Reaching Catholics for Christ by Mike Gendron

Well, good evening. My name is Mike Gendron, and I am the

Director of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministry. And I just thank the

Lord for the opportunity to share this evening a burden that I've had on my heart since I left the

Catholic Church at age 35. I was a very devout Roman Catholic for those 35 years.

My uncle was a Catholic priest, and I was an altar boy and taught high school Catholic Christian doctrine.

And when the Lord saved me, it was because I was opening the Bible for the first time and reading what was in the

Bible. And I had never opened it before because I was told it was too difficult to understand. And so out of curiosity,

I opened it and I began having a crisis of faith because what I read in the Bible was diametrically opposed to the plan of salvation.

I was taught as a Roman Catholic. And so during this crisis of faith, I called my uncle to priest and he would pacify me, but I'd go back and there was just no way to reconcile

God's word with what the Catholic Church taught me regarding what I believe is the most critical issue we all face in this life, and that is what must

I do to be saved. And so when I realized that it was impossible to believe the

Catholic plan of salvation, I repented and put my trust in an all -sufficient Savior, the

Lord Jesus Christ, and my life was literally turned upside down. I wanted to read more of the

Bible, to be a true disciple of Christ, to really shed myself of all the

Roman Catholic dogmas that I had been taught so that I could be free in Christ.

And shortly after that, I went to Dallas Theological Seminary. I wanted to learn the

Bible and also to de -indoctrinalize myself. And so the last semester at seminary,

I was introduced to a video by Roman Catholic priests and nuns, and as I watched it,

I shared it with my wife and she's also a former Catholic, and we decided to start showing it in our home every

Tuesday night. Well, within three months, we saw 17 Roman Catholics exchange their religion for a relationship with Christ, and what do you do with 17 new babes in Christ?

We invited them back over on Wednesday night to help them grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord, and that was really the genesis of the ministry that we've been doing now for 32 years.

The Lord has taken us all over the world, primarily in countries that are dominated by Roman Catholicism, and we have been equipping the body of Christ to be faithful witnesses to Roman Catholics.

As many of you may know that many evangelical leaders now are signing unity accords with Catholics saying that they don't need the gospel, they're already our brothers and sisters in Christ, and so the average evangelical doesn't know if the

Catholic church represents a mission field or if it's a Christian domination. So this evening,

I want to share with you how to witness effectively to Roman Catholics, and one of the first things we need to recognize when we witness to them is to expect a stubborn resistance, and that's because indoctrination is a captivating power that causes a strong resistance to God's word.

I was indoctrinated for 35 years, and from the time I could think, I was taught that the

Catholic church is the one true church, and if I was faithful to the church, that the church would get me to heaven.

Another tool that Satan uses to blind the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel or the glory of Christ is its religious pride.

I was very proud to belong to the one true church, and I used to feel sorry for those that couldn't be born

Catholic, and so these two tools Satan uses to blind people from the light of the gospel.

There are some obstacles we need to overcome as we witness to Catholics. You need to know that they're utterly dependent upon their priests.

What do I mean by that? Well, when a child is born into Catholic families, immediately they're baptized by the priest, and that sacrament is said to be the sacrament of regeneration and also justification, and then later on as they grow up, they need the priest to forgive their sins and to give them the

Eucharist, which they believe is the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, and even after a

Catholic dies, they're still dependent upon their priest to get them out of a place called purgatory.

Catholics believe that heaven can be merited by what they do, and that's why they have no assurance, because they're not trusting

Christ alone. Catholics believe there's two different types of sin.

Venial sins don't cause death. They don't send them to hell, and so most Catholics believe that most of their sins are venial sins.

Catholics believe they belong to the one true church, and there's great family pressure to remain Catholic, so these are some of the obstacles you need to be ready when you witness to Roman Catholics.

They do have traditions that distort the gospel. You know, we're celebrating the

Reformation this weekend. It's the 505th anniversary when

Martin Luther nailed his 95th thesis to the church door in Wittenberg, and the reason the

Reformation was necessary is because the Roman Catholic Church taught that salvation is by grace plus merit, faith plus works,

Christ plus other mediators, and it was according to scripture plus tradition, so the

Reformers said after reading the Bible, this is not true. The Bible says we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, according to scripture alone, so this is important as we witness to Roman Catholics.

The word alone is so important because Catholics must repent of anything they're doing to save themselves and put all of their trust in Christ alone.

Catholics reject eternal life, which is the promise of the gospel. Roman Catholics have conditional life.

Whether or not they get to heaven depends on what they do. In Roman Catholicism, the

Jesus of the Catholic Church merely opened the gates of heaven. Excuse me, Mike, are you sharing your screen?

Yes. Okay, we don't see it. I'm sorry. I should have stopped sooner. Yeah, I'm sorry. Down in the middle is the green share screen again, and then just locate your

PowerPoint. Yes, there we go, and then up at the top, you have to do your play.

Okay, can you see it now? Yes, so sorry about that. All right, well,

I'm glad you caught me. So Catholics reject the promise of the gospel.

They only have conditional life, and part of the reason is they continue the work of redemption on an altar that Jesus finished on the cross.

That's why the Roman Catholic Mass is necessary for Catholics. It takes care of the sins they committed in the previous week, but we know when

Jesus finished his work of redemption on the cross, he died once for all sin for all time.

There are no more offerings for sin. We see that in Hebrews chapter 10, and Roman Catholics deny that all sins are mortal.

We need to show them that Romans 6 .23, the wages of sin is death. Ezekiel 18 .4,

the soul that sins will surely die. So here's seven keys for witnessing to Catholics.

I'll go through these quickly, and then we'll look at each one with more detail. The first, most important, establish the supreme authority of God's word.

I'll explain why that's important. We need to declare the sufficiency of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to get the gospel right. We need to define the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

The reason being is the penal substitution of Christ is never taught in the

Catholic church. We need to teach antithetically. Of course, we need to pray and then point them to the narrow way that leads to eternal life.

So why do we need to establish God's word as a supreme authority? It's because Roman Catholics have three different authorities, but all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

The word reproof means to expose and refute error. So we use scripture to expose the errors of the

Catholic church, and then we can also use scripture to correct the error that scripture has exposed.

That's how we reprove them. Of course, then we use scripture for training in righteousness. We know that God has exalted his name and his word above all things.

So there's no higher authority than Almighty God, and he's revealed himself through his infallible inspired authoritative word.

When you look at Catholic authority, I mentioned they have three. They have their scripture as well as tradition, but it's the bishops of the church called the magisterium that actually sit above scripture and tradition.

And the magisterium does an amazing job of twisting and distorting scripture so that harmonizes with their ungodly tradition.

And Peter made a statement about those who twist and distort scripture be to their own destruction.

So when we establish God's word as the supreme authority, it has authority over the teachings of men, and I think a great verse to use to show that is

Acts 17 11. There the apostle Paul is preaching in the synagogues of Berea, and he notices that while he's teaching, they're searching the scriptures every day to find out if he's teaching the truth.

And so this shows that every man, even an apostle, needs to be tested by the authority of scripture.

So every Roman Catholic priest, bishop, and pope needs to come under the same scrutiny as an apostle

Paul. We also know that scripture has authority over tradition. In Mark chapter 7, we see that Jesus was rebuking the apostate

Jewish leaders because they nullified the word of God for the sake of their tradition.

So this is why we need to establish God's word as our supreme authority, and these are verses we can use to establish that.

Hebrews 4 12 is a great verse to share as well. We see in Hebrews 4 12 that the word of God is sharper than a two -edged sword, and we can use it as an offensive and defensive weapon.

We can use it to slay all the devil's lies. We can use it to correct and rebuke anyone that goes against God's word.

The word of God pierces, it penetrates, and cuts to the depths of the soul, and it never returns void.

And that simply means when we share the word of God, it brings salvation to those who believe it, but it brings further condemnation for those who reject it.

The word of God judges. Before anyone can be saved, their sin must be judged by the word of God.

The word of God is living and active. No other words can bring life to a soul that's dead in sin.

The word of God has divine power and authority. Romans 1 16. This is so important to share because so often

I think well -meaning evangelists will use their words instead of God's word. Our words have no power.

Our words have no authority. So we need to share the word of God, and one of the best things we can do is point

Roman Catholics to their Bible and ask them to read the verse out loud and say, what is

God teaching you in that verse? Roman Catholics will want us to trust the early church fathers because they say the early church fathers will prove that the second and third century church was

Roman Catholic. So how do you answer this? Well, with scripture, at the end of the

Apostle Paul's ministry, he stood before the Ephesian elders and he warned them.

He said, I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things for the purpose of drawing away disciples after them.

Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears.

Can you just sense the emotion? Paul knows this is going to happen, and so when

Roman Catholics want us to read the early church fathers, we need to share this passage with them because how do we know that the early church fathers you want us to read and believe are not the ones

Paul warned us about? The most important thing we can share with anyone is that we need to build our theology on the inspired word of God, not on the uninspired words of men such as the early church fathers.

Let's build our theology on the word of God. I want to share with you something that's very troubling.

It should be very troubling to Roman Catholics. The apostle Paul said in 1st

Timothy 4 .1, in latter times some will depart from the faith and follow doctrines of demons, and one of the doctrines of demons that the

Roman Catholic Church follows is the first lie of the devil in the garden. Remember, Satan told

Eve, you surely shall not die if you disobey God. Well, the

Roman Catholic Church carries that lie, perpetuates that lie through its doctrine of venial sins.

They say you surely shall not die when you commit venial sins. They do not cause death, only temporal punishment in a place called purgatory.

This is clearly a doctrine of the devil, and in 1st Timothy 4,

Paul gives another doctrine of demons. It's forbidding people to marry. We know the

Catholic Church does that as well. So the next principle for witnessing the

Catholics, we need to declare the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, because the

Jesus of the Catholic Church is not sufficient to save Catholics completely and forever.

In 1st Corinthians 1 .30, we see that Jesus has become to every believer wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

He died once for all sin. There are no more offerings for sin, and also he accomplished everything necessary to save sinners, and then he cried out in victory, it is finished.

Some of the last words Jesus spoke before he gave up his spirit. Well, Catholicism denies the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

They do it in so many ways. To his finished work, they had the sacrifice of the mass. To his word, they add their sacred tradition.

To his headship, they add a pope. And by the way, the pope not only steals the title head of the church, he also steals the title given to the holy father.

There's only one holy father in scripture, and that is the father of all Christians.

The pope is not a holy father. He's also stolen the title vicar of Christ, a title given to the holy spirit.

The Catholic church denies the sufficiency of Jesus to his high priestly office. They have the confessional box.

Whenever I travel, I always look forward to talking with a priest and the cities that I visit.

While I was in Emporia, Kansas, and the priest was too busy to see me, but as we went down to witness at the church on a

Saturday afternoon, I noticed the red light over the confessional was on, which told me the priest was inside hearing confessions.

So I told my wife and the elder of the church to pray for me. I was going to confession, and I walked in and I said,

I don't even know where to start. It's been over 30 years since my last confession.

The priest said, don't worry. When you leave here, I'll forgive all of your sins. And then he said, why has it been 30 years since your last confession?

I said, well, I've been reading the Bible. He said, well, how's that kept you from the confessional?

I said, well, in John 19, 30, Jesus said it is finished.

Why do you continue on an altar? What Jesus said is finished. He said, give me another example.

I said, well, on first John 1, it says the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.

So why do we need purgatory? I said, there's so many ways that the Bible opposes the

Roman Catholic plan of salvation. He said, I can say this is going to take longer than I thought.

Why don't you call me on Monday? So I flew back to Dallas and I called him and he knew that we were there to, he said, proselytize his people.

I said, no, we were there to give the gospel. And as I shared with you in the confessional, the

Roman Catholic Church does not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then I started to share it with him about five minutes into it.

He said, you know what? I was born a Catholic and I'm going to die a Catholic. There's nothing you can say that's going to change my mind.

I said, well, according to the Bible, you were born a sinner and you're going to die a sinner unless you repent and believe the gospel.

Well, then he hung up on me, but at least I had a chance to share the gospel. And I just prayed afterward that God would not give him any peace till he came to the

Prince of Peace. Well, Catholicism also denies the sufficiency of Jesus to his infinite merit.

They had their own merit. To his purifying blood, they had purgatory. To his righteousness, they had their own filthy rags of righteousness.

And to his unique role as sinless mediator, they have another sinless mediator, and her name is

Mary. So Catholics can choose to go through her instead of Christ. This is what the

Roman Catholic Church teaches about Mary from paragraph 494 of the

Catechism. Without a single sin to restrain her, she became the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race.

Well, that's not all. Paragraph 969, as mediatrix, she did not lay aside the saving office, but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of salvation.

This robs Christ of his unique position as the only

Savior, the only sinless mediator. Catholics rob

Christ of his glory and share it with Mary. The Apostle Paul warned in 2

Corinthians 11 for that some will come and preach another Jesus, and the Catholic Church preaches another

Jesus. Catholics believe they receive their Jesus physically, frequently in the stomach.

That's because the body and blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained in the

Eucharist. Catholics really believe they're eating Jesus when they consume the

Eucharist. If only they would read their scriptures, Christians receive

Jesus once, spiritually, in the heart. The Apostle Paul said, so Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

Ephesians 3 .17. Well, Roman Catholic Church teaches indulgences can remove temporal punishment for sin.

And remember, 505 years ago, this was the spark of the Reformation, the selling of God's forgiveness through indulgences.

You see a picture of a Mass card on the screen, and this is what Roman Catholics go and purchase from the priest.

You can see this one costs $30, and it's 30 days of novenas and Masses that will be said on behalf of the loved one who died and is now suffering in this fictitious place called

Purgatory. The Catholic Church deals with indulgences as a non -negotiable.

Listen to what Vatican Council 2 says. The Roman Catholic Church commands that the usage of indulgences most beneficial to Christians should be kept in the

Church, and it condemns with anathema those who say indulgences are useless, for the

Church does not have the power to grant them. This is the selling of God's forgiveness through indulgences.

It's the remission of temporal punishment for sin, denying again the all -sufficient work on Calvary's cross.

But we need to get the gospel right. Before the Lord saved me, I worked as an astro - as a space man at Cape Kennedy, Florida, a rocket scientist, and when astronauts re -enter the

Earth's atmosphere, they must get the true angle of re -entry precisely correct.

Well, you might be wondering, what's this got to do with the gospel? Well, we have to get the gospel right if anyone wants to enter into heaven.

If an astronaut came into the Earth's atmosphere too light, he would skip off into outer space again.

If he came in too heavy, he would burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. And so it is, if we distort the gospel by adding something to it, and people believe that, they will burn up in the eternal fire of hell, where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And if they take anything away from the gospel, any of the essentials, they will skip off into outer darkness.

And so we must get the gospel precisely correct. Some of the principles of the gospel, it is eternal.

It's the same message for every generation. It can never change. We see that in Revelation 14 .6.

The Old Testament saints, they look forward to the cross when a suffering Messiah would die in their place.

New Testament saints look back to the cross for trusting in Jesus Christ as the full payment for their sins.

Everybody in heaven will be there because they believe the one and only eternal gospel. The gospel is also exclusive.

This is where the offense of the gospel comes in. It dares to say that all other faiths and all other religions are false, and that's because it speaks of the

Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the

Father except through me. He is the way for those who are lost. He's the truth for those who are deceived, and he's the life for those who are dead in their sin.

The gospel is according to Scripture alone. This is so important as we witness to Catholics. 1

Corinthians 15 verses 1 -4, Paul defines the gospel. It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ according to Scripture.

The Bible doesn't point us to any other book, to any other authority. Anyone who wants to know how to be saved, it's fully contained in Scripture.

The gospel has divine power to save, to save anyone who believes it, and it also is of grace alone.

Those who add anything to God's gospel stand condemned.

We see that in Galatians chapter 1 verses 6 -9. Now the Galatians, the

Judaizers came into the Galatian church, and they said, we believe in Jesus, but if you're a

Gentile, you not only need to believe in Jesus, but you also need to be circumcised. What was

Paul's response? Let's have unity with all these professing Christians. No, he said, let them be anathema, because they dared to add one requirement to the gospel of grace.

I want to share with you all the requirements of the Catholic church is added to the gospel.

First, they say the gospel is by faith. I have it in quotation marks, because when a seven day old infant is baptized, it's not the infant's faith that saves them, it's the parent's faith, or the grandparent's faith, because a baby can't believe in anything.

So that faith is not their own. Then they have to be baptized to receive the sacrament of justification and the sacrament of regeneration.

The sacraments are necessary for Catholics to be saved, paragraph 1129 of the catechism.

They must participate in the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, paragraph 1405.

They must have their venial sins purged in purgatory. They must do good works in order to be justified.

They have to keep the law to be saved. Now, Roman Catholics need to read their

Bible, because in James 2 10, it says if you keep the whole law perfectly, and yet stumble at one part, you're guilty of breaking the entire law.

It's impossible to be saved by keeping the law. They also have to receive those indulgences as remission of temporal punishment.

Remember what Paul said, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed.

That means every Roman Catholic priest, every Roman Catholic nun, bishop, and pope is under divine condemnation.

They are accursed because they have distorted the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why Roman Catholics need to be rescued out from a religion that's under divine anathema.

On the screen, you have what I call a trilogy of deception. Remember venial sins is the lie of the devil in the garden.

It only incurs temporal punishment. So if it only incurs temporal punishment, you need a place to go.

So one lie led to another lie that created purgatory, whereby venial sins are purged by fire.

Well, now that you have a place where Catholics go, now you need a means of getting them out.

So another lie led to indulgences. Indulgences are the remission of temporal punishment whereby their time in purgatory is reduced.

This is spiritual deception. This is the trilogy of deception.

And all those that are listening, I just pray that you would recognize that the nature of deception is that people do not know they are deceived until they are confronted with the truth.

You and I are truth bearers. The only way Catholics will know they're deceived is to lovingly share the truth of God's word, the truth of his gospel.

May we all be more motivated to do that. Well, John MacArthur has always had a clarion voice on Roman Catholicism.

He said, and I quote, in the long war on the truth, the most formidable, relentless, and deceptive enemy has been

Roman Catholicism. It is an apostate, corrupt, heretical, false Christianity.

It is a front for the kingdom of Satan. MacArthur said this not to be mean, but to be truthful.

The only way to love people is to confront them with the truth and let them know that they have been deceived for the false and fatal gospel.

We need to share with Catholics that grace and works are mutually exclusive and justification. You can do nothing to save yourself.

Any attempt to do so nullifies justifying grace. Plus, it insults

Jesus and his all -sufficient work. What Jesus has done to save sinners gives all the glory to God and his saving grace.

All boasting in heaven will be in Jesus Christ and his righteousness. When you boil all the faiths and religions in the world, you can really narrow it down to two.

There's biblical Christianity that says you are saved by grace because of what

Christ has done to save sinners, and every religion in the world teaches you must do things to appease your

God. There is a works righteousness religion where you have to do things, and then there's divine accomplishment where Jesus has done it all.

Trust in him and you will be saved. Well, since we're talking about works, it's good to show the timing and the motivation of works.

Prior to justification, the Bible describes all of our righteous acts as filthy rags,

Isaiah 64 .6. So we must come to the cross of Christ with empty hands of faith.

The only thing we can bring is our sin, and then after we have been justified, then we are created in Christ Jesus for good works prepared by God for us to walk in,

Ephesians 2 .10. So Roman Catholics are doing their good works in order to be justified.

Christians do works out of love and gratitude for having been justified. So the motivation for Catholics is in order to be justified.

We do good works out of love and thanksgiving for having been justified. The timing and the motivation is so important as we communicate the gospel.

Well, the next principle we need to define the substitutionary atonement of Christ, 2

Corinthians 5 .21, my favorite verse, he that is Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

I consider that the greatest exchange any human being could ever experience.

By faith, Christ takes all of our sin, all of our guilt, all of our punishment, and what does he give us in return?

His perfect righteousness. What a glorious Savior we have in Christ. He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

The penal substitution of Christ. Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous.

You know, as a Roman Catholic, I knew Jesus died for the sins of the world. That's history. But when

I found out this, that Jesus died as a substitute for me, that was salvation.

He took all of my sin and gave me his righteousness. So we need to tell

Catholics, they must read God's word to find out they are broken

God's law and they are condemned by God's justice. They deserve

God's wrath. They need God's mercy, and their only hope is the substitutionary atonement of God's son, the

Lord Jesus Christ. We must give them the bad news first. We must tell them all of their sins are mortal.

They are condemned by God's justice. They need God's mercy. So the fifth principle we need to teach antithetically.

The apostles contrasted the impact of believing God's truth instead of God's lies, and there's many examples

I can give, but two verses that have set so many Roman Catholics free. Ephesians 2 .8

.9. Listen to Paul teach antithetically, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, not from yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no man can boast.

Paul is presenting how you are saved and what you must forsake in order to be saved.

Another good example, I think, is Titus 3 .5. He saved us not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy.

So remember the nature of deception. People do not know they're deceived until they're confronted with the truth.

Christians are truth bearers. We need to lovingly confront Catholics and their deception, and I often tell

Catholics, I do not want you to believe what I believe. I want you to believe the infallible, inspired, authoritative word.

Therein lies the power. Therein lies the authority. We're just signposts pointing people to the word of God.

We must speak the truth and love. God will never impute his righteousness until sinners are first stripped of their own.

I think a classic example of this is the Apostle Paul. He listed his resume in chapter 3 of Philippians, verses 8 to 9.

If anyone had reason to boast in his religion and his righteousness, it was Paul, but he considered it all dumb.

He exchanged his religion for a relationship with Christ. That's what every

Catholic needs to do. God does not make sinners alive in Christ until they know they are dead in their sins.

All sins are mortal. The sixth biblical principle, we need to pray.

Pray for the salvation of those who are blinded by religious deception. When I was at Dallas Seminary, when we studied

Romans 10, I think it was here that God really placed a burden on my heart for all the

Roman Catholics that I left behind. Because here in Romans 10, Paul is praying for the salvation of the

Israelites. He said they had a zeal for God, but it wasn't based on knowledge, not knowing the righteousness of God, they sought to obtain their own righteousness.

I thought to myself, I know so many Roman Catholics who also have a zeal for God, but they don't know the

Bible. And they don't know that God's righteousness requires perfect righteousness in order to enter into heaven.

And so they too seek to obtain their own righteousness. We must tell

Catholics, whatever God demands, as in this case, he demands perfect righteousness, whatever

God demands, he always provides. He provides the righteousness of his son to those who will trust in him.

He gives that as a gift. We need to pray for words to be given to fearlessly make known the gospel.

That's how Paul prayed. We need to pray for God to open doors and hearts so that we can proclaim

Christ clearly. We are serving a sovereign Lord. He can open doors of opportunity.

He can open hearts as we are witnessing to people, just as he opened the hearts of Lydia. And we need to pray for wisdom to make the most of every opportunity.

And that's what Paul did in Colossians 4. My wife and I pray for divine appointments at the beginning of the week.

Well, how do we know when God has set up a divine appointment? Well, we have to engage people as we meet them, as we go to and fro.

And we'll ask people, are you a Christian? Most people say yes. And then we say, where do you go to church?

And how does your church teach you have any hope of salvation? When they don't give the biblical gospel, this is an open door for us to share the gospel.

And even if we only have a few minutes, we have some excellent gospel tracts that we can leave behind so that they can know the truth and repent and believe the gospel.

Another quote by John MacArthur. He said, Catholicism is a false system. It's not the church of Christ.

It's the church of Antichrist. If you follow Catholic theology, you'll go to hell. I'm not saying that to be unkind, but to be truthful.

Being truthful is the only way to be kind. People need to come out of that system.

It's a system that exalts Mary, and it's a system of paganism mingled with pseudo

Christianity. Well, John MacArthur loves Roman Catholics. He doesn't want to allow them to continue to march proudly toward hell's gate without lovingly confronting them with the truth of the gospel.

And I hope that we all leave this presentation with a greater compassion for Roman Catholics.

I hope you see that they indeed have been taught a false and fatal gospel.

But what I'd like to say here is that not everyone in the Catholic church is lost. There are people who have been born again and are no longer

Roman Catholic, but the spirit of God has not yet moved them out. That's why the great commission is to go and make disciples, teaching them to observe everything

Christ has commanded. And Christ commands that we worship God in spirit and in truth.

We see that in John 4 .24. So the spirit of God and the word of God will bring born -again

Christians out of the Catholic church so that they can worship God in a Bible -believing church.

So the seventh point then, and we need to point them to the narrow way because they are on the broad way.

The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 7, you need to enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.

And there are many who enter through it, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Now listen to the context that Jesus is sharing this. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

The context here is that there's two gates, and in front of the narrow gate, there are wolves in sheep's clothing.

They're false prophets, and they're pointing people to the broad way. They're saying it's not the narrow way, it's the broad way.

They're false prophets. So in order to know the true way, you're going to have to diligently search the scriptures to test every man's teaching, to find out which gate is the narrow gate that leads to life.

I hope nobody misses this. The context of these two gates, the most critical issue every person faces in this life, which gate should

I enter for eternal life? False prophets are going to lead you away from the true way, so you have to read your

Bible to know the true way. There are many attractions on the broad way.

Proverbs 14, 12, it seems right to man, but its end is the way of death.

There's no opposition on the broad way because they're walking with the God of this world,

Satan, who has blinded their eyes from the light of the gospel. The broad way is easy because they are following others who love darkness and who are blind to the truth.

Those on the broad way are deceived and don't know it because they have a high view of self and their own righteousness and a low view of God and his justice.

We must rescue those on the broad way. My last semester at seminary,

I put together these two paths to eternity. You see the Roman Catholic path to eternity on top.

Every Roman Catholic I've ever shown this to says, yes, this is the path

I'm on. This is available on our gospel track entitled

Roman Catholicism, Scripture versus Tradition. Roman Catholics believe, as we do, that we're born destined for hell because of mortal sin, but that's where it all ends.

They believe water baptism puts them on the road to heaven. When they commit venial sins, they lose some of their right standing before God.

When they commit a mortal sin, now they're destined for hell. They need to be rejustified to do good works and receive sacraments to produce enough merit to get them to heaven.

Catholics go through this hundreds of times in their life, never knowing where they stand before a righteous and holy

God. At the end of a Catholic's life, if he's never heard the gospel or if he's heard it and rejected it, he will stand before the

Lord Jesus at the great white throne and hear the most terrifying words anyone could ever hear when

Jesus says, depart from me. They're thrown into the eternal lake of fire. It's for this reason

I have such a compassion for Catholics. I traveled this road for 35 years.

It wasn't until I opened the Bible to see the biblical path to eternity. It's not water baptism.

It's faith in Christ alone. And at that very moment, we are justified.

We begin the process of sanctification through the power of the Holy Spirit, putting to death the evil deeds of the flesh and conforming our life to the life of Christ.

You see that great promise in Romans 8 .1. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

A born again Christian never has to fear hell because we sit in the palm of the

Savior's hand. He promises that no one will ever perish. So at the end of a believer's life or at the rapture of the church, a believer will hopefully hear the words, well done, my good and faithful servant, and then will sing his praises throughout all eternity.

What a contrast between these two paths to eternity. I'm encouraging all of you to get some of these gospel tracks and to sit down and share these two paths with Roman Catholics.

It really will open their eyes. Well, we have to define what faith is because everybody has faith.

The object of your faith is the most important because when the object of your faith is the

Lord Jesus Christ alone, then you have the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

But when the object of your faith is Christ plus something else, there can never be assurance because you never know if you've done enough.

It must be Christ alone. That's our only hope of salvation. When I contrast true faith with Catholic faith, the object of true faith is

Christ alone, his death and resurrection. Catholics put their trust in their religion, their priests.

They put their trust in Mary and their sacraments to save them. The source of true faith is

Jesus Christ and his word. We see in Romans 10, 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing the word of Christ.

The source of Catholic faith are their Bible, infallible bishops, and their ungodly traditions.

Faith is evidenced by works as we say in Ephesians 2 .10 and also in James chapter 2.

When faith is alive, there will be evidence by the works. But Roman Catholicism teaches that faith plus works are required for justification.

A Christian's faith is on the power and promises of almighty God who assures salvation.

Our inheritance is kept in heaven by the power of almighty God.

But in Catholicism, they reject the promise of the gospel and Roman Catholics have no assurance.

That's why one of the great verses to share with Roman Catholics is 1 John 5 .13. John writes to those who believe in the name of the

Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. You can know right now.

You can have in your possession eternal, everlasting life by trusting Christ alone.

A wonderful verse to share. Nobody really cares how much we know until they know how much we care and we can show people how much we care by asking questions.

What's the most important decision you face in this life? What's the greatest gift you've ever received?

We go out to Catholic churches on Christmas Eve and they have the mindset of receiving and giving gifts and as they come out of the mass, we ask them, what's the greatest gift you've ever received?

They never ever say eternal life. They'll point to their jewelry, their cell phone, their children, and we simply say, there's a greater gift than that.

And then we share the gospel, the assurance of eternal life. Great question, where we spend eternity.

We just produced a gospel track with that title. It is such an easy track to give to people because it is the most important decision they face.

We can be wrong about a lot of things in this life and still survive, but if we are wrong about eternity, we will pay for that mistake forever and ever.

Great question to ask Catholics. What is your authority for knowing truth? Has that authority ever misled you?

Do you know of an authority that will never deceive you, never mislead you, that will always tell you the truth?

There's only one on this earth and that's the infallible, inspired, and errant word of God.

Why did Jesus have to die? Great question to ask because it gets right to the gospel.

He had to die to satisfy divine justice. God is a holy and righteous judge.

Every sin that's ever been committed by every man and woman that's ever lived must be punished with death.

There's two places that God satisfies divine justice. One is at Calvary's Cross, where Jesus died as a substitute for those who would trust in him.

Divine justice is satisfied for those that do, but those that reject

Christ, one day they will meet him at the great white throne and their divine justice will be satisfied when they're thrown into the eternal lake of fire.

Only a fool would reject Jesus Christ as their all -sufficient savior.

What's the greatest news you've ever heard? Are you ready to meet your creator?

I follow that up with when you meet him, and you will, everyone will come face to face with their creator one day.

He will either be your merciful savior or a sin -avenging judge.

If you could ask God one question, what would it be? Do you know the only way

God will forgive your sins? It's not through penance, it's through repentance.

Jesus said, be preached in my name for the forgiveness of sin.

Luke 24, 47. What are you trusting to get to heaven?

Great question to ask Catholics. When and how were you born again? See, Catholics don't use that terminology, but yet Jesus said, unless you're born again you will not see the kingdom of heaven.

Are you trusting what Jesus has done or what you must do?

Is purgatory necessary to purge your sin? Why do priests continue on an altar with Jesus finished on the cross?

What does your church teach about salvation? Great questions. What is the object of your faith?

Well, we need to discipline ourselves to be spiritual doctors. Jesus said, it's not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

We need to give people their true diagnosis. What is their true diagnosis? They were conceived in sin.

They inherited a fatal disease called sin. Everyone born outside of Christ is born with this sin, and there's more bad news.

There is no human cure for this fatal disease called sin, but there is good news.

The good news is that there is a divine cure, and it's available free for the asking because of a love story written in blood on a wooden cross 2 ,000 years ago.

That is the only cure for sin. Indulgences can't do it. Good works can't do it.

Only the blood of Christ. So we must sow the imperishable seed. Peter said that people are born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

We need to sow the seed of God's word wherever we go. There's a promise in 1

Corinthians 3, as we scatter the seed of God's living word, he promises to bring forth life when it falls on fertile soil.

That's why we believe in literature evangelism, because you can give away gospel tracts after you've communicated the gospel verbally.

One of our most popular tracts is a tract that contains only scripture, and it's divided into six categories that really takes you through the gospel.

It begins with God's perfection, he is holy, man's problem, he is a sinner,

God's provision, a savior, man's part is to repent and believe the gospel, God's promise is eternal life, and man's privilege is to serve the king.

So when you witness address the primary problem, which is sin, avoid preaching and arguing, seek to have a conversation that is balanced and loving, define terms biblically.

Catholics believe they're saved by grace, but if you look at the catechism, they must merit all the graces necessary for salvation.

Some will reject the gospel because it would mean their ancestors are not in heaven. How do you answer that?

Are you telling me my grandfather who died as a Roman Catholic is not in heaven? Take him to Luke 16.

What did the rich man want who was suffering in the fires of hell? What did he want other than a drop of water to quench his thirst?

He wanted a missionary to go back and warn his brothers on earth to tell them the truth so they would not end up in a place like this.

But then I give them hope. Look at the thief on the cross who was mocking Jesus.

He was a Christ rejecter all of his life. He was a sinner all of his life, but at the end, he put his trust in Jesus as savior, and Jesus promised today he will be with me in paradise.

So don't let this keep you from coming to Christ. Well, evangelism is a discipline.

We need to pray for divine appointments, make a list of unsaved family members and co -workers, sow the seed of God's word, mail tracts along with your payments, engage solicitors in spiritual conversations before they make their pitch, develop a lifestyle of evangelism.

Everywhere you go, you have an opportunity to engage people and to share the greatest news they will ever hear.

We need to really look at our mission as that of a mailman. We're successful every time we deliver the gospel.

We're not responsible for how they respond to the gospel. That's God's work. So let's give the gospel with clarity and completion and leave the results to God.

We need to replace any fear of man that we have with a healthy fear of God. The words of Paul, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

Remember, we're giving them the greatest news they will ever hear. Well, there's certain things that evangelism is not.

It's not imposing our beliefs. It's not getting people to accept Jesus. We want them to trust

Jesus to believe in Jesus, to have faith in Jesus. We don't want to get people to repeat a prayer for salvation because how do we know if they're honoring

God with their lips, but their hearts are far from them? When a person asks me, what must

I do to be saved? I let God answer that question for them. I take them to Romans 10.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

And then I point them to Romans 10, 13. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Let them call out to the Lord for salvation if they're truly convicted and want to know how to be saved.

So I'd like to get to a few resources just to share with you, but remember the importance of witnessing to unbelievers.

What a contrast between believers. They're alive in Christ. Unbelievers are spiritually dead.

Believers are under God's grace. Unbelievers are under God's wrath. Believers are destined for heaven.

Unbelievers are destined for hell. Believers stand forgiven and justified. Unbelievers guilty and condemned.

Believers are empowered by the spirit. Unbelievers are controlled by the flesh. Believers are children of God.

Unbelievers are enemies of God. Believers are set free by Christ. Unbelievers are in bondage to sin.

Believers are reconciled to God. Unbelievers are separated from God. So in closing, some important contrasts.

The Bible is what God says. Catholicism is what man says

God says. We can point Catholics directly to the source for truth.

Go to the Bible which is what God says. Don't have a mediator between you and God as in a

Roman Catholic priest. Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man.

Trust him and his word. Christianity is a relationship with God through his son, the only mediator.

Catholicism is a religion that offers a false hope of becoming right with God. This is a book that I wrote that has set so many

Roman Catholics free from the bondage of religious deception. It's Preparing for Eternity, subtitled

Should We Trust God's Word or Religious Traditions? What I do in this book is

I show what the word of God teaches right alongside what the Catholic catechism teaches.

It forces Catholics to make the decision. Should I trust Christ and his word or the teachings and traditions of my religion?

This book shows it's impossible to believe both. They must repent and trust

God's word. A book that I've written, Contending for the Gospel, is a book that really exposes the ecumenical movement of evangelicals signing unity accords with Roman Catholics.

More than ever we need to contend for the purity and the exclusivity of God's gospel.

This book will equip you to do that. We also have the book available in Spanish and it's free.

It's free in PDF form. So if you have Spanish -speaking people, all you have to do is send us your email address.

We will send this book to you free of charge in PDF form. That means you can broadcast it out to all of your

Spanish -speaking Roman Catholic friends. We have eight different gospel tracts.

Please avail yourselves to these. We have a set of these. It's called the

Ambassador Pack and you can get all eight tracts in one pack.

And that way, depending on how the conversation goes, you'll know which tract to leave behind.

But you can see three of them are dedicated to reaching Catholics. Which Jesus do you trust?

Contrast the Jesus of the Catholic Church with the Jesus of the Bible. Rome versus the

Bible. Thirteen key points where the Catholic Church opposes the

Bible. And then we have these gospel cards. A great way to not only go deeper in the gospel, but to use them as a witnessing tool.

There are cards the size of playing cards. And there's 12 of the most important words of the gospel.

It starts with God who created man. Man fell into sin. Now he needs the

Lord Jesus Christ, his work on the cross, his resurrection from the dead. And it's only by grace through faith and repentance that you can receive the gift of salvation and the righteousness of Christ by believing the truth.

On the back of each one of these cards, you have four bullet points defining and explaining what each word means.

And so it's a great way to go deep in the gospel. But you can see you can lay these out in front of people and ask them, based on your eternal destiny hanging in the balance, which one of these words would you like to know more about?

Let them lead the conversation, pick up the card, and then ask them, is this what you believe the word to be?

We have some DVDs with all the keynote that you've seen in this presentation. This is how we started our ministry 32 years ago, sharing gospel videos, inviting people over.

We also have these videos on a thumb drive. You can get 20 PowerPoint messages all on one slide.

And don't forget our website and our monthly newsletter. It's available via email.

All you have to do is go to our website, proclaimingthegospel .org. Wealth of information.

We're here to equip the body of Christ to be faithful witnesses for the

Lord Jesus Christ, not only in the Roman Catholic mission field, but all those who were deceived by other false religions as well.

So thank you for the opportunity to share tonight. I'd like to open it up now for questions. Oh, thank you,

Mike. That was really good. And we do have some questions. I am considering shutting off the live stream since we don't have any questions in.

I don't think we do. I don't see any questions in live stream, so I'm going to go ahead and shut off the live stream.

And there we go. We are still recording for a few of the questions, and then

I will turn off the recording and then we can ask more sensitive questions.

We're on our second strike on YouTube, so we don't want to get our third strike on YouTube.

And I just want to stress that tonight was not a Catholic bashing night. That was not a loving night.

What's that? It's a Catholic loving night. We have great love for Roman Catholics.

I have some Catholics that I would like to bring to faith. And Mike is actually is a guest on Jan Markell quite often, and I just learned tonight that he wrote a chapter in the

Lawless, which was by Terry James originally, and then he invited.

And Terry James is the Rapture Ready website. So let's see. Our first question is, you said the

Holy Spirit is the vicar of Jesus. I've never heard of that before. Yeah, Jesus said,

I must go, but I will send someone in my place. And that's what a vicar is. It's in the place of someone else.

And so the Holy Spirit is who Jesus said, and he is now on the earth and dwelling believers.

Oh, yeah. No, I believe that. I rely on the spirit quite often. I just had never heard that.

So the term vicar in the Catholic Church means like in place of Jesus. Right.

Oh, I didn't know that. I don't know much about Catholicism. OK, so then my this

I asked a lot of questions. Why would they eat Jesus? Now we have a Catholic in the audience.

Thank you, Ronald. And he said, read the Gospel of John, Chapter six.

Our Savior said, eat his flesh to have eternal life. Thousands of his followers turned away because they could not.

And this was a very hard teaching. Even Jesus said this is a hard teaching. And this is the point where Peter says my favorite words, where are we going to go?

You have the words of life. How does that relate to the Eucharist? Well, we see in John 16, 25, that Jesus said,

I spoke to you in figurative language. We also see in John six that it was a mixed audience of believers and unbelievers.

It was the unbelievers that departed and went away because they were looking for another free lunch.

Remember, Jesus had just fed the 5000. He crossed the Sea of Galilee. The whole multitude followed him.

They were looking for another free lunch. But Jesus was now speaking of spiritual nourishment. And so in John, chapter six, you see two verses, verse 40 and verse 54, that are different, but they have the same result.

Jesus said, if you believe me and behold me, you will have eternal life and I'll raise you up on the last day.

In verse 54, he says, if you eat my body and drink my blood, you have eternal life and I'll raise you up on the last day.

So the only way those two verses can be reconciled is to take one literally and one figuratively.

Because you have a problem if you eat and drink, but you don't behold and believe. You have the same problem if you behold and believe, but you don't eat and drink.

So the only way they can be reconciled is to take the eating and drinking figuratively and the beholding and believing literally.

I'd like to ask John, if he takes that literally, why don't you believe in eternal life?

The Catholic church does not teach eternal life. You only have conditional life. So you're only taking half of it literally and the other half figuratively.

The other thing, as John mentioned, Jesus said, the words that I spoke are life.

And Peter said, oh, Jesus said, are you going to leave too? And Peter said, no, Lord, where will we go?

You have the flesh of eternal life or the words of eternal life.

See, the apostles, the believers knew exactly what Jesus was talking about. The other thing

John needs to realize is this took place two years before the Lord went to the cross to die for the sins of man.

So what did people do for the next two years? Did they gnaw on Jesus's body? You see, you really have problems by taking this literally.

Jesus spoke figuratively whenever he was in mixed company of believers and unbelievers.

And if you look at Matthew 13, you'll see the reason why he spoke figuratively to mixed crowds.

So please, John. Ronald, Ronald, it's Ronald. Ronald, please,

Ronald. If you want to go back over this, I have a whole article on my website looking at John chapter six.

I encourage you to read that. And we can find that too. OK, so going on.

Sorry, Ronald, I'm going to use your question or your statement again here, because Rachel asks a similar question.

Do Catholics worship Mary? And if they do worship Mary, why do they worship

Mary? And then we have Ronald saying Catholics don't worship Mary.

We respect her tremendously. She is the mother of our Savior. She was probably the first disciple of Jesus, our

Savior. Mary just leads us to her son. If you choose to approach her, she will point you to Jesus.

Well, Mary is not a sinless mediatrix, as the

Catholic Church teaches. She was born a sinner and she even called on Jesus, her

Savior, in Luke chapter two. Mary knew she was. What is that scripture?

I need that scripture. She called on her Savior. So saviors are called on when they're needing to be saved.

So Mary recognized she was a sinner in need of a Savior. But Catholics say they don't worship her.

They venerate her. But yeah, veneration is a form of worship. And we're only to worship

God. And we're only to pray to God. God's the only one that can answer prayers. In fact, those who pray to Mary are actually an abomination to God, as we see in Deuteronomy 18, 15.

We're not to pray or consult the dead. And so I would just encourage Catholics to pray only to God.

In fact, I would challenge Catholics, show me one place in the Bible where a God -fearing person prays to anyone other than God.

You will not find that. And then, okay, so our geologist,

Jeff, is asking about your tracts. Are they in Italian and Spanish?

We saw that you had the book in Spanish. Unfortunately, they're not in Italian, but we do have them in Spanish.

And so they're on our website. Yes, a lot of Spanish -speaking Catholics.

Yeah, yeah, that's unfortunate. I'm going to go ahead and end the recording right now so we can feel free to ask more questions.