built.
He should have laid a foundation by using the gold, silver and costly stones of the Gospel. Instead, like two of the three little pigs, he built with wood, hay and straw.
And the big, bad wolf came along and blew his house down.
What is most galling about this incident is that this kind of faithlessness opens the rest of us up to further persecution from the world. When the ‘giants of the faith’ lose sight of the Gospel, they inevitably pervert God’s word to the point where they show no greater understanding of the Scriptures than Taylor Swift.
This further empowers the world to label true Christians as ‘extremists.’
And then persecute us accordingly.
Mr. Begg has deceived himself and needs to repent and become a fool so that he may become wise. The wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight.
I can only imagine what a ‘transgender wedding’ looks like in the eyes of a holy God.
It is not hard to determine where Mr. Begg fell into error. He is a ‘Reformed Evangelical,’ which, in my experience, is an oxymoron. The ‘reformed’ mentality is antithetical to evangelism.
A ‘Reformed Evangelical’ does not bother to call sinners to repent and be forgiven in the name of Jesus. They worship a purely Sovereign God who is devoid of love and offers no chance for repentance.
According to this theology, God is not patient with humanity, wants the vast majority of people to perish, and could care less if anyone comes to repentance. He does not treat us like we are his children, lovingly drawing us to faith in him.
The god of the reformed Christian is cold, uncaring and beyond our comprehension.
How are we supposed to love a God like that?
Theistic fatalism is itself fatal, not only to those not being evangelized but to the spiritual condition of the ‘pastor’ who holds to this position. They are forced rationally to the conclusion that evangelism is a waste of time because man is not free concerning where he will spend eternity.
The call for repentance only makes sense when delivered to people who possess free will.
Begg’s error cannot happen to those who hold firmly to the simplicity of the Gospel. It is when we attempt to overcomplicate the Gospel with poorly thought-out peripheral issues that our theology leaves the straight path and wanders off into the weeds.
I find it hard to believe that a pastor who knows only Christ and him crucified for our sins is capable of this kind of foolishness.
So, let us exegete the most prominent text regarding marriage and see how Begg’s understanding of marriage, based on his advice to this grandmother, measures up.
“Wives [adult females who inherited two X chromosomes], submit to your own husbands [adult males who inherited one X and one Y Chromosome], as to the Lord.
“For the husband is the head of the wife [any other combination is confusion, and God is not the author of confusion] even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands [no one knows who to submit to when gender roles are fluid].
“Husbands, love your wives [as only a man and a woman can form a bond of love in marriage], as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her [there is no sanctification in homosexual relationships] having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish [same-sex marriage is unholy and is by its nature a blemish].
“In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself [homosexuals love only themselves and are in rebellion against God]. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body [homosexuality is an abomination, and those who engage in it are excluded from becoming members of Christ’s body due to their faithlessness].
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh [what part of this is unclear?] This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church [‘gay marriage’ refers to the infiltration of Satan into the church].
“However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:22-33).
Homosexuals have been turned over to a reprobate mind and are under the judgment of God. God did not make them that way; he turned them over to the degrading of their bodies with one another because they refuse to glorify him or give thanks to him.
Apparently, Mr. Begg is not familiar with Romans chapter one.
When we hold to the basics of the faith, we cannot be deceived. If you want to be a wise builder who builds his theology upon the rock, you can avoid this kind of blunder by holding firmly to the simplicity of the Gospel.
Those who build upon the rock of the Gospel can stand firm when the rains come, the streams overflow, and the winds beat against the house. All we need is a clear, unvarnished understanding of the Gospel.
Christ died for our sins. When we go to a ‘transgender’ wedding or justify it in any way, we are ridiculing his sacrifice on the cross for our sins.
We may as well be spitting in his face just like the unregenerate heathen who crucified him.
We should pray for Alistair Begg to be restored as a pastor of God’s word in Christ’s church. That when he opens his mouth, words may be given to him to fearlessly make known the mystery of the Gospel.
Unfortunately, those who submit to the demonic agenda of the LGBT and refuse to repent have become a friend of the world.
And an enemy of the Gospel.
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