TPW 56 John Piper, Revoice, and Roman Catholicism

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Welcome to the Cause and Witness, this is Pastor Patrick Hines, and that was Keith Green, my favorite
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Christian singer of all time. And that song is called No One Believes in Me Anymore, and it's supposed to be sung by the devil himself, and the opening lyrics go,
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Oh my job keeps getting easier as time keeps slipping away. I can imitate the brightest light and make your night look just like day.
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I put some truth in every lie to tickle itching ears. You know I'm drawing people just like flies because they like what they hear.
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And it goes on from there. It's a great, great, great song, very, very relevant to the issue that we've been facing today with the
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Revoice Conference. Also the John Piper issue continues to baffle and amaze me that people cannot see what is as plain and obvious as the noonday brightness of the sun, and that is that it doesn't matter if you speak about justification by faith alone in the correct way if you're redefining what it does.
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You see, the great Protestant Reformation recovered the gospel, and in the mind of the
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Apostle Paul the gospel is that we are justified before God, and that justification is the verdict at the final judgment being brought back in time and applied to us now.
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That is what justification is, and that's what justification accomplishes. It is the very grounds of our entering into heaven itself.
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And the fact that people continue to throw verbal grenades at Tim Shaughnessy and Carlos Montijo and Tim Coffman and myself,
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I've gotten some very nasty emails lately from Sermon Audio. The Protestant witness doesn't get as much listeners as my stuff on Sermon Audio, but the sermon
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I preached on John Piper's false gospel and the clarification, I think it's got close to a thousand downloads, so a lot of folks have listened to that, and almost all of the comments that are let through in Sermon Audio are sharply negative and accusing me of having no grace and everything else.
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And I just, again, I just can't help but think, what would these folks say to the Apostle Paul? Honestly, I think that the
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Apostle Paul would be practically unemployable today. I mean, the guy, he just didn't have the sensitivity level that people would want him to have.
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And he blew a gasket over false doctrine and things like that. The things that people are willing to tolerate today that are said about the very gospel of Jesus Christ itself are just astounding to me.
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And I've been very surprised. It's one thing, Carlos and Tim did a great job, the two programs they put out there on the issue, the
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John Piper issue and the decline of Sola Fide. You know, Carlos made, I think, just a really, really great point about some of the high profile people that they've tried to get the attention of Phil Johnson and John MacArthur and some other folks who have a much bigger platform than anything that they have or that I have or that Tim Coffman has.
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And to get them to respond, because people look to them for guidance. And I think that if they listened carefully to what
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Piper is saying, that they would see very clearly, okay, so he defines justification, the words he uses are the same words that we would use, but he doesn't believe that the act of justification is what makes us right with God such that we are then entitled legally to getting into heaven when we die.
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And that's a big problem. That is a, that's a false gospel, folks. And I don't care how much affection people have for this, that, or the other person.
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I mean, we have to recognize we live in an age where there's no doubt about it. People are more interested in friendship than they are in truth.
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They value their friendships with people more than truth. And people will protect one another because of their friendships.
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That was something that I think was very clear during the Norman Shepard controversy.
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If you take the time to read Justification Controversy by O. Palmer Robertson, that book gave me nightmares when
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I first read it. And I was shocked at the publication history of it. They tried to, you know, that book was written, what was it, 1983, and it wasn't published by anybody until 20 years later because they wanted to keep all this under wraps and everything else.
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No excuse for that kind of thing. Absolutely no excuse for that kind of thing. We're talking about the very gospel itself. And that is incredible.
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And I just want to commend Tim and Carlos. I think that the two programs they did on justification,
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I've had a couple of my children listen to those because I want them to understand the subtleties of speech that are used by the opponents of Christianity, by the opponents of the gospel, to sow the seeds of false doctrine and everything else.
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And one thing my brothers Tim and Carlos kept saying, that I say too a lot, and I've had to train myself to stop saying it, okay, we, all three of us, need to quit saying, this shocks me,
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I just couldn't believe this, oh, this was being said, and it just blew me away, it just blew my mind.
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It should upset us, and it should make our hearts beat faster, and it should upset us and anger us with righteous anger, but it shouldn't surprise us.
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None of this should surprise us. Because the warnings throughout scripture are everywhere,
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I mean, they're just all over the place about false prophets in the Old Testament and how you're supposed to deal with them in Deuteronomy 18, and how many of the prophets rebuked the people of Israel because they were listening to false shepherds and false prophets and so on and so forth.
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And the warnings in the New Testament, in 2 Peter chapter 2, there will be false teachers among you, just as there were among the people of Israel.
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And it goes on in that chapter, in 2 Peter chapter 2, to describe these false teachers in very dark and depraved ways.
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But there's also a sense in which false teachers are wolves in sheep's clothing. Wolves in sheep's clothing.
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It's an image that the scriptures give us. A wolf dressed up as a sheep would be profoundly dangerous to let loose in a sheep pasture, because although it looks like all the other sheep, it's actually eating all the sheep and killing them and maiming them and destroying them.
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And then when someone tries to point out, hey, that sheep over there, he really just looks like a sheep.
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He's actually a wolf. And people have come after us and acted like we're being all mean and nasty and uncharitable.
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And Piper's clarified this and clarified that. No, he hasn't clarified anything. I did an entire podcast responding to that video where they supposedly clarified.
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He didn't clarify. Well, I take that back. He did clarify. He just doubled down. He just doubled down on his position and made it quite clear that there's initial justification and there's the present process, future completion, and it's vindicated by our works and we're saved through those works.
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When you talk about being saved on the last day, you're talking about being saved from the wrath of God. Think about Romans 5 .9.
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Romans 5 .9 says, How much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
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If you talk about final salvation is we're saved through the fruits of our faith, i .e.
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we're saved by our works, you're saying that we're saved from the wrath of God by our good works. I just want to warn everyone that there is such an infinite disproportion between the holiness of God and even the very best works that a
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Christian could ever do in their sanctification process by the help and grace of God that there is no way of describing how huge that gap is between the holiness of God and what he requires and the works that we do as Christians that are still stained with sin.
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Will God reward his people for those works and for their sacrifices? Oh yes, absolutely. Why does
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God do that? Because he is so gracious and so loving and so good. But that reward is not eternal life.
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It's not salvation from sin. It's not justification. It's not the grounds upon which we then enter into heaven.
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And that's so vital to the biblical gospel and it has been pointed out that there's great similarity between the way that Piper is formulating this stuff and the way that the
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Roman Catholic religion does. And I couldn't help but be struck with that the first time I heard the sermon that Piper preached,
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Does God Really Save Us By Faith Alone? And then all the follow -up articles and everything else. Just listening to that sermon several times before I decided to preach a sermon about it.
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And I wanted to make sure I understood him correctly and I actually, I've got numerous Piper books in my library and I checked and cross -referenced things.
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I looked up citations that Tim Kaufman and Tim Shaughnessy have put together in their article and also stuff that Carlos has brought forward.
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I have all those Piper books. I bought them. I had read Future Grace, the first third of Future Grace a long time ago.
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Right out of the gate in that book he denies the presence of a covenant of works which I just kind of thought, wow. And then that was the first time,
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I got that book a long time ago, that was the first time I ever heard of, you know, who is Daniel Fuller and where is he coming from.
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Daniel Fuller did not believe in justification by faith alone. Daniel Fuller did not believe in justification by faith alone.
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And yet, Piper praises Daniel Fuller as like the greatest of mentors and one of the most profound influences in his life and practically turns the guy into a saint that he walked on water.
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And it's kind of like, obviously if you're going to praise someone who denies outright justification by faith alone and think that they're a great
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Christian person or theologian, you obviously don't think justification by faith alone is essential to Christianity, do you?
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I mean, folks, think about it. If I praise someone that I have differences with on eschatology, on the details of eschatology, or I have differences with them on maybe some of the details related to creation and things like that, that's one thing.
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That's one thing. To praise someone, to praise someone who denies completely that we are justified by faith alone, obviously that means that I'm showing my cards a little bit and that I obviously don't think that that's essential to Christianity or essential to the gospel.
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That's part of the problem there. So anyway, before I talk about revoice again and the connection that revoice has to Roman Catholicism, I just wanted to encourage my brothers across the way there and thank them for their willingness to point these things out.
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Carlos's article, I think, is really good. Both parts. I'm almost done with the second part. I've just been kind of having my hands busy with having another baby and there's a number of pastoral things going on here at the church, so I just haven't had as much time to do that as I've wanted to.
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But Carlos is an excellent writer. Very clear in his expression. I love his use of the
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Reformed Confessions. I mean, the Reformed Confessions anticipate the very errors that Piper made.
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I mean, you look at the Westminster Confession, the larger catechism, I mean, it asks the question directly, how does faith justify us in the sight of God?
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How does faith justify in the sight of God? Listen to the answer here.
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This is question 73 of the larger catechism, if I can get to it here on my software.
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Question 73 of the larger catechism. Listen to what it says. It addresses the very errors that are being made.
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How does faith justify a sinner in the sight of God? Answer. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it.
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Now you might say, well, he agrees with that. He doesn't believe that we're justified by works in any way. You see, but the
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Westminster Confession, when it says justify, it's talking about the final verdict at the final judgment. They're using the term the way the
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New Testament uses it, and the way that all the Reformers in the Reformed Confessions use it, namely, the biblical way, justification is the final verdict on the last day at the final judgment.
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So they're specifically excluding the other graces which always accompany it, like sanctification, and they're excluding good works that are the fruits of it.
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So the fruits of justifying faith do not in any way, shape, or form justify the sinner in the sight of God, or get them past the final judgment, or vindicate them, or however you want to nuance putting this.
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So they anticipate this very thing and refute it. So anyway, I don't want to take up too much more time talking about that issue.
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I just wanted to address briefly my brethren across the way there, and just thank them for their faithfulness and their love for the gospel.
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Before I get into the revoice issue, and since we're talking about the gospel here, this has massive implications.
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If you're willing to tolerate a false gospel, if you're willing to tolerate a false gospel, I have to wonder how do people that tolerate false gospels, how do they evangelize people?
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What do they tell them? You know, I've had the privilege of witnessing to people, I've held the hands of numerous dying people,
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I've had to preach at funerals of individuals that I met with numerous times before they died, and one in particular, a woman who had never been to church, and she was a family friend of a family that went to the church where I was an assistant pastor, and she had emphysema, she had been a heavy smoker her whole life, and her lungs were giving out on her.
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And they asked me if I'd go talk to her. And so I did, and I witnessed to her, and I preached to her the need to repent, to confess and own up to sin, and to trust in Jesus Christ alone, to put her faith in Christ alone, to believe the gospel, to believe that Jesus Christ is her savior, that only his cross work can forgive her, and only his righteousness can avail in the sight of God.
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And she eventually made a profession of faith, and I prayed with her every time I was with her,
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I read to her Romans 3, Romans 4, Romans 5, we sat and talked about what those passages mean, we talked about the freeness of God's grave, talked about the
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Christian life and the ongoing battle with sin and everything else, and how that doesn't justify us or get us into heaven or anything like that, labored to be clear with her.
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And I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever forget this, because it just moved me. So, the last time
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I saw her, she was visibly frightened. I could tell that she was really scared because she was dying.
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And she was hardly able to breathe, and she had this look in her face of almost terror.
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And so I asked her, do you believe what I've been telling you? In your heart of hearts, do you trust and believe what
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I've been telling you is true? That Jesus Christ alone can save you from your sins, that what he did by itself is sufficient to save you from your sins and bring you into heaven?
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And she was not able to talk then, but she nodded, and then she mouthed the words, please pray for me.
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So I took her by the hand and I prayed for her, and I preached the gospel to her in that prayer.
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And prayed to God that he would grant her faith in Jesus Christ, the faith that alone can make her right with God.
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And when I got done, I had tears in my eyes, she had tears in her eyes, and I looked at her and I said, do you believe?
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You believe Jesus is your savior? Do you believe that he alone can save you from your sins? And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and nodded and mouthed the word, yes,
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I do. And so I said, okay, I'm going to head out, and I left.
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I came back a couple hours later and she was not in that room anymore. And I asked the nurse, did you guys move her?
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And she said, no, she died. So they took her down to the morgue. Now that was a tough experience for being a young pastor, but I labored,
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I prayed hard for her. I really tried to win her to Christ before she died.
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And I was asked to preach at her funeral, and I preached the gospel at her funeral. And I told the story that I just told you at her funeral.
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And she had a son that was sitting there who was very moved and crying.
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I couldn't tell if he was happy or if he was upset with what I was saying. And after the funeral was over, he came up to me with tears in his eyes, and he asked me my name, and I told him my name, and he thanked me for going to talk to his mother about the gospel and witnessing to her.
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And he looked at me and asked me, so she really made a profession of faith before she died? I said, yes, she did.
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And he cried and cried and cried. He grabbed me and hugged me and got my suit coat all wet crying, and I just held him as he cried for a while.
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And he said, I've been praying for the last two years that somebody would sit down with her and walk her through the gospel at some point before she died.
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And so that was a wonderful experience. But it would never...
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The thought of talking to her about initial justification by faith alone, where God is 100 % for you, and then by putting sin to death and pursuing holiness, you're finally saved by your works.
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That is laughably stupid. I'm just going to say it for what it is. The idea of going to talk to someone who's dying, and that's your message?
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Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Now, I've often told people, for example,
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N .T. Wright. N .T. Wright is the last person alive I would ever ask to go talk to someone that I loved who was dying, that didn't know
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Christ. I would not want N .T. Wright to go confuse that person to hell. They need someone to go talk to them who's actually going to speak with clarity on these issues and preach the freeness of God's grace.
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Oh, yes, the message that has often caused people to say, oh, you're just saying that we can sin all we want so that grace can abound.
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You're an antinomian. What's Paul's answer to that? What's Paul's answer to that? Does he say, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
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You see, final salvation is through the fruits of your faith. I've just been talking about the initial step to getting to heaven here.
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You see, your final salvation is by works, and that's our answer to the charge of antinomianism. No. No, no.
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What's the answer? Here's the answer. May it never be. God forbid.
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May it never be. God forbid. How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer?
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Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? What's Paul's point there?
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Regeneration. God makes the dead sinner alive in Christ. You're not going to accomplish anything by telling people that they need to be finally saved by their good works or anything like that.
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And so I wanted to share that story. I also wanted to share another story that happened a couple of years ago.
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Young man, very bright young guy in his early 20s started coming to the church here at Bridwell Heights, and in God's good providence, the first Sunday he came here.
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I preached a sermon called Pope Francis and His False Religion. This young guy was
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Catholic, was Roman Catholic, lifelong Roman Catholic from a devout Catholic family from Mexico.
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And he was here as a student, but he had grown up in Mexico and was very fluent in Spanish and was also very good, very fluent in English.
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And he had a lot of questions for me. Whenever there's a visitor at church, I always make a point to shake their hands and I give them one of my cards that has my cell phone number and my email address.
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And he emailed me and said, I would like to get together and I've got some questions I'd like to ask you about Mary and about other things.
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I said, sure. So we met at Panera and we sat down and talked for about two hours and he had a lot of questions.
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He asked me about Mary and what about apparitions and what about Fatima and Lourdes and Medjugorje and everything else.
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And I'm sitting there thinking, I sure am glad I read Tim Kaufman's book a number of years ago.
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I mean, I read Quite Contrary a long time ago. And before I read Kaufman's book,
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I actually, I used to think that the Marian apparitions were just a hoax, that they were really, it was just pious fraud and that kind of thing.
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No they're not. These are a real phenomenon and they're demonic. They're completely demonic in nature.
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I had no idea that the messages from some of these alleged apparitions of the
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Virgin Mary had actually influenced the formation of Catholic dogma about Mary.
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For example, one of the apparitions said, I am the Immaculate Conception. I mean, the Immaculate Conception is a modern dogma.
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I mean, that's something that was dogmatized. I believe the Immaculate Conception was at Vatican I, I think it was.
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But anyway, these apparitions have influenced the formation of Catholic beliefs, the things that they've said.
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So I was able to answer his questions without being excessively confrontational, but I did tell him that those were definitely not really the
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Virgin Mary. And I told him, the Virgin Mary has never heard a single prayer that anyone has ever offered to her and she would be grieved and heartbroken to the very depths of her godly soul if she knew that there were millions of people on this planet that pray to her, that look to her intercession before God, or that even worse, the words of Alphonsus de
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Liguri actually hope that she will save them from the wrathful Jesus. She doesn't know that, has never known that, and we can be thankful for that because she would recoil in horror at the idea that people pray to her and seek her intercession and everything else.
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So we went through all that stuff. Eventually though, we kept meeting, I kept meeting with this young guy, we met a number of times over a period of months, and I eventually asked him this question,
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I said, may I ask you a question? And he said, sure. I said, do you think you're going to go to heaven when you die? This Roman Catholic fellow.
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He said, well, I don't think that I'm bad enough to go to hell, but I'm definitely not good enough to go to heaven yet either.
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And I leaned over the table there at Panera and looked him right in the eyes and I said, I have some really good news for you.
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And the good news is that heaven is a free gift that you cannot earn or deserve or merit by anything you will ever do.
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And long pregnant pause after that. He had never heard that before. This young guy had never heard the gospel before.
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And he kind of leaned over the table and was like, what? And I shared it again.
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I said, heaven's a free gift. It's a free gift, it's not something you can earn or deserve or merit. We believe the gospel.
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We believe that someone else did everything for us, Jesus Christ. That's the reason he came into the world. And he was genuinely curious.
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And he's like, so how we live our lives does not determine whether we go to heaven or hell?
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And I said to him, I said, the fruit that grows on the tree does not make the tree good or bad. It only makes it known to other men whether the tree is a good tree or a bad tree.
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And works do not make men good or bad. They are simply the fruit and evidence that we are the children of God and that we've been born again by his spirit.
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But those good works that are done by the Christian are done in gratitude to God. And they are not the basis of our entrance into heaven or in any way, shape or form.
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Are they the basis upon which we are accepted by God into heaven at the last day? They are simply the means of expressing our gratitude to God and also the new hearts that we've been given.
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The heart of stone has been taken out and the beating heart of flesh has been put in and God writes his laws on our hearts and causes us to walk in his statutes.
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Not in order to become saved, but because we are saved. You never heard that before?
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We sat there and I would give him reading to do. We read through large sections of the
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Bible together. We read through some of Romans, we read through Genesis, we read through some other stuff. And eventually this young man told me, just out of the blue at one of our meetings, just told me,
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I do not believe in Catholicism anymore. And I tried not to jump up on the table and shout amen, but I just kind of nodded and said that's good.
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What do you believe? I believe in Jesus Christ, that he's my savior and I trust only in him.
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And I was just so happy and so excited and just so delighted. And I baptized him here at our church. And he's talked about going back to Mexico at some point.
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He eventually got married and he's talked about going back to Mexico. They moved away, I think to Knoxville or somewhere.
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But when they're in town, it's always great to see him. I give him a big bear hug and it's great to see his smiling face.
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And I just want to say, for the record, the idea of simply accepting that, well, you know, he's
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Catholic, so he's my brother. If I ever believed that or did that, that would be to bring myself under the judgment of God.
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The Roman Catholic religion is not Christianity. It is, as Charles Spurgeon said, the masterpiece of Satan.
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It is a system that is built upon what the Apostle Paul called scubalon, dung, rubbish.
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The works that we do cannot save us in any way, shape or form. Not even the works that we do as Christians.
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Those works that we do as Christians cannot be the basis upon which we enter heaven. They cannot be something that God looks at and decides our case upon or anything like that.
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Roman Catholic theology is a process of moral improvement.
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You're initially justified by baptism. And as that sanctifying grace is infused into your soul through the sacerdotal belief of the priestcraft of their priests, you then are supposed to grow and grow in good works and everything else.
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If you commit serious sins, you can kill that sanctifying grace and lose it altogether and become a reprobate and not a child of God anymore.
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And that's why you have to go to a priest and confess that sin and become justified again. And hopefully, you know, you'll keep it going good enough.
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Here's the thing, whether or not you're going to get into heaven at the last day, it depends entirely on how well you've kept it going and doing good works with infused grace.
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And the chances are, you haven't kept it going good enough and you're going to purgatory. And that's exactly what this young guy was talking about.
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Oh, I don't think I'm bad enough for hell, but I'm definitely not good enough for heaven, so I'd probably have to spend some time in purgatory.
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That's what the guy said. And it was a shot across the bow for him to hear that the
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Christian trusts that someone else has entered into the covenant he has broken.
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Jesus Christ earns, by pure personal merit, a legal right to enter into heaven past the very judgment of Almighty God.
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Jesus Christ is the one who takes the full sanctions of the penalty of the covenant of works, the broken law of God, upon himself at Calvary's cross.
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And then it's his righteousness that is judicially, legally imputed to our account in the heavenly accounting books, so that God sees me as though I had kept his law perfectly and all of its sanctions have been met fully by the crosswork of Jesus Christ.
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That's the gospel. That's what N .T. Wright calls, quote, a cold piece of business.
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And people hesitate to say that N .T. Wright's a false teacher, that he's a bad guy, or a wolf in sheep's clothing.
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I mean, it's incredible to me. The gospel doesn't seem to matter much to people anymore.
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I really think, and this is going to probably offend some people, but the segment of our society and culture that probably needs to be evangelized more than anyone else is the church.
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The evangelical church today evidently doesn't know what the gospel is and doesn't care. And at the
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Revoice conference, there were at least three speakers that were Roman Catholic people, and they stood on the stage behind the pulpit in a couple of cases and preached from open
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Bibles about the Christian faith to the people gathered there. And that by itself is a chargeable offense that must be dealt with by the courts of the church, and it has to be dealt with by the courts of the church.
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Eve Tushnet was one of the speakers, and her video's right out there on YouTube, you can watch it. A woman who identifies herself as a lesbian, she is the author of a book titled
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Gay and Catholic, and no less than two times that I documented after listening to her talk three times and having it transcribed, she told the gathered people there that all of us are the children of the
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Virgin Mary, and that the scriptures themselves give us directions on how to express same -sex love with Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, and Jesus and John the beloved disciple.
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And I sat at my desk listening to this, shaking my head, and wondering how the pastor in this session, in this
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PCA church, could be so lacking in discernment as to allow this to go on in the church.
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It is appalling to me that that has not been addressed, that someone in their presbytery did not come after them and say, guys, we are
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Reformed, remember the Reformation? Just had the 500th anniversary, man! And the Reformation was a good thing, and we believe our
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Reformed confessions, and we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, and those that deny it or are representing a system that formally denies it, are not to be given platforms upon which they can address the people of God with open
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Bibles in the name of Christ. That just is unbelievable to me!
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I just did it again. Shouldn't be unbelievable. Should not be unbelievable. It's upsetting, but not surprising.
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It's upsetting, but it is not surprising. We need to quit saying, ah, it just blew me away, ah, I was so shocked. Now, the scriptures tell us this kind of stuff is going to happen a lot, and so we need to not be surprised by it when it does.
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But Roman Catholicism, the ecumenical agenda is very clear with the Revoice group. Revoice doesn't care.
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Evidently, you can be a Roman Catholic or a Presbyterian or an
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Evangelical Baptist type or a United Methodist or liberal Christianity, whatever, and we're all good.
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But I guess if you say something nice about Jesus, then you must be one of us or something like that. The pro -life movement is like that too.
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They're ecumenical to the core as well and are totally lacking in discernment. Because as long as you believe in the
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Trinity and have nice thoughts about Jesus, you're one of us. Even if you bring rosary beads to the doorsteps of abortion clinics and pray
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Hail Marys and Novenas to St. Jude, yeah, you're fine. Yeah, we've got some weird things in your theology, but we think you're fine.
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Folks, I think that's one of the reasons that the pro -life movement has failed to stop abortion. You don't try to stop one of Satan's greatest strongholds by engaging in acts of idolatry in front of abortion clinics.
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That doesn't help anything. All that does is bring down the wrath of God with even more ferocity than it already is being brought down.
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But the Roman Catholic connection with Revoice and now the
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PCA actually allowing Roman Catholic speakers. Ron Belgau is another one. Ron Belgau of the
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Spiritual Friendship blog. Of course, he's partnered with Wes Hill. Wes Hill is not Catholic, but they have the
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Spiritual Friendship blog and Ron Belgau is Roman Catholic. And they had a third person who was actually a brother in the
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Catholic Church. A brother is someone who's taken vows of poverty, chastity, obedience. He kind of looked like Obi -Wan
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Kenobi. He was dressed in a white robe. And he even made a joke in his talk.
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He's like, you know, here I am at a conference that's supposed to be supporting, empowering, and encouraging LGBT and other gender and sexual minority
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Christians to flourish. And here I am, a man in a white dress. And, you know, people chuckled at that.
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I just kind of thought, wow, okay. But he, you know, was making fun of himself and saying he looked like a
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Jedi. And he did. He looked a lot like Obi -Wan Kenobi. But so you have basically the modern equivalent of a monk, a
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Roman Catholic monk, and Ron Belgau and Eve Tushnet, who are promoters of the gay
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Christian celibacy movement, speaking at this conference to the people of God in the name of Christ from the pulpit of a
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PCA church and from the stages of a PCA church. The fact is the sessions of churches in our denomination are responsible for the oversight of all religious services, not just Sabbath day services.
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So if a conference is held at a church, the elders of that church are responsible for what's said and for who says it.
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And the Roman Catholic Church does not have the true gospel. And I have had the privilege of seeing lots of former
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Roman Catholics come to know Christ and have heard the testimonies of plenty who have come out of Catholicism, some of whom are the only people to have been saved out of Catholicism and come to know
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Christ. So it's incredible that folks like this who desperately need, more than anything, to hear the gospel and be called to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ are being treated like they're already
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Christians. They're being treated like they're already Christians, just like the Framers of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document back in 1994.
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And also another modern document that was so upsetting was the
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Manhattan Declaration. Because the names on there were very unexpected. Ligon Duncan's name was on there.
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Albert Moeller's name was on there. Ravi Zacharias's name was on there. And you think, this document, although they would be the first to tell you, well, it's not primarily aimed at ecumenical stuff.
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It's about homosexuality and abortion and religious liberty, etc.
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But the document speaks of all of us together being obligated to proclaim the gospel of costly grace.
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And I'm sorry, folks, but I'm a pastor. I'm a Christian minister of the gospel. And I can't put my arm around prelate so -and -so from local
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Eastern Orthodox parish or father so -and -so from such -and -such a Roman Catholic parish and say, yes, together we are obligated to proclaim the gospel of costly grace.
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Because we don't agree on what the gospel is. We don't agree on how it's proclaimed. And we don't agree on what grace is.
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So how can we say such things? How can people affix their names to documents like that? One point that Tim and Carlos made
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I thought was really good is our Reformed forefathers would not be happy campers at this kind of stuff.
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Okay? They would not be okay with people doing conferences with Roman Catholics. That was just not something...
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And it's not because, well, they just came from a different age where people tied each other to stakes and burned them. It was a matter of conviction.
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If we love and know the true gospel, we want everyone else in the world to know and love that true gospel.
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And ministers of the gospel have an obligation to point out and identify false teaching.
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And it's not surprising that heresy has arisen from within the walls of Reformed churches.
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That shouldn't surprise us. It happened with the Federal Vision Movement. I mean, think about that. All those guys, all those dudes at that Auburn Avenue church and the conferences that they did and then all the just nonsense that came out with all their blogs and all the conferences and all the just nastiness that was verbal hand grenades going all over the internet.
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And it was as false of a gospel as could be imagined. The Federal Vision is heresy.
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And, you know, indifference to matters of truth. It's one thing if you see indifference among laity.
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It's a whole different ballgame when it's in the clergy, when it's in the hearts and minds of elders and pastors.
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People who think they're being loving. People who think they're being accepting and are giving a safe place for people to have these desires, these perverted sexual desires and things like that.
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There is absolutely, positively nothing loving about it. There is nothing loving about Reboys.
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Nothing. You know, in Deuteronomy chapter 19, I just came across this in my daily
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Bible reading. One of the reasons that God wanted the covenant curses to be read in the presence of the people.
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One of the reasons that God wanted them all to hear the covenant curses and to have to shout
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Amen after they said, cursed is the person who does this, cursed is the person who does that. Deuteronomy 27, 28, 29 is because God knew that there would be people standing there.
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He knew there would be people standing there doing this. Listen to Deuteronomy 29, 19. And so it may not happen when he hears the words of this curse that he blesses himself in his heart saying,
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I shall have peace even though I follow the dictates of my heart. As though the drunkard could be included with the sober.
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You hear that? God is a God who excludes people. One of the constant drumbeats of the talks at the
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Revoice Conference. Oh, we don't believe in all this LGBT exclusion. You're excluding us from happiness.
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You're excluding us from being parts of your church and being leaders in your church. And you're excluding, excluding, excluding.
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You're excluding us from being in a happy place. But God excludes the unrepentant and always has.
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And no matter how many people can get together and flatter one another by talking about spiritual things and using the precious name of Jesus and praying and pretty music,
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God still rejects all unrepentant sinners. No matter how many people you can line up who will say, no, it's okay.
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It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. You're just fine. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. It's still not fine. It's still wrong.
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God knew that people were going to do that. He knew that just as surely as his word is so clear and saying certain things are evil, they are sinful, they're an abomination in his sight.
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God knew that even when he ordered the people to shout amen in response to every covenant curse, that there'd be people standing there in their hearts saying,
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I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart, as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.
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What's the point there? God doesn't include the drunkard. He doesn't include the unrepentant homosexual.
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He doesn't include the unrepentant fornicator, idolater, or covetous person. It's not just sexual sin.
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It's any sin for which people are not repentant. If we follow the dictates of our own hearts, what that shows is that our hearts have not been renewed.
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What that shows is that our hearts are made of stone still. Because true believers will confess that God is true in every man, a liar, including themselves.
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We are experts at self -justification. And our culture has created an entire generation of victims.
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The victim card was played over and over and over again at this conference. It was just embarrassing to listen to.
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Everybody's a victim. We're victims of the church. We're victims of this. We're victims of that. Folks, we're not victims.
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We're perpetrators. We're criminals in God's world. We are indicted criminals sentenced to die eternally in hell.
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And the first step to liberation from those sins, from sinful servitude to those sins, is confessing that they are sins.
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It's confessing that what God says about them is true. It doesn't matter. You can line up.
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You can, as Paul says, heap up piles of false teachers to say what your itching ears want to hear.
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But what God says is still true. What God's word says is still the truth. So no matter how many teachers you line up, no matter how many conferences you do, no matter how many times you say,
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Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Yeah, you did the right thing. Yeah, you did the right thing. It's okay. It's okay. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. Peace and safety.
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Peace and safety. We're all good. These things are still a curse. These sins are still sinful.
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These sins still, in God's own words here, exclude. They exclude people from the kingdom of God.
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You know, that antithesis between the people of God and the people of the devil is going to be expressed ultimately in the exclusion of the unrepentant from heaven, where they will be cast into hell, where they will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
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Cast into that place. Prepare for the devil and his angels. Paul, are you just trying to scare people?
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I've had people say that to me before. When you talk about hell, you use such vivid illustrations, and you really hammer and hit that point.
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Are you just trying to scare people? Well, here's my answer. Yes, I am. You should fear hell.
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You should be deathly afraid of hell. You should fear the judgment of God like you fear nothing else.
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And in fact, for true Christians, that's one of the reasons they fly to Christ, is
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God shows them the depth of their sin. God shows them what's really going on here. God shows them how holy he really is and how evil they really are.
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And so they all stand with the publican far off, pounding their chest.
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God be merciful to me, a sinner. You know, Paul told Timothy in the last letter he wrote, 2
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Timothy 3, he told him, The time's coming, Timothy, where people will not endure sound doctrine, and they will be lovers of themselves.
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Lovers of themselves. You know, one of the things that was said at that conference that just was really upsetting to me,
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Ray Lowe, the Asian fellow, the first speaker in the first video, he made the comment that he had been encouraged to get counseling to help deal with his same -sex attraction.
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Some Christian people had encouraged him to get counseling to help him deal with his attractions. And his answer was,
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But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't commit to it. I couldn't compromise myself like that.
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Isn't that an incredible response? Here you have Christian people who were trying to help him, who loved him enough to tell him,
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You can't live your life this way. You can't identify yourself this way. You need to get counseling. There are people who can help you overcome these things in Christ and with his power and with his help, you can defeat these things.
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But for him to fight homosexual desires would be to compromise himself.
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That's exactly what Paul was talking about. Men will be lovers of themselves.
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You see, true Christians are taught by God to loathe themselves. To feel the convicting work of the spirit.
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To be crushed by the demands of the law that inflict its wrathful curse upon every human being on earth so that every mouth is stopped and the whole world is guilty before God.
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God does that. God teaches us to loathe ourselves. God teaches us to pronounce a curse upon ourselves.
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You know, I was just recently reading a Charles Spurgeon book I highly recommend called All of Grace. It's just wonderful.
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Charles Spurgeon understood the gospel so well. And in the opening chapters of that book, he makes the comment that when he first came under the convicting work of the
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Holy Spirit of God in his life, he got to the point where he was so disgusted with himself that he actually felt it would be wrong for God not to damn him to hell.
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He was thinking with indignation, it would be evil for me not to be sent to hell.
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And folks, that's the first step in becoming a Christian. Have you felt the weight of your own sin crushing you down?
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And felt the utter inadequacy of anything at all that you could do to ever do anything about it?
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To save yourself? To make yourself right with God? To be finally saved by your works or whatever else?
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Have you felt that in your soul? You see, the Roman Catholic religion, on paper, is a false religion.
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It is a false system. It doesn't have the gospel. And those that believe it, sadly, those who die with their hope in their grace -infused works, which hopefully will be enough to keep them out of hell, they'll probably have to spend a little time in purgatory, people that die believing that go to hell.
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Because that is not true. That is an insult to the perfection of the work of Christ.
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Paul said in Galatians 2, 21, I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness, if justification comes through the law,
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Christ died needlessly, in vain. The connection with revoice is very upsetting, to Roman Catholicism is very upsetting, and this has to be addressed.
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This is a showstopper. This is a big deal. It is completely inappropriate that ministers of the gospel and elders in Christ's church would give a platform to spokespersons of the
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Roman Catholic religion, a false religion that has destroyed countless millions of souls over the centuries, would give them a platform to speak to God's people in the name of Christ about the
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Christian faith. These men that did this are constantly talking about these people, these speakers are our brothers and sisters, and we wanted to provide a safe place for them to worship together and everything else.
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But doesn't worshiping together require that we have the same gospel first? Historic Christian theology and historic
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Biblical Reformed theology has always said yes. There is no unity between us and Roman Catholicism because we don't agree on the gospel.
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And the gospel is essential to Christian unity. Without it, you only have false unity.
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I could go on, but I'm going to go ahead and stop there. I hope this has been helpful. I wanted to commend my brethren for their episodes on the
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Piper issue. I stand with you guys on that issue. Piper needs to be called out and denounced because we want people to believe the truth so they can come to salvation, so they can come to know
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Christ, so they can be saved and go to heaven. That's the whole point, isn't it? To honor the
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Lord Jesus and to preach His gospel so that people can be saved. I could care less, honestly. As time has pressed on,
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I don't care what the Reformed celebrity cult says or does anymore. What people need to do is they need to get behind their pastors and their local churches and make sure that your ministers are faithful to the gospel and put your spadework in the ground where you're planted and where you live and try to make a difference there.
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The battle for the future is going to be won and lost in the local church. I'm really convinced of that. I hope that listeners to The Protestant Witness realize that, that you need to love your local church and make sure your local church loves and believes and preaches the true gospel.
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That's essential to your well -being, your family's well -being, and to the future of the church in this world.
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So, with that, signing off, this is Pastor Patrick Hines. Thanks for listening. This is
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Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church located at 108 Bridwell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And you've been listening to The Protestant Witness podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any Sunday morning at 11 a .m.
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sharp where we open the Word of God together, sing His praises, and rejoice in the gospel of our risen Lord. You can find us on the web at www .bridwellheightspca
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.org And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.